On 6 October 2005, I bought from Landmark a book called One Man's Chorus, a collection of essays by Anthony Burgess. I know the date because the receipt got preserved in between the pages. But I do remember the circumstances under which the book was bought. I was with Express, and the good, old Express office was still on Mount Road. The annual sale was going on at Landmark, which was just across the road.
But there was a problem. The salary hadn't come yet but was most likely to be credited that evening. So armed with the accountant's assurance, Saju and I walked across the road. Books were spread out like an elaborate wedding buffet. We attacked the spread from different directions. Saju, the seeker of depth, went in search of Latin American writing. While I dug for my kind of books which, at the given moment, could have been a rare travelogue or some kind of an anthology.
I chanced upon Burgess' One Man's Chorus and grabbed it. I also picked up Kubrick, a slim biography of the filmmaker written by none other than Michael Herr. (The two books had something in common, which didn't occur to me then: Kubrick had made Burgess' A Clockwork Orange into a film). I also picked up the autobiography of David Blaine, the magician who I idolise. I felt so rich! Only that I didn't have the money. All along, I eagerly waited for a vibration in my pocket: I would be getting a text message as soon as the salary hit my account.
Till the time the text message arrived, I moved around uneasily like a man who had had three bottles of beer and was now unable to locate an urinal. Finally, relief!
"Saju, look what I got, Burgess!"
Saju was plain angry. "You better hand it over to me. Since when did you start reading Burgess?"
When he saw the cover, he was visibly relieved. He had heard the name as Borges, the father of Latin American literature, though his name is pronounced differently by serious students of literature. But then, students of literature don't necessarily have to be lovers or makers of literature.
Having bought whatever we wanted to, money no longer an impediment now, we went to the wine shop next to Melody theatre and spent the rest of the evening there. After downing about six drinks each, we descended, around midnight, on the Safari Hotel in Royapettah. There, as usual, we demolished, between us, 20 aapams and four plates of mutton korma. That was, to tell you the truth, our routine after sunset. But today, both of us felt extra good because of the purchases we had made.
That night, Saju dropped me home and went to his wife. I didn't have a wife then, neither did I have a blog (I wrote my first post exactly 11 days later). So I began reading. Burgess' style sucked my attention in like a striptease artiste, and I kept at it all night. By 5 in the morning, I had finished One Man's Chorus.
Then, as it usually happens, the book lay hidden and forgotten in one of the shelves. There were occasions when I wanted to go back to it, but who is going to look for it? It is not as if I have a huge library -- though it is not a very small one either -- but the problem with hunting for a particular book is what if you are not able to find it? You are instantly heartbroken and you spend the rest of the day asking yourself: Where could it have gone? Who could have taken it? Best not to look for it.
Fortunately, I found the book this Sunday. It had been sitting right under my nose. But then, you are always blind to things under your nose or within your reach. So I read the essays again. My own circumstances had changed drastically since I had last read them -- and now I looked at them in a new light. I had a protective mother back then, but no wife. Today I have a wife who protects me from the vicissitudes of life, but no mother. Back then, I had a column but no book. Today I have a book but no column. And many more such reversals. The only things which remain common are Saju and the salary. He is still my best friend, and I still wait for the phone to vibrate at the beginning of every month.
Anyway, the whole point of this obscenely long post is, as I said, I saw the chapters in a new light. They made so much more sense now. I guess that's true for every good book. As Naipaul once said, "Reading my books once is like taking the dog to the theatre." But there is one particular essay by Burgess that fascinated me equally then as well as now, though I didn't have a blog then to share it. So I am quoting from it now. The essay is titled 'Success':
"I regard my vocation, which I came to very late, as that of a novelist, and I have to consider now whether I have had any real success in it. The trouble with fiction is that there are two ways of looking at it: as a business and as an art. Just up the coast from me at Cannes, sitting glumly but royally on his yatch, is a man who succeeded indubitably with the novel as a business. His name is Harold Robbins. He is, however, not satisfied with having sold a great number of copies of books about sex and violence: he wants to be regarded, on the strength of his evident popularity, as the greatest writer alive. Nobody will so consider him and this makes him somewhat sour. It does, of course, sometimes happen that the most popular novelist is also the best -- Dickens, for instance; perhaps even Hemingway -- but the one doesn't follow from the other. We expect great fiction to be too subtle or complex for popular acceptance. A good writer will often worry if his work goes into too many impressions: he will feel that he has not been subtle or complex enough. He will feel that he has been inattentive to his craft and turned out something like John Braine.
From the business angle I can point, though cautiously, to some small success. In twenty-five years of professional writing I have been able to make a living. Even if this means no more than being able to afford an egg for one's breakfast twice a week it is still a matter of pride: one has called no man sir, except perhaps a New York black cab-driver, and one has been able to telephone from one's bed at eleven in the forenoon and tell someone to go to hell. This living, however, has come from steady application to the craft, a determination to write at least one thousand words a day, and not at all from the kind of reclame that greets a Catch-22 or a Princess Daisy. A lot of the money has come from journalism and from writing scripts for films that were never made. A fairly exiguous amount has come from fiction. If there is any money in the bank it is there because I have gone on bullying a fairly small public into buying a Burgess book every year. I have had, in other words, to keep at it."
Back then, I had found this passage amusing. Today I find it inspiring.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Nine Years
On this date, exactly nine years ago, I was in the train. I must be somewhere around Bhopal around this moment, having left Delhi the night before, excited about the 24-hour journey that still lay ahead of me. I was coming to south India for the first time. I was coming to Madras.
Memories of those days somehow remain frozen. Songs of Minnale were a rage. The streets were clean. The roads were still empty. Autorickshaw drivers could not dream of buying a mobile phone. The building I live in was packed with people. My neighbours ignored the number of women visitors I had; instead they chose to be impressed by the number of books on my shelves. A picture of Swami Vivekananda, sitting on the bookshelf, also helped.
Today. There is no such Tamil song which can be considered a big hit, registering even in the ears of those who don't understand the language. The streets are either dug up or littered with garbage (cleanliness is being compromised ever since Neel Metal Fanalca took over from Exnora). The less said about the roads the better. Even the maid carries a cellphone. As for my neighbours, there are not many people left. People my age or younger are all in the US, turning the building into an old-age home. People who remain have gotten used to my ways.
What I miss most is the silence of my street. I remember the days when I would run out of cigarettes and walk out of my street into the busy North Usman Road, buy cigarettes and come back and smoke one on the street standing outside my gate, listening to the birds chirp. Today, the street has become a thoroughfare because of the new flyover on North Usman Road, which begins right in front of my street. Vehicles not taking the flyover keep piling up at the mouth of the street, causing a constant jam, and all those who want to avoid it find my street to be the escape route!
Some things have not changed, though. Muni amma is still there. The day I moved into the flat nine years ago, it was Muni amma who had painstakingly cleaned it up with 'Surf water'. When I tipped her Rs 50, my neighbhour admonished me saying it was too much. Twenty-rupees would have done, she said. Muni amma subsequently became my maid, always being kind and motherly and never raising an eyebrow at my lifestyle. Once in a while, though, she would hint to me that it was time for my kalyaanam, or marriage. Today, she lives in the building, her son being the new watchman. She walks with a limp and has become too old to work as a maid. She is one person I've known the longest in Chennai, and she was one person who cried when she heard the news of my mother's death. My mother could speak Tamil and got along very well with Muni amma.
And then the fruitseller at the end of my street. For the first few years after coming to Chennai, I would buy apples from him on a regular basis. He must be 40 years old then, and he would sit there with his son, who must have been 10 or 12. Soon supermarkets sprang up in the neighbourhood and I stopped going to him. And after I got married, it was wife who was shopping for grocery anyway. The fruitseller was forgotten. Just the other day I noticed him again. He must have been there all these years and months, but I had somehow become blind to him. And now I saw him: his hair had all turned grey and he did not get up from his stool upon seeing me, like he did before. I had become a stranger for him. His son was now a man. And why not: if he was 12 then, he must be 21 now! How silly of me to have expected him to remain a small boy. That's when I realised that nine years have passed.
Did similar thoughts cross the fruitseller's mind too when he saw me the other day? If yes, what were they? Maybe I don't want to know them.
Memories of those days somehow remain frozen. Songs of Minnale were a rage. The streets were clean. The roads were still empty. Autorickshaw drivers could not dream of buying a mobile phone. The building I live in was packed with people. My neighbours ignored the number of women visitors I had; instead they chose to be impressed by the number of books on my shelves. A picture of Swami Vivekananda, sitting on the bookshelf, also helped.
Today. There is no such Tamil song which can be considered a big hit, registering even in the ears of those who don't understand the language. The streets are either dug up or littered with garbage (cleanliness is being compromised ever since Neel Metal Fanalca took over from Exnora). The less said about the roads the better. Even the maid carries a cellphone. As for my neighbours, there are not many people left. People my age or younger are all in the US, turning the building into an old-age home. People who remain have gotten used to my ways.
What I miss most is the silence of my street. I remember the days when I would run out of cigarettes and walk out of my street into the busy North Usman Road, buy cigarettes and come back and smoke one on the street standing outside my gate, listening to the birds chirp. Today, the street has become a thoroughfare because of the new flyover on North Usman Road, which begins right in front of my street. Vehicles not taking the flyover keep piling up at the mouth of the street, causing a constant jam, and all those who want to avoid it find my street to be the escape route!
Some things have not changed, though. Muni amma is still there. The day I moved into the flat nine years ago, it was Muni amma who had painstakingly cleaned it up with 'Surf water'. When I tipped her Rs 50, my neighbhour admonished me saying it was too much. Twenty-rupees would have done, she said. Muni amma subsequently became my maid, always being kind and motherly and never raising an eyebrow at my lifestyle. Once in a while, though, she would hint to me that it was time for my kalyaanam, or marriage. Today, she lives in the building, her son being the new watchman. She walks with a limp and has become too old to work as a maid. She is one person I've known the longest in Chennai, and she was one person who cried when she heard the news of my mother's death. My mother could speak Tamil and got along very well with Muni amma.
And then the fruitseller at the end of my street. For the first few years after coming to Chennai, I would buy apples from him on a regular basis. He must be 40 years old then, and he would sit there with his son, who must have been 10 or 12. Soon supermarkets sprang up in the neighbourhood and I stopped going to him. And after I got married, it was wife who was shopping for grocery anyway. The fruitseller was forgotten. Just the other day I noticed him again. He must have been there all these years and months, but I had somehow become blind to him. And now I saw him: his hair had all turned grey and he did not get up from his stool upon seeing me, like he did before. I had become a stranger for him. His son was now a man. And why not: if he was 12 then, he must be 21 now! How silly of me to have expected him to remain a small boy. That's when I realised that nine years have passed.
Did similar thoughts cross the fruitseller's mind too when he saw me the other day? If yes, what were they? Maybe I don't want to know them.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Idiots
Since I have not read Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone, I cannot say how much of the book is shown in Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots. I saw the film this evening and quite liked it. And since I am aware of the controversy, about Bhagat not being duly acknowledged by the filmmakers, I waited till the end when the credits started rolling in. Only towards the fag end, when half of the audience had already walked out, did one get to see the tiny words on the screen rolling down, "Based on Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone." If the movie is acknowledging that it is based on the book, shouldn't the credit come right when the movie starts? I think that is highly unfair and, to me, looks even deliberate.
If the movie has used only 10% or 15% of the book, as the filmmakers claim, then the credit line should say, "Partially based on Five Point Someone" or "Inspired by Five Point Someone." Even then, the credit should not have come at the fag end when the theatre is almost empty. I am no fan of Bhagat -- simply because I have not read any of his books except Two States, which I found hilarious in parts only because of its candid (at least from an outsider's view) portrayal of Chennai -- but I do get a feeling that his book was hijacked. Even if the idea was hijacked, that's good enough reason the author to get pissed; who cares about the screenplay or the details?
It is the idea that makes 3 Idiots click, the idea being: Do what your heart says, be what your heart wants you to be, and not what your parents or teachers want you to be. Needless to say, the film is doing so well. It is bound to strike a chord with millions who wanted to be something in life but ended up being something else, but at the moment are in the process of forcing that something on their own children.
Personally, I am familiar enough with the idea to have pursued it with a zeal 17 years ago when I became a journalist at the age of 22. But what a pity that I wasted three years before that, sitting for engineering entrances knowing fully well I was not going to get through. My fetish for stationery and the smell of fresh ink made me spend a lot of my father's hard-earned money on guide-books and correspondence courses meant to equip me for IIT-JEE. Looking back, the three years were not actually wasted: under the charade of 'preparing' for engineering entrances, I was silently equipping myself to be a journalist by reading up every single newsmagazine that was printed at the time. Sadly, many of them have closed down: Illustrated Weekly, Mirror, Probe, Onlooker.
But those were the most depressing days of my youth: almost every evening, father would come back from work to announce that the son or the daughter of a certain colleague has been selected to some engineering college or the other. A pall of gloom would instantly descend on our home. I would feel like the academic equivalent of a man suffering from erectile dysfunction. If at all there was an outing plan for the evening, that would stand cancelled -- just because someone else's child had got into an engineering college. That's the sad part: you are rarely judged by what you are, but always by what the other person is.
Only regret, today, is what if I had spent that money on literary books instead of guidebooks? Would that have made me a better writer? Perhaps. But I had no example to look up to and emulate. Everybody was busy 'preparing' for something or the other. But on the whole, no regrets at all because I got what I wanted.
When I became a journalist, the number of engineers who were joining the profession was not funny. They were doing the same thing as I was doing. If they eventually had to sub copies, what happens to the time and money they had spent on becoming an engineer? Was the race worth it?
At an age when they should be watching movies and having ice-cream with their girlfriends/boyfriends, they remain buried under books out of fear and pressure -- what if they are not able to make it? And once they are not able to make it, the inferiority complex robs them of whatever little self-confidence they are left with and inhibits them from displaying any other talent that they might have. What a tragedy. A degree might earn you a job, but it is not sufficient to get you a life.
Chetan Bhagat himself is a good example. It was writing that brought him fame and fortune. And once he realised his writing was selling, he junked his prestigious degrees. Degrees are dispensable. It's only determination that counts.
P.S. The highest point of 3 Idiots, according to me, is the performance by the boy who designs the helicopter. His role was short but packed with intensitiy.
If the movie has used only 10% or 15% of the book, as the filmmakers claim, then the credit line should say, "Partially based on Five Point Someone" or "Inspired by Five Point Someone." Even then, the credit should not have come at the fag end when the theatre is almost empty. I am no fan of Bhagat -- simply because I have not read any of his books except Two States, which I found hilarious in parts only because of its candid (at least from an outsider's view) portrayal of Chennai -- but I do get a feeling that his book was hijacked. Even if the idea was hijacked, that's good enough reason the author to get pissed; who cares about the screenplay or the details?
It is the idea that makes 3 Idiots click, the idea being: Do what your heart says, be what your heart wants you to be, and not what your parents or teachers want you to be. Needless to say, the film is doing so well. It is bound to strike a chord with millions who wanted to be something in life but ended up being something else, but at the moment are in the process of forcing that something on their own children.
Personally, I am familiar enough with the idea to have pursued it with a zeal 17 years ago when I became a journalist at the age of 22. But what a pity that I wasted three years before that, sitting for engineering entrances knowing fully well I was not going to get through. My fetish for stationery and the smell of fresh ink made me spend a lot of my father's hard-earned money on guide-books and correspondence courses meant to equip me for IIT-JEE. Looking back, the three years were not actually wasted: under the charade of 'preparing' for engineering entrances, I was silently equipping myself to be a journalist by reading up every single newsmagazine that was printed at the time. Sadly, many of them have closed down: Illustrated Weekly, Mirror, Probe, Onlooker.
But those were the most depressing days of my youth: almost every evening, father would come back from work to announce that the son or the daughter of a certain colleague has been selected to some engineering college or the other. A pall of gloom would instantly descend on our home. I would feel like the academic equivalent of a man suffering from erectile dysfunction. If at all there was an outing plan for the evening, that would stand cancelled -- just because someone else's child had got into an engineering college. That's the sad part: you are rarely judged by what you are, but always by what the other person is.
Only regret, today, is what if I had spent that money on literary books instead of guidebooks? Would that have made me a better writer? Perhaps. But I had no example to look up to and emulate. Everybody was busy 'preparing' for something or the other. But on the whole, no regrets at all because I got what I wanted.
When I became a journalist, the number of engineers who were joining the profession was not funny. They were doing the same thing as I was doing. If they eventually had to sub copies, what happens to the time and money they had spent on becoming an engineer? Was the race worth it?
At an age when they should be watching movies and having ice-cream with their girlfriends/boyfriends, they remain buried under books out of fear and pressure -- what if they are not able to make it? And once they are not able to make it, the inferiority complex robs them of whatever little self-confidence they are left with and inhibits them from displaying any other talent that they might have. What a tragedy. A degree might earn you a job, but it is not sufficient to get you a life.
Chetan Bhagat himself is a good example. It was writing that brought him fame and fortune. And once he realised his writing was selling, he junked his prestigious degrees. Degrees are dispensable. It's only determination that counts.
P.S. The highest point of 3 Idiots, according to me, is the performance by the boy who designs the helicopter. His role was short but packed with intensitiy.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Interview
For someone whose duties include interviewing people, be it a doctor or a bureaucrat or a writer or even a police constable, it was a welcome break and a change to sit back and give interviews -- all thanks to Chai, Chai. This is one interview I can take the liberty of reproducing here because it was not given to a newspaper or a news agency but to the in-house publication of a company. Since you might not get to read it online, I would like you to read it here:
We know that the inspiration for Chai, Chai came about when you found yourself standing on the platform at Itarsi, waiting to change trains, and you wondered what the smallsville beyond the station yard was like. How did you take it from there?
The thought that struck me at Itarsi – what all might be lying beyond the station yard – was very momentary. I forgot all about it as soon as the train moved and came back to Chennai. Those days I was writing a Sunday coumn for the New Indian Express and was also doing a lot of travel pieces. Till then the travel pieces we carried were rarely written in the first person. The column too had a large following. I got fan mails from a wide spectrum of people, from a prisoner in the Chennai jail to a sitting judge of a Kerala court! That’s when Tranquebar (there was only Westland then, Tranquebar was yet to be born) wanted me to do a travel book. They wanted something different. For many months I did not know what I should do in order to be different. Finally, on a subsequent trip to Kanpur during Diwali holidays, the Itarsi idea returned to me. I looked up the railway timetable (my father reads it as a pastime: that gives him the vicarious pleasure of travelling) and discovered from the map that that the busiest junctions in India are actually very small towns about which we know nothing. So I thought, why not go to these places. I am so glad the publishers found the idea to be different enough.
So you didn't have difficulty finding a publisher…
On the contrary. I remember the evening Saeed Mirza had come to Chennai for the launch of his book Ammi. I think this was February 2008. Tranquebar had been just launched and Mirza’s book was the first to be published under this new imprint. Gautam Padmanabhan, the CEO of Westland, introduced me to Mirza saying, “He is also going to be a Tranquebar author soon.” I felt proud as well as ashamed. Ashamed because I had not written a word yet, even though I was done with most of the travelling. Of course I paid a huge price for the procrastination because my mother, who I was so eager should see my first book, died just eight days before it came off the press. But I also believe that the words have to come to you; you can’t go to them. What people call procrastination, I would call it fermentation.
Reviews of Chai, Chai have been either laudatory or plain negative. How's that?
There are only two ‘plain negative’ reviews, that too, very strangely, from magazines belonging to the same publishing house. Fortunately, for me, such reviews are in sheer minority. Chai, Chai is a very Indian book, written by an Indian. You should have travelled by trains and spent some time in small towns in order to appreciate the book. Which is why most of the reviews are laudatory. But if you are one of those who finds ultimate romance in small-town France or Switzerland, or who totally identifies with a Western writer’s non-stop cribbing about the heat and dust and corruption in India, then Chai, Chai may not be your cup of tea. One review that was part laudatory and part negative said the book had been “dumbed down” for the Western audience! Excuse me? I live in south India, most of my readers are in south India. I can’t presume they will all understand those dialogues in Hindi, can I?
Were you surprised when your book went into repritns so soon after publication?
Yes and no. Yes, because writing a book, just like making a movie, is a gamble. You never know what is going to work and what is not. Your sole companion is your conviction. You can only hope for the best. But in the end, only 265 people might actually end up buying your book. That fear is always there. But given the subject, a part of me was also confident. Chai, Chai is a book in which everyone gets to see a bit of himself or herself in it. As I said, it is a very Indian book: there is no scope for either borrowing the lines or the setting from the Western books you admire. It talks about the real India, live and kicking and, at times, not-so-kicking.
Is there going to be another book?
Many more. Immediately next in line is a portait of Chennai, the city where I have been living for nine years now.
What will it treat with? Travel again?
You can call it travel if you want to. In order to write about a place, you need to retain the traveller’s eye even if you are a resident. Nine years is a long time to understand a place well, and short enough not to become blind to it. All I can say is it will be a first-of-its-kind book about Chennai, about which people up north know so little, except that it is inhabited by Madrasis who eat only idli and dosa and who are conservative and God-fearing. How many know that Chennai is India’s first modern city? While the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal were still under construction, the British were already building Fort St. George in Madras. Calcutta and Bombay weren’t even born then while Delhi was still very much the Mughal capital. The book will pull the curtain of notions from over the face of Chennai.
We know that the inspiration for Chai, Chai came about when you found yourself standing on the platform at Itarsi, waiting to change trains, and you wondered what the smallsville beyond the station yard was like. How did you take it from there?
The thought that struck me at Itarsi – what all might be lying beyond the station yard – was very momentary. I forgot all about it as soon as the train moved and came back to Chennai. Those days I was writing a Sunday coumn for the New Indian Express and was also doing a lot of travel pieces. Till then the travel pieces we carried were rarely written in the first person. The column too had a large following. I got fan mails from a wide spectrum of people, from a prisoner in the Chennai jail to a sitting judge of a Kerala court! That’s when Tranquebar (there was only Westland then, Tranquebar was yet to be born) wanted me to do a travel book. They wanted something different. For many months I did not know what I should do in order to be different. Finally, on a subsequent trip to Kanpur during Diwali holidays, the Itarsi idea returned to me. I looked up the railway timetable (my father reads it as a pastime: that gives him the vicarious pleasure of travelling) and discovered from the map that that the busiest junctions in India are actually very small towns about which we know nothing. So I thought, why not go to these places. I am so glad the publishers found the idea to be different enough.
So you didn't have difficulty finding a publisher…
On the contrary. I remember the evening Saeed Mirza had come to Chennai for the launch of his book Ammi. I think this was February 2008. Tranquebar had been just launched and Mirza’s book was the first to be published under this new imprint. Gautam Padmanabhan, the CEO of Westland, introduced me to Mirza saying, “He is also going to be a Tranquebar author soon.” I felt proud as well as ashamed. Ashamed because I had not written a word yet, even though I was done with most of the travelling. Of course I paid a huge price for the procrastination because my mother, who I was so eager should see my first book, died just eight days before it came off the press. But I also believe that the words have to come to you; you can’t go to them. What people call procrastination, I would call it fermentation.
Reviews of Chai, Chai have been either laudatory or plain negative. How's that?
There are only two ‘plain negative’ reviews, that too, very strangely, from magazines belonging to the same publishing house. Fortunately, for me, such reviews are in sheer minority. Chai, Chai is a very Indian book, written by an Indian. You should have travelled by trains and spent some time in small towns in order to appreciate the book. Which is why most of the reviews are laudatory. But if you are one of those who finds ultimate romance in small-town France or Switzerland, or who totally identifies with a Western writer’s non-stop cribbing about the heat and dust and corruption in India, then Chai, Chai may not be your cup of tea. One review that was part laudatory and part negative said the book had been “dumbed down” for the Western audience! Excuse me? I live in south India, most of my readers are in south India. I can’t presume they will all understand those dialogues in Hindi, can I?
Were you surprised when your book went into repritns so soon after publication?
Yes and no. Yes, because writing a book, just like making a movie, is a gamble. You never know what is going to work and what is not. Your sole companion is your conviction. You can only hope for the best. But in the end, only 265 people might actually end up buying your book. That fear is always there. But given the subject, a part of me was also confident. Chai, Chai is a book in which everyone gets to see a bit of himself or herself in it. As I said, it is a very Indian book: there is no scope for either borrowing the lines or the setting from the Western books you admire. It talks about the real India, live and kicking and, at times, not-so-kicking.
Is there going to be another book?
Many more. Immediately next in line is a portait of Chennai, the city where I have been living for nine years now.
What will it treat with? Travel again?
You can call it travel if you want to. In order to write about a place, you need to retain the traveller’s eye even if you are a resident. Nine years is a long time to understand a place well, and short enough not to become blind to it. All I can say is it will be a first-of-its-kind book about Chennai, about which people up north know so little, except that it is inhabited by Madrasis who eat only idli and dosa and who are conservative and God-fearing. How many know that Chennai is India’s first modern city? While the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal were still under construction, the British were already building Fort St. George in Madras. Calcutta and Bombay weren’t even born then while Delhi was still very much the Mughal capital. The book will pull the curtain of notions from over the face of Chennai.
Monday, January 04, 2010
India File
The book is so small I wonder how it survived the shifting of homes and cities. Small because the font is smaller than the usual and the lines are not double-spaced. Clearly, the Indian publisher had tried to save on money. I had bought the book more than 10 years ago from a shop on Janpath in Delhi. The inscription is intact: '"BG, 5 Feb 1999." The price printed on the back cover is Rs 80.
Rs 80, even in 1999, was peanuts. My monthly salary at the time, if my memory serves right, was around Rs 18,000. Those were the days when I spent a substantial amount of my salary on books that cost Rs 300-400 each. Today I am pretty careless about my collection but back then, I would spend almost every Sunday dusting those books and arranging them in a certain order on my modest cane bookshelf. Many of the books I never got around to reading, but I preserved them like embryos just because I had spent a fortune on them. Therefore, it was a big surprise that this book, which cost only Rs 80, should have survived when I shed excess baggage each time before shifting homes and cities. I mean, I could have easily -- and smugly -- given it away to somebody: "Here, take it. It's a good book. Remember me when you read this."
I am so glad I didn't. The book in question in India File by Trevor Fishlock, once upon a time a foreign correspondent stationed in New Delhi. It was published in January 1983, when I was 12 years old. He subsequently wrote another book based on his experiences as the India correspondent, On The Cobra Road, which I bought a few years ago in Chennai and read and reread it only because I spent Rs 400 on it. But India File sat untouched on my shelves for more than a decade. Maybe the small font had put me off. But this evening, I do not know why, I pulled it out and flipped through its yellowed pages. And then I started reading it from the beginning. I had no idea -- what a fucking fool I was to have judged a book by the font size of its text -- that I actually had a gem sitting ignored on my shelves for more than a decade.
If you want to know about India, even if you are an Indian, please read India File. But I think the book is out of print: can you imagine how lucky I am! Let me reproduce the very first paragraph:
"At last the gasping newcomer floats free to take up his inheritance of India. If it is a son there are murmurs and grins of pleasure. A conch may blare and the midwife's fingers close over a large reward. If it is a daughter there is neither tip nor fanfare. Birth is the beginning of what Hindus believe is the soul's adventure on earth and one of the tutting women around the nativity notes the time of day, for the family starmonger will want to know what planetary and stellar forces were tugging when the cord was severed. This sage will consult his charts and draw up a horoscopic identity card which will have to be produced by its owner at life's checkpoints: before his ritual toddler's tonsure, before marriage, examinations, journeys, a new job, elections, war, ceremonies, crop sowing, business transactions and other gambles. Indians embrace the universe and their fated imperishable souls move to its mysterious awesome rhythms, out of one life and into the next, sins and atonements inked in heavenly ledgers."
Mr Fishlock, are you there? Please remove your shoes and socks. This Indian wants to touch your feet.
Rs 80, even in 1999, was peanuts. My monthly salary at the time, if my memory serves right, was around Rs 18,000. Those were the days when I spent a substantial amount of my salary on books that cost Rs 300-400 each. Today I am pretty careless about my collection but back then, I would spend almost every Sunday dusting those books and arranging them in a certain order on my modest cane bookshelf. Many of the books I never got around to reading, but I preserved them like embryos just because I had spent a fortune on them. Therefore, it was a big surprise that this book, which cost only Rs 80, should have survived when I shed excess baggage each time before shifting homes and cities. I mean, I could have easily -- and smugly -- given it away to somebody: "Here, take it. It's a good book. Remember me when you read this."
I am so glad I didn't. The book in question in India File by Trevor Fishlock, once upon a time a foreign correspondent stationed in New Delhi. It was published in January 1983, when I was 12 years old. He subsequently wrote another book based on his experiences as the India correspondent, On The Cobra Road, which I bought a few years ago in Chennai and read and reread it only because I spent Rs 400 on it. But India File sat untouched on my shelves for more than a decade. Maybe the small font had put me off. But this evening, I do not know why, I pulled it out and flipped through its yellowed pages. And then I started reading it from the beginning. I had no idea -- what a fucking fool I was to have judged a book by the font size of its text -- that I actually had a gem sitting ignored on my shelves for more than a decade.
If you want to know about India, even if you are an Indian, please read India File. But I think the book is out of print: can you imagine how lucky I am! Let me reproduce the very first paragraph:
"At last the gasping newcomer floats free to take up his inheritance of India. If it is a son there are murmurs and grins of pleasure. A conch may blare and the midwife's fingers close over a large reward. If it is a daughter there is neither tip nor fanfare. Birth is the beginning of what Hindus believe is the soul's adventure on earth and one of the tutting women around the nativity notes the time of day, for the family starmonger will want to know what planetary and stellar forces were tugging when the cord was severed. This sage will consult his charts and draw up a horoscopic identity card which will have to be produced by its owner at life's checkpoints: before his ritual toddler's tonsure, before marriage, examinations, journeys, a new job, elections, war, ceremonies, crop sowing, business transactions and other gambles. Indians embrace the universe and their fated imperishable souls move to its mysterious awesome rhythms, out of one life and into the next, sins and atonements inked in heavenly ledgers."
Mr Fishlock, are you there? Please remove your shoes and socks. This Indian wants to touch your feet.
Friday, January 01, 2010
2010
New year, new book. Pencils have been sharpened. Ink filled in my various fountain pens. Two new notebooks sitting on my desk, waiting to be filled with thoughts and quotes and info. Reference books at hand. People and places waiting to be visited. And the brand new mini laptop, which I fell in love with at first sight and treated myself to as a new year gift -- my thought processor and my new second wife. I begin tonight.
I wish I could survey 2010 like a road spread out in front of me. But all I can see is a fog of mystery. It is the mystery that makes you want to live, live on. Yet, personally, I can look forward to 2010 with optimism. Of course, it will have its share of downs and many hypochondria-triggered trips to the doctor. But on the whole, it promises to be a busy and a pleasant year.
Also, 2010 will be my last year in Chennai. Unless, of course, dentiny intervenes. I am determined to move on, for, by the same time next year, I would have spent 10 years in Chennai. Yes, 10 years -- a decade! Too long for a vagabond like me.
When I left Delhi in January 2001, I was pretty sure that I would be back in a year or two. I had things to go back to. I had no idea that I would fit into Chennai so well that I would end up spending a decade here. I am so glad that when I finally leave Chennai, I will have a befitting parting gift for it.
Happy New Year!
I wish I could survey 2010 like a road spread out in front of me. But all I can see is a fog of mystery. It is the mystery that makes you want to live, live on. Yet, personally, I can look forward to 2010 with optimism. Of course, it will have its share of downs and many hypochondria-triggered trips to the doctor. But on the whole, it promises to be a busy and a pleasant year.
Also, 2010 will be my last year in Chennai. Unless, of course, dentiny intervenes. I am determined to move on, for, by the same time next year, I would have spent 10 years in Chennai. Yes, 10 years -- a decade! Too long for a vagabond like me.
When I left Delhi in January 2001, I was pretty sure that I would be back in a year or two. I had things to go back to. I had no idea that I would fit into Chennai so well that I would end up spending a decade here. I am so glad that when I finally leave Chennai, I will have a befitting parting gift for it.
Happy New Year!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Of Old Age, Sex And Politics
Narayan Dutt Tiwari is one of the landmarks of my childhood, in the sense that hardly a day would pass without seeing his name or picture in the newspapers. He was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on and off, depending on how pleased the Congress high command in Delhi was with him. By the time I grew up and became a journalist, the BJP and the casteist parties of Mulayam Singh and Mayawati had already dislodged the Congress from power in the state and Tiwari, respected but irrelevant in Lucknow, had shifted base to Delhi.
In Delhi, Tiwari made news when he, along with Arjun Singh, broke away from Narasimha Rao's Congress in 1996 and formed Congress (T). During the general elections that year, the party fielded cricketer Manoj Prabhakar from South Delhi but he lost to BJP's Sushma Swaraj. After Rao's exit, Tiwari's party, like all splinter groups of the Congress, rejoined the parent party. Last heard of, he was the chief minister of Uttaranchal. And just when you began to wonder if he was still alive, just like you wonder about many Congress leaders who were already quite old when you were still a child, his name erupts in a sex scandal!
Since I do not watch TV, I missed out on the coverage. But I did get to see some of the scandalous stills on You Tube. The 86-year-old Tiwari is shown lying on bed, his hands resting on his chest. It could have been the image of his body lying in state -- so serene and still he looks. The only hint of life is the very faint smile on his lips. When surrounded by three naked women, even a dead man is likely to break into a smug smile. Fortunately, Tiwari had remembered to remove his trademark Gandhi cap before getting into the act.
The Tiwari scandal proves three things (they have been proven before, though):
1. Power is the ultimate elixir of life. A lesser mortal, at 86, would have been confined to bed, shrivelled and shrunk, waiting either for death or the attention of a family member. But when you are in power, there is no dearth of attention and death is always far away. Take the case of Narasimha Rao: he was so ill that he did not even stand for elections in 1991. But Rajiv Gandhi's assassination gave Rao a second lease of life. Look at Atal Behari Vajpayee: the moment he went out of power, the various ailments got the better of him.
2. The sexual desires of a man don't die with age. At 86, he may not be capable of providing pleasure (in any case, Indian men, no matter how old, usually have a poor track record in this department), but he is certainly capable of receiving pleasure. In other words, the senses are pretty much alive. So take heart, guys.
3. The rotten political system in our country. Licence for mining in return for sexual favours? Politicians have all the money in the world to buy sex, but still they like to use official power to get sex for free. How corrupt! And what is a 86-year-old man doing as a governor? Age irrelevant if you are the chief minister or prime minister, as long as you are popular with the people and go through the grind of election campaign. But why should Raj Bhavans serve as old-age homes? Tiwari, who already has one foot in the grave, went a step ahead and turned it into a brothel. What a shame.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Birthday Views And Reviews
So the shirt didn't come this year. Every year, for the past 10 years, my mother has been couriering me an expensive shirt on the eve of my birthday. I say expensive because what she'd shell out would usually be way beyond her means. Only a mother would do that.
The shirt would usually reach me the day before Christmas, and then the instruction would come on phone, "Make sure you wear it on your birthday. Even if for a short while." This year, I have no choice but to dig out one of the shirts she had sent me and wear it tomorrow -- even if for a short while.
Tomorrow, dear friends, I turn 39. My last birthday when the first digit of my age will still be '3'. The beginning of the last 365 days of my thirties. The countdown to turning 40. Middle-age, here I come! So my birthday and my New Year resolution: to make the most of these 365 days. If I make the most of these 365 days, my next 10 years should be taken care of and I shall be able to enter middle-age with grace and with a youthful stride.
But for that I need to be strong. The past four months, as most of you know, have been an emotional roller-coaster for me. Every day I have been drinking a cocktail whose ingredients are pain, joy, regret, excitement, anxiety, exultation, bitterness, jubilation and anger. Every few hours one emotion takes over from the other and my mood changes.
Yoga can be my only saviour now, as it has been in the past. Nothing beats a 90-minute session, starting with the sun salutations and ending with the headstand. It prepares you to take it easy, or take on the world, if required. So once am done with this post, I am going to wash my yoga mat and hang it in the balcony to dry. But there is something that I need to get out of my system before starting the detox process. It has been stuck in my throat like a fishbone and I shall now cough and spit it out.
India has two respectable newsmagazines, India Today and Outlook. Each of these magazines come out with monthly travel magazines, India Today Travel Plus and Outlook Traveller. Both these magazines have reviewed my book Chai, Chai. Both the reviewers happen to be women -- women I do not know. I am surprised that the judgments of two reviewers about a first-time writer's travel book should be poles apart.
Excerpts from the Outlook Traveller review:
It's hard to tell a good story even when you are writing about wildly interesting people and places. But it takes a very good, maybe a great writer, to elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary. Small town India is very definitely ordinary; but while journalist Bishwanath Ghosh is many things — including wry, nosey, dogged and conscientious — a very good writer he is not.
In Chai, chai he sets out to discover the towns that lie just outside major railway junctions, the nationally known place-names that nobody ever actually visits. Instead of merely changing trains at Itarsi or Jhansi or Guntakal, he asks, what if you were to get off and treat the town as its own destination?
It's an innovative, interesting question, fuelled by the urge to know what people's lives are like in tiny towns; towns that lie on the fringes of the traveller's consciousness, usually cloaked in a mist of homogenous anonymity. Sadly, Ghosh does not seem to like the towns much, which is fair enough, but he does not even dislike them interestingly. Knotted up in descriptions of goat-infested lanes and oily hotel sheets, lurching from bar to bar or drinking in his hotel room, he just seems lost. In attempting profundity, he achieves only the purely banal. Here, he is on Manju, a housewife-turned-prostitute in Itarsi: "This was a strange encounter: people usually spend an hour with a human being who had [sic] turned into a prostitute, but I had just spent an hour with a prostitute who was also a human being."
The bottom line is that in Ghosh's hands, a promising project fills with lead and sinks straight to the bottom.
Now, read what India Today Travel Plus has to say:
Chai, chai... The unmistakably nasal, shrill call of chai vendors at railway stations is something that I have always remembered. No wake-up call is more effective than this; no other tea more soul-stirring and energising. The picture is the same no matter which station you are at. Equally piercing and commanding is the whistle of the train, which urges you to file into the carriages and move on.
It is at this very moment -- when you are caught between a cup of steaming chai on the platform and the urgent hooting -- that the story of Chai, Chai begins. Picking seven railway junctions where trains stop, but people never seem to alight, Bishwanath Ghosh sets out to explore towns that have never been credited with more than being just railway junctions.
The result is as refreshing as the idea, just like the perky tea I can never do without on train journeys. The narrative begins with Mughal Sarai and takes you through Jhansi, Itarsi, Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai and Shoranur. As he travels down south, right from the heartland of north India, Ghosh takes you along in the most casual yet engaging manner possible. He records every detail with honesty. That includes the smell of a rickety staircase in a decrepit hotel in Mughal Sarai, steel tumblers used for drinking whisky at a family dhaba in Jhansi and also the aroma of early-morning fresh idlis invading the compartment of a train to Guntakal. Just five pages down, and you begin to see that the story of Chai, Chai is in the details that the writer has registered and presented in simple, lucid prose. And it is this attention to detail that keeps you glued to the pages even when the pace slackens and all that Ghosh seems to be doing is walking down from one chowk the next chauraha.
The other thing I like about the book is the fact there are no surprises. Ghosh infuses colour and flavour in everyday life, describing seemingly mundane chores and happenings with a sincerity that gently persuades you into revisiting certain sections of the book. One such episode, in my opinion, is Ghosh's visit to a Mughal Sarai bar. Here, he strikes up many an alcohol-induced friendship, which promptly leads to invitations to be a family's guest and also imaginary trips being planned to Pondicherry and Bangalore... The following day, when his attempts at establishing contact with a 'coaching' teacher he met at the bar fail, Ghosh observes that 'promises made at a bar table, no matter how genuine while being made, are not to be taken seriously'. No rocket science, this; just another realisation that all of us have lived with. Yet, put in the context of Ghosh's narrative, it feels comforting to re-run such axioms in your mind.
Fortunately, neither of these reviews are going to decide the fate of Chai, Chai, which has silently launched itself into the orbit. The book is going for a second reprint next month and Landmark, the bookshop in Chennai I frequently visit, has put copies on the bestseller shelf. I shall, however, consider myself a bestselling author only when -- and if at all -- Chai, Chai sells close to 10,000 copies. I do not know if this will ever happen, but I am -- by and large --happy with the way things have turned out so far. Moreover, Chai, Chai is not my last book: two more are bound to see the light of the day by the end of next year. But since Chai, Chai is my first, I shall always be possessive and protective (though not irrationally) about it. And therefore, this question, dear reader:
If you happen to be someone who has never heard of me and has not read Chai, Chai either, which of the above-cited reviews would you go by? The one in Outlook Traveller or the one in India Today Travel Plus? I want an answer, please. I can hear my well-meaning friends berating me, "Don't worry about the reviews. Ignore them. Your job is to write, so just write." Which is all very fine. I could have ignored the Outlook Traveller review and even spat on it, but what do I do about Google search?
Every time I run a search for my book, which I am required to every once in a while, the offensive review shows up on the very first page. And of late, during the past two days, the link to this highly malicious review is being thrown up as the very first result during a search run for Chai, Chai. It is all very sinister. There seems to be someone mischievous out there who wants anyone curious about Chai, Chai to first read Mitali Saran's take on the book before proceeding to other reviews and views.
Mitali Saran is the woman who reviewed Chai, Chai for Outlook Traveller. I am really surprised that she should waste her precious time and the magazine's precious space in reviewing a book she thought was utter crap. I have no problem with criticism, which is more than welcome, but it is so easy to detect the malice in her review, as if she has a score to settle with either the writer or the publisher. Fortunately, other reviewers do not share Ms Saran's views about Chai, Chai. But how the fuck do I get this malicious review off Google search? Will my techie friends please help?
The shirt would usually reach me the day before Christmas, and then the instruction would come on phone, "Make sure you wear it on your birthday. Even if for a short while." This year, I have no choice but to dig out one of the shirts she had sent me and wear it tomorrow -- even if for a short while.
Tomorrow, dear friends, I turn 39. My last birthday when the first digit of my age will still be '3'. The beginning of the last 365 days of my thirties. The countdown to turning 40. Middle-age, here I come! So my birthday and my New Year resolution: to make the most of these 365 days. If I make the most of these 365 days, my next 10 years should be taken care of and I shall be able to enter middle-age with grace and with a youthful stride.
But for that I need to be strong. The past four months, as most of you know, have been an emotional roller-coaster for me. Every day I have been drinking a cocktail whose ingredients are pain, joy, regret, excitement, anxiety, exultation, bitterness, jubilation and anger. Every few hours one emotion takes over from the other and my mood changes.
Yoga can be my only saviour now, as it has been in the past. Nothing beats a 90-minute session, starting with the sun salutations and ending with the headstand. It prepares you to take it easy, or take on the world, if required. So once am done with this post, I am going to wash my yoga mat and hang it in the balcony to dry. But there is something that I need to get out of my system before starting the detox process. It has been stuck in my throat like a fishbone and I shall now cough and spit it out.
India has two respectable newsmagazines, India Today and Outlook. Each of these magazines come out with monthly travel magazines, India Today Travel Plus and Outlook Traveller. Both these magazines have reviewed my book Chai, Chai. Both the reviewers happen to be women -- women I do not know. I am surprised that the judgments of two reviewers about a first-time writer's travel book should be poles apart.
Excerpts from the Outlook Traveller review:
It's hard to tell a good story even when you are writing about wildly interesting people and places. But it takes a very good, maybe a great writer, to elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary. Small town India is very definitely ordinary; but while journalist Bishwanath Ghosh is many things — including wry, nosey, dogged and conscientious — a very good writer he is not.
In Chai, chai he sets out to discover the towns that lie just outside major railway junctions, the nationally known place-names that nobody ever actually visits. Instead of merely changing trains at Itarsi or Jhansi or Guntakal, he asks, what if you were to get off and treat the town as its own destination?
It's an innovative, interesting question, fuelled by the urge to know what people's lives are like in tiny towns; towns that lie on the fringes of the traveller's consciousness, usually cloaked in a mist of homogenous anonymity. Sadly, Ghosh does not seem to like the towns much, which is fair enough, but he does not even dislike them interestingly. Knotted up in descriptions of goat-infested lanes and oily hotel sheets, lurching from bar to bar or drinking in his hotel room, he just seems lost. In attempting profundity, he achieves only the purely banal. Here, he is on Manju, a housewife-turned-prostitute in Itarsi: "This was a strange encounter: people usually spend an hour with a human being who had [sic] turned into a prostitute, but I had just spent an hour with a prostitute who was also a human being."
The bottom line is that in Ghosh's hands, a promising project fills with lead and sinks straight to the bottom.
Now, read what India Today Travel Plus has to say:
Chai, chai... The unmistakably nasal, shrill call of chai vendors at railway stations is something that I have always remembered. No wake-up call is more effective than this; no other tea more soul-stirring and energising. The picture is the same no matter which station you are at. Equally piercing and commanding is the whistle of the train, which urges you to file into the carriages and move on.
It is at this very moment -- when you are caught between a cup of steaming chai on the platform and the urgent hooting -- that the story of Chai, Chai begins. Picking seven railway junctions where trains stop, but people never seem to alight, Bishwanath Ghosh sets out to explore towns that have never been credited with more than being just railway junctions.
The result is as refreshing as the idea, just like the perky tea I can never do without on train journeys. The narrative begins with Mughal Sarai and takes you through Jhansi, Itarsi, Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai and Shoranur. As he travels down south, right from the heartland of north India, Ghosh takes you along in the most casual yet engaging manner possible. He records every detail with honesty. That includes the smell of a rickety staircase in a decrepit hotel in Mughal Sarai, steel tumblers used for drinking whisky at a family dhaba in Jhansi and also the aroma of early-morning fresh idlis invading the compartment of a train to Guntakal. Just five pages down, and you begin to see that the story of Chai, Chai is in the details that the writer has registered and presented in simple, lucid prose. And it is this attention to detail that keeps you glued to the pages even when the pace slackens and all that Ghosh seems to be doing is walking down from one chowk the next chauraha.
The other thing I like about the book is the fact there are no surprises. Ghosh infuses colour and flavour in everyday life, describing seemingly mundane chores and happenings with a sincerity that gently persuades you into revisiting certain sections of the book. One such episode, in my opinion, is Ghosh's visit to a Mughal Sarai bar. Here, he strikes up many an alcohol-induced friendship, which promptly leads to invitations to be a family's guest and also imaginary trips being planned to Pondicherry and Bangalore... The following day, when his attempts at establishing contact with a 'coaching' teacher he met at the bar fail, Ghosh observes that 'promises made at a bar table, no matter how genuine while being made, are not to be taken seriously'. No rocket science, this; just another realisation that all of us have lived with. Yet, put in the context of Ghosh's narrative, it feels comforting to re-run such axioms in your mind.
Fortunately, neither of these reviews are going to decide the fate of Chai, Chai, which has silently launched itself into the orbit. The book is going for a second reprint next month and Landmark, the bookshop in Chennai I frequently visit, has put copies on the bestseller shelf. I shall, however, consider myself a bestselling author only when -- and if at all -- Chai, Chai sells close to 10,000 copies. I do not know if this will ever happen, but I am -- by and large --happy with the way things have turned out so far. Moreover, Chai, Chai is not my last book: two more are bound to see the light of the day by the end of next year. But since Chai, Chai is my first, I shall always be possessive and protective (though not irrationally) about it. And therefore, this question, dear reader:
If you happen to be someone who has never heard of me and has not read Chai, Chai either, which of the above-cited reviews would you go by? The one in Outlook Traveller or the one in India Today Travel Plus? I want an answer, please. I can hear my well-meaning friends berating me, "Don't worry about the reviews. Ignore them. Your job is to write, so just write." Which is all very fine. I could have ignored the Outlook Traveller review and even spat on it, but what do I do about Google search?
Every time I run a search for my book, which I am required to every once in a while, the offensive review shows up on the very first page. And of late, during the past two days, the link to this highly malicious review is being thrown up as the very first result during a search run for Chai, Chai. It is all very sinister. There seems to be someone mischievous out there who wants anyone curious about Chai, Chai to first read Mitali Saran's take on the book before proceeding to other reviews and views.
Mitali Saran is the woman who reviewed Chai, Chai for Outlook Traveller. I am really surprised that she should waste her precious time and the magazine's precious space in reviewing a book she thought was utter crap. I have no problem with criticism, which is more than welcome, but it is so easy to detect the malice in her review, as if she has a score to settle with either the writer or the publisher. Fortunately, other reviewers do not share Ms Saran's views about Chai, Chai. But how the fuck do I get this malicious review off Google search? Will my techie friends please help?
Monday, December 21, 2009
Bombay
It's midnight. Ten minutes minus or plus. We, a group of about a dozen people, have just finished dinner at a rather cosy joint on Carter Road called Out Of The Blues and are waiting for our respective cars. Last-minute small talk and the last cigarettes before getting into cars with rolled-up windows.
Suddenly, she too emerged from the restaurant -- the slender beauty in the shortest of dresses -- to wait for her car. So short was her dress that even a feeble gust of wind would have answered the prayers of at least half-a-dozen pairs of eyes. But right now the night was still and warm. So warm that this pot-bellied man came out of the adjoining street clad in only a lungi and a soiled vest. He stood there, picking his teeth with a matchstick. He was barely two feet away from Ms High Hemline, totally oblivious of her presence. He must be living in a nearby shanty and must have come out for a post-dinner stroll. His eyes must have grown immune to short skirts by now.
Then it struck me. A woman whose bottom half is almost naked. A man whose top half is almost naked. One pretty, another ugly. One rich, another poor. And yet they shared the same soil standing just two feet apart, unmindful and at the same time accepting of each other. This can happen only in Bombay. This mutual acceptance is what defines Bombay and sets it apart from other big cities where the poor would not be seen within 1 km radius of an upmarket restaurant unless they were beggars. It is because of this mutual acceptance that dreams often come true in Bombay.
Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed my four days in Bombay. Lunch at Leopold Cafe. Long walk on Marine Drive, watching the silhouettes of lovebirds facing the setting sun. Stroll on the cobbled streets of Bandra. Sunday afternoon stroll from Flora Fountain to Colaba Causeway -- oh, the handsome, historical buildings! Pausing every now and then to stare at those buildings like an awestruck villager, much to the irritation of the wife who, unlike me, knows the city well enough, I could only see the ghosts of stiff upper-lipped Englishmen and sophisticated Parsis behind their thick, brown walls. In the silence of Sunday, it was impossible to imagine these monuments belonging to the great Indian workforce. Maybe these buildings are still intact because this is Bombay.
But it is easier to love Bombay if you don't live there. I was only a smug visitor who had the luxury of putting up in Colaba, the best part of Bombay. The Bombay that I had heard about or seen in the Hindi films was all within a radius of 4-5 km. What a pleasure it was to flag down a taxi and get into it without haggling with the driver. Sitting on the rear seat of the battered Fiat, I would light up a cigarette and feel like Dinesh Thakur of Rajnigandha, with the song Kai baar yun hi dekha hai playing in the background. And in the end, when you got down and asked the driver, "Kitna hua?", he would look at the meter and give you a ridiculously low figure, such as Rs 22 or Rs 34. In Chennai, you pay double the amount for half that distance -- that too for an autorickshaw ride!
And one evening, while visiting a friend who is a Naval officer, I even heard Asha Bhosle perform live in the Navy stadium. The friend had assumed that it would be more appropriate on his part to invite me for a drink to the club than take me to a crowded concert, so he had not bothered to pick up the passes. But I did make him stop the car and roll down the windows in order to listen to the opening song of the evening -- albeit from a distance. It was the famous Jaan-e-jaan dhoondta phir raha from Jawaani Diwani. While Sudesh Bhosle was able to mimic the energy of Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle -- well, I felt very sad listening to her. She could barely do justice to the song which only she could have sung. But then, she is over seventy now. I was suddenly glad that my friend had not picked up the passes.
Suddenly, she too emerged from the restaurant -- the slender beauty in the shortest of dresses -- to wait for her car. So short was her dress that even a feeble gust of wind would have answered the prayers of at least half-a-dozen pairs of eyes. But right now the night was still and warm. So warm that this pot-bellied man came out of the adjoining street clad in only a lungi and a soiled vest. He stood there, picking his teeth with a matchstick. He was barely two feet away from Ms High Hemline, totally oblivious of her presence. He must be living in a nearby shanty and must have come out for a post-dinner stroll. His eyes must have grown immune to short skirts by now.
Then it struck me. A woman whose bottom half is almost naked. A man whose top half is almost naked. One pretty, another ugly. One rich, another poor. And yet they shared the same soil standing just two feet apart, unmindful and at the same time accepting of each other. This can happen only in Bombay. This mutual acceptance is what defines Bombay and sets it apart from other big cities where the poor would not be seen within 1 km radius of an upmarket restaurant unless they were beggars. It is because of this mutual acceptance that dreams often come true in Bombay.
Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed my four days in Bombay. Lunch at Leopold Cafe. Long walk on Marine Drive, watching the silhouettes of lovebirds facing the setting sun. Stroll on the cobbled streets of Bandra. Sunday afternoon stroll from Flora Fountain to Colaba Causeway -- oh, the handsome, historical buildings! Pausing every now and then to stare at those buildings like an awestruck villager, much to the irritation of the wife who, unlike me, knows the city well enough, I could only see the ghosts of stiff upper-lipped Englishmen and sophisticated Parsis behind their thick, brown walls. In the silence of Sunday, it was impossible to imagine these monuments belonging to the great Indian workforce. Maybe these buildings are still intact because this is Bombay.
But it is easier to love Bombay if you don't live there. I was only a smug visitor who had the luxury of putting up in Colaba, the best part of Bombay. The Bombay that I had heard about or seen in the Hindi films was all within a radius of 4-5 km. What a pleasure it was to flag down a taxi and get into it without haggling with the driver. Sitting on the rear seat of the battered Fiat, I would light up a cigarette and feel like Dinesh Thakur of Rajnigandha, with the song Kai baar yun hi dekha hai playing in the background. And in the end, when you got down and asked the driver, "Kitna hua?", he would look at the meter and give you a ridiculously low figure, such as Rs 22 or Rs 34. In Chennai, you pay double the amount for half that distance -- that too for an autorickshaw ride!
And one evening, while visiting a friend who is a Naval officer, I even heard Asha Bhosle perform live in the Navy stadium. The friend had assumed that it would be more appropriate on his part to invite me for a drink to the club than take me to a crowded concert, so he had not bothered to pick up the passes. But I did make him stop the car and roll down the windows in order to listen to the opening song of the evening -- albeit from a distance. It was the famous Jaan-e-jaan dhoondta phir raha from Jawaani Diwani. While Sudesh Bhosle was able to mimic the energy of Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle -- well, I felt very sad listening to her. She could barely do justice to the song which only she could have sung. But then, she is over seventy now. I was suddenly glad that my friend had not picked up the passes.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Shakti Kapoor
In Bombay, where I reach on Wednesday morning on my first proper visit to the city, I would have liked to look up one person: Shakti Kapoor. I simply love the man, don't ask me why. But it is highly unlikely he would be there.
This morning, my father broke a piece of news to me. He was going through the Bengali paper he subsribes to back home in Kanpur, and his eyes fell on a small black-and-white advertisement for a jatra show. Jatra, the way I can explain it, is the folk theatre of Bengal. The stage usually stands like an island amid the audience, with only one side cordoned off to provide for a crude green room for the artistes. In no other form of theatre, as far as I know, does the audience get to have such a close look at the artistes and their performance. The advertisement for that particular jatra show, which caught my father's attention, boasted of Shakti Kapoor as the lead performer. It even carried a black-and-white picture of a haggard-looking (my father's words) Shakti Kapoor.
So when this Bengali lands in Bombay, Shakti Kapoor would be somewhere in Bengal, possibly in a town like Midnapore, practising his Bengali in order to live up to the expectations of the audience. The lay Bengali, no matter where in Bengal he lives and what he does for a living, is a perfectionist, provided he himself is not expected to be one. So I can only imagine Shakti's ordeal. But I am sure jatra pays him well enough. And am sure he is liking the fact that the Bengali audience, whose benchmark is none other than Satyajit Ray, is accepting him. Otherwise, makers of D-grade films in Bombay are always on the lookout for a 'big name' who can play the pimp or the conman or the comedian.
But Shakti Kapoor speaking Bengali? That too in a jatra where he has to go live in front of a Bengali audience that surrounds him from all three sides? Well, that's almost like spotting prime minister Manmohan Singh in an upscale Delhi pub or catching US president Obama light up a cigarette during a press conference. Too good to miss! Trust me, when I go to Calcutta in the first week of January for a reading of Chai, Chai, I shall track down Shakti Kapoor and watch him perform.
How I love the man! I love his accent, to begin with. I also love the lecherous look on his face, which is always more comic than villainy. But what I like the most about him is the way he gets startled. Did you ever notice that? His eyes suddenly pop out and his mouth falls open every time the hero turns the tables against him. Oh, how I love that look!
Shakti Kapoor, in most of his movies, has either been a cruel villain or a comedian villain, but the thing is, you enjoy even his cruelty because it is all so laughable. I have lost count of the number of times I must have watched Baap Numberi, Beta Dus Numberi. Trust me, the pair of Kadar Khan and Shakti Kapoor have made innumerable unwatchable movies watchable, no matter how great the star cast. They are truly great actors, or so I think.
Did I hear you saying, "Aaaooo!"? If you don't know where "Aaaooo" comes from, you clearly don't know Shakti Kapoor well enough.
This morning, my father broke a piece of news to me. He was going through the Bengali paper he subsribes to back home in Kanpur, and his eyes fell on a small black-and-white advertisement for a jatra show. Jatra, the way I can explain it, is the folk theatre of Bengal. The stage usually stands like an island amid the audience, with only one side cordoned off to provide for a crude green room for the artistes. In no other form of theatre, as far as I know, does the audience get to have such a close look at the artistes and their performance. The advertisement for that particular jatra show, which caught my father's attention, boasted of Shakti Kapoor as the lead performer. It even carried a black-and-white picture of a haggard-looking (my father's words) Shakti Kapoor.
So when this Bengali lands in Bombay, Shakti Kapoor would be somewhere in Bengal, possibly in a town like Midnapore, practising his Bengali in order to live up to the expectations of the audience. The lay Bengali, no matter where in Bengal he lives and what he does for a living, is a perfectionist, provided he himself is not expected to be one. So I can only imagine Shakti's ordeal. But I am sure jatra pays him well enough. And am sure he is liking the fact that the Bengali audience, whose benchmark is none other than Satyajit Ray, is accepting him. Otherwise, makers of D-grade films in Bombay are always on the lookout for a 'big name' who can play the pimp or the conman or the comedian.
But Shakti Kapoor speaking Bengali? That too in a jatra where he has to go live in front of a Bengali audience that surrounds him from all three sides? Well, that's almost like spotting prime minister Manmohan Singh in an upscale Delhi pub or catching US president Obama light up a cigarette during a press conference. Too good to miss! Trust me, when I go to Calcutta in the first week of January for a reading of Chai, Chai, I shall track down Shakti Kapoor and watch him perform.
How I love the man! I love his accent, to begin with. I also love the lecherous look on his face, which is always more comic than villainy. But what I like the most about him is the way he gets startled. Did you ever notice that? His eyes suddenly pop out and his mouth falls open every time the hero turns the tables against him. Oh, how I love that look!
Shakti Kapoor, in most of his movies, has either been a cruel villain or a comedian villain, but the thing is, you enjoy even his cruelty because it is all so laughable. I have lost count of the number of times I must have watched Baap Numberi, Beta Dus Numberi. Trust me, the pair of Kadar Khan and Shakti Kapoor have made innumerable unwatchable movies watchable, no matter how great the star cast. They are truly great actors, or so I think.
Did I hear you saying, "Aaaooo!"? If you don't know where "Aaaooo" comes from, you clearly don't know Shakti Kapoor well enough.
I Have A Dream
Shops are already putting up Christmas trees and playing the carols. Which means another year has gone past. How do I look back at 2009? So far, it has been the worst year of my life and also the best. Strange, isn't it: the best year also happens to be the worst!
Mathematically, a plus and a minus should cancel each other out so that you are left with a zero -- a clean slate. But life is not mathematics but chemistry, where a electron meets a proton to form a new, stable compound. I shall be stepping into 2010 as a new, stable compound. In any case, the years ending with an even digit have always been nice to me. I was born in 1970, got the appointment letter for my first job in 1992, moved to Delhi in 1994, got the appointment letter for a job in Chennai (which changed the course of my life) in 2000, got married in 2006 and so on. It was an aberration that my first book should have come out in 2009: maybe the best of it will happen in 2010.
Also in December 2010, I shall turn 40. Half of my life would be over, and yet my biggest dream remains unfulfilled. It shall remain unfulfilled unless I work towards it, and it is about time that I did. It is a simple dream on the face of it, but not simple at all when the dreamer happens to be me -- someone who is used to living paycheck to paycheck. But I am determined to make it come true. Here is the dream:
Owning a house by the sea or in the lap of a mountain. At daybreak, I would greet the sun with at least 12 rounds of sun salutations followed by a sequence of yogic postures that would include five minutes of shoulderstand and three minutes of headstand. After that, a breakfast of bread and eggs and juice in the lawn, if there is one. After breakfast I would proceed to my study to write. The study would have a large desk in the middle of the room. Three walls would be lined with books, while the fourth would be adorned with Bose speakers as well as various framed pictures of R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar that I would have stolen from the internet and developed into prints. That would be the music corner.
I would write non-stop till noon and then pour some beer for myself and go over whatever I've written since morning. Most of the time, I would be happy with my work and proceed for lunch. A simple lunch, nothing fancy. Post-lunch, I would sit in the balcony and light a cigarette and catch up with the gossip over phone and also look at various contracts and cheques sent by the publisher. A short nap and then I would be writing again. In between, I would get a text message from the bank: Rs 4.5 lakh have just been credited into my account.
Just before sunset, I would go for a long, brisk walk. Another text message from the bank: Rs 80,000 credited into your account. Oh, the advance for the new book. I would return invigorated and go for a shower and come out to find 'literary' and other friends waiting. I would go behind the bar counter and declare the evening open. The bar would be well-stocked with duty-free alcohol, but friends would not be discouraged from bringing their own booze. After two drinks each, we would move to the music corner -- with drinks in hand, of course -- and worship Kishore Kumar and R.D. Burman for a couple of hours. From a bartender I would transform into a DJ.
Sharp at 11 I would declare the bar closed and say goodbye to all of them. Of course we would all have had dinner by then -- simple food cooked by a certain Ram Singh or a Ramu Kaka or a Ganga Ram. Once they leave, I would pull out a book from the shelves and put myself to sleep reading it. So dear friends, that's my simple dream. Please pray that it comes true by at least 2012 -- a year that ends with an even number.
Wait a minute, I forgot something. I left out my wife from my dream day in my dream house. Let me come back to you with a rewritten dream, lest I am left out of her life.
Mathematically, a plus and a minus should cancel each other out so that you are left with a zero -- a clean slate. But life is not mathematics but chemistry, where a electron meets a proton to form a new, stable compound. I shall be stepping into 2010 as a new, stable compound. In any case, the years ending with an even digit have always been nice to me. I was born in 1970, got the appointment letter for my first job in 1992, moved to Delhi in 1994, got the appointment letter for a job in Chennai (which changed the course of my life) in 2000, got married in 2006 and so on. It was an aberration that my first book should have come out in 2009: maybe the best of it will happen in 2010.
Also in December 2010, I shall turn 40. Half of my life would be over, and yet my biggest dream remains unfulfilled. It shall remain unfulfilled unless I work towards it, and it is about time that I did. It is a simple dream on the face of it, but not simple at all when the dreamer happens to be me -- someone who is used to living paycheck to paycheck. But I am determined to make it come true. Here is the dream:
Owning a house by the sea or in the lap of a mountain. At daybreak, I would greet the sun with at least 12 rounds of sun salutations followed by a sequence of yogic postures that would include five minutes of shoulderstand and three minutes of headstand. After that, a breakfast of bread and eggs and juice in the lawn, if there is one. After breakfast I would proceed to my study to write. The study would have a large desk in the middle of the room. Three walls would be lined with books, while the fourth would be adorned with Bose speakers as well as various framed pictures of R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar that I would have stolen from the internet and developed into prints. That would be the music corner.
I would write non-stop till noon and then pour some beer for myself and go over whatever I've written since morning. Most of the time, I would be happy with my work and proceed for lunch. A simple lunch, nothing fancy. Post-lunch, I would sit in the balcony and light a cigarette and catch up with the gossip over phone and also look at various contracts and cheques sent by the publisher. A short nap and then I would be writing again. In between, I would get a text message from the bank: Rs 4.5 lakh have just been credited into my account.
Just before sunset, I would go for a long, brisk walk. Another text message from the bank: Rs 80,000 credited into your account. Oh, the advance for the new book. I would return invigorated and go for a shower and come out to find 'literary' and other friends waiting. I would go behind the bar counter and declare the evening open. The bar would be well-stocked with duty-free alcohol, but friends would not be discouraged from bringing their own booze. After two drinks each, we would move to the music corner -- with drinks in hand, of course -- and worship Kishore Kumar and R.D. Burman for a couple of hours. From a bartender I would transform into a DJ.
Sharp at 11 I would declare the bar closed and say goodbye to all of them. Of course we would all have had dinner by then -- simple food cooked by a certain Ram Singh or a Ramu Kaka or a Ganga Ram. Once they leave, I would pull out a book from the shelves and put myself to sleep reading it. So dear friends, that's my simple dream. Please pray that it comes true by at least 2012 -- a year that ends with an even number.
Wait a minute, I forgot something. I left out my wife from my dream day in my dream house. Let me come back to you with a rewritten dream, lest I am left out of her life.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Departure And Arrival
Yesterday, December 4, was my parents' wedding anniversary. Fortieth anniversary. Had destiny been not cruel, I would have squeezed Kanpur into my travel itinerary because they were planning a small party. They were inspired by a similar party thrown by one of our neighbours to celebrate their 30 years of marriage. In fact, when I last spoke to them over phone while they were in Kanpur, they were deciding on the menu.
A couple of days later, they embarked on the fateful trip to Banaras. The idea was to pay a visit to my brother who lived in Banaras. Who knew that that was to be my mother's last train journey, and that soon she would be setting out on her final journey, being carried on the strong shoulders of her two sons all the way to Manikarnika Ghat where devout Hindus dream of landing up as dead bodies.
While carrying her body through the extremely narrow streets of Banaras, which was a challenge by itself, I stepped on a spot on the cobbled street where the brick was missing and in the process sprained by foot. I instinctively cried out in pain. The only person in this world who would have let out a scream seeing me in pain was now on my shoulder, lifeless. I quickly gathered my senses and moved on. But the foot hurt like hell.
I can go on and on about the cremation story. It is an interesting story, especially because it is set in Banaras, where hundreds of people actually come to live during the final stages of there life. Only a fortunate few die there though: most aged people, tired of the interminable wait for death, return home for a brief vacation or a family function and end up dying there. But I am saving everything for a book, because it will easily take a few thousand words to describe the scene at Manikarnika Ghat alone, where I spent four hours in the company of the living and the dead. The living also included cows and goats and dogs. The dogs were drawn by the smell of burning flesh, whereas the cows and the goats came to chew on the flowers that bedecked the biers. It was surprising to see how the goats there are resistant to the furnace-like heat generated by the pyres.
The moment we brought mother's body to the banks of the Ganga, it began to drizzle. And everybody who had been a part of the funeral procession ran for cover. Only my father, my brother and I stood in the rain, wondering how to protect mother from getting drenched: she was lifeless no doubt, but she deserved dignity even in death. Fortunately, the drizzle died down before it could do any damange. In fact, mother looked fresh after the brief shower. These were her last moments in the human form. She seemed to be smiling. The date was August 29 -- just two days before her birthday. She would have turned 59. On the evening of September 29, Chai, Chai reached the bookshops.
A small confession. There is a Balaji temple, the replica of the one in Tirupati, on Venkatanarayana Road in Chennai which I pass everyday on my way to work. Long before my mother died, long before Chai, Chai hit the stands, I made a silent plea to Balaji: "If the book sells 10,000 copies, I will come to Tirupati and get my head shaved." My logic was this: the book selling so many copies is a remote possibility, rather an impossiblity, so there is no question of me parting with my hair. But in case God listens to my prayer and makes the book sell 10,000 copies, going bald is a very, very small price to pay.
Destiny intervened, and I had to shave my head even before the book reached the shops. My faith in God was shaken. For the last two years, I had only one prayer, a desperate one, that my mother should live to see the book. Her heart was packing up, and I knew she would be gone anyday. But why did she have to go precisely eight days before the book came out of the press? Had she lived for two more months, she would have not only seen the book but also attended the various launch functions. She would have died a happy woman. The regret has become a gaping hole in my heart which shall never heal.
As I sat on the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur on a pleasant September morning, with a barber running his razor on my scalp, I told God: "Look, you are making me shave my head even before the book is out in the shops. Now it is your responsibility to sell 10,000 copies."
So far, God has been a good marketing executive.
A couple of days later, they embarked on the fateful trip to Banaras. The idea was to pay a visit to my brother who lived in Banaras. Who knew that that was to be my mother's last train journey, and that soon she would be setting out on her final journey, being carried on the strong shoulders of her two sons all the way to Manikarnika Ghat where devout Hindus dream of landing up as dead bodies.
While carrying her body through the extremely narrow streets of Banaras, which was a challenge by itself, I stepped on a spot on the cobbled street where the brick was missing and in the process sprained by foot. I instinctively cried out in pain. The only person in this world who would have let out a scream seeing me in pain was now on my shoulder, lifeless. I quickly gathered my senses and moved on. But the foot hurt like hell.
I can go on and on about the cremation story. It is an interesting story, especially because it is set in Banaras, where hundreds of people actually come to live during the final stages of there life. Only a fortunate few die there though: most aged people, tired of the interminable wait for death, return home for a brief vacation or a family function and end up dying there. But I am saving everything for a book, because it will easily take a few thousand words to describe the scene at Manikarnika Ghat alone, where I spent four hours in the company of the living and the dead. The living also included cows and goats and dogs. The dogs were drawn by the smell of burning flesh, whereas the cows and the goats came to chew on the flowers that bedecked the biers. It was surprising to see how the goats there are resistant to the furnace-like heat generated by the pyres.
The moment we brought mother's body to the banks of the Ganga, it began to drizzle. And everybody who had been a part of the funeral procession ran for cover. Only my father, my brother and I stood in the rain, wondering how to protect mother from getting drenched: she was lifeless no doubt, but she deserved dignity even in death. Fortunately, the drizzle died down before it could do any damange. In fact, mother looked fresh after the brief shower. These were her last moments in the human form. She seemed to be smiling. The date was August 29 -- just two days before her birthday. She would have turned 59. On the evening of September 29, Chai, Chai reached the bookshops.
A small confession. There is a Balaji temple, the replica of the one in Tirupati, on Venkatanarayana Road in Chennai which I pass everyday on my way to work. Long before my mother died, long before Chai, Chai hit the stands, I made a silent plea to Balaji: "If the book sells 10,000 copies, I will come to Tirupati and get my head shaved." My logic was this: the book selling so many copies is a remote possibility, rather an impossiblity, so there is no question of me parting with my hair. But in case God listens to my prayer and makes the book sell 10,000 copies, going bald is a very, very small price to pay.
Destiny intervened, and I had to shave my head even before the book reached the shops. My faith in God was shaken. For the last two years, I had only one prayer, a desperate one, that my mother should live to see the book. Her heart was packing up, and I knew she would be gone anyday. But why did she have to go precisely eight days before the book came out of the press? Had she lived for two more months, she would have not only seen the book but also attended the various launch functions. She would have died a happy woman. The regret has become a gaping hole in my heart which shall never heal.
As I sat on the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur on a pleasant September morning, with a barber running his razor on my scalp, I told God: "Look, you are making me shave my head even before the book is out in the shops. Now it is your responsibility to sell 10,000 copies."
So far, God has been a good marketing executive.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Chai, Chai Comes To Mumbai And Pune
The stupidest movie I have seen in a long time is, well, I can't even recall the name. It has Bobby Deol playing a cancer surgeon, and his girlfriend is a ghost-like Kangana Ranaut. He is paralysed neck-down after an accident, and thanks to the cheering up by a little cancer-afflicted boy who is admitted in the same hospital, he not only overcomes his paralysis but also conducts an (academic) research from the hospital bed and finds a cure for cancer. The story isn't stupid: it was adapted from a Russian fable, after all. But the movie certainly is.
It was hardly surprising, therefore, that my wife, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and I were the only people in the theatre that evening, apart from two young students from the Northeast. Just six people in the entire hall in an upscale Delhi mall! If I was a young man who had a girlfriend but no place to take her to, I would have bought tickets for this movie again and again.
How can a director be so dumb? Throughout the movie, there is nothing that can give you even the remotest idea where the story is set. For most of the first half, the location is unmistakably foreign, with white people in the background and all, but Bobby Deol drives a car with a Karnataka registration number and works in an upscale hospital where the entire staff is Indian. The second half, of course, is shot inside a hospital, so there is no way of telling if the hospital is located in Mumbai or Minneapolis.
How can you savour a story without getting a sense of the place? It was not for nothing that Ramesh Sippy had painstakingly created 'Ramgarh' in the outskirts of Bangalore and shot Sholay there for four years. To save on time, he could have created a duplicate 'Ramgarh' elsewhere in order to carry on with the shooting when monsoon arrived in Karnataka. But he knew the audience is not a fool. Directors began to take the audience's intelligence for granted from the time when Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborthy were the reigning stars. That was the time when an idyllic spot in Tamil Nadu was passed off as a village in Uttar Pradesh. The trend, unfortunately, carries forward even today; but, fortunately, such movies are not very memorable.
The memorable ones are place-specific. And since the Hindi film industry works out of Bombay, most of the movies that you still watch again and again are set in Bombay. Baaton Baaton Mein could not have been set in the hills of Ooty: it is a hardcore Bombay movie, but it continues to appeal to even those who have never set foot on Bombay. Amitabh Bachchan's Don was such a 'Bombay' film, so were Deewar and Amar Akbar Anthony. And, of course, Guru Dutt's films! And, of course, so many other films -- one could write a 500-page book on them. The point is, these films never pretended that the location was elsewhere: that's precisely why they worked and that's precisely what made Bombay so endearing and romantic and awe-inspiring for the rest of India. You did not have to visit Bombay to know what Marine Drive looked like.
Ah, those were the days, when smuggled gold would be arriving at the shore at an appointed time and cops, acting on a tip-off, would take their positions, armed with pistols (no AK-47 then). The smugglers would give the cops a slip and a chase would begin on the streets on Bombay, with Kalyanji Anandji or R.D. Burman providing the background music. Ah, those were the days, when Amol Palekar would romance Tina Munim in a local train. Ah, those were the days, when Iftekhar, the eternal police officer, would give a pep-talk to his juniors to keep up the prestige of their vardi -- the uniform -- and solve the murder that took place in Khandala. Ah, those were the days when movies used to have a 'Bombay' song. In fact, if you ever want to measure how times have changed, listen to these songs.
"Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan" by Rafi describes a city that is entirely different from the way it is potrayed in the funny, full-throated "Yeh hai Bambai nagariya tu dekh babua" by Kishore Kumar. But the sentiment in both these songs is common: Bombay overwhelms you.
I have, sadly, never been to Bombay. Only once, in 2005. Since the visit lasted barely 24 hours, I do not consider it as a visit. But the details are clearly etched in my mind. The occasion was the launch of the Lee calendar: various celebrity photographers had shot Yana Gupta in her various moods and attires and their pictures were to be unveiled that evening in a Juhu hotel. Even before I could take the plane to Mumbai, I was handed a responsibility: the daughter of a friend was a huge fan on Yana Gupta, and I was expected to bring back an autographed calendar for her.
I landed at four in the evening and, to my great horror, found no one holding a placard bearing my name. I went to a phone booth, run by a man who was entirely blind and who measured the value of the coins and notes handed to him by feeling them, and called up the driver who was supposed to pick me up. Fortunately, the driver was in the vicinity: he had just stepped out for tea. "This is Kalyanji Anandji's bungalow," he pointed to me while we were driving to the hotel. I was tempted to get down and walk inside the gate and interview Anandji. But this being Bombay, I did not know how things worked and kept quiet till I was deposited at the hotel.
It is pointless to describe the night of the calendar launch because it was like any other event where there is plenty of glamour and booze. But I must say I was quite horrified to see my favourite TV actress (even though I hardly watch TV) wearing a mini-skirt instead of the trademark saree: I could actually see the countours of her thighs. The next morning, I decided to pay a visit to a friend who lives in Cuffe Parade. "Just take a train from Bandra station, get down at Churchgate and take a taxi," he said. Feeling like the Amol Palekar of Baaton Baaton Mein, I went to Bandra station and bought a ticket to Churchgate for Rs 7.
A train came, but I could not imagine getting into it: so crowded it was. The next train came. It was crowded as well. It was clear to me by now that getting into a local train in Mumbai required special skills, which I was too old now to acquire. I walked out of Bandra station and took a taxi to Cuffe Parade. The driver hailed from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. I felt at home. I also felt at home when I passed landmarks, such as the Marine Drive, which I had been familiar with since childhood thanks to Hindi films. Bombay was a city that belonged to me as much as it belonged to its long-time residents. But twenty-four hours were far too short to savour a city.
Fortunately, thanks to Chai, Chai, I am going to Mumbai again. This time, I hope to gather enough courage to get into a local train, even if for travelling a short distance for the sake of it, and having lunch at one of the Irani restaurants. But let me not be so overwhelmed by Mumbai to forget inviting you all for the event I am going there for.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the launch of Chai, Chai in Mumbai on December 10, 6.30 pm at Crossword, Bandra. Award-winning playwright and director Mahesh Dattani will read from the book there. And the next day, I shall be crossing the famous Khandala ghat to travel to Pune, where noted poet-writer Randhir Khare will read from Chai, Chai at Landmark on December 11 at 6.30 pm. Please be there.
For those living in the south of the Vindhyas, a small reminder for the launch in Bangalore: at Garuda Mall Crossword on November 28 at 6 pm. Please be there.
It was hardly surprising, therefore, that my wife, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and I were the only people in the theatre that evening, apart from two young students from the Northeast. Just six people in the entire hall in an upscale Delhi mall! If I was a young man who had a girlfriend but no place to take her to, I would have bought tickets for this movie again and again.
How can a director be so dumb? Throughout the movie, there is nothing that can give you even the remotest idea where the story is set. For most of the first half, the location is unmistakably foreign, with white people in the background and all, but Bobby Deol drives a car with a Karnataka registration number and works in an upscale hospital where the entire staff is Indian. The second half, of course, is shot inside a hospital, so there is no way of telling if the hospital is located in Mumbai or Minneapolis.
How can you savour a story without getting a sense of the place? It was not for nothing that Ramesh Sippy had painstakingly created 'Ramgarh' in the outskirts of Bangalore and shot Sholay there for four years. To save on time, he could have created a duplicate 'Ramgarh' elsewhere in order to carry on with the shooting when monsoon arrived in Karnataka. But he knew the audience is not a fool. Directors began to take the audience's intelligence for granted from the time when Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborthy were the reigning stars. That was the time when an idyllic spot in Tamil Nadu was passed off as a village in Uttar Pradesh. The trend, unfortunately, carries forward even today; but, fortunately, such movies are not very memorable.
The memorable ones are place-specific. And since the Hindi film industry works out of Bombay, most of the movies that you still watch again and again are set in Bombay. Baaton Baaton Mein could not have been set in the hills of Ooty: it is a hardcore Bombay movie, but it continues to appeal to even those who have never set foot on Bombay. Amitabh Bachchan's Don was such a 'Bombay' film, so were Deewar and Amar Akbar Anthony. And, of course, Guru Dutt's films! And, of course, so many other films -- one could write a 500-page book on them. The point is, these films never pretended that the location was elsewhere: that's precisely why they worked and that's precisely what made Bombay so endearing and romantic and awe-inspiring for the rest of India. You did not have to visit Bombay to know what Marine Drive looked like.
Ah, those were the days, when smuggled gold would be arriving at the shore at an appointed time and cops, acting on a tip-off, would take their positions, armed with pistols (no AK-47 then). The smugglers would give the cops a slip and a chase would begin on the streets on Bombay, with Kalyanji Anandji or R.D. Burman providing the background music. Ah, those were the days, when Amol Palekar would romance Tina Munim in a local train. Ah, those were the days, when Iftekhar, the eternal police officer, would give a pep-talk to his juniors to keep up the prestige of their vardi -- the uniform -- and solve the murder that took place in Khandala. Ah, those were the days when movies used to have a 'Bombay' song. In fact, if you ever want to measure how times have changed, listen to these songs.
"Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan" by Rafi describes a city that is entirely different from the way it is potrayed in the funny, full-throated "Yeh hai Bambai nagariya tu dekh babua" by Kishore Kumar. But the sentiment in both these songs is common: Bombay overwhelms you.
I have, sadly, never been to Bombay. Only once, in 2005. Since the visit lasted barely 24 hours, I do not consider it as a visit. But the details are clearly etched in my mind. The occasion was the launch of the Lee calendar: various celebrity photographers had shot Yana Gupta in her various moods and attires and their pictures were to be unveiled that evening in a Juhu hotel. Even before I could take the plane to Mumbai, I was handed a responsibility: the daughter of a friend was a huge fan on Yana Gupta, and I was expected to bring back an autographed calendar for her.
I landed at four in the evening and, to my great horror, found no one holding a placard bearing my name. I went to a phone booth, run by a man who was entirely blind and who measured the value of the coins and notes handed to him by feeling them, and called up the driver who was supposed to pick me up. Fortunately, the driver was in the vicinity: he had just stepped out for tea. "This is Kalyanji Anandji's bungalow," he pointed to me while we were driving to the hotel. I was tempted to get down and walk inside the gate and interview Anandji. But this being Bombay, I did not know how things worked and kept quiet till I was deposited at the hotel.
It is pointless to describe the night of the calendar launch because it was like any other event where there is plenty of glamour and booze. But I must say I was quite horrified to see my favourite TV actress (even though I hardly watch TV) wearing a mini-skirt instead of the trademark saree: I could actually see the countours of her thighs. The next morning, I decided to pay a visit to a friend who lives in Cuffe Parade. "Just take a train from Bandra station, get down at Churchgate and take a taxi," he said. Feeling like the Amol Palekar of Baaton Baaton Mein, I went to Bandra station and bought a ticket to Churchgate for Rs 7.
A train came, but I could not imagine getting into it: so crowded it was. The next train came. It was crowded as well. It was clear to me by now that getting into a local train in Mumbai required special skills, which I was too old now to acquire. I walked out of Bandra station and took a taxi to Cuffe Parade. The driver hailed from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. I felt at home. I also felt at home when I passed landmarks, such as the Marine Drive, which I had been familiar with since childhood thanks to Hindi films. Bombay was a city that belonged to me as much as it belonged to its long-time residents. But twenty-four hours were far too short to savour a city.
Fortunately, thanks to Chai, Chai, I am going to Mumbai again. This time, I hope to gather enough courage to get into a local train, even if for travelling a short distance for the sake of it, and having lunch at one of the Irani restaurants. But let me not be so overwhelmed by Mumbai to forget inviting you all for the event I am going there for.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the launch of Chai, Chai in Mumbai on December 10, 6.30 pm at Crossword, Bandra. Award-winning playwright and director Mahesh Dattani will read from the book there. And the next day, I shall be crossing the famous Khandala ghat to travel to Pune, where noted poet-writer Randhir Khare will read from Chai, Chai at Landmark on December 11 at 6.30 pm. Please be there.
For those living in the south of the Vindhyas, a small reminder for the launch in Bangalore: at Garuda Mall Crossword on November 28 at 6 pm. Please be there.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Men Versus Women
Today a reader suggested that I should write a story on the lines of those of Shivani and Mitali but in which the man is a victim. "I'd like to see a similarly infuriating and well-written story about the modern woman harassing the hell out her husband, making him lose confidence, demoralising his existence. Women can do that, yes? Or is the writer unable to find the embarrassed women who'd reveal such a thing," the reader commented.
A couple of readers had left similar comments for the Shivani post. They had pointed out -- if I remember it right -- that even a man can be a victim of circumstances. The thing is, I know Shivani and Mitali personally, and they had shared their stories with me. I narrated them in the first person, instead of the third person, so that the emotion remained undiluted. But which woman would ever volunteer a story in which she is the villain? And which man, given his ego, would volunteer a story in which he is the victim?
In any case, 'villain' and 'victim' are relative terms. The news agency Reuters, for example, does not use the word 'terrorist' in its copies: they believe one man's terrorist can be another man's freedom fighter. The same principle, I believe, applies in the man-woman relationship. A woman can always say she is acting in a villainish way because she is the real victim. The man can make a similar claim. Who's the real villain and who's the real victim, no one ever gets to know.
Generally speaking, I will always be on the woman's side. For the simple reason that she is hardly given any choices in life. The choices shrink right from the moment of her birth and her fate is tied to that of a man who she would probably meet a quarter of a century later. Look at the tragedy: when she gets married, she is the one to give up her career and move to the city of her husband. When she has a kid, she is the one who gives up her job and stays home. When she resumes her career, if at all, she starts almost from scratch -- seniority be damned -- but she does not mind. Even if she minds, she has no choice.
And I am talking about city-bred, educated women. Women in rural India, especially north India, are an entirely different story, enjoying a status that is marginally better than that accorded to the cattle: only when they are nearing or are past menopause that they earn some of their rights -- most of them misused on the hapless daughter-in-law.
Coming back to the urban setting, there are exceptions of course. But by and large, an Indian woman's destiny is decided collectively by her parents, by her husband, by her in-laws, by her children and, above all, by the society. She never really gets to do what she really wants to do. She is merely a participant -- either enthusiastic or unwilling -- in someone else's life. A man can tell his family, wife or parents, even at 10 in the night, "I'll just be back in an hour." Can a woman do that? A casual outing that a man takes for granted can put a question mark on the character of a woman. And: why is the girl expected to be traditionally attired when her prospective in-laws come to see her along with their son -- even though the son maybe wearing a pair of jeans? Why should the burden of holding the tradition aloft lie on the soft shoulders of the woman alone?
Things are changing, but only in limited circles that don't consider earning lofty degrees as being educated. Really, a degree has nothing to do with education. A Harvard-returnee can still be pretty narrow-minded when it comes to the do's and don'ts concerning his wife -- ah, tell me all about it -- even though he lusts for classmates or co-workers who are bold. What to do: most Indian men are programmed that way: education might light the lamps of their minds, but they rarely ever see the light. Education, on the other hand, does wonders to a woman's personality.
Coming back to the reader's comment that inspired this post: "I'd like to see a similarly infuriating and well-written story about the modern woman harassing the hell out her husband, making him lose confidence, demoralising his existence." Well, all I can say is, if a man loses his confidence or is demoralised because of his wife, whatever happened to his balls? Come on, man, arise, awake and rest not till you have done so well in life that women fall over you and your wife feels jealous and comes around. If she still doesn't, dump her.
But I know it isn't that easy. Men, too, have certain rules to live by, even though the rules governing them are more flexible than those governing the women. But rules are rules. I know of a man who got married just because the elders in his family wanted him to. So one evening, he went to see the girl. The meeting was fixed in the local temple, where the girl came with a host of relatives and friends. He hardly got to have a proper look at the girl -- talking was out of the question -- but he had to say yes under pressure from the family. The family had already decided on his behalf. It was only on the night of the wedding that he discovered that the girl was -- well, she was certainly not his kind of woman. But the priest had already gone home and he had no choice but to live, happily ever after, for the next several decades. He spent his entire life salivating for other women -- which, I think, was not his fault at all.
I know of another couple. I have known them since childhood and they are my parent's age now. I can't reveal too many details because, thanks to Facebook and Orkut, people who I wouldn't otherwise want to read Ganga Mail have access to this blog. So I shall stick to the basics: the man was short and thin, while the wife voluptuous and gorgeous. They are a Bengali couple. I would often watch them walk past my house: the man would always be talking very loudly, as if making a point, as if he was a firebrand Bengali Marxist. But back home, it was a different 'fire' story -- at least according to my Malayali classmate who happened to be their neighbour. At home, whenever the wife got pissed off with her husband, she would beat him up. And when she got extremely pissed, she would light up the gas stove and drag the hapless man by his hair and threaten to dunk his head into the fire. My Malayali classmate knew all this because the poor Bengali man, otherwise a fiery speaker, would be screaming for help.
Last winter, when I went to Kanpur, I noticed the couple at the neighbourhood supermarket. I was glad he was still alive. The wife looked as voluptuous as ever. They were surveying the bottles of various pickles. I surveyed them. I did not know whether to feel sorry for him, or for her.
A couple of readers had left similar comments for the Shivani post. They had pointed out -- if I remember it right -- that even a man can be a victim of circumstances. The thing is, I know Shivani and Mitali personally, and they had shared their stories with me. I narrated them in the first person, instead of the third person, so that the emotion remained undiluted. But which woman would ever volunteer a story in which she is the villain? And which man, given his ego, would volunteer a story in which he is the victim?
In any case, 'villain' and 'victim' are relative terms. The news agency Reuters, for example, does not use the word 'terrorist' in its copies: they believe one man's terrorist can be another man's freedom fighter. The same principle, I believe, applies in the man-woman relationship. A woman can always say she is acting in a villainish way because she is the real victim. The man can make a similar claim. Who's the real villain and who's the real victim, no one ever gets to know.
Generally speaking, I will always be on the woman's side. For the simple reason that she is hardly given any choices in life. The choices shrink right from the moment of her birth and her fate is tied to that of a man who she would probably meet a quarter of a century later. Look at the tragedy: when she gets married, she is the one to give up her career and move to the city of her husband. When she has a kid, she is the one who gives up her job and stays home. When she resumes her career, if at all, she starts almost from scratch -- seniority be damned -- but she does not mind. Even if she minds, she has no choice.
And I am talking about city-bred, educated women. Women in rural India, especially north India, are an entirely different story, enjoying a status that is marginally better than that accorded to the cattle: only when they are nearing or are past menopause that they earn some of their rights -- most of them misused on the hapless daughter-in-law.
Coming back to the urban setting, there are exceptions of course. But by and large, an Indian woman's destiny is decided collectively by her parents, by her husband, by her in-laws, by her children and, above all, by the society. She never really gets to do what she really wants to do. She is merely a participant -- either enthusiastic or unwilling -- in someone else's life. A man can tell his family, wife or parents, even at 10 in the night, "I'll just be back in an hour." Can a woman do that? A casual outing that a man takes for granted can put a question mark on the character of a woman. And: why is the girl expected to be traditionally attired when her prospective in-laws come to see her along with their son -- even though the son maybe wearing a pair of jeans? Why should the burden of holding the tradition aloft lie on the soft shoulders of the woman alone?
Things are changing, but only in limited circles that don't consider earning lofty degrees as being educated. Really, a degree has nothing to do with education. A Harvard-returnee can still be pretty narrow-minded when it comes to the do's and don'ts concerning his wife -- ah, tell me all about it -- even though he lusts for classmates or co-workers who are bold. What to do: most Indian men are programmed that way: education might light the lamps of their minds, but they rarely ever see the light. Education, on the other hand, does wonders to a woman's personality.
Coming back to the reader's comment that inspired this post: "I'd like to see a similarly infuriating and well-written story about the modern woman harassing the hell out her husband, making him lose confidence, demoralising his existence." Well, all I can say is, if a man loses his confidence or is demoralised because of his wife, whatever happened to his balls? Come on, man, arise, awake and rest not till you have done so well in life that women fall over you and your wife feels jealous and comes around. If she still doesn't, dump her.
But I know it isn't that easy. Men, too, have certain rules to live by, even though the rules governing them are more flexible than those governing the women. But rules are rules. I know of a man who got married just because the elders in his family wanted him to. So one evening, he went to see the girl. The meeting was fixed in the local temple, where the girl came with a host of relatives and friends. He hardly got to have a proper look at the girl -- talking was out of the question -- but he had to say yes under pressure from the family. The family had already decided on his behalf. It was only on the night of the wedding that he discovered that the girl was -- well, she was certainly not his kind of woman. But the priest had already gone home and he had no choice but to live, happily ever after, for the next several decades. He spent his entire life salivating for other women -- which, I think, was not his fault at all.
I know of another couple. I have known them since childhood and they are my parent's age now. I can't reveal too many details because, thanks to Facebook and Orkut, people who I wouldn't otherwise want to read Ganga Mail have access to this blog. So I shall stick to the basics: the man was short and thin, while the wife voluptuous and gorgeous. They are a Bengali couple. I would often watch them walk past my house: the man would always be talking very loudly, as if making a point, as if he was a firebrand Bengali Marxist. But back home, it was a different 'fire' story -- at least according to my Malayali classmate who happened to be their neighbour. At home, whenever the wife got pissed off with her husband, she would beat him up. And when she got extremely pissed, she would light up the gas stove and drag the hapless man by his hair and threaten to dunk his head into the fire. My Malayali classmate knew all this because the poor Bengali man, otherwise a fiery speaker, would be screaming for help.
Last winter, when I went to Kanpur, I noticed the couple at the neighbourhood supermarket. I was glad he was still alive. The wife looked as voluptuous as ever. They were surveying the bottles of various pickles. I surveyed them. I did not know whether to feel sorry for him, or for her.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Chetan Bhagat, Baba Ramdev And Pancham
For a few years now, I have been aware that there is a certain person called Chetan Bhagat who writes books that sell well. I always thought he was some kind of a new-age management guru who told youngsters how to shape their lives and careers: these are the sort of books that usually fly off the shelves. How popular he is -- I realised only after my own book was published.
For a couple of weeks after Chai, Chai hit the hands, I got into this habit of running a Google-search for the book. You can't blame me, of course: it's very human to do so. In the process, I found Chetan Bhagat's new book, 2 States, overshadowing every other new release. Couldn't he have finished the book a couple of months before or, preferably, after? On the brighter side, though, his book will always serve as a reference point for my debut book: "My first book? (That's me at the age of 70) Well, I don't recall the exact year it came out, but it was released almost the same time as Chetan Bhagat's 2 States. Please calculate."
But till last Sunday, I presumed -- please don't ask me why -- that 2 States is about the relationship between India and the United States, in which Chetan Bhagat gives some gyaan to the Indian government how to maintain the relationship between the two democratic states. Last Sunday, we went shopping in Spencer Plaza. While I went to Music World, wife went to Landmark. Back home, we showed each other what we had bought. While I gave her a stack of 15 music CDs, she handed me three books. One of them happened to be 2 States. She said she bought the book on the recommendation of her sister, who had read it and loved it. Wife went to the study to try out the CDs, so I was left alone in the bedroom to look at 2 States.
I made two horrifying discoveries. One, the book is actually a novel, which tells the story of a Punjabi boy falling in love -- and eventually marrying -- a Tamilian girl. In other words, Chetan Bhagat is actually a 'story-teller' and not a management guru as I had imagined him to be. Two, the price of the book: just Rs 95! The ridiculously low price, obviously, shows on the quality of the paper and the printing: while reading any page, you can also read alongside the preceding or the succeeding page. Well, that's a choice you have to make: should you feel bad that your book, when you hold it in your hands, feels and looks like one of the crudely-printed pornographic novels that you bought on the sly during your adolescence, or feel immensely proud that it has reached almost every English-speaking or English-understanding household in India?
I am sure Chetan Bhagat is basking in the glory of the latter -- and why not? If whatever he writes is crap, why should people be buying his books? For every 10 intellectually-inclined Indians who get turned on by the complicatedness of a book, there are a 100 others who would love to embrace Chetan Bhagat for telling a story in a style that is the hallmark of magazines like Women's Era.
The bottomline is that Chetan Bhagat sells . He is the Baba Ramdev of literature. It was Baba Ramdev (also known as Swami Ramdev) who demystified powerful yogic kriyas such as the kapalabhaati on television. Till Ramdev came along, yoga was a serious matter: you could master it either in one of the far-flung ashrams or under the tutelage of one of the reclusive gurus. But Ramdev took yoga to the lay housewife: in between rolling out rotis for her family, she would be practising the kapalabhaati kriya while watching TV.
Chetan Bhagat, as I can see, has the same effect on the masses. If his popularity pricks you, it is only because you are jealous of him. Nobody has ever prevented you from reaching out to the masses. But since you are terribly snooty, you fail miserably, whereas Chetan Bhagat wins hands down. As R.D. Burman said in an interview, just months before he died, "Success is the true yardstick. Nothing else matters." Going by Pancham's logic, Chetan Bhagat is already a rock star. So let's give him a big hand, ladies and gentlemen.
For a couple of weeks after Chai, Chai hit the hands, I got into this habit of running a Google-search for the book. You can't blame me, of course: it's very human to do so. In the process, I found Chetan Bhagat's new book, 2 States, overshadowing every other new release. Couldn't he have finished the book a couple of months before or, preferably, after? On the brighter side, though, his book will always serve as a reference point for my debut book: "My first book? (That's me at the age of 70) Well, I don't recall the exact year it came out, but it was released almost the same time as Chetan Bhagat's 2 States. Please calculate."
But till last Sunday, I presumed -- please don't ask me why -- that 2 States is about the relationship between India and the United States, in which Chetan Bhagat gives some gyaan to the Indian government how to maintain the relationship between the two democratic states. Last Sunday, we went shopping in Spencer Plaza. While I went to Music World, wife went to Landmark. Back home, we showed each other what we had bought. While I gave her a stack of 15 music CDs, she handed me three books. One of them happened to be 2 States. She said she bought the book on the recommendation of her sister, who had read it and loved it. Wife went to the study to try out the CDs, so I was left alone in the bedroom to look at 2 States.
I made two horrifying discoveries. One, the book is actually a novel, which tells the story of a Punjabi boy falling in love -- and eventually marrying -- a Tamilian girl. In other words, Chetan Bhagat is actually a 'story-teller' and not a management guru as I had imagined him to be. Two, the price of the book: just Rs 95! The ridiculously low price, obviously, shows on the quality of the paper and the printing: while reading any page, you can also read alongside the preceding or the succeeding page. Well, that's a choice you have to make: should you feel bad that your book, when you hold it in your hands, feels and looks like one of the crudely-printed pornographic novels that you bought on the sly during your adolescence, or feel immensely proud that it has reached almost every English-speaking or English-understanding household in India?
I am sure Chetan Bhagat is basking in the glory of the latter -- and why not? If whatever he writes is crap, why should people be buying his books? For every 10 intellectually-inclined Indians who get turned on by the complicatedness of a book, there are a 100 others who would love to embrace Chetan Bhagat for telling a story in a style that is the hallmark of magazines like Women's Era.
The bottomline is that Chetan Bhagat sells . He is the Baba Ramdev of literature. It was Baba Ramdev (also known as Swami Ramdev) who demystified powerful yogic kriyas such as the kapalabhaati on television. Till Ramdev came along, yoga was a serious matter: you could master it either in one of the far-flung ashrams or under the tutelage of one of the reclusive gurus. But Ramdev took yoga to the lay housewife: in between rolling out rotis for her family, she would be practising the kapalabhaati kriya while watching TV.
Chetan Bhagat, as I can see, has the same effect on the masses. If his popularity pricks you, it is only because you are jealous of him. Nobody has ever prevented you from reaching out to the masses. But since you are terribly snooty, you fail miserably, whereas Chetan Bhagat wins hands down. As R.D. Burman said in an interview, just months before he died, "Success is the true yardstick. Nothing else matters." Going by Pancham's logic, Chetan Bhagat is already a rock star. So let's give him a big hand, ladies and gentlemen.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Mistaken Identity
A piece of paper
torn into two
One carried away by the gust of wind
the other is you.
And thus: the lifelong search
for the other half.
The search fails, but you pretend:
"Wow, I found my other half!"
What a lie!
Your other half is
stuck in the branches of a mango tree
so who is this man
you are flaunting?
torn into two
One carried away by the gust of wind
the other is you.
And thus: the lifelong search
for the other half.
The search fails, but you pretend:
"Wow, I found my other half!"
What a lie!
Your other half is
stuck in the branches of a mango tree
so who is this man
you are flaunting?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Dard-e-Dil: Rafi versus Kishore
I have been a listener all my life, rarely joining in an argument no matter how provocative the subject. The rare exceptions being when I am drunk and when I have an audience that is polite enough to nod in agreement. That's when I am able to hold forth. But I need no alcohol to join a discussion on Kishore Kumar, especially when it comes to comparing him with Mohammed Rafi.
There is no comparison, actually. Kishore Kumar, even though he himself was a great admirer of Rafi, wins hands down when it comes to range. You only have to listen to the songs of Aap Ke Deewane or the title song of Yaadon Ki Baraat to decide who is more listenable. For that matter, Sa Re Ga Ma from Chupke Chupke: what is the song without Kishore?
The purpose of this post is not to belittle Rafi, or Rafi saab. He was undoubtedly a great singer. He had a melodious voice. But Kishore Kumar's voice had a life of its own, which was not constricted by any era: what he sang in the 1950's remains as fresh as what he sang in the 1980's -- as if he had sung them only yesterday.
Rafi's voice might have the fragrance of the Indian soil, but Kishore's voice is that of the man next-door. Rafi was soft and sweet, but Kishore was direct and effective. If I were a woman, I would like to be seduced by Roop Tera Mastaana. If I have a bad day, I can lift my spirits with one of the many energising Kishore Kumar songs, such as "Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haar ke.." If I feel sad, I have Kishore Kumar for company in Zindagi ka safar or Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo mukaam. No other singer could have sung these songs: try imagining Rafi or Mukesh singing them.
Like it or not, Kishore's genius is illustrated not by his landmark songs which have become so cliched that you don't want to listen to them one more time, such as Mere naina saawan bhaadon, but by the songs in films that did not do very well. In my opinion, movies like Satte Pe Satta showcase his true talent: any other singer's voice would have cracked in the low-scale Pyaar tumhe kis mod par le aaya. And to sing the same words, in the very next minute, in extreme high pitch -- only Kishore Kumar could have done that. Not to mention Dukki pe dukki ho -- I always get goose-pimples whenever I listen to a song where Kishore Kumar's voice makes a dashing entry mid-way.
Having said that, let me admit that I am also a selective Rafi fan. Selective means I would not shop for Rafi songs with the zeal that I show for Kishore Kumar songs or even those of Talat Mehmood or Bhupinder or Yesudas, but there are certain Rafi songs I cannot do without. I shall list five of them:
1. Suhaani raat dhal chuki, by Naushad. No one else could have sung this song better. Naushad himself believed that melody was murdered by the noise induced by the R.D.-Kishore combo, but his own daughter was hooked to the songs created by the duo. Ditto with Neil Mukesh: he prefers Kishore Kumar over his grandfather -- or so he said in an interview.
2. Dil ka bhanwar kare pukaar, by S.D. Burman. Kishore's voice did not have the softness that this song required. Obviously, the senior Burman knew better.
3. Khoya khoya chaand, khula aasman, by S.D. Burman. Once again, a song only Rafi saab could have done justice to.
4. Koi sone ke dil waala, koi chaandi ke dil waala, by Salil Choudhury. Ah, my all-time Rafi favourite. Nothing to beat this song -- the voice, the music, the lyrics -- sung, on the screen, by the debonair Dev Anand in the film called Maya. A journalist friend of mine happened to meet Salilda shortly before he died in the mid-1990s. According to my friend, the meeting took place in a modest Delhi hotel in the evening, when Salilda was drinking, from a steel glass. When Rafi and this particular song came up for discussion, Salilda apparently had tears in his eyes. He began narrating anecdotes related to the recording of this song. Now, since my journalist friend also happens to be a drunkard who is prone to inventing stories, I cannot vouch for Salilda's tears. I can only hope that he was not lying.
5. Well, have you ever been in love? If you have been, only then you can appreciate this song. Even if not, do me a favour: tonight, pour yourself a drink and listen to this song. Promise me you will only use earphones while listening to this song. Because if you listen to it on normal speakers, you might miss out on the craftsmanship of Laxmikant and Pyarelal. I am yet to come across a song that is so richly embellished with the chorus and the orchestra. Chances are very high that you will end up falling in love -- if not with anyone, at least with the song.
And the song is, Dard-e-dil, dard-e-jigar, from Karz. The song could have been sung by Kishore Kumar, who sang other -- and highly popular -- songs in the movie. But Laxmi-Pyare were sagacious enough to use Rafi saab for this number. They were, after all, proteges of S.D. Burman once upon a time. They knew very well that you can't fit a song into a voice, but only the vice-versa. Oh, how much this song has been tormenting me of late. In my opinion, this is the most complete song ever created in the Hindi film industry.
There is no comparison, actually. Kishore Kumar, even though he himself was a great admirer of Rafi, wins hands down when it comes to range. You only have to listen to the songs of Aap Ke Deewane or the title song of Yaadon Ki Baraat to decide who is more listenable. For that matter, Sa Re Ga Ma from Chupke Chupke: what is the song without Kishore?
The purpose of this post is not to belittle Rafi, or Rafi saab. He was undoubtedly a great singer. He had a melodious voice. But Kishore Kumar's voice had a life of its own, which was not constricted by any era: what he sang in the 1950's remains as fresh as what he sang in the 1980's -- as if he had sung them only yesterday.
Rafi's voice might have the fragrance of the Indian soil, but Kishore's voice is that of the man next-door. Rafi was soft and sweet, but Kishore was direct and effective. If I were a woman, I would like to be seduced by Roop Tera Mastaana. If I have a bad day, I can lift my spirits with one of the many energising Kishore Kumar songs, such as "Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haar ke.." If I feel sad, I have Kishore Kumar for company in Zindagi ka safar or Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo mukaam. No other singer could have sung these songs: try imagining Rafi or Mukesh singing them.
Like it or not, Kishore's genius is illustrated not by his landmark songs which have become so cliched that you don't want to listen to them one more time, such as Mere naina saawan bhaadon, but by the songs in films that did not do very well. In my opinion, movies like Satte Pe Satta showcase his true talent: any other singer's voice would have cracked in the low-scale Pyaar tumhe kis mod par le aaya. And to sing the same words, in the very next minute, in extreme high pitch -- only Kishore Kumar could have done that. Not to mention Dukki pe dukki ho -- I always get goose-pimples whenever I listen to a song where Kishore Kumar's voice makes a dashing entry mid-way.
Having said that, let me admit that I am also a selective Rafi fan. Selective means I would not shop for Rafi songs with the zeal that I show for Kishore Kumar songs or even those of Talat Mehmood or Bhupinder or Yesudas, but there are certain Rafi songs I cannot do without. I shall list five of them:
1. Suhaani raat dhal chuki, by Naushad. No one else could have sung this song better. Naushad himself believed that melody was murdered by the noise induced by the R.D.-Kishore combo, but his own daughter was hooked to the songs created by the duo. Ditto with Neil Mukesh: he prefers Kishore Kumar over his grandfather -- or so he said in an interview.
2. Dil ka bhanwar kare pukaar, by S.D. Burman. Kishore's voice did not have the softness that this song required. Obviously, the senior Burman knew better.
3. Khoya khoya chaand, khula aasman, by S.D. Burman. Once again, a song only Rafi saab could have done justice to.
4. Koi sone ke dil waala, koi chaandi ke dil waala, by Salil Choudhury. Ah, my all-time Rafi favourite. Nothing to beat this song -- the voice, the music, the lyrics -- sung, on the screen, by the debonair Dev Anand in the film called Maya. A journalist friend of mine happened to meet Salilda shortly before he died in the mid-1990s. According to my friend, the meeting took place in a modest Delhi hotel in the evening, when Salilda was drinking, from a steel glass. When Rafi and this particular song came up for discussion, Salilda apparently had tears in his eyes. He began narrating anecdotes related to the recording of this song. Now, since my journalist friend also happens to be a drunkard who is prone to inventing stories, I cannot vouch for Salilda's tears. I can only hope that he was not lying.
5. Well, have you ever been in love? If you have been, only then you can appreciate this song. Even if not, do me a favour: tonight, pour yourself a drink and listen to this song. Promise me you will only use earphones while listening to this song. Because if you listen to it on normal speakers, you might miss out on the craftsmanship of Laxmikant and Pyarelal. I am yet to come across a song that is so richly embellished with the chorus and the orchestra. Chances are very high that you will end up falling in love -- if not with anyone, at least with the song.
And the song is, Dard-e-dil, dard-e-jigar, from Karz. The song could have been sung by Kishore Kumar, who sang other -- and highly popular -- songs in the movie. But Laxmi-Pyare were sagacious enough to use Rafi saab for this number. They were, after all, proteges of S.D. Burman once upon a time. They knew very well that you can't fit a song into a voice, but only the vice-versa. Oh, how much this song has been tormenting me of late. In my opinion, this is the most complete song ever created in the Hindi film industry.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Fear Of Forty
Very often we measure our arrival to certain dates according to the weather. For example, it is raining now in Chennai, and if it is raining in Chennai, it must be the onset of winter in the rest of India. And if winter has arrived, it means my birthday is not too far away. And that's why I hate the rains this year.
This December-end, I shall turn 39. In other words, I just have a little over a year to be entitled to the privilege of prefixing my age with the letter '3'. After that I step into the forties. Wasn't it just the other day, when I wrote a piece in the New Sunday Express, about how it is one thing to be 29 and quite another to be 30, even though the gap is of just one year, or twelve months? How time flies! -- well, the flight of time has become a cliche now. It has to fly: you can do zilch about it; all you can do is maybe follow time in another, albeit slower, aircraft, so that you don't feel too bad about being left behind.
But feel bad you must. It was only the other day when I noticed something grey on my father's chest. I remember telling myself, "I think he is finally getting old." Today, no matter how much I sculpt my chest, there is nothing to save me from being distressed about the fact that I have discovered a couple of grey strands on my pectorals too. Am I getting old? Of course I am!
But maybe I am getting old faster than my father because unlike him, who has always been a non-smoker and a teetotaller, I smoke some 25 cigarettes a day and can empty half a bottle of whisky without even batting an eyelid if I am in the mood to write, even if it means writing just a blog post (by monetary calculation, writing each post costs me at least Rs 300). Also unlike my father, I am gripped by this urge to do something in life: if nothing else, at least share my thoughts with a few dozen people. And if, of those few dozens, even half a dozen lend an ear to you and like what you have to say, your life becomes worthwhile. My father, at the age of 40, had made peace with life: the future of his rather grown-up sons mattered more to him more than his personal ambitions. The average Indian householder, in any case, is not supposed to pursue personal ambitions after he has attained a certain age or has acquired a kid or two: those who do either become outcaste or go on to become legends.
Legends are meant to be worshipped, not emulated. Which sane Indian family man would want to be a drunkard like Neeraj, who wrote the immortal song, "Phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se..."? Which sane Indian family man would like to be a chain-smoker like Sahir Ludhianvi, who wrote the songs for Pyaasa and Kabhie Kabhie? The Punjabi writer, Amrita Pritam, would relight the cigarette stubs left behind by Sahir whenever he left her place after paying a visit: just to feel his breath in her lungs.
I don't want to slip into the routine of a family man, and at the same time I am nowhere near being a Sahir. It is the fear of being neither here nor there, even at the age of 40, that worries me a lot. I will have to work very, very hard.
This December-end, I shall turn 39. In other words, I just have a little over a year to be entitled to the privilege of prefixing my age with the letter '3'. After that I step into the forties. Wasn't it just the other day, when I wrote a piece in the New Sunday Express, about how it is one thing to be 29 and quite another to be 30, even though the gap is of just one year, or twelve months? How time flies! -- well, the flight of time has become a cliche now. It has to fly: you can do zilch about it; all you can do is maybe follow time in another, albeit slower, aircraft, so that you don't feel too bad about being left behind.
But feel bad you must. It was only the other day when I noticed something grey on my father's chest. I remember telling myself, "I think he is finally getting old." Today, no matter how much I sculpt my chest, there is nothing to save me from being distressed about the fact that I have discovered a couple of grey strands on my pectorals too. Am I getting old? Of course I am!
But maybe I am getting old faster than my father because unlike him, who has always been a non-smoker and a teetotaller, I smoke some 25 cigarettes a day and can empty half a bottle of whisky without even batting an eyelid if I am in the mood to write, even if it means writing just a blog post (by monetary calculation, writing each post costs me at least Rs 300). Also unlike my father, I am gripped by this urge to do something in life: if nothing else, at least share my thoughts with a few dozen people. And if, of those few dozens, even half a dozen lend an ear to you and like what you have to say, your life becomes worthwhile. My father, at the age of 40, had made peace with life: the future of his rather grown-up sons mattered more to him more than his personal ambitions. The average Indian householder, in any case, is not supposed to pursue personal ambitions after he has attained a certain age or has acquired a kid or two: those who do either become outcaste or go on to become legends.
Legends are meant to be worshipped, not emulated. Which sane Indian family man would want to be a drunkard like Neeraj, who wrote the immortal song, "Phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se..."? Which sane Indian family man would like to be a chain-smoker like Sahir Ludhianvi, who wrote the songs for Pyaasa and Kabhie Kabhie? The Punjabi writer, Amrita Pritam, would relight the cigarette stubs left behind by Sahir whenever he left her place after paying a visit: just to feel his breath in her lungs.
I don't want to slip into the routine of a family man, and at the same time I am nowhere near being a Sahir. It is the fear of being neither here nor there, even at the age of 40, that worries me a lot. I will have to work very, very hard.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Chai, Chai In Bangalore
This morning began on a pleasant note. Read a review of Chai, Chai in the November issue of India Today Travel Plus:
"Just five pages down, and you begin to see that the story of Chai, Chai is in the details that the writer has registered in simple, lucid prose. And it is this attention to detail that keeps you glued to the pages even when the pace slackens... Ghosh infuses colour and flavour in everyday life, describing seemingly mundane chores and happenings with a sincerity that gently persuades you into revisiting certain sections of the book."
Time for Chai, Chai to make a brief halt in Bangalore. So welcome, one and all, for the launch of the book at Crossword, Garuda Mall on November 28, 6 pm. Theatre personalities Prakash Belawadi and Smitha Chakravarthy will read from the book. V. Sriram, regional director of IRCTC, will preside over the event.
"Just five pages down, and you begin to see that the story of Chai, Chai is in the details that the writer has registered in simple, lucid prose. And it is this attention to detail that keeps you glued to the pages even when the pace slackens... Ghosh infuses colour and flavour in everyday life, describing seemingly mundane chores and happenings with a sincerity that gently persuades you into revisiting certain sections of the book."
Time for Chai, Chai to make a brief halt in Bangalore. So welcome, one and all, for the launch of the book at Crossword, Garuda Mall on November 28, 6 pm. Theatre personalities Prakash Belawadi and Smitha Chakravarthy will read from the book. V. Sriram, regional director of IRCTC, will preside over the event.
Meeting A Childhood Hero
As a child I could draw well. I still preserve the small, red dictionary that I had won as the first prize in a drawing competition at school. When I was 10 or 11, I had written to Chandamama, asking if they needed artists. Of course, I never got a reply. I would spend more time observing the illustrations in the magazine than reading the stories -- the gods and the goddesses, the kings and the princes, the sages and the hermits. I would always look for the name of the artist in the picture, and there came a time when I would decide if I liked a picture or not depending on the name of the artist. One artist I immensely admired was Sankar. I wanted to be like him. Remember the signature-illustration in the Vikram and the Vetala series -- the king wielding a naked sword and carrying a corpse on his back? That was drawn by Sankar sometime in the 1960's, and it still appears in the magazine.
Here's your truly with Sankar, who is now 85 and the only surviving member of the old team of Chandamama. He belongs to the simpler times and is, therefore, a simple man. Old age has taken a toll on his health, but his mind remains sharp and fingers steady as ever: he still draws for Chandamama. For me, meeting him was a childhood dream coming true.
Friday, November 06, 2009
This Is Mitali, And Here's My Story
Hello, my name is Mitali. Tonight I am borrowing a little bit of space on this blog to share my story. I don't know if my story will interest you, but I shall still tell it because tonight I feel like talking. My English is not all that great, so forgive me if I falter. I grew up in Nadia district in West Bengal and for most of my life I have spoken and written only in Bengali. It was only when I joined IIT that I was forced to start talking -- and thinking -- in English. Still, I am not very comfortable with the language. But do you really need language to convey an emotion? When a boy and a girl, sitting in the opposite berths of a train, start liking each other, do they actually spell out that they like each other? No, they don't. They don't even know what the others mother tongue is. It is their eyes that do the talking. You know what I mean, don't you?
So here is my story. But wait. Don't accuse the owner of this blog for writing a post while pretending to be a woman. Sometime ago, a woman called Shivani wrote her story on his blog too. I still don't know if Shivani is a real woman or a character born out of his imagination. But how does it matter? Imagination must be born out of reality. Shivani might have been his muse, but she has to be a child of reality. Anyway, I can't be anyone's muse: there is nothing special about me. I am pretty plain looking. Or so I think. Though when I was in school, the bad boys in the class used to pass lewd remarks. One day I had gone to the neighbourhood post office to buy some stamps, and there, on the wall of the post office, someone had scribbled in red with a piece of brick: "Mitali is sex bomb". I wanted to erase the line quietly but the clerk was watching me keenly, so I left as soon as I bought the stamps. He was looking at me as if he was imagining me naked. I felt disgusted.
Even at IIT I did not mingle with the boys too much. There was one boy I liked. Abhijeet was his name. He taught me how to smoke. Though I never quite picked up smoking. It was nice to take a drag from his cigarette once in a while. I liked him because he always made me laugh. But one night he was drunk, and he tried to rest his head on my lap. I slapped him. How dare he? Sex was sacred. I could not have given myself to anyone except the man of my dreams -- the man I would marry. Abhijeet could have been the man of my dreams -- maybe he was. But he was from Maharashtra. My parents would have never agreed. So he could not have been the man of my dreams. So I slapped him. Though I must say I felt very jealous when I saw Sunetra falling over him a few days later. Sex-starved woman, that bitch. I am sure Abhijeet must have slept with her, which only makes me feel glad that I slapped him. He was certainly not the man of my dreams.
My dream man was discovered by my parents in the matrimonial pages of the newspaper. It had to be that way: you never go looking for the dream man, he has to come to you. He was an IIT graduate himself but was now running his family business of manufacturing spare parts for the ordnance factories. I liked him the moment I saw him. He was fair, slightly chubby, just like a prince. We hardly spoke during out first meeting. I was very shy. I think he was shy too. But I remember him telling me, "I want you to take care of our home. Why do you need to work? If you don't take care of the home, who will?" I was floored by his charm. What he said made sense. Why work when he earned four times or five times than what I did, working in a company where I felt important only when someone's computer broke down. I was treated no better than a plumber. I gladly typed my resignation letter. That was the day when I felt sexy. My boss, however, scolded me for taking such a decision.
On our first night we had sex seven times. Yes, seven times. Can you believe it? Each time we would go to sleep, thinking that we were done for the day, we would start all over again. The sun had already risen when we decided, finally, to call it a day. The next thing I knew I was pregnant. Life could not have been more beautiful. What more could I have asked for? We were holidaying in Goa when I discovered I was pregnant. He was gazing at the sea from the hotel room when I came out to break the news to him. We hugged and spent the next two hours deciding a name for the child.
The first slap came two weeks later. That night we had hosted a small party at home for the dealers. It all went off well: I did the cooking and they all liked the food. But for some reason, he sulked all evening. It was as if his mind was elsewhere. After the guests had left, I asked him what was wrong. He did not reply and went about looking at some papers. When I asked him again, he slapped me. "Mind your own business!" he said. I was stunned -- well, that's an understatement. Even my father had never slapped me.
The next morning he said sorry and told me why he was upset, after which we made love. But neither my mind nor my body cooperated: both were still stunned by the slap. By the evening, a part of me had forgiven him but a part of me had not. The forgiving part told me: "After all, he is your husband. He is the father of your soon-to-be-born child. You are going to spend the rest of your life with him. So what if he slapped you. Maybe his mind was disturbed. Forget it, ignore it." The unforgiving part told me: "The slap has snapped something. Things are never going to be same hereafter. If he does that again, walk out."
I listened to my forgiving self. It was the easier option, rather than make a big issue out of one slap and walk out of a marriage that had otherwise made me feel secure and happy. After all, it was my own husband who had slapped me. That's what even my mother said. She said one has to make small adjustments in life. "You can't have your cake and eat it too," she told me something to that effect, "You are enjoying the best facilities in life, which I could not even dream of when I was my age." My father, however, sounded a little concerned. He said I could ignore the slap if it was only an emotional outburst, but in case I felt unsafe, his doors were always open for me.
The slaps, from then on, became a regular feature. He would slap me, then say sorry the next morning and everything would be all right till he slapped me again. The slaps, soon enough, became a part of my life. Initially, they would hurt me a lot, physically as well as mentally. But then I got used to them. Being scolded by the boss or slapped by the husband, what difference does it make. Your happiness depends on their whims.
Today I am 29. I have a four-year-old daughter, and a 35-year-old husband who slaps me when he is sober and makes love to me when he is drunk. I have no ambitions in life, except that when my daughter grows up, she should marry someone who respects her and does not slap her. Maybe a guy like Abhijeet. How I regret slapping him many years ago, that too for a silly reason. He was only trying to rest his head on my lap. He was decent enough to keep his hands away. Maybe the slaps I receive today on a regular basis is nature's way of taking revenge. But it's ok, am not complaining. I am pretty well-settled in marriage -- I am an obedient wife and a caring mother. What keeps me going is that when I go for the monthly kitty parties, the society women eye me with jealousy. I am the only one who is chauffeur-driven to these parties in a Mercedes. Their husbands still can't afford such an expensive car. A few slaps is just a small price to pay for the ultimate sense of security.
Only that there are times when other thoughts cross my mind. There are times when I wonder: I am only 29 and an IIT-grad and someone who the boys back home thought to be a sex bomb. Can't I just walk out of this marriage and start life afresh? Being 29 is nothing: many of my classmates are not even married and they are having the time of their lives. They get drunk and they decide which man to fuck, rather than having a drunk man force-fuck them. What fun! What is the point studying hard and getting into IIT and then landing a highly-paying job if you can't even have fun?
Abhijeet, by the way, is still not married. I think I can still say sorry to him about the slap and start a new life with him. But what to do: I have gotten so used to the slaps of my husband, the man of my dreams, that if he does not slap me at least once in a week, I feel he does not love me enough. It is his love that I seek. Nothing else matters.
So here is my story. But wait. Don't accuse the owner of this blog for writing a post while pretending to be a woman. Sometime ago, a woman called Shivani wrote her story on his blog too. I still don't know if Shivani is a real woman or a character born out of his imagination. But how does it matter? Imagination must be born out of reality. Shivani might have been his muse, but she has to be a child of reality. Anyway, I can't be anyone's muse: there is nothing special about me. I am pretty plain looking. Or so I think. Though when I was in school, the bad boys in the class used to pass lewd remarks. One day I had gone to the neighbourhood post office to buy some stamps, and there, on the wall of the post office, someone had scribbled in red with a piece of brick: "Mitali is sex bomb". I wanted to erase the line quietly but the clerk was watching me keenly, so I left as soon as I bought the stamps. He was looking at me as if he was imagining me naked. I felt disgusted.
Even at IIT I did not mingle with the boys too much. There was one boy I liked. Abhijeet was his name. He taught me how to smoke. Though I never quite picked up smoking. It was nice to take a drag from his cigarette once in a while. I liked him because he always made me laugh. But one night he was drunk, and he tried to rest his head on my lap. I slapped him. How dare he? Sex was sacred. I could not have given myself to anyone except the man of my dreams -- the man I would marry. Abhijeet could have been the man of my dreams -- maybe he was. But he was from Maharashtra. My parents would have never agreed. So he could not have been the man of my dreams. So I slapped him. Though I must say I felt very jealous when I saw Sunetra falling over him a few days later. Sex-starved woman, that bitch. I am sure Abhijeet must have slept with her, which only makes me feel glad that I slapped him. He was certainly not the man of my dreams.
My dream man was discovered by my parents in the matrimonial pages of the newspaper. It had to be that way: you never go looking for the dream man, he has to come to you. He was an IIT graduate himself but was now running his family business of manufacturing spare parts for the ordnance factories. I liked him the moment I saw him. He was fair, slightly chubby, just like a prince. We hardly spoke during out first meeting. I was very shy. I think he was shy too. But I remember him telling me, "I want you to take care of our home. Why do you need to work? If you don't take care of the home, who will?" I was floored by his charm. What he said made sense. Why work when he earned four times or five times than what I did, working in a company where I felt important only when someone's computer broke down. I was treated no better than a plumber. I gladly typed my resignation letter. That was the day when I felt sexy. My boss, however, scolded me for taking such a decision.
On our first night we had sex seven times. Yes, seven times. Can you believe it? Each time we would go to sleep, thinking that we were done for the day, we would start all over again. The sun had already risen when we decided, finally, to call it a day. The next thing I knew I was pregnant. Life could not have been more beautiful. What more could I have asked for? We were holidaying in Goa when I discovered I was pregnant. He was gazing at the sea from the hotel room when I came out to break the news to him. We hugged and spent the next two hours deciding a name for the child.
The first slap came two weeks later. That night we had hosted a small party at home for the dealers. It all went off well: I did the cooking and they all liked the food. But for some reason, he sulked all evening. It was as if his mind was elsewhere. After the guests had left, I asked him what was wrong. He did not reply and went about looking at some papers. When I asked him again, he slapped me. "Mind your own business!" he said. I was stunned -- well, that's an understatement. Even my father had never slapped me.
The next morning he said sorry and told me why he was upset, after which we made love. But neither my mind nor my body cooperated: both were still stunned by the slap. By the evening, a part of me had forgiven him but a part of me had not. The forgiving part told me: "After all, he is your husband. He is the father of your soon-to-be-born child. You are going to spend the rest of your life with him. So what if he slapped you. Maybe his mind was disturbed. Forget it, ignore it." The unforgiving part told me: "The slap has snapped something. Things are never going to be same hereafter. If he does that again, walk out."
I listened to my forgiving self. It was the easier option, rather than make a big issue out of one slap and walk out of a marriage that had otherwise made me feel secure and happy. After all, it was my own husband who had slapped me. That's what even my mother said. She said one has to make small adjustments in life. "You can't have your cake and eat it too," she told me something to that effect, "You are enjoying the best facilities in life, which I could not even dream of when I was my age." My father, however, sounded a little concerned. He said I could ignore the slap if it was only an emotional outburst, but in case I felt unsafe, his doors were always open for me.
The slaps, from then on, became a regular feature. He would slap me, then say sorry the next morning and everything would be all right till he slapped me again. The slaps, soon enough, became a part of my life. Initially, they would hurt me a lot, physically as well as mentally. But then I got used to them. Being scolded by the boss or slapped by the husband, what difference does it make. Your happiness depends on their whims.
Today I am 29. I have a four-year-old daughter, and a 35-year-old husband who slaps me when he is sober and makes love to me when he is drunk. I have no ambitions in life, except that when my daughter grows up, she should marry someone who respects her and does not slap her. Maybe a guy like Abhijeet. How I regret slapping him many years ago, that too for a silly reason. He was only trying to rest his head on my lap. He was decent enough to keep his hands away. Maybe the slaps I receive today on a regular basis is nature's way of taking revenge. But it's ok, am not complaining. I am pretty well-settled in marriage -- I am an obedient wife and a caring mother. What keeps me going is that when I go for the monthly kitty parties, the society women eye me with jealousy. I am the only one who is chauffeur-driven to these parties in a Mercedes. Their husbands still can't afford such an expensive car. A few slaps is just a small price to pay for the ultimate sense of security.
Only that there are times when other thoughts cross my mind. There are times when I wonder: I am only 29 and an IIT-grad and someone who the boys back home thought to be a sex bomb. Can't I just walk out of this marriage and start life afresh? Being 29 is nothing: many of my classmates are not even married and they are having the time of their lives. They get drunk and they decide which man to fuck, rather than having a drunk man force-fuck them. What fun! What is the point studying hard and getting into IIT and then landing a highly-paying job if you can't even have fun?
Abhijeet, by the way, is still not married. I think I can still say sorry to him about the slap and start a new life with him. But what to do: I have gotten so used to the slaps of my husband, the man of my dreams, that if he does not slap me at least once in a week, I feel he does not love me enough. It is his love that I seek. Nothing else matters.
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