Back home. Another day is over. Time for the ritual: switching on the computer, and while the screen comes fully alive, pouring a drink and choosing the book I would read in bed. Somewhere between now and then, dinner has to be cooked. Maybe I will make some rice and dal. Or sambhar. But right now it is time to click on one of the Winamp playlists. Today I choose 'Hindi'. The first song on the list is Tujhse naaraaz nahin zindagi, Lata's version of the Masoom hit: perfect accompaniment for the first drink.
The mind is already stirring. When you listen to a song as sublime as this, who do you credit its beauty to? The lyricist? The composer? The singer? The arguments can be many: If the lyricist writes a bad song, it cannot be salvaged even by the best of composers and singers. Even if the lyrics and the singer's voice is good, a bad tune can put listeners off. And even if the lyrics and the music are good, a bad singer can make both ineffective.
So at the end of the day, I guess, it is teamwork. But usually, it is teamwork between the lyricist and the composer. At the end of the day, however, it is the singer who steals the show. The composer comes no.2, and finally, the lyricist -- nobody even cares to remember him. Like I can't recall now whether the lyricist of Khel Khel Mein was Gulshan Bawra or Anand Bakshi. I think it was Gulshan Bawra. And you know how the famous song, Ek main aur ek tu was made?
RD was sitting at his home with Bawra, agonising over what tune to make. It was getting late and Bawra had to leave. As he waited for the lift, Bawra told RD, something to this effect: "Ek main hoon aur ek tum ho, agar dono mil jaayen, to gana kyon nahi banega? (If you and I come together, there is no way we can't make the song)." RD got a brainwave and instantly spat out the opening line: "Ek main aur ek too, dono milen is tarah..." The rest, as they say, is history. The 1975 song today is a classic, and is easily available, but you will find it in the albums of Kishore-Asha duets. Yes, at the end of the day, it became a Kishore song. It became an RD song. It became a Rishi Kapoor-Neetu Singh song. But have you even heard of Gulshan Bawra?
Lyricists always get a raw deal. I don't know how much they get paid -- or used to get paid -- for a song. They are the ones who sow the seed, painstakingly, on their writing desk. And I am not sure if many had even a writing desk. Naqsh Lyallpuri wrote very few songs for Hindi movies but all his songs were good, especially Yeh wohi geet hai jisko mainey, dhadkan mein basaya hai, composed by Jaidev (yet another music director who did not get his due) for a film called Maan Jaiye. When he first accepted to write lyrics for a film, he was paid a token advance of Rs 101. His wife, who was strongly against his writing songs for films, was hardly amused when he came home with the money. Go, return it right now, she said. Naqsh saab gave in and got up to leave for the producer's house. Just then their infant child began to cry. But there was no money for his milk: they were broke. So he decided to keep just one rupee for the milk and return the remaining hundred rupees to the producer. That the producer declined to take the money and persuaded him to write the songs is another story.
The point is, the lay listener never cares about the lyricist. Have you heard of Neeraj, or Yogesh? But I can be pretty sure you all have heard the songs of Anand and Chhoti Si Baat. Jaaneman jaaneman tere do nayan, Kahin door jab din dhal jaye, Zindagi kaise hai paheli... these are landmark songs of the Hindi film industry, but where is Yogesh, the man who wrote them all? Who remembers Neeraj, a Hindi professor from Aligarh, who wrote Phoolon ke rang se and Kaarwaan guzar gaya -- immortal songs?
Whatever I have written so far is not the result of any research or Google search, but straight out of my memory. These people have been on radio at some point or the other, be it anchoring the once-popular Jaimala programme (for fauji bhais, or soldiers) on AIR or giving interviews on 102.6 FM, the channel I was addicted to when I lived in Delhi.
But there are lyricists who have always extracted their share of recognition. And that is because they are -- or they have been -- engaged in things bigger than songwriting. Gulzar was an apprentice of Bimal Roy and he went on to direct big-time movies. Javed Akhtar wrote, rather co-wrote, movies that became very big time. Their persona was no less than that of the hero starring in those movies. So when they wrote songs, they were noticed. Having said that, none of this takes away from the beauty of the poetry written by Gulzar and Javed Akhtar. After all, each of them is a poet first: Gulzar, the celebral; and Javed, the rebel.
My favourite Gulzar song is Ek hi khwaab dekha hai kai baar maine (from Kinara), beautifully sung by Bhupinder and, in bits, by Hema Malini. 'Sung' is not quite the right word to use here, for it isn't a song: just a humming recitation of the lyrics. The credit, according to me, should go to the composer, Gulzar's dearest friend RD Burman, who left the poetry alone. And what poetry! I am not going to bother to reproduce the lyrics, but will sum up a bit of it in English: "Over the game of cards, when she fights, she seems playful. And when she is playful, she seems to be fighting." You have to listen to the song to understand what I am saying, or what I am trying to say. And then there is: Bechaara dil kya kare, and Ek baat kahoon par maano tum, and Tere bina jiya jaye na, and Aanewala pal jane wala hai and..., well, I can go on and on. Yes, I know I did not include Ijaazat, but according to me, its songs pale before the simplicity of Gol Maal or Khushboo.
And Javed saab, well. I met him recently in Chennai. As in, I happened to attend a function where he was the chief guest and where he read out some of his poems. He read out his poems in Hindi/Urdu, and they were translated simultaneously into English. The Chennai Page 3 crowd nodded in appreciation. The reading got over and Javed saab was free to mingle with the audience. I sat at a distance, nursing my drink, till my office photographer came to me and said: "Sir, why don't you get a picture taken with him? He is a VIP." VIP or not, I thought, but this is the man who wrote, rather co-wrote, Sholay. Yes, why not!
I found myself walking up to Javed saab and shaking his tender hand. "Javed saab, you should have recited Main aur meri aawaragi," I told him. "Thank you, thank you," he said, sqeezing my hand, and added, "Kya hai, yahaan par thodi language problem hai (you know what, there is a bit of a language problem here)." My day was made. The photographer took pictures, which I can't reproduce here because Javed saab looks so good and I look so horrible.
Main aur meri aawaragi -- that's my favourite Javed Akhtar song, first sung by Kishore Kumar and then by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. But I also like (who doesn't) Saagar jaise aankhon waali. Chennai has the saagar, and I am sure there are a number of saagar jaise aankhon waalis too. But no one has come my way yet.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Day I Cried
Just back from work. Switched on the laptop. Made a drink. Clicked on my 'Favourite' winamp playlist. And now listening to 24 Years Living Next Door to Alice. I must have heard the song more than a hundred times now, including in discos where they play the "Who The Fuck is Alice?!" version. But tonight I noticed something that I had never noticed before: a female chorus in the background! How did I miss that out?
Songs, I guess, are like books. Every re-listening, like every re-reading, brings out something new. Try reading a book that you read five years ago and you are bound to discover more of what it says and what it has left unsaid. So you don't really extract the full value till you have read it again and again. It is the same with songs, I believe, especially Hindi songs, whose real meaning sinks in only after you, over the years, have gone through the joys or pains the lyricist might have experienced while writing that song.
Take Sahir Ludhianvi, for example. I rate him as the most sensitive lyricist Hindi cinema has ever seen. Gulzar is at times celebral, at times cute. Majrooh was certainly a pillar of the industry, but his poetry never stood out on its own. Anand Bakshi was the John Grisham of Bollywood. But Sahir made you agonise. The writer Amrita Pritam was so much in love with him that whenever he would pay her a visit, she, after he had left, would smoke the smoked cigarettes from the ashtray: just to feel him in her lungs.
In the movie Kabhie Kabhie, where Amitabh Bachchan plays a young poet who gives in to pressures of life, Sahir wrote the lyrics. Two of the songs, both sung by Mukesh, were about a poet: Main pal do pal ka shayar hoon and Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon.
The gist of the first song: I am a poet only for a moment or two. That's what I am all about. My youth is only for a moment or two. My existence is only for a moment or two. Tomorrow another poet will come, and you won't waste your time on me.
The gist of the second song: I am an eternal poet. Every moment will bear my story. I will live on for ever. My youth will be for ever.
I first saw Kabhie Kabhie when I was 15 or so, and the first song had made me sad. Life is so cruel, I thought, why does someone have to retire and make way for the new. So when the second song came on at the end of the movie, I was joyous: "Yay! That's the spirit. Never say die!" To me it was one of the happy songs which is replayed in the end after the bad guys have been bashed up and handed over to the police and the hero and the heroine go on to live happily ever after.
About 15 years later, at the age of 30, I heard both the songs again. I understood the lyrics better now. The first one was good, no doubt. After all, nobody is at the peak of greatness for ever: eventually you have to make way for others. But the second song, which had cheered me 15 years ago, now brought tears to my eyes. By the time Mukesh finished Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon, my cheeks were wet. The song actually talked about the inevitable -- and irreversible -- progression of life. It hammered home the truth about your mortality. And how beautifully!
In the movie, Amitabh Bachchan and Rakhee were in love, but they could not marry. Rakhee is married off to Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh marries a widow Waheeda Rahman, who already has a daughter. The daughter grows up to be Neetu Singh, who falls in love with Rishi Kapoor, the son of Shashi and Rakhee. In that context, Sahir's lyrics in the second song, which I was not old or experienced enough to understand then, hit you like a hammer:
Rishton ka roop badalta hai, buniyaaden khatam nahin hoteen
khwaabon aur umango kee miyanden khatam nahi hoteen;
Ek phool mein tera roop basaa, ek phool mein meri jawaani hai
ek chehra teri nishani hai, ek chehra meri nishani hai
And then:
Tujhko mujhko jeevan amrit ab in haaton se peena hain,
inki dhadkan mein basna hai, inkey saanson main jeena hai;
Too apni adaayen baksh inhey, main apni wafaayen deta hoon
jo apne liye sochi thhi kabhi, woh saari duaaen deta hoon.
I can try and translate the lines for people who do not understand Hindi or Urdu. But in cases like these, one does more justice to the poet/lyricist by giving the gist of what he has said instead of attempting a translation. And in this song, Sahir says: The face of a relationship might change but its foundation remains intact. Today two younger flowers might have replaced us, but one of them possesses your beauty and the other has the strength of my youth. We have to now drink the nectar of life from their hands; our heartbeats and breaths are now theirs. Give her your style, and I will give him my sense of fidelity. And together, let us wish them what we could not wish for ourselves.
In other words, we pass on everything to the next generation before we die. Sahir is long dead, and Amrita Pritam died recently. Tomorrow, we are going to get old and die too. But is our love strong enough to live through generations? I don't know. I don't know because I am yet to meet the other half who would constitute the "our". At the moment, when the number of drinks has multiplied ever since I started writing this, I just want somebody to hold my hand. Anyone out there?
Songs, I guess, are like books. Every re-listening, like every re-reading, brings out something new. Try reading a book that you read five years ago and you are bound to discover more of what it says and what it has left unsaid. So you don't really extract the full value till you have read it again and again. It is the same with songs, I believe, especially Hindi songs, whose real meaning sinks in only after you, over the years, have gone through the joys or pains the lyricist might have experienced while writing that song.
Take Sahir Ludhianvi, for example. I rate him as the most sensitive lyricist Hindi cinema has ever seen. Gulzar is at times celebral, at times cute. Majrooh was certainly a pillar of the industry, but his poetry never stood out on its own. Anand Bakshi was the John Grisham of Bollywood. But Sahir made you agonise. The writer Amrita Pritam was so much in love with him that whenever he would pay her a visit, she, after he had left, would smoke the smoked cigarettes from the ashtray: just to feel him in her lungs.
In the movie Kabhie Kabhie, where Amitabh Bachchan plays a young poet who gives in to pressures of life, Sahir wrote the lyrics. Two of the songs, both sung by Mukesh, were about a poet: Main pal do pal ka shayar hoon and Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon.
The gist of the first song: I am a poet only for a moment or two. That's what I am all about. My youth is only for a moment or two. My existence is only for a moment or two. Tomorrow another poet will come, and you won't waste your time on me.
The gist of the second song: I am an eternal poet. Every moment will bear my story. I will live on for ever. My youth will be for ever.
I first saw Kabhie Kabhie when I was 15 or so, and the first song had made me sad. Life is so cruel, I thought, why does someone have to retire and make way for the new. So when the second song came on at the end of the movie, I was joyous: "Yay! That's the spirit. Never say die!" To me it was one of the happy songs which is replayed in the end after the bad guys have been bashed up and handed over to the police and the hero and the heroine go on to live happily ever after.
About 15 years later, at the age of 30, I heard both the songs again. I understood the lyrics better now. The first one was good, no doubt. After all, nobody is at the peak of greatness for ever: eventually you have to make way for others. But the second song, which had cheered me 15 years ago, now brought tears to my eyes. By the time Mukesh finished Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon, my cheeks were wet. The song actually talked about the inevitable -- and irreversible -- progression of life. It hammered home the truth about your mortality. And how beautifully!
In the movie, Amitabh Bachchan and Rakhee were in love, but they could not marry. Rakhee is married off to Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh marries a widow Waheeda Rahman, who already has a daughter. The daughter grows up to be Neetu Singh, who falls in love with Rishi Kapoor, the son of Shashi and Rakhee. In that context, Sahir's lyrics in the second song, which I was not old or experienced enough to understand then, hit you like a hammer:
Rishton ka roop badalta hai, buniyaaden khatam nahin hoteen
khwaabon aur umango kee miyanden khatam nahi hoteen;
Ek phool mein tera roop basaa, ek phool mein meri jawaani hai
ek chehra teri nishani hai, ek chehra meri nishani hai
And then:
Tujhko mujhko jeevan amrit ab in haaton se peena hain,
inki dhadkan mein basna hai, inkey saanson main jeena hai;
Too apni adaayen baksh inhey, main apni wafaayen deta hoon
jo apne liye sochi thhi kabhi, woh saari duaaen deta hoon.
I can try and translate the lines for people who do not understand Hindi or Urdu. But in cases like these, one does more justice to the poet/lyricist by giving the gist of what he has said instead of attempting a translation. And in this song, Sahir says: The face of a relationship might change but its foundation remains intact. Today two younger flowers might have replaced us, but one of them possesses your beauty and the other has the strength of my youth. We have to now drink the nectar of life from their hands; our heartbeats and breaths are now theirs. Give her your style, and I will give him my sense of fidelity. And together, let us wish them what we could not wish for ourselves.
In other words, we pass on everything to the next generation before we die. Sahir is long dead, and Amrita Pritam died recently. Tomorrow, we are going to get old and die too. But is our love strong enough to live through generations? I don't know. I don't know because I am yet to meet the other half who would constitute the "our". At the moment, when the number of drinks has multiplied ever since I started writing this, I just want somebody to hold my hand. Anyone out there?
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Problems
Last evening, bought yet another of the Paris Review anthologies, People With Problems. The problems of the protagonists in the stories are not problems that make you say, "Look, I think I have a problem." They are every day problems which keep occuring in my life, your life. We are all people with problems. The introduction to the anthology begins like this -- "The big problem, the one that keeps popping up in every story, is: missing women, or missing missing women, and in Charlie Smith's 'Crystal River,' even missing missing missing women." Moral of the story: women are at the centre of all problems. Come on, I am just kidding. But what if I am not?
All Things South And Beautiful
While surfing blogs last afternoon, I ran into a blogger who said the Tamil film Kandukondein Kandukondein was the best movie ever made or something to that effect. I would say it was one of the best movies made in recent years and even though I barely understand Tamil, I would always nurture a soft corner for it.
In 2000, when I was living in Delhi, I happened to see the movie in a theatre there, with English sub-titles. Till then, I had never been beyond Nagpur: I had no first-hand idea what was going on in the South, how the South looked like. I don't know what overcame me after the film ended (with a emotional scene when a tearful Ajit walks away from Tabu's home but pauses to ask, "Will you marry me?" and Tabu nods a yes), but I had made up my mind to come to the South at the first opportunity which, suprisingly, came within months.
When I landed in Chennai, songs of Minnale were a rage. They were just about everywhere. What music! Once here, I got hold of the Tamil versions of Rahman songs that had become hit in the North. Then I discovered Illayaraja (incidentally, he lives on the same street as mine). Then the Malalayam songs of Salil Choudhury, Chemmeen onwards: a gold mine! Still, the songs of Kandukondein Kandukondein retain a special place in my heart, especially Kannamoochi (sorry if I've spelt it wrong).
In a few weeks I will complete five years in Chennai. I am tempted to reproduce this piece I wrote for my paper around this time last year:
All Things South & Beautiful
You are never just an Indian in India: you are either a North Indian or a South Indian. Unless you happen to be from one of the Northeastern states, in which case you are not even considered an Indian — they call you either ‘‘Nepalese’’ or ‘‘Chinese.’’ Or unless you happen to be from Maharashtra, in which case you yourself aren’t sure whether you are a North Indian or a South Indian, or a bit of both.
Though Bal Thackeray would rubbish the North-South theory; he would say India is made up of Maharashtrians and non-Maharashtrians. Whatever one might say, the fact is that Maharashtra divides the two Indias and the two types of Indians. It is the border where the desh ends and the desam begins and vice-versa — depending where you are journeying from.
I made the journey exactly four years ago, after having lived on the northern side all my life. I was thirty, single and bored of a life that was fast and fake. The least I could do was cross that border and explore my own country — the places that had existed for me, so far, only as red or black dots on the map. So that’s what I did that night.
Delhi was wrapped in a blanket of fog when I said goodbye to it, peering out from the moisture-coated window of the Tamil Nadu Express. By the next afternoon, which was pleasant and sunny, I had left Delhi and North India far behind. I stood by the open door, watching the train roll on furiously from the land of parathas and puris to the land of idlis and dosas, from the land of Kavitas and Savitas to the land of Kavithas and Savithas, from the land of Hindi to the land where someone like me could speak only English. There was, however, a last chance to speak Hindi.
As I stood there, watching the green fields pass by, a young Sardarji emerged from the lavatory and stood next to me. I had noticed him the night before: he had a smile permanently fixed on his face. I asked him, ‘‘Do you live in Chennai?’’ He recoiled, as if he had touched a naked electric wire or a hot pan, and then, slapping his palms together, burst out laughing. ‘‘Chennai mein rehkar marna hai kya? (Do you think I am crazy enough to live in Chennai?),’’ he asked, his body still shaking with laughter.
When I asked him why, he replied, ‘‘Do you think anybody sane would ever live there? It’s a boring place. I am going there to fetch my wife. I reach there tomorrow morning and we leave the same evening.’’ And then the young man came close to me and, as if hatching a conspiracy, whispered, ‘‘Ek baat bataoon, South ke log hotey bade darpok hain (you know something, South Indians are a timid lot).’’ And then he burst our laughing again.
Timid: I had heard that before. It is because of their so-called timidity that South Indians are still preferred as tenants in the North. They pay the rent on time, make hardly any noise to disturb the landlord or fellow tenants, and vacate when asked to. Clearly, it was the case of civility being mistaken for timidity — something I had suspected then, and something I was to confirm in the following years.
Once in the South, you are forced to wonder whether the civility comes from the civilisation, or whether the civilisation is born out of the civility. Whatever the case, you encounter an entirely new civilisation once you cross the Vindhyas. And it hits you when you take your first autorickshaw ride (discount the ride from the railway station: autorickshaw drivers there are a tribe born to be loathed). The guy will politely say ‘Thank You’ after you pay him. And if you are in Kerala, the only way to offend a driver is to ask him to keep the change.
I distinctly remember my first autorickshaw ride in Chennai. On the way to the Marina beach, our vehicle found itself in front of a bus at a roundabout. To my utter surprise, the bus driver slowed down and motioned my driver to pass. Up North, the bus driver would’ve spat out a mouthful of expletives at the rickshaw driver for daring to cross his path. Out there, might is right — a policy that applies in everyday life and in every walk of life. The decent sort always get bullied. A family of four travelling second class can easily be pushed to the corner of their seats by a bunch of college students or office-goers. You can protest but only at the risk of being manhandled. Even the TTE measures you by how you look or how you are dressed — it clearly reflects in the manner he asks you to produce the ticket. That’s the North.
In the South, to begin with, travelling second class is as good as travelling first class or in air-conditioned coaches, though minus the comfort of the pillow and the blanket. And it does not matter who you are and how you look, as long as you have a valid ticket. College students and office-goers do get into the compartment, but they are too shy to intrude And the TTE calls you ‘Sir’.
Talking of journeys, in the North, they often extract your bio-data even before the train could pull out of the station. “So who was that guy then, who came to see you off?” — they ask intrusive questions like that. Below the Vindhyas, co-passengers leave you alone. If anything, they give you shy but warm smiles.
South Indians are a shy lot, generally speaking. But behind the shy demeanour hides a zealous advocate of culture and language. As a result, Carnatic music thrives along with rock music. And every December, while the North observes, year after year, the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri mosque, Chennai gears up for the Music Festival and Thiruvananthapuram prepares for some film festival or the other.
Religion seems to be another passion of the people here. They usually wear it on their foreheads. And this time of the year, it is common to see — be it a hi-tech office in Hyderabad or a bank in Chennai — an employee or two clad in black dhoti and walking around barefoot. They are preparing for the Sabarimala pilgrimage. Yet — and that’s the best part — the South rarely sees communal violence. Perhaps the bond of language is so strong that there’s no room for religious intolerance.
And how they love their language. Writers in Hindi are today a dying breed, and Bengalis are writing more in English than in their mother-tongue; but down South, a new face emerges every other day on the Malayalam or Tamil literary scene. Try rubbishing Gabriel Garcia Marquez in a place like Kozhikode and chances are you will be lynched. One wonders if nature has anything to do with the literary bent of mind, because that’s one thing the South has in abundance — natural beauty. Savouring it is like reading a classic — you read it again and again and each time you do so, you discover something that wasn’t apparent before.
So here I am, looking at the long list of places in the South, crossing the names where I’ve already been to and plotting when and how to make it to the rest. In spite of the travel, life does get boring at times, but it is no longer fake.
In 2000, when I was living in Delhi, I happened to see the movie in a theatre there, with English sub-titles. Till then, I had never been beyond Nagpur: I had no first-hand idea what was going on in the South, how the South looked like. I don't know what overcame me after the film ended (with a emotional scene when a tearful Ajit walks away from Tabu's home but pauses to ask, "Will you marry me?" and Tabu nods a yes), but I had made up my mind to come to the South at the first opportunity which, suprisingly, came within months.
When I landed in Chennai, songs of Minnale were a rage. They were just about everywhere. What music! Once here, I got hold of the Tamil versions of Rahman songs that had become hit in the North. Then I discovered Illayaraja (incidentally, he lives on the same street as mine). Then the Malalayam songs of Salil Choudhury, Chemmeen onwards: a gold mine! Still, the songs of Kandukondein Kandukondein retain a special place in my heart, especially Kannamoochi (sorry if I've spelt it wrong).
In a few weeks I will complete five years in Chennai. I am tempted to reproduce this piece I wrote for my paper around this time last year:
All Things South & Beautiful
You are never just an Indian in India: you are either a North Indian or a South Indian. Unless you happen to be from one of the Northeastern states, in which case you are not even considered an Indian — they call you either ‘‘Nepalese’’ or ‘‘Chinese.’’ Or unless you happen to be from Maharashtra, in which case you yourself aren’t sure whether you are a North Indian or a South Indian, or a bit of both.
Though Bal Thackeray would rubbish the North-South theory; he would say India is made up of Maharashtrians and non-Maharashtrians. Whatever one might say, the fact is that Maharashtra divides the two Indias and the two types of Indians. It is the border where the desh ends and the desam begins and vice-versa — depending where you are journeying from.
I made the journey exactly four years ago, after having lived on the northern side all my life. I was thirty, single and bored of a life that was fast and fake. The least I could do was cross that border and explore my own country — the places that had existed for me, so far, only as red or black dots on the map. So that’s what I did that night.
Delhi was wrapped in a blanket of fog when I said goodbye to it, peering out from the moisture-coated window of the Tamil Nadu Express. By the next afternoon, which was pleasant and sunny, I had left Delhi and North India far behind. I stood by the open door, watching the train roll on furiously from the land of parathas and puris to the land of idlis and dosas, from the land of Kavitas and Savitas to the land of Kavithas and Savithas, from the land of Hindi to the land where someone like me could speak only English. There was, however, a last chance to speak Hindi.
As I stood there, watching the green fields pass by, a young Sardarji emerged from the lavatory and stood next to me. I had noticed him the night before: he had a smile permanently fixed on his face. I asked him, ‘‘Do you live in Chennai?’’ He recoiled, as if he had touched a naked electric wire or a hot pan, and then, slapping his palms together, burst out laughing. ‘‘Chennai mein rehkar marna hai kya? (Do you think I am crazy enough to live in Chennai?),’’ he asked, his body still shaking with laughter.
When I asked him why, he replied, ‘‘Do you think anybody sane would ever live there? It’s a boring place. I am going there to fetch my wife. I reach there tomorrow morning and we leave the same evening.’’ And then the young man came close to me and, as if hatching a conspiracy, whispered, ‘‘Ek baat bataoon, South ke log hotey bade darpok hain (you know something, South Indians are a timid lot).’’ And then he burst our laughing again.
Timid: I had heard that before. It is because of their so-called timidity that South Indians are still preferred as tenants in the North. They pay the rent on time, make hardly any noise to disturb the landlord or fellow tenants, and vacate when asked to. Clearly, it was the case of civility being mistaken for timidity — something I had suspected then, and something I was to confirm in the following years.
Once in the South, you are forced to wonder whether the civility comes from the civilisation, or whether the civilisation is born out of the civility. Whatever the case, you encounter an entirely new civilisation once you cross the Vindhyas. And it hits you when you take your first autorickshaw ride (discount the ride from the railway station: autorickshaw drivers there are a tribe born to be loathed). The guy will politely say ‘Thank You’ after you pay him. And if you are in Kerala, the only way to offend a driver is to ask him to keep the change.
I distinctly remember my first autorickshaw ride in Chennai. On the way to the Marina beach, our vehicle found itself in front of a bus at a roundabout. To my utter surprise, the bus driver slowed down and motioned my driver to pass. Up North, the bus driver would’ve spat out a mouthful of expletives at the rickshaw driver for daring to cross his path. Out there, might is right — a policy that applies in everyday life and in every walk of life. The decent sort always get bullied. A family of four travelling second class can easily be pushed to the corner of their seats by a bunch of college students or office-goers. You can protest but only at the risk of being manhandled. Even the TTE measures you by how you look or how you are dressed — it clearly reflects in the manner he asks you to produce the ticket. That’s the North.
In the South, to begin with, travelling second class is as good as travelling first class or in air-conditioned coaches, though minus the comfort of the pillow and the blanket. And it does not matter who you are and how you look, as long as you have a valid ticket. College students and office-goers do get into the compartment, but they are too shy to intrude And the TTE calls you ‘Sir’.
Talking of journeys, in the North, they often extract your bio-data even before the train could pull out of the station. “So who was that guy then, who came to see you off?” — they ask intrusive questions like that. Below the Vindhyas, co-passengers leave you alone. If anything, they give you shy but warm smiles.
South Indians are a shy lot, generally speaking. But behind the shy demeanour hides a zealous advocate of culture and language. As a result, Carnatic music thrives along with rock music. And every December, while the North observes, year after year, the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri mosque, Chennai gears up for the Music Festival and Thiruvananthapuram prepares for some film festival or the other.
Religion seems to be another passion of the people here. They usually wear it on their foreheads. And this time of the year, it is common to see — be it a hi-tech office in Hyderabad or a bank in Chennai — an employee or two clad in black dhoti and walking around barefoot. They are preparing for the Sabarimala pilgrimage. Yet — and that’s the best part — the South rarely sees communal violence. Perhaps the bond of language is so strong that there’s no room for religious intolerance.
And how they love their language. Writers in Hindi are today a dying breed, and Bengalis are writing more in English than in their mother-tongue; but down South, a new face emerges every other day on the Malayalam or Tamil literary scene. Try rubbishing Gabriel Garcia Marquez in a place like Kozhikode and chances are you will be lynched. One wonders if nature has anything to do with the literary bent of mind, because that’s one thing the South has in abundance — natural beauty. Savouring it is like reading a classic — you read it again and again and each time you do so, you discover something that wasn’t apparent before.
So here I am, looking at the long list of places in the South, crossing the names where I’ve already been to and plotting when and how to make it to the rest. In spite of the travel, life does get boring at times, but it is no longer fake.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Dampened Mind
Rains are refusing to stop in Chennai. Are the rain gods, having been propitiated far too often, making up for the past years? Or are the gods shedding tears for something the human eye cannot see? Whatever it maybe, my mind isn't working. It is powered by sunlight, and the sun has been away for far too long now.
All those poets who wrote cute songs about the rain should have spent the past week in Chennai.
All those poets who wrote cute songs about the rain should have spent the past week in Chennai.
Don't Sing the Carols, Please!
They have already started playing the carols at Landmark, the bookshop which is like my second home (the third home is my office). Till ten years ago, listening to carols gave me more pleasure than anything else. They still do. There is an air of joy and innocence about them, and how effortlessly they transport you to a land that is foggy, if not covered with snow, where cheerful people move about, and from somewhere very far, you hear the strains of Jingle Bells.
But of late, whenever I hear the carols, a sense of concern elbows out whatever joy they bring me. The carols remind me that Christmas is near, which means the year is about to end, which means another year in my life is about to end. What have I done so far? Am I a success, or am I a failure?
While I was listening to the carols this evening, I felt the last grains of sand slipping out of my fist. How time flies! My breath still smells of the whisky I drank in the last New Year Party.
But of late, whenever I hear the carols, a sense of concern elbows out whatever joy they bring me. The carols remind me that Christmas is near, which means the year is about to end, which means another year in my life is about to end. What have I done so far? Am I a success, or am I a failure?
While I was listening to the carols this evening, I felt the last grains of sand slipping out of my fist. How time flies! My breath still smells of the whisky I drank in the last New Year Party.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Mourning the Love Letter
Cleaning my cupboard last Sunday, I found myself removing not only the real cobwebs but also the cobwebs spun by time. In the last shelf, behind dust-coated magazines and a bunch of old papers, I found the red bag.
The bag had been my companion for 11 years, but presently it lay there, hidden and forgotten for God knows how long. It contained something very precious — the documented evidence of my romantic youth. Even I had forgotten how I was then — or who I was then — but the yellowing love letters brought the memories back.
It was 1994 and I had just migrated from Kanpur to Delhi. I had no friends in the big city and survived on letters written to and received from people (girls, that is) living elsewhere. In due course, I made more friends, including those who lived in Delhi. To them also I wrote long letters, because I didn’t have a phone then and their phones were monitored by their dads and to meet me they had to cook up excuses, which wasn’t easy all the time. So the easiest way was to jot down matters of the heart, fold the piece of paper and hand it over to them at the next meeting.
So every evening after I got home from work, I would light up the red Chinese lamp by my bed, fill ink in my fountain pen and start writing, imagining the face of the proposed recipient. It’s a different thing altogether that after four paragraphs it didn’t matter who I was writing to, because by then I was writing to myself.
But the most exciting part was the reply. You could, obviously, tell the identity of the sender from the handwriting on the envelope; and your eagerness to tear it open was inversely proportional to the number of days/months/years you’d known the girl. For example, if it was from someone you’d got to know only last month, you’d not only read and re-read the lines but also try and read between the lines. You could see her face on the piece of paper and the ink smelt of her. And that made you yearn for silly things: watching a movie with her while holding her hand. And the impossibility of that happening — for whatever reason — made you yearn even more, making you go through the letter again and again.
Today I have quite an impressive collection of fountain pens but I no longer write. I e-mail my love letters. In fact I don’t even e-mail — since it can be done at the click of the mouse, I procrastinate. And why e-mail, when I can SMS her?
That reminds me, the other day I got a message on my cellphone. It was from a girl who had been ditched by her boyfriend. She was pouring her heart out to another friend but the message reached me — a misfire, as they say. Anyway, I sought to comfort her and we got talking. The conversation stretched to four hours at the end of which she said: ‘‘Will you give me a hug? That’s what I need now.’’
Suddenly, it was all so simple. Well, technology might have shown me the short cut, but somewhere along the path, I’ve lost myself — the person who came out of hiding every time he sat with a pen and paper and began with the words, ‘‘My dear...’’
The bag had been my companion for 11 years, but presently it lay there, hidden and forgotten for God knows how long. It contained something very precious — the documented evidence of my romantic youth. Even I had forgotten how I was then — or who I was then — but the yellowing love letters brought the memories back.
It was 1994 and I had just migrated from Kanpur to Delhi. I had no friends in the big city and survived on letters written to and received from people (girls, that is) living elsewhere. In due course, I made more friends, including those who lived in Delhi. To them also I wrote long letters, because I didn’t have a phone then and their phones were monitored by their dads and to meet me they had to cook up excuses, which wasn’t easy all the time. So the easiest way was to jot down matters of the heart, fold the piece of paper and hand it over to them at the next meeting.
So every evening after I got home from work, I would light up the red Chinese lamp by my bed, fill ink in my fountain pen and start writing, imagining the face of the proposed recipient. It’s a different thing altogether that after four paragraphs it didn’t matter who I was writing to, because by then I was writing to myself.
But the most exciting part was the reply. You could, obviously, tell the identity of the sender from the handwriting on the envelope; and your eagerness to tear it open was inversely proportional to the number of days/months/years you’d known the girl. For example, if it was from someone you’d got to know only last month, you’d not only read and re-read the lines but also try and read between the lines. You could see her face on the piece of paper and the ink smelt of her. And that made you yearn for silly things: watching a movie with her while holding her hand. And the impossibility of that happening — for whatever reason — made you yearn even more, making you go through the letter again and again.
Today I have quite an impressive collection of fountain pens but I no longer write. I e-mail my love letters. In fact I don’t even e-mail — since it can be done at the click of the mouse, I procrastinate. And why e-mail, when I can SMS her?
That reminds me, the other day I got a message on my cellphone. It was from a girl who had been ditched by her boyfriend. She was pouring her heart out to another friend but the message reached me — a misfire, as they say. Anyway, I sought to comfort her and we got talking. The conversation stretched to four hours at the end of which she said: ‘‘Will you give me a hug? That’s what I need now.’’
Suddenly, it was all so simple. Well, technology might have shown me the short cut, but somewhere along the path, I’ve lost myself — the person who came out of hiding every time he sat with a pen and paper and began with the words, ‘‘My dear...’’
Rain
Beauty is so much like the red shirt or top seeking your attention from the rack of a showroom. Under the lights, the shade of red is so subtle that you end up buying it. But step out of the shop and hold the shirt to sunlight, the same red becomes too loud. That's how most things are. Such as rain. When you are in the comfort of your home, in agreeable company and when your mind is at peace, rain is romantic. But when you are lonely, craving for company that very moment, and when you can't decide whether you should cook or order food, rain becomes wretched. And it is raining a lot in Chennai these days.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Sex
Last evening I bought what could be the book with longest title ever: The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, The Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953. Where was the book hiding all this while? Or, where was I hiding all this while? I was busy drinking. Drinking a cocktail whose ingredients were ambition and laziness, passion and loneliness. End result? It was like drinking water. No kick, nothing. And then this book. After a long time I found good reason to pour myself a large drink. I began with Sex. My favourite bits:
S. X. Rosenstock's Rimininny! (1996):
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.
You're not the best of what's been thought or said,
Not yet. But youth, with genius, is enough.
Menage a trois is greatness, not rebuff,
If you gain art from what art's represented.
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.
I want you, and I want a paragraph
Of lengthy James; he does go on. My love
Can you? I shouldn't praise his length? Enough
Of him? The body of work's living proof
We're all rare forms, and living ... in the dead.
If you can't A Little Tour in France me while I read,
fuck off.
I signal lusts by title, not handkerchief,
Since I'm the sex of all that I have read;
Sometimes I write this sex. Kiss me enough,
And well enough, that I may hear the snub
That reading's not a sexual preference.
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off,
Or rave how I'm a work of art enough.
From John Updike's Two Cunts in Paris (1997):
Called La Gimblette,
this piece of the eternal feminine,
a doll of femaleness whose vulval facts
are set in place with a watchmaker's care,
provides a measure of how art falls
of a Creator's providence, which gives
His Creatures, all, the homely means to spawn.
Margaret Atwood on the Art of Fiction (1990):
INTERVIEWER - Is sex easy to write about?
ATWOOD - If by "sex" you mean just the sex act -- "the earth moved" stuff -- well, I don't think I can write those scenes much. They can so quickly become comic or pretentious or overly metaphoric. "Her breasts were like apples," that sort of thing. But "sex" is not just which part of whose body was where. It's the relationship between the participants, the furniture in the room or the leaves on the tree, what gets said before and what after, the emotions -- act of love, act of lust, act of hate. Act of indifference, act of violence, act of despair, act of manipulation, act of hope? Those things have to be part of it.
S. X. Rosenstock's Rimininny! (1996):
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.
You're not the best of what's been thought or said,
Not yet. But youth, with genius, is enough.
Menage a trois is greatness, not rebuff,
If you gain art from what art's represented.
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.
I want you, and I want a paragraph
Of lengthy James; he does go on. My love
Can you? I shouldn't praise his length? Enough
Of him? The body of work's living proof
We're all rare forms, and living ... in the dead.
If you can't A Little Tour in France me while I read,
fuck off.
I signal lusts by title, not handkerchief,
Since I'm the sex of all that I have read;
Sometimes I write this sex. Kiss me enough,
And well enough, that I may hear the snub
That reading's not a sexual preference.
If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off,
Or rave how I'm a work of art enough.
From John Updike's Two Cunts in Paris (1997):
Called La Gimblette,
this piece of the eternal feminine,
a doll of femaleness whose vulval facts
are set in place with a watchmaker's care,
provides a measure of how art falls
of a Creator's providence, which gives
His Creatures, all, the homely means to spawn.
Margaret Atwood on the Art of Fiction (1990):
INTERVIEWER - Is sex easy to write about?
ATWOOD - If by "sex" you mean just the sex act -- "the earth moved" stuff -- well, I don't think I can write those scenes much. They can so quickly become comic or pretentious or overly metaphoric. "Her breasts were like apples," that sort of thing. But "sex" is not just which part of whose body was where. It's the relationship between the participants, the furniture in the room or the leaves on the tree, what gets said before and what after, the emotions -- act of love, act of lust, act of hate. Act of indifference, act of violence, act of despair, act of manipulation, act of hope? Those things have to be part of it.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Honeymoon
Heavy rain in Pune
the city under flood
Come, we will make a tent
of the black saree and honeymoon
Feasting on each other's flesh
drawing each other's blood
the city under flood
Come, we will make a tent
of the black saree and honeymoon
Feasting on each other's flesh
drawing each other's blood
The kiss
The skin
so lovely and smooth
I lost my way
I found a phone booth
and asked for landmark
Red turned her skin
"Don't you remember," she whispered,
"the dimple on my chin?"
so lovely and smooth
I lost my way
I found a phone booth
and asked for landmark
Red turned her skin
"Don't you remember," she whispered,
"the dimple on my chin?"
The Eyes
Her silhouette robed
the face veiled
save the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"Welcome to the Temple,
I shall be your guide,"
said the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"There lived Neruda, here lived Camus,
And there! There goes Coelho,"
showed the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"If you want to read them
read my eyes,"
smiled the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"The eyes are so pretty
how about the breasts?"
I asked the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"Go away, you scoundrel!
You have defiled the temple."
screamed the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"Tell me, O lady, did Neruda
live and die here looking
only at these eyes?" --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
the face veiled
save the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"Welcome to the Temple,
I shall be your guide,"
said the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"There lived Neruda, here lived Camus,
And there! There goes Coelho,"
showed the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"If you want to read them
read my eyes,"
smiled the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"The eyes are so pretty
how about the breasts?"
I asked the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"Go away, you scoundrel!
You have defiled the temple."
screamed the eyes --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
"Tell me, O lady, did Neruda
live and die here looking
only at these eyes?" --
ageless eyes
timeless eyes.
Dream
Depression in the white pillow
on it a strand of hair
I listen for running water
and tinkling of bangles in the air
I cuddle the pillow, turn over
and a thought escapes:
dreams are such a tease
they even come in shapes
on it a strand of hair
I listen for running water
and tinkling of bangles in the air
I cuddle the pillow, turn over
and a thought escapes:
dreams are such a tease
they even come in shapes
Love
I hoped for the healing hug
but you stripped me
cut me open
exposed my entrails
all in the name of love.
Someone, call the surgeon!
who will stitch me up
clothe me
run a healing hand and say:
all in the game of love!
but you stripped me
cut me open
exposed my entrails
all in the name of love.
Someone, call the surgeon!
who will stitch me up
clothe me
run a healing hand and say:
all in the game of love!
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Sunday Musings
Sunday morning: After a long time, one whole year, it has meant togetherness to me. A far cry from the lonely Sundays in Chennai, where I wake up to the smell of mustard spluttering in one of the neighbouring kitchens and doze off again late in the afternoons, waking up to realise it is already dark and lights need to be switched on.
But there are exciting Sundays too -- a full round of yoga, great afternoon-long sex, invigorating walk in the park, and a few drinks in the evening to make up for the lost sweat. And if a burst of creativity strikes in the night, the Sunday is made.
Sitting in Kanpur, surrounded by all the comforts one can think of, it feels good -- and safe -- to recollect those miserable Sundays as well those exciting Sundays. In fact, I think of Chennai most of the time -- my work, my books, the people I love, the people who love me, my friends, my supposed friends... That's the safest thing to do. Because if I think about Kanpur, it would be like staring at a stark reality -- the irreversible progression of life.
One neighbour has died, another neighbour's son has got married, another family in the neighbourhood have sold their house and gone away -- the standard bunch of news that awaits me every time I make the annual trip home. Then I go to the cigarette shop in the corner of the street: that's the street of my life. There, I see people -- people I had last seen a year ago, the year before, five years ago, ten years ago, even twenty... Grey hair, more grey hair, a limp, loss of weight (possibly because of diabetes), falling teeth, the general 'old' look -- these hitherto-unseen features make them unrecognisable at first. And when you recognise them, images of what they looked like in their hey day flashes in front of you. And you think: wasn't it just the other day?
At time you wish certain people went unrecognised. At the office of a small but newly-opened newspaper in the city, I saw an old, frail man -- he must be about 75 -- holding a paper close to his eyes. Occasionally he would put the paper down to make corrections, and then hold it close to his eyes again. He is the proof-reader there, hired only recently because too many mistakes were going into the paper. He spends two hours a day there, for which he is paid Rs 1500 a month. He comes there because he needs the money. He was my first chief reporter, a big journalist in the city when I started as a trainee journalist 13 years ago. I sneaked out before his eyes could meet mine.
But there are exciting Sundays too -- a full round of yoga, great afternoon-long sex, invigorating walk in the park, and a few drinks in the evening to make up for the lost sweat. And if a burst of creativity strikes in the night, the Sunday is made.
Sitting in Kanpur, surrounded by all the comforts one can think of, it feels good -- and safe -- to recollect those miserable Sundays as well those exciting Sundays. In fact, I think of Chennai most of the time -- my work, my books, the people I love, the people who love me, my friends, my supposed friends... That's the safest thing to do. Because if I think about Kanpur, it would be like staring at a stark reality -- the irreversible progression of life.
One neighbour has died, another neighbour's son has got married, another family in the neighbourhood have sold their house and gone away -- the standard bunch of news that awaits me every time I make the annual trip home. Then I go to the cigarette shop in the corner of the street: that's the street of my life. There, I see people -- people I had last seen a year ago, the year before, five years ago, ten years ago, even twenty... Grey hair, more grey hair, a limp, loss of weight (possibly because of diabetes), falling teeth, the general 'old' look -- these hitherto-unseen features make them unrecognisable at first. And when you recognise them, images of what they looked like in their hey day flashes in front of you. And you think: wasn't it just the other day?
At time you wish certain people went unrecognised. At the office of a small but newly-opened newspaper in the city, I saw an old, frail man -- he must be about 75 -- holding a paper close to his eyes. Occasionally he would put the paper down to make corrections, and then hold it close to his eyes again. He is the proof-reader there, hired only recently because too many mistakes were going into the paper. He spends two hours a day there, for which he is paid Rs 1500 a month. He comes there because he needs the money. He was my first chief reporter, a big journalist in the city when I started as a trainee journalist 13 years ago. I sneaked out before his eyes could meet mine.
Friday, October 28, 2005
A Song for Cornershop Girl
The shop is still there,
in it strange faces.
If the shop mattered,
strangers would be friends.
Like a man possessed,
I look for your face,
in those faces, hoping:
the eyes would match, it doesn’t;
the nose would match, it doesn’t;
the words would match -- nowhere near!
Even their songs are strange.
But I still go there,
light a cigarette
and turn my ear to the sky
and listen to your song.
I hear silence, so I sing to you,
silently:
I know you, know you O lady from foreign land
You live across the ocean O lady from foreign land…
Remember the Tagore song --
your song, my song?
I still hear silence.
I know you are there,
somewhere up there.
If you see Tagore there,
will you ask him
to write a song
for my Cornershop Girl?
in it strange faces.
If the shop mattered,
strangers would be friends.
Like a man possessed,
I look for your face,
in those faces, hoping:
the eyes would match, it doesn’t;
the nose would match, it doesn’t;
the words would match -- nowhere near!
Even their songs are strange.
But I still go there,
light a cigarette
and turn my ear to the sky
and listen to your song.
I hear silence, so I sing to you,
silently:
I know you, know you O lady from foreign land
You live across the ocean O lady from foreign land…
Remember the Tagore song --
your song, my song?
I still hear silence.
I know you are there,
somewhere up there.
If you see Tagore there,
will you ask him
to write a song
for my Cornershop Girl?
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Cornershop Girl
Sunday morning:
clear sky after the rain.
I went to the corner shop
to buy cigarettes --
a five-year-old ritual.
A girl ran the shop:
Cornershop Girl, I called her.
She sold cough and death
but gave lessons
on love and life.
She died last year.
Or so they told me.
But every morning
I go there to look
for my Cornershop Girl.
clear sky after the rain.
I went to the corner shop
to buy cigarettes --
a five-year-old ritual.
A girl ran the shop:
Cornershop Girl, I called her.
She sold cough and death
but gave lessons
on love and life.
She died last year.
Or so they told me.
But every morning
I go there to look
for my Cornershop Girl.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Alcohol
Over alcohol we became friends.
Then one day,
we got drunk and fought.
We don't meet anymore,
but alcohol remains a common friend.
Then one day,
we got drunk and fought.
We don't meet anymore,
but alcohol remains a common friend.
Bachelorhood
I am a bird,
one of the species which lives in cages.
My father lives in a cage,
so does my mother.
And so does everyone who looks like me.
But what use my wings, if I can't fly?
And to be fed by strange fingers,
whenever they want to feed me,
and not when I am hungry?
To be looked at by strange pairs of eyes,
even when you want to be alone?
And to be released from the cage,
when your wings are no longer strong?
No, no, no. Not my scene.
"If you want to be in the cage,"
I told the rest of my lot,
"be there. Count me out.
I am going to use my wings
and fly above the skyscrapers."
Food?
What are the fruits on the trees for?
And the breads left over
in the balconies of the skyscrapers?
Life was bliss:
eating fresh fruits
and the half-eaten breads,
sitting on the branches,
and coiled in the warmth of balconies.
Ten years passed.
Ten happy years.
Reality struck one day:
fruits had become half-eaten
and half-eaten breads disappearing.
The younger birds
devouring them all!
"Why don't you go to cages,"
I asked them,
"and lead happy lives?"
They thumbed their beaks
and told me,
"Why don't you?"
Why don't I?
Why didn't I?
Because I wanted freedom.
And where is the freedom?
It came with an expiry date.
I didn't know that: my fault.
Now I am looking for a cage,
where strange hands will feed me
and admire whatever is left of me
and wipe me when I am wet.
The cages I want to go to
are either occupied
or don't want an occupant.
Some want an occupant,
"but not right now," they say.
What do I do now?
Walk into any cage that is empty,
and risk my wings chopped?
Or keep sitting on the branches,
braving the sun and the rain?
one of the species which lives in cages.
My father lives in a cage,
so does my mother.
And so does everyone who looks like me.
But what use my wings, if I can't fly?
And to be fed by strange fingers,
whenever they want to feed me,
and not when I am hungry?
To be looked at by strange pairs of eyes,
even when you want to be alone?
And to be released from the cage,
when your wings are no longer strong?
No, no, no. Not my scene.
"If you want to be in the cage,"
I told the rest of my lot,
"be there. Count me out.
I am going to use my wings
and fly above the skyscrapers."
Food?
What are the fruits on the trees for?
And the breads left over
in the balconies of the skyscrapers?
Life was bliss:
eating fresh fruits
and the half-eaten breads,
sitting on the branches,
and coiled in the warmth of balconies.
Ten years passed.
Ten happy years.
Reality struck one day:
fruits had become half-eaten
and half-eaten breads disappearing.
The younger birds
devouring them all!
"Why don't you go to cages,"
I asked them,
"and lead happy lives?"
They thumbed their beaks
and told me,
"Why don't you?"
Why don't I?
Why didn't I?
Because I wanted freedom.
And where is the freedom?
It came with an expiry date.
I didn't know that: my fault.
Now I am looking for a cage,
where strange hands will feed me
and admire whatever is left of me
and wipe me when I am wet.
The cages I want to go to
are either occupied
or don't want an occupant.
Some want an occupant,
"but not right now," they say.
What do I do now?
Walk into any cage that is empty,
and risk my wings chopped?
Or keep sitting on the branches,
braving the sun and the rain?
Life Sentence
Wish I was in prison
I would have a goal:
Freedom!
A free man has no goals:
he serves life sentence,
imprisoned by Desire and Fear.
Desire for love, money, respect;
The fear of losing all of them,
and losing the loved ones.
Freedom comes finally with death,
but of what use freedom
when you can't walk a free man
on the same earth again?
Free is the man
who you think is languishing in jail,
or the man meditating half-naked
in the Himalayas.
I want to be free.
But too cold in the Himalayas.
I would rather rob a bank.
I would have a goal:
Freedom!
A free man has no goals:
he serves life sentence,
imprisoned by Desire and Fear.
Desire for love, money, respect;
The fear of losing all of them,
and losing the loved ones.
Freedom comes finally with death,
but of what use freedom
when you can't walk a free man
on the same earth again?
Free is the man
who you think is languishing in jail,
or the man meditating half-naked
in the Himalayas.
I want to be free.
But too cold in the Himalayas.
I would rather rob a bank.
Circle of Life
Last October; Spencer Plaza:
At the bookshop I waited for Anjali.
"Two minutes" became two hours,
before she came, panting.
Her pants wet and rolled up,
her feet wet and sandy.
"So sorry," she squeezed my palm,
"I was at the Marina,
playing with friends.
I must rush now,
or Mom will kill me."
Anjali sprinted away like a little girl --
away from the bookshop, away from my life.
This October; Spencer Plaza.
"Sale": screamed the bookshop.
People carrying bundles of books.
Amid them, a big-eyed beauty,
carrying a small bundle of life.
"My baby," Anjali beamed.
I looked at the baby,
who chuckled to me in silence:
"Do you see that?
I've made your girl a Mom?"
I recalled the sandy feet.
Life had sprinted full circle,
even before time could fly.
At the bookshop I waited for Anjali.
"Two minutes" became two hours,
before she came, panting.
Her pants wet and rolled up,
her feet wet and sandy.
"So sorry," she squeezed my palm,
"I was at the Marina,
playing with friends.
I must rush now,
or Mom will kill me."
Anjali sprinted away like a little girl --
away from the bookshop, away from my life.
This October; Spencer Plaza.
"Sale": screamed the bookshop.
People carrying bundles of books.
Amid them, a big-eyed beauty,
carrying a small bundle of life.
"My baby," Anjali beamed.
I looked at the baby,
who chuckled to me in silence:
"Do you see that?
I've made your girl a Mom?"
I recalled the sandy feet.
Life had sprinted full circle,
even before time could fly.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
The Pink Ship
I ran into the Pink Ship,
in a river called Cyber.
I asked her: “Can we sail together?”
She blinked, and smiled,
and sent some smileys.
And more smileys.
“Just trying them out,
wondering how they look on screen.”
The smileys: her face.
The typed words: her voice.
So mischievous, so seductive!
I stretched out my hand to touch her,
only to touch a glass screen.
Then I buzzed her:
“Can we sail together?”
The reply came in a moment:
“Pink Ship has signed out.”
in a river called Cyber.
I asked her: “Can we sail together?”
She blinked, and smiled,
and sent some smileys.
And more smileys.
“Just trying them out,
wondering how they look on screen.”
The smileys: her face.
The typed words: her voice.
So mischievous, so seductive!
I stretched out my hand to touch her,
only to touch a glass screen.
Then I buzzed her:
“Can we sail together?”
The reply came in a moment:
“Pink Ship has signed out.”
No. 70, Memory Lane
Nostalgia is the cushion people rest their elbows on when life gets on their nerves. “Ah, those were the days!” they sigh as they recline on the cushion and go on the rewind mode. Why do things from the distant past look so rosy? Perhaps the passage of time acts as an anaesthetic — the painful gets buried and the pleasurable lingers in your senses.
We usually get nostalgic about our growing up years, or the years we think were the best in our lives. That is why you come across people — mostly elderly — who begin any conversation with, “Those days...” or “When I was your age...” Or people — the elderly and the not-so-elderly — who tell you the same anecdote over and over again. If you find them irritating, remember, tomorrow somebody could find you tiresome too.
I was born in 1970; and even though I was a child then, I get nostalgic about the 70’s because I am possessive about that decade, about any year that has 7 as its third digit. Today, when I look back, I desperately wish I was not a child then, but a 20-year-old so that I could soak in the delights of that magical decade. It was, in fact, the best decade modern India ever lived in and if you disagree, read on.
To begin with, there was peace. Terrorism — to use the cliche — was yet to raise its ugly head. The term Secularism, on the other hand, was yet to become a cliche — India was secular. You could go to Kashmir as freely as you go to Kerala today, and Assam was known more for its tea and oil. Prime Ministers went around in open jeeps.
Even movies — since they reflect real life — didn’t have much violence. The villains were mostly smugglers or thieves and their weapons were usually their fists, knives and pistols. And the range of movies you had! On one hand, there was the angry young man personified by Amitabh Bachchan, on the other there was ‘middle-class’ Amol Palekar — you liked him because he enacted your life on the screen.
The music created then has remained timeless: music companies are still making money from their popularity. Today, technology, and not the composer, makes the music: the keyboard is a substitute for a dozen violins. Where’s the melody?
Talking of technology, in the 70’s, it was advanced enough for people to keep in touch on phone or telex. But not advanced enough to let Mozart 40 on someone’s mobile phone ruin a Ravi Shankar concert.
Most luxuries of life were available then — car, fridge, TV; but people did not buy them with borrowed money. So you didn’t have bank executives pestering you — either to take a credit card or to remind you that the credit card payment is due.
Politics was principled and rarely opportunistic. Scams were unheard of. And democracy was robust: people rose up to throw out a government that had become autocratic.
Cancer was as scary then as it is now, but cholera, pox and TB had stopped killing people. And it was only morality that stopped you from doing immoral things, not the fear of a killer disease called AIDS.
Still disagree with me? But I told you I am possessive about the 70’s.
We usually get nostalgic about our growing up years, or the years we think were the best in our lives. That is why you come across people — mostly elderly — who begin any conversation with, “Those days...” or “When I was your age...” Or people — the elderly and the not-so-elderly — who tell you the same anecdote over and over again. If you find them irritating, remember, tomorrow somebody could find you tiresome too.
I was born in 1970; and even though I was a child then, I get nostalgic about the 70’s because I am possessive about that decade, about any year that has 7 as its third digit. Today, when I look back, I desperately wish I was not a child then, but a 20-year-old so that I could soak in the delights of that magical decade. It was, in fact, the best decade modern India ever lived in and if you disagree, read on.
To begin with, there was peace. Terrorism — to use the cliche — was yet to raise its ugly head. The term Secularism, on the other hand, was yet to become a cliche — India was secular. You could go to Kashmir as freely as you go to Kerala today, and Assam was known more for its tea and oil. Prime Ministers went around in open jeeps.
Even movies — since they reflect real life — didn’t have much violence. The villains were mostly smugglers or thieves and their weapons were usually their fists, knives and pistols. And the range of movies you had! On one hand, there was the angry young man personified by Amitabh Bachchan, on the other there was ‘middle-class’ Amol Palekar — you liked him because he enacted your life on the screen.
The music created then has remained timeless: music companies are still making money from their popularity. Today, technology, and not the composer, makes the music: the keyboard is a substitute for a dozen violins. Where’s the melody?
Talking of technology, in the 70’s, it was advanced enough for people to keep in touch on phone or telex. But not advanced enough to let Mozart 40 on someone’s mobile phone ruin a Ravi Shankar concert.
Most luxuries of life were available then — car, fridge, TV; but people did not buy them with borrowed money. So you didn’t have bank executives pestering you — either to take a credit card or to remind you that the credit card payment is due.
Politics was principled and rarely opportunistic. Scams were unheard of. And democracy was robust: people rose up to throw out a government that had become autocratic.
Cancer was as scary then as it is now, but cholera, pox and TB had stopped killing people. And it was only morality that stopped you from doing immoral things, not the fear of a killer disease called AIDS.
Still disagree with me? But I told you I am possessive about the 70’s.
On The Ganga Mail
The Ganga is like a train. It starts from a station called Gangotri, up in the Himalayas, and, after chugging through the plains of North India, terminates at the mouth of Bay of Bengal. Everyday, millions board the train at various stations, hoping to get to a place called Salvation. Nobody has ever seen the place; they’ve only heard about it. Yet, they undertake the tedious journey.
The notable difference between the Ganga and the regular train is that the Ganga doesn’t have any classes — no second class, first class, 2AC or 3AC. It has only one class — faith. And the notable similarity is — well, to find that you’ll have to take the Ganga Mail. It’s like taking, say, the Kalka Mail from Delhi to Kolkata. When you board the train, you find your compartment tidy, the toilets clean enough and there are no ‘unreserved’ passengers squeezing you in your own seat. But as soon as the train rolls into the plains of Uttar Pradesh and then into Bihar, the journey threatens to become a nightmare. You should be grateful to God if you reach Kolkata in one piece. But when dacoits strike in trains in Bihar, even Gods seem to look the other way.
The same is the case with the Ganga. The further it flows, the more corrupted it gets. So while at one place it looks spectacular, at another it looks — rather is made to look — ugly. Here’s a look at two such places: one inspiring awe, another evoking anger. And even while you read this, Ganga’s eternal journey continues.
The April sun shone brightly the morning I walked out of the Haridwar station, all set to take the Ganga Mail. But it wasn’t hot: a cool breeze was wafting down the Himalayas which overlook this holy town. It was the wrong — or perhaps the right — time to be there. The Ardha Kumbha Mela was on and Haridwar was a sea of people. They were trooping in from everywhere, with the sole purpose of bathing in the river on that auspicious day and be blessed.
Traffic was restricted because of the mela and I walked more than a kilometre before I found a cyclerickshaw to take me to a hotel. Which hotel, I had no idea. I left the choice to the wisdom of the rickshawpuller. I was glad I did that. The hotel was not only good but it also gave me a discount that journalists in North India either extract or are entitled to, officially or unofficially.
After a shower I decided that I needed a drink, for the simple reason that Haridwar is a dry place; and dry places and dry days make you more thirsty. So I pulled out the hip flask from the rucksack along with a guide book on Uttaranchal.
All these years, Uttar Pradesh boasted of Haridwar and Gangotri but today these places belong to Uttaranchal. Uttar Pradesh is left with the part of Ganga which feeds millions, which has sustained many cultures, which has inspired hundreds of folksongs and Bollywood songs, but which you would not like to go to as a tourist. Unless you are one of those hardened travellers who draws a beautiful picture even in an ugly setting.
In Haridwar, the Ganga is not just a holy river. It’s an event. It’s like watching a movie. Every swirl of it has to be watched to understand the whole story. And this is one movie for which you always reach late: even before you see the river you hear its gurgling sound, and by the time you take your seat by its banks, there is already a crowd of a thousand people watching the show.
I also arrived late after strolling through the narrow streets around Har Ki Pauri, the main bathing ghat. The streets are lined with shops that sell everything required by an average, God-fearing Hindu family. And most music shops seemed to play the same song, all the time, Maano to main Ganga maa hoon, na maano to behta paani — If you are a believer, I am Mother Ganga, and if you are a non-believer, I am just flowing water. Either way, the river, fresh out of the Himalayas, is spectacular here and now I was going to witness the spectacle. I deposited my sandals (no footwear allowed) and walked into Har Ki Pauri. It has steps constructed on either side of the swiftly flowing river and a couple of temples jut into the water. Iron chains run along the embankment — in case the current is too strong for you.
Thousands were frolicking in the chilly water. To me they looked more like one huge family out on picnic. While they took the dips, making joyous cries, hundreds of others were busy changing for the bath, unmindful of the onlookers. And there were hundreds more towelling themselves and changing into fresh set of clothes, unmindful of others. A strange paradox struck me. Indian women are a modest lot. They would not imagine wearing bikinis at the beach. They would rather labour under the weight of a wet saree. But here, they change as if they were in the privacy of their bathrooms: the shame is yours if you run into them. Perhaps the holy atmosphere is expected to act as a curtain.
Finally, the sun went down and it was time for aarti (waving of lights). Loudspeakers urged bathers to clear out and take their place on the steps. Religion enforces discipline more effectively than anything else, and soon a mass of humanity was seated on each side of the river — in total silence. Many people stood on the banks, holding leaf-bowls that contained flowers and an oil-lamp. The lamp was to be lit and the bowl released in the water.
At the appointed time, the bhajan, Jai Gangey Mata began playing on the speakers. Bells in the temples rang and priests came out with huge brass lamps, waving them at the swirling black waters, now illuminated by the hundreds of tiny, floating diyas. Har Ki Pauri resembled a stadium witnessing the closing ceremony of an Olympic Games — only that this stadium was linear, not oval.
Faith, they say, moves mountains. And when the collective faith of thousands of people is at work, something is bound to happen. Well, the Himalayas stood still. But the Ganga, with all those floating lamps, suddenly began to look like a bejewelled goddess. One of those lamps was lit by me.
*******
Those pirates struck in the high seas, these pirates strike in the river, rather the confluence of the two great rivers of India which makes Allahabad famous. They glide their boats alongside yours and even before you realise, you've been persuaded into performing an expensive, boat-to-boat puja for the well-being of your near and dear ones.
Since all this happens in the middle of the river, you can't even walk out. All you can do is console yourself watching other would-be victims getting rowed into the trap of the priests and the pandas — as the middlemen between God and mortals are called — who throng the river.
I saw it coming even when I was long way off from Sangam (that’s what the confluence is called). It was 7.00 am but the sun was already merciless and I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for — myself or the rickshawpuller who was carting me to the riverbank. Sangam must have been still a kilometre or two away when a man on a bicycle pulled alongside.
“Sir, I am boatman. You want boatman,” he asked in English. He looked too healthy for a boatman. I told him that I was a local guy, and that I did not need him or his boat. He was undeterred. He kept pace with my rickshaw and soon reopened the conversation:
“So you are from Kanpur. We used to make our boats there. It took three days to row down to Allahabad.” I merely nodded, hoping that my silence would shut him up and send him way. But this man had smelt a prey.
“Sir, you are one of our own. I will show around like no one else will do. I will show you the exact spot where the Ganga meets the Yamuna,” he pleaded. I knew I was trapped. I will spare you the details about what happened from then on till the time I sat in the boat. But he had still not said how much he was going to charge. “You are our guest, sir. Money is not at all a problem,” he kept saying.
Only after he had untied the rope and stepped into the boat, followed by an emaciated old man, he said: “Give me Rs 400.” As I had suspected, this man looked too healthy to be rowing a boat. He was just a pimp. The old man rowed the boat.
From the boat I could clearly see the green waters of the Yamuna meeting the muddy waters of the Ganga before the two, together, head eastwards towards Varanasi. A few metres away from the confluence is a spot where water is only two feet deep and which is surrounded by dozens of pilgrim-laden boats. That's where people bathe and wash away their sins and immerse the ashes of the dead.
Before I could reach there, the pandas attacked. A boat came up from nowhere, and in a flash I found myself holding three shrivelled coconuts. I was also giving out my father’s name, my mother’s name, my gotra and was soon repeating mantras that the pirate was chanting. Reality struck me only when he asked for the money: Rs 501. Once again I’ll spare you how I extricated myself, but not before shelling out Rs 100 (saving of Rs 401!).
“This is nothing. They extract thousands of rupees from people who come for pind-daan (a ritual for the soul of dead relatives),” the pimp on my boat said with a grin.
If the pandas make their living from the departure of souls, there are people who make a living —and occasionally a fortune — from the ashes. They are the gotakhors, or divers.
I saw a man, his head freshly shaven, leaning from a boat and emptying an urn into the river. Suddenly two gotakhors swooped in on their boats and plunged iron sieves into the spot where the shaven-headed man had just finished emptying the urn. They were looking for ornaments of the deceased but all they could net was tiny, sparkling pieces of bone. Salvation, even for the dead, does not come without the humiliation of their bones being sifted for gold.
A sense of disgust overcame me. I wanted to return to Haridwar. But then I remembered that the Ganga is a Down train: it does not make a return journey.
The notable difference between the Ganga and the regular train is that the Ganga doesn’t have any classes — no second class, first class, 2AC or 3AC. It has only one class — faith. And the notable similarity is — well, to find that you’ll have to take the Ganga Mail. It’s like taking, say, the Kalka Mail from Delhi to Kolkata. When you board the train, you find your compartment tidy, the toilets clean enough and there are no ‘unreserved’ passengers squeezing you in your own seat. But as soon as the train rolls into the plains of Uttar Pradesh and then into Bihar, the journey threatens to become a nightmare. You should be grateful to God if you reach Kolkata in one piece. But when dacoits strike in trains in Bihar, even Gods seem to look the other way.
The same is the case with the Ganga. The further it flows, the more corrupted it gets. So while at one place it looks spectacular, at another it looks — rather is made to look — ugly. Here’s a look at two such places: one inspiring awe, another evoking anger. And even while you read this, Ganga’s eternal journey continues.
The April sun shone brightly the morning I walked out of the Haridwar station, all set to take the Ganga Mail. But it wasn’t hot: a cool breeze was wafting down the Himalayas which overlook this holy town. It was the wrong — or perhaps the right — time to be there. The Ardha Kumbha Mela was on and Haridwar was a sea of people. They were trooping in from everywhere, with the sole purpose of bathing in the river on that auspicious day and be blessed.
Traffic was restricted because of the mela and I walked more than a kilometre before I found a cyclerickshaw to take me to a hotel. Which hotel, I had no idea. I left the choice to the wisdom of the rickshawpuller. I was glad I did that. The hotel was not only good but it also gave me a discount that journalists in North India either extract or are entitled to, officially or unofficially.
After a shower I decided that I needed a drink, for the simple reason that Haridwar is a dry place; and dry places and dry days make you more thirsty. So I pulled out the hip flask from the rucksack along with a guide book on Uttaranchal.
All these years, Uttar Pradesh boasted of Haridwar and Gangotri but today these places belong to Uttaranchal. Uttar Pradesh is left with the part of Ganga which feeds millions, which has sustained many cultures, which has inspired hundreds of folksongs and Bollywood songs, but which you would not like to go to as a tourist. Unless you are one of those hardened travellers who draws a beautiful picture even in an ugly setting.
In Haridwar, the Ganga is not just a holy river. It’s an event. It’s like watching a movie. Every swirl of it has to be watched to understand the whole story. And this is one movie for which you always reach late: even before you see the river you hear its gurgling sound, and by the time you take your seat by its banks, there is already a crowd of a thousand people watching the show.
I also arrived late after strolling through the narrow streets around Har Ki Pauri, the main bathing ghat. The streets are lined with shops that sell everything required by an average, God-fearing Hindu family. And most music shops seemed to play the same song, all the time, Maano to main Ganga maa hoon, na maano to behta paani — If you are a believer, I am Mother Ganga, and if you are a non-believer, I am just flowing water. Either way, the river, fresh out of the Himalayas, is spectacular here and now I was going to witness the spectacle. I deposited my sandals (no footwear allowed) and walked into Har Ki Pauri. It has steps constructed on either side of the swiftly flowing river and a couple of temples jut into the water. Iron chains run along the embankment — in case the current is too strong for you.
Thousands were frolicking in the chilly water. To me they looked more like one huge family out on picnic. While they took the dips, making joyous cries, hundreds of others were busy changing for the bath, unmindful of the onlookers. And there were hundreds more towelling themselves and changing into fresh set of clothes, unmindful of others. A strange paradox struck me. Indian women are a modest lot. They would not imagine wearing bikinis at the beach. They would rather labour under the weight of a wet saree. But here, they change as if they were in the privacy of their bathrooms: the shame is yours if you run into them. Perhaps the holy atmosphere is expected to act as a curtain.
Finally, the sun went down and it was time for aarti (waving of lights). Loudspeakers urged bathers to clear out and take their place on the steps. Religion enforces discipline more effectively than anything else, and soon a mass of humanity was seated on each side of the river — in total silence. Many people stood on the banks, holding leaf-bowls that contained flowers and an oil-lamp. The lamp was to be lit and the bowl released in the water.
At the appointed time, the bhajan, Jai Gangey Mata began playing on the speakers. Bells in the temples rang and priests came out with huge brass lamps, waving them at the swirling black waters, now illuminated by the hundreds of tiny, floating diyas. Har Ki Pauri resembled a stadium witnessing the closing ceremony of an Olympic Games — only that this stadium was linear, not oval.
Faith, they say, moves mountains. And when the collective faith of thousands of people is at work, something is bound to happen. Well, the Himalayas stood still. But the Ganga, with all those floating lamps, suddenly began to look like a bejewelled goddess. One of those lamps was lit by me.
*******
Those pirates struck in the high seas, these pirates strike in the river, rather the confluence of the two great rivers of India which makes Allahabad famous. They glide their boats alongside yours and even before you realise, you've been persuaded into performing an expensive, boat-to-boat puja for the well-being of your near and dear ones.
Since all this happens in the middle of the river, you can't even walk out. All you can do is console yourself watching other would-be victims getting rowed into the trap of the priests and the pandas — as the middlemen between God and mortals are called — who throng the river.
I saw it coming even when I was long way off from Sangam (that’s what the confluence is called). It was 7.00 am but the sun was already merciless and I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for — myself or the rickshawpuller who was carting me to the riverbank. Sangam must have been still a kilometre or two away when a man on a bicycle pulled alongside.
“Sir, I am boatman. You want boatman,” he asked in English. He looked too healthy for a boatman. I told him that I was a local guy, and that I did not need him or his boat. He was undeterred. He kept pace with my rickshaw and soon reopened the conversation:
“So you are from Kanpur. We used to make our boats there. It took three days to row down to Allahabad.” I merely nodded, hoping that my silence would shut him up and send him way. But this man had smelt a prey.
“Sir, you are one of our own. I will show around like no one else will do. I will show you the exact spot where the Ganga meets the Yamuna,” he pleaded. I knew I was trapped. I will spare you the details about what happened from then on till the time I sat in the boat. But he had still not said how much he was going to charge. “You are our guest, sir. Money is not at all a problem,” he kept saying.
Only after he had untied the rope and stepped into the boat, followed by an emaciated old man, he said: “Give me Rs 400.” As I had suspected, this man looked too healthy to be rowing a boat. He was just a pimp. The old man rowed the boat.
From the boat I could clearly see the green waters of the Yamuna meeting the muddy waters of the Ganga before the two, together, head eastwards towards Varanasi. A few metres away from the confluence is a spot where water is only two feet deep and which is surrounded by dozens of pilgrim-laden boats. That's where people bathe and wash away their sins and immerse the ashes of the dead.
Before I could reach there, the pandas attacked. A boat came up from nowhere, and in a flash I found myself holding three shrivelled coconuts. I was also giving out my father’s name, my mother’s name, my gotra and was soon repeating mantras that the pirate was chanting. Reality struck me only when he asked for the money: Rs 501. Once again I’ll spare you how I extricated myself, but not before shelling out Rs 100 (saving of Rs 401!).
“This is nothing. They extract thousands of rupees from people who come for pind-daan (a ritual for the soul of dead relatives),” the pimp on my boat said with a grin.
If the pandas make their living from the departure of souls, there are people who make a living —and occasionally a fortune — from the ashes. They are the gotakhors, or divers.
I saw a man, his head freshly shaven, leaning from a boat and emptying an urn into the river. Suddenly two gotakhors swooped in on their boats and plunged iron sieves into the spot where the shaven-headed man had just finished emptying the urn. They were looking for ornaments of the deceased but all they could net was tiny, sparkling pieces of bone. Salvation, even for the dead, does not come without the humiliation of their bones being sifted for gold.
A sense of disgust overcame me. I wanted to return to Haridwar. But then I remembered that the Ganga is a Down train: it does not make a return journey.
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