Sky

The sky can be the blandest thing on this planet; it can also be the most beautiful. It all depends on how lucky you are -- and whether you have the time to gaze at it.

Sometimes it is a blank sheet of paper; sometimes a scintillating watercolour that only a child called Nature is capable of producing; and at other times it is its usual self -- the sun, the moon, the clouds -- and how beautiful you find it depends on what mood you are in. Sometimes, though, the very sight of a blue sky can lift your mood. I know this because of late -- for the past one year or so -- I have been spending a lot of time in bed, writing, and since the bedroom window opens out to the sky, I have been closely watching it change colours. Ah, the blue wiping away the blues; the grey carrying in its bosom the romance of rains. And then there are nights when I wonder who has placed that halogen light outside my window, only to find it is the moon -- and then rush to take a picture, only to realise that the smartphone camera does not effectively capture what the eyes see.

The sky, however, is at its beautiful best at dusk. I am sure it must be as beautiful even at the crack of dawn -- but then I am not a dawn person. Moreover, there is fundamental difference between dawn and dusk. Dawn brings along the burden of yet another day; whereas dusk marks the end of the day, when the burden is off your shoulders and when you become the master of your own time. Dawn is responsibility, dusk is romance. Under the orange glow left behind by the sun, the world looks beautiful. The light is sufficient enough to see what you like to see, and yet insufficient to hide what you don't want to see. That's the time to look up at the sky.

I suspect there is also something deeper about my recent fascination with the sky: ambition.

Every time I feel hopeless and wonder where I am headed in life, I look up at the sky and find it urging me to keep climbing up to it. I keep climbing, even though I know there cannot be a destination up there. The sky is limitless: even when you are in an aeroplane, way above the clouds, you still find a sky above you.

And so each time I look up, I receive the message: Screw the destination -- there is no such thing as a destination -- it is the journey that matters. Therefore, I journey on.

Kishore Kumar Songs That I Am Embarrassed About And Yet Supremely Proud Of

I have written a lot about my admiration for Kishore Kumar -- on this blog as well as in the paper(s) I have worked or work for -- so I don't what new to write on the occasion of his death anniversary today.

Had the singer died in the present day, TV channels would have shown the news throughout the day as 'breaking news' and probably some reporter would have thrust the mike at Amit Kumar's face and asked him, "Now that your legendary father is no more, how do you feel?"

But back then, when he died, on 13 October 1987, there were no channels except Doordarshan, which had only two news bulletins -- in Hindi and English -- in the evening. Doordarshan policy was clear: news about politics/prime minister first, news about entertaintment in the end. And so the news of his death was the last headline to be read out, even though it broke millions of hearts -- my own 17-year-old heart being one of them.

Friends who know me and have late-night drinking sessions with me at home know that I assume the role of the DJ once I am pleasently drunk and force Kishore Kumar songs on them, one after the other: "Now listen to this, I am sure you haven't heard this before", "And now listen to this, I am sure you haven't heard this either." As a DJ I am so impatient that I don't even let a song finish before clicking on another.

But there are certain Kishore Kumar songs that I never play to friends, even when I am peasantly high. These are songs that really give me goosebumps, and I play only for my personal pleasure, never force them on others. They are my secret treasures: I pull them out of the closet every once in a while, admire them, and put them back safely.

The reason why I don't play these songs to others is that they might think I am crazy to be liking such songs. I fear that they may ask, "What is in this song? It is outright silly! What makes you like it?" I don't want to be accused of having poor taste in music. As it is there are people -- and that includes, well, my wife -- who think that the fact I prefer Kishore over Rafi shows that my taste in music is not exactly refined.

But it is in these songs -- the songs that I am embarrassed to play to friends -- that the quality of Kishore Kumar's voice shines through, even though their picturisation may be idiotic or even hilarious. Everybody likes a good song; but to admire how a singer does justice to his part even in a supposedly bad song -- that requires courage. I am proud to have that courage and, therefore, for the first time, presenting a shortened list of such songs:

1. Uljhan hazaar koi daale (from the film Chandi Sona). In the film, as evident from the You Tube clip, both Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey's parts have been truncated; listen to the orignal recording. Signature Pancham!

2. Lapa changa mein naache (from the film Ek Se Bhale Do). I listen to this song when I am stepping up my speed on the treadmill.

3. Jhoom jhoom ke (from the film Paatal Bhairavi). Oh the clarity of his words!

4. Mehmaan nazar ki ban ek raat ke liye (from the film Paatal Bhairavi). Oh, the voice! The voice!Even though my sensibilities don't agree with the ek raat ke liye (one night) business.

5. Hum donon mein kuchh na kuchh hai (from the film Khatron Ke Khiladi). How he lifts a mediocre song with his rendition. But the lyrics so familiar!

6. Lo aa gaya hero (from the film Mard Ki Zabaan). Oh, how this song made want to be in Jackie's shoes back then! The bindaas voice of Kishore Kumar!

7.  Yeh hawaayen yeh baarish (from the film Sachche Ka Bolbala). Self-explanatory, why I love the song.

8. Bheegi bheegi aankhen (from the film Ishq Ishq Ishq). What a beautiful song! The woman tells the man, Seene se lagaa loongi main teri pareshani (I will embrace all your troubles), and the man's reply comes in Kishore's voice.

9. Kaala kauwwa dekhta hai (from the film Mera Haque). Had watched this film in Kanpur's Poonam Talkies shortly after Kishore Kumar's death. It gladdened my heart that the film had a song by him. And this song plays at the end of the film as well, and so when we were walking out of the theatre at the end of the show, Kishore Kumar was still singing out loud -- immortal! (Years later, when I would play this song in my Chennai home, crows would gather outside my window -- and I am not joking).

10. Gumsum si khoyi khoyi (from the film Badalte Rishtey). My friends who truly love me, if you ever realise I am dying, please play this song for me. I will either come alive or go to heaven.

Faceless

The evening of October 3. Some said it was Navami evening, some others said it was already Dashami evening. For me, it was the evening of my departure from Calcutta, after having spent two sweet-bitter weeks in the city.

As soon as I secured the seat belt, an air-hostess walked up to me and said, "Do you mind taking the seat next to the emergency exit? As per rules, someone must sit next to the emergency exit, at least during take-off and landing?" I agreed, even though, as a rule, I always ask for an aisle seat because I do not like the idea of being sandwiched between strangers, invariably men.

As the plane took off, Calcutta came into view: a matrix of luminous yellow dots. Suddenly, I was gripped by a sense of belonging. Didn't I now belong to those yellow dots, having written a book about the city? Shouldn't I be pandal-hopping under their glow right now, precisely what hundreds and thousands of its citizens were doing at the moment?

But one must leave in order to be left longing -- I should have spent some more time by the river; I forgot to visit Oxford Bookstore; I should have had some more rossogolla and shingara; I should have bought some Bengali CDs; okay next time -- and it is the longing that brings about a sense of belonging. The longing, of course, comes from loving.

I was a faceless outsider when Calcutta became my hometown-in-law in April 2006. I was only a journalist then, working for a Madras paper; I did not know I was going to write books someday, leave alone a book about the city. I was familiar with writings on Calcutta, but not with Calcutta. My wife began to show me around and after initial reluctance sowed by writings that maligned the city, I began to like it. And once I began to move around on my own, I began to love it.

Calcutta, I realised, was a city like no other in India. It was a delightful salad of the old and the new. One moment you were biting into the old and another moment into the new: the experience was worth writing about. Thus was born the idea for Longing, Belonging, in October 2010 when, a couple of friends and I spent an evening in Trincas. Today, exactly four years later, the book is out in the stores and, considering my picture is on the back cover, I am no longer exactly a faceless stranger.

***

Two hours later, the pilot announced the descent to Chennai. From the sky, all cities look the same. Chennai, too, was a grid of luminous yellow dots as the plane prepared to land. I felt gripped by a sense of belonging again: Ah, this is my city, I have already written a book about it, Tamarind City, and the book had a picture of me in the inside pages. But I walked out of the airport coach a faceless man, proceeding to the conveyor belt to collect my luggage.

As I took a pre-paid taxi to my home in T. Nagar, I made a wish: when history judges the two cities by the books written about them, my books should count too. Doesn't matter if I don't count.