The older you grow, the memories of younger days begin returning with greater intensity. And the farther you go away from home -- the place your were born and you grew up in -- the greater the pace with which nostalgia chases you. There is no escaping them. Everything you experience today has a reference point somewhere back then, somewhere back there. Even when I saw, and read, news about Abu Salem recently, I could not help thinking about the days when I knew, from close quarters, a criminal who was not as big time as Abu Salem but big time enough to make news in the local papers.
I was in class six. Maybe class seven. The age when forbidden things look attractive, and when forbidden things are as harmless as the samosa. Parents told you not to eat such stuff or you will get cholera, something that tempted you all the more. So there was this man who would enter through the back gate of the school with a basketful of samosas during the recess, and he would be instantly surrounded by a dozen outstretched hands each holding a coin. A samosa cost 50 paise. Soon enough the nuns found out about the man and they got the back gate locked. They, like parents, were also against kids eating "outside stuff."
But the samosa-seller was a man with determination. He began standing outside the boundary wall. During recess, his head would appear from behind the wall and immediately a dozen hands would go up. He took the coins and handed out the samosa(s) on a piece of notebook paper. Since all this had to be done quickly, in case a nun would appear and chase him away, he often did not have the time to notice who was paying how much. A few mischievous students often took advantage of his hurry: they would just stretch out their palm, without the coin, and would find, placed on it, a couple of hot samosas. The days I carried no money, I was tempted to do the same, but.
I had a classmate called Vinay Shukla. Even classrooms have a class barrier, which divides students who are good at studies and students who aren't. The two classes don't like to mingle. But Vinay and I got along well, and he was one of the few I hung around with during the recess. One morning, I carried no money (when I say money, I mean anything between 50 paise and five rupees), but I craved for samosas. "You want one?" asked Vinay, "wait, let me try." He had no money either, but he went into the crowd of samosa-seekers, stretched out his hand and told the man, "Here, here, I just gave you one rupee. Give me two samosas." He came back to me and handed over the two samosas. I insisted that he have one but he refused.
Things change with the onset of adolescence: you begin to become conscious of the class barrier. Somewhere here Vinay and I began to drift. Rather, he began to withdraw. And by the time we reached the age when students also discussed science and mathematics apart from Kapil Dev and Amitabh Bachchan, Vinay had completely withdrawn himself from my life. Soon after he left the school: you could not continue there if you scored less than 60 percent in class ten.
I often ran into Vinay here and there: he would smile but not encourage any conversation. What could have talked about anyway: I would be going for Maths tuitions, with my notebook in hand, and he would be standing at a street corner with a bunch of guys who were branded as "loafers." I then found Vinay spending more and more time in that street corner, which had become their adda, the meeting place. By now he was avoiding even eye contact with me. We had become strangers.
One day, I saw a katta, a country-made pistol, tucked under his belt. On another day, I saw a huge knife under the belt. From common acquaintances, I got to know that Vinay and his gang were regularly being rounded up by the police.
That was the time of my life when, till then, I had never read a Hindi newspaper. Kanpur, where I lived, did not publish any English paper. Lucknow did, but we preferred to get the paper from Delhi, even though the news was a day stale. Didn't make much of a difference because at the time, news was once-in-a-24 hours business, not a 24-hour business. But a strike in the University forced us to buy a Hindi paper because that gave local news and I wanted to know about the fate of the exams.
One morning, while scanning the local pages, I noticed a news headlined, Badmash Munna Maara Gaya -- A goon called Munna has been killed. The report said he had been killed in a fight between two gangs. The accompanying picture showed a young man sprawled on the road. His lifeless hand still clutched a pistol and his sunglasses were intact in his breast pocket. I recognised him instantly. Munna was the nickname of Vinay Shukla.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Saturday, December 10, 2005
The Melody Of Romance
My good friend Baradwaj Rangan, who is a nostalgia specialist like me, called this afternoon. "Are you at home? Just watch Star Utsav. Right now."
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Just watch it, right now," he said and hung up.
I switched on the TV and found the channel. Mithun Chakraborthy on the drums, and Salma Agha on the dance floor. She is writhing to Yeh raat mein jo nasha hai... Memories went back to school days. I had seen this movie, Kasam Paida Karne Waale Ki, on video. The 'video' was new those days. Some enterprising bunch of guys in the neighbourhood, called bhaiyyas, would hire the VHS tape of the latest movie and hold a screening, in a specially erected pandal. Anybody could watch it, paying Re 1.
I was seeing the movie again now, after 20 years. The songs gets over and Mithun and Salma Agha walk out of the nightclub. She takes off on her bicycle but gets waylaid by goons. Mithunda appears. He takes care of the baddies and then offers to drop her home in the bicycle. "What if we get challaned?" she asks coyly. "Big deal," he replies, "At the most they will deflate the tyres." Shyly, she sits on the bar and off they are. The cycle ride in the silent night, with a whistle playing the backgroud, is the beginning of their romance.
Today, the scene looked so hilarious. Rather ridiculous. But twenty years ago, no one would have laughed. On the contrary, thousands might have been inspired to drop their girls in a similar fashion. Perhaps we are no longer innocent. Those days, even the accidental touching of hands deserved a close-up shot, and even in real life, the touching of hands was considered a milestone in the long road to romance.
But then, there are movies made at the same time, and even before, such as Silsila, Kabhie Kabhie and Trishul (and of course all of Guru Dutt films), where the romance does not seem outdated or does not look like a joke as in this case. Why so?
The answer, in my opinion, lies in the craft of filmmaking. Silsila is A-grade, a classy movie where the nuances of romance are conveyed in a sophisticated manner. Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki, on the other hand, is a B-grade movie. There is no chemistry between Mithun and Salma Agha, they merely seemed to be donning 'romantic' expressions on their faces at the instance of the director. In any case there isn't any scope for chemistry in that scene. The close-ups merely show each one's 'romantic' face in isolation: Mithun or Salma could be standing on a balcony or on the beach instead of being on a bicycle. They are shown riding together only from a distance, and there you cannot tell whether they are the actors or extras.
But then, this is one of those movies where romance is by-the-way, where the director wants to make the audience wait for the final confrontation between the hero and the villain. Come to think of it, most of our movies are like that, aren't they? But the songs they have are all about romance. Maybe because music can be made only out of romance. Romance, after all, is another name for melody. And vice-versa.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Just watch it, right now," he said and hung up.
I switched on the TV and found the channel. Mithun Chakraborthy on the drums, and Salma Agha on the dance floor. She is writhing to Yeh raat mein jo nasha hai... Memories went back to school days. I had seen this movie, Kasam Paida Karne Waale Ki, on video. The 'video' was new those days. Some enterprising bunch of guys in the neighbourhood, called bhaiyyas, would hire the VHS tape of the latest movie and hold a screening, in a specially erected pandal. Anybody could watch it, paying Re 1.
I was seeing the movie again now, after 20 years. The songs gets over and Mithun and Salma Agha walk out of the nightclub. She takes off on her bicycle but gets waylaid by goons. Mithunda appears. He takes care of the baddies and then offers to drop her home in the bicycle. "What if we get challaned?" she asks coyly. "Big deal," he replies, "At the most they will deflate the tyres." Shyly, she sits on the bar and off they are. The cycle ride in the silent night, with a whistle playing the backgroud, is the beginning of their romance.
Today, the scene looked so hilarious. Rather ridiculous. But twenty years ago, no one would have laughed. On the contrary, thousands might have been inspired to drop their girls in a similar fashion. Perhaps we are no longer innocent. Those days, even the accidental touching of hands deserved a close-up shot, and even in real life, the touching of hands was considered a milestone in the long road to romance.
But then, there are movies made at the same time, and even before, such as Silsila, Kabhie Kabhie and Trishul (and of course all of Guru Dutt films), where the romance does not seem outdated or does not look like a joke as in this case. Why so?
The answer, in my opinion, lies in the craft of filmmaking. Silsila is A-grade, a classy movie where the nuances of romance are conveyed in a sophisticated manner. Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki, on the other hand, is a B-grade movie. There is no chemistry between Mithun and Salma Agha, they merely seemed to be donning 'romantic' expressions on their faces at the instance of the director. In any case there isn't any scope for chemistry in that scene. The close-ups merely show each one's 'romantic' face in isolation: Mithun or Salma could be standing on a balcony or on the beach instead of being on a bicycle. They are shown riding together only from a distance, and there you cannot tell whether they are the actors or extras.
But then, this is one of those movies where romance is by-the-way, where the director wants to make the audience wait for the final confrontation between the hero and the villain. Come to think of it, most of our movies are like that, aren't they? But the songs they have are all about romance. Maybe because music can be made only out of romance. Romance, after all, is another name for melody. And vice-versa.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
The Monkey Man
The story I narrate here is a true one, though I have changed the names of the characters for reasons that should be obvious enough. I had thought of developing it, at some point, as a short story. Maybe I will some day, when I consider myself capable of being a full-time writer rather than a journalist who also writes. But for the moment I am happy sharing it here, because I feel an immediate urge to share it, even though it is going to be narrated here rather crudely.
The story begins in 2001, when I shifted to Chennai from Delhi. I had no friends in the city. Colleagues preferred to remain colleagues, not wanting to get familiar too soon, and the women there decided to put me on a probation period. They all seemed to be buying time before deciding whether I could be a friend or remain an outsider. But there was one colleague who, by default, had to be a friend: he was almost my age, and, like me, a bachelor. We liked women, we liked Old Monk rum. His name was Santosh. His name is Santosh, for he is still a colleague and a good friend.
Santosh lived in a mansion -- the bachelors' hostel kind of accommodation that is commonplace in Chennai. Usually we drank either at my place or in one of the wine shops around Mount Road, but occasionally I would go over to his room, which he shared with a fellow Keralite called Vinod who, as far as I recall, was studying business administration. It was a small room, eight by eight perhaps, and it had a smell that would tell you not only the marital status of the occupants but also the place they hailed from -- the lemony smell of soap and shaving cream and that of wet towels mixed with the odour of coconut oil and banana chips.
We drank there out of plastic cups, and the snacks and dinner would be delivered by a boy called Ramesh, who would get them from the hotel on the ground floor. Ramesh must have been in his late teens, a cheerful and energetic boy who could be recognised from a mile because of his shiny eyes and protruding teeth. But he was talkative, and when he sat through our conversations, would often be asked to shut up by Santosh. He would immediately shut up, only to open his mouth again. And the boy spoke four languages: fairly good English, broken Hindi, but perfect Tamil and Malayalam. Even though he had studied only till class eight, he had something to say about everything that Santosh and I talked about. Vinod would hardly speak: he would keep listening to us while having a textbook open on his lap.
Somewhere in between the cigarettes would finish, and Ramesh, the Boy Friday, would be sent to fetch a packet. His job was to help out in the hotel in the daytime: in the evenings he would hop from room to room in the mansion, striking up conversation with the inmates. But Ramesh, for some reason, had grown fond of Santosh, and would prefer to spend most of the evenings in his room. So much so that when Santosh and Vinod decided to shift out of the mansion to a tenement in Mylapore, Ramesh begged to come along. "I can't share the rent," he pleaded, "but I will cook for you and do whatever you want me to." My friend Santosh, who always hides his kind heart behind a tough face, agreed.
So I began to see more of Ramesh. In the common Indian setting, he would have been called the 'servant boy', but he wasn't really treated as one because he always opened his mouth and managed to contribute to the conversation. He even spoke on politics. He was almost like one of us, only that he did not drink and he was the one who was bound to do the cooking and clear the kitchen afterward.
One night, Ramesh was re-christened as Monkey Man. Those days, there was this rumour about a Monkey Man roaming the streets of Delhi who scratched people's faces and vanished. That night Santosh asked him to get the clothes that had been left for drying on the terrace but Ramesh refused. "What if the Monkey Man comes?" he pleaded. Santosh gave him a playful, but a tight, slap and renamed him as Monkey Man.
Delhi's Monkey Man might have been imaginary, but this Monkey Man had a history: he had run away from home when he was 12 or 13, after his mother ran away with another man and his father committed suicide. He had preferred looking out for an adopted father such as Santosh rather than accepting a step-father. And Santosh did behave like a father at times. He slapped Monkey Man every time he smoked a Gold Flake. "Monkey, I don't have a problem if you smoke a bidi. But don't smoke stuff you cannot afford." He also received slaps if he put too much water while cooking the chicken curry.
I remember telling Santosh to let such a nuisance go away, lest Monkey Man became a pest. But Santosh always said: "Where will he go?" Besides, he would always remember to get six idlis packed for Monkey Man on days no cooking was done at his place. But at the same time Santosh badly wanted to get rid of Monkey Man because he was tired of him: the Monkey Man spoke too much, besides goofing up with the cooking. Santosh's room mate Vinod, however, remained unaffected. He ate when he wanted to, he ate whatever he was served, and often he ate when the two of us were still drinking. We forgave him because he was still studying, but behind his back we called him "selfish".
Then one day Vinod got a job, with a mutlinational bank. And soon after, Santosh, my friend, got married. Their Mylapore house got vacated, and with it the dreams of Monkey Man. I did not hear about Monkey Man, the boy with shiny eyes and protruding teeth, for months and months. "Good for you," I told Santosh, "or else he would have latched on to you. You would have kept playing his father."
Then one morning Santosh told me: "Ghosh! You remember Monkey Man? He called me today. He is selling credit cards. Do you want one?"
A few months later, one morning, Santosh called: "Ghosh, remember Monkey Man? That bastard, you know what he did? He himself got a credit card and spent all the money. He came to my place just now. His wallet was full of money. I saw it with my own eyes. He is now selling credit cards for another bank."
A year later, one morning, Santosh called again: "Ghosh, do you know Monkey Man has joined that bank?! He is a full-time employee, that same joker!"
Another year later, one morning, Santosh called again: "Ghosh! You know what? Monkey Man is getting married! He just came home to give me the card."
About ten months later, one afternoon, I got a call from Santosh. "Ghosh! You know what, Monkey Man is a father now! He called me this morning, saying, 'Santosh anna, you are the only person I could think of calling and giving the news.' I almost cried."
And this evening Santosh told me about his recent visit to Monkey Man's home -- a home that is equipped with every facility that a man can think of. Monkey Man's wife served him bondas prepared, as they say, by her own hands. And while she was in the kitchen, their child slept, peacefully, on their luxurious bed. Monkey Man is a big man today, even senior to Vinod, Santosh's old roomie, who happens to be working in the same bank.
Sometimes, happiness does come to the people who really deserve it.
The story begins in 2001, when I shifted to Chennai from Delhi. I had no friends in the city. Colleagues preferred to remain colleagues, not wanting to get familiar too soon, and the women there decided to put me on a probation period. They all seemed to be buying time before deciding whether I could be a friend or remain an outsider. But there was one colleague who, by default, had to be a friend: he was almost my age, and, like me, a bachelor. We liked women, we liked Old Monk rum. His name was Santosh. His name is Santosh, for he is still a colleague and a good friend.
Santosh lived in a mansion -- the bachelors' hostel kind of accommodation that is commonplace in Chennai. Usually we drank either at my place or in one of the wine shops around Mount Road, but occasionally I would go over to his room, which he shared with a fellow Keralite called Vinod who, as far as I recall, was studying business administration. It was a small room, eight by eight perhaps, and it had a smell that would tell you not only the marital status of the occupants but also the place they hailed from -- the lemony smell of soap and shaving cream and that of wet towels mixed with the odour of coconut oil and banana chips.
We drank there out of plastic cups, and the snacks and dinner would be delivered by a boy called Ramesh, who would get them from the hotel on the ground floor. Ramesh must have been in his late teens, a cheerful and energetic boy who could be recognised from a mile because of his shiny eyes and protruding teeth. But he was talkative, and when he sat through our conversations, would often be asked to shut up by Santosh. He would immediately shut up, only to open his mouth again. And the boy spoke four languages: fairly good English, broken Hindi, but perfect Tamil and Malayalam. Even though he had studied only till class eight, he had something to say about everything that Santosh and I talked about. Vinod would hardly speak: he would keep listening to us while having a textbook open on his lap.
Somewhere in between the cigarettes would finish, and Ramesh, the Boy Friday, would be sent to fetch a packet. His job was to help out in the hotel in the daytime: in the evenings he would hop from room to room in the mansion, striking up conversation with the inmates. But Ramesh, for some reason, had grown fond of Santosh, and would prefer to spend most of the evenings in his room. So much so that when Santosh and Vinod decided to shift out of the mansion to a tenement in Mylapore, Ramesh begged to come along. "I can't share the rent," he pleaded, "but I will cook for you and do whatever you want me to." My friend Santosh, who always hides his kind heart behind a tough face, agreed.
So I began to see more of Ramesh. In the common Indian setting, he would have been called the 'servant boy', but he wasn't really treated as one because he always opened his mouth and managed to contribute to the conversation. He even spoke on politics. He was almost like one of us, only that he did not drink and he was the one who was bound to do the cooking and clear the kitchen afterward.
One night, Ramesh was re-christened as Monkey Man. Those days, there was this rumour about a Monkey Man roaming the streets of Delhi who scratched people's faces and vanished. That night Santosh asked him to get the clothes that had been left for drying on the terrace but Ramesh refused. "What if the Monkey Man comes?" he pleaded. Santosh gave him a playful, but a tight, slap and renamed him as Monkey Man.
Delhi's Monkey Man might have been imaginary, but this Monkey Man had a history: he had run away from home when he was 12 or 13, after his mother ran away with another man and his father committed suicide. He had preferred looking out for an adopted father such as Santosh rather than accepting a step-father. And Santosh did behave like a father at times. He slapped Monkey Man every time he smoked a Gold Flake. "Monkey, I don't have a problem if you smoke a bidi. But don't smoke stuff you cannot afford." He also received slaps if he put too much water while cooking the chicken curry.
I remember telling Santosh to let such a nuisance go away, lest Monkey Man became a pest. But Santosh always said: "Where will he go?" Besides, he would always remember to get six idlis packed for Monkey Man on days no cooking was done at his place. But at the same time Santosh badly wanted to get rid of Monkey Man because he was tired of him: the Monkey Man spoke too much, besides goofing up with the cooking. Santosh's room mate Vinod, however, remained unaffected. He ate when he wanted to, he ate whatever he was served, and often he ate when the two of us were still drinking. We forgave him because he was still studying, but behind his back we called him "selfish".
Then one day Vinod got a job, with a mutlinational bank. And soon after, Santosh, my friend, got married. Their Mylapore house got vacated, and with it the dreams of Monkey Man. I did not hear about Monkey Man, the boy with shiny eyes and protruding teeth, for months and months. "Good for you," I told Santosh, "or else he would have latched on to you. You would have kept playing his father."
Then one morning Santosh told me: "Ghosh! You remember Monkey Man? He called me today. He is selling credit cards. Do you want one?"
A few months later, one morning, Santosh called: "Ghosh, remember Monkey Man? That bastard, you know what he did? He himself got a credit card and spent all the money. He came to my place just now. His wallet was full of money. I saw it with my own eyes. He is now selling credit cards for another bank."
A year later, one morning, Santosh called again: "Ghosh, do you know Monkey Man has joined that bank?! He is a full-time employee, that same joker!"
Another year later, one morning, Santosh called again: "Ghosh! You know what? Monkey Man is getting married! He just came home to give me the card."
About ten months later, one afternoon, I got a call from Santosh. "Ghosh! You know what, Monkey Man is a father now! He called me this morning, saying, 'Santosh anna, you are the only person I could think of calling and giving the news.' I almost cried."
And this evening Santosh told me about his recent visit to Monkey Man's home -- a home that is equipped with every facility that a man can think of. Monkey Man's wife served him bondas prepared, as they say, by her own hands. And while she was in the kitchen, their child slept, peacefully, on their luxurious bed. Monkey Man is a big man today, even senior to Vinod, Santosh's old roomie, who happens to be working in the same bank.
Sometimes, happiness does come to the people who really deserve it.
The Diary Of A Blogger
One of the downsides of being a journalist is you can never indulge in any activity, not even your pastime, without taking mental notes that could be used in the near future as raw material for a story or column. So much so that you find an activity gratifying only after you have written about it. So after a few weeks of blogging, I ended up writing the following column for my paper. After the paper went for printing, I realised I could have written much more, but the scope of the subject is so wide that you are bound to miss out many things. So if you like what I wrote, I would be happy. If you feel offended for some reason, I am sorry.
The neighbourhood I moved into a little over a month ago has — or so I am told — about a 100 million homes. So far I have been able to look into only a few. Most of them are warm and friendly, a few, extraordinarily welcoming, the rest polite enough to keep a conversation going. The interior designs of these homes vary, naturally, with the sensitivity and temperament of the occupants: some only have the bare essentials, some over-decorated with colours, and some cluttered with too many details.
A handful of my neighbours have really been nice to me. They not only paid me return visits but they now make it a point to meet up almost every day. We all have stories to tell, thoughts to share, words of wisdom to spill. And through them I am meeting many others. My circle is growing. Life isn’t bad at all in Blogosphere — yes, that’s the name of the neighbourhood I’ve moved into. Every day is a party, where you hold forth every morning or evening — and often late in the nights — on subjects of your choice.
But it is a very lonely party. No one is there in reality: the inhabitants don’t have a face or a torso, only the mind, which is visible in the shape of written words. These written words are the sole identity of a blogger. I am one now.
Not so long ago my image of a blogger was that of a bleary-eyed man who barely leaves his computer except for taking, maybe, bathroom breaks; who has food home-delivered and whose computer table is cluttered with empty coffee cups and Coke cans and peppered with bread crumbs and cigarette ash. Then one day a friend suggested: “Why don’t you blog?”
No ordinary friend this — within weeks of meeting her I fell madly in love with her. We shared the same taste in music and literature. We had the same feel for words. We were obsessed with the craft of writing. The chemistry simply worked. But it worked without the physics or the biology: we never met. She was one of those kindred spirits you chance upon in cyberspace — who you know only by a Yahoo! ID but who makes you eat out of her hand even without revealing her face. So I signed up at blogspot.com.
Thus began my journey from the Earth to Blogosphere. Upon arrival, I found that Blogosphere not only had a flourishing literary scene but also parallel, and thriving, journalism. Poetry, tiny pieces of fiction, diaries, essays — these are commonplace. And then there is the journalism — news, views, reviews, reportage, travel writing, which can be found in plenty. What is really an eye-opener is the ‘investigative journalism’: a blogger often doubles as an investigative reporter, without intending to be so.
A young Chennai blogger who calls herself Nina (duffilled.blogspot.com) drew attention of the electronically-literate community to the plagiarism going on in a newspaper highly regarded in the South. The star film-reviewer of the paper, Nina pointed out, had been lifting passages from the New York Times. The reviewer happens to have his own website which shows him sitting with his laptop and smiling at the camera, while the accompanying text proudly claims that he had spent 21 years in that paper covering dozens of important events. But now the reputation lay punctured by a blogger, who quoted passages from earlier-published reviews in NYT alongside reviews written by him for the same movies.
Gone are the days when copies of NYT or the London Times were delivered only in the hallowed corridors of newspaper officers. Those days you could copy — this is not to suggest that people copied — because you knew nobody would get to know. The world has shrunk. Today, almost every blogger has linked electronic editions of NYT or Guardian (even New Yorker) to his or her blogsite. They read everything. Steal from other papers and they will instantly know.
Bloggers also gave a tough time to the new-age management guru Arindam Chaudhuri, who runs the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). A couple of bloggers, Rashmi Bansal (editor of JAM magazine whose views you can read at youthcurry.blogspot.com) and Gaurav Sabnis, an IBM employee (gauravsabnis.blogspot.com), had ‘exposed’ the IIPM, alleging that the institute was not as great as it claimed to be. A nasty blog war ensued in these sites. According to newspaper reports, IIPM demanded Rs 25 crore from JAM for the “presumed loss of goodwill.” And Sabnis, an IBM India employee, according to the reports, not only lost his job but was also served with a Rs 125-crore legal notice from the IIPM.
The point is, blogging is no longer a passion or pastime. It is serious business. In countries where the press is not free, bloggers are the real journalists. In vibrant democracies, bloggers are turning out to be watchdogs. And in India, you now have bloggers’ meet and awards.
I avoid writing about current affairs not only because I would run out of ideas (and steam) when I write for the newspaper, but also because the blog is a personal space, a diversion, an outlet. So I post stuff about my take on life, my nostalgia, my moods — something a serious newspaper reader might not find very amusing. Out there, however, there are many kindred spirits who relate to my thoughts, just the way I relate to theirs. I am discovering new bondings, new chemistry — the chemistry which works without the physics and the biology.
Postscript: Last few weeks it rained heavily in Chennai. One weekend was so bad that I did not step out of home. Those two days, I sat in front on the computer, writing and surfing blogs. I did not shave. The food was ordered — all the meals. The ashtray was full. Empty cups were all over the place. By Sunday night my eyes hurt and I began to feel giddy. Monday morning when I saw myself in the mirror, I looked like the blogger I had once imagined.
The neighbourhood I moved into a little over a month ago has — or so I am told — about a 100 million homes. So far I have been able to look into only a few. Most of them are warm and friendly, a few, extraordinarily welcoming, the rest polite enough to keep a conversation going. The interior designs of these homes vary, naturally, with the sensitivity and temperament of the occupants: some only have the bare essentials, some over-decorated with colours, and some cluttered with too many details.
A handful of my neighbours have really been nice to me. They not only paid me return visits but they now make it a point to meet up almost every day. We all have stories to tell, thoughts to share, words of wisdom to spill. And through them I am meeting many others. My circle is growing. Life isn’t bad at all in Blogosphere — yes, that’s the name of the neighbourhood I’ve moved into. Every day is a party, where you hold forth every morning or evening — and often late in the nights — on subjects of your choice.
But it is a very lonely party. No one is there in reality: the inhabitants don’t have a face or a torso, only the mind, which is visible in the shape of written words. These written words are the sole identity of a blogger. I am one now.
Not so long ago my image of a blogger was that of a bleary-eyed man who barely leaves his computer except for taking, maybe, bathroom breaks; who has food home-delivered and whose computer table is cluttered with empty coffee cups and Coke cans and peppered with bread crumbs and cigarette ash. Then one day a friend suggested: “Why don’t you blog?”
No ordinary friend this — within weeks of meeting her I fell madly in love with her. We shared the same taste in music and literature. We had the same feel for words. We were obsessed with the craft of writing. The chemistry simply worked. But it worked without the physics or the biology: we never met. She was one of those kindred spirits you chance upon in cyberspace — who you know only by a Yahoo! ID but who makes you eat out of her hand even without revealing her face. So I signed up at blogspot.com.
Thus began my journey from the Earth to Blogosphere. Upon arrival, I found that Blogosphere not only had a flourishing literary scene but also parallel, and thriving, journalism. Poetry, tiny pieces of fiction, diaries, essays — these are commonplace. And then there is the journalism — news, views, reviews, reportage, travel writing, which can be found in plenty. What is really an eye-opener is the ‘investigative journalism’: a blogger often doubles as an investigative reporter, without intending to be so.
A young Chennai blogger who calls herself Nina (duffilled.blogspot.com) drew attention of the electronically-literate community to the plagiarism going on in a newspaper highly regarded in the South. The star film-reviewer of the paper, Nina pointed out, had been lifting passages from the New York Times. The reviewer happens to have his own website which shows him sitting with his laptop and smiling at the camera, while the accompanying text proudly claims that he had spent 21 years in that paper covering dozens of important events. But now the reputation lay punctured by a blogger, who quoted passages from earlier-published reviews in NYT alongside reviews written by him for the same movies.
Gone are the days when copies of NYT or the London Times were delivered only in the hallowed corridors of newspaper officers. Those days you could copy — this is not to suggest that people copied — because you knew nobody would get to know. The world has shrunk. Today, almost every blogger has linked electronic editions of NYT or Guardian (even New Yorker) to his or her blogsite. They read everything. Steal from other papers and they will instantly know.
Bloggers also gave a tough time to the new-age management guru Arindam Chaudhuri, who runs the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). A couple of bloggers, Rashmi Bansal (editor of JAM magazine whose views you can read at youthcurry.blogspot.com) and Gaurav Sabnis, an IBM employee (gauravsabnis.blogspot.com), had ‘exposed’ the IIPM, alleging that the institute was not as great as it claimed to be. A nasty blog war ensued in these sites. According to newspaper reports, IIPM demanded Rs 25 crore from JAM for the “presumed loss of goodwill.” And Sabnis, an IBM India employee, according to the reports, not only lost his job but was also served with a Rs 125-crore legal notice from the IIPM.
The point is, blogging is no longer a passion or pastime. It is serious business. In countries where the press is not free, bloggers are the real journalists. In vibrant democracies, bloggers are turning out to be watchdogs. And in India, you now have bloggers’ meet and awards.
I avoid writing about current affairs not only because I would run out of ideas (and steam) when I write for the newspaper, but also because the blog is a personal space, a diversion, an outlet. So I post stuff about my take on life, my nostalgia, my moods — something a serious newspaper reader might not find very amusing. Out there, however, there are many kindred spirits who relate to my thoughts, just the way I relate to theirs. I am discovering new bondings, new chemistry — the chemistry which works without the physics and the biology.
Postscript: Last few weeks it rained heavily in Chennai. One weekend was so bad that I did not step out of home. Those two days, I sat in front on the computer, writing and surfing blogs. I did not shave. The food was ordered — all the meals. The ashtray was full. Empty cups were all over the place. By Sunday night my eyes hurt and I began to feel giddy. Monday morning when I saw myself in the mirror, I looked like the blogger I had once imagined.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Of Death And Orgasm
Imagine I am a very popular blogger who goes by the name, say, Wordsmith. Fellow bloggers don't know his personal details except that he is a Virgo and he works in the field of publishing. They, of course, know all about his personal life and love to read about it. Then one day Wordsmith dies. Will the fellow bloggers, for who Wordsmith had become more than a soulmate over the months, ever get to know he is dead?
I often imagine a similar scenario for people who make friends in chatrooms, something increasingly common these days. There are people who never fully give out their identities to each other but still are good friends: often to the extent of not being able to do without talking to each other. The heart says: "Go, meet that person." The head says: "No, don't do that. You like talking to that person, just stick to talking. Who knows what that person could be in real life?" I know people who are more than friends to me, who mean the world to me, but who, so far, have remained identity-less. If, God forbid, one of them dies suddenly, I will never get to know. And vice-versa. Only the messages and e-mails will stop coming, and I will keep wondering why.
By the way, will such a death be considered as the death of an electronic entity, or the death of a human being? That's another thing I wonder about.
Not all my wonderings are as morbid. It is just that in the past few weeks, especially past few days, I've spent a lot of time in what people call Blogosphere. Suddenly, there are a set of people who matter to me: what they think matters, what they say matters. It is like having a small, cosy office: you walk in and you see them all sitting in their cubicles. You say 'hi' to each and take your seat. If you find someone missing, you wonder: Where is he (or she)?
My second wondering, well, a few might find it morbid as well, but I can't help expressing myself. It's about sex. As in people having sex.
Many of us have grown up -- and there is no denying that -- watching at least a few porn movies, Western porn that is. And in these movies, the actors make a lot of sound. So much that even the distant neighbour would know what you are watching -- they all have the standard soundtrack. I don't wish to describe those sounds in detail but they are usually about the female asking the man to do it harder and then announcing that she is approaching an orgasm: "I am coming, I am coming. Don't stop now" sort of thing.
Now this is another area where the West has immensely influenced India. It is common for couples in India to make such sounds, especially the "I-am-coming type." Now don't ask me how I know that. But it is interesting to note that such sounds are made only in English. A couple might be speaking Hindi or Tamil or Kannada in their day-to-day life, but when they make love, they do it in English. Even the much-reiterated "I love you" is in English, leave alone the "I am coming-I am coming."
I guess the English language makes things far easier. You can say "Fuck!" and "Shit" a million times and get away with it. And can also say "Fuck you!" and "Up your ass!" and be considered cool. But try using the vernacular translation of these words and you could find yourself mouthing something outright dirty. Or risk getting beaten up. Why the discrimination?
That makes me wonder: how do couples who don't speak a word of English cope with the onset of orgasm? They obviously cannot say, "I am coming, oh, I am coming!" Perhaps they make that exclamation in their own language, whatever that may be. But try translating "I am coming, oh, I am coming!" into your mother-tongue. Doesn't it sound, well, a bit funny?
I often imagine a similar scenario for people who make friends in chatrooms, something increasingly common these days. There are people who never fully give out their identities to each other but still are good friends: often to the extent of not being able to do without talking to each other. The heart says: "Go, meet that person." The head says: "No, don't do that. You like talking to that person, just stick to talking. Who knows what that person could be in real life?" I know people who are more than friends to me, who mean the world to me, but who, so far, have remained identity-less. If, God forbid, one of them dies suddenly, I will never get to know. And vice-versa. Only the messages and e-mails will stop coming, and I will keep wondering why.
By the way, will such a death be considered as the death of an electronic entity, or the death of a human being? That's another thing I wonder about.
Not all my wonderings are as morbid. It is just that in the past few weeks, especially past few days, I've spent a lot of time in what people call Blogosphere. Suddenly, there are a set of people who matter to me: what they think matters, what they say matters. It is like having a small, cosy office: you walk in and you see them all sitting in their cubicles. You say 'hi' to each and take your seat. If you find someone missing, you wonder: Where is he (or she)?
My second wondering, well, a few might find it morbid as well, but I can't help expressing myself. It's about sex. As in people having sex.
Many of us have grown up -- and there is no denying that -- watching at least a few porn movies, Western porn that is. And in these movies, the actors make a lot of sound. So much that even the distant neighbour would know what you are watching -- they all have the standard soundtrack. I don't wish to describe those sounds in detail but they are usually about the female asking the man to do it harder and then announcing that she is approaching an orgasm: "I am coming, I am coming. Don't stop now" sort of thing.
Now this is another area where the West has immensely influenced India. It is common for couples in India to make such sounds, especially the "I-am-coming type." Now don't ask me how I know that. But it is interesting to note that such sounds are made only in English. A couple might be speaking Hindi or Tamil or Kannada in their day-to-day life, but when they make love, they do it in English. Even the much-reiterated "I love you" is in English, leave alone the "I am coming-I am coming."
I guess the English language makes things far easier. You can say "Fuck!" and "Shit" a million times and get away with it. And can also say "Fuck you!" and "Up your ass!" and be considered cool. But try using the vernacular translation of these words and you could find yourself mouthing something outright dirty. Or risk getting beaten up. Why the discrimination?
That makes me wonder: how do couples who don't speak a word of English cope with the onset of orgasm? They obviously cannot say, "I am coming, oh, I am coming!" Perhaps they make that exclamation in their own language, whatever that may be. But try translating "I am coming, oh, I am coming!" into your mother-tongue. Doesn't it sound, well, a bit funny?
How Date Became Tryst
We have all read, or at least heard about, Jawaharlal Nehru's famous Tryst With Destiny speech which he made on the midnight of August 14-15, 1947. But what Nehru had written in the first draft was 'date with destiny', and not 'tryst with destiny'. 'Date' was later changed to 'tryst' because of its supposed negative connotation, as in people going on a 'date'.
Friday, December 02, 2005
A Song For The Yet To Be Born
I am not married yet but when I marry, whenever that is, I know what I want: a daughter. For two reasons:
1. Daughters are loving and loveable. From a very early age, they become ladylike, in a very cute way. They are more receptive and more compassionate. Boys are brats.
2. This is the more important reason. I want to sing for my child Aaja Mere Pyaar Aaja, which was sung in the late seventies by Hemant Kumar for the film Heeralal Pannalal (Shashi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Neetu Singh and Premnath). The music director was R D Burman. Premnath, a police officer in the movie, sings this song for his small daughter, Neetu Singh, before fate intervenes and takes the child away from him (can't recall if she was kidnapped or got lost in the Kumbh-Ka-Mela sort of thing). In the end, she recognises the father because of the song.
Now, it would be futile to praise Hemant Kumar. So much has been said about him already. The ultimate tribute came from composer Salil Choudhury, whose songs accorded Hemant Kumar (Hemanta Mukherjee to the Bengali audience) a God-like status in Bengal. "If God ever had voice," Salil Choudhury once said, "it would be Hemant Kumar's." The evidence lies in the scores of songs -- in Bengali as well in Hindi -- that Hemant Kumar has left behind. (By the way, he was the only singer who would light up a cigarette in the middle of a recording, in front of the microphone: the smoking, he believed, gave his voice a grainy effect.)
But of all his songs, Aaja Mere Pyaar Aaja will retain the no. 1 slot in my list of his favourites. As far as my knowledge goes, this was the last Hindi song he recorded. And this was perhaps the only song he sang for R D Burman. I would be glad if I am corrected on these details.
Listen to the song and you'll know what I mean. CDs of Heeralal Pannalal are not available (I don't know why. Even music cassettes were never available: I had been looking for 15 years), but now you do get it in some of the collections of Hemant Kumar.
1. Daughters are loving and loveable. From a very early age, they become ladylike, in a very cute way. They are more receptive and more compassionate. Boys are brats.
2. This is the more important reason. I want to sing for my child Aaja Mere Pyaar Aaja, which was sung in the late seventies by Hemant Kumar for the film Heeralal Pannalal (Shashi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Neetu Singh and Premnath). The music director was R D Burman. Premnath, a police officer in the movie, sings this song for his small daughter, Neetu Singh, before fate intervenes and takes the child away from him (can't recall if she was kidnapped or got lost in the Kumbh-Ka-Mela sort of thing). In the end, she recognises the father because of the song.
Now, it would be futile to praise Hemant Kumar. So much has been said about him already. The ultimate tribute came from composer Salil Choudhury, whose songs accorded Hemant Kumar (Hemanta Mukherjee to the Bengali audience) a God-like status in Bengal. "If God ever had voice," Salil Choudhury once said, "it would be Hemant Kumar's." The evidence lies in the scores of songs -- in Bengali as well in Hindi -- that Hemant Kumar has left behind. (By the way, he was the only singer who would light up a cigarette in the middle of a recording, in front of the microphone: the smoking, he believed, gave his voice a grainy effect.)
But of all his songs, Aaja Mere Pyaar Aaja will retain the no. 1 slot in my list of his favourites. As far as my knowledge goes, this was the last Hindi song he recorded. And this was perhaps the only song he sang for R D Burman. I would be glad if I am corrected on these details.
Listen to the song and you'll know what I mean. CDs of Heeralal Pannalal are not available (I don't know why. Even music cassettes were never available: I had been looking for 15 years), but now you do get it in some of the collections of Hemant Kumar.
Thought Of The (Wet) Day: Why Blog?
Chennai is once again gloomy and wet. This morning, while I was still in bed, it felt as if the thunder would bring down my apartment. It is now four in the afternoon but it is as dark as four in the morning. I don't feel like leaving the warmth of my lamp. I will blog.
In the past two weeks I visited many blogs. Read their stuff. Some are so good that I could not move on without leaving a comment. And some posts have been eye-opening. Many of the comments -- a mix of dull, thought-provoking, mischievous and hilarious -- are worth a read too. In all, enough material for the journalist inside me to suggest: Why not write about blogging in your column? In fact, last night I began writing. So far wrote only two paragraphs, which I see no harm in sharing here.
There must be about a million houses in the neighbourhood I moved in a month ago, and so far I have been able to look into only a few homes. Some homes are warm and friendly, some extraordinarily welcoming, some indifferent, and some don’t encourage unknown visitors. The interior designs of the homes vary with the temperament of the occupant: some only have the bare essentials, some are over-decorated with colours, and some cluttered with too many details.
Some of my neighbours have been really nice: they even paid me return visits. A few I meet almost every day now, and through them, the others. My circle is growing. I am happy to have checked into Blogosphere – yes, that’s the name of the neighbourhood. The inhabitants don’t have a face or a torso, only the brain, which is visible only in the shape of written words.
That makes me wonder: If a journalist can write what he wants to in his columns, why should he (or she) blog? I don't know about other journalists, but I know my reason. Journalism provides food for my stomach, blogging provides food for my soul. The reader of my newspaper, or my editor for that matter, will not be interested in my dark moods, or in things that bring me joy. They wouldn't care if a woman shattered my heart or if I found a new love in life. Blog is the only space where I can take the load off my chest. It is like writing a diary. But unlike the diary, which is hidden away after the day's entry has been made, the blog is published. The contrast might be striking; but I see no contrast.
It is all about reaching out. When you write a diary, you reach out to yourself; you seek solace in your own company. When you blog, you seek to reach out to people who can identify with your thoughts and what you might be going through. All this thanks to technology. And also thanks to technology, you can keep your identity a secret if you wish to. So in the end, it is no different from writing a diary: only that you now have the choice who should read it and who should not.
That brings me to the basic question: Why do people write? And, more importantly, why do people write and want to be read? The answer to the second question possibly lies in the opening line of my favourite Kishore Kumar song I listed in my previous post, Har Koi Chahtaa Hai Ek Mutthi Aasmaan, Har Koi Dhoondta Hai Ek Mutthi Aasman, Jo Seene Se Lagale Koi Aisa Ho Jahaan, Har Koi Chahtaa Hai Ek Mutthi Aasman -- Each one wants a fistful of the sky, each one is seeking a fistful of the sky, each one is seeking a world that will embrace him.
As for why people write, two writers have this to say:
What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be prose and poems, the books, what is written down. -- James Salter.
...writing is more than a way of enriching one's day. Not to write is not to contemplate; not to contemplate is to fail to extract the full value or meaning of one's experience; it is to allow life and time to run meaninglessly past. The contemplation that goes with writing, and the clarity it requires, make for calm. It is for me the equivalent of religion. -- V S Naipaul.
Need I say any more?
So happy writing. Happy reading. Happy blogging. You might find, who knows, some Ageless Bonding.
In the past two weeks I visited many blogs. Read their stuff. Some are so good that I could not move on without leaving a comment. And some posts have been eye-opening. Many of the comments -- a mix of dull, thought-provoking, mischievous and hilarious -- are worth a read too. In all, enough material for the journalist inside me to suggest: Why not write about blogging in your column? In fact, last night I began writing. So far wrote only two paragraphs, which I see no harm in sharing here.
There must be about a million houses in the neighbourhood I moved in a month ago, and so far I have been able to look into only a few homes. Some homes are warm and friendly, some extraordinarily welcoming, some indifferent, and some don’t encourage unknown visitors. The interior designs of the homes vary with the temperament of the occupant: some only have the bare essentials, some are over-decorated with colours, and some cluttered with too many details.
Some of my neighbours have been really nice: they even paid me return visits. A few I meet almost every day now, and through them, the others. My circle is growing. I am happy to have checked into Blogosphere – yes, that’s the name of the neighbourhood. The inhabitants don’t have a face or a torso, only the brain, which is visible only in the shape of written words.
That makes me wonder: If a journalist can write what he wants to in his columns, why should he (or she) blog? I don't know about other journalists, but I know my reason. Journalism provides food for my stomach, blogging provides food for my soul. The reader of my newspaper, or my editor for that matter, will not be interested in my dark moods, or in things that bring me joy. They wouldn't care if a woman shattered my heart or if I found a new love in life. Blog is the only space where I can take the load off my chest. It is like writing a diary. But unlike the diary, which is hidden away after the day's entry has been made, the blog is published. The contrast might be striking; but I see no contrast.
It is all about reaching out. When you write a diary, you reach out to yourself; you seek solace in your own company. When you blog, you seek to reach out to people who can identify with your thoughts and what you might be going through. All this thanks to technology. And also thanks to technology, you can keep your identity a secret if you wish to. So in the end, it is no different from writing a diary: only that you now have the choice who should read it and who should not.
That brings me to the basic question: Why do people write? And, more importantly, why do people write and want to be read? The answer to the second question possibly lies in the opening line of my favourite Kishore Kumar song I listed in my previous post, Har Koi Chahtaa Hai Ek Mutthi Aasmaan, Har Koi Dhoondta Hai Ek Mutthi Aasman, Jo Seene Se Lagale Koi Aisa Ho Jahaan, Har Koi Chahtaa Hai Ek Mutthi Aasman -- Each one wants a fistful of the sky, each one is seeking a fistful of the sky, each one is seeking a world that will embrace him.
As for why people write, two writers have this to say:
What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be prose and poems, the books, what is written down. -- James Salter.
...writing is more than a way of enriching one's day. Not to write is not to contemplate; not to contemplate is to fail to extract the full value or meaning of one's experience; it is to allow life and time to run meaninglessly past. The contemplation that goes with writing, and the clarity it requires, make for calm. It is for me the equivalent of religion. -- V S Naipaul.
Need I say any more?
So happy writing. Happy reading. Happy blogging. You might find, who knows, some Ageless Bonding.
My Most Favourite Kishore Kumar Songs
Think Kishore Kumar and you think of Yeh Shaam Mastaani or Zindagi Ka Safar. Good songs, no doubt, but played and heard so often that they have become cliches. The real gems hide in the corners of various albums. Often they have to be discovered. Some sung nearly 30 years ago, but what freshness they retain! My ten most favourite Kishore numbers:1. Main akela apni dhun mein magan (Manpasand)
2. Mere liye soona soona (Anand Aur Anand)
3. Har koi chahta hai ek mutthi aasmaan (Ek Mutthi Aasman)
4. Aanewala pal (Gol Maal)
5. Phir wohi raat hai (Ghar)
6. Raah pe rehte hain (Namkeen)
7. Tu chaand nagar ki shehzaadi (Duniya)
8. Toone abhi dekha nahi (Do Aur Do Paanch)
9. Mere dil mein jo hota hai (with Rafi and Lata, Aap Ke Deewane). This is a must listen.
10. Hum bewafaa: the happy version (Shalimaar). Short song, Kishore hums all the way.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Eyes As Deep As The Sea, Where Are You?!
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.
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.
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)