Bengalis

Bengalis love to eat. Wait a second, they live to eat. While the rest of the world feeds itself to survive the day, the Bengalis survive so that they can reward themselves with food at least three times a day. Without fish, they are like fish out of water: so a great deal of time, energy and money is spent on procuring the fish every morning.

Getting the fish is a task that cannot be trusted on the servants, so often it is the master of the house who goes about scanning the fish market soon after having his morning tea. Over tea, he quickly feeds his brain from the pages of Statesman, Telegraph, Ananda Bazaar Patrika or Bartaman. No self-respecting Bengali, after all, likes to be caught unawares about what's happening in the world (not just his city).

There are two kinds of Bengalis -- the British Bengali and the Bengali Bengali. The British Bengali speaks with an accent that makes you wish you should have been to Oxford. The Bengali Bengali is the one who speaks with an accent that is best illustrated by the following joke:

Britisher to Bengali: We fucked your motherland for 100 years!

Bengali: And uee weel phaak eur mathar taang phor ebhaar!

With both the varieties, you have to be 'mentally prepared' while entering into a conversation. For example, you should know which country won the football World Cup in 1986, or when was the petrol price hiked the last time. Anyway, the fish market is one place which levels the class difference between the British Bengali and the Bengali Bengali.

I could not have written all this if I was a Bengali bred in Calcutta. But I was brought up, in Uttar Pradesh, on the staple North Indian diet of daal-chaawal-roti-sabzi, with mutton or a river fish called rohu (rui in Bengali) occasionally thrown in. But marriage to a proper Calcutta girl has given me the ringside view of Bengali food habits.

What they consider a delicacy is a torture for me: stuff like prawn or varieties of fish such as the famous hilsa or pomfret or bhetki. "What do you mean you don't eat hilsa? Because of you I personally went to the market to get the fish," the husband of my wife's friend rebuked me. He was clearly more offended about a Bengali not eating hilsa rather than his effort going waste.

I have now got used to such rebukes after my recent trips to Calcutta. There is little I can do except watch others systematically devour the full Bengali meal: the rice first with vegetables, then with lentils and fried potatoes, then with fish and/or prawns, then with mutton or chicken. Finally comes the chutney, which is meant to be savoured individually rather than serve as an accompaniment, and then the dessert in the form of mishti doi or sweet curd. And even before the digestive juices could start working, the salivatory glands are already at work in the anticipiation of the next meal.

I love Bengali food -- minus the fish. What's risky for a highly fussy non-vegetarian like me is that bits of fish find their way even into the vegetables or lentils. A hardcore Bengali would like, for example, the daal to be cooked with the fish's head. My favourite is luchi and kosha maangsho -- pooris and mutton with thick gravy.

Before making my latest trip to Calcutta earlier this month, I happened to read a report about Satyajit Ray's death anniversary. A newspaper report said that the late director's family had invited select guests for the occasion and they were treated to luchi and kosha mangsho -- his favourite food. Secretly, I salivated for it. But alas, for the average Bengali, the combo is commonplace, and the focus is mainly on the varieties of fish when it comes to treating guests. Needless to say, I returned to Chennai after eating several meals of rice and daal and vegetables. It never occurred to any of my hosts to cook luchi and kosha maangsho.

Back in Chennai, I told my wife: "I really liked the luchi and kosha maangsho at your wedding."

"At my wedding?" she asked, smiling.

What to do! I keep forgetting I am a married man. I wish I could turn the clock back-- if not to my bachelor days, at least to the evening of our wedding, when the combo was on the menu and I barely had the time and energy to linger over the food.

Idlis

Some write 'idli' and some 'idly', but the image the phonetic sound throws up is the same: soft, steaming nearly-flattened white balls giving off an earthy and hunger-inducing smell. I am talking as an honorary South Indian who loves idlis, but I am sure there are people -- South Indians included -- whose taste buds don't get stirred by the sight or the smell of the idli. I can only feel sorry for them; but then, one can't be judgmental when it comes to food habits: a Korean can pity me for missing out on dog meat or cockroach pakora.

I can proudly say that I love idlis more than the South Indians do. For the South Indian, idli is a matter of habit, and habits are often without emotion. For example, brushing your teeth every morning is a part of habit, but you never look forward to brushing your teeth. But I have always looked forward to idlis, ever since my long childhood in Kanpur.

On a Friday evening every two or three months, my mother would soak rice and urad dal. The next afternoon, my father, after his half-day at work, would take the mix to a local grinder. Impatience began soon after he returned with the batter. Mother insisted that the idlis would not come out nice if the batter was not left overnight to ferment, so we waited for the morning of Sunday -- a holiday, the day of morning serials, the day of the evening movie on TV. It used to be idli breakfast, idli lunch and idli dinner.

The first 16 idlis (that's what a regular pot can hold) I would devour without any accompaniment, for the sambhar would still be cooking and I would have no patience. Once the sambhar was cooked, 16 more. And if any batter was left, then 16 more for dinner. I was so selfish about idlis that I didn't quite care how many others in the family -- mother, father and younger brother -- ate. My hunger would be even more aroused by the spluttering of mustard seeds and freshly-plucked curry leaves in oil.

Then one day I left Kanpur and went to Delhi, the land of tandoori roti and daal makhni. But still, my lunch would often be idli and sambhar, at a restaurant called Sona Rupa on Janpath. That was the safest food to have, even though the price was steep: Rs 25 or Rs 30 for a couple of idlis. (Irony: Sona Rupa shut down a few years ago, and it has been replaced by Saravana Bhawan where, I am sure, idlis come for much less). Eventually I found a very decent South Indian stall near Jantar Mantar off Parliament street. A plate of idlis for Rs 10.

And then one day I migrated to the land of idlis: Madras. The first few days I went berserk. Every time I saw I saw steaming idlis, clad in a white cloth, being offloaded from aluminium pots in roadside stalls, I stopped and had at least two. As long as the idlis were hot, you didn't care about the quality or, at least, the quality of the sambhar. Wisdom dawned only months later when I began to distinguish between good idlis and bad idlis.

Today, a highly popular chain of idli shop in Tamil Nadu, Murugan Idli Shop, has opened outlets in Madras. Both the outlets are a stone's throw from my T. Nagar home. I went there once, twice, thrice... but no more. Murugan Idlis' idlis are soft no doubt, but soft in a very leathery way. And the service can be pretty bad. Sad to see so many people -- including quite a few tasteful people I know -- pining for their idlis.

My favourite is the Triplicane-based Ratna Cafe, which has, fortunately, opened more outlets in the city. Their idlis are soft too, but in a very grainy way -- just the kind my mother made back in Kanpur years ago. And the boys there keep pouring sambhar from aluminium mugs the moment they sense the idlis are getting dry. And the sambhar they make is the best in the world. That's the idli and the sambhar Ratna Cafe has been making since the 1940's. I can spend a lifetime watching their sambhar getting soaked by the porous idlis: eating them all would require another lifetime.

Old India, New Indian

The man on the upper bunk snored away as I sat by the window, watching the world-famous greenery of Kerala pass by. Every time the train stopped, he would lower his head and ask me ‘‘Which station?’’ and go back to sleep. Finally, during a longish halt, he climbed down. He smiled at me and asked: ‘‘Where you going?’’ ‘‘Trivandrum,’’ I replied. ‘‘I also going to Trivandrum. My friends booking a resort in Kovalam. We will have some enjoyment.’’ In India, a train journey is rarely complete without fellow passengers exchanging bio-datas. Within minutes, I had his: His name was Velu, he was 29, and he worked as a leather technician in Guangzhou, China. He had a wife and a four-year-old daughter who lived back home in Chennai. He was on vacation, and he was on his way Kovalam beach for ‘‘enjoyment.’’ Read more

The Eye of Time: Book Review

Time is like a fistful of sand. You can rarely completely own it: the grains are bound to slip out of your fingers and become what we call history. But here is a chance to do just that, own history. Buy Camera Chronicles of Homai Vyarawalla. Vyarawalla needed no introduction to the high and the mighty in the 1940s and 1950s, but for the benefit of the present generation, here goes. Read more

Who Are You Banning?

In journalism we follow one principle when we are not certain about a fact or facts while writing or editing a copy: When in doubt, leave it out. Suppose we are not sure whether Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi is 82 or 83, and if there is no reliable source at hand to verify his age instantly, we leave it out. Read more

It's happening in Tamil Nadu

That's the strangest thing about Tamil Nadu: its politics. For full five years, posters of Jayalalithaa were plastered on walls all over the city. Overnight, they have been replaced by those of a smiling Karunanidhi. It is a 'laughing' Karunanidhi actually: he never smiles in the posters, but laughs -- as if someone has just cracked a joke. Jaya, on the other hand, is always sombre.

The laughing Karunanidhi is going to preside over Tamil Nadu's -- at least Chennai's -- roads for the next five years. But having witnessed the elections in the state for the second time in a row, a few questions spring up to my mind:

1. Why does Tamil Nadu never have a hung Assembly-type of situation? Why does the winning party usually sweep elections in spite of the absence of any apparent wave?

2. Why do the AIADMK and the DMK behave as sworn enemies instead of political opponents? Even the leaders of the BJP and the Congress, or even the Left, are cordial at the personal level? And if Vaiko can join hands with Jaya after being sent to jail by her, why is there no hope of Kanunanidhi and Jayalalithaa ever being at least civil to each other?

3. Why do people commit suicide whenever their political hero or cine hero (often the same in case of Tamil Nadu) loses elections or passes away?

But one good thing about parties getting sweeping majority is that there is governance in the state -- different matter that you may or may not like the style of governance. In other states, governance usually takes the backseat because those in government are preoccupied with their survival in power. The fact that Uttar Pradesh has gone to the dogs is because the state has been having a hung Assembly for years now. That is why Tamil Nadu is no longer seen as a place where "Madrasis" live and where people eat only idli and dosa. Tamil Nadu is happening.

Reflections

No, you haven't strayed into someone else's blog. The new title is inspired by an article I wrote two years ago: an account of my visit to Haridwar. We are all on a journey: at times it feels like being on a boat in a river; at times we speed like a train; and at times time just flies like a plane. To savour the varied paces of life instead of getting carried away by the pace itself, one needs to sit back from time to time and reflect. Reflection leads to writing, and writing to salvation.

On the Ganga Mail

The Ganga is like a train. It starts from a station called Gangotri, up in the Himalayas, and, after chugging through the plains of North India, terminates at the mouth of Bay of Bengal. Everyday, millions board the train at various stations, hoping to get to a place called Salvation. Nobody has ever seen the place; they’ve only heard about it. Yet, they undertake the tedious journey.


The notable difference between the Ganga and the regular train is that the Ganga doesn’t have any classes — no second class, first class, 2AC or 3AC. It has only one class — faith. And the notable similarity is — well, to find that you’ll have to take the Ganga Mail. It’s like taking, say, the Kalka Mail from Delhi to Kolkata. When you board the train, you find your compartment tidy, the toilets clean enough and there are no ‘unreserved’ passengers squeezing you in your own seat. But as soon as the train rolls into the plains of Uttar Pradesh and then into Bihar, the journey threatens to become a nightmare. You should be grateful to God if you reach Kolkata in one piece. But when dacoits strike in trains in Bihar, even Gods seem to look the other way.


The same is the case with the Ganga. The further it flows, the more corrupted it gets. So while at one place it looks spectacular, at another it looks — rather is made to look — ugly. Here’s a look at two such places: one inspiring awe, another evoking anger. And even while you read this, Ganga’s eternal journey continues.


The April sun shone brightly the morning I walked out of the Haridwar station, all set to take the Ganga Mail. But it wasn’t hot: a cool breeze was wafting down the Himalayas which overlook this holy town. It was the wrong — or perhaps the right — time to be there. The Ardha Kumbha Mela was on and Haridwar was a sea of people. They were trooping in from everywhere, with the sole purpose of bathing in the river on that auspicious day and be blessed.


Traffic was restricted because of the mela and I walked more than a kilometre before I found a cyclerickshaw to take me to a hotel. Which hotel, I had no idea. I left the choice to the wisdom of the rickshawpuller. I was glad I did that. The hotel was not only good but it also gave me a discount that journalists in North India either extract or are entitled to, officially or unofficially.


After a shower I decided that I needed a drink, for the simple reason that Haridwar is a dry place; and dry places and dry days make you more thirsty. So I pulled out the hip flask from the rucksack along with a guide book on Uttaranchal.


All these years, Uttar Pradesh boasted of Haridwar and Gangotri but today these places belong to Uttaranchal. Uttar Pradesh is left with the part of Ganga which feeds millions, which has sustained many cultures, which has inspired hundreds of folksongs and Bollywood songs, but which you would not like to go to as a tourist. Unless you are one of those hardened travellers who draws a beautiful picture even in an ugly setting.


In Haridwar, the Ganga is not just a holy river. It’s an event. It’s like watching a movie. Every swirl of it has to be watched to understand the whole story. And this is one movie for which you always reach late: even before you see the river you hear its gurgling sound, and by the time you take your seat by its banks, there is already a crowd of a thousand people watching the show.


I also arrived late after strolling through the narrow streets around Har Ki Pauri, the main bathing ghat. The streets are lined with shops that sell everything required by an average, God-fearing Hindu family. And most music shops seemed to play the same song, all the time, Maano to main Ganga maa hoon, na maano to behta paani — If you are a believer, I am Mother Ganga, and if you are a non-believer, I am just flowing water. Either way, the river, fresh out of the Himalayas, is spectacular here and now I was going to witness the spectacle. I deposited my sandals (no footwear allowed) and walked into Har Ki Pauri. It has steps constructed on either side of the swiftly flowing river and a couple of temples jut into the water. Iron chains run along the embankment — in case the current is too strong for you.


Thousands were frolicking in the chilly water. To me they looked more like one huge family out on picnic. While they took the dips, making joyous cries, hundreds of others were busy changing for the bath, unmindful of the onlookers. And there were hundreds more towelling themselves and changing into fresh set of clothes, unmindful of others. A strange paradox struck me. Indian women are a modest lot. They would not imagine wearing bikinis at the beach. They would rather labour under the weight of a wet saree. But here, they change as if they were in the privacy of their bathrooms: the shame is yours if you run into them. Perhaps the holy atmosphere is expected to act as a curtain.


Finally, the sun went down and it was time for aarti (waving of lights). Loudspeakers urged bathers to clear out and take their place on the steps. Religion enforces discipline more effectively than anything else, and soon a mass of humanity was seated on each side of the river — in total silence. Many people stood on the banks, holding leaf-bowls that contained flowers and an oil-lamp. The lamp was to be lit and the bowl released in the water.


At the appointed time, the bhajan, Jai Gangey Mata began playing on the speakers. Bells in the temples rang and priests came out with huge brass lamps, waving them at the swirling black waters, now illuminated by the hundreds of tiny, floating diyas. Har Ki Pauri resembled a stadium witnessing the closing ceremony of an Olympic Games — only that this stadium was linear, not oval.


Faith, they say, moves mountains. And when the collective faith of thousands of people is at work, something is bound to happen. Well, the Himalayas stood still. But the Ganga, with all those floating lamps, suddenly began to look like a bejewelled goddess. One of those lamps was lit by me.


Those pirates struck in the high seas, these pirates strike in the river, rather the confluence of the two great rivers of India which makes Allahabad famous. They glide their boats alongside yours and even before you realise, you've been persuaded into performing an expensive, boat-to-boat puja for the well-being of your near and dear ones.


Since all this happens in the middle of the river, you can't even walk out. All you can do is console yourself watching other would-be victims getting rowed into the trap of the priests and the pandas — as the middlemen between God and mortals are called — who throng the river.
I saw it coming even when I was long way off from Sangam (that’s what the confluence is called). It was 7.00 am but the sun was already merciless and I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for — myself or the rickshawpuller who was carting me to the riverbank. Sangam must have been still a kilometre or two away when a man on a bicycle pulled alongside.


“Sir, I am boatman. You want boatman,” he asked in English. He looked too healthy for a boatman. I told him that I was a local guy, and that I did not need him or his boat. He was undeterred. He kept pace with my rickshaw and soon reopened the conversation:


“So you are from Kanpur. We used to make our boats there. It took three days to row down to Allahabad.” I merely nodded, hoping that my silence would shut him up and send him way. But this man had smelt a prey.


“Sir, you are one of our own. I will show around like no one else will do. I will show you the exact spot where the Ganga meets the Yamuna,” he pleaded. I knew I was trapped. I will spare you the details about what happened from then on till the time I sat in the boat. But he had still not said how much he was going to charge. “You are our guest, sir. Money is not at all a problem,” he kept saying.


Only after he had untied the rope and stepped into the boat, followed by an emaciated old man, he said: “Give me Rs 400.” As I had suspected, this man looked too healthy to be rowing a boat. He was just a pimp. The old man rowed the boat.


From the boat I could clearly see the green waters of the Yamuna meeting the muddy waters of the Ganga before the two, together, head eastwards towards Varanasi. A few metres away from the confluence is a spot where water is only two feet deep and which is surrounded by dozens of pilgrim-laden boats. That's where people bathe and wash away their sins and immerse the ashes of the dead.


Before I could reach there, the pandas attacked. A boat came up from nowhere, and in a flash I found myself holding three shrivelled coconuts. I was also giving out my father’s name, my mother’s name, my gotra and was soon repeating mantras that the pirate was chanting. Reality struck me only when he asked for the money: Rs 501. Once again I’ll spare you how I extricated myself, but not before shelling out Rs 100 (saving of Rs 401!).


“This is nothing. They extract thousands of rupees from people who come for pind-daan (a ritual for the soul of dead relatives),” the pimp on my boat said with a grin.


If the pandas make their living from the departure of souls, there are people who make a living —and occasionally a fortune — from the ashes. They are the gotakhors, or divers.


I saw a man, his head freshly shaven, leaning from a boat and emptying an urn into the river. Suddenly two gotakhors swooped in on their boats and plunged iron sieves into the spot where the shaven-headed man had just finished emptying the urn. They were looking for ornaments of the deceased but all they could net was tiny, sparkling pieces of bone. Salvation, even for the dead, does not come without the humiliation of their bones being sifted for gold.


A sense of disgust overcame me. I wanted to return to Haridwar. But then I remembered that the Ganga is a Down train: it does not make a return journey.

Thought Processor At Work

Thought processes can be alike. But I never realised there would be three 'Thought Process' in blogspotdom, yours truly included. Curiously, the other two turned out to be Indians as well. Seeing their pages, I for a moment thought someone has played mischief with my font and colour. (I guess they will feel the same if they chanced upon my blog). After I got over the surprise, I felt as if... well, it felt like this: you pass by a Lee showroom and fall in love with a shirt and buy it; and the next day you find someone else wearing it as well!

Moral of the story: I need to come up with a new one. The thought process would be the same, but the signboard newly-painted, with a new title. Till then...

Pens

All dressed but nowhere to go: that's the situaton I find myself in very often these days, especially since I bought the laptop over a year ago. A fairly decent collection of fountain pens, a few bottles of ink (black, blue, blue-black and green) and several handful of ink cartridges (Reynolds, Cross and Waterman). But nothing to write.

The nature of my job in Chennai gives me ample time, unlike my Delhi days when you had to rush out to the spot, rush back to office and type out your story, and then rush out again. Even since I came here five and half years ago, till I acquired the laptop, I used to handwrite every story before typing it out in the office. The handwriting would be careful in the beginning, with the opening paras being written and rewritten several times. The style would have to match the ideas: that's when the alcohol was yet to have its effect. With the first kick of the booze, the thought process would get uninhibited and I would start taking liberties with the style: the handwriting would not matter much. After the third drink, the style or the handwriting would not matter at all -- only ideas. They kept coming, I kept jotting. The next morning, I would rewrite most of the stuff while typing on the computer and turn out a rather decent story. No longer. Today I go more by the appearance of a sentence on the screen.

Pablo Neruda once said that writing needs to be done with minimum tools at your disposal. Just a pen and a piece of paper would do. One cannot agree more. When all you have is a pen and a piece of paper, your mind works the most. When you type on, say, Microsoft Word, distractions are plenty -- from the spellchecker to the word counter. You get so caught in technology that you forget to push your mind hard. A stray thought, which could have been immensely useful, risks being blocked like a pop-up just because you are so focussed on the screen.

Back to pens. Fountains pen have always fascinated me. Nothing like the ink flowing smoothly through a thick nib. As a child I mainly used a pen called Usha. It had a transparent body, which kept showing you how much ink is left. It cost, if I remember correctly, Rs 2 or Rs 3. Occasionally, I would be treated to a Camlin, or the Chinese-made Hero. I wrote my class 12 exams with a fountain pen whose brand I can't even recall: it was local-made and must have cost not more than Rs 10 at the time.

By then Reynolds had come, and so did pens with jotter refills. I don't remember when exactly and why I switched loyalties, but for a long period starting from college I used ball pens. Maybe at that point other things mattered more than pens. Then, in 1991, we went to attend my uncle's wedding in Bengal. I carried a camera and took pictures. And elderly relative, who we had never met before, wanted some of the pictures to be sent to him. To write down his address, he took out a fountain pen: a cheap one, but well taken care of. The way the ink flowed made me salivate -- yes, salivate. I returned to my first love.

There are two things I don't like about ball pens. One, the ink-flow becomes uneven after a point. Two, it leaves an obnoxious impression on the back of the page. Roller-balls are fine, but then, you can't beat the bottled ink.

While working in Delhi, the first expensive fountain pen I bought was a Flair President. It had cost me Rs 450 in 1995 (Parker hadn't come yet). That was the best pen I ever possessed: I wrote countless letters and articles with that. (It is still lying somewhere in my cupboard, broken). Then I started buying Parkers. By now I realised that I was not the only one with a passion for fountain pens, and that a good fountain pen was also a statement of style. M.J. Akbar, one of my editors in Delhi, always carried a Mont Blanc in his pocket -- the white star on the cap signifying the superior status of the owner. Whenever he was travelling, he would write out his column, Byline, in longhand and fax it to the office: flawless pieces with no words or sentences struck out.

Mont Blanc, at that point, was out of reach for me: Rs 10,000 in 1996 or 1997. But I kept buying other stuff. I got pens as gifts too, from the dearest ones. Today, my collection is fairly decent: several Parkers, two Hertig, one Lamy, one Cross, two Waterman, one Camlin (for Rs 50, bought in Trivandrum), one Pierre Cardin, and now, one Mont Blanc (a wedding gift by my wife). Another Mont Blanc is on the way, thanks to a very special friend. Isn't life wonderful?

All I need to do now is justify the possession of so many pens by switching off the computer and grabbing a piece of paper. Neruda was right, after all.

What's Your Caste?

A couple of years ago, a friend had thrown a small party at his flat in Chennai, where I met a very attractive girl from Kerala. As luck would have it, I found myself alone in her company quite a few times during the evening. Since I had been to the state quite a few times, I sought to impress her with whatever little knowledge I had then about God's Own Country. Luck seemed to be going in my favour till I made a terrible faux pas. I happened to ask her, “Are you a Nair or a Nambiar or a…?” She cut me short, penetrating my eyes with hers, “In this day and age, how can you ask someone's caste?!” I wished I could bury myself in the concrete floor. Read more

Sex

And I thought those good days had ended with marriage. But marriage, I am realising, endows you with certain respectability and trustworthiness which give you access to more and more women -- wife's friends, wife's colleagues, wife's relatives and so on. These are women who consider you by and large harmless and therefore don't mind letting their guard down in your presence.

So there I was, sitting with my new wife and two of her friends -- both married for a few years and both to busy IT guys. The subject of sex came up, though I don't remember how.

"Sex!" one of the friends exclaimed, "Sex is now like (Durga) Puja, it comes only once a year."

"Exactly," the other friend giggled.

I was listening.

DIC(K)

Guys, look at the headline of this report appearing in a self-proclaimed national newspaper and decide whether the sub-editor in question is just being cheeky or is plain ignorant or is simply the kind who plays it safe by condensing the intro into a headline. Or is it just my mind which is being dirty? If that's the case, I am not to be blamed alone, for a friend passed this on to me. And that friend had it passed on by a friend of his.

If anyone is to blame, it is former Congress stalwart in Kerala, K Karunakaran. Couldn't he have thought of a better name for his breakaway party which didn't abbreviate as DIC(K) -- Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran)? As a sub-editor, I would find the bracketted 'K' to be highly suggestive and would avoid using the acronym in the headline. But Karunakaran is no sub-editor: he doesn't care what his party looks like or sounds like as long as he is able to thumb his nose at the Congress. Well, the DIC(K) thumbed its nose, and in retaliation the Congress hardened its stand. Now one doesn't expect DIC(K) to turn soft because of the Congress' hardened stand: that would take the fun out of Kerala's politics in the run up to the Assembly elections.

I wonder if Karunakaran and his son Muraleedharan are aware of the jokes (cracked and, perhaps invented, by Malayalam journalists working out of Delhi) that are rampant about their DIC(K): no, the jokes were invented long before they invented the new party.

To Write Or Not To Write

Hi guys! The fact that you are reading this shows you haven't forgotten me -- and that's very reassuring. Keep coming back, for I haven't finished yet. In fact, this is just the beginning. What has finished is one phase of my life -- the only phase that I have known since childhood, the phase which I kept clinging to for so long that I feared being left out, the phase which made me feel independent at times and insecure at others, the phase in which I lived life kingsize. Bachelorhood.

Life, for me, would be a joint account from now. But wait, that is not going to shorten the space for my own signature: it will still be in bold and in full. No dilution there. So you can expect more of sex, scotch and Pancham. By the way, here's something I discovered for hardcore Kishore Kumar fans: http://songs.kishorekumar.org/. Check it out, it will make your day.

Of late, I have been listening to plenty of Pancham as well. My current favourite is Manna Dey's Deewaron ka jungle jiska aabadi hai naam, andar se chup chup lagta hai baahar hai kohraam (from Deewar). I realised RD has set another song to the same tune, sung very emotionally by Kishore: Hum aur tum thhey saathi, abhi hai kal ki baat; aaj safar mein tumne kyon chhod diya mera saath -- we were partners till yesterday, why have you suddenly left me today? -- from the movie Hamare Tumhare.

Given the transition in life I am going through, I try not listening to the second version: it drives a knife into my chest. A successful relationship is always built on the graveyard of failed ones, and it is particularly painful when you consider yourself as the culprit for the failure. If I had my way, I would kneel and place my head on the ground and weep till the tears had drained me of every drop of guilt. But should I accept responsibility for a crime that has been committed by Mr Circumstances?

Mr Circumstances is the son of a bitch. But then there is also Ms Circumstances, the angel, who helps you ignore him and move on. I met the angel in Rishikesh, and she changed my life. No, no, the angel isn't the one I am going to marry. This angel was the real angel: the kind you read about in fairy tales. One touch by her and my whole Thought Process changed. In fact, in Rishikesh, I had even forgotten the fact that I had a blog, leave alone its title.

As I write this, Manna Dey's Deewaron ka jungle is playing for the 20th -- or 30th -- time on my speakers, and for some reason, I don't feel like stopping either him or my writing. Manna Dey has a kind voice, and I need that kindness now -- especially the kindness which drips in the Deewar song. Really, don't we all live in a deewaron ka jungle -- a jungle of concrete walls -- where we are left to fend for ourselves? We might have parents, siblings, a husband, or a wife -- but at the end of the day, you are alone and you have to hunt for your own happiness. It is only when you are a child that one of your parent will hunt for happiness and will bring it you; otherwise you will have to hunt for it yourself.

I hunted for my happiness; and it eventually came my way. But unlike lions and tigers, humans have emotions. As a human, you can't savour the happiness without thinking of the would-have-been happiness or could-have-been happiness. And would-have-been-happiness = memories. And memories I have in plenty: where is the space to bury them?

The intelligent thing is to reason the memories and not bury them; memories are something that make you wise. Memories are because you move on. And I am moving into future holding the hand of Pancham: Raat banoon main aur chaand bane tu. I broke my back looking for the song, but I only had to bat my eyelid to find someone to share the song with, share my life with. That's life: one moment it is elusive, at another it pampers you.

Amid all the pampering, I might have forgotten to write my blog, but I did not forget to take a look at, or think about, what I have written so far. My posts so far are nothing but outpourings of a hungry soul -- a soul hungry for attention and a little bit of love and care. Whose attention? Whose love? Whose care? I do not know. I don't even know why I wrote them -- whether to really seek attention or just for some effect and fun. But the fact is that I wrote them and I am not going to shy away from the responsibility. And since I love to write, I will keep on writing, love or no love. All I would need is the hunger to write.

By The Ganges

First of all, my apologies for the unexplained absence -- month-long, as I realise now. One month: four weeks. The first week was the most anxious in my life so far; the second most blissful; the third week contained residues of the bliss and hence the most peaceful; the fourth was spent in numbness induced by pleasant suprises that life is capable of throwing up at the most unexpected moments.
 

A month ago, I might have described in detail what I went through in each of these weeks. But now I will stick to the second week, the blissful one, for that alone is relevant here and worth sharing. That was the week I spent at the feet of the mighty Himalayas, in Rishikesh, when there was hardly a moment when the swiftly-flowing Ganges was out of sight. At times the river was green, at times grey, at times black with shimmering electric lights reflecting on it. A narrow street. On it cyber cafes and samosa shops; sadhus and beggars; the Oriental and Western; stray cows and dogs; flies and cowdung and incense sticks; Indian restaurants and an Italian restaurant; love and no hatred; love-making but no sex; chatter and chants; mortals and the Gods.
 

The seven days I spent there, participating in an international yoga festival, melted away faster than the Ganges. But not before I learned a few things, which I would like to share with you guys:

1. The simplest things in life are the most difficult to achieve. Just like the simplest of asanas, or yoga postures. The trikonasana or the triangle pose, for example, might seem to be child's play, but you could spend a lifetime perfecting it. The trick is to keep trying.

2. Never push anything -- be it your body, your relationships, your capabilities or whatever -- beyond 70 percent of its limit. Leave that 30 percent of space for imperfection. Things work the best that way.

3. When you fall or lose balance while doing an asana, the only option is to get up and get back to the pose. The same thing applies to life.

4. A beautiful smile is the offshoot of a beautiful mind. Don't trust the dentist or the toothpaste ads.

5. If you think you are the best, you are mistaken. There are people who are 'bestest'.

6. Have faith. Real faith. Doesn't matter if you don't believe in God.

7. Do yoga. It moves your butt like nothing else, even though yoga might seem something where you only lie on your butt and do nothing else.

8. Visit the mountains once a year.

9. Visit the Ganga, or the Ganges, once a year. Life is incomplete if you haven't been by the Ganges.
 

10. Sabse oonchi prem sagaayi -- the union of love is the greatest union.

Shaadi

When I signed up with shaadi.com, I was not at all serious. I still find it very difficult to digest the idea of marrying someone through matrimonial columns -- be it online or otherwise. But ever since I started getting responses, I have been scanning the website rather seriously. And believe me, there is a galaxy of women out there who, in real life, would make you fall on your knees and plead, "Will you marry me?" If one of them comes along, I will readily tie the knot. If not, I can always say I was against the idea of marrying through matrimonial columns.

This afternoon I was looking at the profile of a girl -- good-looking and all. Educated too. But there was a rider: "We want a non-smoker and a teetotaller. SC/STs please excuse." Since I am a smoker and I also love my drink, I found myself disqualified to click on the 'contact her' icon. But I wouldn't have clicked in any case because the "SC/STs please excuse" pissed me off. It is just not politically correct. Ok, none of us are politically correct when it comes to being practical, but there are subtle ways of putting things. I only hope that Mayawati or any of the leaders of the Dalit parties don't read the profile, or else tomorrow you can expect the matter being blown up into a political issue.

The profile, needless to say, was posted by the 'parent/guardian' -- for that's the generation which did not let education alter its biases. It is so much fun to read profiles posted by 'self', as in the girls themselves. Some of them are really irresistible.

Bookshop

Sunday afternoon: nothing to do
I went to the bookshop

At the 'Travel' section, she squatted
poring over a book
through the hair falling on her face

I pulled out a book, glanced at the pages
but sideglances on her: sharp nose, sad eyes

Her mobile fell, I picked it up. Our eyes met.
"Thank you." "No problem."
"I am so and so." "I am so and so."

"You are an interesting guy"
"It is nice meeting you too"

An hour passed by
One beauty, so many books, so little time
"Hey, have you read this?" "Hey have you read that?"

Another hour passed by. Time to leave
We shook hands. A gentle squeeze

"Hey, do yo have to go?" She replied, "Yes, sadly so"
"Why?" She replied, "Because we are different,
you like Bill Bryson, I like Pico Iyer"

She walked away but turned back for a moment
as if to say: "I didn't want to leave, but I have to"

Why Should Politicians Be Khadi-Clad?

It isn’t easy if you want to look like a policeman even for a day. You have to get a khaki uniform stitched — and God alone knows where you can get those stars and the badges and, above all, the cap from. Ditto if you want to look like an Army or a Navy officer. Even a lawyer, for that matter. Unless you are friends with a film ‘extra’ who can guide you to the shop that rents out stuff for shootings.

But to look like a politician, all you need to do is walk into the nearest Khadi Gramodyog store and buy yourself a white kurta and a pajama and, perhaps, a waistcoat. Go home, change, and there you are! — a politician. Full story.

75 And Still Not Done

75 th post. Is that a milestone? I am still 25 short of a hundred, and eight months short of one full year of blogging. That's when bloggers -- as I've noticed -- write the summing-up sort of post: looking back and all that, thanking people and all that, do what not and all that.

But I don't have the patience to write 25 more posts (at least with the thought that I have to write 25 more to say whatever I am going to say now) or wait till next October (when my blog would complete one year). Moreover, as a journalist, I know how to invent a 'peg' (which means the purpose of telling a story, and not a peg of whisky). And if the 75th birthday of a person or an institution can be a big deal, why not the 75th post of a blog?

That reminds me of a rather depressing question: how many of the present-day bloggers would live to celebrate 75 years of blogging? Questions like these make me want to seek refuge in the arms of a fellow blogger, preferably a female. But none of the female bloggers I know will oblige because they would go by the interests I've mentioned in my profile: "Yoga, sex, scotch, travel, fountain pens, etc. etc." Which woman would like a man whose interests are sex and scotch?

But then, who doesn't like -- or love -- sex? And perhaps mind an occasional drink, unless you are a diehard teetotaller? But when you spell out such habits as your 'interests' in your blog profile, the image that goes out to the world is that of a man who has a woman on the right and on the left when he goes to bed every night and who, in between satisfying the urges of the women on either side, sips his scotch. Wow, I wish that happened for real. The reality is I've been sitting in front of my computer night after night for five months now, sucking the screen. "Screen sucking", according to Time magazine, means "wasting time online long after you have finished what you signed on to do."

True, I may have my wasted time. But I have also learned a lot. For one, it helps me practise writing. Two, it expands my horizons, especially when I read fellow bloggers.

When I started blogging in October last year, I had no idea my blog would be read. It is sheer good luck that it has been read by some of the best minds -- people who have been kind enough to leave comments as well. And the happiest bit is that their comments are usually spontaneous rather than just an act of obligation. So I would like to thank them, and while thanking them, I would also like to point what I like about them:

Akruti: For sharing the same passion for music, especially Pancham's music. She is supposed to have left Blogosphere but believe me, she will come back. Home is where the heart is.

Arundhati: The simplicity of her verses can put any professional and snooty poet to shame. If you want your day to be made, get to know Arundhati. She won't let you down: she has a truly large heart. Don't you, Rulda?

Atul: I am scared to read his posts. He writes stuff which compel me to comment, and I hate commenting. So I try to read his stuff on the sly and go away without being noticed. Amazing guy.

Baddy: That's the 'bad name', as opposed to the 'good name', of Baradwaj Rangan, who is a competent writer first and a friend later.

Deepa: She makes me feel jealous. She not only lives in a territory I've hardly explored -- Karnataka -- but also describes her travels to nearby places in a manner that makes me hang my head in shame. Deepa, can we trade places? Read her guys, and you will know what I mean.

Kornershop Girl: Go to her profile and read all her three blogs. Not very often will you come across people like her.

Leya: An engineering student who understands, more than the physics, the chemistry of life. Her latest piece, on Kovalam, is outstanding.

M T Saju: No comments, for he is a colleague and a friend, and I don't want to sound biased.

Maya: I hate you, Maya. When is your blog going to be updated? You know why I am looking foward to it -- because you write sofuckingwell!

Nina: Nina, please don't go away. Stay on and keep exposing the plagiarists of the world.

Sangeeta: Sangeeta, apart from playing the 'Miss' for your students, think of people who miss your posts. Do write.

Sanjeev: Quite a few women bloggers have asked me, in private, "Who is Sanjeev?" Check out for yourself.

Sharmishta: You have heard of the word 'honest.' But Sharmishta stands for 'honestest'. Read her blog and you will know what I mean.

Usha: She is kindness personified. One of the few people who you can take for granted and not say nice things just because you have to. She is nice anyway.

Visithra: Well, well, well... Well, if you want to sink into a well of emotions -- good, sad and happy -- read her blog. And read it carefully without being taken up by those hypnotic pair of eyes, and you will know what I mean.

And how can I forget Anil Shankar from Kerala and Ravi Juneja from Delhi? They have, on various occasions, made me feel very special; and I shall remain indebted to them.

Memories Of Another Day

Delhi, 1996.

It was the kind of day you usually find described in the opening chapter of a novel: a pleasant spring morning when there was a mild chill in the air even though the sun shone brightly. The birds sang outside and inside, on the radio, on 102.6 FM, Leo Sayer was singing Love you more than I can say. The time was 9.55. Or maybe 9.56. I left the bed and walked into the bathroom and began lathering my chin. I had a date.

As I prepared to shave I could hear the RJ for the English programme signing off. Then a couple of commercials. I was waiting for the Hindi RJ to take over. I was wondering what he had to say, for it was Valentine's Day. I was also wondering if the first song would be Kishore Kumar or RD or both (the RJs, like me, are usually partial to them). But the jockey did not speak. What I heard was strains of piano. And then the silky voice of Bhupinder wafted out of the two-in-one gifted to me by my parents. Asha Bhosle joined soon after. I stopped shaving and listened.

Bhupinder: Aawaaz di aaj ik nazar ne, ya hai ye dil ko ghuman

dohraa rahi hai jaise fazaayen, bhooli hui daastan

Asha: Laut aayi hai phir roothi baharen, kitna haseen hai samaa

duniya se kehdo na humko pukaare, hum kho gaye hain yahaan

Loosely translated, it means (please correct me if I am wrong):

Bhupinder: Is her gaze seeking out my attention, or am I just imagining?

But the ambience today seems to be retelling an old story...

Asha: The spring that was sulking has returned, and how beautiful is the weather

Tell the world not to disturb us, because we are lost here...

I was transfixed. I put the razor down and came close to the radio. A die-hard fan of Kishore Kumar by now had added the image of Bhupinder to his altar. And the song was not composed by RD, as I discovered later. It was composed by the much-maligned Bappi Lahiri -- India's 'Disco King' who thrived in the early 1980's by stealing tunes from the West. But even detractors of Bappi Lahiri should acknowledge that he gave really good music before and after the Disco boom. Before the boom, you had gems like Chalte Chalte; and after, you had a sparkling piece of diamond like Aawaaz di hai.

I wished I could gift this piece of diamond to my girlfriend. But there was no time to hunt for a cassette (those days CDs were rare and prohibitively expensive) that might have had that song. Moreover, she was heavily into the Power of Love kind of music -- the compilation of mushy songs of that era. (In hindsight, that was the era which made 'love music' cliched. Rewind a little backward and you have lovely songs like George Baker's Love me like I love you and I love you even more.) In any case, she did not want songs. She had told me weeks before: "You know, on Valentine's Day, a guy is supossed to give his girlfriend a bouquet, some chocolates and a card." (Mind you, those where the days when Valentine's Day was just another day for the masses. It was only after Hrithik Roshan's Kaho Na Pyaar Hai that February 14 became a national festival).

So I asked my local florist to rustle up a bouqeut, and while he was at it, I ran to a nearby shop and bought an Amul chocolate (you no longer find them, but at one time, they were supposed to be the utlimate gift for "someone you love") and a greeting card. Armed with the three things, I reached the bus-stop where I was supposed to meet her. The bus-stop was next to her place. I sat there for almost an hour -- the huge plastic-covered bouquet inviting giggles from girls waiting for their buses.

And then my girlfriend showed up (there were no mobile phones then to confirm if one would show up: one just banked on faith). She was bleary-eyed: we had fought the previous night. She came and took the bouquet and stuff and left. I hopped into the next bus that came by.

That was ten years ago.

The girlfriend is long gone and the memories of that bright morning are slowly fading. But Aawaz di hai remains embedded in my heart. The song is getting fresher every passing year.

Enjoy:

 

 

Anyone Good, Stable And Eligible?

One of the bloggers I admire, Sharmishta, recently wrote a post where she mentions her second meeting with her fiancee. One of the subjects that came up for discussion during their meeting was "why it is so hard for women to find good, stable, eligible men these days." The sentence instantly made me raise an imaginary hand and proclaim, "Why, I am there! Main hoon na!"

But the sweeping statement was substantiated by solid reasons (stemming from the thoughts of various people) as in how it is difficult indeed for women to find good, stable, eligible men these days. So I tamely withdrew the imaginary hand and placed it under my chin and read on. And now, having read them over and over again, I cannot resist offering the thoughts each of those reasons aroused in my mind. (The points raised in her post are in italics. What follows is my opinion. And when I say 'you', I don't mean Sharmishta but the proponents of the view that how difficult it is these days for women to find men who are good, stable and eligible.)

1. All potent men are dickheads - The Lingam drives their thinking.

That's not only hitting below the belt, but also unfair. If a man does not get a hard on, you call him impotent and dump him. But if he is potent, you call him a dickhead! What is the world coming to? Now, no decent man is going to return the compliment by coining the female equivalent for the term 'dickhead', whatever that maybe (any suggestions, though?); nor is he going to declare in a public space such as the blog as to how the female equivalent of the Lingam drives their thinking. But we all know it, don't we?

2. When speaking of intelligent men, you are actually talking of men who are able to use their brains in addition to their phallus. This has eliminated a significant part of the male population.

In other words, you want a dickhead, as in a guy who knows how to use his dick as well as his head. Now, isn't that asking for too much? Ok, ok, I know what you mean: you want a guy whose head rules his dick and not vice-versa. People whose heads are ruled by their dicks act in porn movies. If you want the best of his brains and the phallus, give him sufficient stimulus and he is all yours.

3. In addition to being dickheads, men never outgrow their breast fixation. Its instinctive -- when they are born, they learn that breasts provide them with food and the fixation just continues beyond infancy.

Rubbish! Personally, I am a great worshipper of the gluteus maximus which, according to me, eventually defines the female form. Breasts are more about size, while the butt is about shape. And shape matters.

4. Most people who can stop obsessing about breasts for short periods of time do so because they are in the rat race and have to go to work, where their fetishes are interrupted by bouts of worrying about how to pay the next month's EMI or how to save for a rainy day and all that.

In the age of multi-tasking, it is possible to work and also think about breasts. And who is he saving or paying the EMIs for anyway? Isn’t it for the woman he is going to marry?

5. Men who work because they want to, where they want to and when they want to (in short, smart men) have a lot of time on their hands to read stuff and this becomes a problem. They read up on a lot of stuff including Freud, Carl Jung, et al and also that really interesting story about how the cuckoo lays its eggs in the crow's nest and the crows take care of hatching the eggs while the cuckoo is busy hatching eggs elsewhere. Reading all these stories gives them ideas about how to live their own lives - if they are smart, they generally are able to execute these ideas very well, which makes them avoid commitments and long-term relationships till they grow old or bored or lonely or impotent or catch HIV or some other disease or die in testesterone-driven accidents (driving fast, or skiing on the Alps or some such thing), at which point, if they are still alive, they decide that its time for them to marry.

You have a point. Beware of such men. They are obsessed about themselves. They break hearts and women mourn them all their lives. Of late I have seen a number of women writing sad posts about how they lost ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ (the man is usually referred by the first letter of his name).

6. Women who, eventually, do get married to such men realize that they are not fun at all and end up having affairs with other "Single, Smart, Good Looking, Emotionally-stable, Financially-secure and Intelligent Men (not) looking for a long-term commitment - in short, men described in point 5 above.

Didn’t I just warn you? By now you should have realised that men who work and pay EMIs and obsess about boobs in their free time are worth marrying. But remember: the grass is always greener on the other side. Those who marry heads look out for a dick; and those who marry dicks look out for a head.

Now why it is so hard for men to find "good, stable, eligible women these days"? I haven't found one yet.

Loev and Se-x

Look at the extent to which online hawkers can go to avoid detection by spamguards and firewalls. I got a mail today from one John Brown which said:

"Do You have enough pwoer to provide your patrner high quality SE-X on St. Valentine day? Get a MON-STER pwoer, nothing can bring your ererction down!Show your partner the PWOER of your LOEV and she will always remember You. Loev will ALWAYS be associated with YOU! Your order will be PRIVATE, nobody will know what You use. "

I noticed this mail because these days I check my bulk/junk folder. That's because the responses to my profile on shaadi.com are landing, for some reason, on this folder. And if you want to know why I registered with shaadi.com, read this. Mr John Brown, fuck off for now.

Men And Women

Sharmishta has something interesting to say here. My take on it in a day or two.

The Blog And The Blogger

My blog is worth $ 9,597.18. Want to know the value of yours? Scroll down, and at the bottom of the sidebar you will find a button. Click on it and enter your URL. You will get a figure, which could even be zero. The value of 'Journalism', the blog where I bung in stuff that I write for my paper, is $ 0.00. Clearly, it is the translation of the traffic on your website into money.

So the buggers have turned even your thought process into a commodity. A thought crosses your mind, you write it down, people read it and comment, and now suddenly, the process is being measured in virtual money. Virtual friends, virtual girlfriend, virtual sex, and now virtual money. So I have nearly 9,597.18 dollars in the virtual bank. That is about Rs 4.5 lakh! What will that get me?

Ah, a lot. A virtual holiday in Paris. A virtual collection of Mont Blanc fountain pens. A virtual car. In other words I will be in Paris but still won't be in Paris. I will be writing with a Mont Blanc but nothing to show on the paper. I will be driving a car but holding only an imaginary steering and sitting on an imaginary seat -- in which case I would fall on my butt and get real. Yes, fuck virtual. Get real.

And the reality is the ugliness of consumerism, which stands on the principle that everything can be sold as long as you market it well. Personally, I have no objection to this principle as long as it is confined to things material -- such as food and clothes and household stuff. You can sell Pepsi or Coke: if people like the drink, they will drink it. You can sell underwear: if people find them to be durable and not find holes in them within weeks, they will buy it. If they find holes, they will discard your product, no matter how sexy the model who peddles it.

In other words, if you want to sell something, you need to have not only quality but also a face that can sell it. But this principle does not apply to writing, particularly blogs, even more particularly, personal blogs. Personal thoughts, and the way they are expressed in writing, are subjective -- someone might find the writing breathtaking, others might find it to be crap. So who decides what is good, what is bad? The traffic on your blog?

I don't think so. The traffic is hardly an indicator of the quality, though it might be an indicator of how active you are as a blogger, which means 1. You write a post, 2. You get comments, 3. You dutifully reply to those comments, thanking them and all, 4. Having read those comments, you go to the commentators' blogs and leave comments on their latest post -- if not out of appreciation, but at least out of obligation, in return for their favour, 5. Go to the blogs of people who have already commented on the recent posts of your commentators and leave a comment their latest posts -- if not in genuine appreciation, at least in the hope of attracting them to your blog.

If you follow this five-step acitvity on a daily basis for a few weeks, chances are you may end up having 30 to 40 comments for everything you write. Even if crap. It is a different matter that if you continue writing crap, the number of comments would eventually dwindle to say, 15 or 16. The figure is unlikely to dip further because there are a lot of people who comment on crap. Ample evidence of that is available in the blogworld: silly post, but 20 commentators -- all finding the post to be "heartfelt".

But the truly heartfelt posts usually have -- sadly, but very often -- "0 comments". The blogger -- be it man or a woman -- pours his or her heart out, but he or she is totally unaware of those five steps to achieving the celebrity status in blogdom. Maybe he or she is aware, but does not want to go through it. For people like them, the blog is an utterly personal space not meant to be sold: if readers come, fine; but they are not going to go out of their way to attract commentators. I can, off-hand, name at least half-a-dozen bloggers who write mind-blowing stuff but who have never bothered about who reads them or who comments.

I was like one of them when I started blogging in October 2005. I wrote a lot of verse which, in the assessment of a professional poet, might not be perfect poetry. But I was pleased with what I wrote. But the number of comments? Zero! Only one woman, an ex-flame, read and commented, which boosted my morale. That was the time when, soon after creating my blog, I had gone on a vacation to Kanpur, my hometown. There, I would often wake with a dream that that I have gone to the nearest cyber cafe and I find my post attracting "35 comments". But in reality, I saw only "0 comments" or "1 comment": all I did in the cyber cafe was to transform my latest poem from long-hand into the typed-word.

But soon I learned the rules of the game. I followed the five-point something. Moreover, the journalist inside me told me: "You always write for the reader. So write well, and write in a manner they understand." It began to work. And then I decided to go the whole hog. I registered with Indian Bloggers and Blogstreet and a few others (whose buttons I lost because of the template change). I take Indian Bloggers rather seriously: till recently, it ranked me among the top 15. Today, if you scroll down, you will notice my position is no. 31. (It could be 32, or no. 30, depending on the unique hits on my blog). Nothing wrong in the ranking as long as you take it playfully, but when it becomes inversely proportional to your blood pressure levels, it is a cause for alarm.

A cause for alarm for who? For me, of course -- the stupid fellow who takes such illusory things seriously. I won't get drowned in the gutter if Indian Bloggers does not show my rank as no. 10 or no. 11, but then, the journalist inside me argues: "You write for your readers, and you belong to them. If you have no readers, your blog is a waste of time." So I would rather fight my way up from position 31 to position 13 -- I have dirtied my hands after all. And since I have dirtied my hand, I have no shame in flaunting that my blog is worth $ 9,597.18.

Thoughts From Kerala

Like the immigration officials who presume you are a terrorist before they fork out answers that may prove you to be otherwise, I presume every new Hindi film is bad till our in-house reviewer ‘Baddy’ Rangan puts his stamp of approval. Still I end up watching movies of my choice only on DVD, that too months later. The theatre is not my scene: I still tend to look over my shoulder every time there is clapping or the screeching of a car, realising only seconds later that they are part of the sound effect.

But for some reason I wanted to catch Rang De Basanti in the theatre — first day, first show. Maybe I was too taken up by the promos. But watching an Aamir Khan movie on the first day, first show is like asking for the moon. “Sold out,” a friend told me when I asked about the possibility of getting tickets. Then luck intervened in a strange way... Full story

Shift The Fulcrum

"No man! I don't want strawberry, I am not a white man... I want a plain drink!" the voice, which could have belonged to a white man, boomed from behind in the direction of the bartender. We, a friend and I, who were sitting on the bar stools, turned back: the man was in fact dark and bald and jolly. If he had made the statement for effect, he had succeeded for we turned back to look at him. He smiled at us, shook our hands, and soon we clinked our glasses. He was so jolly that he could have been Santa Claus -- a hairless, beardless one though.

Islanders (with the exception of the British) are usually jolly people: soaking in fun and sand, soaking in sun and sand. And our Santa Claus belonged to one of the islands with the Indian connection: he hailed from Fiji. To me, he was the Fijian counterpart of Trinidad's Naipaul: both had grandfathers who were taken by the British to work as labourers in sugarcane plantations. Their fathers, as in the sons of the indentured labourers, didn't quite know what to do: they were caught between a generation of 'slaves' and a generation of young men who wanted to break free from the slave mentality and make it big on their own. One of those young men, V S Naipaul, won a scholarship to Oxford. Another of those young men won a scholarship to study at the medical college in Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh -- and that was the bald, dark man we were drinking with. His name: Dr Ram Naidu.

"I was the last candidate to get the scholarship. That was 1976. After that the Andhra Pradesh government stopped the scholarships (for the people of Andhra origin living abroad)," he announced, while ordering a round of tequila for us. "Today I practice in Brisbane. Come there sometime. We shall have a good time."

The conversation I am quoting here is rather sanitised. The orginal was peppered with fuck-this and fuck-that. In between the 'fucks', we asked him what kind of a doctor he was. He replied by making a pistol out of his palm -- with two fingers as the barrel and a rotating thumb: "Guess what does this imply... If you guess it right, I will buy you are drink." When we could not guess, he made some more thrusting motions with this two 'barrel' fingers. Then we got it and were about to say it when the Naidu fellow pre-empted us by announcing: "Gynaecologist! I am a gynaecologist. But in Brisbane I am a GP (general practioner)." At this, a young man sitting in the bar with his girlfriend asked him: "Doc, I have high BP, what do I do about it?" The doc, the ever horny Mr Naidu, went over to the young man and said: "Don't smoke. Don't drink. But fuck as much as you can."

The young man flared up. "Doc, this is not Fiji! This is India, this is Tamil Nadu, and moreover, this is Chennai. You can't use such language, that too in front of a lady." Doctor Naidu apologised to the lady and returned tamely to our side of the bar table. "So doc, what do I do for my BP?" the young man yelled from across the table. "Come to my clinic in Brisbane, I shall tell you," the chastened doc replied.

We pretended as if nothing had happened between the doc and the young man. I told him, "Doc, you say you are 50 but you look 40!" Dr Naidu was pleased. "You know how to stay young? Just shift the fulcrum. Shift the fulcrum! Shift the fulcrum!" and he broke into a jig. What he meant was: dance. In other words: Exercise. Move your butt.

It was quite interesting to see Dr Naidu gyrate to the pub music in order to emphasise the importance of moving your butt. Then he suddenly stopped and leaned towards us: "You know something? As long as a man wakes up with a hard-on in the mornings, he is fine. There is nothing to worry about." He then broke into a 'fuck'-peppered laughter.

I had finished my beer by then and I left. I knew, courtesy Dr Naidu, that I was fine.