In Search Of A Sex Toy

Last night, I pulled out a book I had not touched in years from the shelf when a picture fell out of its pages. It was a picture of me smiling at the camera along with half-a-dozen bikini-clad Chinese girls and half-a-dozen bare-chested Chinese men on a beach. The picture shows us standing around a young man, a member of that young group, who is buried neck to toe in sand. The mischievous group had given him a generous pair of sand-crafted breasts and also a long penis. Once their masterpiece was over, one of the girls found a twig and inserted it into the penis with the flourish of a mountaineer planting his flag on the peak of Mount Everest. Then they all formed a semi-circle and asked me to take a picture, and then one of the girls took my camera and asked me to join the group.

Memories instantly wafted back to that pleasant February afternoon. The year was 2003. Location, an island called Pangkor in Malaysia. We had come there after spending a week in Kuala Lumpur. After two nights at Pangkor, we were to go to the historical town of Malacca. When I say we, I mean a small group of journalists from various Indian cities. It was at Pangkor that I started bonding with Mr K.

Mr K was an established journalist when I arrived in Delhi as a probationer in 1994. Tall, handsome guy with a commanding voice; but very polite and gentle. He was still not past his prime, but his love for alcohol had just begun to nudge him downhill, at least in the looks department. He was very kind to me, almost like a father figure. I enjoyed his indulgence: he was a big guy after all. When I decided to quit the organisation, he advised me not to. "Rolling stones gather no moss. You have been here for not even two years, and you already want to leave? Don't ever make that mistake." These were his exact words. But I had made up my mind to make that mistake.

Fortunately, the mistake turned out to be the best career decision that I've ever taken. Within a matter of months, I began to run into Mr K again, this time, in the corridors of Parliament House. We were now fellow reporters, covering the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha for our respective organisations. Things were no longer the same: we now only smiled at each other when our paths crossed. And that's how it remained till I left Delhi.

Nine years later, we met again, in Kuala Lumpur. The old warmth had returned within a matter of seconds. Perhaps because I was the only person in the group he had known for long, and vice versa. Basically, we made each other feel at home. But considering that he was much older and once upon a time was a father figure, we couldn't have headed for a thigh-slapping drinking session right away. There was still an air of formality as long as we were in Kuala Lumpur.

The air began to dissolve during the journey to Pangkor. The very first evening, we separated from the rest of the group and carried our drinks to the beach and sat on the sands, staring at nothingness. It was impossible to tell which was the ocean and which was the sky. It was all dark and silent. The only noise that was made came from a white couple which was frolicking on the sands, not very far from us. They were tickling each other and laughing. And the woman was scantily dressed.

"What if sand gets into her cunt?" Mr K asked, looking at me mischievously. The question turned out to be the leveller. We were now buddies. We sat on the sands till midnight, discussing, among other things, sex. As far as I remember, we discussed only sex. When sex is discussed over alcohol between two men, the bond that is created is so strong that they can happily lay down their lives for each other.

Mr K and I became inseparable after that night. Sex was often the subject of our discussions. Looking back, I can now see why. When a man is on the wrong side of forties and his love for alcohol overrides every other interest, talking or fantasising about sex becomes more pleasurable and practical than real sex. The mind is willing but the flesh is not capable enough. And in such a situation, if you have a partner who is still in her thirties or early forties, well, one doesn't know whether to sympathise with her or with you.

The two days at Pangkor flew. And long before, we were on the road to Malacca. Kuala Lumpur was vibrant, pulsating with high energy; Pangkor was peaceful; but it was Malacca town that I was looking forward to because of its historical significance (it was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO just last year).

We were put up in a first-class hotel called, if I remember it right, Equatorial. The balcony of my 12th-floor room gave a fantastic view of the sea. And the girl at the receptionist desk was one of the most beautiful I had seen in Malaysia, or perhaps anywhere else. Tall, dusky, sharp-nosed, with eyes that smiled with a hint of naughtiness: she was the ultimate my kind of woman. Spread out on the bed of my room, I kept recalling her face when the phone rang. It was Mr K. "Why don't you come to my room for a drink?" he asked.

Mildly sozzled, we went out for a walk on the streets of Malacca. It was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life, though it is somewhat blurred by time now. I remember walking on a road flanked by low-rise,old buildings and palm trees. The strong sea breeze gave off a whiff of history: but for the swanky cars parked by the pavement and the pulsating music emanating from the night clubs, this road could have belonged to the 16th century and Mr K and I could have been Portuguese soldiers out to have some fun after a hard day's work under the tropical sun.

We walked into a nightclub but moments later walked out. I wasn't sure about the rules. It is best to go to these place if you have a local for company. The fear of being fleeced was very much alive in me because only months before, I had been stripped of fifty pounds -- yes, fifty pounds -- at a so-called striptease joint in London. Now, fifty pounds is not a small sum: it is a substantial portion of an average Indian's salary. If I had got an eyeful, I wouldn't have lamented the loss of the money. But I didn't get to see even a cleavage.

That evening, I was strolling around Soho, a place I had fallen in love with during my stay in London. I had often walked past these so-called strip-tease joints, where women sought to entice you, "Five pounds, five pounds, sir, just five pounds, come, come, come." Till then, I had resisted my urge to go in and take a look, but that evening, I don't know what overcame me. I found myself stepping into one of the joints.

"How much?"

"Just five pounds, sir."

"You sure? No hidden charges?"

"Absolutely not sir," the slut said, pointing to a notice pasted on the wall. "Look there, you only have a buy a glass of beer. Another five pounds. But that's mandatory." Five plus five is ten: not a bad deal at all to see at least a couple of women take their clothes off. I was shown down the stairs that led to a dingy hall in the basement. I took a table and the beer arrived. I had barely taken a sip when the bill arrived as well: sixty pounds!

"Why sixty?" I asked the slut who brought the bill.

"That's the hostess charge, sir."

"But I don't have the money."

"In that case talk to the manager, sir. Please come this way."

The manager -- may she rot in hell -- pounced upon me. "Gentleman, this is a licenced club. If you don't pay, we will have to call the police."

"But I don't have the money."

"Give me your card," she thundered.

I gave her the visiting card of my newspaper.

"No, not this card! I want your credit card."

"But I don't have a credit card."

"Damn! Show me you wallet."

Fortunately or unfortunately, I was carrying only fifty pounds that night. The slut-in-chief took them all away. She pretended to be enraged and asked me to get out. When I walked up the stairs to freedom and once again smelt the invigorating air of Soho, I realised I hadn't spent even 10 minutes in that joint.

Stripped of all my money, I walked back to the hotel. I went to bed hungry. It was too late in the night to have a meal without parting with another twenty or thirty pounds, which I simply couldn't afford considering I had just spent fifty pounds for nothing!

The fears returned to me at the night club in Malacca. Maybe they were completely unfounded, but I did not want to take a chance. I was at the fag end of the tour and running short of cash. In any case, Mr K was not the sort who would have liked to dance. We walked back into the silence of the night and hailed a cab. We decided to go shopping to the Tesco mall -- till then, I hadn't seen a mall as huge as that.

Once there, I couldn't resist buying a couple of shirts. I also bought an economy pack of three briefs. I was down to my last 30 or 40 ringgits. At the checkout counter, I noticed stacks of various brands of condoms. I bought a couple of packs of the 'Madonna' brand, just for the heck it. I had no use for them, but still I bought them, only because this was foreign land and I didn't have to look over my shoulder while buying this symbol of sin. In India, a 10 gram pack of condom often weighs a 1,000 grams, thanks to the burden of embarrassment that accounts for the remaining 990 grams.

The next morning, while the rest of the gang was taken out on a sight-seeing tour of historical Malacca, Mr K persuaded me to go shopping with him. He needed to pick a few things for his family (we were to leave for Kuala Lumpur airport in a few hours). Once again, we were out on the streets, this time under broad daylight. We went to the nearest mall.

"Is there a sex shop around?" he asked a security guard. The guard pointed to a shop. It was indeed a sex shop. The female attendant, who was clearly not used to having customers that early in the morning, treated us like privileged customers.

"Yes, sir?"

"Well, I am looking for a sex toy. You know sex toy?" Mr K said, seeking to explain his need by holding an invisible object between his thumb and index finger. I pretended to be invisible.

"There, sir," the attendant said, pointing to the shelf. Mr K carefully examined the dildos showcased. Half of them were too small for him, and the remaining half too big. "I want this size," he kept telling the attendant, showing the space between his outstretched index finger and thumb.

"No sir," the attendant said, "as you can see, we don't have anything of that size. I am so sorry."

"Is there any other sex shop in this area?" Mr K asked. The attendant smiled and gave him directions. As we walked in that direction, Mr K apologised to me: "I am sorry I asked you to come with me. I know you are getting bored. But what to do, this friend of mine has asked me to get a sex toy. It's for his wife."

At shop no. 2, Mr K faced the same problem: most of the dildos turned out to be too big. There was a small one though, but far too small for his liking. "Don't you have something of this size," he said again, indicating the space between his stretched out thumb and forefinger. "No, sir, I am sorry," the attendant, this time a male, said.

At shop no. 3, the only dildo available was so big that Mr K didn't even consider holding it in his hands. And that's when I realised who he was dildo-shopping for actually. If it was really for a friend or friend's wife, he wouldn't have been so finicky about the size. For him, every milimetre seemed to matter as he went around rejecting the dildos.

I was now on the verge of losing my cool with Mr K: we had only an hour before leaving for the airport, and here he was, trying to find the perfect dildo and pretending that it was for a friend. I finally told him: "I think I will get going. I will see you at the hotel." He was visibly upset. "Fine, you go ahead," he said, before proceeding to ask a passerby, "Excuse me, is there a sex shop around?"

I didn't wait to see the passerby's reaction. I walked back to the hotel, taking long strides. One group of journalists was already at the lobby, waiting to check out. I next met Mr K at the airport. His face was shining with happiness. Had he finally found the dildo of the right size? I did not want to ask.

The Day I Become A Spiritual Guru

At times I miss my writing days when every Tuesday night, I would sit in front of the computer to write my 650-word column called Sunday Spin. Most nights, I would be clueless what I was going to write about. But something had to be written, for the deadline was Wednesday morning. As I would sit staring at the blank screen, an unseen force would hold me by the finger take me for a walk into a wood full of ideas -- some ripening, some half-baked, some ripe but not to my taste, some still sprouting. Depending on my mood that evening, I would pluck one and get back to the keyboard.

Something similar happens when I sit down to blog. There are times when I have a thought which I feel strongly about, but I feel too lazy to articulate it: it can be tiresome to build a beginning and a middle and an ending for an idea that can be expressed in just two sentences. And then there are times when my mind is fresh and the flesh willing to write 2,000 words, but I have no clue what to write about. You think, think and think. Finally, an idea arrives, but along with it comes floating the faces of people who you know are going to read it. The moment you notice a hint of disapproval on those faces, as if they were saying "Oh, how boring!", you abandon the idea and pour yourself another drink and go to sleep.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with the previous two paras. I was only clearing my throat, so that I could decide what to write about -- it is a pleasant night and I got home early and I have half-a-bottle of Scotch waiting to be finished and it would be sin not to write. And now I know what to write about.

Last evening, I happened to have dinner with a small, warm, sophisticated set of people. Their faces glowed with material prosperity and inner happiness. Needless to say, it was sheer joy to be with them. These people, after all, knew the Art of Living. The conversation was dominated by a young, cheerful doctor hailing from Punjab, who began every second sentence of hers with the words, "You know what Guruji says..."

She was brimming with wisdom and happiness, but there was only one thing in life that she was not really kicked about -- her stay in Chennai. Somehow, she never got around to liking the city and its people even after living here for five years. I, a resident for nearly nine years now, tried to reason with her. I told her that there were things about the city which even I didn't like, but on the whole the city has been very kind to me. But she had made up her mind. "I am just about tolerating it because I know my stars are bad at the moment," she laughed. Before I could pin her down, she had already started off, "You know what Guruji says..."

Her devotion was admirable, considering that she never, for once, forgot her Guru's words even at the dining table, where there was so much else being discussed. As I sat there, twisting my fork in a small heap of noodles and listening to her, I could feel myself being gripped by a new ambition. Of becoming a new-age guru. It was a realistic ambition, I realised. Not something like becoming the Prime Minister of India. I am 38, and the next four-five years I could devote to learning the Gita and the Bible and the Koran and the Vedas by heart. I would persevere till I reach a point when shlokas sprout of my mouth every time I exhale. And then I would design a dress for myself -- slim-fit saffron T-shirt and blue denims. Why can't a guru have a sculpted body and why can't he wear jeans -- if his target audience is the gym-going, jeans-wearing variety?

For that matter, why can't a guru smoke or drink -- although in a strictly controlled manner? Why should a guru always ask one to give up? Isn't giving up like forcing yourself to run away from something you desire? For someone who smokes 20 cigarettes a day, the real test of will power would be to stick to just, say, two cigarettes a day. Giving up means giving up, which means surrender, which means defeat. Victory is when you crack a whip on your habit without completely denying yourself from its pleasures.

So my followers would have to strictly adhere to the two cigarettes-one drink rule. The rule will be broken only once a year, on Shivaratri, when they can drink and smoke all night and dance to the chants of Shiva. The idea is to let them have fun: when being the resident of an ashram or gurudom becomes akin to serving life sentence, the guru's teachings wear themselves out to be mere slogans and you rarely end up implementing them in your life. So what will my teachings be? I will come to that later. My mind has suddenly gone back to last night's dinner.

So there was this doctor, as I was saying, the really cheerful soul who never forgot her Guru's words even for a moment. At one point, though I don't quite recall what was the subject being discussed, she suddenly interrupted the discussion, "You know what Guruji says? Guruji says tolerance is not a virtue. Because when you tolerate something, you are merely keeping quiet and seething from within. Instead of tolerating, you should love. That's what Guruji said."

In that case, why was she merely tolerating Chennai and not loving it?

Now, that's the problem when you hang on to the literal meaning of your guru's words. You fail to imbibe the real sense. In order to imbibe the wisdom of your guru, you need to be wise enough too. A fool going to a guru is as good as a dog going to the theatre. That's precisely why you see a lot of rich people feeding the poor: their only purpose is to get richer. They want God to take notice of their act of kindness and bestow them with more wealth. But that solves the purpose of the benevolent guru who is concerned about a bunch of people who would have otherwise gone hungry.

It is a different matter that these rich people often end up feeding the wrong kind of poor: people who don't want to move their ass and line up in front of temples to get free meals. If they really want to earn good karma, all they need to do is find out which of their staff is most needy and hike their salaries or give them a bonus. The really needy is often the one who is rich in self-respect and never lets it be known that he or she is in dire straits.

If I were to become a guru, which I intend to someday (the saffron T-shirt-blue jeans variety), I would not give my followers advice which I know run the risk of being taken only on face value. The list of millionaires who have sought refuge in the feet of some guru or the other is so long that you can no longer count them on your fingers, but how many have given up their wealth to the poor and retired to the Himalayas? On the contrary, they are using their new-found 'spiritual power' to devise strategies to multiply their wealth. What a sham.

My 10 commandments, as a spiritual guru, would be as follows:

1. Accept that death is inevitable: anybody who has been born has to die one day. The only question is when. Once you make peace with the 'when' factor, you have beaten death as well as the gloom that comes with it. Treat death like a girlfriend who just happened to knock at your door an hour before she was expected. Would you turn her away? No. You are most likely to say: "Oh, that's early! Am still in my pajamas. Anyway, now that you have come, please come in."

2. Maintain you mental equilibrium at all times: treat sorrow just like you treat joy, and nothing in this world will ever shake you. You will become invincible. The sages have said the same thing since time immemorial, but you never listened to them because you thought sages are old men completely out of touch with reality. Therefore, I have been born to reiterate that point to you -- and you better listen to me.

3. Be kind to fellow humans, no matter who they are. You will need the kindness back.

4. Help the needy. Now, don't rush to the nearest traffic junction and hand out your hard-earned cash to those buggers, I mean beggars. That way, you will only be contributing to the fortunes of a cartel that needs to be put in front of a firing squad. Instead, hike the salary of your maid or driver by Rs 500. What does Rs 500 mean to you when you spend Rs 2,000 for dinner in a decent restaurant? But the hike you give your employees will make a huge difference to their lives.

5. Never do a good deed for selfish motives, such as earning people's blessings, earning God's kindness, etc. Instead, think of the smiles that your gesture will bring on the faces of that needy family.

6. Don't be angry with people or ridicule them. They must be acting under circumstances which you could be in tomorrow.

7. Respect women.

8. Never have sex with them just because you know they cannot afford to say no to you. That's a crime. Earn the 'yes', if you have to.

9. Respect the elderly. Never laugh at them or ignore them thinking they belong to the past. Remember, it is just a matter of time before you too become old. You are a fool if you believe you will stay young and dashing forever. Such people do not deserve to become my disciples.

10. Don't give up vices, but control them. Giving up is altering your own self. Certain activities become vices only because they begin to control you. Why don't you control them instead? That would be true victory.

So there I am, already a new-age guru. Minus the saffron T-shirt and a committed band of followers -- at least for now.

Autobiography

Sitting on my desk right now is Chronicles, the autobiography of songwriter-singer Bob Dylan. I purchased it online and it arrived this afternoon, but it looks like I will have to wait till Saturday, my day off, to start reading it. To tell you the truth, I know who Bob Dylan is, but I have never heard him or his lyrics. I know some of you are laughing at me, but what to do, I grew up in Kanpur, where one never dug deeper than ABBA or Boney M.

But there was one occasion, a few years ago, when I've had a brush with Bob Dylan, in flesh and blood. Yes, in flesh and blood. I had a dear friend, with whom my friendship was more than just platonic (actually, there is no other way). And during an afternoon together, I discovered that she had a name for each of her breasts. One was christened Bob, and the other Dylan. Needless to say, I more than made up for my ignorance about Bob Dylan.

But that episode has nothing to do with my ordering Dylan's autobiography. The other day, I saw the book with a colleague, and happened to read the first few paragraphs. I instantly liked it and decided to possess it. That's one thing am proud of and can boast of. You will never find me asking, "Can I borrow this book, please? Shall return it to you in a week's time?"

If I like a book, I would rather possess it. So I logged on and ordered the book. And yes, that's how I decide if a book is worth possessing (and perhaps reading): by going through the first few paras. If they make me turn the first two pages out of curiosity, then that's my kind of book. Lolita is a brilliant example of that kind of writing.

It is always fun -- and also enlightening and inspiring -- to read autobiographies. Because they tell you how the famous person you are reading about was, once upon a time, no better than what you are today or were till yesterday. He or she is just as human as you, only that he or she had the doggedness and determination to make it big enough to be able to write a salable autobiography.

In fact, I spend a lot of time at the biography/autobiography section of bookshops, hoping to latch on to the life story of someone I admire. For long I had been wanting to buy Timebends, the autobiog of Arthur Miller, the celebrated playwright who was also the husband on Marylin Monroe. I had been looking for it ever since I read The Plain Girl, a slender gem of a book. But the bookshops never had. Not even after he died a couple of years ago.

Finally, I went to Amazon and ordered the book, which turned out to be a disappointment because it lacked the energy of the novella I fell for. When I read a book, I read it more for the craft than the content, and the autobiography did nothing to boost my admiration for Arthur Miller, the writer, and not the playwright.

When it comes to personal writing, Henry Miller is what I would want to be. While Arthur was feted as a talented playwright, Henry was treated as an outcaste in his own country, the US, which had a ban imposed on his books until the 1960s. But once the ban was lifted, Henry Miller more than made up for the lost years. He became an icon.

It is easy to sneer at Henry Miller for the explicit content in his works, but it is so difficult to be him. Merely injecting words like 'fuck', 'cunt' or 'prick' in your book or making it overtly sexually explicit does not make you a Henry Miller. In order to be a Henry Miller, you need to have balls, not just a prick alone. And the balls are never going to be strong enough if life has been too easy -- when you have never had to worry about when or where the next meal is going to come from. It is the uncertainty of the next meal that makes your balls and brains knock-proof enough to be able to dish out delectable prose.

So I would tamely settle for Dom Moraes' My Son's Father. If at all I ever feel important enough to work on my autobiography, his book would serve as the template: it wouldn't quite drill a hole into your heart, but it would at least caress you gently with the edge of a knife and keep you going till the last page.

What's Your Sexual Orientation Tonight?

Till yesterday, I hadn't heard of the acronym LGBT. L stands for lesbian, G for gay, B for bisexual and T for transgender. Collectively, they form a community that is now known as the sexual minority. Since I largely live in my own world, I had no idea this is LGBT pride month. On Sunday, they held a pride march on Chennai's Marina beach. And on Monday, US president Obama hosted a reception for them.

Good for them. Everyone in this world has the right to live the way he or she wants to. And there needs to be favourable public opinion and suitable laws to help them do so. Even though the mindset is beginning to change in India, a lot of us still consider members of the sexual minority as objects of either sympathy or ridicule. All they want is acceptance -- that we accept them the way they are -- but we are being tight-fisted about that.

But I have a problem. Which is sort of technical, or perhaps ethical, in nature. I can understand lesbians and gays and transgenders being classified as sexual minorities. But bisexuals? From what I understand, a bisexual is someone who is sexually attracted to and can have sex with a male as well as a female. In other words, a bisexual is someone who can have the best of both worlds. Does that make him a minority? If anything, he is a majority-majority. He is like the native of a feudal village where he enjoys the status and privileges of being a member of the upper caste and then comes to the city to get a job under the quota meant for scheduled and backward castes.

This is not to say one cannot be a bisexual. I am not even making a judgment if it is wrong to be one. If nature has made them that way, who are we to sit on judgment. All I am saying is, why accord a special status to them, as if they are victimised? If at all, it is people who often fall victims to them -- directly or indirectly. A woman would rather discover that her husband slept with her woman friend than find out that he is also sleeping with his male colleague. Our history as well as contemporary society is also replete with cases when men, drunk on their sexual prowess, have not only raped their wives but also sodomised young, soft-looking males at the first given chance. Would you plead for the sexual rights of such men? And if yes, then plead for what -- that they continue having the best of both worlds?

I know this is the age of political correctness and consensus, but there should be a limit. I mean, if you are having sex with your wife or girlfriend and at the same time getting a blowjob from your male servant, be my guest. I have no issues. But please don't claim to be a sexual minority and join the gay pride march. Stay home and have your fun.

Also, why are those who are into animals been excluded from the group of sexual minorities? After all, walls of Khajuraho temple depict bestiality as well and it is not uncommon to hear funny anecdotes about a man mounting a cow or a donkey or a horse. There are porn films that show animals returning the favour to women.

I think I know why no one is fighting for the rights of those who have sex with animals. Since this is the age of political correctness, consensus is very very important when it comes to sexual intercourse. And there is no way of telling if the donkey or the horse had been consenting.

Being A Celebrity

This evening, going through the archives of pictures put out by wire service, which I do often when I am not subbing a copy or thinking of a headline, I came across a set of pictures of Zakir Hussain, the tabla maestro. The pictures showed him obliging autograph-seekers after a show in Mumbai. I found myself transported down memory lane.

I have only one ambition in life: to become a celebrity. Someone whose art or body of work is acknowledged by the world, someone who the world respects and listens to and fetes every now and then. For me, though, it boils down to earning the admiration of intelligent, broad-minded women, attracting the envy of successful men, getting the attention of waiters at a restaurant, being invited to cocktail parties peopled with interesting characters and, of course, enjoying all the money that comes with being a true celebrity (as opposed to the kind who is invited to cut the ribbon for a local shopping mall or salon).

Fortunately, I am in a field where, if I slog my ass off day and night for the next 10 years, I stand a strong chance of becoming a celebrity of sorts before I touch 50. But unfortunately, since I am already 38, I have no time to lose in order to ensure that celebrity arrives well before erectile dysfunction. A celebrity with an erectile dysfunction is as good as a blind man going around Madame Tussauds wax museum in London. Let's hope for the best.

Why did I mention Zakir Hussain? Because it was him who kindled my dream, 20 years ago, to become a celebrity. The year was 1989, or perhaps 1990. I was in college in Kanpur, and one fine morning, after a futile wait for a girlfriend at the tempo-stand (where three-wheeled tempos or 'share autos', as they call them in Chennai, halt) I was walking down to my college. I was mighty pissed that she didn't turn up, and the anger made me walk faster. Soon I was passing the two hotels that fell on the way, and outside one of those hotels, I found two men talking to each other. They wore white kurta-pajamas and were extremely fair and well-groomed. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered around them. I paused for a while and looked at them. They were so worth looking at: there was something about them.

I've seen them somewhere, I told myself, but I just couldn't figure out where. So I stood on and watched. I didn't feel awkward to stand there because I was hiding behind a crowd of rickshawpullers and peanut-sellers. One of the white-clad men, who was somewhat short and had grey sprouting from his unshaved chin, was saying something animatedly, whereas the other white-clad man, tall and wearing sunglasses, was listening to him like a cool cucumber with his hands folded over his chest.

And then it all came to me! -- the short man was Zakir Hussain and the tall man in sunglasses was Shiv Kumar Sharma, the celebrated santoor player who had also composed the music for Silsila and Chandni. Doordarshan, after all, was still showing Desh Raaga, one of the national-integration videos it played in between the evening news and the prime-time serial.

Once I was able to recall who these men were, I realised it was not just their fair skin that had attracted the crowd of onlookers. It was the glow of success and celebrity on their faces that did the trick. At first glance, even I did not know who they were, but I could instantly tell they were important people. That's the glow of success. I covered the remaining distance to my college in no time: my feet were propelled by the fact that I had spotted two celebrities. During that short walk was born a dream: that I too should be celebrity someday, even if it means arresting the attention of a handful of passersby and rickshawpullers.

Midnight Thoughts: Of Pancham And Michael Jackson

Two of my good friends, after they read the previous two posts that were about my forthcoming book, greeted me with sarcastic comments.

"So you are promoting your book, eh?" said one.

"You should have been a PR person," said the other. When I asked why, he said, "Look at the way you are promoting your book."

I was sort of pissed, to tell you the truth. One, I am not promoting my book -- a book that is yet to see the light of the day even though it has gone to the press. I have only been sharing my thoughts, just as I do about other subjects close to my heart, such as sex, Scotch and Pancham. Two, if I don't promote my own book, then who will? It is a 'prestige issue', after all: you would want it to sell a million copies, won't you?

But I am fully aware that you can't promote your own book. It is outright stupid to even consider doing that. If that was the case, any millionaire who can't write for nuts but who fancies himself as a writer would have been on the bestseller lists. There is only person who can promote a book, and that is the reader. A reader reads it, finds it good, and spreads the word through his or her mouth (or email or SMS). That's how a book sells. Or so I believe.

A good book, according to me, is one that holds you by the balls and doesn't let you move until you've turned all the pages in one sitting and exclaimed, "Wow, now that was something!" But there are also good books that spare your balls but keep tugging at your heart: you read 20 pages one night, and another 20 pages the next, till you have completed the book and exclaimed, "Wow, now that was some story."

As a first-time writer, I don't even know if the book will qualify to be in the 'good' category, leave alone its classification under the balls-grabbing or the heart-tugging variety. So fuck it. I don't even want to talk about it anymore till it is actually published, which is about six weeks from now.

Today I want to talk about Pancham, or R.D. Burman. Today is his birth anniversary. Had he been alive today, he would have been 70. And rocking, or may be not. If he is rocking today -- even today -- that's only because the music of Vinod Chopra's 1942 - A Love Story became a hit barely months after Pancham died. The success of its music made people look back, once again, at the genius of R.D. Burman. But the man himself was no longer alive -- to either celebrate or to give quotes. (Director Priyadarshan told me at a party that RD's swan song was actually Gardish, which happened to be released much before 1942).

It was Pancham's death that slapped home the point among music lovers that India's most talented composer was no more, and thus began the R.D. Burman Movement, which continues even today. Today, even 15 years after his death, it is considered to be fashionable to be an RD clone or an RD fan. But where were these people when R.D. was going through a lean patch? Except Gulzar and Ramesh Behl, they had all written off Pancham and dumped him. Including the namak-haram Dev Anand, whose movies -- the ones directed by him, that is -- sold mainly due to Pancham's music.

I strongly believe in nature's justice. That is why I am not surprised why Subhash Ghai, once upon a time hailed as the 'showman' of Bollywood, is no longer worth even 10 minutes of a journalist's time. Ghai had signed up Pancham for the music of Ram Lakhan, and the trade journals credited R.D. Burman as the music director for this multi-starrer movie. But one fine morning, Ghai dropped Pancham and went on to hire his old buddies, Laxmikant and Pyarelal, to compose the music for Ram Lakhan. Laxmi-Pyare were old buddies of Pancham: they had been assistants to his illustrious father, S.D. Burman. But R.D. could not stomach being dropped so unceremoniously and in the end suffered a heart attack that eventually snuffed the life out of him a few years later.

Today R.D. is king. His music rules. But where were all the lovers of his music when he was down and out? Does one have to die to assure you of his genius? Take the case of Michael Jackson. I would be lying if I say I grew up on Jackson's songs. Actually I did, because his best songs came around the time I was growing up. Only that I didn't quite know that those songs belonged to Jackson: I only knew that Michael Jackson was some big pop star and therefore one of the landmarks of my adolescence. Even my parents knew that there was somebody by the name of Michael Jackson.

Cool, so you are now shedding tears for him and all that. But did you even spare a thought for him while he was attending those hearings in the court as a broken man? At the time you thought, "This man has had a lot of fun in life. He is a celebrity and must be having so much of money. What fun to see him get buggered." Today, just because he has died and will no longer come alive, you are rediscovering his genius. Can you get anymore fake?

True geniuses are never bothered by public reaction -- or the lack of it. They merely leave their genius behind for the rest of the mankind to debate on it for generations to come.

Fear And Victory

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to each of you who commented on my previous post and wished me well for the book. I really need your wishes because, while on one hand the book is long out of my system and I am waiting for its release as if it has been written by a distant cousin or an acquaintance, on the other I am gripped by the what-if anxiety because it will be ultimately published under my name.

What if it sells only 95 copies? What if it sells only 256 copies? What if only 445 and then forgotten forever? Will my friends or people at workplace -- or you, dear reader -- silently laugh at me? -- "He used to be so smug. But look, his book sank without a trace. No wonder he is avoiding us these days."

My fears are not without reason. I know quite a few people -- fellow journalists who are about my age and who are supposed to be the star writers of their respective papers -- who have written books but are yet to be acknowledged as 'authors'. One such person I know of recently wrote a book which, unfortunately, failed to click, but that did not prevent him from selling the complimentary copies he had got from his publisher to his colleagues at a discounted price. I mean, he actually went around the office selling his book and collecting the cash and returning the change.

There is another, who I have great respect for but who writes books that have titles which go over people's heads. Why I respect him is that he still soldiers on: doesn't matter if any of his books doesn't sell more than 300 copies. There are about a dozen examples I can give -- of people who are considered as 'authors' only by themselves. How can I forget Ms X, who has some 15 books under her belt, but you find those books only on her shelf and never in a bookshop.

That should explain why I am nervous. But then, fortunately, I have this other half in me who has had the book long out of his system and who no longer cares when exactly the book will hit the stands and how many copies it would sell. That half is already in a self-congratulatory mode. The reason behind his celebration? Well, to quote him accurately: "Bugger, do you even realise that you have actually progressed from wanting to write to book to have actually written one?"

Yes buddy, I do realise that. I know I've won, even if I sell only 55 copies.

The Book

In a few weeks from now, when you walk into your favourite bookstore, you are most likely to spot, among the new releases, a book titled, Chai, Chai -- Travels in Places You Always Stop But Never Get Off. Priced at Rs 250 and with the number of pages adding up to only 234, it will not dig too deep either into your wallet or time. So please buy it and read it. Who knows, you just might find your story in it.

The book tells the story of places we are all familiar with, and yet we know almost nothing about them. These are the big railway junctions where millions of travellers kill billions of hours every day, either while stretching their legs and having a cup of tea or waiting for a connecting train to take them to their destination.

These places are milestones of one's journey, and over the years go on to become the milestones of one's life; and yet no one quite knows the world that lies outside the railway station in these places. The reason is simple: these places merely facilitate your journey to your destination; they are never the destination.

So I decided to make these junctions my destination: instead of merely hopping off the train and looking for the chaiwallah and killing time on the platform till the signal turned green, I got down along with my rucksack and walked out of the station in search of a hotel.

A conscientious journalist is supposed to do his homework well before embarking on a journey or an assignment. But before I began travelling for the book in mid-2007, I discovered, to my horror, that I had nothing to be guided by. Take, for example, Mughal Sarai, which figures prominently in the book. I can't imagine a Bengali family living in north India that wouldn't have heard of Mughal Sarai: for decades it has been the biggest railway junction on the way to Howrah from Delhi, and it still is. And yet I found nothing during Google search that could give me even a faint idea how the town looked like. So when I reached Mughal Sarai at 3.30 on a chilly November morning, it was as good as arriving in a small town in Africa.

Irrespective of how the book does, I am glad I got off at these junctions. For one, I would no longer be curious about what lies beyond the railway platform whenever my train halts at one of these junctions. Two, I happened to discover the India whose existence we city-dwellers either don't like to acknowledge or are not aware of. And let me tell you, that is the real India. Our India is like a pack of cards: it crumbles even if a white man in the US happens to sneeze over it. But the India I discovered is sturdy: it has withstood greater battles than 'economic slowdown' and still continues to smile.

Last Saturday

Last Saturday was one of the most pleasant day-offs I've had in a long time. Usually, in my eagerness to make the most of my off-day, since they are well-deserved these days, I plan ambitious things but end up going to the same malls and indulging in retail therapy. This Saturday, by default, I did things I that like but had not done in a long time. Soon after I woke up, at 11 in the morning, two parcels arrived. They contained the four books I had ordered from pustak.in a few weeks ago.

Lying in bed, I had finished, by lunchtime, Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross. A slim book, it's an account of the two days that Ross, a New Yorker writer, had spent with Hemingway in New York. A quote from Hemingway that I shall always return to for inspiration when I (or other people) feel my writing is crap:

"I started out very quiet and I beat Mr Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr de Maupassant. I've fought two draws with Mr Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody's going to get me in any ring with Mr Tolstoy unless I'm crazy or I keep getting better."

Since Hemingway made this remark while he was drinking champagne, it is possible that it was alcohol that made him pat his own back. But it is also true that only when you are drunk you actually gather the courage to boast about the hard work you put in into your passion. When you are sober, you usually try to be modest.

While having lunch, I skimmed through A Literate Passion, a voluminous compilation of letters exchanged between Anais Nin and Henry Miller, the two writers who freed the subject of sex from cage of taboo in the early 20th century. The letters, I realised to my great gratification, only validated my long-standing belief, which I would try to articulate as simply as possible: a curvaceous or a chiselled body can only make you lust, momentarily, for a member of the opposite sex. Whereas, it is the mind of the person that actually makes you crave for him or her. It does not matter how she looks or how big or small her breasts are: once you are in love with the mind of that woman, her physical attributes automatically become so perfect that you can't wait to watch her taking her clothes off. And when you eventually do it, it is the minds that have the sex, even though the genitals take the credit. But then, just as you need a pen to express your thoughts, you need the genitals to express and satiate the cravings of the mind. They are just the medium.

In most such unions of minds, there is always a villain, usually in the form of a spouse. In the case of Miller and Nin, the roadblock was Hugh, Nin's husband. Let me quote from two letters:

Oh, Henry. I don't know what is the matter with me. I am so exulted. I am almost mad, working, loving you, writing, and thinking of you, playing your records, dancing in the room when my eyes are tired. You have given me such joys that it does not matter what happens now -- I am ready to die -- and ready to love you all my life!

How are you? I have been anxious about your cold. Hugh is leaving Sunday night for London for two nights. I'll write you again about it. I would love it if you would put your typewriter in a taxi and ride over -- or if you are tired after Renaud's visit just come over for a rest. I will need one too...

Anais

And then, this letter written by Henry Miller in sheer panic:

Anais --

A horrible blunder has been made. You mailed me the letter to Hugo, the day you arrived, and you sent mine to him. Hugo has been trying frantically to get in touch with me. Sent Amelia here who left the enclosed note under the door. She was here in the morning and again this evening. I thought in the morning it was Hugo himself and that he was here to "get" me -- so I didn't answer the door...I may have to leave town until Hugo goes. That depends on his behaviour. For the present I am staying here, behind locked doors...But don't meet Hugo alone for the first time -- if you must meet him. Take care!!

Love, Henry

*******

After lunch I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and took a short nap. In the evening I was expecting a friend-cum-colleague, one of the very few people in Chennai I've met to love and understand Kishore Kumar. A 'musical night' was long overdue between the two of us.

After I poured the drinks, I dug into my playlists and the various music folders in the laptop. And that's when I realised that there were songs, which once upon a time constituted by daily routine, lying unheard for months and months. What a relief it was to listen to them again: it was like meeting up with old, loyal friends. I don't want to bore you with the list of songs which, once upon a time, played on my speakers every single day and which were lying neglected all these months till I found them again last Saturday.

But there is one song I must mention. It is a simple, lovely song, whose lyrics and music have been composed by Ravindra Jain and which is sung by Kishore Kumar. It is from the film Pati, Patni Aur Woh, in which the inimitable Sanjeev Kumar portrays the Indian version of Henry Miller, albeit a non-literary one -- a married man who finds stimulation in his bright, young stenographers and tries to woo them by spinning an imaginary tale that his wife is terminally ill. The song blames Sanjeev Kumar's behaviour on the apple -- the fruit which Adam and Eve were forbidden from having while they lived in paradise. How beautifully it tells the story of Adam and Eve in a few lines. Here goes:

Naa aaj thhaa, naa kaal thhaa
koi mushkil thhi, naa hal thhaa
Lekin kya thhaa, bus ek phal thha
Yeh phal khaana manaa hai, sub unse kehte thhey
yeh phal khaana manaa hai, sub unse kehte thhey
Adam aur Hawwa donon jannat mein rehte thhey
Adam aur Hawwa donon jannat mein rehte thhey...

Dono ka dil lalchaya, us phal to tod ke khaya
dono ka dil lalchaya, us phal to tod ke khaya
Ek shola sa lehraya, unmey shaitan samaya
ek shola sa lehraya, unmey shaitan samaya
unko jo hargiz na karna, kar baithe thhey
unko jo hargiz na karna, kar baithe thhey
Adam aur Hawwa donon jannat mein rehte thhey
Adam aur Hawwa donon jannat mein rehte thhey...

Kudrat ko gussa aaya, donon pe jurm lagaya
Jannat mein rehne waale, jannat se gaye nikaale
Oopar se girey woh nichey
oopar se girey woh nichey
Phal aaya pechhey peechey
yun sadiyon ne dum toda
phal ne peechha na chhoda
yun sadiyon ne dum toda
phal ne peechha na chhoda

Kehnewaale yun unka afsana kehte hai
kehnewaale yun unka afsana kehte hai
Adam aur Hawaa ab is duniya mein rehte hain
Adam aur Hawaa ab is duniya mein rehte hain

Translation:

There was no today, there was no tomorrow
there were no problems, there was no need for solutions
But there was only one thing -- a fruit
"Never eat this fruit," they would all tell them
Adam and Eve, who used to live in paradise

But they were greedy, and they plucked the fruit and ate it
Fire of passion leaped, and the devil got inside them
They had done what they were not supposed to do
Adam and Eve, who used to live in paradise

Nature got angry, it penalised both
Those who lived in paradise were now thrown out of paradise
They fell from the skies, and the fruit followed them
Centuries passed, but the fruit did not stop chasing them
And now, we are told that Adam and Eve live in this world, amidst us.

*******

It is 3.30 in the morning now and I am a bit hungry. Guess what I am going to eat before I hit the sack? An apple.

Parents

I sit in front of the computer tonight to ask a question. This is a question that does not have an easy answer: the right answer may be considered as wrong and the wrong as right. This is also a question that cannot be satisfactorily settled by law. This is a question that can only lead to more questions and torment you. But logically, shouldn't every question have one correct answer which is not clouded by different points of view? I hope it has, and that's what I am seeking.

To ask you the question, I need to tell you a story. It is about someone I know, rather knew, for he is no longer in this world. It is the story of AK, my dear friend.

AK was a small-town boy who had a way with words ever since he was in school and after a couple of years of struggle in Delhi, landed the job of a creative writer with an ad agency. Sincerity and talent saw him climb the ladder fast, and soon he had women falling all over him. AK, being a small-town guy at heart, relished their attention but was not up to entertaining a woman he did not intend to marry. He directed all this energies at wooing a girl in the office next-door, whom he was so crazy about that he would have even jumped off the twelfth floor in order to prove his love for her. The girl indulged him initially, but finding him excessively possessive, fled from the relationship and found a new boyfriend. AK was shattered.

Next thing I saw was AK's wedding invitation. He was marrying one of the girls in his office. A year later, they had a child. He steadily rose up the ladder, bought two cars and a house. His salary was a matter of envy among his friends, but he would shrug off remarks that he was doing so well and would settle down for a drink with us, saying, "Achchha chhodo woh sab yaar, kuchh Kishore chalao (now leave all that aside, play some Kishore Kumar songs)."

Soon I moved to Chennai and our weekly sittings were reduced to once-in-two months phone calls or text messaging. I learnt, not from him though, that he had bought another house. When I heard this piece of news, I wished I had joined advertising instead of journalism. But I was happy for AK. He was an emotional fool who deserved good things in life.

One day, four years ago, news came that AK had died. He had contracted a strange fever, and even before the doctors could diagnose it, he had slipped into coma and died. I was too shocked to shed a tear for him. I only thought of his young wife and child: how must they have taken it? I didn't know the wife too well, but had met her enough number of times to imagine what she must be going through. Somehow, I did not think of AK's parents, the elderly couple living in a small town in Uttar Pradesh. Their lifestyle had in no way changed because of AK's zooming career, but they, like other parents, felt rich in the fact their son was doing well.

I am telling you the story of AK because today, out of the blue, I ran into his sister. I had last seen her many years ago, during a party at AK's place, and now I was face to face with her again. We both recognised each other instantly, and several moments of awkward silence followed. I did not know what to say. I began by enquiring about AK's wife, rather widow. "I hope she has taken it in her stride," I mumbled. "Yes, she is doing well," the sister replied, "she has married again, though I don't know where she is these days." A restaurant was close by and I took her there and ordered coffee.

"You know, my father has been in and out of the mental hospital ever since. He is now like a vegetable. Imagine, he had to cremate his own son. My mother is a strong woman, but she can't take it anymore," the sister said, trying to stiffen her lips to fight tears. She then told me things which I don't think I can ever get over, considering that AK was such a dear friend.

AK's father's only desire, after he lit his son's funeral pyre, was to keep him alive by wearing his clothes. By the time he gathered his senses to ask his daughter-in-law to pack his departed son's clothes, the young widow replied, "But I have already given them to the maid. I would have kept them if I knew you wanted them."

I don't know if the old man protested, but the world had no time for the elderly couple who had given birth to AK and had raised him. It was showering sympathies and money on the wife, who AK had met only a few years ago and had married only on rebound. Being the emotional fool that he was, he had not only bought the two houses in his wife's name but also had had the two home loans insured. His death turned out to be a windfall for her. Am saying windfall because she remarried within four months. She couldn't have found a groom in just four months unless she knew someone from long ago: it was as if she was waiting for AK to die. Anyway, that's her life and it does not bother me. What bothers me is why, when a man dies, the world heaps sympathies on the wife alone and not his aged parents whose pain is manifold.

Now, imagine a man who has just had an arranged marriage. He hardly knows his wife, and his wife hardly knows him, except that they have slept on the same bed for a few nights and made love and had a baby. One day, soon after the marriage, the man dies. Who should be the beneficiary of the sympathy and the funds? The wife, who is still a stranger to the home; or the aging parents, who will find the loss irreplaceable?

One can understand the wife being the beneficiary in the traditional, joint family system, where the husband and his extended family, including his parents, have the upper hand and the wife is more or less a glorified maidservant whose sole role is to keep the elders happy. A woman who has just lost her husband has nothing but a blank future to stare at. She is torn by the personal loss and the responsibility to raise the kids single-handed.

But roles have reversed in the nuclear-family era, especially with women also working. Today, it is the aged parents play glorified servants when they visit their well-to-do son and his newly-acquired wife in a big city. The wife not only comes from a well-to-do family but also earns as much as -- if not more than -- the son. In such cases, why should all the money and sympathy go to a woman who is emotionally and financially equipped to tide over the tragedy, and not to the parents who invested their youth in bringing up the child and spent their savings educating him? The answer, anyone?

Parents obviously don't want compensation, for no amount of money is going to bring back their son. But shouldn't someone be considerate enough to give them a hug and say, "I know what it means to lose a child"? But the world would rather score brownie points with a young widow. Such is the world. May AK, now that he is up there, use his supernatural powers to look after his devastated parents.

Vicedom Wisdom

"Thoda unconventional likhte ho, magar achchha likh lete ho," Ms A blushed as she commented about my blog. Translation: Your subjects are a bit unconventional, but you manage to write well.

Ms A is a well-bred, sophisticated woman who I was meeting after twenty -- yes, twenty -- years. I had met her only once, in 1989. She must have been 21 or 22 then, and I was 18. She had come to pick up her younger sister from the tuition classes we attended together in Kanpur, and after the classes we all went out for lunch. The younger sister was about my age and I had a crush on her. Though I must admit that I was floored by Ms A as well when I saw her.

When I met Ms A recently after those twenty years, she had read quite a few of my posts, and I could see her searching for words to describe my blog before settling for 'unconventional'. She was being polite, the sophisticated woman that she is. What she clearly meant was: "You write mostly about sex and stuff, but you manage to pull it off well."

But what do I do? If I write about something else, no one reads or reacts. My previous post was about politics and cricket, but it clearly failed to impress people: only four comments for a post that took me as many hours to write. So I better stick to my territory. In any case, I love, more than anything else, to celebrate vices and taboos. It is our vices that makes us virtuous. No vices, no virtues. The Ganga Mail is a lounge where you come to have a smoke and a drink after spending a whole day pretending to be a non-smoker and a non-drinker. So please come, be my guest.

But once upon a time, I used to be a nice boy who had no vices whatsoever. I did not smoke, I did not drink, and I had not seen a naked woman yet. I did not tell Ms A that the process of me becoming 'unconventional' began around the time when I first met her twenty years ago -- when the gates of vicedom were finally thrown open to me.

It all began in 1988. I had just passed class 12 and was legally still not an adult. Seventeen years and a few months old. I was one of the foot soldiers preparing for the great war looming on the horizon -- cracking the engineering entrances. Not exactly the thing I really wanted to do, preparing for the war, that is, for I had found my true calling by then. But then you do certain things because they are expected out of you, and you do tend to indulge those harbouring expectations up to a point.

So I did all the right things. After enrolling in the B.Sc. course, I 'dropped' the first year giving a medical certificate (some form of hepatitis, if I remember it right). That was the way to go about it: you drop the first year so that you can devote yourself entirely to engineering entrances and leave no stone unturned. I also joined tuition classes. The tuition classes were my passport to the outside world. The classes were held at the home of a chemistry professor who lived in Rawatpur, about 15 km away from my home in Kanpur. (About 5 km further down the road from Rawatpur is Kalyanpur, where IIT-Kanpur is).

Chemistry was, obviously, taught by this eccentric but highly committed professor who was on the staff of one of the city colleges, while physics and mathematics were taught by a moonlighting IIT professor. Though I must say that none of them seemed particularly interested in the money. They were both mad men tangled up in formulas and equations.

My exposure to the outside world began with a simple mathematical expression: 4+4. It was the title of the first soft-porn movie (or porn movie for that matter) I'd ever seen. It was one of the D-grade Malayalam movies which wasn't even dubbed into Hindi. Why bother dubbing it when no one had spent those precious five rupees to follow the dialogues or the stories? They were all there only to watch the nude scenes, which were spread out evenly across the length of the film. Most often, the nude scenes had no connection with the movie, which itself was crudely made. But did any of this matter?

Porn is one thing, apart from beauty, which makes language irrelevant. Bare tits are bare tits, doesn't matter if the woman who owns them speaks Spanish or Malayalam. Anyway, the movie with a mathematical title set off a physical and chemical reaction inside me -- someone who had never seen a naked woman before, live or otherwise.

That night when I got home after watching 4+4, I found my father pacing up and down the street. His worry was understandable: it was almost midnight, and it was highly unlikely that I would be so late unless I'd met with an accident. Hell broke loose. I silently cursed the two chaps who had dragged me to the theatre. Actually they didn't drag me, but the way they would describe scenes from movies they had previously seen, I found it impossible to say no to them that night. Those two guys were Pawan and Panku, both imps of the highest order. They, like Ms A's younger sister, were my tuition mates: they were extremely bright and intelligent, but mischief was their middle name. They taught me how to smoke, and they gave me my first taste of alcohol.

I still remember: it was my 18th birthday and my parents happened to be in Calcutta to attend a family function. I called some friends over, including Pawan and Panku, to spend the night at my place watching movies. No prizes for guessing the kind of movies we watched. When Pawan and Panku arrived that evening, they came with gift-wrapped box. It turned out to be a quarter bottle of whisky. That night, Pawan made egg curry and before dinner, we all shared the whisky. A quarter bottle between six people -- it was like having two spoonfuls each of cough syprup. Yet we felt pleasantly high enough to sit through the night watching the movies, smoking Classic cigarettes, which cost 90 paise apiece then.

Today, I do not know where Pawan and Panku are. It is funny that people who come into your life like a storm also disappear like one. One moment you can't do without them, and the next moment they are gone and you don't even miss them because by then, somebody else would have come in like a storm. Progression of life. Many years ago, I was told that Pawan and Panku were in some engineering college. They, in all probability, would be married by now with kids and all and, who knows, might have turned teetotallers and given up smoking too. And here I am, still keeping their flag flying high. In many ways, I haven't grown a day older ever since I met the two of them.

Two Games That Don't Interest Me

There are two kinds of games, or should I say battles, going on at the moment. Both are equally entertaining and both of immense public interest. But, alas, they do not interest me. Not even a bit.

Why should I be interested in the general elections when I know pretty well that my life is not going to change one bit, irrespective of who the new Prime Minister is? (The only instance when my life has changed drastically due to a government decision is that I can no longer smoke in pubs and restaurants, which only makes me keep away from pubs.) Whoever forms the government will have to flow along with the tide: it will have to do a tightrope-walk between global pressures and domestic obligations. As a result, my life and your life will remain the same, as it is today and as it was three years ago. Don't prostrate before the new government in gratitude if you suddenly find yourself being able to pay your electricity bills through SMS. Technology is a juggernaut no government can't stop. If your life has been made a little easier in the last few years (for example, you no longer stand in interminable queues to book a train ticket and instead go to www.irctc.com), the credit goes to technology.

Personally, I don't care who leads the coalition at the Centre, Congress or the BJP. The BJP of today is no better or worse than the Congress. The Congress, on the other hand, is a much more responsible and well-behaved party than it used to be a couple of decades ago. So if I am asked, at gunpoint, to choose between the two, I would go for the Congress.

I covered the BJP as a reporter from 1996 to 2000, the period that saw it transformation from the principle Opposition party to the leader of the ruling coalition. I have spent countless afternoons at their 11, Ashoka Road headquarters in New Delhi. In the initial years, I was very impressed by the whole set-up at the BJP office. Most of the party leaders were very down-to-earth and highly approachable. On the other hand, it would be a Herculean task to meet even an out-of-job Congress leader: you had to plead your way through several rings of stenos and secretaries and personal assistants. I vividly remember that afternoon in April 1996 when I, as a cub political reporter, nervously walked around the BJP office, like a blind-folded man feeling the walls and trying to find his way out into a 500-word story, and ran into a bearded man with a kind smile. "My name is Narendra Modi. I am the national secretary of the BJP," the bearded man introduced himself.

Those days, if you discounted its Hindutva agenda (which it eventually dropped), the BJP was a party you strongly felt should be given a chance. The Congress had become synonymous with corruption and nepotism, and people were tired of it. The BJP, on the other hand, was a 'clean' party: it was pro-Hindu all right, but its leaders were not corrupt and were highly disciplined. Many of them were bachelors who chose to remain married to the cause of the party rather than embrace luxuries that they could have availed of as leaders of the biggest Opposition party.

But the moment it came to power, it became another Congress party. While it took decades for the Congress to fall prey to the perils of power, it took barely months for the BJP to demonstrate that it was no better. The discipline it took great pride in went to the dogs. Suffice to say that today, the two people who helped build the mass base of the BJP, albeit on the Hindutva agenda, are no longer with the BJP -- Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati. If Advani could not retain them, how can he retain the faith of his voters?

You must be at times hating the fact that the most powerful woman in India happens to be an Italian. But let me tell you, we Indians behave well when a white man is in charge. In Indian-ruled India, the son of a local MLA can barge into a restaurant well after midnight and arm-twist the manager into serving him by saying, "Do you know who I am?" But in civilised nations -- I am sure Italy is one of them -- such lines do not work. It is not suprising, therefore, that the Congress party is a lot more civilised today.

Needless to say, I would prefer Manmohan Singh over Advani. But I doubt if Manmohan Singh would remain the Prime Minister after this election if the Congress party wins. I somehow have a feeling that Rahul Gandhi would be India's next CEO. If the Congress victory is convincing, then Manmohan Singh, the decent man that he is, will say he needs to take it easy after the recent heart surgery. Upon which, the self-appointed acolytes of Sonia Gandhi, such as Mani Shanker Aiyer, would rush to the podium and beg Sonia to be the Prime Minister. Upon which, she will make a short speech, recounting the sacrifices the Gandhi family had made for the nation, and propose her son's name. Upon which, the Congressmen, notwithstanding their individual heartburn, will prostrate before the new king. I may be horribly wrong, but there is always a chance of things unfolding in this manner if the individual performance of the Congress party is impressive.

In any case, my own future will not be any more promising and any less bleak. Therefore, the elections don't interest me.

The other battle that is being fought is the IPL championship. I haven't had up my mind whether the Twenty20 format is the best form of cricket or the worst, but it certainly is entertainment. The problem, however, is: who do I cheer for? As a Chennaiite, I might be rooting for Chennai Super Kings, but why should my adrenalin keep pumping when I am watching a match between Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers? And since my favourite bowler is in one team and my favourite batsman in the other, whose side do I take?

The problem with Twenty20 is that most matches have a nail-biting finish, and unless there is national pride involved, it is not worth biting your precious nails.

Wayanad, Here I Come

I don't blame life. It has given each of us lavish gifts, only that they lie hidden in the bushes and shrubs of time. All we need to do is go out and seek them, for they rarely fall on our laps. At times, we even know where the gift is hidden, but then we tell ourselves: "Ah, that place is so far away. Why bother! If I happen to go in that direction in the near future, then I shall stop by and claim the gift." Life then gives a shrug and moves on, but not before giving a sarcastic smile that says, "You silly bugger, if only you knew what lies inside that gift-wrapped box."

These thoughts come to my mind because of late, very often, I feel like a prisoner whose hands are free but whose feet are shackled. He can move, but only to places he is required to go to and not to places he would love to go to.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I had a friend called Aniruddh. "Who says smoking is bad?" he once declared in the office canteen. "Keep smoking by all means. There is nothing wrong as long as you smoke cigarettes. But the day cigarettes start smoking you, you must watch out." I wish I had listened to him then. That would have restricted my smoking. Anyway, why I remember him today is because I realise what he said about smoking is also true about employment.

It is great to be employed -- ask those who have lost their jobs. In fact, it is essential to be employed: how else do you feed yourself and your family? Socially, too, being an employee of an organisation rescues you from the clutches of anonymity. Without the tag of an organisation, you are a non-entity. No sane man will ever give away his daughter to you.

But at the same time, once you are employed, you swap your identity with the identity card. And then rules are made for you: coming to work at sharp ten and not leaving before six, only an hour's lunch break, meeting the targets, only 30 days' annual leave, retirement at 58, and so on. Eventually you realise that you have not been leading your own life at all, but only living up to the rules of your company.

By then, you are already 58 and too old to make amends. It's time to play with the grandchildren. If you turn around and ask the company, "What happened to my life?", the management will point to your wrist and say, "There, we have compensated for that with this watch, a token of appreciation for spending 35 years in service."

Now that worries me. At the age of 50 or 55, I would curse myself for having been born in the first place if I were still to be in employment of a company or, worse, looking for employment. By 55, I should have established a tiny mobile kingdom of my own, where I would be the employer as well as the employee. What fun, to report for work to your own self.

The thing about employment is that while it fulfills your mundane desires, such as buying a car or a house, it kills your deepest desires. I would, for example, like to spend January and February in Chennai, March in Delhi, April and May in Shimla, June and July in Kodaikandal before descending to Chennai for August and September. The whole of October would be in spent Calcutta, November in Kanpur and December in Kerala, with Christmas and my birthday being spent amid the mist in a cottage in Wayanad. (Long ago, I had planned a travel book on the Malabar region and I wanted to call it Christmas in Wayanad. But after a futile trip to Calicut, I abandoned the idea).

The above-mentioned itinerary would seem to be from the diary of a madman who lives in fantasy world. A sane person can't even dream of such an itinerary because if he does, two slaps will shake him out of his dream. Slap no. 1: I don't have the money! Slap no. 2: I won't get leave! As a result, the truest desires of the heart remain where they are supposed to be -- buried deep inside the heart. You can't even mention them to anyone, unless you don't mind being laughed at.

But to tell you the truth, it is possible to lead such a life, where your footsteps are determined by the cravings of your heart. If God has given you a heart that craves, it has also given you the power to satisfy those cravings. Only that the power lies hidden in the bushes and shrubs of time -- that's the gift I was talking about -- and you might have to undertake an arduous journey in order to claim it. If you are lucky, you don't have to travel very far; if you are sensible, you will make up for the lack of luck by intensifying your search. Either way, you will have to set out of home in the scorching heat. The gift is never going to fall on your lap.

To quote from Richard Bach's Illusions: "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however." And here's another, a real gem: "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours."

The idea behind writing all this is to convince myself that time has come when I should start listening to my heart. It is one life, after all. No second chance -- certainly not at 38 when you don't have much time left anyway. So what do I do? Well, I am going to use my head in order to follow my heart. I am going to use my head to find out where my gifts might be lying hidden, and then the travel writer in me will set out to seek those gifts.

So Wayanad, here I come. If not this Christmas, certainly the next. I shall come with my mobile kingdom. I promise you.

Naano, RIP

Last night, after finishing my previous post, I went to sleep at four. At seven in the morning, I got a call from Kanpur. I was fast asleep when the phone rang, but the moment I saw 'Home' blinking on the phone, I was wide awake. It was unusual for my parents to call so early. Could it be some bad news? It was.

"Naano has died," my mother was sobbing. Naano was an Indian breed dog who was adopted by my parents two years ago when he was just a few weeks old. He was the most handsome dog I'd ever seen: well-built, athletic with naughty, smiling eyes whose colour turned fluorescent green in pictures.

For two years he kept my aging parents on their toes, distracting them from the fact that both their sons are away. Naano was very demanding when it came to attention, and he hated to be left alone. If left alone in the lawn, he would dig apart the plants and if left alone inside, he would pull down the curtains. And when my parents got back home, he would give them a piece of his mind by letting out a different kind of a howl.

In the nights he would sleep with my parents on the same bed, his head placed comfortably on a pillow. He would, however, ditch them when my brother or I were visiting home. He would then sleep with us, and always be curious about what we were up to. If we went upstairs for a drink, he would follow us and hang around till we finished. If any of us got dressed, he would get excited. For he knew that if we are dressing up, we must be going out, and if we are going out, we must take him along too. He would jump around with glee the moment he would see me or my brother putting on a shirt.

In fact, the only expression he responded to most animatedly was, "Bairey jaabi?" -- "Want to go out?" His joy would know no bounds when we teased him with these two words, and that was the only time when he willingly allowed the leash to be tied around his neck. In fact, he could not wait for it to be tied. But the moment we stepped out of the gate, it would be impossible to keep pace with Naano. He would run as if he was tasting freedom for the first time, and it needed great muscle power and agility to keep him in control. Taking him out for a walk was like working out in the gym.

No wonder my father, when we were not around, preferred that Naano stayed home. At 65, he neither has strong muscles as us nor the agility. But that only increased Naano's determination to get out whenever he got a chance. So every now and then, when an unsuspecting visitor would open the gate, Naano would barge out through the gap and run away. My poor father would then take out his scooter out and look for him in every nook and corner of the neighourhood. The moment Naano would see my father approaching, he would run even faster. For him, a two-year-old dog, it was a game. He would be enjoying the freedom with the glee of a child who has been taken to a park. But that was dangerous: as a dog who had grown up in a home, he was not equipped with the traffic sense of a street dog. A street dog might be sleeping or playing on the road but it knows when exactly to move away if a vehicle is approaching. Naano, the innocent child, did not know all that. And that turned out to be his nemesis.

Of late, Naano had developed this habit of waking up at four in the morning and ask to be taken out. How did he ask? He would first beat his paws on the bed and bark, and if that did not cut any ice, he would start banging at the door. My father would wake up and let him out to the garden, but within minutes he would be banging at the door again, asking to be let in. Once in, he would again start banging at the door, asking to be let out. Basically he wanted to go out on the road. A couple of times, my father, out of sheer irritation, had let him out of the main gate. It is a different matter that he regretted his move each time, for he would be spending several anxious hours till Naano got back home. Most of the time, he would go out on his scooter to look for him and bring him back.

Last morning too, Naano woke up at four and wanted to be taken out. After putting up with his antics for two hours, my father finally opened the gate and let him go, out of sheer irritation. He has many more things worrying him, primary among them being my mother's fragile health. Anyway, Naano sprang out of the house in sheer joy. It was a pleasant summer morning, after all.

At 6.45, my parents found a lifeless Naano lying outside the gate. My father went and touched him, upon which he got up and came in but collapsed under the porch. He was bleeding from the mouth. My mother then ran her hand over him and called out his name, upon which he suddenly got up and walked up to the lawn and tried eating grass. But he could not eat and he came back and slid under the car, one of his favourite hiding places whenever he wanted to spring a surprise on us, and collapsed again. Within minutes he was dead. That's when the call came.

I was barely asleep for three hours when my mother called, and after that call, there was no question of going back to sleep. I was angry with my mother for having called me up so early just to deliver the news of the death of a dog. It's only a dog that has died, so why ruin my sleep? Couldn't she have waited for a couple for hours?

Actually, I was angry with her for having delivered the news in the first place. It was a piece of news that I didn't want to hear or believe. Since the call came at a time when I was fast asleep, I kept wondering for long if my mother's call was only a bad dream or whether she had actually called to tell me about his death. In fact, I still choose to believe that it was a bad dream and that Naano is still alive and sprinting around the garden.

But the fact is that Naano is now lies buried in the same garden. My parents gave him a decent funeral -- sprinkling him with Ganga water before burying him in a white shroud along with flowers and coins. He was a good dog.

Now, I don't know whether to shed a tear for Naano or for my father. Naano is dead and gone, but I alone know what my father must be going through. He is kindness personified when it comes to animals: way back in 1975, when he had come to Madras for a training programme, he had rescued a puppy stuck in a manhole in one of the streets in the city. Today, if I happen to love animals and if I am patient with street dogs, it's because of him. He always bonded with animals. While letting Naano out of the gate this morning, he obviously had no idea that the dog would sprint around so joyously on the road that it would be oblivious to the danger from an oncoming, speeding van. Naano was hit on the head by a school van. He died of brain haemorrhage. The saving grace was that he didn't die on the road, but chose to keep himself alive till he came home. His home.

That's Naano, bonding with my younger brother and my wife:

Confessions

Reading through my previous post, in which I talk about the importance of online friends in your life, I can see my mind swimming back to the not-so-distant past. And since the mind is already tickled by a few sips of smooth Bacardi that I've just got from Pondicherry, I feel like going into confessional mode. For I want to underscore, once again, the tremendous influence that an unseen/anonymous person can wield on your life.

The fact that they choose to remain behind the veil of anonymity is what makes their influence so powerful. Had they stepped out of the veil and shaken hands with you, you'd have said, "Oh, so you are the one!" and the magic would have gone out of the window. But by remaining anonymous, and revealing their brilliance only through the typed sentences on the chat window, they make you crave. They make you crave so badly that you desperately try to do something outstanding so that they can't resist coming out of the veil and taking you in their embrace. In my case, the craving forced me to work hard at my writing. I wanted to write better and better, so that one day a truly brilliant piece would smoke them out of their hiding holes and drive them straight to my doorstep. Today, if I can string together my thoughts in readable sentences, 20 percent of the credit goes to R and another 20 to S.

R and S, two women I've never ever met, seen or spoken to, yet these are two women who have tormented me the most and in the process shaped me as a writer. I will, however, bear a life-long grudge against them for not stepping out of the veil at that point of time. Not that it would matter to them, just as it did not matter to them even at the time. It doesn't matter to me either, not anymore; it is just that you like to harbour some grudges just for the sake of it.

The story dates back to the time when I was single but married to my laptop. I did not have a blog then. I wrote often for my paper, which eventually gave me a Sunday column. Since the columns had my email ID at the bottom, I would have a few people writing to me every Sunday morning and some of them -- invariably women -- would add me on their instant messaging list. That's how I met S. She came like a storm into my life. But before that R. She was like the calm of the Ganges.

I met R exactly five years ago. I was in Kanpur then, spending two months in Uttar Pradesh for election coverage, and when not travelling, I would kill a lot of time in the neighbourhood cybercafe. There was nothing else to do. That's when, during a visit to one of the Yahoo chatrooms, I ran to R. She was from Bombay: 27 years old, single and an ex-journalist who was now a senior writer with a software firm. The initial conversation was flirtatious, directionless and, on the whole, meaningless. Nevertheless, we added each other on our messenger lists. The subsequent conversations revealed that we were slices of the same piece of bread baked in the dusty plains of Uttar Pradesh. She grew up in Lucknow, I in Kanpur; we had read the same comic books while growing up; we had listened to the same programmes on Vividh Bharati, we had both recently read Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms, and, above all, we were both huge fans of R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar. She, in short, was me. My search had ended!

It was, therefore, shocking when she confessed, after months of online bonding, that she was already married and that her real name was different from what she had told me, even though that too began with an R. At first I sulked and wrote angry poems on my blog (by then, the blog had come into existence, and R and S were its first -- and for a few weeks, the only -- readers). And then I realised I was truly heart-broken and decided to have nothing to do with her. Yet, I just could not get her out of my mind. Everything I wrote, I wrote keeping in mind that she would be -- or should be -- approving of it, even if silently and without letting me know.

Then came the storm: S, the obgyn. As an obstetrician/gynaecologist, it was her job to peer into perineums and run a scalpel on them if required, but one could easily see that her first love was to run a scalpel through sentences and paragraphs. She was a natural writer and a born editor. Her sentences, even on the chat window, were well-crafted and impeccable, and I had no choice but to live up to her standards. Night after night, from midnight till the wee hours, when you are chatting with someone who refuses to compromise on the grammar and the syntax no matter how tired or lazy she feels, you automatically pull up your socks and try to live up to her expectations, in the the hope that...

Well, hoping is a futile exercise when it comes to such women. They are stubborn. One moment you look into the mirror and you find them smiling back at you, but the very next moment they are gone, and you realise you've only been looking at your own face all this while.

Today, I do not know where R is. I do not know where S is. Even if I do, it no longer matters. While I write this, R must be fast asleep, in a bed wide enough to hold her husband and child. S, on the other hand, must be awake, going bed to bed in one of the hospitals. I remember her talking about night shifts.

I don't remember when exactly -- and why exactly -- they went out of my lives. But they've left craters in which I fill ink and dip my nib into every time I get the urge to write. And come to think of it, I have never seen them or even spoken to them. Such is the power of thoughts.

Presence

I don't know who is better off: people who keep pressing the Alt+Tab button and alternate between their real and virtual lives; or those who have not let instant messaging -- either by purpose or ignorance -- interfere with their real lives.

I, like many people these days, lead two lives. One real, another virtual. Once again, I do not know which one is more worthwhile. But I would say living in an online society has immense advantages. When the real world gets on to your nerves, you can seek the comforting embrace of the online world. If your online girlfriend -- someone you've never ever seen -- ditches you, you cannot share your sorrows with your real-life friends, for they will laugh at you and think you are mad. But if your real-life girlfriend ditches you, you can always find comfort in the invisible arms of an online girlfriend. She will console you and give you the right advice how to cope with the tragedy.

Permanent residents of the real world will always see the presence of an online friend in anyone's life as nothing short of madness. "How can someone who you've never ever seen or spoken to be your friend?" they are bound to ask. But believe me, online friends are the ones you trust and cherish the most. They can be more real than real. They love you for the talents you are born with, and not because of the status you might have earned in the society because of those talents. It is irrelevant to them whether you drive a Maruti 800 or a Honda City, for they are not out to marry you. Though there are times when you wish they did.

When I say online friends, I mean people you've never met, or people you've met only a couple of times and then lost them to distances and who went on to become as good as those you've never met. Or, people who live in the same city who you rarely meet and have only online communication with. They are the ones who people your virtual world and make it worth living. The comfort of distance, the urge to share, and the power of the written word -- when these three factors combine, people reach out to each other in a way which real-life lovers are bound to miss out on.

In real life, you are so perpetually conscious of external factors -- looks, money (or the lack of it), worries, jealousy, possessiveness and so on -- that everything happens except the union of minds. Each never gets to see the real other, even though they live in the real world. Whereas, in the virtual world, you get to see nothing but the real. True, you never get to see them in flesh and blood. But then, you don't get to see God in flesh and blood either. You only feel his presence in your life, and that can be so assuring. In the same way, you feel assured every time you see her come online. You might be too busy to even talk to her, yet you can feel her presence. Even when you talk, it is the fingers and not the lips that do the talking. Yet you can feel her presence -- as if she is looking over your shoulder, reading the sentences as you type. That's the magic of presence: something that cannot be replicated when two people happen to be present in a real-life room.

My Heart Is Beating

My heart is beating, keeps on repeating
I'm waiting for you
My love encloses a plot of roses
And when shall be then our next meeting
Cause love you know
That time is fleeting, time is fleeting
Time is fleeting
My heart is beating, keeps on repeating
I'm waiting for you
My love encloses a plot of roses
And when shall be then our next meeting
Cause love you know
That time is fleeting, time is fleeting
Time is fleeting

Oh when I look at you
The blue of heaven seems to be deeper blue
And I can swear that
God himself seems to be looking through
Zu zu zu zu ru zu, I'll never part from you
And when shall be then our next meeting
Cause love you know
That time is fleeting, time is fleeting
Time is fleeting

Spring is the season
That drops the reason of lovers who are truly true
Young birds are mating
While I am waiting, waiting for you
Darling you haunt me, say do you want me
And if it is so, when are we meeting
Cause love you know
That time is fleeting, time is fleeting
Time is fleeting
My heart is beating, keeps on repeating
I'm waiting for you
My love encloses a plot of roses
And when shall be then our next meeting
Cause love you know
That time is fleeting, time is fleeting
Time is fleeting
-- Julie, 1975

A Blot On The Name Of Bengalis And Other Stories

As a reluctant non-vegetarian, I am a blot on the name of Bengalis. The realisation dawns on me, for the umpteenth time, as I approach my third wedding anniversary. Because it all began with my marriage to a girl from Kolkata three years ago. Let me tell you a secret -- a secret that only my wife knows, and through her, every friend of ours who comes visiting: Never in my life I had imagined that I would be marrying a Bengali girl, that too a Kolkata girl.

I always found Bengali women to be very dominating. And my perception is not very far from the truth: just look around and you will know what I mean. Many Bengali households are mini-dictatorships -- a nation of four or six people who are ruled by a once-upon-a-time stunning and sexy female who leads from the front.

A few years ago, in Bhopal, I had lunch at the home of a good friend, a fellow journalist. Being the typically generous UP-wallah, he had ensured that the lunch was a lavish affair. I spent nearly four hours at his place, discussing the state of affairs of journalism and the nation with him and talking to his three children, and then indulging myself in a never-ending lunch, during which I was plied with every possible delicacy that I could imagine. But I could not get to see the woman who was silently cooking and dispatching those delicacies from the kitchen. The children were the couriers.

In a Bengali household, the woman of the house would have taken charge the moment the guest arrived. She would tell the guest, though not in so many words, "Look, I know you are a special guest. That is why I've been slogging since morning to make all these dishes. You better relish it or else..."

It was the "or else" factor that made me apprehensive about Bengali women, not that I knew a whole lot of them. In fact, I had never known any of them. Living in Chennai, one of my secret desires was to marry a Malayali girl, who would wear an off-white saree with a golden border on festivals and who, along with me, would sing, "Mele poomala, thazhe thenala." My fantasy was inspired by this Salil Choudhury-composed song, sung by Yesudas and Salilda's wife, Sabita. Lazing on the bed and smoking a cigarette, I would tell myself: "In this song, the male voice is that of a Malayali and the female voice that of a Bengali. But in real life, in my life, it is going to be the other way round. The male version will be sung by a Bengali and the female version by the Malayali girl of my dreams. Let's wait and see who I meet." And in Chennai, you don't have to wait to meet women from Kerala. For that matter, I was a frequent visitor to Kerala as well.

But then, as you all know, there is something called destiny. I had no clue I would be eventually marrying a girl from Kolkata, just the way she had no clue she would be marrying a pseudo-Bong who had grown up in the Hindi heartland of Kanpur and was now living in Chennai and pining for a princess clad in an off-white saree with golden border. In the end, it turned out to be a white saree with red border!

Somehow, I am glad it ended up that way. I am all for inter-religion and inter-culture marriages. It is heartening to see a man and a woman absorbing each other's traditions as they get older. But sadly, such mutual imbibing of cultures are not very common. Most often, it is one culture that ends up being dominant in a marriage, especially the man's culture, especially if the set-up is a joint family. Moreover, once you have crossed the age of thirty or thirty-five, and if you have been living away from your roots for a long time, you crave to get back there. And one way of getting back there is to marry someone from your culture. The ultimate idea, according to me, is to share the nostalgia. It would have been no fun if I had to explain the importance of Durga Puja, rather the importance of Durga Puja in my life, to a wife who is not a Bengali. The idea is that she too should be able to detect the "pujo-pujo" smell in the evening air the moment October approaches. After the age of thirty-five, when most of your fun-filled and carefree days are over, it is nostalgia that you survive on. Nostalgia becomes the drink which you have every evening with your companion -- a drink you savour after a long day, so much so that you spend the rest of your life looking forward to evenings. In such a situation, if the spouse belongs to a different culture, it becomes as good as having your evening drink in the company of a teetotaller.

Now that may sound as a sweeping statement, but don't read so much into it that you feel compelled to start a debate on inter-culture marriages. For that matter, my wife and I might be belonging to the same culture, but there are occasions when we sip the evening drink of nostalgia with complete disinterest. Such occasions invariably centre around the dining table -- the only place where our respective nostalgias seem to be sprouting from different sources. She, being the refined Bengali, knows about and can cook every possible fish delicacy that Bengal has ever thought of. Not only that: she also knows how to relish them. Me, on the other hand, is like a labourer working in a brick kiln in Uttar Pradesh, who is more than happy to get his daily quota of rice and daal and chilli pickle. So on such occasions, while she is the drinker, I am the teetotaller. Though I try to bridge the gap with real alcohol.

Alcohol helps in such situations. As a child, as far as non-vegetarian food goes, I grew up on mutton and a particular variety of fish called rohu (Bengalis call it rui maachh). But I was never, ever fascinated by the idea of eating meat. In fact, I found the whole idea disgusting -- chewing on bones or sucking at them for the marrow. For me, delicacy meant arhar ki daal or dum aloo -- something a blue-blooded Bengali would find outright boring and insulting.

For the sake of my childhood, I don't mind indulging in mutton or rohu fish once in a while, provided they are cooked in a certain way, which my wife takes care of. But even to relish them, I need to fortify myself with alcohol. Alcohol numbs me to the fact that the mutton I am eating now was, till a few hours ago, a lively goat that had no idea that it was going to be slaughtered and its lifeless body cut into pieces. Once I am pleasantly drunk, I become insensitive to such gory details. But even in my most drunken and hungry state, I would never eat anything other than mutton, tandoori chicken or rohu fish. It is a mental block I have. What to do, that's how I am. Given a choice, I would give up the mutton or rohu fish too, had they not been a part of my childhood.

The woman I married exactly three years ago, being the loving and caring wife that she is, understands this very well. So there is never a problem when we are sitting at our own dining table. The problem arises only when we are at the dining table of friends, especially her friends. They move heaven and earth to put together an impressive spread where chicken is the main non-vegetarian dish while all the vegetarian dishes have pieces of fish in it. On one such occasion, at a lunch, I ate only rice and brinjal pakodas (called beguni, in Bengali) and mint chutney. My hosts felt extremely sorry for me, but to tell you the truth, I felt sorry for them: here I was, savouring the sublime combination of rice and beguni and mint chutney, whereas they were grappling with bones.

There is something undeniably charming about vegetarian food, especially Bengali vegetarian food. Bengali vegetarian food, when compared to its counterparts in other states, is refreshingly simple and tasty and -- in many ways -- healthy too. But then, for most Bengalis, vegetarian dishes only serve as appetisers: most people at the dining table don't even acknowledge the effort that goes into making them because in the end, it's the smell of the fish that eventually satiates you.

Now that leads to an identity crisis. Should I feel ashamed that I am a reluctant non-vegetarian Bengali who abhors the idea of eating meat unless he is under the influence of alcohol, or should I feel proud for being a champion of the vegetarian dishes?

When it comes to vegetarian dishes, I must say with a dash of pride that I am a good cook. My specialties include arhar ki daal, sambhar, rasam, dum karela, dahi bhindi, tamatar-dhania ki sabzi and dum aloo. I make excellent egg curry too. Not to mention the Punjabi kadhi that's part of the famed kadhi-chaawal combo. Wonder what kind of a Bengali that makes me. But then, I told you, I am a blot on the name of the community.

Me