Paid Sex

This afternoon I posted this link as my G-talk status message. In the evening, a well-meaning friend pinged me. Her message was short and firm.

"I have a thought: You should take that link off."

Without wasting a moment I changed my status message. "But I liked it," I protested later.

"Whatever, but don't forget that your book is going to be out soon. You don't want people to associate you with just sex, do you?" She had a point. In fact, the thought had crossed even my mind when I was posting the link, and that is why I removed it the moment she asked me to. I was not very comfortable with the idea of displaying -- as my status message -- the autobiography of a man who took pride in sleeping with 1,300 prostitutes. I myself do not believe in the concept of paid sex, not because of moral reasons, but because I simply cannot come to terms with the fact that a man has to pay for sex.

I have been to a brothel only twice in my life, on G.B. Road in Delhi, when I was 27 or 28. On both occasions, it was curiosity that took me there: the urge to take a look at the human hiding inside the prostitute. There had been times when my friends narrated their experiences in red light areas, and the only question I asked them was: "What did you guys talk about?"

"Talk? What is there to talk? We only do."

"But still, she must have had something to say."

"All that I don't remember." That was their standard reply. They were puzzled that I should ask such questions.

So when I went to the brothel on those two occasions, my sole purpose was to talk; to check out the woman behind the whore. Whore is such an obscene and ugly word, come to think of it, but then, it has been coined by the world and not by me.

Both the visits were impulsive: me and a bunch of colleagues being dropped back home past midnight, and suddenly we decide to take a detour. The driver had no problem driving us all the way to Old Delhi as long as we paid for his cravings. Fortunately, there would always be a colleague who felt too shy to come up. He would stay back in the car, looking after our wallets and watches. It made sense to leave them behind, because once you enter the brothel -- at least this was the case in Delhi -- they suddenly hike the rates and then make you take off even your socks to see if there is any money hidden apart from what you are already carrying in accordance with the deal struck before entry.

During my first visit, the woman assigned to me was jovial. As soon as we entered the cubicle, she took off her salwar and lay down on what looked more like a small-time doctor's examination table. In different circumstances, I could have been a gynaecologist following a patient into the cubicle. But in this case, it was the patient who called the shots: she handed me a condom. I told her it was of no use. We chatted for about 10 minutes during which she told me about her family back in Andhra Pradesh, and in the end kissed me on the forehead, saying how I reminded her of her younger brother.

During my visit no. 2, the encounter with the woman assigned to me was not so cordial. She was a fat, foul-tempered woman, whose hometown -- or 'native place', as they say -- also happened to be in Andhra Pradesh. "You are so drunk, are you even capable of doing anything?" she asked me.

"But I only want to talk."

"Talk? Talk about what? If you want to do it, do it. Don't waste my time. Who asked you do drink so much before coming here." She put her clothes on.

On both occasions, once we exchanged notes after coming out of the brothel, we realised it was only the driver who had extracted the full value for money. No one else really had the courage. The thought of paid sex can be very tempting, but once it comes to you on a platter, you are likely to look for ways to escape holding the platter in your hands. I mean no offence to gentlemen who happen to be connoisseurs of paid sex. It is just that I would like to be counted out.

But why, then, did I post the scandalous link as my status message? That's because the whole thing is so well-written. If a piece of writing makes you want to clap for a man who takes pride in having slept with 1,300 prostitutes, then there is a lot to learn about the art -- of writing, that is -- from him. And it is not the style alone, but the content too. He is being honest. He speaks the truth -- at least what he believes is the truth -- and nothing can be more seductive than the truth.

And when it comes to sex, honesty is like gold, for no one ever speaks the truth. You like sex, but you can't be honest about your cravings. You don't like the sex you've just had, but you still can't be honest about your disappointment. You have your own ideas of good sex, but you can't spell them out. But this man does:

The great thing about sex with whores is the excitement and variety. If you say you’re enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years, you’re either a liar or on something. Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural. Most of our affairs run the usual course. Fever. Boredom. Trapped. This explains much of the friction in our lives—love being the delusion that one woman differs from another. But with brothels there is always the exhilaration of not knowing what you’re going to get.

The problem with normal sex is that it leads to kissing and pretty soon you’ve got to talk to them. Once you know someone well the last thing you want to do is screw them. I like to give, never to receive; to have the power of the host, not the obligation of the guest. I can stop writing this and within two minutes I can be chained, in the arms of a whore. I know I am going to score and I know they don’t really want me. And within 10 minutes I am back writing. What I hate are meaningless and heartless one-night stands where you tell all sorts of lies to get into bed with a woman you don’t care for.

It is obvious that this man is a talented wordsmith. And it is sad that a talented wordsmith should have to pay for sex. But then, he likes it only that way and in no other way, as he makes us believe with his convincing wordsmithery.

Lost Lines

Lines you don't hear in Hindi movies these days:

1. "Main maa banne waali hoon": I am pregnant (The announcement by the girl usually arouses extreme reactions -- either that of joy or shock, depending upon whether she got pregnant before or after marriage).

2. "Sharam nahin aati badon se zubaan ladaate huey?": Aren't you ashamed to argue with elders in this fashion? (Usually spoken by the mother to the rebel son who is rude to his father. Occasionally, the line is accompanied by a slap).

3. "Beti, bhagwaan ke ghar der hai, andher nahin": My child, there might be delay in god's house, but never darkness (Usually mouthed by a kind-looking, lean priest, to a hapless woman, who has become a victim of circumstances).

4. "Main is shahar ka ek shareef aur izzatdar aadmi hoon": I am one of the city's decent and respectable men (This is how a small-time criminal who has now become a big businessman and even a bigger criminal introduces himself to the new police inspector in the locality).

5. "Khabardaar jo kisi ne hilne ki koshish ki": No one dare move (Spoken by the man who holds the gun: he could be the hero, the villain or the police inspector).

6. "You are under arrest" (Spoken, of course, by the police officer, usually towards the end of the movie).

7. "Geraftaar kar lo in sab ko!": Arrest these people! (This line ends the fight between the good guys and the bad guys, and also signals the end of the movie).

8. "Order! Order!" (That's the judge).

I Am What I Am, Or Am I?

Dear S,

I should have been ideally writing this letter to you with a fountain pen, on a fresh A4 piece of paper. I have a bunch of expensive fountain pens sitting inside my wardrobe. They have been there ever since I lost a Mont Blanc from home. But who has the patience. I would possibly end up striking out every word I write and then tear up the sheet and take a fresh one. The 'delete' and 'backspace' buttons have changed the way I think. There would be a dozen paper balls on my desk before I could write a decent letter. It is so much better this way, though not necessarily as enjoyable.

Why I am writing to you tonight is because I have not written a real letter in a long time. I have been writing for the paper, I have been writing for this blog, I even managed to write a full-length book -- but in all those I have been a sort of performer who is deliberately selective about what is to be written and what is to be held back. The blog, however, gives me the liberty to be as myself as possible, but even there, of late, I realised that I am no longer able to write what I feel.

There was a time when I wrote essays on subjects like sex and fidelity. I wrote about sex and fidelity even after I got married. But today, I no longer have the courage or inclination to write about such subjects. Is that because I have already said whatever I had to say? Is that because I am beginning to worry too much about what people will think or say? Or is it that I am getting old? Or is it that I have stopped feeling?

If I analyse, I think it's the last one. I have stopped feeling. A few weeks ago, Gulshan Bawra, the lyricist, died. I felt very sad that he died, because only a few months before, I had bought a CD in which he pays tribute to R.D. Burman on his birth anniversary. For fans of R.D. Burman, this CD is a must-listen. Speaking in Punjabi-accented Hindi, he recounts anecdotes concerning himself and Pancham that were crucial to the creation of the eight or nine songs featured in the CD. Anecdotes such as, how during the making of Kasme Vaade, Pancham came for dinner to Gulshan Bawra's house and started humming to his wife Anju in a certain tune,

"Sarson ka saag tu banana Anju
sarson kasaag tu banana Anju...
Pehle tu mera ek peg banana
pehle tu mera ek peg banana..."

Literally speaking, what Pancham was telling Gulshan Bawra's wife was this: "Anju, make sarson ka saag, but before that, fix a drink for me." But Gulshan Bawra got the message: Pancham was actually indicating the tune so that he could write the lyrics.

Eventually, the 'Sarson ka saag' humming became immortal as:

"Kasme vaade nibhayenge hum
milte rahenge janam janam...
Tu hai mere jeene ka sahara
barson ka khoya hua pyaar aisa mila..."

Sung by the one and only Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. You know the song, don't you? It is picturised on Amitabh Bachchan and Rakhee.

There were so many anecdotes like this in that CD. I did not feel sad about the passing away of Gulshan Bawra just because I was still listening to the recently-bought CD when I heard the news. It was very natural for me to feel sad in any case. Apart from Gulzar, Bawra was the last surviving Pancham lyricist. Both Majrooh and Anand Bakshi died a few years ago: pick out any R.D. Burman hit and it would be invariably written by either Majrooh or Anand Bakshi. But it was Gulshan Bawra who wrote the most youthful and hummable numbers for Pancham -- be it Khel Khel Main or Jawaani (remember Tu Rootha To Main Ro Doongi Sanam?) To tell you the truth, most of the R.D. songs that I truly like are the ones written by Gulshan Bawra: tell me S, can you beat the songs of Yeh Vaada Raha?

And yet, I did not write a post about Gulshan Bawra when he died, even though he is one of the pillars of my childhood as well as adolescence. Have I stopped feeling? I think so, S. Of late, there have been times when I want to write about something but then I let it be. You know something, there are at least 15 posts sitting as 'draft' on my blog that have not been posted. I start writing with great enthusiasm, and but after about 500 words, I ask myself: "Is it really worth it? Why should anyone be interested?" I save it as 'draft' in order to work on it the next evening, which never comes.

This was certainly not the case till about a year ago when I wrote whatever I felt like. These days, even provocations don't seem to work. The other day, a reader, perhaps a well-meaning one, asked me,

"You have given so much about yourself in this blog - including the sexual adventures. Whats your take on facing people in real life? I mean, you are not writing all these under some pseudonym. Is it a "I don't give a damn about what you think about me" attitude? Most people can't dream of writing like this under real name and going to office next day!"

I began writing a post in reply:

I don't know what is so scandalous about my writing that I should be ashamed of going to office the next day. My office happens to be a newspaper office, not a seminary or a monastery. If you go by the essence of what I write and not just the words I clothe my thoughts with, you could actually visualise me sitting in one corner of a giant, quite hall in a monastery, meditating upon life. Moreover, there is very little of me in my blog, leave alone my sexual adventures -- may be I need to return to my old posts.

Time was when this blog did not exist. What was there was a column I wrote for the paper -- my sole weapon then to claim my place under the sun. When I look back now, I realise that I wrote far more scandalous stuff in that column. Even today, when I happen to recall some of those pieces, I momentarily shut my eyes in embarrassment.


I wanted to write more, but after two paras I clicked on the 'Save as draft' button. I had run out out of patience as well as the urge to explain. I am what I am, I thought, why explain?

But S, am I really being what I am. I seem to have become a well-settled citizen of blogosphere who no longer feels the need to assert his existence by speaking out his mind. That's not my idea of life. At least I am aware that I am slipping into inertia. That way I am safe, because I also feel the need to get out of it. I will, someday soon. That's all for now.

Love,
BG

Calm

We sat on the balcony of the hotel, overlooking a vast expanse of darkness -- so dark that you couldn't tell where the sea ended and where the sky began. Just a solitary star up there. The waves came charging at the rocks with such force as if they were being sent ashore by the broom of a frustrated maid who was trying to empty the water from a flooded room; and the breeze so strong that the full bottle of Smirnoff on the table kept shaking. But right below the balcony, if you looked down, was the brightly-lit road were the weekend Pondicherry crowd milled around.

Soon we would join the crowd to find our way to Satsanga, the French restaurant. But presently it was time for a few drinks in order to be in good spirits by the time it was midnight and my wife's birthday. The most seductive thing about French Pondicherry is its calm: there was calm now, amid the crashing of the waves and the squeals of the holidaymakers, and there was calm then, when we walked down the maze of streets to look for Satsanga. And there was calm again, when we got back to the hotel and had one more drink in the balcony in the company of the waves; the crowd had gone. And then we went to bed, looking forward to yet another trip to calm -- a walk through the French streets early in the morning.

My eyes opened at six. Through the glass doors of my room I saw a deep orange streak running horizontally across the sky. And then the spectacle began unfolding: the orange gradually began to change the black of the sky into deep blue and soon a small reddish ball began emerging from the horizon. The world calls it sunrise.

It was a new day, also my wife's birthday, and also the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the God of new beginnings and the remover of obstacles. Too many coincidences, I thought. So I sat on the bed and let the rays of the sun fall on me. For me, they were messengers of a new beginning and a bright future. I felt good. And calm. At a time when you are desperately seeking peace and a place under the sun, nothing could have been more soothing than those rays.

Here's the sunrise, as seen through my camera:

The Mole

But one morning
during my visit to Sensitive Mounds
I lost my way.
Standing alone in the valley, amid
miles and miles of white velvety stretch.

I called her to ask for directions
She giggled and laughed and refused to tell
"You are experienced, you should know,
you come to the Mounds often
sometimes to write, sometimes to rest."

But this morning, my darling
I am drunk on lust. I am all alone
and there are millions of bumps
Have mercy and show me the way
At least tell me the nearest landmark.

I heard her blush and then giggle:
"Ok, take a left. There you will find a mole
from there go right and take a left again.
Confused? Ok, call me once you reach the mole
I shall guide you from there."

After a fulfilling morning at the Mounds
I thought of the mole: how foolish he is --
he is there to make the flawless flawed
but amid the velvety sands,
he is an oasis called the beauty spot.

The Search For Answers

She was 16 when she fell in love with him. He was a young Army officer who had just returned from Sri Lanka after fighting the LTTE. His palms were made of steel and his voice, when he sang, as silky as Hemant Kumar's. Which girl wouldn't fall for him? Their eyes had first met during Durga Puja, and then they began to meet. At first under the roadside tree outside the school, then in restaurants in the neighbourhood. And that summer, when the entire class went on an excursion to Bombay, he followed her. There they roamed Chowpatty, hand in hand. Holding hands was a big deal in 1987. It was the present-day equivalent of kissing. But unlike kissing, which only fuels your desire to explore further, hand-holding, at least back then, brought about a sense of contentment. The average couple knew that they had reached the maximum permissible limit, and that the rest would follow only once they got married.

She was 20 when she got married. She was still preparing for civil services exams. The groom was an engineer, a product of IIT Kanpur: a soft, intelligent, good-looking guy. Her parents had netted the prize catch after combing the matrimonial columns of the Times of India for months. She glowed on the night of her wedding. That year, she also got through the civil services exams. Engineer husband, bureaucrat wife: what a life. Two years later, she had her first child, a girl. And two years after that, a boy. Living in an old British-made bungalow, they lived happily ever after.

'Ever after' is a relative term; its periodicity can vary from five years to 50 years, but once you've cross the 20-year mark of living happily, you've lived happily every after. In their case, they've already crossed the 20-year mark. She is almost 40 now, he is 45. He is the vice-president of his company; she is the managing director of a government-run corporation (she has also published two slim books on poetry, and she blogs too. Though not many people who leave comments on her posts know her real identity. She blogs by the name of 'Sunaina', who describes herself on her profile page as 'I am what I am.') They no longer live in British-built bungalows, but in a bungalow of their own. One happy family: neighbours' pride, society's envy.

Then, one day, Orkut came knocking on the door. And the first person she searched for was -- of course -- the Army officer. She was in luck. Once an officer, always an officer: he looked just the same in his album on Orkut, only that he had greyed. But the salt-and-pepper hair made him even more desirable. Once she had had a good look at him, her eyes widening and narrowing alternately, she turned her attention on his wife. "Is she more attractive than me?" that was the first thought that escaped her mind. The thought was so loud that she could hear it. She at once felt jealous. She heard another thought escaping her mind: "This is my man, how could she have him!" Just then, the bell rang. The daughter had returned from her salsa class. She went to the kitchen and hurriedly made sandwiches for her daughter: her mind was on getting back to the computer as quickly as possible, just to look at the pictures all over again.

Four months have passed ever since she was reunited with her first love, courtesy Orkut. Today, Google Talk keeps the old love aflame. Really, only the internet can bring back dead things to life. And you know what the profile picture on her Google Talk shows these days? It shows a young man and a young woman standing next to each other, rather awkwardly. They want to get closer, perhaps put their arms around each other, but they are aware that the world -- at least the photographer -- is watching. The result is cute as well as disastrous: if I am ever asked to write a caption for the photograph, I would say, "So near, and yet so far." Well, this was the picture taken on Chowpatty, way back in 1987.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a short story that I am attempting to write, but a true story that has made me think. Though it can also made into a thought-provoking short story provided one has the skills. After seeing the Chowpatty picture on her Google Talk profile for several weeks, I asked her one day, "Aren't you going to change it? Or are you still in the nostalgia mode?" She replied, "What to do, I happened to love him so much." Now that made me think:

1. Should she forever curse life for having denied her her first love, or be thankful to life that she spent 20 blissful years while being married to a man who she did not choose but who not only gave her happiness and two beautiful children but also enough breathing space to write two books of poems?

2. Or is it that she is mistaking lust for love? When you are 40-plus, and your husband a few years older, the bed is the place where you only have arguments. Once upon a time the bed might have been a place where toes touched, but today it is the venue for pointing fingers. In other words, there is no sex, except whatever goes on in the mind. In such a situation, when a handsome visitor appears on the horizon, then... well. And if the visitor happens to be a blast from the past, then.. well. You know what I mean, don't you?

3. Does love retain its potency and its intoxicating properties as long as you don't achieve it? And lose its charm the moment you achieve it? I am asking this because, had Sunaina married the Army officer, wouldn't she have got bored of his constant presence after 20 years of marriage? Maybe she would have searched for other people on Orkut. Maybe she would have searched for me.

Please answer these questions for me, will you?

Keeping The Mask On

The image in my previous post is self-explanatory. I would be lying if I said I am not excited. But sadly, I am not going to go through the book, for the simple reason that I am always embarrassed -- and at times appalled -- to read anything that I've written a while ago. There is always this urge to rewrite. Others, however, are encouraged to buy the book and read it and, better still, reread it. It should be in the bookstores by the month-end.

I do not know how long its shelf life is going to be, but I certainly know that the shelf life of my excitement is going to be horribly short. As long as you are waiting for your book to be published -- after having travelled the length and breadth of the country and put your descriptive skills to test -- you are some sort of a hero in your own eyes. But once the book is published, the readers take over. If they like it, you remain a hero. If not, you are reduced to being a zero. I am already bracing myself to answer questions like these:

"Weren't you writing a book? What happened to it, is it out yet?"

"Yeah, it came out four months ago."

"Is it? How come I didn't notice! Where can I find a copy?"

Chai, Chai was written over a period of two years. During the first year, I did all the travelling, and during the second year, I did the writing. During these two years, what kept me going, in spite of the vicissitudes of life, was the knowledge that I was writing a book. An imaginary cover for the book -- which, fortunately, is not very different from the real cover that has been reproduced in the previous post -- and an imaginary reader reception kept me going. In other words, my life had a purpose during the past two years. There was something to look forward to. But once the book is out, what will I have to look forward to?

I decided not to take a chance. Last week, I signed a contract with the publishers for my next project. It will be a book on Chennai -- a portrait of the city I have been living in for the past nine years. It will be the most definitive book ever written about the city till date. That's all I can say for now. It will be released next August, to coincide with Madras Day celebrations in 2010. In other words, I get to keep the mask of self-importance on for another year.

Coming Soon

Cover design by Rishad Patel.

The King (Of Yoga) And I

Finally, yes finally, I think I can put the hypochondriac in me to death. No more running to the hospital for the slightest of reason. No more Google-searching for symptoms. Whatever will be, will be; and come what may, I am going to return to my full-fledged yoga practice. The days I drink more, I am going to punish myself with five extra rounds of sun salutations. But I am never ever going to neglect my yoga practice, as I've been doing in the past two-three years. I am going to live strong.

These thoughts crossed my mind on Sunday evening as I walked out of the gates of Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, having met the king of yoga, the great B.K.S. Iyengar. He was at the Mandiram to give away certificates to the newly-trained yoga teachers.

It's one thing to chant the name of god or talk about god, and quite another to meet god himself. When you meet god, face to face, all your self-doubts wash away and there you are -- sporting a clean, fresh look, all set to make a new beginning. You realise how impoverished you were all this while.

And if Iyengar is not god then who is: at 91, he doesn't look a day older than 70. He walks around as if he is still 50. He talks with the authority of an Army commander. And he smiles like a child. At 91, you either don't expect people to be alive or expect them to be bed-ridden, completely shrunken, eagerly waiting for death. In fact, by the time you turn 75, you begin counting your days on Planet Earth. That's how it is in India. Perhaps that is why Indian's fall short of Iyengar's expectations: he reserved his admiration for the Westerners.

"In the West, there is still honesty and integrity (when it comes to learning yoga). Indians are yet to open their minds. They have always been afraid of my discipline. They were never prepared to take the hard sadhana," said Iyengar.

You just can't dismiss what he says, for he has seen it all. He has been there, done that. He has been teaching yoga right from the time when even our fathers were not born. In the early 1930s, Iyengar was a sickly boy who often fell ill. But it so happened that he was also married to the sister of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the fountainhead of modern yoga. Krishnamacharya, an usually strict teacher, was then teaching in Mysore under the patronage of the local Maharaja, and Iyengar joined him as a disciple in 1934.

Krishnamacharya had another disciple at the time, a poor boy called Pattabhi Jois. At the time, both Iyengar and Jois were terror-stricken by their guru Krishnamacharya, but what bound the guru and his disciples was poverty. They were all poor. They often had no money for food.

In 1936, Iyengar went to settle in Pune to teach yoga. "At the time, you were thought to be half insane if you took up yoga. When I reached Pune, there were barely 10 yoga teachers in the whole of India," said Iyengar. Pattabhi Jois, on the other hand, stayed on in Mysore and founded Ashtanga Yoga, which subsequently became a rage in the West under the name of power yoga, whose practitioners ranged from Sting to Madonna, to name a few. Krishnamacharya, their guru, meanwhile relocated to Chennai. Like a true yogi, he kept a rather low profile, until his son, TKV Desikachar, set up the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram as a way of paying guru dakshina to his father. Krishnamacharya died in 1989, at the age of 100.

By then, both Iyengar and Jois had become world-famous yoga teachers. Jois actively taught Ashtanga Yoga till he died very recently at the age of 94, and Iyengar is still going strong. Now that really makes me wonder about the secret powers of vinyasa. Vinyasa is a dynamic form of yoga in which you keep moving your body in synchronisation with your breath. To explain it to the common man, it is the sun-salutation sequence as prescribed by Ashtanga Yoga.

Whoever practiced Vinyasa seems to have lived unusually long: Krishnamacharya died at 100, and he was mentally and physically agile till he slipped into coma a few weeks before his death. Jois, even at 94, was an active teacher and was perhaps looking forward to a few more trips to exotic islands to teach Ashtanga Yoga when he went into permanent shavasana. And Iyengar, at 91, is still going strong -- and thank God for that.

Iyengar isn't the god of yoga today for no reason. His life stands on two pillars: pain and practice. "Until 1954, I had to struggle. I was teaching in schools and colleges of Pune. But often they would make me wait for hours. At times they would make me wait and then ask me to go home. I took all that humiliation," Iyengar said.

But in 1954, his saviour came in the form of Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned violinist and conductor. He was on a tour of India, at the invitation of Nehru, when he was overcome by a nervous attack -- so bad that he couldn't even hold his violin. Iyengar cured him within a matter of hours, after which Menuhin invited him to teach in Switzerland. "Switzerland was my gateway to the West," Iyengar said. The rest, as they say, is history.

But the humiliations carried forward -- at least for a while. In London, Iyengar walked six miles to and fro to teach Menuhin, and was referred to as a 'slave' by many people. Today, he seeks to make light of the insults: "From a slave I became a slave-driver."

But here's what I will actually remember Sunday evening for -- perhaps for the rest of my life: TKV Desikachar was mentioning about an Army officer who had begun to suffer from vertigo after practising the headstand. "I told him, 'Look, the muscles of your neck have become stiff with age, and if you practise headstand, then..." Desikachar had barely finished his sentence when Iyengar roared in: "Age is an enemy. It confines you to a certain frame of mind, whereas the purpose of yoga is to help you get out of that frame of mind and go far beyond. I was practising yoga non-stop up to the age of 75. At the age of 80, I fell from a scooter and I could not even lift my hands. My students thought my life was over. That was the time when I thought, 'Should I continue or not?' If I had stopped, it would have meant that I had surrendered and lost faith in myself. But I combatted my problems, I combatted my fears. How could I give up something that I had been practising for 70 years? Today, even though I am 91, I can do a headstand for 30 minutes, and trust me, my legs won't oscillate even for 30 seconds."

Moral of his story: either you let age and adversity defeat you; or you defeat them with the strength of your mind and body. The choice is yours.

Mr McCourt And I

Now this is really strange. Only last evening, I went to Landmark, the bookstore, to buy myself some books -- something I had not done in a long time. Of late, I've only ordered books online, but the convenience of using your credit card from home does not match the pleasure of walking around a bookstore and looking for books to pick: you don't get the atmosphere. The atmosphere, I strongly believe, plays a big part in kindling one's ambition to become a writer.

When I walked into Landmark, I had three particular books in mind: Angela's Ashes and 'Tis by Frank McCourt, and the revised edition of my all-time favourite, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast (one of his grandsons has 'restored' the original version, in the belief that Hemingway's fourth and final wife had distorted the unfinished manuscript after he died).

McCourt's books I possessed till a few years ago, when I happened to lend them to a friend who simply drifted out of my life, along with the books, that is. I wanted to get those books back into my life. They had helped me every time I felt angry with the world. Angela's Ashes I read only once and did not want to go back to that: the humour only enhances the gloom the book chronicles. But I still wanted it in my collection -- for record's sake. 'Tis has its share of gloom too, but you can see a man sailing cheerfully through it, even though he never really sails out of it. It's been the Bible to me for many years -- I have looked up to it when I have not been able to write and I've sought solace in its pages when I felt ignored by the world.

It is also true that the book would not have been such an inspiration had I not been aware of McCourt's life-story: even after a poverty-stricken childhood and a youth riddled with uncertainties, life was still not kind to him. He remained, for over 30 years, a mere school teacher who taught English and creative writing in various schools and took a modest salary home. Lady luck smiled on him only after he turned 66, when he published his book, Angela's Ashes, which went on to win the Pulitzer. At that age, most Indian men consider themselves to be a spent force and are waiting to be taken to their graves. But for McCourt, there was no looking back.

His life has been a shining example of the old saying which has been done to death in Hindi films -- 'Bhagwaan ke ghar der hai, andher nahin' (In the home of God, there might be a delay, but never darkness).

Unfortunately, I did not find any of McCourt's books at Landmark yesterday. I did not even find the revised edition of A Moveable Feast, which was understandable because the book has just been released in the West. So I picked up five other books and checked out.

This afternoon when I logged on to the Time magazine website soon after I walked into office, I noticed a piece mourning McCourt's death. I found his death more strange than shocking: precisely at the moment while he was breathing his last in New York, a great fan of his living miles away, in south of India, was actually scanning the shelves of a bookshop to find his masterpieces. Had I found those books, I might have possibly earned the distinction of being the last person to buy his books while he was still alive.

Actually, I did have a chance of earning that distinction: I only had to approach the help desk. But as a rule, I like to fish for my own books rather than seek help from one of the guys who can barely tell between a horse's mouth and ass. The charm lies in hunting for your own book in a bookshop.

I am not at all sad that McCourt is dead. I am, in fact, rejoicing that he managed to savour the success of being a celebrated writer for a good 13 years before he died last Sunday at the age of 78. I am also rejoicing the fact that he wrote a masterpiece called Angela's Ashes: but for the runaway success of this book, Mr McCourt would have gone to the grave unnoticed along with his story-telling skills.

A Commentator Asks, I Answer

Here's a comment that came late last night in reaction to my post on being a spiritual guru:

Some questions for you.

How are you able to quote verbatim the conversations you had with others here? Don't thoughts like these come: What will their reaction be to know their casual conversation has been analyzed and posted?

Scotch laden as most of your posts are, made late in the night, does it knock your head when you read the posts next day in uninebriated state, like, "What crap I have written?"

I am glad the commentator asked these questions. It gives me the chance to clarify a few things, and also share a few things about my blogging/writing.

The first question is how I am able to quote verbatim the conversations I have with others. It's simple: you only have to keep your ears and eyes open. When you come home and tell your wife or mother what happened in the office or in the college, don't you repeat verbatim what you've heard? When you gossip or bitch about a person, don't you mimic his or her words verbatim?

As a journalist, you are self-trained to listen and remember. As a writer, it becomes second nature to listen and observe and take mental notes. It becomes part of your job. That is why writers rarely have a boring moment. There might be superficial boredom at times, there might be moments of frustration or loneliness, but they are rarely ever bored or blank. Every moment in their life is a conscious or subconscious exercise in material-collection. Even family members become potential characters: their characteristics, mannerisms and conversations are stored away in some corner of their minds for future use.

The question is how verbatim it is. Well, it doesn't have to be an exact reproduction, as long as the sense is conveyed and the truth is not distorted. It is easy to invent a conversation or a quote, but that is simply not done. It is malpractice, unless your work is strictly fiction. But since this blog is about facts and not fiction, the quotes are always real and as verbatim as possible.

Question no. 2: Does it ever occur to me what those people will feel if they realise their casual conversation has been analysed and posted?

Yes, it does occur to me and that is why I don't name names and try to mask the situation if necessary. Moreover, I don't write offensive stuff about people I quote, neither do I run them down. I only use their point of view as a tool to put forward mine. As for analysing a casual conversation: well, that's my job. People are their real selves only during a casual conversation, and that's the time to get into their minds. If I were to announce at a dinner table, "Look guys, I am going to analyse and write about every word that is spoken here," each one would immediately don a mask.

Above all, it is the privilege of being a writer to analyse conversations or events and write about them. And as a blogger, you also have the privilege of having a platform to air your views. I have earned these privileges. And no one is stopping you, dear commentator, from recording your version of the evening. All you need to do is sign up with Blogger or Livejournal. It would be heartening to get a view from the other side of the dining table.

Question no. 3: Scotch laden as most of your posts are, made late in the night, does it knock your head when you read the posts next day in uninebriated state, like, "What crap I have written?"

Oh yes, there are occasions when I wonder, the next morning, what crap have I written. So much so that I feel like deleting those posts. What holds me back from deleting them is a simple logic: my blog is like a public park where entry is free of cost. Anyone can come in and spend how much ever time they feel like. They can admire the plants, spit on them, do whatever they feel like. So why worry so much about the crap that might be lying around? If the visitors had to pay an entry fee, I would have perhaps worked extra hard to see that I don't write crap. Or may be I would have not written at all.

But let me assure you, dear commentator, that what I write or how I write would not be any different even if I were to sit in front of the computer at nine in the morning with a cup to tea instead of a glass of whisky. I could still be writing crap.

Ah, nothing beats writing late in the night, when the whole world is fast asleep and when there is a glass of whisky sitting by your elbow, urging you to stay up and think hard. Just one sip and you find your thought process unlocked. The writing flows. But here, I have a confession to make: the first three or four paragraphs of my posts are always written without the aid of alcohol. I write them stark sober.

It's like this: I am very lazy by temperament, and as long as I know there is sufficient booze at home, I show no hurry in making a drink. For making a drink involves getting the bottle, getting a glass, getting the water and so on -- things that are best postponed. In the meanwhile, I start writing my post. There are several frustrating moments before I get a satisfactory first sentence, and then a satisfactory first paragraph. The battle somewhat eases off with the completion of the first para, but the struggle continues till I have written another two or three paras. That's when I feel like taking a break and get up to make a drink. But by then, the tone of the post has already been set.

Alcohol merely helps to resume the writing with vigour. It unlocks your thought process and makes you passionate and emotional about what you are writing. It gives conviction to your thoughts and lends you the will-power to finish with articulating those thoughts no matter how long it takes. This is also possible without the help of alcohol; but alcohol, somehow, helps you with the turn of phrases. I mean, when you are mildly drunk, you are no longer inhibited and you let your thoughts flow out like a river. Haven't you seen shy and reticent men becoming passionate poets after a drink or two?

The whole idea of drinking alcohol is that it lifts your spirits. So why not record your thoughts and emotions when your spirits are in an uplifted state? Certain emotions are completely dormant -- and therefore unknown to you -- without the aid of alcohol. I have a friend who has many qualities, but I never thought of him as a singer. He is a guy who would rather rescue a woman from the clutches of a rapist and earn her admiration rather than impress her with his singing. One night, he drank up an entire bottle of red wine I had got from Pondicherry. Lo behold, he had become a singer! I can't even begin to tell you how good he sounded: he should have been singing at Chennai's Margazhi festival. But in real life he happens to be a journalist who ekes out a living by editing copies and giving headlines. So that's what alcohol can do to you: it can bring out facets which you are not even aware of.

But then, it is important to know the difference between alcohol lifting your spirits and alcohol numbing your senses. Any seasoned writer would realise when exactly his senses are beginning to get numb: he would instantly stop writing and return to the piece only the next morning.

So to say that my pieces are Scotch-laden is factually wrong. It is fun to write while you are drinking, but impossible to write while you are drunk.

Anymore questions?

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.