Shops are already putting up Christmas trees and playing the carols. Which means another year has gone past. How do I look back at 2009? So far, it has been the worst year of my life and also the best. Strange, isn't it: the best year also happens to be the worst!
Mathematically, a plus and a minus should cancel each other out so that you are left with a zero -- a clean slate. But life is not mathematics but chemistry, where a electron meets a proton to form a new, stable compound. I shall be stepping into 2010 as a new, stable compound. In any case, the years ending with an even digit have always been nice to me. I was born in 1970, got the appointment letter for my first job in 1992, moved to Delhi in 1994, got the appointment letter for a job in Chennai (which changed the course of my life) in 2000, got married in 2006 and so on. It was an aberration that my first book should have come out in 2009: maybe the best of it will happen in 2010.
Also in December 2010, I shall turn 40. Half of my life would be over, and yet my biggest dream remains unfulfilled. It shall remain unfulfilled unless I work towards it, and it is about time that I did. It is a simple dream on the face of it, but not simple at all when the dreamer happens to be me -- someone who is used to living paycheck to paycheck. But I am determined to make it come true. Here is the dream:
Owning a house by the sea or in the lap of a mountain. At daybreak, I would greet the sun with at least 12 rounds of sun salutations followed by a sequence of yogic postures that would include five minutes of shoulderstand and three minutes of headstand. After that, a breakfast of bread and eggs and juice in the lawn, if there is one. After breakfast I would proceed to my study to write. The study would have a large desk in the middle of the room. Three walls would be lined with books, while the fourth would be adorned with Bose speakers as well as various framed pictures of R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar that I would have stolen from the internet and developed into prints. That would be the music corner.
I would write non-stop till noon and then pour some beer for myself and go over whatever I've written since morning. Most of the time, I would be happy with my work and proceed for lunch. A simple lunch, nothing fancy. Post-lunch, I would sit in the balcony and light a cigarette and catch up with the gossip over phone and also look at various contracts and cheques sent by the publisher. A short nap and then I would be writing again. In between, I would get a text message from the bank: Rs 4.5 lakh have just been credited into my account.
Just before sunset, I would go for a long, brisk walk. Another text message from the bank: Rs 80,000 credited into your account. Oh, the advance for the new book. I would return invigorated and go for a shower and come out to find 'literary' and other friends waiting. I would go behind the bar counter and declare the evening open. The bar would be well-stocked with duty-free alcohol, but friends would not be discouraged from bringing their own booze. After two drinks each, we would move to the music corner -- with drinks in hand, of course -- and worship Kishore Kumar and R.D. Burman for a couple of hours. From a bartender I would transform into a DJ.
Sharp at 11 I would declare the bar closed and say goodbye to all of them. Of course we would all have had dinner by then -- simple food cooked by a certain Ram Singh or a Ramu Kaka or a Ganga Ram. Once they leave, I would pull out a book from the shelves and put myself to sleep reading it. So dear friends, that's my simple dream. Please pray that it comes true by at least 2012 -- a year that ends with an even number.
Wait a minute, I forgot something. I left out my wife from my dream day in my dream house. Let me come back to you with a rewritten dream, lest I am left out of her life.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Departure And Arrival
Yesterday, December 4, was my parents' wedding anniversary. Fortieth anniversary. Had destiny been not cruel, I would have squeezed Kanpur into my travel itinerary because they were planning a small party. They were inspired by a similar party thrown by one of our neighbours to celebrate their 30 years of marriage. In fact, when I last spoke to them over phone while they were in Kanpur, they were deciding on the menu.
A couple of days later, they embarked on the fateful trip to Banaras. The idea was to pay a visit to my brother who lived in Banaras. Who knew that that was to be my mother's last train journey, and that soon she would be setting out on her final journey, being carried on the strong shoulders of her two sons all the way to Manikarnika Ghat where devout Hindus dream of landing up as dead bodies.
While carrying her body through the extremely narrow streets of Banaras, which was a challenge by itself, I stepped on a spot on the cobbled street where the brick was missing and in the process sprained by foot. I instinctively cried out in pain. The only person in this world who would have let out a scream seeing me in pain was now on my shoulder, lifeless. I quickly gathered my senses and moved on. But the foot hurt like hell.
I can go on and on about the cremation story. It is an interesting story, especially because it is set in Banaras, where hundreds of people actually come to live during the final stages of there life. Only a fortunate few die there though: most aged people, tired of the interminable wait for death, return home for a brief vacation or a family function and end up dying there. But I am saving everything for a book, because it will easily take a few thousand words to describe the scene at Manikarnika Ghat alone, where I spent four hours in the company of the living and the dead. The living also included cows and goats and dogs. The dogs were drawn by the smell of burning flesh, whereas the cows and the goats came to chew on the flowers that bedecked the biers. It was surprising to see how the goats there are resistant to the furnace-like heat generated by the pyres.
The moment we brought mother's body to the banks of the Ganga, it began to drizzle. And everybody who had been a part of the funeral procession ran for cover. Only my father, my brother and I stood in the rain, wondering how to protect mother from getting drenched: she was lifeless no doubt, but she deserved dignity even in death. Fortunately, the drizzle died down before it could do any damange. In fact, mother looked fresh after the brief shower. These were her last moments in the human form. She seemed to be smiling. The date was August 29 -- just two days before her birthday. She would have turned 59. On the evening of September 29, Chai, Chai reached the bookshops.
A small confession. There is a Balaji temple, the replica of the one in Tirupati, on Venkatanarayana Road in Chennai which I pass everyday on my way to work. Long before my mother died, long before Chai, Chai hit the stands, I made a silent plea to Balaji: "If the book sells 10,000 copies, I will come to Tirupati and get my head shaved." My logic was this: the book selling so many copies is a remote possibility, rather an impossiblity, so there is no question of me parting with my hair. But in case God listens to my prayer and makes the book sell 10,000 copies, going bald is a very, very small price to pay.
Destiny intervened, and I had to shave my head even before the book reached the shops. My faith in God was shaken. For the last two years, I had only one prayer, a desperate one, that my mother should live to see the book. Her heart was packing up, and I knew she would be gone anyday. But why did she have to go precisely eight days before the book came out of the press? Had she lived for two more months, she would have not only seen the book but also attended the various launch functions. She would have died a happy woman. The regret has become a gaping hole in my heart which shall never heal.
As I sat on the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur on a pleasant September morning, with a barber running his razor on my scalp, I told God: "Look, you are making me shave my head even before the book is out in the shops. Now it is your responsibility to sell 10,000 copies."
So far, God has been a good marketing executive.
A couple of days later, they embarked on the fateful trip to Banaras. The idea was to pay a visit to my brother who lived in Banaras. Who knew that that was to be my mother's last train journey, and that soon she would be setting out on her final journey, being carried on the strong shoulders of her two sons all the way to Manikarnika Ghat where devout Hindus dream of landing up as dead bodies.
While carrying her body through the extremely narrow streets of Banaras, which was a challenge by itself, I stepped on a spot on the cobbled street where the brick was missing and in the process sprained by foot. I instinctively cried out in pain. The only person in this world who would have let out a scream seeing me in pain was now on my shoulder, lifeless. I quickly gathered my senses and moved on. But the foot hurt like hell.
I can go on and on about the cremation story. It is an interesting story, especially because it is set in Banaras, where hundreds of people actually come to live during the final stages of there life. Only a fortunate few die there though: most aged people, tired of the interminable wait for death, return home for a brief vacation or a family function and end up dying there. But I am saving everything for a book, because it will easily take a few thousand words to describe the scene at Manikarnika Ghat alone, where I spent four hours in the company of the living and the dead. The living also included cows and goats and dogs. The dogs were drawn by the smell of burning flesh, whereas the cows and the goats came to chew on the flowers that bedecked the biers. It was surprising to see how the goats there are resistant to the furnace-like heat generated by the pyres.
The moment we brought mother's body to the banks of the Ganga, it began to drizzle. And everybody who had been a part of the funeral procession ran for cover. Only my father, my brother and I stood in the rain, wondering how to protect mother from getting drenched: she was lifeless no doubt, but she deserved dignity even in death. Fortunately, the drizzle died down before it could do any damange. In fact, mother looked fresh after the brief shower. These were her last moments in the human form. She seemed to be smiling. The date was August 29 -- just two days before her birthday. She would have turned 59. On the evening of September 29, Chai, Chai reached the bookshops.
A small confession. There is a Balaji temple, the replica of the one in Tirupati, on Venkatanarayana Road in Chennai which I pass everyday on my way to work. Long before my mother died, long before Chai, Chai hit the stands, I made a silent plea to Balaji: "If the book sells 10,000 copies, I will come to Tirupati and get my head shaved." My logic was this: the book selling so many copies is a remote possibility, rather an impossiblity, so there is no question of me parting with my hair. But in case God listens to my prayer and makes the book sell 10,000 copies, going bald is a very, very small price to pay.
Destiny intervened, and I had to shave my head even before the book reached the shops. My faith in God was shaken. For the last two years, I had only one prayer, a desperate one, that my mother should live to see the book. Her heart was packing up, and I knew she would be gone anyday. But why did she have to go precisely eight days before the book came out of the press? Had she lived for two more months, she would have not only seen the book but also attended the various launch functions. She would have died a happy woman. The regret has become a gaping hole in my heart which shall never heal.
As I sat on the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur on a pleasant September morning, with a barber running his razor on my scalp, I told God: "Look, you are making me shave my head even before the book is out in the shops. Now it is your responsibility to sell 10,000 copies."
So far, God has been a good marketing executive.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Chai, Chai Comes To Mumbai And Pune
The stupidest movie I have seen in a long time is, well, I can't even recall the name. It has Bobby Deol playing a cancer surgeon, and his girlfriend is a ghost-like Kangana Ranaut. He is paralysed neck-down after an accident, and thanks to the cheering up by a little cancer-afflicted boy who is admitted in the same hospital, he not only overcomes his paralysis but also conducts an (academic) research from the hospital bed and finds a cure for cancer. The story isn't stupid: it was adapted from a Russian fable, after all. But the movie certainly is.
It was hardly surprising, therefore, that my wife, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and I were the only people in the theatre that evening, apart from two young students from the Northeast. Just six people in the entire hall in an upscale Delhi mall! If I was a young man who had a girlfriend but no place to take her to, I would have bought tickets for this movie again and again.
How can a director be so dumb? Throughout the movie, there is nothing that can give you even the remotest idea where the story is set. For most of the first half, the location is unmistakably foreign, with white people in the background and all, but Bobby Deol drives a car with a Karnataka registration number and works in an upscale hospital where the entire staff is Indian. The second half, of course, is shot inside a hospital, so there is no way of telling if the hospital is located in Mumbai or Minneapolis.
How can you savour a story without getting a sense of the place? It was not for nothing that Ramesh Sippy had painstakingly created 'Ramgarh' in the outskirts of Bangalore and shot Sholay there for four years. To save on time, he could have created a duplicate 'Ramgarh' elsewhere in order to carry on with the shooting when monsoon arrived in Karnataka. But he knew the audience is not a fool. Directors began to take the audience's intelligence for granted from the time when Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborthy were the reigning stars. That was the time when an idyllic spot in Tamil Nadu was passed off as a village in Uttar Pradesh. The trend, unfortunately, carries forward even today; but, fortunately, such movies are not very memorable.
The memorable ones are place-specific. And since the Hindi film industry works out of Bombay, most of the movies that you still watch again and again are set in Bombay. Baaton Baaton Mein could not have been set in the hills of Ooty: it is a hardcore Bombay movie, but it continues to appeal to even those who have never set foot on Bombay. Amitabh Bachchan's Don was such a 'Bombay' film, so were Deewar and Amar Akbar Anthony. And, of course, Guru Dutt's films! And, of course, so many other films -- one could write a 500-page book on them. The point is, these films never pretended that the location was elsewhere: that's precisely why they worked and that's precisely what made Bombay so endearing and romantic and awe-inspiring for the rest of India. You did not have to visit Bombay to know what Marine Drive looked like.
Ah, those were the days, when smuggled gold would be arriving at the shore at an appointed time and cops, acting on a tip-off, would take their positions, armed with pistols (no AK-47 then). The smugglers would give the cops a slip and a chase would begin on the streets on Bombay, with Kalyanji Anandji or R.D. Burman providing the background music. Ah, those were the days, when Amol Palekar would romance Tina Munim in a local train. Ah, those were the days, when Iftekhar, the eternal police officer, would give a pep-talk to his juniors to keep up the prestige of their vardi -- the uniform -- and solve the murder that took place in Khandala. Ah, those were the days when movies used to have a 'Bombay' song. In fact, if you ever want to measure how times have changed, listen to these songs.
"Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan" by Rafi describes a city that is entirely different from the way it is potrayed in the funny, full-throated "Yeh hai Bambai nagariya tu dekh babua" by Kishore Kumar. But the sentiment in both these songs is common: Bombay overwhelms you.
I have, sadly, never been to Bombay. Only once, in 2005. Since the visit lasted barely 24 hours, I do not consider it as a visit. But the details are clearly etched in my mind. The occasion was the launch of the Lee calendar: various celebrity photographers had shot Yana Gupta in her various moods and attires and their pictures were to be unveiled that evening in a Juhu hotel. Even before I could take the plane to Mumbai, I was handed a responsibility: the daughter of a friend was a huge fan on Yana Gupta, and I was expected to bring back an autographed calendar for her.
I landed at four in the evening and, to my great horror, found no one holding a placard bearing my name. I went to a phone booth, run by a man who was entirely blind and who measured the value of the coins and notes handed to him by feeling them, and called up the driver who was supposed to pick me up. Fortunately, the driver was in the vicinity: he had just stepped out for tea. "This is Kalyanji Anandji's bungalow," he pointed to me while we were driving to the hotel. I was tempted to get down and walk inside the gate and interview Anandji. But this being Bombay, I did not know how things worked and kept quiet till I was deposited at the hotel.
It is pointless to describe the night of the calendar launch because it was like any other event where there is plenty of glamour and booze. But I must say I was quite horrified to see my favourite TV actress (even though I hardly watch TV) wearing a mini-skirt instead of the trademark saree: I could actually see the countours of her thighs. The next morning, I decided to pay a visit to a friend who lives in Cuffe Parade. "Just take a train from Bandra station, get down at Churchgate and take a taxi," he said. Feeling like the Amol Palekar of Baaton Baaton Mein, I went to Bandra station and bought a ticket to Churchgate for Rs 7.
A train came, but I could not imagine getting into it: so crowded it was. The next train came. It was crowded as well. It was clear to me by now that getting into a local train in Mumbai required special skills, which I was too old now to acquire. I walked out of Bandra station and took a taxi to Cuffe Parade. The driver hailed from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. I felt at home. I also felt at home when I passed landmarks, such as the Marine Drive, which I had been familiar with since childhood thanks to Hindi films. Bombay was a city that belonged to me as much as it belonged to its long-time residents. But twenty-four hours were far too short to savour a city.
Fortunately, thanks to Chai, Chai, I am going to Mumbai again. This time, I hope to gather enough courage to get into a local train, even if for travelling a short distance for the sake of it, and having lunch at one of the Irani restaurants. But let me not be so overwhelmed by Mumbai to forget inviting you all for the event I am going there for.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the launch of Chai, Chai in Mumbai on December 10, 6.30 pm at Crossword, Bandra. Award-winning playwright and director Mahesh Dattani will read from the book there. And the next day, I shall be crossing the famous Khandala ghat to travel to Pune, where noted poet-writer Randhir Khare will read from Chai, Chai at Landmark on December 11 at 6.30 pm. Please be there.
For those living in the south of the Vindhyas, a small reminder for the launch in Bangalore: at Garuda Mall Crossword on November 28 at 6 pm. Please be there.
It was hardly surprising, therefore, that my wife, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and I were the only people in the theatre that evening, apart from two young students from the Northeast. Just six people in the entire hall in an upscale Delhi mall! If I was a young man who had a girlfriend but no place to take her to, I would have bought tickets for this movie again and again.
How can a director be so dumb? Throughout the movie, there is nothing that can give you even the remotest idea where the story is set. For most of the first half, the location is unmistakably foreign, with white people in the background and all, but Bobby Deol drives a car with a Karnataka registration number and works in an upscale hospital where the entire staff is Indian. The second half, of course, is shot inside a hospital, so there is no way of telling if the hospital is located in Mumbai or Minneapolis.
How can you savour a story without getting a sense of the place? It was not for nothing that Ramesh Sippy had painstakingly created 'Ramgarh' in the outskirts of Bangalore and shot Sholay there for four years. To save on time, he could have created a duplicate 'Ramgarh' elsewhere in order to carry on with the shooting when monsoon arrived in Karnataka. But he knew the audience is not a fool. Directors began to take the audience's intelligence for granted from the time when Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborthy were the reigning stars. That was the time when an idyllic spot in Tamil Nadu was passed off as a village in Uttar Pradesh. The trend, unfortunately, carries forward even today; but, fortunately, such movies are not very memorable.
The memorable ones are place-specific. And since the Hindi film industry works out of Bombay, most of the movies that you still watch again and again are set in Bombay. Baaton Baaton Mein could not have been set in the hills of Ooty: it is a hardcore Bombay movie, but it continues to appeal to even those who have never set foot on Bombay. Amitabh Bachchan's Don was such a 'Bombay' film, so were Deewar and Amar Akbar Anthony. And, of course, Guru Dutt's films! And, of course, so many other films -- one could write a 500-page book on them. The point is, these films never pretended that the location was elsewhere: that's precisely why they worked and that's precisely what made Bombay so endearing and romantic and awe-inspiring for the rest of India. You did not have to visit Bombay to know what Marine Drive looked like.
Ah, those were the days, when smuggled gold would be arriving at the shore at an appointed time and cops, acting on a tip-off, would take their positions, armed with pistols (no AK-47 then). The smugglers would give the cops a slip and a chase would begin on the streets on Bombay, with Kalyanji Anandji or R.D. Burman providing the background music. Ah, those were the days, when Amol Palekar would romance Tina Munim in a local train. Ah, those were the days, when Iftekhar, the eternal police officer, would give a pep-talk to his juniors to keep up the prestige of their vardi -- the uniform -- and solve the murder that took place in Khandala. Ah, those were the days when movies used to have a 'Bombay' song. In fact, if you ever want to measure how times have changed, listen to these songs.
"Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan" by Rafi describes a city that is entirely different from the way it is potrayed in the funny, full-throated "Yeh hai Bambai nagariya tu dekh babua" by Kishore Kumar. But the sentiment in both these songs is common: Bombay overwhelms you.
I have, sadly, never been to Bombay. Only once, in 2005. Since the visit lasted barely 24 hours, I do not consider it as a visit. But the details are clearly etched in my mind. The occasion was the launch of the Lee calendar: various celebrity photographers had shot Yana Gupta in her various moods and attires and their pictures were to be unveiled that evening in a Juhu hotel. Even before I could take the plane to Mumbai, I was handed a responsibility: the daughter of a friend was a huge fan on Yana Gupta, and I was expected to bring back an autographed calendar for her.
I landed at four in the evening and, to my great horror, found no one holding a placard bearing my name. I went to a phone booth, run by a man who was entirely blind and who measured the value of the coins and notes handed to him by feeling them, and called up the driver who was supposed to pick me up. Fortunately, the driver was in the vicinity: he had just stepped out for tea. "This is Kalyanji Anandji's bungalow," he pointed to me while we were driving to the hotel. I was tempted to get down and walk inside the gate and interview Anandji. But this being Bombay, I did not know how things worked and kept quiet till I was deposited at the hotel.
It is pointless to describe the night of the calendar launch because it was like any other event where there is plenty of glamour and booze. But I must say I was quite horrified to see my favourite TV actress (even though I hardly watch TV) wearing a mini-skirt instead of the trademark saree: I could actually see the countours of her thighs. The next morning, I decided to pay a visit to a friend who lives in Cuffe Parade. "Just take a train from Bandra station, get down at Churchgate and take a taxi," he said. Feeling like the Amol Palekar of Baaton Baaton Mein, I went to Bandra station and bought a ticket to Churchgate for Rs 7.
A train came, but I could not imagine getting into it: so crowded it was. The next train came. It was crowded as well. It was clear to me by now that getting into a local train in Mumbai required special skills, which I was too old now to acquire. I walked out of Bandra station and took a taxi to Cuffe Parade. The driver hailed from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. I felt at home. I also felt at home when I passed landmarks, such as the Marine Drive, which I had been familiar with since childhood thanks to Hindi films. Bombay was a city that belonged to me as much as it belonged to its long-time residents. But twenty-four hours were far too short to savour a city.
Fortunately, thanks to Chai, Chai, I am going to Mumbai again. This time, I hope to gather enough courage to get into a local train, even if for travelling a short distance for the sake of it, and having lunch at one of the Irani restaurants. But let me not be so overwhelmed by Mumbai to forget inviting you all for the event I am going there for.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the launch of Chai, Chai in Mumbai on December 10, 6.30 pm at Crossword, Bandra. Award-winning playwright and director Mahesh Dattani will read from the book there. And the next day, I shall be crossing the famous Khandala ghat to travel to Pune, where noted poet-writer Randhir Khare will read from Chai, Chai at Landmark on December 11 at 6.30 pm. Please be there.
For those living in the south of the Vindhyas, a small reminder for the launch in Bangalore: at Garuda Mall Crossword on November 28 at 6 pm. Please be there.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Men Versus Women
Today a reader suggested that I should write a story on the lines of those of Shivani and Mitali but in which the man is a victim. "I'd like to see a similarly infuriating and well-written story about the modern woman harassing the hell out her husband, making him lose confidence, demoralising his existence. Women can do that, yes? Or is the writer unable to find the embarrassed women who'd reveal such a thing," the reader commented.
A couple of readers had left similar comments for the Shivani post. They had pointed out -- if I remember it right -- that even a man can be a victim of circumstances. The thing is, I know Shivani and Mitali personally, and they had shared their stories with me. I narrated them in the first person, instead of the third person, so that the emotion remained undiluted. But which woman would ever volunteer a story in which she is the villain? And which man, given his ego, would volunteer a story in which he is the victim?
In any case, 'villain' and 'victim' are relative terms. The news agency Reuters, for example, does not use the word 'terrorist' in its copies: they believe one man's terrorist can be another man's freedom fighter. The same principle, I believe, applies in the man-woman relationship. A woman can always say she is acting in a villainish way because she is the real victim. The man can make a similar claim. Who's the real villain and who's the real victim, no one ever gets to know.
Generally speaking, I will always be on the woman's side. For the simple reason that she is hardly given any choices in life. The choices shrink right from the moment of her birth and her fate is tied to that of a man who she would probably meet a quarter of a century later. Look at the tragedy: when she gets married, she is the one to give up her career and move to the city of her husband. When she has a kid, she is the one who gives up her job and stays home. When she resumes her career, if at all, she starts almost from scratch -- seniority be damned -- but she does not mind. Even if she minds, she has no choice.
And I am talking about city-bred, educated women. Women in rural India, especially north India, are an entirely different story, enjoying a status that is marginally better than that accorded to the cattle: only when they are nearing or are past menopause that they earn some of their rights -- most of them misused on the hapless daughter-in-law.
Coming back to the urban setting, there are exceptions of course. But by and large, an Indian woman's destiny is decided collectively by her parents, by her husband, by her in-laws, by her children and, above all, by the society. She never really gets to do what she really wants to do. She is merely a participant -- either enthusiastic or unwilling -- in someone else's life. A man can tell his family, wife or parents, even at 10 in the night, "I'll just be back in an hour." Can a woman do that? A casual outing that a man takes for granted can put a question mark on the character of a woman. And: why is the girl expected to be traditionally attired when her prospective in-laws come to see her along with their son -- even though the son maybe wearing a pair of jeans? Why should the burden of holding the tradition aloft lie on the soft shoulders of the woman alone?
Things are changing, but only in limited circles that don't consider earning lofty degrees as being educated. Really, a degree has nothing to do with education. A Harvard-returnee can still be pretty narrow-minded when it comes to the do's and don'ts concerning his wife -- ah, tell me all about it -- even though he lusts for classmates or co-workers who are bold. What to do: most Indian men are programmed that way: education might light the lamps of their minds, but they rarely ever see the light. Education, on the other hand, does wonders to a woman's personality.
Coming back to the reader's comment that inspired this post: "I'd like to see a similarly infuriating and well-written story about the modern woman harassing the hell out her husband, making him lose confidence, demoralising his existence." Well, all I can say is, if a man loses his confidence or is demoralised because of his wife, whatever happened to his balls? Come on, man, arise, awake and rest not till you have done so well in life that women fall over you and your wife feels jealous and comes around. If she still doesn't, dump her.
But I know it isn't that easy. Men, too, have certain rules to live by, even though the rules governing them are more flexible than those governing the women. But rules are rules. I know of a man who got married just because the elders in his family wanted him to. So one evening, he went to see the girl. The meeting was fixed in the local temple, where the girl came with a host of relatives and friends. He hardly got to have a proper look at the girl -- talking was out of the question -- but he had to say yes under pressure from the family. The family had already decided on his behalf. It was only on the night of the wedding that he discovered that the girl was -- well, she was certainly not his kind of woman. But the priest had already gone home and he had no choice but to live, happily ever after, for the next several decades. He spent his entire life salivating for other women -- which, I think, was not his fault at all.
I know of another couple. I have known them since childhood and they are my parent's age now. I can't reveal too many details because, thanks to Facebook and Orkut, people who I wouldn't otherwise want to read Ganga Mail have access to this blog. So I shall stick to the basics: the man was short and thin, while the wife voluptuous and gorgeous. They are a Bengali couple. I would often watch them walk past my house: the man would always be talking very loudly, as if making a point, as if he was a firebrand Bengali Marxist. But back home, it was a different 'fire' story -- at least according to my Malayali classmate who happened to be their neighbour. At home, whenever the wife got pissed off with her husband, she would beat him up. And when she got extremely pissed, she would light up the gas stove and drag the hapless man by his hair and threaten to dunk his head into the fire. My Malayali classmate knew all this because the poor Bengali man, otherwise a fiery speaker, would be screaming for help.
Last winter, when I went to Kanpur, I noticed the couple at the neighbourhood supermarket. I was glad he was still alive. The wife looked as voluptuous as ever. They were surveying the bottles of various pickles. I surveyed them. I did not know whether to feel sorry for him, or for her.
A couple of readers had left similar comments for the Shivani post. They had pointed out -- if I remember it right -- that even a man can be a victim of circumstances. The thing is, I know Shivani and Mitali personally, and they had shared their stories with me. I narrated them in the first person, instead of the third person, so that the emotion remained undiluted. But which woman would ever volunteer a story in which she is the villain? And which man, given his ego, would volunteer a story in which he is the victim?
In any case, 'villain' and 'victim' are relative terms. The news agency Reuters, for example, does not use the word 'terrorist' in its copies: they believe one man's terrorist can be another man's freedom fighter. The same principle, I believe, applies in the man-woman relationship. A woman can always say she is acting in a villainish way because she is the real victim. The man can make a similar claim. Who's the real villain and who's the real victim, no one ever gets to know.
Generally speaking, I will always be on the woman's side. For the simple reason that she is hardly given any choices in life. The choices shrink right from the moment of her birth and her fate is tied to that of a man who she would probably meet a quarter of a century later. Look at the tragedy: when she gets married, she is the one to give up her career and move to the city of her husband. When she has a kid, she is the one who gives up her job and stays home. When she resumes her career, if at all, she starts almost from scratch -- seniority be damned -- but she does not mind. Even if she minds, she has no choice.
And I am talking about city-bred, educated women. Women in rural India, especially north India, are an entirely different story, enjoying a status that is marginally better than that accorded to the cattle: only when they are nearing or are past menopause that they earn some of their rights -- most of them misused on the hapless daughter-in-law.
Coming back to the urban setting, there are exceptions of course. But by and large, an Indian woman's destiny is decided collectively by her parents, by her husband, by her in-laws, by her children and, above all, by the society. She never really gets to do what she really wants to do. She is merely a participant -- either enthusiastic or unwilling -- in someone else's life. A man can tell his family, wife or parents, even at 10 in the night, "I'll just be back in an hour." Can a woman do that? A casual outing that a man takes for granted can put a question mark on the character of a woman. And: why is the girl expected to be traditionally attired when her prospective in-laws come to see her along with their son -- even though the son maybe wearing a pair of jeans? Why should the burden of holding the tradition aloft lie on the soft shoulders of the woman alone?
Things are changing, but only in limited circles that don't consider earning lofty degrees as being educated. Really, a degree has nothing to do with education. A Harvard-returnee can still be pretty narrow-minded when it comes to the do's and don'ts concerning his wife -- ah, tell me all about it -- even though he lusts for classmates or co-workers who are bold. What to do: most Indian men are programmed that way: education might light the lamps of their minds, but they rarely ever see the light. Education, on the other hand, does wonders to a woman's personality.
Coming back to the reader's comment that inspired this post: "I'd like to see a similarly infuriating and well-written story about the modern woman harassing the hell out her husband, making him lose confidence, demoralising his existence." Well, all I can say is, if a man loses his confidence or is demoralised because of his wife, whatever happened to his balls? Come on, man, arise, awake and rest not till you have done so well in life that women fall over you and your wife feels jealous and comes around. If she still doesn't, dump her.
But I know it isn't that easy. Men, too, have certain rules to live by, even though the rules governing them are more flexible than those governing the women. But rules are rules. I know of a man who got married just because the elders in his family wanted him to. So one evening, he went to see the girl. The meeting was fixed in the local temple, where the girl came with a host of relatives and friends. He hardly got to have a proper look at the girl -- talking was out of the question -- but he had to say yes under pressure from the family. The family had already decided on his behalf. It was only on the night of the wedding that he discovered that the girl was -- well, she was certainly not his kind of woman. But the priest had already gone home and he had no choice but to live, happily ever after, for the next several decades. He spent his entire life salivating for other women -- which, I think, was not his fault at all.
I know of another couple. I have known them since childhood and they are my parent's age now. I can't reveal too many details because, thanks to Facebook and Orkut, people who I wouldn't otherwise want to read Ganga Mail have access to this blog. So I shall stick to the basics: the man was short and thin, while the wife voluptuous and gorgeous. They are a Bengali couple. I would often watch them walk past my house: the man would always be talking very loudly, as if making a point, as if he was a firebrand Bengali Marxist. But back home, it was a different 'fire' story -- at least according to my Malayali classmate who happened to be their neighbour. At home, whenever the wife got pissed off with her husband, she would beat him up. And when she got extremely pissed, she would light up the gas stove and drag the hapless man by his hair and threaten to dunk his head into the fire. My Malayali classmate knew all this because the poor Bengali man, otherwise a fiery speaker, would be screaming for help.
Last winter, when I went to Kanpur, I noticed the couple at the neighbourhood supermarket. I was glad he was still alive. The wife looked as voluptuous as ever. They were surveying the bottles of various pickles. I surveyed them. I did not know whether to feel sorry for him, or for her.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Chetan Bhagat, Baba Ramdev And Pancham
For a few years now, I have been aware that there is a certain person called Chetan Bhagat who writes books that sell well. I always thought he was some kind of a new-age management guru who told youngsters how to shape their lives and careers: these are the sort of books that usually fly off the shelves. How popular he is -- I realised only after my own book was published.
For a couple of weeks after Chai, Chai hit the hands, I got into this habit of running a Google-search for the book. You can't blame me, of course: it's very human to do so. In the process, I found Chetan Bhagat's new book, 2 States, overshadowing every other new release. Couldn't he have finished the book a couple of months before or, preferably, after? On the brighter side, though, his book will always serve as a reference point for my debut book: "My first book? (That's me at the age of 70) Well, I don't recall the exact year it came out, but it was released almost the same time as Chetan Bhagat's 2 States. Please calculate."
But till last Sunday, I presumed -- please don't ask me why -- that 2 States is about the relationship between India and the United States, in which Chetan Bhagat gives some gyaan to the Indian government how to maintain the relationship between the two democratic states. Last Sunday, we went shopping in Spencer Plaza. While I went to Music World, wife went to Landmark. Back home, we showed each other what we had bought. While I gave her a stack of 15 music CDs, she handed me three books. One of them happened to be 2 States. She said she bought the book on the recommendation of her sister, who had read it and loved it. Wife went to the study to try out the CDs, so I was left alone in the bedroom to look at 2 States.
I made two horrifying discoveries. One, the book is actually a novel, which tells the story of a Punjabi boy falling in love -- and eventually marrying -- a Tamilian girl. In other words, Chetan Bhagat is actually a 'story-teller' and not a management guru as I had imagined him to be. Two, the price of the book: just Rs 95! The ridiculously low price, obviously, shows on the quality of the paper and the printing: while reading any page, you can also read alongside the preceding or the succeeding page. Well, that's a choice you have to make: should you feel bad that your book, when you hold it in your hands, feels and looks like one of the crudely-printed pornographic novels that you bought on the sly during your adolescence, or feel immensely proud that it has reached almost every English-speaking or English-understanding household in India?
I am sure Chetan Bhagat is basking in the glory of the latter -- and why not? If whatever he writes is crap, why should people be buying his books? For every 10 intellectually-inclined Indians who get turned on by the complicatedness of a book, there are a 100 others who would love to embrace Chetan Bhagat for telling a story in a style that is the hallmark of magazines like Women's Era.
The bottomline is that Chetan Bhagat sells . He is the Baba Ramdev of literature. It was Baba Ramdev (also known as Swami Ramdev) who demystified powerful yogic kriyas such as the kapalabhaati on television. Till Ramdev came along, yoga was a serious matter: you could master it either in one of the far-flung ashrams or under the tutelage of one of the reclusive gurus. But Ramdev took yoga to the lay housewife: in between rolling out rotis for her family, she would be practising the kapalabhaati kriya while watching TV.
Chetan Bhagat, as I can see, has the same effect on the masses. If his popularity pricks you, it is only because you are jealous of him. Nobody has ever prevented you from reaching out to the masses. But since you are terribly snooty, you fail miserably, whereas Chetan Bhagat wins hands down. As R.D. Burman said in an interview, just months before he died, "Success is the true yardstick. Nothing else matters." Going by Pancham's logic, Chetan Bhagat is already a rock star. So let's give him a big hand, ladies and gentlemen.
For a couple of weeks after Chai, Chai hit the hands, I got into this habit of running a Google-search for the book. You can't blame me, of course: it's very human to do so. In the process, I found Chetan Bhagat's new book, 2 States, overshadowing every other new release. Couldn't he have finished the book a couple of months before or, preferably, after? On the brighter side, though, his book will always serve as a reference point for my debut book: "My first book? (That's me at the age of 70) Well, I don't recall the exact year it came out, but it was released almost the same time as Chetan Bhagat's 2 States. Please calculate."
But till last Sunday, I presumed -- please don't ask me why -- that 2 States is about the relationship between India and the United States, in which Chetan Bhagat gives some gyaan to the Indian government how to maintain the relationship between the two democratic states. Last Sunday, we went shopping in Spencer Plaza. While I went to Music World, wife went to Landmark. Back home, we showed each other what we had bought. While I gave her a stack of 15 music CDs, she handed me three books. One of them happened to be 2 States. She said she bought the book on the recommendation of her sister, who had read it and loved it. Wife went to the study to try out the CDs, so I was left alone in the bedroom to look at 2 States.
I made two horrifying discoveries. One, the book is actually a novel, which tells the story of a Punjabi boy falling in love -- and eventually marrying -- a Tamilian girl. In other words, Chetan Bhagat is actually a 'story-teller' and not a management guru as I had imagined him to be. Two, the price of the book: just Rs 95! The ridiculously low price, obviously, shows on the quality of the paper and the printing: while reading any page, you can also read alongside the preceding or the succeeding page. Well, that's a choice you have to make: should you feel bad that your book, when you hold it in your hands, feels and looks like one of the crudely-printed pornographic novels that you bought on the sly during your adolescence, or feel immensely proud that it has reached almost every English-speaking or English-understanding household in India?
I am sure Chetan Bhagat is basking in the glory of the latter -- and why not? If whatever he writes is crap, why should people be buying his books? For every 10 intellectually-inclined Indians who get turned on by the complicatedness of a book, there are a 100 others who would love to embrace Chetan Bhagat for telling a story in a style that is the hallmark of magazines like Women's Era.
The bottomline is that Chetan Bhagat sells . He is the Baba Ramdev of literature. It was Baba Ramdev (also known as Swami Ramdev) who demystified powerful yogic kriyas such as the kapalabhaati on television. Till Ramdev came along, yoga was a serious matter: you could master it either in one of the far-flung ashrams or under the tutelage of one of the reclusive gurus. But Ramdev took yoga to the lay housewife: in between rolling out rotis for her family, she would be practising the kapalabhaati kriya while watching TV.
Chetan Bhagat, as I can see, has the same effect on the masses. If his popularity pricks you, it is only because you are jealous of him. Nobody has ever prevented you from reaching out to the masses. But since you are terribly snooty, you fail miserably, whereas Chetan Bhagat wins hands down. As R.D. Burman said in an interview, just months before he died, "Success is the true yardstick. Nothing else matters." Going by Pancham's logic, Chetan Bhagat is already a rock star. So let's give him a big hand, ladies and gentlemen.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Mistaken Identity
A piece of paper
torn into two
One carried away by the gust of wind
the other is you.
And thus: the lifelong search
for the other half.
The search fails, but you pretend:
"Wow, I found my other half!"
What a lie!
Your other half is
stuck in the branches of a mango tree
so who is this man
you are flaunting?
torn into two
One carried away by the gust of wind
the other is you.
And thus: the lifelong search
for the other half.
The search fails, but you pretend:
"Wow, I found my other half!"
What a lie!
Your other half is
stuck in the branches of a mango tree
so who is this man
you are flaunting?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Dard-e-Dil: Rafi versus Kishore
I have been a listener all my life, rarely joining in an argument no matter how provocative the subject. The rare exceptions being when I am drunk and when I have an audience that is polite enough to nod in agreement. That's when I am able to hold forth. But I need no alcohol to join a discussion on Kishore Kumar, especially when it comes to comparing him with Mohammed Rafi.
There is no comparison, actually. Kishore Kumar, even though he himself was a great admirer of Rafi, wins hands down when it comes to range. You only have to listen to the songs of Aap Ke Deewane or the title song of Yaadon Ki Baraat to decide who is more listenable. For that matter, Sa Re Ga Ma from Chupke Chupke: what is the song without Kishore?
The purpose of this post is not to belittle Rafi, or Rafi saab. He was undoubtedly a great singer. He had a melodious voice. But Kishore Kumar's voice had a life of its own, which was not constricted by any era: what he sang in the 1950's remains as fresh as what he sang in the 1980's -- as if he had sung them only yesterday.
Rafi's voice might have the fragrance of the Indian soil, but Kishore's voice is that of the man next-door. Rafi was soft and sweet, but Kishore was direct and effective. If I were a woman, I would like to be seduced by Roop Tera Mastaana. If I have a bad day, I can lift my spirits with one of the many energising Kishore Kumar songs, such as "Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haar ke.." If I feel sad, I have Kishore Kumar for company in Zindagi ka safar or Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo mukaam. No other singer could have sung these songs: try imagining Rafi or Mukesh singing them.
Like it or not, Kishore's genius is illustrated not by his landmark songs which have become so cliched that you don't want to listen to them one more time, such as Mere naina saawan bhaadon, but by the songs in films that did not do very well. In my opinion, movies like Satte Pe Satta showcase his true talent: any other singer's voice would have cracked in the low-scale Pyaar tumhe kis mod par le aaya. And to sing the same words, in the very next minute, in extreme high pitch -- only Kishore Kumar could have done that. Not to mention Dukki pe dukki ho -- I always get goose-pimples whenever I listen to a song where Kishore Kumar's voice makes a dashing entry mid-way.
Having said that, let me admit that I am also a selective Rafi fan. Selective means I would not shop for Rafi songs with the zeal that I show for Kishore Kumar songs or even those of Talat Mehmood or Bhupinder or Yesudas, but there are certain Rafi songs I cannot do without. I shall list five of them:
1. Suhaani raat dhal chuki, by Naushad. No one else could have sung this song better. Naushad himself believed that melody was murdered by the noise induced by the R.D.-Kishore combo, but his own daughter was hooked to the songs created by the duo. Ditto with Neil Mukesh: he prefers Kishore Kumar over his grandfather -- or so he said in an interview.
2. Dil ka bhanwar kare pukaar, by S.D. Burman. Kishore's voice did not have the softness that this song required. Obviously, the senior Burman knew better.
3. Khoya khoya chaand, khula aasman, by S.D. Burman. Once again, a song only Rafi saab could have done justice to.
4. Koi sone ke dil waala, koi chaandi ke dil waala, by Salil Choudhury. Ah, my all-time Rafi favourite. Nothing to beat this song -- the voice, the music, the lyrics -- sung, on the screen, by the debonair Dev Anand in the film called Maya. A journalist friend of mine happened to meet Salilda shortly before he died in the mid-1990s. According to my friend, the meeting took place in a modest Delhi hotel in the evening, when Salilda was drinking, from a steel glass. When Rafi and this particular song came up for discussion, Salilda apparently had tears in his eyes. He began narrating anecdotes related to the recording of this song. Now, since my journalist friend also happens to be a drunkard who is prone to inventing stories, I cannot vouch for Salilda's tears. I can only hope that he was not lying.
5. Well, have you ever been in love? If you have been, only then you can appreciate this song. Even if not, do me a favour: tonight, pour yourself a drink and listen to this song. Promise me you will only use earphones while listening to this song. Because if you listen to it on normal speakers, you might miss out on the craftsmanship of Laxmikant and Pyarelal. I am yet to come across a song that is so richly embellished with the chorus and the orchestra. Chances are very high that you will end up falling in love -- if not with anyone, at least with the song.
And the song is, Dard-e-dil, dard-e-jigar, from Karz. The song could have been sung by Kishore Kumar, who sang other -- and highly popular -- songs in the movie. But Laxmi-Pyare were sagacious enough to use Rafi saab for this number. They were, after all, proteges of S.D. Burman once upon a time. They knew very well that you can't fit a song into a voice, but only the vice-versa. Oh, how much this song has been tormenting me of late. In my opinion, this is the most complete song ever created in the Hindi film industry.
There is no comparison, actually. Kishore Kumar, even though he himself was a great admirer of Rafi, wins hands down when it comes to range. You only have to listen to the songs of Aap Ke Deewane or the title song of Yaadon Ki Baraat to decide who is more listenable. For that matter, Sa Re Ga Ma from Chupke Chupke: what is the song without Kishore?
The purpose of this post is not to belittle Rafi, or Rafi saab. He was undoubtedly a great singer. He had a melodious voice. But Kishore Kumar's voice had a life of its own, which was not constricted by any era: what he sang in the 1950's remains as fresh as what he sang in the 1980's -- as if he had sung them only yesterday.
Rafi's voice might have the fragrance of the Indian soil, but Kishore's voice is that of the man next-door. Rafi was soft and sweet, but Kishore was direct and effective. If I were a woman, I would like to be seduced by Roop Tera Mastaana. If I have a bad day, I can lift my spirits with one of the many energising Kishore Kumar songs, such as "Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haar ke.." If I feel sad, I have Kishore Kumar for company in Zindagi ka safar or Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo mukaam. No other singer could have sung these songs: try imagining Rafi or Mukesh singing them.
Like it or not, Kishore's genius is illustrated not by his landmark songs which have become so cliched that you don't want to listen to them one more time, such as Mere naina saawan bhaadon, but by the songs in films that did not do very well. In my opinion, movies like Satte Pe Satta showcase his true talent: any other singer's voice would have cracked in the low-scale Pyaar tumhe kis mod par le aaya. And to sing the same words, in the very next minute, in extreme high pitch -- only Kishore Kumar could have done that. Not to mention Dukki pe dukki ho -- I always get goose-pimples whenever I listen to a song where Kishore Kumar's voice makes a dashing entry mid-way.
Having said that, let me admit that I am also a selective Rafi fan. Selective means I would not shop for Rafi songs with the zeal that I show for Kishore Kumar songs or even those of Talat Mehmood or Bhupinder or Yesudas, but there are certain Rafi songs I cannot do without. I shall list five of them:
1. Suhaani raat dhal chuki, by Naushad. No one else could have sung this song better. Naushad himself believed that melody was murdered by the noise induced by the R.D.-Kishore combo, but his own daughter was hooked to the songs created by the duo. Ditto with Neil Mukesh: he prefers Kishore Kumar over his grandfather -- or so he said in an interview.
2. Dil ka bhanwar kare pukaar, by S.D. Burman. Kishore's voice did not have the softness that this song required. Obviously, the senior Burman knew better.
3. Khoya khoya chaand, khula aasman, by S.D. Burman. Once again, a song only Rafi saab could have done justice to.
4. Koi sone ke dil waala, koi chaandi ke dil waala, by Salil Choudhury. Ah, my all-time Rafi favourite. Nothing to beat this song -- the voice, the music, the lyrics -- sung, on the screen, by the debonair Dev Anand in the film called Maya. A journalist friend of mine happened to meet Salilda shortly before he died in the mid-1990s. According to my friend, the meeting took place in a modest Delhi hotel in the evening, when Salilda was drinking, from a steel glass. When Rafi and this particular song came up for discussion, Salilda apparently had tears in his eyes. He began narrating anecdotes related to the recording of this song. Now, since my journalist friend also happens to be a drunkard who is prone to inventing stories, I cannot vouch for Salilda's tears. I can only hope that he was not lying.
5. Well, have you ever been in love? If you have been, only then you can appreciate this song. Even if not, do me a favour: tonight, pour yourself a drink and listen to this song. Promise me you will only use earphones while listening to this song. Because if you listen to it on normal speakers, you might miss out on the craftsmanship of Laxmikant and Pyarelal. I am yet to come across a song that is so richly embellished with the chorus and the orchestra. Chances are very high that you will end up falling in love -- if not with anyone, at least with the song.
And the song is, Dard-e-dil, dard-e-jigar, from Karz. The song could have been sung by Kishore Kumar, who sang other -- and highly popular -- songs in the movie. But Laxmi-Pyare were sagacious enough to use Rafi saab for this number. They were, after all, proteges of S.D. Burman once upon a time. They knew very well that you can't fit a song into a voice, but only the vice-versa. Oh, how much this song has been tormenting me of late. In my opinion, this is the most complete song ever created in the Hindi film industry.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Fear Of Forty
Very often we measure our arrival to certain dates according to the weather. For example, it is raining now in Chennai, and if it is raining in Chennai, it must be the onset of winter in the rest of India. And if winter has arrived, it means my birthday is not too far away. And that's why I hate the rains this year.
This December-end, I shall turn 39. In other words, I just have a little over a year to be entitled to the privilege of prefixing my age with the letter '3'. After that I step into the forties. Wasn't it just the other day, when I wrote a piece in the New Sunday Express, about how it is one thing to be 29 and quite another to be 30, even though the gap is of just one year, or twelve months? How time flies! -- well, the flight of time has become a cliche now. It has to fly: you can do zilch about it; all you can do is maybe follow time in another, albeit slower, aircraft, so that you don't feel too bad about being left behind.
But feel bad you must. It was only the other day when I noticed something grey on my father's chest. I remember telling myself, "I think he is finally getting old." Today, no matter how much I sculpt my chest, there is nothing to save me from being distressed about the fact that I have discovered a couple of grey strands on my pectorals too. Am I getting old? Of course I am!
But maybe I am getting old faster than my father because unlike him, who has always been a non-smoker and a teetotaller, I smoke some 25 cigarettes a day and can empty half a bottle of whisky without even batting an eyelid if I am in the mood to write, even if it means writing just a blog post (by monetary calculation, writing each post costs me at least Rs 300). Also unlike my father, I am gripped by this urge to do something in life: if nothing else, at least share my thoughts with a few dozen people. And if, of those few dozens, even half a dozen lend an ear to you and like what you have to say, your life becomes worthwhile. My father, at the age of 40, had made peace with life: the future of his rather grown-up sons mattered more to him more than his personal ambitions. The average Indian householder, in any case, is not supposed to pursue personal ambitions after he has attained a certain age or has acquired a kid or two: those who do either become outcaste or go on to become legends.
Legends are meant to be worshipped, not emulated. Which sane Indian family man would want to be a drunkard like Neeraj, who wrote the immortal song, "Phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se..."? Which sane Indian family man would like to be a chain-smoker like Sahir Ludhianvi, who wrote the songs for Pyaasa and Kabhie Kabhie? The Punjabi writer, Amrita Pritam, would relight the cigarette stubs left behind by Sahir whenever he left her place after paying a visit: just to feel his breath in her lungs.
I don't want to slip into the routine of a family man, and at the same time I am nowhere near being a Sahir. It is the fear of being neither here nor there, even at the age of 40, that worries me a lot. I will have to work very, very hard.
This December-end, I shall turn 39. In other words, I just have a little over a year to be entitled to the privilege of prefixing my age with the letter '3'. After that I step into the forties. Wasn't it just the other day, when I wrote a piece in the New Sunday Express, about how it is one thing to be 29 and quite another to be 30, even though the gap is of just one year, or twelve months? How time flies! -- well, the flight of time has become a cliche now. It has to fly: you can do zilch about it; all you can do is maybe follow time in another, albeit slower, aircraft, so that you don't feel too bad about being left behind.
But feel bad you must. It was only the other day when I noticed something grey on my father's chest. I remember telling myself, "I think he is finally getting old." Today, no matter how much I sculpt my chest, there is nothing to save me from being distressed about the fact that I have discovered a couple of grey strands on my pectorals too. Am I getting old? Of course I am!
But maybe I am getting old faster than my father because unlike him, who has always been a non-smoker and a teetotaller, I smoke some 25 cigarettes a day and can empty half a bottle of whisky without even batting an eyelid if I am in the mood to write, even if it means writing just a blog post (by monetary calculation, writing each post costs me at least Rs 300). Also unlike my father, I am gripped by this urge to do something in life: if nothing else, at least share my thoughts with a few dozen people. And if, of those few dozens, even half a dozen lend an ear to you and like what you have to say, your life becomes worthwhile. My father, at the age of 40, had made peace with life: the future of his rather grown-up sons mattered more to him more than his personal ambitions. The average Indian householder, in any case, is not supposed to pursue personal ambitions after he has attained a certain age or has acquired a kid or two: those who do either become outcaste or go on to become legends.
Legends are meant to be worshipped, not emulated. Which sane Indian family man would want to be a drunkard like Neeraj, who wrote the immortal song, "Phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se..."? Which sane Indian family man would like to be a chain-smoker like Sahir Ludhianvi, who wrote the songs for Pyaasa and Kabhie Kabhie? The Punjabi writer, Amrita Pritam, would relight the cigarette stubs left behind by Sahir whenever he left her place after paying a visit: just to feel his breath in her lungs.
I don't want to slip into the routine of a family man, and at the same time I am nowhere near being a Sahir. It is the fear of being neither here nor there, even at the age of 40, that worries me a lot. I will have to work very, very hard.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Chai, Chai In Bangalore
This morning began on a pleasant note. Read a review of Chai, Chai in the November issue of India Today Travel Plus:
"Just five pages down, and you begin to see that the story of Chai, Chai is in the details that the writer has registered in simple, lucid prose. And it is this attention to detail that keeps you glued to the pages even when the pace slackens... Ghosh infuses colour and flavour in everyday life, describing seemingly mundane chores and happenings with a sincerity that gently persuades you into revisiting certain sections of the book."
Time for Chai, Chai to make a brief halt in Bangalore. So welcome, one and all, for the launch of the book at Crossword, Garuda Mall on November 28, 6 pm. Theatre personalities Prakash Belawadi and Smitha Chakravarthy will read from the book. V. Sriram, regional director of IRCTC, will preside over the event.
"Just five pages down, and you begin to see that the story of Chai, Chai is in the details that the writer has registered in simple, lucid prose. And it is this attention to detail that keeps you glued to the pages even when the pace slackens... Ghosh infuses colour and flavour in everyday life, describing seemingly mundane chores and happenings with a sincerity that gently persuades you into revisiting certain sections of the book."
Time for Chai, Chai to make a brief halt in Bangalore. So welcome, one and all, for the launch of the book at Crossword, Garuda Mall on November 28, 6 pm. Theatre personalities Prakash Belawadi and Smitha Chakravarthy will read from the book. V. Sriram, regional director of IRCTC, will preside over the event.
Meeting A Childhood Hero
As a child I could draw well. I still preserve the small, red dictionary that I had won as the first prize in a drawing competition at school. When I was 10 or 11, I had written to Chandamama, asking if they needed artists. Of course, I never got a reply. I would spend more time observing the illustrations in the magazine than reading the stories -- the gods and the goddesses, the kings and the princes, the sages and the hermits. I would always look for the name of the artist in the picture, and there came a time when I would decide if I liked a picture or not depending on the name of the artist. One artist I immensely admired was Sankar. I wanted to be like him. Remember the signature-illustration in the Vikram and the Vetala series -- the king wielding a naked sword and carrying a corpse on his back? That was drawn by Sankar sometime in the 1960's, and it still appears in the magazine.
Here's your truly with Sankar, who is now 85 and the only surviving member of the old team of Chandamama. He belongs to the simpler times and is, therefore, a simple man. Old age has taken a toll on his health, but his mind remains sharp and fingers steady as ever: he still draws for Chandamama. For me, meeting him was a childhood dream coming true.
Friday, November 06, 2009
This Is Mitali, And Here's My Story
Hello, my name is Mitali. Tonight I am borrowing a little bit of space on this blog to share my story. I don't know if my story will interest you, but I shall still tell it because tonight I feel like talking. My English is not all that great, so forgive me if I falter. I grew up in Nadia district in West Bengal and for most of my life I have spoken and written only in Bengali. It was only when I joined IIT that I was forced to start talking -- and thinking -- in English. Still, I am not very comfortable with the language. But do you really need language to convey an emotion? When a boy and a girl, sitting in the opposite berths of a train, start liking each other, do they actually spell out that they like each other? No, they don't. They don't even know what the others mother tongue is. It is their eyes that do the talking. You know what I mean, don't you?
So here is my story. But wait. Don't accuse the owner of this blog for writing a post while pretending to be a woman. Sometime ago, a woman called Shivani wrote her story on his blog too. I still don't know if Shivani is a real woman or a character born out of his imagination. But how does it matter? Imagination must be born out of reality. Shivani might have been his muse, but she has to be a child of reality. Anyway, I can't be anyone's muse: there is nothing special about me. I am pretty plain looking. Or so I think. Though when I was in school, the bad boys in the class used to pass lewd remarks. One day I had gone to the neighbourhood post office to buy some stamps, and there, on the wall of the post office, someone had scribbled in red with a piece of brick: "Mitali is sex bomb". I wanted to erase the line quietly but the clerk was watching me keenly, so I left as soon as I bought the stamps. He was looking at me as if he was imagining me naked. I felt disgusted.
Even at IIT I did not mingle with the boys too much. There was one boy I liked. Abhijeet was his name. He taught me how to smoke. Though I never quite picked up smoking. It was nice to take a drag from his cigarette once in a while. I liked him because he always made me laugh. But one night he was drunk, and he tried to rest his head on my lap. I slapped him. How dare he? Sex was sacred. I could not have given myself to anyone except the man of my dreams -- the man I would marry. Abhijeet could have been the man of my dreams -- maybe he was. But he was from Maharashtra. My parents would have never agreed. So he could not have been the man of my dreams. So I slapped him. Though I must say I felt very jealous when I saw Sunetra falling over him a few days later. Sex-starved woman, that bitch. I am sure Abhijeet must have slept with her, which only makes me feel glad that I slapped him. He was certainly not the man of my dreams.
My dream man was discovered by my parents in the matrimonial pages of the newspaper. It had to be that way: you never go looking for the dream man, he has to come to you. He was an IIT graduate himself but was now running his family business of manufacturing spare parts for the ordnance factories. I liked him the moment I saw him. He was fair, slightly chubby, just like a prince. We hardly spoke during out first meeting. I was very shy. I think he was shy too. But I remember him telling me, "I want you to take care of our home. Why do you need to work? If you don't take care of the home, who will?" I was floored by his charm. What he said made sense. Why work when he earned four times or five times than what I did, working in a company where I felt important only when someone's computer broke down. I was treated no better than a plumber. I gladly typed my resignation letter. That was the day when I felt sexy. My boss, however, scolded me for taking such a decision.
On our first night we had sex seven times. Yes, seven times. Can you believe it? Each time we would go to sleep, thinking that we were done for the day, we would start all over again. The sun had already risen when we decided, finally, to call it a day. The next thing I knew I was pregnant. Life could not have been more beautiful. What more could I have asked for? We were holidaying in Goa when I discovered I was pregnant. He was gazing at the sea from the hotel room when I came out to break the news to him. We hugged and spent the next two hours deciding a name for the child.
The first slap came two weeks later. That night we had hosted a small party at home for the dealers. It all went off well: I did the cooking and they all liked the food. But for some reason, he sulked all evening. It was as if his mind was elsewhere. After the guests had left, I asked him what was wrong. He did not reply and went about looking at some papers. When I asked him again, he slapped me. "Mind your own business!" he said. I was stunned -- well, that's an understatement. Even my father had never slapped me.
The next morning he said sorry and told me why he was upset, after which we made love. But neither my mind nor my body cooperated: both were still stunned by the slap. By the evening, a part of me had forgiven him but a part of me had not. The forgiving part told me: "After all, he is your husband. He is the father of your soon-to-be-born child. You are going to spend the rest of your life with him. So what if he slapped you. Maybe his mind was disturbed. Forget it, ignore it." The unforgiving part told me: "The slap has snapped something. Things are never going to be same hereafter. If he does that again, walk out."
I listened to my forgiving self. It was the easier option, rather than make a big issue out of one slap and walk out of a marriage that had otherwise made me feel secure and happy. After all, it was my own husband who had slapped me. That's what even my mother said. She said one has to make small adjustments in life. "You can't have your cake and eat it too," she told me something to that effect, "You are enjoying the best facilities in life, which I could not even dream of when I was my age." My father, however, sounded a little concerned. He said I could ignore the slap if it was only an emotional outburst, but in case I felt unsafe, his doors were always open for me.
The slaps, from then on, became a regular feature. He would slap me, then say sorry the next morning and everything would be all right till he slapped me again. The slaps, soon enough, became a part of my life. Initially, they would hurt me a lot, physically as well as mentally. But then I got used to them. Being scolded by the boss or slapped by the husband, what difference does it make. Your happiness depends on their whims.
Today I am 29. I have a four-year-old daughter, and a 35-year-old husband who slaps me when he is sober and makes love to me when he is drunk. I have no ambitions in life, except that when my daughter grows up, she should marry someone who respects her and does not slap her. Maybe a guy like Abhijeet. How I regret slapping him many years ago, that too for a silly reason. He was only trying to rest his head on my lap. He was decent enough to keep his hands away. Maybe the slaps I receive today on a regular basis is nature's way of taking revenge. But it's ok, am not complaining. I am pretty well-settled in marriage -- I am an obedient wife and a caring mother. What keeps me going is that when I go for the monthly kitty parties, the society women eye me with jealousy. I am the only one who is chauffeur-driven to these parties in a Mercedes. Their husbands still can't afford such an expensive car. A few slaps is just a small price to pay for the ultimate sense of security.
Only that there are times when other thoughts cross my mind. There are times when I wonder: I am only 29 and an IIT-grad and someone who the boys back home thought to be a sex bomb. Can't I just walk out of this marriage and start life afresh? Being 29 is nothing: many of my classmates are not even married and they are having the time of their lives. They get drunk and they decide which man to fuck, rather than having a drunk man force-fuck them. What fun! What is the point studying hard and getting into IIT and then landing a highly-paying job if you can't even have fun?
Abhijeet, by the way, is still not married. I think I can still say sorry to him about the slap and start a new life with him. But what to do: I have gotten so used to the slaps of my husband, the man of my dreams, that if he does not slap me at least once in a week, I feel he does not love me enough. It is his love that I seek. Nothing else matters.
So here is my story. But wait. Don't accuse the owner of this blog for writing a post while pretending to be a woman. Sometime ago, a woman called Shivani wrote her story on his blog too. I still don't know if Shivani is a real woman or a character born out of his imagination. But how does it matter? Imagination must be born out of reality. Shivani might have been his muse, but she has to be a child of reality. Anyway, I can't be anyone's muse: there is nothing special about me. I am pretty plain looking. Or so I think. Though when I was in school, the bad boys in the class used to pass lewd remarks. One day I had gone to the neighbourhood post office to buy some stamps, and there, on the wall of the post office, someone had scribbled in red with a piece of brick: "Mitali is sex bomb". I wanted to erase the line quietly but the clerk was watching me keenly, so I left as soon as I bought the stamps. He was looking at me as if he was imagining me naked. I felt disgusted.
Even at IIT I did not mingle with the boys too much. There was one boy I liked. Abhijeet was his name. He taught me how to smoke. Though I never quite picked up smoking. It was nice to take a drag from his cigarette once in a while. I liked him because he always made me laugh. But one night he was drunk, and he tried to rest his head on my lap. I slapped him. How dare he? Sex was sacred. I could not have given myself to anyone except the man of my dreams -- the man I would marry. Abhijeet could have been the man of my dreams -- maybe he was. But he was from Maharashtra. My parents would have never agreed. So he could not have been the man of my dreams. So I slapped him. Though I must say I felt very jealous when I saw Sunetra falling over him a few days later. Sex-starved woman, that bitch. I am sure Abhijeet must have slept with her, which only makes me feel glad that I slapped him. He was certainly not the man of my dreams.
My dream man was discovered by my parents in the matrimonial pages of the newspaper. It had to be that way: you never go looking for the dream man, he has to come to you. He was an IIT graduate himself but was now running his family business of manufacturing spare parts for the ordnance factories. I liked him the moment I saw him. He was fair, slightly chubby, just like a prince. We hardly spoke during out first meeting. I was very shy. I think he was shy too. But I remember him telling me, "I want you to take care of our home. Why do you need to work? If you don't take care of the home, who will?" I was floored by his charm. What he said made sense. Why work when he earned four times or five times than what I did, working in a company where I felt important only when someone's computer broke down. I was treated no better than a plumber. I gladly typed my resignation letter. That was the day when I felt sexy. My boss, however, scolded me for taking such a decision.
On our first night we had sex seven times. Yes, seven times. Can you believe it? Each time we would go to sleep, thinking that we were done for the day, we would start all over again. The sun had already risen when we decided, finally, to call it a day. The next thing I knew I was pregnant. Life could not have been more beautiful. What more could I have asked for? We were holidaying in Goa when I discovered I was pregnant. He was gazing at the sea from the hotel room when I came out to break the news to him. We hugged and spent the next two hours deciding a name for the child.
The first slap came two weeks later. That night we had hosted a small party at home for the dealers. It all went off well: I did the cooking and they all liked the food. But for some reason, he sulked all evening. It was as if his mind was elsewhere. After the guests had left, I asked him what was wrong. He did not reply and went about looking at some papers. When I asked him again, he slapped me. "Mind your own business!" he said. I was stunned -- well, that's an understatement. Even my father had never slapped me.
The next morning he said sorry and told me why he was upset, after which we made love. But neither my mind nor my body cooperated: both were still stunned by the slap. By the evening, a part of me had forgiven him but a part of me had not. The forgiving part told me: "After all, he is your husband. He is the father of your soon-to-be-born child. You are going to spend the rest of your life with him. So what if he slapped you. Maybe his mind was disturbed. Forget it, ignore it." The unforgiving part told me: "The slap has snapped something. Things are never going to be same hereafter. If he does that again, walk out."
I listened to my forgiving self. It was the easier option, rather than make a big issue out of one slap and walk out of a marriage that had otherwise made me feel secure and happy. After all, it was my own husband who had slapped me. That's what even my mother said. She said one has to make small adjustments in life. "You can't have your cake and eat it too," she told me something to that effect, "You are enjoying the best facilities in life, which I could not even dream of when I was my age." My father, however, sounded a little concerned. He said I could ignore the slap if it was only an emotional outburst, but in case I felt unsafe, his doors were always open for me.
The slaps, from then on, became a regular feature. He would slap me, then say sorry the next morning and everything would be all right till he slapped me again. The slaps, soon enough, became a part of my life. Initially, they would hurt me a lot, physically as well as mentally. But then I got used to them. Being scolded by the boss or slapped by the husband, what difference does it make. Your happiness depends on their whims.
Today I am 29. I have a four-year-old daughter, and a 35-year-old husband who slaps me when he is sober and makes love to me when he is drunk. I have no ambitions in life, except that when my daughter grows up, she should marry someone who respects her and does not slap her. Maybe a guy like Abhijeet. How I regret slapping him many years ago, that too for a silly reason. He was only trying to rest his head on my lap. He was decent enough to keep his hands away. Maybe the slaps I receive today on a regular basis is nature's way of taking revenge. But it's ok, am not complaining. I am pretty well-settled in marriage -- I am an obedient wife and a caring mother. What keeps me going is that when I go for the monthly kitty parties, the society women eye me with jealousy. I am the only one who is chauffeur-driven to these parties in a Mercedes. Their husbands still can't afford such an expensive car. A few slaps is just a small price to pay for the ultimate sense of security.
Only that there are times when other thoughts cross my mind. There are times when I wonder: I am only 29 and an IIT-grad and someone who the boys back home thought to be a sex bomb. Can't I just walk out of this marriage and start life afresh? Being 29 is nothing: many of my classmates are not even married and they are having the time of their lives. They get drunk and they decide which man to fuck, rather than having a drunk man force-fuck them. What fun! What is the point studying hard and getting into IIT and then landing a highly-paying job if you can't even have fun?
Abhijeet, by the way, is still not married. I think I can still say sorry to him about the slap and start a new life with him. But what to do: I have gotten so used to the slaps of my husband, the man of my dreams, that if he does not slap me at least once in a week, I feel he does not love me enough. It is his love that I seek. Nothing else matters.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
She
"There are two mes. The one that you see, the other you talk to. Who do you prefer?"
Can't I have both?
"No, you have to choose one." She grinned mischievously.
The one that is asking me to make the choice -- is she the one I see or the one I talk to?
"You decide that." She grinned mischievously.
One has the flesh, the other has the thoughts. I like the flesh, therefore I like the thoughts -- or is it the thoughts that make the flesh so endearing?
"Go on, go on. I am listening." She grinned mischievously.
I think it is the thoughts that work for me. Without the thoughts, what good is the flesh? A body in the mortuary? A mannequin in the shop?
"You are smart." She grinned mischievously.
Can't I have both?
"No, you have to choose one." She grinned mischievously.
The one that is asking me to make the choice -- is she the one I see or the one I talk to?
"You decide that." She grinned mischievously.
One has the flesh, the other has the thoughts. I like the flesh, therefore I like the thoughts -- or is it the thoughts that make the flesh so endearing?
"Go on, go on. I am listening." She grinned mischievously.
I think it is the thoughts that work for me. Without the thoughts, what good is the flesh? A body in the mortuary? A mannequin in the shop?
"You are smart." She grinned mischievously.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Chai, Chai Chugs On
I am sure there are times when a writer, unless he has reached a stage when each word that comes off his laptop or typewriter is worth a hundred dollars, ponders over this question: Which is better -- a review that trashes your book, or no review at all? One is the fire, the other is the frying pan -- the choice is yours. I, however, believe that you should just blindfold yourself and take a long leap, without worrying about where you are going to land, the frying pan or the fire, and chances are that you might just find yourself on a bed or roses. In other words, just write, as honestly as you can, without worrying about the outcome.
One can write a full-length self-help book on this subject -- "100 ways to tide over criticism" or "50 things you can learn from bad reviews" -- but the truth is we are human, and criticism hurts, especially after you have invested two or three years of your precious life producing a book which would be the first thing you would run to save if there was a fire. Writing a bad review, even if it is justified, is like telling the mother of a newborn, "Oh, but how could you produce such an ugly child!" There are ways of conveying unpleasant things. In any case, what appears to be unpleasant to one could be the opposite for another.
I have always been disinclined to review books even though I worked with a Sunday paper for a very long time. I can count on my fingers the number of reviews I have written: and most of them were of books related to either travel, yoga or Bollywood -- books that interested me immensely and which I finished reading in one sitting. But nobody has ever been able to hold a gun to my head and say, "We are falling short by one review. Here's a new book, why don't you review it? So, 500 words, by 3 o' clock tomorrow?" You can't write a review like that: three years of labour judged in three hours or less, and the verdict written in 30 minutes!
That's precisely why I admire my friend Baradwaj Rangan. He is one of the few, if not the only, honest film critics we have today in the entire country. It is rare for him to give his verdict unless he has watched a movie at least twice and has heard a music album for at least two days in a row. It is not for nothing that today he is a celebrity reviewer: people actually look forward to what he has to say about a movie or a music album.
By now you must be wondering about the purpose of this post: has Chai, Chai been getting bad reviews? On the contrary. I must say I have been very lucky in spite of being a first-time writer. The book has not only earned some very good reviews but has also gone into reprint within four weeks of hitting the stands. There have been two unsavoury reviews as well. One of them I choose to ignore because the reviewer started off saying very nice things about me and the book and then, finally, in the last para, suddenly decided to turn hostile. Perhaps she wanted the review to be 'balanced.' I don't really have problems with that at all. As a trained journalist who has worked with highly demanding bosses, I have always received criticism as if it were a medal.
But there are times when you can sense that the reviewer has already made up his mind against you even without reading the book carefully. That's when it really hurts. Take, for example, the review of Chai, Chai in Outlook. The reviewer says, quite smugly:
"It’s a bit disorienting to have a man alight at 3:15 am and two pages later talk of being woken up at 4, still in the train!"
People who take book reviews appearing in Outlook seriously and who are yet to read Chai, Chai will think I am some jerk who can't even get the sequence of events right. They will never get to know that the real culprit is the reviewer who hasn't even read the book carefully. Nowhere in the book -- except in the reviewer's imagination -- does this anomaly occur.
Having made the damaging statement, the reviewer goes on:
One can write a full-length self-help book on this subject -- "100 ways to tide over criticism" or "50 things you can learn from bad reviews" -- but the truth is we are human, and criticism hurts, especially after you have invested two or three years of your precious life producing a book which would be the first thing you would run to save if there was a fire. Writing a bad review, even if it is justified, is like telling the mother of a newborn, "Oh, but how could you produce such an ugly child!" There are ways of conveying unpleasant things. In any case, what appears to be unpleasant to one could be the opposite for another.
I have always been disinclined to review books even though I worked with a Sunday paper for a very long time. I can count on my fingers the number of reviews I have written: and most of them were of books related to either travel, yoga or Bollywood -- books that interested me immensely and which I finished reading in one sitting. But nobody has ever been able to hold a gun to my head and say, "We are falling short by one review. Here's a new book, why don't you review it? So, 500 words, by 3 o' clock tomorrow?" You can't write a review like that: three years of labour judged in three hours or less, and the verdict written in 30 minutes!
That's precisely why I admire my friend Baradwaj Rangan. He is one of the few, if not the only, honest film critics we have today in the entire country. It is rare for him to give his verdict unless he has watched a movie at least twice and has heard a music album for at least two days in a row. It is not for nothing that today he is a celebrity reviewer: people actually look forward to what he has to say about a movie or a music album.
By now you must be wondering about the purpose of this post: has Chai, Chai been getting bad reviews? On the contrary. I must say I have been very lucky in spite of being a first-time writer. The book has not only earned some very good reviews but has also gone into reprint within four weeks of hitting the stands. There have been two unsavoury reviews as well. One of them I choose to ignore because the reviewer started off saying very nice things about me and the book and then, finally, in the last para, suddenly decided to turn hostile. Perhaps she wanted the review to be 'balanced.' I don't really have problems with that at all. As a trained journalist who has worked with highly demanding bosses, I have always received criticism as if it were a medal.
But there are times when you can sense that the reviewer has already made up his mind against you even without reading the book carefully. That's when it really hurts. Take, for example, the review of Chai, Chai in Outlook. The reviewer says, quite smugly:
"It’s a bit disorienting to have a man alight at 3:15 am and two pages later talk of being woken up at 4, still in the train!"
People who take book reviews appearing in Outlook seriously and who are yet to read Chai, Chai will think I am some jerk who can't even get the sequence of events right. They will never get to know that the real culprit is the reviewer who hasn't even read the book carefully. Nowhere in the book -- except in the reviewer's imagination -- does this anomaly occur.
Having made the damaging statement, the reviewer goes on:
"Ghosh works hard on the back stories (there’s a search for Lal Bahadur Shastri’s alma mater in Mughalsarai, and a visit to a dharamsala where Mahatma Gandhi once stayed). But he can’t quite pull off the trick of stripping small-town India’s facade of apparent mundaneness to find something more engaging. It’s a trick that arguably only Pankaj Mishra has pulled off with his Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. Chai, chai fails here, leaving travel writing fans unfulfilled and wondering what the fuss was all about."
Since I have the luxury of owning this blog, let me clarify that it was never my intention to carry out an academic study of the small towns covered in my book or "stripping them of their mundaneness to find something more engaging." My sole obligation was to present these towns to the reader the way I saw them -- the conclusions have been left to the reader. I was not at all aiming to pull off any trick, and I was certainly not aiming to be another Pankaj Mishra. Butter Chicken in Ludhiana is one book I am yet to read, and it is sad that the reviewer accused me of not matching up to it.
Can't blame the reviewer. He is someone called Hari Menon. Perhaps he was looking for depth. I feel really bad that I let him down.
Chai, Chai, meanwhile, chugs on. See you guys in Bangalore on November 28 and in Mumbai on December 10. Details in a day or two.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thighs And Soul
On another day, at a lunch beneath coconut trees, a mini golf course on one side and a lake on the other, a visitor from Delhi points to a group of young Indian woman writers sitting around a table, displaying cleavages and smooth thighs. “What is the literary worth of these writers?” he says. “Do they have any writing skills? Are their stories written from the soul?”
The group around his table is silent. Then he says, “I have my doubts. They have good contacts in the media, they spend their own money to have splashy cocktail party book launches, but they will last for only a season. Next year, another group of writers will take over and these books will be forgotten. They cannot stand the test of time.”
The above two paras are extracted from a report in the New Sunday Express about the recently-held Kovalam Literary Festival. I haven't stopped smiling ever since I read the report. It does not take a genius to realise that the above-mentioned 'visitor from Delhi' is someone who is either desperate to get published or is a failed writer. A smart writer would have either admired those cleavages and thighs from a distance or would have walked over to the lunch table to silently plot a post-dinner plan when one didn't have to contend with just a view of the cleavage or the smooth thighs. Nothing is impossible -- as I have told you in my previous post. For the 'bad' impossible things, you have to be mentally prepared, and for the 'good' impossible things, you have be eternally hopeful.
Well, I am just one-book old, and my book itself is just a month old (a small announcement here: it went for reprint yesterday), so it is going to be a long, long time before I am invited -- if at all -- to a litfest where I could get to meet fellow women writers who show cleavages and smooth thighs. How I am dying to meet them, but I guess I will have to spend a few more years of long, lonely nights in front of my computer before I earn my ticket to paradise.
But it is also true that if you are a sexy woman and even if you have written an apology of a book, you don't have to wait that long in order to be invited to a litfest or to be feted by the literary world. Fame, even if lasts for 15 minutes, comes easily to you. After all, everybody, every occasion, needs its share of glamour. I know you will now say: "Wasn't that exactly the point the 'visitor from Delhi' was making?" The answer, however, is a big no.
The 'visitor' made the remark only because he felt intimidated by the cleavages and the smooth thighs. He felt threatened. He would have felt safe and secure if the women writers at the litfest had oiled their hair and had neglected to wax their arms and legs. Since he could not match them in glamour, he questioned their literary worth and suspected the lack of soul in their stories. Did he even read their books or their stories? He was plain jealous, as simple as that. He could not digest the fact that women could write well and also look sexy at the same time. He was clearly intimidated by their confidence.
One can understand this man's angst. He is a typical Indian man with the typical Indian mindset -- that a woman cannot, and should not, outdo you. If she is sexy, she cannot be a writer. If she is a writer, she cannot be sexy. If the woman turns out to be both, he finds it extremely difficult to gulp down the fact and starts questioning her integrity. To such men, I have only one thing to say: "Fuck off. Get a life. Earn the admiration of those cleavage-showing writers, impress them, instead of trying to belittle them just because they look sexy."
And who has asked the men to look unsexy? A writer does not have to look sickly and have thin arms and a small chest. There are 24 hours in a day. Even if you devote five hours to serious writing every day, that still leaves 19 hours at your disposal. Even if you have a job that requires you to put in eight hours of work, you still have 11 left to do your own thing. Can't you spend even an hour of those 11 in the gym, building your pectorals and your cardiovascular endurance? And once in a week, maybe go to the parlour and spend a little money on grooming.
Learn from Gabo. He is a good example to learn from. Gabo is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Even in advancing age, he played tennis in order to keep fit and carefully chose his attire (from among the wide range of white) to make sure his personality was as attractive as his prose. Imagine Gabo at the Kovalam Litfest: Would he have whined and questioned the literary worth of Ms Cleavage and Ms Smooth Thighs? He would have actually complimented their writing and played with the thighs.
The group around his table is silent. Then he says, “I have my doubts. They have good contacts in the media, they spend their own money to have splashy cocktail party book launches, but they will last for only a season. Next year, another group of writers will take over and these books will be forgotten. They cannot stand the test of time.”
The above two paras are extracted from a report in the New Sunday Express about the recently-held Kovalam Literary Festival. I haven't stopped smiling ever since I read the report. It does not take a genius to realise that the above-mentioned 'visitor from Delhi' is someone who is either desperate to get published or is a failed writer. A smart writer would have either admired those cleavages and thighs from a distance or would have walked over to the lunch table to silently plot a post-dinner plan when one didn't have to contend with just a view of the cleavage or the smooth thighs. Nothing is impossible -- as I have told you in my previous post. For the 'bad' impossible things, you have to be mentally prepared, and for the 'good' impossible things, you have be eternally hopeful.
Well, I am just one-book old, and my book itself is just a month old (a small announcement here: it went for reprint yesterday), so it is going to be a long, long time before I am invited -- if at all -- to a litfest where I could get to meet fellow women writers who show cleavages and smooth thighs. How I am dying to meet them, but I guess I will have to spend a few more years of long, lonely nights in front of my computer before I earn my ticket to paradise.
But it is also true that if you are a sexy woman and even if you have written an apology of a book, you don't have to wait that long in order to be invited to a litfest or to be feted by the literary world. Fame, even if lasts for 15 minutes, comes easily to you. After all, everybody, every occasion, needs its share of glamour. I know you will now say: "Wasn't that exactly the point the 'visitor from Delhi' was making?" The answer, however, is a big no.
The 'visitor' made the remark only because he felt intimidated by the cleavages and the smooth thighs. He felt threatened. He would have felt safe and secure if the women writers at the litfest had oiled their hair and had neglected to wax their arms and legs. Since he could not match them in glamour, he questioned their literary worth and suspected the lack of soul in their stories. Did he even read their books or their stories? He was plain jealous, as simple as that. He could not digest the fact that women could write well and also look sexy at the same time. He was clearly intimidated by their confidence.
One can understand this man's angst. He is a typical Indian man with the typical Indian mindset -- that a woman cannot, and should not, outdo you. If she is sexy, she cannot be a writer. If she is a writer, she cannot be sexy. If the woman turns out to be both, he finds it extremely difficult to gulp down the fact and starts questioning her integrity. To such men, I have only one thing to say: "Fuck off. Get a life. Earn the admiration of those cleavage-showing writers, impress them, instead of trying to belittle them just because they look sexy."
And who has asked the men to look unsexy? A writer does not have to look sickly and have thin arms and a small chest. There are 24 hours in a day. Even if you devote five hours to serious writing every day, that still leaves 19 hours at your disposal. Even if you have a job that requires you to put in eight hours of work, you still have 11 left to do your own thing. Can't you spend even an hour of those 11 in the gym, building your pectorals and your cardiovascular endurance? And once in a week, maybe go to the parlour and spend a little money on grooming.
Learn from Gabo. He is a good example to learn from. Gabo is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Even in advancing age, he played tennis in order to keep fit and carefully chose his attire (from among the wide range of white) to make sure his personality was as attractive as his prose. Imagine Gabo at the Kovalam Litfest: Would he have whined and questioned the literary worth of Ms Cleavage and Ms Smooth Thighs? He would have actually complimented their writing and played with the thighs.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Nothing Is Impossible
A colleague, who had just bought a copy of Chai, Chai, came to me today. "Will you please sign it for me?" she said, "I will just be back from the evening meeting."
While she was gone, I signed the book and then thumbed opened its pages at random, just to get a feel of the book. I haven't had this luxury ever since the book was printed because of a variety of reasons. As it is, I find it embarrassing to reread my own work. Worse, mom died just eight days before it came out of the press: for weeks after her death, the book meant nothing to me except a bunch of papers stitched together. Once I began to feel less bitter about mom going away without even seeing my first book, I was overcome by nervousness regarding its launch. Once the launch was over, the novelty had worn off and the book, once again, did not mean a thing.
But this evening, thanks to the colleague who left me alone with the book for a while, I got a chance to go through it. I read through passages at random: I recognised some instantly, even the exact time of the day I wrote them and under what circumstances. But there were some I had completely forgotten about, such as the one below, which was written in November 2007 in a small hotel in Mughal Sarai barely hours after I had returned from a day trip to Banaras:
The images of the bedecked biers kept swimming in my head as the Ambassador rattled down the dusty road to Mughal Sarai. Everybody has to die one day, but you don't want to be reminded of that, do you? It is, however, not the thought of your own death that makes the sight of the biers so terrifying: it is actually the thought of your near and dear ones being carried away in that fashion. It is a thought you consider secretly in the deepest crevices of your heart, not even sharing it aloud with your own self.
Little did I know then, that in less that two years, I would be lending a shoulder to my own mother's body at that very spot. At the time, it was impossible to even imagine that my mother would die in Banaras.
That is why I tell people -- people who matter to me -- that nothing is impossible in life. Life is a bitch that can throw the most impossible on your lap while keeping you deprived lifelong of what you always thought was possible. The only occasions I don't place this view of mine forcefully is when I am in the company of male friends over drinks and when the subject of discussion is usually women: who is going around with who, who is sleeping with who, who is likely to sleep with who, who wants to sleep with who, and so on.
Many ego-balloons are pricked on such evenings. "Why on earth would she be interested in you? She is 28, while you are 40, bro". Or, "Brother, don't forget she is ex-Ms Chennai. She has people eating out of her hands. Of course you can go on a date with her. But only in your dreams. Ha ha ha ha ha!" When egos clash, I take the backseat and watch them and smile, and even tell them, albeit silently: "Brothers, stop fighting. Nothing is impossible."
While she was gone, I signed the book and then thumbed opened its pages at random, just to get a feel of the book. I haven't had this luxury ever since the book was printed because of a variety of reasons. As it is, I find it embarrassing to reread my own work. Worse, mom died just eight days before it came out of the press: for weeks after her death, the book meant nothing to me except a bunch of papers stitched together. Once I began to feel less bitter about mom going away without even seeing my first book, I was overcome by nervousness regarding its launch. Once the launch was over, the novelty had worn off and the book, once again, did not mean a thing.
But this evening, thanks to the colleague who left me alone with the book for a while, I got a chance to go through it. I read through passages at random: I recognised some instantly, even the exact time of the day I wrote them and under what circumstances. But there were some I had completely forgotten about, such as the one below, which was written in November 2007 in a small hotel in Mughal Sarai barely hours after I had returned from a day trip to Banaras:
The images of the bedecked biers kept swimming in my head as the Ambassador rattled down the dusty road to Mughal Sarai. Everybody has to die one day, but you don't want to be reminded of that, do you? It is, however, not the thought of your own death that makes the sight of the biers so terrifying: it is actually the thought of your near and dear ones being carried away in that fashion. It is a thought you consider secretly in the deepest crevices of your heart, not even sharing it aloud with your own self.
Little did I know then, that in less that two years, I would be lending a shoulder to my own mother's body at that very spot. At the time, it was impossible to even imagine that my mother would die in Banaras.
That is why I tell people -- people who matter to me -- that nothing is impossible in life. Life is a bitch that can throw the most impossible on your lap while keeping you deprived lifelong of what you always thought was possible. The only occasions I don't place this view of mine forcefully is when I am in the company of male friends over drinks and when the subject of discussion is usually women: who is going around with who, who is sleeping with who, who is likely to sleep with who, who wants to sleep with who, and so on.
Many ego-balloons are pricked on such evenings. "Why on earth would she be interested in you? She is 28, while you are 40, bro". Or, "Brother, don't forget she is ex-Ms Chennai. She has people eating out of her hands. Of course you can go on a date with her. But only in your dreams. Ha ha ha ha ha!" When egos clash, I take the backseat and watch them and smile, and even tell them, albeit silently: "Brothers, stop fighting. Nothing is impossible."
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Depth
Writing this post is like stabbing my friend on the back; but if I don't stab him with my words now, I might end up stabbing myself out of sheer irritation or anger. So here goes. This friend of mine, a Malayali, is a very dear friend, who is deeply rooted to his culture, which means he has read Marx and Marquez and Mukundan with equal passion. But he refused to read Chai, Chai, that is my book, for a long time. The reason being since I was his friend, and since we discussed women over wine, he thought I was not capable of displaying 'depth' in my writing.
"But how do you know whether it has depth or not without even reading it?" I protested.
"Wait, wait, I will read it. Don't worry. First let Jomi read it. I bought your book yesterday, but I gave it to Jomi. He is pucca with literature. He will tell me if your book has depth. He can distinguish between serious writing and masala writing." Jomi was a Malayali friend that my Malayali friend had recently acquired.
"What does this Jomi do?" I asked him.
"He is a poet," my friend replied.
"Ok, just fuck off," I told him.
A few days later my friend called. "I am reading your first chapter. Not bad at all, man."
"Did Jomi read the book? What did he say?"
"Oh, he liked it. He was praising your power of observation. He was telling me, 'Oh, this fellow has depth.' I am still in the first chapter. Not bad at all!" So Jomi, the poet, had given the green signal.
"Fuck off," I told him.
A few days later, my friend brought Jomi over and we went out for a drink. For most of the time, Jomi was just a shy, wiry, young and bearded Malayali who felt awkward to be in the company of a man who spoke no Malayalam. But he treated me with reverence because I was a Bengali -- a distant cousin of the Malayali. Towards the end, however, when he was many drinks down, Jomi became a revolutionary. He denounced all writers except Sarte and Nietzsche and Foucault, and he denounced all cinema except Russian and French and Japanese and Bengali and, of course, Malayalam. 'Depth' -- or the lack of it -- the criteria for his discrimination.
The bar was closing, so we bought a bottle of whisky and made a makeshift bar in the car. By now, I was myself somewhat drunk, and I finally gathered courage to ask Jomi what made him decide if a book or a film had depth or was shallow. He broke into a minor speech, invoking the names of Sartre and Kurosawa, as if they were his first cousins, but at the same time not wanting to hurt me because I was a Bengali -- his true first cousin. On the whole, we had a nice time that evening.
Now, let me sum up -- from whatever little I understood from his speech -- his criteria for 'depth'. If a certain piece of writing is difficult to understand, making you reach out for the dictionary every now and then, and that makes you realise every now and then: 'What the fuck am I doing in this world?', then the piece has 'depth'. But if a piece is so simple that you can breeze through it in a matter of minutes, then it just can't have 'depth': how can a 'deep' piece be read in a matter of minutes or hours?
Well, to each his own. But I am extremely grateful to Jomi that he placed Chai, Chai under the 'having depth' category, even though he had finished reading it -- by his own admission -- in less than four hours. Maybe he was just being nice to me, or maybe he was serious: Mr Poet was far too drunk to make false statements, or so I would like to believe.
But what is this 'depth' and 'shallow' business? Well, I shall never understand. I never studied literature to understand its nuances. According to me, a piece of writing is good if people -- from the director of a company right down to its driver -- easily understand what is being said. If the director has to scratch his head and if the driver has to look up the dictionary, then the writer has failed.
It is easy to present simple things in life in a difficult form, but very difficult to present the real depths of life in an easy, understandable form. It calls for a lot of hard work to write in a language that even your driver understands -- not only understands but also appreciates. It would be the most gratifying moment in my life if I ever find a ticket checker or a coolie reading Chai, Chai. But that would also be the most horrifying moment for Jomi, the poet from a land that champions the cause of the masses: he would instantly declare my book as non-serious, which lacks 'depth', just because a coolie was found reading it.
"But how do you know whether it has depth or not without even reading it?" I protested.
"Wait, wait, I will read it. Don't worry. First let Jomi read it. I bought your book yesterday, but I gave it to Jomi. He is pucca with literature. He will tell me if your book has depth. He can distinguish between serious writing and masala writing." Jomi was a Malayali friend that my Malayali friend had recently acquired.
"What does this Jomi do?" I asked him.
"He is a poet," my friend replied.
"Ok, just fuck off," I told him.
A few days later my friend called. "I am reading your first chapter. Not bad at all, man."
"Did Jomi read the book? What did he say?"
"Oh, he liked it. He was praising your power of observation. He was telling me, 'Oh, this fellow has depth.' I am still in the first chapter. Not bad at all!" So Jomi, the poet, had given the green signal.
"Fuck off," I told him.
A few days later, my friend brought Jomi over and we went out for a drink. For most of the time, Jomi was just a shy, wiry, young and bearded Malayali who felt awkward to be in the company of a man who spoke no Malayalam. But he treated me with reverence because I was a Bengali -- a distant cousin of the Malayali. Towards the end, however, when he was many drinks down, Jomi became a revolutionary. He denounced all writers except Sarte and Nietzsche and Foucault, and he denounced all cinema except Russian and French and Japanese and Bengali and, of course, Malayalam. 'Depth' -- or the lack of it -- the criteria for his discrimination.
The bar was closing, so we bought a bottle of whisky and made a makeshift bar in the car. By now, I was myself somewhat drunk, and I finally gathered courage to ask Jomi what made him decide if a book or a film had depth or was shallow. He broke into a minor speech, invoking the names of Sartre and Kurosawa, as if they were his first cousins, but at the same time not wanting to hurt me because I was a Bengali -- his true first cousin. On the whole, we had a nice time that evening.
Now, let me sum up -- from whatever little I understood from his speech -- his criteria for 'depth'. If a certain piece of writing is difficult to understand, making you reach out for the dictionary every now and then, and that makes you realise every now and then: 'What the fuck am I doing in this world?', then the piece has 'depth'. But if a piece is so simple that you can breeze through it in a matter of minutes, then it just can't have 'depth': how can a 'deep' piece be read in a matter of minutes or hours?
Well, to each his own. But I am extremely grateful to Jomi that he placed Chai, Chai under the 'having depth' category, even though he had finished reading it -- by his own admission -- in less than four hours. Maybe he was just being nice to me, or maybe he was serious: Mr Poet was far too drunk to make false statements, or so I would like to believe.
But what is this 'depth' and 'shallow' business? Well, I shall never understand. I never studied literature to understand its nuances. According to me, a piece of writing is good if people -- from the director of a company right down to its driver -- easily understand what is being said. If the director has to scratch his head and if the driver has to look up the dictionary, then the writer has failed.
It is easy to present simple things in life in a difficult form, but very difficult to present the real depths of life in an easy, understandable form. It calls for a lot of hard work to write in a language that even your driver understands -- not only understands but also appreciates. It would be the most gratifying moment in my life if I ever find a ticket checker or a coolie reading Chai, Chai. But that would also be the most horrifying moment for Jomi, the poet from a land that champions the cause of the masses: he would instantly declare my book as non-serious, which lacks 'depth', just because a coolie was found reading it.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Woman In The Gym
Looks can be highly deceptive, still you can tell people who read and people who don't. I am pretty sure she is not the reading type, certainly not kind the who reads people's blogs. Therefore, I can write this piece in peace.
Actually it breaks my heart to write this piece because I quite like the woman: tallish, dusky and sharp-featured. I have been seeing her in the gym for almost a year now. There are some people with who, the moment your eyes meet theirs, something starts cooking in the air. You instantly smell the chemistry. You feel her eyes are following you. She feels your eyes are following her. Even though in reality it may not be so, but the imaginary gaze piercing you from behind keeps your adrenalin pumped all the while that you are in the gym. There are days when I refuse to slow down on the treadmill even if my feet ache (I usually start my 20-minute walk at the speed of 7.1 km/hr and end at 8.5 km/hr) only because I know she is watching me in between her workouts. Only when I step off the treadmill do I realise that she is long gone. But there are days when she is still there, our eyes silently meeting every now and then, till one of us leaves the gym.
In such situations, eyes usually speak far more than words. In fact, words can spoil it. There is no dearth of cases when you fancy a person till the time he or she happens to speak to you. Really, spoken words can shatter your fantasies. It is best to speak with your eyes. Just like we do, or did, till at least this morning.
This morning, when I walked into the gym, she was nowhere in sight. I smiled at the various trainers and did my stretches and then hopped on to the treadmill. To my great joy, I discovered that she was already there, on the exercycle right next to the treadmill -- so close that we could have held each other's hands and worked out. At the cost of my prestige, I programmed the treadmill to the speed of just 6 km/hr. Nobody in the gym had ever seen me walk so slow. But today the idea was not to walk, but to watch.
She was pedalling steadily so far, but presently she slowed down. Perhaps my arrival had made her conscious. Pedalling at the lowest speed possible, she plunged her hand into her T-shirt. Was I dreaming? Her fingers kept moving inside, as if she was looking for something inside her bra. Was I dreaming? Was she teasing me? Wow. The out came a taali -- or the mangal sutra. Fuck! Was this her way of telling me, "Lay off, I am married" or "I know something is cooking between us, but let me tell you beforehand that I am married"? Her being married or not married did not make any difference to me, but what a funny, perhaps smart, way of letting me know. I smiled to myself and increased the speed slightly, but I could not entirely take my eyes off her.
She stretched the mangalsutra to its entire length and plucked out a safety pin attached to it. She undid the safety pin and proceeded to use it as a toothpick, even while she was pedalling. She took her own sweet time in getting rid of the remnants between her teeth. Last night's dinner or this morning's breakfast? Who cared. I increased my speed straight to 8 km/hr. I had already wasted eight minutes.
Actually it breaks my heart to write this piece because I quite like the woman: tallish, dusky and sharp-featured. I have been seeing her in the gym for almost a year now. There are some people with who, the moment your eyes meet theirs, something starts cooking in the air. You instantly smell the chemistry. You feel her eyes are following you. She feels your eyes are following her. Even though in reality it may not be so, but the imaginary gaze piercing you from behind keeps your adrenalin pumped all the while that you are in the gym. There are days when I refuse to slow down on the treadmill even if my feet ache (I usually start my 20-minute walk at the speed of 7.1 km/hr and end at 8.5 km/hr) only because I know she is watching me in between her workouts. Only when I step off the treadmill do I realise that she is long gone. But there are days when she is still there, our eyes silently meeting every now and then, till one of us leaves the gym.
In such situations, eyes usually speak far more than words. In fact, words can spoil it. There is no dearth of cases when you fancy a person till the time he or she happens to speak to you. Really, spoken words can shatter your fantasies. It is best to speak with your eyes. Just like we do, or did, till at least this morning.
This morning, when I walked into the gym, she was nowhere in sight. I smiled at the various trainers and did my stretches and then hopped on to the treadmill. To my great joy, I discovered that she was already there, on the exercycle right next to the treadmill -- so close that we could have held each other's hands and worked out. At the cost of my prestige, I programmed the treadmill to the speed of just 6 km/hr. Nobody in the gym had ever seen me walk so slow. But today the idea was not to walk, but to watch.
She was pedalling steadily so far, but presently she slowed down. Perhaps my arrival had made her conscious. Pedalling at the lowest speed possible, she plunged her hand into her T-shirt. Was I dreaming? Her fingers kept moving inside, as if she was looking for something inside her bra. Was I dreaming? Was she teasing me? Wow. The out came a taali -- or the mangal sutra. Fuck! Was this her way of telling me, "Lay off, I am married" or "I know something is cooking between us, but let me tell you beforehand that I am married"? Her being married or not married did not make any difference to me, but what a funny, perhaps smart, way of letting me know. I smiled to myself and increased the speed slightly, but I could not entirely take my eyes off her.
She stretched the mangalsutra to its entire length and plucked out a safety pin attached to it. She undid the safety pin and proceeded to use it as a toothpick, even while she was pedalling. She took her own sweet time in getting rid of the remnants between her teeth. Last night's dinner or this morning's breakfast? Who cared. I increased my speed straight to 8 km/hr. I had already wasted eight minutes.
Monday, October 19, 2009
An Afternoon With Kishore Kumar
I am not sure how many know this, but the first full song that Kishore Kumar sang for his mentor S.D. Burman was recorded not in Bombay but in Madras, where I live. The song, featuring in a film called Bahaar, goes like this, "Kusoor aapka, huzoor aapka, na mera naam lijiye na mere baap ka..."
Now how do I know this? I heard it from Kishore Kumar himself, just a few minutes ago. In Madras, Burman dada made the young Kishore share his room, where the novice singer discovered the composer's devotion and commitment to music. "Sing straight, and the public will like you," he would tell Kishore: the same principle, in my opinion, applies to writing as well.
This entire afternoon, after a long, long time, I spent in the company of Kishore Kumar, courtesy You Tube. God bless those dedicated fans who painstakingly upload rare videos and make the lives of people like me worth living. If only I could meet them: I would hug them or maybe even touch their feet. What is life -- my life, that is -- without Kishore Kumar.
I have lost count of the number of videos I must have watched since this afternoon, so much so that my eyes hurt now. But my ears: they are still craving for one last song, just like you crave for one last drink even though you are too drunk to walk straight. There was a time, from 1996 to 2002, when I religiously wrote an annual piece on Kishore Kumar on his death anniversary for the papers I worked for. The papers would have, and give, ample space for my fanaticism regarding Kishore Kumar.
But now, in the age of file-sharing and You Tube, I find it quite pointless to waste words singing praises of someone when you can just send across a song or a link in order to convince people what a great singer Kishore Kumar was, I mean, is. Open You Tube and search for 'Kishore Kumar + live' and you'll know what I mean.
By the way, I made another discovery this afternoon. That I do not possess the Kishore Kumar song, Zindagi ka safar, hai yeh kaisa safar. It must be there in some dusty cassette, but I do not have the song either on my laptop or any of the CDs. What idli is to a Tamilian and paratha is to a Punjabi, Zindagi ka safar is to a Kishore devotee. But somehow, in my quest for rare songs, I seem to have ignored the staple songs. But do I really need them? They run in my veins.
Now how do I know this? I heard it from Kishore Kumar himself, just a few minutes ago. In Madras, Burman dada made the young Kishore share his room, where the novice singer discovered the composer's devotion and commitment to music. "Sing straight, and the public will like you," he would tell Kishore: the same principle, in my opinion, applies to writing as well.
This entire afternoon, after a long, long time, I spent in the company of Kishore Kumar, courtesy You Tube. God bless those dedicated fans who painstakingly upload rare videos and make the lives of people like me worth living. If only I could meet them: I would hug them or maybe even touch their feet. What is life -- my life, that is -- without Kishore Kumar.
I have lost count of the number of videos I must have watched since this afternoon, so much so that my eyes hurt now. But my ears: they are still craving for one last song, just like you crave for one last drink even though you are too drunk to walk straight. There was a time, from 1996 to 2002, when I religiously wrote an annual piece on Kishore Kumar on his death anniversary for the papers I worked for. The papers would have, and give, ample space for my fanaticism regarding Kishore Kumar.
But now, in the age of file-sharing and You Tube, I find it quite pointless to waste words singing praises of someone when you can just send across a song or a link in order to convince people what a great singer Kishore Kumar was, I mean, is. Open You Tube and search for 'Kishore Kumar + live' and you'll know what I mean.
By the way, I made another discovery this afternoon. That I do not possess the Kishore Kumar song, Zindagi ka safar, hai yeh kaisa safar. It must be there in some dusty cassette, but I do not have the song either on my laptop or any of the CDs. What idli is to a Tamilian and paratha is to a Punjabi, Zindagi ka safar is to a Kishore devotee. But somehow, in my quest for rare songs, I seem to have ignored the staple songs. But do I really need them? They run in my veins.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A Book Launch And A Diwali
During the 17 years of my professional life, I have always faced the dais, sitting quietly among the audience and taking notes. So it was natural for my mouth to go dry when I walked into the hall that was now beginning to fill up with people who would soon comprise the audience, listening to veteran theatre artiste P.C. Ramakrishna read from my book, Chai, Chai.
When the Madras Book Club proposed to hold a launch function in Chennai, I politely made two requests. One, Mr Ramakrishna should read from my book. I had heard him read V.S. Naipaul and Dom Moraes when these two idols of mine visited the city on different occasions, and since then it had been my secret dream to have Mr Ramakrishna read from my book if I ever wrote one. His voice makes even mediocre prose sound lyrical. Request no. 2 was that I should not be asked to speak at the function: it is nice to have a chat with individual readers and guests during high tea or a cocktail party, but the thought of addressing an ‘audience’ has always made me hugely nervous.
Fortunately, both my requests were accepted. But I was told that Mr Ramakrishna would have a ‘dialogue’ with me after the reading. Which meant I still had to face the audience and speak – no escape. About two dozen guests were already there when I walked into Binny’s Hall at Taj Connemara. I shook hands with some familiar faces and then headed for the water counter. I took a few sips, but my mouth remained dry. The hall was filling up fast. Few more sips of water, but no luck.
A well-known face walked in. He bought a copy at the venue and came to me. He said he could not stay on because he had a meeting, so could I please sign it for him now? He was Ramkumar, the well-known producer and the son of the legendary actor Sivaji Ganesan. “I think I’ll finish it tonight,” he said, and asked me to write down my email ID on the back page. My mouth began to feel better.
It is pointless to narrate what happened during the rest of the evening because it was a public event and those who were present are bound to have their own opinion about how the function went. As far as I am concerned, I was hugely nervous then; but now, looking back, I feel smug. Mr Ramakrishna read from my book – a dream come true; the hall was packed – the nightmare of empty seats averted; I signed over 30 books – and I am no Naipaul. The evening of October 15 was indeed a gratifying one. My heartfelt thanks to all of you who made the evening successful, especially the two readers of this blog who came all the way from Bangalore only for this event.
But the most gratifying moment that evening, for me, was when Mr Madhu, a senior member of the book club, said nice things about my blog while proposing the vote of thanks. He singled out this post for heaping praise on Ganga Mail – the story of a woman called Shivani who, at 40, realises that all her life, she has lived as a dutiful daughter, a dutiful wife, a dutiful mother, but never as herself. “And the only time when she is herself is when she is standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom,” Mr Madhu told the audience about my post. I felt quite proud, till I realised my father was there too among the audience. But father is cool; it would have been embarrassing if mother was there. She would have certainly asked me later, “What all do you write? You have a wife now, so who is this other woman called Shivani? When will you mend your ways?” But then, as most of you know, my mother missed the event by about six weeks.
If at all there is something that makes me truly glad about the evening, it is the date: October 15, just two days before Diwali. Today is Diwali. If the Gods had not been unkind, I should have been in Kanpur now with my family, smelling and savouring the typical autumn fragrance in the air, rather than putting up with the incessant sound of crackers that shook me out of sleep at six in the morning. The sound was so loud that I knew someone in my building was bursting the crackers. For a while I lay on the bed, putting up with the explosions. But when they became unbearable, I went to the balcony to spot the source of the obnoxious explosions. To my great surprise, or should I say horror, it turned out to be the middle-aged woman in the building who still has the power to make heads turn. From the balcony, I watched her placing the ‘bomb’ on the road, bending over to light the fire, in the process thrusting out her ample but shapely posterior, and then running back as the ‘bomb’ exploded. Her family, standing at a safe distance, applauded her. Still half-asleep, I could not decide whether to appreciate the sight of her thrust-out butt or to feel irritated by the explosions. But my road was in a mess: littered by paper fragments from the exploded ‘bombs’.
I have never stayed in Chennai, or in any other place, during Diwali: all my life, no matter where I have been, I have always made it a point to be in Kanpur during the festival, come what may. The only exception was the year 1994 when, for reasons I can’t recall, I was detained in Delhi. As the years wore on, I took the Diwali visits very seriously. My mother had developed a heart condition, and one never knew which Diwali would be the last one in the company of the entire family. I tried to make the most of each visit, taking as many pictures I could. Each year, after the end of Diwali, I would touch wood and take the train or flight back to Chennai.
But I had no idea that the Diwali of 2008 would be my last Diwali with the entire family. My mother, in spite of her dilated heart, wasn’t doing so badly. Nevertheless, I took pictures as usual, little knowing that they would be the last pictures I would be taking as an unorphaned son. My mom died just six weeks before this year’s Diwali. According to Hindu custom, we are not supposed to celebrate any festival for one whole year. So even if I went home this Diwali, it would have comprised awkward and painful moments between me, my father and my brother.
Therefore, the book launch came in handy. The success of the event distracted us from the fact that we should all have ideally been in Kanpur at this moment. So, is there God who first buggers you and then seeks to alleviate your pain? I do not know. I want to show you a picture of my mother which I took last Diwali – little did I know then that this would be our last Diwali together. I sought blessings from this picture when I went for the book-launch function.
Therefore, the book launch came in handy. The success of the event distracted us from the fact that we should all have ideally been in Kanpur at this moment. So, is there God who first buggers you and then seeks to alleviate your pain? I do not know. I want to show you a picture of my mother which I took last Diwali – little did I know then that this would be our last Diwali together. I sought blessings from this picture when I went for the book-launch function.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Acceptance
In a couple of weeks I shall turn four years old as a blogger. I was still not 35, and still single, when I started the blog. Circumstances were so different then. Writing was a pleasure then, and getting published a distant dream. Each morning, when I woke up to answer the doorbell, I didn't know which of the girlfriends it could be till I opened the door. There have been times when two people landed up almost at the same time, and the scenes that followed -- well, I wished mother Earth could swallow me right away. Back then, I had a mother whose sole mission in life, at the time, was to find me a wife.
How quickly things can change. Today, I am almost 39. Writing is still a pleasure, but it is also burdensome at times. The dream of becoming a published writer has been accomplished and therefore lost its charm: I have to now reset the dream and aim for becoming an accomplished writer. And these days, when I answer the doorbell in the mornings, it is either the maid or the cook. Their arrival is followed by a call from wife, who is usually at work even before I wake up: "Has the maid come? And what about the cook?" So I have a wife now, but a mother no longer.
But on the whole, Ganga Mail has had a satisfactory journey during these four years. Statistics can never match sentiments, but nearly 200 unique hits a day, about 2.7 lakh total hits so far and over 12,000 profile views till date (even though I am not a pretty woman) -- they make me feel good. These figures are very modest, even pathetic, when compared with the popularity of the blogs of the big guns. But then, I never aspired to be a big gun. Blogging, for me, has always been an emotional outlet. I share things I feel strongly about. If I like a particular Kishore Kumar song, or if I wish to make a point about relationships, I can't catch a man on the street and tell him about my views. Nor can I inflict my views on other people at a party or a gathering: I find that most obnoxious. The blog is the perfect ventilator: just type away.
Touch wood, I've always had a set of readers who seemed to agree with most of what I've had to say. In other words, I found acceptance, and nothing can be more gratifying than that. Acceptance is something that you seek all your life, so it feels nice when a set of readers shift a bit and make space for you in the middle of the sofa and tell you, "Come, come, sit here. Tell us your story."
Acceptance does not always come easily. There was one Ms P who did not like my blog when I started it. She was a reader of my column in the newspaper and she said she liked what I wrote. But about my blog, she had this to say, "I think it is sick!" Today, she looks forward to my posts and calls me if I go missing from the blog for a long time. She was only 18 then, today she is 22. Somewhere along the way, she accepted me.
But something strikes me now. Once you find acceptance, do you remodel your thoughts to keep them within the limits of what would be largely acceptable? Why I am asking this is because, before I started writing this post, I read through some of my earliest posts. This was the first time I was reading them ever since I wrote them, and I was surprised. Here was a man who wrote what he thought, and with considerable clarity. He did not have to worry about, "What will people say?" To tell you the truth, at the cost of sounding conceited, I was rather charmed by those pieces. I am no longer him. Today, I think a dozen times about what to write about and how to write it, so as not to offend anyone or invite someone's ridicule. The invisible faces of readers dance around my eyes as I write: I feel as if they are watching. Their invisible presence makes me extremely conscious, and as a result, I end up not saying half the things that I had intended to say. In other words, I don't want to lose the acceptance I have earned. In other words, I am still seeking fresh acceptance even after having found it.
It may be sad, but that is how life is: we all slog, till our dying day, to find acceptance. We tend to do things the right way in order to avoid rejection. As children, we seek acceptance from parents and teachers. As youngsters, we seek acceptance from people our age, especially from members of the opposite sex. As young men and women, we seek acceptance from our bosses and from the people we are dating or about to be married. As married individuals, we seek acceptance from our spouses and, in many cases, also from people from the opposite sex who are not our spouses. As parents, we seek acceptance from our children. When we are older, we seek acceptance from our grown-up children. After a while, we seek acceptance from our grandchildren: do they think of us as the ideal grandparents? Finally, we seek acceptance from the Maker. An entire lifetime spent in search of acceptance!
Most of the time, people around you don't even care whether you are acceptable or not. They just about tolerate your existence because you happen to be in their lives. If they find you useful, they will respect you. If you are of no use to them, they will ignore you, irrespective of how hard you have worked in order to become acceptable. To give you a frivolous yet illustrative example: when I was required to shave my head and moustache after my mother died, I was greatly distressed. As it is I was coping with the loss of my mother, and now I had to cope with the loss of my identity. Ever since as a teenager, I had never been without my hair or my moustache. The decision to sport a moustache was influenced by my admiration for Jackie Shroff, but after a point the moustache became part of my identity. And now it felt miserable to part with it. Would I still be acceptable to my society without the most important mark of my identity?
I need not have worried. No one failed to recognise me because of my missing moustache. And no one -- those who did not know about my mother's demise -- asked me how or why it went missing. In fact, there have been occasions when people enquired about my long absence from Chennai even after noticing my shaved head and the missing moustache. "Well, I had gone to Kanpur. My mother passed away, you know. Don't you see my shaved head?" I would say.
"Oh, is that why you shaved your head? I am so sorry. I thought this is your new look," they would reply. At least five people have apologised to me so far for having thought that I took my hair and moustache off because of "fashion". And here I was, killing myself at the thought of getting tonsured. The world doesn't really care: if it has to accept you, it will accept you no matter how you look or what you have to say. If it chooses to ignore you, it will ignore you, no matter how much time you spend in front of the mirror grooming yourself or practising those lines. But then, no one ever gets to know whether he or she will be accepted or rejected. Even if one is rejected, there is always a chance of being accepted the next time.
Therefore, we labour on in order to be accepted, and that includes us bloggers as well. None of us is ever going to write what we really want to write. Rejection by readers is too huge a price to pay. So you write what they want you to write, and not what you want to write.
How quickly things can change. Today, I am almost 39. Writing is still a pleasure, but it is also burdensome at times. The dream of becoming a published writer has been accomplished and therefore lost its charm: I have to now reset the dream and aim for becoming an accomplished writer. And these days, when I answer the doorbell in the mornings, it is either the maid or the cook. Their arrival is followed by a call from wife, who is usually at work even before I wake up: "Has the maid come? And what about the cook?" So I have a wife now, but a mother no longer.
But on the whole, Ganga Mail has had a satisfactory journey during these four years. Statistics can never match sentiments, but nearly 200 unique hits a day, about 2.7 lakh total hits so far and over 12,000 profile views till date (even though I am not a pretty woman) -- they make me feel good. These figures are very modest, even pathetic, when compared with the popularity of the blogs of the big guns. But then, I never aspired to be a big gun. Blogging, for me, has always been an emotional outlet. I share things I feel strongly about. If I like a particular Kishore Kumar song, or if I wish to make a point about relationships, I can't catch a man on the street and tell him about my views. Nor can I inflict my views on other people at a party or a gathering: I find that most obnoxious. The blog is the perfect ventilator: just type away.
Touch wood, I've always had a set of readers who seemed to agree with most of what I've had to say. In other words, I found acceptance, and nothing can be more gratifying than that. Acceptance is something that you seek all your life, so it feels nice when a set of readers shift a bit and make space for you in the middle of the sofa and tell you, "Come, come, sit here. Tell us your story."
Acceptance does not always come easily. There was one Ms P who did not like my blog when I started it. She was a reader of my column in the newspaper and she said she liked what I wrote. But about my blog, she had this to say, "I think it is sick!" Today, she looks forward to my posts and calls me if I go missing from the blog for a long time. She was only 18 then, today she is 22. Somewhere along the way, she accepted me.
But something strikes me now. Once you find acceptance, do you remodel your thoughts to keep them within the limits of what would be largely acceptable? Why I am asking this is because, before I started writing this post, I read through some of my earliest posts. This was the first time I was reading them ever since I wrote them, and I was surprised. Here was a man who wrote what he thought, and with considerable clarity. He did not have to worry about, "What will people say?" To tell you the truth, at the cost of sounding conceited, I was rather charmed by those pieces. I am no longer him. Today, I think a dozen times about what to write about and how to write it, so as not to offend anyone or invite someone's ridicule. The invisible faces of readers dance around my eyes as I write: I feel as if they are watching. Their invisible presence makes me extremely conscious, and as a result, I end up not saying half the things that I had intended to say. In other words, I don't want to lose the acceptance I have earned. In other words, I am still seeking fresh acceptance even after having found it.
It may be sad, but that is how life is: we all slog, till our dying day, to find acceptance. We tend to do things the right way in order to avoid rejection. As children, we seek acceptance from parents and teachers. As youngsters, we seek acceptance from people our age, especially from members of the opposite sex. As young men and women, we seek acceptance from our bosses and from the people we are dating or about to be married. As married individuals, we seek acceptance from our spouses and, in many cases, also from people from the opposite sex who are not our spouses. As parents, we seek acceptance from our children. When we are older, we seek acceptance from our grown-up children. After a while, we seek acceptance from our grandchildren: do they think of us as the ideal grandparents? Finally, we seek acceptance from the Maker. An entire lifetime spent in search of acceptance!
Most of the time, people around you don't even care whether you are acceptable or not. They just about tolerate your existence because you happen to be in their lives. If they find you useful, they will respect you. If you are of no use to them, they will ignore you, irrespective of how hard you have worked in order to become acceptable. To give you a frivolous yet illustrative example: when I was required to shave my head and moustache after my mother died, I was greatly distressed. As it is I was coping with the loss of my mother, and now I had to cope with the loss of my identity. Ever since as a teenager, I had never been without my hair or my moustache. The decision to sport a moustache was influenced by my admiration for Jackie Shroff, but after a point the moustache became part of my identity. And now it felt miserable to part with it. Would I still be acceptable to my society without the most important mark of my identity?
I need not have worried. No one failed to recognise me because of my missing moustache. And no one -- those who did not know about my mother's demise -- asked me how or why it went missing. In fact, there have been occasions when people enquired about my long absence from Chennai even after noticing my shaved head and the missing moustache. "Well, I had gone to Kanpur. My mother passed away, you know. Don't you see my shaved head?" I would say.
"Oh, is that why you shaved your head? I am so sorry. I thought this is your new look," they would reply. At least five people have apologised to me so far for having thought that I took my hair and moustache off because of "fashion". And here I was, killing myself at the thought of getting tonsured. The world doesn't really care: if it has to accept you, it will accept you no matter how you look or what you have to say. If it chooses to ignore you, it will ignore you, no matter how much time you spend in front of the mirror grooming yourself or practising those lines. But then, no one ever gets to know whether he or she will be accepted or rejected. Even if one is rejected, there is always a chance of being accepted the next time.
Therefore, we labour on in order to be accepted, and that includes us bloggers as well. None of us is ever going to write what we really want to write. Rejection by readers is too huge a price to pay. So you write what they want you to write, and not what you want to write.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
No Comparison, But Still Feels Good
A picture taken by a friend. Location: Landmark bookstore, Spencer Plaza, Chennai.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Speakers
This evening, I got off from work really early, even before the sun could set. So I walked back home, a modest distance of 2 km. As I was crossing Pondy Bazaar, I was suddenly gripped by the urge to buy something -- anything. After all, it is once in a blue moon that I get to smell the evening air ever since I switched jobs 18 months ago, so why not celebrate by gifting myself something. But what do I buy? Wife would kill me if I bought another shirt or a pair of shoes. My wardrobe is full of clothes I haven't touched yet. Each day, I wear one of the /grey T-shirts in my collection and the same pair of floaters to work: who is going to see me?
In any case, Pondy Bazaar is one place I wouldn't be caught dead shopping for clothes, though I have friends who are die-hard Pondy-Bazaar shoppers. Once upon a time, a long time ago, I had a friend who even shopped for her lingerie in Pondy Bazaar. The labels on the undergarments would bear the name of a certain garment store which is always crowded with people who seem to have come from the suburbs or neighbouring towns to do their monthly or maybe yearly shopping. I had no idea those guys were also into manufacturing bras and panties. She would fume each time I pulled her leg about the tags. "How does it matter what I wear inside? Tell me, how does it matter?" I would then seek to extricate myself from the situation by saying that I was only kidding.
But the reality -- no offence meant to anyone -- is that the underwear you wear speaks a lot about your personality. If you wear VIP or Rupa, it means you are either a miser or fiercely Indian or are unaware that we live in a globalised world where you no longer have to ask your cousin to get Marks & Spencer underwear from London (in any case, I have never quite understood why a man should wear briefs with a feminine name. It is like a bra being labelled as 'Dilip' or 'Rakesh': would anyone buy it?) If you wear Jockey, you are smart: the price is almost Indian, and the label and the cut entirely Western. If you wear Polo Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein, even if you can't really afford them all the time, it shows you are ambitious. The wise ones, however, would mix and match: wear Rupa to the gym, Jockey to work and save the hard-earned Calvin Klein for the night out.
Sorry for digressing. I was talking about my walk back home this evening, when I was suddenly gripped by the urge to buy something. So clothes and shoes were ruled out. The only time when my wife does not complain about me splurging money is when I buy books or music. She gives me a blank cheque: "Buy anything that catches your fancy." But you can't buy books or music in Pondy Bazaar. So I chose the middle path: what is music without a good pair of speakers, so why not a new set of speakers for my laptop? And Pondy Bazaar is one place in Chennai where you can get a good pair of speakers at a fairly reasonable price. So there I was, lugging back home a new pair of Creative speakers.
It was with a heavy heart, though, that I replaced my old set of speakers. Those speakers had been my companion through the best years of my life. I had bought them, in 2004, also on impulse. I had just discovered internet radio, and sitting in the office one afternoon, I suddenly resolved that I must get a pair of speakers right away, come what may. So, along with a colleague, I walked to the nearest electronics shop, in Royapettah, and bought whatever was available. The speakers were dubiously named 'Sambada', and cost me Rs 1100. It wasn't entirely satisfied with their performance when they tested it in the shop for my benefit, but since I had made up my mind, I had to have it.
But by the time I brought them home, the speakers, as if by magic, had undergone a transformation. Even before I could attached the wires, they had attuned themselves to the beats of R.D. Burman and to the throat of Kishore Kumar. The rest, as they say, is history.
It is one thing to listen to music on a large music system, the 2000+ watt type, and quite another on smaller speakers. The large one invariably ends up adorning the entertainment cabinet in the drawing room: it does little for your soul. When you play a CD on it, there is something impersonal about the music, which mostly serve as a background sound while you go about your chores. But when music emanates from the laptop speakers, it usually has your 100% attention. There is a certain cosiness about the setting -- you, your writing, your favourite drink and your favourite music. They all work in tandem to lift your spirits to a level that even years of practising spiritualism can't.
Laptop speakers -- don't underestimate them: their sound quality is often better than the most sophisticated of music players -- are an important tool for anyone who follows the lonely profession of writing. When the rest of the world is fast asleep and when you grappling with words sitting at your desk, nothing can be more reassuring or rejuvenating than the sound of your kind of music. The music is loud enough for you to clearly hear the strains of violins playing in the background, yet not too loud to disturb your spouse or neighbour.
The speakers have been with me ever since the time I did not have a spouse -- when the laptop was my spouse, my lover, my everything. I would get back from work every evening, around nine, swtich on the laptop and pour myself a drink. Then I would start working on either my column or a new blog post. At times, the music would dictate my writing, and at times, it was the other way round. But on the whole, we were one happy family.
Those speakers played so many songs that I had lost during my childhood, including this. As a child, I was not at all aware of the sensuality hidden in many of the songs: it was only the tune that had stayed in my mind and which made me desperately search for them decades later. The speakers also played me Sahir Ludhianvi's songs whose meaning I could not grasp as a child or as a youth, but which tormented me big time now. You are welcome to read this post. The speakers also played me music I had recently discovered -- from Mezzoforte to Madonna to various chants about Shiva and Hanuman. The music would lull me to sleep in that cosy bachelor pad of mine -- the playlist had enough songs to last, non-stop, for three days.
How I miss those days: drink, write, sleep -- with your kind of music playing in the background. If you were lucky on a particular day, you had somebody to share the bed with. And if you were extremely fortunate, the person who shared the bed also happened to share your taste in music. But that was only once in a blue moon -- mostly in fantasy. In real life, it has been impossible to find someone who shares your emotions about Sahir's lyrics in the Kabhie Kabhie song, Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon... There were people, of course, but they lived in far-off places such as Pune or Delhi. What was the use?
Finally, a few hours ago, I unplugged my old speakers and replaced them with the new ones. For a moment it felt as if I was taking the old ones on a funeral procession. But that wasn't the case : they were now going to adorn my yoga room and pep up my yoga practice. So why did I disconnect them from the laptop? That's because one of the speakers had started acting up, and it was too burdensome for the other speaker to do justice to R.D. Burman songs, even though it tried its best.
As for the new ones -- what a sexy pair of speakers!. I almost fell off my chair when I tested them on an R.D. Burman song, Bachke rehna re baba from Pukaar. Wife complained, "Reduce the volume! I can't hear you." But I wasn't even talking. Only listening. Nevertheless I stopped that song and inserted a newly-bought CD into the laptop. It is a rare compilation of Tagore songs sung by various old-time singers including K.L. Saigal. I had bought it in Kolkata for my father -- among the many other CDs and books I bought for him in order to compensate for the absence of the woman he had lived with for 40 long years. In fact, my parents were considering to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary on December 4 this year by throwing a dinner party.
Anyway, she is gone now and therefore the new CD collection. So, on my new speakers, I listened to K.L. Saigal singing two famous Tagore songs, Aami tomaye joto and Ek tuku chhoan laage. I felt like crying. I don't know why. Saigal was a hardcore Punjabi and a hardcore drunkard -- someone a Bengali might not have approved of. But Saigal was also a singer par excellence -- which you will realise only when you listen to this album. It was not for nothing that Kishore Kumar was a crazy fan of Saigal. So far, I had heard these two Tagore songs only in Kishore's voice and had liked them. But now, in Saigal's voice, these songs stirred me. They made me tearful. What an auspicious inauguration of the new speakers. The old ones saw me through happy times; while these, I am sure, will see me through difficult times.
In any case, Pondy Bazaar is one place I wouldn't be caught dead shopping for clothes, though I have friends who are die-hard Pondy-Bazaar shoppers. Once upon a time, a long time ago, I had a friend who even shopped for her lingerie in Pondy Bazaar. The labels on the undergarments would bear the name of a certain garment store which is always crowded with people who seem to have come from the suburbs or neighbouring towns to do their monthly or maybe yearly shopping. I had no idea those guys were also into manufacturing bras and panties. She would fume each time I pulled her leg about the tags. "How does it matter what I wear inside? Tell me, how does it matter?" I would then seek to extricate myself from the situation by saying that I was only kidding.
But the reality -- no offence meant to anyone -- is that the underwear you wear speaks a lot about your personality. If you wear VIP or Rupa, it means you are either a miser or fiercely Indian or are unaware that we live in a globalised world where you no longer have to ask your cousin to get Marks & Spencer underwear from London (in any case, I have never quite understood why a man should wear briefs with a feminine name. It is like a bra being labelled as 'Dilip' or 'Rakesh': would anyone buy it?) If you wear Jockey, you are smart: the price is almost Indian, and the label and the cut entirely Western. If you wear Polo Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein, even if you can't really afford them all the time, it shows you are ambitious. The wise ones, however, would mix and match: wear Rupa to the gym, Jockey to work and save the hard-earned Calvin Klein for the night out.
Sorry for digressing. I was talking about my walk back home this evening, when I was suddenly gripped by the urge to buy something. So clothes and shoes were ruled out. The only time when my wife does not complain about me splurging money is when I buy books or music. She gives me a blank cheque: "Buy anything that catches your fancy." But you can't buy books or music in Pondy Bazaar. So I chose the middle path: what is music without a good pair of speakers, so why not a new set of speakers for my laptop? And Pondy Bazaar is one place in Chennai where you can get a good pair of speakers at a fairly reasonable price. So there I was, lugging back home a new pair of Creative speakers.
It was with a heavy heart, though, that I replaced my old set of speakers. Those speakers had been my companion through the best years of my life. I had bought them, in 2004, also on impulse. I had just discovered internet radio, and sitting in the office one afternoon, I suddenly resolved that I must get a pair of speakers right away, come what may. So, along with a colleague, I walked to the nearest electronics shop, in Royapettah, and bought whatever was available. The speakers were dubiously named 'Sambada', and cost me Rs 1100. It wasn't entirely satisfied with their performance when they tested it in the shop for my benefit, but since I had made up my mind, I had to have it.
But by the time I brought them home, the speakers, as if by magic, had undergone a transformation. Even before I could attached the wires, they had attuned themselves to the beats of R.D. Burman and to the throat of Kishore Kumar. The rest, as they say, is history.
It is one thing to listen to music on a large music system, the 2000+ watt type, and quite another on smaller speakers. The large one invariably ends up adorning the entertainment cabinet in the drawing room: it does little for your soul. When you play a CD on it, there is something impersonal about the music, which mostly serve as a background sound while you go about your chores. But when music emanates from the laptop speakers, it usually has your 100% attention. There is a certain cosiness about the setting -- you, your writing, your favourite drink and your favourite music. They all work in tandem to lift your spirits to a level that even years of practising spiritualism can't.
Laptop speakers -- don't underestimate them: their sound quality is often better than the most sophisticated of music players -- are an important tool for anyone who follows the lonely profession of writing. When the rest of the world is fast asleep and when you grappling with words sitting at your desk, nothing can be more reassuring or rejuvenating than the sound of your kind of music. The music is loud enough for you to clearly hear the strains of violins playing in the background, yet not too loud to disturb your spouse or neighbour.
The speakers have been with me ever since the time I did not have a spouse -- when the laptop was my spouse, my lover, my everything. I would get back from work every evening, around nine, swtich on the laptop and pour myself a drink. Then I would start working on either my column or a new blog post. At times, the music would dictate my writing, and at times, it was the other way round. But on the whole, we were one happy family.
Those speakers played so many songs that I had lost during my childhood, including this. As a child, I was not at all aware of the sensuality hidden in many of the songs: it was only the tune that had stayed in my mind and which made me desperately search for them decades later. The speakers also played me Sahir Ludhianvi's songs whose meaning I could not grasp as a child or as a youth, but which tormented me big time now. You are welcome to read this post. The speakers also played me music I had recently discovered -- from Mezzoforte to Madonna to various chants about Shiva and Hanuman. The music would lull me to sleep in that cosy bachelor pad of mine -- the playlist had enough songs to last, non-stop, for three days.
How I miss those days: drink, write, sleep -- with your kind of music playing in the background. If you were lucky on a particular day, you had somebody to share the bed with. And if you were extremely fortunate, the person who shared the bed also happened to share your taste in music. But that was only once in a blue moon -- mostly in fantasy. In real life, it has been impossible to find someone who shares your emotions about Sahir's lyrics in the Kabhie Kabhie song, Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon... There were people, of course, but they lived in far-off places such as Pune or Delhi. What was the use?
Finally, a few hours ago, I unplugged my old speakers and replaced them with the new ones. For a moment it felt as if I was taking the old ones on a funeral procession. But that wasn't the case : they were now going to adorn my yoga room and pep up my yoga practice. So why did I disconnect them from the laptop? That's because one of the speakers had started acting up, and it was too burdensome for the other speaker to do justice to R.D. Burman songs, even though it tried its best.
As for the new ones -- what a sexy pair of speakers!. I almost fell off my chair when I tested them on an R.D. Burman song, Bachke rehna re baba from Pukaar. Wife complained, "Reduce the volume! I can't hear you." But I wasn't even talking. Only listening. Nevertheless I stopped that song and inserted a newly-bought CD into the laptop. It is a rare compilation of Tagore songs sung by various old-time singers including K.L. Saigal. I had bought it in Kolkata for my father -- among the many other CDs and books I bought for him in order to compensate for the absence of the woman he had lived with for 40 long years. In fact, my parents were considering to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary on December 4 this year by throwing a dinner party.
Anyway, she is gone now and therefore the new CD collection. So, on my new speakers, I listened to K.L. Saigal singing two famous Tagore songs, Aami tomaye joto and Ek tuku chhoan laage. I felt like crying. I don't know why. Saigal was a hardcore Punjabi and a hardcore drunkard -- someone a Bengali might not have approved of. But Saigal was also a singer par excellence -- which you will realise only when you listen to this album. It was not for nothing that Kishore Kumar was a crazy fan of Saigal. So far, I had heard these two Tagore songs only in Kishore's voice and had liked them. But now, in Saigal's voice, these songs stirred me. They made me tearful. What an auspicious inauguration of the new speakers. The old ones saw me through happy times; while these, I am sure, will see me through difficult times.
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