'In The Dark All Cats Are Grey'

The advice Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, gave to a young man on the choice of a mistress:

June 25, 1745

My dear Friend,

I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entering into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:

i. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience.

4. Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin'd to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.

7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.

8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!

Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

Attraction

Twenty-two years have passed, but the sensations still linger. And then, last night, while trying to give voice to certain thoughts that kept criss-crossing my mind, I suddenly remembered that song -- and the film! Memories gushed back, and the sensations were ignited over again.

It was sometime in 1989 that I watched Aakarshan in a theatre called Sundar Talkies on Mall Road in Kanpur. (The theatre is now shut, like many others). The lead caste: Akbar Khan and Sonu Walia.

That was the time when I watched only two kinds of films -- the ones that had Jackie Shroff, and the soft-porn films exported from Kerala. Most of the time these soft-porn films would be dubbed in Hindi, but many of them retained the original soundtrack. The Hind-heartland audience, however, did not mind the Malayalam because they would come to the theatres to see and not to listen. But all these films would be given Hindi titles for the north Indian market, and the titles would invariably contain either the word 'Jawaani' or 'Jungle' or both. Only one of them had a numeral title: 4+4. I still can't figure what that denoted but that film had far more 'scenes' compared to the other Jungle-Jawaani films that I had seen. Oh yes, there is something else I remember from 4+4: the face of the lead character, a tall Malayali man with thick moustache, who was known as Dr Dinesh in the film -- a doctor who wore hawai chappals to the clinic.

So why spend an afternoon watching a film called Aakarshan, which had Akbar Khan, of all people, as the hero? I really don't know. I don't remember what made Anish and I stop by at Sundar Talkies and buy balcony tickets. Anish was my best friend.

Aakarshan turned out to be one of those films that lingers on your mind for days after you have watched it. The only other film that has had a similar affect on me was Rang De Basanti, which I watched first-day, first-show, in Kripa theatre in Trivandrum. The film kept disturbing me, tickling me for days after I had watched it, and so did Aakarshan.

Aakarshan affected me even more because at the time I was only 18 -- an age when your heart is like an empty canvas and your hormones are raring to paint a picture on it. Aakarshan: the magnetic attraction between a male and a female -- oh, the director brought it out so well!

In the film, Akbar Khan plays an actor and Sonu Walia an actress. They happen to work together in a film and come closer emotionally after a particular incident during shooting. In one of the shots, Akbar Khan is supposed to rescue Sonu Walia from a fire, but it so happens that there is a real fire accident on the sets during the fire scene, and Sonu Walia is trapped in fire for real. Girish Karnad, who plays the director, refuses to say "Cut!" because he wants to capture the authenticity of the rescue.

The real-life dare-devilry of Akbar Khan, therefore, makes Sonu Walia get emotionally intimate with him. Subsequently, due to the ups and downs of stardom, Akbar Khan is paralysed (I don't remember if the paralysis was caused by a stroke or a road accident triggered by emotional distress), and Sonu Walia eventually nurses him back to health, and they both go on to live happily ever after as acclaimed actors.

Sonu Walia was naturally sexy and glamorous. She was one of the few actresss, perhaps apart from Sangeeta Bijlani, who did not have to don extra makeup to look glamorous. Then there was Akbar Khan, the youngest of the handsome Khan brothers. Even though he could never step into the shoes of his elder ladykiller brothers, Feroze and Sanjay, he was quite hot in Aakarshan. Then there was Girish Karnad, the charismatic director. That afternoon, there were three women sitting right behind us in the theatre, and each time Girish Karnad came on the screen, they gasped, "Oh my god, he is looking so good!"

There was pin-drop silence in the theatre when this particular song, sung by Kavitha Krishnamurthy, came on:

Faasla rahe na, ek ho jaayen
Tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen
faasla rahe na, ek ho jaayen
tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen

Maine teri dhadkanon to sun liya jaanam
maine teri dhadkanon to sun liya jaanam
maine tujhko meet apna chun liya jaanam
kuchh bhi soche yeh samaaj, ek ho jaayen
tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen

Waqt jo guzra abhi tak bojh ka guzra
waqt jo guzra abhi tak bojh ka guzra
milke tujhse zindagi ka karz to utra
aaj se apne mijaaz ek ho jaayen
tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen

Dhoop mein saaya bano, saaye mein humsaya
dhoop mein saaya bano, saaye mein humsaya
shukriya ki waqt mere zakhmon ho sahlaya
kyon rahe thodi si laaj, ek ho jaayen
tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen

Faasla rahe na, ek ho jaayen
tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen...

What a song, what a song! The song, which had the Niagra falls in the backdrop, ended with a lovemaking scene between Akbar Khan and Sonu Walia under the gaze of the same world-famous waterfalls. And that's when I, and perhaps Anish too, realised that erotica is not about what you show, but what you hide. At one point, when Sonu Walia bites at Akbar Khan's ear, we would hear gasps emanating from the women seated in the row behind us. So powerful the scene was!

There is something very powerful about aakarshan or attraction. Not many people experience it during their lifetime. Most people, when they marry or choose their partners or choose to fall in love, are either guided by commonsense or by well-meaning advice from friends or elders; or are simply driven by madness and obsession.

But it is rare, very rare, for a man and a woman to be instantaneously and mutually sucked into each other's magnetic fields. Mutually is the operative word here. Aakarshan, the film, raises to a toast to that attraction.

Such an attraction sends thunders clapping and tames lyricists into writing simple, soothing poetry and arm-twists composers into creating a tickling tune:

Maine teri dhadkanon to sun liya jaanam
maine teri dhadkanon to sun liya jaanam
maine tujhko meet apna chun liya jaanam
kuchh bhi soche yeh samaaj, ek ho jaayen
tod ke rasm-o-riwaaz, ek ho jaayen.

Of Love, Life And A Book Launch

The primary purpose of this post is to invite those of you who live in Chennai to the launch of Urban Shots at Landmark (Apex Plaza, Nungambakkam) on December 1, Wednesday at 6.30 pm. It's a collection of 29 stories by 13 writers; yours truly has contributed two.

The stories, all set in urban India, celebrates what Ganga Mail stands for -- love, life, relationships; above all, basic human emotions. The writers live in different cities, and all of them are very young -- a majority of them biologically and the remaining, at heart (yours truly, who turns 40 in exactly a month, choses to be in the latter category). The book, therefore, promises to be a heady brew or a cocktail, if you please. So please come dear reader, it would be great to see you, to know you.

The secondary purpose (or was this the primary?) is to take the opportunity to share a few thoughts on love, since the book is about love. Well, the book is not just about love, because there is a lot more to it, but come to think of it, everything eventually stems from love.

It is love that gives birth to every single emotion under the sun. If you find a lost friend, you are happy. If you lose someone you love, you are sad. If you love material things, you create greed. If you love sex, you birth to lust. If you love the idea of being famous, you become a champion of ambition. If you are dumped by someone you love, you realise what a heartbreak is. If you love your job, you know what satisfaction is. If you love your motherland, you become an example of patriotism. And so on. Love, therefore, is the driving force of universe. No love, no nothing.

Yet, when you think of love, the image that instantly comes to your mind is that of a boy and a girl, or a young man or a young woman, exchanging shy glances and shy smiles. That's the kind of love about which I feel like sharing a few thoughts tonight. And as a self-proclaimed nostalgia expert, I am tempted to introspect about how the whole concept of love has changed over the decades. Basically, Then and Now stuff.

Back then, it was considered heroic and exemplary to fight for the woman you loved and to get her at any cost. If you won the battle, you were considered a hero, and if you lost, you were considered even a bigger hero because you sacrificed your life for love. But why don't they make movies like Heer Raanjha, Laila Majnu, Sohni Mahiwaal anymore? That's because today's society no longer has the patience and sympathy, leave alone admiration, for men who are so blinded by love that they ignore their own self. If they don't learn to love and respect themselves first, how how can they love a woman? The ditto holds true for today's women, I guess.

Today, if you happen to fancy a woman and subsequently discover that she belongs to a different social set-up and that her father has several goons at his disposal who could easily take care of you, you instantly escape from her magnetic field and settle for the next best thing. Life is far too precious to be squandered away for a woman. Today love is pragmatic and success-oriented: you carefully weigh the pros and cons before falling in love. No one, be it a man or a woman, wants to be in love with a loser. No one.

If you are a woman, touch your heart and ask yourself: would you like to love a man who meditates upon your name throughout the day and who always waits outside your window, sunshine or rain, just to catch a glimpse of you and who, if you ask him to do so, will readily jump into a river -- or a man who is normal and free of obsessions and is productive?

The loser belongs to the last century -- and he is far too entrenched in grave to hope for resurrection. Yet there are people I come across every now and then, who fail to understand that they first need to love and respect themselves in order to find and earn love and respect. I only feel sorry for them.

Then there is something else, apart from pragmatism, that stands between love then and love now. That is technology. Even today I am not sure whether techonology is of great service to lovers, or a great disservice. If you look at the plus points, you can thank technology with tears in your eyes. Today, two lovers can stay in touch real-time, through SMS and internet chat and Facebook. They don't have to meet up physically all the time. They can express their feelings for each other -- be it an overdrive of affection or a bout of sulking -- on Facebook by writing philosophical status messages or by posting songs from You Tube that effectively convey their emotions for the moment. Of course there is SMS and Gmail chat -- to profess love, to make love, to make amends, to make peace, to settle scores.

But the tragedy is that lovers don't write to each other these days. By writing, I mean the kind when you put a pen to paper, which is a mode of introspection. You can rarely lie when you are composing a sentence on a piece of paper with the help of a pen. The moment you hold a pen, especially a fountain pen, you plunge deep into your mind and come out with the truest sentence possible. A piece of paper, after all, does not have the 'Delete' or 'Backspace' button -- you better be accurate in describing your feelings in the very first attempt.

But on a computer, the 'Backspace' and 'Delete' buttons rob you of honesty. You are often tempted to speak your mind, but upon realising that what you speak may not go down well with the person on the other end, you keep fiddling with those buttons until you have composed a sentence that causes no offence. If you still think some damage has been done, you swiftly add a smiley or two to nullify its effect. You know what I mean, don't you?

Back then, the moment a letter arrived, you could tell from the handwriting that it is from 'him' or from 'her'. Not to speak of the smell of the paper. It always smelt of 'him' or 'her'. And the fact that thoughts could not be exchanged real time back then, unless you were face to face with the person, made you look eagerly forward to the letter. The letter was the sole substitute for the physical presence of your lover. Ah, the love letter.

Today, the love letter has fragmented into bits and pieces -- into 20-word text messages, 15-word status messages, 50-word emails and so on. And the fragments no longer bear the distinct handwriting of your lover -- they are all about fonts and font sizes. As a result, the email from your lover looks just the same as the email from your boss.

The battle is on right now, to smell one set of typed words from another. People are succeeding, I can tell you.

A Drop Of Water

The train was going to stop at Guntakal for a while.

Guntakal was a big junction, and there, a few more bogies were to be attached to the train before it proceeded to Bombay. At Bombay, her husband would come to receive her, but some 30 hours still separated them. Right now, she was travelling with her two children -- a daughter who was five, and a son who had just turned three. They were travelling from Bangalore.

When the train came to a halt at Guntakal, she saw most male passengers getting down, to stretch their legs and loiter on the platform, to fill water, to have tea, to buy eatables for their families. It was a long stoppage, so no one was in a hurry.

This was the first time she was travelling unaccompanied for such a long distance. And this was the first time she was going to Bombay. Her husband had got posted there only six months ago, and now she was taking the children along for summer vacation. She looked at the water bottle. There was water but that might not be sufficient. She wasn't sure when the next station would come.

'Looks like the train is going to wait here for a while,' she suggested to herself, 'why not fill up the bottle?' She got up and stood at the door of the coach, looking out nervously at the length of the platform. She could see two taps sprouting out from opposite sides of a tiled pedestal. Not very far away. She walked up to it, filled up the bottle and was returning to the coach when she saw the train move.

She ran. The train was leaving her behind. Worse, it was carrying her two children away! Actually the train wasn't. Only the extra bogies were being attached to it -- the momentum makes the entire train move by a few metres, something that seasoned travellers were familiar with. She ran, and just as she was about to hop into the coach, she slipped and fell through the gap between the train and the platform. She died.

The train left at its scheduled time. Why should it wait, anyway? Guntakal was just one of the numerous stations that fell on the way, and she was just one of the 1,500 passengers it was carrying. Accidents happens, life goes on. The individual does not count.

Instead of the bogies being attached, had a moving train rammed this stationary train from behind, and if a few hundred people had died, then the value of each individual's death would have been jacked up manifold. In that case, it would not have been just an accident, but a rail accident. A rail accident makes banner headlines in newspapers and counts as breaking news for TV channels. But the news of a lone woman dying in a freak rail accident would not interest TV channels; though newspapers often find such news handy as a filler.

But if you view the death of this woman from a magnifying glass, you will find countless heart-wrenching questions staring back at you. What happened to her body? What happened to the kids? When did the husband get to know? Did he get to know at all? Are the kids safe? But no one probes these questions. After all, it is the death of an individual. Who cares!

Every drop makes an ocean. But individually, a single drop does not count; it has no value unless it joins other drops and forms a river, if not an ocean. As an individual, it can only wait to dry up or be wiped off by a human. The same is true for humans. If a hundred of us die together in a terrorist attack, news channels are bound to flock our respective homes, asking our grieving families what we ate for breakfast that fateful morning before falling victim to the terrorists' bombs or bullets.

But if one of us, an individual, gets killed in a freak accident or by the bullet of a goonda in the neighbourhood, we are mentioned in the 'Crime Briefs' column of the local newspaper. It does not interest the media one bit whether we had a hearty breakfast or good sex before being put to sleep forever.

Music And I

The songs you cherish the most are the ones that you grow up listening to. You grow out of many other childhood fixations -- such as the fascination for an actor or a sport -- but music is something you become more possessive about the older you grow. There are times when you wish you could've put all those songs that appealed to you in a bag and carried the bag along across the years.

I would classify the growing-up years as between the ages of five and 20. Before the age of five, you are too young to be a discerning listener, and after you are 20, life throws up other fascinations and pressures for any new kind of music to get into your blood stream. After 20, you mostly like stuff that resembles what you've grown up listening to. The degree of resemblance may vary, though.

Here, let me make it clear that I am speaking for myself. Music, even though it is created for the masses, is a highly personal, rather personalised, matter.

During the years when I was growing up, that is between the mid-seventies and the late eighties, we were totally at the mercy of the radio and Doordarshan. If they played a rare song that you happened to like, you had no choice but to wait until they played it again. If you were lucky and thoughtful enough, you get to record the song on a blank cassette, but that would have meant sitting by the radio all the time.

I was 14 or 15 by the time I developed the strong urge to possess my kind of music, and by then we had a Sony music system at home that let me record songs from the radio. However, for every song I managed to record, from start to finish, there were two others I could not, for the simple reason that they rarely came on radio. Their cassettes weren't available either, and even if they were, the song(s) I was looking weren't contained in those cassettes. As far as music is concerned, I grew up in a strange era -- LP records were almost dead and CDs were yet to be born (the concept of iPod or internet downloads still qualified for science fiction).

I still remember very clearly, none of the Hum Kisise Kum Nahin cassettes had the four-song medley I was so desperately looking for. None, I tell you, and I had no idea why. Perhaps because we weren't a consumer-oriented country then and had to suffice with whatever shit was being served to us. I started hunting for the medley since 1985, and it was only in 1995, in Delhi, when I found a shop in Connaught Place that recorded songs on a blank cassette straight from an LP player. Oh, I still possess the cassette, with the shopkeeper's slip inside the cover bearing my name, "V. Ghosh". But look at this: for 10 whole years I was deprived of a set of songs my ears had been yearning for. What for?

Let me give you a brief list of songs which I wanted to possess from the age of 14 or 15 -- songs that I wanted to hear again and again and again -- but which I could rediscover only 10 or 15 or -- even -- 25 years later! Just a song, and yet so long!

1. The Hum Kisise Kum Nahin medley, starting with Chaand mera dil: a wait of 10 years.

2. Heeralal Pannalal songs, especially the Hemant Kumar-sung Aaja mere pyaar aaja (which every father should sing for his kid daughter): a wait of 20 years. Apart from this song, other songs from the movie are still not available in the shops. Find me a CD if you can, but no internet downloads please.

3. Mehmaan nazar ki ban jaa (what a Kishore song!) from Pataal Bhairavi: the wait still continues!

4. Raat banoon main aur chaand banon tum from Mangalsutra: 25 years! What a song, what a search! Aao baahon mein aao!

5. Main tere liye, tu mere liye from a Dev Anand film called Main Tere Liye. I am not sure if Dev Anand himself acted in the film because it never got released at the time when its songs hit the radio. All I know is that the hero was Dev saab's son Suneil and the director his brother Vijay Anand, a gem of a director. Anyway, this Bappi Lahiri song was very, very close to my heart when I was a 15-year-old and it still remains so. Only that I can't find the song anywhere else except on You Tube even after a search for 25 years! I did buy a cassette of the songs of this film, in 1987, for Rs 17! -- and listened to the song so often that the tape got demagnetised within a year or two.

Many people dismiss Bappi Lahiri as the disco king who made it big by plagiarising popular Western numbers, but he is a great composer. He was, in fact, a prodigy -- as at least one elderly person who knew him from his younger days testifies. Bappi's melody numbers are real gems, and even though I might be the craziest fan R.D. Burman ever had, there are several Bappi Lahiri numbers that give me the goosebumps. All his detractors must watch this film called Apne Paraaye -- you will end up with tears in your eyes. Heard Yesudas's Shyam rang ranga re, har pal mera re...?

Bappi Lahiri never failed to entertain you (entertainment being the operative part): on one hand he gave you a 'cheap' song like Jee lele jee lele (perhaps the only song to be sung on screen by the elderly and venerable Om Shiv Puri), and on the other gave you gems like Chalte chalte, mere yeh geet and Pyaar maanga hai tumhi se...

I don't know how many of you have heard of Anup Ghoshal. Well, he is the guy who sung Tujhse naaraaz nahin for R.D. Burman in Masoom, and I really can't think of anyone, not at least in my midly drunken state at this hour, who might not have heard that song.

Anup Ghoshal is an acclaimed Bengali singer: he sang for many Bengali films of Satyajit Ray, but his first brush with national fame was with Masoom. Oh what a song -- or so I thought, till I heard Anup Ghoshal sing this beautiful, beautiful number for Bappi Lahiri that I am presenting now. I found this song, finally, on You Tube -- 25 years after I listened to it for the first time and got mesmerised by it!

Back then I was an adolescent, today I qualify to be a middle-aged man. During the interim decades, the song was only a memory. But it has come back to me now and still gives me goosebumps. Please click on 'play' and listen to the song carefully. The lyrics are thought-provoking, the voice mind-blowing, and the music -- ah, vintage Bappi Lahiri!

Five Things I Miss In Hindi Films Today

I don't watch too many new Hindi films -- except the occasional Akshay Kumar-starrer or the ones that have Irrfan Khan -- but I have a fair idea of what's going on. I am not sure if I like or dislike what's going on -- though storylines and scenes are far more credible and the production more Hollywood-style -- but I certainly know what I miss in them. I miss the fun, flavour and the mindlessness.

Watching Hindi films has now become some sort of an intellectual exercise; you take them far too seriously and in the process miss out on the enjoyment. The idea is to leave your brains behind when you enter a theatre, and not to put it to use once you lean back on the comfortable seat. I crave for the good, old dal-chaawal-roti-sabzi, the staple diet I've grown up on, and not exotic salads or basil-laced pasta. Here are five things I miss the most -- you don't really find them in Hindi movies anymore:

1. The fight scene: Today, the hero has the muscles, but there is very little he is required to do with them. Back then, they had no muscles, yet they took on 20 men single-handedly. Dhishum! Bhishum! I am not sure if these sounds were made from the mouth -- most likely they were -- but in Jawaani Diwaani someone certainly did use his mouth to make the Ae dhishum, Ae dhishum sound every time the not-so-macho Randhir Kapoor exchanged blows with the bad guys. Fight scenes were so much fun. You anticipated them and sat on the edge of the seat. Quite often it was with a fight scene that the hero made his entry into the film -- the camera focussed on a pair of feet that would walk slowly and steadily into the scene, while trumpets and violins built up the tension in the air and set the tone for confrontration. What was a movie without Amitabh Bachchan, and what was an Amitabh Bachchan movie without its share of fight scenes? Two fight scenes that I cherish and still relish are the ones that took place between Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna in Khoon Paseena and Amar Akbar Anthony. Amitabh Bachchan, apart from being a versatile actor, was Bollywood's most popular action hero, even though he did not even have the muscles. The action hero died once he aged. Today there is no slot for the action hero, which can certified by the fact that the two heroes who could have filled the slot, Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn (who is the son of a popular stunt master), are better known for comedy. Fight scene, RIP.

2. The bike/car song: When I was young, I used to be a huge fan of Jackie Shroff. The moustache I sport owes his existence to the hero-worship. I am no longer crazy about him as I used to be those days (collecting his pictures from magazines, going to the theatre alone to watch his films, considering writing to him), but it is too late to do away with the moustache because it has become part of my identity. In any case, I now live in the south, where the moustache can never go out of fashion. So there was this bike song filmed on Jackie Shroff and Meenakshi Seshadri, Jhoomti bahaaron ka samaa, pyaar ki umange hain jawaan from a called Dahleez. Doordarshan often showed the song on Sunday mornings, and I would switch on the TV only to wait for that song. All songs sung on the bike or car have a sense of movement -- they pack in melody as well as high energy; and you can never, ever, go wrong with them in case you are looking for quality music to lift your mood or to store in your iPod. My most favourite car song is a little-known one, Kaho kahaan chalen, from the film Bulandi, and favourite bike song -- oh there are so many, including Rote huey, aate hain sab (please watch this video carefully for words of wisdom from Kader Khan) from Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. And who can ever forget the ultimate bike song of Hindi cinema! -- can you hear Pancham playing the mouth organ?

3. The courtroom scene: "Order!Order!"
"Main jo kuch kahoonga sach kahoonga, aur sach ke siwa kuchh nahi kahoonga."
"Objection overruled!"
"Objection sustained!"
"To us din raat ko gyarah baje, aap kahaan thhey?"
"(Laughter) Order! Order!"
"Yeh jhooth hai judge saahab!"
"Saare sabooton aur gawaahon ke bayanaat ko madde nazar rakhte huey, adalat is nateeje par pahunchi hai, ki mulzim Dinanath..."

Fuck man! Don't you miss these lines? Place your palm on the Gita and tell me that you don't.

4. The comedy scene: The action hero is dead, and along with him, the comedian too, simply because the action hero has replaced him. Don't cite Rajpal Yadav please, I will puke if I see one more of his so-called comedy scenes. God, can you please breathe life back into Mehmood, Om Prakash and Keshto Mukherjee? These are people who did not have to mouth funny lines to make you laugh, their facial expressions were enough to lighten up your mood (Mehmood and Om Prakash were two rare comedians who could also effortlessly make you cry: I have a colleague who can't hold his tears each time he watches Mehmood's Kunwara Baap). Mehmood and Om Prakash, according to me, were the biggest comedians Indian cinema ever produced. There is, of course, Asrani, who you still see in Priyadarshan's films, but he is far too talented to qualify solely as a comedian. And if you want to see the power of Asrani's acting, watch Khoon Paseena. God is so unkind: he first snatched away the comedians, and then snatched away the slot for the comedian. At least give Kader Khan and Shakti Kapoor back to us, will you? If I still believe in you dear God, it is only because of Paresh Rawal.

5. The Climax: There were villains and there were villains. There were the sophisticated and the larger-than-life ones like Ajit and Amrish Puri ("Inspector saahab, main is sheher ka ek shareef aur izzatdaar insaan hoon"), and the dreaded ones like Amjad Khan ("Haraamzaade!"). But nothing to beat the two slimeballs, Jeevan and Prem Chopra -- the ultimate bastards you always wanted to kill with your bare hands. Hindi cinema will never see them again. The villain is a dying breed as well: the hero is grabbing his role too. Oh, how much I miss the bastards. Today if I watch Amar Akbar Anthony again and again, it is mainly because of Robert, that is Jeevan. Then there is Pran: but Pran mostly played the good guy throughout the 1970's and 1980's, the decades I was growing up, so I have no hatred towards him. Needless to say, it were these villains who inspired the climax of films during those days. And the climax invariably unveiled itself in a fortified godown or a hideout. You knew the movie was ending, you also knew the manner in which it was going to end, yet you sat on the edge of the seat, enduring the fight scene (with a bit of comedy thrown in when the heroine or the comedian hit back at the bad guys), waiting for either of the following lines:

"Hands up! Koi apni jagah se nahin hilega."

"Gireftaar kar lo in sab ko."

"Sab apni apni bandooken phaenk do."

"Khabardaar jo kisine hilne ki koshish ki to."

Inspector saahab, main kahaan hil rahaa hoon. Bollywood hil gaya hai.

Urban Thoughts, Urban Shots

I've been blogging frequently of late, so much so that someone recently left an anonymous comment, wondering if I had lost my job. The anonymous soul thinks that if you are fired, you have all the time in the world to blog. On the contrary: a man who has to keep his kitchen fires burning and who has lost his job will be hardly at peace to think up anything blogworthy, or to think of blogging at all.

But frequent blogging is bad for me, nonetheless. Each post that I write eats into the precious time that I should be investing in the Chennai book, which is stranded in the half-done state for several weeks now. But I am weary of weighing words. You take a word in each palm and weigh them mentally for several minutes before deciding which one fits in better in a sentence -- it can be monotonous and tiring!

With the blog there is no such worry: it's your own bedroom, and no one is going to judge you whether you wear a torn lungi to bed or a proper night dress. The blog satisfies your itch to play with words without having to worry about how you put them across. Moreover, Ganga Mail is not a stickler for grammar; its sole guiding spirit is simplicity and honesty.

So of late, each night after I get home, I find telling myself, "Oh no, not the book again. Let me write one more post and then I'll give it a break. I am sure I will find something to write about." A blog post, unlike a book, is about instant publication, and instant publication leads to instant gratification. Therefore we all blog, even while nursing dreams of giving in the hands of the reader that one book whose pages smell better with every passing year.

In any case, it is going to be a long, long time before people reconcile to the idea that reading books no longer requires the physical presence of books. It might have happened in the case of music -- today a gadget tinier than your thumb can store a thousand songs -- but it is one thing to enjoy music and quite another to enjoy reading (enjoyment being the operative part).

To enjoy music, you need only a pair of ears that are in working condition. But to enjoy reading, all the physical senses simultaneously come into play -- the look, the touch, the smell, the sound, above all, the feel of holding a book. When you are reading a story online, you are a slave of the gadget on which you are reading it. If the gadget fucks up, you are screwed. But when you are reading a book, you are the master of what you are holding in your hands.

It is a lot like sex. The computer may provide you with virtual sex and give you the requisite orgasms, but it can never provide you with replacement for a smooch or a penetrative intercourse or even something as simple and gratifying as a mere touch -- no matter how much technology advances. Advocates of technology may argue what's in a touch when it comes to reading -- you now touch books, tomorrow you will get used to the touch of your iPad or Netbook or whatever. What's more, you can take your iPad (or even laptop) along to the bed or to the toilet, just like you carry a book.

But then, society is yet to validate online writing as works of literature: it will take perhaps another 50 years before bloggers become eligible for the Booker, and another 100 before they are considered for the Nobel Prize for literature. Or maybe even more. Till then, we will have to continue producing real books in order to be in the race, in order to be heard, in order to fulfil our ambitions.

My ambition, ever since Chai, Chai was released in September 2009, was to publish one book a year till I attained the age of 45, so that I could look back at my life with a small sense of satisfaction for having gone beyond the arduous task of keeping a job and yet at the same time feeding my ambition to be a writer. Success might eventually come at the age of 50 when I might develop erectile dysfunction and may not need the money that may pour in at that point of time -- but at least the success would keep my brain functional and yearning for more till the time I dropped dead. There can't be any worse death for a writer when his mind dies before his body.

In keeping with my ambition, I was hoping that my Chennai book would published this year. But fantasy and reality, idea and execution -- they are lines that rarely meet. And it is not easy when you are writing about a city you are living in. Each day you wake up to a new idea and to new people, and suddenly you find the complexion of your book changing and the word-length expanding.

I signed the contract for the Chennai book many weeks before Chai, Chai was released. My mother was alive then, and I remember her wishing me "all the best" -- I still remember making that call to her from the car park of my office. In spite of her death, I was confident that the Chennai book would be published in 2010 -- it was highly doable and I did try my best to make it happen. But then, mind is not a machine: it demands far more holidays and breaks and incentives. Needless to say, my next book will reach readers only sometime next year.

But, very strangely, destiny did not let me down. In 2010 too, I managed to get published, thanks to Urban Shots. Urban Shots is not my book, it is a compilation of 29 short stories, only two of which happen to be mine. But what a pleasure it is to hold a book in your hands and flip through the pages and find the sweets of your hard work embedded somewhere among them. Ladies and gentlemen, please buy Urban Shots and read the short stories, not just because Ganga Mail noses its way into it, but because the book is the collective result of enthusiasm and enterprise, of ambition and aspiration. You will know what I mean only when you read it. As far as I am concerned, I have fulfilled, albeit by default, my quota for the year 2010.

Airport

Arrival lounge: smiles and embraces!
Taking a taxi to the city of Life
Return to the visitor's lounge --
to see off fleshly baggages, one by one.
Return again, without baggage
for the wait at the departure lounge.
Some flights are on time, some delayed.

Sexy

"Bhaiyya, jaldi gate kholo," she curtly told the security guard as she reached inside her bag for the car keys. She was in a hurry. It was 7.20 am now, and she had a meeting at eight. She put on some lip gloss, made the thin, dark lips rub each other a few times, and turned on the ignition.

At 7.20 the roads were empty and the air chilly. She rolled down the window. The drive to work -- that was the only time she had for herself. But today there was a meeting, and there was no time to enjoy the drive.

"Fuck you!" she muttered, as the car in front of her at the signal lingered for a few moments even after the lights had turned green.

She imagined herself at the meeting. Two prospective clients were coming to see her. Mr Dutt and Mr Rajshekhar. She tried putting faces to their names: dashing? balding? clean-shaven? pleasant? scowling? She gave up after a while: reality is always different from the imaginary.

Just then, a bike carrying two young men slowed down by her, and the man on the pillion shouted, "Hi sexy!" Before she could spit out her anger on them, they had sped away.

"Bloody bastards," she muttered. "Hi sexy! -- how dare they!"

She adjusted the rear-view mirror and looked at herself. First at the eyes, then the nose, and finally the lips, which were still glowing. She smiled.

Gratifying Sip Of Chai

Yesterday morning, I received my first royalty cheque for Chai, Chai. Neat sum, neat sales. Thank you, everyone, who bought the book and liked it.

But this morning, I received something which I found more rewarding (and touching) -- a mail from a reader in Pune:

I'm not much of a reader. Randomly, I would pick up a book off the shelves from a Crossword or a Landmark. While searching for a birthday gift for my father, CHAI CHAI caught my attention. The railway tracks with the cup of chai and a few birds flying here and there.

My father spent half of his life on the railway tracks. he went wherever his work took him. I thought I couldnt get a better birthday gift for him. He started reading your book. Might have completed a chapter or two. And well, the heavens took him away.

After a few months, I found the book in his files and papers, and I started reading it. Apart from it being an absolutely stunning read, the book someohow kept taking me back to dad and I was lost in the words you weaved across the pages.

It got me closer to my dad in some or the other way.

I just wanted to thank you sir. And all the very best for the times ahead.

If Chai, Chai has taken someone back to a departed parent, it was worth writing it.

Kishore Kumar: Random Thoughts Past Midnight

Kishore Kumar's voice is like your car. You like it, you love it, and you need it every day, except maybe on the odd holiday when you stay at home. It cruises you through the roads and streets of life. The day your car goes for service, and you are forced to take public transport, it feels like being imprisoned in the home of a host who has nothing but Mukesh or Rafi in his music collection, and you have to pretend to feel the pain as one song after the other whines about heartbreak.

And then there are days when you drive your car not to get to your destination, but just to get the feel of driving it. One of those days when you on a long drive, only because you love your car. Today was one such day for me, when a friend and I were in the Kishore Kumar mood/mode, exchanging his songs and listening to them and feeling ecstatic. What a pleasure it is when your friend has never heard of a particular mind-blowing number that you cherish, and you proudly unveil it for him or her, as if you were the creator of the song!

Needless to say, Kishore Kumar has been humming inside my head since morning. Therefore this post.

It is very rare that I have agreeable company whenever I am get into the Kishore-Kumar mode. Even though those are the moments you badly crave for company -- not just anyone, but someone who feels exactly like the way you do for Kishore Kumar. But how can I find company at three or four in the morning? That's when, once I finish my quota of writing and drinking, I go to You Tube and listen to Kishore Kumar and R.D. Burman. The rarer the videos/song, the more joy they bring. Alcohol, of course, magnifies the joy. Often I share the joy on Facebook, by posting a song or two -- a completely meaningless exercise because I am posting something that people are perhaps already familiar with, but how else does one share joy online?

The thing about Kishore Kumar is -- well, his voice. The way he 'threw' his voice into the microphone; the way he modulated it, as if it was a highly malleable piece of metal; the way he infected you with it -- a sheer work of genius! Rafi was a genius in his own way; there are songs I can never imagine anyone else singing -- the two that instantly come to my mind are Koi sone ke dilwala (Maya) and Dard-e-dil, dard-e-jigar (Karz). If Kishore Kumar is the car, Rafi is the bullock cart, who gently takes around the countryside, the bullocks kicking up the smell of Indian soil.

The only composers who recognised their respective talents, and showcased a healthy mix of them in movies, were the father-son duo of S.D. Burman and R.D. Burman. Guide, Jewel Thief, Aradhana, Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahin, Yaadon Ki Baarat -- they all had Kishore and Rafi singing their own kinds of songs without overshadowing each other.

But.

When you think Aradhana, you think Mere sapnon ki rani or Kishore humming Eh hey, ah ha ha, ah ha (before singing Kora kaagaz thha yeh man mera); when you think Guide, it has to be Gaata rahe mera dil; when you think Jewel Thief, the songs that instantly come to your mind are Yeh dil, na hota bechara or Aasman ke neeche. When you think of Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahin, it has to be the lively Bachna ae haseeno, lo mein aa gaya.

Well, that's the difference between Kishore and Rafi. Rafi is the glass of drink that soothes you after a long day, but Kishore is the minty toothpaste that shakes you out of slumber and energises you in a matter of seconds -- and it doesn't have to be only in the morning. Yoodlee-oo!

May be continued.

Shopping, Then And Now

Today, Nilgiris, the 105-year-old chain of supermarkets, inaugurated its 100th store right next to my office. Needless to say, many people at work were seen walking in with Nilgiris carry bags. Not to be outdone, I took a 10-minute break and visited the store. The great thing about shopping in supermarkets and malls is that you walk in without being in the need of buying anything, and yet you walk out with purchases that make you feel extremely good. Some people call it retail therapy, I would call it a disease.

This evening, when I walked into Nilgiris, I knew I won't come out empty-handed. The question was, what to buy? Vegetables would have been a great option. Imagine, wife waking up in the morning and finding the fridge stocked: what pleasure! But it would be embarrassing to carry back to work a bag that has various gourds sticking out of it. Eventually, I found myself standing in front of the all-too-familiar shelf: the one that stocks grooming products.

The thing with grooming products is, they make you see a brighter tomorrow. Their very touch fill you with positive energy, and you secretly imagine yourself to be one of the male models who graces the advertisements in GQ or Esquire. You find telling yourself: "Fuck man, no more drinking from tonight. I am going to use these products from tomorrow and look good and get all the women."

Tomorrow, alas, never comes. It is always tonight.

So, I picked up a large bottle of Dove shampoo, a bottle of Neutrogena facewash, one Brut deodorant and a bottle of Yardley cologne (the original, not Indian-made). On the way out, I was handed a loaf of bread and a packet of atta -- they were gifts I was entitled to for having made the purchases.

"But I don't want atta," I told the attendant handing out the free items, "I saw people getting pieces of cake."

"But that's for minimum purchase, sir. Your bill is high."

"But I don't want atta."

"Can I give you another packet of bread?"

"Ok."

Back in office, I called up wife to announce the gifts: two packets of bread. After all, she is the breakfast person, while I wake up only around lunchtime. I thought she would be happy.

"But what all did you buy to get those gifts?" she asked me.

I told her.

"But aren't there so many bottles of shampoos and aftershaves already rotting at home?" she asked.

I told her they were all bound to get empty, sooner than later.

"If at all you were itching to spend money, you could have bought something for me."

"Well, I almost bought something for you."

"What?" she asked.

"Vegetables."

"What?"

After she hung up, I pondered over my purchases. I had just spent Rs 1,500 on things I did not need at all. Fifteen hundred bucks is peanuts all right -- even though that was my take-home salary when I entered journalism 18 years ago -- but to spend it mindlessly was criminal. With that money, I could have bought five Wality fountain pens fitted with Sheaffer nibs, or three good books, or one Calvin Klein T-shirt, and so on. The list is endless, and yet I fucking spent the money on shampoo and facewash and cologne.

That's what the supermarket does to you. It plays on your greed, not need.

One Sunday morning when you wake up, your wife announces that there is no turmeric powder at home. So you wear your clothes and head to the nearest supermarket to buy a packet of turmeric powder. But once at the store, thoughts such as these cross your mind and rapidly translate into action:

-- I just saw only three eggs left in the fridge. Shouldn't I pick up a dozen more?;

-- The wife did not ask for it, but no harm picking up a couple of packets of puffed rice. Maybe she forgot to mention it;

-- Oh yes, Maggi. Let me grab a few packets of noodles. Saves a lot of trouble when the cook or the maid doesn't turn up;

-- Hey, this new Nivea facewash, it says it lightens the skin. It would be criminal not to try it out;

-- Ah, a nice pair of toothbrush! One is supposed to change toothbrush every few weeks;

-- Olive oil? Awesome! It is good for the heart, zero cholestrol and all that;

-- Wait a minute, let me pick up a pack of Real juice. Why one, let me pick up two. Who the hell is going to come to the store again and again;

-- Hey, wait, wait. Ages since I had lime pickle;

-- Wait, wait, wait, how about some appalam! They go so well with sambhar and rasam;

-- Wait a minute, did I see them selling water bottles? I need one to take to the gym, and another to keep in the office;

-- Ok, let me check out of the store now. But wait, why not pick up that Gillette aftershave?;

-- Oh, before I forget, a few packs of Gold Flake Kings. There they are!

And so, there you are! You come to buy a packet of turmeric powder, but you exit the store carrying two heavy bags. They contain stuff you don't need at all, but you convince yourself into believing that you need them all badly. Reality hits you when the bank, at the end of the month, sends you the credit card statement, but even then you refuse to learn.

Oh how much I miss the olden days when, armed with a ten-rupee note, you could run to the neighbourhood grocer and buy a dozen eggs, a packet of Modern bread, a hundred grams of turmeric and other stuff, and still be handed back a few coins in return. Now what to do with those coins? With those measly coins you bought kampat -- each kampat cost five paise back then -- and the kampat was the commission you charged from your parents for every trip to the grocer. Does anyone even remember what a kampat means, leave alone its taste?

Those were the days when the shopkeeper asked you, "Kya chaahiye?" Today, standing inside a supermarket, you ask yourself, "Aur kya chaahiye?"

Roadside Life

Three in the afternoon but it's dark in Chennai, raining off and on. A cyclone is supposed to be on the way. One of those days when you just want to stay home and look out of the window and watch the coconut trees dance in the shower. Well, I am home: it's Sunday.

While I am sitting at home and writing this, there are people who are enjoying the weather (or climate, as many say) outdoors, by way of a long drive or a romantic walk on the beach or elsewhere. I don't envy them because I just had my share of outdoor experience: I walked down to the supermarket to stock up on cigarettes in case the cyclone gets too harsh on Chennai. It was a pleasant walk, I must say.

But I can't help sparing a thought for people who have to be outdoors, sunshine or rain. People like us, who are out in this lovely weather either on business or for pleasure, have the choice of returning home whenever the rain becomes too steady for comfort. But there are people who live on the footpaths, for who the comfort of watching the rain from the window is as distant as my dream of owning a villa in Cannes.

I am not talking about the pavement-dwellers in general: they constitute such a large chunk of urban India that if you start feeling sorry for all of them, nothing will be left of your heart to be spared for the women who come your way. I am talking of people like Senthil, who made the pavement his home out of choice. People like him are honourable citizens of the pavement, who neither beg for a living nor curse their fate or the government.

I worked with the New Indian Express group for seven long years; and of those seven, five were spent at the sprawling Express Estates on Club House Road off Mount Road, before the offices shifted to faraway Ambattur. Today, Express Estates has become Express Avenue, Chennai's biggest and plushest shopping mall, while Club House Road is now better known as the address of the hotel Taj Mount Road.

Taj Mount Road was still a skeleton of bricks when we used to look at it while sipping tea at Senthil's shop, and wonder if anything was ever going to come up there. For years it was just a skeleton: perhaps the site was caught in a legal dispute. Senthil ran a tea stall on the pavement just outside the main gate of Express Estates. The table on which his stove and various jars of biscuits sat during daytime became his bed at night. In 2006, when we said goodbye to Express Estates and moved to Ambattur, I wrote a post about Senthil.

About a year later, while we were drinking at a TASMAC bar in Ambattur, I learned that Senthil had died. It had been raining in Chennai, and one night while asleep, Senthil had rolled off the table and fallen on the ground. He lay unconscious for hours, maybe a day or two, but no one noticed him because heavy rains had kept people away from Club House Road. Finally he died, under the table on which he lived -- a citizen of the pavement till the last breath.

Then the other day, I was walking down Venkatanarayana Road in the afternoon, when I noticed a body laid out on the pavement under a tree. The body, in shroud, was kept inside a glass case, and a few people sat mournfully around it. Next to the glass case was a table, on which lay a heap of tender coconut shells and twigs. In the heap there were a couple of tender coconuts that were yet to be hacked open.

I found it odd that people should place their dead on the pavement and mourn publicly, so I made enquiries. It turned out that the body belonged to the tender-coconut-seller, who was found dead that morning on the pavement. He had a family: some of them lived in Chennai, some in Madurai. But he, for some reason, chose to live on the pavement, selling tender coconuts, right at the spot where Venkatanarayana Road begins (opposite T. Nagar Club. I wonder if any of you were ever his customers). The spot under the tree was his home, so it was only befitting for his body should be laid there, bedecked in flowers, while the family waited for his daughter to arrive from Madurai. So here was another life that was spent and that ended on the pavement. The sun and the rain are best friends of such people, though such friends, like any friend, can turn treacherous at times.

Diwali Thoughts: Life Isn't The Same

Change is inevitable; some changes you embrace, some you are resigned to.

When your son grows up and fits into your shoes, you embrace the change even though you realise that you are no longer as young as you used to be. Most often you don't even have the time for the realisation because you are so busy being proud that your child is now your height.

But when you lose a parent, you have no choice but to resign to change. Suddenly, you find the road behind you having disappeared. Suddenly, you are bereft of the biggest luxury of life -- the protection provided by parental love. Once you lose the luxury, no other luxury matters or can compensate for it. Of what use the luxuries if the person you want to share them with the most, or who would have felt extremely smug at the thought that her son has earned those luxuries, is not there anymore?

What will always rankle me is that my mother died very young -- she was only 58 -- that too at a time when I badly wanted her to be alive for a few more years. But destiny rarely lets you have your cake and eat it too.

In two months I will turn 40, and in these 40 years, I have never, ever, been away from Kanpur during Diwali, except twice -- last year and this year.

The Diwali of 2009 could have easily been the grandest of my life: the debut book of an aspiring writer had just hit the stands -- what timing! I could have savoured the fruits of my labour in the form of Tiwariji's samosas and sweets, burst a few crackers and lit a few anaars in celebration of Diwali as well as the publication of Chai, Chai, had some chai with the family (no sugar in my mother's tea as usual) in the verandah while watching sparklers light up the sky, and then retiring to the room upstairs as usual with my brother to drink, then, smelling of alcohol, going to Kali Bari -- Kali temple -- late in the night to mark the passage of time. The neighbourhood Bengali uncle who was once dashing is now old and balding, and this wife, the aunty, walking with a limp. But their daughter, once a snotty little girl in the class, has now flowered into a stunning Bong beauty: fuck, why didn't I ever think of marrying her! Finally, we return home, that would be lit up all night by the countless chains of tiny lights. Ah, my home!

But look at the timing: my mother died just a month and a half before Diwali. She even missed the book by just eight days -- after all the painstaking effort she had taken during my childhood to teach me how to write a story. So the Diwali of 2009 was spent in Chennai, in mourning, though there was a pleasant distraction: a formal launch of Chai, Chai took place at Taj Connemara just two days before Diwali. My father had come to attend the launch, and on Diwali night, we went around the city, first to the Ramakrishna Mutt, then to Citi Centre and finally to Kali Bari in Chennai. We missed Kanpur, but we didn't mention it.

The Diwali of 2010 -- that is today -- could have easily been the second-grandest of my life. Today also happens to be my brother's birthday. Since he is November-born, Diwali always threatens to coincide with his birthday but the last time it actually did so was perhaps 25 or 30 years ago. What an occasion it would have been this evening! -- celebration of Diwali, celebration of the younger son's birthday, celebration of the minor success of the elder's son first book and the fact that he had signed contracts for a few more, celebration of a nuclear family.

Alas, I could not be in Kanpur this year. I just took a long leave to go to Kanpur to perform rituals related to her first death anniversary and to spend time with my father and brother. I have no more leave to avail of this year. Even if I did, it would have been no fun being there without mother. She would have been very conspicuous by her absence. So that is why I am here, in Chennai, putting up with the ear-splitting sounds of crackers being burst since early morning.

Mother isn't around to serve the bitter-gourd juice, father isn't around to serve the morning tea, brother isn't around to share the evening drink with. Till recently, it used to be just the four of us, and we were quite smug about that. During Dhanteras, which falls two days before Diwali, it is considered auspicious in north India to buy either utensils or jewellery on that day. One Dhanteras evening, a few years ago, when I went out drinking with friends in Kanpur, my mother, who wasn't feeling too well to step out of home, had entrusted me with buying something -- as a token -- for the occasion. On the way back home, I picked up just two spoons from a very crowded utensil shop -- in any case, they were just supposed to be symbolic of a new purchase. When I reached home, my mother told me, "Whenever you pick up something like this, always buy four. Because we are four. Tomorrow, though, when you both are married, you may need to pick up six."

Dhanteras does not make sense anymore. Though this Dhanteras, I unwittingly treated myself to a Vality fountain pen. It is a chunky pen with a transparent ink-tank -- sheer pleasure to hold. You instantly feel scholarly and writerly. Many illustrious men in Tamil Nadu, starting with chief minister Karunanidhi, are loyal users of this pen. What's more, mine turned out to be fitted with a Sheaffer nib and therefore cost more: Rs 250, compared to the usual Rs 90. With this pen, I intend to write my onward journey, now that the road behind me has disappeared.

What Does She Think Of Herself?

A few years ago, walking down the road in Kanpur, I noticed a small boy, holding his mother's hand, walking in front of me. Suddenly, the boy broke free from his mother's grip and ran. He almost came under a car but the driver, a young woman, applied brakes just in time.

"Kya samajhti hai apne aap ko!" the boy's mother yelled while looking at the car -- What does she think of herself!

I was quite suprised by her reaction: instead of scolding the boy, she was getting angry with the woman who had actually saved her son's life by applying brakes in the nick of time. Then I realised, had the driver been a man, she would have at the most shouted, "Dekh kar nahin chalte kya?" -- Can't you watch out while driving? But the sight of a woman on the driver's seat (in the car as well as in life) was a bit too unpalatable for this boy's mother. And therefore, the 'What do you think of yourself.' The mother kept throwing angry, backward, glances at the car till it was out of sight, and only then did she give one slap to the boy for sprinting out of her grip.

It is the 'What do you think of yourself' syndrome that bites the Indian, man or woman, whenever Arundhati Roy writes or says something in public.

I am neither a fan of her, nor a baiter; I haven't even read her, though I am aware of what she writes about because of the noise made in the media. And I think it is commendable on her part to raise issues that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. In the process, she at least creates awareness and every newspaper-reading Indian gets to examine or re-examine the issue she is raising. The opinion you arrive at after examining the issue is a completely different matter -- you are free to agree with her or disagree with her.

But why go after her hammer and tongs as if she was a witch going to eat up the nation? It was to understand, and perhaps explain, this question that I wrote my previous post. But the point seemed to have been lost. As far as Kashmir or the Maoist movement is concerned, your opinion may be different from mine and I have no quarrel with that. I only sought to address one simple question: why does the whole of literate India seem to be seething with rage every time Arundhati Roy opens her mouth?

She is hardly a threat, after all. She does not run a political party that can influence people. She does not even command a small-time political outfit. She is not even as influential as individuals such as Medha Patkar or Baba Amte. She is not even being a writer -- just a one-book wonder. And yet, so much of rage, so much of anger -- coming from people who have learned to live with the likes of Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray?

The answer is simple. Arundhati Roy is a woman -- a woman who is attractive and articulate, defiant and daring, who effectively uses glamour and celebrity to draw attention to the issues she raises. Too unpalatable for Indian sensibilities. Indians must revolt: What does she think of herself?

Had the same views been expressed by a khadi-wearing, jhola-carrying gentleman called Arun Roy, instead of Arundhati Roy, no one would have wasted their time and emotions in retaliating.

There is a genial doctor called Binayak Sen, who spent the best part of his productive life in Chhattisgarh, treating and fighting for the oppressed, and yet languished in jail for allegedly being kind to the Maoists. Now tell me -- and do tell me the truth -- how many of you had even heard of Dr Sen until he was released from jail pretty recently following intervention by the Supreme Court? And yet you bristle with anger and activism when a certain Arundhati Roy speaks her mind on the same issue. Why so?

An Indian woman is supposed to be shy and coy and conforming to the rules set by the society. Until very recently, the storylines of many Indian films, including Hindi films, have been about taming the tomboy. In the first half of the film, the heroine defies tradition and raises eyebrows, but in the next half, she is tamed by the macho hero into being as soft as a snowflake. The audience gave out a collective sigh of orgasm: "Wow, he taught her a lesson." It walked out of the theatre with a smug look, happpy that the social equilibrium remained undisturbed.

The mindset hasn't changed since then. Problems still arise when a woman stops being a doormat and decides to raise issues and ask questions. That's when we Indians take a big gulp and exclaim in outrage, "How could she? What does she think of herself?"

Why People Hate Arundhati Roy

I first saw Arundhati Roy on our black and white TV, in a film called Massey Sahib that was directed by her husband Pradeep Kishen. Though at the time I did not know she was the Arundhati Roy. She played the role of a tribal woman, if my memory serves right, and I found her quite attractive.

Then, of course, we all got to know Arundhati Roy. The Booker and all. There were two other people with India connection who had won the Booker before, but Salman Rushdie did not live long enough in India, while Naipaul was never born in India -- they were as good as Brits. The news of their winning the Booker, for the lay Indian, must have been as significant, or insignificant, as the mayor of an American city inaugurating a library. But Arundhati Roy, by winning the prize, brought about a revolution. Just how Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai, by winning the Miss Universe and Miss World crowns, made the average young Indian woman look at herself in the mirror again, Roy's Booker breathed fire into the ambition of the ordinary Indian who had always dreamed to be a respected writer.

I never bought a copy of God Of Small Things: I read a few passages from a colleague's copy and did not feel encouraged to invest money in it, even though those days -- this was in 1997 or 1998 I think -- I was buying books left, right and centre. Maybe I hadn't matured as a reader then, even though I was old enough.

I also never got around to reading any of Arundhati Roy's Outlook articles, maybe a few paras, though, thanks to the debates they always kicked up in newspapers and news channels; I have been aware of what she is writing about. It is clear that she likes to take up the case, or the cause, of voiceless people who do not have a strong spokesperson backing them. And I think that is highly commendable. Take the Maoists for example. If you treat Maoists as enemies, you will never win the battle against them. But if you look into the reasons why Maoist rebels are born in the first place, you might have a solution at hand. But then, an exchange of gunfire is far easier than making an effort to change the system -- so what if a few policemen lose their lives? Maoists, after all, are not enemies planted on Indian soil by al Quaeda: they are our own people -- very poor, very deprived and very humiliated.

When you are living in a big city, say Delhi, where everything is just a phone call away, right from the morning milk to the pizza for dinner, life is so hunky dory that you tell yourself -- "Wow, India has progressed so much! Couldn't have imagined this happening 10 years ago!" True. But it is only the cities that have progressed, India hasn't. In a city, all you need to do is walk up to the gate of your apartment with your child, and soon a school bus will arrive to take the child to school. But in non-urban India, children walk for kilometres to get to school. Just imagine pairs of tiny feet walking five or six kilometres just to get to school. Can it get any more cruel? In many cases, they have a river or a stream falling on the way: they wade through it too.

Now, how many of the pizza-eating crowd have ever bothered to take up the cause of such people -- people who are poor, who live in remote areas, who fight not only their fate but also the system perpetrated by the state? Yet they all like to talk about the harm that Arundhati Roy -- of all people -- is causing to the nation!

What's so drastically wrong if Roy spoke in favour of Kashmiris seeking freedom? Kashmir does not become an 'integral part' of India just because the Indian government says so. It is for the Kashmiris to decide whether they consider themselves to be an integral part of India or not. If they think so, well and good, but if they don't, just too bad. People like us, who don't live in Kashmir and are not even remotely concerned with it, have no business forcing them into being an integral part of India. Cyril Radcliffe had left Kashmir out while partitioning India, but when Pakistani raiders entered the Valley in October 1947, the maharaja acceded to India and since then, the 'Kashmir issue' was born. Even when there was peace in Kashmir, the Kashmiris referred to us as Indians -- which meant they did not consider themselves as one. Slogan-shouting is one thing, ground reality another.

The Indian government is aware of the ground reality, that is why it did not book Arundhati Roy for sedition. I am sure there were many benevolent Britishers who thought that India must be freed from British rule, but I don't think Britain tried them for sedition. That's the beauty of democracy. You speak your mind. The day you are hounded for speaking your mind, you are no longer living in a democracy but in an autocracy.

The real reason why there is so much of anger against Arundhati Roy, every time she writes or says something, lies elsewhere. It lies in the Indian mindset. She is attractive, intelligent, articulate, bold and defiant -- something unpalatable for the chauvinistic Indian, male or female, who want women to be always conforming. So they go after her, hammer and tongs, even while being indifferent when serious cases of corruption are exposed day after day. Recently I put a status message to this effect on my Facebook profile, and was greeted with several angry comments. I would like to quote from two of them:

-- Can the freedom of speech in a democracy be stretched to challenge the sovereignty and integrity of the country? Rights come to citizen along with responsibility. Citizens should heckle her instead of government doing that.

-- The anger of people has increased with every irresponsible statement she made which has shown complete disregard to this nation. The nation cannot sit back and ignore her when she keeps on making those politically provocative statements again and again and again!!!

Nation. Sovereignty. Integrity. Big words. But, then, we are a big nation. A very big nation. Yet threatened and outraged by the views of just one woman activist. Why?

Till I Met You!

Today is Kishore Kumar's death anniversary. Kishore Kumar! -- I can do without women, but not without his voice. Never.

His songs mark my existence, they are the core of my being. People associated with my childhood, my growing-up years will fade one day -- my mother is already gone -- but Kishore Kumar's voice will remain just as fresh, an unbreakable pillar from the past.

He sang countless songs, most of which I like, needless to say. But there is one song which I totally identify with -- beautifully written, composed and sung. I am proud to say that the lyricist is on my friend's list on Facebook (I was the one who shamelessly added him out of hero-worship), which means he is very much a part of the present and not yet of the romantic, unreachable past. Am talking of Amit Khanna: he wrote quite a few memorable songs for Kishore Kumar, the best known among them being Chalte chalte, mere yeh geet yaad rakhna, kabhi alvida na kehna...

But this song is special. Lie back, plug the earphones, shut your eyes and -- enjoy!

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Women Versus Women

Last week, I attended the debate that Outlook magazine has been organising in major cities to celebrate 15 years of its existence. This being Chennai, the subject of the debate was 'Moral Policing in a Democracy.'

It was a lively debate, with plenty of active participation from the audience, and I am fortunate to have attended it. The audience kept booing a former vice-chancellor of Anna University who, during his tenure, had forbidden jeans and T-shirt on the campus, the reason being if female students wore jeans and T-shirt, it would distract the teachers and therefore education would suffer.

Supporting him was Dr Tamilisai Soundarajan. This lady needs introduction. Her father, Kumari Anandan, is a well-known Congress leader from Tamil Nadu, but the daughter chose to join the BJP and even contested the last elections from North Chennai. Dr Tamilisai is also a medical doctor.

"I know it better, because I am a doctor myself. There is something called excitement," she thundered, seeking to explain medically the effect that the sight of a T-shirt/jeans-clad female student can have on the male teacher. I wanted to ask her two things:

1. Madam, by the same logic, male doctors should not examine female patients. What if the stethoscope keeps landing at the wrong place out of excitement? Worse, what if they wrote the wrong medicine out of excitement?

2. Madam, if the teachers get excited by the mere sight of a T-shirt-clad female student, do they deserve to be teaching in the first place? Did they complete their PhD's in a jungle, living in a cave?

But I didn't ask her these questions because she was already being hounded. Moreover, I was just a fly on the wall, taking notes: I was determined not to become a participant. By not being a participant, one can write with total objectivity.

But one statement made by the lady keeps ringing in my ears -- and mind you, she is a doctor! When the subject came to young people visiting pubs, she shouted:

"If you see your sister or daughter drinking in a pub, won't you give her one tight slap and drag her home?"

The panelists cringed. And then she thundered again, "I am a doctor, I know the harmful effects of alcohol."

I don't really blame her. She was merely echoing what you call the typical Indian mentality. In my personal experience, I have seen it is the women who have all the fun in the parties and the pubs because they know how to hold their drink unlike the men who are prone to get drunk and therefore more susceptible to the ill-effects of alcohol. But never did Dr Tamilisai say, "If you find your brother or son drinking in a pub, won't you give him one tight slap and drag him home?"

The men are excused, you see. The onus is on the women to be well-behaved and keep the so-called Indian culture together. A man can go out of town on work and gladly romance a colleague or engage a sex worker, nothing happens. His wife might give him hell if she ever finds out, but the society merely winks mischievously. But if a working woman were to do the same, the scandalised society would take it upon itself to brand her a slut.

Indian society is still very primitive and chauvinistic, which does not appreciate a woman taking her own decisions. Even something as simple as having a drink all by herself is likely to be met by raised eyebrows. An Indian woman, if at all she has to drink, must do so only in the company of her husband or boyfriend or when she has a bunch of friends over. If she enjoys a drink all by herself, and if people come to know about it, they call her a 'loose character'. How can a woman enjoy a drink alone? So hard to digest she is having fun without the permission or approval of a man. That is the truth, and no one can deny it.

When I say chauvinism, I don't mean male chauvinism. Women, in my opinion, are the biggest enemies of women. One does not like the idea of another having a good time. Often, such jealousies are the result of grapes being sour. A woman who has never been asked out by a man for a cup of coffee or a drink will always look at couples sitting in a coffee shop or a pub with a tainted vision. Imagine two women living under the same roof, say hostel mates. One gets all the male attention, while the other gets none. You will invariably find the one, who does not get the attention, constantly warning the other: "You must be careful with men. You don't know what they are capable of. Avoid them." But if the deprived woman happens to find attention as well, then man ceases to be an evil creature and the hostel room becomes a rosy place to live in.

It is not too difficult to find one woman sympathising with another for having an abusive or an impotent husband; but if the aggrieved woman happens to have a one-night stand or feels good in the arms of another man, she is instantly branded as loose-character by the same sympathising woman.

Suffer,
and I am with you;
Seek pleasure,
then to hell with you.

That's the kind of emotion that works between women.

It is quite evident from the angry comments that my previous post has attracted. It is the story of a woman called Ms C, who is bold as well as beautiful (and therefore more of a threat to women than men),and who, one night during a party, has no-strings-attached sex with a colleague of her husband in his car. She has a good time, and the next morning she wakes with no sour feelings but only a backache caused by the lack of space in the car. I wrote that how I respected her for being bold enough to enjoy sex for the sake of sex without inventing an emotional excuse.

But no one agreed with me. And then it struck me, why so. I realised that if you are Indian woman, certain rules apply:

1. You should not think of sex unless there is a man who grants legitimacy to your thoughts;

2. You should not even dream of having sex with any man other than the one mentioned above;

3. You can have sex with another man, but for that you need to be sufficiently 'carried away';

4. But the next morning, after being 'carried away' the night before, you must be found choking with guilt, shedding copious tears, even contemplating suicide. It is very important that you show signs of guilt or else the society will put the 'Loose' stamp on your character certificate.

But if you don't comform to these norms, you are branded a slut. And why? Not because of morality -- because no one has been able to define morality -- but only jealousy.

Ms C, after all, is a woman to be jealous about. She is beautiful and she is bold. She falls for the charm of a man and decides to have sex with him, without inventing stories in order to justify her act. Why should she justify it -- and to who? She is pretty much sure what she wants. All she wants is good sex for that night and she gets it. The next morning she does not wake up with suicidal thoughts or shed tears of guilt. She goes to work as usual, ableit with a backache.

Now that's what is needling people, who can't digest the fact that an Indian woman can enjoy sex with a stranger and at the same time wake up the next morning without a trace of guilt. Oh boy, how can a good-looking woman decide to enjoy sex on her own: shouldn't somebody tame her and tell her about moral values?

But no one grudges a man enjoying sex. In fact, the society conspires to see to it that he gets to enjoy it, legitimately or illegimately. But when it comes to women, the society is jealous. Women are a source of enjoyment, how can they seek enjoyment -- it is highly immoral!

I know for a fact that the baiters of Ms C are mostly women, because men would only like her tribe to grow. It is the women who disapprove of her action and the explanation is simple: "How can you enjoy it, you bitch, when none of us can't?"

And finally, a word for those troubled souls who, every time I write on the subject of sex, ask me the same 'What if your wife' question. Such souls never go into the merit of a post and instead choose to get personal and dirty.

Dear Troubled Soul, if you think I am a hypocrite who advocates free sex on one hand and at the same time cringes at the thought of my wife going for it, you are wrong. Perhaps you are the kind who tells himself or herself every now and then, "Shucks, how could I even think about it? What if my spouse did the same to me?" But unlike you, I have the luxury of expressing my thoughts freely because that's the way I want it. If you don't know how to speak your mind you are a vegetable. And my thoughts are neither a slave of my wife's presence, nor is my wife the slave of my presence or my thoughts. We are two individuals who respect each other and who do not let insecurities curb each other. Does having a wife mean that I, as a writer, should not express my thoughts on sex? Does having a wife mean that I cannot stand up and clap for Ms C?

I am here to stand by my beliefs, not to entertain the insecurities that you express.

The Backache

It's a true story and a recent one, something that happened last Saturday.

Ms C, a strikingly good-looking woman, hailing from Punjab but currently living in Chennai, had accompanied her husband to a dinner party organised by his office. It was a gala event, held on the lawns and attended by nearly 500 people. It was one of those sophisticated evenings when alcohol and perfume combine to give off a smell that tickles you in the right places; when women look magnetic and the men attractive; when decorum mingles with flirtation and they together lend a certain sexiness to the evening air.

Ms C's husband can be counted as attractive, the well-bred sort who can charm women as well as men. I have seen him several times, but never met him or shaken hands with him. For that matter, I don't know Ms C too well either -- I have been, as they say, only on 'Hi-Hello' terms with her. But I know about her quite well: how she locked her husband out one whole night just because he had forgotten their wedding anniversary (the poor man sat on the stairs till the milkman came in the morning); how they made love seven times in a single day during a subsequent wedding-anniversary trip to Mauritius; how she was thrilled when the husband presented her a diamond pendant on her birthday (I even know the price of the pendant: "Half a lakh rupees").

All this I know because Ms C's best friend and confidant happens to be a friend of mine. They work in the office and during lunchbreak every afternoon, Ms C invariably pours her heart out to her best friend-cum-colleague. Occasionally, some of the titillating details find their way into my ears.

So last Monday, a day after the dinner organised by her husband's company, Ms C walked into office with a severe backache. Everybody at the workplace sympathised with her and asked her to take it easy: the world never lets a pretty woman suffer. And then, during lunchtime, the reason behind her backache came out tumbling. She had had too much sex.

During the dinner night, Ms C had fallen for the charm of a husband's colleague. She had never met him before, he too was seeing her for the first time. Sparks flew, and while the husband was busy making small talk with his bosses, they slipped out to the parking lot and made love in his car. It was a Maruti 800, which has enough room to hold a small family but is small enough to contain the lust of two people. So space was a constraint and therefore she got a terrible backache.

Apart from the physical pain, Ms C had nothing to complain about. She had had a good time, she said. She finally had sex with someone she liked instantly, without making elaborate mental preparations to explain or justify it. It was a fuck for the sake of a fuck: no mess to clear up the next morning, except attending to a backache.

All these years, I had never thought very highly of Ms C -- she was too flawless and model-type to be taken seriously. But once I heard the backache story, my respect for her touched the sky.

We all want sex -- good sex, actually. Sex is something which even animals have, but good sex is something that remains invariably elusive to the lay human. And therefore the search. We often go to great lengths looking for it, and even after having found a potential source, spend a substantial part of our lifetime wondering -- should I or should I not? And even if we decide to go for it, another chunk of the lifetime is wasted in cooking up a socially-acceptable justification for the desire to have good sex. By the time the sex happens, it is so deliberately mired in emotions that pleasure goes out of the window.

Sex is actually an act of pleasure -- procreation is a pathetically secondary purpose. Gandhiji looked down upon sex as a tool of pleasure; he wanted the act to be strictly reserved for procreation, if at all the need arose. But in order to procreate, you need to be sufficiently pleasured to carry out the act of procreation!

Gandhi, for that matter, was married at 13 and became a celibate only at 36 -- after a good 23 years of what they call marital bliss. Twenty-three years is a long, long time to have -- or enjoy -- sex with the same person. But, strangely, in the autumn of his life, when he was old enough to be a great-grandfather and should have abandoned thoughts about sex anyway, Gandhi was still testing his will power to resist the pleasures of sex by coaxing women to sleep naked with him -- disregarding the psychological impact his bizzare acts might have on the young women. In the present day, the so-called 'Brahmacharya experiments' would have landed Bapu in jail under multiple charges of sexual harrassment.

And here is Ms C, who had one clean experiment with pleasure. No psychological residue, no ugly remnants. Only a good feeling and backache.

Appetite For Life

In precisely three months, I will turn 40. I hope to write a long and sentimental post a few days before I reach the milestone -- the milestone that officially marks the entry to middle-age. But right now, when the time is 3.20 am and when I was quite busy rewriting a chapter for the Chennai book, I don't know why the thought suddenly struck me that I would be 40 soon.

Maybe because this evening, when I went to work, the office boy handed me an envelope that contained four Mediclaim cards. Two things struck me as odd: no. 1, one of the cards issued was in the name of my mother, who is now up in heaven (my fault: I should have officially communicated to the people concerned that my mother is no more, but I presumed they all knew); no. 2, on my own card, my age was given as 40. You can fool the world but you can't fool the HR department which is instrumental in getting you medical benefits. If your date of birth is December 26, 1970, the HR guys are naturally going to calculate your current age to be 40: they won't wait for the clock to strike twelve.

Fuck, I am forty! Fuck time, really. The bitch makes no noise while it is ticking away. It deliberately ticks on the sly, as silently as possible, so that it can spring surprises on you just when you are feeling good about life. What a sadist bitch, I tell you. She sucks your blood without you realising it, and then one day you look carefully into the mirror and discover the damage she has done. By then it is too late.

But it is never too late. Show the middle finger to her and you might just live. Ms Time must realise we no longer live in the pre-World War II era when tuberculosis cut short promising lives even while they were in their forties: D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell, to name just two. Today, life begins at forty. And that's because our parents are living much longer and their assuring presence makes us feel like kids even whle we are in our thirties. The forties, therefore, is the new teenage. So celebrate, ladies and gentlemen!

But we all know such a celebration is only delusionary: forty, after all, is forty and not fourteen. Real celebration is when you are able to turn the tables and screw Ms Time so hard that she doesn't dare touch you until you have seen at least 88 summers. Am talking about Mr Henry Miller. He was no Hemingway, but he was no less. Both Miller and Hemingway survived the two World Wars and lived happily ever after -- none of them died of tuberculosis. And the reason for this, according to me, was their libido and appetite for life.

I have hope. I not only share Mr Miller's libido and appetite for life, but also his date of birth.

Break-Time Thoughts

Tonight I feel like taking a break from writing and coming back to the arms of my long-neglected blog -- and maybe write something about writing. There is little else I have been doing or thinking about these days that is worth articulating on Ganga Mail.

I have been writing like a madman; and when I say writing, it does not mean I am producing thousands of words when I sit in front of the computer with a bottle of whisky at my feet every night. There are times when as many as three hours are spent on composing a 15-word sentence. That speaks either very highly or very poorly of my skills as a writer. And there are times when an entire night is spent staring at the screen and nothing writing-worthy comes to mind.

But then, as I have always said and believed, writing is something that comes to you. You cannot go to it. But for writing to come to you, you must be in a state of readiness to receive it. And you can be ready only if you are already at the computer, toiling with words for hours or weeks or months together -- and then the sentences that you've been wanting to write come magically to you.

I can't call myself a writer yet because I've published only one book and another is still being written. But I know well enough by now that writing is an extremely lonely exercise: nobody thinks you are doing anything of consequence until the final product is out in the bookshops. So you are left to your own devices. Friends try to help of course, but you can't expect them to jump up in excitement every time you scream, "Eureka!" They have their own things to do.

Writing, in my opinion and little experience, is not so much about what you write but how you write it. And that's the most painful part: to summon the words that accurately describe the situation or emotion you are seeking to convey to the reader. The simpler the situation or the emotion, the more difficult it is to get the right words and make a sentence out of them. Alcohol sometimes helps, while sometimes it makes you go overboard. Eventually, it is only in a sober state the next morning that you decide how exactly a particular sentence should read. So Eureka again, but you keep the Eureka feeling to yourself when you are sober. And then night falls -- time again to dash naked across the virtual street to flaunt your achievement with words in a drunken state. Eventually, a book gets written. Hopefully, I get to write mine soon.

The title of my second book has just been decided, finally, and 40% of the manuscipt is sitting in a folder on my computer. The remaining 60% is still in my head, waiting to be fleshed out. Obviously, many more agonising months lie ahead. After all, I am not Hunter S. Thompson, the legendary American journalist who made writing look as simple as chewing gum.

Apart from writing, I have also been reading a lot these days. By reading I mean dipping into books that I've been constantly ordering from Flipkart.com. They are books I would like to read cover to cover -- someday maybe -- but since I don't have the time to do so right now, I fish for passages that provide me with the required nourishment to keep me going with the manuscript.

I shall reproduce one such nourishing passage, from The Gonzo Papers Anthology, a 1,200-page compilation of Hunter S. Thompson's dispatches as a journalist, which I ordered recently from Flipkart:

Dear Colonel Giang,

I am the National Affairs Editor of Rolling Stone, a San Francisco-based magazine, with offices in New York, Washington and London, that is one of the most influential journalistic voices in America right now -- particularly among the young and admittedly left-oriented survivors of the antiwar Peace Movement in the 1960s. I'm not an especially good typist, but I am one of the best writers currently using the English language as both a musical instrument and a political weapon...

The last line, oh, the last line.