A FEW MINUTES at a bus stop can be a revelation about life in a metro
At least once a day, to give my eyes a break from staring at the computer screen, I step out of the office and stand outside its boundary wall, on the pavement, which also happens to be a bus stop. I lean against the wall and watch the world go past.
Right across the road stands the new Secretariat building, Karunanidhi's dream, its side view resembling a row of mammoth water tanks (oil tanks, if you like), which was abandoned by the new government even before it could be fully completed. My eyes have long become blind to the structure. Most of the time, they are focused on the people at the bus-stop. I watch them and try to imagine their lives – a pastime, rather a luxury, I couldn't have afforded had I myself been waiting for a bus.
Had I been waiting for a bus, I would be constantly watching the display board at the crown of every oncoming bus, and would have been part of the small and ever-replenishing crowd that you always find at a busy bus stop.
The people I see here are collectively known as the ‘common man' – who forms the vast majority of the population in any city and who is powerful enough to make and break governments. But individually, they are powerless and helpless, and their lives are governed by a number of factors, including the timely arrival of the bus. The bus stop is as important a theatre of their life as their home or workplace.
Last afternoon, I noticed a man lying face down on the pavement, lifeless, as if he had just been shot. There was no warm blood trickling out of his body, but there was something else trickling out of his clothes – it was obvious that his urinary bladder had given way soon after he passed out. But why did he pass out? Was he too drunk? Or could it be that he has had no money to eat and been surviving only on water for a couple of days? Or had he suffered a heart attack or stroke? No one knew or even bothered to find out – all I could see were people steering clear of the trickle which was soon collecting into a puddle.
I am ashamed to say that I was among the people who remained totally indifferent to the unconscious man. Such indifference, I think, stems from two reasons. One, it is quite common to see men, presumably drunk, passing out at bus stops; two, who has the time to play Good Samaritan? Each person is in a hurry to reach somewhere. That frightens the hypochondriac in me, though: what if I ever faint at a bus stop? Will I be left to lie on the pavement?
Unmindful of this man lying face-down, a bunch of uniformed children, talking to each other in sign language, played with marbles at the bus stop. Their teachers stood in a small circle and laughed and gossiped while waiting for the bus. The children looked extremely happy in each other's company – did they get to play with the ‘normal' children in their respective neighbourhoods? A little away from them sat an elderly man, wearing a sky-blue shirt and a dhoti. He looked forlorn, lost deep in thought. What was he thinking about: the loan that he had taken for his daughter's wedding? His wife's ailment, which was fast depleting his savings? About a dozen other people, of various ages and bearing varying degrees of frowns, waited too. Why do people in bus stops look unhappy? No, there was a young woman who was constantly smiling – the source of her smile was plugged to her ear. Boyfriend, perhaps?
A bus arrived. The uniformed children, minded by their teachers, got in. The elderly man got in too, as did some of the people who had run behind the bus as it approached the stop. An elderly woman, who couldn't run as fast, was still a few steps away from the door when the bus took off. She was carrying a toy in her hand – grandchild's birthday? She had missed the bus. She now joined the young woman who was still smiling. Meanwhile, the man who lay on the pavement remained lifeless.
Now multiply this scene at the bus stop with the number of stops the city has. What you will see is the real life in a metro.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus on July 23, 2011.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Simpler Times
July. August. Up north, where I emotionally belong to, these are the monsoon months. The month of Shraavana. In Hindi, saawan ka mahinaa.
This is the time of the year when the Ganga is usually swollen and its waters muddy. This is the time when the Ganga, which otherwise flows serenely and nourishes the millions settled on its plains, can assume a devastating form.
The evidence of the two different moods of the Ganga lies in the yoga-cum-puja room of my Chennai home. Two white translucent cans are sitting there, both containing water from the Ganga. One of them has water that I had collected during a boat ride in Banaras in November 2007, when I had gone there to collect material for Chai, Chai. The water in it is still crystal clear.
The other contains water I had collected, also during a boat ride in Banaras, in August 2009, when I was there to cremate my mother. A thick layer of sediment can be seen at the bottom of this can. How can I ever forget 29 August 2009: I stood there under an overcast sky, in the furnace-like heat generated by the over a dozen burning pyres, watching the Ganga -- swollen but sluggish.
Monsoon seems to have hit the Ganga Mail too. The more swollen the mind with thoughts, the muddier the thought process, and you can't see what exactly is there at the bottom of the mind that needs to be expressed.
The less the number of thoughts, the simpler and more effective the thought process. People living in the hills are simple people, and they lead a simple life. That's where the Ganga gurgles down with great force, and the water so cold and clear that you can often see what's at the bottom. It flows like a good piece of writing.
It's time to pay a visit to the hills; to return to simpler times.
This is the time of the year when the Ganga is usually swollen and its waters muddy. This is the time when the Ganga, which otherwise flows serenely and nourishes the millions settled on its plains, can assume a devastating form.
The evidence of the two different moods of the Ganga lies in the yoga-cum-puja room of my Chennai home. Two white translucent cans are sitting there, both containing water from the Ganga. One of them has water that I had collected during a boat ride in Banaras in November 2007, when I had gone there to collect material for Chai, Chai. The water in it is still crystal clear.
The other contains water I had collected, also during a boat ride in Banaras, in August 2009, when I was there to cremate my mother. A thick layer of sediment can be seen at the bottom of this can. How can I ever forget 29 August 2009: I stood there under an overcast sky, in the furnace-like heat generated by the over a dozen burning pyres, watching the Ganga -- swollen but sluggish.
Monsoon seems to have hit the Ganga Mail too. The more swollen the mind with thoughts, the muddier the thought process, and you can't see what exactly is there at the bottom of the mind that needs to be expressed.
The less the number of thoughts, the simpler and more effective the thought process. People living in the hills are simple people, and they lead a simple life. That's where the Ganga gurgles down with great force, and the water so cold and clear that you can often see what's at the bottom. It flows like a good piece of writing.
It's time to pay a visit to the hills; to return to simpler times.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Life In A Metro: Cool Writer
The business of writing has changed – everyone wants to become a published author
The other day, a childhood friend of mine, who is now a senior uniformed officer, called me up. He began by making polite enquiries and went on to ask my opinion about the future of the DMK. Since he called at 10 in the morning, when catching up with old friends would be the last thing on the mind of an office-goer, I knew he would soon come to the point. Sure enough he did.
“By the way, do you have Ruskin Bond’s phone number?”
“Whose?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
“Arre yaar, apna Ruskin Bond! The writer!”
“But I don’t have his number!”
“Why not? You are also a writer, na? Don’t writers have other writers’ numbers?”
(In late 2009 I wrote a travel book; therefore the ‘writer’ tag.)
“But why do you want his number?” I asked him.
It turned out that his boss’ teenaged daughter had written some short stories, and the boss was keen that Ruskin Bond should take a look at them. When the boss brought up the subject during a meeting, my friend volunteered to get Mr. Bond’s number from a friend – that’s me. He obviously wanted to please his boss – nothing wrong with that – but he had clearly overestimated my status as a ‘writer.’
It is one thing to have written a solitary book – as countless people have – quite another to have earned a reputation as a writer.
After he hung up – I promised him I would try my best – it suddenly struck me that this was perhaps the fifth or sixth call I had got in a span of two months on behalf of aspiring writers. And in all cases, the aspiring writer in question happened to be a teenaged girl, and the caller a highly concerned parent.
One worried mother, who had been turned down by established publishing houses, confessed to me that the number of stories written by her daughter was not adequate enough to add up to the size of a book. But she had a solution for the shortcoming. “I can put in some of the poems she has written. She has written some beautiful poems. If we still fall short, I can put in some of my paintings. I have done some beautiful paintings,” she told me. “But how do I find a publisher?”
Had I known the answer, I would have been a rich man today, sitting with my laptop in a villa in Goa or Kasauli, after having sold half-a-dozen ideas (most of which would’ve come to me while I was shaving) to a publisher for a huge advance. But the business of getting published remains mysterious – no one quite knows what works for the publisher and what doesn’t.
Jack Kerouac’s On The Road failed to find a publisher for six years before it changed the way people wrote. James Joyce's Dubliners got rejected 22 times before it got published. The first two novels written by Graham Greene got rejected by each publisher he sent them to, and it was his third novel that officially became his first book. And without Greene’s helping hand, what would have happened to our own R.K. Narayan, despite all the lucid prose and eye for detail?
But publishing is one field that has never concerned the lay Indian, who is usually too bogged down by other demands of life to spare money for books. Even today not many would have heard of R.K. Narayan, leave alone Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand – they formed the triumvirate that pioneered Indian Writing in English. Writers like them lived in a small island, hoping to be connected to the mainland.
Shobhaa De changed the game. She not only got people interested in her books but also in the business of writing books: “If she can, why can’t we?” Subsequently, Arundhati Roy enlightened India about the existence of the Booker Prize (and the prize money it entailed). But it was Chetan Bhagat who brought about a revolution – he brought down writing from the pedestal of exclusivity and took it to the masses, and in the process stoked a million literary ambitions.
Today, the writer is no longer a faceless entity. The successful ones now get the attention that once only movie stars and cricketers did. It is, therefore, not surprising that parents are suddenly spotting the ‘writer’ in their children and frantically knocking at the doors of publishers. Ruskin Bond, alas, did not have that luxury: he had to struggle to find a publisher. That reminds me, does anyone have his number?
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, July 16, 2011.
The other day, a childhood friend of mine, who is now a senior uniformed officer, called me up. He began by making polite enquiries and went on to ask my opinion about the future of the DMK. Since he called at 10 in the morning, when catching up with old friends would be the last thing on the mind of an office-goer, I knew he would soon come to the point. Sure enough he did.
“By the way, do you have Ruskin Bond’s phone number?”
“Whose?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
“Arre yaar, apna Ruskin Bond! The writer!”
“But I don’t have his number!”
“Why not? You are also a writer, na? Don’t writers have other writers’ numbers?”
(In late 2009 I wrote a travel book; therefore the ‘writer’ tag.)
“But why do you want his number?” I asked him.
It turned out that his boss’ teenaged daughter had written some short stories, and the boss was keen that Ruskin Bond should take a look at them. When the boss brought up the subject during a meeting, my friend volunteered to get Mr. Bond’s number from a friend – that’s me. He obviously wanted to please his boss – nothing wrong with that – but he had clearly overestimated my status as a ‘writer.’
It is one thing to have written a solitary book – as countless people have – quite another to have earned a reputation as a writer.
After he hung up – I promised him I would try my best – it suddenly struck me that this was perhaps the fifth or sixth call I had got in a span of two months on behalf of aspiring writers. And in all cases, the aspiring writer in question happened to be a teenaged girl, and the caller a highly concerned parent.
One worried mother, who had been turned down by established publishing houses, confessed to me that the number of stories written by her daughter was not adequate enough to add up to the size of a book. But she had a solution for the shortcoming. “I can put in some of the poems she has written. She has written some beautiful poems. If we still fall short, I can put in some of my paintings. I have done some beautiful paintings,” she told me. “But how do I find a publisher?”
Had I known the answer, I would have been a rich man today, sitting with my laptop in a villa in Goa or Kasauli, after having sold half-a-dozen ideas (most of which would’ve come to me while I was shaving) to a publisher for a huge advance. But the business of getting published remains mysterious – no one quite knows what works for the publisher and what doesn’t.
Jack Kerouac’s On The Road failed to find a publisher for six years before it changed the way people wrote. James Joyce's Dubliners got rejected 22 times before it got published. The first two novels written by Graham Greene got rejected by each publisher he sent them to, and it was his third novel that officially became his first book. And without Greene’s helping hand, what would have happened to our own R.K. Narayan, despite all the lucid prose and eye for detail?
But publishing is one field that has never concerned the lay Indian, who is usually too bogged down by other demands of life to spare money for books. Even today not many would have heard of R.K. Narayan, leave alone Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand – they formed the triumvirate that pioneered Indian Writing in English. Writers like them lived in a small island, hoping to be connected to the mainland.
Shobhaa De changed the game. She not only got people interested in her books but also in the business of writing books: “If she can, why can’t we?” Subsequently, Arundhati Roy enlightened India about the existence of the Booker Prize (and the prize money it entailed). But it was Chetan Bhagat who brought about a revolution – he brought down writing from the pedestal of exclusivity and took it to the masses, and in the process stoked a million literary ambitions.
Today, the writer is no longer a faceless entity. The successful ones now get the attention that once only movie stars and cricketers did. It is, therefore, not surprising that parents are suddenly spotting the ‘writer’ in their children and frantically knocking at the doors of publishers. Ruskin Bond, alas, did not have that luxury: he had to struggle to find a publisher. That reminds me, does anyone have his number?
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, July 16, 2011.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Time Flies, After All
I am a fairly new entrant to the locker room. I have never been used to the idea of changing in front of strange men -- or rather strange men changing in front of me. But now that's become a part of my life, considering that these days I'm pretty regular at the gym and the pool in the club.
Almost every evening I am subjected to about half a dozen instances of unintentional mooning, and to tell you the truth, when I come face-to-face (or should I say face-to-cheek) with reality, I often can't decide whether to instantly turn my gaze away or to look at the naked posterior of a man as if it was a bald head. Most often, I look away, but the eyes invariably manage to capture a few seconds of the images that the mind would rather not like to store.
And the other day, my eyes saw more than they had bargained for. I noticed a tall, well-built foreigner -- a white man -- standing right next to me as I fished for my swimming trunks in the bag. I had been noticing him in the pool during the recent weeks and even admiring his swimming skills, and now he was standing right next to me, changing into his swimming trunks. I don't wish to describe what the corner of my eye saw, but suffice to say that I was instantly reminded of two expressions -- "hanging loose" and "well-endowed".
All these men happen to be of varying ages and possessing varying degrees of fitness. In most cases, I don't ever want to be them, given their girth; and in some rare cases, I so want to be like them, especially the kinds who swim effortlessly. And then, there have been times when I looked at myself in the mirror, clothed waist-down of course, and thought: "Not too bad. Maybe a little more sculpting?"
One such evening, when I was looking at myself in the mirror, reality slapped me hard on my face. Mr S, a senior member of the club with who I had become friends in the swimming pool, had got himself entangled in his T-shirt.
Mr S, a widower, must be nearing 80 now, if not already 80-plus. He was born in Islamabad, from where he migrated to Ambala after Partition, and subsequently ran a business in Calcutta for a few years before relocating to Madras. "Dada, kamon achhen?" he would ask me routinely, in Bengali, as he took toddler-like steps in the pool, perhaps on the advice of his doctor. That evening, as he was taking his T-shirt off to get into the pool, the muscles of his hands suddenly gave away. He just couldn't pull the T-shirt off his head. By the time I could reach him, a young man had already helped him out of the T-shirt. That was the last time I saw Mr S in the pool (these days he just drags a chair and sits by the pool to watch other people swim).
Today, whenever I look into the mirror, I can see Mr S smiling back at me. I may be physically fit and having a well-sculpted body today, but the future belongs to the likes of Mr S. Tomorrow, in spite of the fitness levels I enjoy today, I might not be able to lift my arm to even wear a shirt. What's the point, then, in trying to remain fit? That too when old age is not too far away -- time flies, after all.
Almost every evening I am subjected to about half a dozen instances of unintentional mooning, and to tell you the truth, when I come face-to-face (or should I say face-to-cheek) with reality, I often can't decide whether to instantly turn my gaze away or to look at the naked posterior of a man as if it was a bald head. Most often, I look away, but the eyes invariably manage to capture a few seconds of the images that the mind would rather not like to store.
And the other day, my eyes saw more than they had bargained for. I noticed a tall, well-built foreigner -- a white man -- standing right next to me as I fished for my swimming trunks in the bag. I had been noticing him in the pool during the recent weeks and even admiring his swimming skills, and now he was standing right next to me, changing into his swimming trunks. I don't wish to describe what the corner of my eye saw, but suffice to say that I was instantly reminded of two expressions -- "hanging loose" and "well-endowed".
All these men happen to be of varying ages and possessing varying degrees of fitness. In most cases, I don't ever want to be them, given their girth; and in some rare cases, I so want to be like them, especially the kinds who swim effortlessly. And then, there have been times when I looked at myself in the mirror, clothed waist-down of course, and thought: "Not too bad. Maybe a little more sculpting?"
One such evening, when I was looking at myself in the mirror, reality slapped me hard on my face. Mr S, a senior member of the club with who I had become friends in the swimming pool, had got himself entangled in his T-shirt.
Mr S, a widower, must be nearing 80 now, if not already 80-plus. He was born in Islamabad, from where he migrated to Ambala after Partition, and subsequently ran a business in Calcutta for a few years before relocating to Madras. "Dada, kamon achhen?" he would ask me routinely, in Bengali, as he took toddler-like steps in the pool, perhaps on the advice of his doctor. That evening, as he was taking his T-shirt off to get into the pool, the muscles of his hands suddenly gave away. He just couldn't pull the T-shirt off his head. By the time I could reach him, a young man had already helped him out of the T-shirt. That was the last time I saw Mr S in the pool (these days he just drags a chair and sits by the pool to watch other people swim).
Today, whenever I look into the mirror, I can see Mr S smiling back at me. I may be physically fit and having a well-sculpted body today, but the future belongs to the likes of Mr S. Tomorrow, in spite of the fitness levels I enjoy today, I might not be able to lift my arm to even wear a shirt. What's the point, then, in trying to remain fit? That too when old age is not too far away -- time flies, after all.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
The Sea
The moon peeped in through the coconuts leaves, as if trying to eavesdrop. The strong breeze from the sea blew her hair across her face. At some distance the waves were breaking, softly enough for me to hear her sighs. She leaned forward across the table and formed an extra curtain of palms around mine to help me light up a cigarette.
"Thanks," I said, as I sat back and took a sip of the beer.
"As I was saying," she continued, "I can't have sex with a man unless I am in love with him."
"Really?"
"Yes, if I love a man, I wouldn't mind sleeping with him."
"But why go through the whole process of falling in love?"
"Without love I can't have sex. And it doesn't take me long to fall in love; it can take just three or four days. I just know when there is an emotional connect."
"Of course there has to be an emotional connect," I said. "But I wouldn't call it love?"
"But you do believe in emotional connect, don't you?"
"I do."
"So there."
"Are you tipsy already?" I asked.
"Just one Bloody Mary, what bloody tipsy!" she laughed.
"So how is it going with Atul?"
"Hey come on! Just because I was talking about him does not mean I am in love with him or going to sleep with him. Come on, I know him since the time we were kids. We grew up together!"
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, I like him and all, but not in that sense."
"I see!"
"And you know, he drinks only beer. And I don't like men who drink only beer."
I looked at my glass and suddenly felt like a man who had been caught with his fly open. She read my thoughts instantly.
"I know you are drinking beer now, but I also know that you have other drinks too, don't you?"
"Yes, I usually drink whisky."
"See! I knew."
"But how?"
"I read you."
"Oh! But what is your problem with men drinking only beer?"
"When a man drinks only beer, it means he is playing it safe and is not open to adventure. Such men are not my kind."
"I like that!" I said. I flicked the ash of the cigarette, even though there was no ash to be flicked, and turned my gaze to the sea, which was now so black that it had merged with the blackness of the sky.
I found it safer to gaze at the nothingness than looking into her eyes.
"Thanks," I said, as I sat back and took a sip of the beer.
"As I was saying," she continued, "I can't have sex with a man unless I am in love with him."
"Really?"
"Yes, if I love a man, I wouldn't mind sleeping with him."
"But why go through the whole process of falling in love?"
"Without love I can't have sex. And it doesn't take me long to fall in love; it can take just three or four days. I just know when there is an emotional connect."
"Of course there has to be an emotional connect," I said. "But I wouldn't call it love?"
"But you do believe in emotional connect, don't you?"
"I do."
"So there."
"Are you tipsy already?" I asked.
"Just one Bloody Mary, what bloody tipsy!" she laughed.
"So how is it going with Atul?"
"Hey come on! Just because I was talking about him does not mean I am in love with him or going to sleep with him. Come on, I know him since the time we were kids. We grew up together!"
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, I like him and all, but not in that sense."
"I see!"
"And you know, he drinks only beer. And I don't like men who drink only beer."
I looked at my glass and suddenly felt like a man who had been caught with his fly open. She read my thoughts instantly.
"I know you are drinking beer now, but I also know that you have other drinks too, don't you?"
"Yes, I usually drink whisky."
"See! I knew."
"But how?"
"I read you."
"Oh! But what is your problem with men drinking only beer?"
"When a man drinks only beer, it means he is playing it safe and is not open to adventure. Such men are not my kind."
"I like that!" I said. I flicked the ash of the cigarette, even though there was no ash to be flicked, and turned my gaze to the sea, which was now so black that it had merged with the blackness of the sky.
I found it safer to gaze at the nothingness than looking into her eyes.
Life In A Metro: Resting In Peace
Uninterrupted sleep is no longer a necessity - it’s a luxury
Let me make a small guess: two out of every five people reading this column are doing so half-heartedly. They have something else nagging them, apart from the weekly whining by yours truly. Their mind is seized by a thought, rather an unfulfilled desire: Wish I had slept a little more!
You may have an Audi parked in your garage, you may be travelling business class in planes, you may have the biggest flat-screen mounted on your wall, you may be sipping single malt or vintage wine every evening from the stock that keeps getting replenished by your regular stopovers at duty-free shops, you may even have an air-conditioner installed in your bathroom. But you cannot purchase what has turned out to be the biggest luxury of our times – a sound sleep. You may try stealing it though.
Ironically, the better your position to buy the regular luxuries of life, the more elusive this luxury tends to get. And considering that almost everybody these days wants to be in a position to buy a flat or bring home a plasma TV or send their children to the best of schools, irrespective of their incomes, people are working harder than ever before. Good life, after all, comes at a price, and these days, the price seems to be uninterrupted sleep. But is life any good if you haven’t even slept well?
We have, however, made peace with interrupted sleep. Anybody can wake us up at anytime: it could be the hysterical boss who is prone to waking up at five in the morning; it could be a panicky colleague urgently in need of your guidance at midnight; it could be a man from the bank reminding you about the minimum payment due on your credit card; it could be a woman from the same bank offering you a loan to clear the outstanding dues on the credit card; it could be the call-taxi driver reminding you that he is waiting outside your flat to take you to the airport (while you are still in bed); or it could just be the alarm programmed in your mobile phone reminding you that it’s time to wake up your child because the school bus will be coming soon.
When I was a child, which was not too long ago, a sound sleep was taken for granted. The three biggest enemies of sleep – satellite television, mobile phone and laptop – were yet to invade our bedrooms. There was Doordarshan, but it would end transmission by nine – or was it 10 pm? The announcers on All India Radio too took leave by 11 pm. After that, you had no choice but to sleep.
And it was very easy for one to fall asleep those days. Most people bicycled to work; and they thought nothing of walking a kilometre or two every evening to the nearest market to fetch vegetables and groceries. The road was their gym. Real gyms didn’t exist anyway.
Today we either order groceries over the phone or stock up for the entire week during a Sunday visit to the supermarket. We no longer know what it means to walk. There may be gyms now in every neighbourhood where you can walk on the treadmill, but does it mean you get to sleep like a log at the end of the day? No. You usually doze off either while surfing the net or answering a text message or watching ‘breaking news’ on TV – only to be woken up soon after by a phone call. Even before you realise, it is another day.
The Internet is replete with stories about the death of the immensely fit Ranjan Das who, at the young age of 40, was appointed by SAP, a multinational software provider, to head its operations in the Indian subcontinent. Within two years, in 2009, Das dropped dead after a workout in the gym, and the cause of his death has been pinned down to lack of sleep. He slept for less than five hours, as he had admitted during a television interview – even though doctors these days prescribe seven hours of good sleep, especially for those who have touched forty.
If you sleep less than five hours, the chances – so I learn from the Internet – of high blood pressure increases by 350-500% and heart attack by threefold. You can’t really dispute such claims when you are used to waking up in the mornings feeling unwell and craving more sleep.
This column, in fact, is inspired by a Facebook page called Ghum, which was started recently in Bangladesh, most likely by a sleep-starved soul. Ghum, or ghoom, in Bengali, means sleep; and as many as 134,327 people ‘like’ the page as of date. Compared to that, only 6,976 people ‘like’ Franz Kafka so far; while only 6,545 people have bothered to click on their mouses to ‘like’ George Clooney. Sleep, clearly, wins hands down. Really, when was the last time you slept like a log?
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, July 9, 2011.
Let me make a small guess: two out of every five people reading this column are doing so half-heartedly. They have something else nagging them, apart from the weekly whining by yours truly. Their mind is seized by a thought, rather an unfulfilled desire: Wish I had slept a little more!
You may have an Audi parked in your garage, you may be travelling business class in planes, you may have the biggest flat-screen mounted on your wall, you may be sipping single malt or vintage wine every evening from the stock that keeps getting replenished by your regular stopovers at duty-free shops, you may even have an air-conditioner installed in your bathroom. But you cannot purchase what has turned out to be the biggest luxury of our times – a sound sleep. You may try stealing it though.
Ironically, the better your position to buy the regular luxuries of life, the more elusive this luxury tends to get. And considering that almost everybody these days wants to be in a position to buy a flat or bring home a plasma TV or send their children to the best of schools, irrespective of their incomes, people are working harder than ever before. Good life, after all, comes at a price, and these days, the price seems to be uninterrupted sleep. But is life any good if you haven’t even slept well?
We have, however, made peace with interrupted sleep. Anybody can wake us up at anytime: it could be the hysterical boss who is prone to waking up at five in the morning; it could be a panicky colleague urgently in need of your guidance at midnight; it could be a man from the bank reminding you about the minimum payment due on your credit card; it could be a woman from the same bank offering you a loan to clear the outstanding dues on the credit card; it could be the call-taxi driver reminding you that he is waiting outside your flat to take you to the airport (while you are still in bed); or it could just be the alarm programmed in your mobile phone reminding you that it’s time to wake up your child because the school bus will be coming soon.
When I was a child, which was not too long ago, a sound sleep was taken for granted. The three biggest enemies of sleep – satellite television, mobile phone and laptop – were yet to invade our bedrooms. There was Doordarshan, but it would end transmission by nine – or was it 10 pm? The announcers on All India Radio too took leave by 11 pm. After that, you had no choice but to sleep.
And it was very easy for one to fall asleep those days. Most people bicycled to work; and they thought nothing of walking a kilometre or two every evening to the nearest market to fetch vegetables and groceries. The road was their gym. Real gyms didn’t exist anyway.
Today we either order groceries over the phone or stock up for the entire week during a Sunday visit to the supermarket. We no longer know what it means to walk. There may be gyms now in every neighbourhood where you can walk on the treadmill, but does it mean you get to sleep like a log at the end of the day? No. You usually doze off either while surfing the net or answering a text message or watching ‘breaking news’ on TV – only to be woken up soon after by a phone call. Even before you realise, it is another day.
The Internet is replete with stories about the death of the immensely fit Ranjan Das who, at the young age of 40, was appointed by SAP, a multinational software provider, to head its operations in the Indian subcontinent. Within two years, in 2009, Das dropped dead after a workout in the gym, and the cause of his death has been pinned down to lack of sleep. He slept for less than five hours, as he had admitted during a television interview – even though doctors these days prescribe seven hours of good sleep, especially for those who have touched forty.
If you sleep less than five hours, the chances – so I learn from the Internet – of high blood pressure increases by 350-500% and heart attack by threefold. You can’t really dispute such claims when you are used to waking up in the mornings feeling unwell and craving more sleep.
This column, in fact, is inspired by a Facebook page called Ghum, which was started recently in Bangladesh, most likely by a sleep-starved soul. Ghum, or ghoom, in Bengali, means sleep; and as many as 134,327 people ‘like’ the page as of date. Compared to that, only 6,976 people ‘like’ Franz Kafka so far; while only 6,545 people have bothered to click on their mouses to ‘like’ George Clooney. Sleep, clearly, wins hands down. Really, when was the last time you slept like a log?
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, July 9, 2011.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Life In A Metro: The Might Of The Majority
Majority opinion is everything — it can even change your surname
When I started my career in journalism nearly two decades ago – “20 years” would have made me sound just as ancient – as a trainee sub-editor with The Pioneer in Kanpur, one of the errors I looked out for in a copy was the merging of “per cent.” Most reporters spelt it as one word, and I would dutifully draw a line between “per” and “cent” to indicate to the compositor that there should be a space between the two. Those were the days of the horse-shoe desk, when the news editor or the chief sub-editor sat at its centre and distributed typed or hand-written copies for editing to his juniors who sat in front of him, pens ready.
Within a year and a half, I moved to Delhi to join the Press Trust of India. There too, it was “per cent” and not “percent.” But in the impeccably edited copies spat out by the ticker machine of Reuters, with which PTI had a news-sharing arrangement, it was already “percent.” This was in the mid-1990s. Today, even spell-check does not underline the word in red.
But is it really correct to say “percent” instead of “per cent?” No. But the majority, be it in Parliament or in society, always has its say – and way – and the custodians of the language had to allow it as an acceptable word.
It is only a matter of time before “inspite” and “accomodate” become acceptable too: the number of people who are either ignorant or don't bother to insert the space and the extra “m” respectively in the two words is getting too large to ignore. Many American magazines today use "Prez" instead of "President" – something that might have been considered irreverent even a couple of decades ago. A classic case of the corruption of a word gaining public acceptance is “juggernaut.” The original word is Jagannath, another name for Lord Krishna in Puri, who is taken out in a chariot in a massive procession each year. Somewhere down the centuries, Jagannath happened to enter the English dictionary as “juggernaut,” defined as “any large, overpowering, destructive force or object” (the definition, obviously, is inspired by the chariot procession).
Talking of present times, the expressions that we use during online chats, such as LOL (laughing out loud) and OMG (oh my god) were incorporated by the Oxford English Dictionary in its updates this year. WTF – I don't wish to expand it here – was already included in 2009 (or so I am told). So go ahead, coin your own abbreviation. How about IABM – In A Bad Mood? If it gets picked up by the public, chances are that your creation will enter the OED.
Once a misspelled word gains currency, it no longer matters how it came to be misspelled in the first place – it could have been ignorance, indifference, laziness or a stupid clerical error.
As far as clerical errors go, who should know better than Mr Henry Sullivan Graeme and Mr Richard Yeldham.
These two gentlemen lived around the same time in East India Company-ruled Madras. Graeme, a civil servant, was a member of the Madras council for five years from 1823. He owned a bungalow in Nungambakkam, and the road connecting his bungalow to Mount Road was subsequently named Graeme's Road. Yeldham, on the other hand, was a merchant of the Company who went on to become the mayor of Madras. The road from his palatial house in Teynampet to Mount Road came to be called Yeldham's Road.
Today, Graeme's Road has been rechristened Greams Road, and Yeldham's Road is Eldams Road. Who is responsible for the changes in their names? No one knows. But today, even if Mr Graeme and Mr Yeldham were to come out of their graves and plead with Chennai Corporation to restore the correct spellings of their surnames, they are most likely to be turned away. Mr Graeme would return to his grave as Mr Gream and Mr Yeldham as Mr Eldam. Such is the power of popular usage.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, July 2, 2011.
When I started my career in journalism nearly two decades ago – “20 years” would have made me sound just as ancient – as a trainee sub-editor with The Pioneer in Kanpur, one of the errors I looked out for in a copy was the merging of “per cent.” Most reporters spelt it as one word, and I would dutifully draw a line between “per” and “cent” to indicate to the compositor that there should be a space between the two. Those were the days of the horse-shoe desk, when the news editor or the chief sub-editor sat at its centre and distributed typed or hand-written copies for editing to his juniors who sat in front of him, pens ready.
Within a year and a half, I moved to Delhi to join the Press Trust of India. There too, it was “per cent” and not “percent.” But in the impeccably edited copies spat out by the ticker machine of Reuters, with which PTI had a news-sharing arrangement, it was already “percent.” This was in the mid-1990s. Today, even spell-check does not underline the word in red.
But is it really correct to say “percent” instead of “per cent?” No. But the majority, be it in Parliament or in society, always has its say – and way – and the custodians of the language had to allow it as an acceptable word.
It is only a matter of time before “inspite” and “accomodate” become acceptable too: the number of people who are either ignorant or don't bother to insert the space and the extra “m” respectively in the two words is getting too large to ignore. Many American magazines today use "Prez" instead of "President" – something that might have been considered irreverent even a couple of decades ago. A classic case of the corruption of a word gaining public acceptance is “juggernaut.” The original word is Jagannath, another name for Lord Krishna in Puri, who is taken out in a chariot in a massive procession each year. Somewhere down the centuries, Jagannath happened to enter the English dictionary as “juggernaut,” defined as “any large, overpowering, destructive force or object” (the definition, obviously, is inspired by the chariot procession).
Talking of present times, the expressions that we use during online chats, such as LOL (laughing out loud) and OMG (oh my god) were incorporated by the Oxford English Dictionary in its updates this year. WTF – I don't wish to expand it here – was already included in 2009 (or so I am told). So go ahead, coin your own abbreviation. How about IABM – In A Bad Mood? If it gets picked up by the public, chances are that your creation will enter the OED.
Once a misspelled word gains currency, it no longer matters how it came to be misspelled in the first place – it could have been ignorance, indifference, laziness or a stupid clerical error.
As far as clerical errors go, who should know better than Mr Henry Sullivan Graeme and Mr Richard Yeldham.
These two gentlemen lived around the same time in East India Company-ruled Madras. Graeme, a civil servant, was a member of the Madras council for five years from 1823. He owned a bungalow in Nungambakkam, and the road connecting his bungalow to Mount Road was subsequently named Graeme's Road. Yeldham, on the other hand, was a merchant of the Company who went on to become the mayor of Madras. The road from his palatial house in Teynampet to Mount Road came to be called Yeldham's Road.
Today, Graeme's Road has been rechristened Greams Road, and Yeldham's Road is Eldams Road. Who is responsible for the changes in their names? No one knows. But today, even if Mr Graeme and Mr Yeldham were to come out of their graves and plead with Chennai Corporation to restore the correct spellings of their surnames, they are most likely to be turned away. Mr Graeme would return to his grave as Mr Gream and Mr Yeldham as Mr Eldam. Such is the power of popular usage.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, July 2, 2011.
Monday, June 27, 2011
While It's Still His Birthday...
Here's presenting a gem composed by R.D. Burman who, if alive, would have been 72 today. Though not necessarily as popular. There is something magical about death: it makes the world realise the true worth of an artist. But when alive, the same artist has to prove his worth with every single composition or song or book in order to stay alive professionally. Or else the 'world', which can be very mean and ungrateful, tends to forget you -- until you die. Look what happened to Michael Jackson.
This song, Hum tum ghum sum raat milan ki, is close to my heart for two reasons. One, it happens to be one of the three songs that got ingrained in my mind when I was still a baby -- too young to even know what a song is. (The other two songs being Kanchi re kanchi re and Panna ki tamanna: both Pancham!). Reason no. 2: this song belongs to the great body of rarely-heard songs that Pancham created during his lifetime. This great body of work, containing songs that are as perfect as a Hindi song can get, was discovered and toasted only after he died. Chancing upon such songs is like finding an unopened whiskey bottle in the cabinet of your long-dead grandfather. This song is one of them -- I am so glad that I did not stumble upon it recently but had the tune buzzing in my head since childhood: Jhumnaa jhumnaa, jhumnaa jhumnaa.
It's a sensual song, and just look at the way Kishore Kumar has modulated his voice! He is neither humming, nor is full-throated -- he is somewhere in between, to suit the mood of the evening. Asha Bhosle, of course, matches up to him effortlessly. Sip the song and enjoy -- and while you do so, do remember me!
This song, Hum tum ghum sum raat milan ki, is close to my heart for two reasons. One, it happens to be one of the three songs that got ingrained in my mind when I was still a baby -- too young to even know what a song is. (The other two songs being Kanchi re kanchi re and Panna ki tamanna: both Pancham!). Reason no. 2: this song belongs to the great body of rarely-heard songs that Pancham created during his lifetime. This great body of work, containing songs that are as perfect as a Hindi song can get, was discovered and toasted only after he died. Chancing upon such songs is like finding an unopened whiskey bottle in the cabinet of your long-dead grandfather. This song is one of them -- I am so glad that I did not stumble upon it recently but had the tune buzzing in my head since childhood: Jhumnaa jhumnaa, jhumnaa jhumnaa.
It's a sensual song, and just look at the way Kishore Kumar has modulated his voice! He is neither humming, nor is full-throated -- he is somewhere in between, to suit the mood of the evening. Asha Bhosle, of course, matches up to him effortlessly. Sip the song and enjoy -- and while you do so, do remember me!
Pancham Beats
Today is R.D. Burman's birthday. Here's my review of the book, R.D. Burman: The Man, The Music, written by Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal, which appeared recently in The Hindu:
The story of R.D. Burman is not so much about the successes he enjoyed as a music director during his short life. It is more about the stark truth that, had he lived a few weeks more, he would have had the last laugh, after having sustained a longish lean patch that saw one loyal producer after another deserting him.
Shortly before the songs of 1942-A Love Story stirred the nation in 1994, their composer had died heartbroken, at the age of 54, little knowing that the world would soon be at his feet — rediscovering, reliving, relishing, and remixing his music. Seventeen years after his death, his fans are still busy discovering — and gathering like awestruck schoolboys — hitherto unheard gems he had composed either during his lean phase or for films that had bombed back then.
In short, the story of R.D. Burman is not so much about his life as about his death, after which he seems to have permanently become Hindi cinema's No. 1 music director — ask the RJ of any Hindi FM channel or the salesman of any music shop. Whether such a story celebrates a posthumous triumph or laments an inevitable tragedy, it is difficult to say. But it's been told quite well — in delectable detail — by Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal, who have done great service to Hindi cinema by bringing out this book.
For the fans of R.D. Burman, or Pancham, this book should be a Bible. That this is the first book to be written about him in the 17 years since his death is a matter of shame, considering the number of lives his tunes continues to touch even today. Better late than never, though, because in Pancham's case, the later you discover him, the better he sounds. Just like wine.
One, however, wishes the title of the book had been more imaginative. But R.D. himself never cared much for the titles of the films he made music for, be it the intriguing Gol Maal or the aggressive Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin. Incidentally, these are two films whose songs are, like nursery rhymes, ingrained in the psyche of every Pancham fan, especially the notes of the trumpet that open their most famous songs — the Chaand Mera Dil medley and Bachnaa Ae Haseeno(Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin), and Aane Wala Pal(Gol Maal), for example.
So who played the trumpet in these songs? It's an important question for the Pancham fan — as important as asking a sixth standard student, "Who's the President of the United States?" Commonsense suggested that it might have been Manohari Singh, Pancham's long-time music arranger who played the saxophone for the senior Burman in Gaata Rahe Mera Dil for Guide. But no, the man who played the trumpet was an Anglo-Indian musician called George Fernandes! For a hardcore Pancham fan like yours truly, this piece of information alone is worth the Rs.399 the book costs.
There are other priceless pieces of information too, but most of them tend to break your heart. This is what singer Abhijeet had to tell the authors: "From a time when he would record at Film Centre, Panchamda had slid to recording at a small studio in Khar. He would urge me to go to Anand-Milind and Rajesh Roshan as he did not have any work to give me."
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who made 1942-A Love Story, explains Pancham's lean patch thus: "Lack of self-confidence. People close to him, including Asha Bhosle, left him. He began thinking that he lacked the ability and was burnt out. This was untrue, but he somehow got swayed by other people's opinions and ended up losing his belief in his music."
Pancham losing belief in his own music? This sounds funny now because his music is considered the yardstick for Hindi film music. But cruel are the ways of the world — the way it treats a man when he is dead is different from the way it does when he is alive. The book successfully dissects the hypocrisy.
The story of R.D. Burman is not so much about the successes he enjoyed as a music director during his short life. It is more about the stark truth that, had he lived a few weeks more, he would have had the last laugh, after having sustained a longish lean patch that saw one loyal producer after another deserting him.
Shortly before the songs of 1942-A Love Story stirred the nation in 1994, their composer had died heartbroken, at the age of 54, little knowing that the world would soon be at his feet — rediscovering, reliving, relishing, and remixing his music. Seventeen years after his death, his fans are still busy discovering — and gathering like awestruck schoolboys — hitherto unheard gems he had composed either during his lean phase or for films that had bombed back then.
In short, the story of R.D. Burman is not so much about his life as about his death, after which he seems to have permanently become Hindi cinema's No. 1 music director — ask the RJ of any Hindi FM channel or the salesman of any music shop. Whether such a story celebrates a posthumous triumph or laments an inevitable tragedy, it is difficult to say. But it's been told quite well — in delectable detail — by Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal, who have done great service to Hindi cinema by bringing out this book.
For the fans of R.D. Burman, or Pancham, this book should be a Bible. That this is the first book to be written about him in the 17 years since his death is a matter of shame, considering the number of lives his tunes continues to touch even today. Better late than never, though, because in Pancham's case, the later you discover him, the better he sounds. Just like wine.
One, however, wishes the title of the book had been more imaginative. But R.D. himself never cared much for the titles of the films he made music for, be it the intriguing Gol Maal or the aggressive Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin. Incidentally, these are two films whose songs are, like nursery rhymes, ingrained in the psyche of every Pancham fan, especially the notes of the trumpet that open their most famous songs — the Chaand Mera Dil medley and Bachnaa Ae Haseeno(Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin), and Aane Wala Pal(Gol Maal), for example.
So who played the trumpet in these songs? It's an important question for the Pancham fan — as important as asking a sixth standard student, "Who's the President of the United States?" Commonsense suggested that it might have been Manohari Singh, Pancham's long-time music arranger who played the saxophone for the senior Burman in Gaata Rahe Mera Dil for Guide. But no, the man who played the trumpet was an Anglo-Indian musician called George Fernandes! For a hardcore Pancham fan like yours truly, this piece of information alone is worth the Rs.399 the book costs.
There are other priceless pieces of information too, but most of them tend to break your heart. This is what singer Abhijeet had to tell the authors: "From a time when he would record at Film Centre, Panchamda had slid to recording at a small studio in Khar. He would urge me to go to Anand-Milind and Rajesh Roshan as he did not have any work to give me."
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who made 1942-A Love Story, explains Pancham's lean patch thus: "Lack of self-confidence. People close to him, including Asha Bhosle, left him. He began thinking that he lacked the ability and was burnt out. This was untrue, but he somehow got swayed by other people's opinions and ended up losing his belief in his music."
Pancham losing belief in his own music? This sounds funny now because his music is considered the yardstick for Hindi film music. But cruel are the ways of the world — the way it treats a man when he is dead is different from the way it does when he is alive. The book successfully dissects the hypocrisy.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Life In A Metro: The Big Fat Truth
Worrying about weight has become a national obsession
Even as you read this piece, 17 million people across the country are sweating it out in their neighbourhood gyms, another two million are busy practising kapaalabhati kriya (according to Ramdev, each exhalation makes you lose 10-15 gm), about a million are carefully reading the ads of weight-loss clinics and saving their numbers on mobiles, and 0.75 million have just resisted the temptation to have an extra paratha or dosa for breakfast.
I just cooked up these figures – I could be wildly off the mark. Or, who knows, maybe I am not. But there is no denying the big fat truth. Never before in recent history, apart from the struggle for freedom, have urban Indians single-mindedly worked this hard towards a goal. The goal is simple: just losing a few pounds of weight! Achieving it is even simpler: walk as if your life depends on it. But as the wise man once said, the simplest of things are the most difficult to achieve. As a result, weight-loss has today become a multi-million-dollar industry in India.
Wasn't it only the other day when, in our society, being a little overweight was considered a sign of good health and prosperity? In north India, where I grew up, a man was expected to grow a paunch soon after getting married – it was the litmus test for his bride's culinary skills. If the man remained skinny, it reflected poorly on the woman: “She can't even feed her husband properly.” And in cinema-crazy south India, where I live now, men have traditionally been great fans of women who never starved themselves in order to look slim. Even today you have actresses who are worshipped for their girth.
Indians have always been comfortable with the idea of weight. Excess weight, at the most, was an unwelcome guest, but never considered an enemy who needed to be chased out. But the turn of the century, when we were reaping the benefits of economic liberalisation, saw the much-publicised wedding between obesity and illness. Urban Indians suddenly woke up not only to the health benefits of being slim but also the immense social benefits of staying in shape. A recently married man, for example, began to realise that while his newly grown paunch may speak volumes about his wife's cooking skills, it only made him less appealing to other women.
While it is heartening to see more and more Indians sweating it out, it is amusing that the eagerness to lose a few kilos has become an obsession. Weight loss, in fact, is urban India's biggest obsession today. It is threatening to become a disorder in itself. Eavesdrop on the conversation at the next table in a restaurant and chances are you will hear the familiar expressions, ‘calories' and ‘cutting down'. Calories – until 20 years ago, only physics students were familiar with the word. Go to any Page-3 party and you'll find people gushing to each other about their waistlines. And if you happen to detest a woman, you only have to tell her, with a hint of concern, “I think you have put on a little weight since I saw you last time. That time you were very slim.” Your words will play on her mind throughout the evening – the effect will be as disastrous as a doctor breaking to her the news of a terrible disease.
A few weeks ago, returning to Chennai from Bangalore in the early-morning Shatabdi Express, I found myself sitting next to a woman who must have been in her early forties. She was plump. When the attendant who handed newspapers to the passengers offered her a copy, she refused and instead covered her face with a shawl and went to sleep. While I turned the pages of the newspaper, she was woken up for breakfast, and then she busied herself with her mobile phone. Once I was done with the paper and was about to put it away, she spoke: “Excuse me, can I have it for a minute?”
I watched her curiously from the corner of my eye. She did not even throw a glance at the front page, as one does instinctively when picking up a newspaper, but went on turning the pages hurriedly, as if searching for something. She finally paused at page 17 and settled to read an article on top of that page. I peered discreetly. It was a London-datelined report she was reading, that was headlined, “Want to stay in shape? Drink donkey's milk.”
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, 26 June 2011.
Even as you read this piece, 17 million people across the country are sweating it out in their neighbourhood gyms, another two million are busy practising kapaalabhati kriya (according to Ramdev, each exhalation makes you lose 10-15 gm), about a million are carefully reading the ads of weight-loss clinics and saving their numbers on mobiles, and 0.75 million have just resisted the temptation to have an extra paratha or dosa for breakfast.
I just cooked up these figures – I could be wildly off the mark. Or, who knows, maybe I am not. But there is no denying the big fat truth. Never before in recent history, apart from the struggle for freedom, have urban Indians single-mindedly worked this hard towards a goal. The goal is simple: just losing a few pounds of weight! Achieving it is even simpler: walk as if your life depends on it. But as the wise man once said, the simplest of things are the most difficult to achieve. As a result, weight-loss has today become a multi-million-dollar industry in India.
Wasn't it only the other day when, in our society, being a little overweight was considered a sign of good health and prosperity? In north India, where I grew up, a man was expected to grow a paunch soon after getting married – it was the litmus test for his bride's culinary skills. If the man remained skinny, it reflected poorly on the woman: “She can't even feed her husband properly.” And in cinema-crazy south India, where I live now, men have traditionally been great fans of women who never starved themselves in order to look slim. Even today you have actresses who are worshipped for their girth.
Indians have always been comfortable with the idea of weight. Excess weight, at the most, was an unwelcome guest, but never considered an enemy who needed to be chased out. But the turn of the century, when we were reaping the benefits of economic liberalisation, saw the much-publicised wedding between obesity and illness. Urban Indians suddenly woke up not only to the health benefits of being slim but also the immense social benefits of staying in shape. A recently married man, for example, began to realise that while his newly grown paunch may speak volumes about his wife's cooking skills, it only made him less appealing to other women.
While it is heartening to see more and more Indians sweating it out, it is amusing that the eagerness to lose a few kilos has become an obsession. Weight loss, in fact, is urban India's biggest obsession today. It is threatening to become a disorder in itself. Eavesdrop on the conversation at the next table in a restaurant and chances are you will hear the familiar expressions, ‘calories' and ‘cutting down'. Calories – until 20 years ago, only physics students were familiar with the word. Go to any Page-3 party and you'll find people gushing to each other about their waistlines. And if you happen to detest a woman, you only have to tell her, with a hint of concern, “I think you have put on a little weight since I saw you last time. That time you were very slim.” Your words will play on her mind throughout the evening – the effect will be as disastrous as a doctor breaking to her the news of a terrible disease.
A few weeks ago, returning to Chennai from Bangalore in the early-morning Shatabdi Express, I found myself sitting next to a woman who must have been in her early forties. She was plump. When the attendant who handed newspapers to the passengers offered her a copy, she refused and instead covered her face with a shawl and went to sleep. While I turned the pages of the newspaper, she was woken up for breakfast, and then she busied herself with her mobile phone. Once I was done with the paper and was about to put it away, she spoke: “Excuse me, can I have it for a minute?”
I watched her curiously from the corner of my eye. She did not even throw a glance at the front page, as one does instinctively when picking up a newspaper, but went on turning the pages hurriedly, as if searching for something. She finally paused at page 17 and settled to read an article on top of that page. I peered discreetly. It was a London-datelined report she was reading, that was headlined, “Want to stay in shape? Drink donkey's milk.”
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, 26 June 2011.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Desi Thoughts, Desi Babu
This post is being written at a time when the scene outside the window of my study presents the perfect setting for a late-night Hindi-film murder: it is raining heavily and is pitch dark, except when the lighting brings into view the neighbouring houses for a fraction of a second; and the tyres of passing cars are making a sinister sound as they cautiously roll through water. On nights such as this, the fate of many families has taken an ugly turn -- in Hindi films, that is.
In the kitchen, meanwhile, rice is boiling. I can already smell it. Very few aromas are as delectable as that of boiling rice. The rice is going to be my second dinner tonight. Usually, I have my dinner very late -- at times so late that I can hear the chirping of the birds along with the beeps of the microwave. But what to do, I can't write on a full stomach. Today was one of those rare days when I had my dinner early, at the club, after an invigorating workout. I was hoping to lie down in bed and watch a movie or read a book and fall asleep. I was hoping to begin Saturday on an energetic note.
But while we were driving back home, I asked my wife (she's the one who always drives, because I can't) to stop at the supermarket. I wanted to buy cigarettes. As I picked up two packets of Gold Flake Kings and queued up to pay, I noticed, in their fridge, Amul Butter! All these years -- at least for the past 10 years -- I had become totally blind to the existence of butter, only because of the fear of its artery-clogging properties. I had even forgotten how butter tastes like, and was reminded of it only occasionally during my stay in luxury hotels. Planes and trains serve so little butter that you don't even get to taste it even after chewing up the two slices of bread.
But this evening, my heart melted like butter when I spotted the so-familiar Amul slabs, carelessly dumped away in the rack of the refrigerator along with varieties of cheese. Suddenly, memories came gushing! When was the last time I had Amul Butter -- with the knowledge that I was having Amul Butter? I couldn't recall. And when was the last time I had steaming rice with a chunk of Amul Butter melting in it, with half-a-lemon squeezed and some salt sprinkled over the combo? Fuck! This was even harder to tell. Whenever it must have been, it must have happened at the insistence of my mother, who was the only one to understand my taste in food.
My taste in food is very simple. Steaming rice with a spoonful of ghee or butter, served with a sliced lemon, a little salt, and a piece of green chilli to bite on -- that's luxury eating for me. Place a bowl of arhar ki daal and a saag around that plate of rice and I shall be grateful to you all my life. Embellish the plate with a ball of boiled potato mashed with chopped onions, green chilli and mustard oil and I shall be your slave. Simple food not only nourishes your body but also your soul -- or so I believe.
So, while the rice boils, I have decided to write. And to create the hunger for my second dinner, I have poured myself a drink. Since the cooker will shut itself off once the rice (and the two potatoes in it) are cooked, I can focus on the drinking and writing. As long as the birds don't begin to chirp when I take the butter out of the fridge.
But what do I write about? I really have nothing new to say. At the age of forty, I am now leading a pretty boring and predictable life. No new encounters, no new experiences. On top of it, courage seems to be deserting me. Time was when the wife would be out of town and I would remind myself excitedly about the things I could do in her absence. Today, whenever the wife is travelling, I ruefully remind myself of the things I am unable to do in her absence. I really miss her. A wise man would describe this phenomenon as 'conditioning.'
In such a situation, I can only blog about three things with confidence -- things that affect me on a daily basis: my mother, Kishore Kumar and writing. Each day, I make new discoveries about my feelings towards these three elements that currently rule my life.
Hardly a day goes by when I don't recall -- and relive -- that phone call from my father who conveyed the news to me in a very level-headed manner: "Your mother is no more." It is nearly two years now, but the measured voice of my father still keeps ringing in my ear. But I can't keep blogging about it, can I, especially when I have written several posts about my mother's untimely death?
And what new to write about Kishore Kumar? I have written countless heart-felt posts about him. Come to think of it, Kishore Kumar and my mother died at the same age. My mother had had one heart attack, a silent one, before she underwent a bypass surgery, while Kishore Kumar had had two, and even then he went on singing and dancing during stage performances. Of late, though, there have been things I wanted to write about him. Kishore Kumar might have been a great singer, but he could also be mean-minded. When R.D. Burman gave a chance to newcomer Abhijeet (a fellow Kanpurwallah) to sing some of the songs in Dev Anand's Anand Aur Anand, in which Dev Anand was introducing his son Suneil, Kishore Kumar got livid and stormed the recording studio.
Dev Anand managed to pacify Kishore Kumar, assuring him that all the songs pictured on him (Dev Anand) in the film would still be sung by him (Kishore Kumar). But Kishore Kumar still demanded to know why the voice of Abhijeet and not Amit Kumar was being used for Dev Anand's son Suneil. Can't blame Kishore: he was human and not above being insecure. The petty-mindedness, in any case, does not take away from the large-heartedness of his voice.
Then comes writing. What can I write about it? Writing can be a pain in the ass, and I would rather write than talk about writing, even though I have been foolish enough to write several posts on writing in the recent past.
What should I blog about, then? I would rather spend my time reading Desi Babu. Since the past few weeks, a number of friends who stop by my blog have asked me: "BG, who is Desi Babu?" I wish I knew. All I know is he is a kind soul and a brilliant writer who has recently started a blog, The Peanut Express. When I read his recent post, on Greece, I felt extremely flattered that a man of his calibre should have nice things to say about Ganga Mail. It's strange that some of the best writers I've known on blogosphere don't write for a living and choose to stay anonymous (and also have a Bong connection).
In the kitchen, meanwhile, rice is boiling. I can already smell it. Very few aromas are as delectable as that of boiling rice. The rice is going to be my second dinner tonight. Usually, I have my dinner very late -- at times so late that I can hear the chirping of the birds along with the beeps of the microwave. But what to do, I can't write on a full stomach. Today was one of those rare days when I had my dinner early, at the club, after an invigorating workout. I was hoping to lie down in bed and watch a movie or read a book and fall asleep. I was hoping to begin Saturday on an energetic note.
But while we were driving back home, I asked my wife (she's the one who always drives, because I can't) to stop at the supermarket. I wanted to buy cigarettes. As I picked up two packets of Gold Flake Kings and queued up to pay, I noticed, in their fridge, Amul Butter! All these years -- at least for the past 10 years -- I had become totally blind to the existence of butter, only because of the fear of its artery-clogging properties. I had even forgotten how butter tastes like, and was reminded of it only occasionally during my stay in luxury hotels. Planes and trains serve so little butter that you don't even get to taste it even after chewing up the two slices of bread.
But this evening, my heart melted like butter when I spotted the so-familiar Amul slabs, carelessly dumped away in the rack of the refrigerator along with varieties of cheese. Suddenly, memories came gushing! When was the last time I had Amul Butter -- with the knowledge that I was having Amul Butter? I couldn't recall. And when was the last time I had steaming rice with a chunk of Amul Butter melting in it, with half-a-lemon squeezed and some salt sprinkled over the combo? Fuck! This was even harder to tell. Whenever it must have been, it must have happened at the insistence of my mother, who was the only one to understand my taste in food.
My taste in food is very simple. Steaming rice with a spoonful of ghee or butter, served with a sliced lemon, a little salt, and a piece of green chilli to bite on -- that's luxury eating for me. Place a bowl of arhar ki daal and a saag around that plate of rice and I shall be grateful to you all my life. Embellish the plate with a ball of boiled potato mashed with chopped onions, green chilli and mustard oil and I shall be your slave. Simple food not only nourishes your body but also your soul -- or so I believe.
So, while the rice boils, I have decided to write. And to create the hunger for my second dinner, I have poured myself a drink. Since the cooker will shut itself off once the rice (and the two potatoes in it) are cooked, I can focus on the drinking and writing. As long as the birds don't begin to chirp when I take the butter out of the fridge.
But what do I write about? I really have nothing new to say. At the age of forty, I am now leading a pretty boring and predictable life. No new encounters, no new experiences. On top of it, courage seems to be deserting me. Time was when the wife would be out of town and I would remind myself excitedly about the things I could do in her absence. Today, whenever the wife is travelling, I ruefully remind myself of the things I am unable to do in her absence. I really miss her. A wise man would describe this phenomenon as 'conditioning.'
In such a situation, I can only blog about three things with confidence -- things that affect me on a daily basis: my mother, Kishore Kumar and writing. Each day, I make new discoveries about my feelings towards these three elements that currently rule my life.
Hardly a day goes by when I don't recall -- and relive -- that phone call from my father who conveyed the news to me in a very level-headed manner: "Your mother is no more." It is nearly two years now, but the measured voice of my father still keeps ringing in my ear. But I can't keep blogging about it, can I, especially when I have written several posts about my mother's untimely death?
And what new to write about Kishore Kumar? I have written countless heart-felt posts about him. Come to think of it, Kishore Kumar and my mother died at the same age. My mother had had one heart attack, a silent one, before she underwent a bypass surgery, while Kishore Kumar had had two, and even then he went on singing and dancing during stage performances. Of late, though, there have been things I wanted to write about him. Kishore Kumar might have been a great singer, but he could also be mean-minded. When R.D. Burman gave a chance to newcomer Abhijeet (a fellow Kanpurwallah) to sing some of the songs in Dev Anand's Anand Aur Anand, in which Dev Anand was introducing his son Suneil, Kishore Kumar got livid and stormed the recording studio.
Dev Anand managed to pacify Kishore Kumar, assuring him that all the songs pictured on him (Dev Anand) in the film would still be sung by him (Kishore Kumar). But Kishore Kumar still demanded to know why the voice of Abhijeet and not Amit Kumar was being used for Dev Anand's son Suneil. Can't blame Kishore: he was human and not above being insecure. The petty-mindedness, in any case, does not take away from the large-heartedness of his voice.
Then comes writing. What can I write about it? Writing can be a pain in the ass, and I would rather write than talk about writing, even though I have been foolish enough to write several posts on writing in the recent past.
What should I blog about, then? I would rather spend my time reading Desi Babu. Since the past few weeks, a number of friends who stop by my blog have asked me: "BG, who is Desi Babu?" I wish I knew. All I know is he is a kind soul and a brilliant writer who has recently started a blog, The Peanut Express. When I read his recent post, on Greece, I felt extremely flattered that a man of his calibre should have nice things to say about Ganga Mail. It's strange that some of the best writers I've known on blogosphere don't write for a living and choose to stay anonymous (and also have a Bong connection).
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Life In A Metro: Workout For The Brain
Instant messaging maybe good news for man, but bad news for mankind
Imagine having a dozen suits in your wardrobe, dry-cleaned and mothballed periodically, but nowhere to go. Every now and then, you open the wardrobe and look at the suits lovingly and longingly, hoping that an invitation will soon arrive requiring you to wear formals. But the invitation never comes. My condition is somewhat similar today.
I own a rather decent collection of fountain pens. I clean them with water periodically and fill them up with fresh ink, but rarely do I get the chance to put these pens to paper. Yet, greed keeps getting the better of me. About a month ago, I ordered a Ratnam pen from Rajahmundry (the brand is named after its founder Ratnam, who started manufacturing fountain pens in the town way back in 1932, after Gandhi gave the call to boycott foreign goods), but I am yet to find an occasion to take it out of my pocket. Other than using it to initial the attendance register every morning.
When you use a pen, especially a fountain pen, you think several times before committing your thoughts to paper because you don't want to be seen striking out words or sentences too often. As a result, only the clearest of thoughts get transferred when you are writing with a pen, unlike in the case of a computer, where the luxury of the ‘delete' and ‘backspace' keys spares you the trouble of thinking hard before typing out a sentence.
When the screen of the computer is staring at you impatiently, you often make do with thoughts that are floating on the surface instead of plunging deeper. Who has the time?
But, strangely, in an age when communication is instant, communication itself is fast becoming a vanishing art. What we do today – over phone, SMS or online messengers – is merely keep in touch or make small talk.
No longer do we have the urge to communicate, by way of gathering thoughts and putting them down coherently on a piece of paper, because the people we would have liked to write long letters to are now available online 24/7.
We've paid a big price for instant communication, and the price is introspection. While instant communication may be good news for man, it is a terrible thing to happen to mankind. About 100 years from now, when historians set out to document our times, what will they have to fall back on? They will have to break into email accounts or chat transcripts of the who's-who of the 21st Century. Even then, they are unlikely to stumble upon great pieces of literature, but only brief exchanges in SMS lingo.
Even as I write this piece, I can see the spines of two voluminous books peeping from the bookshelf – A Literate Passion(a compilation of the letters between Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin) and Under the Sun (a collection of letters by Bruce Chatwin, the celebrated travel writer).
Books such as these would not have existed if Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin exchanged text messages, or if Chatwin carried an iPad. This is another way of saying that in 100 years from now there will be no new biographies or compilations of correspondences between great minds.
In the latest issue of Time, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David McCullough, when asked whether people not writing letters on paper will affect the study of history, laments, “The loss of people writing – writing a composition, a letter or a report – is not just the loss for the record. It is the loss of the process of working out your thoughts on paper, of having an idea that you would never have had if you weren't [writing]. And that's a handicap. People I research were writing letters every day. That was calisthenics for the brain.”
What he calls calisthenics, I call introspection, which died unnoticed the day communication became instant.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, June 18, 2011.
Imagine having a dozen suits in your wardrobe, dry-cleaned and mothballed periodically, but nowhere to go. Every now and then, you open the wardrobe and look at the suits lovingly and longingly, hoping that an invitation will soon arrive requiring you to wear formals. But the invitation never comes. My condition is somewhat similar today.
I own a rather decent collection of fountain pens. I clean them with water periodically and fill them up with fresh ink, but rarely do I get the chance to put these pens to paper. Yet, greed keeps getting the better of me. About a month ago, I ordered a Ratnam pen from Rajahmundry (the brand is named after its founder Ratnam, who started manufacturing fountain pens in the town way back in 1932, after Gandhi gave the call to boycott foreign goods), but I am yet to find an occasion to take it out of my pocket. Other than using it to initial the attendance register every morning.
When you use a pen, especially a fountain pen, you think several times before committing your thoughts to paper because you don't want to be seen striking out words or sentences too often. As a result, only the clearest of thoughts get transferred when you are writing with a pen, unlike in the case of a computer, where the luxury of the ‘delete' and ‘backspace' keys spares you the trouble of thinking hard before typing out a sentence.
When the screen of the computer is staring at you impatiently, you often make do with thoughts that are floating on the surface instead of plunging deeper. Who has the time?
But, strangely, in an age when communication is instant, communication itself is fast becoming a vanishing art. What we do today – over phone, SMS or online messengers – is merely keep in touch or make small talk.
No longer do we have the urge to communicate, by way of gathering thoughts and putting them down coherently on a piece of paper, because the people we would have liked to write long letters to are now available online 24/7.
We've paid a big price for instant communication, and the price is introspection. While instant communication may be good news for man, it is a terrible thing to happen to mankind. About 100 years from now, when historians set out to document our times, what will they have to fall back on? They will have to break into email accounts or chat transcripts of the who's-who of the 21st Century. Even then, they are unlikely to stumble upon great pieces of literature, but only brief exchanges in SMS lingo.
Even as I write this piece, I can see the spines of two voluminous books peeping from the bookshelf – A Literate Passion(a compilation of the letters between Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin) and Under the Sun (a collection of letters by Bruce Chatwin, the celebrated travel writer).
Books such as these would not have existed if Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin exchanged text messages, or if Chatwin carried an iPad. This is another way of saying that in 100 years from now there will be no new biographies or compilations of correspondences between great minds.
In the latest issue of Time, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David McCullough, when asked whether people not writing letters on paper will affect the study of history, laments, “The loss of people writing – writing a composition, a letter or a report – is not just the loss for the record. It is the loss of the process of working out your thoughts on paper, of having an idea that you would never have had if you weren't [writing]. And that's a handicap. People I research were writing letters every day. That was calisthenics for the brain.”
What he calls calisthenics, I call introspection, which died unnoticed the day communication became instant.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, June 18, 2011.
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Real Man
This evening, the status message of a friend on Google-talk read: A man can love a million girls but only a real man can love one girl in a million ways!
I did not ask the friend whether she had borrowed the line or coined it herself, but I went over it a few times and was tempted to add some words that would have made it read as: A man can love a million girls but only a real man can love one girl in a million ways (even while loving a million others)!
And then a few questions struck me (just as two questions keep striking me these days -- 1. Who on earth in Anna Hazare? and 2. What on earth is Civil Society?):
1. Who/What is a real man?
2. Why should he love just one girl?
3. Why should he love just one girl in a million ways?
4. Is it possible to reach the million-mark in one's lifetime (that was more of a thought than a question)?
5. What if the girl decides that he is not her kind of man, even if a real one: does our man continue loving her in a million ways?
I did not ask the friend whether she had borrowed the line or coined it herself, but I went over it a few times and was tempted to add some words that would have made it read as: A man can love a million girls but only a real man can love one girl in a million ways (even while loving a million others)!
And then a few questions struck me (just as two questions keep striking me these days -- 1. Who on earth in Anna Hazare? and 2. What on earth is Civil Society?):
1. Who/What is a real man?
2. Why should he love just one girl?
3. Why should he love just one girl in a million ways?
4. Is it possible to reach the million-mark in one's lifetime (that was more of a thought than a question)?
5. What if the girl decides that he is not her kind of man, even if a real one: does our man continue loving her in a million ways?
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Midnight, Music And Musings
I was introduced to Bengali music quite late in life. I was already 12 or 13 when I first listened to Rabindra Sangeet; and it was not until the age of 26 or 27 that I discovered the other songs. I have described the discovery in great detail in an earlier post (I was searching the archives of 2009 and 2010 to locate this link but found out that it was written in 2007! How time flies).
Today I can boast of a decent collection of Bengali songs and no longer consider myself inferior -- even if not equal -- to a music-loving Bengali. I preserve the songs like gems because I have searched for them and earned them, unlike a Bengal-bred person, for example my wife, who has inherited them. And the best part about not being bred in Bengal is that there is a new discovery to be made almost every other day.
Tonight I made a new discovery -- a stunning one at that. For years I have been listening to a song, one my favourites, sung by Kishore Kumar and composed by Salil Choudhury for the 1977 Bengali film Kabita:
Shono shono go shobe shono diya mon
bichitro kaahini aek kori boronon...
I have never watched Kabita, but I don't need to see the film in order to like the song, which I have always liked for two reasons. One, Kishore Kumar is in his elements in this song -- he throws his voice not only out of his throat but also his heart and soul. Two, I was very familiar with the tune. Salil Choudhury had used it way back in 1966 for a famous song in the award-winning Malayalam film Chemmeen, which went in the voice of chorus as:
Kanaa poomeeninu povana thonikkaraa
Maanathe ponvala veeshana thonikkaraa...
And in the very next stanza, Yesudas takes over (now the tune is that of the Hindi song, Baag mein kali khili bagiya mehki from the film Chaand Aur Suraj):
Chaakara kadapurathini ulsavamaayi chaakara
Thera purathini malsaramaay...
So Salilda had separated his landmark Malayalam song (composed in Woodlands Hotel in Madras) into two more famous songs, one Hindi and another Bengali.
We are talking about the Bengali part here:
Shono shono go shobe shono diya mon
bichitro kaahini aek kori boronon...
What a full-throated song by Kishore Kumar! How he breathed life even into Bangla lyrics! But did you know who sang this song on the screen? Kamal Hassan! Here, watch it.
So that's the discovery I made tonight. I am sure many of you might already know it, but please don't kill my joy.
Today I can boast of a decent collection of Bengali songs and no longer consider myself inferior -- even if not equal -- to a music-loving Bengali. I preserve the songs like gems because I have searched for them and earned them, unlike a Bengal-bred person, for example my wife, who has inherited them. And the best part about not being bred in Bengal is that there is a new discovery to be made almost every other day.
Tonight I made a new discovery -- a stunning one at that. For years I have been listening to a song, one my favourites, sung by Kishore Kumar and composed by Salil Choudhury for the 1977 Bengali film Kabita:
Shono shono go shobe shono diya mon
bichitro kaahini aek kori boronon...
I have never watched Kabita, but I don't need to see the film in order to like the song, which I have always liked for two reasons. One, Kishore Kumar is in his elements in this song -- he throws his voice not only out of his throat but also his heart and soul. Two, I was very familiar with the tune. Salil Choudhury had used it way back in 1966 for a famous song in the award-winning Malayalam film Chemmeen, which went in the voice of chorus as:
Kanaa poomeeninu povana thonikkaraa
Maanathe ponvala veeshana thonikkaraa...
And in the very next stanza, Yesudas takes over (now the tune is that of the Hindi song, Baag mein kali khili bagiya mehki from the film Chaand Aur Suraj):
Chaakara kadapurathini ulsavamaayi chaakara
Thera purathini malsaramaay...
So Salilda had separated his landmark Malayalam song (composed in Woodlands Hotel in Madras) into two more famous songs, one Hindi and another Bengali.
We are talking about the Bengali part here:
Shono shono go shobe shono diya mon
bichitro kaahini aek kori boronon...
What a full-throated song by Kishore Kumar! How he breathed life even into Bangla lyrics! But did you know who sang this song on the screen? Kamal Hassan! Here, watch it.
So that's the discovery I made tonight. I am sure many of you might already know it, but please don't kill my joy.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Life in a Metro — Saffron Robes, Black Money
Alas, Ramdev thought he could go from curing the body to curing a nation.
Dog biting man is no news, but man biting dog is – that's what generations of aspiring journalists have learned in classrooms. But today, for a TV channel, the incident of a man publicly biting a dog would not only be news but ‘breaking news'. The footage of the man biting the dog would be shown repeatedly, with perhaps a red circle pointing to the exact moment his teeth sink into the poor animal. And then there will be sound bites (pun not intended at all) from various people: a psychiatrist analysing how the man could stoop to such a level; an animal lover demanding imprisonment for the man; the veterinarian giving an update on the dog's recovery; and so on.
A few years ago, a cat stranded on the sunshade of a high-rise became the ‘breaking news' on one of the channels, and that was when I completely gave up watching news on TV. I began catching up with the day's events the old-fashioned way – reading the next morning's newspaper.
Until last Sunday, when I decided to make an exception by being a couch potato, and as a result found myself caught in the crossfire between the Central government and Ramdev. The channels – all of them – reported no news other than the midnight eviction of Ramdev from the Ramlila grounds in Delhi, where he had sat in protest to demand the return of stashed-away black money to the country.
As I watched the drama, memories went back to 2003, when I was initiated into yoga in an ashram located in the forests of Kerala. Also around that time, a channel called Aastha had started telecasting live the yoga camps conducted by Ramdev in various towns.
Since I knew my yoga by now, I took an instant liking for him: a good-natured, talkative, saffron-robed man who had taken yoga from hallowed ashrams into the drawing rooms and bedrooms of the common man. He demystified yoga and brought about a revolution in urban India.
But is that why he is so popular and powerful today? No. His real power stems from the evangelist-like statements he makes about the curative powers of yoga. The kapaalabhaati kriya alone, he says, can cure all diseases that afflict mankind. He, therefore, came as a godsend to the middle-class, middle-aged Indian – as someone who promised them quick, painless and free cures for their raised sugar levels and blocked arteries.
While the health benefits of yoga cannot be disputed, it is not known how many diabetics or heart patients were actually cured by following him on television. But faith can be blind. So the number of his followers swelled by the millions, and Ramdev went from strength to strength, holding a yoga camp even at Rashtrapati Bhawan, at the invitation of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. And then, success went to his head. He became ambitious. He thought it was time for him to cure the nation of its ailments.
But Ramdev made two mistakes at the Ramlila grounds. One, he forgot to discard his saffron robes. A saffron-robed yogi is supposed to be a renunciate who pursues spiritualism and preaches detachment – he does not take on corruption but instead seeks to rise above it. Two, he forgot that people come to the camps for purely selfish reasons – they are interested in Ramdev as long as he talks about yoga and its benefits. Corruption is something they've learned to live with; their real enemies are diabetes and hypertension.
Which is why his campaign failed: it got mass coverage, but not mass support.
Today, all that is being talked about is whether the government was right or wrong in evicting Ramdev from the Ramlila grounds. Black money remains where it is.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, 11 June 2011.
Dog biting man is no news, but man biting dog is – that's what generations of aspiring journalists have learned in classrooms. But today, for a TV channel, the incident of a man publicly biting a dog would not only be news but ‘breaking news'. The footage of the man biting the dog would be shown repeatedly, with perhaps a red circle pointing to the exact moment his teeth sink into the poor animal. And then there will be sound bites (pun not intended at all) from various people: a psychiatrist analysing how the man could stoop to such a level; an animal lover demanding imprisonment for the man; the veterinarian giving an update on the dog's recovery; and so on.
A few years ago, a cat stranded on the sunshade of a high-rise became the ‘breaking news' on one of the channels, and that was when I completely gave up watching news on TV. I began catching up with the day's events the old-fashioned way – reading the next morning's newspaper.
Until last Sunday, when I decided to make an exception by being a couch potato, and as a result found myself caught in the crossfire between the Central government and Ramdev. The channels – all of them – reported no news other than the midnight eviction of Ramdev from the Ramlila grounds in Delhi, where he had sat in protest to demand the return of stashed-away black money to the country.
As I watched the drama, memories went back to 2003, when I was initiated into yoga in an ashram located in the forests of Kerala. Also around that time, a channel called Aastha had started telecasting live the yoga camps conducted by Ramdev in various towns.
Since I knew my yoga by now, I took an instant liking for him: a good-natured, talkative, saffron-robed man who had taken yoga from hallowed ashrams into the drawing rooms and bedrooms of the common man. He demystified yoga and brought about a revolution in urban India.
But is that why he is so popular and powerful today? No. His real power stems from the evangelist-like statements he makes about the curative powers of yoga. The kapaalabhaati kriya alone, he says, can cure all diseases that afflict mankind. He, therefore, came as a godsend to the middle-class, middle-aged Indian – as someone who promised them quick, painless and free cures for their raised sugar levels and blocked arteries.
While the health benefits of yoga cannot be disputed, it is not known how many diabetics or heart patients were actually cured by following him on television. But faith can be blind. So the number of his followers swelled by the millions, and Ramdev went from strength to strength, holding a yoga camp even at Rashtrapati Bhawan, at the invitation of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. And then, success went to his head. He became ambitious. He thought it was time for him to cure the nation of its ailments.
But Ramdev made two mistakes at the Ramlila grounds. One, he forgot to discard his saffron robes. A saffron-robed yogi is supposed to be a renunciate who pursues spiritualism and preaches detachment – he does not take on corruption but instead seeks to rise above it. Two, he forgot that people come to the camps for purely selfish reasons – they are interested in Ramdev as long as he talks about yoga and its benefits. Corruption is something they've learned to live with; their real enemies are diabetes and hypertension.
Which is why his campaign failed: it got mass coverage, but not mass support.
Today, all that is being talked about is whether the government was right or wrong in evicting Ramdev from the Ramlila grounds. Black money remains where it is.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, 11 June 2011.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Song Of The Road
The road called life -- my life, your life. From Rajnigandha, directed by Basu Chatterjee.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Life In A Metro — Urban Blues
In its transition from Garden City to Mall City, Bangalore has lost its identity
When you live close to a city or town of public interest – say Agra or Pondicherry – you invariably end up never going there because the proximity makes you take the place for granted. “Oh, what's the hurry,” you keep telling yourself as the years roll by, while people living thousands of miles away keep coming in hordes to visit the very place.
I came to live in Chennai in early 2001, and it was a good four years before I happened to visit Bangalore, barely 360 km away, and five years before I finally travelled to Pondicherry, just 160 km away. They may say it's better late than never, but in the case of Bangalore, had I delayed my visit by a couple of years, I would have never known what it looked like in its heyday when it was also known as the Air-conditioned City, Garden City and Pensioners' Paradise. I had made it just in time – the reverse metamorphosis of the city, brought about by the IT revolution in the late 1990s, was beginning to be visible but still far from obvious.
As with everything ‘first', the sensations of that maiden trip to Bangalore in June 2005 are still alive. As soon as I stepped onto the station – it was close to noon by then – a cool breeze caressed my face. The portable, invisible air-conditioner was to accompany me throughout my stay. And one evening, when a small group of people had gathered in the balcony of a friend's house for post-dinner conversation, it became so cold that the friend had to dig out all the blankets and shawls she had in her cupboards. This was June, when Chennai was a furnace!
This small group of people, that included me, went pub-hopping every evening. Bangalore took great pride in its pubs – they weren't mere watering holes where people just went to get drunk; they were the symbols of its sophisticated culture where the young rubbed shoulders with the not-so-young to get drunk on music and conversation. The frothy beer was mostly an excuse – and, at times, the catalyst – for the enjoyment. How can I ever forget the sight of young men frenziedly playing the air guitar with their eyes shut as the DJ brought on Led Zeppelin!
June 2011: As I got off the train and walked down the platform on a bright morning, the first thing that struck me was the heat. I waited several minutes for that familiar breeze to brush past my face but none arrived. By the time I reached the parking lot, where a friend was waiting to show off his new car, I found patches of sweat on my shirt. “Next year we are going to buy ACs for our bedrooms. The summers have become quite unbearable here,” the friend told me as he navigated the station traffic. His wife added, “We would have bought them this year itself, but we spent quite a bit on the car.” I hadn't even brought up the weather.
The same evening, I returned to M.G. Road. I found it brutally scarred by the monster called development. It is no longer a place for a stroll, but a cramped pathway where you navigate crowds. And the less said about Brigade Road, once the most fashionable stretch in the city, the better. Today, it is a slightly upscale version of Chennai's Ranganathan Street, where it is impossible to walk without your elbows touching those of total strangers.
The Pensioners' Paradise is today undergoing reconstruction to accommodate the migrant workforce. The green cover is shrinking, the population is exploding. Much of the migrant population has never known the charm of old Bangalore: they are dazzled by its malls and so more malls are coming up. A huge mall is opening shortly on No. 1, M.G. Road – and is most likely to be named after its enviable address.
Later that evening, I made another heartbreaking discovery: the death of Bangalore's nightlife. I was aware that nightclubs now follow a strict 11.30 deadline, but what I didn't know was that many of the popular standalone pubs I had visited during my maiden trip had shut down. In any case, today's Bangalorean hardly has the time to wind down with mugs of beer. After a hard day's work, he has a bigger challenge waiting for him: the long and strenuous drive back home.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, June 4, 2011.
When you live close to a city or town of public interest – say Agra or Pondicherry – you invariably end up never going there because the proximity makes you take the place for granted. “Oh, what's the hurry,” you keep telling yourself as the years roll by, while people living thousands of miles away keep coming in hordes to visit the very place.
I came to live in Chennai in early 2001, and it was a good four years before I happened to visit Bangalore, barely 360 km away, and five years before I finally travelled to Pondicherry, just 160 km away. They may say it's better late than never, but in the case of Bangalore, had I delayed my visit by a couple of years, I would have never known what it looked like in its heyday when it was also known as the Air-conditioned City, Garden City and Pensioners' Paradise. I had made it just in time – the reverse metamorphosis of the city, brought about by the IT revolution in the late 1990s, was beginning to be visible but still far from obvious.
As with everything ‘first', the sensations of that maiden trip to Bangalore in June 2005 are still alive. As soon as I stepped onto the station – it was close to noon by then – a cool breeze caressed my face. The portable, invisible air-conditioner was to accompany me throughout my stay. And one evening, when a small group of people had gathered in the balcony of a friend's house for post-dinner conversation, it became so cold that the friend had to dig out all the blankets and shawls she had in her cupboards. This was June, when Chennai was a furnace!
This small group of people, that included me, went pub-hopping every evening. Bangalore took great pride in its pubs – they weren't mere watering holes where people just went to get drunk; they were the symbols of its sophisticated culture where the young rubbed shoulders with the not-so-young to get drunk on music and conversation. The frothy beer was mostly an excuse – and, at times, the catalyst – for the enjoyment. How can I ever forget the sight of young men frenziedly playing the air guitar with their eyes shut as the DJ brought on Led Zeppelin!
June 2011: As I got off the train and walked down the platform on a bright morning, the first thing that struck me was the heat. I waited several minutes for that familiar breeze to brush past my face but none arrived. By the time I reached the parking lot, where a friend was waiting to show off his new car, I found patches of sweat on my shirt. “Next year we are going to buy ACs for our bedrooms. The summers have become quite unbearable here,” the friend told me as he navigated the station traffic. His wife added, “We would have bought them this year itself, but we spent quite a bit on the car.” I hadn't even brought up the weather.
The same evening, I returned to M.G. Road. I found it brutally scarred by the monster called development. It is no longer a place for a stroll, but a cramped pathway where you navigate crowds. And the less said about Brigade Road, once the most fashionable stretch in the city, the better. Today, it is a slightly upscale version of Chennai's Ranganathan Street, where it is impossible to walk without your elbows touching those of total strangers.
The Pensioners' Paradise is today undergoing reconstruction to accommodate the migrant workforce. The green cover is shrinking, the population is exploding. Much of the migrant population has never known the charm of old Bangalore: they are dazzled by its malls and so more malls are coming up. A huge mall is opening shortly on No. 1, M.G. Road – and is most likely to be named after its enviable address.
Later that evening, I made another heartbreaking discovery: the death of Bangalore's nightlife. I was aware that nightclubs now follow a strict 11.30 deadline, but what I didn't know was that many of the popular standalone pubs I had visited during my maiden trip had shut down. In any case, today's Bangalorean hardly has the time to wind down with mugs of beer. After a hard day's work, he has a bigger challenge waiting for him: the long and strenuous drive back home.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, June 4, 2011.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Basu Chatterjee? A Midnight Analysis
You don't have to be an avid watcher of Hindi films to have heard of Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Basu Chatterjee. In case you still haven't, let me tell you that without these two directors, the Hindi film industry would be as poor as a rich man with all the grandeur but without a soul.
I would, in fact, place them on a pedestal that would make them stand taller than Satyajit Ray. It is, of course, fashionable to worship Ray. Especially as a Bengali, if you are not found to be in awe of him, or Tagore for that matter, you are bound to be sneered at. No doubt Ray was a genius -- you only have to watch Nayak, Aranyer Din Ratri and Ghare Baire to get an idea about his mastery over the craft. These happen to be the only Ray movies that I would like to watch over and again. Let me add Seemabaddha and Pratidwandi to the list. On the other hand, I found Joi Baba Felunath foolish (I would any day settle for Johnny Mera Naam) and Agantuk to be replete with overacting.
Between these two extremes, Ray made numerous other films that I have always found depressing and never had the patience to watch -- not to mention the insufferable background scores. I have also always wondered why he never hired S.D. Burman or Salil Chowdhury to do the background score for him. I guess the whole idea was not to have big commercial names on board -- most award-winning films either don't have background music or have a score so boring that you instinctively know it is an award-winning film.
Now, if this makes me an intellectually-challenged Bengali, so be it. Ray's films have had nothing for me -- me, as in the average Indian (and not French) movie-watcher who once upon a time could afford a ticket and now has the money to buy a DVD. I wonder how many people living in the villages of Bengal have actually watched Pather Panchali (it would be a good idea to find out even now); am pretty sure the film, no matter how good, got immortalised due to people who had their breakfast in Flurys or sipped red wine in French cafes. Appreciation of Ray's films came to exemplify the art of inverted snobbery -- an art that continues to flourish in parts of Calcutta and of the world even today. If you happen to be spending the night at a Bong woman's place, and if, over drinks, you choose to watch Amar Akbar Anthony over any of her Ray collection, be warned that that could be your last night with her. Unless you are so good with the basic skills that she switches off the TV and throws away the remote.
Even when Ray was at the height of his creative genius, two fellow Bengalis happened to make friends with the audience. They were Hrishida and Basuda. They told the audience stories that they could instantly relate to, and in the process made them laugh as well as cry. In short, they touched hearts. End of the day, that's what matters.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee made Satyakaam, Chupke Chupke, Anupama, Anand, Abhimaan, Guddi, Gol Maal, Aashirwad, Baawarchi, Namak Haraam -- to name a few.
Basu Chatterjee made Piya Ka Ghar, Chhoti Si Baat, Rajnigandha, Khatta Meetha, Apne Paraye, Manpasand, Shaukeen -- to name a few.
These two men -- who gave their best in the 1970's and 80's -- successfully demonstrated that a Hindi film did not have to revolve around a superman-like hero chasing smugglers (who landed on a deserted Bombay beach under the cover of darkness) or baying for the blood of his parents' killers. The hero, they proved, could be you, or the man next door -- basically the middle-class Indian man, without superhuman powers, who could be working as a clerk in some private firm or the other.
Now, the question that arises in my mind is (actually the comparison to Ray was quite pointless here, but never mind): who is greater of the two, Hrishida or Basuda?
It's a tough question, but I have an answer ready: if there is ever a fire at my home, I would first save the DVDs of Basu Chatterjee's films. Why so? Wait for the next post -- if you still want to.
I would, in fact, place them on a pedestal that would make them stand taller than Satyajit Ray. It is, of course, fashionable to worship Ray. Especially as a Bengali, if you are not found to be in awe of him, or Tagore for that matter, you are bound to be sneered at. No doubt Ray was a genius -- you only have to watch Nayak, Aranyer Din Ratri and Ghare Baire to get an idea about his mastery over the craft. These happen to be the only Ray movies that I would like to watch over and again. Let me add Seemabaddha and Pratidwandi to the list. On the other hand, I found Joi Baba Felunath foolish (I would any day settle for Johnny Mera Naam) and Agantuk to be replete with overacting.
Between these two extremes, Ray made numerous other films that I have always found depressing and never had the patience to watch -- not to mention the insufferable background scores. I have also always wondered why he never hired S.D. Burman or Salil Chowdhury to do the background score for him. I guess the whole idea was not to have big commercial names on board -- most award-winning films either don't have background music or have a score so boring that you instinctively know it is an award-winning film.
Now, if this makes me an intellectually-challenged Bengali, so be it. Ray's films have had nothing for me -- me, as in the average Indian (and not French) movie-watcher who once upon a time could afford a ticket and now has the money to buy a DVD. I wonder how many people living in the villages of Bengal have actually watched Pather Panchali (it would be a good idea to find out even now); am pretty sure the film, no matter how good, got immortalised due to people who had their breakfast in Flurys or sipped red wine in French cafes. Appreciation of Ray's films came to exemplify the art of inverted snobbery -- an art that continues to flourish in parts of Calcutta and of the world even today. If you happen to be spending the night at a Bong woman's place, and if, over drinks, you choose to watch Amar Akbar Anthony over any of her Ray collection, be warned that that could be your last night with her. Unless you are so good with the basic skills that she switches off the TV and throws away the remote.
Even when Ray was at the height of his creative genius, two fellow Bengalis happened to make friends with the audience. They were Hrishida and Basuda. They told the audience stories that they could instantly relate to, and in the process made them laugh as well as cry. In short, they touched hearts. End of the day, that's what matters.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee made Satyakaam, Chupke Chupke, Anupama, Anand, Abhimaan, Guddi, Gol Maal, Aashirwad, Baawarchi, Namak Haraam -- to name a few.
Basu Chatterjee made Piya Ka Ghar, Chhoti Si Baat, Rajnigandha, Khatta Meetha, Apne Paraye, Manpasand, Shaukeen -- to name a few.
These two men -- who gave their best in the 1970's and 80's -- successfully demonstrated that a Hindi film did not have to revolve around a superman-like hero chasing smugglers (who landed on a deserted Bombay beach under the cover of darkness) or baying for the blood of his parents' killers. The hero, they proved, could be you, or the man next door -- basically the middle-class Indian man, without superhuman powers, who could be working as a clerk in some private firm or the other.
Now, the question that arises in my mind is (actually the comparison to Ray was quite pointless here, but never mind): who is greater of the two, Hrishida or Basuda?
It's a tough question, but I have an answer ready: if there is ever a fire at my home, I would first save the DVDs of Basu Chatterjee's films. Why so? Wait for the next post -- if you still want to.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Life In A Metro: A Victory For Fort St. George
"Changes of time are fickle,” Francis Day, the hard-drinking and womanising employee of the East India Company wrote in an emotional and personally delivered letter to his boss Andrew Cogan, “and if you suffer this opportunity to pass over, you shall perhaps in vain afterwards pursue the same when it is fled and gone.”
The year was 1639: the East India Company, competing with the Dutch, was eager to build a permanent settlement on the east coast, and Day was trying to hard-sell Cogan the idea of building it on a sandy strip of beach, which he had already negotiated for with the local chieftain.
The strip of beach was barely three miles away from the Portuguese settlement of San Thome, where Day had had a good time during his expeditions to scout for land — he even found himself a lover there.
The passionate grab-it-or-regret-it tone of Day's letter had its desired effect. On February 20, 1640, both Day and Cogan, dropped anchor at the appointed piece of beach after winding up business at Armagon (today known as a town called Durgarajupatnam, in Andhra Pradesh), where they had a trading post until then. On that dreary strip of sand they built a walled settlement and named it — rather grandiosely, after the patron saint of England — Fort St. George. Madraspatnam, today known as Chennai, grew out of Fort St. George.
But it is not Chennai alone that owes its existence to Fort St. George. When Day and Cogan founded Madraspatnam in February 1640, Delhi was still a medieval city that was ruled by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and was actually known as Shahjahanabad, while Bombay and Calcutta weren't even born. The construction of the Fort, therefore, can be considered the starting point of modern India. In other words, modern India was born out of Fort St. George.
It is a different matter that this historical fact is never celebrated — either out of ignorance or indifference. Kolkata still fondly remembers its founder Job Charnock – there is a popular shopping complex-cum-restaurant called Charnock City – but Chennai has never had a Cogan Café or a Day Dosa. In fact, much before he founded Calcutta, Charnock got his daughters baptised at St. Mary's Church in Fort St. George.
The soil of Fort St. George seems to possess a lucky charm. A number of clerks and soldiers and administrators who came to serve here as non-entities got catapulted to unbelievably high positions — high enough not only to decide the destiny of India but also of Britain. During the 18th and 19th Centuries, a number of illustrious Britons, including prime ministers, commanders-in-chief, governors-general, members of Parliament and bureaucrats had one thing in common — the Fort St. George connection.
It was in the Fort that Elihu Yale made his riches, a small part of which was subsequently donated to a cash-strapped university in Connecticut, which decided to name itself after Yale in gratitude. Then there was Robert Clive, who arrived here as a clerk of the East India Company and got so depressed by the nature of his job that he decided to put a gun to his head. The gun failed to fire and Clive went on to become a “heaven-born general” and lay the foundation of the British Empire.
Similarly, Arthur Wellesley, who as a young colonel spent several months in the Fort planning (and then fighting) the war against Tipu Sultan, went on to win the most iconic battle in British history — the battle of Waterloo. Warren Hastings served in the Fort as the export warehouse-keeper before he was promoted and sent to Calcutta as India's first governor-general. The list of people who went on to be kissed by greatness after a stint in Fort St. George is long.
For 371 years, the Fort remained the seat of power in Madras. But in 2010, chief minister M. Karunanidhi decided to move out of its charmed soil — only to meet his Waterloo. He conceived a new Secretariat building on Mount Road and had it constructed in a tearing hurry so that it could be inaugurated while he was in power. One of the buildings sacrificed to make space for the new Secretariat was the 250-year-old Government House, perhaps the most precious piece of colonial heritage in the city after the Fort itself.
Eventually, Karunanidhi lost, Fort St. George won. It's gone back to being the seat of power — at least for the next five years.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, May 21, 2011.
The year was 1639: the East India Company, competing with the Dutch, was eager to build a permanent settlement on the east coast, and Day was trying to hard-sell Cogan the idea of building it on a sandy strip of beach, which he had already negotiated for with the local chieftain.
The strip of beach was barely three miles away from the Portuguese settlement of San Thome, where Day had had a good time during his expeditions to scout for land — he even found himself a lover there.
The passionate grab-it-or-regret-it tone of Day's letter had its desired effect. On February 20, 1640, both Day and Cogan, dropped anchor at the appointed piece of beach after winding up business at Armagon (today known as a town called Durgarajupatnam, in Andhra Pradesh), where they had a trading post until then. On that dreary strip of sand they built a walled settlement and named it — rather grandiosely, after the patron saint of England — Fort St. George. Madraspatnam, today known as Chennai, grew out of Fort St. George.
But it is not Chennai alone that owes its existence to Fort St. George. When Day and Cogan founded Madraspatnam in February 1640, Delhi was still a medieval city that was ruled by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and was actually known as Shahjahanabad, while Bombay and Calcutta weren't even born. The construction of the Fort, therefore, can be considered the starting point of modern India. In other words, modern India was born out of Fort St. George.
It is a different matter that this historical fact is never celebrated — either out of ignorance or indifference. Kolkata still fondly remembers its founder Job Charnock – there is a popular shopping complex-cum-restaurant called Charnock City – but Chennai has never had a Cogan Café or a Day Dosa. In fact, much before he founded Calcutta, Charnock got his daughters baptised at St. Mary's Church in Fort St. George.
The soil of Fort St. George seems to possess a lucky charm. A number of clerks and soldiers and administrators who came to serve here as non-entities got catapulted to unbelievably high positions — high enough not only to decide the destiny of India but also of Britain. During the 18th and 19th Centuries, a number of illustrious Britons, including prime ministers, commanders-in-chief, governors-general, members of Parliament and bureaucrats had one thing in common — the Fort St. George connection.
It was in the Fort that Elihu Yale made his riches, a small part of which was subsequently donated to a cash-strapped university in Connecticut, which decided to name itself after Yale in gratitude. Then there was Robert Clive, who arrived here as a clerk of the East India Company and got so depressed by the nature of his job that he decided to put a gun to his head. The gun failed to fire and Clive went on to become a “heaven-born general” and lay the foundation of the British Empire.
Similarly, Arthur Wellesley, who as a young colonel spent several months in the Fort planning (and then fighting) the war against Tipu Sultan, went on to win the most iconic battle in British history — the battle of Waterloo. Warren Hastings served in the Fort as the export warehouse-keeper before he was promoted and sent to Calcutta as India's first governor-general. The list of people who went on to be kissed by greatness after a stint in Fort St. George is long.
For 371 years, the Fort remained the seat of power in Madras. But in 2010, chief minister M. Karunanidhi decided to move out of its charmed soil — only to meet his Waterloo. He conceived a new Secretariat building on Mount Road and had it constructed in a tearing hurry so that it could be inaugurated while he was in power. One of the buildings sacrificed to make space for the new Secretariat was the 250-year-old Government House, perhaps the most precious piece of colonial heritage in the city after the Fort itself.
Eventually, Karunanidhi lost, Fort St. George won. It's gone back to being the seat of power — at least for the next five years.
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, May 21, 2011.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Life in a Metro: The Mind of a Mother
Until that evening, I thought a hospital was the most depressing place on this planet. In a hospital, there is at least hope. In an old-age home, there is none — the inmates are like passengers of a bus that is taking them to the sunset of their lives. In the fading sunlight, they can only observe the world from the window; they are not permitted to alight until the bus has reached its final destination.
Quite symbolically, the sun had begun to set by the time I could locate the old-age home I was visiting to research a book. And quite ironically, the home happened to be situated right next to a park where elderly men were already out in their walking shoes — some of them would get back home to have their quota of two small drinks before dinner, some others would play with their grandchildren or help them with homework.
But in the old-age home, the inmates had no home to go back to; that was their home. A cold silence greeted me when I walked in. Not a soul in sight. I tried to listen for footsteps or coughing, but I all I could hear, in the silence, were sighs of resignation and the chirping of birds from the park. I was spotted soon enough by an attendant, who quickly rounded up the residents in the hall so that I could interview them.
It was the same story repeated over and over again: once upon a time they were a happy family until the sons landed dream jobs in the U.S. and the daughters got married to respectable professionals settled abroad. The elderly parents suddenly found themselves stranded in their own city. When one of them died, the surviving parent was either forced or coaxed by the children, all leading prosperous lives abroad, to move into the old-age home. No parent categorically blamed the children; all of them claimed that they had moved into the home out of their own choice. Except one woman — let's call her Ratnamma.
Ratnamma, 74 years old, was bitterly critical of her daughter. "My husband and I were living together until he died two years ago. Within 10 days of the funeral, my daughter brought me here. Imagine, she is my only daughter!" she seethed.
Ratnamma could only speak Tamil, and the inmate who acted as my interpreter had initially tried to present me with toned-down versions of her outbursts — it was quite obvious that he didn't want to bring a bad name to the 'children'. But Ratnamma had sufficient understanding of English to realise what the interpreter was up to. She rebuked him: "Let him know what I have been through." After which the interpreter began translating her sentences verbatim.
"I would have liked to stay with my daughter after my husband's death, but no, she did not allow me to!" Ratnamma went on. “She just dumped me here!"
"What does your daughter do?" I asked Ratnamma. "How old is she?"
"She is 42, she is an engineer. She is earning quite well. She has a son who goes to school."
"Why doesn't she want you to stay with her?"
"She says: 'Amma, who will look after you when I go to work and the child goes to school?' Am I bedridden to be looked after? Tell me. I get my pension. I am not going to be a burden on her."
The other inmates looked away in an uninterested manner as Ratnamma continued her tirade. They did not want to be seen in the same boat as hers.
"What does her husband do?" I asked.
"She is divorced. She and her child are living alone. Still, she is hell-bent on keeping me here!" she said.
Suddenly, there was silence. The anger on Ratnamma's face began to melt into embarrassment. "But I must say that my daughter is of good character," she sought to clarify.
"Good character!" the interpreter mocked her, seeking his revenge. "All this while you were saying how bad she is."
"She may be bad," Ratnamma fought back, "but her character is good."
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, May 14, 2011.
Quite symbolically, the sun had begun to set by the time I could locate the old-age home I was visiting to research a book. And quite ironically, the home happened to be situated right next to a park where elderly men were already out in their walking shoes — some of them would get back home to have their quota of two small drinks before dinner, some others would play with their grandchildren or help them with homework.
But in the old-age home, the inmates had no home to go back to; that was their home. A cold silence greeted me when I walked in. Not a soul in sight. I tried to listen for footsteps or coughing, but I all I could hear, in the silence, were sighs of resignation and the chirping of birds from the park. I was spotted soon enough by an attendant, who quickly rounded up the residents in the hall so that I could interview them.
It was the same story repeated over and over again: once upon a time they were a happy family until the sons landed dream jobs in the U.S. and the daughters got married to respectable professionals settled abroad. The elderly parents suddenly found themselves stranded in their own city. When one of them died, the surviving parent was either forced or coaxed by the children, all leading prosperous lives abroad, to move into the old-age home. No parent categorically blamed the children; all of them claimed that they had moved into the home out of their own choice. Except one woman — let's call her Ratnamma.
Ratnamma, 74 years old, was bitterly critical of her daughter. "My husband and I were living together until he died two years ago. Within 10 days of the funeral, my daughter brought me here. Imagine, she is my only daughter!" she seethed.
Ratnamma could only speak Tamil, and the inmate who acted as my interpreter had initially tried to present me with toned-down versions of her outbursts — it was quite obvious that he didn't want to bring a bad name to the 'children'. But Ratnamma had sufficient understanding of English to realise what the interpreter was up to. She rebuked him: "Let him know what I have been through." After which the interpreter began translating her sentences verbatim.
"I would have liked to stay with my daughter after my husband's death, but no, she did not allow me to!" Ratnamma went on. “She just dumped me here!"
"What does your daughter do?" I asked Ratnamma. "How old is she?"
"She is 42, she is an engineer. She is earning quite well. She has a son who goes to school."
"Why doesn't she want you to stay with her?"
"She says: 'Amma, who will look after you when I go to work and the child goes to school?' Am I bedridden to be looked after? Tell me. I get my pension. I am not going to be a burden on her."
The other inmates looked away in an uninterested manner as Ratnamma continued her tirade. They did not want to be seen in the same boat as hers.
"What does her husband do?" I asked.
"She is divorced. She and her child are living alone. Still, she is hell-bent on keeping me here!" she said.
Suddenly, there was silence. The anger on Ratnamma's face began to melt into embarrassment. "But I must say that my daughter is of good character," she sought to clarify.
"Good character!" the interpreter mocked her, seeking his revenge. "All this while you were saying how bad she is."
"She may be bad," Ratnamma fought back, "but her character is good."
Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, May 14, 2011.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
I Am The Entertainer
Thanks to a gentleman who makes me wish I could write like him and whose real name I do not know, I am hooked to Billy Joel's The Entertainer these days. In the moments of self-doubt and low self-esteem -- they seem to be occurring more frequently these days -- this song acts like an invisible hand that runs through the hair and automatically straightens out the eyebrows raised with worry. It goes like this:
I am the entertainer,
And I know just where I stand:
Another serenader,
And another long-haired band.
Today I am your champion.
I may have won your hearts.
But I know the game,
You will forget my name,
And I won't be here
In another year,
If I don't stay on the charts.
He knew the game obviously. After all, he managed to stay on long enough to be nominated for the Grammy 23 times and to win it six times.
The Entertainer was written sometime in the 1970's. Around the same time, an Indian lyricist also happened to express exactly the same sentiments in a song that went on to be a legend. The song is Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon from Kabhie Kabhie, written (with a fountain pen, most probably) by Sahir Ludhianvi. To quote from it:
Kal aur ayenge naghmon ki khilti kaliyan chunnewale
mujhse behtar kehne waley, tumse behtar sunne waley
kal koi mujhko yaad karey, kyon koi mujhko yaad karey
masroof zamana mere liye kyon waqt apna barbadh kare
main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon.
My translation of Sahir's lines: Tomorrow, there will be new writers and new connoisseurs / there will be poets who will write better than me and listeners who will be more appreciating than you / why should anyone care to remember me tomorrow / why should the busy world spare it's precious time for me / I am a poet only for a moment or two.
Sahir, without doubt, is the only literary lyricist that Hindi cinema has ever had. He was a genius: his lyrics needle your mind even today. It was not for nothing that Amrita Pritam, once he left her home after paying her a visit, would light up the cigarettes stubbed by him in the ashtray and smoke the leftover tobacco, just to feel him in her lungs. For further evidence of his genius, you must listen to the songs of Pyaasa and Aa Gale Lag Ja at the same time.
The two films belong to two different generations, but Sahir effectively demonstrates that it does not matter which era you live in -- it feels all the same when you are in love or when you have been ditched. But Kabhie Kabhie, since it concerns the life of a poet, would go down in history as Sahir's landmark film. A long time ago, I wrote a lengthy post on the songs of Kabhie Kabhie, but back then, not many people read my blog. I hope you will be kind enough to read it now.
End of the day, be it Billy Joel or Sahir Ludhianvi, they mean the same thing: Keep it up, before they forget you. Unless your favourite holiday spot happens to be a town called Oblivion.
I am the entertainer,
And I know just where I stand:
Another serenader,
And another long-haired band.
Today I am your champion.
I may have won your hearts.
But I know the game,
You will forget my name,
And I won't be here
In another year,
If I don't stay on the charts.
He knew the game obviously. After all, he managed to stay on long enough to be nominated for the Grammy 23 times and to win it six times.
The Entertainer was written sometime in the 1970's. Around the same time, an Indian lyricist also happened to express exactly the same sentiments in a song that went on to be a legend. The song is Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon from Kabhie Kabhie, written (with a fountain pen, most probably) by Sahir Ludhianvi. To quote from it:
Kal aur ayenge naghmon ki khilti kaliyan chunnewale
mujhse behtar kehne waley, tumse behtar sunne waley
kal koi mujhko yaad karey, kyon koi mujhko yaad karey
masroof zamana mere liye kyon waqt apna barbadh kare
main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon.
My translation of Sahir's lines: Tomorrow, there will be new writers and new connoisseurs / there will be poets who will write better than me and listeners who will be more appreciating than you / why should anyone care to remember me tomorrow / why should the busy world spare it's precious time for me / I am a poet only for a moment or two.
Sahir, without doubt, is the only literary lyricist that Hindi cinema has ever had. He was a genius: his lyrics needle your mind even today. It was not for nothing that Amrita Pritam, once he left her home after paying her a visit, would light up the cigarettes stubbed by him in the ashtray and smoke the leftover tobacco, just to feel him in her lungs. For further evidence of his genius, you must listen to the songs of Pyaasa and Aa Gale Lag Ja at the same time.
The two films belong to two different generations, but Sahir effectively demonstrates that it does not matter which era you live in -- it feels all the same when you are in love or when you have been ditched. But Kabhie Kabhie, since it concerns the life of a poet, would go down in history as Sahir's landmark film. A long time ago, I wrote a lengthy post on the songs of Kabhie Kabhie, but back then, not many people read my blog. I hope you will be kind enough to read it now.
End of the day, be it Billy Joel or Sahir Ludhianvi, they mean the same thing: Keep it up, before they forget you. Unless your favourite holiday spot happens to be a town called Oblivion.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Return Of The Column
What's most rewarding about being a writer is that every single moment in your life presents you with raw material that can be turned into a piece of writing. If your bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you are stranded for several hours, you have a story to tell. If you happen to be bitten by a dog, you can write write a 500-word humorous piece and send it to a newspaper. If in bed, you happen to find your partner wearing her undies inside out, you can quietly store away that little discovery for use in a future book. Even if you are doing nothing, just lying in bed and watching the blades of the fan rotate furiously, you can use the image to open your new novel -- "Are they blades of a fan or hands of a clock -- he wondered. Time flies, sigh."
In the end that's what makes you feel powerful -- the ability to transform every moment into a story. Money and fame, if at all they come, cease to matter beyond a point. And nothing can be more gratifying for a writer than finding himself a platform from where he can share such -- seemingly -- day-to-day stories with readers without having to write lengthy articles or novels. A newspaper column is one such place.
Until about three years ago, I wrote a column called Sunday Spin in the Express. I don't remember exactly for how long the column ran; I think it was close to three years, initially as a fortnightly and then as a weekly. Every Tuesday night, around 10 o' clock (Wednesday was the deadline for the Sunday magazine to go to print), I would sit in front of the computer wondering what to write. Eventually an idea would arrive and I would manage to flesh it out into a 650-word column by two or three in the morning.
Before going to sleep I would mail it to two people, Sushila Ravindranath and Baradwaj Rangan. Sushila was the editor, while Baradwaj supervised the page in which the column went; so it was natural that I had to mail the piece to them. But the idea behind finishing the column and mailing it to them before daybreak was to make them read it as soon as they switched on their computers in the morning -- while there was still sufficient time left for me to make amends, if required, before the magazine went to print. They were people whose opinion I trusted blindly and I still do. But then, they also happen to be the nicest people I've known. By the time I switched on my laptop after waking up late in the morning, their feedback would be waiting in the inbox: "Very nice" or, simply, "V. Nice." I hope they meant it.
In February 2008 I left Express. I wanted to change with the Times. In the process, Sunday Spin died a sudden death. I had no idea that the column had become so popular until the Valentine's Day that year -- I had already submitted my resignation by then -- when I walked into the WITCO showroom on Cathedral Road with my wife to buy a bag for her. The elderly man at the payment counter, upon seeing my credit card, exclaimed: "Bishwanath Ghosh!" I panicked for a moment: was I on the defaulters' list or something?
"Bishwanath Ghosh. From Sunday Express. Right?"
"That's right. Why?"
"I read your column every Sunday, sir."
I felt like a star. At the same time I also felt a lump in my throat. Until then, I had been receiving complimentary emails and letters from numerous people who read Sunday Spin, but this was the first time -- and also the last -- that I came face to face with a 'lay reader' of Sunday Spin.
"But you won't read me anymore, sir," I told him as I signed the slip. "I've just quit the Express." For the next three years, I did not have a column but I wrote two books -- one already published and another about to be.
Today, Baradwaj and I are colleagues once again -- at The Hindu. And once again, I have a column. Looks like the good times are back. Only that the column is now going to appear on Saturdays in Metro Plus, and under a new name -- Life in a Metro. The deadline, though, remains the same: Wednesday.
In the end that's what makes you feel powerful -- the ability to transform every moment into a story. Money and fame, if at all they come, cease to matter beyond a point. And nothing can be more gratifying for a writer than finding himself a platform from where he can share such -- seemingly -- day-to-day stories with readers without having to write lengthy articles or novels. A newspaper column is one such place.
Until about three years ago, I wrote a column called Sunday Spin in the Express. I don't remember exactly for how long the column ran; I think it was close to three years, initially as a fortnightly and then as a weekly. Every Tuesday night, around 10 o' clock (Wednesday was the deadline for the Sunday magazine to go to print), I would sit in front of the computer wondering what to write. Eventually an idea would arrive and I would manage to flesh it out into a 650-word column by two or three in the morning.
Before going to sleep I would mail it to two people, Sushila Ravindranath and Baradwaj Rangan. Sushila was the editor, while Baradwaj supervised the page in which the column went; so it was natural that I had to mail the piece to them. But the idea behind finishing the column and mailing it to them before daybreak was to make them read it as soon as they switched on their computers in the morning -- while there was still sufficient time left for me to make amends, if required, before the magazine went to print. They were people whose opinion I trusted blindly and I still do. But then, they also happen to be the nicest people I've known. By the time I switched on my laptop after waking up late in the morning, their feedback would be waiting in the inbox: "Very nice" or, simply, "V. Nice." I hope they meant it.
In February 2008 I left Express. I wanted to change with the Times. In the process, Sunday Spin died a sudden death. I had no idea that the column had become so popular until the Valentine's Day that year -- I had already submitted my resignation by then -- when I walked into the WITCO showroom on Cathedral Road with my wife to buy a bag for her. The elderly man at the payment counter, upon seeing my credit card, exclaimed: "Bishwanath Ghosh!" I panicked for a moment: was I on the defaulters' list or something?
"Bishwanath Ghosh. From Sunday Express. Right?"
"That's right. Why?"
"I read your column every Sunday, sir."
I felt like a star. At the same time I also felt a lump in my throat. Until then, I had been receiving complimentary emails and letters from numerous people who read Sunday Spin, but this was the first time -- and also the last -- that I came face to face with a 'lay reader' of Sunday Spin.
"But you won't read me anymore, sir," I told him as I signed the slip. "I've just quit the Express." For the next three years, I did not have a column but I wrote two books -- one already published and another about to be.
Today, Baradwaj and I are colleagues once again -- at The Hindu. And once again, I have a column. Looks like the good times are back. Only that the column is now going to appear on Saturdays in Metro Plus, and under a new name -- Life in a Metro. The deadline, though, remains the same: Wednesday.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
My Interests
If you go to my profile page on this blog, you will find the following listed under 'Interests' category (I've cut and pasted):
Sex, Scotch, Spiritualism, Yoga, Writing, Travelling, Travel Writing, Fountain Pens (not necessarily in that order).
I started the blog in October 2005, and even though I mentioned "Not necessarily in that order", I strongly suspect there was some logic behind that order. Perhaps it reflected my state of mind at the time. I was not yet 35, still single, and had no complaints against life -- so perhaps it was natural to subconsciously spell out the 'Interests' in the order in which they interested me.
Sex interested me immensely back then, not just as a means of pleasure or conquest but also as a subject. People read you if you wrote about sex -- not titillating stuff, but analysing human behaviour towards it and thus giving voice to thoughts that otherwise remain in the throat. Alcohol was another thing I could not do without, though it was not always Scotch -- a number of posts on this blog during that time were written in the afternoons, under the mild influence of alcohol. Yet, at the same time, I was in touch with my spiritual side and was also totally into yoga, never stepping out of home unless I had done 10 rounds of sun salutations and a few basic postures such as the chakrasana and sarvangasana. Then comes writing. It was a foolish thing to list it under the 'Interest' category because writing was not an interest, but a necessity. It was my bread and butter -- though I did write a lot of stuff out of my interest in writing. Towards the fag end of the list, you will see Travelling, Travel Writing and Fountain Pens. That was because I would occasionally travel to new places and write about them, and was gradually discovering the pleasure in doing so. Most of such writing happened on the spot itself, on the stationery of the hotel or the resort, with my fountain pen. I possessed not more than one fountain pen at a time.
Today, nearly six years later, my interests rank in the reverse order! I now have a collection of nearly two dozen fountain pens (excluding those I've lost or given away over the last few years) and am in the process of adding to it. My latest acquisition is a Ratnam pen. Mr Ratnam of Rajahmundry started manufacturing fountain pens way back in 1932 after Mahatma Gandhi gave a call against the use of foreign-made goods. Subsequently, a number of illustrious men, including Gandhi, have used Ratnam pens. I ordered a pen last month and it arrived within three days of my sending my address to them over SMS. But the pen had a defect: it would suddenly stop writing. When I called them up to convey the problem, the man who answered the phone advised me to dip the nib portion of the pen in water for an hour. I did as advised, but it didn't work. Quite magically, the very next morning, Mr Ratnam's son, Mr K.V. Ramana Murthy, who now runs the family business, called me. He apologised for the defect and asked me to send the pen back, along with a few lines in my own long hand so that he could also craft the nib according to my style. Once again, I did as advised. The pen came back to me in three days, along with a letter from Mr Ramana Murthy (produced at the bottom of this post). Suffice to say that if that pen were a woman, I would have married her right away -- that I already have a wife would not have mattered.
Travel Writing and Travelling would figure next on my current list of interests, considering that's what I am occupied with these days -- no longer for the pleasure of it but professionally, in order to earn my place under the sun. These two interests, by and large, define what I am today and tomorrow could well be my identity. Pleasure, by the way, has long been replaced by pain.
Spiritualism and yoga -- they are now like former girlfriends who you still desire and eagerly want to get back to, but you just can't figure how. As for sex -- oh, who cares! Today I pity people who still think that sex sells, and can't be bothered anymore about analysing or dissecting people's hypocritical attitude towards it. Sex is not something to be written about, it is meant to be had. Either you have it, or don't have it. Go have it if you can -- take the keys to my flat if you want to -- but leave me alone, at least for now.
Perhaps I was wise enough back then to know that interests can change with time and circumstances. Maybe that is why I took care to mention, "Not necessarily in that order." I am equally wise even today not to delete that line, because you never know.
Sex, Scotch, Spiritualism, Yoga, Writing, Travelling, Travel Writing, Fountain Pens (not necessarily in that order).
I started the blog in October 2005, and even though I mentioned "Not necessarily in that order", I strongly suspect there was some logic behind that order. Perhaps it reflected my state of mind at the time. I was not yet 35, still single, and had no complaints against life -- so perhaps it was natural to subconsciously spell out the 'Interests' in the order in which they interested me.
Sex interested me immensely back then, not just as a means of pleasure or conquest but also as a subject. People read you if you wrote about sex -- not titillating stuff, but analysing human behaviour towards it and thus giving voice to thoughts that otherwise remain in the throat. Alcohol was another thing I could not do without, though it was not always Scotch -- a number of posts on this blog during that time were written in the afternoons, under the mild influence of alcohol. Yet, at the same time, I was in touch with my spiritual side and was also totally into yoga, never stepping out of home unless I had done 10 rounds of sun salutations and a few basic postures such as the chakrasana and sarvangasana. Then comes writing. It was a foolish thing to list it under the 'Interest' category because writing was not an interest, but a necessity. It was my bread and butter -- though I did write a lot of stuff out of my interest in writing. Towards the fag end of the list, you will see Travelling, Travel Writing and Fountain Pens. That was because I would occasionally travel to new places and write about them, and was gradually discovering the pleasure in doing so. Most of such writing happened on the spot itself, on the stationery of the hotel or the resort, with my fountain pen. I possessed not more than one fountain pen at a time.
Today, nearly six years later, my interests rank in the reverse order! I now have a collection of nearly two dozen fountain pens (excluding those I've lost or given away over the last few years) and am in the process of adding to it. My latest acquisition is a Ratnam pen. Mr Ratnam of Rajahmundry started manufacturing fountain pens way back in 1932 after Mahatma Gandhi gave a call against the use of foreign-made goods. Subsequently, a number of illustrious men, including Gandhi, have used Ratnam pens. I ordered a pen last month and it arrived within three days of my sending my address to them over SMS. But the pen had a defect: it would suddenly stop writing. When I called them up to convey the problem, the man who answered the phone advised me to dip the nib portion of the pen in water for an hour. I did as advised, but it didn't work. Quite magically, the very next morning, Mr Ratnam's son, Mr K.V. Ramana Murthy, who now runs the family business, called me. He apologised for the defect and asked me to send the pen back, along with a few lines in my own long hand so that he could also craft the nib according to my style. Once again, I did as advised. The pen came back to me in three days, along with a letter from Mr Ramana Murthy (produced at the bottom of this post). Suffice to say that if that pen were a woman, I would have married her right away -- that I already have a wife would not have mattered.
Travel Writing and Travelling would figure next on my current list of interests, considering that's what I am occupied with these days -- no longer for the pleasure of it but professionally, in order to earn my place under the sun. These two interests, by and large, define what I am today and tomorrow could well be my identity. Pleasure, by the way, has long been replaced by pain.
Spiritualism and yoga -- they are now like former girlfriends who you still desire and eagerly want to get back to, but you just can't figure how. As for sex -- oh, who cares! Today I pity people who still think that sex sells, and can't be bothered anymore about analysing or dissecting people's hypocritical attitude towards it. Sex is not something to be written about, it is meant to be had. Either you have it, or don't have it. Go have it if you can -- take the keys to my flat if you want to -- but leave me alone, at least for now.
Perhaps I was wise enough back then to know that interests can change with time and circumstances. Maybe that is why I took care to mention, "Not necessarily in that order." I am equally wise even today not to delete that line, because you never know.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The Mother
Presented below is the telephonic conversation I recently had with a woman who, I am pretty sure, is never going to visit this blog. Even if she does, good for her.
"Hello, am I speaking to Mr Ghosh?"
"Yes."
"I believe you've published a book?"
"That's right."
"So how does one get published?"
I wish I knew the answer. Getting published, as far as I know by now, is a matter of luck. Sheer luck. It is not the same as applying for a passport, where success is guaranteed, even though you might have to wait longer than usual or bribe the odd clerk. You may turn out the best manuscript ever written but if you don't know a soul in the publishing industry, chances are very high that your manuscript will remain just that -- a manuscript. At the same time, the managing director of a publishing firm may be your childhood friend, but if you write third-rate stuff and pester him to publish it, chances are equally high that he will stop taking your calls and avoid crossing your path. Somewhere between these extremes lies the chance of getting published.
But who was going to explain all this to the woman. I advised her to visit the websites of various publishing houses and go through the submission guidelines.
"But I have already done all that. They all said 'no'. That is why I am calling you. You have published a book no?"
"Yes."
"So can you please give me the contact number of your publisher? I will talk to them directly. I want to get my daughter's stories published."
"How old is your daughter?"
"She is twenty. She has written some wonderful short stories."
"But isn't she too young? Maybe she should write some more."
"Why? If whatever she has written so far gets published, she will feel motivated to write more."
"As far as I know, you will be required to send in a synopsis plus three sample stories..."
"I know, I know. That is why I am calling you. The thing is, she hasn't written that many stories to be compiled into a book. So I plan to add her poems. She has written some beautiful poems. But that may still not be enough for a book, so I want to put in some of my paintings too. I have done some beautiful paintings."
"That's nice."
"I know. But these publishers don't seem to think so. I have tried almost all of them. Now I want to try your publisher. Can I have the number please?"
"I don't have any number. I too had approached them through the website."
"Oh, is it? What's the website called?"
I told her.
"Hello, am I speaking to Mr Ghosh?"
"Yes."
"I believe you've published a book?"
"That's right."
"So how does one get published?"
I wish I knew the answer. Getting published, as far as I know by now, is a matter of luck. Sheer luck. It is not the same as applying for a passport, where success is guaranteed, even though you might have to wait longer than usual or bribe the odd clerk. You may turn out the best manuscript ever written but if you don't know a soul in the publishing industry, chances are very high that your manuscript will remain just that -- a manuscript. At the same time, the managing director of a publishing firm may be your childhood friend, but if you write third-rate stuff and pester him to publish it, chances are equally high that he will stop taking your calls and avoid crossing your path. Somewhere between these extremes lies the chance of getting published.
But who was going to explain all this to the woman. I advised her to visit the websites of various publishing houses and go through the submission guidelines.
"But I have already done all that. They all said 'no'. That is why I am calling you. You have published a book no?"
"Yes."
"So can you please give me the contact number of your publisher? I will talk to them directly. I want to get my daughter's stories published."
"How old is your daughter?"
"She is twenty. She has written some wonderful short stories."
"But isn't she too young? Maybe she should write some more."
"Why? If whatever she has written so far gets published, she will feel motivated to write more."
"As far as I know, you will be required to send in a synopsis plus three sample stories..."
"I know, I know. That is why I am calling you. The thing is, she hasn't written that many stories to be compiled into a book. So I plan to add her poems. She has written some beautiful poems. But that may still not be enough for a book, so I want to put in some of my paintings too. I have done some beautiful paintings."
"That's nice."
"I know. But these publishers don't seem to think so. I have tried almost all of them. Now I want to try your publisher. Can I have the number please?"
"I don't have any number. I too had approached them through the website."
"Oh, is it? What's the website called?"
I told her.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
The Mistress
Tonight ends my month-long holiday, during which, for the first time in my working life, I was technically jobless and therefore not answerable to any boss. I was answerable solely to my desires and curiosities, which took me around the roads and streets of Kolkata, partly on foot and partly by taxi. My constant companions were a notebook I'd purchased from Chennai airport and a black matte-finish Sheaffer fountain pen that I treated myself to on my very first evening in Kolkata.
Until now, Kolkata was my hometown-in-law, where I made the annual obligatory visit, usually during Durga Puja. Today Kolkata has become a mistress to whose arms I would like to go back as often as I can. She's like the bespectacled woman living next-door all these years who you never gave a second glance until one afternoon, when you spot her on the balcony, fresh from bath, her long lustrous hair left loose and her eyes wearing not a pair of specs but dreamy sensuality. I got seduced easily.
Give a dilapidated look to the buildings of London, then suck the permissive air of Paris and implant it over London and people it with Bengalis -- Kolkata would be that city. It is a different matter that most people living in Kolkata may not realise this -- most of the time they are too busy being agitated or angry. The cause of their anger could be anything under the sun, but it's mostly about politics, sports and work.
When India lost to South Africa in the World Cup, the family friend I was watching the match with remarked angrily, "India te ektai captain chhilo, shey holo Sourav Ganguly!" -- India has produced only one able captain, that was Sourav Ganguly.
I also happened to watch the final with him. Moments after Dhoni hit the decisive six and the Indian team rejoiced on the field, he remarked, rather bitterly, "Ei shob to Sourav-er ee toeri kora chhele" -- These boys have been groomed by Sourav, after all.
That's the typical Bengali man. He is, however, effectively neutralised by the Bengali woman. She can be deliberately coy or outright blunt, but she is almost always ravishing and intelligent. She loves to talk -- though, unlike the man, not about things that do not have a direct bearing on her life -- but also knows how to let her eyes do the talking. Doesn't matter if she is English-medium or Bangla-medium, south Calcutta or north Calcutta, domestic help or the lady of the house.
Oh! Calcutta!
Some images and sensations shall always remain etched: her hair sweeping across my face while I leaned to light the cigarette dangling from her lips as the taxi zipped through the wide empty road along the Maidan; hanging on to every word spoken by Sunil Gangopadhyay, the most popular writer in Bengal after Tagore, as he recalled the time spent with Allen Ginsberg ("He taught us that poetry is a 24-hour occupation"); the taste of aam panna sold on College Street; walking up and down Park Street, as if I was in Soho; sitting 80 feet above the Hooghly, on the deck of a ship turned into a hotel, sipping chilled beer while being caressed by the river breeze; digging the fork into delectable kebabs at Peter Cat and Mocambo; and, above all, the voice of Kishore Kumar! Every other song played on FM channels in Kolkata happens to be either sung by Kishore Kumar or composed by R.D. Burman -- listening is believing.
I am back in Chennai now. I had to be. Tomorrow, I take up a new job and return, after five long years, to Mount Road. It was on Mount Road that I worked for the first five of the 10 years that I've lived in Chennai, and those were the happiest years of my life so far. Tomorrow, hopefully, is the beginning of another happy phase. Kolkata, please wait for me.
Until now, Kolkata was my hometown-in-law, where I made the annual obligatory visit, usually during Durga Puja. Today Kolkata has become a mistress to whose arms I would like to go back as often as I can. She's like the bespectacled woman living next-door all these years who you never gave a second glance until one afternoon, when you spot her on the balcony, fresh from bath, her long lustrous hair left loose and her eyes wearing not a pair of specs but dreamy sensuality. I got seduced easily.
Give a dilapidated look to the buildings of London, then suck the permissive air of Paris and implant it over London and people it with Bengalis -- Kolkata would be that city. It is a different matter that most people living in Kolkata may not realise this -- most of the time they are too busy being agitated or angry. The cause of their anger could be anything under the sun, but it's mostly about politics, sports and work.
When India lost to South Africa in the World Cup, the family friend I was watching the match with remarked angrily, "India te ektai captain chhilo, shey holo Sourav Ganguly!" -- India has produced only one able captain, that was Sourav Ganguly.
I also happened to watch the final with him. Moments after Dhoni hit the decisive six and the Indian team rejoiced on the field, he remarked, rather bitterly, "Ei shob to Sourav-er ee toeri kora chhele" -- These boys have been groomed by Sourav, after all.
That's the typical Bengali man. He is, however, effectively neutralised by the Bengali woman. She can be deliberately coy or outright blunt, but she is almost always ravishing and intelligent. She loves to talk -- though, unlike the man, not about things that do not have a direct bearing on her life -- but also knows how to let her eyes do the talking. Doesn't matter if she is English-medium or Bangla-medium, south Calcutta or north Calcutta, domestic help or the lady of the house.
Oh! Calcutta!
Some images and sensations shall always remain etched: her hair sweeping across my face while I leaned to light the cigarette dangling from her lips as the taxi zipped through the wide empty road along the Maidan; hanging on to every word spoken by Sunil Gangopadhyay, the most popular writer in Bengal after Tagore, as he recalled the time spent with Allen Ginsberg ("He taught us that poetry is a 24-hour occupation"); the taste of aam panna sold on College Street; walking up and down Park Street, as if I was in Soho; sitting 80 feet above the Hooghly, on the deck of a ship turned into a hotel, sipping chilled beer while being caressed by the river breeze; digging the fork into delectable kebabs at Peter Cat and Mocambo; and, above all, the voice of Kishore Kumar! Every other song played on FM channels in Kolkata happens to be either sung by Kishore Kumar or composed by R.D. Burman -- listening is believing.
I am back in Chennai now. I had to be. Tomorrow, I take up a new job and return, after five long years, to Mount Road. It was on Mount Road that I worked for the first five of the 10 years that I've lived in Chennai, and those were the happiest years of my life so far. Tomorrow, hopefully, is the beginning of another happy phase. Kolkata, please wait for me.
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