Oh Bishwanath!

Last evening, after I spoke about Madras and Tamarind City at the Gymkhana Club, an elderly couple sitting in the front row came up to me.

"Can I please have your email ID?" the man asked.

I gave him my card.

"I've been reading you in The Hindu," he said, "and somehow I always thought you were an elderly gentleman, sixty or sixty-five years old."

"You are not the only one, sir," I assured him.

He isn't the only one, really. From time to time, I am told by various people, once they meet me, that how they always thought the byline belonged to a much older person. I usually take it as a compliment (because to be thought of as an elderly man can mean the writing is mature), but at the same time I am also reminded how unsexy my name is.

Recently, when Tamarind City launched in Bangalore at the Leela Palace, I was told the same by danseuse Vani Ganapathy, who read from the book there. When I rushed up to the entrance to escort her to the book-reading venue as soon as she reached the hotel, she asked me: "Are you Bishwanath Ghosh?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know what, I thought Mr. Bishwanath Ghosh is a very elderly person, and that you are someone he has sent to receive me," she told me as we took the escalator down. She then went on to read out two extra passages which she hadn't intended to earlier.

The older I grow, the more I am beginning to dislike my name. It only seems to be hastening the aging process. No matter how hard I try to imagine myself looking like an elderly man, I fail miserably: in my own eyes, I am always the child who is lusting for the green mangoes hanging from the tree in the neighbour's compound. But God knows what images people conjure up in their minds when they read my byline: Bishwanath Ghosh.

My father's name is Samir; my grandfather was Suresh; my grandfather's father was Umesh, my grandfather's grandfather was Govinda. Then why am I Bishwanath? Oh well, it so happened that when I was still in my mother's womb, my grandfather -- mother's father, that is -- happened to visit Vishwanath Temple in Benaras. He told the god, "If my daughter gives birth to a son, I will name him Vishwanath." Considering we are Bengalis, Vishwanath became Bishwanath (thankfully, not Bishshonath).

Ever since then, I've been carrying the burden of a long name. Ten letters! Certain long names can be sexy, such as Harshvardhan. But certainly not Bishwanath. I wonder if a shorter name would've have had a greater appeal among readers and also members of the opposite sex: Atul Ghosh, Tarun Ghosh, Bikram Ghosh, Ayan Ghosh, Arjun Ghosh.If the Shiva connection was so necessary, I wouldn't have minded even Shankar Ghosh. Or Shambhu Ghosh. Such short names would have certainly looked better on a book cover. Of what use popularity if majority of your audience assumes you are an arthritic old man who is hostile to attention: not everybody is on Facebook, after all.

Fortunately, for me, most people who matter to me call me either BG, Bish or Bishy. They sound sufficiently sexy and cosy. Many others call me Ghosh -- which is also perfectly fine. But I invariably develop a dislike for people who insist on calling me Bishwanath. I distinctly remember that afternoon, many years ago, when this woman, drunk on the cocktail of love and lust, happened to blurt out the offending words during a highly passionate moment: "Oh Bishwanath!"

I instantly came crashing to earth. I never wanted to see her after that. I never did.

Vagina Monologue Part 2

I needn't have written this post but tonight my hands itch to type. Ganga Mail is largely neglected these days, for a variety of reasons, and it is a good idea to water it once in a while before people forget all about it. The blog, after all, is an account of my journey on this planet -- I started writing it when I was yet to turn 35; and now I'm almost 42 -- and I am possessive about it.

The primary reason for the neglect is my commitment to write things other than the blog. Another reason is Facebook (and Twitter): a thought that can be developed into an engaging 400-word piece is often wasted as a status message.

Then there are travels that you don't feel compelled to describe once you've uploaded the pictures on Facebook: 'They've seen the pictures anyway, now what is there to write.' Sometime ago I went to Kasauli; more recently I visited Santiniketan -- these are places I really wanted to write about but found myself busy uploading their pictures. Someone intending to write a travel piece should never carry a camera or a smartphone: you need to decide whether you want to show the pictures or paint pictures with your words.

There's something else, too, that makes me hesitate to express my thoughts freely about certain subjects these days: spiteful comments. If you look up the archives of Ganga Mail, you'll find plenty of posts related to sex and relationship, but if you go through their comment boxes, you'll hardly find a comment that can be seen as a personal attack. The occasional chiding, yes; but no personal attack.

But in the last couple of years or so, my posts have been attracting their share of poisonous comments (as opposed to criticism), and that does make me somewhat sad because I have not, at least knowingly, harmed anyone to deserve such malice. An easy way to tide over this would be to enable comment-moderation, which a number of respected bloggers do, but the Ganga Mail supports free speech and uninhibited expression of thoughts. I consider it unfair that only the blogger should be allowed to have his say while the comments of the readers be subjected to moderation. And in the seven years that I've been blogging, I have rarely needed to delete a comment.

Not anymore. For my previous post, Vagina Monologue, which was merely a reaction to the advertisement of a vagina-tightening gel being already peddled in the market, I've had to delete five malicious comments so far -- some more instantly than the others, thanks to Blackberry. There were a couple of others which I was tempted to remove, but did not do so for the sake of free speech. One male commentator, quoting a 'good' feminist friend of his, screamed at me: ITS NOT A VAGINA! ITS A FUCKING VULVA!!!! Quite obvious that the feminist friend cannot distinguish one V from the other -- unless the feminist in question is a man with pathetic knowledge of female anatomy. You can't tighten the vulva, brother, you can only tighten the vagina.

Vagina Monologue, in fact, kicked up a reaction I never expected, even though it is an extremely harmless post compared to what I've written about sex on the blog over the years. Ganga Mail is not the most popular of blogs: on normal days when I do not write anything, the number of hits it attracts barely exceeds the 200-mark, but on the day I wrote Vagina Monologue, the number of 'unique visitors' alone crossed the 200-mark (total hits were nearly 800 on a single day).

And then the whispers I overheard in the corridors:

"Did you read his latest post?"

"No, I haven't. What's it about?"

"Haven't you read the one about vagina?"

"No."

"You haven't? Go read it. You'll know what the fellow is up to."

Oh well, this fellow is up to what any other normal man is up to. A man, any man, is cursed right from birth: he is born with an extra piece of flesh that keeps him on his toes all his life. The smart ones know what to do with it, the remaining make do with titillation.

The word 'vagina', as I just realised, offers far more titillation than the word 'sex'. (Personal vagina trivia: for long I thought it was 'wag-eena' and not 'vuh-jaaina', because the biology teacher had deliberately skipped the chapter on reproduction and there was no way of getting the pronunciations right. Even penis was 'pen-is' and not 'peen-is').

That reminds me of yet another comment to the Vagina post, which I am reproducing verbatim:

What next? Penis-vagina dialogue? You are reducing the entire human being to the piece of flesh between the legs? Will you be able to talk to your mother, sisters and wife on these lines?

Dear Respected Commentator: Human beings are indeed born out of the penis-vagina dialogue, just in case you did not know. I am not sure if you descended directly from heaven, but as for humans, they are indeed a piece of flesh who are forever in pursuit of another piece of flesh -- all the time looking in between the legs. As for my being able to talk to my mother, sisters and wife on these lines -- well, my mother is no more; I never had any sisters; and as for my wife, she reads my blog posts and often shares the links on her Facebook wall. But let me assure you: if my mother happened to be alive, or if I had sisters, they would have asked you, even before I could, to fuck off.

Vagina Monologue

The world descended from the vagina. It lives on because of the vagina. It revolves around the vagina. A word that you cannot pronounce without embarrassment painting your cheeks a mild red, even though its vulgar variants roll off the tongue with relative ease and, often, wicked relish.

A tiny artwork of flesh, on the face of it; but the most powerful weapon on earth. Block the vagina and mankind would be wiped off the face of earth in less than 50 years. Such is its power, such is its allure. The power lies in the allure.

In an age when millions can be made out of anything and everything provided you come up with the right idea, won't it be utterly foolish to ignore something whose power and allure is so universal? And so, they now want to whiten and tighten your vaginas. First came the ad for a whitening cream, and now the ad for a tightening gel (featuring, of all people, a joint Tamilian family!).

I am not sure whether these commercials are shown on television and therefore reach the larger Indian audience; but they are certainly a rage on the internet, mostly because of the opinions expressed against them by women bloggers and writers. Each time a writer vents her anger, she also weaves You Tube links to these commercials into her thought-provoking prose, in the process only popularising the products further. Of every 10 women reading such posts, I am sure there will be at least three who, once their outrage has subsided, would be tempted to try out the products. That's precisely what the marketing guys want: to play on the insecurity of the women about how they look down there.

I find such sense of insecurity to be utterly foolish -- just as I find foolish the obsession of certain men with tightness (though I've never heard anyone lament the lack of whiteness). True, any sexual relationship between a man and a woman fructifies at the vagina; but does the whiteness and the tightness matter?

The vagina is not a product that you check for whiteness or tightness before you decide to enter it; you usually enter it out of blind passion, no matter how it looks or feels. The vagina may be the culmination of togetherness, but it certainly cannot be the starting point of togetherness. If your man finds you any less desirable because your vagina is dark and not so tight, dump him! -- or ask him to get a penis just as white and perpetually hard as they show in porn films.

The vagina, in my humble opinion, is as beautiful and alluring as the woman it belongs to. When you are truly into a woman, you don't really care how white or tight she is, do you? In fact, you feel grateful when she lets you go down on her, because it is more fun exploring the vagina of a woman you admire than exploring a woman whose vagina you admire. The woman comes first, the vagina later. The vagina may be the most powerful weapon on earth, but it's the woman's mind that holds the key.

Life's Journey, What Kind Of A Journey

If only he hadn't appeared in the Havells fan commercial. It would have preserved the romance of Rajesh Khanna and hidden from adoring fans what age and disease can do to a man who was celebrated for his looks and mannerisms not too long ago.

Even more heart-crushing is to watch the video on the making of the commercial. You will realise that even the line, 'Babumoshai, merey fans mujhse koi nahin chheen sakta,' is dubbed by a mimic artiste because the former superstar had completely lost his voice by then. He looks gravely ill -- a pathetic skeleton -- and speaks in whispers to the interviewer, as if he is on deathbed. Well, he already was already on deathbed: just that no one cares about a faded actor unless he actually dies.

Now that Rajesh Khanna is dead, maybe the makers of the commercial did the right thing. They gave him one last chance to face the camera and assert his erstwhile superstardom: 'Babumoshai, merey fans mujhse koi nahin chheen sakta.' They made him sign out of the world in style. The sad part is, he was only 69.

I was not even born when Aradhana released -- my date of birth being 26 December 1970 -- and by the time I was old enough to understand movies, Amitabh Bachchan was already the new star. Yet, I knew Rajesh Khanna -- his superstardom had left its traces just about everywhere, including the saloon in Kanpur where I would be taken by my father on designated Sundays for a haircut. At the saloon, the word 'hero' was synonymous with Rajesh Khanna, and not Amitabh Bachchan. The hairdressers would often ask patrons if they wanted their hair styled in the fashion of Rajesh Khanna.

I was fifteen when I first saw Aradhana -- by then I had seen most of the famous Amitabh Bachchan films, including Sholay -- yet I was struck by the handsomeness of Rajesh Khanna. How can a man be so charming? And the song, Roop tera mastana -- I still rate it as the most sensual song ever created in Hindi cinema.

I saw Rajesh Khanna in person only once, in 1996, when he was chosen by the Congress party to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the New Delhi seat. He was already the sitting MP from the constituency (having defeated BJP's Shatrughan Sinha in the previous elections), and now that he was formally going to launch his campaign, he had invited the media to his home on Lodhi Road (if I remember the address right).

I was a cub reporter back then. Those days there were no television channels, only print media. After a press conference, Rajesh Khanna and his wife Dimple and their two daughters got up on a stationary jeep for the benefit of news photographers. "Dimpy, zara wave karna," he told his wife. The entire family waved at an imaginary crowd while the photographers clicked away.

He lied to the readers back then, he lied to the viewers now. Back then, readers could not tell whether the jeep was stationary, but this time, in the fan commercial, it was evident that the famous journey that began with a song on a jeep was nearing its end.

With Rajesh Khanna's death, yet another solid pillar that stood between our generation and mortality has caved in. Dev Anand died just a few months ago. Perhaps a matter of time before the remaining of the pillars fall and we stand on the edge of the world, waiting to board the plane that never returns. How come so soon?

The Script

The Calcutta-born Bengali man — he could be the faceless clerk travelling with you in a train or the elderly sophisticated bhadralok having a drink with you at the club — doesn’t just talk; he reads out from a script. A script that intends to have an effect on the listener, that intends to create drama in the most mundane of locations, such as the stifling compartment of a local train or within the humid confines of a government office. Pretty much the kind of scripts that Kadar Khan wrote.

This trait, depending on the mood you are in, can irritate the hell out of you; but most of the time it makes Calcutta an interesting, a very interesting, place to visit and an interesting subject for a book. Quotes flying around.

The TTE in my compartment of Santiniketan Express was one such Kadar Khan.

“Age proof achhe (Do you have proof of age)?” he asked the elderly bhadralok sitting across the aisle.

“Haan achhe (Yes, I do),” the bhadralok replied.

“Ektu dekhan (Please show).”

Just as the bhadralok was about to stand up to reach his suitcase, the TTE gently patted him on the shoulder and said, “Na, na, thhaak. Eto boyesh hoeche, mithye to bolben na. Theek ache, theek achhe (No, it’s ok. You are too elderly to be lying about your age. It’s alright, it’s alright.”

The TTE moved on, leaving the old man shocked and speechless. About an hour later, the Talkative Ticket Examiner found me standing by the door.

“Mone hochche cigarette khete chaan (Looks like you want to smoke),” he told me.

“Haan, kintu matchbox ta hariye phelechhi (Yes, but I’ve lost my matchbox),” I told him truthfully.

“Ei je, neen na (Here, take this),” he handed me his lighter. “Eikhanei daanriye khaan. Keyo kichhu bolle amake daakben (Stand here and smoke. If someone tells you anything, call me). The emphasis was on ‘me’: he was the supreme authority in the compartment.

But I did not listen to him: what if another Kadar Khan came along and questioned my right to smoke in the vestibule? So as soon as I lit the cigarette and he returned into the compartment, insisting once again that I should call him in case someone objected, I hid myself in the lavatory and took quick drags.

While the TTE read from the script to exert his authority and to amuse himself and the passengers, the others, such as singing-beggars and hawkers, used the ‘dialogue-delivery’ effectively to stuff their pockets, even if with smaller currencies.

During this short trip to Calcutta, even though I carried along a notebook, I did not take notes; I find it too tiresome to start working on another book right away. But the scripts from this trip remain fresh in my mind: they will ferment over the next few weeks and maybe then the first line of the book will crystallise. Once the first few lines are ready to my satisfaction, I only have to follow the script.

The Nice Girl

Two nights before her 31st birthday, she looked into the mirror before she removed her lenses.

"Shit, I don't look bad at all," she began telling herself, "in fact I look good! Then why don't I still have a boyfriend? Why am I still a virgin?

"Everything else in my life happened with clockwork precision. I started learning the hymns from the age of five. I joined the dance class when I was eight. I gave my first stage performance at the age of nineteen.

"I started working when I was twenty-one, went to Harvard at twenty-two, returned three years later to get triple the salary. Ever since then, have been given handsome hikes and promotions every two years.

"Today my salary is about a lakh. Amma is happy. Appa is happy. They are happy not because of my salary and designation, but because I chose to come back. I can't find a better set of parents. They never try to persuade me to get marry. They tell me I am free to find my own guy.

"But why haven't I found a guy yet? Why am I still a virgin? Even at thirty-one?"

The next morning she shampooed her hair, slipped into the Marks & Spencer lingerie she'd bought only the Sunday before, and applied kajal and lip gloss standing half-naked in front of the mirror. Then she plucked out a pink Fab India kurta and a white pair of churidar from her wardrobe. "Not bad!" she silently exclaimed at the finished package in the mirror.

She waited all day for the clock to strike six. Five minutes before six, she went over to the cubicle of the hunk.

"Can we go for a drive after we wind up, and then do dinner somewhere?" she asked the hunk.

"Oh sure," the hunk said, "shall we go on my bike or in your car?"

"In my car, of course," she said.

The sun had long retired for the day when they finally set out. She debated between two destinations: Marina and the Besant Nagar beach. At Besant Nagar, she was likely to run into people she knew, but Marina promised anonymity. So Marina it was. She drove through Radhakrishnan Salai, drove past the statues of Sivaji Ganesan and Mahatma Gandhi, entered the service lane at Marina and parked between two large tourist buses.

The hunk, excited by the sight of the Marina at night, began to get out of the car.

"Wait," she said.

"What happened?" the hunk asked.

"Kiss me," she commanded.

"What?"

"Kiss me," she looked into his eyes.

"Oh ok, but..." he brought his mouth close to hers.

"But what?" she put her palm between their lips.

"I mean I am surprised. I thought you were a nice girl."

"Why, nice girls don't want to be kissed?"

"No, I didn't mean it that way. Just that I didn't expect you... I mean, you are such a nice girl."

"Shut up, just kiss me," she withdrew her palm.

And so they kissed.

While they kissed, the hunk tried to put his hand through the pink kurta in order to unhook the bra. He struggled his way up, and was barely half-way up her spine when she said: "Ok, leave it, leave it. I think I am hungry now. Let's go somewhere and eat."

"Are you sure?" the hunk asked.

"Very sure," she replied, as she switched on the ignition.

The hunk sat back.

"This is probably the worst kiss of my life," she told herself as they drove back into the madness of the city. Then the afterthought: "But how can I say it is the worst, when I have never kissed a man before?"

SPB Saar

I've been listening to the voice of S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, or SPB, ever since I was 11, when Ek Duje Ke Liye came out (in 1981); and even though I wouldn't count him as one of my favourite Hindi singers, he will remain one of the landmarks of my growing years. Much later when I came to Madras, in 2001, he became my favourite Tamil singer: I didn't have to know the language to sense the magic he infuses into compositions, especially those of Illayaraja. And after watching him perform live in a few concerts that I was fortunate enough to attend, I became a devotee.

To me, SPB is South India's Kishore Kumar: one can try to be him, but one can never be him. Like Kishore Kumar, he effortlessly throws his rich voice into the microphone, making even difficult compositions sound easy to the ear. I've had the good fortune of listening to the live renditions of Ilamaiyenum poongatru, one of the masterpieces of Illayaraja, and Swasamae swasamae, one of the last brilliant Tamil compositions of A.R. Rahman before he went became global and stopped making meaningful music. And no party at my place is complete until I force my guests to listen to Sippi irukkudu muthum irukkudu and Illaya nila. Search for these songs on You Tube, listen to them, and you will know what I mean.

I am writing this post because SPB turned 66 yesterday, June 4, and a tribute is in order considering he has enriched my stay in Madras. But why I really feel compelled to pay him a tribute on his birthday is not because of the Tamil songs that I happen to admire, but because of his Hindi songs that mark my childhood as well as adolescence. True, he is not my favourite Hindi singer -- even SPB won't fancy himself as a singer of Hindi songs -- but some of his Hindi songs brought about a rush of adrenalin back then and they do so even now with the same intensity.

Some of these songs are:

1. Mere jeevan saathi (Ek Duje Ke Liye)
2. Hum tum hum do raahi (Yeh To Kamaal Ho Gaya)
3. Dekho dekho yeh to kamaal ho gaya (Yeh To Kamaal Ho Gaya)
4. Paagal dil mera (Aaja Meri Jaan)
5. Aaja meri jaan (Aaja Meri Jaan)
6. Idhar dekho, udhar dekho (Angaar)
7. Yeh mera dil (Gardish)

I watched Yeh To Kamaal Ho Gaya, on video (which had just come to India), when I was in class 6. Even to my young mind back then, the song Hum tum hum do raahi denoted ultimate romance, and it does even today. If you happen to fancy someone but are unable to convey your feelings, play this song -- executed impeccably by none other than R.D. Burman -- and you might succeed.

SPB and R.D. Burman were always fond of each other. R.D. Burman, when he was going through his lean phase, was hired by Gulshan Kumar to produce an album called Aaja Meri Jaan. To sing the title song of this album, R.D. invited SPB. It was a song R.D. had already sung in Bengali with Asha Bhosle -- Tumi koto je duure -- and he now wanted SPB to sing the Hindi version along with Anuradha Paudwal. SPB found the song difficult and when he begged to be excused, R.D. told him, "Bloody fellow, that's why I called you from Madras. You can do this!" The song was recorded.

Somewhere down the road, Gulshan Kumar, the juice seller-turned-music magnate, decided to scrap the album. Instead, he made a movie called Aaja Meri Jaan to launch his brother in the film industry but retained the R.D. Burman-composed title song in that film. Such humiliation contributed to the fatal heart attack that the out-of-work R.D. Burman was to suffer soon. Gulshan Kumar did not live for long either: he fell to the bullets of contract killers soon after.

But S.P. Balasubrahmanyam lives on, hale and hearty. Touch wood. He is one of the very, very few surviving links between the various eras of music that I've lived through since my childhood. He lives in the present day, and yet is the active ambassador of the eras gone by. Therefore this tribute.

Tamarind City Travels

At Chennai, 15 May 2012.

At Bangalore, 17 May 2012.

At New Delhi, 25 May 2012.

At Gurgaon, 26 May 2012.

At Mumbai, 1 June 2012.

The Grandmother

She held out her hand and asked for the cigarette I had just lit.

"So you mean to say," she took a long drag, "sex is always between the ears?"

"Very much. At least in my case," I replied.

She was about to tap the ash on the floor when I pointed to the ashtray next to me. She leaned sideways to reach the ashtray, in the process placing a warm pair of breasts on my thighs. The shampoo was unmistakably Clinic Plus.

"Why? What is so special about you?" she asked, taking another long drag with her eyes shut. I badly wanted my cigarette back, but she showed no signs of returning it anytime soon.

"It's not just about me. It's about any thinking man. If sex was to be just between the legs, then what's the difference me and, say, a truck driver who has been on the road for two weeks and for who any woman would do?"

"Ah ha, I see," she took another long drag and reached for the ashtray. I swiftly prepared my thighs for the weight of softness. "But the truck driver is also a human being. Maybe a more honest human being."

"But sex is not just about screwing anyone in sight. It's got to be meaningful. It is more about meeting of minds..."

"Oh, fuck the mind!"

"Why? It's all about the mind. Otherwise what's the difference between us and animals, or us and the truck driver?"

"Oh please, what is this truck driver business!" her irritation made her take even a longer drag. My cigarette was almost down to the filter.

"Well, I was just giving you an example, to distinguish between hardcore sex and sensitive lovemaking," I said.

"I'll tell you what," she took the final drag and reached for the ashtray again, this time to stub out the cigarette. "Sex can also be very good when it's just between the legs. At times that's all what one wants." She got up.

"Wait, where are you off to?"

"I think I told you, my grandmother doesn't like me to stay out too often."
  

The Middle Path And A Book Launch

Responsibility is the biggest enemy of a writer. It is like a strict parent who makes you sit at home to study even though you would like to go out and play, no matter how hot the sun or how chilling the cold.

For example, this very moment, I would like to shift base to Calcutta for an indefinite period of time and return to good, old Chennai (or maybe not return at all) only after I have sent in the manuscript for the Calcutta book. And after that, take off, without any worries, for the next project which would involve a great deal of travel in the northern half of India. The idea is to give 100 percent to what you are doing without having to worry about the next meal or paying the bills.

But then, a vast majority of us are born only to pay the bills. We study hard, we acquire degrees, we take up jobs, we slog to get promotions -- all to pay the bills. Since we have to pay the bills, we need the job; and since we need the job, we can't take off from work as and when we want to. How can you write when you are chained to the responsibility of paying the bills?

Life can be so much easier if you have a rich father who foots your bills. Imagine having a father who tells you: "Son, why have I accumulated all this money? It belongs to you. Go ahead, pursue your dreams." There is, however, another way of breaking the shackles of responsibility: acquiring courage.

Many of the writers literature worships today -- George Orwell, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, to name a few -- braved penury in order to be able to write. Graham Greene, for example, quit a secure job as a sub-editor of The Times to write novels that no publisher would accept (it was only his third novel that was published first), while the perennially poverty-stricken George Orwell died just when fame and money was finally about to kiss his feet.

I neither have a rich father nor the courage to brave difficult times without a steady job. And yet I dream to be a writer. Well, why not. I have learned, over the last few years, to traverse the middle path -- one eye on the books I want to write and another on the job that I want to do well so that it pays me enough to sustain my writing and my lifestyle.

Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began is a milestone on that middle path. It's a book I am rather proud of. It's being launched formally, in Chennai, on May 15, Tuesday, at Sheraton Park Hotel and Towers, TTK Road. Those who read and love Ganga Mail, please be there.

Looking At The Watch

Very few things we do these days without looking at the watch every now and then. The deadline at work, the hurry to get home, the eagerness to finish a chore on time -- really, when was the last time you told yourself: "Ah, today I have all the time in the world!"

This Sunday though, for a change, I had all the time in the world as I invited eight friends over for lunch and cooked for them. It was a pleasure to watch them sitting in a circle around the dining table and drinking chilled beer and discussing movies and stuff while I prepared egg curry, dum aloo and rice in the kitchen. One of them had brought puris, another had got rasam and yet another salad. It was going to be one nice meal.

Before we sat down for lunch, I helped myself to three -- or was it four? -- large Bacardis. It was a way of rewarding myself for having done a good job in the kitchen. Those who know me well know that when I have guests over and when alcohol flows, I become the DJ. And so I let Kishore Kumar loose on them: Piya Ka Ghar, Khatta Meetha, Sitamgar...

Finally, some of them started looking at the clock. They had to leave soon. Lunch was served. Even as they ate, four of us, including Baradwaj Rangan, who shares my love for the 1970's and 80's and the unforgettable music created during those decades, lingered over our drinks.

The Kishore Kumar song playing in the background was: Pyaar pyaar pyaar pyaar, pyaar tu karle / chaar chaar chaar, aankhen chaar tu karle. It is from a film called Suraag, a thriller starring Sanjeev Kumar that I watched on Doordarshan many, many years ago. The storyline is long forgotten, but the thrill and the song remain fresh in my mind. For many years, I tried to get hold of a DVD of the film but in vain. The absence of this movie from the shelves of music stores began to get mysterious. Finally, the mystery was unravelled by the director himself. "You will not find a DVD because I never sold the video rights. The print must be lying somewhere here in Madras," Jagmohan Mundhra, best known for making adult movies, told me one afternoon in 2007. It was a revelation for me that Suraag was his movie -- in fact, the very first film he directed. I begged him to collect the print and sell the video rights so that I could watch the film again. Mundhra, who was in his mid-fifties at the time, said he would do something about it.

So last Sunday, as the song played in the background, I boasted to my friends about my long meeting with Jag Mundhra and told them that I was planning to message him on Facebook and ask him to release Suraag on video (Mundhra and I went on to become Facebook friends).

"But dude, isn't he already dead?" Baradwaj asked.

"Can't be. He is on the list of my Facebook friends. Only the other day I saw someone tagging him."

"No dude, he died last year," Baradwaj said, as he got up to run a Google search on my desktop. Jagmohan Mundhra was indeed dead. The news didn't hit me hard because I was somewhat drunk. The news was stale anyway.

After the last of the guests left, I went off to sleep and woke up at nine in the evening with a crippling headache. Even then, the first thought that crossed my mind, as I woke up, was: Is Jagmohan Mundhra really dead? This time I ran a Google search myself on my netbook. He was indeed dead. I felt very sad.

As I read online the belated news about his death, more bad news awaited me in the form of accompanying links. Navin Nischol was dead too, and so was art director Samir Chanda, who I had met on the sets of Guru -- which happened to be the offices of the New Indian Express -- as recently as in 2006. It was Mithun Chakraborthy who had introduced me to Chanda, a man barely in his forties, who shyly shook my hand. He was dead too!

All these people died last year -- in 2011 -- and I did not even know about it! For that matter, it was only today that I got to know that Yunus Pervez is also no more -- he died in 2007. It is bad enough not to know when people die, but worse when you confidently believe that they are still alive while the rest of the world has already paid their last tributes. Such confidence stems from ignorance and it may not be such a bad thing after all -- people like Navin Nischol or Yunus Pervez can never be dead for the members of my generation because they defined that generation.

But how come I didn't get to know about their passing on? What was I doing in 2011? Now I remember what I was doing. I was too busy looking at the watch.

Tamarind, Sweet And Sour

This evening the call finally came: that Tamarind City, my portrait of Chennai, is out of the press. A copy should reach me in a day or two, and the book should be hitting the stores in about ten days.

Unlike Chai, Chai, whose draft got transferred straight from my head to the printing press without being subjected to rewriting or even editing, Tamarind City is the result of hard work. One could have always worked harder, of course, but there is no end to it: at some point you have to tell yourself, "OK, this is it. I can't work any harder."

For a year and a half until the end of 2011, I had hardly any social life -- or personal life, for that matter -- to speak of. Almost every waking hour outside the office was spent working on Tamarind City. During these dark months, when I was blind to everything else in this world except the laptop screen, the possibility of my seeing or holding the book in published form seemed remote. Very remote. It would feel as if the book would forever remain a word document on my computer.

Today, that remote possibility has become reality. Tamarind City is no longer an idea in my head: it has finally taken the shape of a book that will reach the bookstores in less than two weeks. Considering all the struggle that went into its writing, I should have been elated when I got the call this evening. But far from it. It doesn't matter anymore.

I have realised by now that if I want to be a writer, my entire life is going to be one long struggle, and that it would be stupid to celebrate the end of one struggle without realising that another round of struggle is waiting round the corner.

At the moment yet another unwritten book is staring me in the face. It's an ambitious book: a portrait of present-day Calcutta. I don't want to spend two years writing it: I will be too old by the time it comes out. At the same time, I cannot afford to spend sufficient time in Calcutta because I now have a job that is going to keep me firmly anchored to Chennai. On top of it, I seem to be enjoying the job, as a result of which I find the sensations of Calcutta fading and the memories blurring.

I am, however, determined to set the Calcutta book rolling before I feel good about the publication of Tamarind City. I find overlaps more assuring than long gaps.

A Book Launch That Almost Happened

The news of the Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee being awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award brought back some memories.

In December 2009, Chai, Chai had just been published and I was in the middle of promoting the book in various cities. I had already done Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune, while Delhi -- the final city on my itinerary -- remained to be covered. As for Calcutta, I was still in two minds whether to have a reading there -- one reason being I was yet to find a local celebrity who could read from the book.

Books launches can be a pain for a first-time writer. If the book happens to be doing well, the bookstore will gladly give you space for the launch, while the publisher will pay for the cookies and the coffee and make sure that a few dozen copies are available at the store during the function, but the onus of finding a celebrity to launch the book or read from it lies squarely on the author. Things change when the writer becomes a celebrity, but there could be several long years standing in between the first book and that book.

I had a tough time finding celebrities in cities alien to me. For Mumbai, a friend had suggested the name of a particular theatre actor, known for his powerful personality and voice. "If I put in a word, he will definitely do it for you. Consider it done, brother!" my friend assured me. I jumped with joy: the theatre actor, who played a key role in a path-breaking TV serial in the late eighties, was my hero once upon a time. Every boy in my class idolised him, and now the same man was going to read from my book -- unbelievable!

I dialled the number of my idol and had a brief chat with him. He was extremely warm and courteous. He said he liked the idea of Chai, Chai and asked me to courier a copy, which I promptly did. Ten days later, he called. "Bishwanath, I would like to do it for you," he said very politely, "but you know, I get paid for lending my voice. Usually it is Rs. 50,000 for 30 seconds. I hope you understand."

I instantly lost interest in him and wanted him to hang up so that I could make calls to arrange for another celebrity. But he wouldn't let go of the phone: he spoke to me for 45 minutes, lamenting how theatre artists of today are not as dedicated and well-read as those from his generation. Forty-five minutes! -- he had wasted voice-time worth Rs. 45 lakh on me. And yet he did not want to spend 10 minutes reading from my book.

Eventually, it all worked out well. But as far as Calcutta was concerned, I still couldn't think of a celebrity.

"Why don't we try for Soumitra Chatterjee?" my wife asked.

"Why should he bother reading from my book? He is too big," I protested.

"What's the harm in trying," the wife, always optimistic, retorted. She went on to assign a friend to speak to Mr. Chatterjee and work on him into agreeing to read from the book. The friend called back, ecstatic, saying that Mr. Chatterjee was open to the idea but did not want to commit without having a word with the author.

I became very nervous. Soumitra Chatterjee, a household name in Bengal and the favourite actor of Satyajit Ray -- why should he bother reading from the debut book of a writer he does not even know remotely? The very thought of sitting next to him embarrassed me deeply and I abandoned the idea, much to the irritation of my wife and her friend.

"Let's try other options," I told her. On the advice of my own friends in Calcutta, I sent text messages to Moon Moon Sen, who never replied, and to singer-director-actor Anjan Dutt, who instantly called back asking, "Why do you want to speak to me?"

Now I am a huge fan of Anjan Dutt: he is a nostalgia specialist whose songs have made me understand Bengalis better, and nothing could have worked better for Chai, Chai in Calcutta than him reading out passages from it. But he seemed too busy to commit on the date I had in mind. Each time I called him, he would say he was trying his best to be free on that day. After four or five calls to him I gave up the idea of going to Calcutta.

"Not all is lost," the wife said, "You can still call Soumitra Chatterjee."

I finally listened to her and called Soumitra Chatterjee's mobile number. The conversation went exactly like this:

"Am I speaking to Mr. Chatterjee?"

"Yes."

"Good morning, sir. I am so-and-so who has written a book called Chai, Chai. I am launching the book in Calcutta on such-and-such date, and I would like you to read from it."

"OK, fine," he tamely agreed. "You mark the passages you want me to read."

I was surprised as well as thrilled -- more surprised than thrilled. I mean, how can Soumitra Chatterjee agree so readily?

"Are you sure, sir?" I asked. "I was hoping that you read the book and choose the passages yourself. Can I please send the book to you?"

"OK, send it," he replied lifelessly.

"Great, sir. Can I have your postal address, please?"

"OK, fine. Note it down then. But did you by any chance want to speak to Soumitra Chatterjee?"

"Er, yes."

"I am not Soumitra Chatterjee. I am his son Saugato Chatterjee."

"I am so sorry, sir, I am really sorry. I actually meant to speak to your father."

The voice on the other end fell silent. I could sense the hurt. The awkwardness made it easier for me to hang up.

Two days later, I spoke to the legend himself. This time, it was a lively voice that greeted me, and he did not ask me to mark passages but instead asked to be excused -- that's what you expect of a real celebrity.

"I am so sorry, I am going to be in Nagpur on that day," the Soumitra Chatterjee told me.

"But I would still like you to read the book. Can I please send it to you?"

"By all means," the legend replied. "Here's my address, note it down."

To tell you the truth, I don't quite remember whether I actually sent a copy of Chai, Chai to Soumitra Chatterjee. But I distinctly remember telling myself, "Fuck it, enough of launches. Now get down to working on your next book." And so I opened a fresh word document and wrote the first few paras of Tamarind City.

The Blogger Interviewed

Blogadda interviews the man behind Ganga Mail:

Q: When and why did you start blogging?

I started blogging in October 2005. Some of the people who read me in the New Sunday Express suggested that I should start a blog. At the time I wasn’t very sure what a blog was – I only had a vague idea – and wondered if sane people ever blogged. They then showed me some of the popular blogs and I told myself: ‘I too have things to say – things I can’t always say in the paper – so why don’t I start a blog of my own?’

Q: What topics do you generally blog about?

I try to blog about things that matter to people; and very often, it is the smallest of things that matter the most. If I were to write about a trip to Switzerland, people may like it and say nice things, but if I were to describe a visit to my hometown after several years, it would instantly strike a chord because most working people invariably leave their hometowns behind. The idea is to strike a chord. When they read me, they should wonder, "How is he able to read our thoughts so accurately!" That’s the truest reward for a writer.

Q: Do you ever get stuck when writing an entry? What do you do then?

Occasionally, yes. Usually I sleep over such entries, which is easy because most of my posts are written post-midnight. I revisit them the night after and if they are worth it, I try to salvage them. Or else I click on the ‘delete’ button. Deletion of drafts is more frequent now, because these days I am very conscious about what I write – maybe because I am now older, married, a published writer and hold a fairly respectable position in a highly respected newspaper, and know far more people than I ever knew. This was not the case in the initial years, when I expressed my thoughts with utmost honesty without an invisible force trying to restrain me. Maybe I should go back to my old ways, because Ganga Mail earned a distinct identity because of the honesty.

Q: Why did you name your blog as 'On The Ganga Mail'? Explain us your thought process while deciding the name.

The blog, incidentally, was called 'Thought Process' when I started it. I was not very happy with the title, but at the same time I wasn’t quite sure if people were going to read my blog so I did not bother changing it. In 2004, I had spent two months in Uttar Pradesh covering the Lok Sabha elections, and during that period I happened to spend considerable time on the banks of the Ganga – Rishikesh, Haridwar, Kanpur, Allahabad. It struck me how the Ganga was symbolic of a train, originating from Gangotri and terminating at the Bay of Bengal – when the train starts its journey, the coaches are almost empty and clean but as it travels further down the Hindi heartland, it gets crowded and dirty. And so I wrote a travel piece, headlined 'On The Ganga Mail', likening the Ganga to a long-distance train. I fell in love with the headline (I had myself given it) and adopted it for the blog once I grew weary of 'Thought Process'. After all, I grew up by the Ganga – that’s my truest identity.

Q: We have seen you craft many short yet beautiful poems on your blog. What inspires you to write a poem instead of a post? Which poem of yours do you like the most and why?

Those poems were written mainly to impress certain women I knew back then (let me hasten to add that I was a bachelor at the time). I can’t say for sure if those women were impressed, but yes, I was myself quite impressed with some of the poems I wrote, especially Dream.

Q: Tamarind City, based on Chennai, is your next book expected to hit the stands in April. The day you completed writing this book was also the day you completed 11 years in the city. Tell us more about this book. Sum up your stay of 11 years in Chennai.

There are several books and travelogues about Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta but practically none about Chennai, which happens to be older than the other three cities. Chennai was born in 1640, Calcutta only in 1690 – Delhi was still a medieval city back then, known by the name of Shahjahanabad, while Bombay was only a group of Portuguese-controlled islands. So I thought it was about time that someone cleared the fog of ignorance shrouding Chennai and presented the city, in the form of a book, to readers across the country, and perhaps the world. As for my stay of 11 years in the city, all I can say is that whatever little standing I enjoy as a writer today is because of Chennai. It has let me be.

Q: You are currently working as the Deputy Editor at The Hindu. Did you ever think of becoming an author earlier, when you were starting your career with journalism? What thoughts triggered Chai, Chai, your debut book?

I always wanted to be a journalist because of the power it gives you to reach out to the masses. Also as a journalist, you can walk in just about anywhere – from the local police station to a minister’s house. Even if they want to throw you out, they will do so very politely. I also wanted to be a writer – Khushwant Singh was my hero back then! – but that was more of a dream which I wasn’t sure would ever come true. For a long time, I was only a reporter, a political reporter. Only after I moved from Delhi to Chennai in 2001 that I realised, thanks to the reader response, that a good and engaging piece of writing is all that counts – doesn’t matter whether you are writing about politics or hospitals or travel. And so I started working on my craft. In 2006, I was approached by the publishers, who wanted me to do a travel book that was different. That’s how the idea of Chai, Chai was born.

Q: As a Deputy Editor, there might have been times when you wanted to publish some stories, but could not. What are the reasons editors have to face such situations? What did you do, when you were in such or similar situations?

There has never been a situation when I wrote something or wanted to write something that was not considered publication-worthy. As a responsible newspaperman, I have a fair idea what is publication-worthy and what is not.

Q: Travelling seems to be something very close to your heart. So far, which trips have been your most cherished ones and what memories did you collect from them? Are travelling and discovering places therapeutic for you?

If you don’t travel, you continue to live in a well. Having said that, let me also add that mere globe-trotting does not make you the most enlightened person on earth. You may go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower but if you don’t mingle with Parisians and visit the cafes – like Hemingway or Henry Miller did – all the money you’ve spent on the trip has gone waste and you will continue to live in the well. Travelling is not about sightseeing, but knowing and understanding the people. People define a place, after all, and not monuments. Sri Lanka does not have an Eiffel Tower, but the cheerful nature of its people – typical islanders – in the face of a prolonged strife is a monument by itself. I shall never forget the trips I made to Sri Lanka in 2004 and 2005. Meeting new people is not just therapeutic, it is an education.

Q: We also notice your great interest in Hindi movies and songs. Which is the era that you like the most, when it comes to watching movies? What do you find lacking in “today’s cinema”, and what do you enjoy the most about it? Share some of your favorite movies and songs.

Songs and movies from the 1970’s and 80’s work best for me, and that’s because I grew up in that era. But I have nothing against today’s cinema. They make pretty good movies, some of which I watch. But as far as film music goes, I would say the 70’s and 80’s was the golden era – their songs are not counted as oldies but as classics, be it Hindi or Tamil. The songs of Kishore Kumar and R.D. Burman are food for my soul – they make me feel happy that I am alive.

Q: Ganga Mail was born out of loneliness – the unmarried man that you were in 2005 said this. Ganga Mail made you write some posts that were honest and free of the fear of being judged and also made you learn the art of finding a story from an experience. Tell us how Ganga Mail has helped you evolve as a person and what did it teach you? Does your family follow your blog?

Ganga Mail records my life from the age of thirty-five, when I started blogging. It has served as my personal diary, my companion, my conscience-keeper, my spokesman, my confession box. It made me accountable to myself – considering that whatever I wrote was in public domain. That’s how the evolution began – as a person and a writer – because Ganga Mail became a tool for introspection. You don’t grow unless you introspect. Yes, my family – whatever the word stands for – follows my blog.

Q: You created a character named Shivani in 2009 on your blog. What was the purpose behind sharing her fictional story? Was her story inspired by a real character or a situation that you experienced or observed?

Shivani is based on a real person. One evening I happened to be chatting – online – with someone I’d known socially for a long time. This was in February 2009, as far as I can recall. During the course of our conversation, she asked me (I forget the context): "But how well do you know me?" I told her that I knew her well enough to write a lengthy piece on her. The fact is that I hardly knew her, but it wasn’t difficult at all to imagine the story of a woman her age – she was nearly forty then. All married Indian women who are forty have nearly the same story. They would have spent their entire lives being a dutiful daughter, a dutiful wife and a dutiful mother. It’s only when they reach the age of forty or so – when the children are grown up – that they finally get time to introspect and look back at their lives. The Shivani blog sought to capture that introspection, and that is why it struck a chord with readers, including my friend who kept wondering how I knew her so well.

Q: What is your series – 'Life in a Metro' – in the national daily, The Hindu, all about? What kind of stories do you share there? How long have you been writing this column?

It was a slice-of-life column I wrote for nearly 10 months. I stopped it last week, in spite of the popularity it seemed to have attained in a short span, simply because I did not have the time. Column-writing is a full-time commitment, which you can’t afford when you have pressing demands at work or when you’ve signed contracts to write more books.

Q: There are dozens of people who loathe the way Indian journalism has turned out to be. Being in this profession, what are your thoughts on the way the industry operates? What are the strong and weak points of this industry, according to you?

Journalism is no longer the same ever since television turned 24/7. Today, much of what you see or read is sensationalism and not journalism.

Q: Do you promote your blog? What promotional techniques work best for you and why?

No, I don’t promote my blog.

Q: How important is it for the blogger to interact with their readers? Do you respond to all the comments that you receive?

Writing a post can be enervating. Once you have finished saying what you wanted to say, you just want to move on. Which is why, even though I value the comments and cherish them, I find the thought of revisiting the subject by way of replying to comments too tiring. This may not be the right thing to do, though, and ideally I should acknowledge every comment I receive.

Q: What do you find to be the most gratifying aspect of blogging?

The fact that you get published instantly. Also, blogging can be a good net practice for real writing – I mean writing books. It helps you practice your strokes, build your stamina and evolve a style of your own. Moreover, reaction of the readers tells you whether you are headed in the right direction. If your posts are readable, your books are most likely going to be readable too – provided you don’t get carried away too much by the praise your posts receive.

Q: How, in general, would you rate the quality of Indian blogs? Share your favourite five blogs.

Some of the blogs are really, really good — there are people who make me wish I could write like them. Unfortunately, of late, I have hardly been looking up people’s blog, mainly due to paucity of time. But every now and then, I read Diptakirti’s Calcutta Chromosome and Desi Babu’s Peanut Express. I identify with their style of writing – simple yet profound.

Q: What is your advice to someone who wants to start a blog?

Just be yourself. Don’t pretend to be someone you are not. Write from your heart – and soon you will evolve a style of your own.

Q: Do you earn revenue through your blog? How does one go about it?

I am yet to earn money from my blog. It’s been three years since I put ads on the blog, but the revenue is yet to cross the 100-dollar mark (you get paid once your earnings cross 100 dollars). Last time I checked the figure was still hovering around 60 dollars. Yes, once I did get paid 150 dollars for placing the link of a US-based website on the sidebar. I bought a tennis racquet with that money. Subsequently, I got similar offers from a few other websites, but it is no fun meddling with your template for small sums.

Q: According to you, what is the future of Blogging?

I think Twitter has done some damage to the blog. In the sense that – to give you an example – earlier you read Amitabh Bachchan’s blogs, but now you follow his tweets. But the damage is limited. There will always be a readership for good writing, and more and more bloggers – the ones that write well – will find their works being published in print.

Q: Let’s conclude off with a few favorites.

Color: Black, white.

Movie: The Departed.

TV Show: I don’t watch TV.

Book: Tropic of Cancer.

Time of Day: Post-midnight.

Your Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Thank you Bishwanath for taking us through this journey. Every stopover in this journey taught us something. We are sure our readers felt the same as well.

The Return Of Ganga Mail

Does anybody even miss my posts?

I guess not. Just as I simply do not have the time or feel weary to write new posts, I am sure erstwhile readers of this blog would also have grown weary of checking for updates. As long as they remember me, good enough.

I can't even recall the last time I wrote a post because I wanted to write a post. Perhaps a year ago? This is not to say that I have nothing to write about any longer. In fact, to the contrary. I have so much to say these days -- on the same subjects I've always written about -- just that I find it too intimidating to transform those thoughts into 1000-word pieces. I find myself devoid of the time and energy. Have I grown old?

But all this while that I was away from the blog, I've been zealously pursuing my interests -- the ones listed on my Blogger profile -- just that I didn't feel compelled to write about them. I either thought "Why should people be interested?" or "What will people say?" But considering that Ganga Mail has remained in business because it always thumbed its nose at these questions, I should be less tight-arsed about expressing my thoughts. Not every piece needs to be perfect -- as long as it is truthful and honest.

So, ladies and gentlemen, this post marks the return of Ganga Mail. The thoughts will flow, as ever, irrespective of what you think of them. The Ganga, after all, has no choice but to flow -- the choice is yours, whether to call it polluted or to bathe in it in order to seek salvation.

Denizens Of Darkness

As Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls, Bishwanath Ghosh revisits its biggest city, Kanpur, and speaks to a disillusioned citizenry that knows nothing is going to change — even if the mills have given way to malls.

I found it a little strange at first to hear the name of Kanpur being announced at the Delhi airport. I had never flown to Kanpur before, even though I was born in the city 41 years ago, and spent the first 22 years of my life there and after that have been paying the annual visit home. Kanpur is a city you take the train to — that's how I always saw it — and now, for the first time, I was flying into it.

The New Delhi-Kanpur-New Delhi service of Air India was started in 2005 at the initiative of Union Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, who represents Kanpur in the Lok Sabha. But the sector turned out to be far from lucrative — on the inaugural day, I am told, only two people flew from Kanpur to Delhi, one of them being Jaiswal himself — and since then, from time to time, the service has either remained suspended or the sector altered in the hope of attracting more passengers.

So when the familiar female voice at New Delhi's T3 announced, "Air India announces the departure of its flight to Kanpur", a part of me kept wondering if this was real. My doubts were firmly laid to rest once I boarded the bus to the tarmac: the man standing next to me fished out a tin box of pan masala from his pocket, tore open the metal seal and threw it on the floor of the bus, and dropped two large spoonfuls of the contents into his eagerly-open mouth. In the plane, he used the sick bag as a spittoon. I knew I was going to Kanpur.

Kanpur is the city of pan masala. Every other moment you see someone tearing open a pouch of pan masala and emptying the contents into his mouth — just like the autorickshaw driver did when I approached him after a longish walk out of the airport, after having personally extricated my bag from the belly of the aircraft. My father, when he heard I was flying down, had asked me, "Should I send the car? I am not sure if you will find transport from the airport." Not wanting to bother him, I had replied, "Don't worry. I am sure there will be taxis." He was so right: no conveyor belt, no taxis. I did, however, spot a couple of Mercedes, three SUVs, and several cars fitted with the red light on their roofs — all waiting for passengers who had just travelled with me. Kanpur treats the moneyed and the powerful quite well. The lesser mortals have to fend for themselves — including finding a transport even at the airport.

***

Once upon a time there were mills, now there are malls. The malls stand like mirages on the mess that Kanpur is today. Roads are stripped of asphalt, power-supply is erratic, almost all the industries that the city took pride in have shut down, crime rate is high, traffic is chaotic, pollution at its peak. But people no longer complain. They have long grown inured to hardships. And this is Kanpur, the largest city of Uttar Pradesh, the state that has given seven Prime Ministers to India.

"Earlier, people voted for candidates. Now they vote for the caste of the candidates. A Yadav votes for the Yadav, a Brahmin votes for the Brahmin, a Thakur votes for the Thakur. No one talks about development — it does not seem to matter anymore," Anil Khetan, who runs Current Book Depot on Mall Road, tells me.

Anil, who is 53, has seen better days in Kanpur. His father, Mahadeo Khetan, started the bookshop in 1952: back then, Kanpur was the Manchester of the East and a citadel of the trade union movement. In fact, the Communist Party of India was born in this city, on December 26, 1925. For four terms until 1977, Kanpur was represented in the Lok Sabha by a trade unionist, S.M. Banerjee. "Even when Banerjee babu went to file his nomination papers, fifty to sixty thousand workers would march behind him. Today you won't find more than ten thousand people in Rahul Gandhi's meetings," Khetan said.

Khetan's father was associated with the Communist movement all his life and Current Book Depot was the sole distributor, in Uttar Pradesh, of Mir Publishers of the erstwhile USSR. The printed-in-USSR books have long disappeared from its shelves: I managed to find a collection of Chekhov's stories back in 1999. "Globalisation destroyed Kanpur," Khetan said, "it led to the closure of all the mills, which in turn led to unemployment and illiteracy — political parties are now feeding on them. Today if you take the IIT out of it, Kanpur will have nothing to boast of."

***

The presence of the Election Commission is being felt strongly in Uttar Pradesh — in the absence of political posters and banners. If you don't read the papers, you won't even know the state is going to elections. The walls are clean; no booths playing speeches or campaign songs. The most colourless elections the state has ever seen.

"Without the posters and banners, most people don't even know who the candidates are," Kumar, the veteran press photographer, told me. "One good thing about this is that candidates who have been visible in the public for five years will have an advantage. Those who show their faces only during elections will have a tough time."

I met Kumar at the Kanpur Press Club. In 1993, when I started my career as a journalist in the city, I had voted in the office-bearers' election. Kumar is now the secretary of the club, and every journalist walking in stops by to touch his feet: it's the Kanpur culture, to touch the feet of seniors. Since I am a visitor, I am served with tea.

People like Kumar know Kanpur and its politics like the back of their hands. Yet, when I ask him what this year's chunavi mudda — election issue — was, he falls silent and starts thinking.

"There is no issue as such," he tells me.

"Still, the candidates must be making promises?"

After thinking for a while again, he says: "Usually they talk about getting the mills reopened."

All the five mills run by the National Textiles Corporation (Swadeshi Cotton Mills, Muir Mills, Victoria Mills, Atherton Mills and Laxmi Ratan Mills) and three run by British India Corporation (Elgin Mills 1 and 2, and Kanpur Textiles) have long shut. Only the BIC-run Lal Imli manages to keep up five per cent production.

"When Atal Behari Vajpayee came here before he became the Prime Minister, he said, in his inimitable style, that the day his government came to power, smoke would rise out of the chimneys with the first ray of the sun. Nothing of that sort happened," Kumar smiles.

***

The mills began to close at a time when a bigger movement was sweeping through Uttar Pradesh — the Bharatiya Janata Party-supported movement for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. It was to alter political agenda in the state for the next two decades, brushing aside the issue of closure of mills and the plight of workers rendered jobless. Today, it is too late: even workers laugh when they hear promises about restarting the mills.

"Not only Vajpayee, even Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh — they all made the same promise about smoke rising from the chimneys," says Prakash Chandra, who once worked as a weaver in Elgin Mill No. 1. "Chimney se to dhuaan nikla nahin, hamara dhuaan nikal gaya (smoke never came out of the chimneys, but our life went up in smoke.)"

Prakash Chandra, now 48, pulls a cycle-rickshaw for a living. When he has earned enough for the day, he parks the rickshaw at home and comes to the mill, where, outside the gate, he and his fellow workers have been staging a sit-in for many years now. '3176 days', says a signboard indicating the duration of their ongoing protest.

"Each time Sriprakash Jaiswal (the Union Minister and MP from Kanpur) wins an election, he comes here to receive garlands and make promises. And then he disappears for the next five years. He is going to come again very soon, along with the candidate from this constituency. And then he will disappear again," Prakash Chandra says.

Mohammad Naseem, a fellow protestor, chips in: "We gave our best years to this mill. When it closed down, we had young children at home to feed. I made my son work even when he was a child, when he should have been out playing. But I had no choice; we needed that extra money to survive."

He continues: "Now what is left of my life? I am 55 now. Even if the mill restarts, I won't have many years. Many of the workers have died over the years. Some died while they were sitting right here. One day, I will also die like that."

Published in The Hindu Sunday Magazine, February 12, 2012.

Tamarind City

A city is a lot like a woman. You may fall for it because of a certain physical attribute — the eyes, the smile, the dimple — but it is the chemistry you develop over time that eventually makes you stick to it.

Millions of people visit Agra every year to see the Taj Mahal, but how many choose to settle in Agra just so that they can have a glimpse of the architectural wonder on their way to work every day? Mumbai, on the other hand, can be very harsh on its citizens, yet people who have spent a few years in the city almost always talk of it fondly — that's chemistry. That's what happened between me and Chennai.

When I came in January 2001, I had no idea I would end up spending eleven years here — and god alone knows how many months or years more. I came here more as a tourist-journalist, who wanted to experience Chennai and use it as a base to tour the whole of south India in the next three or four years before returning to Delhi to settle down there.

Then something happened. Just the way I had discovered Chennai as a conducive place to be in, Chennai also discovered the writer in me. Thus began a lasting love affair, the result of which is Tamarind City, whose cover pages I am finally able to share with you today.

The book is a tribute to the city I've called home for eleven years now — the city that nourished me as a writer and at the same time let me be (Chapter 5 is titled 'Sex and the City'). I hope it is liked by readers and reviewers alike.

Pongal Diary: Eleven Years In Chennai And A Book

For nearly two months I slept with them — books, notebooks, various pens, newspapers and the laptop, which formed a heap on wife's side of the bed. No matter how often I changed the sheets, the books and the notebooks would grab their place sooner than later, leaving very little space for me. At nights when I turned to the side while sleeping, I would often find my knee placed on the cold, glossy cover of a book.

On Sunday morning, the morning of Pongal — the date is relevant here too: 15 January 2012 — I decided to clear up the mess. It took a couple of hours to make the bed look like a bed, after which I prepared myself a decent meal: rice, bitter-gourd sambar and raddish-carrot-tomato salad. In between, I also mopped the entire house (someone in the maid's family always happens to fall sick when wife is not in town).

Finally, at two in the afternoon, I poured myself a glass of pre-lunch wine and lit up a cigarette and lay down on a fresh sheet. The bed smelt good. I felt good. For once, my laptop was not on. From the bed I looked outside the window. I could see the sky and a coconut tree, its leaves a sparkling golden in the gentle sunshine. A beautiful day for Chennai! — you have the sun out, and yet cold enough for you to keep the fan on low speed. An ideal day to be outdoors — maybe in Mahabalipuram or on the Marina. But I was happy to be indoors, resting my back on the same bed on which I had just finished writing my book on Chennai.

It is one thing to be working on a book, quite another to actually finish it and mail the manuscript to the publisher. I had been working on the book for two years now — chunks of it were written in Chennai, in Kanpur, in Gurgaon and in Kolkata, but it was on this bed that I finally wrapped it up and clicked on the 'send' button.

Wrapping up can be as painful as writing a fresh book, especially if you happen to be the kind who is deeply embarrassed rereading the chapters that were completed long time ago and wants to rewrite them all over again. And so, for those two months, the bed served as a torture chamber as I wrote the unwritten chapters, rewrote the already-written chapters and at the same time went to work to justify my salary.

On Sunday afternoon I was a peaceful man. I had finally managed to dispatch nearly one lakh words. The unwritten book no longer tormented me: I had finally written it. And so I looked out at the gentle sunshine and told myself what a beautiful day it is. That's when another thought struck me: have I not just completed eleven years in Chennai!

It was on 15 January 2001 that I first set foot in Chennai, little knowing that I would end up staying this long. The book — called Tamarind City, to hit the stands in April — intends to be evidence, hopefully lasting, that I spent the best years of my life in the city.

Life In A Metro: Goodbye, Guide

The death of Dev Anand has left us with two important lessons

When I got a call from my brother unusually early in the morning last Sunday, I was naturally alarmed. It turned out to be bad news not for me, but for my generation. When someone like Dev Anand dies, you realise that the earth has been spinning all this while even though it appeared stationary, and that someday it will be your turn.

You didn't expect – rather you didn't want – someone like Dev Anand to ever die. He began acting when my father was a toddler and my mother wasn't even born. And then it was my turn to grow up with him. How can I ever forget the thrill of watching Johny Mera Naam in the theatre, sometime in the late nineteen-seventies? As long as Dev Anand was alive, I felt I was safe, my family was safe. But last Sunday, the protective wall – someone whose presence I had taken for granted – was gone. I feel vulnerable.

But then, as Dev Anand sang, “Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya.” Life is a game which has its rules; whether you win or lose you have to play along, something he did with gusto. As one ponders over his passing away, one can't help think of the two lessons that his life has left us with.

One, never say die. I have never had the chance to meet or speak to Dev Anand, but fellow journalists who have interviewed him tell me how infectious his energy was. He could liven up your day even over the phone. People often console others – and even themselves – saying that age is just a number, but Dev Anand demonstrated that. Age might have shrivelled his skin but it could do nothing to deplete his energy. A lesser mortal would have faded away long ago and led a quiet retired life, occasionally going down memory lane whenever a journalist visited.

But words like ‘retirement' and ‘inactivity' did not exist in Dev Anand's dictionary. It was simply impossible to imagine him on a wheel-chair or lying on a hospital bed. Always agile, alert and flashing that trademark smile with a glint of mischief in the eyes – that's probably how he was in his last moments before death came. All this, in the face of rejection. The audience long stopped going to the theatres to watch his films. They would rather travel long distances to watch him, at some event or the other, but not his films.

Yet, Dev Anand soldiered on with the same enthusiasm he had stepped into Bombay 65 years ago – discovering new faces, scouting for new locations, to make yet another film that nobody was going to watch. So that's one lesson: if you have the enthusiasm, even advancing age and adversity cannot stop you.

Lesson no. 2: Never fall in love with your own style. Dev Anand, as an actor, worked best when someone else directed him. Some of his most memorable films – Guide, Johny Mera Naam, Tere Mere Sapne, Jewel Thief – were directed by his younger brother, the talented Vijay Anand. The only big hit that Dev Anand himself directed was Hare Rama Hare Krishna, and that was a good forty years ago. Since then, he had been trying to recreate the magic of Hare Rama Hare Krishna, giving himself the central role,his trademark mannerisms intact,but each time he failed miserably. He might have remained evergreen, but his storytelling looked dated.

One need not cow down before age, which he never did, but one must acknowledge age, which Amitabh Bachchan wisely did. Amitabh Bachchan, had he been Dev Anand, would have started directing himself to keep the angry-young-man image alive and would probably be busy making The Return of Amar Akbar Anthony at the moment. But he reinvented himself in the late 1990s by becoming the young old man and staged a dramatic comeback into the hearts of the audience.

But who knows, perhaps it was his love for his own style that gave Dev Anand the endless reserve of energy to live life to the fullest – till death plucked that evergreen leaf of Hindi cinema.

Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, December 10, 2011.

A Ghost In Hong Kong

I had barely flung myself on the bed, after three hours of waiting at the airport and another five on the flight, when my eyes fell on the large LCD screen facing me:

“Dear Mr Ghost: Welcome to The Mira Hong Kong. Thank you for choosing to stay with us.”

How I wish I were Mr Ghost. I wouldn’t have to endure long hours in a plane or spend hard-earned money in order to travel the world (though this trip didn’t make me any poorer because I was a guest of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, and the journey from Chennai took barely five hours).

Nevertheless, I was quite pleased with what I saw on the screen and got up to fiddle with the remote, when I found a cordless keyboard. Ah, so I could check email and Facebook on the big screen! Then I noticed a welcome-envelope waiting to be opened: it was addressed to Mr Bishwanathan. Meanwhile, I had arrived in Hong Kong barely an hour ago on a boarding pass that identified me as Mr. Gosh.

Never mind. My name didn’t matter now. For the next five days, I was going to be a nameless tourist, one of the tens of thousands who come to visit the former British colony every year. This year the arrivals crossed the unprecedented one-million mark, and the tourism board is now eager to exploit the Indian market, even though the number of tourists going from here has already doubled compared to last year.

The five days were roughly divided into two activities: looking up in amazement at the high-rises that define Hong Kong and looking down at them in equal amazement from even greater heights — even as one kept hopping between Kowloon peninsula and the islands of Hong Kong and Lantau. These are the three regions that primarily comprise the tourist’s Hong Kong.

My discovery of Hong Kong began that evening with a visit to Sky100, the observatory on the 100th floor of the world’s fourth tallest building — the newly-opened 108-floor International Commerce Centre in Kowloon. The elevator propels you the 100th floor in 60 seconds, and there you are, treated to a 360-degree panoramic view of the city — far more mind-boggling than a pair of human eyes can take.

So this is Hong Kong, I thought to myself as I watched from behind the glass wall a neat arrangement of yellow lights spread out below — one of the very few non-Western cities you somehow get to hear of right from childhood, even if you were not particularly fond of the atlas; where the British planted the Union Jack in 1841 and withdrew from as recently as 1997, returning it to China.

Due to the 156 years of the occupation, Hong Kong is today part-British, part-Chinese — a classic example of East-meets-West. Ninety-five percent of the population is Chinese, but the official language is still English; residents can hold British passports until 2047; the Hong Kong dollar remains in circulation and is convertible.

I was now going to spend some of those dollars, for next on the itinerary was a visit to the Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival, a recently-begun annual feature that takes place by the Victoria Harbour. Rosanna, my feisty but friendly Chinese guide, had already pointed at the venue from Sky100: from that great height it had looked like the ultimate party place, right next to the harbour on whose still surface the occasional boat was leaving a temporary scratch.

But at the festival venue — which was jam-packed, resembling a college carnival — the view of the waterfront had been blocked by countless stalls set up by wine companies from across the world. Fine wine is lost on me — I can only tell the red from the white. But the sun was long down and I needed my drink, and at the same time I was very hungry. Since my arrival I had been surviving on bread and cheese.

As I went searching for my kind of food so that I could drink (even if wine), two young Chinese students accosted me. They wanted my feedback about the festival. I patiently answered all their questions (asked in broken English) and they took a picture of me with their iPad.

“Now, can I ask you something?”

“Yes, yes,” the boys said.

“Is there any stall where I can get vegetarian food?”

“What food?”

“Vegetarian?”

The boys looked at each other in bewilderment. They hadn’t heard of the word. “Sorry sir, I don’t know what you say.” They were red with embarrassment.

Fortunately, I found a French stall selling cheese croissants. I bought a half-a-dozen of them. The rest of the evening I drank red wine and ate cheese croissants and admired the young women of Hong Kong who stylishly held their (plastic) wine glasses as if they were in a Page-3 party. This was of course a Page-3 party, only that the guest list was multiplied by a thousand.

Back in the hotel, located on Nathan Road, I felt hungry again and set out looking for Indian food. I walked a considerable length of the road and after a few left and right turns, came upon Jordan Street, where I found the Bombay Indian Restaurant. The owner, a salwar kameez-clad Punjabi woman who said her family came to Hong Kong some 20 years ago, sat on the pavement calling out to potential customers. A young woman in jeans, presumably her daughter, waited on the tables.

“Spicy or non-spicy,” she asked me in accented English as I ordered daal makhani and naan.

I thought for a moment and said, “Spicy.”

The next morning I was at the Kowloon Cricket Club, to watch a match of the Hong Kong Cricket Sixes, an international six-a-side, five-over-each tournament that the club has been hosting since the early 1990s. In terms of brevity and entertainment value, this format can rightly be called the father of Twenty20. But since I gave up watching cricket ever since Twenty20 walked out of the pavilion, I couldn’t tell, under the harsh sun, who was bowling and who was batting. As many as 12 cricket-playing nations were participating in the tournament this year, and outside the Club, a large number of Pakistanis were waiting to catch a glimpse of their favourite cricketer. There was a flutter when Sanath Jayasuriya walked in. I just about managed to take a picture of him: I had never imagined I would spot him in, of all places, Hong Kong.

I had half a mind to watch Jayasuriya bat — live — but it was time to head to Disneyland. Even if you are young at heart, Disneyland isn’t quite the place for you to spend an entire evening unless you are taking your children along. But what do you do when you are deposited there and you don’t know your way back? You have no choice but to sit back and enjoy.

But to tell you the truth, I enjoyed Disneyland. Not just because of the Halloween parades that can blow one’s mind or because of the breathtaking toy-train trip that takes you along the circumference of the fantasy land, but mainly because of the Space Mountain ride. It is a gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride that takes place in total darkness, as if you were negotiating invisible curves in space at the speed of an aircraft. Unknown to you, cameras capture your expressions during the most stomach-churning moment of the ride, and the evidence of your fearful self is shown to you once you step off the roller-coaster. But the picture is not part of the deal: you need to buy it, for a steep price. Welcome to Hong Kong.

*****

“See my new boots! How are they?” asked Rinku, my fellow Indian traveller.

“Awesome!” I said. I had to say that. She had spent 2,500 Hong Kong dollars to buy four pairs and was wearing one of them now.

And so we set off for Lan Kwai Fong to party. We had had a long day – and what a day.

The morning had begun on the island of Hong Kong. It was this island that the British had first taken in 1841 before they went on to expand their control to the Kowloon peninsula, and finally more areas north of the peninsula and also some islands, which they chose to call the New Territories. Collectively they came to be called Hong Kong. The island is, therefore, home to the city's colonial heritage and our host, the Hong Kong Tourism Board, put us on an open-top bus for a heritage tour of the city.

But when your eyes are blinded by the dazzle of the high-rises, how can you look out for humble heritage, which would probably be too embarrassed to show its face? So I sat back on my seat on the roof of the buses and enjoyed the carnival of the high-rises, each eager to kiss the sky first, as the bus snaked through the all-important roads of Hong Kong. If the dictionary doesn't define the word ‘opulence' for you, Hong Kong will. And I also realised: a concrete jungle may not look beautiful, but it can certainly look elegant.

We alighted at Peak Tram terminus on Garden Road. We were to take the tram right up to the Victoria Peak, now called just The Peak, which became the summer getaway for the colonial rulers ever since Governor Richard MacDonnell built a residence there, in the late 1860s. After tram service to the Peak began in 1888, the hill became an exclusive residential area for Europeans and remained out of bounds for locals for a number of years. Even today, the hill is home to the last of the fast-disappearing colonial bungalows in Hong Kong. The tram we take is new, but the route is 123 years old – a steep vertical climb right up the hill.

The moment we alighted we got sucked into a massive multi-storied steel-concrete-glass structure. We were on the Touristy Peak and not the Victorian Peak – but it was The Peak nevertheless. Souvenir shops, shopping malls, eateries, even Madame Tussauds gallery – the building contained it all. But it was the roof that mattered most: from there you could see all of Hong Kong, and even Kowloon. A sight to die for. A concrete jungle can also look beautiful.

After lunch at The Peak we drove to Ocean Park. The entertainment park, spread across 870,000 sq m of land, has a mountain standing in between and to get to the summit you have to take the cable car. As the cable car trundled high above the South China Sea, one could see the sun bowing out for the day, disappearing slowly into the sea. Against the fading sun was the silhouette of the roller-coaster which was to soon scare the life out of us. It was at Ocean Park that Rinku and I hatched the plan for Lan Kwai Fong.

The idea was to have a drink and stroll around the Soho of Hong Kong. But it turned out to be the night of Halloween, and, emerging out of Central station, we found that the whole of Hong Kong had descended on Lan Kwai Fong. To get to Lan Kwai Fong from the station, otherwise a two-minute walk, took us nearly two hours. Once she realised that Lan Kwai Fong was so near and yet so far, Rinku took off her Hong Kong boots. “They pinch,” she said and put them into her bag. Out came the humble Indian chappals.

Once in Lan Kwai Fong, we broke off from the unending procession and squeezed ourselves into the little space that was available on the pavement outside Hard Rock Café. There, clutching cans of Guinness, we watched the young of Hong Kong go past, thousands and thousands of them – it was the wedding of Grotesque and Grace. It's a night I am not easily going to forget – energy meeting imagination and the two of them saying hello to the no-holds-barred spirit.

The people of Hong Kong are a happy lot. According to Rosanna, our Chinese guide, the city-state made a net profit of 2,000 billion Hong Kong dollars from the stock exchange in 2010. The benefits were passed on to the people: every citizen over the age of 18 received 6,000 Hong Kong dollars from the government as ‘lucky money', and those above 65 got 3,000 dollars extra.

The next morning, we were at 1881 Heritage, one of the most expensive hotels in Hong Kong which, once upon a time, was the headquarters of the marine police. Such is the hotel's heritage and snob value that couples getting married and youngsters who've acquired a prestigious degree come to pose against the handsome colonial building. As if a degree or a marriage certificate is not valid until the photograph outside the hotel has been taken.

On the final day, in the island of Lantau, we took a stunning 5.7 km cable-car ride to the village of Ngong Ping, where a 34m Buddha sits on a hill. The spectacular 25-minute journey provides a panoramic view of the Buddha statue, the flora and fauna of the North Lantau Country Park, Tung Chung Bay and the airport. The Ngong Ping Piazza, opened last year, is lined with statues of the Twelve Divine Generals. And from there, it is a 268-step climb to nirvana. What a peaceful way to end a journey.

Published in The Hindu MetroPlus, December 3, 2011.