A day after I arrived in Kanpur, my father suggested – just like the olden times – that I get a haircut. So in the evening, I walked down to Liaquat’s saloon. Liaqat and I go back a long way, in the sense he has been cutting my hair right from the time I was eight or nine, till I left Kanpur in 1994. After that, I may have visited his saloon a couple of times, in the mid-1990’s, during my trips home. And now I was going after 15 years. The saloon, called Unique Men’s Parlour, turned out to be shut. I enquired from the shopkeeper next-door and was told that Liaquat opened the saloon only at five. Fifteen minutes to go. So I walked down the road, bought a cigarette, lit it up and strolled up and down, just to get a feel of the place. It felt the same, just the way it felt decades ago, only that there were many, many more houses now and that now I could smoke openly unlike back then when there was always a risk of being spotted by a passing neighbour.
By the time I returned to the saloon, Liaquat was already at work, snipping away at the hair of a teenaged boy. I walked in and asked, "Liaquat bhai, kaise hain?" He merely nodded at me and continued snipping. I sat down with a Hindi newspaper. And then it struck him. He stepped out, spat the pan masala he had been holding in his mouth and extended his hand, his face beaming, "Arrey dada, kahaan hain aaj kal aap?”
"Chennai mein."
"Badi door chale gaye hain. Ab to marriage-warriage ho gayi hogi?"
"Haan, ho gayi."
"Aur bachche-wachche?"
"Abhi nahin."
And so, the journey back in time began.
Liaquat went on to explain how he had planned to open the saloon a little earlier that evening, but how circumstances prevented him from doing so. He had just stepped out from home when it began to rain. So he went back home and asked his wife to prepare the chicken he had got earlier in the day. After all, he hadn’t had lunch. After he had had lunch, and was about to leave, some guests came home and tea was prepared for them. And so he thought, why not have tea as well. Therefore he could open his shop only now, after having had his lunch of chicken followed by the tea. All this explanation was totally unnecessary, but this was vintage Liaquat. In the 45 minutes that I spent there, I heard the rain-chicken-tea story repeated three times as more people – mostly hangers on – started trooping in.
In small towns, it is common for people – jobless or working – to hang around in shops in the evenings. From these shops – be it a paan shop or a saloon – they watch their neighbourhood go past. They are the much-feared 'society'. They discuss and speculate about the lives of people they see walking past, and often juicy details – real or concocted – tumble out. But mostly it is the physical appearance of the neighbourhood girls that are discussed: "Just look at her, how she swings her butt while walking" or "Look, look! Till the other day she was flat-chested, and now see how pointed her breasts are."
Liaquat’s saloon used to be a hotbed for such discussions many, many years ago. At the time Liaquat himself was young. But over the years he became conscious of that fact that not all his 'custoomers' would be amused by the lewd talk. And there was always a risk: what if the brother of the girl whose butt the hangers on were admiring was right there in his saloon, getting a haircut? Liaquat began to shun such elements. But the small talk, even though sanitised, continued to be the mainstay of the Liaquat experience. It is no fun getting a haircut at his saloon without the small talk and the bantering going on in the background. Even today, as I discovered that evening, his saloon is the ultimate answer to 'Things you wanted to know about your neighbourhood but didn’t know where to ask.'
Liaquat is not your regular small-town barber. He is fashionable. Only that his sense of fashion sense hit the pause mode sometime in the 1980’s. He still wears shiny shirts and white trousers – as worn by Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborthy back then. But Liaquat’s own hair has thinned over the years, and so has his bottom, which would be emphasised by the white trousers earlier. What he retains is his skills and warmth – a warmth that is typical of a small town.
Kanpur isn’t a small town. In fact, it is the biggest city of Uttar Pradesh. It was typically a British city before Independence, and I am told – though I am not sure about this – that there was a time when the British population outnumbered that of the natives in Kanpur. But the city is broken down into various mohallas – neighbourhoods – in most of which you can still savour the small pleasures of living in a small town even in the 21st century.
Very close to my house, on a busy road, is a cattle-shed where about half-a-dozen cows and buffaloes are milked every morning and evening. Though packaged milk is available, those who want it fresh from the udders have the choice of signing up with the doodhwala on a monthly basis. (When I was young, one of the chores assigned to me was to fetch the milk and to make sure the milkman did not carry water in the bucket on the sly as he proceeded to milk the cow). Right next to the doodhwala’s shed is a cyber café, where mostly the college-going crowd hangs around. So, on one hand you still get fresh milk, while on the other you are connected online.
And then, the other small pleasures of life. For instance, when you feel like having jalebis, all you need to do is stop by at a roadside mithai shop. The halwai would gently squeeze the cloth and pour out the batter in small circles on boiling oil. Once fried, the circles would be ladled out into a large bowl containing the sugar syrup. Your jalebi is ready. The thing is, when you watch samosas or jalebis being fried, your desire to savour is heightened several times than when you buy them off the glass-case in a so-called reputed shop.
Just because a samosa is hot does not mean it is fresh – you can always heat it in the microwave, like most big shops in big cities do. You know a samosa has been freshly fried when it need not be so hot on the surface, but the moment you break it open, you see steam rising from the potato filling. In the past few days that I have been in Kanpur, Tiwariji’s samosas have burned my tongue several times. Getting tongue burned in this fashion is a luxury – a luxury I cannot expect in Chennai. Kolkata is probably the only metro which takes food very seriously and where you still find people heading to the nearest mishtir dokaan early in the morning to purchase freshly made roshogollas, shingara (samosa) and kochuris.
A small town is also ridiculously cheap. My wife wanted to buy a dupatta, so last evening we went to Lal Bangla, the market a stone’s throw away from my house. Lal Bangla is a testimony to the never-say-die spirit of the Punjabis. Most of the prosperous shops in the market are run by Punjabi families who came empty-handed during Partition but went on to do well in life as well as business. The owners of many of these shops had started off – so I have been told by people who knew better – by mending punctures in bicycle tyres.
Lal Bangla has always been the ideal, self-contained market for the small town – by small town I mean a place where people are guided by the value-for-money principle, who simply can’t understand why a saree should cost Rs 5,000 or a dupatta Rs 250. Not that the quality of what they purchase is inferior: the same pieces of clothing, when they travel to the metros, become obscenely expensive. Wife was shocked when she enquired the price of the dupatta: Rs 40! At first she couldn’t believe her ears, and then she became so ecstatic that she bought five more pieces of different colours.
Finally, why she had to buy the dupattas. We have a new pet dog at home, a female, just six months old. One morning, just after it was born, she had strayed into our house and since then, has stayed on. She does not have a name, neither was she ever put on leash, because my father was not sure if he was going to keep another dog after the death of Nano (the handsome, cheerful mongrel who died in an accident last year). Moreover, keeping a pet restricts your mobility. But then, as was expected, my father never had the heart to get the dog out. As a result, the dog without a name, who does not know what it means to be leashed and who has only been used to extreme pampering, is the queen of the house. In one of the playful moments, she shredded the wife’s dupatta into tiny pieces.
The dog was a bit shy of me the day I arrived, but since has been spending all her time with me. Even when I write in my room upstairs, till four in the morning, she is always there next to me, sleeping on her back like a human. And each time I make a whining sound from my throat (the first time when I had made the sound I had wanted to sound like a whining puppy just to see her reaction), she, without fail, rushes to me to hug me and lick my hands and face.
And the other night, after I had finished my quota of writing, I was sipping my last drink and humming, "O raat ke musaafir, chanda zara bataa de", the song from Miss Mary. I had heard the song a couple of times on You Tube a few weeks ago, and the tune remained in my head. Suddenly, the nameless dog sprang up from slumber and started pawing and licking me. Since then, I have tried humming other songs but this song alone gets her all loving and licking. Strange dog, very human dog. I wonder how she is going to cope with my absence when I leave Kanpur tonight.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
A Pilgrimage
There are two things that hang in the air of Kolkata perennially: cigarette smoke and the music of R.D. Burman. It is the only city in India where smoking may be barred by law in public places but – thanks to Communist culture – is not considered taboo or looked down upon. As for R.D., flip through the numerous FM channels at any point of time and one of them is bound to be playing his song, either Hindi or Bengali – ah, the beats!
It is always a pleasure to arrive in Kolkata: to light up a cigarette right at the airport after two hours of abstinence and listen to Pancham in the car while headed home to some pampering by the mother-in-law; and during the drive, to look at some of the most beautiful faces on this planet. Chennai is my wife, Calcutta the highly seductive mistress. I spent last weekend in her arms.
Since I am neither Kolkata-born nor Kolkata-bred, you can’t call me conceited when I say the soil of the city gets your creative juices flowing the moment you step on it. To begin with, the giant hoardings dotting the road on the way from the airport: the energetic punch-lines make you feel as if you are arriving for one big party. (You can’t beat a Bong copywriter. You will find ready-to-borrow punch-lines even when you overhear two lay Bengalis speak to each other. Their conversation is rarely simple and straight; it is either laced with humour or sarcasm or is outright poetry.) Kolkata is indeed a happening city now, never mind if the government is still communist. In any case, at this time of the year, the city is preparing for its biggest party, the Durga Puja. At every fifty yards you will find a skeleton of bamboos waiting to be dressed up as pandals.
Saturday began with a breakfast of hing kochuri (stuffed kachoris laced with asafoetida) and a simple potato curry, followed by mishti doi and rosogullas. A traditional Bengali lunch was waiting, but our stomachs, much to the disappointment of mother-in-law, were full. To burn the calories, wife and a friend who had accompanied me from Chennai went shopping in the Salt Lake area, where we live. Since I have decided not to care about my weight until my Chennai book is done – after which I shall whip myself into shape – I went to sleep. What’s the point being in Bongland unless you can’t afford a post-meal siesta? But barely two hours of sleep and I was woken up. They were done with their shopping and now we were going for a drive into the city.
We drove in a drizzle, going right across the Rabindra Setu, the Ganga looking gloomy under the overcast sky, and then returning to the city to its famous landmarks: Fort William, Esplanade, Chowringhee and, finally, Victoria Memorial. The drizzle had stopped when we stepped outside Kolkata’s most famous colonial building. We were taking pictures when the chanachur man, dressed in Gandhian white (including a Gandhi cap) showed up. The Chennai friend pointed to his wares and asked him what it was. The chanachur man, glad that he had finally found someone so inquisitive, proceeded to provide a background.
“Madam, woh Kranti picture dekhe hain na?” he began.
I don’t think my friend has even seen Kranti, leave alone remembering the particular scene where Shatrughan Sinha masquerades as a chanachur-seller and sings a chanachur-related song (Kishore Kumar’s voice!) only to hoodwink cruel British jailors and save a fellow patriotic Indian – the ever-patriotic Manoj Kumar – from the gallows (I am borrowing from my memories of Kranti dating back to 1981, when I was eleven, so forgive me if I am not accurate). Since I knew he was going to repeat the story, I cut the chanachur man short and told my friend, "It’s a kind of mixture." She took a picture of him, and another along with him: soon he will be immortalised on Facebook. With chanachur in hand, we went on a buggy ride around the Maidan. The next stop was Park Street, but not before we had had paani-puris in front of Victoria Memorial.
At Park Street, wife and friend found themselves a table at Flury's. I excused myself and ran off, first to Music World and then to the Oxford Book Store. I bought two precious books, one of them being an issue of Granta which reproduces the first few pages of Naipaul’s notebook that was the basis for A Wounded Civilisation. Sharp, precise thoughts in long hand. I also bought a number of Bangla books for my father: Tagore, Sirshendu, Sunil Gangopadhyaya. The trip to Park Street ended with a round of egg rolls. It was 8 pm now. The evening had just begun. We were to return to Park Street again in a couple of hours. The Saturday night of Calcutta awaited us.
At 10.30 pm, Someplace Else at Park hotel was packed. As usual, a live band was rocking the dedicated crowd that likes to listen to guitars singing. After a drink each – the most modest brand of whisky available there is Teacher’s – we moved to Roxy, yet another nightclub of the hotel. There, while wife and friend proceeded to dance, I ordered a couple of more drinks. I was too sober to start dancing. But I had barely finished one drink when the DJ announced that he was going to play the last song for the evening. What the fuck! This was Calcutta, and it was barely midnight!
The waiter who brought me the check apologised. "Sir, we are usually open till two. But today is Eid. We have been asked to shut by twelve," she explained. We trooped out. I was upset. I wondered what could be the relation between Eid and nightclubs closing earlier than usual. If the reason was religious, then the clubs should have remained shut that evening. Or was it that the government feared a law and order situation and wanted to take preventive measures by sending revellers back home early? The second reason seemed more likely.
Just when we were about to step out, we noticed groups of people being let in through the backdoor to yet another of the hotel’s nightclubs, Tantra, which specialises in trance music. I quickly lit up a cigarette and took a few drags before stubbing it out. We were let in through the kitchen. Once inside the hall that was pulsating with heart-thumping beats, I regretted having stubbed out the cigarette in a hurry. Inside, people were smoking freely. Since the place was officially shut, official rules did not apply.
The DJ, a gym-fit bald white man wearing a full-sleeved cheque shirt, was in a trance himself. We danced for a while and then I broke off for a smoke. I am not a fan of trance music. A pretty girl in white salwar-kameez came to me and asked for a cigarette. She stood next to me and smoked. It was pointless to strike a conversation, so I let her be. I returned to the dance floor, we took some pictures, and left. The next stop was Venom on Camac Street. Venom, according to me, is the most happening disco in Kolkata, for the simple reason that it plays my kind of music. The DJ was playing Apni to jaise taise when we entered. We limped out at three in the morning.
Late Sunday morning, we were at Dakshineshwar, the Kali temple where Ramakrishna Paramahansa attained nirvana. What I like most about Dakshineshwar is not the Kali temple but the row of 12 Shiva temples that overlook the serenely flowing Ganga. I was here exactly a year ago, when Chai, Chai was beginning to hit the stands in various cities, and I had silently prayed to the 12 Shivas for the success of the book. This time, though, it was just a courtesy call: I made no requests to Shiva. In any case, Sunday morning, when most of Kali-fearing Kolkata descends upon Dakshineshwar, is not the right time for a one-on-one audience with god.
It being a Sunday, much of College Street is closed. The idea was to have Mughlai paratha at the famed Coffee House opposite Presidency College. But the Coffee House had just shut, and was to open only at four. So it was back to Park Street again, to have lunch at Flavours of China. The best Chinese food I've ever had. A few more books bought from Oxford. Finally, shopping at the South City Mall – one of the country's biggest and plushest. My friend, in one stroke, made the careers of several attendants of several stores by helping them achieve their month's target in a matter of hours. If not anyone else, at least they will remember her with deep gratitude: "Mone achhe Chennai thheke ek mohila eshechhilo?"
Sunday night was dinner at home, catching up with some close friends and relatives. It’s a typical sit-down Bengali dinner; food is served in a particular order, starting with rice and daal and ending with chutney and paapad – with half-a-dozen vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes in between. More conversations, of the Bengali kind: sarcastic and humorous.
********
Monday evening: Rajdhani Express to Kanpur. I slept through most of the journey. At night, though, I was awake long enough to notice a couple get cosy on the berth diagonally across. They had boarded at Gaya. The woman first put a child on the top berth and then climbed herself. The man, after placing the luggage underneath the seats, followed suit. He pulled the curtain and in the darkness, they sat close to each other, chatting. Her hand rested on his thigh and his hand, occasionally, reached out to touch her breasts. At times she let him fondle her and at other times playfully shook his hand off, her bangles jingling in the process. I watched them with my eyes wide open till the man climbed down and went to his berth to sleep. In the morning, I heard the child call him chaacha, while the woman called him bhaiyya.
********
Tuesday morning: I reach Kanpur. For the first time, mother is not at the gate to give the hugs. But the mango pickle she made last year has been preserved and I have it during lunch.
It is always a pleasure to arrive in Kolkata: to light up a cigarette right at the airport after two hours of abstinence and listen to Pancham in the car while headed home to some pampering by the mother-in-law; and during the drive, to look at some of the most beautiful faces on this planet. Chennai is my wife, Calcutta the highly seductive mistress. I spent last weekend in her arms.
Since I am neither Kolkata-born nor Kolkata-bred, you can’t call me conceited when I say the soil of the city gets your creative juices flowing the moment you step on it. To begin with, the giant hoardings dotting the road on the way from the airport: the energetic punch-lines make you feel as if you are arriving for one big party. (You can’t beat a Bong copywriter. You will find ready-to-borrow punch-lines even when you overhear two lay Bengalis speak to each other. Their conversation is rarely simple and straight; it is either laced with humour or sarcasm or is outright poetry.) Kolkata is indeed a happening city now, never mind if the government is still communist. In any case, at this time of the year, the city is preparing for its biggest party, the Durga Puja. At every fifty yards you will find a skeleton of bamboos waiting to be dressed up as pandals.
Saturday began with a breakfast of hing kochuri (stuffed kachoris laced with asafoetida) and a simple potato curry, followed by mishti doi and rosogullas. A traditional Bengali lunch was waiting, but our stomachs, much to the disappointment of mother-in-law, were full. To burn the calories, wife and a friend who had accompanied me from Chennai went shopping in the Salt Lake area, where we live. Since I have decided not to care about my weight until my Chennai book is done – after which I shall whip myself into shape – I went to sleep. What’s the point being in Bongland unless you can’t afford a post-meal siesta? But barely two hours of sleep and I was woken up. They were done with their shopping and now we were going for a drive into the city.
We drove in a drizzle, going right across the Rabindra Setu, the Ganga looking gloomy under the overcast sky, and then returning to the city to its famous landmarks: Fort William, Esplanade, Chowringhee and, finally, Victoria Memorial. The drizzle had stopped when we stepped outside Kolkata’s most famous colonial building. We were taking pictures when the chanachur man, dressed in Gandhian white (including a Gandhi cap) showed up. The Chennai friend pointed to his wares and asked him what it was. The chanachur man, glad that he had finally found someone so inquisitive, proceeded to provide a background.
“Madam, woh Kranti picture dekhe hain na?” he began.
I don’t think my friend has even seen Kranti, leave alone remembering the particular scene where Shatrughan Sinha masquerades as a chanachur-seller and sings a chanachur-related song (Kishore Kumar’s voice!) only to hoodwink cruel British jailors and save a fellow patriotic Indian – the ever-patriotic Manoj Kumar – from the gallows (I am borrowing from my memories of Kranti dating back to 1981, when I was eleven, so forgive me if I am not accurate). Since I knew he was going to repeat the story, I cut the chanachur man short and told my friend, "It’s a kind of mixture." She took a picture of him, and another along with him: soon he will be immortalised on Facebook. With chanachur in hand, we went on a buggy ride around the Maidan. The next stop was Park Street, but not before we had had paani-puris in front of Victoria Memorial.
At Park Street, wife and friend found themselves a table at Flury's. I excused myself and ran off, first to Music World and then to the Oxford Book Store. I bought two precious books, one of them being an issue of Granta which reproduces the first few pages of Naipaul’s notebook that was the basis for A Wounded Civilisation. Sharp, precise thoughts in long hand. I also bought a number of Bangla books for my father: Tagore, Sirshendu, Sunil Gangopadhyaya. The trip to Park Street ended with a round of egg rolls. It was 8 pm now. The evening had just begun. We were to return to Park Street again in a couple of hours. The Saturday night of Calcutta awaited us.
At 10.30 pm, Someplace Else at Park hotel was packed. As usual, a live band was rocking the dedicated crowd that likes to listen to guitars singing. After a drink each – the most modest brand of whisky available there is Teacher’s – we moved to Roxy, yet another nightclub of the hotel. There, while wife and friend proceeded to dance, I ordered a couple of more drinks. I was too sober to start dancing. But I had barely finished one drink when the DJ announced that he was going to play the last song for the evening. What the fuck! This was Calcutta, and it was barely midnight!
The waiter who brought me the check apologised. "Sir, we are usually open till two. But today is Eid. We have been asked to shut by twelve," she explained. We trooped out. I was upset. I wondered what could be the relation between Eid and nightclubs closing earlier than usual. If the reason was religious, then the clubs should have remained shut that evening. Or was it that the government feared a law and order situation and wanted to take preventive measures by sending revellers back home early? The second reason seemed more likely.
Just when we were about to step out, we noticed groups of people being let in through the backdoor to yet another of the hotel’s nightclubs, Tantra, which specialises in trance music. I quickly lit up a cigarette and took a few drags before stubbing it out. We were let in through the kitchen. Once inside the hall that was pulsating with heart-thumping beats, I regretted having stubbed out the cigarette in a hurry. Inside, people were smoking freely. Since the place was officially shut, official rules did not apply.
The DJ, a gym-fit bald white man wearing a full-sleeved cheque shirt, was in a trance himself. We danced for a while and then I broke off for a smoke. I am not a fan of trance music. A pretty girl in white salwar-kameez came to me and asked for a cigarette. She stood next to me and smoked. It was pointless to strike a conversation, so I let her be. I returned to the dance floor, we took some pictures, and left. The next stop was Venom on Camac Street. Venom, according to me, is the most happening disco in Kolkata, for the simple reason that it plays my kind of music. The DJ was playing Apni to jaise taise when we entered. We limped out at three in the morning.
Late Sunday morning, we were at Dakshineshwar, the Kali temple where Ramakrishna Paramahansa attained nirvana. What I like most about Dakshineshwar is not the Kali temple but the row of 12 Shiva temples that overlook the serenely flowing Ganga. I was here exactly a year ago, when Chai, Chai was beginning to hit the stands in various cities, and I had silently prayed to the 12 Shivas for the success of the book. This time, though, it was just a courtesy call: I made no requests to Shiva. In any case, Sunday morning, when most of Kali-fearing Kolkata descends upon Dakshineshwar, is not the right time for a one-on-one audience with god.
It being a Sunday, much of College Street is closed. The idea was to have Mughlai paratha at the famed Coffee House opposite Presidency College. But the Coffee House had just shut, and was to open only at four. So it was back to Park Street again, to have lunch at Flavours of China. The best Chinese food I've ever had. A few more books bought from Oxford. Finally, shopping at the South City Mall – one of the country's biggest and plushest. My friend, in one stroke, made the careers of several attendants of several stores by helping them achieve their month's target in a matter of hours. If not anyone else, at least they will remember her with deep gratitude: "Mone achhe Chennai thheke ek mohila eshechhilo?"
Sunday night was dinner at home, catching up with some close friends and relatives. It’s a typical sit-down Bengali dinner; food is served in a particular order, starting with rice and daal and ending with chutney and paapad – with half-a-dozen vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes in between. More conversations, of the Bengali kind: sarcastic and humorous.
********
Monday evening: Rajdhani Express to Kanpur. I slept through most of the journey. At night, though, I was awake long enough to notice a couple get cosy on the berth diagonally across. They had boarded at Gaya. The woman first put a child on the top berth and then climbed herself. The man, after placing the luggage underneath the seats, followed suit. He pulled the curtain and in the darkness, they sat close to each other, chatting. Her hand rested on his thigh and his hand, occasionally, reached out to touch her breasts. At times she let him fondle her and at other times playfully shook his hand off, her bangles jingling in the process. I watched them with my eyes wide open till the man climbed down and went to his berth to sleep. In the morning, I heard the child call him chaacha, while the woman called him bhaiyya.
********
Tuesday morning: I reach Kanpur. For the first time, mother is not at the gate to give the hugs. But the mango pickle she made last year has been preserved and I have it during lunch.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Why I Don't Want To Be Rama
For the past two days I have been reading and rereading a fascinating travelogue called An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley.
In the book, Buckley traces the journey of Lord Rama, as described in the Ramayana, right from his birthplace Ayodhya to Sri Lanka, where he defeated demon king Ravana and rescued his wife Sita but put her through the famous fire-test before taking her back. In tracing Rama's footprints, he tells the story of present-day India and the conflict in present-day Sri Lanka. What an idea!
Reading his book, I got to learn more about what is contained in the Ramayana than I ever got to know from the sugary episodes dished out on Doordarshan by Ramanand Sagar. Oh, those interminably long scenes that showed Arun Govil, playing Lod Rama, smiling forever. Several precious minutes would be consumed by that supposedly divine smile before Rama would proceed to mouth a dialogue. By the time he opened his mouth, the serial would be over and one had to wait until next Sunday.
Ramanand Sagar, needless to say, died a rich man. I know of women -- my mother included -- who had orgasms, of the devotional nature, by merely watching Govil's stupid smile. For them, it was not Govil but Lord Rama who was smiling. What the fuck.
But despite all the devotion, I wonder how many Hindu families actually possess a copy of the Ramayana. Even if they do, how many have read it and enjoyed it like a novel? Most of us are only aware of the select, cliched anecdotes that we have gathered from sources other than the Ramayana. But in reality, if Ramayana were to be made into a movie that strictly followed Valmiki's script, word to word, it would be given A-certificate.
Buckley knows his Ramayana. With the Westerner's curiosity, he has read and reread it. Throughout his book, he punctuates the accounts of his journey with relevant tales from the Ramayana, and in the process, summarises the epic for us in a lucid, matter-of-fact manner. Initially I skipped the Ramayana bits and stuck to his travels, but once I started the Ramayana part, I found it even more gripping.
So in the end, it always takes a Westerner to show us the way to the lanes and bylanes of our own country, our own history, our own mythology. Well why not, they have the passion, and when they pursue it, they pull out all stops. Had I hit upon such an idea, the first thing coming to my mind would've been: "But will I get such a long leave? And where will the money come from?" We Indians, like Rama, are tied down by duties and responsibilities. And the Buckleys, like Valmiki, get to write the books.
In the book, Buckley traces the journey of Lord Rama, as described in the Ramayana, right from his birthplace Ayodhya to Sri Lanka, where he defeated demon king Ravana and rescued his wife Sita but put her through the famous fire-test before taking her back. In tracing Rama's footprints, he tells the story of present-day India and the conflict in present-day Sri Lanka. What an idea!
Reading his book, I got to learn more about what is contained in the Ramayana than I ever got to know from the sugary episodes dished out on Doordarshan by Ramanand Sagar. Oh, those interminably long scenes that showed Arun Govil, playing Lod Rama, smiling forever. Several precious minutes would be consumed by that supposedly divine smile before Rama would proceed to mouth a dialogue. By the time he opened his mouth, the serial would be over and one had to wait until next Sunday.
Ramanand Sagar, needless to say, died a rich man. I know of women -- my mother included -- who had orgasms, of the devotional nature, by merely watching Govil's stupid smile. For them, it was not Govil but Lord Rama who was smiling. What the fuck.
But despite all the devotion, I wonder how many Hindu families actually possess a copy of the Ramayana. Even if they do, how many have read it and enjoyed it like a novel? Most of us are only aware of the select, cliched anecdotes that we have gathered from sources other than the Ramayana. But in reality, if Ramayana were to be made into a movie that strictly followed Valmiki's script, word to word, it would be given A-certificate.
Buckley knows his Ramayana. With the Westerner's curiosity, he has read and reread it. Throughout his book, he punctuates the accounts of his journey with relevant tales from the Ramayana, and in the process, summarises the epic for us in a lucid, matter-of-fact manner. Initially I skipped the Ramayana bits and stuck to his travels, but once I started the Ramayana part, I found it even more gripping.
So in the end, it always takes a Westerner to show us the way to the lanes and bylanes of our own country, our own history, our own mythology. Well why not, they have the passion, and when they pursue it, they pull out all stops. Had I hit upon such an idea, the first thing coming to my mind would've been: "But will I get such a long leave? And where will the money come from?" We Indians, like Rama, are tied down by duties and responsibilities. And the Buckleys, like Valmiki, get to write the books.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What Do I Do Without This Song?
If you happen to enjoy the song, spare a few moments to read this post which I wrote nearly five years ago, when there was no You Tube to bring alive the lost songs of childhood.
The silky voices of Bhupinder and Asha Bhosle, under the baton on R.D. Burman. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
A Dark Anniversary
The same day, the same time last year, I had gone to sleep with the knowledge that both my parents are alive. Then, around four in the afternoon, I got the call that I dreaded. I had always expected such a call at an odd hour, like eleven in the night or two in the morning.
At four in the afternoon, I had just finished lunch and was getting ready for work. I was feeling good and fit when I stood in front of the mirror and wore my favourite black T-shirt. That's when the call came. My father broke the news rather apologetically. As if he was sorry that my schedule had to be disrupted. After he hung up, I called my wife and then went on to wear my jeans and splash aftershave on my chest and face. The splashing of the aftershave was an involuntary act undertaken to buy time: I needed to think, with a cool head, how to get to Benaras as quickly as possible.
Driving to the airport, I felt somewhat relieved. My biggest fear was over now. I no longer had to worry about my mother dying. But it was during this drive that another fear took over: can I bear to see her lying on a bed of ice? With each passing moment, the eventuality of seeing her in that state was coming horrifyingly closer. I wanted the clock to slow down. But time is a bitch: it always takes you to places where you don't want to go. So the next afternoon, I was in Benaras.
August is a strange month for me. My wife's birthday is on the 23rd, my mother died on the 28th, I cremated her on the 29th, and her birthday is on the 31st. If my mother had waited for just three more days, she could have witnessed her 59th birthday; and if for eight more days, she could have seen her son as a published author. This is one regret I shall always carry throughout my life.
I think I have coped quite well with the loss of my mother. I have not shed a tear till date. Though I dream about her frequently. The dreams occur mostly in the mornings, when I am half asleep and half awake. But even during such dreams, I am fully conscious of the fact that my mother is no more. Even this morning, I dreamed about her. It was again an early-morning dream: we are visiting a hill station when someone raises an alarm that my mother has collapsed and is dead. As I rush up the stairs in my dream, it suddenly occurs to me, "My mother has already died once, so what if she dies again?" And then, another thought comes, "I saw her being burnt to ashes, how can she come alive to die a second time?" I soon realised it was only a dream, and I turned around and slept for some more time.
But a few days ago I came very close to crying. I was surfing channels while having lunch when I stumbled upon disturbing images that were so familiar to me: National Geographic channel was showing a documentary on the burning ghats of Benaras. It became impossible for me to swallow the food. The images were so stark and real that they took me back to the darkest day of my life.
I distracted myself by thinking of a half-written manuscript sitting inside a folder in my laptop. I reminded myself that I have to finish it someday and show it to the publisher. It will be an account of Benaras, from the eyes of a traveller who also happened to cremate his mother there. Though I hesitate to go back to it because writing it would mean reliving those moments again and again. Sharing a few paragraphs with you:
Considering that the fear of losing you had tormented me for so many years, I was surprisingly calm when I received the news. I had just finished lunch and was about to get ready for work when father called. “Your mother is no more,” he told me. He was very calm. He then gave me the details: how you, him and brother were having lunch, sitting in a circle on the floor, like many Bengali families still do, when you suddenly arched back and went lifeless in a matter of seconds, in the arms of brother.
After he hung up, I called up wife and also my office. Then I got up and wore my jeans and put on some aftershave lotion. I smiled at myself in the mirror. I wanted to see if a man whose mother had just died was capable of smiling. I was. Tell me, ma, was there anything abnormal about smiling at that hour? For years you were caught in the battle between life and death, and now the battle had finally ended and there was peace. Doesn’t matter if death won; death had to win someday. Life is sand, death is concrete. Life is uncertain, but death certain. Why not make peace with the victor than hopelessly siding with the soon-to-be-vanquished?
I even smiled at colleagues who started coming in after they got the news. But they did not return my smile. For a fraction of a second I found it odd, then I realised that they are not supposed to be smiling at the moment. I quickly wiped the smile off my own face. They all asked me how it happened. I repeated what father had told me. Calls started coming. I repeated the story each time. In less than an hour, I had repeated the Last Lunch story so many times that it felt as if I was reporting your death first-hand. As if I had been in Benaras, all of us sitting in a small circle on the floor and having lunch when you suddenly decided to say goodbye.
Lunch with you all is one scene I can report or describe with hundred per cent accuracy without even being there. It is like describing a man brushing his teeth. All our lives, whenever we were all together, we ate sitting on the floor. That was the ritual. Remember the dining table which father bought while we were away on summer vacation some twenty-five years ago? Father wanted to give us a surprise, but the dining table – poor father! – was destined to be used for every purpose other than eating. I still believe that when a meal is seasoned with mother’s love, it is best savoured sitting on the floor: the mother has better access to her children’s plates, be it to serve some extra daal for the protein or to drop some delectable chunks of mutton. The dining table is a bit too formal for the comfort of an Indian mother.
At four in the afternoon, I had just finished lunch and was getting ready for work. I was feeling good and fit when I stood in front of the mirror and wore my favourite black T-shirt. That's when the call came. My father broke the news rather apologetically. As if he was sorry that my schedule had to be disrupted. After he hung up, I called my wife and then went on to wear my jeans and splash aftershave on my chest and face. The splashing of the aftershave was an involuntary act undertaken to buy time: I needed to think, with a cool head, how to get to Benaras as quickly as possible.
Driving to the airport, I felt somewhat relieved. My biggest fear was over now. I no longer had to worry about my mother dying. But it was during this drive that another fear took over: can I bear to see her lying on a bed of ice? With each passing moment, the eventuality of seeing her in that state was coming horrifyingly closer. I wanted the clock to slow down. But time is a bitch: it always takes you to places where you don't want to go. So the next afternoon, I was in Benaras.
August is a strange month for me. My wife's birthday is on the 23rd, my mother died on the 28th, I cremated her on the 29th, and her birthday is on the 31st. If my mother had waited for just three more days, she could have witnessed her 59th birthday; and if for eight more days, she could have seen her son as a published author. This is one regret I shall always carry throughout my life.
I think I have coped quite well with the loss of my mother. I have not shed a tear till date. Though I dream about her frequently. The dreams occur mostly in the mornings, when I am half asleep and half awake. But even during such dreams, I am fully conscious of the fact that my mother is no more. Even this morning, I dreamed about her. It was again an early-morning dream: we are visiting a hill station when someone raises an alarm that my mother has collapsed and is dead. As I rush up the stairs in my dream, it suddenly occurs to me, "My mother has already died once, so what if she dies again?" And then, another thought comes, "I saw her being burnt to ashes, how can she come alive to die a second time?" I soon realised it was only a dream, and I turned around and slept for some more time.
But a few days ago I came very close to crying. I was surfing channels while having lunch when I stumbled upon disturbing images that were so familiar to me: National Geographic channel was showing a documentary on the burning ghats of Benaras. It became impossible for me to swallow the food. The images were so stark and real that they took me back to the darkest day of my life.
I distracted myself by thinking of a half-written manuscript sitting inside a folder in my laptop. I reminded myself that I have to finish it someday and show it to the publisher. It will be an account of Benaras, from the eyes of a traveller who also happened to cremate his mother there. Though I hesitate to go back to it because writing it would mean reliving those moments again and again. Sharing a few paragraphs with you:
Considering that the fear of losing you had tormented me for so many years, I was surprisingly calm when I received the news. I had just finished lunch and was about to get ready for work when father called. “Your mother is no more,” he told me. He was very calm. He then gave me the details: how you, him and brother were having lunch, sitting in a circle on the floor, like many Bengali families still do, when you suddenly arched back and went lifeless in a matter of seconds, in the arms of brother.
After he hung up, I called up wife and also my office. Then I got up and wore my jeans and put on some aftershave lotion. I smiled at myself in the mirror. I wanted to see if a man whose mother had just died was capable of smiling. I was. Tell me, ma, was there anything abnormal about smiling at that hour? For years you were caught in the battle between life and death, and now the battle had finally ended and there was peace. Doesn’t matter if death won; death had to win someday. Life is sand, death is concrete. Life is uncertain, but death certain. Why not make peace with the victor than hopelessly siding with the soon-to-be-vanquished?
I even smiled at colleagues who started coming in after they got the news. But they did not return my smile. For a fraction of a second I found it odd, then I realised that they are not supposed to be smiling at the moment. I quickly wiped the smile off my own face. They all asked me how it happened. I repeated what father had told me. Calls started coming. I repeated the story each time. In less than an hour, I had repeated the Last Lunch story so many times that it felt as if I was reporting your death first-hand. As if I had been in Benaras, all of us sitting in a small circle on the floor and having lunch when you suddenly decided to say goodbye.
Lunch with you all is one scene I can report or describe with hundred per cent accuracy without even being there. It is like describing a man brushing his teeth. All our lives, whenever we were all together, we ate sitting on the floor. That was the ritual. Remember the dining table which father bought while we were away on summer vacation some twenty-five years ago? Father wanted to give us a surprise, but the dining table – poor father! – was destined to be used for every purpose other than eating. I still believe that when a meal is seasoned with mother’s love, it is best savoured sitting on the floor: the mother has better access to her children’s plates, be it to serve some extra daal for the protein or to drop some delectable chunks of mutton. The dining table is a bit too formal for the comfort of an Indian mother.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Ganga Mail
The archive-list in the new template of my blog gives a year-wise breakup of the number of posts written. And I find that in 2008, the year I wrote Chai, Chai, I had only 15 posts. Fifteen posts in an entire year!
When you are working on a book, especially doing the writing part, it is difficult to keep updating a blog such as this on a regular basis. It takes me about three hours to write a post, and another hour of thinking and drinking before I start writing it. In those four hours I can add at least four hundred valuable words to my manuscript.
I feel sad for Ganga Mail: it is going to be subjected to neglect for the next few months. The blog has been my conscience-keeper, my only channel of communication with people who care for me and read me. But the book is more important: as long as I don't write a second one and then a third one, I can't call myself a writer. A writer, in my definition, is someone who has written at least three books and shows the promise of writing many more -- may be till the time when at least the state government acknowledges your skills and honours you with a minor, local award. Right now, I am only a journalist working for such-and-such paper, who is expected to polish other people's copies so that the paper reads better and who, in his free time, pursues his literary ambitions. What a pain -- to nurse such ambitions.
I get to work around 4.30 in the afternoon, 10 minutes plus or minus. I return home precisely at midnight. I pour myself a drink and start writing. And then I pour many more drinks. By the time I go to sleep, it is usually daybreak when the birds are chirping. I often wish I had woken up just then and gone for a walk in the neighbourhood park -- but such lifestyles are meant for saner, more sober people.
I wake up around noon and go through what I have written the night before. A lot of rewriting to be done, which takes a couple of hours. At around two in the afternoon, I head to the gym to exercise my heart. That's the time when Desperate Housewives are at the gym, wanting to look good, but they only exchange glances and not words. Suits me fine, because once I am at the gym, I am blind to the people until I have finished my quota of cardio -- a two-mile walk under 24 minutes. Lunch is at three -- that's the only time I watch TV -- and by four I am preparing to head to work.
That's my life these days. Ganga Mail should take consolation in the fact that my third book, which is yet to be written but which has been thought out, would be called by the same name. On The Ganga Mail.
When you are working on a book, especially doing the writing part, it is difficult to keep updating a blog such as this on a regular basis. It takes me about three hours to write a post, and another hour of thinking and drinking before I start writing it. In those four hours I can add at least four hundred valuable words to my manuscript.
I feel sad for Ganga Mail: it is going to be subjected to neglect for the next few months. The blog has been my conscience-keeper, my only channel of communication with people who care for me and read me. But the book is more important: as long as I don't write a second one and then a third one, I can't call myself a writer. A writer, in my definition, is someone who has written at least three books and shows the promise of writing many more -- may be till the time when at least the state government acknowledges your skills and honours you with a minor, local award. Right now, I am only a journalist working for such-and-such paper, who is expected to polish other people's copies so that the paper reads better and who, in his free time, pursues his literary ambitions. What a pain -- to nurse such ambitions.
I get to work around 4.30 in the afternoon, 10 minutes plus or minus. I return home precisely at midnight. I pour myself a drink and start writing. And then I pour many more drinks. By the time I go to sleep, it is usually daybreak when the birds are chirping. I often wish I had woken up just then and gone for a walk in the neighbourhood park -- but such lifestyles are meant for saner, more sober people.
I wake up around noon and go through what I have written the night before. A lot of rewriting to be done, which takes a couple of hours. At around two in the afternoon, I head to the gym to exercise my heart. That's the time when Desperate Housewives are at the gym, wanting to look good, but they only exchange glances and not words. Suits me fine, because once I am at the gym, I am blind to the people until I have finished my quota of cardio -- a two-mile walk under 24 minutes. Lunch is at three -- that's the only time I watch TV -- and by four I am preparing to head to work.
That's my life these days. Ganga Mail should take consolation in the fact that my third book, which is yet to be written but which has been thought out, would be called by the same name. On The Ganga Mail.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Honesty Is The Best Medicine
Mother is gone. Wife has taken her place. Now I can continue to be a child for the rest of my life, because the past 10 days have showed me that my wife is as good a mother to me as my mother.
The past 10 days have been, to say the least, most horrible in my recent memory. As someone who regularly smokes and drinks and keeps irregular hours, throat and chest infections are like cousins with who I muddy my feet in the neighbourhood pond all the time. But this was a viral infection that knocked me dead. I shut myself off from the world, the worldly desires having already deserted me with the onset of 103 degrees fever, and the only desire that would surface now and then would be to be in the possession of a loaded gun that I could put to my head and end my miseries.
One sure-shot sign of recovery is the rekindling of the urge to live -- the urge to do things you are always used to doing. Tonight, touch wood, the urge has come back and that is how I am here, trying to write. But till this morning, I was almost a dead man, kept on the ventilator by an efficient and a concerned wife. She was perhaps sure I would pull through, but I myself wasn't sure at all.
This morning something else happened as well. As soon as I woke up, someone held a mirror to me -- which did not show the ghostly, unshaven me, the sight I was beginning to get used to seeing, but something more promising. It was a review of Chai, Chai in desicritics.org, a website I used to occasionally write for once upon a time.
After 10 months, it felt nice that someone had remembered the book again, and said nice things about it too. No, the review was anything but flattering. But it spoke the truth -- something I value more than just praise. Here is the review: please read it.
Chai, Chai may have a few firsts and pluses to its credit, but it is also true that it isn't the best Indian travel book ever written. In fact I would rewrite most of it if I had a chance now -- a chance I hope to avail of at a later stage. The best Indian travelogue, as the reviewer says, is yet to come. And that's where hope lies for people like me.
But what really made my morning was the reviewer's thought: "This is Ghosh's first book and I get the feeling that as he writes more, he will add that edge and depth to his existing narrative skills. We may yet see the first great Indian travelogue coming from Bishwanath Ghosh." How many, really, make that allowance for you? I owe the reviewer one good book.
The past 10 days have been, to say the least, most horrible in my recent memory. As someone who regularly smokes and drinks and keeps irregular hours, throat and chest infections are like cousins with who I muddy my feet in the neighbourhood pond all the time. But this was a viral infection that knocked me dead. I shut myself off from the world, the worldly desires having already deserted me with the onset of 103 degrees fever, and the only desire that would surface now and then would be to be in the possession of a loaded gun that I could put to my head and end my miseries.
One sure-shot sign of recovery is the rekindling of the urge to live -- the urge to do things you are always used to doing. Tonight, touch wood, the urge has come back and that is how I am here, trying to write. But till this morning, I was almost a dead man, kept on the ventilator by an efficient and a concerned wife. She was perhaps sure I would pull through, but I myself wasn't sure at all.
This morning something else happened as well. As soon as I woke up, someone held a mirror to me -- which did not show the ghostly, unshaven me, the sight I was beginning to get used to seeing, but something more promising. It was a review of Chai, Chai in desicritics.org, a website I used to occasionally write for once upon a time.
After 10 months, it felt nice that someone had remembered the book again, and said nice things about it too. No, the review was anything but flattering. But it spoke the truth -- something I value more than just praise. Here is the review: please read it.
Chai, Chai may have a few firsts and pluses to its credit, but it is also true that it isn't the best Indian travel book ever written. In fact I would rewrite most of it if I had a chance now -- a chance I hope to avail of at a later stage. The best Indian travelogue, as the reviewer says, is yet to come. And that's where hope lies for people like me.
But what really made my morning was the reviewer's thought: "This is Ghosh's first book and I get the feeling that as he writes more, he will add that edge and depth to his existing narrative skills. We may yet see the first great Indian travelogue coming from Bishwanath Ghosh." How many, really, make that allowance for you? I owe the reviewer one good book.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Looking At Life In The Time Of Football And Fever
Today is July 1. I can hear the referee's whistle. It's half time. Six months from now, another knock-out match will be over. The scorekeepers will add one more year to the life lived, or subtract a year from your lifetime -- whichever way you choose to look at it. The score is either 1-0, or 0-1. You are the one who wins, you are the one who loses.
The question is how often do you win and how often do you lose?
Whether you want to enter the new year on a losing or a winning note, today is the day to strategise. Six months have gone past, so what? -- another six months are left to make up and maybe even score the winning goal. But when the opponent team is Life, which always has a trick up its sleeve to mindfuck you, even the best of strategies may not work. The idea, I guess, is to lie low and defend your goalpost till the last minute, and just when Life is caught napping, score a big one.
Last year I won, 2-1. In the first half, I achieved something I had always dreamt of: finishing a manuscript of 64,000 words and sending it off to the publisher. Till then, I hadn't written pieces longer than 2,500 words. But as soon as the second half began, my mother died. Minutes before the final whistle went off, however, the book scored a goal on my behalf by going into second reprint. So 2-1.
This year, the game began under the shadow of the terrible goal that Life had scored against me in 2009. My team, even though playing well enough all this while to defend its goalpost, is still licking the wounds from that nasty goal. Even when I recently went to Coonoor, breathing and sleeping in the fresh mountain air amid pin-drop silence, I dreamt about my mother on most nights that I was there.
The dreams were hardly pleasant ones. We, mother and I, were constantly fighting in them -- arguing with each other, shouting at each other. This is what happened in real life too while she was alive: we were always fighting -- the fight that happens when you love and care too much for each other. You sulk and wait for the other person to call, and then you make up only to fight all over again over something really silly.
So the wound that devastating goal from Life had inflicted on me is yet to heal entirely. It is not easy to get over her death when we had been a close-knit family of four for the past four decades. The empty seat in the audience, whose occupant would have otherwise cheered me, is distracting me time and again.
Today, during half time, as I get a breather, I resolve not to look at that chair in the second half and focus of scoring a few winning goals. Maybe after I win, I would go and prostrate before the chair. Let's see how it goes. The second half has just begun.
Today was not the day to have written a post. I am running high temperature and coughing like crazy. I can feel flames erupting out of my skin. Ideally, I should have been in bed by now, after swallowing a Dolo 650 and a spoonful of cough syrup. But I am also my own coach, and how can the coach disappear during half time? So I poured myself a drink instead, and decided to give myself a peptalk.
The question is how often do you win and how often do you lose?
Whether you want to enter the new year on a losing or a winning note, today is the day to strategise. Six months have gone past, so what? -- another six months are left to make up and maybe even score the winning goal. But when the opponent team is Life, which always has a trick up its sleeve to mindfuck you, even the best of strategies may not work. The idea, I guess, is to lie low and defend your goalpost till the last minute, and just when Life is caught napping, score a big one.
Last year I won, 2-1. In the first half, I achieved something I had always dreamt of: finishing a manuscript of 64,000 words and sending it off to the publisher. Till then, I hadn't written pieces longer than 2,500 words. But as soon as the second half began, my mother died. Minutes before the final whistle went off, however, the book scored a goal on my behalf by going into second reprint. So 2-1.
This year, the game began under the shadow of the terrible goal that Life had scored against me in 2009. My team, even though playing well enough all this while to defend its goalpost, is still licking the wounds from that nasty goal. Even when I recently went to Coonoor, breathing and sleeping in the fresh mountain air amid pin-drop silence, I dreamt about my mother on most nights that I was there.
The dreams were hardly pleasant ones. We, mother and I, were constantly fighting in them -- arguing with each other, shouting at each other. This is what happened in real life too while she was alive: we were always fighting -- the fight that happens when you love and care too much for each other. You sulk and wait for the other person to call, and then you make up only to fight all over again over something really silly.
So the wound that devastating goal from Life had inflicted on me is yet to heal entirely. It is not easy to get over her death when we had been a close-knit family of four for the past four decades. The empty seat in the audience, whose occupant would have otherwise cheered me, is distracting me time and again.
Today, during half time, as I get a breather, I resolve not to look at that chair in the second half and focus of scoring a few winning goals. Maybe after I win, I would go and prostrate before the chair. Let's see how it goes. The second half has just begun.
Today was not the day to have written a post. I am running high temperature and coughing like crazy. I can feel flames erupting out of my skin. Ideally, I should have been in bed by now, after swallowing a Dolo 650 and a spoonful of cough syrup. But I am also my own coach, and how can the coach disappear during half time? So I poured myself a drink instead, and decided to give myself a peptalk.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Toy Train
It is seven in the evening and I am in room no. 1 of the 115-year-old Coonoor Club. I am reclining on the bed, nursing a drink and writing this. I have left the door leading to the patio wide open, and I can see the hills lit up like Diwali night. I feel like switching off the air-conditioner for a while: the room has become a bit too cold for comfort. I realise it doesn’t have an air-conditioner, not even a fan. This is Coonoor, not Chennai. Chennai I had left last night.
About 12 hours ago, around 6.30 am, I was at the Mettupalayam station, having spent a sleepless night in the Nilgiris Express from Chennai. These days I don’t sleep well in trains: rarely do I take one anymore unless the destination is Bangalore. So from one o’ clock in the night, I had been wide awake, glued to Naipaul’s India: A Million Mutinies Now, trying to decipher the sentences from whatever little light seeped in as everybody else in the compartment snored. And then magic happened.
As I stepped on to the platform at Mettupalayam, I forgot – instantly – that I had just made a nine-hour train journey and hadn’t slept almost the entire night. I felt as if I was stepping out of my home for a morning walk after a restful sleep. The air was crisp and chilly, and the station presented a pretty picture. It has just one platform – on one side the train that had just got us in, and on the other side the toy train waiting to take us to Coonoor. And right across on the horizon, facing the two trains, stood the mountains. It was through these mighty mountains that the train was going to chart its course, as it has been doing for the last 100 years. The trip is now part of world heritage.
The toy train is just that: a toy. Just five small wooden carriages that are pushed – and not pulled – by a steam locomotive. The engine is at the end, while it is a first-class carriage that is right in front. Outside the leading carriage is a panel, the frontage of the train, where a guard sits with red and green flags. He is the one who blows the horn and switches on the lights whenever the train passes through a tunnel. He also doubles up as a guide for passengers sitting in the front carriage. This morning, I was one of those few fortunate – getting the first and a direct view of whatever lay ahead as the train chugged at the speed of a cycle-rickshaw.
Mountains don’t have arms. But when you take the toy train, the mountains assume the form of a bewitching beauty that spreads her arms to welcome you into an intimate embrace. Those who take the road miss out on the intimacy. On the winding road, your mind is primarily focused on oncoming vehicles. And then, you have many other vehicles for company – cars, buses, trucks. But the train takes you through green, virgin territory – as virgin as it has been for the past 100 years. All you are required to do is sit and watch.
At 6.45, the steam locomotive hissed down the track and positioned itself at the rear of the train. At seven a bell rang out, and five minutes later another. At 7.10 sharp, the train moved. In our part of the carriage, we had, for company, three couples. Two of the couples were very young and newly married. Like the train, their life-journey too had just started. Like most passengers, they were clueless about what lay ahead: only an idea. Throughout the journey, the young men and women were to spend more time looking into each other's eyes than looking outside, where they should have been looking because in virgin territory, even the sight of a blade of grass is like window-shopping for diamonds. The third couple was elderly, in their seventies: they had been through the forest of life, and now were rediscovering togetherness on a route they had never taken before. So they sat erect, savouring the visual pleasure that nature was offering them now. Then there was us, wife and I: not too young, not too old -- we were just two travellers who happened to be married to each other. Nothing theatric, unlike the honeymoon couples, about being together: the real theatre lay outside the train, with the stage changing every moment.
So far, the only time I had seen a toy train -- the truth to be told -- was in Aradhana. In the film, Sharmila Tagore, who is sitting in the toy train to Darjeeling, is wooed by Rajesh Khanna, who is following her on a jeep, with the immortal song, Mere sapnon ki rani kab aayegi tu. I don't know how fast the Darjeeling toy train runs, but I can tell you that the Nilgiris train does not match the 'speed' of this S.D. Burman song.
There was no Rajesh Khanna to chase our train, only small boys who would pop up once in a while to wave at us. The guard, on behalf of us, would smile and wave back. The boys would pop up only when a station was round the corner -- technically they should be called hill stations because they are located on the hills, but practically they are tiny dots of civilisation in wilderness -- oases in the desert of dense forests.
These small stations that fall in the way -- Hill Grove, Runnymede and so on -- are, to me, the real honeymoon spots. Plot to be left behind by the train and you will have no hope until the evening or the next evening till another toy train comes along to take you to proper civilisation. Till then, you can spread a mat and have a picnic. Even time will stand still and have a few sandwiches off you. And if you feel upto it, take the mat a few metres away from the station and you can make love in the open. No one is going to watch you, except a few monkeys maybe, and the birds and the bees. Why go all the way to a concrete jungle like Ooty?
We were, fortunately, not travelling all the way to Ooty. I had heard enough about the place to stop short of being seduced by it. My wife, who had already been there once, shared my sentiments. So we stopped one station short of Ooty. Coonoor it was.
If you have never been to this hill town, let me tell you that there are two Coonoors: Lower Coonoor and Upper Coonoor. Lower Coonoor is where the railway station and the bus stand are located, and it is as congested and ugly as the most congested part of your town or city -- no matter where you live. It is in Upper Coonoor where the real charm lies. The silence there is very British -- a reminder of the times when you had to walk for a while before you came to a cluster of shops from where you bought necessary items such as bread or medicines.
It is the walk that matters in the hills -- one moment you are overlooking a valley and the very next you are admiring a mountain and the lives of people living atop it. Either way, you are wowed. Fortunately, our destination, the 1885-built Coonoor Club, happens to be in Upper Coonoor. Thanks to its silence, I can relive every single moment of the toy train journey. Thanks to its silence, I can still hear the steam locomotive loud and clear, Dhadak, dhadak! Dhadak dhadak!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Marriage
Someone I know, who is just 22, is very upset these days. She had a fight with her boyfriend sometime ago and since then, he is refusing to talk to her. "How does one win back a man without seducing him? What do men want, really?" she asked me this evening.
While he remains uncommunicative, she has no idea whether they will eventually make up or break up. Though she would rather they make up, because she wants to marry him because they have been seeing each other for four years. But at the same time, she is prepared for a break-up as well.
In our society, whenever one acquires a girlfriend or a boyfriend, no matter how young you are, the idea is to get married. The girl and the boy first stake claim on each other and then go out on dates, rather than doing it the other way round. Either way, sex happens. If not sex, then almost sex -- this far but no further.
The root of many of problems when you are in your late teens or early twenties is the tying of every relationship to marriage. But this is a mistake we all make. We realise it to be a mistake only when we grow up and become wiser and then look back and laugh. When I got my first girlfriend at the age of 17 and broke the news to parents, my mother, always the emotional one, hit the roof and dragged me to the puja room and made me touch the feet of the gods and promise that I would never see the girl again. My father, as usual, was unruffled.
He told me, "When I was your age, I also had a lot of friends. But where are they today? I am not in touch with a single one. We have all moved on."
"But I've already told her that I will marry her. What will she feel if I back out now?"
"You are not going to be in school forever. When you grow up and see the world, you might just change your mind. Why rush into decisions now? You are not even in college."
But in the flush of youth, I refused to see his point. Eventually, experience won over impulse. Now when I look back, what a crime! -- choosing your life partner at an age when your facial hair has not even fully grown.
My father was 43 when he had this chat with me. Today, I am nearing 40 and I am perhaps wiser than him. Wiser because, unlike my father who remained committed to just one woman all his life till she died suddenly last year, I have far more experience in the field.
Age and experience teach you the difference between being fascinated and being practical. In my humble opinion, fascination rarely ends in happy marriage because you feel like running away the moment the bitterness of practicality sinks in. On the other hand, if you get married for practical reasons, the togetherness usually leads to fascination for each other.
Some years ago, I knew a woman, a Tamil Brahmin, who was 20 then. Or maybe 21. She was madly in love with a guy who belonged to a different religion. Even while she dreamt of marrying him, she dreaded the lifestyle changes she would have had to make in order to be a member of his family. But she didn't mind doing that: she said she was more than willing to adjust to the new lifestyle because she loved him so much.
Borrowing from my father's wisdom, I told her she was only wasting her time breaking her head over a relationship that was not going to work.
"How do you know it is not going to work?" she angrily demanded to know.
"Because I just know."
"I know why you are saying that. But I am going to marry only him, ok? Any problem?"
"No problem."
Just a couple of years after we had this conversation, she went to London for further studies. I was spared of the constant outpurings about her complicated love story. And then came an email, that she was finally getting married. The groom was a fellow Tam Brahm, someone she had fallen in love with in London. Hello, what happens to the time I had spent listening to the sob stories about an affair which I had predicted would never materialise?
So I won. My father won.
How I wish I could get back to my twenties armed with the wisdom I have earned in the past two decades. That, however, is impossible -- as impossible as people not making mistakes in the flush of youth. But I only hope people don't hinge the best and most productive years of their life on men or women who may never belong to them.
What would you prefer, really: marry someone and then go on a world tour, or go on a world tour and then decide who to marry? When I say world tour, I don't mean it in the literal sense. What I mean is the expansion of mental horizon.
While he remains uncommunicative, she has no idea whether they will eventually make up or break up. Though she would rather they make up, because she wants to marry him because they have been seeing each other for four years. But at the same time, she is prepared for a break-up as well.
In our society, whenever one acquires a girlfriend or a boyfriend, no matter how young you are, the idea is to get married. The girl and the boy first stake claim on each other and then go out on dates, rather than doing it the other way round. Either way, sex happens. If not sex, then almost sex -- this far but no further.
The root of many of problems when you are in your late teens or early twenties is the tying of every relationship to marriage. But this is a mistake we all make. We realise it to be a mistake only when we grow up and become wiser and then look back and laugh. When I got my first girlfriend at the age of 17 and broke the news to parents, my mother, always the emotional one, hit the roof and dragged me to the puja room and made me touch the feet of the gods and promise that I would never see the girl again. My father, as usual, was unruffled.
He told me, "When I was your age, I also had a lot of friends. But where are they today? I am not in touch with a single one. We have all moved on."
"But I've already told her that I will marry her. What will she feel if I back out now?"
"You are not going to be in school forever. When you grow up and see the world, you might just change your mind. Why rush into decisions now? You are not even in college."
But in the flush of youth, I refused to see his point. Eventually, experience won over impulse. Now when I look back, what a crime! -- choosing your life partner at an age when your facial hair has not even fully grown.
My father was 43 when he had this chat with me. Today, I am nearing 40 and I am perhaps wiser than him. Wiser because, unlike my father who remained committed to just one woman all his life till she died suddenly last year, I have far more experience in the field.
Age and experience teach you the difference between being fascinated and being practical. In my humble opinion, fascination rarely ends in happy marriage because you feel like running away the moment the bitterness of practicality sinks in. On the other hand, if you get married for practical reasons, the togetherness usually leads to fascination for each other.
Some years ago, I knew a woman, a Tamil Brahmin, who was 20 then. Or maybe 21. She was madly in love with a guy who belonged to a different religion. Even while she dreamt of marrying him, she dreaded the lifestyle changes she would have had to make in order to be a member of his family. But she didn't mind doing that: she said she was more than willing to adjust to the new lifestyle because she loved him so much.
Borrowing from my father's wisdom, I told her she was only wasting her time breaking her head over a relationship that was not going to work.
"How do you know it is not going to work?" she angrily demanded to know.
"Because I just know."
"I know why you are saying that. But I am going to marry only him, ok? Any problem?"
"No problem."
Just a couple of years after we had this conversation, she went to London for further studies. I was spared of the constant outpurings about her complicated love story. And then came an email, that she was finally getting married. The groom was a fellow Tam Brahm, someone she had fallen in love with in London. Hello, what happens to the time I had spent listening to the sob stories about an affair which I had predicted would never materialise?
So I won. My father won.
How I wish I could get back to my twenties armed with the wisdom I have earned in the past two decades. That, however, is impossible -- as impossible as people not making mistakes in the flush of youth. But I only hope people don't hinge the best and most productive years of their life on men or women who may never belong to them.
What would you prefer, really: marry someone and then go on a world tour, or go on a world tour and then decide who to marry? When I say world tour, I don't mean it in the literal sense. What I mean is the expansion of mental horizon.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Cumin And Curd
Reena Roy, the actress, thought he was Chinese. Can't blame her: most Indians still think that all people with Mongloid features belong either to China or Nepal. But in spite of his 'Chinese' looks, he blended so well with 'Indian' characters that he went on to become one of the top villains of Bollywood.
As far as my knowledge goes, only in one film did Danny Denzongpa actually play a Chinese, that too a half-Chinese. The film is Lahu Ke Do Rang, in which he turns out to be the half-brother of Vinod Khanna. Their father is a freedom fighter -- also played by Vinod Khanna -- who ends up sleeping with a Chinese woman who gives him shelter while he is escaping from British forces.
Other than that, Danny has always played 'Indian' characters. I have seen countless films of him, but the ones that stand out in my memory are Dhund and Jawaab. Both very powerful fims, minus the usual frills of Bollywood.
Danny, by the way, is -- or at least was -- a good singer too. Search for the song Sun sun kasam se from Kala Sona on You Tube, and you will know what I mean. He has sung it so well that one of the two persons who posted this song on You Tube has credited the male voice to Shailendra Singh, blissfully unaware that it was Danny who did the playback under the baton of R.D. Burman.
This is one song I listen to when I am struck by hypochondria, and it does cure me most of the time. Danny, after all, is a man of clean habits -- someone you can look up to if you want to lead a healthy life. Way back in 1994, when I was a journalist on probation with the Press Trust of India in Delhi, one of my jobs was to scan all the 12 newspapers published from Delhi at the time and make a report on how the PTI had scored against its rival, the UNI, or the United News of India.
One Sunday morning, while scanning the papers, I came across an interview of Danny in The Sunday Observer. It was one of those interviews that changed your life or least inspired you to make amends. But those days, as a young bachelor, I could only feel inspired because there was no provision to make amends. The interview was about the eating habits of Danny.
Sadly, there was no internet then, and the newspaper itself is defunct now, so neither can I produce a link nor can I paste a scanned copy. But it's all pasted in my head. I can sum up for you what I had read then:
Danny hates eating out. He does not trust any food other than what is cooked in his kitchen, with spices brought from Sikkim, where he hails from. He loves jeera, or cumin, because he believes it can make even the blandest of dishes interesting. One evening, Danny and Jackie Shroff were attending a Bollywood party when they scooted just when dinner was about to be served. They did not want to eat the rich dinner, so they returned to Danny's home.
Since it was late in the night, the servants were fast asleep. Danny decided to cook himself. He opened the fridge and found a few brinjals. He cut them into small pieces. He then heated a spoonful of oil in a frying pan and spluttered cumin seeds and added the brinjal pieces. Jackie, who had found a couple of green apples in the fridge, wondered why they could't be chopped and put into the pan as well. Danny thought that was a good idea. When the brinjal and the apple pieces were mildly fried, seasoned by jeera, he added curd to the pan and covered it.
Whatever came out must have been delicious. They had the brinjal-apple dish with bread, accompanied by a bottle of red wine that Jackie had just opened. A perfect dinner. From the interview, I also gathered that Danny, whenever he was shooting outdoors, always sent his boy to the nearest village to get the local, freshly-cooked food. If nothing else, just curd and rice.
I got to emulate Danny Denzongpa only seven years later when I came to Chennai in 2001, when I finally had a functional kitchen of my own. And I realised that any vegetable, no matter how much you hate it, tastes heavenly when you season it with cumin seeds and add curd to it. Cumin and curd are a deadly and a delicious combo.
As far as my knowledge goes, only in one film did Danny Denzongpa actually play a Chinese, that too a half-Chinese. The film is Lahu Ke Do Rang, in which he turns out to be the half-brother of Vinod Khanna. Their father is a freedom fighter -- also played by Vinod Khanna -- who ends up sleeping with a Chinese woman who gives him shelter while he is escaping from British forces.
Other than that, Danny has always played 'Indian' characters. I have seen countless films of him, but the ones that stand out in my memory are Dhund and Jawaab. Both very powerful fims, minus the usual frills of Bollywood.
Danny, by the way, is -- or at least was -- a good singer too. Search for the song Sun sun kasam se from Kala Sona on You Tube, and you will know what I mean. He has sung it so well that one of the two persons who posted this song on You Tube has credited the male voice to Shailendra Singh, blissfully unaware that it was Danny who did the playback under the baton of R.D. Burman.
This is one song I listen to when I am struck by hypochondria, and it does cure me most of the time. Danny, after all, is a man of clean habits -- someone you can look up to if you want to lead a healthy life. Way back in 1994, when I was a journalist on probation with the Press Trust of India in Delhi, one of my jobs was to scan all the 12 newspapers published from Delhi at the time and make a report on how the PTI had scored against its rival, the UNI, or the United News of India.
One Sunday morning, while scanning the papers, I came across an interview of Danny in The Sunday Observer. It was one of those interviews that changed your life or least inspired you to make amends. But those days, as a young bachelor, I could only feel inspired because there was no provision to make amends. The interview was about the eating habits of Danny.
Sadly, there was no internet then, and the newspaper itself is defunct now, so neither can I produce a link nor can I paste a scanned copy. But it's all pasted in my head. I can sum up for you what I had read then:
Danny hates eating out. He does not trust any food other than what is cooked in his kitchen, with spices brought from Sikkim, where he hails from. He loves jeera, or cumin, because he believes it can make even the blandest of dishes interesting. One evening, Danny and Jackie Shroff were attending a Bollywood party when they scooted just when dinner was about to be served. They did not want to eat the rich dinner, so they returned to Danny's home.
Since it was late in the night, the servants were fast asleep. Danny decided to cook himself. He opened the fridge and found a few brinjals. He cut them into small pieces. He then heated a spoonful of oil in a frying pan and spluttered cumin seeds and added the brinjal pieces. Jackie, who had found a couple of green apples in the fridge, wondered why they could't be chopped and put into the pan as well. Danny thought that was a good idea. When the brinjal and the apple pieces were mildly fried, seasoned by jeera, he added curd to the pan and covered it.
Whatever came out must have been delicious. They had the brinjal-apple dish with bread, accompanied by a bottle of red wine that Jackie had just opened. A perfect dinner. From the interview, I also gathered that Danny, whenever he was shooting outdoors, always sent his boy to the nearest village to get the local, freshly-cooked food. If nothing else, just curd and rice.
I got to emulate Danny Denzongpa only seven years later when I came to Chennai in 2001, when I finally had a functional kitchen of my own. And I realised that any vegetable, no matter how much you hate it, tastes heavenly when you season it with cumin seeds and add curd to it. Cumin and curd are a deadly and a delicious combo.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Aging Is His Enemy
Accomplished yoga gurus are unlikely to have enemies, but the legendary BKS Iyengar has one: aging.
"Nonsense!" That’s been his standard, typical one-word response whenever someone has tried suggesting that he should take it easy because he was getting old. "When you are young, the body has tremendous strength. As you grow old, vitality drops and fear complex sets in. But why should one stop doing what one has been doing for years just because of age? I fought the fear complex and I won," declares Iyengar, the Pune-based yoga guru who will turn 92 in a few months.
The victory is written all over his face: not a single wrinkle, even though the flowing hair is silver. The spine is straight and the chest spread wide. Even today, he devotes four hours daily to yoga practice.
"I wake up at six, and 6.30 to 7.30 I do pranayama. Then I read the papers to know what’s happening in the world. From 9 to 12, I do asanas non-stop. Earlier I used to more asanas, but now I do less asanas but hold them for a longer time, till I am able to penetrate into my inner self and realise that my body is getting refreshed," says the yoga legend, who began his yoga pratice in 1934 in Mysore.
It was strict discipline and commitment to yoga that saw him through the vicissitudes of life, including those initial difficult years in Pune when schools or colleges would make him wait for hours and finally ask him to come some other day. Salvation came in 1954 when Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned violinist and conductor who then on a tour of India, was overcome by a nervous attack. Iyengar set him right in a matter of hours, after which Menuhin invited him to teach in Switzerland. The rest, as they say, is history.
But unlike many yoga gurus of today who use their Western connection to make money, Iyengar remains humble and committed to his practice. He still does the headstand for 30 minutes, besides the shoulderstand and other inversions -- these are the poses that postpone the onset of old age. "Even today my feet don’t oscillate even a bit when I do the headstand," says Iyengar.
Post-yoga, it is time for bath and lunch, after which he heads to his yoga institute where he sits in the library to work on his new book. Iyengar has authored a number of books, including the Light On Yoga, often considered to be a Bible of yoga. "The new book will decode Patanji’s yoga sutras for the common man, especially the younger generation. The depth of the sutras shall be retained, but the words will be simple," he says.
At six he heads back home. Time to watch TV. "Sometimes I watch movies, sometimes serials. I also like watching National Geographic," says the guru. His favourite movies include "CID movies" and comedies. Nine-thirty is dinner time, followed by some more television. By 10.30 pm, one of the world’s most famous yoga gurus is asleep. Iyengar’s guru, the revered T Krishnamacharya, had lived till the age of 100. He died in Chennai in 1989. Another disciple of Krishnamacharya, Pattabhi Jois, who found the ashtanga yoga and was teacher to stars like Madonna and Sting, died in Mysore last year at the age of 94.
Iyengar’s precription for staying young even at 91, apart from regular yoga practice: "I never think of the past. I live in the present. I live moment to moment. I reflect. I reflect when I am holding my poses. That keeps me refreshed."
"Nonsense!" That’s been his standard, typical one-word response whenever someone has tried suggesting that he should take it easy because he was getting old. "When you are young, the body has tremendous strength. As you grow old, vitality drops and fear complex sets in. But why should one stop doing what one has been doing for years just because of age? I fought the fear complex and I won," declares Iyengar, the Pune-based yoga guru who will turn 92 in a few months.
The victory is written all over his face: not a single wrinkle, even though the flowing hair is silver. The spine is straight and the chest spread wide. Even today, he devotes four hours daily to yoga practice.
"I wake up at six, and 6.30 to 7.30 I do pranayama. Then I read the papers to know what’s happening in the world. From 9 to 12, I do asanas non-stop. Earlier I used to more asanas, but now I do less asanas but hold them for a longer time, till I am able to penetrate into my inner self and realise that my body is getting refreshed," says the yoga legend, who began his yoga pratice in 1934 in Mysore.
It was strict discipline and commitment to yoga that saw him through the vicissitudes of life, including those initial difficult years in Pune when schools or colleges would make him wait for hours and finally ask him to come some other day. Salvation came in 1954 when Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned violinist and conductor who then on a tour of India, was overcome by a nervous attack. Iyengar set him right in a matter of hours, after which Menuhin invited him to teach in Switzerland. The rest, as they say, is history.
But unlike many yoga gurus of today who use their Western connection to make money, Iyengar remains humble and committed to his practice. He still does the headstand for 30 minutes, besides the shoulderstand and other inversions -- these are the poses that postpone the onset of old age. "Even today my feet don’t oscillate even a bit when I do the headstand," says Iyengar.
Post-yoga, it is time for bath and lunch, after which he heads to his yoga institute where he sits in the library to work on his new book. Iyengar has authored a number of books, including the Light On Yoga, often considered to be a Bible of yoga. "The new book will decode Patanji’s yoga sutras for the common man, especially the younger generation. The depth of the sutras shall be retained, but the words will be simple," he says.
At six he heads back home. Time to watch TV. "Sometimes I watch movies, sometimes serials. I also like watching National Geographic," says the guru. His favourite movies include "CID movies" and comedies. Nine-thirty is dinner time, followed by some more television. By 10.30 pm, one of the world’s most famous yoga gurus is asleep. Iyengar’s guru, the revered T Krishnamacharya, had lived till the age of 100. He died in Chennai in 1989. Another disciple of Krishnamacharya, Pattabhi Jois, who found the ashtanga yoga and was teacher to stars like Madonna and Sting, died in Mysore last year at the age of 94.
Iyengar’s precription for staying young even at 91, apart from regular yoga practice: "I never think of the past. I live in the present. I live moment to moment. I reflect. I reflect when I am holding my poses. That keeps me refreshed."
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
R Replies
M never replied, but R did. She wants it to be published, like newspapers publish letters to the editor. Here goes:
Dear B,
I think what you are going through is the emotional equivalent of the aftermath of too much porn.
This is the classic tragedy of male-female relationships, men have sex, women make love. Men orgasm in seconds, women orgasm long after their men have left them. Men will give a part of themselves, women will give themselves wholly. Seems to me M made the classic mistake of revealing herself to you too completely. But one cannot blame her. You are like a flame, and us fans are like moths, drawn to you. As long as we are protected by the glass we futilely beat against we are safe, but come to close and we will singe! On the exterior you are a smoking, drinking give a damn, writer, but underneath all that there exists a man far more perceptive to women than the image suggests. A man who reeks of danger, but can see through to the heart of a woman, make her feel like she is the most important person in the world... It is a potent combination that your M probably never stood a chance in the face off!
But what confounds me is why you want to skew the beautiful equation you seem to share with your M. Why not just savor a relationship that few people are lucky to find? Why question to M about What you are? Who you are?
Does it really matter? If two people's minds ignite, and the mind is the biggest aphrodisiac why bring it down to the level of a personal touch? I mean B, face it, a man and a woman could never connect quite so strongly if they did not belong to opposite sexes. Men and women can be friends but the underlying chemistry that seasons their relationship is what makes it so irrisisitable. Those little chats about sex you have with your M are tasty because they are flavoured with attraction and seasoned with the bitter knowledge of never seeing a conclusion. Do you really want to risk what you have for a physical touch that might not amount to as much?
And like the quintessential man, you lay the blame at her feet, or at the door of technology, everywhere but yourself. Did you have nothing to do with this?
The internet is a dangerous addiction, it can take away our loneliness by creating an illusion of a world the way we want it to be and yet it can also isolate us more than we ever imagined by becoming bigger than life itself and separating us from real life and the real relationships we a fortunate to have. But we should not blame the internet or the Mobile phone for our weaknesses, they are only tools that become an extension to achieving our desires. It is up to us to use them well, to stop at the invisible line beyond which decadent indulgence becomes a corrosive poison.
I think, M should make it so you only get virtual hints of skin to tantalize you from now on, and delete your number from her phone!
R
Dear B,
I think what you are going through is the emotional equivalent of the aftermath of too much porn.
This is the classic tragedy of male-female relationships, men have sex, women make love. Men orgasm in seconds, women orgasm long after their men have left them. Men will give a part of themselves, women will give themselves wholly. Seems to me M made the classic mistake of revealing herself to you too completely. But one cannot blame her. You are like a flame, and us fans are like moths, drawn to you. As long as we are protected by the glass we futilely beat against we are safe, but come to close and we will singe! On the exterior you are a smoking, drinking give a damn, writer, but underneath all that there exists a man far more perceptive to women than the image suggests. A man who reeks of danger, but can see through to the heart of a woman, make her feel like she is the most important person in the world... It is a potent combination that your M probably never stood a chance in the face off!
But what confounds me is why you want to skew the beautiful equation you seem to share with your M. Why not just savor a relationship that few people are lucky to find? Why question to M about What you are? Who you are?
Does it really matter? If two people's minds ignite, and the mind is the biggest aphrodisiac why bring it down to the level of a personal touch? I mean B, face it, a man and a woman could never connect quite so strongly if they did not belong to opposite sexes. Men and women can be friends but the underlying chemistry that seasons their relationship is what makes it so irrisisitable. Those little chats about sex you have with your M are tasty because they are flavoured with attraction and seasoned with the bitter knowledge of never seeing a conclusion. Do you really want to risk what you have for a physical touch that might not amount to as much?
And like the quintessential man, you lay the blame at her feet, or at the door of technology, everywhere but yourself. Did you have nothing to do with this?
The internet is a dangerous addiction, it can take away our loneliness by creating an illusion of a world the way we want it to be and yet it can also isolate us more than we ever imagined by becoming bigger than life itself and separating us from real life and the real relationships we a fortunate to have. But we should not blame the internet or the Mobile phone for our weaknesses, they are only tools that become an extension to achieving our desires. It is up to us to use them well, to stop at the invisible line beyond which decadent indulgence becomes a corrosive poison.
I think, M should make it so you only get virtual hints of skin to tantalize you from now on, and delete your number from her phone!
R
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
The Personal Touch
Dear M,
It is 4.30 in the morning. By now a man with clean habits should be waking up to take on the new day. But I prefer to see the new day in before going to sleep. That way, I have an upper hand. It is so much better to catch the sun in its nappies than let its rays catch you in your underwear.
By the time I finish writing to you, the sky outside my window would just be beginning to light up. I had to write to you tonight because I want to tell you a few things -- things that have been weighing heavily on my mind of late. We have been talking, off and on, almost the entire day, over phone and internet, but somehow it didn't occur to me to tell you things that I am going to say now. Right now there is calm, and I can think.
You live in Bombay, I live in Chennai. How I wish we lived in the same city, preferably in Bombay. There, we could meet every evening for an hour, just to catch up. We could sit at a spot on Marine Drive, watching the sun dip right in front of us. Or maybe some place in Bandra. Just like Amol Palekar and Tina Munim in Baaton Baaton Main. How I wish I could fly back to that era, don't you?
In that hour we spend together, we could talk; or maybe not talk but just hold hands and watch what's going around us. It is your physical presence that would matter. Being with you would be a relief, a respite, a revival. I would go back home recharged, with fresh hope -- if not anything else, the hope to see you again the next evening at the same spot.
You have no idea how much I crave for your physical presence. In the two years that I have known you, how little have we actually met and had a chat: maybe four or five times? That's about it! Yet we have a minute-by-minute account of what is going on in each other's lives because we are connected 24/7. I see you online most of the day, and you have a fair idea what my day is like. Vice-versa too. When we are not online, we are just a text message or a phone call away. In fact, we are so used to seeing each other online that the moment one of us goes offline for longer than usual, the other gets worried. Remember the other day when I called you at two in the morning, just because you had been missing all day? And how two days ago, when I was attending a friend's wedding anniversary party and the battery of my phone had died, I received a bunch of panicky messages once I got home and put the phone on charge?
That makes me wonder about our relationship: What are we? Who are we? Mere online entities, online friends, who recognise each other by Gmail IDs or the names fed into the mobile phones? Even when it comes to having sex, we get naughty on the chat window and feel gratified. What happens to the flesh? What happens to the touch? What's the point in going to the gym and looking look when the person who you desire and want to be desired by is merely an online entity?
It's not just about sex, M. When did you last catch up with a friend and had a good time? Not in a long, long time, I am sure. Same with me: I can't recall when was the last time I met up with a friend without a specific purpose. Because for non-specific purposes, you can always go online or pick up the phone. The personal touch is dead, and that's what I miss. Really, I don't want friends who have an hour-by-hour account of what my day is like. I crave for friends with who I can spend an hour with, face to face, and feel like a normal human being rather than an online entity.
To tell you the truth, M, the thought that you are available to me 24/7 is somewhat putting off. You shouldn't be so readily available, because it affects your desirability. Availability and desirability do not go hand in hand. So log off and show me your real self. Just imagine going back to the days of Baaton Baaton Main.
The biggest culprit, I tell you, is the mobile phone. It weighs only a few grams, but it makes you carry the weight of several human beings who are attached to your life. Even worse is the internet, which weighs nothing but upon which relationships weighing tons are built. But what are relationships without the personal touch?
Shall we throw our mobile phones into the sea and log out of internet? Amol Palekar and Tina Munim lived happily ever after in Baaton Baaton Main even without present-day gadgets. Maybe if they had internet connnection back then, the film would have been titled Raaton Raaton Main.
It is 4.30 in the morning. By now a man with clean habits should be waking up to take on the new day. But I prefer to see the new day in before going to sleep. That way, I have an upper hand. It is so much better to catch the sun in its nappies than let its rays catch you in your underwear.
By the time I finish writing to you, the sky outside my window would just be beginning to light up. I had to write to you tonight because I want to tell you a few things -- things that have been weighing heavily on my mind of late. We have been talking, off and on, almost the entire day, over phone and internet, but somehow it didn't occur to me to tell you things that I am going to say now. Right now there is calm, and I can think.
You live in Bombay, I live in Chennai. How I wish we lived in the same city, preferably in Bombay. There, we could meet every evening for an hour, just to catch up. We could sit at a spot on Marine Drive, watching the sun dip right in front of us. Or maybe some place in Bandra. Just like Amol Palekar and Tina Munim in Baaton Baaton Main. How I wish I could fly back to that era, don't you?
In that hour we spend together, we could talk; or maybe not talk but just hold hands and watch what's going around us. It is your physical presence that would matter. Being with you would be a relief, a respite, a revival. I would go back home recharged, with fresh hope -- if not anything else, the hope to see you again the next evening at the same spot.
You have no idea how much I crave for your physical presence. In the two years that I have known you, how little have we actually met and had a chat: maybe four or five times? That's about it! Yet we have a minute-by-minute account of what is going on in each other's lives because we are connected 24/7. I see you online most of the day, and you have a fair idea what my day is like. Vice-versa too. When we are not online, we are just a text message or a phone call away. In fact, we are so used to seeing each other online that the moment one of us goes offline for longer than usual, the other gets worried. Remember the other day when I called you at two in the morning, just because you had been missing all day? And how two days ago, when I was attending a friend's wedding anniversary party and the battery of my phone had died, I received a bunch of panicky messages once I got home and put the phone on charge?
That makes me wonder about our relationship: What are we? Who are we? Mere online entities, online friends, who recognise each other by Gmail IDs or the names fed into the mobile phones? Even when it comes to having sex, we get naughty on the chat window and feel gratified. What happens to the flesh? What happens to the touch? What's the point in going to the gym and looking look when the person who you desire and want to be desired by is merely an online entity?
It's not just about sex, M. When did you last catch up with a friend and had a good time? Not in a long, long time, I am sure. Same with me: I can't recall when was the last time I met up with a friend without a specific purpose. Because for non-specific purposes, you can always go online or pick up the phone. The personal touch is dead, and that's what I miss. Really, I don't want friends who have an hour-by-hour account of what my day is like. I crave for friends with who I can spend an hour with, face to face, and feel like a normal human being rather than an online entity.
To tell you the truth, M, the thought that you are available to me 24/7 is somewhat putting off. You shouldn't be so readily available, because it affects your desirability. Availability and desirability do not go hand in hand. So log off and show me your real self. Just imagine going back to the days of Baaton Baaton Main.
The biggest culprit, I tell you, is the mobile phone. It weighs only a few grams, but it makes you carry the weight of several human beings who are attached to your life. Even worse is the internet, which weighs nothing but upon which relationships weighing tons are built. But what are relationships without the personal touch?
Shall we throw our mobile phones into the sea and log out of internet? Amol Palekar and Tina Munim lived happily ever after in Baaton Baaton Main even without present-day gadgets. Maybe if they had internet connnection back then, the film would have been titled Raaton Raaton Main.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Feminine Touch
Then she told me:
"And once, you know, there was this pretty girl standing close to me in the bus. Even when the crowd had melted away, I just stood close to her for no reason at all. I enjoyed each time our hands touched. She was pretty and fair. The feel of her white skin against mine, that perked me.
One more thing. Her breasts were touching my upper arms. She was totally unaware I was taking advantage of her. Poor girl, she was so trusting. I think I enjoy the feminine touch. Not that I want sex or anything. I think I know where it originates from."
"And once, you know, there was this pretty girl standing close to me in the bus. Even when the crowd had melted away, I just stood close to her for no reason at all. I enjoyed each time our hands touched. She was pretty and fair. The feel of her white skin against mine, that perked me.
One more thing. Her breasts were touching my upper arms. She was totally unaware I was taking advantage of her. Poor girl, she was so trusting. I think I enjoy the feminine touch. Not that I want sex or anything. I think I know where it originates from."
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Of Samosas And Abuses
Bhaiyyon aur behenon, it's time for some chai-samosa and gaali-galauj.
As many of you know, I was born in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and lived there for the first 23 years of my life and go there at least once every year. Two things I miss about living in Uttar Pradesh: the samosas and the gaalis. Both lend flavour to the culture that bred me. This Sunday afternoon, as I pour myself some beer after a late breakfast of dosas and coconut chutney, my tongue is suddenly craving for Tiwariji's samosas and my ears are yearning to overhear some gaalis.
Before we proceed, let me caution you that this post is not for the genteel reader who gets easily offended by or cringes at the mention of obscene abusive words. So if you are the kind who plugs fingers into your ears whenever you find two men fighting and showering abuses on each other, my apologies to you: kindly skip this and proceed to my previous posts. Better still, read the post and pretend that you haven't.
My deepest apologies also to Mother Ganga, for writing this dirty post on the Ganga Mail. But then, it is in her lap that these profanities that I am going to showcase have prospered over the centuries. Also, what is the big deal: many Indian writers, starting with Khushwant Singh and Shobhaa De, have used dirty Hindi words in their books.
Just that dirty words sound dirtier when mentioned in Hindi or any vernacular language. 'Fuck' is so commonplace these days that no one bats an eyelid either while uttering it or listening to it. Now try saying the same word in Hindi (though 'fuck' or 'fuck you', as an exclamation, does not have an accurate equivalent in any other Indian language unless you bring in mothers and sisters into the picture) and it will sound crude. But that does not absolve you of the crime: why should 'fuck' be sexy and acceptable and its Hindi translation crude? We need to break the colonial mindset. So here goes.
First, the samosas though. Tiwariji runs a mithai shop in my neighbourhood in Kanpur. His samosas, I can vouch for it, are the best I've ever had. Too sad he will never get to read this blog. There are other shops in the neighbourhood which make samosas that are almost as good, only that they fry fresh samosas at particular times of the day -- usually at eight in the morning and five in the evening. You are extremely lucky if you happen to be at any of these shops when a bunch of samosas is just being ladled out of the boiling oil. Tiwariji's shop, however, has a heated glass case that keeps samosas fresh and warm long after they have been ladled out.
Outside of Uttar Pradesh, the samosas have been utterly disappointing for me. A good samosa, according to me, has a crisp shell: the moment you bite into it, you run into mashed potato flavoured with fried cumin, roasted cumin powder and dried mango powder. But in samosas that I've had elsewhere, the shell is hard and oily, and once you break through it, you find mashed potato richly embellished with paneer or other local delicacies. Worse, I have never seen them being freshly fried: the attendant heats it up for you in the microwave oven. What the fuck! Samosas and jalebis are something that become immensely delectable only when a karhai filled with oil is in sight.
Samosas being freshly fried for you: they are symbols of small-town innocence and honesty that become more defined as you move towards eastern Uttar Pradesh. Land up in any roadside shop in eastern UP, especially in a small town by the Ganga, and have a glass of tea and two samosas -- you will remember the experience for the rest of your life. That's the true flavour of Uttar Pradesh!
Now the other flavour -- the gaalis. As long as you are not the recipient, the gaalis are as delectable as the samosas. The gaalis, even though crude, have a certain zaayka (tang) and tehzeeb (good mannners). The same gaalis, by the time they reach Delhi, become more Punjabi and crude to listen to. But within the borders of Uttar Pradesh, they are so listenable and I so miss them.
"Teri maa ka bhosra!" These were the precise words that woke me up on the morning November 2, 1984. Indira Gandhi had just been assassinated, and there was curfew in most of north India, including Kanpur. People were supposed to be indoors. On that sunny winter morning, a policeman on a bicycle mouthed these dirty words as he chased the last of the cricket-playing boys out of the ground that my house overlooked. It was so funny, and still not so funny.
The best abuses come out spontaneously during day-to-day situations, be it a boy arguing with a friend, be it a police constable scolding a tempo driver, or two colleagues having a heated discussion. But when two men at each others throats exchange abuses, it's the right time to listen in and build your vocabulary of bad words.
Sitting in Chennai, however, these are some of the common expressions that I sorely miss:
"Aukat mein raho, samjhe? Nahin to gaand kaat denge tumhari."
"Jis din gaand kaat ke haath mein de diya na, sab rangbaazi utar jaayegi, samjhe bhosrikey?"
"Teri maiyya chodoon."
"Jab gaand pe do laath padegi, tab samajh mein aayega."
What kickass statements! There are many more. Many, many more. But it's time for lunch. So got to go.
As many of you know, I was born in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and lived there for the first 23 years of my life and go there at least once every year. Two things I miss about living in Uttar Pradesh: the samosas and the gaalis. Both lend flavour to the culture that bred me. This Sunday afternoon, as I pour myself some beer after a late breakfast of dosas and coconut chutney, my tongue is suddenly craving for Tiwariji's samosas and my ears are yearning to overhear some gaalis.
Before we proceed, let me caution you that this post is not for the genteel reader who gets easily offended by or cringes at the mention of obscene abusive words. So if you are the kind who plugs fingers into your ears whenever you find two men fighting and showering abuses on each other, my apologies to you: kindly skip this and proceed to my previous posts. Better still, read the post and pretend that you haven't.
My deepest apologies also to Mother Ganga, for writing this dirty post on the Ganga Mail. But then, it is in her lap that these profanities that I am going to showcase have prospered over the centuries. Also, what is the big deal: many Indian writers, starting with Khushwant Singh and Shobhaa De, have used dirty Hindi words in their books.
Just that dirty words sound dirtier when mentioned in Hindi or any vernacular language. 'Fuck' is so commonplace these days that no one bats an eyelid either while uttering it or listening to it. Now try saying the same word in Hindi (though 'fuck' or 'fuck you', as an exclamation, does not have an accurate equivalent in any other Indian language unless you bring in mothers and sisters into the picture) and it will sound crude. But that does not absolve you of the crime: why should 'fuck' be sexy and acceptable and its Hindi translation crude? We need to break the colonial mindset. So here goes.
First, the samosas though. Tiwariji runs a mithai shop in my neighbourhood in Kanpur. His samosas, I can vouch for it, are the best I've ever had. Too sad he will never get to read this blog. There are other shops in the neighbourhood which make samosas that are almost as good, only that they fry fresh samosas at particular times of the day -- usually at eight in the morning and five in the evening. You are extremely lucky if you happen to be at any of these shops when a bunch of samosas is just being ladled out of the boiling oil. Tiwariji's shop, however, has a heated glass case that keeps samosas fresh and warm long after they have been ladled out.
Outside of Uttar Pradesh, the samosas have been utterly disappointing for me. A good samosa, according to me, has a crisp shell: the moment you bite into it, you run into mashed potato flavoured with fried cumin, roasted cumin powder and dried mango powder. But in samosas that I've had elsewhere, the shell is hard and oily, and once you break through it, you find mashed potato richly embellished with paneer or other local delicacies. Worse, I have never seen them being freshly fried: the attendant heats it up for you in the microwave oven. What the fuck! Samosas and jalebis are something that become immensely delectable only when a karhai filled with oil is in sight.
Samosas being freshly fried for you: they are symbols of small-town innocence and honesty that become more defined as you move towards eastern Uttar Pradesh. Land up in any roadside shop in eastern UP, especially in a small town by the Ganga, and have a glass of tea and two samosas -- you will remember the experience for the rest of your life. That's the true flavour of Uttar Pradesh!
Now the other flavour -- the gaalis. As long as you are not the recipient, the gaalis are as delectable as the samosas. The gaalis, even though crude, have a certain zaayka (tang) and tehzeeb (good mannners). The same gaalis, by the time they reach Delhi, become more Punjabi and crude to listen to. But within the borders of Uttar Pradesh, they are so listenable and I so miss them.
"Teri maa ka bhosra!" These were the precise words that woke me up on the morning November 2, 1984. Indira Gandhi had just been assassinated, and there was curfew in most of north India, including Kanpur. People were supposed to be indoors. On that sunny winter morning, a policeman on a bicycle mouthed these dirty words as he chased the last of the cricket-playing boys out of the ground that my house overlooked. It was so funny, and still not so funny.
The best abuses come out spontaneously during day-to-day situations, be it a boy arguing with a friend, be it a police constable scolding a tempo driver, or two colleagues having a heated discussion. But when two men at each others throats exchange abuses, it's the right time to listen in and build your vocabulary of bad words.
Sitting in Chennai, however, these are some of the common expressions that I sorely miss:
"Aukat mein raho, samjhe? Nahin to gaand kaat denge tumhari."
"Jis din gaand kaat ke haath mein de diya na, sab rangbaazi utar jaayegi, samjhe bhosrikey?"
"Teri maiyya chodoon."
"Jab gaand pe do laath padegi, tab samajh mein aayega."
What kickass statements! There are many more. Many, many more. But it's time for lunch. So got to go.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
On The Ganga Mail. Destination: Salvation
It turns out that my previous post, on the moon, was the 400th on Ganga Mail. A nice way to touch the four-century mark, considering that I quite like the moon post. It could have been better -- but that's always the case.
By now, after four and a half years and four hundred posts, I realise there is enough on Ganga Mail to make for a voluminous, autobiographical book. Alas, publishers don't touch blogs, unless you are a 'name'. About two years ago, during one of those moments of high when I felt Ganga Mail could be a book, I wrote to a publisher. The reply, surprisingly, was prompt: "Unfortunately we do not publish blogs. Please get in touch with us when you have written a novel."
Well, you can't really publish a blog. A blog is something already published. How can you publish the published? But there are people who are either allergic to or ignorant about the internet, and people who derive the pleasure of reading only from printed pages and not with the help of the scroll-down key. When you hold a book in your hands, the author belongs to you, at least for the moment; but when you read him on the internet, he is just one of the many people out there: if you don't like a particular piece, you hop over into the arms of others who are eagerly waiting for your attention.
So yes, it would be nice to see Ganga Mail in the form of a book, especially because it encapsulates the journey of a man who was still a boy even at 35 -- at times petulant, at times lonely, at times adventurous -- and who is now trying to grow up as he nears 40. And strangely, for me, it was during these five years that life-changing moments chose to visit me, one after the other, after having ignored me for three and a half decades: I got a wife, I lost my mother, I had a book published.
Ganga Mail effectively captures -- or so I think -- the various rollercoaster rides that I've had in recent years. It is, basically, an account of my life. It would be extremely gratifying to see readers carrying the account, in the form of a book, in their hands. Not because of vanity, but because my story is their story too -- only the circumstances and the timings might be different. Nothing can be more satisfying for a writer than finding readers discovering themselves in the sentences written by him. Someday, someday soon -- when many of the posts I've written are altered and expanded to be accommodated in a new book!
But irrespective of that, Ganga Mail continues to be the evidence of my existence. It is the most authentic bio-data that I can ever boast of, provided you take the trouble of wading through the archives. What I may appear to you in person might just be make-believe, but what I am in Ganga Mail is real, very real. Ganga Mail is my secret diary which I have left open for all to see.
By now, after four and a half years and four hundred posts, I realise there is enough on Ganga Mail to make for a voluminous, autobiographical book. Alas, publishers don't touch blogs, unless you are a 'name'. About two years ago, during one of those moments of high when I felt Ganga Mail could be a book, I wrote to a publisher. The reply, surprisingly, was prompt: "Unfortunately we do not publish blogs. Please get in touch with us when you have written a novel."
Well, you can't really publish a blog. A blog is something already published. How can you publish the published? But there are people who are either allergic to or ignorant about the internet, and people who derive the pleasure of reading only from printed pages and not with the help of the scroll-down key. When you hold a book in your hands, the author belongs to you, at least for the moment; but when you read him on the internet, he is just one of the many people out there: if you don't like a particular piece, you hop over into the arms of others who are eagerly waiting for your attention.
So yes, it would be nice to see Ganga Mail in the form of a book, especially because it encapsulates the journey of a man who was still a boy even at 35 -- at times petulant, at times lonely, at times adventurous -- and who is now trying to grow up as he nears 40. And strangely, for me, it was during these five years that life-changing moments chose to visit me, one after the other, after having ignored me for three and a half decades: I got a wife, I lost my mother, I had a book published.
Ganga Mail effectively captures -- or so I think -- the various rollercoaster rides that I've had in recent years. It is, basically, an account of my life. It would be extremely gratifying to see readers carrying the account, in the form of a book, in their hands. Not because of vanity, but because my story is their story too -- only the circumstances and the timings might be different. Nothing can be more satisfying for a writer than finding readers discovering themselves in the sentences written by him. Someday, someday soon -- when many of the posts I've written are altered and expanded to be accommodated in a new book!
But irrespective of that, Ganga Mail continues to be the evidence of my existence. It is the most authentic bio-data that I can ever boast of, provided you take the trouble of wading through the archives. What I may appear to you in person might just be make-believe, but what I am in Ganga Mail is real, very real. Ganga Mail is my secret diary which I have left open for all to see.
Friday, May 14, 2010
The Moon
I live on the fourth, the topmost floor, of a building that has no lift. Every night when I get home, which is around midnight, I have to negotiate eight flights of stairs in total darkness since the watchman would have long switched off the lights and gone to sleep. Since I can climb the stairs blind-folded, thanks to years of familiarity, I haven't felt the need to ask the watchman to keep the lights on.
But the other night, something magical happened. As I got into the staircase, mentally prepared to climb up in darkness, I found it gently lit up. I looked up. The tubelight was switched off, as usual. Perhaps a neighbour's door was open, letting the light out? That was the not the case either. Then I spotted the source of the silvery light: the moon. Oh, I had forgotten that the moon gives light. So I climbed slowly, guided by the natural light of the night at every alternate flight of stairs, trying to recall when was the last time I did something under the moonlight.
I could not recall then, but I remember now. It was in Kanpur, four or five summers ago, when I was drinking with my brother on the terrace of our house. It was like drinking under the glow of nature's zero-watt lamp: gentle, but bright enough to see the facial features of people around you and even read the label on the whiskey bottle. It is only when you do nothing that you notice the moon, and it is only in Kanpur that I do nothing.
The moon, however, has always been there. It still shines the way it shone when poets and songwriters were inspired by it. Only that we don't notice it anymore because we neither have the time nor the place. Today we all live in flats, in which the sky visible from the window is as good as a wall; and even if we have a terrace, who really has the time to go there and bathe in the moonlight? I can only hope that Uncle Moon, pissed off by the lack of attention and admiration he has been enjoying for centuries, does not decide to stop shining. You never know know, he might just tell you one fine day: "You silly buggers, you deserve tubelights and neon lights. I am off. Don't call me again."
I hope the day doesn't come till I've fulfilled two desires of mine. One, to throw a moonlight, or moonlit, bash in a farmhouse (preferably by the sea) where the dance floor and the bar are illuminated solely by the full moon. How gorgeous the women would look in the silvery glow!
Desire number two, to make love on a charpoy on the terrace of a house in a small town where no building is tall and close enough to overlook the terrace you are holed up in. The gentle light of the moon lets you see what you want to see, and yet it doesn't let you see what she doesn't want you to see.
But the other night, something magical happened. As I got into the staircase, mentally prepared to climb up in darkness, I found it gently lit up. I looked up. The tubelight was switched off, as usual. Perhaps a neighbour's door was open, letting the light out? That was the not the case either. Then I spotted the source of the silvery light: the moon. Oh, I had forgotten that the moon gives light. So I climbed slowly, guided by the natural light of the night at every alternate flight of stairs, trying to recall when was the last time I did something under the moonlight.
I could not recall then, but I remember now. It was in Kanpur, four or five summers ago, when I was drinking with my brother on the terrace of our house. It was like drinking under the glow of nature's zero-watt lamp: gentle, but bright enough to see the facial features of people around you and even read the label on the whiskey bottle. It is only when you do nothing that you notice the moon, and it is only in Kanpur that I do nothing.
The moon, however, has always been there. It still shines the way it shone when poets and songwriters were inspired by it. Only that we don't notice it anymore because we neither have the time nor the place. Today we all live in flats, in which the sky visible from the window is as good as a wall; and even if we have a terrace, who really has the time to go there and bathe in the moonlight? I can only hope that Uncle Moon, pissed off by the lack of attention and admiration he has been enjoying for centuries, does not decide to stop shining. You never know know, he might just tell you one fine day: "You silly buggers, you deserve tubelights and neon lights. I am off. Don't call me again."
I hope the day doesn't come till I've fulfilled two desires of mine. One, to throw a moonlight, or moonlit, bash in a farmhouse (preferably by the sea) where the dance floor and the bar are illuminated solely by the full moon. How gorgeous the women would look in the silvery glow!
Desire number two, to make love on a charpoy on the terrace of a house in a small town where no building is tall and close enough to overlook the terrace you are holed up in. The gentle light of the moon lets you see what you want to see, and yet it doesn't let you see what she doesn't want you to see.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
The Magic Of 50 Paise
Here's a thought -- rather a scheme -- that comes to my mind once in a while. Alas, it is going to remain a thought and in never going to materialise, but no harm sharing it with you all. Who knows, some of you may even thank me.
What does one rupee mean to you? Forget one rupee, what does a 50-paise coin mean to you? Nothing, right? Even a beggar considers it an insult when you drop a 50-paise coin onto his or her palm. And it is only once in a blue moon that you actually find a 50-paise in your wallet these days. If a one-rupee or a 50-paise coin drops off your pocket, you are most likely to let it go because in order to pick it up, you have to bend, and bending can be such a pain, more painful than losing just half a rupee.
Such a useless piece of metal, the 50-paise coin! What can it get you these days, apart from a toffee? Even matchboxes cost Re 1. In other words, a 50-paise coin is something anyone can part with, even the poorest of the poor.
Now let's do the math. The population of India, till a couple of years ago, stood at 1,139,964,932. Assuming that on the average, four people make a household, the figure tranlates into 2,84,991,233 households. Go to each of these households and beg/ask for a 50-paise coin. If your ego comes in the way, invent a cause: child care, cancer care, saving the planet, saving the animals, and so on. Your enterprise will increase your bank balance by Rs 1,42,495,616! The idea might sound a joke, but the money isn't!
By my calculation (I am a bit drunk now), the amount works out to Rs 14 crore. Even if you invest Rs 4 crore in reaching every nook and corner of India to collect the 50-paise coin from each household, you are still left with Rs 10 crore. Ten fucking crores! And considering that lakhs of sympathetic households will oblige you with a lot more than just 50 paise, you can easily add a few more crores to the amount collected. That should make you worth about, say, Rs 15 crore. Fifteen fucking crores! You can either buy a house in London or a house each in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.
Too lazy to travel or plan for things outside your city? Never mind. Stick to your city. The population of Chennai, I am told, is 4,631,704. By my calcutation, that should work out to 1,157,926 households. Now go to every household and ask for a 50-paise coin, and in no time you will be richer by Rs 5,78,963. Nearly Rs 6 lakh! And considering that thousands of sympathetic households will oblige you with a lot more than just 50 paise, you can easily be richer by Rs 10 lakh overnight!
Now imagine if you were to collect one rupee instead of 50 paise from every household by coming up with a scheme, 'Save the planet: one household, one rupee.' You would be richer by Rs 20 lakh overnight. Considering that thousands of sympathetic households and business houses will oblige you with a lot more than just one rupee, you can safely hope to make Rs 30 or Rs 40 lakh overnight. Who needs a housing loan from HDFC?
If you are shamelessly lazy enough to venture out of even your neighbourhood, then collect Re 1 from every household in, say, T Nagar or Adyar. In a matter of weeks, you would collect enough to make a trip to Bangkok and get a Thai massage, if not a trip to Paris. I would chose Paris, to take a look at the cafes where Hemingway wrote. But I just don't have the time to beg for so much of money, so I would rather earn it one of these days and take off. But then, it is not a bad idea at all: to go door to door and ask for 50 paise.
What does one rupee mean to you? Forget one rupee, what does a 50-paise coin mean to you? Nothing, right? Even a beggar considers it an insult when you drop a 50-paise coin onto his or her palm. And it is only once in a blue moon that you actually find a 50-paise in your wallet these days. If a one-rupee or a 50-paise coin drops off your pocket, you are most likely to let it go because in order to pick it up, you have to bend, and bending can be such a pain, more painful than losing just half a rupee.
Such a useless piece of metal, the 50-paise coin! What can it get you these days, apart from a toffee? Even matchboxes cost Re 1. In other words, a 50-paise coin is something anyone can part with, even the poorest of the poor.
Now let's do the math. The population of India, till a couple of years ago, stood at 1,139,964,932. Assuming that on the average, four people make a household, the figure tranlates into 2,84,991,233 households. Go to each of these households and beg/ask for a 50-paise coin. If your ego comes in the way, invent a cause: child care, cancer care, saving the planet, saving the animals, and so on. Your enterprise will increase your bank balance by Rs 1,42,495,616! The idea might sound a joke, but the money isn't!
By my calculation (I am a bit drunk now), the amount works out to Rs 14 crore. Even if you invest Rs 4 crore in reaching every nook and corner of India to collect the 50-paise coin from each household, you are still left with Rs 10 crore. Ten fucking crores! And considering that lakhs of sympathetic households will oblige you with a lot more than just 50 paise, you can easily add a few more crores to the amount collected. That should make you worth about, say, Rs 15 crore. Fifteen fucking crores! You can either buy a house in London or a house each in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.
Too lazy to travel or plan for things outside your city? Never mind. Stick to your city. The population of Chennai, I am told, is 4,631,704. By my calcutation, that should work out to 1,157,926 households. Now go to every household and ask for a 50-paise coin, and in no time you will be richer by Rs 5,78,963. Nearly Rs 6 lakh! And considering that thousands of sympathetic households will oblige you with a lot more than just 50 paise, you can easily be richer by Rs 10 lakh overnight!
Now imagine if you were to collect one rupee instead of 50 paise from every household by coming up with a scheme, 'Save the planet: one household, one rupee.' You would be richer by Rs 20 lakh overnight. Considering that thousands of sympathetic households and business houses will oblige you with a lot more than just one rupee, you can safely hope to make Rs 30 or Rs 40 lakh overnight. Who needs a housing loan from HDFC?
If you are shamelessly lazy enough to venture out of even your neighbourhood, then collect Re 1 from every household in, say, T Nagar or Adyar. In a matter of weeks, you would collect enough to make a trip to Bangkok and get a Thai massage, if not a trip to Paris. I would chose Paris, to take a look at the cafes where Hemingway wrote. But I just don't have the time to beg for so much of money, so I would rather earn it one of these days and take off. But then, it is not a bad idea at all: to go door to door and ask for 50 paise.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The Hawker
Whenever I am in Kanpur, I am woken up, every morning, by the call of the vegetable hawker. He pushes his cart, or the thela, street to street, calling out the names of the vegetables sitting in small heaps on the cart. It can be very irritating to be woken up by a shrill voice drilling into your ears, but each morning, the moment I go up to the terrace and light my first cigarette of the day, I forgive the hawker. He is, after all, doing his job.
It is not easy being a hawker. You are the managing director-cum-salesman of your one-man company whose fortunes vary day to day. The company's policy is clear: keep starvation at bay. So each hawker comes up with a signature tune to get housewives out of their homes and wave him down. I don't know if hawkers try out various ways of calling out before settling for one particular style that catches their fancy, or whether they naturally evolve a style during their initial days on the job. Either way, they know how to be effective.
Why don't you ever miss the call, Chai! chai!, which usually modulates into a throaty Chaayeh! chaayey!, at railway stations? Not only that: the way he calls out actually makes you want to have tea!
Ditto for the vegetable hawker. There are usually about half a dozen varieties of vegetables adorning his cart. So which vegetable should figure first and which the last in his self-made, crude, orchestra-less jingle? And what should be the order of the vegetables that find mention in between? Obviously, there is a method to it -- a secret the hawker alone knows. All I know is that he is bloody effective: the modulation in his voice tickles your gastric juices and makes you buy his stuff. He spares you a trip to the vegetable shop or the supermarket, while you spare him of poverty -- at least for that day. In other words, his target for the day has been achieved.
Now look at the number of CEOs who, in spite of sporting medals of education and experience on their chests, keep getting fired every other day for failing to achieve targets. And this guy, the hawker, is not even educated. He is not even a poet or a lyricist or a copywriter. Yet he is able to compose a one-liner and set it to a tune that is catchy enough to draw housewives out of their houses and flock to his cart.
The way I look at it, the CEO merely seeks to implement what he has learnt in the classroom, whereas the hawker, who has never seen a classroom, has his finger on the pulse of his target audience. You will notice one thing about them: no hawker ever apes the other. Each one tries to be distinctly different while calling out.
Also, classroom-educated CEOs are usually scared to deviate from what they've read in the textbooks. They are scared to take risks. The hawker, on the other hand, has no textbooks to fall back on. Hardship is his textbook, and he does not hesitate taking risks because he has nothing to lose. It is, therefore, not surprising at all that many of the business magnates who get written about in the papers today were once upon a time hawkers or petty shopkeepers.
Of what use, then, is qualification? Qualification, at best, can earn you bread and butter and maybe a decent life. That's about it. It won't take you up there, where you want to be. Dhirubhai Ambani never went to a business school, Amitabh Bachchan never went to the film institute, Hemingway did not take a course in creative writing, Mahendra Singh Dhoni did not enrol in an expensive cricket academy, Capt. Gopinath was only a pilot and not a businessman -- the list is endless. The finest sub-editor I've ever come across, Peter Mosley, the former and highly respected news editor of Reuters, never went to a journalism school. I spent two weeks with him in London, learning the nuances of news writing and editing, and the humble man never shied away from mentioning that he started off his career in Reuters as the boy who served tea.
Why are these people what they are? Because, in some way or the other, they are like the hawker who wakes me every morning when I am in Kanpur.
It is not easy being a hawker. You are the managing director-cum-salesman of your one-man company whose fortunes vary day to day. The company's policy is clear: keep starvation at bay. So each hawker comes up with a signature tune to get housewives out of their homes and wave him down. I don't know if hawkers try out various ways of calling out before settling for one particular style that catches their fancy, or whether they naturally evolve a style during their initial days on the job. Either way, they know how to be effective.
Why don't you ever miss the call, Chai! chai!, which usually modulates into a throaty Chaayeh! chaayey!, at railway stations? Not only that: the way he calls out actually makes you want to have tea!
Ditto for the vegetable hawker. There are usually about half a dozen varieties of vegetables adorning his cart. So which vegetable should figure first and which the last in his self-made, crude, orchestra-less jingle? And what should be the order of the vegetables that find mention in between? Obviously, there is a method to it -- a secret the hawker alone knows. All I know is that he is bloody effective: the modulation in his voice tickles your gastric juices and makes you buy his stuff. He spares you a trip to the vegetable shop or the supermarket, while you spare him of poverty -- at least for that day. In other words, his target for the day has been achieved.
Now look at the number of CEOs who, in spite of sporting medals of education and experience on their chests, keep getting fired every other day for failing to achieve targets. And this guy, the hawker, is not even educated. He is not even a poet or a lyricist or a copywriter. Yet he is able to compose a one-liner and set it to a tune that is catchy enough to draw housewives out of their houses and flock to his cart.
The way I look at it, the CEO merely seeks to implement what he has learnt in the classroom, whereas the hawker, who has never seen a classroom, has his finger on the pulse of his target audience. You will notice one thing about them: no hawker ever apes the other. Each one tries to be distinctly different while calling out.
Also, classroom-educated CEOs are usually scared to deviate from what they've read in the textbooks. They are scared to take risks. The hawker, on the other hand, has no textbooks to fall back on. Hardship is his textbook, and he does not hesitate taking risks because he has nothing to lose. It is, therefore, not surprising at all that many of the business magnates who get written about in the papers today were once upon a time hawkers or petty shopkeepers.
Of what use, then, is qualification? Qualification, at best, can earn you bread and butter and maybe a decent life. That's about it. It won't take you up there, where you want to be. Dhirubhai Ambani never went to a business school, Amitabh Bachchan never went to the film institute, Hemingway did not take a course in creative writing, Mahendra Singh Dhoni did not enrol in an expensive cricket academy, Capt. Gopinath was only a pilot and not a businessman -- the list is endless. The finest sub-editor I've ever come across, Peter Mosley, the former and highly respected news editor of Reuters, never went to a journalism school. I spent two weeks with him in London, learning the nuances of news writing and editing, and the humble man never shied away from mentioning that he started off his career in Reuters as the boy who served tea.
Why are these people what they are? Because, in some way or the other, they are like the hawker who wakes me every morning when I am in Kanpur.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Dinner Date
Tonight I was about to write about Kishore Kumar, because this morning I read something very heart-warming about him. But about an hour ago, two friends -- a man and a woman -- happened to be passing my house and they asked me if I could come down to say Hi. They thought it was too late for them to come up. So I pulled a T-shirt over my lungi and went down and sat in their car.
Thirty minutes past midnight. Murugesan Street at its quietest best. Good time to talk. We enquired about one another's work, about common friends, and also discussed people who may not be common friends but of interest to us. This man, that woman, the babe we met the other day, the good-looking guy who has not been seen for a long time, and so on. The enquiries about the men did not interest me much -- how do I care, but my antenna was very much up when the women's names were being lobbed. The kind of names that sizzled in the chilled air inside the car: the charming best of Chennai! But then, these friends of mine happen to be high-society people, who consider any drink other than wine with suspicion. Whereas I buy my quota of alcohol from the government-run 'wine shops' and have spent most of my life in Chennai drinking from the filthy, dingy bars attached to these shops.
Whether you are a 'wine' man or a 'wine shop' man, who doesn't like to hear about women, that too when the women in question are worth aspiring for? I knew of most of the women whose names were mentioned, but I did not know anyone -- not even remotely. When one particular name was mentioned, I felt a little emboldened to press for more info, and my friend, the man, said in his clipped accent:
"Well, she is the hottest babe I know. But if you really want to know her, you probably have to take her out to dinner in one of the best places in town. Get her the best wine, the best food, only then she might agree to come."
"Oh really," I found myself whispering. He had heard it.
"Why not? Just imagine this, when she comes, she is going to dress up for you. What more do you want, brother?"
I have this terrible habit: the moment a scenario occurs to me or is described to me, I lose no time imagining it. So there I am, with Ms X or Ms Y, at the table of a dimly-lit restaurant with only a candle and a bottle of wine separating us. Two waiters are standing at a respectable distance, just in case we need something. She gets up to go to the restroom, and that's when I check out her posterior, and when she walks back, I try to assess the overall package from a distance and quickly return my gaze to the glass of wine the moment she reclaims her seat. There has been no conversation so far, only small talk. More small talk over the pasta that follows. And then the waiter gets the bill: Rs 4730! The waiters deserve 10% of it as tip, but it is much easier to square off the amount by adding another Rs 270. So Rs 5000! -- only to check out a woman! No, thanks. No, really, thanks. I would rather have a woman take me out in order to check me out -- oh, I am just joking!
But seriously, think of the things you can do with Rs 5000: you can buy 10 best DVDs of your choice, or 25 books that you always wanted to buy but never had the money to buy them in one go, or, simply, stock up on you month's quota of liquor that will perhaps make you write 50,000 words of sensible stuff. Who needs a woman!
But you need women, of course. I mean, why the hell are you slogging, after all. But the kind of women that help you slog and share your spoils are not the kind who expect to be taken out for an expensive dinner before they decide to set foot into your world. They set foot on your world, and you set foot into theirs, only because two wires have connected. Why let the hotel play the prohibitively expensive electrician who merely touches two wires to see whether sparks emanate? What if there are no sparks -- the money goes down the drain, doesn't it?
My approach has always been simple: get a local electrician to connect the two wires first. He won't charge you more than Rs 10. If there is a spark, you can regally stride into a candle-lit restaurant and get down to the business of feeling good, unfettered by anxiety and the obligation of making small talk. Chances are even she might foot the bill!
In any case, the route from the bed to the candle-lit restaurant is any day more gratifying and sunlit than the anticipated route from the restaurant to the bed, which usually stinks of a scheme and is fraught with uncertainties.
So where do you find the electrician? Well, you don't even have to dial for him. All you need to do is log on. If she says 'definite' instead of 'definate', you know the electrician has got the right set of wires to connect. And if the first sentence she types or writes makes you want her to type many more, then you know the sparks are beginning to fly. And if her sentences make you toss and turn in bed, then the sparks are flying full-fledged. You are on. You have checked her out, without spending a penny! Oh fuck the money, we are talking about quality.
Tell me honestly: would you prefer a woman who doesn't know you and dresses up to impress you, or a woman who knows you well and still dresses up only for you?
Thirty minutes past midnight. Murugesan Street at its quietest best. Good time to talk. We enquired about one another's work, about common friends, and also discussed people who may not be common friends but of interest to us. This man, that woman, the babe we met the other day, the good-looking guy who has not been seen for a long time, and so on. The enquiries about the men did not interest me much -- how do I care, but my antenna was very much up when the women's names were being lobbed. The kind of names that sizzled in the chilled air inside the car: the charming best of Chennai! But then, these friends of mine happen to be high-society people, who consider any drink other than wine with suspicion. Whereas I buy my quota of alcohol from the government-run 'wine shops' and have spent most of my life in Chennai drinking from the filthy, dingy bars attached to these shops.
Whether you are a 'wine' man or a 'wine shop' man, who doesn't like to hear about women, that too when the women in question are worth aspiring for? I knew of most of the women whose names were mentioned, but I did not know anyone -- not even remotely. When one particular name was mentioned, I felt a little emboldened to press for more info, and my friend, the man, said in his clipped accent:
"Well, she is the hottest babe I know. But if you really want to know her, you probably have to take her out to dinner in one of the best places in town. Get her the best wine, the best food, only then she might agree to come."
"Oh really," I found myself whispering. He had heard it.
"Why not? Just imagine this, when she comes, she is going to dress up for you. What more do you want, brother?"
I have this terrible habit: the moment a scenario occurs to me or is described to me, I lose no time imagining it. So there I am, with Ms X or Ms Y, at the table of a dimly-lit restaurant with only a candle and a bottle of wine separating us. Two waiters are standing at a respectable distance, just in case we need something. She gets up to go to the restroom, and that's when I check out her posterior, and when she walks back, I try to assess the overall package from a distance and quickly return my gaze to the glass of wine the moment she reclaims her seat. There has been no conversation so far, only small talk. More small talk over the pasta that follows. And then the waiter gets the bill: Rs 4730! The waiters deserve 10% of it as tip, but it is much easier to square off the amount by adding another Rs 270. So Rs 5000! -- only to check out a woman! No, thanks. No, really, thanks. I would rather have a woman take me out in order to check me out -- oh, I am just joking!
But seriously, think of the things you can do with Rs 5000: you can buy 10 best DVDs of your choice, or 25 books that you always wanted to buy but never had the money to buy them in one go, or, simply, stock up on you month's quota of liquor that will perhaps make you write 50,000 words of sensible stuff. Who needs a woman!
But you need women, of course. I mean, why the hell are you slogging, after all. But the kind of women that help you slog and share your spoils are not the kind who expect to be taken out for an expensive dinner before they decide to set foot into your world. They set foot on your world, and you set foot into theirs, only because two wires have connected. Why let the hotel play the prohibitively expensive electrician who merely touches two wires to see whether sparks emanate? What if there are no sparks -- the money goes down the drain, doesn't it?
My approach has always been simple: get a local electrician to connect the two wires first. He won't charge you more than Rs 10. If there is a spark, you can regally stride into a candle-lit restaurant and get down to the business of feeling good, unfettered by anxiety and the obligation of making small talk. Chances are even she might foot the bill!
In any case, the route from the bed to the candle-lit restaurant is any day more gratifying and sunlit than the anticipated route from the restaurant to the bed, which usually stinks of a scheme and is fraught with uncertainties.
So where do you find the electrician? Well, you don't even have to dial for him. All you need to do is log on. If she says 'definite' instead of 'definate', you know the electrician has got the right set of wires to connect. And if the first sentence she types or writes makes you want her to type many more, then you know the sparks are beginning to fly. And if her sentences make you toss and turn in bed, then the sparks are flying full-fledged. You are on. You have checked her out, without spending a penny! Oh fuck the money, we are talking about quality.
Tell me honestly: would you prefer a woman who doesn't know you and dresses up to impress you, or a woman who knows you well and still dresses up only for you?
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Touch
Touch. It is perhaps the most deceptive word in any language. On the face of it, it is all about the surface, but in reality, it digs into your depths.
'Touch' is a word that denotes the most superficial and harmless of acts, physically speaking, yet it invariably acts like a ladle that plunges deep into your mind or body and stirs your insides, bringing to the surface what is hidden deep inside and sending to the bottom what floats on the surface.
The touch of a live electric wire can kill a man, while the touch of a woman he desires can bring a dead man alive. On the other hand, the accidental touch of shoulders between a man and a woman deeply desiring each other but who have not yet touched each other so far can electrify the atmosphere -- be it a crowded bus or a claustrophobic elevator or the hallowed corridor in the workplace.
When you have to pacify a child who has not done well in the exams or has lost a football match, you begin with a touch. When you want to console a friend for a death in his or her family, you gently place your hand on the shoulder. The touch has always the desired effect as long as it is an honest one: the feelings permeate the flesh and the bones and reach the desired destination that is located deep inside.
Even in bed, the wildest of actions begin with a touch. She may be well aware what is on your mind, and you may have a fair idea what's on her mind too (or else why'd she be there in the first place?), but you still have to follow the protocol of 'touch'. Doesn't matter if the fingers touch the fingers, toes touch the toes, shoulder touches the shoulder, or something else touches something else. But touch one must. Or else what is the difference between a dog who will make a dash for the mutton biryani at a buffet, and a human who will first have some soup (even if he is not used to having soups), then lift a plate and queue up and allow some biryani to be served onto it?
Once the biryani is on the plate, it does not matter how you eat it: like a dog or a human. But if you are a human, you have to go through the drill of touching, in this case a warm ceramic plate.
Today, most of us have everything we need on our platter, yet we lack -- and crave for -- the basic thing that stokes wants in life: the touch. It is not as if touch is in short supply. Touch, in fact, is in abundance. You only have to stretch out your hand to touch or to be touched. But elusive, forever, is the touch you most crave for, and the object you most want to touch.
Why did I write about 'touch' tonight?
This morning, I went to Sholinganallur, a township on the outskirts of Chennai. In the peak-hour traffic, I noticed a bike snailing alongside my car. Astride it was a young, handsome couple. Since I do not drive and like to be on the backseat smoking a cigarette and watching the world go past, I had the luxury of taking a close look at the couple. In spite of his helmet, I could tell that the man was in his late 20's. He was well-built. The woman on the pillion was just my kind of woman: a dizzying beauty who perhaps did not have a mirror at home to tell her what a head-turner she was. She sat rather awkwardly on the bike, squinting under the sun. I almost held open the door for her, "Babe, just step in." But the words that actually escaped my breath were, "Wow, what a couple!"
The traffic began to move. So did the bike. That's when it struck me: they were not a couple. The woman, all through the bike ride, had just one preoccupation: not to let her breasts touch the man's back. The traffic came to a sudden halt every now and then, but she held on tightly to the grip at the backseat to save her chest from the man driving her. Finally, at one traffic junction, when the red light was still on, she climbed down from the bike and waved goodbye to the man. The man smiled and waved back and became part of the general traffic: my eyes were no longer following him.
But the eyes at the back of my mind still followed the woman, who was now long lost behind in the chaos. Who was she? What did she really mean to the man who had just transported her from point A to point B? One could spend a lifetime guessing that, but one thing is sure: the woman had ensured to keep something completely out of the way -- the touch. And that goes on to show the importance of a touch in human lives and the kind of things it can trigger, even if accidental.
'Touch' is a word that denotes the most superficial and harmless of acts, physically speaking, yet it invariably acts like a ladle that plunges deep into your mind or body and stirs your insides, bringing to the surface what is hidden deep inside and sending to the bottom what floats on the surface.
The touch of a live electric wire can kill a man, while the touch of a woman he desires can bring a dead man alive. On the other hand, the accidental touch of shoulders between a man and a woman deeply desiring each other but who have not yet touched each other so far can electrify the atmosphere -- be it a crowded bus or a claustrophobic elevator or the hallowed corridor in the workplace.
When you have to pacify a child who has not done well in the exams or has lost a football match, you begin with a touch. When you want to console a friend for a death in his or her family, you gently place your hand on the shoulder. The touch has always the desired effect as long as it is an honest one: the feelings permeate the flesh and the bones and reach the desired destination that is located deep inside.
Even in bed, the wildest of actions begin with a touch. She may be well aware what is on your mind, and you may have a fair idea what's on her mind too (or else why'd she be there in the first place?), but you still have to follow the protocol of 'touch'. Doesn't matter if the fingers touch the fingers, toes touch the toes, shoulder touches the shoulder, or something else touches something else. But touch one must. Or else what is the difference between a dog who will make a dash for the mutton biryani at a buffet, and a human who will first have some soup (even if he is not used to having soups), then lift a plate and queue up and allow some biryani to be served onto it?
Once the biryani is on the plate, it does not matter how you eat it: like a dog or a human. But if you are a human, you have to go through the drill of touching, in this case a warm ceramic plate.
Today, most of us have everything we need on our platter, yet we lack -- and crave for -- the basic thing that stokes wants in life: the touch. It is not as if touch is in short supply. Touch, in fact, is in abundance. You only have to stretch out your hand to touch or to be touched. But elusive, forever, is the touch you most crave for, and the object you most want to touch.
Why did I write about 'touch' tonight?
This morning, I went to Sholinganallur, a township on the outskirts of Chennai. In the peak-hour traffic, I noticed a bike snailing alongside my car. Astride it was a young, handsome couple. Since I do not drive and like to be on the backseat smoking a cigarette and watching the world go past, I had the luxury of taking a close look at the couple. In spite of his helmet, I could tell that the man was in his late 20's. He was well-built. The woman on the pillion was just my kind of woman: a dizzying beauty who perhaps did not have a mirror at home to tell her what a head-turner she was. She sat rather awkwardly on the bike, squinting under the sun. I almost held open the door for her, "Babe, just step in." But the words that actually escaped my breath were, "Wow, what a couple!"
The traffic began to move. So did the bike. That's when it struck me: they were not a couple. The woman, all through the bike ride, had just one preoccupation: not to let her breasts touch the man's back. The traffic came to a sudden halt every now and then, but she held on tightly to the grip at the backseat to save her chest from the man driving her. Finally, at one traffic junction, when the red light was still on, she climbed down from the bike and waved goodbye to the man. The man smiled and waved back and became part of the general traffic: my eyes were no longer following him.
But the eyes at the back of my mind still followed the woman, who was now long lost behind in the chaos. Who was she? What did she really mean to the man who had just transported her from point A to point B? One could spend a lifetime guessing that, but one thing is sure: the woman had ensured to keep something completely out of the way -- the touch. And that goes on to show the importance of a touch in human lives and the kind of things it can trigger, even if accidental.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Template, Contemplate
Of late I have been thinking of changing the template of my blog. It is a minimalist template, the sort I like, but it does not have many features or applications that present-day templates have. Not that I really need those features, but when I see other people's blogs, I feel outdated. I guess it is time to change.
Yet I am hesitant. For one, it is tedious to look for a template that suits your taste, especially if you are looking for a minimalist template. I am yet to come across one that would make me abandon, without regrets, this particular template that I have been faithful to for over four years now. Had I been a techie, I would have meddled around with the codes and created one to my liking. So that's one obstacle.
Obstacle no. 2 is my own mindset. The look of this blog is the only thing about me that has remained unchanged over the past four years. Everything else has changed and is changing rather rapidly. This is the only relic that remains from the era of happiness, like a grandfather's pipe or pen. Should I exchange it for a new pen?
I remain undecided. The Ganga, meanwhile, continues to flow.
Yet I am hesitant. For one, it is tedious to look for a template that suits your taste, especially if you are looking for a minimalist template. I am yet to come across one that would make me abandon, without regrets, this particular template that I have been faithful to for over four years now. Had I been a techie, I would have meddled around with the codes and created one to my liking. So that's one obstacle.
Obstacle no. 2 is my own mindset. The look of this blog is the only thing about me that has remained unchanged over the past four years. Everything else has changed and is changing rather rapidly. This is the only relic that remains from the era of happiness, like a grandfather's pipe or pen. Should I exchange it for a new pen?
I remain undecided. The Ganga, meanwhile, continues to flow.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Best Days Of My Life
Supposing I was Guru Dutt, who lived for 39 years and three months, I would have been dead for over a month now. But what a shameful death it would have been: nothing to leave behind for this world, nothing to show to the maker. God would have asked: "Why the fuck did I send you there?" Or exclaimed, Gabbar Singh-style, "Khaali haath aaye ho!"
Guru Dutt, if you look at the body of his work, comes across as a man who must have lived up to the age of 70 or 80. But in that short span of 39 years, an age when you are not grey enough to be taken seriously by the world, he built an university of cinema where thousands of people still enrol every year, as students as well as spectators.
To tell you the truth, I am not a great fan of black and white cinema. I find it very difficult to sit through Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar films and avoid them altogether, but somehow colour (or the absence of it) ceases to matter whenever I watch a Guru Dutt or a Dev Anand film. (Those days Guru Dutt and Dev Anand, both almost the same age, worked mostly together.) That's because their films were marked by intensity.
Intensity, in my opinion, is not something that can be forced upon you through melodrama, with actors going overboard with facial expressions and a dozen violins or the esraj playing a sad note in the background. Intensity is best conveyed when a film or a scene -- or even a book -- sits lightly on your shoulder, so lightly that you are able to make friends with the characters and step into their shoes. And after having stepped into their shoes, you feel their pain. That's intensity according to me, and that was the hallmark of Guru Dutt's films and many of Dev Anand's films with which Guru Dutt was associated.
There can't be another movie like Pyaasa. What the Taj Mahal is to India, Pyaasa is to this nation called Intensity. The intensity of the film was, in fact, was born out of a marriage between sensitivity and sensuality. The sensitivity of Guru Dutt, S.D. Burman, Mohammed Rafi, Hemant Kumar and, above all, Sahir Ludhianvi, married to the supressed sensuality of the women in the film, portrayed effectively in Geeta Dutt's voice, "Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo, janam safal ho jaye; hriday ki peeda deh ki agni, sab sheetal ho jaaye..." -- Take me in your arms, my love, so that I am fulfilled in this birth; so that the ache in my heart and the fire in my body are taken care of. What a song, erotic and yet so aesthetic.
This post is not about Guru Dutt, but about the body of work he left behind in spite of dying at 39 years and three months and how I, in spite of having outlived him by a month so far, have nothing to show for. I have only written one book (which hundreds of others have done in India alone), have maintained a blog for four years (which thousands of others have done too) and have a few hundred bylines to my credit (so do a few other millions). So what am I, the bloody fool, doing, in spite of knowing that time is running out?
I will tell you what this bloody fool is doing. As of now, he is thinking of getting a tattoo on his upper arm because he believes that will make him look sexy and also slow down his march towards middle age. Time does not recognise tattoos to be an enemy, but the fool is still wasting his time debating whether he should get the sun or the trident (Shiva's symbol) impaled on his arm. His wife, always the wise one, is laughing and convinced that he would not undertake such a misadventure in "old age."
But now, the other side of the story. What a bitch life is, a real cock-teaser: it first gives you a dozen examples that make you feel miserable about your existence, and just when you are on the verge of giving it all up, it presents you with examples that, no matter how old you are, make you jump in joy and drive you to the nearest gym, if not a tattoo parlour.
I think life has a way of testing you: whether you think by your balls or your brains. If you let the balls take over your life and let the brains rust, then the end is near. Very near. But if you let the brains do the thinking, you will recognise that the balls need servicing every now and then and you will take corrective measures as and when required.
Really, why should one give up at 39 or 40, when the fun has just begun? If Guru Dutt died at 39, there is Gabriel Gacrica Marquez who became a full-time writer only at 40 and went on to win the Nobel prize. Then there is Frank McCourt, a writer I recommend to all, who published his first book at the age of 66 and won the Pulitzer prize. At 66, in India, your ambitions are long buried and you wait for your funeral -- in the interim, you play with your grandchildren. Forty-two per cent of Robert Frost’s anthologised poems were written after the age of fifty. Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he was forty-nine and Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe at the age of fifty-eight.
In other words, I still have the time -- to fool around, to get a tattoo, and work towards my goal of being a writer (when I say writer, I mean someone who has the ability to write books that bring him enough money so that he does not have to worry about holding a regular job).
Come to think of it, these are the best days of my life. I am not as silly as I used to be when I was in my twenties, either as a person or a writer, though back then I believed I was the best. And I am more mature than what I used to be during my thirties. Today, as I near 40, I have learned how to combine the 'carefree' spirit of my 20's with the 'careful' approach I had adopted in my 30's. The end result is fun. Really, these are the best days of my life.
Guru Dutt, if you look at the body of his work, comes across as a man who must have lived up to the age of 70 or 80. But in that short span of 39 years, an age when you are not grey enough to be taken seriously by the world, he built an university of cinema where thousands of people still enrol every year, as students as well as spectators.
To tell you the truth, I am not a great fan of black and white cinema. I find it very difficult to sit through Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar films and avoid them altogether, but somehow colour (or the absence of it) ceases to matter whenever I watch a Guru Dutt or a Dev Anand film. (Those days Guru Dutt and Dev Anand, both almost the same age, worked mostly together.) That's because their films were marked by intensity.
Intensity, in my opinion, is not something that can be forced upon you through melodrama, with actors going overboard with facial expressions and a dozen violins or the esraj playing a sad note in the background. Intensity is best conveyed when a film or a scene -- or even a book -- sits lightly on your shoulder, so lightly that you are able to make friends with the characters and step into their shoes. And after having stepped into their shoes, you feel their pain. That's intensity according to me, and that was the hallmark of Guru Dutt's films and many of Dev Anand's films with which Guru Dutt was associated.
There can't be another movie like Pyaasa. What the Taj Mahal is to India, Pyaasa is to this nation called Intensity. The intensity of the film was, in fact, was born out of a marriage between sensitivity and sensuality. The sensitivity of Guru Dutt, S.D. Burman, Mohammed Rafi, Hemant Kumar and, above all, Sahir Ludhianvi, married to the supressed sensuality of the women in the film, portrayed effectively in Geeta Dutt's voice, "Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo, janam safal ho jaye; hriday ki peeda deh ki agni, sab sheetal ho jaaye..." -- Take me in your arms, my love, so that I am fulfilled in this birth; so that the ache in my heart and the fire in my body are taken care of. What a song, erotic and yet so aesthetic.
This post is not about Guru Dutt, but about the body of work he left behind in spite of dying at 39 years and three months and how I, in spite of having outlived him by a month so far, have nothing to show for. I have only written one book (which hundreds of others have done in India alone), have maintained a blog for four years (which thousands of others have done too) and have a few hundred bylines to my credit (so do a few other millions). So what am I, the bloody fool, doing, in spite of knowing that time is running out?
I will tell you what this bloody fool is doing. As of now, he is thinking of getting a tattoo on his upper arm because he believes that will make him look sexy and also slow down his march towards middle age. Time does not recognise tattoos to be an enemy, but the fool is still wasting his time debating whether he should get the sun or the trident (Shiva's symbol) impaled on his arm. His wife, always the wise one, is laughing and convinced that he would not undertake such a misadventure in "old age."
But now, the other side of the story. What a bitch life is, a real cock-teaser: it first gives you a dozen examples that make you feel miserable about your existence, and just when you are on the verge of giving it all up, it presents you with examples that, no matter how old you are, make you jump in joy and drive you to the nearest gym, if not a tattoo parlour.
I think life has a way of testing you: whether you think by your balls or your brains. If you let the balls take over your life and let the brains rust, then the end is near. Very near. But if you let the brains do the thinking, you will recognise that the balls need servicing every now and then and you will take corrective measures as and when required.
Really, why should one give up at 39 or 40, when the fun has just begun? If Guru Dutt died at 39, there is Gabriel Gacrica Marquez who became a full-time writer only at 40 and went on to win the Nobel prize. Then there is Frank McCourt, a writer I recommend to all, who published his first book at the age of 66 and won the Pulitzer prize. At 66, in India, your ambitions are long buried and you wait for your funeral -- in the interim, you play with your grandchildren. Forty-two per cent of Robert Frost’s anthologised poems were written after the age of fifty. Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he was forty-nine and Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe at the age of fifty-eight.
In other words, I still have the time -- to fool around, to get a tattoo, and work towards my goal of being a writer (when I say writer, I mean someone who has the ability to write books that bring him enough money so that he does not have to worry about holding a regular job).
Come to think of it, these are the best days of my life. I am not as silly as I used to be when I was in my twenties, either as a person or a writer, though back then I believed I was the best. And I am more mature than what I used to be during my thirties. Today, as I near 40, I have learned how to combine the 'carefree' spirit of my 20's with the 'careful' approach I had adopted in my 30's. The end result is fun. Really, these are the best days of my life.
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