Sun, Shanghai and S

I am glad I got the chance to work with a woman. There is this notion one has about women bosses. They tend to go overboard in their zeal to appear efficient, no-nonsense. This one has the perfect balance. Yin and Yang. She is the most soft-spoken person I remember meeting in a long time, and she cuts to the chase too. Cultural barriers are inside people’s heads. This lady cottons on to my thoughts, before I utter them.

So, a lot of really great things happened yesterday.

Sun happened. Spring came to Shanghai and my happy feet contracted the delicious disease. I tapped my way to office. To the beats of everything from Atif to ABBA, Shanu to Simon. With jacket carelessly flung over arm.

Random people smiled at me. On the subway, in the supermarket. Here’s the thing about the Chinese, they don’t smile at you of their own accord. They maintain distance, protocol. The Great Wall of China. Although people here are always staring at me. As a Brazilian colleague, recently drawled - Yeaaah man, they are always staring at you, and they want to touch you and they want to take pictures with you and...it’s crazy.

My sympathies to him. I may not be quite the tourist attraction that he claims to be, but people definitely do stare. Only non-chink for miles, in the Yellow Sea. Imagine being Paris Hilton at a Nobel laureates' convention. Or Albert Einstein at a rave party. Well, on second thoughts, he would have been quite in the Einsteinium there. The point is, I look like a freak. And that these descendants of Confucius smiled at me, without provocation. It was like the aura of happiness surrounding me penetrated their reserve.

I succeeded in my mission of befriending a Chinese woman. I drafted a plan of action, did some ‘target-setting’, practiced a few ‘opening lines’. They worked. I am trying to seduce her into showing me places around during the weekend. Don’t judge me, it’s mainly for the conversation.

Past deeds bore fruit. I met an Indian in office, a senior guy. First of all, we spoke in Hindi. Bliss. Secondly, while talking I happened to mention that I was working in the Andheri office for some months last year, sitting in the adjacent cubicle to this person, who happens to be his boss. A look of awakening dawned on his face and he immediately started rummaging through his cell-phone. And came up with a picture he had taken of a ‘quote’. Written by blue felt pen on a bit of chart paper in terrible handwriting. You guessed it and if you didn’t, go do some syllogisms. That quote was one of the many I had put up in my cubicle; he, on one of his visits, thinking it was interesting, had taken a picture of it. Okay, okay, not quite the Slumdog saga, but it felt good. To see one of your whims having made this journey across the continent. With me in tag.

Sex and the city. While sex in this city is more or less off-the-charts, I did manage to find a DVD set of the series, seasons 1 to 7, for 20 Yuan. Quick calculation. INR 140. F*** me.

Too much stimuli is there. Coming soon is an account of the Chinese woman’s obsession with her skin, me being all too painfully aware of it since the unit I work for is called - Beauty Care. Along with some tid-bits regarding the way the Chinese government manages PR through its newspapers, and how, if things were left to it, the much touted India-China story would have the ‘India’ part determinedly scratched off.

Scent of a city

Shanghai. It looked just like Gurgaon at first glance. The ride from the airport to downtown was marked by a feeling of deep satisfaction as all things fell into place.

It’s still early days. Been raining off-late. Cold winds. The works.

But I like it. The city is convenient. It didn’t take me any time to adjust to its beat. The beat itself is not distinctive. Shanghai is like one of those world-cities. Center of finance and business and what not. Or maybe I haven’t discovered the finer notes yet.

The Chinese are inscrutable. They look unapproachable. Serious people going about their business. Like they have the weight of the entire world’s manufacturing on their petite shoulders or something.

Ouch.

So anyway, although they look like Sir-when-I-ope-my-lips-let-no-dog-bark-Oracle, they actually are the sweetest people on earth. If you ever are in trouble and there’s a Chinese near, have no fear. Talk about the ‘State’ being different as different can be from the people it governs.

About those errant notes, by the way. I tried to discover them. I undertook a 2 hour walk, one way, to The Bund. Beautiful. In a surgical sort of way.

While I like the comforts of Shanghai, nay, I adore the comforts of Shanghai - where the streets have signs and no one knows my name, I do have a few questions. I wonder what brought those disfigured beggars at the Bund Tourist Canal to Shanghai? Was it the dream of a better life? Or are they native Shanghai-nese and have nowhere to go? How did they get disfigured? Is it similar to the racket that runs in Mumbai? How do the guys incessantly peddling their wares to exotic looking foreigners - from fake watches to portraits - make ends meet? Are they making enough money from all the people they dupe, o-so-sweetly? Which are the areas of Shanghai where the not so white-collar live? Have they lost their jobs yet? What do they have to say about China’s recent declaration on a news channel - China refuses to acknowledge the recession?

I want to see the underbelly of the city, any city. I don’t just want to go to the Bund, marvel at the array of retina-blinding-white-neon-golden-lit-branded-displays at People’s Square, restrict myself to traversing the criss-cross of super-super highways and architectural marvel that is Shanghai. I want to get into the brain, the heart, the soul of a city. Walk across its dirty gullies, be privy to the shameful secrets that it tries to hide so religiously.

Say my name, Shinlee Xihou

They can't pronounce my name here.

That pleases me. Makes me feel exotic.

On another note, need to get better shoes.

Mirror mirror on the wall..

Met an old friend today. It’s that time of the year when west-gone birds come home to roost - for a bit, what with Christmas vacations and all. Old friends have a way of bringing you face to face with a self that you barely recognize now. They remember things you used to say and do, things which you yourself have forgotten. They surprise you at times with their acute observations, their little windows into your soul.

Most of all what surprises you is how you used to be. Am I the same, slightly ditzy, seemingly carefree thing now that I was then? Life was that simple? Or is just the rose-tint of nostalgia that makes it seem so…so endearing?

So we got discussing about this and that. A girl we both know, me - on the fringes, as one of the most staid and conservative people ever, is getting married. She met the guy on a flight. She is a Southie - steeped-in-the-wool, he a Catholic. People never cease to amaze. Another woman, who met her now-husband through Orkut came up. She met him via a common birthday community.

Almost makes me feel conventional. One may question the almost bit. Engineer-IT-MBA. What’s not conventional? On the other hand, have come to believe that convention really does not exist. It is just a façade. Everybody has a funny, irregular, mould-breaking story to their lives, which is at most times hidden from public view. But yes, the eccentricities-oddities, well-hidden though they might be, definitely do exist. Perhaps just a scratch of a nail below the thin ice.

One thing has definitely changed about me. I used to revel in my oddness. I used to like being ditzy, irregular, forgetful, crazy, irrational at times, impulsive. Unapologetic. No longer. I have spent the last year ironing all of them out. Trying to get discipline and sense in. Caution. Responsibility. Look-before-you-leap kinda thing. It’s there in my writing even. The style, the content. Suddenly it’s a different set of attributes that seem desirable.

The face I saw in the mirror today, when I met him and the day I met those two, was somebody else’s. What is it? Growing-up? B-school? Life?

Use Detergent/Wear Sunscreen

I met a woman the other day. And asked her about her favorite ads on television as a way to get some more ‘insight’ into what she was all about. Rather what her ‘attitude towards shopping’ was all about. Yes, that is of paramount importance to me nowadays.

She thought for some time, while I waited with a cultivated look of pleasant encouragement on my face. After some time, she said she liked the Pepsi ad featuring Mahendra Singh Dhoni best.

I laddered.

She described the ad. Minister ka beta. Line mein ghus jata hai. Dhoni kehta hai. Pyaas honi chahiye.

Why does she like the ad. What does it mean.

I laddered some more.

She said. Zindagi mein aage badhna ke liye pyaas honi chahiye. Yeh baat humko achhi lagi is ad mein.

This amazingly complex country.

In a village called Etaunja in Uttar Pradesh

Lives a woman, like every other woman

She goes out in ghoonghat

And runs the home with a measure tape

But she watches and she dreams

Thirsty dreams of unfettered flight

Aspiring India of the glorious ambitions

Your children go to school in collars of impeccable white.

The double O

First Love -

Is something else

A shrine to an innocent self

First Love -

Which when comes your way again

You brace to get overwhelmed - again

First Love -

Her walking into the room

After all these years, and it’s like the Mona Lisa

Overhyped. Overrated.

Yes, Emotional Atyachar

Dev D is the perfect movie. A coming together of people bursting with the juice.

The music oozes passion. Not only does it not stick-out like a sore thumb, it gives the movie direction. And Emotional Atyachar is well - the new anthem. The movie itself is brilliantly put together with pace changes and contextual lighting. Minimal dialogues. Raw.

Mahie Gill exudes sex appeal and energy. Kalki Koechlin is like a cat. Graceful and mysterious. And Abhay Deol. What can one say. Tortured. Absolutely.

The actors fit into their roles like cork in a champagne bottle. They are brilliant actors, no doubt. It’s mostly clever casting though.

Dev epitomizes obsession. Paro passion. And Chanda survival-instinct.

I am as taken by the characters as by the people who made them. So Anurag Kashyap encouraged Abhay Deol to drink while filming. And to land up on sets right out of bed. Hung-over. Mahie Gill broke a few doors, the hand-pump, somebody else’s hand and sprained her own ankle during the course of the movie. Chanda’s character was auditioned extensively, actors were give the orgasm part to read out. Kalki K didn’t know Hindi very well. But she spoke French and Tamil fluently and hence the final scene turning out the way it did.

There are movies and then there are movies. This one was a pleasant surprise. Watching it makes one wonder how it would be - to create your labor of love, to see it taking shape in front of you. To hit upon inspiration, to get others impassioned about your vision. To see yourself vindicated as the curtain falls. To lose yourself in front of the camera. To overcome the fears - of ridicule, failure and commoditization.

One of SRK's many quotable quotes - I leave behind a little bit of myself in each of my movies, and I fear that one day I will have nothing left.

Technicolor Dreamcoat

It struck me today that I am a boss-person. I get inspired by people around, maybe more than the work.

My room is a mess. There are things lying around. The bed is never made. Newspaper strewed. It still looks pretty damn neat. It is Wadala Sheraton, all said and done. How bad can it look. Like Aishwarya Rai having a bad hair day.

I don’t like the Sheraton though. It’s amazing how people have raved about it so much. I don’t want to live in a sone ka pinjra.

So trip to China happening sometime next month. Will like that. They have gorgeous hair. Should find out what the secret is. Can’t be good genes. Cant only be good genes.

The Chinese are secretive people. Inscrutable is the word. Plus they have the Mandarin. Must be a very narrow group of non-Chinese who can tell the Lee from the Loo.

I see people all around me trying to maintain the work-life balance. In fact, I am one of the last few to join the bandwagon. This says something about young people fresh-into-their-careers nowadays, does it not? And all of these people are ambitious, make no mistake. Coming of age, methinks. Of sensibilities.

'Sensibilities' seems to be my most oft-repeated word off-late.

The gist

It stares me in the eye
Like a sarkari office peon certain of my imbecility
I turn away
Chewing on my lower-lip in concentration

This question that comes up at times
The answer that I struggle with most times
Give me this day my daily bread
Also tell me how I should be

Should I stash my woes behind the daily dose (of laughter)
Or treat this life as pursuit for nirvana
Check for expiry dates and tell-tale signs on birthday gifts
Or maybe believe. Just believe

A goal. A goal. Should I set one
Or just drift along till I see someplace to anchor
Believe all men are born equal
But then why do so few rule and many others - just root

There is no - to be or not to be
Am and want to be
But what, and why, and how
That is mainly the question.

God in Gucci

I have discovered that when you boycott something, or proclaim disdain for it publicly, it is actually because you like it more than you care to admit, to the world, and sometimes, to yourself.

Like perfume. I never buy and rarely wear perfume. The only perfumes I own have been given to me by friends. Why? Because I don’t care to smell good? Wrong. Because smell to me is the most inebriating of senses, the most powerful, the most heavenly.

Smell is an obsession. I associate everything with smell. A sliver of a long-forgotten smell is like the key that opens long-locked doors inside my mind, the lubrication that gets those rusty hinges to swing.

The smell of my sister’s baby skin in the days when she would still let me hug her, the stench of Salt Lake City when I was a hot-headed-wear-heart-on-sleeve kinda punk kid, the cold remembrance of the air conditioning at Sinhal classes where I was easily the most painfully-shy, short-skirted, fifteen-year-old in her own ditsy Neverland, the perfumed nail-polish and the musty odor of second-hand Sweet Valley Highs from then, when I was quite the bimbo, the skin cream we all love to hate on my lips for the first time - the feeling’s gone, but the smell remains, the ghastly gobhi-aaloo when I would wake up feeling homeless and lost - remembering the smell of my mother’s love, the Vodka in plastic cups - brilliant hazy nights and freshly-laundered rosy mornings. And lately, the roses that smell of Hugo Boss.

The list is endless.

I love smell so much that I don’t think there is any smell in the world good enough for me. And so, I never wear perfume.

The same goes for love. People who say they don’t believe in love, in fact, believe in it so much that anything less than the over-powering, all-consuming, absolutely-exhilarating emotion is not acceptable - is not love.

The Energy Crisis

A friend recently, while narrating his trysts with the good ol’ arranged-marriage-beast, ended with - I like a little bit of passion, energy. It’s not that I want her to agree with me all the time or say only nice things. In fact, even when she says - You are an asshole, it should compel me to think - Am I really?

A tale of many cities - A tale of just one city

You know you are in Kanpur when

1. You go to a mall, the city’s best and biggest, itching to spend some money and the only stuff you find to spend it on is some really oily dosa and half-boiled corn
2. A walk on the main road at 2 in the afternoon is punctuated by vulgar comments and some really vulgar comments
3. There is no transport that looks palatable, except if you want to make your journey with some suspicious looking characters in ten-seater tempo-vans. I dare you, especially after having had a sufficient dosage of the afore-mentioned vulgar comments
4. Every T,D and H (and by that I do not mean Tall, Dark and Handsome) dons a leather jacket
5. On the subject of leather, you see carts and trucks piled with leather shavings. You see towering tanneries dotting the landscape fortress-like
6. There are more educational institutes and coaching classes than tanneries
7. There are more chemists and angrezi dawakhane than educational institutes and coaching classes
8. There are more angrezi sharab ke theke than chemists

Like my Senior from Savories, I too fall in love with cities. I fall in love with the time having spent there, with the people.

That special Kanpuri accent, actually central-UP accent. Enunciate every word. Not like your Dilli-rajdhani that eats up half its words and blurs the edges of the remaining.

Nahi Bhaiiiyaa. Har ek shabd ko dabake boliye. Haan. Bilkul aiise hi. Kya samjhe?

For the first time in my life, I don’t feel I will be taken to be an outsider because I speak with the newspaper-wala and the dukaandaar and the traffic cop and the thanedaar in Hindi. Hindi is the local language here. (In Delhi, you don’t speak to anybody. I don’t know if they have devised an advanced technique of robbing you just by speaking to you).

Then there are the paan-walas of Kanpur. I saw a board which said - Ladies Paan Center. Go figure.

Oh, the milk-trains. UP and Bihar are not called the cow-belt for nothing. So everyday thousands of men from villages make their way to the towns and cities with their pitchers of milk. I saw a train the other day and the entire length of it had milk cans hanging from outside its windows.

Yes, I have lived in many cities and each one has a place, in my mind, in my memories.

I do feel like an outsider though.

I always will. In any place in the world. Except one.

These others, they mean nothing. I keep coming back to you and you draw me into your steely embrace. You make me feel like I belong. I admire your sensibilities - your ability to absorb, your ability to bear, your temperance, your infinite aspiration, your tendency to flatten everybody into nameless entities - the great leveller that you are, your resourcefulness - you never disappoint, your devilish dual nature - you want to crush people into oblivion and yet and yet, you want them to crush you, you want them to prove their mettle to you so that you can elevate them to the dizzying heights of achievement.

You know you complete me.

Just the Bees

Today I got some dope on bee-keeping. It is quite a profitable business apparently.

What got me thinking and I am wondering why I haven’t thought about it before, is how the bee colony behaves.

So there is one and only one queen, The Queen Bee and all she has to do is reproduce. The male bees, also known as the drone bees, they, well, assist. The worker bees, tens of thousands of them, as the moniker suggests are the ones that do all the work - they go out and get the nectar, they make it into honey by ingesting and regurgitating that nectar a thousand times and they look after the young larvae. They also protect the hive since they possess the sting.

What is strange are the group dynamics. So there can’t be two queen bees in a hive. If such a situation does develop, it will result in fighting and wide-spread destruction. While jealousy, ego-clashes and the like are quite the norm among humans, imagine bees behaving like such divas.

What is even more interesting is that the bee society is a matriarchal one. They worship the queen, because she gives birth. It is the highest calling. If she goes amiss, the hive disintegrates. They all pack-up and leave.

As an aside, the flowers give their nectar freely in exchange for some pollination.

This post has taken on a life of its own. Ideas are flying as I write. I am thinking, every other creature on earth is quite blatant and unashamed about the fact that the prime motive of their lives is to procreate, to spread the seeds of their species as far and as wide as possible. Humans are the only ones that look to the arts, philosophy, intellectual stimulation and love as being central to their existence. Humans are the only ones who search for a purpose and a calling and some higher plane. Then again, humans are the only ones that desecrate the process of procreation and dishonor the provenance of creation - the woman.

The Dark Edge

You like the wistfulness
Of blurred memories
They are like sweet nectar
To your rotten soul

You plant the seeds
Of fear in my belly
Fear of moving outside safe havens
Safe, or so you tell me

But your swan song is past
So be gone with grace
And when I look in the mirror
I don’t want to see your hideous face

Interesting Times

I am seeing a lot of unconventional advertising nowadays. Maybe because I have started noticing more, or maybe because the agencies are getting more creative, the companies/organizations are getting more risk-loving and the consumers are getting bored - the need of the hour is clutter-breaking advertising.

Let me start by saying I am not talking about television media.

So what have we? The newspaper that you read everyday for one. Boring, you say. Advertising in newspapers is old hat. Even the shady neighborhood gymkhana does it. Then picture this. You pick up your TOI and it’s as if half the front page has been wiped out. So you get to read only half the sentences and headlines, see half the pictures. It’s not a 100%. What is? Only Tropicana.

Look out for more such creative print ads. I have spotted a couple of others, but there is no way I will be able to describe the impact here. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Then there is Viral. Usually these are quite humorous since you are not paying through your nose for every second that the ad runs. So there is this IDBI Fortis Wealthsurance one which makes ample use of the fact that Rajanikanth is baap of all and no one, I repeat, no one has that kind of fan-following.

This is only the tip of the ice-berg. Digital marketing is exploding in ways unimaginable. Whether it is about catching surfers in a cyber-café, or having voice alerts that talk about giving you a pizza free if not delivered within 30 minutes when you type in ‘Pizza’ into Google search - there are myriad ways of catching attention.

And now, one of my favorites - OOH - Out of Home. The ‘Red Ribbon Express’ was an initiative undertaken in 2007 wherein a train would travel the length and breadth of India for 180 days, housing in it - exhibitions, counseling and medical centers, auditoriums and carrying with it people who would disembark at the stations and cycle into the towns and villages to stage skits and plays on Aids awareness. I hear that this concept has been used by companies as well.

And I end with this. Brand - Hobby Ideas.

Flower Power

I met a couple of NGOs today. It’s fascinating how the system works. There are innumerable such people who start these NGOs. Say, one is named - Jagrut Mahila Samiti. They can be working for infinite number of causes - nutrition during pregnancy, fight against domestic abuse, education etc. They sometimes also set up ‘Self Help Groups’ - SHGs or ‘Swaym Seva Samoohs’ as they are called in Hindi. They are the intermediaries between women who want to get involved in some enterprise and the banks that lend them money. They get targets from the government authorities and get paid a sum as per performance.

An SHG is a collection of 10-20 women. They get an account in one of the nationalized or Grameen banks. These Grameen banks have their offices in shabby little rickety buildings, but they do amazing work. They are usually affiliated to some nationalized bank.

When a group is set up, the women all pool in a fixed amount of money every month. The bank also loans them some amount of money after a period of time, if it sees that the women have been depositing money regularly and their bank balance is healthy. After a while, it loans them a bigger sum of money and waives-off one-third of it.

The women also charge each other an interest internally in case one of them wants to borrow money for something urgent from their joint deposit.

The problem is not the lack of governmental initiative. That is firing on all cylinders as I see it. There are two other major problems. One, when the money is loaned out, there are enough people in the system to demand a commission. Around 20% of the hand-out gets dissipated through that channel. The second problem is that the women don’t use the money for business i.e. they don’t invest in ventures that will give them a steady income for years to come. They use the money for short-term gains, at most, buffaloes.

On a lighter note, this NGO woman I met today had set up a Mahila Forum in some village in UP which would go and beat up the men who perpetrated domestic abuse on their women. Apparently they became extremely powerful in the village; the men would quake in their boots at the thought of them.

By the way, Happy New Year to all who are reading this. May you find all your answers.

The Cow Belt

I was in Pondicherry last week and am in Kanpur now. Every day, I go to a couple of villages and see how rural sales happen. More importantly, I see what the rural way of life is. Strangely I feel at home. But that’s another story.

Villages are no longer what they used to be. Lives have improved in the past few years, is my first impression. Roads have been built, they are being built. Places that used to be inaccessible in the monsoons due to huge tracts of muck, are now not so. There are schools - private schools and government schools and there are colleges on the highways. Although a person would have to travel around 20 kms to study in one of them. There are organizations that provide teachers to schools on a contractual basis. There are hand-pumps, which have made the bore-wells obsolete in many places.

There is easier access to loans. Quite a few banks around to lend money and waive off some part of it too. The disadvantage here is that, while earlier stringent checks would happen before the money was released; now sometimes, due to reduced red-tape, the Presidents and Secretaries of the Panchaayats pocket it.

Don’t get me wrong. There is huge scope for improvement. There need to be more schools, colleges, more awareness of what these children can do with their lives after that. Better sanitation facilities, more exposure for women, better reach to towns around. Pukka houses, better farm equipment, more emphasis on health and hygiene. The list is endless.

But in the heartland of Uttar Pradesh, as I zip across the many many lovely dancing-in-the-sun-daffodillian mustard stalks, the cabbage patches and the pumpkins on the roof-tops, I think to myself - these people aren’t woe-begone and destitute, I have seen worse. I have seen worse expressions on the faces on those kids who lunge at every car at the traffic signals - to sell something or wash windows or simply beg. That haggard look of malnutritioned-grief or cunning which comes from living and surviving on the streets. Children with injection marks on their arms, children with broken bodies - possibly broken by the local gundas who push them into begging, children who scavenge in the dumps for their daily meal.

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

AnS - Part VI

Sayanee could not sleep that night.

Khyati thought she might be pregnant. At first she had sounded devastated, but in the course of their conversation, Sayanee started sensing some bits and pieces of excitement peeking out from behind the old cumulonimbus. There was this thing about her. She made even the biggest of catastrophes seem like a badly dealt game of cards - at worst.

Ashutosh didn’t know yet. Khyati would break the news to him only if it turned out to be true.

Sayanee sighed and turned around in her bed, certain that would be of no use. Love? Does it really happen like this? Perhaps. Or maybe it is just an inability to deal smartly with sunken investments.

The next day at office, Sayanee mostly found herself whiling away time. She ended up making plans with her college friends for the evening. These were people who she had been extremely close to and they had managed to retain it over the years - it helped that they were all in Mumbai.

Bandstand - one of the most beautiful places in Mumbai. The rocks, the sea, the sunset. If you want more - the cafes and within the radius of a kilometer - the numerous eateries. The three of them had spent many an evening there - eating bhutta, walking along the promenade, looking indulgently on at couples in their little nooks - couples that probably lived with ten others in a two hundred sq feet hole, couples desperate for a little privacy, for the romance of being able to hold hands and cozy up.

There was a gentle breeze that evening. The sky looked foggy as usual.

“So Sayanee, kyaa haal chaal? Tu toh yaar milti hi nahi hai aaj-kal.” Complained Nimisha in her characteristic nasal drawl.

“Work Nimisha. You know how it gets.”

Jigna made a face and turned towards her. “You work too much darling. How is Aunty?”

“Haven’t met her since quite some time. Spoke to her day before. She seems okay.”

“How is Suyash Jigna?”

“He is the same old boring thing. He wants to get married ASAP”

“So? Kitni saal takk latkaayegi use?” Nimisha laughed.

“Abbe chhup. Shaadi and all is scary man.”

They all laughed. Typical Jigna. Never before had a gujarati household faced as much trouble as the Pareeks had with Jigna.

“What do you think Sayanee? Mera boy-friend hota toh main toh abhi ke abhi shaadi kar leti.”

“Tu toh kar hi leti. So what are your plans Jigna? Heard you were planning to write the CAT?”

“Yea man, let’s see. What about you? Abhi bhi wohi - aage nahi padhna chahti?”

“Kya karna hai. I am happy with the way life is going. I like my job and my colleagues. I like where I am living. I like my room-mate. I have my friends. More than enough.”

“Get a boy-friend first. And it’s not going to stay like this forever.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Colleagues will leave, room-mate will move on, friends will get married with the first chimp they see, like our dear old Nimbu here, or die frighteningly early in a far-away bear-infested jungle, in search of the all-elusive romance of life , like me.”

All three laughed. The sun was looking like a giant orange on fire. The rocks were glinting - like black gold. Sayanee loved these times they spent together. The three of them had it just right. The masala, the madness, the candor - just right.

They walked into Barista by the time it got a little dark. After plonking themselves into chairs, Jigna looked around, gave a little start and waved out to someone. A man walked over from the adjacent table.

“Hey Jigna! Fancy meeting you here! We were talking about Bandstand just the other day.” He was tall, extremely tall, well over six feet. A giant really.

Jigna chuckled and introduced him as Leo, a guy she went to classes with at the CAT coaching institute.

“Are those your friends? Why don’t you people join us?” Said the ever-sociable Jigna.

Sayanee groaned inwardly. This Jigna was just too outgoing sometimes. She stole a small side-ward glance at Nimisha, who incidentally was staring at her shoes. Ah, for all her ‘boy-talk’, Nimbu had always been the shy one.

Two more guys came and joined the table. A round of introductions followed. Saurabh - chartered accountant in the making, interning at a Consulting company. And Amanpreet - working at a Media planning agency.

It took Sayanee a few seconds to place him. He was sitting there, looking a little uncomfortable. Both recalled their last rendezvous, aboard the crowded local train.

They sat silently for sometime. There was something about him. He looked pinched. How do you say it, anguished perhaps? Permanently.

“So where do you stay?” He ventured uncertainly.

“Andheri. Sher-e-punjab.”

“Haan, maine aapko Andheri mein train par chadte dekha hai.”

He had a strange accent. Not typical Delhi, but it left a taste of the North, especially after he stopped speaking. Like notes in perfume. The more obvious and volatile ones hit you first - leave you confused and then the subtler and heavier base scent registers, after the fickle ones have wafted away.

“Yes. Maine bhi.”

“Wo main us din hurry mein tha, isliye aapko thoda sa dhakka maar diya tha. I hope you are not angry.”

“Arre nahi, don’t worry. Locals mein toh normal hai.”

She smiled at him for the first time. This guy was like a child, a lost bewildered little thing in this crazy city. He eased up, visibly.

“You two know each other?” Jigna interrupted her own vivid account of the time she had followed around a co-worker for a week because she suspected him of theft, to butt-in.

“Not really. We took the same local train once. I almost didn’t let him get-off.” Smiled Sayanee.

Yes, life was good, she mused. The job, the colleagues, the home, the room-mate, the friends, even random strangers on the train. There was a calm and effortless way about it right now. Like the peaceful waters of an afternoon sea taking its siesta or the fishing boat floating gently along on it - sails down.

The Love-Hate

You
Miss her
But never want to speak to her
Ever again

She
Understands you like a dream
She also abso-fucking-lutely brings
The devil out in you

It
Is not love not hate
It is that crazy-dysfunctional-mutative human curse
I like to call the love-hate

AnS - Part V

Mumbai is bursting at the seams. There are 15 million people, maybe more, that call this city home. Everybody has a story. The raaste ka mochi - he sits there stony eyed, 200 meters from the next one, sews-up your errant shoe expertly and sullenly demands Rs 3 for it, the auto-driver - an arrogant breed, he nonchalantly dismisses your pleas to take you to your place of work (which is unfortunately neither too near, nor too far) in the same breath as the bomb-blasts, aiming to maximize his daily-wage-earning, the secretary - part of a fiercely protective gang, she marks her territory on the train and in the office, is immaculately coiffed and harbors strong sentiments on loo-usage and her boss’ antics, in that order.

Everybody has a story.

Khyati met Ashutosh over chat. One of those Yahoo messenger chat rooms. It was no accident she was spending so much time online those days. She was working on a digital marketing campaign for a youth deodorant brand.

Ashutosh was just one of those random pings, and somehow they hit it off. It helped that his chat id was not Loveforyou_82. Also, that he was 27 and had a successful textiles business. They chatted back and forth over a period of two months and towards the end of it, she found herself sharing most of her daily struggles, agonies and successes with him. He was always very patient and reassuring. Enough premium cannot be put on these particular qualities in a world where nobody has the time to stand, let alone listen.

When they had decided to meet; she had been a little nervous - this was just not her thing, but the date had gone exceedingly well from the start. He had turned out to be this tall nerdy-looking guy, with great hair and an engaging smile. He was, of course, bowled over by her. She was what you would describe as in-your-face sexy. Not just the way she looked, even her personality - spunky and loud.

Numerous dates - after-office-dinners, late-weekend-night-coffees and eventually, breakfast-in-bed-mornings - later, he had told her that he was married.

One always has a list of Dos and Donts. In times of crisis, they are as impotent as the erstwhile minister for homeland security.

Khyati had screamed and ranted. His defense was clichéd - trapped in a loveless and joyless marriage, she being the only thing that kept him going any more - the usual. Khyati was not the sort of person to get influenced by sentiment; but she did.

We are an optimistic race. We are an egoistic species. It’s one and the same thing.

When Sayanee returned from Europe and learnt about these developments, she was stunned.

Love has many forms - it heals, it makes better people out of us, it gives us company; it also sometimes makes us so blind, we don’t notice that the landscape has changed, the grass grows a bit thicker and the birds chirp no more.

Say it I will

Conflict is a natural state of being. We are designed to be perpetually courting conflict. The same philosophy extends to complexity and pain. If there is no pain in his life, man will invent it. Happiness is much desired, but once achieved, is like an unstable substance that quickly reacts with something to become dilute, impure and a shadow of it’s glittering self.

Misery is stable, conflict is staple. From these, stem stories of great bravery, compassion and love.

One of the greatest ironies of life. Disharmony harmonizes.

The Romance

Hazaaron Khvaahishen aisiin ki har Khvaaish pe dam nikale
Bahut nikale mere armaan lekin phir bhii kam nikale

Hazaaron Khvaahishen and each one special. Beautiful.

On a tangent, or perhaps not. I love the romance of not knowing what you want to do in life. The ideal is to live each moment with grand ferocity and grander passion. Way leads to way.

A man who started out as being a sound technician at the local radio station. Then got enlisted and worked as sound engineer in the navy for a bit. After the war, went to University and after graduating, joined a travel and tourism company, in-charge of designing and executing marketing campaigns for holiday destinations. Did well. Was sent to many exotic and far-flung locations to build campaigns there. Left the company. Started a consulting enterprise of his own. Struggled. Persisted. Built credibility. No job was too small. No job was unimportant. Many years, projects, magnificent successes and Herculean mistakes later, he was traveling the world - imparting the pearls of his well-earned wisdom to some-keen-eyed-some-not-so-much students.

Do we belong to the generation that demands us to know exactly how life will turn out? Where all B-school forms have questions on ‘long-term’ and ‘short-term’ goals. Phrases such as ‘logical reasoning’ and ‘clarity of thought’ are bandied about. Where you are not only expected to know where the yellow-brick-road of your life is leading to, but also to change the course of that road to lead to your, well, long-term goal.

Yes, we live in those times. And it has its moments. But I yearn for the romance of not-knowing. And I revel in it.

I started my walk at the foot of the hills
With a mellow sun for company
The undulating landscape had me arrested
I never realized when I left behind my narrow confines

I saw new kind of birds
And tasted strange berries
I danced a bit keeping time with the spring
As it made its way down somewhere, to the sea

I met other travelers, some were old
They all gave me beans
For every bean that made me feel funny
There was one that filled my dreams with music

It was a strange walk
And when evening came
I didn’t know where I was
I knew I wasn’t the same

Of all my great adventures, this was the greatest
Because the journey was as beautiful
As the knowledge of having reached someplace
Even more breath-taking than what I had set out to

City Lights

Last night Chennai took my breath away. I belong to the school that thinks that nothing can beat the aerial view of Mumbai, with all it's glittering lights and their shimmering reflections in the sea.

Till I saw Chennai. Nay, beheld Chennai. Chennai is vast, it has roads criss-crossing it's body like conductor on a giant Printed Circuit Board, and those roads have traffic on them. Thousands and millions of tiny pin-pricks of red, yellow, green and blue.

How does one hang-on to such an image for posterity? To invoke it when one needs to feel beauty and grandeur? Like Paris from the Eiffel, only better.

I am very peppy this morning. Barack Obama is home.

AnS - Part IV

When Sayanee got home - the apartment she shared with a woman she had met by chance in her early working days in Mumbai - she was in high spirits. She had dropped by Oxford Book Shop on her way back and picked up a couple of PG Wodehouses and a book of plays by Oscar Wilde.

Reading was a passion, ever since childhood. From the Famous Five she had picked up at the age of 8, to The Joke she had recently finished with; reading gave her an alternate world inhabited with characters - some strangely abnormal, some abnormally familiar - but nonetheless, all of them holding a special place in her fictional universe.

When she entered her two-bedroom flat in Andheri East, it was in complete darkness; Khyati, her flat mate must have got late at work. Khyati was a marketing executive at a consumer goods company and sometimes her work-hours, unlike Sayanee’s own, were inexplicable. She switched on the lights, happily dreaming about the books she had picked up, when the door to Khyati’s room opened and she came out -

“Hey! I thought you were at work. Why have you been sitting in the dark?”

Closer examination led her to ask, “Have you been sleeping?” as she realized that Khyati was wearing pyjamas and looking decidedly disheveled.

Khyati just stood there and it suddenly struck Sayanee that Khyati’s eyes were red and puffed-up.

“O my God! You have been crying? What happened?!” Sayanee exclaimed as Khyati started crying again, softly at first, apparently not for the first time that night.

A little bit of background here. Khyati’s father was a retired Major-General and hence she had spent most of her young life traipsing across the country. After such an unsettling childhood; at 18, she had found herself in a state of complete confusion regarding what she wanted to do, quite unlike her father. Out of a lack of any major passions she had done a Bachelor’s course in Arts with Media and Communication as specializations, from Mumbai. During the course she had realized that she had an eye for art, a sense of reading-between-lines, and somewhat of a head for numbers. She got into an advertising agency and after having worked there for six years, the last of which were as Account Executive, she crossed over to the other side of the table and joined her client firm as the Manager of a brand.

She had found her calling in life, and even though Major-General Khurana didn’t understand what his youngest daughter exactly did for a living, he was relieved that she had found it.

“What the hell happened Khyati? Did Ashutosh say something again?” Sayanee was wracking her brain for things that could have gone wrong. Work? Naah, everything seemed to be in control there. Family? Hmm, she would have told her immediately had something gone wrong on that front, no need for melodrama there. It had to be him. That Ashutosh. He was the only part of her life that stuck out like a sore thumb. That Ashutosh.

Traps

She walked in rage
Of people who followed
Useless rules and mindless traditions

She walked in disbelief
Of people who didn’t have the courage
To reject what their hearts didn’t agree to

And then she stopped
With a sense of foreboding
Her trembling mind spat out to her

It wondered what you say to one
Who binds herself in noose-tight cords
Of sky-high expectations

Who won’t give room for mistakes
To be at odds with that home-grown philosophy
that once made her a rebel

Poll

Am I verbose in speech?

AnS - Part III

Sayanee swam with the current.

When she was a baby, her parents had died in a car crash. Her aunt had raised her. She was grateful for that. And not much else.

Her father’s younger brother - her uncle, had also been in the car. He was found unrecognizable after the accident that had claimed three lives and left two more languishing in that special place that is reserved for the bereaved, for the rest of theirs.

She had heard that story many times, in bits and pieces, from different people. It all boiled down to the same thing every single time. She could see it in her head. Her father had been cruising at 120 kmph -- in the wrong lane -- on the highway -- after dark. He had seen the fifteen-tonner coming down at him five seconds too late. She could see it all too well.

Her aunt had never made her peace with it. Maybe it wasn’t her fault. It is difficult letting go of a life that you are shown a glimpse of, and which is then rudely snatched away due to another’s mistake.

Sayanee swam with the current.

A docile child, she was a late talker, a late walker. Content to just sit around and dimple, her aunt didn’t really have too much trouble with her. Fed on a diet of barbs and constant carping, she grew into this reserved adolescent, who didn’t have too may friends. She would have turned out to be painfully shy and debilitated, had not her aunt deigned to send her to an engineering college in Pune, around four hours from home. That had been the turning point in her life. Living in a hostel, she had discovered bonding and friendship, mischief and joie. The shadow that she had been had materialized into a real person. A person who felt needed and loved.

She hardly went back home. And when she got this job with an Indian IT company, she was thrilled. They were paying enough for her to be able to pay back loans which weighed heavy on her soul.

She liked work too. Her client was a top American bank, a retail and credit-card company and in no way insulated from the current crisis. The credit card market, although mature in the erstwhile land of plenty, was facing a period of slump with consumerism at an all-time low and defaults at a historical high, but the company thankfully had enough going for itself in the Latin American, African and Asian markets, where the business was still nascent and economies more robust. She had spent around six months of the past year in Europe; her memoirs had mentions of 40 odd cities where she had left her well-traveled footprint.

As she stepped off Churchgate station that day, she was in high spirits. It wasn’t everyday that she got a chance to come to this part of the city - with its sea, surf and legendary restaurants. She was fond of Mumbai; like a chameleon, it was so different now than what it had been, or what it has seemed to be during her growing-up years. This realization enervated her; she felt like she had moulded Mumbai to her taste. She felt content.

Thought for the day

I chose career over family; I'd rather my wallet have stretch marks.

Not my thoughts. I read it somewhere.

Btw, today is 'Global Handwashing Day'. I am even wearing a band on my hand saying so. Washing hands can save lives, since they are the most exposed part of your body. Some 3.5 million children globally lose their lives every year to diseases which can be avoided by simply washing hands. So do wash.

Er..use Lifebuoy. Handwash preferably.

The dying

Hadn’t been all velvet
No bed of roses
The landscape lay strewn
By the carcasses of intentions, good and evil

But as he walked every morning
There was thunder in his stride
And a storm in his soul
He knew he was blessed

He knew he would be great
And a good man too
Love would be his
He knew he was blessed

And then one day
The dream died
He cried
Stomped out under the ugly sole of truth

It was not to be
His life would be marked by mediocrity
And the domestic squalor that merits no poetry
Hope fled, life bled.

AnS - Part II

Their eyes met in that crowded local train and each thought rather uncharitable thoughts about the other.

Why is that woman in the general compartment? Don’t I have enough trouble pushing my way through men that I now have to battle women too!

Why is that man staring at me so obnoxiously? Had the train not been pulling out of the platform, I would have been spared this compartment full of lecherous idiots!

He had to get off at Parel and she grudgingly allowed him to make his way through the masses of flesh, he scowled at her momentarily before moving on. After alighting, he was glad to see that his shirt had not suffered much damage; it would do for the day. He wouldn’t have to change into the spare one he kept in his desk-drawer at all times.

Parel station and the world outside it, is quintessential of the diversities that Mumbai is famous for. It is a sea of grocery shops, farsan and sweet houses, pan-beedi ke dukaan, unhygienic restaurants and roadside sellers of combs, stationary, vegetables and cds. And then start those corporate complexes with tall sky-scrapers, housing some of the best known media and advertising agencies in the country.

Amanpreet made his way to one of those complexes, marveling once again at how people in this city had the patience to sit in their cars while traffic crawled along inch-by-bloody-inch. Who were all these people and why had they chosen to be in Bombay? Perhaps, like him, some had come to make a mark in their chosen professions; like him, most were stuck in the never-ending agonies of commute; unlike him, maybe they were satisfied.

Not that his job was the absolute pits. He got to meet top media bosses and executives and the mandate was to treat most of them like shit. Well, that is how the power equations in this industry worked. If your client was powerful enough, channels queued up to accommodate its latest campaigns and advertisements; if not, then you were the one doing all the running from p-to-p. He had sat in on many a meeting where some guy from his firm would start to bargain rates with a channel and it was fun to see how far he could stretch it. That part was cool.

He often got depressed when he thought about his family back in Dehradoon. Dehradoon. Not as ruskin-bond-esque nowadays as one would imagine but close enough. Bougainvillea creepers, blue winding roads, red brick houses, the slight nip in the air.

Screeeeeech. Rudely jolted awake, Amanpreet quickly crossed the road before the driver who had ground to a halt to avoid hitting him could say much. Lyrics of a popular song filled his head as he walked casually on.

..Zara hat ke zara bach ke,
Yeh hai Bambai meri jaan.

AnS - Part 1

It was peak time. The 8:23 am local from Virar to Churchgate was brimming over the top. Andheri station for one was at bursting point. People rushing helter-skelter - students, bankers, hawkers, government servants, secretaries, fisherwomen, professionals - After death, it had to be the Mumbai locals - the greatest leveler.

They met in a crowded first class compartment.

Amanpreet was a 23 year old, working in a media planning firm. After graduating with a degree in Mass Communication, this had been his first job and he was hoping, not his last. What’s the deal with the client being always right anyway? Those servile buggers at his firm would send the earth circling around Jupiter if it brought so much as the shadow of a smile to the powers-that-be. But then again he thought, it was difficult to make that shift he so desired. He noticed how deftly the fellow selling key-chains in the adjoining ladies compartment packed up his jing-bang in a matter of 5 seconds and thought morosely that the guy at least had the satisfaction of knowing that he had mastered his work.

Sayanee was 25 summers down, and as she described herself - an Engineer and a lover of the English language, perhaps not in that order. She was working in the IT industry and quite enjoying herself. Her clients were fun-loving people and there was some chance she would get to go to the States before the year was up. The current financial crisis had made things a little bleak for the industry, even the company she worked for, but her department was well-diversified; with on-site ranging from Dublin to Delhi. Well, as long as she got a good salary and loads of opportunities to travel, was there really another purpose to life? Naah.

Mumbhai. Yes, selling key-chains is somewhat of an art here. Dotting the rather over-crowded landscape in a ladies compartment, these tough kids carry what looks like a cumbersome and precariously balanced jumble of key-chains, earrings, hair-clips and other such fast-moving-ultra-mass-consumer-goods, but come a station, and before you can utter even one expletive at the person standing unhelpfully in front of you, they have the whole thing packed and the notes pocketed.

Mumbhai. While there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, there isn’t any other damn place in the world that will give you the chance to drink again and again and again.

The Waters of Cologne

I was watching DDLJ for the umpteenth time and was struck by the fact that had I been watching this movie for the first time, could still have fallen in love with Raj. Truly the stuff of evergreen.

Our next trip was to Northern Germany and Netherlands. In Germany, we were to go to Köln, Düsseldorf and then onto Berlin. However the building came crashing down even before the foundation stone had been laid. A day before we were set to leave for Köln, somebody luckily took out the tickets and checked, thus illuminating the fact that they were for the wrong date; and even as we were standing there, looking at each other in dismay, the train we did have tickets for was pulling out of Gare Montparnasse.

Anyhow, it turned out okay. We did reach Köln, through a series of change-of-trains and night-long journeys. I do not remember all the details now, but I believe Hamburg was involved in some way. I remember having an early morning breakfast at Hamburg station, waiting for the next connecting train.

A little bit of history about Köln, because not only do I strive to entertain the reader, but also endeavor to educate him. Köln is the German name (Cologne being the French one) of the 4th largest city in Germany, after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich; it is also one of the oldest cities, founded by the Romans in 38 BC. It lies by the River Rhine and interestingly, Eau de Cologne means The Water of Cologne; since a couple of Italians set shop there to sell this preparation made of herbs and what-not which Napolean could not get enough of.

We only had a few hours in Köln. As soon as you step out of the station, there lies its famous Cathedral. This imposing Gothic structure once held the title of the world’s tallest structure, before Eiffel and many others arrived on the scene. Legend goes that in spite of being the object of several aerial bombings in World War II, this Cathedral stood tall and proud in a largely flattened city.

The station area had enough excitement surrounding it. There was an open space, with tourists milling around, the market-place started almost immediately and of course, there was the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall is a series of paintings, drawings, poetry, newspaper clippings, gory and inspirational messages - from all over the world, mostly pertaining to the Second World War, but also showcasing a bit of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It tries to promote peace in this crazy crazy world.

We walked into the market, so much exciting stuff was up for grabs, and for a change, it was quite inexpensive too. I bought a beautiful shawl and some kitschy jewellary. We even went into a bar and drank a little and then stood by the riverside taking pictures.

One thing I must put down here, the people of Köln were very happy to see us for some inexplicable reason. Everybody kept smiling, waving and greeting us. It made us also very happy. Incredible how happiness and cheer are so infectious.

The evening kept getting more and more picturesque as it descended into night - The silhouette of the gigantic cathedral against the skyline, with the dark and mysterious river at its feet; a thread of bright yellow street lights lending even more glamour to the scene, their reflections bouncing off the onyx waters.

A Kodak moment, to be frozen in time, in my memory.

Outpouring

I think I know it
And then it gives the classic slip
My mind is a flurry of reasons, a jamboree
Churning out image after image

There I lie, crucified on the cross of reason
That is me behind the clouds, like the sun after - spreading light and wisdom
I dive into the ocean and bring back pearls
Yet I laugh like a hyena lurking in shadowy depths even Satan would not cross

I don’t look back
Whatever else I do
I do look back at times
And resolve it shall never be the same

When the dust has settled
When the battle is over
When the soldiers are dead, or gone home
When the medals have been pinned and the songs have been sung

That is when I pick up my sword and examine it close
I wipe out the blood, remove the tassels
It either shines like the North Star or
Crumbles in my hand like shattered glass

The Eternal Divide

This stint, has been such a refreshing change from Sales, I can’t stop marveling. I am in Mumbai and therein lies the biggest difference. I actually have a life. I meet people over weekends and engage in other pleasurable activities. Who would have thought?

Another whopper is the way people at office are.

A little bit of background first - I am working with the global team for Rin - Radiant to be precise, as it is called the world over. The first few days entailed going over material to understand the laundry habits of consumers in India and Thailand. I am now in a position to state, to the second decimal, ki junta apne kapdon ki dhulai hafte mein kitnein baar karti hai.

Moreover, my office is in Andheri and I live in Andheri. I must be the first human in the history of this great city to take less than 1.05 hours to reach work everyday.

So cut to the present. People at office - they are the complete anti-thesis of your threat-toting-invective-spitting Sales guy. They are chilled-out. They need to be. It’s a thinker’s game. Not much time to think in Sales. You can’t be creating great propositions when your team has to do 15 crores in 7 days, with a couple of bandhs coming up, a Big Bazaar Maha-bachat sale happening, topped with some random Mela - selling jaali Sunsilk and Fair n Lovely, that too - Ek lo toh Ek free. To add to that - the product that contributes 20 percent to your turnover has escalated steeply in price and the brand that literally pays your salary, by virtue of having the highest gross margins has lost its earlier consumer-acceptance. Aag lagi rehti hai bhai Sales mein.

I know I am getting abstruse.

So anyway - these Brand guys - they are the ones responsible for developing the brand. They sit and have serious discussions about whether the next communication should have a sasur-bahu angle or a bachha-and-his-dog angle and the psychological impact of each on the average consumer. They talk about fragrances and mixes and consumer blind tests, they talk about launches in Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa and telecons with people from five countries joining in; but at the end of the day, they keep their sanity.

Case-in-point -
Sales - He-who-must-not-be-named told me - You must work on weekends. And there is no need for sleep beyond 6 hours for a trainee.
Brands - A guy, of a similar designation as the aforementioned HWMNBN, exclaimed - Work on weekends? No way. Enjoy, party, get sloshed and if you want to know the names of some good places, just give me a ring.

They don’t want to grill us. They don’t want to kill us. It feels strange.

Wild Wild West

The details are getting a bit hazy now. It is going to be a year soon. I am talking about my travelogue. So let me resume my Exchange Escapades, lest they become a distant memory which I am able to recall no more, except with the blurry wistfulness with which one remembers the best times of one’s life.

Yes, I do remember them like that. I also remember them as being trying and taxing; one of the most life-changing phases in my life. But like I had said once - more on my personal life in my autobiography.

So here we were. Back in Brest after our first trip to Austria, Southern Germany and Slovakia. We had made some friends and went out partying with them. At least I did. With these two Indian women - the Ruchis - for what can be described as a ‘girls’ night out’ in Yankee parlance. We went pubbing and I decided to throw caution to the winds. When was I going to get the chance to get absolutely mind-blowingly-deliciously-debauched, in a place where no one recognized me?

A disc in forenland is a place to hook up. I had a ball, dancing like a lunatic on jail-break.
It was crazy, wild. More than alcohol, it was the thought that I could do whatever I wished that intoxicated me. Although I realized during the course of the night that social conditioning is stronger than one assumes it to be. I could not cross the line. I realized I didn’t want to.

Towards the end, I got strangely depressed. None of those people I had danced with, or spoken to would remember me beyond the stupor of their hangovers. I would not remember them either. Where were the people who really mattered?

Lately I have realized that your adolescent notion of invincibility is actually something else. It is part-fear-part-denial. One grows up.

Hey - do you believe in rock ‘n roll,
Tell me, can it save your mortal soul,
..And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Grey

Yet again I am in a train. I cannot remember the number of times I have packed my bags and ‘checked-out’ in the past 3 months. This kind of life is exciting, but also tedious. I hate lugging bags around. If only technology could make compression of matter possible. Or, maybe I could learn to travel light.

It has been long since I blogged. And there are infinite reasons. One could be that I don’t have enough to say. Could be, but isn’t. The real reason is that I have just too much to say.

This train chugs from Amdavad towards Mumbai. Mood - Grey. Skies - Black. On a tangent, have to get used to police dogs on platforms and in the trains. People milling around like normal, but there are these dogs to remind you that the pendulum swings far east.

Just finished reading that book - IIM to Gangjdundwara. Can’t believe it actually happened. The Epilogue is one of the most moving ones I have read in recent times. Do we ever really value experiences enough, until it is certain they are never to happen to us again?

I wish to do so much with my life. And yet in the quest for bigger things, we miss out on all the little things we could do to make a far-reaching impact on maybe - one person’s life. On the other side of this talk, lies the cynicism - why should all of us be striving to make a difference? It’s all just beauty-pageant-mumbo-jumbo anyway. Is there really a higher purpose to our existence, or are we here, as one of my dearest friends used to say - just to procreate?

That dearest friend is no more. In body, he is - somewhere. In spirit, he left me long ago. Or maybe I left him.

I want to freeze every memory in my head. I want to be able to summon them at will and relive them at leisure. I don’t ever want to go away, to lose touch, to not speak everyday with the people I do speak everyday with at this point in my life. I want every phase of my life to continue forever. Yet, I want several phases happening together. I want to be able to switch at will. Like Alt + Tab.

Is there a little of the tragic hero in all of us? Is there a little bit more in some than in others? Are all men born equal? Are some more equal than others? Is it competence against compassion? Is competence absolute? Is compassion ultimate?

The mood remains grey. The grey of a rainy day.

Devnagari dalliances

Man is malleable and ductile. While metal may have to be hammered into sheets and drawn into wires; man does not need to be subjected to such extreme measures. Teleport the quarry-worker into the mine-shift and within days, he shall be shielding his eyes from the sun.

Take me, for example. I caught myself thinking in Hindi the other day. It has only been over a month and a half that I started spouting Hindi, albeit like a broken fountain at the beginning - eloquence would come in bursts, followed by brief struggles that were attempts to translate complicated stuff into what is, ironically, my mother-tongue. Now - I even count in Hindi.

I am not trying to sound hip here. It’s just that I love the English language. Although I did very well at Hindi in school, English was my passion. I read my first real book when I was eight and never stopped. What I like about the language, I guess, is its universality, its vastness, its reach. I have access to so much more of the world because of it. Also, I imagine Hindi as a prudish old gentleman, a preacher of moral rectitude, his fiction often mired in tragedy - like Premchand. English is PG Wodehouse and Albert Camus; Enid Blyton and Harold Robbins; Ruskin Bond and Alistair McLean; Sidney Sheldon and Shakespeare.

Topic Change. About the Aarushi-hatyakand - the media-fication appalls me. What must those eight-year olds watching these murky proceedings be thinking? For a kid, completely enamored with her equally-doting dad, it must have come as a shock that fathers can be suspected of such evil. (I am not saying I believe he did it, I am just saying that even the suggestion of that must have been a perspective-changing experience for a child whose imagination would never have, otherwise, suggested such a possibility). Kids tend to magnify their unique little troubles. I hope parents are being sensible enough to shield their children from this blitzkrieg. I hope it’s possible to do so.

Pseudo-intellectual moi

Today I saw Amitav Ghosh being interviewed on some news channel. Barkha Dutt was conducting it, and the audience mostly comprised literature professors. I have not read too much of him, only ‘Dancing in Cambodia, at large in Burma’, and that too, when I was very young. I do remember that it introduced me to Pol Pot.

He is from St Stephens’ college. So are Shashi Tharoor, Kapil Sibal, Natwar Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar to name a few. I am not just dropping data, I am mighty impressed.

My curriculum-vitae reads funny - an Engineering degree in Telecommunications, a two year stint in IT (which had as little to do with Telecom as the Ram Temple in Ayodhya has to do with Godliness) and then the MBA which led to what I believe is my calling - far truer than any other - Marketing and perhaps, Sales (Sales is like the martinet-general, once schooled by him, you are never the same; but a good soldier, after having received his war-stripes, moves on.) I still have to make my mind up about that.

This post is meandering. What I really intended to do is mull over what I would have been had I not stepped into the glam-n-glitz of engineering (I suffer from intellectual snobbery, being an engineer is like page-three glamour for me :P ).

I have this theory - the life-is-a-canvas theory. I thought it up one day and was strangely proud of it. I tried to tell a few people, but they only laughed. One of my greatest achievements in life has been overcoming the fear of being ridiculed. So here it is - my life-is-a-canvas theory - for public consumption.

Internal Vs External. Self Vs Fate. Ability Vs Circumstances. Imagine a canvas - many-textured, loha at some places, satin at others; many hued - black and white and the entire range in between; glittering glimmering like a star and then again, dull as grey - imagine such a canvas. And then imagine yourself as an artiste. You daub at times, paint in broad strokes at others and bloody throw the damned pot of paint at the infuriating canvas on occasion. You change colors, you change themes, and you even change brushes. Some paint well, some don’t. Sometimes you paint well, but not always. The painting that you finally see emerging is your labor of love, no doubt, but not entirely as you had imagined it inside your head. Sometimes, it is better.

There it is - my theory! Hah! Although, it’s no E=MC^2, I bet Einstein would not have laughed.

The Silver Lining

I woke up at 7 and looked at the watch - actually the mobile; haven’t been using a watch since the past year or so. My 10-year old time-piece conked out and I don’t want to replace it with just any junk. One doesn’t upgrade a long-faithful 14” Onida for a 22” one; one goes instead for the high-definition plasma ‘experience’.

So anyway, it being 7 am on a Sunday morning, I switched-off for some more shut-eye. But my brain being the sort of villain it is - started shooting me red-alerts only an hour past. It knows. It knows that sleeping late on a Sunday is not the sort of luxury I can enjoy right now. As I was discussing with a friend the other day - Education ruined us.

I don’t really mean that. I would not like being vella. I like to work, to apply myself with a ferocity that scares even me at times. It’s just that - there are moments when I realize the viciousness of the cycle that I have got myself into. The pressure is intense, the will to excel is too; but the bar keeps getting raised. I know I will never ever fall short, but what happens to those dreams of long vacations, movie-marathons, quality family-time, gymming and dance classes, adda-ing with friends - lost&found&past&present, book-clubs and copious reading, love?


It is a tight-rope walk alright. Somedays I find it exhilarating - actually most days I do. You have to stay-put, up there in the air; neeche gehri khaai hai - bottomless chasm of never-ending responsibilities, assignments and promotions no doubt - but leaving you with slight opportunity to enjoy the fruits of labor.

And I am talking on behalf of most of the well-educated, talented people nowadays who get into crème-de-la-crème jobs early-on in life and then get creamed.

Chuck. On a lighter note, I recently visited the markets with a salesman who happens to be an artiste - the acting-bug has him in its girraft - and he boasts of a repertoire comprising some 200-odd shayaris. He started belting them out on the ride back. Now, I remember Banjo talking about a similar experience on his travels. But I am one-up on him. Peruse this -

Dibbi pe dibbi, dibbe mein choona
Dibbi pe dibbi, dibbe mein choona
Jab Shreya madam jaaegi Puna
Prime Distributors ho jaaega soona!

Heh. The perks of this job are many. Some are obvious and some - a little unconventional. These latter ones do ‘perk-you-up’, nonetheless.

Amdavad!

Long-time-no-see daahlings. I am in Amdavad. Have been since the past one week. Has it only been a week since I landed straight from Baroda at the distributor’s avec almost all my worldly possessions – ready to take charge?

Truly speaking, it has been the best week at work so far. Life does the hula-hoops around targets, invoices, inventory, margins and discounts. There are market visits – irate shopkeepers who lay bare all the torturous practices (real or imaginary) that Levers has subjected them to, or extremely ingratiated ones who want to transfuse your blood with Wagh Bakri. I fire-fight, and when actions fail, words soothe. Saving the best for the last, the crowning glory of this week has been - being in a position where I am to lead seven grown men – all graduates and experienced at their work – the Salesmen. People, whom I am supposed to motivate, monitor, remonstrate quite frequently and nurture. I try.

The other stud in the stable is the distributor - one of those picture-perfect seths – cash-cribbing, daughter-doting, wily-little-magnate, who probably learnt aatte-daal kaa bhaav before the alphabet.

Sales is something else. It’s dog-eat-dog and dynamic – extremely affected by externalities – be those in the form of a dip in the share market or the new school year. To explain – both of the above result in ‘market mein mandi’ since trade does not have the purchasing power. Then there is the fact that all the stakeholders are constantly trying to take you for a ride. I sleep like a dog – an eye and a ear open, on constant alert.

A shopkeeper recently kept asking me – Madam, kya aap practical ho? I finally asked him to explain to me the meaning of the word and as it turns out, he was worried that being a girl, I wouldn’t be able to get my work done, if need be, through underhanded means – tedhi oongli kaa istamaal. I wonder. Although it has nothing to do with being a girl. That if anything, is an advantage.

You may ponder if you have the time and patience that this that I am describing does not sound all that different from what I was doing in the first two weeks. Let me explain. Then I was a hanger-on, an observer, a side-kick at best. Now I am the one whose head will roll. A couple of cool crores hold me to ransom.

As of now, I am celebrating, one of the many targets has been met and I am taking my boys out to dinner. They worked hard towards it – madam se party jo leni thi. Smart boys – street-wise since they spend so much time on it, making ample use of psychology and subliminal coercion to meet their ends. I like them, but my mind at times screams in militaristic fashion – saavdhaan!

Watte industry. I am sorry to see little red riding hood, or whatever of her was left, take flight. On the other hand, someone had once said, which went on to make television history – Welcome to the real world; it sucks; but you will love it.