The train

He runs towards the train
With all his might and steam
As it starts pulling out slowly

He jumps over junta sleeping
Pushing ardent coolies away
They look at his flying form with contempt

Somebody pull the chain!
But nobody is looking at him
They would not care anyway

He sinks to the ground
And screams out aloud
Tears mingling with sweat

The train picks up speed
And disappears from his view..
..he was late - again

Wedding belles and cow bells

Rashmi got married. We went to the reception. A whole lot of us and it was great fun. I rediscovered the joys of hanging out with more than two people at a time.

It's always a little strange to see one's friends with their family. Even stranger to see them with in-laws. It's like Copernicus discovering that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

Some time back, on one of my travels, I chanced across a Cattle Bazaar. Yes, that means a congregation of folks who want to sell their cattle and folks who want to buy those cattle. There were around a hundred buffaloes there, with their owners sitting around them, waiting for bids. The most striking thing about the whole shindig was that these cattle were all done-up like they were going to dance at Kareena Kapoor's wedding. Their vast jello bodies had been covered in abeer of various colors, some had bells on their horns, some colored ribbons. Maybe Big Ben is right. The markets do look - bullish.

As I sit and write, I steal a glance at my deflated de-beaned bag. And I just cant hold it in anymore! People of the city of Bombay - have you never wondered about Bean Bags? Not actually about bean bags, but about these two words scrawled all over the city, with a phone number in tow? I have been around in Mumbai since the past thirteen years, and in almost all of those years, have seen these omnipresent signs at the least expected of places - on asbestos sheets at constructions sites, steel pipes, chipped walls that you pass from the inside of a train. How, why, what? Which surreptitious bean-bag store owner stalks the city post mid-night and makes the whole world his visiting card? Do these owners have secret associations? The Priory of Sion? (For non-mumbai junta, Sion is also a place in central mumbai).

Back to the wedding. Kavity looked resplendent in black. Lighter, much. Deepa-sans-hubby, was the only one who knew the pain of standing on stage with arc lights beaming and strangers - coming-grinning-shaking. (Although it must be said that the bride was more preening than pained). Jags, Shahrukh-esque, 'stole' stylishly flung around neck, was the star of the trip. Don't ask me why. Katrix, though a much-improved version as far as socializing with the female of the species is concerned, spent the day with both his feet inside his mouth. Tatha, at one point, turned to me and said - Good you are here, at least one other person beside me shall be boozing. I had to pick up my jaw from the floor post this shocking revelation. Mani, the lean-mean-case-writing-machine Mani. Also gym-going, daaru-drinking, laundi-aspiring Mani. VVB, quiet, quite.

Rashmi looked like she had the whole evening in the bag. She knew what to say, whom to say to, how to say. In her element, centerstage, beautiful, shimmering, glimmering, Mrs Rammohan. Dijo promised not to read that night.

Think marriage is not all that bad. My sidie am sure will rock the other side of that prickly fence too.

The Rock Star

Stoned and blurry-eyed
He looked at the pulsating crowds
Some were waving hands
Screaming his name

His guitar hung limp
Oozing blood
His hair stuck to his face
Beads of loftiness

He swayed back to his room
Unseeing of all the madness
His room felt like a silent scream
He turned on his heel

Floating on a cloud
Drugged into legend
Only his music living
He was the rock-star

Chronicles of an ASM

So as I stand in these godowns, I sometimes have these little out-of-body experiences, wherein my spirit floats outside of my body, hovering somewhere a couple of feet above my head and watching the proceedings with not a little amusement.

Here is how the scene looks - straight out of a Manmohan Desai flick – it has weird characters, extras and props. There are a couple of prosperous-looking (read well-endowed around the stomach region) men invariably in shabby clothing (in complete contrast to the prosperous image that the pot-belly arouses) - they are the dukaandaars - let me refer to them as mai-baap from now on. Then there is a sharply-dressed guy, in formals, who looks like an Income Tax officer conducting a raid. He surveys the godown with the eye of a hawk and the sure-footedness of a mountain goat. He is also playing the part of a tour-guide, displaying the attractions, rather ruins of an erstwhile shrine to his hapless boss - this guy is the Territory Sales Officer, in other words - the company's eyes, ears and bald pate on the field. Next there is a suspicious looking bloke in uniform - he is the sales equivalent of the 'aam aadmi'. He carries samples for new launches, takes orders for 150 products, manages to have around him some twenty odd sheets with various data tables detailing how much maal each dukaandaar on his beat took in which month, in what state of mental sobriety etc etc. He claims to his dying breath that he refers to these sheets. This guy is the Salesman, that epitome of hard-work, efficacy, intelligence, selling-skills, mathematical prowess that gets Levers its 14000 crore per annum revenue and him his Rs 7000 per month salary. And then there are the distributors - these mini-ambanis and birlas, the difference being that an Ambani has only his stern mother or political godfather to answer to, whereas these poor guys are pulled up to task more often than Ram Gopal Varma makes flop-busters. There are a few extras dotting the landscape too, for hauling-and-carrying purposes.

And the company boss, or the madam in this case. This girl, who, in happier circumstances, would not look out of place getting her nails done in an up-market salon on Carter road, instead paces around these shady holes – in basements or attics, drinking in all that they carry – sacks of flour, overpowering and enticingly sweet smell of jaggery, bags of green, blue, yellow detergent powder, stacks of green, blue, white, pink, yellow detergent cakes, drums of oil, sacks of masalas, battalions of mice. She counts the bags, pokes the stacks, and looks around with blood-shot eyes, shooting questions faster than quick-gun-murugan. That’s her role – to squirm the hell out of all around.

It’s a funny scene alright.

Inspired

As day moves into week, week into months, I realize that many many things are going unsaid. While a whole lot that has never been said before is being painted in scarlett letters across the evening sky.

I vacillate between trying to be good and trying hard to not be all good. The goodness in me prevents me from succumbing whole-ly to it, because nothing ever is, all good. Selfishness keeps us sane.

There's a balance to be striven towards. Life is about balance. You need to get the scales to be carrying just the right quantities of love, hatred, belief, cynicism, naivete, worldliness, individuality, collectivism, poetry, practicality, defiance, submissivity, objectivity, subjectivity, indifference, compassion, the yin, the yang to reach that point of absolute perfection.

And yet, they never will. For, what's the point of living then?

Twenty-Seven

The fool bumbles along
Falling into ditches galore
Dusts self off and sets out again
Singing a happy tune

Songs of friendship
Love and great riches that await
The promise makes the going
More exciting than the reward

He meets travelers
Who have buried their boots
Their cauldrons simmer
Granaries full of grain

He looks wistfully at them
At times, wanting a full meal
And the assurance of one all winter
But the stars twinkle-ingly beckon

Everyday is an adventure
Though he knows not where he is going
But he is the fool
And he can do as he pleases

A full ton

Read Smart Alec's blog today where she writes about it turning 50. This is my 100th post, in over three years. Not Sterling by any standards, except maybe Smart Alec's.

But let me not put any more pressure on this just-born-post by going on and on about it making that turn of the century. Let me just - write. Let this post be a mosaic of all these wispy thoughts that are flying around in my head.

Sometime back, I stumbled across a cracker of an idea - THE EXIT ROOM. A getaway. Every relationship must have one. It is to be noted that it is a 'room' I suggest, not a retreat or a farmhouse in the country, a villa in France, or a cabin in the woods. Point being, it must be a hop, skip and jump away. Your oasis.

Having spoken about wispy thoughts, they are getting wispier by the second. Getting increasingly difficult to pin them down. How can it be that I have nothing worth blogging about. Writer's block? Mid-life crisis? Ahem, let us not dwell too long on the latter.

Luxury. We all have different definitions for it. For me, luxury is functional. Non-indulgent. I would not appreciate monogrammed pillow cases. But somebody to do my taxes would be put on an engraved pedestal and fed grapes.

Mumbai is having a swim-athon. I dont like the rains, at least not when I am caught in them. I refuse to carry an umbrella. Who wants to go armoured against something as depressing as the skies howling their eyes out. I'd much rather go out in denial of their existence.

A member of my team recently resigned. He is getting a much better pay-package at some other company. He called to inform me and I was quite speechless. Not out of shock, but out of a genuine lack of anything to say. On a slightly different note, I call my line manager - Boss. It feels just awesome. To be part of that culture where he tells me - Shreya, you must really hump your people if they dont perform. And I say, Yes Boss, I will.

Tambakoo

Some things in life are simple.

The other day in Satana, which is a town somewhere near Dhulia - if you know where that is, I learnt that the government had made it mandatory to put pictures of cancerous crabs on local zarda. Which had resulted in a 50% decline in sales.

Wow. That's cause and effect. As simple as it gets.

Pain and Prada

I like Carrie from Sex and the City. That is one honest character. In all her relationships, she has never shied away from asking questions. Even potentially dangerous ones, which could leave her out in the dry.

I admire that kind of honesty. Most people struggle to get that honest with themselves, let alone others.

Why is it so that we so love to live in denial. Why is it so difficult to accept that our lives will have some troubles, that it will not be as picture-perfect as the Swiss Alps.

We need to come to terms with the fact that sometimes happiness does not fall out of the sky. Like marble has to be chiselled to be made into a 'David', life has to be worked upon.

No pain, no gain. Pain is the single most important constant of our lives. It's an indicator of the love we feel, of the effort we make, of the heights we rise to. It is at the center of all human existence.

Back-pack and a road-map

I don't know what it is with traveling and me. One of those infamous love-hate relationships. I have traveled more than most people I know. Have lived in numerous cities, had homes in four. Traveled eighteen countries and over forty cities in Europe. Been to the far east - the land of the stinky food and chinky people. In the last year itself, have been to more than seventy cities, towns and villages in India. And I love it. I love my job and my life.

Yet, yet. Most of this is not the kind of traveling that sets my pulse racing. I dont like going to places for four days, blurring past all the hot-spots, leaving with a lot less money and a zillion photographs in my touristy bag. I dont like squeezing out time from sardines-in-a-can like day to clock in some moments as a wander-lusty tourist, laptop firmly in bag.

Traveling isn't a morning-evening journey. It isnt going to the famous Lucknawi chikan market on the way back to the airport and buying half the shop in a tizzy of excitement to carry gifts home. It isnt staying in the best hotel in Gorakhpur with toilet paper, but being too fatigued to get the ayurvedic massage in Varanasi. It isnt disembarking on the red-earth of Chiplun at 5 in the morning, having the best haafuz and pomfret that coastal Ratnagiri has to offer and then throwing-up after four hours of non-stop travel on those serpentine roads of the ghats. It isnt visiting a Sericulture farm in Kolar in between village visits, watching the moth and the female mate, after which the female gives birth and dies and the males are recycled. It isnt having the best filter coffee ever at T-nagar in Chennai in between gruelling interviews, or spending some now-missed idle moments at one of the beaches of toy-town Pondicherry in the midst of that one-week schedule packed with assembly lines, pack mats, gigantic distillation chambers and safety boots. It isnt having sweet bengali rasmalai at a dhaba on the road between sultry Kolkata and buzzing Burdhawan.

None of this is travel. Or atleast not the kind of travel that I can say I have a passion for. What is it then?

Traveling is - when you have a sense of timelessness. When you can get up at 4 in the morning and watch the sun rise, come back and sleep till noon. When you stroll aimlessly in whichever direction the wind takes you in, spend the day being a spectator, and come back with a sense of accomplishment. When you take the same buses and trams that locals take. When you shop at the same markets that they shop at. When you hang out at the same joints. You do visit the famous places, but you also revisit. You want them to become a part of you, you don't want to leave with just photopgraphs, you want to leave with memories - you want to leave the Eiffel with memories, of your visit.

But maybe I am wrong and need to get my priorities right. It is not about squeezing in a coffee when the flight is delayed at the airport in Kolhapur, but about squeezing in some work while primarily on a visit to the Ajanta-Ellora after having spent a couple of fully-paid-for-by-company days at the awesome Taj, Aurangabad.

White Hot

The sea was as calm as ever. More importantly, she was calm - it always had that effect on her.

Such an endless expanse of blue-green, a little scary at times. But she had grown up with it, seen it turn within a span of 10 years into less of the blue-green and more of the black-brown that this city is so famous for.

Why only this city, why blame only this city. Isnt that the way of life? A baby - pure as untainted snow, a water-cress lily. The entire transformative journey into adulthood and beyond is paved by dark encounters with this degenerate world. Any aberation is just that - an aberation.

She wondered - was life meant to be this difficult? Is that what the challenge of it was? Would we be just cardboard cut-outs of the Brady family if things were any different? Would she mind?

The waves made these swooshing noises. And some spraying noises. She could feel the salt on her face. It stung. Especially at the places where her wounds were still healing.

But the scars inside ran far deeper and were dangerous, as dangerous as righteousness. Righteousness gives us a special kind of anger, that seethes and seethes, sending out little sparks before engulfing all that comes in its way.

The scenes kept coming back to her. The smell of charred human flesh filled her dreams. Her anger was white-hot.

Where is my funny bone

I think I am getting unfunnier by the day.
I write funny no longer. I read funny no longer. No wait, make that - I read no longer.
I dream about work. Everyday. Every-single-fucking day.

Maybe I should turn up in office one day wearing just a jute bag, go slap a few people around me and then take a dive off the emergency exit.
Nobody will take me seriously after that. Ever.
Problem solved.

ASM-ing in the hinterland

Sunday night. Back from another one of those weekends.

Life has been so hectic in the past couple of months. All the new people and places. The responsibility. What gets me is that if I screw up, twenty other people get screwed too. I am not sure I am ready for that. It is a heady feeling, people saying 'Yes Boss' to you all the time. The first time I was called Boss, I didnt realize it was me being addressed. The flip-side to being this boss person are many, though. Like I said, I can't switch off. Then, I can't just do my own bit and mush-off. I need to remember who did what, bring it up in the right forum, ensure they get suitably appreciated/rewarded/promoted/reprimanded/punished for it.

Am I having fun? Most times, yes. Sometimes though, I wish I could just quit and run away from it all. Those times being Tuesday mornings, in particular, when I have to get up at the crack of dawn and head out of Mumbai.

Maharashtra rural. My playground, my workplace, my mecca. People - not from HUL, I tell this to, visibly wince. But I know that at this point of time in my life, nothing else would have been good enough.

Schizophrenia

The wheel turns full circle
Ordainment happens
Honeymoon finally over

December Day turns into week and weeks
From a hazy shade of hesitant winter to full-bodied spring
Good times only rolling stronger

Long rides through the dusty
And simmering roads
Seat belt firmly around the neck

The longest ride in a long time
The most fun too
Learning to let go of the safety clasp

Poha for breakfast
Errant marathas for lunch
She-boss

Morning chai
Lunch by the Viao
Girl and friend

Deep thought and the answer is not 42

Lately I have been thinking about creativity. It seems to me, that the more creative a person is, the more self-loving they tend to be.

While it is possible to be self-loving or narcissistic without being creative, the other way round - is that possible?

Imagine a painter. What great emphasis must he be putting on his vision of the world, that he decides to express it.

Creative people are consumed by their own thoughts and interpretations and want to put them out there, somewhere, for the world to see and enjoy, sometime - if not today.

(A person could argue that some people create for the sake of creation and not for other people to enjoy. By world, I don’t necessarily mean people though. Anything, plants, rocks, rivers. And the fact that they think what they can create is worth creating, means they must have a sense of self-importance. Does it not?)

A writer must be deeply aware of self. He cannot just be narrating incidents. He puts a bit of himself in everything he writes. People reading him relate that bit to random bits in their own self.

Being self-aware is not the same as being narcissistic though. The line may appear blurred, but people who are self-aware are also aware of their fallacies. Well aware.

Are writers simply self-aware? Or also self-loving?

The other side to this coin is that most writers, especially writers of fiction are excellent observers of people, scenery, human nature.

“Her body-language was fatigued. Hunched back. Sagging shoulders. Un-flexed arms. Sitting across from me, she was reading The Financial Times. While chewing gum - slowly, lazily. The impression was entirely of someone who was supremely disinterested in life.”

I can imagine a writer, Rushdie, Lahiri etc, traveling the world, doing research - meeting people, observing them, taking notes, taking in.

One can’t both be an excellent observer of other people and deeply narcissistic? It’s a paradox. Narcissus had no place in his life for observing other people.

Maybe it’s a professional requirement. Or maybe writers aren’t really all that creative - just talented at observing and then expressing.

Or maybe, my hypothesis that all creative people have a bit of Narcissus in them, is flawed to begin with. Perhaps they are only deeply respectful of their self, their ego.

Spike me!

I still get nightmares from the time that the ‘resume mentor’ would inspect records of my flimsy achievements with steely-eyed determination, just like a Chinese woman inspecting her face for clogged pores. And then sport a look of resigned frustration, just like the afore-mentioned woman’s husband footing the bill for pore-opening creams, lotions, essences, masks and serums. A pore, after all, has to breathe.

But I digress.

The point is, I finally have my ‘spike’.

I have climbed The Great Wall twice.

Beat that - any of you 9+ pointers, who win Olympiads or design regression models for fun. And maybe play a little tabla on the side. At concerts.

The child inside of us

Why do we like children?

I like kids because they are cute. First of all. But the larger reason is that they are so upfront about most things. Comfortable with their vices.

Scenario I - Two kids playing with a ball. They will fight for it with all their heart. One will sit on the other till he/she relinquishes the object of objection. Scenario II - You playing with a kid. Making funny faces, trying to make it laugh. The kid does not think it funny. Will make no pretense. Will raise hell and high water if you don’t let it go when it wants to.

Children are endearingly selfish. They know what they want, are not afraid of taking action on it, no matter how silly the desire may be - candy floss or your attention. They are huge attention-seekers too.

They are miniature us with no-holds-barred. We love to see them go at each other with such unbridled enthusiasm. We figure let them have fun while they still can. But somewhere, children are endearing to us because we live our vicarious desires, especially the baser ones, through them.

On the other hand, some of the most annoying grown-ups I have met are the ones who have not outlived the child inside them. The ones who still think that their wishes should be uppermost on the minds of all around. The ones who will ruthlessly engineer events around them to get what they want because they actually believe they deserve it.

A child is all that we love with gusto. A ‘childish’ man we abhor.

Selling my soul, while helping you find soul-mate

I hope you guys are noticing some of the advertisements that Google has been throwing off-late at my blog.

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How promising. And what a brilliant piece of advertising. Beautifully laddered.

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How cool is that.

The bigger question to ask here is why these ads are finding their way to my blog. An even bigger point of curiosity for me is, why aren’t any of you people clicking? I don’t see any hefty google pay-cheques in the mail.

Have we become so jaded as a society that even promises of meeting beautiful women, making an endless amount of money and finding the soul-mate, fail to excite?

What do we really want?

I, for one, want some dollars, courtesy Google. Please do click.

Peace-time love

They were in love

Oh, it was anguish

It was candlelight

It was music and heady perfume

And traveling for two hours just to spend one together

It was long phone calls

And silly fights

Beautiful words and stolen kisses.

And then came the day

When he didn’t feel the need to bathe

And she didn’t feel the need to wax

They love each other more deeply now

Anguish firmly replaced by

Formless pajamas and a five-day old stubble

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.