The opposite of Nostalgia

A decade or near, lost in a haze
A rush of sweetness and silliness
It was a mini-era, a defining phase
Of judgement errors and confusion

Now your walls are fortified with bones
Yet their ghosts walk the corridors
Mocking you in their silly-erring tones
Giggling madly, these pathetic shadows

So break bread with them, forgive their silly hearts
And they will climb into bed, forever go to rest
Leaving you as more than a sum of many parts
As strong as good, and best of all - You, just you

Hope

The train pulled out of the station just as she tumbled onto the platform. Resignedly she started weaving her way through to the ladies' spot. The next train would be a ten-minute-wait away.

This happened to her with alarming regularity. She attributed it to a well-oiled failure to plan well. She knew how long it would take for her to reach this blasted station from her office. She also knew what time the train was scheduled to arrive and miraculously, it always did arrive at that time. Admittedly mathematics wasn't her strongest suit, but nobody could deny that a simple calculation would reveal to her the time after which lingering around in office wasn't advisable, train-wise.

It is widely acknowledged by experts that doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results, amounts to insanity.

She definitely didn't consider herself insane. A failure at planning, yes. Oh, to heck with it, just a failure would suffice.

She got to the ladies' section and looked around for some space to sit. The area seemed well-packed with women of every shape and size. Innocuous-looking, the layman would have confused them with working girls, students, fisherwomen and the like, gathered for a spot of train travel. But she knew better. These were battle-ready women. Train-catching - a sport, nay, a means of survival in this break-neck city where the old refrain of Time being equal to Money came alive with disastrous results.

While looking for a place to sit down, she realized that she was hungry. The bhel-man was standing at his usual spot, sourrounded by a throng, dishing out variations of the simple bhel at super-sonic speed, dexterously, almost robotically. She joined the crowd and no sooner than five minutes later, she was in possesion of some delicious looking bhel.

Another three minutes to wait till the train was due, she went and sat down on one of the benches below the Bhojpuri posters. Almost content, she plunged the puri into the mountain of bhel and was about to toss it into her mouth, when a sullen looking boy appeared on the horizon.

It was almost like he came out of nowhere. A nobody. Emaciated, anguish pouring out of every atom
of his unexistence. He had bruises all over his body. Somebody had beaten him up over something or nothing.

She didn't like to give money to beggars. She hated them - their neediness. She had enough problems of her own and could do without beggars pressing on her their implied right to her money just because they had even lesser.

After hovering in front of her for a second, he moved to the next person, aggressively appealing, palm perpetually outstretched. As she watched him go, a whistle pierced the clamor and her train came into view. People around became infected with motion, poised, flexing.

She made a sudden decision, leaped up and hailed the walking form of the boy; she turned him around and thrust the bhel into his astonished arms. Without waiting to see if the urchin threw it away, for bhel ain't money, she walked briskly towards her compartment and succeded in getting in without loss of life or limb.

She felt happy-ish. Yes, it was a good-ish deed. But what could it solve for the poor boy? Bhel and then a beating. Life was too complicated. A good-ish deed was equivalent to a candle in the Milky Way.

* * *

His life was a misery. The memory of previous night made his skin crawl. Although, the beatings were not the worst of it; that constant ache in his belly was. Always around, the Hunger.

Especially nowadays. Business was slow. People weren't as charitable.

He had nowhere to go. He was a city boy. His parents had sold him to Mammu for a small sum of money. What had become of them, he knew not.

As he neared the end of his regular beat, he realized the earnings from the day would be less than meagre. That meant no food and a beating - at best.

He did think of running away sometimes. But fear of the unknown kept him from doing it. He had never known another life. What if it was even more undignified? And where could he go? With little money of his own and no worthwhile skill to live on, some other Mammu would get hold of him and life could get worse. People weren't great. Apathetic at best, evil, many of them.

He walked onto the platform and decided to work the Churchgate-Virar line. Lots of women there.

Ten minutes, less than ten rupees. The train was due anytime now. He walked around aimlessly and then spotted the girl. He had come to dislike her. She was a regular at this platform and the two times that he had tried to solicit her, she had looked like she would like to hit him.

Still, business was slow. He walked towards her, unable to put on a look of abject appeal this time. She gave him the same smouldering look. As the train whistled in the background, he started to move away from her.

That is when it happened. The girl called out to him, then turned him around and almost threw her bhel into his gaping arms. And as suddenly, she was gone. Clutching onto the Bhel, he watched the train ebbing away, aghast.

People did give him food sometimes. But this..this was different. 

He started to walk away from the platform in a daze. He was feeling light-headed, almost dizzy and it wasn't because of hunger for the first time in his life.

It dawned on him that maybe the world wasn't such a bad place after all. Maybe people changed. Good things happened without begging for them to. Things changed. Fortunes changed. A beggar could, maybe-just-maybe, think of becoming somebody else, somebody non-beggarly.

I'm no manager, or am I

Yesterday while watching Scrubs, I realized how different the creative oeuvre is from the 'managerial' one.

I love Scrubs. I am sure a lot of you out there do too. We can all go on about the things we love about it - the characters, JD, the madness, the Janitor, the verbose insults, Perry Cox, matter-of-factness with which problems are shown/dealt with, etc etc.

What I love most about Scrubs and not just as an audience member, but as an interested party in the creative process, what I find dazzling is the tedious limit to which Bill Lawrence will go to, to get a teeny-tiny point across.

Cut to an episode in the early seasons where JD has been entrusted with recording the birth of Jordon's friend's baby. JD forgets to rewind or something and the recording does not happen. Dr Perry Cox, to save himself from 'My ex-wife will hold this over my head for so long, I may never see the sun again' kind of situation, tries to pass-off a recording of another baby in its place. But both these babies have one critical difference - the one on camera has hair, while the real one, as was presented to the mother, didn't. JD jumps in to say that he had shaved the baby. As all eyes rivet onto him, Dr Cox makes what I think one of his funniest statements ever - 'Yes, we shave babies to remove traces of any prenatal lice'.

Jordon looks at him like a suspicious mother who knows her precocious child is lying to her. And then there is this delicious little scene - Jordon standing at the check-out counter, holding a book with a jacket which says - 'I shaved the baby to remove prenatal lice, by Dr Perry Cox' - she says to the guy at the counter - 'I am not buying it'. Then cut to reality in the Scrubosphere.

That's it. This little scene would have necessitated the making of a jacket and creating an additional scene set-up - not that very much admittedly. But think of what the scene is trying to say - that Jordon doesn't believe Dr Cox. Could that have been said verbally? Yes. Would it have made Scrubs the quirky, funny show that it is? No.

And this is just one of the very-very-many such scenes that the show is littered, nay, embellished with.

Now have a 'manager' direct the same show. He would identify key storylines, build scenes around them, cut out the superfluous, not realizing or considering that it is the little flounces and deviations that make a name - a signature.

Point is, creativity is not to achieve a purpose, a return-on-effort or return-on-investment. It is because it can be.

God's little Irony

A: I know you don't believe in God.
B: That's not entirely true. I believe there is something/someone.
A: Then why don't you like to pray?
B: Because He/She (let's call it an It) is supposed to be Omni-potent, Omni-scient and all those ominous sounding things. Why would I need to pray? It will know when I am in trouble and need help. Why should I have to ask?
A: Because It has many things to do and many people to listen to.
B: But It is OMNI-SCIENT! Is this supposed to mirror your relationship with your Bosses, where prudence has it that you put on a show for your superiors? Or perform that all-pervasive ritual of corporate-dom called 'saveyourass-anam' entailing keeping your superiors 'aligned'; in the hope that should the house-of-cards fall, you are able to SYA?
B (on a roll now): You know, in fact, I have never understood how in those mythological stories, any rakshas could fast for a few days and God would descend and happily give him some killer boon! How could He not have known that the guy was a rakshas and would use it towards evil?
A: How could he have known?
B: Because he is OMNI-POTENT! Man, it seems like I am the only one who does believe! 

Midnight in Paris

A whiff of a memory

A nugget, no more

Opens flood-gates of sorts

To the glorious days of yore

Tis an addiction my love

Of the very worst kind

The present’s a bastard

Crushed by your wandering mind

Like holding sand in your fist

Like caging warm sunshine

Like trying to preserve bubbles

Nostalgia’s a futile past-time

The past may well be a frog

Only Prince from remote

Yes, it offers a bitter sweetness

Of lost young dreams and old love-notes

Richness of a mirage-like past

Will paint a drab today and morrow

So beware of this craving, my loveliness

Tis the road to inexplicable sorrow

Kolaveri

I am sure what I am about to refer to will resonate with a lot of girls who blundered their way through adolescence in the mid 90s - adulation for that devilishly-dimpled-derring-do who took over the country and whose fiery courtship in DDLJ established itself as benchmark for all teenage romance.

Till a few years ago, it would seem as if SRK had gone from strength to strength - one commercial success after another. His business sense was to be applauded - so what if he danced at weddings - show me the manual on '101 things a movie actor should not do' and I will show you one on 'Have pull, will make money'.

However, I am now beginning to get ticked off. How dare he contribute to something like Ra-one, the way he did? Minimal research and lack of attention to detail - for example on how a Tamilian Brahmin might behave or more importantly, not behave - and extreme caricaturization. The movie raked in some money because of the hype and curiosity created. Similar case with Don-2. It's almost like he thinks he is the Super-hero himself, he is Don - the guy who can get away with anything, because the audience swoons every time he throws a lazy smile its way. Or so he would like to believe.

Moving on from SRK to other rotten tomatoes found around aplenty - it angers me when film-makers dish out any shit in a predictable, formulaic manner - with the requisite number of high-speed car chases, semi-bad-dudes-with-an-underlying-intention-of-doing-good and glam dolls (given enough screen time to display their assets from every angle).

Yes, I am talking specifically about - Players. It made me mad. Millions being foolishly spent on an unoriginal idea, which if left to itself may have saved the day, but was made worse by doing that thing in hell which film-makers like to call Indianization. This sub-par movie has protagonists who decide to carry out a  heist so that they can then use the Gold to build an orphanage. Abbas-Mustan - do you two really think that your multiplex audience, for whom this movie is obviously made, has the constitution of a particularly sappy fifteen-year-old girl? That you need to trot out the good old 'childhood-spent-in-poverty-sister-got-raped-so-I-turned-into-Robin-Hood' kinda crutch for your heroes?

Shame on you guys - your audience whom you insult so generously, will repeat the favor next time by ignoring your slickly-made advertrailors and preferring to spend their time and money on others with more brains and balls.

P.S - I haven't watched Players - this kolaveri has been generated after speaking to people who have and reading a couple of reviews. If that made me so angry, I shudder to think of what might have happened, had I actually decided to spent good-hard-earned money on it. Thanks your lucky stars, A-M.

A question to myself

..and while the seasons pass me by
the tides, they go mellow and high
pictures of sunsets, seas and serenity
play havoc with my hardened equanimity
but resolutely I sit nailed to the chair
and think 'bout another place - anywhere
City rat - drink to that
that someday perhaps, perhaps you will
like the future to just be a thrill
of ways unknown, jobs small and galore
where success would be a by-product, no more
so will you have the heart, my friend
to drop the ball and buck the trend?

The anatomy of Anger

The hot volcanic burst
A manic lusty blood-thirst
Eyes aglow and ablaze
A snarling baying cannibalistic gaze
A clogging intake of breath
Like the silence of a suffocating death
An increasingly-deafening throbbing vein
Blood like molten lava mixed with pain
Pities to the victim of such an attack insane
The misguided sod who houses this cancerous bane

Patchwork and Bollywood

What is liberation all about? In today's zeitgeist, and for me, it means stuffing my work overalls into that trunk in the attic and devoting self to making the home and hearth a thing of beauty and a joy forever (or at least till the mood runs its course). Quite a radical thought. 

I have been noticing on my travels, that the masses have taken up 'Being Human' with great gusto. Not even S.Khan would have envisioned a tribute as timeless and conclusive as this coming his way - fake imitations of his brand. Fake BH tees find themselves breathing the same rarefied air that an international fake is used to - clandestine consignments of them getting smuggled into the country all the way from hawk-town Bangkok, no less. Congratulations Salman, as the credit for this dubiously delightful distinction goes to your carefully-crafted mass appeal and punctiliously-performed public image.

So what have I been up to apart from drawing up wishlists and pontificating about the Khan-daan? Well, lots. For one, I saw The Dirty Picture.

Although I don't remember you asking, I would describe it as a great concept gone slightly awry. The three men in the life and times of 'Silk' (I can never get around to understanding how a person can be named that. It is like you see a construction worker walking by with a load of cement on his head and you decide to rename the heroine of your movie - Mud) and how they play dramatically different roles. Apart from N.Shah's lech act, the other two are poorly fleshed out and executed.Tusshar's character is lifeless and Hashmi's sudden transformation is too much to take for an audience who by the time that Sufi song rolls around, wants the movie to end. Vidya Balan is brave and wanton and uninhibited, a pleasure and the real reason, like her character in the movie, that people go to watch TDP for. Her acting, but mainly her skin-expo.

See, like 'Silk', I am playing to the gallery too - where would you be now had I announced my activities of the last few days largely consisted of charting out a development plan for categories in my area, looking at past trends, and market movements? Possibly, on another blog.

The year draws to a close and I still don't have a plan regarding where to wind it up - digress - last year, we went to Karwar, where we realized that tranquility does not become us, at least not unless we have paid hundreds of euros and are seeking it in the exotic locales of the Mediterranean islands or some such  - so yes, we don't have a plan. But as the best laid plans of mice and men often come to naught, I want for fate to play the lead this time and fling us against whatever rocks she thinks are deserving of our lethargy.

So, to adventures planned and unplanned - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year folks!

Family ties and business

Having grown up in an education-focused, private-service-destined environment, I didn't have a clue until recently about the special kind of fuel that drives the merchant class of the nation.

 The Marwari-Gujarati-Sindhi commune - them scientists should do a gene investigation in order to identify that strand which infuses them with such sound business sense. Buying land worth crores of rupees, with the acute sense that it is going to be worth crores more in five years, is their daily nasta.

In my family, education is supreme and we worship the Chitragupt bhagwan, a being who was thought up by Brahma for the express purpose of keeping records of all creatures on earth - of their deeds and misdeeds - and then based on those deciding who should be allowed to go to heaven, who banished to hell. So no feats of bravery, spiritual purity or wealth creation for us. We are the diligent, academic, prudent and stern keepers of dharma.

Anyhow, speeding back to the present - my family is stuffed to the brim with people who have won accolades for their academic brilliance. From childhood on, I have been hearing that we don't have the 'business mindset', in various degrees of condescension of tone.

So the 'business mindset' was something which I associated with mercenary behavior, the tendency to sell the shirt off the back of your best friend, if circumstances so dictated.

As time passed, and Manmohan S and PC made it easier for folks with ideas to set up shop, young India started to count unlikely entrepreneurs, not necessarily from a business background, among their role-models. Yet, these were of a very different ethos than the traditional gujju business families, which young India still didn't know much about. To hell with generalizations, suffice it to say that I didn't.

And then came Levers and rural Maharashtra. Businessmen of every shape, size and ethnicity have been the pain in my back-side for the last two years. (By the way, I say this with affection in case any of you happen to be reading this). The interaction is complicated, with many nuances to our relationship - we are business partners, we are fencing foes, we are sparring bedfellows. And through all of this, I have been fortunate enough to learn so much of how a business family in India lives, feels and carries on traditions which seem unthinkable to us - service folks.

The camaraderie - I have never seen such fast friendships - you put your money where your words are. I don't remember the last time I spoke with friends I used to play hide-and-seek with. These men do. They may not reminisce about those days, because they have no reason to. They never moved away, so nostalgia does not come into the picture at all. Instead they talk about the ventures they are jointly part of - where one of them is the money-bags, the other the brain or arms.

The olde world families - Women cook. Men make money. Period. Let me tell you, those saas-bahu serials with the joint family set-up may seem alien to us - of the nuclear families and not-knowing-our-cousins-well-enough upbringing - but you walk into a Marwari household, and there are bhabhis and dewars and rich-ghee-laden mid-day meals jumping at you from every nook of the three-storied mansion (with a floor for every brother, but a common kitchen and washing place for the women). And what's more, I have encountered more than once the astonishing phenomenon of two sisters being married to two brothers, which puts a more intense spin on the concept of families getting married here in India, and not individuals. When providence is so fortunate as to have two sisters sharing the same kitchen, peace reigns in the household and that, I believe, is one of the most prominent reasons for this twin-marriage culture in the first place.

Not only do they live together, cook and eat together, they seriously look out for each other. I mean, seriously. Many a distributor have I appointed where the investor is putting his money behind our business in spite of having a growing set of ventures of his own, in order to provide a set-up for his brother's son to look after once he graduates from the local college with a B.Com degree. These men and women treat their familial obligations with such solidity, 'extended' family is not part of their vocabulary. They may curse and fault their nephews with vehemence the same as they would do their sons, but when it comes to putting food on their tables and bringing up their children, it is all one big gently-simmering cauldron without borders.

Entire towns are beneficiaries of such generosity, extending to blood and non-blood relations - like the brother of the husband of the daughter of your sister. I kid you not.

I look at my own narrow horizon of interest and the difference is stark.The generation which precedes me is still way better in terms of maintaining relationships and active involvement in the pursuits of family members, but on a tangential note, I can't help but acknowledge that the tight-knittedness which my ancestors had built with their relations is dwindling with each passing generation. Although like development and fashion, even this could follow a cyclic of its own - with Facebook and WhatsApp and Twitter, our children stationed across continents could know more about the daily struggles of each other than I did of my cousins a thousand kilometers away.

And on another tangential-reverential-must-be-said note, while most of us submit to a changing world, there are a few who change it forever. The world is mourning one such maverick and I do hope Mr Chitragupt opens the Pearly Gates for him.

The M word

People keep asking me how life after marriage is and whether it is any different. That's ok. Not complaining. I am sure I have asked the occasional fellow the same question, perhaps for lack of anything better to ask.

I am not so sure about the answer to that question though.

If I list down all the things I do today which I used to not earlier in hair-splitting detail, that will be, no doubt, my answer staring me in the face.

1. Make breakfast in the morning - Yes, and not some amateur cornflaky horror, the real stuff
2. Feel guilty if point number 1 not done
3. Get driven to the bus stop/cab stand, as the day or mood may demand
4. Not talk/message/mail/interact in any other way with the significant other unless the demands of domesticity/good sense weigh heavy
5. Coordinate during office-leaving so as to reach home roughly around the same time. My time zone being Belapur and his hop-skip-jump, this needs some mathematical prowess
6. Feel pride at the spiciness and spanniness of the home on entering
7. Ensure it remains in that same order of spic-span as far as possible during time spent in it
8. Do important stuff like television watching - all sitcoms which have the audacity to present themselves for viewing while simultaneously working, eating and carrying on other important bodily functions

And of course, there are the occasional orbit-shifters - like visiting relatives, entertaining visiting relatives, buying supplies to feed two discerning mouths (but more importantly all the kitchen drawers and refrigerator shelves), paying bills and thinking up and implementing even more new ways of doing up the house.

So while a point-by-point analysis of time spent pre and post ball-and-chain reveal staggering differences, the surprising thing is that it does not feel that way on first thought. It feels like the most natural extension of life as it was. As if one was born to lead this life of domesticity. Of course, there are random longings to hit the pub or dance all-night-long. But it is not really marriage which has curtailed those activities but rather a sickening advancement of age and consequently a slight decrease in the ability to sustain interest in an all-night dance-drink fest. One would rather watch Californication - experience a vicarious hangover and be done with it.

So all you young people who just do not feel ready to be married, because of that huge elephant that's been sitting on your soul ever since you starting walking and understood/heard/ingested that marriage is about commitment and responsibility, just remember that this feeling will not last forever. And that you must wait till it goes away.

Marriage may be about C and R (long and dirty words, do not ask me to write them again) but for me, it has been about doing things together, making plans together, being-in together, going to bed early together, getting hoodwinked by furniture-selling-thieves together. And for those who believe in more tangible proof - marriage is easier on the pocket than singledom. The initial investment into presentable-furniture and flat screens bears good experiential dividends and you would have got those at some point anyway, they are less correlated to marriage than again, a sickening advancement of age and along with it a desire to have your abode not look tsunami-struck. So there are economies of scale and distribution of labor and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

So C and R notwithstanding, wedded life has its moments.

So far, so good.

War

Perhaps more has been said on the subject than is required.

I don't want to say anything about mourning and grief, about shock and loss for few, and voyeurism for many, about an impotent government machinery, treacherous neighbors or moles in the midst.

For one, I don't think the government -  its intelligence and police departments are entirely to blame on detecting this one. Rahul Gandhi's statement may have been insensitive but not entirely untrue. And in any case, the BJP is a complete ass to go and stage protests over this and even stoop down to the ridiculous level of suggesting primary and secondary education for him. If the BJP thinks that the people of India entrust it to lead the country into a more peaceful and developing era, it is delusional – it may have forgotten Babri Masjid, but we haven't. Furthermore, we don't tend to recall all those times when danger is averted through vigilance and swift action. Search online and you will find at least a couple of these every month, many of them in the chronically troubled regions of our country. That is another sad truth – a majority of us wake up to terror once in every two years (barring the people who lose their family and friends for whom every day must be a struggle), but there is a significant number of people in this country who live like that constantly. So much so, that civilians are trained and armed by the government to fight such terror (Salwa Judum in Chhatisgarh being a controversial example).

No. The government within the sphere of its present defense mechanism and policy could not have done more. Of course, the fact that the proposal to create a body called the National Counter-Terrorism Center has been gathering dust since the time it was proposed in April 2010 by P Chidambaram, reflects an utter failure of the government to create new policy and redefine how India should battle terrorism.

I don't claim to know a lot, to be very intelligent or a supreme visionary. But I have had enough and I don't believe that the answer lies in knee-jerk reactions, or a change of government.

India needs a complete overhaul of its defense and counter-terrorism strategy. A new policy that will trickle down to the very grass-roots, affect you and me in its execution. Gone are the days when only the government and its military, police and intelligence departments could be expected to blow the winds of change. The enemy is attacking me and my family and if things are to change, we have to be equally involved in that change. Maybe take a few pointers from nations like Israel, who are surrounded by enemies on all borders and are still one of the most developed nations in the world with the highest life expectancy and usage of solar power. Israel is also the highest spender on defense as a proportion of its annual budget. 

Yes, we could adopt a thing or two.

We need better border defense, better equipment for tracking invasions, more advanced technology and weaponry. Case in point - the high-tech boats that were purchased after December 2008 to patrol the seas are lying unused because of the huge amounts of petrol they require.

We need to be ruthless and perhaps inventive in cleansing our own territory of terrorist elements. Like cloud computing, we should enlist the support of civilians for doing this - encourage citizens to report suspicious activities and characters, which are then investigated thoroughly by the authorities (a thorough investigation does not mean giving every suspect the third degree - remote surveillance and background check should be enough to eliminate many of these suspects). We should give civilians easy access to the police for reporting any irregularities they encounter - like unattended bags, abandoned vehicles, etc. We should make that a way of life - I see a bag lying on the railway platform and if nobody comes forward to claim it, I call the police. There will be false alarms, but even one successful detection is enough to justify the manpower expense. Further more, we need CCTVs at railway stations, bus stations, airports, cinema theaters, crowded public places. And personnel manning these CCTVs at the HQs.

We need better infrastructure and disaster management. I read someplace that the CM of Maharashtra could not get in touch with the police commissioner after the blasts due to network jamming. Fire trucks, police, ambulances should be the first to reach ground zero, instead of the media.

Finally, to effectively execute all of these, we need more militarization in our people. Compulsory conscription for both males and females over eighteen years of age.Military service for all doctors and engineers even. A reserve army of trained civilians at all times, who can rush to the scene of attack and provide relief and rescue, or even combatant services till the time the police, army or the Black Cats arrive.

All this may sound radical and unsavory. All of these suggestions require huge levels of commitment from We, the people. We are a nation that loves our food, songs and Bollywood. But this new reality is a game changer. And the first step towards killing the enemy is to acknowledge that there is one in our midst, even now as I walk towards the bus-stop to go do my non-controversial job of selling soap. India is no longer living in peacetime. There is war underfoot.

Doctor Who?

We live in a strange country. Like no other.

The other day I spent close to three hours in a medical shop. Have I ever before disclosed here on this blog that I love shops? Apart from them being pretty much my office space most days of the week, you get to know so much about a city, a town, the people that live in it by standing around in a shop. It is full of things that people buy, take into their lives. More insightful is to see how they buy.

I urge you to spent ten minutes the next time you go visit a shop, just standing around inconspicuously, observing folks as they come in with their kith or kin, browse, ask for things - at times very specifically, sometimes leaving the decision-making to the shopkeeper, haggle, occasionally socialize, leave.

And let me know how it was. It fascinates me.

So anyway, I was in this medical store. Never mind why. Run by a patriarch and his two younglings. Handing out relief to patients and relations with the flourish of a doctor. Two instances which stuck -

A man walked in - I can only guess at his profession - blue-collar for sure, in his thirties, rough and stubbled, he said - Aurat ko cold aur fever hai.

The shopkeeper - Aurat ki umar kya hai?

Our man - Aurat hai.

The shopkeeper - Haan, aurat hai toh theek hai, lekin badi aurat hai ki chhoti?

The man - Abhi aurat hai meri. Humse thode naa badi hogi.

The shopkeeper - Haan haan, aapse kaise badi hogi. Yeh lo.

The man - Theek hai. Waise fever se zyada cold hai.

The second one is more telling. A woman hesitatingly sidled in, looking like a frightened deer caught in the headlights with a bear at the wheel. She spotted me and called me to her - half-beseechingly, half-shamefacedly. I went - this happens sometimes, people think I am part of the staff - she hissed into my ear - Ek mahina das din ho gaya.

I was at sea. I asked her - Kya matlab?

She whispered - Ek mahina das din, nahi hua.

It dawned on me. And simultaneously also on the shopkeeper. He came to our part of the shop and gently prodded her for a bit, before she told him the same thing, poised to jump into the nearest pothole all the while. He handed out the remedy, with the practiced ease of a gynecologist. Told her how and when to take it and what to do further if it did not bring about the desired results.

Such instances make me suddenly aware of the length, breadth and depth of this country and how little we know of it. About how much we take for granted, which some people can only have substitutes for. The chemists. Part-shopkeeper, part-doctor - handing out ointment minus lozenges to the great unwashed. And probably making a more honest living out of it.

Parody - Bechara DK

Daddy mujhse bola
Jaakar roti kamaa
Education ki shakal mein
Paisa mat jalaa
Maa ki daant sunkar
Kabhi toh jaldi tu bhi beta jaaag, jaaag, jaaaaaaag..


Maine mann banaya
Banoonga Radio Jockey
Kyaa footballer, kyaa cricketer
Kheloonga sirf hockey
Naam apna alag ho
Aisi hai mujhe unique si yeh aag, aag, aaaaag..


Tina ne lagaaya
Jhapad ek mujhe
RJ ki pagaar pe
Ek pyaas bhi naa bujhe
Woh toh khaye mewa
Aur roti sang ghee mein luthputh saag, saag, saaaaag..

Men in Shorts - warning - nothing to do with Cricket

Men in shorts do something for me.

And before you get any ideas, I am not talking about lithe limbs encased in skimpy gear challenging my modesty, you know the type. No, those don't do anything for me.

I am talking about something quite special, and weird. If you know me by now, these two adjectives are irrevocably linked.

Sometimes when I am coming back from office, all a-fluster about some or the other traffic nightmare, or cabbie or auto-wallah, or getting home at 10 pm instead of 9.30 as planned, I catch a glimpse of a man or two, maybe in-between forty and forty-five years of age, flecks of gray starting to show, wearing a colorful half-sleeved shirt, with Hawaiian prints or something. You know. And shoes without socks. And of course, those shorts.

He is usually up to something mundane - walking the dog, picking up groceries, kicking up the scooty. 

It fills me with a strange longing. To have a life. Where I can come back home by 7.30, still early evening, with the hope of doing something productive and useful and fun with the rest of it. To have a home, to be able to get chores done on a weekday too. To keep work where it belongs. The way I have seen my father do it for as long as I can remember. In shorts.

Tell me your dreams

Sigmund Freud said that 'The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises'.

It is a rare day in a month for most people when they come face to face with their subconscious, they are jolted by the encounter, even betrayed perhaps, by the subliminal existence of it.

But there are those few who suffer the lot of a host whose guests have overstayed their welcome, guests who are constantly lounging on the living room couch, flipping channels.

As one of those people and I am basing my conclusion on the disturbing fact that it has been many moons since I had a dreamless sleep, I am curious to understand the nuts and bolts of it. I want to know what these dreams mean - because most of them are sinister, and whether they happen to any other people I know with such alarming regularity.

Are any of you readers persistent dreamers too? Or perhaps the difference lies in the fact that I remember all my dreams?

I read somewhere - Man is a plaything of his own memories. While dreaming incessantly has not proven to be detrimental to my well-being till date, except for the fact that I am not really achieving the dreamless NREM state for long enough, I am sure that it is a result of something that is not quite right.

Meter down

Fact - Cabbies in Mumbai have become so choosy about the fares they take on that there is a higher likelihood of dear ol' Salman giving you a lift in his gorgeous Audi A8.

Yes, that is a fact. One that has led to many many instances of the overactive BP to shoot above its lakshman-rekha for me. I absolutely can feel the difference. The Mumbai of fifteen years back where any business was good business and today - where even cabbies need their afternoon siesta, evening adda and night-time cuppa.

It flummoxes me. Or did. Until just recently. And dear readers, I believe I have cracked the code.

No, our cabbies have not become owners of super-fabulous hidden treasures, nor have they attained nirvana and no longer want the money. No, they are just managing their time and business better. How?

Mobile phones. The Mumbai of fifteen years ago maybe had a few techno-savvy adults and some tata-birla-godrej-brat-types sporting these gizmos. Obviously no longer the case. Much has been spoken about how mobile phones are and are going to even further transform the lives of the rural population of the country. What is closer to home is the way it has transformed the lives of the cabbies around. Their phone numbers are handy around in the offices and with select individuals and they design their days and nights around these callers. Even the yellow and black ones. So a cab with a couple of drivers stuffed inside snoring away means that they must have done late night or early morning duty and probably have a few such assignments lined up for today also. So no point waking them up.

Gone are the days when you could just hail a cab and expect it to take whatever you had to offer. If you want constant and uninterrupted taxi service, then get to know a cabbie, get his mobile number and be sure to call him a couple of hours before you want to go someplace. Yes, such is life. Supply and demand. If you don't like, become a cabbie yourself or if you are the Forbes 500 variety, start a taxi service.

Love-shove

I am not a big fan of Valentine's day. Have always been conflicted about it, like I have about most things. So a part of me shuns the 'celebration' so to say but another part (or maybe the same sneaky part) also likes it when there is something special going on.

But this post is not about that. Let me get to the point.

V-day 2009 - A and I decided not to give each other anything for V-Day, or behave as if it meant anything to our hardened twenty-six year old selves. It was the first one for us and soon after we had started going out. Mush has pretty much been anathema for me upwards of the age of twenty. So we decided not to bite the bait of commercialization. Lo and behold, I was gifted a sweet little expensive Swarovski teddy bear (I still don't know what to do with it) No fair, Mr A, said I! But secretly, I loved the gesture.

V-day 2010 - Again we didn't make a big deal of it. It was like any other day with maybe more fine in the dine than otherwise. But I woke up to the smell of roses. My secret evil little self did dance a little jig of joy.

Now cut to V-day 2011 - I go to office, travel to my market even, come back early, feel terrible about not getting him anything , go rushing to the nearest boutique, grab something that would look good on him (admittedly not the best threads in town, but it is about tradition, isn't it?) and get back in time to get ready and looking good. He comes sauntering in, carrying his self and his declarations of love, sans any restaurant bookings even.

Sigh. I read someplace recently that 'Fairy tales do for women for porn does for men - set unrealistic expectations'. While no rustic hillbilly in the department of charm and chivalry, A has come of age I guess. His acts of love have transformed from getting me flowers to getting me a Demat account. Well, love has many forms, and then again, so does a Demat account.

Chronicles of a shameless bride-to-be

Of course it has been too long. And don't tell me you didn't miss me.

Somehow, I don't feel like writing so much nowadays. While trying to make output a significant multiple of input in the machine that is my life, I let the music pass by.

Writing is like music. It is no surprise then that the times I feel like writing the most, when the desire grips me like a heart attack are when I am watching something sublime or when I am listening to some great music or when my brain cells are mildly soaking in alcohol.

Yes, the good life. The good life makes me want to take to the pen with a vengeance and churn out philosophy and literature. 

While on the subject of music, it is a gift to be able to get this affected by it. Not everyone is. And I sort of feel sorry for them. Music to me is more than just something pleasant to listen to. It defines my moods, takes me routinely to my happy places, inspires me, provides an uplifting force when I am Down in the D's.

Back to more mundane things, shaadi preparation is languishing and I am not able to bring myself to do anything about it. It is a good thing then I don't have to do much. The honeymoon location has been settled upon and not much progress has been made beyond it. Ankit thinks that I am the biggest free-rider that ever lived and I quite agree with him on that. He tried very hard to make me take a constructive interest in planning it out and I did comply. I lugged around a copy of the Lonely Planet for a while, and I did zero in on the places we should go to. Now it's his job to make that happen, innit? Work-wise this is the year when I am going to set myself on fire. Like they say - Success is not a result of self-combustion, it is the consequence of setting yourself on fire; and I believe I need that kind of success to be able to give it up someday with the satisfaction of been there and having done that well. Wonder of wonders, I am losing weight as well. A result of drastic changes in eating habits I am sorry to say, and not a healthy well-exercised body. But I have tried so hard to put in the right process for so long, it just does not work out. What with shuttling between office and travel and JVLR, gymming is a distant dream. Well, I should have a bit more stability in my life once there aren't two homes to toggle between and then I shall valiantly take it up again. For now, this will have to do. Nobody wants to see a pudgy bride.

And then there is the usual reading, watching movies and totally living it up on the weekends happening. Have been getting back in touch with some long lost pals - school friends, only to happily realize that not much has changed. And here is a theory - kids who perform well in school tend to continue to perform well all throughout life. They find rewarding pursuits like banking, business management, high-flying consulting and marketing careers and do as well at those as they did at their geography and algebra. The seeds of confirming to conventional standards of success sown early bear fruit all through. Well, congratulations to us.

On another rather fruity note, I have also become quite the winophile off-late. Vodka mixed with red bull in paper cups is a distant memory. Tis Merlot and Sauvignon which do it for me now. I do manage to lead a good life when I am not prancing around in a sack or clothes which look like that in some rat-infested godown, you see.

Des ki Dharti

People in villages have a lot of time on their hands. As well as a lot of curiosity in their stomachs.

I say this with experience - whenever I have gone to any village, I have had at least eighty percent of the population which is sitting or lounging around on the streets and in corners, come and surround me and my colleagues and stare at us like we were fish inside an aquarium.

Imagine talking to a dukaandaar about Lux and Knorr and having fifteen men standing around listening keenly, almost expectantly, like you were demonstrating  to them how to turn monopoly money into the real stuff. They really do listen, and they don't shy of making their approval and concurrence audible, when the situation so demands. 

Today I also encountered a rural balak - a smudgy-faced, rotund little fellow tugging at his father's kurta and pointing at something in the shop, all the while whining for him to buy it. He had to keep at it for a solid five minutes before his father, engrossed by the exciting products that my salesmen were brandishing, paid any heed.

Turns out he was raising hell for a toy gaadi - a square little plasticky thing, nothing like the sleek gizmos from hotwheels and more that his urban compatriots waste their time with. But a car it was nonetheless. This must be something programmed by the Gods - boys and cars. It would be an interesting experiment to see whether a boy kept isolated from the influence of advertisements which show great dare-devilry performed by other boys in fancy cars and also any movies which are pretty much advertisements for similar stuff on wheels, would still crave these toys like they were one inside the womb.

By the way, did you know that the government appoints some families in each village who are in-charge of distributing rationed and subsidized atta, chawal and shakkar to other BPL folks in the village? These dudes have a license and even make paltry margins. The government surprises me from time to time, by some rare display of efficiency.

So, as you may have guessed, I did some village hopping today. And our villages are something else.

Poultry and Cattle
For space they battle 
A family of fifteen
Is considered pretty lean
The oldies have time
Their stories as easy as dimes
Their children did stay on
Tilling land on which they were born
But the grand-kids are not so stable
They dream big and think they are more able
They study and then they go away
Life in a big city - seems glamorous any day
As clerks in courts and teachers in schools
No doubt they do write their very own rules
But who will sow the crop now and who will till
Leaving us hungry or footing a huge import bill