♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♫

A couple of months ago, I sat in a different place, under a different sky and a different mug of coffee in hand, doing the same thing I am right now, ditching what am supposed to be in favour of opening up my blog and wiping the dust off the ol' journal.  Honestly, am in no mood to write, more out of mere irritation of having run out of shaving cream and the forgetfulness of not purchasing any for the past 4 days, transforming me into somewhat a scraggly bear mothers keep to scare crows away from the balcony.  And to drive home exactly how rusty I have become, I just spent the last 10 minutes trying to remember a word that has "oly" at the end, sounds similar to soliloquy and denotes 'chaos'.  Melancholy. Yes, I know, shame on me.

I apologise for cribbing as a start to this post.  Had to get it out of my system, its been more than a month after all.  So much for making 2011 the "highest post count" year!  Life's been characterised by total abandonment as I have ceased all possible activity that gave me a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

The guitar gently weeps.
The camera deeply sighs.
The pencil full of vigour.
Now only cries.

All of the above is beyond the point of this post.  Yes, I love wasting your time. Live with it!  What I want to share with you today, is music.  I have a weird tendency, as do many others, to associate songs with people.  Do not roll your eyes just yet.  I know almost everyone has song associations, its just that the way I associate them with people, its probably got nothing to do with their personalities, just moments that got attached to them and got etched as musical associations.  Gibberish.  So let me shut up and just get on with it.

Accidentally in love - Imagine a small bunny hopping around to the tune, loving every moment of watching Shrek, flaying her hands in the air every time the drums pick up, batting her gorgeous eyelashes as the song draws to a close.  This song is yours dearest Ami.

Dance pe chance - For someone who has probably performed on this song more than the original choreographer herself, is as bubbly and bindaas as the song itself, this one goes out to you Iti.

Kal ho na ho - First day, first show, we bunked lectures and ran to end up watching the movie on the front row.  I hate Shahrukh Khan.  I still do.  It was my best friend's idea and his undying love for SRK that made me watch possibly EVERY damn movie of his that got released during those years. I still love the song though, and no, you may not judge me. Sorry for proclaiming you to the world mate, but here's to you Pramod and your gay-boy SRK!

Iktara - If Wake up Sid is our movie, this song is what reminds me of you constantly.  I love you.

The Pinacolada Song - She fell in love with the drink because of the song, need I say more?  One of my closest friends, primary sources of music and definitely one of the best booze partners, this one is yours Sonam.

Afterglow - Few know of my music adventures, and she was very much a part of it.  Probably one of the few we sang and played on the rooftop, never bothered about how good it came out, just enjoying the serenity it brought.  To my favourite drummer, Kriti.

Carnival of rust - This song has become what I call Loki's transition into the world of real music.  The way this song moved him, introduced him to a world he lost himself in, enough to make him call me up just to listen to my ringtone play the song.  To you mah man Loki!

I hate you (like I love you) - To be able to sing absolute nonsense songs and enjoy them thoroughly, you need an equal nut, and that is you, little Rons. Shake that biscuit baby!

Aazadiyaan - Loved the movie. Love the song. A self-dedication.

If I were to stop here and not acknowledge him, he who introduced me to music, who refined my taste in it, made me love music the way I do, there'd be no point to this post.  So here's to you my brother.  To you, I dedicate the band Oasis, my first and most favourite.  "And sooooooo Sally can wait, she knows its too late !!" *private joke, don't jog your brains*

Guess I just came up with my new playlist.  Off for a jog now. Adios!

A still verdictless life

I am not supposed to be doing what I am right now.  Blogging, that is.  I mean come on, there's not even a fat chance I'll ever start a book let alone complete one that would get me enough moolah to take on an early retirement.  The material writers are made of was kind of over by the time the Almighty got to concocting me up from pure gibberish.  Just to fool me, and subsequently certain others who still waste time reading my posts, the guy, or girl, for obvious gender equality reasons, up there, gave me a somewhat misplaced sense of puking out words in a manner that appeal to a few.

Why the bitterness you ask?  Why not I say.  I am not exactly the epitome of optimism as all my friends and family would readily tell you.  Hell I can even make you regret life, on your birthday!  There are innumerable, if not infinite, topics in this world I can endlessly and most vehemently critique, without any regret or consideration on how that might ruin your take on life and hopes that lay ahead.  I won't even put up a false pretense of any sort of penance on my part, I am proud of the way I am.  Sure I've been called a cynical asshole once too often before people decide to part ways, but hey, can you blame me with so much shit around? But then again, with all this pent-up bitterness, why do I stand here today, venting out?

Its this city.  Mumbai.

I know most of you will rant on and not let me hear the end of how I used to be the greatest advocate ever of the city that never sleeps.  There was a time when the Mumbai Tourism Board could have paid me one-tenth of their advertising budget and I would still have marketed this city for free.  Those times are bygone. No, don't start assuming and giving me your crap of how the city is too fast paced, how you don't have time to sit back and look at life, how the city infrastructure is frustrating to deal with, or any of the nonsense you have either read in nonsense articles published on glossy weekend supplements of rather inconsequential English dailies or in a wannabe author's lame excuse for a book where he claims to have his hand on the city's pulse.  Boohockey, I tell you!  You would not believe if I told you I started writing this post on 22nd June, 2011 and could only manage the first paragraph after which several changes took place in life, mostly to lift my spirits, yet here, on 2nd August I sit alone in my room, with probably the last few sips of my Irish whiskey before the empty bottle joins the others in the pit, wondering when did I start despising my life here.

I won't give the entire credit to a loss of direction, not even half a point to a failed love proposition, probably enough to a general feeling of loneliness and inner dissatisfaction, and a huge chunk to reflection and introspection.  People want me to be the happy-go-lucky guy around them, a feel good factor, someone they can confide in, to tell them "it'll all be alright".  I'm not complaining, I love the job, its like what one of my old, now long lost friend told me "you have a messiah complex".  Hubris, she said, will be my final undoing.  Possible, but just not yet.  Anyway, coming back to the point, trying to be that guy, somewhere down the line I have lost, or rather relinquished the ability to share and confide in others.  The failure to communicate or bond with another fellow human has left me in tatters, emotionally and physically.  The moment I open my mouth to share, words just stop flowing, my mind goes blank, failing to recognise or even comprehend what it is I wanted to talk about in the first place.  Am bordering on nonsense again ain't I? :) Somewhere down the line, in the past two years, I lost myself.  Lost the realisation of who I am, where I am, and most of all where I want to be.  Preferences no longer hold meaning.  Choices seem blurred.  Direction seems overwhelming.  Inaction is today's order.

Why is Mumbai at fault then? It is not.  I still love the city for having introduced me to Prithvi, poetry, the sea, my guitar and so much more I can't thank the city enough.  My hatred stems from the realisation it has handed over to me, and a relentless feeling of suffocation, unable to break free from the shackles of a still verdictless life.  There is so much I can and could do, why then do I refrain.  Where do I conjure the courage and conviction to make something of life, to add value, not even meaning, just plain simple value, to what I do.  Like all other days, this day will also pass by with no significant addition to anybody's life.  The city's shown me different shades of people.  Its made me feel welcome, nestled me in the very heart of Bandra for most of my stay and given me the warmth and protection from most evils people up north are scared of.  Yet like all other love-hate relationships, I believe it is time to bid adieu and move on in life, to a new place, a new site, a new affair, a new fight.

Mumbai has and shall remain a city of dreams, as I awake, another one sleeps.

Once upon a rainy evening

What's worse than a writer's block? Something even more frustrating than the lack of anything to write about? Its when you have three ideas in your head fighting for space and trying to break the queue in the hope it'll be the first one to be inked whenever you decide to break free from the shackles of plain lethargy.  What makes the vicious circle complete is when you decide to let time figure out which one gets to be the lucky bastard, or rather the first one to be crucified under the nib of a rusty writer's pen who's more incoherent than a drunkard on one of his more sloshed out days!  Well, here I am, probably writing more out of desperation than inspiration to derail the monotone that has become life, choosing this topic for the simple correlation with a vain fight to buy a decent umbrella all day today.

I scampered, more like a scared rat than one ready to devour a lump of cheese, for the yellow and black Premier Padmini, newspaper over my head, trying hard to make the best use of the unread Economic Times I have been dragging along all day long.  "Bandra", I yelled into the millimeter crack that the driver rolled the window down by.  Two seconds he pondered, before rolling it up again and driving away as I stood there, still stooped, astounded at his sheer disregard for helping someone out in this heavy rain.  Twenty minutes and five failed attempts later, one dingy croaking Padmini screeched to a halt.


Kidhar saab?
Bandra. Lalbaug se nikal lena.

Before he could make up his mind, I had slid in, newspaper first, into the backseat.  I could not tell what was more nauseating, the wet newspaper lying next to me in tatters or the damp seat which had definitely nursed a wet dripping ass to warmth not too long ago.  He jerked the joystick into gear and sped off, well whatever notion of "sped off" you can associate with a Padmini.  For the uninitiated, let me place Mumbai rains in context.  When it rains, all hell breaks loose, roads become endless lengths of cars waiting for their ration of "forward movement", the city transforms into a puddle of water, going back to its true roots as an archipelago.   And we, sit tight, in black and yellow crawlers, waiting, for our glimpse of a clearing.  This evening was no different.

Seated in a Mumbai cab, you can almost always tell who had been there before you.  The perfume of an up-class middle aged housewife on her way to NCPA might linger.  The scrunched up covers of the seat would suggest of a family on vacation in Mumbai with a small kid unable to curb his enthusiasm, standing up on the seat peering out the back watching the city's madness pass by behind him.  Only one half of the floor mats covered in mud would tell a different story, of a couple embracing each other, sharing warmth, celebrating their togetherness.  A depression in the middle and slight mud on either side of the divide in the car's floor relates the anxiety of a young banker, bent forward, peering into the windshield, trying to map in his head the time to arrival, fidgeting with his watch, as if it would give him the ability to slow down time and reach in time.  Stench of booze would boast of a reunion of old friends meeting up after ages, cheering each other's lives on, happy for each other and making merry of whatever little time they have to spend reminiscing the past.

As the rain started to pour even  more dramatically, I rolled the window up completely.  Beads of water fell and rolled down the glass.  A mist formed on the inside.  Dragging my finger making doodles on the window I could see other cabs, their windows rolled up as well.  All of us trapped inside our own little prison.  Headlights, taillights, streetlights, all making silhouettes of small yellow black monsters devouring every inch of open space visible on the road.  Through the half-misty window I reckon I saw a familiar face, someone I had known a long time back.  Another cab passed by, and I believe I saw her, the girl who once used to make me laugh.  I thought I saw him, he who once was me.  I peered closer into the window, squinting, only to see my own reflection; the remnants of what used to be "me".  Shocked as I was, the reflection was equally surprised to see what had become of me.

I snapped out of the brief trance I had gone into as the driver honked on the horn as hard as he could, rolling down his window, yelling out expletives at the top of his voice, gesturing an old man to move out of his path and take his troubles elsewhere.  The man looked back at the cab, frowned and then smiled, before ambling over to the other side of the road.

I sat up straight, wiped my specs clean, rolled down the window, and let the slight drizzle wet my face again as I looked up into the sky.  I was home.

How it all started

I had been in Music class before, but then that was a time when the happiness of making it to the front row as one of the main singers for Vande Mataram was what got you high.  It was a little different now.  Instead of a newly wed miss clad in a heavy saree and adorned with as many bangles as could find space on her arm, sitting behind a harmonium, entranced, there was a balding bespectacled man, smiling through the round lenses, tapping his feet as he animatedly played "Let it Be" on his piano, nodding in affirmation to the guitarist seated right next to him with a half Elvis look, a busy moustache and nails large enough to substitute for a pick.  First day at school, and Music class; as if joining a new school mid-session hadn't given me enough jitters, the proposition of having to croak and be ridiculed wasn't particularly a happy thought.  The first class I just lingered at the back, observing the brat pack, customs I was unaware of as a young Indian boy who left partitioned his hair and felt rolling up his sleeves would be disrespectful.  It wasn't long before the little brown boy in a sea of white was singled out as being too quiet, in Music class, blasphemy!

He asked me what I was good at, playing or singing?  Playing, I wondered.  Would jamming to "Papa kehte hain bada  naam karega" on a toy guitar I had since childhood count?  Or how does my brother and I going *ting ting* on the miniature piano sound? Thought as much, both didn't qualify. Singing it had to be and I was asked to pick a song.  A song? What does he mean? I came back home, dropped my bag at the door and fell flat on the bed, still wondering, what exactly does a song sound like?  Do they expect me to pull off a Bollywood number, 'coz they wouldn't get jack shit!  I was the kid who fast forwarded the video tape in the VCR whenever  the hero and his love interest donned ridiculous clothes and danced around trees till normal conversation resumed and the plot thickened.  I was aware of the existence of music, of singers and songs from the West, which quite unlike the usual Rangoli songs, presented themselves as items of great mystery to me.  But that still didn't answer the question, what song do I pick?

I sifted through the handful of audio cassettes I could get hold of in the boxes that had been opened up by Mom already and put them into the cassette player to get a feel for what songs were.  The cover read Kishore Kumar Hits.  "Who the hell is that?", I asked Mom.  "Chalti ka naam gaadi beta" came the reply. Oh.  After almost half an hour of browsing the collection I realised there was nothing in it I could actually pull off and not come across as a loser.  School is tough, first impressions are impossible to erase from memories.  I had to salvage some pride, especially after having stood up in class for every reply to the teacher's question, something I learnt almost a month into the curriculum was not the "norm" around here.   After much deliberation, sleepless nights, 'twas the night before the actual "performance" was due that brilliance struck me.

What is better than "the one thing" you have been asked to do?
Three things your teacher would not be expecting from you!

I called out for Mom asking her which box had all the farewell gifts my friends had given me before I left.  Excitement levels were off the charts, I could not contain my emotions, that evil smirk was so evident on my face it actually gave my mother a fright.  A mantelpiece from Archies with a 4 liner, which was easily turned into a limerick, became the first article of brilliance.  The next one was a meaningful translation of a Hindi song, one which I fail to remember right now.  This is what took me the longest, probably around an hour to make some sense of the lyrics.  Two down, one to go.  By the time I was done with the translation, I was so euphoric that it made no sense to wait and work on the third but that internal figure of three I set for myself had to be met, and what I did as a consequence is something am not particularly proud of.  I plagiarised from a Hallmark wall hanging.  I am ashamed of it till date, that's probably why I still remember it till today:

Friendship is like a flower
A joy from day to day
But you should take good care of it
Lest it should fade away
Tended by your nature and protected by your care
It will soon grow into A Blossom Rare

A complete rip off.

I received accolades for the effort.  I still ended up being popular in school for all the wrong reasons.  But that day opened the doors for me to the world of music.  It was my brother who went to Media Markt and got a Sony Discman with the first ever English CD I lay my hands on - Oasis, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, probably realising that the time had come for me to lose my music virginity. Why then did I recount this utterly useless story?  Honestly, it was to form the prelude for a post I had in mind, but as usual I got carried away on a tangent.  So here's to you bro, for introducing me to the world of music. Cheers!!

The year was 1997.

Aur bano phantom

Man has an innate propensity to take on more than he can handle, and if you're wondering about the statement being too sexist, it is intended to be so.  If we were to extrapolate this behaviour it wouldn't come as a surprise that our first step on the moon was deemed to be a giant step for mankind.  One slight pat on the back and we think of ourselves as the king of the world.  We fall prey to the slightest signal thrown our way by a woman; like rabid dogs hungry for food, we start salivating at even the leftovers!  Such low threshold for resistance and a high tendency to give into temptation is probably why we have ended up being labeled as the "horny bastards".  Men, I tell you.

Then again, reading the first paragraph again am wondering who I was talking about there, myself or a guy who almost beat me to a pulp the other day.  If you have ever had the misfortune of looking at my wiry frame it would come as no surprise that my somewhat irregular visits to the gym have borne no fruit.  Despite repeated attempts at following a strict regimen, my body is intent on making me suffer through what I now call "every girl's dream" nightmare!  This is not where my story lies, however.  As always, in a futile attempt to salvage some pride and draw some value out of my yearly gym membership I turned up on a Thursday evening at the weights section.  After a half hour "rigourous" *do not laugh!* workout, I was completing my final stretches ready to pack up and leave.  I bid adieu to a friend who has been frequenting the gym quite often and actually turned out to be motivation enough for me to drag my ass down there.  To be honest, and at the cost of being overly frank, she isn't too far off when it comes to being labeled haddi raja!  Having had my usual kicks out of paining her happiness just before leaving, I opened the door, turned the key, took out my cellphone, earphones and wallet, turned the key again and slid it across to the guard for safekeeping.  How I wish I could have ended this story here itself.

The Deviant Devil had other plans for me.  Its been a known fact in circles I usually invade that I have a penchant for being too much of a smartass for my own good.  If nothing has stopped me in the past, why would I stop this very day either.  I envy some of the guys who turn up at the gym for the way they have maintained their health and physique but I loathe most of the others for having developed themselves into steroid pumping adrenalin blobs who just love graduating from lean muscle to very offensive and disgusting "man-boobs".  I call them monkey-men, for reasons I still am trying to figure out.  Anyways, so along comes a monkey-man, all huffed and puffed up, fresh out of a shower, wearing only briefs, white ones, Tommy Hilfiger I think, chuck it.  The door opens again as one of the gym instructors exits.  He snatches a peek inside.  He is partially obstructing my line of vision if I were to look in the same direction.  Now consider the following in slow motion.  As I am handing over the key and turning to walk away, he gapes inside, smirks and yells out, "aajkal yahan bhi *expletive* tota maal aane laga hai by god! kya phuljhadi hai kasam se!"  Normally, I would just shake my head, call him a jerk inside that little space between my ears and walk on, but not today, because the moment I was turning away, I saw whom he saw. The girl who had bent down to pick up a set of dumb-bells, turned and waved goodbye to me, 'twas my friend.

Chutiya - is what I called him. To his face. Well not technically, he was still ogling through whatever little crack in the door was visible.  He swiveled around, and poked his face at me, "you talkin' to me bro?"  Here is the interesting thing about humans.  When we are all pumped up and full of anxiety, we either go all out or whimper into a corner and hide.  And here is something even more interesting, men love choosing the first option, so whatever height difference there was between me and the giant from Sparta, I made up for by moving closer, chest out, rolling up the short sleeves of my t-shirt, tilt of the head to the right and said "I don't see another douche bag around here, BRO!"  A verbal duel never, in the history of mankind, resolved itself in the favour of the burlier, more beastly opponent, and I think Mr. Muscle Mass was well aware of that.  So while I tried to use whatever fiery embarrassments I could launch at him, he chose to reply monotonously with "tu bahar mil saale!" It was like a boxing bout, while I fluttered around and kept giving him punches left, right and centre, he kept swirling his big empty blows threatening to knock me out in one swing.  If only Muhammad Ali could have been there - dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee, he would have been so proud a tear would have rolled down his cheek! ;-)  Five minutes into whopping his ass with verbal assaults as the others also joined in ridiculing and criticising him, I realised what sort of a pit I had dug myself into.  The others who came up in support for me were not going to stick around, and this man-whore with his big knockers dangling out of his vest was going to pummel me to death the moment I stepped outside.  Damage control, is all that came to mind.  Offence is the best defense - sounds good in books, sucks in real life!  But when you are this deep in shit the only thing left to do is splash around in the hope that it'll rev up a storm and scare off even the most mightiest of assholes around.  So out came the index finger, pupils dilated, nerve ready to pop out of the forehead, teeth grinding, eyebrows narrowed, eyes widened.  It was like the finger was moving independently, my mind kept screaming,

"What the fuck do you think you are doing?!"
"Stop right now or else!"
"That's it I give up on you!!"
"You are not my responsibility anymore!"

and finally .. "Holy Crap!!" by which time the index finger had started digging into his forehead and a voice could be heard through my grinding teeth uttering something to the tune of "You DARE look at my friend with your lecherous eyes again, I swear to God I will pull them out of their sockets and feed them to a group of rabid dogs who'll spit them out in an instant after which I'll shove them up your behind so far up that you'll feel violated for life, you fucking asshole!"

He stood there, astounded, unable to comprehend what just happened.  Cue for me to make a quick exit.  I was so proud, I upheld my honour, my friend's honour, took the Hulk on, and escaped unscathed.  Not 5 seconds had passed as I had stepped out on to the road with my earphones plugged in that a heavy hand on my shoulder turned me around and I received a mighty blow in the stomach.  I dropped to my knees, cringing, my arms wrapped around my tummy.

PS: In the first paragraph I criticise men for construing even the mildest of gestures as being a license for them to call themselves "King of the World".  This definitely does not translate into the girls being better off.  If anything they're probably worse, because they need absolutely NO stimulus to think of themselves as "Queen of the whole bloody Universe"! :-)

The Good Samaritan

Inflation.  The word seems to have gained popularity and favour with almost every other Indian picking up the newspaper, sipping away tenaciously at his early morning brew.  Rising food prices, global crises, political scams, crumbling infrastructure, errant markets, nothing seems to be going our way.  The common man shifts to page 16 for the business section of the newspaper, to review rates, how has the rupee fared against the dollar, where did the Nifty close, what do research analysts say about FII spending.  In our quest to gain knowledge and therein be able to better equip ourselves in dealing with the feeling of impending doom, we want to cram up all that comes our way.  Discussions over tea breaks, office colleagues, the adjoining shopkeeper, everyone is worried about "inflation".  We are no longer the ignorant populace we once were, blindly believing the nation was on the path to prosperity unconditionally, we get involved, discuss and even participate in the development of policies and opinions that drive this country.

Proud? Elated? Satisfied with the sense of accomplishment and belongingness to a higher meaning than your own measly existence?  While we continue to crib about quadrupling of onion and tomato prices, as we cut down on consumption, choosing to deposit more in the banks, buying more of the yellow metal, there is something that catches my attention everytime I get to a local train station, and yet almost always slips my mind the moment I get out.  As far as I can remember, when I was a kid, clutching onto my mom's hand, toddling out of the temple, my mom passed me a couple of rupee coins, to drop into each of the bowls dangling at the ends of hands that reminded me of decaying carcass on Nat Geo.  Mom has always had the habit of sympathising with beggars, something that moved me early on in my childhood, to the extent I resolved to build a huge palace and keep all the poor and needy in there, serve them, end their sufferings, something my brother doesn't let me hear the end of as he continues laughing at my naivety even to this day.  You could not blame a kid to think the poor people of this world were restricted to the ones he saw in his neighbourhood.  That "noble" thought though no longer a possibility, still survives in a willingness to part with whatever little can be managed in helping those in need.  Now you must be wondering if I am here to show off and brag about how I give back to society.  Alas, I wish I could have written a narcissistic post and not the one am building right now, for it would have spared me the disappointment I have oft suffered when thinking of people as compassionate beings.

I still remember the clank of the coins in their dented containers always changed the mood, if only momentarily, they'd fold their hands in appreciation, smile weakly, and get back to their gloomy faces to wring the next person's conscience in offering them something or the other.  Its been around 15-20 years since.  Salaries have risen, the standard of living affords teenagers to have their own cars, mobile phones have become commonplace, people are moving away towards the countryside into farm houses and bungalows, tomato and onion prices are sky rocketing.  The beggars remain.  That, however, is not the issue of contention.  What bothers me is that when it comes to giving alms, people just froze at the one rupee coin as the standard, probably graduating to a two rupee one just to get into the good books of the Almighty.  A blind woman singing walking down the train compartment attracts 3-4 donations of a rupee each, while a bloke with dismembered limbs dragging himself across the footboard might just get a bonus of an occasional 2-er somewhere in the middle.  Now just think of what all you can buy for a rupee or two in today's world.  We are not talking eclairs or chewing gum here.  It is a question of subsistence, survival.  Drawing a blank?  Consider even if they all pool their money together and come up with a healthy collection of Rs. 100, does that suffice to feed and care for 10 people for a day?

We quarrel and bargain for that extra one rupee with the vegetable vendor, the rickshaw driver, unwilling to part away with it when a beggar swings by, more often than not hiding behind the common excuse of "arre they do not want to work baba!! You don't know these people, they just want it easy and beg!!"  My dear friend, I would like you to live a beggar's life for 10 minutes and show me the easy parts of it.  I am not here to advocate giving or denying alms.  It is a question of individual prudence.  What I do care for is the intention when you give alms.  Don't do it to pacify a misplaced sense of "responsibility" and "pity", drop in a coin and wipe your hands of it; "there my good deed for the day is done".  Think how inconsequential you just made the person feel, how your contribution doesn't do much by way of helping him other than possibly making him believe today just might be different.  Cut loose a 10er and drop it into their container.  Better still, try looking at the contentment on their faces when you get them a chilled ice-cream on a hot scorching day for a meager 5er!

I tend to get carried away when it comes to criticism or cynicism, especially when I get to question the truth behind people's actions.  It was this inquisition that inadvertently led me to question one of the ladies leaving a temple in Mumbai, who after donating a crisp 500 rupee note to the priest asking him to bless her family through some mumbo-jumbo recital, when surrounded by a couple of kids asking for prasad and money shooed them away by throwing a couple of coins in their direction.  Five hundred for something you do not even know exists, or rather just have faith in, and just a couple of coins for something tangible right in front of your eyes?  If only people understood you can't buy your way into heaven, you earn it through the deeds and actions enacted during your mortal existence on the face of this earth, right here, right now.

An action taken for pure sense of personal satisfaction, misconstrued as an act of charity, never has or ever shall make you an ambassador of humanity.

PS: I drew inspiration for this post not half an hour ago when a lady looked at me with contempt as I slipped a 10er into the trembling hands of an old woman begging on the sidewalk.  Bandra still has its anomalies.

It's too late to apologise

Three years ago, on this very day, was when I made the resolution.  The loss, the hurt, the pinch that day left me with has never ceased to haunt me.  The worst part of losing someone is the resentment you feel afterwards for not being able to tell them the million things you didn't care enough to share while you had the time.  Probably what is worse than the worst is the few things you wished you'd not said or done out of spite.  For her, who has passed on, its of no consequence, but for you, who still has to suffer this materialistic existence, such actions get etched in memory, forever scathing, tormenting, eating away at your conscience day after day.  Why today, then, after three years, am I unearthing things am not particularly proud of?

Having burnt each and every one of my 7 journals, torn to bits the collection of 212 poems I composed, shredded away 10 chapters worth of material I had written for my book, I realise, the only part of me that will survive me is probably this blog, and though its not touched every aspect of my life, it remains true in every word chronicling my transition through various phases of life.  It is not anybody's business to know stuff close and dear to me, yet am sharing with you, dear Reader, a confession that I can no longer hold inside, and deserves to be out in the open.  My purpose is not redemption.  It is not pardon.  I  write today, as penance, for things I have said, and done, those I cannot erase or undo.

In the wake of recent events it struck me, what I resolved never to repeat somehow manifested itself in my attitude, and the bitterness that people now associate as the singular attribute closest to describing me.  My grandma passed away 13 days ago following a cardiac arrest that left her immobile for 2 days before she succumbed in the ICU.  I do not know if it was the helplessness in my dad's voice, the emptiness in my mom's eyes, or the sorrow I saw in my brother's face that made me realise the emptiness within.  My grandma wasn't an angel, nor am I the devil, yet we had a system worked out that kept the friction at bay, in a passive form that didn't disturb the harmony of either's life.  Subsequently, we grew apart, my anger and bitterness towards her manifesting itself in a form of latent hatred driving me to the point of wishing ill for her.  Yet over all these years, my Delhi visits were incomplete without my mom pestering me to go spend some time with her.  Irrespective of what the reasons may have been, respect for the elder, obedience for my mother, a shred of humanity left in me, I invariably ended up obliging my grandma with at least a 30 minute visit.  We never spoke about anything in particular except her endless rant about how she thought the maid was cheating at work, how one of my younger cousins, her favourite, was enjoying tennis and chess classes, or how she wanted me to marry within the "biradari".  I cringed every time I used to go, yet the fact I came always made her happy.  It was on my last trip to Delhi when I decided I'd had enough of the old hag and wanted to put an end to the formality of paying her a visit.  The first time I didn't visit her, turned out to be the last time I had the chance to sit with her, hold her fragile hands in mine and tell her I cared, even if I didn't mean it.  Her passing away hasn't brought me any closer to her, but it has shown me how hollow I've been.  The resentment lies not in my not having shared a warm and caring relationship with her, but in the fact that I let her go with bitterness in my heart and apathy in my actions.  My having been with her would not have mattered, except given her the happiness of having her eldest grandson by her side.  I could not give her even a sense that I cared enough to acknowledge her presence.

I should probably draw this post to a close now, for fear of making it sound like judgement day confessions.  However, as I get ready to shut down my laptop after posting this write-up, I am unable to get myself to let go of the undelivered birthday card with Ami's name on it and a funny limerick, clutched in my hands, one I chose to not post, out of a misplaced sense of prejudice, uncharacteristic of me, corrupted by wrong advice.  Whatever be the reason, the action is for me to own up to, and for such insolence I shall never be able to forgive myself.  It is today, three years hence, that I resolve once again, to not let bitterness get the better of me.  Prejudice is not me, nor will it ever be.

PS: I would not like anyone to post any comments for this post.  Thanks.

Mumbai on the Futboard

They call Mumbai the great leveller, the city where clerks and CEOs eat at the same roadside Bombay sandwich vendor, where they sit next to each other in a shared cab to Churchgate station and possibly part ways only while boarding the train when the former settles for one of the 7 coaches labelled "II" while the latter takes the trouble of locating that elusive striped haven marked "I".   The first few months of arriving in Mumbai I was terrified at the prospect of even boarding the local train, more out of paranoia than anything else.  Two years hence, well almost, I think am at liberty to call myself a veteran of train travel, and can give you better pointers about travelling in the train than what my friend explained - "the only difference between the second and first class is that in the first people actually bother using a deodorant, the sea of armpits remains".

The Position - Now if you expect that when the train pulls to a halt you'll be able to scamper to your nearest gate and be able to board easily, you're deeply mistaken.  Locate yourself away from the congregation of ladies, their only other largest gathering being the one outside the store that just announced a flat discount on its winter collection!  Place yourself at a safe distance from where the stairs end, because that's where the floodgates open once people start jumping off the train.  The opening to the staircase is like a checkpoint for people aboard the train, you miss one, to get off before the other one comes is blasphemous.  Passengers love their stairs so much they're ready to risk jumping off and breaking a leg than getting off midway between two sets of stairs and being miserable for making a decision first on which one to pursue and then ruing the very choice since the traffic up the flight is moving at a snail's pace.

The Chase - Even with the most experienced of travellers positioning at times seems to be flawed, possibly for lack of experience of that particular station.  Trust me it takes meticulous and ardent hard work day in and day out of fighting it out at a station to get acquainted with how things work on arrival and departure of the trains.  You end up being stranded in no man's land, faced with the difficult choice of which compartment to charge for.  There is hardly any time for you to even approximate the probabilities or expectation of getting on-board given two choices.  To avoid such dilemma and be able to stick with the single-minded pursuit of just one point of entry pace yourself with the train as it draws to a halt.  Do not venture too close lest the swarm of people getting out crush you under their feet.  Stay nimble, be ready to dart a step or two if the halt turns out to be abrupt.  A successful passenger is he who manages to place himself in the middle of a crowd while getting on since that is where minimal effort is required, the momentum just draws you in.

The Hit - It is a man-eat-man world out there during the 30-second halt at the station.  Gobble someone up or become someone's feast for the day.  You can easily spot the veterans, the ones who start shouting from the inside even before the train has stopped, scaring the ones up front to jump off in fear of a riotous mob trampling them on their way out, or the sprinters on the outside who latch on to the entrance even while the engine driver is contemplating pulling the lever to decelerate.  But since you have been reading this post thus far I can only assume you are relatively inexperienced in the way of entry and exit.  It requires the patience and precision of martial arts.  As an amateur, I have worked on two of my own moves:

• The Chicken Wing Manoeuvre - This move is especially effective for making an entrance.  While waiting tentatively for everyone to get off the train, as soon as you figure the second last guy to get off from that entrance has lifted his foot to place it firmly on the ground, give the two people next to you a good right and left jab.  Now since you're scrunched up between so many people, working a Rocky or Tyson punch to make sure you get the chance to get on is virtually impossible, so here is what you do.  Form a boxing stance with the fists clenched and raised to chest level in front of you, and then with each elbow shove the men to your left and right once in the rib-cage, and if need be, jab the right one into the front one's as well.  Make sure you punch hard enough for them to react, stop in the midst of the pushing and feel their ribs just for a split second, and that is your small window of opportunity when you make your move and squeeze up in front.  The hit should be subtle unless you want to end up being pounded by two rowdy blokes.
• The Python Split - While getting on board is a game of brute force entry, getting off is slightly trickier which is why the blunt chicken wing trick won't work here.  To squeeze past the sea of heads dangling off outstretched shoulders supporting arms clasping on to handles, requires a lot of flexibility.  You could try stepping on people's feet and make them move away in pain, but the failing in that is you could fall victim to the same in the process as I discovered before discarding the approach.  Instead, the target remains the same as entry, namely, the rib-cage.  However, this time we go for a Bruce Lee approach.  Stretch out your fingers as stiffly as possible like the fangs of a snake, with both hands on your sides, with a flourish like a swim stroke, bring them together and part them away poking hard into the side-ribs of the two goons standing in front of you.  The sting makes them curl up like touch-me-nots, and voila a passage is created.  There is no need to be subtle here, just say you're sorry and be on your way!

The Rise - No matter how much anyone tells you otherwise, the most important aspect of train travel on the Mumbai local is "timing"!  Get up from your seat too soon and you can wind up getting off a station too early being forced to go out with the flow of bobbing heads, get greedy and try to warm your heiny too long on your seat, and you can say goodbye to your station and end up getting off two stations ahead, probably even end up paying the TT an additional fine for not having a valid ticket.  I understand how much people hate asking what station it is very now and again for fear of coming across as a newbie tourist or a gutless nutjob, but honestly, its worth the trouble and humiliation - ASK people lest you want to be miserably caught up in trying to get off the god forsaken train due to bad timing and a resistance to seek help of your fellow passengers.  You mistime your Rise and its game over from then on buddy!

I've had my nose bloodied twice, my head banged against the side-rail once, drifted off a train at Dadar as well, and sneaked out of Andheri station with an invalid ticket from Churchgate to Santa Cruz.  I speak from experience fellow passenger and dear Reader, nothing more, nothing less.  I'm all the more wiser, yet still a little unsure when I try to board the next local!

PS: The Detergent - Forgot to mention a very important aspect of local train travel.  While a lot many others might be able to describe the above aspects far more vividly and with a wit befitting Oscar Wilde, here is something am sure nobody else would recommend.  Buy good detergent.  Its not for any stains you might pick up during travel, for that you've got dry cleaning.  While in the train, the average male height comes to around 5 feet 7 inches, and unfortunately for you, if you happen to fall into that bracket, no matter where you turn, there's a sea of smelly armpits.  It ain't so much the vision as the olfactory nightmare your nose has to suffer.  To top it all off almost inevitably there always is a fart-machine on board who refuses to put a check on his gobblings and chooses to proclaim to the world what he had for lunch and supper in the midst of strangers in voices and silent whispers that do not take the respiratory route but choose to come out of a orifice much lower in the human anatomy!  To the rescue, and this discovery for me was by way of pure accident, you dig your nose hard into your bicep of the arm outstretched to catch hold of a handle hanging atop.  The sweet fragrance of Ariel Spring Clean from your shirt fills your nostrils with the richness of flowers and butterflies as your nose drifts off into subliminal bliss and you stand there soaking it all in blessing your maid for having done such wonderful laundry!

*excuse any copyright violations for the title.  In my defence, changing, no, ruining the spelling for "footboard" to honour the book's title was not very easy! ;-)

Eff.

If I were to tell you that this post had close to 20 discarded starts, you might opine that what flows hence is a masterpiece rather than the usual drivel I drown my readers in and you’d be wrong. If I were to tell you it took inconceivable self-loathing for me to login to www.blogspot.com before taking the next sip of Bailleys, you might term me a depressed drunkard. If I confess to you of a recent craving to smoke, catching me off guard puffing at one end of a blunt pencil, you might judge me to be weak. If I were to apologise to every soul I’ve hurt, an eon would transpire and I would still not be half done. Yet here I am, in the confession box, listing. Why? It isn’t for retribution, not for perdition, no sir. I stand before you, dear Reader, to confess, that no matter what sin I succumb to, what blasphemy I commit, I stand true to one principle and to one alone, to not give an eff.


“Mighty rude”, the Queen would have surmised. The Devil would surely cheer minions like me on, taking solace in the corrupted soul. Yet in all our hush-hush diplomacy we have ignored and oft denied the necessity of eff in our lives. It stays amongst us, lurking at the back of tongues for some, ready to jump off the tip for others, but omnipresent, always. You have cried eff moist with tears in times of loss, cheered an eff through guffaws of laughter, burnt eff into the other’s soul in moments of rage and at times just let the solitary eff stand out as your expression of shock and surprise. It is one word that has remained true and faithful to you through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, to love and to hold till death do you both part.

The Americans did a great service to the language by nurturing a word that saw its humble beginnings in what I can only imagine as the dingy backyard of New York streets and gained fruition in the pit at the Wall Street. It journeyed across the Atlantic, into the cultural realms of Europe, embraced with open arms by the non-purists. The English chose to stay stiff-chinned, unwilling, and ever so defiant; happy with substitutes that were difficult to explain let alone serve in eff’s stead. I mean how do you “sod off” or “piss off”? Our generation witnessed something that was far more liberating than the hippy revolution, reaching beyond the barriers of language and region, paving the way for a movement that would question societal norms and hypocritical standards. No longer do you question the French or the German guy, “Can you tell me some swear words in your language?” Curiosity is now defined as “How do you say eff in your language?”

From movie stars blurting it out on the silver screen, even in Indian cinema, to the teenager next-door using it as a conjunction to form what might appear to be a grammatically correct sentence, the word is now becoming, what we term “common parlance”. Your ticket to becoming ‘cool’, the weapon to look dangerous, the elixir of a drama queen, eff has managed to manifest itself in all possible forms. To think, even on Scrabble the word would fetch you a healthy 13 points standing alone! And this is how we repay such selflessness of a word that has always ‘given’ and asked for nothing in return except universal acceptance and a place in our limited vocabulary without being judged! Yet there seems to be hope, from those who choose to sail the seas of diction under the pirate flag of eff, and promise a future when a newborn would be able to utter eff as his first word and not be shunned.

What began as a rebellion is now culminating into a concept, one that has risen, withstood resistance and proven its worth and rightful place in the commonplace language. It won’t be long before the linguists take notice and we read in a small advert on the corner of the newspaper, sipping on our morning coffee – “Oxford agrees. Vatican pissed.”

Come now; try saying “Fuck!” out loud after reading this post. Liberating, isn’t it?

Yes, I did actually write it out, and here’s what I have to say to that:

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