Leap of Faith

Another year ends... a leap year begins and I look back (for once, not in anger but in pleasure). This has been a good year for a lot of people I know; and miserable for a few. But perhaps the wrongs of 2007 will be set right in 2008. Perhaps, too, the ones whose eyes I helped light up this year will light up mine from tomorrow. There is a cold fog creeping in tonight and warmth will be hard to find... which is where Tennyson's Ulysses helps:

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

2008 will be a better year and while loved ones may not always be close at hand, distance is only in the mind.

It's the year of the Olympics... so let's see if one can make that leap of faith and not dither at the hurdles ahead.

So here's to a new year, a new blog template and a renewed love of life.

Cheers!

Nostalgia @ Rs 5/kg

It can take over 20 years to squirrel away precious memories in the form of notes, letters, photocopied articles, workshop material, photographs...

And less than three hours to sift through cartons and discard most of them.

The cleaning up of painfully collected archives (physical not digital) is a mind-numbing exercise that leaves the shoulders aching. But nothing is as disconcerting as the fact that you can sell all of what you've discarded for just Rs 5 per kg to the loccal raddi-walla.

I may have been richer by Rs 145 on a cold Sunday morning. But what's gone are old remembrances that there is little room for in this weary world of mine.

Christmas is meant to be a season of giving. I just gave most of my memories away. I should be happy, I guess.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Okay, so it’s been a long time since I wrote here. But then it’s been a busy time…

What with a vacation in China, a debut appearance on a ramp, my first (successful) attempt at throwing out an eve-teaser co-worker from an office party (but, sadly, not from the office itself), a dual eye surgery that was meant to be painless but ended up numbing the brain, the arrival of long-lost friends and some sundry things in between, life has been demanding.

Heck, it's been hectic. That’s what it’s been. But is it going anywhere?

An SMS from my brother, the other day, said “Due to cost-cutting, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.” Imagine this: you know you’re hurtling through a tunnel, hoping it’ll soon end and you’ll be flung out. But the ride seems to last for ever – never straight, always unpredictably driving you round bends. That’s what life seems to have become.

The sadder part is that one doesn’t seem to be alone.

A friend who was to be married last December and had been Plutoed (not for the first time in her young life) came close to getting married to the same gent last week again but chose to defer taking the plunge for some months more – in a way, she extended the tunnel ride herself. Ask her and she’ll swear it isn’t by choice – it’s because she can’t get the man she wants and doesn’t completely want the man who wants her. Life is replete with difficult choices.

Sometimes you can be rescued by tragedy. Or killed by ecstasy. Don’t ask me to explain this – I know what I mean but cannot shed light on it at this point in the tunnel.

Which reminds me of a line I’d heard in a riveting performance by Jalabala Vaidya decades ago: “I am the agony and I am the ecstasy.” Aren’t all of us actually? Don’t we start with the honourable intent of making people happy but end up making either them or someone else in the same eco-system bitterly unhappy?

Sometimes I feel it’s best to be less sensitive to people’s needs and operate with tunnel vision. If the SMS is to be believed, you may never reach the light at the end of the tunnel but, at least, you won’t get distracted by side-lights either.

One life, one fate. No impossible choices to make. Just staying happy at trying to be happy.

Lives Entangled

Wayward lives, like strands of unruly hair, sometimes get entangled with each other.

Caressing at first and then angrily cross with each other, they weave in and out of themselves. Struggling to sometimes meet passionately; at other times, part in pain. Tangled knots that know not what they want.

The cleansing of a life is never as easy as a gentle shampoo and blow-dry job at the nearby salon. Instead, it needs shears to wipe away the tears.

Some places are meant to be cherished for the memories they hold. Of a love missed, a new love discovered; years later, a flame kindled and then snuffed with a slap. Places like these are best left alone – for, even memories get all twisted and then tug at each other.

Some emotions should never be exhumed.

When words and feelings go awry, it’s not just the head that goes into a vertigo-like spin, trying in vain to pull away from the whirlpool-like vortex of a past one never knew but only nightmarishly imagined in fragments through the memories of a life interrupted.

Lead one life my friend, wear just the mask you were born with. Every other is an illusion, a mistress of our times.

(And watch the time they call ‘happy hours’. Sometimes they can be neither happy, nor ’ours.)

Cheers.

Dry Day

October 2nd, Mumbai.

A dry day. Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary. All liquor shops closed (Indiawide). No alcohol being served in any restaurant, pub or hotel (regardless of the number of stars it boasts).

Correction: no alcohol being served to Indians in any of these places. But foreigners are welcome - as always in this land of double-truth.

So, to drink a beer on this venerated day, you need a non-Indian passport or a non-Indian friend.

This happened at Taj Land's End, Bandra.

Cut to Goa Portugesa, Mahim.

Could the fenny-loving Goans be kept away from the tipple even if it's Gandhiji's anniversary?

Try ordering some spicy non-veg coastal cuisine (this, for some inexplicable reason, is not banned on October 2nd). Ask the waiter quietly for a drink.

No passports required... you'll get anything you want masquerading as a mocktail (except beer which can't be camouflaged) and will be billed for soft drinks. You can't clink glasses and say "Cheers" though.

Could it be so because India still scores low on the alcohol consumption chart of the world?

Or is it because we're still experimenting with the truth?

Mobile Thais

Three visits to Thailand in the last four years and it struck me only on the last trip that it is a uniquely mobile land.

They have mobile food...

Mobile music...

Mobile massages...

Mobile monasteries...

Even mobile bars...

And, given the high number of women available legitimately for pleasure at a price, even very mobile thighs (sorry - no pictures to show though!).

Leading India

Earlier this year, I'd written that The Times of India said India was poised.

Now it exhorts the Indian who's ready to spring that he must Lead India.

In a campaign led by Shah Rukh Khan, who is otherwise someone I have never had much time for (except when I trounced him in a quiz on national television decades ages ago - but that's another post...) The Times of India seems to have caught the pulse of young, disillusioned Indians yet again. SMS-es, website registrations, snail mail, phone calls... every medium has sprung into action as people nominate future leaders of India.

And this morning, on my way to work in Gurgaon, having dropped off six children (not all mine!) to school, we were caught in a traffic jam approaching MG Road in Delhi. The cause: at first, a Maruti 800 parked bang in the right lane, indicator on, driver's window down but - lo and behold - no driver!

"Typical..." I cursed.

And then promptly swallowed my words.

The missing driver was 'on duty'... the signal had failed because of a power cut (yes, it happens) and he had jumped off to voluntarily steer traffic. He even had a whistle which he blew to draw attention to himself and then got on to his phone to call someone (a cop? a friend? boss?) and asked for help to be rushed here. Was he a cop off duty? Perhaps, because he even took down the number of a car that jumped his 'signal'.

Here he is, the unknown Indian who is already leading this land.

With heroes like these, who needs politicians?

So far, (not) so good

For the last few months, one has been trying to find a sofa set for one's house.

And, for the same last few months, one has had to walk up and down malls and furniture stores to check out sofas ranging from the plush to the ethnic.

While the choice leaves one befuddled, it also means that the more one searches, the more weary one gets.

Why do we have to walk miles to find a sofa that will finally be used to take the weight off one's feet?

Shilpa for President!

So Ms Patil is India’s first woman president. And some newspapers are already touching her feet.

Does this mean that Rashtrapati Bhavan will now be known as Rashtrapatni Bhavan?

But if Ms Patil is to be the nation’s wife, wouldn’t Ms Shetty have been a better choice? I mean, she has a doctorate from Leed’s University, a figure that would make for great photographs – even if she were to stand next to Ms Clinton at the White House – and a perfume to her name. S2 is what that little bottle is called and its creator, a certain Mark Earnshaw says it has “jasmine and musk but also have a fruity scent to it as well, to pay homage to her Indian heritage and appeal to the European market. Packaging for the fragrance is unique - the box iis (sic) quite classic and modern on the outside, but inside it is of leopard print, because, says Earnshaw, there are two sides to Shilpa…cool on the outside but she also has a different and deeper side.”

What does Ms Patil have? Why should I even attend her swearing-in ceremony if she won’t even smell of S2?

And God help us if she decides to launch P2! What would that smell of I wonder?

Pinky

June 18, 2007: Is this why Jaipur is called the Pink City?

Harry'd I am!

Ms Rowling's laughing again... all the way to the bank.

People I know are practising spot-jogging to prepare for the long queues on Saturday morning outside bookstores (one is even throwing in a breakfast offer) so that they can beat their ilk at grabbing her latest book. The last? No way!... watch this space.

These folks are also going to switch off their mobile phones and stay home to read every word of the book so that they can figure out what happens to Master Potter.

I'm wondering if I should go and watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - tickets should be easy to get because the mania will have moved from the multiplex to the stores.

And I'm also wondering if I should finally pick up one of Ms Rowling's books and start reading them.

Should I give in to temptation?

But should I start with this, the latest? Or go get the first one?

Will I look sheepish trying to buy the first title when everyone's hankering for the last one?

Decisions...decisions! Life is never simple, is it?

Hierarchy

At an e-commerce seminar last month in Kolkata, it was both hilarious and horrifying to see hierarchy being displayed in the most bizarre manner.

Like all good Indians, we believe in rushing towards the future even as we cling to the tailcoats of a rapidly disappearing past. And nowhere was this more evident than the inauguration of this forum on new-age economy... in true desi paradoxical style.

Why should public-sector corporations be obsequious to ministers? Is it part of their KRAs? Their culture? What?

The inauguration of this seminar took place not with a mouse but with a candle lighting a brass lamp... I kid thee not! And the flame was (literally) lit first by the State's IT Minister and then passed on to a Joint Secretary who, having added his flame, handed over the wax baton to the head of the PSU that was sponsoring the event while the remaining wicks were lit by lesser mortals.

What absolved this minister, though, was his speech. Not quite what one expected but a crisp monologue with a lovely insight.

He pointed out that all villagers ask for electricity, a school, water and a road that connects them to the highway/the city. Wouldn't it be better if we could just give them a broadband connection that would connect them to the world instead?

On that thought... adios.

Lollipop

If life sucks, then am I a lollipop?

Happy Half

There must be something ironic about being a reluctant frequent flyer who finds solace in Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar. Or is it nostalgia that drives me deeper into the pages of this 1975 travelogue I discovered only last week by chance?

It was a hot humid afternoon walking down Sudder Street, the hippie-haunt of Calcutta and treasure trove of second-hand books on adjoining Free School Street. Both streets exist only unofficially, their current names being something else. I know that the latter is now called Mirza Ghalib Street and have often wondered what the शायर would have thought about having a red-light road named after him where autos and rickshaws will gladly take the perspiring tourist to a place of pleasure.

And then I remember the auto – that ubiquitous symbol of Delhi – with a couplet silkscreened on its yellow back:
शाम होते ही दीपक को बुझा देता हूँ, दिल काफी है जलने के लिए.

If you’ve ever been on one of these autos that scurry around the capital, the mood of the शेर is completely incongruous with the character of the mobile medium. But then, who am I to judge the anonymous poet or the happy plagiarist who copies it minus any credit and prints it on the auto? It’s better than seeing cheap website URLs advertised, I guess.

‘Only connect’ wrote EM Forster in Howard’s End. And the mind connects the auto with the mobile phone, with the शायरी SMS’d from Bombay every so often by a friend who, in turn, receives it from another, a full-time brand consultant and happy half-time couplet-creator। The medium does nothing to detract from the depth of the poet’s mood and I wonder whether we’ll soon see a tiny book on SMS शायरी…

Here’s one that came my way recently (copyrights are reserved by the Happy Half, as he will be known here only because real names are not to be mentioned in my world of masks):

Bekhabar maut aane ka bus yeh gham hoga, mohabbat bayaan karne ka waqt kam hoga.
बेखबर मौत आने का बस यह गम होगा, मोहब्बत बयां करने का वक़्त कम होगा.

Time, indeed, is running out and sleep is what I’d like most right now as I sit on yet another flight (my fourth between Calcutta and Delhi in the last ten days) and wonder at the marvel of cheap fares that make it possible for almost every person to fly. Paul Theroux could well write a sequel: The Great Indian Airport Bazaar. (Or maybe I should.)

I have, for company, on this trip a Bengali family of eight that includes one number non-Bengali son-in-law along with wife and month-young child. The patriarch is evidently the only one who’s flown before, everyone else is a first-timer. My hunch is that even Baba has flown just a few times before but, like it is in the villages, the one guy who’s been to the city (even if it is for a week as a peon) becomes the expert on urbanisation. Or on airplanes and all things related. Much ado is made about sitting together because their seats are scattered and Baba vociferously takes over, requests people to adjust (that smooth act every seasoned traveller does on trains when berths are to be shuffled so that womenfolk do not have to sit next to strange men). I voluntarily move back a row in the interest of domestic integrity but have to suffer the ignominy of seeing a wife quickly shifted away from me by her protective husband and question whether my unshaved appearance has anything to do with their fear that I may join the mile-high club with Mrs Dumpling.

Dumpling can’t help but smile to herself when the aircraft picks up speed on the runway and one can see years of ambition being fulfilled. This is the only time I admire Air Deccan for getting the insight right and capturing it in their launch TV commercial: we all want to fly, only some are lucky enough to get a cheap fare.

Dumpling’s equally chubby hubby, a thirty-something, wants to know what to do with the juice carton he’s just finished; his wife nudges him and shoves hers into her purse. The matriarch, it seems, hasn’t approved of her oldest daughter’s marriage to this North Indian (I later realise, he’s a Muslim) for she sits silent, sulking almost, smearing sticky sweet red mixed fruit jam on to her kulcha (no non-veg breakfast for her, thank you). She’s the only one not dressed to the hilt; either she had no time this frenzied morning to change into the finery flouted by the rest of the family or she’s still silently protesting and going along because she simply can’t be left alone.

From their conversations, it’s evident they’re flying to help the new parents settle down in Delhi – older daughter must’ve come home to deliver the baby… another stupid Indian custom in which the expenses of childbirth are picked up by the girl’s parents and not her in-laws or husband.

But I’m sleepy and another Happy Half शेर comes back…
या तो एक कन्धा हो जिसपे सर रखके रोयें, या चार होँ कि हम हमेशा के लिए सोयें.

Cheerzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Surviving

Why is that we spend all our lives trying to live a better life when all that lies at its end is death?

Why is it that a 'better life' has to translate into more money? A car instead of a motorbike. Two cars instead of one. An apartment. Clothes. Shoes...

Why is that we spend so much time chasing things and not enjoying what exists?

This isn't called living, it's called surviving.

And, to survive, is to live with what is left.

Midwife

Having just relaunched a news website, and discovering several glitches that need fixing, the mind is preoccupied. Not just with solving the current problems but also ensuring that these don't recur in subsequent changeovers.

The editor of the news portal complains how I haven't had the time to chat with her and, perhaps, congratulate her. But little does she know that I am merely the midwife: having delivered one child with whom I cannot be attached for too long or too deeply, it is time to move on to the next delivery.

There are babies queued up, waiting to be born. This is, after all, India. And changing times mean there's actually very little time.

Loving detachment, remember?

JurassicFest

2900 sweaty bodies rubbing against each other on a sun-soaked beach

Sand in their shoes and God knows in which orifice.

Beer being knocked back with no हिसाब ... and blending with every other spirit besides.

Rain dances, never-ending nights, incestuous agency employees forming multiple alumni associations at the same time, pretty young things in tiny skirts accompanied by sulking, bearded guys holding them on a long leash...

There are many ways to look at Goa - depending on your current age and state of mind. To the under-30s, subsidised by the Advertising Agencies Association of India, this was GoaFest at its best.

To the over-40s/50s/60s, jaded by the continuous bickering on the split between media and creative agencies, this was not GoaFest but JurassicFest. Dinosaur-like agency heads, supposedly respectable figures, squabbling on a public forum - it couldn't get worse! Nor could it have been more appropriate that the principal sponsor of the fiery panel discussion was the ABP Group, whose corporate line (crafted way back in 1997) is 'Power of Words'. (Words, is an anagram of sword - did you know?)

At least there's consistency: scam ads still win awards.

But, sandwiched between the crowds, one can be alone. Really alone without being lonely. That's when it strikes you it's the 20th and 21st of April and that the last time you were here was the 20th and 21st of July. And then you wonder whether you can ever get back to Goa with someone you really want by your side (not those thrust on you by the coincidences of corporate conferences). Just someone with whom you can wander the wet, winding roads, watch the sun go to sleep, awake each others' senses till your smells intertwine. Soon, you hope, before life takes another turn.

But then you wake up and set out to walk the beach while it's still unpopulated. And then you come across this:


And you wonder whether this road is best not taken.

One for None

I work in an organisation that has 23 conference rooms in the building. That's right... 23!

And yet there's one particular room that's not available to anyone because it's booked all day, all week - apparently by one person who, officially, sits in the open area on that floor along with others of his ilk. But since he wants to work out of a room, and isn't entitled to one, he books this conference room and moves in with bag and laptop.

Neat trick... except that if we move out to another building with fewer conference rooms, then will this gent be able to work with the hoi-polloi? चलो, देखते हैं।

हिंदी Rules OK?

आख़िर गूगल ने भी हिंदी भाषा की औकात मान ली... :-)

Friday the 13th

The morning starts with an SMS that redefines old age as that point in your life when a sexy babe arouses your memories instead of your you-know-what.

Funny, I guess.

Mid-morning and I realise a female colleague is being flirted with on the email by a middle-aged, perhaps dirty, man with lewd intent.

Not funny, for sure.

Afternoon: a girl who works with me is about to leave for Amritsar to get married and has come by to say 'bye but does so by bending down to touch my feet!

Embarassing. And disgusting.

Early evening and another female colleague recounts her advertising agency days when a client booked her and two male colleagues in a hotel in Bombay that turned out to be a pickup joint.

Cheap.

Should I hate guys who do this to women? Or change the circle of male friends/colleagues I have?

Heaven & Hell

Why do people go up to heaven?

And down to hell?

Why can't it be the other way?

There are some things that are better when one goes down...right?

Human Flu

Two lovebirds coo away in a cage, awaiting freedom.

A mother tending to some household chore, sneezes in rapid succession right over their cage.

And the seven-year old girl, whose birthday present the birds were (in the reluctant father's futile hope that she would let them loose sooner rather than later) stands with her hands on frail hips and admonishes: "Mummy, can't you sneeze elsewhere?! They'll get human flu!"

Life's like this only. Bless her.

The Patient Pandit

Can an x-ray machine be a leveller of mankind?

It can if it's a baggage scanner at Mumbai airport on a Friday morning.

A long queue of dusgusted passengers wait to get their bags scanned because only one machine is operational - probably because the operator/security guard has rushed off to ensure that his bowesl evacuate his backside at the appropriate location :-)

There's the businessman sending his wife to get a copy of The Times of India and then, realising it's free, sends her back to get The Economic Times as well. Slavery exists yet.

There's the college-going, backpack girl with mom in tow wondering whether this is the right queue to be in.

A suited-booted CEO-type hitting the Blackberry... at 6.15 in the morning!

And then, right at the end, unassumingly stands the man who made the santoor so popular. Not irritated, not impatient. Just calm and soothing like his music.

He goes through the pain we all do, waits in the lounge, boards the aircraft and drops off to sleep. Celebrities need to learn from him before they start pulling strings and creating cacophony.

Beyond the Navel

A gent, known for his rather profound, motivational statements (most of which aren't even understood by his colleagues, let alone practised) said this today: "Most of us are like the deer which doesn't realise the value of its navel where musk is created (probably because its nose is too far from its navel anyway). And so is it with us... we can't look beyond our nose and see the value of what lies beyond."

True, I guess.

As for me, more than my rather long nose, I'd prefer to look beyond a navel.

Cheers!

Timing

At a Scenario Planning Workshop in Bangalore held over the last four days...

Case study: list down key 'drivers' that will impact the real-estate industry in India.

One 'driver' suggested by a participant: extra-marital affairs!

And then, the next day, from the driver of the hired car taking us into town in a new Toyota Corolla with no number plates but paper stickers on both front and back windscreens, when asked why he had no number plates: "Timing saar!" (i.e. "no time").

Talk about coincidences...

Pune: the past and the preacher

February 10th was a weird day in Pune.

I met an uncle retired from the army who I’d been meeting every few years. Nothing noteworthy there.

And then I met – for just the second time in my existence - another uncle who had retired from life itself when I was just two or three years old.

One spent his life in green battle fatigues dodging bullets. Another, clad in saffron, continued to preach love and peace as a sadhu.

Green and saffron… the colours of India?

It takes all kinds to make up this world I suppose. But, caught in the conflicting worlds between the two, I wondered whether the rest of us were in the twilight zone.

And then on the drive back to Bombay, down the Expressway, the car’s antenna picked up a radio signal. And there was AB – awesomely best – sharing the pain of Rozana in Nishabdh. If there is a deep ache in anyone’s voice, it is here. If there are memories it evokes, blame no one but yourself and your past.

The present is nothing but a transition between what was and what will be. Rozana is just that… the agony of a man who knows what he’s lost and knows too that it will not return.

Perhaps that’s why we can only remember the ones gone by and not revel in those who are.

Hip-or-crazy?

A frequent traveller to another at the airport one morning: "My wife in Bangalore is convinced I have a girlfriend in Hyderabad. And my girlfriend in Hyderabad is sure I have a wife in Bangalore! Doomed I am…”

Remember My Fair Lady? “Get a woman in your life and you’ve got eternal strife!”

Also uttered by the same gent (in his mid-50s I gauge) to his companion, caught between his diva and the spouse: “Why did Amitabh have to do Nishabdh? It’s the first film of his that I hate. How can he play the role of a 60-year old in love with an 18-year old? Chhi-chhi!”

So it’s hip for Mr Doomed to balance two lives in two cities but not for AB to put on yet another mask and stage another performance?

Leaves me nishabdh, I say.

Long Time

Long time no write...

Long time no free time left!

Only the good die young?

Off Park Circus in Calcutta, down Zakaria Road, lies a Hindu cemetery. (Yes, some Hindus do get buried, not cremated.)

That’s where He was buried exactly 13 years ago, to this day.

His father didn’t even see His face, just held the little lifeless bundle, lost to the family, wrapped in cloth. Joy turned into almost instant, inexplicable despair.

Nor did he go to the graveyard. He couldn’t. The boy hadn’t survived more than 20 minutes after His birth. But the living needed looking after.

So the father didn’t bury Him; His uncles did.

Was it Billy Joel who sang “Only the good die young”?

Try explaining this to His grandmother, whose birthday it also is today. Or to the wife who carried him within her all those nine months?

Tell me, Mr Joel: if the good do die young, is it the bad that die old?

Pallu Wedding

On February 9th, in a Bombay suburb, a Panju married a Mallu.

Now, does that make them a Pallu couple?

Cheers!

An Indian Spring

The weather's changing up north. Winter's giving way, not so reluctantly actually.

Small B's got engaged to Ash (officially).

Shilpa's defeated Jane (unfortunately now we'll have some more trash to spew out in the media unless there are more people like these).

India may score over West Indies today (but even if they don't, advertisers on TV will have won over audiences).

SRK looks like he's going to do a successful imitation of Big B. Again. So Star TV will survive on the strength of KBC again (it may even consider rebranding itself as Phoenix).

And the Tatas have won Corus.

Looks like the hype is turning into reality... poise is in the air.

Growing Old

Last week, I met someone I'd last met in October and she observed: "You've really greyed in the last four months!"

While I don't think that's true, I was reminded of Will Smith in Hitch when he comments: "Age is a question of mind over matter... if you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

True, I guess.

Remote (out of) Control

We weren’t the first family in the building to own a TV set way back in the days when there was just one channel and no one more entertaining than Tabassum to watch on Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan (Mr Karan Johar, please note: no coffee, just dimple-cheeked Tabby talking non-stop while the person she was interviewing tried valiantly to get a word in edgeways). No MTV, just Chitrahaar. The brand we bought was Televista, not Weston or Beltek, because it had sliding doors that shielded the precious glass screen. So, we weren’t the first family with a TV set but we were the only ones who allowed the neighbours and everyone else in the vicinity to happily crowd our drawing room when the film was telecast on Saturday (Bengali) and Sunday (Hindi). No Act II popcorn, no Coke, just water or tea and some home-made Sindhi-style pakoras depending on Mummy’s energy levels keeping up with her generosity quotient.

And there was one number Pye radio set whose valves took time to light up as we waited in anticipation while Dad tuned the knobs to get the right frequency and expose us to Ameen Sayani from Radio Ceylon doing the Binaca Geetmala. Or the cricket commentary on Vividh Bharati.

Life was boringly simple. And we yearned for variety.

Yesterday, I wanted to rewind my life and get back to those days.

Because yesterday it finally struck me that my life – always run by remote control by some unseen hand(s) – had been taken over by four remote controls that sat beside me. Lifeless but capable of ruling one’s life completely.

A remote control for the three-year old TV (a Sony Wega that’s working perfectly fine but will probably get exchanged for a flat-screen plasma TV because, again, we’re not the first family in the building to show off a wall-mounted piece of plastic electronic art).

Another for the Pioneer DVD player that came in from a trip to Malaysia four years ago.

A third for the eight-year old Sony music system that’s been connected to the TV to create a home-theatre like sound system.

And the latest entrant to the RC clan is the one that comes with the Tata Sky set top box.

Now, try and watch a movie with everything on (including the Tata Sky box on just in case one of your children sleepily saunters in looking for that missing teddy and you don’t want her looking at a scene that’s a bit steamy and need to quickly change channels pretending you’re watching the news!). No immediate problem until the power goes off and everything shuts down till the generator kicks in somewhere and you need to restart everything. That’s when you realise that irrespective of whether you have two hands or four or none (in case you encountered a Gabbar-like character who took them away) remote controls work one at a time. No two will work simultaneously when pointed in the same direction.

You struggle to gain mastery over these six-inch long objects and wonder if it’s all worth it. They’re making you lazy and they’re not exactly the most co-operative or intuitive pieces of technology, are they?

And then, you ask yourself: if buttons are all I have to hit, why can’t I punch the right ones in my life?

Why can’t I get back control of a life that’s supposed to be mine?

Why, like the plethora of TV channels that get beamed at us, do we have to multi-task and live multiple lives within this one life?

Why can’t we control the remotes?

Look who’s changing!

“Calcutta’s really improved.”

The first time I heard this, I was pleasantly surprised. It isn’t often that the city which has been your home for almost 36 years and has been run down by almost everyone, including a Prime Minister, is praised.

“Calcutta’s changed.”

By now I was curious – and a bit irritated. I felt cheated because I hadn’t been back to the city in what seemed like ages, except for flying, infrequent visits to check on ailing parents or attend a wedding… moments where the preoccupation of the task at hand prevented me from really absorbing what seemed like a shifting streetscape.

“Calcutta’s looking good.”

Sure, I told myself, there are more shops than I recall, malls and multiplexes are multiplying like rabbits, but have the people changed? Has the चलता है attitude progressed to a दौड़ेगा mindset?

So, on a recent visit that took me back to Calcutta on work and compelled me to stay at a hotel because I couldn’t stay with the family for various reasons, I ended up soaking in the city at almost every level.

“Welcome to the Taj Bengal, sir. Is this your first visit to us?’ whispered Payel at the reception.

“We’ve upgraded you to a small suite sir, enjoy your stay, do let me know if there’s anything we can do for you”, she continued as she escorted me up to Room 303.

303? The Enfield rifle from the Commando comics! Or Jeetendra advertising that virility capsule that almost vanished later thanks to Viagra? Little did I know then that I would soon be waging a war within the precincts of the Taj…

I dump my bags and head off to meet the people I have to meet. And that’s when the mood-change becomes palpable. Here’s an evangelist who’s struggled to get professional and family-run businesses to migrate to the Internet and when you speak to him, you hear not despondency but optimism. He could have been in Bombay or Bangalore – not Delhi mind you, he’s far too genteel to survive there. After protracted negotiations that are going nowhere, we decide to go for lunch – if all else fails in Calcutta, seek out food and much will be forgiven.

Waldorf on Park Street has changed: they don’t make the fried fish I used to get packed and scamper home with in the pre-microwave days so that we could have it really hot! It isn’t even called Waldorf any longer and is now branded as Marco Polo. The food is good, the prices reasonable (presumably) and the buffet has variety. What more could you ask for in a business lunch? A paan perhaps, and even that is just round the corner.

The car makes its way down Chowringhee and you notice someone protesting about the ban that’s been announced on Calcutta's rickshaw-pullers. This is Esplanade, the Hyde Park of Calcutta, once ruled by a sea of red flags protesting at everything that could be considered an agenda. Only this time, there is a small stage, a lone politician making a speech and a crowd of five (that’s right, just five) in attendance. Either there are other, more persuasive speeches being made in the vicinity where the crowds have flocked or the rickshaw-wallah has sensibly chosen to go and earn his daily wages instead of wasting time here.

In fact, the attitude is clearly that of moving on and not wasting time. At advertising agencies, publications, even a Government-run office with an officer swamped in a sea of dusty files jostling for space with two desktops in the same room, the clear signal being sent out is one of catching up with lost time.

Yes, things have changed.

At Oh Calcutta, the celebrated Bengali-cuisine restaurant that opened some time ago amidst scepticism, it is difficult to get a place for five on a Thursday afternoon. The place isn’t just packed; it’s packed with Bengalis stuffing Bengali food down their throats and paying for it through their mustard-oiled noses. Apparently, there’s also a Bhojohari Manna that serves similar fare which is lapped by residents only. We Delhi-ites get a few odd glances – but because we’re the only ones minus any warm clothing while the locals are all huddled up in their winter warmest. The mall where the restaurant is located has a serpentine queue of people booking tickets for Salaam-e-Ishq which will be released the next day. The elevators are crowded with a youngster pushing his way in and a didi-ma (grandma) jostling her way out (if there’s ever an exam before granting migratory rights to Calcuttans seeking a transfer to Delhi, these two will surely be elbowing each other to top the list)… yes, Calcutta’s changed.

But nothing is as certain a sign of change as Oly’s (or, to the uninitiated, Olympia) the bar on Park Street where the advertising crowd used to be found without fail. In fact, rumour has it that a particular agency almost shut down because its managers would be found at Oly’s from the moment it opened to the time it halfheartedly downed its shutters. At first, Oly’s looks the same: the laminated walls haven’t changed, Dansberg beer is still available (God bless Danny Denzongpa and his Yuksom Brewery), the चानाचूर tastes the same but something’s missing. After a while it hits you: where’s that empty, extra glass that would be plonked down on the table into which would go a copy of every bill recording every round of drinks you’d order just so that you didn’t lose track of your own creditworthiness?! It was a ritual that made Oly’s unique. Now even that’s gone.

You cross the road and notice a new-look Flury’s with the same old hot-cross buns and, worse, the cross waiters who are probably paid a bonus to be surly. Next to it stands MusicWorld and on its steps sit teenagers out of college and office-goers as well waiting for their dates to appear. Calcutta’s looking young.

Somebody wants चाय, someone else is hungry and it’s just 7.30 in the evening. Is Azad Hind Dhaba still around, I ask? The locals look at me as though I’m an idiot – I may as well have asked does KC Das still make rossogollas? So we head off to the dhaba that used to be our haunt after late-night pitches in search of tight-fisted clients in the early 90s. While I was away, MF Husain has been here, I notice, and amidst the red laminated tables, right next to the kitsch Pepsi tiles on the walls hangs an original Gajagamini painting by the eccentric bare-footed artist. This was his gift to Azad Hind Dhaba. Again, nothing seems to have changed except that no one speaks a word of Punjabi or Hindi – all you hear from the waiters is Bengali but, mercifully, the food remains incorruptible north Indian.

By the way, I’m told Nizam’s has been bought by a Marwari whose first initiative was to stop making beef rolls. I’m also told that he’s thinking of renaming it as Agarwal’s! Can someone confirm this please?

Back at the Taj, the Chinoiserie still exists – minus the fried ice-cream though. Instead it has a rat scuttling across the floor. “Can’t be,” I mutter to myself but there it goes again. The waiter apologises and I wonder whether I should continue eating or just retire hungry.

At breakfast the next morning, I find a tiny cockroach under the milk dispensers. I am horrified. So are the chefs. They apologise profusely, the Sous Chef gives me his business card (as though that atones for their sloppiness) and fails to convince me that there is a pest-control operation that happens three times a week. I decide to skip breakfast.

On my last day, at breakfast again, I discover another cockroach in the same milk dispenser – only this one’s bigger. More horror, more apologies but nothing else. Not even a complimentary bottle of wine or meal at some other pest-free eaterie in the chain. Nobody takes me seriously anymore.

Evidently the Taj has changed: they’ve become worse at house-keeping but better at apologising. I tell myself that it must be the proximity to the zoo that keeps bringing in these creatures despite the hotel’s best efforts and wonder if other guests have woken up to find a giraffe looking in through the window.

Has the Coffee House changed? The puchka-wallahs? The roll and chow-mein stalls? The mini-buses? JU?… I don’t know because I have to leave and can’t change my ticket.

But at least, I know that I have to come back. And that won’t change.

Cheers!

Gurgaon-isation

Okay, so you know of being Bangalored. And of Plutoed.

Now there's Gurgaon-isation...

To the uninitiated, Gurgaon is a dust bowl that's been built-up by two large builders (DLF and Unitech) and many smaller ones who have sold the dream of 'sadda ghar' to tens of thousands. The capital of Haryana and land of the Jats, it's pretty much like the Wild West where the whiteskins ousted the native Indians who hunted them down (in vain, albeit) with bows and arrows. The Jats still try and hunt down the new settlers by driving like maniacs and banging their old, rickety buses into shiny new sedans every now and then.

To the initiated, Gurgaon is a contrast in concrete. Here's why

1. It has call centres who employ cabs who frequently drive on the wrong side of the road - evidently their drivers think they're already in the US of A.


2. Its full of swank apartments with no roads leading up to them.


3. There are centrally ac'd buildings but no electricity to power the traffic lights.


4. Premium apartments are being sold facing a golf course - but that's likely to be moved to another location five years from now. Only no one really knows it.


5. There's a complete takeover of some services (maids, sweepers, guards, rickshaw-pullers) by just one community (Bengali migrants from Bangladesh). It's what Derek once called the ABCD class in a quiz years ago (ABCD=Ayahs, Bearers, Cooks, Drivers).


6. There are malls that run up high air-conditioning bills but low sales.


7. And malls that have more window-shoppers than real customers.


8. It also has cows that double up as temporary road dividers. And set out every morning along with the fitness-concious joggers who usually end up running their expensive Nikes into dung.

So, if you spot any of these happening in any part of the world... you'll know it's Gurgaon-isation. Time we gave ourselves some more credit, what!

Cheers!

What, me Majboor?!

Came across this in an anthology of poems by someone called 'Majboor':
मैं चलता रहा मोहब्बातों के रास्ते,
मैं जलता रहा मोहब्बातों के वास्ते.

And was reminded of something I'd scribbled somewhere some months ago:
मैं बुझाता रहा हर किसी की आग,
और ख़ुद बन गया राख.

Now, I'm not majboor, nor do I want to be. But there is something similar here...or am I imagining it?

PS: can't read the Hindi font? Try downloading one from any of these sites:
http://tdil.mit.gov.in/download/Raghu.htm
http://chandas.cakram.org/
http://www.kamban.com.au/
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/hindi/

Where are you going?

"You don't really know where you're going until you know where you've been."

I'm not saying this. Will Smith, the date-doctor said so in Hitch last night on HBO.

But it is true, isn't it?

Don't Talk Like a Zune

AdAge has this Media Guy who has 'assembled this convenient glossary of must-know terminology. '

SICK MINUTES or SICK HOURS: Minutes or hours taken off of work when a person comes down with one or more viral videos, the watching of which entirely precludes productivity. Sample usage: "Jim's going to be late for the meeting -- he came down with a viral video and had to take some sick minutes, so he's scrambling to finish his PowerPoint."

VIRAL VIDIOT: Anybody who thinks she or he can be the next Lonelygirl15.

DEATHLY HOLLOW: What publishers other than Scholastic, and authors other than J.K. Rowling, will feel in the pits of their stomachs when "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" goes on sale later this year.

IDOL IDLE: What will happen to TV ratings on other networks -- and lots of other electronic media -- when Fox's "American Idol" starts airing again later this month. Sample usage: "Well, our website traffic's going to be Idol idling Wednesday night from 8 to 10, so maybe that'd be a good time to do the rebuild."

GOOGLE EARTH: An animated mapping service from Google. Also: what the planet Earth will be renamed circa 2009 when Google executives look at their cash balance sheet and decide to make an impulse real-estate buy.

GOOGLE WALLET: What every living human being will use to pay Google Rent to Google Landlord starting in 2009. Sample usage: "Did you hear that Bill Gates is thinking of moving out of his 40,000-square-foot mansion? Google Landlord raised his Google Rent again, and he's not sure he can afford to live there anymore."

HUFFINGTON PEST: Common household pest that's attracted to warm, bright places, such as computers and TV studios.

WIKI: Hawaiian for "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?" See also: user-generated content.

FIREFOXY: What most bloggers aren't. Sample usage: "Is Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing, like, the only Firefoxy blogger in the world?"

ZUNE: Microsoft's new music player. Also [slang]: a poseur; a wannabe. Usage: "Dude, you look like such a Zune in that shirt."

VISTA: Microsoft's new operating system. Also: a scenic view populated with bugs and security holes.

MASH-UP: When one thing that's not good enough on its own joins up with another thing that's not good enough on its own -- and they, like, make out and have babies and stuff. Usage: "Zune should think about doing a mash-up with the new Adam Sandler movie."

MICROSOFT: What Bill Gates feels in his pants when he thinks about Sergey Brin, Larry Page and/or Steve Jobs.

MOORE'S LAW OF OLD MEDIA: If you have a job in old media, you don't actually have a job in old media anymore. Surprise! Especially right before the holidays. Origin: derives from Moore, Ann, the Time Inc. chief who has a habit of laying people off with astonishingly Scroogey timing. See the 27 consumer-marketing people axed the Tuesday before Christmas.

AJAX: Asynchronous Java Script and eXtensible Markup Language. Also: powdered cleanser with bleach that's useful for cleaning the blood stains off the floor at Time Inc.

And here's my humble contribution...

WIRED: It's what happens to folks in the Internet space in India when they read the latest issue of the magazine and get all strung up about how they're missing out on the gravy train :-)

Got something to add?

Mind meets Heart

Rose meets Gregory and emotions meet rationality... that's Barabara Streisand and Jeff Bridges in a wonderful comedy (that didn't do too well at the box office): The Mirror Has Two Faces.

There's this one long - but wonderfully scripted - scene in which Rose, a professor of English Literature holds forth on why people fall in love. And Gregory, a maths prof. at the same university (Columbia) sneaks in to get a look at her because he's looking for a relationship that goes beyond sex (which is all he's had with some of his students).

Here's what she says to her class:

This is the scene at my sister's wedding.
She's getting drunk, regretting that she got married for the third time.
My mom's sprouting snakes from her hair in jealousy.
It was perfect ...We've got three feminine archetypes: The divine whore, Medusa -- and me.
What archetype am I?-
The Virgin Mary? -
Thanks a lot, Trevor.
No, the faithful handmaiden. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
It proves what Jung said all along. Myths and archetypes are alive and well and living in my apartment.

As l stood beside the altar beside my sister and her husband to be, -- it struck me that this ritual, a wedding ceremony, -- is the last scene of a fairy tale. They never say what happens after. That Cinderella drove the prince mad by obsessively cleaning the castle.They don't say what happens after because there is no after.

The be-all and end-all of romantic love was ... Mike?

Sex?

You have sex on the brain.

Marriage.

But it wasn't always like that. The thirteenth century had ''courtly love'', which had nothing to do with sex. The relationship between a knight and a married lady of the court ...And so they could never consummate their love. They rose above ''going to the toilet in front of each other'' love, -- and went after something more divine. They took sex out of the equation, leaving them with a union of souls.

Think of this. Sex was always the fatal love potion. Look at the literature of the time. All consummation could lead to was madness, despair or death.Experts, scholars and my Aunt Esther are united in one belief:True love has spiritual dimensions, while romantic love is a lie.A myth. A soulless manipulation. And speaking of manipulation ...It's like going to the movies and
seeing the lovers kiss ...The music swells, and we buy it, right?So when my date kisses me, and l don't hear strings, l dump him.

The question is, why do we buy it? Because, myth or manipulation, we all want to fall in love. That experience makes us feel completely alive. Our everyday reality is shattered, and we are flung into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, but that doesn't diminish its value.

We're left with memories we treasure for the rest of our lives. I read, ''When we fall in love, we hear Puccini in our heads.'' I love that. His music expresses our need for passion and romantic love. We listen to La Bóheme or Turandot, or read Wuthering Heights, -- or watch Casablanca, and a little of that love lives in us too. So the final question is: Why do people want to fall in love -- when it can have such a short run and be so painful?

Propagation of the species?

We need to connect with somebody.

Are we culturally preconditioned?

Good, but too intellectual for me. I think it's because, as some of you may already know...

While it does last, it feels fucking great.

Go unearth a copy of the film from your local library. While it does play, it's good.

India Fogged?

On Monday morning, The Times of India says India Poised…

I say, it’s India Fogged.

Delhi is covered by a thick blanket of fog that crept in on New Year’s eve. And Delhi-ites are covered under blankets with their foggy minds hung-over from innumerable glasses nursed all night long.

The India Poised campaign says there are two Indias; I say, there are three.

Apart from the ones straining at the leash and being the leash, there’s another India that doesn’t even know what is going on. So fogged out they are.

There's the Mukesh Ambani India, the Anil Ambani India and the poor Rest of India who will finally be swallowed by one of the Brothers A.

There are beached-whale like airplanes sitting on tarmacs, poised to take off but unable to because runways are fogged.

There are parents discovering lost children in skeletal instalments in a Noida house where they’ve been butchered.

There are openers in the Indian cricket team who can’t score any runs against the South Africans.

Malls in Gurgaon are poised to earn rentals from shopowners whose establishments were sealed in Delhi. And rumour has it that the local Congress government is poised to lose the elections because they’ve earned the wrath of these traders – as well as hefty commissions from mall-owners.

DTH operators are poised to replace cable-operators (an industry is being buried even as I blog this) and their snake-like cables crisscrossing lampposts.

The Metro is poised to cut through MG Road in Delhi – where will the trees go, I ask no one in particular?

And Shah Rukh Khan is poised too… to imitate Amitabh yet again as a quizmaster. Perhaps he’ll do a Hindustan Poised campaign for Hindustan Times now as well.

So we are poised all right. The question is, for how long can we remain poised and not quite take off?

The fog is finally lifting and the sun is making its way through the clouds. India too shall rise – if you don’t believe me, listen to AB again (and let’s see Shah Rukh imitating that baritone – ha!)

Cheers!