Alone

They touch you

Innocuous things

Miles and miles of jungle air

Hours on the mp3 player

Biting cold of starlit nights

Gay abandon of grazing deers

Endless humidity of the coast

Adivasi girl’s shy smile

And you promise yourself

That you will write about them

Never about other things like

Staring at a mosquito for hours

Uncut nails and unshaved beard

Dirty clothes and runny nose

They say they are jealous of you

So you keep up the appearance

And you romanticize and smile

And pretend you don’t feel

The fear that fever is worsening

The shiver you aren’t eating well

And you push the thought away

That the stories mightn’t be worth shit

That nobody might ever read

The words you labor away at;

That all the lies told to family

Will only be for a fool’s errand

Some mornings you just want to hide

In the overnight warm blanket

Not face a new city, a new story

Some nights on the side of the bed

You sit in the smoke, numb and tired

Counting down to your next trip home

And then they are just that

Innocuous things

Preparations

I haven’t felt this alive for many months now. These days, I oscillate between boredom and excitement, restlessness and peace, crowd and loneliness, anger and joy, every hour. I haven’t had a dreamless night in the last 10 days and I am unlikely to have one before 28^th Sept night when the train to Jammu lulls me to sleep. I have been trying to keep myself busy with various preparations and meeting friends.

All the clichés on friendship any person has ever coined can do meagre justice to just how much love and gratefulness I feel for my friends these last few weeks. Some have questioned every assumption of mine, some have shown confidence in me, some have held up a mirror in front of me, some have planned my trip in more detail than I have, some have simply looked at me with pride and some, with wide-eyed wonder. A key part of my preparations has been to meet them so much that maybe I get tired of them and miss them a little less when I sit by the Beas alone on a chilly evening. Yeah, right! Like that's ever going to happen.

 I have been thinking of stories at every waking hour. Their structures, genres, languages, symbols, motivations, lengths, depths, characters, tempo, etc. I spend a lot of time just staring at people and thinking of possible stories. I have completely stopped reading as I have noticed in the past I get hugely influenced by whatever it is I may have read last. I have stopped writing because, well, I have a lot of that to do in the next 6 months and I might as well time my writer’s bloc perfectly – i.e. April 2013.

And then there are piles and piles of stuff to be bought. Kinetic chargers, foldable bottles, ipad keyboards, number locks, swiss knives, thermal-wear and the list can go on forever. Even in this, friends with much more experience have come forward and made it a walk in the park. I am pretty confident right now that in a remote village in Baramulla, if there is no electricity and no vegetarian food, I will still have a decent story written and a tummy well-fed.  

Just so you know how awesome my friends are, there is a promotion plan in place for the book which has not even been written yet. There is a build-up route-map which will run in conjunction with my travel and I am pretty confident it will impress the hell out of any marketing guru. I have talked to my college profs, ex-bosses and guides, mainly to hear them approve of my decision and hence draw confidence from their words. I leave on the 27^th with both – a lot of confidence and a lot of pressure and I guess I can only grow from this experience.

And then, just as i thought I was so ready I could have left immediately, Anurag Basu gave me a song on Friday that I will carry with me through the next 6 months. Very few travel songs can give you goose-bumps and move you to tears. After all, they are supposed to be just about travel, right? But Papon’s “Kyon” is a thing of sheer beauty. So visually stunning, so lyrically rich, so hauntingly melodious is the song that I just know that when I am staring at the Himalayas in Arunachal, this song is more likely to make me shiver than the sub-zero temperatures. I have proof. It managed to moisten my eyes before Bombay’s torrential rains could, last night!

And so I leave on Thursday the 26^th of Sept, with a bagful of confidence, anticipation and hope in the search of beauty and passion and magic and love.

P.S. – I haven’t had a bigger screen crush than Ileana D’Cruz in Barfi since Aishawarya Rai in Kajra Re. Its the eyes. It always is! 

Baazigar

I have put down my papers. Come September 27^th, I won’t be wearing formals for a long, long time.

I thought of writing this sentimental post on how it feels to be at the edge of a cliff, ready to jump into the unknown.. and blah blah! Then I thought I’ll just put my itinerary here and let you do the imagining.

Phase 1

27^th Sept 7:55 am – Depart by train for Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir

7^th Oct – Reach Amritsar from Srinagar

14^th Oct – Reach Kangra from Amritsar

21^st Oct – Reach Mussoorie from Kangra

28^th Oct – Reach Delhi from Kangra

4^th Nov – Reach Mughal Sarai from Delhi

12^th Nov – Return home for Diwali

Phase 2

19^th Nov – Depart by train for Bangalore, Karnataka

26^th Nov – Reach Pondicherry from Bangalore

3^rd Dec – Reach Vizag from Pondicherry

10^th Dec – Reach Puri from Vizag

17^th Dec – Reach Dantewada from Puri

25^th Dec – Return home for Christmas/New Year

Phase 3

1^st Jan – Reach Vasco, Goa – Ideally from Anjuna where I would like to bring in the New Year if friends permit

8^th Jan – Reach Surat from Vasco

15^th Jan – Reach Ujjain from Surat

22^nd Jan – Reach Jaipur from Ujjain – Attend the Jaipur Litfest (24^th to 28^th Jan) among other things

30^th Jan – Return home for Mom’s birthday

Phase 4

5^th Feb – Depart by train/air for Bodh Gaya, Bihar

13^th Feb – Reach Ranchi from Bodh Gaya

20^th Feb – Reach Kolkatta from Ranchi

27^th Feb – Reach Gangtok from Kolkatta

5^th Mar – Reach Dispur from Gangtok

12^th Mar – Reach Itanagar from Dispur

20^th Mar – Return home for the “Closing of books” (Warning – stupid CA joke) on 31^st March

And do what, you ask?

Well, write short stories set in each of these places. The best I can.

Whatever story comes out in those 6 days in that place. Whatever that place inspires in me.

At best, I would have found peace and tranquillity and joy in my fancy new Carter Road bachelor pad!

At worst, when I go back to staring at excel sheets, I’ll know I tried my damned best.

P.S. – Watch this space for more.

What kind of a Bombayite are you?

Photo Credit - www.commonfloor.com

So, what kind of a Bombayite are you?

Are you the kind that wakes up to the sound of the trains or of the buses?

Or are you the kind that wakes up to an alarm in an AC room?

Are you the kind that gets out in the dead of night to explore this city or are you the kind that is scared stiff of this city’s nights?

And when you do get out in the dead of night, do you explore this city on foot?

Or on a bicycle or in a car zooming across the sea-link or in a train going along in its own rhythm or maybe atop a double-decker bus, leaning out of the front window?

Are you the kind that thinks this city is set on a soundtrack or are you the kind who sees no rhythm in this chaos?

And if you do feel the beat, then is it Sufi Qawwali or is it a folksy, earthy lavni beat or maybe a thumping party song?

Are you the kind that colour-codes this city as per property rates, or religious ghettos, or taxi-areas vs auto-areas, or maybe western line vs central line?

Or maybe you are the kind whose idea of exotic is someday making a trip to Mohammed Ali Road and trying its firni. Whose idea of adventure is driving through Dharavi. Whose idea of compassion is making a fancy contribution to the local temple with much fanfare. Whose idea of journalism is words like “fabulous, pioneering, unprecedented” for things that are “mediocre, copied, regressive”

Are you the kind we saw in Satya or Wake Up Sid or we read about in Shantaram or Sacred Games? Or maybe you are the kind all of them forgot to show in their work

Were you the one wrecking havoc in the streets or the one cowering at home in ’92?

Are you the one who cried himself to sleep in a distant city on 26/11 or are you the one who stared all night all bleary-eyed into the Times Now TV screen?

Are you the kind who makes this city’s essential “spirit”? That same spirit which we are told is its endurance test but actually is a recurring collective nightmare?

During monsoons, are you the kind who sees this city as a perpetually leaking gutter or are you the kind who sits by his little window with a cup of tea and romanticizes over a patch of greenery in the corner?

Are you the kind who cant bear its constant fish smell and maddening humidity or are you the kind who notices its constant breeze and the fact that one can sweat away the heat?

Are you the kind who celebrates an unexpected holiday when this city floods/blasts/goes on a strike/calls a bandh? Or are you the kind who steps out just to prove a point, even though no one cares?

Are you the kind who sits in his auto in a traffic jam, abusing his life, his very existence? Or are you the kind who steps out and walks and walks and reaches home and then abuses his life, his very existence?

Or maybe you are the kind who still watches the screen in a TV shop when India plays cricket. Then again, you could have moved to a sports bar cheering for more skilful, albeit foreign, sports and sportsmen

You could also be the kind who earns 10 lacs a month and yet cant afford anything but a train ticket because in this city, a car doesnt run on rail tracks and comes with a fuel tank

Are you the kind that gets inspired by this city’s daily story of decay or are you the kind that shuts it out behind a curtain to really hear the voice within?

Are you the kind who had no choice but to come here and have grown to love it? Or are you the kind who is still pining for home and not been converted yet? Or maybe you are the kind who lived here forever but it never felt like home

Are you the kind who feeds on this city’s energy, passion and single-mindedness? Or are you the kind who feeds on this city’s paranoia, stress and narrow-mindedness?

Are you the kind whose story is defined by this city or are you the kind who defines this city’s story?

Is this city your nemesis or are you its miracle?

Is this city your Gotham or are you its Dark Knight? 

Eight

I have a weekend of doing absolutely nothing to look forward to

I am sitting at home on a friday night with no work to finish and no one to meet

So i copy paste a tag I came across on the blog of this senior from work whom I really admire

And then I write 900 words of crap

The tag is the number 8
Here goes

Eight Things I am Passionate About

1.    Indian Media – so many layers, so many sub-plots, so much money

2.    Indian Cinema – every era, every hero, every director

3.    Cricket – dreamt of becoming Sachin, then Harsha, now Neville Cardus

4.    Mumbai’s street food – yes its limited, but I am vegetarian and it serves me well

5.    Lyrics of songs – The beauty, simplicity and music of poetry

6.    Mumbai - as a city, as a muse

7.    Social sciences – it has opened up a new world to me, which my education had hitherto kept hidden from me

8.    Cars – I don’t enjoy driving them. I enjoy sitting in them. I want one for every mood, every occasion

Eight Things I Want To Do Before I Die

1.    Own a yacht

2.    Give autographs

3.    Give a speech to more than 1000 people at a time

4.    Make a movie with Shahrukh and Aamir together

5.    Find a way to capture the beauty and importance of Rahul Dravid and show it to my kids someday

6.    Appear in the primary school social science textbooks

7.    Become a Harvard scholar

8.    Spend my last years on an island owned by me

Eight Places I Want to Visit

1.    London – the city my Grandfather told me millions of stories about

2.    Pakistan – to ascertain how different/similar we really are

3.    Konya, Turkey – Prof Matthew used to talk about it. Find Rumi fascinating

4.    Andamans – I want to write a story set in the cellular jail there

5.    Iran – the home of some very courageous artists, film-makers, writers

6.    New Zealand – the unbelievably different flora and fauna that exists there

7.    Sydney – technically, I don’t want to visit the place. I want to live there. It is one of the most expensive and beautiful cities in the world

8.    New York – Well, because it is the media and marketing capital of the world. Also because it is such a crazy melting pot of cultures

Eight Things I Say Often

1.    Ok – in a very derogatory, superior sort of way. To end an argument which I feel uninterested in continuing

2.    Stranger things have happened – coz i really believe in it

3.    What The Fuck! – I work in media, I studied in MICA, I live in Mumbai. I obviously encounter wonder on a daily basis!

4.    Boss – Because ‘Bhaiyya’ is too Delhi thuggish and in Bombay, right from the autodriver to the domestic help to your actual senior, are truly, your boss

5.    Yo! – picked it up from the younger bro, makes me feel younger than I am

6.    Signal se right lena. Right hai nahi, par log le lete hain. Warna ekdum aage se u-turn maarke aana padega. Aapki marzi hai. – once everyday to the taxi driver on my way to office

7.    Boss, follow up chalu hai. Uska TOI ke saath exclusive deal hai. We will try our best – for every ad I have ever missed

8.    Kya kare boss, isse zyaada ka visibility nahi dikh raha iss month. We will try our best – for every time the boss wants to increase the target

Eight Books I Have Read Recently

1.    Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka – beautiful book on sport and life in Sri Lanka

2.    Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers – Awesome insights on how to not become a slave to technology in today’s world

3.    The Meaning of Sport by Simon Barnes – easily the best book I have read this year.

4.    Sea of Poppies by Amitava Ghosh – very imaginative, engaging story-telling

5.    The Fourth Estate by Jeffery Archer – coz I read it once every few months

6.    Lucknow Boy by Vinod Mehta – an insider’s look into the Indian media world

7.    Death in Mumbai by Meenal Baghel – the story of Maria Susairaj. Good journalistic work

8.    Adventures in a TV Nation – Micheal Moore’s inside look on a reality show that shook America

Eight Songs I Can Listen to Again and Again

1.    Subah Hone Na De from Desiboys – Sorry, but I am in love with this song

2.    Wahan kaun hai tera from Guide – SD Burman’s voice and a very melancholy mood makes this song very close to me

3.    Maaeri by Euphoria – too many memories, too many associations

4.    Somewhere only we know by Keane – MICA nostalgia song I

5.    Anjani raahon mein kya dhundta phire by Lucky Ali – MICA nostalgia song II

6.    Wicked Game by Chris Isaak – Doubles up as a great love as well as make-out song

7.    High Hopes by Pink Floyd – What lyrics, what guitar!

8.    Sultans of Swing Live at Alchemy by Dire Straits – What drums, what guitar, what a voice!

Eight Things That Attract Me to My Friends

1.    Open-mindedness

2.    Talkativeness

3.    Willingness to trust

4.    Willingness to argue your point till either one drops dead

5.    Sarcasm

6.    Looks

7.    Knowledge of things I have no clue of

8.    Artistic pursuit

If They Were To Meet Again

If they were to meet again
And Yash Chopra was directing it
There would be melodious music and a long Mangeshkar alap
There would be plenty of nostalgic smiling and awkward glances
There would be a strong gush of wind and the Alps at the back
Their spouses would be oblivious and their kids would later fall in love

If they were to meet again
And Mani Ratnam was directing it
She would be crouching under a cloak and the rain would be pelting down
They could be anywhere and still it would look like they were in Kerala
He would be holding a cup of tea with the rain spilling it drop by drop
And they would fall in self-destructive love, all over again

If they were to meet again
And Karan Johar was directing it
He would be wearing rim-less glasses and reading a book in a NY tube
And she would be wearing the same colors as he is, albeit in a new look
And as she enters the tube, a strong wind would blow and she would know its him
And his daughter would have been named after her

If they were to meet again
And RGV was directing it
It would be in a Mumbai local train during the rains
He would be smoking and she would just look at him
The camera would focus on her ample bosom and his ample chest hair
And there would be an old Rangeela song playing at the back

If they were to meet again
And Anurag Kashyap was directing it
He would stumble out of a night club all stoned
And there she would be in all her rambunctious finery
She would look at him, turn around and land a passionate kiss on her new guy
He would fly into a rage and bang this prostitute named Democracy

If they were to meet again
And Sanjay Leela Bhansali was directing it
She would be in her Carter Road penthouse, chilling in a fancy saree
And she would see him by the sea and run to operatic music
With candles and curtains wreaking havoc all over the house
He would ask "Does he make you laugh?" She would say "Doesnt make me cry atleast!"

But he is, as she puts it, a filmi idiot
And none of these things will happen when they meet

They will meet on a hot summer afternoon in a corporate office
She would be in a purple UCB tshirt and he in a light, sky blue shirt
Her crazy hair would have gone berserk with humidity and anger at this city writ large on her face
He would be laughing smugly about something and would fake surprise at running into her
She would talk about her fucked up life and he would show off his latest designation
And then they would part - thankful that it happened and thankful that it ended

The Definitive Hindi Film Heroine Ranking - The Colour Era

While my friends are busy ranking B-schools and FMCG companies, I do the absolutely mundane. Havent seen the Meena Kumari/Suraiya/Madhubala/Nargis era and hence not included them. Click to see a bigger image.

Keralogue

The Kerala-Tamilnadu Border

It took a lot of courage and alcohol to get myself to do this. I went alone on a trip to kerala last april and came back in one piece. I managed to do a lot of writing on the trip. Below is just a sample of what else I managed to do in my 5 days down south.

Munnar

4th april 10:02pm.. I was greeted by showers at the Kochi airport. What better way to be welcomed? The Kochi airport is very old world style. The first sight after I emerged from the plane was an Air Arabia flight. For a state obsessed with the middle east,it was the perfect intro. I had dinner at the airport restaurant which also seemed to be stuck in that same time warp which afflicted the rest of the airport. My biggest challenge here is going to be the language but unlike other southern states the knowledge of English in Kerala is very impressive. I wish I could speak their language as the best way to know the natives better is always in their language. I am now cooped up in a seedy guest house near the Ernakulam bus stand waiting to take the 5am bus to Munnar. No volvos and sleepers, I will be taking the normal state transport bus and it promises to be a great ride. Watching Sachin bat is the best way to end the day in any part of this world. The high elbow six creamed over the covers capped up a very good day 1 for me.  Quotable quotes- when i asked the hotel guy about the bus to Munnar "Munnar you go with ladies, lonely no fun" When bargaining for the hotel rate, the hotel owner asked me where I was from and then came the obvious retort " You get a room in Bombay at this rate? What you are bargaining saaaaar!" Moment of the day : was standing outside the Kochi airport waiting for my bus and I looked around: there was a Mohanlal image in every direction.. Be it for a movie, a jeweller or a political party. The latest movie Mohanlal and Mamooty are coming in is called The King and The Commissioner. Welcome to Mollywood :)

The house I stayed in at Munnar

5th April 6:10pm.. Found just the kind of place I wanted to stay in munnar.. The important thing is it's so quiet I can actually hear myself breathing.. I was watching Russell Crowe playing James Braddock the millionth time today and still it managed to move me to tears.  You know what, for all my lofty plans of writing my ass off on this trip, I'm finding it very difficult to do the sort of writing that can do justice to this place. Like what I usually write is alright for a city life and a social media upload, but I find myself lacking in trying to capture the simple joy I'm experiencing in this silence, this quiet river, this sound of the insects. City life will always be that loud, functional tube light to the romantic yellow light of the hills. I find the yellow lamps very soothing, it purges me of all my misgivings about life. It is very empowering, this taking a trip alone thing. In so many ways it's a metaphor for life. I just hope I become more and more courageous over the next few days.. I take that hiking trip I turned down when offered by Germans staying next door. I try malabar cuisine, and local fruits and rent a bike and learn to ride it as i go. As always there are two guys within me who are fighting.. The accountant and the Mican. One wants to make the most of the 15 grand flight ticket and visit as many places to maximise Roi. The other wants to take it easy, live in the moment, get lost in the bonus round of intoxications that are on offer here.. I guess I'll reach a truce which will please the both in some way. I hope that is the real me. The peacemaker, the mediator between the two. I hope I don't realise at some stage in the future that I'm only one of them, or worse, I'm neither.  It is so wonderful to live in a place where your window doesn't open into a traffic jam. Even better, it opens into a river and a wooded forest beyond it. I will always wonder if a life in Bombay is worth all the sacrifices we make for it.  Ive tried taking pictures to just put up on the blog but I don't think they come even close to what the Dslr toting mbas are photoshopping all over the Internet. while we all try to fictionalise our experiences to make them sound cooler, I just hope we remember what mark twain once said. He said that fact will always be stranger (and by extension, more riveting) than fiction because it does not have the burden of sounding probable. Reminds me of this article by raja sen about sachins career. Every trip I have ever taken in my life has had a theme song. Well, most things I have done in my life have had theme songs. My theme song for this trip is this little gem sung by sd burman in guide. Wahan kaun hai tera, musafir, jayega kahan. it is a timeless song and just goes with a trip of this sort. Standing outside the kochi airport yesterday, just feeling the damp air and how full of possibilities i felt, this song on my phone just made me very very - how do I put it? - well, hrithik-after- the-deep-sea-dive-in-znmd-y. To inherit the legacy of sd and then becoming the legend that is rd, is a huge achievement. One of those times when a Rahul outdid a sachin.  Have you had one of those bus ride where the bus is almost full and you keep hoping the seat next to you is the one that remains empty? Today, on my way to munnar from kochi I managed to be lucky till we reached the base of munnar. And then, in came this burly malayali moustache Pete all in White. He sat next to me and was snoring within 5 mins. Don't get me wrong, I'm a tolerant guy and I can put up with snoring any time of day. But he wasn't done. As we started the ascent, the hair pin curves made him sway wildly and his full weight fell on my poor shoulders. This went on for at least an hour if not more. I kept telling myself it wasn't so bad. But then I started worrying for my dear shoulders and let it rip. He was gone to a different seat in 5 mins. I wonder if this guy was a more angry sort of a person. I wouldn't be typing with both my hands right now then. So you know I am a filmy guy and take films a little too seriously. While watching Cinderella Man today, I kept thinking of the final fight between Braddock and Max as a metaphor for the final fight HT and TOI are fast heading towards in Mumbai, and by extension, the whole country. And what can I say, the underdog won!

One  of the many paths I took - trusting God and Mallu  hospitality

7th April 3:57pm.. Have had the most awesome 2 days of this year. And considering printworks happened this year,that's saying a lot. Yesterday was spent in the midst of acres and. Acres of tea plantations where me and my auto driver indulged is much tomfoolery.. Right from a jo jeeta Wohi sikandar photo shoot to me driving the auto on the winding ghats. I still found time for precious islands of silence and contemplation. What's more, a murder mystery set in the western ghats on the Kerala-tamilnadu border is fast taking shape in my mind. The only thing awesomer than having a great travel plan is to have a great book to go with it. The meaning of sport by Simon barnes is just that kind of book. But the book itself derserves a seperate post.  So today has been a rather eventful day. After traveling by the creaky ksrtc bus for 7 hours,I have left the mountains behind for the gentle sway of the allepey backwaters. Everybody here seems amused by the idea of this chubby little Indian travelling alone and doing honeymooney places like Munnar and Allepey. But as a friend of mine rightly pointed out, this houseboat thing is indeed an experience to be had alone.  The first scene in the fourth estate has Richard Armstrong, media tycoon who had bit off more than he could chew, standing naked at the head of his yacht, his entire life flashing through and then committing suicide after that. If ever I commit suicide,that's how it will be. From something I own,to something only god owns. The greatest thing I have got on this trip is the abundance of silence. All I could hear in Munnar was the mountain breeze and all I can hear here is the benign river.. Playfully swaying my boat and letting my mind lull into a conscious slumber. Nor is the opulence of it all lost on me. To lounge on the upper deck of a houseboat with a chef and a captain doing your bidding all day is a very enjoyable experience. To be dressed in minimal rags, with a beer in hand and pink floyd on the playlist,even more so. I just love the envious looks I sometimes get from husbands on honeymoons. Little do they know that a part of me is envious of them too.

400sqft of luxury and sumptuous sights beyond it - as if nature dressed up specially for me

Dei Dei !!

Mumbai, 2040

A sprawling bungalow in suburban Bandra. Kabir and Aliya are in the vegetable garden, sitting on swings on a pleasant January afternoon. Kabir is busy rolling a joint and Aliya is chatting with her latest boyfriend on her BBM.

Kabir – It was good to meet dada and dadi. We should try and meet some of these people dad asks us to meet sometimes. Dada is a little uptight but dadi is just awesome. Such wonderful tales they have of their times. It seems kinda other-worldly.

Aliya looks up from the BB to put in her two bits

Aliya – Yeah man. Innocent folk too. Quite unaware of what the world is upto. But really good tales.

Kabir – Dude, I think if they had dad’s ability for telling a story, they would be even more interesting than dad. Coz they really have very interesting stories to tell. I mean, just look at those dudes they were talking about. What were their names? Krishna and Ram and Mahavir and what not. Some ancient version of gods it seems. As if we don’t have our share of gods already. What with Sachin and Gandhi and Sarkozy.

Aliya, tying a pony tail with a yellow rubber band

Aliya – What was strange was the extreme reverence they had for them, yaar. I mean, its ok, they were gods and all. But whats the big deal! They are fallible too, right. Like look at Sachin. For all the greatness that dad talks about, he still was involved in that sex racket, right? Doesnt mean he isn’t a god. He was awesome at his work, right? Thats what counts, right?

Kabir, proudly admiring a well-rolled thin, tight joint

Kabir – Ya sis. These gods have some awesome advantages, yaar. Look at the women that Sarkozy bangs even at 80! Iv decided, Im going to do whatever it takes to become a god. I knew about all the fun our gods have had, but look at Krishna dude. He is actually a double god in my opinion. He acts all pious and gives long sermons about moraility like Aamir Khan and then gets all lovey-dovey with gopis in the garden like Shahrukh Khan. Awesome double life, dude! He had the chakra permanently in one hand, i’ll have a joint.

Aliya – Hehe. Such a dumbfuck you are. Becoming a god cant be the ambition. That should be an underlying theme in whatever you do. My ambition is to become a dancer. I will do it so well, that i become a goddess. So being very good at something makes you a god. Look at this Mahavir dude. He knew some 2500 years ago that there are living things smaller than what the eye can see. Now did he find it out coz some hottie whispered it to him in his sleep or he had some extra special microscopic eyes, I don’t know. But he knew something that science could prove only 2000 years later. I mean, thats real pioneering work. Cool dude too. Comfortable in his own skin. Never cared about fashion.

Kabir – Ya, ya. If he were in Bombay today, even he, in all his naked splendour,  wouldn’t be able to put up with this heat. But you are right, in all the stories, one thing that troubled me too was how both the oldies weren’t willing to hear a single bad thing about them. They didn’t like my analysis of how Shive sounded like another Sunny Deol, but with better dancing skills. I mean, come on, both seem to get angry really fast. One beheads his son and the other beheads his brethren. Oh and there was another one – this Ram and Yudhisthir sound like Hank Rearden from Atlas Shrugged – taking the full burden of the family and trying to do what is right. But Hank Rearden sure was nicer to his wife than these two guys. I mean, simply bcoz they are gods doesnt mean everything they do is right!

Aliya, recalling something important – Yaaaa. And thats exactly what I said to granny in the kitchen. And she looked around worried. Asking me if any of the attendents here were affiliated to, what was it?, Shiv Sena or something. Coz if they overhear us, they will get us killed. I was like, dude, dadi must have seen some very disturbed times to experience such paranoia.

Kabir, letting out smoke after taking a deep drag from the doobie – Paranoia is the word! You remember how they reacted when we told them we found this old Krishna sculpture while digging in the neighbourhood garden. They told us some long tale about how once such a thing led to so much bloodshed across the country. I understand if you destroy that Sachin temple in Kolkatta and erect one for Ravindra Jadeja at the same site, the Sachin fan club will be damn pissed. But bloodshed? Riots? Rapes? Thats an old man’s imagination gone wild!  

Aliya smiled – But good stories yaar! Sweet people, both of them. Infact, I wouldn’t mind if for some days they allow them to come meet us instead of dad. It might help them too. Poor things mistake that higher being that made the world for all these gods. I think people become naive as they grow older. Look at dad’s obsession with making money – like thats going to cure us! Hehe. Oh I have to go. Meeting Zooni upstairs for coffee.

Kabir – Ya alright. I am off to offer my daily prayers to Pamela Anderson. By the way, do you think this higher being that made the world would want someone to take over at some point of time? Id like that job.

Aliya – Why would you like to do that? I guess he must be this hairy, pot-bellied, unkempt unshaven guy who sits on his dirty couch having greasy snacks and pints of beer all day – watching his creations bumbling through life. He cant become a god even if he wants to! All he has to do is sit there and laugh at this farce down here.

Kabir – Precisement!

And outside, the madness continued.

Photo source: www.indif.com

A Letter To My 16 Year Old Self - Lessons From Up Here

Smokers and drinkers are not all bad people
They are good people with bad habits
Sometimes, they are also the right people
You pretended when you studied and you pretended when you had fun
All you had to do was not pretend and you would have done much better, chosen much better

You did not let yourself dance enough
You did not let yourself write enough
You did not let yourself play enough
You thought that people would take you seriously coz you took yourself seriously
Well, its laughable to take yourself seriously even at 26, forget 16
It is ok to be arrogant when you have become something
You were arrogant by the thought of what you can become
Well, all you became was a joke

You never loved someone deeply enough
You never experienced hurt, you never experienced pain
You never experienced sleepless nights while she had already moved on to the next in line
You inflicted all of that on someone else

Your obsession with Ayn Rand was like a pimple - which disappears in your 20s
My obsession with Pink Floyd is like the bald spot - it keeps expanding till it takes over your entire head
You wore strange clothes bcoz they were cheap replicas of SRK's last movie
I wear strange clothes bcoz they are what society thinks is in fashion
You got drunk on water and wreaked havoc on the dance floor
I get drunk on  more potent stuff

You played more cricket on the street, I play more Hangman on the ipad
You were a smug asshole for no reason
I am a smug asshole for some reason
You pretended you were in love when you werent
I pretend I am not in love when I am
You lied to exaggerate, I lie to play down
You never traveled the world - you never had the money
I never travel the world - I never have the time

I am still paying for all the relationships you ruined at your age
At an interest compounded daily

You made friends with an agenda in mind
I am befriended with an agenda in mind
You wrote letters when in love and never got replied to
I get replied to but with layers of meaning too difficult to comprehend

And yet, you were nothing compared to me
You were a mere shadow compared to me
Obsessed with all the wrong things
Oblivious of all the right things
You did not see Umang, you did not see MICA

You were the better dancer
You were the better writer
You were the better cricketer
But I am the better you

Hypocrite

So there was this guy
Who loved to work a lot
Because it kept him busy
Too busy to think 'bout what he really wants to do
He was a helluva liar
So he lied to friends, parents and himself
That this was what he was always meant to do..
This "working a lot" thing

But one day something cracked within
He walked into his boss's cabin
And told him exactly what he thought of him
And went back home and told his dad
That he is off to a north-eastern log cabin
He will be back soon - to his prospective jobs and prospective brides
He booked his tickets for the 36 hour train ride
His dad smirked and asked him to book the return for a week later

Now he found his log cabin, overlooking the Teesta
He found good scotch, and a packet of cigarettes
He found pen and paper
He lost his laptop and ipad
He found Gilmour and Lennon and Knopfler
He lost the internet and the TV and the newspaper, even!

And he wrote and wrote and wrote
He wrote through sobriety, drunkenness and stonedness
He wrote through depression and joy and anger
10000 words, 30000 words, 60000 words

6 months passed and the return ticket never got bought
And then one night, he read all that he wrote
He read through that night and day
Then laughed and burnt it all away

He came back and got a "respectable job"
He came back and got a "pretty wife"
And never did anybody know
How those 6 months did go

Rahul Dravid

He must be sitting in his living room watching one of the movies today.
He dare not switch to a news channel.
He is good at this 'not switching to a news channel' thingy.
He has done it at many junctures over the years.
He will have an early dinner and go to bed so that he can hit the gym early tomorrow morning.
Just the way he has been doing for donkeys years now.
He has toned every muscle, every joint, strengthened every sinew over the years.
His high perspiration levels meant he lost water too fast and constantly needed liquids.
Every shot he ever played was practised like a fanatic in the nets.
Every thought process, every reaction to every ball was calibrated to perfection.
There were so many balls played.
In the matches, in the nets, then again in the mind.
There were balls bowled by opposition bowlers, practice bowlers, imaginary bowlers.
And there were millions of cover drives, straight drives, square cuts, on drives, pulls and hooks.
So many that the body knows only that as natural movement, as a general state of being.

There was injury, dejection, failure, match-fixing, loss of captaincy.
But always, there was the next ball to be played.
For a team sport, this was always his own struggle with himself, his asking questions of himself and then answering them.
There were pretty girls, fancy cars, massive endorsement deals.
But always, there was, above all, the next ball to be played.
There were strike rates, run rates, win rates, and all sorts of rates to be worried about.
But there was a bat in his hand and that was all that mattered.
There were stars, egotists, prodigies, megalomaniacs all around him.
But, as always, there was, most importantly, the next ball to be played.

There were numbers which seemed to be going faster than him
And there were numbers which seemed to be going slower than him
But numbers meant little
There was that night at Wellington, that evening at Headingley, that morning at Adelaide
And then there was that heartbreaker at Queens Park Oval Trinidad 2007

No one in his team played bounce was well as him
No one in his team played swing as well as him
No one in his team showed as much improvement in playing spin over their career spans
No one in his team would have dared to take that wicket-keeping job, that opening slot, that declaration call

He has been a fine example of what human endeavour can achieve
He stands for what an ordinarily talented man can make of himself by sheer character
He might well be the only genuinely nice guy of our generation who finished first
He will be one of the very few my child will have to hear a lot about from me when he is born

Tomorrow he will announce the end of it all
Just as has been the case his entire life - he doesnt have much say in this matter either
There might be awards, commentary stints, political rallies, administrative posts
There might be many family outings, annual days, coaching camps, expert interviews, ad campaigns
There might be a prosperous paunch, a fancy estate, a scotch at the end of the day
But there wont be the next ball to be played

Mr Rahul Dravid, some things need to be said even if they have become cliches
You are, to my knowledge, the pinnacle of human ability and enterprise
Id pay to watch you play cricket in your backyard with your son

Dharavi Set To Music

My office is 15 mins away from my house on early Saturday mornings. At any other time-day combination, it is atleast 40-45mins away. Between my office and my home lies Asia's largest slum. And considering it takes so long to get back in a cab, the internally stingy and externally obese person that I am, I have made it a regime to walk home everyday from work. It takes me the same amount of time, I get some exercise and above all, I get to listen to some awesome music (Yes, I am that weird guy you see dancing while crossing the traffic signal)
This theory that our senses get heightened when we close down a few others has always fascinated me. Till the time I can walk blind-folded through the tricky streets of Dharavi so that I can take in more of the sounds, I will have to make do with shutting out Dharavi's voice with music and take in the sights.
Getting right down to business, Pink Floyd and Indian Ocean have both fascinated me over the years and I listen to them an awful lot lately. And because I believe you can never have enough of a good thing, I tend to be loyal to either for the entire length of my walk.

In the order of seniority, I will go with Indian Ocean first - the water body, silly!
So Indian Ocean's link to the place is so much clearer - its music is Indian, contemporary and talks about the broader national issues which Dharavi represents in a microcosm. As the music starts working its magic, pay attention to the faces - the daily dejection, the glimpses of guilt, the hopelessness, the betrayed Bombay dream writ large on their faces. Pay attention to the speed at which people walk by, the bikes and cars honk from all directions and people still keep walking like manic zombies, unaware of their immediate surroundings - too taken by their larger troubles. Notice the loud political posters above run down houses - if you can call them houses in the first place. How the posters proclaim promises, glorify hoodlums and religious thugs; and then look at the people walking by - their heads down - sometimes in reverence to them but mostly oblivious to them. Then let Raghuram and his team take over with the guitar and the drums and tablas. Then just look at the environment - the urban waste, ramshackle shops; the naked kids, the malnourished kids, the deformed kids, the defecating kids. A lot of Indian Ocean's music asks the listener to question his current state, what he is looking for, his condition of absolute decay. At the same time, the music is sometimes reverential to a higher being - asking for his help. In that sense, Indian Ocean's music still believes that a place like Dharavi can rise above this, it wants the guy from Bihar to question whether this depravity is worth it all.
I have walked through this slum during the 26th July 2005 deluge. And the memory still visits me sometimes. The open gutters, the chest high waters, the thought that my mouth has never been this close to human waste before. Hehe, surely, "Kudrat hans padegi"



And then there is the psychedelia of Pink Floyd. Its music says more with guitar riffs than with words. It's lyrics have historically oscillated between politically charged and positively absurd. Pink Floyd's music is simultaneously both: more pessimistic and more colorful, than Indian Ocean  - assuming ofcourse that pessimism and color are ironic bedfellows in the first place.
Set to Pink Floyd, Dharavi transforms into this brightly lit cemetery. Pink Floyd's music glorifies the past and casts an even darker shadow on the present. You look at people's faces and see the early aging, the years that should never show on a 15 year old girl's face but they do because drain water is not the best moisturiser. Here there is no hope, there is just pain, dejection and an abhorrance for one's current self. The anger, the frustration is simmering on the surface as BMWs speed by to fancy multi-level parking lots at the other side of the city, in its wake leaving the people scurrying for space to walk to their dreary homes. So I sometimes imagine Gilmour, Waters, Mason and Wright giving a live performance right there in Dharavi - with the entire set-up done on the road divider - if the ruins of Pompeii stand for a great civilisation now destroyed by nature, Dharavi stands for a great civilisation being destroyed by man.
And the release is in forgetting about it, its in losing oneself in the bright colors of shanty walls, the fanciful lighting of leather goods stores, the stone and stick kiddie games next to the dump - the way the lyrics get lost in the grand guitar solos in Pink Floyd's music.

 

And yet, sometimes I walk without my music. Those days when Dharavi is set to its own choice of music. Bollywood chartbusters blended with Hindu bhajans during Ganpati and Bollywood chartbusters blended with Sufi Qawwalis during Id. On those days, I see these people the way they see me everyday - it is their own version of 'Dharavi Set To Music' and they trip on it big time!

A Nation of Toothless, Humorless, Selfish Bigots

One lesson which some of my best teachers have managed to teach me is that patriotism is not so much about being proud of your nation as it is about identifying what makes it difficult for you to be proud of it and going about rectifying it.

I attended 2 awesome weddings in the last month or so. 2 weddings which were as unlike each other as chalk and cheese. One was in a quaint little town in MP and the other was in badass Bombay. One baraat was attended by the entire town, albeit from their rooftops and the other was attended by a few who managed to make it on time in the rush hour evening traffic. One was so noisy that many city-slicker friends of mine refused to walk too close to the band and instead stopped over for a sutta on the way and the other had to quieten down every time it went past a major govt office building in South Bombay. One had awesome food made by humble women and served fresh by their men and the other had the most awesome spread of vegetarian food made by the best caterer in town. One was a love marriage between long time college sweethearts and the other was an arranged marriage between two Gujju diamond trader families. The one thing common between the two was the greed on the band master's face as he went hard at his drum with every passing beat. With every 20 buck note wagged in front of his nose, he went on and on with all the strength his malnourished arms could muster. He would thrust his right breast pocket in front of you just so you would put a couple of those notes in his pocket. What is a few 20 buck notes for the diamond trader's son who carries millions worth of diamonds in his pockets and travels from Mumbai to Surat to save some duty? If you find money being thrown at women to make them dance vulgar, I dont know how just because the gender has changed it becomes any less vulgar.

Which brings me to the essential point. In our mad pursuit of that prophecy of becoming the next superpower, are we even conscious how many values, ideals and most importantly, people are just falling by the wayside?

We are waging so many battles on censorship which are basically battles on how we want to be perceived. So there is a Kapil Sibal-social media row, a Salman Rushdie-Jaipur Litfest row, a Top-Gear India row, a Hussain painting row which did not let him die on his homeland; and millions others that the likes of Shiv Sena fight on a daily basis. We as a nation have no sense of humour, no willingness to see another view. If a democracy has no space for multiple opinions then what differentiates us from China? And if nothing differentiates us from China then remember that our Tiananmen Square has still not happened. That civil unrest has never really consolidated into a proper threat yet. And that is something we are setting ourselves up for with this sort of climate. 

I can imagine a show as harmless as Boston Legal can never be Indianised as it will raise in our middle class living rooms on a daily basis the caste issue, the sexuality issue, the Hindu-Muslim issue - now we dont want the "upwardly mobile, aspirational, nuvo riche" middle class questioning these things, do we? What sort of pathetic nation wouldnt even let a director/writer/painter put across his opinion without fearing for his life?

And we arent even done with building a nation yet and we are spending so much time building a perception? Lets first build a nation that works and then go about window-dressing it so that we look nice to ourselves and others. 

So i am sure you have heard of how peasants in Maharashtra commit suicides unusually often. So on an unsually cold winter evening in Bombay, there we were chomping down with vigour on our Pav Bhaji on the most awesome Pav Bhaji place i know. The kind that i missed so much in Delhi that i spent an obscure amount at Kingdom of Dreams to just experience a semblance of that taste. But I digress! Being a rather slow evening as Bombay doesnt know what to do with so much cold just as Delhi doesnt know what to do with so many puddles, we got to talking with the stall-owner and he told us how the vegetable prices in the markets crash every year during this time. How the farmers always have a bumper crop this time of the year and there really isnt a good price they get as the supply far exceeds the demand with China stuff flooding the market. So imagine this family of farmers sitting in Vidarbha somewhere staring at a pile of ripe tomatoes in their field. (I could imagine in a Kissan ad, the farmers should suddenly start celebrating Tomatina fest with that pile, right?) Imagine them staring at them during the day and during the cold winter nights. "Winters in rural Vidarbha can be particularly cruel," the MTDC brochure says. "Temperatures can go down to even 5 degrees in the nights." Imagine the farmer's son peering at the pile of tomatoes thinking surely those should be worth something. Surely they could get him rotis and rice and onions and potatoes. He doesnt even know people who eat chicken are also people like him.  Instead he is shivering on this sleepless night as tonight its his sister's turn to use the single rag of a blanket the family owns. Now imagine the farmer looking at his son's quizzical eyes. Wouldnt it be easier to die than to give him false hope? Wouldnt we all do the easier thing if we had the choice? How many ever social media companies Kapil Sibal sues, he still wont change that kid's perception of the pile of tomatoes.

And then we say we should kill those bloody Maoists. Hehe, we are funny!