F for Friends

That's kind of a normal one, right? One of the first recalls when we hear F is friends after all. But what about those strange friendships that a girl can have, in a city like Bombay, the train friendship types but not necessarily on trains? What about meeting and greeting people in unexpected quarters, that leaves an imprint on the mind?

Driving can lead to such strange friendships, at parking lots especially, where guards and parking assistants and other drivers all want to help one park the perfect way. 

The other day, I was driving out of a parking lot in a hurry when the guard stopped me. The momentary halt irritated me, but his friendly smile was intriguing. I rolled down my windows as he walked up to me excitedly. “Madam, aap Haryana se hai?” he stumped me. I wondered for a second what part of me had prompted him to say that, and then realized that it wasn’t me but the car that had attracted such attention. I explained that I am not a Haryanvi, but just the proud owner of a Haryana registered car. Despite my lack of familiarity with his region, he spoke for a bit about his gaon and his family, more it seemed to himself, than to me. A honk from the car behind me put a rude stop to his reminiscence. As he snapped back to reality, I pulled out of there, haunted by the sorrow of his self-imposed exile.

There is so much to be thankful for in life, those eyes seemed to be telling me, as I got ready to bitch about the moron ahead of me, driving in between lanes at less than half my aspirational speed.

It is, indeed, an interesting life!

P. S. This post is the sixth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

E for Everafters

What is "everafter", I wonder?

Happiness, sorrow asunder.

Is it peace, the mind at rest?

Is it closure, of what isn't best?

Or is it just a fairy tale, magic wand, stardust,

Poof! A vanish, as it must?

What is "everafter", I ponder?

Why do we lust behind what may or may not be yonder?

Change is alluring, a charming interlude,

It is merry and cheery, changes you for good. 

Change is inevitable, change is here to stay

It kills the everafter, don't wish it away. 

Everafter,

A constant chatter,

A steady song and dance,

A twist? No chance. 

How predictable, how boring

Where is adventure roaring?

Where is excitement gearing?

Where, where is the spice gathering?

Everafter is only empty chatter,

Not real, not any matter. 

It is a story well said,

But life is never a said story, is it?

P. S. This post is the fifth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

D for Drivers

“Abhi high tide chal raha hai madam. Itna tez nahi jaane ka hai”, the driver critiqued an Audi A6 zipping through Bandra-Worli sea-link at well over 140kmph, while he ploughed his Santro at the prescribed 50kmph with clinical precision.

I nodded my head unconvincingly, thinking about all the times I have driven my puny i10 at 100kmph+ on that very sea link.

He didn’t mind my lack of enthusiasm as he drawled on about the correlation between high tides and wind speeds, the probability of cars spiraling out of control and damaging themselves and other cars, their hoods hanging precariously over the bridge, staring into the sea.

That’s the quintessential Mumbai cab wallah – a highly opinionated, imaginative, talkative aspirer. 

He has an opinion on pretty much everything, right from the futility of the new flyover at BKC to the effectiveness of Modi’s Government. He can talk about a wide variety of topics, ranging from the Visarjan schedule in Dadar to the Mother Mary festival in Bandra. He aspires to buy a flat in suburban Goregaon, while he owns one already in faraway Vasai. He drives all day and all night, through rain and shine, peak hours and peaked peak hours, highways and alley-ways, and bad roads and worse roads, because he has a vision and he is driving towards it.

Sometimes, I feel paltry in front of the Mumbai cab-wallah, me with only dreams of next month’s salary and innovative ideas of how to spend it, me whose vision is defined by the next big vacation.

P. S. This post is the fourth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

C for Cook

Bleary eyed and still sleepy, I tried ignoring the door-bell. Once. Twice. By the third ring, I realized it was a relentless pursuit that I couldn’t wish away by burying my ears in the pillow. I pulled out my cell phone that was reflecting an unholy 6.40 am. Cursing all and sundry, I stumbled out from under the quilt and got myself to the door, only to see someone all dressed up standing outside, ready to barge into the house. It took me a minute to figure out who that was and when I did, my reaction was not one akin to grace or pleasantries. That’s Push, who entered our lives two years back, Push who doesn’t go by the time on the clock or the date on the calendar, Push who feeds us every day now.

“Aaj kya banaun (What shall I make today)?” is the first question I am thrown at by Push first thing in the morning. “Make some music and some cake, and a story to go with the flow,” I am tempted to say. Controlling the sarcasm and the irritation, I remind myself I need food for sustenance as I rummage in the refrigerator for something, anything, that I can dump into her hands and get back to sleep. Then she follows up with “Yeh kitna banaun (How much of this should I make)?” I bring out the measuring cup to measure out the lentils and then count out the veggies and the green chillies… And, by then, sleep has bidden me farewell, and I am left standing all alone with Push, Push who doesn’t want to be bothered by minor things like measuring out and making standard food for two grown adults.

I walk into the kitchen after Push leaves, to retrieve the outcomes of her battles inside. It truly is a war zone, like the ones they show on Troy and Bahubali. Serving dishes lie on the side counters, covered not closed. Bottles of masala precariously hang on to dear life from the edges of shelves. The stove looks miserably bloodied with chilli powder and tomato puree. Water drips from the tap in slow motion, singing paeans to the warrior princess who was battling inside. And the cupboards – aargh! The cupboards! They are all open, every single cupboard door is open, as if someone was escaping for dear life and had no time to reign in the mad horses. As opposed to her name, Push doesn’t push anything shut. She follows a completely open door policy, and would do exceedingly well in any new age company embracing an open office culture.

And, every single day, as I walk out of the kitchen with my breakfast in hand, I ask myself, “Why do I put up with her?” But, I know the answer to that one even before I finish the question. She turns up on time (unearthly early though that is), every single day. She doesn’t take an off, unless I force her to take a holiday for a festival, or because she is ill, or just because I need a break from her. And, her integrity levels are highly abnormal for a normal human being, so much so that I can trust her with a big barrel of mangoes and know that every single one of them will be accounted for no matter how many days pass. Although, I am sure they will all be rotten by then as she would have stored them in the cooler and not shut the door!

P. S. This post is the third in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

B for Books

What was your childhood like? Cricket on the street? Kho-kho within the compound? Eating mud? Yeah, someone told me that eating mud is a thing every kid does, apparently. The only outdoor game I remember ever playing goes something like "Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta". Beats me if I can recollect what exactly it was, but it definitely was a game played before these wonderful cities underwent name changes.

Most of my time other than this game were spent indoors, filling out the couch reading, rather, devouring books. I would clock at least one book a day during summer holidays, the TV ignored in a corner, my friends chilling out at their grandparents' places in the country. 

Looking back, I think my parents had it easy. All they had to do was take me to Landmark, the friendly, neighborhood bookshop (actually quite a large one), where I would buy at least 10 books at a time. No, sir, no. Libraries were not for me. I wanted to own my books, sorting and arranging them by author and genre, on the bookshelf in the drawing room. They didn't have to bother about me getting a sun stroke playing out in the heat of the vicious Chennai summers, or getting lost on the streets, or being hit by a motor vehicle on the road. Rather, I would assume they were bothered about my absolutely immobile existence.

This blog in fact takes after my favorite children's writer, Enid Blyton. I would spend the days imagining myself in a boarding school, moving up forms rather than classes or standards, having midnight feasts consisting of scones and plum cakes in the garden tool shed, away from the prying eyes of matrons and house heads, and living in the English countryside.

While years have gone by, and the books I read have become heavier, both in size and content, the love still remains, rather has grown. And, while my reading list has expanded to include Rushdie and Orwell and Vikram Seth and Khaleed Hosseini, comfort food still remains my good old English favorite countryside through the eyes of Wodehouse. Jeeves is the best, isn't he?

P. S. This post is the second in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

A for Apple

As a kid, I really hated apples. They were either too hard to bite, getting stuck in between my teeth or, so soft that they crumbled into tasteless powder in my mouth. And, there was no way of figuring out which one was what from the outside! 

But, as with many other things, I outgrew my hatred for apples with age. So much so that, I have been shelling out a fair share of my hard earned salary for apples over the years.

In 2012, I spent around 500% of what normal people spend on food in a month on just apple. In 2015, I think it was around 1K% of what an average person expends on food in a month. Oh, by the way, in 2005 and 2010, I cajoled friends into gifting me apples for my respective birthdays. Yeah! What a swing from hatred to love, you would say.

Wonder how much wider the swing from hatred to love would have been if Jobs had named it Coffee!

P. S. This post is the first in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

A to the Z to the A to the Z

Writing is no science, it is in fact an art. That's what I have believed in my heart all these years, and that has made me succeed quite well - succeed in fine tuning the already fine art of procrastination. Inspiration from nature, silence of the mind, and imagination springing out of nothing have been things I have been waiting for, for a few months now. And, suddenly, when I login to the blog after these few months, my whole life flashes in front of me, a movie that was untold because I was waiting for the art to pop-up from somewhere.

So, this year, I have decided that I will shift gears, from art to science. And, I have registered for the April A-Z blogging challenge. The next 30 days, and 26 blog posts, will all be science. Alphabetical writing, daily writing, writing whether or not I have anything to write at all, and writing, whether or not I would like to write anymore at all.

Because, more writing was never worse off than less writing, and a little bit of science never killed the art in it.

A year in books

It has been my year in books, literally. For, looking back, there seems precious little I did with my spare time this year other than devouring books. Quantitatively, the count is at 52 and growing, perhaps the largest number of books I have read in a year. Qualitatively, the endeavor to tame some beasts that I have hitherto been afraid of has paid off very well. And, lastly, my attempt at diversity in genres has been well rewarded, I must say.

Here goes a list of random observations from this year's reading pack:

The best of the best

Middlesex was one of the first books I read in 2015, that I instantly fell in love with. Easy language, right pace, structured thoughts, a dash of history, and a very sensitive subject at hand, Jeffrey Eugenides did not win the Pulitzer for nothing. The book made me think of sexuality, nature vs nurture and genetic mutation in a different light, and I cannot thank Eugenides enough for that.

When one reads Midnight’s Children, everything else one has read thus far does pale, dim and then disappear into obscurity, and so was the case with me. “To understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world”, says Salim Sinai, the protagonist. To understand Rushdie, one has to swallow this book over and over and over again. One reading cannot be enough. He employs magical realism to weave together words and thoughts and imagination and reality, irreverently at that, transcending governments, faiths, religious beliefs, tolerances and intolerances.

“O fortunate ambiguity of transliteration! The word ‘buddha’, meaning old man, is pronounced with the Ds hard and plosive. But there is also Buddha, with soft tongued Ds, meaning he-who-achieved-enlightenment-under-the-bodhi-tree”, says Rushdie, through Sinai. His writing enlightens me, makes me believe that a writer becomes truly one when he holds himself back no more, when he is honest and fearless and unafraid of the dead and the living, and everything in between.

Bring in the old, and ring in the new

When the going gets tough, the comfort books get going. For me, these are largely Archers and Christies, and the occasional Georgette Heyer. In one such stream of tough goings, I picked up Clifton Chronicles this year. Archer has fine-tuned the art of writing so much that it feels engineered to the T, like precision equipment, that is designed to emit alternating positive and negative signals, at agreed frequencies. The man has a set timetable per which he writes, so it isn’t surprising he can churn out books at an alarmingly high rate, seemingly similar to one another, yet being attractive to the reader within us.

When the going is smooth, it is a good time to ring in the new. This year, I discovered some interesting authors, alive and dead, normal and abnormal.

Anthony Horowitz resurrected Sherlock Holmes for me in House of Silk. While he is no Doyle, it is no mean feat to attempt a Holmes' recreation, even if it is only 50% successful.

Wilkie Collins is apparently one of the first people to write full length mystery novels. I imagine this guy must have had Christie’s head and Austen’s face as he churned out novels set in the Victorian era, resplendent with dinner gowns and large grounds, butlers and valets to go with, and an unraveling mystery stretching well over 600 pages each.

Keigo Higashino is my favorite pick for the year though. The man writes not about who was responsible for a certain crime. The whodunit is obvious from the initial chapters. How the person did it is the mystery, and a mind-blowing mystery at that.

The genre experimentation

I don’t understand fantasy fiction, I cannot relate to science fiction, and I am averse to graphic novels. All these myths have proven to be exactly that this year. FunHome by Alison Bechdel is a graphic novel I am sure to read and re-read many times over the rest of my life. Andy Weir has ensured I lived in a claustrophobic spacecraft with a largishly blown up bedroom and only the brown sand outside for company, while reading The Martian. And, it will be many years before I forget what happened to Angier, the magician, from The Prestige, which, at 360 pages, was the most difficult book that I traversed through this year. Thanks Chris Nolan, for making such a beautiful movie out of this monster.

Will history be the same anymore?

And while speaking about genres, I am not sure where I should classify 1984. It is dystopian at the least, and highly disturbing, disorienting and maddening at the most, as I struggle to come to terms with history as I have known it for so long. Did the Second World War truly happen? Was Gandhi really peace-loving? Did Julius Caesar die only because of Brutus? Is Big Brother watching me as I type this out? Gosh! If I go crazy earlier than I am slated to, it is because of Orwell and Orwell only.

Where do my loyalties lie?

Bookless in Baghdad by Shashi Tharoor is a book I am reading as I write this piece. This guy is truly a genius at writing, and when he writes about the books he has read, the outcome is fantastic. But, how can he, how can he possibly throw mud at R. K. Narayan, my Swami and Friends idol? Should I not follow Tharoor anymore because he doesn’t like my childhood author? Or, should I stop being respectful of RKN because Tharoor is the writer of my dreams? Perhaps, I can live with both and love them both, one dead and another alive, one traditional, the other modern, one for my childhood, another for my adulthood.

And, now for the not so nice

No, it has not all been hunky dory this year. In fact, more is not the merrier as I have learnt to my chagrin. Indian authors have let me down with weak language (Sita’s Sister), bad plotting (White Tiger), and insipid writing (R. K. Laxman – you took the right call by sticking to cartoons). Harper Lee was happily immortalized in my memory till Go, Set a watchman came along. And, I promise I will never get swayed anymore by a book because the title attracted me (Madras Miasma, I am looking at you).

As I move into 2016, I promise myself I will not pounce on every book that my eyes come across, but that is going to be impossible. My shelf for 2016 is at 44 and increasing, and not all of them seem tried and tested and enjoyed by all. But, then, to understand this world, one should swallow all its books, after all, while remembering they may not all be true, that fiction will remain fiction, and some non-fiction will be fiction too. 

The new normal

I have never spoken much about it, but the floodgates opened today when I read this. No tribute this, nor a structured essay. It is a raw note, that may serve no purpose I am aware of. 

It was April '01. I was in school and my dad didn’t come to pick me up. Instead his friend and my aunt came to pick me up, driving down in my dad’s car. How strange a partnership, I told myself. But, I didn’t want to face reality just then, it was just a short distance home from school, and any horrible event could wait those 20 minutes. There was an ambulance leaving the apartment complex when I got home, albeit empty. Just a coincidence, I told myself and I went up home.

After that, life has never been normal again.

I was 15 when my dad died – neither here nor there. Not young enough to forget the normal and get acclimatized to the new normal. Not old enough to have already charted out a normal of my own. Well, that can be argued in different ways. Death alters the living irreversibly, no matter what age we are left at, after all.

All we talk about when someone dies is how we miss that person, how they leave behind a void, how we yearn for happy memories etc. Yes, I have gone through and still go through all those emotions. But, something more fundamental changes when someone close to you dies.

The biggest change when someone close to you dies is that nothing is something that only happens to someone else anymore. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night to put my ears to the lungs of the person sleeping next to me, to make sure they are still breathing. At other times, I get paranoid when my mother doesn’t pick up the phone even when I call her 2-3 times in a span of ten minutes, and I promptly start calling everyone else she knows in the city to track her down. When I see an ambulance in the apartment complex, I am not able to brush it off any longer as happening to someone else; it could very well have been summoned for my house. Anyone calling me out of the blue is no longer a social call. It only means something has gone wrong with someone close to me that I am being called to be informed about.

In every scenario, in every next step, in every otherwise normal situation, death figures as a highly possible outcome and that’s how the normal changes. Living with this paranoia of facing death of a loved one again is the biggest punishment that this life has bestowed upon me. I think, no, I know that I had much rather die than live through the death of a loved one ever again. 

Whenever I am depressed with life, I tell myself that my dad’s death made me stronger, made me more resilient to face life’s challenges, geared me up for chaos and unhappiness and the transience of life. And then, the other me screams from within, “I didn’t want to be resilient. I just wanted to be normal and happy. I have no tangible use for this experience.” I have no answers to myself in those situations. Life can be led happier when there are no harsh lessons to learn, perhaps.

Most times, I feel guilty that I am not doing enough justice to my father’s memory. I do not necessarily miss him for the person he was. I only miss my own normal life that can be no more. But, seriously, think about it. It has been almost 15 years now since I last saw him in flesh and blood. Memory is a bitch, and I do not remember his smile, his facial features, his idiosyncrasies, his weird handwriting, in totality. I remember those things in bits and pieces, in individual situations. For instance, sometimes I sense the strong presence of his perfume. Not always though. 

We used to go out once every month for dinner – Mom, Dad and I. Same restaurant, same table, same orders, same waiter (yeah, they were called waiters then). A ritual.

We used to have home-made pooris and mushroom for dinner every Saturday – Mom, Dad and I. A ritual.

We would drive down to random places, right from East Coast Road to Pondicherry to Bangalore, mom and dad in the front, me sprawled at the back of the car. Random trips, no planning, no outside food. All food cooked and packed by mom, the entire journey driven around by dad. As familial as it can get.

And that’s what I lost with the death of my dad. Not money. Not a cushy life. Not that sense of protection that a male presence brings in. Because my mother has always made up for all that and been more than what my father could ever have been to me. 

I lost the feeling and sense and notion of being a family, and that’s something irreplaceable, and irreversible. That’s something that doesn’t heal with time. It never heals. And that's death's contribution to my life.

The Marathi Manoos

I was born and brought up in a land proud of its culture, heritage, and more importantly, its language. So much so that we made sure Hindi never entered our land for many years. And, even with the IT-BPO boom and the influx of migrant population, when Hindi became an inevitable necessity for doing business, we made sure Tamil never died. It is still evident in how the state government gives tax sops to movies that have Tamil titles. For instance, Happy New Year would never have been made in our land, only because it would have been re-titled “Iniya Puthandu Nal Vaazhthukkal”.

Some of our most beautiful books were and are written in Tamil, our theater quality is decent (though not as great as that of some other regional languages, I am told), and we make some of the most brilliant cinema there is in the Indian film industry. We preserve Tamil that much.

So, when I moved out of Chennai many years back, I moved out with the biggest disadvantage of all – a terrible lacking of Hindi. It has taken me many years to acquire mastery over basic Hindi, which still sucks, I am told. For heaven’s sake, our Tamil words are gender-free! 

But, just learning Hindi has been overwhelming enough. So, I have gone easy on other regional languages. Like most other migrants in Mumbai, I have never bothered to learn Marathi. And, I shudder to think what would happen to my beloved Tamil 50-100 years down the line, if the migrant population constitutes over 50% of the state’s population and behaves just like how I have. Will Tamil become near extinct?

Waxing eloquent about the importance of regional language is so cool, right? But, in reality, I was miffed when I heard about the compulsory screening of Marathi movies in multiplexes. The film business blood in me boiled, if not a little, a lot at least, as I thought about how producers, distributors and exhibitors of Hindi and English film movies in Mumbai would die. Imagine all those lost prime-time revenues, especially on opening weekends of hot and happening Hindi and English movies. But, my film business blood is erstwhile, so it ceased to boil as quickly as it had started.

And, then I went to the movie hall last weekend, much earlier than show time, and the theater was open and empty. As I took my place and submitted myself to a string of god-awful music (sounded like a Punju-Gujju-Bhojpuri mix of random tunes in an extremely irritating hoarsy voice) and Manyavar ads (Have you ever seen them? Don’t they give you a headache?), the trailers eventually came up. 

The first one was “Margarita with a straw”. At the risk of sounding politically very incorrect, it frankly bored me. I don’t think I will watch that movie, not till at least twenty rational connects on my Facebook list update a positive review (rational being highly subjective). 

And then, I was hit by a Marathi trailer. Perhaps the state legislation also stipulates airing of Marathi trailers in prime time slots, but the very thought pissed me off. Who are these people to influence my movie watching experience, I argued to myself? 

As I prepared to diss the trailer without bothering about its content, I got hooked on to it. Just like that, as the trailer progressed, I was reading the sub titles, following the portrayal of situations, getting enamored by the performance of the cast and the witty dialogues (even the sub-titled ones). It is one of the more interesting trailers I have come across in recent past. I think I will watch it in the theater, if they include English sub-titles. 

Perhaps, Marathi will live and thrive for long, and, so will Tamil, if only with a little help from fanatic State Government legislations. Well, I am not complaining.

P.S. Incidentally, the Marathi movie has an English title – Court.

All in a day's work

(This story was originally published on Readomania on April 1, 2015)

Eraniyan Govindswami, or ErGo, as he was fondly called by friends, fans and the fairly-well-wishing-public, woke up in excellent spirits that Monday morning. He had had a satisfying weekend, a fun one at that, not very different from his weekdays. However, unlike on weekdays where his durbar was confined to the studio, this weekend, he had held court at a homestay around 50 kms off the NH420, at his team’s offsite. And, he had come back with fodder that could potentially last him an entire month. 

ErGo took pride in being a news channel anchor with a difference. Unlike his colleagues who ran boring shows and debates on political unrests, socio-economic challenges and public policies, ErGo was ahead of his time. His target audience was Young India, those soldiers of the future who thrived on hashtags, twitter rages, change.org petitions and Whatsapp selfies. He knew exactly what this audience wanted and delivered on it with a vengeance. 

To read more, click here.

The curious case of the missing houseguest

(This story was originally published on Readomania on March 20, 2015)

“Have you found him yet?” yelled Raghu from the kitchen.

Kunal lazed languidly, semi-asleep on the couch, as he dipped his hand into a large box of peanuts placed strategically on top of his stomach, spilling a few on the sofa. His mind was contemplating whether it was worth the effort involved in disturbing his relaxed position to pick up the T.V. remote or to let things as they were. Status quo is such bliss, he told himself, as he pushed the remnant peanut skins on his t-shirt into nooks and corners of the sofa that Raghu wouldn’t be able to find easily, hence reducing the net anger in the apartment.

To read more, click here.

I carry your heart, in my heart

(This story was originally published on Readomania on February 20, 2015)

She was born in the beautiful port town of Yazhpanam (Jaffna, for the anglicized). The year was 1968, and Jaffna was a buzzing beehive of activity in those years, second only to Colombo.

Her grandmother Jayaragini christened her Nayanarani, for she had beautiful eyes and a smile that could melt the hardest of stones. Nayana’s mother had no say in the decision, for she died at childbirth, as if she knew of the fate about to befall her six children, and had the strength not to witness it.

To read more, click here.

If I had to do it all over again...

MBA bashing is the only constant in an otherwise changing world. Every year, I read at least one article with over a hundred thousand likes and ten thousand shares (just guesstimating, like a typical MBA), that lynches the mad MBA race, with the author going on to regret having spent time and money on a management degree.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I always was the kind that couldn’t make up my mind. Sometimes, it was music, sometimes writing. Some other times, it was history, only I never wanted to sit around excavating remains of 14th century Ming dynasty. Biology? Couldn’t draw to save my life, so the whole medicine business was out of the window. Look at me, calling medicine a business!

I wanted to specialize in languages, particularly English literature. It was promptly vetoed by my super-conservative-we-will-go-to-US-for-PhD family. So, I was left with little choice but to generalize rather than sit and code on Java and J2EE and .Net (I know those names, I am a ‘specialist’ Computer Science Engineer). 

I don’t remember much of my MBA. I think it had some vague terms like Black Scholes, law of diminishing returns, marginal utility, MBTI etc. But, I made a lot of very intelligent friends there whose brains I pick now (for free) to learn the answer to life, the Universe and everything (which apparently is not 42). And, somewhere down the line, I started liking being this generalist-nobody who doesn’t commit to specialist things, but just brings things together and packages them well for the market. 

So, what’s the harm? Some of us, perhaps many of us spend a good decade or two of our lives as confused souls with no knowledge of what we want to do and hence end up being generalists. And a few of us, after having got into specializations, are worried sick that we will become obsolete. And, consciously move towards the general with a management degree in hand.

The MBA is actually a consequence of our confusion, not cause for our confused careers. The MBA is a consequence of our risk aversion, not cause for our incapability to do innovative things. So, before bashing and blaming an inconsequential degree (for that’s what the "bashers" believe it to be), let us take a minute to reflect whether two inconsequential years can really wreck our lives so much that we will spend the rest of our lives writing about “If I had to do it all over again”.

The tip

(This story was originally published on Writer's Ezine on February 2, 2015)

Kiran Shah had a 2 p.m. appointment at the beauty parlor, her regular round-the-corner neighborhood jaunt. She arrived promptly at2.30 p.m. in a chauffeur driven Honda Accord, and barged into the parlor calling out for Sheetal, her regular beautician. 

Pure Beauty Salon, Powai was used to Kiran, her loud voice, flamboyance, penchant for “punctuality” and, most of all, her memory. For, Kiran had the memory no woman would vie for, the memory of a goldfish.

To read more, click here.

Depressed Christmas Tree, ignored by selfiers, attempts suicide

(This article was originally published on My Faking News on January 14, 2015)

A large Christmas Tree in High Street Phoenix, one of the most high end and crowded malls in Mumbai, seems to have attempted suicide, in a bizarre incident late last night.

The Tree had been installed a week before Christmas, with colorful decorative balls and a shimmer of golden light glowing through a wire across its body. It was this wire that the Tree apparently used to strangulate itself, in what is touted to be the strangest case of attempted suicide in the city so far.

To read more, click here.

A walk into the millennium

(This article was originally published on Readomania on December 26, 2014)

It was the 29^th of December 1999. Rohan Khatri was ecstatic as he stood in the line to board the flight to India, departing from FortWorth International Airport in Dallas. He was going home.  A place he had been waiting to get back to for over two years. A place where he would be fed endless rounds of Makki Di Roti with Sarson Da Saag tirelessly prepared by his loving mother. A place where he could stay under his SuperMan quilt well into mid-morning, enjoying the caressing Delhi winters rushing through his soul. More importantly, he was going back to Smita, whose tearful face as she saw him off to the US was etched in his memory. Even with tears in her eyes, the shy smile she gave him as she wished him luck had made her seem the most beautiful woman ever.

To read more, click here.

Mumbai tenant, inspired by Interstellar, decides to shift galaxies after being contacted by “Them”

(This article was originally published on My Faking News on December 17, 2014)

A Mumbai tenant, who spent many months of his year and many thousands of rupees on broker commission, in identifying the optimally balanced house in terms of rent, distance from train stations and size, has finally decided to take the plunge and build a spaceship that will propel him to Marsbai.

Marsbai, as he has decided to christen the new planet in the Coffee Bay galaxy, has actually been given him by “Them”, he claims, while referring to the citizens of Marsbai.

To read more, click here.

Sushma Swaraj to be appointed External Faith Minister

(This article was originally published on My Faking News on November 27, 2014)

Given our traveling PM Narendra Modi’s latest ambition to exceed former President Pratibha Patil’s international airmiles and hotel club points, there has been unrest in the original Hindutva brigade, or whatever little remains of it.

While Sushmaji is the official External Affairs Minister, she was recently refused a seat on the flight to Australia, so as to make space for the PM’s Bhagavad Gita presents to Tony Abbott’s security personnel. 

To read more, click here.

Down a Goan shoreline

It was a mid-summer evening, darkness almost approaching, on a desolate stretch of a Goan beach. A lone dog howled in the distance. 5 of us walked along the shore, in no particular order, with no particular goal in mind. Our duties for the year were fulfilled, the MBA (rather, the PGDM) was done and dusted, a job was in hand, and a 2 month vacation beckoned. 

That didn’t stop us from dreaming, nothing ever could stop us from dreaming those days. Because, passion, we had oomphs of it, passion to argue loudly, to fit the world into idealistic frameworks, to aspire for the big, to make a real difference to ourselves. Because, we believed that we weren’t people who went behind the regular Joe’s regular job, that we could truly well awaken our inner selves.

That evening was no different. I don’t remember the idea too clearly today, but it had something to do with collaborating on a book. Yogesh and I were really kicked about it, and the other three, perhaps knowing truly well that these were idle dreams, encouraged us enthusiastically, carefully avoiding any commitment to the collaboration. 

The evening came to an end, in a shack filled with random music, much laughter, silly banter, many a photograph and hearts full of happiness. 

The trip came to an end too, and so did that vacation, our last vacation. 

We moved on to our jobs, one job after another, one year after another – the rut that we had thought belonged to the regular Joe. Because each of us were deigned to be that regular Joe.

The book never happened, collaboration a long distance dream. It has been over six and a half years since that day. More than half a decade.

Yogesh reminded me today, of our “failure”, when I was attempting a wisecrack on Chetan Bhagat’s books. “Who are you, to make fun of that enterprising gentleman, a gentleman who doesn’t care about his detractors and their criticisms, and is at his job of creating a new reading order?”, was the tone of his comment.

I cannot deny him the pleasure, or lack thereof, of my answer. I am a tired regular Joe, who would give up much to go back to that evening, an evening where possibilities abounded, opportunities were innumerable, and the mind was ready to kick down the barriers of a boring, templatized life. I would give up much to go back to having that heart that didn’t know, that didn’t know that passion, if not nurtured, would get washed away by this evil flood called every day life.

When Arbit Arnab meets Revolutionary Bhagat and Tsunami Gandhi

Ornob: The question is in the public domain. Tell me, Mr. Bhagat, who is this half girlfriend?

CB: It is a regular story of a boy from a regular IIT who...

Ornob: No, Mr. Bhagat. Let me finish. How can you call a girl half?

CB: I understand. But, it all started in a small town, when a boy had a dream, of making it big in IIT and... 

Ornob: Mr. Bhagat, Mr. Bhagat. The nation wants to know. Is this even correct usage of English? Is this what we have waited all these years to hear from you?

CB: The discussion was never about English. It was never about halves. It is about a simple boy, who decides he will go to IIT to win this girl he knew from his KG days and marry her someday. It is a story of aspirations, of goals beyond comprehension. It is the coming of age…

Ornob: Mr. Bhagat. Let me finish. What you are trying to do here is justify your actions. The nation does not want your justifications. By calling her the half girlfriend, what are you trying to suggest? What message does this give to the Indian boy? The guy who waits for your book all year long, what does he take away from this? How are you going to explain this? You owe the nation an answer.

CB: India is a force that is moving towards big things. We have Mangalyaan in orbit today. We have MOM. Is there a power greater than MOM? That is why, the protagonist, this young boy, the man with hopes of building a career in science, writes the JEE...

RaGa: I have always believed in the true strength of escape velocity. I have spoken about the power of India, women empowerment, tsunami speeds and the strength of Mom. Finally, India has woken up to these truths. It is a true tryst with destiny...

Ornob: Mr. Gandhi. We are NOT discussing your Mom. You have some explaining to do here. Explain right now why you have not spoken about the Mangalyaan mission yet to the media. Do you believe, I repeat, do you believe, do you, truly and sincerely believe, that this Mangalyaan mission would have happened had you been Prime Minister? Tell us now, Mr. Gandhi. What explanation do you have for this?

RaGa: We are a super power, we are a secular force. We have always achieved the best. India is hurtling at a very great speed with no speed breakers. Our days of the banana republic are over. The system needs to be changed. The system of...

CB: In the end, we will have a revolution. The revolution will take us beyond 2020. In that millennium, there will be many more IITs and many more young men, with love in their hearts, and IIT in their brains...

Ornob: Gentlemen, gentlemen. This is not a discussion. This is chaos. You have still not answered what the nation wants to know. The nation does not have the time to listen to your ramblings. The nation, the nation...

RaGa: Rahul Gandhi is not a person. Rahul Gandhi is a movement, a movement of many different revolutions. Anyone can write about a revolution. But, who can lead a revolution? India should think now. My grandfather died, and I cried. My grandmother died, and I howled...

Ornob: Mr. Gandhi, we are SICK of listening to your “death”ly stories. We do not have time for your dramatics. I will not tolerate such behavior on this show, this show that millions of billions of zillions of people watch to get answers to important questions on Deepika's cleavage.

CB: Think about that middle class boy, that boy who does not understand cleavage, and is craving to know more. This is who the real India is, the India I reach out to, the India that is steeped in social media. My real competition is not Jeffrey Archer, but WhatsApp and Facebook and Instagram.

Ornob: Allow me to complete what the nation wants to hear.

RaGa: India is orbiting towards Mars. We will acquire Mars.

CB: India is a revolution.

Ornob: LET ME SPEAK. THIS IS MY SHOW. And, that’s all we have for tonight on NewsHour. Send in your comments and we will publish them on page 1 along with a full length photo of some actress’ cleavage. As to which actress that will be, wait for tomorrow’s edition.

Many a discussion on the boobs and the girl

I haven’t seen this latest controversial picture of Deepika Padukone’s cleavage. But, my curiosity to review her boobs has hardly been upped by the controversy, given I have seen those being generously flaunted in many a movie and magazine photo shoot. Also, you know, I do know how cleavage looks. So, not interested. No.

But, not seeing the pic hasn’t spared me the horror of Deepika’s outrage tweet and the follow up tweets by her Bollywood brethren. “Appalled”, says Karan Johar. Respect, brave girl, go girl etc. are some of the keywords used in tweets by other eminent professionals like Priyanka Chopra, Anushka Sharma and Huma Querishi, not necessarily in that order. And, some of our distinguished newspapers (not ToI) have pulled these tweets together and made multiple news articles off the combination. So, I am fully informed and all that. Yes.

But, outrages over what politicians say and what the media publishes are so yesterday. This week is outrage over the outrage week. She is an actor, for heaven’s sake. It is her bloody job to flaunt her physical assets, cleavage included. She does it in so many movies and item songs and advertisements and… So, how can she have a problem with ToI surreptitiously clicking pictures of her cleavage and flashing those for the benefit of well-informed Twitterati? Also, wasn’t that the week her movie Finding Fanny released? These actors na, they will do anything to promote their movies. Moreover, when we don’t have a problem with SRK’s (chemically induced) six-pack and Aamir Khan’s (apparently built from hard work) eight-pack, why are we making noise about DP’s two-pack?

Is there something ridiculously wrong with these arguments? I believe there is. Because joining the outrage over outrage bandwagon is so passé. Also, because I am mildly pissed off.

Her boobs are shown in movies that she consented to work in. Assuming that her boobs are free to be photographed by any TDH and flashed anywhere, and that she should sit back silently because she is an actor is akin to thinking there is nothing wrong in raping a prostitute (a wise comment made by the wise Nivi).

On that note, SRK’s and Aamir Khan’s multi-pack photographs are from movies. It isn’t even logical to compare the two situations.

Also, even if it is true that this was a publicity stunt her PR team pulled off as part of the Finding Fanny publicity, why are we all cheapening ourselves by outraging over her outrage? Doesn’t that mean we are all endorsing what ToI did i.e., click a picture of a personal spot in stealth, and upload it on Twitter almost a year later.

If we are never going to give benefit of doubt to anyone, because of the way he/she dresses or because of his/her career, wouldn’t we all end up speaking like some of our politicians someday, that rapes are political conspiracies and women have an equal role to play in a rape?

Well, all that apart, I hear side boob is the new cleavage. ToI, when and where is the next photo shoot?

Where art thou?

Normalcy, normalcy, where art thou?

Right by you, in the aisle seat on your row.

Normalcy, normalcy, is that common?

There is no definition for me, often.

Normalcy, normalcy, but I want peace

One man’s peace is another’s grief.

Normalcy, normalcy, I seek thou in vain.

Seek me forever and nothing you shalt gain

Normalcy, normalcy, but I need you by my side

I am by you, always by you child.

Seek me not, in pursuit of an end,

Seek me not, wanting to amend,

Actions set, to a wheel of motion,

For those are done, those are frozen.

You will sense me, when you lie down,

Take a deep breath and lose that frown,

With a book in hand, love on your mind

You will forget to cry, and smile unconfined.

Of gals and girls

I was reading about the etymology of ‘gal’ earlier today, not because I was jobless, but because I have always been irked by the distortion of that simple word ‘girl’ to ‘gal’ by young and old alike. 

It is surprising that there are at least a hundred thousand others around the world who share this concern and rant about it incessantly online. But, this isn’t a rant post, so am moving on to what I found.

1. An online etymology dictionary states that gal is slang for girl, commonly perceived to be Cockney vulgarism.
2. The Wiktionary claims that gal refers to an adolescent girl or a young woman.
3. The Wikisaurus, while calling the word colloquial and dated, says that woman is an antonym of gal!
4. The Urban Dictionary, the mecca of those new world mutations such as selfies and titties, defines gal as referring to bird, bitch, slut, hoe, girl, woman, pussy, lady and even sex! But, the same dictionary also wants to redeem itself by giving a new twist to the word with this definition – an awesome person who was well-known in her city before leaving for an exotic place – whatever that means!
5. Random online forums, where many random people say random things, thanks to internet, mobile apps and that unquantifiable luxury called freedom of speech, claim the following:
• Men used to refer to their secretaries as gals and their girlfriends as girls
• Men called their lady friends as gals, just like how they called their male friends as pals
• Gal was used as a substitute to that very derogatory word, bitch
• Gals and chicks can be used interchangeably

No matter where I go, I can see nothing but an ugly reference to the word, save Wiktionary and Wikisaurus. Why still do we put up with this word? Is it to make ourselves look cool? 

But, I am no one to ask this question, for, I am part of a google group that carries the word in its name. The only saving grace is that it is a very dormant group, and so, I do not contribute too much to the sin of using ‘gal’.

Then again, I am also part of a group that carries horny in its name. And it isn’t a dormant group. The only saving grace there is that I am not able to find any conceivable sin in using the word ‘horny’.

The Jungle

In the jungle, the deep dark jungle,

The tiger and the lion, they hunt the live,

Vultures and hyenas, on the dead they thrive,

Night and day, they merge into one,

Territories are sacred, and breached at every turn.

In the jungle, the deep dark jungle,

The fruits and the roots, abound around,

The flowers they bloom, on trees and on ground,

The rain god smiles, every once in a while,

The leaves they rustle, never do they die.

In the jungle, the deep dark jungle,

Where secrets die soon, truths never win

Where man and beast, alike they sin,

I sing with joy, and I dance away,

For fear maketh courage, and courage lets me play.

Wouldn't it be loverly!

This poem is based on this lovely song from my all-time favorite musical, My Fair Lady; I was humming it in my head as I wrote this out, so the poem might sound better against that music than stand-alone.

All I want is a brownie warm,

Reveling in this brewing storm,

A large couch by the balcony,

Wouldn’t it be loverly?

Lots of pakoras and hot bhajji

With a steaming cup of spicy tea

Evenings with samosa and chutney,

Wouldn’t it be loverly?

Pitter, patter of the raindrops high,

Hot chocolate and hot apple pie,

Arm full of books and heart full of glee,

Wouldn’t it be loverly?

Aww, so loverly resting my head on my cushion without a care,

I would never budge till the sun crept through the windows to stare.

All I want is a brownie warm,

Reveling in this brewing storm,

A large couch by the balcony,

Wouldn’t it be loverly?

Loverly… loverly… loverly…

The Game

“Lucky fellow!” we holler, when we want to congratulate a guy who has landed a beautiful wife.

“You need to be lucky to get through that exam,” we say, in morbid self-doubt, when we haven’t performed as well as we should have in a competitive test. 

Whenever something goes wrong, attempting to camouflage our own short-comings, we cry out “Shucks! Rotten luck!” 

Luck is our one word explanation for all things good that happen to others, and all things bad that happen to us. 

My dad was a great believer in the concept of luck. Perhaps, it gave him the confidence to win. He believed his lucky number was 8, a number shunned by the uber-sensitive, luck-driven industry he did business in. At production releases, he always picked up stocks labelled 8, or adding up to 8, because no one clamoured for those anyway, and he could get away without having to put up with a long wait. As I write this, I wonder whether he truly believed in lucky number eight, or was just being crafty. 

I used to believe in luck as a kid. I had my own lucky color, lucky dress, and, most importantly, lucky pen. I also had an unlucky pen that I didn’t have the heart to throw away. I would use it for writing my name on entry forms in art competitions, which, given my artistic prowess, I had no hopes of winning even if Fortuna were to take control of my soul. And, in case you are wondering, I participated in them only because they were “away” competitions with half a day off from school. 

I still believe in luck. That is, I believe in the concept of an external entity helping me win. It could be a shirt or a suit or a pen or a piece of accessory. But, that belief seems to have waned over the years. I don’t feel the same charge of energy and confidence when walking into an important meeting in my luckiest shirt as I used to, walking into an examination carrying my luckiest pen.

Perhaps, this is what growing old means. We believe less and less in Utopia, the world of the magic wand, the skies with the flying carpets and the genie granting us wishes. We lean more towards rationale, logic, the inevitable end, and the moribund years of life. We wonder whether luck really exists, for, it is just plain, unadulterated chance that we are sitting here playing this game of life. We refuse to accept that the Universe might have conspired to do us a good turn.

We play at life like it is a game. We fight tooth and nail to live another day, if not literally, at least figuratively. Every time someone wins, we say they are lucky. And, we get a little more despondent, pondering over our ill-luck. Every time we win, we become even more despondent. For, our self-benchmark just went up. 

In the Game of Thrones, you either win or you die. There is no middle path. 

In the Game of Life, we just trudge on. If we win, we trudge on. If we lose, we trudge on. The trudging on is worse than death, for we are anticipating loss at every turn. 

For, we no longer trust that the Universe is looking out for us, that something worthwhile might come out of all this after all, by hook or by crook, or some luck from the nook.