Free spirit, literally!

(post submitted to Indispire on IndiBlogger.in under the Offbeat & Personal -> Weird category)

I died yesterday, at my desk in office. The funeral was this morning in my home town. Yeah, it beats me too. In order to shove me into an electric crematorium, which will eject an urn of ashes two hours later (it is all very procedural these days), I don’t understand why my family had to spend tons of money flying me (rather, my body) to my hometown. Sentiments, apparently.

All I can hope is that some of my Jet miles were used for the flight. Wait, is that possible? Can one’s miles be used, on oneself, after one’s death? That’s a pertinent question.

I strangely feel very non-sentimental now, the antithesis of who I was, a sentimental, young fool, in life. It is an insane feeling, being detached, not just from the body, but from feelings and sentiments. For instance, I would have broken down in tears just at the sight of my mother being unhappy, let alone shedding buckets of tears and staring into nothingness all at the same time. Now, I just think she is making a big deal about nothing. I don’t like this new me, this robotic, unfeeling me, that doesn’t take her mom seriously.

My phone is lying there, almost about to die. No one is looking at it. Come on people. Get going. Charge it. Use it. It cost me 50K in real life.

Ok, I have spent too much time seeing all these tears. It is time to travel across to office to see whether it is business as usual there. At least, no one will be crying. One good thing about death is that you are so light you can travel with the wind and that too, at the speed of the wind. Since you don’t have a body to carry around, you don’t have to wait in long security lines at the airport or board rickety old buses to get to an aircraft, or get frustrated with the flight getting delayed due to air traffic congestion. The perks are attractive, I must say.

Office is looking morose. At least my desk is. No one seems to have occupied it, perhaps for fear of falling down dead. They haven’t even moved my laptop out of there. And, I know my company very well. They would have wanted to retrieve all the data ASAP. They seem to be taking this superstition thing seriously, huh!

There are hushed conversations at the vending machine, about how a girl died at her desk due to over-work. Come on! I wish I could speak to you guys and break that myth right now. No one dies of over-work. People only get brain hemorrhages when they work too hard and then go into comas. Are you wondering how I know that? I have been speaking to a lot of people who died yesterday and are hovering around, in hopes of catching a glimpse of their alive near and dear ones. One guy was a top neuro-surgeon in life. He died in the operation theater yesterday, presumably of over-work. He told me. I won’t get into the details now; we can have such in-depth discussions when you join us.

Ok, this has got boring. My colleagues are predictable. They are now fitting frameworks and structures to analyse possible causes of deaths of women my age so that they can publish a report on it. Get a life, guys. 

Let me potter around to some of my friends’ houses. Maybe, they would have moved on. 

No. No luck there either. Too much crying, too much depression. Real life is depressing me, man.

Let me go to some of the crematoriums to join my brethren in trying to figure out what exactly I am supposed to do now. I so hate this inaction, coupled with observing incessant criers.

I hope we can head to heaven or whatever place it is, where angels will welcome us and we can float on clouds and play Scrabble and b***h about humans.

Ah! Looks like dreams don’t die when we die.

Kingdom of my dreams

Aye Dil Hai Mushkil Jeena Yahan, 

Zara Hat Ke Zara Bach Ke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan 

A typical Bombay-based non-Bollywood movie starts with this song, pans across the VT station, gives a bird’s eye view of Marine Drive and closes with the "kaali peelis". That is the city in a nutshell, at least to the awestruck tourist. 

However, as a migrant who has lived in Bombay for almost six years, my home memories of Bombay revolve, not around happening Colaba or around suburban Bandra, but around that indispensable Tam bastion of Matunga East. 

To many, Matunga East is just a land of South Indian eateries fitting a dozen or more tables and chairs in a 400 square foot space and serving endless amounts of rice, saambhaar, idli and dosa. 

A Matunga-ite would know much better than that. 

They would know about that small shop in the gully on Bhaudaji Road that sells ready-made batter for idlis and dosas. They would know about that road parallel to Bhaudaji’s where Mysore Concerns sells authentic filter coffee powder. They would know about the Chheda Stores opposite the railway station that sells every namkeen on Earth – dhoklas, khakhras, chivdas, kachoris, samosas. They would know about the veggies market near the railway station that sells the freshest yellow and red peppers and broccoli and celery. They would know about the empty, by-lane through Hindu Colony that would take one directly to Dadar station. They would know that, no matter what the hustle-bustle, the area goes quiet by 9 pm, letting one take a walk in peace through the empty, tree-filled, well-paved by-lanes of Chandavarkar Road. 

Who is this Matunga-ite, one may ask. I am not, as per traditional definitions. Then again, since living in Matunga is such an exorbitant affair, only BMW owners can dream of becoming Matunga-ites in the traditional sense.

But, the biggest beauty of Matunga lies in the fact that one doesn’t have to live there to be a Matunga-ite. Matunga is a hodgepodge of cultures, filled with Gujju aunties and Tam Brahm maamis, hep girls at Sia’s jewellery shop and traditional ladies in Milaap’s saree shop, South Indian temples and Jain Mandirs, New Yorkers’ and Madras Café. One just has to drop into this place to feel belonged, to become a Matunga-ite. 

Matunga is what I remember during Dahi Handi and Ganesh Puja, Matunga is the place I end up in during Diwali and Sankranthi. The colors vibrant, the themes changing in sync with the festivity, the lights, stars, marigolds, Krishna figurines, Ganesha idols – the sight is quite amazing. 

One may argue that only fools will frequent Matunga during the festive season, when Dadar is but a couple of kilometres away. Have you ever been to Dadar? On a normal day, it is a menagerie where bikes, cars, taxis, pedestrians, vendors and everyone else coexist both on the roads and the walk ways. Around the festive season, it is a wild forest with an uncontrollable fire that threatens to consume all that dare walk through it. If Dadar is wilderness filled with commotion, Matunga is a mature peacock carrying herself with panache through the wilds, in rain and sunshine. And that’s why one would like her better. 

So, the next time you end up in Matunga East for a bite, do sample the Khotto Idli at Mysore Café. But, also take a few minutes to walk through Bhandarkar Road up to Ruia college. You will realize that beauty and peace can exist, even amidst the crowds and the jostle.

The maroon

It was a dilapidated bus-stop off the dusty main road. Noisy trucks invaded what little remained of the tar on the road, while the whir and hum of electric trains from tracks afar adorned the otherwise mundane setting.

The sun shone down indelibly, in what could only be an expression of its immense love for the few people braving the road. It was two in the afternoon on a Saturday, smack in the middle of May.

He stood at the bus stop, oblivious of the time, the trucks whizzing past him, the trains’ whirring through the station, and above all, the sun’s persistence.

The day had started reasonably well, with his favorite puttu and sweetened tea at Nayar’s. The tea could never meet the standards of what he used to have at home, his land the mecca of the world’s tea. However, he had no time to reminiscence these days, of home and tea, of beaches and forests.

Packing was well underway for his trip to the Queen’s land. Uncle had asked him to carry only the bare essentials, for the stores there had good supplies of hand-me-downs for the migrant populace. It wasn’t as if he had anything more than bare essentials, having migrated to this interim land with not so much as a plan in place, let alone a bag of clothes. A few irreparable trousers, given to him by kind neighbors from his homeland, with dreams in their hearts and sorrow in their eyes, were all he could manage to stuff into a sorry looking suitcase.

That is when he heard that loud rapping on the door. His uncle was on call at Nayar’s, the only shop in that building blessed with a functional phone. He tumbled down the stairs, dismay writ large on his face.

Perhaps, his uncle had changed his mind, he worried. He was after all a menial with no culinary skill, let alone the expertise to help run a samosa counter in a movie hall in foreign land, desi-frequented as it may be. Perhaps, his uncle would be kind enough to postpone the trip and not cancel it, he consoled himself as he rushed to Nayar’s, tightening the once-white-now-brown dhoti around his hip. By the time he reached Nayar’s, he was heaving and panting, his heart skipping a beat more than it did when he thought of his family back home.

The conversation was short, to the point and clear. It did not change anything between them, his uncle promised him.

As if in a trance, he placed back the receiver and walked out of Nayar’s. He did not know how long he stood at that bus stop, disoriented and distraught.

A piece of newspaper seemed to be nudging him out of the stupor. Perhaps, its life’s purpose had been to fly to his rescue before he was irredeemably lost. He clutched that newspaper and read through the article on a hunger strike planned in support of his people back in his homeland.

The news he had received over phone sunk in finally. His entire family had been taken into custody the night before, and banished to an unknown and unidentified war camp. For the first time that day, he cried aloud, not because he had lost everything he had ever known, but because he was a refugee far away from home, incapable of doing anything to save his family.

Puja times

It is that time of the year again, when high-profile stars with Bong roots are interviewed by Bombay Times in an attempt to unravel their childhood memories. It is Durga Puja (or Pujo, if you will), the most important Bengali-Hindu festival, as my Bong friends would never fail to remind me.

I am not a Bong, I have never lived in Calcutta and I do not understand the feverish excitement the festival brings with it. I am an ordinary Tam Brahm born and brought up in small town Chennai, where Poojai is not pronounced as Puja, let alone as Pujo.

But, I do have my own set of memories of what you may call the Pujo, not so noisy and crowded, not so in your face colorful, but sweet, laid-back and soft memories, as is the wont of the town I come from.

Yeah. It is an important nine day long festival for us too, that mostly used to coincide with my Quarterly Examination holidays, year after year, as a school going kid.

I could do a Wiki search and sound intelligent, but I had rather be honest here, one of the very few arenas I am honest in these days. I still have not completely figured out the significance of the “Kolu” or, for the uninitiated, the nine-day long “Doll festival”. I do not know why we arrange nine steps (or perhaps 6 or 3, depending on the space in the house) and place ceramic dolls (the Gods largely, sometimes a cricket ground too, and then significant Godly events like Ram’s coronation and Krishna stealing butter).

What I do know and remember is the fun I used to have doing it all then. Mom used to be completely against buying a 9-step ladder and covering it in fancy embroidered cloth for the festival. She would say, “What will we do with the ladder later? And, besides, that sounds so templatized.” So, we would convert the dining table into the main stay broad step; keep one carton on top of it, a small table in front of the dining table and then maybe a smaller carton ahead of that. And then we would cover all of them in different colored fancy clothes. That means one whole room was cordoned off for this purpose and the family ate not at a dining table during that period. Mom was also against buying random play ground themes from the store. “That is so un-Godly-ish,” she would say. And, no, we would not have any innovative themes created by us either, as we both, actually all three of us (including Dad) were super artistic people who could draw straight lines as perfect curves. The steps would be adorned with the usual Rams, Lakshmans, Krishnas and the likes – all nice, bright dolls from Khadi – Khadi being the mecca of all Navratri dolls then (perhaps even now).

The Kolu might not have won even a consolation prize in the annual Kolu competition (I reckon something like that happens these days) but it was homely and inviting, making people come back year after year. Or, perhaps, it was the snacks mom would prepare untiringly, that would make people want to come back for more. The festival itself would end with two days of special celebrations, the first day being “Saraswathi Poojai” when all books, notebooks, pens and my Veena would be kept in the Puja and there being a complete ban on any kind of productive work (wow!). The next day would be celebrated as “Vijayadashami” when all the items placed in the Puja would be taken out and used, signifying a new beginning.

It has been donkey’s years since I attended a Kolu, what with spending “Saraswathi Poojai” in office year after year, feeling guilty using pens, notebooks and laptops that day. The family doesn’t follow the practice religiously any more, the city shuttling and inherent loss of interest in such niceties being major contributors. But, whenever I get an overdose of the Durga Pujo celebrations from the intense coverage in the print and visual media, I become randomly nostalgic, missing small town Chennai, an unpretentious Kolu in a 2 bedroom house, an endless list of guests and a lot of Carnatic music.

The ordinary... and then some more

It has been a long week, a substantially long and draining week, like one of those high-intensity due-diligence engagements week. It has been a random week of vendor rants, customer cribs, analyst woes, senior management skepticism. However, it has been a strangely fulfilling week.

I like chaos. In fact, I revel in chaos. It is when I am in the best of moods. There is nothing more satisfying than putting a structure around chaos, and showing the world that life ain’t that bad after all.

It is all about showing the world, showing off rather. I revel in showing off. There is nothing more blessed than showing people that something could be pulled off, making them feel they can’t do without me.

It is an even more blessed feeling knowing that there are people I cannot do without. It means I am still human, even if I run the risk of getting irreparably hurt some day. It is a comfortable feeling, the feeling of being dependent, strange though it may sound.

I am having a cup of hot chocolate, comfortable in my too-small-for-one-and-a-half-people, but just-the-perfect-size-for-one-person apartment.

The chocolate brings back memories – of a housewarming celebrated with hot chocolate, of a master-chef’s real Lindt hot chocolate with lot of love thrown in, of Theo’s spicy hot chocolate with the gang.

It helps forget the month ahead, momentarily that is. The mind traverses gondolas and the bridge of sighs, random images of a wishful holiday.

Eternity is over-rated, or so they say. Me, I would prefer good old eternity, endless evenings of hot chocolate and good time, of love and no longing, of perpetual peace and quiet.

Oh well, I signed up for chaos long back I guess, a chaos so chaotic that peace would seem weird and draining, if only because of the emptiness and silence it would bring along with it. Perhaps then, I will not celebrate, nor will I jump about in joy. I would just heave a long sigh of relief and go visit the bridge of sighs.

Glorious days of yore

The month of May brings with it ripe mangoes, blistering heat, an unending wait for the rains and summer holidays. It also brings with it an unquenchable thirst to go back in time, to days of unfettered optimism and freedom from pension funds, gratuities and tax planning.

As kids around me wait with bated breath for their ranks and cut-off announcements and college admissions, I take a trip down memory lane.


To read the rest of the article, click here.

In Memoriam

It was the summer of 2007, a summer of friendship, love and heartbreak, not necessarily in that order. This is the story of that summer.

Interns are easy to identify, and identify with too. There is a laid-back and unfettered attitude about them, a complete mismatch to their new ties and polished boots and shining folders and lavish laptops. They are revelling in their big city exposure and new found friends, while at the same time fighting head over heels with those very ‘friends’ for that elusive PPO. It is also a time when love blossoms, blooms and sometimes dies, even more hurriedly than in B-school.

Nostalgia hits me as I walk into the same old serviced apartment now, which was home to me for 2 months in 2007.

Back then, I was an intern too, but not the PPO hunting variety. Wide-eyed and awestruck, it took me enough time to take in what would be my first ever corporate experience, leave alone fight for a PPO.

Bombay was unknown, large and looming, talking a language I could not fathom. She was interminably fast, noisy, dirty and over-crowded. Not once did she intimidate me though. I liked her, despite and because of her attitude to life. The weekdays were spent hogging pav bhajis at Chakala. The weekends were spent lazing, shopping and eating at Marine Drive, Colaba and Bandra. Sometime then, I fell irrevocably in love. Little did I know then that this love would prove to be expensive, draining me of my money, time and physical energy, eventually driving me crazy. Bombay, not unlike a courtesan, had begun to employ all her charms to allure me into her folds.

The internship itself was a disaster. “FMCG sales” was not in my breath, blood or even bones. I liked the travel though and unknown even to me, was beginning to form a bond with web check-ins, flights and hotel stays. Perhaps, that was deemed to be my takeaway from those two months. For, I went on to build a career whose backbone lies in travel.

If at all you are wondering whether I made bonds with anything non-inanimate, yes I did. Just like any other intern at that time, I made friends at break-neck speed. Thankfully, not all of them were the “forget-post-internship” variety. The first time V (M’s V that is) saw a photo of M and I together, he thought we are sisters :)

No matter how undeserved it was, not getting the PPO was heart-breaking; and felt then like a failed attempt. Leaving Bombay was heartbreaking too, as if someone had just ripped something right out of my heart’s trenches. Having my biggest fight for this lifetime with V (not M’s V) contributed in no less measure to the heartbreak pool. But, of course, there is no free lunch. If I had my share of fun, I had to have my share of sorrow.

In hindsight, the heartbreak was just as well; for, I can never bring myself to not love the career I eventually found myself in. And, Bombay is back in my life, forever this time, while fights are things of the past.

The summer of 2007 is unforgettable, for more reasons than one. It was a summer of love, heartbreak and friendship, not just mine.

Strung

She absently fiddled with her left index finger, lost in thought. And, suddenly, she jerked awake, as if from a trance. Something was missing, something very dear to her, that she seemed to have left behind, in her rush to get on.

What was she missing? What had she got on with? She racked her brains, searching for some comforting and familiar memory that would free her of this momentary confusion.

And, suddenly she remembered. How could she have forgotten, she chided herself. Those once familiar blisters no longer adorned her index and middle fingers. Her fingers were as smooth as silk now, bearing no evidence of that glorious past.

Her teacher had told her once, showing her own fingers. "Do you see the blisters on these fingers, little one? They show our dedication to what we do. The day the skin on your fingers are smooth and not roughened by these blisters will be the day you would have forgotten everything you have learnt." She wanted to have blisters on her fingers like her teacher, or perhaps even rougher and harsher. For, such are the desires of a young and vain heart. Every night before sleeping, she would clench those just born blisters on her left hand tightly with the fingers of her right hand, hoping that they would somehow grow deeper overnight. And, every morning, the skin would have somehow become smoother than the day before, not causing her disappointment, but an unquenchable thirst to win. The uglier the blisters, the higher her sense of achievement.

Ah! Those were the days. Those were the days she could practice for hours together, despite her tired little hands begging her for mercy. Those were the days when her mom would have to stop her forcibly for fear of seeing her fingers bleed otherwise.

What had happened suddenly? When had she started losing the race to her hands? When had she started ignoring those blisters? When had she abandoned her beloved to a corner, only to be dusted and cleaned by mom, while she herself started to "get on" with life?

Today, as she took the Veena and started practicing again, the unquenchable thirst seemed to be coming back, slowly at first and then like a waterfall, tumbling down a precipice. Perhaps, the blisters would come back again, harsh and rough, bringing with them a deep sense of peace and contentment.

P. S. Thanks V, for the title.

Up in the air

I was flying through the clouds on my magic carpet waving to the twinkling stars. My hands were just about to reach out and touch the moon when a gust of wind threw me off the carpet. And, with a thud I woke up. I had rolled off my bed in my sleep.

It was the Half Yearly Examination of 1993. I hardly remember that 8 mark question in the English paper now. It had something to do with writing a story. And this is pretty much the long and short of what I wrote. I got a 7.5 and much praise from Mrs.JS, my most favorite English teacher of all times. My friend wrote about some houses made of chocolate that children could lick whenever they felt hungry; he got a 7 on 8. I personally liked what he wrote much more than what I wrote.

And, I think that is the last time I did serious creative writing. Perhaps, it stems from a huge lack of imagination and a fear for dreams. I have never thought about it much.

Yesterday, I was on an early evening aircraft for a change. The sun was going down, and the sky was clear. The aircraft was almost empty and I was looking out of the window in a long, long time – not reading, not dozing off, not cursing the delay but just looking out. And, there was a sheet of clouds beneath me and clouds all around me. I was trying to imagine huge white cloud castles in a square shape, a tall tower on each corner, and a clown face with a gleeful smile at the gateway. I was building castles in the air, almost literally. Sometime then, I must have dozed off. For, when I woke up, it was already dark and we were landing. And, I think I felt alive in a very childlike way then.

It is nice to build those chocolaty homes and fly through the clouds with angelic wings, and live a fairy tale life, sometimes. It is nice to forget those concrete jungles, stressed out moments and robotic lives, sometimes. Perhaps, it is just nice to dream sometimes.

Appraisal time

Mom and I went for a movie last week. The movie itself was disastrous to say the least and I have no intention of giving it any footage here. However, I can blame no one but myself, the “booker”, for the seats. Perched on the very last row, we got a clear glimpse of how well movie halls are utilized by romantically inclined couples. Not the best of things to be entertained by, especially when one is with Mom; or so you would think. But, that was just a minor inconvenience compared to the downright shocking one-liner I got from Mom later on:

“Don’t tell me you are going to blog about your observations in the theater or something”.

After explaining sufficiently convincingly how very sensitive I am to the world’s privacy in general and my brand name in particular, I sat back to reflect on why she would say something like this.

And, then I decided to break the one golden rule of blogging – never blog about blogging itself.

I remember I started this blog quite aimlessly back in 2006. Just so as to check, I went back to read my first ever post. Thankfully, it has not promised to “deliver any value”. Heaving a sigh of relief, I went to my second post. It is long, unwieldy, terribly terribly boring and juvenile. It does not help to remember that I was 20 big years old when I wrote that one. I read the third and the fourth (of which am even ashamed to provide links here). They seem to have been written by a very loquacious person who loves ending sentences with three exclamation marks, like this - !!!

While I was at it, I read the rest of the stuff too, chronologically. There has been senti, poetry, bullet pointed lists. There has been a lot of cribbing, a little bit of mindless fun and some free advice too strewn along the way. There have been random observations like this and then like this.

What I have been consistent with all through this half decade is my global loquaciousness (a tautological emphasis) and absolutely disconnected titles. I am not able to control the former and have no intentions of controlling the latter. So, you can expect succinct posts with matching titles from me in my next life.

What I have failed miserably at, as evident from here, is forced humor, and has always been identified and pointed out to me by ruthlessly critical friends. I really will try hard not to write anything that I do not exactly “want” to write.

What I have been hung up with, much to the chagrin of almost everyone who reads this blog, is the Queen’s language. Sorry. Oh wait, no sorry. Words gives me a high that not even Vodka can, so, I have no plans of shelving that topic. But, Mumbai gives me a high that even words cannot. So, no plans of shelving that topic either.

About five years and nearly a 100 posts later, I realize I have no niche specialization here, no sector I can pin-point as mine. Then again, I have never wanted to commit myself to topics that would need too much use of my ‘little grey cells’.

No wonder Mom thinks, given a chance, I will write a 500-word post on the pigs of Gurgaon. Fat chance that, Mom, not on my death bed!

I did not intend writing about all this when I started this post. In fact, as is my wont, I did not intend writing anything of substance when I started this post. That is why this is not some ceremonial post in the traditional blogging parlance. It neither marks Namesake’s fifth anniversary nor is it the 100th post.

But, while I was at it, I realized that I have an infinitely large amount of time on hand this weekend – to search for and plug in all those links ;) Well, I also realized that I owe you, my readers something.

So, here it is.

Thank you guys, for putting up with this blog and providing a lot of encouragement (hope the counter on the right is not deceiving me) to keep it going thus far.

Happy New Year!

Seven

My kid cousin turned 18 yesterday. Which means she is not a kid any more. Or that is how she must be feeling right now, am sure.

That is how I felt when I turned 18.

The whole ‘becoming a major’ part was a big turn-on. Just imagine! I could vote, drive, tell off people with an “I know what am doing” look. The opportunities were endless. And, my silly mind waited and waited for grand 18 so that I could finally be free of those undefined shackles of childhood while my friends plotted behind my back to make it special. Special it was, I remember vividly. It still remains special, though I wonder whether life would have been a tad different and perhaps much better had it not been special.

But, that is not a story for this blog. Let’s move on.

Today, when I am 25 and have still not figured out life, I look back at those 7 years – 7 long years. And, I want my 7 years back.

No, I don’t want to reverse things, however good or bad they might have been. In fact, I am quite OK with how ‘life’ has turned out.

In these 7 years, I have run around like mad, chased behind things of no consequence, been rude and impatient and angry over little events, fretted over that which would never have been mine for eons together.

I wish I had not been so hard on myself, I wish I had taken it a little easier while I still could have. I wish I had been happier than I was with all the things I had, and not been consumed with bitterness over things that I did not.

I wish I had enjoyed the chocolate without worrying about how to dispose the wrapper.

My not-so-kiddish-anymore kid cousin would never read this. At least not presently. She is way too impatient and consumed with her life right now. Just like how I was then. But, perhaps, she would handle her 7 years much better than I did mine.

Perhaps, I will handle my next 7 years better than I did this. Or, at least I won’t write about it like how I have.

Maybe, I won’t be writing anymore then. After all, this blog did not exist in the last 7.

Great Expectations

He was an amazing driver. I used to get floored by his driving every time I got into the car. He was so passionate about driving that I suspect sometimes he loved his car more than he loved me. I would be lying if I said I didn’t mind it much. I used to get mighty jealous of 'em cars, oh yes I did.

He hated the times he was forced to be the cause of jerky turns, screeching brakes, inconsistent accelerations. He loved ‘smooth driving’, as he would call it. He hated drivers who overtook from the left, constantly honked (half-baked honking, he would say) with no rhyme or reason, had their headlights turned on to an irritatingly unnecessary proportion of brightness.

He did not mind any road; I don’t remember ever having heard him complain about roads. He could manage bad roads brilliantly, avoiding the potholes by centering the car over them with no lasting damage to either the tyre or the car or me.

He never got tired of long drives, never got tired of my constant looping of the same songs on the CD player, never got tired of the constant chattering. In fact, he is one of those few men I have known who could multi-task brilliantly – drive, talk, analyze music, observe everything on the side roads and comment on them. Perhaps, driving was so much a part of him that it never amounted to being a ‘task’.

He was a stickler for symmetrical parking. However, I never had to get down from the car to check how much space there was to fit the car or whether the angle in which the car was getting in there was right enough. He was way too intuitive about it. And, he almost always got it right first time around.

Someday, I would own a car and drive it too. Someday, I would have his favorite songs looping on the player while I attempt the task of driving. Someday, I would drive smooth irrespective of ‘minor’ externalities like roads.

Never would I be as perfect as him. But someday, I would have this undying and un-fulfill-able urge to ask him, “Dad, do you think this qualifies to be in your league of driving?”

Monotony, a world order

Every evening I look out of my balcony at the creamish-white moon on the backdrop of a deep blue sky. It is surreal; for an instance, life seems almost perfect.

Then I hear a drone in the kitchen. I snap out, as if from a trance. What I thought was the moon is actually a tube-light from a top floor apartment. Reality comes back into focus, complete with concrete walls and high rises, routine schedules and to-do lists.

Over the years, I have learnt that life is just like that illusory moonlight out there, full of quixotic moments and banal realities.

There are those flashes of pure bliss, those seconds when I feel on top of the world. Like when a kind old lady in a car offers to drop me at the taxi stand ‘cos it is pouring like mad, when people I have long lost contact with ping me on GTalk to say that my latest post struck a chord with them, when a group of friends decide to surprise me with a birthday gift I would never have been able to imagine, when my many-day yearning to catch Haji Ali at sunrise is finally fulfilled.

The here and the now, the quintessential elements of my existence just then make me ask, “What if time was to freeze at those moments? What if I could stay with those moments eternally?”

However, the mundane takes over the fantastic, for that is the world order. There are rains and flooded roads. There are days of unexplainable and self-inflicted loneliness, days of never-ending work and piled up responsibilities. There are choice-less times with only one way to take, the tried and tested one way.

Sometimes, I wonder whether it is too much to ask for more than my fair share of stay in seventh heaven, whether moments of serendipity could be stretched into hours, perhaps days, perhaps years. But, then, it would not be serendipity any more. That is why fate doles it out in small doses, like single shots of chocolate every fortnight, not enough to satiate the longing, just enough to crave for more.

A childhood long forgotten

He was 15. I was 10 then. He introduced me to Scrabble, like how he had introduced me to Moneyply and Ludo and Bingo before that.

Those were days when computers still ran on DoS, STD / ISD calls cost a bomb and post offices were stretched beyond capacity. I was an egoistic verbose writer, he was a pathetic correspondent. Letters were not us, neither were postcards. We were not in need of them. He and I, we met once a year, sometimes once in two years, for a brief 10 day period. Our board game was our bond, far stronger than emails and Gchats and Blackberry connectivity.

He was the rules analyst, the Moneyply banker, the game administrator, always. I was just the player, always. I trusted him blindly; his judgment was the last word, his rule the rule of God. He was just.

He knew that I was no sport, that I would refuse to play further if I did not win. He never lost for my sake. He was unwaveringly just. He would coax, tease and force me back to the game, very justly, as was his wont. I would make a jig when I won. He would look on unperturbed, sometimes a tad amused too, as if he was 60 and had seen it all in life.

We were not major TV watchers, he and I. There was nothing much to watch on TV those days. We would hit the Moneyply board at 9 in the morning and be at it for as long as 12 hours at times. Sometimes, my parents would have to literally tear us away from the board to take us to the beach. We would play with the sand, collect sea shells, and eat ice cream. But, we would come back to our board like we had never been away. We would pass through Texas and Dallas and JFK Airport and Boston. We would buy and construct and mortgage and sell. He would keep track of all of it. He was a spectacle-wearing nerd, the kind who should have grown to become a banker in real life.

We would make up words in Scrabble, fair and square. One for him, one for me; one more for him, one more for me. He would note down the scores on paper, doing the additions and subtractions. We would play again and again and again, till we had no more rough paper to note scores on.

He and I, we never made small talk. He was 15, I was 10. We had no reason to make small talk. He would have a book in hand sometimes, a huge academic one. He would read his, I would read mine. And, then we would take a break to read a non-academic one each. He and I, we were not major outdoor players. Perhaps, he thought I would not be interested in outdoor games. I was not. Sometimes, we would play ‘Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta’. I do not remember now what it was. Just that it was played outdoors.

He and I stopped playing board games a decade back. He was 20, I was 15. We had grown up. Perhaps, we had better things to do. I don’t know.

I was playing online Scrabble with a friend last week. I missed him. He is 30, I am 25. The Scrabble sleeps peacefully at home, maybe it misses him and me.

He and I, we never celebrated it. Not when he was 15, not when he was 20, not when he was 25 either. Maybe, in his 30th year, it is time to tell him, “Happy Rakhi dear V :)” A tad too early, so you would say. However, it is a tad too late, I would say. 25 years late in wishing him a very happy Rakhi and a beautiful life ahead.

Yet again

It is high summer, that time of the year when the sun beats down on Chennai like a mad man out on a rampage to drain our brains out. But, more importantly, it is that time of the year when campus joiners infest our office space or whatever little of it we have at as early as 9 in the morning. 9 in the morning. Not having fixed seats in office does have its problems, doesn’t it?

However, having new people around provides much needed fodder for this blog (that’s my selfish avatar with the evil laughter intact).

Sample this conversation one of them (N) had with our HR Manager soon after joining. “Can you please send us the welcome mail?” Now, get this straight. We, like other normal human beings, do feel a little jolted when bestowed with the presence of new faces in humongous numbers. Nevertheless, we are not evil enough to make someone feel so unwelcome that they start demanding for written proofs of how warmly welcoming the firm feels towards them.

So, I rechecked with N whether I had heard it right. She said, “Yeah, we need to have the welcome mail to finish other joining formalities.”

Processes, processes and more processes. That’s the challenge with huge organizations. We need to get a welcome mail in order to receive the access card. We need to have the access card in order to enter the firm and log in to the network. We need to log in to the network to receive the welcome mail in the first place. Quite a vicious cycle, ain’t it?

But, I am no one to crib about huge organizations. I like them so – large, widely spread over the place and hyper networked. The plethora of choices, the might of the fun, the number of faces one meets day in and day out.. it’s bliss.

Then again, small organizations sound exciting too. The comfort in knowing everyone, almost like family, is hard to pass off as non beneficial.

Ok, you can see that am ‘see-sawing’, or rather, what is that word, yet again? Oh yeah, I am swinging (thanks Shift+F7) like a see-saw! ‘Cos it is Sayonara time yet again.

And, unlike last time, this once, I am quite apprehensive, senti and majorly excited, all at the same time!

P.S. I know it is quite an irony, me cribbing about new joiners, when I am going to be one really soon. As an aside, I heard there are fixed seats over there.

P.P.S. One more label joins the list of city labels with this post.

Letter Writing: A Case Study

Last post, we saw the different forms of communication prevalent in our forefathers’ times. Now, let us go back further in time to understand the predominant form of communication in the prehistoric era of the 20^th century.

Perhaps, that is how history would introduce the concept of a ‘Letter’ to its students five hundred years from now.

When was the last time any of us wrote or received a letter? Letter, as in, handwritten (however bad the handwriting may be) and delivered either through India Post or in person? Except for the occasional note attached to a gift, it has been ages since I received a nice handwritten personal letter. And of course, more than ages since I wrote one too.

I still remember the time I used to write to this pen friend of mine. It was during secondary school. She was technically not a pen pen friend if you know what I mean. A friend of mine had moved to a different city and we used to correspond through letters. E-mails were not popular options those days; we were still programming (read playing) with Logo on a now ancient black and white computer. Her friend in the new school somehow got introduced through mail to me and so we started corresponding too. I vividly recall the expectation with which I would await each letter of hers and the happiness with which I would write to her. Aah well, it died down due to some reasons. But, that is for another day!

One of the most memorable gifts I received for a birthday was a very smartly masqueraded, apparently alarming letter trying to profess love finally ending with a ‘Happy Birthday’. My reaction changed from speechless shock to undying laughter for the rest of the evening. Anyway, that is again a story for another day totally!

Many are the stories of the letter. These are some I remember off hand now. And I still have a file (hard bound) containing many of these letters, reminded of which, I think it is time to go through them today and relive old memories.

Today, we have only e-mail and chat history to go back to. But, what is scarier is we are very quickly migrating to Facebook and Twitter. The quick fix solution of updating statuses on Twitter* instead of sitting and writing a mail, even an electronic one at that, has become the trend of the day.

This post will be antique material in five years’ time. Already, ‘letters’ sound slightly dated.

Anyway, let me stop being so cribby about the whole thing and tell you about how we got around the problem of the ‘dying art of letter writing’.

Rashmi got married, very vividly recounted here. We, some very arbit almost 12 people (some did not participate to their full potential, so am not going to count them completely :D), started a thread to discuss operational issues like when we should reach the venue etc. Sometime down the line, the mail thread reached a count of 50 and we realized we had been mailing random stuff very similar to spamming on BR (our internal messaging system at IIMB). And, then, we thought we should take the thread to perhaps 1000 and print the same and give a hardbound copy to Rashmi to read and enjoy!?! We did not reach 1000. We ended at 263 odd. And, being an extremely environment friendly group, we translated the mails in to pdf, wrote it on a CD and gave it to Rashmi as a wedding gift. Last heard, Rashmi’s husband very patiently read through the entire set of mails and thanked us for the same. Some novel ways to keep the art of letter writing going!! What do you say? J

* – It would be extremely unceremonious on my part to not acknowledge that the minute this post is published, the link would be up as a status message on both Facebook and Twitter

My Bangalore

It was half past five in the morning as I got down from the train. A whiff of realllllly cold air (by my standards) greeted me; after many, many months, I suddenly felt free from the heat, the humidity and the madness in general. It took hardly moments for the nostalgic and sentimental me to take over.

Memories of hurriedly rushing to the prepaid counter to get a rick (fondly referred to as an ‘auto’ in this part of the world) in time to get back to campus, unpack, shower and change JIT for the 8 a.m. class flooded my mind as I made my way very slowly to join the end of a serpentine queue.

On my very first day in campus, I asked a PGP05 what he liked most about IIMB. Pat came the reply: “The Campus”. I realized the weight of those words the moment my vehicle reached campus. I walked all the way to the main entrance, through those hallowed corridors where I had taken my very first GD/PI, peering through the doors in to the library where I had searched for solace during the storms, drowning in the greenery of the grounds where the ‘Con’s were ‘Vacate’d with an elaborate ceremony.

What with change being the only permanence and all that jazz, Chai Unchai has finally closed, Athicas has shifted. The shift has done it good I should say. It has expanded, relocated to a better place even, and has become more easily accessible in general. The chai has not changed even a wee bit though. After ‘putting chai’ and declining to ‘put sandwich’, staring further more at the corridors leading off to C Block and in between all this, snatching some time to shower and change which was the agenda of that 40 minute long drive, I came back to the mess to, as I would put it, ‘absorb the mess air and revel in its ambience’.

If not for two reminder calls and some messages, I might never have got up from the place as no one likes leaving home. For, that which is irresistible, comforting and inspiring all together, is home after all.

Note 1: My Bangalore, to me, is just IIMB, everything else being sundry and secondary. That is why I do not have a tag on Bangalore in my blog, unlike the ones on Chennai and Mumbai .

Note 2: I wanted to make my 50th post all gala and grandiose. Luckily, readers have been spared of all that arbit as I did not realize that this was my 50th post till I finished writing it.

Without which it could not be!

I heard of Sine qua non for the first time in my life during under graduation when my friend M was still reeling under the pressure of the Barrons’ of the world. We used to have fun trying to pronounce the word, it sounds so rhythmical and lyrical. I soon forgot the word, like how most others would have forgotten their legerdemains and skulduggerys and genuflects as part of the post GRE recuperation phase. However, for a few days now, this word has been haunting me, for no fault of its. It is because I have been subjected to hearing a word (which I later realized is a phrase) very similar to sine qua non.

‘unokina’ is a one of its kind phrase I have never before heard elsewhere. For the uninitiated, that is not the way it is written, that is the way it is pronounced. The ‘u’ and ‘no’ are pronounced as two distinct words while ‘kin’, contrary to popular assumptions, is not pronounced like the one in kith and kin. It is a “betailed” (very similar to beheaded) version of ‘kind’. I presume that the objective of the word is to portray the phrase, ‘you know kind of’.
It is used in all circumstances, whether it does or does not fit in. "unokina we should do it this way", "We should include this factor in the business plan unokina", "I will unokina give you a call to update you on the meeting" are some examples. And, no, I am not exaggerating, these are all real life instances!

unokina has suddenly become such a part and parcel of my life these days that every time I hear it, even if it fits in to the bill perfectly, I want to burst in to peals of laughter. But, long years of penance and practice help me refrain from doing so. After all, we have come across better and funnier gems than this in school and college. No?

Sample these:
Soluvision – meaning solution; don’t even try questioning me on why anyone would want to complicate such a simple word as that, I have no answer
Fold it properly – When you are holding a convex lens in your hand and someone says this to you, you would be slightly confused; it is actually expected to portray the phrase ‘Hold it properly’. It is a different story altogether that from the moment I got to know that a physiological defect causes such a condition in people, I have been gripped with guilt for having made fun of this

Variance analysis – That is straightforward or so you think. Not when ‘Variance’ is pronounced as ‘Ver’ ‘I’ ‘Aans’ in a typical British accent. I accept defeat here. My English is too 'desi' to understand the models (pronounced as ‘ma’ followed by ‘dhal’) and variances of this world

Am not complaining though. Pronouncing words in a way different from normal and reiterating meaninglessly conjoined phrases at an alarmingly high rate of frequency are just some instances that add fun to life, make us look back at our past with fond recollections, very similar to photographs and old school magazines. But, somehow, they help us relive the past much more vividly than by going through albums, slam books, testimonials and the likes.

In some way, they are sine qua non too, that without which life could not be!

A Tribute that would never suffice

This post has been in the pipeline for a year now, and, finally, I have decided that I can never ever do justice to it. So giving up on the same, I am posting it here.

My uncle is a very well known Professor of English in the English Language Teaching (ELT) circle. He is renowned for his dedication and commitment to the college he has been serving for a major part of his life. His students worship him, his peers are intimidated by him and every college in this city and in many others has tried to poach him. And, I have been very careful so far in not sending him the link of my blog. Else, he would have had a heart attack by now over his niece’s grammar, spelling and overall English language skills!

He is not the only such teacher I have met, just started with him because the example is closer home.

Right from the English teacher who inculcated in me, the love for reading, writing and imagining in English, as early as third standard to the Science teacher who made me enjoy Physics and Chemistry despite the pressure of Board Exams to all my Tamil teachers in school who inspired me to write Tamil poetry to the Computer Architecture Professor in college (that is the only subject I ever truly enjoyed in college) to all my Marketing Professors in IIMB (the ConB God, the Brand Guru, the ever so nice and knowledgeable S&D Prof to name a few) to the Macroeconomics Wonder Woman Prof, it is a realllly long, perhaps never ending list!

I know what drives me; am trying to build a solid career that would make me powerful in the long run, apart from providing ‘intriguing challenges that tease and test my brain’. I know what would have driven my parents to make me what I am today; never ending affection in wanting their kid to get the best, be the best and get the best once again (‘best’ being a very subjective word, I have just used it for the sake of simplicity).

What drives a teacher? I mean, what does (s)he ‘get’ per se out of grooming hundreds of thousands of young talent day in and day out. A person as narrow minded as me (there must be a harsher word than that, I sooooo hate calling myself names), sitting in a plush air conditioned office in front of a laptop trying to push myself and my career ahead with every subsequent move, would never know. However, I do know that nothing I ever do, celebrating ‘Teacher’s Day’, sending cards and flowers and wishes, writing tributes on the blog-o-sphere will suffice in terms of gratitude.

Nothing can, should and would suffice in assessing and repaying with interest, a teacher’s eternal service to mankind.

Sayonara

2000
I passed out of Class X, to join a different building (same school and friends) across the road for Class XI.
On farewell day, I cried.

2002
I passed out of Class XII. I was very happy to ‘escape the jail’ and looked forward to going to some place as fancy as college!!
On farewell day, I cried.

2006
I passed out of Engineering, and was so happily looking forward to joining B School that I rejoiced and partied for days together.
On farewell day, I cried.

2007
I finished a short internship (2 months) in Mumbai and was heading back home. I know it sounds weird to the reader, but…
On my way back, I cried.

2008
I passed out of B School. I was inconsolable for days together before the farewell.
On farewell day, I shamelessly wailed.

2009
I am moving away from Mumbai, my favorite city till date. My farewell was scheduled for last week; a few people called me up to say that they would not be able to make it to the farewell due to work. That evening, I was not able to make it to my own farewell due to the same reason. Even if I had been able to, I would not have cried.
My colleagues have been congratulating me left, right and center for moving out of here, as work – life balance is expected to be better in any other city compared to this one. But, that is not the reason I would not have cried. According to me, TIN* balance OTM. So, I am not gleefully looking forward to the move, frankly. Nor am I disillusioned and tearful at leaving my favorite city. I am not counting down, I have not begun saying my goodbyes yet, I am not even packing up (well.. that’s just because I have outsourced it to, or rather, it has been forcibly taken over by Mom :)).
I feel like am going on a short break, like any other holiday. When the break is over, I might not be back here, but go elsewhere. I like this randomness, this absolute peace with not being too attached to a ‘farewell’ anymore.
And that is why I have termed this post ‘Sayonara’ and not ‘Adieu’ or ‘Goodbye’. Somehow, Sayonara to me sounds like a short nap, a siesta, nothing permanent.

* TIN xx OTM is a simple, short and effective way of saying “There is No” xx “Outside The Mind” :D