Of weddings and offices

Ten years ago, when I started my career, Kamala Mills (Lower Parel, Mumbai) was the haven of the office goer. Because, that’s where you landed up if you wanted a paycheck. It had two gates, one front and one back, with a long line of taxis at both, none of them willing to go anywhere. There was a JaiHind restaurant (Udipi? Café?) outside one of the gates, and that’s all the food we could get, if we wanted to avoid the unpalatable food at the teeny tiny office cafeteria. Those days, Kamala Mills also had a large tract of wasteland within, withering away in the Mumbai sun and floating away in the excessive rains, that transformed into a dusty parking lot for the brave that drove to work. In that era, I knew no one who drove to work in Bombay. Except two. Who we would hound on bad monsoon days to drop us wherever we could be dropped, gearing up to swim the rest of the distance homewards.

Anyway, all this preamble is for naught, only to serve as a reminiscence of the struggles of a newbie in Bombay. But, that parking lot at Kamala Mills? That one has significance. That’s where the land owner’s son or daughter got married one fine weekend. In an age devoid of Instagram and instant rumors, we made do with hearsay, tabloid stories, and our own curiosity to come up with what was cookin’ at the wedding. SRK danced, said someone. Katrina did too, piqued another. The wedding cost 25 crores, exclaimed a third. We spoke about those unknown people for at least 2-3 lunches and tea breaks at work.

What will we do for small talk if not for ostentatious weddings, I thought.

Cut to 2018. Kamala Mills no longer has that decrepit parking lot; neither does it have those sad cafeterias. Not too many people walk in there to draw paychecks any longer, for it has transformed into the safe haven of pubs and bars and discs, all highly flammable, that people walk into, to see their paychecks go up in smoke (literally, sometimes). The action has all shifted. To other office buildings in Lower Parel, but much to the concrete jungle of BKC (in Bandra and somewhat in Kurla).

I need to go back a bit again, you know. When you have spent a good 10+ years criss-crossing a city, especially as a consultant with clients all the way from Nariman Point to Ghansoli (which is technically not even in Bombay), there is a lot of reminiscence that is (un)avoidable. BKC used to be a place perennially under construction. Buildings were coming up everywhere, but there was only concrete waste to see, no food to eat, and general desert-land around. The only good thing was, no traffic from home, so I didn’t complain. BKC today has developed by leaps and bounds, if lot of buildings means lot of development. However, it still seems to be perennially under construction (of the metro rail variety), also full of traffic. Only silver lining – endless, copious amounts of food everywhere.

What is the point, you may ask. The Kamala Mills of 10 years ago and the BKC of today meet at an interesting junction, quite counter-intuitive to the commercial connection they have. Weddings. The grandiose variant nonetheless. Come to think of it, it’s quite poetic setting wedding ceremonies in the middle of commercial establishments. There is nothing more commercial than a well-spent-upon wedding after all.

I had the good fortune of witnessing the Isha Ambani reception prep from my BKC office, atop a multi-storey building. It looked garish even from afar, but that’s only the jealous woman in me talking. Also, this time, unlike 10 years back, we were able to track to the “tiniest diamond stone in the bride’s Sangeet lehenga” level of detail on the wedding prep, thanks to Instagram and the ever dependable ToI. It made for small talk for a month before and a month after, and may do for several months beyond too. SRK served food, so did Big B. Salman Khan was the side dancer to Anant Ambani’s main dance. Beyonce performed at the pre-wedding ceremony, while ARR at the reception.

I can go on and on. But, really, let me save that for the small talk if and when you, the reader and I, the writer, get to meet each other. For now, I hope they have finally been able to clear the debris from the reception venue. I want to take my kid to that ‘public garden’* for once before she grows up and wants to go instead to the pubs of Kamala Mills.

* Is that even a public garden or have I got it wrong? The public are forever barred from going inside because of some event prep or another.

It's a ten

There is a nip in the air this morning, almost imperceptible, laughable even to anyone who is accustomed to the traditional season of winter (wear). But, for me, it is a trigger to memories from a weather long ago at a place far away. Bangalore of the mid-late 2000s was pleasure, full of greenery, and cool winds, particularly cold inside the hallowed portals of IIMB. Those days, the temperature used to drop a degree or two once you set foot inside campus.

I first walked into the campus in early 2006 to attend my group discussions and personal interviews. Filled with nothing short of awe, I passed my hands over those grey stone walls, walked tentatively across podiums and courtyards, and attended the interviews with trepidation. It’s been over twelve years since then, ten since I graduated from campus.

Ten years out of campus is a lot of learning, as clichéd as it sounds. Student life is a sheltered one, idyllic even, despite the pressures of coursework and tests and grades and placements. Ten years ago, it was even more idyllic because we were one of the last batches to pay dirt cheap fees for a 2-year course in that eminent institution. All we had to do was turn up at class, participate with some inputs and solutions to business problems we half understood and didn’t relate to, cram for tests, complete group projects, and design our resumes. The goals weren’t many, in fact the goal was only one, to get placed on Day 0. Identification of personal strengths and interest areas, evaluating role fitment, considering company culture – none of these were priorities. At pre-placement talks, all of us would wait for that slide titled “Compensation & Benefits” because, nothing else mattered. No wonder then that most B-school graduates quit their jobs within the first year or two of joining.

Ten years out of campus also means a lot of forgetting. We do tend to forget that those 2-years were hardly idyllic. It was a lot of pressure, from within and outside. The first few months were heartbreaking, because relative grading hardly made friends, mostly only people looking for benefits. Summer placements killed whatever friendships remained, because come on, Not Day 0, then not my friend. And that’s why it is important to cherish the friendships that survived that time, in fact thrived through the past ten years. What miracle is that? Who are these people who have wanted to be friends with me all these years? No benefits here. No support in group studies or placement prep, but they are still around, and will be around for the 25^th year reunion.

Ten years do pass by in a flash. So much happens. People move countries, change careers, get married, have kids, get divorced, get married again. But, people at the core never change. Those I remember as the fun ones who can hold happy conversations about the world at large still remain the same. And the others… they too remain. The same. Those of us who would get around and make fun of everything and everyone also remain, the same.

Ten years out of campus, most importantly, just raises more questions than answers. We planted a tree in memory of a dead batchmate. Yes, one of us died. Within just ten years. No one called for silence as the tree was planted, we just went silent. Perhaps, we were all thinking the same thing. What is life? Is it just a tree at the end?

P.S. Thanks M, for making me write on the blog. It was for fear of losing your readership mostly, that I wrote this. Also, because I wanted to write. What’s a ten-year reunion if not a blog post?

X for X-mas

As a kid, I had a silly fascination for Christmas. There were all things right about it - twinkling stars, red and white costumes, cakes and chocolates. Conveniently for my parents, I was not gullible enough to believe in Santa Claus. Every year, I would want to celebrate Christmas, which really didn't mean anything more than installing a star outside our house. But, there was considerable effort involved in that as dad had to get a special bulb for it, fix the wiring and then tie the star out on the porch. Every evening, I would switch on the light religiously at 6 pm and admire the star against different backgrounds of the evening ranging from twilight to night, before retiring to bed, my contribution to Christmas celebration complete. Mom had the more difficult job of explaining to people why a TamBrahm family had a star hanging outside the front door, giving company to the mango leaves thoran atop the door. She did manage the situation with elan, offering a simple explanation - "Because Kavitha likes it". 

After New Year, the star and the bulb would be brought down and carefully packed, rendered to safe custody till next Christmas. Oh, wait, wait. The bulb would have another use in the September-October season. Do you remember that doll festival I spoke about here? The bulb would be installed to give company to the dolls as night lamp (yeah, the dolls sleep better with a night lamp on) during the Navratri celebrations. Quite a secular bulb, that one. 

I didn't just have a fascination for Christmas but I liked going to the Church as well in those days. My parents contributed their bit by worshipping at the Church and the Mosque as well along with the zillion temples already on their list. Perhaps, they believed that appeasing all gods was a smarter way to keep the family safe and happy than being partial to one or one set of Gods. Looking back, I can attribute my love for the Church only to the fact that it was clean and silent, unlike many of the temples I was subjected to. I had no view on the religion itself, but I had a couple of large pictures of Mother Mary and Jesus hanging in my room because they looked beautiful.

I did of course harbour the idea of a Christmas tree at home, but that was shot down with the "Don't push it too much" look from my mother. A few years back, I ended up traveling to Australia during Christmas and had my fill of photographs with big, small, wide, narrow and all-kinds-of Christmas trees as backdrop, to satiate my forever dream of a Christmas tree. But, the travel also left me with a lesson learnt hard: Don't travel to Australia during Christmas. Almost all restaurants, cafes and eateries are shut from Christmas to New Year, as the people who run those places take off to celebrate the holidays.

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

S for Serials

I was born and brought up in Chennai, with the typical English as first language and Tamil as second language, education. I didn't see the need for knowing Hindi then, and neither did my parents. In fact, there was absolutely no discussion or confusion about what my second language should be in primary school (we had 2 options - Tamil and Hindi). The reasoning was simple - mom and dad refused to enrol me in for a subject they wouldn't be able to help with at home. But, that didn't stop us from listening to Hindi music and going for Hindi movies. The former is still manageable but imagine three pure-bred Tams sitting in the cinema hall watching a Hindi movie set in deep rustic Uttar Pradesh. Actually, don't imagine. Just think about how we didn't even have Wiki to read up the story later on. We still managed to enjoy the movies because we most often than not went for the sake of them songs. Those were the days! Anyway, I digress.

I did struggle though. I liked (still like) humming songs, and my idol A R Rahman was becoming big in Bollywood. Which means I had to, had to, hum Hindi songs. And, become the butt of all jokes in school because of those mean girls in the other sections who had Hindi as their second language, and also looked North Indian (white, you know; if you don't, read this). So, I was always on the lookout for learning Hindi words, in bits and pieces. 

And, I got the perfect tool for that in that '90s Doordarshan world, when Tamil DD didn't even have serials of its own. We used to get serials dubbed from Hindi, titles included. Which means Junoon became Pidivatham (adamancy), Imtihaan became Sodhanai (challenge), Dard became Anbai Thedi (in search of affection), Shanti stayed Shanti and Tu Tu Main Main became... I don't remember. I still don't know whether those Hindi titles really match in meaning to their Tamil counterparts, but they are still stuck to memory.

The serials themselves were not noteworthy, and if I remember right, many of them were never taken to completion. Not that my parents let me see any of them, except for those snatches in between after dinner time when I had furnished sufficient evidence of completing my homework and revisions. However, I did insist that I would watch "Dekh Bhai Dekh", which I think aired every Thursday from 9.30 pm to 10 pm. That's when DD would decide to throw a bummer. Half the time, the tamil version wouldn't get telecast, leaving me alone with the Hindi version. Which meant I spent half an hour watching Shekhar Suman prancing up and down an elaborate joint family set, while Farida Jalal would put in guest appearances on and off with some wisecracks (I think so, because the serial would have that silly laughter track running when someone said something funny).

Sundays were a different deal though. There was Shaktimaan and Jungle Book on TV and I was "allowed" a couple of hours after getting up in front of the idiot box. Do you know who my first crush was? It was Captain Vyom, of the Captain Vyom fame. Did you click through and figure out who that is? Had my head in the right place even then, didn't I? Why don't they make such gorgeous looking serial heroes anymore on Indian television?!

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

J for Joysticks

I am not much of a video games aficionado. However, there was a time when I did play video games extensively, for a period of two weeks during summer holidays. One of dad's business associates from Singapore had gifted this joystick plus video game contraption to me when he came visiting, unaware that I would have been happier with a stack of books. My parents being the over-zealous parents they are had to set it up, just to make sure they knew how to install it. Incidentally, summer holidays were on and I think, secretly, they were hopeful of one trip less to Landmark if I could be enticed into some other occupation (Nice try - it didn't work out that way). 

It had some 50+ games that I could play, once the device was linked to the TV screen. There was an option to play against the 'system' if there was no second person around. And, being the single child I am with all the neighbourhood kids traveling to their hometowns for the holidays, I had to choose 'system' every single time. The games were quite mindless, one particularly where a frog would jump from one side of the pond to another sticking out its tongue at the right moment to catch its prey, another frog from the opposite direction competing for the same prey. The first time I played it, I got a bad headache. However, from the second time onwards, it got addictive. 

Since I was a single person playing against the system, there was no need for two joysticks, the second one packed and kept in the loft, that ubiquitous place that must still be holding much of our family treasure (second joysticks, extra nuts and bolts, car repair tools to name a few). If you have seen me working on my laptop, you would know that gentle is not my touch with keyboards. Then, how could the joystick have escaped the power of these hands? In a week or two, the joystick started feeling a little loose in my hand. That's when mom took control of the situation and packed off that video game contraption, thinking that I would lose my mind in my overuse of the thing. I tried explaining to her that it was only the strength of my hands at work, but it fell on deaf ears.

Though I crib about it today, I am kind of glad that the gift was packed away for good, and offered to the loft lord, in exchange for my wellbeing. One less addiction to deal with at least.

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

R for Redial

I dialed her number and waited. There was the long screeching "engaged" tone that had been bothering me for the past half hour. Cursing all and sundry, I slammed down the blood red phone and waited. Exactly 9 nanoseconds later, I dialed again.

Are you a millennium child? As in, not a millennial, which google informs me is "the cohort spanning children born between the 1980s and the early 2000s". Are you a millennium child, one that was born when I was at my adolescent best, or worst? For you, this will be a nice, new post that oldies reminiscence about, stuff that you can safely include in your ancient history curriculum. For the rest, well, let's revel in some nostalgia.

As a school kid, I was an extensive user of the dial-telephone. We had a red one at home similar to the one in this pic. 

And, I used it under the ruse of homework discussions, a fair bit. Hey, really! I was a diligent kid, having lots to discuss about my math and science homework, and the ghost house next door to school (our own little fairy tale-ish gossip) with my best friend. And my friend used the phone even more extensively than I did, so much so that I was faced with the situation referenced at the beginning of this point quite frequently. My fingers would feel wobbly and sore after the many redials, and I would be ready to throw something at someone, at which precise moment, she would call me back, as if on cue, the red telephone shrilly announcing her re-entry into my life. Was it telepathy, I wonder now.

For, we did not have basics like punch keypads and redial buttons, let alone advanced tech like call waits. And, I am not missing the lack of them. No, that's a lie. I miss the lack of call waits and call logs. Now, there is so much evidence of a call received that I cannot really say, "Oh! You called? I never received it." Sometimes, to hell with technology. 

I don't think we have the telephone with us anymore, what with my mother's obsession with throwing out anything old and useless (which gene she has promptly passed on to me). I keep telling her how we have lost that one chance to make millions (or billions, basis inflation) in the decades to come, passing it off as "precious antique furnishing". While that ship has sailed, I have implored her to keep the typewriter and the ammi-kal well and happy, because those might just make up for the loss of revenue from this one!

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

N for Night-outs

For most part of my student life, I have been a day scholar, someone who goes from home to school / college and comes back in the evening. And, like every other kid who comes home every day in India, I was on quite a tight leash, with strict schedules for going and coming back.

Then, B-school happened, my hostel room becoming the cliched home away from home, and my friends becoming the family away from my family. While the latter suited me perfectly well (you know how some are blessed with great friends rather than a great family), the former took some time getting used to. After the initial wave of home sickness and withdrawal symptoms from mom food and mom love, things got to normal. However, things truly got normal once the night-outs began.

Night outs were invented by the Universe to have long, meaningless (mostly philosophically meaningful) conversations over endless amounts of chai and sandwich from the midnight canteen and Athicas (our very own 24 hour food mecca) under the garb of study groups or project groups. Not surprisingly, no projects have ever been completed in time, nor has anyone aced tests and quizzes as an outcome to these planned night-outs. 

Nevertheless, if one wants to be a better person in life, someone who can obsess over the world and the self equally seriously, identifying strengths and weaknesses of the political system, economic situation, and one's own capabilities in equal parts, I would recommend a few (rather, many) night-outs as part of hostel life.

Nothing can substitute that uninhibited time and mindspace you get in college (despite the workload) to think, mull over and be consumed by something other than monthly salaries, housing loans and the next big promotion. Nothing can replace the awesome minds of students trying to get innovative and creative about solving the problems of this world. Nothing, nothing can measure up to the value of those friendships formed, over nights of joys in conversations, where impossible is a word unknown, opportunities for thought and growth limitless.

This one is dedicated to some of my most special friends from B-School who have been instrumental in making me the better person I am today. 

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

H for Heroes

Who's your favorite hero? Batman, because he is the silent crusader? Superman, because he is from Krypton? Spiderman, because his hands and feet can spin webs? Or, Ironman, the flashy, rich, hot boy?

I never read comics as a kid, so I never had a favorite hero, or super hero. The first time I fell in love with a superhero was when Nolan introduced the spruced up, wise crack cracking, ‘baritoned’ Christian Bale on screen. 

But, this post ain't about my super heroes. Nor is it about yours.

It is, rather, something inked in my memory, from primary school. Fifth class was really the most exciting of all of primary school, and something all of us looked forward to as fourth standard kids, for solid reasons really.

The first day of fifth class, I swaggered into the classroom, with as much self-importance as a vain king walking to the battlefield for the first time, with a shiny, new sword in his sheath. In my case, the weapon was an ink pen, and the sheath, the good old pencil box. Yes, the day marked an important transition – from pencils, erasers and sharpners, to the revered ink pen. Class started and I unleashed my weapon on the notebook. Only then, the battle began. Ink blotting across sheets, ink not flowing through the pen, ink splattering on my bright new white shirt. Ink everywhere, blue as the sea, smouldering in the storm. The evening I went back home is when the actual fury unleashed. Apparently, my lips were blue, and so were my cheeks. My mother spent some quality time scrubbing my face and hands and giving me a few “must-be-heard” scoldings, and then devoted the rest of the evening to bleaching out the shirt. Anyway, I wasn’t smart enough to ask her then whether she had been an expert with ink pens from day one!

After this fiasco, we had to look for some quick workarounds. The traditional ink pen, you would know if you are from that era, can be filled up only through an ink filler. An ink filler is this small tube like contraption that first needs to be dipped into a huge bottle of ink (huge bottles that would leak when opened, leak when kept aside, leak in general) and then taken very slowly and shakily towards the ink pen. By the time filler goes from bottle to pen, around 50% would be lost to the table or floor beneath, which ink can be used to make beauty art with hands or feet, that will then stay on forever like a tattoo (exactly like a tattoo, in a few minutes time you will realize the folly and try to wipe it frantically with anything available around, before mom comes with a tirade fit for two ears full). And then, the pen itself would not shut properly, will leak from the sides, from the nib etc. which is what leads to a fiasco (similar to the one that happened on my first day at school with the ink pen).

Ball pens were strictly prohibited in school, as it apparently hampers learning to write well (perhaps, all doctors learnt to write in their fifth class with ball pens). So, our nearest workaround was this, the Hero pen.

Have you used a Hero pen? He is the king of the ink pen community, comes with his own ink filler, where the nib can be dunked into a bottle of ink, sucking ink into the filler till it can take no more. No messy drops, no leaks, no blue lips or splotchy shirts, no fiascos. He truly was the hero of my childhood. I, in fact, had him in all colors – brown, black and green. The black was my lucky one, my exam pen. The brown one was my every day pen, my go to boy for math and science, and English especially. The green was one I avoided, he was the ugly duckling that I took out for classes and teachers I did not like, as a sign of my rebellion against them.

Unfortunately, despite all this practicing with the ink pen, my handwriting is exactly like a doctor’s. And, I did not even end up a doctor! Even my hero couldn’t save my handwriting I guess!

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

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.

Amber and I

Amber came into my life in 2007. She brought a whiff of freshness into my mundane, sometimes pointless, and occasionally depressed existence. She brought with her a world of possibilities, a world that I had just about given up on. 

Amber was a beautiful girl. She wasn’t exactly a slender maiden, not a beauty was she in the conventional sense. Rather, she was a confluence of apple and pear and everything dear. She was a spirit of excitement, but also of tranquil elegance.

The very day I met her, I knew I couldn’t have her forever. Folks like Amber are so, constantly reminding one of the transience of life. Yet I held on to her like I would my life, treasured her presence and guarded her jealously. After all, she was my most prized and priceless possession then. 

But, our precious relationship did come to an end eventually. All good things do end after all. While I tried to prolong her time with me by hook and by crook, a day came when she was no more, when her overpowering presence didn’t fill my life anymore. 

Well, life moves on, and so did mine, without Amber and her crispness. There came others, more exotic and acclaimed than Amber, but none lingered on the way she did in my life.

With time, Amber faded from memory, so much so that I forgot her name and her very significant presence in my life. Till last week that is, a thousand miles away from where I first met her. And then too, I didn’t realize for a long time, till I passed her and the fragrance lingered on. 

I picked two of her this time, just to be on the safe side.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to recollect to this day who introduced Amber to me. Life would have been much simpler and I would have ensured a steady stock through the years, of ‘Sensual Amber’, my first and most favorite perfume.