J for Jaffna

J has been a difficult one, frankly. I have thought and thought and thought about what could potentially qualify for a blog post under J. Either I come up with management jargons like JIT (which no one wants to read a post on, I presume) or I am reminded of controversial issues like Jallikkattu (that I really do not have a strong PoV on). Then, V reminded me of this, an issue that is close to my heart and emotionally stirs me up every single time I think of it. So, here goes. 

Jaffna, or Yazhpanam (the non-anglicized version) is / was a district in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. I do not know much about the province itself but I have been following the civil war there for many years now. Perhaps, it is because of the proximity of my birth place (Chennai) to Sri Lanka, but I think it is more because of a language we share – Tamil.

The Sri Lankan civil war has its roots as far back as the 1950s when the ethnic and linguistic Sinhalese majority brought in a motion in Parliament mandating Sinhalese as the only official language of the Government. The then Tamils, many of whom civil servants, were forced to resign with immediate effect, because they did not know Sinhalese. And that’s where the downward spiral began. The linguistic discrimination led to loss of jobs, economic disparity, and complete marginalization of the Tamils, giving rise to rebel groups, and eventually the apparently undefetable LTTE and Velupillai Prabhakaran. The tragedy started at some point of time after a number of negotiation talks between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Sinhalese government failed, despite mediations by third parties focused on peace, like Norway. Velupillai Prabhakaran got too used to the glory of war and the power he wielded over his people, not to forget the strength of an army he had raised (including child soldiers), that he backed away from peace talks and ceasefire negotiations regularly. Eventually, the end came nasty, Prabhakaran was killed, and so was his young son who was taken into the custody of the Sri Lankan army and killed (gruesome videos of which have circulated far and wide on the Internet).

Conservative, official estimates, peg the civilian loss of life in the 30 year civil war at a 100,000. Unofficially, people claim that the figure could be much more. And, there are pending investigations by the United Nations Human Rights' Commissions on suspected genocide of the Tamils.

Someone some day many many decades ago decided how to assert their majority rule, and that has led to one of the allegedly largest genocides in the recent past. I am not sure how many people are accountable for this, but the least I could do is share what I know about the issue with the people who read this blog.

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

I for Innocence

She (A) is a lanky kid of 7, tall for her age. Big eyes, and a bigger mouth. She speaks a lot, rather she has a lot of questions. She can go on quizzing anyone of any age, gender and language on the color of their handbags, the vehicle they use, the places they like in Bombay, the food they most prefer and whether their momma allows them to have ice-cream, amongst other things.

Here goes a sample.

She: Didi, so have you finished college?

Me: Yes, I have, A.

She: What did you study? Maths or Science?

Me: (strutting like a peacock, figuratively at least) I have studied engineering and MBA.

She: Oh! You have done both…

(now I am getting uncomfortable)

Umm.. why did you study both Didi?

Me: I studied Engineering because my mom wanted me to. Then I did MBA because I wanted to.

She: Ok. What is the full form of MBA?

Me: Master of Business Administration

She: (mulls over it a bit) Ok. Ok. So you do business now?

Me: No. I work for blah-blah-blah company in blah-blah-blah role.

She: (looks super confused) But if you have studied business, you should do business na Didi?

Me: Erm.. well.. 

I try to keep conversations to books these days with A. It is safe territory, and I can at least Google the answers to questions I don’t know.

P. S. This post is the ninth 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. 

G for Grammar Nazi

I am a bit of a grammar snob. Rather, I am a self confessed Grammar Nazi. And I am not proud of it. 

There was this period not very long ago when I was relentless in my pursuit, correcting the English of all and sundry. It gave me pleasure, a sense of service to mankind, that I was imparting much required knowledge to the world. 

But, with time, I have come to realise how much of a double edged sword that is. I am afraid of speaking or writing anything lest it is wrong. And, I have this set of well meaning people around me (including the husband) who are ready to pounce on my slightest slip to put me in place. 

Also, I recently read some random study in the Internet that said Grammar Nazis are all psychopaths. It is another matter that I have also read "proven studies" on how important it is not to make one's bed in the morning (surely commissioned by the leader of procrastination) and how apple cider vinegar is the magic potion to lose those Kgs overnight (VLCC would have filed for bankruptcy by now if that were the case). Anyway, this psychopath thing has been bothering me. I am getting nightmares of me dressed in black ninja attire going around and meting out punishments to the Grammar slackers of the world. Though that does sound remotely like batman, I think I should focus this behaviour on nobler things, like correcting spellings or pronunciations, or perhaps, forgetting the language!

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

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.