In Tibet for the second time

Mcleodganj is perhaps the nearest I will ever go to Tibet. Although I have been to the huge Tibetan settlement, Bylakuppe, in Karnataka, I had never been to Dharamshala or Mcleodganj, where the Dalai Lama stays and where you get to see Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn and Steven Segal roaming on the streets. It was not so much for the Tibetans as for the love for their delicacy, the momo, that we planned this motorcycle ride to the Himalayas this time. Aaron had to see snow, so that was on the agenda too.

Because this is more about Mcleodganj, and I intend to keep it short, I won't go into the details of how we started from Delhi toward Manali on April 7, and eventually, a week later, reached Mcleodganj. For the first part of the ride, please read Prateek's writeup here: http://lifeandmotorcycle.blogspot.com/2008/05/glimpse-of-himalayas-7-11th-may-2008.html

He has loads of photographs, so when you are done reading this, go check out our physiognomies there.

The journey from Pandoh to Palampur the previous day had made all of us sad, because the view from Manali was awesome, to say the least, and Aaron could be taken to the snow line there. Here, the Dhauladhar range, wasn't as white, and Palampur, despite being in the foothills, was kinda warm for my tastes. It had rained that day, and riding with a kid strapped to you in the rains is not a very pleasant idea, as I discovered. Overall, the feeling was of being let down.

Prateek had left a couple of days back from Manali to Delhi, so it was just the two bikes that were left: Sayantani, Aaron, and I on our Machismo A350, and Shuvo and Suchi on their Thunderbird. With our minds full of "should we have stayed back in Manali?" kinda questions, we chugged in to Mcleodganj, 35 kms from Palampur.

Tibetans are dirty people. All mountain people are generally dirty, although rather pure in their hearts. People in the plains of India are dirty both in their lifestyle and their minds, so let's not even think of comparing. Tibetans are dirty, and their kitchens are so dark, you don't think of all that while having the momos. Surprisingly, most of the Tibetan restaurants this time weren't selling chicken momos and the Italian and Israeli ones didn't have momos on the menu, so our intial fantasy of living off beef and yak momos was dealt a severe blow. We did find a couple of good restaurants eventually, but by then we had lost a couple of meals to ordinary food. After Dragon Guest House at Manali, we wanted nothing but the best. (The idea of abducting the chef at Dragon Guest House did cross my mind more than once, but we were already three of us on one motorcycle (which is illegal in India!), so didn't want to take a chance. It would have been hard to explain to the police a wriggling body bag tied to my carrier. I will abduct him when I take my jeep next year.)

As all Bengalis are wont to, Sayantani and Suchi, daughters of the famous Sipra Nag of Kulti, were hellbent upon buying the entire contents of the flea market in Mcleodganj, with no consideration about our means of travel. Once in a shop, they tend to forget that we are supposed to behave as backpackers and act like Caucasian hippies. Their true Indian self peeps out and takes control, manifesting itself in the form of huge paper bags full of FREE TIBET tees, junk jewelry, prayer wheels, tees for the neighbor's kids, etc. About the "how to pack all this extra luggage on to our existing already extra luggage" question, they are absolutely irreverent. That is not a question they allow people to even harbor in their minds, forget asking.

During one of these terrifying shopping sprees, I ventured out to some other shops, with the intention of window shopping. I really wanted a pair of The North Face hiking boots (almost original), but then I am not Sipra Nag's daughter, so the fantasy was brushed away with utter disdain. However, the Bengali in me somehow took me to the nearest shoe shop, and even managed to drag me inside.

The guy at the counter, obviously Tibetan, looked at me and figured I was one of them. He was busy attending to a couple of white customers, who, believe me, start haggling from levels that an Indian shopper would refuse to stoop to. If the guy says something is Rs 300, the white guy will offer Rs 35 and then go up. An average Indian would generally try to bring that Rs 300 down to Rs 250.

The guy figured, as I said, that I was Tibetan too. My haircut, my boots, my tennis court cheeks, my wannabe monk look had him fooled. That was until I spoke. I asked in English whether he had The North Face hiking boots.

What followed was very strange and it's a pity I could not capture it using somebody's handycam. The look on the shopkeeper's face changed in a few seconds. The moment he realized I am Indian (as opposed to a refugee Tibetan allowed to stay, do business, eat, and live free in India), his face contorted in disgust. Although his face was a direct giveaway, he still managed a polite but stern "check out from outside."

I was kinda furious for a moment, but because Aaron had followed me inside soon after, did not kick up a row or throw one of his displayed boots at him as my sane mind was urging me to do. I walked out and kept walking, wondering why the Bengali sisters (our wives) were oblivious to this rude behavior. I was sure all the other Tibetans were like that. All of them were rude, so they must have been rude with Sayantani and Suchi too. They are nice only to the white tourists, who, for a couple of weeks, show solidarity with the cause of Tibet by going on candlelight vigils and praying at the monastery, but soon get disillusioned and go back to their Ferraris and Lamborghinis and mansions and chateaus. Maybe I am exaggerating. The Europeans cannot afford Ferraris. They just make those for the American customers. The European tourist probably goes back to her Volkswagen Golf. Sorry for the outburst, my dears. But fact remains that they do go back.

I walked back up the road, trying to control my outrage, and then spotted some colors. Colors, polychromatic stuff of any kind, kinda lift my spirits, so I stopped to check the wares. Somebody had left a box full of embroidered silk cellphone covers out on the street. I picked up two and kept looking for the shopkeeper...and in my quest landed inside the shop of an Indian guy.

"Ah, so you sell these! Why have you left your wares unattended?"

"Oh, nobody steals here. That happens in the plains," he was nonchalant.

That, from an Indian, was so funny to hear. India is the largest manufacturer of security alarms and iron gates, and also has the maximum number of security agencies in the world. Go validate it, am not bothered, but to hear an Indian say "Nobody steals here" was so hilarious! Although at that moment I was kinda taken aback and thought he was joking.

After paying him for the cellphone covers, I asked "Sir, you are so nice to me, but most of the Tibetans here don't want to do business with us. Why is that?"

And then he explained the story to me. The reason for the Tibetans being rude to Indian customers. "Sir, am not talking about you, but you know how the Indians are. They come into a shop in hordes, check out seventy odd items, and eventually want to buy just one. And even for that item, they want to haggle. The Tibetan guy can use that time to do a lot more business with the white customers."

He had a point. I saw his point. I witness this every day, everywhere.
When I walked up to the shop where my wife and sis-in-law were shopping, my pace had increased. As I was approaching the shop, I saw them coming out with huge bags and the beautiful Tibetan lady coming out to say "goodbye, come again" to them with a huge, simple, smile on her face that you can see only in the hills.

For once, I was happy they had shopped like they had and in my mind picked up the boot I had thrown at the other guy and kept it back in its place.

Will I go back? Yes, to try and change the image of an Indian in a Tibetan's mind.

a story

is always very long. only sometimes the story teller makes it look like a short story.
a story can be ten years long, but it still has to be told within a finite space. you cannot afford a Suitable Boy because before you reach page ten, you will run out of words. that is for authors.

this is for me. a dainty little blog, almost like my paramour, extracting the truth from me every time. is she lucky? or does she not care? or does she want me to tell her story? if the blog too becomes a woman, i will soon get confused between her and the woman i was going to tell you about.

it is a once upon a time story and it is about a woman who studied something as obscure as metallurgy in a godforsaken university.

did i say i will finish the story?

inhibited

Some say they have been able to overcome their inhibitions and can do almost anything, while some others are not even ready to discuss their first sexual experience. When a person in Thailand drinks his own pee in order to keep wrinkles off his face, you can call him uninhibited to a great extent. I tried drinking my pee once because that is supposed to be the fountain of youth, but couldn't. I will age, will accept the crows feet, will go for botox if needed, but will not be able to drink my pee.

Just watched Fur. When Diane Arbus (Nicole Kidman) goes to photograph a colony of nudists, she is initially shocked. She needs some time to get things straight in her mind because she too has to shed her clothes before being given access to the colony. But she manages to do that, eventually. The movie is a little bizarre though, trying to show her journey from being a housewife (household help, almost) to a person who gradually discovers the creative, eccentric self within. Nudism at home is different, being nude publicly is quite a different ball game altogether. Makes me curious to try it out. But I want to be in shape before that. And as the host says . . . "No erections allowed." Should not be a problem.

When a movie like this comes to India (such artisitic movies never make it to India), I wonder how our inhibited censor board will react to it. Will they be shocked out of their wits? Do they even know that nudism dates back to many centuries? Do they even remember it was celebrated right here in India much before the hordes of Huns came plundering? The censor board today want some piece of cloth to cover your assets. But they do allow a lot of flesh peeping out from here and there trying to seduce the last drop of shit from our hungry, desperate, deprived filmgoers. They come out of the theater and rape minors and every single woman they find on the streets, but that is something we are not inhibited about. We don't like nudism.

Imagine the divide between the vegetarians and the meat eaters. The vegetarians by birth (not by choice) as most Indians are, are inhibited people. One colleague mentioned in the office pantry that people who eat pork stink like pigs. I was about to make her sniff my armpit right there, but I didn't. I had finished almost half a kilo of pork the previous night, complete with lard and all. It is the tastiest meat I have ever had.

"Have you had wild boar?" asked Tanvi.
"No, but I think pork is the tastiest meat."
"Then you don't know anything about meat," she quipped before giving me a classic "brb" excuse.

And there are women like that too. Am I inhibited to try wild boar? Never, but again, won't be able to eat a live monkey's brain or human fetuses preserved in formalin.

Dustin Hoffman said this week that although he has lived for about forty years with his current wife, he finds monogamy a tough concept. You cannot be in love with someone like you were in love with her yesterday. It is bound to fade. Some inhibition stops us from discussing polygamy, while the neighbor's spouse remains the mysterious object of fantasy behind the flimsy curtains.

"'Have you?" I asked him, and he logged out of chat. He could fill in the blanks, he said. And yes, I had asked whether he ever slept with anyone. It is prying into someone's private space, some would say, although I think 'I could have helped you get over your inhibition of talking about it by making you come to terms with your own sexuality like Yolande Miller helps Bernard with his gradual sexual awakening in Paradise News.' "

Time for a bath? Unlike Harry Potter in the Goblet of Fire trying to gather the bubble between his legs to cover his modesty, let's stand up and stretch for once.

Of Enfield Clutches

Now we all know how bad the clutches of a Royal Enfield bike can become in dense traffic, but although I have kept that as the title of this piece, it is not really about Enfield clutches after all. For more info on that, check out GuruNandan's web site on Enfields. Alanis is singing "i can't be an asshole??" or is she? What is it playing in the background? That's precisely why I ask you to listen to jazz instrumental. At least music leaves you with one apparent interpretation unless you delve deep and find out what it actually means. Not the same with words, man, they sound like other words, which in turn sound like other words. So, something Alanis is singing can be interpreted by me as asshole, while you might think it is asholey, to mean "in reality" in Bangla. Often when I try to switch off the dictionary on my cellphone and try to write in Bangla, I realize most of the words mean something or the other in some other language. So, sorry to digress... what i meant is, try listening to jazz instrumentals. Like John MacLaughlin's Live in Tokyo is so awesome, so awesome...you won't need to know Japanese or English or American to understand the music. It will just hit you and you in turn will hit someone on the road if you are driving. I did that yesterday, did I tell you? I hit one old lady crossing the street and she flew up into the air and made such a pretty picture with her skirt flying all over. She fell in slo mo, lemme tell you... and landed on her feet... and continued walking. I later figured she was listening to John Coltrane. That explained the closed eyes.

Last night when I was chatting with a colleague frnd, we discussed this obsession most men have with humongous boobs. And then we zeroed in on two women on whose boobs we can play around. Like jogging, running, climbing, and lying down on the tip at the end of the day, panting. Quite an uphill fantasy, that.

In dense traffic, your clutch oil starts heating up and sometimes you can smell the burning oil through your helmet. And then you cannot find the neutral. You are stuck in some gear, clutch engaged, waiting for the car in front to move... and when you are about to lose your cool, just let go. Let the engine die. Remove your helmet and park the bike on the side. Let your old mare breathe. She is not made for roads where you need bullock carts and donkey carriages. She is made for the open road where the air brushes aside all weird thoughts and clears your mind. You are made for the open road and not for climbing huge boobs with ladders. You are not meant to think of voids and gaps and crevasses. Or about some anniversaries people want to celebrate when you are away, riding. So don't plan. Let it be seamless, like jazz, where the need to interpret words isn't there. Where just plain music, the music of the air violently entering your helmet through the vents, of the state buses zooming past, of going further and further away from the plains up into the hills... fills your senses.

Dear Sohini,

When my most awaited first pair of Levi's ... a gift from my cuz in the US ... finally arrived, I figured I shouldn't have lied to her about my waist size. Never knew she's gonna send a pair of Levi's Strauss jeans!! If I knew, I would have told her that my waist was 30. I cannot describe the despair and pain I felt at that moment. And there was nobody to empathize either. Nobody knew about what a Levi's meant to an Indian middle-class guy of 22. I tried telling my girlfriend but she didn't understand why I felt so let down. Buy another pair was her advice because she didn't know that my dad thought a pair of jeans symbolizes the onset of consumerism on our otherwise virgin culture. Jeans are for Americans and that's the last thing we wanna become...American. Thou shall carry your umbrella in Calcutta lest it starts raining in Leningrad.

Out of all the dudheads in Banaras who were unaware of the importance of a pair of Levi's, I suddenly met someone who always dreamed of owning a pair of Levi's probably more than I ever did. It was Sohini, a very young girl who had just come to the university. Those days, we didn't know of jeans for women, so it wasn't difficult for me to sell that pair to Sohini for about Rs 1500. Yes, Shylock would have been more lenient. It was the dollar equivalent that I asked for, so you can't blame me for accepting Rs 500 from her for three months. Those days, you could manage an entire month in a hostel for about Rs 1000. Not bad money. Pretty little Sohini was happy, her eyes twinkling through her glasses. Her waist was 28.

I had forgotten about Sohini until today although I remembered my jeans well. A former classmate informed that she passed away recently fighting cancer. Everything came back to me in a flash, her beautiful smile, our little chat about the iconic brand and how we are more American than the other fellow students. How I almost had tears parting with my jeans. Couldn't remember what I did with the money though.

That ill-gotten money has left me morally poorer than I've ever been. Fifteen years later, it was suddenly difficult to look into the mirror today.

Hindus

The next time you find a VHP guy wielding a sword and a saffron flag, throw a molotov cocktail at him, if you can. If you have the cover of a wall, or if you are behind a burnt car, just do it, wilya? Otherwise, you can get that guy home and ask him what a Hindu is. Who are Hindus after all? What is Hindutva all about? What are they being so sensitive about when a couple hold hands and roam around in the relative privacy of a park? What in that act is anti Hindu?

If you don't know what Hindu means, you can't answer these questions. It is such a difficult question, people have to study hard for years and come up with explanations. They have to write fat books on what Hinduism is all about. Simply put, this religion itself is a big farce. It is just some thousands of different customs and rituals masquerading together as a religion. A Marathi hindu and an Assamese hindu are so different from each other in their culture and practices, they can't be of the same religion. A Tamil hindu landlord will not allow a Malayalam hindu tenant to cook fish in his kitchen. While the Bengali gods are made to look like beautiful humans, the Gods down south are carved out of black granite and don't resemble humans. The names are different, the practices are different, the languages are different, the offerings are different. Can you offer a whole fish to any god in UP? There's Kali, who accepts only human sacrifice as prayer, while some gods have eaten just sweets all through their lives and are about to die of diabetes.


So, is there anything common between all these various races and cultures that form the Hindu corpus? If there is anything common, it is Brahminism, and not Hinduism. A person who lives on this side of the Indus is a Hindu, no matter what faith he or she practices. Why do we confuse it to be a religion? If you are a Hindu, you don't have a religion yet. You can either adopt one from the various on offer, or stay like you are, an Indian living on this side of the Indus. The Brahmins were the educated class (not caste), who could offer prayers to a god, anywhere in India. If you aren't a Brahmin, why do you care if you are a Hindu or not? You might as well be an Indian from Kerala or Maharastra or Himachal or Bengal, practising your own set of prayer rituals and being tolerant of other Indian rituals practiced elsewhere.

Did the Hindu religion come up for a nationalistic cause? Some common chord to bind the people and raise the fervor of nationalism in their minds and make them stand up against the British?

We will talk about the perils of narrow-minded nationalism in a later article, but in that I will directly lift from Tagore's fierce criticism of nationalism as a curse of the world. It is the biggest singular reason for all the wars and political divisions of this world, which was perhaps better off as Gondwanaland.

However, keep the molotov cocktail ready for the next VHP activist you see on the road. They have to be purged off our land as soon as possible.

Suckers

Rajendra Prasad, the first prez of India put Nehru in a spot once. He had a political background and wouldn't take shit lying down. During his term, Nehru knew he had to get a stooge up there next time on, somebody who would suck up to him. And none better than Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, who was a sycophant of the first order. He had a case against him for having directly plagiarised from S.N. Dasgupta's book. How to make this guy, my personal valet, the next prez? thought wily Nehru. So he sent him to the USSR as the Indian ambassador to get him some credibility as a prez. Radhakrishnan came back and became the vice prez and then was made the next president of India.

A guy who is known to be a scholar and was the vice-chancellor of my alma mater Banaras Hindu University, was nothing but a clever thief, lifting from books by scholars who weren't bothered about making a name for themselves.

Such are we Indians. We forget the truth and start celebrating teachers' day on his birthday...while the real teachers go unnoticed and unsung.

We love thieves of any kind. People who blatantly borrow and steal stories and ideas from the west and make movies here, for example, are hailed as gods in Bollywood. The other day I was watching a pathetic Hindi movie called Dus Kahaniyan, and the first story by one Sanjay Gupta is a direct lift from Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat by Roald Dahl. And tomorrow Sanjay Gupta will be hailed as one of the stalwarts of Indian cinema, am sure. What is his background, I wonder? My close pal, an ad guy, is awestruck with Sanjay Gupta's charisma, so that probably means he has made some brilliant ad films. If you delve deep, am sure you will find them not so original after all.

But I leave that delving deep to you, the reader, the worshipper of the wrong Indian gods.

disclaimer for earlier post

sorry guys for ignoring the greater menaces of ethnic and religious intolerance, of absolute lack of primary and vocational education, of the country being ruled by criminals, of utter lack of sanitation and medical facilities, of the most pathetic government hospitals that even Africa will dread . . .

there's more than just that plaguing us. it wasn't oversight. i would attribute not mentioning these to lethargy.

my hundredth post

It is not special and there's nothing much to write about either. Over the last few days there's been this cricketing controversy in Australia that has brought the entire nation together. And that made me wonder why the nation doesn't come together at other times. In a dream, this collective outcry for justice is not misplaced jingoism. But in reality it is nothing more than just that.

But, for the sake of the hundredth post, we will skirt reality and the real issues plaguing us and indulge like a birthday boy. We will assume there is this conglomerate of all the Indian business houses, not unlike Capone's syndicate, but for a better cause. We would assume today that the Tatas, Birlas, Ruias, Ambanis, Murthys, Premjis, Majumdars, Mahindras, Godrejes, Mittals, and Mallyas have formed a circle, holding hands. To make it even more dramatic, take a low angle shot and make the sun set from between the legs of the tallest among them. That should be Ratan Tata, I think. They are holding hands and have formed a huddle like our Indian cricket team, with their heads lowered and chanting something unintelligible. In unison. They are in a pledge. Are they talking about how to help India overcome the shame of being number 127 in the world (the poorest of the poor are here too, so don't run to Bangladesh or Somalia when you want to adopt a child) and also close the gap between the poor India and the other image of India which makes it the eighth richest country too? "I mean, hellowww?" they must be saying right now.

I look to my right (and by some strange cliched imagery embedded in my mind all this was happening in front of the Gateway of India, Mumbai...even the sun setting between Ratan Tata's legs was setting into the Arabian Sea...) and see a young IIM graduate talking about her dream to a bunch of her frnds. She is worried about the migrant laborers and their children. Her dream is to make sure these children get free education wherever their parents go. For now she wants to start in Bangalore, a city that has seen an unprecendented amount of concrete structures come up in no time. She has already started by getting a few people in her area to teach the kids. And as she was talking, someone in the group suggested getting medical insurance for these people. How will she convince these guys to part with Rs 1000 every year for the sake of medical insurance, I wondered, and moved along the promenade. There were more interesting things to see.

At the next congregation, there was a hot debate on about why India doesn't get a medal from the Olympics. Dola Banerjee is the world number 1 in archery, Vishy Anand is the chess world champion, we are the twenty-twenty world champions, Narain won the A1 GP in China, but we don't have athletes or swimmers. One guy suggested we should get enough money channelized into athletics to pump up the sagging spirits of parents who put their children in tennis and cricket classes. Like hockey has seen a revival, let us get the sponsors too. Who will give this fool his money? A cricketer can make more off the field just by posing for a brand . . . why will parents listen to this dreamer? I walked on . . . soon we will have 5 million software engineers and 2 million cricket stars . . . I wonder who will build the bridges over the Godavari and the Ganges!

Dreams tend to end when you are at the most interesting part. Mine, however, faded. I walked down the beach and there was a lot more to hear, emerging voices of the youth who have idolized Che thirty years after he died, of Indians who have come back from their cushy jobs abroad to do their bit for the country . . . and by the time the sun finally set that night, I knew India had changed. There's hope of a few Indians who love their country to emerge from the shadows of petty personal goals and to stand up for one cause or another. By the time the sun rises again, these men and women will replace the Pappu Yadavs and Deve Gowdas and stand beside the Jyotiradityas, Rahuls, and Omar Abdullahs.

Am awake now. But something makes me want to believe the dream.

(My belief in "someday" is strong. It is baseless, but strong nonetheless. You gottu give me that much for being an emotional, oversensitive Indian. One such someday reads like this: "Someday, we will either quit spitting on the roads, or will reach such a height that there will be special schools in Denmark teaching kids how to spit on the roads.")

joke of the year

a journalist questioned Ricky Ponting's "integrity."

Lofty Dreams and Little Ones

Dreams are either lofty or little ones. Some people think big and actually pursue their dreams. That separates them from the aam admi, the hoi polloi. Others are happy with their little dreams. Manjari Shukla, a classmate at the university, called up and asked me what I am doing with my life. Working for a corporate university. And why? Because I have a son to raise. So what's your dream? I don't have one. Why don't you write?

Yes, I've heard that from another Manjari (Manjari Rathi), my best buddy colleague ever. She is the most apolitical person I've ever met. Everybody in the office is a mini politician otherwise. The Bongs stick to the Bongs but backstab them, the Mallus are always going on and on in Malayalam. The Punjoos are always talking about Mrs Chopra's new sofa and Mr Chaddha's tax evasion strategies and the Gujjus about how tasty vegetarian food can be and how one makes better dhoklas than the other. Manjari isn't into any of this. Her ethnicity is hardly discernible because she comes across primarily as an Indian, which is such a welcome change. She is nice. She wants me to write too.

So does Christine. "You must write your memoirs," she wrote once. Christine was my boss earlier and I guess we connected for a brief period once. She feels I should write my memoirs. About how the urban Indian woman has changed from being absolutely inaccessible thirty years ago to someone who would sleep with you tonight and forget about you the next morning. How they have triumphantly crossed the virtual limits put around them by the misogynistic society of this subcontinent. How, despite facing a lot of discrimination at the workplace and otherwise, they are breaking all the barriers and coming out. This is nothing short of a revolution, only we haven't been able to accept it as one. We are afraid to accept that the girl student outscores and outshines the male counterpart by a few miles. And one such emancipated young girl walking to her apartment last evening spied three little children playing some weird games. She removed her ipod earplugs, went near them and realized they were playing "sex sex" with each other. Two girls and one boy, probably around seven or eight years old. Every new generation is shocking the earlier one out of their wits. Christine wants me to write about that because she thinks I am a new-age feminist. Because I was particularly polite with her, perhaps? I liked the compliment though. Who doesn't like compliments?

And like them, there are plenty of others who keep asking me to write. Only they forget that I am a person with little dreams. My lofty dreams of being a writer, a rally driver/rider, an actor, a blues harp player are just dreams. I love to live with my immediate, little dreams. What is the difference between the lofty and the little ones? If the lofty one is to be able to write fiction, the little one is to be able to express your immediate angst in a blog. Manini Chatterjee, the editor of The Telegraph (a Kolkata newspaper), once told me why she is not really happy. She has published a couple of books; she has won the Rabindra Puroshkar for her book Do and Die; has a son studying Philosophy and History at St Stephen's, New Delhi; has built a nice retreat up in the hills of Kumaon (remember Jim Corbett, anybody?), but is still not happy. She is content, but not happy. "You know why you and I feel we still have something more to do? That is because we haven't written fiction so far. Our lives will be unfulfilled if we don't get recognition as writers." It was very polite of her to include me in parentheses, but she is a writer and she will be able to write fiction some day. I cannot. Because my dreams are still little and I am talking to you here.

If the lofty one is to be able to beat Moudgil in the Raid de Himalayas next year, the little one is to be able to take my Royal Enfield out every weekend for a 300 km ride. How can you participate in a rally when you have to keep aside money for your son's school fees, your tax-saving investments, your mortgage payments, and other day-to-day expenses? You cannot. You can just buy a copy of the Bike magazine and read about Sachin Chavan, Moudgil, Prashant, Easha, riding up there and living their dreams. I have accepted that I cannot live up to those dreams so I want to live my little dreams of touring. The next little one is to ride all around India, leaving aside the extreme corners of course, alone. Achievable.

Aparna Sen will never know about me, but I feel I am so versatile. I lack any definite topography of face and can pass off as anything from a Korean to a Puerto Rican. I feel I can act. But can I? I can never find out, so that lofty dream has to take a backseat as I sit in my living room and watch Easy Rider, Motorcycle Diaries, Riding Solo to the Top of the World, Amelie, and think about my wrinkles. No little dreams here either. Maybe someday to strap a handycam to the gas tank and ride off, preaching salvation through a surfeit of something you desire for. A time comes when you don't want it that bad.

And my dreams are coming to an end now. The last one is to be a blues harp player. I think of visiting Peter Isaac one day and finding out from him how to think blues. You have to think blues but all I can think while playing is of John Denver, easy John Lennon, and Kishore Kumar. You have to learn to think the blues. That dream is strong, and will probably be the first one I will actually wake up and run after.

But for now, the little one is to be able to sit alone in the attic and hear the echo make my rendition of Chalte Chalte more soulful.

the real thing's missing

We all bribe. When I can't take Aaron out on his bike every day, I end up buying him a scaled-down VW Touareg over the weekend to make up for it.
That is as effective as having a fruit massage instead of eating those fruits. Cucumber, when eaten, is far more effective than when placed on your eyes. Time spent with your kids is a lot more precious than any expensive gifts you might buy them . . .

Movies in Batches

I spent the last few months watching really nice movies borrowed from a frnd who has an enviable collection. She doesn't usually lend her movies to people, but thankfully I could impress her by returning the first set on time and stuff like that. She lends me on two conditions: I buy her tuna subs from Subway, and return the movies intact.

Last weekend I watched Crash and Amores Perros. Made by Paul Haggis, this was perhaps the movie I was waiting for for a long time.

Crash, as you know, won something at the Oscars in 2006, but that's not what I wanna talk about. Whether the judges at the Oscars like a movie or not doesn't make any difference to the inherent quality of the movie. If it is a good movie, it attracts a universal audience and doesn't have to win awards. Awards are forgotten the next year but the story remains in your mind and grows old with you. Crash is such a movie.

It has many little stories woven into one, and masterfully so. It captures the stereotypes in a typical American's mind sometimes subtly and sometimes in outrageous hues. A tattooed, hispanic locksmith fixing locks at this white DA's house is bound to sell the duplicate keys to his gang, right? Wrong. He quietly goes home to his daughter and tells her a story of how once an angel gave him a bulletproof cloak. African Americans are bound to always like hip hop? Some even enjoy country music. An apparently racist white cop risks his life saving a black American woman from a car crash, while a politically correct white cop ends up shooting a black guy thinking he is pulling out his gun.

I can't write well enough to do justice to the movie, but whoever has made it, has done a brilliant job. I watched it thrice and every time I enjoyed every bit of it. And each time I could sense even more clearly how it must be to belong to a religious minority in India. What are the stereotypes we have in our minds about Muslims? This theme can be borrowed and adapted to our scenario here. So easily.

We have seen Indian filmmakers telling us about the horrors of particular incidents (can think of Nihalni's Dev about the recent riots in Gujarat and also Aparna Sen's Mr and Mrs Iyer talking about how an urban Muslim guy is protected by a Tamil Brahmin woman by being given a Hindu identity) about the collective fear in our minds, but cannot think of a script that can match that of Crash's right now. There are many stories in many minds . . . is there a chance those stories can be brought together to form a nice script in our Indian context?

Like I wrote earlier, I also watched Amores Perros, a Spanish movie about various characters. This again is a pastiche of people woven brilliantly together, but it is more on an individual level, if you know what I mean. These are stories of individuals and does not address a greater menace like dangerous stereotypes in our minds. Of the two movies, Crash is still alive in my mind. I saved it for the last, and now I have finished watching all the movies in this batch, which also contained Amelie, Cinema Paradiso, Motorcycle Diaries and such biggies. I can't think of these movies as stories told in other languages. They all seem in English to me now that I think of them.

I owe this frnd a lot more tuna subs for helping me discover this moviegoer in me.
The next batch sounds more promising.

Malpe trip

If you are driving in India, you better beware of black cats crossing your path. It is supposed to be dangerous for your onward journey. I have to google for where this superstition came from, because it reeks of some medieval European superstition from the dark ages. Indians, however, being democratic in nature, have included cats of all colors, lest they feel left out. So, to modify my earlier statement, "If you are driving in India, you better beware of cats crossing your path." You are supposed to wait a little and let another vehicle pass you before you move.

However, in Malpe, you don't have the luxury of waiting because you will have cats crossing your path at least ten times a day. Malpe is this fishing town on the West coast of India, and the stench of fish all over this small town is so overpowering, that it draws cats, Mallus, and Bengalis alike. Unable to resist the smell, they run here and there in search of fish (raw for the cats and cooked for the Mallus and the Bengalis)... and are bound to cross your path more often than once. I pardoned the cats and drove on. Driving on and off the beach was our mantra for the four days we were at Malpe.

The trip was an unplanned one, although I had applied for leave on Friday much in advance. We have to go somewhere, but that "where" part was kinda undecided till Oct 31. When we left home early morning on Nov 1, we did not fight over the route much until we reached Nelmangla, 26 kms off Bangalore, on the Pune highway. I was all for driving to Shimoga and then to Gokarna, while Sayantani wanted to turn left toward Mangalore. Her parents must have been silently supporting their daughter sitting on the back seat, because, at Nelmangla my car suddenly veered to the left and went straight towards Hassan. So much for being the driver cum husband cum son-in-law . . . talk about being lonely in a crowded jeep.

The road vanished after crossing Sakleshpur. All the fast cars that had overtaken me earlier were stuck there, trying to negotiate the potholes. Pardon me, guys, for that faint smirk on my lips when I overtook all of them, did the bad roads at speeds of around 30 kph, and left them far behind. The road is nonexistent all the way to Mangalore, so they couldn't catch up with the Bolero even in their wet dreams. However, I must admit that I missed the 16" wheels of the Scorpio. There were some Terracans and Endeavors that didn't need to worry about the potholes at all, but those are real SUVs after all.

Shuvo told us of this really bargain place at Udupi that had big rooms on offer for only Rs 400 a night, but I was skeptical about Udupi being this religious town with only vegetarian food available. I was so mistaken! While I expected young, barebodied, tonsured Brahmins clad in dhoti roaming all around town, I got to see a very cosmopolitan crowd there. The food at Hotel Kediyoor was a wide choice from steaks and cold salads to delicious chicken kababs. Surprise of surprise, there was even a Bunts Hotel serving awesome pork sarpotel, the Catholic cuisine in Mangalore/Malpe. Bengalis always look for places that serve a lot of meat, and once we were satisfied with the menu, we headed toward Malpe beach, only 4 kms from Udupi.

We liked what we saw. The beach was clean and not very crowded. Not much of the local crowd, and not littered with poop either. The fisherfolk on the shores have constructed nice little bamboo toilets for themselves (could have been an NGO that constructed these for them), and we could sit there watching the odd couple making out in the sea. The sea is rough and you are not supposed to swim, but there were adventurous people who could be seen like black dots in a really dark sea till late in the night.

We had an awesome dinner at Paradise Isle Beach resort, facing the beach. They have a nice spread and if you like seafood, you have a lot of choice. At least we thought so until we discovered Hotel Karthick the next day. At Hotel Karthick, you get sting ray (called Torakkai) fried in a lot of masala. It was spicy and can serve as a fantastic starter with beer. One morning we thought of driving some 60 kms to Maravanthe, but had to come back after having traveled 20 kms. The roads were nonexistent as usual, and my in-laws didn't like being tossed around inside the vehicle. The first day they didn't have a choice, but this time round we had to drop the Maravanthe idea and head back to Malpe and Udupi.

We compensated for that by trying a ride on the water scooter. Aaron sat at the front, holding the handlebars and I sat behind the guy who drove it. It was just after sunset and there was a chill in the air that our lifejackets couldn't protect us from. And when this sexy little thing zoomed into the waves and was thrown high up into the air, I could feel my heart trying to come up to my mouth. With my mouth firmly closed I wondered how my little son was braving it, sitting way up front, the first one to take in all the sea water. The thing bounced and almost flew over the water and man, was it scary! We came back intact, thanks to the skilled driver (who tried all sorts of antics with them waves), and little Aaron wanted to do it again. I said it was getting dark and avoided a second trip, but was surprised to learn that while I was trying to hold on to dear life, he actually checked the speedo in that thing!

The route to take while coming back was something that put us in a spot. For the first time we all agreed that we should come back via Manipal, Perdoor, Agumbe, Shimoga. Asked around and even the local guys agreed that this was still an okay road. We started off on Nov 4 with our minds full of the waves, the beach, and the taste of seafood. And it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The road got better after Manipal, and although it was pretty narrow, the greenery all around made up for the slow speeds. We stopped for tea at this time-warped place called Perdoor, where a local gentleman chatted us up. People there seemed untouched by the urban hustle and were nice and smiling. Almost felt like we were back in the hills where people are hospitable and nice. We cheered up and moved on toward the Agumbe ghats. Stopped to click some pictures all through the route until we reached Shimoga. It took us four hours to do only 148 kms, but it was worth the time. Shimoga to Bangalore was the usual route, peppered with aggressive drivers with KA02 and KA03 numberplates. My jeep failed to keep up with the fast cars again as they were happily doing 160 kph, rushing back to the mad, modern world, scowling at life in general. I keep hoping Aaron will not be one of them, but for a guy who checks speedos at the age of five, one can never tell.

P.S. Do check out this video . . .

and for some more pictures, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/42521957@N00/sets/72157602938366911/

July 2, 2007

We planned to go to Ooty to spend our tenth anniversary. After speculating a lot about the West coast, we realized it is gonna be hazardous to try going anywhere near the sea. There were thunderstorms anywhere and the memory of the tsunami was still fresh on our minds. Ooty again? Nobody liked the idea much, but what the heck!

This is not a travelogue. We reached Ooty and got nice rooms in Hotel Darshan. We could see the Ooty lake from our windows. The food was awesome, and because we mostly had to stay indoors because of the rains, we kept eating and planning the next meal. The only problem was the noise of people pounding up and down the stairs.

On the morning of the 2nd we heard someone screaming and running up the stairs. Very early in the morning. It was my sister, Suchi, running up to inform us about her mom-in-law's death. They had just been informed and we had to leave.

We rushed back to Bangalore airport in about six hours and they left for Kolkata.

Later when I downloaded the pictures from my camera, I realized that the first picture we clicked in Ooty was rather eerie. Uncanny coincidence, but rather scary if you think about it. Was that a hint that there was a death about to happen in the family? Check out the photo and tell me what you think.

.

Sept 10, 2000

"Hello Shuvo" she sounded kinda faint over the phone

"Hey mom, where were you all these days?" I could hear my dad prompt her from the side. Then he came on to the phone, "hello?"

"Hi Baba, why don't you guys come over now? Do you want me to send the tickets?"

And they agreed to come over. I was feeling happy all of a sudden because I couldn't remember where my mom had been, and why I thought of buying just one ticket for my dad. She is coming after all.

When the dream ended, I woke up feeling a little sad that it isn't true after all. She is dead and gone.

A little later, while having breakfast, we were calculating this month's expenses and realized that we have run out of all the cash already. How do we manage? We have some Sodexho passes, and can withdraw from another dormant account, etc. were the solutions that came up.

"Fucking tenth of the month and we are broke, huh?"

And that's when it struck me that it is my mom's seventh death anniversary. Sept 10, 2000.
Is it eerie? Is she there? Did she come in a dream or did she really visit me?

I don't have an explanation today. I have a lot of work to finish during which I might even forget to ponder upon this, but I need an answer some time. Was it a remote calendar in my brain that sparked a reminder? The rationalist in me wants to believe that... but this hunger for a supernatural mystery wants me to believe she had come.

Who can crush a dinosaur?

These days Aaron keeps quizzing me about everything. If he knows something, he asks me to check if I know the answer too. There is this fossilized corpse of a mosquito on the bedroom wall for many years now. I remember how I jumped and slapped it dead against the wall one evening. It has been there since then, just below the CFL bulb, almost resembling a sketch of a mosquito instead of a real one.

"Who crushed it?"

"I did."

"Can someone crush us against a wall like that?"

"Yeah, why not, an elephant can. A dinosaur could have." I offered.

"And who can crush a dinosaur?"

"Umm...nothing."

"You don't know."

"Who or what can possibly crush a dinosaur like that?"

"Why? What if a rock comes from Mars and falls on earth? Won't it crush the dinosaurs?"

And I wondered who came up with the theory of dinosaurs being destroyed by a large asteroid crashing into our earth. Someone with an unbridled imagination?

Trip

Hey,

You asked me if I ride now.

I used to ride a bicycle from 82 to 95.
And, when you are sleepy, that's where the story ends. When you are partly sleepy, you probably write a few more sentences about the time you went to see a dead Royal Bengal tiger hung from a tree by the villagers who killed her.

Poor girl just escaped from a circus. And looked for a jungle to escape to.

We were either three or five of us on our bikes. Hearing about the tiger in the morning, we went riding to a village some ten kilometers away. Could have been twenty, I won't know. We could ride on and on then and never heard of Tour de France. We could ride without water for hours. Racing each other. We were never tired. It was unheard of. And then played football in the afternoon.

I had a tape recorder that had an output of 2 watts. Sanyo. We would come back and listen to In Square Circle in that. The cassette was recorded from an LP. Stevie Wonder! What a guy, we would think...and then his famous chromatic harmonica. We also had Nat King Cole to listen to. English songs were almost frowned upon unless some really respectable, elderly uncle came and recommended them. Nobody recommended Stevie Wonder I remember. Those fat uncles hadn't heard him. Just Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra. So we got to hear some of their music. Couldn't figure most of what they sang, but we did sing along.

Dad had a Hero harmonica stashed away somewhere. It was a C. I started on that later. Much later, after I left school. Michael Jackson's Thriller was available too. Just one copy that changed hands. A cassette tape.

And Europe. The Final Countdown. Cyndi Lauper. All on the Sanyo.

You asked me if I ride now. I used to. Trip, that is.
Keep writing. And do sign in to chat too. You ride now, I know. I will join you like I joined my gang of little urchins every day. Just let my knees heal...

Me

Forgotten Names

When Bini died, I didn't go to see her. I could not look to the end of the street where her mom kept her body and was crying. I didn't see Bini when she was alive either, but her mom Aduri used to do the dishes at our place for a meagre sum of Rs 30 a month. This is way back in the 70s, so I guess she could make do with whatever amount she earned then. I just hope she could. I don't know. Like I never could get myself to go up to her and console her for her daughter's death, I couldn't look at the little hut they used to live in. The hut was so low, one would have to crawl inside. I would walk past. But I was pretty civil to Aduri. In fact loved it when she came over to clean the house. I wouldn't have to study then. I would just follow her from one room to another and listen to her speak.

I could speak her dialect. And she definitely took pride in that.

My mom, when she gottu know about Bini's ailment, paid for her treatment at our local hospital. But they couldn't save her. And I forget what happened to her. And cannot ask my mom either because mom too passed away some years back. And believe me, she has taken away with her some awesome recipes...of dishes that I grew up on. I miss her.

Aduri in Bengali means someone who is loved and cuddled all the time. Our Aduri definitely didn't have time for that. She was too busy working as a household help in some ten houses all through the day. And in the night her drunk husband would either beat her up or try to get her pregnant again. That is, unless she already was pregnant.

She was always pregnant. When I remembered Bini's death (just the faint wail of Aduri sitting at the corner of the street in front of her body) last night, I placed a hand on Aaron. He was trying one of his Z poses in his sleep as usual. He can be a great contortionist. One just has to make him sleep during the show.

And then I wondered how Aduri would have felt at her death. She couldn't cry her heart out...she didn't have time time. And then she had her other children to feed. Her eldest was a son, probably my age, a guy who played all day. Believe me, I envied him. I met him later when I was in senior school. I had gone to one of the local hooch shops to buy liquor for the first time in my life. Me and some friends of mine went up to the shop and bought some country liquor, saying it was for our dads! As if the guy selling the stuff cared who we were buying it for. I don't remember how much it was for, but we did fall short by ten rupees. And this fellow, Aduri's son, lent that money to me.

I never saw him after that. I eventually left Durgapur and then moved on to Banaras, Delhi, and then Bangalore and forgot all about him until last night. I remembered him because I remembered Bini. Or her death. But I don't remember his name. He must be grown up now, working somewhere. And I calculated how much I owe him back. Going by the sensex way back in 79 at 100 points, I should owe him a lot today. The sensex has breached the 15,000 mark, and those ten rupees would be? Rs 15,000.

I called up my friend in Durgapur today. He said he will find out about Aduri. She must be really old, probably still working as hard, scrubbing the plates, mopping the floors...how much do we actually owe her? Can I buy her a retirement package? Not with Rs 15,000 for sure. You can buy just a couple of standing wooden speakers from Sonodyne with that kinda money. And I've been eyeing the Sonodyne Sonus speakers for the last three years now.

What if I say I don't have that money? Will the wail stop coming back to me?

Trust

I'd been meaning to write about trust for a long time, but I guess I needed to be pushed into writing about this. There is this picture of a waiter passing a laden tray from one compartment of a train to another waiter in another compartment. The funny thing is, the train is moving, and they are hanging out of their respective compartment doors to reach out to each other, their lives depending on how strongly the handles are bolted to the door. Each handle is bolted to a door at two ends, with two bolts at each end. Enough to make you trust the strength of that handle. Enough for you to lean out and be sure you won't be thrown out onto the cactii in the fields.

We trust our machines. When I ride through the 40 kms stretch inside a jungle infested with elephants and even tigers, I trust my motorbike not to break down. I trust that any nail lying on the road would not pierce my tube and deflate it. Such is the strength of trust. And most people garner immense strength from their trust in various gods. When you don't have any gods to turn to, you have to trust yourself. I know my engine is sound enough not to break down now. I know the tyres and tubes are new and "shouldn't" ideally go flat, leaving me an easy prey to whoever is out there, waiting.

And being able to trust gives you a lot of strength. When you know you can close your eyes and just let go backward knowing someone's behind you to hold your fall, you feel powerful. You feel cushioned and safe. And we all need that cushion. And I am happy for all of you who have found your cushion in god/s. For others who do not have that luxury, there are other people. Like today if I want to talk my heart out to someone and I know I can trust one person, I am lucky.

Tomorrow, if that person spills my secrets to someone not even distantly related, you suddenly fall. It's like you were promised that you will be held from behind when you fell, but it was just a prank being played on you. Imagine someone cutting off your bungee ropes?

So, for people who haven't the luxury of sitting in front of some gods and pouring out their miseries, for people who have to turn to other people to even talk normally ... there's a fine catch. Can you trust an apparently trustworthy person? Someone who appears to be a wall, taking in all, can actually be like a dam on the other side, gushing everything out for public consumption.

It is absolutely okay when you don't find out. It is quite another when you do. Those are times you wish you allowed your neighbor to give you that labrador pup.

hospitalis

I was walking out of the hospital reception when I overheard this conversation between the lady at the reception and a guy from Near East, probably a Turk:

"Afterr this you go to Radiology for Yax-Ray, saar, and then you had your breakfast with this coupon," said the nurse as she handed over a coupon to the guy.

"I haven't had my breakfast, madam," the guy was a little puzzled by now. He had probably come for his fasting blood sugar check up and now had to eat at the cafetaria upstairs. But the nurse insisted that he had had his breakfast already.

"Yes, yes...you go had yourrr breakfast now..."

At this point I had already reached the door and couldn't really stay back to hear the rest of the conversation and how it was eventually resolved, so I stepped out. I had given my blood for various kind of tests, but I was unsure whether these guys did an HIV test as well. So I approached the lady at the HCU desk, "Hi, does this VDRL also include HIV?"

"Uh? No, sir."

"Can I get an HIV test done?"

The lady went violet and looked away. As if I had asked her to come home for coffee.

"Hullo? I asked you something..." I tried again.

"Santoshaaa?" she screamed at the ward boy, "Idu pyapera nodi," she instructed him after handing him a sheet of paper, and walked away without replying.

I mean, where do you get an HIV test done if not at the Wockhardt Hospitals certified by the Harvard Medical Association?

P.S. And what shit was on the muzak?

Haloom

Meghadoot called up this morning and said Haloom. And then we went on how apart from being a tiger's roar in Bengali, it also can be a sondhi of Hello and Shalom.

After debating on how loud a Haloom should be for about five minutes, we discussed football. About Zidane and about a businessman who wants to send his son to Germany to learn football after he finishes school. He might say futbol, but at least won't call it soccer for no reason. What's wrong with the Americans?

Aaron and I were downstairs playing basketball when Meghadoot called. It soon changed to football because I was holding the phone in one hand. I hit him with the ball once. Not purposely though. I am bad at football. At basketball too. We couldn't slam dunk many times after that. There is this small basket at the basement. Belongs to Ashwin who plays tennis mostly.

Came up for Loknath Baba's payesh. My in-laws believe one Loknath Baba lived for 150 years. So they made payesh for him. Which we had to eat. Payesh is sweet. And harmful. No wonder Loknath Baba couldn't live beyond 150 years. He must've died of excessive sugar.

Now Aaron wants to go downstairs with the basketball which he will use as a football anyway. Babu and I kicked his football into the sea once. It came back but was soggy.

It happens to be my 36th birthday and I am still in my pajamas. And this keyboard downstairs at Babu's place sucks. But he has a faster net connection.

Now my mouth is sour from all the sweet payesh I had eaten just ten minutes back. Shit. What a birthday.

"A short dictionary of misunderstood words" (part two)

45% in MA English Literature: Just stand up and salute if you come across someone who has scored these marks from Calcutta University. Because, for all you know, this person can write ten dissertations on anything starting from Chaucer down to Saul Bellow or even Toni Morrisson. He/she is nothing short of a genius. This person will also tell you everything about one Zimmermann, and probably play the harmonica or the guitar better than your neighbor in California. This person will also put New Orleans to shame with his/her knowledge of jazz music. You see many of them working for The Statesman or The Telegraph. Such men are bearded and wear glasses. The women wear glasses and sport khadi kurtas.

Such a person will perpetually be found smoking rolled tobacco. They are Democrats.

Sourav Ganguly: My weakness too. Horribly sinned against by the rest of the regional cricket boards in India, this former captain of the Indian cricket team is very unIndian in his charisma and strength of character. Someday will be the Prime Minister of India. Amen.

Bearded fellow: While in the rest of India a beard is almost synonymous to being a Mussalman, in Calcutta it signifies the urge to be known as an intellectual. Anybody who wears a beard is either dabbling in poetry or the arts of some kind. Do not discourage them. At least that keeps them from being communal.

Poet: Everybody has tried poetry, so don't go around saying you are a poet. Everybody is a poet in Calcutta. And believe me, this is the only city where anthologies find buyers. Be it Bishnu De, Sunil Ganguly, Allen Ginsberg, or Jim Morrisson, Calcuttans read all poets.

Artist: Again...a generic plague. Everybody is an artist. Everybody can be seen doodling in class. Except for the ones who come to Calcutta to study engineering.

Books: I mean, if a book hasn't sold in Mexico? It will still find many buyers in Calcutta. They are suckers for the printed word.

Godmen: Conmen

America: God's own country

Calcutta: Now this is the toughest term, man. Every Calcuttan thinks Calcutta is very prominent in the world map. Like Sourav Ganguly, Calcutta was once the capital of British India. (Calcuttans love everything British btw. Even a Calcuttan who opens his umbrella when it rains in Beijing would love the idea of speaking perfect RP. Try telling him that RP is long dead, but nobody is listening.) And now, New Delhi, a place that belongs to nobody and is ruled by the aggressive, uneducated, and philistine Northies, happens to be the capital of India.

Someday, Calcuttans would love to bring it back to Calcutta. That status, the glory of being the only emancipated city in India.

"A short dictionary of misunderstood words" -- Milan Kundera

If you come to Calcutta in 2008, Strunk, here's a short dictionary of Bengali terms for you. It is not in any order and is in no way comprehensive. But a start, nonetheless.

Communication gap (occupational hazard for a Calcuttan): This happens quite often in Calcutta. The buses go on strike or the metrorail service between Tollygunge and Dumdum is suspended. People, who mostly use public transport, panic about a sudden communication gap. Otherwise, the communication inside Calcutta is pretty okay. Public communication, I mean.

Do not use the term "commute." You may be held as a CIA spy trying to find out about the Communists in Calcutta.


Presentation (n.): If you find someone fretting about what presentation to give, do not offer him/her any help. I know you would be tempted to from your vast experience in giving presentations everywhere from your college to all the STC conferences in the world, but you know zilch about how to give a presentation in Calcutta. In Calcutta, a presentation is a gift. And every wedding season you can find people scratching their heads about what presentation to give. Nothing to do with PowerPoint, lemme tell you.

Markin/Markini (adj): There will be many podia on which people can be seen calling America and George Bush names. Never go near those gatherings. In West Bengal you can get votes and stay in power for more than forty years if you keep shouting slogans against Markini Capitalism and Oppression. Markini is "American," by the way. Bengalis will side with the Cubans, the Talibans, the Bamiyans, the Iraqis, the Democrats, the Russians, the Chinese, but send their children only to Republican America to study and work. (I wonder what harm the Americans have done to the Bengali Communists. Can you find out?)

Samrajyabadi: The guys who talk about Samrajyabadi are most often seen at the foreign exchange counters selling the dollars sent by their children. I still haven't figured what it means, but it is used in a derog sense. If you are not begging on the streets or are not a laborer waiting outside a locked out factory, you are a samrajyabadi. And that is very bad, lemme tell you. Hey you, you have money? You are a samrajyabadi. (I agree with Russell Peters that being called Samrajyabadi is way better than being called a "fucking blow job" for which there is no good comeback, but being called samrajyabadi is almost equally bad.)

*someone translated for me: it means a capitalist. You do NOT wanna be called a capitalist in Communist Calcutta.


Jewish: Equivalent to Christians to Calcuttans.

"I put my daughter in The Jewish Girls' School."

"Oh, really? Good thing, bhai. She will learn good Christian values. They do have a chapel inside, I believe? With an organ? I am looking at the AG Mission school for my son. These Catholic missionary schools teach good English."

(And obviously you can see that the difference between Catholic and Protestant is lost to an average Calcuttan.)

White: Christian

European: Hippie/backpacker/Salvation Army Guest House

American: "You fucking Samrajyabadi!!"

Lambda

I forget how a Lambda looks like and neither do I want to look it up on the net. But I cannot forget our Lambda, Amitava, who had a crazy monkey kinda smile. Dunno if he was called Lambda because of his stretched smile or because he always studied Math, but he was our Lambda. I hated him. I hated him because he was always with a girl whom I fancied since I was in standard V. They were just friends, but I just couldn't stand the sight of him. Look at the privileged bugger who always gets to go meet her. They often studied together as I cycled up and down their street in frustration waiting for a glimpse. There were many times when I could see her standing in the garden, but could never muster enough courage to look her in the eye. Lambda had no such worries. He wasn't in love with her and could just walk up to her, give her a pat on the bum, and sit with their Math.

Bloody Math. Why do you think I hate Math so much?

April, 1989. It was time for our higher secondary exam and an unknown fear gripped me. I hadn't studied as much as I had cycled in front of her house. My legs were strong by then but not my Physics and Chemistry. I had, by then, decided that Math was not for me and had taken up Biology, a subject I quite liked. And there were no Lambdas in Biology. Neither did our Lambda like the subject much. I had to somehow manage to pass Physics and Chemistry, but I was clueless about how.

The first day when I saw my allotted seat in the exam hall, I almost fainted. Had it been in a movie, I surely would have. I was on the first bench, seated next to Hyder Ali, someone I didn't quite look up to as far as studies were concerned. Hyder, unlike his namesake, was no fierce fighter even. He was a mild, dumb guy, who studied hard but couldn't fathom anything. That kind of placed both of us on the same boat. Two people who knew virtually nothing about Physics and Chemistry, seated next to each other, as if by Providence, on the first bench.

The first exam was on Bengali language and literature and I fared pretty well, although by now I was certain I would fail in the main exam. The next day was our English exam. Again, not much of a problem. After four days of that, on the 10th of April, 1989, was the Physics exam. There were guys like me praying before entering the hall. And I did not have anybody to pray to and felt rather helpless. I prayed to Hyder "please, help me pass, boss" and he gave me a puzzled look. He had kind of accepted his fate. He wouldn't cheat or copy from someone else. He knew he would fail. And keep trying to pass every year. The blank look in his eyes compounded my fear because after the chapter on Vectors, I had stopped going to school. The exam commenced and I slid toward Hyder and copied everything from him blindly. I must have written his answers in correct English at the most. But that day is still hazy in my mind. Fear can cloud your memory, take it from me. And the fear of failing board exams is bigger than the fear of being shot dead by a Taliban terrorist. Believe me, it was nothing short of death.

And Lambda died that night. I mean, he went all the way to Burdwan (some 60 kms from where we stayed) and committed suicide by laying his head before an oncoming train. When they later discovered his body, his hands were placed calmly on his chest. He hadn't made a last-ditch attempt to clamber away from the track. And they also found his head on the other side of the track, his eyes closed and his face determined.

We had four days before the next exam and news of Amitava's death had spread among all the students. I heard that my crush had even cried for those four days and couldn't study. But somehow my hatred for Amitava had vanished and I couldn't refer to him as Lambda any more.

I don't remember how the rest of the exams got over. But the invigilators were lenient. They wouldn't mind if I copied from Hyder or Sujoy from the second row. They didn't want another boy to die.

I passed, thanks to Hyder. Hyder failed, like he knew he would. And Amitava passed his Physics exam with really good marks. I want to meet and tell him that he passed and that he can come back from wherever he is. But he chose to go really far away, I think.

WFP

Crazy, you know, all this talk about the Himalayas melting and the polar ice caps melting one day soon. How can I ride a bicycle to the office? But if they are true, Aaron will witness a huge flood in his lifetime. And maybe many will survive because there will be another Noah.
How come all religions have a reference to a great flood? Did someone survive to tell the story?
Crazy fucking swimmers they musta been, what? Of swimming sir, there are these summer camps where they throw you deep into the water and make you utterly paranoid about water.

Learn to ride a tsunami, i guess. buy a surfboard and start practising.
WFP is the World Food Program. We will eat the vegetarians when there is an acute food shortage someday.

A ride to the land of beef momos

After our weekend trip to Bylakuppe, Sayantani and I want to convert to Buddhism, but Aaron doesn’t seem very convinced. Born to an atheist dad and a Hindu mom, and armed with a Jewish name, he cannot be more confused. His reason: that stall selling your dinner stinks. Don’t believe him, that curd-rice eater, because that stall selling our dinner smelled of awesome, fresh beef momos. (Tip to couples thinking of producing babies in Bangalore: do it at the risk of your child turning into a vegetarian!!)

We started on Saturday thinking we will come back from Mysore if Aaron can’t take the ride. At four years and 10 months, he is not yet a rider, even if he is strapped to me and sits in front holding the handlebar. He tends to fall asleep and that’s when our woes begin. But this time we started early, at around 5.45 a.m., and reached IndraDhanush (next to Shivali restaurant on Mysore Road) by 7.30.
There he got enough time to eat, relax, and even play around before we started toward Bylakuppe again at 8.30. It was a longish stop, but we owed him that much. He had to digest the idlis. We didn’t eat much, keeping our stomachs ready for the gastronomic delight awaiting us at Bylakuppe.

After Srirangapatna, the road turns right towards the Ranganthittu Bird (and Crocodile) Sanctuary. And that is the road leading to Madikeri, the locals told us. The speed came down drastically because the road is narrow and a single carriageway, but the beauty all around kept us absolutely cool. I mean “cool,” because for the next 20 kilometers we had huge trees on both sides of the road keeping the sun out. After that the road is almost made and we could make up for lost time doing good speeds till Hunsur and even beyond Hunsur. Just before Bylakuppe, say about a kilometer before, the bad road starts. It continues to be bad till Madikeri, as we discovered the next day.

Bylakuppe at 10.40 a.m. Not bad, the sun’s still not hot, we could keep our jackets on throughout the ride. Six kilometers inside the Tibetan camp is the Namdorling monastery, and the Paljor Dhorgey Ling guest house on the opposite side. Dhorgey is pronounced dorjey. The room we got was decent enough with two beds and a nice attached toilet. All for Rs 350. Now, that’s what I call sasta tikau. The lama at the reception, Dawa, doesn't smile much, but is pretty hospitable otherwise.

A frantic search for curd rice took us to an Indian restaurant downstairs, Shanthi (with the “h”). We fed Aaron there and rushed to look for momos. Inside the monastery there is a canteen that serves Tibetan food. We had our lunch there, but found better momos that evening at Yakar hotel (first camp, a kilometer inside the main gate).

Sunday we headed for Madikeri and both Sayantani and I came back with aching bones. The ride was very bumpy and Madikeri in the middle of the day is not as pretty as we remembered it from 2003. It is hot, sunny, and the view nothing spectacular. Took some boring pictures from Raja’s Seat and headed back. Again, for momos. Thank Lord Buddha for the MRF Nylogrip Meteor rear tyre I got for my bike. It is 4.3 inches wide and bore the brunt of the potholes.

Sunday afternoon was spent relaxing in the Tibetan camp, riding our bike throughout the camp and buying some Tibetan prayer items and CDs. I also bought a couple of nakli adidas tees, that wife thinks are too bright to be worn in Bangalore. But I will give them a try some time for sure.

After stuffing ourselves with almost 100 momos each in those two days (am exaggerating, musta been around 80 each), we headed back to Bangalore on Monday. Early morning, again. Reached Bangalore around 10.50 in the morning and called up office to say am not coming in. Why? Because I am still having momos in Bylakuppe. Shh!

P.S. Momos are dumplings with minced beef stuffed in them. Enough to make you want to be a Buddhist and support the cause of Tibet.

What's the Point?

(this post has been removed by the author for unknown reasons...)

i just forgot how to write. like last week when Aaron had a very high fever and it wouldn't go, i kept wishing i could just close my eyes and think so hard that the disease comes out like a blue whiff of smoke and vanishes. now, in my mind, the image can be from the archetypes of all the imagery i gathered from movies and books over the years, but someone had to think of this for the first time. and, if you take away all that from my mind, could i have thought of something like this, originally?

like, willing an ailment to come out like a spirit leaving a body? see? another analogy and again from the stacked up cliches in my mind. i cannot write originally. this is not a theory of deconstruction, just the plain truth.

i forgot how to write and there is nothing to write about. and for god's sake, i'm not a travel writer!

Mulbagal

When I saw Jyoti pick up the sweet little lamb, all I could think of was a pressure cooker. I know how difficult it is to cook mutton in an open kadai. When I mentioned this to the others who were lounging on the grass on the banks of the lake, they thought it was funny.
We were riding from Bangalore to Mulbagal on a lazy Saturday morning, and on the way found this lake with a single tree in the middle of it playing host to many birds. Rocky said they were painted storks, although most of the birds were white. To reach the banks of the lake, we had to get off the road and go through a mini forest. The last stretch to the lake front had lots of thorny bushes. Vaibhav insisted on parking his bike where the trees ended. However, with the others egging him on, he didn't have a choice but to brave the thorns. In one of the photos you can see him waiting at the edge of the forest, wondering whether to come or not. Nobody had a flat tire during this offroading adventure.

We were eight people on six motorcycles. Vaibhav's new bullet had to be run in, hence the ride. The lazy ride, that is. Rocky, for once in his life, was riding behind all of us, giving tips to Vaibhav about how to run in the bike. The others were doing decent speeds of about 50 mph (80 kmph).
It was nice to see Rocky in this new avatar, because every other time we have seen him and Pallavi zwooop past all the other motorcycles on their Quik Silver. . .


Finally though, there was no lamb to be had, neither any of those painted storks (okay, some were colorful, lemme admit). We had lunch at this decent joint in Andhra Pradesh and headed back for Bangalore.

Overall, it was a 260 km ride at a leisurely pace and a nice way to spend the day. Prateek and I thought we would move on to Sulurupet according to the original plan, but didn't. Rahul and Anuja did pretty decent speeds despite Rahul claiming he is a slow rider. On the other hand, our man Lohith, whom we expected to rip like crazy, was driving like a mature guy. See how your wife as pillion can make a man out of you?

For all the photos, go to http://new.photos.yahoo.com/orijeet/album/576460762352808817

for now, let the subject field remain empty for want of a good subject, of course. haven't written in a while and am unsure where this is gonna lead to: whether i'm gonna talk abt the trip or abt something else, so forget the subject for the time being.

i was thinking of sikkim. i've been there once in 94, as part of the 186 basic course from the himalayan mountaineering institute in darj. we had trekked from yoksum (5,000 ft) up to chaurikiang in three days, carrying at least 18-20 kgs of luggage on our backs. in chaurikiang (15,000 ft) we were taught ice climbing and some rescue techniques. i loved the self arrest exercises where you had to slide down a slope for a certain distance and then suddenly turn around and arrest your fall by digging your axe into the ice. that was thrilling because the instructor at the edge of the cliff wouldn't have been able to hold a snowball hurtling down at such speeds. on the penultimate day we were made to climb a small peak for beginners, called the BC Roy peak, named after Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy. It was at a height of 18,000 ft. The view from there was awesome as we could see all the fourteen peaks (E - K - Ka - Lho - Ma -Dhou -Ma - Cho -Na - A -Ga -Ba -Ga -Sa). I remember some of the names even today: Everest, K 2, Kahnchendjunga, Lhotse, Manalsu, Dhoulagiri . . .

But when I think back after 12 years, the only peaks I can clearly remember are Frey and Amadablam. George Frey died on Frey peak on a day Tenzing had sensed danger. Tenzing was his sherpa then and not a well-known figure. He asked George not to attempt the climb on that day but of course a sherpa's knowledge of the weather is not to be trusted on the mountains, right? My point is, this peak, named after poor Frey, is absolutely conical in shape. As in, much like how a child would draw a mountain in 2-d, and very unreal. I remember it because we were taken to the place where one starts the climb for Frey peak. And we could see it from our base camp every night, a dark shape in a starlit sky.

The other peak was Amadablam, a phallus by all means. Dunno why the Hindus don't call it Shiva's phallus yet. Maybe it skipped their minds, or maybe when the ancient Hindu scriptures were written, people hadn't seen the Amadablam. It goes straight up and is rounded at the tip.

The nights were scary because every time we had to pee, it meant wearing your snow boots and walking 50 meters in the snow to the nearest loo. And as we all know, you get the urge at least three to four times in such cold weather. We were 43 guys in the log hut and the door must've been opened at least 129 times each night. Maybe more. For many days after that I could hear heavy boots in my sleep, trudging up and down like half-asleep zombies on the wooden floor.

But once you were outside the hut (-15 C), you could see the dark mountains standing all around like huge godzillas, almost reaching up to the stars. Numerous stars. I bet you haven't seen so many stars together. The entire spectacle had a very humbling effect on an otherwise arrogant me. So what if you can trek all day with 20 kgs on your back? You are frigging nothing standing like a microbe in front of the mountains, at the mercy of the gods who have humored you and kept you alive. Let this microbe brag around about his stamina. It will be a comic relief, they must've said to themselves.

The postman came with our mail every second day. And one day there were two letters that are still unopened. Dunno how much strength I'll have to borrow from the mountains to choose one.

Am going to Calcutta this December and something inside me is egging me on to make a trip to Sikkim, alone. I will be absolutely quiet about it and drive up to Sikkim in two days. I can park anywhere and sleep in my jeep, but the very thought of going near the highest mountains in the world is keeping me awake every night. I may not get a glimpse of Amadablam and Frey, but to be able to stand there in the snow, looking up...

It would also mean sacrificing a lot of other things. I may not get to spend time with some dear frnds. I may not get to spend much time with my dad, who is 69 already and is busy reading, even this moment, am sure.

The time has come to choose from the two letters. And this time I will open one, once I'm in Sikkim again.

back

i was off this blog for a long time and didn't really miss it. am planning a trip from Bangalore to Calcutta in my jeep in Dec-Jan, and was busy getting ready for it. my jeep too got a lot of work done and still needs some more attention.





Changed:

fan belts (3)
coolant pipe and some other weird-looking pipes
ball joints in the front suspension
some broken indicators

now i gottu get the bull bar fixed and a couple of Neolite lights on that. that should scare the shit out of the truckers during the early morning drives. Now for the route that I'm planning to take: my wife busies herself every weekend poring over the Eicher Atlas, calculating distances and planning the pitstops. After almost three weeks she came up with a detailed route (with many bypasses) with even little tea breaks nicely planned. And she also has a couple of Plan Bs just in case we cannot stick to Plan A. Plan A is roughly like this:

Day 1, Dec 21, 2006: Bangalore to Vijayawada (600 odd kms)
Day 2, Dec 22, 2006: Vijayawada to Gopalpur on Sea (another 600 odd kms)
Day 3, Dec 23, 2006: Gopalpur on Sea to Calcutta (500 + kms)

Here's a rough map downloaded from nhai.org (the official web site of the national highways authority of india). in this you cannot see the first day's route to Vijayawada because we are skipping Chennai and going via Kolar-Chittoor-Tirupati-Nayadpet-Ongole-Vijayawada.

Hoping to get average speeds of about 70 kms per hour because my vehicle is not fast. it is sluggish, comfortable, and more an offroader than anything else.

hmm...

Masoom

When you watch a movie that was made some 25 years back, you cannot possibly come out and talk about it, can you? I've been catching up on old Hindi movies over the last couple of weeks and somehow feel I should be writing about them now. It's all about falling in love with Sabana Azmi and Hema Malini and Mousumi Chatterjee all over again. How could I miss them when I was young? Was it because we Bengalis did not like anything from Bollywood? Like we liked everything French as opposed to anything from Hollywood. Hollywood, after the stiff guys like Anthony Quinn and Gregory Peck, was unacceptable to Bengalis. They looked for Eisenstein and Kurosawa and Ray. And in that process, the younger generation missed out on a wealth of beautiful Bollywood movies that dwelt on another unreal plane. A plane of black and white characters, of evil versus good, of unnatural strength, and love everlasting. And the towering Amitabh Bachhan. If he is on screen, you will willingly gloss over the technical flaws and bad scripting without blinking an eyelid. You will happily allow yourself to be transported to this world of the absurd, which you so wished were true.

And then came Naseeruddin Shah. Despite being kinda nondescript to look at, he equalled or perhaps surpassed Tom Hanks in diversity of roles. So real, you could almost feel him breathe in the theater. I watched Masoom yesterday. Yes, almost 25 years late, you can say, although I had heard the soulful songs.

And when I watched Being Cyrus last night, which too has a middle-aged Naseer and happens to be a very contemporary movie, I found a new hero: Saif Ali Khan.

I hope the Bengalis are watching Hindi movies too these days and are not as stuck up as I can remember them from the late eighties. I am watching and am enjoying every moment.

seeking adventure

when you are in formals on a Monday morning, the last thing you expect is some adventure to come hit you. i was feeling awkward in the ironed clothes and wanted to check myself out in the mirror. the elevator has a huge mirror, so i stepped into no. 4. everything was okay, except for my hair, but who cares any longer? i'm 35, married, down with a kid, and cannot expect to look 25 any more. was possible even a couple of years back, but my skin has aged almost suddenly. i checked out the crow's feet. hmmm...
the elevator wasn't moving. by now it should have reached the third floor. i checked and realized i was stuck. the door wouldn't open. the alarm wouldn't work, and i was filled with this sudden sense of adventure. wow, man, finally i got something to tell my friends about. the pleasure in my mind was almost thick, aah, now am gonna gloat around about the adventure i had. i imagined i was on the 89th floor of a building, stuck in an elevator and still didn't lose my cool. aah, the man...always in control. and then there were these beautiful ladies who absolutely lost theirs. and how i comforted them with my deep, baritone voice. Don't you worry, dears, everything's gonna be all right. I'm James Bond. Or Keanu Reaves, or whatever. And they clung on to me, as if the floor's gonna give away any moment.

i was almost enjoying it alone in the elevator, stuck on the ground floor, when some idiot came and "rescued" me. i could sense my face screwing itself up to form this look of utter disdain for that man as i walked out. what gall! rescuing me, of all people, the James Bond!

am wondering what story to tell the others now...can you think of something?