God Saved My Soul

This morning just after I dropped Aaron's bags at the day care and started the car, I realized I just had to crap. You know, it was like this sudden, immediate necessity that couldn't be ignored.

Just had to crap.

I could feel the blood draining from my face. I was about to brace myself for the worst. How many times did I insist on getting a WC installed in the boot? My mind was faltering and despite all my concentration being used up in trying to hold, I could see defeat staring me in the eye.

In my desperation I must have mentioned the urge aloud. And god heard me.

"There's a public toilet just around the corner, daddy," I heard him say . . .

Without trying to find out how he gottu know about it, I drove like an automatic pilot, following my son's directions . . . and there was salvation in sight, my mecca, my savior . . . a white building with a halo around it . . .

**********************

When I came back to the parked car, Aaron was smiling. "Who's gonna clean?"
"There's an uncle who's been hired to," I answered, relieved.

God was in my car.

Uglyrama

Last night we had a phone meeting with colleagues in the U.S. By the time I could go to bed, it was already 11.00 and usually our neighborhood is wrapped in thick, dark silence after 9.00 in the night. I could consciously feel myself slipping into a dream when suddenly there was this horribly loud sound of drums from somewhere. Accompanied with some weird South Indian wind instrument that can wake up a sleeping Kumbhkarna. Rumor has it that this instrument (called Nadeswara) was made solely for that purpose in the island nation of Lanka (now Sri Lanka): to wake up the huge ogre Kumbhkarna who plundered and destroyed for six months and then took an equally long nap.

When Rama attacked Lanka to rescue his wife Sita, he had only monkeys as soldiers. But he also had one Bibhishana who had defected from Ravana's camp (despite being Ravana's brother) and joined an otherwise gullible Rama as the minister of espionage and military strategy. Some people draw parallels between Rama and our slain prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Rajiv was a deft pilot, but not a politician. Poor guy had to become the Prime Minister because the medieval people of India wanted to remain in Ramarajya (read "being led by someone of the Nehru/Gandhi clan"). Rajiv eventually died a dog's death. Rama, likewise, was good at archery, but that was all he was good at. By virtue of being King Dasarath's eldest son, he too had to take up the king's post. He didn't die a dog's death though. He had wily jackals around him.

Now Rama, with the help of his military advisors, was making inroads into Lanka, and Ravana's army was about to face defeat. Being a human being (and thus handicapped against the ogres) Rama was privileged enough to have the support of all the gods that you can think of. Now who doesn't know that a weak man needs support. You cannot blame the gods either. They saw this as a good opportunity to use a human being to destroy some of the ogres while they enjoyed strip-tease parties in heaven . . . more about those in another story.

Kumbhkarna happened to be the only hope of the ogres. He was huge, a little bigger than King Kong, and had a huge appetite as I already mentioned. He had gone to sleep a few months back and it was absolutely necessary to wake him up before the six-month quota got over. The ogres were badly losing. One wise ogre (with a white beard) figured that the only way to wake him was to create a noise that would pierce its way into his subconscious and jolt him out of his sleep. He got a black pipe and called the scariest sounds of the world and bundled them in the pipe. And where the drums and cymbals had failed, the nadeswara succeeded. Kumbhkarna jumped out of his sleep and started eating the monkey soldiers as if on trance.

That was how the nadeswara was born. Much later the ogres and the monkies of the subcontinent started using nadeswara as a musical instrument. An instrument that will shake you out of your slumber and make you stand straight . . . ready to attend to your duties, transfixed.

When I was woken up last night by this sound at the unearthly hour, I too woke up. Stood straight, as if in a trance. Went to the box of firecrackers that I saved from Diwali. Picked up a jumbo rocket. Dipped its head in petrol. Aimed it at the house where the celebrations were on. And fired.

****************

Deccan Herald, Feb 03, 2006

Bangalore

Last night there was a huge fire at a house in South Bangalore. It is reported that 72 people died in the fire. The local residents and the firefighters could manage to pull out only the charred remains of the bodies. Not a single person is reported to have survived the fire. The cause of the fire could not be established as everything is burnt beyond recognition. The police, however, recovered a nadeswara which had survived the wrath of the fire. Some local residents claimed it was the first nadeswara with which Kumbhkarna was woken from his sleep.

wish i were black

how i wish i were born a black man. a big, fat, puffy black man. and i could sit in the corner shop and play the blues harp. bend the notes, make them wail and get little Manzareks rushing to find where the notes were coming from.

i got A, D, E, and G now. i play boring, unchallenging hindi numbers. and some country. but someday when i am black, i will play the blues too. problem is, i cannot sit and listen to little walter for long. i would listen to keith jarrett instead. i guess the blues have to get into your bloodstream first. the steady rhythm versus the wantonness of the extempores. blow away, bend the notes, and shed a couple of tears too if they come out right.

but i will try. james here is encouraging me. pappa pappa pappa pap . . . someday i will turn a black man. hold the puny thing in my fat fingers and belt out the most beautiful notes you've heard. malleable, metallic notes . . . just wish me luck.

Showered

when, out in the front porch
i look up and it's raining flowers
petals softly kissing and vanishing into the fog
that envelops my feet. . .

when, in a dark room
your letters spill out of my inbox
and my glasses are missing . . .

when you call and i listen (fades)

***********

but you never called, i did, once

your letters i read twice over,
i never needed glasses in a dark room
to save your photos to my desktop

it has never rained flowers
but only dry leaves in autumn
and the fog's never around my ankles . . .
. . . only inside my glasses, if you didn't know

If the night has to fall

The city with you was a dream
two days when the sun didn’t set
you don’t set on me now,
resist the night

Delirious night has nothing to offer

Wander around the graveyard?
And then to The Park,
same Someplace Else?
You know their numbers by heart, come on now,
Let the guitars be thrown
Let them walk out the door,

Not you,

Treacherous night has nothing to offer you

Crow’s feet don’t show, you say
potholes neither,
your anomalied day shrouded in velvet, looks long and promising
for me, in the night,
there’s La Martiniere somehow
and a picture of me with a violin
a delectable boy with his brown beard and French accent
talking about Bach

I didn’t like his fumbling fingers
and yours are strumming a dark tune
with nobody humming in the background

You are alone, so strum me someday, play a never-ending song

What’s there for you in the death of night anyway?

Watching the stars? I’ll watch with you
If you find a place,

Can you find one for me too?

He just called (a sequel to So, Finally, September 05)

He just called. Said he was in love.
In love, he says. “So did you tell her?”
“No, it is too early I think.”
“Why? But she called, didn’t she?”

“She called and we talked about her poetry.”
“I know, she is really good.”
Writes like Sylvia Plath at times. I remember discussing some of her poems with him. I never read anything by Sylvia Plath. I read poems written for her. Oh, and I read the only novel by her too. Only a few pages into it.

“Tina read it. Twice,” I remembered aloud.
“What? Her poems?”
“No, The Bell Jar.”

But then she’s a girl. She wouldn’t have read Ted Hughes or shed tears when we all shed tears. When we listened to Wish You Were Here for the nth time together. And also Imagine. And sometimes Jim Morrisson too. I like Ray Manzarek’s writing more than his piano.
So do I, I am no fan of the Doors. But his poems? Yes, Jim. In our memories, right next to Syd Barrett.

“Women are perhaps strong. Stronger, that is. Or thick?”
“No, sometimes too sensitive.”
But still you are madly in love with her. (and she is a woman and you thank god for that) “So tell her.”
“What?”

That you want to keep your eyes closed and enjoy this free fall. Or should you? Ask her. If she called today, tell her you read into it. Tell her you read into all her little actions and brood. And then call me up. Your brother.

And the diamond ring that I asked you to buy? Keep it ready, bro, it may come handy any day. What diamond ring? Women like it sprung at the right moment, mostly with the sea in the background.

“But I prefer the mountains. Always have. I always want the mountains in the foreground and Radiohead in the background.” How can mountains be in the foreground . . . but why not, I am not clicking a photograph . . . they won’t block my view . . . we laughed.

“Is it in G Augmented?”
“U-huh…augmented is not a depressing chord, it is probably in G minor. They have to make a song dark and depressing, it must be in minor.” You know, bro, and I will always listen to you.

“Aren’t you calling for rather too long? You could probably have spent this money calling her up,” I tried him.
“Huh,” came his reply.

I love it when he connects.

After the call I went back to some old photographs. Tori Amos kept singing just for me that night.
It was another thing he could hear her too.

Critique

I've been Catherine's critic for some time now. She writes fullbloodedly and sometimes reminds me of Neruda's translated poems. Catherine has promise, and someday you'll all read her.

But recently, Catherine's oneliners have suddenly changed their hue. She was quoting Anne Sexton and sometimes writing better than her, and believe me she can write a lot of good stuff if she wants to. But yesterday she came up with this absolutely unoriginal line:

"Fine, take your patience and stick it up your ass."

Now Northrop Frye would have none of this. He would definitely argue, and understandably so, that sticking something up one's ass is an archetype lodged in one's mind, that probably doesn't have anything to do with really being sodomized. It is that picture in your mind of the proverbial middle finger being raised in defiance, in contempt, in denial, the world over. (I don't know if the Chinese have some other meaning for it.) Only virgin minds of children and some adults like that of Mr Bean are perhaps unaware of the strength of the finger, of actually being able to tell your opponent to shove it.
So, even when you think you are writing something original and witty, you are essentially borrowing from that archetype which urges you, "go ahead, ask him to stick it."

No, I won't accept it as an original line at all.
Next time, think of some other orifice.

Faith

People are talking about their faiths. Moving posts that shake you out of your slumber. Was reading Pottinger's article on why he left a coveted job of a journalist and joined the Marines in Iraq. If the world is getting bi-polar, with Muslims on one side and Christians on the other, which side do the Jews take?

Or is it the USA against the Muslims of the world? Which side do I take? What happens to my dear friend Khalid, my mechanic Assad, if I join the other side? Do we stop having beer together?

What about the communists and antigods? Should I join them? Yes, I am without a religion, but I don't mind when Srinivasa stops for a few minutes to say his prayers at the temple on the way to office. Should I be antigod, or just remain godless?

If there has to be bi-polarity, then the rest of the world has to join the Americans when they plunder a Muslim country to control their oil reserves. And if all the Muslims of the world unite, how are the Shiites and Sunnis gonna eat from the same plate? How will the converted Muslims be treated, the mujahirs in Pakistan who are bombed every week? Will they be taken into the same fold and given the same status of warrior for the sake of this war? What about the nonradical Muslims who don't want to join but write the best Urdu poetry in the world? Will they be killed before the war starts? What about the Muslims who have married Christians, or Jews, or Hindus? Will they start the war by killing their spouses?

And us, the Hindus. The millions of confused Hindus with a million different rituals and cultures. Which camp do they join? I, being a strict meat eater cannot tolerate the vegetarian Hindus. Will I let them join me? What will the Tamil Hindus want? Which land are they going to grab after Sri Lanka...Singapore?

Tell me something, where do the Cubans go? Without the former USSR, where do they go? Why is the US selling food to them now? I thought you guys had an embargo against Cuba? And are you pissed with Cuba because they are Communists and antigod and because you are predominantly Catholic?

I am very confused. Just today. Tomorrow when I drive my jeep through some abandoned wastelands, I may forget about you all. But today I cannot say Shalom Aleicheim or Salaam Aleikyum...there is no peace that I can wish for you.

If the world is getting bi-polar, let us go to the moon.

The Last Weakness

the last weakness, linger on
hover around mindspace, my yellow filter
hold me back when with a violent shrug
I wake up and look around
for a green today

yellow filter's here to stay

while the strength i tasted is saved within,
for a black tomorrow
day without the sun

Spilled to Bloodlessness is the culprit

Every time I feel I have something to write, I think of writing in the other blog. Reason being the readership. At least some people will read me, I think. Cannot tell you how immensely satisfying it is to have somebody read anything you've written. I do that quite often. Thrust my stuff at people and expect them to comment.

Some of them really puked. What mush, they blurted. Someone else gushed, how real. Because I value most of the opinions, I am left thinking what to make of my writing. Is it absolute trash? How come it made her cry then?

But since yesterday I've been finding it difficult to write. Started with the topic of an amblyopic mind, when your mind is gradually going off to sleep, when it refuses to mentally strip for you the girl in the next cubicle. And you feel let down. My mind goes lazy like that at times and I catch myself trying to bribe it. Usually with music.

Was not sure it would make a good topic for a public blog, but that was where I wanted to write. For its readership, again. How vain! Have overcome that today. If I have to blurt out, let me do it here. If I have something separately crafted for Spilled to Bloodlessness, let me post it there.

Because this is where you can goof up and laugh at yourself. But that is like a stage where once you fumble, you trip and fall. Fall where? In others' eyes? How do you care? Who are they? How do they matter? But they are readers, people for whom you write. Yes, sometimes you do write for them, don't you?
Most of the time?
Always?

This is a big one.
"Whatever I write is for them."
Them with the unknown faces and the most beautiful names.

Cut

I watched a violent movie last night. And believe me, I sat through it because although it appeared very realistic, there was hope that it'll turn happy later. Hope of revenge being exacted.

It borrowed from various other movies, and the theme was cliched too. There's this merciless village landlord in the lawless state of Bihar. He is above law and his lumpen sons enjoy something like a diplomatic immunity in that village. They end up raping a nine-year-old girl and throw her into a ditch. Her dad, played by Indian hero Sanjay Dutt, manages to buy a gun and shoots the rapists at the court. Till this time it reminds you of A Time to Kill, and although there are tears et al, the class of a Samuel L. Jackson is missing.

Well, my point is, what should the family have done (the dad, his wife, and three children) after having avenged the rape? According to their original plan, they were all to die together by consuming poison at a secluded garage. The landlord's hired killers would have finished them anyway.

If they died at this point, the film would have been a realistic portrayal of what happens in most of rural India. I would have gone off to sleep thinking there was some kind of justice after all.
However, they do not die. Bollywood sentiments take charge of the film from that point on and it turns into a fantasy. The melancholy music that you hardly noticed earlier becomes bold and I'm sure I won't spend any time talking about it here.

There are many films like this that could have been better with a little bit of editing here and there. You should know exactly where to cut.

Like apparitions in the middle of the road that you can sometimes pass through, I can feel the dreams failing me. Sometimes flying away like some used newspaper from my car on the highway. Yes, I do litter our Indian roads. Only paper and biodegradables though. Am a philistine but not philistine enough to throw plastic out the window on a highway.

Not as a habit, only in an emergency.
And the dreams are flying away like tissues used in emergency, landing on the thorny bushes of Maharashtra and getting stuck there. I look back and they become white specks in a matter of seconds. Why is this car moving so fast, I wonder. Not fast, but a speed that makes it very unstable and wobbly. But I cannot stop to check the wheel alignment.

I don't have brakes and this highway ends only there. Yes, where I will perhaps mix you the best drink ever.
But these memories are fading and how. Memories in the form of people whom I've failed, people I've touched and felt and wanted for keeps. Flee with me to another country? Wish you met me in school? Is that a poem for me? Believe me, I just couldn't stop the car and step down even for a smoke.

There were cigars and joints. There were baths in the Suketi river. There were photos taken which too faded over time. There was the dream of watching Saurav win the World Cup for India. There were beautiful sunsets knowing the sun won't rise.

I have a bar in the car
I have a bar in this car
Loosen the seat belt and think
This isn't my last fucking drink
If you have to go, you have to go
I have to go where I have to go
See you there when I see you there
This isn't my last bloody drink
Let my nursery rhyme stink
Of Baileys, Bacardi and pink
Dreamless sleep’s coming
“Trade off, turn a fink”

Who wants to be a martyr,
Lemme have my last bloody drink.

"Where do we go?"

"Are we out of Oreen's dream?"

VG looks back. All he could see were Oreen's closed eyes. But that can mean he is still dreaming and has kept them trapped in it. In his dream that takes its own course.

"A dream is much like life, don't you think?" asked EoR.

"Because it is beyond control?"

"Because it springs surprises. Because I never knew whether I will ever get to meet you until tonight." No matter how much I wanted to all these days, thought EoR.

"I haven't poured any whisky on your head. I've saved some champagne for your red locks. The whisky was for Stella."

"VG! You have to try and come out of the dream, we have to find a way out and not get lost in its digressions. Concentrate." Who's Stella though?

And then the conversation loses its meaning. What is conversation for anyway? Is it always used as a means to an end? What end did these two have in mind? None, if you ask me . . . they were brought together in somebody else's dream. The conversation remained highly stimulating though. Stimulating being a relative term. They didn't know that my dream had faded and that I'd woken up. I was busy brushing my teeth as they continued.

"How did you come?"

"Oh, in an airplane, of course, although it was faster in the dream."

"How was the flight?" VG somehow was lost for words. All his words were there in his blog. And he didn't have the password.

"There was this Finnish guy trying to charm a Cuban woman all the way from Frankfurt to Paris. With his knowledge of Oriental art."

"You were in Philadelphia, and now you've come to New Delhi. How come Frankfurt to Paris?"

"Am I? But i distinctly remember the German stewardess. But aren't we in a dream? Or is it New Delhi where we met? Where was the party?"

"In his mind, and he has lost the key to his mind I read once. Which means..."

"...Which means we are actually nowhere!" exclaimed EoR. "Nowhere is where I wanted to be all my life. At least for once."

"Where do we go from here?" VG sounded a little disturbed. He was missing his Toyota and also the old merc he was about to pick up next month. Missing a car? In a dream where there aren't any roads?

"We can walk. Or wait for a short story."

"It is wonderful being lost with you," he smiled back. "Oreen once lost his way coming to Belmont from San Jose. He wanted to stay lost and not step out. At least we don't need to find our way back home."

"Look, there's an apple tree!"

The Party

When I have nightmares of all my frnds having come together for a party, I break into cold sweat. It goes somewhat like this:

Strunk&White is Jewish but doesn't remind you of Woody Allen from Anything Else or Ben Stiller from Keeping the Faith. He is a nice gentleman with some wacky remarks up his sleeve. He can keep an entertaining conversation going without any Christian bashing. Strunk comes in and picks up a glass of orange juice.

As I introduce him to my Buddhist friend AnandaDasa Bhikkhu and the two of them exchange smiles and more, in comes the neo-nazi in his DM boots. Yes, none other than VG with his head shaved.

I start sweating from that point. A nice Jewish guy and a neo-nazi in the same room. While Bhikkhu is more detached from the real world, dwelling in higher plains, his alter ego Puzzled Private walks in every time Bhikkhu walks out. And Puzzled has bought this idea that Zionists are behind 9/11. Some theory, and like all theories, sounds very buyable (oks, viable) despite being full of shit. Don't tell Private I told you that.

By now people have gone ahead and opened my bar, which was replenished just the night before the dream. And in my dream, the bar is big.

VG, surprisingly, does not proclaim his Naziness to the world as he does his baldness and very soon I see Strunk and him engaged in a conversation about Sufi music. They both turn out to be Nusrat fans. Eddie Vedder isn't mentioned.

AnandaDasa walks in. Puzzled went out for a smoke. They still go out for a smoke in my dreams because Aaron's still very young. AnandaDasa tries talking about gods and strength to Aaron, although I have sanitized my house against gods. I even have a multi-insect killer spray for anytime a god peeps in. Marmaladeskies is reading out an Oscar Wilde text to Spider Girl.

So far, so good. My sweat has dried and things are going rather smooth. Religions and beliefs have been shelved for the sake of this evening celebrating music. In the background is Peter Gabriel's score from The Last Temptation of Christ. They all come together as human beings, celebrating life.

Enemy of the Republic walks in. VG stands up, dazed. They walk out together, and the dream fades.

No more enchanted days.

What makes an Indian proud

Yes, a little bit more about our very own Indian cultural heritage. Before I start, let me leave aside a handful of men and women who have managed to evolve into human beings, while the rest of the 1.2 billion remain Indians.

Flashback to 1994: A Japanese girl in a 5 star hotel gets raped in Varanasi, our oldest city, reeking of uncleared culture.

Today: A senior police officer becomes a transvestite and starts dancing around trees claiming he is Krishna's wife. And the media (in any form) laps it up. Nobody takes him to a shrink though. No, I cannot be politically correct today. So what if I too wear a bra at times?

Today: Senior members of parliament caught taking bribe on video.

Flashback to 2001: Tehelka reveals people at all levels (ministers to army heads) taking bribes. Result? The ruling party makes sure the portal is closed and that these investigative journos have criminal cases against THEM! Thankfully they were strong human beings (as opposed to Indians) and could come boldly out of that crisis.

India is the rape capital of the world. Indore, Delhi fight for the top spot.

Nobody has killed Bal Thackerey, Deve Gowda, Narendra Modi, VP Singh, Chandrashekhar (he takes one virgin boy every night), so far.

The seers of a temple are accused of murder. There seems to be ample evidence to prove that. Indians still want to lie at their feet and worship them.

There are conmen and magicians who claim to be reincarnations of earlier sadhus and manage to con people. We see our prime ministers coming to touch their feet. Sadly enough, these peddlers of spirituality (or ism) find a lot of white takers. Next time you see a white guy come to India trading his money for spirituality, tell him the truth.

A goverment tries to talk about controlling population and gets toppled . . .

What is our culture? That of hospitality. Of humility. Of fabulous dance and art forms. Of music the world has borrowed from. Of history and famous historians. Of literature in the various languages. Of mature customs stemming from reason. Of being a good samaritan.

Focus on that. Focus on what can make you proud. Focus on the future. Build roads, send electricity to all the corners of India. Ensure proper irrigation. In your beloved India thousands of farmers commit suicide every year. A tribal woman's hands were chopped off because she refused to withdraw a rape accusation. Female foetuses are aborted in millions. Dowry amounts in Andhra Pradesh range from 50 lakhs to many many crores. Where is the emancipated Indian woman? Buying dildoes and watching strip tease while her dad spends his entire life's income paying for her groom? Oh yes I know where they are: they are all in Delhi, wearing huge bindis and khadi and talking about communist ideals. In the most impeccable English. Now that I mention communists, some bloody Prakash Karat says there should be labor laws in IT and ITES companies. Bugger off with your ideals. Here your people at least have jobs and you want to send the investors back to their countries? Like you closed Dunlop and Bata in West Bengal? What do you do with the retrenched people who have to end up begging or work as gardeners or maidservants? What have you done with the numerous suicides? You couldn't even buy body bags for them, you shithead.

And in the midst of all this crisis somebody from the middle of nowhere comes up with a new name for Bangalore! Boss, there are many things to take care of in your culturally rich nation.
If you really care, open your eyes.

A change of name is the last thing we need.

Bengaluru and kukumbaar

Now that they are changing the name from Bangalore to Bengaluru for the sake of holding on to their "culture" (man, some word that!), I guess it is time for us to move on. It seems they will now teach English through Kannada. Exactly the reason I cried on the first day at Banaras Hindu University. A professor was teaching English essays in Hindi. What is happening to India?

What the fuck is happening to Indians? Or were they always like this "only"? First the Bengalis decide we don't need English till class VI. The result? All the engineers who first learned English at the age of 11 were missing from the interviews and group discussions of the world. Potential employers stopped coming to Jadavpur Univ (a prestigious name in Calcutta) because the guys who would otherwise fare well in the written tests, would not appear for the interviews. They were shy. They fumbled. Tongue-tied while other students (maybe not so bright) were taking away all the jobs. They could speak better English after all.

What is the problem you guys have with English? Why do we have to call Bangalore Bengaluru or Oracle Orakulu? What would Larry Ellison say? Why does cucumber have to be pronounced kukumbaar? Haven't you realized that had it not been for the English, you would probably be a medieval nation where women would have to cover their heads and stay home? Haven't you realized that had it not been for English some cities would not have existed on the Indian map? People would not have held jobs, or you wouldn't be riding a cushy merc at the expense of the taxpayers today? You, the bloody ministers, the upholders of "culture"?

Hold on to your culture, while I get some gravel to fill the potholes on the roads.

The English Teacher

Apex Information Services were closing down their offices in New Delhi, and all of us "abstract writers" were about to be out on the streets of Delhi. We were mostly scavengers and hangers on, moving from one city to another looking for some work. Most of us had come out of Calcutta, because Calcutta was dying. For us, New Delhi offered many dreams.
We were all busy looking out when one day I got a call from a government school in Taki, on the border of Bangladesh, to teach English. A government job! A job where you can actually get paid for not working all your life. What else could I ask for?

Back to Calcutta. In a bus to Taki.

If Taki Government School is famous for churning out the highest scoring students every year, it cannot be very far from Calcutta, I thought. My interview was at the Taki Ramakrishna Mission School, which I thought would be equally good. Such pleasant dreams should always come with a good day's sleep and I happily dozed off in the bus. When I woke up, the road had become narrower and there was this huge river I could get glimpses of through the trees. Taki turned out to be a village after all. Very green, with lotus ponds and a view of Bangladesh across the river that made me yearn for home. That is where home was.

As I walked toward the school through the rice fields, I thought how it would feel to work here, in this small village with tricycle vans and bullock carts being the only modes of transport. A stark contrast after the Mercs and Land Cruisers in Delhi, but what the hell, I don't drive one of those!

The wall around the school had a lot of political graffiti on it, but that is nothing new for any Calcuttan. The communists believe in voicing their opinions through political graffiti on walls, something that apparently started with Mao Tse Tung in China. He wanted an otherwise silenced generation to come out with their grievances on the walls. Bengalis being a very loud race incessantly voicing their unwarranted opinions at tea stalls and in buses, I could not see the reason behind writing on walls, but they were there anyway. Loudly announcing their obscene presence.

There were many candidates who had come for the same interview. Despite my English having a thick Bengali accent, I realized I was the only one who could speak any English! That boosted my confidence a few degrees. I will have a good time, I thought. Soon it was my turn and I had to enter a room where I first got a glimpse of my interviewers. One swamiji in saffron seemed to be the principal, and there were others here and there, watching me. That is when I realized I was the only candidate without a moustache too. And then came the questions.

"Can you tell me the difference between subjectivity and objectivity? With examples?"

This was a fat man with fat, black glasses. I pretended not to have seen him holding a chit of paper under the table from which he was reading out the questions. After each question he had this contented look, aah, one-question-well-put kinds.

"Tumi toe shohorer chheley, tumi ki thakbe ekhaney?" (You are from the city, will you at all stay here?)

I tried to convince them that I was fed up of life in the cities and that I wanted to settle down in a beautiful village like theirs. I guess I was even ready to worship their goddess Kali for the job, complete with her blood and gore and necklace of skulls.

When I came out, I knew I would never hear from them. I even had to teach a class of 30 odd students, for whom I had to translate each sentence I read out from an Oscar Wilde text. I had a good mind to tell them about Mr Wilde's sexual orientations, but controlled my devilish urges for the sake of my life.

Waiting for my bus back to Calcutta, I met this young lady who too had come for the interview. Probably a little late.

"Do you think you'll make it?"

"Don't think I want to," she smiled back.

The romantic dream of life in a laidback Bengali village was gone. I was busy looking for a ticket back to New Delhi, my city of my kinda dreams.

LOR

A pub in Koramangala was the last thing I expected. That explains the skepticism on my eyebrows as I entered Legends of Rock. On a Monday evening.

Already having downed a couple of pitchers of beer at Pecos, we were here to check out the ambience, the sound (BOSE), and the huge plasma TVs . . . we found some guitars signed by Satriani, Mark Knopfler, Sting, and some other gods of guitar. And there was Eric Clapton on the screen in his half pants, singing with BB King, who was enjoying himself to the hilt. Could not recognize the other two men (one white and one black) who were playing with their eyes closed. Now that is when you are praying, I think. Praying to the goddess of music, eyes closed, playing with your soul. It wasn't soul though, it was pure blues.

One guy with us was singing along. Bad Co., Sting, you name it, he knew all the songs by heart. He was singing along as we ordered some vodka and a Cuban cigar. The cigar was passed on from one pair of lips to the other . . . and i still don't know who to attribute the sweetness as I smacked my lips . . . the lipstick, or the tobacco?

There were guitars everywhere, as I said, and there was this huge relief of a guitar on the cieling. You see it everytime you look up to blow out the thick blue cigar smoke.

Apparently there's live music too. Lemme chk them out and let you know abt it. But till then, it was a welcome change from the crowded pubs on MG Road. As I walked out, the frown had given way to a contented smile.

Deep Orange

Is not a nice color on the screen. Curtains or bedspreads can be orange, I don't mind, but the new crazy orange when you sign in to blogger is rather jarring. Especially when you feel the onset of another barren phase. Times when irritants like Martina Hingis are coming back and you are getting relegated to the background. Of what? Of your own mind. Just about when you thought you got a grip on yourself . . . you slip away.

This pit is crazy. You carry it with you but still cannot reach inside and pull yourself out. It's like a nightmare from a sci-fi, you lost the code to your mind. And it remains inaccesible.

And then you sit befuddled, resting your chin on a table top. In all imaginary broodings, there's always a table and a window next to it. Not only mine, pick up any painting of a lost mind and there's a table and a window next to it. It's kinda reassuring to have those next to you. The table for resting the chin and the window to step out lest you need to. You can, but you still won't. You'll stay back and brood, because that makes you feel special. You stay in because you eventually intend to key it all in.

And then there are times when you stop wrestling and go out and stretch yourself in the sun. A good, long stretching of every bloody nerve and sinew. Look back into the room and focus on the poem framed on the wall behind the table. Can you read it from here? Can you read Rudyard Kipling's If through the clear glass?

Believe me, sometimes the room appears dark if you're standing in the sun.

Borrowed stuff

Again, I'm finding it hard to write anything. So here's from a borrowed e-mail someone forwarded:

One phrase every Bengali worth his sweater has grown up with is thanda lege jabey.
It is the ultimate warning of impending doom, an unadulterated form of existentialist advice. Thanda lege jabey.
Thou shalt 'catch the cold'.
'Catching the cold' comes easy to Bengalis. It's a skill that's acquired almost immediately after birth.
Watch a Bengali baby and you would know. Wrapped in layers of warm clothing even if the sun is boiling the mercury,
the baby learns quickly that his chances of survival in a Bengali household depend on how tightly he can wrap himself
in cotton, linen and wool.
Bengalis have almost romanticised warm clothing, so much so that Bengali art has found eloquent expression in
a form of quilt-stitchwork called kantha. I'm sure wool-shearers even in faraway Australia say a silent prayer
to Bengalis before the shearing season (if there's any such season).
I'm also sure the very thought of Bengalis sends a chill down the spine of many a sheep.
In winter, the quintessential Bengali's outfit puts the polar bear to shame. Packaged in at least seven layers
of clothing and the head snugly packed inside the queerest headgear, the monkey cap, he takes the chill head on.
Easy lies the head that wears the monkey cap. With a pom-pom at the top, it's not just a fashion statement;
it's a complete fashion paragraph.
I remember strolling down the Walk of Fame in Hollywood on a pleasant May evening.
My eyes scanned the glittering stars on the asphalt - each an ode to a Hollywood heavyweight.
Suddenly, my ears caught the unmistakable Doomsday warning - 'thanda lege jabey'. I stood transfixed.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is probably the last place one would like to get caught 'catching the cold'.
I turned around. There was this Bengali family braving the American chill. The young brat of the family was adamant
that he didn't want any more clothing but mom wouldn't have any of it - "sweater porey nao, thanda lege jabey."
I need not translate that. Mom won, and the family - sweaters et al - posed for a photograph.
For a race that is perpetually running scared of cold weather, Bengalis have a surprising affinity for hill stations.
Probably, warmth of heart is best preserved in shawls, pullovers and cardigans. In an age when you are judged by how
cool or uncool you are, the warmth that the kakus, jethus and mashimas exude can melt icebergs.
I wouldn't trade that warmth for any amount of cool. However, the monkeycap may look cool without the pom-pom.

This email is confidential. If you are not the addressee tell the sender immediately that you are not a Bengali and destroy your monkey cap.