• Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration: courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth. ( H.L. Mencken)
  
• The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. (G.B. Shaw)

I guess these two quotes represent my thoughts like nothing I will write can. Tomorrow I will write about an atheist social reformer from Bengal, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, one man with his eyes open in an ocean full of blind fools from 19th century Bengal. Point is, that bloke managed to survive. How, we will see tomorrow.

Bombay

When I came to, I felt something heavy on me. It turned out to be Mala aunty. Her body. She wasn't moving so I pushed her over to the other side of the seat and tried to get up myself. I couldn't. A terrible pain shot through my shoulder straight to my head.

And that's all I remembered. Later at the hospital people told me that our driver was the only one who died in the crash. Everybody else survived, including me with a broken shoulder. Bombay was under waist-deep water, as the TV newscaster kept updating me every hour and I was happy to be in this private cabin with a TV in it. There were no visitors apart from Sucharita, who happened to be in the second car that Saturday. But Sucharita had her family, her job, and Bombay was flooded.

I tried but couldn't remember the face of our driver. He was in a white uniform that day and it was a rented car. Who was he, what was his name? Did he have a family? I couldn't push away these thoughts from my mind and there wasn't anybody to answer them anyways. The nurse was kinda nonchalant with a saccharine smile and had a stock "I Don't Know" answer to any question. She had very white teeth that shone like diamonds on her face.

Sucharita informed me that my dad was trying to come over to Bombay but could not because of the floods and disrupted air services. Apparently all the flights to and from Bombay were either being cancelled or postponed indefinitely. What a fuck-all city, I thought. But then this was the city that accepted me in its folds and gave me a life. I got a plush job right after coming here. I met Sucharita, possibly the most warm person I've ever met. I found an identity for myself, so how can I possibly blame Bombay?

My doc had a few assistants whom she brought along on her visits every morning. One of them was this really handsome Marathi resident doc with Dr Bahutuley printed on his name tag. I almost wished he would come alone one day, but that was probably not to be. Maybe my bandaged face doesn't appeal to him at all, who knows.

"Hello baba, did you manage to get a ticket?"

"Yes darling, I got one for day after . . . just hang on my brave girl, I'll be right there with you. Just hang on...am sure the flights will resume by then..." my dad always sounded hopeful. Man, he is my hero, my entire reserve of positive energy comes from him. Don't I love him!

The nurse took me to the OT to get my stitches removed one morning. And guess what, like in a fairytale story, Dr Bahutuley was there. I just mustered all my courage and asked his name. Rohan, he smiled. And during the entire exercise (which was rather painful now that I think of it) we made light conversation and I even managed to ask him to come visit me sometime.

And he kept his promise. He came over one evening when he was off his duty...just before he had to catch his train home. He came with a bunch of white flowers. Maybe from the florist's right in front of my window?

"I'll be going away for a while," I told him, "for about four months, precisely."

"What about your job?"

"Oh, I will join the Calcutta office after about a couple of months and work from there for another couple of months."... "Will you call?" I blurted, suddenly not very shy anymore. Baba was arriving that night. His rather wan smile made me cringe and suddenly I felt like kicking my butt. Shit, why did I have to do this? Didn't I see the scar on my cheek? I look pathetic, oh shit...

Back in Calcutta things were different. Ma cried for almost an hour from the airport till we reached home. We must thank god you survived the car crash, why did you have to go out on the weekend at all? I must go to Kalighat and offer my prayers...and I hugged her with my left arm and cried too. Just felt so good to be back home, with my folks who probably were the only ones who loved me with all they had. The cosmetic surgeon said it was possible to cure the scar on my cheek that ran down till my neck. But it had to heal first.

A couple of days later there were these serial blasts in Bombay. In the local trains. In a train in front of the hospital where I was admitted. We were all shell-shocked, numbed by the reports on TV. I went mum for the entire evening. Ma held me as I wiped my tears. These were the places where I used to go to. And now there were body parts strewn all over. It could have been me. Ma kept saying "don't you worry, you don't have to go back to Bombay any more. Stay with us, baby...you'll get a job here..." when I got a call on my cell.

"Hello?"

"Hey, just wanted to tell you that I'm fine." It was Dr Rohan. Rohan.

And that moment I knew I had to go back to Bombay soon. It was where I belonged.

of blazers and apples

First Shikha got married. And then Dilreen. I went to Shikha's wedding with a lot a trepidation. In a wedding full of mercs and huge pajeros, where will I park my puny 100 cc mobike? Will they allow me entry? Will my borrowed jacket look out of place? Will someone be able to tell it is borrowed?

In Delhi, a place where your clothes decide the kind of respect you'd be able to elicit from its denizens, these worries are rather commonplace. And I am an ordinary man with the natural fears that come with being an ordinary man. I've even seen people renting dummy cellphones just to flaunt at a wedding, and Shikha had to get married at a time when I couldn't even afford a proper dinner jacket. Even a blazer, for that matter. Couldn't she have waited?

But there are these large-hearted souls who are almost godsent one can say. Even in a cutthroat, ruthless city like Delhi where oneupmanship rules, there was one kind soul Nischal. Nischal was a size smaller than me, but he wore bigger jackets. And he allowed me to wear his for the big night. Shikha's big night, that is.

So I parked my mobike a couple of hundred meters away and walked to where the celebrations were. My poor wife, who must have been pretty ashamed of her husband's humble existence, was with me. Ritu was there with her husband. Atanu and Shantanu, wearing kurtas. Dilreen was as usual her resplendent self, looking brighter than the bride. She just had to be the cynosure of all eyes. Maybe she's a Leo, will ask and find out today. Soma came ahead and gave me a bear hug. Thank god for people like Soma who can make you feel comfortable even when you have a 50p coin in your pocket, wearing an expensive jacket that's not yours. (I must write an e-mail to her today.) Wifey dear was a little floored by all the lights and action. Both of us looked at the celebrations and must have thought about how much money these people have and what a colossal waste it is to marry like this.

Ritu spotted me and came forward...
"Hey, you're looking so handsome..." she announced, making all the heads turn. I almost cringed in embarrassment but would have recovered if she didn't come up with a killer "whose jacket are you wearing today?" right after that.

"Oh, this is Nischal's. I also had Anirban's jacket as a backup." I offered pretty boldly, flashing the best possible smile I could muster. Someone patted my back. I turned around but couldn't see anybody.

Her joke wasted, Ritu laughed, along with the others who noticed the incident. And then we forgot all about it.

Until it was turn for Dilreen to get married. I just could not go this time.

Still haven't been able to buy that blazer, or suit, or whatever. Every time I thought I should buy one or even a couple, I always ended up at the next jeans store. As for weddings, most of our peers are either already married or divorced and not thinking of marrying again. Thank god again.

Another POV

I've always wanted to pick up the Oakland accent, grow huge muscles and roam around in a red Dodge Ram, with hip-hop blaring from the dozen speakers on the bull bar . . . now that's living kingsize, if you ask me. The losers who pretend to be intellectually superior, could never become boxers, so try to make up by reading a lot.

I've always wanted tattoos on my biceps, wear wrist bands, ride huge harleys, and have flowing blonde hair. That's like making a statement. The losers who pretend to be world tourers on BMWs are just that . . . losers. They end up writing books that never sell.

Sometimes I've wanted to be an ace shooter, ready to kill for a price and shooting sitting pumpkins from my window.

And right now, I have someone's head in mind. Is anybody ready to pay me?

Deconstructing Bengali Gods

Now out of the 3,300,000 gods that populate the night sky (the Hindu gods alone), the Bengalis have fancied only a handful. This article will be about those gods and what they mean to a quintessential Bengali. And also why they were handpicked out of those billions out there.

The bidhatas, or the almighty (almighties, because we love every kind of plural), are only three: the trinity, or Brohma, Bishnu, and Moheswor. If you think these spellings are a little offbeat, these are how we Bengalis love to pronounce their names. Brohma is the creator, so we don't disturb him much. He has created every conceivable thing and is perhaps happily floating in weightless space. He has conquered the dimension of time, and that involves a lot of hypothetical physics, which I'm no master of. So, like most Bengalis have done, I will leave Brohma alone. I hope he knows how to avoid being sucked into a black hole.

Bishnu, again, I don't know much about. I heard he had mastered the art of cloning himself and sent many of his clones to earth to save it from imminent disasters, and he may also have met Noah at some point of time. I won't be surprised if they exchanged notes over a cup of coffee sometime. I cannot really say he has succeeded in saving the earth much. All his clones went back leaving behind stories and myths surrounding their heroics.

Moheswor is actually Sib (or Shiva). The story starts getting interesting from here. Sib, as we all know and as many of the babas are trying to figure up there in the Himalayas, knew the perfect way to salvation. Leave home, forego your family and material pleasures, and go up to the Himalayas in search of good hash. If it's wet, burn it a little and dry it up. Stuff it into a cigarette and puff once. Puff twice...and you know where he has reached. Stretch your arms and try to fly away to him. Sib has attracted the fancy of men and women alike. Women even have a special prayer called Siboratri, during which they pray for husbands like Sib. If it is for his phallus, which is almost a legend by itself and is his sole symbol on earth, then it probably makes some sense. Indian men are not known to have phalluses like Africans as rumor has it. And if one Indian lady (whom I don't want to name here) can swear that Africans have bigger ones, we cannot possibly blame Indian women for their prayers. May their heartfelt prayers be answered.

After the bidhatas, come the mere gods. And here things get a little chaotic. At this level, the gods can be seen clamouring for space. Space in the mind of a Bengali, because that's where salvation lies for a god, doesn't it? And at this level you get a clear picture of the class divide that is so prevalent up there. There are the elite gods who are out of bounds for the lower castes of Bengalis. Then there is a snake goddess, and many others. Let me come to them one by one.

Durga is perhaps the most beautiful lady who comes visiting us once every year. She has a dudhey aalta complexion, the typical Israeli or even Punjabi complexion you get to see. Flawless. You dare not tell her that she has a slightly oily skin, she can get very touchy about such issues. Durga comes as the goddess of good harvest, as the savior, as the love of every Bengali heart. The fervour with which we wait for her homecoming is perhaps comparable to Europe waiting for Christmas. (Not so much the Americans because they're mostly spent after waiting in front of the discount stores during Thanksgiving. They probably sleep during Christmas, but like I don't know much about Bishnu, I don't know much about the Americans either.) And to wait for the idols being painted and dressed at Kumartuli is another beauty altogether. You sit there with a bowl of jaggery and puffed rice, watching the master sculptors bringing life to the numerous idols.

And finally when she is on earth, we try every possible trick up our sleeves to make those four days longer. We stay up till 6 in the morning, roaming around the streets, visiting the pandals, walking like we never walked all through the year in this Mardi Gras, and still don't fall sick. We eat from the roadside stalls, and still our usually weak gastronomies are not challenged. We survive Durga Puja and are left wiping our tears. If you ever experience a live bishorjon (immersion of the idol on the fourth day), you're bound to find your eyes full. Can seem inexplicable, but it's so universally true. So true!

The French Bengalis, who reside in Chandernagore and speak only Bengali and French, have a French Durga in place, who is lovingly called Jagadhaatri (or, the one who's held the world in her womb). Everything about Jagadhaatri is similar to Durga, only in a smaller scale, and restricted only to Chandernagore. I cannot imagine experiencing similar emotions during Jagadhaatri Puja, but would love to visit Chandernagore to see the lights. Someday.

Some of our Bengali gods are even more pricey. They come once in four years wearing the yellow jersey of Brazil. The chaos that ensues in Bengal during the football puja is best not written about. I owe allegiance to the gods above and if I show an iota of extra love for our Brazilian gods, I may invoke the wrath of god knows who.

Back to the gods, some are really not so lucky. The average upper-class hilsa loving Bengali does not worship Manasa, the snake goddess. She is worshipped mostly in the suburbs and remote villages where the snakes pose a threat. Even Santoshi Ma, who is about 150 years old and is mostly considered from the neighboring state of Bihar, is not worshipped in Calcutta households. This not-so-subtle discrimination among gods has gone unnoticed all these years, but nobody's complaining. And even if they do, Indra, the king of the gods, wouldn't probably have the time to listen.

Indra is another colorful character. When he does have time from watching those endless strip-tease and pole dancing shows, he's known to be thinking of some bollywood sirens. I don't want to elaborate, but not a single Bengali worships Indra.

They do worship some of Indra's qualities though. Indra is a connoisseur of good liquor, and Bengalis are no exception. And their favorite watering hole is Someplace Else at the basement of The Park on Park Street. However, there's a huge debate about whether Bengalis visit Someplace Else for its drinks or the couple of gods who perform there. If you hear one speaking about Nandanda or Kochuda, you know about the two new gods in town. They are reincarnations of Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Mark Knopfler, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, JJ Cale, you name it . . . oh, how could I forget John Lennon, Bob Dylan, or even Dave Gilmour? The Bengali is very touchy about the god named Robert Zimmerman, although one may argue whether he had any sense of music in his peanut-sized head. If you like Tambourine Man, the Bengali will buy you a large drink.

So, let's raise a toast to some of our gods here. Here's to you, all you up there and deep in our collective Bengali psyche. You guys sure rock.

How are you?

When I asked you how you are, I wanted to know how you've been and not that you've been to Tasmania lecturing on animal husbandry. I did not ask about your new Mitsubishi Pajero, just about how you are. For old times' sake.

Nonetheless, you featured in my fantasy last night. And as I lay there, creating and perfecting the imagery in my mind, I knew I had to be a little careful with you in my dreams. You are kinda point blank. You, despite being a girl, straightaway want action. While I, despite being a man, believe in foreplay and something before that as well. Do not undress in a second. Can you hold on for a bit? The tease? The gradual removal of each piece of cloth too has a charm of its own. I do like to see those little pink flowers, but I'm in no hurry, this is just a dream and I have a lot of time.

I went behind you and touched your long hair . . . it is still as lustrous as they advertise in those shampoo ads. Or do you use some brunette hair thickener? I planted a slight kiss on your neck and saw your eyes close. Did they close in pleasure or in reminiscence of what happened last time? As I was about to turn you around for a fuller kiss, you moved away, and before I could even say 'no,' you were naked, sitting there like a huge ameobic lump of white flesh on the hotel bed, your dress flung toward the door. The pink flowers were magenta now and the hair on your crotch still brown...but they faded soon.

I turned around and went off to sleep.

Some more

"I know how to change a tire, how come you don't?"

"We're talking about motorcycles here, June."

"But I thought a motorcycle has a spare tire?"

And then fleeting memories of the Czech classic Jawa with a spare tire tied to the side came to all of us. We came out of the pantry like zombies. The Jawa kaleidoscope went on . . .

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

"Do you have a 50p coin?" she's been asking almost everybody for about a week.
Finally Shantanu found a 50p coin and gave it to her.

"Yippeeeeeeeee!"

"What?"

" He he, now I have Rs 10 worth of coins!"

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

Lean out your window, golden hair...

Aaron's first ride

That's him, lifting the visor to give the photographer in the jeep a better view.

We rode to the forests of Mudumalai, 250 kms from Bangalore . . .

all the curves

all the fucking curves are sinusoidal
so, buy a recliner and wait for the peaks . . .
throw in a little football, a Thai woman on your lap
and blast away. . .

there was this video, i tell you
and when i saw what she did to him
i bought a ticket to Thailand in my next dream

if i buy a waterbed and some hot charcoal
you'll know i've found my Thai woman
holed up in a hole
now that was bad rhyming, but i don't wanna rhyme
all i want is to tell u a story of when things are blue
relax . . .
this will pass too . . .

When do we turn cowards?

Ten years ago if he asked me to lift a chair and bang it on someone's head, I would happily have done it. For him. Only he did not ask me to. He taught me the virtues of being righteous. Of being able to face myself in the mirror.

Yes, yesterday I lifted a liter of sunflower oil from the grocer's.
I was wrong.
I won't repeat it.

If you cannot manage with your monthly allowance, check where you are overspending. You smoke. Quit smoking. I quit smoking and could save a considerable amount. Did not need to go back to shoplifting. Even for fun. The girls continued to lift cards though. They were richer than us. Spoilt. And we have no choice but to eventually marry one of them. If only they looked like Winona Ryder.

He introduced us to jazz. And Hindustani classical. Some raga-based Bengali music too. He cooked for us. Spent on us. We were street urchins. Students. He was the only one with a job. A decent job. I also remember him buying music for us.

And then there were the clueless among us. Clueless about where to go from here. After college.
They all came to him. Some of them found some focus in life. Some even had their future careers moulded by him. His mason hands . . . how many dreams did they build and realize? Countless, I guess. We were parasites. Only he didn't think so. He chose to be a mentor to an entire generation of students in Banaras.

When I met him last Saturday being produced to court, handcuffed like a hardened criminal, I did not know how to react. His wife committed suicide last year and she was a proven schizophrenic. We avoided her for various reasons. She had managed to steal the perpetual smile from his face in the four years she was married to him. And then she chose to nail him for life by taking her own life, leaving a one-year old kid in the other room.

I would have said good riddance, only she did not let him go. Her family filed a murder case against him. And a "harrassment for dowry" case, which is absolutely ridiculous. I know the truth, so do the plaintiffs. Everybody does, probably even the honorable judge.

And his brother has run out of money running from one lawyer to another, being conned at every step in an alien land. The current lawyer is competent, he can probably get him out of this mess, but has quoted an absurd amount.

Dunno really where this is headed. I am now trying to gather some money for the hapless brother, Chhoton. He was silently wiping his tears sitting on a bench the other day. And I was like an apparition, standing there almost invisible, doing nothing to comfort him. Being held back by my cowardice. By strange voices in my head which ask me to stay away.

Where is the other me? Will he emerge soon? He doesn't have much time, though. The next hearing is on July 17. And where will he get all that money from?

I guess its back to being clueless again. Somehow, this time, it is more bleak than ever.

the last month

the bitch died last week. i saw her lying in the drain for many days. my windows were rolled up. even after they took her away.
someone asked me to start writing a story, only i didn't have a story.
missed someone all through the month...am quite surprised too...wondering why.
the girl with curly locks came to my dreams and made love to me. after we'd danced.
just last night in one dream i had to hide in someone's bathroom.
starched all my bedsheets. am sleeping on the mattress now.
watched A Prelude to a Kiss but did not like it. I guess I am out of mush.
i ran her washing machine while she was lying in a pool of puke. two days, two nights. no rehab for her.
i'm flying to Tampa in my next dream. gottu give her a scrub. and then make love to her in a tub full of soap water.

The Mystery of the Faded Brown Panties

The sun had traveled quite some distance into the sky when i realized that i am wearing a pair of faded brown panties. In the morning when i dressed, i mistook them to be my magenta pair of briefs and happily wore them, only feeling a tad more comfortable and snug. . . what the hell, it must be because it's shrunk, i thought, and came to the office.

Once in the loo, I got this almost Mr Beanish shock, chasing a couple of men away who must have had mistaken it to be a bout of schizophrenia. I rushed home soon after.

Once home, a detailed scrutiny revealed that they did not belong to my wife, and as far as I could remember, i had not been divesting women of any faded brown panties in the recent past . . . so the mystery deepened.

Searching for possible causes and clues, i worked back to where i picked these panties up from. They were in my backpack, which had recently traveled to Kerala with me, and to Calcutta before that. i remember having emptied the contents after the Calcutta trip, and . . . well . . . things got fuzzy after this much of thinking and i gave up. Made myself a strong vodka, removed the panties, folded them and kept them under my pillow. And went off to sleep.

In my dream i took them out from under the pillow and sniffed at them once, but i strongly insist that it was just in the dream. They smelt kind of nice, faintly of some talcum powder and Surf excel, I think. Smells from a dream are not very trustworthy, you know.

The next morning they were still there, under my pillow, probably smirking at my bewilderment. The only person i can go to when I am bewildered is my wife. She was not around, but despite knowing that this is a sensitive issue, I could not help calling her up. So i called up my wife and told her about the mystery, and after some heated discussion for about half an hour (oh my STD bills!!), finally convinced her that i was not to be held responsible for the sudden appearance of this thing in my life. The solution, she said, was to get some sniffer dogs do the job for me, and as going to the police would mess up things a bit, we decided that i should contact a private detective.

Now sleuths, no matter how charismatic and intelligent they appear in those stories and films, can be rather painful in real life, as I discovered to my utter chagrin when i went the next day to "black label detective agency (we trace the owner of those panties in your husband's pocket)". The uncanny statement within parentheses made me wriggle a little in those panties (oh shit, i was wearing them again almost by inertia), and a shiver went through my spine.

Finding out the place itself thoroughly tested my garbled sense of local geography, and after having met the fat, bald, suited, sweaty-palmed private investigator VD ("as in the disease" he insisted) Gupta, my hopes of this mystery being solved were dashed forever. But wife's instructions were not to be ignored, so i accepted the seat he offered, and stared blankly at VD's yellow teeth for a while, before i finally started speaking.

"Interesting, umm, very intriguing indeed" said VD after I finished. And slipped into what seemed like a deep thought for about ten minutes, at the end of which he said "can I see the object?"

"What object?" i was definitely puzzled, not familiar with detective jargon, only to realize that he was talking about the "object" in question. I explained that there was a technical problem, as I was wearing them at that moment. He promptly sorted out the problem by suggesting that I remove them in the toilet and hand them over to him. So done, VD scrutinized the object at length, which also involved a bout of sniffing (with knotted eyebrows) and asked me to leave the object with him. I came home, thinking I should have asked him about his fees.

*****

Back in the office, I saw Aniket waiting for me. Aniket is this fat, black moustache with a man attached to it.

"Umm, err...can you give me the keys to your place?" he asked, looking rather sheepish.

"Why, sure! You wanna spend tonight at my place again? No problem. But why now? Can't we go together after office?"

"I ... well ... umm ... but, can you gimme the keys? I left some of my stuff in your backpack last night."

After that incident, Aniket never came to my place to watch football. And I discovered that panties are costlier than men’s briefs. But I don’t mind spending that extra buck.

Hanuman

For some Indians, the langur is a revered monkey god. Mostly for North Indians. They worship Hanuman, a symbol of devotion and strength.

For Bengalis, though, the word Hanuman is an invective. If somebody is monkeying around, you can call him/her a hanuman. So here's a picture of two hanumans from my neighborhood, one of whom happens to be my son, Aaron.

A male polecat always rapes a female polecat. I saw this happening on Discovery.
And then some lions managed to kill a baby elephant. Some crazy guys were in a Land Rover shooting everything from within a few meters.

I like the harmonica in Sting's Something the Boy Said. I've been listening to a lot of stuff by Sting of late. And I kept an eye on that bitch I thought would die from its wounds.

She is healing. I saw her yesterday looking much better. Even she appeared to have been brutally raped.

And this morning I admired my motorcycle for a good 30 minutes. It will take my son on his first long ride to the Bandipur National Forest. Infested with elephants. One of those elephants chased me on my 33rd birthday, did I tell you? Chased us. Because I was leaning out of the van with my handycam, trying to capture her at close quarters.

She too had a baby elephant following her. Maybe she was raped too by an Indian bull.

By the way, my motorcycle is a bullet, fondly called a bull.

grey uniform

sometimes, walking in a long corridor you feel rather lonely. there are glass doors on both sides and then miles of plyboard walls. and neon lights on top that kinda blur after a while. if you shake your head and try to clear your vision, you will see people in grey uniform, almost invisible, cleaning the carpet, wiping the walls. you don't feel so lonely again. once i tried looking at one of these uniformed species and tried a smile. the uniform smiled back.

although i couldn't recognize him the next day, i made it a point to smile at most of the grey uniforms that looked at me. and then one day i spoke to one of them. he asked me if i'd had breakfast. a funny question and he has nothing to do with it, but i guess that is considered a courteous question. to ask if one has had breakfast or lunch or dinner according to the time of the day or night you meet. usually, the neons blur when the mp3 player is playing Golden Hair, but by the time it comes to Sting, they brighten up. all in the mind, i tell you. what if i tell him i haven't had breakfast? what will he do?

so another day i smiled at one of the uniforms (by now i could distinguish one from another). he smiled back and asked if i'd had breakfast. i told him i haven't and that i am rather hungry. he asked me if i had a coupon to buy breakfast from the cafetaria. i said i didn't have one. the uniform promptly took out one booklet of coupons and offered me one. we don't need these coupons, they do. i don't have food upstairs at the cafetaria. i can go out and have crabs or fish. the uniform has to have it here because he probably cannot afford to. but his generosity in offering a coupon was unfathomable to me. didn't he just sacrifice one meal?

i took the coupon and walked up. the song had changed to Fields of Gold by then and the sun shone brilliantly through the glass roof.

the next day it wasn't lonely in the corridor any more. there were real people there, some cleaning the floor, some wiping the walls . . . real people with real smiles. and no need for an mp3 player.

deaths

long time, mate. when death came rushing to my head, i wondered why they came once every two years. since 98. why it sat quietly in one corner for 23 years.

and if i didn't want my mom to die, why let her die? if she had unfulfilled dreams, so do i, of taking her to the himalayas again. till she died. but she died much before.

if you are sitting in front of a little boy who's dying of cancer, how many toys will his heaven have? count the number of videogames, soccer balls, chocolate trees before you go to sleep today. if tomorrow you are sitting in front of him, and he knows he's dying, tell him the biggest lie. and let him die smiling.

hey, you can hold on to a soul if you don't wanna let it go. i tried doing it. works for me even after six years of my mother's death. i was never a mama's boy. never knew her much. but now i do. she's reading Desh even as i write this, the glasses thick and heavy on her nose.

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.

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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.