1. I like you
It was mid 80s I think; It was 11:30 PM, perhaps 12:00 in Dehradun that night. I was in an old house that belonged to an old Anglo-Indian lady who had gone away to Australia and the house was at our disposal. The fireplace was lit and blankets were laid out. I wandered into the old library and found a silly poem by Sandol Stoddard Warburg called "I like you" that I have always remembered with great fondness. It is a long poem and I found a link to it by doing a google search. Read it here in its entirety.
I like you
And I know why
I like you because
You are a good person
To like
I like you because
When I tell you something special
You know it's special
And you remember it
A long long time
You say
Remember when you told me
Something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
You think it's important too
When I say something funny
You laugh
I think I'm funny and
You think I'm funny too
[..]
I thought of this this morning as I woke up. Somethings just stay with you.
2. It was a dark and stomy night
It was 11:30 or 12 at night again, this time in the countryhouse of a friend in Chico, California in the 90s. I sat sitting in the guest bedroom speaking with him when he clued me in on Bulwer-Lytton contest. As you may recall, Bulwer-Lytton wrote the worst opening lines for a work of fiction ever when he started his novel Paul Clifford with "It was a dark and stomy night." Every year, this is celebrated with a contest to submit the worst opening line and winners are selected based on originality and cleverness. Read all about it here.
3. Mahabharata
Unfortunately, most Hindus do not read the Mahabharata. Their knowledge of the book comes primarily from comic books or TV serials. Even if you have read it, it is probably the abridged version stripped off all the fun and nuance. Most importantly, stripped off the endless additions and subtractions of the later periods. I highly recomment the University of Chicago editions with commentaries by J. A. B. van Buitenen and after his death, by James L. Fitzgerald. The best traslation of the work that I have seen so far, particularly because of excellent commentaries. You can order them here.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
The Sow That Eats Her Farrow
1. The title of this post is a quote from James Joyce about Irish Nationalism. America has to look at itself a little bit more and ask some tough questions.
2. I think Sarah Silverman is quite attractive. She has the brains and the looks that make her quite ahem.. whatstheword... sexy. Jesus is magic is witty and at the same time gross. I wish she would spend less time talking about eating things off of her boyfriend's penis.
3. The thing I love the most about air travel, even after all these years, this the way the clouds look when looking down from the top. I love all those hills and valleys and often fantasize about running out of the plane and on the cloud top. It would have been convenient if I was made of cotton candy.
4. The oldest recording of music I have on my iPOD is a 1906 recording of Raag Bahar by Ud. Abdul Karim Khan that I got from the All India Radio archives.
5. So a certain state in the US has made it mandatory for all hospital patients to state their race so they can be "provided culturally appropriate care." I find this insulting and offensive. If I had the time and inclination, I would write to my representative. The only culturally appropriate care I expect and deserve is the best care the hospital can provide for all its patients. Is that so wrong?
6. Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins. - Kafka
7. Prediction for 2008: Obama is going to self destruct with an affair or some other scandal. I can almost smell it. Hillary is pompous and self important; she will not get any grassroots dem support. But she will get nominated and Guilliani will eat the lunch out of her hand. It is bloody frustrating.
8. Are you thinking what I am thinking?
9. Current issue of Time magazine quotes a porn star, Stormy Daniels, on how high-resolution DVD format will accentuate physical imperfections. Does this elevate Stormy Daniels to a legitimate spokesperson of porn (and elevate porn to a legitimate business) or trivialize Time to what it has actually become, a terrible rag that reflects nothing but the absolute middle in all opinions? Then again, porn is a $57 billion industry worldwide ($12 in the US.) So, it stands to reason that everyone who owns a computer participates in the consumption of the industry in some way or the other.
10. I just wanted ten things for this. But I only feel like writing nine things. So this is just a bogus point just so it seems like a nice round set of well-considered observations. Shame on me!
2. I think Sarah Silverman is quite attractive. She has the brains and the looks that make her quite ahem.. whatstheword... sexy. Jesus is magic is witty and at the same time gross. I wish she would spend less time talking about eating things off of her boyfriend's penis.
3. The thing I love the most about air travel, even after all these years, this the way the clouds look when looking down from the top. I love all those hills and valleys and often fantasize about running out of the plane and on the cloud top. It would have been convenient if I was made of cotton candy.
4. The oldest recording of music I have on my iPOD is a 1906 recording of Raag Bahar by Ud. Abdul Karim Khan that I got from the All India Radio archives.
5. So a certain state in the US has made it mandatory for all hospital patients to state their race so they can be "provided culturally appropriate care." I find this insulting and offensive. If I had the time and inclination, I would write to my representative. The only culturally appropriate care I expect and deserve is the best care the hospital can provide for all its patients. Is that so wrong?
6. Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins. - Kafka
7. Prediction for 2008: Obama is going to self destruct with an affair or some other scandal. I can almost smell it. Hillary is pompous and self important; she will not get any grassroots dem support. But she will get nominated and Guilliani will eat the lunch out of her hand. It is bloody frustrating.
8. Are you thinking what I am thinking?
9. Current issue of Time magazine quotes a porn star, Stormy Daniels, on how high-resolution DVD format will accentuate physical imperfections. Does this elevate Stormy Daniels to a legitimate spokesperson of porn (and elevate porn to a legitimate business) or trivialize Time to what it has actually become, a terrible rag that reflects nothing but the absolute middle in all opinions? Then again, porn is a $57 billion industry worldwide ($12 in the US.) So, it stands to reason that everyone who owns a computer participates in the consumption of the industry in some way or the other.
10. I just wanted ten things for this. But I only feel like writing nine things. So this is just a bogus point just so it seems like a nice round set of well-considered observations. Shame on me!
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Movies as manufactured pasts
In the lackadaisical summer afternoons of my early youth, during vacations, I was often stuck in places which were not fully towns yet not fully villages. They were backwaters of towns where the markets and sleepy town-stores thrusted themselves in the middle of fields and lost in the serendipity of provincial comfort. These places played a role in shaping who I am, my thinking and how I look at the world. The city, when I yielded myself back to its cavernous folds after the vacation, carried me up into them without ceremony and I was lost in its procession of movement. The summers on the other hand were not quite idyllic and yet not cacophonous; they provided me an outlet and time to synthesize the movements and events around me to create a reflected opinion of the world around me.
In the middle of these semi-rural places was always a temple that stood as the anchor point of their respective existence. These temples were the storehouse of shared and collective experiences of the whole place, that kept a record of the ethnography, migration, social history and political watermark of the population. Their festivals were the milestones by which events were marked and remembered. Temples were not about the religion at all, they were congregational places where people gathered to share gossip and ask after each other while circumambulating around the sanctum sanctorum. A sad death of a cow was noted with a nod, a birth was celebrated with an open smile and the secret story of an affair was shared with meaningful half-smiles.
This provincial memory is perhaps why I am a fan of Hrishikesh Mukherji and Basu Chatterji movies. Growing up in Bombay, I was not attracted to Hindi film as a medium. I avoided them as much as possible primarily because I did not "get" the sensibility of Indian movies. I discovered them with a passion when I came to America and slowly learned to go past the obvious and appreciate Indian movies as a genre, much like opera or nautanki and not compare them with movies from other places. Hrishikesh Mukherji opened the door to a hidden India that I appreciated from memory.
I find the heroes of those movies quite satisfying. They are members of the eternal class that is perennially becoming middle-class. They are at the verge of things happening to them; they are educated and decent and have jobs with full potential to become something very respectable. Most of them are not manly-men full of machismo and righteous anger, but they are accountants and officers with a flair for manipulating the truth and an appreciation for a good time not peppered with violence. They fall in love with women who have lazy hairstyles and casual habits in wearing their clothes, but are satisfied and happy. They are not horrible or mean, nor are they slutty or bitter. These women, while they work and are independent, are the perfect matches for the earnest yet lacking-in-confidence heroes.
And most of them, the leading ladies and leading men, do not have their mothers. If they indeed have mothers, they are conveniently not present in the movies. One gets the impression that the cheery disposition of the characters is partially due to the absence of the mother figure. Fathers are mostly absent too; if present they are benevolent absent-minded fools who are happy to float through life preaching values that they seldom hold that dear.
Of course, none of this would work in the absence of Utpal Dutt (and rarely Ashok Kumar). As far as I am concerned, Utpal Dutt remained the reason why these movies worked. To be happy in this world meant that one had to be in the company of Dutt, either as a potential son-in-law or as an acquaintance. He was a teacher, a boss or a police inspector who brings order to your life, not that the life these movies described were by any means orderless.
I also like the fact that they movies lack conspicuous villains. They don’t have dacoits waiting to rape fair maidens or urban dons smuggling gold biscuits through Versova beach. Most of the time, the only villain is the circumstance. Misunderstandings and misplaced expectations conspire to deprive our hero of his rightful access to the woman of his dreams. Yet, he does not resort to force; he uses wit and persistence (and a dash of chicanery) to win her from a more dashing and confident opponent or a stubborn and traditional father. You know that they are going to live happily ever after just as soon as they tie the knot.
Sisters also play a great part in these movies. They may be boring and annoying but they love their families and dot on their brothers. They are very proud of their brothers’ achievements and are quite selfless in the way they go about keeping the whole universe in order. In that regard, they act as the counterpoint to Utpal Dutt. The horrible fate of being raped and murdered (and murder right after the rape in a natural consequence in all the movies to preserve the modesty of these women) that befalls the sisters of Amitabh Bachchan and other more manly heroes escapes them. Their world lacks evil impulses of murderers and rapists. Their world is often populated by a greedy goldsmith or a drunken watchman, but such annoyances can be easily dealt with. In the 70s and 80s India of small towns were actually more like this than the world of Amitabh Bachchan anyway.
The fact that very little happens other than the micro-story in the micro-society gives these movies a certain familiar intimacy. It is like being part of a family story or attending the wedding of a relative. You know them almost. Even when the story is set in a big city like Bombay, the stories have a small town feel because the camera focuses on the few actors who make their small world, just as it dos in yours and mine. There is something to be said about doing well what you do best.
One day I hope to own the whole collection of these movies for my library. Not because I regard them as good cinema but because these movies are like chicken soup for the soul. In the real world where we face alienation and judgment and where the rush to make something out of our lives is so prominent, it is good to have something to turn to that comforts us even if it is the fake world of old movies. These movies take you back to a world that does not exist and perhaps never existed, but represent the best that existed at that part of the world at that point in time.
And for this short journey, past becomes our true companion. The past walks with us, carrying the memories, reminding us who we truly are even if we are not that and never were. The past itself may be manufactured, a phantom, yet it is a past that we need, like an imaginary friend. A friend that above all the real friends, would not abandon us when the going gets tough.
So here is to the movies for our collective manufactured pasts.
In the middle of these semi-rural places was always a temple that stood as the anchor point of their respective existence. These temples were the storehouse of shared and collective experiences of the whole place, that kept a record of the ethnography, migration, social history and political watermark of the population. Their festivals were the milestones by which events were marked and remembered. Temples were not about the religion at all, they were congregational places where people gathered to share gossip and ask after each other while circumambulating around the sanctum sanctorum. A sad death of a cow was noted with a nod, a birth was celebrated with an open smile and the secret story of an affair was shared with meaningful half-smiles.
This provincial memory is perhaps why I am a fan of Hrishikesh Mukherji and Basu Chatterji movies. Growing up in Bombay, I was not attracted to Hindi film as a medium. I avoided them as much as possible primarily because I did not "get" the sensibility of Indian movies. I discovered them with a passion when I came to America and slowly learned to go past the obvious and appreciate Indian movies as a genre, much like opera or nautanki and not compare them with movies from other places. Hrishikesh Mukherji opened the door to a hidden India that I appreciated from memory.
I find the heroes of those movies quite satisfying. They are members of the eternal class that is perennially becoming middle-class. They are at the verge of things happening to them; they are educated and decent and have jobs with full potential to become something very respectable. Most of them are not manly-men full of machismo and righteous anger, but they are accountants and officers with a flair for manipulating the truth and an appreciation for a good time not peppered with violence. They fall in love with women who have lazy hairstyles and casual habits in wearing their clothes, but are satisfied and happy. They are not horrible or mean, nor are they slutty or bitter. These women, while they work and are independent, are the perfect matches for the earnest yet lacking-in-confidence heroes.
And most of them, the leading ladies and leading men, do not have their mothers. If they indeed have mothers, they are conveniently not present in the movies. One gets the impression that the cheery disposition of the characters is partially due to the absence of the mother figure. Fathers are mostly absent too; if present they are benevolent absent-minded fools who are happy to float through life preaching values that they seldom hold that dear.
Of course, none of this would work in the absence of Utpal Dutt (and rarely Ashok Kumar). As far as I am concerned, Utpal Dutt remained the reason why these movies worked. To be happy in this world meant that one had to be in the company of Dutt, either as a potential son-in-law or as an acquaintance. He was a teacher, a boss or a police inspector who brings order to your life, not that the life these movies described were by any means orderless.
I also like the fact that they movies lack conspicuous villains. They don’t have dacoits waiting to rape fair maidens or urban dons smuggling gold biscuits through Versova beach. Most of the time, the only villain is the circumstance. Misunderstandings and misplaced expectations conspire to deprive our hero of his rightful access to the woman of his dreams. Yet, he does not resort to force; he uses wit and persistence (and a dash of chicanery) to win her from a more dashing and confident opponent or a stubborn and traditional father. You know that they are going to live happily ever after just as soon as they tie the knot.
Sisters also play a great part in these movies. They may be boring and annoying but they love their families and dot on their brothers. They are very proud of their brothers’ achievements and are quite selfless in the way they go about keeping the whole universe in order. In that regard, they act as the counterpoint to Utpal Dutt. The horrible fate of being raped and murdered (and murder right after the rape in a natural consequence in all the movies to preserve the modesty of these women) that befalls the sisters of Amitabh Bachchan and other more manly heroes escapes them. Their world lacks evil impulses of murderers and rapists. Their world is often populated by a greedy goldsmith or a drunken watchman, but such annoyances can be easily dealt with. In the 70s and 80s India of small towns were actually more like this than the world of Amitabh Bachchan anyway.
The fact that very little happens other than the micro-story in the micro-society gives these movies a certain familiar intimacy. It is like being part of a family story or attending the wedding of a relative. You know them almost. Even when the story is set in a big city like Bombay, the stories have a small town feel because the camera focuses on the few actors who make their small world, just as it dos in yours and mine. There is something to be said about doing well what you do best.
One day I hope to own the whole collection of these movies for my library. Not because I regard them as good cinema but because these movies are like chicken soup for the soul. In the real world where we face alienation and judgment and where the rush to make something out of our lives is so prominent, it is good to have something to turn to that comforts us even if it is the fake world of old movies. These movies take you back to a world that does not exist and perhaps never existed, but represent the best that existed at that part of the world at that point in time.
And for this short journey, past becomes our true companion. The past walks with us, carrying the memories, reminding us who we truly are even if we are not that and never were. The past itself may be manufactured, a phantom, yet it is a past that we need, like an imaginary friend. A friend that above all the real friends, would not abandon us when the going gets tough.
So here is to the movies for our collective manufactured pasts.
Na Jaane Kyun, Hota Hai Yeh Zindagi Ke Saath
Achaanak Yeh Mann, Kisike Jaane Ke Baad
Kare Phir Uski Yaad Chhoti Chhoti Si Baat
Jo Anjaan Pal, Dhal Gaye Kal, Aaj Woh
Rang Badal Badal, Mann Ko Machal Machal
Rahen Hai Chal, Na Jaane Kyun Woh Anjaan Pal
Saje Bhi Na Mere, Naino Mein
Toote Re Hai Re Sapno Ke Mahal
Wohi Hai Dagar, Wohi Hai Safar
Hai Nahin Saath Mere Magar Ab Mera Humsafar
Idhar Udhar Dhoonde Nazar Wohi Hai Dagar
Kahan Gayi Shaamein, Madhbhari
Woh Mere, Mere Woh Din Gaye Kidhar
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
From when I was 14
As I went to my basement to look for something, I found these two notebooks from when I was 14. And there was a lot of funny poetry in them. I read them and scaresely recognized the boy who wrote them. Here is a sample from one of the poems:
(They bombard me with questions
and answer themselves
while I look baffled)
The sibilating silence outside the classroom
reflects the mood inside
No one speaks, anxiety dwells
on every unfriendly face
The painted face of the afternoon gets pale
Evening gently takes over
with her red lips and eye shadows
As we stare at each other still sitting
How does silence sibilate? I wonder.
There was also a very long and heartfelt dedication. One day when I have nothing to write, I shall reproduce it for fun.
Is it OK to make fun of the 14 year old, even if he was me?
First Snow of the Season
The first snow of the year came too late. It is already late January. But there is something very happy about the first snow. A dusting fell in the morning and the evening brought a proper snowfall. All sins are forgiven under a blanket of white powder. It is disappointing like so many other things. Sometimes you are upset that things that could have been so much more didn't turn out that way. Things that may have had a way to bloom actually wither and all you can do is bear witness. Nothing more.
As Ginsberg wrote, yesterday I saw God. He was a lonely old man with a white beard. Except, this time, he was not in the country sitting in a cheap cottage. He was sitting outside the train station begging for small change. It was cold and he needed warmth.
I am dreaming of books showering on me. heavy thick folios falling on my head. Knowledge kills. Heavy knowledge kills instantly. Especially when bound in hard cover.
If only you could read everything I choose not to write today.
For the most depressing day of the year according to some sources, it turned out pretty good.
As Ginsberg wrote, yesterday I saw God. He was a lonely old man with a white beard. Except, this time, he was not in the country sitting in a cheap cottage. He was sitting outside the train station begging for small change. It was cold and he needed warmth.
I am dreaming of books showering on me. heavy thick folios falling on my head. Knowledge kills. Heavy knowledge kills instantly. Especially when bound in hard cover.
If only you could read everything I choose not to write today.
For the most depressing day of the year according to some sources, it turned out pretty good.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Calcutta, 1986
Where are you Sleeping away from all the pain?
thousands of miles away
those memories seem
like hollow apparitions of past selves
jaywalking over a railway track
near a mud pond where wives of fisherfolk wash their
dirty clothes ogling at the boatmen
urchins playing in the rain in grainy black and White of film-noir
paint-peeling green windows
flapping in the rainy wind
under the towering silhouettes of concrete
over a converted garage where toothless old ladies
sit staring at the night in the dark with nothing to do
you bare your face from stares of sleeping souls
tears in your eyes
lips quivering
fighting the heat
under the taxing noise of fans
away from an unused grand piano
that no one will ever play or give away
near which secrets were told
the mental patient
once broke down and cried
the middle-aged mother lost her life
right under those wndows where
I left a part of my soul
walked away into the cozy darkness
without knowing that it would be the
last of the sight
last of sound
last of life
thousands of miles away
those memories seem
like hollow apparitions of past selves
jaywalking over a railway track
near a mud pond where wives of fisherfolk wash their
dirty clothes ogling at the boatmen
urchins playing in the rain in grainy black and White of film-noir
paint-peeling green windows
flapping in the rainy wind
under the towering silhouettes of concrete
over a converted garage where toothless old ladies
sit staring at the night in the dark with nothing to do
you bare your face from stares of sleeping souls
tears in your eyes
lips quivering
fighting the heat
under the taxing noise of fans
away from an unused grand piano
that no one will ever play or give away
near which secrets were told
the mental patient
once broke down and cried
the middle-aged mother lost her life
right under those wndows where
I left a part of my soul
walked away into the cozy darkness
without knowing that it would be the
last of the sight
last of sound
last of life
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Bettiah, Bihar, Part 2
Under the influence of Gandhi, who was profoundly wrong in many things, modern India has embarked on a path that is not only disastrous but also non-sustainable. Gandhi was not an economist nor was Nehru, his intellectual counter-point in the thinking about making of the modern state. P. C. Mahalanobis, whom Nehru hired with great fanfare to be the chief economic strategist of the modern India was a traditional socialist who was under the spell of the Soviet-style central planning. Together this created a perverted set of beliefs that landed us in this current mess.This Gandhi-Nehru concept of state-building was opposed by Sardar Patel who was quickly and effectively marginalized by Nehru. The resulting system, that lasted for 30 years (and still persists in many ways and forms) has certain unique characteristics.
In a nutshell, this created a system where urban areas were allowed to decay and their resources were unevenly and inefficiently distributed to the rural areas for so-called development without any regard for sustainability. (For an interesting discussion on this topic just an example, please look at the budget figures break-up of the ministry of aviation for the top 20 airports in the country for the last 10 years. And compare the expense figures to the capital expenditure and you will find some interesting things.) Is there a different path forward? The rate of Indian urbanization is very low. At this time, I think the urban population is less than 30%. This is a huge contrast to all the other countries that dream of becoming world powers. Is it possible to grow to a strong industrial country through rural development? Lets look at an average Indian village:
In addition, with concentrated schools and non-agricultural labor creation (factories of produce) educational levels can go up significantly since factories can be (and have been) used as places for social development as well, such as literacy campaigns. With this and women's empowerment, basic mortality and birth rate statistics can be reduced and monitored better. The urbanization also helps in two other things. It helps increase land efficiency by cultivating more land with fewer people and increase non-cultivated land without reducing output. This has been done successfully in Maharashtra and Punjab. Once urbanization program starts, it is extremely important to destroy the villages and redistribute resources. This also eliminate the feudal structures and prevent relapse. Power theft and power line loss can be minimised through concentration. Eliminate cottage industry status in these newly urbanizing areas and suspend the trade unionizing to allow for basic growth to take place. It is also extremely important to break up the daroga system and hire professional policemen from all castes. patrolling becomes easier since the population is concentrated in a small area. Out of the rural population of 2.7 million, the target should be to redistribute 1.2 million to the newly urbanized zone in the first three years. And to complete the process of redistributing another 1.5 million over the next seven years. This will create a large city. But it will be a large city that can be self sustaining and is able to afford the development cost. And as the education levels increase and total local investment increases, the city can organically grow. Am I dreaming? Perhaps yes. But it has been done in other countries. And in dire ways, this scale of urbanization has been successfully tested in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra without intervention. The biggest difference has been good governance. So before I shake my head, blame bad government and walk away, at least one thing is doable. Change the mind set of rural development and embrace urbanization as the real vehicle for growth. India is not going to grow through the spinning wheel and the village, but through massive local industrialization and urban growth. It is already evident if you look at the number of Biharis fleeing bad governance and moving to the mega cities. Lets face facts and do something about it before it is too late. Adios. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a decent discussion on Caste situation in Bihar, please see Roy, Ramashray, Caste and political recruitment in Bihar, from Caste in Indian Politics, pp 215-244, Kothari, Rajni., Ed., Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2004. More general discussion on Communinalism can be found in Pandey, G, The construction of commununalism in Colonial North India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1990. For a decent discussion on the development of Bihar under the British, please refer to Yang, Anand A., Bazar India - markets, Society, and the colonial state of Bihar, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998. A different model of development model can be found in Parayil, Govindan, Ed., Kerala, the development experience (reflections on sustainability and replicability), Zed Books, London, 2000. I find the papers by Shrum and Ramanathaiyer; Veron and Kurien particularly fascinating. |
Example of a Flawed Strategy: Rural Development Bringing pumps to people: A five-point strategy for poverty reduction by bring water pumps to villages The research summarized here analyzes factors that have influenced the success and failure of groundwater development schemes in India. Based on these studies, five points are recommended for policy action: _ Discontinue government minor irrigation programs and focus on private tube wells as the primary mode for bringing groundwater irrigation to poor communities. _ Improve electricity supply for agriculture by reintroducing metered charging, decentralized retailing of electricity, and prepaid electricity cards. _ Promote the modification of pump sets to improve the energy efficiency of groundwater pumping, reduce pollution and lower the sale price of water to poor users. _ Introduce small diesel pumps and manual irrigation technologies for vegetable growers and marginal farmers. _ Remove pump subsidies and open the market to the import of smaller micro-diesel pumps, such as the Chinese equipment used in Pakistan and Bangladesh. If this is not practical, a useful alternative is to redesign pump-subsidy schemes along the lines of the Uttar Pradesh Free Boring Scheme. (Taken from IWMI-TATA Policy Paper, this is for a place where water resource overuse is over 32% How this is sustainable is beyond me.) |
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Bettiah, Bihar: A case for Urbanization Part 1
West Champaran district in the northern part of Bihar is one of the worst places in the world to be in. Champaran’s only claim to fame was as the site of the Gandhian satyagraha named in its likeness in 1917. After the independence, when India embarked on five year plans and slow infrastructure development, places like West Champaran were forgotten. There are no navigable roads or electricity in most places. Where attempts at electrification were made (Bihar Government claims that two hydro electric projects were completed – Valmiki Nagar and Triveni Canal and 5 are in the pipeline), the power cut made it easier for local mafia to steal power cables and sell them there by robbing the local population of any benefits. But it does not matter anyway since most of the population cannot afford electricity. The actual consumption of electricity is well below national averageof 334.3 units at or below 54.9 units. The average peasant in Champaran makes well below the Bihari average of average of Rs. 2193 (compared to the Indian average of Rs. 8399.) Rural poverty is crushingly over 50%. Unfortunately, none of these statistics are reliable even though the truth lies decidedly in the grimmer side of the scale. By any index of human quality, this blighted district is at the bottom of the scale. If Bihar was a country on its own, it would have been a failed state.
Bettiah, the district capital is one of the worst in Bihar, which is saying something. The district is firmly under the control of half a dozen feudal landlords (Vermas of Shikarpur, Krishna Prasad and Om Prakash of Bhaisahi, Rajas of Ramnagar, Rai and Sharma of Vilaspur, Shahi of Dumaria and Singhs of Baragaon) each illegally possessing thousands of acres. Everyone of these families have members in the legislative assemblies or other elected bodies. The non-landed peasantry is uneducated and illiterate (60% of the population). Among females, only 26% are functionally literate. Both these are substantially lower than even the average for Bihar. Most residents are subsistence farmers where there is semi-arable land even though most are landless laborers under the slavish control of the landed families. They are oppressed and beaten and denied any and all the benefits of the land reform put in place by the Government in the 70s. In addition to this caste distrimination is rampant with at least a dozen cases are registered a year even though perhaps hundreds go unregistered.As is the case in the rest of Bihar, there is no law or order in Bettiah or nearby areas.
The politicians are hand in glove with the land owners and they use the mafia and the police to serve their needs. Peasants are beaten, imprisoned, raped and ravaged for asking for their rights or even for daring to vote.
So, why did I make this really long introduction?
We make a big deal out of the prosperous growth urban India has experienced in the last 15 years. The country had an average rate of growth of 2.2 (the so-called Hindu rate of growth) until 1995 from which point India grew at an average of 4.7% and if you take the last 3 or 4 years, the average rate of growth is perhaps 8 or 9 percent.This rate of growth has made a very prosperous urban middle-class and unemployment in the educated sector in the urban areas have become very low. This aspect of the urban India is celebrated by the whole world and Indians are justifiably proud of this. Yet, anyone who has visited India in recent years, it is impossible to ignore the squalor and filth of her cities. We immediately blame the Biharis and UP villagers for this mess and wish they would go back to their states. But where will they go? And what will they do there? What sort of governance can they expect in these places? And how do you create a sustainable development in these places so that they are not forced to move to Delhi or Bombay?
When it comes to places like Bettiah, while we may disagree on specifics, I don't think we will argue that the situation on the ground is any better than the description above unless your name begins with Laloo and ends with Yadav.
But that is how the agreement ends.
When it comes to discussing what can be done about this situation, the crackpot theories come out and in the end, we finish our tea and walk away blaming politics and shrugging that nothing can be done.Do we need to be that pessimistic? Is there a recipe that might work to solve the problems of West Champaran?
Is there a hope for that India?
He Visits When It Rains
Introduction
I wrote this in 1990 and found it on the web recently when going through the archives of Usenet. I had lost it while changing so many computers in all these years, so i was happy to see it again. I copied it back to the hard disk and decided to change nothing. Well, that is not entirely true, I changed the name of the character. It is sort of a pointless story with no clear anchorpoint. Perhaps I would have written it differently today. Some of the actual escriptions of events and places are true and it is how they happened. The rest of it, emotions and the connections I make (and it is a stretch I admit) are just fiction. It is just interesting rereading it after 17 years, just to remember how things were. So here it is, in its original form, a pointless story. As far as literary fiction goes, I would file this under Don't-quit-your-day-job category.
He Visits When It Rains
Sitting here waiting for my meeting, I am drawn to the ever-increasing feeling of desperation. This depressive episode started only a few days ago when the seasonal rains began. I have been battling these moods for years since I was fifteen. I still remember that warm-afternoon journey by boat to Elephanta caves with oldman Nanchibhai that I think of as the turning point of my happy life. I was sitting by the window close enough to touch the spray of seawater as the boat moved. On the opposite seat, sat a white tourist with a stern face that revealed no interest in any activity around him. His Indian lover kept trying to slyly arouse him by pressing his hands on her middle-aged breasts without much success. Her skin had the complexion of dried wood as it disappeared into her shirtsleeves.
I was barely out of my teens then. Even so, somehow I felt a great pity for her. She did try to look cheerful inspite of the lost-expression and the dark alienating clouds around her eyes. Their son, a tall child with a lot of determination, practiced jumping from the cracked wooden seat to the floor relentlessly. He was totally lost in the quest for perfection and was oblivious to the battle between disinterest and desire around him.
It was the first time that I realized I was depressed. The sight of the gray ocean around me, the gentle rocking motion and the silent disinterest of the passengers all brought home the lucidity of that feeling. Forever, I remember that moment with that family sitting across from me as the page-mark in the book of my life when depression first struck me. I could feel the chill in the air as it began to rain without warning. I detested the rain for the first time, as it played little beats on the tin-roof and poked the ocean surface with thousands of water needles. Nanchibhai must have been surprised as I wiped tears off my face while pretending to be wiping the raindrops away. But he said nothing.
Years later, sitting by the window last night, listening to the sound of rain drops splattering to the ground, I became conscious of that sadness in me that lasted all those years. It was as if the rains carried it for me and washed me clean with pain every time they visited the city. The indigo lines drawn across the skyline underlined the feeling of complete helplessness I felt at that time. The raindrops had collected under the window as small puddles on the concrete, where pearly bubbles formed and broke as each new drop fell and mixed into it.
This was my mood as I had my first meeting with Pink Floyd. His real name was Floyd Almeida but everyone just called him Pink Floyd, a name that he seemed to take to with some enthusiasm. He walked-in armed with a happy smile, determined to break the spell of sadness around me, or so it seemed.
"Puck", he called with a loud voice clear of uncertainties as he walked in. We had spoken over the phone and we knew of each other well from common contacts. I gave him a faint smile. Without looking for a particular reaction, he continued," I am Floyd, your field-partner". His smile had rings of rain to it. The joviality of his bearing stood out in rivalry with the helpless pain that rain had brought and the memory of the dark-skinned Indian woman on the boat with her white lover. He injected some soothing comfort of warmth to beak up the self-flagellating reverie I was in.
And that is how the friendship grew between us. Even in the fleeting moments
we sometimes passed each other through the damp corridor where algae drew green
patterns, he never failed to challenge my sadness with his smile.
As partners in the field experiments we started to travel together. Often we would visit small mining towns and abandoned coal mineshafts together. Most of these towns had very little life left in them an evenings brought nothing but boredom. We developed the habit of walking around under the blue vast skies and the desolate landscapes looking for interesting features and abandoned buildings.
We were in a small town that had been an army base for the soldiers. In the evening, tired of the hard work in the heat and the dust and the low-pitched humming of mosquitoes in the summer heat, we decided to take our usual aimless stroll. The walk took us to an abandoned church and a graveyard around it. The light had already faded and the white clapboard exterior of the church stood like a ghost against the dark Midwestern summer sky affixed with a million stars that came out of nowhere. Without even glancing at each other, we walked inside pushing the rusted gates open.
"Janet Nicholson", the inscription on the first marker read, "Born July 12, 1793 , Died September 4, 1812". All the inscriptions that we read by the faint torch light indicated that the gravesite was indeed full of those who departed young. We walked in complete silence through the unkempt space careful enough not to trip and fall. There was nothing we could say to each other. Sometimes silence has all the words you need. It took me a while to realize that the water drops that wet my eye lashes were indeed warm unseasonable prairie rain. The summer rain smelled like moths and sounded like a funeral songs of crickets. Water drops fell on Janet's grave with precision washing away accumulated dirt and grime, not wasting its sorrow. The rest of the night passed in a dream of crickets, moths and young women resting in coffins.
That was the last trip we took together. On our return journey he entertained me with a collection of lewd songs sang to the rhythm of his fingers tapping his fat thighs even as we drove through the night. Though we promised each other to travel together again in the near future, it was never to be.
Shortly, Floyd left school to pursue a career totally unrelated to his degree and I gradually lost touch with him. At that time, entangled in a relationship that brought golden fireflies in my dreams and yellow sunflowers in fantasies, I had little time or inclination to seek out old friends and remember old faces.
Then a year later, the monsoons came like a downpour of memories. I was all-alone again after the sunflowers suddenly withered and the fireflies lost their fire. I wandered in memories trying to seek refuge in the past and in revisited old friendships that appeared like shadows in the mist. It was time to graduate from undergraduate school. Nostalgia forced me to spend all my time with old friends, killing moments over tea or beer that was light enough to be tears or water.
Then one of those afternoons Floyd walked in unannounced and cheered us all
with his characteristic witty disposition. There was a girl with him who smelled like wild flowers as she sat next to me, smiling politely at every one of his jokes and not caring that he did not think it necessary to introduce her. She was dark and had wide eyes, and reminded me of the Indian woman on the boat.
Floyd asked me to accompany him to the gate as he took his leave. He was returning to his office in Nebraska and the chances were bleak that we would meet again, at least for a long time. I felt sad and so did he. We walked on the narrow pavement where yesterday's rain had left light patches of wetness. The purple flowers on the fence smelled like the young girl we were walking with, as the damp winds carried it all around us. There were students passing us by with backpacks and books. They looked like movie extras, just looking busy, walking around to add meaning to a street scene. Fat,happy, lean, moody, shabby, trendy, cruel, benign, their presence looked designed, as if an invisible director had yelled “action” out of our earshot. Floyd hurried as thunder announced rain. The girl smiled a silent farewell filled with the pain of an unknown past and wild flowers, as they hurried away into the beginnings of the rain.
That night, it rained all the time. The green prairies looked tired and bedraggled. There were puddles but no music of frogs. The giant cross, planted in front of the Baptist church, looked washed and solemn as I passed it on my way home. The street
lamps had tears on them.
In the student-common lounge, I stopped to shake water from my clothes which were sticking to my skin, cold and uncomfortable. In the dark corner I saw an Indian lady sitting on a suitcase, next to her white companion. It appeared that she had just arrived on the scene. She was in her early thirties and had a beehive for hair. Her companion was wiry with alabaster skin, as he sat in the shadows with a nonchalant expression. She kept pushing her hair away from her sad plump face with an air of annoyance.
I started as a feeling of déjà vu returned to me. I expected the rains to visit with the needles of pain any time soon. I wanted to weep. I hastened to my room as the man put his arms around his companion and laughed at a private joke.
When the darkness came like a silent intruder, I lost myself to yesterdays and to unrepentant guilt. In the midst of an uncomfortable sleep, I realized that I was no longer unhappy when Floyd came visiting me in a dream full of wet streets and unrelenting rain.
I wrote this in 1990 and found it on the web recently when going through the archives of Usenet. I had lost it while changing so many computers in all these years, so i was happy to see it again. I copied it back to the hard disk and decided to change nothing. Well, that is not entirely true, I changed the name of the character. It is sort of a pointless story with no clear anchorpoint. Perhaps I would have written it differently today. Some of the actual escriptions of events and places are true and it is how they happened. The rest of it, emotions and the connections I make (and it is a stretch I admit) are just fiction. It is just interesting rereading it after 17 years, just to remember how things were. So here it is, in its original form, a pointless story. As far as literary fiction goes, I would file this under Don't-quit-your-day-job category.
He Visits When It Rains
Sitting here waiting for my meeting, I am drawn to the ever-increasing feeling of desperation. This depressive episode started only a few days ago when the seasonal rains began. I have been battling these moods for years since I was fifteen. I still remember that warm-afternoon journey by boat to Elephanta caves with oldman Nanchibhai that I think of as the turning point of my happy life. I was sitting by the window close enough to touch the spray of seawater as the boat moved. On the opposite seat, sat a white tourist with a stern face that revealed no interest in any activity around him. His Indian lover kept trying to slyly arouse him by pressing his hands on her middle-aged breasts without much success. Her skin had the complexion of dried wood as it disappeared into her shirtsleeves.
I was barely out of my teens then. Even so, somehow I felt a great pity for her. She did try to look cheerful inspite of the lost-expression and the dark alienating clouds around her eyes. Their son, a tall child with a lot of determination, practiced jumping from the cracked wooden seat to the floor relentlessly. He was totally lost in the quest for perfection and was oblivious to the battle between disinterest and desire around him.
It was the first time that I realized I was depressed. The sight of the gray ocean around me, the gentle rocking motion and the silent disinterest of the passengers all brought home the lucidity of that feeling. Forever, I remember that moment with that family sitting across from me as the page-mark in the book of my life when depression first struck me. I could feel the chill in the air as it began to rain without warning. I detested the rain for the first time, as it played little beats on the tin-roof and poked the ocean surface with thousands of water needles. Nanchibhai must have been surprised as I wiped tears off my face while pretending to be wiping the raindrops away. But he said nothing.
Years later, sitting by the window last night, listening to the sound of rain drops splattering to the ground, I became conscious of that sadness in me that lasted all those years. It was as if the rains carried it for me and washed me clean with pain every time they visited the city. The indigo lines drawn across the skyline underlined the feeling of complete helplessness I felt at that time. The raindrops had collected under the window as small puddles on the concrete, where pearly bubbles formed and broke as each new drop fell and mixed into it.
This was my mood as I had my first meeting with Pink Floyd. His real name was Floyd Almeida but everyone just called him Pink Floyd, a name that he seemed to take to with some enthusiasm. He walked-in armed with a happy smile, determined to break the spell of sadness around me, or so it seemed.
"Puck", he called with a loud voice clear of uncertainties as he walked in. We had spoken over the phone and we knew of each other well from common contacts. I gave him a faint smile. Without looking for a particular reaction, he continued," I am Floyd, your field-partner". His smile had rings of rain to it. The joviality of his bearing stood out in rivalry with the helpless pain that rain had brought and the memory of the dark-skinned Indian woman on the boat with her white lover. He injected some soothing comfort of warmth to beak up the self-flagellating reverie I was in.
And that is how the friendship grew between us. Even in the fleeting moments
we sometimes passed each other through the damp corridor where algae drew green
patterns, he never failed to challenge my sadness with his smile.
As partners in the field experiments we started to travel together. Often we would visit small mining towns and abandoned coal mineshafts together. Most of these towns had very little life left in them an evenings brought nothing but boredom. We developed the habit of walking around under the blue vast skies and the desolate landscapes looking for interesting features and abandoned buildings.
We were in a small town that had been an army base for the soldiers. In the evening, tired of the hard work in the heat and the dust and the low-pitched humming of mosquitoes in the summer heat, we decided to take our usual aimless stroll. The walk took us to an abandoned church and a graveyard around it. The light had already faded and the white clapboard exterior of the church stood like a ghost against the dark Midwestern summer sky affixed with a million stars that came out of nowhere. Without even glancing at each other, we walked inside pushing the rusted gates open.
"Janet Nicholson", the inscription on the first marker read, "Born July 12, 1793 , Died September 4, 1812". All the inscriptions that we read by the faint torch light indicated that the gravesite was indeed full of those who departed young. We walked in complete silence through the unkempt space careful enough not to trip and fall. There was nothing we could say to each other. Sometimes silence has all the words you need. It took me a while to realize that the water drops that wet my eye lashes were indeed warm unseasonable prairie rain. The summer rain smelled like moths and sounded like a funeral songs of crickets. Water drops fell on Janet's grave with precision washing away accumulated dirt and grime, not wasting its sorrow. The rest of the night passed in a dream of crickets, moths and young women resting in coffins.
That was the last trip we took together. On our return journey he entertained me with a collection of lewd songs sang to the rhythm of his fingers tapping his fat thighs even as we drove through the night. Though we promised each other to travel together again in the near future, it was never to be.
Shortly, Floyd left school to pursue a career totally unrelated to his degree and I gradually lost touch with him. At that time, entangled in a relationship that brought golden fireflies in my dreams and yellow sunflowers in fantasies, I had little time or inclination to seek out old friends and remember old faces.
Then a year later, the monsoons came like a downpour of memories. I was all-alone again after the sunflowers suddenly withered and the fireflies lost their fire. I wandered in memories trying to seek refuge in the past and in revisited old friendships that appeared like shadows in the mist. It was time to graduate from undergraduate school. Nostalgia forced me to spend all my time with old friends, killing moments over tea or beer that was light enough to be tears or water.
Then one of those afternoons Floyd walked in unannounced and cheered us all
with his characteristic witty disposition. There was a girl with him who smelled like wild flowers as she sat next to me, smiling politely at every one of his jokes and not caring that he did not think it necessary to introduce her. She was dark and had wide eyes, and reminded me of the Indian woman on the boat.
Floyd asked me to accompany him to the gate as he took his leave. He was returning to his office in Nebraska and the chances were bleak that we would meet again, at least for a long time. I felt sad and so did he. We walked on the narrow pavement where yesterday's rain had left light patches of wetness. The purple flowers on the fence smelled like the young girl we were walking with, as the damp winds carried it all around us. There were students passing us by with backpacks and books. They looked like movie extras, just looking busy, walking around to add meaning to a street scene. Fat,happy, lean, moody, shabby, trendy, cruel, benign, their presence looked designed, as if an invisible director had yelled “action” out of our earshot. Floyd hurried as thunder announced rain. The girl smiled a silent farewell filled with the pain of an unknown past and wild flowers, as they hurried away into the beginnings of the rain.
That night, it rained all the time. The green prairies looked tired and bedraggled. There were puddles but no music of frogs. The giant cross, planted in front of the Baptist church, looked washed and solemn as I passed it on my way home. The street
lamps had tears on them.
In the student-common lounge, I stopped to shake water from my clothes which were sticking to my skin, cold and uncomfortable. In the dark corner I saw an Indian lady sitting on a suitcase, next to her white companion. It appeared that she had just arrived on the scene. She was in her early thirties and had a beehive for hair. Her companion was wiry with alabaster skin, as he sat in the shadows with a nonchalant expression. She kept pushing her hair away from her sad plump face with an air of annoyance.
I started as a feeling of déjà vu returned to me. I expected the rains to visit with the needles of pain any time soon. I wanted to weep. I hastened to my room as the man put his arms around his companion and laughed at a private joke.
When the darkness came like a silent intruder, I lost myself to yesterdays and to unrepentant guilt. In the midst of an uncomfortable sleep, I realized that I was no longer unhappy when Floyd came visiting me in a dream full of wet streets and unrelenting rain.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Chess Players
I did this last night after I came back from a chess game.
He was shy and reserved. And completely clueless. There was something endearing about him that defied expectations; may be it was his utter lack of self-awareness and decorum, or may be it was his endearing naïveté and ignorance. He has been living in this city for two years and does not know his way around. He complains that he doesn't understand anything because everything is in German even though the language is French. He slurps through his food and unconsciously picks his teeth and burps while sitting in the restaurant.
He is from a smalltown in South India and this is his first assignment outside India. He discusses his salary in public with complete strangers and is genuinely excited at the prospect of winning at a chess game.
I drink a cup of coffee and watch the players. I watch him intently because he is fascinating in an odd way. He is very young, in his mid-twenties even though he looks a lot older. His syntax and sentance construction are peculiar. I see him making his chess moves while letting his tongue dangle out.
Is it Ok to feel slightly angry that in spite of his two years here he has made no attempts to observe the local customs and adapt? Is it OK to feel a tinge of irritation at his complete lack of self-awareness?
In the end, I let the chess player dissolve into the darkness while driving away to the vast nothingness of the country roads.
May be I will meet him again.
He was shy and reserved. And completely clueless. There was something endearing about him that defied expectations; may be it was his utter lack of self-awareness and decorum, or may be it was his endearing naïveté and ignorance. He has been living in this city for two years and does not know his way around. He complains that he doesn't understand anything because everything is in German even though the language is French. He slurps through his food and unconsciously picks his teeth and burps while sitting in the restaurant.
He is from a smalltown in South India and this is his first assignment outside India. He discusses his salary in public with complete strangers and is genuinely excited at the prospect of winning at a chess game.
I drink a cup of coffee and watch the players. I watch him intently because he is fascinating in an odd way. He is very young, in his mid-twenties even though he looks a lot older. His syntax and sentance construction are peculiar. I see him making his chess moves while letting his tongue dangle out.
Is it Ok to feel slightly angry that in spite of his two years here he has made no attempts to observe the local customs and adapt? Is it OK to feel a tinge of irritation at his complete lack of self-awareness?
In the end, I let the chess player dissolve into the darkness while driving away to the vast nothingness of the country roads.
May be I will meet him again.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Coppet
When I walked off from the Starbucks, I knew I could not go home. So I drove away from myself.
I parked my car right at the edge of Lac Léman at a random parking lot in Coppet for no reason. Then I turned up the sax version of "I love Paris" and drank the café latte from the starbucks. The sun came down slowly and disappeared on the other side of the lake behind the mountains.
One side of the lake where the last remains of the light lingered, the surface of the water glowed like gold foil paper. Subtle yet quite rewarding. The other side, deprived of light, first glistened silver and then slowly dulled to lead gray. The snow on the mountains were reflecting purple and red.
At the pier, a short man stood on tip-toes and kissed his tall companion. A couple wandered off with two young daughters. The town fell silent behind me. The world stopped. Night slowly invaded my space.
The scene was like a perfect picture postcard.
On the way back, I turned off the radio and went through sleeping villages.
I parked my car right at the edge of Lac Léman at a random parking lot in Coppet for no reason. Then I turned up the sax version of "I love Paris" and drank the café latte from the starbucks. The sun came down slowly and disappeared on the other side of the lake behind the mountains.
One side of the lake where the last remains of the light lingered, the surface of the water glowed like gold foil paper. Subtle yet quite rewarding. The other side, deprived of light, first glistened silver and then slowly dulled to lead gray. The snow on the mountains were reflecting purple and red.
At the pier, a short man stood on tip-toes and kissed his tall companion. A couple wandered off with two young daughters. The town fell silent behind me. The world stopped. Night slowly invaded my space.
The scene was like a perfect picture postcard.
On the way back, I turned off the radio and went through sleeping villages.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Bizarre Weekend to End a Bizarre Week
This was possibly the strangest week ever. Not because it was so weird that it has to be written about with shock or celebrated because it was so special. None of that. It was like being a camera grip in a Tinto Brass movie set or in less pedestrian terms being a waiter in Sex and the city.
I had a very stressful week. I worked from 7 AM till 8 PM on most of the days. By the time the weekend came about, I really needed to decompress.
I could have chosen easier, normal ways to do that. Perhaps I did. But these days, I feel like my life is like a waterfall.
Friday night, I went to the birthday party of someone I know; an actress. It was in a bar in a very historic part of the city. Midway through the celebrations, the actress took her boyfriend to the bathroom and blew him and they returned to regale us with the details. One of the gay people in the crowd, without ceremony or prior notice, french-kissed the actress which didn't go over well with her boyfriend. Then the party proceeded to her place where she kicked us out rather unceremoniously in ten minutes so they can finish having sex. So the party, in dwindling numbers, proceeded to the house of a gay couple (and the actress, having finished her urgent need was going to join the rest of us there, but predictably she did not. I believe the jealous boyfriend might have been a factor.) Another actress, whom I had seen nude in a play I had seen recently, was at the party. She was 6'2", really thin and was flat as a stale coke. We opened bacon-flavored chips and made cocktails. I got home at 4:00 tired and not decompressed. And we mostly discussed designer coffee tables. As far as parties go, this night was quite difficult to categorize.
In the morning, after I worke up, I met a friend for brunch and ate omlettes with ham. There was a painting of a crushed sprite-can lying abandoned on the street on the wall. A man sat listening to our conversation while pretending to be engrossed in the newspaper. I dropped her at a shopping mall and went to meet another friend. Together, we drove to Gex in France at 2:30 PM to do some shopping. There were giant wood carvings of giraffes in the store and the man who was helping us had a slight lisp. Back in Europe, I went to get an eye exam and blew 800 bucks on a new pair of glasses I didn't need. Soon after, I was completely taken over by remorse. But it was already too late to do something about it. So instead I had a burger. Then I went to meet a friend at 7 PM for coffee and the friend from brunch joined us. Over a frappuchino, I observed the evening as it turned crimson. Worse, I watched myself giving Samosa techniques to an African in great amusement since I am never known to be even competent in any forms of cooking, particularly Indian cooking. I got home around 9:30 PM and caught up on phone calls.
After much thought, I joined some people at a lounge at 11:30 PM. They decided to go to a club and I decided to meet another set of friends in a different club at around 12:30. There was too much alcohol and I was bored. I quietly walked out without goodbyes at 3 AM and joined a few others at a third club. Where after drinking a lot of apple juice, I fell asleep on the couch as people danced all around me. At 4:30 AM I decided to go home.
I am still waiting for decompression. Any suggestions?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Discomfiture
Modern gladiator:
Over my head, the open pit of despair awaits
Outside, in the cruel world, I assume many roles
In here, against my own naked flesh
I stand helpless against the truth
There is no way out, except through the sword
Perhaps a death, mine or that of my unborn adversary
Will you open the door, please the crowds?
I don’t know the depth of their adversity
And before I come to know it well
Solitude has taken over my dreams
Liquid lucidity evades my path as I climb up the stairs
Bed bugs, old canvass portraits, pictures of beggars from the third world,
A Thai hat, dirt in corners where the brooms don’t reach
There is a pattern to this random collection
The space grows around me like a suffocating cloud
Outside where I wear my many hats
[face him unwaveringly, aim your weapon]
A mulberry bush is blooming
[his eyes are not cruel, surprisingly, just sad]
Under a tepid sky
[is that my son? Yet unborn]
Black and deep purple
[slash knock kick]
the berries turn my hands to deep blood red
[a slight gash appears, a spot of blood?]
I am so lonely even in the middle of this intimacy
[open the paper boxes, find the medicines]
So lonely even as I smile and pour myself
[nothing can save him now]
A glass of water from the faucet
[why did I fight? Why did he give up without?]
A slab of chocolate disappears
[Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.]
And reappears as stomach pain
[Is that the sound of church bells that I hear?]
I turn my car around and park it under the shade
[Before I turn around I don’t look back]
I need flowers, a casket, a movie ticket,
[Behind me, the city melts and flows]
A couple of books, one red and one a leather-bound journal
[And becomes flat like a wafer]
To tell the tale, Prices of discomfiture
[Why are my legs still standing?]
I float away in a puffy cloud over the urban landscape
Like a picture post card
Over the bridge away from the crimson sunsets of the bay
I begin to inflate
Until I cannot breathe
Until I become everything that is around me
Until all that left in me is a shrewd pain of solitude
How do you deceive your own naked flesh?
Conversations jar like expletives in the ear
They are speaking an unknown language
I have no stories, no celebrations, no encores
Or celebratory poems
I forgot to pack my soul
It stands outside, banished from all discussion
All it has for company is the last dregs of the laughter from inside
As darkness falls
I contemplate a long jump from the bridge
So I can be flat like the city
To find some space in this city of two dimensions
Finally.
Discomfiture.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
A Midsummer's Morality Tale
(With tongue firmly in cheek)
“Dara Singh was nothing compared to Sundar Narayanan,” She said earnestly. We were sitting together by the water drinking cognac watching the sunset. There was nothing else to do until her husband came to pick her up. And she told me a story that was so rivetting I forgot to drink my cognac and the sun forgot to set. This is her story.
Power oozed from every pore of Sundar Narayanan’s body. Sundar Narayanan was the head of a conglomerate of loosely based ideas, a first among equals one might say, in a consortium of three. The other two members of the consortium were Sathya Narayanan and Shiva Narayanan.
The trio Narayanan were not brothers, nor were they of some godly triumvirate. They were simple Bangalore folk who were equally in love with our protagonist, an idealist youngster whose preoccupation with dusty cars and astrology left her with very little time to notice that the Narayanan triumvirate collectively let out a sigh every time she walked past them. The fact that they were old and married never acted as a deterrent in their heads every time they gazed desirously as the protagonist as she smiled at them.
But Sundar Narayanan was the strongest of them. He was not particularly strong physically. Well, he was quite weak really. His habit of surreptitiously tasting the sweat as it fell to his lips from the brows via the bridge of the nose made him appear a little lizard-like. But that having said, his ideas made him powerful. He was an idea man and as idea men go, he was good and motivating. And helpful. Once, when our protagonist was lost on the streets of the city on her way to a thread-ceremony of Sathya Narayana’s child, it was Sundar Narayanan who came in his dhoti to rescue her. And that is when she noticed him for the first time. I mean, noticed if you catch my drift.
And she ewadily fell in love with him, head over heels. Not just with him, but with all his assorted qualities. His power-filled pores, his animal magnetism, his squinting eyes. Life was good. The fact that he was already in love with her made the whole story a lot easier.
It was just a matter of chance. For all we care, she could have been lost on the way to Shiva Narayanan’s child’s mundan ceremony and Sathya Narayanan might have rescued her. Who she might have fallen for in that scenario is entirely unknown to me, dear reader. And I don’t like making things up. I just state things as they are.
Of course, the other Narayanans were not amused. I would venture to say, they were pissed off. Forgetting the freshly shaven heads of their newly be-threaded children and the lily-white flowers in their back gardens, they yearned for her.
Then they came to a simple conclusion.
Sathya Narayanan must go. He must be made to disappear. Pay for his sins.
There was only a small problem. Well, apart from all the usual problems associated with planning a murder, there was a small additional problem. All the big problems associated with murder-planning were not that critical to them, been so jealously in love.
Sundar was their idea-man. Shiva Narayanan was a wizard in finances and Sathya Narayanan could talk a good talk. But without Sundar Narayanan they were dead in the water.
That and they had no previous experience in committing murder.
It is only when you sit down to plan a murder that you realize all the complexities involved in it. First, there has to be pretty easy way to do it, which does not involve serious capital investment costs. Then there is the matter of the disposal of the body. Do they kill and leave the body as a reminder to everyone else as a warning or cut him up and distribute his remains all over town in garbage bags?
You might think this is trivial. Try murdering someone and you will see how quickly these complexities add up. If you are indeed planning to murder, and not doing it because there are no suitable people you feel like killing, you might want to consider offering your services in the Mercenary Hunter magazine. But I digress.
So after much consideration spread over many meetings filled with endless cups of coffee and cigarettes, they decided to reduce the scope of the exercise to assault and intimidation.
Of course they could not do it. For starters, they were equally as old as their blissfully-unaware intended victim. Next, the victim sort of knew them since they all worked in the same office. Well, they were partners.
So they decided to hire Dara Singh!
Dara Singh was no relative of the famous wrestler who was his namesake. He was a hapless part-time chowkidar in our protagonist’s house who spent most of his days sleeping balanced on a stool placed right outside the gate. Given his amazing hunger for pedhas and ladoos, our potential assaulter was quite heavy and portentous.
That and he had an intimidating moustache. One of those moustaches that could contain the remains of many breakfasts from previous weeks and you would barely notice it except for the flies that made it their home.
And he was known to Narayanans primarily because they had taken to walking by the protagonist’s house for no apparent reason. And in uncharacteristic modesty, they had taken to stopping and exchanging a few words with Dara Singh while surreptitiously surveying the top floor bedroom of the protagonist for any sign of activity.
There was never any. The protagonist roamed the streets of the city in her dusty car with dreams in her eyes and Sundar Narayanan on her mind.
Over tea and pedhas, Sathya and Shiva very gingerly introduced Dara Singh to the plot. He was to approach Sundar Narayanan menacingly one evening at the parking lot, push him around and slap him. And as he turned to walk around, he was to look at Sundar Narayanan with great contempt as his lay on the ground with dirty and torn collar, and say, “stay away from her. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”
Dara Singh was not keen on this. But the five thousand rupees that was promised would buy him a lot of sweets. And tea. Even a trip to UP where he was from.
So he agreed.
Money changed hands and a date was fixed for the intimidation.
On the appointed day, Dara Singh approached Sundar Narayanan and just as he was supposed to do the deed, a car pulled up in front of him distracting him. If you are planning an assault, focus is key. Well, focus and the element of surprise. With those two lost, Dara Singh decided to cut his losses and wait for a better day.
Next day, the other Narayanans were very surprised to see Sundar in the office. With no visible sings of assault. That afternoon they were livid when they saw the protagonist drinking sweet Bangalore tea in Sundar Narayanan’s office. They melodious laughter sent shock waves through their collective systems.
Hurried conferences were set up and the message of urgency was reinforced with Dara Singh.
The next day Dara Singh waited in the parking lot for Sundar. He had offered to drive the protagonist to her house as her car was being washed.
Dara Singh stepped out of the shadows and froze when he saw Bibi-jiwith her assault victim. She smiled earnestly at him, Arre! Dara Singh, what are you doing here? Is everything OK?
Dara Singh froze. He had nothing to say. Without pausing she turned around and said to Sundar, this is my watchman.
Sundar suddenly remembered that he had seen Dara Singh before at the same parking lot. Dara withdrew to himself in embarrassment and confusion. Suddenly, he became acutely aware of the power that oozed out of every pore in Sundar Narayanan’s body. He was overcome with remorse. Sundar Narayanan licked his swat off one last time as he led the protagonist into his Mitsubishi Lancer. Then with a thousand questions in his head still unanswered, drove off the parking lot.
“Dara Singh was nothing compared to Sundar Narayanan,” She repeated earnestly after recalling this tale. Many winters had passed and she had come to learn all about the story after she left their company and moved to Harare.
Dara was broken hearted and sad. He decided to wait for the other Narayanans to arrive to their cars. When they did, half-hour later, with heady expectations, they were met with Dara and his assaulting kicks. As they fell to the ground, dazed and confused, he looked back in contempt and said, “Leave him alone. Or next time I won’t be so nice.”
Next morning, the train to UP carried a man with five thousand rupees running away from Bangalore.
Epilogue
The Protagonist currently lives in Harare as the head of the UN Mission for African Diseases. She is married to A. P. Anantha Murthy whom she met on a matrimonial site and he is decidedly not a computer professional. She is no longer in touch with Sundar Narayanan.
Sundar Narayanan continues to create great ideas in Bangalore. His company imovemoutains.com is now the number one provider of statistical software in the Japanese market. He is still pining for the protagonist who left him broken-hearted by marrying a rather boring chap (in Sundar’s opinion) called Murthy or some such name.
Sathya Narayanan was not happy with the peripheral role in this story. So he went into film production to make a name for himself and is pursued by Dawood Ibrahim for unpaid debts.
Shiva Narayanan broke his hip in a fall and came back to win the bicycle marathon. He got a contract as a spokesperson for a bicycle brand based in Thailand.
Dara Singh’s whereabouts are unknown. Last, he was seen heading towards Khandahar on a stolen Royal Enfield motorcycle with a rider with a black beard and black turban called Muqsuda Ali Omar.
“Dara Singh was nothing compared to Sundar Narayanan,” She said earnestly. We were sitting together by the water drinking cognac watching the sunset. There was nothing else to do until her husband came to pick her up. And she told me a story that was so rivetting I forgot to drink my cognac and the sun forgot to set. This is her story.
Power oozed from every pore of Sundar Narayanan’s body. Sundar Narayanan was the head of a conglomerate of loosely based ideas, a first among equals one might say, in a consortium of three. The other two members of the consortium were Sathya Narayanan and Shiva Narayanan.
The trio Narayanan were not brothers, nor were they of some godly triumvirate. They were simple Bangalore folk who were equally in love with our protagonist, an idealist youngster whose preoccupation with dusty cars and astrology left her with very little time to notice that the Narayanan triumvirate collectively let out a sigh every time she walked past them. The fact that they were old and married never acted as a deterrent in their heads every time they gazed desirously as the protagonist as she smiled at them.
But Sundar Narayanan was the strongest of them. He was not particularly strong physically. Well, he was quite weak really. His habit of surreptitiously tasting the sweat as it fell to his lips from the brows via the bridge of the nose made him appear a little lizard-like. But that having said, his ideas made him powerful. He was an idea man and as idea men go, he was good and motivating. And helpful. Once, when our protagonist was lost on the streets of the city on her way to a thread-ceremony of Sathya Narayana’s child, it was Sundar Narayanan who came in his dhoti to rescue her. And that is when she noticed him for the first time. I mean, noticed if you catch my drift.
And she ewadily fell in love with him, head over heels. Not just with him, but with all his assorted qualities. His power-filled pores, his animal magnetism, his squinting eyes. Life was good. The fact that he was already in love with her made the whole story a lot easier.
It was just a matter of chance. For all we care, she could have been lost on the way to Shiva Narayanan’s child’s mundan ceremony and Sathya Narayanan might have rescued her. Who she might have fallen for in that scenario is entirely unknown to me, dear reader. And I don’t like making things up. I just state things as they are.
Of course, the other Narayanans were not amused. I would venture to say, they were pissed off. Forgetting the freshly shaven heads of their newly be-threaded children and the lily-white flowers in their back gardens, they yearned for her.
Then they came to a simple conclusion.
Sathya Narayanan must go. He must be made to disappear. Pay for his sins.
There was only a small problem. Well, apart from all the usual problems associated with planning a murder, there was a small additional problem. All the big problems associated with murder-planning were not that critical to them, been so jealously in love.
Sundar was their idea-man. Shiva Narayanan was a wizard in finances and Sathya Narayanan could talk a good talk. But without Sundar Narayanan they were dead in the water.
That and they had no previous experience in committing murder.
It is only when you sit down to plan a murder that you realize all the complexities involved in it. First, there has to be pretty easy way to do it, which does not involve serious capital investment costs. Then there is the matter of the disposal of the body. Do they kill and leave the body as a reminder to everyone else as a warning or cut him up and distribute his remains all over town in garbage bags?
You might think this is trivial. Try murdering someone and you will see how quickly these complexities add up. If you are indeed planning to murder, and not doing it because there are no suitable people you feel like killing, you might want to consider offering your services in the Mercenary Hunter magazine. But I digress.
So after much consideration spread over many meetings filled with endless cups of coffee and cigarettes, they decided to reduce the scope of the exercise to assault and intimidation.
Of course they could not do it. For starters, they were equally as old as their blissfully-unaware intended victim. Next, the victim sort of knew them since they all worked in the same office. Well, they were partners.
So they decided to hire Dara Singh!
Dara Singh was no relative of the famous wrestler who was his namesake. He was a hapless part-time chowkidar in our protagonist’s house who spent most of his days sleeping balanced on a stool placed right outside the gate. Given his amazing hunger for pedhas and ladoos, our potential assaulter was quite heavy and portentous.
That and he had an intimidating moustache. One of those moustaches that could contain the remains of many breakfasts from previous weeks and you would barely notice it except for the flies that made it their home.
And he was known to Narayanans primarily because they had taken to walking by the protagonist’s house for no apparent reason. And in uncharacteristic modesty, they had taken to stopping and exchanging a few words with Dara Singh while surreptitiously surveying the top floor bedroom of the protagonist for any sign of activity.
There was never any. The protagonist roamed the streets of the city in her dusty car with dreams in her eyes and Sundar Narayanan on her mind.
Over tea and pedhas, Sathya and Shiva very gingerly introduced Dara Singh to the plot. He was to approach Sundar Narayanan menacingly one evening at the parking lot, push him around and slap him. And as he turned to walk around, he was to look at Sundar Narayanan with great contempt as his lay on the ground with dirty and torn collar, and say, “stay away from her. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”
Dara Singh was not keen on this. But the five thousand rupees that was promised would buy him a lot of sweets. And tea. Even a trip to UP where he was from.
So he agreed.
Money changed hands and a date was fixed for the intimidation.
On the appointed day, Dara Singh approached Sundar Narayanan and just as he was supposed to do the deed, a car pulled up in front of him distracting him. If you are planning an assault, focus is key. Well, focus and the element of surprise. With those two lost, Dara Singh decided to cut his losses and wait for a better day.
Next day, the other Narayanans were very surprised to see Sundar in the office. With no visible sings of assault. That afternoon they were livid when they saw the protagonist drinking sweet Bangalore tea in Sundar Narayanan’s office. They melodious laughter sent shock waves through their collective systems.
Hurried conferences were set up and the message of urgency was reinforced with Dara Singh.
The next day Dara Singh waited in the parking lot for Sundar. He had offered to drive the protagonist to her house as her car was being washed.
Dara Singh stepped out of the shadows and froze when he saw Bibi-jiwith her assault victim. She smiled earnestly at him, Arre! Dara Singh, what are you doing here? Is everything OK?
Dara Singh froze. He had nothing to say. Without pausing she turned around and said to Sundar, this is my watchman.
Sundar suddenly remembered that he had seen Dara Singh before at the same parking lot. Dara withdrew to himself in embarrassment and confusion. Suddenly, he became acutely aware of the power that oozed out of every pore in Sundar Narayanan’s body. He was overcome with remorse. Sundar Narayanan licked his swat off one last time as he led the protagonist into his Mitsubishi Lancer. Then with a thousand questions in his head still unanswered, drove off the parking lot.
“Dara Singh was nothing compared to Sundar Narayanan,” She repeated earnestly after recalling this tale. Many winters had passed and she had come to learn all about the story after she left their company and moved to Harare.
Dara was broken hearted and sad. He decided to wait for the other Narayanans to arrive to their cars. When they did, half-hour later, with heady expectations, they were met with Dara and his assaulting kicks. As they fell to the ground, dazed and confused, he looked back in contempt and said, “Leave him alone. Or next time I won’t be so nice.”
Next morning, the train to UP carried a man with five thousand rupees running away from Bangalore.
Epilogue
The Protagonist currently lives in Harare as the head of the UN Mission for African Diseases. She is married to A. P. Anantha Murthy whom she met on a matrimonial site and he is decidedly not a computer professional. She is no longer in touch with Sundar Narayanan.
Sundar Narayanan continues to create great ideas in Bangalore. His company imovemoutains.com is now the number one provider of statistical software in the Japanese market. He is still pining for the protagonist who left him broken-hearted by marrying a rather boring chap (in Sundar’s opinion) called Murthy or some such name.
Sathya Narayanan was not happy with the peripheral role in this story. So he went into film production to make a name for himself and is pursued by Dawood Ibrahim for unpaid debts.
Shiva Narayanan broke his hip in a fall and came back to win the bicycle marathon. He got a contract as a spokesperson for a bicycle brand based in Thailand.
Dara Singh’s whereabouts are unknown. Last, he was seen heading towards Khandahar on a stolen Royal Enfield motorcycle with a rider with a black beard and black turban called Muqsuda Ali Omar.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Six Winter Moments
1. Winter Bloom
The loud underbelly of a plane
touches my face
as a blossom blooms next to me
---------------------------------------------------------
2. Gruyères
Yearning for meaning in the winter's passing
comes alive like a thousand candles
when the sadness of the chateau is reflected in the light
----------------------------------------------------------
3. Morning Prayer
One by one, all doors are shut
as the fish looks out the window
and remembers the summer lagoon
------------------------------------------------------------
4. An Evening Unspent Working
How will the hawk afford the price of tears
for the satisfaction of the meal
when the pray sacrifices itself?
--------------------------------------------------------------
5. Rewrites
in the planes of wilderness the old man fades
as the child duty-bound
is raking coals of unrepentant summers past
---------------------------------------------------------------
6. Bulle
an island in the middle of the river
reflects the winter stillness
just for the only moment I saw it
Sunday, January 07, 2007
The Memory of a Funeral, Retold
There was a large green meadow in the back of the house traversed by a stream. The meadow was separated from the house by a thicket of ivy that had overgrown around mango and jackfruit trees making it look like a little jungle. Where the woods ended, the land tapered down to the meadow and at this triangular edge stood a solitary jackfruit tree. On the other side of the tree was a pond, long in disuse, depressed in appearance as it was covered in African moss.
There she rested, serenely under the jackfruit tree. There was nothing much left of her except remains of ashes and perhaps small fragments of bones that were not visible in the heap of gray dust and half-burnt pieces of wood. It was a glorious afternoon; the golden light of the September sun was transected and laid out in beautiful patterns on the ground by the canopy of leaves overhead.
He stood there and closed his eyes. The long jeorney had not made his tired. He tried to remember her last time when he saw her. Ten years ago at his sister's wedding, she was already shrunk and dessicated. Beyond that, he had no memories.
A cousin he had not seen before walked down the path and went in front of him right to the funeral pit. She stood there sobbing. it was her turn to say good bye. She knew the dead person well. She had a real relationship with her grandmother unlike him. She had things to say in her good bye.
Far away, in front of the house, the din was unbearable. Workers were erecting a tent for the funeral rites to be held the next day. People were supervising them. Caterers went in and out of the kitchen with large vessels filled with things. A gaggle of birds overhead cried out of afternoon boredom.
He remembered this house. In another time, he would walk up the path and he would see her pacing in front of the house. She never sat still. There was always something to do. She lived alone and for all the monotomy that comes with that, she never sought anyone out, or reached out to anything. She was not religious or observant. She was not affectionate either. She just existed for the hurried busywork that she had imposed upon herself.
She was a slender woman, and small. Tiny was more like it. She wore old-fashioned glasses and always had a book half-read with house-bills as bookmarks.
Now she was gone and house suddenly found itself with busywork it had to do.
He walked back to the front of the house and asked a worker to go up the coconut tree and cut down a few tender coconuts. He took one of the coconuts, freshly slashed with an opening to the bamboo bushes and listened for the whistling. It whistled an old favorite song of the family.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Feel So Bad
Lyrics of the great song from the comments section:
Feel so bad
like a ball game on a rainy day
I tell you I feel so bad
like a ball game on a rainy day
Yes I got my rain check
Shake my head and walk away
Sometimes I want to stay here
Then again I want to leave
Go away somewhere
My whole world is troubled and grey
Just trying to tell you people
Tell you all how I feel
Tell you I feel so bad
My baby's done me a dirty deal
Tell you, I feel so bad
Feel like a ballgame on a rainy day
Since I lost my baby
Yes, I got my train fare
Pack my grip and ride away
Feel so bad
like a ball game on a rainy day
I tell you I feel so bad
like a ball game on a rainy day
Yes I got my rain check
Shake my head and walk away
Sometimes I want to stay here
Then again I want to leave
Go away somewhere
My whole world is troubled and grey
Just trying to tell you people
Tell you all how I feel
Tell you I feel so bad
My baby's done me a dirty deal
Tell you, I feel so bad
Feel like a ballgame on a rainy day
Since I lost my baby
Yes, I got my train fare
Pack my grip and ride away
Looing for Pink Flemingos in Bombay
If you are a new arrival to Bombay, you perhaps have never visited this place.
If you live in Chembur, an old driver might have driven you through the Port Trust road to Bombay VT to save you some time. You may have stared out of the windows of your car but may have noticed nothing.
But this place is special. If there is any place in Bombay, which remains in the 70s, it is the harbor area. Nothing has really changed in this place. No coffee shops, no tattooed and pierced young people, no swanky high-rise apartment buildings, and definitely no sizzle. The place looks exactly as Indira Gandhi left it, which is to say in a dilapidated and neglected way as she left much of Bombay that India inherited from the British. There are old warehouses and dust-covered Bombay port-trust road. There are the same slums and the worker's quarters. Millions of gunny sacks sit waiting for their trucks in each of the warehouses. If you can read through the dust and neglect, you can actually read the history of the city as it was in the 80s, in these buildings.
The harbour line of the Central Railway commuter line runs parallel to the warehouses and storage for petroleum products. The names of these stations remind you of what the city was in the 1800s. The streets are not crowded except for trucks.
I am here at Sewri looking for the mudflats. I have come in the afternoon and therefore precisely at the wrong time. You have to come early in the morning, but that is not how things worked out.So here I am being led by young relatives as we drive back and forth as we try to locate the turn-off point to Sewri Jetty.
Finally we find it, the little road that goes to the edge of the water. Here in the afternoon, there are hardly any people. A few boys mill about playing on a rusting barge that has been beached. A few workers sit on the skeleton of a boat. The mangroves rise all around me from the mud-flats.
I am here looking for flamingos. I ask a street boy about them. Flamingos, his eyes light up as he smiles and he points to the mangroves. There are millions of birds here, wintering in these mudflats, except this is the wrong tie, and they are all hidden. I see a solitary bird, a majestic pink flamingo standing still under a bush. Gulls, terns and the ubiquitous crows occasionally rise from the mangroves and fly back into them.
I know they are there, hidden from view, resting away from the heat of the afternoon, just like the rest of the city. These are the winter visitors to the city. Fortunately for the rest, this is relatively an obscure place and nobody has thought of capitalizing on this on the tourism brochure.
I stand there disappointed that I missed the ministry of the birds. Across from the channel I can see Trombay or New Bombay, I can't tell which because the haze is thick. I am really glad to be here. Even if I couldn't see the birds. It is great to travel back in time to the 70s and the 80s and find places in Bombay that have withstood the test of time. This looks like (and is) the Bombay of my childhood.
Unfortunately it is changing. The government is planning a coastal harbor freeway through these parts that will endanger the migratory paths of these birds and the coastal mangroves. But right now, everything looks just fine.
On the way back, I see the IMAX theatre in Wadala and remember how close we are to losing this war. India may not be shining for everyone yet, but it is surely getting a lot of trappings.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Pauses in Seven Feelings
1. Traffic Light
He smiled a toothless smile as I stopped at the traffic light
Yellow face with marbled skin
His companion
No more than six
Dirt-faced with matted dry hair
Hid behind him and
Covered his face in the folds of his dhoti
It was a wretched afternoon
For anyone to be walking in these parts
Bathing in fumes, soot and automobile exhaust
Selling books they themselves cannot read
Carrying weights
Beasts of burden
Across the street a giant billboard beamed a Beaming-Smile at us,
Exclusive apartments it read,
Your dream come true
And offered the promises of supple young flesh
In the form of a scantily-clad model
There was nothing I needed to do
I had money in my pocket,
Quite a bit of it, and coins
Next to me, in a bag, sat new clothes and a
Magazine extolling the virtues of the commodity exchange
2. A Lunch Undigested
On the second floor, the waiter obsequiously waits on us
I can smell sweat under that thick uniform in the heat
I hear a lot of words but I am not really listening
I am still thinking of the walk from the book store
You have a new car, a gala for New Year's at your farmhouse in Pune
(so I will notice that you have a farmhouse, so I notice)
Coversation continues, I nod, smile
A lot of memories redefined and restated, your stories do not add up
There are frustrations and additions
Mostly calculations
I feel like I am stuck inside an impossible math sum
Miss, miss, May I take a recess?
I hear a young boy call out as he pretends to want to
Use the bathroom to run away
From the moment
3. Boredom Drum
I sit on a park bench listening to his drone
He wants to have an affair
And run away from life
It is too boring
He wants tall tales too
Wants to be in airports
He is tired of living vicariously
I sit and stare
And without notice hang up
4. Sea Within
Polemics fall from the sky like rain
Dry rain, without moisture
Not black or white, or even blue
Your voice has desperation and warmth
And your cushions slide when I sit on them
But I like the copra-lampshades
They are as much a statement about you
As the ocean themed bathroom
5. Puddles in the Pond
“you are so vain, you probably think this song is about you, don’t you, don’t you?”
I am suspended between ether and earth
Hanging on tight
And the boat leaves without me
And I am left in the shore
With the lights fade away with every blowing of the whistle
Across the pond,
Without knowing
Sleeps
The
Question mark.
6. Pay the Piper
Every time I walk into this Starbucks
they dump a bucket of grief
on my lap
I know it will never be
But I go anyway
Because a glass of sugar-free
Machiato is always a sure-substitute
For hope
A cleaver falls
Across at the McDonald's
I gurgle in the pool of blood
That springs forth
As I become lunch
Poor choice of words
Very poor choice of moment
Poor choice of people
And then with the vision
Fading away from me
I sit there clutching to
Nothing, not even a newspaper
Somewhere in the brain
Addled with cheap-tunes from an iPOD
I hear a song
Celebrating the new year
Then I realize that the pool of wax under my feet
Is my own flesh melting
7. Car Talk
It was evening when we met, friends
After a gap, you had your tales and I had mine
All I want to talk about is the encounter with
The bookseller and the weight of his books
There is a carafe of wine in front of us
Outside the rain falls silently; I don’t hear car horns
The freckled light of sullen evenings does not
Make an impression on me
I have an astrology T-shirt for you in the car
I carry memories of terrible partings and half-written poems
A manufactured statement comes to my throat and dies
We agree that BB King is better than Ray Charles
When it comes to singing Feel So Bad
As we get lost in the dim-witted darkness of
Abandoned roads
It is good to be back
Nostalgia for Usenet fights
When I was young and was slavishly slogging it out in the graduate school lab, I had a lot of time in my hand between experiments. I would sit there in the half-darkened lab huddled over a PC and try to reach out to the world. That is how I got hooked to the Usenet.
Do you remember Usenet?
What I found very profitable was to post silly articles on various topics on many newsgroups and then fight over the content with others who also, like me, were huddled over their computers in their labs.
In those days, if you were on the Internet, you were most likely a student or a scientist.
If I was too lazy to write, then I would pick on someone else's writing. Then somehow or the other, dog them into a fight. A pseudo-academic fight. Inevitably, along with clever points and counter-points, inevitable name-calling would ensue. We took pride in the clever ways we could drip condescension on each other and insult each other. Can you cite your sources was a good way to shut most people up.
Of course, in those days if you were on soc.culture.indian you would not have missed me along with Vijay Fafat, Balaji Kannan, Prem! ... We baited the Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists and other narrow-minded dweebs with witty assaults and condescending retorts.
Those days are far behind me. I am no longer twenty-two looking for a silly fight over who has more references to cite.
Something reminded me today of those days.
Do you remember Usenet?
What I found very profitable was to post silly articles on various topics on many newsgroups and then fight over the content with others who also, like me, were huddled over their computers in their labs.
In those days, if you were on the Internet, you were most likely a student or a scientist.
If I was too lazy to write, then I would pick on someone else's writing. Then somehow or the other, dog them into a fight. A pseudo-academic fight. Inevitably, along with clever points and counter-points, inevitable name-calling would ensue. We took pride in the clever ways we could drip condescension on each other and insult each other. Can you cite your sources was a good way to shut most people up.
Of course, in those days if you were on soc.culture.indian you would not have missed me along with Vijay Fafat, Balaji Kannan, Prem! ... We baited the Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists and other narrow-minded dweebs with witty assaults and condescending retorts.
Those days are far behind me. I am no longer twenty-two looking for a silly fight over who has more references to cite.
Something reminded me today of those days.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Mother of All Culture Wars
The woman trembled as I sat next to her. I thought it must have been pure hell for her having to sit next to a man for that long. I had changed the seats with a woman who wanted to sit with her husband and ended up sitting next to a hijab-clad young lady.
She was young, thin and pretty, as I saw when she finally lifted her veil sometime during the flight. She was from Manchester she told me. Well, she leaned to me mid-flight and asked if I knew the layout of the airport. That is how our conversation started. She spoke in a Highlands accent even though she carried a red passport with Arab lettering. I didn’t want to stare at it to figure out the country.
You see this often, the sight of Muslim women in developed countries voluntarily accepting the sartorial shackles of their religion. I think it is like child’s play. They could take it off anytime and join the mainstream. Or they could keep it on and assert their identity. To me, this is tricky. By volunteering to do this, they are asserting their right to their own culture and religious freedom. At the same time, they are minimizing the struggle for freedom for the millions of women in many Islamic countries where they have no right to choose. Whether they like it or not, they are prisoners of their culture and sartorial constraints.
During the flight, our hands and feet touched in that crammed space in spite of me trying very hard to avoid any contact. She seemed to be comfortable in the company of men and in airplanes. We avoided all conversations about anything that may sound controversial and stuck to the topics of airports, general dust allergies and shopping. I am not even sure if there is an accepted list of conversations between the civilizations. Everyone is afraid of offending the other.
I am no stranger to Muslims. But every Muslim I know, from every country, is what can only be called secularized. They are people for whom their religion is secondary to their life even when the follow their religion. Why is this important? Islam, from my limited reading of it, is one religion that is not compatible with secularism in that, it places itself above all other considerations. I think evangelical Christianity is like that. May be even fundamentalist Hinduism. Except, I am not aware of any evangelical Christian country in the world or a fundamentalist Hindu country. This is why, with the exception of Turkey, every Islamic country is defined by the central role of religion in the government even if it is not out and out theocratic.
People who do not understand the difference between a secular country populated by and informed by the values of a particular religion from a theocratic government implementing a religious framework have no business defining secularism to the rest of us. Nobody except the worst kind of fanatic would include Turkey, India or the United States as theocratic countries even though all three are strongly religious in their populace. I am not trying to pick a fight, just stating what is commonly accepted fact among the member countries of the UN.
What does all this have anything to do with this encounter? Sometimes you remember how different people are and can be from each other though these encounters. I know a lot of people from very many different countries, but they are culturally more similar than different; their differences act like icing on the cake, a small layer that makes them unique or interesting.
But when you meet a person fundamentally different, it forces you to sit up and take notice. I know I probably sound like a Midwestern hick. But I am fascinated with the current fight between the Christian world (lets not mince words, all the terminology they use to cover that is hogwash. Muslims are not buying it) and the Muslim world because it affects us all. And we all have a stake in its outcome.
And this fight is old. And every turn of this fight has produced ugly consequences and hidden benefits to all of us. To sit out this fight as if it is somebody else’s problem is foolish.
But to take sides, one has to know which side is right and whose victory would be good for the world you live in, your personal selfish world. That is where the trouble is with this fight.
The Marxist historians who looked at the Sepoy mutiny of 1857 ignored two important things that characterized the movement. In their hurry to rename is the First War of Independence, all the evidence that pointed to the contrary were brushed aside. First of all, the Sepoy mutiny was led by Wahabists who proclaimed that they were mujahideen leading a jihad against the Nasranis (Christians.) Document after document proclaims this fact. When the mutineers entered Delhi they not only slaughtered all the British they came across but they also did not spare any Indian who had converted. They, however, spared the life of all the British who had converted to Islam. Secondly, Indian independence was not really the reason behind the mutiny. In fact their faith in Islamic brotherhood was so strong, they believed that a Persian army will come to save them from the British.
The impetus for the mutiny, while precipitated by the pig-fat on the Enfield cartridge, was the change in attitudes of the British under the influence of Evangelical ministers. The minister in Delhi implied, even stated, to the Sepoys that they will be converted to Christianity, by force if necessary.
This was not the first war for independence. It was a religious struggle between Christians and Muslims. And they both behaved in alarmingly similar ways to how they behave now. The erstwhile Islamic powers in their complacency (remember Bahadur Shah Zafar and his ill-fated acceptance of the Emperorship of the Sepoys?) behaving without a cogent strategy and the new imperial powers in their absolute arrogance (the British disarmed and stripped the Mughal princes naked before shooting them in the head) deceiving their way to absolute power.
(If you are thinking of Saddam Hussain’s fate, the comparison is not accidental.)
Sounds familiar?
And yet, this is a terrible intellectual dilemma. To support the mutiny would have been to support a Wahabi-form of government in India (which is by no means acceptable) and to oppose it would mean to condone the atrocities committed by the British and their duplicity.
As they say, history repeats itself.
All of these thoughts were triggered by the presence of the Burkha-clad woman at the next seat. But then, what is a better symbol of this clash?
Whose side are you on?
She was young, thin and pretty, as I saw when she finally lifted her veil sometime during the flight. She was from Manchester she told me. Well, she leaned to me mid-flight and asked if I knew the layout of the airport. That is how our conversation started. She spoke in a Highlands accent even though she carried a red passport with Arab lettering. I didn’t want to stare at it to figure out the country.
You see this often, the sight of Muslim women in developed countries voluntarily accepting the sartorial shackles of their religion. I think it is like child’s play. They could take it off anytime and join the mainstream. Or they could keep it on and assert their identity. To me, this is tricky. By volunteering to do this, they are asserting their right to their own culture and religious freedom. At the same time, they are minimizing the struggle for freedom for the millions of women in many Islamic countries where they have no right to choose. Whether they like it or not, they are prisoners of their culture and sartorial constraints.
During the flight, our hands and feet touched in that crammed space in spite of me trying very hard to avoid any contact. She seemed to be comfortable in the company of men and in airplanes. We avoided all conversations about anything that may sound controversial and stuck to the topics of airports, general dust allergies and shopping. I am not even sure if there is an accepted list of conversations between the civilizations. Everyone is afraid of offending the other.
I am no stranger to Muslims. But every Muslim I know, from every country, is what can only be called secularized. They are people for whom their religion is secondary to their life even when the follow their religion. Why is this important? Islam, from my limited reading of it, is one religion that is not compatible with secularism in that, it places itself above all other considerations. I think evangelical Christianity is like that. May be even fundamentalist Hinduism. Except, I am not aware of any evangelical Christian country in the world or a fundamentalist Hindu country. This is why, with the exception of Turkey, every Islamic country is defined by the central role of religion in the government even if it is not out and out theocratic.
People who do not understand the difference between a secular country populated by and informed by the values of a particular religion from a theocratic government implementing a religious framework have no business defining secularism to the rest of us. Nobody except the worst kind of fanatic would include Turkey, India or the United States as theocratic countries even though all three are strongly religious in their populace. I am not trying to pick a fight, just stating what is commonly accepted fact among the member countries of the UN.
What does all this have anything to do with this encounter? Sometimes you remember how different people are and can be from each other though these encounters. I know a lot of people from very many different countries, but they are culturally more similar than different; their differences act like icing on the cake, a small layer that makes them unique or interesting.
But when you meet a person fundamentally different, it forces you to sit up and take notice. I know I probably sound like a Midwestern hick. But I am fascinated with the current fight between the Christian world (lets not mince words, all the terminology they use to cover that is hogwash. Muslims are not buying it) and the Muslim world because it affects us all. And we all have a stake in its outcome.
And this fight is old. And every turn of this fight has produced ugly consequences and hidden benefits to all of us. To sit out this fight as if it is somebody else’s problem is foolish.
But to take sides, one has to know which side is right and whose victory would be good for the world you live in, your personal selfish world. That is where the trouble is with this fight.
The Marxist historians who looked at the Sepoy mutiny of 1857 ignored two important things that characterized the movement. In their hurry to rename is the First War of Independence, all the evidence that pointed to the contrary were brushed aside. First of all, the Sepoy mutiny was led by Wahabists who proclaimed that they were mujahideen leading a jihad against the Nasranis (Christians.) Document after document proclaims this fact. When the mutineers entered Delhi they not only slaughtered all the British they came across but they also did not spare any Indian who had converted. They, however, spared the life of all the British who had converted to Islam. Secondly, Indian independence was not really the reason behind the mutiny. In fact their faith in Islamic brotherhood was so strong, they believed that a Persian army will come to save them from the British.
The impetus for the mutiny, while precipitated by the pig-fat on the Enfield cartridge, was the change in attitudes of the British under the influence of Evangelical ministers. The minister in Delhi implied, even stated, to the Sepoys that they will be converted to Christianity, by force if necessary.
This was not the first war for independence. It was a religious struggle between Christians and Muslims. And they both behaved in alarmingly similar ways to how they behave now. The erstwhile Islamic powers in their complacency (remember Bahadur Shah Zafar and his ill-fated acceptance of the Emperorship of the Sepoys?) behaving without a cogent strategy and the new imperial powers in their absolute arrogance (the British disarmed and stripped the Mughal princes naked before shooting them in the head) deceiving their way to absolute power.
(If you are thinking of Saddam Hussain’s fate, the comparison is not accidental.)
Sounds familiar?
And yet, this is a terrible intellectual dilemma. To support the mutiny would have been to support a Wahabi-form of government in India (which is by no means acceptable) and to oppose it would mean to condone the atrocities committed by the British and their duplicity.
As they say, history repeats itself.
All of these thoughts were triggered by the presence of the Burkha-clad woman at the next seat. But then, what is a better symbol of this clash?
Whose side are you on?
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Fake New Year Resolutions
Just made them up. I have no plans to keep them. Since I made them up, I have added a few for others, like the US government.Why not?
Personal Resolutions
1. I will work-out every day. I can't do anything about how my mind feels, but there is something I can do about the body.
2. Get a hold of myself. Complain and travel less. Find peace. And when travelling, find the road less taken and stop to really see things. Don't rush through life like it is one long plane trip.
3. Accept the things I cannot change, even if I wish I could change them. Life is not fair. I am often wrong. You are often right. I cannot argue about everything.
4. Love unconditionally.
5. Work hard at things I can change and need to change.
6. Shop less. Retail therapy is not a good substitute for 1 and 2 above.
7. Read more books. Go out less. Spend more time with myself. Listen to more music.
8. Stay optimistic. don't let hope go.
9. Genuinely feel happy for you. You deserve all the happiness in the world. Feel happy for everyone in my life even if their happiness affects my self-interest. See 4. Everyone has a right to pursue their own happiness.
10. Try not to be selfish.
Resolutions for America
1. We will not humiliate the Middle-East in 2007. We have done enough to create enemies for a thousand years. It is time to stop.
2. We will work to get universal health care for our children and find a way to make college affordable. We will spend less on wars and more on education.
3. We will not execute former heads of state, even if they were bad dictators on holy days and in the most humiliating ways. There is an exeption to this rule: We will do whatever we want if we have the balls to execute our own current heads of state for war crimes on Christmas eve.
4. We will try to hold ourselves to the standard we expect the rest of the world to hold up to. We will grudgingly admit that others deserve a modicum of respect as well.
5. We will let other people be. Allow them to live out their lives as we do ours.
6. We will also let our own people taste what we say is all around America: freedom. I remember it from a long time ago, I think we have moved it since to Guantanamo. We will bring it back.
7. We will not go to bed with deplorable dictators and call them allies against war on terror. And while we are at it, we will no longer call it War On Terror. We will call it what it is: War of Terror.
8. We will stop calling a spade a club and hope people will not notice. They do.
9. We will let gay people marry. It is none of our business who marries who as long as everyone plays by the rules. There are bigger fish to fry.
10. We will be honest about OUR true intentions. It is OK, they already know. Admitting it feels good.
Resolutions for India
1. We will learn English before we join the profession of journalism. "Corporates" is not a word. We will stop referring to the business world as "India Inc." We will edit our newspapers better and stop publishing pictures of has-been paunchy socialites in tight clothes and feel good about the country. We will stop nominating Shah Rukh Khan as the person of the year.
2. We will stop pretending that the poverty and dirt around us do not exist. We will acknowledge the "other" 80%. Even if they are inconvenient to us for the stories we want to tell others.
3. It is OK to be honest. Even if it is hard. They already know. For starters, we will tell the world who the "real" prime minister is.
4. For once, we will stop talking about Pakistan peace process. There is no process, there is no peace. See 3. We don't love our neighbor. So stop sending fruit baskets across the border.
5. We will get serious about population control. It is fun to talk about Tata busying steel companies in the UK and the birth of new airlines. But we will get serious. We are not going anywhere without going back to the basics. Population control, drinking water, access to basic education and rural employment. Whatever happened to these?
6. We will try to improve governance. We will whip the skins of the backsides of the politicians who are criminals. We will stop electing gangsters. We will send Lallu back to the back of beyond where we will make him clean toilets.
7. We will stop moralizing on sex. And on "western" values. Let it be. Let people figure out what is best for them. While at it, we will simplify our arcane laws on all moral issues.
8. We will acknowledge that reservation is a fucked up system to address the social ills.
9. We will hold all religions to the same standards. better yet, we will become more secular and ignore them altogether. We will arrest criminals regardless of why they did the things they did.
10. We will stop trying to be a mini-USA. We don't yet need American approval to sneeze.
Personal Resolutions
1. I will work-out every day. I can't do anything about how my mind feels, but there is something I can do about the body.
2. Get a hold of myself. Complain and travel less. Find peace. And when travelling, find the road less taken and stop to really see things. Don't rush through life like it is one long plane trip.
3. Accept the things I cannot change, even if I wish I could change them. Life is not fair. I am often wrong. You are often right. I cannot argue about everything.
4. Love unconditionally.
5. Work hard at things I can change and need to change.
6. Shop less. Retail therapy is not a good substitute for 1 and 2 above.
7. Read more books. Go out less. Spend more time with myself. Listen to more music.
8. Stay optimistic. don't let hope go.
9. Genuinely feel happy for you. You deserve all the happiness in the world. Feel happy for everyone in my life even if their happiness affects my self-interest. See 4. Everyone has a right to pursue their own happiness.
10. Try not to be selfish.
Resolutions for America
1. We will not humiliate the Middle-East in 2007. We have done enough to create enemies for a thousand years. It is time to stop.
2. We will work to get universal health care for our children and find a way to make college affordable. We will spend less on wars and more on education.
3. We will not execute former heads of state, even if they were bad dictators on holy days and in the most humiliating ways. There is an exeption to this rule: We will do whatever we want if we have the balls to execute our own current heads of state for war crimes on Christmas eve.
4. We will try to hold ourselves to the standard we expect the rest of the world to hold up to. We will grudgingly admit that others deserve a modicum of respect as well.
5. We will let other people be. Allow them to live out their lives as we do ours.
6. We will also let our own people taste what we say is all around America: freedom. I remember it from a long time ago, I think we have moved it since to Guantanamo. We will bring it back.
7. We will not go to bed with deplorable dictators and call them allies against war on terror. And while we are at it, we will no longer call it War On Terror. We will call it what it is: War of Terror.
8. We will stop calling a spade a club and hope people will not notice. They do.
9. We will let gay people marry. It is none of our business who marries who as long as everyone plays by the rules. There are bigger fish to fry.
10. We will be honest about OUR true intentions. It is OK, they already know. Admitting it feels good.
Resolutions for India
1. We will learn English before we join the profession of journalism. "Corporates" is not a word. We will stop referring to the business world as "India Inc." We will edit our newspapers better and stop publishing pictures of has-been paunchy socialites in tight clothes and feel good about the country. We will stop nominating Shah Rukh Khan as the person of the year.
2. We will stop pretending that the poverty and dirt around us do not exist. We will acknowledge the "other" 80%. Even if they are inconvenient to us for the stories we want to tell others.
3. It is OK to be honest. Even if it is hard. They already know. For starters, we will tell the world who the "real" prime minister is.
4. For once, we will stop talking about Pakistan peace process. There is no process, there is no peace. See 3. We don't love our neighbor. So stop sending fruit baskets across the border.
5. We will get serious about population control. It is fun to talk about Tata busying steel companies in the UK and the birth of new airlines. But we will get serious. We are not going anywhere without going back to the basics. Population control, drinking water, access to basic education and rural employment. Whatever happened to these?
6. We will try to improve governance. We will whip the skins of the backsides of the politicians who are criminals. We will stop electing gangsters. We will send Lallu back to the back of beyond where we will make him clean toilets.
7. We will stop moralizing on sex. And on "western" values. Let it be. Let people figure out what is best for them. While at it, we will simplify our arcane laws on all moral issues.
8. We will acknowledge that reservation is a fucked up system to address the social ills.
9. We will hold all religions to the same standards. better yet, we will become more secular and ignore them altogether. We will arrest criminals regardless of why they did the things they did.
10. We will stop trying to be a mini-USA. We don't yet need American approval to sneeze.
Bandra Fort: January 1
This year began without resolutions. Except for the Shivsena boys from the slums below blaring a mix of incongruent music into the wee hours of the morning, there were no sings on anything different. The house was dark and the sea outside the window was silvery and still, like aluminum foil paper.
I walked out quietly lest I should wake up the sleeping. Having been sick and slept through the night, I was wide awake. Outside St. Andrew's church, brightly clad women were assembling and buying flowers for what I assumed was the Marathi service. I had been inside the church two days ago, to visit the pauper's graves in the back. There were fresh burials with flowers covering them. They used to rest peacefully with the sea breeze blowing on them even just a few years ago. Now, they have been walled in by ash-crypts and what is called "regularized" slums.
Bandstand has a proper walking path now by the sea. It begins across from Salman Khan's house and extend all the way to Father Agnel compound. Things are clean and except for an occasional health-conscious Bandra housewife or a businessman is severely tight shorts, the park is empty.
The haunted mansion in front of Rekha's building is still around, even though not for much long. Its windows are blasted off and the plaster has peeled off. The coconut trees the cover the compound are just about the only things that look alive. This is perhaps the most expensive piece of free real estate in India, I am sure some builder is salivating at the thought of another twenty-story building comping up in this location. Except for Shah Rukh Khan's house, hidden from public view by a compound wall, none of these old Parsi mansions will survive. They will fall to decay and greed. Shah Rukh maintains his house well. I see a night-watchman standing on the roof of his house. Behind his house, a new building is coming up.
During high tide, when water levels rise quickly, you see dozens of lovers in various levels of undress jump up from behind these rocky outcrops running for cover. This is lover's point. Along with the sexual revolution, the moral policing has also intensified. Now even couples sitting side by side in romantic solitude are not spared of their scorn let alone the ones who are not engaged in "obscene positions" as the signpost warns. But this is the morning, there are no couples, just me. And the cool breeze. And the muted waves of the sea.
In the 80s, this place used to look very different. it was more run down and there were no real walkways. Today, a Barista stands where there was once a low-market grocery store. Right next to the Barista, there is a Cafe Coffee Day. This is where they come, the young rich, in the evenings, to talk to each other and be seen in the early evening after they have had their little stroll.
I walk into the ruins of the Bandra fort. For those of you, who have grown up watching badly made 80s action thrillers, this is where the villain used to bring hero's mother in an attempt to get valuables from him. From behind each rock, a goon would rise menacingly and of course the hero would single-handedly thrash up the whole gang and rescue his mother. The ruins have been cleaned. They look much better maintained than ever before.
This is the site of Castilla Aguada, the fort the Portuguese built. I sit right at the edge and watch sandpipers play in the spray. Across from me, the silhouette of the Bandra-Worli sealink bridge stands in fog like an apparition of urbanization. From the top, I look at the new amphitheatre that has been built. There are coconut trees and signs warning the presence of snakes. Below me, a busload of devotees of some guru gathers by a park bench as one of them begins to speak to the crowd.
Bombay without crowds, without car horns. Bombay without the amoral frenzy. All those who partied last night have gone back to their dens and are fat asleep, their new year resolutions already forgotten.
I am so lost in this place. if there was one moment in my brief India trip that made me feel like I was back in India this was it. This and of course the trip to Sewree. I will write about it next.
On the way back, I stop at Barista. A young man in a Skoda honks his horn at the waitstaff impatiently, he is too self-important and lazy to get out of his car. I drink a machiato and nibbles at a veg. sandwich.
I am coughing and using a box of tissues to blow my nose incessantly. The dust is getting the better of me.
But I am not complaining. 2007 has just begun. I hope I can find peace and contentment, even without resolutions.
Even if that means lowering expectations. Isn't aging all about re-defining expectations?
I walked out quietly lest I should wake up the sleeping. Having been sick and slept through the night, I was wide awake. Outside St. Andrew's church, brightly clad women were assembling and buying flowers for what I assumed was the Marathi service. I had been inside the church two days ago, to visit the pauper's graves in the back. There were fresh burials with flowers covering them. They used to rest peacefully with the sea breeze blowing on them even just a few years ago. Now, they have been walled in by ash-crypts and what is called "regularized" slums.
Bandstand has a proper walking path now by the sea. It begins across from Salman Khan's house and extend all the way to Father Agnel compound. Things are clean and except for an occasional health-conscious Bandra housewife or a businessman is severely tight shorts, the park is empty.
The haunted mansion in front of Rekha's building is still around, even though not for much long. Its windows are blasted off and the plaster has peeled off. The coconut trees the cover the compound are just about the only things that look alive. This is perhaps the most expensive piece of free real estate in India, I am sure some builder is salivating at the thought of another twenty-story building comping up in this location. Except for Shah Rukh Khan's house, hidden from public view by a compound wall, none of these old Parsi mansions will survive. They will fall to decay and greed. Shah Rukh maintains his house well. I see a night-watchman standing on the roof of his house. Behind his house, a new building is coming up.
During high tide, when water levels rise quickly, you see dozens of lovers in various levels of undress jump up from behind these rocky outcrops running for cover. This is lover's point. Along with the sexual revolution, the moral policing has also intensified. Now even couples sitting side by side in romantic solitude are not spared of their scorn let alone the ones who are not engaged in "obscene positions" as the signpost warns. But this is the morning, there are no couples, just me. And the cool breeze. And the muted waves of the sea.
In the 80s, this place used to look very different. it was more run down and there were no real walkways. Today, a Barista stands where there was once a low-market grocery store. Right next to the Barista, there is a Cafe Coffee Day. This is where they come, the young rich, in the evenings, to talk to each other and be seen in the early evening after they have had their little stroll.
I walk into the ruins of the Bandra fort. For those of you, who have grown up watching badly made 80s action thrillers, this is where the villain used to bring hero's mother in an attempt to get valuables from him. From behind each rock, a goon would rise menacingly and of course the hero would single-handedly thrash up the whole gang and rescue his mother. The ruins have been cleaned. They look much better maintained than ever before.
This is the site of Castilla Aguada, the fort the Portuguese built. I sit right at the edge and watch sandpipers play in the spray. Across from me, the silhouette of the Bandra-Worli sealink bridge stands in fog like an apparition of urbanization. From the top, I look at the new amphitheatre that has been built. There are coconut trees and signs warning the presence of snakes. Below me, a busload of devotees of some guru gathers by a park bench as one of them begins to speak to the crowd.
Bombay without crowds, without car horns. Bombay without the amoral frenzy. All those who partied last night have gone back to their dens and are fat asleep, their new year resolutions already forgotten.
I am so lost in this place. if there was one moment in my brief India trip that made me feel like I was back in India this was it. This and of course the trip to Sewree. I will write about it next.
On the way back, I stop at Barista. A young man in a Skoda honks his horn at the waitstaff impatiently, he is too self-important and lazy to get out of his car. I drink a machiato and nibbles at a veg. sandwich.
I am coughing and using a box of tissues to blow my nose incessantly. The dust is getting the better of me.
But I am not complaining. 2007 has just begun. I hope I can find peace and contentment, even without resolutions.
Even if that means lowering expectations. Isn't aging all about re-defining expectations?
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