Toy joy

I keep revisiting my childhood every now and then. My classmates tell me I should’ve been in the kindergarten. Not that they think I am that dumb, I hope. Frankly, I myself would prefer a kindergarten class. But my school won’t take me back. The principal thinks I am too pervert and could elope with the class teacher who was apparently my junior in school!

I had toys of many kinds. No no, not those white candle-like things lined up on the stalls at Flora Fountain market! I speak of real toys as in the khilauna from the film khilauna. Real toys that people play with…when they are kids of course! Ya so, I had these Lego blocks with which one can build all kinds of things and even the ‘bunglow’ that the cover talks about. It has a story behind it, connected to it. It seems I was down with measles and was coming back from a shot in my buttocks when I pointed at this thing in the glass case of a toyshop and my dad got it for me, not wanting to deny the wishes of his ill son probably because I got almost all of the stuff I played with when I fell ill!

Many of those tiny building bricks, I chewed away into oblivion. The remnant, debris I would like to call it, were given away to a charity cum nursery school in the neighbourhood. But as luck would have it, we feel in the sudden need for the blocks again and the school having grown rich with donation funds and other moneys, I was left nowhere, marooned alone in a heartless land where no one could lend me their building blocks even for a day! Boo hoo!

So there I was, looking up the shelves of toyshops and asking them if they have that kind of games in stock anymore. May be advanced versions, costlier of course, but the same kind. I had this mental picture of them thanks to my taste buds.

Two shops were utter disappointments. I asked to see an apple, they got me a watermelon! Bah! But I wouldn’t let go of it that easily. I just had to have it. My building blocks.

The third shop. I tell them what I want. They go inside, turn shelves like those goons do in Don, the older one and get an armful of game sets coated with a thin cake of dusty. As he reaches me, the guy plunks a heavy duster onto the topmost set sending me rubbing my eyes and sneezing like I had just sniffed some snuff.

When my head was back onto my shoulders, I looked through the pile. No, this one I saw there. Damn. Ok, not this. Oh…naah, too much for this little. And then…there it was!

My building blocks! The cove said, Baby Play Town- For creative and imaginative building play. Thinking of ginger, I reached out to touch it. It wasn’t born out of wishful thinking. It really was there!

I lifted the lid. There they were. Chintu. All small. All coloured, multi-coloured. Three set of wheel, a few doors and windows. I called out to mom to come and see my blocks. Amma…I said. Ew, would I cry? Did I cry? I don’t know. But I paid, got out and walked back home happier, much happier than I had left home for it. I got my building blocks. I was happy. Perhaps happier than a kid would be to have those tiny little building blocks.

A sopping ishtory

Girlie took me shopping today. I thought I would look up stuff for myself while she was getting quality threads for herself, but as it turned out…Bandra’s Link Road only had bales and spools for the fairer sex. Hence, here I was in a shop that deals exclusively in women’s fancy western wear like many other shops in our island city.

Over-powered by the urge to sit, I posted myself on a chair, which actually turned out to be a vantage point from where I could just see things, as they were heppening oh, happening.

A huge punjabun rolled in with her two daughters – both past marriageable age, but still in dainty frills. They seemed to be looking for something, their eyes flying all over the shop like flying saucers in the Praire skies. The elder daughter was saying that she had liked something that she had seen here earlier and couldn’t remember what it was and couldn’t sight it now. They buzzed behind the stool I was perched on, even as I saw the shopkeeper look mouth wide upon as big as a yawning hippopotamus’ look at the India SA match. The younger one was prying into a pile of clothes a little away but soon cam prancing by holding something smaller than the half of a normal-sized dupatta and almost as sheer. “Mumma…mummy.” Probably taking her selection to the Home Fashion Inspector and moral conduct supervisor for approval. The elder one was still looking for that something. The mother, now concerned that her daughter had fallen victim to some obsessive compulsive shopping disorder tried to help by saying, “You saw here?” (Kindly note that ‘here’ sounded more like ‘hey-err’ the Punjabi way of saying ‘here’. I would love to attend a fun fay-err in Punjab!)

Other wannabe participants from ghoulish beauty pageants sashayed in and out all the time that I was seated on that stool. They wanted this and that and the salesmen were patiently tugging at the products from the shelves behind them and spreading them onto the table in front of the customers who looked and pointed more at the shelf rather than checking out what the salesman had laid out for them! “Woh dikhaana, woh…nahi nahi…uske upar waala, haan wahi.” Lips pouted, eyes prowling, some ruminating chewing gum.

Enthusiastic shopping partners had their arms akimbo with an eyebrow stuck up at the North Pole…”Ya, this one’s better (giggle) that one made you look a little fat.”

Suddenly another sound invaded the air. “Mera black sweater uske paas kaise aaya?” Madam, who identical piece hai.

A team of huge ladies was on their way out. They thought it was funny to mutter allowed that the cricket-loving shopkeeper was growing kanjoos because he wouldn’t give them a discount. One of them was floating a desire to gain tips to hide fat, when another one said, “Jo chhupaane ki koshish karte ho, who hamesha dikh jaata hai. Well, that’s one wise quip that even applies to real life and not just to extra tyres around the tummy.

And then there was this forty-something aunty who was trying a noodle-strap top over her spotless white shirt. She poked both her arms throw the gaping holes for the arms, drew the material over her head, thrust her breasts in front, almost poking the mirror. (Shit, why can’t she use the trial-room?) Finally when the top was in place, she started checking herself out in the mirror as if posing for retro-style photographs the first one with her chin up, then chin down, then to the left and then to the right. All of them straight out of a primary school PT exercise drill.

Bird watching is otherwise such a pleasurable activity. But this was different. It felt like being stranded in a I^st class ladies compartment! It’s like being inside a library of bestsellers. There’s so much of it together, in one place that you don’t know which one to read first. Saturation point?

Girlie, who initially thought it very uncouth of me not to help her make her decisions about the jeans, has decided that she would take me shopping again apparently because I patiently waited through the entire selection and trial process without major fuss.

In all, it was a great experience (THE right way to end essays according to English subject teachers in school).

Twinkle twinkle little star

Ishan Awasthi is a dude. He knows how to have fun. He doesn’t mind dipping into the gutter and fishing out ugly Guppy babies. He loves to play Superman with his head sticking out of the front window of the upper deck of a double-decker BEST.

He is the kid in every one of us. The atom that wants to get out and explore, that wants to feel free, wants to fly but fears what the world will think. The kid is trapped within the grown-up, in the pincushion of the adult’s apprehensions, his prejudices, and the pictures in his head.

Left to his own, he’s a happy soul, painting pictures of his dreams and with nothing to worry about.

He is not scared. He pumps his fist in a “Yes” when thrown out of class, moonwalks in the corridor, feeds his exam papers to the dogs and also cleans their ears for free!

Wouldn’t all of us want to be a little destructive when really pissed at something? Little Inu does exactly what Jim Carrey says about impulses in the Living Colour, “Why can’t I just stick my fingers into that table fan?” or “Hey, there’s Jerry. What if I just kick him in his balls and say hi instead of shaking his hand?”

Ishan couldn’t stand the sight of cute, dainty, neat, potted plants at the door of his enemy. He makes them look un-cute, un-dainty, un-neat and non-potty.

It is important to have fun in whatever one does. I don’t know who said it but I go it from a professor in college. He says there’s nothing more important in life than having fun.

The idea of ‘fun’ is also so very subjective. It can’t be copied like trigonometric calculations or complex chemical processes from a book to a journal. It is not the same for everyone. One needs to ask the baccha inside what it is actually seeking- his/her idea of fun.

Aamir Khan surely had lots of fun making the film. And it shows. (His kids must’ve loved it.) The otherwise reclusive personality is so much in touch with the child that it is tough not to crack up at his antics.

Whether truth or fiction, the potshot at Abhishek Bachchan was hilarious!

I don’t know intricate details of the feud between Amole and Aamir but I’m glad Aamir potted the clay into a shining taara.

P.S: The post-film visit to the loo revealed quite a few damp eyes and sniffles.

On the path of self-actualisation

I had lost a very valuable part of my attitude. One of the few things I shared with my former classmates is a generous amount of something that would generally be termed as a ‘lackadaisical attitude’; so much so that, all of these classmates were labelled into a group called ‘Chaltaye’ in my yahoo chat list.

SSR has been quite effective in moulding this ‘Chaltaye’ attitude, his train of thought being that one must let nothing affect one’s mood, creative process et al, that there’s nothing more important to grow while having fun, not to let anything bother you. It is but a totally tangent story that he himself would get irked by too much of ‘chaltaye’.

I was a big believer of this theory. I would seldom get angry. It wasn’t like salt in my curries like it is now. Not that I wouldn’t sulk then. Now, sulking is like breakfast, a routine that I must do for the poor sun to set in the west. My mood swings could easily conquer any lady’s monthly 3,4-day depressions. Generally, a verbal tiff with someone who means the world to me would mean that my day has gone for a toss, nothing would go right then onwards and I would be data-transferred from whatever mood I’m in at that moment to Sulkland. I turn into that 35-year old grump Facebook said I am. ‘Have fun’ adieus sound like curses. When in a crowd, I suddenly duck to avoid meeting recognizable faces, who, I’m sure would stop to ask me the customary queries of what I’m doing nowadays and how come I’m still in my last year of graduation etc. And the number of taxis that want to run me down on such days! My my!

Today was different. We had had an exchange of simmering words in the morning. Even as I hung up abruptly, I was thinking what would become of my day. Would all the effort from the day and the previous one go into the crushed aluminium foil of sulk sulk?

But it didn’t! Today was one of my most memorable days in college. It was Bazaar Day and the theme was ‘South India.’ Despite the confusion between medu wada and batata wada, everything was just perfect. Elephants and kathakali dancers in place, cutouts of course. Others had got leaf decorations and plantain leaves. A pookalam was designed with flowers. We were selling idlis, wadas and rasam. And…we won it! We bagged the first prize for the stall, first for the decorations and stood second in the food section. And how we squealed and rejoiced and hugged and danced when we won! And I had just had the time of my life, dancing away, getting people to buy our items- ‘kaanvaasing’ I called it…all of this while dressed in perfect ethnic costume.

So I guess, ‘chaltaye’ is back or am I sulking right now? I just want it to stay, now that it is here and help me mend things that have gone wrong and go on and be that happy ‘chaltaye’ Hari I used to be, for I care and I love. Her.

'Redding karte hain'

A hairy Hari Chakyar gains a very valuable gender reality experience at the barbershop

I got a haircut today, a close-to-the-scalp-cut that most people would associate with Akshay Khanna. Not that it is much of a deal, but the whole experience came with another free experience. Towards the end of the trimming process, realization struck. All the effort women take to look good and the pain they undergo suddenly dawned upon me.

The haircut was done, but I wasn’t satisfied. I could see jagged ends and unfinished poky cuticles sticking out here and there. I told the razor-wielder to shave ‘em off, so the new haircut would look less like a shaved moth. He dutifully whipped out his razor, but after a few miniscule strokes here and there, he said, “Redding karte hain.”

It was incomprehensible…I did not get what he said and impulsively responded, “ain?” “Dhaaga chalate hain,” he said. *A moonbeam suddenly made its way to earth* “Ah, he means threading,” I thought.

“Hey, wait a second, ain’t that what girls get done to their eyebrows just in time for a function or boyfriend-meeting ceremony?” *Head whirls*

By the time my pea-sized brain had reached this point of thought, the barber had a spool of string in his hand, like glass-dipped maanja. He held one bit of the thread between his teeth and held two other parts in his two hands and went at the remaining hairs.

The thread made a trayon trayon trayon trayon sound as it went as I held my eyes shut tight and cringed and cursed myself as to why I had to put on my spectacles and catch those errant strands, when I could have just avoided this painful humiliation! I seem to have this kinky fixation for pain, but this was ridiculous!

I bet there weren’t as many hairs there on my cheekbone and on my temple as that guy made them out to be! When wielding the all-powerful thread he just went berserk, ‘redding’ imaginary hair while I said “yeow yeow” and thought to myself, “F***, this hurts!”

But the end result is kinda good, so I think the effort was worth it. Precisely why I think women go for it. What the heck, it looks good! Don’t get me wrong; for I say this only in jest…I think now I’m a little more aware and sensitive about women’s issues!

Piggy on the railway, gone to commit suicide

Resilient and compliant that I am, like all my fellow pigs, it has been quite a few years that we’ve adapted ourselves to the perennial no-power situation. We have been convinced that there’s acute shortage of power in the state and that we would have to part with power for a considerable number of hours every day, so that our richer brethren in the city can relish their afternoon siesta peacefully in their air-conditioned bedrooms.

As for us- pigs, we don’t really mind not having electricity in our homes for anything between six and nine hours. Our television sets have become showpieces and we’ve been busy trying to find things to do when blessed with the lovely power cuts.

Recently heard, there are going to be power cuts in the New Bombay region too, which had somehow managed to hide behind the CIDCO building, when they were making the erratic timetable to fatefully deprive the Central suburbs of power.

Wasn’t that region supposed to be the next region to be ultra-developed after areas like Andheri? Weren’t major business and service industry offices planning to move base from the present congested Mumbai town to Vashi and Nerul? How then will those regions undergo power cuts?

I think I know how. Don’t label me as cynical. All of us have risen to a level higher than that and have attained something called nirvana of patience.

Look at this, the way I look at this. They continue with their plan of moving their offices to New Bombay, Indian Express and Loksatta being one of them. But then, they’ll meet the power cuts. But they are not flustered by it. The state will have a solution. “Central suburbs are only subjected to six hours of power cuts,” the state would say, “They still have eighteen hours of power, we can borrow some more.” Thus, the little what we have now will go on to ‘save the world’. Oh and then they’ll have explanations. ‘You know there used to be this power-source that recently shutdown and the others are all being renovated and will be ready within 2 months.’ And all that.

But then the suburbs will be given incentives to take up small scale industries like candle making and production of storable biogas made out of human excreta. The candles will keep us people busy all day and give us light at night. The rest of the time, we’ll be asleep, so we will not need any light. Hey, cardboard covers of notebooks are great to swish swash for breezes. And the candles, if smoothly made, can be used to make excellent dildoes. But then, they’ll have to be really strong or else, they’ll break inside the orifices and cause trouble later. Imagine the ecstasy of making love in candlelight after a candle light dinner! Perfect, ain’t it?

And the biogas fuel is the best incentive ever. It seems it is the second best energy-efficient fuel after LPG. Sure drives the point home that we are actually gaonwaalas. Shit and make gas out of it. Did I mention we are pigs?

A man boards the train from Ulhasnagar, has a very obvious Sindhi accent even while he talks Hindi. He is one of the lucky ones among members of ‘train groups’ to have a culturally diverse group of people travelling together to their different places of work. He spouts quite a few Malayalam words, which to the surprise of the Malayalis in the group, sound very much like how a purebred Malayali would talk! It is revealed, now, that this gentleman has been undertaking the annual sabari mala trip without a break for quite some years. The few words that he knows stand testimony to all those devotional trips. What more, he relishes south-indian food and says there’s nothing in the world like the yummy food in Udipis!

Mollywood now has a new actress. The 22year-old is named Roma. She is settled in Chennai and speaks Tamil as fluently as her mother tongue- Sindhi! Roma Asrani. Though I don’t know more about this new budding starlet, I happen to know that she’s as healthy as the other leading ladies of Malayalam cinema.

<----- Roma Asrani

A lady lives in the nearby colony tries so hard to talk in chaste Malayalam, that she actually succeeds, but not before making you feel that she’s not really a Malayali. Truth is, she’s actually a Sindhi lady married to a Keralite, speaks convincing Malayalam, wears deceptively Malayali sarees and dresses, cooks food that taste almost like it came from a Udipi hotel!

All three of the above stories have two things in common. One is obviously the Sindh-Kerala connect. The other thing is that all three of them were told to me by my mother. The uncle in the train is in my dad’s train group. The Sindhi married to a Keralite lives in the same building as my sister’s dance teacher.

We had been watching the box yesterday. A reality talent hunt show was on when my mother pointed out to the celebrity guest and asked me if I know who that was. I replied in the negative. ‘I don’t get to watch much of TV, how do you expect me to know,’ I rued. She replied that the guest was Roma, a Sindhi girl who is now acting in Malayalam films.

I don’t know what she is driving at, but it is definitely sure that she is contemplating yet another such union. It gives me great pleasure that she is giving serious thought to it. Reason to rejoice? Only time will tell.

“Tu repeater hai kya?” he asked me.

“Ehh…repeater nahi…” I replied and told him that this was the first time I was doing the sixth semester. So technically, I’m not a repeater, but non-technically, I am?

No ‘friends’ in class. There are two girls who talk a little more Hindi than the others, precisely why I solve the MidDay Bollywood Crossword with them. That is one part of this class that I certainly enjoy. Some lectures are fun, the others morose. No group to ‘hang out’ with. Hari is a loner. The fun lectures are where Hari opens up sometimes, thinks openly about things he heard at work, learnt in the process…shares with the class. Other times, a general quiet descends. Nothing much to talk. Anyways, there’s no one to talk to. Almost all of whom I knew flew away last April.

Lone canteen visits…the four-seaters are over-flowing with bums, while I manage to find a place to grab my grubs in peace. Dark clouds poke me with the silver wiring in them. The silver wiring of all that I did in the one year that I lost, of things I learnt and the money I earned. Sooner than later, the mildly pleasnt hallucination caused by the wiring sublimes into vapour as the dark cloud fogs the planet again.

Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t I have passed out with the others? Damned.

I think I know why I feel so down in the Deonar dumps.

K. Complete the following sentence with any fucking ten words of your choice:

Hari is going through this because………………………

One hand up. It’s Hari! Ok, Hari, tell us the answer. You are so smart, only you know the answer.

Ahem…yaya…all that is fine. I am going through all this because I always looked down upon repeaters. Did the ‘always good to everybody’ Hari really look down at people who had lost an academic year and scoff and haughtily think to himself that he’s way smarter than any of them?

*sheepish grin* uh…I guess…yes. There’s my neighbour who is really smart but would always fail when he was in school and I would always think to myself what a dimwit he was. It’s only in the near past that I got over that mean pre-conceived notion. Then there were many of these new faces that could be seen on the first day of every year at school.

“Hey, is that one of the repeaters? May be. Because, if it were a new student…the uniform would look newer than what he’s wearing now,” my mind would talk to itself.

It would take days to get talking to this new addition. Not because I thought academic failure was contagious or anything, but because such students were usually known for their nefarious activities and I really didn’t want to be known as one of them.

I never thought of myself as conceited as I now seem to be. My memories are shattering me.

I was getting my new college I-card made…when the guy in-charge asked me, “Tu repeater hai kya?”

The question hit me on my face like stray stones hit footboard travelers on local trains. It reminded me of how demeaning…almost derogatory that word was to me, till a few years ago.

All these while, I thought I did no one any harm. It brings tears to me. I thought I was all goody-goody in school. My hands shook if I tried to copy during exams. I never pushed anyone while climbing the stairways to the classroom, never clicked my shoes on the hard stone, never talked in class other than when of utmost necessity.

Isn’t there something on the same lines as sow a mango seed and you get a mango, not an apple?

My current class is good, accommodative and intellectually sparring and they wouldn’t look down at anyone, let alone me. But it is not my class. Yet.

Enough of things that thus weigh me down, compelling me to squander precious time and energy over such senile thoughts. Hope things do change for the better. May the dark cloud be vacuumed out of my head. Hope the industrial visit help me make friends, to help me get out of this semester in peace. Hope the projects and studies and work goes fine. And then there would be nothing to be as sorry about.

No pushing

No shoving

No elbowing

No words spoken

No words intended for me

No hard feelings

No gritting teeth

More time to read

More time to sleep

More time to contemplate

Better audibility of the mobile phone

Stone/ impassive faces replace concerned emotive ones

‘Who you?’ is the highest authoritative policy

Cushioned seats pamper my bum for now…but does it get used to it or gets offended by it is yet to be seen

Such has been my experience following the much-awaited switch to the I Class coach. More observations to follow, am sure! Wink wink.

There is this small gap between our building and the one in front of ours, where we used to hide, while playing ...shit I forgot the name of the game...lol, we called it lapa chhupi (Marathi for luka chhupi) which I had totally forgotten about until my little cousin showed it to me today...and to my surprise, I can still pass through the small passage, albeit tilted...my waist has grown and so has my paunch, so I really have to try not to get stuck between the mossy walls! For a while, I felt I was twelve again!

(Pic: Shyamal Unni. Camera: Nikon Coolpix L5)

Well well…

Two more days and I head back to college to pick up from where I left off, from where I was told to take a break for a year and join back later. Questions arose like infuriated soldiers from hidden bunkers. I hadn’t failed in one subject in 11 years of schooling. The trend began in the tenth and continued throughout, into the HSC and then plagued the two and a half years of mass media that I ventured to study.

My future looked so bleak. It looked like stone walls with graffiti on it, which read, “You’ll never get anything you wish for.” Days spent brooding, sulking. More time was spent at home, surfing the internet. Nearly a thousand job/internship applications sent- some by email, the rest by snail-mail. Meanwhile, I made a new friend. We met through Orkut and then met through a common friend.

(I still don’t get how my time can be bad when all the things happening to me right now are for the best of my interest!)

Luck bent a finger a beckoned me lustfully. A teacher at college, my mentor, got me an internship with The Indian Express. All of a sudden, a nobody, a college dropout was an intern sub editor! It was my first peek of how a real newspaper works and what it needs to be good at what I was learning to do.

2 months later, yet another job followed, but this time, I was supposed to be a full-time sub editor. Afternoon Despatch & Courier. Memories of college wafted in often, rendering me weak, forcing me to wonder if I was treading on a wrong path. My newly-found friend turned love was always there to peel that feeling out of me like you skim out the tender filmy layer off a glass of milk.

Seven months down that lane, ADC, as the paper was sometimes called, decided to down its shutters. Even as this is being typed, the matter as to who actually owns the paper now is awaiting the decision of a court of justice.

A few days later, I was offered a job to write funny-sounding scripts for a comedy show on a newly-born national channel! Wow, isn’t this like a stepping stone to whatever I have always wanted to do?

I took it up. It is fun. But now, college beckons. Hope my stock of luck ain’t over just yet.
A few more years of such booming luck and I would be where I just want to be...

At the top!

Yay!

Initial part of game plan accomplished without much ado. Can I? Oh ok. Well…bags packed and the next train to Andheri. Being much of an ascetic, there ain't much to carry other than the bundle of clothes. New place to live in, albeit a little untidy, which is not a problem at all. Great pals to live with, people who I know, are good human beings like me, creative and thoughtful.

Work is so much more fun now. A lot less struggle to get to work means a lot more creative funnies. No baggage, no water bottle for the journey, no book to read in the train. It is just me…musafir? walking down Andheri roads…something I never thought I could do, with my hands deep inside my jean pocket- sometimes for the stylish look of it, sometimes because my hands get bored of just hanging lackadaisically by my side and sometimes to search for change.

It feels good. My voice sounds better. I can sing better, make voices better. I can think. I can write.

One of my roommates, who was also my colleague at my previous workplace is something that people could call a voracious reader. He has a horde of books, strewn around his room, collecting dust like Nazis collected Jews to put into gas chambers. Yesterday I invaded the dusty closet like the red coats almost invaded Harvard long long ago and along with him, set the books in order. Newspapers were separated and accumulated in quantity decent enough to earn some ruddy money. And then there are old pizza boxes to be sold off, but my roommate believes they won’t help earn much.
The resultant effect is good. The books are in order and the study table ready for some thought and writing.

A few more days. Then pay time. Hope at least this one gets here. Till then…let the game plan roll on…

Enough

New place. New people. Eavesdropping on people talking over the phone. Trying to catch names. New names to remember. Discovering the loo. Discovering how to use the faucets in there. Recollecting them on time. You addressing someone and someone else turning around (for eq. you call out someone you think is Anjali, but is not and the real Anjali sitting next to her looks up instead and says, “Yes?”)

Answering, “Who are you and what are you doing here” questions of bosses. Discovering how to open the door (enshrined with the la hoo haa fancy swipe card system.)

It is an enchanting feeling to see on screen and hear the very words that flowed out from your head. It happened recently. One of the gags I penned had been translated beautifully by the two anchors of the show…my words now had emotions in them teamed with wondrous expressions.

Some people there will answer queries anytime you ask them. Some others walk past you as if you don’t exist, but this shouldn’t be considered rude or anything because all of them there work under pressure and are thinking of something or the other all the time. That must be how creative brains work. :P

The office is swank. Wooden flooring, good chairs. Bean bags to ponder in. good word processors on which one can also plug into youtube, thanks to a good internet connection.

Oh, and coffee and tea at your beckham and column, no, beck and call.

As goes my former status message on G talk, new place, new people…now good place, good people.

Good office alright. But getting there and getting back home from there is the struggle of a struggling ‘wannabe something BIG in life.’

Wake up with the previous night’s shoves and pushes still wreaking havoc inside the muscles. Rush to catch the designated train, pray for it not to stop en route. Change tracks. Board train. Reach bus stop. Say hi to the queue. Barter shoves for pushes. Maneuver the way to the seat. Get down, walk two minutes towards office. See the swank, feel the AC…phew, finally there!

(66 words. Easy to say, damn tough to go through.)

Eyes shut tight. Teeth grinding together. Trying to find foot-space. Taking the juts on the stomach without a sound. Feeling the ache building up in the back, feeling the pressure on the pelvic muscles…stretching to the best of their capacity. Only then do the sounds come out, pleading at first, then polite but curt and then outright rude. If things still don’t work, lighter shoves from your side and a cold stare does magic. It is way better than anything insulting to say.

Getting angry all the way and trying to cool down asap, to think of things that should translate funnily on the screen. Tough job indeed. I wonder where all that anger should go.

Voodoo dolls of BEST buses and local trains? Random rantings on the blog? Or random writings on a piece of paper and then tearing it into bits and setting it into fire? Pillow fight? Shouting out loud? How the heaven, do I vent? Hope it is not turning into a huge bubble, waiting for that fatal pinprick.

I wonder where I can get hold of tranquilisers, those shots that hunters and vets use to put the wild creatures to sleep, for a while, of course. I would love to try a few of those on a daily basis on some co- travellers, who think they can have their way about things at the cost of others. And then the ‘helpful’ police will be out looking for the serial tranquiliser.

I find silence as the best way not to hurt the caring ones. Shutting up would mean shrouding the need to crib, to vent, saving the fear of taking the ire off on the first person that cares to listen.

Enough. Time to save the angry energy for better purposes.

Time for the game plan wheel to begin rolling.

Failure of journalism

Follow the path of righteousness. Never commit something wrong, completely knowing that it is wrong. Apologise when you feel you are wrong. Keep the senses open; never take decisions without equally weighing both sides, objectiveness they call it. Bribing is bad. Taking a bribe is still bad.

Apply for a passport. Take crisp prints. Fill up the remaining blanks. Amass the necessary documents. Remind oneself of one’s date and place of birth. Talk witnesses to readiness. Photocopy each document thrice or more times. Carry yourself and the bundle to the nearest passport office. Plastic, weary smiles for the watchman there. Await your turn. Answer putrid questions. “You are not married, no?” pay the dough. Accept nods for farewells and acknowledgements. Await for ‘clearance’.

One fine morning. A gruff but polite telephone call. Summons to the local police station. Passport application verification. Witness one. Questions. Answers. Weary demeanour. Dingy room. Rude awakening. ‘Fees’. 100 bucks. “Will I get a receipt?” Guffaws.

Later, witness two. Questions. Answers. Weary looks. Curtness exhibition. Empty boasts of “You want receipt, I’ll give you receipt.” Police verification done.

Passport almost here.

New phone call. Summons for police verification of dad’s passport renewal application. Today. Dad says he’ll pay if the cop asks for fees. “Why?” “Oh, it won’t be too much.”

“But why? They get their salaries!” “One person not giving in to the cops won’t stop the corruption.” “Doesn’t mean you have to give in too!” “Look, we have had to pay illegally for the house tax papers. Each time we had to get the guy here, we had to bellow his pockets with greenies. Some things are like that. You cannot change them.” “It is because you choose to make things that way.”

I don’t know what to say. What is the fckng use of studying all this bullshit journalism and stuff when you can’t persuade your own father from giving in to bribery? What use is a passport begotten by such means? The visas and the flight tickets that follow the passport would rather fly straight to hell. The passports to hell.

A dressing table for my sister

Enough

Trains are the lifelines of Mumbai, where people from every walk of life adjust, make space for everyone. What makes this city unique is that no one complains. May be they’ll grumble and mutter obscenities under their breath but just will not talk about what is bothering them, because it is bad manners to complain. Aaighaalya and bhenchod will rattle the headboards more than the bumpity bumps of empty local trains. Patience is a virtue. Adjusting is yet another one, which does not come to all. Resilience and patience, even in the most neck-breaking crowd inside a train, is the mantra.

Smelling armpits, dirty feet sliding down your trousers as they meander towards the door to get down at ‘aapla stop aala.’ Well, the spirit of Mumbai. Ho hum! Enough. Mixing the ubiquitous tumbackoo and chunna with the thumb of one hand pressed into the palm of the other, letting the lighter elements fall into your sandal, through the gap of your toes and shoving the ‘tonic’ between the lower row of teeth and the lip, haven’t we seen it a million gazillion times?

I have had enough of this bath towel-between-the-collar-and neck middle class. It is no point telling anyone what to do. No one wants to hear you. Who you? Enough of rubbing shoulders with the common man (read, peon at Mantralaya, office assistant of PWD Chief Engineer, driver of shipping corporation manager.) Stock of patience, over. Being stoic, thing of the past.

No more strutting around penniless. No more waiting for 'we'll let u know'. No more adjusting (read, getting a sore leg and a shoulder wet with the adjacent person’s sweat) to make room for the fourth person. No more. No more. Had enough. Time for a change. Time for a game plan.

The power puff girls

Will the world ever turn around and be different from what it is now?
Now, people say, “…the male chauvinist pigs in Delhi, you know how they are….” I do know how they are, not as strongly as I am not one of them- happily so, but because I have had the misfortune of meeting a few of them and hearing quite a lot about them through friends, through media. The corners of my mouth curl as I imagine what it would be like to live in a female-oriented world in the real sense of the world and not only as it appears on dark websites…in the crude form of femdom.
An excerpt from an interview: “So what do your parents do?” “Uhh…my mother is a pilot and my father is a househusband.”
Unflinching, unhesitant and bold- proud to have a caring, understanding father at home to tend to her, to listen to her after-school stories and to ridicule her History teacher for teaching his daughter unmindful muck instead of real facts.
Somewhere, a househusband cackles. Someone is coming to see his son today. For marriage. He is pensive and excited and wants his neighbour to be there for moral support (actually to share the preparatory work!) His wife and daughter had chipped in considerable amounts from their savings and he was proud of them.
Seven girls had rejected him so far and he does not want this to happen again.
One of the girls had said that the boy was a tad too dark and they had started badgering him to use Fair and Handsome. Someone else had wrinkled her nose at the boy’s long nose and they had had him undergo plastic surgery. But the result did not please the suitors and they called it off. An engineer girl who came to see the boy had asked if he was a virgin and had stormed out of the house when she knew he wasn’t. His father still doesn’t know why that team did not like his boy.
There wasn’t a single time when he had rejected an offer. The girls would always find fault with him each time. Someone even said the boy had stared into her eyes instead of looking down at his hands, as was the custom. The father was tired. The boy himself had agreed to tie the knot with anyone who married him. He had decided that he would take care of his wife’s house and their kids.
Spineless? Meek? Pashtuns may consider this demeaning, outrageous, against their nang and namoos, their honour and pride.
Lder, well-settled women would marry men who are just out of college- fresh graduates or HSC passouts. If the women die first, the men would have to follow their wives’ corpse on the funeral pyre- the Sata tradition- a symbol of their undying love for their better ‘a little more than’ half.
Ages on, some men would have had enough. It was too bad they couldn’t divorce their wives. They were all too powerful. So, it would be decided that some men meet at a secret [place, may be at the handsomeness parlour, to chalk out a plan to swim out of this oppression. A Men’s Rights Association would be born.
Hari wakes up. In a filmi setting, his brow would be bathed in sweat and he would be panting.
In the normal setting, he looks at the clock and wonders when that time will come. It has been his all-time fantasy that his life partner makes good use of him.
Oppression is only euphemism. May this oppression also have an erotic tinge to it. At this very moment, the corners of his lips are curling upwards.

Death of a friend

It hurts when you have to say good-bye to someone very dear to you. A very senior colleague of mine today had been for the 10^th day prayers of her friend. She came back from the function and couldn’t stop the steady stream of water flowing from her eyes as I held on to her soft, wizening hand. She talked to fondly about her friend, about how humble he was and how good he was to people, so much so that I developed this strange urge, wishing I had met him at least once before he had departed.

Sometimes the world is like that.

My colleague said something, which is a matter of fact but struck me as strange. “All my friends are old are dying one by one,” she said. This reminded me of a story that I read in some children’s magazine and had adapted and re-adapted it to suit my story-telling. Three best buddies- a tomato, an onion and an ice-candy are inseparable. They live together, sleep together, go to school together and play together. One monsoon day, they decided to go for a movie. They were bumping down the street even as it poured, more excited than the three best buddies.

But from nowhere, came the sun, beaming bright, scorching light. The ice-candy started sweating. It started feeling nauseous and soon collapsed and melted away into the BRIMSTOWAD, much to the dismay of his friends.

His friends wept and they wept in the rain. It was good it was raining, so people couldn’t see them crying.

Since they had already set out for the movie, they planned to continue with their plan and proceeded to the theatre. In the pitch-black darkness, a man sat on the very seat that tomato had occupied, squashing him into Kissan Tomato Ketchup.

The onion cried and he cried. He went outside the theatre and he cried and he cried.

Then it suddenly struck him. He thought, “The tomato and I cried when the lolly died. I cried when the tomato died. Who would cry when I were to die too?”

The thought suddenly made him feel very lonely. He wept even more.

A sage who was passing by saw his pitiable state.

Crying “Alakh niranjan” he ruffled the hair on the onion’s head and asked him the reason for his sadness.

The sage smiled at him and said, “Is that all? Henceforth, whoever brings the knife to you, will shed tears!”

I remember Richard’s death in 2004, a few months after we had all grabbed admission in an Ambarnath college. It was during the exams. I remember, the next exam was Hindi and all the poems in the textbook read as if mourners had penned them. I still cannot help feeling a pang of guilt as I pass his house everyday. The pain has ceased to be a dull ache now. A guilty, dull ache. I still remember how inconsolable his father had been after he had been buried in the Fatima Church cemetery. Some gave him toy guitars, others wreaths. I had said I would be back to say hi to him. I never went back. Somehow I cannot bring myself to go to the graveyard again, without feeling nauseous and spooky about it.

Recently realisation struck me. People who had been friends, thick buddies till a little while ago are mere chat friends now, who say hi and howz u and wassup. Lots of friends, no money. Now- money, money and no friends.

Friends? Hmph. Who? What? Where?

War of the pimbles

I used to have a beautiful goatee (beard). Now, I don't. Thanks to the dirty pimbles. I am being tormented by rascally pimbles. Tiny, err...kinda biggish, roundish, red-pinkish globules of my skin, mushrooming out of my face, threatening to be extra noses. There's one on my left cheek. Looks like, it's been going to the gym, turning tough! Rough and thick and crusty.
There's a family of pimbles living on my chin. They live like long-lost relatives on either side of the cleft on my chin, like India and Pakistan, separated by the cleft of the Rann of Kutcch.
Nuisance mongers. When in the train, random objects would come n nudge at it, as if people knew how much it disturbed me and were purposely doing it to quench their thirst for sadistic pleasure. The last time I expressed my anger was when the lady with the basket of chickoos brushed her basket against the pimble on my left cheek. Cheekoos! Bah!
It is tougher at night. Groggy with sleep, when the existence of the pimble has surpassed my memory, I set my head onto the pillow, the very side that the pimble sits and clasp my hand over my mouth, not to wake up my folks.
The pimbles had started mating and creating new offsprings near and around the place that they now live, the result of which is my new, clean-shaven look. And how difficult it was to shave without upsetting the pimbles! It was like tiptoeing into a room full of sleeping chicken warming their eggs, when you have to jump over stacks of hay and still not make the tiniest of thumps. Plying the razor blade over the stubble without touching the irritations felt like riding a bicycle on a railway track.
The Government of India and the NASA called upon me last night. The said they feared that the pimbles are the handiwork of certain Martians who landed on Earth a few eons ago. They said they wanted to quarantine me, like they did to all those eggs supposedly infected with bird flu (lol, imagine the chicken going atissue, atissue!) they asked me to take my dearest thing with me. I told my baby sparrow to pack her bags.