Wishing Well

‘Once a prince, twice a prince, thrice a prince threw gold; to ask for dear lord, prosperity manifold’ – a song sung by an old man who lived next door. He referred to thewishing well in front of our house. The song still haunts me…

Summers ago, a family came to spend their vacation in our village. They had three daughters – one was red, other yellow and the little one looked like a strawberry. They shrieked, ran and ate lollipops all the time. They even had a happy dog. They always sat by the river on the wharf singing happy songs, which we could never relate to. My sister, Lily, was very amused observing them and at the same time she used to curse me because she had to attend to me all the time.

Their father drove to the nearest city everyday and brought loads of goodies for them. I would wake up every morning to their giggles and singing. And needless to say, it was followed by my wails for attention. Mother would yell at Lily for not paying attention to me and her daily chores. After a few moments of serenity, I would hear sounds of cane creating welts in Lily’s back in conjunction with the giggles by ‘those three’.

The eldest one was always very pensive but happy with brimming thoughts. She was drowned in her own world. She used to carry a book and a pen everywhere and my sister observed her every move. She would paint her nails and then she would start writing and feel happy about it. She would always smile while writing.

Lily would emulate her with a pencil and a used book. But she would just scribble because she didn’t know how to write. That would frustrate her a lot. So one day she scurried her way to their yard and asked the eldest one about her book. The eldest one replied, ‘I treasure all my happy moments in this book and I see that you have one too’. Lily never liked the fact that there weren’t many happy moments she could write or draw about.

One night Lily hurriedly left me in the porch and marched towards their yard. She spent sometime searching for something very meticulously. She finally found it – it was that book. I saw her running out of the yard towards the well with the book and a plastic cover. She stared at the well for a few minutes and then threw the book in it. She then gave me a poignant glance and vanished in the dark. She never came back.

Later one day, villagers found all sorts of articles in the well when they decided to clean it. I found the book in a plastic cover and asked if I could have it. One of the diary entries read, ‘The girl next door seems so sad. I wish she could have all she wished for – a better life I guess’

Jazz by the Bay

‘I will give you all the diamonds you want’ was not the first thing that he said that evening under the moon shadows of trees swaying to Jazz that night. 

That night chanson’s d’amour or love songs were not mere mood jewels that he usually adorns in just any other mundane night. They had significance that night. He was in love after a good long twenty five years. He clasped his own hands in delightful serenity of the night laced with the hallucinatic music. He thought those were the magic that music creates in moments like those. As a kid he always liked movies over real life because movies had background music. He was happy ‘coz he can hum and sing; at least he can make up for the lack of background music in real life.

He could care less about his wealth, his palace and the never ending lonliness if not his anxious longing for what he didn’t know. 

That day his heart was filled with gratitude and he wept slowly. He was in love and he knew why. He looked at the moon and then looked at her , ‘How shiny would you be if you take all my diamonds?  Under this pale moon, this summer sea breeze and the trees, and everywhere you would be just the same; my shiny little happiness. You will always be with me’. 

He stopped gazing at Fiona, his watch and shifted his attention to his collection of books. He then started murmuring these lines again. However, in case of books, he offered them bookcases and shiny ones and in case of his wines, he offered them new cellars and yes! shiny ones.

He stopped realizing long back that it was just another night of Jazz by the bay.

Paradise lost: reprise

Do androids dream of electric sheeps? May be yes! Bladerunner’s theme tries to show us the fine differences between humans and other things (in a more general view). Dreams are one of the those things that differentiates humans from others (thats what ‘they’ say). I could care less with all these mumbo jumbo junk sciences psycologist, antropologist or any ‘logist’ researching on. All I care is dreams are required/needed. Life would be such a clockwork if I don’t dream.

Of late, in my dreams I always figure out that whatever is happening is just a dream – irrespective of nightmares or good dreams. It’s nice to have such feelings when I have nightmares but during a good dream? It’s not done!

Its has been quite common with me nowadays. Over the time, I have ingrained in myself certain truths or certain inevitabilities in such a way that even in my dreams I no longer imagine or get transported to any new realms of distorted happiness. Even if I do, I just realize its a dream….

Another Paradise lost ….!

Paradise Lost

I don’t mind not feeling immortal

‘Cos it ain’t all that as far as I can tell

I don’t mind not going to heaven

As long as they’ve got cigarettes

As long as they’ve got cigarettes in hell.

A friend sang this song, strumming his guitar with the feelings of a poet hurt enough to find the words intriguing with every new line of the song. This is “As long as they’ve got (cigarettes in hell)” by Oasis.

It kind of elucidates what’s going through every smoker’s mind looking at the pile of cigarette butts kept stacked in one corner away from a free paradise … smokers are ostracized and given the worst corners where everyone knows only the cigarette in hand and never each other … coz they can’t meet others, in a free environment where every one is without fear and at ease …. Paradise Lost! and when will it regain? When one soon go either away from the paradise and forget about its existence or go deep inside this abyss that we are relegated to (the so called smoking corner/zone) and yearn for the lost paradise … someone said the path to heaven is right through hell … Hell is here!

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family tree – Genealogy – Celebrity – Collage – Morph

Virginia diaries …

I am drunk and I am about to contribute my 2 cents of experience in US of A. And fuck I care about the fact that there will be millions of Indians who might have written about it. Well almost perfect my experience in US is and I am happy for the fact that a business trip didn’t suck too much. Hmmmm… let me write things in bullet points for your benefit:

American food is not all that bad. Its a bit sweet and baring the ever pervasive fast food, fine food seems to be palatable. Had an awesome experience of american barbeque in my colleague’s home on two occasions and got to see what they eat – to compensate the junk they eat all the time, they toss in a lot of veggies in form of salads or side dishes to go with their hamburgers/hot dogs/barbeque chicken

Americans are good-natured people. Though they might have reservations against a lot of communities yet the kind of bonhommie they display towards fellow human beings is noteworthy. This is what one wants – I don’t want my fucking neighbors to wallow in my sufferings with me. All I want is kind words.

Americans are threatened by Indians with respect to jobs. With increased cost cuttings, American companies are shifting their cost centers to countries like India – this is leading to increased job insecurity and low morale in US

Americans are much happier than Indians or let me put it this way – Americans are much more expressive than Indians in terms of happiness

Indians will be dirt-bags everywhere – they spread unhappiness and discontent everywhere. Funny experience with NRIs – Those who are now settled in the US are confused – they say, ‘I am more Amerikhan than Indiyen’. They are rude, spiteful and have no qualms in displaying all of it

Virginia is really boring – It’s worse than Kanpur … One should have a car to survive in places like Virginia. Americans are aware of it but they say its a trade off for a good job and a quiet lifestyle with kids and wife

Americans are very family centric – they are practical and think about family and don’t indulge in petty emotions when they decide things about family

Americans pubs are very lively … they have a lot of attractions other than just drinking – pub quiz, dart competitions etc. Yes, America doesn’t discriminate anyone on any grounds except for aliens (people from other country) which is not because they hate us, but because they are very conscious of the fact that our cultures are quite disparate. I loved the fact that people who come to drink in a pub know each other and talk to each other. They know the bartenders by name and they hug and kiss each other.

New York is a very exciting place .. even Americans in general aspire to be in New York coz its such an exciting city. Kind of reminded me of Mumbai. New York is an easy place to go around – nice planning though staying in New York (hotel/apartment) is very costly. I loved Coney Island Beach and Bleecker street. A pub named Red Lion was serving alcohol and playing loud live music till 5:30 am and I think its amazing.

All things nice and good … even London was good … there are things which falls into the negative part of my perspective but I will let it pass …

However,  would also like to say:

I miss everyone back in India – my family, my friends and room mates (all the room mates I have spent time with), my sunset (here sun sets at 9 pm), my home (parents as well as my Bangalore home), Mumbai, the noisy hustle-bustle, auto rickshaws, my relevance with daily life and habits and everything I can possibly think of. I wish things were better in India if I look at the good things in US of A, yet I wonder that India is unique coz of the fact that it lacks a lot in terms of social maturity and living standards yet Indians like me love India for the lack of it …. absurd it is … but then life doesn’t come with an ecyclopedia that answers all questions …

Hiatus!

Buzz … Buzz… Thwack! I wish life was that easy. It just takes me 2 minutes to conjure up my thoughts and another 2 minutes to pen down. For some reason, thoughts came and flew. For some funny reason, I stopped relying on my memory and started storing thoughts on my phone (drafts in message section). They are still there and I am here writing about them being there.

Interestingly, this is my first post to break that stasis. I wrote this down on my phone draft message.

Thwack!

32 years of Indian Police Service – To my Papa

32 years – from 1976 till now in Indian Police Service (Assam & Meghalaya cadre) is a huge achievement in my father’s life – for that matter it’s a huge achievement for any man who was born in the pre-independent India.

Born to Late Soneswar Bania, Papa grew up in a small village named Dogaon in North Lakhimpur, Assam. He made his way out to a more educated and civilized life through hard work. When many of us were fighting over which channel to watch on TV, Papa in his adolescence was riding on a grazing Buffalo and reading his text books. He was very sharp as a kid and very artistic too – you should see his handwriting; it would have made my class teacher in school, who taught me cursive writing, go green in jealousy.

He had to leave home and study in Darrang College, Tezpur, Assam initially and finish his graduation in Economic, Statistics and Mathematics from Cotton College. And soon after that he got his MSc degree (those days in Gauhati University, one gets a MSc. degree for Eco, Stats and Maths).

He got married to my mom in 1968. Mom was from a neighboring village. He was still a student when he married mom. And soon after my eldest sister was born (1970). He had the responsibility of his family back home and also his wife and a kid. He got a job in NSS (National Sample Survey) which made him stay in Shillong for a couple of years and then MidnaPore, West Bengal for another few years. He had to sent my mom back to her village along with my sister.

In 1976, he got through the civil services examination and he joined the Police Service. Again he was sent out for training and subsequent posting in Silchar, Assam. By then, Ma and my two sisters joined him. We had seen pretty bad days in my dad’s career – days when he was transferred to remote corners of a tumultuous Assam, days when Dad would come home late and Mom would wait for him, days when he had to make a lot of sacrifices in his family life (which was misconstrued by us on lot of occasions).

32 years of a tumultuous Assam – 32 years of a family who made huge sacrifices – 32 years of commitment

My father was very creative and perhaps he wanted to become an engineer, an architect, a teacher or a writer. His friends were from such fields. Due to work, he couldn’t even think about what he actually liked, forget being with his friends or dear ones. Much later in 1994, he met one of his closest friends in Tinsukia, Assam – Prof. Dundhubi. I saw my Papa behave with his long lost friends in ways which left an indelible mark on my mind – there were more to this man than what we all know.

Now, we all have the luxury to take up a job, if we don’t like the current one – relocate to a new city at our whims … Think about my father … I am sure your father would have gone through the same. Their generation was so different than ours in many ways.

Nevertheless, I am very proud of you Papa. As my friend Suresh said, “… thank him on my behalf for a service well done to the nation”, we all feel that you have done something which in no way I could ever do in life. You have started a generation in our family – my generation – the generation which books flight tickets on the internet, listens to songs from iPod, writes a journal on a blog, eats Mexican food ….

You have paved the way for us to a comfortable life, to a secured life… All these and more are a resultant of your sacrifice – a lot of it I am not aware of – may be there must have been times when you wanted to have an extra helping of food but you had to save for your family, may be you wanted to watch your favorite movie or buy a new shirt in Bihu …

Yes Papa, your sacrifice!

When dream and day unite: reprise

I could see through the hordes of people drenched in smokes of exasperation coming out of their tightly clasped cigarettes in their fingers – a great urgency in completing conversations. I could hardly see any faces that I know. It was suffocating …. moment before I decided to leave, I saw a familiar face sitting quietly in a corner drinking something precious for the very fact that he was protecting it rather than savoring it. I couldn’t recognize the face from that distance but intuitively I was sure that the person sitting there was someone close – probably eons back …. the familiarity, the comfort of someone close… I walked towards the person through meandering pathways between those congregations of people. Just when  I was about to reach and say ‘Hi’, a few people looked towards me, I could see the whole room looking towards me with some sort of amusement and shock. The look in their face said ‘How dare you go and speak to him? He doesn’t need anybody, he has us. Please leave this place…. there is no extra room for you’

Well I retracted and looked into his familiar eyes … they were sad, they were tired, they were dead, …

David Hidalgo written a song, ‘Someday’ for Los Lobos (OST: A love song for Bobby Long) which captures my emotions right now:

Someday I will go home
Someday I will go home
And I’ll find peace in the house
Of my heavenly father
I will fear, fear no more

I know down in my heart
I know it won’t be long
And I shall see the face
Of my savior
I will fear, I will fear
I will fear, pain no more

Someday, I will go home
Someday, I will go home
And I shall take the hand
Of my savior
I will fear, I will fear
I will fear, pain no more
I, I will fear, I will fear
Pain no more

Driving home
Driving home
I’m driving home

Gibran’s Love …

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Celebration is for other people ….

Affliction is something which nobody can define. Even I can’t. It is always felt and then forgotten. Some forget forever and some remembers everyday. I should pat my back and also thank a few who helped me get out of the continuous affliction that tore me apart the whole last year – I was never the same anymore. Some people say you become strong, you become this and that … But nobody knows what I have become … Let us forget what I have become, and focus on what other people perceive of me… A friend told me that people have branded me as someone who is emotionally unstable and all my writings/poems seemed as if they are the product of such instability. He is an honest guy and what he told me about the perception is true.

Funny, that people, for whom I am going through such affliction, oblivious of it (highly unlikely) asks me to have fun, celebrate festivals …. very condescendingly.. and worst part is that they pretend to have not known about what I have been through …

I don’t know why I am writing this post but will soon figure out … perhaps it’s a product of my mental instability … perhaps celebration is for other people …. perhaps other people should always celebrate … but leave me alone …. I don’t want to celebrate and never will …

Wordsworth beautifully wrote the following in The Affliction of Margaret:

Beyond participation lie
My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief.
Then come to me, my Son, or send
Some tidings that my woes may end;
I have no other earthly friend!

This is for you Maa….

This is for you Maa … You know, the greatest regret I’ll have in life is not being able to compensate for all those moments when you were worried and anxious about me. I know that though I am a big boy now, I am still your little kid. But it really hurts me to see the stifled anxiety in you seeing me grown up so fast – and more so when you were not around to see the gradual transformation in me . I know that you are very curious about me but you hate to admit it and pass it off saying that I am a big boy and things are going the way they are supposed to be ….

I heard this song from Rang De Basanti a few days back where Yashoda tells Krishna -

I am anxious about you as the evening sets in; See that my vision has become hazy ….

Yashoda: Luka Chuppi bahut huyi saamne aa ja naa
Kahan kahan dhoondha tujhe
thak gayi hai ab teri maa

Aaja saanjh hui mujhe teri fikar
Dhundhla gayi dekh meri nazar aa ja na

 

Krishna: Kya bataoon maa kahan hoon main
Yahan udney ko mere khula aasmaan hai
Tere kisson jaisa bhola salona
jahan hain yahan sapno vala
Meri patang ho befikar udd rahi hai maa
Dor koi loote nahin beech se kaate na

Yashoda: Teri raah takey aankhiyaan
jaane kaisa kaisa hoye jiyaa

Dhire dhire aangan utre andhera, mera deep kahan
Dhalke suraj kare ishara chanda tu hai kahan
Mere chanda tu hai kahan
Luka Chuppi bahut huyi saamne aa ja naa
Kahan kahan dhoondha tujhe thak gayi hai ab teri maa

Aaja saanjh hui mujhe teri fikar
Dhundhla gayi dekh meri nazar aa ja na

Krishna: kaise tujhko dikhaun yahaan hai kya
Maine jharne se paani maa tod ke piya hai
Guchcha guchcha kai khwabon ka uchal ke chuwa hai
Chaaya liya bhali dhoop yahaan hai
Naya naya sa hai roop yahan
Yahaan sab kuch hai maa phir bhi
lage bin tere mujhko akela

Ambivalence?

I write and I erase… and I write and I erase and I write and think that I will erase but then I keep writing and later erase and I write again to erase and more so I write while I erase …

Am I afraid, detached, tired, clueless, confused or just ambivalent?

Sleep tonight … for you are not alone

All you who sleep tonight

Far from the ones you love,

No hand to left or right

And emptiness above…..

 

Know that you aren’t alone

The whole world shares your tears,

Some for two nights or one,

And some for all their years.

 

~ Vikram Seth

Vanilla Skies …

I have turned out to be a photo-poem churning out machine now on my blog. Somehow I have lost connect in speaking to people who reads my blog. Reasons will be job related (I was so engrossed in my job that I didn’t have time to think about anything else), fatigue not of body but of mind – didn’t want to discuss or engender thought processes which would probably take up time and space … However I am at ease right now. The other day I was reading other’s blogs and chanced upon a friend’s blog wherein he wrote about a very happy incident. He was present when one of his friend proposed to his girl friend and she agreed to marry him. A smile beamed on the corners of my eyes and then faded away leaving behind hints of moisture …..

I remembered those withered years and try to touch them with fervent hope … I can’t touch but only see … yes only see and it’s soon becoming dusty and hazy…. I wrote Vanilla Sky for someone else … a God-sent couple and I guarded this poem from everyone … but then the skies bled and never saw the light …. But now I am happy for my friend and dedicate this to his friend who is getting married soon… I know marriage is not the culmination of true love …. let true love reign in many different shades …..

Cogent, crisp, clear everything should be
Closure and coherence are enchantingly desirable
Permanence is linked with certainty
Is this what sweet dreams are meant to be?

Hope floats where love floats
A strange mixture of follies, pleasure, ghosts and vices

A frission of ecstasy shot through me
When i walked in those clouds
Always had i known
The clouds are not permanent
They shift along with the tides of time
Leaving me hanging between two realms – hopelessness and anticipation

Yet I always wonder
Rather realised
When love floats – everything else just founders
For a second or a lifetime
It doesn’t matter
The vanilla sky and the clouds remain forever

Lucid Dream

Had a great time, specially to see you both together. Not forever may be, but for just 2 most crazily happy hours of my life.

Treacle par excellence?

Earth splits …
The skies bleed …
I die every moment …
And my soul’s not freed ..

All my Love

I have all the time and all my world for you …
Keep me going …
Keep me strong …
I trust you’d never go wrong …
Don’t be around …
But send your fragrance through a whiff of wind …
I’ll welcome it with wide open arms
and kiss the ground.

I Love Mumbai

I landed in Mumbai past midnight. The ariel view of the city was more than enough to comfort me beyond measure – I have reached home.

Ok, this was what happened. I had some work in Delhi for which I had to take an early morning flight to Delhi, finish up the work and come back same day. I reached Delhi at 10:30 am and since then I was longing for Mumbai till I landed here.

More than anything else (Delhi’s annoying character Vs. Mumbai’s free spirited fun character) I have found that I like Mumbai and hate Delhi for associations -

Delhi – Whatever bad could happen in last 26 years of my life happened when I was in Delhi. For me every tree, every bit of air, every drop of water, the evening sky… in Delhi reeks of sadness – a kind of sadness that makes me nervous, catapults me to the deep recess of my psyche where I could feel my heart stabbed countless times every second and as if every drop of my blood has been smeared on Delhi’s landscape

Mumbai – The best things that could happen to me in the last 26 years of my life happened in Mumbai – getting to know people who changed my life forever, reuniting with lost relationships, and ah! of course the famous Colaba Causeway

I Love you Mumbai for giving me a brother, for giving me a whiff of romance, for giving me another chance to reignite a lost friendship, for giving me a home wherein I stay with a bunch of great great friends, for accommodating so many friends of mine, for instantiating my lost passions, for giving more than enough reasons to enjoy myself and not last and the least – for giving me an excellent colleague who has now became a very good friend ….

O’ Journalism

Ok this is a bit personal. I work as a product manager in one of India’s widely read newspaper. And following is the conversation I had with a friend of mine after reading an article I had done which covers the lighter aspects of life -

Friend: ” …. so this is what passes for journalism nowadays. People die in this country when it rains/doesn’t rain. People die when theres a heatwave/coldwave…. and we have a person (text changed to conceal identity) giving his spin on blah blah mushy mushy (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper). Great.Where do people publish the truth? anymore… Where’s Gordon Gekko – lunch is for wimps….SIGH…thats all I have time for..”

Me: “Yes, this is journalism. It doesn’t mean that you always have to write about Gordon Gekkos and Human Piranhas. Sometimes we do need to address lighter issues to slow down the readers and not solipsistically laid out stories which ‘we’ like. Nevertheless we just don’t write ‘anything’ which can be considered reader likable unless it is something of great importance. Otherwise my paper would see itself as a tabloid and would be put in the same rank as ABC and XYZ (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper) who don’t report but opine.

I think the series ‘blah blah blah’ (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper) is not shroud under flippancy, rather it was a great breather after Srikrishna Commision report, 1993 blasts verdict, Mumbai under siege (monsoon) …..

I didn’t write this because I work in my paper, its because I believe in my paper.”

Friend: “Come on mate, you should be more intelligent than that. Regarding the other newspaper from your company (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper), the strategy was bad. I think whoever was in charge of the paper should be fired. I don’t say it’s a bad paper. Its good and its got good coverage of stuff which I like. And the readability is miles ahead of fucking ABC. But you would have disappointed/alienated 80% of your reader with the ridiculous sign up process. thats why they had to run like a mangy dog and change that 3 months down the line. But the damage is already done. So you guys are neither there – like ABC and XYZ or here – Like the Indian Express”

All this while I had maintained a saving grace as I was proud to be a Product Manager. But reality bites (a cliche, believe me, I have used after a long time) when we operate a newspaper in an era when it has become a media rather than an information source. Newspaper is now suffocating between information and revenue generation. Also it’s neither a breaking news medium like TV or internet and nor a lazy read like a magazine.

Are newspapers dying?

Our Lady Peace

Kaustubh sent me this song. Last I heard was from a teenage girl in a rock competition. I couldn’t ask her which song it was, but it lingered with me for a long time – a sense of loss yet reassurance, some distant sky, turquoise blue evening sky, powdered rain on my face, a mild scent of musk and goosebumps of memories. Our Lady Peace – Are you sad? Listen to this song here Read the beautiful lyrics below. Nevertheless you should also listen to other songs by this band specially the Woodstock 99 song – Superman’s dead

“Are You Sad?”

Your life has been so hard
It’s dried up angels that can’t keep guard
I’m trying to reach your hand
But I’m on fire
I never planned to fade… away
Stay with me
Stop pretending when they say that you’re nothing

Are you sad?
Are you holding yourself?
Are you locked in your room?
You shouldn’t be..

I’m drowning inside your head
Help me to answer
Help understand
Why it’s been so long since we talked like friends
Please, forgive me,
I’m just a man
Whose made mistakes

Stop pretending when they say you’re nothing

Stripped

Look at the picture below (photo courtesy: HT). A cute, fat kid walking alongside a policeman. Her name is Sarita and she is from Jaunpur, UP. She was thrown into a river by her father who couldn’t pay for her medical treatment. Before drowning, her last words were, “Papa, Papa …. Help me”. After being rescued, she was too scared of going back home and after persuasion, she has gone back to her mother.

On normal days, I wouldn’t have been so affected, but today …. Now you can blame the father or the society or poverty or the Gods … but that won’t work … Nor your money will help her effectively (There are many organizations wherein you can adopt a kid, but there is no transparency as in how effectively your money being utilized for the kid’s welfare).

I blame my childhood for whatever difficulties I faced in my adulthood… But now after reading this I have to rethink what went right/wrong… I can’t imagine what would have gone through this kid’s mind and how she will cope with the fact, later in life, that her father threw her away when she was ailing, into a river, just because he couldn’t handle the situation anymore…

God bless you, kid, for all the strength you require to brave the new world! Welcome …..

Endrum Vazgha Madras!

All I had in my mind was Idli and Dosa when I reached Madras. I chose to do my Dual Degree from IIT Madras for two reasons – first being the course in Microelectronics &VLSI they offered and second being the culture I wanted to “check out” – Pretty wild attempt at an adventure. It was June 26th, 1999 that I reached Madras. I recall clean roads and less traffic on the first day and quite a pleasant evening contrary to what my friends warned about.

I stayed in a place called Egmore for the first two days and after that I shifted to IIT, which was located in Adyar – it was a part of Guindy national forest. The shift was amazing – from the din and bustle of city life to the quiet serenity of a forest. Before I could try anything new … all new experiences plunged at me straight into my face … watery spicy soup-kind-of “daal” – Rasam, the jasmine flowers that adorned most women’s braid, the quaint villages – Velachery and Taramani, roadside idli corners, brash auto-drivers, coffee smell everywhere, temples and the quarter plate of Chicken Biriyani (sigh!)

Madras, for me, was a great escape – escape from the comforts of home and escape from my past. It was a revelation – a preview into the great land of South India. People warned me against going to Madras – bad food, bad people, heat, and of course no beautiful women. They were right in bits and parts. For the first two months I had experienced exactly what people told me and started hating my decision.

Nevertheless, I thought I have come to study and so be the order of the day. The first six months I buried myself in books – once in a while I would sneak out for a movie and sometimes to a cyber café in Vellachery. I would turn a blind eye to everything in the city, reach the cinema hall (Satyam) and would snuggle in the comfortable seat and watch any damn Hindi movie. I used to catch the night shows and usually with the extended drivel of hindi movie lasting for 3 odd hours, I would emerge tired out from the theatre at around 2 am. Lo! No signs of autos or any bus service. Then I would wait for hours in Mount Road. In some crazy nights it used to rain. Drenched, I would find one of those shared vans at around 3 am and reach campus gate. Since my hostel is around 4 kms from the gate, I normally ride a bicycle in the campus. I would then cycle my way from the gate, half-asleep, to my hostel. This continued for another six months.

Then I changed my hostel. I had new friends Ashish, Bhaya, Guru, Sandy and my new bike. Since they were one of those going-out kind of people, I had no option but to venture out to the city. We tried all places, places to hang out, places to eat, places to drink, place to enjoy rock music.

The best places to eat, I would say will be Shakes and Creams, Adyar for Ice creams, Dhabba Express, Kotturpuram for authentic Punjabi, GRT Grand Days and Residency, T. Nagar for an elaborate buffet, Galloping Gooseberries, Greams Road for pasta and strawberry cream, and of course Wangs Kitchen, Egmore for Chinese. These are the so-called up-market places. At times, when we were broke we would sneak out to Velachery and Taramani and have a full plate Chicken Noodles for as low as 20 bucks or we would try Andhra mess or simple quarter plate Biriyani.

 

Then came Saarang, the annual cultural festival of IIT Madras. My joy knew no bounds when I found out that Madras had a good rock music culture. I found out places like Zarra Tapas, a Spanish bar near Taj Coromandel, Unwind Center (formerly known as Vineyard) where live bands play rock music every Friday. Madras at that time didn’t have the pub culture, there was more of a bar culture and without knowing, I got used to it. I got used to only males coming and drinking and no cute looking girls hanging around. Madras is a man’s place – there is no space for weenies, no place for people with superficial kisses thrown into air. The place/the people/their movies/their life is real. There can be movies like Parrayappa (Rajni Kanth’s Magnum Opus) or there can be something as weird as Rajni cult, yet what the people swear by or stand for seemed very real to me. Days went by in a blink and I found myself more dragged into the crowd, into the heartland of Chettinad. I started liking the snake ride driving in Mount Road up to Washermanpet. I remember Besant Nagar beach where I spent most of my Saturdays thinking about the sea and how huge it is – larger than anything I ever saw or could think of. The breeze once in a while would bring the smell of Jasmine hair oil and then the Bajji and Delhi-Appallam, which would drive me crazy – so crazy that I would fill myself up for dinner with just Bajji and Appallam.

 

22000kms of bike rides, 2 accidents, 35° C average temperature, 1814 days, 5 Saarangs, couple of good friends and one great Madras. Five years of my life won’t be insignificant coz they had the maximum impact in my life. Somebody said, it seems very easy to move on but what’s left behind is very hard. Endrum Vazgha Madras!

P.S. If interested, please visit http://abeyaby.wordpress.com and get some real low-down on experiences from an insider – an ardent Madras resident and more than a resident a die hard fan!

 

I was and I will be

True love should be liberating and not binding …

A friend of mine told me that true love should be liberating and not binding. It was after I raised the question, “If a beast can do so much for loving a human being, what do we do?”, while watching King Kong.

If I look around me, the connotations of love spells closeness, dependency, physicality, obligations, brandishing et. al. Is this the end of love? Knowingly or unknowingly even I, till yesterday, felt the same way about love… but then my friend told me in a very straight tone – “Your love is very binding” … just a line is what I required! I realised that probably this what have become of love – Binding! This what have become of marriage – Binding! This what have become of a relationship – Binding!

Love is very pure, it’s is a direct translation of God. If love exists, then I am sure God exists. Love permeates through the strict definitions of eros (physical), philia (emotional) and also agape (spiritual) – the three corner stones of love and finds it’s meaning in deep seated sense of affection which should elevate one and not degenerate. Needless to say phrases like “Love Labor Lost” loses significance in the lexicon of true love. True love should be emancipating one and make him/her happy about everything in life even the fact that it is a rarity if one has true love for someone.

The day if you or the one you love feel binding and obligatory because of love, I am sorry it’s not true. True love should seek a perfect kind of affection – one that is not only based on fondness, not only transcends any particular form of it, but also a passion without the necessity of reciprocity.

l’amour devrait libérer et ne pas lier …. and more on this ….

Epitaph on a tyrant …

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

~ W. H. Auden

Quirk of fate

 

Tumbling down in a quite bright light

Supporting myself with past of the night

Clamorous Truth

 

Probing in the shadows of Truth

Embracing the mirth of the ruth

Tenacious Spirit

 

Fading soul and haggard Spirit

The wretched tree has borne seeds

Ludicrous End

~ Ashok P. Bania

 

Ode …

There was a time .. I forgot what it was like .. all I can remember now is that there was a time ….

Words escaping me nowadays.. fatigue of physique as well as mind has connived to make me forget how things were like a few years before. Questions arise and answers float… have no time to catch them. This is life perhaps… it has its own mechanism of copying sorrow. I heard that average mourning time of someone’s death is 6 months. I have mourned for more than a year… tenacity I guess. But now finally nature has answered. I am forgetting … things are becoming hazy … yet there is a lump on my throat and a throb in my heart, which will never fade away ….

Here is a great poem by A.S. Byatt

Who are you?
Here on a high shelf
In webbed flask I
Hook up my folded self
Bat-leather dry.

Who were you?
The gold god goaded me
Sang shrieking sang high
His heat corroded me
Not mine his cry.

What do you see?
I saw the firmament
Steady the sky
I saw the cerement
Close Caesar’s eye.

What do you hope?
Desire is a dowsed fire
True love a lie
To a dusty shelf we aspire
I crave to die.

- “Christabel LaMotte”, AKA. A. S. Byatt
.

I am the Lizard King and I can do anything!

Raise high your pretty faces … I hear dreams … I can hear you clear my beautiful friend .. Live your dreams .. Every strand of your hair should scintillate with electrifying spams …

Art, science, philosophy are all fucking shit man … who are you to tell me what they are and why do I need to nod? Who are you to judge and why do I have to listen?

I can hear dreams like soft dew drops trickling from one leaf to another in a fresh winter morning. Morning …. huh! Mourning! Don’t mourn my pretty child … every drop of your tear is precious … saturated with the history of your sadness .. getting saltier by the minute and heavier by the hour .. Don’t mourn my pretty child …

Beeeetraaaayaaaaaallllll with a fuckin’ slice of poison, a dash of good memories, a pinch of lost love, a tea spoon of …….. fuckk!!! It’s a fuckin’ lame concept … Haven’t u betrayed ur mother when you smoke whilst you promised her that you won’t? Haven’t you betrayed your father, when you told him that you are more weaker than he is? Lame .. it’s lame …

It’s democracy ain’t it … It’s free will AIN’T it … It’s a fucking revolution……………. heheheheheh!

YOU are the Lizard King and YOU can do anything ….

P.S. –> My apologies to Late James Douglas Morrison

Being Assamese!

I have missed 7 Bihus and now this time it has hit me. I miss my family a lot. They might be a weird bunch but they are mine … I miss mom’s pitha (something which i never liked to eat) which she prepares during Bihu.

I have fond memories of Bihu – I wake up early in the morning and first offer prasad to the Cows (Garu Bihu means Cow Bihu). We rub turmeric and black dal paste on the cows. Turmeric is antispetic and black dal acts as a good exfoliating agent. Next morning we’ll wake up and apply the same paste to ourselves and take bath. Awesome smell of turmeric, dal and mustard oil. And yes, you come out yellow from the bath. Then we wear fresh new clothes and eat the assamese breakfast – pitha (pancake), rice flakes, curd, jaggery, sugar, bananas and other fruits.

My mom will be busy preparing them and feeding all and sundry who comes home. She will put on some bihu dance music in the background. Bihu music is weird man! – there will be heavy drum beating (dhol) in a very off beat rhythmic way like the way we see in grunge music … but then at the time of the climax of the song the drums go hysterical along with the pan chewing drummers… The lyrics are very suggestive … Talking about lyrics – well Assamese people seemed to be more open – My body is burning in desire; Oh my love, if you don’t satiate these dreams my poor heart will break - Got that!

Earlier (read 1960s) Bihu in villages was considered to be an occasion where young men and women meet and decide who their life partners will be. So, the men will assemble near the river and start beating the drums; the women will hurriedly dress up in crisp silk mekhela chaddar with flowers neatly placed on their hair (kind of orchid that blooms in Assam during spring). They become so desperate to be there with their men that they start dancing to the drum beats even before they reach the venue. Hence, if you have noticed the female dancers in performances, they will enter the stage dancing and much later than the male dancers.

Ok now back to my day – we children will be very excited that day – lot of people – known/unknown – will come to our house and our parents will be in a very good mood. We will have a lavish lunch with rice, dal, fish curry – lavish because mom will be very excited preparing it and we get to eat with very generous helpings. After my sisters’ wedding, Bihu became more merrier than ever. All my sisters along with bro-in-laws will land up at home – sudden commotion at home after a great lull ….

After the usual sweet nothings and jokes, we’ll set out to have a tour around the outskirts of the city (which by the way is very very beautiful). More commotion – mom will shout at us to get ready fast, I will shout at the driver to get ready fast, someone will shout at someone to keep the dog in custody, someone else will fight over lipsticks, make-ups and knick knacks … But then the Brady Bunch finally gets together to have some serious fun.

Evening dinner will be mostly outside … with everyone tired. But then we all have to finish our day with the grand finale – Bihu functions and ceremony. There will be 100000 Bihu ceremonies happening in the city simultaneously. We’ll drop by in the most popular ones. When I was a kid – we used to be escorted to the VIP seats owing to my dad’s position in the society. But gradually, VIP seats became unattractive for all of us. I remember faintly sitting on top of the car hood when I was a small kid to watch the bihu dancers. I also remember sleeping a lot. Contrary to other members of the family, I will jump and play around a lot when I was a kid. Hence I used to feel sleepy by 6pm. Thats why I don’t remember Bihu ceremonies of my early days. My mom tells me that she used to buy me a pack of peanuts and I sleep off while chewing them.

Anyways finally we’ll come back home tired at around 1 o’clock.

Lot of people ask me where I am from – My dad is from Gujju origin and my mom is an Assamese. Now I feel that I am more an Assamese than anything else. You don’t need to perform rituals or talk like them – You just need to feel the pinch of missing the culture and the people once in a while to call urself a person from that society. And to top it all, I am as lazy, laid-back, not competitive as any other thoroughbred Assamese…