the rainbow

back to blogging !!

2010-08-20T14:52:00.002+05:30

its been three years since i last wrote something on the blog. three years with many changes in one's personal life... nevertheless time is ripe to start posting again !! will start writing this week :)

The big fat indian wedding!!

2007-07-07T17:45:00.000+05:30

I couldn’t have found a better day to write about a wedding…its 07.07.07. destiny's date:)
Although my experience from the past week.

It was a cousin sisters marriage. Staying out of home all these years meant not meeting her for the past 7 years although as kids we got lots of time together .

Marwari weddings are long, elongated affairs. Soaked in customs and rituals they continue almost forever. Even for the slightly extended family it involves at least 3 days, for the immediate family it can mean at least 15 days of action besides 150 days of preparation . not to mention the average 2.5 years spent looking for a groom/bride.

If an American reads this he’ll be horrified. He/she can do the cycle in 2 weeks and maybe get on to another cycle in 6 months. Cultural snides apart, "to each his own”. Right and wrong are too complex and ambiguous to be defined . as long as you live a life you love nothing else matters.personally I wont mind being an Indian or an American or anyone in between [ Indians and Americans here are faulty over generalizations of attitude towards relationships , individuals within cultures differ a lot more than individuals across culture ]

Another salient feature is residency. Unlike other weddings in city where you come on the wedding night greet ,eat,gift,escape it’s a little more difficult here. Your endurance will be tested over many days. lol. you have to stay in a "dharamsala" where all elements of family who can be fused together will be thrown in. the arrangement itself is fun. Around 7 meals a day.lots of chat. Interrupted by a morning nap,afternoon siesta and a long nights sleep.:) words become scant to describe the lethargic levels prevalent ..lol….though its one of those time when happiness instead of a goal becomes an ongoing event ...:)

There is one thing I absolutely love about marwari weddings. My 5 “10” is almost the tallest in most cases as our impoverished times in 19th century rajasthan exercise a genetic remote control. Although with increasing prosperity the situation is changing but as of now 6 feet is very uncommon.

In a Punjabi wedding I would have been a pygmy.as if to remind me of our geographical location in the Punjabi heartland a heavily “punjabified” number from “jhoom barabar jhoom” started playing. I wondered at the surreality of the whole situation. A marwari enclave within a Punjabi homeland . Punjabi homeland itself surrounded by jat lands.
Further surrounded by cow belt. And if we remove the semantic walls, human beings surrounded by human beings.

I strayed a little. I found a guy whom I had met some 10 years back. He pulled me in a photograph with 4 of his friends/relatives. Instantly I was immortalized in Eastman Kodak’s discovery along with 4 guys I never knew and in all reasonable probability will never meet again. And they will be answering a lifetime of “who’s this guy” answers with a long long explanation every time until Alzheimer’s or old age decimates their neural numbers…lol

The only person I knew really well was my own mausi/masi . so i literally kept hanging by her pallu as any deviations caused bouts of agoraphobia and potential anomie. Moreover identification was a lot easier with her around. I had to say 10 lines to make any sense she had to say one “he’s my nephew” . instantly I found a place on the family hierarchy and was quickly given something to eat as if to express approval.

Mausi told me that by the virtue of being my youngest brother her 3 year old will sit behind me on the white mare.(we have a custom where a small kid wears a matching sherwani like the groom and stays stuck to him during all the wedding days , like a younger reflection…thankfully he doesn’t come on the honeymoon…lol….i was the little boy in 3 weddings )

I told her that although the idea was good but she shouldn’t be rushing for sherwani size . he’ll be atleast 12 or 15 by the time he actually gets to sit in my wedding . mausi gave the “raised eyebrow-rolling eye” look.

As a concession he can wear a spiderman or superman costume instead of the sherwani J

I found a bald , intense kid walking around very purposefully. 23 purposeless years have made me antagonistic towards purposefulness.

So I picked him up and turned him around. He started walking in the opposite direction. Realizing his folly he turned back and came back towards me in slow measured step. I tried the old trick but he turned back. I picked him again and this time turned him 360 degrees instead of 180. his bald half moon head could not pick the right signals and he took the wrong direction. I lost interest.

On the dinner counter I found a 8 yr old girl struggling to finish one 300 ml glass of water. Always ready to boast I threw in the gauntlet.

Me- “ I can drink 5 of these”

Lil girl – “you cant”

Me- “I can”

Lil girl- “go ahead, im watching, if you break you promise you will be consumed by fires from the heavens above “

Trapped, and wary of heavenly fury I picked up a glass cursing myself and my big mouth. 1….2………..3…………………..4…………………………………..5.

The speed kept slowing but I finally managed . the lil girl started clapping . two sidey kids passing by joined in the clapping without understanding the significance of the moment :)

This sudden inflow of inexpensive water forced me to redraw my wedding dinner optimization plans. So as to maintain margins and preserve value chains I was forced to skip relatively cheaper main course and directly devour the more expensive desserts.

I quickly laid a siege of the dessert counter. As soon as it opened my longer hands ensured that I got a larger portion of everything than the miscreant kids who were standing around me.

Mausi then started telling me something that nani had told mama and she was telling me. “marry any caste but marry within our own religion”. i marvelled at the range opened up…lol
In characteristic shahrukh style I told her (in hindi) “ hum jeete ek baar hai, marte ek baar hai aur pyar bhi ek hi baar hota hai” ( we live once , die once and fall in love just that one time) …lol “rolling eyes-raised eyebrow “ look was “in” again.

I buffered my argument with a philosophic (again in hindi)" the only kind of love that exists is the love of human being for another, and love for a nation and the world. It’s the qualities of the head and the heart and not ephemeral labels that will decide anything for me :)" she started laughing:):)

notes:

mausi/masi : mother's sister

nani : maternal grandmother

mama: mother's sister

sherwani:indian ethnic wear ,grooms dressing in marriage

punjabi:ethnic indian group originating in punjab,mainly found in north india

jat : a community living in outer delhi, western up,rajasthan ,haryana

marwari:ethnic community from rajasthan,moved out after great droughts in 19th century,mainly involved in trading activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwaris

pallu: edge of saree

music and lyrics

2007-06-27T15:39:00.000+05:30

June 25 11 : 30 pm somewhere in modern India

i am at writers Valhalla(Nordic for hall of slain heroes....gods) no special symbolism here...:) just parading whatever scant knowledge of European myths entered my brains....

an alluringly beautiful night,bedecked in the silver of stars. clouds lightening up like huge bulbs, first intermittently and then almost continuously. the roar is symptomatic of the coming storm..and rain.

an entire leafy avenue was glittering with its greens reflecting the streams of light from multiple balconies.

solitude, music, and then drops of manna. nirvana.

i bet Zeus himself sitting on his pretty perch on mount Olympus would have felt a tinge of jealousy....hard luck god dear (history dragged in, for no purpose...lol)

i remember being chided by the women in life about getting too happy about these otherwise "normal" events/objects like weather or a natural formation..or an old building, or a coffee at 6 in the morning.
probably they were right.
and yet I'm happy i never listened.it may be childish stubbornness without logic or reason, but I'm not convinced that maturity is the best solution.

my literature heroes remain man-boy and love and are loved by women-girl. this may or may not find a real world counterpart..but what is life without a little dream at attempting a cherished idea.

i continue being amazed at little marvels of nature, ingenuity of kids, even at the Internet and how it works down to its chips. amazement morphs into curiosity and a learning curve is established:)

relationships sometimes veer towards inevitable compromises. mainly around all that's material in life. i was too smittened by the intangibles to even take note of the tangibles....lol....there's always a rainbow to hold onto if everything else deserts you.

anyhow that's enough dust off closed books. they may spring to life....:)

to swing the mood to manna droplets i put on a song from fanna, "mere haath main",

it starts with

aag suraj main hoti hai,
tapna jamee ko parta hai,
mohabbat dil main hoti hai,
tarasna nigaho ko parta hai.

an air packet hits me as if to express its assertion on my choice of music for the moment.
good, i'll make a mental note to recite that to a pretty lady on a cool rainy evening on a future date:)

thought belts shifted gears to remind me of the last time the three came together. rains poetry and a pretty woman.

it was a nusrat fateh ali khan couplet.

ye raat fir nahi hogi
ye mulakaat fir nahi hogi
aise badal to fir ayenge
ye barsaat fir nahi hogi

another nusrat line comes to my mind.

har kisi ko mukkamal jahan nahi milta
kisi ko jamee kisis ko asma nahin milta

rains are such an equalizer. the neat packets that our world is rich/poor good/bad disappear to become a seamless tossed salad. from my breezy balcony i survey the beautiful acres that lay ahead.
clumps of trees,some lighted by the shimmering white light (due to the intervening droplets), their leaf veins sucking up the rainwater to quench and quell the memories of a parched mid summer.

from the inside i hear guns and roses "November rain"...did they write it in south hemisphere? it generally rains in November in most of southern hemisphere. again they could have been in one of the med climate regions which experiences winter rains

at a distance i can see the dome of sriram college of commerce, my Alma mater. stunningly white bathed in the light and music of crashing droplets , shining among the greens , embellished by a dash of pink.

what a strange fate this building has. in the day it has so many takers that high 90 per centers are turned away and yet, lonely by the night. the buildings days are so much like the days of our lives. those inevitable days with more people/objects/themes/ideas to handle than humanly possible and then the other slack ones..which stretch on to almost forever.

bob dylan is singing "like a rolling stone"

i wonder if we are ever going to have 24 hour colleges , something where every day is devoted to a particular art/science/anything. which is 100 percent safe with total on campus accommodation and a crackling intellectual atmosphere.

maybe like Greek philosophers of the yore we can debate for days amongst ourselves rejuvenated by canteen food and short naps:)
daily commuting and incursion of other lives muddle the young academics life like nothing else.

or maybe a weekly literature all nighter. 3 novels in a night or something....a group, half with specs,half without sitting along a round table like king aurthurs knights with a few bean bags thrown in here or there for the lazier ones:)

there's something about words and nights.in the day characters are too attentive to let carefully cultivated facades drop, times are too hurried to analyse and break down motives and daily possibilities continue remaining pregnant.

everything settles down at the night.

shielded by my coffee coloured umbrella i got down for a cup of tea and some potential chit chat with the tea shop regulars.

suddenly there was a leap of faith,change in hearts desires.

i return to home, my world of certainties.

the clock struck 12.

the music was john denver 'country roads take me home'
just as in 1000 oaks , pune.

i ripped open the heart of a golden-yellow malda mango .

rains , mango,music..i was transported to a bihari homeland[:)]

Back to its innocent days when the spear of materialism had not shredded the body armour of a self sustaining village economy.

The next song was shahrukh khan in “swades” “ye jo des hai mera”. My black ink merged into the black of the night.

sangh lok seva ayog

2007-05-23T17:50:00.000+05:30

20th may 2007 is a day unlike any other in the life of a civil service aspirant. leave alone the students even the shopkeepers and washer men in north Delhi colonies like mukherjee nagar are aware of it.

i got up at 7 and after a mandatory Maggi breakfast [ after mom's 111 directions to have sugar and curd :( ] i set off for my centre, for yet another tryst with destiny.

the exam has been behaving like something of a runaway bride (only if it were Julia Roberts instead..lol). for two years every may it starts with an "i do" only to beat a hasty retreat by the next. will it be any different this year? i have no idea....but what fun is a journey to a destination you are sure of getting to...tamso ma jyotirgamay...from darkness to light...our journeys :)

the previous night had been weird . i could only sleep for a couple of hours after i spent double that time in trying to sleep. every time i changed the AC's temperature it reminded me of all the places on the planet with a temperature like that. so i kept oscillating between vostok and al aziziya while staying put in the four walls of a Delhi structure.

to distract myself i thought of everything from Macbeth to Milton Friedman to mohenjo daro to mollisols. alas!! the thought clouds kept shielding the golden sunlight of sleep.

when i finally slept i found myself in a childhood dreamland. with memory taps running over warm plains of nostalgia caressed by the mellow sound of silence.

dream scientists believe that regressions like this to a younger , easier world are symptomatic of a sense of concurrent insecurity or denote attempts to get away from a situation which may not be entirely to our liking.

the surreal feeling hung around me as i woke up to the mild hum of the air conditioner and made my way to my aurangzeb lane centre. passing the vicinity of India gate turned into a full scale mnemonic warfare as pieces of history flew around in the head like lost asteroids in a planet building episode.

entering into the classroom dispelled a number of personal myths. one was the belief about my school having the worst benches in the world , it just got a lot worse. i should have brought some tetanus injections alongwith :) another was about it having the worst crowd.

not only the room was all boys :( even the windows and blackboard looked distinctly masculine as if to respond to this new stimuli situation. i reached a score of minus 5 even before seeing the paper, hurtling down a score indifference curves.

the paper itself was a lot of fun. after 30 minutes i had enough answers to clear the cut off. the next 90 minutes were spent shading, reshading , erasing and reshading the bubbles. in between i thanked the man who must have discovered multiple choice exams a zillion times. imagine the time saved. no need to remember someone else's rhetoric and pose it as your own. plain simple business...

after exhausting my leisure faculties i started going out every 10 minutes for no reason. to ensure multiple safe passages i had informed the examiner that i was metabolically challenged on the day. the poor guy kept feeling sorry for all the time i was loosing due to the "breaks".

as i came out of my centre at 11:30 i realized why Delhi is the capital city with maximum number of trees per acre . i reached a friend's car by following the shadow line's of a dozen gulmohars. next, i went to shahjahan road to pick up a friend from his centre at the upsc. some journey, aurangzeb to shahjahan...lol

we reached khan market for a lunch.it was a sunday morning and unlike mukherjee nagar service providers , civil services aspirants didn't constitute much of a market opportunity for khan market traders.we had to get into mc donalds. a lot of pepsin and trypsin were fated to be wasted.

the general studies paper started at 2:30. by 3:00 it was all clear besides a dozen maths sums. creature of nature i started with my walk outside the class and shading re shading routines.

a little later the controller from upsc walked in. he asked the invigilator for his name. shiv kumar.

i tried spotting a third eye. in vain.

he was paid six hundred rupees for the day's work. a hundred and a five hundred note. he counted them thrice , testing his fate, nothing changed.

i wondered what he'll do with the money. maybe his daughter's school fee, or probably wife's medicine or maybe a long promised trip to an amusement may materialize for the family.

and for me?

a couple of large piazzas, or maybe a movie for two. OK 600 won't be enough for these "needs"

would my giving and clearing this exam change anything? would it bridge the gap? or will it only serve to accentuate it?

the escapist gene kicked in and i slipped into the easier world of mathematics rather than take on actual questions that confront my life. Freudian repression ensured that i soon lost memory of the very thought and got the mathematics right.

i reached my favourite campus tea haunt in the evening. immediately 2 people cornered me and carpet bombed me with questions about the paper.

it feels odd to be called sir by a couple of 30 years when you are all of 23. either its good grounded maturity or it may be a delusional out corp on an illusional plain.

last post till may 20th

2007-04-25T21:34:00.000+05:30

its an odd situation. best laid plans backfiring, downhill social life, weeks of effort and little succour.

i have reached the climax of 2 years of high expectations- near achievements-unexpected failures.
like the arch existentialist i am, i'll like to believe that the failures, like many of earlier successes are entirely my doing, but when a host of actors start questioning you on the same it becomes difficult.

i stepped out of college in may 2005, into a life pregnant with possibilities. a good economics degree from a good college. i always loved tempting fate. i took my chance. i gave the civil services exam 12 days after my last exam. may 15th.i never knew how fundamentally my life will be changed.

2 months of dilling dallying about the second subject i were to take made little difference. and suddenly i found i was through . next was the mains. October November 2005. i just hung on and gave a decent exam. 4 more months in wilderness. suddenly it was the interview. devoid of preparation it went badly. that was April 2006. next blow was jaundice which happened just somewhere at the same time.

may 8th i got to know my final results. negative. may 14th was the next PT. i somehow gathered my sickened body to give the exam. next two months were spent in getting back to optimal health.

slogged for 3 months and gave the next mains. CAT was 10 days after my mains. my love for tempting fate resurfaced. gave the CAT.got 98 percentile. too confident about my ias results i didn bother much.

in an anticlimax, i scored in a manner i never have previously. didn't even make it to the interview.

may 20th is the next PT.so bowing to the larger realities of life, i'll have to get studying.

suddenly, a horde of relatives have sensed what's wrong with me. overconfidence.
somehow, even though i hardly bother with any of them ,they have high stakes in me. my throwing away a good cat score became a personal affront to many. their line of argument was that i was "lucky" enough to get a good percentile, which may not happen again.

almost every character in my life believes that i lack direction/conviction. to the extent that it took toll on multiple relationships.
i am being suggested to take classes which make me employable.....lol.

grrr...gimme a break. [:)]

for all my wins and losses i don't blame any one.

i just am trying to live my dreams. i may fail in the process, i am entirely aware of the consequences that await me, but these imperatives won't change the person i am.

and despite all provocations i'll continue being myself.

sorry fellas about this online catharsis. i can't find anyone offline intelligent enough to make sense ( at least on this moment)

"jindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahi"

to the one dreamer that lives in all our hearts...

just remembered a song " ye jo jindagi hai , koi karwa hai, kahan ja rahi hai......."

camilla the cat-2

2007-04-21T17:44:00.000+05:30

3 rows back Camilla spotted moti-max-monty dog...or 3M's dog as friends fondly called him. he was splayed on a comfortable sofa in the lounge area that he habitually reserved. bedecked in jewellery and served by two human bearers he painted a perfect picture of opulence.

moti -max-monty was the richest animal in the vicinity of football field nagar area.
he belonged to a rich, divorced socialite who left her entire property to her dog.

from there Monty dog never looked back. he added his father's and grandfather's name to his own to make it look a little like the titled names of the European aristocratic dogs he met on his summer retreat. in fact, reports suggest that he wanted to add two more generations in his name but had to put down the idea after his tax lawyers protested at the quantum of extra work involved in writing down his name , year after year.

of late monty bog has been spotted in London lobbying for a "peerage". he even asks his acolytes to address him as "sir" moti-max-monty.

sir moti-max-monty or sir 3M's has a wide range of interests. his name is a fusion of east and west. his crusades for dog pride are historic . and if you discount the extra bit of flab ( after all money should show), an out of shape body( little time!!) and a bad face ( blame it on nature) , sir 3M's is quite a looker.

his recent forays are in Indian history. after he read about the forts of central India he rechristened his refurbished villa as "moti mahal" after his illustrious grandfather.on his Gwalior trip he came to know of a monument for sale called "kutia mahal". he promptly bought the property and developed it into a 5 star dotel.(dog hotel). guests are offered 56 varieties of dog food and can sit and enjoy humans fighting or running. they can even put bets on the humans of their choice.

the canine magazine recently called it "dog world's answer to Hilton" , though it failed to specify whether it meant the hotel or the heiress.

a group of academic dogs have opposed these practices and called it un-dog like . they even started an organization called PETH, and got adverts done by doga, the dog superstar of the millennium.

there were murmurs that his grandfather was a common bone chaser in drought time orissa and his father was a cheap police dog.

sir 3 M's brought the murmurs to rest by bringing out an illustrated coffee table book which traced the lineage of sir 3M's family back to the time when moti the first crossed the Asian grasslands leading the marauding Turkish hordes, becoming the first dog in Indian subcontinent.

the most glorious chapter was of course , of his namesake Monty the third who lead a valiant dog squad in a dazzling military action at Waterloo. at one point he swam half the length of English channel to chase a french ship.

it inspired one of the most famous poems in English language " charge of the dog brigade"

of course with his present string of blazing success Monty the present could end up being the greatest of all time.

to be continued...hopefully :)

camilla the cat

2007-04-21T00:49:00.000+05:30

for nilesh, my kid brother. something he can read and hopefully enjoy, unlike the loads of inanities elsewhere on the page :) he'll be back from school next week.

camilla the cat woke up with flies on her whiskers and anger on her crimson ears. it was an unusually hot late Delhi afternoon, perfect for a nap. Camilla's life moved from nap to nap rather than otherwise and these unexpected shuffling of priorities did her already foul mood little good.

she looked at the WWF calendar hanging above her head on kumar's courtyard. 20th the Friday. tomorrow, she told herself she'll go to the WWF India near habitat centre to check on her petition for endangered species status for amber striped cats in urban settings.

the status, ahh...would mean so much. attention, funds and freebies.

today, like every Friday she'll go for a movie.

the movie though reminded her of last weeks "penguins in love". it kept giving her delicious day dreams for a week to follow.

her mind drifted to the latest political crisis in her life. her president ship of the football field nagar canine, vermine , feline and ursine creatures association(CVFUA) was under threat.
taking a cue from the results of latest MCD elections certain saffron cats were trying to bring a no confidence motion against her paw mark party's government.

if only she can turn the clock a little bit. only last month she had successfully lobbied for the reduction in duties in pet foods with the finance minister. budget 2007 was the most successful budget in the entire CVFUA's history. in fact national feline organizations invited her to take up positions in their organizations.

but being the true secularist she cannot serve in parochial organizations and fritter away the gains made by rainbow coalitions like hers across the country. their slogans like " every dog has already had his day" and "mouse meat for every cat" disgusted her.

she looked at kumar's window. he sat gazing into his unkempt garden, transfixed at an unknown point. Camilla sighed!!

kumar in her view was the laziest, most useless creature of any calling that she ever encountered. twice her 12 years in age, he stayed in a single person household enjoying every moment of it.

though Camilla suspected that it was a grand ploy and he was actually unhappy inside. three years she had watched him curiously. hoping for the mask to fall. but kumar stayed the same.

he was so non descript that even in a one person household he was hardly visible. she half suspected that he melted into the walls using some occult powers. but she wouldn't really let have kumar anything special, even in imagination. so she put down his normalcy to some kind of extreme dumbness.

to top it all , his taste in music was pathetic. he was forever lost in old, romantic numbers. she hoped he'll wisen up some day and buy a stack of latest cat hop or dog lop songs. in fact, she may even consider being friends with him if he did that.

her cager rang. horrified she realized that she has spent 10 minutes of premium Camilla time on wondering about someone like kumar.

she looked at the message from rotu rat. "hey cattie". 2 words absolutely devoid of meaning. she pitied the person who may take an IQ test of rotu rat. before she met rotu she thought only humans were stupid enough to go through hie, bye motions without purpose.

she felt like breaking rotu's nose. only he didn't have a proper one. plus he was a nice guy and despite his stupidity pretty useful.

she looked around to find the sun turning scarlet. she turned and picked up her favourite Garfield skateboard.

after 5 minutes of skating down she reached the nearest multiplex. her heart sank as she realized their were no animal flicks. she'll have to settle for one of those non funny human types.

3 out of 4 were the mandatory mushy romances(eeeeeks!!). her choice became clearer.

stepping into the controlled air conditioned environment she realized the difference.

she made a mental note to read the article about global warming in the "cat chronicles". she had missed reading it initially because she didn't like the photograph next to it. it was of a professor with dirty green eyes that all old and unglamourous cats have.bah!! old cat.

to be continued..lol :)

delhi - jaipur super fast

2007-04-07T10:43:00.000+05:30

6th April 2007

i board a Volvo from bikaner house for Jaipur. the seat next to me is unoccupied which holds the promise of more elbow room and mental space. for the next 90 minutes i stare at the tall buildings of Delhi and gurgaon. a confusion worms its way into the unused neural corridors i fancy as my mind.its the extent of the urban sprawl.

urban sprawl, also called suburban sprawl refers to the new, uncontrolled expansion previously less developed than the urban core it now surrounds.

i still wasn't any wiser about my whereabouts. pulling the window curtains didn't tell me if i was in NCR or outside.

i looked at the modern man's new best friend for succour. unfortunately my cell was as out of 'ideas' as i was.

some primitive geographical conditioning (class 3 social sciences ,i suspect)warns ("warms") me to expect a desert everytime i take a rajasthan bound bus. despite all belied hopes the stubborn expectancy refuses to go away.maybe one day they will recreate the textbook perfect sand dunes by the road side as an added tourist attraction.

the bus pulls at a mid way stop for 15 minutes . emblems of rajasthan tourism flood my senses.

15 minutes hence..

the bus starts again. miraculously the couple behind me empty their seats and move to the empty rear of the bus.whatever be their intentions,i get to recline my seat to the full 127 degrees. ( 127 degrees is the holy grail of reclining seats as proven in many suspect researches..lol) this one is pretty close..whichever way, its comfortable.

i pulled back my curtain to reveal the full majesty of the landscape passing by the bus. these are largely open spaces dotted by the occasional roadside stalls and hamlets.

its pitch dark outside . a white diffused light gets switched on inside . ( bad luck for relocating couples , but the light isn't my idea..lol)

we paint a colorful contrast . light and dark. i try imagining what it must be looking from the outside, like a capsule of light travelling into the heart of darkness.

i pick up an issue of outlook traveller featuring 'rafting on zanskar' (zanskar is an Indus tributary in leh) the contrast couldn't be more powerful. lost in rafting on lands which haven't seen a river flow by millenias. i drift into dreams!!

from russia, with love

2007-04-05T13:33:00.000+05:30

it must be difficult being Russia. no other modern country can claim to have a more tumultuous history. the Russian revolution , the world wars, socialism and communism , the cold war times and the disintegration of the soviet union. all in the space of a mere 80 years.

for almost 50 years it took on the entire might of a broad ranging western alliance spearheaded by the mightiest, most resource rich empire ever formed in man's social history. the united states.. from across the cold war battle lines it fought a mighty covert battle with a foe economically its four times.

the end was predictable. what was amazing was the sheer duration of the hold up. Russia never had the industrial backbone that the west had, yet it never gave up its quest to seek parity.
it never lacked intent and purpose in locking horns with an enemy much mightier.

the 90's was a lost decade for most Russians as it was for much of India's poor millions. but here was something that external commentators missed while talking about the dismal state. no society or country , indeed no single person can stay entirely stagnant. always their is some underlying motion. Russia was also experiencing some political simmering.

by 2001 the change came to the fore. in Putin they found a man willing to take on the world. the unipolar world had new messages.if you are to beat Goliath you can't stay a David, you have to metamorphose into another Goliath.and Russia became a capitalist dream, and in turn a nightmare.

global geopolitical tectonic poles changed fast and thick. the post 9/11 world had a common enemy to slay "global terror" . a ubiquitous term for a vague, amorphous motley group of characters who had taken leave of civilization and operated in parallel universes of their own making. operating on narcissistic borderlines , these individuals had become full time employees of strife.

it was in this back ground that Russia began a quiet and a remarkable turnaround.

its military and diplomatic prowess came to the fore in the Chechnya solution. although the question is far from settled ,Russia has done well after the initial setbacks.

shanghai cooperation organization is another example of a a successful diplomatic manoeuvre. its attempts to bring the Russian underbelly back in its orbit are largely paying off.

economy in booming like never before. Russian oil and natural gas pipelines run through the body of Europe like life giving blood lines.
the future economics predictions are imbued with optimism.

the high watermark of Russian diplomacy and its recognition came with the previous G 8 summit in saint petersburg the first ever in the former socialist heartland.

for India the implications are clear. Russia is an old and trusted ally. its steadfastness in providing military and nuclear solutions to us is legendary. today with a booming economy their are multiple synergies emerging between the two old friends.

Russia India china remain the best bets to a future multi polar world.

love letter

2007-04-04T03:06:00.000+05:30

This is a response to an unusual request to write a usual love letter( is anything about a love letter usual..lol) to a favourite celebrity

to Jennifer( as in aniston), 14.02.14
Vienna

i write this with a heavy heart and a heavier pen ( the Mont blanc you gave me in Athens)
their's little in the world that could match the love i have for you. it's been 17 years loving you, most spent without you having the barest conception of my existence.2 years of knowing you is something i'll never trade for anything . and yet, as i moved from lalganj to ludhiana to losangeles one thing never flickered. my love for you.

you have come a long way from the cute "rachel" of your "friend's" day.and yet for me you never changed. your smile has the same infectious enthusiasm of an 18 year old. your laughter still has the same drugging influence on me that it then had.and when you look at me with your eyes wide shut, i get transported to a totally new zone.

and their are things that you never told the world. of all the dark lines crossing your heart diverting the pumping blood. i understand that sorrow like no man can. believe me, i live with you, every minute...every passing second.

Jennifer, i may joke and whine without ever getting serious. but the stakes have been upped.
i love you, like any man can love any woman. what our respective histories have been is not something i'll love to live with. its the future that beckons me. living, loving and walking into that golden sunset, hand in hand...separated by a sliver of light, joined by beating hearts.

Jennifer, will you be the dispenser of my destiny, the queen of my heart's broad acres.

you are the every woman i ever desired, the every woman i dreamed of....let me live with you and treasure a million passing moments, spent together , frozen in time...growing old with you.

be mine Jennifer, you are the one love of my life, you mean everything to me...

saurav

reading-1

2007-04-02T15:18:00.000+05:30

its almost surreal," reading about reading". just like writing about writing or dreaming about dreaming..:)

when analyzing, this appeared to be the most difficult and complex topic to write about. when i stopped analyzing , the demons melted away and i spent the best minutes with the keyboard in a long time.

anyone who will ever read this post must have loved reading for probably the entire memory of his/her conscious lives. i have and so have you.
and somewhere down the line, the act became as natural as anything else.

over the years we have climbed up and down on the fiction ladders, identifying with intriguing characters and vilifying the unruly ones. though not all nice, good ones turn out to be heroes just as black marketeers and hoarders are not always villains.

my choices have swayed. from an infant fixation with Astrix and nagraj to teenage endearments to characters like Archie and jughead. growing up changed everything.
my two heroes lie on the two ends of a variety of spectrum's. and yet, beneath the covers they are the same people.

Rhett butler and Howard roark. both are part villain part hero. Rhett lives in opulence and chases his desires. roark chooses penury over wealth and gives up any and all desires he deems unnecessary, which is almost everything.

Rhett butler is unprincipled and a crook of first level.he's an epitome of flexibility. he's selfish and smart. roark is ultra principled and won't compromise , at any levels.rigid is the word for him.

and for all these vices, they are packed with virtues of their own. for without them, they could not have carried 1000 page novels on their shoulders. of course their were very strong women characters to support them, specially in the case of 'gone with the wind' , but that's another story.

if there's a sterling quality that unties them, its honesty and raw courage. far away from their insular public posturings, they were sensitive people. there was a line in guru which best describes them "jab log tumhari burai kare, toh samajh lo tarraki kar rahe ho" ( if people start criticizing you, you must understand that you are doing well)

both of them were the people that they were because of one central reason. their total absence of fear. they were people who had nothing to lose. in the "godfather" the feared don is afraid of only one man. Luca. in don's word " this is a man who does not fear dying, you can never harm him". theirs more in this line for us, than what a Sicilian mafia don would have guessed.

our middle class lives are built on the platform of security and continuity.
even dropping a year in the academic session is considered "wild"
while the system has worked well for the society as a whole, the same cannot be said of individual dreams.

our fears are huge and overpowering, our lives consequently dull and sequenced. fulfilling the staple middle class dreams we forget something. their is a higher life beyond the charming world of everyday economics and commerce. it may be differently shaped for differently skilled people, but the point is, it exists .

its just one life we get, reclaim it while you still can.

sons of fortune

2007-03-23T13:17:00.000+05:30

i do not have any personal grudges against the Gandhi - Nehru family.( even if i had that would insignificant from the power heights of 10 janpath). nor for that matter would the grudges of hundreds of others. they can contend elections and win at will. they are the fittest to rule this country, exactly the point that disconcerts me .

every eligible Indian of sound mind and right age , from r k laxman's common man to myself is as eligible to be the prime minister, as fit to govern as rahul and priyanka are . why then a national obsession with their intentions and non-statements?

years of being ruled by supposedly greater powers have probably dulled national ambitions. we always try finding people more qualified, better for a particular job than ourselves. someone who is reluctant to enter politics will never be an able prime minister. the making of such men rest on their sureness in decision making, their ability to discern what is the best for themselves and how to go about it.

growth is a natural condition for and living organism as well as a non living institution. if we enter a particular field, it is with the hope of reaching everywhere that our potentials will allow. men who vie for subordinate positions are consigned to the dustbin of history before the embers of their pyre die down.

unfortunately, india's grand old party has little faith in the concept of republic that it helped create. though today's congress party is in no way a worthy successor to the movement that the indian national movement that brought to its feet the mightiest empire known to man.

its time the party started creating its heroes , starting from nehru and stop using the mahatma to further its political ends.

if you are an ambitious person the party has little to offer you. with all the world's luck you can become a stop gap( like rao) or a lackey ( with regret , dr singh). we can never be the people we want to be.what kind of legacy will people like arjun singh and pranav mukherjee leave, weak willed subordinates? perhaps.

i would like to pay tributes to Jefferey archer . his 'first among equals' gave me a definitive belief that we can be exactly the substance of our dreams. if we have the will and the fortitude we can shape our own skies.

reminds me of Mao, 'women hold up half the sky'
or as in my case, all of it..lol [:)]

secularism

2007-03-23T12:31:00.000+05:30

i immensely envy Rahul Gandhi.
with his kind of intellectual prowess and fabulously flawed sense of history someone else would have queued up for a manual, unskilled job.but some are more equal than others, even in a (working?) democracy such as ours.

this man will be India's prime minister one day, a job which may not be all that unskilled. ( though successive office bearers have managed to make it look like one). i would not get into his merit to be one, for one any good scales to do so we are sure to uncover a history of failure. my contentions are different, something that lies at the very heart of parliamentary democracy. about the suitability of every Indian to reach the top post, even when his name does not end with a Gandhi or Nehru.

i always felt of the late p.v.narsimha rao's regime as something of a whiff of fresh air. together with Nehru and Gujral they were the most learned men to occupy the top post. of course there where flaws in his regime intertwined with the obvious economic astuteness . the biggest failure was of course the failure to save the babri masjid. this is the fact that mr rahul gandhi chose to highlight to prop up his secular credentials and echo dynastic supremacy.

unsurprisingly,not one murmur emerged from the congress ranks. senior ministers of the rao cabinet stay shut without venturing to correct a 35 year old ignoramus's world view, whose only 'achievements' are a columbian girlfriend and endangering indo- afghan relations by hobnobbing with karazai'a daughters. and of course, getting Delhi university admission norms changed for him to get admission in Saint Stephens college ( introduction of sports quota)

coming back to the babri masjid. their are times that larger tides of history engulf and alter the movement of daily events. their is very little for anyone to counter these flash floods. December 92 saw a fervent mobilization of marauding masses like never before.it was laced with emotion and passions unseen after independence. today we can sit back and analyse the event with the benefit of retrospect.

the masjid always had a turbulent history and December 92 was only a climax to what started after mir baki's razing of original temple and the installation of deities in 1949.

the question is extremely complex and there can be no one single answer to satisfy all sides. our best bet lies in letting the issues dissipate with the passage of time and eventually reach a judicial compromise which incorporates some demands of the two communities involved. to try and re-project history in 'what if' terms is meaningless and selfish.

rahul also exonerates his father and presents him as a keystone of secularism. his history teachers perhaps forgot to tell him that it was his dear father who facilitated the opening of masjid locks , allowed the shilanayas ad launched his campaign from ayodhya in 89.in the shah bano case we learnt the full extent of his secularism.

his successor v.p.singh, was much more a man of substance.he gave up his office to counter what he believed to be communalism. his ideals prevented him from accepting office for a second time in 96 . unlike sonia gandhi (refusal?) of office he wasn't mobbed by an army of boot lickers.

of hopes and fears...

2007-03-18T01:21:00.000+05:30

their are moments that change your life...never to be the same again. one such moment stuck me yesterday afternoon.

i have lived 22 years of my life fed on the diet of constant , superlative success. without ever realizing it i changed into a shallow, insular, arrogant bully. and then the crashes came . starting 8Th may 2006. and once they did, they did so in profusion ,5 in a year , on personal and professional fronts.

i had never known what it was to swim against time and tide. spoilt on a constant diet of lifeboats ..i cried foul.

the latest of the series came one day before . it was the deepest felt and yet,in a surprising manner the most easily shrugged off.

24 hours of aimless wanderings brought nothing home besides mounting tiredness and an ever growing morass of depression.

one quiet afternoon changed everything.

yesterday afternoon i stood on my back balcony. half in light , half in shade. mid march sun warmed my heart . and then the wind started blowing. funneled and channeled by the buildings encroaching both sides of the narrow service lane it moved across my face at kiss- a -second speeds.

bathed in this glowing, whirling, swaying orange fantasy i felt as if i can fly.( thanks to Icarus i did not try...lol)

suddenly, the whole logic and purpose of life came unstuck.

hounded by the fear of failure , its likelihood and its social fall outs i had forgotten something. i had forgotten to live. to make the most of a young brilliant life.

trapped in my own prisons of past and by the reasons of future i forgot to peek into the heart of my present. i had forgotten to cherish my efforts and endeavours , savour the golden minutes of hard work that i put in, and love the feeling of logging hundreds of tired days laced with optimism ..imbued with hope and colored with dreams.

i had stopped being myself .

i narrate this because its wider and deeper than my felt emotions.

it transcends the margins of my own set of feelings and realities and represents the story of every young man and woman who has ever dared to have a dream very close to his or her heart.

we forget that we are more than the sum of our circumstances.
we are the leading lights of the plays that our own lives are. we form the centrepieces of all the music that we unwittingly produce in our everyday lives.

I'll sum up with quoting iqbal

sitaron ke aage jahan aur bhi hain
abhi ishq ke intehaan aur bhi hain
tu shaheen hai, parvaaz hai kaam tera
tere saamne bhi aasma aur bhi hai

to everyone who has ever been in love with a vision..a dream, an idea...

dreams

2007-03-12T00:13:00.000+05:30

if there is one thing that makes us different from all the other species on the planet its the power of dreams..while the size and intensity may vary for each of us...the phenomenon itself is unwavering.

animals live in a forever extended present. their thoughts and actions are based on a consistent appraisal of their changing worlds and the need to adjust along the short term time horizons.
they don't plan and any swift changes in nature's plans decimate their entire ranks...ask the dinosaurs...once the mighty, unchallenged rulers of all the lands.
and worse, they don't dream (at least in a human like fashion and vividness)

Freud believed that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. the unconscious which is the repository of the exchanges of our life and our personal analysis without us ever knowing about. the unconscious which is the reservoir of our primitive needs , a fountainhead of our desires, the keystone of our pleasure.

Freud believed dreams have two sources, wish fulfillment and day residue. to anyone who has ever dreamt this would sound prophetic. in his theory of symbolism Freud analyses the crucial nuts and bolts from our dream works, the subtle and simple movements of everyday interactions.

and yet there are millions who have never dreamt. some forced not to by the grinding poverty of their everyday day, others weaned away by the comfort of riches. sometimes i feel dreaming is a typical middle class pastime imposed upon unsuspecting audience by expatriate writers, dream merchants and quacks of all hues in search of universal palliatives.[:)]
and the most alarming fact is , they lack the barest conception of what they miss.

when i hear martin Luther king pronounce, 'i have a dream...' my levels throb with energy and direction towards the red hills of Georgia to see the rolling down of the the most spectacular sight of our entire lifetimes. Nehru's tryst with destiny, pulls me to the birth-dawn of a new nation untarnished by its latter failures. Tagore's clear stream of reason skips the dreary desert sand of dead habits and flows down the gangetic plains through the Bengali heartland.

such is the power of imagery , and of human mind. two hours of wanderings on a rainy Delhi evening , took me everywhere across the planet and back. in the extremely couple - friendly cafes that happen to be my usual haunt ( honestly...its only because of a total vacuum of choices..lol) i never feel alone. even when a hundred eyes reinforce the fact i never feel outlandish my dreams sustain my rhythm for better purposes.

everyone has a favourite dream.
here's mine.

its a mild summer afternoon.
the sky is a clear light golden. wide avenues are populated by tastefully located eateries. yellow leaves keep falling submitting to the whimsical nature of shifting pressure conditions and the consequent light summer winds. its a port city so the breeze is slightly more pronounced. white houses are interrupted by regulation black lamp posts. its a picture we have forever seen on the water color boxes that were so precious and hard to come as kids.

I'm walking. there's somebody next to me. i can't see her. my 180 degree viewing angle is totally unhelpful. and like is older Hindi movies , the dream stays steeped in suspense. its destined to keep us away from the charms of Mona Lisa smile as long as it rationally (come on its a dream...even irrationally can..lol)possible!!

perfect man (is there a creature like that??), perfect woman (more plausible...but again hard to believe), on a perfect vacation in a perfect world..lol....mills n boons should try me, I'm every bit of a bored American Midwest housewife as any is.

and yet, despite the scepticism and mockery, i believe in my dreams. i wait and cherish for those moments when they will materialize. when they will transmute from raw fantasies to tangible , calculable objects. moments when an entire lifetime of efforts will fuse to create one line, " the man who would be the king"

wishful thinking...lol...but then what are dreams for ..go see your dreams..conquer your worlds!!

book review

2007-03-03T22:57:00.000+05:30

i have been reading a lot lately.

i love reading contemporary Indian writing in English.

the book i have chosen to review is from this genre...its called "the peacock throne" by sujit saraf.

its a long book of about 750 pages and runs like a thread through the most tumultuous period of Indian polity. 1984 to 1998.

it traces the rise of a new political culture complete with the vices of a previous political era minus its scant virtues.

and yet the book never intends to measure character with a moral compass. it presents reality the way it should be, as and when.

in gopal pandey the books recreates the worn out common man and pushes him through the narrow corridors of power.

the peacock throne departs from the usual Indian story in may ways. poverty isn't fascinating or romantic...its painful,

despite the size of the book their is a careful economy of words .... modern India is too complex to be contained in any other way without missing out on one or many of the significant.

stories of great men and great institutions have perfect beginnings and tailor made climaxes.but this is a very ordinary story about very ordinary people. such subjects keep fumbling and faltering until they "fall" into a rhythm, which again is susceptible to fall at the faintest inkling of instability.

saraf's chandni chowk is everyplace in modern India though you may not want it to be, just as his gopal pandey is the everyman you will love to lose in a crowd.

despite its declared finite geographical extent its a microcosm of the whole breadth India.

my best moments came when the book enters its final lap in 1998.the book metamorphoses into a new avatar. suddenly its characters come alive and move around with energy and purpose. the book becomes a living , breathing document.

the masterstroke takes six hundred pages in coming as the plot develops, like a cake baked slowly. and then it comes. perfect. just like good monsoons it drenches you into literary perfection.

in a hundred pages it paints the most authentic picture of the dance of democracy. it shakes up an entire world and its way of life before restoring it to its former equilibrium. sandpapering the new rough edges and fitting them back to where they belong.

their are lines which stick to you long after the ensemble has collapsed on the altar of oblivion.on page 726 i found that one line.

gopal "das", new member of parliament for chandni chowk, and the crucial swing vote in a possibly hung lok sabha is in the PM's residence where a young minister asks him about his preference for any particular ministry.

our man looks at the floor and remains silent for some time, and then slowly answers, "i will take all matters into consideration and make a decision that benefits the people of chandni chowk"

bravo!!...this would have been a perfect climax for a perfect book.

but this is a flawed book written for flawed people....its veers away from predictables.

there's another gem of a line on page 698...a former sex worker-turned NGO wali says "today every woman in chandni chowk will turn into a whore"...if you read the book you'll realize the whole compelling sense behind it.

PS : the book turns out to be a terrific education of chandni chowk , its buildings and in fact a whole way of life waiting to be discovered. more details can be had at www.sujitsaraf.com. i have added images from chandni chowk.

valntine wonderments

2007-02-14T00:35:00.000+05:30

13th february

another valentine's day...love, hope , energy, joy,fear, anger, insecurity, jealousy ...complete emotional complexes bursting across check dams of reason .

i ended up writing pre valentine day messages even without the remotest of possibilities to send any..lol...because of course not everyone had similar ideas...and thank god for that..so, i wrote a few replies for friends.. here's a cute one

he gets a message..tell me five things that you love in me..
after coming dangerously close to becoming salman khan(hair tearing)..i reply..or rather he(?) replies..

i love the half dazed look on your face when you smile, i absolutely adore the way your hair chase each other when chased by the winds,i am completely crazy about that crinkle below your nose when you look at me as if i am completely crazy, every time your eyes look at me i forget all the uncertainties that cloud my world, and when you turn back to look at me..i feel reborn!!!

(with obvious references from harry met sally..lol...but that all i can conjure up for instant creativity)

with asking the weatherman i can confidently forecast the scene tomorrow..the town will be flooded..heart deep in love...so any attempts at marketing, movie or anything done singly can best be delayed until day after.

and yes...no lonely coffee drinkers( ah..true love..lol) restaurants and coffee shops have better things to do than waiting for an hour for your solitary cup of sugar free

just listened to "rhythm divine" and "hero"...ah cupid...drop the chase...my play station awaits me..plenty of hot pursuit to follow...lol

have a great day...without being limited by facts of your life...fantasy is fact...be what you want to be..all the love!!!

rain away coffee

2007-02-13T23:29:00.000+05:30

7 pm February 10

its a cold evening. i put on a grey Adidas sweater, perhaps to reflect the color of the skies. the sweater brings back memories, sweet and painful, searing my heart apart laying it bare to the machinations of the western wind.

the street is empty expect for the trademark stray dog. a series of streetlights break the darkness into columns. one has stopped working , changing sides on the eternal battle of light and dark.

puddles of water form in the depressions of the cheap PWD road. i look at one trying to find my face. the wind stops howling for a micro second. the liquid orange reasserts itself.

a bicycle passes by , disturbing the queer setting. the puddle reverberates until its a brand new shade of orange. i lose interest in all things aquatic and walk away.

i pass by a grove of trees containing tall shesham.
the wind shakes the lighter, upper branches. the lower stouter ones remain frozen in the night.
a leaf falls down, weary of its day long battle against cold winds from the Punjab plains.a moment in time eclipses.

my mind travels back a few centuries. flying on these very westerlies hordes of looting afghans lead by the able nadir shah carried fire and sword in the heart of Delhi .

i reach the coffee shop. the place wears an unusually deserted look. obviously , a rain lovers community on orkut will at best remain a drizzle.

i flash a faint smirk of recognition at the few acquaintances whose spatial - temporal frequencies clash with mine.i get matching replies. i walk up to the counter.

a cheese grilled sandwich attracts my attention. the dietitian's cute round face with the bleached golden facial hair chases the idea away in double quick time. tempted and refuted, i beat a hasty retreat and settle for a staple espresso. the grills can be better left to the security systems.

my order's ready. a couple beat me to the counter. looking at them makes me immensely jealous. they have something that i don't. a cheese grilled sandwich.

having coffee alone is an ultimate romantic experience. you are not limited by the physical reality of your own or the other person's existence. you can be having a coffee with Angelina Jolie or Aishwarya Rai depending upon the color of eyes you prefer.

plus, the need for small talk is obviated. " the coffee's good"..but of course, that's why they charge you good money.

their is a familiar roar of lightning. i get transported. to purple moors on the English midlands or an amazonian river bank or Texan flat lands. lying on my back, experiencing the caress and the fury of the nature...far from the madding crowds..in a dark....one person world.

my days-2

2007-02-09T14:40:00.000+05:30

there are few things in the world as beautiful as CP on a warm winter morning. its obvious Victorian architecture is modelled after the royal crescent , bath.i find the tall white columns particularly intriguing. they have been witness to a remarkable series of lives and times of this city.
built at the high noon of the most powerful empire in human social history, they withstood its decay and eventual fall.

post independence, they provided the fuel for a new nation to dream. the towering giants became a benchmark for the nation's expectations and ambitions.

post liberalization Indian is a nation of a million malls and multiplexes , each a better clone of the previous.there are new cities which have all the commerce and computers. each of them is beautiful and has its own history.yet, there's this one city which has seen more dynasties rising and falling than any other. truly, one city in a million.
i may be showing borderline jingoism, but i love the place.

travelling across Delhi you can actually see the marks that time has cast upon its sturdy frame. in a way, its a perfect stitching tape between raj nostalgia and a global Indian identity.
a rich tapestry with threads of all dimensions.

on janpath a huge demonstration is underway. the BJP mahila morcha has major grievances against the incumbent Delhi government.the protest march is against the hike in prices of essential goods. the speaker is lamenting how her entire household budget is in constant disarray.

by the time i am out of earshot i have ended up memorizing the prices of milk, potato, tomato and of course onion due to over repetition :-)

i try finding a coffee shop.
it takes me half an hour.
clearly, a career in navigation holds no glory for me.
after a lifetime spent in knowing things i can't do..i just hope i come across something to the contrary ...:-)

a sign board catches my attention, "ring road Honda"..right in the middle of CP...geography lessons seem to be a national priority...lol

my stomach resembles a colony of butterflies in all hues and colors. butterflies of anticipation , those of confusion and the permanent ones of hunger.

90 minutes later

the man at the metro counter returns ninety rupees including a very dirty twenty rupees note which seems to have served as the canvass for many a budding artists.i make a mental note of using the note on the metro only , next time i come.
every time at the ticket counter i remember everyone who has ever goaded me to take a smart card, cutting down on the need to visit the ticket counter everyday.

i haven't obliged.

here are the reasons :

1. i always have extra time so token buying helps me busy myself

2.certain counters are manned ( or maybe wommaned/girled) by pretty girls at certain times of the day.

3.bureaucratic inertia

4.a caste specific desire to get something every time one spends anything

10 minutes later

a fourth individual asks me which is the metro to the university.
next time when i take the metro i should better make sure that im not wearing any metro employee lookalike shirts.

the train stops

two Chinese ladies are forced to use the entire range of their marshal arts skills to disembark in the face of an onrush of midday commuters.

my days-1

2007-02-09T14:03:00.000+05:30

8Th February

a bright Delhi morning

i rummage through the piles of clothing that i mistakenly believe to be my wardrobe.

search results- nothing to wear.

salman khan would have been happy with the result and the consequences that would have followed.unfortunately, (or rather fortunately) i am 15 kg heavier and out of shape.my emotional repertoire displays the hallmark frown.

in exasperation i wring my hands and close my room door to come up with viable alternatives.
magic!!
my trance is broken even before it's entered.
right before my uncharacteristically focused eyes is a bright purple shirt.
all it needs is a little ironing.

i bribe my flatmate with a "parantha" to have him accompany me to the "iron man"( my apologies to Sardar Patel but i couldn't find a suitable word to describe the character. calling him "press wallah" will only infuriate journo types who can file a lawsuit for defamation,or an inbox full of hate mail, things that the late honorable deputy prime minister would not)...:-)

without further ado i approach this by now controversial figure. without bothering to let go of his one rupee flavoured Pan Masala he asks me to tender exact change "two rupees", or there will be no change in the crumpled destiny of my shirt...as if i were about to use a card or a 1000 rupee note.

15 minutes hence.

i go downstairs and try hauling a rickshaw to reach the metro.
he asks for 15 bucks instead of the usual 10.
i am provoked to explain to him the disastrous consequences this 50% inflation in factor services can have on the economy in general and my balanced budgets in particular.

by a stroke of luck i am prevented .
a car honks loudly to assert its right of way on the single lane.
the rickshaw scurries away.
the next rickshaw wallah is happy with the prescribed 10 rupees.

in the metro...

another lucky day. i get a seat in the university terminal despite managing to get in by seconds only.i notice a girl sitting next to me reading the constitution ( p.m.bakshi, tricolor cover)
i am tempted to ask her something, like article 262 (inter state water disputes) more to strut my knowledge than to test hers.

i look at the floor in preparation.
i notice her strangely pointed shoes.
i change my mind.
:-)

i am no round shoes chauvinist, but there was something extraordinarily in congruent about those shoes in their chosen surroundings.

i reach Rajiv Chowk. the crowd carries me out to the brightness of connaught place. i retreat into Edwin Lutyens dream.

30th january

2007-01-31T00:50:00.001+05:30

12:30 am 30Th Jan

after exhausting all possible recent songs i pick up Seth's "an equal music". it has been teasing me for over 5 days sitting pretty on the bookshelf.

1:30 am

the only music audible now is the occasional car honk.

day fades into night. lights burn on.

a few Priyanka Chopra dreams later.............

7:00 am

the mobile manages to wake me up after spectacularly failing in its previous nine attempts. ( it was set for an ambitious 5:30) just wondering if they teach them the story of "the king and the spider" at the Nokia factory..:-) some perseverance!!

7:15 am

i reluctantly pick up my running shoes. 5 minutes on the bike and i find myself in the university ground. shaking off moths old rust i start running as if to beat Roger Bannister to a four minute mile(besides stamina it will also involve time travel..he did that in 1954)
obviously it doesn't work.
500 metres from the start and the shaky edifices of my willpower crumble at the sight of the mammoth task capitulating to sound reason.

nevertheless some tweeny weeny calories must have been terminated , never to reappear..poor thing-ies..

8:00 am

after some feeble attempts at exercise i head to the coconut water stall...or rather cart.
it's 20 bucks ( instead of the usual 10). the seller lies about some supply bottlenecks. whatever!!

9:30 am

i get ready to log into my daily routine when suddenly the radio enlightens me to the fact of the day being a holiday. bank and library will have to wait for tomorrow. no ceiling gazing today :-)

now, a new problem presents itself.
what to do with one full day..even solitude will be bored to accompany me all day.
had i been a workaholic i would have got into a ritual nail chewing brainstorming stance.
but I'm made of lazier stuff:-)

i face the same problem 200 days out of 365 with one common solution....wasting it..
(hopefully none of you will agree with my solution or we'll end up putting sand in the wheels of the economy)

1:30 pm

4 hours spent on playing "need for speed, carbon" have been very fruitful.
3 new territories have been conquered . besides police pursuit has been evaded twice.

suddenly i have a bright new idea.

where eagles crash!!

2007-01-31T00:19:00.000+05:30

the most important event in my day was perhaps the sighting of a falling eagle.
an electric line which provides most of the life to otherwise morose lifestyle of middle class delhi snuffed out the life of the king of birds. poignantly it's a metaphor of life itself in more ways than one.

i wish i had sighted soaring eagles instead.the eagle in the incident could be the aspirations of the young which, often battling consevation and agencies of decandence fail to soar. there is something very sad, almost sinister about the the death of dreams. they finish people in ways that no guns can.

rains

2007-01-30T16:53:00.000+05:30

Delhi January 29 7 pm

its raining!!the first showers from the cyclonic system originating in west Asia , the western disturbances.besides blocking city, streets it serves other, useful purposes.
the winter or the "Rabi" crops in the green revolution heartland of Punjab and Haryana crucially depend on this phenomenon.so, the next time you reach for a roti or bread thank rains.

but yesterday's rain was slightly surprising from a weatherman's viewpoint.
their was no associated chill, a norm for north west India January rainfalls. i won't get enmeshed in a spirited discussion of global warming but we know where all this will lead to.

i am a confirmed rain lover.

every rainfall brings to mind multiple images and a junction full of memory trains whistling past white cotton ball clouds.

i think of cherapunji, of the people forever tuned in to the fine music of falling raindrops on a tin roof. it reminds me of a green equatorial rain forest with the constant rhythm of rains embellished with bird chirps and animal grunts. some other images are coffee plantations and sea coasts.

rains are also a city life special.
there are few things in the world as beautiful as an urban winter evening rainfall specially if you are travelling on a Delhi flyover. the dark of the world broke up by columns of droplet diffused light from automobile headlights. its a time to think, to enjoy...to fall in love.

that's my picture for pure, unadulterated romance.
two people in a dark,urban isolation with nothing to do and everything to know.
if the phones stop working all the more perfect..there's something about silence in a city, you have more of it in a smaller place..but in a city you learn the price or rather the pricelessness of solitude.

and then there are those other times, when relationships turn sour. the smell of fresh earth mingles and loses itself in the taste of unrequited love creating a inter modal emotional nightmare.

rains are so much like our lives. the interplay of the dark and the light, the good and the evil, love and longing,fickle and sure.

i once read a book called "chasing the monsoons".(set in 1987)
the author catches the rains on their first landfall on the southern tip of the peninsula and follows it upcountry to the "abode of clouds" before continuing it across the Hindi heartland ad reaching Delhi.

that's a journey I'll do sooner than later.
i am sure many more of you will be interested.
follow your heart, do it. your life will never be the same again.

mythology

2007-01-29T20:46:00.000+05:30

troy brings to mind a whole load of memories.

years of being addicted to the "age of empires" and " age of mythology" have made the Greek seem less Greek...lol

i like the entire pantheon of gods and goddesses. from Hera, Athena to Aphrodite ( whose name has lent English a most interesting word...lol) to Apollo. atlas (a.k.a sheshnag :-) ) is equally adorable for keeping our planet high and dry from the black waters of space, besides fulfilling the vehicular needs of millions of Indians....lol

but my personal favourite is the half god half mortal, Achilles.
the liking has more to do with the fact that brad Pitt essayed the role in the movie "troy"...lol
(Jennifer aniston fans please excuse, i have seen a few thousand "Rachel" dreams myself..lol)

Achilles the character, has that kind of confidence, that superb poise and an amazing surety of action. no odds are too heavy ,no battle are too difficult. i guess we all have an Achilles inside us, but rationality and caution prevent him from taking control of our endeavours , in effect separating our thought and action.this chasm, appears narrow from a overview.
but deep down, this very crack widens into the difference between man and god.

its a somewhat surprising and even illogical bargain. life, is the price to pay for immortality.
thankfully enough of us chicken out. leaving enough space atop mount Olympus, or Indra's court if you prefer..lol

in a sense, Achilles is the perfect randian hero, the ancient day Howard roark.
their is a very delightful aspect about a randian hero. even when they eventually fall down, unlike Icarus's fall its not a dead fall. the fall in itself has more life than what an assortment of hackneyed lives have.

the analogy between homer and Ayn rand also shows how civilizational progress is never an exercise in vacuum. ideas are age old. the only thing that's new is the position of the society on a debate point and the color and the intensity of arguments.

change in the only constant in this world. contradictions galore..lol...probably it displays my true inside world.he he

closer home, if there is one mythological figure who epitomizes change it's lord Krishna.
lord Rama may be the perfect Indian ego ideal, but his qualities border on being a sum total of moral, spiritual aspirations rather than being an actual implementable code of conduct.

in the same way the latter day epic Mahabharata,is a story much more suited to our times than Ramayana.besides being on a much broader canvass it essays the entire gamut of human emotions with justifying any of them, naked and open to scrutiny.

it drives home the idea of imperfect , fallible heroes.

heroes in Mahabharata have feet of clay.
they change stances according to the shifting sands of time.
they make mistakes, conspire, plot, avenge injustice are jealous and lustful.

their fights are for petty selfish interests often keeping at bay the larger goals of the nation.

we surely can identify :-)

memories..

2007-01-29T16:41:00.000+05:30

life is full of surprises. a twist of fate has made this blog worth three thousand rupees..:-)

now, don't appear mystified...I'll explain.
i felt that if i were to be consistent blogger I'll better maintain a daily diary. i opened my pencil box after a full four months. and the first thing i found was a suspicious bit of paper. it was a cheque expiring on first Feb, 2007.

i opened my old diary for inspiration.
the 29Th January 2006 entry was written by a friend.it was a litany of complaints. he allegations ranged from personal hygiene, (or rather the lack of it..lol)..to not giving her enough time.
my newspaper and quiz books are co accused for being corrupting influences.

ah...the magic of being fussed over.
pain and happiness meet like the two head streams of a mighty river about to debauch into the plains for finely orchestrated performance of life.
the convoy of hope and life tugs along the ashen moors.
a few yellow leaves fall from a young tree down into a flowing, gushing stream.
all elements fulfilling their own essential destiny.

writing a blog makes one feel so middle aged..lol.
everything you write reminds you of something else.
just as, every person you meet reminds you of someone else.
thus, the usual coffee shop conversations..."you won't believe how much you look like neha. why she even dressed the way you do"....lol

by the end of the conversation both parties have a few more grey hair between them..lol
wonder where people keep dropping out of lives...that too in the times of the mighty mobile.

modern psychologists look at our entire lives as a convoy of ships.
as kids a majority of us begin with young robust fleets.
each gathering storm, every irregular coastline dents and depletes our fleet besides breaking our spirits.

at times fatal storms, like real life tsunamis deletes the entire convoy from the face of the ocean as if it never existed. the hungry tide exacts a final unfortunate victory over mankind.

the one's who survive at the end are battered, but supremely calm. a calm which comes from being aware of every danger on offer and yet, holding no fear.the ships of life anchor into their final destinies.

that , my dear reader completes our entire karmic cycle.
yours and mine.

this palate appears to be getting a bit heavy.
I'll inject the best flavoring agent known to man, beauty.( :-) can i ever quit being a jerk)

convoy and beauty meet in the story of Helen, Helen of troy.
"the face that set a thousand ships sail"
(i wonder if modern day maverick will someday fly a thousand jets to profess his love... that would be madness, but who said romance is anything other than madness..lol)

there's a very moving scene in the movie troy.
the young prince Paris is tormented by ghosts of guilt and self doubt.
he walks up to the wise king asking whether his action of abducting Helen and forcing war on two lands was a fair one.

the king replies, "son, if wars can be fought over wealth and land, i think its a honour fighting for love"

hats off!!

testimonial

2007-01-28T16:40:00.000+05:30

this is a testimonial i'll probably always like...

hmmm....i guess i can write an essay on you..lol...but since i write essays on almost everything, a shorter note will be more meaningful..lol..
.okay, the 2 lol's so far and the millions that aid my rather limited verbal competence owe their induction in my vocab to her..just like mood swings and madness do..lol..she's one of the best people i know(not that i know many people..lol!!)more importantly i like her just as i like myself...so, that obliviates the need for a page full of adjectives...lol.,
i have relied on you for so many things.. i never gave it a second thought before waking you up in the middle of the night ..always loaded you with my problems without ever enquiring if you were ok..just like the everlasting sunshine,i believed in your power to be the same and be there for me all the timesand yet, with a stubborn consistency you have played god..
just be who you are.

as they say,"the more the things change,the more they remain the same"

keep smiling ...

firsts

2007-01-28T15:43:00.000+05:30

All my life i have been tormented by the firsts.
first day in school, first time out of home, first date, first results...i guess even first blog..lol
i think first paycheck may break the trend..lol

ok.. now that i have managed to sound anxious and jittery appropriate for the occasion, i'll find some useful enterprise in this fading orange january afternoon.

well, im a usual 23 year old, with usual interests and unusual ambitions.its been a beautiful life so far, and every day seems all the better. There has been hurt and pain, but i don't like dwelling upon that...sooner or later we all turn the corner where a bright future awaits us.
like the promised golden mounatin across the valley of shadows