When Romanticism Meets Pragmatism

A Saturday at Oxford

2012-01-26T04:54:00.002+05:30

Over Christmas: Yorkshire Madness

2011-12-26T06:41:00.000+05:30

I’m watching the first session of the Boxing Day Test at Leeds- it’s ages since I watched cricket on TV- finishing my ice-cream, basking in the general middle-of-vacation bliss. I’d expected my English Christmas to be mostly solitary, confined to a few outings to Brighton beach and maybe one to Hove. How wrong I was.

Yorkshire has haunted my daydreams for years, and today I’ve scrambled up slippery rocks on Ilkley Moor for a spectacular view of the English countryside, to watch clouds come scudding in and settle like a thin veil on the distant hills. I wanted to see for myself the bleak, cheerless, rain-swept moors that have inspired some brilliant literature; thanks to this lovely branch of the family that I’ve just met, what once seemed like mere pipe-dreams are turning into reality. I’m deliriously happy.

Last Friday, I was met by my uncle at London Victoria and we went on to Maidenhead, where I saw a proper English house, and stayed with family I was meeting for the first time, before driving up north with them the next evening. A three-hour long drive in India would have been greeted with trepidation. Here, it is something to look forward to on the marvellous motorways where you can go full throttle without having to worry about a stray cyclist or cow. It was a treat just watching the names of places on signboards flying by, and to pretend I could make something of them in the dark: Silverstone (with a chequered flag icon beside it- I thought I was seeing some grandstands when I realised we weren’t even there yet), Sherwood Forest in Nottingham (with the trees looming in the dark), Sheffield (of which what I saw was Meadowhall, decked out for Christmas), all telling me that I was really and truly in England and that I could stop pinching myself. Three months on, you see, the incredulity is as strong as it was when I arrived.

The roads climbed uphill as we entered Leeds. December is such a cheerful month here, even if dusk sets in absurdly early. The towns are brightly dressed for Christmas and the houses which haven’t been shut down for the holidays are done up splendidly, Christmas trees all alight, a few from head to toe without looking showy. (If only some women could learn from them!) The roads are chock-a-block with cars and people; the unusually mild winter is probably bringing them out in hordes, despite the recession and consequent reticence in shopping habits. My hopes for a white Christmas have been mercilessly dashed, but I’m rather glad of the fine weather. It means we can go out for walks and I can see a bit of Yorkshire without having to be cooped up at home. I would have liked to watch snowflakes drift down softly, form white sheets on the ground and leave pretty icicles hanging off leafless branches- which is how I suppose snowfall is- but I suppose it’ll have to wait for later. It doesn’t make sense to have everything at once, after all, and what would I do without something to look forward to!

My stay at Leeds opened with a trip to a mall at York for some Christmas shopping. The Yorkshire countryside treat began on the drive to and from York, beautiful vistas opening up on either side of the road, the sun going down in a fiery blaze of colours over vast, open fields, with skies that seemed to stretch out endlessly everywhere at once. The skeletal silhouettes of trees stood out against a silky swirl of rich colours, and I knew I was going to be swept off my feet very soon. Trips to Blackburn and Birmingham were still to come; Bradford was yet to astound me with its cultural incongruity.

Leeds is a lovely city, quite a refreshing change from Brighton. The undulating roads are lined with houses that appear very bookishly English to my enchanted eyes. The sky is almost perpetually grey, and blue patches are rare. This is the kind of weather that really enthuses me, but I’m often hard-pressed to remember that over 300 days of grey weather a year isn’t exactly fun. I was caught in the rain one morning on a walk with my uncle, and I’m quite sure he didn’t enjoy the walk as much as I did. The relatively sunny south has me chuffed about the vaguest prospect of rain.

The rate at which I’m falling in love with English towns is alarming; much as I’d like to scour every inch of the country, practicality rears its ugly head. But I, for one, am going to hold on to my dreams like a limpet.

Dusk

2011-12-15T04:30:00.001+05:30

Dusk descends on the village of Falmer by half-past four every evening. The sun slips into the horizon inconspicuously, making a brief appearance before it sets. It stays blissfully wrapped up in the clouds almost all day, peeping out occasionally like a celebrity who drives past in a car with tinted windows, offering the briefest of tantalising glimpses. The hills in the distance are rapidly enveloped in an all-encompassing blue shroud, inseparable from cloud or tree. A tinkle against the window-panes tells me that it is raining- again- and a sudden barrage of loud clicks on the glass indicates the first hailstorm of the season; tiny bits of ice, nothing dramatic, melting almost as soon as they fall on the window-ledge. The slanting lines on the clear glass disappear almost as soon as they fall, but I can rest assured I’ll never be deprived of rain here. The girl who eagerly sought opportunities back home to get drenched in the rain is easily pleased here.

It has been a little difficult to get used to the idea of little sunshine or daylight; but the romantic appeal of windy mornings, grey skies and clouds looming over rolling hills easily scores over the relentless, sticky heat of tropical coastal towns (atleast for the moment). Added to it is the possibility of snow. I look up at the sky hopefully, not knowing if the large, dismal cloud overhead will dissolve in a shower of softly-falling, ethereal flakes, or simply melt into nothingness. I scan the horizon, and any unusually-coloured cloud rouses my suspicion. Half the fun, as they say, lies in anticipating things.

The blue darkness often reminds me of the Himalayas in Sikkim, and our drive up through treacherous, narrow mountain roads into the tiny village of Lachung. The slight chill that crept over me as I saw the towering forms of the mountains press close upon us was dispelled by hot, milky tea and a simple, delicious meal; right amidst the hills that I considered intimidating, I was being treated to some of the best hospitality I’d ever experienced, by people whose smiling eyes belied the extremely hard lives they lived. Dawn put an end to any lingering doubts I might have had, as the sun rose in a riot of colour at five in the morning, lighting up the snow-capped peaks and making me realise that I was in one of the most beautiful corners of the planet. Little wonder then, a few hours later when we had to set off, I couldn’t bear to leave, and felt that I had some sort of inexplicable connection with the mountains- that I wasn‘t seeing the last of them yet. The Himalayas do that to you, bring you down on your knees in veneration, hypnotise and seduce you.

England, on the other hand, is winning me over slowly but surely (not that, of course, I had any doubts it would, thanks to the Bronte sisters). The trees at Falmer have now been stripped of every single leaf, bare arms reaching upwards, silhouetted starkly in the light cast by the streetlamps that are on almost all day. Past midnight, a single star climbs up into the sky and shines softly through the branches, sometimes accompanied by a thinly-veiled moon. It has become a ritual of sorts for me to look for them, make sure they are safely up there, before I snuggle into bed. Can I confess that I feel a little disappointed when they play truant? I still have the trees for company though, and that’s a comfort.

I‘m quite sure of what I‘ve been fearing and dreading: I’ve lost my heart to this little village, and I’m not relishing the prospect of leaving it. It is perhaps too early to worry about pangs of separation, but I sometimes hope that it’ll temper my ecstasy and make me level-headed; not that there is much hope of my being entirely practical, because you have to be born grown up not to appreciate the little delights that are thrown at you even when you’re in your most unsuspecting, indifferent state. That I live in an English village with pastures and brick houses, am buffeted by cold winds on rainy mornings when I walk to university, and am likely to have one of my wildest hopes turn into reality very soon, should be proof enough that dreams come true. It would be rather silly, then, to try and ruin my enjoyment of things with caution; I’ll only have to choose carefully what I want to wish for, and it’s a dilemma I can live with.

English Enchantment

2011-10-18T03:32:00.000+05:30

"Is this a typically English day?" I ask a classmate of mine who has lived in Brighton most of his life. The quest for the perfect example of proper English weather has apparently come to an end, for he replies in the affirmative, and tells me that the weather will probably continue to remain so till March. Splendid, isn't it, to think of cold, windy days when you can barely manage a decent handshake and your fingers are so numb they constantly long for the comforting contours of a cup of hot coffee, never mind drinking it? The rain begins as I let myself into my room, and dead leaves are being blown off the trees outside my window. They whirl madly on the road before gathering in little heaps. Soon they'll all be gone (and I can't help thinking of The Last Leaf, but that's just me being morbid), and I can imagine the stripped trees now, stark and skeletal on moonlit winter nights. All I ask for now is a bit of snow in December. Could I be living a more enchanted life than this?

On sunshiny days- which are merely bright, but not hot, because the rays rarely manage to make their way down to earth unmolested by cold winds- we walk on the green, verdant slopes around Falmer. It is a Saturday afternoon, and hordes of people, some in blue-and-white striped tees, are walking from Falmer Station to the Amex Stadium for the game between Hull City and Brighton & Hove Albion. We leave 'civilisation' behind for the vast, open spaces that are just a short walk away. The grass is thick and manicured (a friend of mine asks if it grows that way- I need to find out if it does), criss-crossed by cobwebs that shimmer brightly as they catch the rays of the sun. In the distance, the hills arc gently against bright, cloudless blue skies, dotted by plump (or traditionally-built, as Alexander McCall Smith might say?) sheep and cattle. Roads cut through the hillsides, not in the rough, autocratic manner that they do back home, searing deep gashes into them and making them bleed, but ribboning smoothly through only where necessary. The occasional glint of glass reveals a car driving into oblivion. Are there any mysteries in these hills? They look harmless: soft, quiet and friendly. Will we stumble upon a hidden spring or a haunted Victorian mansion? The only thing of interest we do find is a memorial pushed back into the woods, dedicated in 1775 to the memory of Frederick Frankland, Esq., by his son and daughter. (The word daughter here probably means daughter-in-law: the inscription bears the names of the son and his wife, and presumably follows pre-Victorian traditions.) Groups of picnickers watch their kids play football; the shadows are beginning to lengthen and some of them are already stowing bikes and prams away into their cars.

Aimless walking brings us to the village of Stanmer. Through a line of trees, we catch a glimpse of a large building; on closer inspection, it turns out to be Stanmer House, once a proper house, now used for functions and open to the public only once a week. We save our investigation for later and move towards the imposing church that has caught our eye. It looks very English, made of grey stone, with a majestic spire spiking into the sky. We have to walk through a graveyard to reach the door of the church, and the inscriptions on the gravestones bear the names of Earls of Chichester and other 'distinguished' people. The area around the church is heavily shaded by trees; what would it be like on a rainy day, with the wind howling through the branches and the fragrance of damp earth pervading the air? (I wish I'd brought my MR James along; of course, there's always Project Gutenberg to fall back on, but without the musty odour of mottled old paper.)

We walk further into the village, past some stables and a bit of pasture-land. One of the horses grazing there approaches the fence, cropping grass eagerly and ignoring his feeding-trough; he looks up momentarily as we pass, then his beautiful brown head dips back earthwards, business beckoning. We pass a tea-room- and now I'm really and truly in Storybook England, where men in tweed suits and women in printed dresses sit at high tea, red brick houses with little white gates and smoking chimneys in the background, their village the nucleus of a wide world that may not even exist for all they care. I think back to Enid Blyton and Peterswood, where my love affair with England began, later kept alive and flourishing with the abetment of the Bronte sisters, PG Wodehouse and George Eliot.

The journey has just begun, and there is plenty to look forward to. I live in a state of eternal anticipation, thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.

England: First Impressions

2011-09-28T13:32:00.002+05:30

I am in England, and I’d be purple all over if I tried to pinch myself into belief. It’ll take a while to sink in. In the short span of time since leaving Bangalore, I’ve seen a look-alike of Freddie Flintoff and one of Frederick Algernon Trotteville, tried shortbread and cheese-and-pickle, and drunk water purportedly from Scottish and Welsh springs. One of the items on today's agenda is finding some gingerbeer.

My journey started in the usual klutzy manner, with a briefly scary moment on the escalator when my cabin bag almost went tumbling down; it took me a while to recover, because I was obviously not in my senses when I next went crashing into a benign Englishman. He accepted my apology with a gentle smile, and if I thought I’d seen the last of him then, I was wrong; he came up behind me as I waited for the security check, and told me politely that the ladies’ queue was “over there”. I was beyond feeling sheepish at having joined the wrong queue. This wasn’t the first time I’d done it, after all.

The flight was rather uneventful. Though I did feel like we were packed sardine-style into the aircraft, I knew I was lucky not to have been squashed between rotund people. To my left sat the aforementioned clone of Freddie Flintoff, bringing out his Kindle occasionally to read a business manual. He and the Indian man to my right took it in turns to guffaw at the movies they were watching. I tried to lose myself in my copy of ‘Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman’, but for once Murakami failed to rise to the occasion- lack of sleep mingled with excitement suppressed to sobriety had made me delirious.

However, the real flavour of England made itself felt in the drive from Heathrow to Gatwick. Gentle mounds emerged abruptly out of flat stretches of land, smooth and populated by little copses. The trees by the roadside broke into autumn colours at intervals, flashes of magenta appearing in the otherwise uniform green cover. Horses grazed in distant meadows, swishing their tails as they cropped the grass hungrily. We passed some pretty, quaint cottages with creepers climbing up their walls, and it wasn’t quite difficult to imagine a highwayman go clattering up one of their driveways, wanting to see his Bess at the casement window.

As the coach made its way into Brighton, rows of neat brick houses, rather alike one another, came into sight. The winding streets of the town were quiet; as we approached the Brighton Marina, the roads seemed to come to life. People scurried to and fro laden with bags, or took a calm walk down by the Brighton Pavilion (an absurdly Moorish structure, but I need to find something out about it before I condemn it as an incongruity). I caught a brief glimpse of the sea, a nice sleepy blue, glinting in the rays of the waning sun.

The vagaries of the English weather have been slow in making themselves felt, but I know it shan’t be long before I’m talking of constant rain and the perennial absence of sunshine. With a not-too-pleasant summer having been replaced by autumn already, a snowy winter can’t be too far behind!

Distant Shores

2011-09-28T00:07:00.001+05:30

I don't wake up soaked in perspiration any longer; at half past seven in the morning, a thick mist envelopes the trees and the highway, and a soft rain falls steadily. It doesn’t sting or hurt or drum down forcefully like tropical rain, but falls as if it was always there, a constant fixture like the air or the sky.

This is England, and I’m actually here; in a different continent for the first time, but in a coastal city as usual.

I didn’t have a first ‘memorable’ glimpse of England, closeted that I was close to the middle of the aircraft, as far away as possible from a window. I don’t know if majestic buildings rose into the sky, their spires and domes getting larger by degrees, or if a lake-dotted landscape came into view. Never mind, though: there is plenty I can do and see, and I intend to make full use of my year here at Brighton.

September is just coming to a close, but autumn seems to be here already; on the road leading away from Heathrow, the leaves are breaking into a riot of vibrant colours, the more staid greens complementing them beautifully. On walks through the campus, my new Malaysian flat mate and I are amused to note how the English girls walk around in short skirts and flimsy tops, while we bundle ourselves up in our warmest coats and prepare for a year in jeans. A brief glimpse of the sun and its soft warmth on our skin feels heavenly; it doesn’t take long for a nippy wind to arise from nowhere and chill us to the bone if we’re caught without our jackets.

My room looks out at a little brick cottage whose purpose I’m unaware of; beside it is a clump of trees at whose feet are strewn dead leaves. The slightest gust of wind sends the dry leaves floating from one of the trees. Another of its kind has already been stripped bare, and stands up like a toothless old man, robbed but proud. The trees absorb the noise from the highway and turn the roar of engines into distant swishes; I owe it to them that I don’t toss and turn in bed all night, but sleep like the dead.

Being thrown in with five new people in an apartment is an interesting experience. We’re all Asian- Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Lebanese and Pakistani, with Turkey providing a partial European flavour. (Four of these countries are on the F1 calendar- digression.) It has been an interesting experience this far, and the abandon with which we are able to mingle with one another and talk politics and religion has almost surprised me.

The sky is turning a deep, inky blue, without the rose-coloured splendours of a tropical twilight. There is much to see, much to do, and a whole year of learning ahead.

2011-09-19T23:02:00.002+05:30

When I first arrived at this house in Vizag, I couldn’t stand the sight of it. I longed desperately to be back in Durgapur, not because I was fond of the town, but because I was familiar with it and the house we lived in there. Vizag wasn’t new by any stretch of imagination: I had lived here for twelve years before work took me away in 2008. However, returning here involved yet another process of forgetting and learning; it might sound silly, but those who have moved frequently and lived in several houses will perhaps understand what it means to get used to new shadows, to leaking taps and trees rustling against window-panes, unusually bright streetlamps or sunlight spilling into the bedroom in the morning at an angle they’re not accustomed to.

I’d visited this house atleast thrice earlier, when I was a schoolgirl, visiting people who lived here. It felt very strange as we moved in, though; without the vaguely familiar dining-table, the elderly Bengali lady in her starched white saree, the senior from my school, this house could have been meant for just about anybody. Thin beams of light fell across the undulating floor from unexpected chinks in the windows, and a sudden movement caught in the corner of my eye would eventually prove to be a branch set in motion by a breeze. The knowledge that a snake lurked in the straggly undergrowth outside wasn’t very comforting. A sudden spell of heavy rain had set the weeds growing, and now the wildflowers ran riot amongst the carefully planted bushes of the previous occupants of the house.

Funny then, that with so many forebodings and misgivings, it took me just about a month to get used to living in this house. The nightly concerts of the insects are a treat, and I like to watch for grey clouds on the verandah, sitting on the sun-warmed steps and waiting for the rain to fall. Butterflies flit busily through the bushes, barely settling on one flower before they’re off seeking the next: how do they ever make a living at this rate? The garden is a riot of colour, and just as old flowers begin to wilt and wither, new ones take their place- it pulsates with life and verve.

I don’t know if it was all in the mind. I don’t miss Durgapur one bit now, and wonder how I could ever have thought I’d be nostalgic for it, notwithstanding its mishti and simple life. Despite having been quite a nomad, I’m in the habit of visiting every little nook and corner I know ‘one last time’, but I also know that I almost always have to move just when I begin to get too attached to a place or a person. I don’t know if it is a universal law: but it does put me on my guard, and I’m learning to enjoy life without letting the strings of attachment burden me.

Passing the Buck Forever

2011-09-08T13:20:00.000+05:30

One more attack has come and gone, and all too familiar scenes are replaying themselves. The buck is being generously passed around, no party is willing to admit a lapse of any sort, and the miscreants are willingly claiming responsibility for the hideous act, perhaps secure in the knowledge that there are few chances of their being at the receiving end of any sort of punishment. We keep the accused in prisons, nourish them on taxpayers’ money, debate death sentences, and promptly return to the starting point.

This time, the group claiming responsibility for the blasts is one from Bangladesh. The Prime Minister has just returned from a trip to the country, and of course several pacts would have been signed. Who loves their neighbours better than we do? The sharing of the waters of the river Teesta was the point of contention between the PM and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee; it was cited as the reason for her withdrawal from the Bangladesh trip. But she isn’t the only unhappy person. The agreement on the waiver of tax duties on the import of certain kinds of textiles from Bangladesh has small-scale clothing manufacturers in India up in arms. They worry that goods from Bangladesh will flood the Indian market, and the costs of their production being lower than those here spell tough times for small Indian manufacturers.

While we persist in our efforts to appease our neighbours, why can’t we simultaneously adopt a tough stance on issues of national security? The lack of CCTVs and functioning metal detectors is just one visible lapse; using the excuse of the blast having taken place in a public area and not on the premises of the High Court is a sign of weakness. Is security supposed to be restricted only to the anointed? The verbal slugfests that immediately follow any major incident only worsen the situation, and VIPs ought to know that people are no longer taken in by the hand-holding and sympathising. Patience is running low. That no lessons have been learnt from recent incidents is extremely evident; we continue to worry about our image on the world stage and the signals we send out in the way we treat the accused. The damning statements in Wikileaks on how David Coleman Headley’s extradition was viewed only as an attempt to placate the Indian public show just how serious we are about bringing criminals to book.

India needs a drastic image change. This will not come from mere speeches condemning terrorism, but from action that accompanies and justifies the words. It’s high time we stopped being just impressive orators.

Letters from the Past

2011-08-07T19:18:00.004+05:30

Trips to Hyderabad, though extremely enjoyable, are always slightly difficult. They come laden with their baggage of nostalgia, of sunny summer vacations whiled away in bliss, the prospect of adulthood a mere blip on the horizon that scarcely bothered us as children. The adults were there to supply us with Frooti and ice-cream, and all we had to do was figure out which movies and amusement parks we wanted to be taken to.

We're all too grown up now for our own good- it has been eleven years since all of us converged together on the house our grandfather built, its walls abundantly shaded by fruit trees. It still stands proudly on a street where most other old houses have been demolished to make way for ugly, monotonous blocks of flats, swathed in blue plastic as they await completion.

What I like best about this old house is its atmosphere- how seeped in stories from the past it seems, retaining an identity that my cousins and I can only try to understand through anecdotes coaxed out of the adults on lazy afternoons or over a long, leisurely lunch in the kitchen. Poring over photographs from the seventies, you seek in the face of the young girl kneeling amidst unknown people the features of your mother; you realise, through careful attention, that the man with the thick moustaches and the sidelocks is actually your uncle whose only claim to hair now is a thin layer of dyed frizz on a smooth, sun-browned pate.

The best stories come from my grandmother. I'd always marvelled at the manner in which marriages were arranged all those decades ago, when girls were barely educated and had little say in choosing the men they were to spend their lives with, rear children with. Several circumstances came together in these choices, and the cases I found most repulsive were those where a girl married a cousin or, worse still, an uncle. Money was scarce, and if a girl wasn't a ravishing beauty, she was married off to the first reasonably "eligible" man who came along. My grandmother thankfully wasn't in one of these abominable marriages, but of course she didn't have the freedom that we, two generations on, can boast of. She loved and respected her much older husband, but also feared him. However, there was a tenderness between them that becomes evident in her fond reminiscences of him, and letting her talk of him when the mood takes her is my way of learning about a grandfather I've never seen.

During my most recent visit, she told me of the letters Grandfather wrote her. In 1948, as trouble brewed in Hyderabad, she was sent off to Thanjavur to her parents' place. Grandfather, living a solitary life, wrote her a four-page letter everyday, and with a flourish his wife couldn't reproduce in her less articulate replies. She saved the letters (now I know where my penchant for keeping all correspondence comes from- I cannot even bring myself to clear my inbox), and I wouldn't be surprised if she took them out occasionally for a peek at them, for a waft of the bitter-sweet breeze of nostalgia.

I asked to see the letters, and Grandmother agreed immediately to show them to me, but on the condition that I wouldn't read them. Of course I wouldn't, I told her, my Tamil-reading abilities being close to zero. So she took them out of the box she kept them carefully in, spreading open the sheets off-white with age and tearing at the folds. The pages were closely covered in faded black ink, and signed in English. At the top right-hand corner, the two letters I saw bore dates from September 1948. Grandfather's handwriting was majestic; not traditional, perhaps, but imposing and authoritative in its own way. I held the fragile sheets gently, trying to embody with character the face I'd only seen in photographs.

"Sixty-three years," said Grandmother, counting off the decades on her fingers bent with age. Quietly meditative for a moment, she then closed her eyes and slipped into prayer- or maybe a dream from the days when she wore vermilion in her parting and flowers in her hair.

2011-07-29T00:12:00.003+05:30

If the rain wants to fall at night when I'm asleep, leaving me impervious to its patter, and to squelch through a good deal of slush the next morning, so be it. I'll still be in love with it. It feels good to know that any moment, I can turn and be surprised by the gentle, hazy contours of a hill, and a cloud alighting upon it.

I think I know now where home is.

2011-07-27T18:57:00.003+05:30

I visualise a writer's blog as a massive, solid cube that doesn't budge no matter how hard it is pushed or shoved; only a special drill can bore a hole through it, or an extra-special spell atomize it.

I seem to have lost my bag of tricks.

Awakening A Sleeping Giant

2011-07-13T20:27:00.001+05:30

A long line of people snaked down the length of the Coromandel Express at Howrah, waiting to board the general compartments for the much-anticipated journey home, or perhaps an emergency visit. Policemen made sure the people were in queue, not pushing and shoving, a lesson thankfully learnt from stampedes that have had some terrible results in the past. Comfortably ensconced in our compartment, we had the luxury to look around and watch the crowds milling on the platform; what of those, then, who have to camp out at the station for days and nights, waiting for an elusive ticket to go home to their loved ones? The chaos that descends on a platform when a long-distance train pulls into the station is almost maddening. We have a railway system that needs to muster all possible resources to carry to and fro the uncountable number of people who use its services everyday. A large number of lives, mostly those of families’ breadwinners, are in the hands of those at the helm; but responsibility is a bitter pill. Since the departure of Mamata Banerjee from the post of Railway Minister to take charge as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, the Prime Minister has assumed additional charge of the Railway Ministry. It was only yesterday, when the Cabinet reshuffle was announced, that the TMC’s Dinesh Trivedi was named Railway Minister.

While we prepared to board our train at Howrah, the arrival of the Howrah-Kalka-Delhi Mail was announced. Did a shudder run through the crowds thronging the station? Did their minds linger on the photographs of mangled compartments and the stories of the search for survivors of the accident that befell the Kalka Mail on Sunday? The papers in West Bengal are full of quotes from the Bengal-based relatives of those on board that ill-fated train, people trying frantically to ascertain if their friends/families were aboard it, which compartments they were travelling in, searching desperately for any information at all. Two Swedish nationals were among the 67 people killed in the accident, and a third was seriously injured. Reparation will be offered, of course, in the form of the usual monetary packages. What makes this accident a matter of immediate concern is that it wasn’t a one-off mishap; a bomb blast on the tracks caused the Guwahati-Puri Express to derail on Sunday, injuring over a hundred people, and a collision between a train and a bus on July 7 at an unmanned crossing in Kanshiram Nagar, Uttar Pradesh killed 38 people and injured 31. However, life goes on as the trains continue to make mammoth journeys across the country, caution and safety left resting in the hands of the powers that be, because not everyone has the means to choose an alternative mode of travel. For the people coming from the rural hinterlands of the country, travelling far and wide for work, trains, specifically the lower-priced classes, provide about the only means of transport.

The cause of the Kalka Mail accident is still not clear, responsibility isn’t being pinned on any one party yet. The MoS for Railways, Mukul Roy, expected to make a visit to the site of the Assam incident, chose to go to Jangalmahal with Mamata Banerjee instead, claiming that the situation there was under control and his presence wasn’t needed. Dinesh Trivedi, on his first day as Railway Minister, is going through perhaps one of his toughest challenges. How do you answer the families of the deceased, what explanation do you give for three accidents in a row, all of which could possibly have been averted? Safety has to come first on any list; admittedly, there are endless kilometres of tracks stretching out all over the country, but that is why we also have a body committed to maintaining it and ensuring that people reach their destinations safely.

The blueprint for the High-Speed railway system to be in place in China by 2015 presents a study in contrast. The new Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, equipped to deal with the snowstorms that play havoc with the system during the peak festival periods, which is also when large numbers of people travel home, covers the distance of 1318 km at 300 kmph, making a round trip possible in a single day. Empty trains travel in the morning from each direction to ensure the safety of the line, a task made imperative by the fact that these trains reach a top speed of 350 kmph. Proper and fast connectivity seems to be the top priorities of Chinese railway authorities, but in no way do they compromise on safety. They handle massive amounts of traffic, just like the Indian railways; but were a major accident to take place, would it take this long to find out the root cause of the problem and make sure it doesn’t repeat itself? Lessons aren’t learnt easily in India, though: a fault was detected in the axle of the pantry car of the Bhubaneswar- New Delhi Rajdhani Express, and a major accident was averted, but this inspection took place only at Tatanagar. The blame for the lapse was laid on the East Coast Railway.

That the different zones of the railways should work in conjunction with one another shouldn’t be too much to ask. The horrific casualties of three different accidents in one week should serve as a massive jolt to the slumber that seems to have set in. Importantly, the people concerned should accept responsibility for their areas and work towards enforcing the necessary regulations. It isn’t difficult; it just requires systematic and honest work.

Spring-cleaning

2011-07-06T19:16:00.004+05:30

Mothballs.

There is something about the odour that evokes a strong urge to go spring-cleaning; to rake out everything that clutters shelves and turns them into witches' cauldrons of mixed ingredients, simmering continuously, fuelled and fed by growing heaps of prized rubbish.

I have never found it easy to throw away things or memories. I can't point to a particular moment back in time and say that was when the accumulation began. Many cherished objects haven't survived, but with the amount of shifting we've done, moving across the country and through atleast three houses in every town/city, I am glad of what has remained. I collected letters and birthday cards; I have most of the letters my friend from Bokaro wrote me faithfully, starting when we were nine. I wasn't a very good correspondent, but her letters came to me with unfailing regularity, stickers and sparkly writing all over, much looked forward to and carefully treasured. Then there was (and is) the craze for stamps; I know my collection lies somewhere in a crinkled polyethene bag, and I'll be delighted to recover it, now that stamps are getting dearer. (To all those who still write me letters, thank you!)

There have been knick-knacks of all sorts, from sepia-tinted photographs and stickers to picture postcards and bookmarks (and books, of course!). I know I'm quite a nomad, but I can't stop collecting things. I need these chunks of memory to tell me where I've come from, what I've been, and what I need to retain as I grow older.

Who says you need to be old to reminisce? Touching twenty-five, I don't know how many years I have ahead of me. But I know I have enough to tell me who has come through life with me and stayed on. I've been to school, college and work, met many people, but managed to forge just about a handful of good, strong relationships. When changes occur, I don't want them to be so overwhelming that they'll erase the past altogether. It isn't right to forget where you've come from and the people you've shared the first genuine laughs with, no matter how much you've grown and evolved.

Birds and Butterflies

2011-07-01T22:48:00.009+05:30

The past week has been one of the most relaxing and fulfilling since I returned home in March.

The monsoon has set in- in a way- and waking up to grey skies is a major delight of my life. There is something promising about rainy mornings; the birds seem more active than they usually are, too, and butterflies run riot in the overgrown, weed-infested garden.

The heavy rains have rejuvenated the earth, and their abundance is in evidence all around this 53-year-old house. What I know from hearsay is that it was constructed for the British employees of the steel plant, and they wanted plenty of space in and around their houses. So our kitchen comes with a pantry attached to it, and opens on to a large courtyard generously shaded by neem, guava and mango trees.

Last morning, wiping sleep out of my eyes at a not-too-respectable hour, I was surprised to see a pair of woodpeckers hopping on our slightly mossy wall; one of them then flew noisily away into the jackfruit trees next door, while the other balanced itself comfortably on the wall, then realising that damp cement wasn't exactly to its taste, hastened into the branches of the neem tree overhead. You could spend hours watching the birds and butterflies at play. There are the birds with black-and-white plumage that alight on gates and electric wires, but hardly stay still for a couple of moments. The parrots seem to have abandoned us for the present, but other birds come and go, a flash of colour, a rustle and a chirp being all that I register in the tiny fractions of time for which they present themselves in a clear, unobstructed fashion.

The butterflies, surprisingly, are easier to keep track of. I know of five different varieties in our garden, by colour: pale green, yellow, a lovely violet (whose wings are black-and-white when closed in the act of sucking nectar), a brilliant black-and-blue, and black-and-orange. Perhaps some of them have grown used to my presence- they don't fly away in a hurry, and sometimes even stay still as I steady the stem of the gently rocking flower they're working on. Watching their little limbs grip the flower, their wings slide slowly as they suck nectar, is breathtaking- they're a marvel of biology and nature. The rains have been a real blessing: wildflowers have sprung out of nowhere, mauve, magenta and yellow, and the butterflies visibly have a tough time picking their hosts. The wet earth has also disgorged some not-so-attractive worms, caterpillars and abnormally large toads, but I'll save them for another time.

Mucking about in the garden, watching butterflies and trying to take pictures of them, has reminded me how little I know of lepidopterology or photography. I apparently have a lot to do over the coming week, and I'm looking forward to it. I just hope the rains are on my side!

The Coromandel Journey

2011-06-23T17:10:00.006+05:30

June isn't the best time to go traipsing through the southern depths of India. Geography and meteorology should have told me as much. However, the lure of travel after three months spent rather quietly in my remote corner of West Bengal was too strong for vagaries of the Indian climate to weaken: so a cloudy, muggy morning found us in Kolkata, crossing the Vidyasagar Setu over the Hooghly into the city to take care of some business, and then the stately Howrah Bridge, to the railway station.

Calcutta, at its best, is very sticky; on a day when the rainclouds were gathering fast and thick, the weather was almost unbearably humid. Throngs of people waited at the terminus, wiping grime away with red cotton towels or nipping in for quick baths at the not-so-clean facilities available there. Train travel in India is an arduous task, with innumerable delays, unscheduled stops and disturbances involved- you almost need an intrepid heart to embark on a train journey that lasts longer than twenty-four hours. You have to pray for good company on the train: no wailing babies or snotty children or snoring men or people who insist on eating everything that emerges from the pantry and displaying the masticated contents of their mouths during their incessant conversations with friends/family. Train journeys were fun once, when you knew endless hours of play and ice cream with cousins waited at the other end- the years have swallowed up the thrill and now present an unattractive picture of practical concerns.

The name of the Coromandel Express conjures up serene visions of a palm tree-lined island, idyllic and pristine, with the grey-blue waters of the Bay of Bengal indolently lapping the beaches. The train never passes along the coast, but courses through lush, verdant valleys watered by the Godavari and the Krishna and the thin ribbon of the Mahanadi, past emerald fields and rolling, sharply rising hills. It covers four states in its journey, travelling through Orissa and Andhra Pradesh on its journey from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu, a route that is quite a treat for the eye.

The train pulled into Chennai Central on a surprisingly pleasant, breezy evening (which made me wonder what all the fuss about the horrid Chennai weather was all about- hasty judgement!), just about 30 minutes late; almost no delay in the mammoth Indian Railways' system. We had a few hours before we took the train to Madurai, so we stepped into the city to be welcomed by the typically southern fragrance of jasmine flowers in the air. A short distance away rose the structure that houses Moore Market, a sort of flea-market that sells about everything from books to parakeets. Not finding much of interest, though, partly owing to our fatigue, we returned to the railway station to wander amidst another multitude of waiting people and munch on murukku. People slept on the floor on newspapers and thin sheets, oblivious of the noise, or drank innumerable cups of coffee. The train to Madurai arrived on time- a 'special' train for the vacations- and we were rather glad when we were finally on the last leg of the journey, coasting towards our destination.

The Last Train Home

2011-06-09T22:48:00.001+05:30

The neon lights flickered fitfully as Lisa walked down the now motionless escalator, one of the stragglers going home at midnight to cold dinners and indifferent beds. She and her companions, acquaintances by sight, were regulars on the last train at night, alighting in ones and twos at the stations on the North-East line. No crowds surged in to push them backwards, imperilling their exit; the bullet-like whoosh was the only sound they heard as the train chugged forward through the cavernous tunnels, being swallowed into the darkness and disgorged again, intact, by sterile, white-lit platforms.

Lisa stepped off the escalator and sat down on the nearest steel bench, sitting down with her back arching uncomfortably against the odd angular curve of the cold chair. She smoothed her brown uniform skirt over her knees and fished in her large, square handbag for one of her newly-bought paperbacks. These were about the only books she read now, fresh off the press but then gathering dust in supermarkets, spines cracked and pages thumbed by various uninterested fingers. She almost felt a sort of pity for these neglected books, lovingly sent into the world by writers who thought their fortune was made at last, but then trashed and denigrated by harsh criticism, ensuring the author was never heard of again. They were books with stereotypical covers, raised gold letters and extravagant blurbs; they didn’t make any demands on her intellect at that unearthly hour, when all she wanted to do was stumble into bed, too tired even to dream.

You read far too much, said her friends at work, when she had first burst upon them, bespectacled and glowing with the pride of her newly obtained college degree. The timing wasn’t too good for her, though- she wasn’t wanted where she wished to go, so off she went disconsolately to assist at one of the numerous fashionable shops dotting the island. There may not have been enough jobs, but there still was plenty of money. The rich continued to buy diamond-encrusted watches for their lovers, and she waited on them. She would meet some interesting people this way, she thought, and write about them. She would be discovered. All she needed was patience.

So when her slightly bemused, vaguely respectful colleagues accused her of reading too much, she had initially waved an autocratic hand at them. Reading feeds the imagination, she had said, thinking of the worlds she fled into when the demons of reality bore down heavily upon her. The idealism she worshipped was the stuff of legend, the halo she imbued herself with existed only in the world she had imagined into existence, piece by piece.

Sadly though, Lisa missed the bus when adulthood beckoned. She forgot to grow up, and realized too late that the companions of her childhood had gone ahead, leaving her behind with her own fairy dust, a grown-up Disney princess swathed in pink gauze and wearing ribbons in her hair.

The transition had been difficult, but almost complete. Realising that she was capable of love surprised her pleasantly; knowing that she could have her heart broken made life seem worthless for a while. She thought a lot, and she thought deeply. The names she assumed changed- she was no longer a Bathsheba or an Irawati, but plain Lisa. Two syllables, rolling easily off the tongue, with no quirks of pronunciation. She was getting herself a new identity, becoming a new individual. She didn’t want a sparkly tiara on her greying hair. The veneer of refinement faded as she settled into her role of working girl, imagining, in moments of romantic weakness, that she was living the life of Lily Bart without the suitors. Those who had started the journey with her had struck out on their own, going their own separate ways, meeting occasionally to celebrate spouses and jobs; she had- by some stroke of misfortune?- kept her hermetic life intact. The real and the presumed still confused her, but she was getting better at sieving the ideas presented to her, learning that the inner child that had to be guarded wasn’t physical, but purely platonic.

The last train whooshed into the station and Lisa looked up with a start. In three quarters of an hour, she would be walking home past the restaurant with its little cluster of smoking men, their cigarettes creating single points of light amidst the silhouettes of the ornamental plants that lined its front. Their beer cans would be crushed and discarded on the pavement in due course, and she would pick her way through them distastefully, muttering at their capacity for idleness, then pull up short as she remembered her own situation. Maybe they were stragglers, and perhaps she belonged with them, too. She’d know in a few years.

2011-06-09T20:57:00.002+05:30

I've given up waiting for the rain.

The trees are listless and parched, the birds are cooing more plaintively than they normally do; the earthworms, emerging for brief spells, dig back into their burrows again, disappointed. The bank of clouds which does occasionally make its way upward occasionally from the west seems more inclined towards a pyrotechnic demonstration than a rainshower; the sun gleams with a sated smile, knowing that it won't be displaced from power for long.

The monsoons are around the corner, so says the weatherman. Rainclouds, where are you?

Working towards Change

2011-05-26T14:33:00.003+05:30

Mamata Banerjee may have ridden to power on the back of the anti-incumbency wave sweeping Bengal, aided by her slogan of 'Maa, Maati, Manush' (Mother, Motherland, People); however, a mammoth task awaits her as she assumes office at Writers' Building. West Bengal, once the hub of culture and education, needs something akin to a reincarnation for a miraculous rise from the ashes of the fire it has immolated itself in.

The top priority of the new TMC-Congress government seems to be the rehabilitation of farmers, and rightly so. The Singur fiasco saw land taken away from farmers, but the proposed Tata Nano plant never came up. West Bengal, once a famous industrial hub, has seen a tremendous decline over the years. The belts that once provided for the inception of steel plants, thanks to their rich reserves of natural resources, deserve much better. The part of the slogan that Mamata would do well to concentrate on, then, is 'manush'.

A fierce storm last Saturday uprooted trees in our part of Durgapur and caused power lines to snap. It took three days for the electricity supply to be restored- endless hours were spent trying to identify the source of the fault, finding contract labourers to fix it, then moving around in groups from one point to another rectifying the problems. The person in charge of the maintenance office had only been shifted there a day earlier; he was clueless about the steps to be taken in case of a major outage of this sort. One of the officials was beaten up for the extremely slow response of the department; with temperatures touching forty and
insects revelling in the sweaty, still nights when not a breath of wind stirred, tempers were naturally frayed. That, of course, doesn't justify physical assault, particularly when the apathetic response wasn't one particular person's fault. Some people were not even keen on reporting the power failure- "Yeh Bangaal hai, yahaan kuchh nahi ho sakta." ("This is Bengal, nothing can be done here.")

The state apparently has a good deal of manpower. Where a job can be done by two people, there is a crowd of five or seven clustering around; men can be seen lounging around in front of small buildings that ostentatiously call themselves a sporting club or sangathan, which turn busy as a beehive come Durga Puja season, but see little activity otherwise. Long tea-and-cigarette breaks, afternoon shutdowns, addas in the shade of trees mean the loss of several hours of work. Add to it the old habits that the state is still painfully holding on- the sale of lottery tickets, the incredibly low travel costs on public transport, and the tendency to strike off work do not bode well for a state badly stuck in a time warp. Ferry rides can still cost as little as Rs. 1.50, and tram rides Rs. 4-6 in the capital city. With inflation so much in evidence all over the country, how does Kolkata manage to survive on its meagre earnings? The number of malls or high-rise buildings isn't the real index of the state's strength; people need money, food and shelter, and the vast areas of slums and street-dwellers foraging for food and sleeping on pavements tell the story of the reality that dwells behind the listening facades.

The people of the state have done their duty by voting for change- the voter turnout percentages as mentioned in the media have hovered in the eighties- and as they wake up to the realisation that they are increasingly getting left behind in the march towards progress, they will hopefully find their dormant giant stirred to activity. For industry to thrive and jobs to be created, some of the jaded policies will forcibly have to be uprooted. Change- the much talked-of poriborton- is never easy; it is fraught with difficulties are turmoil. Once the ground is prepared, though, there can be no looking back. The initial euphoria over, it is now time to seriously get to work.

2011-05-25T17:58:00.002+05:30

To those who've received friend requests from me on Facebook, it is me, really. I succumbed out of necessity. Call it a weak excuse, but it isn't one.

If you haven't received a request, I've only inadvertently left you out. I don't care any more about Facebook than I do about Monica Lewinsky's history, so you'll understand.

Don't rub it in. Please?

The Siege of Krishnapur : A Review

2011-05-19T12:42:00.001+05:30

JG Farrell was only forty-four when he died in a fishing accident- considering his tremendous talent and the amount of insight he brought to his books, it was a genuine tragedy.

He is perhaps most well known for his Empire trilogy, which consisted of Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip- novels about British colonialism and its effects on the colonies.

I read his Booker Prize winning Troubles a few months ago and found it extremely riveting. Though I had only a basic idea of Ireland's problems with Britain, the lack of a proper background wasn't a problem as I read Farrell's excellent novel about the Troubles of Northern Ireland. One thing that I'd definitely vouch for is Farrell's ability to entrance and keep the reader engrossed; not for one moment did I feel my attention waver, and finishing one of his books always makes me feel as if I were being torn away from a world I've learnt to know and love, despite all its faults.

I have just finished The Siege of Krishnapur. It was a strange coincidence that I read it during the week which, 154 years ago, marked the start of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (only realising it later). The trouble started on 10 May, 1857, when a group of sepoys rebelled against the army of the British East India Company in Meerut. Discontent had long been simmering for various reasons, and the last straw came in the form of the new Enfield rifles whose paper cartridges had to be bitten off before use; the paper was supposedly greased with animal fat, which was an affront to religious sentiments. The unrest as Meerut spread gradually to various areas, including Lucknow, Kanpur and other parts of northern and central India. Farrell writes an account of the defence at a town called Krishnapur (is it the Krishnapur of West Bengal's Hooghly district?)- as I have always viewed the Great Rebellion from an Indian perspective, it was interesting, for a change, to see it with British (or Irish, to be more apt) eyes.

The Collector of Krishnapur senses trouble, and he begins setting up fortifications around the Residency in the form of much laughed-at 'mud walls'; the British population in Calcutta is amused at his caution as he goes visiting various important people to advise them of the brewing trouble. His warnings are not taken seriously, but he perseveres with the fortification of the Residency, thus dividing the British in the area into two groups, those who are for caution and those for assault.

Gradually, though, in the face of the mounting attack from the Indian sepoys, the Britishers are forced into shelter at the Residency, turning the place upside down with their various possessions scattered about amidst the Collector's prized trophies from the Great Exhibition at Hyde Park. The women are herded into the once-serene billiard room, while the others occupy various other nooks and corners. That the situation outside the walls of the Residency is delicate and there will be a paucity of food and water does not bother its refugees; they persist in maintaining their class distinctions. Petty fights break out among the women over the use of the one maid available; they persist in ostracising the 'fallen woman' who has been talked out of committing suicide and been persuaded to take shelter in the Residency.

Farrell's skill is evident in the strength of the characters, each of them being endowed with just the right attributes that serve to make them what they are, leading to their glory or doom. No one is absolutely good or bad, but in fact possesses the mixture of qualities so apparent in people all around. The Collector, struggling with the need to stay composed in the face of adversity, maintains a tenuous relationship with the cynical Magistrate. The doctors Dunstaple and McNab are diametrically opposite in nature; the one happily kind and comforting, the other a dour Scotsman, the tension between them reaching a climax as one of them goes into decline. Louise Dunstaple and newly-widowed Miriam Fleury forge a friendship based on necessity, grudgingly accepting the 'fallen' Lucy Hopkins and fearing the attraction she exerts on the men of the cantonment. Harry Dunstaple, young and eager to find himself in the middle of action, finds his lot thrown in with the poetic George Fleury, to whom everything must take the shape of words, and who tries to demonstrate his love for Louise as well as he can in the rather constrained circumstances.

The most haunting character, the one that really lingered on in my head, was that of the Padre: walking around distributing tracts, protesting against the heathenism of the natives as he saw the religion he couldn't comprehend (living in Krishnapur, as he said to himself, named after a heathen god himself), spouting theology viciously at the Collector as he tried to grapple with more earthly issues in the offal-strewn lawns of the Residency. He dug graves for the dead before they began to be dumped into a well, and grudgingly granted Father O'Hara a plot for his Catholic dead; spectre-like, he walked around in the early hours of dawn, praying for deliverance and marvelling at the magnitude of the sin around himself.

Honest, earthy and moving in its depiction of human nature, The Siege of Krishnapur definitely ranks among the best books I've ever read.

2011-05-18T12:43:00.002+05:30

The only green wave that is spreading across West Bengal is that of Mamata's victory. On Sunday, the local sports club- housed in a squat yellow building with a corrugated asbestos roof (which doubles up as a kindergarten in the morning)- celebrated the trounce of 34 years of Communist rule. A large Indian flag was strung up between two poles, a tree was draped in strings of green bulbs and a small plot of land across the road was taken over for a little party. All day long, the club played Rabindra Sangeet- the melodious celebration of life in Tagore's words- never mind that I understand very little Bengali, just standing there by the hibiscus tree in the afternoon and listening to mellifluous voices herald change was an experience in itself. The feeling of victory and relief was palpable- the change that Bengal has so long waited for is finally on the verge of happening.

The small rooms that house other unions/offices a few hundred metres away still have their members gathered around tables on rickety chairs in the evenings, stern portraits of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and BR Ambedkar eavesdropping on these discussions. The Congress will be in the government with the TMC, and there apparently is much to talk about.

The local 'square', after having thrown around some green powder in revelry, has returned to normalcy. It is business as usual for the vegetable-seller, the butcher, the stationer, the dry-cleaner, the restaurant and the various shopowners. (Yes, we are extremely self-sufficient here in our corner of the world.) The plump brown man with tiny eyes and the brown checked shirt, open at the collar, sits in front of his wall-mounted fan in the corner store. His shop stocks about everything from tamarind candy to croissants. In the dusty caverns of his dark, narrow store lie mounds of rice and pulses and detergent. He wraps up our purchases and nods with cheerful pessimism when we ask him how much longer the heat will last.

"Three months," he says with masochistic pleasure. "When the rains arrive, the heat will subside but the humidity will rise," he explains in his Hindi generously flavoured with Bengali, wiping away the beads of perspiration forming relentlessly on his forehead.

The thunderstorms have disappeared, and the weeds that grew profusely as a result of the sharp rainshowers are beginning to look jaded. Green is rapidly turning to brown, the asters have all been scorched to death.

All eyes on the skies. The monsoons are around the corner. Aren't they?

Colours

2011-05-11T16:42:00.005+05:30

I filled in a rangoli one sunny morning:

The rain gods, however, had some plans up their sleeve that afternoon:

Surprisingly, I didn't mind it one bit. It goes to prove that all is as well as ever and I love the rain just as much as I did six years ago!

What Makes News?

2011-05-03T10:32:00.005+05:30

The news of Osama bin Laden's killing yesterday swept everything else off our news channels.

The search for the missing helicopter carrying Arunachal Pradesh CM Dorjee Khandu was forgotten, as was the Air India pilots' strike. The political hysteria that would normally have looked forward to the election today in Singur and Nandigram- two important cogs in the West Bengal wheel- was conspicuous by its absence. The IPL has taken a backseat, as have Kate-and-William's honeymoon plans and the Canadian elections- if they were ever in the picture.

Who really decides what should actually be on the radar of news channels and other media outlets? While it is true that bin Laden's death is major news that will have wide repercussions, was it entirely right to shut out all domestic news in favour of debate and discussion on Operation Geronimo? That India has a lot to worry about in terms of security is nothing new, and analysing the aftermath of the American operations in Pakistan is indeed imperative considering India's geographical and ideological situation. This, however, doesn't mean that life will not go on as usual.

News channels tend to go on an overdrive whenever things remotely of note happen; they have of course upped the sensation levels now that the nearly ten-year-old struggle following the terrorist attacks of September 11 has reached its climax. This still doesn't warrant the blinkered news coverage that was on offer on every single news channel. What happened to unbiased reporting and global coverage? The British media went crazy over the royal wedding, but the BBC did manage to squeeze in a few minutes of international news even as Mishal Husain wielded the mike for hours with the wedding pomp and pageantry for a backdrop.

The constant coverage of the operation leading to bin Laden's death had its moments of bloopers- newscasters kept confusing Osama with Obama. (I admit it must have been a pretty hard day at work for them, repeating the words 'in fact' and 'actually' everytime the camera panned on something they didn't have a script for.) The quality of news broadcasting is determined not just by the people who host the shows, but also by the content. Judging from yesterday's hoopla and the evident lack of original content, our news channels have a very long way to go.

Mrs. Dalloway- A Review

2011-04-27T17:28:00.004+05:30

When I first read Virginia Woolf, I wasn't perhaps in the right frame of mind for it; I let frivolity and impatience cloud my first-ever reading of a stream-of-consciousness work in To The Lighthouse, and didn't treat it with the respect it deserved.

Now, having read Mrs. Dalloway, I am in awe of Virginia Woolf. The clarity with which she puts forth the convoluted workings of the human mind are astounding- the various characters who weave themselves in and out of one another's lives as Clarissa Dalloway prepares for her party come together in an intricate tapestry, and how real it seems!

Clarissa Dalloway, recovering from an illness, goes about preparing for a party, reminiscing as she does so over the circumstances that led her to marry Richard Dalloway instead of Peter Walsh, the man with whom she walked the woods and had innumerable arguments. She dwells over her love for brash Sally Seton and ruminates on the kiss they once shared. As she sits mending her torn dress for the party, she is visited by Walsh- now back from his long stay in India, unhappily married, and now in love with a married mother of two. She invites him to her party; he is not sure he should attend. Her husband brings her flowers as he returns from lunch at Lady Bruton's; smarting at not being invited, she asks if she was inquired after. She stands uneasily with Miss Kilman, her daughter's German-born teacher who detests parties and finds solace in religion and food.

Woolf picks people off the streets of London and examines their lives. Fresh from the First World War, people are still putting their lives back together; Septimus Warren Smith, sitting on a park bench with his Italian wife, is pondering over his crimes. He will not get a patient hearing, however, because the two doctors who examine him have diametrically opposing views, and what he does with himself in the course of the day carries its own reverberations to Clarissa's party. She is angered that the misfortunes of a man she doesn't know should inflict themselves on her party in the shape of the doctor and his wife who arrive late, bearing those sad tidings- but she is convinced that the party is a success. Peter Walsh is there, as are Sally Seton and her elderly aunt. Why, the Prime Minister is also present, being talked of with a sort of awe in hushed tones.

The minute examination to which Woolf subjects her characters is admirable. Splitting the day amongst the people who populate Clarissa's life directly or indirectly, she drifts in and out of their heads, tackling the themes of suicidal depression and homosexuality, and life in general. Slights, disappointments, jealousy, inexpressible happiness- the vagaries of life and human reaction to them are duly dealt with. Can't you just see yourself there, in transports of bliss one moment, grappling with trivialies the next? The past presses upon us even as we make our way into the future, the present manufacturing memories that combine and occupy their niches in the subconscious, dormant until roused to sudden activity by the smallest stimulus.

Mrs. Dalloway is a book to be absorbed and dwelt upon- and re-read.

Winds of Change?

2011-04-24T19:43:00.003+05:30

I'm sitting by an open window in our several decades-old ground floor house; the rain-cleansed wind bears in the mild fragrance of flowers that have just bloomed. It also carries in the voices that call for change not too far away, petitioning for the valuable votes that could swing the balance in their favour.

West Bengal is in the midst of the Assembly elections, and with just two of six phases completed, Durgapur awaits its turn to vote. Campaigning is on in full swing, and party flags are visible in abundance; loudspeakers broadcast Mamata Banerjee's indignant voice perhaps protesting injustices and calling for change. West Bengal has seen three decades of Communist rule, but the tide just might turn this time around. The trouble with Singur and Nandigram, pitting development against the displacement of large sections of the population, put the government in a dubious situation. It also continues to grapple with Maoist violence and poverty.

As an outsider, I am probably not entitled to sweeping observations. However, from my observations of Durgapur, it is extremely evident that the state desperately needs to change for the better. Development is conspicuous by its absence. The industrial belt of Burdwan district by no means is opulent, and much needs to be done to improve the standard of living. Durgapur boasts an NIT and a new spanking mall endeavouring to bring major brands to the town. Education need not necessarily beget consumerism, and efforts need to be made towards improving the lot of those riding cycle-rickshaws (with corpulent women more often than not, as one cannot help but notice) for their daily wages. The metal buses jostling against one another on narrow streets, precariously teetering under their weight, need to be replaced with effective modes of transport. Vegetable vendors sit under tarpaulin sheets, a single light bulb hovering overhead; where do they go when the sudden summer storms strike the town? Do the party symbols painted on the crudely whitewashed walls of low two-storey buildings promise them any hope?

The campaigners continue to make their winding, fervid speeches; may the best people win, and not renege on the promises they are at this moment making.

2011-04-24T09:46:00.004+05:30

This is a house of variety.

Within its ancient walls flourish trees of hibiscus, mango, guava, jackfruit, lime and bel; the straggling grass growing over the hard brown soil has its monotony broken by violet and white asters and yellow wildflowers. Outside the walls, bordering the narrow road, are tall trees with white boles that spread their arms out to the sky in a welcoming embrace. There is a solitary leafless tree, a dark silhouette against the cheer and yellowness of summer sunshine- it has remained so for a while now, surely it isn't dead?

Birds abound; why, you can even spot the lone woodpecker tapping busily on a bark, blissfully lost to the world. Koels call out to one another with cheerful regularity- call and answer- with chirrupping dun-coloured birds hopping across the bed of leaves on the ground adding to the chorus. The backyard is occasionally brightened by a flash of colour; a flock of parrots alighting for a grub, before flying off together to perch on the upper branches of the trees outside.

At times, it isn't difficult to imagine that if I turned around, I would find the house actually perched on a ledge overlooking a verdant valley, watered by a sinuous blue ribbon- and behind me, a looming mountain face, brown and hard but gentle, its slope generously sprinkled with Alpine vegetation. We are about ten hours away from Siliguri and the Himalayas- in winter, icy winds blow through this little town. Now, in these months of heat, clouds creep up quietly (even as we sing the raaga Amritavarshini, hoping to add our prayers) and gather in grey masses tinged with the pearly luminosity of sunset. There is a bit of lightning, a spot of thunder, followed by perhaps a drizzle or two, and just sometimes, a very heavy downpour, sending trees crashing down upon the roads and strewing leaves liberally on parked cars and brave pedestrians. You can see, then, that I'm not too far from a delicious scary story setting either, not in this rambling old house with its blue doors and years of history.

The stock of books laid by for the long summer is being actively dipped into- but because it grows at a faster pace, I do not despair of being left without reading material. Reading The Woman In White has rekindled my romance with thick, winding family intrigues, and I look forward to The Forsyte Saga.

The Bus to Nabadwip

2011-04-09T16:49:00.005+05:30

Dawn is just breaking in the eastern steel town of Durgapur on this delightful Sunday morning, different from the rest in that India has just won the Cricket World Cup and this unpretentious little town is in the grip of a pleasant hangover. The hard mud on the streets is stained with colour, and posters of various members of the Indian cricket team at different stages of their careers flutter in the balmy morning breeze.

At the small, shabby bus-stop at Benachity, there is no news-stand; or perhaps there is one whose owner is still lying in a victory-induced stupor, reluctant to be awakened from his thrilling dream-like reality into the more pragmatic demands of his work. The compact, colourful, slightly dubious-looking bus we have just boarded creaks and groans as the passengers trickle in, settling themselves on its very tiny seats. The driver and conductor linger outside in the fresh air for a last whiff of their cigarettes before shutting themselves in for the long, rather unsettling five-hour drive on not the best roads in the country.

A festive atmosphere is palpably visible even on the almost deserted streets; last night’s revelry has left clear signs of the transports of delight that this town has been sent into, thanks to the exploits of a bunch of much venerated men on the cricket field. As always, sport has proved its ability to unite and uplift, and what can be more fitting in India than securing the most prized possession in the game played in every street, nook and cranny of its tiniest village! A bus passes ours, accoutred in festal adornments, a largely blue poster of Indian cricketers pasted on a corner of its windscreen. Elsewhere, ashes lie thick on two clay lamps on a platform, in front of garlanded, tilak-adorned posters of Zaheer Khan and Sachin Tendulkar- the prowess of the cricketers on the field has indubitably been aided by plenty of prayers.

The bus sails down a section of the Grand Trunk Road, NH2, before taking a detour- which actually lasts almost the entire length of the journey- through various hamlets in West Bengal’s Burdwan district. (Burdwan was actually Bardhaman- I assume an Englishman couldn’t have cared less about the correct way to pronounce the name of an obscure Indian district during the long years of colonialism.) On the highway, this early, vehicles are few; predatory birds swoop down on carrion- probably a stray dog startled by a truck rearing down on it full throttle. Automobile repair shops begin to raise their shutters slowly and send out for their first tea trays.

The ancient springs and joints of the bus creak with the shrillness of a bird in captivity as it jolts over practically non-existent roads, stopping with a sudden jerk in the middle of nowhere to pick up a passenger. We are in the heart of rural India, which, though untouched by much progress and hard-pressed to eke out a proper living, sees tea stalls displaying bright packets of potato chips and sachets of shampoo concocted by foreign experts. A man goes out to relieve himself on a thinly wooded slope; elsewhere, women gather dung in baskets and pat it onto the mud walls of their thatched huts. The drying fuel bears imprints of the fingers of their work-calloused hands. The ’road’ presses past cowsheds where men are having their first glasses of tea, and a warm, not unpleasant dairy odour wafts in through the open window. Breakfast is being made ready in tin-roofed shanties, golden jalebis and samosas sizzling sibilantly in large, soot-blackened frying-pans. It is a hard life here, but these men and women work uncomplainingly. Their brown faces break into ready smiles, and they don’t frown or wince as they pack themselves tight, skin rubbing against sweaty skin, paunch getting in the way, in these tiny buses (or on top of them). The women wear the brightest colours imaginable, their washing fluttering in the wind or spread out to dry on grassy slopes consists of sarees in the loudest hues of yellow, purple, orange and green. They bathe in small muddy ponds and wring their clothes out in the same infested water; these are the people who will play a major part in deciding the future of the state in the forthcoming elections. Greedy vote-seeking frenzy is in evidence on the walls of low-roofed buildings in the shape of crudely-painted party symbols and slogans. Party flags, alternating with the Indian tricolour brought out for the World Cup, are stretched out between poles. What has been done or will be done to improve the lot of these villagers is an open-ended question- the most untrained eye can see the lack of basic amenities in these villages even during a fleeting trip through their roads.

The sun is beginning to rise in the sky and tinge the cool morning breeze with its warmth. The sky is a cloudless, hazy white, forming a pretty complement to the dazzling green of the paddy fields. The smooth low carpet is furrowed by brown irrigation channels, and out of the seeming smoothness startlingly rise small copses of trees- which came first, the trees or the fields? The countryside is generously dotted with ponds, their surfaces glistening and untroubled in the distance, but textured by ripples as they come closer and catch the rays of the sun.

Village follows village on this narrow trail, and occasionally the bus breaks out in relief on an almost unhindered course on a series of potholes, the only obstruction coming in the form of stray goats that wander into the path of “civilisation”, before squeezing itself into yet another hamlet and rubbing shoulders with cycles and motorised rickshaws. The bus halts for a while at Katwa and allows a number of vendors to come on board: ’Pepsi’ in orange, cola and lemon is being sold in the shape of ice candies in narrow tubular plastic covers, as are various other candies, the wares being called out in Bengali in strident, confident tones. Having disgorged most of its burden, the bus sets off again with that last, heartening burst of enthusiasm that comes from knowing that the destination is not far away. Alas, this is the worst stretch of the journey, the most nerve-wracking and joint-wringing of all, and it is with mixed feelings and slightly enervated enthusiasm that we disembark at the rickshaw-stand in the pilgrim town of Nabadwipdham.

Walking Down Bhiringi

2011-03-27T19:45:00.006+05:30

When you land in Durgapur, fresh from the sanitised ostentation of Bangalore and the politically charged flag-waving cheer of Kolkata, the sudden quietness of this peaceful small town comes as rather a shock- especially when you realise that this place is going to be home for the next six months. You can no longer complain about there being too many malls in the city, exorbitant auto fares and boring weekends. The numerous trees, clean and well laid out roads and abundant numbers of birds should rightly be more enjoyable than all the trappings of urban living; I admit, then, that three years of living in three different cities have effectively ruined me for a quiet life out on the prairies or the moors (like I'd once hoped to have).

I'd like to conveniently rest part of the blame on living with people my age- you can't even watch Splitsvilla with your parents, let alone curse the copious amounts of inanity on it- but on the flipside, you don't have to worry about which take-away your next meal is coming from, so all's well. Now that I have plenty of time on my hands, I can introduce you to Durgapur. And we begin our virtual tour at Bhiringi More, which opens into a street lined with shops and populated by that portion of Durgapur which isn't flocking to the newly opened Junction Mall.

The shelves in the display case of 'Khawa-Dawa' are lined with metal trays; a man carries in a tray of syrupy brown gulab-jamuns and spills them into a waiting plate. Fingers splayed, he rolls his hand on the sweets, spreading them out, all notions of hygiene thrown to the wind. A customer scratches his ankle with his key before attacking his ras-malai, while his son points to a heap of fly-encrusted mysore-pak. My sanitiser-toting self cringes; but it is a generally accepted truth that food cooked and eaten in unhygienic conditions is delicious, provided you're prepared to ignore the after-effects.

The lights flicker and go off. Emergency lamps, giving out thin slivers of neon light, are turned on to brighten the dingy interiors of not-so-welcoming hardware shops and restaurants. 'Kwality Lodge' next door promises 'veg., non-veg. & delicious food' at the restaurant downstairs- quite a choice there- as floral curtains billow on the balcony in the breeze rising gently now, revealing doors behind which perhaps a budding writer is hard at work. (Yes, I am thinking of Rusty!)

In this part of Durgapur, Bhiringi, the roads are chock-full of pedestrians, rickshaws and two-wheelers. Occasionally, the outrageously coloured cuboidal tin boxes on wheels that pass for 'mini-buses' lumber by; they are packed with people sitting or holding on for dear life as they press against one another in the narrow aisle. The single door is always half-open, kept suspended in mid-air by the agile body of the conductor who calls out for people to join the merry fraternity within the bus. It lurches to a stop without warning, disgorging and swallowing, unleashing frenzied cries from pedestrians and passengers alike. If you're on a two-wheeler, you're sure to be reminded of the "accelerator-clutch-brake" advertisement on TV.

The shops are colourless, much like one another and uninspiring. Dust lies thick on the plastic sheets clothing stuffed toys and the glass counters displaying knick-knacks. A brand new furniture shop, freshly whitewashed and splendidly lit (and evidently provided with a noisy generator), stands out like a resplendent beacon of hope- of what exactly, I cannot tell at this point. A spooky, vine-covered building hulking in the dark turns out, on closer inspection, to be a school; it could well have emerged unscathed from the 1857 Mutiny. The general vapidity and uniform boredom of the area would make an early twentieth-century Main Street in Oklahoma sound like paradise. Some day, though, this place will awake with a start and spring a surprise. I know I should be revelling in the quiet and that not too long ago I raved over the advantages of small-town life. So I'll also warn you now about the difficult transition it can be, when you move down from a city that houses JustBooks, HRC and a house full of boisterous girls.

As I write, an unseen vehicle mounted with a loudspeaker is passing by, extolling the virtues of Monday in Bengali (or so I think). We're waking up already!

Living Off An Imagination

2011-03-11T12:45:00.002+05:30

Roddy Doyle thought thus about receiving books as presents when he was ten: "Books weren't presents. I loved books, but they were a bit like food. I loved chicken, but a leg in wrapping paper would have been a huge disappointment." (Look here for the full article.)

I have always loved receiving books as presents. I just realised that when I mentioned that the volumes of Muriel Spark given me by Airborne marked the second time someone had gifted me books, I was wrong. At the end of Class 1, when we were moving away from Bhilai, my class teacher gave me two books; one a children's dictionary and the other a book of short stories.

I have no idea why she chose to give me books instead of a game or a doll as other people were wont to, but I think she was a very wise woman. On a long day alone at home (and newly unemployed, I'm going to have several), there is nothing that keeps you company like a book and your imagination. The book of short stories carried the tale of a princess who loved good things to eat and was thrilled by Turkish Delight, and for some reason I interpreted it as a whole recipe. I was determined to make it at home- I had decided it was something akin to pink-coloured, rose-flavoured ice candy- and I got as far as making ice cubes. I had not the vaguest notion of how to proceed from there, and whiled away the rest of the afternoon sucking at the ice cubes and hoping they'd somehow turn pink and rose-flavoured.

I could have been excused at that age for such ill-informed ideas; but what got into me during one summer vacation when I was fourteen or fifteen, I'll never know. I had grand plans to make reasonable inroads into my father's vast library; I ended up reading only two books in those two months. One was Larry Collins/Dominique Lapierre's O'Jerusalem- I read it very eagerly, appalled and enthralled by turns at the courage of the people fighting for what they believed in, and the means to which they were prepared to resort. I finished it pretty quickly and began Frederick Marryat's The Children of the New Forest, and I still blush to think I took so long to finish it. Part of the blame I can conveniently lay on my imagination- in the dim, curtained room, door closed and AC turned on, it was very easy to believe you were in the depths of a thick forest, the light barely let in by heavy foliage, fighting Roundheads with simple handmade weapons and weeding small plots of land. I stopped short at imagining I was having wild boar for dinner, because my vegetarian sensibilities rule over the romantic.

It isn't always easy to adapt a book on film, and several movies manage to warp the very idea of the book and create cardboard characters who seem the very antithesis of their originals in the book. Watching a movie made out of a book can be a very traumatic experience particularly if you live and swear by the book. Looking up adaptations of Little Women this morning, I stumbled upon a 1978 version, where the actress playing twelve-year-old Amy looked older and wiser than I do at this ripe old age of mine. An adaptation of Anne of Green Gables featured a pedestrian-looking Anne Shirley, without the spark of the eyes or the vim of speech that makes the legendary redhead the heroine that she is. An insult to the writer's imagination is what I call these shoddy adaptations.

Skipping lunch and writing this makes me feel a bit like Jo March, but I don't have a garret, apples, or a wonderful idea for a story, so I'll just rise now and betake myself to my simple lunch of cold rice, curd and potato chips.

The Visitor

2011-03-10T17:34:00.003+05:30

This article reminded me of a visitor at home in Vizag ten years ago.

On a train journey from Vizag to Hyderabad, my father met a few Sri Lankan people who were in India for some sort of navy-related training (that I cannot correctly recollect). He was coming to join my mother and me in Hyderabad, from where all of us were supposed to go back to Vizag together a couple of days later. It was rather a surprise, then, that the Sri Lankans were also travelling back by the same train. I had never spoken to any foreigners, and I was pretty excited at the chance to meet people from abroad and know what they thought about India. I didn't ask any profound questions, I just wanted to know if they'd enjoyed their stay here, and was delighted when they told me they had.

A few days later, one of the men from the group visited us at home. My father picked him up at the bus stop where he'd alighted, and as soon as my mother opened the door, prostrated himself full-length at her feet. "In our country, we venerate women," he explained, and insisted on calling her Mother. He referred to me as his sister- "I don't have a sister, but now I feel God has given me one."

He was of average height, with a serious face and a beard. He wore glasses on a string around his neck. This was around the time when Afghanistan was in deep trouble, and the Bamiyan Buddhas had just been destroyed. A Buddhist, he had been shaken by the incident and asked to see the newspaper as talk veered around the destruction of the Buddhas- he pored over it seriously, at the gaping cavities in the sun-backed rock where the statues had once proudly reigned. He was evidently disturbed, and his already reticent self seemed much quieter.

In a while, he handed my mother a light green tin of apricot-flavoured Ceylon Tea, saying this was something that was to be expected from a visitor from Sri Lanka. He rose to leave, prostrating again at my mother's feet, and saying quiet goodbyes. He called us once later to thank us, but we haven't heard from him since.

A decade has passed, and things have changed so much around the world, in the countries around us, in Sri Lanka and India. Afghanistan was followed by Iraq, the tsunami struck in 2004 and killed thousands of people, the LTTE was routed a couple of years ago, the fishing boundaries between India and Sri Lanka and the rehabiliation of Tamil refugees continue to be dicey questions. India grapples with its own domestic problems and corruption, and struggles to bring to book criminals who rape and plunder in broad daylight but evade punishment for long periods. If ordinary people can get along with one another and make things work, what really goes wrong at centres of power?

I don't know where our visitor is now, but I do hope he is happy and flourishing. Our bilateral ties with Sri Lanka might be steady, but a lot of work needs to be done on the points of contention. We need to move beyond mere civilities now and work with our neighbours immediately to improve the situation in the region.

Grudges and Discoveries

2011-02-23T19:53:00.002+05:30

One of the few pleasures of work is a browse at the bookstore in office. Push open the door to this other world, inhale deeply, and you immediately shut out the noise of the clanking glasses at the juice kiosk and the relentless chatter of the crowds thronging the supermarket. Lunch, however, isn't always the ideal time to go in if you fancy being alone with the books, for there will always be those idiots- yes, I said it- asking at the counter for Chetan Bhagat, when their uninviting spines are already staring them down in the face from the shelves in the Indian authors' section, ranged alongside the more smug types like Shashi Tharoor and Arundhati Roy.

It takes all kinds to make the world, though, and none of us is above the occasional leave-your-brains-behind easy read, so I'll move on to my next, more reasonable grudge- people who talk loudly on their cell phones in the otherwise quiet confines of the bookshop, or worse still, let them ring loudly on. Why anybody should be interested in their ring tones I really don't know. A bookshop should be as sacred as a library when it comes to peace and quiet, but the fact obviously sails smoothly over some people's heads, so they'll laugh and giggle and organise games of tug-of-war in the aisles when you're trying to find a quiet corner where you can forget your latest confrontation with your team lead.

Despite these aberrations, though, the bookshop is still a happy place, thanks to the discoveries you can make. You must know the joy of having coveted a book very, very long and suddenly realising that it is no longer as expensive as it once was- and then you're prepared to worship the hordes of people who've conveniently ignored Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene in favour of Stephenie Meyer. I stumbled upon hardcover editions of The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock and Vile Bodies in this fashion. (Only Decline and Fall remains unbought, and I'm going to get a copy very soon.) They were sold at throwaway prices for hardcover books, the original price being a prohibitive GBP 5.99. Only Christopher Columbus could have been slightly more ecstatic when he "discovered" America, but on that particular day, you could easily have spotted the happiest person in the world.

However, I did make another discovery today which was by no means as heartening. A sudden impulse to revisit Heidi made me look up the Wikipedia page, and I discovered that its English translator, Charles Tritten, had taken it into his head to write sequels about Heidi's life as an adult, and about her children as well. I read an abridged version of Heidi when I was around seven, and Heidi has more or less stayed the same age to me. I definitely do not want to think of her as an adult with a family of her own.

One of the charms of the books we read as children lies in the eternal youth of their characters. I have never enjoyed the sequels to What Katy Did or Anne of Green Gables as much as I enjoyed these wonderful celebrations of the captivating innocence of childhood. It's bad enough for me to have to grow into an adult- so why on earth would I want to be bothered with Anne's fretting over her children's attacks of whooping cough? Childhood is about abandon and having somebody else worry for you, trusting and liking everyone you know, throwing tantrums and being ingratiated. Watching young boys and girls grow into adults in books is a premonition of the future, of the distant days best avoided as long as possible (which, with the endearing ineptitude of childhood, you don't really realise till you're a full-fledged grown-up). These chronicles of adulthood should be saved for their readers' own adulthood, when people begin asking why on earth they would want to read juvenile fiction- oh the travails of life!

Only JM Barrie really understood this, and if I knew where Neverland was, I'd be getting on a plane this very moment.

Power to the People

2011-02-18T19:53:00.003+05:30

For a change, the cricket World Cup is taking a backseat on Indian news channels.

While the Centre and various state governments have long been guilty of or struggling with scams, corruption and social unrest, there now seems to be a sudden spurt in efforts to bring the culprits to book. Whether they will endure and be brought to closure is yet to be seen, but any step forward is welcome. However, as the investigations proceed, it is evident that the rot runs deep; the scams have resulted in massive losses to the exchequer, and with evasive replies and cover-ups, the government is not helping its cause. The Prime Minister's press conference was a disappointment. No substantial answers were received, and if anything, it only threw up more questions on the methods through which the wrongdoings of various parties would be reversed. Equating the financial losses to subsidies and pinning the blame for corruption on coalition politics are examples of a weak defence. It smacks of the idea that the only intention of those in power is to stay there at any cost, and the interests of the people do not come into consideration at all. If this is the way a democracy functions, it makes you wonder what the countries in the Middle East agitating for democracy are in for. Stabilising a democracy is by no means an easy task, and considering the responsibilities the new governments will have to take up, the road seems to be going only uphill.

Interestingly, while the Middle East grapples with political problems that involve dethroning the existing leaderships, Belgium is facing a situation of an entirely different nature. The political impasse since last June's elections has gone on for 250 days now, which means the country has existed without a government this long. It now holds the dubious distinction of having had no government for the longest period in recent times, taking the mantle from Iraq. While this has been a source of some hilarity in Belgium, it isn't quite the ideal situation, the differences between the Flemish and the French areas asserting themselves and preventing political stability. How much authority does a caretaker government assert, after all? The monarchies of most European nations aren't involved in major decision-making; they need properly elected governments at the helm of affairs, especially considering there might be important steps to be taken with the unrest in the Middle East. The volatile situation here might be a threat to oil resources and transportation in the Suez Canal. Trade will be affected, and so will the livelihoods of the large numbers of immigrants in the region. Bernie Ecclestone has indicated that the Bahrain Grand Prix, the season-opening race of the 2011 Formula One season, might not go ahead if the state of affairs doesn't improve. This, however, may only be the tip of the iceberg.

One positive aspect that the protests have made visible is the power of the media- and not just the traditional versions, but new media as well. Facebook and Twitter were used to rally support and mobilise public opinion; though restrictions were eventually imposed, it is apparent they played a huge role in helping the public channelise its hopes and ambitions.

Change is in the air, and hopefully things will take a positive turn here on. It is a rocky road and several difficult issues need to be tackled. It is important for these movements not to lose momentum but to sustain their initial enthusiasm and continue to work for reliable leaderships which will lift them out of poverty and aspire to meet their citizens' needs. As for democracies like ours, we need to ensure that the corrupt are punished and the country's wealth properly used- easier said than done, yes, but we have made a start, and there is no reason why we shouldn't keep going at it.

Shelves

2011-02-06T19:58:00.003+05:30

I have memories of a sunshiny, airy house in Hyderabad, whose walls were kissed by the swaying branches of trees on soft summer afternoons. This house was populated by kindly spirits and filled with a quiet salubrious energy. I particularly remember a room lined with large bookcases- they might have appeared mammoth and daunting to a seven- or eight-year-old who was just learning to enjoy abridged illustrated classics, these bunches of different spines- but I also found it very welcoming and awe-inspiring.

More than fifteen years have gone by and much has changed. Two of the people whose kindness I remember from when I was a young girl have passed on. Aunty's shrikhand has sadly disappeared from memory. Uncle has left behind something more enduring- plenty of stories. I was enthralled when I came to know that this Uncle I knew was a celebrity in his own way; his stories won competitions for adults in Tinkle and were published in CBT books (an important part of my childhood reading), and how delighted I would be to see them in print! I stopped buying Tinkle a few years ago, but when I bought a copy on a whim, I'd be doubly thrilled to see one of Uncle's stories in it. And I came to know yesterday that there wouldn't be any more of them. I see a blank spot on the shelf.

******

His daughter is trimming her collection of books. I ask her how she can summon up enough strength to sell away well-loved books. She tells me with a laugh that she has reconciled herself to it; these are books that she has read twice or thrice every year, over many years. She is circulating the list of books she is giving away among a close circle of friends, people who she knows will care for them as she has. I've asked for some of them- Ishiguro, Dick Francis, JRR Tolkien, Sheridan Le Fanu. I don't know if I'll ever have enough courage to give up my own books. I gave away a copy of Kafka on the Shore a couple of months ago, and I still regret it at times, even though I know the recipient well and am sure that he will look after it properly.

Sometimes, though, keeping your bookshelves stocked isn't the most important thing in life.

"Small Town" Calcutta

2011-01-30T19:16:00.004+05:30

As the plane begins its descent, objects detach themselves from the general golden haze and begin to exist again as individual entities. The undulations that ‘could have been’ hills and brown-and-green patches of earth assume their proper identities. The furrows on the broad silver river, ploughed by ferries and large boats, become visible; smoke spirals rise from the obelisk-like structures of the numerous brick kilns that dot the countryside.

Being in Eastern India is always a homecoming of sorts for me. Having grown up in industrial towns, I’m at home with massive chimneys vomiting ugly dark smoke into serene blue skies, or pink smoke into star-sprinkled black nights. Small towns delight me with their stolidity, with their propensity to be excited into a flurry of activity once or twice a year during a festival perhaps, only to retreat into their shells once the burst of energy has run its course. Neighbours hail each other in the morning across the fence and talk while they’re watering their gardens. Happiness is more about knowing that someone you know has made it to the “city” and gone to a good college, than flaunting a sedan or designer clothes- for the quintessential ambition of “small town” parents is to see their children get out of the confines of the colony they’ve grown up in.

Calcutta isn’t a small town, but despite- or because of?- its size and bursting population, there is a quality to it that makes it very warm and human. I felt at home on my first real trip to the city- maybe it helps that I am a little familiar with Bengali, having heard it quite a lot while I was growing up- and I wasn’t stuck with the unpleasant task of having to peel off a façade to expose the skeleton to my wondering eyes. Calcutta isn’t a city caught in the rabid clutches of impersonal modernity and progress, unlike a couple of others I’ve lived in.

Calcutta has a large South Indian population, particularly around Lake Market. A small shop, tucked away between stately buildings and nondescript stalls, sells everything that a homesick Tamilian population can ask for. On a nearby wall, a poster advertises the Telugu movie ‘Orange’. And for a moment, you could well imagine you were in a street down south in the peninsula, and not traipsing through the eastern parts of the country. The old juxtaposed against the new; cultures mingling and acquiring a new identity. This is what Calcutta is about.

At the Esplanade, where buses from the states around West Bengal converge (there are even buses to Bhutan here), there is a flurry of activity. The roads are packed; a few hundred metres away, red flags are being held up and men are climbing aboard a van in preparation for a rally. Some distance away, a rival party readies itself for its own rally. These converging masses of men will bring the traffic to a standstill. More traffic policemen will be pressed into service to deal with irate motorists near the New Market area.

The New Market is perhaps one of the oldest shopping areas in the country. Bustling even on a Sunday morning, it doubles up as a flea market and up-market shopping destination. Vendors quote outrageous prices for their wares, and it takes all your bargaining skills to bring them down to a reasonable level. What I’m really looking forward to on my next trip to Calcutta, though, is a visit to College Street- that haven of secondhand bookshops. On the pavements of Gariahat, a number of rickety stalls sell pirated editions of Chetan Bhagat, Sidney Sheldon and Dan Brown. People here like to read and to learn- I can barely remember an edition of the Bournvita Quiz Contest, Mastermind India or University Challenge without a contestant with Bengali affiliations (not forgetting the quizmasters, of course- Derek O’Brien and Siddharth Basu respectively).

Timeless charm, grace and tenacity- this is what Calcutta is all about. Vast tracts of slum land surround the city and the airport is in desperate need of a facelift. The government has plenty to deal with in terms of the Maoists and industrialisation glitches. It struggles its way to progress and may not strike a newcomer fresh from the glitz of swanky glass and steel as the most exciting holiday destination. If you don’t care to delve beneath artifices, though, Calcutta is the city for you, because it lays itself bare and isn‘t confused about its identity.

Patrick French on 'India: A Portrait'

2011-01-17T22:52:00.001+05:30

Cross posted on The Weed Joint

Author Patrick French was in Bangalore this evening, promoting his new book, ‘India: A Portrait’. Not having heard of either the book or the author earlier, I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to attend the session, until, through sheer coincidence, I stumbled upon this review on the Guardian website. Aravind Adiga hasn’t been too kind to the book- while praising the author’s style and in-depth research, he has denounced the large number of loose ends he claims to have discovered.

It will be unfair of me to take sides with either French or Adiga in this debate, considering I haven’t read the book. The Englishman came across as a keen, intelligent person in the hour-long session. Beginning with Ladakh, he talked of his journeys down south and among the Khasi tribes. He read out excerpts from his book and described the amount of research that went into it. A great deal of statistics was evidently involved, and French gave examples in the form of an analysis of the dynastic politics rampant in India. He was appreciative of the UID scheme and marvelled at the diversity of the country, and its acceptance without question, unlike in many other parts of the world where people were just learning to come to terms with it. He spoke of how science and religion weren’t treated as separate entities but coexisted in India, unlike in Europe a few centuries ago.

At the end of his reading, French fielded questions from the audience. When asked what differences he saw between India and China, having written about both, he spoke of the difference between India’s democracy and China’s single-party system where public opinion couldn’t be voiced as openly, and about the latter‘s single-child policy which was resulting in an aging population. He explained how a factor in the lack of young politicians in India was the number of career options available to the youth. On being asked what other facets he would have liked to cover, he mentioned that he wanted to write more about the North-East. He explained that he hadn't written about farmer suicides and some other issues because they didn't fit in with the tone of this book.

French steered clear of the more controversial excerpts that Adiga has discussed in his review. Perhaps, having published the controversial Liberty or Death – India’s Journey to Independence and Division earlier, French has decided to play it safe this time. It was disappointing though, for in bringing out some of the more colourful parts of the book, French might have excited greater enthusiasm for and interest in his work.

Adiga, in his review, has said that most books on India tend to be either literary or journalistic. Considering French writes with style while also laying emphasis on facts and figures, this book seems to be treading the middle line. I must admit that I didn’t think there was anything new explored in the book. In talking about the dabbawallahs and the small-scale entrepreneurs, French is only charting familiar territory, discussing subjects that we’ve seen Suketu Mehta and Mark Tully do earlier. If, instead, French had gone ahead to open up the North-East to the rest of the world and focused on things often ignored in favour of the exciting story of India’s growth coupled with the inevitable comparisons with China, this book would have been something to talk about. As of now, though, it just seems like yet another book on India from a foreigner’s perspective. Not a travelogue, not a book of dry figures, but something in between.

2011-01-16T20:07:00.003+05:30

I scour the strainer hard, wondering at the particles of grime that manage to make their way into the various crevices unnoticed until they accumulate into revolting, sticky brown cakes. Set against the fluorescent-green plastic, it is not a pretty sight. The milk boils and rattles against the steel vessel, a brown crust forming on its inside. Time to turn it off before it swells and pours onto the platform- I abandon the strainer and do so. I take the lid off the container where I store the coffee powder and inhale the intoxicating aroma- it is the best thing in the world next to the fragrance of moist earth touched by fresh rain.

I heap generous spoonfuls of the powder into my coffee-maker, a very thoughtful birthday present, pour water into it and watch the thick mixture swirl within its dark confines. I set it on the stove and let it boil well, then drain the red-tinted decoction into my dark violet mug. The last pear-shaped drops splutter fitfully into the mug, this prized possession of mine. Even in my 'communal living' experience, it hasn't been used by anyone except me, barring on one occasion when it was offered to a Guest of Honour. It carries a white Fort Siloso logo, a souvenir from a place of battle and imprisonment. Who makes money off the souvenirs now, the descendants of the deceased or a mercenary tourism board?

And while I make my coffee and wash spoons and cups, I realise that I've been describing these acts to myself all the while, letting words take over entirely and form pictures in my head, even though I see for myself all I do. The colour of my mug becomes more vivid when represented by a word, the milk pouring through the strainer and mixing with the dark decoction makes a brew whose richness is enhanced by the words describing it in my head.

It is Rohinton Mistry working his magic all over again. Reinforcing my faith in words. He describes every minute action with a simplicity that makes you want to linger on in your reading. You're borne forward gently on wings of ethereal beauty, words encompassing and soothing and unintrusive. There is a tussle going on in my head this very moment, because I have a sneaky suspicion that I'm beginning to like Mistry better than Ruskin Bond. Ring out the old, ring in the new? No. I'd rather try and let them live together, or live myself with this painful pleasure of having to choose between two master craftsmen.

I finished The English Patient yesterday, and discovered yet another stupendous writer in Michael Ondaatje. This weekend has in more ways than one obliterated the traumatic effects of The Slap, and with writers like Mistry, Bond, Ondaatje and JG Farrell at my disposal, I'm not too inclined to step into uncharted waters very soon.

Summer is sneaking in through the meshed window, and bright moonlight is casting a silver patch on the kitchen sink, where unwashed vessels are piled up high. On the detritus of a long, lazy Sunday. It is already too warm for mid-January, and soon the heat will be upon us, another season of nostalgia and memories, part of the irreversible cycle. Now, though, I'll let Thomas Newman play and bury myself into Mistry again, before Monday rears its ugly head.

The Slap, or An Exercise in Futility

2011-01-15T04:39:00.005+05:30

Cross-posted from the The Weed Joint

Please tell me that Christos Tsiolkas isn't writing 'The Sequel to The Slap, The Reverberations of an Uncalled-for Act in Civilised Society'. Put my fears of column inches and breath going waste over a clunky, plotless, ineffectual mass of drivel to rest. I wouldn't want to see trees destroyed and the earth endangered to put into circulation so much inanity, re-creating caricatures that already scream at you from your television screams in sexed-up soap operas.

With shallow characters proudly boasting weaknesses which Zeus and His entire Pantheon would quail at themselves, and writing that sounds like it has been ripped off an uninterested Class Seven student's English homework, The Slap is easily the most irritating book I've ever read. It beats England, England hands down and makes you wonder at the intelligence (or lack of it) of befeathered panels of judges who propose and extol the clumsiest pieces of writing as introspective studies into societal patterns- I seriously doubt even Tsiolkas ever thought his episodic mishmash of characters would ever be construed seriously. Well done, then, Christos, because you've managed to pull the wool over the eyes of quite a few people, and I hate myself for having fallen prey to the frenzy and the hype. I confess to my crime- I read two-thirds of the book. Persecute me in any Court of Law if you will, but please don't write a sequel. If you don't have any such ideas, I hope I'm not giving you some.

And to think this embarrassment of a book won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, something that was once sensibly awarded to the sublimely beautiful Lloyd Jones novel Mister Pip, shakes my faith in humanity and gravity and everything we're taught to believe in. The characters are extremely weak and you never have a chance to get into their skin and feel things the way they do. The attempt at threading together multicultural influences in Australian society isn't remarkable in any way, and the idea I take away from the book is that all immigrants stick together and seek flings with other immigrants when bored of their own lives (which is almost all the time). No one is happy, and life is one big frown between scrunched-up eyebrows. The only positive thing is that the book arouses your curiosity in a way- you keep reading, hoping you'll stumble upon some kind of plot. Right now, though, I think life is too short, and maybe even gloomy (I learn from my reading experiences) to keep plodding through the rest of the 'story'.

The blurb on the cover says the book is about how the lives of a group of middle-class people are affected after they become unwilling victims/witnesses of an ugly incident at a barbecue, where a man slaps a three-year-old child. (If, in the course of reading the book, which I sincerely wouldn't wish upon you, you are inclined to side with the 'wicked man', don't worry- Hugo is the most irritating child in the history of literature. Blame it on the parents- the most annoying ever, in their own right, so there you have it, a family of excellence.) Relationships suffer, affairs are ended or embarked upon, and whether or not they're all because of The Slap (my roommate likened it to the title of a cheap movie, and I wouldn't disagree, because this is a literary equivalent) I haven't been able to, or bothered to, figure out. Tsiolkas has an OCD-like fixation with carnal pleasures and four-letter expletives, and you can't go past two pages at a time without being treated to voyeuristic images and sounds of moaning and sighing. Christos, my man, too much of anything isn't good. Anything. That isn't half the problem, though, because you cannot write. Period. You've had your fifteen minutes of fame, so get yourself a beer and retire to the pleasures of the desert and the ocean, drive from Perth to Melbourne and back, play rugby if you will, but don't let us hear of you publishing a book ever again. Unless, of course, it's a manual of some sort.

PS: Those who know me will understand that I must have detested this book to spew so much venom against a poor individual. I might think differently tomorrow, but I don't want generosity to efface the truth.

2010-12-25T20:45:00.002+05:30

My latest delivery from the library consists entirely of contemporary fiction. Considering how expensive new novels (under copyright) can be, it makes sense to buy classics and depend on the library for the rest of my reading needs and wants.

Today's list:

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
Saraswati Park - Anjali Joseph

I've begun Saraswati Park, written by first-time novelist Anjali Joseph. It is quite a riveting read, blessedly unpretentious, earthy and compelling. The setting may not be entirely new, because over the last year I've seen Bombay through Rohinton Mistry and Suketu Mehta's eyes, but I like the quality of Joseph's writing. I am definitely enjoying this read.

Sadly, I had to abandon The Sea (John Banville) halfway through. I realised I wasn't in the right frame of mind for it and was skimming through it, instead of letting the words linger and seep in. I'd rather save it for another day, another time, when I can let the sentences take complete control of me.

At Random

2010-12-23T19:24:00.004+05:30

The bus slows to a halt at the turn under the flyover and the driver turns off the engine. The traffic is thick and we'll be here for a good five minutes, time enough for a miniature Study of Human Nature. Postures change slightly but perceptibly as limbs are stretched in anticipation of the 'long' wait. The discomfort of cramped limbs seems to double when the bus ceases to move and the wind stops swirling in through the narrow gaps between jammed panes (for most of the windows are normally closed to keep out the chill and the dust) and the frames.

An unspoken-of camaraderie, born of impatience and tiredness, envelopes the stillness, broken occasionally by a sigh or a muffled whisper into a mobile phone- this isn't the right moment for intimate conversations. We envy the freedom of those outside, helmeted motorists powering their way home as we languish within the stagnant confines of an uncomfortable bus. There isn't much to do but look around, because the lights are too dim to read by.

A stout man in a white singlet wearily hands out cakes from behind the counter of his bakery, perhaps asserting his proprietorship in the way he is dressed. A band of thinly-clad beggars straggles by, disabusing the notions of merriment that have pervaded our cubicles rigged up in festive bunting (the debris of which will later have to be cleaned up by people who know few holidays, if any). Street lights glint off the black helmets of motorists making their way home in the rapidly falling dusk, pedestrians weaving their way dangerously through the endless stream of traffic- having to wait for a break in the flow of vehicles can reduce the most optimistic person to sheer hopelessness.

The air reeks with the odour of unwashed clothes, and my suspicions of the source hinge upon the man I am sharing the seat with, for a valid reason. As he hums under his breath, he scratches his ear and moulds wax between his left thumb and forefinger, and I cannot think very highly of his ideas of hygiene. Surely his clothes have been on him for two days on end? The thick, dark stubble on his chin strengthens my suspicions.

The wait ends. The signal has turned green and the bus roars back to life. Five minutes, and I'll be home.

*******

Two Irish writers have strengthened my faith in the magic of words, even if one Ukrainian-born award-winner tried to jeopardise it (not that it is easily shaken, so no harm done). I have recently finished two books- Troubles by JG Farrell, and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. The first was entirely deserving of the hype and the award of the Lost Man Booker Prize (though I've only read one of the other contenders); the latter, on the other hand, seemed rather reminiscent of a soap opera full of screeching women. Farrell's style is simple, elegant and honest- there is a practical solidity about his prose that brings to life the dreariness of the Majestic- without underplaying the somewhat colourful characters- and the troubled times after the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. Lewycka, on the other hand, creates a 'comedy' that is rather too loud for my complete liking. (If I don't get too lazy over the weekend, I shall have reviews of both the books up here.)

Currently, it is John Banville's 2005 Man Booker-winning novel, The Sea, which has me captivated. His prose is fascinating without being pretentious, reminiscent of a journey on a gently bobbing boat on a day that is neither stormy nor overly sunshiny, but just right.

Hurrah to words.

The End of the Week

2010-12-18T04:31:00.002+05:30

At close to half past four in the morning, the effects of two cups of midnight coffee are wearing off, and I don’t expect my writing to be at its best. However, there is a certain kind of peace that only words can buy, and it is therefore inevitable that even at this late (or early) hour, I should find myself curled up in the smaller of the two sofas, greedily reading one of my library books.

I have spent a night at work, peppering it with generous doses of Angela Brazil’s school stories, Marina Lewycka’s slightly disappointing ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’, and J G Farrell’s marvellous creation, ‘Troubles’. Brazil and Lewycka are light reading, but even with the strain of the night bearing down upon me, I find myself most drawn to ‘Troubles’. I forget that the book is not written in first-person and that I am not the Major, finding himself drawn into the strangely absorbing whirlpool of life at the Majestic in troubled Ireland. The cover is largely blue and green, and the letters of Farrell’s name look like they’ll topple over any moment, just about slotted into place anyhow by a quavering hand. Lugubrious the story might be, but you flit to it like an insect to lamplight, knowing well that it won’t cheer you up- but Farrell’s top-notch writing keeps you pegging away at it, dreading the approach of the end of the book. The frequent references to the English cricket team playing against Australia seem like a coincidence, and a reminder of the fact that while I sleep, England will be trying hard to save face in the third Ashes test this morning.

The ‘tequila shots’ (as Airborne, coffee-drinker-in-crime puts it) of coffee come in small tumblers- we get four for the two of us, the frothy spot of milk sitting topping off the lovely rich brown of the concoction. It isn’t bad coffee, by cafeteria standards, and it keeps us going as we rant, laugh and linger at the table, cigarette smoke mixing with the mists of cool winter nights. The air is rather foggy under the lamplights, and we reminisce about North Indian winters, quite removed from the moderation of where we now live.

I’m home now, and the sky is a murky pink. I have long forgotten my constellations, Orion being the only one I can now recognise. There are no stars here today, though, and no trees nearby- no birds or the soughing of winds through leafy branches. And because blades of grass don’t sing loud enough for me to hear, all is quiet but for the abrupt screeches of distant vehicles braking.

I am entitled to my “Friday evening”, to look forward to the weekend, and this is how I do it.

PS: If there are any glaring mistakes here, do let me know. At half-past four, you don't feel entirely inclined towards editing your own tripe.

'Room' - A Review

2010-12-09T12:42:00.005+05:30

Irish-born writer Emma Donoghue's novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. It didn't win, and like any novel propelled into publicity thanks to its appearance as a contender on major prize lists, had its fair share of fans and disparagers. Despite all the hype surrounding it, though, Room does come out as an honest novel, deceptively simple, but in fact possessing a depth that reminds you of life as it used to be, before you stopped letting the wool be pulled over your eyes and decided to open up to reality.

If you've forgotten the first time you visited the beach and the various sensations the pricking of the sand underfoot and the tang of the salt-air evoked, then Room will remind you of them. Swinging in the park, making real friends out of cartoon characters on television and forming an instant camaraderie with total strangers will no longer seem like childish pursuits to be looked down upon the length of adult ego-sized noses.

Having lived for five long years in one eleven-by-eleven cork-lined room, Jack is unaware of the world outside. Everything on television is just fantasy, his long-suffering mother tells him, to snuff out any craving he might have for an impossible whiff of fresh air or a romp in the streets. Their captor, whom they call Old Nick, visits them almost every night, bringing them supplies, taking the trash out, and then 'making the bed creak' while Jack stays closed up in the wardrobe until it is safe enough for him to scramble into bed beside his mother. Life goes on thus, until one day, Jack's little, room-sized world is shattered by the revelation that there is an 'Outside', that television isn't all fantasy- Dora the Explorer is, but not the men and women and children, the aeroplanes and the birds. What Jack and his mother see through the skylight actually exists, the objects whose names Ma keeps forgetting are real, and she has a name- two names, in fact- for the rest of the world to call her. For a child born into captivity, fathoming that the various planets on television are in fact all pieces of one large reality isn't easy.

When Ma finally reaches breaking point and makes a daring plan that she and Jack call their 'Great Escape', he is extremely nervous. He has to be 'scave'- brave though he is scared- and rescue his mother from the clutches of their captor. But things don't just end there, because that'll mean opening the door to reality, to a world that Jack is unsure of entering. And while Jack runs in pursuit of liberty, you find yourself egging him on, hoping and praying hard that he’ll make it safely into the arms of a trustworthy adult.

In Room, Donoghue makes you see the world in a way that you used to, through a pair of forgotten lenses buried deep inside but fished out with urgency as you realise that there is much that should be valued but is taken for granted. You warm to Jack instantly as he describes his life alternating amid Wardrobe and Bed and Skylight, his personification of all the objects around him, even as the existence of real people outside seems like a mystery. Inspired by the horrific Josef Fritzl case, Room portrays brilliantly the horrors of a life that most of us would struggle to imagine. Told entirely in Jack's voice, it is innocent and devoid of any frills or sensationalism.

There are instances towards the end of the book where it seems to lose a little steam and the tautness of the narrative seems to slack away a bit- however, as you read about Jack and his mother coming to terms with change and absorbing the ways of life around them, little by little, you cannot help but put yourself in their shoes. You do wonder at the tremendous intelligence of a boy who has lived a confined life for five years, exposed to the world outside only through an hour of television everyday and the five picture books he has obtained for ‘Sundaytreat’. Most of it seems to draw from real-life incidents across the world- they are shockingly many in number- and the powerful imagery Donoghue evokes brings credibility to the story.

Touching without being unnecessarily dramatic, Room is a strong recommendation if you're looking to fall in love with writing all over again.

PS: This is probably the first time I've read a novel in its year of publication, and I have my library, JustBooks, to thank for it.

Thirty Years in Neverland

2010-12-01T21:24:00.002+05:30

If I could save time in a bottle, I'd choose to borrow a time-machine first and travel back around twenty years to when I had just learnt to read. I wasn't much of a fan of colouring- though I liked collecting crayons- but I loved the splashes of brightness on the pages of comics. The speech balloons were invariably ignored as containers of serious, unwanted information, all concentration being devoted to pictures. And, of course, Tinkle was the comic that won hands down.

To this day, when I visit a book-stall at a railway station or on the pavements, my eyes skim past the rows of glossy magazines with photographs of larger-than-life celebrities on their covers, seeking the warm colours of that one comic that brings back waves of nostalgia of the years when life seemed more wholesome and complete than it does now.

Tinkle is 30 years old. It may not be as delightful as it used to be- the curse of modernity- but it is still relatively innocent and earthy, a breath of fresh air in the midst of pretences and the frightening race for an early adulthood.

Which Tinkle character/story lingers on in your head all these years on?

A City with Character

2010-11-29T23:12:00.004+05:30

For a city bursting at its seams, the streets of Lake Market, Calcutta, are unusually quiet. The brilliant yellow taxis, ubiquitous in other parts of the city, make only sporadic appearances on the tree-lined roads. Green and yellow autorickshaws splutter past arrays of bouquets, funeral wreaths and dyed flowers (where else on earth could you find a parrot-green bunch of petals?). Tinny-looking buses- which seem to be gingerly held together by a handful of bolts- rumble by indolently, window-panes missing, variously-clothed elbows shoved out through the bars; the names of the origins and destinations are painted on the sides of the blue and maroon bodies in loud, curly-edged fonts.

In these quiet streets, time has come to a standstill. It is a Sunday afternoon towards the end of November, but it feels more like spring than winter- the end of March, perhaps, when the cold season departs reluctantly, lingering longingly in its favourite patches while the firm, lengthening arms of the sun nudge it away. Old-fashioned, stately bungalows cast their sleepy eye upon the loitering rickshaw-pullers who rest in the meagre shade of the slim trees that bend their supple bodies to the song of the wind. Who built these houses, and when? The slatted windows speak of a different era altogether, and the old man in a dhoti and vest, thick glasses perched on his nose, might well be a surviving relic of the days that live on only in the mottled yellow pages of old books (and on the screen of a Kindle, perhaps). An elderly lady, wearing a discoloured white saree in the traditional Bengali style, shuffles down the pavement. This street is vintage Tagore, and as I stand by a dripping hand-pump on which some homeless crows take refuge, I cannot think of a more effective way of time travel.

Calcutta, in many ways, has withstood the ravages of time. The grime of decades lies so thick on some of its buildings it can probably never be washed away. Broken balconies bend under the weight of decades of footsteps. There is a timeless grace to this city that endows it with a character of its own, unlike others that succumb to the lure of snazzy modernity, often bereft of any identity or uniqueness. I haven't seen much of Calcutta, really- just seen a battered tram or two, caught a glimpse of the Victoria Memorial and been driven a short distance by a paan-chewing taxi driver from Bihar who spits out red squirts with clockwork-like regularity while talking politics. I've seen the soot-blackened facades of shops in the New Market and the relentless crush of people milling around in every inch of space available. Through the crowds and the sticky heat, though, you sense the throbbing that drives this city and puts things together in its own sometimes ramshackle way, keeping the wheels turning with the occasional glitches.

I might have stepped right into the midst of two rallies, one led by the Trinamool Congress and the other by the Communists, but we'll leave politics to another day. At any given moment, I'm sure Calcutta will impress you as a city with a heart, amen to that.

Lifting Spirits

2010-11-20T17:27:00.000+05:30

I have a mortal dread of elevators. No traffic, precipice or liberally-potholed road gives me more jitters than a closed elevator, so cramped and gloomy that the idea of a dungeon with bread-and-water begins to sound like Paradise in comparison. I might have to travel ten minutes or an hour through thick, honking traffic to reach home, but the worst part is almost always the eternity-long journey in the elevator up to my seventh-floor flat. There was a time when I enjoyed riding up and down elevators in shops, but that was when they were scarce- when do we ever want anything once we have plenty of it?

This particular elevator isn't the most modern of its kind- Elisha Otis himself would have shuddered it, because though physically safe, it isn't the best capsule for a tired mind winging its way home. Its walls are painted reddish-brown, just a shade lighter than the black on the doors. Profanities (more morally corrupting than the Rani heart-pierced-with-an-arrow Sunil kind) are liberally engraved on the paint, covered over, engraved again with the kind of determination that, if only displayed in more useful pursuits, would have allowed us to bid for the 2012 Olympics. Anyway. The only window to the world in this elevator of ours is the narrow dusty corona between the fan on the roof and the circular aperture it is set in. All you can see through this gap are grey-brown ropes, from this angle looking much too flimsy to be able to support potato-chip-and-soda-nourished weights. The only good thing about this lift is the privacy it affords- so you can pretend to be Vanessa Mae, play air-guitar, or waltz in the arms of an imaginary (or real) partner without fear of being found out. For when the elevator does stop, it does so with a noticeable convulsion- enough time for you to unentangle yourself from those imaginary (or real) arms and put on a poker-straight face, whip out your glasses from the cavernous depths of your handbag and assume the impression of a hardworking, ill-used software engineer with glazed, unseeing eyes.

Visitors to my flat will testify to the unholy claustrophobic gloominess of this elevator, and how it can drive you to hitherto unknown levels of temporary disturbance. (I have been known to talk to the fan in the lift, pitying it for its loneliness, perched up there amidst the grime and grease.) It also has a tendency to halt at the fifth floor for no reason. When it jerks to a stop and the doors slide open in a sinister manner, they reveal, almost always (only because nine of ten times cannot be an unqualified 'always') a nothingness, backed only by white walls. I jab frantically at the button to draw the doors shut and retreat into the unspirited safety of my four walls. The ride further up gets progressively eerie, because at half-past four in the morning, the slightest movement in the shadows is an impetus to an active imagination. Two floors up, the doors slide open, the familiar carpet appears and ground underneath- I'm home.

There was one occasion, though, when I was scared out of my wits as I stepped out, singing to myself, only to be confronted by the surly neighbour, who isn't the genial old 'Uncle' of books, but someone who grudgingly responds to your hello through set teeth, eyes boring into you as if you were a vile worm (I'd like to use the 'If looks could kill...' line, with a clever comparison, but looks can't kill, so I don't see why I should bother). On this particular morning, he was carrying a small brass plate with camphor burning on it, dressed in a dhoti and angavastram, looking askance at me as I almost bumped into him. I mumbled a greeting and walked away- spirits are trouble enough, without having to mention people. I turned the key and walked into my house, to the peace and quiet of wide spaces and large windows.

2010-11-16T14:52:00.002+05:30

There was a time when I used to await the postman's arrival eagerly. In the late nineties, when emailing hadn't quite caught on, and in the early part of this decade, when a friend and I refused to succumb to the impersonal, frighteningly quick transmission of events that took much longer to transpire, I looked forward to finding a thick envelope in the letter-box. I'd tear it open eagerly, trying to be as careful as possible but soon giving in to curiosity, leaving unsightly gashes across the envelope and leaving it just about fit to return the letter to for future sessions of re-reading. You know those lovely long afternoons when, on a sudden fit of inspiration, you pull out old stacks of paper from dust-laden shelves, intending with uncharacteristically stern resolution to throw away everything that you don't need- and at the end, the pile would perhaps be just a couple of sheets thinner, and you'd have ended up a lot richer for it. I love reading old letters- they carry the whiff of sky, sun and eucalyptus-scented winter breezes, of a childhood happily spent.

And now, while I don't have a postman to wait for, I do have another messenger- the man who delivers my books from the library. I love the texture of the plastic-covered, well-preserved books as they are pressed into my hand, more often than not new and unread (which is when I'm grateful for Chetan Bhagat's popularity); I sit down with them, puzzling over which to begin, admiring the covers, studiously avoiding the blurbs and saving the introductions for the last. (I have discovered spoilers in introductions earlier, and because I don't quite like skipping them, considering someone has worked hard on them, I just leave them to the end.)

So now, tantalisingly piled up on my bookshelf, lie Alice Walker's The Color Purple, a Rabindranath Tagore omnibus and Pallavi Aiyar's Smoke and Mirrors, a book on China that I've been wanting to read for very long. Lovely how you stumble upon books you really want.

Time, then, to set the pile receding.

2010-11-15T00:55:00.002+05:30

What do these nights remind you of- these warm tropical nights, when perspiration trickles down your back in thin streams and your thin shirt scrunches up in sticky folds? The monstrous old fan huffs and puffs, hot dragon-breath trying hard to suck the beads from your forehead. You don't nuzzle your stained teddy bear as the night wears on- growing into the night, growing with it, its magic absorbing you, like life soon will. Your sheets are pooled around your ankle, kicked away in impatience. Is this how eager you are to go out into your new life, too, away from all you know now, familiar and loved though it might be?

When morning arrives, you will be a child again, rubbing the sleep from your eyes with your closed fists, faking a stomach-ache to get away from school. And maybe, just maybe, I'll let you stay home this once- some years on, you will not be able to, much as you wish. Run wild through the waving fields, soar away with your imagination into those vast blue heights, be one with those colourful kites and see the world as you want it to be. Because when you grow up, you'll realise that all that you were promised as a child doesn't quite exist.

Should I prepare you for deception, then? I'd rather not. There is nothing like a stash of childhood dreams and memories to draw strength from.

2010-11-14T22:44:00.003+05:30

When Billy Joel is reduced to comparison with Justin Bieber and Stephanie Meyer rubs shoulders with JD Salinger in "best books" lists, you really have to stop and wonder what the world has come to. Deification is not just for the gods any longer- you just have to be beautiful or write and sing about beautiful (as defined by society) people, and make plenty of money, to induce mass hysteria. It isn't just absurd, it is also deeply saddening.

Many-Coloured Splendours: Gangtok

2010-11-14T00:17:00.001+05:30

The driver arms himself with a sackful of potatoes from Lachung and off we go, back to Gangtok. I look at the mountains, now hidden in the thick cloudy mist, that I feel like I’ve known forever. I cannot tear myself away from them, but leave I must.

Dusk falls in an hour or two after we set off, and the driver negotiates the tortuous slopes of the Himalayas in near-darkness. The Seven Sisters Waterfall, vibrant with human voices added to its relentless gush on our upward climb, now has nature’s night music for accompaniment. The tea stalls are shut, their proprietors walking about briskly in the cold air, and the prayer flags are no longer visible. For all we know, we could be driving down a road never traversed- and we still wouldn’t realise it.

The jeep halts suddenly and a torchlight is flashed through the windows. The tension inside is palpable- but then the man holding the torch grins broadly, says something in his language to his friends, and our driver steps out for a laugh with them. A collective sigh of relief is heard, confused questions are asked, and once again, a little weary, we’re on our way to the capital.

The fairy-lights of the city come into view, spread across vast Himalayan slopes. It stretches out into the distance, wide and endless, even as we dip into one trough and emerge onto another crest. Dropped off at the “bus-stop” where all the jeeps to and from major towns in the region converge, we make our way up a steep, moss-covered flight of steps- there are narrow stairways connecting one street to another all around town- to Mall Road. It is past eight o’clock and the last of the souvenir shops are preparing to wind up their business for the day. A teacher in a red cardigan over her synthetic saree shepherds her girls down a narrow lane to a hotel hidden in its recesses; a schoolmaster asks his restless students to line up so he can conduct a headcount. We find a vegetarian restaurant and finish dinner quickly. There is one dream yet to be fulfilled.

I go to the balcony in the morning to be confronted by a strikingly beautiful view- where clouds have swirled for three days now, mountain peaks now stand out in snow-covered glory, their peaks softly tinged by the first rays of the sun. The sky has been washed clean and is deliciously blue- our last day in Sikkim is one of the finest the town has seen in a while.

We take a taxi to Tashi Viewpoint, and our garrulous driver sets off at breakneck speed, anxious that we should make it there before the sun comes out or the weather stops behaving. All through his hurry, however, he talks rapidly, his left hand gesturing and waving as he frequently takes it off the wheel to establish a point. He is a practicing Hindu, he says, but was born in a Buddhist family, where the norm was to give one child away, male or female, to the monastery. His elder brother is a monk. He points to the shiny prayer wheel on his dashboard, a ubiquitous presence in cars in the region, and talks of its powers- about how it must be blown on by a monk before its effectiveness can be made visible. He shows us his house, and the school where his son studies. All along the way, we see children trudging up to school, some reluctantly, others nonchalantly; a little boy opens a bottle of mango juice and pours some into his younger sister’s mouth, giggling at a secret joke they share meanwhile.

We make our way up to Tashi Viewpoint, and from there, magnificently rising into the clear skies, I see the Kanchenjunga, the third-highest peak in the world. It is in fact a series of five peaks, and they spread out gloriously on this cool, crisp morning, unencumbered by their burden of clouds. A tour guide tells us of people who have been visiting for days for a glimpse of the mountain, but returned crestfallen each time, defeated by the weather- we should consider ourselves extremely lucky to have been blessed with such brilliant skies. And so I do- every inch of these ancient mountains teems with life, and to be able to see them in their full splendour, bathed in sunshine, is to have an imprint etched in my memory, one to pull out of the closet every time the question of the purpose of life nudges and haunts me.

Our final stop in Sikkim will be the Tibetan Buddhist monastery at Ranka, an offshoot of the one at Rumtek, the monastery at the heart of the Karmapa controversy. We are delayed by an altercation between the drivers of two vehicles which have brushed against each other, taking the entire thoroughfare ransom- our cab-driver gets out to talk to them and manages to placate them. “Men from my village,” he explains, as he gets back in and drives us up the road that sweeps into the monastery gates.

A long line of dark prayer-wheels greets us. We are told to touch them, one by one, before we go up the flight of steps to the monastery. It is a graceful, red-roofed structure with a spacious courtyard, at the end of which is a brightly-painted wall. We greet the two monks seated near the door and they invite us in. We are directed up the steps to the large hall where Buddha, serene and beautiful in His golden form, flanked by other deities, looks upon humanity benevolently. The profound silence seeps is overwhelming, and I think of this quiet temple, tucked away in picturesque pockets of the Himalayas, cut off from the bustle of the world below. The corridors are lined with closed rooms, warmed by the mild sunrays that slant into them. Young monks learn their lessons, talking to one another in hushed tones, smiling, giggling- but there is also an air of grown-up wisdom about them, perhaps endowed by the discipline and the maroon robes. We can hear lessons in English from a classroom window- a disembodied voice talks of rising early and sleeping early, and a group of boys repeats after it. Behind the monastery, the ground slopes up further to another building that we see monks walking up to, going uphill effortlessly. Tall trees canopy the sky- what a beautiful place this is in which to learn and live- it must be so much easier to be good here than in the unholy machinations of the plains! The older monks tell us the monastery is twenty years old, and follows the principles of Mahayana Buddhism- differing from the Theravada form of Buddhism that is practised widely in Singapore, where I had my first tryst with the religion. We request them to light a butter lamp for us, because the lama is not around, and they agree to do so.

We slip into the souvenir shop, where, as we look around, we have a conversation with a Tibetan man who used to be a monk, but now helps out around the monastery and teaches children. He explains some of the characters on the scrolls in the shop and asks us about our stay in Sikkim. He is genuinely pleased when we tell him how much peace we’ve found here, and shakes hands with us as we leave.

This also marks the end of a fulfilling journey, my first visit to a tiny bit of the little-explored Northeastern parts of the country- and nearly a month on, the hangover has still not subsided. The Himalayas still populate my dreams, rising grandly into the clouds and blue skies, some with sunshine and shadow chasing each other on their green slopes, others coarse from erosion and showing off snow-speckled surfaces. The river Teesta, meanwhile, flows silkily through the valleys, fed forever by the melting ice, pure and crystal-clear. This, after all, is what will remain when we have managed to self-destruct with all our callousness- rigid testimony to the history of millennia.

The Edge of the World

2010-11-09T15:19:00.001+05:30

At half-past five in the morning, the sun is making ready to climb into the sky, and there is enough light by which to watch the mountains take on their distinctive shapes, after the single continuous blur they seemed to have been in the darkness last night.

As I stand on the narrow staircase of the guest house, I see snow for the very first time- and oh, what an exalting feeling it is. That very moment, knowing I am in a nondescript village deep in the Himalayas, eyes resting on snow-capped mountain peaks, I feel as if there is nothing more I’ll ever need to ask life for. In a while, the brilliant white snow will seem to rise from the peaks in a drift of smoke, the clouds weaving themselves gently about the mountain-tops like the train of an unusually long bridal gown. Now, though, the mountains stand proudly stark, save for their only adornment of a fine layer of snow. The sun lightens the sky gradually and casts a sheer golden web over the mountains; as we nurse our glasses of tea, we watch the spectacular play of light on the mountains, the snow now glinting with an added fire.

We are driven off to the Yumthang Valley. A lady in blue looks out from her verandah and I wave to her- she inclines her head and smiles prettily. This has to be said about the people of Sikkim- they are very warm and friendly, right from the boys working at the small hotels and tea shops to the young monks studying at the monastery- they give away their smiles and laughter readily. They are well-informed and talk without inhibition on various subjects. When asked if Sikkim had always received enough attention for development and growth, the proprietor of a tea shop tells us how the government has redoubled its efforts at building and maintaining roads and other infrastructure in Sikkim, “jabse China chhedne laga” (ever since China started messing with us). We meet a local who, when told we are from Tamil Nadu, tells us about his son who studies engineering in Chennai. Taxi drivers give us lessons in Geography, discuss religion, family and politics. The laidback pace of life sucks you in, but you know that underneath the seeming placidity, there is a great deal going on, healthy ambitions ripening.

Further up through the mountains we travel, jolting over rugged, sometimes non-existent roads, we pass signs for rhododendron trails and bump over pebbles on the beds of transparent little streams. More snow-clad peaks come into view, gleaming iridescently as the sun gets stronger, despite which, a chill lingers in the crisp, fresh air. We stop by a slope that leads down to one of the tributaries of the Teesta, quite surrounded by the rugged Himalayas. I look at the rosy-faced young Tibetan women who run the tea stalls and envy them for actually being able to live here, amidst this natural magnificence; older women in traditional clothes with leathery, wrinkled faces shuffle back and forth from the wooden tables set up in front of their charcoal-warmed wooden cabins, selling souvenirs and warm clothes. Yaks chew cud on the grassy slope, and we pick our way through yak gob down to the pale blue-white river swirling cheerfully over smooth white pebbles. I cup my hands and take a swig of the clear water- it is deliciously cold and unsullied. A little boy collects tiny stones and skips them on the water. Quiet and pure, this could almost be a place on another planet. I don’t have the heart to leave.

But move on we must, and we’re back in the jeep and climbing again, clinging closely to the narrow “road” where one misstep could hurl you to death instantly into the deep, plunging valley. You can well feel your heart in your mouth when two vehicles try to pass each other in opposite directions on one of the tight hairpin bends, and once the obstacle has been cleared, laugh shakily and throw Sebastien Loeb a challenge- with your driver at the helm, of course.

We drive past little patches of newly fallen snow that still haven’t melted. Vast expanses of snow cover the grey, rocky faces of some of the mountains we pass. Approaching a height of nearly 15000 feet, we come across army barracks- a grim reminder of the inhospitable conditions that our soldiers fight in, another reason to question the reason for war and the thirst for territory.

We are at Zero Point, the tip of North Sikkim, right at the border with China. It is extremely cold, and the strong breeze is freezing our hands and noses and lips. We can hardly talk for the cold, and our fingers tremble as we try to hold our plastic coffee cups. A couple of soldiers are getting ready to drive away, but when we request them for a picture, they readily oblige. Once more, we cannot help but marvel at their tenacity as they struggle in difficult conditions so far from home and their families, working endlessly at the borders to ensure the safety of our country.

Snow still lies in mounds or in crevices between rocks, and I finger it gingerly in my ungloved hands. A little snowball fight ensues, and soon we are packed off in the jeep again- it is just too cold up there. However, the spectacular views of snow-shrouded mountain peaks more than make up for all the discomfort.

I have seen the Himalayas and marvelled at them- but I still haven’t had a glimpse of the crown jewel- the Kanchenjunga. It will have to wait till we’re back in Gangtok, though, and then, the skies will have to be favourable and we’ll have to appease the sun. For the first time in my life, I’m wishing the rain clouds away.

2010-11-02T23:27:00.002+05:30

Funny how you just need an unfairly forgotten relic from your closet to remind you that your best days aren't past you yet, no matter what the world might insist on saying. You're just as much a girl as you ever were, and always will be.

This is what I'm talking about. At twenty-four, I'm still capable of curling up with a fluffy doll I bought last year- it is dusty and unwashed and has the odour of unused clothes about it. But I can bury my nose into its soft head and it won't complain. Its nose is flat and ridiculously violet. Its eyes stare without expression and it is quite drained of colour. But does that matter when it is a much-loved toy, or for that matter person, that we're talking of? It holds many memories, and is storing up some more even now as it lies placidly on my lap.

I'm reminded of the story where a boy had to have his beloved stuffed hare (?) taken away because he was ill- oh the touching simplicity of childhood! A link to the story will be much appreciated- I can't seem to be able to find it.

The rain is pattering on the sunshades where the pigeons roost- where will they sleep tonight? Do they have memories to help them through the storm?

9600 Feet Above The Sea...And Counting

2010-10-30T14:24:00.001+05:30

Also posted on The Weed Joint

The road winds up into the Shivaliks, seemingly curving into their heart- the city of Gangtok is sprawled across these lower reaches of the Himalayas. It is still only October; when the cold months arrive, a bed of snow will flake the twinkling fairy lights of this hill town.

We walk down MG Road, Gangtok. How different it is from its namesake in the cities of the plains, a colonial reminder of the years gone by, the quintessential Mall of Himalayan towns. You can almost conjure up images of British sahibs and their elegantly dressed wives trotting up and down these hill roads, looking for respite from the searing heat of the plains. (All you need, in fact, is a haunted dak bungalow to complete the story.) Today, it is a paved road only for pedestrians, lined with Bose loudspeakers on lampposts, leading past a line of restaurants and shops selling clothes, electronic items and all sorts of curious artefacts to a nondescript, dank movie theatre. It is close to eight o’clock at night, and a cloudy mist settles over the town, people reduced to blurry shapes as they walk by. The shops are winding down for the day, and some already have their shutters down. Darkness falls as early as 5 pm, and it is only natural that the owners of the establishments here would want to go home to their dinner before yet another bright and early start the next morning.

We are in bed soon, too, because we have an early start ahead of us. We are taking a jeep to Lachung, a village in North Sikkim. Most places here mention the district on signboards- everywhere in and around Gangtok, the boards tell us we’re in East Sikkim.

A punctured step-knee means we’re delayed at a repair shop for about an hour. It isn’t a traditional garage- a man carries the tyre up a few steep stone steps to the courtyard of his house and works on it. From where we are parked, there is a brilliant view of a mountain-top, diaphanous clouds crowning its crest, a few girls in blue uniforms walking up to a small building perched on it. The hillsides bathed in yellow sunshine sprawl beneath us, dotted with variously coloured houses, the Teesta flowing further down on its ancient bed. Imagine waking up to this view every morning, instead of the jagged squares of white-hot sky and concrete that most of us are accustomed to!

We set off a little while later on what is going to be the most spectacular journey I’ve ever been on. The road hugs the mountains constantly, and thanks to the numerous landslides that occur in the region, is more often than not in a state of repair. The jeep jolts over rock and stream, coming precariously close to the edge from where there is only a sheer drop into the valley. The clouds cast large swathes of shadow over the rolling dark hillsides, and the sky remains placid and blue. Thick-skinned, rather furry cows graze on the hillslopes, and I see a few birds I cannot recognise. On and off, the hills break into a riot of colour, the grasses red, brown and green, speckled with bright flowers.

We stop at a couple of waterfalls on the way, rapidly gushing foamy streams of water that will meet one of the tributaries of the Teesta- at these heights, far from the swirling madness of the plains, quite untouched by human hand, everything is clean and pure.

Darkness is falling, and the eerie atmosphere is accentuated by the relentless trilling of insects. We stop for tea- fragrant, sweet and milky, most of it comes from Darjeeling- and are soon on the last lap of our journey to Lachung. The mountains are now just large, looming shapes in the dark, shorn of friendliness or any emotion whatsoever. As we climb higher up, lights flicker on in the valley sporadically, and we marvel at the tenacity of the people who choose such distant, almost isolated places to build their homes.

Stars sprinkle the velvety darkness of the sky as we reach our guest house in Lachung. We cannot see much at this hour, but we notice quite a few houses and a splendid monastery. As we step out of the jeep, we feel the biting cold of the thin air- at an elevation of 9600 feet, you sure feel the difference. The rooms of the guest house are sparely furnished, and the few men in attendance have quite a bit of rushing around to do to accommodate this new batch of guests. A hot meal of rice, dal, potatoes in gravy and cabbage awaits us, and we turn in early- not that we need much coaxing into bed. Tired out by the long journey and eager for an early start to the Yumthang Valley, we ignore the mosquitoes and hit the sack.

Onward to Yumthang

2010-10-22T23:01:00.002+05:30

The sky is pale pink and white. Greenish in another part of the city. The moon peeps out from within its layered quilt of grey and white, cocking its head at the sleepless gaiety of people reluctant to go to bed this Friday evening. There is a nip in the air, winter is sending out its feelers. Flimsy curtains billow in the wind, the sails of the adventure-packed dreams of armchair travellers and keyboard traversers.

Here, I have neither mountain nor sea. What I do have is an imagination. And that bright star in the sky agrees with me.

PS: Can you even imagine a world without Ruskin Bond? I greeted the Himalayas like old friends during my first ever trip to them, and I owe it all to him.

To Gangtok

2010-10-19T20:56:00.001+05:30

Also posted at The Weed Joint.

Even as the train pulls into the railway station at New Jalpaiguri, I can feel the excitement building up. The dry heat of the plains has been long left behind, and though the sun is a bright circle in the sky, the weather is more forgiving than it was the previous evening at Kolkata. The humidity has been sucked out of the air, and on either side of the track as the train wends its way to this pretty little door to the Northeast, lush green fields catch the first rays of the morning light. Men are out for their ablutions, dark specks squatting amidst the waving crops. The inevitably dingy railway-side towns are passed, their soot-blackened, featureless faces staring out endlessly at the multitudes of people who pass them everyday. The walls plastered with movie posters and painted with advertisements for TMT bars, cement and footwear are a blur of colour and the angles of the Bengali script. At the railway crossings, forced into patience, people bend over their bicycles, waiting for yet another train to pass by so they can get on with their work.

At NJP, we board a jeep that will take us to Gangtok. This is a journey that, on good, flat roads, could be completed in about two hours. It takes us nearly seven, thanks to the rough terrain, a long lunch break when the driver went missing, and traffic jams on the narrow curves of the mountain roads.

But I don’t really mind it. The road first takes us through the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, bordered by sturdy tall trees, an indication of the Alpine vegetation that is soon to follow. I keep my eyes peeled, hoping to sight a protected animal, but the disappointment of not seeing one is overshadowed by the delight of being driven down this road so marvellously shaded by trees benevolent and imposing all at once.

The road then begins to slice through the Himalayas, hugging the hillsides closely as the Teesta begins to make an appearance, a constant companion all the way up to Gangtok. It curves sinuously over its grey-white sandy bed where trucks lie scattered, picking up quarried stone. It is a river of many colours. Muddy brown at first, it changes to a clear blue and then to green flecked with white as it gurgles and splashes through the Himalayas, appearing startlingly from narrow niches in the mountains and flowing down in transparent clarity over bubbles and rock steps carved out in the hillside.

Being in the Himalayas is like feeling a prayer. There is no other way I can describe it, the absolute bliss that descends upon you once you are wrapped almost inextricably in the folds of these mighty mountains, as old as time itself. A sense of insignificance takes hold of me, and I succumb to it willingly- it is a humbling experience to be overwhelmed by Nature, akin to being felled by the enormity of star-sprinkled skies or the endlessness of the ocean.

Higher up, a new world begins to take shape. Houses perch on ledges cut out of the hillsides, prayer flags become ubiquitous. The red temple on the lower reaches almost resembles a monastery. Up here, there is a gentle confluence of Buddhism and Hinduism, made evident by the dashboards in jeeps where an idol of Ganesha reposes by a gold-coloured prayer wheel. The plants turn distinctly alpine- taller and with differently-shaped leaves, some grey from the dust from the mud roads. The flowers are bright and fresh; from amidst the creepers, a red or a white flower makes a surprising appearance. Moss-covered benches are set out at a few places along the way, and sudden foaming streaks appear through invisible cracks, the plentiful waterfalls and springs of the Himalayas.

We stop for lunch in a little bazaar set in the lee of an almost vertical mountain wall. The Teesta is barely visible in the distance through the thick green foliage; the air is getting colder. Goods that come up from the plains are expensive- “the higher you go, the costlier it gets,” explains the girl behind the counter at one of the shops, as she reaches out to a baby girl with distinct Tibetan features.

Not everything is idyllic and peaceful as the woods up in these hills. Where the roads diverge, one to Darjeeling and the other to Gangtok, a pillar bears the words, “Welcome to Gorkhaland”. Further on, more slogans on walls, banners and address boards at shops proclaim their identification with Gorkhaland. A hoarding advertises the Gorkhaland Tourist Festival. Dissent bubbles underneath the delusional calm that lies over these mountains; a few months ago, a couple of French tourists I’d met in Pondicherry had been stranded in Darjeeling due to a curfew.

Today, though, life seems normal. Without incident, we are deposited in Gangtok- and this is a world that I’m unaccustomed to, that I look forward to exploring.

A Vacation Well Earned

2010-10-19T17:59:00.003+05:30

I'm back from my delicious, but extremely short, vacation. Ten days passed by in a whirlwind, and all I'm left with now is a store of memories, but oh, what a treasure chest it is! And so it is bound to be, if you get your first glimpse of the mightiest mountains on the earth, put yourself in the midst of a festival which is an exhibition of grandeur and crazy creativity, and walk down the aisles of the school your father passed out of over forty years ago.

I have my hurriedly scribbled notes beside me, whatever caught my fancy written down on three small squares of paper in a jeep jolting over uneven terrain. Some of the stories are in my head- conversations with the locals, ready smiles, lights and colours that no camera could ever capture. So I'll begin from the beginning, and describe my vacation right till the end.

May patience be your cherished virtue.

Here are a few road signs from the unforgiving mountain roads of Sikkim to kindle your curiosity, reproduced more or less as they were printed on the boards:

On my curve/Check your nerve
Reach home in peace, not in pieces
Safety on road is safe tea at home
It is not ralley/Enjoy the valley

And on I shall go to my Sikkim story, setting my mind in rewind mode and reliving those fantastic few days in the mountains.

Saving the Commonwealth Games

2010-09-24T23:12:00.002+05:30

Enough has been said, but evidently not done, about the Commonwealth Games. You wouldn't have needed an astonishing amount of foresight to predict a few months ago that procrastination and corruption would ruin India's coming-of-age act; that the target audience is a handful of countries that comfortably excludes some of the major sporting giants, the USA, China and Russia among them, is a different matter. What we would have liked to see was the top runners, most of whom come from the Caribbean countries, and other major athletes lend their names to India's first major sporting event. (No, I don't consider the Afro-Asian games big enough.)

Despite all the logistical problems and the concerns over large amounts of money being siphoned off to unheard-of quarters, perhaps it wasn't unrealistic to expect that somehow, at the last moment, the people in charge would pull themselves together to present a decent front and save the country from getting lambasted in the world press. I should have known better. Admittedly, there has been much embarrassment over the way the Games have been handled, and the people involved in the fiasco need to be pulled up as early as possible. However, in a country where traditionally justice has taken long to arrive or sometimes been entirely elusive, does it make any sense to call for a mass boycott so that the oversized egos of certain individuals are ground to dust, and those of others satisfied in the bargain?

When experienced politicians like Mani Shankar Aiyar and the "face of Indian writing", media darling Chetan Bhagat ask the public to oppose the Games to bring to book the parties that have brought so much disgrace to the country, I am left wondering if they have placed their brains in cold storage. Tourism isn't expected to bring in much revenues, thanks to all the negative press, the fears over filth and disease, floods and security. So do we really need a handful of smug, self-satisfied men, secure in the knowledge of their own standing and celebrity, to go around asking people to ignore the Games because, well, that's our answer to corruption and mismanagement? Really, now, this coming from individuals who are broadly considered intelligent leaves me genuinely confused- are we really hoping to solve the problems of this country with such ease?

How is this going to affect India's image? We need to ensure Bernie Ecclestone knows more about the revenues than the debacles; the future of motor racing in India could be at stake. Convince foreign tourists that the pictures of the Games Village were doctored. Filth? What filth? Your idea of hygiene isn't necessarily mine. A collapsing bridge or roof is just a minor glitch; if people are injured in the process, we could always give them a compensation and pose with them by their hospital beds.

The Commonwealth Games don't appear to be doing anything for sports in the country. With top athletes from around the world pulling out, the field has weakened considerably- so how much can medals be valued? Not taking anything away from the sportspersons who are braving all the negative publicity and ploughing on under obviously difficult conditions, the main idea of any international sporting event should be to have the best names compete against one another- an aspect in which the Delhi Games can be said to be heading towards failure. And if hygiene, sanitation and the quality of the infrastructure are the worrying factors, then four years is indeed a short duration. Inherent discipline is key, something that we seem to lack in quite a few areas.

If the Delhi Games, with their dubiously large budget, help us pull ourselves together and remind us of all that we're not but aspire to be, then it would be money well spent, and we could also rapidly erase the images we're currently flooding the world with. There are certain chronic diseases we need to eradicate- the sooner, the better. But boycotting the Games is not an option- we're not going to present a disjointed picture when a good chunk of the world has its eyes on us. Let the people with political vendettas and faux-intelligent personas froth away to glory.

Winters And Libraries

2010-09-19T21:13:00.005+05:30

What sucks you into the past, drawing you inexorably into a vortex of mismatched memories pulled out of forgotten niches, a patchwork quilt of uneven squares put together effortlessly without your knowledge?

A little while ago, thanks to an untimely power-cut, I ended up on a chair by the open door, reading in the light from the corridor. A familiar fragrance hit me hard- a perfume I've used earlier, I think, but it was so strong and so pervasive that I was rather distracted from my reading, riveting though my book was. It carried the memories of a particular winter when I'd used it, also reminding me of welcome mild sunshine on misty mornings, yellow sun-dappled patches and moving cloud-shadows on rocky hills. Grumble as I might at having to force myself out of the sheets on cold, unforgiving mornings, I love winter.

I have been reading almost all day today, and now I am on the smaller of our two sofas, leaning against one armrest, feet propped up on the other. A chill wind, reminiscent of distant winters, blows in through the wire-mesh across the window. Of the jumble of winters in my head, the one I remember most clearly is that of my last year of school- when I had a complete volume of Sherlock Holmes presented to me (yes, I was quite old by normal standards when I read Arthur Conan Doyle) and I dipped into it, one story a day, eyes straining at the small print, nose burrowed in to take in the intoxicating fragrance of paper and print. I’d run my fingers over the illustrations, feeling the sticky texture of the inky black figures, losing myself in the lamplit fogs of Baker Street and London. I’d pick the stories out by title, trying to guess at their propensity to intrigue and astound. Exoticism helped, of course, and terms like “Greek Interpreter” and “Red-headed League” were met with eager curiosity.

That was a winter when my grandmother stayed with us. For some reason, it stands out in my memory. Was it the happiest winter of my life? I was preparing for my Board Exams then, so it wasn’t a particularly exciting period, but there was the feeling of standing on a threshold, girlish hope meeting serious ambition, the sense of a milestone about to be crossed. I was definitely nervous, but also quietly confident. Yes, I’d like that winter back- life has never been quite the same since then, ever since I finished school and entered the hellhole of Junior College amidst people so parochial they’d give the khaap panchayats a run for their money. And no, there isn’t any flippancy to this statement, because it is true, and I was extremely surprised, that even to this day in India, the girls of a college can be forbidden from standing on a balcony for some fresh air; the boys in the opposite building had full freedom to do as they liked, of course. Wear your dupatta this way so you are properly covered up (a group of seductive temptresses that they considered us); don’t talk to boys (a sure way to have the most serious aspersions cast on our characters); don’t go home even if you are very ill- all that matters to us is that we can use your rank in the entrance examination to rake in the money.

The long hours of grinding notwithstanding, I had to have my books. I’d strain my eyes on the bus to catch those few precious minutes of reading. A break from studies meant going back to Rob Roy’s adventures or Buck’s travails- I loved my books with a fierce intensity then, because they seemed the only thing to look forward in that bleakly competitive period, where people fought for dubious laurels and the only skill respected was that of learning by rote.

There, I’m done ranting. Now for a bit of excitement.

I enrolled with Just Books yesterday, the library in the neighbourhood (and I’ve been living here five whole months!), and came home with a rich bounty. They have almost every book that would, in a bookshop, result in a double-take or a sharp intake of breath when you look at the price tag warily, with one eye open, hoping it won’t cross that Scrooge-worthy budget of yours- because, after all, you are a girl of slender means (thank you, Muriel Spark!). I’ve chosen the option that allows me to order books online and provides home delivery and pick-up, twice a week, and I get to borrow four books at a time. So I have a fleeting feeling this is going to work out more conveniently than it did in Singapore- plus, they have a magnificent collection. There is no cap on the amount of time you can keep the books for (which detail I’m not going to succumb to- I want to get through as much as I can quickly), and one round of cursory browsing has already sent me into a dizzying spell of indecision.

Here is my first reading list:

Disgraced - JM Coetzee (finished in one sitting today, review coming up soon, though I suppose I’ve already dropped a hint now about what I think of it)

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (reading it now, and I think it’s going to be fantastic)

Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortensen/David Oliver Relin (Airborne's recommendation, looks promising)

Nine Lives - William Dalrymple (which said Airborne has already staked a claim to, and that I have yielded to him without a murmur of protest- partners-in-crime deserve some gratitude at times)

Whoever says that the Kindle and all other fancy electronic devices spell the destruction of books has his head screwed on in the wrong place.

"Never Judge A Book By Its Movie"

2010-09-13T20:44:00.001+05:30

So said JW Eagan, quoted on one of my bookmarks from Crossword, and I agree wholeheartedly with it. A stack of DVDs isn’t on my “three things you’d take with you to a deserted island” list- I like cinema only in moderation, because it somehow seems to drain my reserves of patience (and I take the blame). But there is hardly anything as off-putting as a horrendous movie made out of a perfectly good book.

It is almost criminal to watch the movie adaptation of a book before having read the book itself. Reading is an impetus to the imagination, and it is the prose that is supposed to create the first impressions in your head-this is also the measure of how successful an author has been in impacting your thoughts. Succumb to all the hype of a movie before you’ve read the book it has been adapted from, you’ve almost surely lost the excitement of the richness of language and characterisation which drew such overwhelming images in a person’s mind that, incapable of suppression and containment, they spilled onto the screen. I floundered through the movie adaptations of Wuthering Heights, Mansfield Park and Rob Roy- finishing none of them- but ravenously devoured the books.

That said, there have been a few adaptations that have made a successful transition to the screen from paper. The eternal tearjerker Little Women was almost- certainly not entirely- loyal to Louisa May Alcott’s novel, but I’m thankful I read the book first; I wouldn’t have wanted Winona Ryder’s (then) rosy face interfering with my own picture of Jo. Into The Wild was just as good in its sincerity, but I’m glad the first images of the forests, the wildernesses and the people Chris McCandless met were in my head- even though it was a real-life story. Middle Earth wouldn’t have been as mysterious and darkly beautiful if I’d seen the Lord of the Rings movies shot in the more homely locales of New Zealand first.

The movies the actors choose to do later, and their real-life adventures splashed across newspapers also ruin it for me. I really don’t like to believe that the protagonist in the Twilight series (need I explain further?) was the thoughtful young woman who McCandless almost fell in love with. Ryder, troubled and accused of shoplifting, couldn’t have been the merry, still-tomboyish Mrs. Bhaer, could she?

Then there is the publicity. I would have enjoyed Ice Candy Man more if Deepa Mehta’s characters- omnipresent on television when 1947 Earth was released, thanks to relentless promotion- hadn’t superimposed themselves on the faces I was gradually painting in my head. My copy of Vanity Fair has a photograph of Reese Witherspoon and her corseted cleavage on it. Is she to form my idea of a character as vivacious and interesting as Becky? I think not, for I certainly trust Mr. Thackeray‘s capabilities better- I’ve covered the book in paper and shut out the names of the cast, the director and the costume designer. If the wise mothers and chaperones talk of sprigged muslin, I’ll figure out for myself what it is, thank you very much.

The day I decide to turn the awe-inspiring Mexican story The Power and The Glory into a movie, I’ll let you know. But you’ll be allowed to watch it only if you’ve already done Graham Greene the courtesy of reading the book. For in this case, it is extremely evident which one came first.

'Unaccustomed Earth' - A Review

2010-09-06T20:56:00.004+05:30

Cross-posted from The Weed Joint:

Some people never come to know a home.

Home isn’t always the brick-and-mortar structure where you took your first steps as a baby, played hide-and-seek with visiting cousins, did your homework as you struggled through the inevitable monotony of examinations and classes, wept into the pillow over the spurning of your crushes and had the numerous ‘final’ arguments with your parents about your decisions- before you gravitated back of your own volition.

Home is about wanting to belong to a piece of earth, to identify with something so strongly that it reverberates in your being no matter where you are, reminding you constantly of where your roots were first laid, before you were uprooted without knowing what the future held. Home is what you choose and which comes to your mind first- much like religion and the identification with God.

Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri’s third book, is a simple, beautiful nudge in that direction, trying to make sense of the confusion of being uprooted. This collection of short stories, crafted with unforced elegance, describes the sceptical migration, and eventual acceptance, of an unusual environment – the first few months of confusion and homesickness, the process of settling in, and often the resignation of first-generation immigrants, even as their children grow exceedingly comfortable with their new surroundings. Letters fly back and forth between Calcutta and the US, vacations are undertaken with solemn regularity- a few months of redemption from alien customs- as the children continue to outgrow their already tenuous bonds with their parents’ homes, the visits begin to grate on their nerves as time passes.

Lahiri’s prose is exquisite- never unnecessarily voluble or complex- she writes with an empathy perhaps born of experience. Her characters are very real and honest, their aspirations reflective of what we often see- the need to get into an Ivy League school and study a course that will please their parents, to drink alcohol on the sly, to try and make sense of the slick “arranged marriage” machinery that spreads its tentacles even in a foreign land, thanks to the omnipresent mashis and kakas of the neighbourhood. She writes about Bengali families and their fixations, the fragrance of her ancestors’ culture pervading the stories.

Stories about the Indian diaspora aren’t uncommon. Lahiri, however, endows her story with soul and that much-sought-after quality of re-readability. Sometimes, yes, the characters' lives do seem to resemble one another too much- but this might be viewed as a reflection of the universality of certain situations in life. Unaccustomed Earth, with its intelligence and searing insight, makes it a sheer pleasure to read, setting it apart from anything else in its league.

Night Soliloquies

2010-09-03T02:59:00.002+05:30

They choose to spam my inbox.

Learn a foreign language in ten days, they say. Yes- why should I spend a lifetime mastering Latin and ruminating over sarcophagi when I can choose to zip through a crash course in French? Find yourself a date pronto and settle down in life- choose from a pool of eligible singles over 50. I don't bother to open the email and check the gender of the offering. "I want to talk to you"- says one, in the tone of a solicitous Godwoman, one who will step out of the screen any minute with a grave face and long, bejewelled hands and hold mine in hers. "Let's pray." Thanks, but no thanks- I don't belong to the Julia-Roberts-snap-conversion league. My loyalties don't change overnight, and certainly not if they decide to paint a caricature of the nadir that my life has sunk into and promise redemption before I finish typing this line.

At a quarter past two in the morning, the trees come into life. Birds don't have to worry about sinning, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, do they? The cold wind slaps across my bare arms as I walk down to where a few bleary-eyed young people are waiting, my companions for the twenty-minute journey home, all waiting to shut their minds off and get into bed, even as the driver sets off on yet another of his sleep-deprived trips.

The roads are quite alive- this is when suspicious bundles sheathed in tarpaulin and plastic whoosh their way down state highways, the "Hum Do, Hamare Do" signs obscured in the night, the colourful symbols painted across the trucks to ward off evil now mere silhouettes that gleam only when surprised by a streetlamp. Hindi film music swells from the front cabin of one of the trucks that passes us on the way; psychedelic lights changing colours, a slightly evolved version of the rubber horn drowning the shrill love-stricken notes of the singer. An orange dot glimmers in the dark depths of the cabin- white threads curl tenuously away from it, the puff of victory, the satisfaction of having declared who the roads belong to.

What lurks in those shady corners, what makes the trees tremble so with sudden indignation? Every footfall and whisper is amplified manifold, the faces I see in the guarded light of the night I may not recognise in the brightness of day.

And I like nights all the better now for the way they keep their secrets.

2010-09-02T03:23:00.003+05:30

I now work unearthly hours- 5.30 in the evening to 2.30 in the morning, coinciding with the more humane 8-5 EDT in the USA.

And some people who know how I survived the perils of four years of engineering persist in asking me if my work is similar to what people at BPOs do. These are the members of the 'Put-them-down' club, who do not care to respect people's professions, to whom all that matters is the prestige of the title and the hefty amounts of money to be made by selling their souls.

What I do isn't BPO work- and when I say so, I can see the people asking the question pull a face and insist that it is. Okay- and if it is? I wouldn't be embarrassed about it. I don't understand the scorn that accompanies the question. What is wrong with working at a call centre? It is a profession like any other; why should youngsters staying awake through the night be looked down upon by this 'respectable' crowd that has hot food on the table at the right hours?

We're creating monied circles, people making quick money and barely learning to respect other people on the way. While we prosper, we cannot bear to see other people around do so- the only way to have a good night's sleep is to prove that what we do is infinitely superior to what those around us do, and there is nobody quite as capable as our daughters or brothers or favourite nephews. So be it. And there will still be a group of people, quietly persevering, trying to set things straight. A minority, of course, but present nonetheless.

2010-08-29T23:27:00.003+05:30

Without embarrassment, I'd like to mention that Airborne and I didn't make it past the prelims of the Bangalore round of the Tata Crucible quiz. We got 7 of the 25 questions right, mixing guess-work with common sense, and we were absurdly pleased with the fact that one of the teams which made it to the final round had scored only 16- we were almost halfway there! No, it isn't a great piece of statistics for the record books, but we were thrilled about having cracked a few decent questions, despite not being regular quizzers.

On Friday, we attended the prelims of the ConcernIndia quiz- again, not a great outing, considering we got 13 of 30 questions right- but it was an exciting experience. just There are few things in life that come close to the satisfaction of an answer well worked out.

Airborne, here's to more quizzing- and maybe a final round appearance or two!

Illusions

2010-08-25T20:24:00.003+05:30

The bus trundles into the city just as the sun begins to struggle its way through the clouds and I feel the difference. Bangalore's unbroken skyline of glass and concrete, the result of an almost rabid, ruthless growth whose only aim seems to be to blank out every trace of tradition and history, gives way over a journey of ten hours to a timeless city that is in no hurry to grow out of its skin. I'm in Hyderabad.

The muezzin's calls to prayer rise over the roar of traffic and impatient honking; spanking new specimens of modern architecture take turns with graceful domes and minarets in their quest for the sky, their motives carefully demarcated. Smiling families look down from hoardings at the lonely old bearded man sitting in front of the meat shop, his dhoti tucked up between his legs, looking out at the road despondently as he awaits business. Boys perch precariously on their bicycles as they manoeuvre through dried slush and narrow gulleys, the result of the heavy rains of the past week.

The arrival of the month of Ramadan is evident. For a change, the self-proclaimed merits of Hyderabadi biryani are relegated to second place as Haleem signboards pop up indiscriminately, on the walls and in the hands of young men outside the restaurants and dubious food stalls. Rows of lights adorn shop-fronts, men in white caps and knee-length kurtas mill around the mosques freshly re-painted green and white. Ordinarily placid streets are packed with pedestrians trying not to get run over by cars with bumpers kissing and two-wheelers fitting into abnormally tiny gaps, the bustle of Ramadan mingling with frenetic last-minute shopping for Raksha Bandhan.

I ride through the familiar lanes with old friends, and unwelcome doubts assail me. Do I miss Hyderabad? Why do these roads that once seemed jaded and devoid of charms suddenly seem spellbinding? I know. It's that old trick that the mind and the heart conspire to come up with, that disillusionment that hits you like a hurricane and throws all semblance of sense out of gear. It is absurd to compare the known streets of Hyderabad to Moroccan souks, but that is where fantasy decides it wants to go, and I shall let it wander thither. Of what use is an imagination if you don't let it run wild, especially when all else is so rigidly held back by unreasonable restrictions and rules?

And then, as the bus wends its way through the tree-lined streets of Bangalore on my 'homeward' journey, I realise that what I felt in Hyderabad was, indeed, a momentary restlessness- I don't despise the city any longer, but what I'd felt for it over the weekend was just a nostalgia-tinged infatuation. I might want to live there again, but not right now. Neither city has been able to give me what I seek- but because I'm still discovering Bangalore and have a little faith in the nooks and crannies I don't know of yet, I hope to come one step closer to that elusive thing without shape or form that lingers within my grasp, and yet refuses to let me close my fingers upon it.

Stubborn- that's what life is.

Rated?

2010-08-12T19:56:00.002+05:30

One opinion, strongly expressed, has caused quite a storm in a large number of literary minds on the veracity of the accolades bestowed upon some distinguished writers. I’d like to see Indian writing caught in the throes of one such vigorous debate some day, with readers bewildered by the sheer quality and variety of work at their disposal.

Anis Shivani, without mincing any words, has launched an onslaught on modern American writing. Here in India, or even in the UK, as is evident from the comments here, the writers in this list may not have been much heard of. I admit to having read only Jhumpa Lahiri from amongst the authors Shivani lashes out at; and I've heard of Amy Tan, but that doesn't really count, does it?

A large amount of causticism has been poured into this article, and it isn't hard to agree with the fact that the proliferation of platforms for brazen publicity has led to a good deal of mediocrity being stood up on a pedestal and worshipped with unrestrained devotion. Does that inevitably lead, however, to a lack or loss of willpower to revolt against whatever is shoved down our throats as acceptable and deserving? A critic's opinion isn't the last word- surely we know how to think for ourselves and make our own decisions on the merit of a book, without succumbing to a more learned/degree-endowed person than us. Criticism shapes opinions, yes, but what is the yardstick that applies to a good critic? Look among the comments in the Guardian link referred to above, and you will find unsparing disparagement heaped on Dan Brown (some readers even use the looking-down-their-royal-noses tactic of having forgotten the name of the author of The da Vinci Code). Stieg Larsson, going by the thread, is headed for the same brand of literary infamy a few years down the line. Which brings to mind Chetan Bhagat, in our context.

Indian writing, and indeed, any English writing outside of the USA and the UK, is hardly referred to in these columns. Readers have been asked for recommendations on underrated writing here- sifting through the comments, I picked up only two Indian names- Vikram Chandra and Arundhati Roy. A grudging mention was made of Aravind Adiga as a writer who failed to justify the hype. Vikram Seth was dismissed as dull. (Digressing, a few European authors whose works have been translated into English have been suggested, which makes the comments quite a treasure trove of probable good reads.)

Indian writing in English aspires high, but seems to flounder by the way and lose sight of its destination. You don't necessarily have to write an immigrant story to be recognised by the rest of the world, just as you don't need a Nobel or a Pulitzer or a Booker to place a final seal of approval on a piece of literary work and parade it as being something worthy of global attention. Most Indian writers who have a fairly wide reach abroad seem to tell stories of cross-cultural acclimatisation or indulge in a bit of India-bashing, dredging up sensitive subjects that fetch much international mileage and make the world turn superficially horror-stricken eyes on a country that forever escapes its comprehension, whose tenuous balancing of modernity and tradition obfuscates it. Occasionally, something as incisive as Animal’s People is written- but this is a story where the big players will have to share some blame and turn contrite- not comfortable enough for the collective conscience of two continents.

It may not be a conscious attempt at derision, but it is quite difficult to fathom why not enough writing out of India finds a global audience. Why does nobody discuss Tagore in the same breath as Dickens? It isn’t always necessary to write about people and places that are largely identifiable- science fiction isn’t based on credibility, Graham Greene probably had never been inside a temple or within the narrow streets of a colonised village to enable him to find delight in Malgudi. Tagore was humane and sympathetic, and quite often tragic- adjectives that are often attributed to Dickens as well. Why, then, don’t they enjoy an equal amount of popularity among lay readers abroad?

If the present state of writing in India has anything to do with distorting the image of English works produced here in general, there couldn’t be a bigger disappointment. Most Indian writers who find mention among global readers have had some degree of international exposure. What we need, perhaps, are down-to-earth sensibilities. This is where Chetan Bhagat, as I grudgingly admit, scores- his books are extremely affordable, and a bit of smart marketing has helped him strike a chord with a large Indian audience. Either substance or adroit marketing isn’t an option- it never was. Thanks to the amount of hype that can be whipped up in no time, and the minuscule attention spans that we seem to have ended up with, not all honest, genuine writing seems to find its right place.

Don’t get me wrong- I don’t mean to say that finding honourable mention in a British or American newspaper is the only measure of quality. What is most important to a writer is to write for himself- and then, if he is being published, to connect with a wide audience. It is, after all, interesting to see what it takes to transcend barriers and find acquiescence among distant voices. Critics and high-brow readers set their own rules. We don’t have to abide by them, nor do we always have to play to the publishing gallery. We do need to remember, though, that we’re more than shmaltz and garish weddings, poverty and social taboos. We have good stories to tell, and we can tell them extremely well.

One Day of Life

2010-08-10T20:08:00.002+05:30

I wake up to confusion. I cannot remember if I’m being jolted out of a dream, but I don’t know where I am, how old I am, or where I’m supposed to go. I vaguely recollect the striped white curtain and hear motley familiar sounds- the clank of utensils, the dull roar of the elevator, the cooing of pigeons. Soon enough, though, visions and voices unentangle- I’m in my room, where I ought to be, in this home of four-and-a-half months. I’m supposed to go to work, not to college. I don’t have licence to turn over amidst the blankets for one more nap. I hoist myself off the bed. I don’t know if this addled beginning to the day should make a difference, but my sensibilities feel sharper and keener than usual, seemingly hammered back into shape after weeks of nonchalance.

There is nothing unusual or remarkable about work today. The hours slip by with clockwork-like precision as I settle down for the grind in my cubicle, wishing for less noisy colleagues- or perhaps a room of my own- and walk to meet friends for breakfast, lunch and coffee. I drop a word of encouragement here and a compliment there, all entirely on general matters. Out on the roads, I espy a group of corpulent men in dark suits being driven around in electric cars, their pink faces puffy under the Indian sun. Almost all of them are rotund, the mark of a comfortable middle-age stamped on their brows. They are men who enjoy hospitality, write reports, and convey ideas to those who make caustic comments back home that’ll please their people and put them on the path to majority in the next election.

On the bus home, I read Paula- a memoir by Isabel Allende- written to and for her daughter lying in a coma induced by porphyria and an apparent overdose of sedatives. It is shattering to see the amount of pain a person can be put through, and the faith and courage demanded of the family caring for her. Is life indeed as challenging as this? In a way, I will be glad to get home and reach out for Nietzsche. I mean to read a chapter a day, because I find in the words of Zarathustra answers to a few of the questions I’ve been grappling with.

Home. As I change out of office finery into clothes that will bear crumpling as I curl up on the couch, I hear a furious rattle of tricycle wheels on concrete- the last laps of the day are in progress and the race is being closely fought; the culmination of a hard day’s play in pitched battles for supremacy, when mothers and grandmothers begin calling, eyes looking askance at the deepening twilight. The sky shows off its spectacular colours. Unknown hues of mauve and blue tinge the softly piled mountains of clouds, a chignon on the naked pink nape of sunset-kissed smoothness. The pigeons, having let off the last of their eerie, blood-curdling shrieks, have gone to roost on the window ledges like rows of inanimate effigies, a slight flutter of the wing or an inadvertent adjustment to find a more comfortable perch being the only sign of life.

I dump a large heap of clothes into the washing machine and turn it on.

Dusk will be here soon in its entirety, swallowing up the blasé screams of over-indulged children and tired parents’ futile efforts at resistance. My roommates and I will sit down to dinner in a while, I’ll hang my clothes out to dry, do some ironing for tomorrow and then go to bed to read more about the horrors of porphyria and a loving family’s patient struggle with it.

Life isn’t an interminable wait for weekends and the final rest. Dissected, minute by minute, there is a great deal to it- something that it takes a searing, momentary loss of all cognisance of reality, to recognise.

Good Things

2010-08-03T20:13:00.004+05:30

I soar and glide to the bus, the softly-falling rain aiding and abetting my flights of fantasy. Walking is for mere mortals. I step into shallow puddles and the water swirls underfoot- it doesn't bother me. I glide. There are days (and evenings) when all seems right with the world- even with a dreary, gloomy sky reminiscent of the macabre darkness when the Nazguls flew down to attempt a defeat the good and the brave. Call me eccentric, but the blue night feels like adrenaline, a spurt of mysterious energy shot into enervated veins. Your face is a beacon in the night, easily spotted for all its plainness, an ethereal glow suffusing the spirit but also manifested corporeally.

A well-stocked refrigerator, along with a periscope-glimpse of a rainbow and a recently replenished bookshelf, helps matters.

There is no state or level of despondency that a succulent piece of chocolate cake, laced in unknown pockets with the richest dark chocolate icing, cannot cure. It surprises you with the absolutely numerous ways in which it can be delectable- and you don't tire of it, not of one reasonably-sized piece, crumbly and cool, generously sprinkled with nuts (and hazelnut in particular). You eye it with unabashed greed as it sits on a dish beside you, diminishing gradually as the spoon digs into it with unstudied eagerness, satiating and filling, the divinity of the epicure.

And now, as a chocolate-smeared dish is all that remains of the feast, I can sink into my couch and read into the night. A spot of unexpected shopping on Saturday has set my bookshelf creaking. Added to the pile now, after I stumbled upon the half-concealed book fair without a name and only a cloth banner to distinguish it from a warehouse, are JG Farrell, Isabelle Allende, Annie Proulx and Nicholas Mosley- a motley selection of recent writing (compared to the long-gone people I normally take refuge in). The 'book fair' was in a large room lined with tables and shelves. Erotica, thrillers and candyfloss romances with risque covers took up quite a bit of space- and after I'd patiently waded through the not-so-appetising fare, my patience was rewarded. I delved into the rows with delight- I played the pick-up-and-drop-in-favour-of-something-more-appealing game, upped the number of books I could purchase without contrition and left with a glance of fond regret at the ones I'd put away. It's about as painful as looking into the eyes of a wounded animal.

Tonight, though, it will be Life of Pi- and off I sail on the choppy ocean, rain drenching me body and soul, a tiger for company.

(Digression: Wikipedia tells me Nicholas Mosley is the half-brother of Max Mosley, once President of the FIA. What a small world!)

Published!

2010-08-01T20:44:00.002+05:30

Here's an impetus for me to continue building my castles in the air- sometimes, they turn into reality.

One of my old stories sees the light of day at a place that isn't my blog- http://asiawrites.blogspot.com/, published on Aug 1.

A Nondescript Bookshelf

2010-07-31T12:59:00.004+05:30

A few months of extreme bibliomania have filled my narrow bookshelves to overflowing.

Technically, I don't even have a bookshelf. When you're sharing a flat with other people, you tend to forego certain privileges. I make up for the lack of space by crumpling up my clothes anyhow and jamming them into tight wads in the cupboard so that I can devote some space to my books. That the clothes are barely fit to be worn when taken out later and need quite a bit of patient ironing is a different story- rather that than silverfish fattening themselves on the precious pages of my books.

Another shelf where my books are piled up in chaotic fashion is prone to dust- this is where the not-so-new books go. On blue nights, though, this is what I like best- going into that tiny room which is occupied by two large study tables, an ironing table and a stand to dry clothes on. I shut the door and feast my eyes on the variously coloured and textured spines, swell with the pompous pride of possession. My fingers hover on one book, and then another- seductively ranged out that they are, where Dracula draws my attention one moment, I'm suddenly lured by Madame Bovary the next. I have the comfort of knowing that if this shelf doesn't satisfy my needs, there is another waiting in the wings. Books to dig into and lose myself in, one for every shade of the day- because when did I ever go through twenty-four hours without having a dark cloud loom ominously over my mood and then seeing a bright streak of glorious moonlight break through it?

My bookshelves are my vanity, as I unabashedly admit. But because the primary purpose of my books is to be read, I don't feel half so bad about my spending sprees as I might have if I were shopping for a bottle-green spine to go with the cream walls- or whatever it is that a colour coordinated person might choose. Books are not ornaments. I like having my bookshelf piled high and wide because it delights my soul. Nietzsche and Wodehouse might be unlikely bedfellows, far apart in nationality, genre and epoch, but put beside each other here, they feed and delight my soul.

I do enjoy peeking at other people's books on the bus or on the street, staring at the volume tucked under somebody's arm and observing the person so keenly I might be mistaken for a stalker. I like to know what other people are reading and be introduced to writers whose existence I've lived in blissful ignorance of. I cannot imagine a world where there isn't a book waiting to discovered and devoured or a new person wanting to connect with you through pages of print made strangely personal.

Fragility

2010-07-30T22:12:00.000+05:30

"Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!" - 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', Friedrich Nietzsche

I long for the sea.

As the rain builds up halfheartedly from the wayward drizzle that it was a few minutes ago, and the bone-chilling wind rattles the window panes, I want to feel the sand being pulled from underneath my feet. It is yet another form of dispossession- a reminder of the transience of life, the memento mori that keeps you from falling on the wrong side of the wall. In my head, I see the dark, velvety sky generously speckled with stars and unfurling into the distance, kissing the crests of the waves. Silky skeins of moonlight dapple the black waves, silhouetting the anchored ships like phantom vessels returned from an age long forgotten.

The sea has a soul. It fills the universe with its incessant murmur, swishes around my feet and caresses them, transports me into giddy heights of satiation; the discordant voices in the background and the chaos of traffic could be from a parallel universe, for all I know and care. A salt spray tinged with the odour of fish wafts into my nostrils, the stars beam their beatific light upon my upturned face.

Have you known the dance of delight and fury of the sea, the tepidity of waters that unexpectedly send a shiver down your spine? The foamy breakers come to rest around jagged, mossy rocks, seeking a moment of peace and rest before they are caught up in the sea's wild orgy again. The sea is life.

And I stand on the shore, city lights forgotten, primitive and one with a past that lies dormant in my breast, tearing frantically at invisible curtains and cords. I want to match my voice to the sea's alternately eerie and soothing roar, let it ring uninhibited through the wide open spaces. Isn't this where we came from? Weren't we better off foraging for food than we are now, complicating our lives as we overload our platters?

The sea speaks to me-

You are the vine growing against the weathered wall and humbled by its plainness. You are the parasite and the host it feeds upon. You are the personification of vanity and desire, a facile object of mirth in Nature's hands. Above everything, though, you're an island.

Once here, you make the best of the devices at your disposal. I can shut the raucous crowd out with my thoughts, keep the necromancer at bay with my own powers. I can conspire with Nature, but I must be wary of her because at the slightest sign of presumption, she can do a volte-face and disown me with ruthless abandon. Complain peevishly about the futility of life, an ambulance will tear by at breakneck speed, lights flashing and siren wailing urgently. On a day of the brightest rainbow fancies, the pillow will be steeped in tears by nightfall.

Foolish, fickle and fragile though you are, you're here for a purpose. Connect, and you'll know.

2010-07-28T21:30:00.001+05:30

Please learn to let go.

If I make a mess of my life, let it be my mistake. Let me learn from the bruises that I choose to inflict upon myself, not the ones that you unwittingly scar me with. A cushioned, blinkered life never got anyone very far; if you think that is the antidote to all evils, you're wrong- remember Siddhartha?

There comes a point when we all choose to make our own decisions and abide by them to the very end- right or wrong. I'm at the crossroads, and this time I'll have my say.

Unravelled

2010-07-20T20:24:00.005+05:30

So one day I decided
That I'd pluck you out of thin air
Here's the thing they'll envy, I declare
I'll deck you in finery

You shall come to me bedecked
Simpering, ready to parade
Twirl on my arm and promenade
Drink, my pretty, of glory.

Momentary, it shall be
See it if you please, and you'll know
You, my trusting fool, take the blow
After basking in moonshine.

No, it won't be long before
You learn your lesson the hard way
Weep for that sordid, lonely day
When I stripped and lay you bare

Cavorting to my music
Dancing in the rain, for them to
Feast their many lustful eyes on you
Till it grew too hard to bear.

You'll accuse me of misleading
A heart that has known not sorrow,
Fear, pain, a bleak tomorrow-
Don't- for I am not to blame.

You chose to be tempted away
To trust me, whom you hardly knew
Into my deception you flew
For lack of better judgement.

Now, rest the lament and rise
And though things can fall back in place
Do remember my cunning ways
For I am whom you call Life.

Being Jo

2010-07-19T19:28:00.002+05:30

Little Women might have been criticised by quite a few people as sappy and sentimental, but to me, it still remains a comfort book. I first read the abridged version when I was seven; the shock of my English teacher when I was in middle school at none of us in class having read the full book spurred me into embarrassed action. It then rapidly turned into one of my favourite books, and to this day holds its place in the list.

You don't have to be a wild, heedless girl of sixteen to identify with Jo; the very idea of harmless romps with the boy next door, the constant scribbling, the tempestuous outbursts of a fiery hot temper and the immediate need to make up are still very much me. Jo built fantastic castles in the air- so do all of us. The March family is human- and as I spent the better part of this afternoon skimming through Little Women and Good Wives, I felt my more unrealistic notions ebb away and sense close in on me.

The sense attack notwithstanding, I cannot for the life of me imagine myself in one of the roles the March sisters played- unselfish and angelic like Beth, or fretting over a baby on each arm like Meg, for instance. My imagination will need to be churned and wrung around a good deal to make it capable of conjuring up images of wifely behaviour and patient, devoted motherhood. Jealousy, for now, is my biggest weakness, and I don't see how I'm going to overcome it soon to be a model of good behaviour. I cannot, in a whole lifetime, see myself doing anything to be famous for after I'm long dead and gone. Mirages of the future don't show me responsible, dignified adults- I see my friends and me just the way we are, carefree and enjoying the guilty pleasures of minor rebelliousness.

I got myself a green-and-white copy of Little Women a few years ago at a sale- it is the book I'd bury my head in on a long, lonely night of despair, when life seems to lie ahead in endlessly bleak years. I must have shed numerous girlish tears for Jo, lamented her marriage to old Prof. Bhaer, triumphed everytime she got published, blushed whenever she wrote sensational nonsense that would sell. It is the book to up my spirits whenever the doubts start to creep in, when further anonymity seems like the only antidote to an already nondescript existence. It is like the stranger's smile that warms your soul- no compliments, just a flash of kindliness. Like the rainbow that rewards you with its pale splendour after you've trudged through pouring rain and are drenched and cold.

I know I'm slipping deeper into idealism, but for now, just let me be.

Hair-Raising Tales

2010-07-14T20:28:00.006+05:30

Think of birds being led to their death, crammed into coops or hung upside down on bicycle handlebars, wings flapping incessantly, feathers drifting off to lie on the dust and be crushed under an assortment of wheels.

Leaving out the exaggeration, walking to the beauty parlour, for me, is an act that requires a great deal of courage. Most of my few trips to these unearthly places have been as a source of moral support (?) or in the role of a nonchalant yes-woman to friends. In my short career as a beauty-confidante (for lack of another term), I have offended girls by not knowing that they'd gone and got their hair cut even after they carefully unravelled it and pointed the new shape out to me. Finally suspicious of my judgement when I was stupid enough not to tell a straight eyebrow from a curved one, they decided to leave me alone to loiter through dusty lanes and malls while they pampered themselves in claustrophobic rooms that smelled of sulphur and shampoo, and where the air-conditioner was almost always turned off.

Beauty parlours lack variety and scope for imagination. The shelves are invariably lined with containers of various shapes and sizes and nailpolish bottles in bizarre colours. The tables are littered with fashion/women's magazines, pouting women with outlandish hair-dos and half-closed eyes revealing coloured contact lenses looking lazily out of the glossy pages. They wear clothes that you wonder how they managed to get themselves into- were they sewn into them?

An overdressed, highly made-up woman sits at the reception, points at a brochure and asks you to choose the style you want- even if you were convinced ten minutes ago that you never could be a Gisele Bundchen, some smooth talking would turn you around with the alacrity of a suave politician. You go in to get your hair trimmed, your pimples and blackheads will be scrutinised, your feet will be commented upon, and your self-esteem will be torn into nice little shreds. Dignity, mercifully, can be bought, and you will lay your wallet down on the counter- take all you want, and give me my pride in return. How can I go about with a face pitted and cratered like the moon, the curse of puberty? Guiding angel, I've been walking around for years without knowing how ugly I looked- but for you, I'd have lived in horrifying ignorance.

So, this afternoon, when I left my hair at the mercy of the lady at the beauty parlour, my heart was in my mouth.

"What shape do you want me to cut it in?"

"What will keep the length intact and still make my hair look good?"- because, at that point, my hair rather resembled an unkempt jungle.

"I'll give you a U-cut." And that was that- a quick decision. It wasn't going to be such a big ordeal, after all; certainly not as bad as going to the dentist. I wouldn't have any fringes and layers in my hair- it would still be fit to tie back in a ponytail. If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is hair flitting around in my eyes. For what joy do people have strands cut so short that they keep falling across the forehead and into the eye at inconvenient moments, only to keep pushing them back with a manicured forefinger? Oh. That must be it.

I eased myself into the large chair trusting her implicitly, my hands clasped under the big black apron, my hair never having looked as glossy, luxuriant, and make-Rapunzel-jealous-worthy as it did at that very moment, cascading down in thick waves ( a hyperactive imagination might have helped- even so). I barely stopped myself from jumping out of the chair and tearing off the apron- I thought of Jo March who had sold her hair to the wigmakers' so that her mother could have money for her father wounded in war. I didn't have any such noble intentions in mind, of course, as vanity stepped into the fray at the right moment. I began to enumerate the advantages of easy-to-manage, slightly shorter hair, even as the scissors began to snip in quiet, sinister swishes, hair dropping softly to the ground (which I imagined I heard). I dreaded having to get up and look at my only vanity strewn on the floor- I could have howled at the sight of it when I finally got off the chair. What kept the floodgates in control was my friend's encouraging smile; I had dragged her down to negotiate with the ladies at the beauty parlour who might, in a fit of perversity, have wanted to brutally chop my hair off and reduce it to a scarecrow's mop.

I still don't know clearly why I wanted my hair cut- it now looks frighteningly cared-for and orderly, has lost the unkempt attractiveness of wild growth (even if I'm the only person who thinks so), and doesn't touch the floor when I lie down on the couch. Considering that it grows reasonably fast and that wild horses will not drag me into a beauty parlour for another year at the least, I am reconciling myself to it.

2010-07-08T22:06:00.004+05:30

A little green plastic card shouldn't feel like an inseparable part of life. Why should things seem to hinge upon it when, in fact, nothing does? But turning it in for good seems like an act of finality; tacking that final nail on a box of surreal, extraordinarily good times and adventures that were once dreamt of, to shove it into the attic of a cherished house that I'm moving out of, but will have to keep visiting against my will.

Memories are a curse. I cannot imagine I've spent so many years building them up- and still continue to, piece by piece, knowing there'll be more pain than reassurance whenever I decide to fall back on them. That's the way of the head and the heart, though- they only pretend to be sensible. Pragmatism flees when challenged by emotion. Things, memories- we cannot help but cling to them.

And yet, memento mori.

Everybody's Main Street

2010-07-03T17:16:00.002+05:30

Sometimes, the words can’t wait to fly out of your soul. The soul, yes, that is where they reside- the brain and the heart are too commonplace for something as profound and mysterious.

I must write about this book, though I haven't reached the end yet. I am into the last fifty pages of Main Street, at last on my way to finishing a book that has gathered dust and biscuit-crumbs and slowly started to go dog-eared over the months, despite all my attempts at saving it from ruin. My efforts consisted of everything but actually trying to read it.

And now, as the clouds suddenly open up for five minutes after a morning of indecision, I am glad I decided to finish the book. I started it last December- and at a reasonable length of four hundred pages written in simple, uncontrived language, it wasn’t particularly challenging in terms of length or style. However, there was a sort of claustrophobia about it- a tiresomeness, the identification of Carol’s character with the life that a number of us are trapped in, the ambitions we set out with and are discouraged in pursuit of by baulking influences that don’t even deserve a place in our stories.

When a city-bred girl comes down to a village and tries to metamorphose it with her grand ideas and bring it up to speed with the cities, of course she isn’t looked upon with indulgence. Carol falls in love with and marries a doctor from Gopher Prairie, filled with maidenly hopes and ardour, but as the days wear on, she realises the chasm that lies between his dreams and hers. She is attracted to other men, questions her faithfulness, and almost always finds under their various facades an unappetising monotony, the acceptance of circumstances as they are, the reluctance to step away from all that is comfortable and familiar. She hopes of replacing the grime and the grey sullenness of the town with spanking grandeur- but it never was easy to awaken a sleeping giant.

Carol shuns the interferingly kind matronly crowd and the malicious gossipers- a perpetual layer of dust and antiquity seems to lie over the streets of Gopher Prairie, which makes it only natural that the slightest degree of polish, rebelliousness and sophistication in a newcomer warms her heart towards him/her. The drama clubs and the book societies are deftly taken from her hands and mauled to suit the tastes of the villagers- no breath of modernity or broadmindedness is allowed to reach them. A woman who reads a lot and dares to find love outside her marriage is to be regarded with scorn; it doesn’t matter, though, if a group of married men chooses to pitch camp outside the house of a single young woman at night- she can conveniently be accused of being a flirt and corrupting their minds. A drunken young man cannot misbehave with a woman he has escorted to a dance- it is she who has got drunk and seduced him.

The women are jealous, the men indifferent- an air of languor lies thick about the village, and it isn’t just one example of stubborn inertia. It is supposed to be reflective of the American society in the early decades of the twentieth century, a study of the weaknesses that pervaded the small towns of the country- and the fate that befell the few people who stepped out courageously, brimming with hope, to change the situation.

Sinclair Lewis eventually went on to win the Nobel Prize and this is the work supposed to have gained him recognition- and it isn’t difficult to see why, considering how many of us struggle against the trappings of our own lives- not always with the endings we choose.

Homeward Bound

2010-06-29T20:18:00.000+05:30

The sun is far from setting yet and flecks the uncannily blue sky, sending streams of gold shooting through the clouds and reflecting off some of the hideous monstrosities that are the glass-and-concrete buildings on the campus- a far cry from the delicate grey-and-red of the older, more sedate structures sheltered by thick foliage.

Down the winding cobbled pathways with gaps that have seen the demise of many an expensive pair of heels goes the tired multitude. The hair tumbles out of the chignons, plaits and ponytails, the kohl is smeared all around the eyes and the shining look-at-me self-consciousness of the morning is replaced by tired nonchalance.

The crowds wind towards the bus and the parking lot. A few haggard souls make their way back from coffee, fortified for another session at the grindstone. How it must hurt to go back to work when the rest of the office is emptying out! A thin man with a gaunt face and worried eyes walks in, bearing the air of someone with his moustache freshly taken off and painfully conscious of its loss, a sacrifice at the altar of unreasonable women who ruthlessly demand clean-shaven faces in their conversations with girlfriends.

On the bus, claustrophobia sets in. Skin against skin, the odour of stale sweat, food-laden breath, the unadulterated smiles of recognition that break out with all the more freedom at the end of the day. The struggle with the window panes that stick fast to their niches, the blinding dazzle with which the sun chooses to go down, lighting up the spectacular violet and white clouds. The rattle of the metal body of the bus, of bones and teeth, the absurdly long halts at the traffic lights.

All superseded by the promise of a couch and a good book to read.

The Fifth Season

2010-06-25T23:02:00.001+05:30

Cross-posted from The Weed Joint:

This must be a rewarding month for bookmakers.

June has always been an exhausting yet deeply blissful month for sport-lovers. Weekends are looked forward to with fervent ardour, adrenaline flows as abundantly as beer and battles for TV viewership are temporarily suspended (how can a sports fanatic not get his/her way?). I remember when Sundays in particular used to be punishingly hectic due to uncooperative cable operators, numerous phone calls and personal visits being made to them to take DD Sports (which, invariably, would be telecasting archives of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics) off air to put Star Sports on for the F1 race. The amount of sporting action was obfuscating- I remember one particular Sunday when motor sports clashed with hockey clashed with cricket clashed with tennis…Super Sunday the news channels called it, and rightly so.

On such tantalising days, spoilt for choice, you grip the remote tightly, caring naught for the beads of sweat on your palm and for bodily needs. If you get up for a snack or to answer a telephone call, you just might miss that historic moment that you would want to talk to your colleagues and later, your grandchildren, about. To rub it in when an equally passionate sports lover has missed it. Think, for instance, of all the people who were at the court to catch a glimpse of the incredible marathon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut- what a wonderful fireplace story. And this June, things are as busy as ever- Star Cricket is forced to telecast Wimbledon matches, so you get the picture.

The FIFA World Cup, as it does every four years, has won itself new supporters. Hitherto unknown names roll off alien tongues with astonishing adroitness, out-of-work presenters turn into expert columnists on the ‘hot’ quotient and partying habits of the players, drawing rooms that earlier erupted with the melodramatic shrieks of chiffon-saree-backless-blouse-clad soap opera actresses now warm to the infinitely preferable monotonous drone of the vuvuzela.

The ’consequences’ of the World Cup, of course, haven’t been entirely favourable as seen by a certain section of people. The French President reportedly chose to abandon meetings with certain non-profit groups in favour of an emergency discussion to tackle the most predominant ‘social’ issue- the lacklustre performance of the Les Bleus at the tournament- and didn‘t win himself too many supporters through this move. He sought a meeting with Thierry Henry as soon as he returned home- a good indication of how sports can often be as large as life and political egos.

It isn’t just at the higher levels, though. Us small fry are equally enraptured by the idea of sport. Picture an office area with a solitary speaker-phone, where a voice from the client’s end drones on in injured ignorance about trivial matters, when more pressing affairs beckon- four laptops sit adjacent to one another, streaming feeds from the two World Cup matches that are taking place simultaneously, Wimbledon, and the finals of the Asia Cup- of course people choose to crowd around them, punching arms and thumping fists, rather than indulge the unreasonable fancies of a person continents away. Justifiable. Isn’t this your perfect idea of an ideal workday? Gone are the days when you had to call home and find out from a disinterested mother or wife, who didn’t even know where the sports channels were, the latest score updates. Technology is in.

Interestingly, even in a cricket-parochial country like ours, the euphoria of the football World Cup has drowned out- albeit temporarily, as I‘m guessing- the cricket madness. The Asia Cup was only followed on the sidelines, when people had time to spare after having exhausted their overnight-earned football knowledge in heated discussions. Wimbledon seems to be faring slightly better, thanks to the publicity the Isner-Mahut match that lasted longer than eleven hours has generated. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the perennial favourites, have also toiled to victory in five-setters, in a sense narrowing down the gap between themselves and the also-rans. Adding an element of interest was the departure of the French Open finalists in the first round of the ladies’ singles.

Also squeezed in last weekend was the US Open golf tournament, won by Graeme Dowell of Northern Ireland, making him the first European to win the tournament in forty years. Just another piece of worthless statistics if you’re a sports cynic, and a bit of news to gasp over if you’re one of the more sensible people inhabiting this planet. Golf isn’t just Tiger Woods- not anymore.

And in case you have some time to spare this weekend (discounting the mouth-watering England-Germany match-up), set it apart for the European Grand Prix taking place at Valencia, particularly if you’ve been watching with closely scrunched eyebrows the diminishing disparity between McLaren and Red Bull.

If you’re trying to escape the sporting madness of the season, sorry, you’re in the wrong year. If Shakira’s gyrating moves and the goal-scoring celebrations of the Wavin’ Flag song turn you off, please find yourself a new hobby.

If you are a bookmaker, go have a field day. For the rest of us, beer, popcorn and a good couch are always an option- I beg your pardon, THE option.

Alert: Yet Another Rain Post

2010-06-22T20:28:00.002+05:30

The writing is on the window-panes.

It is transient, and the heart roughly inscribed on the vapour created by the sudden, heavy showers of rain will soon be borne away by the wind- very like the sea sweeping into the bay with a flourish and dragging sand-castles and toe-inscribed protestations of eternal love away in one large wave. It's inevitable- and therefore, or despite, the impermanence of it all, strangely fascinating.

I made a quick stop at the supermarket (with partner-in-crime Airborne) for a much-needed replenishment of sunscreen lotion and potato chips. Yes, summer is back (or so I was given to thinking till a little while ago). A quick rummage at Strand yielded a copy of Vanity Fair, a book I've long had my eye on. I detest 'Now a major motion picture' covers, but it was a decent bargain and so I put my intolerance temporarily away to accommodate a sly-looking Reese Witherspoon (?) on my bookshelf. Said bag of potato chips more or less equally shared and steaming tasteless coffee dispensed with, all I looked forward to was getting home to my cosy couch, cushion behind my back, book in hand, the aural assault of the vuvuzelas (call me weird, but I don't really mind the din- it is reassuring in a way) and possibly another upset in the tournament.

And of course all hell broke loose. The rain made up its mind to wreck my best pair of footwear and seep into the pages of the books I was carefully guarding in my bag. Airborne led the scrum for umbrellas and we managed to get away in decent time as the campus turned into an impromptu Bollywood rain-scene depiction.

Walking in the rain can be a tricky proposition. You don't try to avoid puddles- the most incorrigible dreamer cannot think of it on Indian roads- you only step nimbly and dance your way into and out of the most shallow and least debris-filled ones, clutch at the nearest elbow in sight and poke people's eyes out with your umbrella. You slosh through ankle-deep water (and this is in well-paved areas) and turn a blind eye to leeches, frogs and floating sticks and turds. This planet is big enough to hold us all. The slush spatters the clothes worn with bachelor-ly pride in the morning, putting paid to any lingering, unhygienic ideas of re-use. It sticks to freshly-cleaned shoes and vehicles. You learn balancing acts worthy of Anna Pavlova.

Have I turned into a rain-sceptic? Of course not! The rains have barely arrived, and it's time to chuck the sunscreen lotion back into my bag and think of graffiti to inscribe on the window-panes. Make me a rain-curtain, and you shall have half my kingdom. When I have one, that is.

2010-06-17T21:39:00.004+05:30

I love watching the curving sweep of the expressway as the bus glides onto it every evening, taking me away from the cacophony of speaker-phones in cubicles, stingy windows covered with Venetian blinds and managers adept at making life miserable for you with aplomb. The sun blazes out brazenly glorious, lighting up the clouds which let it through in fine rays, bathing the city underneath in a sheer web of fine gold. It glances off polished surfaces, blinding your eyes when you least expect it.

There is something exalting about this sight- it atones for all the trouble you have been put through, wiping away the discordant voices and the disgruntlement, making things worth enduring, if only for a ten-minute ride with the clouds and the vast, limitless sky for company. Blue, white and gold. And the delicious thought of stacks of books waiting for you at home. Knowing that, once you unlock the door and let yourself in, you can open the window, slide the wire-mesh away and let the evening breeze in, bearing the delighted cries of playing children. Turn on the television and fill the room with the drone of the vuvuzela. I'm not complaining- their drone isn't more irritating than the noise of certain Indian commentators, and if they choose to celebrate that way, so be it.

The Boy by the Road

2010-06-14T21:28:00.003+05:30

Grey clouds loom low on the horizon, setting off the dark green of the vast, seemingly endless acres of land ahead. There are trees as far as the eye can see, a solitary bird or two rising from the undisturbed wilderness of the forest, mapping large circles amidst the clouds, keen eyes in search of prey. A concrete dome rises in the distance, a patch of barren brown land draws an incongruous line through the undulating sea of green.

The sun touches the angry clouds gently, giving them a tinge of silvery-gold, softening their edges. It will not compete for supremacy today, but share its splendour with them. The rain keeps itself at bay; it is a Sunday morning, and groups of people are walking to and from the church nearby.

A lone boy walking by the side of the road breaks into a jig. Wearing an oversized shirt and shorts that barely peer from underneath it, he wiggles his elbows, shrugs his shoulders, hops down the road in a rhythm all his own- he stops suddenly as he feels footsteps approach him, chastened to sobriety by the disconcerting shadow of an adult. His dance of joy, his pride in the day will only be mistaken for stupidity and ignorance of the higher levels of acquaintance that adulthood assumes it has with life. Deception! He stands and looks up into the sky, at the balconies of wildly expensive buildings, then waves at a passing bus.

He walks a little further and slows down. He lingers by the road as a woman in a pink saree and a bottle-green cardigan walks slowly down, having just taken her son into her arms from another little boy who walks by her. She appears due to have another child in a few months- the small group trudges on wearily, save for one boy whom life has made its own child- perhaps to a drunken or ailing father, or fatherlessness.

I have been reading a rather disturbing portion of Maximum City, and this sight doesn’t affect me more than what is already running through my head. I am thankful there is only one woman in that group- all that I have recently read gives me ghastly ideas of the fate that awaits girls who have no one to care for them. I press my palm against the surface of the glass table as I read further; I watch my fingers leave convoluted images on the glass that disappear gradually, their uniqueness dissolving into the thick, polluted air.

Forca, Football

2010-06-11T00:07:00.003+05:30

Cross-posted from The Weed Joint

Scoring a jaw-dropping two points out of twenty in the preliminary round of a football quiz made me aware, for the umpteenth time, of my painful lack of knowledge of the game. I might have heard the lyrics of Waving Flag sung and re-sung and distorted to glory, groaned over the inevitable ubiquitous use of ‘Waka Waka’ in the newspapers, but I soon realised what I didn’t know was central to the theme of the quiz- in short, trivia about the game. Intelligent guesses and wild shots in the dark are always thrilling when the answers turn out right, but sometimes, when confronted by people who know their stuff inside out, ignorance isn't quite bliss.

The sulking skies opened up just before the quiz competition was due to start, and my teammate Airborne and I were hoping for a slice of extraordinarily good luck- the kind that led India into the 1950 World Cup finals, instead. It is another matter that they didn’t play because they weren’t allowed on the ground barefoot, as one version of the story goes. We were spared major embarrassment, of course, as people trickled in to increase the amount of competition (presumptuous of us to consider ourselves part of it, even so)- the quizmaster wanted atleast six teams to make a decent match of it, and his fears were unfounded. A decent number of people braved the rain to turn up at the prelims, and but for a bit of sparring, and Airborne and I might have reached the royal score of four, halfway to the cut-off. Six teams made it to the final round, and no, we didn't rue any lost opportunities.

As the questions flew around, we were treated to an intriguing collection of trivia scooped out of the massive amount of history the World Cup has accumulated over the years. Humour, controversy, corruption, and the crowning glory of triumph- football has seen it all.

Sport is no exception to the curses of human arrogance and senselessness. The brutal murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the ostracism of the Jews at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin are some of the more famous examples of politics sullying the reputation of global sporting events. Evidently, football has had its share of controversies- the inaugural edition of the World Cup at Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1930, featured only four European teams, a surprisingly low number for a continent that is home to some of the powerhouses of the sport. Defending champions Uruguay sought to retaliate by boycotting the 1934 championship in Italy, another controversial tournament where the hosts themselves had to qualify to play.

This is just a sample of the trivia that we were treated to. There were references to bizarre incidents, such as the one about a dog running on to the field to be caught by England's Jimmy Greaves, who in turn had his lap graciously soiled, at the 1966 World Cup- yet another example of nature triumphing over man.

The magnitude of football’s reach is incredible. Its being a sport that can be played on the streets with a battered ball and goalposts traced out with a piece of chalk on a wall greatly helps matters. India may not have latched on to the idea of football asWe may be a long way off from having a football team to cry ourselves hoarse for. At a particular World Cup hockey tournament while India was still under British rule, the Indian team is reported to have sung ‘Meri Bhains Ko Danda Kyun Maara’, a folk song, to avoid singing God Save The Queen- Indian spirit, drawn straight from the rural heartlands. Maybe it won’t be too long before we have our own football anthems (and no, we’re certainly not taking the services of a certain bejewelled music director, thank you very much), and a football team that will give us someone to burden with our hopes and expectations (isn’t this what we do best?).

We returned from the quiz with our curiosity whetted- it was the perfect curtain-raiser to the approaching weeks of unbridled sporting passion, raw and real. The 2010 World Cup kicks off tomorrow, and here’s to the thirty-two teams that made it- the major hopes and the underdogs, the rookies and the players who will fight painstakingly to reach that one epoch before the swansong- this is one festival the world will feast on, undivided in spirit, for one magnificent month.

Life, Engaged

2010-06-10T22:06:00.000+05:30

So you think you’re right and that you can confront me.

You ask why you are not among the chosen ones, why you don’t live in a palatial house with a helipad and a garage larger than your apartment. You would like to see the obscene amounts of wealth of the mighty go up in flames, their flamboyance and stature ground to dust. You want to see them reduced to your own measly circumstances. You ask me why you don’t deserve better, why they should possess all that you can only dream of. The vagrant who lives under the flyover asks me the same question about you.

I am the one with the power. I make the decisions. I hear your wings flutter helplessly but do not bat an eyelid, watch indifferently as the warm blood trickles out of the bullet-wound that I’ve made- that is the amount of apathy I am capable of. I wring your neck hard enough for you to writhe in pain, but not nearly enough to kill you. Oh no, I wouldn’t do that- you are my perennial source of amusement, marionettes on silken threads. I let the texture of the threads deceive you. When you are desperate enough to think of taking your own life, I let the sunlight shine upon the silk and glimmer into your eye. The clouds part for an instant- I will grant you that little pleasure that the most wretched prisoner deserves- and move on with the game of deception; blinded by momentary glory, you will easily forgive a lifetime of sins.

I know you’re strong. You will fight and try to keep me at bay, come dangerously close to upsetting my well-laid plans. At these moments, I cannot but help admire your tenacity. I indulge your whims for a while- and then bind you hand and foot and throw you back into the dungeon where I belong. At times, you defeat me at my own game- unshackle yourself and break away from me- only occasionally, but you do. I am a fair competitor, and I will admit that a few of you possess a power beyond mine. Extraordinarily endowed. You might be one of them. I will leave it to you to find out. I don’t tell fortunes.

You want the rolling pastures and the clear lilac sky- let me remind you that there are also marshlands and smog; there is no reason why you should deserve the one more than the other.

Fight to the end, ask me your fatuous questions. I revel in battle and ludicrousness.

Dusk

2010-06-07T21:37:00.003+05:30

We watch entranced as the eucalyptus trees dance as if possessed, their lithe bodies massed together, the wind pressing hard against their ghostly, silhouetted bulk. The dimly-lit, pale blue waters on the surface of the swimming pool shiver in innumerable ripples; dragonflies meet their death on the tepid surface of the water, close by the lights. What infatuation does Death hold for these creatures, warned and yet tempted by the cruel fate that awaits them?

The strong breeze pushes against us as we walk, clothes aflutter, more trees swaying eerily. The decrepit, abandoned factory building with the rusted brown chimneys in the background doesn't help matters. There is so much to entice the part of your thoughts that reluctantly believes in the supernatural (and lives in blatant denial in broad daylight); how easy it is in such a setting to fall prey to the machinations of a hyperactive imagination. A wisp of hair brushing against your nape or an unusually strong draught of wind could give you the jitters and throw imaginary shadows on the wall. A solemn song floats from the church with the stained-glass windows- a rather vibrant reminder of the presence of human life and colour on an otherwise dark evening.

We're giddy with the happiness of materialism. We have shopped and indulged ourselves, are sated with the pleasure of new clothes and good food. However, it doesn't compare remotely with what is yet to come- a return to childhood, to thoughts of roads that weren't too narrow for our play and houses that contained- or overflowed with- mirth and pure, unrestricted love and delight. The swings are empty and we gingerly lower ourselves on to the curved seats. The hard sand floor is under our feet, we kick against it to set ourselves free- to feel the wind in our hair as the swing arcs gracefully upwards, higher and higher, the gulmohur trees triggering more memories of sunny roads traversed in the summer holidays of long ago, branches bent forcefully for a sprig of the brightly coloured flowers to put into the little vase on the window-sill.

I cannot go too high- I get dizzy. What has growing up done to me? I was better off not knowing about vertigo and acrophobia and giddiness- half-baked biological knowledge has made hypochondriacs out of many of us, proud of reeling out impressive names to attribute to the various imaginary illnesses we are beset by. The heights that drove me to thrilled chortles as a little girl now set my head spinning. What, really, do we grow up for? I think of the RL Stevenson poem I had learnt by heart in school all those years ago. I don't remember a word of it now; those merry, simple lines have been buried underneath a load of imagined, unwarranted profundity and philosophy.

We walk back home in the deepening dusk, a call on my mobile phone bringing us back to our senses, to the present, against our volition. Nostalgia is an intruder, though, and I don't have much to worry about. The past sleeps quietly on in its exclusive recess, dormant but ready to present itself at the slightest invocation.

Horror, My New Passion

2010-05-31T20:16:00.002+05:30

Relief floods me extravagantly only when I have managed to extricate the charger from the tangle of wires it lies perpetually in, plugged it into my laptop and switched on all the lights, banishing the eerie red glow of the clay courts of Roland Garros. A bag of chips, the comfort food of the Gods and the couch potatoes, sits plump and invitingly beside me.

When I stand at the door, rummaging for the key, something doesn’t feel right. The key isn’t where it should be-it is displaced by a considerable distance- and I turn it gingerly in the keyhole. I fumble for the light switch, invariably turning on all the others before coming to the correct one. A faint whirring sound comes from within. Bag still on my shoulders, I pass warily into the bedroom, its source, and find the fan turned on. The beds are empty and the curtains are drawn apart on the clear glass windows. The wind begins to rise amidst the trees and bicycles trundle ominously on the concrete downstairs. On dark nights, the most practical mind can conjure up implausible images.

Do I smell an intruder? I reach a hand out to turn the fan off- but maybe I should check the house for a break-in and missing valuables before I unwittingly rub some incriminating evidence off the switchboard. But I cannot think of anything valuable within the house, so I shrug and give up and turn off the fan, my bag still on my shoulders. It gives me a sense of adventure, this lurking around with my ‘knapsack’ through the ‘ruins’ (secure in the knowledge that the owners of this house are not reading this) of an abandoned- okay, empty- house, looking for a burly, muscled man who might have hidden himself under a bed or in the bathroom. No Catherine Morland was ever more influenced by Udolpho, and as the pictures get more explicit and graphic in detail, my imagination suddenly resents its hyperactivity.

I dump my bag on my bed and check the bathroom carefully. Clear. I go to the hall and turn on the television- and could this be the source of my inexplicable premonition, the gloomy sense of foreboding? Justine Henin and Samantha Stosur have won a set apiece in their fourth round match at the French Open, and are now trading breaks in the third. The Queen of Clay is on the verge of a historic loss, about to give up a crown she has laid claim to an astonishing four times. Could this really be happening, I ask myself in dismay. The refulgent clay court suddenly loses its charm and begins to look sinister, and I quickly turn the hall light on.

At this point, I have a sneaky doubt if my blatant derision of Paranormal Activity could have anything to do with the impossible flights of my imagination. I come up with a resolution:

I will not watch horror movies for a month.

And promptly chuck it out of the window. Tonight is a new night.

Sparking Contemplation

2010-05-29T22:40:00.001+05:30

If you knew exactly when you were going to die, and you had just enough money to treat yourself to something you’d desperately wanted all your life or buy presents for the people you loved, what would you choose to do?

This question arose out of contemplation of The Driver’s Seat, Muriel Spark’s novel nominated for The Lost Booker, ultimately losing out to JG Farrell’s Troubles. It isn’t what Spark is asking her readers to think about, per se- it is just one of those random, idle thoughts that creep into your head.

The Lost Man Booker Prize was thought of as a palliative to the injustice done to books published in 197o and considered worthy of one of the biggest prizes in literature, because the people behind the Booker had suddenly decided in 1971 that books published that very year, and not the previous, would be eligible for the prize. The Booker, too, of course, has been extremely susceptible to controversies like any other prize, and very often books winning the honour don’t seem to justify the hype.

Farrell has been widely spoken of as a worthy winner. Having not read Troubles, I haven‘t thought much about it, but I did enjoy The Driver’s Seat. It doesn’t lay bare the entire story in clear terms- on the contrary, Spark leaves a lot to imagination. While she liberally strews hints of the fate that awaits Lise, her protagonist, as the story builds up, she doesn’t invest in superfluity to describe a history that may be of no consequence. Of course, I’d like to know why Lise acted the way she did, but when a writer challenges her readers to use their heads and come up with plausible explanations for her characters’ actions, she connects with them in a special way- she makes them work for the pleasure of getting the most out of her writing. (The first story to challenge my imagination that comes to my mind is The Lady or the Tiger- a short story from my English textbook at school- where the fate of a man, condemned to death if he opens the wrong door, lies in his passionate, jealous lover’s hands. We wrung our hands in agony and complained about the author’s cruelty in leaving us in the dark.)

The minute details of Lise’s actions are beautifully described- you see her there, in her impossibly bright clothes, conspicuous on account of her jarring incongruity. The various encounters, leading up to the ghastly finale, though seemingly humane, have a sinister undercurrent running through them.

Spark is no ordinary writer. Her power lies in her storytelling and the consummate ease with which she summons it. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a brilliant study of human nature, and at different levels, you more or less begin to sympathise with the characters and condone their fallacies. Jean Brodie, a schoolteacher “in her prime”, creates a close-knit set of girls whom she hopes to impress her mark upon. She dislikes blind, unquestioning conformity, and anything that isn’t good enough for her will not do for the Brodie set either. Her ploy doesn’t succeed the way she hoped it would, and the “betrayal” brings to an end her prime, or so her girls think- but she lives on in several ways, loved and remembered well by the ones she nurtured. The characters are intriguing and human, and extremely interesting to study.

Two novels down, I am still unable to slot Muriel Spark into one particular category as a writer- and I look up with eager eyes at the two thick volumes of her collected writings that stand on my bookshelf.

Of Abnormality

2010-05-26T23:49:00.002+05:30

Why are horror movies hardly ever terrifying?

Contrary to all the hype about scary movies leaving their audience white-knuckled, scarred for life, traumatized and sleepless for as long as they live- exaggeration intended- not one horror movie has given me any creeps.

We turned out the lights and sat down to watch Paranormal Activity two nights ago. Time passed, the clocked ticked the minutes away, we waited- and waited. Nothing. A little further on, a door creaked as an invisible gust of wind- or paranormal activity- shoved it. The burning Ouija board didn’t scare us, nor did the billowing of the sheets and the sleepwalking young woman. The screams seemed contrived and the man’s occupation flabbergasted us- did he really watch all those hours of tape all morning? When did he go to work, after all? The murder took place imperceptibly. All that was left behind was a bloodied knife and a murderer who sat down against the bed and rocked for hours, oblivious to every biological need.

We did add to our woes, of course. We had subtitles which were about as accurate as a meteorological department’s predictions. Sample this- fetching blankets became “seeking coverage”, day trader was maligned to “dates the traders”. Liberally sprinkled among the English words were some incomprehensible ones crowned by umlauts. Randomness prevailed, and the room was soon ringing with ghoulish laughter in the dead of the night.

It is another matter that I heard squeaks and creaking noises in my room the next day when I was all alone at home.

2010-05-26T21:49:00.001+05:30

Poetry at Wimbledon: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/may/19/poetry-wimbledon-sport-culture

I shudder to think of a song for the Commonwealth Games. Or wait- is there one already?

A Little Thank You Note

2010-05-24T21:38:00.004+05:30

Funny as it may sound, this is only the second time someone has given me a book for a present (and that's after fifteen long years)- and for one that I've been hunting up and down for- thank you, Airborne, for the volumes of Muriel Spark.

2010-05-23T14:46:00.002+05:30

God has gone and done it again.

A hundred and fifty-eight lives have been cruelly taken, an aeroplane that could well have landed safely like so many others, went over a cliff and left behind mangled remains and charred bodies. People who came to the airport to receive their relatives were faced with the unenviable task of going home to break the news of the death of a loved one. Tragedies beset us. The Libyan plane crash, the Deepwater Horizon incident, cyclone Laila- the magnitude or the geographical location doesn’t matter- what hurts is just how insensibly lives are lost, when perhaps one act of precaution, a little care exercised, could have saved them. Why must whole families be left in the lurch, to fend for themselves against adversity, to mourn the loss of an only daughter or son? When people come home to celebrate success, why must their families have to grieve for them? It doesn’t make any sense to me. More often than not, I am brought back to the basic questions that we all ask- the purpose of life and the reason for evil and sickness, if God is merciful and kind.

As usual, people are offering to resign in the wake of this massive tragedy. On the contrary, as the incumbent officials, isn’t the onus on them to fix the loopholes and participate actively in the investigation that will follow? Walking away from mistakes never helps- as the people in power when the incident occurred, they should know what went wrong if they have been doing their job properly. Prompt offers to resign are an act of cowardice- large amounts of time and money will inevitably be wasted in bringing a new person to manage affairs at short notice, and the efficacy of such measures is also dubious. However, considering that people with little experience often do occupy some of the positions with high responsibility attached to them, perhaps it wouldn’t make much of a difference- not here.

When Nature is on a rampage, we can only hope to minimise the damage. However, when the causes of tragedy are human, we have several lessons to learn- starting with humility.

2010-05-19T20:53:00.002+05:30

Things can go awry with inexplicable adroitness. Going wrong. That's what they do best, when you least expect them to. And that, of course, is when the most irrelevant questions come coursing through your head. Like why Laila is in Vizag when you're miles away in Bangalore. Vizag, like Singapore, won't get out of my head. Some places grab those lofty pedestals in your head that you save for the best things- they slide in smoothly before you even know it- and then where do you slot the other memories? Do we choose our memories? I don't think so, or the more embarrassing, hot-flush-on-the-cheek moments wouldn't be the ones that came to mind most easily.

If only I could pick and choose the songs and the stories I wanted in my head. I'd leave the stinging ones behind and keep the ones that gave me that delicious thrill of ecstasy. But that would probably make me appreciate the better moments less than I otherwise would.

On second thoughts, I like my memories as they are. And life, in general.

PS: This is just one day we're talking about.

Rain on the Expressway

2010-05-17T22:09:00.000+05:30

A strong gust of wind blows a fine spray of rain into my rapidly cooling coffee. People break into a run past me and unfurl umbrellas as the drops begin to fall faster and harder, drumming out a staccato on helplessly flailing leaves. I walk steadily on, bareheaded; I want to feel the rain. A Cappuccino can be easily bought anytime; the fragrance of moist earth and the numbing sting of a heavily-falling raindrop cannot.

The bus drives out as sheets of rain sweep the freshly tarred roads; I wipe the vapour off the glass and create myself a little window to the world. Is there dust on my palm? I don’t give it much thought and the hand sanitiser stays in my bag for a change. The tiny restaurants by the road lose the relative normalcy of daylight and take on the semblance of nondescript roadside shacks (populated by burly, moustachioed truck drivers drinking glasses of steaming tea, if you choose to imagine them into your fancies as well) that materialise amidst nothingness on mostly deserted highways. On the curving expressway, high above the sprawling city, a smattering of water-smudged lights appears in the distance. Sudden flashes of lightning streak the brooding sky and startle decrepit dark buildings into momentary life. A tube light flickers on half-heartedly inside the bus, like the watery smile on the face of one trying to tell a lie while doubting its efficacy.

The rain slows down, comes to a complete halt- and when the bus takes a turn off the expressway, nothing remains but the sweeping curves traced on the dust of the window-pane by impatient fingers- yes, there was dust on it, and I look hesitantly at my hand. The road is bone-dry but for a few slushy puddles and water collected in some crevices, like memories left over from a well-remembered past. The romantic fancies evaporate rapidly, too- the warm lights of cosy homes dispel curious thoughts of adventure and mystery with consummate ease- the illusions of overworked minds craving for a few hours of solace.

Nature, though, continues to contrive her spells, leaving us blissfully ignorant of her machinations as we sleep the tiredness out.

On Hope

2010-05-14T22:12:00.000+05:30

There was once a time when the clouds in the sky merged and pulled themselves apart into the shapes I wanted to see. When lines of ants scurrying with their burdens to their invisible hideouts evoked immense curiosity. When colours were associated with what the eye saw- birds, flowers and trees- and not with the meanings attributed to them by religious and party flags. Chocolate was just the kind you found at the neighbourhood store- white, 80% cocoa, liqueur would have been high-falutin terms for something as simple as a slab of pure happiness.

And then, one day, someone decided that a bitter concoction of reality and pragmatism, garnished with a distasteful lust for money, must be thrust down people’s gullets as they grew older. Hypothetical it should have remained, but it was incorporated with great zest into the business of life, and so we stick to it till we’re sick of it.

You cannot keep childlike amusement away forever, though, try as hard as you may. You have to marvel at the big-bellied fish under the rocks in the pond on your way back from lunch (and ignore the cell phone displaying your boss’s number) and draw the last of the lemonade out noisily with your straw (while a group of sophisticated people look down their noses at you scornfully). Not pure, untarnished pleasure, the kind that existed before you knew of life outside comic books and marbles, but rainbows will once again hold hoards of treasure at either end.

Hope is a beautiful thing.

An Open Window

2010-05-10T21:00:00.000+05:30

The wind has decided to make peace with the forsaken. It comes to the city and its people despite the sins against it.

It has flirted with shameless regularity with the sand dunes, the waves of the ocean, the grass in the hollows of lonesome valleys, the straggling growth on quietly majestic mountains. Nature never boasts of her prowess, she merely humbles with it. And now the wind comes to the city, to roar through the mazes of concrete and steel, to ruffle the blankets off foolishly snug bodies.

People revel at the breeze's homecoming. Dogs are roused from their disturbed slumber and trains hurtle from darkness, into darkness, shrill whistles piercing through the night, as the wind dances in through open windows and carries along the smell of dust and metal- of the small, nondescript towns where you spend five minutes that will soon be forgotten, but recalled suddenly in an unexplained moment of senility sixty years on.

Palm fronds brush against the lone mango in an unusual show of intimacy. They source their kinship to a much higher plane than our petty thinking can fathom. Clouds hover low, eager to partake of earthly conversations and add their own bit to them- isn't this where they come from, after all. The moon, happy and placid, shines down from unknown perches- it flits effortlessly, its broad silver beams casting an ethereal light upon the trees, setting them softly aglow in the midst of their night-revelry.

Give up your soliloquy and your silly fetishes, says the wind, and come dance with me tonight.

Home

2010-05-06T22:32:00.006+05:30

Window to the 'World'

A Tale of Two Cities

Off I Go

2010-05-04T22:03:00.000+05:30

This is happening much too often now, this dissonance between thoughts and words. There is no earthly reason to be melancholy, not one that you can easily lay a finger on. This isn't a night for your words, you tell yourself, and prepare to bury your nose in a book about a Swedish immigrant in the US- a book that you picked up because it was about the only bit of non-fiction you found in a library that overflows with technical books (when it chooses to overflow). You're spoilt for choice- your shelves at home brim over with good, intriguing reading- but perverse that your mind is, it will pick the one you are least curious about- just because you took the trouble to carry it home and have had it three weeks without bothering to open it.

The sleep that you long for is fraught with nightmares; instead of a reluctance to wake up, you're only too ready to jump out of bed next morning. How unnatural. But it's only temporary- these phases are all too familiar, when you wake up thrice every night, wondering what really triggered those unrealistic flights of imagination, if you can call it that, those dreams in the colours of bleak winters, as devoid of pleasant fancies as a sere strip of land in a season of drought.

No more words, rein your thoughts in. The power is gone, thanks to the rain you were craving for, and is the very reason why you first started writing this night. The battery is low and will die out soon- and the thoughts will begin their mad rush in your head all over again. Hush them, like the flame of the candle that went out peacefully, painlessly, in that strong gust of wind.

The curtains are still and the night is quiet. When will the wind blow hither?

Gods and People- Travelling through Orissa

2010-04-29T16:38:00.003+05:30

Dawn breaks over the sleeping town, grey clouds streaking the rising sun and chopping its orange perfection into indiscernible shapes. A steady wind breathes life into the trees dotting the countryside and explains the bent, crooked trunks of the tall coconut-palms sprinkled liberally across the fields. Small roads span canals and lead further inwards into distant, mysterious villages. Pools and ponds materialise suddenly by the road, green-flecked, generously surrounded by tall palms and trees whose benevolent branches caress them with their leaves. Women cluster by their edges, carrying pots and gossip down to their gatherings. Cattle wallow in other shallow pools, boys and men swim lazily for respite from the sun which is now beginning to make its way up the broad, unexplored expanse of blue sky.

My journeys have more or less revolved around the NH5 for a few years- and we’re going south-east now, from Bhubaneswar, through Cuttack and Pipli, to the temple-town of Puri. Orissa (or Odisha, as it is called on some of the hoardings) has a countryside as beautiful as the fertile plains of the Godavari in Andhra Pradesh- about the only other rural districts I know reasonably well.

Puri comes with the traditional tourist trappings- auto drivers charge exorbitantly, beggars line the crowded streets, cycle-rickshaws draw the young and the elderly to the temple premises, cows and bulls with sharpened horns scrounge the streets for food. Look out from a distance, and it’s an unbroken sea of humanity- black-haired and brown wrinkled heads, coloured umbrellas, tonsured heads with red towels thrown carelessly about them. The sun beats mercilessly down upon the Sunday morning crowds at the temple whose deity has lent His name to an English word- ‘juggernaut’.

The Jagannath Temple is overwhelming in its architecture. The tall structure rises majestically into the sky, evoking awe for the artisans who must have poured sweat and blood into its construction in a period when technology, as we know it now, didn’t exist. While the spiritual powers of the temple are widely spoken of, its premises throb with the lives and the prayers of the masses of people who press into its walls every single day, all distinctions cast off, wishes and wagers with God laid bare. Monkeys abound in the cleverly crafted niches of the temple, seemingly docile, heads bowed as they survey the stream of people milling about with their keen eyes.

You are clutched by the waist, the shoulder, the arm, the hair, as people struggle to push their way into the sanctum sanctorum- the place, sadly, lacks order, and chaos reigns as the doors are thrown open to devotees, who unfortunately cease to be human in their wild pursuit of divine gifts and throw discipline to the winds. That single moment in the presence of those massive figures, though, is overpowering- that quick reminder of mysterious Higher Powers that keep you asking questions about the world and its origins, about life itself.

Puri is also famous as a seaside town- the road to Konark curves alongside wide, secluded beaches, the dark blue waters of the Bay of Bengal rolling heavily down upon yellow-white sands. The Sun Temple, a World Heritage Site built eight hundred years ago, is yet another architectural marvel. Defaced and plundered by invaders over the years, it must once have been a study in perfection. The walls are adorned by exquisitely crafted figures, another reminder of the skill that coursed through the veins of the people who carved them all those years ago, without the benefit of the knowledge that makes our lives so much easier now. The figures are supposed to be mostly erotic depictions. The twenty-four wheels of the chariot-shaped temple are astounding- chopped off in various portions now, they must have been a sight to behold once upon a time.

To one side is an area marked off as the kitchen, visibly soot-blackened, ovens dug into the earth in front of the large platforms. The place swarms with people, but thankfully, there isn’t any graffiti of the ‘Raja (heart pierced with an arrow) Neha’ kind. The romance is in the sculptures, in the gargantuan homage to the Sun God who rides His chariot across the skies, bearing the gift of Life.

It is time to turn back to Bhubaneswar, and after a lightning-quick stop at Pipli, famous for its handicrafts, for a spot of shopping, we take a detour off the highway to Dhauli.

Dhauli Giri houses the Shanti Stupa- a dedication to the Buddha, overlooking the vast, picturesque, river-watered plains of Kalinga. Could this fertile, life-giving land really have been the site of bitter battle, where the blood of thousands was shed before Ashoka realized the futility of war? Legend goes that the waters of the river Daya turned red as a result of the merciless killing- now, it is a placid blue stream that flows gently through green fields, a vista of incredible beauty when looked upon from the heights of the Stupa. Four serene statues of the Buddha look out at the countryside, the bearers of the truth of peace which finally convinced a remorseful Emperor to lay down his arms and kill no more.

By the foot of the hill is a park preserved by the Archaeological Society of India, which protects a piece of rock in a glass case- the rock inscribed with Ashoka’s edicts, the rules by which he wanted his people to live so there would be no more war.

The regular tourist trips have been accomplished satisfactorily, and in good time. Without much planning or anticipation, I have been pleasantly surprised and enamoured by all I’ve seen. What I need to explore next is my own backyard.

Quiet Wildernesses

2010-04-24T19:54:00.002+05:30

Large green swathes of forest, mottled by purplish-brown patches of less healthy vegetation, spread out under a filmy cloud cover as the aeroplane begins its descent. (On my first-ever day flight, I think I know what heaven looks like- thick, smoky whirls of cloud underneath, a few grey streaks in the distance, more pearly white fluff in pristine blue sky overhead. This is what the movies make it look like, anyway.) On the ground, the elevations are visible- barren red soil has given way to more fertile brown squares and swirls, criss-crossed by the sinuous curves of muddy or algae-choked rivers, occasionally punctuated by a lake or two. Garishly coloured houses come into view as the plane prepares to land; it taxies down the runway rather roughly, reminiscent of rattling buses bumping down pockmarked country roads. A low, unremarkable-looking building comes into view, the plane halts.

I am in Bhubaneswar.

This trip into Orissa, having been pondered and toyed around with for months, is finally happening. Summer isn’t exactly the right time to visit a state notorious for its heat waves, but trips never happen when meticulously planned- they’re best carried out impulsively.

After a ten-minute wait by the baggage carousel at the airport, which, frankly, is rather shabby when compared to the swanky grandeur of Bangalore, I haul my bag off and walk out to where my parents are waiting for me with a car- the journey isn’t quite over yet. I am going deeper into Orissa, into a small town- or village- barely touched by the trappings of modernity and the more pretentious varieties of prosperity.

After shopping for a few supplies at the supermarkets of Bhubaneswar- because the little town we’re going to doesn’t have anything larger than small, stuffy grocery stores by dry culverts, the kind redolent with the smell of grain and oil- we’re on our way. The roads are good and not very crowded once we exit the boundaries of the city. We pass a few dry river-beds as we go on to Cuttack, and then the sandy bed of the Mahanadi- the water, stored elsewhere, flows down in a barely visible trickle.

Hills rise gracefully in the distance, surprisingly green in the dry heat- there must have been some good rain not too long ago. Pink lotus flowers spread out thickly on a carpet of their own leaves on a pond. A steady wind blows through the countryside with a relatively sparse population. Buildings- a lodge, a temple, tea stalls- appear sporadically on what is mostly an unbroken stretch of agricultural land.

A narrow road branches off the highway to take us to our destination. Shops are jammed together closely on either side of it, almost appearing to encroach on the narrow road, wanting to swallow up the traffic that consists mostly of two-wheelers. Nondescript, yes- this could be a scene from any Indian village, a return to the roots from which our bustling cities have grown.

Houses line either side of winding roads through the town, old-world, grimy, wizened, cobwebbed. Yellow and grey. This is a town that time forgot to touch. The car draws up in front of our house, and the first thing that I notice is the decent-sized compound around it and the motley group of trees.

As I write, I’m in the bedroom by an open window that overlooks the treetops. Day darkens into dusk, the wind grows stronger and conspires with the trees in the garden, nudging them into song. The palm fronds and mango leaves rustle relentlessly, caressed by the wind. The stars will be out soon, and so will the moon- the elements of the night coming together to weave their spells in the near-silence of this town ensconced in, but untroubled by, its own placid life.

Magic from Monotony

2010-04-22T20:17:00.004+05:30

Perhaps the best gift a writer can ask for is to be able to conjure up images out of nothing; when what appears desultory and monotonous can be twisted into a creation to be marvelled at for its simple grace and earthy beauty, all without pretension.

Rohinton Mistry does this with consummate ease. Tales from Firozsha Baag is a delightful collection of stories about Parsi families in a housing complex in Bombay. Mistry uses random observations to depict the lives of the young and the old; generations and classes against one another, prurient impulses seeking satiation, women resigned to a life within the peeling plaster of the compound even as their daughters carry their dreams abroad, boys coming to terms with realities beyond cricket and gramophone records. In Mr. Mody, Rustomji, Najamai and Mrs. Boyce, you see the people you hear of and bear with constantly. A large number of Zoroastrian references are used throughout without needless stereotyping. What really works for me, though, is the lack of high-falutin phrases, the nonchalance with which Mistry connects with the reader.

Mistry has a keen, observant eye. There isn’t an implausible idea in the book; look around and you’ll see ample evidence of the vagaries of character so effortlessly described. You don’t race through the stories, you linger over them as does Mistry‘s pen, hovering over the calendar on the wall and the compartment in the train. If ever there were a worthy successor to Ruskin Bond’s unhurried, easy prose, it would have to be Mistry. His strength lies in his ability to pull wonders out of seeming nothingness, and you realise that the people in his book are all around you- only, you never looked at them the way he does.

I’d recommend the book for a lazy summer night when the blades of the fan cut through the hot air with a heavy languor; let the surface of your glass of lemonade frost up and nostalgia be an uninvited guest as a noisy, grimy, yet appealing world unfolds in front of your devouring eyes. It isn’t everyday that someone makes your cantankerous next-door-neighbour look human.

Capriciousness

2010-04-14T20:32:00.003+05:30

I’m not supposed to be writing now. I should be working hard at something else. Words, however, insist on trespassing into my head and splaying their long, unwieldy limbs across the litter-strewn table. Surely you know how stubborn they can be? When they have nothing to say and must still force themselves forward recklessly, clamoring to be heard like a precocious child. You try to ignore them, but they will not listen to your meek entreaties- they know you’re tractable, that your weak arguments are a façade.

So they flow forth and flood your clean, pristine sheet of paper that has long been waiting to be scribbled upon. It wasn’t originally set down for your blather, and has patiently awaited the fruit of your serious introspection. Capricious that words are, they will flow with cheerful anachronism, making themselves heard just when you don’t want them to- not whole-heartedly. But depend on it, when you want to write with such desperation that existence itself seems to hinge on it, they will dry up, clam up, go back into their shell like they never existed.

Maybe that is how words are supposed to be. Magical and unpredictable. Springing from the most unlikely sources and impulses, breathing life into dangerously mundane subjects. Call me a featherhead, but to me, words are close to the most beautiful creation of man.

2010-04-14T19:15:00.002+05:30

The thunder is deafening. The sky is draped in grey clouds and the rain falls steadily. The children have abandoned their play (what a pity, when they should be getting drenched instead- this isn't exam time!), and a steady breeze sets the curtains aflutter.

Alone at home, sitting on a mattress on the floor, I watch the drops form a chain on the yellow sunshade. They glide across it one after another, merging, embracing, disappearing.

The Rain Goddess revels.

The 'Garden'

2010-04-06T19:45:00.001+05:30

Silhouettes of moulting pigeons on window sills and balcony walls. Disembodied voices and noises. Stray feathers underfoot. Welcome home.

The process of settling-in continues, and I walk quietly past the tiny groups of children playing in the pretend-garden- a decent size for a crowded city- and the area around it, in front of the board that prohibits playing in the vicinity. This is one ‘law’ I wouldn’t want upheld. Can they really advocate boxed-up, claustrophobic childhoods to save a few measly window-panes at the cost of the yellow sunshine and pleasantly stinging raindrops that they once indulged themselves with?

Yet another elevator. Very small, painted a dark glossy brown, four walls scratched with unremarkable graffiti and closed without a glimpse of the outside world. (Is this how they carted people to Auschwitz?) You might well be shooting into space or plunging down to Hades, not knowing if the earth stopped turning or a Cormac McCarthy-style apocalypse struck- safely suffocating in that narrow little box, you would develop a lifelong aversion for elevators. How different it is from the sky-canopied, peopled area outside.

The elderly sit out on the benches in the ‘garden’. Two young children run by. “Saku Behn! Kem chho?” calls out an old man in a blue T-shirt and green cap. The children run to him, giggling. The little boy ask for chocolates.

“Didn’t I give you two today? One for you, one for her?”

“Just one?”

“Yes, only one chocolate per day.”

“So will you give us more chocolates tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow, but the day after. I’ll have to go and buy the chocolates tomorrow, you see.”

The boy looks askance at the old man. “You need a whole day to buy chocolates?”

“Yes.”

With the implicit trust and simplicity of childhood, the boy accepts the deal placidly, and runs off as his mother comes to take him home. The girl goes along.

Twilight clouds linger in the sky. Play time is almost over. The thrilled shrieks and the bicycle bells gradually cease as darkness envelopes the garden and tired parents come home, bent with the burden of responsibility, casting their overwhelmed shadows on the sunshiny happiness of ignorance and carefree childhoods. Parents who believe in advertisements that say, “Your child watches TV. Your neighbour’s child knows who invented the TV.” Stinging, cruel.

A few more hours, till Sleep weaves her magic and takes all her children into her dream-clad arms.