The Mind Decides To Give Life Yet Another Chance

How trivial some stories are, yet how momentous they are to a story teller…this is the story of Maa Durga and me, and I sit today to spin you my yarn.

For my cousins, when I was growing up in Assam, Durga Puja meant new clothes, delectable food, toy pistols, and staying out late with friends with no deadline to meet. The dhoop-filled pandals, the aarti and the anjali, the mesmerising blast of the conches, the overwhelming visages of Maa Durga, the delicious bhog — all these were images that held them captive. They loved the khichdi bhog, willing to wait all year just to taste this delicious concoction whose taste and fragrance could never really be replicated when cooked at home. The delicious labdaa, the delectable paayosh, and the enchanting rosogollas were the highlights of their young lives.

Carried away by their enthusiasm, I too used to go with them to be greeted with the familiar smells and sounds of Durga Puja – the sound of the bells and drums, the smell of fresh flowers and incense sticks, and the cloying sweetness of the burning ghee. Our fathers and uncles looked resplendent up in dhoti-kurta, dutifully handing out lunch coupons. Our mothers and aunts were decked up to look straight out of the sets of a movie in their gorgeous saris and chador-mekhelas, vermilion-headed and kohl-smeared eyes.

Everyone used to enthusiastically discuss everything under the sun – from annual visits of in-laws to the newest store selling fish curry and chicken fry. The city pulsated with life – with the fervour of shoppers amidst crazy near-stampedes, the smell of roadside phuchka and chicken rolls, the heart beating synchronously with the rhythm of the drums. The smell of puja used to pervade the air – a smell characterized by faith as much as by happiness.

The dhaaki starts to play the dhaak at some point, ushering people to come attend the session of anjali with fistfuls of yellow and red flowers. I wake up a start, and I realize that I am no longer in Assam. In fact, I have not attended a single Durga Puja in Assam for the past 21 years. For the first 13 of these past 25 years in Delhi, Durga Puja was an alien concept, an anachronism in the season of Dussehra. Hedonistic reminiscences of chicken rolls and mutton cutlets were scandalizing thoughts in the Navratra season of strict vegetarianism. And then in 2006, I happened to move into my own flat in Chittaranjan Park in New Delhi. C. R. Park, for those who came in late, is a mini-Calcutta. A place where Bengalis outnumber North Indians 4 to 1. And therefore, a place where Durga Puja is a MAJOR BIG DEAL.

My feet stomp a staccato rhythm to match the beat of the dhaak. And a strange magic suffused with nostalgia fills me. I flip between the past and my present, casually glancing around me to look in vain for the gorgeous beauties of my youth, now settled in happy and corpulent matrimony. A sigh escapes me and I chose to focus on the calm serenity of Durga Maa’s face instead. Of all the things that have changed around me over the years, she is one of the few things that have not changed an iota. She still exudes strength and femininity. And the demon still has a six-pack abdomen. Durga Puja in C. R. Park comes with azure skies, intoxicating fragrance of flowers, pushpanjali, hot khichuri bhog, egg rolls, mughlai parathas, ilish maash, sindur khela, mishti doi, and mutton ghugni. The smoky atmosphere of burning incense, the familiar beats of the dhaak, and soulful Rabindra Sangeet permeate the air.

For people all around me, Durga Puja is a time of celebrating one’s faith. A time of devotion; a time of communion with the divine. A time to pray, and a time to stay. But what of those who are as pathologically allergic to public displays of faith as they are to public displays of affection? And what of those who almost suffocate in the midst of too many people – whether it be a book fair or a puja? In short, what of those prematurely jaded souls such as mine?

As the years pass me by, everything else has started to lose its glamorous sheen. The old magic has vanished; celebrations have become more commercialized. The outward glitz has replaced the heartfelt piety. But the charm of those four days of Durga Puja still holds strong… a zillion miles away from home in Assam, a million miles even from the real Calcutta...the pleasures of mini Calcutta in C. R. Park still urges the mind to give up its lucidities and dive into the pleasures of the heart.

My son wants me to take him to visit the nearby pandal. He wants to eat a chicken roll there, and buy a whistle and a toy sword. Life comes back full circle.

And the mind decides to give life yet another chance…

The Gurney

A temporary warmth before the coldness of the gurney. The delicious afterglow before the stinging rebuke of hyper reality.

Brazenness to reach out for the forbidden, coupled with a reticence to face the repercussions. Yearning for a second coming and learning that the winged chariot flies ever faster. The mystique of the number 11, the magic in the eyes of the black familiar.

The second murder, the most bloodless one yet. The perfect crime, the one with no consequences to the soul. The accomplice left alone at the scene of the perpetration, the usual way.

Fleet footed are the ways of running from one misdemeanor to another.

Despair and Hope

The days are bearable. The sun's brightness keeps the gloom and doom at bay.

Keeping busy with the mundane trivialities of daily life also acts as an antidote to the poisonous vituperation of an existence blighted by the Other. The Other that is at best neutral and at worst hostile to everything that can make life live.

But I digress. As I go on measuring my life in cigarette butts, sometimes the trees turn green. They begrudge me even those precious few minutes of bliss.

For true despair to exist, there must be a glimmer a hope...

Physician, Heal Thyself...

Medical dramas and legal dramas both make for compelling viewing – Robin Cook and John Grisham both sell millions of books; ER and The Practice both attracted millions of eyeballs; and Outbreak and A Few Good Men both sent viewers’ adrenaline racing. Then how can a film that combines aspects of medical drama and legal drama, and is based on a sensational true story that rocked the nation, leave one so cold?

The answer lies in the writing. Every character – the  strong mother, the earnest intern, the arrogant doctor, the determined lawyer, even the eponymous child – is a stereotype, an example of shoddy, cliched, hackneyed, lazy scripting. And the answer lies in the unnecessary padding of the two love stories that are dragged unnecessarily into the narrative just to bring the film closer to the Bollywood archetype.

The common man has a capacity of tolerating scams and corruption, but finds it difficult to condone cases of medical negligence. Probably it is because the common man is loath to accept that god-like figure – the medical practitioner – as a human figure with feet of clay. Ankur Arora Murder Case is such a tale of medical negligence – the story of how a child Ankur Arora (Vishesh Tiwari) dies because of Dr Asthana's (Kay Kay Menon) negligence, and how his mother (Tisca Chopra) fights for justice with the aid of the doctor’s protege (Arjun Mathur), and a lawyer (Paoli Dam).

The one good thing about the movie is the performances. Kay Kay Menon is incapable of a poor performance, while Tisca Chopra is always a delight to watch. Vishesh, as evinced in Ek Thi Daayan, is a natural talent. Paoli Dam tries her best, while Arjun is earnest. Manish Chaudhari, Harsh Chhaya, and Sachin Khurana add their usual competence. Which makes it all the more pitiful to watch actor after actor try desperately to rise above the shackles of the comatose screenplay. 

So what does this film have in store for members of the medical profession? A cautionary tale of how pride and overconfidence can lead a doctor to overlook a routine, mandatory procedure before a surgery, Ankur Arora Murder Case tries to add adage to the old saying: “Physician, heal thyself!”

The movie tries to look at an emotional issue from every aspect of the noble profession — from the young interns' side, from the reputed senior doctor’s side, from the side of the people who run hospitals, and from the perspective of parents who have children in the medical field. There are enough medical terms thrown about to provide evidence that at least some research had been done into the world the movie tries to portray.

Just a pet peeve: why could the movie not have been called Ankur Arora Medical Case? That way, there could have been at least a modicum of suspense about the tale, a desire to stay and watch a story unfold. Is it because director Suhail Tartari had earlier helmed a movie titled My Wife’s Murder, and perhaps ascribed the moderate success of that venture to the talismanic presence of the word “murder” in the title?

Worship, Arts Fair, or High-Society Wedding?

Durga Puja is also a festivity of Good (Ma Durga) winning over the evil (Maheshasoora the demon). It is a worship of the power of Good which always wins over Evil. Durga's Puja is celebrated from the sixth to tenth day of the waxing moon in the month of Ashwin (Aahin in Assamese), which is the sixth month in the Hindu calendar. In the Gregorian calendar, these dates correspond to the months of September and October.

The actual worship of the Goddess Durga, as stipulated by the Hindu scriptures, falls in the month of Chaitra (Sote in Assamese), which roughly overlaps with March-April.

Since the Goddess is invoked at the wrong time in September-October, it is called Akaal Bodhon (or untimely invocation). In the Ramayana, Rama invokes the goddess Durga in his battle against Ravana. Although she was traditionally worshipped in the spring, due to contingencies of battle, Rama had to invoke her in the autumn akaal bodhan. Today it is this Rama's date for the puja that has gained ascendancy, although the spring puja, known as Basanti Puja, is also present in the Hindu almanac. Since the season of the puja is autumn (or Shôrot), it is also known as Shôrodia puja.

The pujas are held over a five-day period, which is traditionally viewed as the coming of the married daughter, Durga, to her father, Himalaya's home. Although it is a Hindu festival, religion takes a back seat on these five days: Durga Puja is a carnival, where people from all backgrounds, regardless of their religious beliefs, participate and enjoy themselves to the hilt. In Kolkata alone, more than 2000 pandals are set up, all clamouring for the admiration and praise of the populace. Durga Puja in Kolkata is often referred to as the Rio Carnival of the Eastern Hemisphere.

The first such Puja was organised by Raja Nabakrishna Deb of the Shobhabazar Rajbari of Calcutta in honour of Lord Clive in the year 1757. The puja was organised because Clive wished to pay thanks to the divine for his victory in the Battle of Plassey. He was unable to do so in a Church because the only church in Calcutta at that time was destroyed by Siraj-ud-Daulah.

Durga Puja was popular in Bengal in the medieval period, and records exist of it being held in the courts of Rajshahi (16th century). It was during the 18th century, however, that the worship of Durga became popular among the landed elite of Bengal, the zamindars. Prominent Pujas were conducted by the landed zamindars and jagirdars, enriched by British rule. Today, the culture of Durga Puja has shifted from the princely houses to Sarbojanin (literally, "involving all") forms. The first such puja was held at Guptipara.

As one who has visited Durga Puja across Delhi, West Bengal, Orissa and Assam, I would not hesitate to say that Durga Puja is the largest outdoor art festival on earth. In the 1990s, a preponderance of architectural models came up on the pandal exteriors, but today the art motif extends to elaborate interiors, executed by trained artists, with consistent stylistic elements. The art motifs observed have been history (ancient civilizations like the Incas and the Egyptians), mythology, science – and even the Titanic and Harry Potter!

In Delhi, there are approximately 400 registered pujas, which are celebrated with great fanfare by Bengalis, Oriyas and Assamese settled in Delhi. Unlike most of the Durga Pujas in Kolkata, the atmosphere in Durga Pujas celebrated across Delhi, in general, are less commercial and more religious affairs.

In Orissa, Durga Puja is celebrated in two different: apart from the different pandals (called "Medho" in Oriya), devotees also worship the deity in Shakti Peethas (temples of goddess) with proper rituals for 10-16 days, the period known as Shodasa Upachara. Dussehra in Nepal is called Dashain. Interestingly the oldest Puja to be conducted at the same venue is in Rameswarpur, Orissa, where it continues for the last four centuries since the Ghosh Mahashays from Kotarang near Howrah migrated as a part of Todarmal's contingent during Akbar's rule.

As Nepal is chiefly a Hindu nation, the pattern and dates of the festivals coincide with those of India. Durga Puja is organised by the Indian diaspora in the US, Europe and Australia. Although pandals are not constructed, the idols are flown in from Kumartuli in Bengal. The desire by the diaspora to keep in touch with their cultural ties has led to a boom in religious tourism, as well as learning from priests versed in the rites. Also recently, the immersion of the Durga idol has been allowed in the Thames River for the festival which is held in London. In the US, the pujas are often hosted during weekends.

According to historian Benudhar Sarma, the present form of worship of Durga with earthen idols in Assam was started during the reign of Ahom King Pratap Singha. The King heard about the festivity, the pomp and grandeur with which the King Naranarayan of Koch Bihar celebrated Durga Puja from one Sondar Gohain, who was under captivity of the Koch raja. King Pratap Singha sent artisans to Koch Bihar to learn the art of idol making. The King organised the first such Durga Puja celebration in Bhatiapara near Sibsagar. Previous to this, the Devi was worshipped only in Durga temples like Kamakhya, Digheswari, Maha Bhairabi, Ugrotara, and Tamreswari.

Now-a-days, the Durga Puja is mostly a community festival celebrated in all the cities, towns, villages of Assam with great festivity for five days. The Pujas in every corner of Guwahati are mostly spectacular and sumptuous extravaganza. The lighting done by mechanics borrowed from Siliguri – a bit of a drain of resources. And in all this opulence, perhaps a bit of the spiritual significance is silently lost.

Durga Puja in Guwahati has become more a celebration of wealth than a celebration of the soul. The general people cannot even go near the Durga Pratima for worship in most pandals. But the Durga Puja at Shanti Sabha is different. The lights here are for illumination, not for dazzling the devotees with the opulence of the organisers. In this puja, you will get to offer your anjali, and you will get your prasad. On every day of the Puja, after the puja is over, you will get your payash (kheer) and khichdi served in the first floor hall. You will get to join in the celebration of Assamese culture in the Ozapaali and Bhawna.

And most importantly – you will have the opportunity of having a quiet word with the Divine in a genuine Puja – not an arts fair masquerading as a high-society wedding!

Draupadi and the Mango

This story in Kashiram Das’ Bengali Mahabharata does not occur in any of the Sanskrit versions, but is also found in the Tamil version of the epic. Both must be drawing upon a common source that has not yet been found.

During their wanderings in the 13 years of exile, the Pandavas and Draupadi came upon a lovely ashram with many trees laden with fruits. They decided to rest in that spot for some time. Suddenly Draupadi’s eyes fell upon a mango dangling unseasonal from a branch. She asked Arjuna to pluck that mango for her. Arjuna shot a divine arrow and brought that mango to his beloved wife.

As she was about to eat the mango, Lord Krishna appeared and told them that they had committed a grave misdeed. Yudhishthira grew most anxious and asked Krishna what he meant. Krishna told them all that the ashram belonged to the sage Sandipan who even the gods and the demons feared.

“For ages Sandipan muni has lived in this forest. Every day at dawn, he leaves for his meditation and fasts the whole day. Every day a single mango ripens on this tree. When the muni returns in the evening, in great satisfaction he plucks the mango from the tree and eats it. Returning from his penance to the ashram and not finding the mango, the muni will turn you all into a heap of ashes. Alas, Partha, what have you done?” said the lord.

With folded hands king Yudhishthira, asked Krishna a way to save them all from Sandipan’s wrath. Hearing his words, the lord said: “If the tree appears just as it was when the mango was on it, then all can be saved, O king.” When the eldest Pandava asked him how that miracle could be achieved, Krishna told them that that if they all spoke the truth about whatever was uppermost on their minds at any given moment, the mango would go back to the place it came from. All six of them undertook to do as Krishna asked them to.

First spoke Yudhishthira: “Every day I think that if only I could regain my past prosperity, day and night I would perform Brahmin-feeding yajna.” The unseasonal mango rose upwards to some extent, astonishing everyone.

Then said mighty Bhima: “This is what I think day and night: with blows of my mace, I’ll slay the hundred Kauravas. I will shatter Duryodhana’s thigh with my mace, and rip open wicked Duhshasana’s breast with my nails.” When Bhima had spoken, the mango rose further upward.

Aruna said: “This rises in my mind all the time: that with weapons as numerous as the dust will I cut down the wicked Kshatriyas. And I will slay valiant Karna with a divine arrow.” Then the mango rose further upwards. Now it was the twins’ turn.

Nakula said, “Ever I think that when the ruler of Dharma will be king again, I will examine and report to him the kingdom’s good and ill.” Sahadeva said, “Ever I think of how returning to the kingdom I will forget all sorrows in looking after our mother.” Then the mango rose further upwards, almost touching the branch.

Then, slowly, softly, spoke Draupadi: “This is what I think of day and night: all those wicked persons who have pained me so much, at the hands of Bhima and Arjuna, they all shall be slain. All their women will weep in sorrow and I, delighted, will secretly mock them.” The moment Draupadi said this, the mango dropped to the ground again.

Terrified, Yudhishthira burst out: “Why did the mango fall down? Tell us, Krishna.” The lord replied: “Drupadi ruined everything - she spoke all false words.” Hearing this, Arjuna became furious and strung an arrow on his bow. He said: “Quickly speak truthful words, otherwise I’ll slice off your head with this sharp arrow,”

When Arjuna spoke thus, Draupadi spoke the truth casting aside shame: “Lord, what shall I say? You know the spoken and unspoken thoughts of all. When I saw heroic Karna at the syayamvar, since that day I often think that had he been Kunti’s son, then I would have had six husbands.” When she said this, the mango shot up that very moment and was on the branch of the tree as previously. Acknowledging this a miracle, all were delighted.

But mighty Bhima, who loved Draupadi the most roared with anger, “Is this your conduct, evil-minded woman? You have five husbands, yet you secretly desire one more? What made you turn to such evil ways? As long as your mind and heart favour the enemy, who can trust you?” Saying this, lifting his mace, in mighty fury Bhima rushed to slay Draupadi.

With a slight smile, the lord seized Bhima’s hands. Then he said: “Without cause do you slander Draupadi. She spoke not what she desired but what she feared. The cause of this is secret and it is not proper to reveal all now. After the king has returned to his kingdom and has sat on his throne, then will I specially reveal all to everyone.”

Hearing this response from Krishna’s mouth, heroic Vrikodara sat down restrained. And they all thought about what Krishna said as he prepared to take his leave. But this was all his maya: Draupadi had always prided herself as the supreme sati nari, and to break her pride was all this arranged by the lord.

Who's the Best Blogger of Them All?

“What is quality blogging?” is a question that confounds most active bloggers.

To me, a blog is nothing but what its etymological base suggests: a web-log, or an online diary. Each person who maintains a diary writes whatever he or she wants to write about in his or her diary. Similarly, since a blog is just the online version of the diary, every blogger has the freedom to write whatever they want to in their blog. Some people use their dairies just to jot down quotations they read somewhere and liked, and some others use their diaries just to collect good jokes for the after-dinner speeches. Others write deeply personal thoughts in their diaries.
And so it is with blogs: every blogger has their own agendas. A lady blogger always posts her favourite poems – some her own poetry, others she read somewhere else and loved. Another blogger wants to share her darkest secrets, her most rebellious thoughts. As long as both are successful in their agendas, they are both quality bloggers for me, and I read them both with equal interest.

The other aspect of the weblog is that unlike conventional diaries, blogs are social, since they are meant to be read by others apart from the writer himself or herself. And so the good blogger is one whose blogs are understood and considered worthy of perusal by others. Good writing, as far as the language skills go, then becomes all about picking up topics that can be of interest to the most number of readers, or by the greatest variety of readers. Good grammar gets relegated to the background – if a blogger’s post is understandable, that grammar is good enough.
One prominent blogger’s level of erudition and his language skills are beyond most of us average bloggers, but he is read much less than another younger blogger, whose grammar may not be perfect, but is widely read because he posts stuff that is indeed very funny, and much easier to understand. I read both of them regularly, but for entirely different reasons – to learn from the older blogger’s experience of life, and to feel refreshed by the younger one’s uniquely fresh perspective on life and the idiocies and idiosyncrasies of his daily routine. Since most blogging is done on social networking sites, the most popular blogger will be one who will not only write to be understood by the widest variety of readers, but one who will always keep on thinking of new ways to involve the maximum number of other bloggers in “group activities”.
So who do I think are the best ? It has a little to do with my definition of quality, but a lot more to do with my personal tastes. I read someone for his imagination and another for his lovely use of words. I enjoy equally a male blogger's delicious political incorrectness and the bravura bravado of a female blogger's articulation. I adore the sensitivity of one, and admire another's command over the language. I venerate the starkness of one's prose and the lushness of another's poetry.

But my single favourite blogger is the one who is highly versatile, can write on all kinds of topics in all kinds of styles, has above-average writing and grammar skills, and is consciously aware of blogging as a means of social bonding. Who among the ones you read do you think meets these criteria?

Mirror, mirror in the hall, who's the best blogger of them all?

Never Sleepless In Delhi

The old joke about adoption being the height of laziness does the rounds of my mind each time anyone talks about the modern-day panacea – the Viagra Pill. My meddling mind wanders to the Biblical injunction against the deadly sin. No, no, I am not referring here to the sin of Lust. What I am alluding to is another of the Seven Deadly Sins – that of Sloth. Or plain laziness, if you prefer a simpler term.

Unlike my illustrious grandfather (who industriously ran our family chemical industry and oversaw the working of our family farm till the day his 90-year-old body gave up the ghost), or his equally worthy son, my sire (who doubles up as our plumber-cum-carpenter-cum-electrician-cum-mechanic-cum-odd-jobman even at almost 65), I am an extremely lazy individual. Maybe it was just the caprice of Mother Nature, but by the time it was my turn, my ancestral legacy of industrious capacity had exhausted itself.

I sleep (my daily quota of ten hours) in the same jeans and tee shirt I wear to office, because it is too much of an effort to change into any shorts or pajamas at night. I prefer poached eggs for breakfast, because it is too much effort to make omelettes or to boil the eggs – you have to chop onions for the former, and remove the shells to eat the latter). In the old days before office lunches took care of the problem, I used to have Maggi for lunch and dinner. Not because I liked it (in fact I detested it), but because it is too much hard work cooking even the rudimentary khichdi. And as you must have guessed, anything that requires effort is an anathema to my sensitive soul.

Unlike me, Neel is no Accident of Nature. She is, as she claims, the culmination of centuries of effort (in avoiding any sort of effort) on the part of 17 generations of the honourable family. This pinnacle of sloth, the marvelous end product of impeccable evolution, has Rip Van Winkle as her revered idol. 

Neel claims that her four-hours-a-day afternoon siestas are not indicative of any deep-rooted idleness – they just reflect her fervent belief in the principle of conversation of energy. And why does she need to conserve her energy, you may well ask. With a gentle smile playing on her face, she will reply: so that she can prepare for her twelve-hour nightly sleep with great gusto!

Haiku Collection

Till a month or so back, all I knew about haiku was that it was the name of a brand of saris popular centuries ago. I do not even know if this brand still exists. But I recently had my senses ravaged by the beauty of this art form.

For those who are equally clueless, a haiku is a three line poem. The first line of a haiku has 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables and the third line 5 syllables again. Thus a haiku is a three-line 17-syllable composition in the 5-7-5 format.

Explaining what a haiku is tough enough. Writing one is tougher still. Especially for some one who has no sense of awareness whether a word has two syllables or three syllables or seventeen for that matter.
But by far the toughest part is the actual poetry part of the haiku. A haiku is supposed to compress into a few beautiful words a very large expanse of meaning. For one who is totally untalented in poetry, attempting a haiku is nothing short of masochism.

Here are a few of my haikus. Or hokkus or hakka noodles, whatever you may choose to call my efforts.

Culinary:
Hate vegetables
All veg food is really sad
Why is it not meat?

Natural:
That was really cool
When we fell down from a boat
Did not break any bones!

Seasonal:
Brutal cold winter
Gives way to summer warm when
I light cigarette!

Sociological:
She wastes all her hours
Chatting with me all day long
On office bandwidth.

Autobiographical:
Pink tube of beauty
Fair and lovely I use now
To be less ugly.

Romantic:
Can real love blossom
Internet age and online
Anonymity?

The Romantic Legend

Denzil, Noel and Philip were brothers. When I first saw them in junior school, Denzil and Noel had already been teaching at my school for over 25 years, and were both in their early 50s. The youngest brother Philip had been teaching for close to 15 years, and he was in his mid 30s.
They had lived together all their lives, three confirmed bachelors whose only love was an eclectic and huge collection of music records. They were hugely popular as far as private tuitions went, not only among our schoolmates, but also among other school students. Not only because they were all very good teachers, but also because all the kids loved to study with all those wonderful old English numbers playing softly in the background.

All three were very heavy smokers. Each of them would always stop in the open corridors in between classes, and drag deep into the wonderfully blue smoke. The heavy smoking went very well with their image. Especially with tall, rangy Denzil, who reminded every student of Clint Eastwood and his ever-present cheroot.

Denzil was the teacher who was in charge of the school library, and he was always willing to bend the rule that a student could borrow only one book at a time. He always encouraged voracious readers like me to borrow a library card from a fellow student who was not that interested in reading, and use those extra cards to pick up two and sometimes three books at a time.

Noel was short and bald, and had a small neat moustache. He was a dapper little gentleman, and extremely fast on his feet. Little wonder then, that he was the teacher who was in charge of the dramatic and performing arts clubs of the school. Philip’s extra responsibility was as the school photographer. He was always so good with the lens that our school never needed to pay any studio to cover any school function. Or to click the class photographs every year.

A decade passed, and I reached class 10. Denzil was to retire in another six months when he suddenly took ill. Lung cancer, the doctor said, which did not really surprise any one. He took 3 months leave from the school, but died within two weeks. The whole school turned up for the funeral, and as a tear escaped Noel’s eyes, we all joined him in remembering the handsome man we all loved. Philip, not quite unexpectedly, went about clicking the whole function, as if he would collapse the moment he stopped indulging in his favourite hobby.

A little before the board exams started, we heard that Noel went to the same doctor and heard the same diagnosis. He had never really recovered from his brother’s death – they were only a year apart in age. The day he heard the diagnosis, he just took to bed, and never got up again. With a month, the lovable little man too was dead.

That day, Philip had a heart attack. Two brothers gone within a year was just too much for anybody to handle, I guess. Thankfully he recovered slowly, and wisely decided to kick the bad habit before it kicked him too. Suddenly all alone in the world, Philip got a little too close to the domestic help who had cared for him through his illness. She was a young Christian girl, and was apparently too overawed by the Anglo-Indian gentleman’s attentions to resist.

Tongues started wagging when the young girl started gaining too much weight much too fast. He was a bad, immoral man, you would have all concluded by now, but you would be wrong. When he observed the afore-mentioned weight gain, he took the girl to the gynaecologist. When she confirmed their suspicions, he was overjoyed. He asked her to marry him, and she readily agreed.

Not at all ashamed of his liaison with someone socially inferior, he threw a huge party to celebrate his wedding. He not only invited the whole school, but also went and invited each and every one of the ex-students who had ever taken tuitions from him or his elder brothers. I was in Delhi at that time, but my friends who attended, told me that it seemed the whole of the city had descended on the function. The official figures by the caterers put the count at “only” 4250 dinner guests, but it seemed that nearly 10 thousand people turned up. Of course, many may not have eaten, so both figures may well be compatible with each other.

For once, Philip was too busy to click photographs, so the school authorities happily obliged and hired a studio photographer.

Epilogue:
Seven months later, they had twin sons. Young Denzil and Noel are now 13 years old. Philip retires next year, and his lungs are fine: his wife never let him smoke again. His other two vices remain intact – he still clicks photos, and he still listens to Western oldies while teaching his sons and assorted other people’s sons and daughters. He was hugely popular before, but now he’s a romantic legend among the youngsters. His crusty older brothers must be a bit envious, but very proud.

I Will Buy a New Ear

Another year has passed. I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser.
All optimists stay up until midnight to see the new year in. All pessimists stay up to make sure the old year leaves. But both categories insist on making new year resolutions, and what is worse, insist on telling you what their resolutions are. They forget that good resolutions are simply checks that you draw on a bank where you don’t have any account.

So here’s my New Year's Resolution - to tolerate fools and fishes more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time! Entirely for your perverse pleasure, here is the list of my ten alternative New Year Resolutions. I considered each of them carefully before settling on the one finally selected:

1. I will answer my snail mail with the same enthusiasm with which I answer my e-mail.
2. When I hear a funny joke I will not reply: "LOL... LOL!"
3. I will balance my chequebook properly. How about balancing it on my nose?
4. I will not look at pretty girls. It’s depressing to find out exactly how many people there are who will never notice you.
5. I will not look at pretty boys either. I am neither a deviant nor a paedophile.
6. So many women, so little time. I will make more time. Only to be disappointed again.
7. I will not tell the same story at every get together. I will think of new ways to torture my few listeners.
8. I will not encourage the kids in my society to pee down from the top floor at the people passing below.
9. I will remember it isn't worthwhile wrestling with bulls - you get all muddy and the bulls just love it!
10. I will take neither myself nor any of the above seriously.

Maids in Leather Pants

At lunch today, I overheard a few women colleagues discussing their maids animatedly. One of them suddenly piped up in a sarcastic tone: "These maids have turned so modern nowadays! I saw my maid on her off day shopping in the local market, wearing jeans, lipstick, and high heels!" As the others on the table went “ooh” and “aah” at the apparently scandalous behaviour, I started thinking.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you are saying: “Arnie and thinking? Is that not a contradiction in terms?” Well, all I have say to that is that just because it is office, that does not mean that I sleep all the time. I do have to wake up sometimes, especially when I am eating. Otherwise there is a tendency to push food into my nose, and that is not really an elegant sight. And when I am awake, and the food is in front of me, I have to think of things other than food. So maid servants are as good or as bad a topic to think of as any other.

Which brings us back to what was I actually thinking about maid servants. No, you filthy minds, I do have not that kind of perverse thoughts about maid servants. Even if those maid servants are cleaner than normal and stylish enough to wear jeans and high heels.

What I was actually thinking is why do people have this tendency to fit everyone else into comfortable stereotypes? What is so wrong in a maid wearing jeans? Or, for that matter, in the maid wearing leather pants and tank tops, if it pleases her? Not only will it be a pleasant change from the coconut hair oiled middle aged sour-mooded specimens that are the norm in Delhi, it is also a striking a blow for equality of the sexes. After all, the guy who comes to wash my car in the mornings and the guy who delivers the newspapers both wear jeans, and no body seems to find that shocking in the least.

So what's so wrong in a maid wearing jeans? Isn't she a human being with her own likings, her own aspirations, and her own young heart which wants to follow the latest that the so-called social superiors claim as their birthright? Especially when the social inferior is in better shape than the scandalized social superior, who, charitably put, resembles a giant pumpkin as she is 5 foot tall and 4 foot broad?

Boys Don't Cry

He had left his hometown in sleepy Assam for the first time and gone all alone to big bad Calcutta for his college studies. Two days before his exams started, a national movement broke out in full flame, and engulfed the nation. He had never heard much about the Independence movement in Assam, and his youthful dreams were engulfed by the magnitude of what he saw in Calcutta.

Resolving that the least he could do was quit wearing foreign clothes, he went and bought some khadi kurtas and dhotis. From that to joining the nationalistic movement was a small step, and soon he told his parents that studies could wait: the important thing was that the nation should be free of foreign rule. His parents understood and gave their blessings. Within two months, he was in jail. He was beaten up rather badly every day by the jailors, but did not utter a word in protest. After all, the British were not exactly known for their leniency during the Civil Disobedience movement. And boys, of course, don’t cry.

By the time he was released, he was a changed man. He had almost forgotten to smile. Deciding that he was too old to study, he turned to tilling the land like a true swadeshi. Independence came soon to the nation, and his parents decided that the best way to celebrate that was to get him married off. After a year, he was blessed with a baby daughter, and a year after that, with a son. Unfortunately, the girl died within a year of the brother’s birth. As he went to bury his little daughter, he tried to be philosophical about it. Men, of course, don’t cry.

The son grew up quite healthy, and five years later, it seemed everything was turning out good as they were blessed with another daughter. This one survived till three years of age, before she too succumbed to the same symptoms that had afflicted his elder daughter. He was stoic about this death too: after all, grown men don’t cry.

Another ten years passed. He had another son, who too was perfectly healthy. He always wanted a daughter, so when his wife unexpectedly got in the family way again at almost forty, he was overjoyed. Medicinal care was much better now, and the birth was perfectly normal. The little girl grew up as the apple of her parents’ and her elder brothers’ eyes. But tragedy struck again when the girl suddenly fell seriously ill when she was eight years old. The doctors tried their best, but two months later, she succumbed to her mysterious ailments. He was shattered inside, but the boys and their mother looked up to him for strength, and he could not fail them. After all, middle-aged men don’t cry.

A decade passed, and the elder boy got married. When his daughter-in-law was expecting, he half-wished that it would not be a girl, because he was convinced that the girls in his lineage were cursed. But his grand-daughter was healthy, and this time he did not have to cry. Another grand daughter followed, and he was overjoyed that the curse was finally lifted. When the younger son too produced two girls, the now elderly gentleman showered all his affections on the four little girls.

His younger brother and his two sisters passed away within five years of each other. He missed them in his old age, but after a lifetime of self-restraint, he could not shed any tears at any of their deaths. Old men, after all, are not supposed to cry.

Yesterday he passed away as quietly as he had lived. He hated bothering any one, and went away with as little fuss as he could muster at the age of 83. When his youngest brother heard the news, he took it hard, but did not cry. After all, his brother had taught him that grown men don’t cry and he had taught that same lesson to his own son.

So when he called me up to tell me the news, I could not weep either. After all, boys don’t cry.

Come On Baby, Light My Fire

Thank heavens, I have given up smoking again! God, I feel fine. Homicidal maybe, but still fine. I am a different man ever since I quit smoking. Yes, I am now irritable, moody, depressed, rude, and nervous! Giving up smoking is very easy: I do it once every month. See, it has already been 2 hours since I quit smoking, and I’m already writing like a mass murderer.

A girl I was seeing seriously objected to my smoking. I had to quit, she insisted. So I did quit. I quit seeing her. After all, she was a lot less capable of lighting my fire than a cigarette. That was a terrible pun, I must admit!

Good food, good sex and good sleep: to these three basic needs of sanity, man has added nothing in the past five thousand years apart from the good smoke. They threaten me with lung cancer, and still I smoke. If they'd only threaten me with hard work, I might quit smoking for longer than the couple of hours every day I manage. I insist that the cigarette helps me lose weight too: one lung at a time.

Fame is a Fickle Thing

There are people who are born to fame. Peope would have known about Abhishek Bachchan even if he had been as much of an actor as Kishen Kumar. Though Abhishek and the others might crib about the enormous pressures of living up to daddy's shoes, inherited fame is pretty cool. You have it made, all you got to do is try not to mess it up.

Raj Kapoor's three sons were all born to fame. Though only one of them ultimately remained famous, I suspect it is more to do with their names. If you call your favourite son Dabboo, the son will try his earnest best to make a Dabba out of his life. If you call another son Chimpoo, the idiot will try to be a chimpanzee all his life. But if you call him Chin-two, all he needs to fear is having a double chin. Which is all right, as that family seems to develop multiple chins even without the benefit of weird names.

And then there are those who achieve fame. Chief among this kind are the ones like Paris Hilton. You know, those who are famous simply for being famous. I actually went two years reading about Paris Hilton's escapades trying to figure out why she is so famous, till I learnt to my chagrin that her sole claim to fame is simply that she is famous!

The Sleeping Ugly

I suddenly woke up with a really bad headache. It's the third week of the month: too early for next month's salary to come in, too late for last month's meagre alms to continue to last.

Was it a hangover? I must have consumed too many Red Bulls last night in a fatally doomed effort to be energetic enough to attend work today. I think I should have listened to Kapil Paaji and stuck to Boost!

Actually, I really should just stop trying to sleep in office. I call it office and not workplace, because I don't really work here. I just pretend to work, just like they pretend to pay me.

The good part is that it's almost 12 o clock, only an hour to go for lunch...and lunch is FREE here at office.

Best Dining Options in Delhi

My favourite eating places in Delhi:

1. Karim's (Jama Masjid): The ultimate in Mughlai cuisine in the capital, perhaps the best in the entire world!
2. Big Chill (Kailash Colony): Continental cuisine to suit all taste buds, this eatery is so popular, there's always a half-hour waiting time.
3. China Garden (GK 2): Exquisite Chinese cuisine, not the Punjabi-Chinese variety that is so easily available elsewhere in the capital.
4. Al Bake (New Friends Colony): This tiny eatery offers awesome Mediterranean cuisine. The shawarmas are justifiably famous all over Delhi.
5. Oriental Bloom (Ansal Plaza): The dimsums here are to die for.
6. My own home: Thanks to the wife's culinary capabilities. And my own exquisite non-veg stuff.

Hey Babie

No children for me, and certainly no need or biological urge to have any. People should have babies only when they want to, and are financially, mentally, emotionally and physically prepared to be responsible for another human being not for a day, not for a month, not for a year, but for the rest of their lives. It's a frightening thought, being responsible for someone else's life.

There may be some pros to having a kid, though I personally can't see any. "Emotional bonding" is the one most women bandy about. I'm done with emotional investment for my entire life, it's too low-percentage a game to play. I don't need to live a life where I'll have to think twice before going out or doing my own thing. I don't need a life where I'll have to think twice about what I'm watching because it might be unsuitable for the pint-sized human sitting next to me. I don't need a life where I have to bear the cross of being a role model to any one.

A good reason to have kids is when you're crazy about them, not because your insecure inner self tells you that you'll need company when you are 65 and don't want to be in an old-age home. Should I have kids because my long-suffering parents need to become grandparents? No. Should I have them because all people my age do? Nope. 

Should I have them because my biological clock is ticking away at double speed? Hell, no, that's like saying I never bought something from the supermarket and now they are on sale and will be out of stock soon.

The Shade and The Shadow

I am back on the long road. All alone on the endless journey with the scorching sun burning my back. The big tree I had called my own has been chopped off. My only chance of finding a momentary shade is gone.

My shadow wants to leave me too. The shadow is following me only because of the sun, cruel though the heat may be. But who will stand by me in the dead of the night? Can I start a tenuous friendship with my own loneliness?

I walk alone, with just my tears to call my own. Alone again, for ever, on the endless journey of life. The desert is limitless, and the sea shore is too far away.

Be Happy, And Stay Happy

It is not your fault. Maybe it's just that we no longer seem to have anything in common. Your horizons have broadened. You have achieved so much in life at such a young age. And I stayed the same old man, still driving the same old car. Maybe moving back with me is nothing but a step back. Into an arena where you don't feel the same happiness you do in your new world.

I feel the tone of resignation that creeps into your voice whenever we talk about settling back into the old routine. Maybe you need to be away from me to be happy. And I think we should all do whatever we all need to do in order to be happy. Please go back again and again as many times as it takes for you to be a permanent resident of the wonderful land of opportunity. Each time you need to return for a limited amount of time to find your moorings, I shall welcome you back.

Be happy, and stay happy. Thank you for whatever you have done for me. And thank you for having once let me dream of paradise.