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Time To Get Inked

27 Apr

An excerpt from an email I wrote to my friend Anu about the forthcoming polls:

I will be completely honest: gender was not a consideration for me when I picked my candidate, although I did feel glad to see two well-heeled candidates from corporate India joining the fray. If I do vote for either of them, though, it will be on the basis of what they can do for my constituency, not because they’re women.

I am disappointed that nobody has expressly addressed any gender concerns*, but again, in my South Bombay constituency with relatively high levels of education and income, the focus is on infrastructure and safety from terrorism, so I’m not entirely surprised.

The one party I would absolutely not vote for is the BJP because I believe their Hindutva ideology is regressive to the point of slotting women in historically repressive domestic roles and they’ve taken the country back to the dark ages, with their heinous crimes and divisive rhetoric.

Maybe it’s the community I belong to (Parsi) or the ideology I grew up with (secularism and tolerance for minorities), but I’m usually a Congress loyalist. Not because they’re fabulous, but because they were, until recently, the least evil of the lot. Now with more independent candidates joining the fray, I can’t believe our good fortune that we have, for probably the first time, a choice between 3 halfway-decent non-criminal candidates. Now if only one of them would get elected, I’d die happy.

*It may very well be that South Bombay files the maximum number of rape cases, given overall higher levels of education and awareness. Numbers may be telling only half a story in this case.

Updated to add: In case you were wondering about the liberal sprinkling of ‘I’s above, I was expressly asked to give my perspective on several election-related issues. But now that I’ve noticed, I’m cringing anyway.

“How vain it is to sit down to write…

17 Mar

….when you have not stood up to live.”

–Henry David Thoreau

Lately, I’ve been heeding the wise and ignoring the written word for live action. Hence the online absences. Small efforts have been hugely rewarding and blessings are a-plenty. But since my words have long morphed into compulsive exhibitionists, they’ll pop up, I’m sure, for their 5 minutes of hula in the bloglights. Oh look, here they come already!

*************

You and I were meant to write. Like children with goodie bags, we have our clutch of juicy words. They drip-ooze-squish into our sensibilities.

You and I were meant to write. Even if we scratch mere half-pictures into the chalk-dust, for the other, it’s one sketch too many.

You and I were meant to write.  For speech has long been overrated. And the most precious words are deciphered, not intoned.

You and I were meant to write. So our silences don’t get cranky. And crackle at the corners and curl inward to eat themselves.

You and I were meant to write. For all our claims on the nether regions of madness, the world demands one token streak of sanity.

Pithy & the City

3 Mar

Status check: Alive? Well? Happy?

~Routine text message to a friend who’s known to fall off the planet.

To the Persistently Kind Folks at Viagra:

17 Nov

Dear Mesdames and Sirs Spamalot,

Thank you for your continued attention to the state of my “man whip.” I feel compelled to inform you that I am not in possession of the said tool of sadism, born as I was with alternate anatomy, known in layman and -woman’s terms as a hooha.

I regret I will be unable to “satisfy her wildest fantasies all night long” as my French-bearded bed-buddy may be a tad resistant to undertaking a sex change operation for your commercial benefit.

Yes, my testosterone is flagging. I bloody hope so. The last thing I need is another wax appointment. It would take away from the precious time I spend trashing your valuable messages.

When I grow a ding-dong and need a shot in the ….err….arm, I assure you your esteemed company shall be the third to know. The first two, of course, will be the morgue and my lawyer. In that order.

Good luck with your noble campaign. I apologize I am inadequately equipped to stand up in a show of support.

Yours ovulatingly,

OJ

About the Black Man in the White House

9 Nov

Thank you for those warm wishes.  I can see you with all smiles, laughter and with displays of admiration.  We are so happy here at this historical time.  The election of the first ‘African-American/ visually multiply ethnic’ President is more than a breath of fresh air for many.  This is true especially for those who fought against ferocious dogs and water hoses and police brutality in order to get the American vote.  The suppressed breath for real citizenship has been exhaled.

~Email from a dear friend, a southern, African-American lady, who had to flee her state after marrying a white man in the ‘70s. She is now blind, but has the clearest insight of any person I know.

Also, jerk those tear glands here.

To You. Because Pretension Is All I Can Scrape Together.

31 Oct

On this, the last day of the month, the hottest in the year, I find the word all wrong to use. It scorches: screechingly, searingly, tearing into my flesh with a canine sizzle as I inhale the vapors of the humid bodies standing in weary line and try to muster images of a New York spring behind closed eyes with squiggles of translucence drifting to the boundaries, trapped within my field of vision, in much the same way as my body remains grounded while the spirit readies itself to nose-dive into an achingly green patch in an unbusy corner of Central Park.

Ladies, He’s Available

16 Oct

Here I am, trying to call you to make sure you haven’t drunk yourself into a stupor, and there you are, in the headlines, winning the Booker! Congratulations! Now apartments and women should never be a problem again.

~In an email to our latest Booker winner.

P.S. He is not a drunk. I’m just hysterical.

Letters I’ve Written, Meaning To Send

13 Oct

Dear Mr. [Ruskin] Bond,

Apologies for beginning this note on the wrong page, but I expect it will extend beyond the length of only one. I want to thank you for generously sharing your time and anecdotes with us when we visited your home. It has been barely two days since we were there, but already the Bombay grind makes the mists seem like a distant dream.

I am currently trying to locate a postal service that delivers perishable items so I can send more guava jam your way. From my efforts so far, I have learned that either courier delivery boys are terribly greedy or nobody believes in the therapeutic effects of marmalade anymore. I will continue to try, though. Meanwhile, enclosed herewith are some photographs. The Boy and I hope you enjoy them.

Thank you again for meeting us on Friday. I can honestly say that the all-too-brief encounter was a highlight of my life. I look forward to reading your beautiful words for many years to come and will keep my fingers crossed about possible future visits.

Warmest regards,

[meltingly, swooningly, oh-so-adoringly and worshipfully],

OJ

Adios Unwillingly

1 Oct

You slipped out quietly this year. None of your usual bluff and bluster. And certainly no encores.

Without as much as a by-your-leave, you were gone, the door shut firmly and the sound of a taxi in the distance. Did you feel ignored? Abandoned? Snubbed by the throngs worshipping other deities? Chasing elephant heads, fasting by day and feasting by night, they nudged you off centre-stage and chose other distractions instead.

And now the ingrates miss you, how you soak their beloved city, how she sparkles in borrowed droplets, how she lounges in silver-laced foam.

But you’re gone and we look skyward, blinded by a gathering sun, and sadly store our umbrellas away, until you glower darkly at us again.

Minority Report

28 Sep

The folks who love me tell me I matter. And yet, because of who I am, I know I don’t. Having lived my life as multiple forms of a minority group (mainly religious, cultural, geographic, socio-economic and political), I am aware that mine is the smallest voice, not less powerful as much as less relevant.

My views on public celebrations are mere squeaks amid the roar of the disco-dancing revelers. My thoughts on enforced religious practice matter squat because I am one of only 69,000 in the world. A Parsi is not a votebank, only a good-hearted crank, easily missed by even a microscope.

Culturally, I’m the oddball who knows her Brahms but not Bally Sagoo, who learned about “muthias” only yesterday but grew up slurping porridge, and who believes marriage before 30 is detrimental to sanity. At the NCPA one evening, the Symphony Orchestra of India played Liszt, to the nodding-swaying enjoyment of the audience. When this mostly European group of musicians swiftly changed to Dhoom Macha Le as a surprise, they were met with blank faces and silence. I knew I was among the 3 ½ people who even recognized it.

Geographically, I am surrounded by friends and family who think Bandra is the end of the world, while the rest of the city jostles and rushes by without a thought to daily commuting. Even among my own, I am the minority for trekking to Powai while they remain south of Worli and fear for my health and sanity.

Socio-economically, I’m a teeny-tiny sliver of people who aren’t a business community, aren’t nouveau riche, aren’t aristocracy, aren’t old money, but have impeccable accents and know how to work the silverware at the Sea Lounge. The middle class spread is like a middle-aged man’s girth, but as upper middle, I’m somewhere near the lower abdomen.

Politically, I’m mid-left on social issues and middle-path on economic ones, while my milieu resembles the Indian version of Republican senators. That I continue to hope and vote and believe in grassroots work isolates me further.

Amid a billion and then some people in this nation, my life choices, my beliefs and the strength I feel them with have no significance in the scheme of things, because I am a lone number amid majority hordes and the statistics always win.

There will be resentment toward my “snobby life”, all the “what do you know” questions hurled at me, and this is not about garnering sympathy. It is about the life I live, as real as anybody else’s, but not counted or taken seriously because it is a rarer existence. It rankles, sure, but I’ve lived with it long enough to know it’s here to stay. (And yes, people have worse afflictions.)

So I write. In the hope that I can escape leave my labels at the door, divorce my history, blur my “identity” and be just me. But if you were to ask whether I’d be willing to trade any of this—and I know you will—my answer is: Not on your life.

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