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I Suppose This Must Be My Mandatory New Year Post

2 Jan

The one where I sound hopeful and cheery and mouth lines like “May the new year usher in many joys to heal and hold us in its blessed days” which I promptly trotted out in response to the Boy’s “What shall we text our friends this year?”

The one where I wish upon you the happiness you could just as well receive on September 15th. July 24th. February 2nd. May 9th.

The one where I look back on the days that were and sum up my life in neat little Tupperware containers. Health: C -, Work: B +, Love: A ++

Done. Put a lid on and pack it away. Next, please!

But I’m still here. As are the days and the hours. That layer of dust on the turntable remains unmoved. As does the home I came back to this afternoon. The precise look on Ma’s face when I’ve been gone a while. The way the cabbie spat out his tobacco. The lilt of ‘La Bamba’ each time my phone buzzed. And the firm, warm love that the Boy held out, from one day to the next.

There are still no dustbins in the Borivali National Park. And praline in vanilla fudge ice cream tastes just as good. I’m still struggling to find domestic help for the evening hours. The Bolshoi ballet continues to be sold out. The winter is as unshivering as always. My kiddos are as bouncy as ever. The fan creaks its ancient presence. People live with a rent in their hearts. I still haven’t found the perfect black kurta. The boys at traffic lights keep pimping pirated Adigas. Our arms are wound around ourselves, and sometimes each other, but we must unwrap them post haste, to be thrown up in predetermined celebration as the rapidly appearing milestones shimmer in the smoggy haze. Click a clock. Flick a page. And magically, we’re in Year Next.

But I’m still here. As are the days and the hours. And that layer of dust on the turntable remains unmoved.

Where Do Lurkers Go To Die?

28 Dec

Where do lurkers go to die?

When they’re done scanning surreptitiously,

Flitting behind translucent screens,

Consuming voicelessly the offerings of another,

Nodding in mute agreement,

Dissenting distantly,

They scuttle back into the black hole

From whence they came.

…

Rise and shine the next morning,

Train those eyeglasses again,

Voyeurism can’t be bad if we’re all snoops (right?)

And saying hello might just kill us.

So this army of lipzipped bystanders

Scuttles back into the black hole

From whence it came,

Shut the lid for good measure,

There, now we’re follow-proof!

…

Maybe that’s where lurkers go

to die.

Hark The Rich Bitch Speaks

3 Dec

Late last night, I received a forwarded email that contained this piece and an individual’s response to it. I recommend skimming through the piece before you read any further. The individual who responded to it is a friend of the acquaintance who sent it to me, one Rasika Gaikwad, who wrote the following:

skimmed thru the article….in a harried/hurried way
but i totally agree
i mean the whole thing is hyped because its bombay and the rich died
not to belittle anybody’s grief, but if the affluent and the
educated speak out only when their tail is on fire, this country has no hope

ULFA is a terrorist organisation…..which has caused enough mayhem
who cares abt the north-east problem though?????????????????
hell…i m sure way more than 200 people die in police custody each year
and many of them innocent… they are just poor and generally muslims
fucking hell…. i means lakhs and lakhs of femles infants are killed every year in India…

9/11 killed 3000 americans..and these people (english spouting, drug lapping zombies jolted by a fire at their favourite hotel) extol america’s reaction???
it fucking bombed the wrong country and killed thousands of children…
bush continued to pal up with the bin laden clan for oil….
is this wht we r supposed to learn from america?????

india loses so many more lives to terrorism than any other country except Iraq and we r not even at war…….
military men at the border face fire routinely

point is….we just react to drama
damn ya… we need to evolve beyond prioritising on the basis of what provokes visceral shocks
we r not even identifying teh problem correctly
or rather are not focusing on the right ones
how on earth are we going to solve them???????

i was driven crazy by what happened this week (my sis was out almost all night till it lasted..we barely slept)
but what incapacitated me were the 2006 train blasts.. i still can’t bear to think abt them for more than a minute
no minister resigned then….

if the ‘more important’ people getting affected makes news; so be it…
news is business…. its about TRPs , not truth…
(and what fucking imporatnt people…. no big scientist or artist or leader died as far as i know (correct me)
what shocked the crap abt of these people is that even money can’t buy safety..
i mean..’WE CAN’T BE SAFE EVEN AT THE TAJ!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The country really is in deep shit..’

bombs have been going off in crowded market places across the country for teh whole of last year…

1 billion plus people…and the newspapers are full of people telling us
how taj was like a second home to them… well maybe so..these are the sentiments of a miniscule section of society and they expressed it..genuinely too ….(and oh my god..heritage be damned..when did we start caring abt that..???
many old, beautiful buildings in bombay are in ruins… ratan tata will take care of taj… teh govt needs to worry abt CST)

the govt. needs to treat its subjects equally… even if the media doesn’t.
(atleast now we need to be more sensitive towards the kashmiris
imagine living in mortal fear for decades…. !!!)
no one fucking called for the ISI chief in the last 60 years…
not enough evidence of involvement of pakistan there, is it?????????

i sincerely wish though that not just families bereaved (and not just because of yest’s attacks but because of every single cruel, violent act), but all of us start caring about what happens sround us when the grief settles down as a natural part of our system

**********

I could not wait until the next day to respond. Propping matchsticks between my eyelids and seething with anger, I dashed off the response below to my acquaintance. Plenty more arguments occurred to my fresher mind this morning, but I will post my response exactly as it was sent:

*********

This sounds almost resentful–both the original article and your friend’s response. It is natural that some events and actions hit closer home than others and we choose to react to the ones that hurt us with their intimacy. I am not indicating that all the points made are invalid, but to show righteous outrage about equality at a time when persons are deeply grieving their private losses unveils a small, disgruntled mind that refuses to grant a moment’s reprieve that is basic human decency. It is clear that both the writer and the respondent are far removed from the current situation, and therefore unaffected. Hence they can afford the luxury of going all moralistic on somebody else’s pain. I strongly object to the sweeping generalizations made about (sic) RICH SPOILT KIDS WHO WOULD DRIVE THEIR VEHICLES OVER SLEEPING AAM AADMIS ON THE PAVEMENT. Not everyone who goes there is rolling in wealth and certainly not everyone who visits is a murderer. But of course, the person writing this wouldn’t know that. He’s too busy trying to prove an “original” point to verify facts. Yes, CST did not get as much coverage. But there are understandable reasons for that act:
1. It did not devolve into a hostage situation, unlike the other 3 locations, and was a limited time-frame episode that did not involve engaging continual resources. It is but natural at times like these that social fair play takes a back seat and more pressing priorities are dealt with.
2. The very NATURE of these attacks is different from the boom-and-it’s-over tactics that we’ve grown immune to. Here, the enemy had a face, a voice and a sustained plan of action. We weren’t left picking up the pieces because it was hell bent on ripping the shards to shreds and the targets in question had to be wrenched out of its control. A little consideration toward this all-important differential fact would have gone a long way in making the writer and respondent’s arguments worthier of attention.

Please send this to both, if it is possible. And have them know that they disgust me. Humanity clearly isn’t missing from just terrorists.

*********

It’s back. The you-have-means-and-are-therefore-less-deserving-of-sympathy argument. The deeply erroneous assumption that the better off care only about their immediate environment and don’t move a facial muscle when the lower economic stratas are impacted. It makes for a good social justice essay. And probably acts as a feel-good, oh-I’m-so-uniformly-fair kick. But beyond its initial hook to make people stop a while and rethink their view of the world, the premise and its arguments both ring hollow.

Firstly, WHERE is the empirical evidence to prove that people with fatter paychecks felt no anguish at other attacks on their city? Yes, there have been a thousand November 26s in Kashmir since militancy ravaged the valley. People who can afford tea at the Taj do have a basic level of education and don’t need Sankaran to do the math for them.

Secondly, IN WHICH RULEBOOK is it written that all human beings must feel equal anguish at all events? In the years since independence, India has been at the receiving end of enough terrorist aggression to fill a book, and at some point, our shock and horror have been muted by the regularity with which these events occur and the intimacy of the situation to our own lives. What is so sinful in realizing that I will absolutely feel more devastated when the attack is closer home than when it is in a part of my country that I haven’t had the privilege of visiting? Why does my deeper reaction to something that holds more meaning for me make me a callous bitch who cares squat for more distant wounds? And no one demonstrates this better than the writer of the original piece, Mr. Gnani Sankaran, who would be sobbing a very different tune, were he not sitting in faraway Chennai, removed from the immediacy of our latest nightmare.

Thirdly, WHY do we have to prove our allegiance to our fellow Indians by expressing equally rationed quotas of outrage every time a terror strike occurs? Why is my integrity toward my fellow citizens and country questioned because I didn’t howl like I am doing today? Must I shout from the rooftops that 7/11 was as heartbreaking? Must I tell you all today that I had friends waiting on streets to hand out bottles of water and juice to commuters stranded on the way home? Must I prove my love for Delhi by announcing at this juncture that I wrote letters to editors, sobbed into my pillow and grieved for my nation’s beautiful capital? Should I be assuaging Mr. Sankaran’s righteous indignation by assuring him I would be as horrified, were a similar calamity were to befall Chennai?
The reasons for the sustained focus on the Taj and the Oberoi have been mentioned by me in the email. The novelty of the attack, the demands of the situation and length of the assault all contributed to the five-stars receiving increased attention. The CST, fortunately or not, was not put under the same kind of lengthy torture as the other 3 locations, the third one being conveniently omitted by Mr. Sankaran, save for a fleeting mention.

He then goes on to lambast the moneyed by calling them swindlers, spoilt rich kids and even murderers, who supposedly cruise over bodies without a care. Mr. Sankaran, Salman Khan, to the best of my knowledge was not at the Taj Mahal Hotel that night. Would you bother to point out who else it is that can’t differentiate between a pavement and people? If Cafe Leopold is, in your clearly superior opinion, also the hang-out of spoilt, rich, murderous kids, why was that not given coverage after the initial rounds of firing, Mr. Sankaran? The media, the commandos, the intervening authorities, though far from perfect in intent or operation, clearly had more common sense than you, who, blinded by your misguided moral outrage, targeted the first punching bag you could set your unfocused sights on.

This is not a volley to defend the media. Neither am I speaking as a representative of the rich and powerful. No Page 3 person is my friend and the two people I lost were both upper middle class men who worked hard to feed their families. I needn’t scream until I’m blue in the face that this time around, it was different. The audacity, the means, the end goal, the target populace. It is but natural that this twist in our usual terrorism script will bring about more volatile reactions. Yes, South Bombay is the home and haunt of fatter wallets, better educations and greater entitlement. It is also the contributor of much to the city and the nation. Take a walk down our streets, Mr. Sankaran, to see what India can be like. I say this not with arrogance, but with the pride I carry within me for my amazing city within a city. Deriding its people for what they have and the media for its first-time coverage of such an episode is hateful, small-minded and downright pompous. It belittles our pain and serves no purpose but to further torture our already shattered spirits.

At a time when we look to our nation (and, to an extent, the media) for strength and resources, this rant peppered with search-friendly phrases and textbook ideas of equality and social justice reeks of injustice to the sufferers of this tragedy.

Shame, Mr. Sankaran. Shame, Rasika Gaikwad. I have nothing but loathing for your petty, unworthy sentiments.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

1 Dec

The nights since the horror was officially declared over have been spent convulsing into a pillow, after futilely seeking comfort in sleep. I know why I tweeted through a large number of those 60 hours. It began with attempting to keep friends abroad and those without access to news updated. But as the hours wore on and my fingers flew over the keyboard, furiously keeping pace with unfolding events, I realized it was my route to sanity. Sleep was unthinkable. I had to DO something to partially mitigate the loss of control and hopelessness I was experiencing. When the siege wound down, I determinedly went back to living out my routine, because I believed I was cocking a snook at the people who had brought my city to its knees.

But the feeling won’t die down. I’m struggling with the sadness and it’s coming out in strange ways. In withdrawal from a slightly bewildered Boy, who moved to Bombay only in his teens. In the need to connect to people who feel the same way. In a fresh batch of tears in the middle of a café. In wanting to talk about my precious city to everyone I think will listen. In staring achingly across at the Oberoi each morning, shrouded in dense smog. In hoping to share the experience with folks who really, truly understand by virtue of having had a similar childhood. People who were here long before there was this. And this is me, the usually inclusive girl who can find something to relate to in every person.

I’m helpless and angry, heartbroken and anguished, as furious monologues in my head yield nothing. I’m running around in circles trying to find ways to help, something concrete, something permanent, something all of us can sustain. And of all the things I yearn for, the one thing I want is for my city not to forget. I don’t want our ‘spirit’ to keep us going, I don’t want us to move on and move past, I don’t want the news reports to be palmed off to the raddiwala, the people who succumbed reduced to grainy images of old hat.

Mourn, Bombay, mourn. I WANT you to wail. Plaster your streets with the names of the murdered, paint the walls with the redness of graves, shriek your questions aloud at the ether, hang your noose on the silences in conversations. Forgetting will be our death trap, tolerance, the last nail. Yes, I know the world’s a zoo; be any other animal but not an ostrich, pound your pain into something tangible, keep it alive until you spark outrage.

Stop, I want to scream, at the city back to work on a Monday morning, the funeral isn’t over. Is this it, the beginning of forgetting, all the mindspace we can afford our present? Why are we such misers when it comes to grieving? Can we really not afford more regret? How does a nation so proud of its ancient history spawn a city that thrives on collective amnesia? Have we swapped our souls for bloated bellies, cramming moremoremore of Mayanagari’s delights?

Weep, Bombay, weep. Seethe, Bombay, seethe. Rage, howl, heal. Do anything, show anything, but not your tattered, intact spirit.

Do not go gentle into that good night. Linger, my sweet Bombay, in the twilight zone… just a little longer.

Of Politics & Politicos

24 Nov

I’m an unlikely candidate to have connections in bureaucratic circles. A schoolmarm with a social work background hardly hobnobs with the jet-setting ministerial cadre. And yet, I have one such friend. Someone who I wouldn’t have ordinarily mentioned, had it not been for the backlash he constantly faces from land sharks, political bodies with vested interests and foreign companies wanting to invest unethically in the state of Kerala. Time and again, stunts are played out to pull him down. And media intervention in the form of exposes helps him retain his head and position in the nick of time.

Attempts have been made on his life and saner folks wonder why he labors in government positions when the corporate offers thrown at him would enable him to live like a czar. We’ve discussed this more than once and idealists that we are, we believe somebody’s got to effect change. And so I chant nursery rhymes instead of working in glitzy PR and he gets sent off to the interiors of Madhya Pradesh on random pretexts, so plans can be implemented to get rid of him. While my efforts are and will always be humble and limited, this man’s strife is worth a wider audience.

Let me point you to the Indian Express article about him on November 21st. And if for no other reason, please browse through it to know that not every IAS officer is out to feed off our country. There is hope, and its name is Radhakrishnan Luxman.

WWW

6 Nov

Us bloggers, we’re the online counterparts of university block-mates: up way past midnight, typing furiously, in and out of each others’ rooms, slamming doors, hooting at wisecracks and coming alive at the Cinderella hour, as if the magic of the moment will bind us in a sorority bracelet and the globe will light up in shimmering blips as we warm the continents with our hit counters. Either that or we’re just a bunch of over(net)worked, over-stimulated insomniacs.

……….

Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.

~ Andrew Sullivan, in Why I Blog

On All Souls’ Day

3 Nov

It’s interesting, how we patronizingly pray for our dead, when it is they who could do us a favor by praying for those of us left behind in this mess.

Linguistically Speaking

10 Oct

So the language hydra has reared its head again. One more beautiful construct that we as a species have contorted into ugly power games, but that’s not the point of this post. (Be warned: there may be none at all.) A phenomenon that I had observed on my numerous visits to Pune last year, and commented on to friends, has crept into Bombay recently. Over the past month, I have noticed that most storefronts, hitherto announcing their names in English only, have added Marathi counterparts to their banners. So the Ratan Tata Institute, an oasis of jam tarts, chicken rolls and other Parsi goodies, is now also the “Aar Tee Ai” in bright red devnagari script next to the entrance. Aarti Stores, where the Gujarati housewives of Walkeshwar flock to when guests drop in unannounced, now has its Indian name written in an Indian language. And the NCPA, where no non-English-speaking person sets foot, staff included, has a seemingly unnecessary little plaque outside its hallowed gates. Whether reluctantly, resignedly or compliantly, businesses and store fronts have moved toward bilingualism quickly and noiselessly, changing the city in insidious, permanent ways.

While some reference Raj Thackeray’s indulgence in petty politics for the “ghati” vote, others express dismay at the loss of the city’s much-mentioned cosmopolitanism. (You see, we in Bombay knew the word a long time before Sarah Jessica Parker came along to popularize the drink.) Still others (or maybe just an unsure I) believe this sort of inclusionism may actually help the city’s linguistically marginalized population, namely, the non-English speakers, feel more a part of it. Or will it? Is this move really about people at all? We know the answer to that.

If the masses of Bombay are so alien to the English language, I can’t help wondering why a majority of our movie posters are in English, a majority of our working class sends text messages in local languages using Roman script, and whether those who can now magically read signs all over the city will be able to afford entry into the places that were hitherto monetarily inaccessible.

I’m partial to languages, I’ll admit it up front. Yes, some more than others, but languages and their usage fascinate me and my radar may be a little more sensitive than most. So I wonder how many people all over Bombay have noticed this makeover of their city and whether they have given a thought to the nature of change and how it affects a city’s identity. Does it reverse the increasingly international flavor of an aspiring-to-be-global city? Does localism take a back seat in this race to be citizens of the world? In typical Mumbaikar get-on-and-make-money fashion, we’ve done the deed and moved on, but will our city take to the change as readily as we have?

There’s something clearly primal about language and its use/ disuse that raises hackles. Is it because our earliest memories are associated with certain semantic structures? Is it because it prompts a feeling of belonging to a group? Or is it because it’s a comfort zone we are reluctant to step out of? I don’t claim knowledge of all the answers, but I suspect it’s a combination of these factors, among still others, and can’t help wondering what comes next in these attempts to create linguistic insularity, because this certainly isn’t the last we’ve seen of it. Any thoughts?

Why Casanova Could Never Be Indian

9 Oct
  • Because his mother will call bang in the middle of sex.
  • Because naan just can’t replace rosemary foccacia.
  • Because ‘having a drink’ equals to chugging beers (and having a belly to prove it)
  • Because legs like those are best hidden under a veshti.
  • Because his idea of furniture is a rumpled-sheeted coir mattress.
  • Because he’s hard-wired to dribble over Amma’s cooking (never mind Appa’s 2 bypasses).
  • Because the only vacations he truly enjoys are guilt trips about being a dutiful son.
  • Because as soon as he leaves home, it will turn into a decrepit den of decay, abandonment and geriatric isolation.
  • Because he’ll scout around for garlic-free meals in Tuscany.
  • Because his mother will call bang in the middle of: a) cooking, b) shopping, c) driving, d) dancing, e) sneezing, f) showering, g) eating, h) napping….. and yes, sex.

Polishing the Pedestal

6 Oct

We eulogize love too much. Snip it, paint it in sunshine colors, frame it and hang it on our walls, because all the world loves LoveArt. But of all the things in the world that can go horribly wrong, Love must rank # 1. Nothing I have known has been more imperfect, more fallible, more dysfunctional than the Love construct. And more often than not, it’s because it comes pre-attached to some relationships, like a default setting with an inbuilt virus, a syrupy cross to bear, never mind that the multiple sticky leaks drive us to insanity and keep us there.

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