the weekday holiday

It is dusk. 

The sky is a sheet of pale blue, not a speck of cloud. 

The swimming pool reflects it.

An Indian woman plays with her child. They look happy.

A man walks his dog. He looks happy.

Two middle-aged men, old friend, sit in the pool - waist deep in the water. They're laughing.

A small plane is circling in the sky overhead. Its pilot must love what he does. 

People are coming back from work. Men to their wives. Wives to their families. Kids to their parents. 

The heat is giving way, the day is over. 

The trees are turning from green to black.

The breeze is picking up. 

The lights are coming to life. 

And they're all happy. 

2008's finest.

I know they don't count - they never do.
I've often seen them vanish
In a day or at most two.

They force me into resolutions
All for me to forget by March
Which I always do.

Yet they persist,
Insist ! That I succumb
To Retrospection,
To Desperation,
To Motivation,
To a mad flurry of emotion.
For I must suffer
It is my wont to do.

Last year I'd figured them out -
And Resolved not to give in
This year too.

And yet they're here
With their customary hullaballoo -
My stupid (!),
New Year Sentiments.

Middiocrity

Being a product of the middle class has made us a risk averter. We have never lived the extremes, and nor will we ever try to.

The rich – well, they’re so comfortably perched that any new venture to them is just another possibility. The power of their inherent wealth has left them with no element of existential risk. They can try their hands at something new, fully comfortable in the knowledge that no matter what happens they will still have a year’s supply of their daily bread. Not having to work for that, they have grown bored. They wonder why don’t they go out and start a bread factory. The factory will sell others their daily bread, they will make loads of money in the process and generations to come will have their bread secure. Even if it came to nothing, they would have at least killed time for a while. They might have lost the next year’s supply but at least they tried their hand at something. They still have eleven months to try their hands at something else – maybe an ice cream factory.

The poor – they are in such a hopeless situation that there is no other option but to take risk. They cannot live the way they currently do – that is not the way to be living a life, they need to break the shackles of their abject situation. The only way is to stick a limb out, to put their necks on the line. With only a tiny morsel available for the whole family – they either starve to death, or they could say “Enough! I’m going to get us some more bread – by hook or by crook.” By hook or by crook works for it gets them a day’s bread for the family. They will need to go out again the next day, but they will also live. They are forced to take the risk again, otherwise they will perish. Maybe one day they’ll become so good at risk-taking that they will start a small bakery.

We the middle class, however, we have always had bread. It wasn’t a whole lot of bread, but then we never had to sleep on an empty stomach either. Our dads bought us a month’s bread every thirtieth, and then when we grew up we started doing the same. We don’t see why we need to hoard any more bread, or why we should try extra hard for a loaf when we already have tomorrow’s bread in the fridge. We will sit back and watch our colour TVs instead. Next morning, we will go back to our dreary jobs, at the end of the month collect our cheques and, promptly go and buy next month’s bread.

The only risk we ever take is of never having taken a risk.

Things I care about.

• I care about the cab drivers, the package runners and the office boys of Singapore. It’s them that the recent hike in sales taxes and the rocketing prices of amenities has hit the hardest. While the government promises to take care of these lower-waged workers, it is mostly lip-service and even then the proposed benefits are merely cosmetic. Life was not easy for them, and is just got more difficult. But they take it on the chin, and I’ve found that they are happy to have a go at the authorities, yet their criticism comes across as both hard and surprisingly fair. They try to meet both ends meet, often living hand-to-mouth, working more hours trying to stay above the water. You’d understand if they were grumpy and unwilling, yet the cabbies and the runners and the office boys have remained the most open and friendly people in Singapore, not a thing you can say that easily about most Singaporeans. Singapore is a much real place because of them, and it would be worth its while for the government to realise the harsh realities of their daily lives.

• I care about people who get published. Writing is not easy – well, at least writing meaningful and interesting pieces isn’t – and putting it to the readers’ harsh scrutiny is not for the faint hearted. Real writing, I believe, should be a representation of an author’s personal opinion while offering something new to the readers. At the same time it should be a selfish exploration for the writer himself. The ideal written work should be such a sincere effort that it takes away something from the writer’s being. To be able to produce such a work, to be able to put your personal views out in the public eye, to have the guts to have a part of you open to the possibility of vile criticism, and to have the patience to bide your time through the rejections it takes to get published takes an immense amount of self-confidence and strength. I am envious of the people who manage all this, and become successful at it.

• I care about my UP accented bhaiya Hindi. I have lived outside of India for so long now that the newly arrived desi increasingly asks me ‘How long have you been here ?’ than ‘Where in India are you from ?’. I have never been home-sick, but lately I have felt nostalgic. Nostalgic about the cricket in windy winters and the loo winds in the scorching summers, the earthy monsoons and the springs which never came. Singapore is in a perpetual spring! The efficiency of this place has me craving for the government offices which shut at four and the “Surprise!” power cuts. My only release then becomes my lingo. The desi will have to know I’m from UP. The next time you see me saying “Bhokal !!” you should know I’m staying rooted to my origins.

• I care about the Staani people. I love the raw enthusiasm in their everyday lives. They live in the extremes. Unabated ecstasy to abject dejection with nothing in between. The complete immersion of the Sufi music, the do-or-die attitude of their cricket teams, the exaggerated swagger in their walk, the drawl of their talk – it all appeals to me. It appeals, because we Hendus are guarded, we settle for the half-decent, we live inside boundaries and we are afraid of going over the top lest we offend someone while they – their passion is total. The not-a-care-in-the-world attitude, the non-chalance they carry it makes me yearn more out of my hesitant existence. It also makes me wonder if the partition was really such a good idea!

• I care about the Nineties' Bollywood love-sagas - the QSQTs, the Dils, the Dil Hai ki Maanta Nahis and the Maine Pyaar Kiyas. I care for them because of their simplicity. The protagonist was a poor goof in love with a rich princess, with nothing but hard work and some luck to show for. Throw in a villain who wasn't really that dangerous and their world was a place we could all dream about. It didn't have the continuous violence or the indiscriminate sleaze of the stuff that we see today. The locations were Indian, the transport was a bus, the weaponry comprised of a semi-automatic toy and the bad-guy was usually one of the dads. You see, it wasn't that hard to imagine yourself in these settings and to see your life, in its most idyllic and romantic version, run past you in technicolor - it was simply more dream-able! Agreed, the movies today are more real-life, but then that's the point.
  

• I do not care about people who are uptight, people who believe they’re so right that you can’t argue with them. These people don’t believe in their fallibility. They’ve been lucky in life to have not come across an experience that would have shattered their beliefs. They go on preaching and doing as they wish – without a care to differing view or opinion. They might hear, but they will not listen. An argument with them is futile in the knowledge that it’s going to become an ego issue, that at the end it’s going to have only one outcome – a denial of any opposing, however valid, ideas you might have put forth. Talking to them seems such a waste of an effort. You might as well sit across sipping your drink, smoking a stick, look beyond their right ear and not listen either.

• I also care about left-handedness, about people with good handwriting, the power of 25, the jungles of Bali and the depressing moors of England. I do Not care about incompetent upper management who try to ‘watch’ you and about people who don’t believe a lunch is an excellent thing to do on a date.

Rahim, the Iraqi

They hit me then - ripped my limbs apart,
Kicked me in the groins and tore my hair off.
They pulled me from my skin and they shot me in my knees.
With a melting iron they hole-d my ribs:
Still sizzling in my blood, they scooped my eyeballs with it.
My spine - they snapped it endlessly with the cold butts of their hot guns.
My teeth - they pulled them out with their dust-tasting wrench and,
Left my mouth a gaping hole gurgling warm black.

And then ?
Then they blew me to smithereens.

Draft 1

I've made my first attempt at story writing, and presented below is the draft opening for a story that's building inside my head.

I am going to die tonight. There is a snowstorm building up outside - I can see it beyond the frosted windows. The pines planted along the sidewalk are struggling, bending their backs against the furious winds. The wooden bench across my driveway will soon be buried under the white snow. Inside the house, though, its snugly warm. Isn't it strange how we never call a house a home while inside! Rob, my younger brother and his wife are here. Their little kids are fussing about in the living room with the New Year gifts I had the house-help buy for them. The three of us, we're in the study - Rob and Sheila nestled on the sofa and I in my creaking rocking-chair.

......We are discussing the art-work that I like. Not that I was ever a huge art-lover, but I like to keep myself interested. We mull over how I'd always wanted to buy something contemporarily reflective - both new and old in theme - but had always ended up with pieces reflective of only the past. In a way it's me all over - always trying to be chic and updated and at the same time rooted to the histories, but really always stuck with, and in, the past. The new and the hep was forever the elusive star attraction. Anyhow, this was not the place to rue for ours was a shallowly pleasant conversation made in the knowledge of the impending. My death, of course.

......I never hid it from anyone - everyone knew from the time I found out about it. That was when after days of spluttered coughing some blood finally spurted out. Only then I suspected for the first time what others had been worrying over for some time then. Even so I quickly pushed it to the back of my mind to attend to the daily rut, and instead of seeing a doctor immediately went to work. It was only by the lunch hour between my clinic hours and consultation rounds, when amazingly there was nothing for me to immediately attend to, that I went up to pathology and asked my favoured nurse there to run my blood samples through the screens, masquerading it as just another routine check-up. As soon as she had my blood I rushed out of there, partly to catch my usual lunch group in the cafeteria and partly to allay the fears which had suddenly started gripping me. I did not go back to collect the report. I threw the whole thing out of my mind and got busy. It was the nurse - who held a certain favouritism against me - that knocked on my door two days later. She asked if I had some free time. She had a sombre look - but at the time I put it to her chosen profession rather than anything sinister. Acting busy I deflected any eye-contact and didn't answer. She said she'd wait for me outside - I made her wait. Her lunch hour must have eventually run out when she came back in, and without saying a word placed a report on my in-tray, turned about and went off. By the time I waved my hand in acknowledgment the door was already closing in.

I kept at what I was doing - writing a case report. I found myself adding details which I would have normally left out, and when there was nothing more I could think of adding, I pushed back the cold metal chair, walked to the door and locked it shut. Walking towards the long window on the opposite side I picked up the brown report envelope on the way. Standing by the huge window leaning against the window-frame I pulled the curtains back. I was surprised to see it was raining outside - pouring in fact. After examining the pelting rain for a minuter I finally pulled the single leaf of paper out of the envelope, adjusted my glasses and went straight for what I'd thought was the culprit of all this discordance. But I didn’t find anything unusual there. I let out a sigh of relief - well, almost - for something in me hesitated. To my trained doctor's corner-of-the-eye there something was amiss. I started reading again, looking at places I hadn't bothered with earlier. There it was at the bottom of the lot - almost too shy to reveal itself, printed badly as if hiding - a silent positive sign.

Kolkata

Finally in Calcutta. One of those places which come up so often in the literature you read that you start to form shapes in the head. Most of my shapes were colonial since those were the times when Calcutta was the foremost city in India. The stay was going to be too short to sufficiently satiate all my curiosity. I wanted to experience this city as much as I could, take in all I could and all I had was a night and a day.

It's hot and sweaty as soon as the aircraft doors open. Stepping down the plane exit there is a pitch dark night - some labouring lights struggling from the distant Subash Chandra Bose terminal building, few people milling around quietly attending to their businesses. Its not the bustle of IGI Delhi nor the glaring luminance of Changi, all is very sleepy here. The insides of the airport are empty, ours is the only midnight flight. Immigration officers come out when we reach their area. Hardly any questions are asked, they want to go back to their sleep. Luggage arrives promptly and out you are shoved. The car park is fairly empty, and there are only a handful of cabbies. They don't haggle for prices, they want to get out of here as well. The whole thing is like a chemist woken up at night who'd give you anything you want to be able to go back to his sleep.

The streets are empty at 2 AM, and there's nobody sleeping on the sidewalks unlike the other Indian metros. It's humid but not dusty and the huge Ambassador is rattling along fast enough to keep it's innards windy. Salt Lake, where I am to put up, is not too far from the airport or maybe it seems so because there isn't any traffic along the way at this time. I am too ashamed to ask the driver if there is a Salt "Lake" here. Maybe tomorrow.

Harry's Guest House is a house. It's fortified with a guard and high boundary walls. Inside, the air is heavy with the smell of new spotless paint. The staff is quick and efficient, and obviously eager to go back to sleep too. The room is simple, clean and quiet. The aircon and TV work, amazingly, and I'm soon cold and asleep - in the background KP goes on punishing the Windies bowlers on the telly.

The day in Calcutta

Breakfast got lost the next day and the India-Bangladesh Test couldn't be found on TV. The food had gone to another room, and the Test wasn't shared with DD. Eventually the sandwiches and tea arrives, were hungrily devoured and I was out on a Calcutta cab.

Its sweltering hot outside, and people have wisely stayed indoors this Sunday. The shops have mostly remained shuttered, but the roads - Oh the roads - Congress Exhibition road, Shakespeare Sarani, Chowringhee - rush past as if they were everyday names. On the way I spot an ad for that English "Indian beer" - COBRA. Nobody knew it ever set foot in India ! Modernity has brought fly-overs to this ancient city and while atop one of these, the colonial-age-old La Martiniere's school peeps out for a moment from behind the clutter of multi-storeyed developments.

The ride is to the Eden Gardens, that giganticstadium symbolic of India's massive presence in world cricket. The stadium is flanked by huge soccer maidaans on all sides reminding you which sport is really popular in this part of the country, and in the distance shines the Victorian edifice, Her memorial itself. The taxi-driver informs me how the Memorial shines resplendent from the stadium lights on ODI nights.

The walls of the stadium are towering and fortified. Unlike the British grounds, there is no way you can get a preview of the action from outside the perimeter. So I have to go in. The entrance to the Dr. B.C. Roy clubhouse is nondescript and shielded by tinted glass. There is a huge frame of Sourav Ganguly being felicitated by K.R. Narayanan in a glamour you'd have trouble picking out the erstwhile President of the nation. A bunch of players in cricketing whites rush out, one of them is bleeding from a gash on his cheekbone, the others are fussing about him. I linger around the entrance looking for a way in, when a guard stops me. On being asked about the possibility of entering the watching arena he is ready with a rude denial. I linger some more, but to no avail. He is adamant, and getting ruder by the minute. I walk out, take a stroll around the stadium walls looking for another way in - again, to no luck. Hot and adamant, I go back and this time go for the jugular - asking to see the club authorities. Before I can finish my sentence, another guard steps in and volunteers to show me around. Unbelievable!

We go up the stairs of the main stand. AIR offices pass by, all locked, eking hordes of wires from rotting door frames. Further up a flight and suddenly there we are, out in the pavilion end stand, right above the sight screen and below the media boxes, in the VIP stand looking at the grand arena. The field is a sheet of grassy green, the pitch looks flat and bare, there is a game on, the seats all around are all blue, the sun is out and the stadium is empty.

On request the guard lets me be to sit in there for a half hour. He quells my curiostiy - East Bengal is playing Shyambajaar in Calcutta Assoc. of Bengal club league semifinal, the 2-day game is fifty overs old. I see the score standing at 140 for 4. I give him whatever currency notes I can prise and he disappears. Two shamiyanas on either side of the pavilion-end sight screen serve as dressing rooms for the teams. The play seems is dull, players undoubtedly getting sapped in the heat. The huge electronic score-board is switched off, and of the replay-display only the iron frame remains. When an EB batsman hits a lovely straight drive for four there are some cheers from the home tent- echoing from the empty stands and then dying out quick. Then all is dull again.

I stay there for another half hour - noticing how the 'keeper has put his pads inside the flannels, walking around the stands, going up to the entrance of the media boxes, peering in to the TV studios from behind locked glass doors. Its not too impressive - these boxes - but it'd be fun, sitting in them with the gurus of the game - someday, maybe !

On a sour note, on the way out I passed a group of four British tourists who were being duly tour-guided. Its sad that an Indian man has to argue/cajole/bribe his way in, while Caucasians are escorted in and served cool drinks.

Peter Cat (and fleetingly, Oxford) - Kolkata

Peter Cat - "one of Calcutta's oldest great restaurants", "not just a famous watering hole, it serves fabulous kababs as well.. ", "you must absolutely have the Chello's kebab there"

When you come across something like this, it must be had. So a taxi brought me to Calcutta's downtown Park Street. Streets were still empty in late afternoon, the heat was keeping the people out. Oxford, the bookstore appealed, but kebabs always appeal more, so I moved on. Reaching the cross-road I was told to reach, I must confess, I couldn't find Peter Cat amidst the loud surrounds of MacDonald's and KFC. Phone-a-friend was quickly utilised, and there it was - snuggled into a cubbyhole across the street from KFC, a low tiny off-white porch embossed with the simple italicised black font stating 'Peter Cat'.

The rights to entry are reserved, and you are stopped at the entrance until someone probably says 'Okay, he looks feline!' from inside. You enter and are struck by the cool and the darkness inside. For the first few moments you can't see your way in. Then you pick up cues from the lights that are suspended very low over the tables - the only lights. It reminds you of an English den - cozy, dark and hence busy.

The seating is in alcoves - the suspended lighting creates a very personal space around the table. They have realised this and hence ask you to switch off your cellphones. Waiters go around in hushed movements - they are doing the Mughal court attendants today- complete with flowing sherwanis and tussled turbans. Most patrons are families, I am the only loner. I am almost as weird to them as they are to me right now- sole male scribbling away in a notebook, earphones plugged where they belong, staring into the dark beyond my alcoved luminance between bursts of written activity. Weirdo !

Chello kebabs had to be ordered and the heat was countered with an exotic pineapple based cocktail. While the staff did whatever it is they do to get my order, I chanced upon Him himself, Peter Cat. There he was, in loud black brush-strokes on the back cover of the menu. There was something weird and sur-real about him. He looked a very angry old cat. Food thankfully came to the rescue.

It's a unique combination of mutton and chicken kebabs, served with rice, baked tomato and a sunny-side-up. It's warm, succulent and its meats after all. Awesome ! The cocktail is as exotic as it had promised in the menu and the lunch is made.

When all has been devoured, the thought of a cool dessert comes into the mind. A Tooty-Fruity is promptly placed on order. You'd think ice-cream would arrive faster than food - mais non - this is Peter Cat at work and he's probably pissed off at my choice. It's much like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. Eventually the stuff arrives, and it's a combination of ice cream and actual fresh fruits, to my surprise. Its delicious nonetheless.

I am done here, paid and all, and back out in the heat. It's definitely less searing now, more people have come out, and Ganguly's restaurant calls you out for an innings. But I resist, and make for the sanctuary between books.

Oxford - very colonial in name - is a posh bookstore, very Borders like in being. Books on two floors, a chai cafe on the top, wooden book shelves and floorboards make it immensely pleasurable. The sports section is sought, and without much ado the search is answered - right in the front, under a spotlight is featured Ramchandra Guha's A Corner of a Foreign Field.

It is picked up for browsing, and the body wanders up the creaking stair-case to the chai place - an Ice peach tea is decided upon. That arrives, and I am immersed in the book - which is informative and captivating. It's queasy to be reading about cricket in the colonial times, sat in Park Street on a hot afternoon in the most colonial of all Indian cities. You're almost afraid of offending the ghosts from the Raj - foreign and natives alike.

Inspired, the drink is gulped, the book bought, and I am headed out for a crack at the Victoria Memorial.

Humanity at Boarding gate D46

1. Newly weds returning from honeymoon - tired, weary-eyed but excited at the same time. Hesitant to go back to the daily rut, yet relieved at the thought of awaiting familiarity.
   

Aside: There's no way you could hope to spend all the time in a marriage unless you are willing to indulge in inanities like discussing the colors of your other-half's bangles. Its a beautiful thing - listening to her describe the variations in shade and what PnC she could do with them - sharing the most insignificant of things. All the same what a sad waste of human intellect - you haven't thought anything new, planted no new seeds, discussed no issues - the brain has slept through.
Little wonder Einstein never married happily.

1. Business traveller, travelling alone - no expression, probably rehearsing slides in his mind - there's a job to be done.
   
2. Friends from the same native place working abroad - happy to be going back home, checking their elation being mindful that they've got to come back.
   
3. Family back from vacation - all pleasant, looking forward to the locked gates of the dusty home. Definitely less irritable than when they'd started on the trip.
   
4. Girlfriends on shopping weekend - chirpy, conniving, too eager - with not a care to anything else.
   
5. Girl going away from boy - teary-eyed, furiously keying away SMSes to lover boy.
   

children must go.

It's been decided - there is no use nor need for children in this world.

They cry all day, they wail some more, and then they poop.
Their teeny-weeny bodies are always getting into peoples' ways.
Their shrieky-shrilly voices are always getting to your head.

They're a nuisance on the subway - and not much better anywhere else.

They add to the population, nibbling away at the economy.
They boost the worthless egos of gynaecs, nannies, nurses and grannies.

No ! It's not the parents' fault. What good's a man if he can't perform.

I'm sorry dear children, you must absolutely go.

ideology

Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination...
- Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

musings..

the dented stoicism,
this burning sin stick,
tryin to keep it real but i'm losin it here...
thts me today...
and at the end, an inkling of relief, came drizzling down:
would've helped had it poured !