Mining the mind

There is a great perceived conceit in the term literary. Book readers – mostly women – play it down. But book readers, when men, who have realised that they are in possession of an interest where the scope to entertain and enrich oneself is immense and long term become insulated bores. They bore others and others bore them, because the others are not ‘literary.’ But is it the others’ fault or indeed their own?

I read a memorable quote (in that it has stayed in my memory!) from VS Naipaul (is quoting Naipaul, the undeniable high priest of literature an act of conceit sneaking in?) which read, “To become aware of your past is to cease to live instinctively.” Such a deep yet simple observation. Perhaps something that might occur to us in a flash, before it passes us by.

To me, to realise that you have developed literary taste (how I squirm to even write the two words) is also a moment when you cease to live instinctively. Without doubt you gain a lot from having developed this interest, but isn’t it also a huge loss. All the fun to be had if one lived instinctively, especially in a country like India.

One could argue that it’s better to cease to live instinctively by reading ravishing prose than to be instructed so by ravaging life. Because eventually, we all end up ceasing to live instinctively and while prose eases us into this (at times) weary process, life’s ways are less civil, shaking and jolting us rudely, against our wishes!

And yet, don’t we all want to live instinctively. Anew. “To dance beneath the diamond sky, with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands. With all memory and fate, driven deep beneath the waves. Let me forget about today until tomorrow,” Bob Dylan. More conceit!

Those heady long drives, with the wind screaming at you provide us with just that. With each moment, surviving just an instant; each moment buried under the next.          

All sublime pursuits are elitist. Perhaps a truly ‘literary-minded’ person does not indulge in this pursuit thinking of being perceived as exclusive, rare.

But I wonder, if literature (eeeks!), though it enables us to stop living instinctively, does it also provide us with new ways of seeing. Something we want from life, but don’t have the eyes (or is it heart) for it.       

Determined brooding

My ways of looking at the world have changed after moving to big cities. Well, big Indian cities. I find small cities stifling, incomplete and temporary.  

Growing up, all of us friends knew that one day we’d all have to leave Ranchi, go to various bigger cities, study and start earning. This process could take a long time but that was the plan. We knew it because we had seen others do it. 

The academically brighter among us continued living in Ranchi for a little longer, earning their education, and left only when it was time to start earning. The really hopeless ones were sent away by their dads in the hope that life had other plans, which they could not see. But leave we all did, one after another.

The essence of a small city is in its seamless, if at times sluggish continuity. The near-freakish steady pace with which life moves on there (as if on sedatives) is pleasing but rarely exciting. Everything exciting happened only in the big city, or on TV. Now the internet has replaced television. The internet has also democratized what TV had discriminated against.   

By itself, a small city can offer you little except the cozy cocoon of familiarity, which is still better than the cocoon of cocksurety that a big city will burden you with, making you an insufferable, ignorant bore (boor?).

After having lived in big cities for the past 12 year, I wonder where I belong. My parents come to visit me and I am amazed and exasperated in turns by the calm they exude. I mourn the loss of an easy sense of dignity that they possess, which I seem to have forsaken to make room for myself in a big city.

I’m engaged in an impossible task of dreaming of a future but trying desperately hard to connect it to my past. For some reason it is my belief that this future can only be found in a big city and nothing I see around me points to the contrary.  

Then what stops me from approaching this dream by going at it hard?

Is it a sense of loss, brought about by this (at times painful) transition; a loss, that in the beginning was being overlooked by me and was easy to reconcile with, because in the beginning, this loss did not even make me less of something. In fact, this loss made me richer, like shedding skin.    

Perhaps, it’s in the nature of all true losses, that before staking their complete claim, they will offer you one last shot at redemption. It leaves you with the choice of action or inaction, of letting things drift away, an eternal stab of indecision. Loss doesn’t make us better or worse, it just makes us different. Being better or worse is relative to the people around us, or those far away, not always literally.       

The pain that loss begets is hidden, till you get a chance recognize your past self. This pain is exacerbated by whiny lament, unfairly blurred by a rosy nostalgia.

The real value of loss is not what we get in return (that’s part of the bargain, one would suppose), but in the realization of it. Reflecting and acting upon this realization, is where one gets to mitigate the pain of loss, and its only true worth.

But what if this realization leads me back to the stifling, incomplete and temporary small city? What if a step back is the way forward?  

The Grand Design

Two hours before I started writing this I decided to change the 'look' of my blog. Though I am fairly regular with posting, I don't consider me to be an expert blogger. Have you seen some of the 'other' blogs, with their irritatingly large number of followers? Disgusting. And the way they people comment on their posts? Shameless. And the interesting trivia they have on their screens, like number of visitors and their respective cities, posts under neat categories, a blog roll, the myriad subscriptions and subscribers... etc? Yuckkk. Some of them have even monetized their blogs... whatever that means. And if it means that they get paid for writing their blogs, well I would want to know more.

So yeah, I decided it's time to be disgusting, shameless and yucky and started fiddling with the design of my blog. The one hour that followed were one of the most impulsive and indecisive (a nerve racking combo) hour in the last 7 days. I went overboard with the beautifying, and underboard with the deciding. Should I settle for the minimalist, or the abstract, or the mysterious, or the breezy, unaffected, change-barely-palpable design. I was being torn down the middle (always more painful) by the twin forces of wanting-to-get-noticed, and so-subtle-that-it-would-barely-register, when a third force staked claim. The leave-it-as-it-is force.

Badly begun, and not completely done, and too proud to be undone, I swiftly started clicking on whatever was clickable before clicking on the three hopeful letters: "Apply to Blog." Soon whatever little jazz I had on my screen vanished, like my followers' list and an index to my past posts. You can find them still in the pits of my screen, if you keep scrolling down till you can scroll down no more.

What remains is barely the work of art I had set out to achieve... with such zest that I wish I had recorded it. So what remains? An arid looking, sandpapery feeling background in whose right corner are flying, what seem like crows in the mid-day sun.

Not too bad if you ask me, goes with the weather outside. Just that I wish I had my followers' list and my past posts alongside.

Cruel Summer

Summer’s almost here. I know I am living in a city that brags of not having a hot summer but this time it’s different. Almost a month back we started to feel the intensity of the sun and after a brief period of a week – when things got a little cooler – it’s getting hot again. 

We remember a city through many things, including its seasons. And how a city treats us during summertime goes a long way into deciding how much we love the city. Summer also has its own food, and fruits. And that too becomes a memory of a city. Food and beverage.

The two hottest cities I have lived in are Hyderabad and Delhi.

Hyderabad is a strange city in which temperatures in the month of October could be more than May, suddenly. The sun glowers down on you with such fury that walls of houses stay warm till 3 a.m. in the morning. You don’t feel hungry. The Bengali expression “jol khabo” (eat water) is realized in its fullness. You gorge on water, so you never get to the point of being thirsty. In no other city have I woken up from fitful sleep or siestas, feeling more bereft of hope and meaning in life. Staring long into a vacuum, you wonder what to do, about nothing. Conversation stops, and if its revived, it’s on the dismal topic of the heat and how to cope with it.

Bangalore used to be pleasant. Every evening it received that very refreshing thing called summer showers. This made summers as eagerly anticipated as winters. It’s truly scary when a four year old import to this city like me speaks nostalgically about bearable summers. The degradation or loss of good climate should not be so brisk as to seem brusque.

            

My Sachin Tendulkar moment

The year is 2006. April. Times Now, the news channel has just been launched and in need of interns to assist its skeleton crew at the Sports desk for the Football World Cup, one with the Zidane headbutt fame or infamy. 

Three people in our batch of 27 journalism students are interested in sports. I am one of them. It sounds fun, doesn't it? Journalism and more specifically sports journalism. It is and would have been more fun if it paid better. 

Anyhow, I am there. Bombay. Local trains come, and leave the platform. More importantly it leaves me behind. I am so lost in watching the spectacle of people giving it their all just to get inside a train that I forget that I too should've been inside it. Another train comes. I take a step back and observe if there's any strategy involved. There's seems to be one. Give in. Let go. And the train takes you in. Welcome to Bombay, don't expect a welcome. Another train comes, and I lose myself in the waiting crowd. Sure enough, this time I am inside the train. It's a sauna in here, and to breathe you have to use your toes. 

I like the local trains. Inside it I watch the Mumbaikar; stoic and immersed in the morning tabloid, dignified; never straying too far from purpose. There, he makes more room for himself than what was offered to him. The great solace in entering the local train is that you know you'll get out of it.

I enter the office of Times Now and am struck by how pretty the receptionist is. News anchors, look more blemished without make up, and with make up look like pantomime artistes. People behind the camera are less attractive and more peaceful.

My boss is a Goan, whose voice you may have heard on TV. He speaks -- if he speaks -- in monosyllables. The only time his sentences get long is when expletives are needed to convey the gravity of the matter spoken. The first few weeks are maddening. To fake activity, I run aimlessly and go to the toilet or the canteen. Deciphering TV news lingo is nerve racking. The first few words that Hector spoke were "EDVI katwao." I ran, not too the toilet but to the editor's bay asking anyone who'd care to listen, what on earth was an EDVI. "Edited Visuals," someone said, I don't know who. And the farce, that back then was sorrow continued.

Then one day Hector: "Ghosh, expletive... don't expletive around (no context provided). You need to go to Sachin's place," he said. 

"You don't mean Tendulkar," I thought. 

Hector: "It's his birthday and our reporter has been there since 6 am and that expletive has yet not shown his face, You need to go there and come back only after we've got his byte for the day" 

Inside me, I did a mean dance step somewhere.

I reached at 1 pm to Sachin's flat and already there was a swarm of reporters there. It was amusing to note that none of the reporters present at assignments I was sent to ever appeared on TV. I felt like an equal, not to be taken lightly.

It was a summer day and an afternoon. Hot and sweaty. We waited, and waited. Big bouquets, the likes I had never seen before came and the guard allowed them in. "Was it Aishwarya Rai who sent them, was it Shahrukh Khan?” In the absence of anything else, cameramen filmed those bouquets. All I wanted was Sachin to come down, possibly even laugh or say "good question" to something that I asked him. And later invite me for dinner with him and his family. 

And we waited. At 5.30 in the evening, one of the journalists who had assumed leadership, in case no one else wanted it said that he had ordered a cake for Sachin. Yes, a cake.

I don’t know if it was for the cake but the liaison manager finally did say that Sachin would be coming down. I personally thought of a few questions, the answer to which would potentially be, “good question.” TV crews with bulky equipment and pen-totting print journalists made a dash lest Sachin eats the whole cake on his own.

Finally, the man they call God descended. Dressed in black; looking serene and acting gracefully. I gave him a long hard look, wondering if this is the man and what was special about him. Journalists wrestled with one another to light the candles on his cake while Sachin mumbled words to no one in particular. All my award winning questions were now a blur. I just looked on how he conducted himself. 

Some journalists wanted to seem more chummy than the rest. “I am surprised how much more consistent you guys are when remembering my birthday, and how much I need to learn from you regarding consistency in my field,” he said. “Ask Abhishek, ask,” a voice inside me said. “Not on his birthday, I don’t want to spoil it for him by another inane question,” the first voice of reason in my head. I went to his home once more, and this time inside his living room to give him a gift. His cook took it on his behalf.

When I returned to Times Now, Hector asked me in all seriousness why I didn’t light the candles on his cake. I wanted to tell him, “well coz I was hoping he’d call me for dinner you see.”   

Because it's February

A whole host of my friends are getting married this year and their chance to play host causes within me great unease. While one wishes one's friends a wonderfully wonderful married life, the anxiety of (should I really put it on record?) the "impossible" possibility of not being present for so many of their weddings is something that gnaws at the soul, one nibble at a time. How does one miss a wedding (no doubt a once in a lifetime event) without losing a friend? All my attempts to wiggle out of any sticky situation citing professional commitments are met with a sort of insidious, cynical laughter that seems to suggest, "well, I know you could do it to X (and you should!), but don't you give this bullshit to me." Such endearing pleas sometimes make me question my own humanity. What sort of a friend am I to be so inconsiderate as to not plan my itinerary with more deft and diligence. Yet, yet.

Before this post starts to read like an advance apology letter, I should clarify, rather remind my friends of my dismal record in planning, absolutely anything at all. It's something I am not proud of but I would plead to the offended parties to dismiss such behaviour as a forgivable idiosyncrasy and I am banking on my many idiosyncrasies to bail me out this year. "Friends," I vulgarly quote myself "can never be counted out to be counted back in. And attend-my-wedding-or-I-will-not-like-you-anymore is definitely up there with other form of emotional torture." Best wishes.

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Meanwhile, office work that should have been completed long back and should be unambiguously attended to as I write this, sits next to me; a mocking reminder of my complete failure to start with it. I just can't bring myself to do it. I feel like I could just about do everything else on earth right now except the one thing that helps me pay my bills. It's very instructive, possibly destructive. But when have I learnt? Worse is, I actually like my work! Still, still.

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I have now made a point to henceforth end my posts on a happy note. So if you like some music, hope you enjoy this song. Who else but my favourite musician, guitar player and songwriter Mark Knopfler. "Can't know the story, can't feel the pain... and all of the glory, all surround him like rain." You've gotta listen to this once and while you're at it check out the soothing saxophone at the end ... Mark Knopfler has this obsession with sailors and ships... "Are you home from the sea, my soul balladeer... Been away roamin', far away from here." Anyone who uses a word like balladeer in a song in today's world is a certified genius. Good Night 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmeALNdDz4&feature=related

       

            

Of famous fathers.... and their unpopular sons

Unless a man’s preparing to die, he lives to get drunk. With power, success, fame, ideology, words, circumstance and as a last resort religion.

So what happens to a boy who realizes early on in his life that try as he might, he’ll probably never reach the same dizzy heights of headiness, as his dad? That his dad has had the kind of life – with its triumphs and tumults – that the combined lives of other men, spanning across generations couldn’t possibly experience. Must be a pretty shattering realization, that. Deluding at first and confusing later, with exhaustion building over time.  With your surname threatening, drowning your identity, if you’ve succeeded in patching together an identity in the first place.

Must not be easy, trying to resist basking in the glow of the fawning acclaim that ricochet’s of your dad, on to you. Not in the least easy because one is genuinely proud of one’s dad’s achievements (and as a son feels entitled to some of it) yet not easy either because it’s always brought to his notice that the fame is not his for the claiming. The story goes that the great Don Bradman’s son, sick of answering questions about his dad to spellbound fans, decided to break ties with his dad, live an estranged existence and adopted the surname Bradson to escape the constant stream of queries. Later he chose to mend fences when the Don entered his twilight years and took back his original name, John Bradman. Bob Dylan’s son Jakob Dylan (also a musician) too has had very publicized falling out with his dad, despite his sincere attempts at originality. Closer home, Gandhiji’s son became an alcoholic and converted to Islam just to escape the tyranny of his surname.  

In our country where dynasty is alive in every section of society, probably more pronounced among the super-successful, it is more difficult. We snicker at Abhishek Bachchan when his films flop or predict that Sachin’s son will be a failure if he takes up cricket. We provide them with a comparative context that is unfair to even the most precocious.

It must be easy for a young man to yield to the seductions of the dazzling arch lights, drooling fans and front page news. His career choice is predestined, before he’s born. Page 3 celebs rightfully earn our contempt, without having to go through the anxieties of having a very famous father. But for those with famous genes the scope of committing a mistake is leanest and meanest.

But how must he feel waking up every day? His revenge must surely be his mediocrity and his efforts at staying ordinary. Perhaps that’s his greatest satisfaction, his act of rebellion against a baying junta. I might sound dangerously sexist here but one advantage of being in a patriarchal society is that as a society, we don’t expect excellence from our daughters (to our own peril). It’s always the son jisne “apne baap ki naak kata di.”