Thursday, August 12, 2010

Return to Innocence

“Sach hi kehti thi, jo bhi Ammi kehti thi
Jab mere bachpan ke din the, chaand pe pariyaan rehti thi”

When was the last time you laughed? Really opened up and let out a guffaw? Chortled till your insides hurt? And not at another joke, but at the sheer joy of being alive, of returning to the lost innocence of finding ecstasy in the simple things strewn all around you.

I returned to Chandigarh yesterday for another of my overnight stays. And as has become wont with me since she shifted to Mohali, took a surreptitious drive just outside Jasmine’s house. Now, Jasmine is the 5 year old who was 2 when I first met her. We were both once tenants at the same house and for the first few months after I shifted there, shared little more beyond quizzical looks whenever we passed each other around the premises.

And then came the day when she deigned it fit to come visiting. It was almost noon and I was just sitting down for a late breakfast. Although not yet able to walk without faltering, she nonetheless matched me toast-for-toast, orange-for-orange, before announcing that she was going home for lunch! And as she left, she elicited from me the promise of getting her a toy when I returned from office that evening. But as is usually the case, I forgot all about it till I got into my car at the end of a long day. The thought of going back to the comfort of my bed also brought with it the memory of my promise to her. But since it was too late for the toy shops to be open, I had to settle for a couple of balloons from a roadside vendor.

I got home, summoned my helper and before he started warming the food, asked him to go and give the balloons to Jasmine. He did one better-he went and called her over. And this is when I experienced a moment of the kind that we see all around us but are too busy to cherish.

Jasmine came, frowned at me and then noticed the balloons. Her smile said it all-she was thrilled! But what was even more amazing was the involuntary chuckle that escaped her. She was actually laughing with glee, at a present as meagre as a pair of balloons! She pranced about for a bit, helped herself to some dinner (her second for the night!) and though I did not get a goodnight kiss, I did sleep with a huge smile that night.

Over the next couple of years that I knew her, I shared many such moments with her. And she was always the perfect panacea to wish away the blues. She found merriment in candyfloss melting over her fingers, pride in showing me her latest outfit and an exuberant hope in demanding a puppy for her next birthday. With each action, confirming irrefutably that the real wonders exist only where there are those with the sight to see them.

The real wonders. The little, simple things that we start taking for granted as we “grow up”. If caught in a particularly bad mood, these very things can even trigger a rush of annoyance. Yeats wrote someplace that the innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time. Perhaps he isn’t all that mistaken. For there comes a time in each of our lives when we cease to enjoy anything, intent merely on amassing immaterial treasures. We stop believing in love, believing in loveliness, believing in belief itself. We possess a spirit that knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. We hoard our smiles and measure our words. We never forget an insult, never forgive an injury.

I wonder what it would take to revisit our misplaced innocence. To find joy in a bar of chocolate divided into seven shares, to yearn to get drenched in the next rain, to think nothing of conceding defeat before our friends just to see the delight on their faces. To return to the time when fairies left us presents under the pillow and God took note of our every prayer.

Maybe all it takes is a chubby hand in yours, hauling you to the next mirthful escapade. And if you don’t have that, then the next best thing would be the memory of a chubby hand.


I have been planning to meet Jasmine for ages now, ever since she shifted out of what was once “our” house. My drives towards Chandigarh are always crammed with plans of meeting her-where we would go, what we would do. But the moment I pull into the city, all plans go flying out of the window. A strange dread grips me-what if she has forgotten me? It is not easy to live with the memories of a beautiful time gone by, never to come again. But it would be impossible to live without the hope of that time ever returning. Without the consolation, however feeble, that it will all go back to being the way it was.

So I continue to make plans that may never bear fruition. And giving me company is the warmth of a chuckle.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Maktub

Maktub. It is written.

Destiny. Fate. Karma. It is all written.

But where we err is in believing that is irrevocably written. In believing that our fates were pre-determined and that the “prarabdh” we carried forth from our previous lives is unalterable. I have seen too many individuals, bright and promising, giving up at the first sign of resistance and consigning their lives into the hands of what they deem to be their ordained lot in life. Even worse, they seem to use this pre-disposition towards the supremacy of the heavens to justify their meek surrender to the privations of life, while absolving themselves of any guilt at not having put up a struggle.

Einstein once said that “God does not play dice”. Translated into the myriad aspects of the universe, it reflects that the rhythm of His creation is rooted in reciprocity. The human race has been set forth with one primary challenge-to struggle with their mortality while combating with the perennial mutations of heaven and earth.

Man has been given command over the elements that comprise his being (air, water, fire, earth and ether) to nourish or exploit as he deems fit. At the same time, he has also been made subject to the outer disintegrating powers of nature-planetary stimuli that determine the course of his life, beyond what he himself may determine or crave.

According to the ancients, a child is born at a time when the celestial rays are in harmony with his individual karma. As such, his horoscope is a portrait not just of his unalterable past but also of his probable future. Probable, for the stars themselves have no conscious benevolence or animosity-they merely offer a direction based upon what each man has set into motion in the past.

The message indicated by the stars is not meant to emphasize fate as an inevitable result of past good or evil. Rather, it is meant to serve as a road-map, a reckoner of one’s limitations and potentialities. In its purest form, it is meant to arouse man’s will to escape his universal thraldom. To show him that what he has done, he can also undo. Since none other than he himself was the instigator of the limitations he now finds himself burdened under, it is he himself who can overcome them. And he can do so merely by taking the right actions, actions that are principally dependent on his ethereal resources and are not subject to planetary influences.

Once we identify the latent power within each of us to shape our own destinies, it becomes evident that a superstitious awe of astrology and the power of the stars denigrates us to mere automatons, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance. If it is true that God created us in His image, it is impossible that he intended for us to be to so servile in our subjugation to extrinsic forces. The logical corollary is that we are meant to use the gift of our “free will” to choose our destiny. And once we have made this choice, we will also, without exception, gain an understanding of the travails and sacrifices it entails.

The multitude will never even contemplate upon what their destiny might be; they will merely resign themselves to it. Of the few who do ponder over it, the majority will yield to the severity of its demands. The chosen few who do dare to pursue their destinies will be mocked, scorned and ridiculed. And if they stick the course, they alone shall be admired, revered and idolized. But above all, they alone shall find happiness.
For all too often, a person finds his destiny on the very road he took to avoid it.

“A wise man struggling with adversity is said to be a spectacle upon which the Gods look down with favour”

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

G-l,U-k-p

I don’t watch television. It started about half a decade back and with time, I lost interest in it altogether. Gradually, this aversion to the idiocy that most of our electronic media transmits with unrelenting vengeance grew to encompass movies too. Given the junk that Bombay has been passing off as “entertainment”, I soon started to look at it all as little more than chewing gum for the eyes. Not that I never indulged myself in its indolent decadence. But each time, I came away reassured that the only way television could be educating would be if every time someone switched the set on, I went into the other room and read a book.

A week or so back, I happened to make a trip to Dalhousie, one of the very few hill stations I have come across that still retains vestiges of its colonial past. It is a quaint little town, almost caught in a time-warp, with its hillsides strewn with lovely bungalows and mist-laden pathways. It was raining torrentially when I arrived but by the time the afternoon gave way to the evening, the skies had cleared. And despite my repugnance for all the tourists who can never seem to get enough of the hills, I had to admit that the vista was captivating. The firmament was cleansed of the dust and as far as the eye could see, nature seemed to be spilling its exquisite bounties in abundance. The greens of the flora, the azure-blue sky, the milky-white wafting mists-together, they dwarfed the ugliness that we tend to pass off as civilization and served as a poignant reminder of the fact that the simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Tender as the mood was, I succumbed to the easy temptation of lethargy and upon reaching my room, turned on the television set. And the visage I encountered shocked me no less than accidently pouring a mug of cold water onto yourself while enjoying a splendidly warm bath in the winters.

It was a music channel I had tuned into and the song I had the misfortune of listening to went .."He’s a good looking ullu ka pattha..” !! I mean, we all know, thanks in no small measure to the genius of Anu Malik, that Indian cinema faces an acute paucity of talent but this seems to have taken absurdity to unimaginable depths!

I am no prude and have enjoyed my share of the ridiculous. I will not, out of sheer self-respect, mention the gems that once found a tune on my lips. But I can admit that the rhythms accompanying most of Govinda’s onscreen inanities did lend a lilt to my moments of senile indulgence-the last being this particularly outlandish song from Partner called "Kehndi paun, kehndi paen"!

However, momentary insanity apart, Bombay really seems to have lost it. Consider the songs in the era of India’s new-found independence. They were masterpieces, lyrically and visually. There wasn’t the slightest hint of any indecency, vulgarity or inanity. They were perfect accompaniments to the story and encapsulated the pathos of the story in hauntingly beautiful melodies.

And consider how much it has degenerated since. Ishq, that beautiful Urdu word which has no equivalent in the English language, has been derided without remorse in the last decade. Urmila gyrated to “Kambakth Ishq”, Aishwarya almost had us convinced that life was tough because of “Ishq Kameena” and to be honest, I am really apprehensive what the next female icon would have to call it to cement her status!

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Lay just a little strain on your memory and you will realise that beyond being the land of Ghalib and Tagore, we are also the people responsible for subjecting the world(and ourselves) to classics such as “Teri nani mari to main kya karoon, Andey ka fundaa, What is your style number/what is mobile number, Sarkailo khatiya jaada lage, Aa aa ee, uu uu ooo...” And the list is endless!

Agreed, there are exceptions to the rule. There are a few songs that have aesthetic appeal even in these times. But exceptions don’t always justify the rule. And given the pace with which we are descending into this maddening chaos where every second channel has a contest featuring every possible format (crooning grannies, dancing toddlers, battles of has-beens et al), the mind shudders to imagine where we will be in the coming few years.

For the moment though, it seems to be a menace that everyone loves to hate but can’t seem to live without.

P.S.- For the uninitiated:
Ullu-ka-pattha = son of an owl
Anu Malik = “inspired” lyricist and musician from India; unfortunately, his inspirations are often misconstrued as plagiarism
Govinda = yellow shirts with red pants, need I say more?
Ishq = an abstruse and enigmatic Urdu word; conveys more emotion than liking/admiration/infatuation but less than love
Kambakth Ishq = goddamned Ishq
Ishq Kameena = Ishq-the-wretched
Urmila and Aishwarya = popular Indian actresses who reached their cinematic pinnacles at the time these songs, respectively, were released
Teri nani mari to main kya karoon = “what can i do if your maternal grandmother died?”
Andey ka fundaa = “the enigma of an egg”
What is your style number/what is mobile number = c’mon, this one is in simple English!
Sarkailo khatiya jaada lage = “move the bedstead, I’m feeling cold”
Aa aa ee, uu uu ooo = here, I GIVE UP!!

.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Immortality

"The more magnificent the prospect, the lesser the certainty and the greater the passion"
There are times when you question the very genesis of your beliefs, your convictions and your own self. All too often, such doubts arise when taking a call on a task that you have never faced before or one which seems insurmountable. Should you succeed, the doubts fade into the background and are effortlessly replaced with an enviable sense of confidence. But, as is more likely, should you meet with failure, there is the very legitimate risk of plunging into a ceaseless progression of hesitation, misgiving and uncertainty about almost everything that you once held dear.

Mavericks. That’s what they call the ones who do not toe the line, who dare to think differently. Rebels. Eccentrics. Misfits. For persisting in trying to adapt the world to themselves, instead of just adapting themselves to the world and living a simpler life. And it does seem foolish to challenge conventional wisdom-the wisdom of the ages, proven true since time immemorial. Why risk it all on a turn of pitch-and-toss when you could very easily settle for just a notch below?

I pondered upon the dilemma of risking everything for a faint chance at attaining something truly magnificent. And logic said that the risk inherent in such a foolhardy enterprise should be deterrent enough for any rational individual. But then rationality does not create empires-it can never spur you to go the extra mile, never urge you to look beyond the obstacles, never replace the passion that excellence demands and deserves.

By some fortuitous coincidence, I happened to watch a movie called Tin Cup where the protagonist, a deserving underdog who is within a whisker of winning the US Open Golf Tournament, blows it all away because he wants to prove to himself that he is as good as he thinks he is. He can take the easy way out, play a safe shot and win the tourney. Or he can risk an audacious shot which will either give him a spectacular victory or a heart-breaking defeat.

He takes the shot. And misses. And keeps taking one shot after the other, each of them knocking him irredeemably out of the tournament, till he manages the perfect shot and sinks the putt. The spectators explode in applause at his grit and belief but he loses the tournament because he will not succumb to conformity. Immediately thereafter, he questions the validity of his apparent obstinacy. Why did he squander away the chance to enter the record books as a winner-merely to satisfy his own ego?

And the answer is simple. Because he knew he could do it. The record books are for trivia buffs and people who profess to love sports without ever having set foot on a playing field. But true love for any endeavour must necessarily embrace the madness, the perils, the failures and the passion without which all of it would be little more than a mundane chore. Passion can never be a business. And regardless of the multitudes seduced by the glamour of choreographed extravaganzas, it does not take long to recognize the presence of a genius.

Be it Lance Armstrong who overcame testicular cancer or Edison who so famously failed a thousand times before making the bulb or even Gandhi who subdued an empire wearing just a loincloth, each of these individuals believed in the beauty of their dreams. Dreams that we all have but few dare to pursue. For all purposes, dreams at first glance seem impossible. For those who ponder over them, they start seeming improbable. And to the scant few who are audacious enough to go after them, they soon become inevitable.

So here’s hoping that you realise that the greatest gift of all is something to strive for. And if you have that something, give it your all-break the shackles and reach for the stars-even if you lose, you will have some stardust on you. And should you win, immortality would be yours. 


"Talent does what it can.
Genius, what it must. "

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Memory called Life

There are altogether too many people who mistake their imagination for their memory. Do we not have a tendency to view the past with a tinted vision that is certain to conjure up images far better than what the reality was? Or maybe, far worse than the reality? It’s hard to tell for sure unless you have the chance to revisit the past and live it again through the vicarious eyes of an outsider, almost as if all were an out-of-body experience. And all of a sudden, you can feel the pieces fall into place with a precise clarity.

I had just such an opportunity recently when a very old friend of mine came visiting. Even before he had left Calcutta, he elicited from me the promise of taking a trip up to our old school. Sanawar. And even though I wasn’t too excited at the prospect of going back up the hills, I couldn’t bear to dampen his ardour. But, truth be told, even I was a little pleased to go back to school with someone whom I had shared a lot of its joys and tribulations with.

And so it was that a bright Saturday morning saw us set off for Sanawar. The gibberish that nostalgia evokes had started the night before-the food, the clothes, the studies, the dorms and, of course, the girls- we went through the entire gamut of experiences which for us symbolised our years at that little hilltop. Wherever one of us ran out of conversation, the other would pipe in with a forgotten anecdote and soon, the conversation would become animated again. Smuggling chapattis out of the dining hall to use as a midnight snack with ghee, lighting a paper bag full of monkey-shit outside the housemasters door and watching him try to stomp it out, sharing a single packet of uncooked Maggi among 5 friends, signing up for boxing to impress your latest crush and getting hammered senseless in the ring ! Many, many memories of a carefree and innocent time- a time gone by, never to return.

And right when we reached the last bend short of school, some more memories kicked in-the hockey sticks raining on our backsides, the rotten food, getting beaten up over a pack of biscuits, early morning runs and late night errands and the ubiquitous homesickness. Maybe it was the nostalgia and the fact that we were finally out of school that made it possible for us to reminisce so fondly about it. For while we were there, there was many an occasion when we would have given just about anything to exchange places with the millions of kids who went to school just for classes and then went back to the warmth of a homestead-while we rubbed our sore posteriors and put up a brave face for the world, frightened and forlorn as we were from within.

At almost the same instant, the same question crossed both our minds-what did we miss so much about Sanawar when there were clearly so many bad memories attached to it too? Getting kicked around, polishing shoes for our seniors, getting a fresh change of uniform only after 4 days, spending the bulk of our 50 rupees worth of weekly pocket-money on seniors? Was this the life that we missed? Driving past the school gates and towards our dorms gave us time to mull over this question.

As we drove onwards, every bend in the road, every tree and every building seemed to smile at us in welcome. A smile that could be shared only between those who had lived together, shared joys and sorrows, been there for each other. We drove past the nooks which cloaked us when we wanted to sob after a particularly bad beating, the staircase from atop which we yelled out our triumphs, the pavement that still resonated with the chatter of our adolescent dreams. And by the time we reached our dorms and stood before the nameplate proudly proclaiming the name of our house, the truth had sunk in with an unmistakeable clarity.

We missed Sanawar and remembered it fondly because regardless of our experiences, good or bad, this was the place that had made us who we were. This was home for 8 months every year and even your fiercest rival was in truth your best friend. We certainly did get a bundle of agony and anguish along the way but it was also the place where every success was yours and yours alone-you had earned it and could relish it as you chose. We were the masters of our destiny, independent and untrammelled in the vista of choices that lay before us. And although an aeon had gone by since we passed out of its portals, there wasn’t the slightest doubt that we could never have been even a pale shadow of our selves without this very special entity in our lives. The entity that gave us the benefit of its own form of disinterested guardianship and moulded our fledgling forms in the brand of its legacy.

And that seems to be true of life too. It is surprising how much of remembrances are built around things unnoticed at the time. Yet, the slightest moment of reflection would reveal that things were never as bad as we today accuse them of being nor as good as we so wistfully remember them to be. Most of the time, they were just the right blend of bitter-sweet occurrences. And together, they have given us the moments that we remember as our life thus far. The life that has made us what we are today. And the life that we choose to make of it from this day forth.


“Life is whatever you want to remember of it”

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Total Eclipse

“I was so horrified when I read about the ills of smoking that I gave up reading”


DISCLAIMER: The protagonist in this article bears no resemblance to any person, living or alive. For the sake of artistic expedience, the article has been written in the first person-this should not be misconstrued as a reflection of, or upon, the author’s own proclivities which remain irreproachably untainted and chaste.



Never in the history of human strife has so much antagonism been directed by so many against so few. The battle lines have been drawn and are gradually tightening about the exclusive clique of individuals who have chosen not to forsake the perennial companion of human solitude-the cigarette.


Restaurants and bars, theatres and parks, offices and markets, they have all devised newer and more nefarious ways to keep smoking at bay. Why, you are no longer permitted to smoke even in the privacy of your own car! (Well, technically you are but only if the car is moving or if the car is stationary but the windows are rolled up or the windows are rolled down in a moving car but there is nobody in the vicinity of x metres or.....God knows what the damn rule is-this is where I need a cigarette!).


Ostensibly, all of this is being done for the sake of humanity at large-not only are the smokers given definite disincentives to quit an injurious habit, it also ensures permanent riddance for those afflicted by passive smoking. Agreed, it would be criminally offensive to blow rings of smoke around a new-born baby’s pate. But banning smoking at virtually every possible location on the pretext of public health is inane-given the ubiquitous defilement of our surroundings, that’s like having a urinating and non-urinating section in a swimming pool!


As for the question of kicking the butt, believe me when I say (from a purely vicarious perspective) that there is no incentive required to do so. A very big misconception people suffer is that quitting smoking is difficult. Nonsense, I say-my friend Vineet himself had already quit about 26 times at last count. And although I would not call him a heavy smoker, he does get through about two lighters a day.


Yes, continuing to quit cigarettes may be a little trickier but then most smokers really do not see the logic in it all. To begin with, cigarettes are a much cheaper and easily available alternative to nicotine patches. There is the obvious benefit of getting your sense of smell back but with the pungent odours we are subjected to, who would want it back anyway. Possibly the only set of factors that could induce a severance from the Great God Nick-O-Teen would have to do with a play on human emotions-the frown of a child, the concern of an elder or a bewitching smile from the better half.


But even these are mere possibilities. Those given to the bliss that cigarettes afford would aver that “a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke”. Cigarettes don’t just give the illusion that you are doing something when you do nothing. They are companions, counsellors and comrades. They are a balm to soothe away the problems of the world, the perfect accompaniment to all forms of hedonism. They are consistent, reliable and convenient. And best of all, they ask nothing in return-like the proverbial moth enraptured by the flame, they ask only that they be allowed to do their duty, even as they slowly perish for your sake.


And if these are sentiments that only smokers can relate to, the uninitiated could savour the enigmatic temptation of a cigarette by thinking of it as a beautiful woman who also knows Tendulkar’s statistics!



"A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?"

Miracles

I know what I have given you, I do not know what you have received.”


If God were generous enough to tell us what lay in store for us in the future, most of us would probably not undertake the journey. Would you study as hard for an exam if you were told that you would not clear the interview? Would you scrape together every last penny to buy a house if you knew that this is where you would lose a dear one? Would you allow your heart to go aflutter at the first sight of a special someone if you knew that you would have to part after a few years? In most cases, the answer would not be in the affirmative.


Yet, we live and get bruised and battered. And if given a chance, would not think twice about living it all over again. Strange, but true. We are, after all, the only species that brings home another species just for the pleasure of their company! For that seems to be the exact purpose why man has been made in this fashion. To bring into manifest the most noble emotions- love, sacrifice, courage, honour and civility. These are what separate us from the others and make us true masters of our destiny.


And the bedrock of every human endeavour is the need for acknowledgement. Even the humblest or the most severe of individuals revel in being appreciated for what they do for others. The irony, however, is that very often the sincerest of intentions unfolds in a manner that may well be misinterpreted. You do the correct thing but in the wrong way. As the poet said, “Kehtein to hain achchey ki, lekin buri tarah”. And far from being acknowledged, every successive attempt to undo the misgivings of the past snowballs into a quagmire of blunders.


But the fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose. And the efforts continue ceaselessly, with an ardent intensity and the fervent belief that the ends will justify the means. This is why we succumb to irrational lying, to recurrent anger, to inversions of the self, for we consider all of it as almost essential to preserve the greater good. I remember here this brief aside in the movie Casablanca where a young woman approaches the cynical protagonist and asks him if she would be justified in doing “a bad, a very bad thing” if it would allow her to secure happiness for the man she loves. Although the movie furnishes no definite vocal response for this moral dilemma, it nonetheless provides the issue with a treatment similar to that accorded to a white lie-if a wrong can lead to a right, then the wrong itself is not far from being a right.


And that is the very embodiment of the enigma we call life. That there is no right or wrong, that there is nothing and nobody more important than life itself, that the only time we go wrong is when we go against our inherent inclinations. For each and every one of us knows what the right thing to do is. Without exception, we know. Problem is, it is tough to do so. And therein, within the sliver delineating “should” and “can”, lie the plethora of choices that determine our destiny.


“There are two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Monday, June 28, 2010

Love Autopsy

I know, hilariously tacky title! Was trying to come up with a synonym for post-mortem and then suddenly this cheesy track from Music and Lyrics popped up in my mind. And somehow, it seemed pretty apt-corny, but apt.


I read someplace that a man never knows how to say goodbye and a woman never knows when, or maybe it was the other way round. Either way, the fact remains that there is no “good” in goodbyes. They are painful, gut-wrenching and about as close to hell as we will ever come. They can also bear a promise of heaven, with the pure ecstasy of a reunion after a long time spent apart. But then, it wasn’t a real goodbye, was it?


So when and how do we say bye? I think we say it when there is no expectation left from the others, when all our efforts to desperately cling on to the receding vestiges of a memorable past are snatched away from us. And we say it by appreciating what we had and acknowledging how special we felt in that time.


One of Alexander the Great’s most worthy successors was his friend Ptolemy, who gained control of his body and catafalque and used it to rise to become Pharaoh of Egypt. A learned man and a man of letters as he was, he later wrote that with Alexander, the greatest bequeath was not his immense wealth or the vast dominions he left behind. It was the way he made people feel. Ironically, Alexander has been riled as one of the most ruthless conquerors of all time, savage and brutal. Yet, history stands testament to the fact that although possessed with a foul temper, he could make those around him feel very special, very cherished. Ptolemy says that although he did so in a very awkward and eccentric manner, when you were with Alexander, you felt powerful, invincible and unconquerable. No challenge seemed too daunting, no sacrifice too demanding. The world was your oyster and you were the masters of your destiny. And it was this legacy that propelled him towards the supremacy of much of the known world, with even the mighty Persian Empire crumbling under the relentless march of his ardent followers. The legacy which endears him to us and helps us overlook his unyielding ambitions and his rage.


And that is how we say goodbye.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Never Give In


Never Give In was our motto at school, goading us to strive for what we aimed at till the very last vestige of strength and belief in ourselves. And while in school, we interpreted this largely in reference to our gruelling physical exercises, as we struggled to go just one measure farther than our tired limbs were capable of carrying us.


Life, however, has proven over the last many years that the adage is equally true for other domains too. Studies, career, relationships-no matter what the issue at hand, the one thing that will see you through is you yourself. And once this conviction is ingrained into you, it becomes evident that the true joy of life is to be used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; to be thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; to be a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.


And such firm conviction stems from belief. Belief in ourselves, the purity of our intentions and the magnificence of our goals. All too often, people find themselves in doubt and, like the deer who goes mad looking for the musk, turn to the world to seek answers, not knowing that the answers they so desperately seek are within their own selves. The result is self-doubt, gradually descending into self-pity and finally a complete resignation to the uncaring flow of life.


But this is not how it should be. A ship in harbour may be safe, but that is not what ships are built for. The true joy is in being able to take the bull by its horns and striving to make for ourselves just the future that we want. Sure, it will be susceptible to failure but atleast the journey will be a memorable one. And should we succeed, paradise would need no definition.


An anecdote I remember in this regard is of Lord Curzon visiting the Lucknow Residency to see the spot where his hero, Sir Henry Lawrence, had laid down his life in the Mutiny of 1857. The Viceroy was led to a room where a plaque marked the exact spot where Lawrence was said to have breathed his last. Curzon, however, far from being pleased, left the room with a frown. He then summoned the custodian and asked for the layout plans of the Residency. After studying them for a while, he announced that the plaque had been placed in the wrong room for Lawrence, as best as Curzon’s memory served him, had lost his life in an altogether different wing of the building. Not wanting to bandy words with the Viceroy, the entourage meekly agreed with him. This lack of resistance further annoyed Curzon for he perceived it as an insult to his intelligence and a servile acknowledgement of his office. The matter was dropped right there but years later, when his Viceroyalty had ended and he was back in Britain, Curzon dug into the archives of the Mutiny, went through tomes of reference material and single-handedly prepared a detailed dossier detailing the exact spot of Henry Lawrence’s death. The dossier was scrutinized by the India Office, who concluded that Curzon was, as always, correct. Shortly thereafter, the plaque at Lucknow was relocated to the location Curzon had identified, where it remains to this day!

“But a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a Heaven for?”




Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Girl Who Owns A City



“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”
When I moved to Chandigarh, I had no illusions about the city. Having spent my life wandering across the length and breadth of the country, Chandigarh was just a go-between on my way to Simla. It was good for the occasional stop-over but lacked both the vibrancy of Delhi and the serenity of Simla. You could come here and go shopping, catch a bite to eat or find the conveniences of a metropolis within a small space. But not much more.



Today, after having stayed here for a few years, I still feel the same-a rank outsider. It’s almost as if the city and I just could not adopt each other. Even my favourite haunts seem like they belong someplace else. It feels almost surreal, like viewing everything from a distance, detached and aloof.



So when I stand here on the cusp of my imminent and permanent departure, I should be able to say my farewell without any qualms. After all, I will not miss the lake, the tree-lined boulevards, the planned symmetry of the city. I might remember it once in a while, but not with any special longing.



But there is a void somewhere. For I am also leaving behind a lot of people. People I worked with, people I dined with, those that I fought with and those that I laughed with. Be it the paan shop which always had an interesting anecdote to offer or the old man who always overcharged for his wares. In their own special way, each of them wove threads into the fabric which makes up life. I got to enter their homes and feel the warmth of a homestead, make unreasonable demands and claim a right on them, deflate their tyres and experience the antagonism that unites dear friends. All in all, a remarkable montage of life, compressed into the span of a few months.



One of the peculiarities of life is that it is with the most arcane of things that we develop a very strong sense of connection. It could be the smell of meethe-chawal that brings back memories of childhood. It could be a song that takes you back to the carefree vagrancy of college. It could even be a cologne that you put on after a long time which brings with it the fragrance of a special someone. Regardless of the trigger, each thing is associated with just one particularly memorable event or person. Despite having stayed in over a dozen cities across India, I still connect each of them with just one thing- Assam is all about cricket just as Bengal was all about reading, Jammu is the land of my grandmother, Delhi is the place I found myself and Simla is the perennial sanctuary.



And as I leave Chandigarh, there is, above all else, just one thing I will remember it as-the city of a girl. A girl I met in my first few months here and who was always with me in all our sojourns around town. The girl with a lilt to her walk and a spring in her step. A smile to light up the room and a frown to humble the darkest cloud. With a million questions and a billion answers. Funny, intelligent, vivacious. And much more.



The girl who, to me, will always own the city of Chandigarh.

"I went my unremembering way,


I went and took with me


The pang of all the partings gone,


And partings yet to be"




Monday, June 7, 2010

If youth knew, If age could

The genesis of most problems facing the Indian state today can be traced not as much to the presence of ubiquitous corruption and apathy as to the absence of able stewardship. One of the most denuding commentaries on the miscarriage of democracy in India is perhaps the fact that in the six-odd decades since our independence, the people have not failed the state but have failed themselves. Time and time again, we have chosen for ourselves leaders even the best of whom fall woefully short of the expectations of their respective offices.

A cursory look at the incumbents of high office in India reveals the dismal fact that we seem to prefer age over merit. The youngest of our Presidents has been a sprightly 64 while the oldest of our Prime Ministers was a seasoned 81! With the sole exception of Rajiv Gandhi, who elevation to South Block was for the most part through fortuitous circumstances, there has been no other incumbent to have entered upon either of these august offices even in his fiftieth year. In stark contrast are the relatively diminutive ages of leaders across the globe which, in no small measure, are a reflection of the vitality and dynamism of their growth trajectories. Even Abraham Lincoln, whose visage towers over that of the other occupants of the Oval Office much akin to an aging patriarch, was merely 52 at the time of his inauguration.

This is not to say that an advanced age necessarily implies decrepitude or senility. There are abundant examples strewn about history which lay testimony to the benefits that come with time. However, continual doses of a similar approach towards policy can be detrimental. One of the most evident susceptibilities in such a scenario is the widening chasm between the expectations of the populace and the mindset of the leaders, which is mournfully out of sync with the ground realities. Consider M.K. Gandhi-at a time when the entire world had realised the implications of industrial might, he could not shake off his staunch convictions towards individual and cottage industries; so much so that even Rabindranath Tagore, the very man who had christened him “Mahatama”, wrote a scathing article condemning “The Cult of the Charkha” that Gandhi was perpetrating.

Another problem with choosing leaders approaching the twilight of their lives is the burden of expectations and obligations that they each carry. The road to the top is fraught with many an impediment and in the cumulative journeys of a few decades, any individual would find himself saddled with the ghosts of antiquated aspirations as also the need to oblige those who stood by him along the way. So pervasive is this phenomenon that while the world has long outgrown the traditional “spoils” system, we in India view such instances of nepotism as valid compense for fidelity and support. Perhaps it was similar considerations that led Vajpayee to shower onto Advani the oblivious indulgence that may well have given us, just last year, an 82 year old PM-regardless of his egocentric ambitions, his specious secularism and his middling record as Home Minister.

But the most damning effect of over-ripened leadership is its proclivity towards a patronizingly paternal instinct. Too often have our leaders chosen to direct our destinies onto paths that were in sharp conflict with their mandate. Personal preferences are given the impression of national policy and thrust upon an impotent populace. Nehru gave us dams when we were hungry, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed allowed Indira to rule by decree, Rajiv took us to fight the Tamils and Manmohan Singh feels that focussing solely on the abjectly penurious is adequate. Towering personalities all, their charisma alone nullifies any chance of a protest against their vision, no matter how ill-conceived the intent may be.

Plato, writing at the time of the very inception of democratic ideals, said that the guardians of the state must be unaffected by and impervious to their past. They should, instead, be groomed in the art of administration and taught to apply themselves to the milieu in which they operate. Furthermore, in doing so, they should look upon those who they govern with a certain sense of detachment so as not to yield to sentiments of either dominance or compassion. Naturally, the earlier such incumbents enter upon their office, the lesser their chance of being conditioned by the extant system.

And it is exactly this form of disinterested guardianship that India most severely needs at the moment. A breed of individuals specially reared and trained for the sole purpose of governance. Prepared for the high offices they are ordained to occupy through the rigours of hard study and discipline. Free of prejudice, unencumbered by their precedents. And cognisant of the fact that the foremost task of those who govern is to govern themselves.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Much ado,about nothing?

Of all the bright and beautiful things God has enabled man to create, there can hardly be anything better than anaesthesia. Forget the space rockets, the multitudinous power of the internet, stem-cell therapy, super crops et al. There is nothing even half as amazing as the feeling of unmitigated tranquillity that pervades your being with the simple administration of a spot of anaesthesia.And nowhere is this more apt than when you take your ravaged fangs to the local dentist, for him to get them back in shape for the next phase of hedonistic chomping and guzzling.


My affaire de coeur with dentists started before I had reached even double-digits in age. The culprit then were the ubiquitous chocolates and bubble gums which ensured that ever so often, you woke up to a mouthful of pain. Hot food would agonize, cold food would tingle, even water would sting. The family would offer neither reproach nor remonstration. Their only counsel would be that since you got yourself into it, now it is you who must “man-up” and get yourself out of it.


“Man-up”! What a lovely sham. Delude a boy of 9 to pretend that the brain-numbing pain was tolerable and the accepted order of things was to saunter into the dentist’s and remedy it by yourself. Ironically, it was this very chauvinism that often helped put the pain behind and move on to the next level.


So with a heavy heart, you excused yourself from the weekend cricket match, asked your folks to fix you an appointment, got your little bicycle out and pedalled furiously to the clinic. Walking into the reception was always a glorious feeling, akin to a gladiator entering the Circus Maximus. The feeling that you were taking life head-on and regardless of what came your way, you would not ask for mercy. There would be moments of self-doubt when, as you tried to distract yourself in aged issues of Women’s Era, the swarthy man who had entered the surgery room a moment earlier would let out a bellow of pain. Your insides would churn to think of the horrors that lay behind the door and you would be confronted by the existential question that has intrigued mankind since dentistry was first practised, “why didn’t I brush twice every day?”The mind would race hard to think of ways to keep itself occupied when in the chair. Pleasant thoughts were the best bet and you started refreshing memories of all the good things that you would go over while the dentist did his job. The visuals invariably started with a brand new leather ball with a flawless seam, the prospect of finding a chest of treasure in the ravines behind the cantonment, the possibilities if you were able to fly or even go invisible(the latter is best left unexplained!). But barely had the world started looking tolerable than the nurse would call out your name and suddenly, even the feeble security of Women’s Era seemed adequate.

The six most frightening words in the world are, without doubt, “the dentist will see you now”. The apprehension that grips your very being when you walk towards the dentist’s chair is the stuff that movies are made of. The elements of suspense, anxiety, fear, impending tragedy and above all, courage and honour are not to be mocked at. You know that this man in the white smock can put an end to your suffering, yet it seems that if you just spent the rest of your days brushing hard, you would be fine. And if you ran out of here right now, he really couldn’t do much about it. But by the time this wisdom dawns, you are already seated in the chair and the preliminary probes have begun. You clench the armrests and stiffen yourself for the worst, only to be told to relax and let yourself loose. The prognosis is plain, a filling. Then he picks up the biggest syringe you have laid eyes upon and loads it with the medicine. All thoughts of leather balls and lost cities zoom out of the mind, leaving only the dread of 4 inches of metal being driven into your mouth.

But then comes the miracle of anaesthesia! The tiniest of pricks and then the sweet bliss of not being able to feel anything. Suddenly, you are Hercules and Achilles rolled into one. Your grip softens, your mouth opens wider and you almost have a smile on your face. The excavators, the drills, the forceps-you dare them all to do their best, for you are ready to face the worst. You snigger inwardly at the poor craven souls too cowardly to bear such a simple test of character. Soon, the procedure is over and even with the wad of cotton lodged in your mouth, you manage to give the doctor your charming best smile. And swagger out towards the reception with the disdain of a conquering hero.


And that’s when you hear him say, “This tooth is fine now. But the molar next to it needs to be extracted. So I’ll see you at 10 tommorow?”


"Some tortures are physical

And some are mental,

But the one that is both

Is dental."

~Ogden Nash