Licentious Living

My mind is a blank sheet of paper

2012-02-04T12:09:00.000+04:00

An Excerpt (of a book that may never be)

2011-12-31T17:24:00.002+04:00

It was a time of great death and destruction. The roads were imploding and the ground beneath her feet was quivering with rage. How could Kalpana have known that disaster was so near at hand? Shouts, screams, and huge metal boards telling her to keep away from her route, were made common. These instructions became normal. Everyday life learnt to take these changes in its stride, numbing her to the large scale of disaster. Houses plummeting, trees uprooted, excavations so deep that the yellow-ocher, silver-grey boards veiling them were to turn cement- white by the time the rubble was cleared.

And the rubble was never cleared. Those bags of cement, chalk, stones, marble lay there, near the sewage, by the footpath, to be incorporated into the brown of the dirt. Human and inanimate feet made sure the rubble was leveled out, for the animate to use as a resting place. The animate, human or otherwise, cackling with laughter or fear, towards the human using the footpath. You see, the footpath was used for several different reasons, by very many faces and colours. When used for a piss, the animate and the non-human, laughed. When used to throw rubble on, they screeched in terror. As every tree was uprooted, and cement consecrated the place of its death, the footpath became a cemetery. When feet trampled over the dead trees, the non-human crept away, in fear of what the human could trudge over. The heaps of rubble, if ever they were cleared up, led to more deaths. Such as those of dogs who are caught by surprise by a new flyover that replaced the heap of rubble. It was built over two weeks, too short a time for the dog to gauge its breadth, and so was struck by the mechanically mobile, bolting along the new flyover. The dogs were the first symptoms of death, and they were the telling signs of the days to come. As their bodies lay scattered and pulverised on the edge of the new roads and flyovers built overnight, time was changing its tunes. The unplanned and chaotic, be warned: your lives are short. You will be the targets of all persecution, in this City of Great Death and Destruction, or the CGDD.

So, the green of the trees and the living browns of the dogs, were systematically replaced by the whites of chalk and cement. The snow-flake like dust that gathered over the footpath, slowly settled over the human bodies that used the footpath. Those human bodies returned to their homes, chalk and dust covered, cement covered. Initially, they would rush into the water and wash away their sin-like cement and smell of the footpath. But little did they know that they were now living in the time of Great Death and Destruction, and they would not be able to wash away the markers of death they were carrying. Each one of them was a vector. Vectors which grew stronger with the fragments of death that percolated through the outside body. They would always remember this time, by the sense of awe that they felt while they were being imported into CGDD. Shock and awe was not just a defense vocabulary for a military tactic: for the newly-colonised CGDD, it was the dominant mode of life. The citizens felt all the chaos and congestion of the body politic being shocked out of it's system.

As Kalpana walked along the white soot covered footpath, she was experiencing awe, too. At how much her skin was changing, as she walked. It grew chalk white, a shade closer to the chalk white of the rubble . She could see people around her growing chalk white, too. Not just them, but the figures that appeared on the posters and magazines of women gleaming at the book stalls were also becoming chalk-white. But nobody seemed to notice. They were turning whiter with every step they took towards their destinations. They walked in a stupor. They walked a collective, ordered rhyme. They were walking indiscriminately on, not responding to the raging ground underneath, or the loud rumblings behind the silver-grey boards. These boards lined the road on both sides. They were purportedly covering the ugly trenches which were dug up for the construction of the Great City, but they also made sure that people walked in a single file, looking straight ahead, believing everything, feeling nothing.

She felt nothing, too. But she was not used to not feeling anything. Shock and awe was making her emotionally malnourished. It was getting her to question her sanity. She looked around for affirmation, found none. As she walked with a crowd in a stupor, she tipped over yet another body of an animate, now still. Life was stamped out of it. People did not notice that they were crushing the pulverised dog's face. The stench was subdued by the chalk cement of the constructions around. Going by the rate of stampeding footsteps over the dead body, it would take a few hours for the body to be crushed and deconstructed sufficiently well, for it to be made part of the rubble. Kalpana tripped, and looked down to see that her feet were red. A red which was quickly turning to rust. She wondered how many bodies she must have crushed.

A loud cry followed by silence. The crowd stopped, looked at her. A hand on her shoulder, pulled her out of the stream of bodies. She stepped out and fell on a board. It read, “Do not Stop the Traffic. Do not honk. Respect All. Suspect All.” Breathing heavily, she felt the chalk and cement dust fill her chest. She was glad for that. The dust inside her entrails would help her adapt to the city. She willed herself to join the walking stream. She would take a little more time, put more effort at acclimatising, but adapt she will. Next time, she will not scream. The crowd will not single her out and jeer at her incapability of feeling nothing. The blood could rust on her feet. She would reach home and wash it out. She will not stop next time. She willed herself to ignore the ground underneath, quivering under another pound of mechanical thrust. Did she hear a shriek somewhere? She willed herself to not look around and check. She will keep walking. She will not stop.

As she joined the crowd walk in a disciplined stupor, she read the metal boards more consciously. “These are times of great change, citizens, bear with us”; “Help make us proud”; “We will live through this”; “Imagine the world in your neighborhood.” They seem to be part of the monologue that the Doordarshan news caster, the woman with the short hair and curt lips, was reading out, at regular intervals, at every corner and intersection of major roads.

“Citizens, keep with us, we will change for the better. We will make our lives safer, and our futures perfect. We will leave behind a home for our future generations. We will leave behind a home, which is green, abundant, and terrorist-free, where no one spits on the streets, no one molests our daughters and sisters. Live through these times of great change, and keep your eyes on the future. Let there be light, at the end of this short but dark tunnel.” The news caster never once changed her expressions while she talked. She was stoically peddling futures of white light to an audience shocked into believing in it. She was indeed, the voice of the times. She was the official voice of the CGDD. Her voice echoed through the nights of deep excavations and quivering roads. Her voice was the souvenir that Kalpana would collect from these times.

Kalpana often wondered if she was the Anne Frank of these days. Her connection to the young persecuted Jewish teenager, was immediate, when she was first introduced to her, in the history classes in the government school. She got a Hindi translation of her autobiography and read it through. She had taken to believe she was Anne Frank. She had carried her copy to CGDD. It was the one book she carried with her. She wished she kept a diary, which would chronicle the one crowded hour of change, to the beginning of new time that Kalpana is witnessing. She wondered how many lived to witness the beginning of new time, when the base of the material super-structure was being laid. She would lived through it all, and chronicled it all. And she would proudly proclaim that her parents built this world, or atleast helped build it, through their labour value.

Kalpana walked across the last of the bridges, and was turning towards the low end of the construction area, cordoned off by the boards, and started climbing over the last of the rubble heaps. Next to the massive pillar which was the eleventh of a whole row of pillars being constructed to lay the tracks of the metro. As she reached over a stone, to pull herself out of the last pile, she heard someone calling out from below.

“Hey you! Where are you going?”

“To the basti, where else?”

“There is no basti, come out.”

“No basti? But I live there, my parents work there, on that pillar.” She pointed to the twelfth monolith being erected. And thats when disaster truly hit her.

There was no twelfth pillar, no eleventh, just massive concrete stones, and mortar. The structure over the eleventh pillar had collapsed. Indeed, there was no basti, no road, only white concrete. Kalpana looked down at the dried blood on her feet. Her red feet over the chalk rubble. Another souvenir of the times: the image of her dead parents splashed on her blood soaked feet.

“Girl, come down. There is nothing left on the other side.”

Bushkarit, Bushkarit, Bushkarit

2011-12-22T13:30:00.003+04:00

... went the boy playing with the rubber tyre which once belonged to the bicycle that his brother used to get milk in the morning for the house they worked in. This was his favourite game: he kept repeating the word which, evidently, he had invented, to match the revolution of the tyre. This was a game that he proudly showed off to his compatriots in the field outside, children who were there as part of families who were employed like his parents.

And no, I shall not follow this observation up with a commentary on the wheel of life. The observation was about the joyous fact of the discovery of the new word, Bushkarit and how happy we should all be for the discovery. For the fact that one of us still has the nerve, or the capacity to discover something new (discover, mind you, not invent). Yes, I use the normative should, however out of fashion that reads nowadays. Our abilities to celebrate discoveries are seriously under question, in the twists and turns of our cynical conversations.

And so the boy continues to roll the wheel, as his friends loose interest. There seemed to be nothing more exciting for him than that wheel and the sound of the new word in his head, even when the initial glee of showing off, was wearing away. Nothing better could have happened to him, right then, in that moment. He shall remember the brown, dusty world of the construction site he lived in, by that celebrated discovery. This moment of Bushkarit, might just end up as a meme for his childhood dust in the years to come.

The dust of memory is a funny thing. It leaves behind nothing, and carries away nothing. It remains, on the window sill of the mind, as it looks over the images and sounds that pass by. In one such image-sound mix, the word Bushkarit will be forever, chanted along with the rotating wheel.

I found the child and his new game while walking down to a seminar on the spat of self immolations in Tibet, in the JNU campus. Looking around at the faces which were listening attentively to the speaker (I was late, the child had delayed me), I wondered whether they would rejoice the discovery of a new word. Discovery of a new idea. They seemed to be listening with the attention that seemed to be bursting in its seam, with suspense and a certain sense of disbelief: in a land far away, some young nun had consumed a bit of petrol that she eventually doused herself with, and then proceeded to burn herself. Why did she and atelast a dozen other monks and nuns, do that? The speaker in front of them, was trying to make sense of the acts of violence, inflicted, voluntarily, with disturbing determination.

That young nun, within the invisible bonds that imagined nations cast, was related to another woman, who the members of the attentive suspense-ridden audience, come across in their mundane everyday. She is the woman who sits in front of Keicha, the only Tibetan restaurant in the campus. What makes it Tibetan is not the food, since momas and Thukpa are available in other shops on campus, but the 'general feel of the place' (as many friends out it), with its flags and the portrait of the Dalai Lama hanging on the wall facing the entrance. But this connection of a self-immolating young nun in a distant land and the soft spoken woman, dressed mostly in a chuba, running a small restaurant they go to, every other day, to escape the horrible mess food, will probably go amiss for these earnest listeners.

The child at the construction site, with his wheel, rotating ad nauseam with the repeating sound of a new word, juxtaposed with the image of a nun burning herself. It was one of those moments when the mind churns an order of images, out of a logic that you cant spell out for yourself, as it would be too much to register. Too much for your senses to register. They seem totally unrelated. Then why this order of remembering?

"I always live by Nigambodh Ghat"

2011-12-03T08:16:00.002+04:00

"...not physically, but etherically."

Gustave is a traveller. He completes all the stereotypical moulds of being one: skinny, dreadlocks, almost no baggage, a heavy dopper, has lost his way around Paharganj twice, and still likes to live around the traditionally skankiest part of Delhi. He feels his etheric body is made to come alive in the dark alleys, "Where there are rats for company?", I ask. "Oh, you bourgeois sanitised people, you will never stop fearing." Back in 2009, he and his breed seemed like seemed like the mythologised travelling sadhus. He still carries that aura in my mind.

Nigambodh Ghat on the banks of a snivelling, drainwater harvested Yamuna, is where the physical body enters phase one of the birth-rebirth cycle: death. "That is the intermediary stage, but the one that is most obvious, and so, people fear it the most." Gustave has learnt not to fear death, he says a part of him, or atleast one version of his body is perennially at the Ghat. Without trying to sound too bourgeois, I remind him that many live by the mosquito-infested, death waters of Nigambodh Ghat, and not etherically, but in their material life, mostly because they have no choice. He had some very good films with him, and many books in French. He gave me a copy of Madame Bovary. For free. He told me that I should stop watching Donnie Darko at every moment of intellectual angst. "You are beginning to sound like Jake Gyllenhal, and not in a good parallel-universy way." He said he was going back to the US, back in 2009. I suspect he is lingering around Pushkar.

"All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere."

"Going nowhere is fine. Its the focused, the astute and clear who scare me." Sunil was born in the Punjab Basti opposite Majnu Ka Tila. I rode back to the D.D.A (M.I.G) Flats-ridden Saket on his auto one time. "Why do they scare you?" I asked. "Because they usually cause hit-and-runs in their hurry towards their terminal 3."
But thats like saying you dont want the posh life of Terminal 3. "Of course I do, all I want at the end of the day is to sit back, watch cricket, get some chicken, and eat it with my rum. But its the hurry: you hit someone, and then you are scared of looking back at what you caused, and so, you rush forward."

Sunil, in his early years, was scared of coming over to the Tibetan colony across the national highway. When he did, he would find very old derelict people, dressed in strange costumes lying around the empty land overlooking the Yamuna. Many of them would have their feet or fingers wrapped in blood stained bandages, which he would recognise later to be signs of frostbite, arising out of relentless walking over ice without proper shoes or socks: the signs of a Tibetan refugee. Slowly, as he developed a liking for momos, the resettlement camp got a shape. He saw it grow into the colony that it is today. "Many of the kids, on both sides of the highway, cannot imagine the scene when the Tibetans first came here. Nothing, there was absolutely nothing. I feel proud living next to them. It feels like I am part of history."

I mentioned the small fights that break out between the young ones across the highway every Holi or some such delirious occasion. "They are all rushing towards their Terminal 3, madame. Who has time for history now? These boys have a lot of energy, and nowhere to spend it. But they will understand." The creases on his forehead added the lines, "they have to, as they have no choice, but to live there, across each other, next to that highway, as they have been for the last fifty years."

"I set fire to the rain,
And I threw us into the flames
Well, it felt something died
'Cause I knew that there was
the last time... Let it burn..."

And so fire becomes the emblem of anything that needs to rise from its ashes. For rebirth, you have to let go of the old. "Which is fine, I guess, you need to move forward you know." Lalita said this with bated breath as she threaded off the last few strands of unwanted hair over the shaped eyebrows of a pubescent customer. Lalita is a hairdresser, but she does 'threading and waxing' too. Six months into the job, her manager threatens to hand her the pink slip if she takes anymore leaves till the end of the year. She has taken two already: the first was for her sister's baby shower, and the second when she delivered. She is single and frustatedly so. "I don't buy all this shit about being single and happy. If you are 30 and single, you have definite reasons to be worried in this country. Look at Didi, even with all the beatings from her in-laws, she props up a kid and now they are all happy, at least for the time being." Has she been in a relationship? "Yes, the colony kinds. The guy was good for only one thing." And no, no giggles follow.

At the beginning of 2008, her parents set up a meeting with a young MBA degreed man. They met in the Cafe Coffee Day in Green Park, in South Delhi, since that is where her previous beauty parlour was. Coffee shops were the newest place for potential arranged marriage couples to meet, after Pizza Hut and Swagath Restaurant. Her parents told her to wear jeans and a 'sophisticated top' for the evening, since the boy was looking for a 'modern girl'. Things were going well till they ordered for coffee. She said 'coffee' and the cashier looked back, saying, "Which one?" She had no answer. The guy answered saying, "Two cappucinoes", looking straight at the cashier.

Lalita strongly recommends that I get a haircut that gives my round face a smart look. "With long hair, you will only end up looking at a Bahenji. Upar se, you are on the healthy side. But you are the English-speaking types. Still, a smart, stylish and modern haircut will increase your chances."

As she blow dries someone else's hair, I wonder about Gustave's etheric body never leaving the Ghat. Why is all that talk of transcending all material needs limited to the dreadlocked Gustave? Am I missing something here? Is there a link running through the plotlines of dreadlocked Gustave and 30-something and single Lalita? Does there need to be a continuity or some such link? Can I just call it a Misc en Scene arising from a collage and get on with it?

"Get on with what?"
"With life, aur kya?"
"Ya, but I am. Um, living. Here. I am studying..."
"Yes, and thats not serious life. When do you plan to stop studying and get on with real life ?!!"
I am tempted to answer in the perennial negative: Never.
I choose silence instead.
"Yes, But I do feel like JNU has become better..."
"In what way?"
"It has, you know, become cleaner, and the new hostels are pretty good, the old ones were just dumps!"
"... and more homely."
A silence to let out the tension.

My room in the hostel looks over the massive construction site that used to be dense green shrubs, replete with Neelgai, even till the end of my Masters in 2010. Beyond the high walls of the hostel, I hear the labourers go about their routine, with the loud 90's songs for company. Every alternate night, an altercation breaks out among the women. The shouting dies down by three in the night, mostly by manly phrases like, "Arey, band bhi karo, kal kaam pe jaana hai." Its easy to draw dichotomies with life outside of this campus, where walking around aimlessly and talking to strangers is akin to risking your life. But I understand my friend's concern: studying in today's time is just not a productive activity. There is no way you can live without your parents beneficence and that itself should be the first reason to get a job.

"Plus, JNU must get very claustrophobic."
"Why?"
"Because it seems so stuck in '70s!"

Some conversations are never complete, others stunted from the beginning, several others are monologues thrown at each other, akin to intellectual masturbation. Hardly any of them are productive, and thank god for that.

The Rockstar who shied away

2011-11-16T19:35:00.003+04:00

The week before this film released, I decided to go underground, that is render myself invisible till the hue and cry over Imtiaz Ali blurring the word TIBET from the clip, died down. Yes, I accept I let some of my good Tibetan activist friends down. Messages and calls about how could a person who visited Majnu Ka Tila out of his own choice a few months back, who met, took photographs with the young Tibetans, decide to censor the very word Tibet at the n-th moment before the film is released? These calls and messages went unanswered. Mostly because I had decided to become an ostrich, and not take part in this particular conversation.

Mostly because I saw it coming. Mostly because what Imtiaz Ali did, gave face to a deep seated dilemma within every Indian sympathiser of Tibet. The dilemma that was in front of Imtiaz Ali, is the dilemma that every Indian who comes to know the issue, understand its people, then has to face. I have not spoken to the man since, and nor do I wish to. But I do want to give a face to act of censoring the word Tibet, and how I see it.

Ever since I have known about Tibet, I was always aware of the fact that Indians were abysmally unaware about this land which has been facing occupation since 1959. The Dalai Lama was seen as a religious figure and not the political head of a nation in exile. There are a number of reasons for why the issue does not surface in our CBSE books, why Dharamsala is treated as a tourist place and not known to be the place from where an entire administrative set up is trying to sustain an identity of a nation. As an enthusiastic undergraduate kid from Delhi University, who suddenly came across an entire nation in exile, and tried to understand the extent of their dilemma, of being born in exile, you feel unnerved.

I was especially unnerved when I saw that the only people who gave some form of political cognizance to the issue, was the BJP, who were more worried about the Kailash Mansarovar being under China (Yes, Mount Everest is also in Tibet). The only other supporters were Buddhists or other enthusiastic kids from DU. The deep seated silence within our political leadership is reflected in the cynicism of journalists who will keep Tibet stories as photo-ops when the young ones try to gate crash the Chinese Embassy, or go on hunger strikes in Jantar Mantar.

In the middle of all this cynicism, I suddenly came across a song in a random Hindi film where Kareena Kapoor was dancing with pretty young girls in Tibetan national costumes. I had friends who could barely make out what the costumes were about, but they knew 'that song was somewhat different'. I could use stills from the song to talk to kids in Delhi schools and colleges and ask them if they had ever visited Dharamsala or Majnu Ka Tila. This was how I even framed the documentary that PSBT eventually decided to produce.

It was in the midst of the documentary when my co-directors managed to acquire the number of the director of the film Jab We Met and I sent a message telling him I wanted to talk to him about the song and how he had used the performers from the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA). He called back and we met.

Due to reasons beyond my control, I could not use that footage in the final documentary (which is no great shakes either!), but it was evident in the interview that Imtiaz Ali was a DU kid who had found Majnu Ka Tila, in pretty much the same ways that I found it. It felt like I was talking to someone who had come to know about the issue and was now in his own way, trying to get people to notice them.

Now this is where the dilemma lies. As an Indian film maker you cannot be seen to be overtly supportive of anything apart from what you produce. You are supposed to make the film and get on with it. And lets face it, Bollywood is not the place for showing off your sympathies for anything apart form your film. Aamir Khan chose to run with the Olympic Torch too, in the midst of the crackdown that was happening in Tibet, and when the torch was upset in every country apart from India, because of China's human rights record. However, with the song in Jab We Met and various instances of Rockstar, Imtiaz Ali is probably the only film maker who could make a statement without actually making one.

Similarly, Rockstar is sprinkled with symbols of Dharamsala: Jordan has the flag pinned to him when he is playing the guitar, his manager says his next performance is in Mc Leod Ganj, Kangra, he plays in front of the Tibetan flag and monks on stage. The smudged out Tibet catches everyone's attention more than it would have, if it were left on screen.

Does this mean he simply used the site and setting of Dharamsala in a highly sanitised and depoliticised manner? Does this make him come across as a bit of a coward?

I dont know.

But what I do know is that his act of choosing to blur the word, gives form to a dilemma that is deep seated, and it arises from the systematic silence that we have always faced in knowing Tibet. Everytime discussion breaks out on Tibet, I have always faced the query, "Why Tibet, why not Kashmir?" Strangely, the only two people who have not asked me this question are the Tibetans and the Kashmiris.

I dont know the answer to that question. Nor do I know how and when will we be able to talk about Tibet as a question of a culture and a civilisation, and not in the frame of an imagined warfare with China. It is probably through the lens of an irate DU student that I met Tibet, and so will never know how to think in any other way. As far is Imtiaz Ali is concerned, I wish he had not blurred the word TIBET. But then again, I understand.

And so I say it for him: FREE TIBET.

Take note

2011-11-06T09:14:00.002+04:00

Exam times are the times I am relieved that I have not made films or literature, either my source of income or source of course work. Its as if both have to have lives of their own, and writing exams on them, will mean me trying to write notes on Charles Dickens.

Which is not to say that note taking is demeaning of the great reading traditions, of sitting in lukewarm sun, and getting past a book of your choice. Its just the note taking has become synonymous of exams. In the time I was taking classes in a film appreciation course in Pune, there was this woman prof who said it helped to have a film diary where you wrote down important points about a film you watch. And you should ideally, as people interested in writing about films academically, start taking notes on everything you watch. Yuck.

Why does one have t take notes to appear seriously considerate of a subject? To be disciplined about reading a subject?

And then we become all nostalgic about the great old folk traditions which would survive on oral rendition of texts. How come we dont charge them for being less serious? Did those kids take notes while listening to lecture? Would they have taken notes on a film, or a book of leisure?

The Devil's Child, literally

2011-10-22T17:46:00.003+04:00

The Omen of 1976, is the kind of film that will take you back to the times when white was definitely white, and grey was making sense only in logical gaps in the screenplay. It takes you back to your starting point, the place where all impulses of dark writings and much of science fiction rest: what is wrong? What is right? Yes, there was a time it was very clearly definable. Before graphic novels like Vendetta and Osamu Tezuka made this binary boring and almost redundant.

What better way to revisit the black and white, than to rediscover the Anti-Christ, born, as he was, within the precincts of the Church, which is to say that the birth of the irrational is within the rational. And all that.

Of course, its pretty obvious, the political ramifications of Anti-Christ being raised in the house of a to-be President of USA. And of course it is obvious that Gregory Peck will dither till the last moment before striking at a lame child, though he has been 'proven' to be Anti-Christ born on the 6th of June, at 6am. He is the modern rational, scientifically tempered, politician, who cannot give in to the evidences that the irrational fears in his head are propping up (I Don't know whose child I am raising).And he would rather be killed when he is to finally strike at the innocent child, at the altar of the Church. When you see him attempting to kill his devil child, your mind will rationalise on your behalf, "Poor man, he was driven to this madness. After all, the Bible predicted this, and he has to bear the brunt of the Anti-Christ."

The film uses the authorial voice of the Bible very well. That authority speaks into every aspect of Peck's character: the beautiful wife, who is the adequate mix of erotic and maternal instincts, the palatial house that could have been the Church itself, and a hidden secret of a dead child. However, as IMDB would tell you, the script writers were not very well trained in biblical studies. The main stem of the film, the quote off the Book of Revelation (and not revelations, as the actors would have it), "When the Jews return to Zion and a comet rips the sky, the Holy Roman Empire rises, then you and I must die. From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on either shore, turning man against his brother till man exists no more," may as well not be there 'in original'. Its funny how the authorial voice needs to have an EFFECT of authority, for which it needs to be SEEN as being substantiated by facts, figures, quotes.

This is where the film assumes another set of silencing techniques, which had me thinking about how 'mental health problems for women' are discursively located. When the devil child starts showing signs of devilry, with the unexpectedly public suicide of the first governess, with the priest father Brenner, warning Peck that his wife is in danger, when Damien starts scratching and clawing his mother when being pushed to enter the church, you have Mrs Ambassador seeking the psychiatrist. Why?

In the same instance, Gregory Peck, was in no mood for self-questioning and was increasingly becoming confident that the child that he had purported as his own was a freak. Its as if the knowledge of his act (of switching his 'own' dead baby with this one) was holding him strong, and the lack of this knowledge was eating into his wife's sanity. She was in no position to see the child as anything apart from her maternal profundities.

Anyway, another factoid about The Omen is that in 1976, it was released a little after The Exorcist. There are constant comparisons made off the two. In 2006, there was a pitiable attempt at a remake. Not comment worthy. The film became very popular, being Gregory Peck's most successful venture of his career. Also, that the screenwriter, David Seltzer novelised the movie, in which he elaborated on the voices already present and grounded the suspicious characters into even deeper moulds of the imminent Anti-Christ. Let me explain.

So, Father Brennan, who continuously tries to warn the US Ambassador to the UK, of the imminent death of his wife, was dying of cancer (not AIDS, but it should have been Aids, read on to know why). So, he wanted to save the poor Ambassador from the doom he had unleashed on him, by murdering his baby, and urging him to take on the devil kid. And here is where the masala comes in: in the book it is explained how he ended up with the totemical 666 and why he was eager to repent:

"Brennan wasn't born with the birthmark. It appeared on his body the moment Satan accepted him as a follower. In the book, it explains about Father Brennan. He was born to a poor mom, who died from eating raw fish after she was too weak to forage for firewood. Brennan was orphaned, and taken in by an order of priests who literally beat the love of God in him. He was covered with scars by the time he accepted Christ and became a priest. He went on a mission to Africa, where he met an African boy and converted him as he himself has been "converted". They enjoyed a forbidden lust until they were discovered. The boy was mutilated, and Brennan barely escaped. He gradually found himself involved with a different kind of 'religious' order that enjoyed lusts and pleasures without guilt, which was what he wanted. So, he was indoctrinated into devil worship. He eventually was called upon to help arrange the rape of the jackal and of the disposal of Thorn's baby. He did not really want to kill the baby, but he did it. Then after the switch occurred and years passed, he became tormented by nightmares iin which he saw Christ who told him he was still welcome in Heaven if he repented. Brennan ignored the dreams and they eventually stopped. Then he became riddled with cancer, and suddenly decided to try for God's forgiveness after all by trying to warn Thorn."

So, here it is, the film and this paragraph pretty much pre-empts the times to come. When gays will be allowed to get married lusts and pleasures are enjoyed without guilt, when the world is breeding Anti-Christs. When Armageddon has struck.

From The Omen to The Dark Knight, we can see how the world looks after Armageddon.

Why I still cry to QSQT

2011-10-17T14:51:00.005+04:00

I wanted to believe that I was born on the year Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT) was released. It stands frozen in my timeline, as the film that my mother must have seen while she was festering me. Unfortunately, well into my twenties, it was mathematically shown to me, by my cousin, that this monumental status did not belong to QSQT, but rather, to ET.

However, I still believe that I have a special connection to the film. I think the first time I had a crush was when I was watching Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla galloping around the woods, where she was leading him into the forest with all the wrong chalk marks, and I loved the sudddenly tense end to the song, Gazab ka hai din.... when they chance upon some ugly fugglies. Its as if I saw myself strolling through the woods with them, soaking in all the flirtatious innuendos of the song. And please dont get me wrong, it was not as if I was in love with Aamir, but that skinny, fair boy-man, AND that quiet, pretty, apprehensive Tweety Bird of a Juhi Chawla. Now, had I fallen for just that man, I should have technically 'awed and cochiee-cooed' this fellow called Imran Khan, reminiscent as he is of that version of uncle Khan. But, I don't. This is also something I realised pretty late in life: that it was not just Aamir I was fixated with, but that moment in QSQT, it was that couple who fall in love in their first trip out of home, on their own, and well, die to preserve it. It was as if the city was not meant to see their love. It was too full of itself to be able to let two idealists figure a way of living together.

And so, I cry everytime they shoot him down and then she dies. I cry when I see them build that house out of hay and I choose to ignore how they would end up with a concrete house, all empty at the edge of a hill, for them to sing in. I ignore the slow motioned anger moments of the families, who want to rip each other apart with their vestigial patriarchies, and I definitely ignore Dalip Tahil or whatever his screen name is, who stalks his son, Raj (Aamir) around as he is too ashamed to let him know he is out of jail. I definitely return to Papa Kehte Hain... just for that fake guitar stunt, and Aamir's innocent act. The song does a 'Here Comes The Sun' for me: it literally makes everything alright, at any wanted moment.

In the past few days, I have especially been missing this film. Its as if watching Qayamat se Qayamat tak itself is like living that love, and being part of that wild but hopeless try at eloping.

The fact of the matter is QSQT works at very subterranean levels for me: it might just be that my perception of love and everything else with it, has always meant that photograph that she took of his while he was running against the dawning sun. Memory of loves are like those photographs, somehow meant to end bitterly, but carry all the warmth of a rising sun.

When Raj and Rashmi were going back to Delhi, Rashmi says "Tum Dilli Mein Hum Se Milo Ge Naa! Agar Na Milna Ho To Milne Ka Vaada Hi Kar Do, Kam Se Kam Hamein Tuhara Intezar To Rahega" And tears well up in her eyes.

(This was not the quote I was looking for, but well, this one was the only one IMDB could bring up. Sad. )

Yes, yes, very melodramtic. Ah well, when did I say I didn't want any? The 90's are steadfastly headed out of our mental schemas. Soon, we would need to seek them out in moments like these, and see how distinct they were from the years that followed after. Even to think that the Aamir we see today, started of as Raj here. Its as if they belong to two different worlds. And maybe, they do. So, I seek out QSQT, and all the pubertal, idealistic, hopeless, rush to the head sort of love that it embodies, and see it getting immortalised with those last gunshots, yet again.

Sense and sensibility

2011-10-15T11:33:00.005+04:00

And while I was talking to an attendant in a dispensary in Azadpur, I found this:

So, the conscientious Indian Male does the following:

- thinks about his need for a child.
- seeks out expert opinions about how to not have a child but have sex.
- which means he actually talks about sex, and not broadcast it as sign of his vitality when talking to his friends.
- understands that all the above is a sign of progressive thinking.

The disjuncts are obvious. Or, are they?

Desolate

2011-09-25T13:48:00.002+04:00

Devoid of inhabitants; deserted: "streets which were usually so thronged now grown desolate" (Daniel Defoe).
b. Barren; lifeless: the rocky, desolate surface of the moon.
2. Rendered unfit for habitation or use: the desolate cities of war-torn Europe.
3. Dreary; dismal.
4. Bereft of friends or hope; sad and forlorn. See Synonyms at sad.

Deflate

a. To release contained air or gas from.
b. To collapse by releasing contained air or gas.
2. To reduce or lessen the size or importance of: Losing the contest deflated my ego.
3. Economics
a. To reduce the amount or availability of (currency or credit), effecting a decline in prices.
b. To produce deflation in (an economy).
v.intr.
To be or become deflated: The balloon deflated slowly.

Defy

1.a. To oppose or resist with boldness and assurance: defied the blockade by sailing straight through it.
1.b. To refuse to submit to or cooperate with: defied the court order by leaving the country.
2. To be unaffected by; resist or withstand: "So the plague defied all medicines" (Daniel Defoe).
3. To challenge or dare (someone) to do something: She defied her accusers to prove their charges.

Synonyms: defy, brave, challenge, dare, face
These verbs mean to confront boldly and courageously: an innovator defying tradition; braving all criticism; challenged the opposition to produce proof; daring him to deny the statement; faced her accusers.

And those would be a few of my favourite words. As of now.

Those would be a few of my telltale sings of cracking, just a little bit, under grilling work. But, I cant complain, I am under the voluntary consription of a dealy phrase: ACADEMIC RIGOUR

Academic

an educator who works at a college or university
Synonyms: ian, faculty member

[adjective] associated with academia or an academy; "the academic curriculum"; "academic gowns"

[adjective] hypothetical or theoretical and not expected to produce an immediate or practical result; "an academic discussion"; "an academic question"

[adjective] marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects

Rigour

1. harsh but just treatment or action
2. a severe or cruel circumstance; hardship the rigours of famine
3. strictness, harshness, or severity of character
4. strictness in judgment or conduct; rigorism
5. (Mathematics) (Philosophy / Logic) Maths Logic logical validity or accuracy
6. Obsolete rigidity

So be it. Good bye love! Will meet you after this semester is over, after I have been tried and tested in the encampment of academic rigour, and its accompanied bullies. Much love, will remember you when I am down and out. Completely.

P.S: Would it be too much to ask for a knight in shining armour waiting at the other end of this ordeal?

Delhi boy, Madrasan girl, and Chacha Nehru

2011-09-17T10:47:00.006+04:00

I didnt know about the blog posts till a friend mentioned that I write like Shahana. Most disturbing. As in, to be told I write like anyone who is on her way to getting a big fat contract on chic-lit is disturbing. Mostly because, here I am, looking to publish some vague sci-fi sounding bullshit. Ok, we shall keep the rant away. Coming back to Shahana's post (I am not pasting a link here, its apparently gone viral enough to appear in Hindustan Times, but I am pasting my frand, yes frand's blog link HERE, so you visit hers through her) I like her anger. Well, atleast she belongs somewhere, she seems pretty rooted in her attempt to bridge the north-south divide. Yes, she does bridge a gap in her rant. She makes sure she put the South Indian 'Madrasan' woman back in circulation: South Indian as against Silk Smitha, as against Jayalalitha. But the Delhi boy?

What do you do with the Delhi Boy? The one who shoots Radhika Tanwar down, the one who rides around Munirka in a Yamaha Sports bike, the one who jacks off on 'Chinki' girls, the one who will never really admit to the closet homosexuality that underlies all the pubescent anger. How did they become this way? How did a whole generation of 'Punjabis' grow out of their diapers and into racing Honda Cities?

The answer lies with Chacha Nehru,and the Green Revolution. Yes, here is where the JNU in me kicks in (well, frankly however superfluous the dharna and marches look to someone outside this campus, some of those protesting sorts jump straight from Jantar Mantar to JNU, and yes, they belong.) With the dams and the fertilisers and the HYV seeds that were pushed into Punjab (or whatever remained of it, after Partition), you had one part of the country do very well, while the rest of the north, didnt. There were no land reforms either, and what we have is a mass of wealth that was accumulated over two generations of small and medium sized farmers. Much followed this unequal process of wealth accumulation, that we shall find in various political science text books. Then we have Chacha Nehru's daughter come and create the most ignoramous mess of Operation Bluestar, and somehow, we still dont know how to go about recuperating from 1984. We never will.

And hence, the Delhi boy. Or atleast a section of it. The others are Gurgaon-ridden, gun brandishing Gujjar boys, gangs from Ghitorni, and sons of Jain, Aggarwal, Gupta shopkeepers of West Patel Nagar, Rajouri Garden, and... Well, lets see where they build the Metro next. The Delhi boy is (partly) the angry Lucky aspiring to be the South Delhiwallah, who is told to fuck off, by the other South Delhi aspirant, Dr. BD Handa. Were you not retching at Handa and his wife sucking up to Lucky when he got them the money to buy that flat in South Delhi? Do you really blame Lucky for driving around the city, picking up on the fetish of consumption that flash money was bringing to the city? And it all started with Chacha Nehru, and his aspirations to be heading a swashbuckling developed country. But he didnt take to stealing from the rich, walking around their streets with a gun, stalking their women in his car.Clearly, he was not a Delhi Boy.

I am not sure whether if this is what I started out to write, but well, here is to the Delhi Boy. Atleast someone needs to hear you out.

Coffee in the season of Dark

2011-09-11T11:18:00.005+04:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Probably the best opening a story could ever have, this opening paragraph to A Tale of Two Cities written in 1859, has clearly transcended its time: it could be the opening to any story, of any city, in any part of the world.

And that was what Dickens probably had in mind, when he wrote the season of Light and the season of Darkness. Please note how Light does not have any light'ness' attached to it, as 'Darkness' spelt for him. Dark was still an adjective, not a state of being, which was darkness. Light could be both, the state and an adjective: a condition of being. Does that continue to hold true today? Season of Light and the Season of Dark? Sounds ok, I guess? So, then, this story is baptised Coffee in the Season of Dark.
---

She was going through her pile of debris. The box with a green tag, which indicated that all its content were meant for the kabadiwala, the Recycle Man. You could throw away anything and he would find use for it. Old tee shirts became nice dust cloths,the old keyboard could be sold for its keys only, and old vessels could be gifted away to his poorer relatives in Diwali. Many of the kabadiwalas were told to move away from their resident corners during the clearing up operation of the Commonwealth Games. Not that anyone remembered the orders, but the fact taht they were made, could be used anytime to drive them out. But the sturdy old uncles were always prepared to flee, as they had their messengers in place.

Throwing away 'old stuff' could be therapeutic, her friends had told her. They were ofcourse assuming that she had stacked up all her love letters and diaries, which she did. But,she had moved away form her city for some years, in that gap, her mother had already got rid of any potentially scandalous letters and dry roses, much like Amrita Shergill's family. Though she was angry back, then, she was relieved that one part of her job was already made easier. Somebody else had decided to get rid of her memories for her. Authoritarianism had its good sides.

But what now, what about this lot of memories? On her left were the varied Tinkles, Enid Blytons, Roald Dahls and Ruskin Bonds. On her right were Sweet Valley Highs, Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys, Doctor Whos, Sidney Sheldons, Amar Chitra Kathas. And in the centre was the biggest pile: of text books,of readings from Social Sciences.

She coudnt take it. She should give them all off. Whole sale, no point in selective memories. Total Amnesia might be the white sheet she needed.

Wait, keep the New York Trilogy, and Bell Jar.

And that is when the Charles Dickens omnibus opened on the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities. Thats it. She decided to continue her packing tomorrow. The rest of the day will be devoted to this book.

Debris

2011-09-03T17:23:00.002+04:00

... of the things that go by, the little moments spent, the little conversations, the tail ends of sentences, the sighs, the snorts, the, the, the.

O Well, get the dustbin, will you? These things start to clutter, and then you dont know where to throw them. How to throw away the debris of memories?

Delete. Delete. Undo. Undo. Delete again.

Naah, cant throw out everything,can I? What do I have anyway, just these bits of conversations. Throw them out, then whats left of us.

Clutter, clutter, clutter away. Ill see what is throwable. Tomorrow.

This is a no post post

2011-08-27T21:57:00.001+04:00

Brain Dead.

Come back later.

Of Irretrievable Memories and the Tree of Life

2011-08-01T21:04:00.004+04:00

Tree of Life is a film I choose to baptise 'Civilisation'. I choose this because in the midst of the story of O Brien's family, and its journey, you trace the journey of civilisation itself. Western of course, with Biblical bed stones of course, but anyhow, it comes very close to catching the essence of loss that the word evokes in all of us, embedded in the western notions of civilisation, or not.You would not know how to begin seeing such cinema, mostly because you would not be able to separate the personal memories each frame evokes. It is a story of how the strongest and most riveting moments in us, continue to revolve around family, around wanting to be rooted, loved and most importantly, remembered for being loved. Watching this film is an intimate journey, and I can bet, there is no other way of going about it.

Maybe because it comes at a time, when I am already in a mode of introspection I know it will stay with me, for quite a long while. There are times you remember some films for the fact that they are glued to a landmark-ish memory that has absolutely nothing to do with the film or that piece of art in itself. For instance, I remember when the whole family was watching Dil Se in a hotel in Jaipur, when the earth beneath us started shaking and we realised we were witnessing an earthquake, together. It lasted exactly ten seconds, but was deemed significant in my evocative memory. My sister would remember Border for reasons more dastardly: when she was watching the film with her best friend, in a hall which started blazing in fire, in the middle of the film. She remembers the exact scene when the fire started, or when it was prominent enough for them to see. In fact, the poster of that film is still stuck to the front door of the burnt out cinema hall, which has not been brought down, since the case is trudging through the various juridical bodies of the country.

Tree of Life does this to you. You want to meander along with Jack's memories and be brought back to your own. But the sense of loss that remains all through is hurting: just as Jack walks through the bare contours of the Grand Canyon and sees his irretrievable younger self, he walks past all those faces which are frozen in his time, his own personal time. Clearly, his mother and father would not have looked as they did anymore. He has already lost a brother, his father in front of him, might probably resemble an old man on the television rather than the man in his memories, his mother might have probably given up playing around with her young boys, after leaving that house. But for Jack, his childhood is in that house, which he had to leave behind, because of his father's transfer. What part of your life you choose to build your memory on is so important.

I will remember Tree of Life for being the film I experienced while watching my mother fall seriously ill, for the first time in our lives. Its as if a rock solid foundation has suddenly experienced a minor tremor, telling me that it will, one day, give way. There is nothing more therapeutic for a particular piece of pain, than for it to be somehow magnified and released. For it to meet something bigger, more immense than the cause itself. A mother asking the cosmos why her son had to die: "Lord, Why? Where were you? Did you know what happened? Do you care?"

And you end where you begin: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" A psalm from the Jewish Book of Job, which you will remember at the end of it all, while leaving the hall and suddenly the minutae of an O' Brien family is catapulted to proportions large and vast. The answers to her questions lie in the beginning of time itself.

And you suddenly... grow up

2011-07-30T16:22:00.002+04:00

Anybody who is even a little familiar with the registration process in JNU will know how painstaking that exercise in bureaucracy is. So, after taking the whole day to finish the process of getting a new ID card and library membership etc. yesterday evening, I came back and crashed. A whole lot of nose running and body pain informed me that I was growing too old for the same, and that I had landed myself with viral fever. The most immediate worries on my head, were the following:

1. getting an anti biotic to get me out of the spasm of viral fever.
2. getting to watch the highly recommended 'Tree of Life' which is running in a single theatre half way across South Delhi after completion of Step 1.
3. scheduling a shoot for the second week of the coming month, and making sure the money for the same came through.
4. getting past the quirky bit of the novel, which is stuck in its fag end and wondering if I were interested in attending an 'event' in Hauz Khas where different highly acclaimed, over rated authors would talk about why they suddenly started writing about Delhi.

And I went to sleep in the middle of all these bitchings and contemplations. I did hear Ma complaining about her stomach and back paining, which was worsening as the night wore on. I also saw her take some pills and considered the pain resolved.

I get up in the morning and go about my Saturday, the way I do: facebooking, googling and youtubing. Ma was not at home. Nor was my father. I did not ask grandma why. Until late in the afternoon, both come knocking on the door, together. Ma comes back and crashes on the bed. She had not slept the whole night, writhing in pain. Early morning, she drove to the doc with my father, and was diagnosed with stones in her gall bladder and an accompanying inflammation.

All this while I was sleeping my viral away, and delving into the four more immediate worries in my life.

When I asked her a lame, "How did it happen?", she responded, eyes half closed, with two words.

"Google it."

The histrionics of Lady Gaga and other such tales

2011-07-19T11:59:00.006+04:00

So, the Lady is all of 24, and that makes her a whole twelve months younger than me. I have reason to be jealous. She is not just an enthusiastic student of kitsch pop art, but is also, well, a performer. She performs her music, and her whole persona is what she sings about right then, a walking talking piece of melodrama.

And here is where I am drawn to her histrionics: They are so filmy, as one could put it very simply. Or the more nuanced expression would be that Gaga decidedly uses the mode of dramatis which I find become increasingly obsolescent in the Hindi Cinemascope. Why is that? Well, firstly, I am a sucker for all things emotional: its true. And not just a simple, dewy, weepy kind of emotionality: but the kind that gives your pang for philosophy, a jerk forward. Till the 90's and well, even the early 2000s, it seemed that, that kind of preachy frontality of Hindi Cinema was going to be mellowed down. Ok, I accept to cringe through Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, but a dog playing a pivotal character in the resolution of a conflict is just, mind-blowing (please say it the way Farah Khan says it while your mind reads this). Its become a standard example for the kind of melodrama that the 90's deployed.And I miss it. I understand that a Ram Gopal Varma brought about a revolution of sorts in getting gritty cinema its space, but well, I miss DDLJ, and the first part of Kal Ho Na Ho. There I said it.

Gaga brings that back for me: that kind of loud, bombastic, almost didactic quality to her songs. Its like going back to the massive song sequences of Kabhi Khushi Khabhi Gham, and all the long tracking shots that made sure the sarees were brilliantly put out on display. Not That I would ever wear such sarees, and not that I would not die before I find myself dancing in a crass Punjabi wedding, but still, I miss watching it. And she comes replete with instruction: on how to live life loving yourself. Just as Kabhi Khushi reminisces on the joint family, and tells you its all about loving your parents. I missed being told how to live life,in grand burlesque ways. Thank you Gaga!

2011-07-02T19:41:00.000+04:00

Older and wiser

2011-06-22T22:09:00.002+04:00

My grandmother is insisting on going back to Kolkata, to her home, which her husband had built out of his own pension, before he died of cancer. Everytime she falls ill she starts talking about her home in Chittagong, in a dialect of Bengali I hardly understand. She usually doesn't fall ill and washes her vessels herself. That is what widows are supposed to do. She also wanted to cut her hair but Ma didnt let her.

When my sister brought a gift with her first pay in Britain, it was a tea set: a ceramic pot and a huge cup and saucer, all meant to hold tea for a single person. She loved it. Recently, the servant broke the saucer. She cried.

She loves watching ETV Bangla. She feels connected to the bitchy housewives and declaims the crafty mother-in-laws. "Why don't they sit quietly and listen to their sons? Why don't they realise that it is not their house." She turns around to seek affirmation from Ma who would be fast asleep on her armchair.

She grunts a disapproval every time she finds me sleeping till the wee hours of the morning. She wishes I get a job and a husband who should be preferably Indian. She has given up hops of a bengali spouse for me. She tells me all this while she slowly licks her ice cream. She likes vanilla and mango, with real pieces of mango stuck in the ice cream. Just when i start loosing my interest in her rant, she talks abuot eating ice cream in Chittagong, with her friends from junior school. "You see, its not like I am totally illiterate. I studied till fifth, and then the bombs hit the school." I think she refers to the Second World War but I dont think she is that old.
Anyway, she was married when was eighteen, a month before she left Chittagong on the train.

You ask her about Partition, and she will tell you, "let bygones be bygones, now atleast I should have been living in my own home. See, even now I am migrating. Such is life."

Turning 25

2011-06-13T20:38:00.002+04:00

... in a city away from Delhi, in the midst of faces quite away from the ones I would have liked to spend the time with, is a bit unnerving.

But this was an unusual birthday, spent watching films till ten in the night, no studying them in a film institute in the west of the country. But I guess it was the most fitting way to celebrate the oncoming of serious adulthood: the fact that I had strolled through my early years not knowing what I wanted to do was somehow frozen into my twenty fifth birthday. I took up the sciences in high school wishing it were possible to study biology with history, and do away with organic chemistry, which gave me impetus to suicide before the final board exams. I had no wish to sit for medical entrances and sat for them, looking at my mother for conviction. Then Delhi University opened its doors with a subject that required an entrance and so, I made a hole for myself to escape the sciences: Journalism.

Since then, academics had been a form of running around differently shaped artifacts. and thus, today, I sit in a class of film appreciation in a Film Institute as someone who has delved in 'making a documentary' while waiting for funding news about my PhD in a university in UK. But in the middle of all the varied disciplinary chaos, I seem to have finally coupled history with biology. My topic reads: the history of the small family in India, through the state-sponsored mass media campaigns, 1961-1991. This after a documentary on a Tibetan colony in Delhi.

Ma's message on the special day: "May the rolling stone finally rest this year, have a good day."

Momma, if the strolling/rolling didnt kill me till now, it cant be that bad, eh?

Selfish aims

2011-05-11T12:58:00.002+04:00

I consider my selfish person. Never mind, my sympathies for certain causes, I believe the only way I can help who I want to help, is by being selfish. No, not in the way of getting my work done at the expense of somebody's naivety, that's just exploitation, and anybody with two miligram of business sense will not try to cheat another of her skills. Ya, you trade in illegalities, thats different from stabbing one in the back with all the profit.

The obvious reference is of Mark Renton walking out with all the money in the end of Trainspotting. Was he cheating his friends? He had a way of arbitrarily choosing Spud for charity, but I am forced to call the act selfish, because all through Beckbie and Sick boy were shown to be more morally dubious than Spud. So, ya, Renton somehow adjudged himself good enough to arbitrate over who deserves the sympathy cash and who doesnt.

I wouldnt have done that, no. But all this is an aside,and I have wandered far away from my initial point, and why I wanted to write this piece anyway.

Love is the most confusing piece of emotion when it comes to the self. What exactly are you required to do with the three words, when, you have nothing more to share apart form those words? You have no reassurance to gain from the other being there, and every time you speak, you hurt.

I wish you the best of luck, who think this is the unconditional love that seems to be doing the rounds. The ability to hurt and then, feel proud for having lived through it all, is just, degrading to the soul. You die a little every day,and make sure you dig a grave for the other to fall in, if she/he/it wishes to move on.

I hate you, I loathe you, your love. And it isn't unconditional at all. It is, in fact condition upon the full surrender of my soul. It is conditional upon the full certainty of my bondage, in the most non-kinky way possible. It is conditional upon my slow death.

There I said it.

Only selfish people are capable of loving unconditionally.

There I said that too.

No-strings attached is not a form of a fling, it is the way a real life relationship functions. Thats what seems to be my ideal relationship. Or maybe I am just naive, and looking for a Prince/Princess Charming who would love her/himself so much that you would wonder whether she/he thinks of her/himself as THE shrine. I would love to make love to such a shrine.

An etymology of the word 'Random'

2011-04-13T13:12:00.005+04:00

Almost every Facebook profile, will have at least one photo album called, "Random". The word is to denote the theme-less, utterly irrelevant and dis-organised minor elements of our photographic lives. The random assumes the not-so-random, the photos which are to be taken seriously over the ones which are random. The word is also part of our conversational vocabulary to denote some act of speech, or act of act, which seems out of coherence from the rest of the body politic, or the behavioral being, or the normal modalities of conversation in some context. (For eg, "the girl just posted a random comment on your profile!" or "You went and like-d some random comments of mine!")

A search on Youtube, for the same, throws up the following videos: random funny shit, the most random video on youtube ever, random funny pictures for yo entertainment, 21 random thoughts, Probability and Random variables. So, underlying the top four choices is the main mode by which this inane word has gained such currency in our vocabulary: Science and Technology (please to be noting the capital S and T). Which makes sense in the Zuckerberg land of Social Networking (with a capital S and N) that operates on the premise that our technology-friendly selves are as happy about growing number of mutual friends-style-networking, as his Facebook is. I, for one, am not. I would rather stalk out random strangers and their random photographs and guess who they are dating. Mostly, those are the photographs which end up in that category. I feel like the oracle predicting the state of one's being by forecasting predictions of the other selves of the person-to-be-stalked, by the simple, detail of the random.

But the scientised use is also dependent on the origins of the word itself. Dictionary.com tells me the word has its origin in "1275–1325;Middle English raundon, random; Old French randon, derivative of randir;to gallop in Germanic. The Gallop, for me is closer to aimless trotting of a four-legged being, such as the horse. So, are we, or are speech-acts becoming four-legged beings? Every time we use the word random, are we letting ourselves know that we are not in a position to reign in the horses of our language? That our speech is something that now has a life of its own and so, will leave us, high and dry, in moments of bewilderment and embarrassment? That, in those times, we might as well, babble like babies? And what does it mean, in the realm of interpersonal selves? Are there relationships and conversations we share, which are deemed 'random' for the lack of a better word? How long are we going to keep up the coherence in the multiple voices in our heads, by simply labeling some instincts, and voices, as random?

Random, in its scientised avatar is embedded in the theory of entropy, (no,no, please spare the Chaos theory!)Entropy is a thermodynamic property that is a measure of the energy not available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. During this work entropy accumulates in the system, but has to be removed by dissipation in the form of waste heat. Which is to say that every work produces a certain entity which is utterly useless and is potent in rendering the whole system orderless. Which is to say that every random act has the potential to undermine the not-so-random. And every second spent on getting the random, said or done, is in a way, contributing to the entropy of the bio-system.

Wah, I am a rebel, just by sitting on my ass and making incorrigible statements on a social networking site! Conspiracy theorists, your Oracle of Delphi is here.

Revisiting graves

2011-03-30T10:31:00.002+04:00

So, the walkover bridge next to the Moti Bagh Gurudwara, leading to the South Campus of Delhi University is morbid. It has seen a young girl student being shot on the 8th of this month. The blood stains were not removed for the next three days, they say. Just last night another is said to have tried to jump off the same.A 23-year old call centre employee had parked her car in the middle of the flyover, ten minutes away from the walkover bridge, messaged her family, "I am sorry," and jumped off. The area is marked by the constant presence of police patrol vans. Twenty minutes away, the road leading to Gurgaon, has the major bus station, Dhaula Kuan, where call centre employees returning late at night are forced into cars and raped.

Walking over the bridge is like walking through these headlines. They pop up in your head and make you walk faster, and get to the other end, as safely as possible. The evenings are especially filled with this mark of urgency: no young face is hanging around, talking on the phone while slowly strolling on to the other side. People walk straight ahead, with no intention to stop, even if they see or hear anything untoward.

As I was crossing the bridge today, early morning, I saw a group huddled in one corner. Girls with sling bags telling me they are students. They are huddled together over one cellphone, everyone watching it with the interest of an eagle's eye. Others walked past, almost stopping to ask what happened, expecting the worst as a reply. Still others walked by, even faster, preempting some active mob violence. I was too curious not to just hang on the side and hear them whisper about the clip. I expected an MMS and a stoic silence over yet another sex tape circulated, which made the girls forget they were standing in the dead Tanwar's shoes.

A loud collected gasp.

"So, the match is on, after all. Its not raining in Mohali."

"Oh, thank god! I was sure it was going to be cancelled with all the rain and all."

More sighs, and some more "Thank Gods."

I walked past, to the other side, thinking of white lilies on fresh graves.

[P.S: They were referring to the impending World Cup Semi-Final, between India and Pakistan, to be played in Mohali, today. Since it rained last night, and Mohali is not very far from Delhi, a nation-wide chant had risen to make the weather sunnier.]

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P.P.S: A highly disturbing set of videos are out of a Libyan woman, Iman al-Obeidi, walking into a hotel where the international press was installed, in Tripoli seeking out the journalists after being held captive by the Gaddafi troops. She was dragged out by the hotel security staff. You can watch one such video here.

Couple Watch

2011-03-15T15:50:00.003+04:00

At a dinner on the closing day of an International Film Festival in Kerala, as lines of conversation became more porous between personal and professional, a group of documentary makers and participants decided to laugh and talk a little. To break the facades of impersonal professionalism, we started guessing everyone's age on the table. Most neared late-twenties to thirties. One Palestinian-French woman documentary maker was clearly above that range but refused to give away the precise number. I believe she was in her early forties. Anyway, just after that, over bear, fried fish and prawns, was passed around another question: raise your hand if you believe in marriage. I think I sparked it off, but not sure.

No one did raise their hand initially, until the German twenty-year old boy. He was visiting Orissa with other German students and had taken a seven hour bus journey to Thrissur to attend the festival. He said he believed in it, in the midst of all the cheers laid out for him. In a heavily accented English, he said, "I don't think of marriage as something romantic and other worldly. Its something as normal, as living with someone, everyday. Its as simple as that." Sven, the German guy, was right. It was actually as simple as that. The last few weeks I have been re-visiting what he said: ever since I attended my five-year old nephew's birthday party.

I met a couple, there, Bengali of course, which was composed of an old lady who was a retired civil servant, and a retired professor, now living in Kolkata. Just after retirement, the lady suffered a sudden and massive heart attack. Ever since, her memory has been dim and her control over her muscle reflexes, very lax. Even as she sat smiling at the five year olds bursting balloons in front of her, her tongue hung loose and her spit gathered at the edges of her mouth. Her husband slowly cleaned up the spit with a napkin and pushed her spectacles back in place over her eyes, and let her slouch back in the sofa.

He was a quiet, old man, who listened to all the conversations that mid-thirty couples of middle-class Bengali households could spawn: traffic in Delhi, the 'North-Indians' out to cheat Bengalis, the Board exams, the nasty rich kids of expensive schools, the nasty rich kids of expensive schools giving Board Exams. As the conversations took a pause, for the birthday boy to create a mess that he wanted to show all the adults seated around the drawing room, the old professor looked up and quietly added his two bit, "Nothing has changed... nothing." As several eyebrows twitched towards him, he continued, "When I was a kid, rich kids got more pocket money and more toys to show off. They would grow up to create more ruckus in the world, and we would be told to not to behave like them. When I was a kid, my parents would complain about traffic and rising prices, and how the school doesn't live up to its fees. Then I grew up, had my own kids, then I complained, about the exact same things. Its as if nothing has changed." After which he led his wife to the dinner table to lay out the dinner for her.

There was something about the way he led her to the table which was revealing of the fact that he was accustomed to doing it. Just next to him, a young father was running after his five-year old, trying to feed him dinner, rebuking his wife, for being too busy arranging the dinner table to be able to feed him. "You know he doesn't eat with me! Creates such a fuss!" I wondered if things, indeed, weren't changing; if couples were not becoming dysfunctional, because they were unable to do something as simple as living with each other. Or, was I missing something? Is this how they have always been? Is this how things evolve and families become what they do? Do couples change and evolve into a unit, but in ways, that would never catch the eye?

Was watching Big Fish the other day, and all these questions resonated with this one particular scene. The protagonist, Edward Blume, was diagnosed of cancer and was in his last days. I am referring to a scene played by the older version of Blume, Albert Finney. Finney is fully clothed, in a bath tub, and submerged in the water. His wife, Sandra, played by Jessica Lange for the elder part, walks into the bathroom. Blume (Finney) sees her through the water and floats up, saying, "I was drying out." She smiles and responds with an, "I see," and slowly takes her heels off and steps into the water, as if joining him in a lake. She sits in the other half of the tub. Blume, then, holds his hand out and she slowly moves over him, and rests her head on his chest. She weeps and says, "I don't think I'll ever dry out." The scene ends with a shot of them in one end of the tub, and only her socked toes visible at the other end.

[Apologies if I made the scene appear a bit cheesy, but I promise, it isn't so!]

One can never really guess what exactly is the chemistry that a couple share, which means, that every couple, at one and the same time, have something unique about them, and yet, something universal. But, I guess all of this, tosses itself out into the garbage, when your kids refuses to sit down and eat that goddamn dinner. Thats when you realise that the 'little things that you spawned to replace yourself' clearly did not fare ANY better than your own five-year old bratty self. Clearly, nothing changed.

A dinner, a marriage and a death

2011-03-08T20:27:00.002+04:00

The other day, I met my MPhil friends after a really long time. Stuck as they are in JNU, the campus, its not very usual to get dinner out. So we decided to drive to a new Tibetan restaurant in a nearby locality, Safdarjang Enclave. Now, the thing with many South Delhi localities is that the urban flats will break into these sub-urban hinterland, right behind them. Thats is, the flats are usually hiding galis with flats which are stuck together and make space only for little alleyways for people to move through. I am guessing, tis the same with any urban set-up, since the illegal construction that houses those who cannot afford legal spaces, are to be hidden away by the big houses off the main road. The new Tibet Kitchen, was located in the basement of one of these illegal outgrowths off one of these alleyways.

Right as I was parking in front of a park, I could see the decorations of a wedding afloat. "Lets rule out the hotel, and gate crash the wedding." My suggestion went unnoticed, but the ludicrously loud Hindi songs playing in the wedding didnt. We made are way through the maze of cars parked and into the alleyway, which was to lead to the eating joint. The alleyway was dimly lit with on lamp post. The lamp post made for the fact that the locality had some amount of official recognition. Anyway, as we walked up the crooked path in a single file, we heard shouts. Some one in the wedding had fallen ill. Since the wedding was taking place in the community park, we assumed it had to be in one of the families residing in the back alleys. "The groom's dad is not well," an observant friend informed. We saw a three more hapless faces, two of which were of women, rush past us. We finally reached Tibet Kitchen.

As we entered we saw that there were only five more people and the place itself could
take in three to four tables of such groups. The floor was uneven and furnishing was sparse. We knew why this place was popular: it had all the signs of a student friendly cheap place. And so, we sat, and ordered the usual tingmo, shapta, and thenthuk. (As a rule, we get all this only in Majnu Ka Tila, but this place was for those who could not go all the way to the Tibetan settlement in the North and still missed the food. Shows how the food and people are both dispersing past the ghetto borders.)And just as the food arrived, we heard loud, shrill cries, from the floors just above ours. A man had breathed his last, just a few meters above us, in the same spatial location as us, as we were biting into our food.

We kept eating quietly. The group which was there when we entered left hastily after paying their bill. Its was only the six of us, eating the food. I still remember how good the beef felt, and how tightly knot, my stomach was. "so, who was talking about gate-crashing the wedding. Tch, tch." Wasnt the best time to be cracking such a joke, I wanted to fire back.

"Guys, lets leave."
"Hey, no, we have already ordered."
And plus, its not very often that we get around to eating together like this. The sounds outside were getting louder and more chaotic. The manager pulled the shutter on the shop, to show his mark of mourning. I felt caged inside, eating and listening to the moans with the shutters down. I remember looking at all my friends and seeing how each responded to the unease. I was definitely not faring well, but questions were hovering on all of us.

"Do you think they will blame the girl, the bride?"
"I hope not."
"Might have had a heart attack or something."
"Ya, wedding planning took a toll, right?"
"Wonder if they will go through with the marriage."

By now, the food finished. And we headed towards the counter to pay the bill and walk into the assembling crowd outside. The polite manager looked apologetic at the turn of events, as he led us out of a side door to his hotel.

As we crouched and stepped into the night, we saw the crowd, looking up at the steps just next to where we were. We could hear feet shuffling and voices guiding those feet as they were slowly bringing out their cloth covered load. I turned and ran towards where my car was parked. I looked back, though, telling myself that I was just checking to see if my friends were following me. They were, in their own pace, each taking in their piece of the moment.

As we got to the car, the park which was bustling with kids and dressed up women, was empty. As the loud wailing took the place of loud Bollywood tracks, I wondered what it meant to be standing on threshold of life like that: a union to start something new, or the sudden death of something old. Or something like that. I wasnt very sure what I was thinking. All I wanted to do was get out of there.