There comes a time in every wannabe-photographer’s life when he has to rest his camera and ask himself, ‘what the fuck do I shoot now?!’

I went through one such existential crisis last weekend. Which is when my good friend Pradeep called. ‘So, what are you doing over the weekend?’, he asked.

‘Uhh, nothing much.’

‘So are you up for a shoot?’

‘Sure,’ I said. I am always happy when I am offered the opportunity to outsource certain parts of the photography process, like say, zeroing in on a subject, and emotionally blackmailing them into posing for me. I’d some very pleasant photo-sessions with Pradeep, and the opportunity was too well-timed to be ignored.

Which is until he turned up over the weekend, and revealed what he exactly had in mind. He wanted to shoot me. Gulp.

‘Ideally, I would do a ROFL right now, but the maid hasn’t swept the floor yet,’ said the Missus, as she passed by the living room. ‘Try not to break too many things.’

For the next couple of hours, I sat in front of all the lighting equipment, following instructions like ‘look to the left, now look at me, don’t slouch, intense expression, how about a smile…’ Surprisingly, these words sound simple enough when you’re behind the camera. But when you feel like scratching your balls and throwing up at the same time, and the photographer tells you to ‘hold that intense expression’, you know you’re having a bad day.

Mid way through the shoot, I realized that I needed some leverage to convince Pradeep not to make these images public. So, I suggested that he too pose for me. He agreed. Alas, he turned out to be a natural.

The above image is one from the shoot. Pradeep seemed to be following my instructions, but now that I think about it, he was probably just recalling my intense expression. He has a mean streak.

The lighting setup is one of my favorites. A beauty dish was used as the main light – this is basically a fancy way of saying that a flash was thrust into a steel bowl so that the entire inner side of the bowl acted as a light source. This makes the the light larger than a bare flash, resulting in soft, even light, since it falls on the subject from more directions. This, however, is not as soft as when you use a softbox (which is even larger, and hence softer). The result is a gritty lighting effect. The lights reflected off the subject’s eyes (called catch-lights) also come out as big circular disks – this adds a bit of punch to the image. A couple of portable flashes were placed on either side of the subject, lighting up the contours of the face. These lights were a little brighter than the main light, which is why you see the white patches on the forehead and cheeks.

In terms of post-processing, I followed the same method as detailed here.

In retrospect, the shoot was enjoyable, except for the times when the missus decided to peep in and say things like, ‘are you sure you don’t want a Digene?. So, we have decided to do this more often, but preferably with a third person as a subject. I only have so many intense expressions.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

I have been a smoker for longer than I care to remember, and of late, different parts of my body have started sending me Facebook messages, BBMs and tweets hinting that it’s time for me to quit.

I have finally decided to listen to them. But before I switch my loyalties altogether and move on to the ‘am sorry, I don’t smoke’ (spoken with the same disdain as when one would say ‘I am sorry, I do not share your juvenile fixation on Justin Bieber’) camp, I would like to get some things straight.

Being a smoker in today’s day and age is a taxing pursuit in more ways than one. It is as if society met up clandestinely some time back and unanimously voted in favor of making all smokers feel like ‘cute-cuddly-baby-killers’. Since then, the world has been divided into normal citizens with intrinsic rights, and then, smokers. All the ‘anti smoking’ propaganda in movies, magazines and TV is, by itself, enough to make anyone feel persecuted. The government too sees smokers as nothing more than a captive source of revenue. And add to that, the free license all non-smokers seem to think they have to pull up smokers at random and give them lectures on life, health and such like, and you have a fair idea of what Manmohan Singh feels in his cabinet meetings. 

Imagine this: One fine morning, you walk into the air-conditioned paradise that is your favourite burger joint, order a double-meat, double-cheese burger with French fries and a cola, take a table with a nice view, and just as you are about to sink your teeth into the juicy goodness, you hear:

‘Excuse me, sir. You’ll have to take this outside.’

‘Huh?’

‘Yes, am afraid, we have a strict no burger policy. Consumption of such unhealthy food disgusts our more discerning patrons (pointing toward a salad-munching bloke on the next table who is trying to shield his kid from the monstrous sight that is your meal, while shaking his head in equal measures of disbelief and disapproval). We do have a special burger zone though. If you would just walk out of the back-door, take a right, and then a left, walk across the parking lot and keep walking for another kilometer, you’ll see a tiny little board saying ‘Burger Zone’ in the corner where the sunlight is at its fiercest. You can’t miss it – it’s just beside garbage dumpster. In fact, what would probably be simpler is if you just follow the stink…’

You get the idea.

But as a smoker, what is more painful than being threatened with fines and treated like a different species at most public places, is the unending supply of good Samaritans that one have to deal with all the time, who’ve taken it upon themselves to eradicate smoking from the face of the planet, one smoker at a time. These crusaders come in all sizes, gender and varying degrees of ‘ability to take a hint.’ But they do follow somewhat similar intervention methods. I’ve never really learnt how to deal with this barrage of unsolicited advice, but every time I’ve pursed my lips and nodded my head, thoughts such as those below have been running through my mind:

Private Space

You see, smoking is not a mental pursuit; it’s a physical activity that requires physical space. I respect your choice not to smoke, and don’t want you to get unwell. Every time I felt like smoking, I would willingly step into some parallel universe, have my cigarette, and pop right back. But I can’t do that, which is why I am standing beside the main road, at noon, in the sweltering sun. So, you following me out here uninvited, standing right next to me and disapprovingly fanning the smoke off your face isn’t going to make me stop smoking. If at all, it will probably just give me a nice target to aim the smoke at.

You think you look cool smoking, don’t you?

No. This is the same as me asking you if you are annoying just to feel human. You have to understand that I am an addict, and I have as much choice about smoking as you do about being a jerk. I don’t smoke to look cool. Perhaps, as a kid, the first time one lights up a cigarette, images of John Travolta in Broken Arrow are swimming around somewhere in the deep sub-conscious recesses of the mind. But after that, every time I’ve smoked, I have done so to draw smoke, take in nicotine, and satisfy a craving. Nothing more, nothing less. There’s no Freudian psychology at play here. Besides, I have better pursuits than to try and look cool for the sweaty, pot-bellied, half-naked pan-wallah standing beside me.

These things will kill you!

Just because I tolerate your presence, and pretend to listen to your predictions about who’s going to win Masterchef Australia doesn’t give you the right to flick off my cigarette just as I’m about to light up because you do not approve of it. You have to be either family or friend to take such liberties. Your being a non-smoker doesn’t give you any special moral right to dictate terms. How would you like it if I slapped you on your wrists every day at lunch and said, ‘those dosas will kill you!’?

You stink!

Yes, I did notice you exaggeratedly sniffing and coughing when we were in the elevator together. I just pretended not to. I know you were just trying to point out that you could still smell the cigarette I had just had, and that it made you feel uncomfortable. But,

1. I don’t really give a damn. I’m not your guardian angel and it is not my job to make your life comfortable.

2. I don’t go all ‘ooh, ahh,’ every time you open your mouth near me and give me an olfactory tour of what you had for breakfast, do I? So, live with it. Or take the next elevator. And get some mint.

You know what I think?

I don’t want to. I don’t live under a rock; so, I know that cigarettes are harmful. But I don’t remember anyone designating you as my life coach; however, if you still feel compelled to, I have a deal for you: for every day that you give me unsolicited advice, I get to come over to your home in the evening and advise you and your spouse on ideal sexual positions. How about that? Erectile dysfunction? Let me help.

It’s an addiction. You should stop. NOW!

Dear idiot, what part of ADDICTION don’t you understand?

I can help you quit

Before you drown me with the epic tale of your cousin who stopped smoking by biting his toe-nails every time he felt a craving, please stop a consider: what if I don’t want to? Am sure you do a lot of things every day that you know are harmful. Speeding, eating junk food, holding back flatulence, drunken driving, thinking…?

But passive smoking is bad for me!

The thought of passive smoking harming my family and friends hasn’t deterred me from smoking. But now that you point out that I might be harming you, I will quit at this instant. And punch you in the face instead.

So there you have it – a typical day in the life of a smoker. Not a cake-walk, right? Don’t get me wrong. I do understand how bad smoking is, which is why I have taken the decision to quit. But do spare a thought for the smoker. If you are his best friend/ spouse/ sibling/ parent/ child, do your best to get him to quit. Else, stop being a self-absorbed, self-important jerk.

Note: I’d written this a while back. Thought I’d hold back till I’d decided to quit smoking. For good.

Photograph Courtesy: © Alex Eylar

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

Pema and Co, albeit hesitantly, suggested we could accompany them to the hotel they were to spend the night in. It was run by a friend of theirs, had ‘bed, water, bathroom.’

We readily agreed.

We were put up in a first floor room that seemed to have organically grown around the bed it contained, leaving just a couple of inches on all sides for the weirdoes who liked to stand every once in a while. The little floor that was visible revealed a red wall to wall carpeting, with suspicious spots of a mercifully unidentifiable liquid., no other piece of furniture, and a window that presently looked out onto a dark void, and a whispering breeze. A door led to what was supposed to be the bathroom. The previous patrons seemed to have been a little confused about the layout in the bathroom, as their remnants were smeared all over the place. My job at that time had more or less acclimatized me to organic stains (this is cocktail speak for poop, for I was working for a toilet cleaner brand), but it most definitely did not equip me to handle organic dumplings. But, we persevered and decided all will be well if we just had some sleep.

‘There, there! Did you see that?!’

‘No, please come down.’

‘I swear I saw another cockroach…’

‘No, the one I killed was the last one. Please come down.’

‘How do you know? There might be thousands more under the bed!’

‘There aren’t. Besides, they are just tiny little bugs. They are not going to kill you! For god’s sake, don’t be such a sissy. If not brave, at least have some self esteem. This is embarrassing.’

Hesitantly, I came down the window and hopped on to the bed. I am not proud of it, but am scared of bugs; of all kinds. Yes they are small, but you do realize that nature made them that way just so they could crawl into all kinds of holes and things. All dangerous things in life are small. Do you know how tall A. Raja is? But anyway, I knew I was not going to be able to spend the entire night hanging from the window grill. So I crawled up under the double blankets, which at present, were giving off this nice, homely smell of vomit and dust.

‘I think something moved again. Is that your feet?’

‘Shut up.’

‘No, seriously…’

‘Good night.’

***

We woke up to an entirely new world the next morning. The room that had looked unfamiliar and threatening had started feeling cozy and relaxing. Looking out of the window, we could see snow-clad mountains, their tops covered with clouds, gently guiding the babbling river along just a few meters from our hotel. There were a couple of kids on the road below, shepherding their sheep to wherever sheep go for work. Pema and his brother well already up, cleaning and readying the car for the day’s travel.

We had planned out the day previously. After spending a night at Lachung, we would go to the Yumthang Valley, a grazing pasture that was completely covered with flowers in the right season. But since this was NOT the right season, what we did expect to encounter was a lot of open space, no mobile reception, and if lucky, some snow. It was to be a day trip, and if we managed to be back in Lachung by 2 PM, we could leave for Gangtok immediately. That was the plan.

We left for Yumthang at around 8 AM. For the first half an hour, it was a relaxing drive, where we just kept gaping at the snow clad mountains at the top and undulating mounds of grass below. The chill breeze, mixed with diffused, soft sunlight was so magical that you couldn’t help sticking your head out of the car, and smile at the sky like an idiot. But the road became progressively curvier, steeper and rockier, till a point was reached where Pema gave up. In front of us was what school books would define as a river. The locals insisted on calling it a road block, but trust me it was a river (photo in previous post). And in that river were stuck two tourist Boleros that had been travelling just ahead of us. Pema and brother took turns evaluating the situation.

‘Bhai, here not too deep,’ said Pema, dipping a tree branch into the water.

‘Hmm…’ said the brother, investigating his own route to the other side.

After 10 minutes of this inspection, and after having placed big rocks at strategic points on the river bed, it was announced that an optimal route had been found through the river. Pema’s brother took over the driving. And we actually made it across without much of a fuss, allowing for the brief moment when the vehicle had started moving sideways from the force of the water.

There were a couple of more such unplanned stops that required improvisations involving rocks, dust, and some passersby, but we reached our destination more or less on time. And let me describe what we saw. Nestled between two mountains, at an altitude of 14000 ft, was this large meadow covered with lush green, dew-covered grass, sprinkled here and there with some big boulders for symmetry. On one edge of this meadow, running parallel to the mountain was the Teesta river. Standing on the edge of this river, if you were to look up, all you would see are snow-clad mountains, peeking at you through some very, very low clouds. A very gentle breeze blows continuously through this valley, bringing with it the faint relaxing sounds and smell of some life further uphill.

But we were not completely alone here. There was this film crew of around 10 people who’d come from East Sikkim to shoot a music video and had camped right next to the river. They were a very friendly lot, and readily offered us refreshments even before we’d introduced ourselves. We’d skipped breakfast, and hence we indulged ourselves.

There isn’t much to do in Yumthang, which is best thing about the place. The seclusion, the climate, the weather just compel you to sit and while away time; which was precisely our plan. Pema’s brother had already gone back to Lachung for some personal work, and while Pema was out cleaning the vehicle somewhere, we had a good 3-4 hours to ourselves.

Some guys from the film crew had mentioned there was this famous Shiv temple a little distance from the campsite. Now, I am not a religious person, but am smart enough to concur when the omnipotent one expresses desire to do something.

‘Let’s walk over to the temple?’ said the missus.

After walking for almost half an hour, and having failed multiple times to convince the missus any rock, tree or soil formation that bore even a remote resemblance to a phallus was the famous temple, I started questioning the ‘little distance’ part of the travel advice. The road was pleasant, but steep, and we were at a high altitude; breathing was not easy. A car happened to pass by and we asked for directions. The driver, a Mr. T. Lama, repeated the little distance bit, and volunteered to drive us there. Before we could even consider this offer, our aching legs had already agreed and were in the car. We drove for a good 20 minutes, wherein the kind Mr. Lama also told us about his destination – a natural geyser in the mountains. He also shared his intention of camping there for a week, immersing himself in the geyser at regular intervals to take advantage of its medicinal benefits. Without any prompting, he then went on to share with us the recipe for Yak head, apparently a family secret. I tried to look engrossed and told him that I was sure to try it once we were back in Chennai.

Mr. Lama dropped us at the temple. Here, the missus proceeded to telegraph personalized messages to Lord Shiva, while I occupied myself by ringing all the bells hanging inside the structure. And then, we started on our way back. It took us two and a half hours. The scenery was painfully pretty, but towards the end, with each aching step, it kept becoming increasingly inconsequential. Still, we could have possibly made it back faster, but I was crawling on all fours for the last half hour, so that kind of slowed us down.

Altitude sickness does weird things to people. On our way back, just a kilometer or so away from the campsite, we’d spotted this idiot who’d driven his vehicle right into the river. Here, it now lay stuck in knee deep water. Some people had gathered to help him by pushing the car out, but it obviously required more than that. For whatever it was worth, I decided to walk down to the river and help out – after all, some poor tourists might have been in some trouble because of this.

I was of course right. The tourists in question were us. Pema, for some inconceivable reason, driven the Bolero into the river. And from the looks of it, it was destined to stay there for some time. A lot of helpful people in SUVs stopped by to tow the car out, but the approach to the river bed was all muddy, and none of them could gain any traction. After a couple of hours of trying, we sort of gave up.

Now, we had two options. Hitch a ride to Lachung, and then get a taxi back to Gangtok. Or stay in Yumthang and keep trying to get the vehicle out and resisting the urge to kill Pema. While I was considering these options, the missus had already gone back to the campsite, and asked the film crew if they could spare a tent. And as it turned out, they could. They pitched us a tent right beside the river, insisted that we should also join them for snacks now, and dinner later, and that we should quite obviously spend the night there. Now, I’ve done my fair share of outdoorsy stuff, but it generally came in 40” high-definition 30 minute slots. Neither the missus nor I had camped before. And the idea was very appealing. ‘Think of the bragging rights, ‘ I told myself. ‘If I could go back and just figure out a way to make all of this look carefully planned and deliberate…’

So, we decided to spend the night in Yumthang Valley. Pema, keeping a certain distance, apologized and assured us that he would somehow get the vehicle out by morning, and we could leave immediately.

One of the first things you’ll realize about real-life camping is that since no one is shooting you with a camera, and there is no urban habitation nearby, it tends to become pitch dark. Secondly, the tent itself, which looks cute, cosy and colorful, is incredibly claustrophobic. Add to this the noise of the river, multiplied hundred fold due to the darkness, a sudden torrential downpour, with parts of the tent leaking, and sleeping bags that seemed to have been custom-built for the seven dwarves. And, of course, the cold. What had been a pleasant breeze during the day, had dipped to 3 degrees Celsius at night. We were dressed in t-shirts and jeans – since this was supposed to be a day-trip, we’d left our woolens in Lachung. Yumthang didn’t take kindly to this affront. After what seemed like 6-7 hours, our teeth had started clattering involuntarily, and we tried our best not to move inside our sleeping bags, lest we came in contact with another cold patch of plastic. I bravely took out my right arm to look at the time; the missus was in terrible shape with a migraine, and I thought telling her we’d made it through most of the night would encourage her. It was 7: 15 PM.

I’m not quite sure if we had slept off or fainted. I do remember getting up every once in a while to check if both of us were alive and breathing. But finally, mercifully, morning came. The temperature was tolerable again, and I ventured out of the tent. An unbelievable spectacle awaited me. It was as if the clouds, in the dark of the night, had magically descended to where we were. Even the river, just fifty feet away, was invisible. I groped my way around to a campfire that the others had lit, and drank some tea. One of the guys played the guitar, and the rest of us sat there, watching the clouds gently ascend, like a theatre curtain rising to unravel the magical stage.

At around 9 AM, as the sun resumed its fight to muscle through the clouds and fog and onto the ground, I decided to pause my private Nat-Geo moment, and deal with concerns of a more immediate nature. The visibility on the ground had improved, and I decided to walk across, and check if the car was out yet. It wasn’t. Walking up to the car, I found Pema sleeping blissfully in the backseat. I knocked and asked him what had happened.

‘No. Very bad. Crane,’ he said, rubbing his eyes, and yawning.

By now, the novelty of car stuck in middle of river had also worn off, and fewer people came to help. We tried stopping every car and asking for help. Some of them even tried, but it was increasingly clear that this was a losing battle. By noon, it had been established that we’d have to spend the rest of our lives in Yumthang Valley.

That’s when our Savior made his entry. No, Lord Shiva was attending to some other disaster. Our Savior was Captain Harjeet Singh Katoch, of the Indian Army. He must have been on his daily visit to the China border, some kilometres away from the campsite, when he happened to spot a few civilians, well, in an uncivil situation. He got off his jeep, walked up to our car, and demanded a debrief of the stupidity; having sized up the situation, he gave Pema a look that made him feel fortunate that Mr. Singh Katoch presently wasn’t carrying his side-arm. A whistle, a few hand-gestures, some whispers, a cigarette, some more hand-gestures, and before we realized it, Mr. Katoch, who by now had started looking like Gerard Butler in 300, was guiding our vehicle out of the river. In another ten minutes, we were good to go. If this wasn’t enough, Mr. Katoch even invited us for lunch at his cantonment, once we were back in Lachung.

A longish good-bye session ensued where we thanked everyone in the film crew for their hospitality and shook hands with some of the locals who’d tried to help us over our amazing two-day stay at the Yumthang Valley. We drove back to Lachung, and straight to the cantonment where Mr. Katoch indulged us with the most amazing lunch and conversation. We thanked him for his kindness, and kept repeating it till he had started regretting having helped us. And then, we left.

The way back had some more incidents, one of which included an avalanche, which resulted in a reasonably big rock landing on our car. But I realize that if I go on, you’ll start suspecting that I am making all of it up. I am not; all of this happened. As I had said, for some reason nature had taken a hands-on approach towards us during those two weeks. But despite all that went wrong and the many impediments, there seemed to have been a roundabout, more convoluted, but more memorable way of going around. In the end, we were left with so many cherished moments, so many vignettes, that we still keep recalling incidents that we’d overlooked earlier.

Sikkim was amazing, and the experience of a lifetime. It is truly one of the prettiest parts of India (I know, I know. Ladakh is pretty too). Given a change, I wouldn’t change a thing about the entire trip.

Ok, maybe take some woolens this time. And the bathroom. Fewer avalanches? Rivers with actual bridges…but you know what I mean.

Read Sikkim, Part I and Part II and Part III and Part IV

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

“Do you think we will be able to spot at some waterfalls?” I asked Pema, our Bolero driver.

“Hah,” said Pema, letting out a guffaw in much the same way Dayanidhi Maran guffaws every time BSNL sends him a bill of Rs. 1199 for his personal mobile.

The night before had been spent googling the words ‘adventure’, ‘spontaneity’, ‘Sikkim’ and ‘marriage counseling during vacations’ not in any particular order. But when nothing ‘spontaneously’ leapt out of the pages, external advice was called for. Ram, in his travel desk avatar, handed us a bundle of tourism leaflets that, from the looks of it, had been printed by Guttenberg himself during his experimental years. For the benefit of the readers who think that anything east of West Bengal is China, Gangtok is in the southern part of Sikkim, the tiny little appendage that you can spot on India’s map that holds together the northeast with the rest of the country. All the information contained within the leaflets suggested that for that time of the year, East Sikkim promised to be the ideal destination as it was accessible, safe and unbelievably pretty. So, we obviously decided to go to North Sikkim. A taxi service number was rummaged out of some obscure tourism blog off the internet, calls were made to seedy sounding hotels en route, and bookings were done.

Pema, our taxi driver picked us up from the hotel at 7 am. He was a cheerful, 15 year old version of Ram (the hotel guy, not the militant). But as long as he was good behind the wheels, I didn’t really have any issues whether he had an actual license or he had sketched one out for himself.

‘Sirjee, I stop here for five minutes. Road is danger. I pick up brother. He drive difficult parts,’ said Pema, smiling sheepishly, by way of earning our confidence. Brother, a just so slightly older looking guy, came and took the front seat beside Pema, and we finally started off.

One of the first things you’ll realize on your way to North Sikkim is that the darned road keeps disappearing every couple of turns. It is as if someone stretched the road across the mountains to such an extent that tears had started appearing in regular intervals, now occupied by knee-deep mud, stones, and puddles. Further into the journey, as we left the city and started our real ascent into the hills of North Sikkim, it also became clearer why Pema had found our yearning for waterfalls amusing. The first time we spotted a waterfall was something like this:

‘Hey, look over there – a small waterfall!’

‘Hey, it’s not so small, actually!’

‘Hey…er…are we driving through that thing?’

‘Hey look, I peed in my pants.’

Seen those SUV Ads where they show frustrated corporate chums trying to make up for their disastrous appraisals by driving their brand new 4x4s into rivers and gorges while blabbering about reclaiming their life and what not? Well, all of them could very well have been shot in Sikkim.

There truly is no greater motivation to reclaiming one’s life than having water pound down on you from an angle threatening to push your car into a 1000 ft gorge. Having your driver slow down the vehicle before crossing the waterfall for a small pep-talk from his brother adds that extra zing to the situation.

‘You can do it, Pema.’

Pema, eyeing the water with determination, revving up the car.

‘You can do it, Pema!’

Vroom, vroom.

Since there was a waterfall every half hour or so, this scene repeated itself many a times.

The road was very steep. On several occasions, our car would go halfway up a cliff, and then after some vigorous braking, clutches, hand brake, accelerator, and what sounded like, ‘Brother, what do I do now?!’, the car would come skidding down, veering right to the edge of the cliff. A few words of encouragement from elder brother, and a second attempt would follow. On one elevation that proved particularly adamant, the brother turned around and said, just in case we were concerned or anything, ‘No 4×4. Hehe. Else, 100% success rate. Normal car very difficult. Heh.’

Sometimes, passersby were recruited to sit in the car till we got over the hump. Apparently, an under-loaded vehicle didn’t get enough traction to climb up. I was glad we figured this out so early. Now, all we needed to do was to wait for around 10 people to walk past every time we reached a steep turn.

Around 3 hours into our journey, Pema stopped the car. ‘Sir, you ask ATM? Last ATM.’

We hadn’t gotten any cash. And since the place we were going to was unlikely to accept cards, we’d asked Pema to stop at an ATM. We must have driven past around 10 ATMs in Gangtok itself, but Pema clearly had his heart set on Melli, around 35 kilometers from Gangtok. The fact that the famed Yuksom breweries was located here had nothing to do with this, of course.

Melli, in Nepali, means ‘the place where the dead are cremated.’ This name, we soon found, extended to ATMs as well. There was just the 1 ATM in the town, and it was unwilling to dispense anything other than an aura of morbidity.

‘This hasn’t been working since last month, sir!’ pointed out a mildly amused passerby.

Now this was a bit of a problem. There was no way we could go back. We didn’t have any cash on us, and we knew that the chances of our destination hotel accepting credit cards was the same as Pema starting to use conjunctions in his sentences. That’s when the same helpful passerby, who’d momentarily stopped to explore how we’d deal with the ATM machine dilemma, directed us to the SBI branch on the other side of the hill.

This only mildly comforted us; having no active SBI account or credit card, an SBI branch wasn’t an ideal place for deliverance, but the thought that there was this substantial reserve of cash housed somewhere in the premises of that decrepit-looking building on top of the hill made us hopeful. But fifteen minutes later, as we explained our dilemma to the branch manager, that last strand of hope too seemed tenuous.

‘So what you are basically saying is that you don’t have an account with us?’

‘No’

‘And you don’t have an SBI credit card either?’

‘Nope.’

‘And you still want to withdraw some cash?’

‘Err…yes.’

Here, the branch manager paused to give us time to string together our responses and discover the flaw in our reasoning.

‘My dad has an SBI account,’ I said.

The branch manager tilted his head a bit, as if trying to find an angle from which that piece of information would be deemed relevant.

‘Actually, I have an SBI account that has been inactive for the last 5 years, so if we can get someone to transfer some cash in, we can, may be, withdraw it here.’

Now this isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Firstly, my account was not active. Secondly, getting someone to transfer cash fast enough would be tricky. And even if that part was taken care of, withdrawing the amount here wasn’t going to be easy as we didn’t have a cheque book. But suffice to say that over the next half hour, a lot of frantic phone calls were made, finally a deposit was done about 600 kms away in Guwahati, and the branch manager, now with a distinct halo over his head, mercifully allowed us to withdraw the amount. We finally walked out of SBI with Rs. 5000 in cash, and resumed our journey.

Compared to the last leg of our journey, the initial bit seemed like a pram-ride. The roads were narrower, disappeared much more frequently, and seemed to go up into crazy elevation-loops just for the heck of it. Now, being from the northeast, I’ve done my fair share of hill travel, but this was in a league of its own. Visibility was already very low; add to that a mild shower and trucks trying to push past a road that seemed barely adequate for one vehicle. If this wasn’t enough, the road had no tarmac – so the drive felt like being in an ice-skating rink with banana leaves for shoes.

‘Sir, last month, Bolero fell down here,’ said Pema, as he brake-swerved around a curve, stopping for a while on the very edge so that we could peer into the deep gorge and onto the temperamental Teesta river hundreds of feet below.

On a couple of other occasions, Pema would suddenly stop the car, announce something like ‘Sir, no road,’ and go away for a walk. And sure enough, looking ahead, we would see a mountain of rocks where the road was supposed to be. Apparently, this was a regular affair. On some of the spots that were known to have avalanches regularly, excavators were positioned on either side just so that they could clear up the road fast.

‘How come these things don’t fall on top of the cars?’ I wondered. Nature must have noted this down, for she chose to give me a rather long explanation on the way back.

At around 9 PM, Pema stopped the car and announced, ‘Here!’

I looked outside. It was raining heavily, but since there didn’t seem to be anything out ‘here’, I assumed he probably needed a comfort break. The poor guy had been driving for a long time, and if that polythene bag that had mysteriously appeared in our car after Melli was what I thought it was, he must have been in considerable pain by now.

‘Ok,’ I said.

‘No, here!’

‘Ok, I understand. Go!’

‘No, here!,’ he said, and noticing my alarmed expression, quickly added, ‘Lachung!’

I stared at him for a couple of seconds before realizing what he was saying. Apparently, we had reached the place where we’d planned to stay that night – Lachung. The brochure had this photograph of a sleepy, Scottish looking town. I suppose that guy holding what looked suspiciously like a bagpipe should have alerted me, for looking out of the window, all I could see was darkness, and the faint light from a bulb from some 200 ft away. I came out of the car, and kept looking around. The occasional lightning helped get a better perspective of what was around. Nothing, basically, barring a handful of huts, and a more permanent looking structure right in front of us. There was a sign on the house which read ‘something‘hotel.

A minute of polite knocking and three of vigorous banging on the door resulted in a man appearing at the front door. I introduced myself to him, but when that failed to get any expression of comprehension, I left Pema’s brother to do the talking. Pema’s brother started off with what sounded like an introduction; but soon the But after sometime, when what should have been a short introduction started sounding more and more like a negotiation, I had to butt in and ask how long we were supposed to stand soaking in the rain.

Pema’s brother hesitantly asked, ‘Sir, booking. Who done?’

‘I did. Why?’

‘Sir, he says no booking.’

‘Huh? But they confirmed over phone that rooms are available…’

‘Rooms are still available, but emergency booking charge…’

‘I don’t give a damn about the extra charge. Just let us go in, for God’s sake,’ I shouted, and then added, as an afterthought: ‘How much is the charge?’

‘Sir, he…er…asking Rs. 8000.’

Standing there, the four of us took turns abusing the hotel guy, but the rain made it difficult to carry this on for too long. Pema and his brother took this entire episode as a personal insult; for whatever reason, they seemed fond of us, and said the way the hotel guy behaved spoke very poorly of Sikkimese hospitality. They asked us not to worry and that they would find us another hotel.

After about ten minutes, we’d driven through the entire town twice. We didn’t find any hotels. In fact, there were barely any houses. Just ‘adventure’ and ‘spontaneity.’

Next: Sikkim, Part V (Places of Interest) – Coming Soon (Last one, I swear!)

Read Sikkim, Part I and Part II and Part III

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

We drove into the hotel at 11 PM, with all our limbs intact.

‘If you need me to show you around or drive you back to Bagdogra, you can call me,’ said Ram Bhai, flashing a multi-colored visiting card around. ‘With all this taxi association tamasha, business has been slow.’

I considered telling him that the taxi association problem apart, it probably wasn’t such a bright idea to tell your customers upfront that you were a militant either; it just didn’t seem good for business. But I was still within shooting range and the hotel bell-boy still had a couple of pieces to unload from the vehicle; so I just nodded my head, played around with my phone, and pretended to take down his number.

I’d very tactfully booked a room at the Hidden Forest Retreat on our way to Gangtok without the missus waking up. Hence, some puzzled glances were exchanged in the room when Ram, the bell-boy – who we later found also manned the reservation desk, the kitchen, the housekeeping and quite possibly the legislature of Sikkim as well – announced very apologetically:

‘Sir, If you had only called earlier Sir, I could have arranged for some dinner as well Sir…’

I coughed violently till he’d stopped talking, and then asked him if he could at least manage two cups of tea. The missus isn’t much of a foodie, but is extremely partial to the odd cup of tea every 60 seconds or so.

‘Yes sir, yes sir,’ said Ram, wrinkling his face up in a smile that almost devoured his eyes entirely, while bowing down to an angle that I had previously considered humanly impossible and back-stepped out of the room. I might as well have told him I was another reincarnation of the Karmapa.

You will understand that while frantically Googling hotels on my phone, I was not so much looking for luxury as survival. So, as we looked around our room, we were pleasantly surprised – A nice, cozy cottage, hugging the steep incline of a mountain, and overlooking another. The room itself was fairly spacious, clean and well maintained. Stepping out into the balcony, as a chilly breeze greeted us from the sea of lights from the valley below, I tried not to look surprised or over-whelmed in order to give the impression that all this had been well thought through and planned out. While a complement was obviously too much to expect, but the look on the missus’ face said that I’d done rather well. Very well.

We woke up late the next morning. There wasn’t much we’d planned to do anyway. Just the fact that we were not waking up to alarm clocks or doorbells, no thought of having to let the maid in at such and such a time, or get ready for office by this time seemed supremely indulgent and relaxing. Add to that the sight of the mountainside from the window, half covered with clouds, the faint chime of bells/ gongs from a monastery far away, warm tea, and the smell of the thousands of flowers that covered the entire property, and it was as if time had decided to slow down a bit to help us catch our breath. Neither of us spoke a word. We just sat there in bed staring out of window, sipping our ginger tea, and wondering why was it that we lived anywhere else.

Later in the morning, Ram, in his chef avatar, came over to invite us for breakfast. He seemed to be still suffering from guilt pangs at not being able to serve us dinner the other night. So efforts to make up for that translated into a breakfast spread that could have easily satisfied a small army battalion. The food was good, but every time we’d try and get up, Ram would materialize from somewhere, pick up another untouched dish from a remote corner of the table and offer to serve it:

‘Sir, bhindi, sir!’

This went on for some time till we had devoured substantial amounts of bhindi-sir, gobi-sir and what not.

‘This can’t go on,’ I whispered to the missus, as I held my tummy in discomfort. ‘He is feeding us to death!not going to let us go till we’ve eaten everything!’

‘Everything’ at that moment was four more untouched bowls of subzee, some sweets, a couple of omelets, bowlful of fruits and whatever he was going to get from the kitchen next. ‘Everything’ also seemed like imminent death. So, the next time Ram back-stepped into the kitchen, we decided to get hold of all the bowls of subzee, scoop out a spoonful of the content and paste it on the sides of the bowl to make them look used, strewed a couple of plums on our plate, and made a mad dash for our room.

We didn’t have too many days in Sikkim. So while we would have been happy just lazing around after the sumptuous, yet agonizing breakfast, I suggested that we might as well go around town since we were there. The missus liked the idea, but also realized that if all this cordial business went on any longer, I might actually start developing some self-esteem. So, she played her trump card.

‘Great. Let’s walk.’

‘Huh?’

‘Let’s walk to the Mall Road,’ as we left our room. ‘How far can it be?’

‘Sure,’ I said. But I knew this wasn’t going to be just a walk. This was the walk. It was a test that had consequences so far reaching, that it had the potential to alter my life for the next 6 months. I was all too familiar with this line of thought. Walks > panting > stamina > bad health > lack of exercise > triglycerides, cholesterol, doctor >bland food > screwed. But there was very little I could have done. Luckily, the clouds burst open before my lungs did, and we had to get a cab after a few minutes of leaving the hotel. The shared taxi driver quite unnecessarily asked where we were headed (for, in any hill station, you are either going to Mall Road, or leaving Mall Road), but other than that, everything else was fine.

The mall road in Gangtok, unlike in other hill stations where it’s just a marketing concept that lives in tourism offices and websites, is actually a physical entity. Bang in the centre of town, it’s a no-cars-allowed stretch of cobbled street, guarded on either side by an unending line of shops and eateries of every size and variety. The missus had a grand time window-shopping, convincing every shop-owner to take down their entire inventory from the shelves for closer inspection, and then twitching her nose and casually walking away without buying a thing.

‘How much is this bag for?’

‘800,’ the unsuspecting shopkeeper would answer, expecting the exchange to actually end in some kind of transaction.

‘No, 200,’ the missus would answer in that ‘I know about these things and don’t you mess around with me’ kind of tone.

‘400,’ the shopkeeper would answer, his voice betraying his crumbling conviction.

‘200!’

‘Ok, ok. 200’

‘Hmm…I think I will look around some more…’

The idea of bargaining for bargaining’s sake is a concept that has limited appeal amongst men. Being less evolved, most men even find this behavior awkward – but women obviously know better. As we walked away from the first couple of shops, I thought a sympathetic nod to the shopkeeper would ease my conscience. But after an hour of this, I decided the best strategy would be enter the shop a few seconds apart, and linger on a little longer after the missus walked out so as to be able to pretend that we were not actually together.

After about 3 hours of this, we finally made our first purchase. A tea pot. Which I was forced to stand in the middle of the street with and admire from various angles.

‘It’s nice, right?’

‘Yes, yes. Awesome.’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘Of course I do. I just said I do. It’s marvelous.’

‘Are you making fun of my choice?’

‘No-no! This tea-pot is awesome. It would be incredible having tea from it.’

‘That’s why I don’t like coming out shopping with you. You just make a joke out of everything…’

At around 3 PM, our virtual shopping free mercifully came to an end and we walked into a café for lunch. Momos and beer. And momos. And some more beer. It again felt like I was on vacation. I might have overdone the taste-the-local-beer thing a bit, for I hadn’t realized that the missus had started chatting up with a couple on the table beside ours. It was an NRI couple from London. Both of them were lawyers, in their late 20s- early 30s. Smiles and hand-shakes happened. Conversation about momos, Sikkim and world peace ensued (not necessarily in that order). I nodded my head politely at all the right moments to look interested.

As soon as the couple left, I knew I was in some sort of trouble. It wasn’t enough that the guy was an extremely successful lawyer. The fucker was repulsively healthy, unimaginably polite,  talked in an English accent, and had come all the way from London to spend time in Sikkim, teaching mathematics to kids in some remote school.

Sensing the tsunami of conversation that was coming my way, I thought I’d put things in perspective by clarifying that the guy could claim very little credit for his accent as this was totally dependent of where one lives, and that I too would talk in that manner if I stayed abroad, but I ended up inadvertently belching instead. Luckily, the missus was pre-occupied.

‘Isn’t that nice?,’ the missus announced, escorting the couple out of the place with her admiring stare.

‘Hhmmm’

‘Imagine how much fund they must be having…!’

‘Hmmm…are you going to drink that?’

‘…and to think that they came all the way here from London.’

‘Their company must have paid for it…’

‘We should also do something…’

‘…lawyers need to cleanse their conscience every once in a while…’

‘Let’s do it!’

‘Do what?’

‘Something spontaneous!’

‘Another plate of momos?’

‘No, seriously Rishi…’

My name being mentioned in a sentence is usually a sign of me having ‘not listened’ myself in to a tricky situation.

‘Like what?’

***

By the time we returned to our hotel after visiting the couple of monasteries and the usual tourist places in and around the city, it was already 5 PM. And throughout this time, there had been a lot of words like ‘spontaneity’ and ‘adventurous’ hurled at me. But having imbibed Mr. Denzongpa’s finest, I thought I was doing a pretty decent job of modulating frequencies, and merging all this chatter into the ambient noise. That is, until we were back in the hotel and I realized that we had apparently come to the conclusion that we’d seen all that Gangtok had to offer and we needed to do something different now. The brief for the next 3 days was clearly and precisely laid out: we needed to ‘head out’ and do something ‘spontaneous’ and ‘adventurous’.

P.S. The Hidden Forest Retreat is a lovely place. If going to Gangtok, this is the place to stay – great location, very nice rooms, great hospitality.

Next: Sikkim, Part IV (Places of Interest) – Coming Soon

Read Sikkim, Part I and Part II

Hidden Forest Photographs Courtesy: © Hidden Forest Resort

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

Review: Focus on Lighting Photos

I have blogged about the awesome Mr. Fil Hunter before. His much-acclaimed book, Light: Science and Magic, is probably the first to be picked by every amateur who’s trying to get a little more serious about photography. But as with most scholarly work, this book too is not without a flaw. In fact, it was such a glaring omission, that I occasionally found it embarrassing to recommend this book to others. What is it, you ask? This book, and I am not making this up, didn’t have a single contribution from yours truly! Fallen of your chair yet? No? Damn you.

But the good Mr. Fil Hunter is a decent chap, and he has the humility to own up to his errors in judgment. And he did just that with his new book, Lighting Photos. It involved a lot of convincing, whining and groveling of course, but I don’t want to get into all that. Suffice to say that the matter has now been resolved and everything is finally alright with the world.

Lighting Photos is the new title by Fil Hunter and Robin Reid. As with the rest of the Focus On series, this book picks up a specific area of photography (in this case, Lighting) and aims to equip the reader with a working knowledge of the craft to enable her to start taking photographs instantly. Lighting Photos breaks down the intimidating subject of lighting setups into bite sized doses, and illustrates, through detailed examples, on how to get specific results. It’s ideal for people starting off in photography as the recommended equipment is fairly basic, and doesn’t require you to sell your kidneys for that fancy stadium-sized soft-box or over-engineered beauty dish. It is full of tips from Pros and inspiring photographs from contributors across the world. And once you’ve mastered these, you graduate to L:S&M

Amazon UK is still running a Free Shipping Scheme for India, methinks. So, you might want to hurry up. Go and click this link already!

I spent a lot of time mulling over what excerpts of the book I would like to include in this blog. And going by pure merit, here are the 2 pages that I think clearly stand out. And oh, the fact that both the pages have contributions from yours truly is entirely coincidental. I am very fair that way. Ahem. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

Applause. Bow. Thanks!

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

The 45 minute flight from Guwahati to Bagdogra was peppered with a packet of roasted peanuts, a couple of tasteless airline drinks and a huge sense of relief at having scraped through a potential catastrophe, virtually unscathed.

After all, when it involved me, it wasn’t very often that mother nature let one slip by. In fact, if I was allowed to squint my eyes beyond the fact that the plan had undergone some ‘minor’ alterations, I could have even allowed myself a tiny bit of pride at how I had heroically turned around the situation in such a short time. Which is why, as we deplaned in Bagdogra, I assumed I could afford a couple of contented smiles at the missus. These positive vibes were of course promptly sent back with a melancholic, middle-distant gaze from her, which indicated that she’d slipped into her Smita Patel stupor, wherein she’d endlessly sulk and ponder over how she will ‘have to learn to live with my 7 year old conjugal error in judgment’. This also meant that everything that went wrong from now on would be my sole responsibility,  and would serve to further reinforce her suspicion that I was missing a vital part of my brain. And off chance that things went well, she’d always find a way to link it to something she said or did. Married folks will acknowledge this is a naturally evolving, well-tested approach to dealing with uncertainties, fine-tuned over years and years of marital life.

One of the chief reasons common folk like me are taking to flying so frequently has got nothing to do with the flying experience itself – it’s all about the airport. While you will never catch me admitting it publicly, there is something regal in the way taxi drivers virtually mob you when you step out of an airport. Where else would I be allowed to have an annoyed-celebrity expression on my face, as I wade through a sea of strangers, all hankering for my attention? In fact, smaller the airport, bigger the mob. And since one’s usual itinerary seldom features something smaller than Bagdogra, some paparazzi fun was to be expected. The drive from Bagdogra to Ganktok was 4 hours long; so having a few options wasn’t a bad thing either..

Which is why it was kind of disconcerting when, after collecting our unending string of check-in baggage (I had cleverly asked the missus if she was sure she hadn’t packed the refrigerator as well by mistake, but the wit was lost on her), we stepped out of the airport and were met by a huge crowd of…nothing. No one. Absolutely. Well, there was this security guard who had apparently just read Arindam Chaudhuri, and had decided upon his nose as the chosen extraction point for the diamond inside him, but other than that, there was no one at all.

I walked up to the guard and asked him where all the taxis were. With one finger still up his nose, he lazily pointed in the general direction of the airport gate, about 300 feet away. And sure enough, there was a crowd of very angry looking taxi drivers there, held back by the closed airport gate. I thanked the security guard, and began walking toward the gate, with a suitcase in both hands, and another bag flung around my neck. The heat was killing. We definitely needed an AC taxi, I told myself.

‘Jabe na (won’t go)’, shouted the security guy.

‘As in?”

‘Strike.’

‘What strike?’

‘Hartaal. Strike. They won’t take passengers,’ he said, in pristine Pranab Mukherjee English.

‘How can they do that? Aren’t they supposed to be part of the pre-paid stand?’

‘Sir, this is West Bengal,’ he said, and decided the issue should be amply clear now.

I glanced at my wife. She now had this ‘but, of course’ expression on her face. But I’d had enough already. I didn’t come all the way to Bagdogra to go back now (an option, that I realized later, didn’t really exist, as the next flight was 8 hours away) and live through umpteen retellings to her friends of how ‘Rishi messed up our plans…yet again’. I decided to walk over to that gate, and talk some reason. Everyone responds to reason, when mixed with the right amount of groveling.

‘They won’t go,’ I found myself telling the missus after ten minutes. While I was trying my charm on the Bagdogra Taxi Drivers Association, she had walked in the opposite direction over to a café and settled into one of the chairs under a tree. This move was aimed as much to escape the scorching heat as to make a statement on how confident she was about my chances of success. The missus is very clever that way. ‘They just won’t. Apparently, some security guy bashed up one of the drivers about half an hour ago. They are now demanding an apology. No taxis till that time.’

Silence. Cigarettes. Packet of chips. Sweat. Silence. Sip. Cigarettes. One bloody hour.

‘Bhai Saab, where do you want to go?’ asked a 40sh looking man, He was dressed in an off-color Safari suit, with his sunglasses over his forehead, and a cell-phone hanging over his belt.

‘Who’s asking?’

‘I own this coffee shop,’ he said, and not sensing any excitement at this revelation, added, ‘and also drive a taxi.’

‘Gangtok.’

‘8000 bucks.’

‘2000 bucks,’ I said authoritatively. I had read up on this thing on the net, and I knew the right fare. I was in no mood to be pushed around, taxi-strike or no taxi-strike.

‘8000 bucks.’

‘Done.’

‘Good, wait here for a while,’ he said. ‘I can’t take you right now. The drivers are on strike, and they will not let us through. Let them cool down a little, and we can sneak out.’

‘How long?’

‘Half hour.’

‘Okay,’ I said, cleverly resisting the urge to throw myself at his feet and weep.

After an hour, when there was no sign of the driver, I had lost all patience and 70% of my body fluid. I decided to go and check at the airport terminal again – they couldn’t just stand and watch at this impossible situation.

Spice Jet said a lot of things, which in summary, meant ‘Fuck off. Our only guarantee is that we won’t throw you off our flights. Provided you don’t bitch about us on the feedback form. In which case, we might consider that as well.’ I don’t remember my exact response except that it had words like ‘spice’ and ‘alimentary canal’ and a lot of allusions to the ground-staff’s family members. This didn’t seem to help the situation.

The AAI (Airports Authority of India) office was empty, barring for a person playing Minesweeper on the computer. I knocked on the glass window, but he said something back in Bengali which didn’t sound like ‘May I help you?’ I banged some more. I think one of his mines might have exploded, for he looked very, very annoyed as he just stood up and walked off.

Walking back to the café and ‘guessing if the missus’ expression was indeed a half-smile, and if so, was it to make fun of my incompetence’ wasn’t a game I was in the right frame of mind for. So I decided to walk around making faces at the Spice Jet crew instead.

The driver finally re-appeared at 6 and signaled us to follow him to his car in the parking lot.

‘If someone asks,’ he whispered, ’this is a taxi and I am your driver’

The missus and I exchanged puzzled glances. As soon as we had walked out of the airport and past the other drivers, our savior decided it was time for some friendly chat.

‘So, where are you from, Sir?’

‘Chennai.’

‘Funny, you don’t look like you’re from there.’

‘I am actually from Assam. We stay in Chennai now,’ trying my best to choose words that would discourage further conversation.

‘Oh, Assam, eh?’ he said, and fell silent for a while. ‘You must have heard <First Name> Khan, then?’

The name seemed vaguely familiar. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘<First Name> Phukan?’

‘Yes, of course. I’ve heard that name.’

‘…and Ms. <First Name> Barua?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I wasn’t being polite. I had heard all the names some time or the other, but I couldn’t recall the context. So, I decided to Google them on my phone. The first result went somewhat like this:

‘Times of India (Jul 2, 2009) The prime accused in the car-theft syndicate, Mr. <First Name> Khan, Mr. <First Name> Phukan and Ms. <First Name> Barua…have been remanded to judicial custody today.’

Scrolling down, the news report threw some more light on the names:

‘Mr. <First Name> Khan, Mr. <First Name> Phukan and Ms. <First Name> Barua had surrendered from ULFA on January 1, 2007 as part of a…’

I gulped, nudged the missus and showed her the news-clipping as we settled into the backseats of a white Bolero, with dark tinted windows.

‘You can call me Khan since you’re from Assam. People here know me just as ‘Ram bhai’. Heh…after the Jorabat incident, I kind of had to get out of there for a while you know. Things had heated up to much…’

‘Hah. Yes…er….’

‘Have things cooled down there? Do you think it would be wise to go back now?’

‘Er…yes, considerably…,’ I said, and suddenly realized that I was giving career advice to an ex-militant, ex-car thief syndicate owner, and current absconder from justice.

The missus was now clasping my right arm and looking straight at me, her eyes the size of the Bagdogra airport. For the next half an hour or so, as we made our way through the crowded streets of the city and onto the highway to Gangtok, Mr. Khan kept talking incessantly. The throbbing heart, now near my tonsils, made it very difficult to follow exactly what he was saying, but a few words seemed to leap out, italicize themselves, and linger on.

‘The traffic here at this time is KILLING…will take a short CUT…the heat at this time of the year is DEADLY…, etc.’

A couple of hours later, when no grenades or AK 47s had been flung out, I had begun to relax, the missus had dozed off on my shoulder and blood circulation had restarted to my right arm.

‘Which hotel are you booked into?’ asked Mr. Khan, aka Ram-bhai.

‘Huh, yes. I’ll let you know when we get there,’ I said, trying to sound as calm as I could, while frantically waving my phone around for a GPRS signal.

Why the fuck can’t these hotels book themselves?!

(to be continued…)

Next: Sikkim, Part II (Getting There)

Read Sikkim, Part I

Photograph Courtesy: © Andreas H. Lunde

*The web-novel is taking a break. It will resume its assault on your senses very soon*

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

If November of 2010 had found you twiddling your thumbs and wondering as to why the world around you had come to a virtual standstill, it was because nature was busy somewhere else, whipping my ass.

Sometime earlier in the year, in a case of ill-timed and misplaced proactiveness, as a response to the missus’ annual ‘we never do anything together’ festival, I planned a vacation for the both of us. And since Dilli Haat and Marina Beach seemed inaccessible due to traffic conditions, the chosen destination, ahem, was Arunachal Pradesh. Needless to say, it wasn’t an easy sell. But there is something about the promise of cool climes and pollution free environs that renders the average Chennaite defenceless. So, after a series of enthusiastic Google searches and Flickr album browsing sessions, it was unanimously decided by the missus that finally after 7 years of marriage I had inadvertently done something right. This appreciation, however, was short-lived.

‘You know what’s funny? Onkoo is getting married around the same time in Guwahati. If we time the trip properly, we can spend some time there, and be on our way to Arunachal. What luck, eh?’, I smartly suggested.

I might as well have peed on the living room carpet in front of her colleagues. Before I could mentally say ‘screwed’, I could visualize the brownie points meter, laboriously cranked up through the last few months with abstinence from beer, occasional flower deliveries, keeping the room clean and refraining from blogging ‘all this nonsense about your wife’ being set to zero. Don’t get me wrong: the missus gets along well enough with her in-laws. But nothing irritates her more than ‘trying to be tricked into situations. Why can’t you just be forthright with what you want to do? Why do you have to play these games…’ You get the picture.

But the images of fog-covered mountain tops and amicable Buddhist monks running around in orange cloaks had long burnt into our minds. So, it was again decided, unanimously, by the missus, that despite the covert attempts by her husband to manipulate facts and deliver her into potentially controversial social situations without her knowledge, the trip was a go. I promptly set a date, booked the tickets to Guwahati, dry-cleaned the winter-wear, and triumphantly punched the air.

<if this were a movie, now is when you’d see the Indian Airlines flight take off>

Non-Punjabi Indian weddings are a lot of fun for the first five minutes. For the rest of the duration, it is quite frankly like a Ashutosh Gowarikar movie – meaningful and well-intended, but kind of boring with long pauses in between. Add to that an unwilling guest who doesn’t understand the language everyone else is incessantly trying to talk to her in, and you’ve a very strong dose of prosaic. (Critical Background info: Am Assamese, while the Missus is a Punjabi. This used to be cool till CB launched his book called Two States. Now our marriage just feels like a unintended justification of a badly written book filled with gross generalizations and unfunny stereotypes).

So by the time my cousin’s marriage was done, and I’d taken the Missus to all the interesting places in Guwahati, like the popular Kamakhya Temple, the not-to-be-missed Kamakhya Temple and the famous Kamakhya temple, we were well and truly ready for our adventurous trip to Arunachal Pradesh.

‘I have never been much for details. My talents lie in conceptualizing and thinking things through. I like to live life exclusively at a strategic level. The actual execution of the same doesn’t excite me.’ These are words that I thought I could offer up as defence to the missus when it was discovered that while I’d splendidly conceptualized the Arunachal trip, this tiny, unimportant, miniscule detail of how to get there had yet to be fully thought out.

Some more Google searches and phone calls to dear ones, while keeping myself outside of the missus’ arm-span, confirmed that we theoretically had 2 options: We could take the chopper that left every day, and promised to deliver us in Itanagar in 30 minutes or explode/ crash in under 15. The second choice was by road, which took around a decade and under the present weather conditions, had a strong possibility of being blocked for the last 50 kilometers or so. I tried dressing up these suggestions as attractively as possible, but neither the possibility of an explosive death or being in the same car for more than 36 hours seemed to go down very well with the missus. The ‘I’ll just give you cold stares for the time-being, but wait till we are back in Chennai’ treatment followed.

That’s when help came in from unexpected quarters. Over 35 years of experience in dealing with these delicate situations had taught Dad to always be ready with some contingency plans. While he normally followed a strict ‘do not fraternize with the civilians’ policy, seeing his son being skewered with spousal stares, I guess, prompted him to make an exception.

‘Sikkim,’ he whispered to me, and resumed his non-aligned movement.

Depending on what genre of movie you fancy, you can visualize this scene in different ways. Since the 80’s Bollywood Romance is a dear favorite of mine, I saw long-shots of ‘Sikkim’ from different angles, arms flung open, and running toward me in slow motion, amidst a garden of Eastman-colored flowers dancing rhythmically to an orchestra at the mercy of Bappi Lahiri. Sikkim was an awesome plan. It had good connectivity, not far from Guwahati, and everyone spoke well of their experiences there. To me, personally, It also had the extremely alluring quality of being the only option.

It took a monumental effort to convince the missus that Sikkim was just a ‘lite’ version of Arunachal Pradesh, albeit with a different name. Everything else was same – the mountains, the weather, the monasteries. Also, in Sikkim, it was not possible to generally stroll around and all of a sudden find oneself in China. The missus, long accustomed to seeing me deal with crises with a week or two of good, old-fashioned sulking, regarded this sudden change in strategy with a lot of suspicion, but finally capitulated on condition that one more mess-up and I had to voluntarily stay back in the remotest monastery in Sikkim for the rest of my life. That seemed like a not-so-unattractive option at that moment, and I readily agreed.

So, Sikkim it was.

Next: Sikkim, Part II (Getting There)

Read Chapter 8.2 (Web-Novel): The Strong and Silent Types

Photograph Courtesy: © Rishi S

*The web-novel is taking a break. It will resume its assault on your senses very soon*

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

Exposing people to an extremely hostile, competitive environment for a prolonged period of time has its toll on the superficial layers of decency and accommodating spirit that we’re otherwise taught to adhere to.

Cracks begin to appear in the fabric of camaraderie and gamesmanship that normally drapes our social interactions, nudging us to say things like ‘sure, I’m game for a cup of coffee. After all, it’s just a stupid test,’ or ‘Okay, I think you should read Chapter 5 for tomorrow’s test. I’ve a feeling we’re going to be quizzed on that.’ What’s left behind is a more in-your-face, hunter-gatherer mentality that refuses to make excuses for being cut-throat, or leave any room for formalities.

When the course was in its initial stages, everyone was acutely conscious of the fact that the entire batch was made up of extremely talented and high achieving individuals. Hence, since it was unlikely that there would be too much differentiation in terms of output, it was necessary to set oneself apart by managing how much effort one ‘appeared’ to be putting in. One is not a genius if one appears to be trying harder than everyone else. The worst thing that could happen to a genius was to appear desperate for something as petty as grades. Where was the charm in being an Einstein if everyone knew that you stayed awake till 2 AM, got up at 4 AM, spent 8 hours in the library and spent most of the time in class either taking notes or with your right arm sticking up, ready to impress the professor again.

But with time, as the pressure builds, and every test, presentation and grade nibbles away the myth of equality, the pretences start peeling off. All those half-answered questions, average presentations, so-so grades and Bs in group projects start piling up and the luxury of ‘I’ll take care of it before 4th term’ starts disappearing. Until one day you come to the firm conclusion that being popular and considered a nice person are perhaps over-rated concepts. So, I’ll be damned if I care that I have to step on a couple of toes to succeed; in fact, if it comes down to it, I’ll even chop off a couple.

This inevitable transformation seemed to build up to a crescendo towards the end of the third term. Once the exams were over, and everyone had a fair idea of how one did, the pressure was at its maximum. For despite MBA being a six term course at IIMB, everyone knew that the first four terms were all that mattered. Since placements were held immediately after or during the 6^th term, prospective employees were only forwarded the performance records up to the 4th term. This left the last two terms for students to take up papers like ‘Meditation’ and ‘Appreciation of Indian Society’ to get back part of their humanity that the first part of their course would have no doubt stripped from them.

Amidst all this, it obviously became even more important for us to appear as if we didn’t give a damn. We were like the silent, macho protagonist in action movies, who was content with chewing on tooth-picks, while the rest of the world was being ripped apart by a giant, reptilian monster. This inertia suggested a reservoir of as yet unexplored potential. The inaction hinted at a possibility that there will come a moment in the near future when the heroes will finally get up, brush off the bits of samosas and cream-rolls from their trousers, and get down to showing their true mettle. At a superficial level, while everyone laughed us off, we knew that deep down they also suspected that we had some trump card up our sleeves, and we were just waiting for the right round to play it.

We didn’t, of course, but just the thought was worth it.

(To be continued)

Read Chapter 8.1: It Was the (t)est of Times… (Previous)

Photograph Courtesy: © Kevin Zollman

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

I sat staring at the question paper hoping against hope that the words will magically rearrange themselves and start making sense. Each question teased me with words that I vaguely remembered having heard over the last two terms, but couldn’t quite place now.

I felt cheated. When did the last 9 months whiz past? It seemed like just yesterday that I’d come to the institute. Then, two years had seemed like a lifetime – I had 4 full terms to get my act together. But all of a sudden, here I was sitting in the exam hall, writing my third term paper. Why didn’t some alarm bells go off? Why didn’t anyone point out that I was running out of time?

‘What is ambush marketing?’ the first question read. Right, this is simple enough. Two English words I was very familiar with, but juxtaposed with each other made very little sense. Relax, relax, it will come to you. Marketing is all about common-sense. Use your imagination, and you can’t possibly go wrong. Visions of detergent packs dressed in ninja costumes pouncing on unsuspecting housewives from ceiling fans came to mind. I decided to move on to the next question.

‘Explain a recent example of guerrilla marketing in the Indian context.’

I closed my eyes and sighed.

The sound of vigorous scribbling throughout the exam hall seemed to get louder with every passing second. My ‘still’ capped fountain pen, gifted to me by Ma before I’d left for the institute, starred back at me disapprovingly.

‘Of all the people that could have had me, it had to be you, eh?’ it seemed to say. ‘Surely, you must have something to say, you dim-wit! If you don’t intend to use me, at least have the decency of putting me back somewhere I can’t be seen. Unlike you, being totally and utterly useless embarrasses me.’

I left my opinionated pen on top of the blank answer sheet to writhe in embarrassment, while I looked around the class for someone with more empathy. I spotted K2 at the corner of the class, to my left. The sight of him starring out of the window, while probing his mouth with his pen calmed me to an extent. Usha was a couple of rows behind him, squinting at his paper intently, like an Egyptologist struggling to decipher a new hieroglyphic tablet. Karthik, sitting 3 rows behind me, was just making angry faces at his neighbor, trying his best to make him feel guilty for seemingly knowing all the answers.

One hour into the exam, I convinced myself that I’d tried my best, and another pen-sketch of Homer Simpson on the answer paper wasn’t going to add more value. I stood up, submitted the paper and looked back at my friends. I slit my throat with an imaginary knife to summarize my performance, and walked out.

Within five minutes, all four of us were lying on the lawn in front of the computer centre.

‘It’s just the third term,’ said K2, in much the same tone he’d said ‘It’s just the first term’ and ‘it’s just the second term’ some months back.

We were finally realizing that the thing about ‘marketing being all about common sense’ was actually an elaborate lie constructed by people more determined than us to keep us from doing better than them. There was nothing common about the talent to remember verbatim lines spoken by the professor one month ago. There was no sense in expecting us to remember a thousand two letter phrases suffixed with ‘marketing’. Of course it didn’t help that we seemed determined to preserve all our books in mint condition, neatly tucked into some corner of our rooms. Neither did we think, unlike the rest of the class, that a transcript of the professor’s every cough and sneeze would some day help us get grades. What led to the demise of Vespa in Italy, and why Metro failed to gain a foothold in China was not something you picked up over casual coffee-break conversations.

Compared to marketing, our experiences in other exam papers was much more tolerable. For unlike in marketing, we would be completely prepared not to understand much of the question paper itself, let alone answer any of the questions correctly. Certain-death takes away one’s fears; it’s the possibility of being saved that gets one all worked up. Corporate finance exam was the time you set aside for filing your nails, catching up on your doodling, and cleaning your wallet off unwanted bills and receipts. Corporate strategy was akin to hand-writing practice. As long as you were out of ink by the time you’d finished the paper, you could be reasonably sure that the professor would see some unintentional merit in your point of view, and give you the benefit of the doubt. But when one had to resort to comic illustrations to answer a paper in one’s chosen subject of specialization, it was generally an indication of something being terribly wrong.

‘Oh come on, am sure all of us answered some of them right!’ said Usha. ‘What about you, Rishi? I saw you scribbling for quite a while…’

‘Sure,’ I replied, and secretly recalled my elaborate answer to ‘How will India’s differences with the West with regard to conspicuous consumption impact the success and failure of Starbucks in India?’- Homer Simpson eating a donut on top of a pogo-stick. I wondered if the Professor would see the link.

‘But I think the questions themselves were a little vague. Didn’t you guys find them a little subjective? I mean, I couldn’t even recall most of the stuff that was asked. Do you remember discussing Ambush Marketing in class, for example?’

‘Er…the second chapter of the text book is called Ambush Marketing…’ spoke a voice from behind me. Vibhor, another marketing aspirant, had just finished his paper, and had come over for a cup of tea. Unlike us, he was one of the focused, driven type of individuals who really ought to be studying finance.

‘Guerrilla Marketing?’

‘Well, we didn’t so much discuss that as listen to a guest speaker talk about it for 2 hours just a week back?’

I ran through the other 10-15 questions that I could recall from the question paper, and Vibhor went on to cite a class, a guest lecture, a chapter or a presentation for each one of them. I couldn’t help feel cheated that so much of it had been sneaked past us while we were busy putting on hats, admiring our own jokes, or recovering from a hangover somewhere else.

‘So you remembered all this stuff? As in, would you consider the exam an easy one?’ K2 asked.

‘Well, not really. All that stupid jargon can be a little too much to remember,’ replied Vibhor to our relief. ‘But considering it was an open book test, I suppose it was manageable.’

‘Yes, yes of course,’ noted K2, vigorously nodding his head in agreement, even as he quickly latched on to a nearby hand rail for support. He waited for Vibhor to finish his coffee and leave before speaking.

‘An open what?’

‘Open book. As in, you can take your books and notes in for reference,’ explained Usha nonchalantly.

‘You mean, you knew this?’ I asked.

‘Er…yeah,’ replied Usha, instinctively hiding his textbooks behind him. ‘Didn’t you?’

The three of us kept starring back at him in silence.

‘But…I thought you guys knew! Tsk. Besides, uff, er…I didn’t do very well, anyway. I mean, I even came out early like the rest of you…’

‘You back-stabbing piece of shit,’ said Karthik, before we left Usha alone and started walking towards the hostel. Throughout the terms, Usha had somehow managed to maintain his grades a shade better than ours. We had noticed that well-timed allusions to this was enough to make him feel like he’d just blown up a bus full of school children or was siphoning money out of an orphanage. It was strangely comforting.

(To be continued)

Read Chapter 7.2: Losing the Plot (Previous)

Photograph Courtesy: © Alberto G.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.