Lutyens Delhi. Gawking at nameplates. White bungalows set back in enormous gardens from another age. If you lived in one of these, how could you relate to the baccha-party in the basti (slum) that I walk past everyday? How could you even see?
Different lives, different frames of reference.


Traffic-less- Monday was a holiday there. A golden pall over India Gate and North block (?). Viewed for an instant.

Sarvana bhavan.A crisp dosa. Bliss.

Opulent, exquisite hotel. Limpid, mughal-style pools. lush inner courtyards. Luxury palls.

Trees with room to grow. Space for branches holding up a vast canopy. How I envy that.


Spiffy Delhi airport. India middle class is out buying. Nice and lively is GOOD.

In On Writing, Stephen King details about how he was a compulsive if precocious writer, and how he began peddling (illegally, but of course) cyclostyled pages of mystery stories he’d write as a schoolboy, and how his school placed him as a part-time sports columnist for a tabloid after school hours. Early genius, even though he had his share of rejection slips.

Back to my schooldays. Writing was elitist, “good” writing made it to the notice board, your best handwriting on special marble-finish lined paper, pink or blue, crisp sheets from the toniest stationers in town, Kalpana’s. I never made it to that shortlist, not once. Somewhere along the line this feeling bred, that one had to be “permitted” to write.
Which is pure balderdash.

I like my pages properly laid out.
The font crisp and black.
Proper margins. Decent, white paper.Space to spare.
Even if its a paperback.
Especially if its a paperback. And the only book I’ll buy this year.
For the rest I have footpath sales, traffic signal sales.
I like the book to be bound perfectly.
And the edges to be perpendicular—not somewhat sloping.
Specially if I pay my scarce dollars and its fifty rupees to a dollar.
No thank you, Amazon—my book reached me ok but I’m disappointed.

The distant thud of fireworks predawn. The strains of the distant prabhat pheri.A tree stands tall against the glorious sun. Am reminded of Hemkund sahib, a placid pool amidst seven mountains. Maybe some day, or some lifetime. Rabba lakh lakh shukar manava...

Since Sundays are the busiest day of the week, and since I try spend every minute like a miser at his money-- I found a timeslot I could use better, the post nap 3 to 5 slot. I also find myself stepping away from energy drains, negativity, politeness be damned. Y’day I walked out of a reception after fifteen minutes of kitsch.


Yatarth Ratnum, Shreyasi, Hemant.Each of them outstanding.Winners. What tremendous voices, trained too. Using sms to pick one is silly. (Zee saregama lill champs)

Why should I care what you think? Or not? Why do these lines from Shatranj ke mohrey ring true even after all these years- who decides that a pawn on the chessboard must move exactly x steps left or that a horse cannot? What if the pawn says – here- I’ll do as I please and you may lump it? No-- I don’t know either, I'm indulging in rudeness when I please and I’m getting there.

Tremendously bland days, working at work and squeezing in the time reworking text one has reworked a hundred times before. Losing patience with oneself. Ugly.Yes, in your own mind, you know when something is completely off, where its not working. Unbiased input from a fearless, clear-sighted soul only helps confirm what you already know but wish you did not. Grit teeth and back to the storyboard.

Even so, the day holds surprises, the dawn sky an English peach buffered by blue with high clouds this morning; and last night that candle-lit procession- statue, crystal clear hymn and all. Captivating – maybe because it was unexpected. How the mind craves that.

Watching the traditional dress competition on Friday evening as a judge, I learn that when everything else is a given- everyone had decked up- the winners are different, in a class apart. They carry the audience with them, they had a skill to display- a song or a impromptu garba step and that took the audience’s heart and mind.

On Saturday, at the traditional Diwali puja at work loved the calm of the prayers, the chants of the lalitasahastranam as they washed over me. Returned home with a copy of Gandhiji’s autobiography, courtesy of one of the big bosses’ relatives who now is devoted to propagating the Gandhian way of life. Wealth and Bapuji- a paradox!

Sunday was a blank day- the Indian calendar is fill of surprises that way-but we ended up wishing everyone for the new year – a full day in advance.

At Bandra seaface, at the Carter Road promenade even as the palms shimmered in the lamplight and the sea turned black, got talking to a stranger we shared the bench with- an old man past 80. His father had been a Gandhian, stayed at Wardha ashram 1937-1944 and set up a ladies school and college in Karachi pre-partition. It was quite an honor to hear about the greats- Gandhiji, V Bhave, Nehruji, BG Kher, Pyarelalji, Mahadevbhai. This man was a kid of ten and collected stamps so he had a chance to meet the greats, plus he had free run of the premises where the Congress Working Committee meetings were held. Of particular interest was his request to Mr Nehru for an article on J Bajaj for the anniv issue of the kids magazine- a magazine that was put together on handmade paper- and Mr Nehru’s hasty, scowled, scribbling of an autograph in reply, apparently he had been interrupted in one of his famous tempers/ moods. But this ten- year old stood his ground, asked for an article for the special issue and that was that. After partition, he’d begun working in Bombay, but got so disgusted with the compromises expected that he lived the next forty years in the US. In listening to this person- Mr Gulrajani, the sunset and evening lost out on grandeur.

Happy Diwali!

And a prosperous new year, resplendent with riches however you define them...


above: Chopda pujan, the prayers to the books of accounts.