I’m quite the strangest person on earth.
How else to explain the fascination with saving 100 bucks.
By shopping at Sahakari Bhandar versus More.
(After netting the transport cost, that’s just about 60.)
But I know I will return next weekend. To pick the choicest tomatoes, touch the smooth velver of slender bottlegourd, and indulge in the freshest greens.
Is there any logic to this?
Is it genetic, a salute to frugal Gujju genes?
A validation of a frugal philosophy that one believes in? Or a subtle brownie point, “I’m holier”?
Because the repeat delight at this idea, the serotonin surge from revisiting it every few hours, far surpasses any notional saving.

Most nights I sit with paperwork, trying to unscramble numbers.
To the company of the ARR number from Zubeida, “mehki mehki hain raahen”
And that adrenalin charge from Monsoon W. “ rabba rabba mee barsa”.

A close friend rushes to Cal to be with her aged father who is in the ICU.
The suddenness of it all.

A profusion of bougainvillea on the wall, and overhead a branch with yellow blooms tumbling over, looking like what I think grape on a wine would look like.

Every season has its charms. or so I told myself, when it was inordinately hot this morning.


Excellent essay on practice, sharpening one's craft:

http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/category/writing-wednesdays/

And I go back to the blank page.

I was thinking about how we read people. How we learn to read them.
And how more or less, people tend to be predictable.
Follow a trend line, like a stock.
Over time, you learn how a friend will likely use any information she comes by—so then you tend to watch what you share
But if your work was to write, would you or would you not use this knowledge?
What if your work area was non fiction? What if it were a shared experience?
Where would you draw the line, what would be ethical and what would not be ok?

Two solid articles, from NYT: Be sure to read the comments.

On self defeating behavior--
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/playing-the-victim/

Losing it--
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/magazine/28fasttrack-t.html?scp=1&sq=Dominique&st=cse

April has begun busy. Happy-busy, touchwood.

An amazing friend’s birthday. Knowing her has been a blessing—that a human could be as good, as pure and strong, despite her fragile and beyond-help health. Sometimes it is good to get one’s cynicism good and shaken.

Roads explored as a shortcut take a surprising turn, lead to complete East Indian villages, crumbling mansions, village square, cross and church, bargaining aunties, in the middle of bustling upmarket suburbs. Leaves you wondering, so often we pass by on the main thoroughfare, unaware and uncaring of the meandering lanes that lie beyond.

Karthik calling Karthik was brilliant. So bright it feels like a knife cut through your brain. Forces you to dispassionately look at your behavior. Yes, I must confess I ditched a tall stack of newspapers post the movie. Obsessive hoarding behavior, that.

http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2010/02/27/review-karthik-calling-karthik/

This just about matches my mood:
Zindagi khwab hai… khwab mein sach hai kya aur bhala jhooth hai kya..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6S3tpGsW-E

Another fiscal over. Another fiscal begins.
The pattern of my mornings, unchanging.
Offering stability to the day, anchoring it
That easy-paced walk, that chulha- chauka rush, the perfect round rotli, the rai- marchu seasoning.
This I will do, no matter what.
So that I can contemplate - Greece, GDP, Portugal, non existent global cues.
That hour and some of contemplation and deft moves is my fee, so as to be able to say “The emperor has no clothes.”

Yesterday, my morning was peppy and serotonin rich. Didn’t know a metformin dose increase could make your day go 3D and all smiles.

And every time I see the dawn sun I am reminded of a honed and copper hued Karna, striding home from the Ganges, beset by questions of identity and ethics. Questions that remain as yet unsolved.

Earlier this week I received my copy of Indian Literature (Nov- Dec issue).
With a tribute to the giant, Dilip Chitre. RIP.

Now, poetry and I keep each other at a safe, respectful distance, occasionally nodding.

But this is mind blowing; you know the sort that gives the nerve endings in some dull part of the brain a good shaking and hot water scrubbing, yes, add the bleach.

For once nothing matters. I can only sit up straight and agree wholeheartedly, salute and sigh, wring hands at the hundreds of sins of missed meaning and made-up line, after reading “The Translator”

also: http://varnamala.org/dilip_chitre.html.
(if you’re reading this, language warnings apply.)


The Translator

Dreaming in four different languages
And of the continents of silence
A man is f*cked up by the nagging problem of meaning
And cannot rest.
Translations are possible only when one is fully awake.
But at night, when one is a cave man who has lost his tribe,
Who can be a Renaissance Man?
The nameless painters of Altamira
Have been able to dream up
The Museum of Modern Art.
But who were the poets and translators of the cave?
Who crafted the first words out of wild corn
And the bones of animals?
Who told the first lies
Upon which our profession is based?
On waking, he soothes himself by asking difficult questions.
But once he goes to sleep,
His own ambivalence disturbs him,
Producing nightmares
Out of the savage silence of four different languages.

© Dilip Chitre

That awe-inspiring dose of marble and granite seemed out of place for a building in an industrial area. As did the art deco security block and the now-empty jharokha-like niches near the gate. So once upon a time this was a home, a manor. Complete with sit-out and terrace garden.
And then time moved on.

Last night the moon was a silver quarter pinned on black, silver spun spilling over. As I walked in the dark, wisps of conversations swirled around in the quiet, from all those times we’d sleep on the terrace when kids long long ago, sheets cool to the touch, blanket quickly pulled over head every time one heard a strange rustle in the night.

So I was a finalist for an international translation anthology but didn’t make the final cut. Whatever. It cuts.

Abhinav Bindra, the shooter and Olympic gold medalist, in today’s Mint offers an interesting read, specially that part about being positive as versus realistic.
http://www.livemint.com/2010/03/24222259/Bindra-begins-another-journey.html

Yesterday the US passed a bill for health care reform.
The intent, the scale- you have to admire them for their guts.
No one who needs medical attention should be turned away, no matter what,
Perhaps this is what access to health care means, not some meaningless slogan made for a conference and forgotten.
Health insurance for the poorest of the poor. Penalty if you don't buy insurance.
How will they pay for this?
Taxes on investment income at the individual level.
Arm twisting big pharma.
Negotiating with big insurance companies.
Robin Hood? Perhaps.
But if they get it to work...
Nothing short of amazing.

Yesterday I crossed 2000 words on a story.
2150 and done, to be precise.
Like me, my characters tend to summarize a para in a single "yes/no"
So this is big for me.
drumroll.

At the eyedoc's this morning, I came close to hyperventilating.
The parent couldn't get the washroom door to open after he'd locked himself in.
Anyway.

I like to walk.
To feel the stretch of muscle and sinew.
And the answering press of the earth, as it moulds the contours of your foot.
In time, you set a pace, heel-toe-heel.
A rhythm as real as the periodic bursts of chattering birdsong.
Or the cuckoo’s single, clean note.
Such is the lure of the earth, black and dew-fragrant.
About the orange orb beyond the march of trees;
Or the many many hues of generous green, I have yet to begin.

If you miss this connect with the earth, if you sit aloof and ac’ed, I think you miss big-time.
You lose sight of what is real.
What matters.
It is much more than aatey-daal ka bhav.
For a reason I cannot completely explain, it seems critical to be able to navigate crowds, to tiptoe past traffic snarls.
To keep time with the throb of the earth.
Heel-toe-heel.

For all the philosophy, pit-in-the-gut worry about a close friend’s illness woke me up in the middle of the night with a sudden jolt. Diverticulitis is not your common stomach bug, and thoughts of the very worst case persist, given her poor immunity and gazillion complications.
I wait. So far ok.

A 1950’s era Dodge in mint perfect condition, spotted last night.


Realizing more than ever the need for focus, for compartmentalization.
And for a calm start to the day.
No more morning mail check with tea. Lesser twitter.

At our own version of the 25 years service awards y'day, the show stealers were these pair of three year-old twins, quite happy picking up a gift box, one at a time, from one room and taking it to the other where the father was seated.
And in due course taking a gift box from him, one at a time, and back to the table.
So content.
So blissfully unaware. So happy.
Ho ha for form and protocol and seniors.

And B, with his 27 years in the mailroom, but two accomplished daughters he's put through professional courses. Life changing.

Open your eyes and see.
Such stunning colors.
Every morning the generous greens- fluorescent,dark, so many shades, an extravaganza.
Dew trembles on the tip of a bamboo leaf.
A completely bare tree, devoid of even a single leaf.
Oblivious.
Dewdrops shimmer, outline stretched silver branches.
Open your eyes and see.
And last night on my usual walk, from the basti behind the colony, the tremendous, riotous beat of a dholak - kartal and voices rising skywards.
I stood, mesmerized.


Here is a brilliant article on the craft of translation.
http://tinyurl.com/yapxnr7
Just for this single line “translation is not done with tracing paper” I could cook her a week’s worth of Gujju meals.
Lump-in-my-throat indebted.


Last night, Anwesha sang a classical piece in Amul Music ka maha muqaabala
Standing ovation. Goosebumps. Yes, tears.
From another lifetime, the words echo.

The writing is on the wall.
Yet, on a plain sheet stuck on the wall, the words read “I shall not surrender. I shall not give up.”
Or some such.
Yet he laughs and talks of the Bhagwat Geeta.
What will be, will indeed be. Neither thy piety nor thy wit.
Yet he laughs about fighting the good fight.
Even though as a quasi medical person handling neuro-psych all his life he knows exactly what this dirty tangle of neurons means.
I remind him about a field call to the top neuro in Madras almost twenty years ago.
He laughs, recalling anecdotes from long ago.
The top neuro from down south just spent three hours with him. A Christian discussing Chapter and verse of the Geeta.
Life is so weird.
~

Last week was sobering. Just one working day, the rest in meetings.
Meals precooked and frozen.
If there were a Refrigerator God, I’d pray at this shrine.
My desk, my home and my mailboxes are a mess.
From the air, the bright line dividing day and night looks just as stunning.
In Delhi, the kesu were in bloom, a fresh suit of blossoms transforming ordinary-looking trees.
And on landing, Bombay’s carpet of lights on velvet still looked like a living, pulsating being, drawing one in.
~

L’s home--when I reach it in the meandering bylanes of that farflung suburb-- that home is beautiful.
More so for what it stands for. Human will and a dream, beyond textbk hype.
A courage I am blessed to witness. Perhaps I will learn some.
I will pray for you, Sister said.
I'm humbled.

In the dark of the night, the flames of the holika had burst to life, furious orange- red flames rising to the sky...I'd turned away from the searing heat,teary and red faced, prefering to offer my salutations from a distance.I'd long stared at the flame, the ultimate divider between life and not life. So many life events unfold to the witness of the flames.As much a part of life as the colors,the riot of red, green and orange that were splashed on the tar roads the next morning.I've come to terms with a collegue's shocker diagnosis from last week, and the fight to the finish. To life.

For all the people googling for "Gulmohar" and reaching my page.

Another 23rd.
So I watched the day carefully today to see if it would be any different, if it showed any sign of being your special day; but the sunrise was just as powerful, golden dust dancing in the air, and the day had the same sort of busy-ness as it usually does, demanding an account of each moment; and in the evening the hill in the distance seemed as serene, covered with a peach mist; and I often think of timezones, your being here and being in another sphere another lifetime, and realized despite the lack and lacking a limb and comfortable in the hard shell, it is still a celebration.

An anthology allows you to taste fleetingly, sample and move on if you will, nice knowing-you, no commitment and no hard feelings. Sometimes the words strike a chord and resonate, sometimes the words cleanse your neurons of the gunk accumulated and force you to sit up straight.

Like Salinger, and well, Bananafish.

Like Ruth Praver Jhabvala and that incredibly intricate abstract in Mirrorwork.

Links to a Jhabvala story from the New Yorker archives here:http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/07/28/080728fi_fiction_jhabvala?currentPage=all#ixzz0fyou6x2M

Sunrises on clear morning continue to enthrall. Pink and white and a tinge of orange, a dash of clouds overhead; and the eucalyptus tall and proud, each individual leaf outlined like a mughal miniature. Dew trembling at the edge of bamboo leaves and the bougainvillea rushing mad in its generosity.

Amit, thanks for the Beautiful blog award, and I shall do this tag in bite sized pieces, for to write an entire post would be completely too much.
Baroda? The warmth of home and the sadness of old places past their prime. Kalyan shabby and faded, resigned to its fate; empty and without a chaat counter, no bhel, what a sacrilege for a spot once famous for this comfort food. The ASE premises now rubble on a vacant corner lot, once upon a time the country’s best, most modern, shining steel and technology-proud pharma plant occupied these vast lands. The malls that line the corner seem a mockery. Once upon a time I’d interned here.

More on that 1960’s vintage movie, The Singing Sisters (a rather sweet tale about a nun who produces an international hit with her rendition of a hymn):

The contrast with backstory (via wikipedia) is shocking; a tale peppered with grief and failure, rich in texture and layers, something Faulkner would have written. I read about this particular nun’s decision to leave the order, try and establish a career with music and fail, try and build a poorhouse, and then be hounded by the government for back taxes so much so that she and her partner take their lives. The story hasn’t left me, though its been a few days since.

And in miracles, suddenly at five past six this morning the CD drive on my comp, for long given up as dead and a traitor, certified as such by technician—well, it began to hum and function again. Of its own will and fancy, and wonders will never cease.

And the 9 kids who died in Pune's terrorist blast. RIP.
I wont let myself think of the parents. Not yet.

In the last few days I’ve OD’ed on movies, the result of a cable upgrade; The White balloon, The Singing Nuns and on Showtime, Love aaj kal. Vastly different story strengths and production values to each. Yet, for its simplicity, the White balloon touched my heart even though I know not a word of Persian.

A sufi singer listens to a flute recital and touches something in the air, gesticulating as if he is meeting an old friend or spots a thing of much wonder, amazed, as if he is picking up something only he can see. Such is the delight of special sunrises, and bougainvillea in overflowing pinks.
To life!

The last week has been hectic. To sum it up, meeting after meeting across cities, hour after hour till one’s head was spinning, on the positive side it only strengthened one’s resolve. And then the matter of setting the home ready before, meals and all; and in some modicum of working order after. The first time in three years that I’ve missed my weekly writing, and how it rankles. All mailboxes running overfull. A modicum of order restored now, almost in control.

Watched y’day a fragment of The White Balloon. So simple and so stunning.
Also began Mirrorwork with a story by Manto titled Toba Tek Singh. Beautiful, to make the reader laugh and cry at will.

Thinking about the wild turns- crazy loops- that destiny takes.

Things I want to remember from the last few days:

That lucid lucent enormous moon, with that halo around. And how HUGE and red it looked past the dark of neem branch + leaves the next dawn.

That ice water/scathing shock of one’s first-ever Salinger.
A perfect day for bananafish. Read.

Could I reassemble a watch by myself? A simple, rustic old fashioned watch? Stunned. Yet I, my mind will question. Why will it not accept?

The curve of the beach from that vantage point, the peach and blue like crayon color on the horizon. Leaving footsteps in the wet sand. A runaway for ten minutes pre-meetings. The hiss of the wash and the sand-designs of crabs. The advancing high tide. The barking strays that turned happy once I inched closer.

Listening to CB even if for ten min. He speaks from the heart. Even if he mumbles a little. Still reading. A would have majorly run her red pencil across most pages.How impressive what M has done, dividing time so he can do what he wants to do, repaying a debt to life.

The random leaf patterns in that concrete path- smart idea.

Shubha Mudgal, a salaam.
Its the way her voice surges, conquers all three scales.
Fluid magic...
Nothing delicate or tinny about this.Robust, rich and soaring to the skies.
Ooncha balamji ka des...
These words have been echoing all day.
The manner in which the beat sounds.
Perhaps its the blend of passion and mysticism in the verse. That's what the reviews say.
Anyway, I don't understand any of that.
Something good came from that RIP Worldspace.
I took the dust covers off the music system.

songs:
http://www.dishant.com/album/shubha_mudgal_-_chaahat.html

reviews:

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040110/windows/audioscan.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2003/12/18/stories/2003121800810300.htm

Yesterday we watched Aah. Raj Kapoor- Nargis. Vintage 1953.
Perhaps it was the b & w photography, that play of shadow and light with an ethereal Nargis.
Perhaps it was the music, melodious, lilting Shankar Jaikishan. And some of that background score, specially the shivranjani which made the leap to a full number in Mera Naam Joker two decades later.
The locations, with luxurious homes that look like homes. The beauty of the outdoors in b&w, light streaming past trees.
Perhaps it was the simplicity of the storyline.Linear and unlayered.
Perhaps because it reminds me of simpler values and times.

Added: I must not forget the vintage furniture, lovely retro cupboards and that settee with an inbuilt bookshelf- smart.

How completely vulnerable does friendship (or what goes for friendship) make one, jagged edges and fluffy side up, open to conjecture and examination.
Which is why when someone goes completely silent without any reason, I tremble and go for a toss.
To me, where I'm coming from, based on my history, it is a slight, a personal rejection.
I don't do rejections too well. I thrive on acceptance, assurance. Gimme my security blanket.
Crazy? You bet it is.
So it was marvelous to sit by your side, hear your story, the dribbles, fragments and pieces you chose to share.
While knowing all the time, very likely you'll clam up, pack and move once again, home as you know it.
It was worth the hour long walk looking for an auto, and worth that plea to the cabbie, and the late hour.
Life lesson for me-- take people as they are.
As is, where is.
I'll try. Irrespective of the jagged edges.

My biggest problem is that I write panoramic. MGM style, big scale.
I don’t do the close-up.
By the time I get to zoom in, the word count is done, khatam and its time to close shop.
And I write Indian. Which means I expect a reader to know backstories, cultural stuff like honor killings and the caste system.
I have a thick skin for “no’s” and getting thicker.
That, or write about the familiar, write for the firang reader-- which seems such a sell out.

On trees bereft and bare, new leaves unfurl.
Let them demolish one road-- I'll find another.
(Quite literally--my regular shortcut is lost to a construction project.)

All I wanted to say was thank you. For not considering the state of Gujarat to be the abode of witless lumpens with rubber spines and vacant sawdust brains.
For this basic courtesy and decency, as a proud Gujarati- thank you.

I am quite fed up of the spate of vicious attacks on the state. One nasty but obvious reason is the preponderance of people from other states in the media, paired with the less than perfect economic plight of their home states.

While 2002 was a tragedy and chaos of the worst order, which state in the country has been free of a law and order machinery breakdown? What happened cannot and should not be excused. And this stands true for several cringe-worthy events in the country.

High time the country as a whole get its act in order- stop picking on Gujarat, stop sneering every time the name of the state is taken.

Yesterday I read my first-ever Alice Munro short story.
I was dazed at the close.
She brings her reader to a place that is unsettling, strange and yet known, and leaves them there, letting them draw their own conclusions, so much said unsaid. Perhaps that is the best way, a quicksilver shorthand that the clued-in reader grasps, and for the rest it does not matter.
Amazing mastery of the craft.

Link added:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/12/27/1999_12_27_110_TNY_LIBRY_000019900

Early, much much too early most morning I watch you breathe in, breathe out, my ears tense for any change in pitch, any unusual rasping. Much too soon the day begins and with it your labored coughing. The kid syrup antibiotic has been measured and now the bottle is empty, we take recourse to traditional remedies and I pray turmeric and ginger rev up your immune system and give you the strength to challenge, to fight back and vanquish, and it is afterall, only a cold. As ailments go, this is but a cold, but one that has lasted too long, or so I think. I fuss too much.

On the to-read list: Mirrorwork. An anthology of Indian writing.

Haiti.
What havoc.
Brings back memories of Kutch-Amdavad, Latur.
Also that catastrophe with our western neighbor. Also China, when entire buildings collapsed, that school building, remember?
Why does the earth get so angry, so often.
Why this indifference and disgust?
Or does periodic anguish serve to tie the world together.
A reminder of our common fate?

One picture.
So many interpretations.
So many tales of fractured perception.
Been busy, scrolling through the subs on the site, and occasionally, commenting.

Tomorrow's Uttarayan, the kite flying festival.
Color squares soaring heavenwards.
Great post here:

http://amitsmusings.blogspot.com/2010/01/uttarayan-time.html

Dust storms


http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/2010/01/entry-61.html


Way down the list-- the 61st entry.

In the deluge, not a chance.

But would be delighted if you'd read.


I *think* this one of my "not-bad" efforts.

Why now?
A day ago, I came across Susan Boyle’s demo track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSLdWg96L1Y
She’s singing her version of Roberta Flack’s Killing me softly.
The “rip it straight from the gut and soar to the skies” premise of her Britain’s got talent debut—that’s missing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
Why?
If anything, she’s way older now.
So what prompted that insouciance. That cheek. That “I don’t quite give a damn.” That causes her voice to open up and let go?
What caused it now?
The person is the same, the voice the same, If anything, older.
And would this earth-stopping performance have been possible without the simply-ok demo track?
Destiny, nasseeb, fate—why did they wait to kick in now?

Some lines of deep thought, solitude and contemplation I’d read recently, took me back to this poem.

Taught to us by the ever-patient Mrs. Arora in Class 10. Thirty years ago.
Almost every word difficult, every word underlined for meaning.

The line that stayed with me was--
“Jivan ka antim dhyey svayam jeevan hai”

Thanks to googledevta, I found the entire poem here:

http://www.prayogshala.com/poems/dinkar-Vijayi-ke-sadrish-jiyo-re

(The title in our text book was Parshuram ke Updesh.Yes, I remember.)

The verse has the mighty roar of battle in the way the words build up.
It took me all these years to understand the meaning.Somewhat understand.

This is just that critical stanza, my version with due apologies:

The purpose of life is not fame or wealth
Not peace, not a search for truth, not even an insight divine
Not science, not knowledge, not mighty strength nor philosophy
In the final summing up, the purpose of life is life itself.

Serene full moon. In a bed of fluffy clouds.
A million lights deck the distant Gurudwara.
The strains of a kirtan in the chill air.
Peace.

Joyous 2010.

I'm delighted to announce that a story, Maestro, is published in the Jan issue of the CWC West Valley newsletter.
http://cwcwestvalley.org/newsletter.aspx
All thanks to Kathy Highcove, a colleague in the IWW.

#





Bassein Fort.
A citadel by the sea. Built in the 16th C.
A seat of Portuguese power for centuries.
And then won over by the Marathas in the 1700’s, in a bloodless coup.
What a tremendous, busy, IMPORTANT place it must have been.


The carriages rolling past, the ladies in rustling silks.
The click of the cavalcade, boots marching in formation.
Church bells ringing out. Hymns from the many convents and chapels.


Bazaars and conference rooms, offices of dignitaries. Stately grandeur.
And now.
Desolate.
Just the quiet. And the cry of the bulbul. The rushed wings of egrets soaring tree high.
Walls in ruins. Just arches and outlines. Solitary bell towers and facades.


Sunlight and shadows on worn stone.
Some repair work- forget restoration, they’re using cement. And factory made concrete blocks in place of stone.
One church has been reclaimed. Rebuilt, using modern materials. A service is in progress.The teak doors are gone, the walls are cement-plastered. Who allowed this? Is this better than the walls

falling apart? I have no answers.


In rare spots, you can still see some chisel work. Floral designs and niches. In which age would the rest have been carted away?

And the chatter of sundry bird-watchers, stalking about, disturbing the dead.

What amazing trees. Trees all a jumble. Species I’ve never seen before, that tall silver tree, sentinel like, all branches, no leaves…later I learn this is a native of Madagascar.

So many palms. Date trees. Mango trees. Jumbles of undergrowth and trees, impenetrable. Beyond all these, the shadows of ghosts flitting past.The forest has reclaimed what it owned.


You step gingerly on worn stone steps, many broken.
From the ramparts, the view is beautiful. Green and gold as far as the eye can see.
Watch with envy the sheer energy of that 65-year old, the hardiest and most confident of the group.
Later, you realize you’ve missed out on the tombstones and the two gates. Next time, perhaps.
The best pictures are here.
After a while, my camera malfunctioned. Perhaps in the rightness of things.
A big thanks to BNHS for making this possible.

Coming down Kane Road (quaint!) the sea is a generous, glittering carpet that dissolves into a riot of pink and purples; but first the magical climb up the steps to Mt Mary’s and a quick darshan of mai the compassionate decked in spectacular shining blue.

Note to self- next time you’re scheduled to meet someone from another generation, carry a book.

RIP Worldspace. You will be much missed by the parent.

Yesterday, over the buzz of the busy restaurant our guest discussed country growth projections for 2010-11, how real/how artificial, all stimulus related airy froth or not; and looking around at brash abundant prosperity I wondered, sitting here in chill luxury that is not something that can be figured out at all. Moong dal @90/- per kg is atrocious, nevertheless.

On my walk last night, I ran into a group of carol singers, melodious "Silent Night, Holy night"; how the mind craves a surprise.
Beautiful lights, pinpoints on velvet.

Scents waft through my busy Sunday
Fresh ginger, crushed and stored
Coriander-cummin, roasted and powdered
Cardamom and cloves, powdered and bottled.
That faded photo of a smiling girl in navratri finery, posing in a circle of light so bright I shade my eyes…what fragrance is that?

I do not win the lottery. Or lucky draws.
Or have lady luck shower her benediction. Generally.
Nope. Just the way it is.
So I was stunned when my friend M mailed, in our flurry of whatyou’redoin daily mails, “Hey you know what? AB Corp actually replied.”
“Really?”
“They’ll try fit us in, they’ll get back later.”
“So we’ll see later.” No point in building great hopes.
Not that I’m star struck. Or a celebrity hounder. Hell, film mags weren’t allowed at home when we were growing up. And I went close to a decade with NO movies-- I was sulking.
But Amitabh Bachchan? Sholay and Muquaddar ka Sikander and Abhimaan and Zanjeer and Black and the Last Lear.And AAA. And KBC- “Lock kar diya jaye”!
AB is AB. AB is God.
And that “later”? The closer it got to the big day; I had a hunch it would work out.
And yes, it did.
We kept it a secret from our friend K.
She has health issues and can get happily hyper. So a last-minute secret.

The previous evening, I check out from work early, feeling like a kid bunking school.
The four of us meet for the first time ever at a MacD’s, and then proceed to a movie, to Paa.
What a crazy, noisy meet. Strangers look at us and grin.
Then the big moment.
We show K the address slip.
With a flourish. And a straight face.
“We’re going here tomorrow. You know what this is?” Squeals and whoops. A Kodak moment. An “Oh I can’t believe this!” moment.
(The movie leaves me thoughtful. But more of that later.)
“What shall we give him?”
What do you give a man who has the world at his feet? Demi-God status for millions?
L says we get him a card. Something personal. Something us.
I use letter paper that I’ve hoarded for the last ten years. And sneak in a translation.
The next afternoon, I take a half day off.
We meet at Kailash Parbat for lunch. We draw curious looks with all the laughter and leg pulling.
“Must leave by 3.30, the man’s a stickler for punctuality…”
L has no card—she’s been up all night with an allergy. So she creates a card from an envelope minutes before we enter the office. That’s L.
The office is a lovely 4 storeyed building, right on the key road.
But first we go all over Juhu Gaothan, asking people for directions.
We are ushered in through the gates..
Climbing past a tasteful pichwai featuring the big B, we reach a meeting room.
And we wait.
A wall length portrait of the man has K almost devotional. “The great man himself… oooh what shall I say?”
And I tease her some more.
Footsteps. Someone checks for tea, coffee, anything? L says she’ll have AB.
And I look at the art, the books. The inland letters with smudged handwriting, framed on the wall.
And then the big man himself.
Hugs, so much laughter. I touch his feet.
We talk. L asks him to identify us, a mix-up.
And we sit across the table and talk.He’s so genuine, so DARN nice.
All this while his blackberry is beeping, his cell is silent.
AB invites us for a photoshoot! The studio is on the next floor.K is escorted up in the lift.
As shot after shot is composed,
We witness one of India’s top photographers in action.
We witness what a perfectionist AB can be.
And what a natural.
We get a group photo. With the Big Man.
Then we present our cards, and ask permission to shoot – on our point and cliks.
And for autographs.
And are gifted copies of Paa.
By now we’re fretful, we’ve taken entirely too much of his time.
There is one more surprise.
He escorts us to the gate! (Baba is so impressed when he hears this)
We take our leave and we go Prithvi-wards, to noisily discuss, dissect and tease over a cup of coffee.
We’re still mesmerized.I am.
Thank you, for making me believe. That I'm lucky. Sometimes.

Mr AB is stunning.
Just back.

Correction: Mr. AB is stupendous in person.
So genuine. So warm.
More later.

What do you take for someone who has the world?
The chiffon of the dawn doesn’t keep well
And the radiant greens of that fluorescent bush must have the rust crotons to set off.
Ditto the dewdrop trembling bamboo-edge. I fret.
And that proud eucalyptus burnished high
Yet to go empty handed? Nothing?
Books, chocolates, flowers --all old, very old
I don't know
So, what do you take for someone who has the world…
Sudama-like: a handful of grain, some salt, flecks of sugar?

Can dreams come true?
Out of the realm of possibility, Impossible dreams?
Never-ever imagined dreams?

The kid would have been ecstatic.
That's the only thought nagging me.How she would have jumped at this.
I'm the pessimist of the first order-the typical worst case bear
Don't draw the lucky card-for ever the last in the row.
I return to being dazed, gape...oh my!
My mind plays and replays scenes, snatches of speeches.
So many thoughts, nostalgia, the taste of forgotten popcorn in the dark...

Tomorrow I meet friends I have met everyday.
For the past year, every day.
"Hey what's up... what's happening.. what did you cook/read/see/ write/ think?"
This once I meet them in person.
With a movie, we celebrate, and what a movie.

Last week I received the best rejection letter. And the biggest ever surprise.

“Thankyouforyourtime” I typed, all jumbled.
Not a form rejection. No, sir.
From a hi-fi site. Literary topnotch
Amazing.. .Someone actually took the time.
Prescriptive. Sensible.
Told me: this is nice, that is nice, but this is missing. Bigtime.
To correct- do this, do that.
Made a ton of sense. Held a mirror.
Once I’d moved out of a sulk, which took some doing, it made a ton of sense.


Ever walked into an once- buzzing store where all the shelves are empty now, except for frayed greens? Ghostly feeling.

I continue to be amazed at changing frames of reference. Something that was life-blood, now is not. Just not. Good to know.

Paul Samuelson, RIP. Still remember the heft of that economics textbook.

The Paranjoti choir singing Hallelujah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRq9XSaco-g

Kaisi paheli zindagani from Parineeta, very 60’s, stylish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2pF4FadJo0

And elsewhere, a celebrity author is hounded on twitter.
And elsewhere, a bunch of thugs from a nationalist right party vandalizes a school and pulls off a nun’s headgear. Then puts up a Christmas do.
See why I abhor crowds?

Dholavira.
About 3000 BC.
(I can't even think back that far)
Who were they, what happened suddenly for an impressive city state to vanish?
Did the earth plate twist, draining an ocean?
But in a story, you can take these outlines and dream as you wish: See the masts of those dhows at anchor?

Last night, at a sarod- sitar concert at the NGMA:
The music cascaded like gently flowing water, a salve, and then with a flourish exploded into a million sharp shreds, each pure note rendered to scratch deep and uncover secrets best left untold.
On the long walk back to the station, I smiled at the ghosts flit by in the shadows on uneven cobblestones.

I read, I wrote, I worked, I cooked.
And for specific reasons, I found a new degree of respect for myself.
I stand taller.

Mindblowing. Awesome.
Tremendous two days at a scriptwriting workshop. Introductory.
Not that I have a ready and bound script knocking on bollywood’s doors.
Far from it.
But I know it can be done.
Tough, like pulling your teeth out—but it can be done.
Crazily intense ten hours, over two days.
Of thinking – a lot.
Of learning.
Of knowing how little one knows and how there are tons and tons of movies one will never catch up with. So many.
I was in a minority of one, the Hindi film enthusiast.
Shree 420, 27 down, Aag, Aah, Jagtey raho,Chalti ka naam gadi, Devdas, Sholay, Masoom, Mr. India—these are my best of the best.
Ok, Casablanca and Gone with the wind.
But this is my sensibility—my roots.
Amazing three line exercise.
So much of thinking, analysis. Great group.
Returned all charged.
Thank you, Anuvab Pal.
And then the pilgrimage to Mt Mary, climbing all flights of stairs. Stairs that go on and on.
The mind busy seeing the unseen, thinking up tales from the glossy homes and shanties around.

In the last week and half, I learnt something new about myself.
One: that I have very little patience with a totally different value system. I will switch off scorching dislike. But you will never know.
Two: that I can let myself be upset terribly by misfortune and mishaps that happen to others. This is stupid.
Must learn to disassociate.
And manage time better.
Must.

Trying to get back into the usual home-work-home.
So many images. So many that won’t go away.

Two days in town- early morning rush, braving the traffic.
Waiting in the Chambers at the Taj. Searching for any remnant of what happened here a year ago.The room where scared guests were shepherded and safe for a while. Until the over enthu media gave away the hideaway. Then they were hunted down.
No- no bullet marks, everything perfect, papered over.
I look at the curtains and the terrace outside. The guests must have braided curtains like these to escape. I look at the signages on the loos and think about those butchered inside and those that got away. Fluke, luck.
We move to a smaller room for the presentation. The sepia photos of the erstwhile rulers- the Prince of this and the King of that- are still on the wall. The table is different. That was a HUGE table, a square one. Looked for logical reasons why they must have changed it.
That day ends in a whirlwind of meetings and endless traffic, red taillights stretch up the over bridge and beyond, the cables on the sealink like silver spun against the deep.

Tuesday was all day at the Taj, a day of meetings in a room overlooking the Gateway, counting the glittering yatch at anchor, watching the reflection of the pillars of the Gateway shimmer on the glass of the botanical sketch in the room. One is supposed to be working, but one can’t stop thinking—did the people here get away? The vibes are terrible, but of course the view is beautiful, it always was, that stone sentinel and the sea beyond.

More was to follow. A condolence visit for a youth cut down in his prime,despite the best treatment money can buy. The only son of seriously rich parents, leaves a daughter not yet five.

And the close of evening at the Turf Club, the glittering skyline past the dark of the concourse, shivering, watching and clapping as the best of India shining are feted, even as the other India looks on from the stands– helpers, assistants, the dish-washer boys. Someone there turns a radio on high volume, and I wonder how long.

And on Thursday at a literary meet I hear Darryl d’Monte speak, a man so fearless no newspaper owner could bear him, a man so brave he’s stood by the truth regardless of which camp- builders, organized millworkers or ganglords- it would have upset. Amazing.

And now trying to get my breath back after having rushing down six floors after a colleague felt a tremor. Someplace 6.30 ish the earth moved.


Can’t get over ruckus I created at the eye doc’s this morning. Unlike gentle me…so every ten min for two hours instilled eye drops for the parent, and offered him a running commentary of the bollywood news-on-a-loop on the tiny tv…


AFTER which the parent and I went up and down the bylanes of Bandra, turning left and right and left again, assisted by a very sincere autofellow, looking for a building THE HUB, asked n no of people, asked the policeman on the beat, asked this that and the other (and all this after the said ruckus at the doc). I remembered the name incorrectly. Bah

So Cyclone Phyan brought the great big metro to its knees, mocked and roared with devilish glee, and then turned and sashayed to the Konkan where it left a swathe of devastation.
900+homes destroyed.
110 fishermen lost at sea
Crop damage
Just how powerful and unpredictable nature is.

I think of the bright star I’d seen this dark morning,
I’m glad to have bright sunshine back.
Peace.

Last week, after the gremlins in my pc’s hard disk had sobered and the machine began purring instead of sounding like an engine with a bad cough, I chanced upon this magical trailer of A Christmas Carol.
Some of the pics have a quaint English card feel, very 60’s. Magical.
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/450714/A-Christmas-Carol-Walt-Disney-/trailers

And it brought back memories of another time, of a thick tome of Dickens' best stories once upon a time issued from the Old State library, the one in the old city, near the imposing Mandvi gate. It may have been an early edition, but the book was leather bound, had intricate drawings and delicate butterpaper covering the page with the sketch. I kept the book out for more than I should, a few years perhaps, and then finally paid all fines and returned it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, it must have found its way to a dump in some spring cleaning session.
And I keep thinking about how we always carry bits of our past with us, and how this defines- almost always- future reactions, no matter what.

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.

I will have a short story in the Celebrate Bandra souvenir that Caferati is putting together, after an open call for entries. This is one among two stories selected for print.

I remember that time in 2006 when my sub had got trashed for a book that Caferati had compiled. I got a well-deserved four marks out of 25 or some such.

No prize- the prizes went to essays and poems, but that’s fine.
I got my prize.

TY, Internet Writing Workshop.
TY, Mister God.

At the final pages of Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair.
Finally. Just as dazed.
Before this, I was comfortable in my skin. Before this.
Akhila’s story. Akhilandeswari’s story.
Possibly, the story of every single (as in unmarried, unattached) forty-five year old woman who lives in India.
At one level, this is the tale of six women—strangers who are co-travellers in a second class ladies compartment.
At one level, its not.

I read the words in italics before the start of her story; the blood in my veins congeals. Mirror image, mine. I read on, and it is as if someone cut through my veins with a sharp knife.

How did she know what if feels like? How did she know all this, this staying at the edges, unwelcome, this wary distrust that every breach of confidence adds to, this brittle sense of appearances? About being cast away, anchorless, till you find your will, your personal North to navigate by, and know that you are your own savior?

How does she know all this? How did she manage to think up these characters? Now, to write like one is, is pretty easy; but to write like one is not- oh la! Whether it is the fragile-as-a-piece-of-glass housewife Janaki, who at sixty-something clambers for a voice to call her own, or the lower strata tamil help Marikonlathu who talks with ease of a lifetime sweeping and mopping, always taking care to stay away from the wandering eye—how did she manage this, this authenticity?

The writing is Indian as the story is, it is fluid and effortless but above all it is unabashedly Indian, there is the music of the land in its cadences. It is difficult to put this into a genre, if this is a romance then it is a romance with oneself.

Awesome work.


Update: for all the languid beauty of the rest of the text, the ending is a whopper. Perhaps deadlines or market forces wormed in their influence. Not because her transformation into Scarlet O’Hara is sudden or disconcerting, but Akhila’s behavior is way off the golden mean that runs like a thread in the rest of this work.
No, something’s off here, and the reader is left askance, adrift.

Walking through the unfamiliar-- the crowded, twisting and turning lanes of Kalbadevi, Bhuleshwar in inner city Mumbai on Saturday.

Enroute to Mumbadevi temple. Mumbadevi, the patron Goddess of this megacity of Mumbai. The second time in eleven years.

Past the squashed buildings, crunched for space. Tumbledown builidings.Stately is hard to find. New construction dots the skyline here, too.
Ornate building entrances with grand archways, glimpses of dilapidated homes.
Single room homes in crowded apartments that still bear fancy grills, remnants of another age.
Past so many temples. So many.
Raja so- and so- built this temple. These lanes must then have been too narrow for a hansom, did he walk here?

What a strange thought- My forefathers must have walked these very same roads. They must have jostled past these crowds, prayed here too.
Naav nadi sanjog- as the line from the song goes.
Fate- destiny- happenstance.

~


Maihar band. Baba Ustad Allaudin Khan sahib’s famous Maihar Band (and I touch my ears).
The only orchestra to play classical music in the Hindustani tradition.
The Hindustani system favors individual dexterity and freedom in the exploration of the notes of a raga… but for an orchestra?!
They performed at Bhavan’s Cultural Center, even as dusk fell and a quiet took over the setting. A lake lined by lights. By mango trees decked in green lights. By the palms swaying in lilt. And rain clouds that rumbled overhead…
Swaranjali. Kirwani. Shyam kalyan.
A complete orchestra- from jaltarang, sitar to flute and cello..
What dexterity and co-ordination.
Imagine taking tans and alaaps with every single of the ten performers not missing a beat.
What attention, what restraint and practice must this require! Bravo!
Later, a virtuoso Pandit Basant Kabra performed on the sarod, a lilting desh,
But my mind was trying to recollect and grasp the notes of the desh bandish we had learnt long long ago.
I could not remember, for all my trying—and I never forget words, never…
Sanjog.

Another Oct 4th.
The skies are overcast.
Moisture rolls off the rubber leaves and chandni.
Wet cobblestones reflect the whole wide sky.
In peace.