30 years of a lovely moment in life.

1988. I am sitting on a culvert. My close friend is standing beside me. It's dusk. The magical time between the day and the night. Around 6.30 pm. A song floats in the air. Ghazab ka hai din socho Zara. We both fall silent and hear the song coming to us quite clearly through the still night. It finishes. He says "Anand Milind" and I say "Yeah". We both keep quiet. He's got to go back and rejoin his college for the fifth semester. I am done with college. My third year exams were just over the day before and I had arrived that very day from Hyderabad. Small window of opportunity that we both had and could meet each other before we both left town again the next day. Me to get a job. He to finish his education. But the mind wasn't on ourselves and our lives. It was on a young man with a red bike and a young smiling woman who had said "wow" on screen. Aamir. Juhi. It was a summer of love. So many young men and women had ceased living an ordinary life and dared to dream that love was possible and standing up to oppressive families was highly possible too. So many young men and women went off on those surreptitious rides to the countryside on a red bike. Preferably, Ind - Suzuki. Like the lovers in the film. The songs were on everyone's lips. Papa kehte Hain and the aforesaid Gazab ka hai din were ruling the charts. The parents dismissed off the film with a puny hero with limited acting skills and a hackeneyed love story as a flash in a pan. But they didn't know of the feelings it created in us. I was on a double high. The young lady with whom I had gone to see the film a week before in the middle of my exams had casually commented that I looked like the hero on screen. I spent an extraordinary five minutes more in front of a pocket sized mirror when I got back to my room that day. And as soon as I got back to the parental home, another young lady repeated the compliment that morning. Exultation was an understatement. We sat and discussed the film. Actually, it was the first time I was discussing the film rather nicely and in detail. Those hurried snatches of brief discussions in college, with mates barely interested in anything besides Marketing management (it was one of our last exams and no one seemed to have studied anything), were unfulfilling. We departed. Quietly. We knew we wouldn't be seeing each other for a long time. We didn't, but that's another story altogether. Yet we weren't sad. For there was.. Qayamat se Qayamat Tak. Today, it's exactly 30 years to the day. The long sighs and the shy smiles across the rooms are remembered. Yes people, it was the summer of love. Gazab ka hai din socho Zara. And to think that our kids might think it's a Zara ad. Sillies!! #30yearsOfQSQT

Fear is the key

The river is fast moving. The boats are tethered to the sides by hand sized anchors that grip the grassy knolls and don't allow the boat to flow away. Grass is always knotty and if the anchor is thrown with force, it goes in and the natural pull of the boat in the water creates the claw grip that holds the anchor. Silaboti is the river that flows by our parental home. I am still confused as to which tributory of Silaboti this actually is. I have tried learning it from maps. No real success. But they are happy to call it Silaboti and miles away, in the town of Ghatal, they call that Silaboti too. The river feeds water to all the farms on both sides of the river. All our lands received water from this river. This was by pumps fitted to boats. On a good day, one could walk through the river with water till the waist. In spate, one had to swim across or be prepared to walk submerged for about 8-9 seconds in the middle of the expanse. The bamboo grows wild on both sides of the river in clumps. The pipes from the pumps in the boats went through this bamboo forests straight into the fields beyond. Irrigation happened. The red party used to be enforcing rules of all kinds to create their own version of social order in the villages on both sides. So, in the fitness of things all the pumps left in the boats started to get robbed. The pumps used to be tied to the boats and the pipes stuck to it's spouts. They removed the pipes and the pumps in the dead of the night and transferred it to robber boats and went off downstream. Fun is, all of us, especially my uncles knew who were behind this. But the drama was that one had to go to the party office and report the theft. They would call the thana officer in charge (OC) and relate the way the FIR was to be written. Then they would call for a meeting and decide what the farmer (that's us) should pay the robber to get back the pump. We paid. Pump was miraculously returned to it's rightful place that very night. We, of course, carried the pump back to the house immediately. We didn't do irrigation in the night untenanted. An uncle used to go and sit with the pump if the water was being pumped into the fields in the night too, during the paddy fields sowing periods. You'd wonder why we had to pay when the pump was ours. But that's how political help works. Firstly, the party is in cahoots with the robbers too. The robbers are village folk during the day. They are among us. We know them. So, we don't or can't do anything when they steal on the command of the party. Then, the robbers are paid very measly amount from the ransom we pay. It's their work for the party. Or the party will kill one of theirs too. So, they did what they did. The party enriched itself like this. The party too was made of people like us. The district secretary actually shared my surname too. That party was thrown out of power in 2011. Enter Trinamool. What I hear is the same. Only the name has changed. Amplify this. Replace river and pumps with other places and objects. Replace the red party with any other colour party nationally or regionally. It's the same. Robber barons. Fear is the key. It's why all parties of note have given tickets to family barons among politicians vying for tickets in Karnataka. They bring wins and they have an ironhold on the electorate with their claws anchored around the necks of the voters. The families, of course, shift parties and receive tickets from other friendly parties immediately, if their home party does not give a ticket. They are the system. They are the river. That takes. The farmers and other poor pay taxes actually. This way. To this system.

The missing DJ and the cover up

2001. Am starting to sweat. It's about 8 pm. The guests have arrived in the function hall. The food is being served. My manager has already been to my office some five times. I have been on the phone some ten times. The clamour from the guests was just about starting to happen. Where's the DJ? DJ. The guy who stands in the console. He puts in the CDs and the vinyl and music happens in the discotheque in front. Then people dance. That DJ had reported that he was on the way. From where, I didn't know. But somewhere in the city. City being Kolkata. Frankly, Kolkata and the area that we were situated in is not very difficult to arrive at. Car. Bus. Metro. Whatever. 30 to 40 minutes tops. But here he was, being Mr. India for over an hour from scheduled arrival. I stood behind the console and wanted something good to happen. I boxed the wall. My fist hurt. No, hurting oneself wasn't going to do any good. Something more creative as a solution, please. We had a few CDs in stock. Gleaned from a few DJs who had wanted to go home early and had just left some mixes with us. I could play them but people are unique in India. They wanted to see a DJ, show their love for him as they danced. So, needed someone in there. Okay, enough was enough. Called the electrician. Put on the console. He did. Some yays happened in the assembled crowd. They thought that the imminent arrival of the DJ should be celebrated with yells. I had pulled off my coat and tie. My white shirt was conspicuous but it would have to do. I could happily pull off through 10-11 numbers. Safe songs that people would always dance to. But a couple of them knew I was the hotel management too. So, I decided to be honest when the time came. The console was ready. I stepped in. Told the electrician to be around just in case I fouled up. He told me that here's where you insert your first CD and select the song to play. Not much Ado. I had in mind what could bring the crowd alive. Get them going without worrying too much about me. Koi kahe from Dil Chahta hai. The host of the party and his brother were trying to make their way to the console when the song came on and the people erupted and there was no way they could make it anymore. The floor shook as people jumped their hearts out. I had to keep up the tempo. So, the last line reduced at one end and I flipped the next CD on, the song selection in place. Made in India by Alisha The crowd roared and the floor reverberated. The hosts we're still not able to make their way to the console. They had paid for a DJ and here I was, substituting. Normally, here's where DJs yell to the crowd, "are you guys enjoying" or something like that. I couldn't do that. The host and his cohorts could beat me up. But the floor was shaking and it would be weird for them to pick a fight with me then. The hosts could not be the party poopers. My next selection came along. Rangeela re from Rangeela. The wild crowd went wilder as they did the trademark moves from the Urmila Matondkar film. I sent the electrician to see if the DJ had arrived. He hadn't. The time was near. As the song came to a finish, I spoke into the mike, "People, Good evening, our DJ has taken a flight from Ballygunge and is scheduled to airdrop into this place in some time, so we need to welcome him with some thunder. What say?" The people were far into the scheme of things to even worry about the impending problem if the guy never arrived. I didn't give them much time as I swung into Punjabi beats with.. Chak de by Apache Indian. I carried on for another seven or eight numbers before our man of the night finally arrived. It seems he had some flat tire issues. I had noted down the numbers that I already had played. Told all of that to the guy. He took over. The evening went on. The crowd delirious. An hour later, back in my hotel attire, I was having a last look at the buffet before leaving for the day. The host made his way to me. "Boss, when you first got into the console I wanted to murder you but when the DJ came in later and you left it to him, I thought you were killing it in there. You saved the day." Hoteliers are like that. They save days. You may just know about the guys in Taj Mumbai who took bullets for the guests back in 2009.

Train timings and grooms

1989. This friend of mine in Howrah used to pepper his observations and stories with the train timings to make things factual, detailed and even get us engaged in it thoroughly. One day he married. So, we naturally asked him how it all went. Here's how he put it in first person: See, I didn't know that there were to be two groups travelling to Uluberia. My father had a brainwave. He told me that why waste money on a car from here. Who's going to see your thaat-baat on the way. Only your friends who will go with you. They are all lousy and decrepit. I won't spend on you guys from Howrah to Uluberia. I will ask a car to be there, all decked up, at the station when the 5.16 pm train arrives there. Now, you guys will think that I would have fought with my father for calling me and my friends names. No, I didn't. Arre, he was funding my marriage. Let him call me anything. At the end of the day, I would get the bride, not him, no? But my brain was stuck on one thing. Just one thing. Why 5.16 pm? The marriage muhurat was at 8.35 pm. As much as I know, the function place would be 25 minutes away. So why does father want me to catch the one that arrives there at 5.16 pm? Why not the ones that arrives there at 6.23 or 7.10 or even 7.31 pm. I would still reach the function hall before time and can be welcomed by my young mother-in-law? But my father was smart, you louts. He figured it like this. I and my friends would need our red blood flowing. We would need all our grey cells working. Marrying is not for the faint hearted. You cannot go and get married just like that tomorrow. So, it was to be like this. We would go in casual clothes by the 5.16 train. We get down. We go to the nearby bar. We ingest some good fluids. Fluids that would make our thinking positive and faces smile. Then, we change there. I can even take the bar keeper's help in tying the dhoti. He will be an expert. So many grooms might be coming over to him for help with dhotis after they start seeing double. Yeah, so I shall take the same help. Then, we go and reach say by 8.10 pm. We say we took the car and for people who really need to know we say we took the 7.33. That's what we did. I was finding it difficult to see things in 3D after that. So, a friend helpfully provided a scented 420 Zarda Wala paan. After that I didn't see much. Both the bride and her mother we're sitting together. I hope I did the seven rounds with the right lady. So, it was all fine. Many women asked me a lot of questions. My mind was stuck on only one thing. How would we get back? 6.32 am train or the 7.46 am one? Of course, father pre-empted my condition and provided the car back till home. That's why I keep telling, don't elope and marry your love or something, marry who your father directs you to. For the rest, there's always the stupor.

Diabetes and a man

A friend had his AccuCheck device out. He had to check his diabetic count. He let out of small yell of joy. The digital counter showed a number that was below 200. He was recovering from over 300. I congratulated him. He took a picture and send it to his spouse. I went back into memories. Uncle was my father's best friend. They had travelled a whole orbit from arguing Dev Anand's films to India's Cricket without Pataudi's captaincy to how emergency had pushed back India by ten years. In this new town called Chandrapur where we had been transferred, they had settled down to being quiet newspaper sharing friends. This was a different scene for me. He would arrive at the door. He called me by a different name, still does. He spent a couple of minutes chatting with me about the school and world. Then, father would take over. Some chats about work, some about politics of the day (no WhatsApp then, so news had to be shared vocally) and then the TV used to be put on. Both sat in companianable silence. Till March arrived on the scene. Ma insisted on feeding uncle. And uncle, who by then had contracted diabetes would have a hard time telling no to her for most things as diabetes did not permit him to have those items. It wasn't as if Ma did not know that those foods weren't good for him but she just tried. God knows for what! Father used to sit there for a while gritting his teeth and then finally request her to do the usual biscuits and non sugar tea. Basically, leave them be. It was a comic sight laced with melancholy. Uncle was nearly a member of the household as he used to share rooms with us when we were quite young. To see him, a hearty if picky eater from those days, morph into this quantity and quality conscious man in his middle age was heart breaking. The lines on his face or the bleary eyes that used to stare back at us told us of the misery he was going through. And he grew quieter by the year. That image stayed with me. Diabetes has to be managed as I know. It has no way of being completely eradicated. Its the management that makes a difference. There should be smart phones apps that can possibly remind one of food timings, type of food suggestions and even possibly help with choosing the food for a person with variable tastes. If they are already there, they should be publicised, if not someone can develop something to help such nice uncles and friends. And diabetes afflicted people should be now included in the "alternative" lifestyle groups. With menus and exercises to make them happy about the life ahead. The uncle gets great care from his spouse and still leads a comfortable retired life. And he still chooses his fish in the market near his home. Finally, life is about outlasting the hurdles. Isn't it?

One sided love

I have just finished dinner and getting out of the place. On the right is a CCD that is empty and to the left is a petrol pump that's also neatly empty. A car comes to a stop in front. A girl comes out of the car. Her parents come out after her. She would be about 22. She looks around quite agitatedly and again looks at her mobile as a message dings in. Instinctively, I know there's a boy somewhere. Oh, he's certainly there. About fifteen metres away. Under the shade of the CCD awning. He's appeared from nowhere. He's managed to raise a hand from hip to chest level. Meekly. And swiftly has taken it down too. The parents are oblivious. The girl is irritated. So, I try and guess what's happened thus far. He is an ardent "one sided" admirer. He lives in the town. She's done well in studies. And then gone over to the city for further studies. And now she does not really want him around. Him, now the small town boy who does not have much more than empty handed love. But can the boy really forget? Lonely. Scratching his arm. Jeans and Tee shirt. Tee shirt with Mahindra Holidays imprinted on right side. Trademark yellow. Shirt standing out more than the man. Desolate face. Crumpling by the minute. A few last hopes and possibilities extinguishing by the second. In a jiffy she will be boarding the bus parked behind in the lot. She's moved ahead, already in the shadows, her parents talking to her. He cranes his neck and stands on his toes. She may wave. She may. Or so he wishes. She may. A hope. Fervent. I want to go and pat the boy. But then, he has to face rejection chin up. This will make him a man. He faces. Keeps looking at the bus for a while and when he knows there's nothing else for him in the offing at all. He walks away. Into the dark. The walk is loose and faulty in the beginning but he gathers pace. He regains strength. It's why he is a man, he is facing it, like all of them before. But women, it's not really fair, is it?

The pining

The call is from very far away. Miles away. My name is being called. Twice. Thrice. I respond. I hear my own grunt. Sleep laden. The voice goes on. And then suddenly, from being miles away, it is just near the bedroom door. Missus. Tea is ready. Get up. I stagger to where we would have tea. Like people do when they are walking in a fast moving train, maybe an Inter City express. She's already half way through her tea and messages before I lift my cup. But my mind is not on the tea at all. Yesterday was a tough day and I had been looking forward to some music before sleep. A song just came about from the playlist I was poking into. Jiya laage na, tum bin Mora. Sona Mohapatra singing. I quite like what she sings. Very powerful voice and usually gets her pitch very perfect though I don't get to hear her often. This song has a couple of lines: Paas hai jo sab chhod ke Door ko paas bulaaye. At many levels, these lines struck me. Firstly, if this is about love, then this is about abandoned love. Left alone at home, a lady would pine for her spouse. If it is not about love and it is about duty or ambition, then the whole thing enters a new dimension. Does the spouse or the loved one fathom how engaged or possessed one is in chasing his or her dream? We know of instances all around us. A man leaves home and becomes a hermit. Another leaves home and decides to be a political worker. A sportsman leaves home as a boy and finds it highly uncomfortable fifteen years later when he actually gets married to a lady after all his success. Yet another leaves home, gets an education abroad, works there and the lonely parents sit on park benches and recount his faraway exploits to uninterested passersby and birds. We all seek comfort in the chase of a mirage while we have the dear ones waiting for us, back home. Though one cannot condone exploration, that should happen. If one doesn't seek, he isn't complete. But at the cost of everything else? My reverie stutters. Missus is asking me about someone. I have a tough time connecting name to a face. I can hear my brain creaking. The wheels and screws cranking into place. Okay, I get a face to the name. Last seen in a lift weeks ago. It's where we have come to. Spotting each other in lifts. A meek "Hi". A half hearted stab at social grace, we graceless wonders.

The continued affair with phones.

1976. Behind the Cordite factory community Hall stage, there's a green room. That green room had a big black telephone back then. After a particular performance on stage that I wasn't involved in, my father was, I found myself beside that phone with no one beside me. Pushing aside all the stage clothes, make up boxes and a suspicious looking whip, I sat beside that phone. Picked it up. The receiver. Heard the dial tone. Put the receiver back. A thrill went through my like current passing. Quick survey to see if anyone was around, I again got back to the phone. Picked up the receiver. I knew that I had to move the dial from every number to the steel pin on the anticlockwise left. I tried that for one time with a three digit number. Guess what was the number. Consider me to be as much a pulp film or comic or book fanatic. You guessed? It was 100. Then I kept the receiver back in the cradle immediately. Because I thought someone had picked it up at the other end. I had not thought of an answer if someone did oick up. So, I thought of plausible answers to say if people really picked up. What would a nine year old come up with? Uncle, is my father there? Uncle, are you Anantharaj's father? Hello, is it the hospital? I had the capacity to understand that the homes had no phones except the higher level officers. So, many like us did not have access to this instrument. The public service places had phones. I naturally, thought of a hospital. You'd think I then furiously dialled up all the possible numbers and troubled the entire town. No, wrong. I randomly rang three numbers and then because the tone was like improper Morse code, I just kept the phone back. Then I sat there weaving stories around it. Immersed myself in a Hardy boys story. Then a Famous Five mystery. And kept using the phone. In my Imagination. I didn't actually pick up the receiver. It was a thrilling evening for me. Sitting and conceiving things beside that phone. Now, we desolate souls still sit beside phones, look at the screen and imagine things. Job offers, mails from interested parties, love messages, messages from kids or even long lost friends. We still conceive, conjure and vacillate. We are so happy when things actually happen on the phone. The ding of that message. The tick of that mail. We are still the same imaginative but lonely souls. "Khaali haath aaye the hum..khaali haath jaayenge"

Ads these days in IPL season

TV is a no no these days. But between Commonwealth Games, IPL, EPL and Champions League, it has been a day yesterday. Few important things: Ken RO has a great marketing strategy. Hema Malini in diaphanous blue saree. Last year it was Hema Malini in aquamarine blue saree. For extra strategy Kent had Hema with Esha and Ahana. Year before that, it was Hema light blue saree. So on. Dr. Fix it has Bachchan telling us about the five types of leakage. So, he has a guy half buried in a floor and a wall, well, leaking, not blood, water. Suspiciously pissing from his arms and stomach. I guess they made the ad when the writers and the makers had been kept hungry in a retention cell for four days. Bachchan is telling a lot of things, like encyclopediac uncles do. He warbles some punch line that I couldn't get. I guess they were working within his stated limits of Rs. One crore for a day of work. Bachchan again was there in another scooter ad. TVS. He's standing in showrooms and near roads and advising us about these good bikes. Again unintelligible. Immediately after, we see him at the ground too, with Mukesh Bhai. Mukesh Bhai was very happy when Markande took wickets. Yeh investment bhi safal ho gaya Bhai. The Airtel girl is back. Again she was trying to teach people about some data stuff that I couldn't retain in the head. Only remember that she waved her hands and danced a lot in the end. Basically, you can buy Airtel and dance funnily ever after. Zoozoos are back. This time they were suddenly pulling out mobiles when playing cricket. And looking at some updates. The ad screamed "mediocrity". Jio has made Deepika, Dhoni and a couple of his guys and Rohit and a couple of his guys dance. Dhoni dances well. Deepika's dress reminded me of those Sridevi dresses from Roop ki Rani choron ka raaja days. Jio has not been able to create a single memorable jingle till date. This is the lowest period for jingles in India. Amazon Fashion has a girl and a boy on a holiday and to have a better holiday they order for fashion and accessories from Amazon fashion. The first question I got in my head was "Delivery ka address Kya Diya hoga?" There are no blue chip advertisors other than the mobile phone and the data guys. Where are all the FMCG and the retail guys? Lastly, I remember the bad Bachchan Dr. FixIt ad the most. It's so bad that it's memorable. Maybe that was the idea. It even has faulty set lighting.

In the quest of dainty spinach

Retired Dads are a complete anti-thesis of what they were during their working days. Only they don't know that. They feel or pretend or have closed their mind to the fact that it's different. My father in law used to get up early in the morning, freshen up, wear a nice official looking shirt, put his pocket book into his breast pocket, shove a pen in beside and go off to get milk. Why milk? Milk can come home. But he needed to do that just to meet a couple of morning walkers and exchange some hellos and news. Mainly news. Mainly neighborhood news. Over that half an hour, he gleaned facts that surprised most of us. I didn't even know that kind of stuff existed. Oblivious working men that we are. Like, if you buy spinach from Garia market instead of the Bansdroni market, you get it Rs. 3 cheaper per bunch. Who keeps track of spinach. But they do. And that's how the household gets bigger bang for the buck. Yesterday, a friend came over. Her father who I know well has a problem with Bangalore markets. Everyone would have, if he is from Kolkata. The spinach looks insipid. The pumpkins look like faded parchment. The lauki looks like it had been hung out to dry. The snake gourd looks like someone has used it to beat a political drum. The parwal looks like pellets for a gobar cake stove. He takes a bag and goes off to the local market near Marathahalli. Now, Marathahalli is a misshapen nowhere town in the middle of concreate shanties of large sizes. Whitefield and it's towers, glass and grime on one side. Bellandur and it's towers, glass and smell on the other side. Marathahalli is like the guy in the middle seat of a local train. Smell on one side. Grime on the other side. He's trying to edge up front and keeping his nose right out there so as to avoid sight and smell. He's wacko. He just has to know he's sitting right there and he can't do anything about it. He can't get up and go too. He will be called a loser. Ask a guy in Marathahalli whether he knows a market nearby and he will ask, what market? As it is 86.84% of the people here stay in PGs. And they eat in the 654 joints that crowd around two sq km space on both sides of a wide road called very ably and enthusiastically, Outer ring road. So, they don't know where any market is. But he, my friend's father has found out. He goes there everyday. He gets increasingly dismayed. He announces the abysmality of the situation everyday after he's back. He even tears down orange peels to show how pathetic it all is. And then he goes back the next day. Uncles need to understand this part of Bangalore. It's like South Mumbai without the private planes and the French perfumes. Noses are up in the air. There's not much touch with reality. WhatsApp groups here discuss black dogs that have come into the complex. Big Basket does four rounds in a day in each tower. Two times with big vans. Sometimes, a service lift is stuck with the blue bins and the Big Basket delivery guy for over an hour. Then Amazon and Flipkart take over. Who knows what's the quality comparison of spinach or cauliflower. Cooks cook what they are given. For all tasteless cuds of worry, there's oil and ghee. Put more and watch fun. Uncle needs to reboot when in Bangalore next. He should do uber things. Like football coaching, chess games with the computer, astronomy or Bitcoin trading. Kaddoos are so can't do. Do be do. Do be do..

Of talent and it's harnessing.

Missus barges in through the bedroom door. I have just come in and am in a chair looking at the ceiling. Men, at such grey junctures in life, look at the ceilings. She hollers. I come out of the grey. Naturally. She is showing me something on her mobile. It is a picture of a craft project her student has done some minutes back. Let me bring you in on this a bit. Some weeks ago she asked me if she should take in students for summer craft classes. I know her hand at all this. And I also know that she handles children very patiently. Even in other cities where we lived, she used to do these painting classes that were quite popular. So I said that she should do it. And she did advertise in those WhatsApp wormholes that we have. She got in some numbers. Then she was told that they are going in vacations. Post that they would come in. One student was agreeable to start right away. So be it. I saw the result of that student's work after the second class. The boy had turned in awesome work. Told me one thing. All children with the right energy and support of a teacher, can turn out gold. All children. And the younger they are, the better they can get. Missus, of course, is very calm, energetic and can converse very well with children. I see the results through the year. Then, later I saw Christiano Ronaldo's back flip goal again. And I began to wonder. This man couldn't have been this crazily talented if not for a succession of coaches who kept tweaking his talent to this supreme specimen that he's become. Monitoring his sleep, regimen, food, endorsements, his entertainment and rest so that he gets this far. This people are unnamed but they handhold the champion to such levels. Then I hear of how Saina Nehwal had to threaten to walk out of Indian team if her father wasn't let into the games village. And then the IOA relented. All the while saying that they had to do it because she threatened and she does not need her father. Every Games time we hear of such things. Some weird guy, usually a friend or relative of an IOA official who waltzes into the games village and has a gala time at the expense of us, the tax payers. Then, on the other hand, deserving coaches and support staff who needed to be there to make the athlete perform, are asked to stay back in India. See on TV and communicate by phone, they are told. Then we also see some weird doctor with an MBBS done a couple of years back with a needle in hand nearly finishing India's name even before the Games began. Every year. First the good Russians came with their tablets and needles. Now our own good coaches and doctors. The medical shop outside SAI hostels will tell us how much they make selling needles and steroids. And we still don't allow the personal coaches who keep these demons away. One wrong pill can break a career. And athletes are not doctors themselves. So you see how a bad system kills talent? However, glad to say, Missus is unaffected by bad support staff. That's me, if you were wondering. She's also cooked an enormously brilliant UP mutton masala curry yesterday. It's got whole garlic pods in it that you have to suck on while you eat the meat and the curry. It's done on slow flame. It's got over a dozen red chillies in a portion for two. Take that. If this curry is served to angry Dalits, the andolan will subside. Believe me. So don't break stuff and burn stuff. Have this curry. Be happy. Go home.

Waiting near monuments

It's a perfectly normal thing to do when you are meeting someone unknown or when you want your people to find you most easily in any location. I will be standing outside Starbucks. You will find me below the Gandhi Statue there. Father will be across the road in front of CCD. Things like that. Many years ago, this occurred. 1991. Am young and working in Calcutta (note the pre Kolkata name and milieu). There was a lady who wished to meet a relative of mine and the said relative didn't want to be meeting her without my presence to advise him on said person and whatever that should happen later. I went along. The monument was a big clock in Howrah station and he was to meet the lady below that clock. You have to understand this correctly. You enter Howrah station from the Hooghly river side and then look up to your left. There's this old clock, Favre Leuba or Alpha Swiss, I don't remember exactly, white and black. Black hands. Cobwebs behind it. Dusty. But the most well known landmark used by commoners. They used to say in Bangla "Bodo ghodi'r tolai". Below the big clock. So, we reach. Many people standing. We didn't have mobiles then so that we could ring and see which lady is answering the phone. It's why he's taken me along. He wants to see the lady before he actually goes across. There are many ladies standing there. My relative is in his late twenties. He did not have any girlfriend till then. So, he could be trying to befriend anyone. It's that stage of life, you see. I start patiently screening each lady standing. Lady with ration bag, not possible, no one will come on a date with a ration bag. Lady with large spectacles and clearly married, maybe not. Lady with grey in her hair and white saree, maybe not. So on. Actually, this is confusing as we could still be choosing to home in the very wrong lady. It's not done. I want to be out of there. I say so. My relative is hell bent that I should help him out with this. He's holding my arm so that I cannot run. In desperation, I continue to shortlist. I keep asking him questions as to her statements over phone. Turns out she's not given him much information except "I will know when I see you"! Ridiculous. How the hell will she know. Has she seen him before? I question. Negative, he says. Then I say that he should do an exploratory round by just walking in front of the waiting citizens. Just an easy walk and I will stand afar and see which lady is looking at him with attention. That will make a shortlist and then we will take decisions. He agrees with this idea after much distress. He moves. I watch. He goes up to the waiting citizens. He gives a cursory "searching but not so much as to be ogling" look around and keeps moving till he disappears from my sight into some crowd. I try to quickly see if some ladies have followed his walk. Four candidates. One, the married one. Second, a not so young lady who's not worn her saree even properly. Third, a young lady in Hawaii chappals and specs. Fourth, the decidedly much older lady with grey in her hair. Here, I would like to point out that those were days in Bengal when many women, though they worked and provided for households as the men could not find work, missed out on marriages at the apt time. Their parents knew that they would stare at poverty if the lady married and went away. So they never attempted the proposal thing at all. The girls simply aged. It's very possible that it was a lady from that background who was trying to meet my relative. And on the phone you'd never know. You could not pass on selfies. There were Facebook profiles. My relative comes back. He looks at me expectantly. I give the sanest possible answer. "Let's go home, man!". A year later. He's proposed to the young lady with the Hawaii chappals. She turned out good for him. She had a job and she took good care of her family. Well, like they say, all's well that ends well. So, I waited for the day someone would meet me below that big clock. Never happened. We met at the world's most unromantic spot. Beside the card punching machine in the workplace time office. I am still punching my time everyday. Present madam!

A cooking storm and desperation thereof

Yesterday, I was having a discussion with a person regarding hiring in the culinary industry. He started telling me about how skills were definitely on the slide. I listened. A very old incident flashed by. 1989. It is 12 noon in The Astor. I have barged into the kitchen. There are 180 packets of Chinese food to be delivered to a nearby consulate. The cook has gone missing. He is in a gate meeting at a nearby location where the ruling party has called for workers to come and sit and do dharna. I wish I knew what a ruling party protests against. Probably they don't like their own work. Whatever. The cook's gone. That's nutshell. The packets have to be delivered at 1.00 pm. There's no way that can happen if someone is not going to start cooking now. Everyone is lounging. Lots of staff. They are happy to look at my face and grin like baboons. I panic. The only way I can do the delivery is by starting to cook myself, I think. I am a Food service executive. I am not supposed to be cooking. The union won't allow me. I wear an apron. I pull out a Chinese chopper. I start cutting vegetables that are loaded onto the counter. I don't do such things daily and so my speed is not good. So, interested people collect and start laughing at my plight. They are a part of the union. They won't work in someone else's department. I am not a part of the union. Also, I am a newbie. It's like ragging, if you get the picture. The chopping board is being pummelled by my angry chops with the knife. The spring onion is done. The beans is being stringed. Then I chop them at my best pace. The carrots have to be cut into flowered slices. That takes some doing. But I am angry and game. It goes on. Minutes tick by. The mounds of vegetables collect. I haven't started with the chicken. I know the cook keeps his boneless stash somewhere. I don't know where. The staff won't help. They are looking on and chewing on toothpicks, peanuts and other such stuff. To keep themselves from laughing at me. Then, the union leader arrives. No, not the cook. He's a follower. The leader. He actually works in the kitchen as a kitchen supervisor. Someone who gets orders done. This was his work to get the order done. He has been busy in party work somewhere. He cannot be thrown out of the job as the establishment survives because he is around to handle the union and party matters. He looks at me. Laughs. And comes to where I am working. Then, he clicks his finger. A tandoor worker arrives. He motions him to take my place. He takes my place. He motions to another guy and he runs to get the boneless chicken stashed somewhere. He thunders at a third guy who's there and he runs to get par boiled rice and noodles. All kept at appropriate places. I move aside. In no time, the workers have started finishing what I had started solo. The packets emerge and the tossed rice and noodles are being packed in silver foil. I try to help in the packing as my adrenaline is still high and I am looking at my watch to see if we are on time. He motions me away. He tells me to wait in a corner. Not to move. The packets are done. It is 12.55 pm. The Chinese cook comes in then. The union leader who's quiet till then, walk across to the cook and gives a whack on his head. "Didn't you know you had a order to give?" The cook, who is about 37 years of age takes his tongue out in sheepish dismay. The union leader asks me to get it all loaded in the delivery car with the service boys. As he passes me, he pats me on the shoulder. For quite a while, maybe for my whole tenure that act of foolishness and that pat stood me in good stead with the people in there. By the way, I would never have completed the order in time. I was just desperately trying. Sometimes that works too, in rallying people to the cause.

Doorbell pranks and glum people

We heard the doorbell together. Ma and I. I walked faster to the door. Ma relaxed and allowed me to go ahead and open. No one outside. I waited. I peered to the left and to the right. Nope. No one. Very spooky. This has now happened for the third time this week. Ma has an explanation. The bell rings by itself. It's happened in the past too, she says. I ask her how does she know that. She allows logic to take over. If there is no one at the door and the bell has rung, it's ringing by itself, isn't it? Ah, that logic. Okay, so by that logic, if the ball is swinging reverse, it is always scratching itself on one side. Self scratched ball. By that logic, if no one is seen pissing on the road and yet we have the stench of piss everytime we walk that patch of road, then the road is pissing on itself. By that logic, Sunanda Pushkar has killed herself since the blessed CBI aren't able to find anyone who's done the deed. So one and so forth. I argue with Ma. Cannot there be two young boys having the time of their life, ringing doorbells and rushing off into the stairwell to quietly hide? There can be. Most definitely, that could be a case. I know. I did it when I was young. My accomplice is now a top grade engineer in a Fortune 500 company and a father of two and so he will never attest to the fact that we did it. But we did do it. So I know how this is all done. Our game was Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Of course, I was Finn, what did you think? Inwardly, I smiled while I came away back to my study. A weekend without such pranks for any kid isn't a good weekend. I would have loved it if they would have left a warning note too at the door. "Smile at people in the lift or else..." By the way, is there an unwritten code somewhere about lifts? - "Stay glum, act glum and the world will conspire to work for you" Even the pizza delivery guy becomes the saddest soul in lifts. The Amazon delivery guy definitely is. He is like "Saari duniya ka bojh hum uthate Hain!". Maybe, Amazon one day surely will, probably, who knows. But people living in the building aren't all in Amazon, right. Why so glum? Ab Kya gum?

Salwar kameez and a woman broken.

Dining table conversation with guests who have come over centers around how vegetarian food should be repackaged again and the regional courses can then become global. We talk about a lot of examples. Some of the examples are about Soyabean. How that's never picked up pace and become a global delicacy, Indian style. My mind wanders to a completely different tangent. How the salwar kameez has stuck with the South Asian label and couldn't move beyond it to the ramps of the western and the far eastern world. Few years back, in a lounge in Doha, among many hijabs and burqas, I spotted this woman with a toddler wobbling all around her. Lime green and navy blue salwar kameez ensemble. Very quiet. Long manicured nails. Shampooed hair sheathing her face as she bent down over a magazine. The toddler asked her something after playfully poking her thighs for a bit. Pink lips moving in unintelligible language mime. She understood. She leaned forward to take a bottle of water kept on the table near her. That instant I saw her face. Someone had beaten her black and blue on the left side. The side I could see from where I sat. She leaned back and again bent over so that the hair sheathed the injured portion of the face. Her dupatta was on the side. I knew she would artfully cover her face before standing up. The toddler was oblivious. It jigged around the mother fully oblivious of the mother's plight. I debated in my mind. Pakistan or India. Her face, her bone structure and her demeanor stated that she was from either Punjab, Delhi, Kashmir or from Pakistan. Yes, she could be Sindhi too. And therefore, she could be from anywhere in the world wherever Sindhis, the super successful business people are based. But the salwar kameez was a giveaway. Somehow, I pinned the Pakistan tag on her. I decided I would wait for her flight to be flashed on screen and when she would get up to go. I would know. My own Jet flight to Delhi was some while away. It happened nearly an hour later. A screen flash. Qatar airways to Karachi and she started putting up the dupatta around her face. The toddler kept looking up at her as she arranged herself slowly. Deliberately. Taking care that her face and neck didn't hurt. Then, she stood up. Clutching the handle of the chair. Painfully. Lips nearly biting on the searing pain that was probably shooting through. Pale. Very pale. She straightened herself and stood there, tall and as stately as she could be. The salwar kameez straightened out into a beautiful ensemble and gave her the statuesque persona that she needed desperately to walk out from that lounge. The dress kept her dignity alive. Just about. The woman tottered in her first steps but then became confident as she strode out of the lounge. Her toddler skipping alongside her. She left the broken world of a relationship behind. Probably, never to be back. That dress kept her going. It's important to respect that dress and give it it's due. For how many such incidents it must covered, nurtured and guided it's wearers through. We have no clue.