Money in the blouse and other stories

images from here

The Toofani Couple

A few days back I had an early morning live implementation. As my cab driver played Need for Speed on the roads of Delhi at 5.30 in the morning, I kept an eye on his nitro consumption which basically means that I was wide awake ensuring that he does not squash me in the rear of a truck. Suddenly, a car overtook us near Hyatt. I noticed that it had two toofani couples in it. Now the couple at the rear seat opened their respective windows, pushed their sorry head and torso outside and planted their butts on the windows. They then went ahead and smoked the same cigarette, passing it to each other from the top of the car.  The eyes of my cab driver went wide while I studied them with mild amusement. I was more worried about my cab ramming into their car and the driver flying out to join them. They smoked the whole cigarette and went inside like the neck of a scared turtle. I narrated the whole incident to my team at office and one of them remarked – What’s so toofani in that? It would have been toofani if they would have exchanged the cigarette from the bottom of the car.

I guess I am getting old.

Another not so lucky Toofani couple

The same week, while returning home enduring my rickety office bus, I saw an accident on the highway. A motorbike was racing in the wrong direction (Yes! On the highway!) and rammed into an Audi. People actually stopped their cars and came out to help (Surprise!). The woman and the bike ended up between the front and rear wheels while the man was dragged to safety. Now they were not able to pull out the women because the Audi went over her. So they tried to get the Audi off the woman by picking it up. I hope she survived but the chances are slim. This happened a day before Diwali.

I wondered if I could show this whole sequence to the Toofani couple in the earlier story, would they still think what they did was cool? Would they care more for their life?

Money in the blouse

Why on earth do people keep their money in their undergarments? The other day, I squeezed myself in a shared auto, which is basically a metal entity used to carry 10-15 people crammed in a space for 6. Sitting in a shared auto will be the closest you would come to understand the feelings of Jews jostling for space in a gas chamber. So, while I shrunk my butt to adjust in the pitiable space provided to me, I saw an elderly aunty ji sitting opposite me, staring in infinity. As the auto traversed the potholed roads, the aunty ji suddenly realised that her stop was near and thrust her hand inside her blouse. After my initial shock subsided, I realized that she was not trying to seduce me but frantically searching for her purse. She fumbled her right breast first but could not place the purse. Then she took out her left  hand and in went the right one to disturb her left asset. While all this was happening, I was obviously not looking at her but I could comprehend what was happening from the corner of my eye. Finally, she was able to find her purse that was hidden in some remote corner and the trauma ended.

I have also seen men putting hands in their underwear to take out money. Please someone tell me what is so irresistible about rubbing cash on your private parts?

Exercise in Patience

I have realized that writing a book is an exercise in patience. When you are doing research, you are impatient to start writing. When you are writing, you are impatiently waiting for the day when it will finish. When you finish, you are impatiently sending it to publishers. Then you wait very very impatiently for the publishers to respond. After a positive response, you patiently twiddle your fingers and wait for the book to hit the market. So, it you are a very impatient person, try not to write a book unless you have some sort of a mental asylum fetish.

By the way, I have started writing my second book. But now there is a kid in the equation, so it will be a while before I finish it. Deep breaths. Patience.

Mars and Traffic signals

There is a very busy traffic intersection on the highway near my home. Since the last two years for which I have been here, I have hardly seen the signal working on this intersection. Although people living in the country of Uttar Pradesh don’t believe in traffic signals and treat them the same way we treat a stray cow and beggars, I still believe that some day we will find people capable enough to mend the said signal. I know that there is some extremely complicated machinery inside it but I am sure that since we have sent a rocket to Mars now, we will be able to find people suitable to handle the neglected signal. Maybe we can consult a few top scientists at ISRO?

I usually do not write random posts but I had to share the ‘money in the blouse’ story and since I do not want to come across as a pervert, I added four intellectual stories to the post.

Message in a Pen – II

Read Part 1 of the story here – Message in a Pen – I

The gang of ten was now two concentric circles – eight of us as a surreptitious circumference around Saahil and Neelam.  We savoured their melting. We were elated when their meetings multiplied, when their eyes oozed their enviable blissful future. I kept raising doubts at intervals in various octaves, sometimes guilty of vehemence because I was scared for them. Neelam and Saahil would then sit with me and pacify me. They were devastatingly optimistic. It almost broke my heart but I always smiled in the end. Sometimes the gang agreed with me that the gap between their communities was too wide to be filled up in our lifetime. Honour killing was still a rampant reality. But Saahil and Neelam were sanguine, with a thick veil of love settled on their existence. 

“If the need arise, will you contemplate running away?” I asked both of them once over a cup of coffee in the canteen. It was just the three of us.

“We haven’t thought about it but we might,” Neelam said.

“You haven’t thought about it or you are scared to think about it? Do you realize what will happen to Saahil’s family after both of you elope?” I asked. Both of them looked at each other.

Saahil had discussed the relationship with his family and his parents had no problems with the match but they made it very clear that their family getting insulted will never be a part and parcel of the deal. If Saahil had to elope or marry secretly, then he was on his own. 

The couple persisted. The courtship was now about to complete a year. It was the first time that I had seen a woman blush a beetroot red at the sight of a man. The smile won’t leave their faces as their fingers found each other’s hands. Their eyes gleamed with dreams of their future together.  

                                                *           *           * 

The lunch was eventful. The five of us talked about various lecturers and professors who taught us during the one and a half years we studied together. There were too many people we had mimicked and made fun of during that time. We lived it again, choking on our food as we laughed. Arnav clapped his hands while Kirti moved her head from one side to another and smiled. Our past danced around the dining table but the girls were not in it. It was a tacit decision to erase them. I had no idea how much Kirti knew and so I went with the flow.

I loosened up a bit by the time we finished eating. We clicked a few pictures. One of them had Rajat and Saahil sitting in front while I, Gaurav and Sumit stood behind them. It was exactly like a photograph clicked during our college farewell. The faces were not the same. Mouldings were seeping into our pictures with time.

“Arnav needs to sleep. I am going in the bedroom for a while,” Kirti said to Saahil and went inside.

“Come,” Saahil said as he held my hand and asked me to get up.

“Where are you guys going?” Rajat asked in alarm.

“We are taking a stroll in the park. The three of you can take a nap,” Saahil said.

I got up and went out of the house with Saahil as Rajat, Sumit and Gaurav gave difficult-to-comprehend expressions. 

                                                *           *           *

We had a preparatory break twenty days before our final examinations. Most of us stayed in the hostel because they were our last few days together. Neelam went home as Saahil would not let her study. She talked to him in the evening after reaching home and that was the last time any of us got a phone call from her.  

No one had any idea what had happened for almost four days when a call came on Saahil’s phone one evening. The five of us were in his room discussing what to do next when the phone rang. It was Neelam’s father on the other side. He was shouting so piercingly that all of us could plainly hear his words. Saahil tried to reason with him but his reasons were not working against death threats. Fifteen minutes and an avalanche of swearwords later, the phone was abruptly disconnected. We sat in stunned silence. It was a perfect I-told-you-so moment but I kept my mouth shut. Saahil was blinking away tears.

“I have to go home and talk to my parents,” he said as he suddenly got up and started packing.

“Tomorrow,” Gaurav said.

“No, I have to go now.”

“I said tomorrow Saahil! You are in no position to ride a bike on the highway,” Gaurav said.

Saahil threw his bag violently on the floor. The clothes tumbled out of the bag. I got up to pick them up and kept them back in the bag.

He went home the next day to convince his parents to talk to Neelam’s family. They were very clear that Neelam’s family has to spit out the anger and talk to them in a civilized manner. Saahil called up Neelam’s father to convince him for a meeting. He was told that the next time he calls, his family will not find a single piece of his body.

“Please tell me if she is alive,” he pleaded. The line went dead.

I kept calling Saahil that day but he did not pick up his mobile. Optimism was now an unrecognizable corpse buried deep within the soil of practicalities; the practicalities of staying alive. I had never thought that I would wait for Saahil in our hostel room with my heart ramming into my ribcage with a deafening ferocity. I imagined reporting him missing to the police and then identifying his body. I imagined Neelam hanging from a ceiling fan, her battered body swinging slowly. Love had turned into a blinding pain from being blind.

Saahil came to hostel the next day. His face was different now. He had woken up from the dream. 

                                                *           *           * 

We sat on a bench in the park. The weather was agreeable.

“Neelam is in America with her husband. They went to Egypt on a holiday. She loved the Pyramids,” Saahil said. I stared at his face for a while.

“Are you in..”

“No. Rajat told me. He got an e-mail from her one day. Now she writes to him sometimes to let us know that she is happy.”

“What about you?”

“What do you think?”

I silently stared at the swings moving slowly with the winds.

“You really don’t get it, do you? You saw what I went through, what Neelam went through. You saw her when she came to write her exams. After going through all that turmoil when I had no intentions of staying alive, here I am sitting with you. I am married and I have a kid. Would I be able to lead my life like this if I still loved Neelam?”

“But how can you fall out of love with a person like this Saahil? You were crazy about each other.”

“I am in love with Kirti and Arnav. Right now that is all that matters. Our life is not as one dimensional as it seems. The seasons change for a reason my friend. The pendulum swings without rest. The first few months were difficult, when she was forcefully married but there was nothing I could do. Her house had turned into a fort. I tried reaching her. You had left for Chennai. Rajat, Sumit and Gaurav were there but I knew that I had to come out of it or I would have gone crazy. Even then, when Kirti was refereed for an arranged match, I said no initially.”

“I know.”

“I told her about Neelam the first time we met. She was very understanding. She told me that she liked me but I cannot enter her life with the burden I was carrying. We started talking and said yes a month later. Neelam was already in America by then.”

“And now?”

“I am madly in love with Kirti. Don’t you see? She healed me. I was never so much in peace with my life as I am now. When I see Arnav’s face, I don’t remember any sadness that existed in my life. It was always about Kirti and me. This is where the path was destined to lead me.”

“I am happy for you,” I said as I caressed a piece of paper in my pocket. 

to be continued…

[image from here]

The Windowpane

Pinky sat inside a huge concrete pipe lying aimlessly at the side of a road. She was looking at the water which was collecting near her foot, disturbed constantly by the raindrops falling harshly from the sky. Last year when it started raining, she made paper boats and sent them on voyages. This year was poles apart. She was alone and petrified. 

She could see the chawl where she lived on the other side of the road – covered with blue plastic sheets on which rain made a rumbling noise as if trying to rouse a monster. Everyone she knew was huddled inside, placing uneven bowls at places where the huts dripped, scrapping water out as it seeped in from the doors. She then looked at the streetlamps – flickering like a dying man, mustering courage to light up the road below and failing miserably. She rested her back on the curve of the pipe and abruptly tears raced down her face, taking the dirt with them and carving two clean straight lines. My eyes are clouds, she thought. She doubted her own monsoon will ever end.

Pinky was joyful a month ago. Her mother had finally enrolled her in a nearby school run by an NGO. The sweet lady at the NGO persuaded Pinky’s mother for almost five months before she reluctantly gave in. It meant less money coming in the house and more burdens on her mother. She went to the school for five days and then that dreadful day happened, when her world turned black, just like the sky covered by dark clouds.

                                                          *

Amrita sat in the drawing room of her posh second floor apartment, staring vacantly at the raindrops as they slid down the large windowpane facing the balcony. The city beyond the window looked blurred and uncertain of its existence, but it went on. Yes, it went on irrespective of the fact that a small cog in it has stopped working. Then she looked at the raindrops as they splattered near the top of the window and lazily moved towards the bottom – sometimes meeting each other as they went down, sometimes dividing into two. She marvelled if the windowpane was a portrait of life – people met like those droplets, shared a part of their journey with each other, sometimes got separated and then walked alone. But the truth remained that there was just one eventual destination – the bottom of the window, where all the drops met, only to reach the clouds again so that the cycle could continue. She sighed and closed her eyes. She knew what kind of a raindrop she was now – the walking alone kind.

Aaryan was in high spirits when they bought this apartment. Surrounded by gardens and fountains amidst the hustle-bustle of the city, this was a dream they were waiting to come true ever since they were married three years back. When they moved in six months ago, Aaryan took her in his arms as soon as the movers and packers were out of the house. They held each other and smiled, looking around the empty space they were going to fill with their life.

“I love the balcony.” Aaryan said as they walked out greeted by a soothing wind.

As time passed, they filled the house with things they picked up after numerous deliberations, colour matching sessions and various rounds to the markets. Amrita loved to shop for small things like the wind chimes which hung in the balcony, or the Rajasthan puppets hanging from a wall in the dining area or the painting which she got for the drawing room or the rug which went under the centre table. She was creating what she always wanted to live in and there was an intoxicating satisfaction in it. Their life was perfect and Aaryan was the colour that made it more beautiful.

Amrita opened her eyes. The rain was still falling – colourless drops falling from a dark sky. There was a picture of her and Aaryan on the wall opposite to where she sat – Amrita was looking up and laughing, Aaryan was smiling and looking at the ground, his hand on her shoulder. She sat there for an eternity staring at the photo and in the end decided to come out of her misery. She could think of just one way out.

                                               *

Amrita opened the door of her apartment and let Pinky in. It took some time for Pinky to realise that this was someone’s house. For her a house was a confined space where you could hardly move. She looked at Amrita with apprehension.

“Come on.” Amrita said and held Pinky’s hand and led her in, smiling at her dust stained face. She could clearly make out the lines of tears on her face.

“This is your house?” Pinky asked.

“Yes and from today it’s yours too.” Amrita said.

Pinky looked at her with surprise.

“You will live here with me, go to school, then to college, you will make good friends, and you will get a very good job, fall in love, get married and live a very happy life.” Amrita said as she took Pinky’s face in her hands and smiled at her. Tears were welling in her eyes.

Pinky looked at her incredulously. She had seen this happen to people in movies and to people living in big houses but this was not the future of her life. She was supposed to live in a chawl wondering whether she will earn enough money for the next meal and sometimes go to sleep without eating one.

“Are you my new mother?”

“I can try.” Amrita said as she kissed Pinky’s forehead.

The wind-chimes started making ringing sounds as the wind picked up.

“It is going to rain again”. Pinky said.

“Yes, yes it will. It’s Monsoon.”

They sat there in silence as the clouds welled up, lights flashed in the sky and the downpour started.

“Can I go in the balcony?” Pinky asked suddenly.

“Yes, go ahead.” Amrita said.

She looked at Pinky as she walked into the balcony. She first touched the raindrops cautiously and then stood near the door watching them fall. She was not old enough to know the truth, Amrita thought. She had decided to wait for a few more years to tell Pinky that the car accident which killed her mother also killed Aaryan; that while trying to save her mother, Aaryan drove the car over a divider after hitting her; that he was dead before he reached the hospital. Amrita was with him in the car that day. They were laughing at a joke Aaryan was telling her. The accident left Amrita with a few scratches on her right arm and head but she was unconscious for the better part of the day.

She knew there was a little girl with the woman who died. It was raining heavily that day but she knew there were two people crossing the road when she screamed at Aaryan to stop the car. It wasn’t difficult to find Pinky. She started searching her from the chawl near the accident site and a few days later she found her, sitting inside a concrete pipe, staring at the rain.

She walked towards Pinky who was standing near the door, lost in thoughts as the rain picked up momentum and dropped in a rhythm. The raindrops have seen it all, Amrita thought. They saw the accident and they are seeing us now. The rhythm was comforting. You are not alone – the raindrops seem to be saying. She turned around and looked at the windowpane. Amidst a number of drops moving towards the bottom, she saw two drops joining together and moving down.

“I love the balcony.” Pinky said.

[[This short story won the first prize in a story writing competition and was published in the office magazine of the organization that employs me. The theme of the competition was – Monsoon. Permission has been taken from the company HR to publish the story on my blog ]]

The Liquefied Indian

Sometimes when the doors of the Delhi Metro swoosh open and you get out, you get this beautiful sight of people standing on either side of the door, waiting patiently for you to get down. You feel like Moses, who has just parted the Red sea. Unfortunately, it’s not the long lost virtue of patience making a comeback but a guard with a whistle on each of the door, who is responsible for the shockingly sensible behavior. You have to be the first one to descend the coach to live in this utopia. If you have the misfortune of being the last one, then the red sea will rush towards you like a broken dam and you will wish for a wooden staff to hit each of the droplets on their head. It looks like osmosis and reverse osmosis happening simultaneously. Liquid rushes in and liquid rushes out. We don’t walk. We flow.

Living in India sometimes feels like being a liquid in a cistern. When someone upturns the vessel, we all rush in to take the shape of whatever we are upturned into.

When we form long queues outside counters, the lines start multiplying. It is as if the empty spaces between the lines are too much to bear and suddenly the main branch of the river sprout out distributaries which then continue their journey towards the ocean counters. There is a ladies distributary, sometimes a senior citizens distributary while the main male river watches impatiently.

When we drive on roads, nothing can come close to the miracle of creating 8 lanes on a 4 lane road other than the creation of the universe. The cars squeezed so close that if there is an Autobot war in the middle of the road, no one would stand a chance of opening their doors and running. Everyone will die sitting in their cars watching as a huge Autobot feet crush them or complicated weapons turn them into a sandwich (But wait! That happens only in America, right?). And did I mention motorbikes? They are like those ocean currents flowing inside large oceans. They twist and turn and have a life of their own, spilling on footpaths and broken terrains.

When a lift opens in your office, you see the desperation in the eyes of the people trying to get in. There is no guard with a whistle because they thought software engineers were sensible. The dam is broken and floods the door. You look at the tsunami and feel like parting it with a scream but you stand and stare at it. It parts under your gaze. The feet of a few defiant waves are crushed under the sole of your shoe. Ooh! Aah! Ouch! Am I supposed to fly over you?

Go to the canteen in your office and the tea counter is brimming with humans, buzzing randomly without any queue. As the tea is poured in cups, you witness acts of bravery where people scoop away cups with the dexterity of jewel thieves, sometimes burning their hands by the falling tea. You witness acts of treachery where software engineers plot like mother-in-laws to break through the crowd and position themselves at the correct angles to reach the cup at the right time. It is in our blood, you remind yourself and laugh. Education has nothing to do with it.

Go to a popular temple and you will be pushed and pulled alongside the crowd. You do not have to walk. Just go with the flow and soon you will feel like water flowing through an intricate labyrinth of canals. You will not even realize that the deity that you have come to see with such devotion has whirled past you as you churn in the whirlpool.

And where else would you find people hanging out of trains, buses and shared auto-rikshaws? People try to take the shape of any available vacant space. They are allowed to sit on top of the trains and buses. I too have traveled in a bus numerous times looking like the alphabet S. Those times are over but for how long?

We have lost our patience. There are so many of us cramped in so little that it is suffocating at times. We want to rush out of it, like ants rushing out of their nest if you flood it with water. Our numbers have turned us aqueous. We have stopped balancing moralities. When I hear honks blaring, I hear despondency, I hear death of composure, I hear a silent human cry like that of a bat. We all want to get home quickly because there is so less time to share with our family. There is so less time that we start defying logic. Cars don’t fly. You have to let the people come out of a lift before you get in. Multiple lines will not make it faster. Devotion needs perseverance.

How did we come to this? Why did we multiply like spiders with such lassitude towards the future? Why did we create this monster for our children to bear? It is a terrible feeling to imagine the time when we will overtake China in population. When we think about the future, we imagine order, calmness. But we all know that will not be our future and it is an uneasy, terribly terrifying thought.

The dam is broken and we are rushing forward with all the power of destruction we could muster.

To Beef or not to Beef

Are you a Hindu? Yes.

Do you like cows? Yes, but not in the middle of roads fanning their tails and making dung pyramids.

Do you like dead cows? Depends. If I am hanging from one of her enormous horns and someone shoots her, then yes.

Do you like to eat dead cows? Yeah sure.

Holy cow!

How many such families have you killed?

My first problem is with the vegetarians. Why do they look down upon us poor non-vegetarians as if we are illegal immigrants? We like to eat animals, they like to eat plants. Both live and die. Both are created by God. Looking down upon us will not make us weak. We have tasted flesh. You must know that we will never give up enjoying a lamb to put your degrading looks to rest. You must know that your sinister remarks are bland compared to a juicy chicken leg. Your fear-the-god histrionics are insipid in front of the taste of the fish melting in our mouth. Don’t you know that the Earth is losing its green cover because of idiots like you? You are killing the very species which keeps you alive. One less plant is one less unit of oxygen produced. Doesn’t your heart bleed when a farmer uproots a plant from the Earth to fill your greedy stomach? You are killing the planet, veggie. So, don’t blame us. We are just trying to maintain the balance which you have disturbed by mindlessly butchering the plants.

Cows are happy because of their special privileges

My second problem is with Religious people. I like eating animals and so do a zillion inhabitants of this planet and I do not like someone mixing religion in my food. It has a very bitter taste and makes me spit my food. Yes, I have eaten a lot of species like hens, goats, pigs, fish, prawns, turkey, crabs, ducks, rabbits and cows. Now you object to my eating cows. What about the other animals? Don’t you think they will feel terribly left out by your racist behavior? Do we really need to have the reservation system in animals also? Prawns cannot take out a procession but if they could, they would have filled the intricate clockwork at Jantar Mantar in no time. Delhi would have been brimming with prawns demanding an explanation of the communal divide you have created. Goats would have sat outside the President’s palace in millions to demand an explanation as to why the cows are allowed to snort at them? What makes you think that a fish is less capable and noteworthy than a cow? Do you think God bestowed special privileges on a cow? Did God come and whisper that in your poking-ly overzealous religious ears?

My third problem is with people who are vegetarian and religious. Frankly guys, you are the ones who whine the most. I can’t handle you, just like I can’t handle Splitsvilla, Rakhi Sawant and Dolly Bindra. Yes, you are that unbearable. All I can say to you is that I don’t care what you eat and expect the same from you. For all I care, you can go and eat a leather jacket. Oh wait! Isn’t that non vegetarian? Is it all right for you to wear a dead animal in the name of fashion?

Sad prawn

My fourth problem is with anti-beef non vegetarians. Dude! Are we not supposed to be in the same gang, something like the blood sucking vampires against humans? Are we not supposed to stick together? Believe me, if tomorrow you develop a taste for whale brain, I will not cringe my nose at you. Its your mouth and it’s not my whale. I expect a similar behaviour from you when I mention the B word. And what’s all this no-non-vegetarian-on-Tuesdays-because-Gods-will-get-angry thing? You really believe in that shit? If this is true then I don’t know about you but Gods must be crazy.

I request all the vegetarian, religious, vegetably religious and anti-beef non vegetarians(ABNV) to back off. I care two hoots about your religious sentiments or what you eat. I cannot care about the sentiments of people who have blood of plants and humans on their hands (does not apply to ABNV), who care more about a cow than an accident victim lying helplessly on a road and bleeding to death. Please show more enthusiasm to help humans than cows. Also, I do not appreciate people who make faces as they disapprovingly sniff my plate filled with fleshy food. If you do not like what I eat, close your eyes and stop breathing. Stop choking me with your religious rope made of dead plants.

[Images from 1,2,3]

When I met God in a Bar

I was drinking beer waiting for my friend in a bar when this gorgeous girl walked up to me.

She: Hi! How are you?

Me: Hi! I am good. How are you?

She : Great. Can I sit here? What’s your name?

Me: Rohit. And yours?

She: God.

Me (coughing in my beer mug): Which one?

She (smiling): All of them, I guess. Rolled into one.

Me: Listen, can I buy you a drink, dear lord?

She: Sure Earthling. I’ll have a beer too.

So, God and I sat comfortably on the sofa sipping beer, eyeing each other. She was a pretty God.

Me: So, God. What are you doing here on Earth?

She: Just roaming around. Checking how you guys are doing.

Me: And how are we doing?

She: You want me to answer that? All right. You guys are pathetic. I am thinking of ending your race. I am thinking of bringing the dinosaur back.

Me: Really? That is a noble thought. But we are an advanced species. We have made such scientific advancements in the last 200 years. Why would you want us dead?

She: You guys are in such awe of yourself! It’s amazing how being in awe can make you blind to everything else. Tell me something. Point out one thing in the world you would like to change.

Me: Whoa! That is a very difficult question. Hmmm. Let me try. Weapons. Remove all weapons from the world. Yes, that would be perfect.

She: Your stock markets will probably crash if I do that and half of the nations will either be bankrupt or lose their purpose of existence. Anyways, that was a noble thought human. *She smiled* What next?

Me: Vaporize all the terrorists, I guess?

She: What about the people in the position of power who actually fund terrorism? Do you want them to be vaporized too?

Me (emptying my beer mug and ordering another) : Sure.

She: Do you even realize what you are asking for Earthling? Your whole system will collapse if I do that.

Me (realizing that she was getting quite serious) : Relax. You need another beer?

She: Yeah sure. What else?

Me: You really want me to keep going, don’t you?

She: You are angry, I can see it pulse inside you. Out with it.

Me: Okay. You asked for it. I want people to stop littering. I want the spit of a person to fly back in his mouth the moment he spits on the ground. *She giggled* I want people to respect each other’s decisions. I want freedom to express myself. I want girls to be respected. I want politicians to understand the gravity of their position. I want all the black money confiscated. I want honking to be banned. I want poverty to be eliminated. I don’t want to see a single human die of hunger. I don’t want any farmer to commit suicide. I don’t want a single child to be blinded to beg or a girl pushed into prostitution. I want all rapists to be castrated. I want peace. I want people to love this gift of life and give it the respect it deserves.

God stared at me for a while. Her beer arrived. She sipped it thoughtfully.

She: That was quite a mouthful. Now say all this in one sentence.

Me: Ummm. I would like people to be more helpful, to smile at each other, to be honest, to respect.

She: Do you understand now?

Me: Yes. Yes, I do.

She: Killing terrorists and destroying weapons will not solve your problems Earthling. They are the manifestations of decades of wrongdoings. You have to begin from the beginning. One person at a time. From here. *and she tapped her finger on my heart*

It was my turn to stare at her.

Me: Who are you, again?

She: I told you. I am God. *She gulped down her beer in one go* My second glass of beer is over.

Me: And you pick a random stranger one at a time to have a chat and drill your point?

She (smiling): No. Not one at a time. I can appear at a million places at one go. Surely you know that? And besides, I get free beer. 

My mobile beeped. It was a text from the friend for whom I was waiting. He was not coming.

Me: Do you want to walk?

She: Sure.

We walked for a while. The air was cool. It felt good. I slipped my fingers between hers.

Me: Can I call you sometime?

She: Of course you can. *She turned and faced me, moving her fingers on my cheek* You were my greatest creation Earthling. You can always close you eyes and call me.

With that she started walking towards the next turn.

Me (shouting as she turned the corner) : I was going to ask for your mobile number.

She smiled and turned. I ran after her. There was no one there.

I started walking towards my car scratching my head. I saw an old man walking by. I looked in his eyes and smiled. He hesitated and then smiled back.

[This post has been written for IndiBloggers Time to Change contest

http://facebook.com/sftimetochange]

The Sentimental Indian

Dr. Grace Augustine: [to Selfridge] Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can’t imagine.
Selfridge: You know what? You throw a stick in the air around here it falls on some sacred fern, for Christ’s sake!

~ Avatar

When I heard this fiery interchange for the first time, moments before they blow up the Na’vi mother tree, I felt what Selfridge said defined the Sentimental Indian very aptly. Of course, we are as different from the inhabitants of Pandora as apples and oranges but for a second I though he was talking about us. The Na’vi was a much intelligent race, sentimentally attached to their soil. Being incredulously sentimental comes easily to us too but in a variety of ways the Na’vi can’t even begin to imagine. Consider the following scenarios:

When she heard the news of SRK replacing her

When SRK replaced Nirupa Roy

Indians are such sentimental creeps at times that it can give you the heebie-jeebies. Look at our glorious cinema. Our Bollywood heroes cry more than our heroines now-a-days. The way SRK cried like a lost puppy in the climax of Kuch Kuch hota hai could even shame Nirupa Roy. I really wish Shah Rukh Khan was never discovered and we would have still been drooling over Sunny Deol’s hand-pump uprooting abilities. Even Akshay Kumar and John Abraham cry. Yeah! That’s how bad things are.

Hiding women as pubs+drinks+women = Rapes

Being sentimental about our Indian culture and values is another way we love to police everyone who do not agree with us. A girl goes to a pub, drinks and gets raped and suddenly everyone gets sentimental over the incident. The Chief Minister of the state in which the rape happened gets sentimental about the future of her political party and blames the opposition for the rape. The guardians of our culture (who are avid porn fans) get sentimental over the fact that a girl was in a pub and drunk. The rest of the population gets sentimental about the safety of their mothers-sisters-wives and start debating on how we have to ensure their safety by not allowing them to go out of the house and stop them  from wearing jeans. The police get sentimental over the fact that there is another FIR in their kitty and they have to do some work and end up making a “clerical mistake” of revealing the victim’s identity.

You are turning your child into a steam engine

Drink my dreams child. They are tasty!

We get sentimental over the future of our children and almost choke them to death in the process. We make them study till their eyeballs hurt, reminding of the harrowing times we went through to make them stand on their feet. We sentimentally shove our dreams down their throat and remind them how they have to take care of us in old age. The children, oblivious of the albatross around their neck, shed a few tears and hug us, realizing a few years down the line that they have been sentimentally tricked.

Rainbows and fragile cultures

Gay and lesbian rights are also something which ruffles the sentimental feathers of a majority of our population. It’s against our culture, they say, secretly praying that their sons and daughters don’t end up with the “sickness”. The fact that a man can love another man horrifies us. Our underdeveloped sentimental brain refuses to understand that it is not a matter of “choice”, something similar to the fact that you cannot choose to have 17 nipples on your chest.

Prince eating Pauper food

Princes and Paupers

The politicians are sentimental about their votes. They promise quotas till there is no general category left. Promising something (like FDIs) and backtracking is the norm as such promises end up making the opposition froth sentimentally. It gives them a chance to overdramatize the situation and vouch to burn all the Walmarts. Votes make Princes of dynasties very sentimental and they end up eating food in huts with the poor people who are sentimental enough to vote for the prince for their 30 seconds of fame on national television. Politicians also are dangerously sentimental about their black money and they end up following their heart and do foolish things like

• throwing Anna Hazare in jail just before a protest is about to begin.
• ordering the police to beat and kick people sleeping peacefully at night at a protest venue.
• blaming Facebook and Twitter for any future riots.
• Trying to pass a Jokepal Bill which had more holes in it than Amitabh Bachchan in the climax of Coolie.

Suck my religion

Try throwing a stone up in the air and chances are that it might hit a sacred tree, a sacred animal or a sacred river and you might end up starting a riot where hundreds will be burnt alive. Yes, we are deeply sentimental about our religion. A wise man said once that religion is like a penis. It’s good to have one and be proud of it but please don’t open your zip and flaunt it in public and don’t shove it down our throat. Well, sentimental Indians believe that it is important to flaunt it in public (religion that is) and so we always have our zip down and we love gagging people with it. We throw writers and painters out of the country because they have hurt our fragile religious sentiments. We make foreigners apologize if they just mention any of our gods or religious buildings in a fit of good humour. We love shouting “Hail Mother India” with moist eyes even though we have no idea what it means.

A sentimental conclusion

Of course our sense of humour is as dry as the Thar Desert but we are as abundant as the oceans as far as shedding a sentimental tear is concerned. We turn dangerous when we are sentimental. We rape, butcher, burn and dance with swords in our hands. And then suddenly, there is war with another country and we stand united and shed copious tears for the dead soldiers. Ditto for a cricket cup.

Yes, that is how much sentimental we are.

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu & Dinner table discussions

Who could have thought that Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu will spark off dazzling dinner table debates at home? I saw the movie with mom, dad, sis and Geet (yeah! Polly has been rechristened Geet. It was long overdue). Although the movie was above average, it broke many boundaries around how girls are expected to behave in our society. The movie projected the female protagonist as someone who had 6 past relationships, who had a great capacity for beer, who likes her personal space, is not worried that she is 27 and not married and can talk freely of sex and can rate a guy’s and her own butt.

*spoiler ahead*

I loved the fact that even though the guy acted like a typical guy and took she-is-roaming-with-me-and-introducing-me-to-her-family as she-loves-me, the girl stood her ground and did not buckle under the pressure. She wanted him as a friend and that’s that. They still annul their marriage. And she does not care that he is super rich.

*spoiler ends*

We have seen similar movies before – Salaam Namaste, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, Kya Kehna, Jab We Met and many others where the female leads are strong. Similarly Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu made the female protagonist much powerful than her male counterpart which is very rare in Bollywood movies. It gave her the right to decide in the end.

Now, before I indulge you with our dinner table debates, I must tell you that dad is quite cool with guys and girls befriending each other and going out for movies and parties. He has never stopped me or my sister from enjoying ourselves, although they are more cautious with sis. They are also comfortable with the whole girlfriend-boyfriend-affair-shaffair scenarios. Of course, dad and mom say things like it’s against our culture and stuff but they hardly believe it themselves. They just have to say it to maintain the Indian-culture façade (the same way you mechanically brush your teeth when you wake up) so that we don’t mistake them to be dangerously liberal.

The whole debate was about Dad having a problem with couples staying together without marriage. Okay, I know this doesn’t go with what happened in the movie but he was commenting about Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan. He could not understand Bipasha and John also who were together since the Big bang and then separated. He might have a point here but then I reminded him that everyone in question were adults and we do not have any right to question what they do in their personal lives. You know where this is going right?

Dad thinks that we live in a society and we have to live by its rules. Why do you have to live with a guy for 5 years and then jump partners after you get bored with him (he meant – after you had sex with him)? There is nothing sacrosanct in the whole affair.

I told him (in less obvious terms) that maintaining your virginity before marriage does not make the whole affair sacrosanct. That is a bit outdated. Secondly, everyone look out for new partners if things do not work out between couples. You don’t have to turn into a nun after your first breakup. Thirdly, our society is the most nosey and hypocrite society in this world. We are fine with girl infanticide, child labor, rapes, corruption, riots, dowry and so many other evils but we find it very objectionable when two consenting adults (who have the right to choose our Prime Minister) live together. It’s actually none of our business. *mom, sis and Geet nodded vigorously*

And this went on and on. It was funny because although dad saw my point in the end, my parents find it very hard to believe that our society has changed so much. I did not tell them that a lot of people have sex with their partners before they get married. I also did not tell them that Geet and I saw a college going couple kissing each other for 1 ½ hours as we watched Source Code in the theatre. It might be too much for them.

I can understand where he is coming from. He was brought up by a disciplinarian who locked up his daughter in the toilet if he found her talking to a boy. My parents were not very liberal with me and my sis initially. They had their apprehensions. Giving their son certain freedom might lead to their daughter asking something similar. But they loosened up and thankfully so. They still raise their eyebrows at sis at times, but she is a maverick. And I am outside their radar ever since I married Geet.

Frankly speaking, I myself would not have been very comfortable about a live-in but that certainly does not mean that I would pass judgment on anyone choosing it. It is also important to understand that movies like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu explore just one end of the spectrum. India is too diverse in its thoughts and opinions that accepting what happened in the movie as a norm would be foolish. Also, we have to understand that only a small percentage of our generation (especially urban) has moved ahead and understood that the nose is to smell the roses and not to poke in someone’s affairs. The rest of the present generation and a majority of the older one is tied to its belief system. They live in a matrix of society, wired into its complicated circuit.

But yes, whether we like it or not, there is a change and it’s happening right under our nose.

The needles

The first thing that changes in you after returning to India is that the needle of your swear-meter flails very close to the danger mark, almost to the verge of rupturing a nerve in your brain. Well, almost.

It happened with me. It’s still happening. I am a lot more angrier now a days. Small things like someone opening a glass door with his hand, imprinting the Congress symbol on it while ignoring a bloody handle irritates me to no end. I feel like shouting. A few deep breaths later, I am fine.

Then I see people falling over each other to get into a lift to go to a floor above when the lift is going to the basement, simple because they can’t take chances. What if it is filled at the basement? They will be stranded at the ground floor till eternity.

These are small things. I know. I know we will be ahead of China in a couple of years. We are reproducing like crazy. Just like a virus experiment gone horribly wrong. I think that is why people have no patience for anything. They have to take shortcuts, do everything as quickly as possible. Win the race. And, of course, you can’t take away the fact that we are still quite rustic at heart.

I was telling Polly (who is a teacher) that you can define liquid to your class by showing them a photograph of a traffic jam in India. The stream of vehicles take the shape of any vacant area around the roads. And it took me a lot of time to get used to the honking. Believe me, that is the first thing you notice after coming back. It is like needles in your ears. And people honking at rickshaw-pullers is funny. The rickshaw will not develop wings and fly away.

Today, while driving my car, I saw a woman cross the road with the school going kid. She did not bother to look both sides before crossing. A lot of people do that. They believe that even if there is a car coming at a speed of 70, the guy will eventually apply the brakes when he will see two people in the middle of the road, roaming as if in a park. But what if that guy is distracted? What if he is not able to apply the brakes?  I don’t know whether the fact that our religions talk about rebirth provides us with the audacity to belittle life or are we so wrapped up in taking shortcuts that we forget to bother about anyone’s life? When I see people driving on the wrong side of the road just because the U-turn is a bit ahead, I start believing that the latter is true.

Making queues is unheard of at most of the places, leave alone the courtesy of letting the person standing before you complete his transaction. A few days back, I had a fight with a woman who created a new ‘ladies’ line at the metro station when the original line was only 2 people long! She called herself Anna Hazare and labeled me Rahul Gandhi. I had to tell her that she was an idiot. And then, I was watching the crowd surrounding Anna Hazare at the Ramlila ground and thinking – Given a chance, most of the people sitting here will disregard each other with utter disdain. What if I leave a suitcase full of money in the middle of the crowd? Movement be damned, won’t they claw each other for that?

What kind of people are these? Why is there such utter disrespect of the needs of other people? Why are we always at each others throat?

And then mulling over it, I start realizing, that it’s not just in India. It’s everywhere. It’s basic human nature. Put 10,000,000 humans in Manchester at it will decay as quickly. Developed or developing, societies are directionless in their own way.

Anyways, I was angry, so had to vomit it out somewhere. Thankyou for your patience. And how have all of you been?

p.s. It’s not a comeback post. It’s just a random rant blip.

Best Eateries for bookworms – II

Related read – Best Eateries for Bookworms – I

In Part I, I had listed 15 of my favorite books, but since then I have read a number of books which I have found equally unputdownable. So, here is another list of 15 of my favorites in alphabetical order. If you like reading fiction, they are a must read. If you want more information on a particular book, just click on the name of the book. Here goes:

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

The story of Yossarian, a bomber in the U.S. Air force set during the later years of the World War II. The reader might find the story a little out of sequence because at times there are same events which are described by different characters at different points of time. The story is dipped in satire and questions touching upon various themes like moral dilemma, bureaucracies, personal integrity and patriotism. The book is considered as one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century.

Dune by Frank Herbert

The book revolves around a highly evolved form of  human race scattered across various planets in the universe some twenty thousand years in the future where science and technology has evolved far beyond its present state. The story touches upon various themes like politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion. Dune was first published in 1965 and it won the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best novel in the following year. It is considered the best science fiction novel of all times.

Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov

A book which holds the distinction of being called “sheer unrestrained pornography” and “one of the best novels of 1955” at the same time. Lolita was refused by 4 American publishers because of its subject content before it finally saw the light of the day. The book follows the story of a middle aged literary scholar who is obsessed with young girls and gets sexually involved with a 12 year old girl named Dolores Haze. Lolita now holds the status of a classic and is considered as the most controversial book of 20th century.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

During an unnamed nuclear war, a plane carrying a group of young boys crashes in a deserted island. There are no adult survivors and the boys are left on their own. The book dwells into the idea of how culture and society created by humans fail even at the smallest level. The boys create group amongst themselves which finally ends up in disaster and they end up being hungry for each others blood. The book underlines the conflict between the “greater good of the society’ and the “hunger for power”. As you reach the climax of the story, you would have completely forgotten that you were reading about a bunch of school kids.

My name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

An enriching book by the Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. The book was originally written in Turkish and was later translated to English. How difficult the translation would have been can be understood by the complex English sentences. The story is a murder mystery set during the rein of the Ottoman Empire during the late 1500s where a miniaturist is murdered while working on a very special book. Each of the chapter is narrated by a different character and sometimes even by a coin, a color or the corpse of the murdered miniaturist.

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

One of the most mesmerizing books I have read recently. The narrative flows beautifully even though the book has been translated from German. The book follows the story of Raimund Gregorius, a teacher of Greek and Latin, whose chance encounter with a beautiful Portuguese woman sets a chain of events where he finds himself on a journey to an unknown country to find about the past of Amadeu de Prado, a Portuguese Doctor and a writer. My favorite lines from the book are – “Can God create a stone He couldn’t lift? If not, then he isn’t almighty; if yes, He isn’t either, for now there is a stone He cannot lift.”

1984 by George Orwell

The book which has already been translated into 65 languages, was written in 1944 and contained chilling accounts of how the world might be in 1984. The story is set in Oceania, a super state, where the protagonist Winston Smith works for the ruling party(the term Big Brother was coined for the leader of the ruling party) and who is assigned the work of falsifying political records and history. The book touches upon the theme of Nationalism, sexual oppression and censorship. Thankfully, the world did not end up as the book predicted, except for China.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Winner of the Booker Prize in 2000, the novel follows the story of Iris Chase and her sister Laura who commits suicide immediately after the Second World War. The beauty of the book is that there is a story within the story. As the story of Iris and Laura proceeds, the reader comes across another story of a Blind Assassin in a fictional world and his love for a mute girl whom he is sent to kill. This book is a classic example of how a story can be woven to keep the reader glued till the end. An amazing book.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief is a story told by the Angel of Death, the surreptitious soul collector who is haunted by humans and who was very busy during the Second world war. Set in the Nazi Germany, during the beginning of the second World War, the book follows the story of an orphaned girl who is sent to live with her foster parents in a small town. The family hides a Jew in the basement of their house during the war, which changes their lives in many ways. A beautifully written book.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The book won the 1983 Pulitzer for fiction and was later made into a movie by Steven Spielberg which introduced Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey to the big screen. The book takes into account the extreme low condition of the black females in the conservative society of the United States during the 1930s. The book is a series of letters and diary entries of a black woman named Celie , a poor and uneducated woman, who at the age of fourteen is raped and impregnated twice by the man she believes to be her father. And yes, the movie is as good as the book.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

A critically burnt English man, his nurse Hana, a thief and a Sikh Sapper named Kip form the central characters of this beautifully written book which won the Booker in 1992. The book was also made into a movie which won 9 Oscars including the Best Picture in 1996. The story of the English Patient’s past and the love story between Hana and Kip form the two parallel stories of the book.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a young boy from a small village in Kabul, who betrays his best friend Hassan, the son of his father’s servant, and lives in regret. The story has the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion and the rise of the Taliban as its background. I think enough has been said about the book already. Its a shame if you haven’t read it by now.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

First published in 1850, this novel is the story of Hester Prynne, who commits adultery while she is waiting for her husband to return from a journey. She gives birth to a girl and refuses to identify the father as a result of which she is subjected to public shame and a red cloth(in the form of the letter A, which stands for Adultery) is attached to her gown while she is lead out of the town. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt. The book was an instant success and was the first mass produced book using mechanized printing.

The Secret life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

A beautifully written book, The Secret life of Bees tell the story of 14 year-old Lily Owens whose life is somehow connected to her mother’s accidental death. Lily’s black caretaker Rosaleen insults three white men one day and had to run away to save her life. Repeatedly abused by her father, Lily runs away with Rosaleen and is taken in by three black beekeeping sisters who hold the key to her mother’s past. A moving, must read book.

Timeline by Micheal Crichton

If you want Science fiction with the chills and thrills of a roller coaster ride, Micheal Crichton is the best bet. Timeline remains undoubtedly his best novel, although each of his book has turned into a bestseller. The book tells the story of a group of Historians who travel back to the Middle ages to save a friend of theirs who had already traveled back in time before them. The way Crichton combines the minute Historical details with Quantum Physics and Time travel is amazing.

I hope you enjoyed the list and

p.s. A lot of the information in the post is via wiki.