Cocktails.

“Dev. Are you on the line?”
~
“Got those swollen hand blues.
I've got nicotine stains on my fingers.

I've got a silver spoon on a chain.”
~
Dev. Dev D. Pink. Pink Floyd. They both have got wild staring eyes. And a strong urge to fly. But nowhere to fly to.

The son of a rich businessman. Just returned from London. His childhood love. Paro. He still loves her. Lusts for her. Craves to see her naked. Make love to her. Paro. She is amorous too. She wants a place where they can make love to each other. She makes the cardinal mistake of letting an outsider know what she’s game for. Asks him to find her a place, where she can take Dev.

Dev is told that she is “highly experienced”. The chauvinist in him decides she is a “slut”. She is insulted. Humiliated. Made to feel ashamed over trivial issues. “…Apni aukat toh dikh saale…!!!” And asked to leave…

Paro, her self-esteem bruised, decides she’ll marry the person her parents have chosen for her. In the wedding ceremony, Dev comes to know that whatever he has been told about Paro earlier, was a farce! In front of his eyes, he sees Paro getting married. But not even for once, he comes and asks for her hand… or tries to make amends. Why? Because his ego seemed to matter more to him than his love. And for that, he suffers for the rest of his life…!

Vodka. Cigarettes. Drugs. In his hotel room in Delhi, Dev is all but alone. A portrait. Paro and Dev in their childhood.

Pink is all but alone too in his hotel room. The continued strife between his ordinary self and his extra-ordinary self.
~
“I've got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from.

I've got electric light.

And I've got second sight.

I've got amazing powers of observation.”
~
All his life, Pink had dreamt, and lived, the life of a superstar. Tremendous wealth. ‘nd fame. While neglecting the only things in life that could have kept him grounded in the real world …family, love, et al…! And so, where he’s found in ‘Nobody Home’ is a hotel room, that allows him to occupy it just for that night…and maybe for the next day too…and the next night. He can stay on as long as he wishes to. He has the capability. But he doesn’t wish to. He craves for a home. But his home just doesn’t exist. His wife had left long ago. There’s nobody to even pick up the phone.
~
“When I try to get through

on the telephone to you,

There will be nobody home”
~
“Ooooh, Babe when I pick up the phone

There's still nobody home”
~
There’s an undeniable similarity in the way the story of Dev and Pink unfurls. In Dev D. ‘nd in Nobody Home.

I have been awestruck with the way Dev D is made.

The camerawork. The lights that lit up Dev’s face. The chrome-yellow. The various shades of blue. The swirling images of Dev as he drinks and just keeps drinking… and empties one glass of liquor after another… and tries to lose consciousness of the world around him. (That scene reminded me of the disco scene from Babel.) That of Dev against the sky-blue of the sky! The cameraman did an excellent job with the other actors and scenes as well. But with Dev, I felt, he went that extra mile to ensure tremendous success for the movie! The screenplay, the way the scenes came after each another, sometimes moving forward in time and then rewinding to put a past frame into its present context, is commendable too! And the acting besides, the soundtrack of the movie is the best asset. The way it compliments the story-line… the beats…the same track modified aptly to suit different portions of the movie… the unconventional lyrics…Truly, it’s anything but ‘Emotional Atyachar’. :-)

Dev is made to believe that the only person he can ever love is, himself. That is why, he can never accept defeat in love. He can never put someone beyond himself. His ego. His self-possessiveness. And that is why, he perhaps could never love somebody truly. Though he said he loved Paro, Paro made him realize that ‘love’ doesn’t embody only ‘lust’ in it…that ‘responsibility’ is also something that matters, and perhaps the ‘willingness to take responsibility of the other person’ is what matters most! And that is exactly what Dev is trying to shirk away from… and that is exactly where he falls short of making his love worthwhile! He was made to realize that it actually hurts him to think of Paro making love to another man and not him, and nothing besides!

Dev realized that to take life “just like that” had become his way of life long ago! To get angry just like that. And to let out that anger in his archetypal manner (It even meant smashing someone’s head with a glass). To get frustrated over frugal affairs. And to let out that frustration by “getting on a high”. Thums Up and vodka. More than a necessity to overcome depression, it had become his fashion to seek refuge in drugs! In prostitutes! In the dirtiness of his room! In his rash-driving! No wonder Dev symbolizes a large fraction of today’s youth. Those who believe that they are not spoilt, just because they have that “very small fraction of honesty” in some corner of their hearts and “true genuine love” in another, but in reality go ahead to maul innocent children, deep in slumber on the city pavements, with one reckless spree of rash-driving on a brand new BMW or a Honda City!

But however much you try to make these persons see reality in ‘what reality actually is’…. the more they try and avoid you!

“…you on the line?? …listening to what I am saying?”

“Stop that psychological crap!”

“Err…you mind going out together? Would you like me to join you? Just for company?!”

“Just for vodka shots. Else you needn’t come! Bye.”

Modern Times!

The Parody.

"...dekho toh...ek hai jise life mein kuch nehi mil rahi hai...ek computer training institute mein part-time naukri karta hain...weekend mein coffee-shop?..use yeh puchho toh woh kahe "..yaar sochna parega..zero income hai yaarrr!!!.." ....whatevrrrr!!!..."

"...toh dusri taraf aur ek hai...jo ek achhi MNC mein settled hai...monthly net income toh kahi 50-60 thousand k as-pas hoga-hi...come on yaar..sab ka waisa hi hota hai...use bhi wohi milega shayed...kyun..thik kahan na main?...... phir bhi uski life mein kitna problem hai pata hai...? Sunna chaho gi...toh suno......."
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The girl won't marry him.
Err..sorry! Rather, the girl's dad won't let her daughter marry him.
..aaa...DAD?
"Yeah dude! DAD." And you believed i am talking about modern times, right? :-) Well, surely, the joke isn't on me! :p
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When this guy was introduced to the girl's father, a flurry of questions.

"Where do you work son?"

"HP. In Bangalore."

"Happy...in life?"

"Yeah....!?!"

"What's your work schedule like?"

"I leave for work around 7. Return? well, it's usually 10 or 11 at night....depends actually..depends on work in office...."

"..!!! You get to work at 7 and return home at 10..? 11...? Well, how much does that make? That means...you stay out of your house for 14 hours a day!!!!!!!!"

"Yeah...why?"

"And how much are you paid son?"

The guy wonders, ehh..is that a decent question? okay, excused..!

"..what i receive is somewhere around 50."

"50...????"

"..hmm."

"Now..i have a question son! You see, i am also a professor. i work in one of the reputed colleges of Calcutta. I have done my Ph.D. I have had an extensive experience in teaching...am still going strong, you may conclude! But...even i don't get so high a salary! Do i get it? No. Then tell me...why do you get it? i mean ..don't take offence...but what does the company see in you to pay you so high a salary?"

Frustrated to whatever extent you'd imagine, the guy still acts decent, and calmly proceeds to give a reply.

"You see. There are lots of factors. But the basic thing is....the company believes that today i have got a high energy reserve....which tomorrow i won't be having! i mean.. not as much as i have it today. So the company obviously believes in extracting as much work out of me as possible. If they pay me 50 thousand a month, it definitely isn't before they beileve they have made me work hard enough to rake in atleast one lakh to the company's treasury! You get my point?"

"..hmm. So how many hours, do you think, you'll be free for my daughter?"

"..err..pardon."

"No. You almost don't stay in the house. so...how'll you be able to take care of my daughter?"

"When did i say i want to take care of your daughter?"
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Needless to say, further talks did not ensue. or even if they did, they didn't bear much fruit...!

The guy though was later found soliloquizing.
"...sara din boss ki baat sunte raho...! arre tum ye nahi kar rahe ho...woh nehi kar rahe ho....woh assignment complete hua? jao..abhi complete karo! sham paach baaje se pehle ho jana chahiye!
Woh uthne ko kahe to utho..baithne ko kahe toh baith jao..!? beer peen-a ko maana kare..toh mat piyo! aur agar beer peen-a ko kahe..toh piyo!! saala..kyan life hai yaar?? upar se..? yeh shadi ki baat..! aur kaun? ....woh bachhi ki baap!?! behenchod saala..."

Heh!

Modern Times! :-)

P.S. After this incident was narrated to us by CKS sir, me, Yash and Sagar burst into hysterical laughter! after we could reasonably collect ourselves, all we could conclude is "meyer baap is tottal complex khawa party..!!" :-d

Together means To-get-her..? :-)

A change will come about. It's inevitable.

When i left school, i was sure that it will. Though, not sure how? "..er..what change..?" So i just wrote, "That the faces we say 'Good Morning' to, will change..!"

S. When i first looked at you, didn't feel like looking at you twice. Didn't like canteen girls!

...but soaked in sweat, when we emerged from the BCR, it was the same face! gossiping. looking coy!

...to start talking..well it just happened..? or..did you make it happen? :-) Well, i don't know. i 'knew' it though..!

But for the second question to be.."/What's the difference between 'like' and 'love'..?/", the face really did have to matter! I looked on. Then I started getting involved.

With that coyish smile, you replied "..aa..well...i don't know..!"..."well..u asked me that?.....haha..ha ha ha...!!".../and you continued...

"There was this poem, you know,..."

"You are English Hons.?"

"ya."

"You write?"

"I write a diary."

"So..what do you write?"

Blah. Blah. Blah.

S. i know you had lied that day! Excused though! :-)

Days passed in a frenzy of activities. Debates. Table-tennis. Carrom. Birthday parties. kaora... In the haze of it all, just one thing remained where i was always used to seeing it. And it would always seem to ask "are you free now?", though the poker-faced "i am free now" would already be conveyed by the stupid boy..!~ ;-)

Infatuation?!

You may say so. i will agree!

For, maturity is something that eludes every boy before a certain time. a certain age. before certain incidents actually take place in his life. before he's actually put on the 'hot seat' of taking rational decisions in his life!

And before that happens, sooner or later, he sure is greeted by his friends with this typical Bengali catcall...."Tottal 'lattu' hoye gachhe re!".......

And how i hated being that? :-d

Though S. i would never forget that Ashtami night. on Shyambazaar metro station platform. The clock close to striking twleve at night. For...

when two trains from opposite directions rush in, and you are most likely to board either of them, and it's then that you don't...

...that you just keep sitting in those chairs...keep waiting...you want the crisis to pass...the moment to pass...for the very next.../ counting the beat...and neither of you leaving the place.....

and you see the trains start moving out of platform just like they had entered...

...leaving the two of you alone...

...that moment...you are left 'speechless'....!

You look around you. find no one else. You look at the other. and you start searching for 'answers'. For a momentary lapse of reason!

.

.

But it's when you don't start searching for answers. You don't feel you had lost yourself the moment earlier, at all. you rather feel you are doing that now! :-)

That moment is one of a lifetime!

You decide between 'like' and 'love'!

Indian Roads.

Indian Roads. A fascination...

...the speedometer ticking the 120-mark...the scorching sun...the mirage created...the mirage lost...till you find a lonesome tea-stall...if any at all...amidst a sea of sand...dryness...cactus leaves...The Road To Jaisalmer.

..."Saab-ji...sherbet?! Rooh-afza?"...Three to four glasses... "Aap log Kalkatta se aye hon?".."Punjab achha laaga?"....In the summer months...with the loo in your face...and severe dehydration...anything but....!! Still, The Road To Chandigarh.

...curious faces...urchins..looking at you "amazed"...as if you belong to a different world.. but you try to approach him...he darts away...running after a tyre..."playing his game"..a stick in one hand...

..and of faces that say "I am tired..i want to run away..and i WILL run away to Mumbai"... serving tea, roti and dal-makhani to truck-drivers...morning, day and night. No sleep. Ragged clothes. and wretched lives!

and they become 'helpers'...sitting day-and-night beside "one of the most frustrated sections of Indian society"( as reports say )...the truck-drivers! nothing to live for. a home that perhaps existed. a family that could have seen the light of day....if only his wife would be spared of her humiliation by the storks and the ravens!

From a life of entertaining drunkards by midnight and tourists by day....

...to a life behind the 'windshield'...of meeting faces that run races past him on a brand new Scorpio. 'Helpers' do they actually become...;-) Just give him the steering-wheel once. preceding with a bottle of country liqour. and he'll know how to be sucksesfull in life..."..not really giving a damn as to what you mean by success..and how you spell it."

An accidental birth. no name.

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an unwilling child-labourer by day. a dreamer by night.

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Mumbai. I know not how. I know not why.

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Getting high on the highway. And finishing lives..just like that.

You integrate the picture over a thousand faces. And you know what life on Indian Roads is. all along it. A fascination?

What a fucking joke!

Why The Cow Gives Milk?

Whenever you set on to do something...it must be clear to you why you are doing it...and also to some extent..."to gauge its ramifications".../
So..when i set down to write in this blog...i do ask myself.."What is the purpose?...why am i writing here?" And to delve into a more vast blank script with the question.."Why write...at all?"
Well, Shashi Tharoor had to say (quoting Sir George Bernard Shaw) that "I write...for the same reason a cow gives milk: it's inside me, it's got to come out, and in a real sense I would suffer if I couldn't. It's the way I express my reaction to the world I live in, see around me, and try to imagine."
So..do I write pretty much for the same reason too?
Well...sometimes. But a greater motivation lies in the fact that I love to see my thoughts getting reflected from this screen. To articulate my feelings, and then to read how I actually feel. For only when I am writing, I am in the grip of my 'subconscious' mind...an entity which otherwise eludes me. And I am, in a real sense, inquisitive about how day-to-day life is shaping my subconscious.
And i, in a real sense, will be interested twenty years hence to look back in retrospect as to how i used to think, to write and to feel when I was in my college-days at the age of twenty!
For, through all phases of your life, you do not remain the same 'individual'..! Trust me...it's true!

Sunrise Over The Ganges.

Pandit Ravi Shankar said that when he was a child, his mother used to take him to the ghats of the Ganga, in Benares. Early in the morning, he would see the priests descending down the steps of the ghat to wash themselves in the holy waters, women buying sweets and garlands to offer their prayers before God, the half-naked sadhus still fast asleep ~ alone in their forlorn experience of life, on the pavements. His mother would bring him there, and tell him mythological love ballads of Radha and Krishna; his mother used to tell him whatever she knew....he would hear it, see with a young boy's imagination what romance is, and yet hear the cries of a poor deserted child in front of the temple, and see something else....

He said that a chord was struck, with these childhood memories of his.

Dawn breaks; the sun rises over the Ganges; at the backdrop of green banyan leaves and the rehearsing play of a flute, after taking three dips into the water, a devotee slowly raises his head from underneath the water, with closed eyes, clasped hands and a radiant physique."Brahma!" Much at the same time, a poor boy, at the temple door, throws his voice in singing a song to the devotees, coming for the aarti; pleased, they give this boy some paise; but ah! he wants that 'note' ~ again to be played. The flute-music has stopped. Just what a still void the boy felt with cold dread? The flamboyance of innocence, willing to make a coloratura....with the accompaniment of that flute-music. When the prayer ends, the boy _ who knows, out of what expectations _ rushes to the waters, submerges his head thrice, and murmurs his prayers in red lips!

Poverty bites. But once we are born, we want to live. We desire to create; be heard; be noticed. For the dhakis of Bengal....the majhis with their bhatiali songs....the aspiring flute-players of Benares _ everywhere, they see an imagination, and in reality, see something else. In India, poverty is not less harsh than it actually seems! But then, what's to become of aspiring aficianados?

In spite of all these, our romanticism with regards to faith and self remains viable. Thousands of devotees gathering at the banks of the Ganges fills our heart with the satisfaction of an unique fulfilment. The attraction towards temples, and the excitement at reaching the last step of the ghat and purifying yourself in those turbid waters, speaks immense of our congenital traits.

It is this faith in God that has created so much in this land. We perhaps want faith to conquer us, when we are in troubled times. This faith does not remain constrained to God only; it gradually creates a strength in us to have faith in ourselves; in music; in our motherland, in our creation so that we can absorb the pains and sufferings that make reality. The green mind is enabled to run the green mile.

Pt. Ravi Shankar's sitar strings were moved to move, by the inspirations from the beautiful naked truths of existential life. Life needs to be made beautiful. If 'poverty', 'purity' and 'creativity' can sustain each other when dawn breaks on the ghats of Benaras, do we need to doubt our ability for adaptability? When our tryst with sanctity is so intense that we can conceptualise the purification of our mind and soul with one splash into the Ganga river, exactly like the purified sun rises out of the Ganges to bring light and freshness to the day, are we in any way in real poverty? The sunrise over the Ganges definitely do not make the headlines, but it goes on to make a nation's pride.

P.S. I wrote this article when I was in my final year in school. moved by the Discovery Channel documentary on Pandit Ravi Shankar's early life.

Arindam Sir.

Of Ruskin Bond. Of Rusty losing his way before he could reach the tunnel...
Of 'Letters from a Father to His Daughter'. And my striving to make head-and-tail of it...writing answers to the questions that followed from the passage.
Of Banaphul.
Of why i would grudge to pay Rs 5/- instead of Rs 4/- for the same cup of tea from the local chai-wala, and not utter a single word while paying forty bucks for 'Lemon Tea' at The Grand Hotel. "Aesthetics my dear..." he would say. "Sense of prestige, not beauty, dear Sir", i would retort..!
Of hours spent before the first word was penned down for an essay topic that went like "Autobiography of an envelope, that carried messages for Napoleon the Great" to rueing the spontaneity lost for the same!!
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To becoming a less-confused Agastya Sen two years down the line. Of still not knowing why, after choosing not to study medicine, I chose Economics and not English, something i was rather good at. It still amuses me to think how my risk-taking attitude got the better of me at that point of time when I had to make the choice...really!!

Arindam Sir. My English Teacher. When he first started coming to my resi. in cls 7, i was a pretty distracted child. Slightest sound from the TV in the adjoining drawing-room and my ears would go straight. ".....'wobbly feet' u know.... Ruskin Bond would write this to say 'The boy...with tired legs...would now have to cross the river' "............"Rajarshi, you are listening na..?!" A shy nod. Till then, i only read what my friend Anobik read. The Hardy Boys. The Enid Blyton series. Tom Sawyer. And Ruskin Bond was a new name. Introduced in a way as if it's an enigma. Later, as i would read 'The Night Train To Deoli' and the likes during my summer vacation, i would come across a hitherto unknown world of fantasy. I still rummage through the city bookstore shelves for Ruskin Bond. 'Delhi Is Not Far' is what i intend to read next.

"Oh Sir...aar parchhi na...mone hochchhe dnat ta khule haat a chole ashbe..uff ki tough..ki tough..!!"
"Aare chesta koro na..."
"Ha sir..apni toh chewing-gum khete khete oi-tuku bolei khalash..!!"
"Ki aar maximum hobe bolo toh? 50 marks ar opor paper ta set korechhi....ta te maximum zero pabe, ei toh??"
Yes...'maximum zero'. Well, Nehru's writings to daughter Indira have long served the purpose of finest example of English writing in India. And Sir used to give me compositions based on that. In class 8. Naturally, i would keep on whining about the fact as to how tough it is....and to soothen me, he would get into discussions. How inspiring Nehru's speech was at the stroke of midnight on 14th August,1947. His foreign policies... especially the ones with China (that has a continuing impact in the north-eastern region in the form of territorial unrest) and Pakistan. Whether Indira Gandhi would have allowed the economic liberalization...for as far as her history goes, she wouldn't have in all probability (incidentally, i read an article in The Telegraph very recently that echoed the same thought).
And as I would listen to Sir, I would be in awe. He was just 23 i guess at that time, doing his Masters from CU. And he would read everything. And suggest me the same. Noam Chomsky. Bertrand Russel. Aldous Huxley (boy! i myself had read about his Mexican expeditions, and have never known that travel writing could come in so complicated a form!!!). And there were also things that he would suggest me not to read. "Bujhle Rajarshi...khobordar Freud porte jeo na kintu..." As he would say this, looking at me through his bespectacled eyes, he would smile at me knowing that he had perfectly aroused my interest by forbidding something...! i would smile back.

.

If his depth of knowledge was admirable, then it was his willingness to share that knowledge, always with that certain degree of reserve that made him an interesting person! He would say," A good teacher is someone who knows ten times more than a good student. "
...and his capability in provoking my mind with questions.
"Why is it that you believe that the world 'peace' lies in the corner of your room?"....to which i would probably mumble at first, and then say something like..."....coz it's the only unconventional place on earth where i can 'piss' with nobody complaining..!!" How abt that??.

...or maybe something even less sensible like..."Peace, like charity, begins at home...and the corner is the only place where 'ends' meet."

"Why is it that class-bunking is a necessary evil?"

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Talks profound. Pseudo-intellectualism galore. A day arrived when i found Sir, coming to my house after a break, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Usually, he was quite indifferent to social gatherings, throwing phrases like "Marriage is legal prostitution" and blah blah, expecting me to combat the same, which i'd usually do though!! So I asked....
"Ki sir...onek din no patta...ki khobor apnar?"
"Aar bolo kano...oi ekta biye-bari chhilo.... "
"Apnake dekhe-shune ja mone hochchhe....ta te toh praye apnar-e biye ta hoye jawar jogar hoyechhilo aar ki..."
"Ki bolle?!...come again..."
"Na maane....i-ye....."
"Actually, biye ta amari chhilo jano....korei phellam bujhle..?!"
....And the two of us burst into laughter!!! So much so...that when actually i should have served him with some sweets for that news, we went out to celebrate our hysterical laughter with chicken rolls!!
Incidentally, that was his last day at my residence. So, i asked him a question, " Sir, on the very first day, you told me to read Bond. Now, on the very last day, what do you suggest me to read?.." and politely added with a smug smile "..sir..ektu chhotor opore bolben...!"
"Banaphul."
"byas..?!"
"Byas."
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Needless to say, this writing demands an epilogue. Banaphul is all about being precise. To put everything "in a nutshell".
I had often smiled at the thought that Arindam Sir, who used to come in a Kawasaki bike, and who would simply not give a break to flying kites on Viswakarma puja day,...the next time i meet him, i would probably see him coming out of the fish-market, carrying two heavy bags...and probably with an urchin dangling his feet from his father's shoulders!!

I called up at his resi after bijoya-dashami. And Aunty (sir's mom) said,"K Sir k khujchho..?! o toh Sandakpu te trekking korte gachhe...kobe phirbe.....ummm......."
Wow! Sandakpu Heights! I miss him. Arindam Sir. He was not perfect. And neither am I. None of us actually is. But he showed me what high thinking and plain living is. To think unconventionally. To think...
Of Heights. Dizzy Peaks. Of Risks....i chance upon to remember an old essay named 'I would not know Ambition had I not seen the Himalayas' as i end here!