In Air with Air India

How noticeable it is that only to humans 6 years and below, the thought of flying Air India is not depressing. To the older population the idea brings such moroseness that it makes them forget to tag their airport presence and holiday destinations on FB. Oh the international scale of omission! Why the long face one wonders. After all, it’s our national airline! It has a cute little Maharaja as an original mascot - smiling, supplicating, hand-on-the-heart; exactly what we love and vote for in the elections. The air hostesses wear Indian dresses with unique motifs of peacock feathers and peahen frowns browns. They usually serve us our very Indian idli-sambhar. Why then does our Patriotism take flight the moment we learn we’re flying AI? 

Recently, for a flight at 5:00 am we woke up (from a sleep we never slept) at 1:30 am. We reached the airport at a similarly ungodly hour. ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ taught us back in 2005 that 3:00 am in the night is the devil’s hour. It is when we stood at the serpentine baggage check-in queue that we realized Hollywood can be right sometimes and also serpents in any form are satanic! With about 40 people, and their 40X3 bags, before us, this was going to be long. But why? There was only one check-in counter functioning for multiple flights. One! Not that the missing AI staffers didn’t know how many flights take off then. Probably just … striking? We stood, obviously, like others did before us, regularly looking at the length of the queue behind us for morning motivation and not in front. The kid by then made the trolley his bed. 

After 500 years or so of waiting, some AI flights were about to take off without passengers. Non VIP passengers, I mean. So someone obviously lost her patience and screamed ‘why is there only one counter running?’ A man who had by now tied his muffler around his waist in a Kalaripayat style joined in with his thunder. Fortunately for the high dome of IGI airport, the manager on duty standing safely, and invisibly, a kilometre away from the queue heard the echo. Poof! Another counter came alive, almost as if the guy was sleeping behind it all this while, waiting for the question to be asked. As if it was routine. He rubbed his eyes, settled his hair and began staring unblinkingly at his screen. (Solitaire does that to me too.) 

If the queue was moving at a snail’s pace before, it began moving at two snails’ pace now. 

When our turn finally came and we crossed the thick yellow line, we felt like we were Indian Idols selected for the Big Boss house. We sent a silent prayer of gratitude to the Maharaja and this prayer was still on its way when... ‘Check-in baggage toh nahi hai?’ spat the counter no. 1 man. Once the fire from his mouth abated we with guilty voice said yes and with shivering hands put our sole suitcase on his belt. Hand-baggage tags reached us like bullets and we felt ever-so-sorry for having taken His Highness’s precious time and humongous favour. How remiss of us! 

We almost walked away without turning our back to him, humbly bending again and again, retreating from the august presence and fortunate encounter till we finally bumped into the security check sign-board. And another queue, of course. 

So going back to paragraph 1, many of us have our reasons, accumulated like adipose tissue over the years, for forgetting to tag our airport presence and holiday destinations on FB. 

For instance when you reach the door of the AI air craft you find an air hostess or two standing there to welcome you. Except, it may sometimes feel like wiping bare feet on a coir mat which reads ‘Oh well! Come!’ Namastey is said as if there’s snot all over your face and if you’re lucky it’s said to the air on your right. 

You settle in and look at those mini-TVs with hope in your eyes, as does your kid. You realize they aren’t coming on and it’s no surprise. Kids take longer to deal with harsh truths of life. They press all the buttons. Press press press punch. Then they press all their parents’ buttons which miraculously may have been left un-pressed still, before deciding to watch the dark night outside instead of the Dark Knights next to them. Blankets and pillows are rare and need Raffle Tickets to get lucky enough to land some! 

But surely food is the salvation? Woe befalls you if you’re sitting in the middle of the plane, no matter that it’s the Emergency Door seat and the lives of 300 passengers depend on your pulling the handle in time. That proud-y feeling sinks away as the food carts start rolling your way. You look back. You look in the front. Coming. Coming. Still coming. Almost here. Here! ‘Sorry ma’am. We’ve run out of veg. We can give you bun and jam.’ You’re a Punjabi steam engine in a seat belt but the cork of English-speaking decency keeps the chimney blocked. A meek okay later you decide to mew ‘Excuse me. May I have two buns, please?’ And you know, in your deepest gut you know that was a wrong question to ask and bam! She says as she moves away, louder than before, ‘Sorry! We don’t give extras.’ 8 people hear it, 10 decide to look at you. No one dare look at the air hostess. Suddenly, a vision of your subzi bhaiya comes up. With a halo behind his head. A saint who gives 5-ka-dhaniya free. A saint!

Not that getting food is any guarantee of gastric satisfaction. You see, we were recently served rice with baingan ka bharta. I eat both happily! But together? They are scientifically unmixable and especially with a fork which weighs two times the weight of the whole food tray! I did find 1/4th of a parantha tucked between two rice grains. It was a perfect triangle the length of my middle finger. It was cute. But it didn’t unfurl into a circle. Coffee was served alongside our dinner with a kaam khatam karo zeal and we were left with the supernatural task of mixing-mixing to eat our dinner before the coffee went cold. Or before the trays are collected and the lights turned off. Because they were!

You see, as soon as the last tray was picked, or maybe even before that, the plane went dark. Helped with using the toothpicks but still! Did I hear an air steward announce ‘Lights out! Off to bed!’ No no. It must be my memories of the nunnery interfering with my sense of reality. Anyhow, nearly all the reading lights came on immediately. People had things to do. Important things to read. Funny things to say. Fun holidays to plan. Strange dinner things to wipe off their mouths. In that silver haze what followed is sleep. It better follow, actually! To sleep is human but to snore in an AI flight is divine, because it’s that deep sleep only which can take you away from the goriest and grumpiest of … 

Anyway. Just like all nails scratching a wall must reach the floor some time and stop, so comes to an end your Air India flight. You land. Once before you heard the Captain’s voice asking the crew to just sit down now for takeoff. You again hear a thank you for being in air with Air India from the said Captain, who is impeccably dressed and bordering on handsome but who sounds exactly like a doctor’s handwriting.

The seat-belt sign is off and everyone is up as if they spotted an ATM machine with no queues. The plane is full of hustle and bustle and truant burps and sighs of relief. And amidst all the din and ado, there suddenly shines a ray of hope. Unexpectedly. You realize you hadn’t seen that shine for the longest time. 

The air hostess at the door has a big wide smile for you. A smile! And so do you! For her! 

I guess some goodbyes are sweeter than hellos. Especially when in the national carrier, the nation has finally reached where it wanted to go. Chalo. Kaam khatam hua. Asha kartey hain aap ek baar phir humein …  

Pic from Memegen

Balls!

Have the balls?

Okay, here, have the balls!

There’s this rickshaw puller I know because he is usually standing outside our society’s B-Gate (the one near the Mother Dairy with the seller who never, ever parts with his change). I know him as much as you know yours. Which is to say, I recognize him, I am sure he never charges a penny extra and also he’s usually standing free. No, I don’t know his name but I know he’s missing a thumb. Guilt at wrinkled hands clutching the rubber handles of a rickety rickshaw keeps riders at bay. Guilt. Or maybe they are in a hurry and those battery autos are faster, cooler and cheaper than yellow-green ones. Today afternoon, he was taking me to the other, farther Mother Dairy because the guy at this one (you know who never gives change) also never kept packet-wala-dahi – cheaper and better for raita. The rickshaw had just squeaked alive and started moving when hot, hot winds slapped my face. Looked down to escape the burn to see two pairs of burnt, dark, toned, hairless legs pushing pedals with the might of sweat. And blood. I don’t know what made me but I asked him something which meant ‘Till when will you do this?’ as I asked him to wait. His wide smile told me two things – 1. It was a silly question, a naïve one, coming from someone who has a family back home. 2. He has only three teeth on the top and one below. He said – ‘Till I fall asleep in this rickshaw, madam. Akele akele savari kaengey phir.’

And we still think Fortitude comes from a brown, crinkled, ultra-sensitive sac of the male organ. 

A 60-year-old woman, mother to my maid, had a uterus she should be proud of. It took so much battering and pounding! Oh, you know, the B/W movie reel of three girls, then equal number of miscarriages, then one boy and by then a simple fever of the boy being attributed to the weakness of the womb and all that by a husband who drank, and drank, till he had sex with her, peed and slept. Wanted another kid, a stronger idea of a boy who suckled less. You must have heard that a zillion times over. Same story, different setting, different husbands, same weak-wombs. You know what she did? ‘Enough!’ she must have silently screamed one day when she stole his drink money to go get a Copper T inserted. ‘This is it, you swine!’ I imagined her screaming, when I heard this story over left-over aloo-kachori my maid was enjoying on a stool, under the fan. Then, what happened when he learnt? ‘Phir kya thaa. Bachha-daani bhi bach gayi, aur aurton mein izzat bhi badh gayi.’ She lived like a Queen. He slapped her, of course. But rumour has it that at the commons that night he cried like a baby. Like a baby boy.    

And we still think Courage is born in a brown, crinkled, ultra-sensitive sac of the male organ.

Nope. 

Neither got away from the drudgery, really. So clapping at this point and assuming a “happily ever after” would be silly. Like the hands of a clock they were stuck to a point, forever damned to go round-and-round, keeping time mostly for others, that too. Hm. 

You know the Myth of Sisyphus? The holy Gods decided to punish him, one day. (Let’s not go into details. Just know that mostly punishments are unfair!) So, this Sisyphus, he was doomed for eternity to push a rock up a mountain. On reaching the top, the rock would roll down again, leaving Sisyphus to start over. Sisyphus knew this would happen and yet he would begin all over again. Silly, sissy, stuck man. Oh, the absurdity of life! But what was he really doing by beginning all over again? One, acknowledging that a better life, truth, comfort, respect would come in one day because it does exist. Two, accepting what is, but with the strength and hope to push the rock back up again, despite knowing his own and the rock's fate. What must it have taken, imagine. Imagine!

Nah. Even this philosophical, fate-surpassing, looking-Gods-in-the-eye, I’m-fine-really idea did not emerge from the sac under question. 

It all really comes from some place else. And we’re still at ‘Have the balls!’ to show your might. 

Thankfully, I have none! 

Phew!

Multicultural Khichdi and World Peace

Janpath, New Delhi, has been taken hostage by Palazzo pants. Every visible hanger there is selling a pair. And every boy in every shop is begging to remind you these are the latest and only they have the best export quality maal. The flea-market air is rented with calls of Palazzos! Palazzos! Pure crepe. Please one pealazza pent, madam. Free size. Alter waist. Pilazzo, Pilazzo! It was difficult to get away but easy to resist when a caller said ‘Pizza lo!’ because his slip of native tongue meant I slipped away to a pizza place across the road to dig in. 

While I bit into this hut’s Shahi Paneer pizza with extra topping of olives (promising myself never ever to laugh at my dad’s proclivity to mix-n-match countries in his dessert plate) I got all theoretically scholarly... 

How amazing it is to see what is proverbially called the melting pot of cultures is now cooking such a mush of khichdi at high flame that it is difficult to tell which zero was birthed in India and which came rolling in from Bangladesh. Jumping a few customs depots on the way. 

At any given point of time, we’re a walkie-talkie doll of the last Miss Universe’s idea of World Peace. We’re wearing, eating, breathing, singing, scooting, ogling, reading, writing, coveting, pooping  countries and cultures and chop sticks and cowl necks we have embraced with One Direction in mind – to add “quality” to our lives. 

Forget what literary theory says for multiculturalism. It is the ‘Made in Thailand’ on your chaddi ka tag that is its best example!

Look at this handsome banquet hall next door. I say enlarge it all and then look again.

With just one loin cloth separating these Greek Roman Globally Hot Citizens from Michelangelo’s David, this palatial building comes alive in the colours of 196 countries’ flags in season time. Why? Arrey for wedding functions, why else! Roadside rumour has it that the Dubai-based owner has filed for a GI for this design. With equal seriousness he has also managed a “setting” with our mashoor Chawla Band for parties; those where we walk in in saris looking like gowns from Bangkok and XXLs in slim-fitting Italian suits. (Perhaps, an imported mare too?) As for why make wide-chested hunks the façade for a hall for Punjabi weddings, where apart from women’s backs nothing is real skin … well, It's time to show the world how 'forward-thinking-multiculturals' we are!

At the risk of revealing to you, dear reader, what inexpensive beauty products I survive through, please find attached right below a picture of my latest nail file.

If you find a better representation of Hindi-Cheeni bhai-bhai, I will change this nail file’s name. But for now, Brother Stainless of mine it will be. Happy Sibling Day, manicure scissor best! What would I do without your ear-pick? Every time my half-bitten nails cry to be shaped, I seek its support. And every time I do phoo to the shaped wonders, with tears in my eyes I realize someone in China is doing this phoo to their nails too. It's a small world brought closer by the internet, Comedy Central and smuggling. Such love as this file carries cannot be lost in translation, even if all sense may drain. Human to human is the bond. Nail to nail Nain to Nain too.

In the most unexpected of ways and instances the ring of multiculturalism makes its presence felt – sometimes volubly, other times like a secret admiring friend. Love All! is something God said Himself (especially to my neighbour who has it as her Whatsapp status since our last fight). And I am doing my best teaching it further too. I say to my laal, 'embrace all cultures, beta, whether around the wrist or waist, scalp or socks. It spells Oneness, Love and Tolerance.' And you know what, the khichdi is cooking in his head too.

Let me tell you how. 

Once upon a time, the situation in my house was quite grave. Such xenophobia for all things foreign existed as would make your blood curdle with fear. We didn’t shake hands. We chewed them! And the farther the visitor came from, the more he was gnarled-gnawed at. This intolerance made the mother in me cry. I would stand in the balcony in my African kaftan, sipping Ginseng and praying for some World Peace within my walls. Praying for my child to eat his food, in stead. 

But today, after just a handful of visits to the Rajouri malls, Indian metros and two foreign shores we have successfully inculcated the value of the essence of this Khichdi. We are beginning to understand brotherhood. With khushi key aasnoon I witnessed this sight this morning. American superheroes came riding into West Delhi on Jordanian camels, bearing an Italian car as a gift for the once half-chewed North Pole teddy. He told me in his own words. 

So you see, there are signs that we’re learning Peace and all that kind of big stuff the multicultural way. Such positive, in-the-face signs. That we're becoming responsibly modern global citizens. Opening the windows of our minds. And we're doing it in a seemingly mature, surely happy and definitely pleasing-to-the-eye way. 

(Just don't dare drag my God into all this talk of tolerance-sholerence. Buss!) 

Ciao!

Cuss Fuss; My Storm in My Tea Cup

The debate around the AIB controversy has at least three distinct levels of discourse that many commentaries have confused. 

1. The first is how one judges the use of language, gestures, humour, etc. (of the kind the show used) in one’s personal lives and the levels of moderation or excess that go with it.

2. The second is how one judges the content as that of a stage show or internet video. This is quite different from the test of use in personal context. To explain, one might thoroughly enjoy watching murder mysteries on TV without being in the habit of going around town slaying people or being too fond of getting butchered either.

3. The third is, where one draws the line on the right to free speech. One may not, while disapproving of a certain content, subscribe to the belief that others should be deprived of the right to access it or even approve of it. People may also have different opinions on when curbs on the right to free speech should kick in, or whether they should at all.

This post does not aim to defend the ban or support the FIR filed against AIB, nor is it about how I like or dislike the show per se. While the show and the ensuing discussions have been a catalyst for this, this is in defence of my personal preferred idea of language use and abuse. To be clear, this is only about point 1 that I mention above. The views were arrived at much before the show and its controversy came about. In tragic irony, I have to splatter this post with the choicest expletives. Forgive, or enjoy, as your personal taste may be. 

First.

No. No. No. Preferring communication sans expletives does not mean an attempt at holiness. Why should it, unless those who like speaking a different language take their own ways to be banal? Thus, just like there is nothing immoral in cussing, so is there nothing moral in not cussing. After all, a loud ‘Hai Ram!’ and a face-palm ‘Hey Bhagwan!’ have expressed many generations’ frustrations, rather successfully. So, if one is making a choice about how they like to speak and be spoken with, wherein comes the need to undo your blessed loincloth or wrap it around another? 

Fun and funny.

Mine is what you proverbially call a big, fat, Punjabi family, with branches in every corner of the world and roots going as far back as swinging primates on trees, just like yours. The family is so scattered that any get together is bound to be teeming with equal measure of excited loudness and shared ranting. To be fair, I pick one aunt from my maternal side and one uncle from my father’s side to express my point that it is possible to vent frustration and be humourous, both, without necessarily going  dirty.

Uncle’s favourite rant-phrase was ‘Batao ji?!’ coupled with both palms facing Heavenwards in front of his belly, a perfect sphere responsible for keeping his arms out-stretched when he gestured thus. His phrase was spoken in the angriest of times, say when a fake insurance company swindled some lakhs off him, as well as in humour or even mock-ire. That as children we giggled on both is a different matter. That as an adult I realize the successful grown-up reaction it received remains the point now.   

‘Kee dassaan’ (What to say) is what aunty was heard using in fun and serious times. How these two Punjabi words came to change in intonation decided how they were received. In her most troubled times as well as in her angriest she would say this with necessary amount of force combined with the whole story. She expressed, was understood, taken seriously and helped in return too.

These people’s dates of birth and the use of archaic expressions show they are very old, but the expressions they chose to vent or celebrate give them a unique timelessness that a ‘Chutiya’ punctuating fool can never boast of. 

Fuck you. Fashion.

Interestingly, ‘Fuck You!’ is a magic phrase. It is malleable, ductile and still enamel-hard to withstand as many contexts of usage as are known. It can be used as any punctuation mark, article, adverb and in some cases as a middle name too. Obviously then, one would think a person like me a fool to not want to use it in its various intellectual avatars. But I do want to keep it at bay. Not because I hate sex (I love it!) but because there is enough of it, in all the wrong forms, transpiring around in shady corners of cities. 

At a subliminal level most expletives are not simply sexual but carry a violent imagery too. A well-expressed ‘Fuck you!’ no matter how much stress it relieves, is disposing of the other’s presence by a threat which attaches disgust to the very act which got you into the world from your mumma’s ‘choot’. Its translation into an action, hyperbolically, will probably be a synonym of rape? 

I asked myself – Do I want to attach significance to something that is so difficult to see apart from the most common head line in India’s rape capital (Behen chod and madar chod are real people)? Will I take it calmly if not my elite best friend but a stranger on the road uses it for me? And, am I so far gone in the ability to use a language that I cannot recall any other way to express anger, frustration, happiness, sadness, anything except a ‘Fuck you!’ or versions which bring into the limelight genitals of humans, cows, etc? Phew. No.  

At a larger level, are we also promoting the same social and sarkari hypocrisy we want to do away with when we “encourage” a peer to use it to and then go home to his and our respected parents with a finger on our lips?

Futility.

What does a foul-mouth get us? Of course, it shows the world that we are either anpadh-ganvaar or cool-dude, entirely depending on the class and status of the user. Because we are like that only and Hindi gaali users are just lowlife roaming the streets and we are just good family people keeping up with the times chill yaar. Okay. Good for you. But what else? 

Don’t know about you, but I am unable to take chronic expletive users seriously. Poor dears could just be bemoaning how their wives left them but somehow I cannot stop myself from counting his ‘behen ka land’s while he narrates his story. While I manage to offer my sympathy I also wish to send them to a Dolly Bindra or Masterchef’s Krissi, who would have big shoulders to lend in understanding – well-versed in cussing through loud mouths, often making people de-recognize their talent and beep their presence away. 

So, not always do expletives make you seem cool. Often, they make you misunderstood.  

Family.

I want the government to understand that I should be allowed to watch what’s coming on TV. But equally importantly I want the people to understand that there is a certain way of communication that I find more effective, and enjoyable than others. Because, while I can turn off the noise on the idiot box, how do I turn off the idiots around me? 

My idea of family values, culture and even debauchery is quite different from my parents’ – not just because I live in a different time but also because I arrived at newer values to follow in conference with those who I live with now. But we have chosen to live a certain way, just like some others have embraced their own ways. Neither is one way ancient nor the other modern. It is a choice, a basic choice that all are allowed to make. 

Goody Shoes

How important the idea of Family becomes.

Every night when we polish these shoes we repeat to our child something that was repeated to us, and which we see no need to reject even though times have paced on - that the part of the shoe that needs to be most polished is the one that stands inside it and that one need not follow ‘friendly fashion’ or even the authorities’ ‘forced discipline’. One needs to follow what is most important to oneself, away from the glamour of clamour.

One day, my child will move on and beyond our umbrella and follow the latest on the communication vine. He will ask of me to grow-up with him. I plan to. And so I will try. But something tells me that I will never grow up enough to have the heart or the hypocrisy to accept my son saying ‘Fuck off!’ to me, without cringing and crying inwardly.

That will be another story. Another day. Maybe. Fuss about cuss, yet again, but still entirely my storm in my tiny tea cup.

On Tiger Trails and Travails

Tucked between noisy news of parachuting politicians, noisier roadside shows and noisiest intellectual opinions in 140 characters about both, was a piece of news that made me roar with joy sitting in New Delhi. It said – ‘Good News. Tiger Numbers in India up from 1,400 to 2,226 in 7 Years’. 

Good news, indeed, because tigers and I go back in time a long and winding jungle way. You see, I’ve been looking for them since exactly seven years back. And something tells me my heart-felt but unheard call in the wild, ‘Oh show me your face, a paw, the tail or even a whisker, will you please?’ must have echoed in the various Reserves, Sanctuaries and National Parks I honeymooned in. Must have inspired them to multiply. While then not an inch of stripe did I see, in true election-style I hereby snatch credit for making boy tiger meet girl tiger, man tiger meet woman one, and so on and henceforth for hitting this milestone of 2226. 

As I sit wondering if it’s time for a second run through the wild, this time with greater chances of meeting the ‘Tiger, tiger burning bright’ (albeit without handshakes and hi-fives, Jai Mata Di) I thought of putting my tiger travail flashback to rest by bellowing about it right here. Yes, I call it a travail because to spot a tiger is like looking for a needle in a haystack where the hay is not just wet but spray-painted silver too. 

On the face of it, our jungle sojourns summarized looked something like this: 

On the face of it. 

The greatest thinkers on Facebook warn you that every happy family picture veils a load of sadness (and hen-pecked husbands) behind it. This picture too is that cheery curtain on the stage behind which such misery resides as would make you shudder and sigh. Because, even as we both say ‘cheese!’ in these snaps we had not spotted a single black stripe after visiting the most densely tiger populated habitats and spending hours there. Instead, we could write a thesis on ‘The Cheating Wild Boar; The Grunt that excites as if a Roar’ or ‘Mosquitoes; The Bloody Suckers You Can’t Beat’ or ‘How to Cushion Your Ass against Mud Roads When On a Safari’. A chapter on ‘The Importance of Patience’ picked from sacred texts could be the common one between the three.

Of course, when it first began at Buxa Tiger Reserve I was an uninitiated idiot high on love and love for all things wild. There I stood on the watch tower, excited to know from the beat guard that ‘Any time now, madam, the path behind you will be blessed with a tiger. You can make a wish, it is lucky to spot one.’ With a wish list prepared, mister in tow and khakhi-pants asked to double-check the lock on the gate, we had stood there long enough for migratory birds to have reached South from North, with a lunch break and siesta at the Equator. 

The beginning

Just when we were calling it a day, Jumbo had walked in as if to say ‘I am all that you got, honey. Stay and I’ll spray you with some namak I’m about to eat’. I had said tata to his salt and made my way out of a Reserve which had a tiger in its name but none on its knees four feet, and certainly not for me. 

The standby suitor

I had pocketed the wish-list I had made at Buxa though, hoping to ask the black-and-orange genie for some material pleasures (which soon enough meant Odomos, and drinking water) but failed to summon the other genie who would call the tiger out for me in the first place. 

So, for Sariska National Park we woke up early, really early to have more viewing time. It was cold and misty as we circled the beautiful lake our guide began the tour from. Dear reader, while I may lay the blame for a bursting bladder entirely on the cold, do know that the playfully deceptive whirls of mist in an area teeming with tigers does no good for the enthusiasm and confidence one goes looking for the national animal with. If anything, the mist seems full of evil eyes and with all intentions to pounce at the slightest sound denim makes against denim.

This is where I saw multiple tigers, in my mind's eye

We did see a host of other animals once the sun was up in Sariska, but did we meet The Royal One, snoozing behind the bush or feeding in the grass, swaying his lazy tail at a butterfly or licking her cubs clean? Le Sigh, etc.

As months went by, I kept myself from Googling the probability of spotting a tiger in the wild. Something told me for the number of hours we had spent in these two widely-apart tiger habitats without spotting one would mean we had been incompetent and undeserving failures. I knew now what we thought was our stomachs grumbling with hunger was indeed a tiger purring in pleasure for having tricked us. That what we brushed off as the play of light-and-shadow on the tall trees or dry grass actually had two eyes staring right back at us. 

Oh, if only we had looked harder and not let our rational minds rule supreme.

I looked and waited

He waited on me and looked too

One day, when I made up my mind to bring home a cub of my own, I heard that we would float around in the Sunderbans for two days to spot tigers and tickle crocs with our propellers. I was ecstatic! I was ready to be robbed of breath at the sight of a majestic Bengal getting his paws dirty in the slush and giving me the looks. Except, I had no idea our room for the night in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by nothing human would be as tall and as wide as a baby's cot. Breathless I slept, breathless I woke up. As for what happened the rest of the time?

We learnt the laws of this land. I prayed too. 

We asked around and cried when we heard 'It just passed by'

But looked around, with ferocious hope

Till 2 seemed 4, and everything at least 2

And the deception continued ...

Till the point when faraway egrets seemed to roar

Till dawn became dusk, twice over

No tiger did we ever see, not even the tip of a tail. 

Le Sigh number two.

Aside - whenever we sit and think back to those days of backpacked wild abandon, even the discomforts and disappointments of those days we miss. There is something so unique in seeing plants and animals and native tribes enjoying their natural homes; with an ease that no other place affords and a sense of belonging that another’s territory can never create. Much like us humans, happiest where the heart is and we know the heart is always at home. 

Of course this poetry-in-prose doesn’t mean I am not ready to lock home and go for round two! 1400 has become 2226, the good news, the good news! 

Perhaps, next time I will go lusting for wild boars or deer, squirrels or parakeets. Maybe then I will spot a tiger? Who knows how Murphy the Ranger thinks! Some tiger somewhere has to be born to grace my presence with his majestic frame. It cannot be otherwise. It just cannot be.

I'm not dropping my anchor yet. Not just yet!

The fault in our laughs, on Karvachauth

Let me begin this post by a status update Sfurti Sinha shared on the morning of the Karvachauth fast. 

‘Whether I am fasting or not - NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Whether my husband is fasting or not - NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. My life is mine, not yours. You are not in my marriage. Freedom and equality in true sense means choosing whatever I want to do, whatever makes sense to me. There is a fine line between having an opinion and sounding judgemental. Your opinions should be the basis your life, they shouldn't sound like a judgement on others.’

On a day when she had much else to take care of, Sfurti was ‘driven’ to vent publicly thus. If I wasn’t around in the same place last year, I would not have understood why. But I was. So in a way, I have been meaning to write this post since a year now. I waited because I wanted to see if rituals other than Karvachauth garnered loud amused laughter too. Not that I noticed any and certainly not equal in magnitude to the humour that surrounds a woman observing a fast for her husband. 

Here is me now, thinking aloud.

Humour is important. We have all read its various forms in different genres of different media. For instance, Theatre has used ‘uncomfortable laughter’ in the audience as a way to hold a mirror to their lives – political, social and even marital. Slapstick comedy shows a man slipping on a banana peel with similar intent; it could be you up there. Scatological references make us laugh because shit and spit is best seen on the other’s person. On television, we see stand-up humour including in its funny tentacles commentary on the government, the news channels and the entertainment industry.

While humour in the various arts was named and came with a larger purpose, the picture in the tweeting-updating social media is often like a mock-epic of what was once classic. ‘Art for art’s sake’ is no crime, but then really, what may be the point? Except wondering at the end of a virally-sharing day - whose line was it anyway?

On Karvachauth day, it doesn’t take much to realize that loose laughter is not just directed at the patriarchal ritual of fasting for a husband. The butts of the jokes become the women following it. Those laughing? The women who do not believe in it, of course. While what’s between the husband and the wife stays where it is supposed to, between them, everything else associated with Karvachauth occupies centre stage and space in the minds of those who have half-baked ideas about the ritual and none whatsoever about the fasting woman’s idea of it.

Thinking …

Is poking fun the best way to ‘guide’ a woman out of a deep-rooted patriarchal discourse? Isn’t it as unfair a ‘peer pressure’ as was given to her by those who made her embrace those traditions in the first place? How does our lackadaisical ‘promotion’ of an antithetical thought-process towards a redundant tradition differ in lack-of-substance from the stoical one of far Right. Are we, in our fun and games, creating but a poorer alternative even if at the other end of the spectrum? It is for this reason that I liked #FastForHer movement. It did nothing to do away with the day. But for now, it got men into the fray. A constructive step towards re-examining the necessity of it all by being a part of it. From inside the circle. A much better, more understanding way, to reverse trends. More sensitive too. 

Because …

We are not providing that line-towing woman sensible alternatives to a symbolism codified over generations, one she has believed in and which provides her with comfort. A kitty of jokes may get us a few giggling followers, but nothing more. The shell we want to break is built on three very thick layers – obedience, belief and comfort. If we are so desperate to break it, we'll need to know more about it.

But, why do we laugh?

Are we, in the larger scheme of things, trying to show her sense or poke fun at what we see as obsoleteness that she surrounds herself with? A bid of one-upmanship and modernity, maybe.  At the same time, furthering lines of difference based on our ideas of modern and ancient, tradition and revolution. Disservice is what we are doing, by making her feel outdated, conscious, stuck and worst of all outcast in lobbies which don’t fast. When the idea of feminism grew this mocking army amidst all the painstakingly-built theories and practice I know not, but I wish we remember what the movement we so glibly use essentially stood for. One word – Choice, as Sfurti’s status above signifies. 

Interestingly …

The tray that a woman carries for her Karvachauth puja holds a few symbols of matrimony. Most of those objects are found in most women’s dressing drawers that you and I anyway may use as a matter of routine, or during festive times. The difference is, she wants to spend a day with them while you may freely reserve the biggest bindis for your designer saris or Durga Puja times. (Yes, you may include that idea of a parlour visit in this, which for so many is one of the greatest social outlets in a year). To not eat is not so much of a suffering as it is made out to be, that too by those who are eating their three meals anyway. Concern doesn’t mock. It helps. But first, it has to try to understand what is wrong to understand the ‘victim’ of it all.

Did you who jest know … 

We don’t have to dress up as brides on Karvachauth. We don’t need to use sieves to look at the moon. Henna is not compulsory and neither is touching the husband's feet. I blame popular media for propagating limited understanding of this tradition. Which does mean, more groundwork needs to be done before the laughing party decides to become a mouthpiece carrying the cause of fasting women on its shoulders.

Manjulika did this for her mother-in-law.

Tanya created 'American Karvas'.

I think … 

Humour cannot alone help cut through years of nurture. Not even shake the idea of obedience to elders and fear of Gods; especially for rituals created around husbands’ well-being, because they are based on a relationship. It also will never stand ground against the idea of Choice, which women like me make when we decide to fast or not fast. If we are to liberate minds, we need to show them how our freedoms are worthy of emulation. In all the mindless cackling, the voices of sanity who seek to deliver women from coerced and oppressive rituals get drowned and lost. 

We need to question traditions to see how they affect gender narratives and we need to reinvent some of them to better suit the changing times, or do away with those which we no longer agree with. How we do it is the point, and the key to it is in each one of our hands or in our homes.  Read these lines shared by Hrishikesh Bawa:

“Fasting does not lead to anything … Love and respect for each other is more important," said a woman’s mother-in-law to her. I think a hero is not just the guerilla rebel. Sometimes, she is the one who is a part of the system too. Likewise, the one who impulsively jumps out of the ancient window might just have been a hasty fool.

This was probably my last year of observing this fast. My husband’s tank of patience with it is full. I no longer have to give company to my mother-in-law – in deed or in spirit – by not eating with her and enjoying the evening katha too. Next time, I will probably go to the other side of the fence, well aware of what made me follow the Karvachauth ritual and promising myself not to forget it. Perhaps, that will help me remain sensitive towards those who wish to do as they please.

Because you know as well as I do how private choices get played with on public trampolines all in the name of jest.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Community Service - Your entire community — however you define that; your hometown, your neighborhood, your family, your colleagues — is guaranteed to read your blog tomorrow. Write the post you’d like them all to see.]

Kemon aso, Kolkata! Got some change?

When my husband asked the bored driver of a bright yellow taxi in Bengali if he would take us to Ulta Danga from Howrah railway station, I understood nothing apart from the name of the place our government guest house was situated in. Even that, I did not much understand. Ulta I knew, Danga sounded like a weapon. After getting his feet down from the window of the taxi in slow motion and looking for his slippers near the gear shaft the driver murmured a yes, accompanied by ‘khujra ache to?’

No, khujra is not a weapon either even if it was asked for in a tone matching an epee’s point and an eye turned to the big red sticker announcing his membership of a union of taxi drivers. ‘Khujra’ means change. My husband nodded a yes and we both huffed our just-married suitcase between us two, as the driver spent his 10th minute looking for his second slipper. At that point, crossing the Howrah Bridge in the back seat of the taxi, I had no idea how important change is to live, just be and breathe, in Kolkata.  

Ready rattling coins in change!

This was in the December of 2007. While we younglings sat holding on to our singular suitcase for dear life, stealing finger-tip kisses on bumpy roads and bumper-to-bumper braking I looked out the window which had refused to roll up and deliver me from the warm gusts. 

Kolkata did not look like a bride to my visiting eyes. It looked like a woman ageing so charmingly you wouldn’t want it to dye its hair or remove the high-backed, puff-sleeved blouses it insisted on wearing. Still. The quaint windows and ornate jaali on huge buildings seemed to have lived their lives. Paved streets were lined with flower-sellers chit-chatting with rishka wallas taking a breather. Somehow, miraculously almost, tiny plastic cups of afternoon tea were seen in every hawker's hands. A picture which made me enjoy its rustic charm yet wonder if it was free will that made it sit in a time warp or just the times.

I remember getting out of the taxi at our guest house in Ulta Danga and struggling to figure out why the place smelled of a bunch of incense sticks when all my eyes beheld was a tiny post office, an STD booth-cum-provision store, a garbage lined lane leading to the main road choc-a-bloc with traffic and Shona beauty parlour next to a monstrous, hexagonal guest house. I did not obsess with the smell of cheap incense in the air almost everywhere, but in no time I realized how the whole of Kolkata was obsessed with collecting and retaining its khujra.

Yes, obsessed! 

The egg noodles guy in a bright blue shack, whose business boomed just after the sun set when podiums for political stages came up, was obsessed. We would order our plate, sit on two broken plastic chairs, watch him toss into the seasoned wok an extra helping of pepper (was that the secret ingredient that made the chow like no other?) and to the tune of the fish-seller bragging off his wares right behind us dig in. Not a single time did he not ask for loose change, even before opening his drawer to see if he had Rs. 3 to return. While the plate always cost Rs. 7, he never did have change. Neither did the sweet shop which seemed to thrive on the sale of gur rasgullas alone and where I popped a handful to abate the pepper-effect. While my obsession with those faded-yellow delicacies sky-rocketed his sales, not a single coin from his heart melted my way. ‘Khujra dao’ it was, always!

One day, my husband got free from work early. His phone call began 'reach me!' followed by directions on how to take a rickshaw till Shovabazar Station, metro to Maidan and then exit at a certain gate. In the train, I found myself sweating like a pig next to a girl who just could not help staring at me with her big, round eyes. The microphone announced ‘Assplanaad’, I smiled, she didn’t get the humour but we got talking anyway. She couldn’t believe how I was travelling alone in the metro in a foreign city and I couldn’t make her believe how safe I felt here compared to Delhi. While the rickety metro rattled away, she zipped out a cellphone just to tell her friend of the phenomenon that she made me out to be, screaming my name into it with a few extra ‘h’ after the first ‘S’. Then, she noticed a tiny-yet-heavy sac hanging from my belt. ‘Oh! Just loose change. You need it everywhere in Kolkata, don’t you? I’m loaded now!’ I swear to you I saw respect in her eyes for me which was once reserved for just Tagore, as she poked the suggestive looking pouch. I was a girl braving it out, I was loaded with change, all for meeting my lawfully wedded husband at the end of the tunnel. Everything here was in keeping with the character of the city.

The husband bit too. Why I say that?

In a local Kolkata bus we were made to sit separately en route New Market for some shopping. The bus was divided between the sexes right down the middle. My knight implored with the conductor that we were man and wife, 'notun biye, notun biye' but the doubting Thomas's heart of stone refused to budge. So, my love kept looking back from where he sat across the aisle and I kept staring at his head, wondering when the snaking through busy streets and the light drizzle would end. Noticing also how my beau’s black crop was the only one not shining with three layers of oil or his clothes with as much embroidery. ‘Teekate. Khujra dao!’ came the conductor for it was ladies first and a lovelorn I could only say in the crispest of Hindi ‘Khujra wahaan baitha hai! Jao ley lo!’ I was angry. I had spent 45 minutes with a woman whose bags my lap nearly carried while hers remained baggage free, playing with the red and white bangles on the wrist.

Or, did I not pay for the ticket because I too getting a tad obsessed with my pocket of change?

From the famous puchka walla outside Birla Planetarium to the award-winning Jhalmuri guy on Russell Street; from Giggles (that Archies gallery) on Park Street to Flury’s with its pastries; from museum and zoo ticket booths to the famous Indian Coffee House, everything needed coins. Even dishes were priced with complete fidelity to the idea of how essential each penny is in the larger scheme of things!

The only person who did hand me a one rupee coin was a cobbler who fixed my shoe somewhere on College Street. The glue was all over my Khadims sneakers but who cared any more. He had given me change. Change! I almost bit into it to check if I was dreaming. It was real. 

It turned out to be a lucky coin, indeed.

A coconut walla squeezed the metal out of us because the humidity combined with the long human chain outside Dakshineshwar made us crave coconut water worth a tree's Xylem. And then, I needed to pee! ‘25 p for one use’ said the board outside the public facility. Even in such pressing hurry, I stared. 25 p? Were they not extinct the year I was born? Shock turned to surprise after I bunny-hopped in and breezed out. When I handed over that lucky Re 1 coin I got 75 p back! On this last evening in Kolkata, the sight of three 25 p coins in my hands made me teary-eyed. I couldn't help but wonder - is this a sign that the city has adopted me as its own? Also, is this, the natural exigency to relieve oneself in the right place, the reason behind the whole of Kolkata collecting coin after coin after coin?

On my train back to Delhi later that night I caught myself wondering if after 3 weeks, I was a Roman too. What else could explain the pang of jealousy I felt when I saw how much fuller the toilet minder's coin drawer was as compared to my potli!

Maybe I will go back Bengal-wards one day to find that change is no longer on the most wanted list. However, something tells me that ‘Khujra dao!’ will always be around, just like the smell of incense in the air, no matter how many Park Streets take over Ulta Dangas in this unique city called Kolkata.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Can’t get enough - Have you ever been addicted to anything, or worried that you were? Have you ever spent too much time and effort on something that was a distraction from your real goals? Tell us about it.]

Are you being served?

If the written word had measurable decibels, this would be one of my loudest posts. I don’t rant for I don’t trust myself with impassioned screaming where I may spell Punjabi expletives incorrectly (the ignominy!) I also calm my blood down before writing my opinions down because to have one’s genuine piece being read and rejected as Post Menstrual/Marital/Mid-age Stress is but the single biggest discouragement any writer can get. Plus, over-use of ‘annoying’ is so annoying.

I was asked a few moments back about my most tiring experiences as a customer. There are 2 which jumped red lights, broke their lane and came honking to mind with holy stickers on their wind shields. Sadly, these two are as regular in my day-to-day life as my milk man’s thin moustache every morning is. If you too like me stay in New Delhi, these may not be anything new for you. I would still like to ask you though – are you too being served thus?

Parking Fraud

Those young lads manning MCD parking areas all over the city know more about us than even we know. They know we are short of time, perhaps looking at how little we open our windows and how hurriedly snatch the tickets from their hands, before crumpling them and stuffing the ball into our top pockets. They also seem to have realized that we stopped caring for Rs. 10 long back, and especially now when it got converted to mere coins from full-blown currency notes. Why else will they tear the tickets as you see in the picture above? 

I got this parking ticket at PVR Naraina parking lot. Notice how it has been torn. While the rate for parking the car is Rs. 10, the counterfoil is torn such that Rs. 20 is what is visible, asked for and paid. At India Gate, the boards listing the expensive charges have been systematically defaced to "sell" this fraudulent idea. At New Delhi railway station, umbrellas and barricades are placed such that cars coming in are misled into entering the 'Premium Parking' area, where you pay Rs. 100 per entry. In Dilli Haat, the paid parking (with such tickets) even covers areas outside the legally designated areas for parking. Yes, you can park your big car where 'No Parking' boards exist. It’s everywhere!

At many levels, we are "promoting" this cheating at a massive scale pan Delhi. Either we have no idea, in case we do not notice the slip properly because the movie or the sale is about to begin. Or, we know the story but are too embarrassed to argue with the parking guys over a meagre Rs 10. What will the car behind us think, after all?

Try putting your foot down to be served right, instead of on the accelerator to find that elusive parking spot or vacating it for the next in line. Try asking him to check the part of the counterfoil he has left under the thick rubber band. See his face then, hand over the right amount, say good night and then sleep tight knowing a youngling is not discussing with his friends what an owl the Audi driver was. It feels good. 

Toffees for Change

Parents or no parents, the cashiers at so many stores seem better equipped to handle toddler tantrums and sudden urges for sweeties than most of us who popped real-life babies. Why else would they buy packets of Kissme toffees or Cadbury’s Eclairs to give you instead of change which they are always short of? Of course, one may say they are spreading sweetness but oh boy, try calculating what the store is making by giving you a sweet that cost it a paisa instead of the Re. 1 it hands over in exchange and with a smile that would put the frogs’ to shame. 

Our neighbourhood Safal – the one shop which promises fresh vegetables and executes its promise of freshness only once a week from 6 am to 6:30 am, be there or miss it! – is where you find a cash register full of coconut toffees. No matter what time of the day you get your vegetables billed there, they will never have spare change, though by God's grace, they will always have these toffees. 

Initially, I used to refuse taking them leaving behind the change which was my due. The shame-faced cashier used to produce a few coins from somewhere then. Gradually, as I saw through his scheme of things he saw through mine and I was asked to take-toffee-or-leave-it with the confidence of a politician in the Parliament. So, I had no option but to take toffees, and collect them. Yes, sir, I did collect them. (If they were popular ones, I would have bought a packet to add to the kitty) I collected them not just to see by how much an average customer was getting duped per visit but also because one fine day I wanted to take a handful back, in exchange for onions and potatoes and ginger. 

I did exactly that. Stumped, the cashier did not know how to ‘sell’ me the vegetables in exchange for sweeties, or how to refuse. Stumped, the old uncle who had just popped his into his mouth stopped sucking on it. And magically, the woman next in line raised her voice against this practice too. That she was diabetic and this was promoting sugar-intake was a little off the mark from the real reason to reject this phenomenon but it helped. Suddenly, there was the clink of coins and everyone got their change.

From food courts in popular malls to our favourite general stores, the toffee-for-coin is rampant. What does it take to see through the act? I know it takes quite a bit to refuse a kind hand handing you gooey chocolate filled toffees but look close. Apart from the parking guy’s pocket the vegetable cashier’s belly too is shaking in amused disbelief at its dumb customers. And you know as well as I do who they are.  

To be subtly swindled and served thus got my goat. Regularly and by the neck on bad hair days! So much so that finally the goat was ready to offer itself up as mutton to end the ordeal. Up until the day I left her at home, because I had decided to stand by my right to be served right. It’s very easy. It’s very important. It’s also as patriotic as painting a flag on your face every Independence day or for India's cricket match.

Are you being served right?

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Are you being served? - What’s the most dreadful (or wonderful) experience you’ve ever had as a customer?]

Guest Post: The Indian Constitution; A Picture Story

This guest post is by my husband, Aseem. 

He is not a blogger. And if I have to call him a writer, he says I have to make sure government file notings qualify as creative art. Understand then that I had to use all my convincing powers to make him pen this for my blog. Also know, that his thoughts mean more to me than my own. (Alright, most of the time anyway!) Republic Day was yesterday, and today he gave me these words and these pictures. A 'Slice of History' for those who celebrate the 26th of January with as much fanfare as we do, and who, like us, are still enjoying a "patriotic" hang-over even though it is the next day.

Now, for a change, I let him speak uninterrupted.  

-----------------------

The Indian Constitution; A Picture Story

I gave in.

When she wanted me to write a few paragraphs for her blog, contrary, perhaps, to her expectations, I did not protest. My reason for agreeing was essentially just that she had chosen a great time to press her demands upon me. The timing was not to do with this being a month of birthdays or the New Year or anything as grand as that. It was just that it happened to be a holiday! A National Holiday, the Republic Day.

I wonder what that might mean to most of us. What the 26th of January means to me has changed over the years. As a child, I used to look at this day as a time when I would sing a few “patriotic” songs before an assembly of my father’s office colleagues and their families and would proudly collect applause. In later years, the ritual of attending the celebrations at his office was discontinued since we moved to a different town where such occasions were traditionally not family affairs. I do remember celebrations in school and college on a few occasions, but they were generally viewed as disturbances to an otherwise enjoyable holiday. 

But somewhere between then and now, I came to think of the Republic Day as special in an unobtrusive yet poignant way, somewhat like the birthday of someone dear from your past that you never forget to remember, but do nothing special to mark, perhaps because it would be superfluous after all. When my wife asked me to write a post for her today on the Constitution, I dithered at first at the thought of her readers turning away. But then, when your wife allows you a chance to be heard uninterrupted, one must just be grateful and grab the line.

One of the most valuable possessions of my family is a replica of the original hand-written Constitution of India, which was gifted by a very dear senior in service. Since this volume came into our home, we have often talked about the history that surrounds it, the way it has evolved over the years, its relevance in our workaday lives and, of course, its  sheer beauty.

The Republic Day is when the Constitution of India came into force in 1950. We have all known this from our Civics school books. But school did not give me a sense of what this book really meant then, and what difference it has made to our today. The vision the Constitution had was of an egalitarian and just society, promising freedom to one and all, laid down succinctly in its Preamble. I am undoubtedly enthused and inspired by the world held out as the promise of the Constitution. Though it seems like a miracle at times, and even untrue at others, by and large, it looks like we are closer to that goal today than we were in 1950.

The Republic Day to me is symbolic of that vision of society and we all have a part to play in getting there. The way is in seeing how our actions, little and big, impact all of us collectively and in being responsible for the choices we make. I wish us all this patriotism this Republic Day.

Here are some pictures of this book to stay with you. You may click on them to see an enlarged view.

A replica of the original hand-written Constitution of India

The Preamble

Fundamental Rights

Article 19. Right to Freedom

Each main border is unique in design 

Elections. Notice the art work.

Look at the salary of the President and Governor

Happy to see Dehra Dun.
Hathibarkala is the midway point between my wife's house and mine

Signatures - Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru lead the list

And then, passing on this 'Slice of History' to our Tomorrow. A looking back, in order to know how to proceed.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts aimed at posting at least once a day, based on the prompts provided. The prompt for today was 'Sliced Bread - Most of us have heard the saying, “That’s the best thing since sliced bread!” What do you think is actually the best thing since sliced bread?' and I have answered with 'a Slice of History' - a looking back in order to know how to proceed.]