54th Sunday

The dangers..

2011-12-29T02:50:00.000-08:00

..of giving your ten year old cousin a set of neon nail polish for Christmas.

Finger nails too.

Marathon

2011-11-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, JB told me he'd be running the Mumbai Marathon. You'll come and cheer, won't you? he asked me. Sure, I said, imagining myself at the finish line shouting Go JB! as he took that final stride. I could clap and jump a bit too. The sweatiness of the inevitable post-race hug was the worst I'd have to deal with. I thought.

JB's idea of cheering was slightly different. So I'll need 500 ml of Gatorade every hour, he said, and I can't carry more than one bottle at a time. I think I'll take about 5 hours to finish the race, so you need to meet me at 4 different points during the race give me the stuff.

Um, don't they close the roads to traffic? Yeah, he said, so you'll have to find some roundabout way to get there.

So on Sunday morning JB and I left Jan's flat at 5am. JB was pumped. I on the other hand was weighed down by my backpack which had several liters of Gatorade and a couple of kilos of bananas. We got a rick easily to Ghatkopar and from there we got onto a fast train to Churchgate. I snoozed on JB's shoulder while he studied the marathon route.

The plan was to meet M at CST where the race started and then make our way to Haji Ali which was the first Gatorade point. I wasn't really sure how we were going to move around Mumbai, as the race covered quite a bit of ground but M said she had that covered.

She didn't.

I'm not going to go into details, but the highlights include wrong train, wrong stop and a railway fine which nearly escalated into an arrest when we accused plainclothes policemen of being cons trying to make a quick buck.

End result: it was three hours into the race before we got anywhere near the marathon route. JB had refused to carry his cell phone so there was no way of finding out where he was. I guessed that he'd be three fifths of the way along, but since I was really nervous about missing him I decided to add another 8 km to that and wait at the 32 km mark. (You idiot, JB said when I explained my logic to him later. You should have factored in the lack of Gatorade and subtracted 8 km.)

But anyway, there we were at the 32 km mark, sporadically clicking photos, eating an occasional banana and watching all kinds of people run by. Tall, short, mostly skinny. Trotting, walking, even hobbling. No sign of JB.

After about half an hour of waiting, I began to think that JB must have passed that point ages ago. So I began to distribute the Gatorade and bananas. One wheezing old gentleman made me jog alongside as he sipped from the bottle. But mostly people stopped, took a gulp, grabbed a banana and moved on. As more and more stragglers passed us, I became increasingly sure that fit, lithe JB had long since passed that point.

And so I told M that we should head back to the finish line because JB was probably waiting for us there. M, who had a less optimistic view of JB's progress, suggested we wait a while longer. I reluctantly agreed.

It was a hot day, we'd drunk a lot of water and M was feeling a bit uncomfortable. She told me she'd go find a place to pee and told me we'd leave right after she got back. So there I was, sitting on the kerb, when I heard a voice right behind me offering me a cup of tea.

It turned out that I was sitting right in front of a construction site, just inside of which a chai wallah had jerry-rigged a stall. He told me he'd been watching me sitting in the hot sun, offering marathoners drinks and bananas and thought that I might want a cup of tea as refreshment. Now obviously, the last thing you'd want on a muggy Mumbai morning is a cup of hot tea. But the man was so considerate, that I couldn't but accept. And one for your friend as well, he said, pouring out a second cup.

M returned five minutes later and our chai wallah proffered a cup of tea. I don't - she began, while I hissed, don't be rude, just drink it! So M, sweating slightly from her recent exertion, reluctantly began to sip the hot cup of tea. Meanwhile, I packed up my stuff and waited for her to finish so that we could say our thank yous and goodbyes.

By the craziest coincidence, JB turned up just as M took her last sip of tea. If we'd left a minute earlier, we'd have completely missed him. Limping, sweat-streaked and at least three shades darker, he was not a happy man. The energy drinks had given out after the first 10 km and there'd been limited supplies of water. And orange peels, he said bitterly, not a single orange, just orange peels all along the route.

There were explanations, recriminations and apologies, but I could see that my screw-up had really messed things up for JB. The only thing I could do to ameliorate the situation was to be with him. And so I offloaded my heavy bag to M and in my flapping pink chappals set out to do the last 10 km of the marathon with JB.

It was terribly hot and they opened the roads to traffic soon after, so instead of walking past cheering crowds, we dodged cars on JJ flyover. That long stretch on Marine Drive felt like forever. Another marathoner, feeling sorry for me, dropped his cap on my head as he jogged by. JB's legs began cramping, but he pushed on.

When we were about 200m from the finish line, JB drew his last reserves and began to run. You can't walk across the finish line, he said. At that point, I got off the track - this was JB's battle. He'd started it at 6.30 in the morning, and six and a half hours later, he completed those 42km.

Why I am an Engineer

2011-10-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Mrs. G taught us 11th and 12th grade English Lit. I was bored, nearly to tears, those two years in English class. Part of it was certainly the syllabus - The Tempest, Stories from East and West, and that dreary, dreary Great Expectations. But most of it, I attribute to Mrs. G. I missed terribly, the wit and sarcasm of Mrs. P who took us through The Merchant of Venice, often with a sense of humour entirely inappropriate for a class of 14 year olds. Mrs. G on the other hand, stuck closely to the prescribed teaching model.

Mrs. G and I mostly ignored each other's existence. I was content to either read ahead or doodle, and I guess she'd flagged me someone who would not/could not contribute to class discussions. Only one time, did we ever come into conflict.

Our term papers consisted of 5 essay questions, each for 20 marks. One of the questions I had to answer went something like 'Prospero is a perfect man. State whether you agree and explain why.'

Of course, I disagreed. Prospero for all his purported wisdom seemed like a very childish man. Imagine wrecking your enemies' ship, terrifying them into repentance with magical illusions, and then proclaiming that you forgive them. What meaning does forgiveness have when you've already wreaked vengeance? I wrote an indignant essay on why Prospero was, most decidedly, NOT a perfect man.

Admittedly, my essay was one sided (I never have been known for my balanced views), but it relied on the facts in the play. My interpretation of these facts, however, was unconventional and Mrs. G did not approve. I received my corrected term paper with a low mark - mostly because Mrs. G had marked my essay wrong, completely wrong, and had given me a zero. On an essay question!

I protested that the question had asked if I agreed and as I didn't, my essay was perfectly valid as it described my point of view. What was wrong with evaluating it on its own merits, particularly as it was substantiated with quotes from the text? No, said Mrs. G, a great many experts had studied The Tempest and had each come to the view the Prospero was in fact a perfect man. There was no question of a 12th grader disagreeing with the 'experts'. My essay was fundamentally wrong because Prospero was a perfect man. The experts had said so. After a long and protracted argument, Mrs G grudgingly allowed me 5 marks. As she noted it on my paper, she added in brackets 'grace marks'.

Mrs. G was, I think, partially responsible for my decision to take up the sciences. I'd been debating between the arts and the sciences and her blinkered outlook pushed me towards the sciences. Hard facts, I thought, blacks and whites, rights and wrongs. The blissful joy of not having to select your shade of grey (and be told it was wrong.) And so I signed up for Chem. Engg. Which is a different story.

Mrs. G - I'm sure you ushered many, many students into world of literature. I see a facebook fan page for you, proclaiming you the best teacher evah! In retrospect, I wonder if perhaps I was drawing a parallel between you and Prospero. Both lauded as perfect, but in my eyes, you fell so painfully short.

What does it feel like?

2011-03-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

Went to Udaipur recently, and right outside one of the temples we visited was a little shop boldly advertising thandai. Of course we had some. The guys chugged down two glasses each, but I'd heard terrible tales of what it can do to you, so stuck with one. That turned out to be a wise decision. The guys soon got violently ill while I meditated on the laws of the universe and ate the most delicious grapes I'd ever tasted.

A friend once asked me if I knew what it felt like and so I tried to formulate a reply. When this analogy occurred to me, I felt like I'd had a minor epiphany (one of several that day.) So here goes:

Think of your brain as a processor. It's got a flood of information rushing into it by the millisecond from all your five senses. So while it's processing what you're seeing, it's also simultaneously processing what you're feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing. Some of this is in the background, but these sensations are being processed nonetheless.

After some thandai, it's like four of your senses are switched off and your entire brain's focus is on one single sense. So whatever sensation you're experiencing is heightened beyond anything you've experienced before. While I ate grapes, I couldn't think beyond the luscious sweetness of them. Each grape felt like a watermelon exploding in my mouth, drenching it with sweetness.

The other thing is that because your brain isn't shuttling between 5 different senses in one second and is entirely focused on one sense, there's a feeling that time is stretched. So each moment lasts infinitely long.

It's beautiful.

Haircuts

2010-08-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

I just got one. Every woman in my office feels obliged to comment on it.

Nice haircut. That doesn't mean they like it, just that they noticed it.

Oh, I love your haircut! Translation: not bad.

Hmm, I liked the old look better. Which means your hair is vile. I can't believe you did that to yourself.

Ah, womanhood. Such joy.

Friends

2010-03-22T13:52:00.001-07:00

So Mum and I were talking about you the other day, Rice said, and we were talking about how you don't have any friends.

What do you mean? Of course, I have friends. I have lots of friends!

Yeah, but not old ones... Like no one you've been friends with since you were six.

Well, there's... M and D, Rice said. Yeah, those were the only two we could think of.

(Don't you hate it when your family discusses you? And then tells you about it?)

So ok, I have only two friends who cross the 15 year mark, but this is how it works: I have pretty basic criteria to filter in friends from the vast universe.

a) I need to like you

b) I need to think you're fun

Pretty standard, right? I'm sure everyone has something like this in place. Here's the thing not many people realize though - this is a dynamic set. People are constantly changing; people's ideas and likes and dislikes are always in a state of flux. So while the basic rules don't change, your definition of someone you like or of someone you think is fun is bound to change.

Think of that diagram as a snapshot in time. My friends are limited to people in context. By context I mean people who are currently in my life. People with whom I've had a meal, watched a movie, shared a joke, discussed a book recently.

Everyone else has a spot on Facebook.

The funny thing that that conversation with Rice made me realize is that for a lot of people, a friend is anyone who was ever in context. Rice is a classic example. It probably helps that her circle is fairly parochial - everyone seems to know everyone else. Still, plotting the number of her friends over time next to mine is like a tidal wave over a placid lake.

While there's steady input into both our systems, from my system there's considerable output as well. Think of a unplugged tub with a tap running. Rice's system has the plug firmly in place. At some point, that tub is going to overflow. She's going to be driven crazy by endless coffee dates, lunch dates, movie dates, haircut dates...

Or maybe I'm just trying to justify being antisocial :)

Regrets

2010-03-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I want so badly to hear, 'Well, that was the trial round; now that you know what it's about, let's start your real life.'

Habit

2010-02-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

About four years ago, Skimble told Rice that her close friend had met with an accident and was now in the hospital, close to death. Rice, in her typical way, went into hysterics.

A while later Skimble told Rice that it was all a joke and Rice went into hysterics again. She vowed never to speak to Skimble.

We're a family that deals with extreme emotions extremely. Raised voices, slammed doors, declarations to never ever speak to another. These seldom last more than a day or two. The abrasion of everyday living erodes anger and soon things are back to normal sans apologies, sans forgiveness.

And so I expected this spat to blow over pretty quickly.

It didn't.

Three months later Skimble and Rice still weren't talking.

Six months.

Seven.

Eight.

It was at this point that the ice finally thawed. Nothing dramatic. Rice was microwaving a snack and asked Skimble if he wanted one too. Yes, he said.

And things were back to normal.

I was away at college at the time, so I didn't really experience the full impact of that Siberian ice. What did surprise me though was that it lasted that long. Eight months. It's not easy to get through eight months without saying a word to someone you live with. But Rice and Skimble did.

So how come it lasted this long? I think it has a lot to do with habit. Old habits are hard to break and new ones are hard to create. There's a popular theory (I don't know how accurate it is) that if you do something regularly for 21 days, by the 22nd day it becomes a habit.

It isn't easy not to talk to someone for 21 days - particularly if you've lived together all your lives. But in this case, there was some pretty fervid anger that fueled the determination not to talk to each other. Which lasted long enough to break a 20 year old habit and create a new one.

The new habit lasted more than 7 months. What sustained it? Not the anger. No, after the first few weeks the anger dissipated and good old ego was left holding the reins. Neither wanted to be the first to make an overture.

So here's my point. Strong emotions can break strong habits. But to sustain a shaky new habit? You need something as stupidly stubborn as pride.

:(

2010-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

I wave my brand new (and first) credit card at JB.

Whoa, he says in mock horror, in your hands that thing is a weapon of mass destruction!

I laugh excitedly as I tell him what my credit card limit is.

Baby, he says, putting his arm around me in sympathy, you just got yourself a water pistol.

Why I should learn Hindi...

2010-01-25T18:14:00.000-08:00

My neighbour knocked on my door on Saturday morning and when I opened it, told me that I ought to hide my underwear.

She has a four year old son you see, and he likes to eat his lunch sitting on the dry balcony. My underwear, specifically my bras, flapping on the line several yards away on the opposite balcony have caused some awkward moments between mother and son. He's four years old, much too young to understand that women are anatomically different from men.

This kid incidentally is the same one who canters around on our landing in just a kurta, flashing anyone he sees. Now does that seem like the product of a repressed environment or what?

But anyway, back to the underwear issue. She suggested two approaches:

1. Dry my underwear inside. Not sure where exactly inside refers to, the word she used was andhar. That's where she dries her underwear. Andhar apparently is where no four year old can go. (Really? There are places like that inside a modest 2BHK?)

2. Screen my underwear by hanging a sheet on the parallel line. Here's my question: if you have a problem with it, why don't you screen your balcony from everyone's offending laundry?

The fact is that although I had several excellent points to make regarding the psychological damage to her son, the benefit of drying clothes in sunlight and my general dislike of people who tell me what to do, I was unable to articulate any of them. She speaks only Hindi and though I could understand her perfectly, I could not respond. After several attempts to reassure her that the look on my face was not incomprehension, but pent-up inarticulation, I launched into what was unfortunately the argument closer: Mein samajh sakti hoon, lekin mujhe accha nahi lagta ki aap ye bol rahe hain.

She turned around and stalked back to her apartment. And I had so much to say to her!

But the point is that this is a situation I'm frequently in. I'm unable to articulate brilliantly thought out arguments to scamming auto drivers, inept plumbers and interfering neighbours. I would like to explain to scamming auto drivers just why their overcharging me is bad for the environment and economy, but instead I find myself relying on chor! tera din kharab hoga!

So this is what I do. Every Saturday morning, instead of sleeping in, I go to the neighbouring government school and teach a bunch of kids English. In the hope that one day, if we ever have an argument, the advantage will be mine.

How to make pasta for one

2010-01-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

I think the reason I don't like rasam is its non-adhesiveness. It doesn't stick to the rice, it just wets it and then sops up your plate. I like thick dals that coat the rice so that you get flavour in your mouthful and not just the bland starchiness of rice.

Similarly with pasta, I like sauces that coat the pasta completely. I'm not a big fan of white sauce (the only flavour it comes in is cheese) but unless it's chunky, it's difficult to make a good tomato based sauce that clings to your pasta. Unless...

You add a potato. The starchiness of the potato thickens up the sauce while still leaving it nice and smooth. I guess you could get the same effect with cornflour, but this is much yummier.

Here's what you need for the sauce:

1 medium sized tomato

1 small onion

1 medium sized potato

1 heaped teaspoon basil (mine comes in a bottle but if you can get the fresh variety, chop up 5 or 6 leaves)

5/6 cloves of garlic

1/2 a teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

Half a cup assorted veggies - I chopped up half a capsicum, but you can put in anything you like. Mushrooms I find, release a lot of water so increase the seasoning accordingly.

Boil the potato first. Just bung it in pressure cooker with enough salted water to cover it completely. Give it ten minutes on a low flame after the first whistle and you're done. While you're waiting for the potato to cook, chop up the garlic, tomato and onion.

You can also cook the pasta, but I like to wait and cook it in the potato water. A little less than a fistful generally works for me. Wait till the water's boiling and then put the pasta in. Cooking times vary, depending on the pasta you use so read the instructions on the packet. Once it's cooked, drain the water and keep aside. Draining is tricky if you don't have a colander, so try taking out the pasta with a slotted spoon.

Peel and chop the boiled potato and then run the tomato, potato and onion through a blender till it's nice and smooth. Then heat the oil and add the garlic and basil. As soon as the garlic starts to brown add in the veggies along with the salt and pepper. Saute till they wilt a bit and then pour in the tomato/onion/potato smoothie. Keep stirring until it turns from a pale pink to a maroony brown. Taste it now to check for salty/pepperiness. If all's good add the pasta, give it a stir and you're done.

Eat hot.

Distortion

2009-12-12T14:19:00.001-08:00

The dress I bought for the office holiday party is pretty, but has the minor problem of starting halfway down my front. In order to maintain my demure Indian girl image I need to have the straps shortened and find a place nearby that proclaims ALTERATIONS in bright neon lights.

The store's run by Koreans and a small pudgy lady appears at the counter when I ding the bell for the fourth time. She listens to my request, examines the dress and names the same amount I paid for the dress. It's times like these when I feel most homesick.

Reluctantly, I acquiesce - the party's two days away and I don't trust my sartorial skills. She ushers me into a changing room and tells me to put on the dress. Once I have it on she bustles around me with a mouthful of pins and soon begins to make annoyed clicking sounds. I assume she's having trouble with the pins and wait for the clicks to abate. They don't. I notice then that she is not in fact messing with the pins but standing about a foot away from me, looking me up and down, still clicking.

Tentatively, I ask her if anything is wrong.

Yes, she says exasperatedly, your body! Your right shoulder, much beeger than left!

I look into the mirror I'm facing and search for signs of lopsidedness. My left eye is definitely smaller than the right, but apart from that everything else looks evenly distributed.

You play tennis? she asks me. I shake my head, no. What you do? she persists. I'm an analyst, I tell her, and when that doesn't register, I mime typing on a computer. That's about as strenuous as my physical activity gets.

Her eyes cloud over, she's slightly puzzled. A few seconds of thought later, they light up. But you use right hand more than left, no?

Doubtfully, I nod. I am right handed, but surely... That ees why! she crows triumphantly. And happy now that she has identified the cause of my asymmetry, she gathers up her pins and sends me back to change.

Across the Universe

2009-12-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of our last semester in college, Plum and I hatched a plan. Ok, hatched is probably the wrong word because there was nothing nefarious about our plan. (Isn't that the only context in which hatched can be used?) We decided, and I'm sure we were neither the first nor will be the last, to watch a movie every single day of our last semester in college.

We didn't manage that of course, but we didn't do too badly either. I'd estimate I watched over a 100 movies that sem. Plum watched a whole lot more of course. She was the real plan driver. She produced the movies and the best movie watching atmosphere: an overpillowed bed and gooey chocolate bars. More than half of the movies I've seen in my life have been with Plum.

In our final sem, we only had classes in the morning and so every afternoon, we'd cycle back, grab lunch and enter the movie zone. Curtains drawn, pillows arranged, chocolate produced, we'd switch on the laptop and lean back. In the dim coolness of Plum's room, we'd forget we had three more months in the sweaty armpit of the world.

Plum was the one who carefully read reviews and downloaded movies. I never knew what to expect, so one day when the movie started, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Girl. Minutes later, it segued into Helter Skelter and I said wow, they have a Beatles soundtrack - this is going to be fun! I thought it would be something like I Am Sam, so it was another 15 minutes into the movie when I realized that it wasn't just a Beatles themed soundtrack, it was a Beatles themed movie.

Wow.

By the time we hit the crazy colours and suspended gravity of the bowling alley, Plum and I were tripping. You know what? I said, this is when we should smoke up. There was the briefest pause, and then Plum said, I actually have some right now.

I have tried several times to describe that afternoon and failed.

I have tried several times to replicate that afternoon and also failed.

Let me just say that it was the most phenomenally mind expandingly outrageously trippiest trip I've ever had. When Plum and I flew across the universe.

Why relationships fail...

2009-12-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a graph of affection vs time.

T0 is when two people meet. T1 is sometime into the future when the relationship begins (this varies from couple to couple - it's known to coincide with T0 on occasion). T2 is when things are at their relative best. And T3? We'll get to T3.

Most relationships, not just the romantic, follow this curve. Acquaintance, followed by friendship peaking at T2. Then you notice some stuff you don't really like about a person. They can't take jokes on certain topics. Or they occasionally pretend to have read a book they haven't (annoys the shit out of me). Or their (surprisingly well disguised) tummies are bulgy. It could be anything.

And so your affection dips a little. It drops from Y2 to Y3. From there it remains relatively constant. There are minor ups and downs, but it stays pretty much at Y3. Friends can stay at Y3 for years, decades even.

Lovers can't. And so T3 is the beginning of the end.

The difference between Y2 and Y3 (for you engineers complaining about the lack of a scale on the graph) is close to negligible. On a long enough timeline, it would be imperceptible. The problem isn't how much smaller Y3 is than Y2. The problem is simply that it is smaller.

People expect love to be a constantly increasing function stretching out to infinity. Or at the most pessimistic, they expect it to peak and stay at that peak. The magnitude of Y3 ceases to matter. Y2 sloping down to Y3 tells them that they do not love as much as they once did and that scares them. Television, books and movies bombard us with those images of a constant, enduring love.

And so that little dip, that comparison to what once was, prompts us to end something warm and real and propels us back into the world in search of that illusive, elusive infinity.

Wrong reasons?

2009-11-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

How disparate are thoughts and deeds? If I do something nice, feeling resentful the whole time, does it count as a 'good deed'? Or does it fall into the category of 'bad deeds' because my thoughts tainted it?

Consider this: I help an old lady cross the road.

Buddhism decrees that the action of being helpful is a good deed, only if accompanied by the right motive. So clearly, if I helped her cross the road just so that I could pat myself on the back, that doesn't count. But what if I helped her out of a sense of duty?

I'm hurrying along to work, I know I'm late, and I see this doddering old woman struggling with her packages. Immediately that annoying little voice pipes up and says I should help her. After a brief tussle with myself, I stop and help her across the road. The whole time, I'm outwardly pleasant, but actually irritated and resentful, 'Stupid old lady, making me late for work.'

Does that count?

(I asked SB this question and he was puzzled. Count? he asked me. Count towards what?

Am I the only person who thinks there's someone up there keeping score?)

Anyway, I'm inclined to think it doesn't. It bothered me for a long time, but I finally came to terms with the fact that I could never be compassionate. But what I'm still struggling with is that, by my logic, that means I'm incapable of an altruistic deed.

Confronting Death

2009-11-29T22:05:00.001-08:00

I don't remember how old I was or the name of the book. I do recall that it was a Dick Francis and right at the end the bad guy died.

So what?

Well, it was the first book I ever read where anyone died. I'd grown up on a diet of Enid Blytons, Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys and no one ever died in those books. Right at the end, the police would show up, round up all the bad guys and take them off to jail. So the first time a bad guy actually died, I was shocked. He was trapped in a car that had been driven into a lake and I remember reading and re-reading the finale thinking I'd missed the line where he surfaced, gasping for air.

No, I hadn't. He died.

I was more stunned than upset. Shocked disbelief is the closest I can get to describing it. And somehow that is still the feeling I get when confronted with death. A feeling that it's not true, that at some point that person will surface once again. Maybe my strong belief in reincarnation sustains that feeling. Or maybe that belief was born out of that feeling. I don't know.

Years ago, when my mother woke us up one summer morning to tell us that our grandma had died, my sister dissolved into tears. I sat down and tried to digest that fact, willing myself to have the same reaction. I couldn't. Even now, when I think of her, I think of her in the present tense.

Disbelief. Still.

in this stupid office

2009-11-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

my cube is in such a weird place that everyone always walks by me...

and while they do, they take a quick peek...

(especially the indian guys..)

and they see me...

laughing at what someone said on gtalk..

biting into an apple...

frowning as i try to decipher c's demands..

writing lots of numbers on my notepad..

but mostly..

staring wistfully at the wall..

thinking of you...

Gladwell on Groups

2009-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

We have a saying my boss said, as we talked about the latest hook-up at work, "Don't crap where you eat." Well this makes me wonder...

Theories - two of them

2009-09-12T02:01:00.000-07:00

I figured this out very recently and I'm surprised it took me this long. In order to get high, you need to be relaxed and receptive. When I say high, I mean like a happy high. If you're all taut and stressed out, you end up skipping the happy high bit and getting straight to smashed. The worst part about that is when it happens, you're never prepared for it. You're drinking and drinking and wham! you hit the floor.

My second theory (unrelated to the first) is that women shape the dynamics in any group. It's like this, for two guys to be friends all they need is an activity in common. So by and large, guys get along well with other guys. Actually even if two guys hate each other's guts, they'll still be able to hang out together peacefully. No male bonding and all that, but they can (and frequently will) spend reasonable amounts of time with each other. Women on the other hand, have infinite issues with each other. If they all get along well, then joy! That makes for a happy group. But if they don't... Then the bitchiness between two women spreads to the rest of the group and it creates cliques and factions and generally messes up things.

So guys, if your girlfriend doesn't like your best bud's girlfriend, stop right there! Keep the women away from each other and all will be well.

Amen

I miss you!!

2009-08-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

“Evil ice cream schemes”, Plum said solemnly.

“Huh?” I was busy trying to figure out a heat transfer coefficient and listening to her with just half an ear.

“Evil ice cream schemes”, she repeated. “She sends out all these ice cream thoughts and then everyone feels like going out for ice cream and then she goes with them and eats and eats and gets fatter and fatter. And she’s already so fat ”

“Who’re you talking about?” I asked mystified.

“Her”, Plum said reproachfully.

Violation

2009-08-04T03:12:00.001-07:00

I wonder how muses feel about being the subject of sexually explicit art. Are they expected to feel flattered?

I'd feel degraded.

Subjectivity

2009-03-09T20:21:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to check out a photography exhibition at a museum nearby. I was interested because they said the photos were all polaroids and I was wondering how creative you could get with polaroids. Turns out, not very. It was a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition. I hadn't heard of him before but apparently he's pretty well known in the field of photography. He was a painter who turned to photography. He bought a polaroid camera to capture images that he would later paint, but he was so fascinated by the medium that after dabbling in it for a few years he turned to it completely. The exhibition was of the polaroids he took in that interim period. He was bisexual and there's a strong homoerotic current running through all his work. The photographs when they first came out were scandalous and much of his fame (and notoriety) derives from that. I was wondering how large a role sensationalism plays when it comes to artists. If many of his photographs weren't of such a sexual nature, would he have been as famous?

A friend of mine was dissing the Oscars the other day. He claimed that they were too liberal. His contention was that Sean Penn didn't get an Oscar for brilliant acting. He got it for really good acting in a film about gay rights. He's probably right, but if you think about it, the Academy is based in California, which is about as left wing as you can get. So it's natural that people feel strongly about films that have liberal themes. And naturally, people are going to be moved by films about issues they feel strongly about. His claim was that as judges they should be neutral. But when it comes to art, can you really be objective? I don't think so.

So while Mapplethorpe's photography is really good, perhaps it's okay to elevate him to greatness simply because he was bold enough to portray homosexuality at a time when no one else dared to.

Feedback

2009-02-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

I am whatever you say I am
If I wasn't, then why would you say I am?

Is it crazy that I'm beginning to see profundity in Eminem's lyrics? I recently heard that someone who interviewed me for a job (which incidentally, I didn't get) referred to me as a firebrand, a go-getter. Once I heard that, my (admittedly unnatural) diffidence vanished and I felt like a firebrand, a go-getter. What still bothered me was why, if the interviewer really thought I was the cat's pyjamas, did I not get the job? You were probably over qualified, my boss said. My confidence soared.

So clearly, what people think of you affects what you think of yourself.

Look at the diagram below: it's a feedback loop.Let's assume that G is who we are, K is feedback and H is who we can be. Now K can be positive, negative or zero. So you can see that positive feedback makes us better than who we are, negative feedback makes us less than who we are and zero feedback doesn't change a damn thing.

Which begs the question: Should we avoid all negative feedback and hang out exclusively with people who glorify us? The answer is no. Because if you look at the equation above, you can see that K should always be a fraction such that GK is less than one. If feedback is greater than who you are, ie GK is greater than one, then H is negative. You become less than nothing. So yes, while feedback can shape who you are, it's important not to let it overpower you. Because that will ultimately destroy you.

Also, I'd like to point out that negative feedback may not necessarily be a bad thing. If you're trumpeting excessively loudly (like in the second paragraph of this post) then a little diminishing of the ego may be just what you need.

What if K reaches the magical number of 1/G? In that case, I think you've been lucky enough to find yourself a mentor, a counsellor, a guide. Someone who will help you reach infinity.

Snowboarding

2009-02-17T11:10:00.001-08:00

That's me.
Those of you who don't know me might think I'm an experienced snowboarder executing a stunning backflip.
Those of you who do, will realise that this diagram (drawn using the oh-so-versatile mspaint) shows me flat on my back.
I fell backwards. The snowboard was strapped on to only one foot and hence rotated (see blue arrow for angle of rotation), viciously twisting my knee in the process. I'm covered in bruises, find it painful to sit and my once confident stride is now a hobble.
I'm going snowboarding again next weekend.

On Constructive Criticism

2009-02-09T09:17:00.001-08:00

I shared my blog with a friend recently. Keep writing, he said. The first half million words are supposed to be the worst.

Art - the point of

2008-12-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

Remember how we learnt about resonance in the ninth grade? How objects on a piano would vibrate when a particular note was played? Because that note was their resonant frequency..

I think the whole point of art is to find that resonant frequency in people. Like when you're moved by a sad song, or a beautiful painting, or a brilliant piece of writing. It's because that song, or painting or poem has found your resonant frequency.

And that's what separates great art from the rest. Good art can find the resonant frequency in a few people. Maybe a lot of people in a single generation. But as times and people change, merely good art remains rooted in its generation and fails to move.

That's what separates good art from great.

Great art can find that resonant frequency in almost every single person. Generation after generation. Which is why 400 years after he died, teenagers are taught Shakespeare in school. Not just because he wrote well; there are a plethora of good writers. But because his writing reflects who we are, and every single person can see a himself in his work. That's why we're struck by the beauty of a Vermeer, while wondering how a van Meegeren could ever have passed for one.

Eternal. That's what great art is.

2008-12-15T06:52:00.000-08:00

I will feel regret in future, he wanted to say to anyone who would understand, but I shall face that when it comes. Please, only one world at a time. - Agastya Sen

Snow

2008-12-09T19:04:00.001-08:00

Then yesterday, something changed. As we drove home from work, it started to snow. I'd always thought snow was just frozen rain, but it has a sort of buoyancy that's hard to describe. Instead of falling in straight lines from sky to earth, snowflakes whizzed around us, zigzagging erratically, like Brown's pollen grains or Pullman's dust. The effect was exhilarating, psychedelic almost. And inexplicably my mood lifted.

Frustration

2008-12-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

Almost there, but not
Try so hard, but still
You're one syllable short

friday night

2008-12-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

amidst wine and smiles
spectacles sharing a table
three pairs
sweet warmth

2008-12-03T22:11:00.000-08:00

What's worse?

Doing something really stupid? Or not regretting it?

So you had a bad day...

2008-11-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

I've been having a bad year. M put the idea into my head with her 'good year' theory. (That some years are much better than others.) She told me that her 15th and 19th years had been the best so far. I was trying to see if any year/s stood out as particularly good, when it struck me that the last year had been particularly bad.

That was a couple of months ago, and since then things had been getting steadily worse. I waited anxiously for my birthday, hoping that it would signal some change in fortune, but my birthday came and went and the bad stuff stayed. I began hoping it was a calendar year (as opposed to a birth year), but as December approached, I started worrying that it was actually two bad years, back to back.

And today, I read this gem of Rumi's.

I have lived on the lip of insanity
Wanting to know reasons
Knocking on a door, it opens
I have been knocking from the inside!

It said to me that everything I've wanted, I've always had. It occurred to me that two big things I'd been hoping for for sometime, came through this year. And instead of being grateful, I'd cribbed about it. This festival of giving thanks is really about acknowledging every blessing in your life. It's about shifting the focus from what's wrong in your life, to the abundant things that are right. Because quite often, the only thing that's wrong is your perspective.

Look! No Hands!

2008-11-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I relinquished my pride.

Yeah, it was in shreds already, but it was the just about the only thing I had left. And yesterday I gave it up.

I woke up this morning and while I was brushing my teeth, I realised that I felt great. Better than I had in weeks.

And then I had a tiny epiphany. You know how Joplin said, 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose' ? Well, I finally got what she meant.

She makes it sound like a bad thing. It isn't. Freedom always comes at price. And when you think about it, pride isn't all that much to pay for it. In fact, I recommend giving it up. What do you need it for anyway?

So go on.. Kick off your shackles. Go buy your freedom.

Obama won, and I was there!

2008-11-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

There were about 75k free tickets for the rally in Grant Park that you could download online and they got cleaned out in 4 hours. Shiv, a guy I work with, just happened to be browsing in the right place at the right time and downloaded one. I'd told him ages ago that if Obama ever came to Chicago, I really wanted to go see him so he forwarded the link to me, but by the time I got around to opening it, they were no tickets left. Luckily, it happened to be a ticket for two, so Shiv said we'd go together.

On the day of the rally, things totally built up and those free tickets were selling on ebay for as much as $600! A guy at work actually offered Shiv $100 to take him instead of me. Shiv was sweet enough to refuse. But he kept sending my links to ebay telling me how much he could make if he ditched me.

We decided to leave early from work when we heard that people started queuing up outside Grant Park at four. I had a brief tussle with my boss who wanted me to work late (that day of all days). But, yeah, I'm not going to crib. I was at Grant Park the night Obama won, and a lot of people would have paid hard cash to exchange places with me.

While we were waiting for the gates to open, news about the election was still trickling in. There was a young black woman in front of us on the phone and suddenly she turned around and whooped, He won Ohio!! And everyone around us started cheering and screaming and chanting Yes We Can. People were so excited! There was an older white woman standing close by and she turned to me and laughed and said, can you believe how happy we are? And then she added, do you think we'd have been this happy if Hillary was winning? I thought this was a joke and just laughed. But she continued, I live in Hyde Park and I saw all these little black kids and they were so happy. Do you think little girls would have been this happy if Hillary became president?

The crowd started moving then, and I didn't see her after that. But I thought about what she said, and you know what I'm inclined to believe? That no, little girls wouldn't be as happy if Hillary became president. Because black kids know they're black, and little girls don't know as yet that they're going to grow up to be women.

I thought the crowd there would be primarily black. Or at least a large fraction of it. But there were all sorts of people. This white suburban family, mum, dad and two kids. A gay couple in their thirties. Two giggling teenage girls. A bunch of people who looked like they worked together. It was like the whole of Chicago had come out to cheer for Obama. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I went to cheer for Obama, and I'm an Indian who's in Chicago for a just a few months.

We finally got to Grant Park, and I don't know, I think I expected something near hysteria. But though people were happy; they were singing and dancing and chanting, they seemed a little subdued. It was like they'd been hoping and praying for this for so long that now that it was finally about to happen, they didn't have the energy to go crazy.

When Obama finally got there, after a brief bout of wild cheering, there was this hushed expectant silence. Obama didn't disappoint. His speech was brilliant; moving and inspiring.

After that we went home, and to work the next day. In a couple of months, I'll be back in India and all I'll have to show for it is a tattered ticket with Shiv's name on it and shiny black button that says, I was there!

And maybe also the belief that if we choose to, we can all be agents of change.

Khuswant Singh on the recent wave of violence against Christians

2008-10-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

October 03, 2008

Faith, no more

Recent incidents of violence and vandalism against Christians and their churches deserve to be condemned unreservedly. They have blackened the fair face of Mother India and ruined the reputation of Hindus being the most religiously tolerant people in the world. At the same time, we must take a closer look at people who convert from one faith to another.

To start with, let it be understood that these days there are no forced conversions anywhere in the world. India is no exception. Those who assert that the poor, innocent and ignorant of India are being forced to accept Christianity are blatant liars. A few, very few educated and well-to-do men and women convert to another faith when they do not find solace in the faith of their ancestors. Examples are to be found in America and Europe of men and women of substance turning from Judaism and Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism.

There are also men and women who convert to the faith of those they wish to marry. We have plenty of cases of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh inter-marriages. However, the largest number of converts come from communities discriminated against. The outstanding example was that of Dalit leader Bhimrao Ambedkar who led his Mahar community to embrace Buddhism because they were discriminated against by upper caste Hindus. This is also true of over 90 per cent of Indian Muslims whose ancestors being lower caste embraced Islam which gave them equal status. That gives lie to the often-repeated slander that Islam made converts by the sword.

An equally large number of people converted out of gratitude. They were neglected, ignorant and poor. When strangers came to look after them, opened schools and hospitals for them, taught them, healed them and helped them to stand on their own feet to hold their heads high, they felt grateful towards their benefactors. Most of them were Christian missionaries who worked in remote villages and brought hope to the lives of people who were deprived of hope.

To this day, Christian missionaries run the best schools, colleges and hospitals in our country. They are inexpensive and free of corruption. They get converts because of the sense of gratitude they generate. Can this be called forcible conversion? Why don't the great champions of Hinduism look within their hearts and find out why so many are disenchanted by their pretensions of piety? Let them first set their own houses in order, purge the caste system out of Hindu society and welcome with open arms all those who wish to join them.

No one will then convert from Hinduism to another religion.

Khuswant Singh

...

2008-09-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

Swollen eyes. Shattered heart?
No, I mumble
Just trouble with my lenses

My Meditation Disaster

2008-06-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

So after a lot of introspection, (and criticism) I come to the conclusion that I'm:

short-tempered
intolerant
unkind
impatient
judgemental

I decide that I really have to do something about this, and since I'm going to start working soon figure this is the ideal time. So I sign up for a this ten day meditation course where you have to spend 10 days in absolute silence (noble silence is what they call it) and hopefully after LOTS of meditation, you'll reach enlightenment. Everyone thinks I'm crazy but I'm determined that this will be the character altering period of my life.

So against my father's wishes (who thinks it's some sort of cult thing where everyone sleeps with everyone (it isn't. Men and women are completely segregated and absolutely no physical contact is allowed between members of the same or opposite sex)) It's in this arbit place in the outskirts of Bangalore and I have to take two buses and an auto but I get there all right. I don't take my phone with me, because you're not supposed to communicate at all. (Also no books, music or writing material. Nothing except clothes. And soap. They insist on daily baths.)

So I land up there and the schedule is crazy. They bang on this gong at four in the morning and you have to wake up and brush and stuff and get to the meditation hall by four thirty. The meditation goes on till nine thirty at night with breaks for breakfast, lunch and tea. (No dinner.) I'm sure the meditation would have been really calming, soothing, mind altering etc. but the problem was that with the whole waking up at four thirty, I was terribly sleepy throughout the day. I kept nodding off during the meditation and there was this woman who'd come yank on my cushion (we meditate sitting cross legged on cushions) to wake me up whenever I fell asleep.. Which was quite embarrassing.

Also very embarrassing was the fact that I have a notoriously restless tummy. It rumbles more or less through out the day. But it's the tame sort of rumbling that's drowned out by most general noise; the whirr of a fan, the clacking of a keyboard, the distant hum of traffic. The problem is that in a meditation hall, there is absolute silence. My tummy was alarmingly loud. And I realised that my tummy has a far larger repertoire of sounds than I had thought. It doesn't just go rumble rumble rumble. It goes burrrrrrr pooINK shorru shorru shorru whorrrrrrr plink plonk... etc etc. It's like there's a little orchestra in there (though not a very talented one). And the whole bunch of meditators were captive audience to my tummy's performance.

So by afternoon on the third day, after spending four hours trying to meditate in enervating heat, I am thoroughly irritated by the whole place. I have also realised that holding your tummy in does not affect its sound producing ability. Nor does any stomach contortion you can try. I so badly want to leave the place but the website said very clearly that you were not allowed to leave before your ten days were up. (A concept much like prison.) So I hatch three plans.

Plan A: Go to the Guruji and burst into tears and say I couldn't take this anymore. Basically beg and plead to be released.
Plan B: Pack my bags and tell them firmly that I was leaving and they could not keep me there against my will.
Plan C: Wait till everyone was meditating in the hall, then sneak out, grab my bags and run!

While I was in the process of evaluating the logistics of Plan C (taking a casual stroll past the gate to see if it was unlocked or whether I would have to climb over it) I heard a commotion in the office. (Remember, there's complete silence, so a normal conversation sounds like a commotion.) One of the older women was demanding to be let out stating that she had health problems and she didn't feel comfortable staying this far from a doctor. And after spending a while trying to talk her out of it, they reluctantly agreed to let her go. Somehow, once I realised that I could actually leave whenever I wanted to (after the requisite amount of fuss, of course) I suddenly didn't want to leave that badly any more.

So why then, did I leave on the morning of the fourth day? I gave different people different reasons.

Eido-> I missed you too much..
Mum-> They weren't feeding me enough. I was starving!
Dad->The Guruji made a pass at me..

(FYI: the first two are true, the third isn't)

But here is the complete unvarnished truth. During a meditation session the cushion tugging woman gestured to me to come out of the hall. Once we were outside she told me to put a dupatta over what I was wearing. (baggy cotton pants and a loose kurta) I told her I didn't have one. All I'd brought were kurtas and salwars. (the site said that loose cotton clothing was most comfortable for meditation and also said that nothing sleeveless, short or tight should be worn. Rules I'd adhered to perfectly). But she insisted that I wear a dupatta and that since I didn't have one, to write out a purchase order so that she could send someone to buy one for me. I was incensed! Perhaps if she had told me this on the first day, I would have just thought it was that kind of a place and acquiesced. But the fact that she brought it up on the fourth day really riled me. When I tried to ask her for an explanation, she told me that the Guruji had told her to tell me and then just shushed me and pointed to one of the many signs all over the place declaring Noble Silence.

So I went to my cramped cubicle and as I was taking out my bright pink shawl which was the only thing I could use a a dupatta, I suddenly thought of the two foreigners there, both in tight t shirts, one in knee length fitted capris and the other in semi transparent cotton pants. And the fact that they seemed to have one dress code for the Indians and another for the firangs seemed to clash with the discourses we heard every evening about how this course was universal and non sectarian. And that pissed me off so much that I packed my bags and marched out of the place. Tugger lady wasn't around, so I went to the office but there was no one there either so I just left my id card on the desk and left. (the gate wasn't locked. :) ) Also I decided, that if my boobs were distracting the Guruji, I would just take my boobs somewhere else.

Incidentally, we all sat in rows in front of the Guruji so all people in front of me couldn't see me and those behind me could only see my back. And in any case everyone was meditating with their eyes closed. (Or so I thought).

So I left.

But now that all my righteous anger has evaporated, I feel small and stupid. Because I let my temper, the one thing I went there to cure, get the better of me.

The Chocolate Cake

2007-07-21T11:11:00.001-07:00

I baked a cake last Sunday. Nothing fancy; I was in a hurry so I didn't even slather it with fudge like I normally do. It was supposed to be Lee's birthday cake. She turned twenty one six weeks ago, but since it was during the hols, I thought it would be nice to have her blow out candles and slice a cake with all of us at the hostel. Good idea. Bad execution.

No, the cake turned out fine. The problem was, Rice invited Eido for dinner. Eido walked into the kitchen and saw the cake cooling on the counter. And of course he wanted a slice of warm cake straight out of the oven. I told him politely that he couldn't have one because I'd baked it for Lee.

Strike one.

"You baked a cake for Lee and you didn't bake one for me?" So of course, I hacked off an inch along one side and gave it to him. Which Rice had issues with. ("You can't give him the crust!") Anyway, Eido very sweetly drove me to the bus stop and put me on the bus to Trichy. Before I left though, he tucked the foil wrapped cake into the glove compartment and said he was going to keep it for his sister because she'd been dying to try my chocolate cake.

And I gave him the crusty bit. Damn.

The cake and I got to Trichy in one piece, although both a little worse for wear. Abu was around when I was unpacking and saw the cake which I explained had been intended for Lee but was now mildly mutilated. She shrugged and reached for the knife to cut herself a piece. "So we're not doing the whole birthday thing then?" , I asked.

Strike two.

Wordlessly, Abu put down the knife and walked out of the room. I'd had it with that damn cake. Let the next person who wanted it have the stupid thing.

Late that night, Lee and I were watching a movie when she said she felt like munching on something. I told her I had some cake. Yum, she said and got up to slice off a piece. As she cut into the cake she said, "You know, I've never cut a birthday cake. Not here, not back home. My birthday's always during the hols and people generally forget about it by the time they get back."

Strike three.

Friable Sodality Apotheosis

2007-06-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

Easily crumbled or reduced to powder

Fellowship, comradeship

Exaltation to divine rank or stature; deification

Those are three words I looked up today. I've come across them before but they slipped out of my head. The places they occupied though remained unfilled, as though waiting for a gentle nudge from a book or a magazine to remind me that the memory of the words remained and that I had to find and reunite them with their lost meanings.

I wish I had a dictionary. A big, fat, unabridged one that I could keep by my side while I read. Everytime I come across a word I don't know I have to make a mental note of it and the next time I'm online remember to log on to dictionary. com. And half the time, my memory fails me and I log on and wonder what I'd wanted to look up.

I read somewhere, of a woman who kept a dictionary in her bathroom. The idea captivated me. I'd love to have, instead of the usual assortment of magazines, a swollen lexicon in my lavatory. So that every morning while fighting off sleep on the pot, I could browse bleary eyed through a waterlogged book and add another gem to my collection.

The Big %^$&#* Log in My Room

2007-05-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

There's a log in my room.

I found it there yesterday when I got back from lunch. I was pretty sure I'd shut the windows. Those scheming squirrels tend to attack my meagre store of homemade food if I don't. (No, they're not sweet furry creatures, they're ugly vicious rodents.) And when I came back, there was a log sticking in through the window. A big %^$&*#* log.

There's some construction work going on outside and you know what those stupid people did? They actually broke my window, put their hands in, unlatched it and stuck a log through it. For their stupid scaffolding.

So now there's a log in my room. It's big and it's alien and in the middle of the night when you're the only person sleeping in your wing, it's really scary. It's like a bridge for dark creatures of the night to enter your room. I spent the whole night trying not to look at it.

Today, I heard people trying to knock a second log into my other window. I opened it for them. And then I bundled up all my stuff and moved downstairs.

Not TWO logs.

Coelho vs Me

2007-05-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

Just read The Alchemist. The book says, in a nutshell, go follow your dreams. All very nice. Yes, by all means, do go follow your dreams. Here's where I think Coelho makes a mistake. He says, and I quote 'When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it... '.

That's nonsense.

When you want something, when you really really want it, you won't get it. I can quote a million examples. Not just from my life, a lot of people I know subscribe to this view. You simply don't get what you really want. Sometimes stuff that it's never even occurred to you to want just drops into your lap. And in retrospect, nine times out of ten, you'd swear it's the best thing that's happened to you.

So here's my theory. If you want something, if you really really desperately WANT something... Drop it. Abandon the idea right there. If you obsess about it, that's just guaranteeing you won't get it. The less you think about it, the more likely you are to get it. Focus on the little stuff and the big stuff will happen. Trust me.

The Perfect Solution

2007-05-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

We have this history of doing plays that only a small fraction of the college gets. Noel Coward, Neil Simon, G. B. Shaw... In my second sem we did Arthur Miller's All My Sons. It's still one of my favourite plays, but very few people appreciated it's complexity and what it was trying to say. Our attitude to picking plays was that the classics were... classic. You couldn't go wrong that way.

A couple of years ago, when I was a lowly first year, a final year wrote a play. He wrote three actually. One was an adaptation of Stephen King's Apt Pupil. Another, Playing Along was this absolute farce, a plotless collection of lewd jokes with a 'theatre devil' making an appearance every now and then, commenting on the point of theatre. The audience (consisting mostly of culture starved engineers) loved the jokes, the judges loved the devil and Playing Along was, and still is actually, our Award Winning Play. And that was as far as redefining theatre in our college went. (Let's not talk about the third.)

We had one year under an unimaginative Presi. Barefoot in the Park which was booed so badly I never wanted to get on stage again and one of the most boring plays I've ever seen or heard of, Scales of Justice. Then Shekar became Presi. He was as tired as the rest of us of the vast majority of college labelling our plays boring. Extremely well done, but boring. So he decided to give the audience exactly what they wanted. We did The Murder of Shekar Krishnan, a whodunit, more in the Wodehouse than Christie style. Bungling detective and all. We gave the detective a mallu accent, the secretary dipsomania and threw in a few risque lines. And the audience loved it. After a three year drought, we finally had a success.

There were a few people though, who came to us feeling betrayed. You've sold out, they said. Your standards have fallen. This isn't what theatre is about.

And so we thought long and hard before picking our next play. We wanted something that was intelligent without being heavy. Something entertaining, but not frivolous. And most importantly, we wanted to do something different.

When Shekar picked Final Solutions, I have to admit I had qualms about doing it. Didn't think it was doable, really. Didn't think we had the time, the resources, even the talent to do something on that scale. And yet, surprisingly, everything worked out. We had an almost perfect cast. The sets, the props, the lights were more than I'de even let myself hope for. And the music, just a tabla and a flute, was hauntingly beautiful. Apart from a few technical glitches, that production was perfect.

It's strange though, that after all that, I find myself wishing things had been different. Final Solutions is one of the best plays I've ever worked on, and I hate saying this, but I had one of the worst times working on it. Our little theatre group fractured into so many little factions, each one bitching about the other. There were other factors that catalysed this change. It wasn't Final Solutions. But in my head, both are inextricably intertwined. And I'll always think that maybe, it wasn't the perfect solution.

The Superdivabitch Strikes Again

2006-12-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

I did something horrible today. And I'm blaming Eido for it. Rice and I went shopping this morning. Rice needed shoes and I needed underwear. And we had to pick up a kurta for Skimble. So we went to Fabindia first and picked up the kurta (it's a really nice white one, but Mum says it makes him look like a priest) and then we went to inc.5 to pick up shoes. Which I thought was really stupid of Rice because the last time she bought shoes there they broke in three months. So I was telling her that if she didn't mind her shoes not lasting long then we should go to Ebrahim Sahib street and pick up something because they have really nice stuff and she wouldn't end up spending like seven hundred bucks on a pair of shoes that wouldn't last. Like they wouldn't last anyway, but at least she'd spend less than half at inc.5.

But she was already kinda pissed with me because in the morning I had this irresistable urge to eat vada sambhar and so I dragged her to this darshini close by to have some for breakfast. But of course, Rice is too high and mighty to eat at a darshini and she just sat there while I tucked in, completely silent the whole time, staring disdainfully at the chipped formica table. So anyway she was already pissed with me and I started going on about the shoes and how it was pointless paying seven hundred bucks for shoes that wouldn't last and that they were ugly anyway (they were. horrible white and silver chunky straps wound round and round like a spring) and then she started bitching about how I wouldn't know an ugly shoe if it hit me in the face and that I always bought exorbitantly priced shoes (which might be true, but my shoes last and last for years) that were super ugly (which is not true, they're very nice, just not all strappy and flimsy) and then she kept bitching and bitching and I got really pissed and then.....

And then I stormed out. She cried out, I need the card. (my dad had given us his credit card) but I ignored her and strode out and before I left I turned around and said (dramatically) you can take a 'rick home.

And then I went and bought my underwear, which for once wasn't much of a hassle. (Won't get into that. ) After I picked it up I went back to the shoe shop. I had this vague idea that she'd still be there crying or something. But she wasn't. So I walked up and down Comm Street a bit, thinking I might spot her, but I couldn't. I also thought she might be waiting by the bike. But I wasn't sure and thought the best thing to do would be to call. I didn't have my phone and so I tried to find a pay phone. Which, as any cell phone bereft Bangalorean will tell you, is a very difficult thing to do on Comm Street. But I managed. So I called her and asked her where she was.

And she hung up on me.

So then I just finished off whatever shopping I had left. Also bumped into M on the way, and had a lassi with her. (at Sreeraj's. Yummy!) M told me she tried calling me on Rice's phone and Rice said that she was at home and she didn't know where I was. So I went back home.

And we're still not talking.

But the point is : That this is ALL EIDO'S FAULT. Because him being the total sweetheart he is, is turning me into this superdivabitch. Like I can hang up on him, storm out on him and pretty much be a superdivabitch to him. And he won't stop being a sweetheart. So I end up expecting people to be really nice to me inspite of my superdivabitchiness. Which is not a good thing. (a. because the Buddha said so and b. because it's so not going to happen)

Ergo, my new year resolution: to be a nicer person and eschew all superdivabitchiness.

Christmas in Suburbia

2006-12-27T06:47:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year was slightly depressing. Don't know why really. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that everyone seems to be growing up and leaving. Normally there'd be at least fifteen of us cousins and this year there were only four. N flying down from Bombay was the only bright spot this Christmas. She's this storehouse of gossip, witty and amazingly fun if you're not the one she's ripping apart. Mum always called her The Mirch. The last time we saw her, she'd mellowed. We attributed it to her newly acquired boyfriend and sighed, thinking we'd seen the last of her mirchiness. But we were wrong. The Mirch's boyfriend moved to Gurgaon and I think the distance made the difference because she was back in full form.

Her sister in Chicago was recently mugged by a six foot by three foot (that's excluding the hairdo) African woman in a purple mumu. The Mirch had us in splits describing how her sister desperately clung on to her bag trying to ward off the woman by banging her on the head with a tiny box of chocolates. Her screams for assisstance were ignored by her hapless husband who later defended himself by saying that the attacker was a woman, and there was nothing he could do about it. I guess damsels in distress can only claim chivalry if they're being attacked by a dragon or something. Though I think a big purple woman comes pretty close.

The depressing part however, was not so much how everyone's growing up as how they seem to be subsiding into some sort of suburban middleagedness. Except for The Mirch, I think, everyone seems to be so smugly contented about where they've reached in life. Take my cousin Bose for instance. He's getting married in about a month and he's seems so old and boring. It's not just that he's losing hair and gaining girth. It's that he's so blahly happy with his beautiful home and his beautiful wife. Like he's got everything life has to offer and now he's going to sit back and enjoy it. AND HE HASN'T HIT THIRTY YET!

The scariest part is that I can see myself getting there in ten years time. Maybe even less. I can see myself getting a good job and (gasp) settling down! And being trapped in suburbia for the rest of my life. Right now, I so desperately want to just cut and run. Just chuck college, chuck everything and get out of there and backpack across the world doing unbelievably stupid stuff.

And this is the most depressing part. That as much as I want to, I know I never will.

Sticks and Stones

2006-12-19T23:47:00.000-08:00

Had lunch with T and S today. More fun than I expected. Except for one interesting observation they had to make: I have qjada. Would you believe it? I mean I keep hearing it from Trichy people but I thought it was just urban Bangalore me in parochial Trichy that made the difference. Apparently not. They said I've always had qjada and since they last saw me it's increased. I guess having it confirmed from so many sources means it's actually true. But like they kept assuring me, "It's not a bad thing." I wonder.

Then, since I absolutely refused to go bowling. (I suck at it), they took me to a pool parlour. Looked pretty seedy, but apparently this was the only place decent enough to take a female to. T's the kind of guy who worries about taking girls to 'unsuitable' places and I got a lot of "What would your dad say if he knew you were here?"(freak, for sure!) but S was more than game. The place was dark, two in the afternoon, but the windows were heavily shrouded.(i guess it's something to do with the pool tables being more brightly illuminated) There were guys lounging around chalking cue sticks; there was a constant low hum, broken by the occasional expletive when a shot went bad. Looked thoroughly disreputable. And I was the only girl in the place. Hence T's unease. But I got my first pool lesson. And I'm not too bad at it. For a beginner. At least I can hit a ball squarely. Me getting any better will depend on my practicing, but I'm not sure if frequenting these places is a good idea.

Issues

2006-12-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

I attended a mission. Two days of it, rather. Cynical ol' me couldn't last the whole week. My parents couldn't figure out why I went. Unlike the many retreats organised in school, I was under no compulsion to attend, and they couldn't help but contrast my voluntary disappearance for two hours every evening with the pleading and begging before every retreat for a letter that confirmed my status as a non-practising Catholic. (nope, never did get one)

I didn't even try and explain it to them. Did try and explain it to Rice, but she didn't get it. The one person who did, not surprisingly, was my cousin Z who spent the last five years studying law in little hamlet in Andhra Pradesh. Much like Trichy, I imagine. I told her I thought I needed an infusion from the church. To make me feel good about being Christian. She nodded and said, yeah I know what you mean. When I told Rice the same thing I got a startled, my god, what did they do to you in Trichy?

Both of us studied in the same convent run schools right up to Grade XII. And I guess that's why, though the non-Catholics out-numbered us, my faith was never an issue. I sometimes wondered if they minded reciting the Our Father occasionally at assembly, but beyond grudging them the free periods they got when we were at Mass, I didn't really think about it. Then Rice went to a convent run college and I went to NITT.

I suppose it shouldn't have affected me. Being the single Catholic among the zillion Tam Brahms. But it did. It wasn't the absence of carols around Christmas time or the fact that no one else had a smear of ash on their forhead at the beginning of Lent. It was the subtle insinuation (unconscious perhaps) that I, as a Christian was somehow inferior to them. You might say I was imagining it, but for the fact Z went through the same thing.

And so I went for the mission. Not that it helped much.

I guess you pay for a good education in many diferent ways.

A Grain of Wheat.. ..

2006-12-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

Skimble has a vast arsenal of jokes, that vary from the corny to the obscene. We make it a point to laugh at them whether they're funny or not because he's apt to wrestle you to the ground and sit on you till you do. Occasionally though, he comes up with something that's actually funny.

Last night at dinner, I found a spoon laid next to my plate. I got up to exchange it for a fork. Why? inquired my mum, what difference does it make? Skimble replied dead pan, she prefers forking to spooning.

Life in NITT

2006-12-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

A month or so ago, a girl in Shaastra broke up with her boyfriend. He therefore hatched a vicious plan for revenge. He told his parents that his HOD wanted to meet them. While they were at his college, he lured the girl to his house and strangled her. He hid her body under his bed and the next day killed himself on the railway tracks that ran conveniently close by. (Point to be noted here : Though both NITT and Shastra spawn crazy lunatics, the Shastra variety are homicidal while the NITT ones just like to chaat)

About a week ago, a PG with a somewhat skewed sense of priorities tried to kill herself in Opal B because her boyfriend dumped her.

From the two incidents mentioned above, the college athorities have concluded that relationships between two members of the opposite sex are the cause of all evil. And in order to fight these malignant forces of evil, they have vowed to mercilessly hunt down and wipe out all traces boy-girl interaction.

Their decision to crack down on all the couples in college was further hastened by the fact that an NITT couple was found in BHEL park in a compromising position. By the police, no less. The girl's parents are on their way down to Trichy. Her fate is still undecided. The boy's parents are of the opinion that boys will be boys.

Incidentally, the couple has since broken up.

Therefore, all dark areas in the college have been brightly lit. Trees have been mercilessly chopped down. Rumours have been started of ghosts and ghouls lurking around the areas they don't have the resources to light. (Though I doubt a few spirits would deter a really horny couple) also, the number of guards patrolling the college have been increased. Unfortunately, these guards, though assiduous, are dumb.

Three days ago, a girl and her boyfriend were walking up college avenue, past the ad block, closer to the chemical dept. Suddenly three guys burst out of the bushes pursued by a lathi wielding guard. The couple thus found themselves amidst these three, who had been peacefully smoking up prior to the chasing. The guards, being as I've mentioned before, particularly dumb, completely misinterpreted the situation and thought that the girl was canoodling with FOUR guys in the bushes. They confiscated her ID and reported the incident to the Dean of Student Welfare.

She, luckily, managed to talk herself out of it. But the fact remains that the college is facing an Inquisition. No couple has ventured out for the last two days, for IDs have been confiscated at random, for as little as sitting next to a guy.

HT, convinced that the girls' morals are deteriorating by the year, (please note, the boys' morals are unaffected) has decided to introduce swipe cards in Opal so that she can keep track of the female students' comings and goings. Till the system is in place, the girls are required to sign in and out of a register if they leave the hostel after seven. Also trips out of campus have been limited to two per week.

There is unrest in Opal. Murmurs of revolt, whispers of an uprising. However as the girls muster the courage to speak out, college life goes on as usual. The sun beats down upon students as they scurry from classes to labs and back again. The clock in the clock tower still says eight ten.

The Bigger Cheat

2006-12-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

Skimbleshanks and I were playing scrabble the other day. Skimble by the way, is my younger brother. And despite the three year difference between us he manages to beat me regularly. Well, to be perfectly honest, manages to thrash me.

The game started well, I'd opened with a bingo and for once it looked as if I might actually beat him. But there he was, inching along, slowly eroding away the 50 point lead. I needed another bingo and I needed it fast. That was when three e's, an i, s a t and a blank showed up on my rack. There was a relatively isolated n on the board and flipping through the dictionary (house rules allow it) I found eternize. And hey, I'm human, how much thrashing from a kid bro can you take? So, I put eternise on the board and tried to bluff.

Have I mentioned I'm not a good liar? Skimble looked at me suspiciously and reached for the dictionary. A moment later, he snickered and told me that the dictionary only allowed etern-i-z-e. So, ruefully, I took my letters off the board. Karma, apparently, has moved with the times and delivery time is faster than ever before.

But that's not the end of it. A few more moves into the game, Skimble chuckled. What was so funny I wanted to know. He picked up the dictionary and found the right page. There, sandwiched between eterne and eternity, was eternise.

Ticket to Ride

2006-12-03T07:33:00.000-08:00

I pull out the bike and honk twice.
"Coming..", my sister yells.
She blows a kiss to Coal, our half Irish setter, rest unknown mutt and sits down behind me. I start the bike; it revs up without any trouble and soon we're on the main road.
"So... what do you want to sing?"
"I don't know," I say, "you pick."
"Vindicated?"
"Umm... No, something faster."
"Hitchin' a Ride?"
"Ok", I agree happily. We're both Green Day fans and Ride is one of our favourite songs.

pumpum pumpum pumpum pararara
pumpum pumpum pumpum pararara

I keep time with my foot and speed up a little. Her fingers dig into my shoulder and I slow down.

Hey mister where ya headed?
Are you in a hurry?

She freaks out if I travel over fifty. But for all her safety consciousness, she refuses to wear a helmet. Unlike me, I might add.

Need a lift to happy hour?
I said oh no
To misquote a little Zen, driving a car is like looking a a picture. It's nice, it's pretty; but you're just looking at it. Riding a bike... Man! that's like being in the picture. I get a buzz doing eighty on my bike. One twenty in a car and... Zip. Nada. Nothing. Pretty picture.

Do you break for distilled spirits?
Need a break as well
The well that inebriates the guilt
One, two...

"ONE TWO THREE FOUR!... we erupt in a cacophony of euphoria. Now we're loud enough to get strange looks from passing motorists. Not something we're unaccustomed to. Booze? No thanks. My highs are clean and hangover free. Well, not exactly clean if you consider how much Bangalore smog I end up inhaling. But definitely hangover free.

There's a drought at the fountain of youth
And I'm dehydrated

No way. Not now, not ever. There's something about a bike.. Whether you're flying on the Ring Road or crawling through JC Road traffic. There's that indescribable feeling as you dodge around a precariously tilted bus. The thrill of doing something that isn't entirely safe laced with a curious feeling of independence. If someone could bottle that feeling, I swear he'd have the elixir of youth

I'm off the wagon and I'm
Hitchin' a ride

We've reached. Sis gets off the bike, peers into the rearview mirror and adjusts her hair. The residue of that exhiliration makes me reach out and give her a little hug. I'm happy to be alive. She stares at me. "Jeez. What's with you?"