Meeting of a lost friend!!

Nearly everyone I knew was planning a trip, movie, outing, lunch, dinner or just a get together with one’s group of friends for celebration of this friendship’s day. I was a little wonderstruck about this entire euphoria; I called a few of my friends and wished them, what I considered a needless formality, “Happy Friendship Day”.

Out of envious curiosity, I also enquired about their schedules. “We all will be going out” was a reply from first, “May be a lunch or dinner followed by a film” was what I heard from second, “Visiting a farmhouse at the outskirts of the city” was the answer from third. I felt a little uneasy about being absent from all these celebrations. A strong sense of being left aside and cast away crept into my mind right from afternoon and it just kept increasing as the day went on. The thought of getting onto a busy week ahead at work was of no help in alleviating the discomfort of perceived loneliness.

I visited a tea stall near my room twice, just to keep myself engaged, also did some grocery shopping for myself. Shopping felt good, but it soon faded away as I found that I had nothing to do for entire evening ahead. The next thing I took up was re-arranging my wardrobe; however this too did not last long. I realized that being alone was not particularly painful but being alone when almost all others you know are busy celebrating or partying is particularly painful to an anxious, six day working and young individual’s mind!!!

On this relieving realization, I came to know that all this while I was worrying about missing all my friends in various parts of country; I was also neglecting one particular friend of mine. In fact it was only this friend of mine who had truly been with me through all thick and thin. I took that classic collection of pages and started turning them over one after the other. The touch of the pages, sound made while scribbling a thought or two in margin, the smell of ink spread across making words and the thrilling interaction that reading provides to mind transformed me in a matter of seconds. I rediscovered a joy of finding an old friend at a really crunch time.

Schopenhauer was indeed right when he said, “I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading cannot assuage.”

Delhi ki sardi and Bombay ki baarish

There was a knock on my room’s door at 2’o clock in a chilling winter night, (if you have/are staying in a hostel, you know that it is never too late to knock anyone’s door.) I opened and found that one of my friends wanted me to go to the balcony and see the view outside. At first I found it a little strange but then realized that my friend must be indicating to the infamous fog that one gets to see in Delhi during winters. When I went to my balcony I found to my amazement that even the building and trees next to our hostel were no longer visible to me!

This was my first encounter with infamous/famous “Delhi ki Sardi” and the fog that it invariably brings. Winters in Delhi were chilling and freezing. For someone like me who had never seen temperature falling below 15C, Delhi ki sardi was an eye opener!!!! I realized how valued a warm blanket and a wardrobe of woollen clothes are. I spent two winters there, the second one was longer and far more chilling than the first one, though I had also grown seasoned with time.

During winters people suddenly start looking fatter, not because of the increase in calories intake but because of the whole layer of woollen clothes that one has to put on to survive!!

Another thing that becomes almost impossible in that weather is to wake up early in morning. I knew many early risers but even they succumbed to the weather and preferred to be in the den of their blankets till late. J On the fun side, Delhi ki sardi offers a lot of things too; I recollect the fun we had in having boiled eggs, maggie, warm soups and tea/ coffee in those cool times. For me the discomfort that Delhi ki sardi brought in terms of temperature was more than offset by the amazement of its experience, chance to sleep till late, and delicious food that one enjoyed there.

Just after a couple of months when I arrived in Bombay, a caring friend cautioned me about the monsoon and problems it brings along. I told him that having seen Delhi ki Sardi I am attuned to adjust in any and every kind of weather.

However soon I realized that running behind an inverted umbrella was not so easy a thing to do. Rain disturbs the traffic even more than the fog perhaps, and given the kind of space we have in Bombay it just makes the matters worse. However, rains too have many brilliant things to offer. Tea and Pakoras/ aloo chop/ bhajiyas, are the best things that can happen to you if you are stuck somewhere in the rain. And if you are in love, there is nothing more romantic than Bombay rains they say!!!!

Both Bombay ki baarish and Delhi ki Sardi, being forms of nature had many things in common too. Both impact the daily lives significantly, flights get delayed, trains are rescheduled, taxi drivers and auto drivers certainly become scarce commodity and at extremes life comes to a standstill. Both cause some discomfort to our lives, in Delhi one feels frozen constantly and in Bombay one just can’t move out freely. Even if you go out with an umbrella it will either get inverted or you will become frustrated as your umbrella will keeps hitting others’ umbrellas!!!!

But given the kind of lifestyle both these cities offer, such weather is a blessing in disguise, I guess. It gives one a chance to pause, ponder and perceive things with a little more clarity. It also reiterates that nature rules our lives and not the other way around.

It does not matter if one is in Delhi or in Bombay, whenever the weather gives you a breather, take it happily, sip a coffee or a tea and give some thought to those things you have been neglecting since long in your life. Life is beautiful!!!

Dil se Delhi Man se Mumbai

“You don’t engage in Delhi-Mumbai argument as vigorously as others from Delhi do!!” said one of my friend’s friends. For a moment, I felt ashamed for not having rooted for Delhi, in an argument as to which of the two is a better city to live in.

Just as I was about to tell her how pathetic I found the locals, that I do not understand why people are so crazy about that Wada-Pau, that I do not like to sweat so much, that I don’t see any greatness in running around like mad for entire day and night, that I hate pronunciation of “RE” at every possible place in the sentence etc etc……. my Mumbaikar (Mumbaiya) friend chipped in, “he’s not a Delhite, he is a Gujju.”

This is the first time I felt as if a part of my being was torn away. Something very personal to me was snatched away. I had spent two years in Delhi, and really loved the place a lot. I thought myself very much as a Delhite.

Gulping this feeling, I came back home. However this little encounter made me think about the question which is a root to many heated debates, which is a better city? Delhi or Bombay?

Personally speaking, I miss Delhi. I know the reason for this is largely because of the fact that life there was surrounded by great friends and college was also great fun. Bombay on the other hand is another field. Here the people I interact with are mostly my colleagues. Friendships may develop over the time but “usme woh baat kahaan?” feeling will always be there for these colleague-friends.

In addition to fond memories, Delhi also ranks ahead in terms of the public transport. “Delhi Metro Rocks, Mumbai local sucks” was a message I sent one day to one of my friends while travelling here in locals. Arguments can be made for the kind of load that Locals take each day, but believe me efficiency can never be a substitute of discipline and good ambience. Delhi also feels lot more spacious as compared to Bombay. For those who relish space, there is no better place than Delhi.

If reading this much makes you think I am trying to be an ardent Delhite, hold your horses. Despite its all seemingly unpleasant characteristics, I find Mumbai too quite cool. One of the most important thing, different from Delhi, is that this city is run by market power and not political power!! Everything is so easily accessible and available, at its price. This fact is as risky as it is wonderful. Bombay is brimming with opportunities; there is something here for everyone. Another aspect where it ranks ahead of Delhi is overall safety of citizens. The city makes one feel at ease, at home.

Bombay and Delhi, the two biggest cities of our nation are indeed different, reasons I like them are also different. However one strand of similarity can be found from the fact that both these cities is the fact that both gives one an opportunity to meet people from entire country, entire world perhaps. And this challenging fact makes life so very interesting!

Book Review - Chinaman the Legend of Pradeep Mathew

“I find myself in the same position as the internationals who dared tour apartheid South Africa in 1980s. I am universally shunned.” This line best describes the storyteller of this novel. W.G. Karunsena is an old cynic, sports journalist.

He has been fired from three magazines, ridiculed by his peers, distrusted by his wife and disappointed by his son and has a diminishing life (thanks to alcoholism). Yet the fact remains, he too has a story to tell. And it is a story that, I bet will interest many of us.

W.G. Karunasena (henceforth, WG) is obsessed by the miraculous and mysterious character in Sri Lankan cricket, Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew. According to him, Mathew was the greatest spin bowler their country had ever produced. However, the mystery begins when there is not a single record available against his name. It looks like this character has been purposely deleted, erased and rubbed off from the canvas of Sri Lankan cricket. What could be the reason behind this? Was it due to his unbridled and brash attitude, his lack of fitness, involvement in match fixing or was it something hereditary?

His father was a Tamil and mother Sinhala. That too in a nation which has seen havocs in the name of differences between these two sets of people.

Ever wondered why we call ourselves world champion, despite the fact that all we have won is matches against just handful of countries!!!

Perhaps a sport has a great role in the way people of the nation see themselves. It is a defining part of any nationality, especially so if you are hailing from subcontinent and if the sport you love starts from C!

This fact has played out significantly in the novel, which in its search of this mysterious, mythical genius reveals certain aspects of the social-political and national structure of Sri Lanka. During these descriptions we find that Sri Lanka has some strong similarities with India when it comes to the social texture.

Nagging relatives, craving for social approval, bomb blasts, fear of both the makers and breakers of law, father-son differences, sacrifices for friends, cynicism for the system and last but the most, craze for cricket!!! We are indeed very similar.

WG breaks out of all these vagaries of day to day life through his passionate and poignant hunt f Mathew. It is through this search that he finds himself also. He anticipates his end, and plans last few months of his life extremely well. Despite all the planning, he could only achieve 2 out of the 10 things that he wanted to do before his death. His son, Garfield, sees it and thinks that he can improve the score to at least 5 out of 10 for his dead dad. (Another similarity to India).

The story ends in Garfield, finally meeting the master called, Pradeep Mathew, and writing his story fully. He even gets it published despite scheming and plotting by the Sri Lankan cricket board and politicians.

Since the narrator is a drunkard some parts of story make reader feel dislocated at times, but in the end it seems that this dislocation was by choice and not by design.

In the end, I was unable to conclude if this was a story of the old man who gave street cricket in Sri Lanka something that it always lacked, in the form of accurate LBW decisions. Or it is a story of a man who gave Sri Lankan national cricket team what it always lacked, self belief, aggression and brashness and made them the real lions.

I was also unable to conclude if the man called Pradeep Mathew ever existed, who was right in the tussle between WG and his son Garfiel, did Johnny, a Brit and WG’s friend actually sodomized kids in Sri Lanka, was WG a mad man….. the list of inconclusive is long,

But one thing that I could conclude was that,

if the sweetest sound you've ever heard is leather on willow, if some of the most exciting moments of your life have consisted of watching a five-day match end in a draw, if the most important question around the partition of the subcontinent is "who would have made it into Undivided India's cricket team in any era?", if your mind keeps returning to that one extraordinary spell by a bowler (say, Mohammad Zahid to Brian Lara at the Gabba, 1997) who, for one reason or another, couldn't hold his place in the national side, if no amount of scandal and venality within the game can keep you from spending weeks or even months living in a different time zone from the one in which you're physically present – then this book could be the best thing to happen to your life since the Ashes/World Cup/away series win against the best team in the world[1].

---

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/07/chinaman-shehan-karunatilaka-review?INTCMP=SRCH

Plays end, Characters do not.....

A play seems to me one of the best analogies for the last two years of this course spent here in New Delhi. There were other options, like a nerve breaking cricket match, blockbuster movie, splendid story, picturesque painting etc. but in the end “Play” prevailed. It prevailed because of the space and scope it gives to incorporate all the episodes and characters with which some of the most precious moments of our lives relate. Just like plays, these two years have shown us all kinds of emotions, expectations, joys, disappointments, humour, honour, rage, romance, etc.

Moreover, it has also offered various forms through which our lives in this course have passed, like tragedy, comedy, thriller, and at times farce too!!!

Besides all these, the single most effective reason for choosing this analogy was the fact that in plays, various characters unfold as the time progresses. Depending on our personal psyche we may relate to some characters more than others, but we notice everyone nevertheless. No character was additional, or extra, everyone had a role to play. And through these small roles of each one of us, we made this two year long play.

While it is certain that all characters have a role, it is also true that all roles are not equally appealing, attractive or mesmerising. If you have liked more number of characters than you disliked, you are fortunate. I have been fortunate because I got many chances to see, observe and understand AWESOMENESS of many characters. Most of them left a deep impression on my mind. Among these impressions lie memories of some of the most amazing events, relaxing and refreshing trip, challenging assignments, that last minute revision with friends in minutes before exam, impromptu presentations, late night Maggie/pasta/soup etc.

Characters help us shape our attitude and outlook towards life by their clinical proficiency in whatever they do, some by their deeply poetic and philosophical understanding of life, some through their witty and sharp sense of humour, some with their gritty conduct, some through their sheer brilliance, some through their past experience, some with their simplicity and some just with their being. Our class has this whole range of such inspiring characters.

Just as we like some characters, we also dislike some characters. However in this dislike too, there are interesting things to learn. Generally the dislike stems from difference of opinion or belief system. In order to protect our beliefs we often oppose or disapprove of others’ beliefs. There is little one can do about characters that oppose our belief system, and more often than not some of them recede in to the subplot, however, remember that even subplot is an integral part of the play and many a times subplots give a completeness to the play!!

Another important aspect is that of a definitive end. Plays end - almost - always. However, just as we remember some of the most impressive, characters of history, of films, of plays. Some characters from this play too, shall continue to form an active part of my life. An end here also puts some obligation to these wonderful characters, an obligation to keep playing the role that they have played till now, with all the more care, zeal, perfection and enthusiasm, to be in memories, dreams, inspirations and guidance.

Plays end, characters do not.

Distant dreams - Birbal and Winter night in cold water!!!

There are many stories we have heard of Akbar and Birbal. All of them mostly involve subtle and timely use of wit and wisdom to solve any issue at hand or problem faced.

One interesting story I recalled some time back was that of the poor man winning a challenge laid down by King, for standing in cold water for entire winter night. When at the end of excruciating night, this poor man demanded his prize, one of the courtiers disputed and told that throughout the night the man was staring at the two lamps lighting at the lamppost of the palace. Therefore he got the warmth from these lamps and violated the condition of standing in cold water without warming himself. He ruled the man out of court and dismissed his claim for prize.

Birbal saw this and thought that it was against what he considered just and right. He tried advocating for the man, but Akbar did not listen to him. Some days later, Birbal did not come to court. On enquiring the King got to know that Birbal has put “Khichadi” for cooking and will resume to the duty of court once the “Khichadi” is cooked. For entire month he did not come to the court, and then King himself went to his place. He found that Birbal had put on the stove on the ground and the pot containing “Khichadi” far above it.

King asked “How foolish are you? This way Khichadi can’t be cooked, it is not receiving the fire.” “Huzoor,” replied Birbal, “how can the man, then, get warmth from the lamps lighting that night. Please award him the prize he deserves.”

Enamoured by this wisdom, Akbar gave the prize to the poor man.

So far so good, but a thought crossed my mind once. Was the analogy used by Birbal fit?

Aren’t there times when we human beings actually surpass long never ending testing times by keeping our eyes on the distant dreams we have?

These dreams, though way too far for any direct effect and impact, surely have power to influence people in countering their present plights.

Who knows what dreams ran through that poor man’s mind while he was focusing on those lamps.

It is slightly unnerving to dispute with someone with so much celebrated intelligence as Birbal, but I would fancy a probability that the man was surely lighting some dream in his heart through those lamps that night. And that lamps did play a role in his being able to spend that winter night in cold water.

Do you also think so??

Scorecard of Success

While reading something random some days back, I came across a mention of an economist who had propounded one of the most relevant concepts in sociology and economics.

This man’s name is Thorsten Veblen, trained at Yale, he wrote a book in the year 1899 in which he described three concepts which, I believe, have gripped our lives from all ends very tightly. Not only these concepts guide our actions they also shape the way we think, believe and even dream!!

The first one refers to the phenomenon where a social class of a person is defined by the kind of consumption that a person indulges into. The more the extravagance associated with the purchases, the higher the social class. He called it Conspicuous consumption. Remember that friend of yours who always flaunted the “Most expensive Mobile, bag, house, car etc.??

This concept was innocuous and healthy until it gave way to another dangerous phenomenon that Thorsten observed. It was “Pecuniary Emulation” it referred to people going beyond their means in order to emulate the consumption and consumer behaviour (You better get the difference between the two!!) of those who are considered to be belonging to the higher class in the society. After all who does not want to be talk of the town???

It is astonishing how brutally these concepts have eroded much of our sense of proportion and aesthetics. We now keep a constant scorecard of our success with material benchmark, which in Thorsten’s words is called, “Invidious comparison.”

It has been just a little over 100 years that these concepts have been identified and examined, yet they seem to be getting stronger and stronger in their application and grip over our minds.

Isn’t it???

PS: For better understanding of what I am saying, sell off the dictionary and buy yourself a nice mirror!!! It will work better.

Change cheated on us again......

An honest announcement of a friend of mine on a public forum regarding his disappointment in the New Year forced me to think a bit about change today.

Despite all hue and cry around it, the world had not changed the way it had promised. The euphoria created made us believe for a second that New Year will be significantly different from the one that is just going to end. In New Year, people will be kinder to each other. (As if Santa were to shower some sense and sensitivity in their minds!!) There will be some sanity in our celebrations and the considerations paid to the concern of overall well being will increase, at least marginally. So on and so forth we contemplate so many other changes that we need to implement for a better world.

The grand new day arrives, on which all these and many other hopes are pinned and what happens?

All this fall flat as a castle of cards. To sheer shock, we observe people acting even more brutally, with renewed force. Our celebrations almost anesthetize us from most of the realities. Engrossed in our life we tend to make our senses numb so that we don’t have to bother our minds with problems that others face. Corruption still flourishes. Thousands spend nights shivering while we cuddle in our warm quilts without even giving a single thought to their apathy, let alone doing anything to solve it. Foeticides continue, public money misappropriated, strikes for reservations go on…. Apart from these public pains, some private pains also keep aching millions around us.

But who cares? We are too busy to halt, think, act and make a difference to anyone else. Ask yourself, when did you last wipe of a tear from an eye??? I asked this to myself and struggled to find an answer.

It is very easy and tempting to consider the misfortunes of others as a result of their own bad deeds or mistakes or downfall. It is equally difficult to empathise and act towards making the world a little better place for others also, irrespective of the magnitude of that improvement. Somehow we have developed a habit of adopting easy routes. (Some CALL IT OPTIMIZATION!!)

Many may rub this comment off as a vent of frustration, anger or jealousy also. And accuse me of playing a spoilsport. But as they say, problems do not go away if you turn your eyes away from them.

One thing that commands some celebrations is that still we have many people who feel the disappointments for absence of some changes. So long as there is a desire for change, determination to work for it can be attained and acted upon. I firmly believe that all these (Choose your adjective: Positive/negative) forces, will confluence and lead to some of the changes we so badly need to execute.

Act while there are still some days in calendar none knows which one will be the last…. .