Shhh… APS Time :(

Happy Singh was unhappy today…

Happy called me in the noon and asked me with a voice bordering on a whisper: “did you finish that stuff? how’s it going?” I replied back with a matching anxious tone: “not very good…I am stuck in the 15th page”. Happy Singh almost burst out into a hoarse cry: “what!! 15 pages! My God! I have not crossed the 6th page as yet” … My being in mid-ocean in the 15th page proved to be no consolation for poor Happy…so he decided to vent his anxiety at someone else… who might be stuck in the 5th page.

I’m sure anyone who’s reading the stuff will think I have gone nuts. First, I don’t publish my usual weekend blog entry on time (unforgivable :X ) and second when I am writing stuff, I am writing nuts. Well, so let me make it clear — there two seasons overlapping each other, one is the monsoon in Mumbai which invites you to freak out (if you love rains) and the other season is the APS season in IITB (Annual Progress Seminar) that stops you from any freak out business. The two seasons paradoxically overlap each other and create a problematic clash. So, that’s what we are going through right now — shhh APS hai!

The problem in the description of an APS season actually lies in how to describe it? Anyone doing PhD in IIT Bombay will understand exactly what do I mean. But, people including parents and friends who have not had the delicacy called PhD on their platter, think that July-August is a time when we simply go crazy! :O …Mom calls up to say: “beta there’s no water supply in our taps for the last two days” — I irritably respond: “oho! Don’t disturb…give me two years I will setup a Pepsi plant for you…now keep the phone down…write two pages of complaints and send that to the plumber!” … Imagine her confusion? This APS thing haunts every Research Scholar who joins the institute. Year by year we present our “yearly” (I would say some of us do it only before APS) progress before a panel of experts. Year after year we confront our ignorance on the APS day — and believe me it’s not such a happy meeting.

People behave in a certain way during the APS season, which if you observe carefully is quite interesting. Someone like me, is in all likelihood to bump into any speeding vehicle that goes on the road, while thinking what quotation to add as a filler to the 3rd chapter of my report (not everyone has the guts to laugh at themselves, I do), or else I might just end up waving a huge “Hi” to a complete stranger while take my next door neighbor as a brick on my bedroom wall. Some of us, just look at each other and gain consolation by seeing how tensed the other poor APS ridden soul is (sadistic, but true) … while some bury themselves in a pile of books and papers and library materials that have been lying in dust post-last APS . In fact, last Friday I realized that I had thrown away some of the papers during my room’s white wash that I needed for this APS. . Some others start pursuing the panel members even in their dreams and get nervous if there is even a slight change in the expression of any of the experts of their committee. While, some simply are cool customers, who think APS is merely a hindrance in their daily dose of intensive research. I just look with unfulfilled greed at every new movie realizing in Huma Adlabs .

On the APS day throats parch, hands sweat and I curse myself for every other party that I had attended for the last one year. But post-APS, it’s another round of parties, movies and masti for the next nth point of time :)… Each year if the APS goes safely — it’s like a major operation, I don’t forget to visit the nearest temple in new clothes and coconut, also go to the church “thanking Him” and also attempt to visit the Dargah.

But for the time being… SHHH! DON’T DISTURB … I have to submit by tomorrow.

Men Talk…

Hey, I’m back from a travel spree for the last few weeks and therefore this dark stupor in my blogosphere.

But before writing a travelogue the bulb of my muse caught fire with another idea: “men talk” … “men’s talk”… “what do men talk?” All this is not the same…mind you. While “men talk” refers to the inversion of the old belief that men prefer silence to talking and women are “supposed” to do all the talking, “men’s talk” digs at the possibilities of what men actually talk; “what do men talk” pertains to the never out of fashion curiosity in females regarding the topic of discussion in men’s circles.

At a coeducational school in India, while growing up into hep teenagers, we had a tendency to cluster female-female and male-male in the class. I don’t know why this shying away from the opposite sex — but somehow in school even while teachers tried to put a boy and a girl in a single bench, there was just an uncomfortable grumpy silence between both the poles or the spark went into an opposite pole of love letters being exchanged. As far as my personal life was concerned, I was a loner who spent more time talking to the grass and plants and birds… (list is incomplete ) than a fellow human being. During my under-grad days at an “all” Women’s College in Bhubaneshwar, suddenly started to look with interest at the mindset of the “other sex”. While stealthily and not without a tinge of guilt we picked up the “Mills& Boons” or the “Harlequin Romances” and sat up at night discussing with room mates as to “what do men think?” and “what do they talk?” — somehow I was given an impression by “wise” seniors that “men think and talk about women and nothing else”. I was told that unlike “us” - the “women folk”, men hardly talk among themselves, and never gossip. Is this a myth? reality? Just spend some time before reading further :).

And then, during my post-grad days, I had friends who were known “hooligans” of the town and I was hanging around most of the time at the University chai center or at the pani tanki (water reservoir for the university) … realized for the first time that men do talk and they talk a lotttt … they gossip a lot and that they think about many other things “not just women” . How do I know? They might be discussing “just women” in their hostel rooms? Well maybe, there’s a room for doubt — but, then, the point is actually what forms the core of “men’s talk”?

Time has passed and so have we grown with age and experience…

Why this sudden interest in men’s talk? Well, the context was an event of yesterday at a pizza party with a group of friends who happen to be men. Incidentally, I was the only girl in that group. The way they bonded among themselves and the way they gossiped about everything under the sun — “politics, gadgets, department stuffs, papers, gizmos,” etc. , it seemed I was just a distant blur in their conversational sphere. Right from credit cards to invitation cards to recharge vouchers (I learnt that there’s something new called “Jadoo” that holds their interest) to pens and watches, ufff! You can be driven crazy. Interestingly, rather than competing about whose girl-friend/girlfriend is how charming, they competed who spent how much money and for God’s sake whose credit card was how beautiful!!!!!!! :0 … “See his is a jet black with real silver-platinum coat”… “Oh mine is just a silver one but I have spent more than 15000 bucks in the last 15 days from it” … and so on. Finally they decided (can you believe it!) to PHOTOGRAPH THE CREDIT CARDS!!!!! … and they did it to everyone’s surprise! Poor girls, beautifully decked up, sitting at other tables must have been so hugely disappointed (no one photographed them ) .

There were many other things to talk about like “what is the acceptance rate of which conference?” … “whose supervisor is how —?” “what is the current placement scenario?”, “what is cooking in the sting operation camps?”, “what is happening in the neighbor’s life?” … I was baffled by the breadth and length of their topics. Where were girls in their conversation? They were fringe creatures sometimes mentioned with a little happy desire for the “other” … rest it was just gadgets, credit cards and material acquisitions that held their interest. I chuckled to myself: “wonder what Devdas would make of these people — bad successors” .

This is just one incidence I’ve come across, there are many others from my post-grad to post-post-post-grad to substantiate my point that men talk a lot and they have extremely vibrant minds which can catch any signal and reciprocate to it in terms of “men’s talk”. In post-grad times one of the favorite topic of the men’s circuit was “yaar kisko peetna hai?”, else “rum hai toh kya gham hai?”, else “which bike: Hoodibaba or Pulsar?” ;)  else “which song is in vogue?” …. Infact, if I remember correctly two of my close friends had fondly named their bikes as : “Bacchus” (God of wine) and “Vulcan” (God of fire) — and their discussion centered around how to take care of these bikes . Such are then the “ways of the world”.

In literature women have always been imagined by men in certain ways — ranging from coy, cute, beautiful, gorgeous, slanderous, gossiping, angelic … which can be cited innumerable examples from literary texts. Wish someone (it would be interesting to see from females’ point of view) could imagine men in more deeper terms than what they have been thought of — as straightforward, rude, kind, romantic, villainous, treacherous, etc. There are shades in personalities which remain unexplored both by literary and psychological studies and “men talk” and “men’s talk” are some such examples.

But, for the time being all that I can say is men do talk …

Remembering 26th July, 2005

Mumbai Rains -- When It Rains, It Just Rains

It’s a crowded time in IIT Bombay — fresh new faces, anxious parents, baggage rolls, colorful buckets, brooms, books, computers and compact lappys — you get to see everything, right there on the pavements in front of the hostels. July-August are happening months here in the campus, new students with hearts full of hopes, parents in anxious anticipation and oldies like us slogging through the demands of the yearly APS (Annual Progress Seminars). To tell you the truth — I have never quite liked this season; (a) because I have to study more than what I usually do and (b) because the mess, the lobby, etc. are just so full with people. The icing on the cake are the monsoons — the Mumbaiya rains which dare the new kids on the block to fight for survival.

The Dark Knight Riders -- Monsoon Clouds Hovering Over Hiranandini Skies

Each one has a “first day” in an institute and so have I. Well, now for a flashback — let’s zoom the camera to July 26th 2005 — my first day in IIT Bombay . Three years have passed since I was a freshie in the institute . That was the day of the flash floods of Mumbai? Huh? Heroic? I agree. I don’t know why am always in the midst of all adventures ( was also braving the Super-cyclone which hit Odisha in October 1999 as a hostelite in Bhubaneshwar), maybe have a streak of the tragi-romantic in my disposition which lands me at unconventional places at completely wrong (perhaps right) times too. Well, getting to the business of memories and remembering, the day reminds me of all that I did not want to happen in my life — but they happened. We were a cataclysmic batch in the real sense of the term — we have added many things to this place and this place has also changed our own grammar in the last three years.

Going back in time… I returned from Nasik after seeing my family off on the 26th afternoon. It was raining then also, but was not all that bad with the red umbrella that I have carried as a dearest possession for the last 9 years of my hostel life. Reached the hostel at 3 pm. Some of us were given rooms in the ground floor of A-Wing of Hostel-11. Mine was Room No:6; ground floor. If you think that ground floor means “the ground floor”, then you are utterly wrong. The ground floor of A-Wing was the cellar floor, with a very narrow dark gulley, below the surface level of the earth. For a change, at the first glance one would feel that you have landed in the half-lit world below the earth which Paradise Lost of Milton would claim that it belonged to the Satan, and our own scriptures like the Puranas would say that perhaps we lived just below the martya but above the patala, in the world of reptiles, asuras and such “other worldly” creatures. The corridor needed light even in the day time and that was insufficient too. Such was our fate then — there were 29 rooms, I suppose, in that floor and most of us were freshie PhDs, who had just joined the institute

Fatigue ridden and home sick, I unpacked my things and went to sleep. The room was already damp with excessive rains and hardly any light. There was only one window that opened out on to the damp backyard of the hostel full of snakes and worms, so you were bound to keep that shut. Suddenly, at around 7.30 pm someone banged my door — was in no mood to open. But, when half opened my eyes after repeated bangs, was aghast to see water gushing through my door and reaching the seam of my ground level rack!!!!! “Oh! Heck! I didn’t know they spray water inside the rooms in IIT!” That was my first dumb reaction. I could not register exactly what the hell was going on! Still in a daze, opened the doors to see neighbours banging each others doors, running with their luggage to some upstairs place, piling whatever they had on the floors of their rooms to a safe place over the almirahs, and so on. If said that it was thorough chaos, it would be an understatement. I was told that there was a flood in Mumbai, that the Powai lake had come to visit us — the newcomers , that we might bump into a dead hand or a leg piece of gangsters drowned in the Powai lake from the time of Big B’s Don, that we have to shift immediately to the TV room upstairs, that we have to take whatever our stuffs were along so that it’s not a problem, and that we need to pile all our things (the bed roll, etc) on a higher level, so that they remain safe!!! Phew! I wanted to cry — missed my mom — wish someone would do things for me, coz I was not used to doing all that hard work, not dexterous even — but had to do ! Imagine that was “the” first day!

Anyway, by the time I finished doing up my things it was 8.10 pm and water had crossed the level of my bed. Some of us literally swimmed through the dark corridor (Titanic relived) and reached the TV Room somewhere on the first floor of C-Wing. No electricity, no bed, only a few round-chairs waiting to greet us! I had a bag with a brush, toothpaste and a pair of night-suit and two dresses for the next day’s classes. At 7 pm one of my batch mates remembered with a shriek that she had left her certificate folder in her room in her cupboard — she desperately wanted to reach her room and get those! Some seniors came to her help and they waded through the abandoned A-Wing ground floor, scuba-diving through mud and water and finally resurrected the certi folder — we clapped when they came back. We spent two nights in that TV room, batteling with mosquitoes, struggling with darkness and hunger — first night the mess was in a bad shape, no communication with families and yet attending classes in the morning. The C-Wing ground floor was also affected, but they were M.Techs who had helping seniors. PhDs are always lonely people. Some of us sang through the night with a hope to survive the frustration .

Classes went on at their usual pace, while we lived in the ruins of our new lives. After 3 days of the floods subsiding, we were deported back to the same rooms with an even more unhealthy atmosphere — stink of mud, worms and snakes. Life had become a walki-talkie Jungle Book. One evening the Director and Deputy Director and Deans visited our hostel for some celebration — the entire A-wing ground floor, flood-affected region of our hostel pounced on them and demanded immediate relief. In fact, the Director was invited and taken into one of the rooms where a snake waited on an inmate’s (reliable sources later informed that the girl was an expert snake-charmer :D) bed to greet him — yuck! Everyone was aghast! Relief agencies came to our aid soon and whatever could be done was done. Some of my friends, fell sick because of the climate and the unhealthy living condition. We would get together and stand by each other when any of us fell sick — we were blamed by some heartless Profs also for neglecting studies — asked repeatedly to separate personal from professional lives. But, only as victims we understood what it was to collate things back into normalcy after a disaster. We needed time to prove ourselves — and some didn’t want to give that time. But finally we did!

We were again given B-Wing flat-lets where we enjoyed shared accommodation with better living conditions — three in one room. I was given a kitchen portion of a flat-let. Delighted! I had my Cinderella dreams come true — felt like a real Cinderella in that kitchenette. The kitchen was newly painted and smelled nicely of paint and was sunny and warm.

The sun tore through clouds of gloom and ushered a new era in the lives of Batch 2005 … but the memories still remain.

Not Our Times… :(

Does this happen to you too?

We went watching “Jaane tu ya Jaane na”… the new movie released a few weeks back. Some thirty minutes after the movie began, I turned to look at Hemant’s face — it had grown pale and distant. “What happened? Not feeling well? Don’t like this movie? Let’s go back” – I bombarded him with questions concernedly. He nodded and said; “no I am well! completely well! I am just thinking” …”Thinking what?” I bombarded back…”No I am thinking that we are growing old…The movie shows that it’s no more my time. I want Madhuri Dixit dancing, Shahrukh Khan or Govinda or Amirkhan, not finding any one whom I know, …this is not our time”. He looked really-really sad and lost. Not that we didn’t enjoy the movie…we loved that. But, it made us increasingly uneasy about our existence in the scheme of nature’s ageing factor and the new social fad of one generation gap no more in ten or twelve years, rather in 4-5 years.

There were certain things in the movie that made us uncomfortable a little bit: (a) each young boy has to have a young girl as “girl-friend”/ “girlfriend” ; (b) everyone has to have a mobile phone in the group (funny? but true) and (c) how handsome/beautiful your companion is (the character rotlu is no match for the beautiful heroine Aditi even though he is the sweetest)? and so on …

Back in my hostel room, one whole night we sat gossiping about the life of film stars — as if we were just their family members. Pragyan suddenly said — “seeing Amir Khan now makes me nostalgic — I crave for our times– I saw him in Akele Hum Akele Tum or in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar or in Rang de Basanti and it made me feel so connected and so very part of the movie”… for her not only Amir was growing ol’ but also reminded her of the little fantasies she had for the characters on the screen…she couldn’t explain more than that… there was no need for explaining more, since I too felt the same…not our times! We were quiet for a few moments before the next piece of gossip began.

But why? Why don’t we feel connected to the things shown in silver screen now? We ARE NOT THAT OLD … I mean seriously, not trying to hide my age , but then why is there this gap between the visual experience and personal experience for some of us? Was hardly seven or eight years when QSQT was released, was in my 10th when DDLJ was released, but why do we identify more with those movies than with a movie of 2000s when we actually grew up to adulthood and understood the meaning of relationships? QSQT or Maine Pyar Kiya for that matter still flairs my imagination and fills me with nostalgia.

I mean it’s not about movies only…art also reflects human life and thinking to a certain extent. Have been thinking about it for sometime now…There is something strange and new about this generation — kids are completely independent (they have to own their personal mobile phones, bikes, gizmos) , parents are no more than silent witnesses to the drama of their children’s’ lives, complex inter-personal relationships in friend circles and many-many more new “occurrences” which are hard to be explained in words.

Last January I was in Bhubaneshwar, stayed there for a longer duration than usually do. What I saw in the city was appalling — the so called new generation comprised school kids who carry high-end mobile phones, wear “interesting new designer pieces” (caught this phrase in a discussion between two teenagers) and spend their time window shopping in the new mushrooming malls. What was a little upsetting was the time that these kids spent sitting in the malls — one day I observed a group of five sitting outside the Big Bazar complex, in the lobby area for more than six hours! We had come shopping for a wedding and had found this group sitting there from around 2′ o clock in the afternoon and they were still there when we left at 8′.15 in the evening. None of the group members as I could make out was beyond 15-17years and each of them had bikes which they sometimes took out to get the female members of the group to their adda (that’s what they were referring to the place). I was shocked to see the amount of time that they wasted admiring the neon-lit corners of these malls and the amount of money that must have gone into the dressing up of each of these kids.

But not just kids, I recently heard that an acquaintance who is around 38 years of age was getting married to a nineteen year female, daughter of a very rich shop owner. Why? Because he has friends who own large cars and land cruisers. This group went out lady-hunting in these cars; impressed younger rich-only-daughters spoilt by parents; took them out to discotheques, Icecream parlours, long drives — and finally short bedroom drives. Some of these lead to marriages and some don’t — but who cares! It reminded me of the movie Jane tu… where the group of friends use the same tactics to meet “new interesting people”. “Life is there to enjoy”, was told by that acquaintance himself…. I still am not clear about the new-emerging definitions of enjoyment.

So what was “Our times” ? I mean how do we define our times? Am sure each of us has a separate definition of “our times” — but to me our times meant the times when we didn’t have the conception of a necessity to have at least one “BF” or “GF” (short for Boyfriend/ Girlfriend) — and when the group meant “friends” and only “friends” irrespective of their sexual or financial status. It also referred to a time when relationships were a strictly private affair — the story revolved around “ONE” girl and “ONE” boy or at best a “LOVE TRIANGLE”. But what one gets to see both in movies and in reality these days are not just one or two or three people, but a “LOVE HEXAGON/LOVE PENTAGON/ LOVE QUADRANGLE/OPEN RELATIONSHIPS” and so on.

The younger generation is a mobile phone addicted generation — they just can’t live without their phones. And not just any phone, their choices are highly competitive while the companies are always ready to cater to the changing demands. For us, there was not only a fear of parents but a fear of teachers, relatives and neighbors too. I remember when we used to go out to the nearest market in Bhubaneshwar to shop in my MPhil days, the news used to reach my parents, staying 180 kms away in no time. We were slightly deviant from our generation by choosing to study and remain single, whereas most of my friends got married just after their graduation or engineering — either to boys of their own choice or to people whom their parents chose. For us, watching the silver screen with Madhuri Dixit dancing, or Amir/Shahrukh/Salman romancing, was a kind of “wish-fulfillment” for things which we could imagine. But now the movies show things which people would say : “arre yaar bilkul apne life ki carbon copy hai! They have stolen from our lives to make this movie”.

Well, I am not blaming the past, the present or the future! We are also to be blamed for not being able to cope-up with the changes which are so rapid that it takes a wink to register one epochal movement. We are slow and therefore feel uneasy in the heat of movement. The “Great Indian Middle Class” is in the midst of these whirlpool of transitions and that which we had earlier thought as the priviledge of the upper classes has slowly penetrated the middle class lives. Some of it is good no doubt, but maybe some of the changes are so overpowering that the balance is topsy-turveyed.

You can see these generation gaps blatantly in IITs between B.Techs, M.Techs and PhDs. Recently something funny happened with a female friend doing PhD who went to a party dominated mostly by B.Techs. One of the B.Tech guys who was a little tipsy came up to her and told her on her face: “aunty you are really very nice. Friends! aunty acchi hain…I like you maam.” Poor girl she was completely embarassed and rushed out of the party with tears. That’s how it is sometimes…

There are many-many such instances where one sees mind boggling gaps in thinking. It’s not always funny and neither always grim. There must be a new crop of researchers/psychologists who should be documenting this fast track change in our society.

But for the time being keep your fingers crossed for “more” … all that can be said is “not our times”… It’s 2 am and I listen to Bob Dylan’s fantastic number “The Times They Are Changing’” where he prophesized in 1960’s the changing times :

…Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’…

… Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

9.00 PM CST-Khapoli Local…

Life moves on…

My Cellphone rang and woke me up from my nostalgic travel through memory lanes.

It was around 11.20 pm when we reached Khapoli on a chilly December night. We were traveling by the 9pm Local from CST to Khapoli. I had never traveled out of Mumbai or even in Mumbai in a local train at that hour of the night. It hardly made any difference — trains were bustling with human beings at least up till Kalyan station and even a little later. I could not believe my eyes to see that so many people travel so late from offices to their homes in distant corners of Mumbai suburbs. In Odisha there is not much of a crowd after 9pm. The office-goers who come from smaller towns like Dhenkanal, Angul, Talcher, Khurda to work in offices at Cuttack or Bhubaneswar usually return by the 5: 15 pm local and reach their homes by 7.30-8.00pm.

I used to travel from Bhubaneswar to Angul/Dhenkanal every Saturday-Sunday and sometimes even on holidays in this particular local train for 7 years; first during Graduation and then during my University days in Post graduation and M.Phil. Either my parents or my uncles would be waiting to receive me from the station. Every time I came back home from the hostel on weekends, I would be received in a grand fashion. When grandpa was alive, he would come to pick me up or drop me while on his morning and evening walks to the Dhenkanal station. I would jump down from the boggy, hug him as if I had not seen him for ages (it might be even less than a week) and then happily chatter away about my friends/teachers in college or University till we reached home, where specially made delicious baingan bharta and mushroom deep fried with garlic and steaming hot rice would be eagerly waiting for me. I think I lost my best friend when I lost him. Grandmom and my aunty sadly would lament on my health condition because of malnutrition in the hostel food .

Probably, this nostalgia was the reason that when we were offered a “Special Paper” in PG English, I had enthusiastically opted for a course in “Professional Writing” and chose to write my dissertation on “The Life in Local Trains”. There were diary entires, interviews with commuters, history of the train, letters and statistics collected on the 5:15pm local train for the dissertation. In fact, at the peak of my data collection I had traveled almost everyday by that train to observe and record events and take snaps of various landmarks. I had a very strange, mysterious bonding with the Local trains, as if these trains gave a miniature version of my world.

All these memories of the past years had come drifting towards me when I saw a group of office-goers boarding from different stations, in one compartment on the CST-Khapoli Local. Probably they were using this one compartment for many years and were now friends or perhaps family. Interestingly, one of them carried a mouth organ, another a dafli and another a flute. While some of them sang some Marathi and Hindi numbers, the others’ played on these instruments or listened silently. I thought there was some special occasion and asked one of them sitting close to me that what was the reason for celebration. He replied with a smile; “nothing! we do this everyday! we celebrate everyday…we come from different stations and from different offices, but make it a point to meet in the train, share some joys or our troubles, sing, laugh and get down at our respective stoppages. This has happened for years now.” He grinned and the song : “hai apna dil toh awara na jane kis pe ayega” …wafted in the air. Everyone in the compartment was silent, listening intently to the songs; no one felt like talking…I suppose everyone had some or the other nostalgia to go back to.

These people specially reminded me of an event which I have documented in that dissertation on local trains. It’s the story of one particular gentleman who had traveled in the 5:15pm local from Bhubaneswar to Dhenkanal for 30 years of his service in the AG Office (Attorney General’s Office) in Master Canteen Bhubaneswar. He worked as a senior clerk there.On the day of his retirement from service, the entire compartment (he had boarded the same compartment for the last 30 years) and his fellow office goers had organized a grand farewell for him in the compartment itself. People sang, made speeches on the small tid-bits of their experiences with him, cried, hugged him and then saw him off with tears as he got down at Dhenkanal station on his final day from work. I was very young then to understand the realities of these emotions — because I had everything and everyone around me at that point of time.

But, of course the event had intrigued me and my imagination. I tried to locate his home in the town and went for an interview for the dissertation. He had told me during the interview that more than his family he valued the friends in the train. They shared all his day-to-day stories, gave valuable advice like his son’s job or a daughter’s wedding or official tussles. They had laughed, played cards, gossiped against their office colleagues, sometimes also fought, but most importantly had grown old together. He added that he will not miss office so much as much he would miss his commuting in the train. “Sadly I will not meet my fellow passengers any longer as I will not need to travel from this small town to Bhubaneswar anymore. My friends in the train have shown more patience and have listened to me more than my own family”... I saw his eyes moisten.

The picture of the old gentleman vividly came before my eyes in the CST-Khapoli local train after another 7 long years of my life. I realized seeing these people around me on the train, that there are certain human emotions which cut across narrow language, caste and cultural divides and time. When the politicians and even some theoreticians seek to divide my nation on the basis of caste and language politics, I still can see that the emotion which people have in Odisha is similar to that which they have in Maharastra or maybe elsewhere in the world — the emotional bond of one human being with another.

From Gpo to Gmail…

The software boom in the recent era has produced big names like Bill Gates and Narayan Murthy. Both have stepped down from their offices after ruling the corporate for many decades. They are great people — but, this entry is not meant to be a biography of these veterans. My being in IIT is partly their contribution.

No, I mean, they do not know me…nor do I know them personally, and neither have I come here with their sifarish. But they gave me the “desktop thing” and “i-explorer” and many such softwares, which brought me to this place for good or bad. I surfed the “Net” for places where I can be pedantic … was brought here for a research in humanities. Alright! Let’s give up pretending… I do not know a single word of IT or Computer Science or any other technology for that matter and still I am in IIT. Some souls like me are too in this place; in the same or in different subjects. This is the place where every moment you need to justify your own existence. I enjoy the moments when I am asked by techno friends with a certain degree of vanity,“what research are you doing?” And I retort with a practiced nonchalance: “huh! I am researching Von Humboldt and some Einstein”. They gasp in shocked disbelief and I mutter to myself: chakde India. Somehow a diabolical satisfaction. It was Quixotic on my part to be here — I wholly agree (?).

But, then there is a secret devilish pleasure in justification. Hopeless romanticism heh? The place taught me the grammar of ruthless competition. I was first taught with biting sarcasm and scathing criticsm (memories are still green) as to how to write a simple mail. From mails to men, learning is an art — things don’t come to you simply. I am in the process of that learning. Look at my fortune — I am writing blogs! Whoa! No, I don’t intend to make you jealous! Neither have I achieved so much that I can boast of greatness.

My purpose here is to narrate the predicament of a poor researcher who ‘re-searches’/'researches’ with honesty in “ARTS” (some call that “humanities”). But… at the end of the day, you are told: “you are not an engineer” or “you cannot be an academician because you do not come from there” — “sorry no vacancy”. The unfortunate part of research in “ARTS” is that we are likely to starve because of our sincerity and choices. Every moment the world that we live in reminds me of the untrodden path ; family says “you have to be in a marriage or a job”; bankers from whom I seek for a loan to make my ends meet tell me how I have let my father down by choosing the untrodden path; some say what am I doing here?; Friends say, “ah! what fun! you are not a techno but in a technical insti — enjoy yaar! kabhi padhti-wadhti bhi hai kya? ” .

There are supposedly no other openings for arts graduates other than “teaching” and that too is slowly becoming a dream. In colleges, Arts faculties are being closed down because of lesser intake; everyone wants to be an engineer or doctor or a management guru.

And I — I feel shattered but still say arrogantly: papa don’t preach…!!

Hardly students with high score opt for a career in humanities after 10+2. Is there not a necessity for good students in these streams of education? To be frank what are the incentives for humanities’ research In India? Why should one loose the crucial 4-5 years for research in humanities? Apart from few sponsorship what are the means of survival for people who might be very good academically? If there could have been some incentives from Govt/Private partnerships or any Microsoft fellowship/Infosys fellowship/Google fellowships, then perhaps, it would have been a little better.

Such is then the kismet of an “ARTS” researcher. So what do we do? We live in Divine Discontent without an expectation of a great tomorrow. This divine discontent leads us from Gpo (GPO is the mail service of IIT Bombay) to Gmail (the title of this blog is burrowed from conversations with my friend living in the same floor) , from Yahoo Messenger to Gtalk, from Orkut to Facebook — a vagabond existence. We cannot sit with the paan wala or the chai dukaan because of the acquired vanity of the “elite”, so keep shuttling from one mail box to another. When I visit my neighbours, on being asked as to what is going on in their lives, they reply with sarcastic humour “gpo to gmail”. From morning through late night we keep on checking our emails, in empty inboxes. Early morning I wake up, immediately start my computer, checking if there are any mails. I go to the department, check all the mails with pious devotion to see if there are new mails, comeback to my hostel room and open all the mailboxes again… and the cycle continues. Through the day till late at night, checking and rechecking the mailboxes have become a compulsive drive in me and many others like me.

The society hardly takes research in humanities as a serious passion. Then, how does one expect to produce quality work? I suppose India intends to “PRODUCE” (this being a consumer’s world) Narayan Murthys and Ambanis for the future…but probably it has no plans to have another Sarojini Naidu, Amartya Sen or Tagore, either in the near or in the distant future. You can be proud of an Amitav Ghosh or an A. K. Ramanujan when they have produced their major works abroad. You can scramble to claim whether these writers are from “diaspora” or “native” worlds, but you do not have the guts to invest your resources in making another such writer/researcher for this country.

Brides Wanted!

Mom called up day before yesterday and asked me to pack my back-pack and come home, reasons, “suitable boy”! I gasped with fury — “not again! I have a series of meetings, please do not ask me to come down”! But no respite — pestering, emotional blackmailing, sobbing, angry spat, breakdowns, and reluctant acceptance, the cycle continues. I suppose this is the story of most “marriageable” “independent-girls” caught in the “arranged marriage” system — trademark of the grand narrative called “Indian Culture” . Forget about dowry, forget about marriage preparations, the toughest job for a metro-sexual female is to get herself married in the first place. I was reading an interesting piece in Yahoo news “Ruined by Education”, which traces the kind of education that prospective brides ought to have. The news piece states that these days most men want girls who are independent and educated enough, but not so educated that they fall into the risk of being intellectuals!! The news piece adds that girls from Sophia College, Ajmer ; Kamala Nehru College, New Delhi are highly in demand in the marriage market as good bahus, and that some classifieds categorically state that “girls from JNU, LSR or Miranda House need not apply.” I wonder where do IITs stand in this list of producing eligible bahus in the exceedingly competitive matrimonial market. Grooms’ families would consider IITian girls as a tough bargain and tough nuts to crack I suppose. No doubt these girls will earn in lakhs but they are also the biggest risk factors. Who knows how stubborn they are? Who knows how many affairs they have had?

So the classified columns have one more feather in their cap: “Criteria-1: Very fair, slim, good-looking, well-behaved bride wanted! Criteria -2: Should be from such-such college with a degree in English, Psychology, Home science, etc” . The first criteria, I had always found sick — every classified has the same oneliner “very fair” and “slim” — as if every bride ought to be no less than a Miss World or Miss Universe. The matrimonial ads seem no less than fairness creams’ promotional campaigns.

I wonder, why are men so insecure of having highly intellectual wives? When females who are no more than high school graduates can put up with intelligent males what’s wrong the other way round? The equations have been turned, but so, what’s strange about it? Things alter along with alteration in circumstances and demands of the particular time. True, a lot of responsibilities and compromises need to be made from either side, when the female is a professional, extraordinarily busy individual — but then she also makes you feel proud of her existence in your life. As females we also have to accept certain realities of life — not with rejection but with happy acceptance. Whatever the role reversal is, a certain degree of humility is always a positive aspect in any relationship. Whenever, I go to markets, malls or hospitals these days, there is a peculiar change which I notice while observing couples — it is usually men who carry the small kids either in prams or on their shoulders, while women do the shopping and complete other formalities. This was not so when we were kids, we were usually carried by our mothers only, while fathers’ looked after the shopping and such things. Personally, this seems to be a positive change, for men realize that their responsibilities go beyond being merely bread-earners of the family.

But, it’s still very sad that even intelligent men are afraid of highly intelligent women. The reasons are unknown but maybe such females are sometimes egoistic and uncompromising when it comes to career and individual achivements. Partly, the reasons are also men are afraid to admit that their wives/girl friends are better off than themselves. It might be bitter but is true to some extent. Generally, such girls are turned down with cliched statements like — “actually you will not be able to fit into my family”, or say something like “you are wonderful as a friend — I mean you give wonderful company and advise, but I cannot think of you as my wife”, or maybe after 10 months of dating you might hear “really you are very caring, intelligent and compassionate, but I have never thought of you in that direction”, or maybe even more weired statements, “no you must be joking yaar! Where do you have the time to give for a family”, or “I want you to change to some extent, or else it will be difficult for us to gel!” Phew! I can go on citing exactly such statements for pages of this blog which prove that some men evade responsibilities even in so called “love affairs”. The scenario of arranged marriages are better not to be described! In the case of arranged marriages, it is not just the “groom”, but his familiy, his family’s family, mediators, neighbours, your own family, your families’ family, your friends and the list goes never ending…you have got to change your manners, your lifestyle of say some 25-26 years for every other living creature around you.

I don’t say that change is not desirable! But changes are a natural process, which need time and patience from either side. Love as a common denomination has the power to change anything in this world. Idealistic, true, but not without basis. Selecting girls on the basis of their colleges might be a new fad, but such generalizations are dangerous and harmful for the society in the long run.

For the time being however, I am listening to Bryan Adam’s, “She’s a Little Too Good for Me”:

She got the brains - she got the looks
She knows all the right people - reads all the right books
She’s got my name - she’s got my number
But what she see’s in me I sometimes wonder
She’s a little too good for me
She’s gonna change me if I let her
She’s a little too good for me
But I’m getting better….

So what d ya say? Brides Wanted…

P.S: The newspiece which I was refering to in my article can be found in the following URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20080621/1072/ten-ruined-by-education_1.html

The Basket-Weaver

Last Thursday I heard on the phone that she died!! For a moment I was numb.

One generation was coming to its end…and with that generation a whole world of traditions, customs, stories, myths and legends slowly reach extinction. She came every morning to our doorsteps with her kula (winnowing fan) and sat there for hours singing, laughing and weaving small flower baskets with tidy, sharp bamboo pieces. No, Jambilo did not weave those for livelihood, but just for use in the temple in their basti.

I was always shy meeting people, hardly speaking to anyone, but this lady — she was fascinating. There was something typical in her which attracted me towards her — her lilting, melodious hummings. She hummed with a passion for the “mother-goddess” - “Durga maa”– she would click her tongue and postrate a thousand times before uttering that name. While weaving the baskets, she would sing in her mellifluous voice:

Oh Maa Tarini! (a form of the mother goddess) I weave these garlands for you
With droplets from my eyes.
Oh Maa Tarini! I sing these songs for you
With the rhythm of my heart…
Oh Maa Tarini! What can I ask from you,
Save, a dot of sindoor (vermilion) and a pair of sankha (bangles) in my dark hands.

I am sorry, I have not been able to reproduce the exact translation of these line from vernacular Odiya into English. But roughly, these were some of the lines that she sang while weaving her baskets. Whenever, I went to my grandparents’ place, Jambilo would come in the early morning to see me. As a child, I was mortally afraid of her…all the kids in that locality called her “pageli” (crazy). But eventually, she was one person whom I loved and respected from the core of my heart. There was a story about her that her husband had either died or left her since a long-long time. But no one ever dared remove her sankha-sindoora. She belonged to the Dom caste and lived in the dom sahi down the lane. Jambilo earned her living by sweeping the temple premises (jamadar) of the devi temple down the road. They gave her a few rupees and food twice daily. She did the job with a passion that cannot be described in words. She would not let any other person enter the temple at early dawn (including the priest) before she had sweeped the entire temple premise to her complete satisfaction.

The neatness in her dress up and the sweetness of her voice can put to shame any so called “upper caste” female. There was another thing peculiar about her, she always giggled — like a school girl, her face burst into a hundred wrinkles with the curve widening. I don’t remember of having seen her with  sad or worried eyes ever. She laughed like a young bride, the pallu of her saree covering her face with every little giggle. I spent hours listening to those unheard melodies and to her stories. Jambilo was a treasure house of a thousand tales — of gods, of black magic, of people in her locality, and she would go on endlessly until someone in my family came to the verandah to call me back for lunch. Sometimes, when she got intensely involved in a tale, she would almost act that out for you. It happened very frequently when she went to the bazaar to watch a Pala, Daskathiya (these are some typical folk dance-drama forms, very popular in Odissa because of their rich mytical and legendary content) or a Danda (Danda is an extraordinary ritual in Odissa that is performed specifically in the month of April — chaitra as we say in the honour of the Devi. Danda as a dance form is a very difficult skill that requires extraordinary expertise). Jambilo would be in the front row in the crowd if you happened to come across these performances somewhere in the marketplace. And then, once she returned, she would dance the entire performance for you, with the exact dialogues that followed each little song piece. There would be no stopping her then! She would get really angry, if you dared to interrupt in her performance — I often wondered at her memory for having been able to remember every little piece that she ever watched.

Jambilo would be present at all weddings and mournings of every family of the locality. She would sing for the brides before they went for the early morning turmeric bath ; she would cry her heart out for the old men/women who passed away as if they were members of her own family. Did she ever ask for money? The strangest thing about that lady was that she never-ever would accept a pie from anyone around her. With a pride of the peacock, she would retort if you offered her money in lieu of one of her performances, “I have enough Maa (child) to feed me for the day. I don’t think of the evening. Durga Maa takes care of my wants”. But she would be always happy for one thing — if you gave her some bangles, a little vermilion and a saree and some rice and vegetables. Sometimes, if her whim possessed her, she would not accept them without giving you a basket or a kula in return. Every bride in the family would give her some of these things and get her blessings in return. Sometimes during Durga Puja, she would come to my grandmother or to my eldest uncle’s wife, “Bada bahu! (Eldest daughter-in-law) This time you give me a saree with red embroidery. I want to wear that for Asthami (one of the sacred days during Durga Pooja) .” And no one ever dared deny her a thing, for all her desires were modest!

Such was Jambilo then for us! Last time when I went home, she came again to see me. I sat devotedly near her for sometime, but now she treated me with a respect which I was uncomfortable with. I was an alien from the big city who came for a few days to spend time during vacation. She told mother humbly but clicked her tongue and widened her eyes, “Maa (daughter in this context) is now a big babu in the city! She lives beyond seven oceans…do they wear sarees there?” I smiled and said “yes they do just as you do”. She was delighted for a moment and clapped her hands child-like and added, “can you get me a saree with golden borders from that place”…I nodded in affirmation.

I never could give that saree to her…

P.S: I exist here in the midst of academic debates on caste, non-caste and anti-caste…. But people like Jambilo are also a reality of the society from which I come. They are somewhere caught in between these worlds.

Celluloid Romance…

Yet another rainy day and another unhappening Saturday evening. Had a long afternoon nap and feeling lazy to work on the paper. Thought of seeing a movie and planned to enjoy watching the rains melt into the guava leaves outside my windows. Hunted the sites, my video library and neighbour’s video library too, asking her “yaar koi movie hai toh de na! pak gayee hoon books ke saath baith ke”…but of no use. Could not find anything that could glue me for the next three hours. I was offered many Hollywood blockbusters and some new Bollywood flicks, but to no use. None could satisfy my boredom.

Finally, with some measure of irritation and half-hearted interest, put the chitrahaar cd which I had borrowed from Hemant. I had half expected anything there to keep this dangerous idle mind enagaged for some time. I had assumed that many of the songs must be so hackneyed that I will have to wake my self up from my siesta and keep forwarding them continuosly.

But gosh! The first song of the cd happened to be “Har fikr ko dhuen mein udata chala gaya, barbadiyon ka sokh manana fizool tha, barbadiyon ka jashn manata chala gaya” from the movie Hum Dono. The young Dev Anand literally “romances with life” in this song (also the name of his autobiography). Cool-suave, dashing, with a butt of cigar, he throtles the existential dilemma of life-death and defeat with ultimate nonchalance. I would name this performance as the romance of extremes where one enjoys living on the brink, not knowing what holds for him the very next moment. It’s a delight to watch a barebodied Dev Anand, putting on the soldier’s uniform bit-by-bit and imagining the reflection of his lady love (Sadhna) through the smoke of his cigar and imagining her face in the pond infront of him. The perfect calm and an admixture of an innocent smile and tensed eyes, should make any Hollywood actor ashamed in front of Dev saab. The lines when he sings chewing the cigar and the typical Dev tilt of head, “gham aaur khushi mein farq na mehsoos ho jahan, mein dil ko us maqaam pe lata chala gaya” … classic performance on classic lines! No one except Dev Anand is capable of such a dignity on such heavy lines. I have loved Dev Anand in all his movies, “ankhon mein kya jee…woh rupehela badal”, “hum hain rahi pyar ke…humse kuchh na boliye, jo bhi pyar se mila hum usi ke holiye…”, “tere mere sapne ab ek rang ke…”, but would rate him as 10/10 in expressing the philosophical dilemma of pure existentialism in that beautiful song from Hum Dono.

The other song which directly twanged a chord in the soul is the song from Nadiya ke Paar, “Jogi jee haan jogi jee…jogi jee dhire dhire nadi ke tire-tire” … you see a bubbly, endearing Sachin dancing with a troop of village lads…amazing performance…the simplicity of villages in India and the beauty of courtship in extended family systems. The song has no great ideals or ideologies, but is rooted to the soil, and that is the beauty of the entire number. You can smell the earth and feel the simplicity of these folks, something which is endangered in 21st century India.

Another song also included in the cd and was a personal favourite from school days. I heard that song after many-many years. It’s from Amitabh Bacchan and Jaya Bhaduri’s Mili. You don’t see any extraordinary action in that song, but you can see/sense the beauty of platonic love. The lines are suffused with romance and spiritual longing for a person who is on the brink of death, “jab main raton ko tare geen ta hoon aur tere kadmon ki ahat sun ta hoon, lage mujhe har tara tera darpan…aaye tum yaad mujhe gane lagi har dhadkan, khoosboo layee pavan, mehka chandan…” . The camera pans from the tall-silhoutte figure of Amitabh Bachhan standing in his balcony, watching the night sky and humming the haunting number to a pale-bedridden Jaya Bhaduri fighting last stages of cancer and then flashes at worried faces of Aruna Irani and Ashok Kumar. In my opinion the song epitomizes the pull of love at the threshold of death. There is no melodrama, no cacophonous crying-consoling…just a state of disturbing calm before an impending storm. Hats off to the lyricist, music director and performers!

One more classic instance of celluloid romantic moments is the very epitome of romance, Mr. Rajesh Khanna, romancing the Kolkatta prostitute portrayed by Sharmila Tagore in Amar Prem. The song, kuchh toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna chhodo bekar ki baton mein kahin beet na jaye raina.” Heavily laden with jwelleries, a blue Banrasi and kohled eyes brimming with tears, a beautiful Sharmila Tagore lives to full the grandeur of tragic unfulfilled desire for Rajesh Khanna, a Bengali Bhadralok. The moments in this song seem to be straight away freezed from a novel.

How can one forget the gorgeous Madhubala challenging the great Prithivi Raj Kapoor in Mughl-e-Azam’s extravagant musical number “jab pyar kiya toh darna kya…chup-chup ahen bharna kya” … already pages and pages of film criticism has been written on this particular film. I don’t have to add much to it, except that one moment when the ravishingly gorgeous Anarkali snatches the sword from Akbar while smiling and looking straight into Saleem’s eyes, daring the great Moghul to pronounce her death. Booh! Raw passion at its very best…knowing that her punishment would be no less than execution, the lady just throws herself to the call of her instincts… and dances herself into thousands of mirror pieces in the Akbari-durbar. When one speaks of feminist uprisings, this moment of Indian cinema should be shown to the self-styled feminists. Decades ago, Madhubala did something which no conscious feminist can dare to do in our times. I can’t imagine myself not getting goosebumps whenever I watch that particular scene…

The songs that I chose here are not the only ones in our celluloid. From Gurudutt to Dilip Kumar to Raj Kumar (Pakeezah) to Rajesh Khanna, there has been something special in the tragic romance portrayed in our movies. These days we have become more pragmatic in our approach towards movies and towards life in general. The tragic streak has lost its luster to more earthly kind of love stories…no one wants to starve in love these days. Love has become just a part of many other ambitions — we now have corporate icons, kids from business families, underworld wars, etc, as motifs of modern cinema.

But romance cannot be completely denied…it still has its screen presence…of course, the forms of representation and atttitude towards “romance” has changed dramatically in our times…

On A Postcard

No I am not going to write the history of Indian Postal Service! Neither do I want to trace the history of a postcard. You can go and look that up in an Encyclopedia. Wikipedia says that postal service as a public mode of communication in India started with Warren Hastings bringing the reform to make the postal department public. Since then postal services started acquiring the importance which in earlier days pigeons had. Well, in Cuttack there are still trained pigeons who carry highly confidential messages for the Orissa Police. It is perhaps the only place in India which has pigeons to carry messages. Oh wow! Maine Pyar Kiya ...

Ahem…no romantic musings . My purpose here is to dwell on the little emotive values associated with the postcard. Actually, I was dusting my old cupboard and found hoards of postcards, some of them scribbled to God. As a child, Mom used to tell me that He read all postcards, so I made it a point to complain about family, friends and life in general specifically in postcards . The postoffice used to be right across the road and I borrowed five rupees everyday from dad for a stack of postcards. They were 15paise at that time…I don’t know how much they cost these days.

I remember one specific postcard which I had posted to Mr. Rajiv Gandhi while in Std-V. I wrote to him requesting him to arrange for my visit to New Delhi and a stay in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. I wrote something as follows (paraphrased here):

Respected Sir,

I am studying in Std-V. I want to meet you. Please invite me to New Delhi to your house. I want to see New Delhi at least once in my life. But no one takes me there. I want to stay in the Rashtrapati Bhavan .Please sir, I will bring my poems if you call me.

Regards,

——-

I wish I can rephrase the words exactly as I had written then. Waited for a reply for days to that postcard (may be secretly until the death of Mr. Gandhi). You cannot imagine my enthusiasm when I posted the card. I didn’t even tell about it to parents and after many months disclosed about it to my younger brother. He was so happy that we will go to Delhi that he used to even dream Apu Ghar .

I remember writing a lot of such postcards to the tele series Surabhi for Siddharth Kak and Renuka Sahani when a little older. Everytime they would shuffle the postcards to declare the winners, my heart went pounding. But I never won! The address: Andheri, Mumbai Po Box No: “x” still remains engraved in mind. It seemed Andheri was a fairytale place in a “film” like city far-far away from my imagination. I could only imagine Govinda and Mithun Chakraborty (they ruled then) when I thought of Mumbai and could never think that there were any other human souls except the film stars who inhabited Mumbai.

The touch of those yellow coloured postcards, with a restricted space cannot be equalled by any great email service of the present. The joy when one recived such a card is also not to be expressed in words. But postcards, did not merely have an emotive value. Dad tells me that one can file a PIL (Public Litigation) on any postcard and the courts have to accept them. He tells that the postcard shows the power of the average citizen in this country.

But for me, the smell of the fresh postcard and writing on them with awkward childish letters bears more meaning than great literary texts. In fact, in literature there is a specific genre of novel writing which is called the Epistolary novels which were written in the form of letters. The famous English writer Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740s) and Clarissa (1740s) are notable novels of this kind.

I am writing this piece also as a tribute to letter writing and to snail-mail, which these days they call an extinct art…Wish our kids could actually learn the beauty of words in letters…but it is the generation of “hypers”/”speed” with which postcards/letters can hardly compete…