The Long Vigil.

"For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least not by the person who's waiting.

I'm playing the waiting game and I can't think of anything worse. I'm at that place in my life I always thought I'd enjoy being at.

In a few months, I could do anything I wanted to. I could choose to go to college near or far away or maybe not even at all. I could travel the world or go help a country in need. I could move to New York and try to make it big. In a few months, I could have the whole world displayed in front of me. So why am I not feeling as ecstatic as I thought I would? 

Fear,anxiety or insecurity.As I await a letter regarding my future, I can't help but to feel both anxiety and fear every day and hour of my life.

I hate that my whole future basically sits on whether or not some admissions counselor thinks I am good enough for them. 

It is the most paralyzing feeling,I cannot read or write in peace,laughter seems hollow and without meaning.I just want to scream: Pick me! Pick me!  Or a Jedi-mind trick: this is the person for the job.  You don’t need any other applicants. 

It is as Khaled Hosseini says "of all the hardships a person had to face none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting."

So,i wring my hands and wait.

Another day,another shooting.

It was just another day in Middle America. A man in Wisconsin shot seven people and injured a few others at  Gurudwara. Why am I not enraged by all this?Not because I don't feel any pain or sadness at this stupid act of violence.

I am not surprised at the fact that it does not happen more often.America is a violent country – the homicide rate is four to 12 times higher than that in more civilized parts of the world – and Aurora, Colo. where James Holmes gunned down 12 people , is more violent than the average American town. A down-market suburb of Denver, it sees an average of about 20 of its 325,000 residents murdered each year.

Statistics that would have appeared in the the local daily,but elsewhere would have slipped under the radar.A lot of people – about 15,000 at present – get murdered in the United States every year. Most of these people get killed in places that, roughly speaking, look something like Aurora or the Gurudwara: places where the people are poorer and less white than in America in general, and who are therefore by definition dangerous or not one of us.

Of course these rules don’t hold if some lunatic kills a lot of  people at once, especially in a normally innocuous public space, such as a multi-screen movie theater or a temple,but the fact of the matter is nothing will change,unless the gun laws in the states are amended.

There are no limits on the number of firearms that can be purchased at one time, nor on the possession or transfer of assault weapons, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.


Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker signed a law in July 2011 allowing citizens to carry concealed weapon, making the state the 49th to allow the practice. Only neighboring Illinois does permit this.

The Second Amendment that allows Americans to carry arms was adopted in 1791 at a time of Revolution. It's as if everyone thinks the King of England is going to be knocking on their door any day. I think we are a bit past that, but there's not enough people, with not enough power, to have our voices heard.

There really is no reason for anybody to be walking down the street with an AK 47(that was what was used in Colarado).But then again,the National Rifle Assocaition in the states is a big money spinner,and generates a lot of money for election campaigns.

This year,with the presidential campaign in full swing,Those who want to use the killing spree's to shake some sense into America's gun laws might as well be talking to a wall.

Rhythm

At some time all cities have this feel: in Delhi  it's at five or six on a winter evening. Pune has it too, late, when the cafes are closing up. In the hills, it can happen anytime: early in the morning as the light climbs over the canyon streets and the avenues stretch so far into the distance that it seems the whole world is city; or now, as the chimes of midnight hang in the rain and all the city's longings acquire the clarity and certainty of sudden understanding.

The day coming to an end and people unable to evade any longer the nagging sense of futility that has been growing stronger through the day, knowing that they will feel better when they wake up and it is daylight again but knowing also that each day leads to this sense of quiet isolation.

Whether the plates have been stacked neatly away or the sink is cluttered with unwashed dishes makes no difference because all these details--the clothes hanging in the closet, the sheets on the bed--tell the same story--a story in which they walk to the window and look out at the rain-lit streets, wondering how many other people are looking out like this.

 People who look forward to Monday because the weekdays have a purpose which vanishes at the weekend when there is only the laundry and the papers. And knowing also that these thoughts do not represent any kind of revelation because by now they have themselves become part of the same routine of bearable despair, a summing up that is all the time dissolving into everyday.

A time in the day when it is possible to regret everything and nothing in the same breath, when the only wish of all bachelors is that there was someone who loved them, who was thinking of them even if she was on the other side of the world.

When a woman, feeling the city falling damp around her, hearing music from a radio somewhere, looks up and imagines the lives being led behind the yellow-lighted windows: a man at his sink, a family crowded together around a television, lovers drawing curtains, someone at his desk, hearing the same tune on the radio, writing these words.

Love 15

Maybe it’s because I’m from Dubai  and living in an overcrowded city in the desert where courts are in short supply, but I love seeing tennis courts: from a plane as it descends (there never seem to be any on the way up) or from speeding trains and cars. This is a purely aesthetic — i.e., pointless — pleasure, but if I am out walking or cycling, this fondness for court-spotting has obvious practical advantages.

There was one court that I was particularly fond of, It was just a single court surrounded on three sides by buildings — apartment blocks with geraniums on tiny balconies and wash hanging out to dry — which created stadiumlike acoustics when you made contact with the ball.

I dream of going to Wimbledon one day,it seems that tennis courts are more potent than swimming pools as symbols of freedom from the realm of necessity.Where tradition meets modernity and where you get the best Strawberries and cream the world has to offer.

Now being the romantic fellow that I am,the question was asked :What profiteth a man if he gains a world of free courts yet lacks a partner? For life is not just a search for tennis courts; it is also a search for someone to play with.

If  I settled down in a small town, I could join a club and enjoy a life of contented tennis polygamy. But if I had to lead an itinerant existence, however, I'd will waste many hours cruising for partners: turning up at courts, checking out the talent, hoping that someone might be looking for a casual game or has been stood up by his partner, while never losing sight of the fact that he must be compatible and that the window of compatibility is tiny.

Now I use 'he' and 'his' not lightly,its not due to the notion of the inherent inferiority of women but because the prospect of encountering a partnerless female with a half-decent backhand (i.e., better than mine) is too blissful even to contemplate. It’s dispiriting enough just trying to pick up guys.

Now let’s say you’re at a court, lurking around like a pervert, envying those who have everything (a court, a partner), resenting especially the dreadlocked dude who can barely hit the ball but who is playing with his tanned, much-tattooed girlfriend. There are a few people on their own, but they’re all waiting for partners who show up within minutes of your having broached the subject of “a hit.” You skulk home without having set foot on a court. But like a human tennis ball, you bounce back the following afternoon. You find an empty court, practice your serve, quickly becoming bored because, with only four balls, most of your time is spent changing ends — until, out of the blue, someone comes over and asks you if you’d like to hit.

 At first you are both a little tentative, but one of the nice things about tennis is the speed with which the quality of someone’s game reveals itself. After a few gentle rallies, you both begin hitting a little more freely, then hard, then with open aggression. It is obvious that you’re both happy with this gradual escalation of friendly hostilities. After half an hour you ask your new friend if she (this is a fantasy, after all) would prefer to play a set. “Sure,” she says. “Let’s play.”

You need only a court, and a pretty close fit in terms of tennis, and . . . nothing else! You don’t even have to speak the same language.

At the end of the game, you exchange numbers, agree to play the following afternoon and go your separate ways. The perfect level of commitment made possible by this found court. Life is not just good; life is as it ought to be.

Murmurs of a Massacre.

Being a part of this country was a matter of pride. We grew up with dreams to take part in the nation's development with devotion and sincerity as our forefathers did. Be it in the field of education, sports, politics or defence. We were glad as everybody thought we were successful in achieving our goals.

But things have changed steadily for years now. We feel being subjected to persecution, prejudice and discrimination almost on a daily basis. We feel as if there is always somebody mapping out a plan to attack us?

You feel as if the state has totally abandoned you. As if the security forces are facilitating your murderers. As if the media is mocking your death. As if the human rights organisations are turning a blind eye on your genocide. And worst of all, as if your fellow countrymen are celebrating your death.

 You are afraid of a policeman, afraid of any armed man. We don’t even trust the  Army, top judiciary … almost nobody. Because nobody has ever heard your voice over so many years. You are afraid of going to university because somebody is lying in wait to kill you.

You can’t even escape. You need a passport for that. But you feel you’ll be murdered if you go to the passport office. You can’t go to any office for that matter because you will be identified, chased and finally shot in the head.

You feel that even your neighbours are annoyed by your screaming and want you to stop shouting.”

Don’t let your fears about your neighbours stop you, my good friend. Or we’ll be left with no hope at all...


P.S : Thoughts of a man,as rumors of genocide swirl outside.

Off with his head!

“Game of Thrones’” Joffrey Baratheon   looks like he could be in a boy band. His blond hair is brushed forward over his forehead, in the current Justin Bieber-inspired, fear-of-the-forehead style. His deep-set, hooded eyes and fair skin give him that sleepy, growing-is-exhausting, pillowcase-still-imprinted-on-the-cheek look of late adolescence.

His anodyne features, bunched a little too closely around his snub nose, could easily make him the third-cutest member of a group featured in a boy band poster.

Except for the small fact that he’s TV’s most noxious, unredeemable villain, and if he belongs on any poster, it’s a Most Wanted one, preferably defaced with devil’s horns, an eye patch, nasty scars, boogers, fangs, drool, and then — why stop there — ripped to shreds. And I have done just that, hey Photoshop does come in handy sometimes!

When “Game of Thrones” began, Joffrey was a sniveling brat, the heir to the throne and scion of incest, a distasteful, spiteful, whiny character, dangerous in his weakness, but one who did the bidding of others.

That all changed when Joffrey became the king of Westeros and ordered Ned Stark decapitated in a show of authority that was his coming-out party as the worst person on your television. Since then, Joffrey has done one sadistic, vile thing after another: He forced his fiancée Sansa to stare at her father’s head on a spike, had her smacked around, arranged duels to the death for his pleasure, and showed a willingness to kill a man by forcing wine down his throat until he exploded.

In Tyrion’s words “We've had vicious kings, and we've had idiot kings...but I don't know if we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king!”

As a product of Incest,The king who raised him as his son never had much time for him. His mother is a self-serving bitch who spoiled, coddled and manipulated him, giving him a hugely inflated sense of self and none of the basic ethics or self-reliance to do things well or right.

From the most sympathetic angle, Joffrey is the nightmare-inducing result of helicopter parenting gone not just wrong, but psychotic.

What I love about the series is that “Game” consistently encourages its viewers to adopt the mentality of its characters. It chops off heroes’ heads so we, too, harden our hearts and learn to prize cagey realism over something more noble.

It shows blood, guts and bones until we too become insensible to them. It puts a maniacal sadist on the throne, so we too wish someone, anyone, would take it from him, and are ready to punch, slash, find a dragon or birth a smoke monster — or at least condone such behavior — to make it so

If and when Joffrey gets what’s coming to him, I’ll probably stand on the couch and cheer, cackling over the painful death of a psychologically disturbed and dangerous teenager. When the rush passes, unlike the characters on “Game of Thrones,” I’ll have time to worry about exactly what that means.

Gaga over Goldspot

If The Beatles and Coldplay had a lovechild, they name it Goldspot. Now, now before you get the knives out and accuse me of blasphemy, do give them a listen and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Goldspot is one of those bands, who you always keep nearby to call on for good times or for comfort on those crappy days when everything seems to be falling apart. Siddhartha Khosla’s clear, sweet voice, a broad vocal range, and music that’s a masterfully produced pop blend of psychedelic Beatles (think Lucy in the sky with diamonds or George Harrison after his exposure to Indian traditional music), the endless summer sounds of the Beach Boys, and just the right amount of Bollywood musical makes for an infectious combination that inevitably finds me singing along every time I listen to their songs.

Upbeat melodies and quirky, innocent lyrics—and I’m talking of “pair of 14-year-olds holding hands in the sun” innocent here—I’m left with a smile on my face and a little extra bounce in my step. This is basically identical to how my body reacts to an encounter with a little Whiskey, so I think I may have just stumbled upon a way to brighten even the darkest day without Liver damage.

It’s probably true that Khosla went through some difficult times while writing these songs and he pours his absolute everything into the pieces. Images of his struggles run throughout the music and lyrics, both of which are direct and so honest they make it impossible to feel any sense of shame or embarrassment in hearing about his dreams, hopes, and losses or in remembering one’s own. (I know I did)

But what sets Goldspot apart is their ability to channel this pain into a sense of unbridled joy, I don’t know of any other band that can have me singing lyrics like, “Oh why is this damn life so hard / We spend out time filling the holes in our hearts,” and still feel a sense of hope and optimism.

The songs keeps me swinging back and forth between hard-bitten cynicism and untarnished idealism but ultimately leaves me a believer, if not in the real possibility of untainted love then at least in the importance of always keeping within ourselves somewhere a sense of innocence. And that’s always a nice feeling

Being El Nino.

Football can be cruel. In the sense that just when you think you have it all figured out, and you go running through the side lines like a bullet out of (now a little rusty) gun, receiving with élan, and passing with precision, and smiling like a fool, even planning to dare some stepovers and dummies, and trying to be modest reacting to the applause the roaring spectators. And then, the very next moment, you get a very long ball, which is the perfect cross pass, and you are supposed to receive it as if you were born to receive crosses, and you miss the cue like a fool, and the beloved football that made your dreams jump up and down with acrobatic ecstasy, quietly passes through you and bounces lazily away and out of the pitch.

And then, madness starts.

Suddenly, each defender that comes by your way, big or small, seems like Achilles brandishing his cross bow, and you keep crashing against them. Almost as if you have forgotten what you are playing, making it look like a very confused rugby game. And then suddenly you see a group of people approaching the ground for the first time in their entire excel sheet filling lives, to witness the clash of the titans in the finale. The pressure mounts...

Another pass you humbly present to the opposition, who by now think that you have a short term memory loss or something, and you avoid looking at the faces of your team members. You start thinking that it’s time to pull up socks and introspect. And then you realize that while doing that, you have already missed your marker, who went ahead and scored the goal that he might remember to tell his grandchild, and you shudder to imagine the role you would play in that story. So you give in, and when your captain asks you for a substitution, you quietly nod, and shake hands with the smirking substitute. You look at the brighter side, that at least you can introspect in peace, and your marker won’t even care. And you wish that the ground would just open up, and swallow you whole.

The crowd chants “what a waste of money” and I can’t help but helping that my team mates agree with them.

Being Mallu

As a child, I’d spend summer vacations with my grandparents in Kerala. Later, when I was  in Madras, I’d visit Kerala during my breaks. I loved taking the night train, leaving the heat and arid landscape of Chennai and crossing through a pass in the Western Ghats, the mountain range that segments off Kerala from the rest of the country. Rocked to sleep on the hard wooden third-class berth, I’d awake at daybreak to find my train as if by magic transported to another country, another continent even, one with a lush green landscape, waterlogged paddy fields, rivers and streams, coconut palms clogging the horizon.




On a map the narrow strip of land that is my Kerala — just 360 miles long — seems mortared like an emerald to the southwest coast of India. The Western Ghats have historically buffered us Keralites from whatever is fermenting and boiling over in the rest of India. On the slopes of these mountains, pepper, tea, rubber, cardamom and coffee grow in estates, and then the land meets the Arabian Sea in a latticework of lagoons and extensive backwaters that allow for an elegant network of boat and barge transportation up and down the state. 


I would love going to the temple in the evening for the Deeparadhana ceremony,where Lamps would be lit,drums would be played and horns would echo out into the evening sky.




The temple itself was stunning, with a long passage flanked by 365 granite columns and many elaborate wooden carvings. The deity housed at the center is the massive 18-foot long Vishnu, who reclined on the serpent Ananda. One can only view the deity in sections, at very specific times, and I was fortunate enough to be in a throng allowed to peek through one door when it was opened for a few minutes. I saw the hand and thigh of Vishnu. 


The sight would give me goose bumps. It was not just the glimpse into this sanctum sanctorum, or the passion of my fellow worshipers that moved me, but something immediate, something I had experienced in other temples: the sense that the deity actually resides there, resting in its gilded lair, hidden by doors through which mortals occasionally get a glimpse. 


This was no celestial God whom one invoked while sending up incense and prayers; this God was right there, and we were in the divine presence at the heart of the heart of the faith. As I stood barefoot and bare-chested on stone weathered by the feet of millions of believers, shoulder to shoulder with people who looked like me, I felt this faith too was also my heritage


As hundreds of lamps lit up the temple complex,I began to think what it was to be a Malayalee.I was born in Chennai,but have lived most of my life in Dubai. Even though people may tell you that the "Gelf" is just a part of Kerala that broke away and drifted west,it is different. Or at least i felt that way.


I haven't been to Kerala,since 2006.But when i do come home next time,I will be grasping for that sense of home, seeking blessings and absolution, seeking inspiration, looking to study again the ancestral rites, visit the very hearth fires where my grandmother had turned out such magnificent dishes. I shall try to break down the anatomy of my grandparents’ homes, study the wood and laterite walls, take apart the wooden rafters, trace the filigree carvings in the wood frame under the eaves, all to be able to reconstruct a house again in words.

Bubbles.

In the hills,anything is possible. Given enough alcohol and people looking for a change in location and lifestyle.


That was probably how I met Eva,oh Eva.Eva was tall and slim, with sun-browned skin, raven black hair, and a slightly clumsy gait. When she laughed, her smile bloomed back from the corners of her mouth, crinkling her nose and narrowing her eyes into quivering, blue-flecked slits.


She was here,wherever here was,to attend a meditation course,to learn to cook momo's and generally to find herself again.We spent our days like an affectionate middle-aged couple, silently reading books at waterfall, or walking to the open-air market in the town center to buy ingredients for dinner.


Around a week later,Eva told me it was time for her to move on: She didn’t want to spend the rest of her holiday in a sleepy little hill town, she said, and she had longstanding plans to explore the snowy north before she went home . I responded with a whimsical rundown of reasons to stay (We can take up spear fishing! You can learn to kickbox!), more for the chance to watch her nose-crinkling laugh than for the conviction that I could change her mind.


Later  on that afternoon,we walked to the bustop. I told I’d miss her, and she responded in kind. She didn’t invite me to come with her.


I spent long portions of each day alone, inside my head. Eva’s presence had proved to be a welcome distraction: She was pretty, and she had an understated, mischievous sense of humor. She wasn’t talkative, and we shared our silences comfortably. At a time of focused self-isolation, when I went for days without speaking to anyone, she made me feel less lonesome. I fell for her with a suddenness that made me feel a bit juvenile.


One day,I woke up early with a scowl on my face,I am as most of my friends know prone to mood swings.I was irritable and kept muttering under my breath as I watched the sun come up from behind the mountains.As I sat and glowered at a squirrel on the tree outside, a bubble floated over my shoulder and popped in front of my face. I turned to see Eva padding around the room, naked, dipping a small plastic wand into the bottle of bubble soap she’d bought at the market.


But the bubbles weren’t for my benefit; Eva paid me little mind as she meandered across the room, sleepy-eyed, entranced by her task. Her long-legged steps, which in hiking shorts looked gawky, gave her nudity a lithe elegance. I’m not sure how long I sat and watched this vision before she glanced over and bade me good morning. I told her I had never in my life seen anything so beautiful. Sometime in the far future, I knew when I was lying on my deathbed, this was the moment I wanted to remember...


Somethings stay in the memory forever,fleeting glimpses of what was.Oh Eva..

Afternoons with KP

If someone were to put Koregaon Park in poetry, he or she would do it during the afternoon. Afternoons are sleepy, and in certain ways, they are also very quiet. Quiet in the sense that they never really embrace you with loud claims of or sunrise. They don't even incite you to come out of the cool shelters of your home listening to the consistent sound of your ceiling fan.

Afternoons, very silently, inconspicuously, and mildly, put you to sleep. Or make you sleepy. Or sometimes, even keep you awake. But whatever they do, they do very silently. And I think; when afternoons are being so afternoony with you, and you can’t find the drive to do absolutely anything, and you are just happy, or even numb, and content to ease away, write about KP. You would know why it’s is perfect reply to the torturous pampering of afternoons.

Shadows bathe the pathways that hush them as little and big cars stroll lazily. A few stranded pedestrians return the nonchalance of the rejecting auto riders with indifference, which vainly tries to disguise the disdain. A single sunbeam escapes the darkish clouds that envelop the city, and falls gently on an iron pillar at a junction. And just as one leaves the conversations and warmth of the carelessly placed chairs and tables of a coffee shop, a sudden surge of gusty wind escorts him to the smiling tar of the sleepy streets.

 If the ridiculous one way streets irritate the daily commuters, I am pretty sure that the new ones would be delighted, simply because they give them an excuse to see some more streets. And then there will be quaint paintings of Indian villages and jungles giving a glimpse of the basic sameness of imagination, irrespective of a city or village.

It’s not like I haven’t seen wet roads go and vanish into a very close horizon with trees at either side bending down to form a tunnel in green, Bombay has them in galore. But for some reason, it’s just prettier in Pune. Probably because unlike in Bombay, one knows that wherever the road ends, it won’t lead to a starkly contrasting supposedly big street with potholes and bullying buses, but another green tunnel.

Potholes would be there, but they wouldn’t threaten, cars would be there, some of them would be as rash, but somehow, they would be different. It’s not far from reality, it’s the same things that one gets to see anywhere in this country, but the sameness somehow feels different. Comfortingly different.

 KP is a musical experience. No, I don’t mean that everyone here swears by Dylan and philosophically articulates the other side of the moon. What I mean is, the ‘coolness’ here is ingrained, and not adapted. It’s a place where you wouldn’t be surprised if an odd Barista starts serving you beer.

Quirky pubs which play U2 in a way that the walls absorb just the right amount of music because well, they enjoy it too you know. Hell, there are coffee shops with posters of jazz artists and it fits in so perfectly that you start smiling.

I’m going to be leaving in a couple of days and though I’ve been here for 3 years, I’ll miss afternoons (and coffee spoons), about sleepy roads with names like lane 5, or the smell of beer mingled with the sound of    A Hard Day’s Night

 I’ll miss the red and brown mixing into each other in wet and heavy soil and fervent conversations between Ashoka’s and Gulmohars. Or cool winds slapping you as you get out of a claustrophobic flight, and streets dedicated to loafers. Or a very old two storied house filled with old books in fading yellows and bindings reminding of granddad, nurtured by an ancient man in suit who makes you an “old friend” after fifteen minutes of Ruskin Bond and D.H Lawrence.

It is perhaps, about a song waiting to be sung by Billy Joel. I don’t know.

Mumbai Minutes

Dust, a lot of dust kisses the shimmering concrete roads. Sun reluctantly ascends in the horizon as a very mild wind helps the dust along.

Some behind the time school children run to catch a bus that threatened to leave; a few drops of sweat drenches the otherwise parched surface, a few milk men cycle silently to their various destinations. They spilt milk with every bump, exciting the stray dogs for whom it was just another kind of a liquid.

Some cigarette shops wish that they could sell tea, some tea stores wonder about their stock of biscuits. A bus stand boasts of a sizable crowd, hoping, perhaps for a new love story to begin. A man fights with a rickshaw driver, reminding him of his awareness of the fare system, while the driver rebels for being the proletariat in the situation.

A girl jogs listening to “A Beautiful Day”, oblivious of some pairs of eyes and their longing desire to meet hers. A faint sound of the waves crashing against a melancholy, but dirty shore, the air has a hint of salt, and an everlasting smell of fish.

The sun rises higher, waking up from its partial slumber, even as the streets crowd. Haphazard honks for no apparent reasons, some people trying to get on a moving train, flirting with lives that they so ironically tried to keep happy, some cobblers observing shoes all round, while some others trying to blacken the faded.

A few newspapers, two tabloids, some sudoku, some half finished crosswords, and a very interesting game of rummy. Few college students with fancy backpacks, some curious faces gazing through the stock prices, and noise, a lot of noise. Some stolen moments of romance, along a stretch of road, while a forgotten queen’s necklace awaits its evening to shine. Some very fast cars, and a few claustrophobic taxis, some overpriced restaurants, claiming that they play Jazz by the Bay.

Some very efficient signalling system, and even some close circuit cameras, some police men with sunglasses, and a roaring walky-talky. Motorcycles and double-deckers without roofs, and people all around. Strangely well planned slums, and some plastic shades as excuses for abodes, some cut hands, some ugly diseases, and some children losing their innocence. Some intimidating eunuchs, some extremely kind vagabonds, and a few bent with the burden of age.

Dreams, accompanied by some nightmares. Some realizations, some disillusionment. Few starting all over, and some premature ends. Pride, enmeshed with tears, with some sprinkling of smiles, and that odd, and abrupt laughter. History, singing songs of legacy, which told stories of art, literature, cinema, science, crime and punishment.

Love, in the midst of everything that threatened to defy it.

Yeh hain Mumbai meri jaan...