Loyalty

Bud stretched his legs. It had been a rough day. He had gone duck hunting with John and they had a whale of a time. He was tired after a long day, running after the ducks whenever John fired a shot. Even when John missed and Bud was on a wild goose chase, he wouldn’t mind. He loved John. He followed John everywhere. If he was a human and knew what Gods are, he might have worshipped John. But as of now, he felt the primal emotion called Love for John.

John had other dogs and was never the one to show any sort of partisanship. And yet Bud knew, or as the other dogs put it not so subtly, he thought, that John loved him more than any other dogs.

As they walked out of the marshlands, the wolves fell upon them. They wanted everything; John, the ducks and Bud. John was not perturbed. He had faced the wolves before. But Bud was a young dog. He didn’t know how the game worked. The wolves reminded him of his long lost brothers. Maybe, he could be happy siding with them. But then something stirred inside him. And he fought like never before.

That night they lost the ducks and barely managed to save themselves. As Bud limped behind John, he felt that he had understood one more human emotion – Loyalty.

I have never been able to define, understand or describe Love. I was chatting to a friend who just got engaged and she told me something strange. She said, perhaps you don’t need love. Two people can decide to like each other, be ready to make some compromises and wham!!! They are ready to be in a relationship. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know exactly. But that conversation got me thinking.

I realized that there was another emotion that came extremely close to love. It’s loyalty. And it’s a powerful emotion that can define who you will turn out to be. So I asked people around and here’s what I got. Loyalty makes you follow a senior blindly even when you know you are not right. Loyalty makes you align to alliances that lead to a dead end and earn you more enemies than friends. Loyalty makes a soldier make war for peace. Loyalty makes a crazy junior send us details of activities that none of us will ever attend again. Loyalty makes you answer a phone call from a person who has hurt you beyond measure. Loyalty makes you achieve the impossible because you do not want to let someone down.

Loyalty is perhaps the first tribute to Love.

A Highway Streamlines Your Thoughts

Last weekend some urgent work came up and I had to visit some factories over Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t mind it. I love the Western Expressway highway and when you have a safe driver taking you around, you do not bother much about the logistics of missing a weekend. I had a book and my wandered to the last three plays I had seen. Bhadmanush from Mashaal was way beyond my comprehension. I understand when the subject dealt is complex. But I do not understand the necessity to complicate things even more by philosophizing about it. Anyway, apart from the performances, which are always guaranteed in Mashaal productions, there is nothing much to cheer about. “For God and Country” was a solo performance on Bhagat’s Singh’s “Why I am an Athest?” It’s a beautiful essay and I think you should just download it and read instead of wasting your time on my blog.

But laughing my heart out at “Chinta Chod Chintamani” and “The President is coming” made me wonder if our appreciation of humour had been reduced to stereotyping and slapstick humour. The Swami will have to be a cheat and a womanizer. The nerd guy and the strong-willed woman will have to be homosexuals. The Bong will have to be a Levis wearing pseudo socialist studying literature or English Literature.

And why on earth does the highly overpriced Ruby Tuesday make beautiful Fajitas and play the most wonderful music while you dine?

And why you are halfway through the real post you want to create, you get caught up in the traffic over the Vashi Bridge?

My First Tag

Sanketh made me do this and I don’t think I am forgiving my quiz partner very easily for this. I don’t like tags. It means two things to me. Either I’m putting up a private conversation for public scrutiny or I have nothing to say and so I am borrowing ideas. I guess this will be my first and last tag for a long time to come. So in the true rebellious spirit, I shall disobey the last part of the Rules of the Game and shall not tag anyone. You are however free to pick it up.

Rules of the game: Check if your name is at the end of this blog post. If so, type out a similar blog copy-pasting these rules. After that, list down 10 random things about yourself (that many do not know) and then tag 5 more people who have to do the same.

So here are the 10 things that first come to my mind. Half of them may not even be applicable in the long run. Anyway…

1. I love sitting alone on the boulevard along Marine Drive. I do it often. It just feels to be the only place in Mumbai where time is allowed to stop and go no further.

2. I love sunsets and have seldom seen the sun rise. While dad attributes it to laziness, I attribute it to choice.

3. I love Superhero and Rock Band T shirts. I believe they are timeless and can be worn by anyone anytime. Most people I know don’t think so.

4. I love experimenting with food. If I am not conscious about my meal partners, I order the most exotic sounding dish on the menu. Last night I had ordered Chilli Idli and Maramari.

5. I have never been able to gift someone a book I have not read myself. It seems so unfair that someone else will read the book before me.

6. I love walking down the streets of a city with a camera in my hand. I really miss my SLR.

7. I love drives but I hate driving on city roads. Last time I drove in Mumbai, I managed to touch forty kms/hr and B promised to himself to never hand over the keys to me.

8. I hate cell phones. I had not carried one till Jan 2005. I think it’s one of the main reasons why people do not meet each other more often these days. You’re always a call away.

9. I actually dislike blogging. In fact, if I had been able to afford a dark-room in my house and digital cameras had not been invented, I would have spared you the pain of reading through this.

10. I have become a really nagging and irritating environmentalist lately. I have threatened someone when they refused to pull down the car window and switch off the AC

So there goes.

Oh by the way, in case you are buying this year’s Manorama Year Book, look in Page 514 :)

My First Tag

Sanketh made me do this and I don’t think I am forgiving my quiz partner very easily for this. I don’t like tags. It means two things to me. Either I’m putting up a private conversation for public scrutiny or I have nothing to say and so I am borrowing ideas. I guess this will be my first and last tag for a long time to come. So in the true rebellious spirit, I shall disobey the last part of the Rules of the Game and shall not tag anyone. You are however free to pick it up.

Rules of the game: Check if your name is at the end of this blog post. If so, type out a similar blog copy-pasting these rules. After that, list down 10 random things about yourself (that many do not know) and then tag 5 more people who have to do the same.

So here are the 10 things that first come to my mind. Half of them may not even be applicable in the long run. Anyway…

1. I love sitting alone on the boulevard along Marine Drive. I do it often. It just feels to be the only place in Mumbai where time is allowed to stop and go no further.

2. I love sunsets and have seldom seen the sun rise. While dad attributes it to laziness, I attribute it to choice.

3. I love Superhero and Rock Band T shirts. I believe they are timeless and can be worn by anyone anytime. Most people I know don’t think so.

4. I love experimenting with food. If I am not conscious about my meal partners, I order the most exotic sounding dish on the menu. Last night I had ordered Chilli Idli and Maramari.

5. I have never been able to gift someone a book I have not read myself. It seems so unfair that someone else will read the book before me.

6. I love walking down the streets of a city with a camera in my hand. I really miss my SLR.

7. I love drives but I hate driving on city roads. Last time I drove in Mumbai, I managed to touch forty kms/hr and B promised to himself to never hand over the keys to me.

8. I hate cell phones. I had not carried one till Jan 2005. I think it’s one of the main reasons why people do not meet each other more often these days. You’re always a call away.

9. I actually dislike blogging. In fact, if I had been able to afford a dark-room in my house and digital cameras had not been invented, I would have spared you the pain of reading through this.

10. I have become a really nagging and irritating environmentalist lately. I have threatened someone when they refused to pull down the car window and switch off the AC

So there goes.

Oh by the way, in case you are buying this year’s Manorama Year Book, look in Page 514 :)

The Forgotten Army

26^th January is approaching. Just another date- except that this time, it’s on a Monday. And everyone loves the idea of a long weekend. People have been planning their long weekend getaways. On 26^th January, we would not want to be bothered otherwise. Perhaps there will be a flurry of patriotic songs on Radio and the nagging fear of another terrorist attack on sovereign Indian soil. And then, we’ll go back to our usual lives.

For some reason the last few nights as I look out of my window I am remembering a certain episode of India’s freedom struggle. The Indian National Army.

When I went to Singapore, I tried to find everywhere where the INA memorial was. No one seemed to know. No had bothered to remember. No one even knew if the house where the first Government of Independent India operated out of still existed. Singapore had forgotten a foreign freedom struggle which is absolutely acceptable. What I could not accept was the way India had forgotten her heroes. I was ashamed how I myself knew so precious little about the INA. Finally in some park we found what looked like the INA memorial. A sole lamp and a sole marble slab bore testimony to an army that fought without ammunition or rations merely on the basis of one single goal – “Dilli Chalo.”

April 4^th 1944, the first time the Indian tricolour was hoisted on independent territory on the mainland of India and yet we do not remember it.

This post is definitely not about the man behind the army. He didn’t do what he did so that we would remember him and if the nation decides to forget him, that’s the choice the nation makes. If only a nationally insignificant political party tries to keep itself alive by playing second fiddle to a Big Brother in a small state and sometimes tickling Bengali sentimentalism by remembering him on the 23^rd of January, then so be it. But I think there is something our politicians could learn from him. Even after being shunted out of the Congress, Bose harboured no ill will against Gandhi and Nehru. Two of the brigades in the INA were named after Nehru and Gandhi respectively. If only we knew how to rise over partisanship.

I know it will be a holiday for you. I know you’ll probably plan for a long weekend trip outside your homes. But just in case, you have been feeling lazy and want to watch a movie go ahead and get the DVD of Bose: The Forgotten Hero. Or maybe Sardar or Gandhi. Understand what gives you the ability to call yourself masters of your own destiny and not Her Majesty’s subject.

Understand. Appreciate. Choose. You will soon select your own future in a few months. This time do not use the excuse of nothing changes in this country. The Indian National Army had changed the way the nation thought. Yes, we chose Satyagraha but even then we had the right to choose.

The Divided City

Every city is divided. Calcutta is torn between her past and present. Bombay between her haves and have-nots, Delhi between her Lutyen and the rest, Bangalore between her malls and roadside bakerys. The list just goes on. But for Ahmedabad, the story is stark and hits the eye.

For me, for a long time, Ahmedabad was a city of a Red Bricked building which gave me one of my closest friends, some of my best colleagues and tutors, an extremely forgettable story of someone committing a few mistakes in his life and of course a deeply hurt pride. You forget heartbreaks but you seldom get over a bruised ego. I knew I would not be visiting the Red Bricks without tall idiots accompanying me. I was not ready for it yet. One day the time would come.

I am getting old and learning to let go. And there was S, constantly gushing about the time spent in Amdavad. So today, for me Ahmedabad is a city of Gates. And there they were, almost on every street standing on alone, remembering the days when they had bordered the city from all sides. I was told to come to Prem Darwaza for working on some very unromantic activities and then we just gave the driver directions based on the next Darwaza we had been asked to come to. The old city stood proud with her dress in tatters and her head held high waiting for a time gone to come back again. That the exodus of her children had begun was very evident. But she stood in hope.

On the other side, the new city was raising its head just like another metropolis subscribing in full force to the Gurgaon phenomena where you replace the sights, aromas and sounds of a city with skyscrapers and long winded highways.

The river seemed to deepen the divide. I stopped the car for a while as I was heading back. I wondered if the chasms between humans were as deep as the river that flowed beneath me.

To find my answers, I must return again, if not to win another game of air hockey near Law Garden.

Another Year

Another year passes away with its highs, lows and steady state situations. Without being verbose, I tried to find the best words to suit the mood. And here they are for you. I have seen most of the times someone else says what I want to say, in a much better fashion. An old song (Movie Jaagte Raho) for a New Year. Have a great 2009 everyone.

Zindagi Khwab hain,

Khawab mein jhooth kya aur bhala sach hain kya,

Sab sach hain, Zindagi Khwab hain,

Dil ne humse jo kaha, humne waise hi kiyaa,

Phir kabhi fursat se sochenge bura tha ya bhala

Zindagi Khwab hain.