Reversing the Digits

It’s the night before I turn 28. And I have been drinking for a few hours now. For a change it’s not water, Red Bull or Diet Coke. Didi has given the most adult and awesome birthday gift ever. It’s like I am finally growing up. I just finished a whole pack of brandy liquor chocolates. I am a little high just thinking about it and there’s Teachers left and some more and to follow them up are my favourite dark chocolates. The last of my worldly sins - Somehow the scene from Matrix comes floating. It’s the way Cypher describes the Matrix.

“You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.”

The microbe lady asked last week how I can stay awesome always. I think I don’t. But when I need to talk I write and that helps.

I think the world works in strange ways. It shows signs and symbols which we can’t make head or tail of. But we fervently hope they hold a meaning. In those strange sightings we delve deep to find directions for truly there are none that we can find with open eyes. Sometimes you need to just fall and hope for the wings to come out. The wings are not an answer in the end. The butterfly and the bat, the good and the evil, the manifestations are large and many. But who ever dreamt of the Devil without first fearing the wrath of God.

Pain, hurt, suffering if thought more of has the ability to increase their power over us and yet we embrace them and sing about them but to break the bleak shades of grey, you just need one mirthful voice ringing across the chasms of your heart. And slowly the void fills with a glow and you know that life once again is worth living.

We wish for friends to come back, we wish for a hand brushing against the cheek signalling that all indeed is well. Dreams begin to fade, the façade grows stronger till the charades become a reality. And then the aura spreads from a client con call saying there is hope, there is still hope.

I am home for my birthday and just before I turned a year younger I was talking to the kid who grew up and she suggested the name for this post. I think nothing suits the mood better than what she said. Kids these days!!! They act so grown up.

That’s applicable to my niece as well I guess. Finally a woman who speaks her mind and tells me exactly what she wants me to do. Phew!!!

And yeah the digits are reversed J Figure it out!!!

Watching Movies

I suddenly realized on a lazy Sunday morning that G leaving Mumbai has had an adverse impact on my movie viewing. As I sipped on my milk and crunched into the delicious taste of Pure Magic biscuits, I realized that I have skipped quite a few over the past, most notably amongst them being Hissssss and a few more sssss.

The married men refused to go being scared of their wives, the married women had no intention of watching the movie and the couples typically follow the wish of the women in such matters.

The single men in their quest for looking cool and cultured refused to accompany me, the single women probably wondered if I doubted their intelligence by asking such a question and I figured going alone to watch Hissssss and a few more sssss would confirm to my sister that I had lost it, finally.

Super Cooler landed in Mumbai from some Chinese city and called me up to watch Letters to Juliet, it being my kind of mush and I guess it was. You know, the kind where the world is a beautiful place, where people sip wine and quote poems on love and don’t have to make PPTs during weekends. Ahh, the lives of such people. Action Replay was however a mistake. Happy Boy and his wife insisted that I watch the movie and all I wanted to do after the sumptuous dinner that she cooked was to sleep. The popcorn was the most interesting part and the next thing I know the autowallah got me from Thakur village to the Sea link and said, “Bandra aa gaya hain.” Sea Link always looks beautiful in the night. Hauntingly so.

But G is not the only reason. I realized I have tons of unread books that I must make an effort to complete now. It’s unfair to hoard them like some demented ruler hoarding diamonds. But I needed to buy books and so I got a few more for the love of my life and she loved them. Ahh, the lows a man must stoop to in order to make a woman love him. Bruno, Bubbles and now Pepper, her three best friends will now be with her.

The third most important reason for movie viewing taking a beating has been the Reality Shows. Last couple of weekends I have tried to figure out what’s happening on the shows, how the TRP games are being played out and how Kiran Bedi’s role has now gone to Rakhi Sawant. But amongst all of them I love Masterchef India. The contestants are real people. The emotions seem original. The evaluations are rational and apart from the fact that they are randomly getting Bollywood to come and endorse the contestants, the show’s brilliant. I know it’ll probably lose out on the TRP game but to me it’s a winner. There are obvious flaws. I love it for the love of food but the viewer has nothing to gain from it, no recipe, no insaaf, no ek crore, no Dolly Bindra.

But there have been seldom any movie I have waited for with such eagerness than this one - Khelen Hum Jee Jan Se perhaps will be a fitting testimony to the valour of the independence struggle in Bengal. It has always pained me somewhere that the so called Athenian traits of Bongs have completely overshadowed the Spartan gallantry. We have been called Anglophiles and the babus of the Raj and people easily remember Bhagat Singh a lot better than Masterda. Bose, as Benegal correctly puts it, remains a forgotten hero and I don’t like it a bit. Chattogram Astragar Lunthan (The robbery of the armoury at Chottogram) was perhaps one of the strongest blows to the might of the Raj and I would love to see it on celluloid.

Till then, I am busy knowing Lisbeth Salander.

Play Fair

Mom was always good at sports and amongst the many life lessons she has passed on to her children, the most important perhaps is the idea of playing fair. The idea is quite simple. In life be honest, give your 100% and then whatever happens will happen.

I was just taking stock of life and it just struck me. Mom’s influence has lingered on. If I can look back today and be proud of something, it will be about the fact that I have always played a fair game. At least I have tried to.

The reason I have been blabbering on about playing fair is because as you grow older, you begin to realize how easy it is to be tempted to be unfair. It’s natural to try to pass on your mistakes to others, it’s natural to try to take credit of things which have been done by teams and it’s easy to shine in glory that’s necessarily not yours. I received a resume a few days back of a person I know claiming to be what he never was. Now, to him, the idea was fair enough as the use of this piece of info meant no harm to the ones who actually worked, but in the bigger scheme of things, it was unfair and grossly so.

Sundays at 10 I typically play cricket with the kids in my building and I feel a lack of the sense of fairness and pride. Like typical kids they all want to bat a lot, not bowl at all and beat me all the time. Now I have no issue in that. But I have do have an issue when they want things the easy way. No effort goes into bettering themselves, no effort goes into actually trying to get me out and for all who know me, I am no Sachin Tendulkar. For example, they give up in less than 10 minutes if I refuse to make it easy for them.

Baseline – they don’t give themselves the best shot that they can give as they don’t play fair. And I have a big issue with that. If you don’t play fair, you don’t have the right to play.

It’s not that I am a saint following my own principles. I have messed up myself. I haven’t been fair to a close friend and it has been painful. It’s one of those decisions you wish you didn’t have to make but then you trust that one day you’ll be forgiven. And you do. You get a phone call.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that life is never fair but that does not mean we should not try to be.

Happy Diwali Ji

So everyone has sent me a message. Well almost everyone. And everyone has wished me a happy diwali. I must say I have always been a bit confused about Diwali. Being a Bong, the Good for Evil celebrations should have been done by Dussera and as we wished Shubho Bijoya to each other we knew that peace was restored.

Now Diwali was more of Kali Pujo as I grew up in Calcutta. We burst the crackers, saw the really random dance steps at the immersion of Kali idols and accepted the fact that during this time someone will get drunk and sing on the streets. It was like a ritual. Someone had to get drunk late into the night and next day spend the hours saying sorry to the elders in our para. I think it was an accepted fact that some people will get drunk at Kali Pujo. So it was probably the only time, mom and dad asked me to be careful while I roamed around the streets.

The happiest memory of those days was that of counting the crackers that were bursting outside my house and slowly going off to sleep. It seemed as if somewhere outside, far far away, a hero was fighting a grim battle. And I dreamt.

I first experienced what Diwali truly meant in Pilani. Whether it was shameful display of money by Student Union Presidential candidates or whether it was the quite anticipation amongst all the men as slowly the gates of Meera Bhawan opened and the women emerged wearing their finest sarees, Diwali in Pilani was magical. But I think no one enjoyed it more than CJ. A true Mallu, he devoured the colours and joys of Diwali with childlike curiosity and I have not seen many enjoy a festival so much. He was more enthused about Diwali than anyone of us in the wing and we would watch the Mallu gang of 2001 walk together, the most well knit group I have ever seen. The best part is Diwali in Pilani was a festival of lights, a festival for everyone to come closer together as everyone missed their homes.

There are other memories and as I write they keep flooding back. Diwali 2002 was the first time when Moruchaya, the Bengali association became an entity by itself. We earned our laurels that Diwali. For the first time, the bongs gathered together to, well to be honest, burn away 1500 rupees of hard earned money. We were small and had way less ammunition when compared to the other groups but that gesture that year announced to everyone, yes we were there. Such is the power of symbolic gestures.

I loved the morning after of Diwali. C’Not would be littered with the remnants of the night before. And I would walk with my camera in my hand clicking the patterns on the ground. It would also be Bhaiphota and my 2 sisters in Pilani would actually take the pains to wake up and meet us in the Saraswati Temple and we would then walk to Blue Moon for an MNB at 11 in the morning.

But the greatest Diwali story is that of 4 young boys undertaking the journey of their lives for food that promised to be exquisite. But that is the story for another day.

These days like everything else, I miss the simplicity in my life which was there even a few years back. I have stopped bursting crackers since a long time and friends typically these days have the means to go back home. Diwali wherever celebrated is more about cards and parties and less about the innocent fun we had when we were young.

But then the Indian spirit for celebrations is infectious. On Diwali, everyone in Mumbai wishes you. And you feel no longer alone as you hear all around you - Happy Diwali Ji.

Sandeep sat alone in the corner table at the Coffee House. This was his table for ages, since the time he had come to study at Presidency. Every day he used to sit here. The people around him kept on changing but he was there. At times, he remembered the first economics class in Building 3. Prof. Sen had picked him up at the end of the class as the “brightest mind of the year”. While he felt shy and looked down, he could sense a pair of eyes on him. He picked his head up and that’s when he first saw Tara.

Years passed. They graduated out of Presidency. Sandeep searched everywhere for a job. Nothing could be found. Tara moved on. And suddenly there was nothing left in Sandeep’s life anymore.

He still sat at the corner table at the Coffee House. Shades of grey appeared in his hair, the glasses kept increasing their thickness and the world around him continued to change.

Tara sat alone in her house that morning. Her son had gone off to college, his rooms were emptied out. Her daughter no longer considered her as her best friend. Her husband was out on one of his usual business meetings. For some reason today, she remembered a bespectacled face, more than anything else.

Her best friend had told her on the night of her marriage, “Every girl has her own 'What if’, It’s best never to think about them” and she had followed it to the letter.

But today she knew she had to know the answer. In a trance, she took her car out and drove from her South City Residence, crossing the mess of Moulali and Sealdah to reach coffee house. She stood at the corner, looking at him. In her heart, she felt ashamed of herself expecting him to still be there. She looked at him and a forgotten poem came into her mind. She imagined him saying,

Amar Bilupta Hridoy,

Amar mrito chokh

Amar Bilin sopno akankha

Aar tumi Nari

Ei sob chilo sei jogote ekdin

Suddenly a familiar voice called out. It was the same voice she had heard years ago, calm, composed but with a hint of laughter. It had not changed. Sandeep was ecstatic as he called out to her. He knew all about her life and wanted to know more. As always, it was her talking and him listening. It seemed life had not moved on.

After three long years they moved out. And realized she did not want to lose a friend once again who knew her so well. And while she knew, it was unkind, she also knew this time she was ready to be his friend as well. She was a wife and a mother but she could also be a friend now.

And that would be a new beginning… from what could have been a long long time ago.

Not the Last Goodbye

The Joker hated goodbyes. He had lasted a lifetime at the Great Indian Circus. And every time someone left he felt miserable. Few years back therefore he had promised himself that he would never again allow himself to be so close to someone that he could get hurt by them. The circus toured the world and he continued to make people laugh. He was good at it. And he made friends; he was good at that too.

One day as they were touring Russia, they came across a small town a few hours from St. Petersburg. He did not like it there much; cold, barren and seemingly desolate. He sat down with his bread and water and wondered if it would be a good idea to have a swig of vodka so early in the day. Suddenly there was a commotion a few yards to his left. Old and cynical, he studiedly ignored it. After all, what exciting could happen that he had not seen earlier? Suddenly one of the kids came running. “Joker, come fast”, he cried, “There’s a fairy amongst us.”

“Fairy? Now that’s interesting. What have these fools been up to?” He walked towards the commotion and saw the most astounding gymnast he had ever seen in his life. He scrutinised her thoroughly with his seasoned eyes. And gave up. She was perfect. Even he cold not find a fault. And then she looked at him and gave him the most dazzling smile.

Maroushka soon became a part of the family. Everyone called her “The Russian Princess”. She flew in the air while the joker stood below and made the world laugh and while she was flying she would always look at him and smile. They became acquaintances and before he knew, they were friends. It was completely her doing; she had this infectious quality in her which could make everyone feel special. She made them do bonfires sitting out in the freezing cold of Moscow, made them sing and they all laughed.

One day, just like she had come into their lives, she was gone. And no one knew where she was. The joker felt like a fool. He had again let someone come close to him. And he felt cheated. She had no reason to befriend him.

And then one day, he received an envelope. Inside it was a carefully pressed orchid, preserved from the cold winters of Russia. It was signed “Russian Princess” and the Joker felt like smiling. She had remembered.

And in that one letter she had taught him that there need not be any last goodbyes. That night, the joker’s laughs were not cynical. He actually was smiling.

Once Upon a Time in India

I suddenly realized it has been a long time I have given my five rupees on the movies I have seen. So here goes, one more of my quick fire reviews.

Aamir Khan is one of the best marketers I know. He knows his product and his consumers well. He knows how to promote and he knows the power of symbolism. And that’s why he can make a cricket match be nominated for The Oscars. Peepli Live is not a Aamir Khan movie but it takes Aamir Khan to the leagues of Clint Eastwood in making or producing movies that matter. Releasing it just before Independence Day, Aamir made a smart move and also a statement of change. And we watched and laughed and then came out with a painful feeling at our hearts. Every time you look at construction workers now in your cities, imagine the story of a farm lost to greed and ignorance.

Once Upon a Time in Mumbai and Aisha spoke of two different worlds. And somehow I do not see either of them as My India. The underbelly of Mumbai was brought out in all its glory and glamour in the former, when the underworld still valued values. If you remember Shantaram, you would probably remember the transition of the Underworld. Sach or Himmat, slowly gave way. Perhaps that’s what life is all about. Aisha was a funnier story though. All the people I know who represents the world of Aisha chose to distance themselves from her and while the movie clearly was one not to die for, it just tried to speak about a world so shielded from the realities that one often wonders, if it exists at all.

The majority of the Indians I know however went crazy over two completely different movies. The North idolized Chulbul Pandey and while Salman bettered Rajni is terms of action and Govinda in terms of Dance moves, the audience went and saw the movie a second and a third time. But what UP lacked was technology. And there came in the only God of Indian Cinema.

Whatta Movie. I mean Whatta movie. Let’s not get into the details. Rajni creates a Robot who is like Super Rajni, a Rajni 100 times over. Anyway Rajni loves Aishwarya (who doesn’t) and then gives his robot feelings the Robot falls in love with Aishwarya. And then it was the best special effects ever seen in Indian cinema.

Moral of the story – Even robots fall in love with Ms. Worlds