est

the downside of belonging everywhere, is belonging nowhere.

i have a feeling that i’m going to like bombay. everything just seems so much more intense here. it’s like a city of superlatives. people are busier. poverty is poorer. the stink is stinkier. the glamorous, somehow even shinier. the industrious even more hard-working. the parties, more laid back and more fun. the gods more perfect. the crowds bigger and more magnificent, than elsewhere (they demand attention. and sometimes, shock and awe. they are a collective. and most politicians in bombay have learnt to harness that power. the power of a crowd that only thinks and feels in superlatives). and the contrasts will constantly hit you on your face.

it’s like people are more involved with life. like they share a personal equation with it. like they need to squeeze it of very last bit of what it has to offer. like they can’t bear to be short changed. they can’t bear to be in the sidelines. and they won’t let you stand there too. you have to be there, in the thick of it. in the midst of a mad crowd. you have to be there, racing against time. being pushed and jostled. you have to be there, breathing the air, heavy with fumes and the slightly salty, slightly decaying whiff of the sea. you have to be there, playing by their rules or yours, but playing the game.

and every once in a while, you can stop to take a breather, by the edge of the sea. where the city leaves you be. where the winds blow through your body. where for a brief fragile moment you can straddle the space, between a world you belong to, and a world you don’t and be perfectly content.

take it to the limit - one more time

i’m two hours away from moving out from the city i lived in for eight years. and i’m sitting at a cyber café asking myself if i really want to do this.

don’t get me wrong. i do want to leave. i’m restless. i realise that my time here is up. and i’m really looking forward to living in bombay. thing is, i hate having to leave the people i love behind. now i know you’re going to tell me, it doesn’t make a difference. my friends will always be my friends. and bombay, it’s hardly that far away. but, trust me, anyplace that’s not an auto ride away is far away.

and that is what sucks about leaving. and that is what i’ve been struggling with. not being able to get into an auto, at any hour, for any reason, to see some one you love.

i’m making a hash of this. i need to leave for the airport. so i’m going to use laura’s help. friend. traveller. listener. whale watcher. wolf lover. will-o-the-wisp. in between two thousand words about watching bears in alaska, she had this to say - "but in between these highlights there has been a lot of reflection. a contradiction has arisen that grows stronger and harder to ignore with each passing day. a dilemma i do not quite know how to resolve.

it’s fairly simple, really. life is all about choices and choices we make have consequences. and all things do come at a price, but a price we often come to fully comprehend only when it is almost too late.

i guess i am a bit of a gypsy at heart and in a world this filled with wonders at each and every corner there is always this drive to go explore, to be on the road, temptation to be on the move towards somewhere i've never been. lets face it, i suck at being stationary. now, that of course is not a problem as such. at least it hasn't been thus far. but if i was asked to name my top priority in life (or at least one of them) it would come down to people i love, my family and friends. see the problem? my future always seems to be somewhere else and way too often it means at a distance from everyone i love. (and, to this one can add the additionally challenging fact that my loved ones aren't exactly geographically concentrated either.)

now, i've tried to compromise with bits of time spent here and there, home and away, but the end result seems like a greatly diluted version of either of the ideal extremes, a compromise that really satisfies no one and one that brings along a sense of guilt for neglecting either others or that deep-seated drive within me. it results in me being neither here or there. but if i change will i still be me or does that mean sacrificing a part of who i am in essence? is this travelling lifestyle a true choice or do i in fact lack the ability to put my roots down even if i so wished?
i don't know.

but i sure got to find out.

during one of those night time greyhound stops at a gas station somewhere (a toilet or a smoking break for passengers in need, in other words) i stood outside the bus stretching my numb legs and from inside the words of an old eagles song lingered on and provoked a perhaps somewhat melancholic smile to my face. for some reason finishing this giant of a letter with a quote from that very song seems appropriate.

you know i've always been a dreamer
spent my life running around
and its so hard to change
cant seem to settle down
but the dreams i've seen lately
keep on turning out and burning out
and turning out the same…
so put me on a highway
and show me a sign
and take it to the limit
one more time…”

i don’t know if she’ll find a place between traveling and staying put. and i don’t know if i’ll find a place between leaving and staying. but i do know this, if i have to move again, or if i want to move again, i will do so only after getting myself an auto that will give the boeings a run for their money.

that stoopid feeling

stupidity, it’s a virtue. (or so i keep telling myself. sometimes on an almost daily basis) it’s especially important to remember this when you’re caught in the spotlight of a wholly irrational exploit. when the alarm bells in your head are clanging out loud, but not loud enough to drown the forceful imaginary voices of wisdom which are telling you that you should have known better. when you’re praying to the high heavens to open up the ground beneath your feet or shower you with lightning bolts or some such like. because god knows, you’re never never ever going to live it down.

stupidity, it’s an asset. it’s inversely proportional to age. directly influenced by spontaneity. and has a residual after-effect that lasts for as long or as little a while as you want it to.

the young do stupidity gloriously. with consummate ease. with a beautiful lack of self consciousness in the act. like they were born to it. like it’s fun. like it’s okay to be stupid.
they’re right, it is.

let me tell you why:

usually you only end up feeling stupid because you took a chance, put yourself out there, and had it blow up in your face. now, don’t associate stupidity with the 'blowing up in your face', instead, associate it with ‘taking a chance’. and at once you’ll see why stupidity is a desirable quality.

people look at you with kindness. they shake their heads as if to say, ‘poor sod’. but hell, they'll treat you with patience and thoughtfulness.

you’ll find that your reactions to your stupidity are even more stupid than the original stupidity itself. so quit at the first stupidity and feel really happy with your self that it wasn’t much worse. we should all count our blessings, where we find them.

and that’s not all, stupidity is fun. really fun. it’s fun to not have to worry about other people’s image of you. it’s fun to go out on a limb. it’s fun to not always think something through. it’s fun. period. and we could all do with a little more of that in our lives.

that said, if you don’t see me around for a bit, know that i’m living in a little hole in the ground under your feet, waiting to live my latest stunt down.

may i take a minute to PANIC

i leave delhi in three days time. after eight long wonderful years. and this is how i'm preaparing for it.

have been busy orienting myself at the new workplace. taking time off to pack up eight years of junk. saying goodbyes to some. and 'please, please, please, for the love of god come and visit me' to others. transferring bank accounts, gas connections and affections. being the perfect daughter for my mum's visit. travelling outside the boundaries of my little world (to gurgaon) everyday. and all the while, quietly going (completely, totally and absolutely) crazy for having made the decision to move.

no wonder then that i haven't found the time to write. but yes, i promise to be back soon.

hello, miss what'syourname!

what do you call a girl who tells stories the best way she knows how - in squiggly figures and loopy words? who doesn't know whether she should follow her idle time passion. who has a style that's original and an eye that's fun, fresh and absolutely fabulous. who, like all of us at some point, is wondering if she should freefall. who has got talent and sass in equal measures. who takes transitory moments in time and transforms them into permanent delicate lines on paper.

what do you call her - crazy child woman with great stories?

i still haven't figured. but she calls herself runjhun. and these here, are some of her stories.

on a wing and a prayer

silvio simonit. crazy italian man who talked with his hands. who made space for me in his life and on his couch. who listened to my completely non-existent, irrational, self-created problems. with half an ear (but listened, none-the-less). who was passionate about CNG, kebabs and quiet dusky women (and not necessarily, in that order). who was willing to talk about anything but his phd thesis. who really believed that he was indian royalty in his last birth (i don’t know which was more amazing, that he believed in reincarnation or that he believed he was a king). whose fridge was always full of coronas and devoid of food. who wanted to stay but had reasons to go.

silvio simonit, who looked at me yesterday and said “where’s my rakhi?”. and saying so, took the last flight bound for italy.

i hate that he’s gone. but thanks to some unknown people of pakistani descent in london, i’m glad he flew yesterday. and not today.

the art of having good mornings

you wake up in the morning. bright and early, for a change. the sun is shining. the birds are chirping. and your head doesn’t feel like chandani chowk on a monday morning (chalk up some brownie points for yourself, for that). you think to yourself, “it’s going to be a wonderful day”.

now, if you were watching yourself from the outside, you’d give yourself till the count of ten, just about the time you’d be standing in front of the bathroom mirror. by now the warm fuzzy feeling is madly whooshing out of your body, only to be replaced by the sheer adrenalin thumping horror of what you did last night.

it could be going home with mr totally-completely-absolutely-irrevocably wrong. well, not just going home with him, but somehow spending the night looking at him with the love light blazing in your eyes.

it could be going out to celebrate your friend’s 5 hour old mercedes slr, and on the way back pulling out the ashtray and throwing up in it. (a f -up where horror, amusement, disgust, concern all come together magnificently, don’t you think?)

it could be collecting all the files in your office at the conference table and setting fire to it. only, and this is important, only after having worked for five days and five nights straight.

it could be deciding NEVER to have a relationship again, after having dealt with commitment-phobic men for 32 years. and then going to a bar to celebrate that by picking up a man, who turns out to be the only one in the universe who is looking for a relationship.

i have been witness to, as well a participant of a great many f-ups, and i have to admit this - not everyone can be a f-uper because not everyone has that special talent of orchestrating a truly imaginative f-up.

like all jobs, you require a skill set for it.

you need perfect timing. every f-up requires one or all of the below - wrong place. wrong person. wrong time. (appropriate wrong words). in f-ups, as long as you are wrong, you’re right.

you need to understand that, they are lying when they say, ‘you learn from your f-ups. no, you don’t. you can’t. for the simple reason that no f-up is quite like another one.

you need a short memory span. you can’t make the same f-ups again and again. this just won’t do for a professional. you need to forget them once they’ve occurred and find fresh avenues in which to f-up in.

you need to move on. you need to be able to hold on to your embarrassment/ horror/ incredulity for a certain period of time and then let go at just the right moment to move on to bigger, brighter things. like the next f-up.

those of who were not born with this special talent, need not fret. for you can learn to be a good f-uper. all you need to do is start small, (a school suspension, for example) and then progress, slowly, one tiny f-up at a time, till you’re orchestrating f-ups worthy of several entertainment awards. something that involves a bigger audience, a lingering sense of embarrassment and moving up the rating scale from ass to supersize jackass.

and maybe, then, the sheer adrenalin thumping horror you feel while standing in front of your bathroom mirror will slowly change back into a warm fuzzy feeling. of accomplishment.

big deal

there is something about bombay, (and i have a niggling suspicion that it’s bollywood) that causes most musicians to gravitate towards the city. i could be wrong, maybe it’s not the huge amounts of work that the industry provides that’s the cause of this mass movement. maybe the attraction lies in the nice balmy air (when it’s not raining cats and dogs) or the laid back attitude of people which is completely at odds with the city that bustles and buzzes. or maybe, just maybe, small cramped apartments, clogged roads and a daily life that makes you feel like you’re living smack bang in the middle of a bollywood movie is very conducive for making music.

how else would you explain the fact that some of the best bands i hear in delhi, seem to belong to bombay. a few years ago, it was ‘bombay black’ (that’s the story of another post, though) and this time around it’s ‘black market’ and ‘interplay’.

i first heard ‘black market’ at dv8, having had gone there with a friend, straight from work, tired and yearning for six feet of horizontal space to lie down in. but minutes into their gig, and i could have kissed my friend. these guys were fantastic. funky, fresh and a complete treat to listen to. combining influences from r&b, rock, acid jazz, the outfit had a line up, i’m told is ‘killer’ – consisting of dhruv ghanekar (guitar), lindsay (drums), sonia saigal (vox), harmeet (keys) and sheldon (bass).

‘interplay’, i caught on thursday at haze. in a city, where jazz enthusiasts sit around twiddling their thumbs (i say that loosely, since i really don’t know what they do) and wait for the ‘jazz yatra’ to hit town, ‘interplay’ comes as a can-i-bend-down-and-kiss-your-rings relief. primarily a jazz band, ‘interplay’ has sonia and harmeet (from black market) joined by adrian dsouza and rushad mistry. the reason i enjoy them so much is, when you watch them play, they look like they are enjoying every single moment of it, as much as you are. they play with genuine ‘feel’. and that is fantastic. and fun. like harmeet says, “we basically do all kinds of other things and other music by day, to pay our bills ... we don't really get too many opportunities to play jazz which is all we really want to do ... so when we do get to play a gig where we can go and play this music that we love, it's a big deal for all us”.

well, harmeet, it’s a big deal for us too. you guys should play here more often.

and those of you who haven’t seen either of these bands in action, should absolutely make a point of it the next time they’re in town. if only to find out what the big deal is.

1979

• alien was released and went on to reinvent the sci-fi horror genre.
• mother teresa won the nobel peace prize.
• 21 year old paul shirley of australia, sucked a lifesaver for 4 hrs 40 mins.
• the sugar hill gang released the first commercial rap hit, "rapper's delight," bringing rap off the new york streets and into the popular music scene.
• religious leader ayatollah khomeini made a triumphant return to iran after 14 years in exile.
• president carter was attacked by a rabbit on a canoe trip in plains ga.
• iranian militants seized the us embassy in teheran.
• the soviets invaded afghanistan.
• someone in stamford, texas paid the highest price for a pig- a whopping $42,500.
• margaret thatcher became the new prime minister of the UK.
• rocker tom petty filed for bankruptcy.
• vietnam and vietnam-backed cambodian insurgents announced the fall of the cambodian capital phnom penh and the collapse of the pol pot regime.
• sex pistols' bass player sid vicious died of a heroin overdose in new york.
• pakistan's former prime minister, zulfikar ali bhutto, was hanged in spite of international calls for clemency.
• elton john becomes the 1st pop star to perform in israel.
• the chicago blizzard started on friday night january 12 and lasted until 2 a.m. sunday january 14.
• longest doubles ping-pong match is played. it lasts over 101 hours.
• gulf + western paid $3.2 million for a single periodical ad in time.
• due to equipment failure and operator error, a partial nuclear core meltdown of the tmi’s unit 2 reactor, the worst nuclear plant emergency in united states history, occurred.
• pink floyd premiered their live version of "the wall" in los angeles.
• world's worst oil spillage occurred in the gulf of mexico.
• sri lanka beat india by 47 runs in cricket world cup upset.
• dancin' fool by frank zappa hit #45.
• muhammad ali retired as boxing champ.
• soviet cosmonauts vladimir lyakov & valery ryumin returned to earth aboard soyuz 34 after a record 175 days in space.
• snow fell in the sahara.
  
  no wonder i came into the world, kicking and screaming.

pataka

"in india images are loaded, they explode with meaning... they have great potential," writes peter nagy, former director of new york's nature morte gallery, in his introduction to the provacatively titled ‘cock’ - a book about indian firework art. compiled by gavin aldred on his trip to india, it is a stunning and rather pointless book that was released a few years ago.

for those of us who have grown up here, the almost violent colours, the mad and sometimes crude graphics, and the extreme typography that you would find in firework/calendar/street/billboard art is pretty ho-hum. yet, when you see a collection of images together, it’s like an explosion in the brain…too much, too soon.

printed on boards in concertina form and packed in original fireworks boxes, this book (like a reviewer claims) celebrates a graphic language where understatement is suicidal, excess equals success, and sheer spectacle is everything.

it’s difficult to find a copy here, so, on your trip abroad you could pick one up. or simply order it on amazon.

blame it on her

alana davis, who sings like she has marbles in her mouth-

you've got your home of the brave and i've got my land of the free
you conform to what society says and i conform to me
looking for light in the corners getting caught in the spider web
you look at me as if i'm giving a performance when i'm just feeding my head
and you know that i'm doing all right
and i won't explain myself to you just to avoid a fight
how i'm living ain't correct but for me it's just right
i'm not completely insane, i'm maybe just a little bit crazy
there's no one to blame, got no shame about game
don't want nobody to save me
i've got a pair of ruby slippers that i don't wear much anymore
and if i had the nerve i'd click my heels and return to the wonderland i knew before
i'm waiting to slow boat to china, want to sail away to the sun
i've been searching for myself and i know i'm gonna find her if i break away from everyone
so the way that i act may not fit in
just because i've got a mind of my own doesn't mean it's a sin
i don't ask you to give up; don't expect me to give in
'cause i'm not completely insane, i'm maybe just a little bit crazy
- crazy, blame it on me

padh bosedk

in a city where the most overused word has to be ‘behenchod’, comes a design label from designer duo jiten thukral and sumir thagra called ‘bosedk’. and if that doesn’t catch your attention, their work will. it’s like being drenched with a pail of ice cold water – deliciously fresh and aggressively in your face.

their t-shirts range from ones that declare ‘rose meri marlo’ and ‘bank ke lorry’ to ones that say ‘pen chor’ and ‘pee bosedk’. bright colours, wild graphics and their trademark glass jar packaging, makes you want to quickly run out and fill up your wardrobe with them.
at 1200 bucks a pop, they don’t come cheap, but they are completely worth it.

the designers themselves- they’re young, restless and focused. pretty much acknowledged by everyone i know in the industry as ‘sahi’. i went to catch an exhibition of theirs last year, and i found that along with being softly mad, they were also surprisingly sharp – bring the same passion and energy into their business venture (their store at 2MG, that was demolished by the MCD) as they put into their work.

check out their website at http://www.bosedkdesigns.com/ pick up a couple of tshirts or just revel in their crazy brand of humour.

i come in friendship

i come back into town after two months away. i'm having dinner with some acquaintances. a friend calls. where are you, he wants to know. having dinner with some friends, i say. ok, he replies, i’ll be right over.

no waiting for an invitation. no “are you free to meet up?”. no “is it okay if I join you?”. no questions. period.

and this is the most beautiful (and the most aggravating) thing about friendships. taking your friends for granted.

so you take calls at 4am in the morning. you be nice to their partner, who you might not like. you listen and dole out advice and tissues with equal elan. you invest time, energy and sometimes love into it. and on the whole take them as they come. because you know, they do the same.

not all of them, though. all of us have categories of friends. there are the sleep-over kinds, the drinking buddies, the ones who you have nothing in common with except the past, the childhood kinds, the ones you meet when they or you are passing through, the ones who listen and the ones who talk, the ones who you meet every single day, and ones, as Mr. Epstein describes in his book "friendship: an exposé", who play the role of best supporting friend.

some of them we definitely could live without. and some we have to live without. because they are traveling halfway across the world to be with their partner. or because they want to live by the sea and watch whales. or simply because they’ve gotta go.

yet I take solace in the fact, that friends, how ever far they go, they’ll just be one 4am phone call away.

and when they do call, there will be no questions.

how to get a visa to the states (from someone who’s never gotten one)

get your friend’s friend’s brother’s sister-in-law to put in a good word with her cousin who knows somebody that works in the embassy. (never mind he’s doing his summer internship)

wear your favourite wonderbra and furiously bat your eyelashes (note: it never seems to cut any ice with the women, but the men fall it every single time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.)

produce imaginary boyfriends/lovers/fiancées/husbands. as many of them as you can. most visa officials believe that their countrypeople are the most irresistible race on earth, and if you are going to go visit, rest assured that you are going to be enamored by them and absolutely crave to have their babies. any evidence to the contrary, will (strangely) earn you a certain no of brownie points. and in case you’ve forgotten, that’s what we are aiming at.

claim that your parents hit you. considering that most indian children live with their parents till they have grandchildren themselves, that should be entirely believable, whatever your age.

pretend to be yogi. the whole place is littered with them anyway. (hint: all you need are loose flowing robes and a stoned expression) thing is, even the slightest unspoken threat of being damned to the fires of hell, is not a chance any of the visa officials are willing to take. c’mon, no job pays that much.

spend the 148 days (yes, that’s how long it takes to get a visa appointment) brushing up on all the things that you dislike about the country. because chances are, the less you want to go, the more likely you are to.

if all of the above fail, walk down to your neighbourhood McDonalds and order the all american aloo tikki burger. to go.

the sound of the city

i like cities. all cities. well, most cities. they are like people- the most interesting ones are the ones with the maximum amount of layers. the confused ones. the ones heavy with history and ghosts of the past, yet young, exuberant and growing in ways they can’t fully understand. chaotic, beautiful and full of a strong sense of individuality.

when i’m feeling low and drained of energy, drowning in mundanity, i dream of standing by the side of a road, in the middle of a city (nada, no blue skies and green meadows for me). and when i close my eyes i can almost feel myself absorb the energy that surrounds me, like neon motion streaks. (maybe i’ve been watching too many movies that use that particular shot.) but whatever the reason, i like cities. especially delhi. it has a certain buzz. an energy that makes you hit the ground running. a pulse, that’s the same, for the rich and poor alike. something that brings together the stuffy babus enjoying their single malts in luytens delhi and the obnoxious jats getting sozzled in their cars at parking lots. something that binds the ones that have put their roots down and the ones that are just passing by.

some call it soul. but a band of musicians i know, call it rhythm.

they’ve compiled an album that captures and celebrates the spirit of delhi. i’ve heard it, and i like it. i like the sound. and i like the artwork on the cover. as much as i like the idea of it. the album is called “sahi bol”, which at the same time means so many different things. “sahi bol” literally means “say the right thing”. it’s also an expression that loosely translates into “for real???”. and in musical terms, “sahi bol” means the right lyric.

i like the way the musicians describe it – the music as well as themselves. they call themselves the kids of the 80’s (remember the time when rockstars were ROCKSTARS and everyone had a bad hairdo), who stumbled into the 90’s. sometimes making music. and sometimes noise. yet always holding on to the idea of independent expression. inextricability linked and strangely free from the city they live in.

the two cd compilation spans a great many genres (sufi, rock, blues, electronic, urban styles, dance, indo-fusion, folk and the undefined) and a great many artists (midival punditz, orange street, them clones, euphoria, mili bhagat, audio pervert, stargazer, mystique, radius, adhvaitaa, arjun sen, donn bhatt, da saaz). so when it hits your neighbourhood music store be sure to check it out. and in the meantime, as and when I learn to, i’ll put the demo’s up on the blog for you to download.

runners are a different breed

we’re a generation brought up on some sport shoe commercials. some really fantastic ones. we applaud the good ones. talk about the bad ones. and on the whole let them influence us enough to buy a pair every 6-8 months.
and that’s not all, we believe what they tell us. they tell us the road is free. they tell us to leave the couch. they tell us that there’s rhythm in our footsteps. they tell us to run.

and so we run. with a certain flair. a certain ease - a bearing - that comes from years of practice. we run from one day into the next. totally absorbed in ourselves. (and of course the tunes that our ipods belt out)

and so we all run. from the day we are born. some of us just do it better than others. take this girl i know, she’s run after this one man all her life. ever since she was fifteen, actually. and the man in question, well he’d run after anything in a skirt. he still does. last i heard, he met this girl in thailand, who ran away with all his belongings from his hotel room. (there has to be a moral in there somewhere)

so we’re all running. sometimes around in circles. sometimes from our potential. in search of that perfect job. in search of that to-die-for man. in search of home. in search of what’s around the next corner.
little realizing that, sometimes it’s worth it to stop for a drink at a bar on this one.

behind every blog, there's an ignored bored depraved blogger

why should one have a blog? why would one have a blog? i mean, they are not really the most convenient things in the world. pretty much like having a plant at home. something you have to water daily (or at least when you remember) and take out for a walk every once in a while.
it’s a lot like being in a relationship too. you have to invest time in it (quality time at that)…be honest with it…and stuff like that. only it’s better maybe, because it doesn’t talk back.

okay, so why should one have a blog? here’s what I think:

one, you have to be surrounded by friends (who love you and you love them…and all of that) who have completely stopped listening to what you say. not that they mean to tune you out, but chances are they are too busy eyeballing the cute young thing at the other end of the bar.

two, you have to be really bored at work. seriously, how good the blog is, is directly proportional to dissatisfied you are at work. (unless you are one of those lucky bastards who get paid to blog.) it’s like melancholic troubled people are just better at writing.

three, you have to not be getting any. or not nearly enough. (think about it, how many people do you know, who are doing like it like rabbits and still being able to or finding time to blog?)

four, you are suffering from a sensory overload. too much news, too many images and lots and lots of completely useless information is crammed into your brain. you are never able to say the right thing at the right time, mostly because by the time you sift through the data in your head, the moment has gone.

and five, you see yourself in the future, in a great big house surrounded by cats (while obviously, a cute young pool boy in his speedos is working outside) with your memory a little dim, and unless the world is taken over by aliens or AI and the www is down for ever, your blog will remind you that at one point, you didn’t need a life, since you were trying to lead half a dozen already.