Dilly*

Outside of being an anagram of my least favorite South Indian dish, Dilly is an alternate way to spell the city that I have come tumbling into, as fate would have it, two weeks after I had found a brand new cozy apartment overlooking a lake in the middle of (the Northern part of) Mumbai City.

Some people adore the place they come from; the games played at twilight till the ball wasn't visible anymore, the net-less, boundary-less, time-less badminton matches on the traffic-less road, the effortless victory in short-put and long jump tournaments conducted by the society at 4:00 in the morning all become colourful fragments of a wistful memoir for them. 

Indeed, such was life for me at 4-M (the Bungalow in Trivandrum my sister and I grew up in), where we had the road to ourselves, and were shielded by the coconut trees, the mango tree and the jack fruit tree. 

My earliest best-friends are from Trivandrum, girls I wrote Enid Blyton-inspired, extremely original novels with (about kids on an adventure by themselves in a castle with a dog; write to me if you want a copy). I'm sharing with you here, the journal entry from exactly fifteen years ago, to give you an idea of the wistful memoir that I talked of earlier. This happens to be the day I met one of the afore-mentioned best-friends.

September 13 1998, Trivandrum

There is this new girl in school who thinks she is Lata Mangeshkar. She was also showing off that one of her cutting teeth fell off. She conducted a ceremony to tie her tooth with thread and bury it in the mud. I have teeth falling off every week, with no scene being created. We spoke for the first time in the afternoon, during the finals of the singing competition. She got first prize. I got consolation prize. I will not sing the Titanic song next time.

Years later, when she qualified for the finals of a national level singing competition to be conducted in a different city, we were best friends and she wouldn't travel without me in the choir. I haven't really found where my true talent lies, but I have, over performing on stage through the merit of my persuasion or my friend's coercion, at various instances starting from The Patriotic Song presented to the Governor of Kerala to the Miss Chennai Times contest while at college, concluded where it certainly does not. 

I have digressed. I began this narration by saying that some people adore the place they come from. For me, however, it has always been the people that stick out and the place just happens to be a floating, fleeting (alliteration intended) background in my picturesque memory.  

When I was asked if I would move to the Country's capital, I packed my bags (forgot my furniture) and left. Almost all the time I have been in Dilly, (it's been over a month), I have been working. There are few things in the world as refreshing to the mind and as enriching to the spirit of the ambitious as the sense of pure, unadulterated work-time; yet, I find myself looking up from my laptop between the endless hours of pouring over well diagrams with a flickering hope of chancing upon a kindred spirit like the toothless friend I met this day fifteen years ago. 

*dil·ly

  [dil-ee]  Show IPA

noun, plural dil·lies. Informal.

something or someone regarded as remarkable, unusual, etc.

I ban because I can? Perhaps Not.

I haven't watched Vishwaroopam yet, since I live in Bombay and I cannot bring myself to watch a Kamal Hassan movie in Hindi. In the light of recent events though, I have decided to voice the rather contrary-to-public opinion I have in the matter. 

Most forward thinking, liberal minded friends of mine feel very strongly about freedom of speech, and find the ban on this movie in Tamil Nadu or Satanic verses in India unacceptable. I understand their perspective; I hope they do mine. 

I know that many of you intelligent people reading this might associate the ban of a movie or a book with us moving towards an Orwellian state. To the uninitiated, 1984 is a book by the English author George Orwell in which he describes the existence of a society that is controlled and manipulated by the State entirely. The Orwellian state has come to refer to a form of governance that systematically challenges freedom of speech and denies it's people's right to (any form of) intellect through manipulation of the truth. 

I see your fear, I raise you mine. 

When Asaram Bapu made the following comment on the rape victim, "She should have called them brothers and begged them to stop" [1], I was aghast at how a person can make such a statement. I was horrified, and indignant. I could throw up over his words, his insensitive remarks, and the hurt he caused thousands of rape victims. One person's freedom of speech might be another person's death note. 

I must pause to clarify. I am not trying to compare apples and oranges. I have a cause here. I need to establish a firm case where we see the need to define what "freedom of speech" is. When someone puts Lord Ganesha's pictures on a toilet seat, is that not their freedom of expression? Why is it that it is okay, then, for thousands of protesters to overthrow the company's right to print whatever they want on their products? 

It becomes all the more significant when the person/medium making a statement or depicting an idea is influential. A movie or a book or a famous person has a reputation that can affect the way people think and act. To that effect, with power does come responsibility.

Let's be open-minded.

We, as a country, over the centuries, have seen thousands of innocent lives being taken in religious conflicts. The soil we tread upon is still wet in parts, over the blood we have spilt over hurting religious sentiments, attacking places of worship, and assassinating political and religious leaders. 

I must digress a bit. "The rapid growth of India's mining industry in the mineral-rich states has escalated the Maoist insurgent movement. To effectively address this security threat, India must also address, through mining and environmental regulation, the grievances caused by the exploitation of tribal and lower-caste locals in mining areas who serve as the insurgency's base." [2]

What I learn from insurgency and the way it works is this fundamental concept. You cannot have a section of your people feeling antagonized/exploited/hurt and expect them not to retaliate. Their retaliation is often unjust, illegal, and downright inhuman. It has to be curbed. Killing of innocent lives is crime against humanity, and cannot be justified in any manner.

But this happens and I'd be a fool and a murderer to ignore it. 

I am twenty two years old now. I hope to be able to live in India when it is free from hypocrisy. When people can say whatever they want, and nobody's feelings are hurt as a result. And if somebody does find something someone said or portrayed objectionable, they have a peaceful way of protesting without killing my kids on their way to school. 

Trust me when I say I join you in that dream. But until then, while I cannot ensure that people retaliate to their feelings of religion, sex or tribe being hurt in a peaceful and calm manner, I can only see sense in not hurting people's sentiments in the name of freedom of expression. 

Clarification: I am NOT advocating that the Government should take a weak stand every time some issue comes up where some group of people might have their sentiments hurt. In fact, there are times the Government ought to take a strong stand, to send out a message that it is Wrong to resort to violent means to express your disapproval over something being said or shown. 

My only point is that there ARE circumstances when a Government can take a call to ban something because it will create a law and order problem so fierce and widespread that the police forces cannot contain it, and innocent people might be killed/hurt in the process.

[1] http://www.indianexpress.com/news/asaram-bapu-holds-girl-responsible-for-delhi-gangrape-says-spare-the-rapists-slams-media/1055639/

[2] http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/mining-and-the-maoists/

On Business and Booze

On the day that marks the end of my first year as a professional engineer, I decided I must have an anniversary post even if it wasn’t going to be about work at all.

Wild experiences have featured in my journal over the last year, owing to the fact that my work takes me to locations I’ve had to pin on Google maps myself. If it isn’t the insane working hours, it is the elemental feeling of directly dealing with man and machine. If it isn’t the exotic places, it is the excitement of exploring the unseen. The aspects of my profession are numerous, their effect on me profound. I shall hardly do justice to them by trying to talk of everything at once. I have, therefore, decided to dedicate this post to the motto of my job and the lifestyle it has laid out for me outside of work.

There are multiple versions to the motto. Work hard. Party harder. I hadn’t really partied much before I started working - I had spent 21 blissful years in South India where I watched movies, went bowling, read books, chatted over coffee and hit the beach with friends when I had free time – so I didn’t really give much thought to the motto: Work like a man. Party like an animal. It sounded like fun, true; but it seemed to me that I was working like an animal more or less. I would work for long stretches of time that seemed like the grains of sand in a desert, extending forever with no hint of an imminent oasis. And then I would emerge out of the depths of this ocean, gasping for breath, inhaling deeply so as to survive another stint below.

Apparently though, it isn’t meant to work that way. Every time you emerge on surface, you’re supposed to soar through the skies and feel more breathless than ever before. When you’re done working like a dog, you’re expected to party like a bitch.

Mumbai is a beautiful city. Outside of the old English buildings, the road-side vada-pavs and samosa chats, the bustling trains and the crowded beaches, there is this true sense of cosmopolitan existence I haven’t really felt anywhere else in this country. The night life here is probably second only to Goa. When I landed here – in the heart of beating India, as I call it – I finally started partying. Dancing is the most splendid feeling in the world. Well, there are some things more fun to do, I’d admit, but this post isn’t about that. That brings me to what this post is really about.

I don’t drink, and I have my reasons. Everything that is noble and intelligent, has class and integrity is distinguished from everything that is small, base and vile only through a man’s mind that is able to tell the difference between the two and pick. And I fear that all that stands between me and my falling prey to the wretched life of pettiness and envy, of back-biting and bitterness, hitherto unknown to me, is the clarity in my thinking, and the will of my mind. And to that end, I refuse to lose it, albeit temporarily, to alcoholism. As far as forgetting work and anxiety for a few hours and to lose myself in a floating feeling is concerned, (touch a million trees), I’ve never really been in that kind of stress. Thirdly, I love my liver.

I know everyone that is reading this article has probably consumed alcohol in small parts or large (Those of you who haven’t, back me up here). I fathom the sincerity in wishing me to revel in drunken happiness, and I understand if the above paragraph in defense of my life-choices does not even make sense. But, I know that you believe as I do in the motto: To each his own.

So let me be. And trust me. I’m alive, kickin’ and very happy.

When superman borrowed my underwear

I hate sharing my music. I’d rather give someone money or my blue coveralls or my pillow. Last week, a colleague of mine requested, and then begged me to give him my phone’s memory card so he can copy my playlist. He was apparently bored to death with the 200 odd songs he had been listening to for a month. And I have ten favorite songs I’ve been listening to for over a year now. So he did not evoke much pity from me. I refused. (I’m not known for my politeness in these parts of the world)

It’s surprising how the time for weekly reports to your boss always has you lost in thought as to how to tactfully project those hours of sitting around and evading work as being productive. I have not done an MBA, and therefore haven’t had any formal training in this matter. But my mom is an HR stud, so I have picked up a few valuable points from her textbooks.
I was working on my weekly report yesterday, taking as much time with it as I could, frowning while at it so that I would look busy and important. The key I used most often, as with this post, is the backspace button.

You see, initially we used pen and paper (well, before that we used barks of trees, but I’m not sure if we were still monkeys then or had graduated to civilization, so I shall talk only of the time I believe spans man’s history) Then we decided we were too lazy and invented the type-writer. It allowed us to be fast and fun-filled but not fickle. It overlooked the one feature common to all human beings – boo-boo. (Curious synonym for error I found in the thesaurus, thank you very much)
Anyway, the backspace button was great till we realized that we were using it too often, almost only because it is there – and handy.

The problem was simple; precious words and noble thoughts, like other priceless things in the world, are designed to look silly when you first look at them. And so they are backspaced, without given a chance. Have you ever tried to write a story, crushed the paper, began all over again, every time having fewer sentences to write before starting all over again, simply because your brain was drained of creativity? Okay, I haven’t done that either. What about the version 1.1 to 1.10 of your resume? The first version invariably looks silly to you; you go through the process of sending it out, getting “constructive criticism” (whatever the hell that means), working on it, and repeating these steps through versions 1.1 to 1.10. You could just call your versions 1,2,3.. but what are you- Windows?

When you’re done with the whole process of “resume making” and in the end you look at your first draft, it actually looks cute and unpretentious to you: you can almost see yourself in it. But with most writing attempts, unlike the resume, we make only one draft, and the initial child-like impressions of the mind are backspaced forever.
We realized this: that is when we invented the Ctrl+Z. You can now undo your backspace. So initially we were compensating for our stupidity and invented ways to circumvent it, but now it seems like we’re celebrating it. It’s like putting your weakness out there and dancing in front of it joyfully. This is the point in human evolution that I stopped following it.

It was like the time I bought this book with a peculiar cover page. It had a picture of two kids reading the book I bought. So you realize that the book in the cover had a picture of two kids reading the book which had the cover page of two kids reading a book … I used to keep staring at the cover for a long time like a bum, trying to understand. That is what I think of the undo button. I don’t know what to make of it, but I have little respect for it when the second time I press it, it doesn’t un-do my undoing, which is what it logically should. Sometimes it displeases me a little bit. It allows me to be as stupid as I want to and that scares the shit out of me. Like the cover page of that book, there seemed to be no end to what we’ll invent so as to go on being stupid.

So I was typing this report for my boss using the backspace button as often as 6 times during a sentence, on an average. In large part, it was because I would not look at the keyboard while typing. Okay, maybe I look at the first key initially, so that I have a reference point in my mind, but any glance beyond that is an insult to 2000 hours of chat history and 10 hours of typing my undergraduate thesis.

There is a thin line of difference between being comfortable enough to work and getting too comfortable. Below the former, you’re restlessly facebooking and whiling time away, blaming it all on bad posture and not being in the "right frame of mind" to work. Beyond the latter, you’re sleeping.

I was beginning to get disapproving looks from my colleagues, who like uncivilized junkies, started peeping into my screen. So I sat up and decided to finish the report instead of fooling around. Within two minutes, my head was propped up against the table, and I was fast asleep. My colleague, as it turns out, did not behave decently even when I had helplessly succumbed to the mysterious ways of nature. He took the memory card I had denied him access to, copied my songs on to his card, and replaced mine.

When I woke up, I found nothing unusual, and indeed I would not have known of this betrayal had he not come up to me a few hours later, and started laughing like a mad man. I knew he was laughing at me. He had this air of mockery that he wasn’t even attempting to hide. I was about to ask wh- when he started singing in a loud voice, a song which he could only have gotten from my playlist, and which embarrassed me both as an adult and as a woman. He burst into laughter, along with my other colleagues, before he could finish the first line.

Oh come on, I know everyone has weird songs they listen to, so don’t give me that air of superiority. Damn you! This is exactly why I hate sharing my music. It felt like superman had borrowed my underwear.

There ain't no sunshine

There ain't no street nor sunshine
no time to think, no time to rhyme
when the sun goes down so does time
no kiddin', it ain't worth a dime.

I'm workin my ass off alone
it do no good, nor is there fun
was jus a mother fuckin mistake done
it do no good, trust you me, son.

They come an turn their backs on me
I screw noone, but they screw me
so i try to let go, let it be
but hey, this was ma territory

They fucked up ma pretty little days
no hard feelings, no real despise
but somebody's gotta pay the price
no pleasure in jus huge big cries.

This is me, son, now you know
she's gone, they've taken your mama now
i miss her, i just wan her love
but i 've become the rogue somehow.

I wanna stay here I swear
but things aren't goin nowhere.
I've gotta leave, i've gotta run
I've gotta run till the bloody sun.

Everybody's on to me now,
I wish to God I could burn somehow
Restart afresh with no mistakes done
To give you the life, I din have son.

There ain't no street nor sunshine
Good lord knows I love you hon
don hate me if you find me gone.
when you wake up one sweet morn.

There ain't no street nor sunshine.

The American (sitcom) dream

If one has offered a box of scrabble letters to an opponent for them to pick seven, one would be aware of the rampant shaking that precedes it, lest the opponent remembers where each letter is and picks to his convenience. That is how I feel my life has been since the last time I blogged - like a box of scrabble letters ruthlessly shuffled to nobody's advantage in particular.

What is the American dream? It is your imagination of how adult life would be, based on stuff you downloaded from LAN and watched hours on end in college. (I am talking about sitcoms - Friends, How I met your mother, Two and a half men, Seinfeld..)

Here's the dream: You work for a couple of hours a day (making jingles or telling jokes) and you spend the rest of your time with friends and food and sex. Alright, at some (drunk) point in life, when I was more honest than usual, I realized that there was no hope for the third. If the sex people were having world over could be quantified and represented by the space in my 1 TB hard disc, I didn't even have enough bits to make character. So I shrugged it off and fitted the dream to the Indian context. No character, no sex. Food and friends were perfection. I had my hard disc to make up for the rest.

Sometime this year, I started working. I was ready to experience life as rich as Charlie's or as fun-filled as Phoebe's. Food and Friends - boy, was I going to have plenty of them.

The thing about being friends with your colleagues is that it is not possible. Yeah, you've found people who don't earn more than you or less than you. That way, you're neither jealous nor guilty. But you never know what could happen if you say something insensitive or inappropriate or just outright stupid. And knowing me, it's almost certain I will. It's not college where they'd just do you a favour and stop talking to you. Here, you can get fired. Which means switching from cribbing about time and money in my office to cribbing about money and time on the road (where I'd rather be than at home).

I have begun to adore food. Sometimes, I think that's what I live for. After all, it is hard-earned and there are different kinds of exciting food in the world. There's pizzas and pastas, noodles and nachos, sandwiches and salads - my mouth waters just recalling the sensational experience of eating. Aaaah. Aaaaaaah.

And in the middle of this orgasmic experience thinking of the plethora of food possibilities on God's green Earth, I realize that I am in the village of Amalapuram, on the banks of the river Godavari, eating rice and pulkhas everyday since nothing else is vegetarian.

I've begun to appreciate aspects of life outside of the American sitcom dream.

9 words I like

Serendipity
Give life the opportunity to surprise you - always.

Subtle
Not noticeable, yet very much there.

Boisterous
Is it onomatopoeic if you say it loud enough?

Indignant
Seems like the perfect emotion for all times - especially in a democracy.

Embezzle
It could be the most royal word in the world for petty thievery.

Eccentric
I'd prefer being called this than that*.

Unparalleled
Matching endlessly

Leverage
The feeling of the ball, however small or trivial, being in your court.

Lastly,

Spouse - is the most progressive word I know, reminding me that we're moving to better times.
You can refer to your life partner - sex no bar.

My list ends here because I'm inspired enough to already be working on another post (to make up for the lost year)

*That, by definition, is not this.