Change

While I talked and smiled, hugged and listened, slept and breathed...

Delhi decided she'd had enough of summer and slipped quietly into a fledgling winter.

The cold waits for me, around early-morning-hazy-foggy roads, in blurry monuments rising out of a suddenly-dark 6 a.m., in the bathroom under the shower, on the balconies late at night, outside the rolled-down car windows, in the slight sniffles from wearing sleeveless on a Novemberish September evening, on the blades of the fan that I rarely use now, in the welcome heat spiral over my cup of coffee.

Winter comes in. Cold and warm, chilly and friendly, distant and near, grey and bright, frosty and sunny.

I wait. And hope that spring is far behind.

Cricket is Just a Game...

...is not something you'd have believed last evening as howls of shock or joy erupted from houses across India during the nail-biting-at-every-step Twenty 20 World Cup final match between, who else but, India and Pakistan.

The thrill was tremendous, the finish was close, and the adrenalin was all over the place. But one thing spoilt it all.

As the Pakistan captain, Shoaib Malik came up to speak to Ravi Shastri, his first words were (and I paraphrase somewhat because I wasn't expecting memorable words), 'I'd like to thank Pakistan and Muslims all over the world for their support.'

WHAT??? This is a man the world was listening to. Who captained an able, strong side to the finals in a world-class tournament. Who (supposedly) plays for his country and not a religion.

We've all heard people make derogatory comments about the hush in Indian Muslim neighbourhoods if Pakistan loses a match to India. It is often said that there are celebrations in Muslim-majority areas in Indian cities if India loses to Pakistan. These are rumours that are used as facts in any communally tense situation. But to have a man give them the backing of truth by speaking those words into a microphone was upsetting, chilling, and took away from the rush we'd been experiencing ever since Sreesanth caught out that last Pakistani wicket.

If he believes that Muslims around the world were rooting for Pakistan, where does that leave Irfan Pathan (the best bowler on the Indian side yesterday) and other Muslim players on the Indian team? With that awful statement Malik placed a giant question mark on the patriotism of Muslims around the world.

I believe that the orthodox members of any community can damage their own people with far greater ease than any other, rival group can ever do. Malik proved that yesterday. And I wonder how many anti-Muslim people were listening and have now added this to their ammunition against a community that really doesn't need more bad PR.

The Last Laugh

She watched them cry and mourn. Oh they would miss her. She'd miss them too.

But she was better off here. Finally, she had the peace her name had promised her for 78 years. No doctors. No tubes. No needles. No ugly hospital gowns. No numbers and data telling people how well (or not) she was doing.

If only she could tell them how glad she was that one crazy life was over. Heaven had a lot of parties and boy, was she going to live it up for a change.

5th September

It's Teacher's Day today. And I thought I'd write up one memory I have of a strict teacher who taught me one of the earliest lessons of my life.

It was April of 1988. I was new to the school. Our home room teacher was a lady called Abha Banerjee. A very strict teacher, who apparently glowered at girls whose skirts were too short, who was known for cutting boys' hair if they weren't properly groomed, and who we all were very, very scared of.

I forget what class we had but the teacher hadn't shown up. Like all 9-10 year-olds tend to do, we were making quite a racket. Groups of kids were playing in the corridor, some were scribbling on the blackboard, there was a game of Cluedo going on in one corner, and suddenly in the middle of it all, someone let out a Tarzan-like yell. That put us on to another decibel level altogether! The staff room was near enough that someone would have heard, and would make it their business to punish us. In the hush that followed, we all looked at each other and waited for retribution to arrive.

It did, promptly, in the form of Banerjee Ma'am.

We all stared at our desks as she gave us a piece of our mind without once raising her voice. And then she said, "Who shouted like that?" When there was silence, she repeated her question, adding that the whole class would be punished. There was no way she could have guessed who had done it. She could have asked all day and been none the wiser.

In the continuing, pindrop silence, suddenly a boy at the back raised his hand. There were murmurs. Oh he'll definitely have to go to the Principal. Do you think they'll call his parents? Our childhood imaginations ran riot, visualising the things they could do to him.

Harsh Chadrath (I don't know if I'm spelling his last name correctly) was an average kid in our class. Not a rank-holder, but not someone who flunked either. Just your regular school-going kid who, at the age of 10, wasn't hugely interested in acquiring an education. He stood up slowly and said "Ma'am, I did it. Sorry Ma'am."

Banerjee Ma'am stared at him, said "Really? It was you? Come here."

Head bowed, Harsh walked to the front of the class and stood before all of us. We waited.

And then, Banerjee Ma'am raised his arm like they do for the winning boxer in the ring and announced:
"Harsh Chadrath, the hero of our class. He can take responsibility for his actions."

Harsh got a stern glare and that was that. I don't think the implications of it all hit him at the moment as he walked back to his seat with a goofy smile. But that moment, that decision of our teacher's, all of these have stayed with me even nearly 20 years on.

It was brave of Harsh to do what he did. And Banerjee Ma'am could have punished him. In which case he would never have told the truth again.

Instead, she took the chance to teach us all a lesson for life: If you do something, you take responsibility for it. And you don't drag your team down with you.

Totter Potter, "ala" Govinda!

There's been a current in the air. I can hear far-off drum beats since morning. Any Indian knows that means a festival and definite excitement. Occasionally, loud, rowdy cheers waft in through my window although I cannot see the young boys (for that is what they sound like) who are so happy! Since noon, people have been going to their balconies and windows and peering down to see what's going on. A while back, some young boys and girls and uncle-auntys began to line the lane behind our house. I could tell something was about to happen.

This is Bombay, and today is Janmashtami. Need I say more by way of explanation?

Finally, a bunch of young men arrived in the lane and began chanting Goouuuuvindaaaa, Goouuupaaaalaaa, Goouuuuvindaaaa, Goouuupaaaalaaa. Then they began demanding water in this novel fashion:"V for water, V for water!"

Hmmm....anyway, this post isn't about the alphabet.

I had heard that the real show happens in more crowded, typically Maharashtrian areas. The boys who do the climbing and breaking are absolute pros, and I believe they are sometimes even insured against a fall resulting from a shaky human pyramid!

Still, I was rather excited to notice a pot strung up on a rope that went across the lane behind our house. So there was going to be action in that sleepy by-lane!!!

I wanted to see it all, properly. But I didn't want to run downstairs and risk missing the event. So I climbed shakily on to the kitchen counter for a better view as the youths assembled.

I needn't have worried. Since they were not pros, it took them a considerable while to get organised and manage the feat. Enough time for me to fetch my camera, even! Several permutations and combinations were attempted, and several falls were broken, just about.

As a thin group of spectators watched, a nimble-footed guy, who reminded me of Mowgli from The Jungle Book, darted up, using the others' elbows, thighs and shoulders as footrests, and in a swift move had reached the handi or pot suspended above him. He hung on to it for sometime, and then smashed it.

Bright red gulal came down in powdery gusts and streaked the team with scarlet. There were loud cheers, much clapping and everyone went home.

My little group of amateurs will certainly not make it to the news or to images of Mumbai on Janmashtami that will be splashed on newspapers tomorrow. I don't know if they got any money as a reward for their participation, as is the usual custom. But they seemed to enjoy themselves. And it is the spirit that counts. They lived Janmashtami for those few moments, and I got a window-seat to view it all from!

Whhhoooshhh!

She blew out the candles as another year began. Her friends cheered. Her parents' faces shone with pride and affection. The balloons swayed in the sea breeze on their balcony as she turned a year older.

Her shining black hair ruffled by all the hugs she'd received. Her eyes were slightly moist from all the goodwill in the air. Her new saree, to mark her adulthood, swished around her legs and made her feel feminine, pretty, irresistible.

18. She was here. College began in a month. Psychology to study. New friends to make. Finally, co-education and boys! Debating championships to win. Class trips out of town. In a few months, a license and her own car.

Closing her eyes, she made a wish.

Please let the tumour be benign.

All in a Day's Work

They are born to be used. Dressed up to look their best, they are sold for money. Rudely taken from their homes, they huddle close to others of their kind until someone uproots them a second time, bundles them together with strangers, and hands them to an unknown entity.


They will never return. Having water to drink will not ensure their survival, and they will start dying.


Before the day is over, some of them will apologise. Some will express undying love. Some will form beautiful, but inadequate, expressions of sympathy. Some will just look good. Some will smell good too.

People will be drawn to their natural beauty. But no one will care to look deeper. To see beyond the obvious to what remains unspoken as the wilting flowers are thrown away after they have outlived their utility.

Happy birthday.

Congratulations.

I love you.

Marry me.

My sympathies.

Get well soon.

Missing you.

Those are the things we make flowers say for us. What would flowers say if they could speak for themselves?

The Creator

He imagines Her body as thousands before have done, in millennia before him. Nothing really changes in that figure, in the number of hands, in the coterie surrounding Her.

And yet, as he strokes the clay with pride, with adoration, he feels a sense of ownership, a sense of creation, of belonging and oneness with this idol that will soon bring the world to its knees.

That people will worship, confess their fears and hopes to.

Still, in this act of worship, of devotion, of sculpting out of clay the shape of his worship, of feeling powerful, is there not something he forgets to remember?

He gives the world idols to worship. But who can give them faith?

The Pleasure of Writing

I still remember filling up cursive writing books at age 3, page after page of running my pencil over beautifully formed, curlicued words that spelt little 3-letter objects. My tongue would stick out in concentration and I would impatiently erase any mistakes and try to get it right.


The transition from using a pencil to using a pen. We knew it came in the second semester of class 5. And how we looked at our seniors in awe of their ink-stained fingers and the blots on their white shirts! When I was taken to choose my first fountain pen I was excited beyond words. It was a Stic pen, with a red top and a green bottom, and Dennis the Menace on it! Much later I discovered that Dennis was tiptoeing around my pen with his bottom showing!!! I wish I hadn't lost that collector's edition of a pen!


It was around this time that I found a new friend who had a lovely handwriting. In fact, I liked it so much that I wanted it. So I took it. Trying for days, I began to copy her writing, the way she wrote the 'b' and 'p' in cursive, without joining it to the stem, instead curling the end towards the next letter. The way the letter 'I' looked like a budding tulip. The letter 'x', not often-enough used, I complained when I finally learnt to copy it's lovely quadri-directional existence on my notebook pages. The letter 'A', curving at the top and giving me infinite happiness each time I wrote my name.


Very soon, I had it to an art. And most people (except the 2 of us) couldn't tell our handwritings apart. I don't think we ever got to exploit that, if at all there was any way of doing so. I don't remember doing her homework for her. But once, when I was sick and missed school, she wrote out a separate copy of the class notes for me and all I had to do was stick it in my notebook. No one could tell the difference.


We grew older and older, writing not just class notes, but scribbling notes on the last pages of the notebooks as we ourselves sat in the last rows of the classroom. Code names for boys we liked and girls we hated, rude limericks and comments about boring teachers standing 10 feet away, all of these were scrawled in handwritings that were still fresh, new, and getting to know the world.

And we used that handwriting every chance we got. Cards were scribbled on, inside, outside, even the envelope! Autograph books were covered in minute handwriting to make optimal use of the space provided. A fracture covered in plaster cast was a way to show our creativity. Blackboards were covered with chalk dust whenever there was coloured chalk to spare and no teacher to stop us. My handwriting gradually took on some influences of my own self and soon it was no longer like my friend's, though I can usually still do a good imitation!


A one-year stint in an American school abroad meant that my handwriting, however neat, was unacceptable. On the chance that teachers may have trouble reading cursive where most American kids can barely string two letters together, we had to turn in typed assignments. Suddenly, all that I had worked years to cultivate was outdated. I had to learn to type! Painstakingly, again with my tongue almost sticking out with effort, I learnt to negotiate my way around the keyboard.


Back to India and college, and notes taken in class were no longer meant to be shared with the teacher, so handwritings changed, often for the worse. But best handwritings still surfaced for writing in yearbooks, in birthday cards, on tutorial essays. In my MA days I wrote four 10,000 word papers in 7 days, filling up reams on paper and leaving a little writer's lump on the topmost knuckle of my right middle finger.


Today, that lump no longer exists. It's smoothened out with time, just as fonts like Arial and Times New Roman have smoothened out the curves of my diligently-acquired handwriting. If I write now, it's lists for shopping, or occasional cards where I write ' Dear...' and a few more fond words and then 'Love, ...' and I'm done. What developed over years of growing up took only a few years of computer literacy to go away. Now I can't write much without my hands aching and my handwriting going all wobbly. And I am the person who wrote long long letters to friends and family, maintaining an even hand throughout.

With this loss, I feel like I have lost a human part of me. A part that says who I am and how I write. A part that no one can imitate (although I was a shameless imitator once). A part that jumps out of paper at the reader and says 'This was written by Anamika'. That is recognisable as belonging to me and me alone. That I can claim. That I can take credit for. That reminds me that words were once new, difficult and you had to work hard to make them speak for you.

Close-up Confidence

If from speed you get your thrill,

Take precaution, make your will.

***

Drive like hell, and you will get there.

When I see traffic police at work in Bombay, I always remember these lines from Salman Rushdie's ageless Haroun and the Sea of Stories and usually utter them as well, under my breath of course, don't need to give people more ammunition on that malfunctioning brain do I?

There's been a step-up in the checks on irresponsible driving in the city lately. The cops are most active on weekends, stopping cars and checking you for drunk driving. Unfortunately, the poor things are not suitably equipped with breathalysers, or maybe they prefer to do the first check the old-fashioned way.

So there we were on Sunday night, Anando and I, returning from a perfectly innocent dinner that had consisted of sizzlers and colas. And a weary cop stopped us. His nose looked a little wrinkly, probably all the wear and tear, I tell myself now. The man asked for Anando's license. While Anando fished for it in his pocket without removing the seat-belt, the man bent down to Anando's level and began to sort of peer into the car. Now, we had had the radio on loud, and I started to turn it down, only to realise in the increasing silence that the guy was actually sniffing around!

Anando's conscience was clear and alcohol-free, so he asked merrily, "daaru ke liye dekh rahein hain?" The hound replied "haan". So of course, Anando opened his mouth and sweetly volunteered "haaaah haaaah haaaaah". The guy straightened up and gave us the all-clear.

I remembered later that Anando's dinner order had been chicken sizzler with garlic sauce. Poor, poor traffic policeman.