A Pen for your thoughts?

Terror Encore

2008-11-30T03:23:00.000-08:00

The last time Mumbai was attacked, I wrote in anger. Today, four days after the worst terrorist seige India has ever seen, I write in confusion.

Yes, there are questions to be asked. But what exactly should they be?

Should we ask ourselves 'why Mumbai again'?

Should we ask 'why again'?

Should we question the motives the perpetrators have behind these heinous attacks?
Should we question our government's poor handling of the situation when even the mightiest country on the planet was reduced to rubble in 9/11?

When I asked myself these questions, I realised how perverse our own logic has become. If as a citizen, I cannot question the ability of my goverment to mitigate my city's vulnerability, then my thinking has fundamentally and successfully been flawed by the powers that be.

'The spirit of Mumbai' that every polititician alludes to in the aftermath of a killing spree has never left me feeling more cheapened as it has today. It is the unity and grit of the people of this city that helps us pick up the pieces and reconstruct life. It cannot be taken for granted. Just because we've always looked ahead in hope, doesn't mean we've forgotten to look bck for answers.

This attack has convinced me about the irrelevance of our politicians.
They really didn't matter when the nerve-racking flushing out operations ensued at the Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House.
Their presence was not wanted and in fact compromised the safety of the citizens.
Their speeches in the middle of all the hellish drama were an intrusion rather than a reassurance.
And their dramatic resignations post this nightmare seem to lack perspective in the wake of this enormous loss. We face the horror, we pick up the pieces and we live another day, while their presence in our lives is simply a well-rehearsed insipid speech on the media.

As a citizen, I fail to understand the role they play in our lives. And that is something no citizen should have to feel about the men and women they have put their trust into.

And this is the question we need to ask ourselves. Have we as a people become so habituated to ineptitude that we fail to bring our politicians to book? And really, what does our government actually do?
In the four days that Mumbai stood hostage, it seemed to me and to most of the city's people that the times we live in are akin to having no political system in place at all. Since clearly, whether they're in office or not, life goes on. And in Mumbai's case, terror goes on.

Evening

2008-05-21T01:37:00.000-07:00

The calm of the day's surrender to the night brings countenance

to the trials of the hours before.

She will be here soon, to ink the sky with her own new shade of purple

and blot out the day's distortions.

The moon stands sentry to her arrival.

Stars hurriedly take their place,
Each hoping she will chose them to light her path.

In the distance she arrives.

The remnants of light see the futility of their struggle.

In one elegant sweep, she envelops the sky.

Slowly, she nurses the weary hours with hope.

For daylight will not relinquish claim to them for very long.

Easier said than done

2008-02-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

Why is it so much easier to listen to the voice in our head?

The one that emanates lower seems just as persistent.

Perhaps it has something to do with the very nature of the place that it dwells in. The heart is gentle and nurturing. It’s a place that poets and artists turn to for inspiration. A place we spend most of our lives searching for in someone else.

It knows nothing of the coldness of logic and judgement.

Like a wide-eyed child shadowed by the conversations of older kin, it tries hard to be heard. It fights for attention. It talks constantly. It tries its own tender form of reason with the mind. It seldom wins. But never stops trying. In the hope that one day it too will have the same legitimacy as the voice of reason.

When you're happy and you know it

2008-01-26T02:26:00.001-08:00

Happiness is the sum total of the instances that make us smile.

It’s the grin that surfaces when the world expects to look at us and see a grimace.

It’s a disobedient, beautiful moment that insists on replaying itself to test its charm.

Happiness lies in everything that isn’t good for us. Ironically, everything that’s frowned upon.

Flip Side

2008-01-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

If Life were a person, what would he look like? Or considering popular sentiment about ‘life being a bitch’, what would she look like??

Maybe Life would be like that annoyingly confident know-it-all we’ve all encountered at some point in our lives. Full of answers and immensely liked by everybody.

But you.

The thing with Life is that you think it’s yours and you have the choice to do with it as you please. That thought process is all wrong.

Life is not a reflection of our deepest desires. It takes its own course and decides its own end. Nothing we are brought up to believe in is sacrosanct. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is predictable. And it doesn’t happen to the other person.

Life just is.

Brown-The new white

2008-01-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

Sixty years ago, great men and women fought for the independence we enjoy today. It was as much a fight against slavery and injustice, as it was a struggle for preservation. Ours was a land rich in intricate customs and beliefs; that dictated how we lived and interacted. Till the British arrived and disturbed the balance. High tea and scones replaced lassi and parathas. Polo substituted kabbadi. And fitted trousers booted out the loose folds of dhotis. 60 years after we attained freedom from this suppression, it seems ironic that the benchmark of our progress lies in our acceptance of the very same western concepts.

But yes Pandit Nehru, we did awake to a life of freedom. And six decades after you made that rousing speech, we’ve managed to keep our tryst with destiny. Albeit in a slightly different way.

On the face of it, we’re a third-world country, rising to the ranks of a developing nation. But look closer and the evidence of a silent global take-over surface. It’s the people of Britain wiping their tears this time around. With every spicy bite of their national dish- chicken tikka masala! Our ability to multiply has also worked to our advantage. One in every five Britons is brown, not white (raising the probability of the 6th being caramel). Yoga has finally managed to make the west bow down to us. Bindis and Henna have branded their women (and quite a few of their men as well). Indipop literally makes them dance to our tunes. Call centers have contributed to the dramatic drop in their household income (if rice boats and lake palaces haven’t worked their charm already). And young technology prodigies from South India control the superpower that is America.

It’s an India that the freedom fighters would have loved to see: Non-violent in her approach but clear in her purpose. Powered by a generation that might not display the same degree of patriotism, but nevertheless feels a great sense of promise in the future of the nation. A generation that takes globalization as seriously as Indian-ness. A generation of leaders in their own right, who approach independence as an opportunity to shine rather than a mere escape from tyranny.

To live in India in her 60th year of independence, is to live in exciting times. Our nation is far from old and spent. She is a country in her prime. On the cusp of something big. And it’s the global interest in India that makes this even more apparent. ‘Indian’ is ‘in’. From fashion and food to technology and spirituality. We’re no longer a land of snake charmers and elephants. We’re the nation that astronauts and steel tycoons come from. A nation that gives the world thinkers and innovators. And when the rest least expect it: great writers and unimaginably gifted sportsmen.

When we wake up on the 15th of August this year and watch our flag being hoisted, we will know that it’s not a gentle breeze that makes our tricolour flutter. It’s the winds of change.

Left Right Left

2007-07-30T03:24:00.000-07:00

Some people hear voices in their head. I hear an entire army. Their footsteps give my dreams a rhythm and then fade out into a background score till the drama of my reverie reaches a crescendo.

Every night for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard the brisk thrust of a hundred feet on a crisp morning ground.

At first, it would make me rush to the window and stare down the street to see the uniformed men in action. It never occurred to me that the prospect of a live regiment walking through the by-lanes of Bombay was a farfetched one. If people can see UFOs, real men in a march past seemed perfectly plausible.
But when not a single foot stomped past my sleepy eyes, I realized that the street they were on was paved only in my imagination.

I’ve never seen their faces. Or know their names. To me they’re a sound or at best a vision of ironed trouser legs over brightly polished boots.

Is it an anomalous result of being born on the eve of my country’s independence day? Are they an army of ‘knights in shining armor’ vying for my approval? Is it the bad karma of all those avoided sports days in school?
I’ve long since stopped debating the reasons. And prefer to live with my demons, or in this case; my soldiers. There aren’t too many people I know who can lead an army. In their sleep.

Sweet dreams are made of these

2007-06-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

Two evenings ago, 4 gulab jamuns accompanied by 2 boxes of sinful barfi. entered my life. Thanks to a close friend of ours who insisted they were just a show of affection. I suspect he was just trying to save his cupboards from being stripped bare of mithai the next time we dropped in, by stuffing us with a weeks quota in advance.

But since I'm not the type to let suspicion mar the very purpose of a gulab jamun's existence, I quickly dispelled these thoughts and settled to my 'something sweet' after dinner that night.

And once again, I showcassed an eating habit that made my new husband wince. I hadn't heated the gulab jamun, but bit into its delicious core while it was stone cold. Personally, I love how the sugar syrup becomes a little crystallised and even more potent as you bite into the soft shell of the jamun. But by the pitiful glances my husband cast on those soggy mouthfulls, 'gulab jamuns' and 'cold' don't go together.

That night, I slept well and even dreamt up some killer stories involving gulab jamuns and the Indian freedom struggle. And then a short trailer about The clash of the cylindrical gulab jamuns and the perfectly rounded.

But that's another story.

Cuppa woes

2007-05-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

My life is quite entertaining, in a peculiar sort of way. I mean The Adam’s Family is considered entertainment, right?

For the past 3 months, I haven’t been having very good mornings. In fact, they probably border on ‘just-about-liveable’.
I think it has something to do with the state of the tea served to me.

To call it ‘tea’ would be akin to confusing day with night. It is made with water (that I’m quite sure of), milk, in copious quantities is definitely involved (which is why I’m sure of the water being used) and if I were to quantify the amount of tea leaves used, surprise, surprise, I actually could. Not because I have a talent for counting peas in a jar or anything, but because it doesn’t take a genius to count to ‘four’.

How can a cuppa made with 4 leaves do you any good? Well, for one, I now believe in tea reading. 4 leaves would indicate quite a miserable fate and that seems to be my truth. Every day.

Communication arts

2006-12-12T01:26:00.000-08:00

People think advertising is a very glamourous profession. These people are obviously lawyers, doctors or engineers.

Besides being challenging, frustrating and tiring, it's 100% entertaining. But I only speak for the creative department. The servicing side is hillarious, but then again, I say this also as a creative person.
Here's a behind the scenes look at what happens in the creative department. These are people who have dedicated themselves to the business of communication.

A: Hey chal, lets finish the ad na.. I have to go to doctor.

B: Why… you’re not feeling well??

A: No re… you know what, my tits are becoming yellow.

B: blink, blink.

A: You think I should stop having chai?

B: Blink, Blink.
You know what, we’ll do the ad tomorrow only…

A: No, no re… lets do today, I can go by 8 o clock. My doctor will live till then.

B: What??? Your Doctor is dying?

A: No re, he’s very young.

B: Blink.

A: See today he has no patience so he’ll do me fast… you want to come for company?

B: Blink, Blink. No. You go.

A: ok.. chal. Now let’s think.

B: Ok.

A: But give me pain first no…. how I’ll show you idea otherwise.

B: Blink. Blink. Blink.

A pen for your thoughts?

2006-03-28T03:15:00.000-08:00

For a minute, let’s stop wondering who really assassinated John F Kennedy. Let’s stop questioning if we really did land on the moon. And please, let’s stop deliberating Brittany Spear’s domestic life. Just for a moment, let’s reflect on one of life’s bigger questions…where do all our pens go?

Everyone on the face of the planet, who has ever put pen to paper, has lost one. And since we are not in a matrix scene where the pen really wasn’t there in the first place, the question remains… where do they all end up?

Is it a mega conspiracy spawned by a greedy pen conglomerate? Think about it. The life of a ball pen (this is pure approximation, since I’ve never really finished a centimeter of ink before losing it) is probably a 100 pages of intense office paper work, or 300 signatures on credit card receipts, depending on which side of the cash counter you’re born on. That coupled with the whole paperless, computer-age should spell inky doom for these companies. But they’re still making more pens. And we’re still buying smoother, easy flow, unbreakable, talking, glow-in-the-dark new ones as replacements. Every day.

One thing's for sure, it's not all black and white.