Loneliness is a grey word. Filled with sadness.

It is not a sad word simply because of its dictionary meaning. Its sad because it carries on its stooped shoulders a series of failures. In friendships, relationships, communication. In intent, involvement, committment, effort.

The word loneliness speaks of failed endeavours. It speaks of aborted attempts because those who are by themselves by choice, don't use the word 'lonely'. They say they are solitary.

Hence, lonely instantly becomes a loaded word. Crippled with multiple fractures.

It is a cliche to say one can feel the loneliest in a crowd. That of course is true. And to be expected, considering a crowd cannot relate to you intimately, personally.

What is said seldom is that the more one's heart is filled with love, the lonelier one can get. The sheer contrast between the outflow of emotion and the paucity of receptacles in which to pour it in, renders one frighteningly alone at times.

A forgotten smile, a missed call, an unanswered letter, a break in eye contact, a lack of warmth in a return hug, loneliness is heralded by a menagerie of foot soldiers.

Expectations are of course a precursor to loneliness. And yet how possible is it to lead an entire life without expectations? To feel warm gushes of affection and caring without being burdened by some sort of behavorial context, some sort of ease at being able to predict other people's responses and reactions?

We all can't be Sufi in the interactions we engage in, in the relationships we forge, in the love we feel. And anyhow, the Sufis were probably the loneliest of them all...

The Casteism of Revolution

Ever since Anna Hazare started fasting, and the Indian media started feasting, I have been trying to identify what exactly I feel about this entire phenomenon.

I have finally realised that I don't feel any one specific emotion. What I do have are a series of observations, culled out from my reading of the papers, what social network sites have thrown at me, and what I have gathered from conversations around:

1. The first is a sad one. It is a realisation that casteism is completely, deeply embedded in our psyche. We have a Brahminisation of everything, even mass protests. There are those who have been leading crusades for worthy causes for decades (and it is a sad truth that their voice has often gone unheard), but it is bizarre that those people now are churlish about the success of any movement that they are personally not responsible for. They have become the 'Brahmins' of protest work. They cannot let the 'lower castes' i.e. urban middle class, the media, corporates, apolitical citizens, take over this mantle. They feel affronted. Yes, it is true that for decades on end, it was only those with leftist leanings and deep roots in activism, who actually took up causes and fought for rights. They gathered in bunches of a few dozen, were often scattered with rubber bullets and police lathi charge, they came from humble backgrounds, they dressed humbly, they worked with the underprivileged and they tried to get their voices heard, often resulting in frustrating failure. Post partition right up to the early 2000s, mass India slept. We were uncaring. The middle class was scared, the influential class was apathetic, the media was state owned and the judiciary not yet this proactive. Yes, it is true that in those dark decades, when India completely lacked any community conscience, any citizen vigilance, there were only these 'left oriented groups' who tried, and tried hard.

It is odd however that today when the supposedly 'crass right wingers' at developing a conscience, instead of applauding them, this same bunch of leftist protest workers are dismissing them. It is almost like a pre determined judgement: if you are are well off, you cannot be committed. If you believe in private enterprise, you cannot contribute to nation building, If you are the media, your intent cannot be right. If you are part of the establishment in even the smallest way, then you cannot work at improving the establishment in any way.

This "I'll be judge and I'll be jury" mentality baffles me. It seems petty and unmerited. If the establishment perpetuates a wrong these people scream 'self serving'. If the establishment works at improving itself, they shout 'sham'.

It genuinely reminds me of the old Brahmins who would not let you in their fold, no matter how hard you tried.

If this is not the Brhaminisation of Protest work, what is? It is true that a lot of people threw in their lot with Anna Hazare with scant understanding of the Lok Pal bill, its nuances or the road ahead. It was amusing to read the status updates of 20 year old kids who thought Jantar Mantar was a picnic spot with a cause. But it was all amusing in an endearing way. It was nice to see people moved, even if they weren't going in depth into the problem. At least its a start.

The sheer petty cynical dismissal of this movement by the 'hardened ground workers' so to speak was deeply disappointing. It appears almost that they are shocked and upset that a movement NOT started by them should have acquired momentum and visibility. They cannot accept that free market India could possibly have developed a sense of social duty or citizen rights. Unless your politics is left wing, your cause cannot be real, they seem to be saying.

2. My second observation is a happier one. It is that Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra should be an extremely proud man today. More than half a decade after Rang De Basanti, it is clear that his movie actually made an impact that goes beyond a fad. When the candle light vigil at India Gate for Jessica Lal took its cues from this film, then too there were cynics who said this is 'pure tamasha'. The fact is that Manu Sharma did get prosecuted. And today, it is still true that people in this country have realised that they can make a difference. They can make the government accountable. They can make the establishment answerable. Movies have a power. And if they use that power to influence more than clothing and bedroom habits, its is commendable.

3. Having seen the media stoop to its lowest, crassest depths, having felt embarassed at being a part of this shrill hysterical and often vapid outlay of content, I have also realised that the media has it really bad both ways in this country. If they don't cover your protest then they just don't care. If they do cover your protest they are just looking for sensational bytes and a free tamasha. Somebody please explain how the media in this country is supposed to be doing good if everything they do is seen as self serving?

4. My fourth observation is closely connected to the first one: why is it that in our country we cannot accept that the prosperous can well be responsible for socially relevant / developmental work? Does this country have no scope for something like the Bill Gates' foundation? That man is a rich man and he is genuinely committed to the causes he supports. Why this complete cynical dismissal of corporate India by those involved in grassroot work? Why can't the two co exist? Why does one have to live in an LIG flat, take the bus, wear only cotton and chappals, to prove one's committment? Why can't making money for oneself coexist with wanting the country to be clean and well governed? If somebody joined the Jantar Mantar protest by driving down in his BMW from his posh gurgaon flat then he needs must be a 'fake'? Why?

5. This next observation is the mirror image of the previous. While there is no reason to automatically suspect the intent of the well heeled, the hysterical support that Anna Hazare got from a lot of screechy social networkers had me quite perplexed. Especially some of the people whom I know quite well. These are people who evade their taxes, abuse their position, use their influence, with absolutely not a hint of guilt. If they work for the media they demand press passes with impunity, even when they have no desire to cover the event, if they work in finance they learn new tricks to make a bigger blacker buck, if they work in education they allow kids papers to be marked by their spouses or siblings, if they work abroad they launder money. And all such and sundry were making loud, almost innocently oblivious, comments about 'weeding out corruption'. It's almost as though it doesn't strike them that they too perpetuate the same malaise. Every single day. With every single decision that they make. To them, clearly, what they do is convenience. What Kalmadi and Raja do is corruption. Hello, India?

6. My last observation: let us assume for a second that the cynics are right and Anna Hazare wants the publicity. Where is the dichotomy between wanting to do good solid work and wanting to be lauded for it? Why does every committed social worker HAVE to be self effacing? What if Anna Hazare has ALSO pandered to the media, both now, and before? Why is it necessary to therefore instantly doubt his intent? Why can't seeking personal glory co exist with wanting to bring about real change? Why does Anna have to be some sort of saint? What if he wants to be remembered for this work? How is that even a point worth raising during the debate?

All in all, much has happened and I think two clear things emerge: firstly that citizen vigilance (even if it lacks throughput, even if it lacks total comprehension) is definitely here to stay. If people can do a bit but not a lot, that is still a beginning. Everybody cannot dedicate their lives to causes. That doesn't make the little that they do, suspect. Secondly, a free market economy can and must co exist with clean transparent welfare governance. India needs to come out from the strangehold of both the corrupt politicians and businessmen, as well as the holier than thou jhollawallahs.

So bring on the next picnic at Jantar Mantar. We will transform India, one picnic at a time.

Stuck at 20

It was exactly a day like this. The sun hadn't come out fully, and the grey, melted butterscotch ice cream feel to the sky was warm and chilly at the same time.

Actually, why say it was exactly a day like this. It was this very day in fact.

December 9th. Fifteen years ago.

I was exactly a month away from my 21st birthday.

And pretty much around this time, mid afternoon, I finally stepped out of the National Heart Institute for a cup of tea, after a harrowing morning. I relaxed for the first time and thought of taking a small break before going back in.

But I didn't get the chance to finish that cup of tea. Because somebody from the staff of the hospital came out to call us.

It was exactly around this time, on exactly this date, on a day exactly like this one, fifteen years ago, that my father died.

And while I have done a fair amount of growing up in the past fifteen years; while in many ways I can feel each day of each week and month of each year etched upon my heart, my mind, my soul and my face, I also realise that some little tiny bit of me just got stuck there. At twenty.

In the chilling afternoon stillness of a cold December day.

In the coversations we were yet to have, in the poetry we were still to read, in the jokes we were still to crack, in the books we were yet to exchange, in the plays we were still to watch, in the music we were yet to share. In the lessons that I learnt so much more slowly, more painfully, and more harshly from life. Because I didn't get a chance to learn them from him.

Miss you baba. Incredibly acutely, considering its been fifteen years.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary How Does Your Marriage Grow?

Ranjit and I are closer than two peas in a pod. We can literally finish each other's thoughts at times, leave alone sentences. I don't use the word 'soulmate' very easily in my life, but it just seems to be the right word to apply to the two of us.

The journey he and I have been through, to be where we are today, has been an incredible one. A terrible one. An exhilerating one. An exhausting one, an invigorating one. It has broken us and made us, many times over. It has defied us, and defined us, hollowed us and deepened us, in ways that even the furrows upon our hearts can't fully express.

We have a healthy respect, and an equally healthy sense of humour, about each other's pasts. We have to, since both our pasts are a living, breathing entity in our present. And both of us have the sort of colourful, controversial history that only a spouse with a funny bone can even hope to live with. Add to that our volatile temperaments, our sensual explorations, and our sensitivities, and you get a heady cocktail that only another braveheart can dare to attempt to negotiate.

To put it simply, Ranjit and I are deeply in love. Each passing day. Present continuous, not a memory of an emotion experienced once, and eventually enshrined and honoured in an institution called marriage: like a glorious tomb raised to a long gone sentiment.

And yet, there are some funny things about our marriage. There are certain things that Ranjit and I don't do. For example, the most glaring one - we don't share a bedroom (and therefore, neither bathroom nor cupboard - he is messy and I am tidy and the shared thing drove us both nuts). We don't have joint bank accounts. We don't answer each other's phones. We don't look at each other's text messages. We don't have each other's passwords.... (well, actually I do have his, because I have had to bail him out of several disorganised moments.) We don't accept invitations on each other's behalf. We don't automatically assume friendship with each other's friends, unless we take to them personally, that is. We don't always socialise as a couple, again, unless we both like the people we are to meet. We don't send out birthday or anniversary or festival messages jointly. We don't always eat together, only when we are both hungry at the same time...

That sounds like a lot of  "we don'ts" doesn't it? I know that those of my friends and colleagues who believe in a more conventional variant of marriage often want to ask me why I bothered to get married at all...

I would like to answer that question. Sincerely.

I wanted to marry so that I could live a life with the man I love. I wanted to marry so that I could have our child and focus on raising it, and not defending it. I wanted to marry because I wanted to build a home to our shared journey. And a home isn't always the same thing as a common bedroom.

There are things about a marriage, or rather, about living together, that you cannot experience living apart. A crumpled and sleep warmed cup of tea and coffee together, first thing in the morning. A late night chat drifting into sleep. A midnight snack. A raiding of each other's music and book collections. A fight over which CD is mine and which yours. A sneaked in love making as you are rushing to get ready for work. A sunday brunch in your pyjamas. A baby. A chat that carries on for so long that it gets you late for everything. A no reason sudden cuddle. A make up free sunday. A sudden rush for chocolate excess at 11 p.m. A nursing each other through sickness. An urging each other towards healthy living.

Putting together a meal (ok, I'll confess, only Ranjit does that, I am allergic to the kitchen), taking a drive because the sudden urge to scan an album siezes you, taking the other one's ass because they've done something utterly stupid, which you wouldn't have witnessed if you were living apart... there's a lot going for a marriage beyond sharing bedrooms and bank accounts...

I know this is not what a marriage is supposed to be. I am defying the conventions of an institution that I have endorsed... I have no right... Perhaps we should have called it cosy cohabitation instead... I don't know. I wanted to have that baby. And I live in a country where the negotiations around single parenthood are surprisingly time consuming; it just didn't seem worth it...

Having said that, I feel odd at times when I realise that the 'format' of my marriage may give the outsider the impression that the dynamics of the relationship are of a brittle, laquered, hard nature. That Ranjit and I are wary, ultra modern and cynical; that he and I skirt around each other's edges, diamond hard and brilliant with wit and intellect, yet incapable of a warm fuzzy place...

In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. Our friends know that. We are silly in the way we love each other. We are exasperating to single women above thirty and we make those under thirty sigh and get misty eyed. I have had a twenty four year old office colleague come and hold my hand on a hooghly barge (it was on office get together in Calcutta) and tell me how her dream is to find a relationship like the one Ranjit and I have. It was so embarassing that I sort of coughed out a silly comment about how Ranjit and I fight too. Lame. I know.

I have however neither changed my name, nor my habits, nor my toothpaste. I don't know what that says about my priorities or my marriage. I just feel sad that such irrelevances say anything at all...

At condescending moments, looking down from my rainbow prism of fulfillment, I tend to wonder, are these things prioritised by those who have nothing more fundamental to share?...

But those are just mean moments, I don't really think like that. I believe that this age old, hackneyed, crumbling around the edges institution is still distinctly individual for each person... everyone finds their own unique rhythm with it. We just happen to have found an unusual beat... but it makes us dance, so what the heck!

Fragile

Its in the texture of the air. In the colour of the flowers. In the way something green gold saffron shimmers as you turn your head.

Its in the memories. The taste of the food. In the echoes of the dhaak, the kaanshor, the bells...

Its in the faces that don't change. And yet age every year. Its in the dreams that gradually shed leaves.

Its in the hopes that were immersed in the river last year. And in the emotions that resurface alll over again.

Its in the nostalgia that we weave even as we speak, aware even in the present that we are making memories.

Its in the dust on the face, the ache in the ankles, the discomfort of the steel chairs, the iron buckets and baskets of fries. Its in the voice that rings out loud in a dining hall full of people, its in the smoke and the incense and the embers that burn in places other than earthenware lamp holders.

It makes me fragile. This place, this space, this ritual that lives itself out not in geography, not in history, but in a place suspended somewhere in between the two.

Durga Pujo. Yet again.

Golden goddess, rest my heart.

The Discontent of Content

The trend is alarming and the repucussions worrisome. There is a sudden new found enthusiasm in our world for ADHD.

Yes, you did read it right. What causes concern when found in children, seems to not only be perfectly fine, but even laudable, when it comes to us adults: complete Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

We actually seem pleased that a person can hear a piece of music, google the artist name, track its singer on twitter, put up a status update about it on facebook, write a blogpost about how moving the piece was, gmail the mp3 to five friends and claim to have actually heard the piece at the same time.

Stop fidgeting and pay attention children. The age of the total discontent of content is here. We have time for everything and as a result, attention for nothing.

Our Paul the Octopus impersonations - not as soothsayers but as multi limbed jello beings - have been perfected. We have many arms but no central spine to hold it all together. We have span but no attention. We have spread but no centre. We have response but no stock.

It is not just radio. The 40 sec link into the next song has become endemic to our very being. We want our news in bullet points, our songs in hooks, our films in trailers, our books in quotable quotes.

We want to be seen to know it all, spreading it wide, spreading it thin, and we have lost our divers' costumes that allow us to go down deep with an oxygen tank called patience and a breathing tube called focus.

This is a great thing for mass media. It allows us 'medians' to cover everything, and uncover nothing at the same time.

Today's journalists need not be experts on the subject their beat covers. Today's writers need no education in literature. Today's musicians need no classical training. Today's painters need never have seen the inside of an art school.

Everything goes in the name of spontaneous, unstructured personal articulation. Expression rules and absorption is dead. We can opine without knowledge, create without learning, and extol without imbibing.

We don't have time to read this blogpost to the end because our phone just beeped, our computer just pinged and our connect just disconnected.

THE SMUG SECULARISTS SONG

Flood ‘em terrorists
The end is nigh
Now you know
When the waters run high

Where will you hide
As the floodgates rise
Where is your Allah
Your bearded, your wise

Here I am
Feeling smug in my land
I killed no infidel
No blood on my hand

Now you know
When the end is near
Hope gives way
To a drowning fear

The world looks away
And why should it not
Were you merciful
When it was your lot?

You bombed our trains
You bombed our brains
You bombed our buildings
You rammed in planes

Don’t teach me my geography
My Afghan from my Pathan
My Iraqi, My Paki
My Koran from my Kirpan

You turbaned lot
You troubled lot
You dirty lot
You flooded lot

God is drowning you
Drowning your sins
When you swim you sink
When you sink then you swim

And I won’t write that cheque
And I won’t fill that truck
You can keep treading water
I won’t throw you a rubber duck

I am smug in my parsimony
You can scream you can yelp
I am not Vodafone
I am happy not to help

Let the U.N raise the money
Let Zardari find you hope
I am not here to forgive
I am not the pope

All of you are fanatics
You laugh when we cry
I am not a terrorist
I’ll just watch your children die.