Singled Out

Rainy days and leafless trees
Silhouetted birds in grey frame freeze
A random city crossing from a car window
At a red light pause in life.

Today I am a wife.

Yesterday I was single
And pain had this grey blue touch.
Today, it gets too much.

Sad songs and rain songs and staring out of windows
Needs a solitude of sorts.

The hurt and pain
And the entire bargain
Within the dark framework of twosomeness
No longer retains the rainy day quality

Of a sad day of those single years.

Misery Mapping

"Why do you girls keep talking about us men?" Asked my husband once. There was exasperation there, and let's face it, some degree of condescension, maybe a dash of arrogance.

"I mean, you are perfectly emancipated, perfectly self aware, perfectly liberated, thinking, randomly talented, myriadly gifted, world-view oriented, financially independent career women. So why do even women like you talk, if not only, then largely, about us men?"

I stayed with that question a long time, and it actually brought about behavioral changes. Best friend and I actually did stop discussing men and discovered we had many other things to talk about. That was good.

BUT. The fact remains, we do talk about men. And apart from it being weak and demeaning and needy and dependent and a pile of horseshit, it's also great therapy. I tried to figure for months why perfectly intelligent, perfectly world-aware blah blah women keep swapping notes on men and their behaviour and their actions. And it's not because we are deeply caring in our sisterhood bond and it's neither because we are heartless bitches dying for a slice of gossip.

The truth lies somewhere midway. I call it Misery Mapping.

It may be an ego trip, it may be an empathy moment. It may be an epiphany or it may be a superiority complex. Where our minds and our psyche fits into the mapping varies from woman to woman and conversation to conversation. Sometimes, your man is so crap you make me feel good about mine. Sometimes your man is so similar to mine that I realise my situation is not so unique. Sometimes your man is so much better than mine that you help me make up my mind.

Misery Mapping is like a home grown remedy to a common cold. Its not always accurate, its not entirely scientific, it often takes much longer than medication would, but guess what. Its often effective.

Yes, I agree. Women should not spend all their time talking about men. But Misery Mapping achieves a few things men don't benefit from, because they don't do it.

Because its cathartic, becuase it behaves like the safety valve of a pressure cooker, it prevents us from drinking and beating you up. It prevents us from chasing hot things in tight clothes the moment our belly expands and our jaw line sags. It prevents us from leaving your committment and loyalty of several decades to go chasing after a younger, flimsier dream. It prevents us from giving in to the infantile need of turning every emotional moment into a joke. And it prevents us from bursting out one fine day into cholestrol and heart attack and high blood pressure and hyper tension and dying in your arms leaving you to pick up your pieces.

Simply because we rely on this supremely non-intellectual, home grown remedy called Misery Mapping.

We talk about you. We discuss you. We dissect you. We analyse you. So that you don't kill us. Our insides, our values, our emotional integrity, our fidelity.

Of course we also do all those other things that are considered typically 'male'. We cheat, we lie, we sleep around, we abandon, we are cruel, we leave, we forget, we ditch, we inflict hurt, we humiliate, we forget. This is not a piece about making women out to be angels and men to be devils.

It's simply a relatively straightforward point. Misery Mapping - whoever should chose to do it -gives the participants a context and a rooting into their own lives. And allows conversation to achieve what would otherwise only get achieved with a lot of dangerous action.

Its Lipstick Therapy. Part II

Midday Lipstick

What do men do for Midday Lipstick, I wondered to myself, as I applied those reassuring strokes of confidence and self worth, bang in the middle of the day, just as your overall sense of self seems to be wilting, with pending mail, unattended tasks, unanswered phone calls and undone to-do lists.

Midday Lipstick is a good thing. In fact, it's a great thing. It's sort of this moisturising, plumping, rejuvinating, glossing, shining, re-attractivising feature of a working woman's day. And its highly therapeutic. Especially when you've bought in a new shade, or a new variant of gloss.

It sort of builds you back up from the ashes of a dull day.

Mid day deo is in the same genre, but unless you're really stinky, it doesn't quite have as dramatic an impact.

What do guys do? Honestly. I'd love to know. Felt damn bad for them today, because they don't have midday lipstick in their lives.

Jaipur Blasts, 7:30p.m. IST

Isko koi chalna sikhao bhai, ye kaisi ajeeb si chaal hai

Ye do kadam aagey leta hai, to paanch kadam peechhe!
Ye aasmaan ko chhookaar bhi girta hai neeche.

Kahin karodon mein khelne waale vyaapaari
To kahin bhook ki mahaamaari

Sau karod ki abaadi mein
Kitne karod ki barbaadi

Yahan ummeed pe bhor hoti hai, to aatank mein sooraj dhalta hai
Aakhir ye desh chalega kaise, yahan to sab kuchh chalta hai

LOU WHO?

Soulmate was formed about five years ago. The band consists of blues-guitar player, songwriter and singer, Rudy Wallang and Vocalist Tipriti ‘TIPS’ Kharbangar who also plays rhythm guitar,Ferdy Dkhar on Bass Guitar and Sam Shullai on Drums. They all come from Shillong, Meghalaya which is one of the North-Eastern hill states of India.

Lou Majaw (b. 1947) is a Khasi guitarist popularly known as the "One of the Biggest Fans of Bob Dylan in the North-East [India]". Born to a poor family, the Majaws could not afford a guitar or a radio. In a friend's house he was introduced to the music of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, and taught himself the guitar in school. Majaw then moved on to Kolkata where he played in bars and pubs for various groups such as the Dynamite Boys, Vanguards, Supersound Factory, and Blood and Thunder. In 1966, Lou was introduced to Bob Dylan's work. Inspired by his music, he later organized a "Dylan's birthday concert" in Shillong May 24, 1972. Since then he has organized the concert each year on 24th May to pay obeissance to Dylan, with the shows eventually gaining national and international fame.

Do you care? No?

I thought as much.

I would never have heard of either Soulmate or of Lou Majaw had it not been for an over enthusiastic, irritatingly in-your-face restro-bar in Vasant Vihar called The Haze. The owner, called Kiron Somebody-or-the-other, is obviously from Shillong himself, and has taken it upon himself to promote all the artists of his idyllic home town, single handedly.

And if that means spamming the brains out of poor unsuspecting folk like me, so be it.

Worse still, if after getting the 89623rd sms that you're not interested in, you call him up very politely and ask him to remove your number from his mass sms list, he says he will take care of it, but does nothing.

Eventually, you get fed up and ask your lawyer friend to give him a stern call and warn him about being a public nuisance.

He roundly abuses your friend, and then calls you up and abuses you. For sending you smses that you never wanted in the first place. Wow. Now that REALLY makes sense.

I guess Soulmate makes decent music. I'm sure Lou Majaw is a great man. But forgive me, I am a philistine. I like Dil Haara from Tashan and Pretty Woman on my DVD. And if I wanted a crash course in Blues music, there is noone better to teach me than my husband.

Sigh. Why do establishments, organisations, institutions and such like, send these irritating, pissing off, get on your nerves spam smses? And then act tough about them? I don't want to know about your festivals, your artists, your menus, your special discounts, your performances, your product enhancements and your new improved anythings. I don't care. And your smses are the one sure shot guarantee of you not getting any business from me. Not now. Not ever.

This is a larger deeper malaise. As the world gets more isolated, more cocooned, more wrapped up in its own selfish spaces, paradoxically the sense of privacy seems to be vanishing. This malaise spreads its tentacles through social networking sites, carries on through spam mails and smses, rears its ugly pathetic head through features like AdSense which everyone applauds.

Uff. I'm fed up. If, everytime I searched Poetry on an interesting literary site, I actually wanted to know about Poetry in Pottery, Poetry Foundation of India and Poetry Encyclopaedia at discounted rates, I'd HAVE ASKED FOR THAT. Your ads may make sense to you Mr. Google, they DO NOT to me. When I am searching for poetry, I only want to read beautiful resonanting poetry to get away from this very clever world you've woven. Not because I want Poetry in Pottery.

Somebody tell google that inspite of their great work, it doesn't all make sense. Somebody tell Shopper's Stop that if I want to shop on Mother's Day I'll go there and shop. I don't need an email telling me that I must. Somebody tell these 5000 teleshopping networks that when I want to make strong abs, I work out. I don't buy shitty belts with vibrating batteries. Somebody tell the entire advertising and marketing community, that advertisements on TV, radio and print are clean, ads are straight, ads are good, and when required, I respond to them. This new virus called 'personal touch' is neither personal, nor touching, its in fact bloody irritating.

Somebody tell Kiron something-or-the-other that he's an irritating oaf.

Or hang on a second. Maybe I can just send him an sms.

A Love Poem???????

Love sings
Love glows
Love yells
Love bellows

Love is like vine
It creeps up your mind
Love is disaster
An unbroken landmine

Love deepens
Love flattens
Like middle aged ladies
Love broadens

Love pinches
And snorts
Love makes all sorts
Out of all sorts

Love slides
And love sidles
Love grunts
And love bridles

Love makes love poems
Some average, some bad
But the loveless poet
Is most definitely sad

Green Card Safron Sun White Thoughts

I smelt the dusty Indian summer sun while driving to work this morning. This despite the fact that the windows were rolled up and the AC was on.

I saw a wicker basket left askew on the corner of the road, in a way that can only happen in really poor countries, where the street is an extension of home for so many. And household goods can just be found lying around on main crossings and kerbs, much like a dishevelled kitchen or bathroom.

I saw the three irritating temples that fall on my route to office and that exasperatingly slow me down with their sequined thread, red cloth, meandering crowds and crushed flowers pace.

I saw a stray dog. Or two.

Abida sang Ghalib on the very western CD player, in my cocooned and conditioned world: my protection against the onslaught of an India that can drown me in an overdrive of sensuality. A battering that the eyes, the ears, the nose, the skin and the tongue cannot take, without taking violently ill.

I must temper the India that I live in; dilute it to make it digestible. My system is fragile.

I saw dark green leaves, still, and then mildly ruffled by a summer breeze that carries no shade or solace.

I saw a 'tempo traveller'.

And Abida with her 'patthar-phek' style of singing, as I call it, bellowed out, Bekhudi Besabab Nahin Ghalib, Kuchh to Hai Jiski Parda Daari Hai.

Don't get me wrong. I like the way she sings. It's part of that overwhelming in-your-face, like-it-or-not Indian experience (ok, don't force me to say subcontinent; in the context of what I'm talking about, its the same dusty terrain, LOC be damned).

I saw, in my ten-minute drive to an extremely international style office, Lata Mangeshkar and Gol guppas; cows and colony parks; cotton kurtas and crows; dusty feet and sweaty ideas; bus rides and whirling fans; struggling grammar and corrupt politicians; visionary men and characterless charlatans; inept tellers and unreliable plumbers; fantastic domestic help and useless colleagues; dirty maroon rajdhanis and cholera infested waters; steel plates with pockets for daal and subzi, kele-ka-pattas and roadside pottery; paanwaalas with tinny radios and hot rotis with daal.

I saw Kishore Kumar and sequined chappals, I saw sufi concerts and kulfi falooda. I saw so much though my eyes were blurred with tears.

I saw so much. Because today my husband said, "Lets Move to the States. This country is shit".

Horse Trading

It's one of my most favourite sights, all year round, but especially so on crisp winter nights in Delhi. As a mist rises from the roads and meanders into the neon lights, and car headlights pinpoint prisms into your eyes.... the sight of a young horseman galloping a white steed back to the stables. Back from a wedding that must have just about begun with the jai maala, after the baraat has been recieved with due ceremony...

For years I've watched this streak of a visual on random Delhi roads. There is a wedding hall of sorts very close to my mother's house; my brother's reception happened there. We of course, the boring bengali sorts, did not have horses decked in red and gold, but a sedate white ambassador to do the honours.

But from the gates of that wedding hall I have often seen this exhilarating sight. I don't know why the rider is invariably a very young fellow, a lad almost. And the horse, a white mare, never seems so unfettered than in those perfectly free moments.

At times I have been lucky enough to see both pre and post. While driving out to the market or to a friend's, I have seen the baraat arrive. At its simplest, the horse is draped in thick velvet cloth of red and maroon, brocaded in gold, and the groom, his face hidden under the canopy of flowers from the sehra streaming from the pagri, rides gingerly, clutching both reins - I mean, what are the odds of the average Delhi groom having equestrian skills? - a petrified little boy, the 'sarwahla' sits in front of him, looking dangerously close to slipping off. A motley crew of absurdly overdressed people follow, stomping their feet and flailing their arms to the tired tunes from the brass band. Wizened and rickety thin men carry gas lamps on their head. More lights on an open bed truck, drawing their power from a noxious and noisy generator, blaze into the night air, and between lamp hiss and generator drone, the sound of the band fades. Never did understand why they play 'ye desh hai veer jawano ka' in any case. A tongue-in-cheek dig at the brave man going to war?

There is always a white maruti van at the back. Filled with the naughty young men of the family, and their 'car-o-bar'. Indulgent looks from elders. Flirtatious ones from the women, especially from the bride's side. Laughter. Bling. Tinkle. Guffaws. Pagris. Aiye, aiye...

Now that's the simple version. As it gets elaborate it stops short of nothing. Only the traffic stops. For hours. The circus can go up to an unbelievably elaborate horse drawn carriage. And miles of bad dancers behind. Expensive cars. Sweating armpits. And red gold signages held by more impoverished looking men.

And the over bedecked horse sniffs and snorts and stamps in impatience, as it is reduced to an uncomfortable .05 kmph with its unwieldly burden. The lad leading it looks dazed, gripping the reins to ensure the horse doesn't buck and heave, the lights in his eyes blinding him - he should wear blinders too, like his charge.

And a voice in your head tells you - in all probability, the bride and the groom have met barely once, or twice. Maybe done a coffee if the family is progressive enough. Perhaps indulgent bhabhi jee sat discretely at the other table. And from then till now, that resplendent bride inside has focused all her energies on the wedding. And nobody is prepared for the marriage. And nobody will know when the flowers dry.

Thinking such half thoughts, I have then returned an hour or so later, and the gates of the wedding hall have been more or less deserted. The ceremonies have begun in earnest inside and apart from some stragglers, some really late, hasty smile expression arrivals, and some of those guilty tipsy boys rushing out for another plastic cupful, there is hardly anybody around.

And then out of those gates bursts forth a vision. A horse. And his rider. Unfettered. Unblinkered. Unswathed in velvet and gold. Unchained. A trot, a canter, and then a full gallop as the night air swallows them in its cold crisp neon-laced mist.

A laboured, laden, slow mare, traded in a few hours for a gloriously free beast. And its master. Enjoying the night air whipping through hair and mane. Leaving behind all that they have been asked to deliver for a paltry sum of money - duty, responsibility, role playing, expectations, exasperations, alterations, adjustments - all of it shed with the weight of the gas lamps.

A few more minutes, and other burdens may grip. Poverty perhaps. And loneliness. And villages connected by distant trains. Money orders and bad hay. Cold quarters and a rough brush on diseasing skin. Worries, both human and animal, as exhaustion makes both sleep on their feet.

But for the moment, the gallop of the truly free. For this incadescent instance, without a care. Wind in the hair.

Quote Hanger

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. - CP Snow

Mother's Blossoms 2008

26th January dawns sunny crisp and cold over Delhi. The slighly droopy somewhat fading Mother's Blossoms wake up groggily to a vague sense of something pending - almost impending - although it should ideally be a lazy jobless saturday which is ALSO a national holiday....

No... I definitely did NOT have to watch the parade on TV, the blossoms are thinking in their respective flower pots. No, I did not plan to start my gymming this weekend, and even if I did, well... those are hazardous decisions best left unrealised....

Ah, 4 cups of tea / coffee later, the slow realisation sinks in.... I am a Mother's Blossom and today is the day I foolishly committed to a bunch of pals on the email that I will wend my way schoolwards and be a part of the MIS annual reunion.

By this time its past 11a.m. Riya calls Pavita. Pavita sounds somewhat muffled, through layers of think quilt and thicker sleep. Pavita would like Riya to figure it all out and inform her sleepiness. In the meanwhile, 2 old seniors Oroon and Shounak surface. Hey they are headed to the reunion too. Super charged by caffeine and phone calls Riya says this is seeming worth it. Lets head towards Sarvodaya, ahoy!

Riya calls Pavita. Fails to inject similar enthusiasm. Pavita hos and hums and yawns and mumbles something that sounds like 'mebbe lezzee'.

Miffled (thats a combo of miffed and stifled) Riya smses Sudi. To a much better response. Sudi is waiting for Soggy who's waiting for Debu who's waiting for a car and then they are all headed to the blossoming moment. Things appear to be perking up.

Pavita is still not sure.

Double salvos of Oroon and Shounak are liberally launched in her direction. She capitulates. Riya calls Shounak back. Hey how are we going to find each other in that 'area-wise the largest school in Delhi'? Shon replies "Don't worry, we are Mother's Blossoms. We'll smell each other out".

Yuck. Gross.

Ok its 12 noon now. Everybody is attempting to get dressed and rush for this largely unnecessary rendezvous. Riya calls Sudi. Yes, that ship has sailed. Let us now meet at the haloed portals. We all arrive crisp and fresh, in varying degrees of unpunctuality to the 'sarvodaya' side gate. (Oroon and Shon enter from the main road gate and therefore reach the football field before us).

As we are about to run in slow-mo towards above mentioned field and fall into each other's arms at the 'Sunlit Path', an imposing shadow falls upon us. "Have you registered yet?". Boy. This alumnus must've been trained by Shekhar sir himself. The Legendary Bull Dog. "Gulp. No. I just wanted to meet my pals first."

Unknown voice + face thunders "NO!! Please register first!!" The years melt away as one sheepishly heads toward the wobby wooden desks with askew white table cloths (bedsheets, one suspects). One is handed a form longer than the US VISA form. I lost track after year of joining MIS, year of leaving MIS, number of years spent in the school (duh, can't you add, you sadistic form-fillerer???), current job, marital status, designation, number of children.... I have a vague feeling I must've also filled in blood group, number of siblings, terrorist affiliations etc, but I can't be sure since my mind was that familiar numb din by then. Ah. How nostalgic.

You pay Rs. 50/- afer filling that form - by this time you're thinking somebody should've been paying you instead. Or, you are told smugly, you can pay Rs. 2500 for a lifetime membership. Sorry you murmur stupidly. I don't have that kind of money. Do you have a credit card set up? The much more involved mother's blossoms frown from the other side of the rumpled white sheets. Credit cards? Certainly not.

Your eyes then fall upon this splendour that each one of them is sporting. Its a sleeveless grey sweatshirt with a Mother's Blossom emblem on the chest, top left corner. Soggy and Debu promptly rechristen it Mother's Bosom. Its so corny you want one for yourself. Well, if you take the lifetime membership you get it for free. Whoopie. Or else you pay Rs. 600. And NO no credit cards sorry.

I want one. I only have a hundred buck note. I forgot the purity of the MIS environs where plastic was ALWAYS frowned upon. Sigh. I beg and plead many to buy me one but nobody does. This is especially after I spy the back of the sweatshirt on someone. Ok, this is the prize winner. This grey unassuming Mother's Blossom sweatshirt says in about 300 font size in the center of the back I AM BLESSED.

Yes. Its true. Today I could've been the proud owner of a sweatshirt that proclaimed my blessed status to the entire world staring enviously at my back if ONLY Shon, or Oroon or Sudi or Soggy or Debu or Tej had coughed up a measly Rs. 600.

Cheep Cheap.

But all was not lost boys and girls. In return for the Rs. 50 we all got a bright purple-pink square of a sticker that we were supposed to slap on our sleeves / pockets / jackets / foreheads or any other prominent body part and in return we could eat for free from all those stalls lined up at the side of the football field.... Golguppas, Aloo Tikki smashed in front of your eyes on a paper plate and bathed in chutney, pao bhajji with an overdose of lemon, poori alu daal and paneer, gaajar ka halwa and something called Daulat ki Chaat which was sensed more than tasted because it looked and felt like shaving foam on paper plates.

Old teachers looked older. Bhalla, who's now vice principal, was asked by Oroon 'hey heard you are now the vice president?' Ass. Mrs. Pillay looked positively alzheimered. But she was sweet, pretending to remember everybody. All of them said the same predictable things. Spouse, children updates clearly won the day over career updates. What you had achieved clearly played second fiddle to what you had married and what you had produced.

And as you walked away, towards the 'Sunlit Path' and beyond, gaping at Sri Aurobindo in grey, still peeing benevolently over all things big and small, you heard a voice in your head ruefully saying 'nostalgia isn't what it used to be....'

Two Purple Bands

It takes five minutes and two purple bands on flat white oval disc to change your life.

The home test kit sounds complicated but is surprisingly simple. It involves putting 2 drops of body fluid on that white disc and waiting for five minutes.

Those five minutes seem the longest and the shortest spin in your life. The do-it-yourself kit instruction pamphlet tells you that if you get only 1 purple band, in the region marked T, then it means your test is successful. And you're negative. If you get 2 purple bands however, one in the region marked T and the other in the area C, then your test result is positive.

Of course, if you get no bands, then you've messed the test up and need to do it again.

The kit also warns that you must check in exactly five minutes. Any delay and the bands may fade or drift or god knows do what. Implode perhaps.

Of course you don't take your eyes off the disc for those five minutes. So the 'check in exactly 5 minutes' instruction seems a bit redundant.

The funny thing is that the kit doesn't tell you that the purple band in the C area appears BEFORE the purple band in the T area. Which means, technically, you know your results even before you know if the test has been successful!

It's strange, that colour spreading gradually on the white paper inside the disc. You remember ink on blotting paper, weaving its way through the warp and weft of the material? Its exactly like that. A pale purple spread, over which the darker bands appear. Quite magical actually, and quite beautiful.

And you keep staring at it. At the two purple bands. At the first completely real, lifetime committment you're making, at the ripe old age of 32 going on 33. At the first sign of 'the rest of your life', especially if yours has been the moment-to-moment and whimsical and uplanned sort. 2 purple bands, like grips around your heart.

2 purple bands like wedding rings.

2 purple bands that feel like wizened fingers gripping your own.

2 purple bands that bring to life cliches you never thought would be real for you. Cliches like tears. And a smile. And a bursting heart. At the thought, so funny, so strange, so scary, so overwhelming, so insecure, so giggly, so frightening, so soft, so curly, so cuddly, so freaked out, so unknown, so worrisome, so careful, so boring, so mundane, so clinging, so freedom, so independent, so binding, so restrictive, so liberating, so fattening, so figure-loss, so stressful, so stress free, so calorie-count, so eat-what-you-like, so personal, so universal, so restrictive, so addictive, so old, so new, so confusing, so contradictory, so mismatched, so timely, so accidental, so sudden, so awaited, so unborn...

2 purple bands.

Drive carefully. Baby on Board.

Quote Hanger

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. - Soren Kierkegaard

Who's In Your Mirror?

Its incredible. How does the whole world gang up against a person who's already down and out? How do people reconcile to kicking somebody who's already down?

What brand of aggression is this? What kind of petty minded insecurities prompt this sort of behaviour?

For those of you reading this post in Delhi, you might just have heard of a radio presenter called Pallavi. She used to be one of the most popular, well loved radio personalities, years ago. Then something bizzarre happened. She lost her voice. Unbelievable though it sounds, like a badly scripted TV soap, it actually happened. It was the rarest of rare symptoms of a very rare disease called Myasthenia Gravis. The same one that Amitabh Bachchan had years ago - remember the droopy eyelids and the raspy voice of Agneepath? It wasn't just performance and make up.

Pallavi obviously could no longer continue as a radio presenter. However, she did not end her relationship with the one medium that she's always loved, and which she's spent almost a decade and a half in. She became a show producer and went on to deliver one of the most successful breakfast programmes in the country.

Again, if you are a radio listener in Delhi, you may on and off have had the duo Ananta and Saurabh crack you up in the mornings, in their laugh riot of a show. Pallavi was the silent and highly competent producer behind them.

The treatment for Myasthenia Gravis itself takes a toll. It's severe and complex, like cancer treatment, involving surgery, radio therapy, chemotherapy. The process of flushing out those toxins from the system itself is a long drawn one. On top of that, the desire to go back on air has always burnt strong in Pallavi. And therefore she continued with a variety of muscle regeneration treatment, speech therapy, yoga and meditation. The opportunity to realise her dreams came up suddenly, when Ananta and Saurabh decided to move on from Radio Mirchi.

As a friend I was delighted to facilitate her return on air. But the focus was obviously the radio station and not her. I've always had tremendous faith in her radio presentation style - its muted, its subtle, its endearing and it grows on you gradually. Pallavi is not the sort of presenter who has you rolling in the aisles or who makes you jump up and applaud. But her influence is insiduous. Suddenly one morning you realise that switching on to her show has become a habit, a habit you'd rather not let go off. And that is the real power of radio.

The only place where Pallavi did not get a strong score as replacement breakfast jock, obviously, was in the voice parameter. But we gambled. We decided to take her story to the public and let them give her a chance. We had great faith in her ability to endear listeners to her, and with such a strong survivor story and inspirational message, well, we had an idea we might just make it.

So far it has worked. Our ratings are good, the story has captured people's imagination and even if there are flaws, glaring flaws in the programme, I hear her making progress every single day. Till then, we have something called marketing muscle to see us through! I believe we'll make it. I am genuinely convinced that - unlike what a lot of snide water-cooler commentators are saying - I have NOT made a mistake this time. I know that many colleagues, junior and senior, who've mentally abandoned this journey mid way, rather than sticking with it, are waiting gleefully for me to be proved wrong.

I have no desire to prove myself right. Unlike what has been grandly predicted about me by armchair psychoanalysts, I am not 'preparing the grounds to withdraw gracefully' everytime I address the team, because 'its difficult for me to accept immediately that I was wrong'.

Obviously, there are enough people in the company who've written Pallavi's second innings off. They are convinced that it is a matter of time before she's pulled off air, we go into damage control overdrive, and one of the grand talents that are supposedly tucked inside the system is asked to come forth and rescue the day. Needless to say, every single presenter in the system today believes that he / she would've done a better job. I am not so sure. I think everyone would've come with a similar balance of strengths and weaknesses and the effort to establish them would've been as much.

It's evident that my central team members don't agree. And like I said, they're only waiting for the time when we will say 'so sorry, I give up, can you rescue us please with your phenomenal talent and incredible vision. Really sorry, we mucked up inspite of having run the most successful radio station network in the country, please please fix this for us'.

Hey, you know what? That may well be the case. We may have mucked up - though I don't believe that - and we may well need younger fresher perspectives to pull us out of our crisis. Pallavi I know is trying her damndest best, but yes, it may well not be enough. I'm not in the business of making Pallavi's radio career, I am in the business of keeping Mirchi the number one radio station in the country.

And that is what brings me back to where I started. Supppose for a second that Pallavi is genuinely failing. Suppose she's struggling and giving it all she has, and yet not being able to make it. Even if that was the scenario, how can a whole team of able-bodied, perfectly healthy individuals gang up against such a person? Start the day by dissecting her show, pulling out her recordings only to laugh at it, and end the day with another doomsday prophecy?

Forget about human values, even if you are political by nature, wouldn't it strike you that being forthcoming and helpful and concerned, or atleast appearing to be, would be your best bet today? At least be devious with some intelligence!

Now for a second let's leave corporate machinations aside.

How does an entire team just start ostracising a person for no fault of hers? How do they start treating her like a pariah, and refuse to bond with her at any level whatsoever? How is any of this Pallavi's fault? Even if things weren't working out for her, wouldn't it strike anybody that she may be lonely, frightened, afraid of becoming the laughing stock, thirsting for some affection, some understanding, some momentary suspension of judgement....

Hey, these are other performers. Don't they at least fear for themselves? Life is such an even playing field... this could happen to anyone. How can we become so desensitized as to actually start treating a living breathing human being like a dart board for all our insecurities, jealousies, envies, mediocrities?

How can you stop talking to a person who's only trying her best not to let the company down?

How can you make fun of somebody who's only trying to make her own job fun?

How can you sleep with yourself after making comments like "kehne ko to cancer tha, morning show milte hi sab theek ho gaya?" How? How do you even look yourself in the mirror?

I shudder to think of a day when I'm even capable of thinking like this. I dread the time when I too will settle into my comfort zones, and be happy to pull other achievers down, rather than having any ambition or vision for myself or for the world...

Seriously man. This show may or may not work. This jock may or may not stay. God damn it, this radio network may or may not survive; who cares? It's not the end of the world. The media is a fickle entitiy. Today's rulers are tomorrow's beggars. No statistic, no TRP, no GRP ever stays.

But what always does stay are our words and our actions through trying times. And there are always those who stand up to be counted, and those who just wait for others to fall.

And at the end of it all, there is the person in the mirror. We can justify, preen, bluff and fluff in front of the entire world, explain away every heartless comment, brush off every insensitive remark and action. But when the mirror reflects a monster, we're alone with that dreaded image.

Who do we wake up with, when we go to sleep alone? That is the only reality that bites.

Random

Today
I am sad.

Purposelessly.
Without misery.
Without even the excuse of a treachery.

Today
I am sad.

Because sadness has come visiting.
And I must serve tea and biscuits.

Tears and misfits.
Awkwardly shaped thoughts.
Not quite fitting around the ankles.

So Chaplin-esque.
This whole deal.

Quote Hanger

Where the Mind is Without Fear - Rabindranath Tagore


Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my 'country' awake.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I highlight the word 'country' in the last line, because it is so easily replaceable with 'mind', 'heart', 'soul', 'being'. Tagore is brilliant in his insights, that transcend time, space, context. This poem is an elixer of immortal strength for every human being in search of a universal truth; every person looking for an answer within the situations of their life.

Unfinished Business

There is unfinished business
That must be attended to.

There is a song to be written
A line to be remembered.
A scene from a movie
Sweet slowly replayed.

A love to be made.


Its all been left half done.
Unfinished.
Incomplete.

There is this urgent business
We must attend to.

Quickly.

Before the flowers dry.

So Full of You

I am so full of you today!

So full
With sepia tones
That colour bounces back from my skin

And to the onlooker
I am a rainbow.

Simply because I am so full with you today.

The grey black blue whiteness of us.
Left unrisked.

Don't Look Here

Search in your spirits.

In your temple bells
And your gated hells
And in the ghosts that you dare not know.

Search where there is no light
In the spaces where
You have been warned
Of maya, her maids
And of the shadows of past regressions

Search
Where there is no seeking
No fetching and no bringing

Of things into the light

But simply a touching
Of truths already known

And a beauty sown
Upon the graveyard of reasoning.

I Wish You Had Come Tonight

I wish you had come tonight.

There was a sadness sitting to be shared. Like an unfinished bottle of wine.

A sort of endlessness that made no demand, and had no expiry date, and yet wished to be drunk. And done with.

I so wish you had made it, without the cactus in your hair, the bludgeons upon your face. Waiting with impregnable arguments, daring to be felled.

I so wish you had let them fall. And allowed a surprise to sneak upon us like a black cat silhouetted against a moonlit night upon a terrace ledge.

Suddenly.

I don't believe you

I don't believe you.

I don't believe your reasons
And your analysis of the seasons.

And I don't believe that you know.

Perhaps
In inner courtyards
When the skies purple with ink

You show

But I don't believe you know.

The spirit touches upon infinite things
And baubles that a christmas brings

Drift to snow.

And yet, infinitessimally

I don't believe you know.