I have always been enamored by the elements of the universe. The stars, the moon, the planets... I wondered a lot about writing a children's rhyme about it. But then, rhyme is not really my thing, it turns out. So, here goes something, that I think is kind of my thing...
It was like someone had
given the moon a voice in addition to craters.
She had started spewing
nonsense stuff about how she wanted to look like the star,
how the star’s craters
and wounds were better than her own,
how the star was
luckier than her just because she could shoot.
She could shoot because
she was that kind of a star.
The shooting kind.
The kind of star that
could actually afford to scoot closer to him.
To the love of her
life.
Image source : ebay
Even though she was badly
battered, broken and bruised, she was getting nearer to him with each passing
moment.
The moon wished on the
star because she knew that the shooting kind of star could grant wishes.
The moon wished for
eternal love.
She wished for the kind
of love that would last.
The price of love was
life.
So, the star shot to
the earth.
And died in the arms of
her love.
Whereas she, the ill-fated
moon, stayed immobile and stationary.
I am coming from a far
off place. A place called ‘Two Years Ago’ that
I no longer recognize because it was so hideously expensive that I incurred a
ginormous debt while in there. A debt, I had no idea, would cost me lakhs
of heartbeats and millions of feelings. A debt where the currency was people
and the interest went up with the rise in the moments we shared. I am coming
from Two
Years Ago, but at a very slow pace. A pace that is slower than time itself,
because two years have happened and ended, and I am still there, making my
sluggish way forward, trying to reach The
Present.
Picture credits: Agrani Punj
Of course, once I do, I
will earn all that stuff back, and try to repay the bankers who keep the
memories locked in a special account of nostalgia and hurt and all things
bittersweet.
Once I reach The Present, I will empty my life of
all those events and conversations that make the walk to it so hard.
Once I reach The Present …
I will not spend my
nights awake in the classrooms with a motley assortment of people, who came
together purely on a stroke of fate, like a package of assorted biscuits on
Diwali.
I will not give in to
midnight cravings that strike me like thunder and lose a major part of my
savings in the night canteen or on sudden trips to Murthal/ India Gate/ Bangla
Saheb.
I will not pretend to
listen to lectures in class while doing what I do best in life (read daydreaming).
Picture credits: Pixcell, IIFT
I will not celebrate
midnight birthdays on campus or spend sleepy-wakeful nights trying to mug up for
exams.
I will not watch those
puppies grow into mischievous dogs.
I will not click photographs
every second day or dance unabashedly at atrium parties.
I will strip my life of
all those things and rush to The Present.
Picture credits: Pixcell, IIFT
However…
On second thoughts…
Let me arrive late as
usual.
And take my own sweet
time to reach. For surely it hasn’t been so long since we were at Two Years Ago, has it?
There was one moment
when I wondered if I had done the right thing by filling the form. And there
was another moment when I realized that one moment of hesitation was not worth
it at all because of course, I had been right. There was only one word for it.
Perfect.
Two.
Two cabs accommodating
laughter and gossip, titbits and tales, texts and the people writing them. Two sauces
– red and white, mingling with mouth-watering pasta and eye-watering jokes.
With the two arguments over the double cheese pizza and the extra mayo-ed
nachos. Two hundred party venues being looked into before homing in on one- the
one with the best deal, the best time and of course, the best people.
Three.
Three a.m. meetings
where brainstorms would occur at the speed of light and ideas would be debated with
religious gusto. Three a.m. confession sessions at the Top of the World where
intimacies invited confidences and secrets were traded in the hallowed
institute of trade.
Four.
Four thousand emails
skyrocketing into the inbox. Four hundred aspirants to be answered to. Four and
twenty articles to be written. Four thousand messages to sift through and
apprehensions, turmoils and uproars to be contained.
Five.
Five people sitting
side by side in guest lectures, noting down moments and their significance, noting
the similar-sounding words like distinguished, esteemed, welcome, campus and
leadership, but in essence recording mainly the five million expressions of the
ones sitting right next and secretly laughing at their inane comments. Five people
taking down notes and one clicking away the five pictures to go with them, but
mainly just filing the pictures away in the memory cabinets for flicking
through them some time in the future.
Six.
Six we were and six we are.
I know that six is the devil’s number. And I think it fits us perfectly well.
Because we are devilish. Devilishly good together.
#ApnaKaumMediaKaum
(The above reference would only be
clear when you have spent two years (or even one, for that matter) in the sacrosanct
precincts of the Media Committee at IIFT and discovered a kind of religious fervor in
the writing of a blog, the organizing of chat meets and of course, TEDx or even
answering aspirant queries.)
It is a
brand new year and I was just thinking how to give a new start to this blog. But
then I realized that my blog, much like my life, has been a series of fits and
starts. Perhaps that is how it is supposed to be.
My writing
has been pretty scattered the past year what with verses written on tissue
papers, short stories noted on cellphone, and blog posts on the university
website. As a result, this space got easily ignored. Now, as I begin the end of
my journey at IIFT, I decided to bare my thoughts here on this old space of
mine.
Blood is made of a red
substance; they call it haemoglobin.
But madness is made of
a substance which they haven’t named yet.
It is made of songs
sung tunelessly in the dark streets around Sanjay Van.
It is made of dreadful
PJs that emerge from minds that don’t know how to crack jokes because they haven’t
learnt the art of laughter.
It is made of steel. Steel bars of the benches
where we sat for hours that disappeared in the web of time.
It is made of power
banks. Power banks that we snatched from each other because our phones were
never fully charged.
It is made of khakras and theplas that they brought every
time they came from home.
It is made of chairs where we sat and sipped
bournvita.
It is made of crumbs. Crumbs and remains of the rusk biscuits that accompanied
the bournvita and the tea.
It is made of chilli potatoes. Chilli potatoes and paneer tikkas that
we ate at buffets where we gorged till food threatened to kill us.
It is made
of hands. Hands and legs which moved in every whichever way when we danced
inebriated with laughter in the atrium.
It is made of wings. The wings of
wisdom that we saw everyday as we devoured the sunlight while walking towards
the ice cream stall.
Our madness is made of
a million things. Bits and pieces. Bits and pieces of rights and wrongs, dread
and jubilation, thoughts and sensations. Some tiny and some long. Tiny moments
snatched in an eye-roll and long hours spent studying presentations.
They say blood makes
you related.
But they don’t know that madness makes you family.
The
novel revolves around the life and times of a man who is in conflict with his
past and his present. He challenges the forces of nature and long-standing
conventions, loses badly, learns his lessons and starts over. As the subtitle
suggests appropriately, the story is about a survivor, a person who goes
through all the trials of fire and emerges purified. It touches upon a number
of issues, starting with the problems of a northerner marrying a Marathi girl
as the protagonist does. It beautifully captures the way a language can alter
the status of a person. The protagonist despite his love of all things
Maharashtrian is not able to express his fidelity and loyalty to the community
due to the fact that he does not know the language. It expresses aptly how
language barriers create family rifts. The book starts with the relationship
dynamics in Jai’s family and highlights the entrenched blind faith in certain traditions
and personalities like the great astrologer Pandit Borkar whose prediction sets
the wheels of events turning and effectively begins the novel plot in earnest.
What follows is a story of a man walking on a tightrope of his dreams and
others’ expectations, trying desperately to establish himself, walking in his virtuous
father’s footsteps and keeping everyone happy. An atheist, he tempts fate by
openly declaring his intentions to thwart the great Borkar’s predictions of
hard times in the near future and swears to build a bungalow for his wife,
Sarika. He ignores her intuitive feelings when she tells him to pause and warns
him repeatedly regarding opportunistic friends. But inebriated with the will to
succeed at any cost and heady with the lucrative big business deal he lands up,
Jai ignores Sarika’s misgivings.
What
results is his complete collapse when not just his client breaks the deal, but
he has to file for bankruptcy when his business partner and long-time friend
turns into a venomous foe. All these difficult times are worsened by his
father’s death leaving behind three thick diaries that take Jai on a
soul-searching journey back to his past. His demons start resurfacing and
skeletons begin crawling out of his past closet turning his mind around and
creating a miasma of guilt around him, a whirlpool which he is not able to
escape and eventually gets sucked into.
The
adventures of Jai when his business crumbles and he takes to the streets takes
the reader to the grimy underbelly of the city of Pune and unveils the tragic
fates of those who make their living on the streets. It also exposes the
political drama that goes behind the scenes of an election.
Various
themes sprout up in the novel at different times, for instance, the Marathi pride
and fierce sense of belonging towards their own community, the ambition of
politicians, a mother’s blind love, misplaced anger, infidelity and so on.
Jai’s father-in-law is the father figure in this book, the man who is able to
view everything with an unbiased perspective and provides sane advice to anyone
who needs it.
Jai’s
past deals with a crucial social matter of how rumors can ruin a person’s life.
The reception of a sibling by a child has been sensitively portrayed in the
novel. In fact, Jai’s story of Sunny is the crux of the plot and a prime mover
in his upbringing, his relations with his father and the major cause of his leaving
his hometown. The author has carefully threaded this delicate issue into the
book, taking into account honest, unbarred feelings and giving them voice in an
effort to understand and learn the nuances of such a touchy matter.
The
thing about the characters was that they were predictable. The good thing was
that they could be easily identified with. A bit of unreality crept into the
story at times, when the protagonist takes to the street and farm life easily,
giving it a very movie-ish feel. But there is an element of unconventionality
in the plot when Jai’s difficult decision with Ashok bears no fruit and he is
relegated to unknown parts of the country because of his own decision never to
meet Sarika. The reader is kept wanting for the two star-crossed lovers to meet
but is tormented for quite sometime. The jewel on the crown is the worldview of
the holy man who wanders into the village where Jai has settled and shakes him
out of his torpor, giving him the peace of mind he had been seeking so
long.
False
friends, hypocritical relations, critical naysayers, hurt beloved, tormented
protagonist- all the major elements of a potboiler combine in this book with
the burning concerns of the age what with corruption, domination of females,
plight of the slum-dwellers, the dirt of politics, and the state that the
country is in to give it a contemporary fast-paced feel.
The
novel moves through the political centres of the city of Pune to the smelly
dilapidated hovels beneath the flyovers to tranquil farmlands seamlessly
telling many tales in a natural voice of a common man who abides by the rules,
is moderately ambitious, dogged by guilt due to his past and wants to transform
his life.
Some
incredible life lessons emerge suitably in the final chapter where Jai finally
gets his salvation from the honeyed words of a great man, who in some beautiful
and powerful lines, explains accurately what life is all about. It is beautiful
to note the role of rain in this novel. At the outset of the novel, Jai prayed
for the rains to be delayed as opposed to the majority of the population for
whom rain was a blessing in disguise. As rotten luck would have it, it rained
cats and dogs soon after and life took a severe downturn for him. However, the
end of the novel shows how Jai reconciled with his lot, forgave himself, reconciled
himself to the harsh realities of life and ultimately came to love the rains.
“They have silver in
their hair, gold in their heart… and magic in their hands.”
Source: DesiComments.com
Or at least in my
grandmother’s hands. This is not just because every dish she prepared made my
taste buds go ‘this is nirvana!’ or even the simplest tea she brewed was so
much better than any I ever had so far. It was because her hands worked magic
on my hair. Every afternoon when I came home from school, I would get over with my
ablutions, and before mother could place my bowl of rice in front of me, I was
off to see grandma in her room, where she sat caressing her tresses with oil.
My grandma had luscious, beautiful, wondrous, jet-black hair. She loved to tell
me her story of her Rapunzel-like long hair and how when granddad’s parents
came to see her, the first thing that amazed them about her was her hair. They
asked not one question after that. And just like that, their marriage was
settled.
“They liked your hair so
much that they wedded their son to you?” I had asked incredulously.
“Absolutely!” Grandma
had answered with that beautiful laugh of hers and the familiar twinkle of her
eyes. “In those days, one’s hair was one’s pride.”
“It still is.” I had
said. “But hardly anyone has the kind of black hair that you do.”
But it was evident why
that was the case. Grandma oiled her hair daily, not missing even a single day.
And that is what she had done to me as well. Every afternoon, I would sit in
front of her, my arms around my knees and my mane spread out. Grandma would
then run her old veined hands over my hair. First slowly, and then with a
little emphasis to ensure that every strand of my hair got the massage and
nutrition it needed. She took care of her hair like a plant, watering (oiling)
it, and helping it grow by nurturing it carefully. No wonder I too had
long, black and shiny hair. Not just because of my genes, but because Grandma had put so much effort into caring for my hair.
She always insisted on
coconut oil. She said it was the best oil for one’s hair.
“What if my hair is oily
or say, dry and flaky? Isn’t there supposed to be different types of oil for
different types of hair?” I would ask when I entered adolescence and saw my
peers doing all kinds of things to their hair and feeling just a little bit
left out.
“Coconut oil is the
best.” She would say with a finality that no one could contest. Parachute was
her constant. And consequently, our staple.
***
“Come on everyone! Be
seated quickly!” I ordered.
Mom, dad, grandpa, my
little brother, uncle, aunty and their two daughters were all seated as per my
instructions. We were going to witness something today.
“What is it? Will you
tell us?” everyone was asking.
“Just wait and watch.” I
said and switched on the video.
On came all the snaps
that we had taken at different times in our life - right from when we were tiny tots
to weddings, birthdays, celebrations, occasions all the way to our current year. There were also photos from times much before we were
born.
“Who is that?” My cousin
exclaimed at a black and white photograph of a beautiful woman with long black
hair that reached her knees.
“That is your
grandmother, kid.” Grandpa said fondly, a tear escaping his eye. “This was the
picture I had taken of her when we got married.”
Everyone gasped in
surprise.
“How did you arrange
these pictures? They look ancient! And so beautiful.” Mom lauded my efforts,
making me blush.
“This picture relived
all those moments again.” Grandpa said a little sadly.
It had been three years
since Grandma had left for her heavenly abode. I still remember how we used to
celebrate Grandparents’ Day when Grandma was alive, with all due ceremony, cake
and music and good food…
But ever since grandma’s
demise, this had seen a cessation. There was no more celebration, no more
cakes, no more laughter, no more good times on this wonderful day.
But this time, I was
determined to celebrate Grandparents’ day. Because I am sure that's what
grandma would have wanted. Because she would have liked to see us together and
happy. Because it was simply the time to #LoveJatao.
So, I had done all I
could to gather our fondest memories and to relive all our cherished times.
I rushed to the kitchen
and brought out a tray. In memory of Grandma, I had arranged a cake, with ‘To
our favorite Rapunzel and her Prince’ etched on it in lovely pink icing.
Grandpa had tears in his
eyes. As I fed him a piece, I'm sure I heard grandma’s beautiful laugh
somewhere. She was still with us.
***
Happy Grandparents' Day! Hope you cherish these moments with your grandparents forever!
***
#LoveJatao #ParachuteAdvansed
#BlogAdda
I look forward to hear from you how would you celebrate Grandparents Day. Do share a selfie
with your grandparents on Sept. 10, 2017 on Twitter or Facebook with #LoveJatao & tag @blogadda to
win a goodie from Parachute Advansed.
I saw her sitting in
the room, coiled up in a corner, while her mother wiped the floor of our house.
I was too hungry so I rushed to the kitchen, got myself some garlic bread with
jam and was about to get back into my room when I stopped.
She was a little girl,
barely nine years old. She must be hungry too. Thinking so, I got her a plate
full of bread slices with jam smeared on them. “Have it,” I pushed the plate in
front of her. She got up immediately, sprang to full attention and stared at me
like she had never seen me before.
“Don’t you like bread?”
I asked her to which she nodded, took the plate from me and began eating. It
made me really happy for some reason to see her eat.
After that day, I met
her again two weeks later when her mother brought her to our place once more. “Sit,”
she instructed her daughter, who crossed her legs and sat down on the floor,
staring at the wall as if it was the most interesting television show possible.
But as soon as she saw me, her gaze locked on me as if I was now the most
interesting phenomenon in her life.
I guessed she wanted
something to eat like the last time, so I foraged around in the kitchen and
arranged some stuff for her. She looked at me intently and then began to gulp down
everything on the plate. What a sweet hungry girl.
“Taaanku.” She said to
me.
“Thank you, you mean?” I
asked her.
She stared at me as if I
was speaking in an altogether different language, which I now realize I must
be.
“Do you go to school?”
She shook her head. I
frowned. How come her mother hasn’t enrolled her yet? She is young surely, but
old enough to be in a school.
But there was no point
in asking her why she hadn’t been put in a school.
“Do you know how to
read?” I asked her.
She nodded vigorously.
I was kind of surprised. I supposed she was being homeschooled.
Just then, she picked
up a newspaper lying nearby and raised it high in front of her. She then began
to speak. And speak gibberish she did. She pretended she was reading the
newspaper. She went on for about five minutes without stopping. She spoke
nothing of any sense whatsoever. I couldn’t help but crack up. She looked so
adorable, so sweet and yet so stupid. But what caused me astonishment was her
confidence. She was speaking like she was spouting some high-profile news items,
probably replicating people she had seen around her.
And then it struck me.
What was that advert I had seen regarding Nihar Shanti Amla Oil? I dialed 8055667788
and took the phone to her. It was Nihar Shanti Amla’s new concept – Pathshala
Funwala. As soon as she got hold of the phone, her attention was completely
diverted. It was as if I didn’t exist. After about three minutes, she handed me
the phone urgently, pointing to the buttons. I put the phone to my ear and
realized that the voice was asking for an option to continue the English
lessons.
From that day onwards,
whenever she came to our house, I would call up 8055667788 from our landline.
When the English tutorial by Shanti Amla called back, I would give her the
receiver. She would then spend hours listening to the lessons.
One day I saw her on
the street, walking with her mother. I had gone to the market for groceries.
“Hi didi! How are you?”
began a chirpy voice.
I turned, saw her mom
as taken aback by her words as I was. I stopped anyway and greeted her with a
smile.
“Do you go to school
now?”
I had talked to mother
regarding her schooling and it came out that they were not planning to send her
to an educational institution but after we coaxed her mom to do so by offering
to pay for her school fee, she had started going to school.
As they say “If you change nothing, then nothing will change”.
The sweet girl nodded.
“She is the best in
English in her class, her teacher told us that day. All thanks to you, bitiya.”
Her mother said to me, overwhelmed with joy.
I waived away the
thanks.
“She really loves the
fact that they call her Shanti Didi now!” exclaimed her mother happily.
Then it struck me. Her
mother’s name was Amla and hers Shanti. Talk about coincidences!
“I am blogging about Pathshala Funwala by Nihar Shanti Amla Oil in association with BlogAdda”
