The Sathyam Obsession

After a long time I finally got down to watching a movie that brought back some of my fast depleting faith in Indian cinema. Piku, not only exemplified the virtues of a simple story with strong characters, but also proved that there is not only hope but definite freedom in the minds of our story tellers and it shows in the lines they write, the characters they build and the stories they tell. A big hug to the entire team to have created something so simply brilliant.

But more on the movie later. This post is reserved for an obsession that refuses to leave me...

I moved to Bangalore a little more than a year ago from Chennai. While the move and all that followed has been well documented in other posts and Facebook updates, a majority of my mind has inevitably begun to find a soft spot for Bangalore. I walk to work, so I see lesser of the traffic and I feel all is fine. I live in Indiranagar which by far is the capital of the civilised world and in that pride my chest does swell a tad bit more than required. I like my coffee places, I adore the breakfast joints, I never stop meeting interesting people and there is just never a dearth of stuff happening in town, just a dearth of time to do anything about it. But even then, there is that one thing, that will just never be the same again. My movie watching experience!

Chennai will always define me as a person like no other city ever has or will, but even though I can confidently say that I wear that more as a badge of honour than a scar that I like showing off, the experience of watching a movie in Sathyam (And Escape) will never completely leave me. Ever! Every time I walk into a theater in Bangalore, no matter how good, I am reminded of the enveloping warmth and brilliance that is Sathyam (And Escape). When I walked into Sathyam (And Escape) watching a movie was never about the ticket and the movie, it involved so much more.

There was always this palpable sense of excitement when I knew I was going for a movie there. It never mattered if the movie was good or not, the excitement was just there. The excitement would begin to build hours before even getting there. Emails would get typed faster at work, the Activa would chug along a tad bit smoother through the traffic and the traffic lights just never seemed to turn red. Dinners before the movie (Chinese or Frankies) would always be a fun and hurried affair, because we just couldn't wait to get into Sathyam (And Escape). Once in, the general buzz of the place, the collective coming together of so many kindred souls in one place was always electrifying. Chennai took its movies very seriously. We cheered together, laughed, cried and groaned together. We even sometimes put popcorn in our mouths at the exact same moments during the movie. The popcorn too undoubtedly played a pivotal role in guaranteeing you were always transported to a different universe while in there. You always will want more butter stuffed in to the popcorn and more cheese poured into it. The autonomy that Sathyam (And Escape) gave you to create your own popcorn concoctions was just unbelievable. We would come together on so many nights irrespective of the movie to create combinations of food and beverage that we would talk about the next day. We would talk about the chocolate donuts at breakfast next morning, the cold coffee at tea time and invariably we would be back in Sathyam (And Escape) the next night discussing how we want our popcorn.

Sathyam (And Escape) was never about the movie alone but about all the elements that just magically came together to make each of those nights. You would drive back with this quiet admiration every time because even if the movie disappointed you, Sathyam (And Escape) would have made the night special for you. Because watching a movie in a cinema hall is meant to be special. It is meant to invigorate you and place you in a room with a large number of strangers to bring you together. There are fewer experiences that consistently produce this feeling of togetherness. Cinema halls across the country are doing this every day...

Sathyam (And Escape) just do it heartbreakingly better than the rest. 

Welcome 2015, but before that..

Keeping in line with the year 2014 was, I just haven't had the time to get this post out earlier so I finally decided to get my act together after a rather fertile evening of thinking and conversations and get this post out. For the past couple of years I have been writing a review of the year gone by, the things that mattered to me, that defined me and the world around me. 2014 was a little different that way. It didn't contain the roller coaster rides that were 2012 and 2013 but it was by far, and history should stand testament to it, the most pivotal year of my life.

I began my year with the rather uncomfortable thought of leaving Chennai. It also spurred what many abusive commentators to my blog posts that popped up around that time, would call, my obsessive love with the city of Chennai. If given a chance I would have written a blog post dedicated to every inch of Chennai in those last few weeks. I sometimes still wish I had, even at the expense of losing relationships forged the day I was born. The weeks that followed were possibly the most complete and soul stirring that I have ever experienced. Saying goodbye to a city has never been a task for me. For the most I used to be convinced that I would never return to them or know that they were an inextricable part of me and therefore never concerned myself with the banalities of extended farewells. But there was a sense of foreboding upon leaving Chennai and it felt that the city would never be the same again once I left. Working past those emotions I decided to take a short holiday between my segue from Chennai to Bangalore and that was possibly the best decision of 2014.

Hidden between snow capped peaks in the bed of paradise is the little town of Macleodganj. It's the place where the word quaint was discovered and the feeling of inner peace, only mirrored by Po at the end of Kung Fu Panda 2, could be experienced. The weekend spent there in between the snow, the warmth of the best travel mates I could ask for and the distinct sense of abandon that I felt there was momentous. There was a moment, one I will never forget, as I lay on the snow halfway up a hill. The sun crept from behind a mountain and stared me in the face but was weakened by the intense cold and the combination was a warm fuzzy feeling. The ice was melting behind me and freezing again. the cold was gentle but the gusts of wind were furious but there wasn't a soul for miles, not a thought on my mind, not a single concern. For the first time in years I lay vacant. Nothing processing and all systems on standby. It by far, as much as I enjoy a constant tension, was the greatest single moment of clarity for me. Since that moment on, nothing and I mean nothing would ever be greater or impose a greater force on me. There in that moment I had found my peace. The drive back to Chandigarh, the food eaten, the Tibetan martyrs remembered, the trek into the darkness with us endangering our lives, all of it, every bit of it was brilliant but secondary to that timeless moment of immense sanity. It has guided me fearlessly through the year.

Thank you to that wind, that harsh sun and that warm snow.

With very little time to recover from that glorious trip I was already in a new office, in a new city which was well really a city I knew too well and in a new home that was way to big for me. I had to overcome it all in no time so that I could catch up with the pace at which work was moving. In Chumbak, I have joined a company that is pretty close to being a soulmate. From Day 1 there was no doubt in my mind that I had to make this work. There was absolutely no doubt I had in my self but there was this lingering fear of something new getting the better of me. That the variables for success were stacked against me and conquering them would challenge all that I had. As I kept reminding myself of my day in the snow, I held on and at times, just about. Like that moment when your parent or sibling let's go off your cycle to allow you to pedal it yourself, I never realised when that force stopped holding on to me and I cycled away. Work didn't become a breeze, far from it, it became a struggle that I just couldn't get enough of. I need it and savour every moment of it, even the lows. There is this sense of history about it all for me, like how you read chapters from history without ever questioning how those set of circumstances came to be. The sense here is the same. I forget, every once in a while, as to what triggered this moment and give up, only to realise that this was just right. There have been very few moments in the last year where I haven't been thinking of work and like that day nestled in the snow, I would not want it any different. Discovering something that motivates, frustrates and fulfills you every day is a tough ask and when you get it out of the one thing where you spend your longest hours, there could be little else one could ask for.

Thank you to that unknown moment when the decision to be here was made. Thank you to the people at work who have made the year unquestionably crazy and fulfilling.

I also began the year convinced that I was running away from something. Something that I needed to get away from and that it was the only way to get a toehold back on life. A large part of me was moving on with life only for the right reasons, a lot of which has been validated over the past couple of months. But what I failed to see back then was that there was a subtle but significant difference between running away from something and unknowingly discovering something. So what began as a year on the run, ended in finding gravity to life. Something that pulled me back, firmly to the ground and promises to hold on to me tight and comfy. I'm certain now that your world doesn't need to be defined by you, you don't need to be in control. Sometimes, and for every once in a while, focussing on your shit while allowing the universe to get your shit together is just the best way to lead life.

Thank you to me, for realising that allowing life to make a few decisions for you could just be the best way ahead. Watch out for this space.

Thank you 2014 for allowing me to watch up close the journey of the most adorable, enchanting and bewildering girl I know, my darling niece. Being this close to her, my sister and brother in law has been the most comforting bonus of the year. Thank you for ensuring that I ended up living with not just one of the most awesome room mates but also in a part of the city that from a very young age I have always wanted to find a home in. Thank you in helping me rediscover running, even if it finally took you nearly the end of the year. Thank you for each of the people that found their way into my life at work who i'm sure came right out of my wish list of people I always wanted to work with. Thank you for not making Bangalore easily likable because in every day that I struggle to love this city I discover something about it that will surely make the bond stronger. Thank you for challenging me like never before, for the sleepless nights of which there were many, for letting me witness the two greatest love stories of my life turn into something magical in a matter of two days, for teaching me that love is beautiful but not necessarily for me right now and for trying so hard to help me just move on with this new beautiful life I have been given. I promise to make a lot more of it in 2015 as this will be the year I begin to enjoy what I have found and stop running away from it.

In essence, i will spend this year lying in the snow, looking up at the sun, closing my eyes and with a quiet smile on my face, I will lap up every moment given to me. Bring it on 2015!  

Rediscovering a crush

My first crush was at the age of 8. It was the daughter of my English teacher, she was my classmate and she was every dream that could come true. I worshipped her, quietly from a corner in the class and would slip or stumble or just make an ass of myself whenever she was around. I also remember having some pretty Bollywood moments with her with those typical 'hair flying' in to my face moments and also one of those 'I can see her but she isn't here' times too. All in all there is something completely special about having a crush or crush'ing' as many in today's generation like to put it. I am a man of the times after all.

There is undoubtedly something special about a crush. It isn't exactly falling in love, it generally is a little before that but it still is a lot more defined in intent as compared to love. Crushes are also often silly and ambiguous for one to explain and confess but at the same time they are one helluva rollercoaster ride, albeit travelled all alone. Crushes are the trailers before a movie, the lit candle on the cake, the complete and unadulterated joy of the world. And in all these years I have had so few. I may have fallen in love more than a couple of times but the charm of a crush is rather unique. It is unnerving, disarming and fantastic in every manner possible. The thought of your crush possibly taking note of your existence and giving you your due of importance and attention can be the most gratifying few moments of your life and many a man, mostly boy, has spent many hidden corners in school and shy glances across corridors understanding this universal truth.

And just when I thought that only my younger self would allow itself to fall prey to this rather crazy and curious feeling, I find myself right back there after ages. Possibly for the first time since I was 17. The thing about me and a crush is that it is always borne out of an innocent moment of realisation of a woman's beauty, not always physical, but of her presence. Her presence needs to light up my day and she could do that in just about so many ways. Yesterday I was treated to an exquisite performance on stage by a woman who I can only consider, magical. Her grace, articulation, those eyes, everything was a coming together of all that is perfect in a woman. There were moments during her 90 minute performance where I would often wonder if I had ever encountered perfection of this kind. Her words gripped me, her ability to tell a story through dance and her expressions followed by a change in pace in her narration to an abrupt pause. I was gathering the pieces of my broken heart every time she seemed to be hurt or moved to a point of sadness. I know she was a character in a play but she had moved me beyond a point of reality because in those minutes before she decided to leave the stage there wasn't a part of me that wanted this to end. She told a story of great conviction and courage and I may not be objective in my analysis of her performance but she had graced that stage like none has ever before in front of my eyes. No human, living or fictitious has grabbed me by the soul like that. This was a crush that had transcended all known boundaries of innocence, blind eyed love or emotion like ever before. This was how a crush was meant to be. She had walked on to that stage, grabbed me by my skin and never let go even after she walked off the stage.

This was a performance of power, vigour and fortitude but most importantly for the little boy in me, this was a reminder of the power of a crush in all its disproportionate magnitude. I would advice you to never stop having crushes, its what reminds you of what it feels like to be in pure and absolute awe of another living being. And in that emotion, sometimes, lies a feeling far greater than love or lust or attachment could ever envisage of giving you.

As for the lady on that stage, I will try my best to follow you to all the stages you grace. I wish to remain enchanted..

Becoming a writer..

At the age of 10, my uncle and aunt gifted me a notebook. It was spiral bound, semi-hard bound and had a couple of stickers with quotes from famous authors about the art of writing on it. On the first page was a little note from my uncle and aunt talking about how they thought I would someday make a great writer. Along with that they had given me ten ideas to write a story on. The book instantly became a source of wonder for me. I wouldn't ever care sharpening my pencil in class for anything, but when I would open this notebook and look at the ten ideas, I would be instantly gushing with excitement and tirelessly begin to sharpen a couple of pencils and embark upon a story. Some of my classics included, 'The autobiography of a 50 ps coin', critics (my aunt, mom and sister) rated it as an important 20th century piece of literature. There was the rather mature story of an American pilot caught behind enemy lines and sympathising with the people of Iraq to one day fly for the Iraqi Air Force. This one scared the critics a bit, but much praise was heaped upon my little mind. All in all the notebook was a great success because in me it kindled a sense of pride, to write and express myself and for it to count.

A few years later as I would dip my Chinese pen in a bottle of ink before an English exam, I would lick my lips at the prospect of an English essay. It was always the most special moment of all my exams. And whenever the faculty thought it was good enough to be read out in class, I would know that that little notebook back then had done its magic. It had created a writer. It seemed like I was destined for only one thing in life. The critics, (a few more English teachers and friends got added to the list) agreed wholeheartedly.

As the years went by, my writing always found a way to find itself on some paper, a document on MS Word or on some blackboard in an empty classroom. I began blogging when I was 18, on this very blog and then moved on to another two blogs. Throughout this journey, I started and stopped many ideas for a novel, changed many laptops, shifted back to writing in a spiral bound notebook, wrote exclusively on a white-board in my hostel room. Well, to say the least, I tried everything. And I don't even know why. Writing has always been a great release for me, it's how I feel after a long run. There is this pleasure in the pain and exhaustion you feel after and also a pleasure in the pain and exhaustion during. But after I get back from that run, settle down, take a couple of sips of water and untie my laces, I'm just back where I started. Going for that run didn't mean I was getting anywhere specific, I wasn't changing anything forever. It was just an incremental change to my current state of being which in the larger scheme of things is too minuscule to count for anything. If my Running App tells me I have completed 50 miles a month, those 50 miles haven't taken me 50 miles away from where I am. In the same way with close to 100 blog posts over the last few years, I haven't really moved anywhere, I haven't gotten to any place new. Now how does that make 10 year old me feel about all that effort put in creating a compelling story about a 50 ps coin?

Well, I guess the answer lies in this little moment right now. Yes, this very moment, these very words I am typing. How right now my eyes are wide open, my heart is beating a little faster than usual. Just a slight bit faster. About how every worry in the world seems to have been buried somewhere, somewhere I won't be able to even search till i'm done with this post. It is in those few seconds when I will post this and I will see that moving circle of Google Chrome loading my blog post, and then seeing it live on my blog. The joy isn't in ten thousand people reading it (how I would love that) but in ten people reading it and with two coming back relating with that feeling or asking me why I don't feel differently. The adrenaline is in that sleep induced moment at 5 AM when I wake up to see a few messages on my phone of people who loved the post, who want to understand more. Nothing wakes me up like that, nothing, and I mean nothing compares. And then the heart slows down, the racing stops and I read it again. I scroll through it slowly and I begin to relive the exact stream of thoughts that went through my mind while I wrote it, the other ideas that were swirling while I was checking it for grammar. All those thoughts, that heartbeat, the wide eyes, the excitement to see someone's comment, the messages early in the mornings, the Likes on my Facebook page and that one off person who decides to follow my blog just because this one post inspired them or lit up their day..

That is why I wrote that story back then, the story of the 50 ps coin. That was all I wanted and felt back then. That is all it takes to become a writer.

I'm going to love reading this tomorrow morning.

Making the move

A month ago when I moved to Bangalore, I thought I was making the easiest and most logical move ever. It all made sense; the job was perfect, the city was already acquainted with me and all the other variables involved in a move were well under control. Not much could have gone wrong, except for one rather obvious oversight. It was all too easy.

Ok, yes you must be thinking that i'm a slave to hardship and misery. I have been accused of it before but let me explain. All my life, all I have ever known is change. Moving from one place to another, a new place, falling in love with that place at my own pace and then creating a deep bond with it. That's how I have always operated the best, at my greatest potential. With Bangalore, I was robbed of that opportunity. I have come into a city I know rather well, with a mind made up on what I think of it and with an outlook that could destroy an opportunity to find love for another city. I sometimes feel that I have exhausted my quota for loving new places, its like it is alien to me now. Or maybe I am resisting it. It's like meeting a girl and being quite obviously attracted but working on every instinct in you to not give in. Bangalore is that girl today.

In the last month, I have discovered much I did not know about a city I thought I knew yet I have allowed very little to pass through and enter into my conscious. Allowing a city to make an impression on you is so important. Giving it the freedom to create that space in you to which it can latch on and enrich you is key in developing a meaningful relationship. Complete resistance could only be detrimental in the long run. Something had to give or something has to change..

So in a rather poetic way, it was a weekend that came to my rescue as did back in Chennai when I first fell in love with the city. With some of my best mates in town, I managed to find a fuller and much more happier definition for the city. We roamed the streets, we sang loudly in a pub with fellow lovers of the color Red, we ate rolls on the roadside, we watched a terrible play in a lovely place, a beer challenge was followed by a cold coffee challenge and then we sat quietly observing the travesties life has committed on us, all within a space of 48 hours. Somewhere in between all that, in a moment of clarity, I saw what I was missing. In Bangalore, I have been presented with a unique challenge, to create a real legacy. Of finally becoming a man of my own in a city that resists you creating your own identity and offers you many templates to fall into. I will have to hold through it all and build from the start like I have done always but this time it will be easier because inbuilt in this city are so many versions of myself that I can be, just a matter of finding the version which can most fulfill me.

It's time I finally complete the move..

2013, Come Gone!

So when I was much younger. Let’s give that a number. When I was 3. I would stand at the door of my uncle’s house and look at the guests leave and announce to the entire house, ‘PEOPLE COME GONE’. It was my simple way of saying, ‘Wow that was quick’ and it sounded really adorable from the mouth of a three year old me. Now, most of 2013 felt that way, especially the second half.

The first half of 2013 revealed a side of me that I have come to detest in me and in any person now. It is rather easy for me to feel that way and it is unfair to other people but then again I come from a vantage point on this and feel rather justified in my feelings. The first half was sluggish, emotionally annoying and was filled with very little optimism. The crappy part was that I had only myself to blame for this rather terrible downswing but in hindsight, it was only good because the months that followed played out like a high paced movie which married Hollywood’s slickness and Bollywood’s masala like never before. Well atleast that is what I tell myself.

June, saw me spending many days in front of mirrors and under showers wondering how I had allowed everything become so miserable and dreary. I used to love work but I was labouring through it now. I wasn’t connecting socially, I was barely social and I was content in this emotional quicksand. The strange part now is, I am not even sure if I decided to get my act together or my act decided to get itself together, if you know what I mean. Because suddenly from ‘crawl like a turtle’ I went to ‘fly like the wind’. The month of July took me to Mumbai, Meerut and Singapore and all of them included a personal debut. My first time compering a corporate event, my first North Indian wedding and my first time outside India. After those three weeks, I was a changed man. I just wasn’t going to allow me to ruin myself and since that moment on it feels like the old ‘me’ had COME GONE. Poof it was over.

Now, I just needed to do everything. Everything seemed exciting, everything seemed to symbolise the end of what it meant to be me and I liked that. Do you know the feeling when you feel yourself change? You don’t know if it is good for you or if you will lose the things people loved about you, but you don’t stop to care? It is a very liberating feeling. I did pause to think of how it would affect me in the long run but there was just no time. I decided to run again after a failed attempt to get my mind and body in sync back in March. This time I spent a lot of time reading, researching and structuring the rest of my life around the need to be fit. The food I ate, the amount I ate, my resistance to waking up in the morning, temptation to eat junk food, all of it had to change. This wasn’t going to be a half assed effort. And to infuse some seriousness into it, I threw in the small matter of a 10km run at the Wipro Chennai Marathon. I can quite easily submit that preparing for the run was one of the most satisfying two months of my life. I learned that there was another gear in me, both physically and mentally. I joined a gym, started eating untouchables like beetroot again and the discipline was actually addictive. The few days without it still make me nauseatic. Funny how the nausea of the first six months didn’t push me to change it all, shows there is much to be understood about the human psyche. The 1^st of December brought me a lovely overcast morning and 7000 other enthusiasts who had decided to change something about themselves. This truly was already a victory for me, to be running in the happiest place in Chennai that day. I surprised myself and many who were following and supporting me closely in the last two months by posting a rather decent time, but more than anything a part of me had changed forever when I crossed that finish line. Being a pathetic version of myself, allowing my circumstances to get the better of me and deciding not to change had all COME GONE now. I had outrun it all.

In the process of all this change I suddenly woke up with a rather weird feeling in the stomach, one morning late October. I woke up, washed my face and sat on my bed wondering what was on my mind. I had changed the way I processed the thoughts in my head. There weren’t large spaces of introspection, just a quick realisation and then action. This was one of those moments. It started a chain of events that some thought was quick and rash, some saw it as well considered and some are yet to completely comprehend. In the weeks that followed that day concluding on the 18^th of December, I had interviewed at a company that sells some of the funnest things in the country and hires about 60 people, I had quit my job and been offered what I can easily sum up as a dream job and I had decided to leave the city I loved to make the move across the border to Bangalore. Yes 2013 also signalled the end of my short but lovely time in Chennai with a move scheduled in mid-February. Till this day I am fascinated by the reactions I get from people when I tell them I’m moving. These reactions revolve around me leaving Chennai, the speed with which it happened and the company I am joining but what truly leaves me incredulous is at the conviction with which I concluded a thought that began that morning. It surely stemmed from a part of me that was fighting to be heard from long but the conviction surely arose from this new belief in me.  Belief that has surely COME but ain’t be GONE for some time now.

2013 will always remain a monumental year in my life. It involved travel, running, brilliant movies, (special mentions to Kai Po Che, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Ship of Theseus, Raanjhana and Lootera) realizing the meaning of true friendship and finding in me - a spirit. This spirit does not know what exact moment revived it but I sure do know that the resurrection has been strong, the long term impact is unknown but there is a part of me that is ready to overlook the consequences in pursuit of the result. From this have emanated some resolutions for the year, simple ones that I’m very excited about and have already begun to gently put in practice. I can rather happily report, that they are working but more on that later in the year.

But for my biggest fans however little in number you may be, my friends and family, I have completed the process of re-engineering myself (as my Whatsapp status has been declaring for rather long now) and I am in a zone of progression. I hope to see more of you this year, I hope to change perceptions everyday mostly for the better and hope to continue evolving and improving my version of myself. I can actually see ‘three year old me’ saying, ‘Som you sure COME GONE eh’.

2014, anyone?

What’s your 'entry song'?

Remember the good old days of WWF. The Rock and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin kind, not the cute panda kind. That is still there. Right? Moving on..

While the WWF I loved has been replaced by WWE which is quite obviously fake unlike the good ol days when they actually fought, genuinely got angry and meant to do those stunts with all that anger and vigour. Okay maybe I am getting carried away and that’s why growing up sucks. Let’s leave that for another post. But either way, the one thing that hasn’t changed is the ‘entry song’. Remember that? Remember Triple H’s mean ‘I-will-beat-the-crap-out-of-you-and-then-spit-water-coz-its-cool’ entry song? Remember ‘Big Show’ coming on with the swagger of an elephant on dope. Ya well that was the shit. Those songs would electrify the crowds in the arena and get me super excited too especially when ‘Rock’ would come unexpectedly during a match and beat the crap outta some poor guy and get the hell out of there to the crazy adulation of his fans with me air ‘choke slamming’ my pillow to death.

Now that’s the power of an entry song. And I think we all need one.

An entry song is an announcement of your arrival. It could be at the beginning of your day, it could be when you walk into office or when you sit to take a dump or it could even be when you walk into gym. It’s that song that sets you free and makes you look at everyone around you and go, ‘Look at me bitches, I’m the real shit’ (Side note : That line translated in Tamil – damn funny!!). It is the song that reminds you of the part of you that you want yourself to be all day. It may not play on loud speakers in a stadium filled with people but it sure plays in your head waking up every bone in you and reminding you that getting your act together is the best orgasm you can give yourself. Ok, make that second best. Either way, an entry song that you play on your Ipod or phone which only you hear on your earphones allows you distinct anonymity especially for the ones who choose to have ‘Justborn’ Bieber or ‘Dicey’ Cyrus as their artist of choice. You see no one will ever know what you are hearing and you will just have that smug smile of a person ready to kill it.

We all aren’t built to motivate ourselves all day, we need props. We need the power of music or powerful imagery. Technology makes it freaking easy yet cumbersome to figure out that one perfect aid that will help you rev up those engines. So choose wisely and if it is embarrassing, don’t worry because the music, the artist or the words don’t matter, it is only the feeling that it gives you which gets you ready to kick ass every day that counts. The rest can stick to their motivational quotes for all I care.

And just for the record, this is my entry song.   

My Social Quotient

Recently I have been hearing a lot of people comment on social awkwardness, people’s (and sometimes ‘my own’) inability to socially relate and for some reason instantly equate that to a reducing ability to connect with the world. Here are some of the things I have been hearing about myself and comments directed at others:

You need to apply yourself more in a social gathering or you stick out like a sore thumb.

Embrace the hashtag. It is the only way to evolve (#ihatehashtags)

Till when can you continue ignoring the presence of people in your life?

Solitude makes you unhappy – Well it wasn’t framed exactly this way but after about 12 lines of gibberish it was all I could gather.

Now let me ensure you at the outset, I am no social outcast nor do I intend to be. I enjoy the company of people but yes I have become increasingly selective of who these people are and am constantly assessing the value they add to my life. Now some people would very quickly dismiss me as a snob and close the tab of my blog and decide to hate me a tad bit more from this day. But I pray you continue to read, maybe, just maybe there is something here for you too. I have begun to embrace the power of anonymity, not the kind that spews famous quotes with an ‘Anonymous’ at the end to heighten the mystery of the original contributor, but the kind that fulfills me. I believe that life is a sum of the conversations you have, the experiences you live and the moments that inspire you. The richer the three, the longer your life. Sounds good, right?

Well unfortunately in the quest for these I have to answer some pretty sticky questions. Like the ones above and others concerning my devotion and affiliation to people. The people who feel the need to question that instantly enter a self-defeating game where they are constantly reducing their value in my life themselves. I choose to stay away from those conversations as having to prove your value to someone in any terms other than time spent, meaningful conversations and subtle gestures is pointless. My argument being: is the person going out of his/her way to prove value to you, being selfless? Is that who you want in your life? The answer technically doesn’t matter. The value of a person should always be in your eyes, the moment it diminishes in the way you define it, you disconnect but to expect others to see the same definition too is tantamount to all the many beliefs forced upon people over the years.

Over the past half year I have seen an incredible growth in these beliefs of mine. And believe it or not, they haven’t happened by locking myself in a room as per popular perception but by choosing to limit my interactions and ensuring they are fruitful. Travel has been an amazing companion, so has my new Nexus Tab J but most importantly it has been a few friends who have had the maturity and innate ability to redefine the way I think, act and support me through these changes when I most needed them. They have accepted my flaws and embraced my quirks and allowed me to breathe. The last one year has taught me many lessons, some very cruel ones but all intended to ensure I reach this point in time and I can’t complain anymore.  

There have been more first this year than in all my life and also more lessons than ever before which has helped me define my idea of a ‘social quotient’.

At no point am I prescribing to alienate the people around you or in any way consider yourself different but to only embrace the idea of ‘you’. It is the person you live the longest with and the more battles you fight with yourself the more the wounds and the lesser the growth. Choosing what makes you a better person and more engaged in your relationships is a path I surely vouch for. I do realize that this post is bordering on the ‘self help’ dribble that is doled out every now and then but honestly how often do you get to change the way you perceive the life you are living and actually do something about it? We are living in exponentially non-personal times with the space you create for yourself constantly being broken by the social demands you bow down to. Cut through that because it is possible and then see if you really enjoy life that way and if you do then have the will to stand by it.

I constantly question myself everyday to understand what I’m doing better and this obsession drives me. From more digital and paperback pages to more miles on the road and treadmill to heavier weights in the weight room to even heavier emotions around me, everything is just a matter of defining your social boundaries. Once that is done suddenly everything begins to become so easy, just so freaking easy!

Now all of you stop imagining me in scary ‘self help guru’ avatar but just look around your life and see what can be changed. And if it’s fun and fulfilling, I’m ready to help and support you through it. 

Where the heart is..

In a conversation with a friend recently we were planning her trip to Bangalore. We spoke of lovely places to eat, gorgeous places to read and well, just places. At the end I reminded her that she must remember to come back to Chennai and she said, very nonchalantly, that well,  'that's where the heart is'.

A simple yet profound statement with so much weight in it I thought. Made me ponder as to where really is the heart. Is it in the place where your dreams begin? If yes then my heart is beating wildly in a lovely little town in Madhya Pradesh called Jabalpur. This was where it all began, my birth and many years later my first experiences with growing up and the delusions that come with age and time. This was the stage where a fifteen year old me was convinced that irrespective of how life treats me, I will beat it. I would kill for that optimism today but then again I always remember that it is the same me, or is it? Is that where my heart is?

Then again is your heart in the place where you first lost your heart? Well proverbially at least. Mangalore will always be my spiritual home. The place I became me or at least the ideal of me. It was also the stage of my first love for a woman, a city and also the idea of a 'home'. From creating a world of my own to treating any relationship with that place as an inheritance, I constantly find myself drawn to that place and it makes me wonder if in search for a bond, something tangible that I can call my own, have I left my heart there? Is that where my heart is?

Could my heart be beating for a dream? Nestled deep down in me is a dream, one that simmers but unfortunately doesn't burn yet. It consumes me every now and then but let's go so quickly without notice and without the inclination to push me to be what I truly want to be. I begin to feel that I'm cheating myself like all of us who refuse to live or even contemplate the realization of our dreams. In me lives a soul desperate to write, to capture every thought in my head, to discuss it with an audience, even an audience of one and create some thing special, some thing that will define me and the world I live in because I know that's where my true peace begins and ends. So then, is that where my heart is?

Is it with a relationship that could never be? Is it with a job that challenges yet doesn't fulfill me? Is it with an idea of loneliness and wonder that knocks on my door everyday? Or for like my friend above is it actually in this city, waiting for me to find my way?

A new idea of patriotism

Disclaimer : This idea isn't formed. I am not preaching and I am not hoping that anyone changes any existing opinion of their country or the people who fought for it's independence. Consider this as a troubled mind, thinking out aloud. Also do forgive my digressions and runaway thinking at times. It after all is patriotism that we are talking of here.

Rishi Kapoor, the acclaimed Indian actor in a recent interview promoting his movie ‘D-Day’ spoke about the changing idea of patriotism in this country and as depicted by Indian cinema. He spoke about many movies talking of the freedom struggle in the years around 1947 and the decade that followed. Gradually with the economy and development taking centre stage, the Green Revolution and its proponents (the farmers) became the hero and as Hindi cinema discovered color and more verve we also began to unite behind the one constant enemy, Pakistan, and saw many movies made about the wars fought against them. Some have adhered to the principles of exaggeration to the point of indigestion of the real facts but in totality managed to create the required patriotism in the hearts and minds of today's India. By summing up these eras he very succinctly ends it with how today’s India needs to stir up its patriotic concoction with ingredients like cross border terrorism, the likes of Dawood Ibrahim and Hafeez Saeed who finance and incite hate against India and the idea of fundamentalism in Pakistan that doesn’t allow peace and safety in India.

I must say I was sold. There really isn’t much we can say in the opposite. Yes, there is a proxy war being waged by Pakistan and well, there really isn’t a different way for them to play it. With the US and its allies pulling out of Afghanistan, the emphasis of the Pakistan Army has shifted considerably to their northern border, with an incensed and fast regenerating Taliban looking to avenge what they see as treason by Pakistan who joined US in their pointless war in Afghanistan. Their government is also grappling with a sticky situation in the border towns in the Xinjiang province in China with the firmly rooted Uighurs (Muslims) now being overcrowded and out thought by the Hans (of Chinese origin) for the sake of development of China (More here). And finally the battle with India for Kashmir which sometimes doesn’t even seem to be in the hands of the Pakistan government, with the ISI and groups like the LeT and the fast growing Tehreek-i-Taliban calling the shots. To top it off we have men like Dawood Ibrahim who conduct business in the name of chaos in India, all this with clear knowledge on both sides of the border of the exact address and whereabouts of Dawood in the city of Karachi. If you need to Google it, just type ‘Café Flo’.

We live in this world. We live with these apparent solutions to our problems and a trigger ready to be squeezed a moment away from each other. A lot of it is in the name of economic development, what with pipelines becoming political and elections becoming the motivation for peace. We actually have surrendered our ambitions and opinions to very little fact. Why do I say that? What is the connection between ambition and opinion with our geo-political situation, you ask? I wish I could say it is simple but it isn’t, but I shall anyhow endeavour to have you see it through my eyes.

Our ambition as a nation is limitless, but it isn’t necessarily congruent with our reality. Yes we boast of some of the largest businesses, entrepreneurs by the hordes, a supremely fast growing middle class and a tedious tendency to boast about our youth (more on that later). We have the ingredients, we just have to many recipes and more importantly we have no clue of the conditions required to attain the perfect broth. It’s a great concern when many of us wake up every morning, read the news about skirmishes on the border and resort to dialogue on peace and war and then go about our daily work with these opinions intact. That is where opinion meets our ambition. Our ambition is not independent of our opinion. We have been taught by free thinking Bengali poets and JNU mavericks that thinking and opinions are our birth right. Yes, they are but ignorance has no place here. We are in too precarious a place to be caught unawares, to not know the real picture. When we rejoice at the idea of economic reform in this country, do we ever question if this growth is inclusive? When poverty declined due to a redefinition of daily incomes of the people below the poverty line recently, did we for once look at the other factors that contributed to this remarkable decline? (Read more here). We balked at what seemed like a conspiracy and continued with our vacant opinions. We are cynical, yes we are cynical. We have every reason to be cynical. Cynicism can just be the solution for a country drowning in hate politics and relentless violence against the mind. But our cynicism seems to be stemming from ignorance. We seem to believe that nothing can happen in this country like there is a tested case study for it. Like the formula has been prescribed and that we have already got the variables wrong and it is opposed to any reversal. We are far from complete anarchy, we are also far from a solution. And the solution for geo-political, economic, social and political harmony of a nation with the most diverse population in the world, cannot possibly be easy right?

But what surely can be a step in that direction is matching that ambition, of a harmony between entities, with opinion that is steeped in fact. It needs to be enriched with facts, it needs to reek of knowledge of this country. It needs to become a bloody obsession! Not all of us are going to become ‘doers’ or ‘changers’, but we sure can all be ‘influencers’. We all wake up in different beds, some are just sheets on the floor, some are just mattresses on the floor and some are large comfortable beds. Yes, we then have different breakfasts, go to different jobs or institutions of education and have varied interactions in a day. These interactions range from the lack of money to survive a month to your next electronic purchase. We are the youth (I did say I will get back to this) and we have a duty to this nation. That duty may not be to join the Army or IAS or the Police Service all the time, many of us will continue to do that and continue to excel and disrupt this system of ours we often curse yet hold dear, but we have a larger duty than that. We owe this country a resolute idea of patriotism that doesn’t limit itself to hating Pakistan or waxing lyrical about how ‘guss ke un Chinese chinki ko udha dena chahiye’, we owe this country sense and a definite idea of what is its reality. We are living in an age when real opinions are available because the facts that will equip those opinions are available and I am not talking about that deranged Arnab Goswami losing the plot on TV every night. I am talking about independent blogs like that of a Pakistani journalist exposing the truth about his own country, about reading newspapers that don’t align with anyone but the truth and of opinions amongst our friends that are rooted in reality and fact.

We owe our nation a chance for change and that will only come when we decide that there is no place for empty opinions and that patriotism will only find a form and wield power if it is defined - and most importantly, informed! 

A Toast to 2012

Good bye! Thanks a ton! Good riddens!

But wait! Was it really that bad? Introspection, deep reflection and countless glasses of rum later, I begin to wonder if 2012 really was that bad a year? Let me look back at my year, my year of reckoning, discovery, loss, renewal and flickers of hope here and there.

The year began on a somber note for me when my aunt, who I have loved and admired all my life decided she needed a better place, then this world, to live in. She was always a true inspiration in just the way she conducted herself and her tenacity for many things in life. She doted on me and it was and still is tough to see her contact on my phone and not be able to dial her number. Makes me realize that you just can never have enough conversations with the people you love and I cringe at the thought that I didn’t call her more. She is surely in a better place now and she is quite probably tuning into her favorite TV show or cursing the plight of our society while she keeps a keen eye on me and hopes for the best for my life. You will always be missed.

For a year that started on such a low note, it did find it very tough to give me any highs. But seeing my beautiful niece go from being a couple of months old to a year old, will surely be the crowning glory of this year. Incredibly intelligent, naughty and cruelly cute, she has brought out a protective, quasi-fatherly side to me that I did not know existed. Now I understand when close family are so shocked every year to see me all grown up. I used to laugh at their incredulity but I’m very sure my niece will be doing the same when I look at her and tear up every time I see her. She is truly the apple of my eye and seeing her grow will undoubtedly be my favorite moments of 2013. That’s already guaranteed!

My love and appreciation for one of my most celebrated interests only strengthened this year. It began with Agneepath and was wrapped up quite tautly by Talaash. It wasn’t my favorite year of Bollywood but it surely was the year when I took it most seriously. I betted heavily on good content and I must say, I was let down a bit. But a few movies did sure warm the heart. Kahaani stunned me, Barfi wowed me but by far the movie of the year would, without a single iota of doubt be, Gangs of Wasseypur. A true classic and I fail to understand how that wasn’t our Oscar entry. The five hour, two part revenge saga was pretty much how I would like to define my life from this point. Watch it and you will know what I mean. This was also the year I discovered ‘The Secret in their eyes’, an Argentine thriller which is just beyond comparison. A movie that I urge you to watch just to understand how powerful cinema can truly be. Let Bollywood aspire for such heights this year and with possibly the most exciting February of movies lined up in my movie watching history, I cannot wait for 2013.

This also was the year of understanding love. It was warming, it was comforting, it was tiring, it gave me hope and encouragement, it made me feel all conquering, helped me realize what’s important and also was disappointing and outright shocking at times. I have seen my greatest lows and hit my most intoxicating highs this year and it’s all because of a few relationships that involved people very close to me. I’m ending the year with possibly my belief in love shaken, but not stirred. I have won some and possibly lost the most important one but I vow to continue fighting in 2013. Top of my list is to regain my love for the city of Chennai which has been an unsuspecting bystander in all my tribulations this year and has been blamed for most of it. In rediscovering my love for this city I believe lies the key to my renewal. As for relationships that seem to have gone out of my hand now, they need to know they will remain in the heart but my desire to fight back is at it’s strongest. So this is me hoping to be a better man who will be accepted better by people around him and this is me submitting myself to the greater conspiracies of the universe.

Finally, this was also the year of independence. My first full year standing on my own feet. My first year with my own transport independence – my first bike and car. This was also the year I took care of myself. This was the year my writing came into its own as for the first time I actually seem to have a plan for it and I hope 2013 will give me the right direction for my writing exploits. This was the year I decided to take control of my life and never let anyone or anything bring me to my knees. This was the year my career began to take serious shape and I truly believe I have a lot to prove and I have everything in place to do just that. 2012 will always be the year I decided to take control..

A huge thanks to everyone and everything who made this year brilliant. A special mention to killer roommates, my cozy family, all my friends –rich, fat, thin and the ones holding on tight. My cubicle mates, my zippy Activa, my smooth Indica, Old Monk and Bafat Pork, Flat 3A, Swedish House Mafia and Mumford & Sons, Manchester United, money in the bank, biryanis across Chennai and of course, the girl with the lovely voice. There were many others but I promise to add you in my Welcome to 2013 post J

Take care 2012 and yes, before I start drinking, Cheers!!     

Ranting over a Filter Kaapi

Welcome back to my world of rants. After I lost my cool over a Chicken Fried rice and blew my top over a Chicken Dindigul Biryani, I was hoping the world would allow me to kick back and enjoy my Filter Kaapi. But no… Oh no. All the usual suspects: Bollywood, politics, idiots on the road, the Republicans and the Brady Bunch. Ok the last one just helped complete that sentence in some sort of a conclusive way. But you are getting the drift and my Kaapi is going cold!!

Let’s begin with my favorite. Bollywood! I have immense respect for the late Mr. Yash Chopra and irrespective of him being alive or dead I can never get myself to speak a word against him because, simply, we owe a huge debt to the man for all that he has created. His latest Jab Tak Hain Jaan was surely flawed beyond repair but my angst isn’t against him. I’m not even angry at Shahrukh coz if you were disappointed with him, then I’m disappointed at you for expecting more from him. My angst, and at the risk of getting shot at a street corner in Triplicane, is at AR Rahman. I mean really man, have you given up? Did that Oscar kill ‘the bollywood’ in you? If we wanted Jatin-Lalit, we would have just gotten Jatin-Lalit, right? Please don’t torture us with your Hollywood and Tollywood rejects. We expect more from you, for crying out loud we have begun to expect more from Pritam too. Pritam!! They key word being, ‘expect’, let’s not take that and stamp it below that JBL headphones gifted to you by Mani Ratnam and some change from Danny Boyle.

Arrests because of posts on Facebook!! Have you guys even been following other posts on Facebook? Long before Thackeray decided to kick the living daylights out of that bucket being used to fill water for that toilet in Dharawi, there was enough and more shit on it. Have you seen a post that says, ‘ ZZZZZZ’!!?? That’s it, that’s what it says. ‘ZZZZZ!!’ Arrest that guy!! Couple of slaps and jail food will do his sleep some good. Two girls getting flustered about their own city in a state of Bandh because a man just died a death that was due to old age and possibly a lot of pent up rage, and that becomes wrong now!! Friends, Mumbaikars and you silly cops/party workers/AR Rahman, lend me your beers, coz you guys sure need some sense to be knocked into you. Get Facebook accounts and start poking each other and you will soon realize, that the only thing that needs arresting is your senses!! And before I close on this, I just have to salute Shreya Singhal, you are one brave girl. Google her!!

Slurrrpp. Now that’s how a Kaapi should roll.

I generally like to keep things domestic, but I just can’t resist this coz it really has irked me like none else. The Republicans. Yes yes I know, our politicians ain’t any better but we got freedom a little over 60 years ago. That in human years is maybe 12 or 13 at best, so we are still hitting puberty. So we can be granted the excited bursts of energy and the confusion over that facial hair and cracking voice but no excuses in the USA and their political party system. They easily are equivalent to a 50 year old grown up man who is ready for his second divorce and third affair. Basically, he has seen it all. Isn’t it time they act their age? To see a constantly bungling Mitt Romney was beyond hilarious. Always backtracking, never consistent and with smugness written all over his backside, or his face, whatever, it’s all the same. Obama too wasn’t really Gerard Butler in 300 but then again he spent an entire term cleaning up close to a trillion dollar deficit legacy left behind by the President Sesame Street elected, George Bush. So Romney had the burden of expectation on him, and man, did he deliver on the stand-up comedy with his international policy, especially the tickler on the West Bank issue. Republicans, wake up! Smell the Kaapi and please stop spending your free calling cards speaking to your counterparts at the BJP in India, they are 13 year old puberty stricken kids who are still wondering why everything goes weird down there when they see Didi or Amma walk by.

Now for some quickies, not the sexual kind.

Katrina, my love. I forgot you earlier. We know you have legs, we all have legs. Agreed ours may not be as watchable as yours but remember this, your legs can’t do the acting for you. That starts way up there. And we can figure that out over a cup of Kaapi sometime.

Who the hell gave Pervez Musharraf the permission to even enter India? Forget that, why are we paying him Indian Rupees to open his mouth and talk nonsense about us and the Indian Army. I’m sorry but this man waged an ISI backed war against our country while we were arranging the rose petals on our honeymoon night with Pakistan. I say we dump him in the backseat of a Tata Nano and ditch him over the Wagah border or maybe Siachen and allow those fundamentalists out there to have their share of Musharraf Sheek Kabab. Wake up Indian Government, broker peace with the guys who care for it.

Now to a favorite. Rahul Gandhi!! Why are you already mute? Haan. Ok let me repharse that, why are you already Manmohan Singh? Who is filling you with shit that ‘silence maketh the man’. No it ain’t, it just maketh you a dumb ass and yes ‘dumb’ has been used to make a point. We are waiting here, out of breath now, for your supposed youth to shine through. You make Romney seem smart, hell you make Rahman’s latest music sound good coz atleast it’s not mute. SPEAK UP!!

And finally I bought the following guys tickets to Jab Tak Hain Jaan with the following seating arrangement:

• Guy who made the movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’ right alongside a couple of guys I found on the streets of Beirut.  
• Rahul Gandhi just a seat away from Kareena Kapoor from Jab We Met
• Mitt Romney next to a rabid dog. Apparently they hit it off quite well!
• AR Rahman found a seat next to the 6 year old kid I saw at my guitar class the other day. He can really play the guitar now!
• And finally, last and surely not the least Pervez Musharraf next to a hungry Richard Parker.
• If you didn’t get the last one, you have to watch Life of Pi!! Back to Kaapi now..dammit its gone cold. Screw you Shahrukh Khan and don’t ask me why.

Arz karte hain

Hum sadak ke is paar the aur who sadak ki us par thi.

Hum sadak ke is paar the aur who sadak ki us par thi.

The coffee looked strangely like tea and the people in the coffee shop, strangely, all seemed sugary. That bright smile, that overdone bubbliness. I cringed at the various forms of dripping praise that was being showered around at couples holding hands and platitudes of love and hope. I sipped my coffee and it was, indeed, tea. ‘WAITER!!!!’

I think I unintentionally disturbed the cuteness around me. And thank god for that but everyone just shot me a look and I’m sure all the men went, ‘what a jerk, can’t he behave himself?’ And the girls gave them understanding looks filled with this great discovery of dignity in their Prince Charming. Before I threw up in one of their cups, the waiter returned with what was just a whiff of coffee and a lot of milk. I cursed the coffee shop and the fact that as a native of Coorg, the land of coffee, I was being treated to this absurdity they insisted on calling coffee. And then she smiled..

Hum kuch aage badhe aur who kuch aage badhi

Hum kuch aur age badhe aur who kuch aura aage badhi..

She had been observing me for sometime or that’s what my masculine gut insisted on impressing upon me. She looked back into her book which I tried hard to squint and see which one it was. It couldn’t have been ‘chick flick’ inspired literature. It better not be that shallow! I kept shooting her the most unsubtle of glances until she turned the cover of the book a bit to reveal a Tom Clancy!! Tom Clancy, the special ops expert who wrote about elite soldiers being dropped in the middle of nowhere, wiping out the enemy with silencers and automatics and flying back to base in a rundown transporter plane in the guise of Cambodian immigrants with only their army bayonet sticking out of their pant pockets. This chick liked ‘dick flicks’ and all of a sudden I was attracted.

She shot me a glance and I lost it and began my round of Mastermind India. (Read this as one fluid thought)

Was she attracted to me? Wait, is she really looking at me. Quickly turn around and check. Ha there is no one around. Maybe she digs the whole ‘all alone with my book and thoughts’ thing.  I should have worn my kurta. Start looking aloof, stop staring. But she is so cute. No she is hot. She is both. Damn!! She is both. The kind I can take home to Mom and take home to you know..AArghh don’t be like other men. This one has real verve. Man I just want to talk to her. Like know why she is reading Clancy. How does a girl so unbelievably beautiful and delicate and with those legs and look at her feet. Do I have a feet fetish? That is just weird. Anyhow but how does she read such stuff with such relish. She is like that girl I have always wanted but man she might be complicated. But aren’t they all? But if she likes to sit alone in a coffee shop with a book then she sure likes to talk and spend lazy Sunday afternoons and isn’t the compulsive joy seeker. Ah perfection awaits you, lo and behold the one you have always been looking for. Should I just speak to her? I have never done this before but there is always a first time, right? Plus I do look the polished and dignified kind. Atleast I look it. Wait I am it. Past girlfriends have ratified. So she won’t take me as a jerk. Even if she does how can you not give it a shot? Act aloof she is looking at you!!! Look down now, coffee coffee, drink, drink. Aarggh this is horrible. ‘WAITER!!!’ Shit shit that was loud, she is looking at you. Please god I want to disappear. Now now.

We looked at each other and she smiled. I froze and melted at the same time. The waiter walked towards me with a look very similar to what most terrorists may have before they blow themselves up and took the coffee away before conveniently dropping some on my book. I stared at him and then returned my gaze on her. She was already packing up to leave. She tied her hair in three graceful moves, picked her bag up with those lovely fingers of hers, swished her ethnic Fabindia-esque skirt and walked out. I stood up and was stuck mid motion as I saw her cross the road and walk away into the crowd with her cute ponytail in view until the crowds took her away..

Hum sadak ke iss paar the aur woh sadak  ki uss par thi.

Hum sadak ke iss paar the aur woh sadak ki uss par thi.

Hum kuch aage badhe aur woh kuch aage badhi

Hum kuch aur age badhe aur woh kuch aura aage badhi..

Kuch samay baad hum sadak ke us paar the aur woh sadak ki is paar thi...

    

A Crude Resurrection

Barmer is a little town in Rajasthan that generally has escaped attention in every conceivable way. There isn’t much I could have done in introducing the town, until yesterday. I was reading the Open magazine (8th October) which is a magazine I recommend to everyone who wants to read some light yet insightful journalism at display. In that I was surprised to find a 4 page article dedicated to Barmer. I was instantly captivated. Barmer had changed; desperately and drastically.

When I was 11, I went to Barmer for the first time. My dad was in the Army and we were stationed in Jodhpur. Visiting every nook of Rajasthan had become a mission in the family and we didn’t leave tiny Barmer too. Now every city we visited in Rajasthan was of immense interest to my Mom for the unbelievable shopping and to me for the history. Barmer, and this is with no offense to anyone, has neither. But the beauty of a shopaholic’s mind is that any market with a bunch of shopkeepers ready for a good bargain becomes a shopping festival. As I trudged from shop to shop and my mom skipped the same distance, I began to wonder what hope there is for this town. I began to questions its very existence as a destination for any traveler. Bordering the Thar desert, the heat was scorching and the apathy on people’s faces was painful. This was a town destined for ignominy. We later lunched at the District Collector’s house and I was surprised that a man so young and so sharp had landed himself in a place so backward and desperately hurtling towards nothingness. I hoped and prayed that this place would see a brighter light and I was told by my Dad to keep my opinions to myself.

So it came as a huge surprise when I read that Barmer has now transformed itself into a potential Dubai. And please take the word ‘potential’ very seriously in the last sentence as this story can go very wrong too. But the desert sands engulfing Barmer on most days, has been found to have amazing reserves of crude oil below. Reserves of crude oil that can accommodate a tenth of India’s total demand in another couple of years and this will continue increasing. Oilmen from Cairn to Halliburton to ONGC have descended upon this piece of nothingness, as I had described it many years ago. There are Harleys, swanky SUVs, farm houses with wood finish and glass panels and parties with Red Labels. Oil has changed the town. It has ensured there is no ignominy anymore. There are many questions that Barmer still has to answer: Can they sustain the projects? Will the influx of expats influence local culture? Will the public infrastructure keep up with the growth of the city? Are there going to be 2 Barmers – the one I knew and the one where they discovered crude oil? These are questions the town will continue to grapple with. But my thoughts steer to something very different.

I wonder if that is all it takes. It takes a little black liquid to change everything and every way we think of a town, a country and possibly our civilization many years later. Pardon the philosophical deep dive I am going to take here, but are we really hostages to fantasy? Because for me this is a fantasy. I cannot envisage Barmer to be what this article describes it. I suddenly want to go there again, not due to some material delinquency, but just because it seems so unreal. Here is a town that has existed for the same amount of years as me since the day I went there and has gone through such a dynamic or let’s make that, drastic change. Where have I gotten in that time? Am I competing with a town? No. I am thinking of evolution, of change and of rash judgments we make in our everyday lives. Barmer has turned the corner, announced its arrival and now it will deal with the consequences. In finding crude oil it has found a solution to its problems and possibly created some new ones too. But most importantly, it has resurrected itself, just that it’s a very crude resurrection.

Now how do I go about my own resurrection?

Barfi and me

So I was wondering how to best to sum up my appreciation for the hours spent in a dark room, surrounded by equally astounded people and genius on the screen in front of us. I decided that I must do what I believe I can do best and here is my tribute to a movie that will rarely come again in form, class and subtelty.

I have admired many Bollywood movies over the year : Swades, Lakshya, Wake Up Sid just forming a sprinkling but these have survived in my sub conscious for purely cinematic and story telling elements. They moved me and keep me thinking till this day. They always find relevance in my life. Everyday sometimes! But Barfi did something different. This was a movie that like many movies I had been following from production to the first trailer to boring everyone I know of how undeniably great the movie will be. But it surpassed that.

It really wasn't about the characters or actors or cinematography for me. Each of those elements were spotless and so well strung together that it makes you wonder how will any movie ever match up. But that's how I felt about the movie above too. Barfi was about moments. Moments that will never leave me. I do understand that many of you still have to see the movie and I obviously do not want to spoil this for you so I shall tread carefully. There is no need to get into the story though, this isn't about that. This is just about my experience watching this movie. It felt like I had travelled, like I was being physically moved through the characters lives. I was there with them, I was mute and ecstatic, depressed and reluctant to let go. Most of all I felt the despair of loss and the loss of hope, yet it also showed me a way ahead. Painful as it must be, patient as I must be, a journey indeed. It felt like it was a lesson full of entertainment and humor and tears, but a lesson at the end of the day of all that I have done and possibly how I have to deal with it.

Barfi doesn't stand for anything specific. He stands for what you want to and maybe, need to believe. For me he stood for resilience in the face of innocence. A virtue very few of us can boast of, but a virtue I surely need to carry with me. There are countless moments when you are caught with a stream of tears while you are laughing and he makes you realise that that is what life is about, but it all just happens so quickly here. Keeping up with him is a task, so just keep up with all that wonder, curiosity and hope within you. Coz in the end you can only hope you have an arm to lie on and see the love of all the world in those eyes lying right next to you.

That is the essence and soul of Barfi. And you never need to go looking for those eyes, they are just always with you..  

I could really use a wish right now

I have recently been quite unhealthily obsessed with this one song called Airplanes. I cannot seem to get it out of my mind and after further inspection I have realized that the words somehow, unerringly, manage to capture my current mindset. Listen to the song and read the lyrics and you shall know what I was talking about. Also, I feel I need to come clean and pour out what has been an extremely difficult time for me. I will break down the past couple of weeks into stages that will explain how it all unfolded.

Stage 1 - The screws come off

I'm not sure how it all began and I wish I did because I would never let it happen again. But it crept up on me, tiptoed and quietly brushed me but I paid no attention. I was so sure I was on my way to conquering the world. As usual it hit when everything around me was just fighting to get better than it already was. Within a few days it was all gone. I had become sullen, heading towards stoicism not so much out of choice but due to conditioning. I stopped waking up with a smile, I stopped wanting to wake up, I just stopped wanting. The routine became so terribly predictable that it began to take a toll on my psyche. Nothing and no one could offer me solace or an option to break away. I would ride back at night from work with the same music, the same route, the same potholes and the same mistakes. Constantly holding back emotions and wishes to just scream out and run. Questioning why I had become like this and falling short of any answer that could closely suffice.

I had become my worst nightmare. Devoid of all things optimistic and cheerful. I had become the antithesis of myself. I could hear the creaking, alone in bed every night staring at the roof. The creaking got louder every night. It was the noise of the screws coming off..

Stage 2 -The 38th Parallel

I began to consistently absent myself  from myself. Reclusive, distant and cold. It became natural and then began a strange obsession. An obsession with the North Koreans. In them, their country and their very existence I found a sanctuary. A place where I would rest myself every night for a couple of hours understanding them and strangely relating. I told everyone else that this was just an educational pursuit but I guess they saw right through it but chose to let me handle it. I consistently began to drift away from reality. I would draw up maps and routes to get away. Make plans, laugh at them and then promise myself to go through with it. I felt I belonged on the other side of the 38th parallel, the line that divides Korea. I felt alone, a self imposed exile. I could not handle people, I did not want to handle noise and I surely was receding. I began to see that line and I continued to believe that I was in some terrible joke, stuck in Pyongyang in some desolate part of my mind. I could see the 38th Parallel and even though it was hazy it had begun to look real..

Stage 3 - Loss, pain and renewal

Then I started to lose it and in the process lost what I may never get back. Relationships, family, people and the belief that all will be okay had established themselves as myths in my mind. I started losing control on some and I just completely lost some. I forced my mind to open up and explain what was happening in there. I sprang up a couple of times only to be pushed back. I began to find my peace at work, I re-engaged but I couldn't do the same with life. I ploughed ahead and have now created a world where all roads lead to renewal. I still am constantly pulled down. I still can never get myself to believe that I can be the same guy again but then maybe I was meant to go through this to become the guy I have to become. Loss, pain and renewal bring with it lost dreams and hope. But unfortunately, the lost dreams will hurt the longest..

I stand and stare every night at the airplanes in the night sky and begin to wish. Wish that what I lost and what i'm losing stops and that hope finds me again.

Ranting over a Dindigul Biryani

So they say the sequel never lives up to the original. I say look at World War 2 or look at most second children. Always, way better. I, thus, rest my case. Now the need for this rant. Life has become way too predictable and the last rant was way too long ago. Monotony kills every 1 in 3 million ranters are the official stats from our government and that leads me perfectly on to my first rant.

So government of India. What up? Nice work on the petrol prices man. You just are so good at being bad. For god’s sake I read the Mint and I know you could have avoided that. But no you had to pick the night I ran out of petrol to jack up the prices. You had to create some kind of artificial shortage which ensured no petrol in Chennai for a couple of days. Was that your idea of a ‘go green’ initiative? Some idiotic dhoti clad moron decided that let’s show people what life will be without petrol. Ever wondered what life will be without our votes, or even better, our taxes? I dare you to jack up the prices again you 10^th fail loser. I’m still deciding what I will do, but trust me it won’t be fun. I surely aint sharing my Dindigul biryani with you.

Shahid Kapur you continue to amaze me with your undying talent of being able to pick the worst movies. I sincerely urge you to run the next script you get through your driver. That’s all I’m asking for, just your driver. Not anyone else. That’s easy right. You ask why? Well, he has kept you alive after having every opportunity to hurt you beyond repair after the trash you have been putting out. I’m sure he loves you a lot. So, Shahid, driver. Please. You are a great actor and so sincere but after Mausam, Teri Meri  Kahaani and others my mind refuses to process, your sincerity makes me feel like you are Bhagat Singh fighting for Independence in 2012. Just pointless. So ya driver it is. Run along now.

What’s common between a target in a firing range and the guy who’s cell rings really loud with the worst music in office? That’s the right answer, they both are gonna get bloody shot!! It’s an office for god’s sake. An IT company, the most sterile environment after a cross species testing facility (and yes I saw the Amazing SpiderMan). Absolute silence and suddenly 'nakka mukka nakka mukka' . You demented cross between a shameless front seater in a cheap theatre and the worst thing that’s happened since Bappi Lahiri, why in the devil’s name do I need to hear that song every time someone remembers your pathetic existence. I’m honestly not the biggest on ethics and all that blah blah but I sure draw the line the day you change your ringtone to this. Really what are you thinking? This is a joke you crack in private with your friends who already think very little of you. Imagine this going off every 20 minutes. You just took the joy away from my Biryani, moron.

Now for a few quickies – the non sexual kind

Justin Bieber’s latest song is called ‘Boyfriend’. Finally!! The closet has been whammed open. I mean what a way to come out. I’m glad you decided to finally do us this favor coz a lot of people were taking special offense to jokes of you being called gay. Guess who the joke is on now? Ya it’s on you, you dimwit but well just coz you came out doesn’t mean you got any smarter. 

Now all you people on Facebook who put up those huge banners with quotable quotes and stuff. Really? You ever read them yourselves? Don’t they have this unbelievable stench of ‘cheesy’ all over it? Some of them I accept are clever or cute but the rest are just plain depressing. Guys if that’s gonna get you more likes and comments then trust me, things are looking bleak. Now put that on one of those banners of yours and click ‘Share’.

Finally who gave Sehwag the right to abuse Dhoni. A demi God for most of us. You really saying that he didn’t do much by becoming captain. The team was already mature I believe. How messed up are you man? You just recently learnt what captaining a team really involves and talking like you own this shit. Do not invoke the rage of the whole of India and Chennai. Mind it!

Well phew! Time to get back to my Dindigul biryani. The rest of you – rant away!!

Cut the Cake

Riding through Chennai traffic while your running late can be quite a spiritual experience. Powering through that traffic light just before it goes red, overtaking that slow Mercedes – I mean you could have bought a Nano if that was what you wanted to achieve on the road, loser! In between all of this cutting and extreme over taking I’m reminded of a game we used to play as kids. A game that involved a lot of running, chasing and most importantly, selflessness. It was called, Cut the Cake.

Most games we played back in the day were very Darwinist in their makeup. Hide n Seek involved you hiding until ‘you’ are caught; you really didn’t care what the rest were doing as long as you were neatly hidden away. Catch n Catch aka Chor Police would mean there are a bunch of chasers and a bunch of chasees, if I may be given the liberty to coin my own word, and the games would begin. There was Crocodile, there was Red Letter, Dark Room and the list goes on. Now unless you really wanted to impress that girl with the cute ponytail and delicious tiffin, you didn’t really care a damn about anyone else as long as you were safe. But then all of a sudden in between this selfish desire to never be caught, someone would suggest, ‘Cut the Cake’. Now this is how it was played – You would have a chaser who would cease to become a chaser the moment he catches any of the chasees (thus, this word has been patented by me). Now the only way the chasees^TM can pile on the misery for the chaser is to cut the cake. This means, that a chasee^TM needs to run in between the chaser and the person he is chasing, the moment a chasee^TM does that the chaser has to change track and start chasing the chasee^TM  who just cut the cake. Its phenomenal because you can quite easily just stay away from trouble and never cut the cake but every once in a while is born a hero who will go and cut the cake and help his fellow chasee^TM out. This selflessness instantly spreads like an infection and suddenly the band of chasees^TM realize that the ultimate joy is in making that one chaser regret ever mentioning the idea of playing the game.

Now I’m not going to connect the above paras because there is no connection. Just that cutting through the traffic reminded me of cutting between the chaser and chasee^TM back when i was young enough to play this game. But this very inherent contradiction that was ingrained in us right at that age has always fascinated me. It amazes me, the lessons we have learnt when we were so young that subconsciously always will define us. I’m looking for more ideas and thoughts on these. Looking at building more stories, thoughts on humanity and the makeup of life through games we played when we were young. So let me know and let me collect these thoughts and present this better.

Until then, anyone for ‘Cut the Cake’?

The Red Miracle

‘Will I see a miracle this Sunday? Another story I can tell the world over and over again. Or does it really even matter..

I have been meaning to write this for a long time but have always pushed it for another time, for another day, for another season. It was always meant to define my love for one of the greatest affairs of my life. A 14 year long affair. An affair with the Red Devils.

My tumultuous but mostly thrilling love affair with Manchester United began in 1998. Since then they have won the league 8 times, the FA Cup twice, the League Cup thrice and the holy grail – the Champions League, twice. With all this success and incredible domination, a little arrogance does set in. As a United fan you do kind of inherit it. The difference being, you don’t necessarily flaunt it. You are expected to be stubborn about your support for them but that stems from the kind of pride that very few fans of other football clubs have the fortune to feel. This isn’t a commentary on the overwhelming success of United, this is a pilgrimage into the true feeling of being a United fan.

From the day I started supporting United I have always told people that they are the only entity in my life which always knows when I’m down and manages to pick me up from the dumps. This special ability comes from a belief that they will deliver for you. Eleven men on the pitch will always rally, always fight and always win for you. From scoring a goal in the 94^th minute to seal a derby, to two goals in the last 3 minutes to win a Champions League, to a wonderful save to win another – Manchester United have only conquered. They have always taken the most unworkable moment in football and turned it into something timeless, something more beautiful than anything around you.

I have spent many nights well past midnight cheering them, cried tears of disappointment and joy and the tears of joy were something I never thought I could shed. In a way every moment of my life has an accompanying United moment. I can trace back years of disappointment in life with joy with United reviving me in those desperate times. If it’s the debut of Ronaldo or the goals of Macheda or the hammering of Arsenal or the choking of Chelsea or the way we have brushed aside Liverpool in the past few years, they are a force unparalleled and united. Always fighting for the pride of the red under a manager who has defied time and the odds. In Sir Alex we believe. I have spent many days criticizing his tactics, his transfers and his general demeanor only to eat my words and burst out in applause for the greatest manager of all time. A man who many clubs, corporations and marriages should learn from because of his ability to make time feel like a constant, as he changes teams and tactics with such aplomb that he just never gets outdated.

It’s always tough to accept defeat when you are United, especially when defeat stares you in the face in the form of Manchester City – the butt of many United fans jokes and all of a sudden the new force in English football. This force has been built with 930 million pounds of Dubai money but at no point am I going to take away their effort from them. I detest them and have hated every win and every goal they have scored, yet I fade away in respect as I hurl abuses at their claims of dethroning United. I seethe in fury and go nauseous at the thought of them winning the league this year but I still remain amazed at what United have conquered this year. 

In a year when they have been accused of many things ranging from negative football to losing their grip on Europe, none of the detractors seem to realize that this was a year of transition like the past two years. When other clubs go into transition, they fade away for a couple of years and seem to lose their spunk, case in point: Chelsea. A team in transition and with a non- existent midfield is going to finish level on points with a team assembled at a cost of 930 million pounds and will finish above a Champions League finalist, a team with the league’s top scorer and player of the year, a team with possibly the best midfield and the best midfielders in Modric and Bale and a team that spent around 80 million pounds just on midfielders and with a manager who was destined for success. United have quietly gone about their business. They have stuttered immensely but have paced themselves well. This wasn’t a vintage season, this wasn’t United gold class, this was United ploughing and digging deep. This was honestly a hallmark United side, a bunch of guys slightly weighed down by history and in the shadows of the greats that have filled their boots in years gone by. This wasn’t a team of the brilliance of Becham or the magic of Ronaldo or the extravagance of Cantona. This was a team with the industry of Valencia, the belief of De Gea, the maturity of Rooney. This was a United that exemplified the values this club has always strived to achieve. This won’t be a team that will go down in history as gladiators like the ones in the past, this will mostly go unnoticed. But this team deserves more; it deserves its greatest compliment, the support of the million United fans across the world. 

As United take the field on Sunday for the last game of the season let’s not have our eyes glued to the City game only hoping for them to slip up so that we may win the league, take a little time off to watch our ‘boys’ fight it out at the Stadium of Light. Watch them play their game, which may not be pretty all the time but sure has given us enough highs this year. Remember that as a United fan all you have ever known is the joy of supporting the best club in the world and in that collective, resounding and loud belief lies your miracle..

The miracle in red.