freebird

Indians are late at work today. And the boss doesn’t mind losing man-hours and money-hours. That’s because India won again last night. Against the hosts South Africa. Indians are happy. The boss too. Otherwise he can kiss bye – bye to co-operation and camaraderie. Plus Ganesha is in the air. There is music, dance, alcohol, smoke in the air and you dare not complain.

It is considered an affront to raise objections against anything that religion touches or casts its shadow on. You are as good as a blasphemer. Atheists are tolerated as long as they are silent. So are the devouts who keep criticism to themselves and muzzle themselves.

I was scared of traffic snarls yesterday. But it was a genuine surprise. The cops were doing a more organized job at hand and well…I extend my congratulations. Keep it going on.

Another affair of the faith that is making the airwaves. Should the Sethusamundaram project be undertaken or not? There are the ayers and the nayers. There are 2 groups opposing it. One is led by ecologists and environmentalists. They oppose this herculean task that will construct a bridge and connect India and Sri Lanka due to various factors that can be taken as evincing from genuine human interest. The other is led by political parties led by the BJP who say that the current project will damage the ancient bridge constructed by the Lord’s simian army some 17 thousand years ago or something extravagant like that.

Did Lord Ram exist? Who is Lord Ram one can ask, as a lot of them – government agencies, archaeological department etc are asking. My question is this - Who is Lord Ram who on a regular basis…once every 10 years or so comes like Hurrican Katrina and makes waste of common sense, humanity, logic and other such trivia?

To begin with – Lord Ram is the beloved God of most of northern India other than South India. The ruling party of Tamil Nadu, the Indian state overseeing the construction of the bridge is DMK. Led by writer, poet and atheist Karunanidhi who posed some very entertaining questions – sample this - who is this Lord Ram? How did an army of monkeys construct this bridge over troubled waters? Where did Ram get his engineering degree from?

This has outraged the hell and heaven off the believers. How dare anyone ask WHO the good Lord is or was? Isn’t it understood, they ask, incredulity writ large on their faces. They also being experienced politicians have extended support to the ecologists. Now the work on the project has been stopped. Battle lines have been drawn. Faith vs Science. Where is Lord Ram?

Lazy. Bored. What to do. Have done enough for the day. Easily satisfied today. Is that wrong? More. More of what? Ummm. Still thinking of more and what it means. What of less? Is that beneficial. Modern wisdom doesn’t think so. Less, moderation, temperance. Ummm. Am out of fashion, they proclaim. Am I?

Yuvraj hit 6 sixers yesterday. In 1 over. India won. Indians are happy. They take on South Africa today. If they win they move on to the semis. Another milestone today – the 5^th day of Lord Ganesha’s immersion. Mumbai will be chock a block with devotees. Long live the God of all things auspicious.

My friend who disappeared a month and a half back mailed today. All of us friends are mighty pleased. We shall celebrate.

Happenings galore. Who says its boring, lazy all that?

Money grows on trees. Yes. You have pots and pans at home. In the market there are shops that sell plants, shrubs and trees. Buy the plants, bury them in proper nutritious earth, nurture it with water and light and bingo…open your eyes after a tiring night’s repast and what do you see…money, currency. So easy, so desirable and so…unreal.

This is the stuff of dreams. Everyman and everywoman since eternity have dreamt of this tree of money. Alas, all scientific evolution has fallen short of achieving this deep rooted fantasy. But that’s not the case with certain people. They believe that money grows on tree. Ask them if they have such a tree at home and you will get a vigorous shake of the head for an answer. Are you crazy, the headshake seems to indicate. That’s not possible, you fool it says silently.

But the same people are over-confident that ‘others’ have money trees at their place, be it apartment, mansion or a palace. Of course they have such trees. How else do they have the house, the bike, the car, the boyfriend/girlfriend. It’s all because of the money tree, you fool they assert this time round, with an accompanying shake of the head of course.

So the weights are rigged, the auto meters are rigged, the food is adulterated, the roads come undone, the attitude is unstuck, the curse at hand, service is second hand etc etc. The answer is simple - they deserve it because they can afford it. It’s asking your co-traveler on the BEST bus to remove his feet from TOP of your feet. He (could be she also) will say, ‘why don’t you take an auto if you want more space’? Take the auto and your 6^th sense immediately proclaims the exact degree to which the meter has been rigged. 10% fast is what people have got used to. But that’s soon getting out of style. You ask, ‘sir, isn’t your meter a bit faster than normal’? The reply, ‘why don’t you buy a car’ and then comes the rejoinder, ‘I don’t think you can, you can’t even pay the auto fare’.

Can we be a bit gentle with each other?

Yesterday was just like another day. Another day for others. Not for me. For I was paralyzed, made immobile by an inexplicable force. I was at work, trying to work. And I was but…nothing good came of it. Not to me at least. The world saw me sitting in front of a computer, typing, googling, writing, trying to put words and phrases together so that sense can be manufactured.

Inside I was tossed about. A sense of dread permeated my entire body. I had no inclination to do anything. What I was doing got no respect. Some of it was good in fact, but that hardly made any difference. My work or other’s work…I had stopped caring.

What was I looking for excellence? Inspiration?

Demotivated. The word came hurtling to my ear drums. A colleague of mine said it. I felt electrocuted by the word. That word perfectly described my state of being. That depressed me even further. Why was a feeling this strange? Till yesterday everything was good. My cheque got delayed but I knew it could come. Spoke to family, friends, had a glass of wine. Forget yesterday everything was good even during the journey to the office.

Oh the horror the horror of it all. What does the heart or mind experience that pushes it to the depths of desolation? and are there any warning signs that one can read, take notice, be wary of and use them to prevent this attach of the dread?

Today I am fine again. Work is just about ok, probably mediocre, but I am not particularly offended by it. The people around me are the same, the office colors are the same. The world has not changed much. My mind has.

Yesterday went to buy some fish with a friend. Preparing a dinner for some friends. At the 4 bungalows market in Andheri West, Mumbai. While browsing through the fishy expanse one heard a growl, a meow in fact of a cat. A kitten it was in fact. It was tiny, looked malnourished. My friend suggested that we take the tiny thing with us. I protested. I don’t support this kidnapping, I asserted. A bigger cat was close by, looking I thought at me. Could it be this little things mother I wondered? There is the mother, I proclaimed. The little kitten was in the crook of my arm right then. We looked at the cat and the cat looked right back at us. Without any emotion. Then it walked past us. My friend was ecstatic. Not the mother was the verdict. Imagine a new, cleaner environment, good food etc my friend and chief instigator suggested.

This kitten was being kidnapped from the rowdy, noisy streets of 4 bungalows for another close friend of ours. Yesterday they were in a hurry. They had to catch their bus to Goa, for a small vacation when the news of the kitten reached them. They are looking forward to their return, courtesy their kitten.

So the kitten traveled with us in an auto rickshaw, then an air – conditioned car and we finally reached our base. New environs and new people. The kitten was taking its time. A couple of our friends were talking, playing and generally making things comfortable for the kitten when the chief architect of the entire operation decided to give the little one a bath. The kitten was put under a tap, without exposing its ears. It started to meow ardently. You tyrant it wanted to shout. But it was dirty too.

The tiny one shivered for a bit and then sank into a huge windcheater. It felt warm, safe and slept for the next hour. Stockholm Syndrome suggested Abhishek. It seemed so anyways. Fish broth was prepared for the esteemed guest. It sniffed and rejected it. Same with milk and biscuit broth.

What’s it called, asked someone?

Fish, I said. Our cat is called Fish.

I love Nargis and Sunil Dutt. Similarly I adore Sunjay Dutt, the man we all love because of an inexplicable tragic flaw that makes him human, vulnerable and therefore fallible. He did what he did and is now visiting the courts and the temples to prove his innocence. Whenever the courts are close to announce a judgement or when recently they actually did, the Bollywood fraternity is approached for sound bytes. What is your opinion about the sentence, they ask.

The replies are funny. Nargis and Sunil uncle were wonderful people, they say. Sanju has a heart of gold. It was just a mistake. He has suffered enough. It was only Jaggu dada who said the truth – let him live the sentence, at least he can be a free man after that.

Cut to Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi getting caught post a hunting expedition. Sample the reasons – Pataudi is a nawab, old habits die hard, it’s in his blood, blue blood does it etc etc.

Alistair Periera – still a kid at 21, didn’t know that running over people with a vehicle can kill, didn’t know that drunken driving can kill, give him a chance. The judge duly gave him a no sentence. Now it’s been increased to 3 years for killing 7 people!!

Where is justice? What is justice?

There are others who do things all over the country. Shahabuddin, Lalu politicos and priests and others. And we thought…

Where is justice? What is justice?

Animal’s People is the new book written by Indra Sinha. He has written a couple of books before. I have read none. I started reading his profile, then his interview and then about the about - Animal People. He has struggled for the last 20 + years to get justice, compensation to the victims of the tragedy. His journey is interesting and for some could be inspiring.

One of most admired copywriters EVER…yes ever, he gave up his job and became a writer and in the process became a crusader. Don’t know if he will accept that crusade bit. Well, let’s say he followed his heart. From writing copy for MNC’s to campaigning against them is a commendable arc…makes for interesting bio.

Animal’s People has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Who are the people of Animal? Is it people who are animals? Can animals become people? The title interested me. Want to know who are these people and who are they – animal or people?

!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

One of these days anything is possible. Traffic in the morning can make you believe in God and other elemental forces. You start praying.

Horns can kill you or make you kill. That’s an overstatement probably, but they can surely maim. In Bombay and in India you hear the horn all the time. People have no patience. The people who lag are convinced that they are in a F1 race and the person ahead of them is on a sight seeing expedition. So the horns do what they do best…tear through thin and tenuous membrane, scratch it, do all other sorts of un-imaginables before reaching the nervous system.

You scream inside. You abuse the people who are honking for no obvious reason. If the traffic moves slow then it’s not moving at all. They want an expressway all times. Some strange logic pervades these men and women who are safely ensconced behind raised windows. For them noise is what happens to others. Their ear drums are safe…the world can take a walk.

Some of these people have also traveled far and wide, that is, they have seen the exciting world. How traffic has an evolved mind of its own. How millions of cars travel at peak hours and there is not a single horn to be heard. When it is indeed heard then it signifies an aberration. That somebody has committed an error in the giant watchmaker’s scheme of things. India is like this only, they swear under their breath. We will never improve. All this progress is just talk and nonsense. Just a lot of noise. Empty rattle and child’s prattle.

Even this hurts. Take a guess what a horn does!

The Blog is the new fix. I need the fix. It’s been 4 days since I have not written and something seems to be going wrong. I am unable to get the jab of excitement when I check the Bog stats. The jump in numbers are visible but they didn’t make me jump. Does a new Blog guarantee more traffic? No. But hope is the drug of existence.

What has happened in the meantime? Lots. People are being dragged after being tied to horses, trucks and other human and inhuman contraptions for a variety of reasons. It was Krishna Janmasthami yesterday. A festive date in the year. Groups of youngsters practice all year round to make a human pyramid and reach the summit to break a clay pot – matka that is filled with curd or curd milk and win accolades and monetary rewards. It is meant to celebrate the most popular of Hindu gods – Krishna.

Clubs also ask for charity in the form of donations –money etc so that they can organize a cultural event, buy t-shirts for the members or to have party after the event. Booze.

A few days before the event a shopkeeper was shot dead after he refused to pay the ‘chanda’ or the donation. The irate bunch of devotees made a decision – to punish the apostate and thrashed him to death. Point taken. Nobody will refuse when they come next year or for the next celebration.

RGV’s Aag is a massive massive flop. Will it set alarm bells ringing or will it make the director even more secure in his knowledge that nobody understands his kind of film making and therefore he IS making good films? Frankly, who gives a damn any more?

Rawalpindi, in Pakistan was rocked by bomb blasts. Hyderabad in India too. We are neigbours India and Pakistan. British troops have handed over/withdrawn from Basra where bomb blasts are as natural as day and night. Captain America still fights on. Never mind the coffins. The coffins don’t care anyways.