Rain song

Morning glistens on the monsoon roads. The air is a flapping curtain, damp and faintly stale, rent by little swirls of coolness that carry green smells.
The rain breeds moss on walls and unruly greenery on road dividers. It scrabbles holes in roads and leaves stains on the sides of houses. It breeds nostalgia.

Returning from a visit to the doctor, I find myself on a tour of my youth. Tyres susurrate, a bedraggled vendor raises a persistent yodel. Seasons past well up in memory.

**** **** ****

Jodhpur Park. A long trek from the bus stop to her friend’s house, the fan soughing like the distant sea as I disappeared into the bathroom to wash my face. Frosted green khus sharbat (Rasna ready-pack? Or did that come later?), a shelf promising delight, the comfortable background noise of the girls talking, a conversation not demanding more than the occasional smile and grunt while I ploughed through a book. The collar-chafing armpit-slicking heat outside heightened the cool of the room, the awareness of comfort perhaps more deliciously pleasurable than the physical sensation itself.

Then the darkening of the day, sullen mutterings on the horizon, a distant turmoil from the shanties on the southern shore of the Dhakuria Lakes. The scent of rain would invade the room well before the first fat drops battered the window glass. A sense of expectation, building and building, until the first flash of lightning followed by the deep elephantine roll of thunder brought release.

As the memory plays itself out and the rain streaks past the windows, we pass the spot where, 20 years ago, we stopped for phuchkas. Now it is a garbage dump.

**** **** ****

Other days of rain more sedate, even wistful. A verandah in Salt Lake, a Turner-scape with houses scattered among the waving green, breathing great lungfuls of pine trees sodden flowers wet earth grass and the faintly sour smell of iron window-grilles with coy rain-drops trembling on the edge.
That first year in Salt Lake was lonely, with afternoons spent on the verandah ledge, feeling the smooth black mosaic (too hot to lie upon during the heat of May but cool and welcoming in late June), musing on the diminution by perspective of the line of fir trees that made up the ‘Green Verge’.

The rains were even lonelier, long summer vacation mornings where the whisper of rain accentuated the silence broken at long intervals by the passing of a bus. The sound of a slamming door followed by the ‘ting’ of the conductor’s bell, carrying clearly over the acres of swaying grass that raked at my legs when I tried to walk through it. Sometimes the radio would be turned up loud in the nearest neighbours’ house a hundred yeards away, if I was lucky Vividh Bharati would be playing Kishore Kumar, the music slightly tinny and tremulous because of the distance and the vintage of the “transistor”.
And somehow the silence would be audible around the edges of the song.

**** **** ****

Purno Das Road. Always associated in my memory with summer afternoons that thrummed with empty trams passing Triangular Park, as I walked down to the stretch between Gariahat and Gol Park to browse the book-stalls. That was where I first discovered pornography, but it was also where I picked up the spare descriptive prose of Louis L’Amour enthusing about his ‘country’, where I found Maugham and MacLean behind piles of medical text-books, where I picked up a quaint little gem called ‘Love on a Branch Line’ along with (God knows why) a slim volume by Epictetus.

The book-stalls no longer await me at the end, they vanished ten years ago and now a fly-over has planted its foot where they beckoned by the light of gas lanterns spiced with the smells of tele bhaja*. Purno Das Road used to have a succession of three-storeyed houses with curving fronts, round-shouldered cousins of the more spacious bungalows on Lake View Road. The few that survive now seem to huddle together in the drizzle, waiting for the hammer and the ‘dozer that will finish them before the pile-drivers beat the ground for the apartment blocks to come.


I turn away and look back up Southern Avenue at the house opposite the Ramkrishna Mission, the house I’ve always wanted to own, white and remote behind ten-foot walls and serene in the knowledge of wealth.

On the same corner, just across the lane, is a lime-green house with an awning on the terrace. D lived there, a tear-away even in Class V, D who took me up on the terrace to show me how he could shoot crows with his Brno .22, who fought bitterly with me because I teased him about the cute girl in the TT coaching camp and then put his arm round my shoulder while he cheeked Zal the instructor. He was only 11 at the time, I was 10. D who – as I heard when I came back from training in Mussoorie – put another of his father’s guns to his head one rainy night in 1988, all because of another girl.

Too much death and change on this corner. I look away as the car passes Mouchak and turns into the tangle between Gol Park and Cornfield Road.

**** **** ****


A web of little alleys run like capillaries off Fern Road. Unchanged in 30 years, I think. The front verandahs hemmed in with fanciful grilles, a glimpse of mosaic floors in lozenge patterns, lines of school uniforms on sagging lines this Sunday morning. Smells of cooking, the hiss of vegetables released into a hot korai*2 as we pass a kitchen window, paanch phoron and kaalo jeere*3 warring in our nostrils, a steady roll of noise translated by memory into the rhythm of a grinding stone.

A grey moustache at the corner of a lane, peering towards the distant back gate of Gariahat Market. The hand behind his back must hold a little bag of rayon twine for the fish he will buy within the next hour. A face that woke late this morning, scratching luxuriously at a tattered genji*4, then sat up in bed with a pillow on his lap, drawing satisfaction from the first noisy sip at his cup of tea before peering out of the window and shouting to the kitchen, “Din taa meghla ache, bujhle. Boli khichuri chapao, dekhi byata Jodu’r kachhe aaj ilish thhaakbe nishchoi*5”.*

A drizzle sweeps out of the sun, leaving diagonal streaks on the houses and wetting the little metal plates set into the walls with the names of the lanes. Narrow cement-paved corridors lead in from the road, down the sides of houses where straight-barred louvred windows open into rooms with the remains of breakfast and empty tea-cups on scattered tables, perhaps even on bookshelves.

An advertisement for a “BBC spoken English course” glares in garish maroon from the wall of a garage. A corner has come loose and sags with the weight of the rain. A cat appears in the crack of the garage door, arches its back and closes its eyes, then disappears again. We pass on.

**** **** ****

Ekdalia Road yawns in the morning rain as we turn left. Two gates down is the B--s’ family temple. We’ve been there at least one evening during Durga Puja, every year since 1983 except for the two years when I was in exile. Even then, she came and lolled on S’ mother’s bed to be pampered till the clash of cymbals in the temple forecourt announced the start of Shondhi Pujo*6.

It used to be a sprawling red-brick mansion, half the rooms locked and two cousins living in what used to be the servants’ quarters over the garages. My other friend on Ekdalia Road has an uncle who told me, in a voice of hushed awe, “Even in the ‘70s, there used to be 22 cars parked in that courtyard. Foreign cars, all of them, the B--s never drove desi cars as long as their money lasted.” And of course there was S’ uncle who periodically vanished into the Sundarbans when his debts piled up, but he deserves a story of his own.

Now the red mansion is gone and strangers live in the block of white apartments that has taken its place. And S’ mother, who pampered us even as she scolded us, died ten years ago.

The other house I used to visit on Ekdalia Road, cool smooth floors and a gracious drawing room looking out on the Puja pandal of Ekdalia Evergreen Club, is gone as well. Except that in its place there is still the grey and brick ugliness of an apartment block under construction.

**** **** ****

Ballygunge Place. More cars, a lone rickshaw clattering down the road with the occasional flat sound of the finger-bell to warn the stray umbrellas turned up against the steady drizzle. Two young faces peer out above the polythene sheet that screens the rickshaw seat. Whither on a Sunday morning? The tyranny of tuitions? Music class, where a harmonium will underline the tremulous offerings of Robindro Shongeet from a faded diva?

And occasional glimpses of the lanes that have always made this para*7 magic for me, from the days when I walked these streets on summer afternoons and winter evenings, when I sought to exorcise the loneliness of teenage angst with solitary fantasies and pretentious poetry.

Now, I roll down the window to catch the lanes as we pass their mouths, lanes that hold together hamlets of community in the flow of the city’s life; lanes where still, as siestas fade, young men stand under windows and call each other out with the assured intimacy of boys who have grown up together. Lanes that lead to wrought-iron gates and stuccoed walls, then vanish round a corner with a backward glance that tempts me to follow …

**** **** ****

The Bypass then, gritty as the rains break it down, and I have left behind the Sunday mornings of my past, headed towards another temporary exile leavened by a Very Small Smile. The skies clear as we pass the Shonar Bangla. Which is a good thing: the rains breed nostalgia, a fungus of the memory. The sun clears the mind.

Yet memories lurk in the shadowed corners of the day.

**** **** ****

(Now for the truly pretentious bit - a glossary!)

* - vegetable fritters fried in (preferrably unidentifiable) oil. Literally, "oil-fried"; a taste bonanza paid for in heartburn and acidity
*2 - something like a wok, though usually smaller
*3 - spices. 'Nuff said
*4 - Undervest. Since you asked ...
*5 - (transliterated) Looks like rain; put on some khichuri (a savoury mess of rice and lentils with spices) while I go get some ilish (a distant cousin of the shad)
*6 - I'm not too strong on ritual. Call it a major bonding exercise and leave it at that
*7 - neighbourhood, but with a very strong underlying sense of community more than the physical proximity

**** **** ****

Taking Stock

When I segued from student to working man, I weighed much less. Much water has flowed under the bridge, much avoirdupois accumulated on the frame.
All those years ago, I could bench-press my current weight. Now, I can barely bench-press what-used-to-be-my-weight then.
My body bothers me.


On the other hand, I have achieved what I used to consider one of the marks of 'coolth', back when I was in college. I know all the suits in all the watering holes in town, most by their first names. (Not just the ones who wear those brass name-tabs, gerrit?) And I'm now confident enough to send back a dish if I don't like it. Ohhhh, sexy!!
Back then, I very definitely was not part of the gang that frequented the only disc in town. At the Oberoi. It was called the Pink Elephant, and after our college celebrated its quasquicentennial (look it up), an Old Boy threw a party for us at the Pink. I think it took a week to get rid of the smell of teenage puke. Free booze for 19-yr.-olds, the man was mad.
The only other time I entered the Oberoi (“back then”) was when I was walking down Chowringhee to catch a bus, and suddenly I just had to go. Lovely marbled restroom, oh joy, but half a mile down a slippery-floored corridor. Try that some time when your innards are making like Krakatoa before it blew.


When I was 18 I tried to write poetry. Occasionally I even wrote something that could pass as poetry.
These days I post on a blog. Sometimes, on two blogs. Or even three. But I haven’t written any poetry in years.


I think I was about 22 before I learnt to shut up.
I still have to remind myself, now and again. But I’m getting better.


I was 15 years old when I first heard “Scarborough Fair / Canticle”, “Bridge over Troubled Water” and “For Emily, Wherever I may Find Her”. Also “Patterns” and “Cloudy” and the “59th Street Bridge Song”. (My first time in New York, my friend thought I’d lost it when I insisted we make a detour to see that bridge. Great guy, but he used to like ABBA. I mean, a grown man who hummed “Fernando”?)
Then I fell in love with Kishore Kumar. And found R.D. Burman, Floyd, Tull, Al Stewart, Led Zep, Tom Lehrer. The amazing voices of Billy Joel and Shubha Mudgal. Along the way I sampled Silk Route, Traci Chapman, even Lucky Ali (yes, I DO like the Hrithik number).
One amazing night at IIT Delhi started with Shiv Kumar Sharma and went on to Amjad Ali Khan. Hari Prasad Chaurasia summoned dawn with Bhairavi and I’d discovered something. Years later, thanks to SPICMACAY and Prof. Qureishi, I sat in a small room and heard Shruti Shirolikar and once Zakir Hussain.
But …
… when I hear THOSE two sing their songs again, I’m still 15 years old.


I first went to Shiraz (“Golden Restaurant” … w.t.f. is golden about Shiraz anyway? Perhaps their biryani), at the corner of Park Street and Lower Circular Road, back in 1982. Thanks to J. No wonder he was my best friend. That was when a hundred bucks was still a Big Deal. One time J and I won that much in some college fest and blew it all at Shiraz. Ran up a tab of over 90 bucks and left the rest for tips.
To put that in perspective, the average human being would have found it difficult to finish a plate of biryani and a side order of rezala for twelve rupees. The first time I took my wife out (that same year and no, she was not my wife then), it was to Shiraz. We had 5 bucks apiece and bullied another 5 out of Rajesh S with some obscure reasoning. We sat downstairs where it was cheaper, we paid our money and we ate our meal. We were full, we were happy.
The last time we went to Shiraz was … well, last week, actually. They still make the world’s best biryani (though the Bengal Club is a legitimate contender). And the most amazing tandoori roti. The bill was a ridiculous amount, perhaps barely enough for a soup and dessert at Churchill on Colaba. Some things don’t change. Mmm mmm mmmm. And in case the point isn’t clear enough, MMMMMMMMMM!!!!


I wonder which year I learnt to say Hullo to a woman’s eyes instead of her chest. I do know it must have been some years after I was 16.
But I’m proud to say it’s been several years (decades, even?) since I greeted even the hottest woman with my eyes directed a few inches below her clavicles. Even on that memorable occasion on the Long Island Railroad four years ago when, for more than an hour, I half believed that bald is sexy. Somewhere in a finer and better world where true heroism is recognised and feted, I’m right up there with Sir Galahad. Or Bedivere at the very least.
(Ummm … I must confess I still do lech at times, but my priorities are different now. Brains and a sense of humour certainly, but also eyes, hands and voice. Most definitely eyes, hands, voice.)

(Which reminds me of a comment about Bongs ... "You guys are unique. Look at your most common term of abuse - I mean, how terrible can it be that I slept with a moron?!")

I used to try to help people. A lot of it was due to Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton and all that rot about one good deed a day. (Do kids these days even know about William and the Outlaws?) My good intentions were rarely appreciated, even on the rare occasions when I didn’t goof up big time. I did donate blood several times in college, though.
I really am better at helping people these days. Or so they tell me. Double difference there. Not bad.


Back then, I never had much money, but I don’t recall ever wanting much money either. Just didn’t think about it, I guess.
These days, I do want money. A fair amount. Still don’t have much. That hasn’t changed.


There was this picnic when I was in my first year in college. Half the people who went had only one condition – I shouldn’t be part of the scene. Major popularity.
I’m still told that I’m obnoxious. But it’s usually said with a smile. At least, I think it’s said with a smile.


I was tagged on that book meme that went around. Never did respond. How does one list 5 books? Or even 10?
What was the first book I read? I really don’t remember. The last was (a minor embarrassment) The Half-Blood Prince. Finished last night at 9 p.m.
That feeling when one has a new book to read. “The keen thrill of anticipation that surpasses every possible emotion … love ambition sex music food success, nothing can compare.” Something that hasn’t changed. Thank God.

All around #2

Call centre operatives have a tough time. Or so I was told when I visited Bangalore this last week.

**** **** ****

“Sir, I’m calling from S~ C~ Bank, Sir, we have a very special scheme to offer you, Sir, Sir, Sir, you see, Sir, we can give you a personal loan of one and a half lakh rupees, Sir …”

“What’s your name?”

“Sir, my name is, I mean I’m calling from S~ C~ Bank, Sir ..”

“What’s your name? When were you trained?”

“Sir, I don’t understand, Sir, are you interested in a free personal loan …”

“When you were trained, didn’t they teach you that you should first ask the client whether it’s a good time to talk?!”

“Sir, I’m sorry Sir, do you already hold a S~ C~ credit card, Sir?”

“Did you check your data-base before calling me?”

“Sir yes Sir …”

“Will you please check what it says in the box for ‘Occupation’?”

“Sir, of course Sir, Sir it says …” SILENCE “Sir I’m sorry Sir!” Disconnection, busy tone.

She had called the Country Manager, Marketing for S~ C~ Bank.

**** **** ****

Another call, this one the stuff of legend.

“Sir, I’m calling from S~ C~ Bank, Sir, I am happy to inform you that you have been cleared for a personal loan yadda yadda ..”

The hapless recipient of this call is a perfect gentleman. He refused once, politely. He refused twice, politely. He refused thrice and said he had to hang up.

The call centre operative was polite, persistent. He hung on. He dangled bait of charge limits, further loans, credit points.

Eventually the client asked, “Do you use the A~ data-base? Is that how you got my number?”

“Sir, we’re not authorized to give out those details, Mr. Azeem, Sir, but if you would please sign on ..”

“Young man, Azim is my first name. My full name is Azim Premji and I really do not need a personal loan. Thank you.”

**** **** ****

Good evening

Three vodkas with tonic, large. Two Laphroaig, very large. One glass filled with Peach Schnapps, vodka and Bacardi, quite foolhardy.

Three hours’ sleep, thanks to Very Small Person coming awake at 6 a.m.

But a long long evening from 20 years ago, in-jokes and expletives, the warmth that comes from laughing with friends (though the Laphroaig played its part) and adda.

Condoms in the Jampot summer. The divide between the finance wing and the rest of the organization. Torch-light on crocodile eyes. Whether Michelangelo was the Maradona of the Sistine Chapel team. And no, no blog-talk.

Learning curve …

Check qualifications before delegation. As B learnt in the course of a tag-team wooing. The friendly lady bestowed her favours upon A.H. in the back seat of a Fiat (yes, a Fiat, A.H. is a small man) tooling down the Strand Road and round the Maidan, late one rainy night in the ‘80s. Came B’s turn to pleasure the lady and A took the wheel.
Except that A had never learnt to drive. “Boss, coming together is f**ing impossible when a f***ing maniac is driving your Pop’s car on the f***ing Hastings Road divider!”


Familiarise with the job responsibilities. “My first fricking visit after we were married, he should have carried me over the threshold for Chrissake, and what do I find? His flat-mate opens the door wrapped in a gamchha and there’s a f**king ant-hill in the middle of the bathroom!” Sheepish explanation – “We each cleaned our own rooms, we’d be damned if we’d clean the common area”. Hence a mushroom growing out of the kitchen counter, in addition to the ant-hill in the bathroom.


Check out the immediate environment. “Look f***er, don’t get any ideas about midnight swims when you visit us, OK? First time I thought I’d take a dip after dinner, I went down by torch-light. Good thing I shone the torch on the water after I’d shucked the towel …. Maaaan, there were EYES everywhere! Crocs, man, effin’ great hungry crocs!” “Right, and you’d taken my sons in there with you that morning, you jerk! You know we ran the video later and there was a croc IN the water when they were swimming!” Sheeshh (this was their holiday up in the Amazon basin).


Develop client-specific solutions. “Boss, when she gets mad I just split. I come back after a few hours and she’s usually cooled off. Otherwise she might swing at me with a bottle. A full bottle.” (To do the speaker justice, he’s not a physical coward. He was just pained at the thought of his beloved malt going waste). “Me, I have it easy. All I have to do when she’s mad is to scratch her back. It’s hard for her to stay angry when she’s saying ‘A little to the left .. no, up a bit.’”


Internalise your professional role. "Before I became CFO I was ***da. Then suddenly I was this pariah, man - EVERYbody hates the Finance guys! After a while I decided I just didn't give a big rat's ass - remember Battle Cry? - and if they expected me to be an a**hole, dammit I'd be an a**hole. Grown out of that now." "Yes, except at home, darling." Glance round, silence, long swig.





Make adjustments for local conditions (Jamshedpur, circa 1990). “No ACs, no coolers, we were on the top floor, we’d pour water on the floor and try to go to sleep before it dried. You know the gochi?! Condoms frickin’ MELT in 45 degree heat, why do you think J was born so early!?”


Get the right perspective. Remember the Phantom’s Great Treasure Cave and Minor (or was it Lesser?) Treasure Cave? The Vatican Museum drew the analogy. Incredibly valuable stuff (five-foot Dresden china doll-house, a portrait of a dead Pope done entirely in semi-precious stones) lying in the corridor, the locked cabinets are for manuscripts and maps and signed artworks. Some of the greatest treasures are right up there – check out this ceiling.



About the perspective. Are the Caravaggio and Botticelli paintings in the Sistine Chapel of lesser value than Michelangelo’s work? This might be a tough question for an art expert, but for a layman like me it's a no-brainer. Signor Buanorotti was the Renaissance art world’s equivalent of the Tiger Woods of 2001. The house concurred. We moved to the next item on the agenda. (If my memory serves me right, it was “What are you guys, f***in’ siphons? Who finishes a litre of Laphroaig in two f***in’ hours?”)


Work within your limitations. Translation: if you must go overboard with the booze, carry Aspirin and drink lots of water.

Oh well, I’ve had the weekend to recover.

All around

In The Telegraph today – “It's confirmed: It’s unsafe to drive and talk on phone”. I can imagine how it takes rocket science to work that out.

It's confirmed. The world is full of stupid people. Really REALLY stoopid people. Manoj Night Shyamalan, re-make The Sixth Sense. That line should be “I see stupid people.” (The down-side is that most days I wake up like Bruce Willis and realise that I’m one of them.)

The Andhra Government paid 11 khokhas to get Volswagen to invest in their state. Then it turns out they paid it to a fraud.

Further proof – the Salman Khan tapes. Everyone who knows him agrees that this guy has a heart of gold to go with his pecs of granite. Sadly enough, his brain seems to be made of the same stuff. (Granite, not gold.)

Which brings to mind a conversation in the gym some years ago. This unfairly gifted dude (handsome as the young Mithun Chakraborty, great bod, graduated from Yale, scholarship to Harvard) said that only a retard would drop the bar after a military press, I pointed out that some people might actually do it. His response was classic – “That’s what we call PEOPLE, right? Ree-tards!”

Terrible attitude. Egoistic. Snobbish. Disgusting. It doesn't even make us happy.

Who cares... I love it!

Shiverrrrrr

Two of the blogs I read have reviewed 'The Historian'. Apparently it's all about Vlad Tepes (or Tepys), famous for winning several polls for most charming person in the Dark Ages. I must borrow a copy soon.

The most chilling story I read about the good Count - also known as Dracula or Dragul from the family's obsession with dragons, such charming pets - was about his grave.

In Transylvania, north-west of Bucharest, lies the region of Wallachia.
In Wallachia there is a lake called Snagov.
In the lake there is an island.
On the island there is a monastery.
In the monastery there is a grave.

A single grave, where they buried the man who had the monastery built.
A man called Vlad Tepes.

Some years ago the grave was opened.

It was empty except for some animal bones.
Dracula walks.

Naaah ...

Well, I thought I'd post. I even knew what I wanted to post about. Then it turned out I didn't really want to post.

The feeling is akin to the internal rumblings after a lobster thermidor dinner. One knows there will be turbulence, one just isn't sure when.

Sadly enough, the product is rather similar at times. Or so my friend says.
Right. No chicken in white sauce for you, young lady. Whenever I next feel inclined to cook it up. So there.

It feels good to be vindictive sometimes. And lazy.

Rambling rant

London's not burning. We have to wait and see whether the Brits go the same road as the Americans – first wake up in utter disbelief that anybody could actually hate them this much, then react in ways that make more people hate them more intensely. I think it's unlikely.

The Brits, especially London and Londoners, have been through too much. From all accounts, they're taking this in their stride. Brit stoicism, stiff upper lip, nasty-business-what, would-you-please-pass-the-marmalade beastly-weather-we're-having. I love them for it.

I've admitted it before. I'm an Anglophile. It's not a conscious, rational decision, it's just that when my generation were growing up, the Brits won the information war for our hearts and minds. They didn't need MTV or i-Pods. Their shock trooper was Enid Blyton, with an intensive barrage of idyllic English summers and a relentless fusillade of food descriptions. Later in the campaign, 1500 years worth of heavy armour from Chaucer to Kingsley Amis, marshalled by the Children’s Division of the British Council Library, simply rolled over my consciousness. (Maggie Thatcher shut down the Children's Section, may she bubble at the mouth with Mad Cow Disease!)




In 2001 I saw for the first time the little streams and rolling meadows, the hayricks and horizon-blued woods of England. If it had been damp dripping October, I might have escaped from the spell. Instead, it was a glorious August, the finest weather in 30 years. I was lost. Two months later the Shenandoah Valley wooed me with the blazing colours of fall, but it was too late, too loud, too long.

But I digress ... My last post evoked some visceral responses. I need to respond to some of them here.

Jai said Indians cannot aspire to any moral superiority in this regard. I agree. Indian politicians, and as a result the Indian Government, can be sickeningly hypocritical. The best option is to call it like it is, whether it's an Indian or an American saying things that are patently untrue and insincere.

This means that if Bush says
(a) he's fighting terrorists
(b) he's going after Osama bin Laden
(c) Eye-rack are helping bin Laden by stocking WMD

and later it transpires that
(i) he's fighting terrorists only as long as they're not in Pakistan
(ii) he's realised he can't get Osama so he has to choose a sitting target and
(iii) WMD can’t have been the reason for bombing Eye-rack because everybody knew they were never there

then he is a liar.

Unfortunately, he's also the President of the most powerful nation in the world.
Which is why I call him a bully.

Fingeek, wisely enough, cautions that India gains nothing by "standing up to the bully". True. Much better to make money out of them while we can. He points out that many Iraqis were happy to be rid of Saddam. I agree. There are, however, three points one should not forget.

First, the invasion had nothing to do with the events of 9/11, with the excesses of Saddam and Uday or even with any perceived threat to the USA. There were no WMD in Iraq. Saddam did not plan or execute the events of 9/11. There were regions on earth that were even worse off than Iraq - Rwanda, Afghanistan, East Timor, Chechnya.

The US invaded Iraq for the strategic ends of Bush & Co. These included the creation of a rallying point so that at least some of the electorate would not realise the pathetic truth – that Bush is a lousy leader and a hopeless administrator. What the US definitely did NOT do was to invade Iraq for the well-being of Iraqis.

Second, who made the US the arbiter of other nations' destinies? Today they invade Iraq and we exult because a repressive dictator has been toppled. Except for the Middle East, the rest of the world consoles itself. Saddam had it coming, maybe they’ll bring down the price of oil, it’s only a slab of desert in the middle of nowhere, it’s not as if they’re bombing a REAL country.
Well, wake up, world. For a large portion of the US electorate, anywhere outside the 50 mainland states is “somewhere out there”. Some of them don’t even know the capital of the next-state-but-one. If tomorrow Pulao Hariyali (what else should one call a Bush-Rice combo?) decide to roll into Liechtenstein, Paramaribo, Ulan Bator, who’s going to stop them? Where do we stop them? Marseilles? Milton Keynes? Remember Donne – “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”.

Third - and this one is addressed to Ozymandiaz – I have criticized the US government’s policies and actions. I do not regard Americans as evil, notwithstanding my comments in this very post (based on personal experience) about their vast insularity. I do not regard them as uniformly stupid, in spite of the pretzel story and more like it. I have friends in the US, I have friends who are now US citizens. My graduate guide in the USA was one of the most intelligent and open-minded individuals I have ever met, not to mention an extremely kind and sensitive person. I used the term “redneck” to represent a type. The British yob, the Indian bigot, the Euro Nazi – these are all types based upon real people. We should not (and I do not) assume that entire populations are composed exclusively of these types.

The invasion of Iraq was an act of the US government, not an action by the people of the USA. It has led to a very obvious and perhaps potentially damaging schism in the body civic. At the same time, it has brought to light some of the best features of the American polity.
The American media have focused public attention on the excesses of Abu Ghraib, on the meaningless deaths of soldiers of at least 6 nationalities, on the awarding of contracts without tenders, the slaughter of civilians by hopped-up undertrained soldiers, the shameless profiteering by the most powerful politicians in the US. Americans have faced up to an increasingly repressive establishment and voiced their concern over the direction in which their democracy is headed.

Sadly enough, even after these stories broke in the media ,the US saw fit to re-elect George Herbert Walker Bush III with his Cheney and Rice combo. Fox TV and USA Today won over the voices of reason.

Well, the Brits are not significantly wiser. They re-elected Blair, a man who sent their sons to die in Iraq over a lie.

I still hope, however, that Britain will not react the way the US did. I hope that none of my friends who have spent the best years of their lives in that “green and pleasant land” will wake to a midnight knock, or spend days in prison because a booking clerk couldn’t make out what they said. I believe that the days when this man was defended and lionised cannot come back.

One of the differences I perceive is that humour is an industry in the USA. In Britain, I suspect, it’s more low-key, more a tradition of self-deprecation. Sixty years ago, the most appealing face of Britain was a creased bulldog visage with a cigar. Today, it may be people like this.

Laugh at your enemies. It’s difficult for them to be terrifying when they’re being laughed at. And the absence of terror goes a long way towards defeating terrorists.
In any case, it's not healthy to go for very long without a belly laugh. So go read some other blog now.

The Bully

Must read. Two posts, here and here that sum up the issue of Bush and red-neck USA and Eye-rack.

Why do we bother about the USA? Because today it's Iraq, next month it's Iran. Who's to say that in 2012, it won't be India? Will somebody face up to the bully?

Loos Talk

The Arabs call it (or so I’m told) “the-room-where-everyone-goes”. In their case, it doesn’t make sense. I mean, why would nomadic tribes, with several thousand square kilometres of awe-inspiring desert to poop in, start building privies in the first place? (Not to mention the water issues .. yecchhh) Perhaps they used Port-a-Potties? So much for Rudolf Valentino!

* Time out for short film …

Arab caravan lurches over the horizon, shadows black under the desert sun … camera moves in slowly … craggy features, far-seeing eyes crinkled against the sun… aforesaid far-seeing eyes light up as a speck appears afar and draws closer … much pointing and gesticulation and … TA-DAA-DA-DAAA, T.E. Lawrence emerges heroically over the dunes, motorcycle and sidecar heading a plume of dust .. but wait, wait, that’s too TALL to be a side-car, that’s too BIG, it’s .. it’s a … PORT-A-POTTY!

General hubbub, Arabs leap off camels and race each other towards it, groping in their robes for the equivalent of 25 Eurocents. OST from David Lean film builds towards a crescendo. Peter O’ Toole tries to look heroic and magnanimous even though he really looks as if he Needs to Go.

Meanwhile, Omar Sharif has shot the three men who got there ahead of him and is the first one into the Port-a-Potty. Exultant yells and other less polite noises emerge.
Camels look at each other with Very Camel Expressions … they reach a consensus and (all together now!) demonstrate in unison why they Do Not Need to Go in That Thing. The desert reeks ...*

Overcome with emotion at the grandeur of the spectacle, one takes a Short Break from Blogging …

**** **** ****

The Arabian Desert is still a whole lot better than the Indian Highway. Miles and miles of super-smooth six-lane asphalt, and what does one have when one needs some relief? Hello, George! (Some of the snazzier stretches of highway these days - now do NOT say ‘Bombay – Pune’, because it’s just Not True - actually have Rest Stops. Oh joy.)

Back in the dark ages (like even July last year, actually), the Comfort Stop was one of the great issues in the Battle of the Sexes, at least in India. Men had it comparatively easy, even though it takes a little time to work out the issues of protocol (Does one tell a chauffeur to pull over at the next big tree? If he needs to go as well, does one look for a site with multiple waterable poles or does one assume he will wait his turn? When he gets back, how does one stop worrying about whether he washed his hands?)

(Speaking of last July - Cuffe Parade to Lokhandwala took all of four hours. Four of us in the car, with a 4-year-old. By the time we got there, our social graces were reduced to "Pleased-to-meet-you where's-the-bathroom?" The valiant child deserves a better balladeer than Ms. Hemans.)

When there are Wimmin in the car, confusion is worse compounded. There is the Woman who will Not Go but will make you feel like a Slug because you are a Male and Unfairly Endowed. There is the Woman who will Fidget until you stop at every second shop and ask (usually in a guilty mumble, as if you’re asking about smutty pictures) whether there is a loo available. There is the Woman who will Make Do with Adequate Shrubbery but You-Have-To-Stand-Guard, even if this is the only scrub between Jodhpur and Jaisalmer and it’s 9 at night in December. There is even the Woman who Doesn’t Give a Damn and will Go Anywhere, short of letting fly out of the window.

The dice are loaded unfairly against women in this respect. I sympathise. Sometimes, after a few beers, I even empathise. What I refuse to do any more is Stand Guard. I cannot, however, escape the Awful Responsibility of Scouting for Suitable Shrubs.

A piece of advice for young people who are still undecided on career choices: don’t even dream of being a Shrub Spotter. There’s no future in it. One is always caught in the middle, between the Person at the Wheel who shouts because it’s too late to stop at that particular shrub and the Woman who Can’t Hold It In Any More (as in, WHY can’t you tell us a little earlier?!?! Yes, like I’m Superman and I have a special GPRS to locate suitable cover from 10 miles away!)

A further piece of advice – when she says she wants another Coke, dissuade her. You know why.

***** ***** *****

Scream

Hemangini of the Hindu has an inspiring post. Inspiring because it shows that outrage, courage and persistence can pay. Sickening because of what the story reveals about us.

1 - That touching up a woman is considered a minor offence. Boys will be boys etc. Right. So Mr. Concerned-about-poor-Bihari-boy's-career, just ask your wife to step this way so we can all grope her up. We'll apologise nicely afterwards. Even call her "Ma".

2 - What were the WOMEN in that coach doing? Why didn't THEY offer some support to Hemangini? Were they just too timid? Did they not want to get involved? (John Donne is done for, nobody gives a damn any more) Or have they been indoctrinated too deeply in the unspoken male myth, that women only get what they "ask for", she must have done SOMEthing, why else would he touch HER? (Maybe because she is comparatively young, attractive, or just plain bloody NEARER to be touched, did you ever think of that, my worthy dames?!)

3 - That the law is an ass, because it makes a shocked and outraged woman wait for four HOURS to make copies in triplicate of the FIR. I have had first-hand experience of the FIR trauma and it should be short-circuited for cases like this.

4 - That it was always possible that if she had not been a journalist, that too a journalist from The Hindu, she may not have received the same response. That she could protest and give the slime what he deserved because she is educated, independent, articulate, English-speaking ... Empowered. Even that may not be enough, as Ketaki's comment on the same post shows.

5 - That a slime like this Sanjeev Kumar thinks that he can abjure all responsibility for his actions. So it ruins your life, scumbag? Guess what, we're HAPPY about it, you should be grateful you still HAVE a life. If you'd done it to Pappu Yadav's daughter, you'd be compost by now. Try telling HIM that you hadn't thought of the consequences.

5 - That even now, given that Hemangini is based in Delhi and won't come down to Chennai for the trial, the man may walk free if he posts bail. And then?

There is a lesson here, though. And hope. Sometimes protesting loudly enough does work. More power to you, Hemangini, very well done.

An interesting side-light from Jo, in a comment on this post. A guy who's feeling up a woman has the guts to step forward and take the rap, so the wrong guy doesn't get beaten up. Hmmm.
But say what, they should throw the book at him anyway. What's the use of his owning up if that's enough to get him off the hook?

Desultory patter

A first. Epochal. A-mej-jing. This is the first time ever I've posted from the car. *slight orgasmic tremor at the sheer tech-coolness of it all*

Maybe I should go a step further and upload a picture.
Oooooohhhh ... *much lip-twisting, finger-pointing-in-arbit-directions, crotch-grabbing and pelvic gyrations*

Ummm ... I give up. Google offers no pics of bald old rock-and-roll types, with or without sneer and crotch-grab.

But this is still terminally cool. *purses lips and howls like happy (overweight) grizzled timber wolf*

Words (are all I have ...)

Magic lies in words. In their sound, their meaning, their power to raise dreams and memories and sudden emotion.

Consider this passage on names …
“the tribes of men use many names, the Sarmatians from the Germans and the Goths frequently from the Huns. Tutizar was a Goth and Ragnaris a Hun, but Tutizar is not a Gothic name and Ragnaris is Germanic. The Byzantine generals who in 493 fought against the Isaurians were Apsikal, a Goth, and Sigizan and Zolban, commanders of the Hun auxiliaries. Apsikal is not a Gothic but a Hunnic name; Sigizan might be Germanic.”

[The Language of the Huns, in O. Maenchen-Helfen's "The World of the Huns” (University of California Press, 1973) which I, of course, have not read. I found it on languagehat.]

Those names …. The clash of arms and the baying of war-horns, frost-rimed forests, the stench of horses after a gallop, ice crashing on black rocks and the terror of a burning town. All from the hard clanking echoes of Tutizar, Ragnaris, Apsikal, Zolban, a charivari against the ominous background chords of two names of terror, the Huns and the Goths.

History echoes through those names. And one of my favourite celebrants of history was a wordsmith par excellence, a modern-day Homer of India and of Britain, a balladeer and teller of stories who never fails to charm. Maenchen-Helfen’s paragraph on the names of the tribes brought to mind “Puck of Pook’s Hill”, the Beetle’s love-song to the land of his fathers and the tales of its history that he read and read through his growing years.

Consider now the craft in this list of spirits, a counting of dreams, a naming of names, a promise of stories to come …
“I saw them come into Old England and I saw them go. Giants, trolls, kelpies, brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits; heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, and the rest - gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.”

That invocation at the end, creating its own icons and sorcery! The man knew, above all, the magic of words. Because there can be no stories without words. Emotions and relations can spark wordlessly between lovers or enemies, but they cannot resonate till their story is told. Their very reality can be altered by the story-teller’s perception.

Would Romeo have been aught but a callow youth if Bald Will had not set him to music unheard? Imagine if his story had been written by Stephen Fry instead – would he not have been a delinquent teen, goaded to murder and suicide by the torture of repressed homosexuality? While the world, of course, bayed in laughter at the screaming fun of it all.

But to come back to Kipling and his craft. Here is the balladeer tuning up ’is bloomin’ lyre:
“I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind again. Butterfly-wings! It was Magic - Magic as black as Merlin could make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing mermaids in it. And the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one wave to another by the lightning flashes! That was how it was in the old days!”

Tintagel and Hy-Brasil bring to mind T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King”, but I shall resist the temptation to digress.

The Beetle has much in common with my other Master. The creation of a world, but that is the skill of all great story-tellers from Chaucer to Tolkien. The celebration of an age, whether the Raj in India or the Home Counties in the lull between the Wars. A drawing upon the treasures of reading, the use of quotation and reference to pay homage to past masters and enrich their own work through it. The painstaking attention to construction, the long hours at their craft to polish each paragraph to a lapidary glow.

Above all, a consummate mastery of the language, the ear for its music and the sense that can cull a false rhythm. This is also the point where they differ, each setting his own signature rhythms that can be recognised at a hundred paces like “the set of a trooper’s shoulders”.

Kipling stuck to more basic rhythms, his language a means to an end, subsumed within the larger need to tell the story. The Master on the other hand revelled in the words themselves, playing with the language, spinning out a paragraph over half a page like an angler casting over a mountain stream, yet with such supreme mastery of the basics that neither clarity nor construction suffered in the process. Like a great batsman playing the push-drive to the sight-screen, he made it look so easy that we never realize the effect until the final moment.

“Belloc, to the consternation of Hugh Walpole, forthrightly declared him to be the best prose writer of the age (his exact words were “the finest writer of English in the 20th century”); Ronald Knox, most fastidious of scholars and stylists, rejoiced in him.” Evelyn Waugh, himself a fine craftsman and perhaps best known to a wide public as “the man who wrote the blurbs for Plum’s Penguin editions”, looked on him as “the head of my profession”.

Words may not suffice. The attempt in any case would be presumptuous, because words were Wodehouse’ forte.

Marxism

Three things that I’m happy about.

The first should be evident. The side-bar is up, I even have a CCL, I can take the Chicago gamer and the Uncut commentator out of my bookmarks. Thanks to He-of-the-uncut-locks and to Bhegoo-bhayya for their help.

Then … I now have an inamorata. Sleek, chic, quietly confident and capable. Petite, almost waif-like. But very very sexy. Oh, VERY hot. Think Penelope Cruz, but (pardon the sexist analogy) with tetas grandes.

Now to push Anil to activate the bloomin’ RIM card, then my baby and I can be really free … (He’s in sole charge now, he should get a move on.)

Finally, something that makes me feel good but also faintly embarrassed. People whose writing I admire have linked me on their blogs. Very flattering, especially in the case of a Writer of Repute who has a short blog-roll.

All very nice, but I hold, with Groucho Marx (through Woody Allen) that “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have ME as a member”. In other words, self-doubt lingers. If old TSE himself rose from his grave and gave me an approving nod, I’d suspect the Guv’nor had lost it.

Oh well. Enjoy it while it lasts, try not to feel guilty.

Positively the last Dhaka Diaries ...

(... for the time being)


The way it goes in Blogworld, reading follows browsing. Then come comments, curiosity, interaction, perhaps mail. Eventually, personalities emerge from the cyber-haze – at bloggers’ meets, in airports, once (as mentioned elsewhere) at a cricket match.

With me, of course, it has to happen the other way round. We met at the conference in Dhaka, exchanged smiles, pleasantries, bitched about the arrangements. Some time on the second day, my Net deprivation crossed reasonable limits and I took over the only available machine. Whereupon I was told, in passing, that there is a Blog. I went. I read. I laughed. I like. Check it out.


*************************************************************

The other high point was dinner on the last night. S- (confusing, that. The three young people who were shovelling the shit for the conference all have that initial. One of them is even a descendant of a Chief Minister of Bengal) led me to Dhanmundi to buy CDs and to gormandise. The 'mall' could have been 'AC Market' in any given Indian city in the early '80s, except that it wasn't AC. And that there was a cornucopia of products that were all, pre-1991, very definitely for the phoren-returned.

The restaurant was tucked away on an upper floor of what seemed like an office building. The lighting was dim, there was a smell of smoking generators, the table-cloths were pink and blotched. Half the stuff on the menu was not available.

We ordered (in my case, with much trepidation), went outside to light up for a while, came back in ten minutes to find a procession of dishes arriving. S, my apologies once again for doubting you. I’d wondered why we were ordering what I considered ‘North Indian’ cuisine. We were served superb naan and a daal that tasted like haleem, a dish that overshadowed even the beef bhoona and the traditional Bangal muroger zhul. (And yes, if I visit Dhaka again I shall dine at Mama Haleem’s.)

The piece de resistance was a Bong fantasy, the kind of thing that Mr. Haldar from Paikpara and Mrs. Baidya from Akhon Bazaar moan about in their restless dreams, a dish of rui kaaliya that overwhelmed with its Brobdingnagian bounty. I felt like Cap’n Ahab in the MAD Magazine version of Moby Dick – ‘Now you’ve GOT it, what are you going to DO with it’. (We ate all of it. Eventually)

**************************************************************

I wouldn’t go for a walk in Dhaka. Not, at least, in the town itself. North of the clutter, however, there are places that could pass off as Jodhpur Park or even Vasant Vihar. Past a pile of masonry that used to be one of the Gates of Dhaka; apparently there was a time when Dhaka was closed down at 10 p.m., the gates were shut, “nor all your piety nor wit” could get them to open again till 6 o’ clock the next morning.

Past tatterdemalion commercial districts, brash with neon and trailing wires and hoardings in execrable English, shop-fronts like painted ladies. Past a vast field ghostly under floodlights, while the Jatiya Parishad building loomed dark and unlit beside it. Past a million rickshaws, autos, Toyotas, pedestrians, even a couple of double-decker buses that could have pulled up at Gole Park or Dunlop Bridge.

I mentioned this to a friend and his answer made me think. “Dhaka has no Marwaris.” True. Nor the Tamizh cadences of Lake Market nor the Punjabi bustle of Bhowanipur. Calcutta survives as part of India, and I’m profoundly grateful this is not a Bangali ghetto. Kudos to Mumbai for rejecting Bal Thackeray’s insider theory.

*********************************************************

Many uniforms. Every wing of the police - immigration, traffic, security - has a different uniform. Smart new uniforms, too, with flaps and epaulettes and wide belts. Apparently, every time the government is reminded that the police are paid so little that they HAVE to resort to graft to survive, they hand out new uniforms. My new friend was mugged a month ago. He says there was a policeman three feet behind him who just looked the other way.
A tribute to Bong innovation ... in Noo Yawk the women carry Mace to ward off muggers. In Dhaka, muggers carry Mace and pepper sprays because they work just as well in the other direction. *Shrug* Simple, innit?

Strange - Bangladesh has the 7th-largest standing army in the world. That's good in terms of employment potential, but the Bangladeshis I met did not seem to feel exceptionally secure. "Yeah right, our army's going to be very sharp if, like, China dumps on us. Or - oh boy! *and much rolling of eyes* - India wants to walk in and take over!" I coughed politely and changed the subject.

The great Bangladesh Rifles are not very popular either. I mentioned the murder of a BSF officer at a flag-meeting some months ago. "We never hear about that kind of thing here ..." So check the Internet, friend, you're supposed to be the new generation!

I mention the middle-years paradigm of the effectivemess of an elected government, that in a five-year term the first year goes for consolidation and the last two are spent preparing for the next election, leaving just the middle year-and-a-bit for hard decisions. "Here the entire five year period is spent with a single objective - making money. Why do you think we consistently rank as the most corrupt country in the world?"
I point out that greater visibility could be a factor, since there are so many international agencies working in Dhaka. He doesn't agree.

**************************************************************

Wednesday 15th June

The hotel lobby, deserted except for flight crew from an unidentified airline. The women dark-eyed and sassy, two husky blonde pilots and a huge African, all chain-smoking. Helpful check-out desk, urging me to have a coffee while I wait for the airport shuttle.
Bunch of Americans munching stolidly in the coffee shop. How can ANYbody have breakfast at a quarter to 7 in the morning?!

All day for the last two days, there has been a sweating man in knee-high waders cleaning out the ornamental pool. Water occasionally slops into his waders as he moves. He worked on even when the rains came down.
The tables in the lobby, however, have not been cleaned since last night. I have to ask for a bunch of tissues to wipe away the glass-rings and the chanachur.

A flavour of Dhaka even as I leave. Twice, a car draws up to the porch and the (smiling) bell captain washes his hands in invisible soap as he ushers me to the door. As I step out of the door and my glasses fog up, the car zooms away. Back to the lobby …
Cloudy skies and a faint drizzle as the car finally pulls away from the hotel.

This time I have a seat ahead of the wing. The air-conditioning works. The plane takes off on time. As it climbs, the water-world appears below, all too briefly before the damp clouds wrap the windows in grey. All too brief, actually. I want to come back.

Perhaps in the cold weather. Walk under the coconut trees with people from my other home-land, search a map for the village where my grandfather was born. And sit on a steamer deck all night long, while the wind blows the moonlight over the Padma and bhatiyali songs float up from the after-deck.
Perhaps.

********************************************************************

Duh Dhaka Diaries again

It's a small world. With large people in it. Both demonstrated when, in the mirror over the bar, I see a portly turbanned form with a designer stubble. It turns out B has an office here (and one in KL and one in Singapore .... basically, he's a hot-shot).

Breakfast in the coffee shop of the Pan-Pacific Sonargaon in Dhaka. The Delhi Ashoka must have mated with the Central Park in Bangalore to produce this pile. No, that is NOT a picture of the hotel on that web-page, don't ask me what it is. Nor do I know why it's there if it's not the hotel.

Everybody is so damn HELPFUL. Polite. Smiling. I'd feel effing guilty if I were to shout at them, but I've explained THRICE that I want THAT item on the menu, that that THAT one (stabbing at it till my finger almost goes through the pasteboard), now another smiling person has turned up with an omelette that I do NOT want and now I need to SHOUT at somebody!
Deep breaths, fourth explanation. Eventually I get some toast. And the omelette I wanted. With some cold cuts that taste like seekh kebab, how did they do that? And - I wouldn't believe this myself if I hadn't checked it out - a bowl of dried fish along with the baked beans and the kebab / sausages. Dude, this stuff smells, take it away!

I'm probably not the only one who feels this way. A big Australian in a sweat-shirt, jeans and Caterpillar-type designer boots sits at the next table over a coffee. The words "appalling" and "amazing" recur in the soft burr of his conversation.

A bonus - the bill for breakfast is just a little over half of what I'd expected. From the menu.
Again, what kind of hotel charges you separately for breakfast when you're part of a block booking of about a hundred room-nights?

***********************************************************************************

The first night in Dhaka was .. weird. Driving in from the airport, everything looked familiar but faintly off-kilter, like your friend's face, that afternoon in college when you first smoked weed.
Then it hit me - this is like the parts of Calcutta that the visitors don't see (s***w you, Roland Joffe! You shot your film in Howrah). The little gas-lit sheds selling ornate furniture carved out of cheap wood, the sudden row of about a thousand shops all selling electrical stuff like plugs and flex, the mosquito nets, the narrow roads.
Or perhaps a backwoods town, a "mofussil" town like Bahrampur or Alipurduar, where people go shopping for bright green plastic water-bottles because their children are going back to school the next week.

Right. The next corner had a 20-storey building with a humongous three-layer gleaming-glass showroom on the street level. Pacific Motors, the local Mercedes dealership. And the BMW showroom was a couple of hundred yards on. (The next day I salivated over a Porsche parked in the hotel porch. Convertible. The Porsche, not the porch.)

The first night (and the next) was weird for another reason. I fluffed up three large pillows (there IS something about a hotel room), drank a Diet Coke, sucked at my pipe. Then for the first time ever, I actually watched TV for hours. The Simpsons, Boston Public, even (wincing) Friends. Hours? About 70 minutes, actually. By half past nine in the evening I was sprawled across the bed, doing my celebrated imitation of Large Harmless (Mostly) Jellyfish. Another first. Ravelled sleeve of care be damned.
Night life in Dhaka. Hmmm.

*************************************************************************************

Visiting Dhaka from Calcutta is nice. You merge right in, or if you don't, the locals seem genuinely happy to hear Bangla from a phoren specimen. They have such lovely warm smiles. So nice.
Till I realise that I have made three calls back home (total time 3:12. Minutes, not hours) and they have charged me nearly NINE HUNDRED TAKA. (OK, don't laugh, who pays $4 per minute to call 200 miles?) I slitted my eyes and tried to look tough, but it didn't work. They just smiled at me. Bloody stupid grins.

Tip: if you're visiting Dhaka, don't bother to activate international roaming. The strike rate on calls going through, cell-to-cell, is rather worse than Saurav Ganguly's. Slightly better when calling a land line. Even after my cell phone started working intermittently, all the calls showed some Delhi number. Added spice to the interactions, especially after I greeted my boss with "Hello, f**k-face", under the impression that it was my journo buddy from the capital.

Bangladesh actually has problems with telecom. I saw headlines with complaints, explanations, allegations. And it took six hours for a fax to get through.

*************************************************************************************
Tuesday 14th June 2005

The hotel staff have a nasty sensayuma. Yesterday a housekeeping guy stopped me in the corridor and told me (with a smile, of course) that he'd put extra shampoo in my room. This morning a lady knocked on my door and handed me a comb. Do I need to be told my hairstyle's like Telly Savalas'?

There's a steel plate in the bathroom wall. There's a slot in the steel plate. A sign next to it says "Old blades here".
I squinted in for some sign of Beau Brummel or the Hellfire Club. If they were in there, they were keeping very quiet.

Wonderful exchange. Executive Floor guest in the lift, to the bell captain in a very patronising tone - "That's a new tie". Measured, deadpan response, "I have two".

************************************************************************************

Dhaka Diary (Pts. 1 - 432)

The start was ominous. A yawning airport lounge in the aftermath of a Lunch. (What a lunch ... those who rant about Calcutta have obviously been deprived of biriyani from the Bengal Club. And have no idea what Munna Maharaj can do with a mango).

I'd been warned that I might be offloaded if I didn't turn up in time, Biman is famously the only airline flying out of Cal that doesn't have a computerised booking system (the web-site just about sums it up). So, still sweating from biriyani + gilawati kebabs + heat, I rushed into the airport.
I was the second person at the check-in counter.

The other passengers (an A-300/310 can carry 325 passengers. Except when it's Biman, then it's configured to carry 580. Do the math) were squabbling at the X-ray machine behind a looming stack of about 7835 pieces of baggage . Mostly cardboard cartons tied together with nylon cords.
I swear there were even TVs in there. Who comes to Cal to buy a television?!
And of course the flight was late.

The lounge was different (from the lunch, that is). The crowd had B.O. And the man next to me had halitosis.

I moved. The television was too loud. To be fair, J.P. Dutta's LOC is probably loud even when you use the 'Mute' button.

I moved. Right to the other end. Baghbaan this end. Tolerable when muted, because of The Man. But of course it wasn't muted.

So I'm old and bald, but I LIKE looking out of the window. So I'd asked for a window seat. Got it, too. Right over the wing. Damn.
The air-conditioning didn't work. How much of a moron do you have to be to make people sweat when outside the plane it's something like -40 Celsius?!
And the bloke next to me also had halitosis.

Then the steward spilt Sprite in my lap. After I'd told him politely that I did NOT want his tray of scavenged scraps.

I woke up as we were landing. The part of the view that wasn't blotted out by the wing was amazing. Water. Except for the occasional patchwork divider, it was like landing in San Francisco (which is scary the first time, the plane skims over the waves, you can't even see the airport and a little voice in your head keeps telling you This-is-not-a-normal-landing-the-pilot-is-dead-up-there, we're-going-to-come-down-in-the-water-why-don't-you-panic)

But the glimpse of Dhaka was serene, beautiful, clumps of greenery and toy houses in an expanse of water that reflected the last of the light. Very Kevin Costner but without the stoopid costumes. I relaxed, breathed deep, thought long cool green thoughts.

Then they opened the aircraft door and my glasses fogged up. Cool. Yeah, right.

Chernobyl

Near-complete technological melt-down.

My last office finally woke up to the fact that I am no longer at their beck and call, that I am in fact only an ex officio operative. So I had to turn in my gun and badge.
(Guitars and a honky-tonk piano go berserk on the soundtrack as Dirty Al strides into the precinct, face lined and gaunt, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dull metal star, then draws his .44 Smith & Wesson Magnum from under his arm, cracks open the cylinder to shower slugs on a worn and scarred desk, flips the cylinder shut with a flick of the wrist and throws it on the desk whence it skids into a corner .. CUT, yells the man in the baseball cap, we need to shoot this again with Clint, WHO let Danny de Vito onto the set?!)

Okay, they never gave me a gun or badge. I turned in my laptop.

My trusty steed, my lance and shield all in one. A dull black square-edged IBM Thinkpad that was so over-used, the keys had gone bald. (I need to read up on conditioning and habit - I'm only a sight-typist and yet I could cruise at 70 wpm on a key-board where most of the letters were worn away. Hmmm.) I'd lugged that damn box all over the country and hated its weight, yet when I had to return it I felt a distinct wrench.

Partly because my present office used to be run by A Moron who had No Idea about Laptops. I'm saddled with a Thing that weighs just a little less than the Reserve Bank Building, boots in about the time it takes George Bush to Get an Idea and does NOT connect to the Net under Any Circumstances.

AND ... the Net connection on my home PC is kaput, my office PC has to be re-formatted about thrice a day, I'm reduced to carrying my essential files around on a pen drive and I feel like Robert Redford (orl ROIGHT, so it wuz Peter Finch!) in Network where he goes to the window and yells I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!

Excuse me while I have a nervous breakdown. Normal service will be resumed soon. Like some time before 2009 ....

Chicken?

Summ pear-son frum Kaiii-rrlla haze a vendor-full ayyy-deuh awn-leh.

There are some who think this idea (or ayyy-deuh, or biz-niss maw-dll) can be replicated in other parts of the country. Their number includes my Blogger-in-the-Flesh who (like his hair) remains largely Uncut (yes, this is sheer envy speaking) and a correspondent with a wonderfully evocative name. (Digression - our friend in college, Jane Mary John, soon became Jane Meri Jaan. Her shyam-borno boyfriend, of course, was Tar-jane).
I would advise them to do a market survey first.

Because it really wouldn't work in Bengal, you know. We've got it down pat here, we don't need to outsource the event management, "our boys" can handle it well enough, thank you very much. They've been doing it for years, why should we give somebody else the chance to make a little on the side?

And even in the supposedly apolitical Pnnn-jaabb-uh, I came across the "rum and rally" idea three years ago. Only there they called it "pagg-uh hore lagg-uh", which (translated for those who don't understand this most melodious of all languages) means "a peg and a leg". Nothing to do with Long John Silver (Digression #2 - the original title idea for "Treasure Island" was "The Sea Cook"), but a Peg of Whiskey and a Leg of Chicken. Of the National Bird of the region, in fact. To wit, Tnn-doooree Chik-ken.

In the constituency where I'd been sent, one candidate's election platform was a large trailer drawn by a Tata Safari. Loaded with CRATES of Solan whiskey and the charred remains of a poultry farm. His appetites were as large as his heart. For every sip he offered, he would take one himself; his day's canvassing ending only when he subsided into the trailer, snoring blissfully. At which point his nephew (on Safari with him, so to speak) would steer homewards. Steer a little erratically, since Said Nephew shared the family trait of appreciating the simple pleasures (or plai-years) of life.

Within the letter of the law, this school of campaigning amounted to soliciting for votes with promise of gain. Another candidate ventured to complain about these methods. The native Punjabi, however, has a large heart. The complainant was immediately rebuked and shushed by at least three other candidates, the largest of whom turned to me and said, with a dismissive wave of a huge hand, 'Wo koi nahin jee, bacche thod-di si jo pee pah lehnde so ki fark painda'.

Sadly enough, the devotee of Bacchus lost his deposit. Quite a pity. His career in the Assembly could have been of considerable interest.

(Digression #3 - I now have an Actual Post with Links to Other Posts. I am well on my way to becoming a Serious Blogger. Maybe even - be still, my beating heart! - a Libertarian Despite Being in Gormante. [And I thought that only the C-hollege Mafia could be so entirely patronising!] Oh frabjous day!)

Kafka Moment #3

It’s been one of those phases when people want me to “speak”, on anything from industrial resurgence to ethics in advertising. (The latter gave me an opportunity to expound on the common occurrence of Googling for Angelina Jolie. Don’t ask.)

Doordarshan (India’s state-owned television channel - I explain merely for the benefit of the teeming millions of non-Indians who visit this site …) wanted me to make up the numbers for a “panel discussion”. On the prospects of the sponge iron industry in West Bengal. Riveting stuff. Should have the viewers welded to their seats. Chance to prove my metal. Yes, well, where was I?

In the cavernous innards of Doordarshan Kendra, Kolkata, actually. I had to negotiate my way through a series of half-hearted barriers. There was a gate wide enough for a carnival float to drive though, but of course it was shut. Entry was through a tiny gate off to one side, then into a hut that evoked déjà vu. I’d last seen it in “The Dirty Dozen”. Donald Sutherland hit his thumb with a hammer building it.

A large middle-aged lady who had more lipstick than good taste asked me why I was there. Beside her, an alarmingly frank gentleman who lacked two buttons on his shirt scratched his intimate regions with obvious enjoyment. Beside him, another man sat in the manner of Borneo’s “man of the jungle”, gravely contemplating his nether regions where his hands cradled his manhood. Neither of them displayed the slightest interest in the proceedings.

Having convinced the Lady with Lipstick that I was not an arsonist or a carrier of the plague, I filtered through to the main lobby. As I left Sutherland’s Folly, the Large Lump of Lipstick fished a smelly substance from beneath her table and bit into it. With a loud squishy champy sound. I held my breath and speeded my exit.

The lobby was dusty and large. Very large. At first glance it seemed to cover the better part of an acre. What with the dust and the distance, I had this vision of Peter O’ Toole and Omar Sharif, canteens held aloft and eyes crinkled, riding out of the far corner.

“Turn left”. Through a door-less frame, past a glass-and-plyboard enclosure where a step-ladder reached into a hole in the false ceiling, down a corridor with finger-prints on walls of indeterminate colour, “through the door we never opened / Into the rose-garden / ‘Quick’, said the bird …”

Corridors stretched to right and left, corridors filled with an echoing silence, with the smell of years of “Polli Kotha” and “Chiching Phaank” and timorous sarengi recitals and “High-Power Transmitters will now de-link for the News”, ominous with the threat of po-faced doctors holding forth on skin diseases or juvenile hysteria.

For some time I “wandered lonely as a cloud”. In that strange place, where dreams seeped into reality and no human voice intruded, I walked what seemed like miles, up one echoing dark expanse and down another. Mid-way down one stretch I had the feeling of being observed. A wary glance over my shoulder spied nothing, till I lifted my gaze and saw It, “perched above a shelf above a frame above a door”. No, not the Raven, but a bearded brown bust that regarded me gloomily.

In Bengal, the default option for bearded busts is Rabindranath. (Tay-gore, for the academically inclined) This one looked more like Alan Rickman about to ask for an aspirin. I passed on before it could clear its throat and broach the issue …Eventually, I wearied of my Long March and started to retrace my steps. Then came the Apparition.

Round a corner it came, with short rapid jerky steps reminiscent of the Egyptian Walk of the ‘80s. Brown trousers and a shirt of a violet hue so virulent as to be actually audible, blue-strapped “Hawaii” sandals that slapped on the dusty tiled floor. At the other end, thick-framed glasses perched on a nose like the Raven’s beak, Adam’s apple jerking convulsively from the strain of concentration. He looked not to right or left. I might have been a formless wraith for all the attention I got.

One arm swung vigorously at his side as he marched forth. The other was held up in a S-curve, ending in outstretched hand, palm upward. Balanced on the palm, saucer, one brown ugly. Balanced on the saucer, pantua (gulab jamun in the rest of India), three numbers …

Violet shirt and the slap-slap of Hawaii sandals receded into the gloom. With the pantua. I resumed my trek to the nearest outpost of civilisation.

Rum in Asians

"and the elements / So mixed in him " ... A man sits across from me in a meeting, exhibiting no less than three characteristics I detest.

Sneakers - cheap ribbed sneakers of a plastic-bucket blue - worn with formal trousers (how I would hate California!). Mouse-coloured trousers at that, guaranteed to deliver maximum puke value in combination with that blue.

A comb-over. Wispy, ineffectual, like clouds across a full moon, ending in a coy swirl of curls near the nape of his neck. And dyed to boot!

One of those vestigial moustaches that crawl across the upper lip like a thin tardy millipede or perhaps a smear of snot from a half-suppressed sneeze.

A fourth trait is evident the moment he opens his mouth - knows nothing himself yet believes that nobody else knows anything. As if he, greasy disastrous assortment of ugliness, is competent to judge.

On the wall just above his head is a picture of a sewage treatment plant. Two giant circular pits that process shit. How appropriate.

I have such a rewarding work environment.

Kafka Moment #2

She exuded sincerity and focus as we discussed a paper mill. Slickly groomed and accessorised from her Gucci glasses to her Choo footwear. Fashionably slim and business-like. Infrastructure, financials and coffee dealt with, she unbent so far as to take off her glasses and shake out her hair. And disclose the reasons for her tardy follow-up to her e-mail.

“Over the last two weeks I’ve spent half my working days in police stations …”

Eh? What could SHE have been accused of?! The left half of my brain swivelled in its orbit and clawed at air. It must have showed on my face. She hastened to explain.
“Oh, nothing against me! It’s all about my boutique …”

I know she also has a boutique. A lingerie boutique.

For which she has to visit police stations in Calcutta? My eyes widened, the camera zoomed in on my pupils and farther inwards … slow dissolve to the Duty Room in Bhowanipore P.S., Inspector Gobindo Nandan Guchait bridles a little as she holds out a lacy scrap of almost-nothing, frames it against his heaving chest and exclaims “It’s so YOU!”

Fast cut, series of jerky frames in grainy finish … S.I. Shubol Kormokar prances off to the Armoury to try on a blood-red thong, Detective Constable Deodhar Parshad Singh fastidiously steps out of his sandals and dhoti and into some high-support panty-hose, Boga the handy-man (“daily wage” worker, makes his living from tips) wistfully strokes a silken camisole …
The Krazy Kross-Dressers of the Kolkata Police?

The last shards of reason gave way and crashed into nothingness with the tinkle of breaking windows.

Epilogue. She was talking to me. I opened my eyes wide and tried to listen. “neighbours … encroachment … I filed a complaint … ” Reason stirred, shook its head, clambered groggily back onto its tottering seat.

The Ascent of Man

The USP for the Maruti Omni – the New, Improved Version – is that it has (gasps of awe) a cup-holder on the dashboard. Which speaks volumes about the level of technological innovation in the rest of the car. Bill Bryson, where are you?!

Kafka?

Travelling on business, a weekend in the foothills. Expectations of winding drives on hill roads, with the smell of the crouching forests. Morning in a wood-walled room, curtains parted for a glimpse of the river far below.

Instead of which ...

Reality check – coffee served by a surly personage, accompanied by salt. Salt?! (Reminiscent of the Injun in Leon Uris’ ‘Battle Cry’, “Whatcha want, Chief, eggs in your beer?!”)