Lali

Somewhere in our minds there is a disconnect between the blog world and real life. We read all these posts and are happy about how clever and wise and funny and incisive we are when talking about the world’s problems, but of course bloggers don’t have problems of their own.

Reality struck back yesterday.

Lalita Mukherjea died. She stayed her lovely self through a painful battle against cancer. On Monday, after weighing the balance between the time gained and the pain endured, she stopped her medication and went her way. On her own terms. As usual.

She was … well, she was a wonderful person. We only met three times, but every time I was aware of a personality that was stronger, wiser, kinder. I won’t presume so far as to say trite things about a person who had such innate strength and, really, goodness. Read her blog. Her character is evident in every line.

Rest in peace, Lali.

7:48, and some heroes

A majority of my readers (that is, 5 or more) have said I’m pedantic. That I’m finicky. A few (i.e., 3 or less) have even said they spell-check their comments because I might point out errors. I am aghast. As a double drop-out, I don’t know enough to ped any ants. But I do hate bad spelling and bad punctuation. Which is why THESE guys are my current heroes. Go for it, Herson and Deck!

Another unlikely hero came into my life yesterday. Very Nice Colleague was in my office for a meeting. Received a call on his cell-phone. Spoke for a while. Tried to explain that he could help out the caller, but only if he were given a complaint in writing. Now VNC is a totally chilled person. Suddenly, he burst out in Hindi – Abbe b*****i ke, tu kar le jo karna hai! Haan record kar le, sun aisa kar, loudspeaker on kar aur poora Connaught Place ghoom le!

It was a little like seeing Federer spit at a line judge. Parallel universe. Turned out it was a call from a collection agency – some lady in his office had defaulted on a payment to ABN-Amro and they wanted him, as head of office, to Make Her Pay. After he’d pointed out politely (about 11 times) that her personal loan was her personal business and he really has no jurisdiction over it, the caller from the collection agency threatened HIM with dire consequences. At which point he lost his cool. (The caller hadn't realised that VNC is a Bihari, not a Bong)

We carried on with the meeting. The same guy kept calling. After the 15^th call or so, I answered the phone. And thoroughly, oh so thoroughly, enjoyed myself. Sample exchanges (pardon the Pnjaab-bi and the lack of translation, but I thought the accent would make him feel at home)

§ O jee, aap ka naam kya ai jee? Kalra? Aap Pnjaab ke ai? Naeen? Jee ey to Pnjaab-bi naam ai jee. Ya to aap ke purkhon mein se koi Pnjaab se aaya owga, naeen toh koi Pnjaab gayee ogee, ai naa? Aap smajh rae ain naa?

§ (Later, when he had shouted at me thrice and used the familiar tu) Jee aap kee tehzeeb toh lajawaab ae – aap Lucknow ke ain jee? (Nahin be, main Ludhiana ka hoon!) O jee, aap ne mujhse jhoot bola jee? Aap ne toh kya tha aap Pnjaab ke ain naeen? O jee thays pauncha jee, aap mujhse jhoot boley? MUJH se?

§ Jee ae Archna kaun ae jee? Manne kahaan milegi? O jee baat sun lo, ladkee se gal karni ae toh himmat rakho, khud jaa ke gal kar lo jee, humein beech mein mat laao.

§ Baat bataao, aap ka is Archna se kya rishta ae? Darte kyun ae? Kya aap shaadi shuda ae? Nahin ae? Jee aap ke maa baap bhi shaadi shuda nahin the? Parampara ae kya?

§ Kya jee? Eddrass likh loon? O jee main kya likh paoonga, aap jaisa parha likha kahaan hoon, hota toh main bhi call centre mein na baith jaata?Kya? Meri naukri pyaari hai ki nahiin? Jee naukri toh bas naukri otee ae, aap mujhe doosree naukri dilwaogey kya? Main toh tyaar hoon.

§ O jee dil chhota na karo jee, maa-baap ne aap ki padhai adhoori rakh dee toh aap ka yeh haal, toh kya hua, aap bhi sattoo besan ke pakore bech ke trakki kar sakte ho jee.

§ Jee aap gussa thook do jee, aap ka blad prashur barh jaawe toh call centre mein toh madkel banfit nahin hogi, hai naa?

After 7 minutes and 48 seconds, spluttering incoherently, he hung up. With the promise to call again. And again. Sadly enough, he hasn’t kept his promise. I miss him. Come back, Sandeep Kalra who collects for ABN-Amro. I SO enjoyed our conversation. See, I could even introduce you to the nice people at ToI who swiped Twilight Fairy’s photo off her Flikr album, printed it in their paper and then offered her 1500 bucks “because they hadn’t asked her in advance”. Such nice people, no? And maybe they didn’t have the time to ask her because they were busy Leading India and Teaching India. Teaching ethics, presumably. Bloody hypocrites.

Line maaro!

Diamond Harbour, winter of ’91-’92. A lovely bungalow by the river, gentle breezes, a flowering garden and a huge verandah with rattan-seat armchairs (“easy chairs”) to sprawl in,. Yet my strongest memory of that idyll is … Tnuk-tu-tnu-tuk, tnuk-tu-tnu-tuk … dekha hai pahli baa-aa-aar / Saajan ke aankhon mein pyaar. The world may have forgotten Saajan - and Sanjay Dutt’s horrific mullet that claimed direct descent from Attila’s helmet - but it is seared into my memory. Thanks to the convoys of picnickers on every holiday, all of them playing that awful number as loud as they could. Strewth!

There should be a list of the Top 10 Bloody Awful Super Hits. How about Tu cheez badi hai mast mast from Mohra? Or more recently, Crazy kiya re, which is doubly loathsome because it is picturised on my Least Favourite Actress of All Time. In the dim and distant past, there was Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy and a series of ’80s atrocities by Bappi Lahiri and his clones (youngsters, think Anu Malik with fewer instruments). Nominations, anybody?

But this post was triggered by happier things. Bongo Pondit’s take on memorable Hindi film “dialogues”, which somehow appeared on my sitemeter this morning. Do Hindi films still have separate credits for “Dialogues”? The taali seeti line seems to be a thing of the past, it’s been replaced by camera angles and the heroine’s navel. Sad. I appreciate Shilpa Shetty’s .. errr… acting as much as the next man, but I’d trade in the entire crop (down to Sherlyn Chopra and Geeta Basra) for one line like “Dawar Sahab, main ab bhi phNeke huey paise nahin uthata hoon” Taaliyaan!

OK, before we start, let’s leave out Sholay. That was the film that started “dialogue karaoke”, with the entire audience murmuring the lines as they were spoken on-screen. Take a look at the others from the ’70s. Before the Amitabh era, there was Anand and Rajesh Khanna’s Zindagi aur maut toh upar waale ke haath mein hain jahanpanah. The repeat in the last scene (remember Maut, tum ek kavita ho ?), the sudden Babumoshaaaai as Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee sobs over Anand’s corpse, still sends chills down my spine. Another isspessul Kaka line was Pushpaa, Pushpaaa, I hate tears in Amar Prem, but that is remembered (and caricatured) more for his delivery than the line itself. How about “Understand? You better understand!” from Seeta aur Geeta? This line – recycled by Sridevi in Laadla (?) - was Salim-Javed writing for Ramesh Sippy before Deewaar happened and they became THE Salim-Javed.

After that, of course, the deluge. That great line from Deewaar quoted above. I prefer that to the jatra sequences of Jaao us aadmi se likhwake laao or Mere paas Maa hai. Zanjeer gave us Jab tak baithne ko kaha nahin jaaye, sharafat se khade raho. Special appeal because my SP once did something very similar with an MLA in the face of a 2000-strong mob. Amar Akbar Anthony had a couple of great exchanges between Vinod Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, my favourite being Haan saab, bahut phemus hain … bade bade akhbaaron mein chhoti chhoti tasweerein chhapte hain. And that drunk scene in front of the mirror (lifted from Charlie Chaplin), Eeydiut lagta hai tu, pakka eeydiut … SRK has now made the Don lines his own, but pliss to remember that they originally gathered chauwannis in 1978. (The multiplex crowd have never seen sweepers fighting to be the first to clean up after a show. People really used to throw coins at the screen.).

The ’70s were also a great period for comedies. Golmaal, Chupke Chupke (Dharmendra wasn’t even nominated for an award for that superb performance!), Rang Birangi, Angoor –they all had their lines, but mostly in context. Utpal Dutt made the most of that late scene in Golmaal – Main tumhe Benaras ke pede khilaoonga, Kalkatte ka rasgulla khilaoonga, Dilli ke laddoo khilaoonga … nahin toh police ke dande kaise khaoge betaaa? He also had one of the best last lines in Indian cinema, when – as the sublimely named Inspector Dhurandhar Bhataodekar in Rang Birangi – he leaped from his chair roaring BR Chopra ko pakad ke laao! Some years later Chashme Buddoor took forward the self-referential humour. When Farooque Shaikh started a motorcycle (a Yezdi. How many of these kids have SEEN one?) that Rakesh Bedi and Ravi Vaswani couldn’t, they shrugged it off with Tu toh is film ka hero hai.

Slipping into the ’80s, there was the I can waak Ingliss I can taak Ingliss sequence in Namak Halaal, but that was really about The Amitabh Show rather than the script. And of course Rishtey se tera baap lagta hoon in the Second Coming crafted by Tinnu Anand, or the Vijay Deenanath Chauhan line from Agneepath (OK, that was 1990, so what?) Dammit, weren’t there any paisa wasool lines by any other actors during that period? Big B has wiped out an entire generation of leading men even in memory!

No no wait – there was ONE ’80s film that was a cult in itself. Who can forget the Mahabharat cheer haran sequence in Jaane bhi do yaaron! The gloriously misplaced Bhaiyya, main iska zubaan khNeech loon?! The plaintive refrain of Shaant, Gadadhari Bheem, shaant! And the sublime moment when Naseeruddin, having replaced the original Duryodhan, announces nonchalantly Humne cheer haran ka idea drop kar diya hai. JBDY deserves a post in itself, it’s still the acme of dark comedy in Hindi cinema and pretty much near the top 5 among all comedies (if not all Hindi films, but then what do I know).

The late ’80s also had Mogambo khush hua, something we oldies still trot out after a good meeting, but on the whole those years were a little arid in terms of GREAT lines. (What the ’80s had in trumps, really, was Names for Villains. Shakaal. Dang. Mogambo. Kanchha Cheena. I mean, what were they smoking?!)

I have some off-beat favourites from the ’90s onwards. Daud (1997) was a Ram Gopal Varma flop that I liked, especially for an exchange between Sanjay Dutt and Urmila Matondkar in the second half of the film (when they – and the audience - still don’t know each other’s names) –

SD – Toh teraa naam kya hai?

UM (after some Attitude) – Daya Shankar

SD (stunned look)

UM – Kyon? Kya kharaabi hai is naam mein?!

SD (hurriedly) – Nahin, koi nahin. Acchha naam hai.

UM – Toh teraa naam kya hai?

SD (deadpan, turning away) – Uma Parvati!

And Neeraj Vohra with Yeh mere shikaari the, jo bahaauuutt bade pitaji the. Silly to the point of perfection. Where have you gone Sanjay Chhel, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you (especially after horrors like Welcome). Chhel gave Sanjay Dutt another good throw-away in Khoobsurat, again opposite Urmila - Par tu toh maal hai naa Shivani?

There were some heavyweight moments in the ’90s, like Ye dhaai kilo kaa haath jab kisi pe uthtaa hai and Judge order order chillata rahega aur tu pit-taa rahega in Damini. The real line in that film, however, was Taareeqh pe taareeqh, which has echoes of “And the oranges must rot, must be forced to rot” from The Grapes of Wrath (the book – I don’t think it’s in the film).

Then there was Jhankaar Beats, with Shayan Munshi threatening Rahul Bose – Tumhe maloom nahin mera papa kaun hai? And getting his come-uppance with Nahin. Kyon, tumhe nahin maloom tumhara papa kaun hai? There were moments of divine inanity in some David Dhawan films, my favourite being Govinda’s obviously ad-libbed Hum toh bas underwyaar underwyaar khel rahe the in Jodi No. 1.

All in all, it’s the gags that stay in the mind these days. Cheat Update - Yes, I loved Rangeela, Aamir was superb, but the good lines were gags rather than the de taali high drama types. I vaguely remember Andaz Apna Apna and my surprise that Hindi cinema could come up with such throw-away gags, but I also had the impression that the lines were better than the Khans' timing could do justice to. Maybe I was wrong, I shall try and rent it over this long weekend. I like SRK’s line Kaun kambaqht bardaasht karne ko peeta hai, but this, like Don, is a direct lift from the earlier version. Where are the movie lines that resonate in the memory, that stay alive long after the movie has sunk? Is it because the scripts don’t value the big dramatic moments, or is it because actors try to Be Cool rather than heroic?

I’d love to get some feedback on this. Before I’m reduced to googling for “Great Lines By Harman Baweja” or “Mohit Ahlawat – the Director’s Cut”. And hey – how many women in Hindi cinema have had great lines? Forget Meena Kumari, leave out Basanti – what are we left with? Sharmila Tagore in Mausam with Yeh bilayati sharaab saala bahut haraami hai? C’mon, I’m an old MC. Show me the great lines from women.

Auric Goldfinger

His company's web-site doesn't say anything about world domination, but he's ended a 112 year drought. Not all Bindras are controversial.
His Wikipedia entry was updated within an hour of the news. Shows a certain amount of confidence, since it must have been ready in expectation of the medal.

Now to wait for the Colonel's showdown on 12th August.

Update: The Colonel blew up on the launch pad. And I was horrified that the ToI used "Goldfinger" in their headline. Rather than conclude that I have started thinking like them, I shall Assume They Read My Blog. (Now to identify the Other Six Readers. Stand up when I call your names ... )

.. trawling Atlantis / and I still have my hands on the wheel

My weekly trips from Stony Brook to New Jersey on the world’s slowest railroad, the LIRR, were leavened by one mundane activity. Changing trains in the town where he went to school. He finally graduated 25 years after he left – he’d had to leave school to work for a living, and it took them that long and a few platinum discs before they waived the requirement for some English credits. His English is all right, folks. He may hang on to his street-life accent (and serenades) but he writes pretty good. I never actually looked up the school he went to. I like to think that if the situations were reversed, he would have.

Because he is the kind of man I respect the most. An honest trier. Not that he makes a big deal of honesty. Just does his stuff straight up, no frills, no flaming guitars. Which may be one reason why it took so long for him to be accepted as a great. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999 (though he was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in ’92). He even griped about it in interviews ten years ago. That was right after they started using one of his songs to teach history in schools. Now he’s sixth on the all-time list of album sales. But it’s the minor details that touch me.

That he learnt classical music as a kid. And ballet. Which led to his taking up boxing, because of course the kid who dances in tights has to take on the bullies some time. Won 22 of 24 fights on the Golden Gloves circuit, finally pulling out when his nose was broken in his 24^th fight (it’s still kind of blobby). Then he saw the Mop Tops on the Ed Sullivan show and decided that he wanted to be an entertainer. Came the hard years. Quick-dying singles with invisible bands. The first album - named after a working-man’s town near his childhood home - was a disaster, because it was mastered 1/16^th too fast and he ended up “sounding like a chipmunk”. The hard years out west, the journeyman period on (how appropriate) Sunset Boulevard that provided the material for some of his biggest hits. The bitterness remained even after the album that had 3 numbers on the Billboard charts, even after the multiple Grammies, because he had signed away the rights to those first few songs. He once said that he must have earned about $7000 from the sale of all that material.

One of my other idols dissed him in an interview to Playboy. Said, in effect, that his songs hovered on the edge of greatness without ever breaking through because his lyrics didn’t “think it all the way through”. Basically, that he could have said more with fewer words. But then he isn’t Paul Simon, he doesn’t deny his early work because (paraphrase) it was so steeped in Eliot that it embarrassed him (which was what Paul said about the Songbook). And oh, his voice. From a purely selfish point of view, perhaps it’s a good thing he gave up classical music. Opera’s loss is our gain. I don’t understand opera anyway, and I feel triumphant – and a whole lot more – when I listen to his voice soaring across nearly 3 octaves in this song. Which is my favourite among his ballads, don’t ask me why. It fits that he should cite as an influence Gordon Lightfoot, another beat-up journeyman with a voice like velvet magic.

He hasn’t recorded a new album in 15 years. About 8 years ago, well before Mama Mia or even the Doors musical, his songs were woven into a Broadway show that turned out to be a major hit. It’s still running. And he still performs. Despite the broken marriages and the broken hopes that led to rehab, despite the broken bones from that motorcycle accident. Had to schedule a repeat of his performance for the farewell to New York’s Shea Stadium before they tore it down. The tickets for the first concert sold out in 45 minutes. (The second went slower. 48 minutes. Damn). These days, he’d rather build powerboats than go in the recording studio. Can’t argue with that, it’s his life. But one of my biggest regrets is that he performs at Stony Brook every other year and I had to choose the gap year to be there.

You know whom I’m talking about, right? If you listen to his stuff, what’s your favourite? Or favourites? And thanks to fellow enthusiasts Partho and Bombay Addict for setting me off on this ramble.

God knows

Saturday night, after some total chilling by the river near Bhadreswar (there was beer, peace and quiet, great home-cooked food), we started the drive back to Calcutta. GT Road should be clear at 10 p.m.

Except that it wasn’t. First swarms, then hordes, then bloody phalanxes of men tramped in the opposite direction. Gamchhas round waists and sometimes round their heads as well, poles over their shoulders with a pot slung on each end. Some of them carried extra-large poles and pots – we’re talking humongous here, with those things they needed the turning circle of a 16-wheel trailer truck - for extra credit with the gods. All on their way to Tarakeswar to offer libations there. A million able-bodied males wasting days of their lives to pour water over a divine dick.

Then there were the papier-mache monstrosities carried by 4 men at a time. Comic to the point of horror. The Shivas were recognizable, but that hairy thing? Hanuman? What did he have to do with Shiva? (Would somebody enlighten me?) And those goats? On closer examination, they were goats-with-humps, so perhaps they were meant to be bulls. You know, Nandi, Bhringi.

It was just about tolerable at first. But as the night wore on, we found we’d already spent 2 hours traversing half the distance that had taken us 75 minutes in the morning. Through traffic. Very Small Person was sporting, but there are limits to a 4-yr-old’s endurance. She was sick. I was livid.

Near Uttarpara, the road was totally blocked by the human flood. It was past midnight, VSP was curled up in my lap desperately tired but unable to sleep because of the din. (One group was playing the well-known devotional song Tootak tootak tootiyan) We were stuck at a roundabout with traffic trying to come in from the right, a bus trying to back into a side-lane and (suddenly) the first traffic in the opposite direction that we’d seen in 2 hours.

Then it got ugly.

The flood poured through between the stalled vehicles. And expressed their displeasure at finding CARS blocking their route of march. CARS? On a ROAD? What the f*** do they think they’re doing here? Kick them! Thump them! Call ‘em names! Which was what they did. My tolerance was low because VSP was terrified, but I couldn’t even open the door because of the crush of bodies. At the same time, I was sick to my stomach with fear. I’ve seen cars – with people inside – that have been overturned in similar situations. And set on fire.

I can see the other guy’s point of view up to a point. These blokes were tired, footsore, thirsty, aching. A large number of them were also blind drunk. Lumpens. Fortunately, the fit passed. We were left alone. Eventually, the cars moved. We reached home at a quarter to 2.

The point to note was that, for 2 hours and 30 kilometres, there was not a single policeman in sight. No barricades. No markers. Nobody to control traffic. So in that frightening moment at midnight, I called up the District Magistrate. The DM had taken charge about a day before, but she reacted quickly. When I next called from the safety of the Calcutta side of the river, she said that police had “been dispatched”. Normally I wouldn’t presume so far as to advise another officer (no matter how junior) on their job, but (a) I’d been in the middle of it with my family and (b) I’ve worked in that district in two stints and I know that there is a police station and two outposts within 15 minutes’ walk from there. So I suggested that she should tell her SP to do something about this jamboree, which will be repeated every Saturday night for a month. Otherwise there could be a stampede, people might die. The press will bay for her head.

Bad ch’i.

Next day the Naina Devi temple was in the news. Auspicious day my ass.146 dead bodies. Women and children. If this God exists, s/he makes Heath Ledger’s Joker look like a goody two-shoes.

And the day after, they posted personnel along the route. I’m so disgusted I don’t even want to say “I told you so”.

I think the moral of the story is, God might try to kill people in nasty ways, but people should be smart enough to plan against it.

Minor technical problem

See, I had it all planned. Put up a blog. Dazzle Netizens with the brilliance of your prose style. Be trenchant. Acute.

Then wait for the book advance. I tell yer, they’ll be a-beggin’ of me.

Didn’t quite happen that way. What can I do, these chaps didn’t bother to read my script. I’ve been quite devastatingly dissed. (“Pompous but endearing” – yeah right, somebody’s stupid fat great-uncle).Trenchant? Ha! Trencherman at best. Obtuse rather than acute. And not so many Netizens either.

But wonders, the offers did come in. It took some years, but they did. Only the odd article so far, no book deal, but still and all, it’s a start. So all is gas and gaiters, not to mention joy and jollity. Except for one thing.

I still have to write the damn things. The agony.

A few thousand words

... is what I am supposed to produce within midnight today. I'm still short by about half.

Meantime, on Kaushik's suggestion, here's the equivalent of a few thousand -




Cafe by the Bosphorus in Ortakoy.
Lazy Sunday morning.

The Hagia Sophia dome. Built as a basilica in the 6th century, converted into a mosque by Sultan Mehmet 900 years later (nine HUNDRED years, and that's nearly 700 years ago!), now a museum.
Awe-inspiring.

Lese majeste. Peeping into the bathing chambers of the Queen in the seraglio of the Topkapi Palace. (If you've seen me you know I do not have blonde hair)

The palace apparently was not just a pleasure dome. It was the administrative headquarters of the Ottoman empire, where bright young men were trained in the skills of war and politics. They were supposed to lay down their lives for the Sultan, hence jaan nisaari, a term whose Anglicised corruption I first came across in Basil Copper's story The Janissaries of Emilion.
Oh, and the women - we were told it was actually like a prestigious finishing school for the daughters of the nobility. I'll wager there were SOME courses you wouldn't find at Vassar. And I'm not thinking just Belly Dancing 101 either.

Display of preserves in Haci Abdallah. Down the fourth alley on your right as you walk down Istiklal Street from Taksem Square. Quite amazing food, even better when you have an appetite because you can just point to what you want and it's on your table in less than a minute.








Nargileh on sale in the Spice Bazaar by the Golden Horn. I wish I could have brought one back to set beside my rocking chair, but even if I can get omburi tamaak from Chitpur, who on earth is going to set it up and get it going for me every evening? Besides, while it goes very well with raqi (the local aniseed liquour), it may not gel with vodka & tonic.










Against the afternoon sun, a minaret of the Blue Mosque looks anything but blue. A moment of magic ... As we entered the mosque, the muezzin struck up his azaan. More melodious than anything I've heard in India. And from the Hagia Sophia across the road came an echo from the muezzin there. For a quarter of an hour, like our musical sawaal jawaab, they kept us entranced. (I should learn how to post a video clip)






A tray of mezze. According to my friend T*, only the tourists ask for the menu. The locals (and the coolios) ask to see the tray and pick up what they want. I did. And was happy. Pastermi for the main course. Very good, but can't post the picture of that one. If I showed you I'd have to kill you and all that sort of thing.
Most wonderful honey-sweet melons for dessert. (They kept that extra helping in reserve for me, I suspect.)






I already posted the view from my balcony? Did I mention that it's rather wonderful at night too?

Comments invited, I do so want to be a photographer when I grow up ...

Get a fix ...

... on a theme for a 3500 word article on "India - the land and the people". Any ideas?

Please, folks. Comment, mail, call even. This is desperate. (How I hate deadlines.)

'ey 'o!

Three weeks ago - AlleppEY




Five days ago - AleppO

Stamboul ramboul (last Monday)

You know, I HATE a lot of things about the Brits. Especially the Victorian Brits, the ones who were oh-so-cool and WE-run-the-world-dincherknow, the kind who went to Rugby and took up the white man's burden. The very thought of those guys gets my back up. (White man's burden! Aaaagghh.) But once in a while I wish they had really done what they set out to do and taken over THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD. You know why? Then EVERYBODY would bloody well have some idea of English.

Two days. Two bloody days before they get around to telling me oh, we DO so have wi-fi, what WERE you thinking of ha ha ha (tinkling laughter that makes me want to suture their tonsils to their earlobes), of COURSE you can have it but we will charge you approximately as much as Donald Trump pays for each of his divorces. So here I am, typing away at the keyboard so that I can get-connected-log-on-and-upload-mail like Speedy Gonzales hitting a line of willing chicas.

The first full day here was rather nice. A café in Ortakoy beside the Bosphorus, under a bridge that links two continents. Sun glinting bright on blue water, sailboats, villas, gay umbrellas, a band tuning up. Great ships steaming under the bridge, wind whipping the wave-caps white and mad, woods on the far shore alternately green and dark.

Sunday coffee. In Istanbul.

Then on to the Hagia Sofia and then the Topkapi Palace. Both are impressive, but we Indians are spoilt because we've already SEEN the biggest highest richest horriblest wonderfullest ad infinitum. Still and all, as they say in that neck o' the woods, pretty darn neat. Last night the youngest member of the delegation landed up and took us out to Reina, which is the most happening place in this city. Past Ortakoy, lights on the river, their own sexy mini-yacht that they use as a water-taxi, five restaurants around a cabana and a wooden dance floor, tres chic. So I sat there with my vodka tonic and checked out the antipasti, and I thought, it’s nice to be old so nobody pulls ME onto that floor. Drunk dancing is so wearisome.

An upgrade at the Hilton, so not only do I have a room with a glass wall facing the Bosphorus, I also have a nice wide verandah where I can sip my sundowner and draw on my cigarillo as the sun descends.

A weather-worn tanker lets out a low moan, sedately easing down the tide from the Black Sea to the eastern corner of the Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmara. My balcony faces east, but the room behind me is lit up second-hand with the mellow glow of a summer sunset as the sun reflects off the steel-and-glass façade of the Ritz Carlton across the park. Bloody monstrosity cuts off half my view of the Bosphorus.

Not that I have cause for complaint. A flotilla of peach and grey cloudlets sweeps south across an egg-shell sky. The horizon hills dip and rise behind the white and red-tile sprawl of the Asian half of Istanbul. That lies across the Bosphorus, whose unreal blue is now turning to grey as the shades of evening stretch across the water. From behind a white hotel an orange ship appears upon the blue, its wake a scar across the water. The sun settles lower behind me, miles of windows glint one last time before the lights come on. Far to my left, a span of the Bosphorus Bridge rises behind the mass of the Dolmabahce Palace. Near the water's edge a bus switches on its headlights as it swings around a bend in the road. Flycatchers flit across the growing gloaming, half a moon appears in the south, a seagull mews somewhere above me as it arcs towards the sea.

Half past eight, and Stamboul slips towards the night.

Learning to

It’s been so long. His feet seem far away, at the other end of a transcontinental phone line. He has to wait each time he tries to take a step, has to make sure he’s getting through, that he hasn’t been cut off, marooned here atop the mass of his body while his feet wait at the other end of a line gone dead. He tries again and with the sudden fear of falling, his hands fly out for balance.

The first step is not the hardest. It’s the ones that come after.

He wills himself to keep moving. Damn it all, it’s just too MUCH. Come one, FEET – do your thing. No, I’m not the one goofing off here, YOU are the ones who … what’s that? Yeah right, I know WHERE the buck stops. Now shut up and walk. Or I’ll … cut you off from your inheritance? Whatever. Just DO it.

The momentum picks up. Balance – still uncertain. Direction – erratic. Speed – uneven, but who the hell cares, dammit, we’re back in business again, we’re MOVING. Don’t cut the amp, boys, Elvis has NOT left the building.

He keeps walking. Staggers, recovers. Grins. Hits “Publish Post”.

Right, then, this show is back on the road.

I aten't dead

Just out Borrowing (I think).
I'll know for sure if I come back.

Or more succinctly,

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I'd something more to say ...

Highway to Heaven

(The original version of THIS)
(and with the pics they DIDN'T print. Gah)

Ramdhun Chaurasia gazes benignly upon us from his perch opposite Benaras’ Chowk Police Station. Five feet by five feet (and not more than four feet deep), his hole-in-the-wall paan shop provides the perfect frame for his venerable white beard and thick-framed square glasses. When I stop to take his picture, he folds his hands in a dignified Namastey, then waves us on into the maze known as Godhauliya. The heart of Benares, the essence of Kashi, this network of lanes lies slantwise along the northern bank of the Ganga. They lead, inevitably, to the 80-odd ghats that dot the bank. Two of these are also crematoria – Manikarnika and Harishchandra (where the king of legend is supposed to have stoked the pyres). The largest of them all, the Dashashwamedh ghat, is a microcosm of Kashi itself.

Half past eleven on a winter morning as Gupta-jee leads us across the road from Chowk Police Station into the mouth of the maze, shoving aside a stray bull with a slap on the rump. Smiling through a mouthful of ­paan, he says “Chaar cheez se bana Kashi – raanrh, sand, seenhri aur sanyasi”. The four things that define Kashi. I can understand the bulls, stairs, mendicants, but I’m discomfited by the casual use of raanrh­ – a term used interchangeably for widows and for prostitutes in this city of piety. I swallow the bile and walk on. Right at the mouth of the lane where we enter the labyrinth, a shop is doing brisk business. Milk. Hot milk ladled into steel tumblers from the huge pan where it simmers, milk so thick and sweet it’s almost glutinous, earthen bowls of cream sprinkled with saffron, pots of yoghurt and little earthen plates of skimmed cream. I glance at our guide and he answers my unspoken question. Not here, he says, the best lassi is over by the gate of the RamNagar palace, miles away and on the other side of the river. (And indeed it was awesome when we sampled it on the cusp of evening, lassi so thick it could not be sipped and we had to eat it with wooden spoons from earthen tumblers. But we were in Godhauliya …)

A few wisps of woodsmoke linger in the lanes of Benaras, rising above the smell of rotting flowers. But those are the grace-notes. The smell of incense is much stronger, and strongest of all is the smell of camphor. With good reason - this is the highway to heaven, the net of lanes leading to Manikarnika Ghat, where cremation and immersion guarantee salvation, and all day and all night the pyres burn down by the water’s edge. As we pause at a corner, we are shooed aside with chants of Ram naam satya hai. A small procession trails after a chaarpai. As it passes, we catch a glimpse of a bright Benares silk sari. The yards of finery lead but to the pyre … About 250 dead people pass through these lanes every day. I’m not much for spooks and haunts, but I really wouldn’t like to walk these lanes in the dark of the night.

But now, in the late morning leading into a coppery noonday, Godhauliya is bustling. Near the main road, the lanes are lined with shops. Sweets, religious tracts, flowers, unidentified multi-hued swatches of cloth (turbans?), tacky silvery fabric with glimmering fringes that could be used to scare away birds at airfields. Toys of the most hideous coloured plastic, ruled note-books for schoolchildren, paan masala in bewildering (and hitherto unknown) variety, souvenirs and gewgaws carved from stone. There are few buyers as yet. It’s too early in the morning – they will stop by after they have visited their Lord in his sanctum farther inside the maze, in the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir.

The Mandir itself is strangely disappointing. The approach lies through claustrophobic lanes choked with a double line of pilgrims. The courtyard now looks like the forecourt of a government office – railings of steel tubing, cemented pavements and dozens of policemen. Cameras are not permitted. We have to pass through a metal detector; s” is high because a disputed mosque lies within the temple perimeter. In deference to my companions’ piety I join the queue, but even here “gorment” has its say. Gupta-jee­ mumbles something to the policemen and we are whisked ahead of the rest into a tiny room where flower garlands and offerings lie half-submerged in a small sunken tank. The crush is almost as bad as in Kalighat, that other centre for purveying organised religion. Most wonderfully, the overworked priest is assisted by a pair of policemen who obviously see greater merit in part-time puja than in the security detail. I notice they are more devout than punctilious – they have left their shoes outside. My daughter sets up a wail as we leave with our prasad. A monkey has made off with her packet. The NCO in charge of the police detail shrugs helplessly. Some aspects of security are not within his purview.

As we pick our way towards the burning ghats, Godhauliya is even more labyrinthine. The lanes meander, intersect, take sudden turns, make hurried ascents via steep worn stairs. Old doorways open into dark corridors and little courtyards where men sit on stools and chaarpais, reading papers, sipping tea. Barred windows look out on the unceasing slide-show. Discordant music surges out of one opening. It leads to a small iron gate with bars, a flight of steps leading down to a cemented basement where two bearded sadhus raise their voices in tuneless song before a vermilion smeared idol, competing with loud bhajans from a boom-box in a corner. The combined effect would have inspired loud protests from Fulliautomatix. The peripheral lanes are quieter, less crowded. One can stop to pass the time of day or share a paan. Amazingly, bicycles and even motorcycles appear round the sudden corners, their riders deftly threading between pilgrims and bulls alike. It must take a brave man to venture here on wheels, for a wrong turn could leave him facing a flight of stairs with no room to turn around. As one nears the ghats the pace picks up, the crowds increase. Where earlier three feet of width seemed quaint, it now seems stifling.

Long lines of pilgrims file past us, their eyes wide in a daze of faith, pushing their way past bulls and bicycles, their bare splayed feet oblivious of the cold and wet and the occasional hooved tread. In many groups the men wear cotton Gandhi caps. A cluster of bearded Muslims in skull caps are a pleasant confirmation of diversity. But I wonder, will they be allowed in? A disturbing thought. Most of the crowd are aged, definitely senior citizens, but instead of walking sticks they hold on to each other. I can’t help but wonder whether some of them secretly hope to pass away within these lanes, to go down to the ghat again but this time borne on the shoulders of their companions. Benares or Varanasi derives its name from the confluence of the Varuna and Assi rivers, but one has vanished and the other is now little more than a drainage canal. The only reality here is the Ganges, Ganga Maiyya, Ganga Jee. Infinitely tolerant, the embodiment of Awld Tom’s “infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing”, she knows that sooner or later, upright on two legs or stretched upon four, all things end in her. I read somewhere that there are seven categories of people who must not be burned: children, sadhus, pregnant women, and those who died of smallpox, cholera, leprosy, or snakebite. All the others come here at the end.

Perhaps the first sight of Manikarnika inspires pop philosophy. A house-high stack of timber awaits the funeral processions. In its shadow a calf suckles in its mother’s flank, providing either a picture either of life in the shadow of death or a reprise of the earlier Congress party symbol. As we join the stream flowing down the steps towards the river, my eyes go upward, seeking the house I have heard so much about. The palace of the Dom Raja. No pyre may be lit without buying fire from him, a right supposedly conferred by Vishnu himself. In a way, he is the gatekeeper to the next world Local legend has it that King Harishchandra served his penance under the king of the Doms. Ironically, the new electric crematoria have been installed at Harishchandra ghat. All I see, however, is another temple up the slope. The Dom Raja’s palace is a few hundred yards farther down the river, a flaking pile overlooking the river and guarded by two huge plaster lions. The lions have provoked the ire of the royal family of Ramnagar, who claim that only they are entitled to use the symbol. The essence of Kashi, a struggle between the temporal and the traditional.

Evening is drawing in as we make our way along the banks towards Dashashwamedh ghat. Half –way down the steps we pause to observe a stand-off between a billy goat and a matted mendicant. Hard to tell which one smells more rank. Boats are drawn up at the steps. A horde of tourists will go out on the river for a special view of the ghat after sunset, to observe one of the best-kept secrets of “incredible India”. The Sandhya Arati, the evening invocation at Dashashwamedh is a unique experience, a religious rite transformed into sheer spectacle. The Ganga Seva Nidhi deserves praise for cleaning up the ghats and organising the show, every night of every year from 1999 onwards. Under the lights, seven priests in unison invoke the gods with slow synchronized movements, with flaming candelabra, conch-shells, torches, while the accompanying scriptures boom out from loudspeakers and roll across the river to the sand-banks on the far shore. For one hour, while the boats rock and creak on the waters, we are lost in the ebb and flow of the ritual.

Later, when the lights have gone out and the ghats are dark again, we wend our way homewards through Vishwanath galli. Brightly-lit shops line the entire lane, one operating from a shrine to Krishna. Little paan­ and cigarette kiosks appear unexpectedly. Shops selling myriad mouth-fresheners – ­supari, gulkand, paan masala - all have Bengali names, but our skeptical companion sneers that it’s a marketing gimmick. Even late at night, there is no escape from the devout. Sound the trumpets and the bucinas, the saints are marching by! A band of bearded ­sadhus­ swing down the lane scattering all before them with the cacophony of their music. By the time we reach the end of the lane, footsore and faintly sweaty, we have had enough of tradition and spectacle. Hot kachoris and spiced tea are far more tempting.

The essence of these lanes may be this, that they are history and splendour only for outsiders. For those whose lives unspool within the lanes of Kashi it is home, a living organism that breathes and eats and barters and bickers while death and religion flow through the maze into the all-forgiving river.

And every day's an endless stream ...

(Published in HT Mumbai, 24th April, with a few well-deserved cuts. Check out the last page of the current TIME magazine for the value of a good editor!)

Mornings, evenings, afternoons. The faint rushing of the AC. The gurgling of a flush in the next room. The vestigial babble from a muted TV. The hiss and “pock” of the electric kettle coming to a boil. The silence of a hotel room is all of these. And more. It comes from within, a slow flood that drowns out sound, a flood that rises from too many coffees in front of too many flickering TVs, unfamiliar newspapers under identical doors, from too many tables for one just because another room service dinner can’t be endured.

The first few months, the first few times on the road, a good hotel room is a haven, an assurance of comfort. There’s a lot to be said for a life where just about anything you want is at the other end of a phone call. Where the room is cleaned and the bed made even before you ask. There’s a certain reassuring sameness to most hotel rooms – the same design, the little foyer with the mini-bar and the door leading into the bathroom, the standard furnishing of bed, bedside tables (with a Gideon Bible and perhaps a Bhagavad Gita in the drawer), armchair, desk, wardrobe, wastebasket. Then you learn to look for the little things where class shows. The choice of pictures on the walls. A footstool for the armchair. The basket of fruit, the chocolate stand. The packaging of the toiletries. (With the exception of the Marriott in Hong Kong, the stuff inside the packaging is indistinguishable. But I still filch them. It’s a neurosis, I think.)

The first few trips. Then they start to run into one another. That day I actually had the time to soak in a bath, was that Ahmedabad or Coimbatore? That long conversation on the phone, was that in the Qutb or the Ashoka? Then the sameness begins to haunt you. The evenings stretch longer. The room service menu seems to lurk like a malign presence in the old family mansion. The television’s babble invites a savage stab of the power button on the remote. Nothing fits. Especially inside my head.

Room service. At first it’s such an indulgence. The tray, the napery, the waiter’s bow at the door. The food is rarely top-notch or even good, but it’s such luxury to have a leisurely undisturbed dinner with a book. Faintly decadent, and all the better for it. Later, the longings. For a salad just so, or sautéed vegetables and butter on the side with a nice broiled chop. Which NO room service manager can understand or cater to. (These days I’m careful to order only the most basic stuff, say, a Caesar salad or some grilled chicken, the kind of thing I can set to rights with olive oil and lemon if the kitchen has goofed.) And the battle, every time, to get the makings of a café Viennoise and NO, I do NOT want you to make it for me, I want whipped cream on the side, no, NOT fresh cream please. Agh. Exasperation. (To be fair, the Metropolitan in Delhi – the Nikko as used-to-be – know what I need by now.) Eventually, the ho-hum pulling on of a shirt at ten in the evening and wandering down to the lobby floor to check out the restaurants. Because there are only so many calls one can make, so many re-runs of the same headlines to watch on TV, a book lasts an hour at most and the empty room seems to snigger at me.

Dining alone in my room is lonely. But after a while, even the best chef can’t make up for the loneliness of dining alone in a restaurant. Where laughter rises from a table for four and the couple two tables down are leaning towards each other with a shared smile. While I nibble on an asparagus stick and debate on another trip to the salad bar. It’s not you, chef. It’s just that the meal doesn’t taste so good without somebody to share it with.

Some places I want to share the view. Green wind-swayed expanses from the upper floors of the Delhi Oberoi. The sea from my room at the Vizag Taj, or from the Sea Lounge in the Grand Old Lady of Apollo Bunder. Far pavilions on the horizon from Wildflower Hall. The urban glitter from the Hong Kong Marriott. Or the Pennsylvania on 8^th Avenue.

Some hotels are just so gorgeous that nothing else matters. For me, top of this list is the Taj West End in Bangalore. A low-rise built on an old planter’s estate, it sprawls across 20-odd acres with pathways winding between flowering trees and little green nooks. Some day I shall go back to their oldest room, in the original planter’s bungalow with wooden stairs, brass fittings and a huge dormer window that looks out on trees with blood-red flowers. There are others that come close. The Grand in Calcutta has real character, and huge old rooms like a nabob’s palace. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the present management considers aggressive marketing infra dig. (It also has an outstanding dessert buffet, but I’m trying to be strong). The Metropole in Brussels, 112 years old, the lobby and bars all golden light and warm wood panelling, chandeliers and polished brass. But it has no views and the rooms, though huge, are a little stark.

Some things you learn. Not just “tip once, tip early, tip big”. I’ve learnt that that the so-called club floor is usually a rip-off, where you pay extra dollar just for a concierge button on the phone and free coffees in a lounge you never get around to using. There are exceptions, like the Park in Delhi where the tea lounge is a quiet vantage point for amazing sunsets. I’ve learnt that even if it takes another quarter of an hour and another trip downstairs, it’s better to change your room right away than put up with the banging of the service door. (NEVER ever take a room near a service door. At the Marine Plaza last month, I managed to get to sleep at around 1 o’clock after a long evening with blogger friends. Only to be woken at a quarter to two by loud banging noises from the corridor. A drunken NRI couple, fat ugly and totally uncool as they bulged out of their all-black outfits, had tried to walk up from the lobby and found themselves on the wrong side of a locked service door.)

If you’re staying at the same hotel a second or third time, it helps to know a name or two. Even if the chap isn’t around, asking for him makes a point. Think about it – when you’re greeted by name, you feel a little better because you know they’re taking the trouble at least to check the room list. Don’t you think it works in the other direction too? (This works like a charm at restaurants as well. In fact, anywhere in the hospitality industry. Which, face it, is a tough and usually thankless environment. Especially when catering to a curmudgeon like me.) This does NOT work, however, in a faceless warehouse like the Ashoka. The manager in one wing may not even know the lobby manager’s name. Besides, there’s usually a high attrition rate and the staff keep changing.

I’m picky about little things. Like freshly ironed clothes. Hotel laundries are always hugely over-priced and not always reliable. Would you risk the possibility of your Italian (or faux Italian) wrinkle-free shirt coming back with the cuffs shiny or, horrors, a burn mark? That too, half an hour after you’ve showered and left the room? I get around this by asking for an iron and board in my room. In the evening, because first thing in the morning there’s a run on the irons. Free, flexi-time and if the collar’s ruined, at least there’s nobody else to blame. But you have to find an accessible power point. If there isn’t one, I’d look for another hotel. Next time, of course. Unless you use the travelling salesman’s trick of hanging up the shirt in a steaming shower stall. That works too.

Meantime, there’s the mystique of the mundane. Hang up my clothes, give my shoes a quick wipe with the shoe-mitt (I’ve stopped hoarding those), pack everything except my toilet kit and the laptop. Shake out the blanket, put a bottle of water on the bedside table, fluff out the pillows, set the air-conditioning just so, use the bedside console to switch off everything except the lamp on the far side.

Then lie awake in the dark for an hour or so while the smoke detector blinks above me and the ticking of the clock becomes clearer. Tomorrow is another day. With a pre-dawn taxi ride and a flight that is bound to leave on time only if I’m running late. Good night, world.

One way or the other

Work has a nasty habit of intruding upon Life. This has been a major reason for my infrequent posting over the last few months. (The main reason, of course, has been sheer sloth.) Now I have another one.

Some kind souls who are High Up in the Print Media surprisingly offered to print my effusions. What’s more, they actually followed up and printed them. Five or seven pieces over the last 9 months. I am deeply grateful (and marginally richer. Yes, I said marginally. Hint!) The down-side is that they have Strictly Forbidden me to post on my blog the stuff I send them, at least until after they have printed it. So now I have two thingies under submission. One will be printed on the 19^th (or so I’m told). The other one is Under Review.

So if you see a new post up here the day after tomorrow, please comment. Try and be exceedingly kind and complimentary to console me for my lack of income.

Eureka!!

A couple of years ago, a friend in Bates mailed me a sound clip.

Take one passionate Bong voice-over artiste, put him in front of a mike, stir him up about S. Ganguly’s ouster and sneakily record the out-takes of his ire. The result is a 6-minute piece known to the Bong Underground as – what else? – Bonguly.

Awesome stuff that’s lifted my spirits on many a late evening in office. I posted about it at the time (this is for YOU, before you say I’m repeating myself!) but now I found the link on The Empty Vessel (many thanks!).

Enjoy.

And since I'm at it, I may as well put up (another repeat) my other contribution to Gross National Happiness. (Quite gross, but utter delight). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Doyal Baba.