Negative

The last time we spoke, I forgot to say "bye". I think the doorbell rang or something, can't quite remember now. When Maya runs about the house looking for you, her silver anklets make the most delicate kind of music. Like paper thin bangles, just two of them, at a flirty young conversation. Or pale Christmas tree ornaments after the fire has died out. I only believed in fairies bacause they wear gauzy silver wings. Don't tell me they are not real, I know, ofcourse. But they are beautiful anyhow, aren't they?

Are you afraid to return because you think I'll ask you to stay? But I always knew that nothing could hold you. I never even tried. Your mind is a mass of confused unbridled silver wires. And you electrify everyone on the way as you go along. With your mad angry stories and your lost grey eyes. When I paint in a single colour, it makes me feel guilty. Like I'm insulting your memory. But i cannot paint in white. That's more your thing, isnt it? "I like you because you're a red cloud" you had said.
You're the sky. Blue, purple, grey, white. Always stormy, always quiet. And always free. I think the doorbell rang. What do you paint these days? Red roses white?

Ribbon streamers and Maharani

Some people, places and days are near perfect.
I took a near-perfect interview and a near-perfect walk. There's this near-perfect road bend where you get a near-perfect cup of tea. I attended a near-perfect aerobic session and walked another near-perfect mile.
Then i met some near-perfect people with near perfect dreams. We ate some near perfect muri and talked about this...these near-perfect dreams. And oddly enough...once we started walking away...something followed, like a determined mongrel that wouldnt be shooed of. And made itself at home in the little space between us, that wouldnt be enough for a person. And stayed put. While we walked on terribly conscious of this stubborn pup and yet oddly comforted by it, talking on as our near-perfect future rose like mist over our far-from-perfect present.

I bought a wedding gift, but i wish i could keep it.
And this wonderful, wonderful old man i met today from whom i bough a scrap of ribbon, upturned his tiny shop to search for a bit of cardboard i could wrap my gift in. And then he went all the way and wrapped it for me with a lot of enthusiasm "thik kore dhor. arre, oi deek ta dekhbi toh, beke jachhe, dara dara, ami korchhi" Oh, and did i mention? He has never seen me before today, and probably never will again? And at the end of the whole thing, he charged me Rs 2, for the ribbon. And threw in a huge grin as well. Gratis.
I...wish i could remember all the things i've been told that i want to remember. Sometimes the words return and crawl underneath my scalp, ever so lightly, so that you just know they are there, but you dont know what they are or who said them.
And when you have a series of near-perfect moments, like today, you come this close to thinking that its all going to be okay, perhaps. There shall be more nice music, and nice roadways and nice cups of tea. And there will be near-perfect people too. Just when you least expect them. If only one could teach the old dog some new tricks. But then, we all need our own security blankets, no?

Of little stories in between

Sometimes, when you’re least aware of it, you look back at the people you knew since the beginning of forever, only to realize how much you’ve painted them in rainbow colours to suit your own rainy day purposes. I once knew a little boy, wide eyed and sharp tongued. He wrote a little story everyday—the same story, very episodic, where he always played the hero. Occasionally I featured in it too, always a small subsidiary sub plot character, never important enough to turn the tide. I don’t think he ever stopped to consider me as a real character, or gave it a second thought whether I was in it or not. It meant something to me though, to see my name in one, after several dry chapters. Not a great, earth-shattering deal, but something, nevertheless.
Pretty soon, we went our separate ways. He moved along to change the world, or something equally important as that. Before leaving, he gave me a bunch of scrap paper filled with incomprehensible doodles. I took it, feeling terribly important, certain that they meant ‘something’. At the lonely, deserted station with its early morning smells, I saw his lean self bent almost double with the weight of his faithful red rucksack, walking towards the train, and out of my little coloured world, without a second look behind. My eyes shone with the possibilities he was capable of. I don’t think he could even remember if I wore glasses or not.

His crumpled parting gift was lost in transit when I changed houses. And so were his memories and curious stories as I flitted in and out of unsatisfied lives and people. I learnt singing and took up pottery. I met somebody amazing and lost him in transit too. I gave piano lessons to the girl next door and learned how to bake the most perfect carrot and cheese cake. Occasionally, and never to deeply, I allowed myself to ponder over roads not taken, and dreams not fulfilled. A little self-pity, a little self-loathing, a little looking back. I thought of all the people I used to know, and wondered if they were worse or better off than I was. All the crazy men and women with music in their laughs and stars in their eyes.
Sometimes when it rained and the world and its neighbour refused to open their doors, I ran along the sidewalk, counting every alternate square, until I reached a hundred. I was content that I had nothing to complain about—no immediate financial worries, the occasional date, the occasional music concert, a monthly visit to the parents, and life seemed to be in order. Thunder and lightning had never quite been my style.
At the cafe, on my way to work, I met a stranger scribbling away furiously on crumpled, ink stained tissue paper. I stopped to talk, because even years of saving the world hadn’t taken away the child like determination from his eyes. He accepted my coffee but refused my muffin. He said, he couldn’t take sweets. As I sat, reading the paper, amidst the hasty scratch of pen on paper, I remembered the little boy with never a special word for me, in whom I believed then, as much as I believed the sun would rise tomorrow. The waiters ignored him as he signalled them weakly—as he walked down the sidewalk, people from all sides seemed to walk through him. In the tube, he muttered furiously, clutching his threadbare jacket, crushing the tissue paper even further.
I confessed that I had lost his doodles somewhere in the flea bitten years. He didn’t blink twice. I doubt he remembered my last name. At the station, he handed me the crumpled manuscript, and asked me to keep it till he returned from the restroom. I waited three whole hours before I ventured to read it. It was the same little boy I had know a few lightyears ago, and the same story, only different chapter. He was still the hero, and I was still nowhere in it. I left the station only after the last train had gone.

Sometimes, on off-days I still go and sit there and watch the trains pass. Occasionally I think I see a dash of red and a proud weather-beaten face amidst a sea of nameless people. But the train leaves before I can be sure. In any case, the red backpack has been lost for years. And the face is off on another adventure, another story, another earth-changing mission. Where he plays the good cop, and I the nameless, faceless person in the sidewalk among thousand others.

Ha ha

I should really stop being so pessimistic about Bombay. Yesterday night was actually fun. Unexpectedly so. I was quite sure things would go like they always do, and they did, but even so. Fun. To those two who would never read this blog: you're okay. Really. Inspite of battered beer cans and cheap chinese crow meat and conveniently ignored moments. Maybe, because of it. I was a happy kid, i could feel the sea on my toes.
Cheers to a lot of things. Most of all cheers to a-not-all-that-bad past record.

I can either blog or mail. I can't do both. I have a life. And an extremely slow dial-up. Ok, scratch the first, I just have an extremely slow dial up.
My folks and I can get on each others' nerves with amazing alacrity. It doesnt take too much, just a little overwork, hot weather, and well, me. But i love the fact that we are such a hang-up free, low-maintanance family. Non air-conditioned dhabas and rolls for lunch, are okay. So are autorickshaws in which three of us can barely fit into. Budget hotel, even no hotels are cool. 3-tier train rides? Done that. Calcutta buses, local trains? Check. Metros, a blessing. Non-bisleri water at restaurants, well, what else? Sure we all would love to travel in style and eat in style, etc etc. But sometimes it cannot be afforded. And thats cool too. My parents have always been painfully honest with me about these matters. I've been told what i can get and what I cant, and its pretty much no use arguing. Its a lot like Central Bank selective credit schemes. Branded designerwear that could pass off as street wear, for no particular ocassion is out. Books, worth the same amount or even double, are in, before you can bat your eyelids. Their logic sometimes goes beyond logic. I haven't been denied anything, ofcourse, but I've never floated in what you would call, plenty. There's always been room for wanting, but never needing. Not badly enough to die for. Besides, whenever I've gotten anything really big, they've always given me the feeling that i've earned it, somehow or the other. Birthdays are usually out, i dont think my dad's ever given me anything on my birthday since i turned 5. There are always those no-occassion surprises too, like surprise visits and cookouts and chocolates! We're not boring, predictable people, us. We try.
There's a song I wanted to quote because it perfectly sums up how I feel about a particular something. But i realize its way too revealing, and I shall save it for the mailbox. No sense wearing your heart on your blog, i always said. There are undoubtedly a lot of advantages to being your own person, chiefly a guilt-free head. But i miss some things, that I'd started to take for granted. Like phone calls, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And someone to always talk to without the formality. As in "Hello...no, just." You can't do that even with the closest friends. They're bound to get tired sooner or later. Mostly I guess i miss being off my guard and comfortable. Sort of like propping your legs on someone else's leg, quite unconsciously, and not removing it. Or being comfortable enough to go to sleep mid sentence. Or to read a book without worrying about making conversation. When i think of all the effort that goes into making a relationship reach this state, i want to go right back into hibernation. Sure, there's always room for spark, excitement, chemistry and thrills and whatnot. But sometimes, i think i would just be okay with a book and someone to go for walks with. With whom i wouldnt need to worry about fat days or funny repartees. I could just talk about the weather, or i could just shut up and walk in comfortable silence.
Meeting new people brings out the worst in me, i think. With D i think we began comfortable. Or maybe it was the uncynical-then-me. Whatever. There has never been much effort there. Which is probably why it survived what it did. About 0% credit for that goes to me. I miss sweet-nothings. Sometimes gestures are enough. I've had it with deep, meaningful people, i think. They always have issues of their own to deal with. Suchaniceboy.Wheredidhego?

"Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted"

I was told that I would get over her. That i would ahem...grow up. I cannot help it, the more I read her, its like a spell. I agree, perhaps there isn't much profundity to look for here. But can you deny the magic of her words? Try reading them out aloud. See what it does to your tongue. Close your eyes and try to imagine what you just read. See what it does to your brain. Puro mindfuck. If for nothing else, then just her messed up head. Because we are all like that sometimes. And because not all of us can do that with our thoughts and our words. I know I cant.

A lot of people know her as Ted Hughes' wife. Their turbulent relationship has always intrigued me. Plath is no shadow, she couldn't be if she wanted to--but a lot of her poetry is a direct influence of the influence her talented, agressive and over-sexed husband had on her.

Take a look at their first meeting and marriage--

One night, early 1956 Plath attended a party held to celebrate the launch of a new Cambridge literary magazine. Among the poetry she most admired in it was that of a poet named Ted Hughes. After arriving at the party quite drunk she gazed across the room at a "big, dark hunky boy, the only one... huge enough for me," and wanted to know who he was immediately.
After meeting Hughes in person, she proceeded to quote one of his poems to him. In a side room into which he had guided her, he ripped her hairband and earrings off when she pulled away as he tried to kiss her. Soon after, she bit his cheek. Each of them, it seemed, had met their match. Walking back to her college later, a friend warned her that Ted Hughes was "the biggest seducer in Cambridge."
Ted Hughes had earlier published a poem about a "Jaguar"--so over the next few days, Plath composed the poem "Pursuit" in which a woman is stalked by a panther. On her way to a spring vacation in Europe, she spent a night with Hughes and his friend in a London flat--she found Hughes' power and strength irresistible. By the time a couple of months had passed, the two were discussing marriage.
They decided to marry secretly in London. Sylvia wore a pink suit and held a pink rose which Ted had given her. The newlyweds spent time that summer in Paris, Madrid and Benindorm, Spain on the coast, where "every evening at dusk the lights of the sardine boats dip and shine out at sea like floating stars." Some of the poems Sylvia wrote during this newlywed summer of writing include "Fiesta Melons", "Alicante Lullaby", "The Goring", "The Beggars", "Spider", "Rhyme", "Dream With Clam Diggers", and "Epitaph For Fire And Flower".

There was one alleged episode which darkened the otherwise idyllic days of their summer. Years later Sylvia told a friend that one afternoon as they sat on a hill Ted was overcome by such rage that he started choking her, and she resigned herself to die.

In August, Sylvia met her in-laws for the first time. The Hughes family, like Ted himself, was interested in horoscopes, hypnosis and the occult. Plath's "November Graveyard" was a direct influence of her days with them.

She was to be equally fascinated and repulsed by her husband in consequent years, as she saw their marriage through abortions, personal failures, jealousy and infidelity. Hughes himself received extraordinary success post-marriage, and his stature grew in equal measure with his arrogance, and a distance from his bond with his wife, while Plath grew steadily into further depression, self-infliction and tortured verses.

We all know how she died. In the early morning of February 11, 1963, Plath set some bread and milk in the children's room then cracked their window and sealed their door off with tape. She went downstairs and, after sealing herself in the kitchen, knelt in front of the open oven, turned the gas on and stuffed her head inside.
Plath's world had become too much for her to take. The depression had won. Just six months before her death she wrote of feeling
"outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers' beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass."

Her gravestone bears the inscription "Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted."

Unsettlingly enough, in March 1969, realizing that she would never escape from living in Plath's shadow, Assia Wevill (the woman Hughes left her for) killed herself and their daughter in the same way Sylvia had committed her suicide.

People remember her for her crazy, unreal metaphors, her controversial allusions the The Holocaust and an extremely irreconcilable train of thought also associated with Confessional Poetry.

To me, her poems are a world of fairytales gone terribly wrong. Just like her fairytale marriage. And what could have been a fairytale life. Her poems are unforgettable because they are, like her, at once violent and vulnerable. They speak, at once, to both the child and the beast within us.

This is one of my old favourites:

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

These are some others I wish you would read.

The Bee series, Edge, Electra on Azalea Path (written in memory of her father), Letter in November, Ariel.

Oh shucks, I cant choose. Go read them all. And do tell me your favourites.

Slip-shods.

I've figured out finally, what it is that really really gets on my nerves. In a word, its called unprofessionalism. And it can have several manifestations. Like lack of vital information, unpunctuality, being ill-informed, not doing enough research, not caring enough to bother. It makes me beetroot mad...the kind of mad you never ever want to catch me at.
At this recent interview this guy tried to be a smart aleck, and asked me "How do I know you've done all this yourself, and not hired someone to do it?" Apart from the very audacity of such a suggestion, the only other thing to say was, the truth. That I can never trust anyone, not even an expert, to do my work better than me. The main idea is to not give myself a chance to whine later, because I will be dissatisfied, no matter what. Only thing is, there wouldn't be anyone to blame but me, and you have to agree thats a whole deal better than having to blame other people.
So, i was at this programme today that was supposed to be honouring a man, the ground beneath whose feet I am willing to kiss. And while I sat through two hours of pure unadulterated torture, I wondered how those people's minds worked, how they could manage to do such shoddy work? Where does all that complacency come from? Here you are, with so much potential, and funds, and resources. You must be genuinely stupid or genuinely indifferent to screw it up this bad. If its the first, I'm just sorry for you. And if its the second, well I wish people would throw rotten tomatoes at you. Bloody losers.
It was supposed to be a tribute to Ray on his 86th birth anniversary. Organized by Doordarshan. The set was beautiful, but the lights wouldnt work, and they had to keep it switched off. Check. It started 1/2 hour late. Check. Mikes never never functioned at the first try. Check. To make things even more hilarious, there were streaming it on national television, live. In the midst of a Pather Panchali sequence, there was an infuriating Metro Dairy commercial, jarringly loud. In the middle, mind you, rudely interrupting Apu and Durga running towards the train. While catching Adoor Gopalakrishnan live from Trivandrum, the connection breaks. Not only that, not a single simulcast is done without hitches. Its like, its a new device they have discovered for the first time, and testing it, much to the credit of mankind. All this on national TV, mind you. In an auditorium full of people. Then again, nobody knows what to do onstage. The governor comes, with other people like Sandip ray, Dulal Dutta, Soumendu Roy, Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi, Sharmila Tagore and all of them are standing inspite of there being chairs on the stage, because no one's told them to sit. People are unceremoniously told to go offstage. Called on for only 2 minutes. The whole thing, that would have been so perfect as an intimate talk show, is royally screwed up because of the full length nonsense they went for. People kept coming and rudely interrupting the speaker to pass on surreptitious messages, about more things gone wrong, no doubt. Like they were requesting songs or something. Besides, what horrible camera angles! How viewers at home, understood anyone or anything is beyond me.
What infuriates me is the fact that they had everything at their disposal. All the guests spoke wonderfully. I especially liked Sharmila and Suhasini Mulay who spoke through a simulcast in Bombay. There are things I found out, that i never knew. Lots of memories, some incredible behind-the-scenes stuff (which kept getting interrupted by a commercial for Arambagh books?!)
All i could think was how much better some more interested people could have used what these idiots had. Even folks from my college. Heck, even me. It really doesnt take an Einstein to get a few technical things right. To keep the flow smooth, to make sure most of the running time isnt spent in people staring around vacantly or running for cover. What gross mismanagement. Why, i wonder. Just because its DD? Just because they know that people know that their work shall always be on the flipside of mediocre? If that isn't the height of complacency, i dont know what is. I hate mediocrity, detest it, despise it. Especially when you can rise above it, but you wont. Because you are an obstinate, stubborn mule, that is why.

The problem is a lack of genuine people. Who are genuinely bothered. You dont have to go an extra mile, just go that whole damn mile without taking a short cut and falling flat on your face thats all. And making it up by saying "Boss, this is India/Calcutta/whatevurrrr" Its everywhere. If you have such a problem coming on time, reschedule it 10 mins later, why dont you? The other person has a life, if you please. And how about knowing what you're talking about, the next time? Instead of hamming and using a lot of big words to make it up. People can see through it. And how about not taking things for granted? Especially things that suck and must be changed? If we are looking at progress and being first world and everything.
The difference, my idiots, is not in the resources. From what I see, there's plenty of that, most of it staring straight at our faces. There isnt lack of talent either. Oh we're full of ideas, we're swimming in them. How about putting them to practise? So this is the part where we look for the other people, to blame, to point fingers at, blah-blah. How about getting your own hands a little dirty? And doing your share of the work? Even if its just the sound check and mike testing. Do it properly, for heavens sake without dreaming of overtime and item numbers. Just do your own damn work, and save yourself the trouble of overseeing what everyone else is doing.
And while you're at it, do it well. But you wont. You're too much of a conformist to do the unexpected. Even if it is to do the expected.
Bloody idiot.

Grant me an old man's Frenzy

I know my very own Acre of Grass old man. Who vehemently denies being old. With a great deal of frenzy too. So, he isnt much of a poet. Or an artist. Even though he designed bridges. That count?
But I think he and the old Dubloo Bee would have quite a lot in common. For one, he taught me to distinguish between an eagle and a kite. And he isn't scared of mice. And he's the last person I know who will complain about the "rag and bone shop of the heart".

Yesterday he complained as to why Shahrukh said "Ladies and Gentlemen" and "Boys and Girls". And told me to send an e-mail to Siddharth Basu from Grandfather K.C Ghosh.
He is the most grandfatherly person i know, and the least elderly.

I could tell you a lot about him. About how he walked from Burma to India after independance. And how on the way, he lost his friend, and his sister to typhoid, and was one of the few to make it across. And how he took his wife and three kids travelling every weekend, in his own little jalopy. And how he used to walk around the lake four times unfailingly every morning, come rain, sun or hail, at a speed that would make you giddy even thinking of it.
But i wont.
I'm extremely possessive about my memories. And too scared of not being able to express them properly.
But this one is to him. With all his frenzy and zest and anger-oh yes, loads of anger. I wouldnt change you for the world.

Rockabye-baby, on the tree top
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all.