Marriage Blues

These days when I meet long-lost friends
What they ask is not
“How have you been?”
or, “I missed you a lot!”
but, “who are you seeing?”
or even, “Have you tied the knot?”

Family get-togethers are even more amusing,
all they are interested in is your marital non-status.
Sitting there and countering questions can be weary,
with a plastic smile hiding an anguished soul
“Yes pinni, haven’t found the right girl.”
“No attaya, I assure you I am straight.”
When I really want to say
“That’s none of your business.”
“Why don’t you fuck off.”

When I read the Sunday paper
I turn to the matrimonial column for some fun (amid the daily dose of rapes, murders, robberies and Sunday specials)
“ Wanted: Good looking, handsome, well-earning, socially settled, tall, fair, Iyer- Brahmin, 30 years old, NRI, (preferably) Male with no bad habits for good looking, pretty, fair, homely, 26 year old Iyer-Brahmin (presumably) female, who can cook good sambhar, rasam, sing ragas, play veena, knows full Bharatanatyam, will look after mother-in-law, sweeps, swabs, sobs (when necessary), will press husband’s legs, can rear children, no bad habits.
Interested parties may please send photo.”

Sometimes I feel I should give in to obdurate aunts and well-meaning uncles
and get married the traditional way amid blaring nadaswarams,
instead of trying to find love in a loveless city.

The irony is hard to miss: a child of modernity, of convent schools,
of Marxist-leninist-feminist parents
hankering after tradition.

I was thinking of you

I was thinking about you last night my dear,
of the occasional glances and knowing nods,
of the tentative touches and deep sighs,
the smiles that bore meaning
and the sadness that bared the soul

I was thinking about you this morning my darling,
of the long conversations by the sea
punctuated by the gentle sound of the waves
the sporadic silences
animated by the pink light on the horizon

The breeze blew strands of hair across your radiant face
as you told me about your future dreams
and as they unfolded I felt happy
that you will be where you can hear the birds chirping good morning
and the wind whispering sweet nothings to the leaves outside your window;
melancholic, because I will not be there to greet you with a kiss
and a song I wrote for you

The moments we were together, in each other’s arms,
seem so fleeting, like grains of sand dropping from my palm.
I could have spent the whole time just looking into your eyes
waiting for your soul to come up to view,
Or just held you close to comfort you

We talked instead of living and loving
and the joys of wandering; someday I wish to take you
to the heights of Machhu Picchu and the sights of white ice flowing into a blue sea
the mystical staring eyes of the Easter Island giants,
and the calming embrace of the laughing Buddha

That is not to be, at least not now, I do not know if ever,
Someday, I hope we meet again; faraway from this forgetable world
faraway, in a magical place where clocks forget to show the time
and tiny fairies dressed in white dance to the piper’s mellifluous tune
and bow low when we walk past them hand in hand
and take our seats under the shade of the mighty tree
with mynahs and kingfishers for company

It is not as if I haven’t built this beautiful world for you, my love

Day Trippin'

Dope Tale 1: Big fat Baby (starring Tushar and Arjun)

Arjun is playing lead while I play rythm. The strains of Free Bird echo in the air in a hell-raising solo. It is late in the evening and the bored few people in the crowd want real music, like bhangra beats and raunchy Telugu film songs. We play the last few chords and sing the last few words.

"I am as free as a bird now
and this bird you cannot chain"

Song over. We win first prize. Dedication time. Arjun dedicates his to his sweet mother and I dedicate mine to my sweet Mary Jane. We exit the sparsely lit hall hurriedly, guitars slung casually over our shoulders. The massive paintings of eminent personalities on the walls stare down sternly, as if they know exactly what we are going to do.
Arjun has a reefer in his pocket. It’s a fat baby, a real beauty. He fondles it as if he is making love to it. There is a nasty expression on his face. He holds it up to my nose and the strong smell of herbs wafts to my nostrils. Ah, the smell of fresh buds late in the night!
He lights it and takes a deep drag. Another one, another one and another one. My turn. I take a puff. Downdowndown it goes. I cough it out in a paroxysm of chokes. Another try. Another rejection. One more try later I succeed in filling my lungs with the smoke. I lift my head and wait for moksha. We are sitting under a peepul tree and I feel like a Buddha. Any moment now and I will start giving gyan.
We start walking and soon cross the college gates. I feel a tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach. It radiates outwards towards my extremities. I feel rubbery. As I walk my arms and legs feel disjointed, as if they will fall of any moment now. If you’ve seen that iconic scene in Terminator 2 where Arnold shoots the liquid metal man just before he collapses into a heap of molten metal, well, that’s how I feel. As I walk my leg comes of at the joint, then the knee and finally the trunk falls of. But I am still walking. My arm is swinging wildly by my side ready to drop of any moment.
My throat feels parched and dry and I am hungry. Waves of well being ripple through my body. A gentle smile appears on my face and gradually turns into a giggle and then a guffaw as Arjun goads me on with his one-liners. They are genuinely funny. I am laughing like a madman in the middle of a road with traffic all around me and drivers yelling abuse.

“Ye ra lanjakodaka” (why you son of a whore)

I don’t care. I yell back.

‘Nee amma ni denga’ (screw your mother)

I am chilled out. I’ve just won first prize in a music competition and celebrated in style. My prize is a book by Swami Vivekananda, ‘Lessons in Moral Fortitude for India: How Today’s Youth Can Build a Stronger Tomorrow.’

Dope tale 2: Stadium Rock: Its all in your mind (staring Tushar, Kazaa and Judas Priest)

It is dark. The only light in the small hostel room is the flickering of a computer screen. Kazaa is lying on the mattress beside me. He has just puked his guts out, fortunately not in the room. Demi has ditched us badly, but we have the keys to his room. Kazaa and I are in a stupor. The night weighs heavily on us and silence reigns supreme. The only sound that disturbs the otherwise deathly silence is the collective sound of a thousand IIT mugoo’s reading in their rooms, their brains clocking away the miles furiously. Kazaa and Demi are not your average IITan. They like having a good time and hate studying, always late and last in class. Their whole gumbal (group) is like that.
Judas Priest’s frenzied riffs spill forth from the computer. It’s the stadium anthem ‘You’ve got a another think coming’. Kazaa and I have smoked a thin baby. She’s potent and has cast her spell on me. Hell no, she’s seduced me.
I am rocking along with Priest. My favourite Judas is lead guitarist Glen Tipton. As the number gets more intense I am up on stage with Priest. Hell, I am Tipton. Dressed in figure hugging spandex and black doc martens I have a devil’s head flying-V slung across my shoulder. 100,000 watts of pure sound pump from the giant marshall amps and the stadium strobe lights throb pulsatingly, emitting an effulgent 80’s vibe. Vocalist Jake ‘the ripper’ Owen is shredding his vocal cords to bits and the time comes for the lead riff. I am prepared. The drummer is pounding the skins and the bass lines are going haywire. When the moment comes I let fly. My fingers know all the notes, they rip across the fretboard effortlessly. Updown, up and down. Fastfasterfastest. The only sound in the stadium apart from my lead line is the frenzied screams of delirious fans down below. The mosh pit is a surging sea of humanity as headbangers body surf their way to the front near the stage. The throbbing lights are connected to my guitar in such a way that I can control them merely by playing my instrument.
Imagine being up on stage with a million raving fans screaming and the entire stadium at the tips of your fingers, literally. When the climax comes I synchronize my last note with the last pound of the drums and the last deep woof woof of the bass and an air raid siren of a shriek from Jake. It ends in thunderous applause. I go backstage and smoke more weed with Priest.

Dope Tale 3: The Doors of Perception (starring Tushar, Nietzsche and Aldous Huxley)

It’s late in the night and I am alone in my room. The door is locked and my folks are sleeping in their room. I rolled a joint in the bathroom and have smoked it in my balcony. Now its just me in my room, my universe.
My room is me, in a sense. It reflects a part of me, what I am, what I want to be. A corner is occupied by a large shelf piled with books. These are the titles I’ve been reading since age 10 and earlier. They reflect the evolution of my reading. A writing table beside the shelf has my notes and music system. The cupboard has clothes strewn every which way and my cassettes and CD’s, backpack, tent, khukri. A bed completes the roundup of furniture in my room.
The weed is taking effect. Sleep dissipates as the mind goes into overdrive. Nietzsche’s ‘Thus spake Zarathustra’ is lying on the bed. I start reading. Its too dense. I can’t understand a word the great philosopher is trying to expound. Nietzsche is difficult enough to read when you are sober, not to speak of when your brains are fried by burning herbs. I put it down.
I pick up ‘The Doors of Perception’ by Aldous Huxley. It starts with a quote by William Blake:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear as it were, infinite”

In 1951 Aldous Huxley was part of an experimental group of people who took the newly discovered drug mescalin. The book is about Huxley’s experience for the 7 hours he was under the influence of the hallucinogen. I haven’t got a chance to try mescalin, but ganja can broadly be classified in the same category of ‘mind expanding’ hallucinogens. The book became a must read for the 60’s hippie generation. Jim Morrison got the name for his band from Blake’s quote quoted in the book.

We act on and are acted upon. We think, do, love, hate, cry. We come into this world alone and leave it alone, only richer for the memories we take into the afterlife. The memories of those we loved and those who loved us, those we thought loved us. Dreams turn to dust and dust will cover our graves when we die. Memories are the only reminders I have that my life was lived, punctuated through its short banal existence by intense bursts of joy, sorrow, pain, suffering. My friends are now all gone, scattered like dust in a whirlwind. Memories are all I have of them. I remember we once sat under a peepul tree and talked of living, loving and loathing. We shared our secret desires, ecstatic fantasies and petty longings. We shared smiles, traded stories and cradled hope. All I can cradle now is a memory of what they were, what I thought they were.

We are trapped within ourselves, our universe consisting of our thoughts and experiences.
How do I immerse myself wholly and completely in another person without becoming the person? What she tells me is what I think she tells me. I am who I think I am. Do I think I am me, or do I know I am I? Who am I? Do I know, can I know, should I know?

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear as it were, infinite”

There is a small window in the wall. The wall is the boundary of what I can see. If I were to open the window I would be able to glance into the vast open outside the realm of my being. I long to go through the window, and yet am afraid, afraid of what I might find. I might find that I am not who I think I am. And yet, I might find the true me out there.

Media and Violence

How has the media treated the Khairlanji killings and its aftermath, the ended in large scale mob violence in many parts of urban maharshtra. News of the Khairlanji killings had been circulating in informal channels of communications established by dalit organizations. The mainstream media was apparently so clued out of this network that they didn’t realize something was brewing. Add to this the inept handling by the state government of the situation. The home minister blamed naxalites, the ISI and just about anybody, but did zilch to bring the actual perpetrators to justice. Again, his ‘conspiracy theory’ comments received wide publicity in the mainstream media.
Now let us come to the second part of the story. Everyone was taken by surprise by the violence that has rocked maharashtra over the last one week. Media commentary has put it down to simmering dalit anger over the Khairlanji incident where 4 members of a dalit family were brutally murdered by upper caste villagers. The two women were sexually humiliated and raped. The spark was provided by the desecration of an Ambedkar statue in kanpur. The strange part is that while Kanpur remained calm Maharashtra burned.
According to commentary in the mainstream and alternative media the violence that rocked urban centres in Maharashtra was spontaneous and uncoordinated. The dalit leadership, as represented by the various factions of the Republican Party is hopelessly splintered and opportunistic. According to at least one commentator this episode marks the emergence of a new movement in Dalit politics. Enough has been said about the politics. I want to concentrate on one aspect, how the media represented the entire chain of events.
Although the incident happened in end September, the national media did not pick up the story for a month after it happened. So what happened in this period? News of the ry. When an Ambedkar statue was desecrated in Kanpur the consequences were felt in Maharashtra. Mobs went on the rampage. Two local trains were burned in Bombay apart from the Deccan Queen, the intercity exress that plies between Pune and Bombay. The visuals made for good sensational footage and in the best traditions of the media they made front-page news in the newspapers and breaking news on the TV channels.
But one thing intrigued me the most. It was a report that some television channels were repeatedly airing footage of the Ambedkar statue desecration in Kanpur. This footage played a crucial role in fanning sentiments among viewers that led to the violence. It got to a point where the police had to call up the channels and request them to stop showing the provocative visuals. At least one channel disregarded that request and repeatedly broadcast the offending story.
The role of the broadcast media and its use of visuals that had shock value potential and the ability to provoke a reaction needs to be looked at more closely. By repeatedly airing this particular footage, aided no doubt by in-your-face commentary from studio anchors, the media played a crucial role in a particular chain of events playing themselves out. It would be wrong to lay the blame entirely on the media’s doorstep. Tempers were already running high and all it needed was a spark to set if off. There are many courses along which the line of events from the Khairlanji killings through the statue desecration could have played out. It is not a certainty that this line would have led to the large scale mob violence that was witnessed. But the fact that it did take this turn aided by the mass media is interesting. Was this a result that was ‘inevitable’ or even ‘desirous’ given the cut-throat media environment. After all, what makes for more gripping TV viewing than violence?
Jean Baudrillard identified the spread and saturation of the mass media as a defining feature of the post modern society. The ability of the media to create and define a reality of its own is a crucial part of the post-modern society. What we witnessed in Maharashtra was an example of the media nudging events in the direction it wanted and thus creating a situation that justifies its own relevance.

Snapshots of a Trip

Meeting in Bangalore

I spotted her through the milling morning crowd at Bangalore station, all 5 feet four inches of her. “Allo Tushar.” The blue backpack seemed entirely too large for her delicate frame. But all her earthly possessions for the next seven months ‘around the world’ trip were packed inside it; three pairs of clothes, toilet case, Simone de Bouveir’s ‘Second Sex’, her mom’s old battered camera, some odds and ends and her most prized possession, three blue coloured juggling balls. I was kitted out in similar manner for the trip ahead, except that my backpack was a lot bigger and stuffed with more clothes than hers for the 10-day trip ahead.
I met Josie Ann in Bombay through a common friend. She was a quiet but friendly girl from Quebec. As we got to know each other better we found that we had a lot in common. The love of travel, for instance. She was new to India and wanted to travel. We decided to travel to God’s own country of Kerala. But before that she went to Igatpuri for an intensive 10 day course of Vippasana meditation while I was busy tying up some loose ends in Hyderabad.
We planned to meet in Bangalore and proceed from there.
I had a rough idea of how we were going to travel through Kerala since I had done the route with another friend some years earlier. The morning we met at Bangalore I took her to GVK Kamat hotel just across the station and over a plate of idly’s swimming deliciously in red sambar and steaming hot filter kapi I told her the plan “Let’s go to Mysore and from there enter Kerala and gradually wind our way down south.” She was ok with the plan. So we walked down to the bus stand, which is just across the road from the station. On the way she taught me some basic French sentences, not that French would come much in handy in Kerala. But still…

Mysore Medu Vada

We reached Mysore in 3 hours after a bad road trip and insipid conversation. Mysore is a small town with a lot of yoga schools where foreigners flock in search of instant karma. The other thing about Mysore is the proliferation of vegetarian restaurants that have‘plate meals’ signs hung outside. I had to explain the concept of south Indian meals to Josie. She nodded with satisfaction. We headed to the Maharaja’s palace, backpacks in tow.
You can see the golden dome of the palace from a long distance off when you walk down the approach road towards it. As you proceed the palace slowly surfaces into view like a great hulking yellow beast. The anglophile Wodeyars who ruled Mysore in the nineteenth were a pretty emasculated lot after Tipu sultan who ruled a century before them. The British had enough problems subduing the fiercly independent 'Tiger of Mysore' and decided to install an effete bunch of pliable rajas. They built a palace made of gold so that the rajas would be ensconced in it with their harems and nautch girls, too busy to disturb the brits empire building project.
The palace is a splendid work of art. Guilded domes, latticed artwork, Venetian phalluses and kamasutra friezes in stone testified to the raja’s preference for sensual pleasure over statecraft. The palace is built in both oriental and occidental styles. It is what a typically nineteenth century Irish architect straight out of the peat bogs would have imagined an Indian maharaja’s palace to be like.
A long corridor inside has paintings of nineteenth century life in Mysore: a royal procession with the Wodeyar mounted atop an elephant, fireworks during dusserah, a court scene, women in the royal harem arguing animatedly over who would get to bed the king that night and so on. Moving on is a second corridor that has some breath arresting European artwork: Women in different stages of undress, a still life of a bowl of fruit, a chiaroscuro of cobbled streets, European city life. In the middle of this these two intersecting corridors is a massive hemispherical dome with gigantic chandeliers hung along the ceiling.
Seeing the entire palace would take a whole day and since we didn’t have time to spare we bid adieu to the Maharaja’s and wound our way out. It was already mid afternoon and we had had nothing to eat since breakfast. Moreover we had to be in Kerala by evening. We walked into Bendre Kamat family udipi hotel and ordered two plate meals.

The Pleasures of Wynad

We reached Kalpetta that evening. Kalpetta is the main town in Wynad district. It is a one street town, charming though. We searched for the cheapest joint in town and found a run down lodge that charged 40 rs per night bed bugs and all. No hot water. It was February and freezing cold. But who needed hot water!
The next morning we headed out of town. I had come here two years ago. There was a beautiful, virtually unknown waterfall 15 km outside kalpetta. We decided to head there. We took a local Kerala transport bus. I normally am not chary of bus travel, but Kerala busses scare the shit out of me. The drivers drive like there’s no tomorrow. The roads are narrow and bumpy, but they won’t let that get in the way. Its like being on a rollercoaster ride. But the drive to Suchipara waterfall is stunning.
Wynad is hill country dotted with beautiful coffee and pepper plantations. As the bus wound its way through the mist-kissed peaks I could see the green valleys below. The cold breeze brushed against my hair and cheeks gently teasing me.
To get to the waterfall you have to get off 3 kms before the town of Churanmala and walk 2 km through coffee plantation. This is the most magical part of the trip. Imagine yourself at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere. Plantations dot the hillsides as far as the eye can see and the diffused evening light blankets everything in a surreal tint of ochre yellow. A chill wind blows in from the misty mountain-tops and rustles the leaves of the tall pepper pods and coconut trees. When you exhale a fine mist billows out like thick cigarette smoke, except that the air is pure, so pure that you come alive with joy and verve. For a moment you can leave all your worries behind. Close your eyes and take in the scene. It will be preserved forever in a corner of your brain like a photographic image to be called forth whenever needed.
We walked slowly to the waterfall. It is in the middle of a forest and virgin, except for the lays packets and cigarette butts that litter the place. I got into my trunks and Josie got into shorts and t-shirt. We descended into the pool of water at the bottom of the fall, which was surprisingly deep and cold. We swam around for half an hour avoiding the jagged rocks that jutted out of the water like wicked teeth. Later we dressed and went back the same way.

Drinking and drunkards

The next day, on our way to Calicut, we went to pookot lake, which turned out to be a disappointment. We had visions of a virgin, unspoilt lake but what was on offer was far from it. It was a touristy thing, of a sort all too common in Kerala, complete with ice cream wallah and lemon drink orange drink man. We turned back to take a bus to Calicut. Just beside the highway we saw a stream that had been dammed into a small pool. It wasn’t very deep, but enough to wallow in. So we did our strip act (not the full monty, sorry) and jumped in.
A bunch of boys was already in the pool. They took no notice of us. In fact they were quite welcoming. A middle aged man watched Josie and me from the edge of the pool. He was bearded and wore spectacles. He asked josie where she was from. When she replied Canada he mumbled “Oh nice, nice.” It was clear that he was drunk from the way he was talking. The boys in the pool too indicated this, putting a finger to their temples as if indicating that he had a few screws missing. He kept trying to chat up Josie.
Drunkenness is nothing new in Kerala. In fact, along with strikes and suicides it ranks as Kerala’s foremost social problems. When you have a state where there are few jobs, but plenty of remittance money to go around coupled with cheap liquor it’s a recipe for an alcoholism epidemic.
But this bloke didn’t seem dangerous, just looney. He kept offering to put us on the bus to Calicut. He proudly informed us that he was half nepali and half mallu. How that particular mix of bloodline came about I have no clue. We took him up on his offer and he led the way to the bus stop, stumbling on his feet. It seems he was well known in that little village because when we went past the Kerala Tourism kiosk the woman manning it saw our little party and slapped her hand against her forehead. At any rate we got our bus and waved him goodbye.

Calicut Adventures

After Calicut our next destination was Munnar. There was a late night train to Aluva for which we had no tickets. Josie and I agreed to travel by the general compartment. That night, after a beer each in a cheap ill-lit ‘blackhole’ of a bar, we arrived at the station, luggage in tow. The train trundled into the station an hour late. The general compartment was so packed with people there was no space to get in. We were caught in the horns of a dilemma. Get squished or miss this train, in which case we would have to spend another day in Calicut. The train was ready to leave when the luggage van, next to the general compartment, was thrown open by a rag tag bunch of dozen youth. Josie said “Lets get into the luggage van.” My heart skipped a beat when I saw the raucous gang of boys.
“Are you sure?”
“yeah, c’mon.”
By this time the boys had caught sight of us and they were gesturing to Josie to get in. Some held their hands out and my feverish imagination thought that someone let out a joyous wolfwhistle. Josie jumped in and I had no option but to follow. It was the only chivalrous thing to do.
The train trundled out and we were alone with a gang of boys from Mallapuram. I was terrified and half expected a rape, or at least some serious molestation. In the event, I was proved wrong and that train ride was one of the most amazing train rides I’ve been on.
The boys were warm and friendly and asked Josie and me where we were from. They shared their stories and beedies with us. They were all friends who lived in different parts of Mallapuram, the Muslim majority district of Kerala. We spent a happy three hours together and exchanged addresses and photographs of each other. One of the boys, Zubair, was a cook who specialized in making Malabari biryani. We exchanged notes on Hyderabadi and Malabari biryani. When the time came to say goodbye the boys begged Josie and me to come visit them at their homes and said they would never forget us. We continued to travel in the luggage van till the guard shooed us out.
I learned an important lesson that night. There are a lot of real and imagined fears and often we confuse the imagined fears for real fears. Often life is not as hard as it seems. Its a lesson thats stood me in good stead.

Down And Out in Varkala

From Munnar we went to Cochin where we spent a day. We wanted to do the famous backwater trip. So we headed to Allepey and checked out the ferry’s at the waterfront. A day-long trip to Quillon cost Rs 250. It was a nice looking ferry. We paid up and put our backpacks in the deck below. The ferry started at 10 am and slowly wound its way south through the backwaters. I had seen and heard so much about the backwaters that what I saw left me disappointed. The ferry was full of foreigners. There was a girl sitting next to us. She started chatting to us. She was also from Canada, but an Anglophone. Valerie had worked for 7 years in an advertising agency and was so sick of it that she finally worked up the nerve to embark on a 9 month ‘around the world’ trip. This was the second leg after Europe. She was making copious notes of all that she saw on the way. This included quotes about India from yours truly. We passed through quaint villages on the way. We stopped at one for lunch. The hotel was located in a hut and the fare was typically keralite. It was amusing seeing the foreigners trying to scoop rice and curry from a banana leaf with their hands. There was a burly German who had the buttons of his shirt undone. I guess it was the heat. A couple of villagers were staring at him. I overheard one remark to the other “He looks like a typical village rowdy.” I couldn’t suppress a smile when I heard this.
After lunch we started again. The bunch on board was an assorted bunch of people. There was a bunch of German tourists who looked rich. Then there was a New Zealander who had been traveling the world for the past 7 years. Currently he was with his Brazilian girlfriend who was wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed ‘babe’ in front. Then there was a bunch of Swedish girls. More on them later.
We passed mata amritananda’s ashram. She is more famous as the hugging mata. She hugs whoever she can lay her hands on, or whoever’s in front of her. Three or four foreigners got off at the ashram. Valerie was headed to the beach town of Varkala and invited us to come along. We agreed.
The ferry languidly wound its way in the afternoon heat. Beers were served. Little boys from the fishing villages we went past ran alongside the ferry and begged the foreigners for pens. The Swedish girls were sitting on the prow of the boat. One of them actually threw a pen into the water. One little boy jumped from the bank into the river and swam to where the pen hit the water. I found what the Swede did offensive (not to mention racist). Valerie nodded her head in disapproval. The five Swedish girls were sitting together. They were sitting in two pairs with their arms around each others shoulders. I noticed a strange tattoo on the first ones bicep. It was a clenched fist, as if raised in defiance. A feminist version of the ‘Black Power’ fist. Valerie later told me that it was probably some sort of lesbian symbol. Evidently others on the boat had realized this and were stealing furtive glances at the girls. They didn’t care.
We reached Quillon in the evening. We headed straight to the bus stand and got into a Varkala bound bus. Sitting in the seat next to us was who else…but another drunk. He kept staring at Valerie and finally mustered up the nerve to chat. “Beautiful cultures” he said. There was a temple procession passing outside complete with caparisoned elephants and banging mridangams. Valerie just nodded.
When we got to Varkala it was night. The three of us booked into a cottage on the main cliff that overlooks Varkala beach. Varkala is tourist heaven. It has all the infrastructure to cater to every type of tourist: cottages, lodges, restaurants that serve continental food, memento shops, mini theatres and dealers who sold ganja and charas.
The next morning Valerie, Josie and I headed down to the beach for a bit of surf pounding. It was fun swimming in the sea and getting pounded by the waves. Deeper inside where the sea was calmer you could float gently and reflect on life.

Goodbye Cruel World

Read an excellent story today in the Guardian about the ‘Exhaustion Epidemic’. A lot of people complain of tiredness and exhaustion from the daily stresses that batter them: jobs, family, work pressure etc. Go to work, rush back home, do the household chores, get ready for the next day…without respite for weeks and months on end. No wonder people feel like physical wrecks.
It’s a feeling I am all too familiar with. Work leaves me with very little time to do anything else, and what free time I get is spent catching up on sleep. I maintain a stoic calm and go about the week like a zombie on auto-pilot. The one off-day I get is spent sleeping off the effects of the past week’s exhaustion with maybe 2 hours spent alone in the bar next to home drinking beer and staring at the wall. Sometimes this façade gets ripped open. It usually happens when I see pictures of the lunar landscape of Ladakh on Lonely Planet or lions lazily stretching about in the wilds of Kenya without a care in life on Discovery Channel. Then I curse this life of mine.
Once, two years ago things reached such a pass that I began questioning the meaning of my life. All sorts of existential questions popped in my mind in rapid succession during the course of a turbulent 3 month period. I questioned the purpose of my life. At the end of it I was so sick of my modern urban existence that I was seriously contemplating quitting the rat race and living in Ladakh for a year.
That phase has since retreated, but I am sure it will surface again. And when it does what will I do? Will I be prepared to deal with it? Can I keep my sanity intact? Or will the urge to explore rip me apart?
I have this intense desire to travel. Not the well worn travel packages that are advertised for rich Indians these days: 4 days, 5 nights in Geneva; 7 nights of exclusive romance in Maldives, Experience the lights and sights of Paris (Indian food guaranteed in case you can’t eat boiled snails or roast beef).
What I want to do is see the sunrise from the craggy heights of Macchu Picchu, trek in the wild steppes of Central Asia, photograph the gazelle frolicking in the plains of Namibia, prise out the secrets of the statues of Easter Island, walk the poetic streets of Kom in Iran, go up to Everest base camp in Namche Bazaar…
But right now I am trapped in the great city of Bombay living (being dragged along would be more appropriate) the great Indian middle class dream and feeling more dead with each passing day.
The train ride to work is a reminder of how set my urban nightmare has become. See my fellow passengers on the Churchgate fast local and wonder how they could live this inflexible and unyielding life. It’s been the same story every day for the last 20 years of my next seat ‘pyare mohan’: fight with the crowds to get onto the 7:43 am fast local to Churchgate and spend 45 minutes standing, the experience being akin to a dirty shirt in a washing machine. Work, work, work. Take the 7:54 local back home, prepare for next days battle. I don’t want to live this life because I like to think I am special. I was not born to get bogged down in the ‘comfortable’ existence of middle class life: gadi, banglaa, biwi, bachche…
Can I escape this middle class dream and live the life of a nomad?

The wild world of the Internet

When was the last time you experienced a mind trip? I am not talking about an alcohol or drug-induced trip, rather when a thought or an idea or an experience expanded the horizons of your mind, made you see the world differently or even generated an immense feeling of joy and contentment. I last had that kind of a trip when I went to the ‘Bring Your Own Film Festival’ in Puri. But lately I’ve been getting my kicks from the virtual world of the internet.
The net is an amazing place to get lost in. You can wander down virtual lanes and by lanes for hours. As the famous New Yorker cartoon once said, on the net no one knows you’re a dog. There is something for everyone. Travel, sports, personal journals, videos and more.
The other day I discovered the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum where people can ‘bluelist’ their travel experiences, basically give gyan about their favourite travel destination for the benefit of others. I logged on and enthusiastically wrote about the best trips I’ve done. It’s the next best thing to traveling and its addictive. When I read about ‘sammy’ describing his amazing camel ride in the deserts of Namibia or ‘Amy’ talking about how much fun she had crushing grapes underfoot during the harvesting season in a little village in Greece it acts as a proxy for my latent ambitions to see the world. If I can’t go there myself I can at least relive the experience through the words of others. Of course, its no substitute for the real thing and one day I hope to travel around the world. Till then I will have to satisfy my wanderlust online.
The other thing that has caught my imagination is blogs. Some are silly, some frivolous and some funny. The media blogs are hilarious: mediamamu, war for news and media malice yank the pants off hacks who take themselves too seriously. The best part is that you can be part of the blog by leaving your comment, anonymously if you choose. Then there are the political blogs. These allow dissent to be articulated in a manner which is unthinkable in the mainstream media. The internet has opened up a platform for anyone to post their 10 paise’s worth. In a sense it has democratized publishing. Call it the flat virtual world (thanks Thomas).
And apart from these the regular sites that I visit, salon, slate, countercurrents, caferati, arthedains.