When racial discrimination is very subtle...

All of us have faced racial discrimination in India. This is one such. In fact, I would venture to say that India is the home of racial discrimination because our culture was based on the Varna system, which is nothing but racism. So, it is no wonder that we have faced discrimination of one type or the other in the journey of our lives.

This happened long ago. A friend invited me to dinner. We had a cosy dinner at his home, with his father and mother. The father was a man of the world, so he was okay with me and my colour. But the mother, I could see had reservations, based on, I think, my colour. My friend didn’t have any such feelings as we were friends, had worked together, and seen many movies together. He was modern and had a friendly outlook to life and I liked his company.

After dinner, since it was too late, he invited me to stay over. I was reluctant. However the prospect catching a train at 11.30 p.m. in the night from the western suburb of Bombay to Chembur, where I used to live, dissuaded me. So I decided to stay. He gave a spare pair of his pyjamas to wear and a kurta. We actually didn’t sleep much that night because we were awake, cracking jokes, destroying reputations, and talking about things. I must have dozed off towards morning.

I awoke quite early wanting to board a train before the rush started. As is usual, since I go early in the morning, I used the only toilet in the house. This is a practise I have, because elimination is the first thing I do, every morning, wherever I am. This time it was urgent, too. The house was silent when I used the toilet and after using it I was careful to clean it as best as I can with water and a brush. I didn’t find a chemical, or, I would have used it, as I don’t want anyone to find the toilet dirty after me. At home, I clean my own toilet, and, usually it is rather spic and span.

A little later, the lady of the house, my friend’s mother, woke up. And she began to let out a stream of unintelligible – to me – chatter about something. She went on cackling like a disturbed hen, and it upset me. I understood that she didn’t like it that I had used her toilet. She wouldn’t stop. I found it wise to dress and leave the place.

Now, thinking it over I feel the discrimination was subtle. Should she have thrown a tantrum, since I was still in the house? Shouldn’t she have been more discreet? Why did my friend invite me stay if his mother was so finicky? I was hurt that an individual who talked to me nicely would do such a thing. They were middle class people like me, migrants from Sindh in Pakistan. From that day I stopped going to my friend’s house.

My Pictures of Tata Litlive 2015

Tata Litlive 2015

Kidnap in Crete - Rick Stroud

I read this beautifully-written novel by Rick Stroud more as a historical fiction than as a novel. It’s so full of detailed descriptions of the World War II, from such close quarters, as to make it seem as if one is a participant in the war. Thus far, the books I have read have all been non-fiction and this book is an eye-opener as far as the realities on the ground in the warring country is concerned. All those people who died, all those brave soldiers who worked so tirelessly, everything seem so authentic that one doesn’t want such a tragedy to happen ever after in this world. One advantage it gives the reader is that one is close to the action from page one, along with tantalising descriptions of all the equipment in use, the guns, the explosives, the hard work. Remember, they were not living in the present when a phone call and a text message is a possibility. For a message to get across it had to be sent with a runner, to a radio ten kilometres away, that too, over hilly terrain.

I highly recommend that you read.  

Vidyarambham - Initiation into Knowledge - Life's Intervention

Yesterday was Vijaya Dashami and therefore Vidyarambham, or initiation into knowledge. I am penning just a few thoughts on Vidyarambham, now that it’s the season for this de rigeur ritual. In Kerala it’s a big and ceremonious thing. I remember my Vidyarambham thusly. My elder sister was put in charge of my education and she was told by my mother to teach me to write. I started with Malayalam letters, writing on rice grains spread out on the floor of our house in Kerala. Every time my sister would ask me to write, my left finger would shoot out. She would say, “not left, right hand finger, this one.” But then, being left handed, my left hand finger would shoot out. She would shout again, and then, very unlike the disciplinarian she was (still is), she would give up. She found me incorrigible and would scold me and beat me. I remember crying when the stick would descend on me. In Kerala left-handed people are considered inauspicious and my mother and sisters - being superstitious - assumed I would not come to any good in life.

But then I discovered language through reading of the New Testament gifted to me in Sunday School. I loved the songs taught in the said School. I would have it written in a small notebook and would sing them when no one was watching. This habit continues even today. Thus a small spark was lit; which became an obsession later in life. At age eight, I learnt English from Joseph-saar, who, it was said, was my father’s classmate in the English-medium school in Kozhencherry. (My father had a privileged upbringing thanks to the affluence of my grandfather.) He was a teacher I admired. He made English very simple and learning it a pleasure. Soon I had all the lessons under my command and I got good marks, too. That’s when my father noticed my proficiency in English and brought me to Bombay to continue my education. That’s how I came to Bombay for the first time, at around age nine.

And then, as they say, life intervened.

It’s the Season to Be Noisy!

The festival season is upon me. It’s the sounds that disturb, the high decibel level of its emanation. I live in a small valley set aside from the Sahyadri Hills, into a small knot of hills known as Parsik Hills. Here it’s dead calm most of the time till even a small sound is produced. Then it is amplified several times and echoes between the two hills facing each other over a pond and a wooded valley. From now on the assault on the senses has begun, there will be disturbed sleep, trauma, hearing loss, et al.

A neighbour’s son removes the silencer from his Royal Enfield motorcycle, and sets off a progression of high-decibel chain cracker explosions – the cheap Chinese sort – after him. The sound doesn’t cease for a long time till he disappears from the place in one of his nightly jaunts to meet with friends, perhaps, a girl friend whom he wants to impress. The sound he makes is about his identity and he tries to be as loud as possible, in dress, in behaviour, in being himself.

The garba dancers have high-decibel music going on in a nearby bus depot which has been commandeered for the purpose. They all are gaudily dressed in loud costumes and here they dance their loud dance. The band consists of several bass drums and the speakers are as tall as a floor of the building nearby. The emphasis is upon beats and rhythm.

“Rattta-tatta-ratta-tatta, tatta, thuooooom.” So on....

There are no wind instruments because they are considered feminine and not able to produce high-pitched sound. Nor, is there a guitar, fortunately, because the Death Metal sound would have screeched on their speakers and burst a few fragile hearts.

Soon Diwali will be here with another round of loud explosions and lighting of stringed high-decibel bombs that would easily imitate modern warfare. Then the skies would explode, too, with colour. The assault on the senses will continue.

Is it a Hindu thing, I wonder? But my friend who runs the local RSS Shakha, with whom I have a good discussion at times, is also against the sound. He is a scientist working in the atomic reactor at Trombay and says he knows of the bad effects of sound. He says it’s against his principles and is the first to complain about the sound. He also says it’s ignorance. Have we become schizophrenic in our quest for good health, peace, and calm?

Then is it any wonder that an Indian would be deaf by the age of sixty?

Some of the Stories Around Us Can Be More Interesting...

Sometimes the stories around you are more interesting than the ones you read. I didn’t mean to write this, sort of, filed this in the back of my mind, until this morning when I felt the urgent need to write it.

It’s about a youth whose enterprise really awed me. Let me call him Ajay. He delivers newspapers to my house, back-breaking and soul-destroying work, and one day he asks me if I have old newspapers to sell. I say yes, looking at the growing pile in the corner. He says he will come later to collect it, as a caution, he tells me not to sell it to anyone else. That day around afternoon he comes and collects the papers. I accept whatever he gives and don’t bother to question him about rates. I am glad to see his honest hard-working face, which has a trace of self-effacement about it.

That evening I go to the Croma Store nearby to look for some cellphone to replace my existing one. I can’t afford any of them, but I am window shopping in case son wants to gift me one. The salesman calls me “uncle” and he has a familiar look around him. I ask him if I have seen him somewhere, perhaps, during my morning peregrinations of my artistic village (This is what neighbours call Artist Village, which is also wrong. I tell them it should be Artists’ Village, not Artist Village). He says he is the same person who had come to buy my paper in the morning. I am taken aback. I am a sort of person who goes through life in a daze these days. I don’t know, life has become a drag after retirement. Sometimes, memories can f*****g freeze you in your tracks! The latest I hear is that writers are returning their awards, while I haven’t even earned one. A lifetime has gone past and I have nothing to show.

Sit licet ut fuerit![i]

He shows me the Microsoft phones, the Samsungs, the Sonys and all other gizmos that run the world today. He tells me, intelligently, about each phone and its advantages. I do a lot with my phone these days, like accessing Facebook, writing posts on Twitter, maintaining three forums started by me on Whatsapp, three or four forums on googlegroups, all of which get my phone so harried, it gives up in exasperation. I thank him and come away impressed.

This morning he again comes to take away my old newspapers. Wifey is at home and is a bit rude to him, being a Sunday, for disturbing her. It’s her only holiday, time away from teaching. Twin rivulets of sweat are flowing down his face in the heat of mid-morning and his shirt is wet. He isn’t very presentable. I intervene and invite him in. While collecting the newspapers I ask him about work. He says his employers are good and he gets a commission on sales, which assures a good monthly income, which could go up to 30 grand during festivals. The newspaper delivery job is because he only has to report at 12 noon and is free in the morning.

His replies are to the point and don’t show the insolence and ambition of the present generation. These days I am hesitant to ask young people questions. I know the answer would be a snarl and, “uncle, mind your business.” He is also very shy. I probe a bit further, being the writer sensing a story.

“Where do you live?”

“In sector two near the temple.”

“Oh! Near the Hanuman Temple?”

“Yes.”

“Who all are there in your family?” I ask this gently because I don’t want to upset him.

“I live with my elder sister, she is married.”

“What about father and mother?” I ask assuming they may be living in his native village. In which case, he may be working hard to send them money.

“Both died when I was a small boy. My sister brought me up.”

I am shocked. An orphan! I am contrite to think of the possibility, just a piddling possibility, of having hurt him.

“I have been working since childhood, doing odd jobs. Now I have to work for my future.”

That explains the hard work, the taking of two jobs, and the small business of dealing in old newspapers.

It also explains the shyness, the tentativeness, the feeling whether he will be accepted, and the lack of a father’s and mother’s love.

I am dumbstruck at the enterprise of this youth, hardly out of his teens. He has forgotten all that has happened and is bravely working to be an honest citizen of this country. Whence and whereupon, I wonder if this country has given him adequate protection to seek a future for himself. That’s all I have time to ask him. He has, by now, bundled the paper, weighed it, and dealt the cash.

Yes, some of the real stories around us can be really very sad and, not to forget, inspiring too.

---

[i] Be that as it may!

Pitfalls of Being a Writer

When I started writing, that was ages ago, I made no secret of my ambition to be a known, recognised writer. Perhaps this was considered as insolence on my part. Nobody said a kind word, in fact, I was sure they were laughing behind my back, “What he? Wants to become writer? Does he know the language? Does he know anything.” I regret having told them that I want to be a writer. Instead I should have said I want to be something else, poultry farmer, for instance.

There were some people who deliberately vilified my writing. It led to a lot of damage and self doubt. Writing as Stephen King described is like, “navigating the atlantic in a bath tub.” Yes, it is. It is the most hazardous profession there is. Even a comma, or an apostrophe can go against you.

It’s a universal thing. You may have experienced this impudence by friends and relatives. They said all they could to insult me and advised me to take up something else. There is no money in writing. How will you make ends meet? There’s money to be made in journalism if you are industrious enough, you know, make the right contacts. Journalists are rewarded for their coverage by industrialists and politicians. But when I entered journalism I realised that it was already full of bright guys who clung to their positions like leaches.

Then I worked as a content writer, a technical writer, and finally as a copywriter. I felt the pressure here, too. They think writers are slaves, who can be persuaded to turn in an entire website content in four days, yes, repeat, four days. That also includes, proof checking, and seeing if the fanciful designer hasn’t botched up the copy. Then the chairman decides to participate in an exhibition in a far-off city and all the flexes, display material, and brochures have to be written and printed and reached to a place called Kolhapur. You are told to go there by train to deliver the material. In Kolhapur you are told to share a guest house accommodation with a foul-smelling site manager who spends an hour in the toilet every morning. That, too, for four days.

Yeah, people don’t respect writers. There’s scant respect for the scribe these days. In olden times a “scribe” or “shastri” was respected and honoured. In Bible there is mention of “Pharisees” meaning priests and “scribes” meaning writers. In India Shastris were respected members of the community, accorded the greatest of honours.   

So where’s the respect for writers? Except for the ones who have earned millions. 

The Trip to Kochi

Have you heard of Santa Cruz? There’s a Santa Cruz in California, USA, and there is a Santa Cruz in Bombay. It means “holy cross,” and true to this statement the inhabitants of Santa Cruz, Bombay, are Catholics. It’s an important suburb because Bombay’s domestic airport is situated here. It’s a small place accessed by the Western Express Highway, fronted by the Hotel Centaur. I am travelling to Santa Cruz to board a flight to Kerala, my home state.

On the way I pass the area of my childhood, where I grew up, Chembur. Chembur is also a small suburb on the east side of Bombay, where pollution is high level because of the smoke-belching fertiliser and petrochemical factories. The place I lived in Chembur is called Tilak Nagar, and in those days, it was called Township Colony, which was built to house low-income group migrants who worked mainly in factories in shifts.

Chembur was a violent neighbourhood in those days and is even now. Boys here banded together into gangs for protection. The people who gained notoriety were a twinkle-eyed mischievous boy who grew up to be a super star of the Hindi screen. Another, disreputable boy, grew up to be called the “don” of the city, the underworld lord. He has converted the area into high rises that grow dizzyingly like medieval castles in the sky. It was about these people about whom my mind was occupied with when I rode the taxi to my destination, as our thoughts generally dwell on those people who become talked about, or written about.

Among the children of my generation six have died among which two were suicides. I can’t explain here why pleasant and fun-filled friends of my youth took their own lives. But, when life deals a blow, we can’t do anything about it. The less resourceful end their life, rather than face realities, and make adjustments. The more resourceful – like me – carry on regardless of all the hurts and humiliations. Sigh!

A profusion of highways, flyovers, special lanes, later I am at the airport. I say good morning to the hostess at the airline counter and she smiles back brightly. Done! My day is made! See, after all, I am a man of simple pleasures, and I have a soft spot for ground/air hostesses after seeing this video. (We all want something like that happen to us in real life, don’t we?) But there is need for caution. There are huge Punjabi hunks in lehenga-kurtas lumbering around the departure lounge sharpening their upward-pointed handlebar moustaches. What if they say, “whai didju flirtu with my Punjabi kudi?” Almost, as if expecting this, I twiddle with my own upward-pointed handlebar above my upper lip, though I don’t succeed in showing the malevolence (huh?) of their “Punjab da putr (son of Punjab)” appearance. Never mind.

At Santa Cruz, note: my downturned mustache!

I remember a time when there were no security checks at airports. Can’t believe it? Better believe it. You breezed in collected your boarding pass and passed straight to the aircraft. The terminals were big vacuous places where a few chairs were placed, not many, and after a flight departed there was a gap of a few hours for the next to take off. Nowadays an airport terminal is frenzied place, there are flights landing every few minutes, when the other is ready to take off. And there are people of all types milling around, and, like in a Bombay local train, you consider yourself lucky if you get a place to sit down.

And almost every second person in the flight to Chandigarh is a young luscious lass, in tottering high heels, a curvaceous delight to watch. I know I shouldn’t say this because of the lumbering Punjabis blocking the exits by their show of macho scratching of private areas. The girls are all clutching copies of Vogue and Elle which contain articles such as “20 way to ditch your boyfriend,” “50 ways to remove blackheads,” and nothing more profound, at the very best, than, “10 ways to cook tiramisu.” Which is profound indeed at their age. Oh the vanity of it all, the mundaneness of it all.

Flashy mobile phones, tabs, computers, are everywhere. One girl sitting opposite me, drop-dead gorgeous, is tapping into her Apple MacAir laptop and hardly gazing up from it, even to see if her flight has taken off. It makes me wonder if she likes sitting in airport waiting rooms, doing this all day. I can’t understand this obsession with being connected, and, communicating nothing. I maybe in her friend group on Facebook, who knows? I click a few selfies, though (the wordprocessor suggests “selfish,” which, incidentally, is what it is.)

At last, my flight arrives and a few shoulder pushes and elbowing later, I am safely into my seat, a window seat. You know, we southies are a conservative lot, so no babes holding Vogue and Elle in our plane, just plain Janes wearing saris and sandalwood paste on their foreheads. Hm. I watch as the plane taxies and takes off, one of the most pleasant experiences in my life. The roofs of Bombay are all blue from the plastic stretched on roofs for protection from rain. Then the clouds take over, their shapes like rising hills, valleys, umbrellas, sails, whorls, petals, ghost towns, and stalactites. A sense of déjà vu strikes only then and I lean back for a short nap till I reach Kochi, my destination.

CORPORATE HORROR STORIES – THE Femme Fatale

 The shocking Sheena Bora murder case has familiarised us into the world of corporate femme fatales. You, of course, know who I am talking about. These are girls who come from less privileged homes, wanting to make it big in corporations, at whatever costs. I have had a few experiences about such types, meaning not personally, but to observe from close quarters what happens when sex enters plush corporate cabins, when power corrupts inhabitants of the rarefied realm. I won’t mention names here, for obvious reasons. But, believe me every organisation has a history of a string of dalliances, which have sometimes gone horribly wrong.

The protagonist in our case, an attractive young woman, comes to work in an organisation and soon the boss is besotted by her. She can’t do anything wrong, or, so the boss says. She slowly builds the relationship, goes out for lunches and dinners and attends corporate events with him. The boss maybe sexually frustrated in his marriage, which could be the golden opportunity the femme fatale knows and wants. She offers the clichéd shoulder to cry on and soon it’s the lap that is available. She thus blackmails her way up the hierarchical order, rather ruthlessly eliminating other contenders. Then it could be anything, a “girl friend” or a “wife” tag for her, even Chief Executive Officer (CEO). If she is very smart she becomes a wife, and if she is less talented she becomes a “girl friend,” of the top boss. This brings added power to her position. She becomes a femme fatale, ruthless with underlings, ruthless with the customers. Sometimes, in this way she crosses the line of propriety, but may be corrected by the boss at a high cost and loss of talent.

She takes advantage of the fact that her boss can’t reprimand her. She has manipulated him to such an extent. She can make all policies in the organisation, even if they are ill-advised. She can persuade people to do illegal acts which the employee does out of the need to keep the job. They would do anything to please her, even stand on their heads. She becomes a bit reckless seeing all the power that accrues to her with no great effort from her part. That’s when the downfall begins, the cookies start to crumble.

There is no way you can survive in an organisation if you are in her bad books. Sooner than later she will be at your throat and will see that you leave. It’s better to leave before she can hound you out. I myself was at the receiving side from such a femme fatale. She took huge amounts of the company’s money home, ill-treated her staff, fired many talented employees and made the boss (the managing director) into a puppet. Again no names.

When sex enters the boardroom, it’s a bad sign. My novel “Mr. Bandookwala, M.B.A., Harvard” deals with this aspect. The managing director of Pinnacle Constructions is in a relationship with the head of human resource, and, he can see no fault in what she does, which leads to disaster. Anyways can’t reveal much of the plot here, so have a look at the story outline here.

Movie Review: Gour Hari Dastaan

Director: Ananth Narayan Mahadevan

I am writing this as a film aficionado, a lover of quality films. I haven’t written many film reviews, but am attempting this to bring here the experience of watching the movie, which, to my mind, was a significant experience. In my earlier days, I used to be a lover of good films and have seen the best film-makers from Fellini, Kurosawa, Ray, Irving Stone, Majid Majidi to Indian film-makers like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, Mrinal sen, Muzzafar Ali, and such like. As a person with literary aspirations these films and the subjects on which they were made triggered in me a hunger to know more about people, their lives. I used to go in search of good films when they were playing in the city. In those days there was the AIR auditorium which used to exhibit the best films culled from around the world and I used to be a constant presence in their shows.

But over the years I have become disillusioned by Hindi cinema and have stayed away completely from it. It’s loud, it’s badly sound engineered, the lighting is too harsh, the plots are hackneyed and the script lacks ingenuity. Even films that are hailed as art films haven’t risen above dramatic influences and never have scaled the rungs of cinematic medium.

Disclosure: Ananth Narayan Mahadeven and I have worked in the same organisation, but we have never met. Later, I met him online and we became virtual friends on Facebook. At that time I was recruited as his replacement in a publishing organisation and, sadly, I turned out to be a poor replacement. My boss would praise him too much, proving his talents in from those formative years.

So I am all excited as I sit in the hall waiting for the ads to finish and the film to begin. This is the first film of Mahadevan that I am watching I don’t know if he, the director, would live up to my expectations. It has a dark foreboding opening. The sub titles in English were an advantage in that I could understand the film better. What followed, I confess, wasn’t disappointment but one of my truly good cinematic experiences, excelling in all aspects of film making like acting, sound, music, lighting, et al.

It is to Mahadevan’s credit that he has put together such a talented team and inspired them to perform. Sometimes directors can be control freaks who would psyche even good actors to give their worst performances. Mahadevan’s control over the narrative was apparent from the opening shot. Slumdog Millionaire won Oscars but was a hotch potch of a film. This one is many times better in that it deals with an epoch and in a way that is both sensitive and nostalgic. Towards the end, I was moved to tears. I don’t know if this is because I am sentimental these days or because what I saw in the movie moved me to tears.

The film deals with Das in his entirety, his fight for recognition as a freedom fighter, his approaching Alzheimer, his disappointments dragging him into a secluded chasm of his mind. The very act of visiting several government offices with their petty politics can be nerve wracking to any ordinary citizen. Perhaps, this according to detractors of the director could be the film’s flaw, but in dealing with the whole personality of Gour Hari this is integral to the plot. Gour Hari emerges as a hero. He even clings to his post as secretary of the housing society – despite criticism - to prove a point. To make a film on a living person’s life and not to fall prey to clichés is a wonderful achievement. Credit should also go to novelist and poet CP Surendran’s scripting skills, realistic portrayal of characters, which makes a big difference to the authenticity of the film.

It’s a mark of Indian society that we do not allow talented people to rise above petty feuding. That’s why even a Night Shyamalan would have remained a maker of corporate films and ad films in our society. So the bad press the film has received from some quarters is demeaning and is a shame on us. Elsewhere Mahadevan would have been praised and given his due among the greats of cinema. I am going as far as to suggest that it be sent to the Oscars.

Vinay Phatak shines as Gour Hari. He gives that extra feeling to the character with some under-stated acting. It’s obvious that he is giving the role everything and his talent holds a candle to and exceeds that of many other character actors in Hindi films. Matching his elegance is Ranvir Shorey as the newspaper journalist who champions his cause. Ranvir, hair carelessly tousled, lives the part of a journalist. I don’t know the dusky girl who plays his side-kick but she also does a commendable job. 

Sen’s role is deglamourised but she compensates with talent and involvement. She doesn’t use make-up and it’s towards the end when she lets it fly at the housing society members that the full power of her acting unleashes and the shakti in her as a woman is palpable. She is a remarkable presence throughout the film, acting vulnerable and strong as the situation demands.

Resul Pookutty displays his excellent skills as sound designer. The film is a sound and music aficionado’s delight, even each guitar chord can be delineated from the sound track. When Gour Hari’s son strums his long-neglected guitar, the string breaks, and the sound reverberates in the silent movie theatre. I have had some experience in this aspect. One night a string on my guitar broke and I was aroused in shock from deep sleep by the echoing sound, a loud twang in the night’s silence. Just the act of thinking about a guitar and building it into the plot is an act of genius, according to me.

The film has its light moments, too, in the form of the official (Satish Kaushik) asking if Orissa is in Bengal. When Gour Hari goes to meet the MLA the security man played by Bharat Dhabolkar asks his name and he says he is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Dabolkar’s character may not even know who Gandhi is, so with a dead pan expression on his face he announces Gour Hari as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

I have heard it said in interviews with great icons of cinema that it is important to see that a “set should not look lit.” Hindi films just ignore this aspect of lighting sets. For them the set must dazzle with a hundred blazing lights with the result that the characters’ expressions are lost. In outdoor scenes there are a hundred reflectors and the eyes hurt to look at the screen. It’s a wonderful example of Mahadevan’s talent that he hasn’t resorted to over-lighting like other Hindi directors. I think other directors should learn from him.

All said and done, a finely crafted film, a beautifully construed and written film, a film that should go into the annals of Indian film making as another milestone. If I was a juror I would nominate it to go to the Oscars and would wish Vinay Phatak, or, Konkona Sen to win the award for best actor and Mahadevan for best director in the foreign films category.