The words of this song are almost more beautiful - if that is possible - than the film - Cars"! This is a film that everyone must see and maybe own!
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
In Celebration of the Real Woman
This is for every single sigh that you have heaved evertime you have looked at an ad for L'Oreal or Clinique or whatever and wished why God didn't take a little more time making you up. The answer is because he was too busy planning the Photoshop!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
What if you said you loved me....
What if you said you loved me….
Reciprocating
Ache for ache
Measuring your longing
Against mine
Sigh for sigh
What if you said you loved me….
What would I do for dreams
Day and night
What would slip under my eyelids
Open and shut
And fill my soulscape
With the 70 mm, Technicolor impossibility
Of you and me?
What if you said you loved me….
Would it pall
If I had on call
Your arms to wrap around
And lose myself in that urgent tenderness
Your face to nuzzle
Any leftover nook that your arms overlooked?
If I had on tap
The taste of you to dreamily lick off my lips
And savor in some vacant reverie
Your head to fill
My lap?
What if you said you loved me
Would I tire,
No more desire
To claim you in every public place
With my eyes, my thigh
Proprietarily ranged so warm, so close
Against yours?
Would it be a bore
To know that you adore
Crave
Rave
Yearn
Burn
Hunger
Hanker
After, for me
Just the way,
(Will you say?)
I am
Was
Ever will be
Hangnails, varicose veins and all
For the way
(Will you say?)
my skin spills, satin
over my shoulders
And disappears to some undisclosed destination
That you
Crave
Rave
Yearn
Burn
Hunger
Hanker
To find…..
What if you said you loved me?
What if then
When
We reach Happily After
And have sipped the welcome gin
Settled in
Walked hand in hand
Over the indulgent, insouciant sand
Traced the rest of our lives
On each others’ bodies, breaths,
What then?
What would we do for afters….
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Tales From A Celphone
I shot these pics while fooling around with the camera on my Nokia 6070 celphone....and then since they were all flowers, i thought i'd put some music to it and what better song than Kishore Da's beautiful "Phoolon ke Rang se...'
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Mysooru
Er, firstly we liked to apologise. In Mysore we no have acres of golden beach to loll around on. sip chilled beer and pig out on chili crab. (There are a few little rivers but I’m not sure how they’re stocked up on crabs). No healing hot springs, no exhilarating mountain views, no night spots, no shopping worth talking about and to top it all cuisine that has as its star performers a dosa and a not-very pretty looking sweet called Mysore pak. But – and this is where we stop apologizing – we do pack in a wallop of centuries in pedigree. Mysore is most likely the “Mahishamandala” mentioned in the ancient Buddhist texts, the place to which the emperor Ashoka sent the monk Mahadeva to propagate Buddhism. And that fact that we were till recently the capital of a kingdom ruled by a 600-year old dynasty of Lord Krishna’s Yadu vamsa shows. A clutch of fabulous palaces (at least 2 of which you can stay in) and royal mansions in the pink of health scattered around nonchalantly like so much chopped coriander on bhelpuri. (Every government office worth its weight in red tape is housed in one). Naturally, with such ancestry (how many can claim to have a throne which, as one story goes, once belonged to the Pandavas?), we don’t forget easily. That we were once terrorized by the terrible demon Mahishasura and that the Devi took it upon herself to liberate us. Who then, because we have such pretty weather, decided to take up residence atop a charming little wooded hill as the goddess Chamundeswari, a sobriquet acquired because her habit of slaying demons had made short work of 2 other fearsome demons, Chanda and Munda. So, in gratitude, we named the hill Chamundi in her honour, built her a fabulous temple with a 120 ft high gopuram that you can see from almost any point in Mysore. And in case the demon had any ideas of resurrecting himself (demons are known to do such things), in a cunning sleight of hand, we put up a massive likeness of him on top of the hill so that he’d scare himself away. We also called ourselves Mahishasura Ooru, now corrupted to Mysore, because in a way, we’re indebted to the demon too. After all, he did bring us the attention of the Devi!
So, first to the palaces. Now we Mysoreans are a modest lot and bragging doesn’t come easily. But, I must say, we’re rather good at palaces. Of the two most spectacular, the first one is simply called – what else, the Mysore Palace. When the old palace was partially destroyed in a fire in 1897 just after his elder sister’s wedding, the then heir to the throne, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV was just 15 years old and his mum, the Regent Queen decided that if they had to build a new one, it should be something fit for a er, king. So, what began in 1897 finally emerged in splendid glory 15 years later, its massive central golden dome imperiously poking the azure blue Mysore sky. With five imposing gates, the largest 45 feet in breadth and grandly called the Jayamartanda Gate, and in the protective embrace of 8 temples of varying antiquity, the oldest more than 6 centuries old, the palace itself is a stunning example of Indo Saracenic architecture. (Which is a politer way, perhaps, of saying a khichdi of Western, Indian and Moghul architectural styles). Three ceremonial halls, the first for the royal weddings with a ceiling made entirely of stained glass with a peacock motif and a floor to match. The second reserved for private audiences by the Maharaja with 3 massive doors, 2 of them silver. And the third, a magnificent 155 ft by 42 ft Durbar Hall or the Diwan-e-Aam in breathtaking turquoise and gold arches and columns, lined on one side with paintings, many of them by Raja Ravi Varma, framed in semi-precious stones under a painted ceiling depicting amongst other things, the 10 avatars of Vishnu. This was the astonished comment of a British visitor. “No short description, if any, can do justice to the beauty of line, wealth of material, blaze of colour and exuberance of decoration in the great Durbar Hall…” And in case you don’t get the point, we light up the palace on Sundays, government holidays and festivals with 97,000 light bulbs.
The thing is, when you build a palace like this on, it can become a habit. So, the maharajah decided that the Mysore palace was all very well, magnificent seat of power and all that, but even a king needed a bit of privacy now and then where he could potter around in peace and quiet, undisturbed by pressing matters of state. Besides, there was the British Viceroy to also keep happy. So, away from the heat and the dust of statesmanship, nestling cosily at the feet of Chamundi Hill, he built another palace. Nothing very posh, mind you, just a little summer cottage, a cross between an English stately home and an Italian palazzo (with marble imported to match) with a piffling 54 rooms, a ballroom and a viceroy room (whatever that is) on an estate that sprawls over lush acres of land and situated so that when he could keep a longing eye on it whenever he held durbar in the Diwan-e-Aam. Lalith Mahal Palace. Which it is called to this day, except that now it is a 5-star hotel, with the original stunning architecture and interiors beautifully preserved. Naturally, the prices match. So stay there if you don’t mind paying upwards of 6000 rupees a night to find out what it is to live like a king and if you really want to go all the way, plum for the turret rooms at the top of the palace.
Now if staying in palaces are a turn on but your pocket isn’t of kingly proportions, then there is the Chittaranjan palace, a beautiful little mansion which the maharaja built for his princesses, now called the more prosaic “Greens Hotel” to cue its eco-friendliness. Ergo no telly, telephone, elevator, air-conditioning and no mosquito repellant, just small ponds stuffed with tilapia, the mosquito-eating fish. If you can afford it, stay in the main building where the tariff is a stiff upwards of 3750 rupees but the rooms having been painstakingly restored to their original beauty; their names should give you a clue - Marigold Room, Rose Room, Princess's Room and The Honeymoon Suite complete with a 4-poster bed! And if you can’t, there is the “garden block” with rooms rather less well, princess-y but nice all the same (1300Rs. a night). Whatever you stay in, make sure you take a peek the Bollywood rooms (large and small!). And the hotel has one other thing that gives you an idea of what kind of holiday it expects you to have – a quaint little library complete with stained glass window, easy chair and R.K. Narayanan. Rated by the Independent newspaper as one of the best 50 budget hotels in world, the hotel is run by a UK charity that donates all profits to charitable and environmental projects in India. Two other ex-royal residences - one on top of Chamundi Hill and the other at Brindavan Gardens - used to be hotels but have since been closed down. (The one at Brindavan has a view of the garden from all the rooms!) The good news is that there are plans to revive at least one of them, together with the very elegant Hotel Metropole, which used to something of a landmark and a must-stay in Mysore.
But if you really want a great getaway, your best bet is the Village. At the base of Chamundi Hills, it’s an exquisite property, winning it the both the National and South Asian Award for excellence in architecture. Sprawled around a perfectly manicured, emerald green expanse of lawn, the rooms are large and beautifully airy with French windows that overlook this or the other verdant patch. Some of the rooms even have their own little sunny terraces. Bamboo, guava, grapefruit, frangipani, acra and coconut palm jostle hundreds of little flowering and other plants and shrubs. Brick and wood and terracotta blend simply and beautifully into the gorgeous surroundings. A gym, a tennis court, a bright blue jewel of a swimming pool with a little Jacuzzi and here and there, garden furniture inviting you to do nothing except soak up the sun. Actually it’s all there in the self-effacing little tariff card – “Work out, chill out. Dive or dream. Walk, jog, saunter or swing. Feast on a morsel, a hug, a book, a game or just on the smell of fresh earth...”
Right. So you’re all settled in, the free welcome drink is down the hatch, now what’s to do?
Well, apart from palaces, we’re pretty good at gardens too. (We have something of a reputation in flowers, growing a jasmine so sweet-smelling that it is named after us. Mysore Mallige.) There’s one called Brindavan – if you can call an acre a garden – complete with dancing fountains and lights. A garden so pretty, it used to be the favoured location to shoot Hindi film songs (remember “Kehna hai” and a besotted Sunil Dutt serenading the pertly pretty Saira Banu in Padosan?). Till Yash Chopra discovered Switzerland. We must warn you though - to get to it, you have to walk a 3km stretch over spectacular cascading waters across India’s very first irrigation dam. The Krishnaraja Sagar Dam which tames and harnesses the waters of 3 rivers - the Kaveri, Hemavati and Lakshmanathirtha – all in one masterly swoop. Then there’s the Mysore Zoo. Or rather a zoological garden that houses animals in what would be more or less their natural habitat. It’s over a century old, some of the trees are older, but newborns really in comparison to the tree stump, carbon dated as having been around since a few million years ago. Zoo or garden, it’s the perfect place to lazy day, strolling around and looking at the spectacular display of both flora (85 different species of plants and trees) and 35 species of fauna –, everything from king cobras, tigers (Royal Bengal and white), elephants (Indian and African), lion-tailed macaques, Australian emus, giraffes, Himalayan black bear, Indian bison, Egyptian baboons and a rather boastful bunch of peacocks; about the only unashamed braggarts in Mysore…..
Which leaves the art gallery, studded with Titian and Rubens and Roerich and Raja Ravi Varma, housed in yet another palace (I told you, this palace thing can be catching) the Jaganmohan Palace, which the maharaja built because he was in between residences and needed a place to crowned and married in. And if by now, you’re not yet suffering from an overdose heritage buildings, there is the St. Philomena’s church, said to have been modeled after the Gothic cathedral in Cologne, its exquisite twin spires delicately stretching 165 feet up. And if you are, then you can take off. To Srirangapatna, to visit Lord Vishnu, taking time off from the increasingly difficult job of Divine Preserver for a well-deserved lie-in under the protective hood of the mighty Anantha in the fabulous Ranganatha Temple. Or Tipu, perhaps still dreaming of battles yet to be fought, lying buried near his gently dilapidated but still beautiful summer palace, the Dariya Daulat. . “It’s better”, he said, "to live once like a lion, rather than have ten lives like a sheep". Or then to one of the 2 national parks, (Nagarhole or Bandipur) to check out what the tigers and bison are up to. Or to the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary where after peeping at egrets and kingfishers and ibis and whistling teals (some of them coming all the way from Siberia and Australia), you can munch on a picnic lunch and drift dreamily down the river in charming round boats made of cane.
That’s the lot then. And now that I have done my bit as a tourist guide, dutifully selling palace-temple-garden-bull ( oh dear, I did forget the bull-on-the-hill; name - Nandi, 48 feet high of undiluted black granite, preferred wheels of Lord Shiva.), I’ll let you a little secret about Mysore. Don’t get fooled by the odd glittering showroom or Johnny-come-lately supermarket or the gaggle of excited, rickety mopeds rushing to Nowhere. Remember, as you watch that shiny-rude Santro trying to overtake that bullock cart, that in these parts, the bullock cart has right of way. In the fast lane. What I mean to say, me darlings, is this. When you’ve been around as long as we have, you kinda figure that a century is just an apologetic drop in Time’s backwaters. So, more than anything else, come to Mysore to learn to just be. Twine the scent of a Mysore Mallige around your nostrils and listen to your thoughts thinking. The air is air-conditioned, the sunshine just hot enough to lovingly toast your skin and ….. well, let just say it’s all there on the signboard outside a nearby Tibetan monastery. “It’s better to be 15 minutes late in this world than be 15 minutes early in the next. Speed 10kms per hour.” Our sentiments exactly.
So, first to the palaces. Now we Mysoreans are a modest lot and bragging doesn’t come easily. But, I must say, we’re rather good at palaces. Of the two most spectacular, the first one is simply called – what else, the Mysore Palace. When the old palace was partially destroyed in a fire in 1897 just after his elder sister’s wedding, the then heir to the throne, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV was just 15 years old and his mum, the Regent Queen decided that if they had to build a new one, it should be something fit for a er, king. So, what began in 1897 finally emerged in splendid glory 15 years later, its massive central golden dome imperiously poking the azure blue Mysore sky. With five imposing gates, the largest 45 feet in breadth and grandly called the Jayamartanda Gate, and in the protective embrace of 8 temples of varying antiquity, the oldest more than 6 centuries old, the palace itself is a stunning example of Indo Saracenic architecture. (Which is a politer way, perhaps, of saying a khichdi of Western, Indian and Moghul architectural styles). Three ceremonial halls, the first for the royal weddings with a ceiling made entirely of stained glass with a peacock motif and a floor to match. The second reserved for private audiences by the Maharaja with 3 massive doors, 2 of them silver. And the third, a magnificent 155 ft by 42 ft Durbar Hall or the Diwan-e-Aam in breathtaking turquoise and gold arches and columns, lined on one side with paintings, many of them by Raja Ravi Varma, framed in semi-precious stones under a painted ceiling depicting amongst other things, the 10 avatars of Vishnu. This was the astonished comment of a British visitor. “No short description, if any, can do justice to the beauty of line, wealth of material, blaze of colour and exuberance of decoration in the great Durbar Hall…” And in case you don’t get the point, we light up the palace on Sundays, government holidays and festivals with 97,000 light bulbs.
The thing is, when you build a palace like this on, it can become a habit. So, the maharajah decided that the Mysore palace was all very well, magnificent seat of power and all that, but even a king needed a bit of privacy now and then where he could potter around in peace and quiet, undisturbed by pressing matters of state. Besides, there was the British Viceroy to also keep happy. So, away from the heat and the dust of statesmanship, nestling cosily at the feet of Chamundi Hill, he built another palace. Nothing very posh, mind you, just a little summer cottage, a cross between an English stately home and an Italian palazzo (with marble imported to match) with a piffling 54 rooms, a ballroom and a viceroy room (whatever that is) on an estate that sprawls over lush acres of land and situated so that when he could keep a longing eye on it whenever he held durbar in the Diwan-e-Aam. Lalith Mahal Palace. Which it is called to this day, except that now it is a 5-star hotel, with the original stunning architecture and interiors beautifully preserved. Naturally, the prices match. So stay there if you don’t mind paying upwards of 6000 rupees a night to find out what it is to live like a king and if you really want to go all the way, plum for the turret rooms at the top of the palace.
Now if staying in palaces are a turn on but your pocket isn’t of kingly proportions, then there is the Chittaranjan palace, a beautiful little mansion which the maharaja built for his princesses, now called the more prosaic “Greens Hotel” to cue its eco-friendliness. Ergo no telly, telephone, elevator, air-conditioning and no mosquito repellant, just small ponds stuffed with tilapia, the mosquito-eating fish. If you can afford it, stay in the main building where the tariff is a stiff upwards of 3750 rupees but the rooms having been painstakingly restored to their original beauty; their names should give you a clue - Marigold Room, Rose Room, Princess's Room and The Honeymoon Suite complete with a 4-poster bed! And if you can’t, there is the “garden block” with rooms rather less well, princess-y but nice all the same (1300Rs. a night). Whatever you stay in, make sure you take a peek the Bollywood rooms (large and small!). And the hotel has one other thing that gives you an idea of what kind of holiday it expects you to have – a quaint little library complete with stained glass window, easy chair and R.K. Narayanan. Rated by the Independent newspaper as one of the best 50 budget hotels in world, the hotel is run by a UK charity that donates all profits to charitable and environmental projects in India. Two other ex-royal residences - one on top of Chamundi Hill and the other at Brindavan Gardens - used to be hotels but have since been closed down. (The one at Brindavan has a view of the garden from all the rooms!) The good news is that there are plans to revive at least one of them, together with the very elegant Hotel Metropole, which used to something of a landmark and a must-stay in Mysore.
But if you really want a great getaway, your best bet is the Village. At the base of Chamundi Hills, it’s an exquisite property, winning it the both the National and South Asian Award for excellence in architecture. Sprawled around a perfectly manicured, emerald green expanse of lawn, the rooms are large and beautifully airy with French windows that overlook this or the other verdant patch. Some of the rooms even have their own little sunny terraces. Bamboo, guava, grapefruit, frangipani, acra and coconut palm jostle hundreds of little flowering and other plants and shrubs. Brick and wood and terracotta blend simply and beautifully into the gorgeous surroundings. A gym, a tennis court, a bright blue jewel of a swimming pool with a little Jacuzzi and here and there, garden furniture inviting you to do nothing except soak up the sun. Actually it’s all there in the self-effacing little tariff card – “Work out, chill out. Dive or dream. Walk, jog, saunter or swing. Feast on a morsel, a hug, a book, a game or just on the smell of fresh earth...”
Right. So you’re all settled in, the free welcome drink is down the hatch, now what’s to do?
Well, apart from palaces, we’re pretty good at gardens too. (We have something of a reputation in flowers, growing a jasmine so sweet-smelling that it is named after us. Mysore Mallige.) There’s one called Brindavan – if you can call an acre a garden – complete with dancing fountains and lights. A garden so pretty, it used to be the favoured location to shoot Hindi film songs (remember “Kehna hai” and a besotted Sunil Dutt serenading the pertly pretty Saira Banu in Padosan?). Till Yash Chopra discovered Switzerland. We must warn you though - to get to it, you have to walk a 3km stretch over spectacular cascading waters across India’s very first irrigation dam. The Krishnaraja Sagar Dam which tames and harnesses the waters of 3 rivers - the Kaveri, Hemavati and Lakshmanathirtha – all in one masterly swoop. Then there’s the Mysore Zoo. Or rather a zoological garden that houses animals in what would be more or less their natural habitat. It’s over a century old, some of the trees are older, but newborns really in comparison to the tree stump, carbon dated as having been around since a few million years ago. Zoo or garden, it’s the perfect place to lazy day, strolling around and looking at the spectacular display of both flora (85 different species of plants and trees) and 35 species of fauna –, everything from king cobras, tigers (Royal Bengal and white), elephants (Indian and African), lion-tailed macaques, Australian emus, giraffes, Himalayan black bear, Indian bison, Egyptian baboons and a rather boastful bunch of peacocks; about the only unashamed braggarts in Mysore…..
Which leaves the art gallery, studded with Titian and Rubens and Roerich and Raja Ravi Varma, housed in yet another palace (I told you, this palace thing can be catching) the Jaganmohan Palace, which the maharaja built because he was in between residences and needed a place to crowned and married in. And if by now, you’re not yet suffering from an overdose heritage buildings, there is the St. Philomena’s church, said to have been modeled after the Gothic cathedral in Cologne, its exquisite twin spires delicately stretching 165 feet up. And if you are, then you can take off. To Srirangapatna, to visit Lord Vishnu, taking time off from the increasingly difficult job of Divine Preserver for a well-deserved lie-in under the protective hood of the mighty Anantha in the fabulous Ranganatha Temple. Or Tipu, perhaps still dreaming of battles yet to be fought, lying buried near his gently dilapidated but still beautiful summer palace, the Dariya Daulat. . “It’s better”, he said, "to live once like a lion, rather than have ten lives like a sheep". Or then to one of the 2 national parks, (Nagarhole or Bandipur) to check out what the tigers and bison are up to. Or to the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary where after peeping at egrets and kingfishers and ibis and whistling teals (some of them coming all the way from Siberia and Australia), you can munch on a picnic lunch and drift dreamily down the river in charming round boats made of cane.
That’s the lot then. And now that I have done my bit as a tourist guide, dutifully selling palace-temple-garden-bull ( oh dear, I did forget the bull-on-the-hill; name - Nandi, 48 feet high of undiluted black granite, preferred wheels of Lord Shiva.), I’ll let you a little secret about Mysore. Don’t get fooled by the odd glittering showroom or Johnny-come-lately supermarket or the gaggle of excited, rickety mopeds rushing to Nowhere. Remember, as you watch that shiny-rude Santro trying to overtake that bullock cart, that in these parts, the bullock cart has right of way. In the fast lane. What I mean to say, me darlings, is this. When you’ve been around as long as we have, you kinda figure that a century is just an apologetic drop in Time’s backwaters. So, more than anything else, come to Mysore to learn to just be. Twine the scent of a Mysore Mallige around your nostrils and listen to your thoughts thinking. The air is air-conditioned, the sunshine just hot enough to lovingly toast your skin and ….. well, let just say it’s all there on the signboard outside a nearby Tibetan monastery. “It’s better to be 15 minutes late in this world than be 15 minutes early in the next. Speed 10kms per hour.” Our sentiments exactly.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Money Talk!
Money talk
It’s a man’s world honey
Cause he’s got the money
And you don’t
Think about it
Why its Mister Money Bags, sweetie are you surprised
When the only bags you’re allowed are those under your eyes?
Why pretty girls have sugar daddies
But there ain’t seem to be no sugar mommies
It’s a man’s world honey
Cause he’s got the money
And you don’t
Think about it
Why a lakh or a crore is always gotta be a pati
And a patni’s just a dharm or sometimes a sati
Why “Play” plus “boy” equals to lots of lolly
And “Play” plus “girl” is just a centrespread dolly
It’s a man’s world honey
Cause he’s got the money
And you don’t
So that’s the bottomline
He’s got the paisa so he’s the boss
The sooner you get that the more you’ve got
So bindiya chamka ke kajra those eyes
It’s time to take my advice
Bank balance ko dekho, bas yehi hai khaas
Gun aur gotra, yeh sab hai bakwas
Lav-shav ko chodo, say bye to romance
Dulah-mia’s the one with lots of finance
So chodo liberation aur sambhalo choola
Hubby khush hoke dega tumhe lotsa moolah
Then kya jodi banegi uski tumhari
Tu roop ki devi, who dhan ka pujari
So…….
It’s a man’s world honey
See, he’s got the money
But now it’s your world too
Cause he’s attached to you!
It’s a man’s world honey
Cause he’s got the money
And you don’t
Think about it
Why its Mister Money Bags, sweetie are you surprised
When the only bags you’re allowed are those under your eyes?
Why pretty girls have sugar daddies
But there ain’t seem to be no sugar mommies
It’s a man’s world honey
Cause he’s got the money
And you don’t
Think about it
Why a lakh or a crore is always gotta be a pati
And a patni’s just a dharm or sometimes a sati
Why “Play” plus “boy” equals to lots of lolly
And “Play” plus “girl” is just a centrespread dolly
It’s a man’s world honey
Cause he’s got the money
And you don’t
So that’s the bottomline
He’s got the paisa so he’s the boss
The sooner you get that the more you’ve got
So bindiya chamka ke kajra those eyes
It’s time to take my advice
Bank balance ko dekho, bas yehi hai khaas
Gun aur gotra, yeh sab hai bakwas
Lav-shav ko chodo, say bye to romance
Dulah-mia’s the one with lots of finance
So chodo liberation aur sambhalo choola
Hubby khush hoke dega tumhe lotsa moolah
Then kya jodi banegi uski tumhari
Tu roop ki devi, who dhan ka pujari
So…….
It’s a man’s world honey
See, he’s got the money
But now it’s your world too
Cause he’s attached to you!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Thoughts of a Water POTS
We are reeling in the throes of a very severe crisis of water.
“We” as in all of Karnataka, the thumb rule being, the poorer you are, the more “wrong-side-of-the-Cauvery” your address and the smaller your town, the less water you get.
Yesterday, the front page morning news said that 3000 villages in the state have “severe shortage” of drinking water. That means we won’t even talk about how much water they get to bathe, cook and ablute…
Naturally, the Chief Minister, always sensitive to such situations, immediately sanctioned 50 crores of rupees to “tackle the problem”. I know that I should have been impressed but since I am a foolish, uninformed, naïve “Person On The Street” (POTS ), I can’t help wondering about a few things.
So, here’s my Naïve, Foolish Question No 1:
If there is no water, how do you “tackle” the problem of water shortage?
Maybe we could take a leaf out of Marie Antoinette’s book and give people…let me see, now….if she suggested cake as substitute for bread then could it be cola for water? And how many villages can be cola-fied for 50 crores? (I’m told that Hrithik Roshan’s current fee is 10 crores per film. So, how many “Sabka Thanda” films would Aamir do for 50 crores?)
More importantly, the Chief Minister also “endorsed the idea” of opening 24/7 (no relative of the TV news channel) control rooms to repair water pumps and such like things.
Naïve, Foolish Question No. 2 : Why weren’t the pumps repaired earlier – like say before the onset of summer?
Naïve, Foolish Question No. 3 – If there is no water, what are they going to pump?
Cola, maybe?
Or better still, Eau De Cologne? Which, if you think about it, will be great because it will cool you down AND tackle the stink of unwashed bodies, stagnant drains and toilet cooking in 35 + degrees heat. And it will also put Karnataka on the global map because “Eau” is water in French…
(Though I’m not sure of the Eau’s properties as a thirst quencher even though it means water in French.)
Now, fortunately for me, I don’t live in one of those 3000 villages but in Mysore - a city that is flanked by not one but two rivers – the Cauvery and the Kabini.
So, obviously we don’t have a water problem, right.
Ah.
Let me answer your question like this.
As of this Saturday, we get water once in every 2 days. And we live in one of the “righter” side of the Cauvery areas – not posh, but getting there. Now, the critical word in that statement is “day” - which can be a tad misleading because most POTS will assume that “day” means what is also called “waking hours”, stretching from about 6.30 am to 11.30 pm. (Those were my waking hours.)
Wrong
For the Water department of MCC (which does not stand for the Marleyborne Cricket Club but the Mysore Municipal Corporation), “day” begins roughly around 3 am and ends at around 6.30 am. I know. You’re thinking that’s only 4 hours. Well, these are difficult times you know and everything is rationed. Water. Daylight hours.
So now, I have turned into a water POTS, sleeping deeply by “day” and napping fitfully at night, leaping up at the faintest sound of drip-gurgle-goosh-drip-gurgle-goosh-goosh-goosh (the sweetest sound in the world), so that I can hunt water in the stealth of the dark, trap a few bottles to drink, prowl and prey on a few buckets to cook and bathe with.
And so, my day begins at 3.30 am…
But only on alternate days, I must add and marvel at the thoughtfulness of the MCC. Because on the days when there is no water, I get to slumber on, nary a care in the world, not a drip-gurgle-goosh-drip-gurgle-goosh-goosh-goosh to disturb my sleep.
Now if this sounds like I am cribbing, I’m not. I am just counting my blessings, because you see, we are the very, very fortunate ones. There are places not so far away from here where water comes only once a week, maybe even once in ten days….And places where they may not even know when the water will come and all they can do is call the 24/7 control room to repair the water pump to pump the water that isn’t really there…
I have devised ingenious methods of conserving water – nothing that will fill the KRS, mind you, but gargle 3 times after brushing my teeth instead of the usual 6 and have perfected the art of bathing with ¾ of a bucket of water. (Not that difficult if you concentrate and pour right) We choose the lunch menu based on what takes the least amount of water to cook with and clean up later and we aren’t encouraging guests.
Don’t laugh. If shutting off a tap that drips 10 drops of water in a minute can save 270 gallons a year, my cutting my morning gargle by 50% should amount to something, is it not?
And in the 2 inches of brackish water that sloshes around in my water-deprived brain, more Naïve Foolish Questions bob around like so much jetsam…
• Last night, I was reading William Dalrymple’s book, “The Age of the Kali”. Pages 165 to 173 are devoted to Bangalore and I quote: “ The government of Karnataka, which has proved itself adept at attracting foreign investment, soon showed itself to be wholly unable to cope with the massive expansion that it was able to generate. Suddenly there was never enough electricity….it was the same with water, which was usually available in taps for less than an hour a day…” The book was written in 1998. Nine years later, the morning news says “40% of Bangalore are getting water once in 3 days”. When will we ever learn?
• What is it like to have a 2 month old baby, not be able to afford disposable diapers and manage to have clean nappies using water that arrives once in 3 days for 4 hours?
• Why is it that we always wake up to a water crisis when the “water level in the KRS is 12 feet lower than it was at the same time last year”? Shouldn’t alarm bells start ringing much earlier? When the water is 3 feet lower, maybe?
• Don’t the Municipal authorities know how to do simple math? I mean, how difficult is it to match the amount of water needed by a city with the amount of water available in the reservoir? By how many feet does the level of water in the KRS have to be lower than it was last year before this happens?
• Why is water – or any other civic issue for that matter – always only a problem for the authorities to solve? How come in all the caterwauling and screaming about the incompetence of the authorities to manage the “water situation”, there is not a single drop of a suggestion from “concerned citizens’ groups” about we can do to help? For example, in Mysore, most people live in independent houses and wash their compounds every single morning, often with the tap running constantly. How come we aren’t rallying together to tell the MCC that we will was our compounds only once every 3 days until the water problem abates?
• All over Mysore – and I am sure it is the same in Bangalore – buildings of all kinds are continuously under construction. If there is such a water crisis, where are these builders getting their water from? Or are they simply using cola (or Eau de Cologne) to mix the cement...
• How many gallons of water would you need to run a hotel with 200 rooms, 4 fancy restaurants and clientele who are paying upwards of 5000 rupees a night as tariff? Of the millions of gallons of water being pumped out to a city every day, a fair number must be going to hotels. So how about the hotel industry in Bangalore chipping in and announcing that for one day of the week for the next two months, the hotels remain closed in order to do their bit for water conservation?
And here is my final Naïve Foolish Question….
What if the monsoons fail this year?
Picture : http://www.ifrc.org/PHOTO/Guatemala0303/p4660.jpg
Friday, March 02, 2007
Colours of Joy
The Colours of Joy
By Ratna Rajaiah
Chaitrotsava.
Phagwa.
Madhutsava.
Madanamahotsava.
Kamotsava
Sirapanchami.
Rangapanchami.
Or then, simply Holi.
Tomorrow, much of India is going to be drenched in riotous colour and music and dance as we celebrate what is popularly known as the festival of colours. And no, I am not going to talk about the health hazards of coloured powders that are used these days to play Holi.
Nor rave and rant about the rude, impolite, often nasty practices that have crept in like using mud and cow dung and oil paint, even sewage. Nor hold forth about celebrating Holi the organic way. Though being a die-hard New Age type, I will touch upon the subject!
Instead, I ask you to walk with me and discover the many wonderful and little known aspects of Holi, in the hope that we will thus capture the magic of one of the happiest, most joyous and glorious festivals that dot our calendar.
Phagun aayo re!
“ketaki gulab juhi champaka….”
Phalguna. One of Arjuna’s many names because he was born in this month - Phalguna or Phagun.
And what a month! When the earth, getting ready for summer, shrugs off the last remaining sluggishness of winter and sidles up to the sun. Who, rather pleased by this attention, warms and coaxes everything to lustily, merrily sprout and bud and flower and hatch and breed and turn from withered ol’ brown to lush new green. A heady, rapturous, enchanting month, where mango blossoms burst forth like torches of lace, kissed here and there by tiny green baby mangoes.
So Phagun marks the beginning of what they call spring. But we have a much better name for this season in India – Vasant or Basant, a season so heady that we even have a couple of ragas dedicated to it! And Phagun is also the month when we celebrate Holi because of which it is also called Phagwa or Phalgunotsava. Or then, more appropriately, Vasantotsav - the festival of spring.
Colour me Red!
Think about it. Holi is the only festival which we “play”. And so, how can we speak of Holi and not talk about colour? Colours that we steal from Mother Nature, decking herself up in her spring finery, to joyously splash each other with.
Scarlet from the hibiscus, purple from the jamun fruit, yellow from the lemon and the sun, blue from a hot summer sky, and green from the parrot’s wing and the cheeky green chili. And saffron from…..
Actualy, Nature was the source of the colours with which Holi was played in ancient times. “Gulal”, the Hindi word which today refers to all the Holi coloured powders, was originally the kesar (saffron-colour)coloured powder made from the dried flowers of a tree.
A tree appropriately called the “Flame of the Forest”, because its velvety flowers (shaped like a parrot’s beak which is why it is also called the parrot tree) are a breathtaking, blazing orange that virtually “set light” the place where they grow. And with Nature’s impeccable timing, the trees burst into flame…er, I mean burst bloom flowers, in February, staying on nearly to the end of April!It is said that Lord Krishna played Holi with this very same "gulal".
But the Palasha tree (as it is called in Sanskrit and Hindi) is not just a pretty face.
First let me tell you the rather charming legend about it. Considered sacred to the moon, it is said to have come to life when the feather of a falcon was dipped into soma, the nectar of the Gods. And so, it came to be considered is a sacred tree, an integral part of many Hindu religious ceremonies, the trifoliate formation of the leaves said to represent the Holy Triumvirate, Vishnu in the middle, Brahma on the left and Shiva on the right.
But legend apart, this tree (botanical name : Butea Monosperma and Butea Frondosa is the rare Indian variety with yellow flowers), also called the Dhak or Bastard Teak, has many uses. The tree acts as a host for the lac insect which produces lac, the base ingredient for shellac and varnish. All parts of it are used in Ayurveda for panchakarma therapies and in Unani medicine. The dried leaves are used to make plates and cups and for wrapping tobacco to make biddies.
And of course, come the month of Phagun, thousands of the flowers are dried and then ground to produce the gorgeous Holi powder called ‘gulal’…..
Ancient Holi
A spring festival has to be as old as…well, as old as spring itself, but Holi is celebrated for other reasons as well. Here are two of the most popular ones:
The demon king Hiranyakasipu’s hatred Lord Vishnu for killing elder his brother Hiranyaksa was so great that he wanted to destroy his own son Prahlad. Because despite his father’s best efforts, he had turned out to be Lord Vishnu’s most ardent devotee and continued to be so despite the most terrible tortures heaped upon him by his father. Hiranyakasipu’s sister Holika had been given the boon that fire could not destroy her. So, Hiranyakasipu ordered that Holika sit with the child Prahlad in a huge bonfire. When she did, the fire destroyed Holika and the child was unharmed. And so Holi is celebrated – like so many other festivals– as the triumph of good over evil.
One of Holi’s lesser known names is Anangotsava. Ananga means “without a body”. When Kamadeva, spurred by Lord Indra to make Lord Shiva fall in love with Parvati, shot an arrow in Siva's heart as he sat deep in meditation, the enraged Maheshwara opened his third eye and reduced poor Kamadeva to ashes. And so, Kamadeva got another name - “Ananga”, and the occasion is celebrated as Kamavilas, Kaman Pandigai or Kama-dahanam (or Madanamahotsava meaning the Festival of Kama), especially in many parts of South India.
I know. We’re all thinking - is being reduced to ashes is a reason to celebrate or a reason to mourn? Well, it is said the festiva honours Kamadeva’s selfless sacrifice for the cause of true love! And the traditional offerings to this God of Love are sandalwood paste to soothe the agony of his burns and mango blossoms which apparently are his favorite flower.
Incidentally, the story also has a happy ending because after he was so devastatingly incinerated, Kamadeva’s wife Rati, prayed to Lord Siva to restore her husband to life. Siva was placated by Rati’s prayers and arranged so that Kamadeva be reborn as Lord Krishna’s son by his wife Rukmini.
Krishna’s festival
No discussion on Holi can be complete without talking about Lord Krishna. Because, the most evocative, sensuous, rapturous, enchanting images of Holi are that of Lord Krishna playing Holi with his beloved Radha and the gopis. In Mathura, Holi festivities, even to this day, extend over 16 days and are centred around Lord Krishna’s birthplace, Nandgaon and Radha’s birthplace, Barsana.
There is even a beautiful lake called Gulal Kund!
These images have been repeatedly captured and celebrated in art and poetry and theatre and dance. And been the inspiration for the genesis of a very beautiful genre of Hindustani classical music called hori or compositions about Holi, sung in a very ancient style of singing called dhamar, dating back to the 13th century. When the great musical geniuses of Swami Haridas, Baba Gopal Das, Tansen and Baiju Bawra were taking dhrupad singing to its finest glory, the hori was also coming into its own.
In fact, hori songs were performed with great gusto in the court of that famed royal patron of music, Emperor Akbar. And typically, all hori compositions are about the mischievous, irresistible Krishna, cavorting with his Radha, among the gopis, drenching them not just with his favourite colour, kesari, but also with love!
“Khele shyam sangh hori aaj, bhar pichakari rang bhar kesar ke” .
And so, befittingly, the last words on this festival of colour must be those of that other ardent devotee of Lord Krishna, Meera Bai. This is one of her compositions and depending on how you want to look at it, it’s a bhajan or a hori geet, or a romantic song or then an impassioned cry of a beloved’s heart describing the colours of love.
Because, at the end of it, that is what Holi is – a celebration of love. Happy Holi!
Syama piya more rangade chunariya
Aisi rangade ke ranga nahi chhute
Dhobiya dhoye chahe yeh sari umaria
Lal na rangaun main, hari na rangaun
Apne hi ranga mein rangade chunariya
Bina rangaye main to ghar nahi jaungi
Beet hi jaye chahe yeh sari umariya
My beloved Shyam, color my dupatta
Colour it so the colours will never leave
Even if the dhobi washes it a lifetime
But I won’t be coloured red
Nor green,
Colour me in only shades of you
Without being thus suffused by you, I will not leave
Even if I lose a lifetime….
******
Hori or Holi?
The musicologists say that the word “holi” got corrupted to “hori” because it is easier to pronounce while singing. Lord Krishna’s bhakts say it was originally “hori” or happiness in Brajbhasha, a dialect of Hindi.
In Bengal and Orissa, Holi is celebrated as Dol Jatra or Dol Purnima to mark the birth of the great singing saint, Mahaprabhu Chaitanya
******
Thursday, February 22, 2007
How the Abhishek-Aishwarya wedding may save the Ridley Turtle
Question : - How many times can you run the same 15 second post-engagement footage of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai before the dumb-sucker audience figures out that there isn’t anymore? Nobody has been able to answer that question as yet, but whoever does will inherit the Earth, not to mention the entire Imelda Marcos shoe collection.
Phew. I tell you, the timing couldn’t have been better. I mean, when the tickertape running at the bottom of the screen of your favourite news channel screams, “Just in - 40-year-old woman molested on Antop Hill!”, we know we’ve begun to scrape the bottom of the dog-licks-man news stories barrel. (They were seriously thinking of throwing another prince down a tube well, this time a real one. But real princes are hard to come by these days – at least ones that will fit into a tube well - and the original prince-down-the-tube now probably charges 4 million rupees for every tumble.) But we’re now safely home and dry, thanks to Shilpa Shetty’s thoughtful housemates on Big Brother who came up with those lovely racist remarks.
(We’re hoping Prince Philip will chip in and do his bit for the cause…)
And of course, there is the Marriage of the Millennium.
(Whoever just asked, “who’s getting married?”, has to immediately stop reading this and drum themselves out of known human civilization. Which we all know stretches across the length and breadth of one Page Three.)
Now some celebrities are so sweet and considerate. For example, when they hook up, it’s always sparing a thought for the hard lives of Page Three writers. So everyone knows that Tom hooked up with Katie just so that we could call them Tomkat. And Brad with Angelina which so seamlessly became Brangelina.
But there are others that just don’t care. Like what on earth are we going to do with “Aishwarya” and “Abhishek”? “Abhiwarya”? That sounds like Shakuni’s sidekick and till Copplola makes Mahabharat, we aren’t going there as yet. Or “Aishek”? Puhleez. That’s more like the name of a milkshake that you’d get in Outer Gummidipundi. I mean, these bachcha-log should’ve learned a thing or two from Papa Bachchan. See how nicely he slipped into “Abby Baby”, then so thoughtfully named his son Abhishek so that the little tyke could be Abby’s Baby. And now that the baby is all grown up and ready to have his own babies, he is Abby Baby, mark II.
But what on earth are we going to do with “Aishwarya” and “Abhishek”? It’s enough to make one tear out one’s hair weave in despair...
Anyway, till someone comes up with something better, we will just have to sprain our tongues and make do with “Abhiwarya”. Besides, we have no time to waste because there is so much to be done. Again, the considerate celebs would have given us at least three months to get this shaadi-show on the road.
Wait a minute, isn’t what the Bachchans and the Rais are supposed to do? No, you silly, naïve thing, you. They have to just organize the wedding.
We – as in the Page Three public - are the ones that have to do all the real hard work. For example, we have to get together all the experts who will spend every waking minute from now till the wedding (and if we are lucky, till the first Abhiwarya baby), on every available public forum (barring the inside of public toilets), predicting, analyzing, forecasting, estimating.
For example, they will tell us the political implications of who is given the prestigious job of designing the presiding pundit’s gamcha. And would it topple the UPA government if it is picked out in Swarovski crystal coconuts instead of zardosi zucchinis? And if the colour of the pagdis worn by the baratis is the same shade as the flag of the Communist Party of India, would that mean that it is now cozying up to Bade Bhaiyya? (Mulayam Singh to you.)
Experts, national, international even extra-terrtrial( for after all this is a marriage made in heaven), will tell us what will happen to next years’ rabi crop if the nail polish of the hairdresser doing Aish’s chachi’s best friend’s hair does not match the epaulettes of the trumpet players in the baraati’s band.
(They are having a raja-ki-aayegi-baraat band and everything? Ooooooh…isn’t that just darling!
Er, we don’t know but our experts are already on job predicting the possibility)
And even as we speak, meteorologists and weather expert are setting up special satellite-powered weather bureaus to tell us the likelihood of the colour of the skies on the wedding day matching Aish’s eyes….
There will be live, round-the-clock debates on all kinds of things. Whether Karan Johar’s driver will attend if Shahrukh Khan’s cook isn’t invited and how that will impact the size of David Beckham’s er, annual fee with LA Galaxy. And what will happen to the Sensex (not to mention Monica Lewinsky’s chances of getting a job on Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign team) if Mukesh’s manicurist and Anil’s numerologist are housed in the same floor of the chateau.
(Mukesh is invited?! Really?!!
Er, we don’t know but our experts are…..
And the wedding’s at a chateau?! Ooooh…the same one as Laxmi Mittals’ daughter?! Dunno but once again, our experts…).
The breaking news just in is that there may be a terrorist plot to have Karisma Kapoor’s daughter’s nanny share the same maalishwaali (masseur) with Shweta Bachcchan-Nanda’s daughter’s governess. But since these are unconfirmed reports, we will keep you updated on that story.
We are trying to invite Miss Manners and Martha Stewart to debate on how many times the guests should change their underarm deodorant during the pheras and whether that will be any different from the number of times they should change their underwear during the wedding ceremony.
(Why? Dunno but our experts….)
We will try to predict whether 100 will be number of varieties of kebabs served at the reception or the pieces in the orchestra playing at the pre-wedding, post pre-nuptial- agreement- signing- cocktails. And whether the entrée at the mehendi dinner for the guests’ pooches will be oysters on ice or lobster Thermidor.
(Dogs can eat oysters? Dunno but our experts…..) Incidentally, a debate is already raging about whether the mehendi will have 289 ingredients according to the secret 547-year old recipe or 547 ingredients according to the 289-year old recipe
And that’s only the tip of the tip of iceberg lettuce salad...
Did someone ask, “what about the actual coverage of the wedding?
Well, let me answer it like this. There are two reasons why we need to know all this.
Firstly because an event of such earth-shaking proportion cannot but effect all the things I have already mentioned plus global warming, the size of the next Miss Universe’s breasts, Oprah’s net worth, the sex life of the fruit bats, whether by “WMD”, Bush was referring to the Big Mac, the outcome of the World Cup, the design of the next Play station, the chances of finding the yeti in Lower Parel Basin and also determine which will collapse first – Michael Jackson’s nose or Donald Trump’s marriage.
How?
Dunno really but don’t worry because we are having a whole other 37 panels of experts to tell us….
The other reason is that when the wedding day actually arrives, hopefully we will all be so exhausted and sick to the gills reading writing, watching, debating, speculating and generally gnashing our teeth about the whole thing that nobody will really care how many magazines and newspapers and internet sites will be circulating the same 3 and a quarter pictures and how many times all the news channels are replaying the same 8.35 seconds footage which could well be the footage of the wedding of Ram Khilona and Chameli for all that you can make out of it.
Which leaves us with one last question. Am I invited? In reply, I narrate an anecdote about the delightfully irrepressible Art Buchwald who died recently and left a hole in the stratosphere of the world’s greatest humourists more dangerous as the one in the ozone. On the eve of what was billed as the biggest wedding of the previous millennium, i.e. the marriage of the breathtakingly gorgeous Princess of Hollywood, Grace Kelly to Monaco's Prince Rainier, Buchwald wrote that the only reason he wasn't invited was because of a 500-year old feud between the Buchwald family and the Grimaldi dynasty! In Buchwald’s case, his invitation from the prince was hand-delivered the next day.
I'm still waiting for mine.....
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Ode to Talcum
The talcum powder ads have got it all wrong.. They show secret, delicious, crevices being powdered with it; emitting fragrances so enchanting, it can do almost anything. Clinch the deal, stop the traffic, and/or hook the man, in one Dreamflower-scented swoop. But they’ve got it all wrong. Talcum powder isn’t about coming out smelling like roses. It’s not a blotter of sweat and BO. The true meaning of talc is known only to a South Indian.
Let me explain.
You’ve to understand one thing about these people. Their skins may be black….. sorry, melanin-challenged, but their souls are dazzling white. Unfortunately, that’s not how the world sees them. Where they’re just a bunch of kaalias, so what if they’re very clever at two-plus-two and put us on the world map with Idli-Dosa and the Raman Effect. If your skin’s not the right shade of Aryan, your life’s over. So, to compensate, God gave Southies talcum powder. To slather their faces with it and let its ethereal translucence allow the pure, white depths of their souls shine through. In other words, to be a good Southie, talc is mandatory. Not in the armpit or the cleavage. On the face. An un-talced face is tantamount to indecent exposure and you get drummed out of Southie ranks if you’re caught. Never mind if a dusting of the pearly-white magic turns your black skin into a interesting shade of pearly grey. Remember, grey is white with a dash of black. Or black with a splash of white. Depending on how strong you like your coffee. What matters is the white, in however minuscule a dash-splash.
India produces about 21,000 tons of talcum powder annually and about half of this is consumed by the Southies. Remember the story of Sleeping Beauty? The Southie version’s a bit different. One day, Mrs. Wicked Step-Amma, freshly triumphant from having sent S. Beauty to the Permanent-Swapnalok-in-the sky (or so she thought), stood in front of her beloved mirror and asked, “Mirror, mirror….” Before she could finish, the mirror shattered into a gazillion pieces! W. Step-Amma had forgotten to talc her face! Poor Mirror. Shocked and horrified at having to see naked, un-talced Southie skin, it cracked up. And Mrs. WS did what any self-respecting woman-without-a-mirror would do. Shriveled up and died. Meanwhile, S. Beauty, having waited for her man, like all good Southie girls, with her face well-talced, was kissed and woken up by P. Charming (also well-talced) and lived happily ever after. Moral of the story? Beauty is talc-deep.
For Southie women, talcum powder is what turns frog into prince and kaddu into Mercedes Benz. Good Southie Ammas whisper this mantram in their daughters’ ears as soon as they’re born. When in doubt, talc. When your husband leaves you, talc. When his wife refuses to leave him, talc. When the idli batter fails to rise, talc. When other things fail to rise, forget Viagra; just talc. Nothing like a puff of the ol’ Dreamflower to sizzle the fizzle. In other words, when all else fails, talc.
Ask Amma. Who, by the by, doesn’t throw tantrums, she throws talc. It’s rumored that the only thing she took with her to prison, takes to bed and to all her guftagoos with Atal-Anna is her tin of talc. We can’t, due to national security reasons disclose the brand , but it’s talc. And if you’re a scoffing skeptic, smirking at this panegyric, look at Amma’s skin. Flawless alabaster. Or look a little further. At Hema-Amma’s. Or Vijayanthi-Amma’s. All exquisite testimonials to the power of the powder. The magic that turns duckling into swan. At least inside the Southie’s head. Or to put it another way, talcum powder is Southern Comfort.
Let me explain.
You’ve to understand one thing about these people. Their skins may be black….. sorry, melanin-challenged, but their souls are dazzling white. Unfortunately, that’s not how the world sees them. Where they’re just a bunch of kaalias, so what if they’re very clever at two-plus-two and put us on the world map with Idli-Dosa and the Raman Effect. If your skin’s not the right shade of Aryan, your life’s over. So, to compensate, God gave Southies talcum powder. To slather their faces with it and let its ethereal translucence allow the pure, white depths of their souls shine through. In other words, to be a good Southie, talc is mandatory. Not in the armpit or the cleavage. On the face. An un-talced face is tantamount to indecent exposure and you get drummed out of Southie ranks if you’re caught. Never mind if a dusting of the pearly-white magic turns your black skin into a interesting shade of pearly grey. Remember, grey is white with a dash of black. Or black with a splash of white. Depending on how strong you like your coffee. What matters is the white, in however minuscule a dash-splash.
India produces about 21,000 tons of talcum powder annually and about half of this is consumed by the Southies. Remember the story of Sleeping Beauty? The Southie version’s a bit different. One day, Mrs. Wicked Step-Amma, freshly triumphant from having sent S. Beauty to the Permanent-Swapnalok-in-the sky (or so she thought), stood in front of her beloved mirror and asked, “Mirror, mirror….” Before she could finish, the mirror shattered into a gazillion pieces! W. Step-Amma had forgotten to talc her face! Poor Mirror. Shocked and horrified at having to see naked, un-talced Southie skin, it cracked up. And Mrs. WS did what any self-respecting woman-without-a-mirror would do. Shriveled up and died. Meanwhile, S. Beauty, having waited for her man, like all good Southie girls, with her face well-talced, was kissed and woken up by P. Charming (also well-talced) and lived happily ever after. Moral of the story? Beauty is talc-deep.
For Southie women, talcum powder is what turns frog into prince and kaddu into Mercedes Benz. Good Southie Ammas whisper this mantram in their daughters’ ears as soon as they’re born. When in doubt, talc. When your husband leaves you, talc. When his wife refuses to leave him, talc. When the idli batter fails to rise, talc. When other things fail to rise, forget Viagra; just talc. Nothing like a puff of the ol’ Dreamflower to sizzle the fizzle. In other words, when all else fails, talc.
Ask Amma. Who, by the by, doesn’t throw tantrums, she throws talc. It’s rumored that the only thing she took with her to prison, takes to bed and to all her guftagoos with Atal-Anna is her tin of talc. We can’t, due to national security reasons disclose the brand , but it’s talc. And if you’re a scoffing skeptic, smirking at this panegyric, look at Amma’s skin. Flawless alabaster. Or look a little further. At Hema-Amma’s. Or Vijayanthi-Amma’s. All exquisite testimonials to the power of the powder. The magic that turns duckling into swan. At least inside the Southie’s head. Or to put it another way, talcum powder is Southern Comfort.
The Southie’s dhoti and how to rattle it ( Or how to diddle your mundu)
Photo Courtesy Wikipedia
Etymology of dhoti: Hindi dhot , from Middle Indic * dhautta, *dhotta, cloth, probably from past participle of dhauvati, he washes, from Sanskrit dh noti dhau-, he shakes
Other men gird their loins, Southie men gird their dhotis. Underestimated by the rest of the world as a mere garment, a foolish extension of the loincloth, it’s only the Southie male who knows that the dhoti can be much, much more. (Bringing to mind the opening line of Love Story. “What do you say about a one-and-ahalf-metre tundu ….”)
Well to start with, the Southie’s dhoti is a piece of minimalist art. No clumsy acres of cloth to be feverishly gathered and pleated, no frenzied crawling between and around the legs. Just a pithy bit of pristine whiteness, enough to go around the waist once, with some left over for the two ends to overlap - barely. It’s also a free spirit, secured by just one firm tuck at the waist, the rest left to hang free, unrestrained. Because the Southie knows that a dhoti is not just something to wear but to wield, much the way a skunk does his stink or a bimbo her cleavage. And so as Time dawned on mankind (somewhere between Mohenjo and Daro), the art of dhoti rattling came to be, the art of how to swagger, strut, scare, conquer and tame - all with a piece of cotton as bland as your granny’s khichdi. Which is why, like Sharon Stone’s hemline, the Southie’s dhoti is built to have the unfettered freedom to rise or fall, fold over or flap across, even cleave open to lay bare the magnificence of Southie machismo.
Naturally, this means that the Southie dhoti spends very little time being full length - i.e modestly covering its wearer from waist to toe - and a lot of its time being folded up to reveal calves, knees, thighs (and sometimes – gasp! – even more) depending on how things are going. Now before you leap to any rash conclusions about the Southie male’s secret exhibitionist tendencies (“we’d have never guessed with all that vibhuti!”) let me tell you that without knowing how and when to fold or unfold your dhoti (while wearing it, naturally) there’s no way you can rattle it. (Nor diddle your mundu.) It’s a bit like trying to wrestle without a partner or to tango without feet. And depending on your dexterity and timing, you can deploy your dhoti to play popular male sports like mine-is-bigger-than-yours, my-daddy-can-beat-up-your-daddy-not-to-mention-what-he-can-do-to-your-mummy and you-can-take-it-and-stick-it-up-you-know-where.
Needless to say, the art of dhoti rattling has been stitched into the Southie’s Y chromosone and there was a time when every good Southie boy worth his weight in mulgai pudi learnt it much before he learnt how to manage rasam on a banana leaf. Alas, with the invasion of the pant and the pyjama, it’s now a dying art in the cities, but is still alive and well where paddy is lush, the coconut tender, the jackfruit ripens like prickly, pregnant hippos and the air is laced with the fragrance of black hair gently wallowing in coconut oil.
Now though it is said that there are as many ways of diddling a dhoti (or wiggling your veshti) as there are recipes to make your idli batter rise, here are the few basic moves common to all schools.
1. The Buffalo Bhoothalingam Draw (Inspired by the Bucking-Bronco Kick.)
Used to answer the Call of the Testosterone. And when the call comes, to the swelling of the chest and the quivering of the moustache, (maybe even the clash of a few cymbals), in one lightning motion, you shoot out a leg backwards to kick the lower end of the dhoti upwards into a waiting hand. And before anyone can say Karaikudi Kunjukunju Mudaliar, the dhoti will lie trussed up at loin level and you are all set to defend the honour of gramam, gotram or garage mechanic. Can be accompanied by dialogues like “Yenna da, rascal!” or words to that effect, but the more stylish practictioners prefer to let the dhoti do all the talking.
(If your dhoti is already folded up, just go in reverse making sure that when you unfold it, you don’t yank the whole damn thing off. It requires years of practice to know and find the location of that little bit of dhoti that will do the trick.)
2. The I’m-the-King-of-Kondalampatti Klutch. Equivalent to pissing on territory and therefore normally used to fix who is the dominant male in this part of the jungle. At the sight of a threat, shoot out leg (always backwards), kick dhoti (always upwards) and instead of folding the whole thing up around loins, just hold up one end (sometimes both if the threat is severe) in hand to part the dhoti like the waters of the Red Sea and make way for two hairy (hopefully), muscular (hopefully), mard-key-bacchey legs which will then proceed to walk all over everybody. In days of yore, this was much more effective when done striding through paddy fields with a minion scurrying behind holding aloft a huge black umbrella to protect your beautiful black complexion from being ruined by the sun.
3. The Gird-of-the-Loin. Used before the commencement of anything from climbing a coconut tree to signing that corporate merger. (Also very useful while riding anything with two wheels – other than a woman, that is.) It signals that you’re now open for and mean business. A variation the B. Bhootalingam Draw, minus all the thunder and lightning and how high you fold the dhoti is determined by the complexity and seriousness of the task at hand. (WARNING: To be deployed without underwear only when unaware of presence of polite/female company and/or when answering an urgent call of nature.)
Which leaves us with just a couple of unanswered questions. The first - if the Southie’s dhoti spends so much of its time aping a miniskirt, what comes to mind is a question has so often haunted humanity about the Scottish kilt. What underwear? Well let’s just say that it has never been Venky’s secret. Because the Southie, never knowing how high his dhoti may ride, chooses his under-the-dhoti-wear remembering the Girl Scout motto. “Be prepared”. Hence the popular choice – despite the invasion of the briefer VIP or the even more dashing Jockey - continues to be what is called “drayers” - knee-length kacchas in dashing stripes or shorts in basic khaki – covering all matters that must remain private no matter what your dhoti may do in public.
And the second question is…. You know what they say about the Southie’s dhoti - that it’s like a coconut. Known to fall off but no one has ever seen one do so. So the second question is - how does it stay up? There are many whispered rumours. (And there are those who have been known to use a belt, but they are charlatans really, shunned and denounced by the real Makappuwamis) Some say that it is coffee, strong enough to put the hair on your chest and keep your dhoti on. Some say a daily dose of rice and buttermilk, enough to just distend your stomach to the required rotundity. Others say it’s avvakai pickle, hot enough to sear your dhoti into your middle….The truth is no one knows. My bet? Testosterone…..
(FOOTNOTE: Now there may be some of you whose brow may be furrowed on account of my not having mentioned the lungi. I have just one word for it. Disgusting. A raucous, loutish, revolting genetic aberration that will never be recognized as a legitimate relation by any true aficionado of the Southie’s dhoti.)
Etymology of dhoti: Hindi dhot , from Middle Indic * dhautta, *dhotta, cloth, probably from past participle of dhauvati, he washes, from Sanskrit dh noti dhau-, he shakes
Other men gird their loins, Southie men gird their dhotis. Underestimated by the rest of the world as a mere garment, a foolish extension of the loincloth, it’s only the Southie male who knows that the dhoti can be much, much more. (Bringing to mind the opening line of Love Story. “What do you say about a one-and-ahalf-metre tundu ….”)
Well to start with, the Southie’s dhoti is a piece of minimalist art. No clumsy acres of cloth to be feverishly gathered and pleated, no frenzied crawling between and around the legs. Just a pithy bit of pristine whiteness, enough to go around the waist once, with some left over for the two ends to overlap - barely. It’s also a free spirit, secured by just one firm tuck at the waist, the rest left to hang free, unrestrained. Because the Southie knows that a dhoti is not just something to wear but to wield, much the way a skunk does his stink or a bimbo her cleavage. And so as Time dawned on mankind (somewhere between Mohenjo and Daro), the art of dhoti rattling came to be, the art of how to swagger, strut, scare, conquer and tame - all with a piece of cotton as bland as your granny’s khichdi. Which is why, like Sharon Stone’s hemline, the Southie’s dhoti is built to have the unfettered freedom to rise or fall, fold over or flap across, even cleave open to lay bare the magnificence of Southie machismo.
Naturally, this means that the Southie dhoti spends very little time being full length - i.e modestly covering its wearer from waist to toe - and a lot of its time being folded up to reveal calves, knees, thighs (and sometimes – gasp! – even more) depending on how things are going. Now before you leap to any rash conclusions about the Southie male’s secret exhibitionist tendencies (“we’d have never guessed with all that vibhuti!”) let me tell you that without knowing how and when to fold or unfold your dhoti (while wearing it, naturally) there’s no way you can rattle it. (Nor diddle your mundu.) It’s a bit like trying to wrestle without a partner or to tango without feet. And depending on your dexterity and timing, you can deploy your dhoti to play popular male sports like mine-is-bigger-than-yours, my-daddy-can-beat-up-your-daddy-not-to-mention-what-he-can-do-to-your-mummy and you-can-take-it-and-stick-it-up-you-know-where.
Needless to say, the art of dhoti rattling has been stitched into the Southie’s Y chromosone and there was a time when every good Southie boy worth his weight in mulgai pudi learnt it much before he learnt how to manage rasam on a banana leaf. Alas, with the invasion of the pant and the pyjama, it’s now a dying art in the cities, but is still alive and well where paddy is lush, the coconut tender, the jackfruit ripens like prickly, pregnant hippos and the air is laced with the fragrance of black hair gently wallowing in coconut oil.
Now though it is said that there are as many ways of diddling a dhoti (or wiggling your veshti) as there are recipes to make your idli batter rise, here are the few basic moves common to all schools.
1. The Buffalo Bhoothalingam Draw (Inspired by the Bucking-Bronco Kick.)
Used to answer the Call of the Testosterone. And when the call comes, to the swelling of the chest and the quivering of the moustache, (maybe even the clash of a few cymbals), in one lightning motion, you shoot out a leg backwards to kick the lower end of the dhoti upwards into a waiting hand. And before anyone can say Karaikudi Kunjukunju Mudaliar, the dhoti will lie trussed up at loin level and you are all set to defend the honour of gramam, gotram or garage mechanic. Can be accompanied by dialogues like “Yenna da, rascal!” or words to that effect, but the more stylish practictioners prefer to let the dhoti do all the talking.
(If your dhoti is already folded up, just go in reverse making sure that when you unfold it, you don’t yank the whole damn thing off. It requires years of practice to know and find the location of that little bit of dhoti that will do the trick.)
2. The I’m-the-King-of-Kondalampatti Klutch. Equivalent to pissing on territory and therefore normally used to fix who is the dominant male in this part of the jungle. At the sight of a threat, shoot out leg (always backwards), kick dhoti (always upwards) and instead of folding the whole thing up around loins, just hold up one end (sometimes both if the threat is severe) in hand to part the dhoti like the waters of the Red Sea and make way for two hairy (hopefully), muscular (hopefully), mard-key-bacchey legs which will then proceed to walk all over everybody. In days of yore, this was much more effective when done striding through paddy fields with a minion scurrying behind holding aloft a huge black umbrella to protect your beautiful black complexion from being ruined by the sun.
3. The Gird-of-the-Loin. Used before the commencement of anything from climbing a coconut tree to signing that corporate merger. (Also very useful while riding anything with two wheels – other than a woman, that is.) It signals that you’re now open for and mean business. A variation the B. Bhootalingam Draw, minus all the thunder and lightning and how high you fold the dhoti is determined by the complexity and seriousness of the task at hand. (WARNING: To be deployed without underwear only when unaware of presence of polite/female company and/or when answering an urgent call of nature.)
Which leaves us with just a couple of unanswered questions. The first - if the Southie’s dhoti spends so much of its time aping a miniskirt, what comes to mind is a question has so often haunted humanity about the Scottish kilt. What underwear? Well let’s just say that it has never been Venky’s secret. Because the Southie, never knowing how high his dhoti may ride, chooses his under-the-dhoti-wear remembering the Girl Scout motto. “Be prepared”. Hence the popular choice – despite the invasion of the briefer VIP or the even more dashing Jockey - continues to be what is called “drayers” - knee-length kacchas in dashing stripes or shorts in basic khaki – covering all matters that must remain private no matter what your dhoti may do in public.
And the second question is…. You know what they say about the Southie’s dhoti - that it’s like a coconut. Known to fall off but no one has ever seen one do so. So the second question is - how does it stay up? There are many whispered rumours. (And there are those who have been known to use a belt, but they are charlatans really, shunned and denounced by the real Makappuwamis) Some say that it is coffee, strong enough to put the hair on your chest and keep your dhoti on. Some say a daily dose of rice and buttermilk, enough to just distend your stomach to the required rotundity. Others say it’s avvakai pickle, hot enough to sear your dhoti into your middle….The truth is no one knows. My bet? Testosterone…..
(FOOTNOTE: Now there may be some of you whose brow may be furrowed on account of my not having mentioned the lungi. I have just one word for it. Disgusting. A raucous, loutish, revolting genetic aberration that will never be recognized as a legitimate relation by any true aficionado of the Southie’s dhoti.)
Fear Of Flying
ANATOMY OF FEAR
“You can’t pull over at 35,000 feet.” Aretha Franklin.
Fear of flying. It’s the irrevocability of it that’s so petrifying. Of getting into that flashy-looking pile of aluminium (all that vroom-vroom and them posh birds in uniform plying hot towels don’t fool me) and allowing a complete stranger who doesn’t know how much of living I’ve still left to do (all the men i haven’t loved, all the shopping I haven’t done) to launch me into nothingness (barring a few silly clouds and some really vicious air-pockets), without having the option of saying, ”Stop, let me off!”.
A typical flight goes something like this. At the departure lounge, the next day’s headlines screaming in my head (“AIRCRASH!”), I check out my co-passengers. First to see if there’s somebody famous. That way, at least when the Big “C” happens (CRASH, if you sadists must have it spelt out), I’d have the posthumous pleasure of derived fame. Then, to see if they’re the kind of people I’d like to share my “C” with. Since this kind of thing is like loosing your virginity. You get only one chance. Once aboard, I listen with catatonic attention to the “Kursi-ki-peti” routine, first in Hindi and then all over again in English. (I’d listen to it in Swahili if necessary, to make sure I’m fully briefed to “saans-lete-rahiye” when there is “hawa mein kami”.) I’m the only one doing so. I’ m also the only one reading the safety instruction leaflet, cover to cover. I glare at the geeks sitting near the emergency exits. They look like irresponsible nerds who’ll bungle the act of whipping the door open and letting me be the one to leap out first. I panic, wondering how to inflate the life-jacket with the oxygen mask strapped across my mouth . Some fear-of-flying friendly airlines have found a neat solution. You now just have to whip out the seat from under you and clutch it to float back to the nearest shark.
We take off and the cabin crew try to lull me into a false sense of security with an unending stream of stuff. But they don’t fool me. (One steward’s cute. I check him out and go back to hyperventilating). I stuff each ear with a kilo of cotton wool, so that, any moment now, when the engines starts spluttering, I won’t hear them. I sit in an aisle seat so that when the engines burst into flames, I won’t see them. We hit the first air pocket. I sink my nails into the metal armrests. In between each wave, I uncross my eyes and make wild promises to God in exchange for this plane landing in one piece. I crane across to see if the wing’s still there. It is. Suspicious whiffs of vapours ooze out of the air-conditioning vents. Smoke. We’re going to go up in flames. We don’t. Call buttons go off all over like a bad rash. Each ting-tung’s a gong of doom, heralding the pilot telling us that we’re going down, down, down. He doesn’t. The aircraft bounces like a happy baby. I clutch the hand of the strange man sitting next to me and see my life flash past me. (That part gets a bit tiresome sometimes. Even “Sholay “ palls after the 85th viewing.). The floor tilts down 60-degrees and my lungs whoosh out of my ears. We’re nose-diving into oblivion. We don’t. There’s a hideous thud-and-crunch from under the floor. As I brace myself for the final blinding flash, an angel’s voice warbles about bahar ka taapman. I realise we’ve landed.
In one piece. I stuff my heart back into my mouth and think, it’s a fluke. It’s going to happen the next time.
Bon Voyage.
“You can’t pull over at 35,000 feet.” Aretha Franklin.
Fear of flying. It’s the irrevocability of it that’s so petrifying. Of getting into that flashy-looking pile of aluminium (all that vroom-vroom and them posh birds in uniform plying hot towels don’t fool me) and allowing a complete stranger who doesn’t know how much of living I’ve still left to do (all the men i haven’t loved, all the shopping I haven’t done) to launch me into nothingness (barring a few silly clouds and some really vicious air-pockets), without having the option of saying, ”Stop, let me off!”.
A typical flight goes something like this. At the departure lounge, the next day’s headlines screaming in my head (“AIRCRASH!”), I check out my co-passengers. First to see if there’s somebody famous. That way, at least when the Big “C” happens (CRASH, if you sadists must have it spelt out), I’d have the posthumous pleasure of derived fame. Then, to see if they’re the kind of people I’d like to share my “C” with. Since this kind of thing is like loosing your virginity. You get only one chance. Once aboard, I listen with catatonic attention to the “Kursi-ki-peti” routine, first in Hindi and then all over again in English. (I’d listen to it in Swahili if necessary, to make sure I’m fully briefed to “saans-lete-rahiye” when there is “hawa mein kami”.) I’m the only one doing so. I’ m also the only one reading the safety instruction leaflet, cover to cover. I glare at the geeks sitting near the emergency exits. They look like irresponsible nerds who’ll bungle the act of whipping the door open and letting me be the one to leap out first. I panic, wondering how to inflate the life-jacket with the oxygen mask strapped across my mouth . Some fear-of-flying friendly airlines have found a neat solution. You now just have to whip out the seat from under you and clutch it to float back to the nearest shark.
We take off and the cabin crew try to lull me into a false sense of security with an unending stream of stuff. But they don’t fool me. (One steward’s cute. I check him out and go back to hyperventilating). I stuff each ear with a kilo of cotton wool, so that, any moment now, when the engines starts spluttering, I won’t hear them. I sit in an aisle seat so that when the engines burst into flames, I won’t see them. We hit the first air pocket. I sink my nails into the metal armrests. In between each wave, I uncross my eyes and make wild promises to God in exchange for this plane landing in one piece. I crane across to see if the wing’s still there. It is. Suspicious whiffs of vapours ooze out of the air-conditioning vents. Smoke. We’re going to go up in flames. We don’t. Call buttons go off all over like a bad rash. Each ting-tung’s a gong of doom, heralding the pilot telling us that we’re going down, down, down. He doesn’t. The aircraft bounces like a happy baby. I clutch the hand of the strange man sitting next to me and see my life flash past me. (That part gets a bit tiresome sometimes. Even “Sholay “ palls after the 85th viewing.). The floor tilts down 60-degrees and my lungs whoosh out of my ears. We’re nose-diving into oblivion. We don’t. There’s a hideous thud-and-crunch from under the floor. As I brace myself for the final blinding flash, an angel’s voice warbles about bahar ka taapman. I realise we’ve landed.
In one piece. I stuff my heart back into my mouth and think, it’s a fluke. It’s going to happen the next time.
Bon Voyage.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
O Ye of Litle Faith
He stood awe-struck, staring pop-eyed at The Thing. It blinked little green and red lights and mysterious little beeps, burps and disembodied human voices floated out of it. “Didi! Kee bhalo! Kee aschhi? Baba re!” My answering machine had just met Gopal. A little brown man with the blackest, widest, shiniest eyes of a little child and a huge grin whose hopeful intensity never faded no matter how half-hearted my greeting or how grudgingly narrow my door opened for him. Gopal, the little Bengali who had come to Bombay with nothing but bits of his beautiful Bengal in his luggage. With which he planned to lure the gold out of a city whose the pavements they said were lined with it. Having left behind one wife, one old mother and one little son in a little village near Calcutta. And having squashed himself with six other men into a tiny, hot, airless room of a Bombay chawl where he dreamed of bright-green paddy laughing crystal-cool raindrops all over him.
Gopal sold Bengal sarees. Which he wrapped in a huge, dirty-white cloth and carried door-to-door. Sarees that were gossamer, iridescent breaths of his Shonar Bengal. Vermillion of Ma Durga’s tongue splashed with the glittering black of her beautiful eyes. Fluffy-white rice laced with the hot, haldi curry of maccher jhol. Brinjal purple, studded with little gold specks of mustard. Jasmine-fair feet flashing the crimson seduction of alta. Burnt-pink misthi doi wrapped in the fragrant brown embrace of a little mud-pot. A swollen-gray Hoogly, pregnant with rain, dotted with delicate pink lotuses. Six yards of enchantment. Saree lengths of sorcery. And they never failed to bewitch me. In spite of my almost rude declarations of no, absolutely no intentions to buy, Gopal would grin his hopeful, little-boy grin, ask for a glass of water, pretending to drink it, slowly, surreptitiously unwrap the dirty-white cloth and let the magic out….
“Didi, dekhen! Bahut shoondor. Aap ko bahut suit karega!”
“Bhalo. Lekin nahin chaiye. Zari border? Office mein nahin chalega…..”
“Didi ab bhi service kaarta hai? Shaadi nahin karega?……….”
That’s when, sarees forgotten, we’d swap bits of our lives like two school kids sharing their lunch boxes……a bite of paratha from mine, a sliver of pickle from his. Life was a bitter-sweet, khata-meetha packed lunch. And Gopal never failed to humble me with his uncomplaining, unwavering faith in it. No matter that five years of pounding the mean streets and he wasn’t earning anymore than he did when he first came here. Or that his pathetic little client list never grew. Or that he was not any closer to going back to his little family. One day he’d make it, he told me. One day the worm would turn, didi. I couldn’t take it anymore. Go back, I told him. Be poor but in the free, happy air of your village. Eat a little less but with your wife and son. Go back. This place will swallow you up in one merciless gulp. Go back before it’s too late. And as I spoke, his eyes would glaze over and the grin would fade a little and sadden….. Then suddenly - snap! He’d be back. Full of hope. His eyes shining with dreams of the golden tomorrows which he was sure would come.
And before long, there’d be two more sarees in my cupboard and his grin would’ve changed from desperate hope to contented satisfaction. Then, he’d once more lovingly wrap the dirty-white cloth around his beautiful bits of Bengal and set off again to pound his sweetness into the mean streets. And long after he was gone, his shining black eyes and little-boy grin would linger in the air, gently mocking me and saying, “Oh ye of little faith………..”
Gopal sold Bengal sarees. Which he wrapped in a huge, dirty-white cloth and carried door-to-door. Sarees that were gossamer, iridescent breaths of his Shonar Bengal. Vermillion of Ma Durga’s tongue splashed with the glittering black of her beautiful eyes. Fluffy-white rice laced with the hot, haldi curry of maccher jhol. Brinjal purple, studded with little gold specks of mustard. Jasmine-fair feet flashing the crimson seduction of alta. Burnt-pink misthi doi wrapped in the fragrant brown embrace of a little mud-pot. A swollen-gray Hoogly, pregnant with rain, dotted with delicate pink lotuses. Six yards of enchantment. Saree lengths of sorcery. And they never failed to bewitch me. In spite of my almost rude declarations of no, absolutely no intentions to buy, Gopal would grin his hopeful, little-boy grin, ask for a glass of water, pretending to drink it, slowly, surreptitiously unwrap the dirty-white cloth and let the magic out….
“Didi, dekhen! Bahut shoondor. Aap ko bahut suit karega!”
“Bhalo. Lekin nahin chaiye. Zari border? Office mein nahin chalega…..”
“Didi ab bhi service kaarta hai? Shaadi nahin karega?……….”
That’s when, sarees forgotten, we’d swap bits of our lives like two school kids sharing their lunch boxes……a bite of paratha from mine, a sliver of pickle from his. Life was a bitter-sweet, khata-meetha packed lunch. And Gopal never failed to humble me with his uncomplaining, unwavering faith in it. No matter that five years of pounding the mean streets and he wasn’t earning anymore than he did when he first came here. Or that his pathetic little client list never grew. Or that he was not any closer to going back to his little family. One day he’d make it, he told me. One day the worm would turn, didi. I couldn’t take it anymore. Go back, I told him. Be poor but in the free, happy air of your village. Eat a little less but with your wife and son. Go back. This place will swallow you up in one merciless gulp. Go back before it’s too late. And as I spoke, his eyes would glaze over and the grin would fade a little and sadden….. Then suddenly - snap! He’d be back. Full of hope. His eyes shining with dreams of the golden tomorrows which he was sure would come.
And before long, there’d be two more sarees in my cupboard and his grin would’ve changed from desperate hope to contented satisfaction. Then, he’d once more lovingly wrap the dirty-white cloth around his beautiful bits of Bengal and set off again to pound his sweetness into the mean streets. And long after he was gone, his shining black eyes and little-boy grin would linger in the air, gently mocking me and saying, “Oh ye of little faith………..”
Monday, January 08, 2007
The 10 most popular songs of Lata Mangeshkar
Of the thousands of songs that Lata mangeshkar ahs sung over the last 60 years, these are perhaps her 10 most popular songs....
1. Yeh zindagi ussi ki hai[ANARKALI 1953 C. Ramchandra/ Rajinder Kishen]
2. Pyar hua ikraar hua hai[SHRI 420 1955 Shankar-Jaikishen/Hasrat Jaipuri]
3. Ayega aanewala[MAHAL 1949 Khemchand Prakash/ J. Nakshab]
4. Aaja re pardesi [MADHUMATI 1958 Salil Chowdhury/ Shailendra]
5. Naina Barse [WOH KAUN THI 1964 Madan Mohan/ Raja Mehdi Ali Khan]
6. Inhi logon ne[PAKEEZAH 1971 Naushad/ ]
7. Man dole mera tan dole[NAGIN 1954 Hemant Kumar/Rajinder Kishen]
8. Aaj phir jeene ki tamana[GUIDE 1965 S.D. Burman/ Shailendra]
9. Bindiya chamkegi[DO RAASTE]
10. Tujhe dekha toh [Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge Jatin-Lalit/ Anand Bakshi]
11. Jiya jale jaan jale[DIL SE A.R. Rahman/ ]
12. Radh Na Bole[AZAAD 1955 C. Ramchndra/ Rajinder Kishen]
13. Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha[ANPADH 1962 Madan Mohan/ Raja Mehdi Ali Khan]
14. Sawan Ka Mahina [MILAN 1976 Laxmikant-Pyarelal/ Anand Bakshi ]
15. Kabhie Kabhi Mere Dil Mein[KABHI KABHIE 1976 Khayyam/ Sahir Ludhianvi]
[tagname tagname]
PICTURE : http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit09052005/musicarts.asp
Yusuf Khan, Devika Rani and the matter of a name
It was Devika Rani who gave the man who become one of Indian Cinena's greatest actors. She cast him in the film Jwar Bhata in 1944. His name was Yusuf Khan but Devika Rani wanted him to chnge his name and offered him 3 choices:-
Jahangir
Vasudev
Dilip Kumar
The rest is history
Jahangir
Vasudev
Dilip Kumar
The rest is history
Thoughts of a Middle-Aged Romantic
“When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out 'till quarter to three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?”
Is there romance after 30?
You’re thinking - isn’t the answer obvious? I mean, there is a time and place for everything, isn’t there, and if you haven’t found love when both the waist and the age are still under 30, then when? All the same, the question still passes through the mind like a restless breeze through the trees. And one that has haunted mankind since the dawn of time. Ever since the Neanderthal man first felt his bald spot and watched his fat, frowsy wife grumpily slap the breakfast fried brontosaurus eggs in front of him. Ever since the Hindi phillums chocolate box heroes of our yesteryears were sucking their middle-aged bellies in to playing college kids long after they had celebrated their 40th birthday for the 5th time. And it’s the question that all those who cross over into the twilight zone of After-30 – and alas, we all will - sadly shake their heads, bite into their soggy bread pakora, sip their tepid tea and mutter to themselves…. “Is there romance after 30?”
Because, the thing is that just because the middle starts spreading, just because the only time love now figures in the conversation is when they’re talking about your love handles doesn’t mean that Ye Ole Dil stops yearning for a spot of pyaar-mohabbat. Just because you’ve seen the wifey in cold wax and colder cream, just because you’ve watched the patidev pluck his nose hairs and belch beer-‘n-biryani just before kissing you, doesn’t mean that your heart doesn’t crave for a dollop of moonlight and roses.
Wot I mean ter say, me munchkins, is that as far as romance goes, the dil never stops saying, “More!”
And if you don’t believe me, ask the Internet. Dunno about all you slaving away at those blogs and dunno about all you hunting the virtual waves for the mating habits of the Northern hairy-nosed wombat but if there’s a place where you go if you want to poke and prod at the underbelly of our innermost desires, it’s the Internet. So, perhaps you’ve noticed no self-respecting dot.com will be seen in public without a dating-mating section. That there are entire websites devoted to promising you that you’ll find true love – or at least your dream sado-masochist orgy mate – in just 5 quick clicks of your mouse. Yeah, yeah but that’s for the millions of garma-garam blooded, romance-crazed Under 30’s. Maybe but as we watch all the Hum Tums and Main Hoon Na’s and Dhoom’s and all those music videos stuffed to the gills with disgustingly luscious, sometimes barely clad NYT’s (Nubile Young Things) – I mean, even a 38- year old Shahrukh Khan is forced to play an army major who can pass off as a college brat - look a little closer at these websites. Which is what I did.
And found that the world is crawling with grizzled After-30’s geezers looking for….er, what are they looking for? Romance? Well, in a manner of speaking – going by some of the e-mail ids. For example what would you say a gent who calls himself boobsmaniac (aged 50 and in case you didn’t get it, his brief but searing bio-data is titled “big boobs lover”) is looking for? Then there was willmakeu2wet (aged 30), wet69 (aged 35), a hotparag and the gent to whom my heart went out to with the wistfully yearning sobriquet of whenwilligetmyhoney (aged 38).
So what, you scoff. One website doesn’t make a whole nation of Over-the-hill-30’s craving for romance. I mean, let’s face facts. The average marriageable age in India for a woman still hovers around 21, over 95 % of women are married by the time they’re 35 and divorce, though rising steadily like the nation’s blood pressure, is still down at healthy single digits. So by thirty – okay we’ll push that to 35 – you’re done with romance, found your soul mate, kindred spirit, for-better-or-for-worse half and have now moved on to other things. Bacchey-kacchey, Saturday night housie at the club, agonizing about hair tints, your cholesterol and what to do with those Wipro shares.
And romance? Ah, it’s there somewhere, fading like the upholstery on the drawing room sofa, often forgotten like that vegetable chopper that promised to mince anything from the onions for your do-pyaaza to your ma-in-law’s pinkie, a trifle moth eaten like your college year book and not even a very good a fit like your shaadi-ka-sherwani. But it’s there and we aren’t looking to redecorate, thank you.
I kinda guessed you’d say that. So I went to a few more “legit” websites, the kind boobsmaniac would shun, where intentions seemed more honourable and the handles a tad more respectable if a little less honest.
And the first indications were encouraging. The search thingie accommodated anyone from ages18 to 99 to search for anyone (man, or woman or both) from age 18-99. One website generously extended that to age 119 to cover all possibilities. So I searched for a man between 30 and 50. (As you can see, I’m not too picky but that’s one of the things that happens to you After 30. Pickiness plummets in direct proportion to the rate at which your craving for romance soars. By 50, you’ll settle for a 4-legged Martian with green skin and one eye, as long as he’s clean and can read the label on your bottle of medication for hot flushes.) I got 80 web pages of possibilities – er I mean men; most of them married and all with pics. So I narrowed it down to a man between 40 and 55…and still got 37 pages of men. Most of them married and all with pics.
So what, you scoff again. We already knew that the world is full of Over-The-Hill-of-Thirty married men looking to scratch that seven-year itch (thus labeled because it happens after 7 years and stays on for 7 years) one last time before everything droops and sags. True. But my point is. Are there enough women to match that demand? To find out, I swiftly transformed into a man looking for my Over-40 hot leg of baa-lambkin, my warm slice of sweetie-pie. (On the Net you can become anything - Elizabeth Hurley on a bad Arun Nayar day, the cigar on a good Bill Clinton day – anything). Alas, only 5 measly pages and …. I don’t want to be rude but let me put it like this. If the 37 pages of men are looking for matching Over-40 romance partners, they ain’t gonna find it on these 5 pages. Besides, most of these ladies wanted marriage and love. I know – we women always bay for the moon and that’s when the garden manure hits the ceiling….
So are we saying that after 30, women are done with romance? I think maybe not. It’s just that we ain’t tom-toming it from the rooftops. We may tightly scrape and pin our romantic yearnings into that super mum bun, we may smile brightly and stuff them firmly into the evening’s dum aloo, iron them away with the creases on hubby’s shirts but deep down inside somewhere, something still thrills at the thought of being tenderly treated like a rare hot house orchid. Look at the diamond ads, at the libraries still stuffed with Mills and Boon and you’ll know. Look at a film like Mr. and Mrs. Iyer and you’ll know that for us women, being “happily” married to a good, decent man isn’t inoculation against romance. Look at Leela and Dil Chahata Hai and Freaky Chakra and you’ll know that even at the doddering old age of 40, we aren’t ready yet to hang up our foolishly hopeful, hopelessly romantic little hearts.
So, is there romance after 30?
Well, I guess all that we can say is that the question is a bit like, “Is there life after death?” And the answer is – who knows, dearies, who knows? But we’re hoping like hell there is….
“Aayega aane waala, aayega aayega aayega
Bhatki hui jawaani manzil ko dhoondti hai
Maajhi bagair nayya saahil ko dhoondti hai
Kya jaane dil ki kashti kab tak lage kinaare
Lekin yeh keh rahe hain dil ke mere ishaare
Aayega, aayeg, aayega…..”
picture source ; http://www.chrismiles.net/Romantic.htm
Monday, December 25, 2006
Bicycle and Other Thieves
"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder." ~Alfred Hitchcock
The idea of Do Bigha Zameen came to Bimal Roy, they say, when he was sitting at the top of a double-decker bus on his way home from a screening of Vittorio De Sica’s classic, Bicycle Thief, based novel by Luigi Bartolini. And that was 56 years ago.
Everyone’s got their knickers in such a twist about a supposed trend in Hindi films to go back to literature for story ideas. Look at Parineeta and Devdas and Maqbool and Paheli and Sarkar and 1918 Banaras A Love Story and ……they reel off breathlessly. (If you don’t know which novels those films were based on, you don’t need to read this article anyway!) And now Vishal Bharadwaj is bringing up the rear by the second of his Shakespeare based trilogy with Omkara, which is based on Othello. And “inspired” by aapro Sanjay, there are a whole rash of remakes threatening to crop up. Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam and Umrao Jaan and what not. Everyone’s in such a tizzy, such a dither, such a lather. Why, oh, why, they agonize, wringing their hands worriedly and knitting their brows into a fine Fair Isle, is this happening? Is this because there are very few original scriptwriters around in the Hindi film industry? (How many were there in the first place, is my naive question.) Is it because there is a paucity of ideas? (Was there ever a plethora, I timidly suggest.) Though no one has yet asked perhaps what is the more pertinent question - are the video libraries on strike and so everyone running low on their supply of Hollywood films to…er, be inspired by?
Never mind. But even if it is indeed true that droves of directors in apun ka Hindi phillum industry are enthusiastically diving into their Complete Works of Munshi Premchand and blowing the dust off their Remaker’s Guide to Sarat Chandra (who else) and de-cob webbing their How-to-narrate-Shakespeare-in-One-Liners (would Ram Teri Ganga Gayi be a good title for a “remake” of Romeo and Juliet, I wonder), it might put things a little into perspective if we remember how it all began …..
On 21st April 1913, India’s first full-length feature film, Dada Saheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra was commercially screened. Phalke’s subsequent films – totally around 100 in number - were films like Mohini Bhasmasur, Satyavan Savitri, Shri Krishna Janam, Bhakt Prahlad and India’s first box office hit, Lanka Dahan. Baburao Painter's first film in 1920 was Sairandhri (one of Draupadi’s names) and his subsequent films were Sati Padmini, Shri Krishna Avtaar, Vatsalaharan, Surekha Haran etc. The first South Indian feature film was R. Nataraja Mudaliar's Gopal Krishna. The first Marathi film – and a huge hit – was V. Shantaram’s Ayodhyacha Raja and the first Oriya film was Sita Bibaha. And so on and so forth.
Yeah, yeah, we know all this, but what’s my point? Just this. It’s plain as pie that the first 15-20 years of Indian cinema happily and voraciously fed off two of the world’s greatest pieces of literature, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Even when Indian filmmakers found their filmmaking legs and looked for other story sources, the obvious choice was the vast and rich treasury of Indian literature, both ancient and modern. Baburao Painter's 1925 classic, Savkari Pash (in which V. Shantaram made his debut as an actor) was a film adaptation of the novel written by the man who is considred the founder of the modern Marathi novel - Hari Narayan Apte.
And almost 20 years after Raja Harishchnadra, when Ardeshir Irani made India’s first talkie, Alam Ara, in 1931, it was based on a Parsi play written by Joseph David. In 1937, V. Shantaram took another of Apte’s novels, Na Patnari Ghosta and made into not one but two masterpieces – first in Marathi as Kunku and then as Duniya Na Mane in Hindi, both in 1937. His Shakuntala in 1943, based on Kalidasa’s great play, ran for an incredible 104 weeks Apart from Sikander, Sohrab Modi’s and Prithviraj Kapoor’s other great collaboration, Prithvi Vallabh also in 1943 was based on Kanhayalal M. Munshi’s Gujarati novel by the same name. And of course, there was Vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya (1947).
And this trend to look to literature for stories continued. If you look at the 13 most memorable films that Bimal Roy made between 1945 and 1963, as many as 5 were born of Bengali literature – Bandini (based on Bengali writer Jarasandha’s novel, Tamasi), Kabuliwala (based on Tagore’s short story which Roy produced), Parineeta and Biraj Bahu, both based on novels by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. I know. That adds up to only 4 but before I mention the 5th, I have to talk about dear ol’ Sarat. From the looks of it, he was Indian cinema’s most popular source for stories. And 68 years after his death, it seems that he still is! At least 41 films have been made of his novels and short stories. And among the more well-know - apart from Bimal Roy’s Parineeta and Biraj Bahu - are P. C. Barua’s Manzil, K L Saigal’s hit film, Pujarin in which he sang the ultimate tipplers’ anthem, Piye ja aur piye ja, said to be the only film song in Indian cinema that was recorded without any rehearsal or any set music! Then in more recent times, Basu Chatterjee’s Swami (1977) and Gulzar’s Khusboo (1975).
Am I not going to mention Devdas, at all, you ask, outraged?
Oh alright then. And Devdas. Which is the 5th Bimal Roy film based on Bengali literature. Since the novel was published 89 years ago (a full 16 years after Sarat Chandra wrote it!), it has been made into film at least 9 times, twice in Telugu including the super hit Devadasu, starring the superstar Akkeni Nageshwara Rao, which was made 2 years before Bimal Roy’s 1953 version. And a Tamil version of P C Barua’s Devdas was released simultaneously in which Saigal sang 2 songs….in Tamil!
So, in the almost hundred-year history of Indian cinema, Indian literature always fired the imagination of our filmmakers, resulting in some of our finest films – Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (based on Mushi Premchand’s novel), Vijay Anand’s Guide (R. K. Narayanan), Basu Bhattacharya’s Teersi Kasam (Phaneshwarnath Renu), Abrar Alvi’s Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam (Bimal Mitra), M. S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa (Ismat Chugtai) just to name a few. And that’s not something unique about Indian cinema, but also a world wide phenomenon. From the Bible to Ernest Hemingway, from William Shakespeare to William Faulkner, from Charles Dickens to Arthur Miller, from Agatha Christie to Ian Fleming, all inspired both classics and blockbuster hits. And just look at some of the Oscars winners of the last 3 years - Brokeback Mountain, Million Dollar Baby, Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, A Beautiful Mind. They all came out of short stories and novels.
And it is only but natural. Story telling is as old as man himself, not just an art form, but an instinct as primeval and compelling as hunger because in our stories, we record the history of our souls and our hearts. And cinema, storytelling’s youngest, most beguiling, most enchanting child has always looked to its elder sibling for inspiration,
So, is it a good thing or a bad thing that we are going back to books? Well, I’d say it’s a good because it means that our filmmakers are finally beginning to read. But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what a great film comes out of. The heart of great storytelling whether that’s around the fire, on your grandmother’s lap or in 70 mm technicolour is a cracking good story. Stuff that widens your eyes with wonder and shine with delight, makes your heart sigh and sing, makes you cry and laugh; stuff that transports you out of yourself to back inside again. And most importantly, that rivets you, involves you so completely that you forget everything but the burning question, “Phir kya hua?” And that magic could come out of a great piece of literature or a little news item tucked away in yesterday’s newspaper. “Woman with cellphone steals new born baby from maternity ward…”
Willa Cather, the great American novelist once famously said, “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” And that would roughly sum up the task of any filmmaker – to take a story and tell it as magically if it has never been told before. Be that Devdas. Or Biwi No. 1.
[Hindi+Movies]
******
Did you know…
That the 1938 Tamil film that launched M. S. Subbulakshmi to cinematic fame was "Seva Sadanam,", was based on a Munshi Premchand's very first novel, Seva Sadan?
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k248/rajaiah/pear1.gif
Monday, October 30, 2006
Yoga and how to be a student
Okay, now here’s the thing that I have to say about learning and it’s really quite simple. Be a student all your life. Always learn something, anything. Why? Well, at the very obvious level, they tell us that learning is exercise for the brain, keeps your brain cells limbered up and in shape and your outlook towards life fresh and energetic. While that’s true, there is actually much more than that to this learning thing. Because apart from the subject that you will learn – be that growing mushrooms or anthropology – you learn other things, almost all of which have nothing to do with how to make that fungus multiply by the million or how old “Lucy” the Hominid is. And today, I, hopefully the eternal student, share a few of those lessons with you today …..
Learning to trust
“You can't shake hands with a clenched fist”. Indira Gandhi
I am one of the few people in my yoga class still struggling with the halasana (plough pose). And there are two things stopping me. One is fear – I’m petrified that once i get into the final position, flat on the floor with my body flipped backwards like a sleeping comma, i won’t be able to come back. Ridiculous and totally unfounded, but that is what fear is. The second is that whenever my yogacharya comes to egg me on, (he also has a good laugh while doing this!) and say, “Nothing is going to happen to you. Come on, just do it”, i don’t really believe him. because if i did, I’d flip myself into that dratted halasana, fear or no fear.
So, the thing is, nothing in life is possible without trusting someone. Your business associate, your spouse, the person who made your pressure cooker, the bus driver taking you to work, the man in the car at the traffic light waiting for you to cross, your doctor, your hairdresser, even your parents. And if you are parachutist, then the factory worker who fixed the ripcord on your parachute. Like it or not, you have to trust that they won’t let you down. And without trust, some of the most dangerous and high pressure jobs in the world would not be possible – like fire fighting and exploring the Artic….and being a parent!
And the place that you learn to trust is in the classroom. Becoming a student is like when a child puts its hand into its parent’s to cross the street. What the child is telling the parent is, “I trust you completely to take me across.” Which is exactly the contract that you make with your teacher. That you trust him/her to teach you to the best of his/her ability, with your best interest at heart. Not an easy thing – trust. It requires courage, asking you to surrender, to relinquish control. Children trust easily because they have no fear well, not yet anyway. It becomes more difficult to trust as we grow older and the crust of cynicism and fear hardens and gets in the way. Which is why it is so important to always go back to class – so that you can reconnect with the frightening idea of crossing the road by placing your hand in someone else’s….
Learning Humility
"To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.” Confucius
This lesson is easy because it’s a very simple equation – the more you learn, the more you discover how little you know. The greatest scholars and gyanis are the ones who’ve realised this and have never stopped learning and see themselves as perennial students. Because the more they know, the more they know how little they know. Which means that they always constantly swim in the consciousness that for every ocean it may seem they’ve crossed and conquered, there are a million more and then a million more. That humbles you like nothing else because you realize that the termite is a more sophisticated ------ than you and the average bacteria a better diplomat. And you only get this when you are learning.
There is a corollary to this humility business. Which is that you learn to respect all knowledge – with no exceptions. So the more you learn, you figure that knowing how to knead chapati dough is as much knowledge as knowing how to crack the human genetic code. The more you learn, the more you realise that there is a place, a purpose and a need for the potter and the philosopher, the sweeper and the priest, the underwear salesman and the astronaut. And none of them are lesser or greater, they just are. Is a maggot lesser or greater than a butterfly. But most importantly, you realise that there is always someone who can teach you a thing or two. Always.
Learning to learn
"I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn." ALBERT EINSTEIN
A visitor who was full of expectations was unimpressed by the commonplace words the Master addressed to him.
"I came here in quest of a Master," he said to a disciple. "All I find is a human being no different from the others."
Said the disciple, "The Master is a shoemaker with an infinite supply of leather. But he does the cutting and stitching in accordance with the dimension of your foot." ZEN STORY
This is actually perhaps the most important lesson in life. Remember the cliché – you can take a horse to the water but you can’t drink for it? Well, what it means is that after a point, in everything including the classroom, each one of us are on our own, walking down the road on which no one can accompany us. Parents, spouse, children, friends, teacher – no one. Because the final act of swallowing the water has to done by the horse. You can tell it what throat muscles to use, describe the technique of swallowing, encourage and demonstrate, even stick the horse’s head in the water. But after that, the horse is on it’s own. With just perseverance and practice as its only companions. And that’s true for anything that you are learning - bicycling, tying your shoe laces, painting the sunset.
Now, a good teacher knows that. So after a point he/she stops teaching and patiently waits for the horse to figure out the rest of it. But most students don’t, getting angry and feeling let down when this happens, blaming the teacher for not “teaching” any further. Because independence is a very difficult lesson to learn. It’s so much easier to hop around on crutches, leaning on this, blaming that and passing the buck to another or…. your teacher. But if you keep learning, you figure out why the teacher let go and why you are now on your own. There comes a moment when in a flash you realize that this is the only way you will really learn – by yourself, on your own. With your teacher only a guide, a compass, a dictionary, an encyclopedia and a beacon to lead you back when you’re lost. Getting to the destination is your baby.
So, sign up for those guitar lessons today. And as you do, think of your teacher as a gardener. And all that the gardener does - and can do - is to prepare the right conditions for the seed. (Which, by the way, is you.) Orchestrating water, air, sunlight, soil and manure to come together in the right proportions in which the seed is sown. After that, it’s the seed’s responsibility to sprout and grow. Whichever way it chooses.
"There is no transference of secrets from master to disciple.
Teaching is not difficult, listening is not difficult either,
but what is truly difficult is to become conscious
of what you have in yourself and be able to use it as your own." Kenneth R. Beittel in Zen and the Art of Pottery
Sunday, October 22, 2006
A peacock’s foot, a broken cloud and the art of making love
“Kama is the enjoyment by the five senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling, assisted by the mind together with the soul…….”
I think Vatsyayana would have hated the word “sex”. For a man who tells you about the art of giving a hicky which looks “the leaf of a blue lotus”, who can describe an embrace as a “mixture of milk and water”, for such a man, calling the sublime pleasures of making love “sex” would be like saying that the Kamasutra is a book about sex …..
Long before it became a dirty word and long, long before the Messrs Ellis, Freud and Kinsey delved into the mysterious workings of human sexuality, it was here in India that we believed that sex was not a furtive, unmentionable thing that nice girls do only while thinking of their country, but rather a sophisticated art (even a science, if you see the precision one needs to scratch a “peacock’s foot” on your beloved’s breast), to be learnt and practiced with the same diligence and devotion as one would practice the art of ……bonsai, maybe? Because desire was not a hairy beast to be locked up in the dank, dingy trash cans of the soul, but, like the pursuit of virtue (Dharma) and the acquisition of wealth (Artha), the gratifications of the senses (Kama) was an important step towards the attainment of…. yes, believe it or not, Moksha! (A definition of sex, which, as you can see, extends miles beyond the modern-day obsession with performance and orgasms!)
And so naturally, many ancient Indian scholars and pundits spent their time studying the shastras of pleasure of which, the most famous was Vatsayana. Who wrote the Kamasutra (Aphorisms of Love) which, in his own words, “is not to be used merely as an instrument for satisfying our desires,” but is actually a handy book on everything you wanted to know about anything from interior decoration to baldness…. and oh yes - sex. Very little is known about Vatsyayana except that his real name was either Mallinaga or Mrillana, that he lived anywhere between the 1st and 4th century A.D. and that he wrote the Kamasutra while he was a religious student at Benares. Probably in a state of celibacy, because he did it while being “wholly engaged in the contemplation of the Deity”. (Which seems to work just fine, since Havelock Ellis - whose Psychology of Sex is considered to be ‘one of the first enlightened account of human sexuality’- was a virgin till he was 32 and had a proper sex life only after the age of 60!)
But since Shakespeare by any other name would’ve have made as riveting a read, what better time than this Valentine season to rediscover the 1600-year old secrets of love even if we don’t quite know whether the author’s real name was Popatmal or what cereal he had for breakfast….
Sixty-four steps (er, shouldn’t that be sixty-nine?) to a sexier you.
Actually it’s a fairly simple equation and one that we may have forgotten in our crazed quest for thinner thighs and buns of steel. That sexy begets sex and vice versa. Except that in the Kamasutra, sex appeal goes beyond washboard abs and lasts long after your breasts had wearily given up fighting gravity and time. Because the lure is not just a sleek body or a beautiful face, but the enticement of a well-read, inquisitive mind, the titillation of a charming conversation and the enchantment of a sparkling personality, with as many facets as a well-cut diamond. (Did you know that diamonds have cleavages? A cleavage is the property of certain minerals to split in certain directions and produce flat, even surfaces - fortunately, not something our breasts are known to do!) So, in order to boost your SA, the Kamasutra lists 64 arts and sciences that may be studied along with it, ranging from sorcery to carpentry (how else would you cast that spell over him so that he’d be your slave for life and then build that bed in which to lie together happily ever after?)
So, this summer, while you try to add the sizzle back into your sex life with that aerobics class and the latest whisper of Victoria’s secret, you may want to consider stain-glass making (yes, the Kamasutra recommends it), tattooing, archery, solving riddles, brushing up on your knowledge of gold, jewels, chemistry, gambling, mimicry (they hadn’t invented bungee jumping as yet!) and of course the art of war. Because haven’t you heard? Everything is fair in love and war.
The slow boat to ecstasy ….
by the light of a half moon with the jump of a hare as you take a bite of heaven...
You can’t hurry love, they say. Well, by Vatsanya’s book, you can’t hurry lovemaking either because you see he took the whole business of foreplay very seriously. (It’s interesting that out of the 41 sections in the Kamasutra, only 3 are about the actual act of sex!) From the art of making love to a virgin wife (where he recommends, because “women being of a tender nature, want tender beginnings,” that the man actually spend the first 9 nights without even touching her, though it’s okay to bathe together) to the art of coquetry, from cosmetics more magical than Wonder bras to love potions which subjugate, conquer and all but enslave, from aphrodiasiacs (though I really don’t know whether you want to try the milk and sugar thingie in which you boil a ram’s testicle) to sex toys, from shampooing to piercing him with your breast, from having a love quarrel to how to behave if you are part of the king’s harem, you’ll find every single arrow in Kamadev’s quiver displayed in the Kamasutra. (There’s even a recipe for an ointment that will make your husband hate you – nifty, if you’re contemplating a quick alimony settlement!)
Of crabs and congresses and the wife of Indra.
After you’ve figured out which of the 4 different kinds of love is yours, after choosing one (or more) of the 8 different ways of embracing your beloved (including an embrace which is like the “mixture of the sesame seed with rice”), after losing count of how many different ways there are to kiss, scratch (including one called a `token of remembrance'– which you give your lambkin just before you leave for that annual visit to your mother or that dealer conference!), bite, lie down, make sounds (many more than “yes! Oh yes!”), play the part of a man (where apparently you can choose to either be a top or a swimg!), it may be a while before you get around to even considering ………. what do you guys call it these days?
Did somebody say “sex”? Union is more like it (take your pick from18 different kinds - 9 by the kind of man he is or woman you are and 9 by the strength of your – and his – libido), or congress if you’re more politically inclined and depending on what position you want to take, you could split like a bamboo, yawn (!), be a crab, fix a nail or if you aspire to the highest of high, you could be the wife of the god Indra, a position which needless to say, you achieve only after years of hard work and practice!
And don’t worry about the length of his er, sex drive or the depth of your er, passion. The Kamasutra is an erotic Noah’s ark where there is room for all and a plan for every contingency. So if you are an elephant woman (no reference to the size of your hips) in love with a hare man (let’s just say that the at the other end of this spectrum stands the bull man), if your passion is middling but his will set the Gomti on fire, if you prefer water (though Vatsyayana thinks it’s improper!) or standing up, whether it’s the “blow of a bull” or “the sporting of a sparrow” that transports you to the heights of ecstasy, Papa Vatsyayana will show you how.
I could go on but it would be impossible, apart from being blasphemous, to compress the wisdom of 1250 slokas written by a sage of erotica into 1500 words and I wouldn’t even try. So here I will leave you hoping that I have sufficiently titillated your mind enough (not to mentioned boggled it.) to rush and order your copy of the world’s most famous pillow book! And read the Kamasutra for at least this one reason. Anyone who says that this is the way it should all end, not with a crude bang but with a long, soft, satisfied sigh, laden with the scent of a 1000 orgasms, deserves a dekho…. at least sixty-four times!
“At the end of the congress, (he) should apply with his own hand to the
body of the woman some pure sandal wood ointment……. He should then embrace her with his left arm, and with agreeable words should cause her to drink from a cup held in his own hand…….. They can then eat sweetmeats, or anything else, according to their likings and may drink anything that may be liked in different countries, and known to be sweet, soft, and pure. The lovers may also sit on the terrace of the palace or house, and enjoy the moonlight, and carry on an agreeable conversation. At this time, too, while the woman lies in his lap,
with her face towards the moon, the citizen should show her the different planets, the morning star, the polar star, and the seven Rishis, or Great Bear.
This is the end of sexual union.”
[sex]
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