Back from Home...

I visited my hometown this Diwali, technically I did not visit on Diwali because I spent Diwali in train but it was by and large a Diwali holiday. So this is a mandatory post, my hometown's little blue diary. Almost nothing changes there in a big way but with different events in place, it takes different flavors, like any other small town. This was the election (for Chairman and Ward president) time, which is mixed with Diwali, Eid and a few murders, in short the atmosphere was delightful, full of rumors and heated. At every Gali corner, there were small crowds which discussed the prospects of winning and losing, the weak and the strong grounds, logical voting equations based on caste, power and religion, and of course money, which transcends all evils. There were women discussing the women candidates on the basis of their husband's image, might and power. This is a fun time for children, this vacation they fired crackers and collected pamphlets and party paraphernalia, apart from watching Malaysia in Don (or Don in Malaysia). The old people cursed congress/BJP leaders and doctors/lawyers in the same sentence, they only talked with pride of the relatives who left them for bigger cities or for better countries, in short, those who are well settled, according to them. The atmosphere is filled with songs of two kinds, the religious and the patriotic, both kinds sung by Lata Mangeshkar. This is as high as my hometown can get.

I came back to Delhi on 26th Oct and got to know that the elections were by and large peaceful with couple of murders and few clashes. Also I took the DVD of Children of Heaven with me, most of my relatives loved it. I like that film too but as usual I became a little suspicious of the film when it was unanimously appreciated. I did a promise to my cousin to write about him on the blog. Here it goes: He is 8 years old. While talking about Rang De Basanti with him, I asked him what would have happened if the heroes were not killed towards the end, he replied "phir to film kabhi khatam nahin hoti, teen ghante se jyada koi film nahin hoti". Kill them to end the movie, a closure is required at any cost. It was such a plain verdict. He did even better to describe the cast, "Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan ki behan, aur ek foreigner ladki" !

Apart from this, there are few things that are on the discussion list to avoid the void of 'Aur batiyiye...'. One was Munnabhai and the other was Afzal's hanging, to balance the comic and tragic scales of conversations. I did a secret poll (secret because no one knew it was a poll) and got some astonishingly predictable results. Everyone liked Munnabhai (much better than Rang De Basanti) and everyone wanted Afzal to be hanged asap, some even wanted to execute all of the suspects and even the whole community. Almost all of them are quite sure about their decisions and gave examples from history to support it. As it is evident, there is little coherence between their two decisions, Gandhigiri and Hanging (Actually, one of the person added a twist in the tale by saying that Gandhi supported hanging of Bhagat Singh, he liked Munnabhai for its entertainment value and I think he was advocating hanging for the same purpose too, although big words like terrorism and patriotism sounds better). I don't like to insult my folks but they are much like rest of the world.

Adding few links. Read Arundhati Roy's take on Afzal's Hanging (Its a long one, I haven't read it fully yet) and Bhagat Singh's take on Love.

Simpli-fly !

I had a privilege to board an Air Deccan flight after a gap of 2.5 year. It has changed a lot. The air plane has got bigger and things like that. This time it started only 30 minutes late, practically on time and all the passengers looked happy and rushed to the plane to catch hold of their seats in the free seating arrangement, which near matched the rail-coach frenzy. The flight from Hyderabad to Ahmedabad ascended the air taking a mini India with it.

My interaction with co-passengers started in the boarding pass line itself where people with the printouts are shouting at Air Deccan staff for no apparent reason, its one of the ways to fight the heat outside and forget family tensions. Some young guys even chatted with the young girl at the Air Deccan counter, inquired about her working conditions and asked her to take a better job and gave some tips too. It was like flirting but not as effective. She smiled and smiled like a true girl. As usual, middle aged men cribbed how precious their time is and they have connecting flights, and older persons talked about how flights used to on time at their times and the whole bit about privatization, other have nothing to talk about so they talked about hot weather and how this time is even worse than last year and AC sales have gone up, they discussed more such unimportant things. The young ones were crying as usual. Its a good omen for flights because children sleep after a good cry. Some mother even slapped their children to make them sleep later but such practice are rapidly going extinct with the advent of over-protective super-moms.

The person behind me in the line was happy to the core, especially when he saw my print out and saw I bought the ticket for 2K+, he showed me his, it was a Rs 500 ticket. He was as happy as a lottery winner. Later I realized that he booked the ticket early this year and he is not alone but has a whole marriage party with him. It seemed that they fixed the marriage date depending on the tickets availability. Truly Indian. But the real fun was still to come. As our flight moved above clouds and people loosened their seat belts, party time began.

Flamboyant gujjus were every where. All relations and all friends. Pure delight and full fun. I was literally shocked when I saw three girls moving all over the plane with handycam photographing each passenger and even clouds outside, I even thought of taking out my SLR and flaunt, such was the passion on plane. The good smell of eatables and sound of munching was everywhere. Since Air Deccan doesn't offer anything except the good flying experience, so they have come loaded with all sorts of namkeens and beverages. They sang and if space were sufficient, no one in the world would have stopped them from dancing. Only kids danced in the narrow pathways. I was pleasantly surprised how the whole plane was hijacked with love and affection, song and dance.

Next was thing that my friend told me long time back and I never believed it. Where there are gujjus, there is antakshari. The whole aircraft was soon divided into two groups and antakshari started. As a customary for warm up, they did the 'Maine Pyar Kiya' version in chorus first. Its a satisfying experience to hear songs from the long forgotten films like 'Police Mujrim' and 'Dulha Dulhan', also they sang some of favorites. When it was announced that we are moving through the turbulent weather, they sang situational songs. The guy who is going to marry, was on the plane, his name was Mayur and girl's name was Mansi because they were replacing the original names in the songs with Mansi and Mayur. It bought back the memories of buses with stickers 'Mayur weds Mansi' or 'Mansi weds Mayur', from bus to airplane, 'Baaraat' is the same fun. They sounded like professional, singing full songs with dialogues in between (do you remember the dialogues from 'Ijazzat', they did, all of them). Air hostess were mesmerized and didn't even attempt to interrupt. They just stood near the toilets and heard the concert. Hope Bharjatiyas would have seen their impact on society and probably conceived a film on marriage in air, near god and heaven and then we can get such out-of-world experience more often, films mirroring life and vice versa.

With all this going on, I tried to read Kafka to keep the air-plane on balance (or balance on air-plane). I usually carry Kafka on flights, to fight the fear but this time there was no need of Kafka. The guy next to me didn't like the songs nor the Kafka. He cribbed and tried to sleep. Later he even asked the flight attendant that where can he fill the feedback form. God knows what he will complain - ban the families on board. As for me, I really loved the experience. These one hour and forty minutes were the best one can do to fight the altitude nausea and the relative disorders, its a therapy like a Bollywood movie.

A Day Dream

Last weekend I went to Bombay. There were usual beer and bakar sessions. It was sometime back that I did something, which I wanted to repeat with almost similar, if not enhanced effect. For this to duplicate, it required, above all, some friends that make my definition of drinking. Without them its not worth to get drunk or even to pose like one. For this we went to Bombay, seems stupid, but it is not so in the mildest sense. The effort is worth the hardship we faced to reach Bombay, we are inflicted with Bollywood cheapos in the bus, that too back to back, we cannot even listen to the music we carried in our iPods and Walkies. After getting to Bombay, first thing was not to waste another minute as sun started glowing and to stuff our stomachs with something heavy enough to gratify our mind that we are not hungry anymore and light enough to leave room for forthcoming rushes of chills. Once we prepared ourselves, all breathed deeply and saw the world around us, as it will not be the same.

Drinking is a pleasure as we cannot afford to do it daily. Over it, when ever we arrange these drinking session, they are all at night and we tend to amalgamate them with loud music, insensitive talks and some pelvic movements. So this effect of highness and aloneness is created out of a mixed effect, the core isn't neat, to mix it with all this, deeply undervalues the mystic powers of alcohol, and that hurts. Therefore the smart ones invented the refined art of drinking under sun and making hay. But drinking at day is an act of perseverance and for that you need a reliable and like-minded company and the sole goal of getting drunk. With no other distraction, day-light-drinking robs you of your senses slowly so that any honest drinker will not even find it out to resist . All this starts with very normal talks like what I did in my University and who is a bigger asshole, Salman or Shahrukh or where to invest in share market, and moves to more interesting topics like why we still don't have a girlfriend and I don't like my job and there is same shit everywhere and the more matured like when are you planning to get married. The rise is so deceptive that you will miss the very point that you are getting drunk.

To be drunk at afternoon is a amazing feeling, there is no worry as you can get fit for a second dip at night too. Those who haven't tried it, hurry up, take one afternoon off, get drunk, office seems like perforated enclosure and you can flatter out as a wordless humming bird. There are more benefits of drinking during day. One that comes fast to my mind is that there are no hangovers of such orgies. Other pleasure include watching sun through almost-closed eyes. Not only sun, but anything high, looks higher, when you are high. This is the best time to be with friends as nobody bothers a drunkard. Actually the best part is nothing knows exactly that others are drunk, although they all have dim perceptions but not too strong to confirm this in public. On the other hand its the worst part to be the only one in fake-senses, when every one is enjoying the lightness of heart and mind, then you tend to take the role of an over-caring mother or a over-whining girl-friend/wife, both needs to checked at any cost. Drinking at night does give us the arms of sleep in loud music but day light doesn't offer any such respite to abase or cut the highs and lows of an influenced man. A man should be allowed to take pleasure of his deeds, good or bad, that's inconsequential.

The effect of alcohol is slightly reduced by the cacophony of day and brightness of air but you hopefully wait for a good dusk of good booze. Once you get the twilight of day and night, it just reflects your state, seems to resonate with nature. This is the moment we fantasized while boarding the bus to Bombay, a perfect blend of nature with us. Such moments are rare, should be preserved in memory like a youthful rose or like lush green leaves of monsoon trees, very fresh, very lively, should be handled with care, with respect, with deep sense of pleasure of living.

Summer Trip

This visit to home will be unique because I didn't go home but went lots of places where I felt home at. I almost thought of staying there at times but as always a bit of rational thinking ruled out the entire idea. I also thought that if I want to write anything substantial I need to be at any of these places to do so but again rational thinking spoiled the romance.

In short I went to two places, Hill and Desert. If it had been a movie by Antonioni, he must have used them as a backdrops for my mental picture but life is no movie, it is far more bland. First, I went to a place called Naahan (HP), near Chandigarh (Haryana/Punjab). It is the occasion of marriage of two of my friends, Divya and Chaitanya, and I attended a marriage after a long time. And I need to tell people that I am not a Telugu but a north Indian, don't know it is compliment or otherwise. I was seeing 'real' hills after a long time and I sort of traveled back to my fun-loving self till I found out an autobiography by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo. I really found it intriguing. All the external peace went away and I again turned to the something internal. I was not able to complete it but is surely in the hit list. Apart for this I went for trekking to a fort in Naahan; it was really a nice experience as we (I and my friend Kiran) took the most adventurous route through the hills and risked our life at least twice. Risking life is a fantastic experience when seen in perspective. After we came from the trek, I and Kiran were talking and we found out the biggest fear we both had while doing this adventure, the fear that what will we tell back at Naahan, if the other person dies. It's a quite profound finding that we care at the time of risk too.

The next destination was Bahal where my sister lives; it is small place near Bhiwani (Haryana). It's near Rajasthan and looks like a desert. It's a difficult destination. From Naahan, I went to Shahabad, Shahabad to Panipat, Panipat to Rohtak, Rohtak to Bhiwaani, and Bhiwani to Bahal, took almost 10 hrs of journey by bus to reach there and this experience was compounded by the youthful sun of north. When I met my sister, there were long rounds of stupid discussions, and we told all sort of told and untold trivia to each other, as usual. I stayed in Bahal for 3 days. My sisters' house had a small balcony where I wrote this post, there were some 2 peacocks dancing and cheering me up. I again thought that this is the place you can write freely and nature can entertain you at times.

Going to home and coming back to work seems to give a good perspective on what crap you do and what crap other do. I usually don't like this idea of change (from Hyderabad to Home and back) but once I do it, I really like to think about it in several different ways and try to draw some more knowledge about how am I changing!

Vithikaa...

I went to lots of places in Hyderabad this month. It included Salarjung Museum where I saw some of most beautiful pieces of art.

I was interested in calligraphy in my teens and just thought good handwriting is calligraphy, later I learnt that its much more than that and tried some styles (in devnagari) but was not able to gather much interest. It resurfaced that day when I saw some of the excellent Persian, Urdu and Arabic Calligraphy work at Salarjung. I was not able to read anything but those handwritten manuscripts are real work of art. Then there were one of my favorite forms of art, miniature paintings, in Mughal, Rajasthani, Pahari and Deccani styles. Also, there were very delicate works on wood, ivory and jades. But something that mesmerized me was a sculpture by Italian sculptor G.H Benzoni, named 'Veiled Rebecca'. It was truly remarkable sculpture with Rebecca's marvelous face clearly visible through a flimsy/translucent marble veil. Even after seeing her 2-3 times it looked that milk is poured on her and it has frozen and it is not marble. What a beauty...

I have recently seen (about two months ago) a film by French Director Nicolas Philibert named Louvre City (La Ville Louvre). It showed people hanging paintings, reorganizing rooms, and moving work around at Louvre Gallery in Paris, its more like a documentary. Little by little characters (workers at Louvre) appear and weave together the thread of a narrative. From studios to stacks and reserves containing thousands of picture, sculptures, works of art... this is the discovery of a city with a city. I remember an interesting discussion between two of the workers about a sculpture that whether it is by Michelangelo or someone else as the identity tag was missing, they were discussing about its beard style to figure it out. There were scenes how every thing was put perfectly on walls like a mural. Its showed how biggest of the paintings and the smallest of the artifacts are taken care of. It has a 10 min uncut scene (movie time is about 80-90 min) of how a broken pot (of the size of an small apple) is treated, marked, bought from basement labs to the top floor through a labyrinth of stairs and lifts very carefully. The broken pot was wrapped in a white cloth like a small delicate creature and was placed on the top floor with thousands of its counterparts.

I am not drawing any comparison between Salarjung and Louvre. Louvre is much bigger in content and space, and boosts to be house of paintings like 'Monalisa' and 'The Last Supper', but the love for art and preserving it is the same.

One more thing, I got the hindi (actually Sanskrit) word for 'Gallery' there (I was not knowing it before), and hence the title of this blog.