pehle aap

There is a saying in Hindi. Pehle aap pehle aap karte karte gadi chhoot jayegi. Which summarises how two polite individuals both missed a train, because they kept insisting the other one should board the train first. That reminds me of another saying, this one in Europe - “Fila Indiana” or Indian Queue. There seems to be a perception abroad that Indians are always forming queues. But to me it seems that both these saying date back to an age in India where culture prevailed over need. In today’s India of constrained resources, the fastest hare wins the race because he is fast and he doesn’t take a nap.

When in India, I miss the behaviour reflected in those sayings. On the contrary, people see you out of the corner of their eye and turn their heads further away so they can justify pretending they didn’t see you and trudge onwards in their own interpretation of the direction of the queue. It looks more like a delta turned the other way around, where the distributaries are now fighting to join the mainstream river. The mentality now has become something like this - I need to get on that train before the others. If I don’t make it before the others, I won’t find a seat. Or I will have to wait for the rest of the world to shuffle along at their slow pace, wasting my time. Those who can’t help themselves, might as well go find some other alternative. They shouldn’t obstruct my way and slow me down. I can forget about them if I just ignore them. The ones behind me can happily deal with them, I can’t be more bothered as long as I have safely avoided the trouble. And all these women, when they have their special ladies queues, why can’t they confine themselves to there? They should anyway just stay out of my way and not waste my time. Who has the time to entertain their questions, wait for 1 million handbags and pull them along while slowing down the rest of the world?

I wonder why people in the western world wait for others to trudge along in front of them in queues, on pedestrian crossings and at food counters. The first time I got caught unaware crossing a by-lane, my surprise knew no bounds when the car stopped for me to pass and I didn’t see any anger or frustration on the driver’s face. Strangers care and smile, women are treated like a crystal swan. Women get right of way because they are delicate beauties and should always be comfortable while the strong men can carry on in any circumstances. And the analogy extends to the old and to children as well. But then I also noticed all this happened only when things were in a formal external environments and in normal routine circumstances. Let there be a disruption and suddenly I find a mini-India here as well. The grumbling, the complaining, the pushing and shoving, the urgency to be the first one to capture that last seat on the tube, all those emotions surface instantaneously. Strangers would beat you to dust, women become a fibre-glass snail. Women might as well have to go last because they are weak and slow, and should not get in the way of strong and quick men. The saving grace in India still is that while that age-old culture has disappeared when interacting with strangers, we have still preserved it within our family circles- eldest one bears responsibility for younger ones, you share everything, you serve yourself last. Whereas in the western world, the love and care in a family has been replaced by independence and self-reliance, and has transformed into courtesy and polite behaviour with people outside one’s family.

Courtesy is a luxury arising from abundance. When you have enough, when you are not starving, you are happy to share and wait for others to eat before you. That’s what that age-old culture in Indian society was all about. Pehle aap. The individuals missed the train because they couldn’t decide, not because it became too full to accommodate them. When there is abundance, you automatically see the difference between delicate and weak. It is said that a society’s prosperity is measured in the way it treat its women. The scale is based on respect for a woman’s being, that’s all.

me firmior amor

love is stronger than i am.

i resisted watching the recent movie rockstar for a long time. i find ranbir kapoor very attractive and talented, and i am a bigger fan of the director imtiaz ali. and everyone was raving about it. i had seen some promos and heard a few songs, but i was not hooked yet. plus i didn't want to watch a doomed love story, a tragedy, a heartbreak, coz that had been revealed already in people's reviews. but then i read a more detailed synopsis and one thing caught my curiosity. the innocence of the intentions of the protagonist who goes about getting his heart broken so that he can bring some depth to his singing. how naive and yet how typically middle class driven - will do anything to achieve one's ambition and will make sure to achieve it. and hindsight will tell whether it really was an achievement or was it actually a dangerous gamble that gobbled up his ambition. he didn't realise when the tables turned and how he was relegated to another strategic play in the bigger gamble from being the gambler. and i trust imtiaz ali's ability to narrate this story and its nuances. hence i decided to watch the movie.

how the canteen owner scolds him when he pretends to feel the heartbreak. how he never realises his love for her and yet for the viewer its all there written in big bold. how she and music are all that tug at his heart, the world be damned. the contracts, the media scions, the agents, the concerts, he does what his heart tells him to do. how he says, "i think we should kiss now." how his anger and his love and his longing and his success are all different facets of the same truth. his love is stronger than he is. his love is only that is and will continue to keeping him alive and sane and keep success follow his footsteps.

then something caught my attention. two songs - rolling in the deep by adele and somebody that i used to know by gotye. both are after break-up songs, and the peculiar thing is the combination of music and lyrics in these songs - the music couldn't be softer and the lyrics couldn't be angrier. in fact the initial guitar piece of the second song reminds me of the nursery rhyme "baba black sheep". the innocence of childhood days of learning nursery rhymes being the most important assignment of one's life comes rushing back. and once the lyrics start, you are suddenly catapulted first into college years and then to present. the lasting feeling is that life couldnt have been a bumpier ride and the bitter after taste of anger, having soaked away the innocence of childhood and growing up forever.

here is a sample of the lyrics:

And I don't even need your love

But you treat me like a stranger and I feel so rough

and another one:

But I don't wanna live that way

Reading into every word you say

and some more:

See how I'll leave; with every piece of you,

Don't underestimate the things that I will do

and this one is the last sample:

Think of me in the depths of despair

Make your home down there as mine sure won't be shared

i can't describe in words the release of emotion i feel every time i hear these songs. its therapeutic almost. these are songs for which i can actually distinguish and remember the tunes. and its not like those shrieking metal songs, there is no violence in the music, just such intense sorrow that it is an emotional roller coaster. in fact, they even inspire me to want to sing them. after the initial release, the intensity reaches a high and then you are left exhausted. the confusion, the anger, the sadness, the nostalgia, the hurt and the redemption of self esteem. all captured in those delicate tunes and harsh words, crystallising the feelings into musical notes and forcing you to face your wounds and open the path to letting them heal rather than hiding them away in an ignored closet. letting the break actually happen and rising again from the ashes of that destruction.

maybe thats what the moral of the story of rockstar was all about. going through a heartbreak to bring alive those emotions. maybe it is not naive. maybe thats why music is to the soul what medicine is to the body. love is stronger than i am - it will be the crutch to support my weakness and breathe new life into me. rather than relegating into the negative spiral of i dont believe in love, i want to be rational about it. the mind is rational and is to be trusted over the heart. true, but doesnt mean that the mind cannot love and only the heart can nourish it. remember the mind is the source of your instinct - it will always have a reference point, some basis, some justification, whether you can realise it or not, then or ever. and the third thing that happened. at one dinner we did a round of fortune cookies, and i will leave you with what one of them said:

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

luxury of art

Luxury is when one can think about fulfilling desires without having to worry about fulfilling needs.

I did a few things in these last few days – did a special gym session on toning my body, watched a movie in a theatre, got a haircut, watched a Cirque du Soleil show at Royal Albert hall, booked tickets to India for a weekend trip to attend a wedding, bought a special perfume for mom which is made and sold online from a discreet corner of the UK. And I realised while I was doing these things that I did them because I wanted to, for myself, for my own happiness, even if the object makes someone else happy it is still making me happy in the end, for experiencing joy out of the money I earn. And then I realised this is what Luxury is all about.

I have the luxury to – cherish my body and give it the attention that it deserves, experience something unique, do something to keep a promise to friends and family. Being able to think beyond today, beyond needs, beyond worries, beyond sadness. Being able to change a longing into a fulfilling experience. For others it could be different. It could be that someone wants to treat a salary like a lottery, like spare cash which is only meant to be spent for enjoyment. Even that enjoyment could then be very different. Buy designer products – sunglasses, perfumes, bags, shoes, watches. Spend on something – anything and everything because you want to feel the joy of being able to spend. Experience a special occasion – fine wining and dining or a spa session or magical show that take you out of the real world and its miseries or looking the most attractive ever, even if just for an hour or flying off to the most pristine piece of nature tucked away in a neat little cosy corner, waiting for you to explore it.

Oh the joys of being human. And then I also begin to realise that art is like luxury. What luxury is to needs, art is to the soul. Its redeems it. Fills it with inspiration to go beyond the ordinary. song, dance, colour, design, form – they break the shackles which bind our souls to mundane everyday life. I think back and even within my miniscule art repertoire, I have come close to experiencing that inspiration which art brings. And its not skill that I am describing here, skill will come only later with effort and time dedicated at honing it. This is just the glimpse of the potential that art has.. The joy of being able, the first time, to play a tune, race a bike on winding roads, sing a song on the highest notes, pick the perfect camera angle, complete that extra spin in perfect rhythm, recreate the flavour that only mom’s cooking has, convey thoughts in seamless flow of words.. it goes on...

Luxury is about experiencing and cherishing art. When your daily work is just that daily work, but your life evolves on to have more dimensions, more meaning, more experiences and more happiness.

will and grace

its not the show, but these qualities that seem to have gone off air too.

the will to do something, to bring about a change, to stand up for your beliefs. i will explain, but i think the following summarises the sentiment ably.

"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." -Fight Club.

i first recognised this trait when i met a french psychiatrist in one of travels. she told me how she didn't want to make something out of her life, she wanted to live from one moment to the next because she just wanted to enjoy it. her parents had provided enough for her to be comfortable, plus she had a job that got her by. she had no intention of raising a family in the future or any of the "settling down" notions that I am accustomed to. she had seen her parents struggle and wither away their in lives in providing for the needs of the family and that is not how she wanted to squander her life. then the other day i was explaining to my colleagues how i don't sympathise with the wall street squatters - because they are complaining for having lost out on the opportunity of being successful without having the will to put in efforts to achieve the same. my colleagues labelled me right-wing extremist who ranted typically like one from the middle class, who would fight only to protest her own priviledges and who would be willing to clean away the wasters like these squatters of the society. they said they sympathised with the complainers because they knew nothing better, and it was not their fault that they had been brought up in affluence without ever feeling the need to put in efforts to get what they wanted.

coming to grace - the grace of a dancer, subtle and bashful, mysterious and elegant, - has gone missing too. given my limited exposure, i will refer to my home ground. from the vyajayanti mala's to the sridevi's of the bollywood world, it was all about grace and in showed in their acting as well as their dancing. moreover, no actress could not dance and vice versa. madhuri dixit signified a transition, when her fashion statement and raunchy lyrics started to become popular. but even she adopted into the realm of grace gradually. think about dhak dhak and choli ke peeche and then think about dola re and o re piya. maybe yash chopra redeemed her and brought about that innocence to her just like he did to sridevi, juhi and later kajol. and now madhuri stands revered in comparison to the munni's and the chameli's of today's item numbers. i was watching on youtube a clip where malaika arora and madhuri dixit share stage while munni badnam plays out. the contrast is just appalling. for these newbies, cameras make up for their lack of movement and voluptous silicon curves make up for the lack of flexibility of their bodies. the only one from among the current crop, who can be given the credential of keeping grace does not even belong to the female segment. he is hrithik roshan. i can slacken a bit and admit that shahid kappor and ranbir kapoor come close to that line as well, but none worthy enough in the female segment.

i would only wish for two things.
- one to have the will to preserve the legacy of wealth around me. growth to sustain consumption of growing population, and not just for the sake of growth.
- two to age gracefully, to imbibe the charm of sridevi aka chandni and the vitality of the 44 yr old madhuri today.

the great bake-off

It all started in 2007 when I moved to live in koregaon park. We were the bus gang, noisy bunch of miscreants who wouldn't let anyone else sleep for the hour long journey to talwade every morning. Anthony Gonsalves taught me my first cake recipe of the sponge cake, with his secret tips to make it nicer. Then I adapted it to make an eggless chocolate cake, which dad could eat. That was the first time I researched recipes over the net and integrated the secret ingredients, tips and tricks. The folding, the precision, the patience, the icing and then the reward. My recipe was quite a success and I got several occasions to try it out and even shared it with my then boss. The next step was the birthday cake surprise for my ex. We didn't have an oven, so we decided to use a pressure cooker - unheard of in these parts of the world - but then we ran out of gas. So our neighbours volunteered their kitchen, for a share of the cake of course. We even got a local cake shop to help us with some icing. Oh the young and what their excitement can achieve..

Then I moved to Barcelona. There was no dearth of cakes there, our cafeteria even served chocolate croissants and apple muffins. But there were barely any Indian sweet shops and I started suffering from a craving for the raj bhandar or haldiram type of sweets, particularly gulab jamuns. Guess when you know you can't find it, it's then that you want to have it most. And on my student budget, I couldn't afford going to restaurants to fulfil my craving. So I decided to make them. Plus gulab jamuns had always been my mom's nemesis, so that was an additional challenge. I made it using the gits mix, but they were recognizable and edible. That spurred me on. I started experimenting with more sweets - made Besan ke laddo and gajar ka halwa.

a few months later german bakery was bombed. I had become a regular there during my stay in koregaon park - they would start packing a slice of apple pie when they saw me walk in. They would serve a cheese mushroom omelette with green tea if I sat down at the hippie wooden table in the dingy outdoor space surrounded by other hippies. So when it got bombed, I had a craving for apple pie. I went back to my researching methodology and figured out the recipe with the secret tips. The one thing I have learnt is that there is always a secret ingredient -it is worth the effort to find and include it. So I tried out the apple pie with raisins - just the way the german bakery people made it. And my American flatmate who was bred on his grandma's apple pie gave it a nod. That paved the way and I got the nickname of the dessert queen. After that I have tried out chocolate mousse, chocolate ice-cream (which was not a success - the secret was missing here).

This summer I moved to London. This Christmas I had my first gingerbread men and pumpkin pie. and my secret Santa gifted me a recipe book - the great British bake off. She figured I have a sweet tooth somehow. From sweet to savoury, from pies to cakes - it has it all in there. From my childhood curiosity of what exactly is a tart to realising that croissants are not magical after all, this book has opened a new world for me. Even the mystery of the one month fruit cake -which no one except Tony knew, both that it existed and how to make it. I can't wait -chocolate croissants like the ones in the IESE cafeteria, tiramisu which my Italian flatmate makes, rasgullas which can potentially scald your palms, gujiya for which I have been carrying the cooking mould for last 2 years and perhaps also rectify the disaster of the ice-cream experiment.

Somewhere in the future I see myself all fat and grey-haired, working in the kitchen, sunlight streaming in through the windows and a bunch of children running about, excited from the fragrance - wondering what the treat is this time around...

atlas shrugged again

i picked this book up again for various reasons. to get back into reading, for want of knowledge of a better option or even a comparable one and for doing a look back to when i had last read it. that was when i was in third and then again in final year of engineering studies..

i used to identify with the idealism of the characters. their sincerity at work, the integrity and courage they displayed and the straightforward approach with which they solved their problems. this time around i am retaining more of the story, more depth and more layers that Ayn Rand has built in. i did remember the main characters and their portrayals, but had forgotten many aspects and many events in the story. the hints of john galt keeping tabs on dagny through eddie, the systematic way in which the next pillar to fall can be predicted and more. even the typical style in which ayn differentiates the good from the bad - how the former is taut and confident and how the latter is loose and evasive. then there are the minor but still interesting characters - of eddie, of mrs.taggart, of rearden's family, of the dr. robert.. sometimes ayn's dismissal of the social motive, of welfare motive, of selflessness is almost disturbing. but then the thin line drawn by integrity surfaces and makes everything palatable again. then there is what joe - my flatmate - suggested. looking around here where shops have low sales despite discounts, unemployment is high and crime is increasing.. the squatter culture is spreading from the poorer markets to madrid to new york to london to amsterdam, i can visualise the setting of the story better than i did the last time. back then it felt like 1930's must have been bad, and now it is just plain scary. and finally what strikes me most is that then the idealism of the characters used to strike me most. what is morality, the sanction of the victim, how much injustice are you willing to take. and now apart from this, the frustrations from lack of intelligence, sincerity and integrity is what strikes me too. now i can see how all of these characters manifest around me in the real world.

at a personal level, this book reminds me of very trying times i faced back in college. i didn't want to join iim indore for various reasons. the idealist principle of getting what you deserve had come from this book then or at least thats how i associate it. but it had been a difficult decision. not a popular one or a commonly understood one either. family friends strangers, had given mixed reactions. right now the scenario is different but the level of confusion and the lack of support is comparable. this one is also a decision for life and will affect more people and more directly than that of the mba. i am still wondering if my decision is correct, and i am still wondering which principle i am basing it on. i guess time will tell, when i read this book again in a few years.

mind games

It's funny how the mind plays games. After a point you don't realise if its reality or a figment of your imagination.

Sunday was the culmination of one of the most eventful weeks - work wise - and also weekends - 30th birthday bash of my flatmate. During the week, I had very critical client sessions and the responses were far beyond our expectations - has set our motor running at full speed. Then, starting Friday afternoon, we had friends flying in from different cities as far away as Istanbul and memories of the fun times in Barcelona were rekindled, how! After two days of all-night parties, we had a relaxing Sunday with a heavy English brunch and long peaceful walk through Regents Park followed by holiday shopping for family. But when you feel your body might physically burst from not being able to contain all the happiness, you should be prepared for some balloons to burst. Even happiness has a limit.

It was on my way back home on Sunday evening that my flatmate called me - our house had been burgled that very afternoon. We lost quite a few things including my laptop. Fortunately no one was hurt and security systems are now being reinforced. There are a lot of questions about how it happened, who was responsible, have we have lost anything else.. If I don't find a shirt, I wonder if the burglars took it.

What now? I felt like the police humoured us when we went to the station add details to our report. The fingerprint guy said he found one fingerprint which didn't match ours, without even looking at our fingerprints, or even our fingers for that matter. The property agent sent out a notification email to all tenants saying how he is beefing up security but did not forget to add how he was surprised that tenants sometimes do not insure personal goods. Personally and mentally, it's a different level altogether, even when the personal exposure was minimum. I did not see any action, any faces, not even the cctv footage, just came back that day to find my room in perfect order but at a closer look realised the missing items. The neatness of it all, even how the door had been chipped off, amazed me.

But with all the discussions, the theories around how and what, and the personal stories my colleagues shared yesterday - my mind is playing games with me. Every time I hear a key turn, a door open, lift announce my floor, my mind goes into alert mode. Every scruffy person, or every volunteer asking for charity that I pass on the street, makes me wonder if the burglars might have any connection to them. The first night I downed some scotch, but still dreamt about losing my job and being burgled. The dream ended well with my dad making some phone calls and setting it all right for me. Last night I woke up imagining someone standing by my bed looking for my laptop. My boss told me yesterday that being burgled can be traumatic; I didn't understand then but now I am beginning to. I am not scared, at least not yet, but very very conscious. Worse, I am generalising and mixing up empathy towards under-priviledged people and antipathy towards these burglars. And all this when the impact on me was barely anything.

It's not about physical or material loss that hits you in the first moment of realisation, it's the loss of peace of mind and loss of sense of safety in your own bedroom that rankles after the excitement has died down. All that stays then is a wait for news, and uncertainty of what to expect and what to protect yourself from. How everything is so fleeting... But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It could have been so much worse in so many ways. For starters - they somehow spared a lot of precious stuff, such as our passports - I will need mine on Friday when I fly home for vacation. Then again the mind in survival mode knows how to adapt and to survive. So if I don't have a laptop, maybe I can do with my phone and my flatmate's laptop. Time with family and friends back home could not have come at a better time. And if it is the mind playing games, then at least I know what to focus on stabilising and channelling to positivity.