Love Brinjal - Part IV

The Classic Storyteller’s Handbook requires every story to have a beginning, middle and an end. The Modern Storyteller’s Handbook also says that a story needs a beginning, middle and an end, though not necessarily in that order. It also defines a beginning, middle and an end very loosely – the first few sentences of the story are its beginning, and the last few are the end. Whatever is left in between could safely be defined as the middle.

A story needs to mature before it ends, or the critics will say that it ended abruptly. I don’t give a bandicoot’s posterior about the critics, but I believe in the theory – a story does need to mature before it ends – it is like a good whiskey – no point drinking it before it is mature. Or like a good game of hide-and-seek – if the seeker seeks before the seekees can prepare themselves to be sought, there’s no point.

Often, when I have looked back at those days, I have wondered whether I was the seeker or the seekee. I did a lot of the seeking and chasing, like when I went to Delhi, but she did some of it too – for instance, when she looked for me for desperately every time my phone was disfunctional and I was being my disassociated self. Then I sometimes think, does a relationship need to have a seeker and a sought? Aren’t both the parties usually seeking the other, for whatever reasons? And then I get sick of “seeking” thoughts – both thoughts about seeking, and seeking those thoughts, and revert to my usual sick thoughts.

“You’re such a sick guy!” she said.
“That’s not what I meant,” I tried.
“Da, you’re incorrigible.”
“Machi…”
“Ok, I’ll grant you this much – your intentions are noble, but the way you put them across needs some polish.”
“All I’m trying to say is that this country’s going to the dogs.” Almost as if on cue, a dog walked past us. Both of us smiled.
“How do you do this?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Have these props come in at the right time?”
“It’s this theory I believe in. You believe something is there, and it is.”
“Eh?”
“Look. A hippo!”
“Man, you’re good at this.”
“And look at that…”
“A mastodon! One hasn’t been sighted in Bangalore since the ice age!” she exclaimed.
“Right. Getting back to what I was saying, have you ever seen a village? Basic water and sanitation aren’t available, but people are laying optical fibre cables!”

We loved these freewheeling conversations that seemed to mix fact, fantasy and fiction, start and end nowhere, much like Modern Storytelling.

I recall another conversation.

“If you were given one superpower, just one, what would you ask for?” she asked.
“I’d just ask for unlimited strength.”
“Boring.”
“Ok. The power to fly.”
“Blah.”
“I’ll be happy with that - imagine being able to fly.”
The expression on her face made me feel as boring as a Hindi movie maa.
“Why? What would you ask for?”
“I’d like to have this power by which I just do a little swish with my hand, and a pile of shit falls on the person standing in front of me.”
I laughed.
“Pile of shit,” she said, swishing her hand.
“Pile of shit,” I mimicked.

To this day, when I get angry with someone, I just swish my hand, and mutter, “Pile of shit”.
***

But this story needs a beginning – it had to all start somewhere. And it did. I remember it was exactly the thirty-first day of October, because that is the day Indira Gandhi died. Now, I share my birthday with Indira Gandhi, and somehow, I remember the date she died, even though I often forget our birthday.

Back then, I was the violinist for a little-known, pompous, talentless ‘fusion’ band that claimed to fuse jazz and Carnatic music – we also had a pianist and a percussionist who played both the tabla and the drums. Much to the distress of my mother and passers-by on the road, we practised at my place – everyday, for six hours. My sister, whom I refer to as Akka, more out of habit than respect had come to town for a weekend.

While practice was in full flow, our pianist who came back into our room after drinking some water, said, “Dude, there’s this super-hot chick in the adjacent room.”

“I hope you aren’t referring to my sister,” I said.
“Well, your sister is kind of hot, but this girl is something else.”
“Let’s just start practice,” I said, starting off our piece de resistance, our locus classicus, magnum opus, circus maximus. This was the only piece we played with any promise, and as our improvisations warmed up and sounds of the instruments intertwined till they were one, she walked in. Not my sister, but the other one. I believed, for quite a while, that our music was arresting. But when she walked in, I understood what the word meant.

She said, “Go on. Don’t mind me.” It was asking for the impossible. Don’t mind her! We were fairly good actors, or so we thought, and we continued playing. Towards the end, I heard some beautiful humming, almost as beautiful as its source. I said, like Belafonte famously did, “Sing a little louder”.

When the song was over, she smiled, and was about to say something when my sister summoned her. She made a gesture that we didn’t comprehend in our dazed state, and against our will, we allowed her to leave. For a whole five minutes, we sat in silence.

“I’m off,” the percussionist declared.
“Cool. Tomorrow then,” I said.

I walked down the stairs to find her standing at the doorstep.
“You sing really well,” I said, walking towards the garage.
“You play really well too,” she said.
“You don’t have to polite.”
She just smiled.
As I got on my bike, she said, “Hey, it’s fine. I’ll take an auto…”
“Huh?”
“Um, I’ll take an auto. You don’t have to drop me…”
“Uh? Oh! I was just going to the cigarette shop.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, bu-but I could drop you. Where are you going?”
“Airport Road… Um, where’s the cigarette shop?”
“Um, J-Just down the road.”
“Oh, ok, cool. Um, I’ll, um, see you around, then…”
There it was again – that arresting smile as she walked out of the gate. Then, it struck me.
“Hey, there are cigarette shops on Airport Road,” I said.
“Of course there are!”
She hopped on, and we were off. In another sense, we were on.
***

Grandfathers are usually fascinating– they use their experience to great effect in weaving theories of life, explaining modern phenomenon, and understanding the youth. Grandfathers with a sense of humour are even more fascinating. Women with a sense of humour are the most fascinating, because there are so few of them. She once told me, “As a woman, you can be butt-ugly, but if you’re funny, the guys love you.”

Her sense of humour came from her grandfather.

“Ours is the worst religion,” he told me, “Jesus says, ‘You work hard, and you’ll make a lot of money.’ Allah says, ‘You pray five times a day, and I’ll give you oil.’ What do our Gods say? ‘Shave your head, and take away laddoos.’ ‘Give me murukku. Kozhakattai.’ That’s why we are like this.”

Insightful, I think.

“You know, at the end of each street, there’s a little temple. The vaadyar there, with his big tummy, and pseudo-Sanskrit decides each morning what he wants to eat. Say he feels like having some semiya paayasam, he tells these middle-aged women who come there, ‘Today, give God semiya paayasam, and your cable guy wont have a power cut all day’, and by afternoon all of them will bring him the tastiest semiya paayasam.”

“If you hate this religion so much, why don’t you just convert? Pray five times a day, claim your oil well, and live in peace?” she asked him, irritatedly.
“I’m too old a dog to learn new tricks. You, on the other hand, have all the energy.”
***

There are some events, some small incidents that you recollect, remember, relive literally every day of your life. There are also times when you use three words when even one of them would convey, express, communicate what you are trying to say. I often have the urge to annihilate such people. I also think people who start each sentence with the word “basically” deserve to be gagged, bound and made to watch Tamil soaps on a large screen for the rest of eternity. But that is a separate point. Coming back to the crucial issue, there are incidents you relive literally every day of your life.

This one happened on a Sunday – the Sunday I came back from Madras after an interview with The Hindu – one of those interviews that ended with, “Thank you. We’ll get back to you. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” It was two Sundays after I had made my fruitless expedition to Delhi. An expedition born out of a suspicion that ended in an endless argument.

Akka asked, as I entered the house, “Are you going to be at home for dinner?”
My Akka was turning into my Amma – both were most worried about where I would eat. It was almost as if nothing else about my life mattered. What happened at the interview? Did you get a job at The Hindu? Did you tell them you were a cardholder of the CPI(M)? All these were questions I was left to ask myself. All she was interested in was whether I was going to eat at home.
“I’ll just call you-know-who and let you know.”
“She won’t have dinner with you now.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know?!”
“No.”
“Ask her,” she said, with a little grin on her face.
She picked up the phone, “Hey!”
“Why wont you have dinner with me tonight?”
“Eh?”
“Akka told me you wont.”
“Oh, that…” Beep, beep. Engaged tone. This was my trick of avoiding uncomfortable questions.

“Akka, what happened?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“The phone got cut…”
“She’s engaged.”
"It got cut, di. Not engaged."
"Dude, engaged. As in, she now has a would-be."
In my most unconvincing tone, I managed, “Wow. When did that happen?”
“Why? You thought she’ll marry you?” she said, still grinning.
“Of course not! Pah!” I was devastated, shocked, dismayed.
***

It was a kela in the most royal sense of the term. All of South America put together didn’t produce kelas on this scale. At Cubbon Park, where we performed the last rites, I asked her some important questions.

“Why was the Universe created?”
“Dude, wrong speech.”
It was the most important question. If the Universe wasn’t created, then we’d be living in empty space, and time wouldn’t have been the empty signifier it is right now. Sorry, wrong speech.

“Why Cubbon Park?”
“Oh, I just thought it’d be trippy, with all the couples around.”
Trippiness. Yes. As if losing out to a black-spectacled, French-beard sporting, laptop-carrying, sandhyavandanaming, fake accent show-offing, non-resident was not trippy enough.

“Where did we screw up?”
“Chronology of our births.”
My only option, therefore, was a time machine. If I was a little crazier, I might have started re-learning the science that I had gleefully dumped for more liberal learning.

“Why not?”
“Why?”
That put things in a whole new perspective.

“Did you ever love me?”
“I’ll have to think about that one.”
She did love me. I could feel it. She thought. And she said, “Perhaps not.”

“Any chance of a divorce?”
“Bastard.”

On that day, I decided I’d wait for that divorce. She’d get bored of his speaking in Engineering short forms, his nostalgia for sessionals and internals, his calculating, scientific approach to lovemaking and his attempts to estimate the distance in light-years from his house to the Department Store. But, my decision changed soon. Another girl waltzed in, and on this occasion, I wasn’t chronologically challenged.
***

I met her only on one other occasion – bumped into her at a concert in Madras, actually.

“You’ve put on weight.”
“Don’t fucking fuck around.”
“Marriage clearly hasn’t civilised you.”
“I’m still better off than I was with you.”
“But how the weight?”
“I’m pregnant da.”
“You’re not fat enough for that excuse.”

She had no reply to that. It was very unlike her. The rest of the evening wasn’t this exciting though. The concert was extraordinarily brilliant, and walking down from there along the beach to this curiously titled restaurant called “Pupil” humming the song she first sang with us was really nice, but dinner got boring. We had hardly anything to talk about. Her sharp wit and biting nastiness had given way to some random kitty-party jokes. Her stunning waist curve had become aunty-hips. She was worried about random things like the fact that the gas guy hadn’t come. I kept calling her Mami and she didn’t have a retort. Clearly, she had become an auntyji!

Yet, there was something enticing about her. Something that told me that underneath all the aunti-pankti, she was still the same. After much dilly-dallying, I agreed to spending the night at her place. It was there that I got my interminable bout of hiccups. Water, sugar, holding breath had all been tried unsuccessfully.

Her last remedy was to close my nose and my ears, and blow as hard as possible. I told her that it was physically impossible for me to close both my nose and my ears at the same time. So, she closed my ears, and I held my nose. Something made her lean towards me, and without realising what I was getting into, I leaned forward too.

Just when something was about to happen, the doorbell rang. Microsoft’s star employee was back. I dont know about her, but I felt horribly guilty about this. The next morning, we got up and behaved like nothing had happened. Strangely, there was no awkwardness, and we were back to being who we were. But then, every time I think of our relationship, I think of that one second, when both of us, strangely, just let go.
***

Thank You!
Arun, for the pile of shit. Kai, for her continued support, blessings and inputs. Vidya Balan, for all the inspiration, and an arresting smile (Marry me?). Most importantly, Francis, for being Francis.

Settling Scores

Yesterday morning, I read about the "bowl-out" that bizarrely ended the stalemate between India and Pakistan. I must admit, I wasn't really aware of the exact nature of the ritual until yesterday morning, but that is still better than the Pakistan team, who weren't aware of even its existence till they were thrown into the deep end!

Around 1994, if my failing memory serves me right in these twilight years of my youth, an exhibition match between West Indies and the Rest of the World was decided by a bowl out. For a ten-year-old me, this was the ultimate in excitement and innovation. Excitement and innovation are the cornerstones of this T20 format, with "reaching out to a larger audience" being a third foundation. With the bowl-out, cricket hopes to reach out to a larger share of ten-year-olds - a market segment where it has been continuously losing out to Spongebob Squarepants, Pokemon and DragonballZ.

Here are my suggestions for other exciting and innovative ways to break a tie:

1. A Penalty Shootout - You have the wicketkeeper standing before a goal, and a batsman from a fair distance tries to hit the ball into that goal. This could bring in football and hockey audiences from around the world.

2. An Obstacle Course with Capture-the-Flag contest - There are two bases - one for each team. Each base has a flag. The team that captures the flag from its opponent and reaches its own baes wins. Have stumps, bails, pads, rollers, and umpires as obstacles and players with bats and balls run around trying to hit each other and stop them from Capturing the Flag. The Unreal addicts would then start watching cricket - that is 7% of the world's TV-owning population!

3. Arbitration - Each team nominates one arbitrator to the Bench from the Elite Panel of Umpires, and the two arbitrators appoint a neutral Chief. The captains of the teams present their arguments for why their team should win or lose the game. Arguments need not be restricted to cricket and could extend to attacks of personal nature, including comparing cricketers from opposition to potatoes. The ever-burgeoning legal fraternity would queue up to watch Dhoni wax eloquently on the intricacies of the game.

4. The Age-old Game of Lagori - This game tests some core cricket skills - throwing, running, avoiding uncomfortable balls and most importantly, your mental strength. Indian rural audiences might start watching cricket if their favourite sport is shown to them once a year (the probability of a tie).

5. Mortal Kombat - Because history has proved to us this is most effective way of resolving any disputes! Because equals are equal and unequals are unequal in this go-for-throat battle. Because this town aint’ big enough for a tie. Round 1, fight!

Love Brinjal - Part III

Penultimate Part. Perhaps. Previous Part - Press. Pehla Part - Press.

***
I love her. So much. So so much.

The Delhiness of Delhi is often lost on Delhiites. But I shall get to that later. Let me start with how I got to Delhi in the first place. A dear Delhi friend told me that the Karnataka Express, curiously abbreviated as KK (At first I thought that the Delhiites think Karnataka is actually Karnata Ka - a sequel to Calasso's most famous work, but then I realised that Delhiites know nothing of Calasso, the concept of a sequel or work. I take back that statement - they would know of sequels after Dhoom 2 and Krrish. Or maybe they just look at them as episodes of a saas-bahu soap.) was the train to take. He said it was more romantic than the Sampark Kranthi, which, apart from stopping only thrice during the whole journey, had a certain revolutionary flavour. It was the old world charm of chai and Chacha Chaudary on railway platforms versus water in Laloo's matkas. He forgot to mention the small matter of non-availability of tickets in the KK.

The highlight of travelling unreserved for forty-eight hours was how I mastered the art of bladder control, because losing control of your bladder meant losing control over the little space you had. Other interesting incidents included a man taking a Krishna idol out of his bag, performing an elaborate pooja, and passing the aarti around; another man built like a bear in more ways than one deciding to take his shirt off for a major part of the journey to beat the heat; a youngish couple entering the compartment with a harmonium to entertain all and sundry; the numerous boards on walls on the outskirts of Delhi with numbers of seedy doctors promising to cure "health problem" and the dreaded "gupt rog"; and lastly, the customary tax-collectors - the hijras - who collected an additional long-hair surcharge from me - "Tum hum mein se ek ho"! I tried explaining that that should have counted for a discount, but my argument fell on deaf ears (and greedy eyes).

When I reached the station, I gave her a call from a telephone booth, "Hello?"
"Hey. Hello. This is me."
"You?!"
"Yes."
"But you're calling from a Delhi number..."
"Yeah. I'm in Delhi... I just wanted to know the address of the place where you're staying."
"Dude, I am in Bangalore!"
It took me seven whole seconds to register that. She asked, "Are you there?"
"Yeah... Um, so what do I do?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"I'm in Delhi. Shall I just take the next train and come back?" That was a ridiculous question. I had nothing else to do in Delhi - I was scared of the Punjabis and unaware of the differences between any other communities. My Hindi was limited to jaldi, aao, jaao, mera naam joker and behnchod. I wanted to go back.
"No. Wait. Give Gaurav a call, and go to his place. Have a bath, and then take the train back."
"Bathe?"
"Yes. Two days on a train, and you don't even feel the need to bathe!"
"This was a fairly clean train."
"Did I detect some sarcasm?"
"No. You didn't."
"What are you doing in Delhi?"
"I came to see you. I was missing you..."
"Elephant fart," she said. This was her alternative to 'bullshit'. She picked that up from me.
"Why else would I come here?"
"Maybe...."
"Maybe what?"
"It's okay. I don't want to tell you. It'll just start a fight."
"Maybe what?" I was trying my firm voice, and it worked.
"Maybe, just maybe, you came to check on me and Gaurav."
How? How did she know? Was it that obvious?
"Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?! Man, I can't understand how you can even think something like that!"
"Now I'm sure."
"My god! First you tell me that I'm not romantic enough, and when I travel across the coutnry for you, you dismiss it."
"You're a paranoid guy. I can't believe you did this."
One of my uncles once told me that when you want to cut a call mid-way, and make it seem like it was a fault in the connection, cut it while you're talking.
"How can I..." Beep, beep. Engaged tone at her end. I calmly paid the phone booth guy and left.
***

So, as I was telling you, the Delhiness of Delhi is often lost on Delhiites. Trying to find a bus to Vasant Vihar, I asked a conductor, "Yeh bus Vasant Vihar jaata hai?" The conductor said, "Jaata nahin, jaati hai," laughed meanly, and drove away! I laughed at my fate - I was left here in an unknown city, having to speak a language that attached a gender to every object. That too, without any logic! I mean, what was feminine about a bus? It struck me as more masculine than a table any day - and yet, the bus was a woman, and the table was a guy - if you gave them one night together, we might have a bus with four wooden legs instead of tires.

The next time, I passed the grammar test and was admitted into the bus.

As I passed the India Gate on my way to Gaurav's place, I saw the strangest sight - the pools of water created for landscaping were teeming with people bathing and washing clothes. When I pointed this out to a middle-aged man sitting next to me, he said, "What else do you want them to do in that water?"

After much vernacular-grappling and address-hunting, I reached Gaurav's place. In my life, I hadn't been to a more Punjabi establishment. There were photographs of his loving family plastered across the house. The decor was most garish, some Gurdas Mann played through the radio - Worldspace's Tunak channel, and the latest Stardust, Maxim, Dainik Jaagran, Femina and Filmfare were strewn on the floor. The drawing room had a curious map framed and put up on the wall - it was a map of Ludhiana. "Parents live there," he said, "Home town. I feel emotional about it."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This guy was her ex-boyfriend?

And then he made a loud phone call to a certain paaji, who arranged for my train ticket by the next morning's gaddi. For the rest of the day and night, I lazed around the house forced to appreciate the nuances of Punjabi smash hits, and vivid descriptions in those songs on the exquisiteness of the kudi. As a part of the hospitality, I was offered the Tamilian version of the kudi - the drink - a typically Punjabi McDowell's with soda.

When the first rays of the rising sun rebounded off the mirror and flashed in my eye, I got up to leave. Hung over and still recovering from the previous journey, subconsciously, I sang in an interminable loop, "Thoda daru vich pyaar milaade..."
***

Lifts make for a fascinating study. Being in a closed lift with an unknown pretty girl can be quite an uncomfortable experience. The girl knows she's pretty, and that the guy could be observing her in ways that he shouldn't observe her. The guy makes an extra effort to ensure he doesn't come across as the undesirable types - an exercise that usually proves counterproductive. What is even stranger, is being in a lift with a uniformed liftman, and having continuous devotional chanting playing instead of the usual lift music.

That was the distinguishing feature of the lift in her apartment. You were always subjected to "Om Shree Maha Ganadhipataye namah", or "Om namah Shivaaya", or "Om Shakti Om", or the Gaayatri mantra. Recently I found out that the liftman, uplifted and enlightened by the constant chanting became a Godman and established an ashram on the outskirts of Bangalore, where devotees were put in models of lifts, and made to listen to chanting.

On this night, we were coming back from a movie to her apartment, and she commented that the greatest advantage of coming back at night was that the chanting would be turned off. I subtly put the point across that the lift usage by other residents is also very minimal after midnight. And so, when we got into the lift, almost immediately, we fell into each others arms. When I pushed her against the wall (and unknowingly a little button), suddenly, out of nowhere came, "Swamiye Ayyappa, Ayyappa Swamiye; Swamiye Ayyappa..."!
***

For two whole weeks we fought about my trip to Delhi. I told her about everything I braved in the train to get to her, hoping it would convince her of my love. She seemed to think that it was mistrust that drove this, and love could never have produced such effects. She was right, but I argued forever. I mean, I loved her. If I didn't, I wouldn't have worried about whether she was making it with someone else, right?

"Wrong. That is caused by jealousy..."
"No, I'm serious. This is love. Ask these guys who are reading this... Guys, tell her. I love her. You know that. Tell her that."
"This is between us. You guys stay out of this!"
"But they're my witnesses. Guys, refer her to the opening lines of this part!"
"You added them in just now. Bastard."
"Fine. Don't believe me."

This state of stalemate finally ended on a Sunday morning.

To be continued.

Blog Day

Presenting, finally, a festival or commemoration created in the last two decades that had nothing to do with greeting card companies - Blog Day - when every Blogger (at least the ones that hear about and bother to 'celebrate' Blog Day) puts up 5 new blog recommendations.

Here are mine:
1. Word Imperfect: If the faithful reader of this blog (usually my alter ego called Xeno - I named him when I was seven - he's a nasty, straight-talking, smoother, cooler, better looking version of me) has observed an improvement in my already insurmountable vocabulary, I'd credit it to this blog. The funda is simple. An obscure English word is put up. You make up a meaning for the word. The most inventive meaning wins.

2. Totally Basmatic - As an ardent follower of Hindi cinema, and writing about Hindi cinema, I came across this most entertaining blog - this chick (okay, girl) from the US writes here about Bollywood movies. She's seen as many Hindi movies as you and me. She can tell you who the playback singers for all songs of Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke without batting an eyelid. Most importantly, she gives you the most accurate insights into Bollywood - especially when she tells you, "it was an enjoyable time-pass, after all."

3. Finding JTAG on the iPhone - I read this blog everyday. I sometimes go through all the 200-odd comments that every post gets. I still don't understand what this blog is about. All I know is that it involves iPhones. Some tinkering, soldering, buying and selling. And LOTS of people read it!

4. Which Main? What Cross?: I discovered this quite by accident a few days ago, and have been hooked since. This blog is definitely one of the best photoblogs I've come across - they're photos of metrosexual, cosmopolitan, seemingly boring Bangalore. One is put up every day, and each photograph teaches you something - about Bangalore, about life in the city, or about photography.

5. Blog of Nikhil Parekh - Poet and three-time World Record Holder - He claims this is the world's largest blog - although that is not his world record. His world record is for most number of references to the thesaurus in a single day. His second world record is for extraordinary pomposity backed by the most dubious credentials. His third world record is for the most meaningless, mind-numbing "poetry" in the world. Jag Iyer (My good friend, and Patron-saint of the JMC) once said about someone, "Macha, people took one look at this guy and decided that the word moron wouldn't be strong enough to describe what he is. So, they invented brain-moron." Jag Iyer would have said that about Nikhil Parekh if he had known about him.