It had rained all morning. As I stood against the large window on my 50th floor office and looked out, I could see the distant hills shrouded in the cloud cover, I could also see what looked like toy cars from above, making their way through traffic lights and small boats moving slowly through the Singapore river, which was looking more brown than blue after all the rains.

That’s what rains do sometimes; they turn rivers brown, skies grey and moods blue. Persistent rains have a reputation of bringing up what has long been buried under the soil or hidden under the wraps of time. Or may be rain is just one of the many occasions when time and life conspire to put you in a spot where if you slip, they may just blame the rain.

It has stopped raining sometime back but the glass window was decked with rain drops and they were acting as a reminder that just a while ago these grey clouds in the sky were not so quiet and disinterested. But soon wind would dry up these rain drops, will that be the beginning of a past fading into oblivion? Can past be forgotten so easily? Someone, somewhere few hours back must have hoped that it rains all day, he must have planned his day around those rains - a little getting drenched in rain, a little staying cuddled in bed, a little taking walk in the wet ground and a little waiting for the rainbow. Would drying up of those last drops of rains be also the drying up of all those little dreams? Should he look at the heaven and hope for more rains or should he just get on with a day where it rained just in the morning, just for few hours. And what if moment he gets out after coming around the fact that there would be no more rains on the day, heavens open up. It not only rains, it pours. Would it be a dream come true or a double jeopardy?

I looked up to see if skies look ominous enough, but they were maintaining a secretive silence. I was as dark about fate of those clouds as those clouds themselves were. May be it would rain, may be it would not. May be best thing to do going forward is to take a walk in the cool breeze and may be best thing is to just wait to get drenched. How often it is said that, live life as it presents itself without bothering about how it would be. But there are those tricky bends in a road called life, where you just can't help but think about the turn that it would bring. Isn't it ?

It must have been few hours after this when I finally noticed a ray of sun breaking through the clouds announcing with élan the fate of the day. There were no more raindrops on the window panes, river was not as brown as it was in the morning, sky didn’t seem that dark, just that my mood was still blue. But if with time everything else can change then I knew it’s just a matter of time before last color brought out by rain would also fade away.

And it did, sometime during the day - the blue did turn into green….

-siddhartha

Success didn’t come easy to me, but somehow I have started believing these days that it didn’t take a hard way either. And a lot of times, when we don’t get something the hard way, we don’t seem to remember how much it meant to us.

Its good to aspire, ambition is what gets one going. But it’s equally necessary to take a moment’s pause and look back that how far have we come and feel happy about how lucky we have been.

As a kid, at school we used to say prayers daily. In the morning, we used to pray to the God probably to make it a nice day, at lunch we used to thank Him for the daily bread and at the end of the school, we used to thank him for all the good He did to us that day. May be we should do it not just at school. I don’t remember when was the last time I closed my eyes and thanked God for all the good He has done to me, for all the success He has brought me, for all the sorrows and pain He has kept me away from. May be I took God for granted, just like I have started to take all that I have achieved for granted.

When success just become a trophy on your table and you start forgetting all that brought you that success, everything that was rewarded by that success, moments that were spent chasing it and struggles that you went through for it then you stop being deserving of that success. You cease to be the guy who succeeded. You would still be called by the same name but may be name is all that you would share with the guy who earned his right to be called successful. And the moment you cease to be that guy who succeeded, you would cease to be the guy who will succeed.

And I think I can’t let that happen to myself. I can’t let myself forget that success might not have had come to me in a heroic manner but it took a lot of me and it meant a world to me. And it does a mean lot to me. And I value it and am thankful that I have it. By being ungrateful even to my own self for what I have achieved so far, am actually insulting all my dreams, all my hard work and all the hopes that I have carried.

And that’s not me and that won’t be me.

-Siddhartha

It had happened only twice in last 25 years. Even on those two occasions it rode on chariots of death. First time, on death of a popular woman prime-minister and second time, on death of pretense of secularism in Indian politics. So when it happened again last week and there were no vultures to be seen, our naïve media analysts called it a miracle and started prophesying “beginning of a new era in Indian Politics”, yet to be sworn in Chief Minister of UP was being hailed as future PM. It was such a drama that could be seen nowhere but in our country. Just in case it’s still not clear am talking about Mayawati’s BSP getting majority in UP assembly.

I quite resisted the temptation to trash those articles because frankly I knew it’s just a matter of time when this new beginning would crawl back to old routine and reality would give me far better grounds to talk about tragedy awaiting Uttar Pradesh or should I call it a new face of tragedy.

So to begin with read this :
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/politics/05_2007/mayawatis-cabinet-dominated-by-tainted-ministers-40545.html

Of 19 cabinet minsters in Mayawati’s cabinet, ATLEAST 10 have criminal charges, am sure finding as many as 9 non-criminal ministers must have been very difficult for the lady. And then there is a long list of MoS and MoS with independent charge etc.

Then there was this piece yesterday where more than 120 bureaucrats were transferred as soon as she took up the power.

And the most ridiculous one 3 bureaucrats suspended because some tiles in Ambedkar Park are broken. Talk of vengeance politics at its ridiculous best.


Truth is nothing has changed, there is nothing historic or momentous about what happened last week in UP. In a state where it is said that बिटिया और वोट जात के बाहर नहीं जाना चाहिऐ ( daughter and vote should be given only in the same caste) , all that Mayawati got right was demographic profile of various constituencies and utterly weak opponents. That’s it and that’s all.

In an election where 45% people voted and winner got 33% vote-share of those polled, you don’t need to be Phd. in maths to know that mere one in seven people wanted the new CM of UP to be the new CM of UP. But as things stand, with some intelligent manipulation of media, Mayawati can also do a Lalu. We are all afflicted by short-term memory, it wont take us long to forget what these people stood for but we would just get back tired from offices, listen to senseless commentries from senseless news channels and would begin to believe that Lalu is a management guru and Mayawati is princess of India.

Sitting few hundred miles away, I know what happened in Lucknow would never make any difference to my life but I wish it had atleast made some difference to lives of people who live there but I can see it won’t and that’s a real tragedy.

Late last night, I finally gave up on a story I was trying to complete for last 5 days. It was something I really enjoyed writing when I started, it started pretty well with a nice flow, a generous sprinkle of wit, humour and spontaneity of moments and a gradual build up the way I like.
So why did I delete it then? Because my story had lost its soul. Every piece of writing that claims to be real has a soul just like everything else which is real. And moment that’s gone, all we are left with are pretty but plastic creations.

When I began writing, I was working on a vague idea I was carrying. I thought let me build up the story and in time that idea would crystallize and I’ll have my end. But the idea never crystallized, rather it evaporated and all I was left with was a collection of words which impressed me but didn’t inspire me. For last few days, every time I struggled with the end I re-read those 3000 words and every time I read them I fell in love with what I had written. And obsession reached such a state that last night I almost zeroed in on a hackneyed end just for the sake of completing the story and at that moment I realized how futile my whole struggle is.

It was as if, some distant but dear relative of a guy is dying, doctors have told the guy that it’s just a matter of few days and nothing more could be done. So to show his love & respect, this guy gets a beautiful and splendid coffin made for his relative’s last journey. But doctors being doctors, they were proved wrong, and the distant relative recovered and survived. But our poor guy was in so much in love with the splendid coffin he had got made that he went around the whole neighbourhood asking people if someone 5’7” and not too fat would be dying in their households because he has this great coffin waiting for them. Love for the relative has long gone, its love for the coffin that’s left.

Ridiculous right !!!
That’s exactly what I felt when I went around looking for an end just so that a collection of words which seemed good to me can call itself a story. So I read the whole thing again dispassionately, looking beyond words and clever conversations. And then I realized how life less my story had become, frankly its spirit had long died and I was just carrying the corpse.

Sometimes we get so consumed by our creations that the spirit within us which inspired us get dwarfed. And it not only happens with creativity, it happens when diligence gets dwarfed against success that it has brought, it happens when learning gets dwarfed against adulation that it heralded and it happens when what we want gets dwarfed against what is expected of us.

But late last night, I didn’t let it happen and just for this once I don’t mind giving up.

Let’s be frank to ourselves, what kind of society knows only one way to express their displeasure or discontent, which is by means of mob violence. I would say a barbaric and uncivilized society.

So all that was taught to us in schools, told to us from TV propaganda and written by numerous historians and authors that we are a great nation with a rich history, I guess is all sham and just a work of fiction. Because if history was really the way they say it was then how could the present be so different.

And all that part about modern and vibrant India on a path to become a superpower of 21st century is an eye wash too. No, don’t reach out for numbers to prove me wrong. I pretty much know what rate we are growing, what the size of our GDP is and how Wal-Mart and Starbucks of world are queuing up to be in India.

But what I fail to understand is - Are we a civilized lot at all?
Indian Cricket team loses a game – a mob comes out in street and stones their house.
A Muslim guy marries a Hindu Girl – a mob ransacks office of a news channel that shows this report.
Municipality tries to remove a token of a shrine so as to widen the roads – a mob is out there against it and whole thing turns into a communal violence.
Indian Citizens travel from Bihar to Mumbai to seek better opportunities – a mob greets them at Mumbai and beat them up
A famous actor dies a natural death – a mob burn buses, stone offices

So this country has a simple solution to everything - STONE, BURN, RANSACK. KILL.

I wonder, a country which prides herself for getting her independence through Ahimsa and Satyagrah, how can in 50 years of self rule it can it turn the dream of Bapu for “Suraaj” to “Gundaraaj”. And how can this be allowed in any collection of humanity which wants to be called a society. While, protest is one of the tools of a democracy, violence is definitely not justified, whatever be the end.

But bigger problem than mob violence is issues which are bringing mobs together. I mean we are talking about an India of 21st century and an inter caste or inter-religion marriage is still a issue that creates nation wide furore – shame on our country and us. When I read about this piece where a NGO was happily taking credit for getting a rape accused to agree to marry a victim in return of dropping of charges, I was aghast. Rape is a crime, how can someone be exonerated of the charges just because he agreed to marry the victim. It’s like a murderer being let off coz he agreed to pay for the funeral of his victim. Has sense & sensibilities of our country men gone for a toss?

For all the talk of India coming of age and being a superpower let’s admit one thing India is in a mess. Regionalism, Communalism, Casteism are more pronounced in the county today then they were ever before. Political stupidity and ineptitude has reached highest levels. We have weakest Prime Minister ever in our history. Per Capita Income can’t be the only way to measure a country’s growth, what about per capita tolerance, what about per capita sensibility, what about per capita broadening of outlook, what about per capita civility? In my opinion India and Indians are getting impoverished in all these aspects.

And while it may be an exaggeration but I would still pose the question – Are we fit for self rule at all? Only solace we have is that we are being ruled by goons and idiots of same colour and at times same caste/religion as ourselves…Big deal!!!

What absolutely pains me is if any freedom fighter get to read what I wrote in last para – my absolute cynicism with Indian establishment would really make him wonder did he sacrifice his life to a cause which people like me are questioning the very basis of? I agree I never underwent humiliation and pain of being ruled by foreigners otherwise to write what I wrote earlier would have been sacrilege. But how long can I base my opinions on what I am told about past and keep ignoring what I can see in present.

And to be frank when I started this post, it was never about my already well documented frustration with the current political establishment, it was against the narrow minded mob mentality that seems to have gripped the average Indian and against a general obsession Indian public has with a misplaced sense of honor and issues of absolutely crappy nature. And till all this change, only inference one can draw is if we are acting like hooligans today, we would never have been any better ever.

And if all we read about our past has any semblance of truth than our current behaviour is the greatest insult to our past. And may be greatest danger to our future.

I usually don't review movies here, given how frequently I watch them ..this place otherwise would become a page outta filmare.
I absolutely don't recommend movies, afterall tastes differ, expectations differ and what one wants out of a $10 bill and 2-3 hrs of time spent in a dark theatre also differ from person to person.

But right now, right here, am gonna make an exception for purely selfish reasons. So, if you have not seen "The Namesake", run , grab a ticket and watch it and yeah, do take a friend or two along. For I want such movies to succeed so that I can see more of them.

Namesake is a brilliant movie. I don't remember when was it the last time that I walked in a movie theatre with very high expectations and walked out with those expectations surpassed.

Let's talk about what I liked about the movie. Namesake has a very comfortable pace, it doesn't rush past you leaving you with a feeling that something happened though you can't really say what. It flows at a speed which gives you enough time not just to get in the moment but to get intimate with the moment. And that intimacy is made possible by actors who not only talk to each other on screen but also talk to you. Tabu and Kal Penn have got into their characters effortlessly, right from the moment when Ashima steps into Made in USA shoes of her future husband till long after Gogol gets into shoes of his father, there is not a scene where you can pick even a slight fault. But, the man who would make you kneel down and bow to him is Irfaan Khan...errr Ashok Ganguli ....I once attended an acting workshop and trainer there kept telling all of us , you don't act just with your face, you act with your whole body......and oh man what an actor Irfaan Khan is ....he talks with his turn of head, he talks with his eyes, he talks with his postures and when he talks - he talks with a perfect accent. I liked him in Haasil, I liked him a lot in Maqbool but in Namesake he has gone a step ahead.

One of my friend, who saw the movie felt that story is nothing new.....am sure that was an after thought. Artists for ages are painting the same sun setting in the sea. But go take a look at paintings from two different artists and you would know how different can the same sun be when seen by different people. Work of art are not judged by an invenory list of what's contained in a painting, so if my painting has a sun, sea, boat, rainbow and another has same 4 things they are not the same. That's why they call it an artist's impression. And Namesake is a beautiful impression about journey of a family across seas, culture, ways of life and wheel of time. It's about people and their lives and no story can surpass that.

And then there are those powerful moments.
Like when Gogol steps into his father's shoes and realize it's so late...
Like when he tells his girl friend I don't wanna get away from all this
Like when Moushami tells Gogol, "May be it's not enough that both of us are bengalis" ....
Like when Gogol tells his mother at airport.. "I wanted to .."
Like when Ashima get to know of Ashok's death....
Like when Ashok tells Gogol, why he named him so....
Like when Gogol finds his dad's graduation gift for him ...years later....
Like when Ashok asks Ashima as he is about to go ...."Come"
Like when Moushami tells Gogol she has turned down the offer to teach in France
Like when Ashima calls Gogol on his birthday and can't find him......
Like when Ashok tells newly wed Ashima....."It's amerika"
Like when Ashima tells her friend that now she knows why Ashok went to Cleveland
Like when Ashok makes his final call to Ashima and then walk back........

And there are many more....so go find them yourself.
Do watch it !!!

-sid

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Song Recommendation:

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This beautigul song from yahudi , remixed and rendered beautifully by susheela raman in The Namesake is playing on my system for last few hours continuously, so what better to recommend.

.

ये मेरा दीवानापन हैं, या मोहब्बत का सुरूर ...

तू ना पहचाने तो हैं ये, तेरी नज़रों का कसूर !!

दिल को तेरी ही तमन्ना, दिल को हैं तुझसे ही प्यार...

चाहे तू आये ना आये , हम करेंगे इंतज़ार !!

ऐसे वीराने मे एक दिन, घुट के मर जायेंगे हम

जितना जीं चाहे पुकारो, फिर नहीं आएंगे हम !!!

Sometimes you wish life could be like fairy tales, so that they can have happy endings.
Sometimes you wish miracles are for real, so that you can count on them.
Sometimes you wish clock can be turned back, so that you can change the course of events.
Sometimes you pray because you want to believe someone out there can make it right.
And Sometimes you hope against hope because that’s the only thing you can do now.

-sid

“Train No. 2926 New Delhi-Bandra Paschim Express is running late by an hour. Inconvenience caused to passengers is deeply regretted.” so blurted the public address system at New Delhi railway station.

He was to take that train to Mumbai but now he’ll have to wait for another hour, may be more. He made his way through the crowd to platform no.1. It’s 4 in the noon, Delhi can be brutally hot on a July afternoon & today is one such day. He entered the waiting room & searched for a place to sit. There were people all around, more on the floor than on the chairs. He looked around for a while and just when he was about to turn & get out in despair, Public Address System came to his rescue. Some train, which was running 6 hours late, is finally going to arrive on Platform no. 5. A sudden activity caught the waiting room as soon as the announcement was made. Bags started getting packed. People were shaken back to life from their afternoon nap. It seemed as if the whole waiting room was waiting for this train to arrive. He knew that this is his chance, get a place now or never & then he made a dash to his right where an elderly couple has just got up. Luckily for him there were no competitors & on reaching the chair he himself felt embarrassed for the haste he has shown.

It’s after taking his seat that he first noticed her. She was sitting pretty near to him. He was sitting on last seat of the row & she on the second of one right in front. She had earphones plugged to her ears and was probably listening to some music. Hers was one of those faces that always turn few heads and soon he noticed that there are more than one head turned towards her. Dressed in a faded blue jeans & a strawberry colored T-shirt with hair left loose, she instantly grabbed his whole attention. Her black sunglasses, which for some strange reasons she had not taken off even inside the waiting room, were complementing her fair complexion suitably and were adding to her charms. He kept looking at her for a while, for once he was not complaining about lack of punctuality of Indian railways.

On the floor, near her, an old lady was taking a nap, the sweat gleaming on the old woman’s face suddenly made him aware of the heat & humidity. He strolled out to get himself a coke but he came back fast. There was not much activity now in the waiting room lots of people were having their nap. There were few who were listening to music & few others reading. And rest of them, were just wearing bored expressions. He has resumed both his seat and his vigil. The old lady at her feet in the meanwhile got up. She rubbed her eyes, looked for her luggage and then she asked her the time. Oh so finally he’ll get to hear her voice. He waited but she didn’t respond, probably she is listening to the music quite loudly. The old lady touched her knee & asked her again. Now a reply will come for sure & sure did it come. He expected a polite voice telling the time but instead what he heard was “I don’t know”. It was polite no doubt but it was not the way it was said but what was said which shocked him. He looked at her wrist she was not wearing any watch but then all this while she was looking at nothing else but the big clock in waiting room on the wall right in front of her. She could have told the time & she should have told the time. By now, the elderly man sitting next to her had told the time to the old woman. It was 4:30 pm.

It was a small incident but suddenly that lovely face ceased to be an object of admiration for him. Her behaviour towards the old lady has shaken him out of his spell. He even rebuked himself for getting swayed by her looks. After all, what makes a person beautiful is their character and not just cut of face. He felt a little better after making these lofty conclusions. In ten minutes since that incident he has already pronounced her guilty, pronounced himself an accomplice to the crime and then let himself off with a warning. He was feeling like a man who has just been told that he has been granted a presidential reprieve - sorry but relieved.

He looked at her again. Her face has lost none of the charm. Shades on her eyes still have all the prominence & her smile was as beautiful as before but as he looked at the old woman sitting on the floor combing her hair, all the memories of that incident came back rushing. And those memories were not disturbing him but rather making him feel good. He was priding himself for the fact that he still valued the character of a person more than the beauty. He was patting himself for how he genuinely revolted against her haughty attitude. He basked in the glory of being a perfect hero who didn’t let temptations get better of his values. Biggest of egoists would have been surprised with the ease with which he was finding one reason after another in to indulge in extended self admiration.

His train of thought was brought to a halt by public address system when it roared, “Train No. 2926 New Delhi-Bandra Paschim Express will be coming on platform no. 3 in few minutes. We wish you a Happy Journey.” He checked his ticket and put the bag on his shoulders, he looked at her to steal a final glance. But even she had got up, her back was on his side, he wondered if they would be in the same train. Elderly man by her side picked up the suitcase and the two bags they had, so she will not even help pick any luggage, he sighed and pitied her upbringing. But he still waited for her to turn back before he makes his way out of the waiting room. She turned, her black glasses were still firmly on her eyes but there was something new in her hand - a walking stick. The old man helped her out of the room as she felt her way out with the blind stick. Old woman on the floor got up and took her seat. Wall clock struck 5 right then. He stood there still for a while, held back may be by the weight of his perceptions and prejudices. But then he hurried out, he didn’t want to miss the train; he had already missed enough for the day.

We all have our questions which we run away from, questions which we fear, questions we don’t wanna face, questions whose answers (and I quote a friend) “might be too hard, too right, too true “ and we do run away from some questions, sometimes for too long.

But then there are questions which we genuinely don't have answers for. Questions for which answers need to be searched and if you look at the right place you may find answers for some of them. But we should know where to search. There are some questions for which you need to look inside yourself to find answers and then there are some other questions for which you need to look outside. But lots of us when faced with such questions keep going back to the same place. It’s like your childhood drawer where you used to hide all your comic books, games, toys and all that you could lay your hand on. So whenever you needed something and you can’t remember where it is, you would go and empty the drawer and look for that thing there. No matter if you remember keeping it there or not….you would still search it with a belief that it has to be found there.

Lot of us do the same thing with our unanswered questions, we just keep looking at one place for our answers. And so there are few people who would always look ‘out’ for answers and struggle with questions that need to be introspected upon and few others who would always look ‘in’ and get frustrated with questions, answers to which lie elsewhere.

Not many of us can tell a difference between two kinds of questions, may be because what we need is not an eye for detail but an eye that has toiled over years and numerous such questions. What we may need is a mind that knows what lie within and an eye that’s alert to what’s around us. What we may need is courage to admit that I would have to seek help to get the answer as well as a belief that you could stand up to most difficult questions when no help is forthcoming. What we may need is an ego that doesn’t come in our way to reach out and a pride that doesn’t stonewall our efforts to dive deep inside us.

And I guess only way to get all this is to let ‘Time’ make all this for you and may be till then we may just have to keep these question together with those for which there are no answers. And yeah, there are always such questions…..for which there are no answers.

Had all questions had an answer, question mark would never have been invented. Isn’t it?

-sid

Sometimes you can forgive ToI for all the crap that it publishes, trying to pass it off as news coz once in a while there is a piece that escapes its editor’s trash bin and make it to the newspaper and is interestingly different.

My usual round up of Indian news sites threw an interesting article today:
“Married to low IQ”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Married_to_low_IQ/articleshow/1839631.cms
It’s about mentally challenged people getting married, while it starts as a news item and midway turn to an article but it ends as a story. And what fascinated me was a story coz that was the most real part of the piece.

It’s a story (a real one) about Jacinta, she is married to a spastic for sake of social security and like every other decision in life this one also comes with its share of pros and cons. But no, am not going to weigh the two and say if she made the right choice or not. Sometimes, it is better that if you cannot be in someone’s shoes then don’t try tell them the ‘right’ way. Story of Jacinta’s life may seem a very depressing and deprived one and as you reach the last para you might just be full of sympathy and resigned to the fact that there’s nothing she can look forward to in life and then you read about those bulbuls and for once you feel transported to that room.

You hear her call out to them - "Come Chandana, come to Mama,'', you smile with her as two of them hop out and when she says about the third one, “Goodie, is a slow learner. He doesn’t talk much either.” You can’t help but look over her shoulder to her husband and ponder over her use of the word ‘either’.

Hope and Joy are two things that give life its meaning and everyone needs to find these two to continue living. What amazes me is how people find these things in most despondent situations. How they can live their life counting on the light at the end of a long tunnel. How people find their own ‘bulbuls of hope and joy’ hidden behind the frames and furniture, which they turn to and more importantly hold on to in situations where you wonder what’s keeping someone going.

I don’t really know how it feels when people try to build their life on foundation of everlasting pain and deprivation.
Does that pain stays at back of one’s mind every moment?
Is every smile of theirs just a mask for each tear they have held back?
Does emptiness of their life always more deep than what moments of joy can fill up?
Do their words always carry between them - unfulfilled dreams and quashed desires?
OR
Do they able to forget their sorrows in moments of joy ?
Does their smiles get genuinely free from shackles of pain ?
Do their lives rise as phoenix from the ashes of their losses and soar high into the sky - away from all that they couldn’t have ?

I don’t know but I hope it’s the latter. I sincerely do.

-sid

Song recommendation:

झूठी सच्ची आस पे जीना , कब तक आख़िर ... आख़िर कब तक
मय कि जगह ख़ून-ए-दिल पीना , कब तक आख़िर... आख़िर कब तक

एक महीने के वादे पर, साल गुज़ारा ... फिर भी ना आये
वादे का ये एक महीना , कब तक आख़िर... आख़िर कब तक

सामने दुनिया भर के गम हैं , और इधर एक तन्हा हम हैं
सैकड़ो पत्थर, एक आईना, कब तक आख़िर... आख़िर कब तक