Of meanders and other meaningful musings...

It's the time of year when one writes because of the weather.

The weather invokes two rather basic reactions - either verbose, wonderful prose about the beauty of the monsoons or a regular rant about all the ills the rains bring, especially in Mumbai.

Since my writing is an obvious reflection of my life at large, you can be certain that while I'll start out meaningfully, the meandering will follow soon.

And I've been terribly meaningful for a while now.

The Goa episode is now a year old. As is my new job.

For those who just tuned in, I've been back in the Maximum City for over a year now, and I've returned to writing content ideas, advertising scripts, promos and their ilk for a living.

Thanks to Sandeep, I've settled down to an irregular pottery routine at his studio.

And the urge to plunge into pottery full-time remains something that's discussed regularly.

With more or less the same outcome. Zilch.

Then there are the new urges - most are quasi entrepreneurial in nature.

Among other noble pursuits, I now want to start a nursery selling exotic orchids, ficuses and anthuriums.

And run a cafe that'll serve only breakfast all day. Using only 'free-range' eggs. Go look that up.

Earlier these thoughts would surface only when there was a lull at the day job or when I was having a particularly harrowing time there, but slowly and surely they're taking a permanent place in my head... albeit in some dark nook.

Strangely, am not the only one with these nooks, loads of people around me seem to harbor their own dark desires too.

And the really happy ones are those who've managed to bring these demons to life...

Am hoping my own thoughts will crystallize into some action. Someday.

Among the many things I've learnt along the way is that writing a blog about it is easy, but it takes a helluva lot to make a meander meaningful.

A much younger scribble...

Just found this - something I scribbled years ago :)

No offence meant to my friends at the Frog or at any other amphibious animal!

A night at Blue Frog, one of Mumbai's finest nightclubs, never fails to amuse me for one reason or another. Often, for all the wrong reasons too.

It's not the exquisite sound system, the incredibly expensive food or the truly fabulous decor that overwhelms me. Over the years I've become shallow and urban enough to act suitably unaffected by these. As usual, I settle down as obtrusively as possible. I've yet to discover how one blends into the background at these places – the funky neon-ish decor doesn't help.

The band walks on the stage.

They call themselves 'Smokesters', a euphemism I would rather not explore. There's something about watching grown men try and live out their adolescent fantasies.

Carefully worn out clothes, practised 'witty' lines (sample this 'ladies n gentlemen, that's Sunil on the percussion, for your listening pleasure tonite..and any other pleasure you'd care to have him for...') and that universal hallmark of misplaced angst- long hair.

Heroically I try and nod my way through the music.

Yeah, I know music is not supposed to have a language and all that, but it is mildly difficult to relate to 'white picket fences', 'Louisiana blues are me' and 'mama, keep it spinning'....

Maybe this seems particularly surreal to me, since these fine lines are being sung by 'Mridula, Vikas and Atul'. The band launches into a self-titled track and I can't put myself thru more.

Even though they promised that blues have always got the world drunk and laid - I think I did pretty well without it!. Guess I will never quite know why 'Smokestack Lightening' gave them their name.

As I drive out feeling a bit of a philistine, a jubilant bunch of 'dahi-handi' revellers pass me by.

I stop myself short of closing my car windows.

I let 'Govinda aala re aala' blast thru and grin happily.

Fuck Louisiana, for me, Laalbaug rocks!

Waking Up Soppy

Just watched Wake Up Sid.

Strangely enough it took a rather unspectacular film to evoke a feeling I don't think I've ever admitted to having in the past 15 years.

I miss my dad.
It's been 15 years since he's gone, and now I realise I do miss him.

Maybe it's because I try not to think of this too often.

Never quite thought what it would have been like to give him my first paycheck.
I'm not quite sure what he would have made of my career choices.
Wonder what he'd have thought of my life as I live it now. The long hair would certainly not have been appreciated! In many ways the Army defined him and his discipline.
And then, there's all the people in my life now, who never got to meet Baba. And him, them.

Am pretty sure he'd have been grudgingly fond of Vishal.
Dad loved music (he was a Indian classical devotee of sorts but he truly loved music in all it's avatars) and I know he'd have been proud of Vishal's talent.
Baba would have even braved the pierced, inebriated wannabe groupies just to nod his head in chaste encouragement at Vishal's club performances.

(And I'm sorry Baba, I'm sorry that I thought accompanying you to the Sawai Gandharv fest was such a chore.)

Baba would have loved Jaggu. And Jaggu would have loved him.
I can see them talking endlessly about market, income tax policy, bureaucracy (Baba was every bit the conscientious IRS officer), Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's business acumen and of course, land deals.
In Jaggu, my dad would have found his ideal wannabe real estate tycoon partner.
And they'd have both ruminated joyfully about deals that should have been cracked and the acreage that could have been ours.

(Yes Baba, we still do the proper flag hoisting on every Independence Day at Bhugaon, and yes, the flag is always unfurled with flowers.)

With Mukul it would have been a cakewalk.
IIM-A graduate. Enough to warm my father's academic heart instantly.
And more than enough to let Baba conveniently overlook the fact that Mukul's been gainfully unemployed for the past few years.
Infact I can see them now, discussing the state of Marathi theatre versus English with my father manfully trying to act like he actually likes the single malt that Mukul's poured for him.

(What do I say Baba? Ask Mukul. Like father like son he'll tell you - at least as far as the whisky is concerned.)

I was 15 when my dad passed away.
And today, suddenly there's so much I would have wanted my Baba around for.
Annoying that it would take a damn movie to make me so stupidly soppy.

Sounds mighty petty, but I'd have wanted to show him that I get smses from someone like Pritish Nandy.
An avid reader, Baba thought the world of literary people like Mr.Nandy.
And I like to think they'd have bonded too.
Over their love for their books, their animals and of course, their daughters.

(Yes Baba, I still think you love your daughter more than you loved me :) but it's okay… I love her too!)

15 years of growing up.
And yet, it's only today that I realise how much has happened in those years that my dad wasn't a part of.

All the girlfriends. I'd have wanted him to know them all. They'd have loved him. And he'd have doted on them all too.
(I know you would have, Baba.)

And then there's the 'better' half.
I wish she could have known him.
I wish she could have had him around. To gang up against me.
To be on her side for any argument -always.
To spoil her rotten.

(Baba, she's super & she's a doctor! Yeah, yeah, everyone wonders what she sees in me!)

Ah well, I think I'm done with my 'soppyness' quota for the next 15 years.

Dumb bloody film. Wasn't even that good.

(I know what you're gonna say Baba, but I'm not as spoilt as Ranbir in the film.)

He had his dad around.

Not quite a Goan rhapsody!

It's been almost 3 months since I settled into our itsy-bitsy house (it has a garden okay!) in Goa.
So far so good.

Synapse, the agency where I'm masquerading as a copywriter has been remarkably nice - letting me use the garden as a make-shift pottery studio and being reasonably tolerant about my Bollywood fixation.
Am still trying to decipher writing emailers, web banners and internal communication missives.
Today I was asked if I could write about debt and equity.
It's a paradigm shift in more than ways than forty-two.

When I'm not solving issues of national concern (like - does this have an apostrophe?), I'm pottering around.

Literally or otherwise.

There's the elusive pottery show that I've planned for October, the myriad entrepreneurship plans that present themselves to me at regular intervals and of course, the eternal question of what's for lunch.

Time in Goa functions differently.
Yes, I know, it's the state of legendary lethargy, but it's a bit more complex. Okay, a lot more complex.
Interestingly, Goa isn't defined by the people who live here.
No. It's defined by those who don't. And further by those who want to.
So, I won't shatter any illusions - it's gorgeous, has great food, is laid back, lazy even.

It's all that and more.
It's illogical. Just as greedy as your next nervous metropolis.
And it's parochial too.

Again it's what the rest of us (yes, am an immigrant again!) have made it.

It's no surprise that your average Pereira or Pednekar views the outsider with healthy amount of disdain.

Most of my kind (by that I just mean immigrants, not out of shape media also-rans) that I've met seem to be here seeking something quite ambiguous and vague.

It's not enough that this state provides a rather good standard of living at possibly one half of the effort needed for the same in say, Mumbai or Pune, people of my ilk who've immigrated here are still looking for something they wouldn't recognize if it came and bit their behinds - cause they have no idea what they're really looking for!

I'm no different.

I often find my new home extraordinary and exasperating at the same time.
I love the fact that I can actually swim in the sea I drive past every morning.
But I can't understand why a café in the capital city of Panjim would be closed on a Sunday!
I get excited about being able to actually reach a place minutes away from my house IN minutes, I relish the thought of leaving home at 5.40 for a 6 o'clock movie. But I find it irritating that the grocer down the road shuts shop at 7pm and won't deliver anything home. Not even for extra money!
I find the rains absolutely spectacular! Except that every shower results in the electricity being cut off.

Dutifully almost.

Am not quite sure about my feelings towards the tourists though.
Maybe it's because I was one of them not so long ago.

But I oblige when tourists ask me to click their photos against the surf (everyone has a Goa Facebook album na?!) - that's usually followed by them saying a breezy 'Thanks, enjoy your holiday'.

And then, I love that longing look they give me when I tell them that this is home for me.

Yup. Just like the state, I'm defined by those who don't live here too.

No one can live just one!

While at most times living my one life keeps me busy, nowadays, I'd like more. Lives to live that is. There's so many things I'd want to be. So many things I'd want to do. And no matter what self-help books tell you, one life just isn't enough.

No, you cannot be all you want to be.

For example, you cannot be rich and poor at the same time. And I'd like to be both.
Rich enough to not care a damn. Being poor enough results in the same thing.
Either you have nothing to lose or you have enough to just keep losing. See what I mean?
I'd want to be the loyal lover. And I'd want to be the casanova too.
The ruthless business tycoon and the happy-go-lucky, good-at-nothing, will-just-do-anything kind too.

I'll admit it, I'm scared of growing old - not necessarily afraid to die, but just afraid of growing old, afraid that when I turn 50... heck 45 even, I'll turn around with all the arrogance I can muster then, and say 'what? is that all there is to it??'
Sometimes when I think about it, it bothers me, that at 28 I'm pretty much just coasting along.
Reasonably fun job (okay, its funner than most...), no real responsibility - apart from saving one's own ass - but, see that's what I mean - could it be, that having no real problem is where the dis-satisfaction stems from?

Is this rambling becoming more profound than it ought to?

Heck, I just want to do (and be) everything. And somehow, because of some warped logic, that defies the reality. Bummer.
Now excuse me, while I go and live whatever I get.

'Act and Inspire'

The subject of this blogpost is something that an old school friend has coined. And this entire 'piece' is inspired by his rather unique endeavour. Read about it on his own blog http://peak29.wordpress.com/
I happen to know some of the most driven people on this planet - Kedar Iyer gets added to that list. What is it about some people that keeps them motivated to pursue pursuits which aren't exactly connected to financial, professional or even 'social' gain? Some of my closest friends seem to have this drive and focus. Of course, I clearly lack it, in a spectacular way.
It's not that I don't have focus. I just have one which is kinda broadbased. Can't help it if just about everything interests me, can I?
So, I'm now making public my newfound attempt to have both, focus and drive.
Any comments, suggestions on how to keep the motivation levels wayyy up there would be appreciated.
As I re-read this blog, it doesn't seem to be entertaining or even remotely interesting. Oh well. I'm flattering myself again. Like millions of my readers are gonna flood me with howls of protest about the lacklustre post. And while I am flattering myself, it seems as though I've lost weight too.

Me Mumbaikar!

Yup. I'm finally a proud houseowner in Mumbai. Well, in the norther suburb of Malad, but that's as Mumbai to me as Colaba. So there.

And yes, I'm proud to be a Mumbaikar, recent incidents of random violence notwithstanding.

Curiously enough, the stray violence against the 'outsiders' elicited a completely non-solicited reaction from very unexpected quarters. Friends of mine (who would treat any sort of politics - parochial or otherwise with disdain) suddenly seemed to be rather upset about this (ill) treatment of the 'outsider'.
I think the reaction of everybody who seemed 'disturbed', 'aghast'... even 'ashamed' (yeah, us Maharashtrians are surprising self-deprecating) was more because they just didn't expect the meek Maharashtrian to react in this volatile manner.

And while I'm completely against the violence, I'm not surprised at it.
And in the melee of opinions, threats & counter-threats that followed, the real issue had been forgotten.

Of course, while most of the reactions I got were incredible juvenile and well, just reactionary, many were just downright silly - I could mention them, but then that would be trivialising the issue as well.


I think it's about time people realised that there needs to be some sort of regulation on the migrancy to this city. To quote a rather large Maharashtrian (Bharat Dabholkar) 'this city is like a cell phone, the incoming is free, and thats gonna create a problem at some point' - and the crumbling infrastructure is not helping either.

Unfortunately while I would like to believe that there's some sort of solution to the migrancy to this city, I can't think of a simplistic one.

Lets face it, we (yes, I include myself as a migrant... even though now I can claim residency!) can't expect to waltz in here in hordes and expect everyone who's already here to just be okay with it.

Someday, somewhere it'll snap.

And of course, when you have politicians waiting for just such an opportunity, the snap will be louder than it was meant to be.

Parochial politics isn't new to this country. And it isn't new to this city either.

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. And 'repeating history' is something this city could do well without.

In order to move forward though, we need to make sure that we have an eye on the rear view mirror. Something every taxiwala in this city knows the importance of.