It has unfolded like a Greek tragedy. This whole scandal of the gold medals turning into dust. And for the first time the UPA government has me frightened. Narendra Modi and the NDA government used to spook me at one time especially after Godhra and what happened in Gujarat subsequently. Now I feel like that about Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the heir in waiting, Rahul Gandhi. The violence they have unleashed in the system is far more dangerous and potent than a riot engineered by the Hindu right wing fundamentalists.
The BJP brand of violence is explicit and we can easily condemn it...take out protest rallies, slam the party in our writings and in our films but the Congress brand of manoeuvring is far more lethal, more dangerous and when the sorry spectacle of their manipulations unfold we feel we can’t do anything about it, because unwittingly we have been party to it. Like we too cheered the athletes who won the medals in the commonwealth games last year and now it is like what right do we have to ask any of the sports officials how did the timings of the athletes improve so dramatically for the games? They can always turn around and tell us like you did, we also got carried away, and never asked them this question. See how implicit they have made us in their crime.
I am sure everyone in the system knew what was going on including the Prime Minister. We live in times when one minister is tapping the office of another so it would be foolish to believe that the PM comes to work just to read files. I am sure he is briefed on a daily basis about what is going on with his cabinet mates and he has clearly instructed his colleagues to adhere to three basic norms.
1. So long as they are contributing to his one point agenda of ‘growth’ he doesn’t care what they are doing to get there. Much like a CEO who barks ‘Get me results. I don’t care how you get them.’
2. The individual citizens are unimportant in the larger scheme of things as long as our cities look like Singapore or Hongkong with plush malls and roads that seem they will burst with all the traffic on them.
3. He wants history to record that he is the one who laid the foundation of this new affluent India and Rahul Gandhi can take off from where he left. Nothing should be allowed to taint his personal ‘brand’ or the brand of the government he heads.
No wonder Suresh Kalmadi looked so smug during the Commonwealth Games despite one scandal after another tumbling out against him. He had adhered to the brief...pumped all the athletes with steroids and uppers so that they ran, jumped and did cartwheels like they were possessed and scored more than a century when it came to the medals. He had delivered in the end, never mind the means and the only time the PM had sounded annoyed was when the venues looked as if they couldn’t be completed on time. But he had more than made up with the Indian victory laps. He was expecting to be hugged by the PM. But unfortunately for him and Singh, the Supreme Court decided to play party pooper.
Now we are given to understand that Kapil Sibal has behaved just like Kalmadi. He should have known that with all the media glare on the 2G scam, anyone who took over the telecom portfolio would be under constant scrutiny but that did not stop him from doling out all that largesse on Anil Ambani. Everyone else in the system was screaming, teach the man a lesson no Ambani will ever forget but Sibal did not listen. He must have thought he didn’t need to, as long as he was on Singh’s good books. After all Sibal took care to dress the part of the suave politician who’s equally at home air kissing in a socialite party as he is reciting bad poetry to Barkha Dutt. But once again the courts have turned into kabab mein haddi.
As for Dayanidhi Maran, I feel sorry for him. His rotund frame and a rounder face make him look like a character from a Charles Dickens novel but that may be only be for the well read Singh. For the rest of us he looks like a man who loves his thair sadam. From what we have read and heard, Tihar serves only North Indian food like roti and dal. How will our man survive there? Besides with Raja also present in Tihar, Maran will have to constantly watch his back.
With all this going on, a friend has found time to share a morphed picture of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi on FB with the caption ‘Hep Couple.’ Singh is in a psychedelic T Shirt and jeans and Gandhi is wearing a mini-skirt. He may have meant it as a joke but like every piece of fiction this too may have its roots in reality. They say Nero fiddled while Rome burnt. So what’s wrong if Singh and Gandhi party while all this havoc is being wrecked on the nation? I have only one question. What does Rahul Baba throw a tantrum about when he joins the party?
Does he demand they dance only to the songs of Justin Bieber?
Friday, July 8, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Caravan and Arindam Chaudhuri- Pot and the Kettle
Last one month has been exhausting. I feel I have taken on too much. Twice a week, I volunteer in my son’s school, teaching theatre to little children, there were daily rehearsals for Lucky Lobster; one day of the weekend goes in the creative writing workshop... I am doing the first edit of my second novel due in December, there is the usual corporate stuff and the unfortunate consequence of all this is that my reading time has been cut down drastically...I have to do something about that.
I missed out on the Caravan -Arindam Chaudhuri fracas for a long time. Managed to read the magazine’s fiery defence against Chaudhuri’s law suit that was on their website yesterday because of a link a friend had mailed sometime back. This morning when I checked before sitting down to write this piece, the angry rebuttal by the magazine, that among other things reproduced an excerpt from the judgement by an Assam court, presumably to highlight and make fun of the wrong English used, seems to have disappeared much like the cover story on Chaudhuri that was withdrawn following the injunction.
What stayed with me after reading that enraged defence is that the counter threats issued by Caravan are as daunting, cleverly cloaked as they are behind the freedom of speech argument. One of the threats was that they would publish all the court proceedings in their sister magazines that collectively have a formidable circulation. I couldn’t stop laughing when I discovered the sister publications were Sarita, Mukta and Grihashobha. More about these magazines later. Let me first share my views on Arindam Chaudhuri and also Siddharth Deb’s ‘researched’ piece on Chaudhuri.
I went to a Business school that is ranked to be in the same league as the IIMs and share the misplaced disdain of my institute mates towards Chaudhuri and IIPM. I have more in common with a Bansal or a Sabnis and deride and hector Chaudhuri and IIPM whenever they crop up in conversations with friends. But while I may laugh with my peers at the pony tailed self styled management guru, I don’t see him as a huge social malaise.
Yes, IIPM charges fat fees but as Deb’s essay points out, only from those who can afford it and the students pay the seven lakhs willingly. Many who enrol in IIPM may be doing so because they write the CAT and the entrance exams of other premier management institutes like XLRI, Bajaj, S P Jain and don’t make the grade. They are desperate to acquire the management diploma label and settle for a second or a third rung institute. Chaudhuri uses that desperation to his advantage. But this is not something he pioneered. Much before IIPM came into the picture, we had numerous engineering and medical institutions in India that were charging hefty capitation fees and were certainly not in the same league as the IITs or the NITS or AIIMS. Many corrupt politicians are involved in this education racket and no one writes about them. How about schools that were making a killing by using the desperation of middle class parents by taking donations until Kapil Sibal intervened?
At worst, Chaudhuri can be accused of not paying his taxes if what Deb implies is true. But Deb is being naive if he thinks Chaudhuri is the only business man who is evading taxes. If he cares to do his research more thoroughly he would discover that many of the respectable organizations that employ alumni from premier institutes don’t lag behind in this respect, and their marketing line is always about how they are contributing to the growth and development of the nation. We don't need to go beyond the fraud perpetuated by Rajat Gupta with his insider trading while he was at Mckinsey to understand this.
Because Chaudhuri is so in your face and tackily so, we find it easy to ridicule him. But those of us who live in Bangalore know the poster boy of Indian IT industry is as tacky. If you come across him in the Bangalore airport while taking an early morning flight, you will invariably find him making himself as conspicuous as possible, talking loudly and relishing the fact that he is getting attention from all those gawking at him. His writer wife is embarrassingly loud. Once she walked into a bookshop while I was browsing. Suddenly she screeched startling the rest of us ‘Don’t you have that book on Lagaan? I am having dinner with Aamir Khan tonight.’
But maybe Deb does get it. Because he mentions in the piece he is baffled by the fact that despite acquiring all the trappings of wealth including a plush Bentley, the respectability that comes along with financial success continues to elude his subject. But the claim by Caravan that Deb’s piece is well researched is nonsense. The essay is extremely malicious and quite readable. There are some very intriguing bits in it. However Deb didn’t write the piece for Caravan. The magazine has reproduced an entire chapter on Chaudhuri from a book that Deb has written for Penguin. I am not sure but I think it’s a commissioned work.
Deb manages to drag Chaudhuri’s father in the piece and paints him as a trickster and fraud too. After reading that bit it made perfect sense to me that Chaudhuri has taken legal action. We Indians have this big thing about Mujhe jo bolna hi bolo. Lekin ma-behen, baap ki gaali di to phod ke rak doonga. That's what Chaudhuri is doing and you can't blame him. This essay is too personal to pass off as an objective piece of ‘researched’ reporting. And the funny thing is, this research on Chaudhuri by the author seems to happen only in restaurants and in the conferences where his subject is invited to speak and where Deb appears to have spent an inordinately long time staring at Chaudhuri’s ‘smooth hairless chest’ because he leaves his top shirt buttons open. I am mentioning this because open shirt buttons always seem to catch Deb’s fancy whether he is interacting with Chaudhuri or his managers.
For all the time Deb spent in shadowing his subject, he seems to have not read any of the books Chaudhuri has written and neither has he watched any of the films his company has produced barring Mithya that is dismissed as a film that had actors who are paid poorly. Rajat Kapoor , Ranvir Shorey, Suhasini Mulay are among the most committed and serious theatre and film actors we have in the business today and this is Deb’s enlightened take on them. Also it becomes imperative for Deb to add that he watched the film on a flight from Delhi to Chicago. That’s very wannabe and the narrator and the subject seem to blend into the same persona at such moments in the narrative.
In an essay that is full of nasty and snide comments on Chaudhuri, ‘his English was uncertain and pronouncedly Delhi middle class in its inflection,’ (Really? What’s Deb’s in its inflection, Chicago?), ‘but little cultural or intellectual capital’, Deb finally redeems himself in the last paragraph where he narrates his experience of having lunch with one of the managers his subject employs and the scuffle that ensues about who will pay the bill.
‘As I cornered the waiter again and forced him to bring the bill, I found myself wondering why I didn’t have a suit, designer sun glasses and car keys, I wondered why I wasn’t making money at a time in India when money making opportunities seemed everywhere for the asking. Like Arindam’s students, I was an aspirer...’
Thankfully after writing most of the essay in the arrogant style that’s typical of most of the self styled Indian literary writers Caravan patronises, Deb concludes by hitting the right note of self awareness.
Not so Caravan and those who work there. If Chaudhuri’s claims of equating IIPM to a Harvard is ludicrous so is Caravan’s attempt to position itself as India’s New Yorker, considering their sister publications are Sarita, Mukta and Grihashobha. I am not deriding these magazines because they are in Hindi or because they are meant for women. Having grown up in the north I am familiar with these rags and I have to say they cater to the lowest common denominator. I won’t be surprised if some of the script writers Ekta Kapoor hires for her soaps had their first works published in Sarita and Mukta. If Deb can scoff at Chaudhuri’s attempts at producing meaningful cinema because of the allure of low budgets, are we not right in concluding the foray of a publishing house that’s been in the business of trashy pulp for decades into serious journalism in another language is also motivated by considerations of ROI.
I can’t get over it. An Indian New Yorker with the marketing strategy of Sarita Pakshik- Sugud grihaniyon ka pasindida patrika. This is so funny. No wonder every time they have a selling crisis they need a Chetan Bhagat or an Arindam Chaudhuri on their cover to peddle ‘India’s first narrative journalism magazine.’ And we are meant to swallow that their stance is all about freedom of speech.
Let the pot and kettle have their thing on the side. Why try and drag the rest of us in the mess by mailing us links as though it is the great social cause of the year. Do they think we are that cuss word in Hindi that starts with a C?
Sorry Caravan...that’s you!
I missed out on the Caravan -Arindam Chaudhuri fracas for a long time. Managed to read the magazine’s fiery defence against Chaudhuri’s law suit that was on their website yesterday because of a link a friend had mailed sometime back. This morning when I checked before sitting down to write this piece, the angry rebuttal by the magazine, that among other things reproduced an excerpt from the judgement by an Assam court, presumably to highlight and make fun of the wrong English used, seems to have disappeared much like the cover story on Chaudhuri that was withdrawn following the injunction.
What stayed with me after reading that enraged defence is that the counter threats issued by Caravan are as daunting, cleverly cloaked as they are behind the freedom of speech argument. One of the threats was that they would publish all the court proceedings in their sister magazines that collectively have a formidable circulation. I couldn’t stop laughing when I discovered the sister publications were Sarita, Mukta and Grihashobha. More about these magazines later. Let me first share my views on Arindam Chaudhuri and also Siddharth Deb’s ‘researched’ piece on Chaudhuri.
I went to a Business school that is ranked to be in the same league as the IIMs and share the misplaced disdain of my institute mates towards Chaudhuri and IIPM. I have more in common with a Bansal or a Sabnis and deride and hector Chaudhuri and IIPM whenever they crop up in conversations with friends. But while I may laugh with my peers at the pony tailed self styled management guru, I don’t see him as a huge social malaise.
Yes, IIPM charges fat fees but as Deb’s essay points out, only from those who can afford it and the students pay the seven lakhs willingly. Many who enrol in IIPM may be doing so because they write the CAT and the entrance exams of other premier management institutes like XLRI, Bajaj, S P Jain and don’t make the grade. They are desperate to acquire the management diploma label and settle for a second or a third rung institute. Chaudhuri uses that desperation to his advantage. But this is not something he pioneered. Much before IIPM came into the picture, we had numerous engineering and medical institutions in India that were charging hefty capitation fees and were certainly not in the same league as the IITs or the NITS or AIIMS. Many corrupt politicians are involved in this education racket and no one writes about them. How about schools that were making a killing by using the desperation of middle class parents by taking donations until Kapil Sibal intervened?
At worst, Chaudhuri can be accused of not paying his taxes if what Deb implies is true. But Deb is being naive if he thinks Chaudhuri is the only business man who is evading taxes. If he cares to do his research more thoroughly he would discover that many of the respectable organizations that employ alumni from premier institutes don’t lag behind in this respect, and their marketing line is always about how they are contributing to the growth and development of the nation. We don't need to go beyond the fraud perpetuated by Rajat Gupta with his insider trading while he was at Mckinsey to understand this.
Because Chaudhuri is so in your face and tackily so, we find it easy to ridicule him. But those of us who live in Bangalore know the poster boy of Indian IT industry is as tacky. If you come across him in the Bangalore airport while taking an early morning flight, you will invariably find him making himself as conspicuous as possible, talking loudly and relishing the fact that he is getting attention from all those gawking at him. His writer wife is embarrassingly loud. Once she walked into a bookshop while I was browsing. Suddenly she screeched startling the rest of us ‘Don’t you have that book on Lagaan? I am having dinner with Aamir Khan tonight.’
But maybe Deb does get it. Because he mentions in the piece he is baffled by the fact that despite acquiring all the trappings of wealth including a plush Bentley, the respectability that comes along with financial success continues to elude his subject. But the claim by Caravan that Deb’s piece is well researched is nonsense. The essay is extremely malicious and quite readable. There are some very intriguing bits in it. However Deb didn’t write the piece for Caravan. The magazine has reproduced an entire chapter on Chaudhuri from a book that Deb has written for Penguin. I am not sure but I think it’s a commissioned work.
Deb manages to drag Chaudhuri’s father in the piece and paints him as a trickster and fraud too. After reading that bit it made perfect sense to me that Chaudhuri has taken legal action. We Indians have this big thing about Mujhe jo bolna hi bolo. Lekin ma-behen, baap ki gaali di to phod ke rak doonga. That's what Chaudhuri is doing and you can't blame him. This essay is too personal to pass off as an objective piece of ‘researched’ reporting. And the funny thing is, this research on Chaudhuri by the author seems to happen only in restaurants and in the conferences where his subject is invited to speak and where Deb appears to have spent an inordinately long time staring at Chaudhuri’s ‘smooth hairless chest’ because he leaves his top shirt buttons open. I am mentioning this because open shirt buttons always seem to catch Deb’s fancy whether he is interacting with Chaudhuri or his managers.
For all the time Deb spent in shadowing his subject, he seems to have not read any of the books Chaudhuri has written and neither has he watched any of the films his company has produced barring Mithya that is dismissed as a film that had actors who are paid poorly. Rajat Kapoor , Ranvir Shorey, Suhasini Mulay are among the most committed and serious theatre and film actors we have in the business today and this is Deb’s enlightened take on them. Also it becomes imperative for Deb to add that he watched the film on a flight from Delhi to Chicago. That’s very wannabe and the narrator and the subject seem to blend into the same persona at such moments in the narrative.
In an essay that is full of nasty and snide comments on Chaudhuri, ‘his English was uncertain and pronouncedly Delhi middle class in its inflection,’ (Really? What’s Deb’s in its inflection, Chicago?), ‘but little cultural or intellectual capital’, Deb finally redeems himself in the last paragraph where he narrates his experience of having lunch with one of the managers his subject employs and the scuffle that ensues about who will pay the bill.
‘As I cornered the waiter again and forced him to bring the bill, I found myself wondering why I didn’t have a suit, designer sun glasses and car keys, I wondered why I wasn’t making money at a time in India when money making opportunities seemed everywhere for the asking. Like Arindam’s students, I was an aspirer...’
Thankfully after writing most of the essay in the arrogant style that’s typical of most of the self styled Indian literary writers Caravan patronises, Deb concludes by hitting the right note of self awareness.
Not so Caravan and those who work there. If Chaudhuri’s claims of equating IIPM to a Harvard is ludicrous so is Caravan’s attempt to position itself as India’s New Yorker, considering their sister publications are Sarita, Mukta and Grihashobha. I am not deriding these magazines because they are in Hindi or because they are meant for women. Having grown up in the north I am familiar with these rags and I have to say they cater to the lowest common denominator. I won’t be surprised if some of the script writers Ekta Kapoor hires for her soaps had their first works published in Sarita and Mukta. If Deb can scoff at Chaudhuri’s attempts at producing meaningful cinema because of the allure of low budgets, are we not right in concluding the foray of a publishing house that’s been in the business of trashy pulp for decades into serious journalism in another language is also motivated by considerations of ROI.
I can’t get over it. An Indian New Yorker with the marketing strategy of Sarita Pakshik- Sugud grihaniyon ka pasindida patrika. This is so funny. No wonder every time they have a selling crisis they need a Chetan Bhagat or an Arindam Chaudhuri on their cover to peddle ‘India’s first narrative journalism magazine.’ And we are meant to swallow that their stance is all about freedom of speech.
Let the pot and kettle have their thing on the side. Why try and drag the rest of us in the mess by mailing us links as though it is the great social cause of the year. Do they think we are that cuss word in Hindi that starts with a C?
Sorry Caravan...that’s you!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Theatre of Rangashankara
Part of the thrill of doing Lucky Lobster was performing in Rangashankara. The place is as inviting as ever and the cafe is serving great food. But there was another reason why I was so excited about being in the space. I have a history with Rangashankara and have been told many times by different people that my plays are banned there. But it never really made any difference. If at all I started feeling very important that the staff out there was discussing how they are not going to allow me to do any plays when I had consciously made a decision not to do theatre for the last few years.
The last time I felt somewhat mobilised to stage a play was three years ago and that was because I had an excellent production manager Veena Appiah working with me. Then she found out she was going to have a baby and quit and I lost all enthusiasm. The thing is when you are starting out, you have the energy to chase actors and ensure they are kept happy during rehearsals. Most actors I have worked with are like little children wanting to be pampered all the time and I find that very difficult as I am growing old. In any setting I feel I should be pampered. Why should I pamper someone else?
The bad blood was about a mail I wrote to Arundhati Nag because Rangashankara had changed the dates of some play that was being done by another playwright director under the Still Waters banner. I was irritated that day about something and when this guy landed up all upset, I dashed off a mail to Arundhati accusing her of surrounding herself with a coterie. In hindsight I feel I should have just gone across and spoken to her and sorted out the matter. It is always worse when you make accusations in writing. It just leaves a lingering residue.
A few months later I met her and realized the mail hadn’t made much of a difference to her. She was cordial as usual and talked about how tired she was after all the running around she had done to raise funds to build the theatre. But the coterie found it difficult to forgive me, especially since I have never subscribed to this ‘adulatory’ stance we take to performers and performing spaces. I think any creative person or space needs a healthy dose of valid criticism to flourish and invariably it is the chamcha types with no skill or talent who are always schmoozing the powers that be. So I would make it a point to be critical about Rangashankara in the columns I would write on theatre. And it was not criticism for the heck of it. The world is a small place and the world of theatre even smaller. So I was supplied with a constant flow of cribs about Rangashankara by those who were staging plays in the space.
Those days I used to write a column for a Bangalore tabloid and one day when I visited the office, I found the editor in a very good mood. He told me he had a phone call from some idiot who claimed he was from Rangashankara and demanded my columns be banned. Of course nothing of that sort happened. Eventually the tabloid folded up and I moved on to writing columns for Bangalore Mirror and wrote a few more columns criticising Ranga Shankara until I got sick of it. I wonder if Arundhati Nag knew about this phone call. I suspect she didn’t and if she does find out about it someday, she may find it as amusing as the editor did.
It is very strange but all through this tension with Rangashankara, I have never stopped respecting Arundhati Nag. I have always felt she is a diva and I am fascinated by divas. Besides she is such a fantastic actor on stage and screen. We are fortunate to have her in the city. A number of theatre folks who were close to her at one time now speak about their disillusionment. But I think they are idiots. You should never expect a great artist to be a nice person. If you want to meet nice human beings you should work in an ashram. Artists have to be selfish to protect their art and vision.
As for the coterie, I don’t know if anyone in the audience noticed I had my tongue out during the curtain call.
It was meant for the guy who made that mysterious call.
The last time I felt somewhat mobilised to stage a play was three years ago and that was because I had an excellent production manager Veena Appiah working with me. Then she found out she was going to have a baby and quit and I lost all enthusiasm. The thing is when you are starting out, you have the energy to chase actors and ensure they are kept happy during rehearsals. Most actors I have worked with are like little children wanting to be pampered all the time and I find that very difficult as I am growing old. In any setting I feel I should be pampered. Why should I pamper someone else?
The bad blood was about a mail I wrote to Arundhati Nag because Rangashankara had changed the dates of some play that was being done by another playwright director under the Still Waters banner. I was irritated that day about something and when this guy landed up all upset, I dashed off a mail to Arundhati accusing her of surrounding herself with a coterie. In hindsight I feel I should have just gone across and spoken to her and sorted out the matter. It is always worse when you make accusations in writing. It just leaves a lingering residue.
A few months later I met her and realized the mail hadn’t made much of a difference to her. She was cordial as usual and talked about how tired she was after all the running around she had done to raise funds to build the theatre. But the coterie found it difficult to forgive me, especially since I have never subscribed to this ‘adulatory’ stance we take to performers and performing spaces. I think any creative person or space needs a healthy dose of valid criticism to flourish and invariably it is the chamcha types with no skill or talent who are always schmoozing the powers that be. So I would make it a point to be critical about Rangashankara in the columns I would write on theatre. And it was not criticism for the heck of it. The world is a small place and the world of theatre even smaller. So I was supplied with a constant flow of cribs about Rangashankara by those who were staging plays in the space.
Those days I used to write a column for a Bangalore tabloid and one day when I visited the office, I found the editor in a very good mood. He told me he had a phone call from some idiot who claimed he was from Rangashankara and demanded my columns be banned. Of course nothing of that sort happened. Eventually the tabloid folded up and I moved on to writing columns for Bangalore Mirror and wrote a few more columns criticising Ranga Shankara until I got sick of it. I wonder if Arundhati Nag knew about this phone call. I suspect she didn’t and if she does find out about it someday, she may find it as amusing as the editor did.
It is very strange but all through this tension with Rangashankara, I have never stopped respecting Arundhati Nag. I have always felt she is a diva and I am fascinated by divas. Besides she is such a fantastic actor on stage and screen. We are fortunate to have her in the city. A number of theatre folks who were close to her at one time now speak about their disillusionment. But I think they are idiots. You should never expect a great artist to be a nice person. If you want to meet nice human beings you should work in an ashram. Artists have to be selfish to protect their art and vision.
As for the coterie, I don’t know if anyone in the audience noticed I had my tongue out during the curtain call.
It was meant for the guy who made that mysterious call.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Year... Of Living Dangerously
2011 has been a year of taking risks.
I started the year by publishing a book on Indian organizations that is not exactly a feel good tale that CEOs are going to recommend to their managers. I know for a fact that I lost one sturdy client I have had for years because of writing this book. But never mind...writing the book was a great joy last year and looks like it is giving as much joy to the readers from the feedback that I keep receiving. And reading the book has made some of my friends as brave if not more. One of them decided to tell her boss exactly what she thought of her before quitting the organization. But she was also smart enough to build a case and ensure that she got paid her bonus for the previous year that the organization was trying hard to slime out of paying her. Now that’s enterprise.
Next I went for a back breaking trek for which I had hardly prepared myself for and managed to live to write about it...besides building enduring friendships with some of the others who were with me that I suspect would last a lifetime.
Then I was asked to act in a play as a demented academic and I jumped at the offer. Forget the acting, I managed to remember all my lines on stage, although most of them I had to read out from a script.
Lately I have developed a new workshop module on the art of telling stories in organizations. I have discovered most managers have a story they want to tell...provided if you are willing to listen to them.
My publishers tell me that they have planned to bring out my latest work of fiction, a murder mystery in December and that means I end the year as I had started it...with a book.
Thank you 2011, you have been good to me.
I started the year by publishing a book on Indian organizations that is not exactly a feel good tale that CEOs are going to recommend to their managers. I know for a fact that I lost one sturdy client I have had for years because of writing this book. But never mind...writing the book was a great joy last year and looks like it is giving as much joy to the readers from the feedback that I keep receiving. And reading the book has made some of my friends as brave if not more. One of them decided to tell her boss exactly what she thought of her before quitting the organization. But she was also smart enough to build a case and ensure that she got paid her bonus for the previous year that the organization was trying hard to slime out of paying her. Now that’s enterprise.
Next I went for a back breaking trek for which I had hardly prepared myself for and managed to live to write about it...besides building enduring friendships with some of the others who were with me that I suspect would last a lifetime.
Then I was asked to act in a play as a demented academic and I jumped at the offer. Forget the acting, I managed to remember all my lines on stage, although most of them I had to read out from a script.
Lately I have developed a new workshop module on the art of telling stories in organizations. I have discovered most managers have a story they want to tell...provided if you are willing to listen to them.
My publishers tell me that they have planned to bring out my latest work of fiction, a murder mystery in December and that means I end the year as I had started it...with a book.
Thank you 2011, you have been good to me.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Ek Thaali Ke Chatte Batte or Dyed in the Wool
So it’s all back to square one.
All that Lokpal Bill sound and fury finally ended with a free for all name calling and we know now not just the politicians but the civil society members are also a shameless, whiny lot. Look at that joker Anna Hazare. He wrote another letter to Sonia Gandhi complaining her party men were calling him names. Is that what we expect from a leader? And pray who is Sonia Gandhi? She’s just the president of the same political party that has put Anna in the dock. As of now there has been no news about Sonia chiding any of her men. For all you know they must have cursed Anna after checking with her and she may have taught them a bad word or two in Italian. Sonia Gandhi is very clever. When Indira Gandhi was throwing Maneka Gandhi out of her house, she went and quickly hid in the bathroom lest her hand be suspected in the whole tamasha. But I am sure she was quietly winding up her mother- in- law against Maneka for days altogether like one of those evil bahus in an Ekta Kapoor serial. How do I know all this? Kyonki Sonia bhi kabhi bahu thi.
And it is not just the politicians and the civil society members who are the only guilty parties here. Our media persons are no better. The other day after Hussain’s death, Arnab Goswami was presiding over a talk show to determine the politician’s culpability in Hussain’s death. Anyone who reads my blog would know I am no fan of the political establishment and as for the BJP, I wish their leaders were also in that train on that fateful day in Godhra, but I think all this hype about the government not doing anything to protect Hussain when he got those death threats is silly. He chose to go. No one forced him and as for death threats, don’t all our film stars and directors get them all the time. Rajiv Rai got them and he fled to London with his wife. Preity Zinta also got a threat unless she was making it all up but she went to a court and testified against the underworld and she’s still alive and owns an IPL team and needlessly jumps up and down whether her team is doing well or not. No one has targeted her as yet. We should say only good things about the dead and all I will like to say about Hussain is that he liked publicity and nubile young female actors of Bollywood. He seems to have had a good life until he died at the ripe old age of 93 and may his soul rest in peace. He once gifted my wife a sketch and if that work appreciates in value and is worth millions one day, I will bless his soul even more.
Anyway, I was on the topic of Arnab Goswami and his strange antics during the show. He dropped his voice in that pseudo manner and asked ‘Can our politicians drop their compulsions for once and do the right thing?’ Yes...they will do the right thing if journalists do the right thing! How come our media persons are always haranguing the politicians but sparing the corporate honchos? If one is a bribe taker, the other is a bribe giver. They are the two faces of the same coin. But you can never expect to see a talk show where the chairman of a corporate conglomerate is being quizzed for his role in the scams, not at least in this country. How come there has been no probing report on why the Tatas were given a clean chit in the 2G scam by the CBI. Tomorrow if the Talwars are let off similarly, Goswami will make us sick with all his antics but who wants to take on the Tatas? Certainly not those who depend on them for their ad revenues. If Goswami even talks about implicating a large corporate house, his masters will pack him off to Siberia and he knows this. And such a person wants to be the messiah of the common man. Heaven help us.
The other two journalists who are pissing me off big time are Manu Joseph and Hartosh Singh Bal. When ‘Open’ magazine did the expose’ on the Radia tapes last year, I felt admiration for both of them. But they turned out to be like Bhakti Barve in ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron.’ They recently did a cover story on how some research by the Tatas is path breaking. For the Tatas, in these troubled times, the cover story achieves what full page advertisements in every page, including the front and back covers would achieve. And as you know the corporates always pay well for the advertisements. To add insult to injury, Manu Joseph is always heckling the educated middle classes forgetting the same middle class was squarely on his side when Barkha Dutt and Sonia Verma placed him in that chair during the show on NDTV that ‘hurt’ his bum so much that he whined about it afterwards. We could have also laughed at him like I am sure generation after generation of Barkha Dutt’s family will laugh playing the tape of Manu’s expressions when the chair was poking him where it hurts the most. But we didn’t as we happen to be decent folks.
His colleague Hartosh Singh Bal is no better. He talked about the Jaipur literary festival being racist with William Dalrymple as the head. At that time one of the festival organizers had mentioned in an interview Hartosh was saying all this because he was not invited. I had felt bad for him then. But turned out she was right after all. For not only did he go for the festival but was also photographed having a lot of fun and he never wrote anything bad about the festival or the organizers after that.
Well, they are welcome to invite themselves to festivals and parties thrown by the research wing of the corporate entities who not so long ago they were busy 'exposing.'
I have decided not to watch ‘Times Now’ or buy ‘Open’ Magazine. That is my peaceful way of protesting.
All that Lokpal Bill sound and fury finally ended with a free for all name calling and we know now not just the politicians but the civil society members are also a shameless, whiny lot. Look at that joker Anna Hazare. He wrote another letter to Sonia Gandhi complaining her party men were calling him names. Is that what we expect from a leader? And pray who is Sonia Gandhi? She’s just the president of the same political party that has put Anna in the dock. As of now there has been no news about Sonia chiding any of her men. For all you know they must have cursed Anna after checking with her and she may have taught them a bad word or two in Italian. Sonia Gandhi is very clever. When Indira Gandhi was throwing Maneka Gandhi out of her house, she went and quickly hid in the bathroom lest her hand be suspected in the whole tamasha. But I am sure she was quietly winding up her mother- in- law against Maneka for days altogether like one of those evil bahus in an Ekta Kapoor serial. How do I know all this? Kyonki Sonia bhi kabhi bahu thi.
And it is not just the politicians and the civil society members who are the only guilty parties here. Our media persons are no better. The other day after Hussain’s death, Arnab Goswami was presiding over a talk show to determine the politician’s culpability in Hussain’s death. Anyone who reads my blog would know I am no fan of the political establishment and as for the BJP, I wish their leaders were also in that train on that fateful day in Godhra, but I think all this hype about the government not doing anything to protect Hussain when he got those death threats is silly. He chose to go. No one forced him and as for death threats, don’t all our film stars and directors get them all the time. Rajiv Rai got them and he fled to London with his wife. Preity Zinta also got a threat unless she was making it all up but she went to a court and testified against the underworld and she’s still alive and owns an IPL team and needlessly jumps up and down whether her team is doing well or not. No one has targeted her as yet. We should say only good things about the dead and all I will like to say about Hussain is that he liked publicity and nubile young female actors of Bollywood. He seems to have had a good life until he died at the ripe old age of 93 and may his soul rest in peace. He once gifted my wife a sketch and if that work appreciates in value and is worth millions one day, I will bless his soul even more.
Anyway, I was on the topic of Arnab Goswami and his strange antics during the show. He dropped his voice in that pseudo manner and asked ‘Can our politicians drop their compulsions for once and do the right thing?’ Yes...they will do the right thing if journalists do the right thing! How come our media persons are always haranguing the politicians but sparing the corporate honchos? If one is a bribe taker, the other is a bribe giver. They are the two faces of the same coin. But you can never expect to see a talk show where the chairman of a corporate conglomerate is being quizzed for his role in the scams, not at least in this country. How come there has been no probing report on why the Tatas were given a clean chit in the 2G scam by the CBI. Tomorrow if the Talwars are let off similarly, Goswami will make us sick with all his antics but who wants to take on the Tatas? Certainly not those who depend on them for their ad revenues. If Goswami even talks about implicating a large corporate house, his masters will pack him off to Siberia and he knows this. And such a person wants to be the messiah of the common man. Heaven help us.
The other two journalists who are pissing me off big time are Manu Joseph and Hartosh Singh Bal. When ‘Open’ magazine did the expose’ on the Radia tapes last year, I felt admiration for both of them. But they turned out to be like Bhakti Barve in ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron.’ They recently did a cover story on how some research by the Tatas is path breaking. For the Tatas, in these troubled times, the cover story achieves what full page advertisements in every page, including the front and back covers would achieve. And as you know the corporates always pay well for the advertisements. To add insult to injury, Manu Joseph is always heckling the educated middle classes forgetting the same middle class was squarely on his side when Barkha Dutt and Sonia Verma placed him in that chair during the show on NDTV that ‘hurt’ his bum so much that he whined about it afterwards. We could have also laughed at him like I am sure generation after generation of Barkha Dutt’s family will laugh playing the tape of Manu’s expressions when the chair was poking him where it hurts the most. But we didn’t as we happen to be decent folks.
His colleague Hartosh Singh Bal is no better. He talked about the Jaipur literary festival being racist with William Dalrymple as the head. At that time one of the festival organizers had mentioned in an interview Hartosh was saying all this because he was not invited. I had felt bad for him then. But turned out she was right after all. For not only did he go for the festival but was also photographed having a lot of fun and he never wrote anything bad about the festival or the organizers after that.
Well, they are welcome to invite themselves to festivals and parties thrown by the research wing of the corporate entities who not so long ago they were busy 'exposing.'
I have decided not to watch ‘Times Now’ or buy ‘Open’ Magazine. That is my peaceful way of protesting.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Hanna and Shaitan
It has been two Fridays and two matinees at a trot, both about a young female damaged protagonist, one in English and one in Hindi.
Let me start with ‘Hanna’ because I watched that one last week. I suspect it is soon going to turn into a cult classic. It is directed by that young British auteur Joe Wright, who didn’t get a high school diploma because of his dyslexia but is the youngest director to have his film ‘Atonement’ premier at the Venice Film Festival. That should tell us something about how redundant formal education is.
Hanna is about this seventeen year old who has been raised in isolation in a forest by her father. She has been trained to be a killing machine to help her survive against the violent machinations of an evil CIA agent played by that genius actor Cate Blanchett. The rest of the cast is equally effective. Saoirse Ronan, the delightful Irish actor introduced by Wright in ‘Atonement’ plays Hanna with sprite agility, mining the meaty role for all its sub textual richness of loneliness and wonderment. Eric Bana is equally effective as her noble father. There is this interesting twist in the story that educates the audience about the unconventional upbringing Hanna has had that we are both prepared for and yet not prepared for, which is what a thriller giving you your money’s worth is all about. I am amazed at Wright’s versatility. He is in his late thirties currently and that means he was younger when he directed this one and the ones that came before including ‘Atonement.’ I am sure I will catch all the subsequent movies he makes and can’t wait for the DVD of ‘Hanna’ to come out to add to my collection.
Bejoy Nambiar is in his thirties too and has made a stunning debut with ‘Shaitan,’ produced by Anurag Kashyap. I think of Kashyap as a modern day ‘Jung’ to Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Freud’. Kashyap started out with Varma and was as responsible for Satya’s success, having written the screenplay. Now Varma has been reduced to a paranoid shadow of his earlier creative self, churning out one horrible film after another whereas Kashyap is having a great innings. Not only did’ Dev D’ that Kashyap directed change the rule of film making in Bollywood and made us realise how ‘thoo-thoo’ the films of Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra are, but his banner has also introduced some young talented directors who have made kick ass films like Vikramaditya Motwane and ‘Udaan’ and now Nambiar and ‘Shaitan.’
I think a lot of the film critics get jealous of the young directors Kashyap introduces, as they want to be discovered too. I certainly picked up a tinge of envy in Raja Sen’s review. He was trying too hard to attribute the film’s strengths to Kashyap rather than Nambiar. That’s just slimy behaviour rather than an honest critique. The film has been made by Nambiar and the credit or discredit for the film goes to him and not to anyone else. Kashyap comes across as someone who has a lot of integrity speaking on behalf of other directors like Onir and Dibakar Banerjee when they get into trouble with publicity hungry starlets. He doesn’t need a front to make his films.
‘Shaitan’ is also about a young damaged female protagonist played by Kalki Koechlin. Now Koechlin has a long way to go before she can come anywhere near Ronan as far as acting chops are concerned but she has one great quality none of the female Indian actors have. She is not afraid of making herself ugly in front of the camera. That’s a terrific trait to have for an actor and helps her to make her character believable despite the inconsistencies in her interpretation. Much has been made about the acting of the other young actors in the ensemble cast but really I don’t think there was much of a demand placed on them. I am sure none of them are addicts but apart from that character trait, they pretty much interact like most urban youngsters do, cracking poor jokes and appreciating each other for the ‘come backs’ in the barbs that fly to and fro among them. Any other set of young intelligent actors would have done as well if asked to have fun in front of the camera. Rajiv Khandelwal is very good though and the unknown female actor who plays his wife has the most interesting and haunting face I have seen for a long time in Hindi films. Who is she?
But the star of the show is undoubtedly Nambiar. His shot taking is unusual and sometimes his scenes play out inordinately long like in a Tarentino film but he keeps the audience riveted and the film stays with you long after it is over. Nambiar spent some time in Bangalore and even directed a play in the city and he pays a tribute to his theatre days by including the veteran playwright and theatre person Poile Sengupta in the cast of his film
He moved to Mumbai and got married to Juhi Babbar. That must have been terrible. The Babbars are probably the most clownish theatre and film family in Mumbai. The matriarch Nadira Babbar runs a theatre group in Mumbai that along with Dinesh Thakur’s troupe stages the most god-awful plays in Prithvi. The two talentless ugly kids –Juhi and Arya play significant lead roles in most of the home productions. The patriarch Raj Babbar tried to make his mark as a slimy rapist in his debut film in the early eighties. Afterwards he tried to be a hero but all his films flopped, so he turned into a UP politician. His innings in politics has been as sidey as his films but he is a hoot to watch whenever he tries to speak in English. If you want to have some cheap thrills, you can always invite the Senior Babbar for an event and ask him to give his speech in English. The audience will die laughing. Raj Babbar is also the father of Prateik Babbar, Smita Patil’s son. Pratiek has been sensible enough to drop the surname. Nambiar and juhi Babbar are divorced now.
Thank god Nambiar made the intelligent transition from the Babbars to Kashyap and discovered the ‘Shaitan’ in him.
Let me start with ‘Hanna’ because I watched that one last week. I suspect it is soon going to turn into a cult classic. It is directed by that young British auteur Joe Wright, who didn’t get a high school diploma because of his dyslexia but is the youngest director to have his film ‘Atonement’ premier at the Venice Film Festival. That should tell us something about how redundant formal education is.
Hanna is about this seventeen year old who has been raised in isolation in a forest by her father. She has been trained to be a killing machine to help her survive against the violent machinations of an evil CIA agent played by that genius actor Cate Blanchett. The rest of the cast is equally effective. Saoirse Ronan, the delightful Irish actor introduced by Wright in ‘Atonement’ plays Hanna with sprite agility, mining the meaty role for all its sub textual richness of loneliness and wonderment. Eric Bana is equally effective as her noble father. There is this interesting twist in the story that educates the audience about the unconventional upbringing Hanna has had that we are both prepared for and yet not prepared for, which is what a thriller giving you your money’s worth is all about. I am amazed at Wright’s versatility. He is in his late thirties currently and that means he was younger when he directed this one and the ones that came before including ‘Atonement.’ I am sure I will catch all the subsequent movies he makes and can’t wait for the DVD of ‘Hanna’ to come out to add to my collection.
Bejoy Nambiar is in his thirties too and has made a stunning debut with ‘Shaitan,’ produced by Anurag Kashyap. I think of Kashyap as a modern day ‘Jung’ to Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Freud’. Kashyap started out with Varma and was as responsible for Satya’s success, having written the screenplay. Now Varma has been reduced to a paranoid shadow of his earlier creative self, churning out one horrible film after another whereas Kashyap is having a great innings. Not only did’ Dev D’ that Kashyap directed change the rule of film making in Bollywood and made us realise how ‘thoo-thoo’ the films of Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra are, but his banner has also introduced some young talented directors who have made kick ass films like Vikramaditya Motwane and ‘Udaan’ and now Nambiar and ‘Shaitan.’
I think a lot of the film critics get jealous of the young directors Kashyap introduces, as they want to be discovered too. I certainly picked up a tinge of envy in Raja Sen’s review. He was trying too hard to attribute the film’s strengths to Kashyap rather than Nambiar. That’s just slimy behaviour rather than an honest critique. The film has been made by Nambiar and the credit or discredit for the film goes to him and not to anyone else. Kashyap comes across as someone who has a lot of integrity speaking on behalf of other directors like Onir and Dibakar Banerjee when they get into trouble with publicity hungry starlets. He doesn’t need a front to make his films.
‘Shaitan’ is also about a young damaged female protagonist played by Kalki Koechlin. Now Koechlin has a long way to go before she can come anywhere near Ronan as far as acting chops are concerned but she has one great quality none of the female Indian actors have. She is not afraid of making herself ugly in front of the camera. That’s a terrific trait to have for an actor and helps her to make her character believable despite the inconsistencies in her interpretation. Much has been made about the acting of the other young actors in the ensemble cast but really I don’t think there was much of a demand placed on them. I am sure none of them are addicts but apart from that character trait, they pretty much interact like most urban youngsters do, cracking poor jokes and appreciating each other for the ‘come backs’ in the barbs that fly to and fro among them. Any other set of young intelligent actors would have done as well if asked to have fun in front of the camera. Rajiv Khandelwal is very good though and the unknown female actor who plays his wife has the most interesting and haunting face I have seen for a long time in Hindi films. Who is she?
But the star of the show is undoubtedly Nambiar. His shot taking is unusual and sometimes his scenes play out inordinately long like in a Tarentino film but he keeps the audience riveted and the film stays with you long after it is over. Nambiar spent some time in Bangalore and even directed a play in the city and he pays a tribute to his theatre days by including the veteran playwright and theatre person Poile Sengupta in the cast of his film
He moved to Mumbai and got married to Juhi Babbar. That must have been terrible. The Babbars are probably the most clownish theatre and film family in Mumbai. The matriarch Nadira Babbar runs a theatre group in Mumbai that along with Dinesh Thakur’s troupe stages the most god-awful plays in Prithvi. The two talentless ugly kids –Juhi and Arya play significant lead roles in most of the home productions. The patriarch Raj Babbar tried to make his mark as a slimy rapist in his debut film in the early eighties. Afterwards he tried to be a hero but all his films flopped, so he turned into a UP politician. His innings in politics has been as sidey as his films but he is a hoot to watch whenever he tries to speak in English. If you want to have some cheap thrills, you can always invite the Senior Babbar for an event and ask him to give his speech in English. The audience will die laughing. Raj Babbar is also the father of Prateik Babbar, Smita Patil’s son. Pratiek has been sensible enough to drop the surname. Nambiar and juhi Babbar are divorced now.
Thank god Nambiar made the intelligent transition from the Babbars to Kashyap and discovered the ‘Shaitan’ in him.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Kolkata Turf War- Bongs Vs Medos
The dynamics between the two communities has always fascinated me. The rivalry between the cultured Bong and the moneyed Medo can very well lend itself to a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with the feuding families of the two love smitten characters anchoring their enmity around their parochial roots.
On a recent stop over at Kolkata, I had the opportunity to witness the dynamics between the two communities. Being early for a flight, I decided to have a cup of coffee at the Internet Cafe in the airport before checking in. The chairs around the cafe meant for public was taken up by a Medo family and it was a very large family comprising of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, some younger men who were presumably the sons and some middle aged to old men who were being addressed as ‘Mamajis’ by everyone else in the family. In the middle of this large and noisy brood sat a lone Bong lady poring over the latest issue of ‘India Today.’ She must have found her seat before the Medos laid their claim on the chairs around her.
There was a lot of jabbering among the Medo women and after consulting each other, they started to unpack bags. One of the young daughter in law started distributing paper plates to members of her family. Another daughter in law opened a box of sweets and started offering Kaju Barfis . A third daughter in law distributed Sev and the fourth and the fifth gave out Aloo Puri. Now right from the time I was a child and my family used to make these long train journeys to Kerala from Jamshedpur, I have been shamelessly interested in what my co-passengers are eating. Once I got a slap from my mother for this bad habit, but I am not the kind to reform easily. Nowadays as a writer, I feel it is my birthright to eavesdrop into conversations and stare at other people in restaurants much to the disgust of my wife and son. Since neither of them had accompanied me in this trip, I kept on staring unabashedly with no one around to chide or threaten me.
After a while , the bhadrolok Bong lady grew uncomfortable at the train like behaviour being exhibited by the Medo family around her. She got up and offered to exchange her seat with the person sitting in the corner most seat so that the daughters in law could serve better. Her act of consideration was appreciated by members of the Medo family and the daughters in law tried to force some food on a paper plate for her. I think the lady gathered she was being paid for services rendered because no one had offered any food to her earlier. She kept on declining politely saying she doesn’t eat between meals confusing the daughter in laws who kept on insisting ‘Didi, Khao Na...Please...Thoda Sa. It just got too much for her especially when one of the old Mamaji’s sitting in front of her burped loudly and said “Haan...haan Didi ko mithai khilao.” I don’t know whether it was the burping or a man old enough to be her father addressing her as Didi, but the lady had enough. She got up with a tight smile and walked away with her trolley. One of the daughters in law, tired of serving, promptly plonked herself on the lady’s chair.
Just as the lady got up our eyes met and we smiled ruefully at each other. I shook my head in disbelief and she rolled her eyes. She also muttered something under her breath and I may be wrong but I think she said ‘Stupid Medos’ before stalking off. I wish I was able to tell her the Medos are anything but stupid and if the psychodrama I saw unfolding before me was anything to go by, that was pretty much the way the Medos had displaced the Bongs from many of the pockets of the city of joy.
I had a Medo friend when I was working in Kolkata. He was smitten by that vapid actress Bhagyashree who had debuted with Salman Khan in ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’. He wanted to marry someone who looked exactly like her. When his family found a match for him who he thought resembled Bhagyashree, he got married to her. After he came back from his honeymoon he called me to give me all the details. When he got to the part ‘Jab hum love make kar rahe te’ I grew alarmed. I told him to stop as his wife may not like it. ‘Kyon’ he asked, ‘Woh jaanti hai, hum close friends hain.’ I told him while that may be true there are some things even close friends shouldn’t share. ‘Tum bahut jyaada sensitive ho’ he concluded.
Our friendship broke up because although I remembered to invite all my Bong friends for my wedding, I forgot to invite him and his wife. He was very cut up about that.
On a recent stop over at Kolkata, I had the opportunity to witness the dynamics between the two communities. Being early for a flight, I decided to have a cup of coffee at the Internet Cafe in the airport before checking in. The chairs around the cafe meant for public was taken up by a Medo family and it was a very large family comprising of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, some younger men who were presumably the sons and some middle aged to old men who were being addressed as ‘Mamajis’ by everyone else in the family. In the middle of this large and noisy brood sat a lone Bong lady poring over the latest issue of ‘India Today.’ She must have found her seat before the Medos laid their claim on the chairs around her.
There was a lot of jabbering among the Medo women and after consulting each other, they started to unpack bags. One of the young daughter in law started distributing paper plates to members of her family. Another daughter in law opened a box of sweets and started offering Kaju Barfis . A third daughter in law distributed Sev and the fourth and the fifth gave out Aloo Puri. Now right from the time I was a child and my family used to make these long train journeys to Kerala from Jamshedpur, I have been shamelessly interested in what my co-passengers are eating. Once I got a slap from my mother for this bad habit, but I am not the kind to reform easily. Nowadays as a writer, I feel it is my birthright to eavesdrop into conversations and stare at other people in restaurants much to the disgust of my wife and son. Since neither of them had accompanied me in this trip, I kept on staring unabashedly with no one around to chide or threaten me.
After a while , the bhadrolok Bong lady grew uncomfortable at the train like behaviour being exhibited by the Medo family around her. She got up and offered to exchange her seat with the person sitting in the corner most seat so that the daughters in law could serve better. Her act of consideration was appreciated by members of the Medo family and the daughters in law tried to force some food on a paper plate for her. I think the lady gathered she was being paid for services rendered because no one had offered any food to her earlier. She kept on declining politely saying she doesn’t eat between meals confusing the daughter in laws who kept on insisting ‘Didi, Khao Na...Please...Thoda Sa. It just got too much for her especially when one of the old Mamaji’s sitting in front of her burped loudly and said “Haan...haan Didi ko mithai khilao.” I don’t know whether it was the burping or a man old enough to be her father addressing her as Didi, but the lady had enough. She got up with a tight smile and walked away with her trolley. One of the daughters in law, tired of serving, promptly plonked herself on the lady’s chair.
Just as the lady got up our eyes met and we smiled ruefully at each other. I shook my head in disbelief and she rolled her eyes. She also muttered something under her breath and I may be wrong but I think she said ‘Stupid Medos’ before stalking off. I wish I was able to tell her the Medos are anything but stupid and if the psychodrama I saw unfolding before me was anything to go by, that was pretty much the way the Medos had displaced the Bongs from many of the pockets of the city of joy.
I had a Medo friend when I was working in Kolkata. He was smitten by that vapid actress Bhagyashree who had debuted with Salman Khan in ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’. He wanted to marry someone who looked exactly like her. When his family found a match for him who he thought resembled Bhagyashree, he got married to her. After he came back from his honeymoon he called me to give me all the details. When he got to the part ‘Jab hum love make kar rahe te’ I grew alarmed. I told him to stop as his wife may not like it. ‘Kyon’ he asked, ‘Woh jaanti hai, hum close friends hain.’ I told him while that may be true there are some things even close friends shouldn’t share. ‘Tum bahut jyaada sensitive ho’ he concluded.
Our friendship broke up because although I remembered to invite all my Bong friends for my wedding, I forgot to invite him and his wife. He was very cut up about that.
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