Degrees Of Torture

“Why would someone want to see me at eight in the morning!” was my first response when I was told that the HOD of English department of a school, a former colleague of my mother’s, wanted to see me. This was a high profile school and there was an opening for the post of an English teacher. Through some internal (and mysterious) channels, the HOD got to know that I happen to teach English somewhere. She phoned my mother. To cut the long story short: I was summoned. 

Now, I already have a job so I was not too keen on or desperate for this proposal. But the only thing that tempted to even consider it was: an opportunity to work in a purely academic space with young students who are going to be (can’t resist the cliché) our future. 

The previous evening while talking to friend I happened to mention this proposal by the way. 

“So you want to be a school teacher!” His eyebrows rose in unison and so rose his pitch. Clearly, he was surprised. 

“Well, yeah...I won’t mind. I teach for a living anyway. So except for the change in the set-up I don’t perceive any dramatic shift. Plus, I’ve always fancied being a teacher,” I said.

“Still! You’d better think through this,” was his last word on the matter. 

I understand his apprehension. In this highly competitive world the notion of one’s aspiring to become a school teacher might seem anachronistic and lax. 

In retrospect, I think, I should have qualified my affirmative. I would like to be a school teacher among the many other things I’d like to be. The best feature of my present job is that it gives me the time to do things on the side. And for a person of my temperament, it is critical. Apart from working I also need to constantly be doing things that don’t feel like work and yet give me a sense of accomplishment (hobbies stand discounted by that measure). I would want a job wherein I am not doing JUST that.

However, while in this job, too, I teach, I can’t play the role of a nurturer, as it were. The framework I operate in is highly transactional and performance driven. You don’t have students—you have clients. They have to be pleased. You talk to them about climate change or gender equality or the things that matter beyond exam scores, and all you see them do is return a blank look at best or yawn at worst. How to crack the damn exam is all that matters to them.

My mother was insistent that I consider this proposal sincerely, for she wants me to have a ‘settled and sorted’ life (ha!). My kind of job doesn’t have universality she says. It’s fine so long as we live in the metropolis, but what if we move? Will there be such jobs elsewhere too, she asked pointedly. 

Schools are everywhere (thank heavens!). So if I am a qualified and experienced school teacher, my chances of being unemployed will be minimal, now that I have long abandoned the much beaten IT path. I understand her concern too. 

But what she, and perhaps even I, do not (fully) understand is that my life defies any form of regularity. And quite vehemently so. In my life, since my very birth, deviation has been the norm. Whenever we have even attempted to make it follow a set path, there’s been a backlash. (So, yes, we have collected quite a few lemons by now). 

____________________________________________________________________

After much ado I (somehow) reached the said school at eight in the morning. The receptionist had a harried expression on her face, and I am sure she half frowned at me when I told her that I wished to see the HOD. Maybe expecting a smile from someone at eight in the morning is too much, so I did not quite mind her. 

“You wait there,” she said pointing to a couch (without losing that half frown).

I saw what made her behave so: there was a steady stream of people she had to attend to: there were parents whose wards had forgotten their lunch-boxes, there were parents who brought along with them models and projects that were too large to be carried by children themselves, there was a loud lady whose son had missed his school bus because the timing of the bus was changed without intimation and she wasn’t willing to let go off this anytime soon. 

After a few minutes I was ushered into the HOD’s room. She wasn’t around. I was again asked to wait. Soon she walked into the room. A short and stout woman easily in her late fifties. She had fine a complexion that complemented her pink (think Roohafza mixed in milk) sari. Her glasses made her big eyes look even bigger. She smiled at me warmly as I rose to greet her. 

A middle-aged man followed her into the room, panting.

“Just give me a moment. I need to get this sorted,” she said to me coolly.

The haggard man stood right next to me and placed a paper on the table. The paper looked as worn out as did he. Apparently it was a grade card. It had different columns and one entry under these columns was circled.

 He began from where he must have left off before he had entered the room: “Madam, I am telling you there has been some discrepancy. These grades are wrong. This should be C1, not D1. The final GPA will increase definitely...”

The HOD signalled him to stop by a wave of her hand. She examined the document carefully for a second or two and referred to a list that she had handy. 

“I have already reported this matter to the class teacher but the change hasn’t been made yet,” he said, addressing me as though I was his interlocutor. “You see it’s a matter of my child’s future. This is unacceptable,” he added. I nodded awkwardly.

The HOD looked up and spoke: “Sir, have patience. Please sit down. Let me explain things to you.” 

“Madam, there’s nothing to understand; the matter is simple.” He tapped the paper with his index finger.”You just increase the GPA and allow my son to take up mathematics. That’s all I want.”

“Will you please sit down and listen to me for a moment,” the HOD said sharply. The man sat down and wiped his forehead. “Look, sir, the matter of correction has to be referred to the examination department. I will call up the concerned person right away and get that fixed. That’s not a problem. But...” she paused here for a moment to ensure that he had all her attention. “But the problem is that you want your student to have maths and with that GPA I can’t give him that.”

Here she sank further back into her chair anticipating another round of rant from across the table. 

“But madam if this D1 gets changed to C1 then it...” He wasn’t allowed to complete though.

“Sir, even then the GPA will increase by 0.2 points. It will be 7.2. I am not giving Maths even with 7.4.  The cut-off is 7.5. Even a 7.4 won’t work. I am sorry. Besides, just look at all his grades throughout the year: I don’t see an A anywhere. Where were you all this while, now that you’ve suddenly grown so concerned?”

“My son was ill for some time. He sat for the annual internal exam too! Doesn’t that count?”

“Ill? Throughout the year? Let’s not kid ourselves, sir. I am afraid I can’t help you here.”

“I want my son to have Commerce with Maths, not Physical Education. I want him to become a C.A. Now you tell me how could you help me? What’s the way out?”

She almost smiled realising that now she was in command. “Apply for a T.C. That’s all I can say. He’s not getting Maths here at any rate.”

“How can you say that? We have been associated with this school for the past 10 years! And that’s all you have? T.C.?” He sounded defeated now.

She grew sympathetic and softened her stance. “Look, sir, I understand what you’re going through. But why are you pushing your son for something he’s clearly not capable of doing? You’re doing him a disservice. Mathematics is not the end of the world. People without maths excel too. I am myself a student of Humanities. The subjects he takes up now are not going to define his entire career or future. This is the age of inter-disciplinarity. Let him do what he’s comfortable doing. Believe me, sir, I speak from experience. This is my fifth school. I am on the verge of my retirement. You just said it yourself: it’s you who wants him to become C.A. Ask him what he wants to become. Subjects don’t matter, talent does!”

The man kept gazing at the paper that lay on the table. The HOD rang up someone and explained the situation.

“Now, my office-boy will take you to the examination department. Just go there and hand over the document; they’ll take care of it.”

The man made a reluctant exit.

She turned to me and smiled again. “I am sorry about that.”

We went to converse about the job profile and responsibilities.

“Your mother told me that you’re teaching somewhere. I think you’d be great at the job. The formal interview will happen sometime next week; I should let you know about it. I just called you over because I wanted to see you. I will pass on your resume to the director,” she said.

“Thank you!” I handed her my resume.

The lines on her fair and graceful face grew slightly more prominent as she read through it.

“O dear!” she sighed.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked.

“You have a B.Tech degree in your undergrad, not a B.A.?”

“Yes, but I have an M.A. in English and a B.Ed. Won’t that count?”

“But, you see, it’s a distance learning program.”

“Yes, that’s because I was working simultaneously. I have been working, teaching rather, all these years,” I said.

“Well, it sort of counts, but you still don’t have a B.A. And with a B.Tech degree I won’t be able to offer you a job of an English teacher.” She sounded genuinely sorry.

“It’s a pity that talent doesn’t count in this country. We are a country obsessed with rules and norms. I wish I could bend them for you. You’re like my son,” she said to me, handing back the resume.

I smiled back at her and thanked her for her time and concern.

On my way back I could not help but smile on the irony of the whole episode. 

Is it any wonder, then, that we have Tomars and Iranis (allegedly) forging degrees?

Hopelessly Hopeful

It's that time of the night when I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to a pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must the paper not resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.

The promise of a better tomorrow, better still, the illusion of it is what drives one today. This tomorrow feeds off the hopes one raises today. Every evening the sun hides, unable to bear upon itself all the burden of hopes one invests it with as it rises. Then the night falls. Enough time for one to recover from the momentary realisation that the perishing of those promises is as inevitable as the rising of the sun the following morning. Also, enough time for one to weave a new tapestry of hopes that one expects life will fulfil. 

One adds a dash of that hope into tea one brews in the morning. One slathers some of that hope with butter on a piece of bread. One pours some of that hope with hot milk into a bowl of porridge. And one opens the newspaper with the hope of finding a possibility of that promise, pressed neatly between the folds of those pages, resembling tiny ants fighting for space, materialising. The newspapers have enough material to demolish all the hopes of having such hopes; and yet one, incurably and hopelessly bitten by the bug of hopefulness keeps hoping.  With the pages of that newspaper the hope gets recycled too. It’s presented to one afresh the next day in a new form, new variety. 

They don’t make a big crashing sound as they perish, these promises. They don’t go all BOOM and BAAM! They just fade away. And fizzle out without much fanfare. A silent death mostly. And then, even before one is done mourning for the lost hopes, new ones start budding and replace the former. And one begins to chase the newly arisen hopes. One knows it’s a bait. Yet one is drawn to it guilelessly and helplessly. Just a certain GPA , a certain degree, a certain job, an apartment with a certain number of rooms in a certain neighbourhood, citizenship of a certain country, a certain person…just this one thing, or that….just this one. And then will commence the gilded age. Does it though? Even if one gets all of these and maybe more?

It’s a Sisyphean task: one tries to claw their way out of this pit, a hopeless pit made of hope, and having come out of it somehow, one finds themselves in an even deeper pit. The pit only multiplies, and one is plunged further into multiple pits simultaneously. Hopeless pits made of hopes.

All of life is this: digging new pits, trying to get out of them, only to envy the pits of the others and wanting to dive into them right away, or to pity the pits of others hoping to never get pushed in those. But a pit is a pit. Hopeless pits made of hopes.

It's that time of the night when I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to a pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must the paper not resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.

The Gentle And The Men, Drove On

The gentle and the men
Drove on,
Driven by the yen
To extinguish the anguish
That life and living spawn.

The gentle and the men
Drove on
On the roads that bend
As they please,
Refusing to be predictable,
Refusing to cease.

Two rivulets rushed down
The hills
Like streams of milk
Oozing out of breasts of mother Yashoda
Upon seeing Madhav
Return home at dusk,
 Spent and worn.
The gentle and the men
Drove on.

 The stately hills looked on.
Or did they too giggle
At the banter produced by
The gentle and the men
As they drove on?

The clouds and hills squabbled.
In a bid to be one up,
The clouds cast shadows
That eclipsed the hills; and
Hills, they raise their heads,
Impudently,
To touch the very clouds
They won’t fawn
As the gentle and the men
Drove on.

The clouds gloated
Over their mobility
And fluidity,
Mocking the static hills;
The hills took pride in stability,
In their simple forms and regularity,
Changeless since they were born,
As the gentle and the men
Drove on.


Who could say whether
The mobility was not freedom
But punishment?
It came at a cost—the lack of belonging.
Everywhere but nowhere.
Wasn’t the stability an act?
An act under constant attack from
Forces of nature—the winds of desire,
The torrent of temptations,
The quakes of urges.

Neither was better off.
They laughed at the facades
The hills and the clouds don,
As the gentle and the men
Drove on.



~ aviD
                                                                         

Dilemma

Of the many things that were common between the mothers of Gautam and Anjana, the most prominent one had to be their fervent desire to see their children settled. Both the mothers were equally worried about the advancing age of their children. Gautam and Anjana had both entered the fourth decade of their lives. At 34, Gautam had spent a year more than Anjana in the said decade and had thus grown slightly more reconciled with it. Neither of the two mothers had spent even a single night when they would go the bed without reflecting, with some degree of concern, on the marital prospects of their respective children. Joined by similar worries, separated by geographic distance, and oblivious to each other’s existence, they resided in different places. Anjana’s mother lived in the small town called Firozabad, located about 250 Km away from Delhi (Anjana had moved to Delhi 10 years ago).

 Every morning as Anjana’s mother would stand in her balcony sipping tea with her husband, she saw hawkers moving in the by-lanes selling bangles. The bangles would be heaped up on their carts like vegetables. Red, pink, green, orange...all colours and sizes. Anjana’s mother would long for a day when she would buy them in dozens for Anjana’s wedding.

Anjana’s mother, with the help of her husband, had made a profile for Anjana on a popular matrimonial website. While Anjana would, in words of her mother, fritter away her life on work in Delhi, her mother would religiously check all the proposals that came her way on the said site, back in Firozabad. Most of the proposals that would appeal to the mother would be mercilessly snubbed by Anjana.

Anjana had always been her own person. She had left Firozabad right after her XII board exams and never looked back. Firozabad was now nothing more than an annual affair that would happen only on Diwali when she visited her parents. She was working as the Chief Communication Officer with a Telecom giant in Delhi. She had built a life of her own in the city of Delhi. Survival was a daily struggle for a single woman like her living all by herself in the city that was notorious for being unsympathetic, brutal even, to women. Delhi’s vastness was overpowering yet comforting for her. She would any day prefer to lose herself in Delhi rather than being found in Firozabad for all her life. The bubbles of anxiety and fear that would rise in her head every now and then would be crushed by the prospect of her living the life her mother and her sister led in Firozabad.

The last time she and her mother had a conversation, her mother had talked about this new candidate that she and her father had thought fit for Anjana. She knew this time, too, her mother would invariably insist on her giving this man a chance. “Ek baar mil toh le. Milne me kya jaata hai? 33 ki ho gayi hai...kab settle down hogi, bhagwaan jaane!” the mother would say adamantly. Anjana was not averse to the idea of marriage or, as her mother says, settling down. She thought the chosen procedure to be farcical. She believed that she would run into her life partner someday, somewhere;  she believed that she would strike up a conversation with someone reading the same book as hers on a metro and be amazed at how their taste in books and music is alike; that someday someone would stop by to appreciate the roses and gardenias that she had painstakingly cultivated in one end of the small porch of her Vasant Kunj flat; that she would thank this someone for his appreciation and invite him for a glass of lemonade; that they will have the most delightful conversation over the lemonade; that this rather plain looking chap will actually turn out to be the CEO of a large corporate; that they will meet frequently over some more lemonade, fall in love, and get married thereafter.

Though her clasp over such fanciful notions was growing feebler and feebler year by year. She had now begun to take coach reserved for ladies on the metro. She would not grub out the weeds from her plants on the same day she spotted them and with as much aggression. She would now not mind waiting for the weekend to do the pruning. And now she had begun to relent with a lesser resistance to her mother’s persuasion. The idea of humouring her mother did not seem completely bizarre any more. The declivity that joins fancy to reality is dangerously slippery—one nudge, in form of little persuasion or ticking time, is all it takes to trigger the descent.

Thus she decided to meet this man her mother had shortlisted for her. It was a Saturday anyway. She could not have used work as an excuse to avoid it. He seems like an affable man, her mother had told her. And that, precisely, was the major cause of her worry. This was not the first such meeting she would be participating in. None of the meetings had been fruitful so far. In most cases the other party would express their disapproval either by making demands that she and her family could never fulfil or by stating that she should not stop looking for other possibilities—after having spent two years on the Shadi.com she had developed a keen ear for such cues and a thick skin for rejections.

However, the real problem would arise when she would not approve of the prospect. Anjana suffered from an affliction that many a woman suffer from:  inability to say ‘no’ in so many words. And her discomfiture only rose sharply if the man in question happened to be affable. Affability is not as essential an ingredient for the marital bliss as compatibility, Anjana believed. Nice is nice, but then nothing great has ever come out of nice.

Anjana’s phone rang. She knew it was her mother calling to confirm if she’s meeting the boy today.

“Haan, mummy Namaste...haan aaj jaaungi...theek hai  green wala suit pehenungi...haan okay...nahi mazak nahi karungi. Accha papa ko phone do.”

“Hello Anju. How are you, beta? So you’re going then?” said a firm and distant voice.

“Haan papa, I’ll go. Achha, tell me does he smoke?”

“No...so far as we know he doesn’t. That’s what the profile says. Rama spoke to his mother; she too said he doesn’t smoke. We had told them that smoking is a strict no-no for you. You’ve seen the profile, nahi? Gautam naam hai uska.”

“Yes, I have. Not that I remember much though. Theek hai, so I will call you later to tell you how did it go.”

“Okay, beta. All the best!”

Anjana texted Gautam to check if he’s comfortable meeting over lunch.

“Hi, I am Anjana Dutt from Shadi.Com. Shall we meet at CP in, say, Sarvana Bhawan for lunch? That is if you don’t have any other plans for the day?”

“Hi Anjana. Sure let’s meet. I’ll be there at 1? Okay?”

“Sure. See you then. :)”
 *********************************************************************************************************************

It was a bit too warm for a February afternoon. Winter was retreating. Summer was knocking at Delhi’s door like a hapless waif waiting to be let in; Taking undue advantage of the mercy shown to it, even before you could realise, this helpless waif would turn into a marauder, and soon scoff at the city’s helplessness and misery.

Gautam nearly stumbled in the restaurant. He was late by 15 minutes. He brushed his hair with his fingers. The realisation that his hair had thinned and a lot of his scalp shone through them made him only more conscious. He wiped the thin film of sweat that glazed his forehead from all the rushing and brushing (he could have dropped the sweater). His eyes searched for the face he had examined many times over on his phone before he set out out.  (Click to view photo, zoom in, zoom out, back...click to view photo, zoom in, zoom out...)

There she was. She waved her hand delicately and smiled. Gautam also smiled— more so because he was supposed to than he wanted to.

She rose, held out her hand and said with a smile, “Anjana! I hope I did not spoil your Saturday?”

“Arey...not at all! I am sorry for being late. The metro got stuck before the last station. There was just such rush today. Did you notice?”

“I drove myself here...so I wouldn’t know. But I can imagine,” Anjana said, observing Gautam’s lanky frame and prominent forehead.

“Oh, you drive? That’s great!”

“Yes I do. I take the metro too. But occasionally.  Only when I have to go to Gurgaon for work. I just can’t drive in that crazy traffic,” Anjana said shrugging.

Gautam could not help noticing the sparkling eyes and well formed lips that Anjana possessed as much as he could not help noticing some extra flesh on her face which formed something of a double-chin.

“So should we place the order? Or do you want some more time?” Anjana’s questions distracted him and forced him to deliberate over the menu.

Over the course of the meal Anjana and Gautam both discovered things about one and other that gave them what they were fumbling for—reasons to like or dislike each other. Anjana got to know that Gautam worked as a freelance trainer with a BPO, and that he lived with his aunt upon insistence of his mother, and that his parents lived in Amritsar, Punjab, where they possessed acres of land. Anjana now realised why her mother had been so keen on this proposal. To her mother land meant prosperity and stability. To crown it he had no sibling which meant that Anjana would get to be undisputed heiress. (Neither of these two prospects impressed Anjana half as much as they impressed her mother.)  Gautam discovered Anjana’s wit was as sparkling as her eyes; and that she was extremely fond of books, and that she was fiercely independent; and that she had strong opinions on matters as diverse as spices, nuclear warfare and people who smoke; and that her mannerisms were dainty in spite of her voluptuousness.

“But that’s a, um, shifty job, isn’t it?” Anjana said a bit hesitantly.

“Well, it is. Some months I have a lot of work and sometimes none at all. I won’t call it a stable job, no. Actually that’s one reason I’ve been putting off marriage, but you know how mothers are. Mine insists that I get married before I lose whatever little hair I have left on my head. She thinks that I’ll become more disciplined post marriage,” Gautam said with a note of jest in his voice.

“That’s what all mothers think, I guess. All Indian mothers do at any rate,” Anjana retorted. The next second she realised that she could have avoided saying so. In a bid to cover up for her cheek she added, “so what do you do when you’re not working? I mean, in the months when you don’t have projects?”

“Oh, I watch movies. Lots of them! Movie marathons are my thing,” Gautam said, without looking up and gathering the remnant of rice scattered on his plate with his spoon. “I am sorry to disappoint you but I am not a book-person. I read, but not as much.”

Anjana smiled thinking how Gautam found his lack of interest in books (of all things) worth apologising for. Yet there was something endearing about his confessions. The air of ingenuous with which he spoke and acted made it difficult for Anjana to write him off completely. She observed that if seen independent of the context in which they were meeting, Gautam could well turn out to be interesting company. She was quick to notice that he was a man who was very well aware of his insufficiencies and made no attempts to cover them up falsely.

“The last one I read was by Paulo Cohelo. What was it called...err—“

“Alchemist?” Anjana interjected.

“O yes! That one. Have you read it?”

“I have.” Anjana nodded.

“Aaand how did you like it?” Gautam asked timidly.

“Honestly, I found it an absolute bore. So much for all the hype about it. Such a drag!”

“Thank God! I was scared to say it in as many words. But the book sucks. You’re the first book-sy person I’ve met who dislikes Cohelo.”

“Any siblings?”

“Yes, a sister. Sanjana. So we’re called Anju and Sanju back home. I don’t understand this craze that our parents have for rhyming names.”

“If this goes through then I could be the Ganju.” Gautam chortled. And before Anjana could make up her mind about this remark, he shot another question: “So you’re from Firozabad? Where have I heard that name before? Um...isn’t that the place which is famous for its glassware production?”

“Yes, it is. That and X-Ray!”

“How do you mean?”

“So if you take a stroll in the Firozabad market you’ll see an array of shops for X-Ray. They’ll showcase copies of X-Ray in their shops as photographers showcase their most celebrated photographs. And they do it at dirt cheap prices. You can just walk in and get an X-Ray of any part of your body for, say, 40 bucks. Or maybe less. It’s been quite a while I did that, you see. But it’s funny,” Anjana said as if taking pride in not visiting Firozabad for a very long time.

“Wow. That’s...interesting. Glassware and X-Ray. So Firozabad is all about transparency, eh!”

Anjana giggled. “I never looked at it like that. Good observation.” (She looked pretty when she giggled, bowing her head ever so slightly.)

The meal and the interview came to an end. (Anjana insisted that the sum be split. Gautam did not object.)  This was the most awkward moment usually. What note should such a meeting end on? Should one sound too hopeful to meet again—won’t that make one sound too desperate? Or should one just say a solid bye—won’t that sound too curt? Should one be blatantly honest and leave a very bad aftertaste of the meeting with the other person? Or should one feign nascent affection though there is none whatsoever? Anyone who’s been through such an exercise many times over, like Gautam and Anjana, will reckon these to be some of the most pressing questions that arise in a person’s head in the final moments.

Grappling with such questions and more, Gautam and Anjana made an exit from the restaurant.

“So, I’ll get in touch with you soon. It was great meeting you,” Anjana said taking the lead.

“Sure. I had a great time too.”

“Do you want me to drop you somewhere? I have a car.”

“Oh, no. Thanks. I’ll manage. I have a few errands to run. You carry on,” Gautam said.

“Bye!”

Both of them headed in opposite directions. Both of them were replaying the meeting in their heads, and trying to extract concrete reasons for their decisions. Yes, both of them had made up their minds about one and other.
 ********************************************************************************************************************



Anjana’s phone rang as soon as she sat in the driver’s seat.

“Haan Ma, Namaste...haan mili...bas abhi car me hi baithi hun. Um...nahi ma...ab wajah kya bataun. Aap papa ko phone do.”

“Anju beta, pasand nahi aaya kya? Your mother looks upset,” Anjana heard her father say.

“Nahi papa. I don’t think it will work out...nahi it’s not that...it’s just...no he’s not a bad guy, he’s good...I don’t know...don’t make things difficult for me...I can’t explain everything right now. I am about to drive. But it won’t work out. I’ll call you when I reach home.” She clicked the phone off.

She recalled that because both the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Marg and Panchkuinya Road have turned one-way streets, she’d have to drive past half the circumference of the outer circle to find her way out. She started. (What reason should she give her parents when they’ll call her again at night? He wasn’t a bad guy after all. How she hated this dilemma!)

Gautam walked with a leisurely gait, with his gaze fixed on the road mostly. He took out his phone from his pocket, looked at it, clicked it on to dial a number, and clicked it off again. He took a few more steps and paused near a small stall.

“Ek ultra mild.” He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. The sensation of the smoke going in brought him the relief that had become so immensely desirable after all the smiling and pretending of the past one hour. As he exhaled a puff of smoke things began to seem clearer to him, the air began to seem more pleasant.  He again reached for his phone from his pocket and rang up his mother.

“Hello, mummy. Kithey? Haan, I met her...kudi toh changi si...nahi...I don’t think so...she’s good, but a bit...umm... chubby...I mean, healthy hai thodi....nahi...won’t work out... Nahi mummy maine soch liya...haan I’m sure, I’ve decided...what do you mean you won’t say no?...arey! how will I say no? You could speak to her mother...and say what? Come on, ma just say something about kundlis, I am sure they follow kundli stuff...O God! Ma we’ll talk about this later....haan changa...theek hai...bye.”

He clicked the phone and ticked the cigarette. The ash came off and spread like pollen, dancing in the air a little before hitting the ground. (How should he turn her down? She was such a lovely woman after all. He wasn't sure if the reason he gave his mother was what he actually felt. How he hated this dilemma!)

As he placed the cigarette-but between his lips to take the last drag, he saw a car halt right across the road. The glass of the window rolled down and from behind the window Anjana peered at him. Her face contorted and, though he could not hear, Gautam was sure, she mouthed an expletive as she drove on.

It’s been a year since that episode, but Gautam still has the vivid image of the face she made the last time he saw her. Neither of them thanked the cigarette though for resolving their dilemma without having to utter even a word. (Discounting that one expletive maybe.)

The AIB Roast: Content Vs Intent

Prudery actually draws attention to the vice it is supposed to (i) ______; the very act that prohibits sight and forbids speech (ii) ________ what is hidden.

a) repress b) condemn c) extol

d) conceals e) dramatizes f) vexes

If you chose to fill the gaps with ‘repress’ and ‘dramatizes’ then you get full marks. This is a question that I usually discuss with my trainees in the GRE class. While I was discussing this question in one of my recent classes, the matter of the (in)famous AIB Roast video sprang up. I asked them how they felt about the whole episode. They are the target audience after all—the “impressionable youth of the nation”. Surprisingly, most of them found it distasteful. I am not sure whether that was how they genuinely felt or were they trying to be politically correct publically. But because most of them did not take kindly to the Roast, I decided to play the devil’s advocate.

Here I shall try to outline some of the key points I had put forth to them.

Firstly, I made them realise how true the question that triggered the discussion is. Many of them conceded that they watched the Roast only after it became a matter of controversy.

The popular and critical opinion is sharply divided on this subject. There are many conservative friends of mine who found the Roast really funny, whereas there are some liberal friends of mine who found it utterly vulgar. From Amir Khan to my neighbour Sharma aunty (oh, yes, she saw the Roast), everybody has expressed their opinion on the matter.

While I am not hailing the Roast as the funniest thing ever that happened to Indian comic scene after News Hour debate on Times Now, I do have a problem with demonising it or calling it most derogatory content ever put up on YouTube. The Roast has to be seen in perspective. Yes, it is cheap, obscene, vulgar, and all that it has been called. But that is the very format. In a singing competition one is supposed to sing. In a dancing competition one is supposed to dance. And in a Roast one is supposed to be vulgar and offensive.

Then, of course, there comes the ever-elusive question of how offensive is too offensive. I feel consent is the keyword here. If the degree of offensiveness is mutually agreed upon by consenting adults then, other than the participants themselves, others have little business getting offended.  

Did I find all the jokes funny? No. I found many of them to be distasteful and I found some to be really funny. But then that’s my assessment. And it’s highly subjective. The same joke I found funny could be seen as revolting by someone else and vice versa. So how does the comedian decide? It’s an assorted mix. You chose what you like and discard what you don’t.

As a person who gets a boner when someone uses a delicious word (Please don’t get offended!), I am also tempted to take a logo-centric (word-centric) view of this episode. So what hurt you? Those words. The C-word, the B-word, L-word? The problem with words is that, especially when used in such delicate contexts, the intent becomes more significant than the content. Was the intent of the participants to offend Gay community, women, people of colour, Catholics? 

Anyone who’s been following the AIB and its members would say no. You will recall that Rohan Joshi (one of the AIB members) had come out with this piece deriding the Supreme Court’s verdict that (re)criminalised homosexuality. The AIB guys were the people who in collaboration with Imran Khan came up with this interesting video to bust some of the most common myths about homosexuality or ‘gay-giri’ (for those of you who think those questions are purely imaginary, trust me, they are not). I am sure you also remember this one wherein the AIB hit out at the TOI over focussing on Deepika’s cleavage. Or this one wherein the gang teamed up with Alia Bhatt who was being made the butt of the Blonde jokes for what could have genuinely been a slip of the tongue.

Are they really misogynistic and homophobic? I don’t think so, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure that. The sad part of the story is that no one files FIRs against Subramanian Swamy when he says that gay people are mentally unstable, or against Kamal R Khan who on his Twitter says things such as...well, let’s not even go there. And the problem is that they’re not even trying to be funny. These people actually mean what they say. Do the AIB Roast participants mean what they say? I leave that judgement up to you.

At the risk of being called a hypocrite, I confess that I found certain cartoons by Charlie Hebdo rather unsavoury. The objective of satire is not purely entertainment. It is deeply social and political too. It is aimed at exposing the follies of the society. Now, I don’t understand why you cannot expose the follies of religion without depicting Christ, the Prophet and Ganesh with their genitals jutting out and participating in an orgy.  Also, one sees in their cartoons a trend. I think the real problem is the ossification of this tendency to be perversely provocative.

Let me explain: I don’t have a problem with the Roast so long as it happens to be an aberration and a norm of the comic discourse. My fear is its becoming mainstream. And the popularity of the AIB may prompt others to replicate it—it should not become a formula.

Those who have attended any haasya-kavi-sammelan (poetry recitals) that are organised on Holi would know how some poems could be seen as offensive in a regular context. But Holi itself is an occasion to subvert the norm. In some Vaishnavite sects the devotees even use abusive words for the Lord when they sing Holi songs. And some of them are really abusive. Holi is carnivalesque. It can be seen as a close cousin of the Dionysian festival held annually in the Greece of antiquity. Chaos is asserted upon; it becomes the dominant theme. The idea is to do the very thing that is disallowed or forbidden in the regular course of things. And as soon as the festival ends, order is restored; people go back to being their usual well-behaved selves. My point is: if the Roast is an annual carnivalesque event wherein the participants and the audience walks in with full awareness of what they will be subjected and exposed to, then it should not be seen as big a threat as it is being made out to be.

I again stress on the keywords: consent and exception. The jokes should be seen as an aberration. They should not be normalised and bandied about casually. Just because Karan Johar was okay being mocked for his being gay, you cannot turn around and expect me to be okay with your derision under the grab of humour, unless, you and I share the same camaraderie that Karan and Ranveer share and your intent is not offensive even if the content is apparently so. 

The Delhi Duel

 Winter, it seems, has delivered its final blow already. While the actual temperature is not likely to dip any further from what it is now, the political temperature is shooting up like anything in the national capital.  With the Assembly Elections hardly three days away, Delhi is gearing up for one of the most awaited and dramatic elections after the general elections of 2014. A colleague quipped the other night: “The only way there can be any more drama in this election is if Congress manages to persuade Anna Hazare to be their face.” Every day there are new allegations made by one party against the other. From old cases to old tweets everything is being raked up. No tactic is being spared. It’s the national capital at the stake after all.

This election is largely bipolar, with the AAP and the BJP as the main contenders. The Congress has apparently lost all relevance and credibility. This may only prove to be yet another miss in their list of hits and misses wherein the latter have been outnumbering the former with an alarming frequency. One wonders when will the party see the writing on the wall and decide to see off ‘Shri’ Rahul Gandhi. He’s virtually become the albatross around the party’s neck. A pretty albatross though, if that’s any consolation. Suffering from a tainted image and an ineffective top-level leadership, Congress is seeing some of its worst days since the post-Emergency era. Ajay Maken, an accomplsished and experienced leader, will have to bear the brunt of this legacy of incompetence and corruption.

Caught in the crossfire between the AAP and BJP, is the Delhi-voter. Erstwhile comrades-in-arms from the IAC movement have now literally turned (political) foes. Ms Bedi’s entry into BJP should not have come as a surprise for the people who have been watching her behaviour closely. She’s been singing in an altered key ever since the BJP launched its electoral campaign for the general elections last year. This new development has added a new flavour to the first major electoral battle of 2015, all the same. Mr Kejriwal also has returned with a flourish. The Muffler-man is not afraid to take on anyone from the industrial big-wigs to the political ones.

An average Delhite’s allegiance stands divided, especially the young voter’s. There are a lot of similarities between Mr Kerjriwal and Ms Bedi: both are known for their derring-do, radicalism and integrity.  Both of them have an air of earthy charm about them. Both of them are a fresh change from the old faces you see in the political galleries of Delhi— new-gen politicians they are being called.

Though the BJP must have anticipated this move to be a highly potent one, the BJP is indeed diffident and that can be gauged from the desperate, last-minute measures it is resorting to. Internal factionalism is a major challenge that the Delhi BJP faces from within. The Vijay Goel- Harshvardhan episode has replayed, only with Dr Harshvardhan being at the receiving end of the last-minute jettisoning this time. Notwithstanding the admiration and respect one has for Ms Kiran Bedi, one cannot overlook her political posturing. She looks patently uncomfortable when quizzed on the Hindutva-based ideology of the Sangh Parivaar.

Mr Arivind Kejriwal comes with his own set of blunders and histrionics. The adulation and ground swell that the AAP enjoyed the last time round has to some degree worn off. They have had their own share of factions and defections to deal with. Fighting against Mr Modi in Varanasi in the general elections was seen by some, including myself, as an over-reach and a rather reckless step. One clearly saw political amateurism and imprudence rife in the AAP’s  conduct throughout the last year.

Yet there are some fairly credible reasons why one might want to give the AAP yet another chance. The survival of AAP, if not its victory, is critical for Indian polity. Parties such as the AAP and what they represent are indispensible for keeping the hubris of the ruling party at the center in check. One doesn’t want the same complacency and arrogance to seep into the NDA as it did in the UPA. The UPA made the blunder of taking the people and their confidence for granted. They thrived on the notion that the country has no other sustainable alternative—and that proved to be the cause of their doom. All said and done, one cannot take away from the AAP, and its leader, the credit of embodying the spirit of what he claims to represent—the common man. And thus the clash between the AAP and the other two behemoths essentially represents the struggle between the system and the common man. The fight, thus, is also in some way more symbolic than political.

This is not a new phenomenon. In a not so distant past a similar battle had ensued in the state of Bengal, between the Left and TMC. In its present avatar, the only challenge BJP faces is from regional parties. The BJP has everything going in its favour. It had the nation-wide anti-Congress sentiment to ride on. It had a large cultural machinery working diligently for it and with it. It had a charismatic leader in front of whom the former Prime Minister Dr Singh and the Congress-touted-PM-prospect ‘Shri’ Rahul Gandhi paled miserably. And there was the modern-day Chanakya in form of the master planner Amit Shah. Thus the way the tide has turned in favour of the BJP nationally, leaves it fearfully vulnerable to hubris.

This hubris being referred to should not be taken lightly. It was the same hubris of the Congress party, which had taken the shape of “Modi can sell chai at our rallies” remark that had cost them dearly. That fight too was symbolic: a chai-wala against the privileged dynasty. However, Mr Modi is not the underestimated chai-wala any more. He is the Prime Minister. The fight in Delhi again is symbolic: muffler-man against the Prime Minister. The desire to crush the arrogance was so strong that it may have tilted a certain class of voters toward the BJP, despite the voter not identifying with the cultural/religious agenda that the BJP seems to espouse. The rise of Mr Kejriwal, if at all it happens, will mirror that of Mr Modi.

 Nevertheless, the AAP must exercise utmost caution. Going back the TMC-AAP analogy: one major reservation that a voter may have against AAP is its persistent, and at times annoyingly so, anti-establishment paradigm. One does not want Delhi to become a political battleground constantly. The state-centre harmony becomes peculiarly important in case of Delhi. In other words, people fear that Mr Kejriwal may turn out to be Delhi’s Mamta Banerjee.

While Mamta Di’s belligerence is something that Mr Kejriwal might want to avoid, there is indeed one leaf out of the TMC book that Mr Kejriwal should definitely take. Kejriwal should concentrate only on Delhi. He should not think of repeating the Varanasi fiasco till at least after one full term, or even two. Mr Modi himself served three terms. The AAP will continue hold relevance so long as it continues to be a Delhi-centric party, at least in its formative years. Their policies and style of functioning are small-scale. While they may work in Delhi, on a broader and a more diverse canvas they may not work.

Mr Kejriwal will have to come terms with certain realities that constrain any governing body. He will have to move away from the Manichean view of the world he has, or he projects to have.

Ms Bedi is an effective administrator and a woman of credibility and substance. Her investiture as the chief minister would mean a stable government which would be in accord with the central government, and, one hopes, corruption-free too. With oodles of energy and a (well-nigh) clean past, she seems to promise to bring the highly pragmatic and futuristic style of functioning to the CMO that Mr Modi has brought to the PMO.  Kejriwal’s investiture would reinforce people’s faith in the power of the common man. People still cannot delete the memories of watching Anil Kapoor’s Nayak and fancying it turning into a reality someday. They still get won over by his unassuming persona and earthy charm. Far from being the shrewd, manipulative anarchist with no shred of sanity that his critics portray him to be, in his interviews he comes across as an amiable, witty and well-meaning fellow with ready answers for all the “how-will-you” questions posed to him. Here’s a party which is taking on formidable opponents with out any religious/industrial support system.

Regardless of who wins, the Delhi voter can draw consolation from the fact that there will be an impressive and strong opposition leader in the Assembly and that the political developments in Delhi will only become more and more interesting from here on.

Trivial

It's that time of the night when I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to a pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must the paper not resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.

It's not really the big things that weigh you down-- well, not always. It's the small things that are more the nettling. What makes it worse is that you cannot open up to others about them. They, in the eyes of others, don't merit crabbing. For they are life-- these small things. And they have to be lived.

Every now and then, you shut your eyes, straighten your back, square your shoulders, and heave a deep sigh, and say to yourself:"I shall not lose it. Okay, let's take it on. One small thing at a time." And you do. You do so until you live. Or you live until you do so. It's these small things, trivial as they are called, that can be quite lethal if allowed to grow on you, if not battled day in and day out.

It's these small things, trivial as they are called, that actually leave you worn out, although you don't do much visibly. Not in the eyes of others at least. "Ah! that's such a trivial thing to worry about," they say, and try to belittle you. Trivial as they are called, these small little things cling to each of us and collude with those clinging to our loved ones and they form a net out of which it takes nothing less than a life time to escape.


The three headed and ten headed monsters are to be slain only in the world of fantasy; in real life it's these tiny gnats that are enough to drive you to extinction. Quite unheroic such a death is. Quite unheroic most deaths are. And we blame the wars and the epidemics. Is it not unfair?

Is it not unfair that these small struggles neither earn you sympathy when they persist nor do they earn you praise when they are overcome? Yet, a chief part of our lives is spent wrestling with these matters which we have the temerity and hubris of calling 'trivial'.

What are these small things, you ask? Ask yourself. You know it. You deal with them every day. Those small things, trivial as they are called.

You say to yourself, "Okay, let's take it on. One small thing at a time."

It's that time of the night when I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to a pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must the paper not resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.