Learning

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Little Sandhya is four and barely taller than the tables of the Reading Room, where she has been making a drawing for the last 20 minutes.

Now, volunteers are telling her it’s 6pm. Time to wrap up. But Sandhya’s not going to leave without signing her name on her masterpiece – a hut and mountains, with a shy sun peeping through.

A volunteer steps in to write her name but Sandhya’s not having any of that. “Mai khud likhoongi” – I will spell it myself.

Alright, says the volunteer, go ahead (it may be pertinent to note the hint of scepticism the volunteer feels, looking at this wisp of a child).

‘S-a-n-g-b-h-y-a’

The volunteer is impressed (and not a little bit ashamed of her earlier skepticism). The four year old has got it almost right and her mistakes are delightfully on point.

A ‘b’, which is nothing, if not an inverted ‘d’.

And ‘g’, which let’s face it, sounds a lot like ‘d’.

As the volunteer corrects Sandhya’s spelling, the child leans in with full concentration and one knows, in that very moment, who is learning from whom.

********

There is a wonderful program - no, a growing library movement - that's bringing the joy of language, literature and expression to kids that may otherwise not get that learning in their early lives. If you are in Delhi and would like to see, volunteer, donate, read or even be hall monitor for a day, reach out to the good folks at Deepalaya Community Library Project.

Not A Protest March (and some badly taken photos)

It all started at the Mandi House metro station. 

A Freedom Parade to parallel the Republic Day parade that had just wrapped up down the road. 

That parade had had big guns, this parade had big ideals. The recently released Justice Verma Committee report needed to implemented. 

Unfortunately, the Home Ministry website seemed to have 'misplaced' it, which made it difficult for the government or political leaders to take action. So somebody had to point fingers...you know...in the right direction...

(Incidentally, if you're looking for the Justice Verma Committee report, lookey here! It's been found!!)

Of all the protest/ freedom marches I've ever been on, this had the best slogans. The theme of 'Bekhauf Azaadi' (Freedom Without Fear) was extended to:

Azaadi: Night or day, on deserted roads & crowded, at home and at work, with family or strangers etc.

Azaadi from: sexual violence, from the insensitivities of the police & politicians, from the nonsense of Asaram Bapu, Abhijeet Mukherjee, Botsa Satyanarayana and Mohan Bhagwat, from patriarchy, from a broken justice system etc.

Azaadi to: be born, to study, to roam freely, to have aspirations, to marry and (my personal favourite) to not marry.

There were strident calls for 'nyay' or justice for Delhi, Kashmir, Manipur, Gujarat, Chhatisgarh, Haryana etc. For each and every known & unknown victim of sexual violence - male or female, straight or gay or transgendered.

There was absolute clarity on the amount of tolerance for apathy & inaction: Zero.

The crowds were a mixed bag. 

From leading activists and Twitter celebs (not in image...what is this? Us Weekly?) to regular Joes and what Chetan Bhagat might call 'The Fours' (I don't know about 'taking them along' CB, they giggle a lot when they chant 'Azaadi!')

Time came to get moving from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar (Delhi's 'Outrage Central'). The crowds promised to be orderly but not everyone was convinced.

They needn't have worried. 

There was a strict single file policy when crossing vehicular traffic and an overall policy of not wanting to be pains-in-the-asses.

At Jantar Mantar, we were all asked to sit right down on the road. 

There were powerful speeches made - most memorably by Kavita Krishnan, who introduced us to each of the names on our posters, who had yet to recieve justice. Collectively, we acknowledged all the unknown victims of sexual violence (much like the 'Unknown Soldier' at whose memorial, the Indian PM placed a wreath every 26th January).

She briefed us on the salient points of the Justice Verma Committee report and asked all those gathered there to self-reflect and confront the patriarchical mindset, fear & insecurities (why does 'freedom for all' threaten so many of us?) that reside in all of us.

Then she emceed a delightful medal-giving ceremony for the 'Mardaangi Maryada' brigade (Asaram Bapu & co. who had distinguished themselves as the 'Balaadkaar Defence Team') proving that feminism could also be fun.

There were a few more speeches, poetry and singing before people began to disperse. 

It had been a peaceful public gathering - peaceful not just for the lack of lathis, water cannons or tear gas, but peaceful in discourse while being forceful in intent. As someone who had observed the steady disintegration of the anti-corruption movement into an anti-government one, I was gratified and extremely proud of this campaign.

Everyone there agreed that getting the people in high places to take the Verma Committee report seriously (or even just put it up on their website) would be a long haul. So there was a call to regroup the next month and the next and the next.

As the crowd slowly peeled off to return home, we passed another dharna. Hardly any women in the group but lots of fervour.

It called for justice.

It called for the 6 Delhi gangrape accused to be hanged (With trial? Without trial?).

It called for us to 'Follow on Facebook to Save our Sisters'.

And one couldn't help but go - Ah, democracy! Happy bloody Republic Day.

 

There Will Be A Revolution

She takes a walk along her favourite road. It rises and falls with the dying swells of hill now replaced with asphalt and half-built shopping malls. She likes that even from kilometres away and despite the fog, she can still see her destination; growing taller in encouragement as she gains ground.
 

Today is different in a sense. For the first time in a long while, she’s aware of how quickly this road can turn. Four years ago, a young journalist was murdered here; on account of being female, some conjectured. Then two weeks ago, it was this road that carried a busload of criminals and two hapless victims to their dastardly fate – an outcome most attributed to one of them being female. 

The volume is turned up on her music player but she can still spy the de rigueur obscenities hurled from rolled-down windows as cars speed away - so quickly that only she will benefit from the enraged middle finger she launches into the fog. In spite of the refreshing cold, she’s just not in the mood today.

A few yards ahead, a white taxi stops. Windows tinted (always illegal, even more so today), exhaust pipe vomiting black fumes. Two men stumble out. Not being pedestrian friendly, this road is often the next best thing to a urinal. Men Only, of course.

One of them doesn’t even bother walking into the bushes. He simply steps out of the vehicle and begins to unbutton, right in her path. Oh for fuck’s sake, she mutters, not today. He fumbles with his zip, whipping out his penis as she approaches him. He hasn’t even noticed there’s a person standing next to him. 

“Kya kare rahe ho?” she yells, hoping to shame him into complying with the rules of decency.

He doesn’t move an inch. His eyes are fixed on his crotch. He still can’t seem to find his grip.

“Besharam! This is a public road!” she tries again. For someone doing the shaming, she’s beginning to feel awfully sheepish. And now scared, as he lifts his listless gaze to look at her. The man is clearly high on something.  

He sneers, “Chal hat, saali.”

She takes a step back, speechless. Her facial muscles sag as she finds herself bringing her hands together, her palms joined in offering. It’s a platter serving up all of her: 30 odd years of living, loving, doing and being. 30 odd years of hugs collected from friends & family, souvenirs collected on travels, pats on the back, letters of appreciation, tears when a loved one – or a love – died. Money earned, savings made, taxes paid. Secrets kept and books read. Theories learned, experience gained. Exemplary traits, stubborn flaws, absurd quirks and every promise still to make good. Every time she felt strong. And every single time her body was up for grabs in a crowd, in an office, in a home, on a road. All up on a platter for this man wielding his penis.

To which he draws back his full concentration. She sidles past him. Looking back she spits out a filthy word. An insult born from the belly of misogyny, which, until the world changes, will continue to feel oh-so-good as it leaves her lips. She doesn’t wait for his reaction. She’s on foot and he’s got a white taxi with tinted windows. But she doesn’t speed up either. She’s just not in the mood today.

She takes refuge in the quiet aisles of a big & bright retail shop. Behind closed eyes, she makes her movie. In it, an enormous medieval cauldron filled with water is boiling over an insensed fire, flames slapping against searing hot metal. The bubbling of water is punctuated with theatrical splashes as rows upon rows of men are flung into it, naked as they came. Their wails of anguish & torture echo through her cranium and she takes in a long drag of air. “There will be a revolution,” she mutters, “and then they will kn- - - “

“Excuse, madam. Excuse, excuse.”

A tiny shopgirl gently nudges her to the side, impatient yet restrained.

She’ll have to move; it seems she’s been blocking the dandruff shampoo.

A Social Experiment

I bought my first car recently. It's an LSD-hallucination shade of green and looks a bit like those pod-thingies at Heathrow airport that take you from one terminal to another. Aside from the natural euphoria it's induced in me by virtue of being my first car, I have uncovered a rather pleasant side-effect to purchasing the highly affordable 2012 version of the Tata Nano*.

*Beach Not Included

First, unlike its predecessor, it promises not to spontaneously combust (and since I cross my fingers every time I get into it and say three 'Hail Mary's, I assume I'm in the clear). Secondly, everywhere I take it, it tends to make people smile - people who would otherwise scowl at me, like the security guard outside my cousin's home, who recommended I feed it chocolate because it was such a cute little thing.

At shopping malls, guards grin at me gamely and let me pass without too much trouble - they know the car has neither space in the trunk (where the engine goes) nor glove compartments, nor space in the front boot space that's just large enough for the spare tyre. They wave me on with a smile that says: "How can something so cute pack a ton of RDX?"

Because A Nano Driver Could Never Be A Terrorist

This evening, my cousin, his wife, the Nano and I giggled into the driveway of The Leela. The valets beamed at us. Then on our way out, the doorman got into a conversation about the car's specs. A towering Sikh gentleman with an apparently equally statuesque wife, he was especially interested in the head & leg room the car offered us. And then: "Kya mileage?" "Kitney me liya?" "Finance kiya ki full payment?" Ordinarily I would shut such personal questions down in a second, but not this time. The Nano had made the world go rainbow bright with socialist bonhomie. All was candy floss, puppies and proletariat. Short of giving him my bank account details, I answered all his questions and we parted with a warmth uncharacteristic of interactions between strangers in New Delhi.

Of all the benefits I thought I'd get from purchasing a dirt cheap, petrol-burning automobile, earning goodwill from the legendary grumps of Delhi was not something I'd anticipated. I wondered: Which other sourpusses could the Nano join together in harmony? How about we drive Nanos into Taliban strongholds? Or swerve one past Mamata Banerjee's office? Maybe park it under Raj Thakeray's building? Or use it to cheer up Nicholas Sarkozy. Take a ride through Syria, Darfur, Abhishek Manu Singhvi's bedroom...the possibilities seem endless.

There is a flip side too, though. As with most things, the Nano holds equal potential for being used for evil. So if you ever see it driving around with a 'Being Human' sticker across its back, alert the authorities immediately and run for cover.

The Hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction

Agent P had been happy living the semi-retired life: waking up late in the morning, having leisurely cups of coffee, reading the horoscope and closely studying her stretch marks. She had reached a stage in her career where the days were mostly hers except for the rare occasions when Command Centre called her in for a special consult.
Like today.
"Agent P. We have information."
"Awesomeness."
"Information about the missing weapons of mass destruction."
"Really! You mean they're real?"
"We (cough, cough) don't really have that information."
"Then what information do you have?"
"There are rumours that the WMDs might be in your sector."
"What? How is that possible? I thought their elimination was virtually complete."
"Heh. That's what we thought too. Not the case."
"Well. What do you want me to do?"
"Find them. Smoke them out. And Agent P?..."
"Yes?"
"We're counting on you."

******

Agent P set out. The streets were eerily calm. 
"If they're anywhere, they'd be here." she thought, recalling how earlier, WMD's had been openly brandished at traffic crossings, "...pulling at my clothing, asking for a rupee."
But no need to worry anymore. There was nothing left here.

Nothing left, that is, except the Horses

    

Agent P knew she'd have to conduct a thorough sweep of her sector but she was confident that it was clean. Sure, this place had seen some dark times. But those days were gone now. The city had been sanitized overnight. "Oh that lovable lion!" Agent P thought fondly. No WMDs here for sure. The good Agent plodded on.

Behind the Panels: What the Drone Attacks Left Behind

"Hmmmm...what about that biological WMD, from down the road?" she thought, "Wait, I have some images of it from the last reconnaissance mission!"
She scurried to unearth them.

The Sabziwala: Or is He?

With lightening speed, Agent P sprinted to the secret location where the above WMD had often liked to sit & hum sad Bollywood tunes (the coordinates of which she'd secured, not with a little arm twisting of the local Aunty Brigade's head honcho).
Now when she returned to the spot, she found: NOTHING.

Nothing, that is, besides the Dog

Agent P was beginning to doubt Command Centre's suspicions. She was surprised at how little faith they had in their own ability to eliminate those pesky warheads. "Maybe, they've been misled by the fake WMDs - decoys, red herrings and all that. Heheheh. "

This may look like a WMD but don't be fooled. The presence of the Quadriped makes all the difference.

At some point Agent P realised that it was creepy to laugh alone in a crowd so she decided to move on. It was time to take the Metro.
"I really don't understand how any WMDs can get through THESE many personnel," Agent P murmured to herself. Of course, she was referring to the Red Brigade. And unlike the WMD's they were friggin everywhere.

Blotches of Red Everywhere

But ooh look! So shiny & new everything was. So clean. So airconditioned.

We love this, so shut up

"Aah, with better-than-phoren trains like this, who would want to bother with WMD's?" exclaimed Agent P as she confidently strode into the Women Only coach. As her body swayed with the gentle motion of the train, she began to feel sleepy...sooooo.....suhleeeeeppppyyyy. 

And then - snap! 

"What the faarck! I believe someone has attempted to hypnotize me into abondoning my mission.... NEVER!"

She proclaimed: "I will proceed by bus. For that is the best way to find WMDs - and see the sights."

So she did - but not on the famed HOHOs that everyone was talking about. Partly for investigative reasons and partly because, well, she didn't think the term HOHO would be appropriate to use in mission reports.

Turns out, it was great decision, because look! A real WMD!!

"But I was just going back to my village!" HA! A likely story

Agent P got off and followed the WMD (because they can walk - shut up). Past the thick foliage of the urban jungle...

Past the cutely-plump-now-but-prime-candidate-for-cardiac-arrest-later young boy....

Dodging the perilous traps that the captain of the Red Brigade had promised would be taken care of.

Yo Kalmadi, you missed a spot

Vietcong-inspired Installation Art

And finally stumbled upon this:

Long shot of Terror Groups determined to ruin the CWG

"Dang! I have them in my grip," exulted Agent P as she got ready to speed dial the Command Centre. "Crafty little buggers eh? The perfect disguise: construction workers. Respect."
Within minutes (well, half an hour to be precise) the cops were on the scene.Within minutes after that, the WMDs were dispatched to the railway station & put on trains to nowhere.

All Izz Well. Kinda, Sorta...We..eee..lll

Agent P smiled contentedly as she looked upon the scene. Order had been restored.  Her sector was now clean. (Except for that dirty police fellow digging his nose & leering at her from a distance.)

What could possibly go wrong now?

******
For more adventures of Agent P (well, just one more) click here

A Day At The Mall

I'm writing this post because my cousin brother believes that one day blogs & tweets will be held up as historical documents, chronicling where we have come from as a people, giving perspective on where we are headed.
Much like Mohenjodaro, my blog is then. This thought delights me.

Therefore, I feel it is my obligation to write about my day at the mall. Not just any mall, but Ambience Mall. To non-Delhiites, this won't mean much. And truth be told, this mall isn't even in Delhi. It's in Gurgaon, which is in my favourite Indian state, Haryana (I jest, surely you sense that).
This is Ambience Mall.

It is very big. It is so big that I had to shrink its image to the smallest permissable size on this blog. It is so big that within its folds of fat, it can hold several football fields and in fact does hold several sporting venues, a brewery & a kiddy amusement park. It is so big that you could include a visit to it in your exercise regime & get a solid cardio burn (which will then be rendered redundant as you speed-walk past the food court). In short, this mall be big.

Now, unlike some of my friends, I am not a mall hater. In fact, I've developed a bit of a mall 'habit', if you know what I mean. I dig the air-conditioning, the polished floors, the yellow lighting and assorted food/beverage smells sneaking up on me as I turn a corner. I like walking past material objects I can rarely afford, because on days that I can, I forget that life is about self-awareness, self-love and trying to reach a higher truth. I have clocked enough hours to be an official mall-appreciator.

Oh but Ambience Mall. It is the strangest mix of crassness & creativity, ugliness & quirkiness, pappiness and awesomeness. It looks like it was put together in a hurry. Like some fatcat in a fatcat boardroom said - "Time nahi hai yaar, budget nahi hai yaar. Jaldi khatam karo yaar, kiraye pe chaddaao yaar." It looks unfinished, unthought of and a little dirty. It's smug in its awareness that airconditioning will get us past the front door. The BMW showroom will do the rest (it's a great microcosm of urban Indian society, this BMW showroom. The untouched, pristine flooring within and the grimy glass windows, pock-marked with all the nose-rubbing & convertible-induced drooling).

The fact that very few visitors can actually afford its merchandise is immaterial. Ambience Mall, like many of its kind, has become a picnic spot. That's alright I guess. Except, looking at all the stuff makes me kinda mad deep inside. It makes me irrationally crave the ugliest bags that Louis Vuitton could possibly come up with (scam of the century, that LV is) and then hate myself because I can't own one. To deal with my rage, I head to the Food Court to eat my feelings but then sight the brewery and get smashed instead. The booze gives me the courage to walk into the exclusive Golfworx, where I see people playing a virtual version of the most outdoor of all outdoor sports, in tiny, darkened cubicles (and they have caddies!!!!!). The salespeople there try to sell me Rs.11,000 shoes though I do not play golf. I walk out.
Luckily, Ambience has made provisions for bowling (another sport I do not play) and boozing, just next door. I am walking in when my mother calls and tells me that 3 malls in Saket (all adjacent to each other) have been evacuated because of bomb threats. It seems, the crowd that accumulates at such venues on weekends is too good for terrorists to resist. That still does not deter from my goal of not-bowling because everything is so shiny and new. I cannot leave. So I watch Delhi's Bowling Team (they look official, t-shirts and all) play. Then get bored.

Walking out, a large building adjacent to the entrance is sighted. It has several chimneys spewing out dark grey smoke. I am informed that this might be where all the power to run the mall comes from. It stops me in my tracks (Mentally. Physically it's too hot to stop. The outside world is not, unfortunately, airconditioned) and sums up my impression of Ambience Mall:

That was an awful lot of energy to bust for a bunch of people not buying a BMW.

Winter's leaving....

Took this snap from my cellphone as I was walking back home this evening. A pathetic effort to capture how gut-wrenchingly divine this city can be as winter says goodbye...
There's a cool breeze blowing...in a few weeks (or days) that'll be gone.
The neem trees are shedding and if you're lucky, like I was, there'd be a gush of wind just as you walk under one of them. You'd be consecrated by a yellow shower of leaves that'd make you so batshit happy that you won't help but look up.
And just as you do, the magnificent moonlight will reach into your chest and grab a hold of your heart so sweetly that you'll wish it never let it go.

Yesterday

Somewhere between navigating the galis of Nizammuddin, dodging crowds and protocol at the dargah, praying amongst the faithful and being uplifted by the qawwaals...

Somewhere between the umpteenth argument with an auto-driver, walking into the swanky Park Hotel in CP to attend a 'high-society' arty event, where the food was great and the drinks free...

And riding back in a rickshaw at 9:30 pm as the fog began to wrap itself around India Gate and the Parliament, as my nose and eyes began to water in the startling cold that rushed in from both sides of the open vehicle, listening to Norah Jones in my Ipod...

I fell absolutely in love my New Delhi.

Jazz, By the Way

I went for a jazz concert yesterday. It's part of my experiments with becoming more open minded, doing things I didn't do for the entire decade of my twenties...things I regret not being open to in the past. The whole essence of these experiments is to say Yes a lot. Even to things, I'm convinced I won't enjoy.

Last evening, I decided (against my better judgement) to attend an evening of Jazz. It's a genre of music that I've never understood. It's like a club that I know is really cool but won't admit me. It's like a Jackson Pollock that everyone seems to appreciate the genius of, except me. It's like an Orhan Pamuk book that will always be just out of reach. I feel as if I'm locked out, staring in through a dirt smeared window - the dirt is, of course, on my side of the glass.

I sat in the makeshift lobby area outside the main concert hall, watching the performance projected on the American Centre's walls, right next to the His n Hers. I had been inside for a while but the seats were limited and I didn't want to take up the space of a true jazz enthusiast. Outside seemed perfect for heathens like me. There we were - the yawning, the sleepy and the high-pitched squeakers. The cellphone addicts, the girlfriend pleasers and the 'we thought he was famous' seekers. I tried for a while to pay attention and really give this a shot. How can something so universally appealing, elude me so completely, I thought. I waited for the genius to hit me like a lightening bolt. It never really happened.

Each track seemed like it was on a collision course with the next, crashing into each other, making it difficult to tell which mangled parts belonged to which song. I felt dyslexic - jazz dyslexic. It was all a jumble of plink plink plink, boom bash, budoom-doom-doom. 'Don't think too much about it...there's nothing to 'understand', said my friend. But try as much as I could, it was no use. Jazz and me would never do the whole twain-meeting thing.

On the way back, I asked my friend if I - the self-proclaimed music addict - had actually got it wrong all these years. Had I been more in love with music for the emotional context it fit into? Does my notion of a 'good' track have to fulfil a criteria of matching with the film in my head. Does it have to fit into categories of 'sad', 'happy', 'angry', 'joyful' etc. etc. Am I the bleeding heart, country music loving fool who has no true appreciation for the beauty of music as it is?

Then I heard Saeen Zahoor performing with Noori as part of the Coke Studio project (http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=ikmwe5ree7t3) and I realise I have enough stuff to be insecure about without worrying how little I understand jazz. It's ok, if I delay the cooldom. The greater existential implications of my not liking jazz can wait a while. I have a bunch of stuff to illegally download first...

Aik Alif - Bulleh Shah (performed by Saeen Zahoor and Noori at the Coke Studio)

Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya ee na
You read so many books
to know it all,
yet fail to ever read your
heart at all.
Bhaj bhaj warna ay mandir maseeti
Te kaday mann apnay wich warya ee na
You rush to holy shrines to play a part,
Would you dare enter the shrine of your heart
Larna ay roz shaitaan de naal
Te kadi nafs apnay naal larya ee na

Everyday you fight Satan
But you never fight your own Ego

Bulleh Shah asmaani ud-deya pharonda ay
Te jera ghar betha unoon pharya ee na

Bulleh Shah you try grabbing that which is in the sky
But you never get hold of What sits inside you

Bas kareen o yaar, Ilm-oun
bas kareen o yaar
Ik Alif teray darkaar

Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend
Only an Alif is what you need

Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
God is All we need! God is All!
Nee main jaanaa Jogi de naal
I will follow the wandering dervish!
Jo naa jaane, Haqq ki taaqat
Rabb naa devey us ko Himmat
If you deny the power of all that’s true,
God will not grant strength to you.
Hum Mann ke darya mein doobey
Kaisi nayya? Kya manjhdhaar?

We have drowned in the river of Self
the boat and the flowing waters do not matter

Bas kareen o yaar, Ilm-oun,
bas kareen o yaar
Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan

Why don't I like the cool stuff?

I am very disturbed. I consider myself to be a patron of the arts and the type of girl who loves a good bit of dramatic expression - on canvas, on stage, in song, in step, in word or on 70mm. I'd like to believe that my senses are acutely tuned to find 'truth', 'beauty' and of course coolness in any work of art that is presented to me.

Two nights ago, I traipsed out in the Delhi heat in response to a Facebook invite promising music, comedy, dance and general fun associated with Mr. Kite type evenings. I even dished out Rs.300 that I do not have, to attend this soiree of the artisitic elite. I withstood the horrendous crush of sweaty bodies, all breathing hot, steaming air, crammed into a space that could barely contain its own waiting staff. For all their pedigree, this lot didn't seem to think twice about shoving their exfoliated elbows into my sides, just to inch closer to the 'stage'. They also thought it acceptable to talk loudly through all the comedic sketches that could barely be heard, in spite of the mics.

I may have bitched and moaned and annoyed my friend to the point of violence, but I swear I tried to enjoy it. I tried to forget that these o-so-intelligent organizers hadn't thought to wonder how they would fit over 50 people into an airtight box that could only accomodate 15. I also tried to get over my own baseless prejudices of this 'spoilt bunch of kids who walk around with an air of entitlement' (I'm human, I too have my internal caste system). But what I could not get over was the level of goop churned out by the actors. Did they imagine they were in a PG Wodehouse novel? Were they in the smoking room of a duke's chalet? Were they longing for the days of the Raj to return? Who were these people? I didn't recognize them.

After the evening was officially declared over with a rousing samba (which I thoroughly enjoyed - I'm not that much of a cynical bitch), my friend and I got embroiled in an argument. She had a valid point - these kids were representing a space that's real and exists and had not been represented that openly on the Indian scene. Hyper-elite art, I'd call it. You have to be familiar not just with Western art forms but also Western lifestyles, references and perspectives. It's cool and it has a right to exist.

I was disturbed because I'd like to think that I stand up for any artist's right to express and for any art's right to exist. Yet I was unable to reconcile myself to these young, obviously sincere people recreating Vaudeville in a sense.

Because, if I want Vaudeville, I'd like to see the real thing. Or if it's being done in India by Indians then I don't just want the bare minimum that the bunch is capable of. It doesn't excite me because there's nothing new except the location of the performance and the nationality of the performers. I don't like when artists set out to do something new and then end up doing the same old. I don't like lukewarm.

As a writer who is not the most gifted or the most appreciated (I've had some hard criticisms thrown my way), there's a part of me that says - awww, let them blossom, let them bloom, let them say their piece because they want to. For God's sake, give them their right to be. They're trying.

But then I look into my wallet and find it so empty that I can't afford to go for Vishal Bhardwaj's next film at PVR and I say - screw you and your well meaning experiments.
I want my money back.

48*C

We are roasting here in New Delhi. 'Hot' is no longer a sufficient word for the scorching furnace this city has become. It's bad enough as it is, but to be jobless and boiling is even more excruciating.

Some people, like my sister and my best friend, always seem to be busy, no matter what. Somehow, I've never understood how they manage it. How do they manage to fill every second of the day? Even when they've reached their deadlines, completed that project or are on 'holiday'. They're always at one of their 3 jobs, or at a dance/yoga class, at the library, at a party/a play/ a film. They are always rushing from one place to the next, they always have people to meet and they always seem a little out of breath.

I am always, it seems to me, static. I can only do one thing at a time. When I work on a project, that's all I do. When I take time off, I can only do recreational things (if people offer me a 2 day project during this time, I say no - unless the money's good). I often have the sense that if I take on more than one thing, there won't be enough time to complete it. You know how some people never feel they have enough money? That's me, with time. I can spend a whole day at home, not doing anything except watching television, not meeting anyone new or doing anything to contribute to society. And yet, I will guard that time jealously, as if it is sucking out all the energy I reserve for living a fuller life.

The consequence is that sometimes life happens and I am left, as I am now, in a state of being that's not necessarily been chosen by me - unemployment. I am technically in work mode, wired to be productive. My grey cells have been given ample rest and now they're on the brink of going into rust mode if they don't find something useful to do soon. I want to sign up for stuff (that's something my perpetually busy friends and sister do) - like a yoga class or a singing class. What stops me? Maybe the money. With unemployment comes a depleted bank balance. Also, there aren't any decent classes happening in my neck of the woods. Everything is so far away and in this heat, that's an important thing to consider.

I also offered my services to a volunteer organization. They gave me an assignment, I completed it and now am sitting jobless again. All seems to be quiet on that front.

I must try and find activities that take me beyond the computer into the land of living breathing human beings, where things happen and the heat is only a part of a person's day and not its entirety.