Its gonna be okay

Is there anybody out there who has never been told, "Its gonna be okay." 

I for one, have been told quite the million times over. Whether it was a rejected college application, an enormous burn from the coffee vending machine, a mild heartbreak or a blinding heartburn. Sometimes I've believed it. At other times I've tried to believe it. And believe it or not, its been okay. 

Its been alright either because the seemingly terrible event was probably a non-issue. Or perhaps I outgrew the pain. Or simply the fact that I grew older.  Now what does that say about me? 

Does it make me one of those annoyingly optimistic people? The 'nothing-can-ever-get-me-down' type. To be fair, I am in fact quite positive. But I am also a wallow-er.  I cannot talk myself out of grief. Despite that, 'everything seems to have become okay'. And that makes me wonder if I have not actually faced anything truly sad yet. Relieved but curious.

I've always wanted to know myself well. And it occurs to me that I don't really know my pain threshold. This is not to say that I'm unhappy about not being unhappy. Quite delighted, really. But it makes me wonder.

Or is it that life is simply a sum total of the number of things one takes in one's stride. The things we forgive and forget, the things we accept and move on. It is possible that the not-so-great events in my life have changed me in a way that they've become a part of me. Now that is a very promising proposition! It seems to suggest that natural selection wont throw me out! That no matter what, I'll survive.

That's it then. Let me believe that phoenix-like I shall rise, every time!

On that very positive note, Happy New Year everyone! It seems like its gonna be OKAY!

My Oldies.

If only I had a nickel for every time I had fun with an old friend!

I’m not saying that my new friends aren’t fun. They are. But there is this exhilaration I feel when meeting old friends, that sends me smiling home...every time. I replay the evening/afternoon/weekend with them in my head repeatedly, I smile to myself, and I wish I could repeat it again and again.

And it is then that I am glad to be the kind of person who holds onto things. I am glad I hadn’t ‘moved on’ so much as to make them strangers. I am happy that the first thing that they say to me is; “oh you haven’t changed a bit”. The day passes and they don’t change their mind.

There is comfort in knowing that somethings remain the same. There is a joy in knowing that while your life may have turned on its head, a part of it lives on with these people. That your history never quite gets erased. Its my own version of immortality.

Its also my way of keeping young. They take me back to a younger me. Not a simpler time, or a less complicated me. Just a younger me. One whom I still love, but am unable to be. These old friends are able to see ‘that’ me inside of me.

And for that I remain eternally grateful.

Dear Calcutta

Dear Calcutta,

Its strange falling in love with an old friend! Especially if it comes after 25 years of a bitter-sweet, love-to-hate-you relationship.

I'm sure I'm not your first admirer and now I am quite convinced that I wont be the last either. Even so, if you please, this is my very first and very public declaration of 'true love'. I'm a little sorry that I'm doing this in English; but perhaps that is most fitting, for it is you, who made me the anglophile I am.

This love came to me, one rainy evening in the Bombay monsoons. When I realized that even rains were more beautiful with you! That, of course, opened the floodgates.

The food you have is quite simply the best.

The people unparalleled in their judgmental nature, their loud lives, their interfering noses and their quintessential Bengaliness.

The history you carry overwhelms me and I'm in mesmerized by how little I know you.

But what I love best about you is that its only here in Calcutta that I can have a chocolate pastry for under 10 bucks.

I love that you have rains and mild winters and I love how you get my goat with those sweaty sultry summer afternoons.

But I ask myself, is this love? Well, I guess it is.

Because you let me be what I love being most, lazy and loud. Nobody in Calcutta has ever asked me to tone it down. No one has ever asked me how I can spend all the livelong day talking to a friend! I love the person you made me and even at the cost of sounding serious, "amar ami ke ami ei kolkatatei khnuje pai"!

So today, for the sake of year ends and new beginnings, I pledge to you Calcutta (and never ever Kolkata) my undying love and my everlasting fidelity.

You will always be home.

Movie: To THAT line and back.

We starred in movie. Somewhere between between an action adventure and a youth happy movie, it was an experience of a lifetime I'd say.

Cast: Just us, meaning....first years uninvited.

Location: From IGIDR gate to IGIDR Guest House via Bhandardara.

Director: Ahana and Co. and SMIT.

Producers: We dutch.

Music Director: Lakshmi (for me only).

Here is a word I never use: awesome. The trip was quite simply "awesome".

From starting out in a little blue bus called Manjunatha at two in the morning, till the moment I dropped dead in my bed after 22 hours of non-stop fun, it was awesome!

We tried playing antakshari, and got stuck teasing people when they sang, "aaj kal tere mere pyar charche". When someone sang "pencture", all I could think of was how it could happen to our bus. And when the bus grew quieter and the night grew darker, it was a beauty I couldn't quite believe.

I hoped I would sleep on our ride up to Bhandardara. Ah well...so much for hopes. The night ride was just too beautiful for sleep. And of course when you have friends who promise to not 'let' you sleep what does it matter?! And then all of a sudden you see what looks like a dark cloud on the not-yet-morning-sky...you turn to the Arghya who wouldn't let you doze off...and of course; he is sleeping! We want the bus to stop so we can see it better. But we've just stopped a little while back. So Shreyes yells, "Bhaiyya bohut ZOR ki sussu ayi hai"! The bus stops and we jump out and the dark cloud is a hilltop behind clouds. The morning chill, and sparkling dew and every cliche you'd have heard about nature wraps us like a bit of a blanket; saying the trip will be great after all.

We stop at the stop Smit had arranged. Some people go off to see the lake, some people try to lose the dogs that hound us everywhere we go, and some others attend to more important things in 'nature'! There are ready-made toilets and obsessive ladies with toothbrushes and Listerine. There is walking to the edge where a stream is born and walking back dodging doggy droppings. There is a great breakfast of bread and eggs and poha. And tea.

We are then going to the dam. Now here is a surprise; a cement wall creates a beautiful mountain stream...river? We get wet in the dam water, they cross over to the other side, they bathe and there is a LOT of photographing. We dont wanna leave...please?

The bus ride is now to the foot of the fort. We love forts...you see we've been to Shivneri together. We stop at a small eatery. We are all quite crazed by hunger by then. It takes a good two hours for the old man and his wife to cook for us 27 brats. The food is hot, with a mild smell of burnt wood, red in color and delicious in its rustic simplicity.

Oh I forgot to mention the girl gang changing into dry clothes in the bus. Little detail...will be needed later.

We then started to walk towards the fort. "Where's the fort?", I ask. "Up there somewhere!", says one and all. Ok. We'll walk for an hour and a half says Smit. It starts to rain. We are trekking with our umbrellas. A little rain never hurt anybody. What about a lot? We'll cross that bridge when it comes. It came real fast. All that rain and we are crossing the first of many rivers.

"Don't step on the black stones". "Throw your shoes over to the other side". "How many more of these?" "DO NOT RUN".

We walk on. It rains on as well. I'm beginning to feel not-so-happy about this whole adventure. We come to the next river...actually its the same river we keep crossing and re-crossing. Its harder this time. I need to hold Ritesh's hand towards the end. I also need to open my Crocs. It takes a while for everyone to finish crossing. Some fall and some fall again. I ask the question, "Shouldn't we turn back?". No they say. Some even have philosophies about it...journey more important than destination etc. We continue. Even though the crazy rains are sure to make the river uncrossable soon. Some girls are now wanting to walk back with Purna di, who of course knows that we have to do whatever we do 27-together.

So we walk some more. And then, much sooner than expected we meet the river again. I tell Sri, "There is a thin line between stupidity and adventure and this river is that line...I AM NOT CROSSING IT". It turns out I needn't have been that loud. The guide says its impossible. Nobody will do it anyway. We find our way back to the river we'd just crossed. "Can't cross this one!" "CANT!" Its huge, angry and wont let me stand. It sweeps Garima off her feet and she is holding onto someone's arm, swinging for dear life. People are crying and being escorted or carried over to a not-much-safer side.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Yes, some people had chattering teeth and lose motions and strange insect bites, but nothing compares to that feeling...hoping and wishing and praying that everyone comes out of this safe. Its a strange feeling you know? A kinship that only a shared somewhat-misadventure can give you. New heroes, unlikely friends, and a story no photograph can tell.

So cheers to the time we spent! I'm sure even we can't repeat it.

Living with MY nose!

I sort of remember smells. I guess with barely any normal vision, I needed a heightened 'other' sense. And weirdly enough; my nose won. That and an elephant's memory that remembers all unimportant things, smells included.

The smell of India's world cup victory will therefore always be the musty-old-carpet smell of Seminar Room 1. It came rushing back to me when I was sitting there for a PhD proposal seminar...quite the same sense of anticipation and excitement, I'd say! There is of course the smell of "the-world-is-my-urinal" walk to Amul's ice-cream or CCD. And even typing CCD brings to mind that amazing coffee shop smell. It's almost like I go to the shop for the smell and not the coffee. What about the smell of moss when I walk up the hill to my flat? I'm not sure how I feel about that. But yes, last year when the winds brought to 441 the smell of "chatim" flowers and Lakshmi said it was smell of durga pujo, it was like i was home.

The smell of baking when you cross Glenary's in Darjeeling. The smell of Shivangi's tea just in the moments before it is ready. The smell of biriyanii that ma made for a birthday when I wasn't home...smells for which I just have to close my eyes.

There are smells that all of us know: the new rain, the railway platform, the dirty drain overflowing, johnson's baby cream soap shampoo on a baby!

Then there is the weirdest one, the people smells. The cologne mixed with tobacco, the deodorant whose name I don't know, smell of a sweaty brother, the smell of my grandmom's soft old white sarees.

And finally there is the greatest smell of all: correctly cooked meat.

Aaloo bonda and Chai

We went to Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Bombay today.
Our auto guy didn't know where it was.
We were starved.
They didn't let me eat aaloo bonda and chai before entering.

We walked a few miles to get to the ticket counter.
We saw boards of badly painted animals.
The safari starts at 9 in the morning.
At 9:30 a.m. the ticket counter had not opened.
They didn't let me eat aaloo bonda and chai before entering.

We sat there in sweat.
We nibbled on biscuits Sowmya had kindly brought.
I don't like biscuits.I saw the man opening the gates to the ticket counter.
We went and stood in the queue.
The counter opened and the man left.
We didn't eat aaloo bonda and chai before entering.

Another man came in.
He dusted the counter.
He left.
Yet another man came.
He gave us the tickets.
We boarded a bus.
We waited.
The first man sat in the driver's seat.
By then I thought that the first man would jump out of the bus to make lion sounds.
We didn't eat aaloo bonda and chai before entering.

The safari was a lie.
Its a zoo.
A white tiger, a tiger, a tiger cub, a lion.
They honk outside the enclosure.
The animal comes out, struts its stuff, leaves.
We didn't eat aaloo bonda and chai before entering.

The lion is old.
Will probably die day after tomorrow.
He roars like my grandpa coughs.
He made me sad.
And we didn't even have aaloo bonda and chai before entering.

We thought we'll walk to the 'caves'.
We started.
It was 7 k.m. away.
We didn't go.
You see?
We hadn't eaten aaloo bonda and chai before entering!

We ran out of the national park/bad zoo.
We crossed the road to a vegetarian restaurant.
I got a BAD dosa.
Shivangi got potatoes in her uttapam.
Our Kaapi made me throw up a little.
We hadn't eaten aaloo bondas and chai before entering.

We took autos to aksa beach.
You see we wanted to feel better.
Our auto broke down after one signal.
We took another auto.
The beach was pretty and then it was not.
Dirty.
Very dirty.
Diesel all over our legs.
By then I could cry that we hadn't eaten those aaloo bondas and chai before entering.

Even if you get life again.

I absolutely loved 'Zindagi Na Milege Dobara'.

Despite all my efforts to love sophisticated cinema, I fall yet again, for the simplistic, rainbow palette of a peppy-song-filled Hindi movie. I do so, unabashedly. And here's why.

I am the queen of mush. Old friends bonding over old jokes that never get old will get me...EVERY time. Old friends trying out new things brings a child like joy to me that no amount of chocolate can. No matter how different their context, no matter how bizarre the thing they try to pass off as philosophy, no matter how utterly lame the plots is, an unlikely story is what I love about cinema.

Of course I don't imagine living like that, doing those things or being half as spontaneous. Of course I wouldn't hope for people like them in my life. But what can I do if I love the broken voice of Farhan Akhtan mocking wrong accents as we do all the time. Of Hrithik being as uptight about life as I am often. How can I possibly help loving a movie that finally casts Naseeruddin Shah as more than an item boy...there's a man who gets sexier everyday.

I loved it.