Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 23

Book Review- My Salinger Year- By Joanna Rakoff

This is a beautiful, beautiful book. I came across this book through a review on The Guardian. The book is Memoirs of Joanna Rakoff, taking the reader into her life in “The Agency” - a literary agency which represented J D Salinger, standing on the cusp of a change as the Agency moves from the age of Typewriters and Dictaphones to Computer.  The perspective of the story is very new. It doesn’t rely on the typecast characters where the young woman is either a world-changing activist or a hopeless romantic or a soul-less woman. She is as real as a woman (or a man, for that matter) can be. She has many things to do, to build a career, to write poetry, to fall in love. Not one of the things, not many of the things, all of the things which engage the mind of young people. She joins the Agency expecting to slowly slip into a literary career. She writes poems in the morning and like an ill-paid apprentice deliberates about the lunch to be had. Her sense of description and observation is profound. The descriptions are not clichéd, which could be probably because Joanna as she tells Salinger over phone, She writes poetry “in the morning” much to the pleasure of Jerry. She describes her boss in such an enchanting manner when she writes that “My boss, as far as I knew, had no children, and she like a certain breed of adult- appeared to have never been a child herself, but rather to have materialized on earth fully formed, in a taupe-hued pantsuit, cigarette in her hand “  when she tries to rationalize her inability to appreciate the work of Judy Blume.  Who would not get charmed by that and who would not identify the hurt of being reminded of the money parents spent on raising us, something which always felt we had a divine right to.
She is given Form letters to respond to people who try to reach out to Salinger, the brilliant, legendary and still, asocial writer. But then, there are tremendous demand greatness impose on legends. She explains the mild directions which her colleagues take, in terms of being friendly and not. But always very careful of not to fall in the trap of typecasting her characters, she always leave them at the point where they come across as very real people, thriving through their grays. As per very explicit instructions, she writes form letters, bears with Don, her current boyfriend, holding out on her own, without becoming a gender fanatic. She drives clear of the clichés, balancing her work, her bills and her mental calculation before each meal she has. On account of a mishap in her boss’s life, she ends up being in the thick of discussion of Salinger with a lesser-known publisher- The “Hapworth affair” as they call it in the agency. Much to the dismay of her boss, the matter proceed towards almost certain publication of a Novella of Salinger, after a gap of close to a decade, till the time when the news becomes public on account of an, hopefully, innocent leak by the publisher which saddens Jerry who considers him as a friend. Joanna sells a story, and is finally accepted as one of the Agency’s own. The romanticism and the desire to change the world is slowly subdued in splashes of realism as she gets angry responses to the deviation of the form-letter, wherein she tried to be kind to people writing mails to Salinger.
Joanna reminds one of the poetic style of Scott Fitzgerald, and one cannot but disbelieve her when she laments not having read Dickens, or Dostoevsky, Or Proust. The poetry lingers sweetly through the prose with sentences like, “My voice had fallen to almost a whisper and the wind picked up, whipping my hair and skirt around.” She contemplates her own place in Don’s life and in the world in general with such disarming honesty when she write about Don, “He surrounded himself with fools – the broken, the failed or failing, the sad and confused – so that he might be their king. Which, obviously, made him nothing but king of fools. But what did that make me?”  In utter humility, she doesn’t even believe herself to be extra-ordinary or uniquely placed when she writes that “the city was full of boys and girls like me, clamoring at the gates of literature.” Anyone who has read this book wouldn’t agree, however. She is not one of those boys and girls. She is one with the eye for details, a heart that could feel those details as they form contours of her own life and a pen to write. She ends the story with a sad note with “a family in mourning, the world in mourning” as her father prepares to die.

If you love a sweet story which doesn’t pretend to be world changing, which does not clamor for attention; if you love poetry which doesn’t intrude the prose, if you love being young and being naïve and truthful, this is a book you will love. While those who are intrigued by writing and publishing will like it, anyone who has ever done the first job will not be able to escape the charm of innocent, honest story. One doesn’t come across such stories always. It is a fresh, morning breeze, as feeble and as gentle and as refreshing. 
Amazon Link of My Salinger Years

A Writer's Secret Pleasure of Ruffling Feathers

Image courtesy of winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.netI write. I blog, write poetry, tell stories, in essence, I write. When I sit down and watch the world around me, I try to interpret it in words. When I am sad, I recoil into words and when I am happy, I soar high into the sky on the beautiful wings of words.
Words follow the emotions and sometimes fall short of them. But, I try to ensure that they never lie. The beauty of a word is not in its sound, nor on its hallowed origin. The beauty of a word lies in the truth it represents. The truth is always an uncomfortable thing, for the writer and for the reader. It always ruffles the feathers. In fact, the discomfort that the word brings is the measure of the truth it contains. A tame, timid truth serves no one and is merely a camouflage of the truth. Truth is outrageous by its very nature, primarily because we are so conditioned to ignore it and secondarily, on account of its tendency to stick to its shape, ignorant of any pressure to mold it out of form. We are so well conditioned to ignore the truth that we ignore it even when we do not have any reason for it, say, for instance when we feel utter gratitude towards someone but hold ourselves back from expressing it. We are trained into lies all our life. When we decide to write, we unlearn that.
The decision to write is a decision to get naked in public, and to be open about our thoughts. We write and tell the world where we stand and open ourselves to a very public rebuke and a very real possibility of public humiliation. But that is the fun of it. We emerge better person out of the trials and tribulation of public writing. We bleed ourselves to be able to write and having written, we bleed some more, every time we are read. Every writer needs to have that little eccentricity, little brinkmanship in himself. A writer is a turtle which turns on its back and exposes its vulnerable middle to the world. We sometimes pretend to write humor, but truth lingers through the satire we write. Do not think that the stones which are thrown at the writer do not hurt. A writer is the saddest clown that exists and he laughs at every wound he gets. When we write, we open ourselves to be stabbed. But then, there is no other way to write. Any other kind of writing is merely a play of words, the artistry of a skillful trickster. It is timid, devoid of life, like a withered autumn leave which fell to the dust and knows not where it is destined to. 
The truthful, purposeful word doesn't adorn ridiculous clothes to shock us, nor does it shout in high decibel to attract attention. It whispers in a thunderous voice from the cloudiest skies and hits the Earth like a thunderbolt, lightening the same ground which it shudders and hits. The light which accompanies it, the pristine, truthful, momentous light, justifies the pain and agony of the strike of the thunderbolt. It ruffles feather, and through that ruffling of feathers, life turns out of the dead and smiles in splendid beauty. I love ruffling feathers. I love writing. I write for myself, but you find yourself in those words. I can almost see your face changing from an shock to anger to an unhindered smile at discovering the person inside your own being who you long thought gone. He is the only friend you have in this world- the truthful you and he comes to life by the ruffling of feathers which as a writer I tend to do.

Short Poem I wrote while thinking on this:
"When I write I grow tall and Walk with long legs, Crossing the abyss, And facing heavenwards I laugh like a thunder."

On The Father's Day

We like to believe love to be just and uniform. But it isn't. We do not love all the people. We also do not love those we love, equally, at all the time. There is some kind of gradation in love and we love different people differently. It may depend on our general outlook and the way we look at various relationships at one point of time. There are some relationships which emerges out of nowhere and overwhelms our being and all the other relationships.

Fatherhood has been one such love for me. Before we had my daughter, six years back, I never could have imagining myself of such a love. In love, one person loves and the another allows to be loved- that is what Somerset Maugham wrote and I had read him when I was quite young. Not only Maugham, whatever was left was further sealed by the man called Nietzsche. I loved, I loved with vigor, with an angry, audacious passion, but I never could give my last inch into the love that I had begotten into, ever. 

Some relations begin much earlier than the object of love actually arrive on the scene. That is the purest of love, for it transcends, shape, size and color and even gender. Fatherhood and love for progeny isn't something that descends suddenly when you hear the first cries of the child. The child lives in your mind. That is the embryo which men are blessed with, in the mind. We are seldom aware of the child that breathes in our consciousness, unknown to us. But our entire life, love that we fall in and out of, propels us to our child. At least that is the way it was for me. I wrote somewhere earlier, Fatherhood is not an accident of nature. One can be a father without embracing fatherhood, which is a pity. On the other hand one can embody fatherhood without biologically bearing a progeny. Fatherhood means many things, benevolence, grace, love and essentially a conscious strive towards being a better man than one is, at this moment, at any moment. 

It wasn't on 16th of May 2008 that I became a father, it wasn't even on 27th of August,
2007 that I became a father. On 27th of August, I had first heard you there, the quick heart beats as if you were scared of coming into the world, with all its ugliness. And I could only mutter assurances and offer promises of the grand beauty of life which survives all its squalid sadness.I did see you sometime in December 2007, resting your face on your palm with the grace of a ballerina on the monitor of Ultra-sound. I somehow felt as if you smiled at me, and felt deep in the debt of your mother for giving me something so wonderful. I had no clue if you were a boy or a girl at that time, though I did hope that if you could be a girl, it would be really very nice. I do not know why, thought it would round-off the rough edges that I had, bring out the softness from my heart, long as dead. I remember, walking into the nursery on 16th of May and saw along the walls all those little creatures lying with tubes running in their tiny arms. I saw you and saw you throwing those tiny arms in the air as if trying to catch some butterflies, with your eyes covered under the shade. I thought to myself and prayed if this girl throwing her tiny arms were mine. I had walked to you, and fearfully, I had turned the plastic bracelet to read "B/o (Baby of) Seema Suryesh" and I let a prayer for your mother leave my lips and wisp to the heavens for this magic she had created. That night, I held you in my arms and slept, for the first time holding you, but I did not become father that day. I had become father long time back when I softly had looked into your mother's eyes and imagined how our kid would be. I became father long time back when I started looking at myself with your eyes and tried to judge myself. 


You came into my house and made it a home. Through the day, you would sweep off all the silences and fill the evenings with music. You would welcome your mother and me at home every evening when we would walk in back from the work. You woke me up to the magical things in my heart and my mind and prodded me to write them. It is you that I write for, so that you may know all those brightly colored, happy things when I am long gone. It is for you only that I run in mornings so that I am healthy enough to play with you without burdening you when I grow old. I teach myself Nietzsche for I could learn solitude without letting it weigh heavy on your conscience when you want to be lighter and fly high in the world. Fatherhood overwhelms all my other relations. Everything revolves around being your father, and that is a secret that I would not want you to know. I do not want to spoil you today and obligate you tomorrow. In you, I discover a love that does not want to possess, a love that wants to prepare you for a flight above the ordinary and let you fly. What kind of love is this that does not want anything? I am happy in your happiness and I remember you through your forgetful youth. I treasure your Father's day card which you left for me the day you left for the grand-parents and I love poems for every day I am without you, here. I know, in your innocent playfulness, you might not even remember me, but that doesn't make me love you any less (Sanskriti visits her grandparents at this time). I will love you always. I am planning to write something only for you, which I will at the soonest. In the meantime, I will teach you to go beyond me, and yourself. Striving to be extraordinary, that is what you are meant to be, beyond the school report cards, beyond the scales on which the world will time and again, attempt to measure you. I love you, my child and that is your innocent gift for me on this Father's day. You urge me to write, to run and to be a better man than I ever thought I could possibly be. That is what fatherhood is to me.

My Writing Life

My writing life has had its own heights of ecstasy and depths of depression. Very usual, it happens to all writers. There are moments of extreme confidence when we believe that the creator Himself speaks through us and through our pen flows his words, and then there are fog-ridden days when nothing seems to be going right and one is filled with self-doubt and one believes this claim of being a writer is nothing but fake. Summers in Delhi are characteristically excruciating. 
I remember, when I first wrote a collection of essays with strange sense of urgency- If Truth Were To Be Told, as if, if not written then, it would go wasted with a dying man's last breath. No, I wasn't dying then and am still alive. You would have guessed it anyways by now. But then that was a huge sense of urgency there. I was scared every moment if the book would ever be written. Anyway, the book did not sell a lot, in fact, sold very few. But then it was followed by stories, and collection of poems. It set me on the path.
It was a double-life which I loved. It made my own view of my day job very objective. It was another life of mine which I lived, and I slowly gained enough confidence to call myself a writer. I was in a new world with new friends, much kinder and nobler than those I would encounter during the day. 
Marta, a dear friend and wonderful poet, decided to do a blog interview of mine and I still think that as a preposterous. But then Marta, I tend to believe, genuinely believe me to be a writer. Another one, being Julie Larson who runs a story website, on which I had posted couple of stories. Well, as it may be, Marta sent across the questionnaire and there was a question- when did you realize that you were a writer or something of the sort? How does one answers that? By that and that question alone, Marta closed any way for me to run or evade. I was a writer that was a given, question was not that, question was when did I discover this. 
Well, I did look inside to check if I qualify being called a writer. That occasioned this post. I know, I have been reading like quenching the thirst of centuries since I published the essays and poems. I also felt as if I am now obliged to blog even if there are only two people reading it, one being me and other, well, you guessed right, You. 
I started to take my run seriously, not because what it did to my body, rather what it did to my mind. I am lighter in body now as much as I am in mind, is incidental. I have started loving my one hour commute and try to travel by public commute, primarily because it gives me an hour to read. I am discovering the world of Russian greats and having great fun in it. I am now reading most stories from the perspective of the study of style. That makes me a writer. 
I am beginning to enjoy writing slowly. It is no longer journal writing, written in a rush to get troubling thoughts out of the system. I write with a sense of playfulness and a sense of intensity now. I love to sit toying with the words, in stead of rushing on the paper with them. Nothing but the most right will do. Writing is now a laborious and intense task and is as enriching. 
Thus I conclude the weekly blog post, and conclude that I am a writer. That only last week, my six year old spoke to me in a conspiratorial tone that she felt I wanted to be a writer when I grew up given the amount of writing I do, is incidental. I must say in conclusion that my conclusion agrees with her observation. I am a writer and there is no escaping this fact. 
My Interview of Marta Moran Bishop

On the Eve of Formation of New Government

The long dance-duel of democracy has finally ended. The rulers and wanting-to-be-rulers have now decided to rest after a no-holds-barred battle is over. The unapologetic political parties and apologetic, righteous neutral commentators, jumping in and out of the discourse. In fact, the case for the commentators was the most curious, under the thinly wrapped veneer of neutrality and forward-thinking lurked the opportunity to shoot and scoot.  This was a campaign which made people see through the charade of intellectual bourgeoisie, who pretended to be neutral but treaded the thin line between the public and private. Thankfully, the campaign ended and hopefully we are left with few things still left to believe in.  Narendra Modi has a task cut out for him. Swearing-in happens tomorrow evening. My view he has things to do, new paths to tread. He has invited the SAARC countries, all of them to attend. That to me is a good beginning. It begins the relation a new level of equity among all the countries. He is post-partition PM and should presumably be free of nostalgic affection our erstwhile leaders had for Pakistan. He is not so likely to be delving into a pre-independence past. He brings a new thought of unapologetic faith to the majority community who had long had started believing allegiance to their religion as a since of communalism. The biggest mistake that, to my mind, last government made was to make their spat with the principal opposition and the opposition PM candidate, now the PM-designate, not only very, very public, even international. Since the time of swearing in, the past PM started lamenting domestic concerns in other countries, guess that began with Indonesia. Today, their public spat makes our positions as a country so very difficult. On that count, I guess, it is best for Modi as new PM to begin with a new start and with a possibility of deciphering new friendships. Friendship is a complex thing. Many great friendships are never explored and die a silent death for the reticence of both the concerned parties.

Last I attended a session by an Industry body in which the new party sent in the representative. It was so different than the usual representatives. He was holding a doctorate in technology. That man had got his hands dirtied and had not merely fought cases for them. I have my own issues with lawyers, for they are men of words. Many of them use those words to get others to act in their stead, and sometimes use them to masquerade their own sloth and incompetence. We have suffered lawyers for long. They are needed to bring thoughts and ideas, but they must not suffocate the corridors of power. Another breeze of fresh air was the way Mr. Modi was referred to by the party representative. Plainly, Modi, respectfully but not slavishly.

Another advantage Modi will be having, will be of crushed opposition of a belligerent intelligentsia, crushed but keenly observing. It is always good to have watchful enemies. He has been hated by the oft-termed champagne drinkers of Lutyen's Delhi. They had long feared the fafda-boys of Gujarat. Modi was too rustic and too plain for their taste of hyperbole. They will watch him closely on economy. Modi can not be expert in everything, He need not be. He should be getting relatively free hand, now that a Kremlin-like 10-Janpath is not hanging over his head like his predecessor. He will probably also not be getting helping hand from Ms Radia in picking up his cabinet, nor will media be helping carry messages to coalition. His more than mandatory 272 seats makes it quite unnecessary. That also, at the same time, makes it necessary for him to make audacious decisions in Finance. 

The worst performers can be his best indicators- like Infrastructure, defense, telecom and railways. Another segment which we have almost long given up on is Education. Between the Apostles, joggers of Sydney and great beaches, one thing that stands in my memory of Australia is a mid-way stop we made a village to see the country-side. While the parks were manicured, roads wide, what I most remember is the school. It was a school with basketball court, broad fields, so well-maintained. We don't even have such schools in Delhi, unless you are ready to bleed through the nose to pay for them. Courts are still struggling to settle on the right interpretation of Right to Education. If government schooling can be corrected, a lot for the future can be amended. It is in the schools that the nations are built. He needs someone for education, who is not only eloquent like the predecessors, but is will to travel wide and who has high standards. Mediocre and barely there will not do any longer for Government schools. Those schools need to have basketball grounds, Gymnasiums and libraries. Libraries anyways now almost non-existent. Why can't we have a scheme of each village with a library with some minimum number of books, aligned with quality schools.

 

The Little Girl in Purple Dress..

This is a terribly confused weather at this time in Delhi. The summers keep on attempting to make way into the scenario but are ousted by adamant rains twice every week. Last week saw one such rain lashing out on in its fury over the capital.
The following morning was blessed with the cold calm of dead devastation in the park, with fallen trees and broken branches. The jogging track was full of broken branches and dead leaves. A cold, encouraging wind saw people turning up in the neighborhood park. I finished my five-miles run which I was pretty happy and contended about, even going half a mile beyond the targeted five.
It isn’t an easy task from long out-of-activity body, but then, exercising at young age has probably helped. That and some hard-headed stubbornness of character. The tired heart leaps up and rises to the calling. I have to fool it at times in to believing that I will give up after two miles and then I cajole it to go another one mile and then another. I remember at one time I was even advised to stay away from direct gush of wind falling over my chest and was advised to climb not more than two steps of a stair at one go. From there, I slipped into a glorious decade of decadence and inactivity.
Running began in earnest about three months back and five miles a day run is quite satisfying in that regard. It is quite suitable for introvert writers, an aching knee notwithstanding. There is nobody to tell you how to do it right, quite a lonely and independent hobby running is and doesn’t need anything but a pair of god shoes and open space.( Read more on running here- My post on Running) 
Last week also saw the last day of my daughter’s school. She carried a cake and chocolates to her class to celebrate an advance birthday. Her birthday falls in the summer vacations and therefore, she had to celebrate it beforehand in the school.
Well, coming back to the day in question, that is day before yesterday. I ran the full five and half and then settled on the bench as sweat poured over the back of my neck, and drops of sweat fell off my temple on the Earth. It is a moment of prayer to I don’t know whom. All I know is that a sense of sacredness descends, a cleansing of soul in the sweat happens in that moment. I sat there, soaking in the beauty of the morning.
There were kids collecting the fallen woods, for fuel. Yes, in the Delhi of 21stcentury, there is a people we refuse to acknowledge the existence of. They are the people who make this city, the roads, and the malls. The pungent air-conditions of swanky malls rarely carry the smell of sweat and sorrow of shanty roadside slums in which builders of this great city reside. They like in tents and cook like the ancients over the fire made up from woods.
She was a girl of ten or twelve, a thin embarrassed soul, not even aware of childhood which was passing her by. She looked at the joggers. I just noticed she gestured to couple of them beckoning them for some help. People merely ignored. They were there to nurture the body, not the soul. I took off the earpiece of my iPod and walked to her as she stood near the heap of wood tied in a red cloth. She, with deep sense of humiliation and embarrassment which poured from that little, impoverished face asked help without being able to speak. She needed help in lifting the wood she had collected. I lifted the wood, very heavy, even for me and together we tried to place it on the orange cloth she had placed over her head. I looked at her eyes as the heap got placed. A grateful pair of eyes, suddenly floated with tears. I couldn’t know why until I saw the orange head-cloth had slipped and the cruel, unshaped, uneven wood rested on her timid and naked head. A wail rose from my heart, I do not know why as I cursed myself for not noticing it. I lifted the wood again and placed that head cloth. She smiled against the pain, which I could see still lingered. I know, soon she will get past that pain. I do not know how I will get past the pain. I come back and read newspaper. I read about the significance of girl child. I also read about the Right to Education and a plea lying in front of the highest court about the Nursery admissions in a modern, 21st century capital city. I, with sadness and disgust, also read about the kidnapped girls in Africa. I think of the proxy birthday of my child and I think of a parallel universe in which that thin wood-picking girl in purple dress exists. I do wish my daughter to know about that parallel world, so she could do something about merging the two parallel universes. That girl in purple could have been my daughter. There is nothing which clears your mind better than pain. I know, what would be the best thing for me to do on my daughter’s birthday. To get books for that girl in purple, for nothing is going to liberate her than education.  Education needs to be rescued of the huge boundaries of schools. That is where emancipation lies. And about Boko Haram, well, I had once seen a pick-pocked beaten to smithereens at Mumbai Central railway station. They ought to be picked up from Africa and left at Mumbai central with someone’s wallet in their hand. A Poem I wrote that day after coming back: A Parallel Universe  In my world you celebrate
Your birthday, and we plan
A month in advance.
You wear lovely clothes;
Amused and in love
We, loving parents watch as if in a trance.
In a parallel world
You walk, carrying your
Impoverished self, collecting fallen wood.
Torn clothes, an already tired soul...
Barely celebrating a dreamless childhood.

Fatherhood...And Writing

Fatherhood is not an accident of nature. I had once posited on my Facebook page and many friends seconded that opinion. You do not become a father by having a progeny. It slowly dawns over you as you struggle to understand what all it entails. 
You rush to the airport as the flight is about to close, and your five year old wanders like a little rabbit from the bedroom, eyes still closed and you forget the work, forget the flight. You walk to her and kneel down on your knees and kiss her on the still-closed, sleepy eyes with the sacred dedication of a worshipper. You start to understand fatherhood at such moments. It is not a truth like Newton's apple which falls at some recognizable moment on your head. You learn it slowly. It is a series of moments when you do things which never imagined yourself to be able to do. I remember the cold chill which ran through my spine when my seven-month pregnant wife tripped while getting down from the car. I almost wept but there was something which wanted me to keep a brave face as you handed over orange juice to my worried wife and waited for the child in the womb to kick and announce her well-being. That was fatherhood. 
I remember, climbing down the stairs with my six month old baby with perfect head full of still amazingly soft fur of hairs on her head and slipping. I still do not know how I could ensure that I slipped on the back and take the entire impact on the spine with the baby perfectly cocooned in my arms. I still think of that fall. Wasn't a perfectly humane response to such a fall would have been to turn and bring arms forth to resist the fall? But I couldn't bring the arms forth. That was fatherhood. 
I took to writing after she came in. Well, not entirely true. But I did get my first collection of essays published after She came in. I wanted some way to leave behind my thoughts for her. It was something of an inheritance that I decided, I wanted to create for her. I then published a collection of poems, set up this blog and even, on occasion started telling some people that I was a writer as an answer to the question of ,"what do you do?" albeit with some sort of embarrassment. Some friends, out of kindness, appreciated what I wrote, not knowing what beast they were unleashing in the process, exposing themselves a lifetime exposure to bad prose and silly poetry. I found a great reflection of my feelings when I read the interview of Nicholson Baker, where he wrote that,"when you get a child, you get a surge of emotion, or you get a surge of hormonal urgency, to get something done, something worthy of your new station in life." So I wrote with a sense of urgency. 
I wrote on several things, between sluggish sales quarters and I wrote on many things. I began a novel which is WIP for last three years. I blog on lot many things. In blogs, I have reached out to lot many people. I went through great advise on how the blogs ought to be focussed on one particular theme. I could not find a theme as I would write as my mind would wander. I wrote a lot about parenting and fatherhood as my child occupied most of my thought. Even the novel that I am trying to write is intending to tell a story to my child. I do not know if I will write another one after this, and I do not know if she will be a part of it. I still do have a feeling that if I end up writing more, she may become Charles Marlow to my stories, just as eternal narrator for Joseph Conrad. My writings have been written in some way or other by fatherhood. It was a result of my search as a father to find what best I can possibly become and making efforts towards it. That is one essential ingredient of fatherhood. It makes a man try to be better then he has ever been. Why this particular post comes at this time is because I met a college friend last week which in itself a satisfying and happy thing to happen. What made the happiness extend beyond the ordinary joy was that she spoke of my writing. Even further, she said that she enjoyed my posts on parenting as they seemed to have been written from a mother's perspective. Now, that was new and I was initially taken aback. But once I let it sink in and thought of it, that could be the best complement I could have got. A great father is nothing but a man trying to become an average mother. Parenting comes naturally to mothers, men have to work towards it. I had multiple thoughts to write about this week, but then I decided to bask in this sudden kindness which a friend decided to throw my way. I do hope you find a ring of truth in this post and be happy for me.

An Ode To Summers

The Summer of 2014 is here.  I always had a fondness for winters and winters in Delhi, I have always found mystically beautiful and enchanting. But, those days of pink romance are gone and just as every fantastic dream ends with the stern realities of the day looking at us, the summers are here. Summer stares at us with same intent sternness and a captivating charm of an unpretentious and somewhat religious honest.
Mornings are quick to happen and swift in the way they sway from the remnant coldness of the night to the bright warmth of the impending day. The Sun stands throwing fire over a loving earth with all its brutish innocence. It is easy to miss the run unless one is in the habit of getting out of the bed early enough. Runners in the park are rare and those that are there, run with the water bottles, wear cap on the head and a look of solemn, secret repentance on their face- as if they were sinners going through their internal penitentiary out of which they believed they were to come out as Saints. But then, the sweat after any workout carries that sense of absolution. Summer only pronounces it further.
The shadows grow longer and suddenly as one tries to park his two-wheeler, one is sorely aware of the havoc we have perpetrated on the nature around us. The immense necessity of a mother’s lap or a father’s embrace is truly understood only when they are long gone. That is the sad truth of life. The shadows, though longer become rarer. Afternoons are longer and remind one of the times gone by. Of ice-cream with more of ice and less of cream, the kulfi with sweetness lined up with secret salt hidden within, the thud of wooden top of the ice-cream box making announcement of the appearance of ice-cream vendor ferrying his goods into the street. We do not have those vendors anymore, they don’t thud the boxes anymore. They do not seem to be much enthusiastic about the work of missionary benevolence which they unknowingly undertake, Santa Clause of the summer, without the paunch and the ensemble.
I do not know if kids these days rush to collect the change and make up for the price of ice-candies. They are much more affluent than we were in our times. I do not also know if they like ice-creams as we did. What I do know is that the days are as longer as they were in old times and will leave them with as many memories as they did for us. The pink princess of winter has her own beauty and grace, the silent soldier of summer has his own dignity and honor. The chiseled face of summer, wet in the sweat teaches us the beauty of a blatant truth. The Summer in that coffee house which was like an Oasis in the dust summers of Chattisgarh with the green walls and dark green curtains, hang in my memories of the smoldering summer afternoon  when someone reached out and held my sweaty palm, unsteadily holding a cigarette. The wisp of the smoke which rose from those hands wrote a story which sings right now in the voice of a six year old right besides me..Oh, Sweet Summer.There is some wild, unkempt beauty in the harshness of the summer, which hesitatingly stretches its blistered palms and offers us sweet mangoes, watermelons and muskmelons. Summer is the time to be brave, be Spartan, as against the luxurious leitmotif of winters. It is the time to hope for monsoons to come back and break the monotony, for winters to again come back with kinder winds on their pink wings. There is something glorious about the unforgiving splendor of summer Sun, and twenty year later, some people might be writing, "Summer of 2014" just as some one in our days sang - "Summer of 69".
 

Time To Take Sides- Election 2014

I have long cherished and celiberated my politically neutral position as a proclaimed mugwump. However, the way political world around me moved with a speed so unusual in Indian world of homeopathic revolutions, only way to maintain sanity in a rare fast-changing scenario which moved from Congress to AAP to BJP was to get on the bus whisking past.
So I did and vote this time, not hiding behind missing entry of voting list or the NOTA, which is nothing but a self-satisfying absurdity, since with or without NOTA, the one with highest votes in rest of it will win the seat anyways. The world around me was seething with anger, and I perhaps, augmented that fury with mine, even more feral then that of the world around.
A lot many Pundits term this election as a referendum on corruption. That reading isn't entirely correct. Many things happened in last few years. We Indians, to a great degree have, over the centuries reconciled ourselves with the idea of divine rule, however much ridiculous it might appear to the world at large. That reflects in the Gandhi family having Amethi and Raibareli as Gandhi bastion, in spite of failing to do any service to the said constituency. What compounds the absurd notion of divine right is the silent submission of public logic which agrees to the lack of development but refuses to change the incompetent guardians. 
Then India Against Corruption happened which actually followed Ramdev's movement against black money. I was still unmoved cynic, going about selling computer. The option presented by BJP as principle opposition was nothing more than a saffron congress, with similar smugness, and political arrogance. Then beheading of soldiers on the borders happened with a continued dithering by a incompetent government. Then Nirbhaya happened and Home Minister, used all his learning as a police constable to crush an impromptu movement. He shamelessly said that is the state supposed to talk to every twenty people who come up to protest. He was the Marie Antoniatte of Indian polity at the time and very ugly one at that. I was there on the first day and still remember water canons, and young girls mounting themselves over the lamp posts near the parliament. The non-political face of movement and a clear disgust at the crime, with the shameful statement of erstwhile CM of Delhi advising women to not to be adventurous in the backdrop of murder of a female journalism playing in my mind, I had to step in and be counted. The only hope for the movement was in numbers. When the power corrupts the minds of the ruler, citizens can only find safety in numbers. AAP came in towards the end of the day with their caps, declaring political intention.
So, to my mind, to believe corruption be the force behind the suspected change of guard in governance is creding ourselves with much more than what we deserved. We are Ok with corruption till the time a pretence of ruler as a guardian is maintained. In the backdrop of all these events, that thin veneer fell down and the political apathy stood in front of us in its naked ugliness. People aren't only angry with congress, they are disgusted with its apathy. We could've probably tolerated the government which is corrupt, but not one, which additionally is uncaring. The carefully crafted illusion of the king as divine father fell off, as women died and nation attacked and government 'condemned' everything. The table where founding fathers envisaged the buck to stop, became the desk of decadence with a helpless figurehead, making rare utterances of condemnation, followed by thorough inaction. One found the outgoing PM active and aggressive only when his a few corrupt men were attacked. At those occasions, he would be scathing in attacks on not only constitutional bodies like CAG , but even judicial entities, the port of last call like the honourable Supreme Court. The man had the anger when it came to protecting the party, but when it came to protect the nation, he was a timid man. 
AAP in between created the cracks in the images of infallibility of ruling dispensation, and I cheered with all when AAP cheif beat Sheila Dixit with a defeat as definite as could be possible for a serving CM. But then the 49 days disaster happened. Traffic police were taken away authority to challan the errant auto-drivers, since the auto-unions supported AAP. Then standard drama of free power and water, feeding on greed of citizens who would believe that the state can run without contribution of the citizens. The drama went beyond being amusing when the man who claimed everywhere that he had proofs of massive and blatant corruption of congress in CWG, suffered amnesia. Then he brought out Lokpal bill as a panacea to all the ills of nation, before resigning in a huff, merely because the Lt. Governer asked it to be routed through the centre. He wanted his bill, cleared his way, and not being allowed, left citizens without the bill and even without governance. But then his idea was to use Delhi as first stop to national politics, which soon became clear and in the process, also escape the impact of illogical policies he enacted.
This brought changes in BJP as well. The old guard, who were in some tacit understanding with corrupt and uncaring government, with some Omertà with the congress found their own position untenable. After dithering for a while, Narendra Modi came in as viable option and a hungry notion jumped at the fresh air which came with him. He came in as a man who wouldn't hold his punches and to the utter surprise of detractors, would follow secularism to the literal meaning. If the amount of opposition is a measure of a man, this was quite a man, given the opposition he faces within and without BJP.  Those who used the falls ideology of feigned secularism, people who get annoyed by Kanwariyas disrupting the traffic, and advise how crackers must not be used on Diwali, but have no problem with mosque loudspeakers in the middle of town or change of traffic five times a day, collected and conspired against the non-Delhi outsider. They all became Raj Thackarey to the man who came from out of town. 
AAP which lost the briefcase full of evidence against kalmadi and Shiela Dixit got new briefcase about Modi and Adani. The great Shobha De fumed in national daily about the misfortune which has befallen on the forsaken wife of Narendra Modi whom he married as a minor. I was surprised at the article with the tenor of a feminist fanatic and wondered if she wouldn't have termed it a story of emancipation had it been a woman opting out of her wedlock, illegal in the first place, to pursue an ambition, assuming for a minute, Modi was driven not by a intent of serving the nation, but by political ambition. From earlier readings, I would believe, Ms De to believe that pursuing ambition is an act of emancipation. That both concerned parties are not complaining didn't matter to anyone, even to those who are luxuriating in the happy world of polygamy.
Citizens who lost a guardian, corrupt or not, find hope in Modi, and the fact that he comes from outside the closed coterie of so called national politics gives further confidence to people. It pins hope of people on him, which once in power he cannot overlook, lest it will become a case of Janata government post-emergency. He will have to take bold decision, which is what the country sorely need. He, also hopefully will bring in real secularism, wherein the state is not equally interested in all religion, rather the state is equally uninterested in any religion. As a friend commented, India is only country where secularism want separate laws based on religion and so-called non-secularism want uniform civil code. Irony will not be lost on any thinking man. By contrast, AAP with its shifting stance, celebrity common men and women, and candidate with changing names basis the religious demography of constituency doesn't get my vote. 
So my inherent tendency to think too much makes me refrain from going ballistic, but I can no longer bask in my neutrality. I have to jump in. In my own small way, my vote is for Narendra Modi, the man, and not the hype- the man with his greatness and failings. I want a new guy to run the country, who isn't yet sure of divine right to rule and between Arvind Kejriwal and Modi, Modi gets it. Modi brings a hope against status quo and going by indications, that is what we need. We are in a mess which we can not continue preserving. This is the time for a new thought, this is the time to stand up and be counted. 

In Sickness, In Health- The Difficult Time for Parenting

Me and NonuThe weather in Delhi is changing. The beautiful winters is fading away and summer is spreading its furious fangs over unsuspecting Earth, blooming with colorful flora, creating a magical beauty.  Nonu- my about-to-be-six year old is the first to bear the brunt of this indecisive change of weather. Last Thursday, she broke into tears on account of headache and unbeknownst to her- fever. I spoke to her. She broke down and I helplessly rushed back home to be with her.
She has immense capacity of bearing such ill-health. I do not know if that is due to some great patience or innocent inability to understand her own discomfort and pain. I guess, this she got from me. I can still vividly remember bearing in silence the crushing pain in my chest twelve years back which had all the potential of leaving me dead. I can also remember that I could still walk straight into the hospital and get myself admitted, in the throes of severe pain before slipping into an undecided unconsciousness.  It is not to boast about that. It has its own demerits- bearing pain, that is. After initial admiration fades away, the fascination of Spartan reserve takes flight, one is left alone, finding oneself in harm's way. I was thinking about it, while I look at my daughter now happy, and playful, out of the bout of sickness. I know, the perils of parenthood in absentia. I find all those argument of making money for the family, man - the bread earner a drag. But then, I wish, I had a way out of it and I could help her learn out of my mistakes. As they say, experience is the comb life hands you when you have lost all your hairs. I would like to hand over that comb to you, my dear. I would like to sit across the whole day and tell you these things which no one else will. For instance, while have the grit to bear the pain, but then be open about incurring that responsibility of taking care of your own self, on that account. I did bear the pain in silence for long and messed my own life, wanting people around to come on their own and help me. It was only later did I understand that the strength  to bear the pain brings with it responsibility, the responsibility to resolve it. I will not want you to tell me about the pains you go through, but still I want you to be able to resolve that pain. Some day, when I am not there, I want you to be ready for that day. I also want you to know that I so very regret my inability to get out of this money-making rut and spend time with you. It has nothing to do with my pride as a man as bread-earner; It has everything to do with my pride as a human being. I hope someday you will be able to understand this when you grown up. I want to write some notes to my child. The on-going, unfinished novel makes it difficult. I need to get on to it, lest I may forget. I have to get the Comb ready for Nonu. While I will make those notes for you, in the mean time, I am leaving some of those things in these blog posts.