Chennai Chronicles Part II - When Everything Goes to Hell

• What do you do when the nicest person in your life is not a person at all, but your laptop's Operating System that tells you that your wish is literally their command, and no, you don't even have to type anything, if you just tell her to send a text from the laptop, she will.
• It is probably peak loneliness, when seeing a mother-daughter enjoy their evening snack at the roadside eatery can make a lump appear in your throat. 
• Of course you still fight with your own mother over the phone. And don't attend her calls later because she has the knack of saying things you don't want to hear.
• There is nothing that will rid you of your tea addiction faster than having to boil the milk to make it.
• Performance pressure is when the office boy is standing over your head to take your lunch order and the only thing you can think of is idli-sambar from Saravana Bhawan.
• Remember forever that your mom and your sister are a tag team. Never tell one what you don't want the other to hear.
• ''Anna'' comes naturally now.
• I'm still hugely embarrassed about using any Tamil.
• Auto-wallahs of Chennai are certifiably worse than auto-wallahs of Delhi.
• No amount of moonlit beaches can compensate for the lack of company of people who care about you. Specially because the moonlit beach is far off and the city is alarmingly desolate as early as eight.
• I could summon enough fucks to go to the Bengali restaurant only once after my parents left. Now I have found a roadside stall on my way home that claims to sell Kolkata rolls. Maybe I will throw Bangla at the seller tomorrow.
• I can't believe that a month back I cared about gol-gappas enough to write about them.
• I stopped using the bus because I moved closer to my workplace. The share auto drivers are almost as terrible as the regular auto-wallahs.
• Nothing in Chennai feels like home. Specially not my place of residence.
• Life is like a box of Bertie's all flavoured beans that have been rigged so around 95% of them taste like boogers. 

Observations while Spring Cleaning

• If I am sent to prison in the near future for past crimes, be sure that it will be for unreturned library books.
• After resigning, my psychology teacher in school (who is now a rabble rousing comrade, but I digress) gave each of us a personalised good-bye card (even though it should have been the other way round). She seems to think I was a nerd.
• When I hunted for my photo in the school magazine, it didn’t appear in the sections where my friends were listed for having some kind of talent-singing, dancing, writing, public speaking, social service, membership of Africa/ Palestine/ UNESCO/ Elocution/ Environment etc. clubs but for being a top scorer. Which is sad because if you went to school, you were supposed to be studying anyway.
• In spite of the above I don’t think I was a nerd. In a diary entry, I had written that the Unit tests were beginning in two days from the day of the diary entry and that I hadn’t studied anything. My present self panicked a little at that but assumed that the kid-me was also feeling pangs of guilt and would presently start studying. Turns out she had to stop the entry after two lines because DDLJ was coming on Sony and she had to watch that. My present self prayed that the first Unit test was English.
• Did the fact that I was writing about Unit Tests at all, make me a nerd?
• I addressed my diary as ‘Cordelia’ (or ‘Cord’ or ‘Li’, as my mood permitted) since…I don’t know…’Kitty’ was too childish? I also seemed to think that the diary was a person. At the end of a very long entry, I wrote, “I will stop writing now. You must be tired.”
• During the post-Board exam break I took to writing an illustrated description of the IPL’s first edition. After giving out the basic facts of each team, I put in “My View”, possibly inspired by the Times of India’s then-new editorial practice. Under that section, for Rajasthan Royals, I wrote that I didn’t want them to win, because, and I quote, “I don’t like Shane Warne”. Yes, sounds like me.
• When anybody asked me who my favourite cricketer was, I always said Dhoni. But secretly, I had given my heart to Robin Uthappa.
• A card my colony friends had given me for my birthday described me as “Moti, Moti, Tu hai moti, fuvvare jaisi hai teri choti”. If you had known me as a child, you would know how accurate the second part was.
• My college friends gave me a ‘Welcome Back’ card when I joined them after skipping classes for more than a week during my sister’s wedding. Besides being the funniest and sweetest thing I have ever received, it is also proof that capitalism can make us happy. 

Of Face-book Friends and Childhood Foes

(This was written four and a half years ago. But I didn't have the heart to edit it (or maybe I was just too lazy). Kindly bear with the wordiness.)

I was facing an unenviable prospect. A 2000 word article on the viability of complete Capital Account Convertibility for India is never an easy task. That, at 11 o’clock at night, and with an hour left for the deadline to expire was impossible to achieve. Especially when I still had 30 of a 56 page RBI paper to read before I could commence writing. I decided I needed a break- procrastinating for another ten minutes could hardly hurt. Accordingly, I turned to the one source of relaxation that, as I had recently started appreciating, never failed to provide succour. Facebook.

My account showed that a certain Sanjri Mehta wished to add me to her already burgeoning friend list. I stared at her profile picture for a good 35 seconds out of pure surprise. I knew her, from school. She looked different now, much thinner, but with the same angelic smile that unfailingly melted the heart of even the most hardhearted of disciplinarians. It was no surprise then that all the children of Nursery A fell in love with her the moment she entered the monochromatically green classroom for the first time. It was not long before I learnt one of the most fundamental truths of life- looks could be deceptive.

That day, I waited patiently for my chance at the swings (patiently for a three year old in any case) while Sanjri took what seemed to me like her 18th turn. No longer being able to control myself, I told her to let me have a go as well. In response, she stuck out her pink little tongue while her minions (yes, in kindergarten) shrieked in delight at their leader’s wit and presence of mind. I appealed to my class teacher, but not wanting to be labelled a complaint cock (in nursery A parlance), omitted the part involving the tongue showing. Eventually I could enjoy the pleasure of the wind blowing in my face while my toes pointed at the sky, for all of three minutes but it still seemed a victory to me.

Of course, the victory was even more short-lived than I had imagined. When we trooped back to class after the PT period the teacher stood in front of us and extolled the virtues of sharing-our books, toys, food, even the swings and then went on to reward my adversary with a chocolate for having shown the that particular behaviour in the playground. Appreciating the unfairness in the world, I decided to drown my sorrows in the nimbu pani with which my mum had filled my Little Mermaid water bottle that day. But I had only to take the first sip when I found out that the cool drink had metamorphosed into sand-the kind that prevented kids from getting hurt, when they fell in the playground. I looked up to find Sanjri and her three friends pointedly giggling in my direction.

It all came flooding back- all the memories of kindergarten. Of having been teased mercilessly for having oiled hair. Of losing my favourite crayon and being scolded for that even as I was certain that it had been pilfered by my devious foe. Of never being allowed to captain a team during an intra class kho-kho match because it was invariably always Sanjri and one of her friends. You might call me immature but at that moment, I felt a certain power. With one click, I could ignore her friend request- the ultimate snub in the virtual world – and that would be my revenge for all the injustices heaped on me during my childhood. After all, Sanjri was an important reason for my premature loss of innocence, responsible for making me realise early in the day that the world was evil even though my world was confined to the toys-filled corridor outside the classroom.

I recalled the gigantic dollhouse in the centre of the same corridor. It had a big and ugly doll inside that we named Martha, after one of the Nursery teachers. She was soft and cushiony and immensely huggable, the doll I mean, and I remember slipping out of class with my best friend, Madhulika, on the pretext of going to the washroom (truancy at three) to play with her.

Madhulika’s dad was a journalist, the free lancing kind (which I did not understand then), so he generally made the time to pick her from school in the afternoon. At times, he took me too, and dropped me home in his car, after treating the two of us to ice cream at Nirulas’. I always chose the 21 Love flavour while Madhulika tried a new one each time. Uncle sometimes had a Banana Split, which I thought was a disgusting combination but I could not be sure since I was too meek to try it. I also loved their car-my parents did not have one then, actually not until much later, so the little doll that hung from the rear view mirror of the white Maruti800, and made a squeaking sound every time the car crossed a speed breaker never ceased to amuse me.

Their house was another novelty, very unlike the boring government quarters that I lived in. It was not big. Just a small whitewashed bungalow, I am not sure where, but with a tiny garden in front. They did not have a drawing room with stuffy sofas, like my house did, where you couldn’t even sit with your feet up. They just had some mattresses and lots of colourful cushions and Madhulika and I could mistreat them in any manner. Her mother was always too occupied to reprimand us, and naturally, we took full advantage. They also had a room with three walls covered completely with books, all kinds- thick, serious ones and the ones with a lot of pictures as well. Her mum told me I could borrow any when I learnt how to read properly. That made me pay a lot of attention to what the teacher used to recite in class, and the stuff about the alphabet that my mother regularly tried to drill into my head. What they did not have was a television set so Madhulika could not watch All The Best or Super hit Muqabla on DD but besides that, she did not miss much. I, for one, could never understand my parents’ enthusiasm for the Sunday Matinee Show. It only aired old movies anyway, that invariably ended in a fight sequence and a death (never of the hero or the pretty girl he intermittently hung out with, on screen) but generally of the hero’s mother or friend (who had had a thing for the pretty girl too).

When things became more interesting with cable, Madhulika’s parents might have got her a TV, I never knew, because sometime after kindergarten we stopped being friends. It was not a squabble or a fight, just that we were shuffled. While she went to II-C, I remained in A section. We might have cried and sulked for a while but soon made new friends and forgot all about each other till our citation ceremony in 12th standard when Madhulika (now predictably called Maddy by her commerce classmates), overcome with emotion, gave me the tightest bear hug. For that moment, it seemed like we were back in the green classroom and the 14 years that had passed when we had last been there, all but vanished. She promised to call that day and I likewise vowed to keep in touch. I did keep it- I occasionally comment on her status on Facebook and she posts a ‘Wassup’ on my wall every now and then.

I was about to visit Madhulika’s profile for the same ritual, when my phone lit up- a message from the editor reminding me that my article was not in yet. The clock on my computer screen showed that it was 11:35 pm. Sanjri’s pretty face was still grinning mischievously from the screen. I looked at it one last time, then clicked on the Confirm Friend Request button and logged out.

Of old friends

Manu da sat across the room from me, at the door of the balcony, under the sun, rifling through the newspaper supplement. Every ten minutes or so, he would look up to stare at his shut bedroom door and sigh wistfully. He had a mug of tea at his side, yet untouched. I sipped mine in silence. I had winced at the first taste, and shot an accusatory look at him. He had orchestrated an elaborate bow at that indictment of his culinary skills. Then reverted to his ritual of staring at the bedroom door. Malini di was getting ready inside, before they stepped out for a winter afternoon date on a Saturday. The door had closed exactly hundred and two minutes earlier. I knew because I had begun dressing at exactly the same time, and emerged within ten minutes.

“How much more will we have to wait for her? Should I just go?” I asked half-heartedly.

“What time are you supposed to meet them?” he asked.

“Half an hour back”, I drawled.

He smiled. “If you had any talent, you would make a wonderful artist. Reclusive and people hating. The media would love you”.

I protested. It wasn’t people I hated. Just the stepping out to catch up with people I knew long back in school, and who had gone all weird on me.

“Weird, how?”

“One of them got married.”

“That is the worst”, he dead-panned. “The other?”

“She is an MBA. All ambitious and everything. She is probably earning pots of money”.

“So, you are jealous?" he wondered out aloud, his eyes narrowing. (I could see them because he had recently got a haircut, so the famous curls didn't cover them anymore.)

 "Well no”, I answered. “But she will wonder what happened to me, how I lost all my drive”.

“So don’t tell them the truth”, he answered, matter-of-factly.

“What do I tell them?”

“Whatever suits you”.

He was right, I thought to myself, as I made my way to Warehouse Cafe in CP, an hour later than planned. The place was dark, there was loud music and I missed my step and stumbled. A waitress came to my help but she said “Ma’am” in the disapproving tone my mom adopted when two minutes before the school bus arrived, I would start a frantic search for ‘chart paper’ for the SUPW class scheduled that day. It was ominous.

I spotted them at a corner table, both fashionably thin. I walked towards them and both saw me at the same time. And then something happened that I hadn’t for a minute thought out in my head. They spontaneously called out my name while breaking into the happiest of smiles and I mirrored them. And while we hugged and talked at the same time, I was glad to be there.

As it turns out, you don’t mind when school friends point out that you have gained weight (maybe because they don’t worry that it will hurt your chances in the marriage market). You can call them snobbish and forgetful without hurting their feelings. You can say elitist trash that comes to your mind, which you would filter out in different company. Everyone gets less ambitious and less serious and less intense as they grow up. Marriage does not cause personality makeovers. It might actually help people open up more. You can be honest about your career plans with your school friends. They knew you before you started understanding yourself better, so they understand what could make you happy. They ask about your family, and you genuinely care about how their kid siblings are doing. You want to know about what their old colony friends are up to, the ones you used to hear about all the time. Friends’ husbands don’t necessarily have to be people you don’t like. When they walk you to the metro station before they leave, it can leave an incredibly nice feeling in your stomach (especially after your relentless independence). And even though you are now more different from each other than you ever could have imagined, you know that you still have some solid friends.

What I Learnt in the Month Gone By

The answer to the burning question of what I like better- mountains or the sea.

Bhutan-Relaxing after a morning walk

Maldives-Sneaking out for a mid afternoon break

Mountains FYI. Hands down.

A young person's love life is everybody's business.
I got asked by a thirty something globetrotting professional woman whether I wasn't getting too old for marriage. And whether my parents were not introducing me to suitable bachelors.

It's probably not love if a muffin can help get over heartbreak.

I don't hate dogs. Not a lot.

I shocked myself by going 'Awwww what a cute doggie' at a random stray in Bhutan. Also, fun fact: there are no dogs in the Maldives. Not one. (Maybe not such a fun fact for dogs).

I enjoy teaching.

Or having a captive audience, at any rate.

Adam-teasing is a thing.

A shop girl would break into a Hindi film song every time a male colleague would visit. One of those times, the song was 'Husn hai suhana, paas mere aana' (yes that forgotten gem from Coolie No. 1).

Unnecessary beautification is not just something CWG obsessed Indian administrators do.

Ghastly ornamentation in Bhutan

Still better than this:

Ghastly ornamentation in Delhi

Young lovers the world over desecrate public property.

See, just the names change

Indians are world famous for circumventing queues and bending rules. And being unapologetic about it. Even in the emergency ward of a government hospital named after a former Indian Prime Minister.

All the hoopla about 'Ghar ka Khana' is justified.

You can have all the fish maru, grilled tuna with salsa, Kerala style fish curry, Bengali restaurant style fish curry in the world. But your mom's homemade curry that spills from one end of the plate to another is still the best.(Now if only the moong ki daal and the daily bhindi could be avoided).

I am more Bengali than I get credit for.

It's not just about the food. I have rarely heard a Bengali say, 'Valentine's day is an import from the decadent West'. It's more common to hear them say that we have Saraswati Puja for that anyway.

A Uniform Civil Code is not a necessary (and certainly not a sufficient) condition for women's empowerment. The senior management of the Central Bank in Islamic Maldives is all-women.

There's a pleasure in the world called Kit Kat ice cream.

There can be no reasonable justification for this being denied to an average person in post-reform India.

They are not paying me for this, I swear

Moving house

                                                

I looked determinedly at the pile of rubbish lodged into the loft. Used high-school textbooks, old broken toys stuffed into polythene bags of unseemly colours, a torn worn out Spiderman school bag, all stored away by Renee to preserve the memories of her childhood. This sentimentality seemed unnecessary to me, especially since I, as the eldest among four siblings had been used to passing my things forward to the younger ones. Often it was a prized object, a doll or a favourite illustrated book, handled carefully to be of use to the subsequent owner. When the youngest had outgrown it, my mother would pass those on to relatives with younger children or to the domestic help. With a large family, space was at a premium. Though Renee, as the only child had more of that to her disposal, a government flat in South Delhi did not afford any more room than a bursting-to-the seams bungalow in North Calcutta.  And now, that we were moving to an even tinier flat to the suburbs, after my husband’s retirement from work, I had put my foot down and insisted that we rid ourselves of all things we did not need. Renee grudgingly agreed when I told her over the phone. I could have had my way even if she did not-she was away studying in Mumbai.

It was taking longer than I had hoped. While I was mechanically taking things out, dusting them and passing them out to my husband for him to sort into boxes, even the slightest scrap of paper seemed to evoke a string of reminiscences from him. The book that Renee had won for being a class topper at the annual day in school, the answer sheet for the first geometry test she had flunked, a ‘magazine’ she had made as one of her holiday projects. And when he discovered an art book at the bottom of the first pile, I found myself, squatting on the floor beside him, and looking through her childish drawings.

The men seemed to have square bodies, the women unnaturally long hair, and a rainbow marked the background for most of the pictures. She was six I think, when her class teacher suggested that we encourage her towards art, because she seemed to have a certain flair for it. Ever the dutiful parents, we hunted for one until we concluded that the good art teachers were either too expensive, or lived too far off for us to take Renee to, every week. Then Ghoshal Da, my husband’s senior colleague and neighbour suggested that we let Abhijeet, his twenty-year old son, be Renee’s mentor. I was not averse to the idea. Apart from the convenience of the set up, Babu (Abhijeet’s nickname) also had the credentials. He was a student at the Delhi College of Art-enough credentials for an aspiring artist anyway. Plus Renee, not the most agreeable of children, seemed to like him.

Every Sunday, she would wait eagerly for her Babu Dada to arrive and sit beside her, while she first drew a line, than laboriously erased it, then drew again and repeated the procedure with the eraser, progressively dirtying the page. It was only when working with crayons, that she showed any sign of the flair her teacher had noticed. Babu taught her to stay within the lines, use colour and shades, and she learnt fast. My husband was happy because the only ‘fee’ Babu charged was Sunday’s breakfast, and I did not really mind cooking. For one, Babu relished whatever he ate, and was generous with his compliments. Sometimes, if his mother were not home, he would come for lunch after college, and show us his drawings. And even though I was his ‘kakima’, I got along better with him than with his parents. I enjoyed our conversations, for he was aware and well read and could talk about politics as intelligently as he could about cricket. His idealism was contagious, and I remember how he persuaded me to go vote in that year’s general elections (his first), when my husband said he would not because all politicians were corrupt anyway.

Another neighbour in the colony that Renee and I both loved was Meeta. She was married to Ranjan, a young engineer from IIT, Kharagpur- and a poster boy for affirmative action.  The perfect example of how a poor boy could ensure a better life for his parents and future generations with the help of more opportunities. Meeta herself was from the same town, but not as educated as her husband. She was frail when I first saw her as a newly-wed, and three years in the city, albeit with much better means than before marriage, did very little to help. Kharagpur may be more than a sleepy little town now but even the Delhi of the nineties, before the Metro and before the malls, with its traffic, pollution and people, intimidated her. I empathised with her, because even though I was from a metropolis, I too had battled unfamiliarity with the language and the culture, when I had first arrived. I knew Meeta looked up to me and I enjoyed showing her around. I familiarised her with the shops, with the Hindi names of the vegetables, and the markets where fish could be bought. Renee loved Meeta’s cooking. The mutton and the prawns she made were brilliant no doubt, but even her rajma, a hitherto alien ingredient for her, eclipsed mine. And every time she made something new, or something she knew Renee liked, a bowl of it would unerringly sit on our dining table.

Meeta and her husband, the Ghoshals and we, were the only Bengali families in the colony. Naturally, since she knew very few people in Delhi, and certainly much fewer Bengalis, I introduced Meeta to Mrs.Ghoshal. The latter was cordial enough but presumably with her job and domestic chores, found no time to reciprocate the visit. Babu saw Meeta sometimes at my home and showed her some of his paintings. She liked most of them, especially the landscapes, but the two of them did not really get along as well I had thought they would, which surprised me since she was only a little older than he was. Admittedly, their interaction was limited, and their backgrounds disparate, so I resisted any further attempts to get them and their families better acquainted.

Babu was still a favourite with Renee though, and their art lessons continued through the year, until one day when Mrs. Ghoshal called to ask if I could accommodate Babu for lunch. Normally that would not be a problem at all, but I had made only pulses that day, something I could hardly serve to a guest, even if it was Babu. My own daughter had been making dissatisfied noises at the menu. Meeta was at my side when I attended the call and she immediately offered to get me some of the fish curry she had made. I protested half-heartedly, but she waved those off, happy to see Renee jumping around, celebrating the favourable turn of events. After dutifully dropping the bowl of the deep brown coloured curry off, she left, just as Babu came in, giving him a quick smile. I went inside the kitchen to heat the food, hearing Renee excitedly tell Babu how good the curry looked. I could not agree more but when I took up the bowl to serve him the fish, he sheltered his plate with his hand and said he did not want any of it.

“What will you have then? I have only made daal! I thought you liked fish!” I exclaimed.

“I do”, he replied, “but I don’t want anything she has cooked”.

For a second I looked at him in disbelief, then regained enough composure to rustle up an omelette.

The following Sunday, in the most uncharacteristic manner, Renee refused to come in front of Babu. My husband was embarrassed. Babu was after all his senior’s son. He tried to scold Renee into complying, but she started sobbing into his arms. He held her and melted immediately, assuring her that she didn’t have to take art classes any longer.

“But why don’t you want to colour any more with Babu dada?” he asked Renee later, when she had regained her calm.

“He doesn’t like Meeta aunty”, she replied simply.

As I smiled at those drawings fourteen years later, my husband looked at me sideways and suggested that we could save some of Renee’s old things.

“At least those that nobody else would have any use for”, he hastened to add. I agreed.

Back to (D) School

The e-rick driver is in a good mood. He sings 'Suhana safar hai yeh mausam haseen', while facing the risk of a heat stroke.

I down two glasses of iced tea within the first thirty minutes. I come back later for a third, but the ice cubes are over. I settle for masala coke instead.

I make my job sound way cooler than it is  to people I don't like (Guess who). I am more honest with my friends.

I feel happier seeing Rawat bhaiya (who ignores me) than any of the professors at D school.

I spend inordinate amounts of time talking to professors I didn't even like in D school. But let's face it-there were very few profs I did like.

For the second time in my life, I follow every word of a speech. For the first time, someone is giving me advice I really need.

They serve vegetarian shaadi wala food. I die a little. The shaadi wala desert (ice cream with hot gulaab jamuns) saves the day.

I salivate at the description of food served at a friend's wedding. I am shocked I have a friend who has had a wedding.

I introduce a friend to my colleagues. I feel weird having colleagues.

Countdown to Blog Birthday-Day 5

Since it's my blog's second birthday this week (26 April 2014), I have decided to blog every day up to it. However short. However frivolous (which of course goes without saying).

Read Countdown to Blog Birthday-Day 6, here.


Hindi films always make a song and dance (quite literally) about jawani (youth).

The best part of my jawani (till now) have been my three years of college.

The best part about college was that it was so uneventful.

My childhood on the other hand was legendary.

One year my (then) best friend and I pooled in our books (which weren't many) to open a library. Our patrons were our playmates in the colony. Often, they also donated to our book collection.
We returned the favour by charging them for a monthly membership (Rs. 2/-).
Worse, we made them sit in the library (a common room in the colony, otherwise used for dance/music/art classes, rehearsals for Durga Puja and kitty parties) for half an hour every week to read.
Once this kid (who was a year older to me) came to my house and asked to be let off 'library class'.
I refused. The rules didn't allow for it, and he had promised to abide by them (by signing a form, whose master copy had been typed on a type-writer. We were too cool for computers.) His mother approved.

The power apparently went to my head though. Allegedly in one year, my friend and I appropriated Janmashtami funds to build our book collection.

We haven't been forgiven for that yet.

Bhutan Diaries

·         The moment I truly understood Gross National Happiness was about 30 minutes after I landed in India, when a DTC conductor snapped at me for enquiring whether the bus would go to the domestic terminal. That was before a middle-aged aunty disapproved of my luggage, then proceeded to invade my personal space in return.

(This was all aboard a ‘shuttle’ between the two terminals of the Delhi airport. But really, the domestic terminal is one of the bus-stops on the way of the bus to “Kashmere Gate Kashmere Gate”, in the words of the afore-mentioned conductor.)

·         When asked about the meaning of GNH by an Indian, a young bank employee in Bhutan replied that it meant not having to drive in traffic for an hour and a half to reach office.

·         Who wants to drive when the best part of the day is a 30 minute leisurely paced walk back from office to the hotel.

·         Happy country or not, I can crib anywhere. Even seated on a rock at the riverside with the river making the most pleasant gurgling sounds and a view over-looking the mountains.

·         A rock on the riverside with a view over-looking the mountains is fertile territory for philosophising.

·         My thoughts while making the hardest trek of my life: the journey is more important than the goal, the journey is more…huff…aah this is killing me.

My thoughts after reaching the destination of the trek: The goal’s more beautiful when the journey is tough.

(Now to just apply this deep philosophical insight to real life).

·         Snow-capped mountains, from the vantage point of a giant Buddha statue can be a heart-breakingly beautiful sight.

·         I never thought I would use the phrase ‘heartbreakingly beautiful’ in all seriousness.

·         All the scenic beauty and peace can go take a hike if there is no internet. Or tv.

·         I saw an episode of Savdhaan India in Bhutan. I had never seen the show before.

·         Imtiaz Ali should set his next film in Bhutan. It should be a love-story between an Indian girl and Bhutanese boy. The girl will be an employee of an evil donor agency looking to economically cripple the country (though the girl doesn’t know that) and a Bhutanese government servant who is set to expose its agenda. Lots of possibilities of conflict and love. (Call me Imtiaz, the script is all ready in my head).

·         Bande hai hum from Dhoom 3 is my new anthem.

·         Bollywood’s more popular than I thought, and the adulation is not just limited to the Salman Khans and the Katrina Kaifs. While I filled in my immigration form, my Bhutanese co-passenger on board the flight to Paro peeked in, then exclaimed in recognition. Was I related to Mithun, she asked.

I wasn’t related to her current favourites either.  Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif.

·         I am more experimental with my food than I imagined. My third favourite vegetarian dish (after rajma-chawal and jhinge aloo posto) is now a dish comprising of green chillies cooked in cheese. Ema datsi, the national dish of Bhutan.

·         I am far less experimental with my drink. I asked for ice tea at my hotel. The waitress tried to fob off a packaged version. I refused to drink that. She relented and made the ice-tea for me, the traditional way. It was the closest thing to the JP Ice tea I have ever had, only 11 times as expensive.

·         The samosa and pyaji available in Bhutan can give tough competition to the best in C R Park’s Market 2.

·         Veg momos can be great too. Who would have imagined?

·         A scone is a less sweet, less nice version of goja.

·         Bhutan has the fanciest taxi of the sub-continent.

·         Bhutan also has the most talkative taxi-driver of the sub-continent.

·         Dogs like Kurkure.

·         Thimphu has a very cool book-store called Junction. It’s what Oxford used to be before they started playing loud music and hosting ridiculous events. Junction has its own dogs who will leave you alone as long as you don’t step on them. Guess what I bought from there?

Dumb Witness. Poirot.

You Know You're Growing Up When^...

·         You have insurance.

·         You use the insurance premium to save taxes.

·         Rebellion means watching television beyond 11 pm on a weeknight. And then feeling guilty about it the morning-after.

·         You exhibit withdrawal symptoms after skipping the morning cuppa.

·         You understand that job satisfaction is not the abstraction that social workers have, and investment bankers don't.

The social workers don't have it either.

·         You are comfortable being called a nerd. Or any other label you may have dreaded during your school-days.

·         You frequently have trouble recalling the names of actors/ Big Boss participants/ regular panellists on We the People/ News-hour/ Big Fight.

“What's the name of the hero in that Parineeti Chopra movie?”

-“Dhruv something, no Varun-something, arrey the tall guy in the Karan Johar movie with overgrown school-kids.”

·         The only bit of gossip you have heard through the week is that of the corruption charges on a business tycoon and a Minister being true.

·         You are alone in the elevator with a CCTV camera and you resist making faces into it.

·         Your mother hints vaguely at "settling down" when you share your rambling, long-winded, career plans with her.

·         You tip the waiter.

^Didn't she say she wasn't doing these bullet-point posts anymore?

*Deafening silence* 

There has been a lot of incredulous snorting at Raghuram Rajan’s speech to students of his almamater- Delhi Public School, where he said that his parents could not afford a blazer for him, during his high school days. The contention is that his father was an IFS officer, who sent him to a famously elite school. Surely, they couldn’t have been poor. I have no idea whether Rajan was fibbing for dramatic effect or not. I do know however, that at least till the end of the 90s (and certainly when the current RBI governor was growing up), you didn’t have to be poor to be unable to afford a blazer. You simply had to be middle-class. Which you could easily be if your family had only one (self-made) earning member on a government salary, many familial responsibilities and a (home) loan to pay off.

And lots of middle-class people sent their children to elite schools. Mine did-borne out of the belief that a better education could guarantee a better future.  And the entire family made some sacrifices for that-my parents the most, my sister and I, relatively few. No we didn’t go hungry (we ate as much non-veg as any self-respecting Bengali family would), and I certainly did not study under the light of a lamp-post. We just ate out less frequently, and never at a really expensive restaurant. We bought all the textbooks and the “essential extra-reading” (Panchatantra, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, A Study In Scarlet, Oxford English Dictionary, a children’s Encyclopaedia), but for anything beyond (and I read a lot of that), we used the library at school or the government one near home .  We used public transport (gasp!) and didn’t have a personal computer at home. Frequently, my clothes were hand-me-downs from my sister. And I didn’t have any fancy birthday parties like some of my classmates did (I had the regular ones-with cake and puri-chhole). Our holiday destinations were dependent on the availability of an accessible government guest-house there (and no, we never travelled abroad).

Honestly, these didn’t even seem like “sacrifices”. In fact, were it not for the hard-thinking we did before making a big purchase then, our relative financial independence now, would be much less fun. Would I feel as happy as I now do when buying a book (which I do quite frequently, these days) if it weren’t for those days of thoughtful rationing? Or as delirious with excitement, when a flight with me sitting in it, takes off? Would my parents feel as proud as they do now when my sister treats them at a fancy restaurant? 
Of course, there are some drawbacks-like I am the least willing among my friends to continuously upgrade to more expensive versions of phones and laptops and other gadgetry. 
I guess being middle-class was more educational than the over-priced, elite school I went to.

Who I Wanted to Be

Who I Hoped I Would Be

Who I thought I Could Be

Who I am Expected to Be

Who I Actually Am

The Oddest School in the World (No, not Hogwarts)

This was brought on by a friend's blog post.

Apparently, working people sleep whenever they can. I saw this in my father, see it in my sister, and see it every day in the cab I take to and from work. The first two-three days I was taken aback at the lack of conversation among colleagues, now I understand. I sleep for most of the hour too. Except for two minutes in the evening when I unfailingly awaken every day. It happens on a stretch of road known as the Benito Juarez Marg. The road that has my old school, sitting by its side. (This probably explains my love for K3G, but that’s not important here.)

The funny thing is, I didn’t particularly like my school while I was in it. Or even now. I don’t really miss it or anything, but every time I think of it, I remember some oddity that makes me smile.

For example, this ritual we had of ‘cleaning duty’. Every day a ‘cleaning duty monitor’ (one of the most influential members of the class), would designate four people to broom the class-room after school. It was supposed to be a character building exercise. We thought the school was too cheap to hire help. Or was allowing us to explore alternative career options, a very popular opinion, given the quality of some of the teachers.

To be fair, we had some excellent teachers. But they were almost always hamstrung by the lack of time. Brought on by the range of extra-curricular activities-so important for character building-that the school encouraged. Activities included an Africa Week, an annual celebration of our friendship with the continent. Through the week, we would write (essay, poetry competitions), talk (assemblies), draw (poster making competitions) on topics around the theme. Then on the last day, there would be a proper cultural programme with song and dance (the same one every time). African dignitaries would be guests. For all the wonderful education that the students were receiving, they weren’t shy of poking fun at the clothes and the girths, and sadly, the complexions, that our guests sported. 

We weren’t limited to Africa though. There was a Palestine Club, with 15 year old members dedicated to the cause. So what if they were foggy about what the cause exactly was. And then there was the, even broader in scope, International Evening. The Evening featured a ballet of some sort, but my abiding memory is that of a handful of foreign students dancing to “Heal the World”, while the Indian kids stood around with candles in their hands.

 The only function that the students (local and international) really looked forward to, was School Birthday. The closest equivalent, if you went to a sane school would be Founders’ Day. From what I hear, the latter is a stiff formal function attended by Very Important People with a proclivity for long speeches. In some, prizes are given out and the proud history of the school recited. There might be a sombre lunch or an off day for the students in the more generous schools. We on the other hand, had a School Birthday Party- complete with its very own birthday ditty, and a cake cutting ceremony. Some of the kids, who had their birthdays in the same week (or who could convincingly lie about it being so) would go up on stage to help the matronly Founder Principal do the honours. They would also get a bite of the cake on stage, which they claimed was much nicer than the one all of us got in class, later.

In junior school, the main event was the fancy dress competition.  Which was always painful, mostly due to my unimaginative parents.  But also in part due the over-ambitious mothers and zealous elder sisters some of the other kids in the class had. Once I remember, I had a huge bruise on my cheek after falling down from the swing. My parents still made me a fairy. Because that would involve dressing me up in the lone frilly frock I had, and handing me a magic wand my father had fashioned out of a twig and aluminium foil, a couple of School Birthdays back. The same year, the boy next to me in the queue came dressed as a witch. In third standard, the fattest boy in class came dressed as a woman, wearing a green spaghetti top, a black skirt and chandelier earrings (clearly, parents were less squeamish, back in the 90s). I went dressed as a fairy, in case you were wondering. 

No chance of a win, year after year, after year. May be they did manage to build character after all.

Second Day at Work

It doesn’t quite register the first day.

You are too worried about whether you have all the documents, that you haven’t gone through all the “Culture at the Workplace” videos diligently enough, that you don’t have an inkling of what the job entails, you don’t have an inkling of what the day entails, that you aren’t good enough, you got through by a fluke, that the job isn’t good enough, it’s going to bore you, maybe academics was your forte.

The second day, the other things seem to matter a little less. You know the set of people you will be spending the day with, and you figure you will worry about the work when it starts. It sounded good when you first heard of it, you couldn’t take another day in the classroom you are now so nostalgic about, these people must have been hiring for years, they wouldn’t take you if you were that undeserving.

With all that sorted in your head, as you enter the gleaming office building, the second day, that’s when it hits you-the happiness, the almost-pride. You have to dig your fingernails into your hand, to prevent yourself from smiling like an idiot, as you go through the glass door, as your heels click smartly on the marbled floor, as others in the elevator notice the tag you are wearing. That’s when it hits you-the pleasure of starting your first job.

(This was written after the second day at work-which was actually a day of training. I didn’t know then that I would spend the two actual working days, after the three-day training period, in a state of perpetual confusion, or that I would be working most of my weekend, again being all confused, and unsure of even whether I was working correctly. But still.)

Everything You Really Need to Know about the Delhi School of Economics

There’s a lot to hate about the Delhi School of Economics.

Delhi School of Economics Campus

Its course content in the first year- mostly revolving around mathematics.

Teachers who appear inaccessible.

The huge class size.

The (initial) daily struggle to get good seats.

Some of the teaching assistants.

The weekends. When followed by a mid-term.

The exams themselves, especially when the professors play tricks. (Beware when the teacher announces something as ‘not important from the exam-point-of-view’. That is exactly what will be tested in the form of a question worth 35 marks).

The pressure, the lack of time to really absorb what you’re learning.

But thankfully, there’s also a lot to love.

The Good Professors- God knows that every institution, however great, has its share of mediocre faculty. This is true for D-School as well. However, the brilliance of some of them in the classroom will startle you. There are professors who can explain the most convoluted concepts with the most ridiculous examples (so imperfect capital mobility becomes akin to taking coins out of your torn pocket slowly). There are others who will revel in students questioning assumptions and explanations, will go back and think through those objections, then physically search for students in the corridors, to clarify the concepts again. A few professors will discuss things in class that appear more advanced than the (considerably difficult) texts. And then yet others who understand your life is difficult anyway, without “wasting valuable hard-disk space” memorising things.

The Very Efficient Photocopy Shop (till some kill-joys entered the fray)- Prem Bhaiya knows more than you do. Period.  Your life’s going to be much easier if you curtail the habit of arguing with him about readings. And bear with it when he incredulously asks, “Padoge kab??”, when you want to buy LADW after the math mid-sem is over. He means well.

The Ratan Tata Library-is certainly well stocked. But as with everything in DSE, it’s the people who make it as good as it is. There are catalogues of course, but don’t bother with those if you want a text-book. The two elderly gentle men at the desk have an encyclopaedic memory of every book that has passed their hands. And they will take it as a personal insult if you can’t locate a book that is less-asked for (as every non-text-book is likely to be). On the flip side, they issue books for a very short time. If you are a regular though, you only get gently chided for being late.

The Infrastructure- the Lecture Theatre is fantastic. The loos have been recently beautified (and get users from as far as Ramjas). The air-conditioning in the CDE will put an end to your constant whining about how hot/ cold it is in Delhi. The speed of the computers could be better. But the staff certainly couldn’t be (especially now that I have realised their shared dislike of a certain faculty member).

The D-school canteen- According to some students the quality of the food is unsatisfactory. Ignore them, they are stupid. The food’s fine (though unholy rumours abound about the source of the meat in the mutton dosas). The ambience is better. The service, if nothing else, is entertaining.

Ask Baba how much you need to pay. He confidently says, “Pachasi (eighty five)”

“Kaise, Baba? (How come)”, you ask.

“Arre, pachas hi (fifty only).”

JP Tea Stall and its Iced Tea- I have already waxed eloquent about it before. And I have nothing new to add. Unless you want to know I choked up just a little, while having my last glass there.

The peer group- there are 180 students in a batch. It’s very unlikely you won’t find friends here.

Though very lucky to find the friends I did-

·         A Bong who shares my enthusiasm for films and music (though her tastes are more evolved than mine will ever be). Also an authority on photography (in our group, anyway).

·         A Bong enthusiast who thinks she speaks better Bangla that I do (she most certainly does not) and whose studious look belies her chatterbox self, as well as her appreciation of Prakash Raj

·         A smartass with an enviable collection of ‘videos’ and a brain that can solve problem sets from courses she did not have

·         A freakishly quick reader, who frequently uses words like ‘syapa’ (though in her defence, D school provides for many occasions for such words to be used). Also thinks that the world is divided into good people and rapists.

·         An introvert who can be incredibly fun to be with when she opens up. Also, what notes‼

·         An eternal optimist, who maintains ‘sab ho jayega’, when I assail her with my whining. Likes JP iced tea, so didn’t take long for me to really like her.

Besides the 180 are going to include people from your college, most of whom share a similar work ethic and a passion for discussing Singham. Their reassurances of also not knowing any linear algebra, helps as well. As do other people you find (even if it’s a little late in the course to know them very well) to talk to due to courses you have in common, during lunch hours or when you are killing time at JP.

Overall, even though it's not something you ever believe yourself to be capable of feeling during the two years at DSE, you are going to miss the place only a few days into your hard-earned holidays.

Case Study: What not to do in an Interview

The placement cell of my college recently organised an interview skills building workshop. Since I am so woefully short on those (which apparently does not deter me from keeping the title of the post, what it is), I shelled out the requisite 500 bucks and sacrificed a richly deserved weekend in order to enable myself to take a stab at employability.

 

The most important part of the workshop was a mock interview, to be recorded, and then shown to the participant, in order to analyse it, and to the point out the shortcomings in the interviewee. One would think, this could hardly be a problem to a veteran of (unsuccessful) interviews. But I seem to have become adept at failing to match even my own low standards.

The first question: ‘Tell me something about yourself.’

I inwardly smirked at the quality of the question. And suddenly lost interest.

“I am a graduate in economics, now pursuing my masters”, I replied. The interviewer waited for me to dazzle him with something interesting.

“I like reading...and enjoy writing too”, I continued, this time in an all American drawl.

The interviewer then asked me why I wanted to join the company I was interviewing for.  My precise words were, ‘I am not sure’. Then I flashed him a smile to make him forget what I had said. Instead, he stiffened and asked me what qualities I thought were important for the job profile in question. I gave generic responses like problem solving abilities, and an analytical bent of mind. He paraphrased his question. I gave the same answer using similar words. He repeated himself. An impatient look crossed my face (I know, since I saw the video). I pointed out that I had just answered the question twice already. He asked me if I had read the job profile. I said I had. Then gave a nervous smile that assured him that I had not.

 Perhaps that was the moment I realised things were not going well.  So instead of pulling up my socks to answer the subsequent  questions better, I just let things tumble downhill.

‘What are your strengths?’

‘I am very hard-working’. Followed with a shifty smile.

‘What do you consider to be your weakness?’

‘Ummm...at times I tend to get obsessive about things I like’

Disconcerted, he steered the interview to less creepy waters.

‘What’s your dream job?’

Thoughtful stare into the distance.

“I haven’t figured that out yet”.

He decided he had had enough of me.

“Okay, do you have any questions I can answer?” he asked out of politeness, or habit.

“Yeah how easy it is to move within the company?”

If I had unknowingly given him any indication of my stability and loyalty to the job, that question removed all doubt.

Later during the (public) analysis of the video, my trainer asked me to point out five good and five bad things about the interview. I looked at him incredulously; waved my hands to show that I couldn’t. He sighed at my incompetence. Then said something to the effect that I was high on confidence, in spite of the terrible answers.  I nodded humbly. And kept quiet about his inability to list out the four others.