"This is going on my Blog."

"Did you see her pink laptop? And the perfumed CV?"

"Don't talk like that about her, okay? And it wasn't pink. It was orange."

"Big difference."

"That shouldn't be on your mind right now. I'm leaving and you don't seem bothered at all."

"I do believe I sent you a muah."

"I didn't get it."

"Oh. Oh!!! Oh NO who did I send it to, then?"

"Not me."

"As long as I haven't sent it to that jerk..."

"Because my inbox has lots of space and I haven't got any messages from you so.."

"I definitely sent it to you. Definitely sent it to somebody. Yes. I did."

"I haven't got it."

"Yeah you know what just keep saying it because that's really helping."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Get some sleep."

"I can't! I have to leave at 3:30!!"

"Yeah so get some sleep na!"

"No. I have to pack. I have to finish the project for this NGO. And you know what?"

"What?"

"I now have a 2 years' visa for Singapore and 5 years' visa for UK and 3 years' visa for US and Dubai ka to itna hai ki I can stay there.... man this is like collecting stamps!!!"

"And yet, you're going to Cambodia. Are you really into temples?"

"You mean that Uncle thingy?"

"Angkor Wat. Gawd! It's on their flag!!"

"Whatever. Achchha I had a question."

"What?"

"When these guys talk into the microphone for testing, why do they always go 'Hello Hello Mic testing.. 1,2,3..?' "

"Huh??"

"I mean why is there no variety?"

"Hmm. Why do the models always wear that stoic look when they come out on the ramp in those dresses?"

"Oh like that!"

"Yeah."

Breathless

I can bet you anything it was Kenny G. I grew up listening to his saxophone sigh. Besides, they didn’t have more than about 5 or 6 tracks and were playing those over and over again. Never thought I could memorise melody like that. Music without lyrics is like tea without sugar and sex without love.

I met her right there, that day, at the reception. We had both been called for the same interview. She seemed distracted, somewhere far away, like she’s memorising something as well. What they might ask her. And what she shouldn’t talk about.

She said I could go through the school magazine if I wanted to. She could wait. She was so neat and blue. Her clothes, I mean.

“So were you also at that other school? So was I!”
“Oh okay. Yeah I thought it’s a walk-in so might as well go ahead and try.”
“You know they were quite strange. They asked me if I can hypnotise.”
“Can you?”
“Yeah. But of course I didn’t have the tools there so I told them that.”

I was about to laugh. She continued.

“You know I saw something when I went in just now for the first round of interviews. A list of some kind. I saw her name. That girl in pink. And there was one other name. I couldn’t make out. And there was another list with more names. I don’t know which list is for what, though.”

The receptionist came out just then and called out her name. It was a bit like identifying a target. Walking around with a label that one is trying to avoid. “We’ll call you back. Thank you.”

I tried not to look at her eyes. She snatched up her handbag and walked to the door in a few hurried strides and was gone, turning her back to us.

How do you say it? How do you let go? I used to laugh at jokes about firing people on SMS. And then tell myself that I made up for it by listening to them as they let go. And winning accolades for designing brochures which standardised the process of rejection.

Is it really like when you pull off a band-aid? One sharp, piercing shriek and then everything falls silent. You don’t hear the shatter because it chokes you. You age within a nanosecond.

How do you get that surgical precision in your relationships? Firing an employee. Shortlisting candidates. Breaking up with a long time partner. Some call it closure. Some just call it different place, different time. How do you tell someone, “I won’t need you. Ever.”?

And is it really worse to end it all with a “Take Care”?

What happens when you mean it?

"Grief looks different on everyone"

Izzie: [laughing] George is dead! He's dead! They're about to put him in the ground and the priest is doing classic rock lyrics! And that girl, that redhead, is crying harder than his mother and she never even met him!

They say there are 5 stages of grief. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.
When George O’ Malley died on Grey’s Anatomy at the beginning of season 6, I didn’t know if I could believe in any of the things that the doctors or the interns were saying or doing. Dear, sweet, doe-eyed George who had been named “the intern with the most promise” and wouldn’t hurt a fly. The trauma surgeon with nerves of steel who signed up to join the Army, couldn’t make it home to wish his Mom a final goodbye because he got run over by a bus, trying to save a girl he’d just met. It didn’t hit me. It didn’t even strike me when they all got dressed to mourn. Not until Izzie laughed in the middle of the funeral. That’s Dr. Isobel Stevens, played by Katherine Heigl. She laughed in disbelief, counting off the reasons one by one. George was dead. Izzie had Cancer. Doctors Derek Shepherd and Meredith Grey had finally made time in the middle of their hectic schedules and gotten married by writing down their wedding vows on a post-it, wearing blue scrubs and no make-up. Reasons to seize if you want to live, like you would seize a raft in the middle of the ocean. They all laughed with her. Hysterically. They laughed because the next day there would be patients and surgeries and George would have to begin the long and arduous process of being just a memory. And I laughed with them.
And as I laughed, a memory from a long time ago suddenly splashed on my mind in technicolour. My grandmother’s passing, 13 years ago. A prolonged illness following a stroke. All my aunts, uncles and cousins were there. The rites and rituals. People I know and those who I don’t, all dressed in white. Baskets full of fruits. The fire. The priest. Squabbles over whether people should shave their heads, because baldness doesn’t go with the suited look that must ensue once the rituals have burnt at the pyre and the last tears shed and it’s back to work. A poem that I wrote for her because my emotions needed decorative pegs to hang from that I could put neatly on display for people to come and hang their coats of grief from.
Even a graveyard needs a butterfly sometimes. And then, in the middle of all that, I suddenly heard peals of laughter coming from the inner chambers. My aunts were in splits. I don’t know who started it. But they had all joined in, pretty soon. My uncles were shocked but you could tell they were tempted. You could tell that the kids were the audience here and everyone was busy trying to define the boundaries of propriety for them. It’s difficult, being the example for children to follow. Hushed whispers went around. “Keep it down”. “There are guests outside”. For some reason it reminds me now of actors backstage, stealing a look at the assembled audience from in between the curtains. They remembered the last time they had met. They remembered the good times. Pranks. Jokes. Legends. Family stories. I remember seeing an inhaler lying around. Someone had escaped with the help of asthma. Someone had started reciting poetry. I remember a cousin asking if it was too soon for him to wear a red shirt. I remember a guy stealing a look at me while I tied my hair in a ponytail, standing in front of a mirror. An aunt asked my Mom if I had shed tears at all. I avoided her throughout her stay. You see, I had been humming a song. I never knew a behavioural assessment was due. Most of us did, though. This other guy was staring straight out the window. This girl I knew was wearing make-up and people didn’t like it. I took comfort in a yellow ochre printed T shirt and an olive green long skirt. Someone wanted to read what my T shirt said. I was happy knowing they can’t make out what it says. They couldn’t criticize it that way. The food was good. The caterers had got it right. And a small time celebrity had stepped in. Some of us wondered while some of us swore. Surely there’s no mistaking those red, puffy eyes? Of course he was a raging alcoholic?
As twilight fell, though, suddenly everyone was holding a cup of tea. It was almost as if someone would propose a tea “toast”. Everyone was eating beguni (brinjal in fried batter) and muri (puffed rice). Someone mumbled an apology about the choice of snacks. It wasn’t sober enough, nor respectful to the deceased, she said. We were a lot of people, sharing a couple of apartments across town. It was a re-union of sorts. We didn’t seem to care about the logistics much. People who had flown in and people who had taken the train. People who knew once they reached and people who had the news broken to them, toothbrush in hand, by insensitive next door neighbours. But we were in it together. And that’s what I remember now.
Yes, I don’t normally recall funerals. But maybe I need to. True, of all the people who came over that week, two left our side. But the rest of us are hanging in there. You see, that week, some lost their mother. Some lost a sister. Some lost a grandmother. But not a single person lost time.

Half Light, Full Throttle

Zee Studio keeps airing Half Light nowadays. But the point is, why do I keep watching it? Let’s see…

1. Demi Moore: The long haired, wide eyed indigenous Greek with lips parted seductively and in eternal creepiness as you get a déjà vu of her just having seen a ghost. (Remember “Ghost” in which she didn’t actually see Patrick Swayze’s ghost till right at the end but looked spooked out all along nevertheless?)
2. Rachel: That’s what Moore’s character is called in the movie. Thanks to Jennifer Aniston’s spoilt, rich, fashion loving “Rachel Green” from the sitcom “Friends”, the gossipy neighbour Mrs. Rachel Lynde from “Anne of Green Gables” and of course, the milky white, satin and fur feline, my university classmate’s pet cat, Rachel. The cat had a daughter too. But she wasn’t named Emma like I thought she would be. (I should probably digress even more and tell her what she was named. “Toffee”.)
3. Scotland: The backdrop of the movie. Conversations are full of Gaelic mutterings I can neither comprehend nor pronounce and bagpipes and misty moors and eerie lighthouses and haunting background scores. The fascination with the kilted clan continues! I guess it’s the kind of sensuality that sneaks up on you and sits on your chest till you wheeze and choke, think forcibly of some long lost kith and kin, blame it on nostalgia and shed nebulous tears.
4. Angus: The name of the dead guy in the movie that Demi Moore gets to make out with. He’s the hero and the villain and everything in between. Deserves special mention because of his name. There was an Angus in the Scottish fantasy movie “The Water Horse”, definitely one in “Whisky Galore!” and I can safely bet that one of the guys in “Braveheart” was called Angus as well. Note: Angus might therefore be to Scotland what Carlos is to Italy. Or what Ganguly is to a Bengalee or “Raj” or “Rahul” to Bollywood.

You know what’s incredible, though? All this time that I’ve been writing this, I’ve been trying really hard to focus on Demi and not think of Ashton Kutcher. Couldn’t do it!

The Monk who drank Lemon Tea

“So? What does Lebu Mama have to say today?”

That was my Dad, reaching new levels of paternal competency. No. My name isn’t Lebu Mama. It couldn’t be, because Lebu Mama, when translated from Bengali, means Lemon Uncle (the kind of Uncle that’s your mother’s brother). And no. My mother doesn’t have any brothers of her own, either.

Don’t try Googling. It won’t help. You’ll get a reference to Lebu Mama in the memoirs of Satyajit Ray. Some uncle of his, mentioned in the book “Jokhon Chhoto Chhilam” (“When I was Young”). And an MP from Congress, Mausam, who’s 28 and a management graduate might be found using the words to address her uncle, Abu Something, who was not so lucky politically.

Lebu Mama, is the name that I choose to use while talking about Swami Vivekananda. My father, having completed part of his education at Ramakrishna Mission, found it extremely objectionable at first. He asked me if the name has anything to do with the yellow monkwear. I couldn’t be sure. I told him someone must have started it. My father was quite sure it was me.

But somehow, when he gave in, a strange burden lifted off my shoulders. You see, he ceased to be the sibling I need to be jealous of. I share my birthday with him and have kind of grown up in his shadow. He’s been to Chicago and meditated and won people over with his speeches and lived in a box and progressed along the path of spirituality whereas I have been an only child wheezing with asthma and then working in a beer company and occasionally imagining I am a popstar with loads of cash and my own hit single “Saaalo re saaalo o o, jhinchikichikchik jhinchikichikchik jhinchikichikchik” (to be sung in the tune of Nazia Hassan’s “Disco Deewane”, the last three words in Gibberish refer to the percussion).

Anyway, the point is, suddenly my father is okay with his daughter calling this guy “Lebu Mama”, because he has made a decision. It might be Mama whose photograph adorns the calendar in my room, but it’s my room. I didn’t flip the desk calendar yesterday to see what Lebu Mama had to say on the 19^th.

I guess he has finally become a part of tea-time conversation. Actually it has a nice ring to it.

“So how do you like your tea? Black? Milk? Sugar? Honey? Lebu Mama?” :)

All About The Cloud

Give. Me. A. Break.

Okay so what's the temperature today? 47? 48?

New Kurtas in my favourite colours from "Sabhyata" in Lajpat Nagar. Felt nothing. Lunch with my Mom's colleagues. Zilch. 5 articles in the hope of posting at least ONE of them on my blog tonight. Nothing. Found out that J.D. Salinger passed away in January, this year. Friggin' jackpot. Zee Studio aired Uptown Girls, starring Dakota Fanning and the recently deceased Brittany Murphy. Huh! Don't get me started on the avalanche of depressing thoughts that followed.

And finally, a walk to IHC.

Oh boy. I am gonna dwell on this last one.

• Is the Habitat Centre not supposed to keep the Visual Arts Gallery open so that I can sneak in and amuse myself and photograph paintings and installations on exhibition? Sure it is. So did they have anything on display today? No!
• Is the Amphitheatre not supposed be reverberating the sound of some college play or some Indo-Austrian band like Amridaan or some folksy sounds like those by the band Dr. Chef? Well, were they doing that? No!
• Am I not supposed to be carrying at least 10 bucks so that I can go and get myself a delicious, slurpy Vanilla/Strawberry softie at Eatopia? So did I carry it? No!
• Am I not supposed to carry at least my debit card so that I can drop in at the All American Diner for a beer or a hot dog? Well? Was it there with me? No!
• The lawns. The blessed lawns that boast of Shubha Mudgal concerts and conferences and Career fests. Ploughed. Are we on the sets of Lagaan? No!
• Is the Stein Auditorium not supposed to screen movies based on a theme I like? Was there any movie being screened at all? No!
• Is the Convention Foyer not supposed to have a proper exhibition of paintings and not some wooden frames lying around hither thither with a bald guy mumbling instructions in Hinglish? Well? Could I enjoy what I saw? No!
• Are the Summer workshops supposed to be for kids and not people of my age? No!
• On a day that I spent writing about Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze and their chemistry in "Ghost", should they be having a Pottery workshop that I shouldn't be aware of? No! No! No!!!!!
• I sent out a couple of urgent messages to my parents. Did they even read those? No!

Oh but let's rewind. There I was, sitting in between two flowerpots, near the Plaza Steps. Hoping the gardener would come by and water me absentmindedly. Don't judge me. Not a leaf was out of place. No wind. No breeze. Not even a whiff of air. A stunted tree with a bushy haircut isn't my idea of elegance. And a lazy couple ambling by with a persistently glowing butt of cigarette doesn't really help. Nor does a printed yellow kurta on a woman who suddenly stops walking and turns around, facing me like a zombie. Woman, you're too old to be playing Statue. I wish I was one of those winged creatures today. What were they, actually? Bats? Birds? Paper planes? Overgrown moths? Supermen? A flight to Bhopal?

Who cares?

Cribbing, am I? There were a couple of small mercies, I guess. That musical totem pole by Naresh Kapuria is still there in front of Gate no. 2. I swayed it from side to side and said a prayer. Hope that works. And the Open Palm Court Gallery is currently showcasing the works of Shukla Chowdhury. She calls it "The Phoenix Sings A Song". The pictures you see above are from there. Which is pretty much what I feel right now. God bless her, though, for the orange juice and the chips.

The Death of a Joke

A sad, sad day. Never knew why I shouldn’t Google too much and think things through till I fry my brains. Well I do, now.

There’s this guy I met a couple of years back. He liked to think of me as plump. I liked to think he exaggerates. Until that day when he suddenly turned to me and said…

Guy: Seriously, join a gym.
Me: Convince me.
Guy: Well once you work out, you’ll not just lose weight, but it will make you happy.
Me: Who says I’m not happy? And you mean because of my body image? I don’t care if some guy falls for my figure. It has to be about…
Guy: Brains and personality, yeah yeah yeah I know all that crap.
Me: Excuse me?
Guy: Hear. Me. Out. Once you work out, you will rise.
Me: I’m sorry?
Guy: Arre you will rise yaar.. above!
Me: You mean.. in his eyes?
Guy: You will rise so high that you won’t need a boyfriend. You will be that happy. Nothing will matter anymore.
Me: Oh wait I get it. You mean endorphins, right? Endorphins are going to get released in the body? Yeah I heard..
Guy: Dolphins?

There. That did it. I mean how could a guy in his twenties imagine dolphins jumping around inside the body? The evidence was too strong and quickly laid the foundation of overwhelming sympathy. An overpowering surge of something close to pity for what I saw as “an addled brain”. “An immature individual”. “A baby”. And of course, a legendary “simpleton”. A whole bunch of labels came flying out of nowhere. I stand convicted of having judged him that day. And every day since then. Like a friend, of course.

Today, I googled, looking for a possible connection between dolphins and gyms. On a hunch. You know what? Turns out the Dolphin Fitness Clubs are a chain in the United States of America. His mind had simply sprinted ahead into technicalities whereas I had taken him literally. The logo is right there for you to see in the photograph above.

I feel terrible. No, not because my friend had the last laugh. But because he took away a perfectly good joke away from me. And countless memories. Dammit! How am I supposed to laugh at him now?