Go Away, Spring!

Spring. That time of the year again. A time I dread. A time I want to get over with quickly. A time when I wince every second.

Spring, the time of the year when I cannot do without you. You, who are my soul mate, my lover, my essence, my being. You, who is not there with me, for reasons not understood by me.

I get by, in other times, without you. Manage to exist without thinking about you every moment. Manage to make meaning with life and work and the crowd that mills around me.

But in spring, when every living creature, big and small, plant and animal, is suffused with love and mating, every pore of mine opens up and screams for you. I want you because flowers flower, birds sing, leaves glisten, fragrance intoxicates, sap rises and skies cloud. I want you…

But you are not there.

And I curse Spring. Why must it come and hold a mirror to my life, showing me exactly as I am - holed in the middle, emptied of your presence?

Go away, Spring, go away! Go away, so that I can live.

Wearing My Skin: A Short Story

I met a school friend, rather a “crush” of mine, after 25 long years. He is one of those that I have dreamt of meeting again often, as he is one of those few guys who I was very interested in when I was young, back when I think I was prettier than I ever would be in my entire life.

He was devilishly attractive to me those days. He made eyes at me for hours - he was obviously smitten. I think we also went out together a couple of times. My friends giggled his name to me, and yes, I remember sighing his name in my sleep in those days of yearnings. Before we could get around to being more than casual friends, life and ambition intervened, and we drifted apart, and while I never really missed him, I have always wondered what it would be like to meet him, and see his wicked smile that I loved so much back then again.

So, I met him again yesterday, after years and years, and guess what, he still looked the same! Devastating and fiendishly attractive still to me. I am a sucker for good looking men whose eyes dance when they smile, and whose lips pout – lips that hint of a ravishing kiss, and steamy love bites. He looked older, of course, but his maturity sat him well. Years had not taken away the innocence in his eyes, his arms were still taut with strong muscles, and his hair while graying at the temple, became him awfully well.

And me, oh, the intervening years have not enhanced me much. Rather, the other way around. I look the worse for my years.

I was never a beautiful girl. My dad told me I was charming – but every father thinks so, and I never thought much of it. Several admiring men friends that I gathered when I was young also told me that I was sensuous and alluring, though not rapturously beautiful, but I always thought that their lust made them say such things. Not that it bothered me much. I was different from other young girls. I hated doing all the things that girls have to do to look pretty – the waxing, the plucking, the painting of the face, and other feminine stuff. I was a careless person with appearances, am even now, and back then, scrubbed only when I had to, wore good clothes only if I was forced to, dressed up only if I could not refuse and so on. I think I was just a lazy person. Clothes, hair and shoes bored me. I was more interested in people, world, ideas – and just having fun. I never felt that it mattered anyway, as it never made a difference to the crucial issue of being attractive to the opposite sex. I had more boys as my friends than girls, and I regularly received love lorn looks and notes from a few of them, and could flirt the heart out of boys that I was interested in. I was one scruffy young girl, but I was a confident, happy one.

Womanhood and corporate career changed all that. Stepping into the adult world meant that I had to trim my nails, brush my hair and wear freshly laundered trousers and shirts to go the office. Being a wife and marwadi bahu entailed wearing a matching bindi with the saree and the fancy clutch, with the right dash of lipstick, and the weekly trips to the parlour to peel off layers off my hirsute body. Being a business person meant that I had to dress to look in control, and look “Arrived”. I had to make sure I merged and belonged with the power dressing crowd, and I learnt the art of coordinating colors and accessories to create just the aura I wanted – feminine – but not overly so, smart - yet non-threatening, territorial – but not adversarial. I also learned to sheath my claws and cloak my boorishness, and learnt to eat daintily, curbing my desire to speak with my mouth full as I entertained classy men and women.

I did not really enjoy this much, but I did it because I had to, as I really did want to achieve growth in my corporate life, and appearing to be a sophisticated urbane woman was just one of the things that had to be done for it. Younger girls would sometimes walk up to me to ask for tips on how to dress the way I did, not surprising since I did a fairly competent job of exuding the image I wanted to.

And now, after being a mother for a decade, I have steadily been moving back to my older days. I have no need, nor desire to impress, belong or be approved of. My daughter loves me with a completeness that overwhelms me, no matter how I look or what I wear, and my husband depends on me with a thoroughness that can only be achieved through decades of loving and working together. My friends and I chat for hours, in identical élan, in designer or at-home dresses, in five star hotels and park benches. I am, once again, very comfortable in my skin and my place in the world – even better, as I have outgrown the rebelliousness of my younger days by growing a thick hide that is impervious to the malicious, look-me-down stares from snooty waiters, classy socialites, trophy wives and reproachful mother-in-laws.

As for the men-folk who were my colleagues and friends, I don’t even think they noticed the change in me – not the one from the young gauche girl I was, to the urbane woman I once became, and now the contented hag that I am growing into.

As my childhood crush looked at me yesterday, I could look right inside his brain, as his brain toted me up. Body – Fat and overblown. Clothes – Probably expensive but carelessly chosen and much worn. Teeth – dark and beginning to yellow, Chin – with a hint of the crone-like hairs that sprout on all 40 something women, Shoes – comfortable clods, that obliterated any style, Bag – the kind that most probably held at least 30 things in it, and definitely not Prada. I could see him evaluating me using the scales that were handed down to him by the Style-check gurus. Hmmmm – I could actually hear the conclusions his brain was coming to. This woman is not worth a second look anymore, he finally clunked to the conclusion.

I could not suppress a chuckle. It was sad to see him so disappointed. He was, no doubt, congratulating himself for not pursuing his love interest in me, way back then. I could see the way he desperately looked around to locate his classy wife, who looked amazingly young for her age and delicate. He surely wore her often enough to his office parties, and was surely envied a whole bunch. They made a pretty pair.

The wife floated by, and after the gracious introductions and the careful touch-but-not-smear-lipstick brush with my right cheek, she shimmered away, my childhood crush in toe. After a hurried conversation with him, she threw a furtive glance back at me as her husband looked on sheepishly. She probably slept with her corset on, I thought, as I struggled to suppress a grin.

So, that was that, I said to myself. This is what he looks like now. Do I want him still? He tempts, surely. It would not take much to fan his earlier unslaken thirst. But do I really want to?

No, I decided. It really isn’t worth it. Did I really want to get into the rigmarole of pleasing, attracting and holding men? It is painful, this beauty and holding-a-man game, Too much work, not much of a prize - even though I admit the man is a delicious hunk. There is’nt much more to him than being just a piece of forbidden, casual lust – is there? I will pass, I thought, I have better things to do, and I looked around for my giggle of girls.

They weren’t far away - my brood of youngsters, friends of my daughter, who were lounging close by, and smirking at some hunk of their size. I had agreed to chaperone them for this wild club side girls only party, and they seemed to be having a rollicking time. I heard one of them scream for me, "Auntie, come on into the water – it is cold!" - and I decided to indulge, taking off my frumpy dress to reveal a even frumpier frock style swim suit, to frolic in the water with them.

I prefer being a hag, I told myself, as I surreptitiously trod water behind the girls, wanting to drench them unawares. And did they scream when I did! That was fun!!

Courage: The pre-requisite of being an artist

It needs courage to become an artist.

An artist creates things that are non-essential for existence, but things which provide meaning to existence. Artists create beauty - in pictures, words, forms, dance - and most often than not, create them on their own notion of what beauty is. Many times the world does not agree, and sometimes it does. But the artist creates. Not because it is needed. Not because someone wants it. Not because it would sell. But simply because he has to. He creates because he must.

What does being an artist mean? It means that you would somehow create something of beauty that would be liked by people. An artist does not have a business card that calls him a Creator. Nor does he have one that calls him a Vice President - Manufacturing. Nor does he get a salary check from some one. He is his own university, he is his own factory, he is his own marketeer, he is own innovation - he is one man everything. He is stripped of all the paraphernalia that most professions has. A business man has his money, a career bureaucrat his post, a politician his constituency, a manager his salary check, a doctor his dispensary - and all of these give substance to the profession, and the man who practices it.

An artist is a stripped-of-everything profession. A man or a woman stands bare, with no protection, except a vision of beauty that they wish to share, with no protection, no props, no sustenance.

Which one of us humans can live a true-to-thought life like this? Where we have no place to hide? No degree to hold on to, no house to show off, no car to drive to - where we stand as ourselves, and ask the world to believe us simply because, because.

And yet, artists needs to depend on the same world for his daily bread and sustenance. So, maybe an artist needs to prostitute his art, for creating something that people like - regardless of whether it matches his vision or not.

A Goat and a Hyena

Strange people get married - and stay married.

The reason why they get married is clear- the great Indian Arranged Marriage System - where the only things which are considered as mating pre-requisites are an ability to earn from the grooms side, and the ability to attract and procreate from the female's side, or vice versa - depending upon the social status of each one of them. In absence of any other scale, the gold scale or the beauty scale prevails, and that makes sense to me.

However, why they stay married when it is very obvious that they are very different types of human beings continues to amaze me, despite the economic vulnerability of the woman.

I recently visited one such couple. This couple has been married for years and years - maybe 40 years - the one fact that some of my friends who have western sensibility would celebrate, obviously with an assumption that if intelligent people have stayed married, it is because it made sense for them to stay married. How mistaken they sometimes are!

This couple are as different as a goat and a hyena. The woman is patient, docile, obedient, god-fearing and dutiful. The man is rapacious, self-serving, waits upon others to do his thing - pretty much a scavenger. The Hyena makes the Goat do everything for him - cook his food, give him his medicines, clean his house, lay his bed, lay the table, press his feet etc etc. In return, the Hyena does nothing for his wife - he does not even talk to her nicely. He yells at her at the slightest provocation, and insults her whenever he can, while waxing eloquent publicly over how much he loves her. The Goat bears it all, sometimes with patience, and sometimes with irritation, but her upbringing has taught her to respect her husband, and serve him - and thats what she does, without question, week after week, month after month, year after year - even when she is now worn out, old and almost fragile. The Hyena on the other hand, suffers from heart conditions because of his terrible temper, but takes excellent care of his health, and can hope to see many more suns.

The Goat and the Hyena have been living together for years, and as is wont in marriages, they have stayed together not because they love each other, but because they once entered the bonds of holy matrimony, arranged by their parents, and because Hindu marriages are not expected to break.

However, what I saw in my recent visit to the couple made me wonder if Hindu marraige was not sometimes a slavery - in fact, almost akin to indentured labour.

For, the Hyena has now taken to piss, by choice, not in the commode which is what all ordinary mortals use, but into a special vessel made for holding it due to some Baba - who has told him that pissing in a commode made him less virile. As a part of her marital duties, the goat is made to clean up the ensuing mess, and also carry the piss to the appropriate place to dispose off, as she is after all the Hyena's wife. The Hyena is very much capable of doing this himself, as he is in decent health, but he chooses to give his task to his wife since it is so distasteful to him.

I could see what made the Hyena ask his wife to handle the piss. About the virility part, I do not even wish to speculate.

The Goat does all of this, without question, without a thought of revolt or saying no - and all in the name of marital duty.

It is sick. What makes me sick is not the fact that the Hyena behaves the way he does, but why the Goat behaves the way she does. She is a human being, a person in her own right, a thinking caring intelligent person, she has no compulsions of any kind. Just why does she submit to such cruel insulting behaviour? After all, if the Goat stopped accepting the insults, would not the Hyena have to stop? After all, who else in the world will take such an insult?

Just why does the Goat not behave like a human being? Just because of marraige vows? Yeah, right. Dead right.

Let the Midnights Children Sleep!

I read the news about Deepa Mehta doing a movie on Salman Rushdie's "Midnight Children" with trepidation and horror.

Midnight Children is a book I read the first time when I was in my raw teens, during which time I did not understand much of it and flung it after the first few pages when I could not figure out how a nose could be so important. I read it with determination the second time - this was when I was at college, and it was a mark of dishonor to the group that I belonged to who prided themselves on all things literati - and was awed by the intricate ornate imagery the author wove, and its hugely metaphorical content to the birth of our nation. I have since then read it at least thrice, though not in recent years, and have fallen in love with is quirky characters - Salim Sinai, the hapless exchanged-at-birth child, the rumbuctious Brass Monkey, the rotund but sexy Begum Sinai, Mary Pereira, the ridden by guilt midwife, the Aunt Alia who feeds guilt and resentment in her pickles, the sinister Widow with her half grey head of hair - and the quirkier setting - the tetrapod laced Mumbai, the fortune-changing Mahalaxmi Race course, the breathtakingly beautiful Kashmir, and the dark murky hate spewing streets of Mumbai - and not to forget the stuffy Chothes Chest in the Sinai bathroom where Salim lay hidden, as he is hit by his first adult moment.

The book is rich in feeling and metaphor, and creates a world which dazzles, smells and shakes and has characters which cower, lust, love, fear, and take shape in ones mind, and stay with one, hours after the book is put down. Salman Rushdie is a masterful story teller. His story needs some telling, but for people who have the patience and the imagination to stay with him awhile, he amply rewards them with a world that is rich and suggestive, like real life. Like the famous Arabian Night stories, the Midnight's Children can be spun into a tapestry of another set of stories - in which each of the characters takes off from one point in this story, travels to another one, and then comes back to this one to take his rightful place.

And now, a story of this kind, the kinds that holds a world and many other yet-to-be-born stories inside is, is going to be played out on celluloid, and its fluid rich imaginative world will be concretized on reels. I hate it. Just completely abhor the idea.

It is not that I don't like Deepa Mehta - I also understand that perhaps this movie would give Salman Rushdie another spot of bright illumination in public life which the beleaguered man may or may not relish, and may give him some much needed money - nor do I mind the re-interpretation of the story in thousand different ways, which is what most good stories are for, anyway.

What I truly mind is the change of medium of the story. .

For, just how would the cinema capture the musty smells of the clothes chest in the Sinai bedroom as he views his mothers bottom? How would the camera capture the Sr. Sinai's falling-in-love-in-parts-by-part, and its completely apt metaphor to India being a country made up of parts? How would the camera manage to get inside the guilty purse of Mrs. Sinai as she goes horse racing, guilt ridden and shadowy? How could it capture the conversations-in-mind with all those many midnights children that Salim Sinai has, his falling in love with Parvati when she is just a nebulous presence in his mind.

The list is large - and I shudder to think what butchery would take place of my beloved story and my beloved weird characters as Ms. Mehta will apply her celluloid knife.

It would not be her fault, the fault would be the medium's. The tyranny of it being two dimensional - visual and audio, and that's it. No imagination, no smells, no in-between emotions, and the worst of it all, the tyranny of 2 hours! Stories of this kind are told over and savoured over days of indolent reading and telling, and the "Phir?" question marks that one goes to sleep with - and wakes up luxuriously to return to it again…

Ms. Mehta, please don't do this. Please do not put faces to my Salim Sinai, and the Brass Monkey and the virile Shiva Please do not tell me the color of the Clothes chest. Please do not tell how Bombay looked then - and how the Widow looked. I know them all in my minds eye, and I do not want to know them through your eyes. My eyes and mind are in great shape, thank you.

And Mr. Salman Rushdie, just how could you do this? Just how could you consent to the butchery that is bound to be unleashed on this magical story of yours? How can you kill all the other stories than can come out of Midnights children still? You are the father of this story, aren't you? Or have you too, tired of your creation, and are out to milk it for whatever its worth in gross coins you can touch, rather than thoughts and minds you can reach?

Hungry eyes

I wish I did not have these visions.

Of blue oceans, and blue skies and blue hills and blue trees...

I am tormented by them - these visions - and find it difficult to focus on my daily life as my soul yearns for them, and rubbishes everything that I do have. I have everything that I can materially ask for, and emotionally want - my cup of life is full. And yet, yet, there is this yearning, which keeps me awake at night, and browse furiously through books, and the web - looking for that place that I can call my home.

Actually, it is not the yearning to call a place a home, it is perhaps a yearning for having lived and travelled and smelt other smells and mingled with other skins, and seen the beauty of nature. I just want to go back to nature.

I am selfish enough to cling to my air-conditioners and my neatly kept home to manage my day to day life, but my eyes - they are the ones who are hungry. They clamour for food they like, for food they can enjoy and savour, and I struggle as they take over my entire persona and make me feel as if I am one big starving eye.

Why is beauty such a need? Why are my eyes so hungry? Why can't they leave me in peace?

The road not taken...

The road not taken -is very often a cul-de-sac.

I am forever irritated by many of these feel-good maxims which can lead a tormented soul astray by pretending to stand for wisdom. The road not taken... is one of those.

Most well trodden life paths are taken because well, they are worth being well trodden. Most well trodden paths would provide a person with a good enough life, good enough money, good enough friends, and good enough peer respect. That is one the reasons why parents insist on their children taking well trodden paths.

The roads not taken are difficult, uncertain, and full of blind spots. Most often than not, they end nowhere - the precise reasons why they are not taken in the first place.

Many young people, in their first flush of youth, this writer included, hunger for such roads. Not because of anything else, but because the road seems so fresh, so new. Fresh and new it is, but it
is also treacherous.

This is also true for new products and new markets. Most new markets, are well, not profitable.