His story

He only wanted a story

that would make life a little more liveable, in a city

which could be packed into a match box.

He looks for a new one every tuesday,

among the rusted steel racks stacked with

the smell of yellow secondhand pages.

The noise on the first floor

I first walked into the school, early on a Monday morning. The school building looked like any other BMC school in Mumbai, save for the innumerable pigeons that greeted me with an infectious flutter at the gate. This school building houses BMC schools in four different mediums of instruction: Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati and English. The first floor houses the English medium initiative undertaken by an NGO that educates community children from the surrounding chawls and bastis.

It was still early when I reached and children were only trickling in to their classrooms. As I walked down the corridor, I was met with warm smiles from women busily going about with brooms, books or stationery in their hands. Slowly, I heard music flowing out of different classrooms. The same women were now in the classrooms, cheerfully welcoming each child as he or she walked in, all set for a new day at school. I was stunned for a few moments as I remembered my own days in school. We were herded into classrooms and quickly silenced as soon as the bell rang. Then we waited for the teacher to make her entry so we could welcome her with our “good morning teacher” in a rising crescendo.

Almost a decade later, here I was faced with the possibility of an entirely new equation between teacher and pupil.

The first floor at this school is never for a moment enveloped by the piercing silence typical to most ‘good’ schools in the country. It is always bursting with curious voices of enquiry. Today, almost eight months later, as I work with the children on the first floor, I rarely miss the silence that my school was enveloped in, always.

D,

We've had a summer ritual which we unknowingly observed for the last three years with (almost) religious piety. The gulmohar tree outside the window had burst into a fiery orange. Yesterday the first rains reluctantly trickled down the city and doused the flames of the forest.The sholay of May will soon drop into a puddle of rain water and our summer rite still remains incomplete.

We missed the nine buck train ride for a warm, sunny lunch washed down with cold lemon iced tea, laced with conversations. We've also foregone the ritualistic pattern of scourging our brains and every city guide for a 'new' place to eat at, only to ultimately find ourselves (for the nth time) in our good old favorite joint.

Its pouring in all its splendour now and I can hear a distant rumble of thunder. I will miss hearing you go shrill over the joy that the rain brings you, interjected only by your mutter of how you dislike your feet getting wet. :)

As I tip toe over keechad and jump over potholes, I'll think of you with your long umbrella and your dad's raincoat. Another summer passes by and the city will be washed clean yet again. I hope you won't miss seeing our city soaked to the bone, too much. There will be more scorching summers with renewed rites and rains. Till then I'll drink a glass of deep purple kaala khatta to you, just for old times' sake.

Of that which my Nikon didn't capture.

His stately moustache seemed to fan out as his pleasant face creased into a smile when I appreciated his taste of music, safely tucked away in his glove compartment. He didn't speak much, but conveyed a sense of happy camaraderie to his co-passengers. After trekking in the Himachal for almost a week, with no mode of conveyance but feet, sitting in a jeep felt surreal and luxurious.

My stay in Solang was drawing to a close and I was doing my best to lap up everything I saw and sensed around me, and lock it all into some crevice of my head. The first two days had been reserved for acclimatization walks around our camp site. Trudging over huge stones, crossing over gushing rivers and gingerly walking a narrow, winding trail, had been anything but easy.

A foot slipped, a hand extended, a sun burn, some more sun block splattered.

A loose stone in the river bed...PLOP! Into the ice cold water! The sock irredeemably wet.

Panting up steep gradients. Power-stops only for sips of water and some more sun block.

Having acquired requisite 'trekking skills,' by day three, we found ourselves at the base camp in Dhundi. At the end of a six hour long trek, we found ourselves at a lovely tented camp site on the banks of the Beas. Bereft of most things that define my consumerist status, (cell phone, my i-pod, television) I didn't feel alone and bored. Life suddenly seemed to be brimming with little. I sincerely felt happy. There is a joy in less.

As the jeep glided down the narrow roads of Solang, with my moustached friend waving one hand to every other passer-by and using the other to deftly steer his vehicle, I wished I could make a mental imprint of everything to the last detail; the mountains, the green, the colorful people, the thin weightless air, the children in white and blue, the wild goats, the cane baskets, the smell of weed, the foot prints in snow, the blue sky, the white stone beds, the steaming hot momos, the quaint bridges, the arduous yet joyful treks, the hot mornings, the sweet tea, the cold nights, the soft tripping feet of the river....

There is a lot that my Nikon did not capture. But they remain...in some crevice.

"And then it seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn’t pursued." - Pico Iyer.

6398 ft above sea level

The perforated funnels of the air conditioning duct had been spitting cold spears all night long. As I absent-mindedly tried to stretch my frozen, numb legs, my knee jerked in pain as it hit the seat in front of me. Squinting open my eyes, I realized that for the last twelve hours I had been inside a ‘luxury’ Volvo bus scrambling up the mountains of Himachal. Moving the curtain on the tainted glass, I saw the dawn sky was still drenched in a deep gray. As the bus revved up its speed, the shadowy moon seemed to change its pallor and merge with the clusters of stars serenading it. In between steep gradients and hair pin bends, I saw the first silhouettes of the mountains. In the fifteen hour up hill road journey from Delhi to Manali, most of the kilometers are lapped up in the night. The break for tea, at five a.m. usually coincides with the mellow yet graceful change of lighting that sets into motion somewhere beyond the mountains. As I stepped out of the hostile chill of the Volvo, my numb fingertips tingled back to life as a breeze with a nip softly blew across.

The long rows of steps of the road side dhaba were beaded with colorful backpackers from the West; some feverishly brushing their teeth at the broken wash basin, some hunched over a cup of warm chai, others covered in a purple haze, sonorously singing Yellow Submarine. Made in aluminum kettles over kerosene stoves and served in glass tumblers, my first cup of tea in the mountains was hot and sweet. Filing back into the bus, we resumed our journey to Manali. As the sun slowly fanned out majestically in the speckless, blue sky, the obscure silhouettes gave way to a resplendent landscape of green, white and brown. Every two miles apart or so were rustic wooden and stone houses built on stilts with sloping roofs and tiny windows. The doorway, usually accessible by a wooden ladder, too was above ground level. Kullu and Manali are dotted with such houses, though nowadays, wood is giving way to cement and bricks. Mostly a hue of brown or red, snuggled in the valley, the houses look cozy with a lazy tail of smoke escaping out of most chimneys.

Kullu, which is forty-five kilometers en route to Manali, is a stopover for adventure sports for most tourists. People flock here for snow sports like skiing in the winters and other adventure sports like white water rafting and zorbiing during the summers. An hour and a half later, the bus finally entered the narrow streets of Manali. The abode of Manu, as the name literally means, no longer wears a demure, sleepy haven look. It is splattered with hotels of all sizes and colors on either sides of the road. Tucked in between the clutter that is the Manali market, are interesting, tiny eating joints and watering holes. Men and women wrapped up in shawls and jackets, sporting canvas shoes with a basket on their back, are a common sight on these streets. The bus arduously carried its bovine bulk through the narrow, crowded streets and finally halted in a bustling depot.

We stepped out to a bunch of eager ‘guides’ animatedly welcoming us to Manali and simultaneously rattling off a string of hotel and sightseeing options, available at affordable rates. So much for a heavenly abode! Before we could be accosted with more offers, we were quickly ferreted out of the bus into jeeps that were waiting to carry us to Solang Valley, situated thirteen kilometers from Manali. The morning sun was warm and a sweet smell of pine wafted through the Himalayan air.

I could already feel the vertigo of lightness.

What's on my calendar?

Prufrock said,
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?," and, "Do I dare?"
Time to go back and descend the stair.
[...]
Do I dare disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
April?
Is not for decisions.

Henri Bresson “Hyères, France, 1932″

What's it going to be then, eh?

Philosopher once told me, "It is also about empowerment. Your decision empowers YOU. If you don't decide, someone decides for you. You don't have the power -THEY have the power over you. You are forced (into a position). You have to learn to make that choice.. It is your freedom."

His words come back with a fiery determination to me this morning, as I put down Burgess' Clockwork Orange and got a call from my work place asking me about my commitments for the next academic year. I said I might want to quit. I thought I was finally making a choice. But they said, we could negotiate. We don't want you to quit.
I'm back to square one, I dislike making choices.

But after reading Burgess' book I'm forced to retract my statement. Burgess says, without choice man ceases to be man. It's worth reading the book or watching Kubricks sensationally notorious film for people like us who live in democratic, yet State controlled societes. Choice is important. To the state, like Auden says in "The Unknown Citizen", we are merely a number. With our power of choice taken away, we become mere clockwork orange, like Alex in the book. Some lines from the book that intrigued me:
'Choice,' rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. 'He has no real choice, has he? Self interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self debasement. His insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrong doer. He ceases to be a creature capable of moral choice.'
'These are subtleties,' like smiled Dr. Brodsky. 'We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime-'
'Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog? Am I just to be like a clock work orange?'
'What's it going to be then, eh?'

Do we care?

So I finally did what I've wanted to do for a long time now, participate in a car rally! About ten hours of non stop driving and 500 kms later, I don't really know what to feel. Now that I was behind the wheels, speeding down the expressway and winding down ghats, the drive seemed doubly thrilling. When I completed the drive from Mumbai to Lavazza and back, I was ecstatic. Our cars carried big stickers on either side , with our number and a huge ad for Lavazza. But a day later, when I see the campaigns and coverage the event has received in the papers, I feel slightly guilty and highly stupid. Guilty, because I feel like I sold a little part of my soul by participating in a rally that was only ostentatiously to support the cause of Woman's cancer and was really an advertising campaign for Lavazza, the new township coming up near Pune. Stupid, because all the cultural theorizing didn't help me see through this gimmick and my excitement got the better of me.

The media has been creating quite a hype about Lavazza in the last few months. I also have a bunch of pretentious people for relatives who visited the place a few months back and couldn't stop going ga ga over it. After driving through this upcoming township nestled in between seven hills, I am only left feeling sadly overwhelmed at the absolute power man has over everything around him. The isolated five star town reminded me of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Lang In his 1927 film envisions a futuristic city of the 2026AD where man is merely automaton. Lavazza might be an engineering and architectural marvel. But it has left thousands of villagers dislocated without fair compensation and hundreds of trees have been razed off to dig swimming pools and helipads.
The ravaged rocks of the mountain out of which the township is being carved, will have a story written in stone. We'll just be to busy notice.

Musing for March: Every event organized by the TOI is usually a gimmick. It is always a profitable business venture given the velvety gloss of a pertinent social cause.

What to do?

Its been crazy three weeks cramming in time for the various deadlines that I've been trying to meet on all fronts. My plate has been rather stashed up with a teaching job, a freelancing project with an education firm, my masters program, enrolling for a car rally, figuring out a summer holiday, toying with the idea of starting a small circulating library and beating the Mumbai heat. The result: I haven't had time to look at my brand new inheritance of lovely old books from half a century ago or even contemplate my future career moves.
If there's one thing i dislike greatly, it is making decisions. I know its awefully lucky to be spoilt for choice, but that's one spot I dread being in. So just as I was making my peace about postponing career decisions to a later week, Shorty sent me a mail frigidly titled "freelancer?professor? student of education...?" Attached was an article by Alain De Botton on office culture.An excerpt,

"Watch anyone halfway competent at work and it’s hard to do anything other than respect them. In our age, levels of commitment that in previous societies were devoted to military adventures and religious intoxication have been channelled into numerical, legal and managerial needlework. In the olden days, home used to be the place of kindness and refuge while the workplace was cruel and blunt. Now the equation is often reversed. How politely we tend to behave at work, next to the insults we throw at one another at home, where there is no human resource department to coax us into being more civilised. Nowadays workers have to be “motivated,” meaning they have — more or less — to like their work. So long as workers had only to retrieve stray ears of corn from the threshing-room floor or heave quarried stones up a slope, they could be struck hard and often, with impunity and benefit. But the rules had to be rewritten with the emergence of tasks whose adequate performance required their protagonists to be, to a significant degree, content, rather than simply terrified or resigned. The new figures of authority must involve themselves with childcare centres and, at monthly get-togethers, animatedly ask their subordinates how they are enjoying their jobs so far. Responsible for wrapping the iron fist of authority in a velvet glove is, of course, the human resource department.

Office work distracts us, it focusses our immeasurable anxieties on a few relatively small-scale and achievable goals, it gives us a sense of mastery, it makes us respectably tired, it puts food on the table. It keeps us out of greater trouble. "

Just a few days earlier, I found out that my designation at the place I was freelancing was that of an 'education consultant.' It had a fancy ring to it. But that was it. It was a booming, hollow fancy ring. As I sat on a swivel chair in their air conditioned office, designing 'quality' educational products I realized how 'quality' education can never be produced in the four walls of a capital driven business venture. Adding quality to education needs a human helping hand....no high end multimedia kit can bring that dimension of quality or meaning to education which an ordinary teacher can. Quality education begins and ferments in a classroom.

My work isn't merely distraction. It doesn't put much food on my plate, but I'm happy gorging on the food for thought it often leaves me with. So is the decision made? I don't know.

I'll just have to wait for another academic year to unfold... :)

Some kind of wonderful!

A wonderful Parsi gentleman unknowingly bequeathed me a treasure. He left me not just his rare collection of books but also pages of his life still fresh with the smell of his memories and the faded blue ink of this fountain pen. I can't wait to write about my Sunday in a garage piled with what I love...old, moth eaten, dusty, mouldy books. It was a heady Sunday well spent losing myself in the cacophony of dusty, old books. He had all the books I've possibly always wanted to own..Kerouac, Flaubert, Ionesco, Waugh, Graham Greene, countless English and American Anthologies, Indian writing, Brecht, Wesker, Chekov, Miller, Fitzgerald! (A catalogue will be up soon). I also found some priceless editions of Life magazine, old editions of the Encounter and the London Literary Magazine. I cannot even begin to tell you about all the books this man had! Right now my room is overflowing with his treasure...here's just a peek from the crime site.