Yesterday, I refused to pay the price for something I had not bargained for.
It was a deal I had not seen myself getting into and, with so many people around me jumping to it, I had not quite realised that it could be something I didn't want.
But the price tag was a bit too heavy. I was being told - by countless silent whispers in my head - that I would have to give up bits - large bits - of myself. In return, I would be handed a much coveted possession - success.
I looked around me and saw remnants of people I once knew, their shadows reminders of their past selves. They are successful. They look back at their shadows and hear the songs they once sang, lines they once wrote, smiles they once had. Now they have success. They paid up.
I am not the only one though, holding out. There is a small tribe of us. Some are sure, some not so, some paid up and left their shadows behind with us. The rest, the ones that are sure, like keeping our shadows with us, within us.
I shall keep mine. Will you?

After feeling the whiff of winter in Calcutta for the first time in eight years, I realise what is so fantastic about it.
It does not get as harsh as Delhi nor is it like Bombay, where winter is just a season in school text books and clothes stores.
The winter of Calcutta makes you want to stay beneath the blanket in the morning, but makes you get out for the hot cup of tea. It makes you hate having a bath, but makes you love the hot water. It makes you want to sit in the sun, but not too long either. It makes you want to take a walk in the evenings and see if your breath smokes, but pull the shawl a bit closer. It makes you want to wear warm clothes, but does not bury you in them. It chaps your lips, but does not flake your skin.
It's what you look forward to all year round and you miss it when it's gone.

The afternoon was so still, silent, that you could hear the khunti stirring the contents of a kodhai a house away. An incessantly chirping sparrow in the kamini tree, a reluctant bark of a neighbouring dog. The hesitant knock on a gate - one boy asking another to come out and play; the other boy replying that he is sleeping. Play can wait.
Darkness soaks in, like Chelpark Royal Blue soaking through blotting paper. The street stirs with cycle bells, conversations, children's running footsteps, shrieks and laughter. Stirrings in the kitchen too - Darjeeling tea and cream crackers, patishaapta for later. The dog lifts an ear, finds no reason to lift her snout; the cat, curled like a comma, snoozes in the remnants of warmth from the sun on the window sill.
A pair of glasses, a book wrapped lovingly in the glossy weekend supplement of a newspaper, a tea cup drained of its content, the outlines in the room blurring into one another - like a smudged watercolour.
I am hibernating.

Working past 2.30 am at office has the same feel of staying back in the SIMC computer lab after everyone had left - relaxing and tranquil. Work gets done faster, but that's another story.

I have a confession. I think I have found a soul mate. Some part of him is from Calcutta, some from Delhi. He is an IAS officer. (I know, I know... an investment banker makes a man more eligible, but an IAS is not too bad). He has an enviable taste in music and reading - which makes him all the more enticing - and a sense of sardonic humour that I am yet to see in anyone else.
He is stuck in some godforsaken scrap of the rural hinterland that you and I have probably not ever heard of (would not ever hear of had it not been for him).
What struck me about him is his sense of utter dislocation. He hates it where he is and is waiting to get back to what he loves and misses, although he can be a bit shy about actually admitting that he is missing it.
Although it might sound plain ridiculous to compare his rustic town to Bombay, I think I identify completely with this dislocation of his: this part bewildered, part amused, part bored, part hateful and part defensive view of his new surroundings. What I can understand most, perhaps, is the solitude.
I had met him some years back, but then things had not sunk in. But now that I met him again, it's like meeting someone I never knew.
Oh well, then.
He goes by the name of Agastya Sen. Friends call him August.

I walked into the office pantry, mug in hand, and then froze mid-step. The floor was being mopped and it was wet. I cannot walk on wet floors.

A few seconds later, in walked another. My frozen state infected her as well. But she was a little less guilt-ridden as she walked across – the floor too was drying up.
“My mother always told me not to walk on wet floors.”
“So did mine!”
“And to sit with our feet up when the floor was being mopped.”
“Oh my god! And then the fan would be switched on even if it was freezing cold!”
“…so that the floor dried up fast.”
“I think it is something about mothers!”
“And I kept telling my mother ‘I hope I don’t become like this!’”
“I think mother’s come that way.”
It really did not matter who said which line. We both knew exactly what we were talking about.

So, will all of us become like our mothers (or fathers, for that matter) some day?”

I live my life constantly looking wistfully over my shoulder, brooding about what I have left behind.
While in Pune, I thought of Kolkata. While in England I thought of Kolkata and Pune. And now in Bombay, I think of England. It can get irritating – for me, but more for those around me: this constant belief that the past was better.
This constant looking back is more like flipping through an album in my mind – an album populated with moments, conversations, looks, half-smiles, sounds, smells and thoughts. It’s an album that I carry with me all the time and browse whenever I feel like a glimpse.
For the past few days, I have been browsing the England bit of the album, quite frequently. I even pulled out actual photographs and smiled at them. Yes, wistfully.

I don’t think I am good at saying this – maybe because I don’t say this often enough… miss you guys… you know who you are.

Have you ever felt that you have just woken up – you might not have been sleeping at all really – and thought that you have not been leading your own life?
Caught up in what you do everyday – you know the grind, don’t you – the life you knew as your own had just slipped through your fingers while you were paying the taxi driver, or fumbling for your phone in the bag on the way to work or typing out emails on the office keyboard. And all it takes is a moment, an elusive one, to suddenly realize that.
One such moment happened a couple of weeks back. Let’s just say, I found myself wandering around my neighbourhood, completely aimlessly, at an unearthly hour in the morning. There was absolutely nothing that I wanted to do and nowhere that I was going. I was just… wandering.
That is when it dawned – like the day that was breaking around me – that it had been a long time since I had been myself. Myself, as I know it.
The last one-and-a-half years I have been a lot of things – let’s not get into that – but myself perhaps. It’s quite convenient to blame it all on the pace of life and living and all the accompanying hype but that would really be unfair, and untrue.
So when was it that I was last myself? England, I think. London. Pontoon Dock. I was told that I giggle a lot, wear too little and read too much. Giggle? Hm. Someone in Bombay said I am the most depressive person he has ever come across. Quite a shift, isn’t it?

So now I am reclaiming that giggling, reading, wandering bit of me.

On my way home from the gym this afternoon, I looked up at the chawl next door. Something I don’t usually do. The chawl – inhabited by more people than I can imagine I am sure – is dilapidated and sometimes I am genuinely concerned about its safety. What if the rotting wooden beams and banisters give way one monsoon and the structure comes crashing down?

Apart from being decrepit, it – at least its surroundings and parts of the balconies and corridors that I can see – is filthy. More reason not to look in that direction.
But this afternoon I saw something else.

A pink teddy bear – with a white satin bow around its chubby neck – was being put out to dry on the clothesline outside the first floor balcony. It was hanging by its ears – with two large clothes pegs attached to them. It was sopping wet of course.
A woman was making sure that it was firmly in place while, next to her, stood a girl. She was too small to look over the balcony banister and was peering through the rotting wooden beams, putting out a hand to touch the teddy, as if trying to reassure it that the ordeal would soon be over. Or was she reassuring herself?

Half-an-hour later, when I was rushing out to work, I looked up again. The girl was now accompanied by two boys, all of the same size. They were squatting in the balcony, huddled near to where the stuffed bear hung solemnly from the nylon rope. One of the boys put out his hand now to pat the toy on the head and it bobbed a bit.

It reminded me of when, as kids, one of us would fall ill and the others would come to visit. There would be hushed voices, soft footfalls, uncertain thoughts and the over-riding wish that the boy or girl would quickly get well so that we could all play again.

Twenty months after staying in Bombay, I realised what I miss most about staying at home – home, of course, always, is New Alipore.
When I had moved into my hole-in-the-wall house at Mahim (similar holes-in-walls around me are occupied by full-sized families) I had woken up to the smell of pork vindaloo one Sunday morning. As I woke up and lay in bed, miserable and cranky, I was surrounded by the most delicious aroma of something I had never tasted and yet I knew exactly what it was (courtesy, painfully detailed descriptions by I of course). And such aroma is not the first thing you want to resist when you have just woken up!
But resist I had to.
Now, 20 months later, I was walking towards the gate of my building when another such aroma threatened to waylay me. It smelt distinctly of maangshor jhol – the kind we would have on Sunday afternoons when everyone would be home and Ma would be in the kitchen since morning, only to emerge holood-smeared, exhausted, sweaty and triumphant.
Am sure it could not have been maangshor jhol that I had smelt now, simply because there are no Bengalis living there. But whatever it was, it made me realise what I had missed most in the seven years that I have lived away from home: The wafting smells from the kitchen.
I would follow my nose in there, pick out pieces – in various stages of being cooked – from the kodai full of bubbling and spitting curry, lift the covers of all the vessels to see if I had missed out on anything and often leave with a bowlful of whatever was being cooked, blowing on my fingers as the steaming food stung them.

Then, it had just been the food. Now, it seems that, food apart, the aromas from the kitchen meant that things were fine – it was like a hug that said: "Everything's alright".

My own kitchen, of course, gives off no such aroma.

There are people whom you would not want to meet ever again. Their very mention stirs unpleasant memories, sour conversations and things gone wrong. If you saw them walking down the road towards you, you would cross over to the other side as quickly as possible. You know the kind I mean, right?
And then you see their smiling face in a friend request on Facebook.
Um... so what does that mean? They wouldn't mind seeing you again, even if virtually? They don't have unpleasant memories? They have been the forgiving and forgetting saints while you have sported the devil's horns all along? Or they are plain curious to know how far you have got in life?
Beats me really.
There are some such smiling faces in my list of friend requests. Why don't I delete them? So that every time I see them, I know who not to have in my life.

I have concluded that pigeons inspired the word birdbrain. They are most definitely the stupidest of birds.

I had nagging doubts about this when, in Pune, The Cat killed pigeon after pigeon by sitting in the exact spot on the terrace every day. All The Cat did was sit – not even hidden but in plain view – next to the terrace wall. Didn’t the pigeons realize – even after almost a third of their population had ended up as breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for The Cat – that there was some danger lurking in that spot of the terrace? Apparently not.

Now, here in Bombay, my doubts have been confirmed. I put out a bowl of water outside the kitchen window for the birds – initially I thought only crows – to drink. The crows come along, take sharp quick glances at the water, drink and hop off. They have also learnt that my presence near the window is not a threat.

Pigeons, however, are a different story. They first eye the bowl from near-by trees. Then, after much deliberation, they noisily land on the grille. If I am around, the slightest movement on my part will send them keeling over – more noisy wing-flappings. If they find enough courage in the depths of their fat and feathers, then they proceed – one step a minute – towards the bowl. By then whatever I might have been cooking is proceeding fast towards getting char-grilled as have I frozen in motion.

For some unexplained reason, they find it necessary to climb – it’s not really a neat little hop but something far messier – onto the rim of the water-bowl to drink. If there is enough water to balance the bird’s weight, then, well, they get their drink in peace. If the bowl is half full, the bird does a little balancing to-and-fro on the rim, as the water splashes all around. If the bowl’s too empty it simply tips over, sending the pigeon keeling yet again, with further wing-flappings.

The water-bowl is also a fertile ground to hunt mates – well, at least trying to hunt mates. Just that while the male pigeon is busy strutting his stuff – chest thrust out and deep-throated gurglings coming forth – the female has had her drink and taken flight, leaving the oblivious male turning in circles.

And just when I thought I had seen enough of these dim-witted creatures, I found a fat pigeon sitting inside the water-bowl – it was a bit hot that day – cooling himself and refusing to get out to let the other birds drink.

The entertainment just doesn’t end.

Somewhere in my building lives a bathroom singer. A loud one.
No matter at what time of the day – am not there in the evenings really – that I go to the bathroom, I am more than likely to hear him exercising his vocal chords. The latest hits – or horrors – from the Hindi film industry are the usual favourites. A few months back it was Rock On! The singer had no clue about any of the words except ‘Socha haaay’, which he added with full throttle at the end of a string unintelligible nothings.
Sometimes, he is adventurous enough to take on an English number that results in unending mumbo-jumbos rising and falling on a roller-coaster pitch. Without any words to catch on it, or the most tenuous link with a familiar tune, I am left clueless as to what he is trying to sing.
Whatever he lacks in lyrics and tune, he makes up with volume and enthusiasm. What is also amazing, is the acoustics of the building (which I am sure was unintentional) that sends a voice travelling so far, so clear and so loud.
His hollering has ensured one thing: That I don’t hum a single note while in the loo!
Or maybe we should try a duet!

I read two accounts of relationships breaking up on Facebook. In one, a woman realized the man she thought she was seeing had claimed to be single on Facebook, in another a woman’s husband had a virtual affair and changed his relationship status (or some such thing). And in both the cases the women were lamenting how everything was out there, and spread like wild fire among friends and strangers (don’t know which is worse), and the consequences of such linen-washing on Facebook.

What exactly are the women crying hoarse about?

After putting their lives – and its definitely not just women here – on display, do they, by any chance, expect privacy? Don’t they vicariously go through the personal details of others and delight in them? So, it is but natural – isn’t it? – that others should delight in similar such details about them?

On a slightly different note – and yet still on the issue of Facebook – people seem to be living their lives more through their online profiles than in real life.

And now on a complete different note.

Read an Agatha Christie after ages – maybe even a decade. After a phase of pretty heavy-duty writing – complete with award-winning authors – reading an old-fashioned murder mystery was simply refreshing. It felt good. Like a lunch of dal-bhaat at home, after days of celebrated gourmet cuisine.

My early mornings (read: between 7.30 am and 8.30 am) are plagued by an unlikely terrorist: the woman who comes to collect garbage.

She arrives – I have heard through the thick mists of sleep – dragging a large bin-on-wheels out of the elevator. The residents of the first few apartments that fall on her way to the end of the corridor – where my door stands obstinately closed and latched from inside – dutifully put their garbage bins out so that she does not have to waste any time waiting for them. I, however, refuse to comply. And there are reasons why.

a) My garbage bin does not have a lid, making it a tempting playground for crows. Result: Garbage strewn in the corridor. Very embarrassing, specially when the neighbour is kind enough to clean it up, knowing well enough that I am asleep.

b) I have tried improvised covers for the said bin. This proved to be a good deterrent for the crows alright, but the woman threw it away with the garbage.

c) I could get a new bin – with a cover – but I would not know what to do with the old one.

Hence my bin remains lidless. Consequently, I don’t put it out before going to bed.

Now back to the woman. She is the best alarm clock one could ask for. There is sharp clack! on the door with the latch, followed by a high-pitched voice demanding “Kachraa!” that never fails to stun the sleep out of me. This is often accompanied by equally high-pitched shrieks of “Baahar nikal ke rakkho… itna time nahi hai.”

What happens in the next few seconds needs to be recalled in slow motion – it is usually too fast for my groggy brain to register. I jump out of bed, run to the kitchen, grab the garbage bin by it’s rim, run back to the door, open it, look out – hoping that she has not decided I was taking up too much of her time and left – and hand it over. She will stomp over to her bin-on-wheels stationed near the elevator, empty my bin into it, stomp back and thump down the bin by my feet while I try to look a little less sleep-deprived and glance unseeingly over the newspapers. I think I have even caught her disapproving glances – how could I still be sleeping when the all the world is up and about etc etc.

I put the bin in the kitchen, fall back into bed and go to sleep as my heart stops racing.

I have not seen Slumdog Millionaire as yet. But right now, what I find intriguing in the reaction it has generated – and I don’t mean the awards here – and the reaction to that reaction.

The first reaction I read to the film was a letter in a tabloid. It said that Hollywood directors should be banned from filming movies in India that show the country in poor light (read: poverty, squalor, slums, horrifying living conditions and the likes). I laughed off the letter, thinking its writer to be blinkered.

Now, the same sentiment has been echoed by the Big B and that, in turn, has invited a scathing response from The Guardian.

Sometime back, a friend was gifted Heat and Dust (by Ruth Prawer) and she said that she could not go through more than the first few pages because she did not like to read about the filth and squalor in India, specially written by a non-Indian. I quite liked the book. Who wrote it made no difference. If India has filth and squalor, we are hypocritical to pretend it is otherwise.

So, it seems that I can quite well look reality in the eye without squirming.

Well, then. In 2005, on a trip to Singapore, I had two women for company. And most of the time that we were out with our Singaporean tour guide – marveling at our sanitized surroundings – the women copiously bitched about how filthy India is. I was nettled no end but held my peace. I could not bear the idea of bitching about my country to a foreigner, no matter how true it was.

I had argued – to someone else later – that there is a difference between complaining about family members to someone else in the family and bitching about them to strangers. The first is acceptable, the latter not.

So, where do I stand now?

Decades before Danny Boyle made Slumdog, there was Pather Panchali – portraying abject poverty in rural India. It was instrumental in getting Satyajit Ray his Oscar. We didn’t complain about that. Mira Nair got the Bafta and was nominated for an Oscar for Salaam Bombay – showing the lives of Bombay street children (and we know exactly how rosy that can be) – and we didn’t complain about that either. The number of National Awards given for ‘realistic portrayal’ of India (riots, death, the caste system adding to the poverty and filth) are endless.

So what is the problem with Slumdog? Is it because it shows the world what we’d rather hide and ignore? Or is it because it’s a non-Indian who’s doing it?