An attempt at fiction.

Rakesh Tripathi looks like a man at peace. Its 7 am, a couple of days before Diwali. I am having tea with the kirana store owner, on the porch of his house, next to his shop. He is dressed in neatly ironed trousers and a cotton shirt, with the crisp crease line a testimony of the effort put into dressing. Rakesh is a resident of the village Ramnagar, about 20 kms away from Kanpur city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. His kirana store is an extension of his ancestral house which his family shares with his parents, two brothers, and their families. It is at a position of advantage since it is located in the heart of the densely populated small village, colloquially known as "Chandani Chowk of the village". 

Rakesh is 34 years old. He is “12^th standard pass” from the nearing government college. He tried to study further, two years of BA, but could not clear the exams, since in his own words, “studies never interested me”. Right next to him you see a copy of “Amar Ujala”, a Hindi daily, which he, and friends and customers who visit the shop will read through the day. I ask him what he reads in the newspaper. His response, “political news followed by cricket”. When asked why he finds those interesting, Rakesh’s thinks a while and says because local politics affects him daily. The area gets its share of power, roads, subsidies and even laptops for college kids based of the party in power.

I asked Rakesh if he has ever lived outside the village. Once when he was a younger man, a relative called him to Delhi for a job at a shoe factory. As a youth, Delhi sounded like heaven and he needed to earn and save money for his younger sister’s wedding. On asking why he left, Rakesh said he hated the city. Living in a cramped room with two others, eating badly, and being away from family; Rakesh calls it life of an animal. “Poverty in the village is an inconvenience but poverty in the city degrades the soul. Here, an elder is always an elder, the poorest of your neighbors would be treated with the same respect; but in the city, nobody would offer you a glass of water if you were poor” he says.

Besides, the area is rife with opportunities because of its proximity to Kanpur, he tells me, and gives me the example of Kanchan, his wife, also an earning member of the family. Recently, a large hospital opened up across the highway at a distance of approximately a km from the village. Kanchan works there as nurses’ helper, along with his younger brother’s wife and several other women from the village. They are paid Rs 2,500 a month. With the added income, Rakesh and Kanchan dream of sending their 8 year old son, Shubh, to an English- medium convent school next year. Shubh is very smart, he tells me. They will save money so that they can send him to an engineering college when he is older.

But isn’t he a Brahmin, I ask him, and doesn’t it bother his family that the women work in a hospital, an unclean place? “A Brahmin will always be a Brahmin”, he says, “The job cannot take away the fact that we are blessed with superior mental abilities. Jobs are a requirement of the modern life, and they are just fully utilizing the development work going on in the area. Till last year, there were no jobs available for women. Both the women take a bath with Ganga-jal added water (few drops of water from the holy river Ganga) before they enter the house”. He has a lot of faith in his caste. But what about the houses where the bathroom is located inside the house? He finds my question amusing. “Why would anybody build a bathroom in the middle of the house?” he asks me in turn. I do not have an answer to that.

So his family must now be well-off, with the shop, the salaried jobs and agriculture? Not well-off but they get by. His younger brother used to work in a factory in the city, but the factory shut down and now he is unemployed. He is a self-trained electrician and earns some money by doing local repairs. A printed, Hindi sign in the shop advertises the services. The family grows wheat, pulses, rice, oil seeds, cattle feed and potatoes. The family doesn’t own any cattle anymore, but cattle feed is easy to grow, doesn’t require much water, and sells for good money. Agriculture is not a profitable business. They own more land than most, but he says that you can only grow enough for the entire family to eat. He says his family is highly respected in the area and respect seems to mean more than money. I notice that Rakesh always talks about the “the area”, rather than just the village, and I ask him what he means. It turns out, the area comprises of several other surrounding villages, connected to his through marriages, shared resources (such as the Bore-wells used for irrigation, Schools, Govt Clinic etc) and countless generations of shared experiences and friendships.

On asking what he would like to change, he says everybody has their share of problems. He wants to set up a photocopy machine in his shop, since there is a demand for photocopy in the area by older students, and no other shop owns one. His younger brother’s job and elder brother’s health are also something that worries him, but finally, as long as everybody has God’s grace, everything will be fine.

By now, Rakesh has dusted the shop and lit incense in front of Lord Ram’s picture kept at the place of honor. The kids of the family have come in to say good-bye, and gone off to school, dressed in clean uniforms and carrying Mickey-Mouse water bottles. Chandani Chowk is buzzing, with people moving past each other on their bicycles and motorbikes, greeting each other with loud “Ram Ram”s. The village day has started. I thank Rakesh for the tea and walk back home, deep in thought about life lessons from a village “elder”.

Lunchtime Incident.

Getting out of the dining hall, I ran into two classmates sitting down for lunch. After the preliminaries, the girl, who knows me, asked, "You must be going to Bombay this weekend na?".
Apparently, a finance seminar is taking place in Bombay which several of my classmates are travelling for.
I said, "No, why?". 
She said, "Arre, the chance to meet your boyfriend for only 2K, what could be better?".
I laughed and said, "That's OK, I manage even without the event".
The conversation veered off and I left after a while.

I decided to grab a juice, the counter being behind a pillar close to where they were sitting. While waiting there, I overheard a part of their conversation.

The boy asked the girl, "She has a boyfriend in Bombay?". To this, the girl replied, "Yeah, old, happy, very loving sort of relationship. And have you seen her figure? Some people just get everything in life. Hmph!"

Someone once told me that the grass is always greener on the other side.

The Fairy-Tale Syndrome

Fairy-tales are ridiculous at all levels. Princesses trapped in castles, (guarded by all kinds of horrific monsters) daughters sold into marriage, women agreeing to give away their first-born to strangers, parents leaving kids in the woods, and what not. The Brothers Grimm were very grim people indeed. And don't even get me started on the standards of beauty and woman-hood they espoused. Given a choice, I would never introduce my children to the traditional fairy-tales. But I doubt that the media and entertainment industry would give me a choice. Will cross that bridge when I reach it.

But they do suggest simple solutions. Like Sleeping Beauty, pricked on the thumb, to sleep away as the years pass on by, only to be woken by her True Love's kiss. I wish I could sleep time away like that. To be woken up to guaranteed happiness or to not wake up at all.

If only life was so simple.

The Indian Railways Experience: "Designed" to be a Death Trap?

I am taking a train after almost a year. It is a cozy journey. The seats are also berths; the travelers are eating, talking, having political debates ; the vendors selling everything from water to vada-pav, and the general ho-hum of the AC-3-Tier coach running at full capacity. I marvel at the possibly unique phenomenon the Indian train journeys are. I am also, as often before, left with several questions.

Has anybody ever noticed the 2.5 feet wide doors that mark both the entrances to the passage of any air-conditioned coach? Of course you have, that's the door where your suitcases get stuck as you are desperately trying to embark/disembark with a long queue tut-tutting their disapproval right behind you. Why would you design a medium of mass transport with bottlenecks at each end? Did the designer have a serious bone to pick with people carrying massive pieces of luggage? Maybe somebody dropped a 5 by 5 by 5 trunk on his/her foot. Is that a worthy enough reason to make life tough for the rest of us mere mortals? Not only are those doors inconvenient, they are a potential, and often, very real death trap. A coach that carries 78 people on an average has a 2.5 feet exit at each end. After this, there is a small lobby, where you have to take a 90 degree turn to exit the coach fully through a (thankfully) regular sized exit. Even in regular situations, you don't have to perform a CFD analysis to determine that it takes an inordinately large time for all 78 people to pass through. Add to that the panic caused in an emergency, and the ineptness of the design becomes a life-or-death issue. I am not even sure about the reason for this design. It seems that the purpose of the small passageway exits is to make sure that the heat and draught don't get in. Would it be so much harder to achieve if the size of the door was doubled? What is even more worrying is that this design has persisted through my entire lifetime, and probably much longer before that. Accident after accidents, an enquiry being ordered after each, no modifications have been made to the design. 

It isn't as if changes are not made to rail coaches regularly. Just today, I was pleasantly surprised to find several changes in the design. The guard/support staff have their own mini-cabin at the end of the coach, the AC vents are positioned so as to be easily accessed and controlled by each passenger on the upper berth individually, the bathrooms show some structural modifications. Yet, this fundamental design flaw has been overlooked for decades, despite large scale rail accidents  taking place with alarming regularity.

I understand that our railways are our lifeline. The ability to fit 78 people in that small space and yet have place for each one to sleep is commendable. But at what cost? Would removing a berth on each end be too large a sacrifice to make for safety consideration? Are our lives that dispensable?

I am hopeful that the Indian Railways are on the verge on experiencing a massive overhaul. Thanks to the new, "visionary" prime-minister, China and Japan are both entering the Indian railway space in a major way. It doesn't make me particularly happy to see 100% FDI in Railways, but seeing the apathy of the current system, perhaps we can call this a necessary evil. Maybe the rest of the world takes safety somewhat more seriously than us. Let us hope the Chinese do a better job in designing the new system (even though "Made in China" does send a shudder down the spine) and the changes are eventually implemented throughout the network.    

The week (or so) That Was

I spent an hour this evening trying to find an example of a slashed Tudor garment on the web today. In the Consumer Behavior class, we had a discussion about what people are, what they aspire to be, and what they dissociate themselves with. The discussion came with a pretty interesting case study about Burberry (The British apparel brand) and the problem it faced with the brand suddenly becoming very popular with an unlikely customer base. The "Chavs" (Apparent British slang for a person who wears fashionable brands, flashy jewelry, etc., but is regarded as having bad or lower-class taste. Apparent because I never once heard it in all my time in Britain) somehow became fond of the trademark Burberry pattern and started to use the pattern everywhere, houses, cars, nails et all. Burberry started to lose its customers because why would anybody who could buy Burberry do so and be likened with the Chavs. Anyway, long story short, Burberry reinvented itself as an even higher class brand with the help of subtle designs, royal endorsements and a line that's even more expensive. Happy ending for Burberry!

 

During class, I remembered seeing a painting of one of the Queens once long back in art, and my art teacher telling me how the Queen's dress had slits so that her white underwear could shine through. Cheeky bastards these British royals I tell you! I told that to the professor today and she asked if I could send her an example of the same. So I spent an hour in the evening trying to find it. I realized, Google search is hard when you are as vague and scatter-brained as I am, but perseverance would still get you anywhere. As soon as I figured out what I was searching for, I found an abundance of results. I am attaching some examples with this post so that when I go through this sometime after 15 years, Googling isn't as hard. Of course, I cannot begin to comprehend the leaps and bounds technology would have taken by then. We live in a terrifyingly fast age.  And Google has the answer to everything! 

 

I have also been watching BBC's Ms Marple series again. Oh, how I love Agatha Christie. And the BBC rendition, though old, or perhaps because of it, is just so marvelously done. It's very rare for a TV series based on a book to be this good, but BBC would do that to you. Remember, BBC Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth? Sigh.

 

Combine all of this with a text from Natalie and I am transported back to England. The British countryside, the rainy, awful weather, the school, the kids, the vastness of open spaces, the lack of colour in life, Pett's Wood high street with the library, the art supply story, Maa's bakery, all the charity shops; the cleanliness, the uninterested people, the walking A LOT, Christmas and Easter, the sunset at 4 or 10 (depending on the month), the God awful cold, the Marks and Spencer's, my friends and their families, the being different, the wanting the fit in, the fitting in so well that I didn't feel different any more, the 208, Holly's bitchy group, my wonderful, misfit friends, the red phone boxes, the oh-so-many-woods all around, all the illness, the brown uniform, the never knowing what to wear, the stopping to care what to wear, walking home with Liana, the shopping once I had a job, the first, awful, hateful job, but earning, the cricket obsession! That list should have ended long back, but I can't seem to stop (and I am sure I have screwed up the commas). It's hard to believe over 10 years have gone by since I came back. Not because it feels just like yesterday, but because it feels like another lifetime.

 

I would like to live abroad for a few year with him. I know it won't be the same. I can never get as intimate with the local people of another country again. Childhood is such a good age. Now I am too old to experience without preconceived notions. Not to mention, I find it incredibly hard to fit in anywhere. Back then I was just thrown into circumstances with no option but to swim or sink, and eventually, swim I did. Now, I sit in my room, watch online TV, and wait for this year to end. It used to take me a year or so to fit in, another to really enjoy the new environment, and a little bit more to really fall in love. You would think that with age (or the wisdom that comes with it) and confidence would make the process somewhat quicker. Instead, I am old, and more rigid, and too cocky to go out and connect. Yet I am sure I would make a friend or two by the end of the year, and miss the "time at ISB" after I have left. Life, only beautiful in retrospect.

 

The last thought in the highly unstructured post is about being a bitch. I realized about a fortnight back what an absolute pain-in-the-ass BITCH I am to him at times. It isn't as if I hadn't realized this before. I did at times and then justified my actions in my head. But something strange happened, I confessed this to him and decided I will try my level best to not do it anymore. Now every time I feel irritated, I ask myself, "Is this fair to him?" and most of the times, the reply is a firm, disapproving NO. The other times, it isn't as firm but then I tell myself to Not-Be-A-Bitch. Has kept me unbelievably calm lately. When I am not able to talk to him or I miss him, instead of feeling angry, I end up feeling "my sweet, adorable baby". It shocks me, but it's a very happy shock. So along with Facebook, I seem to be doing very well on breaking the Being-A-Bitch habit. Too early to declare either of them eradicated, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can continue this forever.

 

Phew, that's a hell lot to writing that just happened! Now to kick CFIN's ass!

 

PS: My bike broke down in the middle of the road today. Had to go to a lot of trouble, and spend a lot of money to get it fixed. (Thank God, I have wonderful friends.) I love her, I really do, but she is so old and worn out. If I could, I would change half the parts in there and have her running smooth, but they never seem to detect half the problems when she is in the service centre, and she never seems to get fully better, whatever I may try. I just don't know how to keep her fit and running, but I cannot let her go.

Fever

I am gripped by a feverish desire to backpack. Alone. In India.

I have travelled alone before, for work, for exams, for just the day, for a week, in train, in bus, in a hurry. But I have never travelled alone for pleasure inside India. It is easy when you are abroad, nobody gives you a second glance. But a girl travelling alone in India, without a purpose, and with no destination at the end of the day. Doesn't seem possible, does it? To me either. Hence the feverish desire perhaps.

Rite of passage or foolhardy spirit? More on this later.

The Sunday driver

I couldn't think up a synonym for 'novice' starting with the letter M (more on the reason for that later), so I decided to google it. I chanced upon the "Sunday driver" and it struck a chord (though thankfully, not a lamp-post).

So the Sunday driver is Moi in this case. I am taking two marketing courses this term, and for those two hours of this dreary MBA life, I am happy again. I stop feeling dreadful and inadequate and out-of-depth, and just enjoy the lectures.

When I first studied marketing, I was infatuated. My mind seemed to work in the classroom and I never-ever felt sleepy. And all of this, even without coffee! The marketing course in the second term was somewhat less exciting, but the crush persisted nonetheless. I decided to take relationship advice from the only friend who I knew had also courted marketing at one point in his life. He asked me to take it slow. I did. The absence of any marketing courses in the next term helped, but I was thoroughly miserable.

Now marketing is back in my life, and I am (almost) sure this is love. Can this become a relationship? Can marketing be The One for me? I do not know yet. But I am determined to find out. The path is still unchartered, the feelings yet to be analyzed in depth, but I will give it a go.

I know I will be up against the marketing mavens (hence the search for a synonym for novice starting with an M, to describe Moi), and India being the toughest arena in the world right now, getting a job will not be an easy task. I am a Sunday driver competing in a race with the regulars. The ones who honk if you take more than two seconds to move when the traffic signal turns green. The ones who know all tricks in the book to side-step and overtake you. So I have to find a road I am familiar with. I have to figure out that out of all the roads I have walked on, which one provides me with an advantage in the race. Reminds me of the 'Dastardly and Muttley Show'.

The race starts in 3-2-1!

Aaj jane ki zidd na karo

He is leaving for his study exchange right about now. Only three weeks, but the thought of him on the other side of the world brings back so many memories. Not the best ones of my life, but not by any means the worst. Having been separated by 4.5 hours of time difference was a blessing to our relationship. Falling in love, day by day, sitting by the living room window, watching rain drops fall from leaf to leaf till they reach their destination, telling him that I wish he was there with me.

Transformation, they preach at my school. Try love I say.

On related note, marketing wisdom says that you need to have conviction in your product yourself to be able to get it valued by others. Is that why friends think our relationship is 'perfection'? Because, well, it is. Like hot Sunday morning coffee, served with a side of winter sunshine. Perfection.

As the Hilti marketing guy would say, "Acid test- explain this to a three year old!".

Goodbye dear friend

When an author passes away, why does it feel like I have lost a member of my family? I vividly remember that cold afternoon in January 2010, when I got to hear about Eric Segal's demise. Two days before an elderly relative had died, and apart from short-lived nostalgia, I hadn't felt a speck of sadness, let alone loss. The news of Eric Segal passing away felt like I had lost a soulmate, a friend, a member of my innermost family circle with whom I had spent countless hours discussing those people we both knew, the first crush, the elderly aunt with never-ending stories, the friend who had betrayed me. With Mr Segal, I had shed many a tears, of happiness, pain, longing and separation, laughed many a smiles, buoyed up by the secret only we both knew and shared many a tragedies. I knew his soul, because he had the courage to share it with me. I knew what moved him, and his emotions moved me too. Mr Eric Segal, I do not know if anybody ever told you when they had the chance, but you were a confidante, a friend, a beloved guide and soulmate to countless others like me.

Just like Pran Sharma, who was the best friend millions of kids had. Today I felt another pang of loss, upon hearing about the demise of my childhood hero, a man who gave me my childhood companions.

Rest in Peace Mr Sharma. You will always live on in the hearts of an entire generation.

Two drops of narcissism

Desperate to write but can never muster the courage.

I am starting to realize that I don't write because I usually have just one thought in my head, and am too scared/lazy to expand it.

So I will start taking it thought by thought, even if it makes me one of the "twitterati".

Stay put, for short, useless posts.

We shall overcome, some day-ae-ae-ae!

I have always wanted to write but never gone past a couple of paragraphs. I can read, I can speak, but I break out in sweat and start to drop things at the thought of writing. And it isn't as if I have never tried before. I have tried my hands at writing a blog (a grand total of two posts within a week, and done for the next decade), I have written the essays, debates and all similar stuff forced down my throat, I kept a diary for several years during the angst ridden teenage years (The entire content in those years can be summarized as "giggle-i-think-he-likes-me, frown-I-understand-life's-problems-now, tears-tears-tears-oh-life-is-so-tough, sigh-i-will-win-the-world-and-make-dad-proud" etc.). Once or twice, I have even tried my hands at articles (to feel adventure in my otherwise terror-wise life). That's about the extent of the actual action, but dear lord in heaven, I do not have a count of the number of times I have wanted to write! Every trip, every interesting experience, every turn in my life; I have wanted to chronicle it. When I passed out of college, I resolved to write about the brand new independence, the grown-up experience, wearing business suits, attending business meetings and (gasp!) being paid to do work. When I went on my first (only) business trip abroad, I resolved to pen down, once again, the brand new independence, the grown-up experience, wearing business suits, attending business meetings and (gasp!) being paid to do travel. When I fell in love, I decided to write about the journey (though I now realize that me not being able to write was fate's way of saving the hapless wanderer who accidently ventured onto my blog from agonizing boredom). I was hell bent on writing a travelogue about every incredible journey I have undertaken; the beauty of the Andaman; the sheer liveliness of NYC; the back-packing, hippie, tangled hair and tanned legs experience of Thailand; the sheep and goats of Rajasthan. And most recently, I decided to write a sarcastic, satirical account of the MBA universe and the wise, uber-human species that inhabits it (mainly because we have a birth right to mock, but also because some day, when I have lost myself in there, reading the old thing would help me get my bearings and navigate myself out of it). Every time I came across well-written, thought provoking blogs, I wanted to do the same. I even wanted to create a digital version of Tom Riddle's diary, because that would be pure cool. But of course, I did not write any of those.

Why can I not write? Why can I not put the thoughts in my head on paper? (Note to anybody reading this 50 years hence: A paper is something we wrote on in the primitive ages, forming symbols with sharp instruments on a thin, flat surface. In the context of 2014, the phrase is used metaphorically.) I recently came across the blog of a classmate (one of the wise, uber-humans) and the sheer expanse of poor grammar and everyday anecdotes stunned me. How are people able to put mundane, unbearably self-centered, uninteresting events (in bad English!) in words for the universe to read? Does my life lack mundane, unbearably self-centered, uninteresting events? Can I not butcher English if I wanted to? Do I have better things to do with my time than to leave my legacy on the internet for the world to ignore (until I poke and prod my friends on social networking sites to go read and appreciate the 'fresh blog post')? Despair overpowers me as I try to answer all these existential questions. As I sit here, while it rains heavily in the dark night outside ( talk about the perfect weather to crib!), and ponder over the problems, some reasons start to take shape. In no particular order, I cannot write because:

1) Laziness. (Read: "Laziness, period")

2) Being a prolific reader makes me more susceptible to cringing at poor writing than most others. Yes I know that is just an excuse. Haven't you understood the tone of this article so far?

3) I am not self-centered enough. Note to self: work towards being more self-centered and in the process, make life a living nightmare for the boyfriend.

4) I set my targets too high. If the aim is 'beauty in prose', no wonder all I end up doing is laughing at myself and moving on to easier things.

Since every MBA student is brain-washed into believing that making a list is half the solution to every problem on earth (the other half being post-it notes), I feel slight happiness after having made this list. In the absence of our beloved post-it notes, let me jot down solutions to my problem (in the form of a list, of course) and feel even better.

Solutions to not being able to write:

1) Write an entire 1000 word article cribbing about not being able to write. Get sympathetic audience (Read: the 2-3 people too nice to laugh in my face) to read and appreciate.

2) Resolve to write again, and even create a blog to help me stay motivated.

3) Screw grammar. Has it ever cared about me? Why then should I go around the world defending its honour as if it is my lover?

4) Decide to write all that comes to my head, in no particular order, defying every convention that makes good prose, and in general, focusing on my (internet) legacy, rather than my love for literature.

4) Feel good about the new measures taken to get my life on track. It is the very first step to writing that book about obscure mythology and enlightening the minds of millions.

5) Send article to the afore-mentioned nice people. Waste the remaining time watching re-runs of sitcoms instead of studying as I resolved 3 hours ago.

I will sleep well tonight.