The Same Dawn

Predawn sky.

Motley birds waking up building up a chorus of their own,

Few morning walkers on the road,

Few minutes left for us to grab the fresh air before the city wakes up.

The bleating of a herd of goats as they are eased down a carriage,

The eerie sound of the chopper grinding against the sharpener,

Few minutes left for the goats to breathe for the last time before the city wakes up.

The same dawn!

Balance Sheet 2020

As a year draws to a close, one is always tempted to look back at it with clinical detachment.

Towards the end of 2019 with 2020 on the horizon, I saw the approaching period perhaps as our time which has come. I have always been partial to a number composed of 0s and 2s – 2020 was simply perfect in its composition. 2020 with its rhyming and symmetrical look somehow assured me of a better time ahead.

2019 was a mixed bag of personal losses and successes. Many events in the first few months of the year reaffirmed my hunch that good times are indeed ahead – the bounce in my gait was visible. And towards the end of March what hit us like a tsunami was unprecedented in its global impact and unbelievable - now even after 9 months of being thrown under it. But the most amazing thing is that we have survived underwater.

That is a victory of human survival instinct and resilience. I must thank my clients and colleagues and friends who stood by us. 

If there were occurrences of unexpected deaths of close relatives rattling us at the core for a moment, the calm composure of their nearer ones in accepting the inevitable was inspiring; giving us the message that life has to go on and the story of life is made of such episodes.

All our masking, sanitizing, bunkering in our own silos, distancing from everyone to escape the dreaded virus came to naught when my whole family along with most of my colleagues were found positive in a gap of a few days – almost collapsing our organization structure.

The source of infection is still a mystery but our spirit and ability to fight together and win was the new discovery.

We could sail through the period with many friends who stood by us like a rock helping us with our treatment and supplying us things as basic as meals three times a day, forging a lifetime bond. That period also made us see the worst of some friends; their insensitivity and callousness helped us to finally take a call to pull the plug on them.

Removing toxic elements from life is like doing periodic maintenance of your car if you want it to last longer.

If there were voids created by the departure of few close ones, few like Lalatendu Jena, Biranchi Panda, and Manoj Behera breezed into my life giving it a completely new meaning and direction. The road ahead and the journey with them looks so promising and exciting.

Before I realized, they had occupied their space in my heart with their goodness and had almost become family.

If the year before we lost Mikey, which we are still trying to come to terms with and get over the grief; this year we had Simba, a Dachshund, and Kai, a Pitbull Terrier enter our family making our house look like a joyous menagerie. What is a torn sofa cover to our guests, seems like a hickey to us.

They still do not comprehend why a torn pair of socks and a gnawed pair of sleepers make us smile?

God has an amazing way of compensating our losses and to make us look forward and stay hopeful in life. Today, on the last day of the year I am in deep gratitude when I see my family unscathed, my business getting back on its feet, and for all the new friends and lovely pets who have entered our life and have come to stay with us.

God bless and wish you all a Happy New Year!

The Rotis which couldn’t be uploaded:

Train runs over 15 migrant laborers in Aurangabad!

The news started appearing early morning on 8^th May 2020. Nothing unusual about this in a country of 130 Cr, with thousands of unguarded level crossings, the train runs over trucks, buses, tractors loaded with people with frustrating regularity.

Finding people crawling under the level crossing barrier with the train barely meters away is a routine human behavior we have seen for ages and have accepted. Sixty onlookers of burning of a Ravan effigy event got trampled as they chose the track as their vantage point on this occasion.

I personally never had any sympathy for the people who fall victims in such situations.

That is India! Where the behavior of people would surprise any man with a minimum IQ. The land where each street provides a thousand opportunities for a photojournalist. The magnitude of the problems in this country is too big and the problems in your own life are not few. You are taught to be philosophical. You are conditioned to hearing such news and to flip back to your own life a few minutes later.

COVID has forced us into our homes – the only shelter to escape the invading virus and the overzealous state which is out to protect us. It has taught to only think of us, our family, our money, our business. It also has taught us to stay positive and to distract our minds from thinking too much about the impending danger and the complete uncertainty. We watched reruns of the old TV serials, learned to cook and clean, learned new skills, connected with associates across time zones over zoom calls. We broke generation gaps, gender, and technological stereotypes. We have rediscovered ourselves.

We are alive fighting our battles in our world.

The details of the accidents start trickling in through the day. A group of 20 migrant labor mostly in the age group of 20 to 35 working in a steel factory in Jalna near Aurangabad, were rendered jobless because of the sudden lockdown, they chose to return to their homes somewhere in Madhya Pradesh. With no public transport in place and with no permit to cross borders, they chose to walk on the railway track which would lead them home and let them evade police and the check posts. They walk overnight, fatigued, sleep on the track thinking that to be safe. A goods train runs over them, killing 16. Some three escape as they were bit farther from the track.

They died fighting their battle in their world.

The picture of the bloodstains, strewn Rotis, used clothes, worn-out sandals on the track gave us a peek into their lives, their hopes, and their aspirations and how small they all were. How small! Both of us are fighting. But how different are our battles! How different are our battlefields! How different are our issues and challenges! How different are our hopes and aspirations! How different are our worlds!

But it was supposed to be one world.

Next time when we bake a cake and the network breaks preventing us from uploading it to Instagram; let us remember that our cake was their roti which never got uploaded.

IrrFAN

Just a day before 29^th April 2020, if anyone had asked me who my top 10 favorite male actors are, he would not have found a mention - maybe his name would not even have crossed my mind. I was not his fan. And If I am writing this piece after a week of his death with a deep sense of loss still in my heart; he was just not another accomplished actor for me.

What was he then? What was he to all of us?

On that day, I was depressed, edgy and knew something was not quite right.

In the evening I was strolling with a friend and randomly stopped by at a food charity to donate some money to lend a helping hand, I felt a distinct lump in my throat.

Unusual. I was perplexed by my own reaction. A friend calls at night to tell how she has been handling the news of Irrfan Khan’s death since morning and how she could not hold it any longer and broke down in her bathroom. That lump in my throat was coming back. Another friend I spoke to the next day, couldn’t speak in as many words, but the fact that he was deeply disturbed was apparent. Now it was clear, it was Irrfan who was causing all these. I thought this news in the gloomy times of COVID is perhaps accentuating our reactions. Had never cried over the death of an actor – he was my age almost.

Posts in the social media were overflowing. But something was different, the posts were not in the usual line how obituaries are written. The reaction of the people who didn’t know him personally but through the roles, obituaries by the people he worked with, those who mentored him, those who gave him his first chance, those who he gave their first chances were all over the place. Those were not the words of adulation reserved for a highly talented, successful or accomplished persons, but the words we naturally use on losing our best friend, our pet – the one we knew too closely, the one with whom we shared a deep bond, the one we trusted, the one we could go to share our deepest fears, and talk about our failures.

How can the reaction towards the person he was and the persona he became on the screen be the same?

We all know how diametrically different both can be. Writers and artists are infamous for breaking our fantasy with their real selves. In the case of Irrfan, if only a thousand would be knowing him personally, millions knew him through his screen persona.

Sahabzade Irfan Ali Khan, was popularly known by his film name Irrfan Khan. Many liked him on the screen but did not carry him back to their homes nor pasted his poster on their walls. The connect ended there. He was chilled but not conventionally cool. Who would give attention to a person who has the unkempt look of a common man, deep bulging eyes of a drunk man, no heroic swagger, no style of his own, no great voice or didn’t deliver his dialogues in the best theatrical way? He was not perfect. He did not fight for what he thought was right or was his right – he let go of things which wanted to go their way. He was honest in expressing his wishes but moved on when denied. He did not break down on losing but accepted failure with a smile - the smile of a resilient determined warrior.

Now perhaps I know why so many of us feel we knew him. We in him were seeing ourselves living our lives, losing things, picking up the remnants and moving on to rebuild our ravaged cottages and still smiling and waving at a friend as if nothing has happened. Our heroics lie in our ability to stand up again and again after falling and after being betrayed by the world around us.

He was our hero, he was us!

Raindrop

26th Sept 2015

Tap! Tap! Tap! 

The raindrop taps my windscreen waking me up from my hazy thoughts.

“Remember me Blade Runner?” She says, reminding me of the time I had met her along with the cloud a few seasons back.

“How is the cloud?” she asks. 

“I don’t know well enough” surprised, I tell. 

Saddened but determined she withdraws but clings on to my windscreen but looking the other way.

Minutes pass, “I am sad and bitter,” I say; “I am sad too but not bitter” she replied. 

I describe my life in the last few seasons, how I have not been able to walk and run because I have lost my crutches. How my crutches have become old and frail. She expressed her surprise and told how much she enjoyed seeing me run around the meadows as if there was no tomorrow.

She tells her story. How she had her dreams of floating over mountains and seas and the dream of seeing new countries and pastures…enjoying the weightlessness. How the cloud was suddenly struck by a lightning and had to rain. And she had to drop from the height hurtling towards the ground.

And we both laughed. Laughed at our situations.

“Are you still sad?”, “Can’t we both be happy?” I asked.

“I am happy because I fell on your window screen and made you happy,” she said smiling and slipping down the glass towards the ground leaving a streak of grey and wetness. 

Chalo milke dafna detehain.

Chalo milke dafna detehain.

Let it be buried,

unknown, unsung like an unwanted child,

in the darkness of the night, 

before we change our mind.

With no entries made in the registry, 

and the keeper looking away,
we will be lucky if no one comes our way.

With the breaking of the rays, 

we can wear our smile without fear,

refuse to recognize that unmarked mound,

 which the keeper would have cared.

It would then just be a number, 

a date not to remember,

we would go about living our lives of exemplary perfection,

with the sound of tiny footsteps following us forever.

Sridevi wont die

Sunday, 25th February 2018, 5.30 AM, as I lazily checked my phone; a mention of Sridevi passing away flashes by. I, in my sleepy wakefulness, didn’t register much. A few days earlier Sylvester Stallone was given this treatment and I thought this to be of the same type. I checked site after site and by then it was all over the media and the news of her death was shirking from the headlines.

That, Sridevi the superstar of yesteryears passed away at the age of 54 of a massive heart attack while she was at Dubai to attend a function! The reality of it all sinks in. With all the medical advancement happening around us, any news of a physically fit person passing away at 54 takes time to accept. Being almost of the same age group, you are made conscious of your own vulnerability. Sadness, disbelief, nervousness because of our own vulnerability envelops you.

Laden with conflicting emotions in your heart, you are transported to the year 1982.

The first year in my college, the first few tastes of independence, a period of life when you are tempted to do things which were denied to you, the thrill of breaking the law was not only fashionable but the only way to grow up. Escaping for a movie was the best we could afford to do in those days. Heard from friends that a new girl has arrived and her movie Himmatwalla is about to release this Friday. Some had started collecting money for booking the tickets for the first day first show in bulk. Those days it took only 5 rupees to witness and immerse ourselves in the world of fantasy. The excitement was palpable on that day. Bunking of the class was smoothly executed and we found ourselves safely seated. We were left in the darkness of the hall to deal with our respective dark and lurid fantasies.

The moment of truth arrived and she happened. In the movie, she was introduced in a rather comical situation. Wearing a pair of hot pants and tightly fitting tee she was shown doing a hopping exercise. With each hop her assets would bounce and it kept on happening for good 3/4 reps and matching that were our hungry hearts leaping out of its cage 100 times faster. The scene changed and you could listen to every person in the hall blowing out a cold sigh. The Thunder thighs from the South had just landed with a bang on our filmy subconscious.

It was not limited just to that show in that hall, it happened everywhere. So powerful was the collective sigh all across the country that it heralded a new genre of movies heavily influenced, financed, produced and acted on the southern sensibilities and taste. Riding that tide many actresses made their way to the Bollywood. Himmatwalla was followed by movies like Tohfa, Justice Chaudhury and many such outrageous movies with equally outrageous actors, sets, costume, dialogue, lyrics, storyline, plot, situation, and comedy. Southern kitsch was mainstreamed. So powerful was the tide that major actors were seen wearing Rajkumar style wigs with heavy sideburns and mustaches. It continued for 6 more years till Amir Khan and Juhi Chawla happened with the movie Quayamat Se Quayamat Tak in 1986 - Bollywood was back being watchable.

I never liked Sridevi - the heartthrob of our times, as an actress or as an inspiring personality but can’t deny her impact on our evolving, bumbling sexuality at that stage of our lives especially at a time when assessing a female anatomy was even elusive visually, forget physically. She with her bouncing bosoms and thunder thighs triggered a passionate curiosity of national scale amongst the boys of my age at that time. Later she graduated into more meaningful cinema like Sadma and to me, her best was her role in the movie Gauri Shinde’s movie English Vinglish where she plays the role of a homemaker who sets out to discover the world. She last appeared in a home production called Mom. There were many movies with her on the floor. Don't know what will happen to those movies.

Now, at the age when our coming to terms with dysfunctionality is a necessity, the memories of our youthful awakening are still fresh. You won’t die Sridevi as long as the memories of our growing up don’t! Your name in the annals of cinematic history is permanent.