Elizabeth Gilbert, and now Julia Roberts, ‘Eat Pray and Love’

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Sheer indulgence, this.

 Imagine travelling to three countries on the other side of the world, within the space of twelve months, and living on a thematic basis for four months at a time, the primary themes being gluttony, meditation and sheer adolescent romance. Imagine meeting people of all sorts in all sorts of situations, living in beautiful edenic garden full of orchids in the middle of Bali and steeping oneself in culture and heritage, totally getting under the skin of a place. and the people who make that place. And now imagine being paid (n i mean being sponsored from day 1 of said journey to the time one manages to settle back into everyday life back in dear ol’ Manhattan) to write a book about all the ‘adventures’ one might have on this stupendous trip of a lifetime!

Hell, you n i might not even ever be blessed with such good fortune. But the author of above mentioned book sure was. (And that’s a tautology). Liz Gilbert’s romantic fiction bestseller  sure shows that she was fortunate to have had the chance to account for all the wonderful things that populated her life for an entire year, and she knows it. Which might be why she spends quite a large part of her time being thankful. By doing the ’smile meditation’, putting it through in her little diary, by helping her poor Indonesian woman buy a house, by hunting down restaurants that serve the best pizza in the world, and chomping her way through all she could eat, and finally, by falling in love with a ’good’ man.

Of course, it all came at a price. She actually troops out in search of herself, her spirituality and some much needed happiness after a horrible divorce and more heart break while on the rebound.

Gilbert’s expression is as precious and endearing as the many people she meets and the many experiences she cherishes. Witticisms, insights and emotions tumble out in an unceasing outpour -she opens her heart out for you, and as you accompany her through sunshine and high tide, you’d feel like she was your closest buddy or even family. She builds her narrative around complete honesty, a fine sense of what goes into the makings of the world like we all know it, a highly liberal frame of mind and flexibility of the heart, a readiness to embrace it all, for she’s got love enough for the world. (mosquitoes, again, not included).

This journey is pivotal to her life in more ways than one. (And here I will display all my English Hons credibility.) It’s a lot things rolled into one trip of a lifetime. It’s a pilgrimage at one level, an eat-all-you-want parade, a nomadic irresolution of one’s destination in life and a transcendence of all sorts of boundaries which any society or upbringing maps into psyches. (Hah! i told ya!) And the fact that she goes beyond physical continental lines to attain her spirituality only becomes symbolic of the three different ‘I’s that she reveals to herself.

In all, terribly delightful. She makes you laugh and cry with her. Breathe the air around the world and feel the spirit of different civilisations. She finds her answers in the end, and she finds the handsome, rich, fabulous South American man for cherry on her cake, that she finally, finally has, and eats too. It’s a whole different science-fictional level of transformation - the tired but persevering snail (who carries her house on her back) turns into the New Age Buddha. Talk about transcendentalism!

Hope the forthcoming movie, and Julia Roberts, make the magic come alive on screen.

Brigade-ier than thou

It’s been exactly two months since i landed in Bangalore. (Or Bengaluru, if we are being nomenclaturally correct.) It has also been exactly two and a half years since i first set foot, and my eyes, on Brigade Road – that supremely popular, commercial, heavy on traffic and human population, little street between MG Road and Residency Road. Brigade Road is actually much bigger than just a little street, but my awe relates to this tiny section alone.

And why should that be, you may well ask. Unless you count the transcendental, breathtaking moment i had when i did see it for the first time, there really is nothing markedly epiphanous about it. And no, the beer and rum came only much later. But there was something about it, a certain aura that it possessed and exuded at 9 pm on a monday evening, that made it eye-catching and, well, breathtaking.

It is actually just another commercial street – and more Chandni Chowk than Orchid Street at that. But there are showrooms of Gas, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas and the like, on both sides of the street. And squeezed between the big, high-end showrooms, are the tiny shops selling everything from hand bags to booze. what makes it shine is the lighting. the place glows after sundown. literally and figuratively. it is the glow that any commercially and materialistically rich, and aspiring for more, place (or person) has.

And a place is also made by the people that frequent it. If Khan Market in Delhi is hip and happening mostly because of the South Delhi crowd that makes it so, then Brigade Road is fashionable because of the smartly dressed, well-turned out (i sound like i am 60!), gorgeous looking, polished epitomes of what we call ‘beauty’. yes, beauty does lie in the eye of the beholder, but really, in today’s world of moh n maya, there don’t remain many who can escape shiny distracting objects.

So, in addition to sheen and shiny eye candy, what this place also offers is laidback-ness. Two Cafe Coffee Day’s spill out onto the pavements, in what seems to be some form of aspiration to be Italian. Then there are the fine dining places, the fast food places, the booze places (Peco’s baby! yeah!), the dance places, the sutta places and the lets-just-stand-around-n-look-at-the-’chinkies’ places.

hooboy! what a smooth blend of culture, retail therapy and joblessness. No, you can’t blame me for having my breath taken away. It is beauteous, this place, oh yes it is.  

brigade road, after sundown.

‘beg’ your pardon, world.

here’s a dilemma.

What do you do when you walk down a pavement with an iced eskimo in your hand, and see a woman sitting there, emaciated beyond belief, with her newborn child in her arms, her clothes in rags, her hair a congealed mess framing her dirt streaked face, asking you to help her out by giving her some money? or in other words, begging?

What do you do when you want to be a law abiding citizen but also thoroughly believe that you really need to help out underprivileged beings, and specially such women?

I saw her when i walked past her this afternoon, but the sight didn’t even really hit me until a moment later, when i had already gone 5 steps ahead. Not until i turned around to see my friend preetha asking for tenners, did i notice her baby lying on newspaper in front of her. She looked at us and smiled, pointed to her baby, which i guess is what made preetha give her 10 rupees. The sight of the poor little naked thing, when i did notice him, was disturbing.

But the disturbance lasted precisely 10 minutes. And there would not even have been any ripple in the conscience if the woman hadn’t called out – “ma!”

So who’s at fault here? The woman, for being at odds with her fate? The baby, for coming into a world that isn’t prepared to give it an easy life? Me, for obeying the law, for not listening to the short lived soul-stir? Preetha, for letting her heart rule, and not ‘discouraging the practice of begging’? the government, for not attempting to actually do something more about this situation, which is a terriblee mess of over-population, extreme poverty, lack of opportunities, unless you count the ones thato pen up for people who wish to exploit them? or do we blame it on dear God, who just doesn’t seem to work his magic and wipe out the troubles of the world?!

there have to be loopholes, and big glaring black holes, in this dilemma. it will take a little more dedication to actually see it, even though it might be socking us between the eyes.

what we need is more of a heart, which not only cries, but bleeds when it witnesses the suffering of others. that might drive us selfish souls into pro-action. and there do exist such hearts. like the one that my friend riddhi sharma posseses. she, at least, felt enough to do her bit for a handful of scruffy children in our college, belonging to the contracted labour employed in building construction. if nothing else, basic education, literacy, gives them a better shot at at moving up in life than their parents might have had.

what we need, is more souls like her. or better yet, an institution that attempts to bring such souls together. What we need is to DO something. And take that ‘all heart’ level, one step further.

another gender bender…

Here’s an example of how we completely absorb the mentality that fevers around in society, even when no one has explicitly taught us things. Here’s also an example of what blindness men and women live in, and how easily hypocrisy comes to man. and woman.

IH:i hope u’v seen boratG: yupi bought the damn fake in burma bazaar in chennaiIH: hahahaG: oh what a laughIH: i wnt to see ur face wen tht scene comes in which the both of thm are fightin nakedG: oh its alrighti didn’t scream- “my eyes! MY EYES!”if thats what you mean IH: haha…i know my girlfriend wud have faintd on th spotG: i went to a second hand bookstore todayits a real famous one in bangaloreand i found erotic literature!for the first time in my lifeIH: whaaau’v nevr seen it beforeG: my friend and i were quite ecstaticnopenot in real life at leasti know rachel read it in friends i’ve seen it onlinebut not actual booksas in pages and print and all!! IH: achhau’v nevr seen lettrs to penthouseG: nopeheard sooo much about them but never seen emIH: its the most famous in erotic litG: yupi know thatIH: i have a copy bak in my hostelG: unless you count D H Lawrence i haven’t read any everof letters to penthouse?my myyou naughty lil boy!IH: yeah n i got it frm a girla batchmateG: well welli see your education is quite forward! IH: and this ws th same girl hu ws rumored to hv givn a ******* to her boyfredn wen th lights went outG: omigodok its all goodIH: and dnt draw a wrong impression of hershe’s a very sweet n nice girlG: no who am i to judge?IH: who hs a darker side i guessG: good for herand who says the two can’t coexist?and honestly, if she is sexually awakened, why is it called her darker side?IH: hmm…i see an eg in front of meG : nobody calls horny men dark!thATS NOT FAIR…IH: all men are hornyits a factG: exactlyIH: thr born tht wayG: and have you seen anybody calling all men the dark human beings, or animals for that matter?!no, thats no excuseIH: its a fact i have to smtimes hide frm my girlfriend to kp peace btwn usyeah yeah u winno darker sidewe’re all jediG: hah hagood…now you’re in line

i’d rather we were all jedi than being differentiated along the lines of something so basic to being alive. it’s just silly!

Another immortality

My grandfather breathed his last today. Before the day had even dawned in my subconscious, he was gone.

Sri Bhagwan Gupta was born on the other side of the India-Pakistan border, almost a century ago. He was the youngest in a family of twelve siblings. He grew up to become a farmer, learning to till the lands like his father. He must not have been more than 16 years old when he, with his family, had to flee from his village and relocate, restart life from scratch in some obscure village in Haryana.

Here too, they began with agriculture, but he wanted more. He was an ambitious young man, which eventually led to his own ‘padchoon ki dukaan ‘, his own wholesale grocery store. He resettled in Rishikesh- that holy town with the ram and lakshman jhula, which today is more famous for river rafting opportunities than anything else. He bore seven children, my father the youngest of them all. He also supported his brothers, who could never even aspire to be as successful as he became.

He was popular around town – smart, confident,god-fearing, benevolent, with the glint of the knowledgeable in his eye. He went about his business with sharp focus. He made donations and organised ram and bhagwad geetha kathas on Ganga’s ghats. He threw two of his sons out of the house when they didn’t show any inclination towards becoming financially independent. And welcomed them back when they proved their mettle. He made sure his daughters went to school, and were at least decently educated. He, along with his younger brother, opened a school and college for girls in Rishikesh.

He was the typical Indian patriarch , running his life, and that of those who populated his world, with an iron fist.

He talked in Haryanvi, read Urdu and even tried to teach me to do so. He used to say that it was the most beautiful language in the world. (but isn’t the language that we call our mother tongue the most beautiful always?) He used to take a dip in the river at 5am, every day, paying no heed to the season. He ate well, didn’t smoke or drink, was tremendously active (we would see him walking briskly, with his cane in his right hand as only an accessory, in and out of the house at least 10 times a day). He scolded us slothful city kids to get some blood rushing. Of course he was right, even though we resented being told so.

He would always be happy to see that his kids were doing well, and always took active interest in what we all were doing. And anything that pleased him was followed by “jeetey raho, jeetay raho “.
And those oft repeated words always made us feel happy, simply because you could feel how heartfelt it really was! (at the risk of sounding terribly cliched).

He was never the doting granddaddy, who would shower us with gifts or cuddles. He was the father figure, who we were all supposed to respect, and be a bit afraid of. But he inspired respect in every single person around him.

He lives forever in my mind as the sturdy old man, even at 70, who would sit in my tiny balcony on winter mornings, basking in the Delhi sun, lost in thoughts of divinity, with the makeshift temple in front of him. And there’d be the contented smile playing on his lips, and the bhajans that he’d whisper spilling out in a hurry, before he completely lost himself in his own pure world…

Violence in Venus

just another day at work. sitting in front of a computer. like everyday. where is the variation?

so i just came across this episode of modern day enslavement. one Mrs. Sabhnani, resident of New York, has been treating two Indonesian women in a “less than human manner” for the past 10 years or so, implying violence, malnutrition, underpayment. sleeping on mats in the kitchen. being fed their own vomit in some form of vague punishment. having to scavenge for food from garbage bins in order to stay alive. completely at the mercy of the millionaire’s wife who seems to have been sprinting on some kind of power trip.

and the prosecution made some powerful, sentimental statements like “This did not happen in the 1800s, this happened in the 21st century. This happened in Muttontown, N.Y.”

what is it in human nature that seeks to dominate over other humans, gain supremacy and exploit the other? the wickedness of a soul that surfeits upon the sweet taste of power? why is it so hard to uphold and practice the ideals of ‘equality, brotherhood and fraternity’, which we so fondly idealise about? are such things only to remain in theory, and in our imagined versions of reality, as some sort of consolatory feel-good idea, to make us feel like ‘good people’?

there it was, in our distant gleam of a childhood-children learn to bother and torture lesser beings- dogs, worms, insects, classmates. then come the power games that people play, the politics of being, of existing as a ’social animal’. and then there are the wars, the hitlers, the concentration camps, the religious dismissal, the everlasting..need..to underline the differences, the shortcomings of others and play upon them, in order to get ahead in this race to Madville.

Mrs. Sabhnani’s treatment of her domestic help needs to be highlighted for the extent of its horror, which becomes tenfold, simply because this happened now, and not two centuries ago. she must be a freak of a woman, utterly blind and deaf, and dumb (read stupid), to do this in an age when women are screaming suffrage and when America is about to encounter its first black president. there is nothing that excuses violence against fellow living beings.

(unless they’re mosquitoes!)

but then again, what about the wars? thats a whole different story.

and coming back to my ennui. it ebbs and flows like the Amazon. or Cauvery, if you will. violent women disgust me. and that makes it low tide.

*flutter*