THIS & THAT

Courtesy: Clipart

As a published author, one of the most frequently flung questions I dodge (from people whom I’ve only just met) is, “How many copies have you sold?” Not...”what do you write about?” or even, “what is the title?” Honestly, I don’t know the answer. Perhaps I should write to the publisher asking for a statement – they oblige very promptly. But then, it is not a statistic I’m interested in. No, I don’t mean to be smug...lord knows I can use an income. But right now, I’m more interested in nurturing a loyal set of readers. That’s the statistic I’m more interested in – will I get repeat-readers for my second book?

Adite Banerjie, an author with Harlequin India, writes a superbly articulated and balanced post on the current trend of “author branding”. In the current scenario—and I’ll limit myself to Indian (English) publishing—it is not only enough if you have a branding strategy for your books, but you should also package yourself as brand.

The book marketing game in India is like a glitz n’ glamour Bollywood music launch—movie stars, politicians, journos, contests, freebees...all co-ordinated by MCs. The “pre-launch” buzz includes newspaper centre-spreads and huge posters of the book in the arrivals lounge of the airport.

As far as marketing my books go, I plan to stick to the regular channel – blog reviews and Goodreads presence. These are platforms where readers can critique and comment on your work without inhibitions. Sure I can stretch my limited finances to hire a professional PR. But that would only give an initial fizz, like uncorking a soda. In the end, all that matters is content. If it’s good, solid and honest, then it gets the best form of marketing – word-of-mouth. Yes, it’s tedious, it’s slow. It’s also permanent. To have a stranger talk about your work, nay, recommend and persuade another person to read your book – there can be no greater advertisement for an author.

But it is the branding of the author that I observe with fascination. How does one position oneself as a brand? This is almost in parallel with the image-building of a movie star. You can be the chocolate hero, the action hero, the romantic phenomenon, the thinking man’s hero – so many facades to choose from. In the author-world, we have relationship experts; the pied-pipers of Indian youth; the motivational gurus; the torchbearers for women...the list is endless. You only have to make sure that your image matches what you write. I cannot wrap my head around it actually...especially if one is writing fiction. Just because I write crime/paranormal, I don’t think I can brand myself as Agent Scully.

Right now, the publishing scene reminds me of Hindi cinema of the 70s-80s. They were all “formula-based” cinema, shot on the fly without a bound script. At a certain point, the “lost and found” formula made roaring success...thanks to movies like Yadon ki baraat. Then came loud, gaudy college love stories. Then came the revenge formula – if the hero had a sister, you’d know at some point she’ll get raped and the hero will take revenge in the second half. In the book world, that’s what we are seeing now. A clique of authors connected spectacularly with their readers. It has to be borne in mind that these books have an original voice (the nuances of the language are a separate debate altogether)...and it is little surprise that these books found success in a market starved of genre fiction. But this cannot be seen as a “success” formula...sure you can ride the crest of this wave...but you run the risk of not cementing a lasting relationship with the readers. You will always be the script that is “similar” to yadon ki baraat.

I suppose it all comes down to why one writes. There are no right or wrong reasons...no reason is loftier than the other. But this reason will define your brand. If you are riding a crest, then you need to create a brand for yourself. You have to prise away readers, seduce them, cajole them, convince them that you have something better to say than the next writer.

But if your writing stems from an undefined primal need...trust me, you will never get on to that wave, even if you want to. Indeed, you will constantly be thrown ashore by that wave. You have to make a start over and over again. The only thing that keeps you afloat is your distinct voice. A voice that is only faintly heard by a few in that tidal roar. Those few will faithfully follow your work for the rest of your life. If you define success in those terms, then, your work becomes your brand. When this happens, nothing else matters; you BECOME the wave.

Remember, some of the world’s greatest literature came from authors whose lives were remarkably different from their fictitious worlds. Look at the century’s best love stories—Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Villette—these came from women whose lives were ravaged by disease, depression, loneliness and bereavement. Not that the greatest literature will flow out of my pen, but when I look at the Brontes, or even some of the contemporary greats...they give me courage and strength...they are certainly my North Star. They remind me that an author cannot be bigger than his/her manuscript.

Indeed the only honest brand I can project is kind of represented by The Son of Man painting by Rene Magritte (it was featured in Thomas Crown Affair). I’m the average, obscure, everyday woman on the street—the one you barely notice; the invisible one. There’s nothing remarkable about my life—no trophies of achievements, no great knowledge to impart, not even a pleasant countenance. As of now, I revel in this obscurity: it offers a wonderful freedom. My readers and I can remain blissfully detached even as they form their love-hate relationship with my words, without being influenced by my personal lifestyle, thoughts, opinions...or well, by the colour of my placemats.

But I admit...there are sleepless nights. After all, the poet Walter Savage Landor said, “As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.” Eeeks!

At last! I finally, finally got to see an eclipse! I am euphoric! What. A. Spectacle. My neck hurts from staring up at the sky for hours and I’ve barely slept, but it’s a vision that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Or at least till my brain holds up.

I’ve always been unlucky when it came to watching an eclipse. The weather is most often the spoil sport. Or I’d be plonked in a place where we simply can’t view it. Everyone talks about the total solar eclipse of the 80s. India fell right in the path, and people remember the day going dark for a few minutes. I don’t remember any of it. Mostly because all our homes were blacked out by thick blankets and curtains...and we were all cooped inside.

The second total solar eclipse that I remember was marred by cloud cover. I was in college I think, and there was a direct relay of the eclipse on Doordarshan. We missed to see the diamond ring because the camera man panned to show the people gathered to watch the eclipse, and then they cut the shot to the studio.

Total solar eclipse conditions - March 2015.

My most recent experience of a total solar eclipse was here in the UK. I waited with bated breath – the eclipse was taking place in the morning, expected to peak at 8:30am or 9. But once again, the cloud cover was dense. Even so...I was absolutely thrilled as the sky darkened to near-twilight conditions. Pigeons flew in circles and roosted in their usual place. Geese that had set out in the morning returned. It was simply awesome!

So, given my lack of luck when it came to catching an eclipse, I was not very excited about yesterday’s total lunar eclipse. I was sure there’d be cloud cover, or, given the time of the eclipse, the moon would’ve ridden over the horizon and hidden behind the trees that line my apartment. All that stuff about the ‘Blood Moon’...I thought it was just a terminology. I was in for a surprise.

Yesterday’s full moon was also a supermoon – this is when the moon is at a point on its orbit that’s closest to the earth. So it looks bigger and brighter. I went to bed around midnight, but woke up an hour later just to take a chance. I was delighted to see a low-hanging moon, my home looking as if it’s lit up by a stadium floodlight. There was not a cloud in the sky. The green of the lush communal garden that’s visible from my home had taken on that strange silvery-gray tint in the moonlight. It reminded me of the scene in Dracula when Mina Harker goes searching for Lucy J

It was still half-past one. This was the only website that informed me accurately that the eclipse would start around 2:07am local time, peak at 3:47am and end a little after 5am. I stared at the moon for some time and dozed off. I woke up around 2:20am and looked out of my window. Yes! I could see the earth’s shadow had crept up – a quarter of the moon was covered. I was beside myself with excitement. I mean after all my previous bad luck, I was now able to see an eclipse sitting on my bed! But would I be able to see the full eclipse? I quickly calculated from my previous moon-gazing experience - the moon’s position was in the middle of my second window. It would take an hour for it to move to the third. By which time it would be high-up on the horizon. (Does that also give you an idea about my insomnia?) Going by the timings mentioned on the internet, I surmised I should be able to view the total eclipse. I’d only miss the release part – the moon would be setting behind the trees.

By the time 3/4^th of the moon was covered, it had moved to the third window. The earth’s shadow, superimposed on the bright moon, gave off an orangey tinge. The thin slice of exposed crescent was blinding. The moon now looked like a single eye, partially shut. The orangish colour did make it look a fleshy eyelid.

Even as I watched, the earth’s shadow closed in. The moon was now completely covered – a tawny blob hanging in the sky. It now looked like a diseased red eye, the craters forming a dilated pupil, staring down on a sleeping town. No wonder our ancestors freaked out. One minute you have a bright, beautiful moon...and then, suddenly it looks like a bloody disc. Is it any surprise that the Blood Moon inspires so many tales of vampires and werewolves?

You can see photos of the eclipse on this Guardian website.

The moon was out of my line-of-sight now. I wished, wished, wished I was in an open field. It would have been spectacular to view it from Stonehenge, for example. I caught the setting eclipse from the kitchen for a few minutes, and finally went to bed.

I did think of the times when we are eclipsed by someone else...usually the negativity propagators. It’s not that you allow them, but it just happens— they creep up on you, just like the earth’s shadow on the moon. You’d think you are so aligned with them, just like the moon and the earth before an eclipse. But they steal your radiance, your inner beauty, making you appear bloody and diseased. As this celestial spectacle demonstrates, the only way to claim your life back is it to move out of their shadow.

Remember, the brilliance after an eclipse is even more spectacular.

Courtesy: Clipart

I think dramebaazi is in our blood. These past couple of days, the posts on Facebook have been so, so amusing. Here we are...a race that won’t bat an eyelid to pay that extra money to jump a queue, be it in a temple or for a bus...and we are huffing and puffing about “net neutrality”. I bet many heard that terminology only when some doofus put up a survey question on Facebook. But what happened in the last couple of days had me laughing so much – that innocuous piece of “code” circled in red had everyone jumping around like monkeys on brandy. I tell you, it would not have made a fig of difference if it was like IAmAGorilla. Indians now had one more division – those who used a tri-colour filter on their FB profile photo and those who did not. Seriously, I have not laughed so much for a long time – I mean, I even read comments floating conspiracy theories that Mark Zuckerberg was seeking world domination...yeah, like a typical James Bond villain. Ironically, these “suspicious” comments were made by people who are logged on to Facebook all the time.

More than that, the demonisation of what essentially is a fantastic initiative belies my senses. I am talking about internet.org. Before I discuss internet.org, it is essential to understand what net neutrality means. There are many articles on the internet that explain the concept lucidly with many examples. For the purpose of this blog, here is my brief explanation.

Let’s say you are an Airtel subscriber, and your friend is a Vodafone subscriber. Now let’s say both Amazon and Flipkart have apps that allow you to browse their stores, do retail transactions etc from your device. Irrespective of whether you have Airtel or Vodafone services on your mobile, you and your friend should be able to access both Amazon and Flipkart apps. The apps may or may not be free, but, which app you choose to use...that is under YOUR control. This equal access is the key. That’s net neutrality. The service provider is content-neutral. He simply does his job of delivering the content. Like the Transporter.

What happens when net neutrality is not there? Let us assume Amazon got an idea. They go to Airtel and say, “Hey...we see your subscriber base has increased a lot this year. Why don’t we tie up? Here is $$$. Make sure our app reaches your entire subscriber base.” The result – let’s say you go to an Airtel office to activate/renew your subscription. The sales guy tells you, “Hey! Here is a new plan – it costs only five rupees more, but Amazon app is free.” We all like free things. We go for that. But what if you are a fan of Flipkart? Ah! The Airtel guy tells you, “We don’t support that app anymore. But if you want it, you have to go for a more expensive data plan.” Or something on those lines. In other words, Airtel is favouring Amazon. On the other hand, you find out that if you are on Vodafone, you can get Flipkart app for free. But you don’t like Vodafone. And that’s what happens when net neutrality is lost. The service providers like Airtel, Vodafone etc will now control the content that can be delivered to your device based on how much you can pay. That sucks...that model destroys the internet and what it stands for.

But how on earth did Facebook threaten net neutrality (according to the Moaners of Facebook moaning on Facebook)? Ah. It all started with Mark's audacious vision. We all know that internet has become an invaluable part of our lives. From searching for a recipe to figuring out the symptoms of depression, we are constantly logged on. In my life, the internet has been a large part of my education – both academic and otherwise. I am sure it is the same with millions of you who are connected. But there are many millions who don’t have access to the internet. So Mark thought, what if every single person on the earth is connected to the internet, and enjoys similar benefits as us privileged ones?

To understand Mark’s vision, (or indeed, to understand any social debate), I use my domestic help’s point of view as reference. This is because she represents the many grass-root millions. Gowramma is our help back home in India (indeed I seem to collect “Gowris” when it comes to help). Gowramma is uneducated from an academic perspective, but I’d say she is very much educated when it comes to life itself. She is fiercely independent, very aware of social causes and more than anything, she is also aware of her rights – as a woman, as a citizen. She has two children – both in their late teens. Her husband sells flowers. Gowramma works as a maid in a couple of houses all morning. She then goes home, sorts out the chores, and sits down for threading the flowers for selling in the market. Her only aim, like all parents, is to see her children well-educated and well-settled. Her biggest fear is that her daughter should not end up like her – scrubbing dishes and sweeping floors. Her son was studying a Bachelors degree in Business Management, while her daughter is studying for a B.A. I think her son dropped out of the course unfortunately, but is now employed. Her daughter is very studious, and Gowramma has dreams of seeing the girl in a good office job.

Gowramma stays in a tiny rented house. It is spic and span, tightly packed with hopes and dreams of what her children can become. I’ve been to her place a number of times – the first time to install my old desktop in their room, so her college-going children can use it. Internet is out of question – there is no telephone point to the house, as is the case for millions of such houses. But the kids knew about Microsoft Office, and wanted to “practice” it...especially MS Word. If not anything, they could start off as data-entry operators somewhere.

This year during my visit, I was browsing a second-hand books store when my eyes fell on a “banking” book. It was one of those practice books for banking officer’s exams. If you were a degree student, chances are you’d have taken this exam. It’s a common format exam that gets you into nationalised banks and insurance sectors in a clerical role. As a government job, it offers unbeatable security. I immediately thought of Gowramma’s daughter, Archana. Of course! She is in her final year of B.A. now. If she could prepare and attempt the exams, she has a real fighting chance to get a government job! As a graduate, she would also start in a better grade. I bought the text book for her. More than the text book, I wished she could get guidance. I searched for tutor-led classes which she could attend over the weekends. I discovered a whole bunch of question banks and free tutorials on the internet, and I wished she could access them. She was too shy to come over to our place and use our computer. If she needed access to the internet, she had to visit a cafe, which was not possible for her. She said she’d manage with the text book.

I think of internet.org in Archana's context. She is bright, intelligent and a fast learner. She just needs that access to right information at the right time – she will be lifted straight out of her current circumstances. She will not have to depend on someone telling her of job openings, or about new learning materials. Everything would be at her fingertips. Not only that, a stable job means she will be able to provide her family with a better life. That’s exactly what Mark has envisioned. As a non-profit, internet.org’s mandate was to bundle a ‘limited’ version of the internet for people like Archana for free. What does limited mean? Perhaps one won’t be able to download songs, buy things online, watch movies etc. But a basic bundle will be accessible – things that matter most to Archana – sites that help her in academics and learning, job searches, local weather (maybe more useful for her father to decide which flowers to buy in bulk), sites on health etc. That would also help her experience the power of the internet (for the right reasons).

But how can this internet bundle be delivered to houses where there is no telephone line? The obvious answer was mobile devices. Since Facebook is not an ISP, they had to partner with someone – in India, they partnered with Reliance. All RCom subscribers would get a free internet.org app on their mobile phones. The app included a number of websites pre-bundled – the first gateway to experience the internet for someone who cannot afford a full-fledged internet connection. If you want to know more, please read here.

So why was there such a hue and cry? Why did everyone feel so threatened as if the food on their plates was being snatched away? After all, no money was paid to Mark or any of his organisations for this initiative – it was a voluntary sign-up by all the participating websites. So in the real sense, there was no violation of net neutrality.

It would appear that the bone of contention was this - if Archana opened that internet.org app, she would see, amongst other websites, Facebook too. But no twitter or any other social media sites. That was monopoly, according to many. If Archana wanted to take a look at the jobs portal, her only option would be babajobs.com or timesjob. And so, many felt this was very unfair. Why is Archana not having access to twitter, or other similar social networking sites? In fact, why should Archana only search on Bing which comes pre-loaded, and not on Google? Why does Archana not have the option of searching for jobs on Monster? People forgot that bandwidth is not cheap; no carrier will be able to stream a “full-fledged” internet for free. Even so, they yelled, How dare Mark do this? How can he control what Archana can see on her mobile? It is another thing that without this initiative, Archana cannot even get on to the internet. That’s fine by the honourable, learned social media activists. Their debate is something like this...we honourable lot have devices costing more than what Gowramma’s family will ever earn annually; we can all log on to 4G or whatever superfast speed is available; we can all spend comfortably on the most outstanding data plans that will allow us to Skype with loved ones, play real-time video games with people sitting in Moscow and Shangai and LA, stream movies, read books; we can learn languages and guitar and painting on the internet...we can do so many cool things! But a poor girl like Archana? No. She can’t have even a teensy bit of it for free. Just to make her life a little easier. Oh no no. She should have it all or nothing. And that’s the logic on which the whole net neutrality debate has raged on.

When did we become such losers? When did we become so self-centred, so holier-than-thou that we must sit on our lofty pedestals and enjoy the benefits of modern technology – and pontificate when someone attempts to include the less-privileged into this fold?

Next time, before you share a link, please do ask yourself if you have truly understood the issue. Otherwise, you will be indulging in needless fear-mongering and stoking fire to ridiculous conspiracy theories. And for heaven's sake, stop participating in hashtag trends started by newspapers who also want you to look at "hot and wet celebs in towels".

Courtesy: Clipart

My psychology dissertation is done. If all goes well, I should have my second Masters early next year. That also explains my absence (in case you noticed :) ). I did poke my head out now and then but given the crap that was flying around, I receded like a tortoise.

We are all furious about Nirbhaya verdict with regard to the “minor” being let off. Emotions apart, this was an expected verdict. Firstly, the courts can give a judgement only within the framework of the penal codes. For example, a judge cannot say, according to this IPC, your punishment is too less...so I will give you my own punishment. If laws are inadequate and they need amendment, it has to be passed in the Parliament. And therein lies the problem.

Although Jyoti Singh’s case has been exceptional in its bestial nature, the stomach-churning truth is there are cases of comparable cruelty which never make it to the public and political discourse. The point is, sexual violence is always simmering in our society; it has been this way for ages. Yet, our elected representatives never felt the need or urgency to initiate amendments to update our laws – it was always seen as a non-priority. It would appear that every small milestone that is achieved towards w.r.t. fundamental human rights of women as citizens is preceded by a violent crime. Today if working women are protected against sexual harassment, they owe their thanks to Bhanwari Devi was brutally gang-raped for stopping a child-marriage. She knocked on Rajasthan High Court for justice, but the rapists were acquitted. This resulted in Vishaka – an umbrella of women’s groups – to file a PIL in the Supreme Court, demanding fundamental human rights of working women - the right to work with dignity and equality. This was not in the so-called distant 50s/60s/70s past. This was as recently as 1997. Yes. 50 years after Independence, we were still screaming to be treated with dignity. The story does not end there. The Supreme Court formulated the guidelines of defining sexual harassment of working women. This is known as the Vishaka Guidelines. But then, guidelines cannot become the law. For this, the Parliament must enact the law. A Bill has to be proposed, discussed and debated upon. When both the Houses of Parliament pass the bill, it goes to the President for approval. Once the President approves, the bill is deemed as an Act. What started as guidelines in 1997, finally became an Act in 2013. 16 years. That is the priority accorded to most basic human issues.

Likewise, in Jyoti’s case, it took hundreds of thousands to storm the streets for the GoI to sit up and take notice that sexual violence in public place is a perpetually escalating situation. This time, the government was dealing with a different generation – a very aware, a very vocal populace. We did not have to wait for 16 years. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act was finally passed in 2013 and was based on the recommendations made by Justice Verma. This act incorporated changes to Sections 370 and 375 pertaining to sexual harassment and rape, and also included to news sections to cover crimes such as acid attacks, stalking etc. Even so, the punishment for rape can range between 7 years and life imprisonment. I am not sure if there is any definition of “aggravating situations” pertaining to rape that can help the prosecution push for life sentence. In other words, this classification of rape based on perceived severity is itself defeating. There is a clause that says if the rape resulted in death or disabled the victim (“vegetative state”) then it is punishable by life imprisonment. But this also means, if you are “just raped”, then the perpetrator can get 7 years and a fine. 7 years is nothing; 7 years is a blink of an eye. Before you know it, the rapist is back on the street, more hardened, more embittered, more violent. So, unwittingly, they have introduced degrees of rape.

Also, in what I consider a severe blow to feminism, these laws have been framed keeping only women victims in mind. The ugly truth is boys, men and minority genders also face traumatising sexual violence. It may not be in the public sphere as with women, but within the confines of homes, schools and other institutions, the levels of such sexual violence could be more alarming than we perceive. Indeed men and other genders virtually have no protection from the law when it comes to rape.

Coming to the Juvenile law; we once again saw the myopic side of the whole debate. The government wanted to reduce the age to be deemed as juvenile from 18 to 16, so that in this particular case, the said “minor” rapist can be tried as an adult. Tomorrow what if a fifteen-year-old commits an “adult” crime? In reality, the issue is not about reducing the age of juvenile conviction from 18 to 16: the issue is how to handle juveniles who commit violent crimes that are usually considered “adult” crimes? Our laws are ancient and still have a Victorian slant on most social issues, including homosexuality, sexuality of women etc., which works well with our inherent patriarchal psyche. Our lazy-ass politicians have done little to thaw the law from its deep-freeze and actually make it work according to the dynamics of the modern society. So we are stuck with interpretations that assume it is not possible for a “minor” to commit a violent crime.

In the James Bulgar case in the UK, the offenders were two boys, just about ten years old. These boys perpetrated a crime of such depravity that it shook the entire system – just as the Nirbhaya case electrocuted us. The difference is, in the UK, the boys were tried as adults. Inputs were taken from forensic psychiatrists as to whether the boys knew right from wrong. Indeed, at 10, one would have developed a moral compass, and the entire case facts proved the crime had been premeditated. They boys were sentenced to custody for fifteen years and thereafter, released on monitored parole. However, one of them was back in prison: he was involved in child pornography. This, despite years of intense counselling, and despite being declared as "not a significant threat to society".

The point is, predicting recidivism especially in rapists is a tricky business. How likely is it for a rapist to reoffend? It depends on a number of factors, including family history, substance abuse etc. More importantly, if the individual has criminal proclivity wired in his brain, he will reoffend. In the Nirbhaya case, the young man should have been tried as an adult. He was well aware of his actions; he willfully participated in the crime. I don’t know what sort of counselling he underwent in the juvenile home – at this point in time, I find the notion laughable. He was six months shy of being called an “adult” at the time of the crime. He’d known the other rapists for only 24 hours. And yet, he aided, abetted and perpetrated the most depraved crime. If this does not indicate psychopathy, then I don’t know what does. No amount of counselling or therapy will work, and my bet is, he will reoffend in no time. It is a known fact that birth certificate and school marks-card record wrong birth dates in many cases. The JJB refused permission to the police to ascertain this man’s age through forensic methods. So, we will never know beyond doubt if this man was really a “child” as they refer to him (makes me vomit). The JJB gave him a three-year sentence, of which he had already served 8 months in custody. Indeed, we won’t know where he’ll relocate to. We don’t know his face, we’ve not heard his voice. We’ve offered him fresh victims on a platter.

It is true that laws cannot be applied in retrospect, but at least, we could have had a safeguard for the future. We’ve not seen the last of such crimes for sure.

Meanwhile we continue to live like xerophytes. Just as these plants have adapted themselves to live in hostile conditions like deserts and frigid landscapes, we too have adapted ourselves to live through the shit-fest we are subjected to every now and then.

One thing is for certain with this verdict - Jyothi Singh's blood is smeared on many more hands.

Courtesy: Cover of Chandamama January 1963 edition

You are never old enough to listen to stories from your parents...I mean "bedtime" type stories :) Why do we grow out of this habit? I think more and more people should spend time telling stories - there'll be less anger :) My long vacation in India was a throwback to idyllic summer holidays. Hot, still afternoons and a good story in your hand. This time, my dad, who is an avid collector of old editions of all sorts of books, chose to narrate stories from Chandamama. He would read out as I went went about pottering in the kitchen, and time would stop, at least for me. In many ways, this was therapeutic - there is so much rage and negativity flying around in all the newspapers these days; everybody seems to be baying for blood...and the TV channels...crass, third-rate programs and "news" ...what are we doing to ourselves?

Anyway, this particular story had me in splits...and I consumed more sajjappas from the nearby Venkateshwara Iyengar Bakery. It is from a 1963 edition of Chandamana!

The Hungry Ghost

By B.Baburao

Courtesy: Chandamana January 1963 edition

The King of Chitrapur was in deep sleep with his mouth wide open. A mischievous pishachi (ghost) that was floating by entered his mouth and took up comfortable residence inside the King. The next day, the King woke up feeling ravenously hungry. The royal cooks prepared the usual breakfast for him, but it did not satiate his strange hunger. The cooks were taken aback by the King’s behaviour, but scurried around to cook some more...and more. Finally, after having eaten breakfast fit for twenty people, the King seemed satisfied.

Now the cooks got ready for the usual lunch-time serving. The menu required four lambs, twelve chicken, one vegetable dish, ten ser (each ser is almost a kilo; 933.1 grams to be accurate) cooked rice. The King ate all of this by himself. Now it was clear, something was wrong with the King. The ministers and scholars of the court discussed this problem of the King’s hunger. They called in the royal doctors. But nothing was found wrong with him – even in appearance, the King did not look like one afflicted by any disease.

The King’s hunger created a great problem now. The royal kitchen could not keep up – so the cooks began to literally loot farmers of the kingdom for stocking up. There was threat of civil rebellion in the kingdom. Alarmed by the situation, and also feeling sorry for the trouble he is causing, the King decided that instead of burdening only his kitchen, he would now impose himself on his feudal lords. He would take turns and visit each of these samanthas , perhaps stay with them for a week, or fortnight...or even a month. Now, whenever the King announced his visit, hearts would start pounding.

Sabhapati was an intelligent brahmachari (bachelor), who had just finished his education in Kashi. He was well-versed in all the shastras and had won accolades from all the great scholars and pundits. Having triumphantly completed his education, he was on his way back to Chitrapur. He decided to lodge in one of the samantha’s homes for the night.

The arrival of Sabhapati created a flutter amongst the surrounding villages of Chitrapur. People from near and far flocked the samantha’s home to get a glimpse of this young, accomplished man. A social gathering of scholars and public took place only to hear Sabhapati. He mesmerised the crowd with many strange stories from his travels. He made them roar with laughter with his jokes. Indeed people felt their stomachs will become sore – they enjoyed his jokes so much. But Sabhapati noticed only the samantharemained grim. Upon enquiring, the samantha described his royal problem – the King was arriving as a guest, and what this means.

Sabhapati heard the story and thought for a while. Then he said, ‘Samantha, I will solve this problem. But the condition is you must do as I say. No questions asked.’ The samantha agreed.

That evening, the King came with his royal family. Even as his foot crossed the threshold, he started bellowing, ‘Bring my snacks! Bring my snacks!’

A maNe (low wooden stool, used for sitting cross-legged on the floor) was kept only for the King and all the savouries and sweets were brought out. The King, forgetting all decorum, started gobbling up the food. Sabhapati sat near the King, chewing on a blade of grass.

The King noticed Sabhapati and said, ‘Have you gone mad? You are eating grass like cattle.’

‘Not at all Your Highness,’ Sabhapati replied politely. ‘It is not decorum for you sit alone isn’t it? That is why I am giving you company.’

The King was now embarrassed. He kept a fruit on a plate and pushed it towards Sabhapati. Sabhapati nonchalantly started peeling the fruit. He said, ‘I have a request for you, if you don’t mind.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I request you to please sleep for a while before you sit down for dinner.’

‘Yes. Anyway I was thinking of sleeping for an hour or so. So your request is granted.’

As soon as the King fell asleep, Sabhapati tied up his legs and hands. Everyone waited for the King to wake up. The King stirred after two or three hours. As usual, as soon as he woke up, a ravenous hunger attacked him. He was flummoxed to see his hands and legs were tied.

Meanwhile, Sabhapati asked the cook to bring in all the aromatic dishes. Upon getting the aroma and seeing the dishes, the King’s mouth started watering. But Sabhapati seemed unmindful of the King’s hunger. He sat near the king and arranged the food in front of himself. Then, he began talking.

‘I want to tell you a strange story, dear King. I heard this from a Siddha (yogi). Protected by the towering peaks of the Himalayas, there is a beautiful valley. In that valley, there is an extraordinary palace. Its walls are made of milk and fruits. The thorana for the main door is made of vade and jilebis. Inside, the porticos are made of halwas. The entire roof is covered with rottis. In every room there are tanks filled with steaming hot kheer, cream of milk, coconut milk, draksharasa (grape juice) and so on. Not just that, mounds of chitranna (lemon rice) are piled around these tanks...’ Sabhapati continued to describe this food paradise. As he narrated, he would hold out a piece of the royal food, as if he intended to feed the King. He would bring the food close the King’s open mouth, and withdraw it suddenly.

The pishachi inside the King could not take this taunting and teasing any longer. Frustrated, it sprang out of the King’s mouth and tried to snatch the food from Sabhapati’s hand. But shrewd Sabhapati was quicker – he caught hold of the pishachi and thrust it in the fire heating up the kitchen stoves. That was the end of that mischievous, hungry ghost!

The King fainted as soon as the pishachi emerged from his belly. When he recovered the next day, he felt light and lively. His normal appetite had returned, and he was no longer tormented by hunger.

He rewarded Sabhapati with enormous riches and everyone lived happily ever after.

********************************

Translation © Sumana Khan - 2016

I picked up this book only after I got to know it was non-fiction: a journalistic account of the Aarushi case. Even so, I began reading with some trepidation; after all there were many a$$holes (pardon my samskruta) who had pulled out opinions from their backsides and presented it all as “facts”. Thankfully, Avirook Sen, the author, categorically states that he presents no answers; he’s not written this book with the intent of solving the crime, or in order to dish out theories. He simply presents the case facts to which he’s had first-hand access: notes from the trial, post-mortem reports, forensic lab reports, legal evidence presented both by the prosecution and defence, and interviews he’s conducted with various stakeholders of the case.

Having said that, the book is not some kind of a case diary, coldly and chronologically listing dates and events. Sen balances reportage and emotional content, without overdoing either. Not all readers agree though. Some have harshly criticised Sen for losing his neutral perspective and coming across as pro-Talwars. I don’t blame him – as the book progresses, the harsher details of the “investigation” conducted (for want of a better verb) both by the CBI and the police beggars belief. If you are looking for examples of epic clusterfucks, this is it. I wouldn’t term it as being pro-Talwars, in so much as being gobsmacked at the sheer vindictiveness and collapse of the system.

A quick recap – Fourteen year old Aarushi Talwar was found dead in her room on the morning of May 16^th, 2008. She had two savage wounds – a blow to her skull and a slit across her throat. The first post-mortem report ruled out sexual violence, and the injury to her head was pinned as the cause of her death. The injury to the throat was inflicted after her death. The initial suspect was Hemraj, the Talwars’ domestic help. However, his body was discovered on May 17^th, on the terrace of Talwars’ home. His wounds were identical to that of Aarushi’s.

Sen has cleverly blended standard-issue fiction narrative style into a non-fiction account, elevating the pitch of the book from a mere repository of facts to something with emotional resonance. He carefully narrates details of the places he visits and gives engaging character sketches of the person he’s speaking with – mannerisms, location, language. He has been criticised for this “flaw” too, and some reviews have chastised his obsession with accents. For example, describing his meeting with Dr Mohapatra, a CFSL scientist and a prosecution witness for the CBI, Sen goes on to recount –

“At lunchtime one day I found Mohapatra sitting unaccompanied in the courtroom, minding two large folders on a table in front. He was a short, spectacled man, with a thick Odiya accent that sometimes confused people from the north (‘blood’, for instance, would become ‘blawed’).”

The point is, there are so many people involved in this case, and each one of them, be it a witness, an investigator or a lawyer, have contributed in their own way to this train-wreck. Sure, Sen could have simply listed out the names, but that will not engage the reader. These brief character sketches help us connect better with the flow of events and the people involved.

The book is unpalatable in that it exposes the ground reality of our judicial and investigative systems. Sen, like a blood hound, ferrets out nuggets of information that have never been revealed before. For example, the first investigating officer in this case, Sub Inspector Dattaram Nanoria was himself a convict in a custodial death case. He had served time in prison and was out on bail. Similarly, Sub Inspector Bachu Singh, who wrote the panchnamas for both the murders, was himself a murderer by then, having killed a woman in Mathura, his hometown.

Why are these details important? Because these highlight the cracks...craters rather...in our system. What sort of integrity can one expect when the investigating officer himself is a convict? What sort of sensitivity can one expect from a murderer? No wonder, this callousness is reflected all through the case. For someone who has already murdered a woman, what difference does it make to see another dead girl?

It also brings out the despicable working conditions of the police, especially in homicide cases. They have no sanitised protection from the scene itself. When Hemraj’s body was finally discovered 36 hours after his death, it had swollen beyond recognition, the 47 degree summer heat accelerating the putrefaction. Bodybags are for movies. Four cops took a bedsheet from the Talwars, heaved the oozing, rotting corpse into it, and had to carry it to downstairs. How does one find motivation when working conditions are so...pardon this poor pun...rotten?

If the crime itself was chilling, the progress of the case is far more frightening. Sen’s immaculate documentation demonstrates how the whole case was constructed based on misogynistic and class biases, and the entire system bought this charade. If Aarushi had been a boy, the sex angle would not have figured this prominently; the investigation would have taken a different turn. The sexualisation of this case would not have reached depraved depths had Nupur Talwar fitted into the mould of a weeping Nirupa Roy, the yesteryear actress who played the quintessential Indian Ma roles. Yes, if Nupur had beaten her chest and wailed and fainted, then everyone would be convinced that she was a pavitra Ma. But she did not. Perhaps her so-called lack of emotion was simply tightly bottled up, boiling rage. Her only child had been brutally done to death. But the police and media made the child out to be a Lolita of sorts, without a shred of evidence. Not just that, the Talwars were painted as debauched orgy participants, again without a shred of evidence. Indeed, the CBI prosecution decided, hey, if there is no hard evidence, then character assassination should do the trick. Sen reports that the CBI prosecutor, Saini, in his closing arguments in the court, narrated that after committing the murders, Rajesh Talwar consumed alcohol even as he cleaned up the crime scene (“DNA dhulta raha”). Once the cleaning was done, Rajesh and Nupur apparently watched porn for the rest of the night. Yes, you guessed it...all this narration without a shred of evidence. But here’s the other scary part - hard forensic evidence pointing to the actual perpetrators was completely ignored by the CBI. Oh. And there is this little detail of the judge writing out the judgement a month before the closing arguments – his retirement date was coming up and he had no time for deliberations. He wanted to retire with a big-bang case, and this was the ticket.

The theory of honour killing as a motive was pressed into service almost immediately after the case broke out. There was not a single aspect of the Talwars family life that supported this notion. Parents with this mindset will not put their daughters in co-ed schools. They will not give her mobile phones. They will not allow her to meet boys. Most definitely, they will not tolerate boys calling up the home phone asking for the daughter. Or worse, they will not tolerate boys sauntering in for a chat. They will not allow her to wear certain type of clothes. They will not allow her to use social media. The list is endless – none of this holds water in the Talwars’ case. They come across as liberal, yet grounded parents, giving importance to the child’s education. Even otherwise, going by “reports” that the Talwars were swingers...they’d be the last people to bother about honour, is it not?!

Sen’s book offers insights into the quagmire of judicial procedures in the context of the case, without getting too preachy or academic. It shatters idealistic notions of Satyameva Jayate. Sen puts it as, “The whole truth is a luxury. In case you are looking for it, a courtroom isn’t the place either to start or end the search.” As he reports the trial, I’ve laughed out loud several times, and immediately sobered up. I had to keep reminding myself, “This is not fiction. This is not fiction.” The ridiculous answers given by so-called expert witnesses, the silence of the court in accepting these answers – it is simply mind-boggling.

At least in my case, the book left me listless. For one, there is a sick feeling in the stomach that this has gone beyond perversion of justice. Secondly, with whatever little academic exposure I’ve had to forensic psychology, I can opine that these were execution type killings, and not a crime of passion. In the latter case, there’d be multiple stab wounds, or more blunt force trauma. There’d be defence wounds on the victim. Clean cutthroat wounds are more often than not inflicted from behind, that is, the perpetrator is positioned behind the victim; there is physical contact in order to hold the victim in position to expose the throat. A good forensic pathologist, by examining the wound, can determine the point of origin, and therefore, draw an inference on the handedness of the perpetrator (right-handed or left-handed); the probable weapon used; the position of the perpetrator with respect to the victim and so on. Also, since two different weapons were used, and there was more than one victim, one wonders if the crime was premeditated. I believe there was more to the mid-night meeting between Hemraj and the killers. If this had been probed following the incriminating forensic evidence, I believe the real motive for the murders would have surfaced.

One thing is certain – this is not the first crime, nor will it be the last perpetrated by the killer. The system handed him freedom on a platter.

Courtesy: Clipart

Every time I return to my blog, it’s like homecoming. I unlock the doors, open the windows, do some dusting and think Damn! It’s good to be back. It’s just been an extended break of scurrying around getting certain things on track. But here’s all the stuff I’ve been writing when I was away –

Some guest posts for my book, Encounters. You can read them here –

Here’s an interview on my writing process.

Here’s a short story for Encounters promo.

I was asked to write about my inspiration behind Encounters. You can read them here and here.

I’ve also been coaxed to do more marketing for my books. So now, you can find me tongue-tied on twitter. My handle is @SumanaSKhan. I think.

With all this, I realise it’s already June. Half the year is gone and I keep wondering where was I? It’s scary the way time is galloping away at breakneck speed. It’s not that I’m doing anything terribly exciting to feel this way – I’m mostly as sedate as a grazing cow – but where is time running away? Wasn’t it just yesterday when my year-old niece was trying to bite my ear? Now she speaks to me over the phone - ‘Why are you crrrrazy?’ Eh? When did she grow up so fast and start asking pertinent questions? Where was I when this was happening? When I first met him, a friend’s son was all excited about turning 12. Now, he’s suddenly talking about Economics and University. What the hell?

I tell you, there is something wrong. A leak in the space-time continuum for sure. It’s a complicated relationship – space & time. If you are closer to an object with great mass, time slows down (you can read about it here). So the leak must be in my home. Great mass. Hmm. Lo and behold The Husband. KK was lounging around, playing online chess on his iPad. Is it any wonder that time is not working under this roof? Yeah okay, between the two of us, our mass is quite significant. I suspect we have our own gravitational fields. This theory was somehow stolen by Seth McFarlane for Family Guy.

‘Hello’, I snap my fingers at KK. ‘Have you noticed something strange?’ It’s a rhetorical question because KK wouldn’t notice even if a polar bear sat at the dining table and grunted at him to pass the salt.

I can see that the question has slid over KK’s head.

‘Time. It’s going away too fast and yet, we are kind of still,’ I try to articulate.

He tries hard to say something meaningful. Finally settles for a head bob. I enumerate examples to prove time is slipping away at breakneck speed and yet here we are. Poking at the iPad and wondering what day it is. It is true – neither of us can remember which day of the week has dawned, unless some terribly important event is scheduled for that day. KK’s frame of reference for an elapsed day is food – “The day we ate dimer torkari”, or “it has been X days since I had aloo posto”.

I don’t even have any frame of reference. KK thinks that could be the problem. He postulates we could be on a Thursday, and I’d still be thinking it’s a Monday and bam! After all, just a few days ago, when we were filling up some forms, I thought I was a certain age, but it turned out I was two years older. I was sure KK was being rude...but he proved he was right through mathematical calculations; I verified these on the phone calculator, on my laptop calculator and the scientific calculator with the plastic flip-lid. I admit, there was a bit of a meltdown. How could I have lost track of two years...not that I had any milestones or goals. I mean there were days when I’d wake up thinking I’ll just head to Marakkech or board the Trans-Siberian Express...just to get new experiences. But those thoughts would perish soon after the coffee – packing, airports, beheadings – the hell. Then I’d think it’s perfectly okay to sit in one’s home and look at the magpies. But STILL...losing two years just like that...just staring out of the window? I voiced all this while stomping around the flat and the next thing I know, KK was scrambling for a flight to Peru. Last minute meeting apparently.

On a previous occasion, when I had freaked out about being just a collection of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms...and so what the hell was earth-life all about...KK boarded a flight to Pune. Again, “meeting”. I can detect a pattern when I see one.

I had the same organic chemistry conversation with Appa over Skype. Mid-way, Appa looked out of the window and said a UFO just whizzed by, he was sure of it; no, it was not a firework because no rocket can go like that. I’ll give him the benefit of doubt because the next day, Deccan Herald did carry an article about alien sighting near Periyapatna. That’s about 65-70kms away from Mysore...a few seconds for an alien spaceship I suppose. Or maybe it was just an uncanny coincidence. Appa must be like...that was a close call...that UFO passing by at the right time.

But back to my time puzzle, I decided not to freak out. I spoke in measured terms about harnessing time. Well, time stood still for KK at least- he fell asleep on the iPad.

Let me know if you also are facing the same time problem. It's a conspiracy I tell you...

Courtesy: Clipart

A father drops off his young daughter at the train station every day. She catches the intra-city train to her work. At 23-24, she’s working for Infosys. Obviously, a direct university recruit. Goes without saying she’s intelligent, smart, confident. Otherwise you can’t really make it into the Infys of the world.

I reflect on the time when I was her age, and took my first job. I am sure you can too. The quiet pride in your parents' eyes. That after their penance, you are now ready to fly. Back then, Appa would drop me to the bus stop on his scooter. It was just a ten minute walk, but the scooter ride meant I got five minutes extra at home. He would also drop my sister to the bus stop on most days. Like Swathi, we’d be out of the house early in the morning. The only difference between me and Swathi, my sister and Swathi is that my sister and I are alive. Swathi is not. No one hacked us to death while Appa and Amma were having their second round of coffee back home, ten minutes away. Was it possible at all? Was such a thing possible with me and my sister? Yes. We had our share of crazies. The ones who stared and stared. The ones who knew at what time we came to the bus stop every morning. The ones who knew which bus we boarded. And so, the ones who knew where I worked, where my sister studied. It is a part of being a young woman in India. There is no statistic to prove which sort of crazy would escalate to full blown violence. You only had to be vigilant. Make your own assessment. That’s how we all function.

I imagine Swati’s family that day. Daughter off to work. Parents getting ready for the routine of the day. Usual morning chores. Coffees and breakfasts. Pooja. Maid walking in. All this, little knowing their daughter was already dead. Some asshole had hacked at her throat with a sickle. It was premeditated obviously. She was now a bleeding body, sprawled on the station platform. Her blood-soaked handbag lying near her body. What did the handbag contain? Her comb? Her compact? Probably a tiffin dabba? My eyes sting. A girl who should have had a fulfilling life—a family of her own some day, a life long enough to see her grand-kids—was lying butchered, orphaned, in a dirty public place. The fact that newspapers splashed the photo of Swathi, albeit slightly pixelated, just enough to reveal the gore, is an indication of the malaise afflicting our disgusting media culture. More importantly, the fact that Swathi’s family, even in this hour of most horrific grief, have requested newspapers NOT TO SPECULATE on Swathi’s character shows how poisoned our society is. How sick, disturbed, depraved we have become. That's what we do to every female victim of crime, isn't it? Sexualise it? Look what we did to that child Aarushi.

For all the rhetoric about our culture, Swathi was finally accorded the place of a street animal that’s killed in a road-hit and left to fester in the elements. There. I spat it out. That dark blob of poisoned thought. For that’s what life amounts to in our country, isn’t it? If it is a sickle here, it is a bottle of acid somewhere else. Or if the killer is slightly more merciful, a spray of bullets. No weapons? No problem. Rape is easy. So easy that it’s almost boring these days. So burn after rape. Kerosene is cheaper than a meal. No kerosene? No problem. Just pull out her intestines.

The trolls are already out like flies on hot shit. Maybe it was karma. There’s always two sides to a story. “Girls like Swathi” deserve this at some level.

Who are Girls Like Swathi? Intelligent? Hardworking? Independent? Know their mind? Speak their mind? Ah. Girls Like Swathi are every patriarchal male and female’s nightmare. Girls Like Swathi are the ones who are a danger to our culture. Our glorious culture. Girls Like Swathi are you and me.

Then there are the kinder trolls. Girls LIke Swathi must learn karate. Girls Like Swathi must hold pepper sprays instead of looking into their mobiles all the time. Girls Like Swathi must do this. Must do that. What about those who inflict violence? Oh, they are disturbed boys. Maybe the movies are responsible? Maybe they got mixed signals? Maybe they have mental diseases? Maybe poverty? Maybe domestic violence at home? So many things can make a young man want to rape, maim, kill. He is not directly responsible. But Girls Like Swathi are responsible for every thing that is inflicted upon them.

Well, we know the drill by now. We’ve had the mandatory candlelight watch. Swathi is now reduced to yet another statistic. Swathi is Simran who was stabbed to death on New Delhi streets by a stalker. Swathi is Radhika who was shot dead by her stalker. Swathi is Jyoti Singh. Swathi is Jisha. Swathi is all of us who just step out in the belief we’ll reach our destinations unmolested, live through the day, and return to the safety of our homes. We’ll move on now – watch the next shitty movie that tells us erotomania is cool; stalking is sexy; sexual violence is romance. Yes, we’ll clap like monkeys when some vacuous “actor” makes casual rape jokes.

I feel sick in the stomach to write the hypocritical RIP. Because our society does not deserve Girls Like Swathi.

I came across an unusual writing competition earlier this year, in a magazine that I subscribe to – the UK-based Writing Magazine. WM was teaming up with JustWrite team (John Murray Press) for a short story competition. I am not very skilled at short stories; IMO it requires tremendous skill and I find it very daunting, actually. But this competition was different; first of all, the reward was unique: six shortlisted winners would get to meet folks from publishing and the winner would get a detailed critique of his/her work. What better prize could a writer get? Secondly, the word count was very generous at 8000 words. I decided to go for this and as usual I did not get around to developing a story till the very last minute.

The last day of the submission dawned and I sat down for a 12-hour writing marathon. It was a bank holiday Monday. The deadline was midnight. I completed the story at about 10 in the night. I had just two hours for editing and it was simply not enough. I shot past the deadline by a good 15 minutes. Surely, my entry would not be considered now? I closed my laptop utterly dejected. Thankfully, thankfully I changed my mind – I thought I had nothing to lose by sending it out, even if I’m late...even if I knew all the flaws in the writing...and I emailed the story.

Weeks later, when I got an email from the editor of Writing Magazine, Jonathan Telfer, informing me that I’d been shortlisted, I simply could not believe it. I read and re-read the email. Maybe it was spam? Maybe they had made a mistake? Such was my disbelief that I waited for the dreaded email that confirmed it was all a mistake, and I must be “disqualified”. No such calamity occurred – I was chuffed to see myself on the September issue of Writing Magazine, along with five other shortlisted writers. The shortlisted winners were invited for the promised party on August 18th evening at Hodder & Stoughton office in London.

Come August 18th, I admit, the disbelief stayed with me even as I boarded the train to Paddington, rode the tube and stood before the venue—one of those quintessential London buildings, bang opposite Blackfriars Pier on the Thames. Hodder & Stoughton is on the fifth floor, where I met my fellow shortlists – Dan Purdue, Emma Myatt, Ian Laskey, LouiseHare, and Sally Jenkins - what a delight that was! Such diverse backgrounds – all united by a passion to write. We spent a leisurely couple of hours chatting over coffee, posing for photographs, and browsing through the amazing display shelves stacked with all the new releases from H&S.

L-R: Emma, Yours truly, Dan, Louise, Sally, Ian and Jonathan Shipley of JW.

We were all given a bulging goodies bag – books and gift vouchers – a true Santa’s sack!

Each of us was whisked away for a short video interview in what is probably the most beautiful room I’ve ever stepped into. Nestled in a corner away from view, the Darwin room is a capsule of silence, lined with books, furnished with plush armchairs and settees, with windows overlooking the road and river below. If ever the Room of Requirement came true for me, it would certainly look like this!

We all then trooped to the H&S rooftop terrace garden – the venue of the party. London’s steel and glass skyline twinkled and shimmered in the evening sun. Below, passenger ferries churned the dirty brown Thames with white foam ever so often. The traffic noise was muted but relentless. There have been a few moments in my life when I’ve thought, ‘Am I really here?’ – this was one of those moments!

The winner’s name was announced in true movie award style (congratulations to Emma). The biggest surprise came when our books were revealed – they’d put together our short stories in slim paperbacks with a beautiful cover (Emma got a hardbound copy :)) – to be freely distributed. We had a great time autographing the copies! You can read all the stories here :)

For me, the most amazing part of the evening was meeting so many different people connected with books – be it authors, publishers, editors or literary consultants. Everyone was so kind and generous in sharing their experiences, listening to our writing processes and they were genuinely interested in our journey as writers. Iain Campbell, the publisher director at H&S; the team from the literary consultancy Cornerstones – Helen, Rebecca, Alex; the WM and JW teams including both the Jonathans, Jan, Lauren and so many others made the evening even more special for us.

I came away feeling like Cinderella – only I did not have any midnight deadline! As a writer still struggling to find a foothold; as a writer with a very limited exposure, it was with much trepidation that I entered this competition. What I got in return has been far beyond my expectation - I feel fortunate and humbled and buoyed that my writing can find a readership outside India.

My only regret – I should have eaten the spectacular cupcakes.

© Sumana Khan - 2016

Courtesy: Clipart

I met my first bully in kindergarten. Mrs H had a son, a boy of 7 or 10. He studied in a different school. Once a week, he would be dropped off at our school during the “rest period” so Mrs H could take him home. Most days he would monkey around on the playground. But on some days, when Mrs H had a staff meeting, he would come into our class, pulling plaits or boxing our ears. He did receive a gentle rebuke from his mother but that only seemed to fuel his antics. As weeks went on, he became a terror. He had picked up his victims, and I was his favourite; I was puny, stick-like - a good target. From pulling my hair, to whacking my head as he ran about laughing, it was dreadful. School became a fearful place because there was no knowing on which day he would come. One day he hit my knuckles with the wooden end of the blackboard duster. My fear of this boy was absolute from then on.

Amma had a word with Mrs H. I was reassured I won’t be troubled anymore. As usual that week, Mrs H’s boy came. I could see him on the playground, kicking mud. Just before the bell rang, Mrs H stepped out. The boy walked in. He started his usual mayhem. He flung a little girl’s bag, pelted us with chalk pieces and pounced around like a monkey jumping from one tree branch to another. Then he came towards me with the duster. When he grabbed my hand to hit it, I pushed him away. He staggered back, surprised. I was surprised too. Then, I swung my school box against his head. Yeah, instead of a school bag, I had this small aluminium box – a miniature suitcase. Quite popular apparently, because we could stick labels and stickers on the lid. We both stood stunned. He with the duster, me with the suitcase. I felt ashamed for some reason. And then he started bawling. Mummyyyyyeeeee. Mrs H came running in. The bell rang. Mrs H and Amma had a chat I think. School closed for the summer and that was the last I saw of him.

I am glad Amma neither gloated about my reaction, nor did she sermonise. I am glad she allowed me to figure out things for myself. This was a delicate balance – she obviously did not want to reinforce or reward me hitting another person. At the same time, she did not want me to cow down when bullied. That experience distilled in the growing years. Bullies like that kid drag you down to their level. The incident left behind an aftertaste that instinctively bubbles up like acid reflux when I come across some people. There’s a pattern in their behaviour and body language which seems universal.

I met the boy with the duster in many forms in later years, especially at work. Only now, the forms of bullying were more sophisticated with sexual overtones. In the early years of my career, I came across a project manager – there was something about his body language that made my stomach clench. I came to know he was quite a harasser. A friend narrated an experience - she was discussing a project with him. Although the conversation was professional, she felt uneasy because his eyes roved all over her. Then, out of the blue, he asked her if she had kids, about her husband, and resting his eyes on her chest area, commented his wife was very thin. I heard a similar account from another lady too. What do I tell the HR, one of them asked. Nothing. That was how clever it all was. He will call you someday, one of the girls said. He always does. Any new girl on the floor, he tests the water. It was such an open secret. Everyone knew, yet no one knew.

He did call me over to his desk. He wanted to discuss having me in his team. Sky is the limit, he informed my breasts, well covered in my salwaar and dupatta. I stared at his desktop monitor. I bet I could swing it just as easily as my trusty aluminium box. Tell me about yourself, he coaxed. How come you are not married ya?

I did not speak a word. I got up. I left. I kept thinking about how I could have reacted. Frankly speaking, like De Niro, I wanted to punch this jerk’s face. I felt angry and frustrated. The thing is, you can’t complain that someone gives you the creeps, or someone stared at you in a ‘wrong’ way. It’s all too subjective. I waited for the repercussion. In whatever form it came, I promised myself to have a good fight and make life difficult for him. But nothing happened. He merely accosted me in the cafeteria and said I was arrogant. How dare I get up and walk away when a senior manager is speaking to me? Excuse me, I said. I’d like to get on with my lunch. His eyes bulged. There was the surprise at first. Then the pout and the blubbing. This attitude won’t take you far, he warned. I knew I’d won this small battle.

It’s like seeing shit on road yaar, a friend mused. You can only cover your nose and take a detour because you will meet many like this. How much will you complain and where all will you complain? She asked. Yes indeed. There were quite a few. Like the VP who always, always stared at your breasts when he spoke. Zero eye contact. It did not matter if you were wrapped in yak skin. The knowledge that you have breasts somewhere beneath all those clothes was enough. Or like the senior manager who was angry with his female peer for having commented on his strategy in a management meeting – he ranted in her absence - saree samballe apni, chali aayi mujhe business sikhaane (it is enough if she manages her saree, how dare she tries to teach me business).

Then, there was this specimen. He would make sure he used the word ‘rape’ in every other sentence. ‘You have to give me the estimates, or I’ll get raped in the meeting.’ A bad project schedule? So, all of you are getting raped, eh? Ha ha. He’d always find a way of sexualising even the most mundane business scenarios. Things got worse when his sexual innuendo stretched to day-to-day interactions. When a female colleague was discussing a presentation, he stared at his crotch and said, shit, I think my trousers are torn. He told a colleague she needed ‘more stroking’. And quickly added, I mean you need more acknowledgement for your work. He would come over to our cubicles and sit on the desk, legs spread, and go on about deadlines and his impending “rape”.

This time, we did talk to the HR. It was a very clinical conversation and the premise was simple – as employees, we have the right to work in a decent, professional environment, and he was failing to create such an environment. His speech and behaviour had a sexualised pattern which was unbecoming and caused anguish on some occasions, and discomfort on a daily basis. There were other men on the team who looked surprised. He was a good manager, they said. Yes, he uses those words, even worse when the ladies are not there, ha ha. But it’s harmless. He’s just exuberant that’s all. The line, “you women are overreacting”, was unsaid, but heard loudly in the room. Surely he meant no harm. Surely he can’t have meant it that way...well because he’s married and has kids. Surely, we must have misunderstood. After all it was guy-talk.

No, that’s not guy-talk. Because for every creep like him, I also know fifty other perfectly decent men. I know what a decent, professional interaction is. I also know what a decent, personal interaction is. Many of my cherished friendships are with men. Many of my cherished professional interactions have been with men. None of these interactions involve rape terminology or sexual innuendo. And it’s not just about us women – the harassment men face from the likes of such assholes is even worse. It may not be sexual in nature, but comes in the form of brutal mental abuse and emasculation. The tragedy is men have extremely limited avenues of seeking redressal.

The thing is when a woman goes to work, all this objectification sort of comes like a package deal. Your wife, daughter, sister – everyone will have a story. (So, next time you make a rape joke, keep them in mind.) Everyone will know about it. Everyone will shrug. Because there’s always a “but” for such behaviour. But, he’s such a good leader. But, he’s such a good project manager. But, he’s just a little boy. But, he’s doing all this charity. But, his father used to beat him. But, your top was a bit tight. But, you wear lipstick. But, you are a woman.

But, he’s probably going to be the President of United States of America.

Courtesy - http://www.factmag.com

If you grew up in a traditional South Indian family like I did, you’ll probably agree that sweets were meant for ‘occasions’ – mostly festivals. The reason I emphasize South Indian is because I know there are belts that have jilebis for breakfast. I mean, on one of my early visits to my husband’s Bengali home as a new bou, imagine my gawking surprise (and delight) at being presented with a plate of shingaras (samosas) and jilebis for breakfast. Anyway for South Indians, the end of a meal is signified by curd rice – or rice mixed with yoghurt, a dash of salt, and consumed to the accompaniment of a pickle.

Even in weddings that lay out a smorgasbord – with peni and chiroti and payasa and boondi ladoo as sweets – it all ends with majjige anna or curd rice. Probably the coolness and the acidity regulator in yoghurt helps settle down all the spices and sugar consumed all through the meal. In the weddings I’ve attended as a cynical teen, watching people consume food off the traditional plantain leaf (seriously, what an eco-friendly way of eating!) was an entertainment in itself. For example, there is a process to eating your chiroti and peni. First you sprinkle a generous amount of sugar on it. Then, soften the crispy chiroti/peni by slowly pouring badami milk provided specifically as an accompaniment. So when you put this divine thing in your mouth – you have the slightly bland and crisp taste of the underlying chiroti/peni, the crunch of the sugar that would not have fully dissolved, and the hot, thick milk richly flavoured with saffron and almonds. Do this the wrong way and you’ll have a mushy mess, with the milk flowing in tributaries all over you ele or leaf, and soon, it will pool on your lap.

See that’s the thing...these exotic sweets required a lot of effort to prepare...and demanded your concentration whilst eating – so you savoured it all the more. These are not usually prepared at homes – the only place where we could taste them was at weddings...so for me, chirotis/penis are all the more precious. The last time I had chiroti was in my friend VC’s wedding...and that seems to have taken place in the Jurassic era.

But for me, the emperor of desserts is ghas ghasepayasa - a sweet porridge flavoured with roasted khus khus or poppy seeds – because of its simplicity in preparation, unique flavour and after-effects.

There are variations in the preparation from region to region, but here is the way I do it –

Ingredients –

1) 2-3 cubes of jaggery, depending on their sweetness

2) 5 tsp of poppy seeds

3) Rice flour 3-4 tsp

4) Half a shell of coconut, grated.

5) Milk – ½ litre or more, depending on the consistency you like. You can use semi-skimmed, but whole milk gives a richer taste.

6) Nutmeg and cardamom for flavouring (you can use nutmeg powder).

Method –

1) Dry roast poppy seeds till a nice aroma filters out. Remove immediately from the flame.

2) Grind the roasted poppy seeds, grated coconut and rice flour in a mixer, adding little water. The consistency of this batter should be thick and smooth.

3) In a thick-bottomed pan, place the jaggery, add a little water and on a low flame, allow the jaggery to melt. Filter this melted jaggery to remove impurities and transfer this to another thick-bottomed pan. Add the poppy-coconut batter to the jaggery solution, and on a low flame, bring to boil whilst constantly stirring. You can add the nutmeg powder now.

4) Add milk in small quantities till you think you have the right consistency. As the kheer boils on low flame, it takes on a satin sheen and become thicker. Adjust the consistency as per your requirement by adding more milk.

5) Switch off the heat. Pound three or four pods of cardamom and add the powder to the hot kheer.

Your payasais done. But – you are not to gobble it up uncouthly. If you want to hit nirvana, you must try my method.

Firstly, make sure the day-after-payasa is a holiday. So a Saturday is ideal for this. If possible, take the traditional oil bath. A good substitute for castor oil is coconut oil, considering we don’t get seegekai in its original form easily – and considering most of us are losing hair, rubbing the scalp with seegekai may not be a good idea anyway. Do the traditional Indian head massage with warm coconut oil and sit in the sun for an hour. Don’t read, don’t check emails ...nothing. Just turn your face to the sun, and let your skin absorb the warmth and energy.

Once you are done with your shower, have a light lunch to make space for the payasa. Serve yourself the payasa in a large steel tumbler. The temperature of the kheer should be just right – it should not be scalding; it should not be lukewarm. It should be just hot enough for you to feel it against your throat, and the flavour of the poppy seeds should flare in your mouth. Throw on your favourite music (my fix is Pink Floyd’s ‘Any colour you like’) as you drink your payasa. The poppy seeds usually have a sedative effect, but taken this way – well...it’s the most organic way of entering psychedelic trance.

To me, that is a dessert!

Courtesy - http://www.beingawareness.org

The concept of Ego is something that has troubled humans from the time we’ve formed civilizations. Questions on ego and identity have formed the basis of philosophy and, to a large extent, psychology. It is interesting to note that ancient philosophers across the world spoke of immortality of the soul, and this permanence of the soul became the core for many cultural and religious philosophies. For example, Plato, way back in the 3^rd or 4^thcentury BCE, wrote a treatise ‘On the Soul’. In this, he records his teacher, Socrates’ discourse about the soul. Central to this idea is the notion that the soul is imperishable. In India, gurus like Madhvacharya, Ramanujachrya and Shankaracharya shaped Hindu philosophy that guides many of us even today. The core of our philosophy is once again the immortality of the soul, in contrast to the perishability of the physical body.

This central idea further gave birth to the Dvaita and Advaita philosophies. Madhvacharya advocated the Dvaita philosophy – there is the supreme God soul – Brahman (paramatma) and the individual soul (jivatma). His treatise and teachings went on to distinguish the differences between these two ‘entities’ – hence ‘Dvaita’ (two). On the other hand, Ramanujacharya and Shankaracharya advocated the Advatia (not two or ‘a-dvaita’) philosophy – where we believe that the souls of individuals, and that of the Brahman, are one and the same. Of course, it is much more complex than that – ‘soul’ is considered as the highest, and purest form of consciousness – and in this state, the soul is nothing but Brahman or God. In the Sri Vaishnava philosophy, we believe that supreme soul or Brahman is none other than Vishnu. In other words, each of us carry a drop of that supreme power – the power that is responsible for imparting that initial energy to atoms, from where it all began.

These are terribly exalted metaphysical ideas – but I believe this quest started with Who am I? Rene Descartes famously said ‘I think therefore I am’ - indeed the entire western philosophical journey starts with this statement. Don’t you think it is fascinating – I mean from an evolutionary perspective, one moment we were grunting and growling, rubbing two stones together and discovering fire – and the next moment, we are on this complex self-realization quest!

Ego too is tied with this sense of ‘I’. What does this ‘I’ mean? Surely, it is much more than a sum total of your body parts. We can vaguely answer as ‘mind and soul’. We can say identity. But what is identity? Is it just your name? Your lineage? Consider a hypothetical situation – let’s say you are cut off from all the people you know and your memory is completely erased. What does ‘I’ signify in this case?

If you compare the works of all these great philosophers, you’ll realise that we all have the same fundamentals. The difference lies in our quest for the answers. If you look at the Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism – be it any of the Acharyas, the Thirthankaras or The Buddha – this quest was a personal undertaking. All these great men chose to walk the path, and their discourses were drawn from their experiences.

I’ve often pondered on the phrase – attained enlightenment. What did this mean? I came across this phrase in school, in the history text book. It mentioned the place where Siddhartha ‘attained enlightenment’ and thus became The Buddha. It troubled me no end, this not knowing. When I raised this question, I was unfortunately misunderstood, and was reassured that such questions won’t be asked in the exam.

But somewhere along the way, it was Mahavira’s exceptional life that helped me understand, to a very miniscule level, what these great men were after.

When we say a quest for higher consciousness, it has to be a consciousness that is completely cut off from the physical world. Research has shown that consciousness exists outside the five physical senses through which we interact with the environment. It is this unattached consciousness that is liberating, boundless and energy in its purest form. But neither have we been able to study it, nor harness it.

The pursuit of this consciousness demands an extraordinary state of complete detachment. In other words, you have to break every form of attachment – from your relationships, to even self-love. You have to completely dismember the concept of ‘I’. The first step is to distance yourself from things that attach you to a physical world– renunciation. But just by cutting yourself off – going away to an uninhabited forest – does that help? In a small way it does – you now become alone. You don’t have any emotional crutches. Without human interaction, there is no emotional friction. The mind becomes free for higher pursuits.

But this is the easier part. What about your self-love? That is the survival instinct at a very primal level – encoded in our very DNA – the reflex to avoid anything that causes physical pain and discomfort. By shunning creature comforts and denying luxury to the body – some control over that survival instinct is obtained. The biggest obstacle however, is the larger part of the ‘I’ – the ego that encompasses your sense of self-respect. How does one detach from that? I think this is the reason why all the great tapasvis also became bhikshus – they adopted the practice of accepting alms. How much of a beating the notion of self-respect must take, when a former prince or a king should stand in front of a house, with his palms extended, begging for food? What a rigorous, ruthless way to destroy the ego!

I am particularly moved by Mahavira’s journey into self-realization. He gave up wearing clothes (a practice still followed by Digambaras) – the last bastion of self-love. When you reach a stage where you break down your ego to its very atoms – you begin to dissociate yourself from your body. By a cruel paradox, the body is still the vehicle for whatever energy you carry – so it has to be nourished. So you must reach a stage where you eat only for nourishment, as if you are just taking care of an independent entity.

If you examine your thoughts – it is all tied down to your relationships, yourself, your actions, someone else’s actions, your comforts, your desires. So what happens when you withdraw from all this including your own physical body? I can only guess – when all the noise is turned off, you become so self-aware (another paradox) that you can ‘feel’ the vibration of very cell, every atom. Indeed, there is no absolute silence – it is said that in this state of hyper silence within your mind – the sound that you can hear is ‘Om’; which is why it is called theprimordial sound. It is the state where you are able to harness the energy within you - the Brahman within you; you become a part of the Brahman, you become enlightened.

At a very primal level, ego is tied to one’s body and nothing more. To that extent, even animals have ego. But as we become more sophisticated in our thinking, in our interactions and relationships – ego assumes larger, more abstract proportions. It encompasses notions of self-respect, self image, self love. At the end of the day, in order to function well in our social hierarchy, ego is important and necessary. When our sense of ‘I’ is inclusive – ‘my home, my town, my planet’ – it is beneficial to society in the long run. When ego becomes restricted to self-pleasure, it takes on an ugly shape ‘everyone should recognize my power and importance, I am entitled because I exist...’

I think for this life – it is enough if we choose the right kind of ego.

©Sumana Khan – 2015

ADHM was a good break from the daily drudgery. Great music, great aesthetics. In KJo’s world, there is no ugliness – no angry police officers, no beefed up middle-aged men, no hordes of demented villains. There is no growing up either. And that’s what is refreshing. Of course there is the usual caveat – don’t go looking for a cerebral experience.

In this movie, as a part of the ugliness hataotheme, everyone is kind of super rich and live on their own in designer apartments and townhouses in London. This removes the need for pesky parents and other annoying relatives who might distort this beautiful fantasy life. Also, the characters don’t have to worry about EMIs or plan their retirement or fret about the high tax bands in UK. They can focus on the affairs of the heart entirely - getting their hearts broken/mended/broken again in infinite cycles. Indeed none of the characters hold a day job; no complications of stressful bosses, wicked colleagues, and office politics mar this beautiful world. The daily irritations of getting squashed in the tube etc are removed with one stroke. Ranbir and Anushka’s characters are funded by their wealthy parents, while Aishwarya is presumably funded by a great divorce settlement.

Ranbir is an MBA student (who actually wants to be a singer), who has a private jet to fly around. Anushka is a poet/writer or something (I may have misunderstood) but we never see her put pen to paper. Aishwarya too is a published poetess. Only, unlike in the real world, where poets are the most neglected lot in the publishing world, Aishwarya is able to give away thick hardbound copies. Her success is also evident in her wardrobe, her sighs, hushed tones, conversations in Urdu couplets, and of course, her ultra posh home – not sure if that was in Vienna or London...I lost track.

Everyone is beautiful with glowing skins, perfect BMIs and impeccable, porcelain veneer dentistry. Not patch of dark skin or out-of-proportion body in sight. They are always perfectly turned out in designer clothes, matching makeup, boots and handbags irrespective of the status of the heart. Their designer homes are stuffed with crystal knick knacks that, in real life, you would only window-shop in John Lewis or Harrods. Not a question of affordability, but who can spend hours dusting, really? And those damned misshapen Arabian vases and lanterns will surely break anyway. KJo puts his characters in sprawling homes in London. You can’t help but wish wistfully. In reality, shoe boxes are disguised as apartments where you have to rest your feet in the kitchen cabinet when you lie on your bed. Reality sucks. KJo creates a world of mellow lighting, cosy fire places, Egyptian cotton and silk sheets that are crisply ironed (okay, what else do you think a homemaker will notice?), and automated blinds.

What’s the story you ask? If you really must know, it is this: A loves B, but B friend-zones A. B loves C, breaks up, makes up, marries, breaks up with C. D loves A but in a pre-emptive strike, friend-zones him because A can never love D the way he loves B. D has also friend-zoned E, her ex-husband. You sort of have a new-found respect for KJo – making a movie out of that set of equations, and keeping it sparkling for at least half the movie – that’s awesome.

In general, in this beautiful world, all that the characters have to do is go to the disco, and do other unholy things which are haram like drinking alcohol and having (and enjoying) sex. Also, in this beautiful world, everyone is of course very nice to everyone else. And, so mature. I mean, sure, Ranbir cries more than Nirupa Roy and Pandari Bai put together, but still. Like...in real life, in an airport lounge, if a slightly sozzled young man approaches a lady minding her own business and tries to strike up an uninspiring conversation, in the worst case, his mug shot will be plastered all over social media. Or, the lady would have “alerted the authorities”. Not in KJo’s beautiful world. No, none of this ugliness takes place. The lady simply leans forward and declares she sees a lot of pain the eyes of this doofus and encourages him to let the boohoos out. Next thing you know, they are hooked up and doing the hanky panky in public places.

There is no ugly friction between past and present relationships either. The ex-husband is so kind and polite to ex-wife’s current boyfriend, he even indirectly compliments the toyboy’s sex life with ex-wife.

Ranbir and Anushka have done a really good job despite limitations in the plot-less script that keeps their characters fairly one dimensional. Ranbir’s interpretation of a guy who simply can’t get over a girl is refreshing. He shows the right amount of angst when allowed by the script. There’s no vulgarity – either in dialogues or in the form of narcissistic violence, and more importantly, no item numbers. Of course, if it were me, I would have ended the movie an hour earlier. Maybe I would have even gone as far as hooking up Anushka with Aishwarya, just to make things really mushkil...and sort of bring in diversity in the whole scheme of things.

If you are afraid the movie might taint your patriotism, fikar karo not. The gentleman from the neighbouring country has a fleeting role and in the few frames where he does appear, between his luxurious mane and ferocious outbreak of facial hair, you can hardly register a glimpse.

Considering the ugliness that constantly invades our lives via TV, news and social media – ADHM’s fantasy world is poultice. The music and lyrics are wonderful. If not anything, it gives you plenty of ideas to go wardrobe shopping.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to my grimy world of lime scale, oily T-zones, and less-than-pretty friends.

There was a writing competition last week; the central theme was food. Ha. Food and an Indian - the theme was a landmine of choices. How much of our lives revolves around food! As someone who cooks at least two meals a day (three on days when I’ve run out of cereals), it can get exasperating. I hoped to write something deep, rich with emotional textures and symbolism. At least in an Indian household, food becomes a veritable battleground – the manifestation of motherly (and other forms of) love and of femininity. Indeed, the preparation of a meal can make or break relationships in many joint families—the cracks appear in the kitchen and the lava pours forth on the entire family. As I mulled over these complex themes, an incident occurred.

I needed to assemble a couple of flatpack furniture, so I had booked a slot with a fitter. It was a cold but sunny Sunday morning when he arrived. Tall, lanky, hair slicked back, tattoos snaking up all over his arms. As is customary in any Indian home, he was immediately offered chai and breakfast the minute he stepped in. He gratefully accepted the chai, declined the breakfast and got down to work. Mid-morning, I began to cook lunch. I was preparing the staple Bengali cabbage curry - badhakopi aloo torkari. Unilke the South Indian kos poriyal, the cabbage is cut julienne, stir fried, preferably in mustard oil, with the accompaniment of diced potatoes, green peas, and the usual moshla.

As the cabbage cooked on low heat, I turned on the kettle for a second round of chai. The fitter’s work was taking longer than usual and I asked him if he was sure he does not want anything to eat. At least a muffin or a slice of bread since he’d started work early. No, he said, the tea will do. And very hesitantly, in a halting east European accent, he asked, ‘If you don’t mind, are you cooking the cabbage?’

‘Yes.’

And the most extraordinary transformation took place in this man. His face broke into a wide grin, like a child receiving a new bicycle, and I thought he was about to burst into a song. He said this aroma was the essence of his home, of his childhood, of his mother’s cooking back in Bulgaria. They baked the cabbage with cheese and meatballs and seasoned with homemade spices. Nothing like home-cooked food, he gushed. You are welcome to join us for lunch, the husband and I chorused. But he was hard-pressed for time since he had another work appointment. Tell an Indian woman her food reminds one of home, and there is no escape—his lunch was packed. He looked extremely delighted and I hope he enjoyed his meal.

Our paths may not cross again, but for that moment – how easily strangers from two different races shared a bond. We exchanged happiness in its purest form that day – he, of unexpectedly stumbling into an alleyway of his childhood; us, for having evoked that happy memory. We broke bread so to speak, and in its wake, all the so-called man-made barriers of culture dissolved. We may come from vastly different cultures, but our happy place is the same.

As my sister so eloquently reflects in one of her writings, the love and security offered in a home where food was cooked and families gathered for a meal, it is indescribable. I agree with her – reflecting on our childhood, there was a comfort in those kitchen sounds as our mothers opened and closed steel dabbas, set the pressure cooker or grated coconuts. There is comfort in those aromas of hot oil seasoned with hing and mustard.

Today when I visit my father, he insists on cooking for me. He’s got a knee problem that makes him limp, yet, he refuses to use the counter-top coconut grater. He insists on using the traditional eeLigemaNe, which requires him to sit on the floor. I know what stubbornness is, and I leave him to it. I’m shooed away to the balcony with a pile of pulp fiction paperbacks yellowed with age, and a bowl full of murukku to munch. I hear the familiar sounds- steel clangs, the iron grater running through the coconut shells, the familiar hiss of the ghee oggarne on hot rasam, and it lulls me back into a safe, happy place in my childhood. In a way, it is therapeutic for my father too – this creation of a tiny bubble as if Amma were there.

Sometimes, when I sit in the stillness of the morning and watch the bunnies and magpies hop around on the frost-hard swale, an overwhelming sense of irrelevance grips me. The whole world around me is going mad and I can’t comprehend anything; people taking sides about issues for which there should be no two sides, except condemnation – I can’t understand people defending cruelty, lack of respect, indecency, lack of empathy, lack of dignity. I think about all these people, perhaps broken irreversibly inside somehow. Perhaps they don’t have a place to travel to – like that Bulgarian. A place in their heart where they feel safe, happy. A place that can be recreated again and again, a place from where happiness can be fetched so easily, for so little.

This is also a course of mankind, this ebb and flow of cruelty and self-destructiveness. The only thing under my control is how genuinely I connect with people. Going beyond the superficial interactions; going beyond creating impressions, and just reaching out to another person with kindness and respect. That is my silent, imperceptible protest against all that is happening. Of course, I might flip one day and start sending out tiffin carriers with piping hot bisibelebath simmering under a layer of ghee, with the accompaniment of crispy chewda, curd rice seasoned with mustard and red chillies and pomegranate seeds – to any annoying pest of a human being…just to drag them back to a happy place where they can realise their humanness.

And the story competition? I discarded all the complex themes. What was I thinking? Food is simple. Food is fun. Food is positive. Food is love. I stuck to that.

Courtesy - Clipart

Yesterday a friend forwarded a home-made music video on Whatsapp . It has two women on the guitar. Watch it. If you are a Kannadiga, you will go on karaoke mode for sure. I was enraptured. It is a piece of music that you will listen to over and over again.

Please note: I don't know who owns the video since it came as a forward.

More than the music, those two ladies made me indescribably happy. Clad in crisp salwaar kameez, they are truly the ladies-next-door you’d discuss mundane stuff over coffee and Mangalooru store kharaseve. They are so wonderfully unassuming and understated despite their explosive talent. What’s lovely about the video is the lack of fuss; the sheer everyday-ness of it... what a breath of fresh air in the age of sickening social media drama! “Watch this advert and you will cry!” “Watch what happens when this puppy meets the kitten!” “Watch what the old man does...faith in humanity restored!” And on and on...endless tracks of barf-inducing nonsense.

I have lost count of the number of times when I’ve sensed a disturbing restlessness in individuals – a mild sort of panic of not being needed all that much, at least emotionally, by family members. Both men and women feel a sense of vacuum; of being taken for granted. To make matters worse, since most “education” happens on social media these days, the message that is constantly bombarded on hapless men and women is this: If you want a sense of purpose and identity, you have to become a hero. Nothing less will do. It’s simply not enough if you work till your retirement and bring up decent children. You have to go out there, into the world, crusading about something or the other. Sweep the roads, clear dustbins, hug trees, plant trees, gather the homeless, gather the orphans, gather stray dogs, save prostitutes...whatever. But you have to do something that is worthy of social media attention. Perhaps 21^st century will go down in history for amassing the most massive pile of bullshit.

If you are one of the “lost” souls, constantly bewildered by the lack of acknowledgement from your family; constantly enveloped by indescribable anxiety because you feel this sense of loss of self (“I used to do this, this and this before marriage...now I am talent-less”), the answer is right there when you watch these two amazing ladies. Somewhere, between endless cooker whistles, the fermenting of dosa batter, the kneading of chapathi dough, the packing of lunch boxes and a million other things – they have not compromised on the time or priority directed towards themselves. The result shows. The practice, the dedication and commitment. And that’s your answer. Invest time for yourself. Even if it is as simple (or difficult) as taking thirty minutes off to read a book. Or to go shopping by yourself. Or to listen to music. Or even to just have a quiet cuppa. Whatever you do, do it for your pleasure only. You don’t have to live up to any predefined stereotype – of "looking the part". Don’t get into the trap of acknowledgement –“I embroidered this handkerchief but I got only 2 likes”. When you begin to focus on yourself in small doses, you will find yourself less in need of validation from others. When you nurture yourself, all these acknowledgements will come through automatically. Raising a family is no doubt the most demanding task on earth. It means you take on new life-roles, learn new life skills, and develop new interests. All this should be in addition to whatever already defines you as an individual...not in replacement.

But remember, the first step is a change of mindset within yourself - stop thinking you are indispensable and your family can’t hold it together without you. That’s a huge myth. Everyone will be perfectly fine in their own way. If not anything, you will be doing them a favour by giving them an opportunity to assume responsibility. Start now and pick up where you left off 30-40 years ago.

In this day and age, when there’s so much crap going on around the world, I’d say a hero is someone who is happy, contented and radiates positivity - a well-nurtured soul.

Courtesy: http://www.india.com/

I've been disgusted with the screen grabs of a shitty soap opera currently being aired in India. - Pehredar Piya ki roughly translates as 'Guardian of my lover'. The protagonists in question are played by adult woman and 9-10 year old boy. In what can only be termed as mindfuck of recent times, the woman marries the boy. There is a now a petition doing the rounds to ban this perverse nonsense.

But I wanted to get to the root of this ugliness. Who is thinking of this shit? Who is writing this? Why did the boy's parents think this is an appropriate role for the child? On the whole, why do these production houses, actors, writers feel they have no responsibility?

The production house is run by a husband-wife duo - Sumeet and Shashi Mittal. The mission of Shashi Sumeet Productions Pvt Ltd is “to create quality content that enthrals and entertains audiences.” They have produced a number of popular soaps.

In an interview with the Scroll, Summet Mittal says -

"The boy is in love with the girl only because she is his protector. I don’t know why love is restricted only to a man and a woman. It is a weird thought."

When questioned about the core plot, what drives an 18-year-old woman (played by a 25-year-old) to marry a 10 year old boy, Sumeet terms it as "very brave" and the woman's "freedom of character" -

"In today’s generation, we see a young girl marrying a 40- year-old person and it is taken as a vow and her choice. The same way, Diya has made this choice out of certain circumstances, where she marries to protect the boy. That is very brave."

The idea apparently was proposed by his wife/partner Shashi. Wikipedia informs me the concept was then written out as a story by three women.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, the leading lady, Tejaswi Prakash, defends the plot line saying -

"The show is about the maturity that a girl at that age shows to protect a boy."

Tejaswi is confident that within 6 months the audience will "realise" the story is not controversial at all and will love the lead character. In another interview she expounds -

“I cannot deny the fact that a child is getting married in the show, so in a way it is child marriage, but that is not something we are promoting… The relationship cannot be like child marriage as we both (characters) do not know the definition of love, nor there is anything like romance on the show. We are not married in a romantic way, we are just like friends,” she said.

She goes on to insist, "The show has new things to see that nobody has seen between a husband and a wife.”

In yet another interview, Sumeet condescends - "people have a tendency to judge things without fully understanding it" and goes on to add the story is about a "girl's freedom and girl's rights".

Indeed, it appears the storywriters and production house are convinced there is no other viable way of showcasing women’s rights and freedom.

Here's more good news. In an interview with India Today, Tejaswi "confirms that there will also be a leap on the show, and that the romantic angle might be added post that. "There are couples with huge age differences in real life. Post leap, a romantic angle might be introduced."

Have you not barfed all over your keyboard yet? Well, here is the thing - Bollywood Life ran a poll asking their readers if this soap "deserved such a severe backlash". 70% responded saying people "over-reacted".

And you are wondering why the number of perverts have increased in the country?

The shocking thing is I'm not at all shocked or surprised at all. As a society, we have regressed reprehensibly. We have deluded ourselves to think literacy is same as being educated. We use our “education” to defend any perversity with vigour. We think culture is something that exists in our clothes and appearance whilst our minds are sewers. The evidence is all around us – in the kind of literature, movies and tv shows that we consume insatiably. The rot is evident in our interactions – speak out against any popular male hero and people will offer to rape you, call you a prostitute and threaten your life. Whenever you demand better quality in arts and literature, you a condemned as an ‘elitist’, ‘pseudo-intellectual’. Did not like the latest movie with the superstars? You bloody fool – the director has made the disclaimer – he did not want the movie to be an intellectual masterpiece. Yes, don’t be so arrogant and ask for basic character development that is so core to story-telling. Don’t show-off. Shut up. Don’t hurt sentiments. Did not like the latest book by that popular author because the grammar was poor and the writing was lazy? You bloody convent-educated, English-speaking elitist. That author has four million followers. This author has dimples. The other author upholds Indian values. This other author has organic garden. You are nothing. You are ugly. Shut up.

Oh, how we revel in mediocrity and superficiality and even celebrate these. Like pigs in slush.

I’m really glad I grew up with Doordarshan.

Courtesy: http://allflicks.com

The premise of Munroe Island looked quite interesting. A father drops off his adult (eighteen-year-old) “sociopath” son at his ancestral home, where the grandfather still lives. What happens next? This movie is categorised as thriller on Netflix. I think more than the synopsis, the title intrigued me. Malayalam movies, like Bengali ones, are way ahead when it comes to experimenting offbeat themes. I figured Munroe Island would be one such treat and I was not disappointed.

We are introduced to the grand patriarch (played by Indrans to astounding perfection) lovingly addressed as Appoopan by the grandson (Jason Chacko). We also get to meet the house-help Kathu (Abhija Sivakala). We follow them around the jaw-dropping (for city dwellers like me) ancestral home. It’s shot on location and it’s not a gaudy set. Neither is the place a new-age teak and marble monstrosity. It’s a sprawling house that’s weathered many elements. There is the unpretentious gate leading to a sheltered porch. If you can take a minute to stand there, you can see the property in its gorgeousness, surrounded by the quintessential rambling garden grounds. A flight of stone stairs leads you to another landing, where, perched on a pedestal, a blue Krishna stands in His usual pose, watching all those who enter this house. Behind Krishna is the house itself, with its corridors and stairways and cosy rooms, breathing of old times whilst accommodating the modern. But we don’t get to roam around the house as viewers – Nair’s camera restricts us to the dining area and two bedrooms.

We are fed crumbs to chew on as the story unfolds. Kesu, the troubled teenager, arrives with his father to Munroe Island. The father thinks Kesu needs psychiatric help and would have preferred to send him to Nimhans. But Appoopan thinks its bollocks – there is nothing wrong with Kesu and if he’s acting up, it’s only because the father is overbearing. What Kesu needs is freedom and space to figure out things. And no place on earth can be as therapeutic as this island.

You almost agree with Appoopan. He is the strong old man most of us have seen in our own families. The ones you could turn to, to fix any silly problem brought on by unhealthy and corrupted city life. Appoopan is rock solid in a very fundamental way – the sort of strength you gain when life is unhurried and the food on your plate was probably harvested a couple of minutes ago. Appoopan is confident of sorting out Kesu’s problems. .

We are drip-fed Kesu’s “problems”. We are told he killed a neighbour’s dog back in the city. Kesu calmly explains how he was experimenting with barbiturates and injected the dog with this concoction. A mild sense of unease settles in you with this revelation. Kesu’s increasingly unpredictable behaviour begins to worry Appoopan. Kesu has no appetite. He leaves his meals midway to head to the town. He speaks inappropriately and one minute he’s disgustingly rude, the next, he’s just a kid apologising. He speaks of atrocious crimes he’s committed in a casual way but can you really believe him? Perhaps he’s just a sadist, telling you things he knows will shock you, haunt you and strike fear in your mind. You feel Appoopan’s desperation and bewilderment as things spiral out of control. By the time Appoopan realises the impending disaster, it is too late.

For me, I think the most fascinating character was Kathu. As the help, she does not have much to say but your eyes follow her around as she goes about her never-ending chores. She is gentle, ever-smiling. Her past is dismissed in a line or two – she was brought as a young girl to look after Kesu when he was a kid. She probably left years later and got married but it did not work out. So, she was back. Now in her early thirties she’s done with all that life has to offer a young woman like her. It is heart-breaking if you think about it. And you realise the island is metaphorical – in her own way Kathu has marooned herself - there is safety and predictability in this island and that’s more than enough. Even so, you get a glimpse of the road not taken. When Kesu follows her around the house clicking her pictures, you see the subtle layers peeling off her. Of course, in her mind, Kesu is still the little boy she’s nurtured years ago and she indulges his whims by posing for him. Somewhere, perhaps even unknown to her, she soaks up this sudden male attention – this is a man staring her, not a child. And her smile blooms as she poses in classical dance mudras for his camera. In the thrumming humidity of the afternoon light, she is now this buxom goddess in her simple blouse and mundu, as lush and fecund as the green garden around her. But her island is invaded by this new outsider and she must again go away, thrust back to the outside.

If you are looking for a typical thriller, with racy twists and turns, this may not be a movie for you. The pace is slow and rightfully so because time moves this way on the island – ripple by ripple, breath by breath. It is unhurried story-telling and a lot is said in the silences. You have to be attentive to the dialogues (or the subtitles, in my case) and really read between the lines.

Pratap Nair’s cinematography ensures the island comes alive and becomes a character of the plot, and this to me, is the key ingredient in elevating Munroe Island to something unforgettable. The island is situated in Kollam, and it is a sheer slab of emerald. You don’t even need a decent camera to get a good picture - I guess even if you click photos blindfolded in this place, they’ll look stunning. But then, one can shoot as many soaring coconut trees curving to touch the green waterways and still miss something essential - Nair’s camera captures the very soul of this place. The lack of intruding background score is a blessing. Instead, you hear the island breathe in the trill of its insects, the wind through the trees and the water lapping clayey banks. You can smell the salt in the air and feel the humidity. In one hypnotic scene, Appoopan is lying on his bed by a window. An unpretentious nylon curtain, most probably a saree in a previous life, rhythmically billows and flattens in the wind. Outside, the day is white in the tropical sun. You can feel your pulse slowing down and eyes drooping!

I guess the weak link was in Kesu’s casting. Chacko has expressive eyes but none of the menace the character requires. Besides it’s quite a stretch on the imagination to see him as a teen. They should have selected someone from that age group and polished the character even more. Remember Ezra Miller in We Need To Talk About Kevin? Someone like that who can show an edginess …this would have elevated the movie to a completely different level. But it is a difficult task when you must deal with the constricts of a genre at the same time hint at deeper existential layers. To that end I think Manu’s film is sheer brilliance.

It’s a pity movies like this one, Thithi and so many other regional gems don’t get wider recognition within India – thanks to the cacophony of Bollywood. Thank god for Netflix.

Some books show up on your radar when you are ready to accept them, and such books must be savoured at least once in a lifetime. Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha showed up on my Amazon recommendation cookie for no decipherable reason. Years ago, when my life moved from one soundtrack to another, I had failed miserably in engaging with Hesse’s Steppenwolf. I bought Siddhartha immediately (Amazon’s one-click is the boon and bane of our existence).

I don’t enjoy spiritual books, at least not the ones where the author sits on a high pedestal, literally and figuratively, and preaches condescendingly. I was not sure what Siddhartha had to say. But when a story starts off with, “In the shade of the house, in the sunshine on the river bank by the boats, in the shade of the sallow wood and fig tree, Siddhartha, the handsome Brahmin’s son, grew up with his friend Govinda” – you stand no chance and you become an instant slave of the book.

We follow Siddhartha in his stumbling journey of self-discovery; his quest for the very essence of the soul – the Atman. As a young, accomplished boy (“strong, handsome, supple-limbed”), there is no doubt in his father’s mind Siddhartha will become the “prince among Brahmins”. His command over sacrifices, incantations, the Vedas; his demeanour, his intellect – everything is excellent and superior. Indeed, no one can find any fault in this boy, Siddhartha.

But Siddhartha is unhappy. Because questions torment him – why does he feel this lingering dissatisfaction? Does performing the Vedic sacrifices really please Gods? What is “I” when one removes the physicality? Siddhartha decides to leave the path chosen for him and much to his father’s heartbreak, he decides to become a Samana – a wandering ascetic, along with his childhood friend, Govinda. Perhaps, if he eschews the comforts of a social life, punishes his body enough, the real nature of the soul will be revealed? “To become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow – to let the Self die.” That was his goal – what will inhabit him when he becomes empty this way? It had to be that ever-elusive, mysterious “inner being” that will then awaken.

But soon, Siddhartha finds these bodily punishments futile. Once again, he is restless. Then, Siddhartha gets the opportunity to meet his namesake, now the Buddha, and has a life-changing conversation with the Perfect One.

For me, perhaps in the entire book, this meeting, the first glance of Gautama is the most beautiful piece of literature, and the image is seared in my mind. The hot, dusty town of Savathi is overrun with pilgrims and “silently begging” disciples, who have flocked to see and hear the Buddha. Yet, even in that milling crowd, Siddhartha and Govinda recognise the Buddha intuitively, even though Gautama is as inconspicuous as his disciples. They watch as Gautama leaves to beg for alms – “His face and his step, his peaceful downward glance, his peaceful downward-hanging hand, and every finger of his hand spoke of peace, spoke of completeness, sought nothing, imitated nothing, reflected a continual quiet, an unfading light, an invulnerable peace.”

Despite Siddhartha’s absolute love for the Illustrious One, he is still not convinced the Buddha’s teachings are for him. Siddhartha wants to experience the Enlightenment and believes it cannot be taught, not even by the Buddha. For that, he must find his own path of discovery, just like the Buddha had. And so, Siddhartha must continue his journey.

But where can he go? What is his destination? Sidhartha is lost again. He can no longer be a Samana. Neither can he become anyone’s disciple, because having the met The Illustrious One, the only man “before whom I must lower my eyes”, Siddhartha declares, “I will never lower my eyes before any other man. No other teachings will attract me, since this man’s teachings have not done so.” Where should he go from here? Siddhartha has an epiphany – how can he experience the mysterious Enlightenment if he keeps running away from himself? He reaches a river where a ferryman takes him to the opposite bank – where lies the town and “samsara”. And so, Siddhartha now journeys into “samsara” – not to eschew life but to embrace it, to understand this entity called Siddhartha better. If, in the previous life he punished his body, in this new chapter, he lavishes comforts on it. He seeks sexual and emotional pleasure in the arms of the beautiful Kamala (“bright red mouth like a freshly cut fig”), becomes a rich man, indulges in gambling, wine, rich food; becomes harsh and arrogant. Still he finds he cannot be like others, and looks upon people like spoilt children, fighting and losing sleep over things a Samana would only laugh at. But one night, he feels sick of it all. He walks away from everything, and is back to where he started – lost, alone, and still nowhere close to finding the essence of his soul.

The ferryman is back to rescue him, and Siddhartha spends the rest of his life with the ferryman, Vasudeva - the wise, god-like, simple human who teaches him to “listen to the river”.

I will leave it to you find out this third transition in Siddhartha’s life.

In Siddhartha, we see the reflection of the Buddha’s journey, only in a different setting. Both men had the same restlessness, the same gnawing questions. Both of them could have led very comfortable lives – a prosperous priest and a prosperous king. Yet, those transient fortunes did not seduce them. Neither of them could accept existing ideologies and were determined to find their own paths to Enlightenment.

To me, the most fascinating entity in the book was the river – a metaphorical representation of life itself. In one passage, the humble Vasudeva (“I only know how to listen and be devout”) tells Siddhartha to listen to the river because, “The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it.” The river has taught them that time does not exist for it. “The river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future.” These passages gnaw at me and I will return to them forever, I know.

Siddhartha is one of the very few books that has given me indescribable happiness and although it’s hardly 120 pages, it is one of the heaviest books I’ve read – it sifts in me day and night. In these days when every newsfeed is a barf bag, Siddhartha is poultice.

Courtesy - http://hindustantimes.com

Who knew watching a Bollywood movie in 2018 can be such a minefield? Here you are, a sorry-ass just trying to get through the week one traffic jam at a time; juggling linking of Aadhar and PAN; worried the bank will start stealing your money because you can’t maintain their exorbitant minimum cash balance. . . and so many other things. You just want to go catch a movie. Like how it was done for donkey’s years. Three hours of escapism. Where you are transported from Thippasandra to the Swiss Alps, to the pyramids, and to the streets of Budapest whilst munching popcorn. Where a babe can be irresistibly drawn to a middle-aged waiter and the guy suddenly becomes a bomb disposal expert for the Indian army because his heart is broken (whereas, you must pluck your eyeballs out just to move from one project to another). Where a middle-aged man can become a worldwide wrestling champion to prove his love (and you already have lower-back pain and knee joint pain because you are sat on your butt for fourteen hours a day…and you are not even officially middle-aged). Where a middle-aged tour operator seduces a young, rich, gorgeous, and very much engaged woman (and you with your BE, MBA are getting rejected left, right and centre on matrimonial sites). Yeah, three hours of escapism because Bollywood is the hyperbole of hyperbole.

But now, it appears watching a movie is not so easy. You must be mindful of how you will be judged. A traitor, anti-national/patriot anti/pro-(insert religion), anti/pro-feminist. If you want to be relevant on your social media platform, you must also carefully mentally prepare on what aspects of the film will potentially outrage you even before walking into the cinema hall (because others are already outraged, and you can’t be left behind) and come out successfully and sufficiently outraged.

We are witnessing a curious trend in India where everyone gets their underpants into a bunch over everything. People turn into overnight historians, theologians, philosophers and what have you, having educated themselves on Wikipedia and Whatsapp (okay, perhaps some serious crusaders do refer authentic research). Armed with this knowledge, they berate and bully anyone who prefers to remain noncommittal/have different POV. If Karni Sena’s protest against Padmaavat was politically motivated, the chastisement on social media of people who enjoyed the movie was equally nonsensical. What is even more absurd is some of these articles and comments were written by individuals who have not viewed the movie at all(!), unlike you – you unpatriotic capitalist and patriarchal foot soldier.

So, if you are still “wondering” if you must watch Padmaavat, have this perspective –

- It is 2018. You don’t have to bear the burden of history just to watch a movie. Because if this were true, there’d be no audience for any movies on the World War II, the Holocaust or Hitler.

- It is okay if you are not a historian and have no opinions about Khilji one way or the other. It is okay to walk into the movie hall with your thread-bare knowledge from ICSE history text book. In case you are interested, you can find the best reference work on the Khilji dynasty by Kishori Saran Lal - "History of the Khaljis", made available by the Central Archaeological Library archives.

- It is okay to believe the producers’ disclaimers that the movie is an interpretation of an epic poem – it is akin to a folklore - and watch the movie in that frame of reference. If you are curious about the original source, you can find a translation with notes on the original "The Padumawati of Mallik Muhammed Jaisi" published by The Asiatic Society (1896 edition!) here. By the way, this is not the first cinematic adaptation of Padmavat; as The Print notes, this poem has been a part of Indian cinema and theatre for over a century. The only difference now is common sense is in short supply these days.

- It is okay if you loved the sets, the costumes, the songs and came out thoroughly entertained. It does not imply you support Khilji’s brutal genocide or plundering. It does not imply you support medieval practices of sati. It does not imply you are less of an Indian.

- It is okay to forget the movie as soon as you walked out of the cinema hall.

- It is okay to think about the movie for days together after you walked out of the hall.

- It is okay to feel conflicted about the characters after you walked out of the hall.

- It is okay to discuss the movie AFTER having watched it.

- It is okay to have hated the movie.

- All the above is okay because consuming a movie is an individual experience, and you are an individual. You don’t have to apologise for liking/disliking the film.

- And, it is also okay if you decide not to watch the movie. Either way, don't pontificate, thank you very much.

Here are some (purely cinematic) reasons why you’d probably want to watch Padmaavat –

1) Ranveer Singh. His interpretation of Khilji is extraordinaryin the context of the film. As the ruthless, amoral psychopath, Singh draws you into his orbit where you are repulsed and riveted and simply can’t take your eyes off him. He emanates brutal, crushing magnetism in his blood-lust, obsession, debauchery and deception. Singh has raised the bar sky high in the commercial space. His unconventional looks and outstanding talent gives him the elbow room to portray hero/anti-hero characters and he takes full advantage of this; his risk paying off spectacularly. He is very aware of the camera and the light and exudes menace and malevolence in every frame.

2) Jim Sarbh as Malik Kafur – a huge round of applause because Sarbh does not allow Singh to eclipse his supporting role and he shines through all the homoerotic insinuations with fantastic body language and easy confidence.

3) When you come out of a movie thinking no one else could have done that role, you know the actors are winners. Indeed, no one could have filled Singh’s or Sarbh’s shoes. Such work is a rarity in commercial Bollywood space, and you must watch to encourage writers, actors, producers to take such creative risks.

4) Raza Murad as Jalaluddin Khilji in a brief role – his trademark voice and dialogue delivery is a wonderful opening to the movie.

5) Attention to detail is a captivating delight be it in the sets or in the costumes – and both these aspects are very important in a period drama.

6) Shahid’s understated portrayal – a lot of people have found his acting insipid, but I think the role demanded he underplay it – a characteristic contrast to the loud and vicious Khilji. It would have been awful if there was a lot of chest-thumping. But there are a couple of scenes where Shahid communicates with his kohl-lined eyes, and that’s no easy feat.

If not anything, you must watch this movie to put every bully in place who has dictated what movies you must watch and how you must feel when you watch the movie, and who has judged you based on what entertains you. You must watch this movie to put an end to this dangerous trend of a bunch of people trying to make everyone conform to their idea of Indian-ness and patriotism; to wrest back control of your thoughts and opinions, to make your own informed choice…because you are a thinking individual of the 21^st century.

So, two of my childhood friends are turning out to be androids of some sort. I always suspected this of one of them – A – who’s efficiency in just about everything peaked much before the Japanese discovered productivity metrics on the assembly line. She’s super practical and clinical and does stock market number crunching as a hobby. Let’s just be thankful she’s on the right side of the law. But the other friend, C, well, she threw me off guard with her recent display of kitchen nerdiness. Maybe I did not suspect her of android traits because the two of us share the same incorrigible hair woes – we look like we’ve slept on thorny shrubs. And that’s just the good days. That, and also she’s abreast of all the tapori songs and movies I enjoy.

Courtesy: http://www.consumeronlinereport.com

Both A and C are working mums and so, a lot of planning goes into kitchen chores. Breakfast and lunch must be packed really early in the morning. So, menus must be worked out well in advance. A’s kitchen is a lean six sigma operation. She’s the gadget queen. Her days start with the coffee machine which automatically starts roasting and grinding the beans at daybreak. That’s her suprabhata, and I can’t think of a better way than to wake up to the aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans. Both A and C are Instapot (hereafter referred to as IP) girls, and between the two of them, they can open a museum of kitchen gadgets. This Instapot thing runs in the family too - the Sister also owns it, though even without it, she just sort of does one spin in the kitchen and thirty different dishes are ready.

All the while, I thought my kitchen was at the cutting edge of technology because I own a fifteen-year-old Preethi mixer grinder (steel jars - big, medium, small) and three pressure cookers – Butterfly – big; Prestige pans – medium and small. On top of that, I’d been reckless enough to buy a slow cooker, in which I now ferment dosa and idli batter. Yup, I live on the fast lane at times. There was a moment when I came this close to buying that chapati-making contraption. I was kneading the dough and my elbows were hurting (from holding a book in a crooked angle, and also, old age) and I thought, hell. I’ll buy that machine. For a moment I even imagined making copious amounts of chapatis and distributing it in the neighbourhood. Oh, the tears of joy that would overflow from all the over-worked mums here… Then I saw the price – equivalent to a return ticket to India. So, I gave up the idea and applied Tiger Balm to the elbows.

Anyway, now C has upped the game with some methodology known as OPOS. I forget the full form – one pot something. At first, I thought she was cursing. Then she explained it is a super-efficient way of using the pressure cooker. A, a staunch IPist, jumped in and asked if the recipe could be adapted to IP. From C’s answer I figured OPOS is a secret cult and now, some OPOSians are forming a rebellious sub-cult of OPOS to IP technology transfer. So, A gave C a paneer migration project which was wildly successful. So successful that A, who is very reticent on social media, put up a status on her Facebook timeline – this unprecedented event might have caused the lashing winds outside my window.

In a desperate bid to draw me out of stone age - I mean, I can't even deal with these newfangled pressure cookers that look like submarine gadgets for deep sea exploration - C asked – Is your pressure cooker X litres? I bobbed my head. The hell I knew the volume of my cooker. When it comes to size, I understand only big, medium, small...no clue about litres. But then, there's only so many times I can look like a fool. C then gave me the syllabus. She shared links and theoretical analysis of OPOS. All I understood was you have to be mindful of the time. If it says 7 minutes 30 seconds, you better stick to that. If it says 1 and a half whistles, they exactly mean that. If that whistle draws out then your veggies will be tar. And, you can't haphazardly dump things into the cooker. It has be done in layers. C showed me photos of her cooking, all the while saying, "tumba easy kaNe" (it's very easy). Yeah, right.

I tell you, this OPOS sounded ominous to me. It requires the focus of one who is pipetting concentrated sulphuric acid into a test tube of nitrate to see if the damn brown ring is formed. It’s not meant for specimen like yours truly, whose life moves at a glacial pace, and who listens to pyar ki pungi while cooking and forgets to count cooker whistles. It's not that I don't plan my menus - I do saunter to the fridge, open the door and stare at the shelves, hands on hips. And then, I make Maggie.

That's not to say I'm no domestic goddess. I'm insisting on a steel bandli for my birthday, if you must know.

And, A and C, I love you both to bits, you nutjobs.

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