Slow & Sudden

You take a while
getting accustomed to.
Strange,
As familiar

As you are new.
Teasing. Throwing challenges
My way.
Daring me, gently

To get used to you.
I meet your eye;
Wonder
If I chose you, or

The converse is true.
Like black coffee,
Bitter chocolate,
And ungodly hours.

Tentativeness that
Melts into habit
Halfway
To eternal addiction.

Damned if I let you
Grow on me
Unfettered.
Damned if I don't.

Before I know it, you are
An acquired taste.

Serendipity

One doesn't get to watch much TV these days. What with one thing and another, television isn't really high on my list of things to do. But am I glad I was sitting in front of the TV with my mug of coffee this evening! I came across one of the most effective commercials I have seen in a long, long while.

This one is for the Bajaj Discover DTS Si. Now, I don't know the first thing about bikes, but the basic premise of the ad is that one litre of fuel will take you about a 100 km on this one. It has been positioned as the best way to 'discover India': apparently, it isn't just a bike - it is an experience, and a chance to experience.

A young couple sets off on their DTS Si, duly wearing helmets, with the woman carrying her handbag. As they ride deeper into the heart of what we soon realise is Maharashtra, the woman begins to enjoy the ride, albeit with city-bred caution. She is extra careful about her bag and their helmets, insisting on carrying them wherever they stop for a rest. Thirty seconds into the ad, they find themselves in a strange town...every house is sans doors! She enters one of these to ask for directions to the temple...and this is where we are told that at a distance of about a 100 km from Aurangabad - or one litre of fuel on the DTS Si - is Shani Shingnapur, where no house needs doors because the people believe they are protected by Shanidev [the equivalent of Saturn in the Hindu pantheon]. As the couple gets ready to enter the temple, this young lady finally lets go of all the extra caution, leaves the helmets on the bike, and runs into the temple smiling with faith - of more than one sort.

Brilliant concept. Exceptional execution...and truly unique positioning. There are ways of telling the target audience about the USP, and there are other ways...but this stands out because it builds trivia and the discovery of India into the concept. True to its name, the product promises to allow you to discover all that you didn't know about your own country. Take a bow, Lowe Lintas!

It's been a while now...this commercial served as a reminder of how much my first love - Marketing - still means to me. Maybe I should start watching more television. :)

Video courtesy YouTube

Smaller Fish

It's one of those Sundays. The kind I like once in a while, just to get myself back into that warm, familiar groove. I have nowhere I must go, nothing that must be done. Everything is optional. And I choose to give my room a thorough cleaning, finish a pile of laundry, pay some bills, sit and research a project, and then round the day off reading and munching on a bunch of bright red carrots I bought on my way back from college yesterday. I like carrots, especially when they are crisp and sweet.

But I digress. I'm talking about the kind of Sunday I like. This kind.

There's something reassuring about being able to finish laundry and all the tidying up...the things that ensure that some semblance of order finds its way into the next few days. It isn't really urgent - my room is neat and organised as a rule...and all the woollens and linen that I have just cheerfully dumped into that bucket full of Ezee could easily have waited at least another week. The shirt at the dry cleaners' can be picked up anytime till the 30th of this month. Airtel and Reliance won't, till the first week of February, feel the need to send me a not-so-subtle reminder of their bills.

And I could choose to do all this another day, but I'd rather do it now. It's fresh and sunny outdoors, with just a hint of breeze. It's the sort of time when  I know I will revel more than I usually do in the froth and bubbles and the smell of detergent on my hands; in the merry disorder that my room gets itself into when I am in the process of straightening things out good and proper. When I go to bed tonight, I'll have four things checked off a Post-It somewhere in my mind.

Also, I will have spent some time with myself in one of my favourite ways. :)

Maybe that's why it is so rewarding to finish these little odd jobs. Routine, which generally tends to get annoying in most things, brings comfort and familiarity in these small chores. I don't really have an explanation for it, except that every now and then, they lend my life some definition and purpose. Sometimes, right there in the moment, these little accomplishments make the bigger, fancier goals seem closer, more real. In good time, those will be achieved too...but for the moment, life is sorted out in finer detail.

And life laughs with you as you wipe a soap sud off your cheek, or when you misjudge spaces on your bookshelf and your dictionary falls back on you with an emphatic thud.

:)

Monkey Business

"Whoa! What? Wait! Wait!"

He took off, waving three A4 sheets in my face. Three sheets that I had scribbled furiously on since dawn, driven by the sort of urgent creativity only a deadline looming large can inspire.

My tutorial assignment on Foreign Trade in India between 1920 and 1945.

There was no escaping them in Residence - and in Allnutt South in particular. The backyard shared a wall with the Ridge, and Allnutt Gate opened onto it. Monkeys were not just a part of the general landscape. They were the landscape.

What a rotten, rotten way to begin the week.

The tute was already three days overdue. [Why else do you think I rose at 4 a.m. on a dewy October morning?]

The monkeys owned the place. No two ways about it. They would brachiate into the backyard with abandon, timing their entry with that of the first ray of sunlight. And then they occupied infested the trees, the grounds, the staircases and the corridors. In all fairness, they didn't do much to bother the Residents. Not much, if you didn't take into account the shrieks that rang through the block every time a girl suddenly found herself face-to-face with a grinning monkey around a corner, or the regularity with which T-shirts and dupattas went missing from clotheslines.

But a tute? What monkey wants a tute?

Come what may, that assignment had to be handed in that day. The next two days were University holidays, and for all the credits that the tute was going to fetch me any later than that Monday, I knew I might as well not bother finishing it.

It had taken me the better part of three hours, frenzied rummaging through my notes, and vast amounts of imagination to produce about 1200 words on the topic. Because it was so eminently an eleventh-hour job, I didn't have time for the draft I usually made before writing my assignments. It was okay, I thought, busily highlighting key points. The tute would go in today. That was all that mattered.

I unscrambled myself out of my armchair, yawned, stretched and breathed in the morning air. Fresh. Good. Now that the job was done, maybe I could take a nap before class began at 8.40. Sleep was catching up with me again. It is interesting to recall that I smiled as I thought that it had been a good idea to choose the verandah over the room to write my tute in. Because it was the last time I smiled that day.

And, of course, because I thought it was a good idea.

Every time you ran into a monkey in Allnutt South, you were guaranteed to be left wondering exactly how the creature managed to make you feel like an intruder in your own block, outside your own room - assuming, that is, that the panic at seeing those teeth bared in a rude sneer left any room in your head for wonder.

I left my tute, glasses and pencil on the window ledge, and went into my room for some water. When I stepped out, it took me a moment to register that the ledge looked different. Figures, I thought, still sleepy. The monkey hadn't been there when I had turned to go into my room.

The what?

All sleep fled.



What was a monkey doing here? And those sheets it was clutching couldn't be...they weren't...

"Whoa! What? Wait! Wait!"

He took off, waving three A4 sheets in my face. Three sheets that I had scribbled furiously on since dawn, driven by the sort of urgent creativity only a deadline looming large can inspire.

My tutorial assignment on Foreign Trade in India between 1920 and 1945.

Mothballed

Now, when I wrote last March about the winter gone by, remarking that it hadn't quite been the real thing, the season probably took it to heart.

Because this year, it seems eager to hell-bent on outdoing itself.

The sun appears and disappears at will. Fog appears - and does not disappear. Chilly winds go tearing down the streets at sixty miles an hour. Every time I uncap my little jar of Vaseline, I end up digging my finger into petrified petroleum jelly. And last evening, my roommate spent twenty minutes on the terrace, and returned to the room sporting a dewy halo around her curly brown head.

The first couple of times that the mercury dipped to (below?) record levels, the media took to prowling the streets and accosting already-harried passers-by with questions on how it feels to live in a cold, cold city like Delhi. Then, as the mercury stayed put where it had fallen, the microphone- and camera-wielding folk lost interest. At least we have been spared the chagrin of being reminded of our North Pole-esque circumstances on national television. Brr.

But I'm still in love with all you seasons, Winter, so, try as I might, I can't hate you.

Basant Panchami slipped by in a haze of fog and muted sunshine. Saraswati Puja. Pushpanjali, sarees, marigolds, camphor. A silent, fervent prayer to the deity of Knowledge and Music. A trip with friends to the Bengali School grounds at Civil Lines. The remainder of the day spent at the Book Fair at Pragati Maidan, or somewhere on campus.

This year, the prayer was the only part of it all that happened. Memories followed.

I have nothing to say...

...nothing, really.

I was talking about decisions and discipline a while ago. Well, they've been made. There is a semblance of order now...a rather tentative equilibrium. It's a start, at the very least.

Now that that is out of the way...

Ever had one of those moments when you've just known? No hard facts to sift through, nothing to work out...heck, not even enough time or the inclination to do any sorting...just the sudden, absolute, complete moment of clarity? When you know that you know?

No?

Oh come on!

I'll tell you about one of mine. It may sound silly, but it is important to me because it was my first instance of sudden, absolute clarity. My first I just know moment.

This happened in fifth grade, when we were learning to negotiate that minefield called algebra. There's something known as 'splitting the middle term'...the sort of thing you do with 2x+6xy+3y=7 (I'm not sure I have even that sample equation right...I'm not what you would call a natural at the subject). Of course, the teacher spent hours trying to show us how to do it, and of course I struggled with my first 20 or 30 questions because I just didn't see why I should split the middle term - or any term at all, for that matter - leave alone how I should do it. Mechanically, I would try one thing, and then another, till my answer matched the one in the key at the end of the book.

And then, as I sat poring over the book one evening, willing the middle term to split on its own, I suddenly knew.

Don’t ask me how. I have been puzzling over it for over ten years now, and I don't have an answer. The teacher made every effort to teach us the method step-by-step, but all I remember is everything falling into place like a jigsaw in one sudden moment of inspiration. So the best explanation I can come up with is, I just knew.

A psychoanalyst might be able to explain it to me scientifically...but then, I'm sure psychoanalysts have better things to do. All I know, even 14 years later, is that I never had a problem with that bit of algebra again - at least as long as I was doing it. (I will refrain from talking about the present. My skills in algebra - such as they were - are now a little, er, rusty ;) How do I summarize my knowledge of how to split the middle term? I just know. Not mathematical, hardly scientific, heavily intuitive...there it is.

Was it different from gut feeling or pure intuition or instinct, though? I am still pondering that...but all of these do have something in common: the "I just know" at the end. Intuition and instinct, I am familiar with. They're old friends. I rely a lot more on them than I do on facts and figures, anyway. Truth be told, I guess prior knowledge of facts and figures does influence your instincts to some degree. I don't think the effect is strong enough to drown the original thing out, however. If, for instance, intuition tells you to head left in spite of the road sign (literal and metaphorical) with a rightward arrow, it probably has a very good reason for doing so. Which is why I'll cheerfully turn left without a second thought if the quiet insistent little voice at the back of my head directs me that way.

In my opinion, you can't go very far wrong if you trust your instincts. The more I rely on intuition, the stronger and surer it gets...and the smaller the likelihood of a false step. I trust it on everything - situations, decisions, people, choices...you name it. And that is why, 7 out of every 10 things I say or do have no concrete explanation, no mental If-Then-Else flowcharting done in real time. Till some time ago, if I was cornered into explaining myself, I would drivel - unwillingly and unwittingly - like there was no tomorrow. Now, I simply grin and say "I just know", or "I just wanted to", or something along those lines. Sure, it doesn't do much towards clarification...

…but then, that is usually not my problem. :D

The Last Thought Experiment

This is just to say goodbye. For now, that is.

This blog isn't only a hobby or a record of all my thought experiments - it is a best friend of sorts, my own little window to the world, and one of my biggest addictions. I depend upon it in a way that I depend upon very few people or things. And right now, I need some time off. There are difficult decisions that I have been putting off for a while now, citing real and imaginary (mostly imaginary) reasons to myself. I have to tell myself some home truths; chide, love and coax myself into doing some things. Not sure exactly what this entails, and it doesn’t look easy from where I stand...but I have to get all this out of the way so that I can work towards a long-cherished dream with a clutter-free mind. It may not all be sunshine and oranges - but it will get me halfway there. :) If there is the option - however remote - of recourse to my blog, I'll never get around to thinking and doing all that I must necessarily think and do. Even if I do, it won't be the best I'm capable of. Some things are meant for us to handle on our own, no matter how many people or things we can fall back on.

So I must disappear backstage for some time. I will come back, of course...but I have no idea how long I will be gone. I could be back tomorrow; I could show up next in June. It feels imperative to say goodbye, because I know that there's more than a fair chance I won't be back here anytime soon.

For now, this is my last thought experiment.

Running Notes: Life 101

Morning's here. Either that, or my dream is suddenly a lot brighter and noisier. I half-open an eye and glance at my phone.

7 a.m. So it is morning.

I had better get out of bed, hadn't I? Even if it is wonderfully warm and cosy and snug and...no, really, I must. There's work to do. That application I began last week - should I finish it before I begin on the second chapter of my dissertation? Actually, given that I'm fresh and rested right now, getting some serious studying done is a very good idea. But I can't possibly do that unless I clear my table...and if I'm going to put away all the loose A4 sheets and reference books, hadn't I better finish that second chapter first...?

...Or I could burrow back under the quilt, turn over so I'm facing the sunlight filtering in through the blinds, and go back to sleep for another hour.

No contest, I think with a sleepy, dopey grin. It’s a rare privilege…let’s take it this one time.

Sometimes, the fact that we can choose to take it easy means a lot more than everything else put together.

It catches my eye as I'm sprinting down Bungalow Road to the department, late for yet another class. A pair of woolly, fuzzy, lime green-and-white socks. It's sticking out of a basket of gloves and socks and caps, guarded by a heavily-mufflered man holding a steaming glass of chai. Should I? Shouldn't I? Don't be silly, Pragmatism hisses in my ear. Aren't you late for class already? And lime green socks? Seriously, now? Grow up!

Torn between wanting to take a closer look and making it in time for attendance, I finally give in to temptation and stop by the basket. Pragmatism throws her hands up in disgust and walks into her room, slamming the door behind her. Ten minutes later, I am in proud possession of the fuzzy green and white socks. My feet are warm as toast, and I'm grinning for no apparent reason. Sometimes, I look away from whatever it is I am doing and glance at my socks and smile.

Go ahead. Do the goofy, unwarranted thing once in a while, just because you want to. Happiness sometimes comes in the strangest, most unconventional packages. Like a smile from a toddler on the street. Like chocolate for dessert. Or like lime green woollen socks.

She hasn't been herself for more than a week now...not since they had that huge fight. A minor disagreement that blew out of proportion because neither was willing to let it go. She thinks no-one knows. And he hates to think they won't talk to each other again - she isn't just the love of his life; she is also his best friend. It is killing him, but he won't say a word, and he thinks he'll get away with the charade...but he doesn't. Everybody in the gang notices. Everyone tries to convince each to talk to the other, and it is no good because each of them believes that the other doesn't care, that there is no chance of forgiveness.

One morning, several miserable days later, they bump into each other in the common room, where all of us are studying for a test. An uncomfortable silence fills the place, then he bravely steps forward and says, "I'm sorry." That simple. "I'm sorry, too", she responds. And, just like that, all the bitterness melts away.

Don't hesitate. Go on, say it. The attempt to make up may fail. On the other hand, it may not. But if you don't say it, there'll definitely be failure - of more than one sort.

The Awakening

"Darn these mosquitoes!" she mumbled to herself, flinging her pen onto her notepad and hauling herself off the couch. Slipping into her blue carpet slippers, she stepped to the window and thrust her arm out to pull the window shut. "And I'm going to make short work of this thing one of these days", she muttered darkly, as a thorn from the rose plant on the window sill scratched her bare arm. Again. Glaring balefully, first at the plant and then at her notepad, she sighed. As if it wasn't bad enough that she couldn't, for the life of her, think of a decent script, she fumed. The Head of the Department didn't just trust and encourage her to produce the best script the film school had ever seen - he had practically bulldozed her into it. The expectations were getting to her. It was very unfair, she thought, not sure what she meant by "it".

Irritated and worn out, she cast a glance at the window sill. Stupid rose plant, she decided. Why was it taking forever to bloom? When she had admired her friend Pat's beautiful pink roses, Pat had all but bullied her into taking home a cutting. Everyone gets their way with me, she sulked to herself. And here was this rose plant, resolutely refusing to blossom even three months later; serving no purpose, even ornamental; only getting in the way when she wanted to shut and open the windows, and demanding to be watered twice a day.

Heading to her kitchenette, she began rummaging in her shelves for coffee and sugar.

Two weeks later, she presented her Head with her script. Because the subject was close to her heart, she had put in every last bit of effort. As the Head ran his eyes down the first page, she crossed her fingers hopefully behind her back.

The Head had been curt. No, this wasn't good enough. It wasn't even good.

Back home, eyes burning and tears choking her, she shredded the script into a hundred pieces. It didn't matter...nothing mattered, she thought, looking around to see where she could stuff the script so she would never have to see it again. Spotting the rose plant on the window sill, she walked up to it and savagely pushed the crumpled ball of paper into the very depths of the soil. Angry, hurt and lonely, she flung herself onto the couch.

She opened her eyes to a million dust particles dancing in the ray of sunlight that slanted straight across the room and onto her face. She felt strangely at peace. As sleep left her little by little, the previous evening flashed before her eyes, and even though she had been the only spectator to her tantrum, she felt silly and ashamed of herself. Of course she could do better than that, she thought. She could - she would - write a better script.

Wide awake and very hopeful, she took a deep breath and went up to the window to open it and let the sunshine in. Two steps short of the sill, she stopped dead.

There, on a stem of the plant that faced the sun directly, was a little, pinkish-orange rosebud.

Tracking Thought

Hi there. I'm back.

I've had a good vacation, rounded off with a rather, er, entertaining train journey back. You have to hand it to the Rajdhani - whatever it does, it does well. If it is on schedule, it is on schedule. If it decides - or is forced to - run late or take a detour (blame it on bad weather, Naxalites, Maoists, U.P.'s rivers flooding over, what have you...), there will be a delay you won't forget in a hurry. So, yes, I did reach 7 hours later than I was supposed to, tired, hungry and limbs cramped. But you can't possibly hold a train any grudges. Besides, I like trains.

I half-thought I would sit and rattle off all that I have been thinking about in the last few weeks, but that doesn't seem like such a great idea now. I can't plan my writing - it's got a mind of its own. So I'll write about something I've been ruminating over since last evening.

Now, I know there are more serious things to ponder and philosophise about, but really, what happens to us after we've waited out scheduled waiting periods and things take even so much as a minute longer? On the train, for example, we all knew, to begin with, that we would reach Delhi at least three hours late - at 1.30 p.m., instead of 10.30 a.m. It couldn't be helped - one peep through the windows and anyone could see how thick the fog was. It made sense to move slowly, didn't it? And everyone was okay with everything right up to ten o' clock or half-past. And then, suddenly, people began to get cranky. Suddenly, the air conditioning was pronounced inadequate, the linen unsatisfactory, and the washrooms intolerable. By eleven thirty, three passengers around me had snapped at the coach attendant for no apparent reason, and several had complained about the delay to friends and relatives over their phones. I know for a fact that I began to get restless soon after eleven. For some strange reason, sitting up became too uncomfortable, my Wodehouse omnibus not interesting enough, and lying down for a nap too difficult, because of my listlessness. When the train finally pulled in at NDLS at 5.15 p.m., the general consensus was that it was an enormous hassle to have to spend 24 hours on a train.

I wonder why it was such a big deal.

Don't get me wrong, I know several passengers were on tight schedules. Many may have missed important appointments or connecting trains. Many others may have been unwell or upset for other reasons. And true enough, better planning and improved technology and control on the part of the Railways would have meant less trouble - to the extent that the weather's whims can be worked around, that is.

But that is not what my question is about. The frequent traveller to and from Delhi is bound to be familiar with the Purushottam. Stolid and dependable as ever, it seldom takes more than its stipulated 23 and a half hours between Delhi and Jamshedpur. If an entire day spent on board the Purushottam is not a problem, how come 24 hours inside the Rajdhani - with plusher berths, cleaner interiors, electrical points and fancy meals to boot - is such a trying experience? More intriguingly, how did everything become so hopelessly insufferable an hour into a delay we were already informed about? What happened to me and to 63 other passengers in B6 (and in the rest of the train, I have no doubt)?

It isn't about us on the train...it's about us and delays. About hating to wait even a minute longer than we have to, even when it cannot be helped by us or the other party. What is it?? I'm terribly curious! I am doubly keen to know because it is just not like me to find extra travelling a problem, and yesterday was one of the odd occasions when I did.

On a slightly different note, it's beautiful in Delhi right now. Freezing, yes, but also breathtakingly beautiful. If you'll just let your imagination take off for a bit, you could actually find yourself right in the middle of a fairy-tale, or inside a picture-postcard. Try it. It's worth suspending serious business for a minute or two. :)

Good morning, World! What's for breakfast?

Just yesterday, or so it seems, I was writing about the beautiful ease and grace with which 2008 gave way to 2009. It wasn't so long ago - or wasn't it? - that I was scoring the '8' out of 2008 and replacing it with a '9' on each assignment and page of notes, as I got used to it being year 2009. Was it really all of 365 days ago that I was contemplating an entirely new year ahead?

It sure doesn't feel that way!

But here we are. 2010 is upon us.

Happy New Year, World!

I've had several reasons to celebrate, big and small...2009 was, on the whole, umm, interesting; and, in all fairness and honesty, pretty good to me. It had its ups and downs, of course - for me, for those I love, and for all of us here on the planet...but, good or could-have-been-better, it has bowed itself out and ushered in a whole new 12 months...and that can't really be a bad thing!

And there's the special happiness of getting to spend New Year's Eve with my family after five long years...and the fact that I've just published my 100th post (!) and completed my first year of blogging in earnest.

I'm a couple of degrees wiser, too! :) I've had my moments of truth and learnt a whole bunch of facts of myself, people, the universe and life in general. There's lots more to learn, and I can't wait to begin living the rest of my life...I inked some posts in my head in the last couple of weeks, but then, I also have my data card to consider. I think I'm my fair share of temperamental...but this little bit of hardware in my laptop could definitely teach me a thing or two about being moody.

Hmm...so I'll see you when I get back to Delhi. Till then, here's wishing us all the sort of year we'll look back on with a smile.

:)