How come a woman is supposed to be of no importance if she doesn't have a brother, a father, a husband or a son to show off??

Blind Mice & I

Blind mice, blind mice don't go there
Why?
Coz that's the river

Blind mice, blind mice don't drink this
Why?
Coz this is poison

Blind mice, blind mice don't eat that
Why?
Coz that's a trap

Blind mice, blind mice don't meet him
Why?
Coz he is the ratcatcher

Blind mice, blind mice don't you trust me by now?
No!
Ok then,
Go there, drink this, eat that and meet him
I care a tiny rat's arse

Zzzzzzzzz of the night

It sounds like a ceiling fan from the last century

The distant drums

Emptiness of the mind

A marching army

The humming of silence

It sounds like a jet plane
going into one ear,
coming out of the other

That annoying high-frequency television buzz

It is a million crickets singing an anthem

It is what I imagine it to be
It is the zzzzzzzzz of the night

My 8 minutes

I got two dozen Alphonso mangoes from Mumbai. I have been eating 2 everyday. Sharing them with very close friends or my husband only. Treating them nothing less than just quarried drops of yellow sapphire set in giant gold casts. If there is any food item I like after Pani-puri, they are the Alphonsos. I intend to make up for not having any last year.

I had planned on finishing them all before it is time for me to get admitted in the hospital for the biopsy. Leaving nothing to chance. Everyone says it is going to be fine. My sixth sense tells me so too. But this had happened once earlier as well. "Everything will be all right" is a phrase I trust no more than a beggar's blessings which turn into a curse the moment you turn your back to them.

"I cannot leave anything to chance. I must polish off all the mangoes before Sunday", I had promised myself.

Partha asked me if I had any for dinner just now. 

I said, "No". 

"Why", he asked.

I had no answer. I don't know why I didn't feel like having them.

I don't feel like laughing right now. I don't feel like smiling. I don't feel like talking. Being close to anyone. I feel like doing nothing.

I don't feel like saying, "yeah don't worry I am fine". I don't feel like continuing the charade. I am tired of the mask I unknowingly put on every time anyone asks me, "How is everything".

I think I am at the end of my 8th minute. 

They say that if the sun explodes there will be chaos everywhere. Our planet will vaporize. Enormity of the destruction is unthinkable. The extreme heat will ensure devastation of magnitudes beyond any measure.

But there is a silver lining.

Because it take 8 minutes for the light to travel, for 8 long minutes we will continue to live, breathe, dance, sing, love, hate, survive and feel the warmth of the sun that has just exploded. We will be blinded only 8 minutes later. We will be struck by the loss only 8 minutes later.

In those 8 minutes we can live all we want.

In those 8 minutes we can die all we want.

In those 8 minutes we can be all we want.

I feel like I am at the end of my 8th minute. The happy, cozy, cheerful face that I have been keeping, trying to deny the fear that had already set in, is coming to a close. I am scared about tomorrow. I am scared about day after tomorrow. I am scared of the point zero zero zero zero one percent chance that my husband will walk into the room after the surgery and say, "it is malignant". I don't know how I am going to take it this time. The first time around it was easy. I didn't know what it meant. This time I know what it means.

Why can't I stretch my 8 minutes forever??? 

People you did not interview yesterday, Aamir

I do not belong to the vote bank you might be targeting to amass if and when you finally step into politics. I might not even belong to the elite bunch of gurgling living room activists who are congratulating you for putting up a wonderful show yesterday. And I definitely do not belong to the class that deserves any sympathy from you.

I am housewife. I am the wife of a doctor. I am the daughter of a hospital administrator. I am someone who has been treated in a government hospital which brought me back to life when all thought I would live no more (without pulling any ranks, just like any other person would be treated at the hospital....waiting for 3 hours before they even get to see a doctor). I am someone who lost her mother and father-in-law on account of illnesses. I am also someone who is scheduled for a surgery on the 8th of June in a government hospital in Delhi yet I will travel without fear to Mumbai tomorrow and comeback to Delhi just two days before the surgery because I trust my doctors. 

These are the kinds of people you didn't interview yesterday.

The people you didn't interview yesterday come from all parts of the world. Especially the third world countries. They come here. Pay a pittance. Get better and go back. Not for a cosmetic dental package but for life threatening diseases, bypass surgeries, organ transplants.

You didn't call those kids who drink and drive and when the speed demons take over, they meet with near fatal accidents. You didn't ask them how despite their limbs being strewn all over, they were brought to a government hospital at midnight where a dedicated team of doctors (who haven't slept in a long time) stitched them together with immaculate precision. They did not work for money, nor for a raise or a cut. They did it because the kids were young and had a whole life ahead. Nobody would have known if those doctors decided to label those severed limbs unfit to be attached back. But they didn't do that. You didn't ask those doctors why they opted for the tedious surgery instead of doing just the basics formal treatment.

An angry lady barges into an ICU because she has been told that her husband cannot be saved anymore. She is out of control and begins to kick the ventilators of other patients out of frustration. The few female nurses are administering procedures on serious patients so they cannot run to hold her immediately. A male doctors tries to stop her. He is accused of manhandling a lady who belongs to a minority community thus ruining his career. You didn't interview that doctor. Nor did the caregivers of other patients thank him for saving their ventilators. It was his bloody job they think. His job was to call for security, wait for a lady technician and the authorities to take care of it but he intervened for the betterment of others on life support.

You didn't interview private hospital administrators in small towns who are faced with patients who come into their rooms and keep their only piece of jewellery on the table and say "this is all I have got, please save my child". The administrators return the jewellery and excuse them from all hospital fees/consultant charges. These patients come in scores and hundreds. How does the hospital run?? On love and fresh air?

When the world and the patient himself have given up on the disease, a doctor suggests a new treatment which is still in testing stage. You did not interview those running the researches or those performing the thankless operations (either way they get blamed for clinical trials or deaths).

There is a man I know who is a super duper specialist. He came back from the US. Remained unemployed for a couple of months and when he found the job to his liking, he took it. He is a happy doctor saving many many infants & children today. You didn't ask him why he decided to come back and stay on if 'asking for cuts' was such a general practice.

You didn't talk to the doctor who performs Lap appendicectomy in LNJP in the middle of the night. This surgery is free. You did not call a single patient who is getting free medicines. Somethings as expensive as Chemotherapy drugs are free at some govt. hospitals. AIIMS dishes out free medicines worth 800 crore rupees annually. Drugs for HIV are free. Rajasthan govt. is doing a fabulous job but ask anybody in power if they want a 'supply medicine' or a 'local purchase'....the bills will prove what they prefer.

You didn't call the doctors working in PHCs at district levels to ask what their side of the story was. Forming an NGO is not a yardstick of being a good doctor. NGOs work for commercial gains too.You never mentioned all the good work AIIMS, LNJP, Safdarjang, LHMC, TMH, Cooper, KEM etc are doing. And this is just Delhi & Mumbai.

You didn't ask all those people who keep studying to become specialists till the age of 35 and begin taking their first steps of career after that. Whereas their classmates who took up management or IT jobs are already vice-presidents of their companies by then.You did not ask them why they still work for a paltry sum at a government hospital. You only ask them why they charge a premium on their services in a private hospital. You raise your finger at them when they demand their dues. I do not see you asking why a Mac is more expensive than an Acer or why a BMW is more expensive than a Maruti? It is because of what has gone into making that quality product!!!!

You did not interview people who remain sane & humane amidst death, despair, allegations, cursing and yet manage to infuse hope in patients and their families.

Yes Aamir you did not interview many many people before you presented your biased, lopsided and TRP driven episode IV of Satyameva Jayate on Medical Malpractices in India. You did not ask why they are compelled to do malpractices. Is it intentional or is it that they have to pay hafta to the local goons, politicians etc? You did not mind those ads which insist people to keep getting investigations after investigations done even when they don't need them. Availability of investigations under brand names such as executive health check, master health check, senior citizen check etc....are they not trending towards making sure that evidence based medicine take over clinical findings? And the lawsuits???

And you sure enough, did not interview families and friends of doctors, nurses, technicians and all those who are on call 24*7 (do you even know what being on call 24*7 for your whole life means? even on vacations anybody and everybody feels it is their birthright to make a doctor help them if there is a medical emergency). Every wife wants to be priority 1 in her husband's life. But when a doctor tells his would be wife before marriage "you are priority number 2, my first priority will always be my patients", she still happily marries him. Why? Because she knows he is right not because he might or might not make tons of money.

Is this what you imagine when you talk of medical practices?

These are the people you generalized yesterday Amir. You glorified a few doctors in a few states but made doctors in general look like devils. Goodness of individual doctors and other medical staff doing their best in salaried jobs is the side of the story you never presented. You could not find one person who wanted to say, "You know I thought we had no hope but these doctors saved me"?? I find that hard to believe.


Thank God for the IPL final, else we would have been more upset than we already are right now. Shah Rukh and his team came to your rescue from all the bad vibes we never got to send you. Do not forget to thank him in one of your episodes...bahh!

(No I am not an SRK fan, I am an Amir fan who is hurt because he was loved and respected so much before this episode was aired).

Unread stories

I worked with a couple of children's TV Channels as a freelance writer. Apart from writing jingles & narratives there were many other odd jobs that I did. One of them was to sift out contest stories which children sent for Story Writing Competitions. It was a laboroius task but I could take them home and do it as per my convenience, so it was all right.

I had to go through hundreds of them. Then pick a few of the good ones so that the real judges could go through them to select the winners. I liked the job. It was fun.

Every day there would be new boxes, full of stories that children had written from all over India. The junior executives at the Channel would segregate the handwritten ones from the printed ones. I was given only the printed ones to siffle through. The handwritten stories never came to me. One day I found a few handwritten ones in my box. Maybe it was a mistake. Two of them were very good so I put them in the 'selected stories' box. Kids had drawn images, done a bit of art work and written with different coloured pencils about superheroes only they could have dreamt of.

The executives at the channel saw this and immediately took them out to be put into piled up boxes of handwritten stories.

Those piles were going nowhere. Day after day more boxes would be added to them. None of those stories were to be judged. I asked why. I was told that this particular story writing competition was sponsored by one of the Software Corporate giants and only the stories written on a computer and printed on A4 size paper/cut into CDs were to be considered. This was one of the pre-requisites of the contest terms.

I knew they were right in sticking to the rules. Kids and their parents knew this yet they took the trouble of writing the stories. It was their fault. Or maybe they didn't have access to a computer. Maybe they were from small towns. Maybe they had never seen a computer. They competed because they thought that the content was more important than a mere technicality. Nobody was at fault yet there was something flawed about the situation.

When I gave the channel the best 20 stories out of the printed lot on the final day, I was very sad for those boxes in the corner with handwritten stories. In them lay hidden some wonderful, imaginitive works of art which would go to the trash can after the results were declared. So would the other unselected printed ones too but at least someone had read them.

What if one of those unread gems is one of the first stories of great writers of tomorrow? I know things like these happen all the time and this is the risk all those take who do not follow the rules. But still....I wish I had a chance to read them all. Not from the contest point of view but those lovely stories deserved to be read at least once. 

For all those who sell fairness creams....know what you are fuelling

"Anand I think you should come to Mumbai immediately. Vandana requires some urgent attention", told my uncle Appa to my father on the phone one evening or night of 2001 (or was it 2002). I was living in Hindu Colony Dadar, Mumbai as a paying guest in Lane 2. My maternal uncle lived in Lane 1.

My father had just retired and moved to Karnataka. He wondered what might have happened that made Uncle call him like that. On probing he found out the following-

I had stopped going to office all of a sudden. I had stopped eating. I had stopped talking to people. I didn't come out of my room for a few days but for the daily ablutions. This worried my landlord. To avoid any questions I had requested my Uncle to let me stay with them for a few days. He and aunty had heartily obliged. But a few days in their house and they noticed my aloofness. I was scared of the mirrors. I would almost let out a protest every time a reflective surface came my way. One night, I woke up in my sleep and was knocking on the cupboard door loudly, asking someone to open it and said, "I don't want to live here....let me in". They were the doors to heaven in my sleep and I was begging them to take me in.

That is when the call was made and within 12 hours my parents had hired a taxi, covered a distance of 600 kms and stood at Uncle's doorstep to collect their daughter who was in a pitiable state.

They asked me what had happened.

I was too naive to hide anything from them. I told them how I had met someone on an internet marriage site and gone to meet him and his parents. The parents found me unsuitable for their son and told him in no uncertain terms that he should have at least made sure that he had selected a pretty girl.

My father knew the whole routine the moment I told him this. It had happened a couple of times whenever we went to meet a prospective groom. I was of marriageable age and in the past few months we had made a few trips to different houses in Mumbai, Pune, Hubli where he was told bluntly that they didn't want a dark girl in their family. They would be rude to my father and often were angry at him for not having told them on the phone that his daughter was dark, thus wasting their precious time. Their sons were here for 10 days from the US to select a girl and we had wasted one full evening of their's. This happened many times in a row. It was taking a toll on me and my parents who couldn't fathom what was wrong with the world.They stopped looking for a match for me in our community which wanted only the fairest of fair to be their daughter in law.

He decided to meet the parents of the boy I had mentioned. They met. The boy's father stood pointing to their family photograph and said, "I have three children. The other two are married. My only unmarried son has a line of people who are willing to pay upto 1 crore in dowry but I only want my son's happiness. I would have said yes to this alliance if only your daughter was beautiful. Look at this photograph. Not a single one of my children or grandkids are dark in colour. How can I have an aberration in the family." Thus spoke the well educated father of a boy who woked with an MNC in Dubai. In fact he accused my father of 'having a daughter who lured his innocent boy by sending a misleading photograph where they couldn't make out how dark I was'.


My father got up and left their house. Came to Dadar. Asked me to pack my bags to go to Hubli. We left in the same Taxi. I stayed in Hubli for 15 days. That was the end of the road for any arranged marriage for me.

Irony of the above story - I don't even remember that guy's name today.

These were the times of the IT boom when most parents who had a son working abroad acted like the holder of a blank bearer cheque. They thought we were 'foreign crazy women who wanted boys with a green card to marry' at any cost. And they didn't mind berating young intelligent women who did not conform to the same.


It took me many years to get out of the inferiority complex. Even longer to believe that there are people in this world who don't care about how you look, let alone if you are fair or dark. You have no idea how it feels inside when you believe that people are doing you a favour by even talking to you because they have to bear looking at your ugly face for that amount of time.

To be friends with the mirror back again is a task. One snap judgement on the colour of your skin (especially when you are young and impressionable) can take you years back in terms of regression of self confidence and belief.

In 2003 when I went for my first trip abroad, I couldn't believe that people crave for a honey brown even complexion. I thought they were making fun of me. Only when Sumira (my senior) told me that 'tans' are something people have to work for did I realise that those were actually compliments and not mockery.

Dark n ugly....bahhh....those idiots!!

Thank God for my work, friends, family, husband and passage of time which has made the tables turn around. Next time you make a comment about a child being dark, please know it takes a very long time to erase the memory of pain those words have caused. I am lucky. Many are not. They cave in.


I no longer turn my snaps into black & white so that people can't comment on how dark I am. Special efforts on photoshop to increase brighness and contrast have also become a thing of the past.


I am no longer afraid of untouched coloured photographs.

(The power of constant brainwashing can mke a perfectly fine person feel extremely inferior. This fact is something which you will believe/understand only if you have been that person or have met one. On the surface it comes across as a harmless taunt but on the inside it has ruined many a lives.)

The Body Clock

For me to have any stress related disease would be a laughing matter in the family.

"Oh she sleeps 12 hours a day and can doze off even more. She has no stress", is the general byline in our house. When I started getting random insignificant symptoms, stress was the last thing on my mind. Even I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I am back to being fit and fine now. But I still get these pangs. A very strong urge to hold another living being close to me. So much so that when I go for a walk, I look at the trees and imagine that they have bent their arms down, to hug me. There are two bottle-brush trees that have gone completely bare but when the few remaining flowers fall on me as I walk, I feel that the tree has heard my silent wish for a hug. I look up and smile at the tree. I am sure fellow joggers think I have gone mad.

I thought maybe I wanted a pet. It turns out that I don't. We had a heart to heart discussion yesterday about whether or not we should get any more cats. The firm 'no' didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

Yet the cravings wouldn't go away.

I have a squirrel which has made a little nest behind our bathroom window. She has a white round underbelly which is the size of a plump pear. When she scurries across the window mesh, her fur glows with natural backlight. Even thought she darts across vertically, her rotund tummy has a mind of its own and jiggles in all possible directions. I knew she was pregnant. I used to look at her and be happy for her. But yesterday for the first time I was jealous of her. Not in a resentful way but yes I marveled at the irony of it all. The ache surfaced as a half smile.

For all my maternal non-instincts have somehow decided to give way to the most natural human desires of all. Hold a child in one's arms.

I never thought this would happen to me. I was such a strong willed person who took life as it came. I thought I had come to terms with what was not to be. But as time passes, maybe this is the way body clock works. Reasons begin to clamour and the silent time-keeper suddenly decides to become an alarm clock. Its frantic bell ringing can be quite deafening.

How easy it is to misinterpret the 'want to hold' with the 'want to be held'.

Thank God we do not live in the times of the sun-dials. No cloud can cast its shadow long enough to moisten the eye of time. Hum drum tick-tock of the digital world rules. Life goes on. 

Warps & wefts of friendship

the warp & weft of a double ikat saree

The weaver sat there weaving, wanting to make a beautiful fabric. Each warp* was strung and placed with its surrounding warps on the beam. They all looked at each other and smiled. They were neighbours for eternity. They had to be the strong ones because they were to bear the trauma of all the weaving. They had already been through the shedding and twisting together, which was to strengthen them. They were like best friends who had seen ups and downs as one. The warps.

But sometimes history can be a baggage. They were permanently tied together. Still and rigid. Absolutely no interaction despite being so close. One didn't speak to the other. Soon they got tired of each other. They waited for the wefts** to come by. The wefts would be like a breath of fresh air. Always on the move, never a dull moment with them.

The weaver knew this. He started interlacing the warps with the wefts. The wefts brought new colours with them. As the interweaving progressed, the highly strung warps started swaying too. Fluttering to the music of the wefts. They criss-crossed, danced and created magical designs with each other. The warps were very happy. They had found new friends in the wefts. Someone they could talk to, someone they could relate with. They gradually started getting detached from the neighbouring warps.

All the warps had taken each other for granted that they would always be together. They were the original best friends. But they never realised how and when they got so disconnected that they belonged only to the wefts now, not each other.

This is how friendships fall apart.

Slowly. One warp at a time. Day after day.

The fabric looks beautiful. The motif is magnificent. The weaver has done a splendid job.

But the warps have lost out on each other. The wefts are their new best friends. ***




__________________________________________________________________________

image courtesy Wikipedia

*       Warp is the yarn that is permanently fixed on the loom in a lengthwise fashion. Called ताना in Hindi

**      Weft runs through the warp by way of threading. Called बाना in Hindi

***    I think I saw glimpses of one such great friendship fading away today. A little sad about it but then who knows what design has the destiny in mind for which this little detour was necessary.

एक ग़लती

हमें रिश्तों को खींच-तान कर, ठोक-बजा कर परखने की इतनी आदत सी हो गयी है के हर मोड़ पर हम उन्हें कसौटी पर रख धरते हैं. हर ढलान पर उनकी पकड़ जांचते हैं. हर चढ़ाई पर हौंसले का सबूत मांगते हैं. भूल जाते हैं के कच्चे धागों में पिरोया नाज़ुक सा हार है यह, कुत्ते का पट्टा नहीं जो घडी घडी खींच कर पड़ताल करनी पड़े.

फिर जब हमारी ऐसी ही एक ग़लती से ये माला टूट जाती है तो या तो दोस्तों की टोली मुट्ठी भर ले जाती है या हमसे भी ज़हीन कोई अपना लेता है उसे. एक छोटी सी ग़लती कर के खो बैठते हैं हम अपना कीमती जेवर. कभी वापस न पाने के लिए.

 खींचो नहीं यूँ जोर से
माला जांचन वास्ते
जहाँ-तहां पर भटकते
होंगे बिखरे मोती रास्ते

पंथी मुट्ठी में भर लें
या चुग जाए हंस कुलीन
पल भर में ही लोप भये
माणिक-मोती महीन



भूले से भी ना गिरे
ये जेवर अनमोल
कंगाल भिकारी बनकर भी
 मिले नहीं खैरात में
खींचो नहीं यूँ जोर से
माला जांचन वास्ते


बिनस गया तुझ से तेरा जो
संजो सके ना कोय
वो नाजुक, उस से भी नाजुक चाव
शब्द बाण प्रहार से
ऐसे तीखे घाव
संचा बचे फिर कुछ नहीं
ऐसे घातक अघात से

खींचो नहीं यूँ जोर से
माला जांचन वास्ते
जहाँ-तहां पर भटकते
होंगे बिखरे मोती रास्ते

Roots & 'The other side of the mat

New stories on Oot-Pataang

Roots

The other side of the Mat

(Sorry people....am in a rush to complete these stories so that the book is out fast. Don't want to neglect 'Raindrop' but it just turned out this way. Enjoy Oot-Pataang in the meanwhile :)

Subject to approval...

I quit the company I worked for in 2006. My PF took 6 months to come into my account.

Those 6 months told me what Banks think of a person, especially 'a person without money'. Even though I had my salary account and spare monies with them for 8 years, they did not deem it fit to approve my personal loan application. I was going to travel over 25000 kms in six months and needed a video camera. I approached over 4 banks (I had monies in all four). None of them gave me a loan of INR 50,000/- . My request was 'subject to approval' they said.

I went on the trip without a camera of my own.

I came back and so did a big fat PF cheque from my company. I put it in my salary account and made an FD.

Soon I was eligible for a personal loan of INR 15 lac! Pre approved they said.

I opened a business. I needed a current account.

I went back to the bank. They took a long long time. 'Subject to approval' they said.

I withdrew monies from other banks and made out a big fat cheque to be put in the current account. It was opened in three days and I even had a 'relationship manager'.

Business grew. The bank gave me a financial planner/manager.
Business grew bigger. Bank sent silver coins, umbrellas, planners, calendars at regular intervals. Business account became Businessvantage, savings became Powervantage.

I fell in love.
I decided to marry.
I withdrew my money for the preparations.

I got married. Moved to a different city. Business dwindled. Businessvantage and powervantage accounts became normal business & savings accounts.

ATM card malfunctioned. Delhi branch said 'your Mumbai relationship manager' will have to get it for you. 'Mumbai relationship manager' no longer existed. Mailing address disparity they said.

I am to travel abroad this month. Credit card company refuses to increase the credit ceiling. In their own words 'past payment history (however spotless) didn't matter'. What mattered were this years IT returns. Subject to approval they said.

It's funny, the way they work. When you need the money, you are not eligible for a loan. When you don't need the money, you are.

Thank God the world doesn't work like a bank. Family, friends....they love you more each day, no matter what. Not subject to any approval!

One day of my life

Yesterday was a lovely day but for something that I am yet to come to terms with.

I know someone. Someone with whom I must have exchanged maximum five sentences till date. I realised that the person was on my friends list. So I said 'hi'...after years maybe.

What followed was a barrage of hate mails....in utmost coarse, disgusting and discrediting form of prose. It took me some time to gather what just happened. When have I hurt this person? When have I done anything to harm this person? I hardly know him! We had spoken maybe once or twice. He was a bright, soft spoken youngster. The only reason I remember him is because he was nice to me in my time of crisis and had offered to help (which I never availed of).

As the day progressed, my shock turned into disbelief. Disbelief into worry. Worry into serious concern. At this point I could not hold myself back. This boy needed help. His letters were gravely disturbing, eccentric and arrogant. Blaming me and a whole lot of other common friends to be spies of a corporate giant. How absurd!

I showed the letters to my husband. He looked at them from a doctors point of view. "This boy should be in therapy", he said. I was thinking of measures we could take to try and be of some assistance. He was such a nice person. So young and talented. What happened to him? What caused him so much distress that he had turned into this???

I remembered my fathers advice 'dusryanchya phatkyaat paay ghalu naye'. Literally it means, 'don't needle someone else's rip, it will only make the slit tear more' and maybe reveal the ugly scar.

A friend called in the evening. Call it divine intervention or sheer co incidence, this person knew him too and told me how they had tried to help him. All in vain. This boy is a victim of substance abuse and borders on 'a beautiful mind' situation.

Not wanting to sound missionary I quietly deleted him from my list. He still weighs tonnes on my mind. I am guilty of washing my hands off it.

I do regret that I lost one whole day in all this. One day of my life that I am never getting back. But that is nothing compared to a precious life that is slowing crumbling in another city, all wrapped up in a warped timespace.