Roadrunning (or, Bombay to Delhi in 22 hours)

“It’s not possible.” “You’ll fall asleep.” “Your responses slow down as you grow older.” “And, there’s no one to share the wheel either.” These, and other such diatribes were hurled my way when I suggested we drive Bombay to Delhi, non-stop. To me it seemed the most natural of progressions, but to my wife and sons, this was akin to another insane last-ditch effort that ageing men take to, to look and feel younger.
For once, I put my foot way down, all the way to the floor-board. And announced that this was indeed what I was going to do, and if my wife preferred, she could fly instead.
And so here I was, settled in the driver’s seat (with my wife in the sleeping one), peering out into the darkness, as I turned on the ignition, early morning on 28th May 2009, feeling much like Alexander must have when he set off from Persia, or Columbus as he set sail, many, many years before me.

Bombay 4.16 am
As we whizz past dogs barking randomly, slum-dwellers blissfully sleeping on road dividers and the odd cars straggling home after a late night on the city roads, I reflect on my past life, which I’m quite certain, was that of a trucker. For there’s something about experiencing places through driving—a flavour I insist you can’t get by any other means of transport. At this hour, Bombay is so peaceful, and thankfully navigable. It takes less than half an hour for us to clear the distance between Versova and Dahisar, and to be in the midst of the Western Ghats, purring on quickly yet firmly, in line with our resolve.

Toll booth short of Manor 5.10 am
A longish queue awaits us at this early hour as we strike the first of the million toll-booths that have now become characteristic of road travel on Indian highways. As we try and weave our way past sleepy, monstrous lorries, I see four whores on the other side of the road. Placed strategically just after the toll barrier, and close to an inviting pile of concrete pipes big enough to setup home in, they’re sure to catch the fancy of weary truckers headed into town. For the truckers, this is surely the last bit of heaven before hitting the big bad city, and for the sex-workers, welcome last earnings before they head back to their hovels and infants. I shake my wife awake and even as we nudge forward to pay obeisance at the booth, we see a couple disappear into one of those huge pipes.

Talassery near Mah-Guj border 5.55 am
A drive through the Ghats in twilight remains one of the rare wonders I have seen, in this world. The ancient trees, the eroding hills and the fragile ecosystem barely stirring to life seem to remind you that soon, if mankind’s not careful, such sights will disappear, probably giving way to more soot and grime-washed monolithic skyskrapers with narrow slum-lined roads and urban dismay that we just came out of, barely an hour away.
The first golden rays as the sun emerges to our right also reminds me of the bare elements we truckers so take for granted by now: earth, wind, water and the sun! I’m reminded of the setting sun reflected in the lake as we’d driven into Udaipur on the drive to Bombay a couple of days ago, and a thousand other instances when we’ve stopped on a high mountain road just to witness a sunrise or a sunset, or at the gushing of a waterfall deep below and the rainbow it creates, and marveled at how each time, we’ve been really touched by these awesome sights! If you can’t believe how these can move you as you traverse the countryside outside of the cities, you ain’t seen nothing yet: and I’d urge you to take a really, really long drive.

BP station short of Navsari 6.40 am
Our objective behind starting so early is to make good time especially through the busy industrialized belt of Gujarat that one must pass through when on NH8, one leg of the Golden Quadrilateral. Having already crossed Atul and Vapi, we must stop for a leak and chai just before we enter what’s the most tedious part of this journey: the 225 odd km from Navsari, through Surat and Bharuch to Baroda. This stretch is made tough not only by the busy traffic, but also by the still ongoing four/six-laning work on the highway. As we stop by at a BP Petrol Pump which has toilet and restaurant facilities, we brace ourselves: it once took us as much as 5 hours to cross a 150-km bit on this stretch!
Surprisingly, the restaurant is already stirring to life and has tea and ‘nashta’ to offer: I make a note of how franchisees can make a difference to business, by contrasting this to the behaviour at the Udaipur Circuit House on the way up, where we were told it would not be possible to get anything other than bed-tea before 6.30-7.00am! Not just this alacrity: I believe Petrol Pumps have the potential to massively alter the dreary conditions of long-distance driving—and it’s only slowly that petroleum companies are waking up to their potential to be the oases of the highways. And in this endeavour, I seriously believe the franchise model is much better than the COCO (Co-Owned-Co-Operated) one, a point that I shall return to later.

Baroda 9.25 am
My wife insists that on the way up, she’d counted 7 flyovers (generally by-passes) under construction on the stretch between Surat and Bharuch, which slowed down the heavy traffic to a crawl. To our pleasant surprise , we negotiate all of them (and the 2 more which she’d obviously forgot to count or remember), quite breezily. Quite obviously our early start has given us sufficient headway and we zip past as the industrial chimneys are wheezing to life, in their daily habit of spewing chemicals and pollutants to choke an unsuspecting population that proudly welcomes ‘development and progress’ in Gujarat.
Ironically, we pass a mini-truck carrying cows (which of course are packed like sardines, and in a standing position, are dumbly trying to make sense of how travel has changed for them in these industrialised times) and amusedly I remark how this new image of ‘Cattle on wheels’ could well replace the older ‘Cattle on Road’ one as India finds its rightful place in the global economy.
That Gujarat is clearly on a faster path towards development is patently visible on this stretch: the innumerable factories with workers unmindfully crossing the road on their way to work, criss-crossing trucks, mini-trucks and 3wheelers ferrying goods and raw materials, hundreds of ‘Hotels’ (which by the way is just an euphemism for dhaba or restaurant at best) dotting the highway, and the unmistakeable chemical smell in the air are all vibrant indicators of Narendra Modi’s success. If I had some time, I note, I would’ve been easily able to shoot a documentary for his pre-election use!
To my pleasant surprise, we by-pass Baroda a good half-an hour of my estimated time, and ease onto the 90 km ‘Expressway’ between Baroda and Ahmedabad, which is proudly proclaimed as one leg of the ‘National Expressway or NE1’ on billboards (to the best of my knowledge there is no such project, so this seems more of Modi-ish chest-thumping to me). Whatever the case, this stretch is pure pleasure to drive on and you cover the distance in a mere 40-45 minutes: helped by the high toll that keeps many truckers and buses away, and a well-maintained straight, six-lane track that reminds you of the autobahns of Germany.

Udaipur 3.40 pm
Continuing with our good streak and having come roughly halfway, we ease out of Gujarat into Rajasthan at the Ratanpur border in the afternoon, just after 1 pm. By now, the traffic has thinned (it’s a sweltering 45 degrees outside), and the green vegetation that we encountered right upto Himmatnagar gives way to the sparse bushery of the approaching desert-state.
We’ve been frugal with our food intake so far: just eggs, sandwitches and water consumed in bits since the morning and a shared dosa at our last stop just before Ahmedabad. This is because a. we want to feel light and alert, and b. I have this unexplained desire to have ‘dal-baati’, something we know will be available only when we cross into the princely district of Udaipur.
The drive through the hills before you touch Udaipur is awesome: rugged, cut rock-face, undulating hills and the illusion of water on the road (caused as we know from our physics lessons, by refraction of light on really hot days). Before the days of the Golden Quadrilateral, this used to be tricky terrain: narrow winding road with trucks often blocking the right lane, in their struggle to negotiate the climbs with their heavy loads. And the rare petrol-pump that you so nervously looked out for, if you were short of fuel. Things are easier now: there are many more petrol-stations (fuel is cheaper in Rajasthan than in Gujarat and I guess land is cheaper!), but you still come across a couple of upturned lorries each time you negotiate this picturesque 100-km odd-stretch.
We manage to locate a tiny dhaba that’s frequented only by truckers, offering daal-bati. In that oppressive heat, we sit on charpoys and consume hot, red, watery daal with freshly baked baatis doused with generous helpings of pure-ghee and chilly-achar, and understand how desert-folk beat the heat with their colourful food.
We finally by-pass Udaipur a little behind schedule, but are hopeful that the drive to Chitorgarh (via NH 76 which branches off from NH8 at Udaipur, to meet NH79 there before continuing onwards to Kishangarh on the Quadrilateral) will be a relatively easy one, as there’s hardly any traffic.
As you bypass the spectacular town of Chitorgarh that’s carved on a hillside, and made famous by Maharana Pratap and Chetak, you’re reminded of the alternate route to Mumbai, which passes through Indore, Bhusawal and Nasik, had you not opted for the one passing through Gujarat. Apparently the roads there are still being upgraded, so it’s not a wise decision to take that option at all.

Kishangarh 7.10 pm
The long and straight NH79 from Chitor to Kishangarh, passing by the textile town of Bhilwara and the garrison town of Nasirabad is rather green (as it passes through the eastern part of Rajasthan, leaving the drier, but to me more charming, hilly regions of Jaisamand, Beawar and Ajmer to the West) and an easy drive: traffic is sparse and the sun is now setting, bathing the undulating countryside in a deep orange.
We normally stop at our favourite ‘Chuni Halwai’ at Nasirabad, to pick up large, pizza-sized ‘kachoras’. These completely unhealthy (deep fried with oodles of spices and dal/pyaaz filling) but sinfully delicious numbers are a big hit both in Delhi and Bombay. Today, we intend to save the 45 mts of detour that this causes, and in any case, kachoras and kachoris are freshly prepared only in the mornings.
We stop instead, at another BP ‘Ghar’ petrol-pump, looking for ‘lassi’ before we hit the busier parts approaching Jaipur on our last leg. The ‘Ghar’ seems to be a bright idea gone wrong (as usual) in its implementation. One can understand the laudable idea of having a clean and cheerful stopover offering wholesome food at reasonable rates (thalis @ Rs 50 odd, if I remember), clean toilets and layover facilities even for truck-drivers. But what one can’t fathom is how the poor franchisee who must’ve been forced to put in substantial investment and adopt this model, could even hope to break even with this huge facility – designed for upwards of 50 covers at any given time, including an AC room that requires no less than 6-tonnes of air-conditioning equipment, running for a handful of customers that can be hoped-for on this route. If on the other hand, this was COCO, then it’s obviously a big drain on the company: the place had more staff than customers, and was serving a glass of nimboo-soda (which we had to settle for as there was no lassi) for just Rs 15 in an AC environment! We’ve seen a similar situation in such ‘Ghars’ before in Bikaner on a trip a few months ago: maybe someone from Bharat Petroleum should drive past some of their Ghars and see how to salvage the situation.
Which brings me to another point about our infrastructure development: the toll-roads. If you’re a trucker like me and has navigated the country before we knew how to spell t-o-l-l-t-a-x, you no doubt feel blessed to have world-class roads in India (and when I say that, I mean it, having driven all over Europe a number of times). But consider this: you must spend upwards of Rs 500 on a one-way trip on this sector. Now while that may not be a large sum for your pocket or when compared to toll-taxes overseas, you must remember that this cost approximates that of a II-Class train ticket! Does that mean that the million Nanos that will soon be unleashed on our roads will feel the pinch when accessing toll-roads? Probably not, but personally I hope they hurry up with installing RFID mechanisms in cars, that would make stopping at toll-booths and tendering exact change redundant!

Jaipur bypass 9.05 pm
As we turn-off at Kishangarh and rejoin the 6-lane NH8 that comes from Ajmer, we grit our teeth for the difficult stretch ahead. It’s dark again and the headlamps have been switched on. But that’s hardly the cause of our discomfort.
Truckers are often credited with good road-sense: in any discussion of road behaviour people often laud their discipline: how they adhere to the left-of-road, and move aside politely when you intend to pass them. On the other hand, it’s city-dwellers who zig-zag on highways in their fancy cars, creating unnecessary road-hazards.
Fact of the matter is that truckers do not follow road-ethics primarily because they know nothing about road-ethics. Not surprising, if you consider that most truckers are illiterate, self-taught drivers who believe that roughly 100% of highway-space is reserved for their trucks. They believe, quite simply, that their objective is to get from point a to b during the day at the speed they can afford, and if there’s a vehicle to their left, they have to overtake and move forward. Niceties like how long that is likely to take given their heavy loads is irrelevant, as is the minor detail of who or what is following them at what speed. In any case, perched as they are in their cabins they can hardly see or hear anyone behind them.
In this scenario, you can get infuriatingly angry when you intend to make good speed on modern highways. You’ll often encounter trucks moving at slow speeds like 40kmph, in the right, overtaking lane. Even if they drive in the left one, they have a sudden propensity to veer right just ahead of you, slowing you down till they pass the tractor ahead. Or, as is perhaps peculiar to certain stretches like the 6-lane 120 km one between Jaipur and Ajmer and the 4-lane one ahead to Delhi, you’ll find truckers hogging all the lanes merrily, leaving no headroom for faster traffic.
Too tired to curse, we make peace with the fact that this is going to be our lot for the next 350 odd km, and begin, much to our dislike, zigzagging across lanes to get ahead. The pent-up tiredness, that’s been holding up for 1100 km and 17 hrs now begins to surface. The darkness, and the interplay of lights and the drone of lorries begin to lull us into a rhythmic dullness, and the only thing that keeps us driving is will-power, and the occasional drink of cold-water (courtesy our ice-box, which accompanies us on long trips in summers).

Behror 11.30 pm
As we pull into Behror, the midway point on the Jaipur-Delhi leg, our mind is numb and limbs aching. We search for an ice-cream, and after a bit of search, manage to find a shopkeeper that’s rolling in his ice-cream cooler at the end of a long-day of work. A lick or two is refreshing, as is a quick round of stretches to get feeling back into those tired muscles, and we hit the road again, hopeful that we’ll cover the balance 90-odd km home in no time at all.

Daruhera 12. 20 am
Perhaps the biggest thing the highway teaches you is not to take anything for granted. Of course nature has a way of reminding you of your relative insignificance before its vastness: we’ve felt humbled on the Leh-Kargil road just looking down at the Zanskar deep down below, been on the edge when driving through snow-covered forest roads in Naldehra that seemed interminable in the middle of the night, or even stopped in the middle of our tracks as the road suddenly disappeared (when the road in the Parvati valley was washed away by flash floods). But more than anything, you learn that when on the road, anything can happen, putting paid to the best of plans. We’ve been in situations when a landslide blocked our way to a hill-station at the eleventh hour, delaying us by over four hours, or having to face an unexpected snowfall just as we reached a hill-station, prompting us to turn right back to avoid getting stuck here.
And that’s just what happens tonight. For just after midnight, we encounter a rare and inexplicable traffic jam of all places, before Daruhera. We try and get off the road, squeezing between the lorries and the bushes, to inch forward, but it seems to stretch for miles. At times like this you’re reminded of the subtle but real hierarchy on highways. Make no mistake: size matters on the road, and if you wish to co-exist, better recognize and honour this reality. Curse the truckers all you like, but remember that the slightest touch by those iron and steel monsters even at slow speeds, even when you’re completely in the right will ruin not just your car but also your trip. And in a jam, it’s wisest to stick to the rules and keep to your side of the road even if it pushes you somewhat back in time.
Engines get switched off, drivers jump off their vehicles and start pacing up and down. Not knowing when we dozed off, we get rudely awakened by a Haryanvi who thumps our car wanting to know if we intend to move or stay the night!

Gurgaon 2.02 am
Finally. Finally, we roll into Gurgaon. 2 hours behind schedule, tired, numbed and dulled, but all in one piece, and in an unscratched car. As I trudge the staircase up to my bedroom with great difficulty, I ponder whether to call my sons and tell them we’re home safe. After all, they’d been in touch with us all through the trip, eagerly wanting to know where we’d reached, when—keeping an eye on the old man, as it were.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to call Gautmik in Bombay—having been following our progress till 11.30 pm, he’ll be fast asleep now, as he has work tomorrow. Which is why we press the speed-dial for Saattvic in England instead, to break the good news to him. Only to be greeted by (you guessed it) “Er, aren’t you a bit old to be trying stunts like this, dad?”

Do Gaz Zameen

I’ve just spent what probably qualifies as one of the most painful weeks of my life. Correction, make that one of the most painful weeks in all our lives—my younger son, wife and mine. Only the elder one escaped, just because he’s safely ensconced on foreign shores.

You might think it had to do with the heat in Bombay, which was unusually high for this time of year—over 40 degrees Celcius as March turned to April—and the attendant humidity. That contributed, of course, but only a wee bit. It could’ve been the old hand-me-down car that my son uses there, extremely good-humouredly for his age, I have to admit, with its wheezing air-conditioner and other sundry ailments. Some, like my wife, might even believe it was the lack of my usual gym routine, leading not only to the loss of precious inches from my biceps and pectorals, but also to the depressive buildup of endorphins that failed to get released and affected my head instead.

Quite the contrary. I believe there were two main culprits for this horrible ordeal: one was space, or rather, the lack of it, and the other, an obnoxious beast that impersonates, and sometimes gets mistaken for, a two-legged homo-sapien, called ‘broker’. Both came together poetically, if you wish, in the search for ‘Do Gaz Zameen’ in that overcrowded city.

Having been considerably distressed over the last year and a half by G’s decision not to move into his college hostel but choose, instead, to stay with my brother in the suburbs, the wife and I decided to make a long trip and settle the matter, once and for all. We reasoned he needed his space, as did his cousins, whom he shared the room with. Besides, being on his own would make him tougher and ‘readier’ for the big bad world. No brainer so far, but the big debate was about WHERE exactly this space should be located. The big idea behind our excursion was to either break him or be broken: to convince him to pick hostel/PG dig in town, a decision that seemed as logical to my mind as day after night, or be convinced to fix him a flat in Versova, which of course was G’s conviction, and one that induced in me violent fits the likes of which common people are sure to confuse with epilepsy.

No guesses on which point-of-view won. As always, we soon figured it was better to give in to G’s logic: that he traveled early in the mornings and therefore did NOT spend 3 hours commuting like his dad believed, flats in town were much too expensive, square foot to square foot, and of course what was the point of traveling in the REVERSE direction to meet his friends every evening, who mostly lived in Versova?

Acceptance of such an idea may seem like a big leap of faith, but it’s nothing compared to its EXECUTION, for as we all know, that’s where the devil usually lives. House hunting is hardly the most likeable of propositions, least of all in the summer heat in an old car. Three adults with divergent views riding in it certainly couldn’t have made it better. But that was only the start.

The first thing that strikes you about house hunting is the shortage of decent supply. You excitedly pore over classifieds, confidently scan through websites and talk to friends and to friends of friends, but the result is close to zilch—for classifieds and websites are dominated by ads by estate agents, and friends conveniently forget about all those LOVELY flats they used to promise you. The ones that you do end up being ‘shown’ are almost always the bottom of the junkpile, dumped there as orphans never really cultivated as their own, and abandoned by their owners just to satisfy their greed for rentals. Funnily the rates quoted for those sad places are unjustifiably astronomic, putting to shame all the current hoohah of recession.

In any case, there are hardly any that remotely resemble your HOME: neither the one you left nor the one you’re about to setup. And that’s exactly what we experienced: 4-5 days of relentless searching threw up just a couple of passable flats—a pathetic hit rate of 2 in 20! In the process though, we got free insights into the dark rental real estate market, and unwittingly, not only sighted, but also had occasion to observe at close quarters aforesaid animal called ‘broker’. See below for invaluable insights.

Of course, the two flats got shortlisted. Not because they were nice in themselves, but one because it was near Infinity Mall (imagine the joys of walking down to the choicest restaurants, a bookshop and a multiplex) and the other because of its sea-view (a feature that appealed less to the kid and more to his mother, understandably). And of course, we didn’t get our first choice: the landlord suddenly chickened and decided to sell his flat outright rather than rent it out (recession, recession!). Which left us with the only decent option we had, namely the sea-view flat.

What followed was a couple of excruciatingly painful days of games and negotiations with the worst-of-breed brokers, self-styled caretaker who, shall we say, had the landlord (a simple North-Eastern flight supervisor with Air India) under his thick and sweaty thumb, before we signed the deal. So no matter how much we tried to reason about the terms, we kept coming up against a wall. Suffice it to say that were it not for the kid’s urgent requirement, I’d have pushed out the lout from the 13th floor, even if it meant spoiling the sea-view temporarily. Did we come away any the wiser after that encounter? Well, there were a few learnings (see below, for yourself).

Insight 1: Dirty water finds its own level.
A point already alluded to previously: flats on rentals are the poorest of the poor, without any hope of redemption—badly planned, inadequately ventilated, horrendously furnished and situated in dubious buildings with unclean surroundings. Do not expect them to be well-maintained, and do not expect a view other than that of similarly dubious buildings or at best, an open public drain. Also, do not expect brokers to behave like decent humans for their faculties have not evolved beyond the dog-eat-dog mentality. Lastly, don’t let them set foot inside your car, as they ‘show’ you the Promised Land, unless you want your seats to stink for the rest of their lives, and your blood to boil until none’s left.

Insight 2: Let the buyer beware.
Principle borrowed from basic commerce, which as you guessed, is as far as brokers’ horizons extend. You will not get what you see—the flats you like will be gone before you call in excitedly to say ‘I Do’, rates quoted will be revised, brokerage will be negotiated, in short, there will always be some nasty jack-in-the-box waiting to sock you between the ears. Do not assume anything, pore over the fine print in agreements, stuff yourself with enough proteins and brace yourself for the worst.

Insight 3: Almighty Owners, Beggar Tenants.
An inequity implied mostly subtly but sometimes not so subtly, throughout the process. Brokers treat owners like Gods, even when they don’t get paid by owners but by the tenants. And even when the flat-owners are sad, uncouth or uneducated, or should I say particularly when they are so. You don’t get to meet or speak to them as brokers play gate-keepers: whether it’s to protect the owners’ interests or the brokers’ is unclear. Either way you are always at the receiving end. Therefore, watch out for clauses and agreements that are completely loaded in favour of the landlords (Leave and License is one such format that’s unfairly tilted towards their interests, and is peculiar to Bombay)

Insight 4: Mafiosos with ‘Offer-you-can’t-refuse’.
A la Godfather, all brokers have you believe that they have the perfect answer to your needs. In actuality of course, this is poppycock. They haven’t the slightest idea or care about what the customer wants, but are interested in palming off the worst possible shit as flats to unsuspecting simpletons. It’s a straight case of peddle the mushrooms, rotten and all, before they perish. Why you can’t refuse their offer has more to do with their hustling practices: you better say yes to everything they say, or else..! Not wanting to wake up with a dead horse in your bed, you have no choice but to pay them whatever brokerage they insist on, and that too, year after year, for they MAKE you sign just an 11-month agreement (to use one of their own’s phraseology, they too have offices and wives to pay for).

Insight 5: Family always triumphs.
The only silver lining in the cloud! This is not just a reiteration of traditional Christian values, but also expediency necessitated by the fact that it’s best to fight injustice with numbers. So, whether you like it or not, you beasts will encounter the patience and mighty mind of the family that stays together! Which in the ultimate analysis, is all that remains in a tenant’s armory, so one is advised to use it and use it well. And the stronger the family, the better the ‘Do Gaz Zameen’ you are likely to secure in this megalomaniacal metropolis.

Detritus on the beach

The first time I came across the word, I was so impressed by it I confess I not only rushed to look it up in the dictionary, but also kept repeating it to myself. I figured it was the sound of the word that I really liked—it not only had a certain superior mouthfeel to it, but also a definite Greek-tragedy finality about it when uttered: duh-tree-tus! One could almost visualize a cowering, bewildered chap surrounded by an ominous Chorus of men in white robes throwing the word at him repeatedly: Detritus! Detritus!

You may say what the hell, it’s just a fancy word for debris, so why all the drama? And I will have to counter by admitting that it comes closest to describing my current state of affairs. Not just the word, of course, but also the complete vision, Greek Chorus included.

And by implication, this state of affairs naturally reflects on my state of mind in these bleak how-dare-you-feel-happy times. Which by the way is a trifle safer than it reflecting on my state of heart, for it means that there are still some days to go before the end of life as we know it, and more rubbish to be seen yet.

So why am I feeling like this? After all, I exercise regularly: my BP is under control, my waist is a healthy 33 inches, I can climb the 2 flights of stairs up to my bedroom with comparative ease, and I haven’t been divorced yet. Not just that, if one were to total the number of milliseconds stolen to glance in the mirror at the gym, which must easily approximate to significant narcissism by any slide rule, it would seem that there’s nothing lacking in the physical department, really.

Could it have anything to do with work, or as is the global case these days, lack of it? Has recession finally washed up on Indian shores? Partly yes, I would have to admit, considering the number of manhours one now spends on Facebook and online games, but mostly as we all know this has become more of a fashionable scapegoat, so there must be more to it than the professional slump theory.

Which of course, brings me to the, er, emotional candidates for this wallowing-in-filth feeling. You might hypothesize it’s to do with the sons being far away. Or, with the wife being too close, now that we share not only the same bed, but also the same cabin at office. Or, both. Nah! Seriously, the boys have been away for more than a year and a half now, and every passing day is actually a countdown for the empty nest to flower yet again even though temporarily. As for the wife, what can one say, if you’ve lived with her for 24 years, it surely couldn’t be a recent cause for discomfort. And what the hell once you’ve gotten used to her snoring, or her habit of not replacing caps on bottles or leaving strands of combed-off hair regularly in my clean car, what could be worse?

No, it’s certainly not all of these. At one level, it seems to me it’s to do with the weather: an impending sense of gloom as the horrible summer nears—a metaphor, perhaps for the approaching 50-year age mark and everything that one fears about old-age. At another, and deeper level however, I think it’s to do with realizing the existentialist truth that one is really no more precious than the coconut and flowers that are immersed in the sea with one’s ashes—at least they get washed ashore time and again, whereas we humans get lost to humanity forever, once we’re gone. Whatever you may have believed in, stood for, or fought for, is all going to be forgotten. Whatever wealth you may have achieved, collected, or amassed is all going to count for nothing. Day after day, it’s just the tide of time that will come and go, come and go. What will remain of most mortals is just the detritus of their memories.

What’s that you said? Good deeds, noble things don’t die and will be washed ashore? Surely, you must be joking. Remember one Mahatma Gandhi? What do we remember of even him? His spectacles and other memorabilia that’s been the flavour of the month? Or the fashionable ‘Gandhigiri’ that Munnabhai needed to remind us of? Come on, don’t delude yourself – lesser mortals like us will just go and be forgotten except by those closest to us – and that too because of a sense of loss, not greatness.

So, what the f, if one has to go, let’s at least go dramatically, in the best Greek tragedy tradition. Detritus! Detritus! And if that’s not enough, let’s borrow from another master, Detritus we all are and to Detritus we must all go—Detritus to Detritus! Amen!!

P.S. This was a glorious last-minute, floor-level picture taken by Gautmik just before sunset at Versova beach, Bombay. And just before his project submission next day, on ‘Profane Bombay’.

Another angle to the Slumdog phenomenon

Enough has been said and written (and probably continues to be said and written) about whether it unfairly ‘sells’ Indian slum-life; whether it’s Oscar-material, etc, but here’s another aspect to the raging debate.

This particularly concerns you if you’re a parent of a young child around 7-8 yrs. It struck me as odd when I discovered over the weekend that 2 of my friends had actually walked out of the film, midway. Why? Because they’d taken their little kids along (one a boy, and the other, a girl, in said age-group, to separate theatres, so it was 2 independent instances) and they thought the going was becoming too ‘graphic’ (not my choice of word, but theirs) for their little ones to be exposed to.

I must say that I was a little more than dumbfounded on this reaction. First I’m told the movie has an ‘Adult’ certificate, so what the hell were the parents thinking of before taking their kids to such a movie? I know, I know – no one bothers about an A certificate anymore. That’s fine, but then the risk is yours I suppose—it’s a bit like thinking of a quick answer when your kid catches you watching a porn film—you’ve got to be smart enough to figure out a way of explaining to the child.

Second, almost since then, I’ve been thinking whether they were justified in removing themselves from the scene so as not to expose their kids to such material. More so, I’ve been wondering if I might’ve had a similar reaction if I was in their place.

Though I must admit I’ve long forgotten what it’s like to have kids that young, I refuse to believe that I would’ve acted similarly. Here’s why.

To start with, what was offensive? The dirt and filth of a Mumbai slum? The abusive language? The violence? Now, though we might want to shield our slums from the rest of the world for pride and image reasons, can we really turn a blind eye to their existence back home? Anyone who ignores slums and the people living there is just deluding himself—we all know that they are a definite by-product of urbanization and migration that happen in any developing country. And because we’ve all heard real stories of prostitutes from red-light areas sending their children to schools and scooter-rickshaw-walas’ sons topping Board examinations, we equally understand that ‘rags-to-riches’ is a very plausible paradigm. In an era where we encourage our children to become more aware of the community and treat have-nots compassionately, are we going to cover their eyes when a street beggar walks upto the car window to ask for a couple of rupees? Or are we going to ask them to look the other way when they see very young children of construction-workers playing with pebbles and mud in their makeshift shanties? Hopefully not.

Abusive language? Which of our children has not heard the choicest of expletives in the public schools they attend, or often at home, from siblings and ourselves? Do they not watch violence being glorified in every second Hollywood or Bollywood movie as it is?

What then, could a more reasonable response be? In my case, I would’ve probably had a dialoge with my kids back home, after they’ve watched such ‘disturbing’ scenes in a movie. Then told them that apart from a bit of overdramatisation that is necessary in films, all that’s real. Maybe I would've even taken them to such a slum and made them experience it for real, because as we all know that is the only the real way to teach them. Surely that would've impressed upon them the fact they’ve been lucky to’ve been born here rather than there.

In any case, we all know deep inside, whether we admit it or not, that even very young children are capable of understanding and assimilating a lot more than adults like to believe. And here, we’re talking 7-8 year olds!

Of course, every parent has a right to bring up his child the way he wants, or knows best. But let’s face it, we all know that that children who face what we call ‘hardships’ actually perform much better in later life, irrespective of their formal ‘education’. And later in life, we often regret not putting our kids through the grind enough (‘Oh, how I wish you’d been to hostel—it would’ve made a man out of you!’).

So maybe, this is just one way that we can help our children get real, even though it costs them a temporary nightmare or so?

Wipe, or wash?

It’s infuriating. And funny and sad, at the same time.

You’d imagine 5-star hotels, like the one I was in a couple of days ago, would be a little sensitive. But this particular one in Kolkata couldn’t care less about your ass (or mine, or anyone else’s for that matter). However, because I’m a little more caring, I won’t name the hotel, but since I have a sore bum, will provide discreet clues (like it’s in downtown Kolkata, close to Chowringhee and is situated on a street by the same name as the hotel) so that you can figure out for yourself.

They probably still live in the British Raj. Or, are so proud of their heritage that they fail to look around them. For even if they were to look into shanties and slums that abound in the City of Joy, much less peek into the fabulous bungalows of the Bhadralok in Ballygunge, they’d realize their folly. But no, a hotel chain their calibre won’t stoop that low, of course. Never matter if you feel sore or become a germs-carrier.

Their top brass won’t use their graying grey cells either. Or listen to plain logic that a child could offer them. Because they fear they will no longer be included in the Leading Hotels of The World. Who knows they may even lose respect in the developed world. Worse, they might even lose occupancy. Yet, they’re OK with that stuff remaining stuck in those remote crevices of yours all day long (and sometimes, God forbid, even through the night!)

Maybe I should’ve called the General Manager. Or, better still, written to their flamboyant owners, on the rolls of paper they so generously provide in each room! Unfortunately past experience tells me this would have had little effect; and least of all, on my backside.

Or, maybe I should console myself that this is the price of progress. After all, the hotel is only emulating best practices followed in the developed West! Even though they might seem a bit unclean to my underdeveloped, er developing, mind!!

How else does one come to terms with the fact that you will not be able to wash your bum after defecating? Just because the top-class hotel in a leading Indian city will not provide running water next to the potty, even in a fancy suite? Frankly, being 100% Indian, I find it so appalling that it cannot dawn upon fellow Indians that it’s not just foreigners who stay in hotels in India. Or that if they were to look up statistics, they would easily see that a majority of cultures actually wash and do not wipe. Maybe they should organize a conference about this matter and host it in their hotel, so that all concerned can experience the debate first hand. Unfortunately, till the time the asses learn that it is much more hygienic to wash with water rather than wipe with tissue paper, we will have to live with rashes on ours!

Fact is, I’ve been so disturbed by this sad but basic fault in somebody’s thinking that I’ve even forgotten what I’d gone to the hotel (or the city) for, in the first place. Nor have I been able to enjoy the good food that’s so lovingly laid out in the restaurant, for fear of putting pressure in the wrong places!

P.S. The picture, in case you're dying to know, is what you see from said hotel's backside.

How misleading can labels be? - a brush with Scientology

We all know that labels can be misleading. In fact, we’ve known that for quite sometime—ever since advertising began, one might say. Which is why when a label says ‘guaranteed to grow hair in 10 days’ we don’t really trust the bottle that says it, do we? Yet, we fall for it, nine out of ten cases. Why? And this is exclusively my belief—you don’t have to agree—it’s because inside each one of us believes in the innate goodness of man—and we therefore like to believe the claim—even though it’s clear to our rational head that there’s no hope in hell, of hair growing on a balding pate, no matter how much goodness or magic you squeeze into that little bottle.

Often—and this is where advertising fails us—the intrinsic product lets us down equally badly. Something that we learnt, much to our dismay, one more time, on our recent trip to Germany.

So here we were, walking out of a stunning old cathedral (‘kirch’ in Germany—which I suspect is some Nazi mutilation of ‘church’) in Hamburg, muttering how beautiful the stained glass work was and how they managed to make the churches sooooo tall in those days, etc, etc, and just as we crossed the street, blinking our eyes to get accustomed to the sudden light, what did we see? Another church across the road!

Had the sign on it not read ‘The Church of Scientology’, we would’ve politely given it a miss—after all how many churches can you see in a day! But wait a minute, this was different—wasn’t Scientology the buzzword we wanted to know more about—the apparent non-religious way of living made so famous by Tom Cruise and scores of other celebrities? Should we or shouldn’t we approach the apparent contradiction across the street, we wondered? Did we really want to waste our precious sightseeing hours on something we could always find out more about on the Internet? Especially since we were so hungry? Fifteen minutes, we finally reasoned, could do us, our stomachs, or our schedule no great harm, and so, like the chicken, we crossed the street.

As we walked into the ‘Church’, we couldn’t help but be drawn to what seemed like a mini-exhibition of books. All by the same author. But, more about that later.

‘Can I help you’, came a sweet voice from behind the pile of books, and we looked up to see a young lady at what seemed like the ‘Reception’, smiling at us. Very, un-‘Church’ like I remember telling myself, as we approached her and told her, in as casual a tone that we could muster, ‘Er, we wanted to um, know a little more about Scientology’.

‘What exactly would you like to know?’ her eyes twinkled.
‘Well, what really is it, and how it’s different from other, er, religions,’ we countered.
The smile widened, and I bet I saw a hint of ‘Aha’ in those eyes as she hesitated and then said, ‘If you give me a minute, I’ll have somebody answer your questions. Please wait here,’ and she walked off, to reappear exactly half a minute later with a gentleman, who wore a similar smile, but didn’t quite strike me as a priest or an evangelist, I have to say.

‘How much time do you have,’ he asked, his eyes crinkling.
‘Er, 10-15 minutes,’ we offered, in terribly Indian standard terms, quite impressed by this seeming professionalism.
‘In which case, we have a short film that I recommend you watch,’ the gentleman said, in his best German English, ‘which should hopefully answer all your questions, and if not, then I’ll be available right here,’ saying which, he ushered us into a mini theatre, signaling the projectionist to start the movie.

We sank into the plush chairs thankfully, little realizing how tired sightseeing had made us. At the same time, I must admit, a myriad images crossed my mind—big bang destruction (or was it construction) of the Universe, logical science fighting with dogmatic religion in ancient Greece, wise men in flowing robes with snowy white beards, pointing heavenwards even as they held heavy stone tablets, and I don’t know why, but Tom Cruise smiling benignly from a pulpit, holding on to Katie Holmes.

Fact is, we had little idea about Scientology, other than its star-status. Was it a religion with science at its base? Was it steeped in logic? Was it modern jargon about the same values that all other religions preached? It was with quite a bit of trepidation that the wife and I turned to the screen.

And then, it happened. The label, I mean: the misleading label story. For there are no words to describe the rubbish that unfolded on the screen, for the next 25 minutes.

In true 1960s style American rhetoric, the ‘Film’ exhorted you to follow the path shown by L Ron Hubbard. About half of the film (or so it seemed) was about the man himself: He, who had studied mankind and its problems so that you may be free from those (problems), he who’d devoted his life and riches to the service of others, He, who’d founded Scientology. He, who’d shown thousands the way to live. He, who’d incidentally made (masterminded is a better word, perhaps) this wonderful film! Shocked, we saw the other half of the film trying to substantiate (laboriously, I thought) that Scientology had in fact, been accepted as a religion in the USA. And finally, in true Christian tones, exhorted the viewer to not follow the teachings of L Ron Hubbard at his own peril!

25 minutes of footage about what we thought was a religion based upon science—or something even remotely resembling the scientific temperament—and not a single phrase explaining it—this is what it is, this is what we believe in, such and such are its principles, etc. Nothing at all, that our left-brain steeped in analytical education was crying out for—not a clue, in fact. Just egomaniacal, cultish devotion to Hubbard.

Shattered and dazed, we staggered out of the mini-theatre and were immediately joined by the young German ‘evangelist’. Ever-smiling, he ushered us to a table next to the mini-exhibition of books that we’d encountered upon our entry. A trifle impateiently, I asked him to explain what exactly Scientology was, as the film hadn’t helped. As expected, he proceeded to beat around the bush, referring repeatedly to Hubbard’s books—in fact repeatedly picking up copies and leafing through them to show us that there existed a large body of literature about it. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite satisfy us, and disgustedly, I asked him to describe, in one sentence what Scientology was. I even offered him a blank piece of paper and asked him to put it down any other way he could.

I must conclude that the interaction was nothing different from any you’d expect to have with any bigoted priest, pujari or maulvi—tautological, evasive and mildly threatening, all at the same time.

We walked out of the ‘Church of Scientology’ thoroughly disillusioned about both the product and the label, and cursing that we’d not only wasted our precious sightseeing time, but had also grown hungrier than before, headed for the nearest café to assuage a different kind of hunger.

P.S. I deliberately did not wiki scientology and L Ron Hubbard until AFTER writing this entry. What I read afterwards, though (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard), sadly, only reaffirms my suspicions about the ‘religion’ of Scientology and its shady, controversial founder. Which of course, raises the vital question: Are Tom Cruise and John Travolta stupid? You’re welcome to arrive at your own answer, of course, but it might help to see http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0624051hubbard1.html.

P.P.S. The picture in the beginning, of course has nothing to do with Scientology. It's the tunnel under Elbe in Hamburg, built many years ago to enable vendors from across the river to reach the Fish Market to sell their perishable produce. In many ways, a symbolic antithesis of Scientology, which creates tunnel vision of a different kind.

Mid-Life Crisis: An external take

Mid-life crisis happens. So we’re told. Suddenly, at a particular period in your forties, things begin to change: you begin to wonder if you’re in the right job (even profession), covet the neighbour’s wife (or any young thing that travels on two shapely legs), have too many tasks (and desires) unfulfilled, or inexplicably develop an urge to leave everything and move town. Apart from loss of hair and memory, addition of inches and kilos, and a myriad other tell-tale signs, that you’re so often reminded of, rather unpalatably by books, the media and your sons.

Most of mid-life blues, it seems are attributable to you: things happening inside you—hormonal changes, male-baldness syndrome, or plain going dotty. Understandably then, it is suggested that YOU must learn to handle it, cope with it, live it, et al. But it seems to me that not enough has been written about how mid-life crises might be a function of things happening OUTSIDE you, not INSIDE. About how other people, circumstances and events inexorably connive to push you into this unenviable life-stage.

Take work. You’ve laboured a better part of your pre-mid-life at building an organization, a business. Now, without warning, it acquires a life and pace of its own. Other people seem to run it without exactly needing you (thanks very much but why don’t you take that much needed holiday, boss?). Not entirely by design, you realize you’re redundant. Now, I ask, is that really your own doing?

Or, take home. You’ve built a house, assiduously planning and architecting the different needs and whims of each of your children: a music-room here, an amphitheatre there. You’ve bought cars—one for each person, built wealth wisely, not just for your enjoyment but also future generations’. And then, out of the blue, it dawns on you all that’s of no great use, for the kids have grown up and must leave home to seek their own fortunes in distant lands. Is that also attributable to you?

Take your wife. You introduced her to the big city—helped her setup and run her business, taught her the abc of balance sheets, nuances of negotiating, motivational, or even, driving skills. Only to realize that she’s lately become her own person, and wants more from life than just looking after home and hubby.

Or take friends or cousins. You’ve been nice, helpful and considerate all your life. You’ve lent your precious notes, told lies at home, smoked and boozed at grave personal cost and what happens? At this point, all of them are busy—too busy—with their own priorities to think about their buddies.

Not convinced yet that YOUR mid-life crisis is not entirely of YOUR making? Step out into the street and you have a biker screech to a dangerous halt inches away, only to holler, ‘Careful, uncle!’ Or ask for a cardigan in a department store only to face an incredulous look, ‘Er, whassat, granpa?’

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced: mid-life is not a crisis of your own making at all—it’s imposed upon you by externalities, mostly out of your control. And, why hasn’t this aspect been researched or written about? I suspect it’s because most marketers think this is hardly the most fashionable segment (45-60 year-olds) to investigate. Now what can you say to that attitude? Poor youngsters—little do they realize that this is already the hottest and most lucrative segment in the US, and looking at how we’re going, Indians will soon be, too!

Meanwhile, a word of advice to all fellow ‘greyers’: stop thinking your mid-life is YOUR problem: there’s enough evidence out there pointing to everyone else; in fact the whole damn world! So settle down comfortably into it and relax, there’s enough to worry about otherwise: what you’re going to wear on your neice’s birthday party, for instance!

Road Trippers

It’s been almost exactly 2 months since my birthday. And what have I got to show for those 60 days? Well, nothing much, I suppose, until you count the two road trips I’ve undertaken. So what’s so great about a couple of drives you might think? Well, nothing much, unless you count the distance—some 7000 km, done across just 20 days. Which translates into, hold your breath, some 350 km every day, with New Year’s and birthday celebrations thrown in for good measure.

So, what exactly did we do that had all our friends think we were crazy? Driving daily, a distance they normally drive in a week? Well, it depends on how you look at it. You could say driving all the way from Delhi to Goa to spend the New Year’s Eve on a crowded beach is painful, and then driving a car all the way to Bombay again, to be with your son on his birthday, is foolhardy. Especially when you’ve just turned 48!

Why did we do it? Is it because at that age one starts going potty in the head, and becomes completely oblivious to good sense? Or is it because as one advances in years, one become desperate to cram in quality time, especially when it concerns one’s children?

Yes, that was my reason for attempting the first of those trips. Saattvic coming home from Oxford for his winter break and wanting to hit the sunny beaches was certainly the foundation. But far more important was the chance to be together, all four of us, in a car. I reckoned that being thrown together for so many hours would create that much more togetherness, so what if some of those would be spent bickering and shouting at each other!

And, to be sure, that’s exactly what happened. The drive to Goa was warm enough, if you don’t count the couple of the early morning hours we spent getting out beyond Jaipur. And the condition of the roads on the Golden Quadrilateral was pleasantly illuminating, to say the least. But the camaraderie within the car was payment enough for the investment in stiff backs and necks. After a long time, it felt like a great family—just like the old days—non-stop yakking, eating, cursing at truckers who wouldn’t keep to their lanes and so on.

Goa itself was fifty-fifty, at its best if you consider the discovery of Palolem in the South, and its worst, counting the crowds gathered there from all over for the Season’s revelry. Add on the traffic-jams and an unbelievably crowded Baga beach on the 31st Dec, and I’d make that thirty-seventy! The only sad point: the heart-break at leaving behind Gautmik at Bombay on the return trip.

The genesis of the other trip was somewhat different. And the decision to embark upon it almost split-second once we decided to listen to our hearts and not our heads. For an 18th birthday deserves a special present, and that’s what we decided to give Gautmik, no matter if it sounded impossible. We drove his present to Bombay, where he’s studying and took him by surprise, completely. Leaving work, and driving over a 1000 km a day, heading straight for his college in town next morning were all worth it, if only to see his face when he saw us. And spending the entire day with him made it as special for us as, we hope it was, for him.

And now, after those two marathon driving trips if you ask me whether I’d do them again, ‘when I’m sixty-four’, I would emphatically nod and say yes: as long as my wife and sons are with me in a car—any car, on any road. After all, as the family joke goes, we were all truck drivers in our previous births!

Birthday-eve blues

There’re just 17 days to go. Not that I’m worried anymore about the impending date. Or, unusually thrilled, for that matter. But because 27th November is going to be my 48th birthday, it’s not a date I’m likely to overlook in a hurry.

Good time, I reckon, to introspect. Balding old men in spectacles do that, I’m told. If nothing else, it helps keep the gray matter, well, gray. Not that I’m in a mood to meet Mr Alzheimer in a hurry—no sir, I prefer Michelle Pfeiffer and so what if she doesn’t know about my existence yet—I still think I have some good years left!

So what does the scene look like, when you’ve completed at least half your allotted home runs, huffing and puffing, but still think you’re fit enough to face the pitcher?

First realisation is, you can still play ball, if you can see the damn thing after all these years. Admittedly not all that big as before, but still sizeable, you have to admit. Now, everybody knows that ball-sizes matter, so don’t confuse this with anything else—not even the size of my ego. On the other hand, if you believe that egos have a way of adding on inches with age, don’t worry, my frequent trips to the gym have ensured that I simply keep expanding my chest to keep it in.

In either case, one can still hit a mean ball and that’s a fair point at this age. But this isn’t about being able to fend for oneself—that’s still eminently do-able: at this juncture one often tends to pontificate about the larger issues in life. Should one have candy-floss if one feels like, for instance, or walk about naked when there’s no one home?

To which an Existentialist must come up with Existentialist answers, I suppose, or better still, answer with more Existentialist questions. OK, so here goes: at 48, has one really achieved what one had to? What else is left? Has one secured the lives of his progeny? Has one found real happiness? And of course, the biggest one of them all—what next?

In case you haven’t caught on yet, I fancy Existentialism. Not because I necessarily believe in it that much, but because I like the way one pronounces ‘Sartre’ or ‘Kafka’. And what exactly is my Sartorial or Kafkaesque state on the eve of my 48th birthday?

In retrospect, it’s not really that different from when I was a child: except for some very minor points, which don’t really count in the Existentialist world. For earlier on, I believed I was born to make a difference to this world—now I believe this world was born to make a difference to me; earlier I thought older people were wiser—now I think younger people are; earlier only I thought I was good-looking—now the whole world disagrees with me; earlier I thought building a house and ensuring a good life for my kids was a major milestone—now my kids don’t think so. The list is endless, but like I said, if you take a bigger, Existentialist view of things, it hardly matters.

All of which proves just one thing—that one tends to come full-circle at this point in his life, an amplification in other words, of the tautology that the earth is round. And what makes me say that?

Very simply this—that whereas earlier I was anxious and always wondering how and whether one was important in the scheme of life, now I feel exactly the same way, except for a small detail: the anxiousness is gone, and there’s a happier acceptance of the fact that one doesn’t really matter at all. Life has gone on and will go on, whether I live another 50 years or 5, in much the same way.

So the questions can wait, as can the answers, I suppose. For another year, or another 100. Meanwhile why not enjoy the 48th year of Existence like none before: after all, nothing really matters, and of course, no one’s looking!

Who’s reading your blog?

People don’t read blogs. At least that’s the studied conclusion my 47-yr old brain’s reached. Blogs written by slightly, er, kinky sorts, who insist on describing how they had sex with a new partner every night just so that they might tell all the next morning and hopefully make a fortune by binding it all in a hard case if they find a gullible publisher, don’t qualify. Nor do the fancy ones created and maintained by companies and their agencies, in an assiduous attempt to ‘get to those members of their target audience who don’t watch boring TV or have never learnt to read papers’ (most of which, I’m told, have been awfully expensive failures anyway).

I refer instead, to blogs written by ‘normal’ people. So, why aren’t they read? For one, who has the time to peek into other peoples’ lives today? And frankly, who’d want to scour the Net to read through other peoples’ diaries before embarking on something of importance? After all, most people enter the virtual world with an objective: to search for information, book tickets, watch pornography et al (voyeuristic weaknesses having been dealt with above, already).

You might say this is the view of an atypical Internet user (most surveys suggest a bigger infatuation with the medium among the teens and the young). But this fact is corroborated by my 21-yr old son, who’s an avid blogger himself, and I hate to admit, the one who initiated me into this business. Fact is, he, who blogs consistently, does not get any comments on his posts either. That this makes him tear his otherwise substantial hair, or gives rise to unimagined inadequacies about his worth in the world is another matter: point is, no comments, so no reads!

Alright, big deal, I tell myself: you don’t write diaries and then throw them into cars at busy crossings like the evangelists, do you? Isn’t it a means of self-expression, a sort of catharsis, instead? This, I must admit, made eminent sense to my left-brain-by-training temperament, and I was happy to be an anonymous speck in the Existentialist Virtual World. Until last night, when someone, in the course of polite conversation, broke the bombshell of a different, till-now unimaginable possibility altogether.

There are, it seems, eavesdroppers on the Net. What else would you call people who read your blog and then, don’t leave any comments! It’s like they want to know the colour of underwear you’re wearing, but won’t acknowledge that they were peeping through the keyhole. I mean, you pay to see a movie, to read a bestseller, even to access important material from the Net. Hell, you even drop a coin into the violinist’s hat as you come out of the Underground! So, why not acknowledge the fact that you read someone’s writing by noting it was ho-hum, or simply, crap? Not just good manners, but also yeoman service to speck of dust in Existential Virtual World. Who know’s he just might stop squatting and free up some precious space?

Sigh. It’s difficult, but I can learn to live with this, I reckon. However nothing, repeat nothing, prepared me for another sort of character that’s apparently on the loose in blogosphere. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the tribe of journalists. Editors, Subs, Writers, Proof Readers, even. Innocuous, often bespectacled, respectable people otherwise, the kind you’d be nice to generally and hardly want to pick an issue with (who wants bad press?). That they routinely roamed the dark alleys of the Internet to pick up information quickly to meet deadlines or took recourse to when they were plain lazy to gather in first person, I knew for a long time. But, that they actually pick up and go through blogs randomly to suit their nefarious designs: that is to say, not only read, but analyse, dissect and then pilfer, pillage loot and plunder as they wish, is something I never imagined. And here I was, being told, quite incidentally, how ‘everyone’ in a particular magazine’s editorial office had been going through my blog that morning, (for what public good I cannot imagine), and how they immensely enjoyed themselves, and so on, and so forth. Conveniently, however, forgetting to mention whether anyone had bothered to ‘comment’ or otherwise leave trace of such visit!

Is this fair, I ask? No one said bloggers are TRP-crazy nerds who exalt in the ticking of visitor-number counters (ever seen one on a blog?), but if freedom of speech is a fundamental right to be upheld, then musn’t voyeurism, eavesdropping, or plagiarism be upheld as crime?

Think, you journalists, you purveyors of civilization, makers of culture, and harbingers of truth! And yes, DON’T bother to leave a comment.

P.S. This might be my last post on this blog, for I’m sure my wife, who’s an editor of a reputable magazine, is bound to go through it sooner or later. That will leave only one of two options: either I go ‘underground’ and choose a fresh squatting place and continue with my incantations, or I pack my bags (as I’ll probably be asked to do so) and head for a white water rafting trip down the Zanskar.