Talking to myself (On objectification)

Someone told me that by posting pictures of parts of me, I was objectifying myself. It led to some more of my internal monologue:

“So, why do you do it?”

“It isn’t planned.”

“But you know that you are uploading the pic. So, how does that happen? What makes you do it?”

“Perhaps I want to put myself up there by removing myself from me.”

“So you objectify yourself?”

“One gets objectified anyway by others.”

“Why do you want to play their game?”

“It isn't the same. They see disembodied parts. Eyes, mouth, nose, neck, breasts, waist, hips, hands, fingers.”

“And you are not? You are doing precisely that.”

“I am turning this objectification on its head. If you notice, I have distorted as well. I do make a statement. In my put up ‘parts’, I made a cross over it, essentially saying this is cut out, deleted, unimportant.”

“So you are reducing yourself?”

“I am reducing the idea of the Self as parts.”

“Who is going to see the metaphysical when the physical hits you first?”

"I know I am not a Barbie; you cannot just put a key in me and get me started. That level of self-esteem is there, which is why it is possible for me to do what I do. That is also the reason I do not feel devastated by feministic critiques that tend to be hugely one-dimensional.”

“The question remains: will anyone get it?”

“That’s not important. Seeing something is of the senses; understanding requires more. Besides, don’t people visualise things?”

“I still feel there are pitfalls here. Recall that line from a song, “Eik taraf iskq hai tanha-tanha, eik taraf husn hai ruswaa-ruswaa”. It can become a cause for humiliation.”

“One does not have to put parts of oneself to invite humiliation. People find ruses – words, actions, shared moments, confidences, the past, the present…everything becomes removed from the person one is. I do not fear the kind of humiliation that comes with putting up these ‘objects’ because I have control over them. They are truly mine and do not need the crutch of another.”

“I see you have put up one more.”

“Yes, I took this on 28^th night on a whim, just bent my head a bit. The yellow light in the foreground ‘hit’ the hair…I found the result conveyed something that might be in a shop window selling hair pieces. But, and there is a big but, that flash of eye makes it human.”

“More reason to be concerned. The hair is not just hair, it is yours. Therefore, you are in the shop window.”

“In a sense, we all are. I write in this public space. People might go window surfing and chance upon this blog. They will check out what they see first, and then if they like it, they will probe further. If they continue they will stay on and visit often.”

“But if they bought you, then you would not be here still!”

“It is an exhibition area…it is to look, not buy.”

“Is looking not objectification?”

“Of course, it is. But it depends on the way of seeing. And perceiving. Besides, to take the example of the photograph, it is how the hair looked on that particular day, that moment, under those lights. Therefore, it isn’t really the complete picture.”

“A part of a part?”

“One truth of one part. There can be several truths.”

“As in truth is relative?”

“Also, the truth has to work within the parameters of several lies, so it breaks itself up into several truths.”

“Can truth be objectified?”

“It can be ‘subjectified’ to fit into our worldview. Therefore, what we call objectification is what I see as ‘subjectification’. As subject I do not fall prey as object because I have the benefit of a conscious decision. This exhibit can raise hell, so to speak.”

Look, watch me cook!

The general impression is that I don’t cook. The general impression is right. But when I do so, I think I transform the mundanity of an everyday activity. I enjoy the drama of the whole act. These days if ever I get into the kitchen it is to make one of those quickie meals. It works well if you innovate and add something unusual or combine unlikely ingredients.

There is one really simple dish and it is my recipe. What I like is how I wrote about it to a friend who wanted to make it. Here goes:

Boil potatoes, large ones. Poke a fork in to see if they are done and a little of the creamy goo sticks to the steel. Skin it with a blunt knife; a sharp one will do if you like a bit of your finger with it. Chop into little pieces, the potatoes not your finger. If you get technical, then the bits will look neater, like you have planned it all. Add some emotion, turn your face away, let them appear asymmetrical…some rounded, others with a flake hanging to it.

Heat some oil in a pan. Extra virgin olive. Make sure it is extra. Just a virgin won’t do. We need to be sure it has not been deflowered at all, not even while riding a horse. Now when it is beginning to feel the heat and arches its back, it will cry out in pain and start spluttering. Take a few pepper corns, cloves and aniseed and add to it. Then run for your life at a safe distance.

Once you see smoke curling towards the ceiling, gently lower the flame. Put in the roughly chopped spring onions. You did it roughly, right? Then move the ladle in as it soaks in the now begging-for-more oil. As it turns a blushing pink and then a hot brown, drop the potatoes in. Let the whole lot rush at one go.

In a separate pan dry roast some dill, rosemary and mint. Add soya sauce. Put this mix into the main dish. It will now be cream and brown, a beautiful combination of skin tones.

Cover and let cook for a couple of minutes.

Do not garnish and place in some fancy container. Just scoop as much as you want on your plate. Fork one and take it to your mouth. Let it stay on your tongue as the taste of the sauce registers, salty and smoky. Then bite into the potato and let its creaminess spread inside you.

I understand you will have some toasted garlic bread around. Don’t touch it. The garlic will kill this taste. Get some hard bread roll, break it and alternate between three or four bites.

When you are done, there will be traces of sauce on the plate, slivers of brown. Let them be. They are just stains of an enjoyable meal.

- - -

Okay, so what did my friend say?

“F, you are such a cannibal. I will never look at potatoes the same way.”

You are not meant to. When you are with me, then nothing is quite how it is meant to be. It tastes really good. Trust me. And my fingers are still with my hands.

Parts of me

Parts of me

Take this
And this
They are for free
Parts of me
Never the whole
I leave a hole
Fill it with breeze
The breeze is free
It costs nothing
Those tears you see
Cost nothing
That twisted mouth
Asks for nothing
It curls in pain
In vain
Take it please
They are for you
No, no, no strings attached
My strands of hair
You cannot see
They shall not entangle you
If you pull hard they might break
Take this
Use it to tie your shoe laces
So when you walk
And slip
You can blame me
Take this
And this
They are for free
Broken dreams
Parts of me

~ FV

Just another disaster?

After midnight, I begin to wonder whether I have done anything in life that I can be proud of. Anything. How have I added to anyone else? What have I given? I am sitting there waiting for the calls, the cards, the flowers…I am wanting.

Is it wrong?

The first flowers came. I asked them to be taken to the garden below. My house does not have place for them to live. Only one large pot, too heavy, is here. It is by someone whose existence I do not acknowledge anymore. He sends them unfailingly every year. Someone would call him persistent, others would say he is selfless…I know better.

I don’t pretend to be noble. I want the calls, the cards, and the occasional flowers…the little gifts wrapped in things.

Sometimes I get gifts in cellophane. You would think you can see through them, despite their colours. But sometimes as you hold them and try to unravel, they could poke. They can hurt. They don’t mean to. Of course, they don’t. It is my fault for believing what I see. I should know that anything sleek can have a sharp edge.

Today, just today, I did not want any pain. So I wrapped myself in a blanket and pulled my legs up to my knees. I could sleep only a few hours. Three hours. I woke up to the card Ammi had given me. It is on the table as my groggy eyes register my birth.

There were messages from friends and cousins. My landline is dead because of the rains. The rains kill. They gave me birth. Considering I am responsible for so many disasters in my life, I wonder how I am not responsible for my birth.

I feel free. Hey, not my fault I was born. My mother’s Maamu had whispered the azaan in my ear, “Allahu Akbar”, god is great. I could not become god or in god’s image.

God knows what to do, what to give, what to take…I don’t.

Yes, I have kept the wrong flowers, as I keep many wrong things. But the flowers belong to no one. They came off a tree, were plucked by alien hands, and arranged by strangers. Another stranger delivered them to my door. Tomorrow, they may wilt. Or they may last a bit longer. This is the pot I should have discarded.

There is a reason that I chose to keep this one over the others. To remind me that what we get is not always what we want. And that which we keep is not always precious. To remind me that existence is not always acknowledged, that niceness is not always nice.

Like everything else, birth too is a gesture.

It is indeed just another day.

"Yeh jeevan safar eik andhaa safar hai,
behekna hai mumkin bhatakne ka dar hai
sambhalta nahin dil kisike sambhale
kahaan ja raha hai tu ai jaane waale"

Khushk khushi: Arid ecstacy

Khushk khushi

Bohat khushi hui aap se milkar
Kasoor khushi ka hai ke woh behek jaati hai
Chhotisi khwaahishon mein palee hai
Darwaze par khat-khatahat sunkar lagta hai koi rehne aaya hai

Kabhi dekha hai
Uske haathon ki lakeeron ko
Aisa nahin lagta ke jaise
Kisine seene mein teer maar diya ho

Khushi aur main nikal pade
Kuchch na kuchch to mil hi jaata hai
Aasmaan se do-chaar badal chun liye
Aur bichcha diye banjar zameen pe

Darakht ki chhaon mein
Dhoop se to bach gaye hum
Lekin patte gin-gin ke
Phoolon ki chaah to nahin ho gayi kum

Kitni door saath chalengey
Yeh soch-soch kar saath hi chhoot gaya
Jab raasta mera alag hona hi tha
To usne apne pairon ke nishaan kyon chhod diye

Yeh khalish se azad hona
Mushkil to hai
Poore sehra ko saraab samajhna
Himaqat hi hai

Isi liye ab to reit mein hi
Aina dekh lete hai
Sookhi tasweer ka batwaara karna
Aasaan ho jaata hai

~FV

How far am I willing to go?

Am sounding too serious these days. So picked out something written a while ago…

“What are your plans?”

The minute I am asked this, I get contemplative. Not only because I have no plans, but because I do not know how to define the idea of ‘plans’.

I can understand if a young person is asked this. Have I already given up on myself? Am I not the one fascinated by new challenges? I guess I am…yet, something inside me feels in a limbo.

A lot has happened that has made me like this. I used to be so sure of what I wanted. I still am occasionally. But now it is not what I want – it is what wants me and then I see whether I can give it anything. More importantly, can I give some of myself?

I always knew I wanted to write. I also knew I could do it along with a few other things. When I was a child I had many other things in mind. It is another matter that the reasons were not quite the right ones.

I wanted to be a doctor only because, “Bachchubhai ka peit kaatna hai”. Poor B Bhai was a family friend and he did not even have a huge protruding tummy that I could have been fascinated by. No one took me seriously.

I wanted to be a lawyer because of that crucial moment when I could stand wearing a black gown, look menacingly at my opponent and say, “Mere qaabil dost yeh bhool rahe hai”. It would be the only time I would call an opponent a friend. No one took me seriously.

I wanted to be a teacher because I felt that would be the only time when I could show I knew more than the others seated before me. No one took me seriously.

I wanted to be a hairstylist because I like using scissors. No one took me seriously.

I wanted to be a nun because they were exempt from the thought of being compared to the birds and the bees, a comparison I find highly insulting; I also did not like the sound of spermatozoa. No one took me seriously.

I wanted to be an actress because I could dress like a tart and be called a ‘pativrata’; I was also quite certain I could put in a lot of punch while screeching, “Main tumhare bachche ki maa banney waali hoon.” No one took me seriously.

I wanted to become a rock-climber because I liked those shoes with long spikes and the sound of panting. No one took me seriously.

I wanted to be a cop because I felt that if any of my family members got into trouble with the law I would knock on their door with handcuffs and arrest them, and say, “Rishtoun se zyaada farz mere liye sab kuchh hai.” No one took me seriously.

There are several other things I aspired to be, and since all these did not strike anyone as serious aspirations, no one believed me.

When I grew up and finally got my first big assignment I did not tell anyone. I returned home with a box of sweets. Pairs of eyes looked at me, then at the box.

I suspect for a few minutes they thought I was trying to tell them that I wanted to become a halwai.

Come to think of it, it isn’t that far from the truth. Only no one had bargained that this sweet shop would have only teekha and kadwaa mithai.

Sirf dard hi meetha hai.

A death foretold?

In December 2003 when my short story Broken Stones was put up, I recall one comment:

“This piece for some reason keeps conjuring up black and white images of the days of yore. Really enjoyed it. Someday you'll win something real big.......if your prophecy in the first line doesn't come true i.e...........................”

My first line was: “Last night I tried to kill myself.”

Yesterday when I called a friend, she asked how I would try to die. I mentioned some improbable ways.

“You don’t even know how to die properly,” she laughed, her voice a hug I needed badly. She, among the few people, realised that the last two blog posts were a cry, even if I had tried the camouflage of weak humour. I cannot thank her enough for being around and listening for hours and making me see things in a new light, a light I sometimes avoid facing.

I have realised that unlike my life, which has been irrational, episodic, with even the most significant events catching me by surprise - their comings and goings devoid of any plan, I would like a death of technical perfection. It will make up for all the imperfections of my living moments, only I won’t be there to witness it. Or would I? Would my soul not weep as K.L.Saigal plays in the background:

“Ae kaatibe taqdeer mujhe itna bata de,
tu mujhse khafaa hai kya maine kiya hai?”

Would fate not give me a brief glimpse into that ending, as it has denied me often from watching my beginnings and middles? When things start, they blind me with their bright lights; somewhere down the line as daylight dawns the curtains are drawn and hide the sun, making me dwell in the darkness to prevent me from seeing.

I don’t know what I will wake up to. But can’t I plan for the morrow? And what is it really? A never-ending series of alarm clocks, showers, meals? It cannot be that simple. The alarm does not ring or the clock has stopped working. Time stands still, or maybe there is no time; the water in the shower is too hot or too cold, the shampoo cannot be rinsed, the hair falls in clumps; is my body the same as it was yesterday and will it be the same tomorrow? The food…

Today there were ants that had suddenly appeared in some packet and got transferred to the plate. If one does not look closely, they can look like pepper. Does one die by eating ants? And is that considered a clinically perfect death? Is it an honourable one, a mundane one, an interesting one?

Salman Rushdie and the ground beneath his feet

Salman Rushdie is being 'harassed' again. I was asked to write a piece a few days ago...I have written enough, but if somebody hits me on the head, and many do, then I might. For now, posted elsewhere too...

A few very ordinary queries:


1. Has Rushdie read the Quran and am not talking about just the parts where Gabriel Farishta comes and does his thing? Has he been able to check out its binary positions that bifurcate it into the dystopian-utopian dichotomous Valhalla wherein cranberry sauce works just as well as maple syrup or whatever the eff it is supposed to mean?


2. The "beard" who was responsible for getting 'Satanic Verses' banned in India was a Sikh, Khushwant Singh. He thought there would be riots. Muslims usually do what is expected of them...so since they are expected to do things like fly planes into buildings, strap themselves with bombs, acquire a bump on their forehead and aspire for heaven, they get out of their madrassas and learn engineering only so that their deaths can be celebrated in the madrassas. Lesson to be learned from Rushdie. Go to Manhattan and live in hiding.


3. Should people protest because Rushdie is being knighted? Yes, for they have been protesting against him for years and why should they not only because the reigning monarch confers some 'royal' title like in those days of patronage where such honours were conferred upon obedient subjects. The timing bothers me. It should bother Rushdie more than anyone else.


Btw, he had famously called British society that provided him security "bitchy". Bending before the bitch is upward mobility? He does not need that. He writes like a dream, that should suffice.

A good time to die...

Marne ke liye mausam achcha hai

Aasmaan ki siskiyaan
Zameen pe aansoon
Badalon ke kaale chaadar
Bijlee ki achanak cheekh
Shokh manaane ka shauq
Iss mausam mein kuchch aur hai

Garam chai ke piyale
Naram pakore
Woh ahista-se chalna
Kaaleen par baithna
Aur kehna
Bohat buraa hua

Kya aap usey jaante the
Dekha tha aapne
Uske rangeen kapdon ko
Chamakti aankhein
Jisme tashnigi bas gayee thi
Kya aapne usey kabhi kuchh poochha tha?

Nahin, nahin
Woh to havaa ki tarah aati thi
Aur toofan ban kar jaati thi
Kahaan baatein karte
Kaise theek se dekhte
Aur kaunsi zindagi ji usne?

Mukarrar, mukarrar
Aaiye, phool chadhaiye
Agarbatti ka dhuaan eik parda sa lagta hai
Dheemi baarish ki boonde gun-guna rahi hai
Mitti ki khusboo jism ko lapeit chuki hai
Zindagi mein yeh sab mumkin kahaan hai

Marne ke liye mausam achcha hai

~FV

A very short conversation - 13

(Answered that call...after months)

“Why have you banned me from calling you? Kya khataa hui humse”

“To save you from anguish.”

“You must be joking. How can talking to you be anguish for me?”

“Because it is anguish for everyone.”

“How so? It just feels very good talking to you.”

“Don’t begin to feel too good.”

“Why? Is just good okay?”

“Good is relative.”

“What are you talking about?”

“God.”

“God??”

“Yes.”

“Feeling suicidal?”

“No. Just thinking of god.”

“And writing graphic poetry for...”

“Hope god reads it and god is a man and is getting excited.”

“So you are feeling suicidal?”

“Hmm…I won’t do anything. Just teasing god. Wonder if god would like this poetry.”

“Why do you want to die?”

“Because I have a feeling god would like me.”

“What about humans.”

“What is that?”

“You are the same – enigmatic and impossible.”

“If I were possible, can you imagine the anguish.”

“Is that why you fantasised about Neruda?”

“I did not. Neruda wants me.”

“Why does Neruda want you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it is a fantasy wanting a fantasy.”

If I were...asked about fashion tips...

It poured in sheets. And then it stopped. Just when I was beginning to feel the spray of rain on my face…

Don’t want to feel low, so decided to indulge in one more of my ‘what if’ thingies…since no one is ever going to ask me stuff like this:

• What is your favourite item of clothing?
Cling film…I like to see through me.

• Do you have a stylist? What’s ‘style’ for you?
What is a stylist? Style for me is walking into a room, getting noticed for a couple of minutes and being left to myself to enjoy whatever the hell I am wearing.

• What is your favourite shopping destination?
Shopping is like a quickie for me. I want it coz I want it, but hurry up please. There is always time later to stand and stare at the wares!

• Who do you admire from a fashion standpoint?
Eve from the Garden of Eden. She changed the way the world looked at apples and serpents.

• Who are your favourite designers?
My old darzi who did exactly what I told him to and my mother who taught me how a small change in neckline and sleeve can transform an ordinary outfit.

• Have you made any fashion faux pas?
Since I do not believe in a standard fashion, not following it is itself a faux pas. But yes, I have absent-mindedly worn clothes with a laundry tag trailing on the kurta. ‘Dry cleaned’ can become a fashion statement, na?

• What bag are you carrying just now?
I love bags, big floppy ones in which I put the whole world and not find anything, so I can keep digging my hands in and manage to look very important…as in, “Hey, give me a minute, let me fish out something for you.”

• How do you stay in shape?
Depends on what shape we are talking about…

• Describe your skincare routine.
Lots of skin, no routine.

• How do you feel about growing old?
There are better things to feel.

• What wakes you up at night?
My bladder.

• What are your views on plastic surgery?
I get my dose of comforting pain, so I don’t need anything yet. And have a healthy body perception, so no ‘sweating’ over it. The only plastic I have on me is money.

• What was the last ‘green’ (eco-friendly) thing you did?
Chewed a blade of grass and called myself a cow.

• What’s your best beauty/health tip?
Throw a bucket of chilled water on the head of anyone who tells you to drink 8 to 10 glasses of water a day. The sheer thrill of watching the bucket fill up, of hauling it up and tilting it over a head is soothing, works the muscles and gives immense pleasure, making you glow.

• You’re on a deserted island with the option of only four products — what would you bring?

Islands have all that I need – sand and sea. Both are extremely sensual. You want four? Okay, so I will take a mirror and see their reflection. Together will come reflection of me, so along with mirror it becomes six products.

The condom and the lady president

Right. So before Crezendo, the condom, could reach its climax and play its role of providing “ultimate pleasure” the Madhya Pradesh government has decided that Indians can only use the rubber for family planning and not for pleasure. And has ordered an investigation! Wonder who will be on the investigating team and how they will judge....

The product has got a vibrating ring and therefore qualifies as a sex toy which is supposedly banned in India. I say supposedly because everything is available.

Isn’t a condom a personal choice? Why should the government care whether a baby is not conceived by means of a staid simple sheath or one that vibrates? Who is the government to interfere in the business of what two adults choose to do with parts of their bodies and their desires?

If this is what they call wrong, then ban cellphones that have the vibrating mode function…they can provide pleasure. Ban those little massagers that send a shiver down your spine.

This is so silly. They ban a product by an Indian company whereas such imported stuff can be easily bought. Instead of encouraging local initiative they want to just force their version of morality. I suppose they can then blame the foreign hand for those shaky moments when couples are just protecting themselves, not just to prevent babies from being born but as a safety measure against diseases.

Immature little people.

- - -

Pratibha Patil has gone and messed up her chances. At a meeting in Rajasthan she said the purdah was used to protect women from the Mughals during the era when they ruled. Of course she is wrong to say it, not because of what is getting everyone hot and bothered: Oh, how can you say this, the veil existed way before during the Mauryan period, yadda, yadda…

I’d say she is wrong because what were all those hot-blooded Rajputs doing if they could not protect their women from lascivious Mughals? And what about those brave Rajput women?

Come on, Pratibha tai…don’t let me down. I almost broke the TV screen when the editor-anchor of this news channel said something about you catering to the lowest common denominator. Boo! I shouted. I still think you should be there and I don’t care if Sonia Gandhi held you by the hand. If you will allow me, I too shall hold you hand.

Just don’t start those veil thingies. I don’t care, but people will use it – the mullahs, the politicians, the liberals.

The pregnant cloud

The pregnant cloud

A pregnant cloud
Walked past my sky
And gave birth
To a new tear

The first baby cries
Meant it was alive
Then it opened its fist
To the gathering mist
And saw the world with its own eyes

I kissed its shedding skin
Shreds lingered on my lip’s rim
The flakes of white
Like a beaming light
Made everything gleam in the dim

A motherless cloud
Walked into my house
And asked if it could adopt
The new-born tear

It isn’t mine, I said
Then why do you nurse it
On your breast
Asked the cloud
Out aloud

I tore the tear away from me
Its mouth puckered in plea
My eyes now dry
Watched it cry
I am left looking for another pregnant cloud
In the sky

~FV

Busy? Who me?

Fail to understand how people who spend their time tapping the keyboard to abuse others or to watch the abuse, going tut-tut occasionally, have the gumption to talk about “I know, this is a good life if this is all you have to worry about” regarding a genuine issue.

I have never felt the need to announce what I am doing, unless it is germane to what is being said. So, when the time is right people know. It does not mean there is nothing being done. Heck, if anything, there is a lot being done.

This business about, “Ooh, I am so busy” irritates me. The people I respect the most are those who take time out for fun and fantasy. And I treat work not as a chore to be completed but something to be savoured. I can put away that work when something else calls because I know that it won’t desert me. If you give your all to something then you do not need to give it anything anymore. It has taken you already and you are lodged in its memory.

Busy? Nah. Just pre-occupied with my nails at the moment. My nails too are a subject. Everyone has nails. Not many notice them. For me that ability to see, to probe is what life is about…I can only try. Which is what I am doing all the time…

- - -

I have an immensely gratifying relationship with my readers/fellow-travellers. Like this grandma who recently wrote to me discussing her take on undergarments. And she was wicked! Or the 80-something gentleman, a well-known writer in his own right, who despite being in hospital got someone to send me a note.

“Mr. B has read your latest piece in the Asian Age on Caste & Such with great interest and liked it for its usual impeccable style and clarity and he particularly liked the last sentence for its mordant wit.”

I replied: “Thank you for informing me about Mr. B’s health. While it is disconcerting, I am glad he is on the road to recovery and I assume, given his style, on really fast wheels.

It is kind of him to have read and even commented on the column in AA. Do tell him that wit, mordant or dormant, works better than an apple a day, unless it is a really small apple, in which case its brevity might qualify as wit itself.”

Is it always good feedback? Oh dear, no…and who would want that? Once at the Chowpatty signal in Mumbai, I found someone waving out to me. I wasn’t sure but the driver said, “Lagta hai aapka pehchan walla hai.”

He had managed to find space quite close when the signal turned red. He rolled down his window and shouted out my name, “Aren’t you?”

It was an ahem-ahem situation. I put down my book and nodded my head with the right amount of blush on my cheek.

“You know something?” he asked over the din.

“No," I mouthed.

“I hate you!”

The driver was looking at me in the rear-view mirror. In Mumbai these blokes pick up English fast…

Thank god for small qualities like being quick on the uptake. I looked at the hater with a huge smile and said, “Aren’t you glad that I keep you occupied?”

The signal turned green and as we sped ahead at different paces, I saw him show me the thumbs up sign.

Yes, I can laugh at myself. That too keeps me busy…

A small slice of Karachi

Woh shaam kuchch ajeeb thi
yeh shaam bhi ajeeb hai
woh kal bhi aas-paas thi
woh aaj bhi kareeb hai

Travels often make you realise a lot. I shall share with you some moments about the recent trip to Pakistan. Only Karachi here and mainly two people who have mattered a lot.

Khalid Ahmed is an actor-director-activist and now in charge of the Beyond Borders (its website is in the initial stages of being set up) collaboration between India and Pakistan. I met him six years ago.

It just so happens that on all my trips my last day is spent at his place. He has a beautiful terrace apartment. This was the first time I was taking pictures. The breeze was blowing, my hair flying…and he served dinner early, only to accommodate me.

Khalid is enigmatic, intense and might appear a bit reserved. But when he opens up and decides to talk, his single-line perceptiveness is enough to take one straight to the essence. Without realising it he opened my eyes to a few things around me.

Riaz Rafi is an artist and a most caring human being. He too threw a party for me, and ended up inviting an eclectic mix. It was embarrassing when I did not recognise some very famous people. On earlier trips I had spent evenings on his terrace talking or listening to Khalid break into song…he’d bring up plastic chairs from his house. Recently, his terrace has been done up, divans, sofas, and his little pup. He is married now. I was getting hungry and told him, “Please khaana.” When the food was served, his wife, who I was meeting for the first time, came and whispered, “Aapke liye bilkul teekha nahin banaya hai.” I was so touched. He had remembered after three years.

Three years ago. I do not even know whether Rafi would put me in the league of his friends (heck, he does not have these silly categories and hierarchies), but yes he had been a friend when I needed a friend most. And he did it without appearing to reach out, help, or anything grandiose. He made it seem as though he needed someone to talk with.

I was at my most vulnerable (my divorce was on the way) and probing into the details of my life would have been the easiest thing; he did not do that. Instead, he just stayed around. It was to be about five days and in this time I discovered what essential humaneness means.

One day, after the others had left and we had eaten nothing, he just drove me to a diner and ordered food in the car. This was most caring because he knew I did not want to step out...and he invariably made it a point to talk about himself, so that for those few hours I could forget what was bothering me.

Yes, he did boost my morale, but not with hollow words; he did it by showing me that there was life beyond the smallness of things.

On my last day there, as I had an early morning flight to catch, he suggested I check out at night, take my bags over to his place where some friends were meeting, go out for dinner, get back and rest and he would drop me at the airport. He did not have to do any of this. He got nothing from me, except some laughter, some truths about life.

I did not take my bags. I did not tell him I wanted to return to the hotel because I had to take a picture of the room. But my camera does not have a very wide-angle lens...sometimes in life one can never capture what one is going through...

R often told me, "Bas, life enjoy karein aap." And I would say, yes, yes, I do and I will...he does not seem the kind to sit and calculate who means how much to him...he is not the kind to choose anyone over another...

I had just a little over an hour to leave for the airport...Khalid wanted an ice-cream, so we drove to the place by the sea. Later, they dropped me at the door of my hotel and what I saw in those eyes was truly memorable -- the sense of having shared some wonderful moments without malice, without exploiting, without talking big. There was honesty in those eyes, even if they may have been only for a brief time.

Some eyes you can trust...they don’t turn around and fling your own tears at you.

- - -

PS: I was so happy that I captured Rafi in the split second without a flash that I have added a title to the pic! Isn't it beautiful?

A few more pictures are here and here…

Remembering Arafat as Palestinians fight their own demons

To think that Palestine, which had stood up boldly against Israel and the United States, is now a fractured ‘nation’ clearly reveals that much as we dislike centrist power, that is what societies need.

Hamas has taken over control of the Gaza Strip. Fatah is pinning its hopes on the West bank and people are talking about a "three state solution" ­that includes Israel that has no business to be there.

All I can do is to bring alive Yasser Arafat once again. This is my personal account of the man, his people and my encounter with them…It was first published in The Friday Times.

Brick in the wall

“Are you mad?” exclaimed Elias Freij, the mayor of Bethlehem, a non-PLO man, when he was told about the idea of replacing Yasser Arafat. Today, it is more than an idea.

Little boys are terrorists? Terrorists throw stones? This is how limited my knowledge of Palestine was. Till I got to know Dr. A. Sabri. He was a medical practitioner, who was kicked out of the hospital he was working in Palestine. “The more you inflict casualties, there is bound to be extremism. How much injustice can a people bear?” he asked. Can a child comprehend injustice? “A ten-year-old may not know what Palestine is, yet he will throw a stone. Why? You call this terrorism, when the Israelis bomb our camps everyday? Anyone who raises their voice on our behalf is better than those who commit treachery or stay quiet.”

Laxmi Hotel, a crummy little restaurant in a bylane of Colaba, Mumbai, was hardly the place to discuss the Palestinian struggle. But we were doing just that. Trust had built up over the months and he finally told me he was a member of the PLO. “Arafat’s trips are such a well-guarded secret that until the last minute even we do not know - he often changes his itinerary because he can sense danger.”

One day he told me, “Arafat is getting married.”

“Oh no!” I said. He looked surprised.

To me, the leader of the PLO represented the sort of romance you reserve for soppy Hindi films, the underdog, a Robin Hood, a lone ranger. Marriage seemed like a let-down. Had he not said he was in love once but, “For me the decision not to marry was very hard. I am a normal man and I would like to have a wife and children; but I did not think it was fair that any woman should be asked to share the troubles I knew I would be facing in my long struggle”?

Initially, Arafat himself was unaware of what struggle entailed. Born in Cairo, he did not even know that a place called Palestine existed. Later, he grasped the message when three-fourths of his people became refugees in their own land. But, like any other young man, he got disillusioned and applied for an American visa! The steaks-and-fries dream was short-lived. When the so-called leaders of Israel called his people “primitive beings” and said, “the Palestinians do not exist”, he decided to show them. Al Fatah was formed with seven trained fighters, five rifles and a cheque for 1000 pounds. Amazingly, he got respectability for an organisation that was created for guerrilla warfare. Are such men born or made?

Ismail Hassani, whose father was expelled from Palestine when he was a child, spent most of his early years in Jordan, then moved to Calcutta and later Mumbai. “I can’t go back to my country, they won’t let me in, but one day I will get back my land. Palestine will become a superpower, even if it takes a thousand years.”

Dr. Sabri explained, “The PLO is like an umbrella, and every child born understands it. From a distance the younger people can see it more clearly. They have to believe in the leadership.”

But how could they feel so strongly about a land whose history was wiped out? As Moshe Dayan had said, “There is not a single Jewish village in this country that has not been built on the site of an Arab village.”

Displacement can be recognised in small ways. In Delhi I had met the Palestinian ambassador to India, Dr. Khalid el Sheikh. There were no armed security guards at the gate. His office was spartan, housed in a dilapidated building that seemed to have aged prematurely. This was a most potent metaphor for what the movement represented.

The ambassador was polite but cautious, steering clear of personal views. What did he think of the attempts to justify the existence of Israel by harking back to Biblical times? “The Jews of today are mostly converts to Judaism and had no racial links with the Israelites or Hebrews who lived in Palestine at or before the time of Christ… how then these conglomerations of people from different races could form a nation?”

Yet, Jews from any part of the world can get instant citizenship in Palestine; they are occupying over 73 per cent of the land. As Dr Sabri stated, “And we get uprooted from our own land. This is the only country created by the UN defying the UN. The West finds it tough to deal with us because we have the highest number of graduates and professionals in the region. And the Palestinians never talk of a jihad.” Arafat was also let down by the Arab League, and at one time President Nasser wanted the PLO to become a puppet of America.

The ironies are many: The first Al Fatah cell was established in Kuwait, now a US stooge; Arafat’s closest confidant was a Catholic priest; he hated the sight of blood; he often recruited a person because, “I feel I can trust him”; he had the task of selling to his people the idea of getting back 30 per cent of their land when they had a claim to all of it; he left instructions with his bodyguards that if he was ever captured by Israelis, he should be shot dead – the Israelis kept him under house arrest in Ramallah.

Nothing could break him. Abu Jihad had described him as, “not just a political symbol… he is living all our fears, all of our dreams and all of our sufferings.”

He once told the UN Under-Secretary General, “Please tell those stupid people in Jerusalem they will be sorry when I am gone. I am the only one who can deliver the compromise to make the peace.” No one listened.

For Arafat the room at the top was destined to be a dark attic.

Why India must have a woman president

Pratibha Patil is the front-runner for the President’s post. I don’t give a damn for SMS polls, but those supporting her are in a minority. ‘Feminists’ have come on TV discussions to say it is a symbolic gesture.

I just got a call from one of the channels to be a part of their panel. This is the third time in a couple of months they have asked. I give them my opinion and then say no. Tease!

So, what was my opinion on Ms. Patil? Do I think it is only a symbolic gesture?

If it is a symbolic gesture, then it is high time we had such symbolism. 60 years since independence and yet no woman in that post. The Presidential post itself is symbolic, for heaven’s sake. And what have been the credentials of most people who occupied this high office? Abdul Kalam Azad was a scientist; he was responsible for our nuclear power. It is not something I approve of. And he was symbolic too. Nice Muslim who reads Hindu scriptures, grows his hair long, blah, blah…

Let us not forget that even in the US, which claims to be the most developed of the developed world, there has been no woman. Yet. That president is of course different, but why has it not yet happened? Hillary Clinton is there, but she is playing the Sita maiyya. So if Pratibha Patil is not your ‘real feminist’ who has done nothing for women, then honey it’s time you checked your blinkers.

Most women in politics are referred to as ‘men’, including Indira Gandhi. Except for once when she was referred to as “goongi gudiya”. (Dumb doll. How I wish she had been!) So what do we want as a record of “work done in the field of women”, as though they are some disease?

Pratibha Patil has been a minister with varied portfolios. And she is married outside her community and retained her maiden name. For me this is important. And she is flaunting the “my husband is a Shekhawat” card to taunt the other Shekhawat in the running. Yo! to that. Isn’t that what men do…use their wives to get mileage, to convey their liberalism and other such stuff?

There isn’t much in Indian politics that is not symbolic. Manmohan Singh started as a symbol, found his feet, then his feet became a symbol of “Lookie here, am mah own man”. Sonia Gandhi too is a symbol of dynasty and desperation of Indian politics to hold on to contemporary heritage.

Who are the people questioning Pratibha Patil’s credentials? What have these feminists done for Indian women except bringing out papers, going on foreign junkets for seminars and being completely removed from what the woman in local trains, in offices, in various other fields do? Their token symbolism of the rural woman is exploitative.

Ms. Patil may not get to do much, but I would be happy, not as a woman, but as a citizen of this country, to see that we beat the Americans, the Chinese, the Japanese at it. And let those sweet old men not keep harping about, “It is good to have a lady”. Good lord, let her just be a woman. And treat her like a lady when you are required to. Like opening the door, and saying things like “After you”. Yes, I like this. Most sensitive, confident women like it because they do not feel so threatened that they cannot stand the idea of being treated well.

If our Presidential nominee does look like a home-maker, then good for her. Millions of women all over the world do. She is in good company.