Euphony

Music is in footsteps eager to reach you, the bell ring, the sound of whispers in ear, of knuckles unknuckling lazily, the swish of clothes, of laughter, and the name being called out. Again and again.

Music is windows rattling, wind knocking, thunder, rain, the splashing in pools of muddy water, the gurgle of drains, of gumboots plodding, the towel drying wet hair.

Music is opera, the gut-wrenching cry of unspeakable sadness, of stories that never die about people who always do.

Music is the church choir, stiff collars scraping necks, throats belting out hymns in sync, the uniformity of consent, of community, of togetherness.

Music is the huge temple bell rung just once to announce arrival and once more to depart, an offering to an idol created by the cadence of hands.

Music is the azaan, the call of the muezzin, especially at dusk, intoned like the sun cooling off, like air trapped in the hollow of cheeks that breaks free and escapes into the sky.

Music is the symphony of an orchestra where hands seem to quiver. Of the soloist at a pop concert who has to match voice with attitude, timbre.

Music is the turning of the pages of a book, of scratching out words with a pen, of sketching on rice paper, of the fan blowing into face, of lips puckering to blow away the strands of hair.

Music is distant traffic at night, of the phone on silent and a call with a name so familiar you divert it to voice mail so that you can listen to the sigh.

--

© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

The last thing one would think about in a men's innerwear ad is a mother. The Amul Macho series has had some 'macho' moments, but it is pretty much oddball. In the latest one, burglars enter a house and are in the process of robbing it clean when the owner lands up in the room. He looks pretty much unlikely to take on the main big-built thief.

The 'hero' picks up the phone. Thief says, "Don't call the police or I'll shoot you."

"I am not calling the cops, I am calling your mother!"

"Why?" asks the thief, panic on his face.

"How do you address your mother?" the owner persists.

"Maaa," says the thief, pleading, almost like a child again.

"I must tell her about the big-big things you are taking away."

"Keep away the big things..." he tells his boys. And then to the hero, "Please don't tell Ma."

Much as I dislike stereotypes, the nurturing by the mother begins even before birth. Marketing gurus might sell products using this as a hook, but should we deny it because of that? The tagline "Bade Araam se" is indeed apt. That the guy wearing such inners can handle a tough situation. The entry of his wife at the end, holding him with approval, could be seen as a helpless bystander, but she is not in the frame earlier so I won't nitpick.

However, it is the thief who really makes this ad work because of the unseen mother. His fear of her also conveys a deep respect for the values she instilled in him, and that he is not adhering to.

I know it might seem that one is pushing it to justify a Mother's Day tribute, but the fact is that each time the ad appears on TV I wait for the word Ma.

On a side note, I do admit that I'd have committed fewer mistakes in my life had somebody called up my mother. I won't say no mistakes because, as another ad says, "Kuchch daag achche hain!" Some stains are good.

But mothers aren't detergents. They are water.

© Farzana Versey

---

Also: Forrest Mum and Miracles" and Mamta (when age catches up)

Afraid to love?

Why should anybody get defensive about love? There are different manifestations of it, and differing ways to express it. The need to box in can be a bit of a dampener.

Therefore, when somebody started a Valentine’s Day trend on #ActivistPickupLines to show that activists can be “cute and funny”, it was subversive. Worse, it wanted to express how they are not “cold-hearted feminists”. This is an assumption prevalent among non-feminists and conservatives. They believe in the ‘nazism’ of the feminist narrative. Besides, “cute” and “funny” are mutually-exclusive. In fact, all such terminology is. And let us emphasise that love does not mean pickup lines. So, this is again flashing it as machismo, playing into a male idea. Of course, women want it too, but why the heck should it follow masculine standards?

I am sounding a bit like a killjoy, but it is really better to just enjoy the moment, the day, the event without carrying this huge baggage where you have to defend your choice. Not very proactive. No doubt, some of the lines are adolescent funny and a howl back at popular theories and protests. But some…

“I'm underrepresented. In your pants”

Is it asking to ‘fill up’, or not getting enough, or having to share space with others? Ergo, acceptance of promiscuity/bigamy?

“You're hotter than global warming”

Yawwwnnn.

“We ain't gotta worry 'bout leaving carbon footprints...when we're horizontal!”

Wake up. You don’t have to do it lying down all the time. Or does all that activism or ‘standing up’ for rights tire you out?

“Of course you're beautiful. I don't believe in colonized standards of beauty”

Bitch. Look into that mirror first. This is colonisation when you think s/he expects that little twit of a compliment. Even the Tutsis do not believe in the Western standard of beauty.

“Three strikes and you're in”

And out.

“Baby you must been tired cause you've been marching for equality in my mind all day”

Pity that the mind of so effed up it did not even consider stopping the march. Relishing the inequality?

Part of the reason activists have got into the groove is because the anti-love movement has been taken over by extremists and they wouldn’t want to be bundled with them, would they? Also, they realise that their movements need to be marketed as much as those soft toys and tinsel cards, so they really cannot rant against ‘commercialisation’ of events.

And if simple things matter to some people, then why rubbish the same when others revel in small joys?

It is tempting to explain some ‘activist’ reactions to fear of love. It is quite different from fear of commitment. Those who are afraid to love could well suffer from a rigidity that they share with fundamentalists. It is narcissism that camouflages itself in things outside of oneself, but is more likely to be obsessed with one’s ownership of that role. What might appear to be self-deprecatory is likely to be plain old insecurity.

Famous writers and artists, and films that have used love as their template. It did not reduce their stature.

"It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together… and I knew it."

 – From Sleepless In Seattle

Return to light...

Lights greeted him upon his return after a 14-year exile. If we do not see the symbolism of epics and mythology, then what use are they?

Diwali surely is not only about a well-lit Ayodhya welcoming Lord Rama.

The light conveys coming out of darkness, of the warmth from diyas, of flames dancing in the wind, conveying evanescence. And the oil and the wick that stay in the background to light up things and are then burned out themselves.

Yet, light is never far away.

It is said that some raagas are so potent they can create and destroy. Legend has it that when Tansen used to sing in the emperor's court, the room would be filled with light. I think the power of such light is within us.

"Curving back within myself I create again & again."
- Bhagvad Gita

A Happy Diwali!

Jest Married

Weddings are probably occasions when people have every right to indulge in all their fantasies.

Around this time of the year, whenever I pass the Marine Drive stretch dotted with gymkhanas, there is opulence staring in the face. Elephants, apsaras, fountains, havelis…I once even saw a terracotta Venus lying in repose. How I wish they had a David standing over her. In bright daylight, all these decorations look forlorn, if not ridiculous. They are like discarded courtesans from another era. At night, with lights on, bedecked guests, music, they take on a respectable sheen.

It is not right to question anyone’s idea of a wedding. However, when I read about this, I was stupefied.I'll skip the names although they were on the front page:

One of the biggest weddings in the city in recent years saw...the son of city realtor tying the knot with the daughter of a business tycoon. The four-day wedding bash, rumoured to have cost around Rs 50 crore (over $5 million), attracted over 6,000 guests, including an A-list of celebrities ranging from industrialists and builders to film stars and politicians…

The celebrations spilled over to the next day with a bingo night and an array of games, with eye-popping prizes for the winners: Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, paid foreign and domestic holidays, besides other expensive gifts.

Almost all the guests were well-heeled. I find this rather downmarket. Affluent people carrying away keys to cars, envelopes with tickets to places they’ve been to several times. I would feel terribly insulted.

It is good to have games and fun. Take-away gifts have also become mandatory. This is just so much tosh. Avarice seems to afflict the elite more than anyone else. It is not just greed for money; it is greed for one-upmanship, for power, for acceptance. But, how would a big name feel driving a BMW won in a game of bingo at a wedding? Or, what is one of them is spotted at the airport to catch a flight and someone from those 6000 guests is present and smiles knowingly at the ticket that was won and is being used?

That is the reason I call it downmarket. If you imagine for a moment that such gifts might be passed on to the less fortunate, who do you think those would be? What will the staff do with fancy cars? Besides, many will have to ‘respect the sentiments’ of the giver and keep the gifts. It is all hogwash because they would in all likelihood be backbiting about the host’s déclassé showing off.

 For all the poshness, there are other areas where the hosts reveal chinks:

The menu was multidimensional: Indian, continental, Punjabi, Rajasthani, south Indian, Italian, Chinese et al. “In short, from dhokla-patra to noodles-pasta, there was everything to suit the taste buds of the distinguished gathering,” a family friend said.

Distinguished people do not attend wedding to eat. Distinguished people might be quite discerning and appreciate one sort of cuisine, instead of biting into dhoklas between bites of dimsums while a plate with quivering sphagetii waits for their attention, all to be washed down with robust Punjabi lassi or is it South Indian rasam?

This is not about one wedding. It has become standard fare, with different stalls set up s though you are at some buffet in a restaurant. With so many guests, it might be impossible to have a sit-down dinner. So, why don’t they just have bearers go around with finger food? Then it does not matter that patra is popped in straight after canapés.

Perhaps, the dinner spread from all regions and countries can be packed and given away as prize on some bingo night. 

- - -

Update on Nov 30:

In another context, extremely progressive and gratifying report about wedding vows to protect girl child that I shall reproduce in full:

JAIPUR: After the saat phera and agni sakhshi, health department authorities in Jhunjhunu will make the newly weds take an "official" vow.

Stung by the increasing cases of female feticide, couples will have to sign an affidavit after completing the customary seven rounds proclaiming that they would not possess any bias towards the girl child. They will have to take an oath that the bride will never undergo sex determination test. This was decided four days after bodies of two new born girls were found at separate locations in Jhunjhunju. The sex ratio of males to females is the lowest in this district in the state.

Jhunjhunu's deputy chief medical and health officer Dr Pradeep Singh told TOI, for the first time in the state, such a scheme is being launched under "Save the Girl Child" project."To raise awareness against female feticide and infanticide, we have termed it the eighth vow of marriage. We have printed about 3,000 affidavits which will be handed over to newly weds during the marriage ceremony in the district," said Singh.

The affidavit reads: "We take the eighth pledge that the bride will not undergo sex determination test. We will do our best to save the girl child and also raise awareness among others." The affidavit will be authorised by the minister of state for health Dr Rajkumar Sharma and signed by the couple. 

Just a touch of faith...

Never seen the Taj Mahal like this. Pic Hindustan Times

Of the first time I am supposed to have heard the azaan, there is no recollection. It was whispered in my ear as a newborn. My memory isn’t that great. The complete azaan is a full-throated call, every syllable enunciated with as much power as preventing an echo from falling off a cliff. You do not need to understand the language, and you must suspend the ‘yours and mine’ to be able to just listen to the sound. Think of it as thunder, of waves lashing, of a cry, of laughter. Of thoughts unspoken.

I know so little about religion that once when I was at the health club while travelling, and I needed to get to one of the machine, a man on his knees was in the way. I went up to the reception and asked, “When will this guy finish his yoga?”

“He is praying, ma’am.”

I had failed to notice the prayer mat or his hands on his ear. When he turned to the left and then the right, I thought it was an asana. Was I entirely wrong? If prayer is meditation, then it does not matter what you call it. I hasten to add that I know what a namaaz is. It was just the thought of seeing someone there, in my space, so to speak, that confused me.

This year during the month of Ramzan, I heard no azaan. It wasn’t something I was aching to hear. Just the thought of having heard it in days past made me wonder – crowded areas, traffic might well have drowned the sounds. Back in the early days, when one of my relatives fasted, along with the azaan call to prayer, I used to rush to look for the light bulb in a building across. It was an indication that it was time to break the fast. I felt no guilt that I had not been on an empty stomach, but did feel elated as I watched those who had stayed hungry bite into a date and eat slowly, waiting for tongues to form liquid to swallow.

Ignorant as I am, nostalgia is my shelter. Each morsel of life I take is celebration, each morsel I have denied or been denied is a lesson about vacuums, emptiness.

Here is a poem by Gulzar that conveys my thoughts:

Sparsh

“Quran haathon mein leke naabeena ek namaazi

laboun pe rakhataa tha

donon aankhon se choomtaa tha

jhukaake peshaani yoon aqeedat se chhoo rahaa tha

jo aayaten padh nahin sakaa

un ke lams mehsoos kar raha ho

main hairaan-hairaan guzar gayaa tha

main hairaan-hairaan thahar gayaa hoon

tumhaare haathon ko choom kar

chhoo ke apni aankhon se aaj main ne

jo aayaten padh nahin sakaa

un ke lams mehsoos kar liye hain”

My rough translation:

Touch

The blind namaazi brushed the Quran with lips

Kissed it with both eyes

Touched his forehead to the ground

With such faith

As though the verses he could not read

He could feel with a mere touch

Confused I left

Confused I pause

By kissing your hands

Touching you with my eyes

The verses I cannot read

I can still feel them

Eid Mubarak…

For those who came in late, for more of my memories More than a moon

Sunday ka Funda

A female polar bear with her two young cubs near Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. © David Jenkins / WWF-Canada

- - -

"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see -- or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read."

- Alice Walker

- - -

Chalo chalein ma...

Film: Jagriti-1954
Music: Hemant Kumar
Lyrics: Pradeep
Singers: Asha Bhosale

May in Maharashtra

Today is Maharashtra Day. The state completes 50 years and so we have its house of cards – Mantralaya – decked up.



Today is Labour Day. I had taken this picture on one of my trips to the interiors:



If the state can get enlightened instead of merely lit up this girl has hope. Maharashtra has known many truly genuine trade union movements. It is interesting that a few metres away from the seat of the state government, the Vidhan Sabha, there are large office complexes and vendors selling vada-pav and sliced fruit and juices to those working there.

Despite all the noise against them, the UPite and Bihari will still come to Mumbai and Mumbai is the showpiece of Maharashtra. Sometimes people laugh at it, sometimes people throw stones, but it is no coincidence that the lavni is the dance form of the state. And it is kick-ass. It is partly about women catering to demands of men, but those men are from the working class. It is invariably about a winding down after a hard day's day. There is playfulness and joie de vivre.

So Halla Bol and Jai Maharashtra...dislaat bai dislaat

Francesca and Farida

Paulo and she read through Lancelot, and a page was enough for them to know how they felt. It often is instant. Like dust in eyes, though, it can hurt. It did. But, it did not stop them.

Dante further immortalised them in his Divine Comedy:

One day we reading were for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.

Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.

When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,

Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein."

And all the while one spirit uttered this,
The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

(Translated by H.W.Longfellow)

As for Farida, she just sang a song like many others have done. I don’t know what she felt, but despite others having sung it, her version remains with me.

Sajan Laagi Tori Lagan – Farida Khanum

The Indian Colonisers of India

Maverick: The Indian Colonisers of India
By Farzana Versey
Covert, Aug 15-31

I miss those days. They would exclaim, “Oh, Indian!” and all you had to do was blush and give them some spiel about the Taj Mahal, rickshaw pullers, Tanjore paintings, the Kama Sutra. If you dressed the part, with hippie beads and prints dyed in colours designed to fade, then you had it made. You were just the sort of stuff George Harrison would pull strings with.

I miss those days. Today, India at 62 has become a cosmetic surgery miracle. Now when they exclaim, “Oh, Indian!” you must sound world-weary because jet lag is a part of your life. The princess-pauper act won’t wash anymore. You are seen as a triumph because of amnesia. Look, they say, she has gone through so much and yet come out trumps.

Talking of which, Fareed Zakaria had informed them that when he used to visit home in the 80s Indians did not show much interest in “the important power players in Washington or the great intellectuals in Cambridge. People would often ask me about Donald Trump…He symbolized the feeling that if you wanted to find the biggest and largest anything, you had to look to America.”

This is hyperbole, a trait that westerners find so charming, especially in the new improved India. It is another matter that Donald Trump represented nothing more than an apartment tower, a few good women and a toupee. We continue to be mentally colonised by the US, mainly because of the franchisee deals, but it was the British Virgin king who managed to get in and became worthy enough for a Vijay Mallya to emulate.

However, to pass the test of the nouveau Indian you need more than allegiance to a pint of beer and a frequent flyer card. In fact, you don’t need to announce who you know, but how much you know about who you don't know. A mouse click is your key to education.

When Nandan Nilekani quits Infosys to join the government, he announces, “I will be going to lead a programme to give identity to every Indian. But today I am losing my identity.” With this self-effacing comment he is no different from those who claim to do something for the country. In martyr-deadpan tone, he says, “I’m supposed to work with 600 government departments knowing fully well that no two government departments get along with one another.”

This is the mature brash, fired in the kiln of hubris. It has to be accepted. Our prime minister concurs: “I sincerely hope that in due course we can enlarge the involvement of intellectuals in governance.”

While it is true that some of our bumpkin type ministers were counter-productive, is there any guarantee that those with education and resources will truly make a difference? For being a co-founder and co-chairperson of a company for 28 years, the new India is expected to blindly accept the sagacity of such intellectuals.

When Rajiv Gandhi brought in Sam Pitroda, the results were evident in small towns where PCOs sprung up. It may not have been a revolution but it was something that people in those places needed. This same man will now probably head the Vedanta University, spread across 6000 acres of land, that will have research wings and Olympic style sports complexes. Who is this for? We are getting more and more elitist and brushing the dirt under nuclear submarines.

The public figure patriot is one who knows how to shrug with panache. Shashi Tharoor stands with hand on heart while the national anthem is being played because that is what he did in America. He forgets he is contesting an Indian election, but his goof-up is forgiven. He now represents the external affairs ministry. However, those buying plastic flags will be taken to task because it is an insult.

The airlines are losing money, yet Narendra Modi spends Rs 90,000 a day on flights.

It isn’t that all was well earlier. We had the ‘India is Indira’ times, but we also had an alternative. These days even dissent has become upwardly mobile. People throw shoes at ministers and not slippers. The minister smiles beatifically because, as they say in the west, s**t happens. This time the “Oh, Indian!” isn’t a smirk directed at the literal. Freedom’s just another blurb designed for the Oscars.

The great depression?

This is a party in Berlin. They are indulging themselves. The theme is the Great Depression. It is supposed to mock at a time in history when people had little to eat and little to hope.

Today, this mockery seems like nervousness. To grab the momentary. To look at history through wine glasses. To mimick misery and therefore feel less miserable.

It is a sad way to be happy.

Hello god, and Eid Mubarak!

I hear one version of you will be busy in the next few days attending to people gathered to pray en masse – people who believe that one month of abstinence from life’s basics will make them stronger of mind and body. The idea is not new (well, okay, you are god, so you probably invented it) and is followed by all faiths in some form or the other.

Some of us do not use a designated time to abstain. It does not lessen the commitment and worth of others who do. I also appreciate the celebrations at the end. It is a release, a sort of victory over oneself. You may think I have become cynical, but you know that if hope springs as eternally in anyone’s breast it is mine.

Will you walk with me to my childhood? I have written about some memories, but do you recall that time when I fasted one whole month? Everyone thought it was because I was promised a Sheaffer pen. I conveyed that. The fact was I was trying to understand you in my little childish way. I hated waking up for sehri and did not care much for iftaar – I remember the first day I plonked a date in my mouth and just before I could clamp my teeth over it, someone asked if I had offered any prayer. No. Wasn’t the whole day a prayer, a worship of my potential?

I mumbled something with my head covered (I looked nice with the white dupatta…oh, you know that). Then there would be fruits and some snacks and Rooh Afza. All these years I thought Rooh Afza was a patented Muslim thing, till just the other day someone – a non-Muslim - told me he had it as a kid and now his kids are drinking it.

That flimsy milky connection with my Muslimness went whoosh with that one sentence.

You must remember Ammi’s sheer khorma; it isn’t like any other. She kept it simmering for hours till it turned from white to cream and then almost the colour of deep sand at dawn. She did not overdo the garnishing and that was the beauty of it – its simplicity. It had body, no weight. It was rich without being flashy.

Isn’t that how we must live all year through?

God, you must be wondering why I am not calling you Allah or Khuda. I think you ought not to be confined.

The purpose of this note to you is to let you know that things are really bad.

• There are bomb blasts almost everyday
• People are killed even in relief camps
• There is a stampede almost everytime at some pilgrim site or the other

What are you doing about it? Don’t tell me to approach the police, the government. You tell me. Because most of these things happen using your name. Can’t you delete references to you in those email letters before blasts? You are god.

Can’t you make us see and accept that there are different people with different versions and we are all entitled to our views as long as we do not cause disruption and violence?

Can you not do something to ensure that those who go all the way to worship you at some place do not die only because they are pushing and shoving to get a glimpse of some manifestation of your being?

I read a report that says more people die in such stampedes than in bomb blasts. It does not reduce the tragedy in both cases. But it is ironical that one gets associated with your name whereas the other that is already associated with your name does not get much mileage.

You, god, are being sidelined.

This year some parts of India will celebrate Eid with black bands. It is to protest against the tragedies. I am not wearing a black band. I will have the sheer khorma, and yes it still has that smoky scent and I like it when some ash from the agarbatti falls in it. I take a spoonful right there when the fateha is offered.

I stand there and ask for nothing much. If I need to get something I will have to work for it, work at it. Usually, I am too lazy, so things happen and it becomes a happening. For that I thank you and the whole of creation.

Today, I will ask you something. What zakaat did you give this month? You should lead from the front.

Getting some people to wear black bands, to go quiet, will not solve the issue. It will in fact send out the wrong signals – that they have been silenced. I want you to make sure that the poor mohallas are lit up with candy floss pink parandis and parrot green bangles; I want to see them at the hawker’s carts pick up fake trinkets with their freshly-hennaed hands.

Don’t spoil it for them. They worship you, wherever they are, whichever version of you they pray to. Keep their faith intact. In you. And themselves.

Pardon the temerity, but I shall end with,

Haafiz Khuda tumhara…

Yours,

Just one among many

- - -

Results of earlier poll:

The unrest in Pakistan is due to:

America - 13 (72%), Al Qaeda - 5 (27%), Local tribal warfare - 4 (22%), Internal political one-upmanship - 3 (16%), RAW, India - 0 (0%)

Up mine?

Nooo… have been auto-suggesting this for a few days now. No writing about how I started writing this blog three years ago on this day. No senti stuff. Just go on as though nothing has happened. No one notices. Really.

But what to do? Even Khomeini was born on this day 106 years ago.

Now, you can read what you want about the Ayatollah, but no one will tell you a thing about me.

So, here’s to me, each applies at different times:

When you want to tear your hair

When you think I am half-way there

When I am doing something right

And finally:

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
- Oscar Wilde

Reaching out...

Well, well...I know you don't make a big deal of it...but today I just felt like saying something:

I know that I make more people angry, but if there has ever been a moment when I have done this for you then I can purr a little...Here is a wicked quote:

"A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway."
- Jerome Cummings

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

That’s what I like about life. The unplanned. I just came upon this clip. Reminded me of what someone had once written to me…

I don’t know you, but I just found you, just like that. Not that I was looking, you know how it is, you aren’t really looking, but then you find something. You don’t know what it is, but you like what you just found…

What I found is a precious piece of memorabilia because one has heard so much about it – the breathless tone, the beginning of something…beginnings are nice.

Yes, it is fraught with so many risks, but as JFK once said, “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”

We get stuck in grooves. To which I again quote him, “The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.”

So, here is Marilyn Monroe singing for John F Kennedy…"Happy Birthday, Mr. President”