Meeting an Old Enemy – Add Gel

I met an old enemy recently. One I’d forgotten about. One buried deep in my memories.

A friend of mine made me meet the enemy on a random afternoon. Even after all these years, there was no mistaking it. The familiar off-white cap, the metal clip. The refill inside with the earwax like gel above the ink.

There was no doubt. This was Add Gel. 

For many years, Add Gel was the bane of my existence. I grabbed the pen like Nobokov and sighed. ‘Ah! Add Gel, the curse of my life, nightmare of my childhood. My joy, my sorrow. My yay!, my woe’.

For nearly everybody from my generation, Add Gel was a source of constant tension. When I see my friends suffer from anxiety, I have no doubt that Add Gel was an early contributor to their anxiety issues.

Before Add Gel arrived, the world of stationery for students was divided into two groups- Pencils and Pens. It was a black and white world. Or should I say, a Permanent Black and Royal Blue world.

Pencils were the first writing tools we were trusted with. They were supposedly easy to write with, but had a tendency of breaking at the tip. You had to carry a sharpener and eraser along. The marquee pencil of the era was Natraj 621 Pencil. For girls, there was the Apsara Flora – the exact same pencil but with pink flowers on white, so girls could keep in touch with their feminine side.

It is not a coincidence that Natraj chose maroon and black stripes – the Nazi colours – for their pencil. For I have seen the innocent pencil put to extremely cruel uses. I have had the sharp edges of the pencil squeezed between my fingers and twisted by cruel teachers. I once saw a classmate place a sharp pencil on the bench when someone was about to sit. Our white uniform led to a traumatising patch of blood on the guy’s posterior – a gory, unwarranted prequel to Laaga Chunari Mein Daag. I have seen guys keep a sharpened pencil in their pant pockets. Only for the tip of the pencil to pierce their thigh like a Viking spear.

Only when we graduated to 5th standard, were we considered worthy enough to use pens. The world of pens was further divided into ink pens and ball pens.

We were told that ink pens improve our handwriting, so they were preferred. Teachers of subjects that actually mattered – like Math and Science – never bothered about the pen you used. But it was the Hindi and Social Sciences teachers who were finicky about the use of the fountain pen. I have never understood the emphasis on handwriting. At the risk of sounding pompous, I have very good handwriting and even taught Calligraphy for a while. 

The story of how I stopped teaching Calligraphy is an interesting one. I was teaching the kids in my workshop about strokes and obliques, when an old man tottered into the workshop.

‘What is going on?’

‘Sir, Calligraphy. Ahem…like the art of beautiful writing’. 

In classic Old City Hyderbadi style, he asked-

‘Yeh seekhe toh kya hota?’

And I had no answer. Actually, kya hota? Kuchh bhi nahi hota! 

That incident made me realise how useless of a skill, how vestigial a good handwriting is. I have never come across anyone famous for their handwriting. Or someone famous who had good handwriting.

I sometimes wonder – after all those punishments and impositions – when teachers retire and sit down over drinks – do they drunkenly admit that they fucked up with their emphasis on a good handwriting? That they hadn’t imagined a world with smartphones, social media and the Internet. That nobody would actually write anything after graduating from college?

Fountain pens came with their unique set of problems. You needed to carry an ink pot to fill your pen. The pens themselves came in a few basic designs. The basic Camel/Camlin pens with a thick base. The startup MyMuse now sells them as vibrators on Instagram. There were the Chinese/Hero pens that wrote smoothly, but the nib was as fragile as Indo-China relations. The expensive ones came from Parker, peddled by Amitabh Bachchan. The proprietary refills were as difficult to find as a hit by Abhishek Bachchan. Perhaps, as a warning – the series of Parker pens was called ‘Beta’.

The ink from ink pens would leak into your pocket, your books, your bag, and eventually your soul. The earliest version of Bluetooth 1.0 was when we got Camlin ink on our teeth. You were surrounded by the smell of ink, and filling an ink pen was an experience as pleasant as trying to mount a Camel/Camlin while it’s looking for water in Rajasthan. You needed an ink filler for the process, and you better carry one along. ‘Cos if you used a syringe, you got strange looks from one and all. ‘‘Are you doing drugs? Do you know that people prick you in a dark hall with a syringe and a note ‘Welcome to the world of AIDS”?

Ball pens were convenient, but were not given respect in society. Your ball pen of choice was either the arranged marriage pen –  Reynolds 045 Fine Carbure. Then there was the dependable Cello Gripper. And the trauma inducing Linc Starline – in which the ink stuck to anything it found like a Symbiote. 

Ball pens were easy to hold and carry. And since this was the 90s, the usage of plastic wasn’t frowned upon. Greta Thunberg’s parents were in school, and with the liberalisation of the economy in 1991, people were simply happy to be surrounded by colourful plastic in pens, tiffin boxes, and cricket bats. For all practical purposes, ball pens were the preferred pens. When not under the watchful eyes of our teachers, we all chose ball pens over fountain pens.

Exploiting this dichotomy in pens, entered the villain in the market – Add Gel 

Gel pens provided a unique opportunity to satisfy both the parties. You didn’t need to fill ink into the pen, and yet the writing looked like a fountain pen’s. You needn’t look like the blue-tongued genie in Arabian Nights, and still develop a good handwriting and go on to become the next Boutros Boutros-Ghali. 

There was one issue, though. Add Gel pens cost 25 rupees. And even if you managed to get hold of one, the refill itself cost 15 Rupees. 

15 Rupees! Kids of today won’t be able to fully grasp the value of 15 rupees in the 90s. Sometimes, the entire amount of pocket money given was 15 rupees. The price of a film ticket was 15 rupees. Suhaagan ka sar ka taaj was 15 rupees. Har student ka khwab was 15 rupees. Pen might be mightier than sword, but using an Add Gel was as expensive as a sword back in the day. 

I have had friends who cut the refill and used the remaining gel as hair gel. And others who sucked on the gel, making them look like failed characters in an X-Men audition. 

But it wasn’t just the price of the pen and refill. Add Gel had another cruel trick up its sleeve. The refill was notorious for running out with astonishing speed. Sit down to write an exam, and the ink would run out before you could say ‘Atal Bihari Vajpayee’. On a good week, an Add Gel refill would last you a week. But if the punishment meted out to you was to write ‘I will not talk in class’ a 1000 times, the refill would run out in two days. 

An Add Gel refill was enough for exactly ONE social studies exam. Or for writing ONE love letter (including all the practice sessions and iterations to the final letter). Which meant that you couldn’t use an Add Gel for all the extra-curricular activities required of a pen. Like drawing goggles on Gandhi in the history text book. Or playing book cricket. Or to sign your name a hundred times on the back of the notebook. Because along with a good handwriting, you needed a solid signature to become the next Elon Musk. 

Which meant that you were caught up in the pocket money debt trap. You first bought the Add Gel, and then began saving up for the refill when it ran out. Like owners of electric vehicles who go through Range Anxiety, you went through a Refill Anxiety. But with the smooth writing and convenience, you were hooked to the evil pen. In a few weeks, you were like a meth addict – desperately looking for your next hit at the stationery shop. 

*

Like Narasimha tearing open the stomach of Hiranyakashyap, I removed the wrapper. How had the pen aged? How did it survive the onslaught of the Internet, iPads, and magic pencils? 

The wrapper advertised that the pen still came in four colours – red, blue, black and green. There was some bullshit about Japanese technology, along with the tagline ‘World’s Finest Gel Pen’. 

‘World’s’? Was this a global phenomenon? Were kids around the world tortured by this pen? Was this Japan’s revenge for Hiroshima Nagasaki?

The price was hiked to 50 rupees, which probably made sense. At least the brand had survived two decades. I couldn’t say the same for some of my favourite childhood brands – BSA SLR, Nutrine, and Ravalgaon. In a way, I was happy that the pen had survived. 

It still wrote smoothly. I looked at the pen. Why did I harbour such strong feelings towards an inanimate pen from 20 years ago? Was I a psychopath? 

Add Gel wasn’t trying to harm me. It was a company selling their product at a mentioned price in a newly found capitalistic economy. So why was I so angry about it? Perhaps my anger towards the brand was unjustified.

And then, I saw the bottom of the packaging. And found a quote that said ‘Quality First. Cost Second’. Not only was the cocky quote put on prominent display, they had trademarked the quote too! 

This was a cocky company that prided itself on selling premium products to children who were struggling with their pocket money. 

I decided to use the pen till the refill ran out. And when it’s done, I’ll fling the plastic body as far my eyes can go. Or fling it at the annoying pigeon that does vocal exercises outside my balcony, proving that pen is indeed mightier than sword. I will carry the pen to the plastic recycling unit and watch it get crushed to fine dust. 

I am not a psychopath, after all. It’s an evil pen. 

Fuck you, Add Gel! 

***

The 2015 ICC Cricket Old Cup

The World Cup that begins today feels like a birthday that comes close on the heels of a wedding.

I do not feel the surge of excitement that I did for the earlier World Cups.

It’s strange how World Cups have acted as pegs to hang my memories on. Any particular year I think of, its association is deeply embedded with the nearest world cup. World Cups have acted as bookmarks in my mind, sorting things out, giving me a quick recap of what was what.

I began following cricket from the 1996 World Cup.

Before the Wills World Cup, memories of cricket are hazy. Cricketers dressed in white, playing cricket on a hot afternoon – Shastri and Kapil and Srikkanth. A few television ads for Dinesh Suitings and Palmolive Shaving Cream.

The Wills World Cup got me hooked to the game.

I was in Primary School, and didn’t watch a single match in the entire tournament. Yet I got my information from two sources – letters from home with updates about India’s matches. And a teacher named Shruti Raja.

She taught us Maths, and was one of those rare Maths teachers who didn’t try to pull out your appendix if you didn’t know 7 Table. She regaled us with stories of her trips to Paris, and bubble-baths that she enjoyed, and other colourful tales that caused mayhem in my mind.

During the World Cup, she would give us updates about the matches. It was the first time I heard the names Azhar, Tendulkar, Jadeja – my first heroes. The passing of information was very basic. She would walk into the class and announce – “Boys, India won the match”.

Yay!! An eruption of cheers followed, even if the only thing we knew about the situation was that we belonged to India.

She would then add some frugal details, like “Srinath took four wickets”, or “Jadeja scored a fifty”, which was followed by more cheers.

But I had no idea about the format, the counties that played in the tournament, or what the World Cup actually was. It was when I went home that year and found an Outlook 96 World Cup special that my interest in cricket was born.

It was a beautiful edition – pictures and articles and team profiles and opinion pieces. I remember going through each and every team profile, and I could tell you all the players from all the teams. It was like a magical Hogwarts book, a world I could dive into when I wanted.

I brought the magazine back with me to school. I began playing cricket, following it through The Hindu, and generally fantasising about sharing the dressing room with Sachin Tendulkar one day.

That time when Bengalis behaved like Khap Panchayats.

1999 World Cup : Teenage was arriving at the horizon. Along with pimples, sly thoughts of the sexual kind, and a generally more holistic knowledge of cricket, the 1999 world cup gave me a glimpse of what cricket meant to Indians.

It was the time of Indipop music. Of Come On India, Dikhado…duniya ko hilado. It was also the time when Britannia ran its extensive Britannia Khao World Cup Jao (Passport kya tera baap dega) Offer.

The company from Hungerford Street had decided to tempt gullible young cricket fanatics like me into gulping down packets after packets of biscuits and cakes with the hope of going to England to watch the world cup.

Like an idiot, I fell for it. Any money I saved was spent on Tiger biscuits. I’d eat those shitty biscuits, telling myself it would all be worth it when I meet Deba in London and discuss the nuances of cricket with him.

The 99 World Cup was also the first time I learnt that sports was not just about following a team playing a sport. It was about pain and anguish and hurt and disappointment. Shortly after the world cup, the match fixing scandal broke out. Azhar, my hero, was shamed in front of the entire world. I remember shedding a few tears in a particularly delicate moment. I remember feeling aghast, wondering what sort of a person would do something like that.

The 99 World Cup also taught me that we take cricket very seriously. But teenage was knocking on the door, and I pushed cricket out of my mind, and rushed to open the door.

A picture of the Australian team with the World Cup.

2003 World Cup: This was my Angry Young Kid phase. I think the phase is called Intermediate because at that age, all of us are intermediaries between donkeys and real, thinking adolescents.

I had issues with people, ran away from home, and took up work and residence at a small PCO booth cum travel agency in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar. The PCO booth was located in front of a leprosy colony, and a shady basti called Prem Nagar where eloped love birds built their nests.

Which meant a strange motley crew of people who came in to watch the match on the tiny black and white television. Drunkards, children with fingers missing, teenage mothers holding children with permanently running noses, drunkards, alms-seekers, drivers, and drunkards.

I’d finish school, go back by the school bus, take off my uniform and sneak into my secret dual life. I watched each and every match of that tournament (except Scotland vs UAE sort of matches, for which the guy would never lend his TV).

During the final, I watched with horror as Ganguly chose to bowl after winning the toss. I looked away as tears welled up in my eyes when Sachin lofted a mishit shot off McGrath. I played fervently as rain poured in briefly in the middle overs. I went to bed that night, Sachin’s words ringing in my ears like gigantic cymbals – “I’m happy to receive this award, but I’d have been happier had we won the tournament.”

Another picture of the Australian team with the World Cup.

2007 World Cup: By this time, cynicism had creeped into my system like a virus that originates in Africa and spreads its tentacles to Switzerland. Hurt as I was from India’s disheartening show in the previous outing, I was too scared to invest any emotions into this edition.

Somehow, my feelings seemed to resonate with the Indian cricket team as well. Most of the stars seemed drugged, we lost matches to smaller teams, and didn’t even qualify for the India-Pakistan match in the second round.

Between shitty jobs and scabby relationships, I spent a few hours every day watching the matches, but my heart was looking forward to the sun sinking. And then, when the clock struck 6, I’d rush out to have Bhang. And as the hostel swam in a slow, steady motion, I sat on the cot and looked at the world and smiled.

The 2007 World Cup had nothing going for it. The matches seemed like they were being played in a local park. The commentary was drab, the matches seemed like friendly encounters, a coach was killed mysteriously in the middle of the tournament. It was almost as if the World Cup itself was embarrassed by what was going on.

I couldn’t care less.

2011 World Cup: There has been enough said about the 2011 World Cup. Of how the stage was set to perfection. India matches on weekends, an India-Pakistan semi-final where 5 catches were dropped off a single batsman by the name of Sachin Tendulkar. A final at Mumbai, a six to finish the match.

Much of the World Cup passed by in a drunken, smoky stupor. Old Monk from the local store (you could still find it in Hyderabad at the time), and top notch pot from Dhoolpet, friends with flats where you could drink like Ravana and pass out like Kumbhakarna.

This time, I fell for the blitz. I hummed the tournament’s catchy tune, created my Fantasy team and rooted for them. On the day of the semi-final, I had to drop off my ex-girlfriend at the airport. I was getting messages from friends about Sehwag taking on the Pakistani bowlers, and the trip to the airport and back would take a good two hours.

As she looked at me with her lovely doe eyes, I told her I couldn’t do it. I asked her to go to the airport by herself. I have often questioned myself if I did the right thing. If I was a selfish bastard. If things would have turned out otherwise…

But when I reached the room and saw Sehwag belt five fours off an Umar Gul over, I forgot about everything and settled in front of the television.

When Dhoni hit the final six, I felt a sense of calm. I felt vindicated for all the years I had invested in the sport. All the hours defending Sachin Tendulkar against morons who considered Ganguly to be the greatest Indian cricketer. The hours spent hunting for the score, the awkward hanging around paan shops to watch the match after buying a packet of Tiger biscuits for three rupees.

I had invested so much in the sport, and it all came together beautifully when Sachin was hoisted on top of his teammates’ shoulders. I ran downstairs to the streets and found people dancing. I joined them and danced, in spite of my two left Jeetendra feet.

I watched as a crazy fan waving an India flag jumped on to the back of an APSRTC bus. But time, tide, and APSRTC buses wait for none, and the man had to come walking back an hour later, the spring in his step lost somewhere near Jubilee Hills.

I drank myself to sleep and crashed some time in the night. Cricket had given me back everything I had given it.

Sreesanth be like ‘Eeeeee, now let me fix matches in the IPL heeheehee’. Gandu saala!

2015 World Cup: This time around, I am too old to do it.

I can’t take the glossy advertising campaigns, the stupid jingoism associated with every cricket world cup. I can’t take the Pakistan-bashing, the lame jokes, the waking up early and sleeping late to catch each and every match. I can’t take two nine-hour matches everyday, and the gigantic dhobi-bundle of statistics that every World Cup dumps on my head.

I am too old for that shit.

This year, I’ll be watching cricket for the sake of the game. I will pick and choose games that I like, irrespective of whether India is playing in them or not.

I love tournaments played in Australia. The commentary is better, the stadiums are beautiful, the ball bounces up to a good level. There are spectators lazing about, drinking beer, running to catch the ball, laughing heartily when it slips right through their hands.

I am going to watch the tournament like that pot-bellied Australian you see on the screen – sipping his beer, waving his hand, drunk out of his wits.

I am going to support South Africa and New Zealand. If India wins, good. If it doesn’t, too bad.

I remember this one particular man who would walk in to watch the matches in Munna Travels (where I watched the 2003 World Cup). He would sit at the back, stoic and composed, indulging in a smile every once in a while when he saw us go berserk. I would wonder how he could watch the match so passively.

I am that guy now. I will sit back and smile.

You are free to go crazy.

I have retired as a cricket fan. Let the youngsters have their fun.

***

Of Amul Surabhi and Kinetic Luna

Long long ago, before television became about quarreling women and fake reality stars, television was a much saner experience. Adding most of the sanity to the hallowed rectangular box was a programme called Amul Surabhi.

From 1993 – 2001, Amul Surabhi acted as the window to the world for middle class Indians. Presented by Siddharth Kak and Renuka Sahane, the show presented well-researched segments on history, cultures, science, sports and music. It was a show that the elders of the house wouldn’t miss for anything in the world, and sitting down to watch the show would earn children some brownie points for the immediate future.

This was the age before SMS, call, like, share and subscribe. The only way to reach out to Surabhi was through post, by writing a letter to the show. There was a sense of belonging that Amul Surabhi brought in to television viewing. People would send in artefacts created by them. Sometimes, letters of appreciation would be read out, while at other times, errors pointed out by viewers would be graciously acknowledged.

I was watching one episode where a girl named Shazia writes to the show. So inspired was she by their section on underwater life, that she had decided to research on it. Renuka Sahane immediately announced that all the research material that the show had collected on underwater life, along with the footage, was being shipped to Shazia!

While such moments brought warmth to the heart, there was another reason for which I watched the show. Surabhi being among the most popular shows of the time, their weekly contest was much coveted for. And what prizes they were!

Trips aboard the Orient Express – the luxury on wheels train, stays at premium hotels in travel destinations from Rajasthan to Kerala, goodies worth 1000 rupees (in 1993, mind you) from Amul. And in case of the bumber prize, a fully paid trip to South Africa, Greece, and other such exotic locations!

You can imagine the dreams they triggered in us. Every week, someone in the family would be allotted the responsibility of noting down the question (‘No, you give it to her. She can write fast, na’). While there was general excitement about the question, I had been possessed by dreams of my own. My hopes were pinned on the one item –

Kinetic Luna.

Kinetic Luna was generally the 3rd prize, but it had captured my mind in a way that the magnificient palaces of Rajasthan, or the lush backwaters of Kerala coudn’t.

I had seen advertisements for Luna on television, and had been suitably impressed. It didn’t seem intimidating (like the Rajdoot and Bullet), appealing to the slim and let’s just say, agile like me. I had also seen a number of Lunas on the road, and the humble moped had acquired decent street rep in quick time. It was supposed to give you good mileage, and it was easy to ride. It had pedals, so if you ran out of petrol, lalalala you could always cycle your way back home. And then, it was very handy for carrying luggage. In fact, if you loaded up a Luna to its maximum capacity, people might mistake you for Nadir Shah, returning home after ransacking Agra.

Also, I knew some relatives who had not one, but three-three Lunas at their home. What freedom, what joy! I envied them as they rode by themselves on Thursday evenings for bhajans – the wind in their hair, vibhuti applied over the forehead – coolness was made of stuff like this!

Having decided that it was the Luna that I aspired for, I had my task cut out. I had to find the answer to the weekly question. The only problem was that the questions weren’t dumb, like the contest questions of today: What do you need to score a girl? A: Axe Effect B: Tax Effect C: Wax Effect. Screw you.

Amul Surabhi’s questions were dug out from the deep pot of knowledge that appeared in the promos. Unearthed from this great treasure, was a question that required you to run around, to pursue its answer with passion and perseverance.

There was no Wikipedia, no internet. One had to remember the question, and spend the next few days hunting for the answer, a knicker-clad Indiana Jones bustling about in every home. One had to request to be taken to a library, or heckle a knowledgable relative, or go to a Book Fair in quest for the answer. You had one week to send in your answer, and parents were lending their support like typical 90s parents. “Arey, you can’t trust this postman-vostman fellows. You better send it in 2-3 days, what if there is a strike?”

After spending a few days finding the solution, one had to scribble down neatly write down the answer on the yellow Competition Post Card (sold at the nearest post office), and send it to Sawaal Jawaab, Amul Surabhi, Post Box No. 2453, New Delhi – 11.

Having gingerly dropped the post card in the shiny red box, the rest of the days were spent in flights of fantasy. My Luna!

My green, shiny Luna that I would ride on. Zipping through the streets like Jackie Shroff in his youth, charming one and all with my daredevilry. Riding on it into the sunset like Alexander the Great, my faithful Luna, that I would use to rescue people in distress. And sometimes, if my friends requested, I would even let them ride pillion behind me (but not all the time, for one doesn’t want them to get used to the luxury).

And then, in two weeks, it was time for the results to be declared!

The lights would be switched off, and the melancholic signature tune would float out of the magic box. Renuka Sahane and Siddharth Kak would smile, and inform us of all the wonderful things they would tell us about on today’s show. Interesting snippets from history, an exciting new excavation that sheds light on our glorious ancestors, and the beautiful apple gardens in Himachal Pradesh. And all the while, I’m fidgeting on the floor, thinking ‘Yeah yeah, India is a beautiful country, now let’s talk about the prizes’. And three rounds of advertisements, and a good number of nails on my fingers bitten off, Renuka Sahane would smile and say, ‘Now it is time for the weekly contest’. My back would stiffen.

Voiceover: This week, we received 48,986 letters in total (accompanied by footage of men carrying letters in suitcases). ‘Out of which, the number of correct replies were 4,756’ – shot of the letters being sorted out, cut to Siddharth Kak and Renuka Sahane sitting in front of a huge pile of yellow, 15 paise post cards, with names, addresses, and middle class dreams scrawled on the back.

‘We will choose four lucky winners for this week…’ and as Renuka Sahane slipped a delicate hand into the heap of letters, I handed over a quick mental prayer to all my favourite gods. My Luna was the third prize, so I waited with bated breath…

And the winner is, (Renuka Sahane would pick a post card, show it to the camera, the camera would zoom in…)

“…Random Kumar, from Nashik”.

My heart sank, but not for too long.

“…cos now it’s time for this week’s contest question…”

I would run to grab the notepad and Reynold 045 Fine Carbure. Another question, another expedition for knowledge, another date with the Luna.

*
I never won the Kinetic Luna.

In fact, I learnt to ride the bicycle quite late in life. In Class 3, while my classmates were zipping around in sleek, red BSA Mongoose bicycles for the annual cultural event, I was put in a dumb drill called ‘Horse and Stars’. Which involved running around with a plastic horse head attached to a stick, in between one’s legs (10/10 for symbolism), AND gigantic golden stars stuck on both of one’s palms.

Even today, when I see a Kinetic Luna zipping about carelessly on the road, laden with bags, vegetables, and fruits, I feel a tinge of pain. But then, I notice the cop whistling at the Luna and asking him to pull over, and I feel alright.
*
Amul Surabhi. Kinetic Luna. Simpler days with simpler daydreams.

Even now when I watch episodes of Amul Surabhi on YouTube, nostalgia often gives way to some pain, hidden in remote corners of the heart. I put my faith in you, Amul Surabhi, and you never returned my love.

You never chose my letter, Renuka Sahane. And Siddharth, you can suck my Kak.

*
(Crass jokes such as the above would never feature on Amul Surabhi. It was a classy show. Just saying)

My 10 Book Challenge

BOOKS.

For a long time, the word held a special place in my heart. At times, it signified a sinful indulgence, at other times, flights of fancy. And Facebook being Facebook, the recent 10 Book Challenge was sprung at me regularly.

For someone who talks a lot and writes quite a bit, the limited space on Facebook felt claustrophobic. How does one fit in all of what one feels in such a small space? How does one talk about the fantastic covers of the books? Or the smell of the pages that transported you into your own world? Or the smug feeling of satisfaction deep in your heart – when you sit through a Math class knowing you’re going to go back to your room.

Also, most lists seemed like an affirmation of sorts – Enid Blyton, Sherlock Holmes, Paulo Coelho.

Which makes me think, did we all read the same books as children? The entire nation, circulating a few books across each other?

So, here’s my list of 10 books.

Not all of them are great books, but through a combination of chance and scarcity, ended up shaping me in whatever way they did.

 

1. Chacha Chaudhary

The first book I ever got was a comic of the Beagle Boys.

It’s one of the earliest memories of my life. I must have been about four, and the comic came from a Book Fair that was held near my house. I remember sitting on the bed, staring transfixed at the pages. The colours, the lines, the words – they were all too much for me to make sense.

Till a relative explained the key – follow the speech bubble. Whoever the speech bubble points to, is saying the line. My world opened up after that.

I read the comic over and over. I read it while sitting, and lying down, and having lunch, and watching television. In a few months (or a year, perhaps), I was introduced to Chacha Chaudhary.

I had joined my boarding school at Class 1, and it was the winter holidays. My father and sister had come to take me home for the month long vacation, and brought along with them a Chacha Chaudhary comic.

This time, I was prepared. I was given a quick intro about the characters – of Chacha whose brain worked faster than a computer, and Sabu, who was from Jupiter. Since Jupiter was the largest planet, he was much larger than us earthlings.

I read Chacha Chaudhary comics like a fanatic. I read them on the way home, and while coming back to school. I read them in English, and in Hindi, spending half an hour at the shop, going through the covers (all of them in brilliant, blazing colours), sneaking in a few pages of every one of them before I was rapped on the head and told that the train would leave.

Chacha Chaudhary comics remained a feature of my journeys to home for the next five years. They were also the beginning of my days as a storyteller. Since I was among the few students who read comics, I would begin making up stories of my own to my classmates. As long as the stories contained Chacha and Sabu, my friends believed everything I said.

Once Tingu Master goes to Chacha and says ‘Chacha, I want to win the skating competition, but I can’t skate fast. What do I do?” Chacha says ‘Hmmm, let me think….Ok! I will keep your skates ready for you, come and collect them on the day of the competition.’

On the day of the challenge, Chacha gives Tingu Master the skates and tells him ‘There is a button on the skate. Once the competition starts, press this button. You’ll definitely win.’ Tingu Master starts the race, and then bends down to press the button. From inside the skates, hundreds and hundreds of cockroaches start coming out. All the other skaters scream and fall down, and Tingu Master wins the race.’

Now, the story above was like any other Chacha Chaudhary story. There was very little logic involved. The stories were generally irreverent towards science and common sense, and yet, I devoured them. The addict had gotten his first fix.

 

 

2. Fairy Tales

Around my third standard, I felt grown up. I had had my first erection, and the shared knowledge with few of my friends proved that there was a world beyond the one I knew. A world where boys and girls meet and fall in love, hold hands, and get married to each other.

It was around this time, that another transaction from the National Book Fair brought another book home. A collection of fairy tales, the book contained the Who’s Who of the world – from Cinderella to Rapuzel to The Sleeping Beauty to The Little Mermaid.

The book had illustrations on one page, with text next to it. I spent much of my vacations going through its contents, and imagining the same stories with my crushes. If there was a girl with long, luscious hair, I would close my eyes in the afternoon, pretend to be asleep, and imagine her to be Rapunzel. While everyone teased her during class, I would run up to her and tell her I knew of her secret. She would then climb up to the girls dormitory and let down her hair to the second floor, through which I would climb up.

We would then sit and talk about life, love, and food.

The wondrous escapade was cruelly cut short when my mother locked the book up. ‘It contains all love stories’, was her reasoning. I never had it in me to read a fairy tale ever again. The memories of unfulfilled love made it just too painful.

 

 

3. Hardy Boys

By the time I was ten, books had become a villain.

They were the epitome of all evil, and somehow could bring destruction to the house – among other things like playing chess, not washing your feet after using the toilet, and sleeping beyond sunrise.

The Hardy Boys were a little more serious than The Famous Five and The Secret Seven, whom I couldn’t take very seriously. How can you be a crime-solving group when one of your members is a dog? A dog? Seriously?

But Hardy Boys gave me the requisite boyish bravado that only pre-teen years offer. By this time, I had begun reading books on the sly. Hiding it from teachers at school, the ayahs at the hostel, and my folks at home.

Every book had to be read while keeping ears out for intruding adversaries. The Hardy Boys didn’t change the course of the world with their adventures, but they didn’t need to. Since I was at an age when I couldn’t probably handle sex, the timorous flirting of the Boys was enough for me.

Girls, you see, in Hardy Boys, did not form the crux of the story. They flitted in and out of the narrative, to keep the boys going. Much like the role girls played in my life back then. I never spoke to any of them, but went about my life, stealing a few glances every now and then.

 

 

4. Sherlock Holmes

 

I remember the day like it was yesterday.

The gate to the school was opened a little so that my father could walk in. Along with a few magazines (Cricket Talk, Sportstar), he handed me three thick books. Each of them had a similar cover, a silhouette of a lanky man smoking a pipe.

I was tired of the Hardy Boys sort of adventures – nobody really died in their stories. The evil people were arrested, and the town felicitated the Boys for the good work. And along came Nancy Drew and the Boys were now wrangling with her while solving cases -it was all too indigestible. I wanted the real thing – blood curling uncertainty, actual crime-solving skills (not the regular ‘Hey, there are some tracks. Let’s follow them….oh! Look, there’s a dead body – Fuck that!)

And that is when Mr. Holmes walked into my life. I read The Hound of Baskerville on a train, looking out of the window every once in a while to check if there was a creature pouncing out at me.

Since he was famous, nobody could admonish me for reading his books, even if the sly remarks continued unfettered. It is difficult to explain the effect Mr. Holmes had on me.

This was the age when strange things were happening to our bodies and minds. Dark, evil thoughts were brewing, bubbling up into thick, frothy evil that formed pimples on our faces. Mr. Holmes helped me wade through such turbulent times with his skills. I would look at a classmate and try to guess where he was playing in the playground. Look at the mud at the back of his feet, he must be playing near the Boiler on the girls side. Sissy fellow!

In the event of a heinous crime (a stolen book, or someone writing ‘You Love Nandita Sister’ on another’s notebook), I used whatever Mr. Holmes taught me.

 

 

5. Sidney Sheldon

 

He looked at the hair strewn at the bottom of the shower. Pubic Hair. It belonged to a man. He knew that men had curlier hair down there than women did. 

When I first read these lines, I knew not how to react. ‘Are people allowed to write stuff like this? Don’t they go to jail?’

For a long time, I assumed Sidney Sheldon was a woman. Only a woman could write in such a way, I thought. I was in Class 8, and well past the Sherlock Holmes stage. I mean, the adventures were thrilling, but Mr. Holmes was a tad clumsy around women. And this led to rare meetings with women, excepting the times when Mr. Holmes sat on his chair and moped about ‘her’. I wanted a little more, a little…ahem…more.

We used to go to the temple in the ashram for prayers and bhajans every day. For three hours, we were expected to cleanse our minds from all evil, and sing and clap and pray to God, hail his benevolence in creating the world, and pray for redemption from sins.While my brethren sang, prayed, or picked their nose and slyly rubbed it on the mats, I filled my mind with evil.

We were allowed to carry school books, and spiritual books to the temple. If you were caught with a novel, your ears would be pinched till you felt like Evander Holyfield. In such trying circumstances, I chose to carry Sidney Sheldon with me. I wrapped the book in newspaper, made sure it fit snug, and then slipped the book inside my shirt. I made sure I walked with my back straight, to avoid looking like I was to give birth to a paperback.

The books were passed on through an underground circle of novel-readers. I remember being pissed off when a senior flipped through a book, tore off a page, and then gave it to me. ‘You should not read those pages. They are very bad’. I never did that to my friends or juniors, though.

I got caught on a number of occasions, of course. The teachers were adults, and they’d met thousands of guys like me. But I had my days too. If I had a friend who was studious, I would beg him to carry the book for me. And once the item was successfully smuggled in, I had to race through it to ensure I didn’t have to smuggle it in the next day too.

Sidney Sheldon was my first exposure to sexuality. Since every book had an attractive female character who often indulged in wild sexual escapades, for a long time, I thought it was the norm.

 

 

6. Harry Potter

 

 

Class 9. I had been reading about Harry Potter in the Literary section of The Hindu. There were pictures of fat British kids standing in line for days to get their hands on the books, and glowing reviews of every one that came out.

But I had read Sidney Sheldon. What use would I have of such kiddy trivialities like magic brooms and flying witches? I smirked at anyone reading the books, walking past them towards the bathroom so that I could spend quality time with Lara Cameron.

I had fallen sick, and was required to spend a few days off school, lying on the bed in my room. I spent one day eating the bland food, listening to the prayers and recitations from the school building, bored out of my mind. It was then that I ventured out to ask a junior if he could lend me a Harry Potter book.

It was The Prisoner of Azkaban. I was reading it with hidden contempt, of course. But pages turned, into chapters, and as I read on, I slowly turned into a maniac. I devoured the book in two days, hiding it under my bed when a teacher walked in. I extended my fever by a few more days, going on to read the fourth book. I went back to the first and second, and then again to the third and fourth.

Harry Potter was the first time I felt the magical flights of fantasy that books could take one into. Agreed, I was a tad older than the target audience, but what are such trivialities in a magical world?

 

7. Letters to Penthouse

 

 

Summer holidays. Ladybird bicycle.

I had discovered a set of shops near the railway station that sold sinful books to innocuous teenagers as me. It had happened after I had run through all his books, shaking my head in disappointment as the many colourful, glossy covers failed to entice me.

It was then that the man nodded, and asked me to get into his shop. I crouched in, while he looked around nervously, and slipped his hand into a hidden chamber, and pulled out a set of books – Letters to Penthouse. 

These were sinful books of the sinful category. There was no going back from these, and you couldn’t even cloud your conscience with the fact that they were just portions of a larger story. Letters to Penthouse left no scope for imagination or redemption. And I had to read a book on the terrace, ensuring sweat (and anything else) doesn’t spill on to the already seedy pages. I then had to rush back to the shop near the railway station, give him the book, an additional 100 rupees, and another session on the terrace.

Dear Penthouse, 

I have been wondering if I should write to you for a long time. 

My name is Mary. I am 33 years old, with blonde hair, and…

 

 

8. Kafka on the Shore

 

 

Years passed, and books had become a staple in my life.

They didn’t thrill me in the manner that they did back in teenage. Books at this age were a part of my personality. It is unfortunate that by the time we get into college, we are unofficially segregated into two categories – book readers, and non-book readers.

I fell into the first category, spending many a day convincing friends to start reading. Read this book – Five Point Someone – it will change your life. No, really. I swear.

Books were no more an escape into a magical world, they were an excess. A luxury amidst the dust and grime of the world. I wish I could say I read a lot of books in this gap. But I didn’t. I read whatever was selling like hotcakes – from Dan Brown to Archer to Coelho. But none of them shook me up in the real sense.

Till I came across Kafka on the Shore. For those of you who haven’t read Murakami, it is difficult to put into words what he does. So I shall not venture into it.

It was the time I had gotten my first smartphone – a 3.2 inch piece of shit called HTC Explorer. When it wasn’t getting hung, it allowed me a few luxuries. One of them was Aldiko, with its bare basic graphics.

Kafka on the Shore is about a journey, and that is how I read the book. Travelling from Hyderabad to Kurnool, reading it in bus stands, railways stations, smelly buses, and back-breaking back seats.

As soon as I finished the book, I felt dark clouds of sadness. As we grow up, very few things move us. And you can tell when you have completed one such experience.

 

 

9. The Mine by Arnab Ray

 

 

By now, I had a blog that was fairly popular. I ha begun nurturing ambitions of writing a book myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to write about love and friendship – the two reigning forces in our literary world today.

I had begun reading Greatbong’s blog, and it was liberating to see another creature of the same species. Greatbong wrote precisely about the things I cared – crickets, films, politics, Gunda, et al.

And so when he announced that his second book was to be in the genre of horror, I was intrigued. This genial Bengali chap, who wrote about fluffy things, could he pull off a horror?

And boy, was I surprised. The Mine is a delightful book because it plays to no galleries. It is horror for horror’s sake, and yet it isn’t the creepy manor in eerie cottage sort of American horror.

The Mine, apart from keeping me glued, gave me some hope for Indian writing. And I don’t mean the posh-ass Amitava Ghosh, Vikram Seth writing. I mean the ‘Oye, that gandu is writing a book, it seems’ sort of writing.

The Mine is a bold book, and one that gave me confidence to think beyond a campus, a girl, and a love triangle.

 

10. Xanadu Nights by Hriday Ranjan

 

 

 

My albatross.

The one thought that is a ripple of pleasure, and a pang of guilt.

The one struggle I plan to get rid of by the end of this year.

Please buy the book (when it does eventually come out).

Sorry for the KLPD.

I hope you understand.

Growing Up in the 90s: Cricket

I have a friend who says that the one reason India never really played any other sport, is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. The guy was so good, that he hijacked the imagination of an entire generation of children.
He said this after we grew up, of course. Because if he had said it back then, someone would have slit his throat. Or worse, burnt his collection of Trump cards.

I don’t fully agree with what he said, but there is some truth in the fact that we were obsessed as a nation. And never again, in my opinion, will that level of obsession be replicated. For two reasons:

1. There was hardly any other sport. Sania Mirza had not debuted yet, and Vishwanath Anand would feature in Sportstar frequently, but we would skip the pages till we reached the interview with Venkatpathy Raju.
2. Cable television had just been born, and unlike our earlier generation who depended on the papers and radio, we could actually watch our heroes in action. Which catapulted even bored children into fanatic worshippers.

All this led to a nationwide obsession with one sport – cricket. Your knowledge of the sport surpassed any ranks you scored in class, and the lack of knowledge on cricket, or an interest in it, brought about a social leprosy that was cruel. I have had friends who didn’t like cricket too much complain to me about it. When they would tell people they didn’t really follow cricket, people would gasp, as if they had said that they have only one kidney, or no heart at all.

We played cricket at school, and then returned home to play some more cricket, and then played some cricket in our fantasies. It wasn’t surprising that cola companies would come up with lines like ‘Eat, sleep, breathe cricket’ to promote their unhealthy crap down our throats. Now, cricket in school was a civilised affair. The school provided the bat, the ball, the stumps – thereby negating any favouristism or nepotism in the process. There would be a toss, and the game would be played in spirit of the game.

Or in the fear of the PT sir.

The PT sir would be overseeing the action, and so everyone would behave themselves. Which basically meant not reaching for each others’ throats at the slightest provocation. If the ball went out of the wall, we would all request passerby to throw us the ball, the bell would ring, and we would all go back to class, smelling like a bunch of obstinate buffaloes. Very civilised affair.

Not so civilised once school was over, though. Here, it was a Game of Thrones. You had to conquer a pitch, stake your claim over it by digging holes and drawing the crease. You had to build your army of soldiers, those who would be willing to sacrifice their home work to play a game with you. One of your army reached the ground early and put the stumps in place and dutifully waited for the others to arrive.

You played on the pitch, fighting among yourselves like hooligans. But once there was an external threat, you bonded like blood brothers to fight for your pitch. Finding a place to play was the major source of worry, especially with the bindaas lives that dogs and cows lead in our lives.

And cows came with their own set of worries – horny bulls who wanted you to learn Life Processes – 2 much earlier than your scheduled day of enlightenment. You scrounged the nooks and corners of the earth, to find that perfect spot to lay your stake on, and then drew the crease and put the stumps in place.

Of course, once your land was marked, and you had a thriving civilisation of cricket fanatics, your pitch would be the cynosure of evil preying eyes. The elder boys in your area, eyeing your pitch. The college going gang who just wanted a place where they could sit in a group and talk and laugh – the morons. And cows who wanted to sit in the middle of the pitch and ruminate on the larger questions of life. Who would choose exactly the middle of the pitch to drop a massive dump of dung – cow graffiti for ‘I was here’.

Unlike the cricket at school, playing cricket at home was a sordid affair. You fought for it with your life, and held it close to your heart. But the struggles didn’t end there. After you had vanquished the demons outside, you had to deal with the politics of your own army.

Every pack of kids playing cricket will be witness to three broad categories of players:

1. The Franchise Owners: The franchise owners would be the ones who owned the bat, and thus, the game in entirety. The owner of the bat wielded an enormous amount of clout in the scheme of things, considering that his possession – the bat – made the key difference between a set of boys playing cricket, and a set of boys hanging out with three sticks, one rock, and a rubber ball. The franchise owners generally called the shots in the game. And even when the merely defended the ball, they would call it an exquisite shot.
2. The Enthusiastic Gamers: These were the guys who would be instrumental in the day to day running of matters like the pitch and the space. These guys wouldn’t be great at the sport or anything, but made up for that with sheer enthusiasm. They would arrive first and leave last, and generally did the rounds, calling you out from your house when your mother was trying to stuff food inside you.
3. The Icon Players: Every league of galli cricket would have these icon players. These guys didn’t own the bat, but they owned the game. The franchise owners couldn’t do anything to these guys, thanks to the latter’s superior cricketing skills. Also, the Icon Players would be pivotal to things when challenged by other leagues to a cricket match. They had to be humoured, else they would drift away to another league.

Every galli cricket league had these three types of players. Each of them ensuring that the game ran along smoothly. Of course, if you owned the bat, were enthusiastic, and were the icon player – well, there was no stopping you. You were the Lalit Modi of the league, and anyone who objected to your actions would be sent a 10,000 page reply, in four cartons. But the process did not end with securing the rights to the pitch. There were the other nitty-gritties to take care of.

Firstly, the ball. Now, it is a well established fact that India is the only country where people play cricket with a tennis ball (Okay, may be Pakistan and Bangladesh too). But what is not mentioned is the number of tennis balls that were used to play cricket. When you are a younger child, it is always ‘Soft tennis’. Since there is more money in the league when you’re younger (since your parents are still trying to pamper the apple of their eyes), soft tennis balls are popular. They came in shiny, fluorescent yellow and had the name of the company written in bold black letters. A soft tennis ball would often provoke ridicule among the elders; the users of the Hard Tennis ball.

Quite simply, the Hard Tennis ball was a tennis ball that was hard. The ball itself had two colours, yellow-red, or yellow-pink. The market leader was ‘Vicky’, and to lose a Vicky hard tennis ball, was tantamount to banging your friend’s car into a tree. The hard tennis ball could hurt if you got hit on the nose, and care should be taken to avoid injuries. By batting all the time.

Third, and a poorer cousin of the tennis balls, were the rubber balls. They were simple rubber balls, the kinds that Dronacharya used to make Pandavas and Kauravas play with. Through all these years, it went through only one type of evolution. The makers had made the effort to add fake rubber stitches to make it seem like a cricket ball. The rubber ball was used when funds were really tight, since they came cheap.

On the flip side, they lasted for a maximum of three days, and if an Icon Player was knocking the ball around, it could crack in half. It was only much later, when your innocence was robbed off you by the Biology teacher, or the video rental store nearby, that you started playing with what was called as ‘Cork ball’.

Cork ball was made of some sort of synthetic cork material. It never broke, but did cause considerable damage to people’s noses. If parents got a whiff that the cricket was being played with a cork ball, there would be hell to pay. But the larger repercussions of using a cork ball were that the bats would crack.

You needed adult cricket bats for this. Not the ones that had a picture of Sachin Tendulkar, with the words – ‘For Tennis Ball Only’ written in small letters below. Setting up a new league entailed going through the grind each and every time.

And just when everything was set – you had a pitch, a bat, and a Vaanar Sena of your own. You found an ideal location for the stumps and drew the crease. The crease was measured by putting the bat on the floor and measuring it till the handle, and then adding the length of the handle only, to draw the final line. This line, of course, existed merely in the mind, as it would be erased, tampered with, and redrawn on numerous occasions through the game.

PC: futurehope.net

But for now, you had found an open space, and there were a few cows grazing in the distance, pretending they aren’t interested in your superhuman batting skills. But then, there would be other obstacles on your way. The ball would fall into the gutter, go into a house where a pissed off aunty wouldn’t return it to you, or God forbid, to a group of seniors who were playing at a distance. Now, I don’t know why, but if a ball goes into the pitch of seniors playing, they would either hide the ball, throw it in a drain, or throw it so far off that it would take half an hour to find it. When I was younger, I used to think the seniors near my house knew that we were better than them.

But when we grew up, I realised we did exactly the same thing. Perhaps it was a sign of growing up. Of being tough on the streets. Or something like that. But what did one do when the sun had set? When you couldn’t play cricket anymore because there would be drug pedlars who would give you chocolates and kidnap you and take out one of your kidneys?

You started playing cricket indoors. Corridors, garages, houses, dormitories – if there ever was a league of indoor cricket, India would kick Australia’s ass and become the king of the sport. Not only did we take our obsession with cricket indoors, we also enacted new rules that could be adapted to the change in scenario. Like the Hong Kong Super 6’s, indoor cricket had its own set of rules:

1. One Tup Out: Since you were playing indoors, you couldn’t dive around as you would normally in the ground. So the rule here was that if you caught the ball after it bounced ONCE, the batsman would still be declared out. The One Tup Out required Bradmanian skills if it was a small enclosure, and general public apathy towards the rule gave birth to the second rule.
2. One Tup One Hand: This rule said that you could catch the ball after it bounced once, but to be fair to the batsman, you could only catch it with one hand. The One Tup One Hand rule would have larger repercussions on real cricket much later, when rules like one bouncer per over were drafted in to benefit the batsmen.
3. The Three Miss Out: This rule said that if you missed touching the ball with your bat on three deliveries, you could be ruled out. Critics have pointed out that this rule could be inspired from baseball, to which the makers of the rule nonchalantly pointed out that it was called ‘three miss’ and not ‘three strikes’, and hence it was merely an inspiration. Indoor cricket was great for afternoons, when elders either went to work or took a nap. It could be played without making much noise, and the only risk was breaking a few things in the house.

Indoor cricket, some would say, required a lesser amount of cricketing skills, and sometimes turned out to be more enjoyable than the game outdoors. Here, there was nobody picking on you, no need to put your hand in a drain, and the ball rarely got lost.

But what if you did not have access to a bat or ball at all? Like in school, when you were forced to study? Of course there would be a way out!

“The absence of a bat and ball do not stand as obstacles to the obsessed” – Anonymous.

The chewing gum scene back then was just turning bright. For years, we chewed on Big Fun, simply because they gave cricket cards free with each pack. It was a different matter that the bubble gums themselves felt like scented tails of pigs. But we chewed on, since there was a cricket card to win. Somewhere along the line, came Center Fresh.

Center Fresh produced chewing gums that were actually enjoyable. For once, a chewing gum didn’t seem like the necessary penance to achieve something else. There was a nice jelly in the middle of the gum, but best of all – they provided cricket cards. Bright, colourful cards that had no spelling mistakes, factual errors, and the pictures were bright and clear.

Not like the Big Fun cards, that looked like the receipt of a weight checking machine at the railway station. Of course, there were the cricket cards that were available in the market. You could simply buy a pack and laugh at all those people who were chewing gum like maniacs to collect the entire pack.

Cricket cards of that era seemed to be frozen in time. I remember the numbers changing just twice in all the time I played with them. The statistics were pretty simple – Matches, Runs, Highest Score, Batting Average, Wickets, Bowling Average, Best Bowling. There were a few Trump Cards in the pack, but you could still beat a Wasim Akram card on the basis of batting, and a Mohd. Azharuddin card on the basis of bowling.

There was a sense of fairness and justice in the entire process. There were WWF cards too, but rumours had begun to float that the matches were all fake, and seniors at school would sometimes snigger if they saw you with WWF cards (or snatch them away, depending on their IQ).

But since cricket cards were based on actual facts, and you could actually see the matches on TV, and read about them in print, they were considered holy. Possessing a good collection of cricket cards automatically meant that you social standing would shoot up, people would generally invite you to their discussions, hoping that you’d decide to bring out the cards. However, cards came with their own set of risks.

If you were caught playing cards in class, you were screwed. The cards would sometimes be thrown away, or torn, or simply confiscated. Numerous trips to the Staff Room to find them would prove futile, and it would be the end of your prized collection. Also, some of us had spiritual parents, who thought that playing cricket cards is the gateway to more sinister habits, and we would grow up to be gamblers who would blow up all their hard earned money. Making cricket cards a considerable risk, on occasions.

What did one do if their cricket cards were taken away from them? Give up on cricket? Hell no! There would be other options, obviously. For those who had access to neither bat, nor cricket cards, there was Book Cricket.

I remember feeling grateful to the person who invented the game. It was an ingenious concept. You held a text book in your hand (preferably of the subject of the ongoing class), and opened a page randomly. You then looked at the page on the left. The last digit of the page number denoted your score. For eg, if you opened page no. 54, your score for that delivery would be 4. If you got a page that ended with 0, you were out.

While purists preferred the Test match method where every player was allowed to play ten batsman, those with lesser patience opted for a limited number of book openings, and the total score was accumulated. Agreed, it did not set your pulse racing, nor did it come with ups and downs of playing a sport. But it could be played right in class. You needn’t even speak to each other, and if a teacher arrived, you would look like two kids looking at a text book and making notes.

After the Drona Award and Arjuna Award, if the government decides to award innovation in sports, probably name it the Ekalavya Award, then the inventor of Book Cricket should win it.

But teachers in our school eventually got a whiff of our nefarious activities. They probably saw a long list of numbers and wondered why the guy was practising basic addition in Class 7. But Book Cricket was busted too. And now with Book Cricket out of the question, was there anything else I could do?

How could I contain all the enthusiasm for cricket that was bubbling in my mind, threatening to spill out? I devised my own way. I realised that there was something that no one could take away from me. Something that was deep within me that only belonged to me. My dreams.

We would be asked to sit for hours at a stretch to meditate, and I had a tough time reining in my mind, that was running like a wild horse towards Raveena Tandon. I started daydreaming about cricket.

So when everyone would be asked to close their eyes and meditate, and I was done with my customary meditation for Raveena, I would start daydreaming about cricket. It would begin with me bumping into Debashis Mohanty randomly while playing cricket at the local Shahid Sporting Club. Just a regular ‘Hi-bye’ sort of a meeting, not for me the falling over and taking pictures. I was cool.

He would be talking to a group of (less knowledgable) kids about cricket, when I would barge into the discussion and spell bind him with my vast and expansive knowledge of cricket.

We would strike an instant connection and sow the seeds of a deep friendship. Later that day, when he would bowl to me in the nets, he would be surprised to know that I was quite a talented batsman too, with my flowing drives and booming pulls over mid-wicket. Later he would call me to his house for lunch, as we would sit and discuss, like two brothers, everything from W.G. Grace, to why swing bowling needs to be promoted if we wanted to win more tours overseas.

This would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and when India would play a home series, he would write to my school asking for permission. Permission for me to join him while he was preparing for the series. ‘He has got a deep understanding of cricket and we in the Indian team are of the opinion that we could benefit from his inputs, and together bring unending glory to the nation. Hence, we kindly request you to let him accompany us.’

Who would deny a letter written like that? Our Headmistress would let me go, and I would join the boys in preparing for the tour. I would have chats with them on specific tactics for specific bowlers (‘Sachin, you need to be a little careful while playing Cronje, he’s gotten you out a few times earlier).

I would also advice Srinath run in hard for the first few overs, since he was our best bet to take early wickets, and my friend Deba could come in as first change and look at causing further damage. Venkatpathy Raju, whom I never liked much, I would barely talk to.

I would spend hours in my dream land. When I would walk, I would be either practising a shot or doing my bowling action. At home, when I was asked to sweep the floor, I would practice some drives (was never really good with the sweep shot, only cowards play that shot). It reached a stage where I would be doing the bowling action even while walking for lunch, or coming out of the assembly. And so would a lot of other classmates of mine.

Finally, the class teacher announced that no one was allowed to do the bowling action. If anyone was found doing the bowling action, they would be banned from going to ‘Games’ on that day (she obviously knew little of the other methods we had devised). Once when I got caught doing the bowling action, I was tempted to explain that I was doing Shahid Afridi’s action, and technically it wasn’t really a bowling action, as his action had been called for scrutiny by the ICC. But better sense prevailed. I quietly accepted the slap on my cheek, did not show my other cheek, and left.

 

*

 

Cricket, you see, was not a game played on a ground, with a bat, ball and sticks.

Cricket was in the heart, the soul, in the blood running in our veins.

Cricket was in the mind.

Growing Up in the ’90s – Comics (Part 2)

My world was in a general state of despair.

Chacha Chaudhary had taken over the kingdom of Indian comics, releasing legions after legions of inane characters that would stand in a line and blast my senses. I stood there in front of them, waiting like a man who knew he could fight no more.

Among the litany of characters who came, were Mahabali Shaka, a He Man clone who gave up the forests to fight crime in urban spaces. All the while wearing a costume of a loincloth and a bob cut. Then there was Agniputra – Abhay.

Diamond comics used to give free audio cassettes with Agniputra Abhay comics, and I remember one of them describes Agniputra’s powers, and the entire clip lasted for about five minutes. If Superman met Agniputra for tea, Agniputra would boil the man of steel in a pot and sip on him, he was that badass. And Abhay was his sidekick, a guy who spoke in innuendos with his motorcycle. Depressing!

And it was on a train that I first glanced at them. Graphic illustrations, men with arms that looked like real Arms, albeit Shwarzenegger’s. Women with curves, revealing their cleavages and flying along with heroes.

A smile, some hellos, and a other niceties later, I was reading, for the first time in my life – Raj Comics. Those of you who haven’t heard of Raj Comics should look them up. They were India’s answer to DC and Marvel. Characters like Nagraj – the snake who charmed women and killed bad guys. Super Commando Dhruva – a fighter who could drive US Seals to suicide. The two of them, along with their friends flew, fought, and punched the daylights out of villains.

Also, the stakes were higher here. It was not just a case of a jewellery shop owner approaching Chacha and telling him a gold necklace was missing. Fuck that. Here, real shit was happening.

Evil villains were taking over the world. Villains who weren’t named Gobar Singh and Tingu Master. Here, villains could torment the hero, they were villains I wanted to see dead. Raj Comics was India’s first true graphic novel.

The illustrations were kick ass. Raj Comics kept away from the usual uni-sized boxes narrating the story like other guys who won awards from Indira Gandhi. Here, I had to follow the panels, look at the story. Nagraj’s punch would break out from the panel, blow my mind, and land on the villain on the bottom panel.

The only problem was that they were all in Hindi. It was rare to find a Raj Comic in English, and since we were taught Hindi by a Tamil teacher, my Hindi was practically useless. Yet, I read on, devouring each of the books like a hungry glutton. There were other characters I discovered.

Doga, on whom Anurag Kashyap has long wanted to make a movie. Tiranga, a patriotic superhero who fought for the country. Parmanu who did something related to science that I didn’t bother further researching on. Inspector Steel, who had balls of, well, you get the idea. These were all beautifully illustrated characters who looked like fighters, and spoke like fighters. They didn’t sit at home and enjoy Chachi’s parathas in the evening. Fuck you.

Raj Comics began as a dream.

And sadly, ended like someone poured a mug of cold water on my face and shook me awake.

A friend of mine had brought a comic from ‘foreign’, and I got to see heroes from DC and Marvel for the first time. I read Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and turned the pages in disbelief.

Every character that I had loved in Raj Comics, had been lifted. Some of the characteristics were subtle, some blatant.

My heroes, they didn’t even belong to their creators. They were mere bastardised versions of existing heroes. Not only were they blatant copies, they took plagiarism to Pritam Chakraborty levels. Tiranga was Captain America, Inspector Steel was Robocop, Iron Man was Parmanu, Fighter Toads were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Heroes, villains, characters, plots – Raj Comics left no stone unturned.

It was a heartbreak of gigantic, superhuman proportions.  I don’t remember what I read in those days of depression. Probably Archies. Him with his stupid stories that weren’t funny, and which I could never, ever relate to. Here was a guy who would call two hot girls to the beach after school, and they would come dressed in bikinis. In India, we call it porn, thank you very much!

It was during this phase, that I found the friend I had dismissed and tossed away. Years ago.

The first teacher I ever had, was a Christian woman who taught me English. She was kind of scary to look at, but she had a sweet voice, and like all English teachers in the world, a heart of gold.

She would encourage me to read them, but I seldom followed her advice – enticed as I was, by Chacha and his computer se tez brain. There was too much text in the comics she was trying to make me read. I wanted more pictures. Somehow, things didn’t work out between us.

Back then, Amar Chitra Katha, though not technically a child of the 90’s, was fast gaining ground. Part of the trick was that most of the books were based on mythology. This meant that no one could object to us reading them, so there was more social sanction.

Again, while the stories were well narrated, the illustrations on ACK seemed limiting. Again, all the characters looked the same. The only way to tell the difference between the characters was that the gods would be blue in colour. All the women were curvy and had big eyes, and the elders all had the same flowing white beard.

I remember enjoying their Mega packs – Ramayan, Mahabharata, Dashavatar. But there is only so much you can read of Amar Chitra Katha as a child. After a point, you want real people, real roads, real heroes kicking real villain’s asses. Stories that you couldn’t predict the end of. Stories that had a bit for everybody – especially us underprivileged ashramites whose wardens would get a stroke if they saw the cleavage on those women in Raj Comics.

And like a Bollywood film, after the interval, the friend made a come back into my life.

 

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The one image I have of our school warden is of her sitting and reading in the lobby.

She was a tall, frightful woman. She could make you piss your pants by growling at you, and she could punch like Muhammad Ali. And she would sit there in the lobby, a pen in the bun of her hair, smiling at this book.

Tinkle.

Now, I know some of you are groaning. But put yourself in my shoes.

The shoes of a kid who has been disillusioned. Whose heart has been broken because he put his trust and love with someone, only to be devastated. Me and Tinkle did not begin as a torrid affair. There were other children’s books floating around, and so I was skeptical.

There was Champak, with Chiku, that joyless character who did stuff that was neither cute nor funny, in Champakavana. There was Chandamama, where there was one illustration for every 500 words. There was Gokulam, which was full of grammatical errors that would make me want to throw up even as a ten year old. So you couldn’t blame me for taking my time to warm up to Tinkle. By then, the rest of my class had actively gotten into Tinkle. They would share Suppandi stories with me, and I would simply smile.

It was only sometime around my Class 5, that I really started reading Tinkle. Tinkle took the best out of Amar Chitra Katha – the decent illustrations, and the penchant for not making grammatical and spelling mistakes, and carved it to make something new. The biggest trick, for me, however – was something else.

Tinkle did not have one single illustrator. There were specific illustrators for specific stories. While there was the brilliant Savio Masceranhas, there was the more traditional art of Ram Waeerkar too. Tinkle also had its own language. A set of sounds and expressions that you would only find in a Tinkle comic.

Like when someone came running, they would say, “I am coming *puff pant* from the palace *puff*”

Or if it was cold, they would say “Brrr it’s cold”. And if someone was drinking something, they would make a ‘Glug glug’ sound, or a *chomp chomp* sound if they were devouring something.

Tinkle probably got it right with their market research. There was truly bits in it for everybody. I know what you’re thinking: That comics shouldn’t appeal to everybody. They are crafted around a niche, loyal readership. But you forget this is India we are talking about.

Here, parents supervised what we read, sometimes going through the entire comic before giving it to us. And my mother had these ‘Censor Sensors’ that beeped like crazy when she suspected something was going to corrupt my pure, innocent mind. She had already thrown out an illustrated book that contained fairy tales by the Grimm brothers. Stories like Cinderella and Rapunzel that she suspected would make me fall in love. Little did she know that little boys don’t fall in love. They fall in lust. And I had already read the Nagraj comic where Sarpini makes an appearance. Whenever she frowned about me reading comics, all I had to say was that ‘Warden Aunty’ reads them too, and she had nothing to reply.

And so, I began to read Tinkle at home, without a fear of it being snatched from my hand and thrown in the gutter.

Tinkle, like I was saying, understood the market dynamics and produced comics that could be digested by the entire family. It was not just one story, but a series of different stories that were colourful and interesting, and if you didn’t like something, you could just skip to the next in the line. They didn’t give freebies like stickers and audio cassettes, probably because they knew that the comics were enough to hook us on.

I generally skipped the parts that had Uncle Pai explaining the wonders of science to some enthusiastic kids who spent their summer holidays with an old man in his laboratory. I also skipped the ‘It Happened To Me’ bits – some of them seemed made up, and anyway, they could be read when you were done with the rest of the book and before you passed it on to your friend. There were the others that I didn’t give too much attention to – like Little Raji and Ramu and Shamu, though I remember that Ramu – Shamu’s mother had big eyes, wore polka dotted sarees, and had a curvy body. But the stories were just one page long, and there was nothing in it for me.

I also skipped the ‘See and Smile’ and ‘You Said It’ sections – I thought they were just there for infants and very young children in the family.

You keep these out, and what you have, is a very good comic.

Tantri the Mantri, that man with the peculiar chin who for some reason reminds me of L.K. Advani. His misadventures in trying to attain the throne, and his indomitable spirit.  Shikari Shambhu, that adorable hunter whose eyes I never saw, but I remember the bisons and deer that would be hung on his wall. They would smile when he entered the house, and frown when something was wrong.

I hated Kapish and Kalia the Crow. Again, stuff that you read before you passed it on. I mean, what was Kalia’s problem with nature? Why was he trying to fuck with the food chain? If Doob Doob and Chamataka wanted to eat rabbits, they should be allowed to. Why were these people interfering? And At least Kalia did something smart in every book, outwitting Doob Doob. What the hell was Kapish doing?

You rescue your friends my stretching your tail, man? Seriously? I understand we are a Hindu majority nation and all that, but why take it that far?

My true love, however, were the new stories that would come in every book. The ones that would be contributed by other children, people like me. If you waited till the Summer Vacations, Tinkle brought out this large sheet, thick edition of their comics called Summer Special. These were the ones I sought out.

My parents would never buy me a comic that cost more than 50 rupees, so the start of a new year at school always had on the top of its priority list hunting for Summer Special editions.

You spotted them being read on Sundays. You approached the guy, smiled, tried to talk nicely and ask it from him. Or, you approached the guy, smiled, snatched the comic and ran like hell. Either way, it ended up with you after some effort. I remember reading them in a quiet place, where there would be no distractions.

The Summer Special comics had adventure stories in them. Contributions of children that had children who went to their grandparents’ home in the summer and met this shady looking man with a stubble. There was always something suspicious about him, and all hell broke loose when someone noticed that there was a theft. There was no murder, of course (remember the family audience funda?), but the crimes were grave enough to run after. Especially if you were children in a Summer Special Tinkle who came to their grandparents’ house for the summer.

The children would follow the man, and he would often lead them to a secluded building, or a lighthouse. They would enter the building, but something would give in – their dog would bark, or someone would trip on a stone, and they would have to rush back.   They would go back home, discuss the events, and hatch a plan. The plan was never revealed to us, all we got was the dialogue box going ‘psst…psst’.

The next day, they would execute the plan. The dreaded criminal would be on the verge of pulling off a dangerous job, and they would barge in with the police to save the day.   The police would congratulate the kids’ parents for the smart children they have, and they would walk into the sunset, happy.

Not all stories were like this, of course. But they were always well written stories. Written by children like me.

If you zoom out and look back at the larger picture, Tinkle comics would be undisputed winner of Indian comics. They understood that it was all about loving your family, and published stories that you could read while loving your family. After all, they were going to give you the money to buy your next comic.

I remember trying to write a story that I would send to Tinkle. I would write down these stories and reread them. But then I would remember the exciting stories I had read, and doubt if mine would match up to them.

I never came up with anything to send to Tinkle, but I had the address written on my notebook all the time – just in case.

I doubt Tinkle will accept any of my stories now!

Growing Up In The 90’s – COMICS

When I watched V For Vendetta, I was surprised that it was adapted from a graphic novel. While the film didn’t shake me up so much, reading the graphic novel was a different experience altogether.

It shook me and stirred me. Not so much for the content, but for the form. That a graphic novel, after all just a fancy word for a ‘comic book’, could be an experience like that. I moved on to ‘Watchmen’ and the lesser known ‘Lost Girls’, and while they were two different genres, I am still bowled over by how much a comic can do.

I started reading Asterix around Class 9. It would of course take a few more years to understand all the puns. Everytime I reread an Asterix comic, I seem to understand something which I am sure I wouldn’t have understood the last time I read it. It’s like a Treasure Hunt in a book.

Tintin was always easier on the mind. I started reading Tintin in Class 7. They were beautifully crafted and every comic took you to a different place, like a magical journey.

But of course, like Coca Cola, these were foreign imports that came into my life much later.

Because you see, comics were just things that were bought while travelling on a train.

 

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Whenever I would leave for my boarding school, my parents would buy me a Chacha Chaudhary comic. You can snigger at the amount of respect they gave to my comic reading habit, but you wouldn’t laugh if you saw the girl who was travelling with us. Her parents always bought her the 5 Rs. ‘Wisdom’ magazine that had a picture of a creepy smiling kid on the cover.

Those Wisdom magazines, like the name, had pearls of wisdom strung together with toilet paper and terrible pictures. The entire book looked a dull maroon, and there was just too much information on it, with too few pictures. There were anecdotes, facts, information about places, every page had a quotation at the bottom of the page. I always found the magazine stifling – like an adult is trying to shove some food into your mouth. Large morsels that you couldn’t swallow and hated in the first place.

No wonder the girl next to me cried.

But my parents bought me the Chacha Chaudhary comics and sent me to the school. After I had fought off tears so that my friends did not think of me as a sissy (“Ah! There’s something in my eye, let me wash it and come.”), the time to leave would arrive.

The train would chug off from the station, and after crossing the station, would be near the smelly slum next to the station. People would be shitting behind their huts, which was right in your face. Which made looking out of the window a little difficult. So I would settle down and open the comic.

And what shitty comics they were!

You know how we romanticise nostalgia? How everything that was a part of our past is glorified as ‘Those Magical Days’ and ‘We didn’t Have Video Games, We Played Real Games’ and all that?

I think some of that is bull.

Like, for example, I am glad we have other comics now. I was glad that Big Babool came into the market, ridding us forever of those 50 paisa coins that were so bad that when our teacher told us bubble gums were made from pigs’ tails, we believed her. They had to be, they were that bad.

Similarly with the comics. The comics I used to read were terrible, and I don’t even know where to begin.

First of all, the terrible illustrations. Every Chacha Chaudhry comic would have a cover that would somehow entice you into buying it (Like Sabu hitting a cricket shot), and then you would open it to soak in the disappointment. The cover had a brief introduction about the creator – Pran – and how he had won this award from Indira Gandhi for creating this outstanding comic.

Now, I am sure as adults they saw something deep and stimulating in the comics. Because as a kid, I didn’t see shit.

The illustrations were terrible. All the people looked the same, and their arms, legs, expressions, even their bloody chins looked the same. And the hands!

Pick up any Chacha Chaudhry comic, and notice- The Hand.

The Hand will be like that no matter what is the story, character, or scene in any page of the book. Character sitting on sofa? Creepy hand comes into play. Character bowling in cricket match, the hand will be there.

And it wasn’t just the illustrations, the comics screwed with my head. I remember reading them in Class 2, and feeling all warm and fuzzy when I read that Sabu is from Jupiter.

My science teacher in school, however, had other notions. She taught us how to mug up the names of nine planets so that we could vomit them in our examinations (My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets). She went on to tell us that there was absolutely no life on any planet (even Jupiter). But Chacha Chaudhry comics had stories where they went to Jupiter and everyone there is a giant like Sabu. I was confused, and shocked.

Now, I understand comics are supposed to be taken with a stretch of imagination. If it was possible for a young boy to go around the world solving cases with his dog and an alcoholic sailor, why was it unbelievable that a man from Jupiter lived with a man and rid the world of evil?

I am fine with that. Its just that the comics were terribly pieces of work. Everytime I finished reading one, I would feel crestfallen. Like a crack addict who is disappointed that he fell for the temptation again.

The comics neither had a great plot, nor any interesting twists. I remember stories where Chacha Chaudhry would outwit the opponent by pointing behind him and saying “Look!”. The person would look, and Chacha would hit him on his head and take his gun*.

[* Chacha Chaudhary’s brain works faster than a computer ]

When all the while there was this giant next to him who could pick up the culprit, dip him in hot oil and eat him up.

It was just bad comics – badly written, and badly illustrated.

I read the comics for a few years. There were other characters in the Diamond Comics stable too. Billoo, Pinky (who incidentally had a comic called ‘Pinky’s Pussy’), and Agniputra Abhay. The last one about a man who had every power known to man and his friend Abhay – a man who had a talking motorcycle that he called ‘Princess’.

Yes, things were that bad.

Fortunately or not, my mother had weird interpretations of the teachings of Sai Baba, whom we worshipped. She would listen to a discourse and infer that he was asking his followers not to wear jeans. In another, she inferred that comics were bad for children.

There was a blanket ban on comics. Those evil things that could encourage violence among children. Little did she know that it wouldn’t even encourage Garfield to pick it up and swat a spider with.

Comics were banned, and I could read nothing on the train. In those desperate times, I even contemplated getting a peek into ‘Wisdom’ magazines. I needed my fix, my next hit.

And then, peeping in from the darkness, came the ray of colour and shine.

Any guesses what they could be?

 

(To be continued)

Pop! Goes the bubble.

Back in my childhood, we had an old, black and white television. Konark was the company, and Gitanjali was the brand.

Like a high school romance, the television was not the best around. But it belonged to me, and my heart belonged to it. It had a knob that you could turn to access 12 channels – a cruel mockery that the government only allowed it one. Under the knob, were three buttons – On/Off and Volume, Brightness, and Contrast. It had a red box, but that was all the colour it had.

I was used to it. To its timings, and to its tantrums. I knew what to do if the picture was blurred (run up to the balcony and shoo away the crow on the antenna), and what to do if it rained (pray to God and promise not to think about Juhi Chawla). We were cool friends – me and the television.

So imagine my surprise one day, when I randomly turned the knob, and found there was a second channel slowly appearing on the screen.

DD Metro.

My world opened up. No more did I have to endure the sober, sedated programs on National. This channel looked a lot cooler, the people wore dresses I could see on the streets, and a language I didn’t feel alienated by.

It was on this wonderful channel, DD Metro, that I saw a young girl sitting on a throne.

She was unlike any other actress I had seen. What right did she have to be singing a song if she wasn’t an actress? And what was with those crazy scenes? One moment it was a durbar, the next there was a snake crawling across the floor, then someone doing yoga.

I hated it. But I watched on like a man transfixed.

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The 90’s are often seen as the years when the floodgates were being opened for the rest of the world. But for us who were too young to figure anything out, all the liberalisation and privatisation didn’t make any sense.

Our revolutions happened in our television sets.

Made in India, the song whose audacity I couldn’t take, but whose tunes I couldn’t wish away, was just the beginning. What followed was a hurricane – Baba Sehgal appeared in the Jumpin ad, Daler Mehndi was making the entire country blabber Punjabi, and a young boy with long hair was singing about the pangs of a lonely heart.

Indipop not only changed the way we listened to music. It also changed the way we watched television.

For the first time, there was no heroine gyrating in the rain, or singing out songs of pain about her love. The tone was spunky, the tunes funky. While television was slotted earlier – the mornings and evenings for news, the afternoon for soap operas, Sundays for films – indipop meant you could watch anything you want. And the earth didn’t come crashing down on you if you walked out of the room and came back ten minutes later.

I remember watching television those days with a sense of awe. I never knew what was going to come up. Since these were not films, no one knew the artists, or the genres they were going to play. What resulted was a heady mix of genres and styles.

If there was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan singing about Lisa Ray in a bad blouse, there was a gawky Shahid Kapoor saving money to buy Hrishita Bhatt a dress. Dooba Dooba had a band that was slowly sinking into water to symbolise that the singer was drowning in her eyes – tacky now, earth shatteringly profound back then.

And Lucky Ali! That man with the husky voice, and dreamy lyrics, and those crazy, beautiful videos that were shot in locations that made our televisions look really posh.

If there was something about Indipop that made it such a rage, it was that it catered to every category. Tunak Tunak Tun would be followed by Tanha Dil, which would be followed by Ab Ke Saawan. My ears and brain had multiple orgasms on a daily basis.

It also changed the way I listened to music. Belonging to a family that would make a Khap panchayat beam with pride, I had no access to any films or film music. Which meant that I had to wait for someone to get married in my lane so I could listen to songs being played and mug them up. Or go to a friend’s place to watch television or music. Or wait till a kind uncle gave me some money so I could go to a cassette shop.

Oh, those cassette shops!

Side A would have one film, and Side B would have another. You listened to all the songs on one side, and flipped the cassette over. God forbid you left the cassette lying around, and the tape would come out like a snake from Pandora’s Box, and the next few days were spent in screwing the cassette with a Reynold 045 Fine Carbure jammed into it. All this trouble for listening to an Anu Malik song that sounded like two mules mating.

But with Indipop, there was no such trouble. Neelam, or Malaika decided the songs for you, spoke in English, and kept you glued till the song came on. And how they came on!

But obviously, everything couldn’t be so smooth.

For Bollywood, that hydra headed monster was watching. Very soon, it would plan its deadly attack.

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While the Bollywood of the early 90s was an outdated, embarrassingly loud rogue, the Bollywood of the mid and late 90s tried to win back the hearts of the nation.

DDLJ had happened, and India had a hero who did not bash three Pakistanis per second. DDLJ was followed by KKHH, and then DTPH. If the bonfire was slowly dying out, these three films, in one go, put the wood back in Bollywood.

From then on, Bollywood went out of its way to woo the audience everywhere. Songs began to be shot in locations abroad, and the youth reconnected with the films.

Slowly, everybody who was anybody in Indipop started drifting to Bollywood. Shaan, KK, and Sonu Nigam became a part of the Bollywood stable. Baba Sehgal, who had inspired a generation of rappers (even though the elders felt it was gangrap of their music aesthetics), stopped cutting albums.

Hariharan, one half of the beautiful Colonial Cousins, started singing in films. Lucky Ali smoked a lot of pot and moved to New Zealand and married thrice. Palash Sen acted in a film with Sushmita Sen and Daler Mehndi would pave way for his younger brother, someone with such an appreciation of beauty that he had to forcibly kiss Rakhi Sawant at a party.

Slowly but surely, like an octopus patrolling a sea, Bollywood ate up everything that came in its way.

What was a delight on television, slowly became a pain.

Indipop gave way to the Remix Scene. Crappy remakes of crappy songs. With 25 year old girls wearing the clothes of 15 year olds and dancing like 65 year olds.

Magnasound, that record label that started it all, got sued by Asha Bhonsle and filed for bankruptcy. Bollywood started making snazzy videos to entice the youth, who had already been dumbed down when Bournvita Quiz Contest was pulled off air and Derek O Brain went to join Mamta Banerjee’s political party.

Just like that, the dream was shattered.

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So today, when I watch a Coke Studio or MTV Unplugged, I watch it with cynicism. I know that the monster is watching too, with bated breath. It just has to stretch its hands out, and the guy will be lost forever – singing songs for 45 year old heroes chasing their daughters’ friends – till there is life.

Music today is film music.

Alisha Chinai is a judge on a fucked up reality show.

Baba Sehgal is the Snake God in a Telugu film called Rudhramadevi.

And people ask me why I hate Bollywood so much.

“Aye, Shoo! Why are you talking?”

As a student in school, I was the Class Asshole.

The perennial backbencher, I would sleep, talk, or day dream. If it was Maths class, I was an ostrich, trying to bury my head between the others in class. If it was English, I was a meerkat, peering out of my hole, making some noise, grabbing attention. For the other subjects, I generally switched between ostrich, meerkat, and hippopotamus.

In our school, talking was a crime. I swear. Students would get report cards sent home with the remark – “He talks a lot” or “His marks will improve if he reduces his talking”. Once, my friend got a remark saying he was getting spoilt because he was talking to me.

The whole thing pissed me off. I mean, what is the big deal about talking?

But then, that was our school. Where talking was among many other grave crimes – entering another room, whistling, singing a film song, and reading a book.

Of all these, it was this big deal about talking that pissed me off the most. I mean, children are children. They will talk. And when the teachers would ask me ‘What do you have to talk so much about?’, I would feel like screaming, ‘I’m not a goddamn 40 year old, things still surprise me.’

There are a million things that a kid would want to talk about. How do you explain to him that Pythagoras’ 2500 year old theorem is more important than the hot girl in class? How are Harappan excavations ever going to be more important than his favourite cricketer – his personal hero?

So I kept on talking, and got thrashed like a carpet seller thrashes his carpets to clean them. I have had sticks broken on me, been pinched, slapped, boxed, and once, even been given a langdi by the hostel warden.

The sad part is, most people from my school still think greatly about the way we were brought up.

The sadder part is, I never really stopped talking.

The saddest part is, the teachers never got it, and went on thrashing.

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Now, life has this way of screwing you over in such a beautiful way that you can’t help smiling.

After all these years, after all these jobs, I teach school children in Kurnool. Classes 5 to 8.

And I have to deal with the exact, same issues that I faced when I was a student.

I never shout, or raise my hand. So I am the cool teacher.

I smile, I crack jokes, I encourage the silent students to speak, and spend half an hour before every class, thinking of the most interesting way to teach that particular concept. Through stories, quizzes, videos, or games. Also, every now and then, I give them two minutes to discuss, so that they can blurt out that thing that’s on top of their minds, and on the tips of their tongues.

And in spite of all this, I find that some of the kids aren’t interested. Some of them are talking to the person next to them, others are looking out of the window. Some are staring at me blankly, like the kid from Sixth Sense who sees dead people.

It drives me nuts. I am tempted to scream.

But it just needs a second to take me back to my own school days, and think about what I would have done. And I am calm as the Buddha all over again.

It has been five months now, and I can safely say that the students trust me a little now. They know I am never going to hit or shout at them, and this means they trust me a little bit. Over these months, there are two important things I have learnt.

1. Training and Sensitisation: In most schools, teachers are selected on the basis of their academic qualifications. But like Kapil Dev was miserable as the Indian coach, a great student is never going to guarantee a great teacher.

Even after securing the job, the teacher is never trained. Which means that in the first few years, there is some josh to be a good teacher. But without any sensitisation, after a point, the kids seem like ten year old tadpoles who can be made to toe the line by raising your voice. The ones that don’t, can be tamed by delivering a nice, tight slap. After a point, they stop seeming like children – with individual needs and concerns, and they seem more like a herd of sheep.

2. Assholes make better teachers: Most of the teachers in schools are the studious sort. The ones who never broke a rule, never spoke out of turn, and turned in shiny report cards at the end of every test.

How will these people ever know what it means to have something to say in class while the teacher is talking? How will they ever realise that for the kid, there are more things going on in the mind than angles and triangles? These teachers have lived such a life of discipline that they will never be able to empathise with the ones who are not reflections of their own ten year old selves. And that’s why, assholes make better teachers.

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So now, when a kid talks in class, I don’t say, “Aye, shoo! Why are you talking?”

I know why the kid is talking.

I try to beat the thought in his head, by putting in a more interesting one. And if I fail, it’s ok. I understand.

Because, as a student in school, I was the Class Asshole.

Change the Game, Bend the Rules

Considering the spectacular way in which India is getting its ass kicked down under, I refuse to talk about the cricket.

Thankfully, our cricketers are engaging in other activities to take our minds off mundane things such as scores and results. Like raising fingers. Now, raising fingers is not a nice thing to do. But its ok to show someone a finger if they abuse your ‘mother and sister’. I mean, how can someone do that?

And why was such a ruckus being made about it? He just showed a finger. At least he didn’t walk into the stands and bludgeon the hell out of the spectator like Inzamam-ul-Haq did in Toronto. And that poor fellow had not even called his family names. He had just said the word ‘aloo’. Innocuous, if you ask me.

But keeping the finger incident aside, another issue that has become a juicy bone of contention is the UDRS rule. The Australian media seems to have problems with the Indian team’s stance on the subject. We are being called selfish bullies. But here’s the sad part, you guys. We have the money.

You can cry and crib about how we are a dominant power that is misusing their power. Sadly, no one will give a fuck. We are the USA of cricket. We enter a nation, bombard it, and step out. Apart from some cribbing, there is nothing much you can do about it.

And what is this UDRS thing? Cricket is a game where one fellow bowls, one bats, and the other appears in Fair and Lovely ads. Why complicate it by bringing in this UDRS-IVRS mumbo-jumbo?

And something or the other has been coming up all the time. A few months back, the ICC looked into the issue of batsmen taking runners out of the batting innings. For many like me, that was shocking.

I mean, what the hell does that have to do with anything? If running between wickets was so important, Mohd. Kaif would have been delivering the Bradman Oration in Australia.

I know there are those who will say that Saeed Anwar had Afridi run 130 of his 194 runs, and that Sachin ran through every single in his 200. Accepted. But when a dude sitting in a bar can predict a no ball, and players are shot by terrorists, there are clearly other important issued that need discussion. Of course, Sunil Gavaskar had an opinion on the issue, and also said that bowlers taking energy drinks from the boundary should be banned. What next? Banning players from having hand towels cos it might encourage them to throw in the towel during a tense match??

In a country where most of the ‘cricket’ is played with ‘tennis’ balls, all this doesn’t make sense. I don’t know about you, but when we played cricket as children, there were some flexible rules. Cricket is a gentlemen’s game, its not unruly like ice hockey.

In keeping with the theme of the sport, we had a lot of rules that made the game more relaxed, and more enjoyable. I have compiled below a few of those rules from the days when the gentleman’s game was still a gentle game.

Late Run: The batsman may not take a run ‘late’. This means that the batsman cannot take a run after the bowler has received the ball.

You see, many things could interrupt a match of cricket. The ball falling into a ditch, a senior throwing the ball away, or the players realising that there is a hole in the ball. Taking advantage of such situations was unethical, and such runs were called ‘Late Runs’. The opposing team could protest against this, and the run is not included in the total score.

Single Batsman: In the case of all the batsmen of the team getting out, the lone batsman can continue batting. He runs all the runs himself. There are special circumstances where the batsman might have to run to the bowler’s end and come back for it to be counted as one run.

The ‘Single Batsman’ rule was used when the team had one star batsman. In our days, if you owned the bat, you could truly “change the game”. This resulted in matches when all the batsmen would get out, but one could bat on till the end of the overs. (The ones who owned the bat never got out, of course)

International Wide: As children, not all of us knew how to bowl overarm. There were a lot of us who had half actions, However, to be recognised as a bowler, you had to show some effort. So the bowlers would run, turn their arm, and fling the ball. You couldn’t just stand, aim and shoot the ball. That was against the spirit of the game.

However, if you bowled a truly disreputable ball, like one that bounces at good length and swings towards fifth slip, it was called an International Wide.

Such a ball could be penalised with one run, or sometimes with two, depending on whose side the bat-owner was on.

Baby Over: With the absence of Cartoon Network and mission games, and the most exciting thing on television being Alif Laila, we were probably the last generation that played in the evenings.

The evening cricket was not just about playing cricket. Excelling in the game could make you famous, and win you lots of friends. However, the worst insult in the game would be the Baby Over.

It basically meant an over that was so bad that it had to be aborted in between. So if a bowler has bowled nine wides in three legal deliveries, the captain could call on another bowler to finish the over. This aborted over would be called ‘Baby Over’

One Tup Out: The batsman can be ruled out if a fielder catches the ball after it has pitched once (one tup), if the catch is claimed cleanly, and with one hand.

Our school had cricket fanatics. Guys who would cut and paste every picture of cricketers they found anywhere – newspapers, magazines, stickers, labels, t-shirts, and save them in a scrap book for years. Whenever we could, we would sneak in a game of cricket. The one tup rule was used when there was a constraint of space in the game. Like in a dormitory,

or the back of a classroom, or in the bathroom, or the corridor, or between the rows of benches in the classroom, or the side of a pitch where seniors would be playing.

Trials: The first ball of the first over. The bowler comes running in. The batsman defends, but the ball goes through the gate and hits the stumps. The fielders celebrate. The batsman, however, looks up, gives a Buddha-like smile and says “I told ‘trials”.

‘Trials’ was the rule that came to the rescue of batsmen who had the tendency of getting out on the first ball. Arvind Mukund should ask Sharad Pawar to ask the ICC to bring this rule into force. So, when a batsman asks for ‘trials’, he is asking the bowler to bowl him one ball, to ‘try’ things out. To see the bowler, his pace, the bounce in the pitch, the hardness of the ball, etc etc. After the batsman has faced the ball, he says ‘Reals’, and then the real game begins. Shopping malls have adapted the system of ‘trials’ as part of their strategy, but the real credit must be given to ‘mundu’ cricket, which magnanimously believes in giving the batsman a test ride before the real match begins.

Needless to say, owning the bat gave the batsman the luxury of having as many ‘trials’ as he wanted. Also, he didnt have to actually say the word ‘trial’. Just thinking it would suffice.

There were many such rules that were flexibly introduced depending on the situation/ground/age of the players involved. You see, winning or losing was not important. What was important was that the bat and ball were available for the next day’s play. The spirit of the game could wait till we were old enough to have beer.

Now, if the ICC is really serious about promoting the game to other parts of the world and making it player and spectator friendly, it should consider bringing in some of the rules.

Why should Australian guys have all the fun??

R. D. Sharma

I happened to meet a tenth standard guy a few days back, and he was studying for the new session that was to begin two months later.

He took out a few note books, all of them with brown covers and a label on them, and then, he took out a medium sized book with a white cover, that I could recognise anywhere.

“R. D. Sharma?”

He nodded, and smiled.

I knew there was more to the smile than met the eye.

For years, I had single-minded hatred for R.D.Sharma.

Whenever anyone asked me what my favourite subject was, I always said ‘Maths’. I didn’t really like it. I loathed it. But then the smartest guys in class always said Maths was their favourite song, and I followed suit.

I have this theory that in any given school, the cruelest, most evil teachers are the Maths teachers. They are the ones who beat the children, crack the evil jokes, and bully the guys who don’t study too well. Maths teachers are also the least favourite among the students, and some of the hatred against them rubs off on the subject too.

I have always had problems with Mathematics. I remember, I had answered Two Nines Are Nineteen in Class 2, and the Maths teacher stuffed a Natraj pencil in between my fingers and twisted it. I started using Apsara Flora pencils (that had round edges) after that, not that it did much for my Maths.

Maths is like a control freak, commitment seeking girlfriend. You cannot flirt with Maths for a few years and then cheat on it with Social Studies. With Maths, if you’re good at it, you are good at it for life. Similarly, if you are bad at it, you’ll remain bad at it. All your life.

I used to dread Maths classes, and made sure I sat somewhere at the back of the class. I kept my hand down and resisted the urge to crack wisecracks, as I knew that the teacher could cut me to size by asking me 13 table.

If there is anything I detested more than the sums, it was the way they were made to sound like something fun. Like, for example:

“Hi. My name is Rishab. Last night, my wife gave birth to a son. My age is ten more than than twenty times his age. In ten years, my age will be four times his age. What is my age?”

How exciting! I always wondered who these people were who made these sums. Couldn’t they think of anything else?

And then, there were the upstream-downstream problems. I am going downstream at 20 km/hr. If the speed of the stream is 10 km/hr, how long will it take for me to reach a place that is twenty kilometres away, if I’m travelling upstream?

Who gives a damn, moron? Why don’t you try taking a cab or something?

Or those geometry classes where we were asked to draw a 60 degree angle with a compass. If I have a shiny little protractor smiling up to me from the geometry box, why would I want to do it with a compass?

Or those trigonometry problems with the cos theta and san theta. Even jokes like “Alpha Q cos ur Sec C” couldn’t get me interested in them.

I do not have a single memory of childhood where I enjoyed a Maths class, and considerable credit for that goes to my Maths teachers. Ranging from pure evil to the totally nuts, they came in all sizes and shapes, and you never knew when they got into the moods.

The best Maths teacher I ever had was Venkataramana sir. Not that he made the subject totally interesting and understandable for us mathematically challenged ones. But he could crack the worst jokes in the universe.

So, at the beginning of his classes, we would request him to tell a joke. The entire class would go, “Please sir, one joke sir. What, sir? One joke, sir.” He would smile, and then say something like,

“You want joke? Drink Coke.”

Immediately, guys would begin to roll of their chairs, and fall on the floor, laughing. People would hold their stomachs, and scream at the top of their lungs. Like a seasoned stand up comedian, he never laughed at his own jokes, and smiled contentedly at the joy he was spreading in the world.

The rest of the Maths teachers, were evil. From poking a burning agarbathi into the cheek to whacking the daylights out of students, I have seen the John, Johnny, Janardhan of Maths teachers. And all of them went a long way in increasing my hatred for the subject.

Now in school, for every subject, we had a text book that was prescribed by the NCERT. There was the usual NCERT text book with its brown pages that adhered to the highest quality of toilet paper available back then. There were questions at the end of every chapter, and every year, the questions in the board exam would come from there. We could have happily studied those questions and passed the exams. But no.

Mr. R.D. Sharma created a wonderful little book for mathematics aficionados, so they could surf through exciting problems of various types. While it was possible for anyone to mug up the problems at the back of every chapter in the NCERT book, the R.D. Sharma book was a little treasure clove of smart little sums that made life miserable for people like me.

I was in the Maths Special Class. There were about ten of us. Each as clueless as the other person as to what was going on. Honestly, the teacher could have said ‘dhinka chika dhinka chika’ instead of ‘tan theta cos theta’, and it still wouldn’t make a rat’s ass of a difference to us. We were a stoned lot, nodding through explanations, and hoping we were not the one who will be asked a question. And the reason for my torture, would be that one Mr. Kishore, who was 7x times his son’s age, and yet the moron wanted thirteen year olds to calculate what his age was.

Throughout my high school days, I used to wonder who this R.D. Sharma was. What he was like, as a person? I imagined him as a man in Delhi who had retired as a school teacher and took tuitions for children at his home. There, I imagined him to be the sum total of all the evil Maths teachers I had ever had. A ten-faced, multiplication table spouting monster who branded children with iron rods if they didn’t know the answer.

My misery with Maths went on for a few years, and then it was the Grand Finale. The Board Exams.

I don’t really understand the fuss made behind board exams in India. For heavens sake, its just a bunch of fourteen year olds going to give an exam so that they can move on to the next class. Parents and teachers in India make it seem like we have to go to war.

The tenth standard guys in our school were given special timings, milk in the night, inspirational talks by teachers, and lectures of the ‘future’. There was a sense of going to battle, like a song from a J.P. Dutta movie. Students would touch the feet of the teacher before entering the exam hall.

I never really understood that. Quite clearly, the question paper has been set, and you only know as much as you learnt. Will some gyan get transferred from the teacher’s feet if you touch them before entering the hall?

Because of all the ballyhoo about the exam, I was wary of it from my ninth standard itself. Finally the day came when the dates were out. I read the list and my heart sank. We had ten days gap for the Maths Board Exam.

I knew I should have been happy that there were so many days. But I had a fair understanding of my abilities, and knew that no matter what I did, there was a certain upper limit to what I was going to score.

Quite expectedly, each gap day seemed worse than the previous one, as the dreaded day neared closer. The day before the exam was Shiv Ratri and as per the norm, we stayed all night in the mandir, studying mathematics amidst thousands of devotees singing bhajans of Shiva.

I remember making a long list of prayers to Lord Shiva the previous night. That I will never complain against anything ever in my life. I will never think bad things about anyone, and do bad things to myself thinking about those bad things. I will never waste food, and I will study well and make my parents proud.

The days after the board exams are hardly as peaceful as you would expect them to be. Parents, relatives, neighbours, friends, and anyone else who lives around you wants to know how you did, and when the results will be out, and what you will do next.

It hardly mattered what you told them, because they knew what they wanted to tell you anyway. Finally, our results were declared. Without looking at the name of the subjects, I looked at the numbers. Scrolling down, I saw it. Standing out against the others, sitting comfortably, was a fat 53. I looked at the subject and it was Maths. That was all I wanted to know.

I remember thinking how I would get rid of my R.D. Sharma book after the exam. Strangely, I didn’t do anything to it. I gave it off to someone, and it is probably still there. In tatters maybe, but still screwing the happiness of a fourteen year old somewhere in India.

A few days back, I was surfing the net and happened to remember R.D. Sharma and was browsing to see if anyone remembers him. Within minutes, I found it.

Someone had taken the pains to ask on Yahoo Answers if it was true that R.D. Sharma’s son had failed in Maths in the board exam.

It made me smile. I was not alone.

Srupen

There was a peculiar practice in our school. Everytime we went to a new class, or a new teacher came to teach us, they would ask us our names, and then tell us the meanings. Srupen didn’t particularly like these sessions.

Not only did no teacher know his name, they kept making random guesses, and asking him what it meant, as if he should know. It was not until another guy named Sakora joined the class, that the pressure eased on Srupen. His name, of course, led to others teasing him with names of a sister of a particular demon. Which of course, led to a fight later on.

Srupen was a smart guy. He managed to come within the Top 10 of the class, but that did not mean he was your typical teacher’s pet. In a school where talking/thinking/discussing about films was taboo, Srupen was our own Roger Ebert. I remember him explaining the stories of films like ‘Nuvvu Naku Nachav’ and ‘Kushi’, in vivid detail.

Srupen had some problem with his teeth and had to visit the dentist every two months, which meant he could go home. He would watch the latest movies, and come back and narrate the stories to us, in Dolby Digital, and Technicolor.

We were roommates in Class Nine, and it was one of the best rooms I have been a part of. Srupen had gone home for one of his dentist check ups, and returned with a stack of Filmfares and Stardusts. ‘Kaho Na Pyar Hai’ had just released, and I got a chance to spend some intimate moments with Amisha Patel, huddled up on top of the cupboards, bunking the evening prayers.

He also brought with him some audio cassettes, and we would listen to songs from ‘Nuvvostavani’ in the night after everyone had slept off. Eventually we got busted, whacked, and informed that there was no way they were going to give us a seat in the school again.

Srupen was clear he did not want to come back to the school and so, was hardly bothered about it all. Even though he did well in the exams, he found time to play cricket before the exam, and cut a cake to celebrate 100 days of ‘Kushi’.

He also had a temper and got easily irritated. When we saw him walking in the corridor, me and KSS would call out to him:

“Sru-pen”, and when he’d turn, we’d say:

“Red Pen”, or “Blue Pen” and run away. This pissed him off no end, and he would chase us.

After we passed out, I barely saw him. He went on to study in BITS Pilani, and then went to the US to do his masters. On his return, he would give detailed accounts of his trips to strip joints, much to the agony of the others, who relied on the internet!!

On Sunday, he died in a car crash.

Just like that.

I wish I had spoken to him more when he had called. I wish I had told him what an awesome person he was, and that I didn’t really mean it when I used to tease him. I wish we had taken more pictures, and I wish he was still there so I could comment on his pictures on Facebook.

I think its times like these when you realise that all that we crave and strive for, could vanish, just like that. That people around us won’t be there forever.

I’m sure you are having fun up there, buddy. Just a matter of time, we guys will be joining you soon.

“Sai Baba is dead, how do you feel?”

I have been asked this question incessantly over the last two days. Here’s my reply.

I was young when I joined the school in Puttaparthi. Too young to make sense of anything that was going on around me. My parents dropped a few hints, I loved the train journey, and before I knew it, I was in the school.

It was all a little too overwhelming at first. The mandir, the darshan, the bhajans, the lines, the lakhs of devotees. Before I could make sense, I fit in. There was a leitmotif of spirituality in everything in my life.

For ten years, my life revolved around Sai Baba and his teachings. I didn’t know if he was god or not. I didn’t have the time or courage to ask myself, and I didn’t feel the need to.

And then, I came out. It was when I realised there is a world beyond Puttaparthi. When I spoke of Sai Baba, they asked, “Which one? The bandana baba or the afro baba?” They asked me about my experience, and I could see the twinkle in their eyes.

“Does he create real gold chains?

“Did you get any?”

“Why doesn’t he create a huge oil pit so we don’t have to import it from Iraq and all?”

I began to question my own beliefs. Life took such a whirlwind spin after that, I barely had the time to think about such stuff. Somewhere along the line, I got disillusioned with religion, spirituality, and god.

It was not a conscious decision. I slowly realised that I only prayed when I was in trouble. Upon trying, I realised things turned out ok even if I did not pray.

I am not religious. Nor am I among those who say “I’m spiritual, but not religious”. I don’t know what that means. I just do what I like, and look for the maximum fun I can have while doing it. That pretty much sums up the philosophy of my life.

The years rolled on, and Puttaparthy became a fond memory. Of childhood, friends, and fear of sin.

Now, when people ask me how I feel about Sai Baba’s death, I don’t know what to say.

I don’t believe in God, but there are parts of me that have been irreparably influenced by Puttaparthi.

I never waste food. I am part of voluntary organisations that work for children. If someone needs help, I will do my best. Religion, caste and other such things don’t mean crap to me. I’m no Magsaysay nominee, but I will help a person in need, as much as I can.

Is he god? I don’t know. I don’t care. Is it even important?

It all depends on what you take away from someone’s work. While some say Sachin is the greatest batsman in the world, others say India loses when he scores a century. But haven’t we all called him god on our facebook status updates?

When I look back at Puttaparthi, it is not the huge mandirs that I remember. Not the string of dignitaries, the enviable fleet of cars, or the golden mandir in the ashram.

The image I remember is of a poor man waiting his turn in the general hospital. He is dark, his coarse hands folded in prayer, and tears flowing down his eyes.

I am educated, rational and pride myself for being responsible for my own fate. But that poor man?

His life has changed forever. His children and their children will have a livelihood. They will get access to drinking water, free medical treatment, and a good education.

If that man calls Sai Baba god, what is the harm??

Spare the rod, save a child

A few five year olds are waiting for their class to begin. They are chanting the class prayer before the period starts, and the teacher is lighting an agarbathi for the alter. Suddenly, the teacher notices that one of the kids in the first row opens one eye to look around. Immediately, the agarbathi is poked into his cheek. The child is scarred for life and years later, no one tells believes him when he says that it is actually a small dimple!

Like most of my generation, getting punished was a part and parcel of education. More so in my case as I studied in a spiritual school. Very early in life, we were taught about good and bad. About rewards in heaven and punishments in hell.

So when there is a lot of debate on the recent suicide committed by a child at a school in Kolkata, I was talking about it with people around me. My sister used to go to a tuition master and he was popular among parents because he used to hit his students. He used to go to Puri once in a while so he could a special variety of thin canes that were very effective. The parents would ask the teacher to resort to force if the student was lagging.

It worked for us. We listened to what the teacher had to say, did our homework in time. We thought thrice before breaking a rule, and had immense respect (and fear) for our teachers.

Look at the other extreme of the spectrum – the system of education in other countries, like the US. There, the teacher cannot touch the students. The standard of education is much lower than the standard in India. The children are worse behaved, and there have been numerous instances when children carry guns to school and begin shooting people.

Are we better off? Is it because we were scared of our teachers and this fear helped us in not committing mistakes? Most of the elders I have spoken to feel that this is indeed the case. One teacher also said that it is easy for us to sit and discuss morality in our homes, but a teacher who has to control a set of 35 young imps running about here and there, cannot do it by cajoling and coaxing.

However, there is a thin line between what is acceptable and what is ethical. Just because it is common does not mean that it is right.

Twisting a child’s ears, or rapping him on the knuckle might seem alright once in a while. But for a child who is not good at studies, it happens everyday, in every period. Not only is his self-esteem at its lowest because of the incessant pressure put on him by his parents, teachers, and peers, the beating adds to his complex.

And we are talking about children who are about ten years old. An age where academic proficiency does not mean success in life, and failure does not mean a child is doomed. Most of the time, the children who are hit are weak in studies. They are the silent, introvert children who are also bullied in class. The stronger, more popular children think that since the teachers are hitting them, it must be alright for them to do so too. The child gets drawn into a shell, and before he has even matured, he has become a shy, reserved young man.

Also, we have grown up in cities and towns, where we had to go to school no matter how strict the teacher was. But in rural areas, if the teacher hits the students too much, the child drops out of school. Is it really the way this is to be done?

If we think about our school days, each of us will remember this one teacher who was the most loved among the students. She was kind (and mostly taught English), she never hit anyone, and yet everyone listened to her when she spoke. We had one teacher like that. Her name was Loka mam.

Loka mam was my first English teacher. She never shouted at anyone, leave alone hitting. She was kind, always smiling, and always spent more time with the weaker children, rather than boost the ego of the children good at studies. If a child wasnt great at studies, but had a good handwriting, she would point it out to the entire class. She had a large repertoire of stories, and in free classes, we would ask her to tell us those stories.

She taught me in class 1, and then again in class 5. By then, I had developed a reputation of being a pest. But I was good at English and was developing an interest in the subject. Loka mam did encourage me in class. She introduced me to crosswords, and suggested books I could read during holidays. But she never tolerated my indiscipline. I remember one incident when I was caught in a huge fiasco and her class was going on when I was called to the Principal’s room. After her class, she came to ask what had happened. When I told her, she just looked at me, and I could see her disappointment. Since then, it was the look on her face that made me feel guilty. I made it a point to behave in her class, and generally avoided getting into trouble when she was around.

I have seen many teachers since and none of them, no matter how strict they were, never seemed to have as much control over the class as her. I sometimes think what was it that made all of us listen to her. We were never scared of her, she seemed incapable of hitting anyone. Why then did we behave? Why was English our favourite subject?

It was because with her, we saw that she wanted to teach us. She loved talking to each and every student, she wanted each and every child to do well. Children can be called immature, but even the most heartless child would not want to trouble such a person.

So do we really need caning?

OF SICKNESS AND WELLNESS

What would ‘Anand’ be if Rajesh Khanna was a healthy, 6-pack abs flaunting fit-fat guy? Or if SRK was Mr. Universe in Kal Ho Na Ho? I have always found something romantically tragic in being sick. Right from my childhood.

I was surprised when a friend told me that she experienced stomach-ache for the first time in her life. This reminded me of the days when I used to boast to people around me that I had not once in my life had a sprain, a fracture, stitches, or even a capsule. It’s still the same, except in Class 5 when our class teacher added me to the list of poor students in the class after my performance in Maths and I was asked to eat the Memory Plus tablets that were endorsed by Vishwanath Anand.

The reason I was drawn to being sick was all the attention and sympathy that the ‘sick boys’, (as they were called then in our hostel) got when they fell sick. My favourite teachers would check upon them regularly, they would be allowed to skip classes and prayer sessions, and they would get sweets, comics and chocolates. It was so much fun. If you got a fracture, you would be sent home, and if you got a contagious disease, you would be quarantined away in the hospital, away from the cruel world of mathematical tables and 6 AM prayer sessions.

Another reason that I liked falling sick was my eternal crushes on nurses. Though I still maintain that it is a myth and there actually are no sexy nurses in the world. Of course, there was Zeenat Aman in Don, but then she was masquerading as a nurse to get Don out of the hospital. And Don was Don. Even though the intelligence agencies of eleven countries were after him, they forgot that it was not only difficult to catch him, it was impossible!

My point is that there are no sexy nurses in the world. Only kind nurses and cruel nurses. Coming back to my childhood, I always wanted to fall sick and be fussed over. But thanks to the healthy diet and some strong White Blood Cells, I was more or less disease-free. Not that I didn’t try.

There was this really kind teacher at school who was incharge of medicines. We would rush to her for the smallest of ailments. Even something as silly as a mosquito bite. And she would pop in a few pills of unmedicated homeopathy pills in our mouth. When we went on doing it for some days, she would say, ‘This is serious. Turn around, I think we need to give you an injection”. We’d quickly say “No, ma’am. We are fine, and rush out of the dispensary”.

I was always looking for methods to injure myself or get a disease. Of course, the most obvious way was to climb up the giant wheel and jump from it. But I was too scared of that, and moreover I was always playing more genteel games like Ramayan and Mahabharat.

There was this guy in our class called Vishnu who had just recovered from mumps.I would keep asking him how he got it. May be he was sick of me pestering him or that he was interested in becoming a doctor back then, but he gave me a remedy. He said, “When you are in the bathroom, keep your hand immersed in the mug with the tap running for a lot of time, and you will get mumps”. Now, this would sound ridiculous even if you said it at Hogwarts, but for someone who believed he could get better at Maths by eating drumstick seeds, it sounded reasonable. So I would sit in the potty, my hand in the mug, and my mind full of dreams of mumps. After many such futile attempts, I got a cold but no sign of mumps.

Finally, at the end of the year, I successfully acquired Chicken Pox. While everyone was in misery, I was over the moon. We were taken to the hospital beside our school. There were no teachers to monitor us over here. And the best part was that the girls were in the room opposite us. We could sit in our rooms and look out of the door with hope, expecting one of them to step out. There were mountains behind us, and the seniors there would tell us amazing stories about how they killed snakes and ghosts that had creeped into the room. We were asked to give the annual exams from the hospital itself, and I remember Loka mam, my favourite teacher, gently hinting to me what the answers could be.

When my father came to collect me from the hospital, I was surprised to see that he was touching me and not staying away. When he told me the reason, I was crest-fallen. Like true love, Chicken Pox happens only once in a lifetime. I felt cheated!!

Maharaja Talkies

Nothing remarkable happened on 24.7.2002, it was just another Wednesday. But it was a red letter day for me. It was the first time I went to a cinema hall to watch a movie. Considering I was born in 1986, which was 2 decades back, it had to be special.

As a child, I was not allowed to watch movies even on television. The hottest woman I saw on television was Tara of Chandrakanta. My mother had even shut down the TV when the Draupadi Vastraharan scene was going on in Mahabharat, so you can imagine the levels of deprivation I was going through. The logic was simple. Going to movies was not in the list of activities that would help you to go to heaven. And so I was never taken to a cinema hall. I tried hinting about it a few times, but I might have as well asked for a trip to the moon.

Not that I hadn’t watched movies. We were shown films in our hostel. Mostly English films. And in the rare moments that my mother wasn’t at home or I was at someone else’s home, I used to catch whatever little on the existing movie channels. So, by the time I had finished my Class 10, I had watched a total of four hindi movies in my life.

Maine Pyar Kiya: (Being Diwali, my mother was busy in Puja),
HatimTai: (I remember Jitendra surrounded by girls doing aerobics holding duffs. Additional bonus, Dimple Kapadia in an item number).
Lagaan: Shown at school, with the Madhuban song edited out. Frustrated lot as we were, they might have wanted to avoid an uncomfortable situation.
Avatar: Rajesh Khanna is a mechanic who loses his hand while repairing an Ambasador and teaches his sons a lesson in caring for parents, with one hand. This emotional prostitute of a film was followed by a discourse on how children today do not care about their parents.

The idea of watching a film in a cinema hall thrilled me. My friends at school had described what the inside was like. I was told about the stall, the balcony, the whistling and hooting. It seemed like wonderland.

I returned home early and rushed on my bicycle to a cinema near my house that was screening Devdas – the bumper hit at that time. By the time I reached the hall, about 30 minutes had lapsed. I reached the ticket counter was looking left and right to check if anyone I knew was around. But all the people I knew were the kinds who spent Saturday evenings in Bhajans and would never come to watch a movie about a drunkard who falls in love with a prostitute and dies in front of his married lover’s gate.

The usher standing in front of the grill with his torch noticed me loitering around and asked me if i wanted a ticket. I said yes and he asked me to shell out 40 rs. If I had looked at the ticket counter, I’d have seen that the costliest ticket at that time was 22 Rs. But anyway, I was entering the hall for the first time and it seemed too good to be true. It was like a magical place. There were statues of fairies and posters of other films that were to be released soon. Even while climbing the stairs, I could faintly hear the dialogues. It felt like I belonged here.

I recalled my friends’ description of the balcony and the stall. Strangely, the man seemed to keep walking to the front rows. He kept walking till he reached the first row in the entire hall. He pulled a wooden bench from the side and asked me to sit. By then, I realised I had been royally duped. But what the heck? I was in a cinema hall.

I had to crane my neck up to look at the screen. Since I was closest to the screen, I felt like a fly sitting on people’s faces whenever they came on screen. SRK’s nose looked the size of a blackboard and everything else seemed magnified beyond recognition. If someone was at the left of the screen, I had to turn my head to the left and then look to the right again. Within 15 minutes, my neck began to hurt. I turned to look behind me. I was expecting to see people staring at the screen in awe. What I saw was a bunch of rickshaw walas and coolies, some of them drunk, the others showering Aishwarya Rai with a string of abuses I did not know the meaning of. It felt like a 3D, larger than life experience, the hero was drinking bottles of booze and the area around me stank of it too.

After 2 long hours, Aishwarya realises SRK is outside her gates and runs to meet him. After what seems like a 200 m relay race, she reaches the gates, only for it to be shut on her face. The hero lies dead, mumbling her name. The end credits roll. I stand up.

Only to be pulled back to my seat by my shirt. “Bose, sola. Hero uthibo”. (Sit down, brother in law. The hero will get up). After about 2 minutes, they realised hero wouldn’t get up. This was followed by another string of abuses directed at the hero’s ancestral lineage. The lights got switched on. Someone had thrown something at the screen and people were making a rush for the exit. And a fight broke out. No fight in Orissa is considered big enough till someone screams out ‘Maaaaghiyaaaa’. Someone sounded the war cry and a riot broke out.

I struggled my way out, losing two buttons in the process.

I haven’t forgiven SRK to date.

The Michael Jackson I knew

Throughout my childhood, MJ was a colourful bundle of rumours. Being cut off from the outside world, I used to hear from friends who watched videos of him during holidays. He was supposed to be a very popular singer. A popular book in our library, “Guiness Book of World Records” mentioned him for his records and also his donations to charity. When I first saw him, I thought he was a girl. Rumours were always floating when MJ was involved.

Some said that he was black but got a total skin transplant. Some said that he was a eunuch. He apparently went to sleep in an capsule of Oxygen. Others said that he lived with children, monkeys and other animals. When MJ visited India in 96, there were those (now) laughable rumours of Prabhudeva challenging MJ to a dance duel. They also said that girls fainted upon seeing him.

Then Victory James came along. He was from New Zealand and a devotee of MJ. I remember listening to tales of greatness, sympathy and largesse sitting in the last bench. Victory would hum some of his songs and we would listen. I don’t think he was a great singer, but it sounded like music to our ears. I watched a few videos of his on TV when I went home.

When we went to the senior hostel, we had a little more freedom. While the rest of the school was in the Ashram singing bhajans in praise of different gods, we would sneak out and go to internet cafes outside the ashram. The internet cafes used to charge 60 Rupees an hour. The cafe owner was a smart businessman. We were hard to miss, with our white shirts, white pants, and no chappals! He knew how starved we were of any sort of entertainment. He used to store videos of film songs in Hindi, Telugu and English, which included MJ’s videos. We were allotted cabins in the small cafe and given headphones.

The first video I watched was ‘Black or white’. I remember being blown away by it. I watched it about 5 times. The fact that we were watching the songs while our friends were singing bhajans gave the experience a feeling of sinful indulgence. After watching every video, Victory would give us a brief lecture on the many virtues of MJ. So we would watch with tears in our eyes when he said “All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us”. And with amazement when he implored us to “save the world”. Initially, the idea that we got was that he only sang songs that had some larger altruisitic message. For us, he was a hero. Someone who was fighting a lonely battle for the forgotten and the marginalised. We would learn his songs and hum them in front of our friends, waiting for them to ask what song it was, so that we could say “Michael Jackson” and then narrate the glorious tales that Victory had told us.

After a few years, we got to see reports of other stray incidents. Reports of him being a paedophile, and addicted to painkillers. Victory would have none of it. “All rubbish…. they are just doing it to tarnish his image”, he would say. Gradually, we started sneaking out on our own to watch MJ’s videos. We watched a lot of his earlier songs. They din’t have a social message, but they were pure visual spectacles. Thriller, Bad, Blood on the Dance Floor. We had always seen fat heroes dancing around trees with coquettish heroines. This was something else. We stared open-mouthed as he glided on the stage, did the Moonwalk and whatever else he did in the videos. When there was no one around us, we used to secretly try the ‘moonwalk’. I remember slipping and falling many times in the bathroom.

After we passed out from school in 2002, MJ faded in and out of the headlines for a variety of reasons. There were talks of his huge ranch ‘Neverland’. Tales of his numerous surgeries and makeovers. I still remember the spine chilling image of him dangling his newborn baby from a balcony and thinking that the poor guy has lost it. When he was cleared of paedophile charges, I was a little happy. I could imagine Victory having tears of joy.
A few months back when I heard that he’s making a comeback, I was looking forward to them. His death came as a shock. His death, like his entire life made the headlines. I do not know whether he was a good man or not. I do not know whether I can be called a die hard fan. But the name Michael Jackson brings back memories. Paying 60 rupees, sitting in a ramshackle internet cafe, putting on the headphones and getting transported to another world altogether.

Thank you, Mr. Michael Jackson.

JACKASS of a fruit

Have you ever had a jack fruit? Its a big fruit whose outer surface looks like it has had a bad case of acne. The inside is sticky and yellow with big seeds. Some people eat the fruit as it is. Some cook the seeds to make it a curry.

I have always hated the fruit. I remember during the summers in my childhood, our house would always reek of a strong smell of jack fruit. I felt like I was in a concentration camp. Jack fruit is probably the only fruit that has got such a terrible smell. And flaunts it so that anyone in a radius of fifty feet can smell it. I had to bear the smell as my mother loved it. She used eat entire jack fruits herself.

How she got hooked on to jack fruit is a very interesting story. My mom is Telugu and had never been to my dad’s village. When she went there for the first time, she was tensed. She did not know if the people would accept her or not.

She was made to sit in the centre and was surrounded by women. You know how it is in villages, there is no privacy. Your business is the business of the entire village. So my mom was sitting there surrounded by the women. After the initial niceties, they brought a huge thing and placed it in front of her.

“Eat”, was the instruction.

My mother had no clue what the thing was. The ladies had a hearty laugh and then cut it open for her and gave her a piece. My mother loved it. Without a word, she proceeded to eat the entire fruit as the women watched with their open mouths! It took about two hours but she finished it. The jack fruit broke the ice with them. From then on, my uncle would send jack fruits for us every summer. People still refer her in my village as ‘that jack fruit eating girl”.

I have not met another single person who likes jack fruits. Near our house in Unit-9, there was a man who was very stingy. He had a lot of trees and drove us out if we tried to pluck any fruit. But there was one exception. Every summer, he would land up at our doorstep, with a fake smile on his face and a huge, ugly jack fruit that looked like the carcass of an alien baby. I’d be asked to bring the damn thing inside. My attempts to suggest that guavas and mangoes were tasty too always failed.

That first crush…

I got in touch with a friend of mine, Mrutyunjay Praharaj after 14 years. We exchanged numbers and were talking about the old times.

“Do you remember any of the guys?” I asked him.
“Not very clearly, I can just recollect your face vaguely”
“You don’t remember anyone?”
“Yeah. There was one girl, Disha Dixit. She was very thin and had nice eyes. She was from Bhopal and had a brother in our class. She was good at studies and the monitor of our class”

Great! I dint know whether to compliment him on his memory or curse him for not remembering the rest of us.

But he had a point. Disha Dixit was a major feature of my childhood as well….

********

I had joined the new school. I was in Class 1. She was in my section. She always sat in the first bench. She was attentive and never blinked an eyelid when the teacher was explaining something.

She was a ‘good’ girl – the teacher’s pet. She was thin. But her eyes made her look powerful. Her eyes could drill into you when she looked at you. Her hair was just a little curly. She had long eyelashes and brown eyes that I never had the courage to look into. She had misaligned teeth. But when she smiled, everyone else’s seemed imperfect. And her laughter. She had a slightly boyish laughter. It was Mozart to my ears!

There was nothing that Disha Dixit couldn’t do. She was a very good student. Academics, speeches, drama, dance, you name it. The only flaw was that her singing wasn’t exactly melodious, but such trivial things could be ignored. She was a slow eater. Which was perfectly fine for me. We didn’t get to talk to girls after the 2nd standard, so the only time I got to see her was during lunch and dinner. She’d eat in slow motion. Pick up a morsel of rice and look at it as if she was inspecting every grain for bacteria. And then put it in her mouth. And chew. And chew. And chew.

She wasn’t the prettiest girl in the class. There was Suman, who was very cute. But Disha was by far the most attractive. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The only problem? She was Varun’s sister. Varun was my best friend. When the two of them would be talking, I would butt in with the lamest excuse.

“Hey, Varun. Wanna play?”
I knew he wouldn’t, but that was just so she would look at me. As a kid, you do stupid things without knowing exactly why you do them. Like, if the teacher asked me to stack some notebooks in the cupboard, I would first search through all the books till I found hers, and then after lovingly caressing it, would put it on top of the pile!

The teachers generally arranged our seating in such a way that a guy and a girl would be seated on the same bench. Each time, I’d pray that she sat next to me. But that never happened. So all I could do was admire from a distance. She was hot property in the class, only a few guys spoke to her, and I was never among them. Everyday I used to make up my mind to start talking to her the next day but that day never came.

She was the monitor of the class, and she meant business. Whenever any of us misbehaved, we were made to wear frocks for the entire day. And since she was Varun’s sister, it was pretty convenient. The teacher would say, “Disha, go bring a frock of yours”. And she would run up to the dormitories and come back with a bright, colourful frock. MP was made to wear frocks on a regular basis. I still remember them. They were always in hues of bright yellow, orange or red. Though the idea seems revolting now,
I used to wish I got to wear them. Wearing her frock would be worth all the thrashing that came before the frock-wearing ceremony. But I never got the chance. I was always made to wear the frocks of other girls I cared two hoots about!

From my description, you must be under the impression that she was a sweet, cute girl. She was not. Another punishment that was meted out on us was this. If a guy misbehaved, Nishant Reddy (the strongest guy) would hold his hands behind his back. And Ms. Disha Dixit would be asked to slap the guy. Now, normally you’d expect a person to slap the guy lightly.

But not Disha. How could she be like others? She had to be extraordinary.

She would raise her hand; take it a few feet, and…… WHACK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Right across the face. For someone so frail, I wondered where all the energy came from. She would keep slapping the guy till she was asked to stop. It was all done with clinical precision. She’d be sitting on her bench, the teacher would call her, she’d alter the colour of the cheeks of the poor guy, and then quietly go back to her desk and continue writing!

But this did not change my feelings for her. They were my friends, but they deserved it, I thought. During the games periods, she would be having running races with some of the guys. I would be playing stupid game like Ramayan and watching her, strengthening my resolve to talk to her. I was never able to talk to her freely. Maybe a ‘Thank You’ or a ‘sorry’ once in a while. But the fact that I’d see her everyday made the entire grind of the morning prayers and ayah bath worth it.

Yes, Disha Dixit was something else!

Rakhi,Raksha and Akka

As a kid in a boarding school, Rakshabandhan was not very exciting. Three days before Rakshabandhan, we would start receiveing rakhis in our mails. The teachers would tie the rakhis on our hands.

Later, if the rakhis came off, we;d ask our friends to tie them back for us with a slight warning, ‘You have to protect me,ok?’

I never got into the habit of gifting anything on Rakshabandhan and still do not gift my sister anything. I think its unfair. You tie a rakhi worth 50 bucks and expect a gift worth 500 !

Moreover, its because me and my sister’s equation has never been one in which I have to protect her or anything. On the contrary, it is she who takes care of me all the time.

We are not very close to each other. My years at the hostel, my demented parents and numerous fights caused us to drift apart.

I do not believe in social bonds. Family, marriage, relatives. It all seems like a compulsion to me. I lived alone for a few years because I felt I did not need a family around me. I now live with them because I like their company.

My sister is an exceptionally talented person. It’s only because of my mom, an educated but ideologically backward woman who didn’t think it was important to encourage a daughter’s talents,that she never got to pursue any of her talents.

She’s a painter. Initially, she was sent to accompany me as I could not cross the road alone. The art teacher soon noticed that she had a talent and I did not. Sadly, she was asked to stop the classes once she reached 9th standard. She sketches, paints my T-shirts for me, helps me with my posters, gives me ideas for my work and blogs. She also teaches basic education and dance to children of poor families on Sundays.

All of her childhood was spent in either pandering to my parents’ wishes or my tantrums during my holidays. In the time when girls play with dolls and miniature kitchen sets, her days were spent witnessing fights between my parents. No wonder there’s still a child in her.

As a kid, she was always honest. I was a natural when it came to lying. But she was always honest. After getting whacked, she would tell me with great pride, ‘At least I spoke the truth’.

I was very happy lying and getting away, Thank You very much !

There was an incident that had occurred in our childhood. She had taken the money needed to pay her school fees. For some strange reason, she had kept the money in her tiffin box. As she was having her tiffin and playing in the school grounds, a cow came and ate up her tiffin and the notes of currency as well.

Of course no one believed her.Some truths are even more stranger than fiction than others !

She was always bringing stray pups and kitten from the school in her bag.The kitten would later be given absurd names like ‘Jyothi’ or ‘Sai Deepthi’ by her.

She is actually the man of the house. She runs our family. Changing the lights and fans, fixing the cylinders, shopping for grocery, and cooking. She’s perfect sister material.

As a kid, she was cute and cherubic. My parents loved her but hated each other so much that they overlooked her interests and wishes as a child.

An uncle of mine had noticed her as a chirpy kid who was always making people smile and nick-named her ‘Titli’. She’s a butterfly alright, one whose wings were clipped.