Mind Doodles

Today was one of those mornings when I just couldn’t open my eyes. Just wanted to stay in bed. Ah! The pitfalls of working, of having deadlines, of knowing that you are one of the cogs in a well-oiled machinery which needs every tool in place to function. Added to that the fact that I have been having some trouble with sleep lately. Exhaustion is supposed to lead to sleep isn’t it? Then why isn’t it happening?

Dying to get out of the city sometime in the next couple of weekends and go to the mountains. If nothing else, I will just go to Chandigarh again. Although it’s the plains, one can at least see the mountains from there. Basically, go anywhere where there is not even one iota of any of the following:
The 6.30 am alarm, the gym, rushing to catch my carpool, making small talk with people I don’t give a rat’s ass about, horrible ads on radio (Have you heard the Saral milk one? When the little girl tells her mother, “Mummy, Mummy! Aap bhi saral doodh laya karo!” …why is it in this orgasmic “come on baby, light my fire!” tone? She is speaking to her mother dammit! And that too about some f###ing milk that has just started being imported in Delhi from Rajasthan, not the moon!”) and reminder alarms set on my phone which go off throughout the day reminding me of the calls I have to make and the things I have to do, dealing with authors who think they have written Nobel-winning literature and that the world will collapse if their book has a word different from what they initially intended it to be, designers who do not understand what abstract actually means, proofreaders who think they know the language more than editors, the mind-numbing traffic on my way back home, the nearly four hours I spend traveling every day, the guilt at not spending as much time with my parents as I should and over the couple of emails I should have answered as soon as I got them and now it’s too late. So on and so forth.

Now shall I quickly count the blessings too? Phone calls, smses, blog comments, scraps, emails (from everyone who cares enough to let me know that they are thinking of me), the thrice-a-day calls from my dad (at 9:30 to find out whether I have reached office safely, again at 2 to find out if I have eaten and how my day is going and the final one at 6:30 to ask whether I have left for home), a wonderful boss and work environment, the fact that my office is in CP and that there are a million things to do with myself when I step out, dull carpool rides which give me the freedom to plug on to my discman and be in my own paradise, the gorgeous sunrise from my balcony every morning and the even more amazing view of the distant skyscrapers at night, and finally for http://kirrinisland.blogspot.com.

Incidentally I have been asked a few times why I chose to call my blog so. Well, here is the story behind it. In Famous Five’s first adventure, we are all introduced to the characters — Julian, Dick, George (short for Georgina), Anne and Timothy (the dog). From the first book to the twenty first, George becomes and remains my favorite character for a variety of reasons. But mostly because she has an island, not a fancy resort kind of a thing but a wild one with a broken down castle in it, complete with towers and dungeons. It’s totally her call what she does there or who she chooses to take there with her. She is the sole mistress of her kingdom.

Which is why Kirrin Island rocks…whether in the world of Enid Blyton or blogspot.

Results of the 1st WHAT - IF Competition

It’s 12, midnight 12 that is, not noon 12. Which means I can now officially announce the winners of What If.

First of all, a big thank you to all those participated — Aum, Becoming a Stranger to Myself, Chitrangada, Convivial, Deeps, Elle, Etincelle, Keka, Komal, Mouche, Om, and Rohit.

The jury had a tough time selecting the winners, and there was a lot of debate and discussion that went into it. In some cases, there are joint winners because the jury felt that more than one answer was brilliant enough to be given the first prize. In each category, the jury has given an ‘honorable mention’ as well. Needless to say, the organizer, that is me, has decided to give away participation prizes to everyone. Which is, a cup of coffee at Barista or Café Coffee Day or any such café. Winners (since they are winners) get, in addition to the coffee, a brownie.

So here goes:

Hanuman Mandirs — no matter what their age — always seem to be called “Pracheen Hanuman Mandir”. What if they were renamed to “Adhunik Hanuman Mandir”?
Now deciding the winner for this one was truly tough because there were so many brilliant entries. Right from Rohit’s “visitors would need to visit using electronic jackets” to Convivial’s “bhakti passwords”…Adhunik Hanuman Mandir attracted a lot of imagination. However, in the end the jury felt that the first prize should go to Om and Aum. Congrats Prashant and Ankur! God on plasma screen and Hanuman wearing a suit were simply brilliant!

Honorable mention in this category is Mouche, whose response… “Our remix masters will slap on a new neon cot of paint, add a few scantily clad apsaras and play remixed bhajans” took imagination to new heights indeed.


What if you had just one more day to live?
The jury was unanimous in its decision. The clear winner… Becoming a Stranger to Myself. Richa’s very original answer — “if i just had one more day to live i would chair a corporate sorta board meeting in the morning. climb to the top of qutab minar in the evening and shout out loud. and in the night, i would get married. who cares,to whom! i just want to wear that trousseau once with all the pretty jewellery. and it could not be a better situation coz no hassles of a marriage. just plain fun!!” — won several rounds of applause hands down. Congrats babe!

Honorable mention in this category is Keka whose technologically sound answer “I will contact the guys who made dolly and have them take my dna or whatever u need and make another me again... :-P” was much appreciated by the distinguished jury.


What if Bush and Saddam discovered they were actually long lost brothers, each knowing how to sing one stanza each of the song they were taught as children by, say, a Ramu Kaka?
Again two winners: Deeps and Elle. Deepak’s answer made our jury crack up with laughter, especially the part where Saddam tells Bush, “Mere paas oil hai.” And Elle’s highly imaginative song was very hummable. Please sing along to “kuwaiti ho iraqi ho sabka kehna hai, kai croreon mein mera bhaiya hai. saari umar hamein tel churana hai...."

Honorable mention in this category, again two.
Prashant…whose love triangle between Bush, Hussain, and Sonia Gandhi with Pervez Musharraf as the villain was a brilliant example of fertile imagination at its best.
Arup, his response came in while I was typing out the results. But as I started reading his answer (and visualizing it), I started laughing so much that I just had to include it, without consulting my jury. It is “Imagine this... Saddam is taken for execution to US. As he sits tied down to the electric chair, very sad, he hums a song... Bush watchin it in TV immediately recognizes the song and races for the phone... the phone rings in the execution room, the execution stops in the last moment... and cnn shows the "breaking news of the century"


What if you could actually buy love?
The winner is Keka for “i'ld buy out the whole stock!!and no "made in china" business please... ONLY the real deal!!”
If this isn’t a smart answer, then what is?

Honorable mention — the wicked answers given by the three ladies Etincelle, Convivial and Komal.
Etincelle said, “I would go for the first really rich guy I met...scary! Then again, I would have the best collection of diamond rings; porsches; country houses; beach houses; yatches; greek islands...etc etc”
Convivial’s response was, “oh i will ji try n get a million dollars first...:P”
And
Komal’s was, “buy love..no...........then all my money would be spent in a day,and how will i buy the cellphone i`ve been eyeing 4 quite sometime now?!!!”


What if there was no Altaf Raja? Alternately, you could answer…What if there was no Ekta Kapoor?
The simple, straight answer by Chitrangada was the clear winner. The jury thought her lucid argument, “agar Ektaa Kapoor nahin hoti toh bechare jwller n saari wale kya karte ...:O” deserved the first prize.

Honorable mention in this category is Rohit’s prophetic “Himesh Reshammiya would have been even bigger today.”


Hope you had fun playing What If. I certainly had a great time teaching it, and passing on its infinite wisdom to everyone.

What If

It’s 4 am, and I have been awake since the last two hours or so. And I am restless. I don’t feel like reading. Working in a publishing house takes a toll on your personal reading habits ‘coz every book looks and feels like work. I flicked through television for a while, nothing entertaining there either, so am online — surfing, reading, scrapping, etc. and wondering what all can I still do in a day’s time to make life a little more exciting.

Anyway, for the time being, let me teach you how to play “What If”. I don’t know whether this game actually exists or not, but it was taught to me on one cold January night quite a few years ago, and as you can see it was memorable enough for me to be teaching you this tonight.

“What If” is fundamentally for people with a sense of humor and fertile imagination. It was taught to me by Sakthy (pronounced Shakti), one of my most favorite people in College. The time I am talking about, we were discovering our life together as classmates and friends in our first year at Stephen’s. In January that year, our class went for an overnight trip to Rakhigarhi, a Harappan site in Haryana, since all of us were budding historians back then. Today, I cannot remember much of the shards and pots we saw and “excavated” but the trip was exciting in so many other ways, including the joys of learning and playing “what if”.

We had all been put up in the village school, and the boys were made to stay in one big classroom and the girls were made to stay in another. There we were packed like sardines, squashed in our respective sleeping bags, trying to sleep while the wind raged and howled outside and it rained cats and dogs and kittens and puppies. In our “room”, everyone around us went off to sleep one after another, except Sakthy and I. When I grumbled, “I hate sleeping bags,”, she responded, “Let’s play ‘What If’”.

The game works like this. You ask a question starting with “What If” and your partner answers it. It could be anything ranging from “what if the world was flat?” to “what if you were made your mother for a day?” to “what if you discovered you actually have the hots for so-and-so tomorrow morning?” so on and so forth. Needless to say, with every passing question, you are expected to go beyond accepted sanity levels. It’s a challenging and mentally stimulating game (it really is!), and the madder the answer the more are your chances of emerging the winner.

Sakthy and I played it all night, without catching a wink of sleep. Our only concern was how not to wake up the people around us, especially the teachers, because no matter how hard we tried to stifle our laughter in our sweaters and sleeping bags, chances of them hearing our continuous giggling was quite high. More than the giggles we were worried about anyone overhearing our questions. By the time it was dawn we had “what if”-ed every classmate, senior, friend, teacher, principal, entire DU! And none of the what-if-fing was…ahem…acceptable.

So here are my set of what-if questions for you. You can answer as many as you like…but answering at least one is mandatory. The best answer in each category wins a prize. Promise.

1. Hanuman Mandirs — no matter what their age — always seem to be called “Pracheen Hanuman Mandir”. What if they were renamed to “Adhunik Hanuman Mandir”?
2. What if you had just one more day to live?
3. What if Bush and Saddam discovered they were actually long lost brothers, each knowing how to sing one stanza each of the song they were taught as children by, say, a Ramu Kaka?
4. What if you could actually buy love?
5. What if there was no Altaf Raja? Alternately, you could answer…What if there was no Ekta Kapoor?

Disclaimer: The inspiration behind at least two of the questions is conversations I have had in the recent past with a couple of friends.

Terrace in the Sky

Last night was magical. I know no other word to describe it.

I went out for dinner with my colleague, our boss and our boss’s friend. The four of us reached Hauz Khas Village at about 8 in the evening. Inside the Village, we strolled through the lanes and the bylanes for a while before settling on the restaurant —Terrace in the Sky — as our dinner destination. Before going in there however, we decided to potter around the Hauz Khas ruins, an experience that was further enlivened by the fact that my colleague, who has a PhD in medieval Indian history, gave us a brief but brilliant lecture on the history of Hauz Khas, its construction by Alauddin Khilji, its manner of architecture, so on and so forth. A walk through the ruins at that time of the night was beautiful to say the least. Some of the monuments were plunged in darkness, while others were bathed in the soft, orange glow of the artificial lights. There was no crowd to distract us, no voice to cut into our thoughts…just us, the silence, and the ruins. It was perfect…and I could have stayed there forever.

After a while, we moved towards the restaurant, and the magic continued. The view the Terrace provides is really special. It is of the ruins, and of the small, flickering lights of the city in the distance. The Terrace is in fact, a place where you can go by yourself. Of course, great company always helps. But don’t compromise…don’t go with just about anyone and everyone. Go with someone you really want to create a perfect memory with. It’s not a place where you have to keep talking to have fun, because at any time you may want to get up for a stroll, or sit with the musicians while they create some beautiful fusion composition using tabla, synthesizer and sarod, or lean against the balcony and stare at the splendid yet desolate ruins in front of you.

The food itself was good although overpriced. But the ambience more than made up for it. And anyway, what good is money if not spent, and what worth is life without wonderful memories?

Brokeback Mountain

Based on the short story by Annie Proulx, at the very core, Brokeback Mountain is a love story. Does it matter that it is about homosexual love, and therefore it is a love story that we haven’t seen before, at least not on screen? (And when you see something for the first time your reactions can vary from surprise to shock to disgust to amazement…virtually anything.) The answer however is no, because, the story is nice plus it’s been directed very well. And so there is nothing sleazy, and nor is the director out to prove a point or get political mileage or create a controversy purely for commercial reasons. At the end of the day, he is just telling a beautiful story…of two people who discover love accidentally in the mountains of Wyoming. And that love translates into a passion that lives on forever, and impacts their lives and in the process, the lives of the people around them.

The two cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, “discover” each other at Brokeback Mountain. After their brief association they part ways, and meet again after four years. And during these four years, each of them has gotten married and become a father. But once they touch base again, they rediscover their need and fall into a sort of rhythm by taking off to Brokeback Mountain every now and then while telling their respective wives that they are going fishing. Over the years, their families have to bear the brunt of this passion but then again, love can be so selfish. When you discover your personal paradise with someone, no matter how many reasons there might be to give it up, and no matter how many people you might end up hurting, you still want to continue being with that one person. Giving up people is never easy. Giving up on love, tougher.

On the other hand, I wonder, does their romance last a lifetime simply because it is unrequited? If they had actually got each other, would they still have loved each other with the same intensity? Or would love then have taken a backseat just like it so often does in real life when other, more “serious” issues have to be confronted on a daily basis?

I liked the sensitivity and everyday complications that the film deals with. Also the characters. Right from the shocked, loving wife who discovers her husband’s betrayal to the cowboys’ boss who learns about their affair through his snooping ways, all the characters are realistic. And the cinematography is to die for! Can there be such beautiful skies and splendid sunsets anywhere on this planet? But is Brokeback Mountain Oscar material? In my opinion, no. It’s a poignant love story yes, but that’s it. The pace could have been snappier, the editing tighter. Several scenes seemed to just drag on, and probably weren’t that essential in the first place. But this is of course, just my personal opinion. If you haven’t watched it yet, please do so. It’s an interesting story, and yes, this film is truly different.

New Smells, New Sights, New Angles of the Sun

Today I shall write about one of my very favorite persons, Subhadra Sengupta. Prolific writer, colleague and a friend’s aunt, by that relation she is now mashi to me as well. (Mashi means aunt in Bangla.) The real reasons behind my admiring her are not so much her professional achievements (although the number of interesting and exciting projects she keeps taking up are mind-boggling) but because of the wonderful person she is.

Yesterday I got a mail from her after she read my blog post on Chandigarh. I am doing a copy-paste of the mail here, because the words in it, and the underlying message are so beautiful that I want to share it with all of you.

“Y'know why you loooove C'garh so much?
Its the buzz of being on your own and doing your thing. And the best buzz comes from traveling, landing in a strange place, new smells, new sights, new angles of the sun.
So travel and then write about it. You can do it! And pick new places not the usual Goa.
Places change you, the people you meet change you. And such fabulous memories.

I once had a chat with a sadhu on a Kashi ghat. Every day as I marched down the steps he would greet me with a happy "good morning madam!" but he wouldn't tell me how he knew such excellent idiomatic English. Said when you become a sadhu you first sit at your own funeral and so he does not have a past life. I still wonder.

Then I watched him make a row of chillums. He sold them to the backpackers and went off to buy vegetables. Even sadhus have to eat na?"

To new smells, new sights, and new angles of the sun!
Amen.

Idle Thoughts

What sumptuous weather today! And what am I doing? Sitting and checking CRCs…short for camera ready copies…as in, the last stage of a manuscript before it transforms into a book. In human terms, this is like the penultimate stage, any moment now the baby will be delivered. But coming back to the weather, why am I not outside? Why am I not traveling to some exciting destination along the highway with the windows of the car rolled down, some fabulous music playing in the background, an interesting companion or two, and the world passing by in a blur of images, colors, smells and sounds? Or why am I not in Kasauli…walking in the mountains and taking in the fresh, clean air? At the very least, why am I not in Chandigarh? Sitting in my balcony on a chair, with my feet resting on a moodah, a mug of coffee and my cellphone next to me, and a book or my discman cradled in my lap?

Instead of all these gorgeous options, where am I? In office. Although I like my office, and from all the windows, I do get fabulous views of the Connaught Place skyline, still, no matter how much joy, satisfaction and creative freedom your office can provide you with…it is still your workplace. And you have to maintain some sort of decorum. But I shouldn’t crib. The real Sayantani is allowed to come to the surface often enough…so much so that my MD enquires every evening, “So what all mischief have you been up to today?”

Random, unedited thoughts…time to get back to the CRCS. And the weather has started becoming sunnier, small consolation there.

End of the Road?

I want to throw open a question here today. This is to get an insight into how all of you feel about a certain situation.
This is a story of two people, and yes, it is a love story, which seems to have hit a dead end. And I, a friend of the girl, need a solution.

We shall call the girl Swati and the boy Dheer. Both in their mid 20s, they met online, fell in love, and Dheer came all the way down to India from US, where he is a PhD student to meet Swati. Their online chemistry was intact in real life, and things could not be more perfect. He went back after a week or so, and over the next one and a half years life was beautiful for them, in spite of the huge difference in time and geography. Eventually, they both want marriage out of this relationship, but as of now there are two problems:

1. Swati wants to get engaged at this point of time. Dheer does not. Swati’s reasons for wanting an engagement: She wants a name put on this relationship, and also wants to reassure her family, which like all good families wants to see her settle down.

Dheer’s reasons for not wanting an engagement:
He has three years of education in front of him, and does not want to be tied down. He insists that although he loves Swati and would love to get married to her eventually, getting engaged now will curb his freedom. He is also very sure that he is never coming back to India.

So how does Dheer assure Swati and her family that he is here for keeps?

2. Swati works in an IT firm and is professionally very successful. She sees no point in chucking her cushiony job and flying off to the US without a sound backup plan. Where will she live, what will she live off? She does not want to be a student there, she has no job currently waiting for her in the US, she cannot live with Dheer because he is still a student who does not have the money to support two people.

So how do these two people in love with each other get to be together?

L

At the risk of sounding gender-biased, let me confess that few women impress me. Which is not to say that women I meet during the course of the day either because of professional or personal commitments are not intelligent, smart beings; in fact give me women colleagues and bosses any day because most men do not seem to have even heard of the term multi-tasking! But just that in terms of women leaving a lasting impression right from the very first meeting, that bit does not happen too often. Probably because very rarely does a woman give the impression of knowing who she is and what she wants from life. And very often a woman’s life seems to be dictated by the man in her life, or the circumstances tying her to him, be it family, children, money, or sheer emotional dependence.

But the other day, at a get-together, I was introduced to an exception. And I was impressed beyond belief. A few years older than me, L (that’s what we shall call her in this post) has a pretty face but is not attractive in the conventional sense of the term. But once she opens her mouth, you are bound to sit up and notice. She comes across as someone who knows what she wants from life and will give her hundred percent in trying to get it for herself. Opinionated, intelligent, professionally very successful, and armed with a wicked sense of humor and excellent communication skills, L was fascinating to say the least. And we hit it off! So one moment we were exchanging notes and observations on men and relationships, and reveling in the fact that we are unapologetically unmarried, the next moment we were dissecting a movie and fiercely arguing over the idea in it and its execution, or criticizing some common gender biases in the workplace.

As you can see, L left an impression, and meeting her was one of the nicest things that happened last week. Hopefully, we shall be able to stay in touch.