It wasn't me

So often during my school days were the above words the only defense by my unfortunate bench partners. By being a lucky mix of being a good student and looking the part too with my completely nerdy bottle-glass thick pair of spectacles, I was always above suspicion and beyond reproach.

Starting from the lower classes with Harsh, then Himanshu and then in the higher classes Utsav, all my bench partners have to had to bear at some point of time, the brunt of being held responsible for any mischief emanating from my corner of the classroom. All too often, a teasing taunt or a whispered joke originating from me have led to their breaking out into a loud laugh or picking up the taunt all too enthusiastically. And that as their luck would have it, spelled their doom because that was exactly when the teacher's wandering gaze would be swing onto that corner of the class. To top it all, teachers would be totally reluctant to accept any of their protestations and allusions of my involvement in the action. More often than not, it ended rather sadly for them with a position by the window outside the class.

By the time I had reached 11th standard though, teachers through long years of study began to see through my approach and would rapidly home in on me as the potential trouble maker. But I had by then already been responsible for sending so many of my friends to the 'gallows' (So to speak) that I didn't mind taking one or two on the chin myself. My bench partners always have had a tough time and I certainly haven't been too shy of enjoying sadistic pleasure at their fate and at their cost. It was great fun to be an active part of the most notorious class in our school (which our class always was) and yet slip through the disciplinary net, my saintly image for all the appropriate authorities unscathed.

Unity in diversity

They say we all think alike and REC Kurukshetra afforded innumerable opportunities to study this phenomenon. But none so striking as the one I am about to relate to you. India may be a nation of X languages, Y ethnicities and so on but we do share a lot of common ground, and in our college's case it was the common room, home to the king of all time killers, the never silent TV. Cricket on TV, brought together the country (if our batch is taken as just one small sample) like no other and running a close second would be testoterone fuelled action movies. Crib and complain about how brainless these movies are for all you are worth, but if there was something that brought a hush in the boys' hostel common room packed to the rafters it had to be Arnie's robotic acting or Neo a.ka. Keanu Reeves bullet defying moves.

The scene is set at around 10 in the evening (by hostel standards) in the common room. On air was the mother, father and grandfather of all action movies Terminator 2: Judgement Day (Referred to as T2 in hushed whispers by 'real' action movie devotees). It is also among the most pivotal scenes of the movie when the liquid evil Terminator enters jail to kill Sarah Connor (Sorry for the details but really necessary) and after killing/impersonating his way through, he is near to completing his mission. At this point of time in the real world, enter Saurabh Shukla legendary in the hostel for his ability to forget things. I am the only guy standing and watching the movie from behind the last row of chairs as they are all already occupied. Saurabh's eyes are fixed on the screen which now shows the evil guy liquefy and pass through the jail bars only to have his gun get stuck in the bar. And THEN in the most curious of voices he asks me, "Yaar Roy!! Yeh kaunsee movie hai? (Roy, Which movie is this?)"

The reaction to this was startling in its co-ordination and brutal in its delivery. Each and every face that was present in the packed common room that night turned; and turned in spectacular symmetry towards the person who had committed this blasphemy. The collective gaze nearly knocked me off my feet even though it wasn't even aimed at me. Some faces showed pity, some shock, some a bemused disapproval of his ignorance and some of total disgust at this brief transgression. The faces included those of the mess workers, boys from the South, West, North, North-east but what was really got me was the uniformly quick reaction. And just as soon as it had begun, the collective look dissipated into nothing as everyone returned to watching the movie leaving Shukla to his cruel fate which seemed so certain to get him given the scale of his crime. I saw all of India think as one that night, be it over a movie starring the governor of California! Maybe we really aren't so different after all...

My favourite sin

Just by writing down this article, I refrain myself from committing my favourite sin all over again. Much as I love writing, if there is one thing that I love more then its just got to be lazing around. Without a care in the world, aimless wandering of the mind, a total waste of time kind of sloth Hardly requires any skill or effort so its wins as my most preferred hobby hands down.

Week after week, I open my blog to see an ever decreasing number of posts in my name and a drought of comments. I grit my teeth at those insensitive friends of mine who don't egg me on to write, but the reality is that it gives even further excuse to be slothful. I write because I like the feel of the pen on paper but its nothing compared to the warmth of an alluring bed under a fan going full blast. And when the pressure is really on with tremendous shortage of time, just to chuck it all away and close my eyes. Ahhhhhh! If there is heaven on this earth; it is there, it is there, it is there!

Why I love Ayn Rand...

When I put down "The Fountainhead" after nearly a week of reading interrupted by those everyday activities like working a job and keeping my grumbling stomach filled, I found that I had a severe headache. Everything that I had known and accepted as a given were safely tossed out of the window. So when everyone gushing over with enthusiasm after reading Ayn Rand's body of work were right after all. It was really about to give my life a new meaning as it had done to millions of readers (So said the blurb... Must be true), and right then it had my head in a twirl.

After I had recollected my thoughts in a few hours, I came around to analyzing what had left me so stirred. The first thing that occurred to me were the long, long dialogues in the book. Dialogues about what has been wrong with humanity for the past centuries, dialogues about the greatest men being the most selfish of individuals and dialogues with the sheer intensity of propaganda. A good book in my opinion should never preach, it should rely on the intelligence of the reader to make that call. The opponents of Howard Roark, paper-thin characters like Peter Keating the social climber with minimal personal talent, Ellsworth Toohey the evil genius only concerned with the destruction of individuality and Gail Wynand, the media baron sold out to the masses. No wonder Roark seems like "The man" to follow in contrast. No shades of grey whatsoever only black and white. Like Hitler against the Jews or Osama against the 'kafirs'. Primary issue with the book, "IT SHOUTS" and in keeping with the school of individualism which Ms. Rand claims to subscribe to, I will not be dictated to.

No doubting the fact that creativity is a very selfish activity. It cannot be and should not be a committee decision. It's an individual expression be it in any form and any tinkering with it will destroy its very purpose. The world is indeed too hard on anyone who tries to break away from the conventional. But applying selfishness to every single sphere of life, I am not digesting that. I am sure that anyone who has just popped out of the birth canal and grown up like a tree on the sidewalk to be a great architect or whatever can ridicule words like "sacrifice" which seems like what has happened to Ayn Rand. For the rest of us who have had parents, friends and any mentors who have guided us on the long road to maturity, it should not be a simple thing to accept.

Every moment of special care, attention given to our whims and curiosity represent a small sacrifice, a investment which will serve no tangible return to the self. With sweeping statements berating "sacrifice" as an ailment afflicting humanity, the author ridicules every great human being (and we are talking the conventional 'great' here) like parents who raise a mentally retarded child knowing fully well that at no point in time will the child be able to return even a small part of the love and attention showered on him/her. Why don't they give him up to a mental asylum where he will live in chains for the rest of his life and being out of sight slowly fade out of the minds of his parents? Rendering sacrifice laughable is laughing at every noble human being who has died fighting for a cause or a country, and offering inane statements like "One man's martyr is another man's terrorist" does not suffice. Just because a few men use it as a cover for their madness does not justify dismissing the importance of the concept. Sacrifice wounds and wounds in a way which can never heal, but that is where lies its glory. If it were as easy as ensuring one's survival by running away from it or blending in with the masses, all there would be no charm in it at all. In fact, irony of all ironies, Howard Roarke would have been such an ordinary fellow had he not sacrificed conventional success to his love for the art of architecture (But of course it was a sacrifice to match up to his ideals, but a sacrifice nonetheless).

Coming to the point that had me the most peeved. It is not a case of 'Us and them' between the genius and the ordinary masses (The second-handers as Rand calls them). The world may be be a little put off by the eccentricities of the genius from time to time but it does not hate them with the vitriolic hatred that the author seems to project. Just as much as genius flourishes in its own peculiar ways defying most of the conventions of the world, the rest of the world is also mostly happy tolerating them with a wry smile knowing at the back of their mind that genius is what will take the world onto the next step.

More importantly, human life is a painting in which you never know what colour is going to show up next. Life does not treat everyone equally and never will. Which is why "pity" is such an important concept. Its not a feeling of overwhelming superiority over the unfortunate but more a sense of how lucky we are to be where ever in life we are today. Getting back to a Howard Roarke example... What if he were to lose both his arms in a car accident? What architecture would he pursue then? Would he be cast away as just another handicapped person crying for undeserved privileges?

Innumerable potential successes are ripped apart by the tides of time and fate. Many a dreams have been stifled as life's priorities climb over them like ivy and engulf them. Yet in that sadness of broken dreams lies a fact like an old man died happy having his son by his bedside instead of earning a lot of money in a country far away; that an orphaned child got to know her brother both as her father and mother and a million other little stories that never get told. They may not be the stuff of legends but they are great people nonetheless, honest and faithful to the roll of the dice that fate handed them. And not everyone of them is angry at other people's success. Calling them 'second-handers' is an unforgivable insult.

This is not to say that each one of us has the potential to be a Prime Minister or a CEO or whatever the conventional parameters of success may be. No, not at all. Talent is a complicated equation and definitely not everyone is blessed with equal amounts of it. All men are equal not because they have an equal claim to greatness, but because we all share this complicated, messed up world of probability that is our earth and are subjected to the same injustices in one way or the other. Some of us make it, some don't... Some by will-power, some by luck, some by both. As long as a man has remained honest in what he is doing (Come on, don't tell me now that you appreciate Dawood Ibrahim because he found a way to break a way out of his poverty and ensured his personal happiness), the man who sells Mickey Mouse balloons by the Statue of Liberty is as worthy of respect a human being as the person who designed it, not by virtue of his skill but by his desire to live an respectable life (using another simile from the book). Expecting a person who has spent his childhood on the railway platform to reveal his inner Einstein is a bit too fairy-tailish but at least accept the fact that he deserves a better life.

"Survival of the fittest"... I hear you say. Well, if we were just governed by the law of the jungle, Ayn Rand wouldn't be writing books on philosophy. She would be the seventh wife of an alpha male taking care of his children and washing his bear-skin. The very proof that humans are now beyond Darwin's principle is that we take care of our handicapped, are in the process of giving equality to women, our old are not left on the streets to die and our young are raised with equal attention irrespective of how intelligent or strong they may be. The times when we do fall in line with the rule of the jungle are occasions of great shame for us as human beings.

Selfish is the man who steals money from the funds of earthquake afflicted people and from little poor kids who want to go to school("Who cares if they live or die, I get to live my life and support my family."), selfish are the men who walk by a crowded street as a girl gets assaulted and groped in full public eye ("Why should I put myself at risk?") and selfish is the rapist who takes advantage of a dark alley and a vulnerable victim ("I get my pleasure, who cares for the consequences?"). Selfishness, the ideal excuse for all namby-pamby cowards to turn their back at all things wrong where raising their voice would have made a world of a difference or to justify their deplorable deeds. We all live in a world where there are a lot of things gone wrong, lets not add one more by endorsing utter selfishness as some kind of intense heroism. Selfishness in creativity I couldn't agree more, but selfishness everywhere? Well, you've just heard my opinion haven't you?

Which is why I just love Ayn Rand; for showing me everything that is right within me and how after trying to shout down my thoughts for the 400 odd pages of "The Fountainhead" she still couldn't convince me. As for the living the philosophy of objectivism and the "Virtues of Selfishness", I think I'll ignore the opportunity!

Easy Riders

One of the great things of being brought in a small town is that you get to form your own idea of what's cool away from the sweeping trends that envelop the more urban young 'uns. So was Bharuch, a typical small town in Gujarat , boring and nondescript for anyone who had to stay there for more than two days without any particular business. But as kids, it was for all practical purposes the centre of the known universe and its borders were quite enough to encompass everything. Fun was something what we decided for ourselves and most of the time quite offbeat.

The time was one of extreme laziness post our 10th boards and even a person as lazy as me was worked up over this unprecedented display of sloth. The evening sessions of cricket and movies at Bharuch's ramshackle halls were fine but it was time for something more. So it was that 3 of us- Ankur, Navneet and me were overcome by a moment of inspiration to lead a healthy lifestyle, and decided to go cycling out into the countryside surrounding Bharuch every morning. The discussion of early morning start times was a cause of great merriment but we decided on a utopian 6.00 AM which naturally turned to 7.00 most of the times. Our cycles were our principal mode of transportation as the primary mode of public transport- auto rickshaws didn't quite agree to point-to-point delivery from one pal's home to another leading to loss of valuable playing time, and Bharuch isn't exactly HUGE. Cycling was a way of life to us and we were about to take the next logical step making it an exercise too.

The first day saw us venture out to the narrow roads that led to distant Videocon Colony in the village of Chavaj. The only reason we wanted to be there was that up till 2 years ago a couple of great friends lived there and that it was far enough for the first day. Now we didn't even know anyone there and after reaching the gates of the Colony we just turned right back. Sure, there were green sugarcane fields on the way and the occasional farmhouse, but they were beautiful only for the first twenty minutes-the time before our legs started aching. It started to seem on the first day itself that a simple wish to increase our stamina couldn't keep us going like this for long.

The days that followed saw marked improvement in the quality of our experience as we chose distinctly reasonable targets like the older sections of Bharuch (And these are quite old some 500-600 years!) and the network of roads that plies through the greenery surrounding the GIDC industrial complex. These allowed us to get home with a reasonable stock of energy so as to seem alive for the rest of the day. It was fun as we pedalled our way through the silence of early morning, punctuated by our occasional laughter and yells that signalled the final sprint of a spur of the moment race offset by the sudden appearance of a long, straight narrow stretch of road. Not to forget the creaking of three not the most well maintained bicycles protesting at these highly unnecessary early morning exertions. It was not as if we didn't use our cycles otherwise. The eerily quiet industrial sheds with their mysterious machinery nearly engulfed by surrounding bushes and trees were an odd backdrop for our racing ambitions but it seemed that it would be the only use they would be put to, ever!

Towards the end of our vacations, we began to aspire to greater things as the regular beat in and around Bharuch began to get to us. When we had first envisioned this grand scheme of cycling in the mornings, we had a destination in mind, an aim, a grand plan which was never meant to be executed. Bharuch is situated on the banks of the river Narmada, of Medha Patkar and Aamir Khan fame! And there is a beach on the river called Kabirwad (A place where according to legend Kabir meditated and gave discourses). It was 16 km away from where we stayed in Bharuch and would seem to be the last logical chapter in our cycle story.

So one fine morning we set off on the undulating roads that lead to the village of Shuklatirth where we could cross on a ferry to get to Kabirwad. We had already been there a million times before with friends and family but never on a cycle; so therein lay the challenge. And we felt each of those kilometres unlike anything we had ever felt before. The joy of freewheeling down a long slope was offset by the grimness of the long slope upwards that would show its face. Occasional glimpses of the river from the road and shady portions of the road somehow kept us going. On that day, we heard the Gujarati word "Aagadd" (meaning "Its ahead!") enough times to never want to hear it again for the rest of our lifetime. Whenever we paused alongside a villager with his cart trundling along easily and asked him how far was our destination, all we got would be a consistent "Aagadd" and deepen our suspicion that after all our effort, we had taken the wrong road.

When we finally got there, we were so pooped that we stood around admiring the beach from this side of the river for about fifteen minutes and decided not to go across. Instead after a cold drink or two, we headed back home dead tired, only the thought of dropping off to sleep just after breakfast getting us home. Legs cramped and throats parched, we were great explorers home from the back of beyond. Having had enough of exercise to even contemplate any further excursions, it was to be the end of our cycling expeditions. Life moved on, we changed schools and drifted down into different lifestyles. But those few weeks of pure impetuous madness were a learning experience of which we are yet to realize any value of, but then again maybe they were so much fun simply because they were so devoid of purpose.

Monkey see, monkey screwed!!

[The verifiability of this story is strongly suspect so I advise readers to take it with tablespoons of salt. The source of this story was a certain gentleman named Mr. Malladi Srinath and it is a story worth telling for sheer entertainment value, whether it be true or not]

We had just moved into single rooms at the start of our pre-final year and Hostel No. 5 was our spanking new home with shiny new toilets (In one of the three blocks only, of course the remaining two perenially under construction for the remainder of the semester). It was then on a hot weekend day, that a lost little monkey wandered into the premises of the hostel. The presence of an actual animal in a place that had till then seen only animals of the 'drunk' and rolling in the grass kind was naturally quite the event.

The creature may have entered with the hope of furthering simian-human brotherhood but its intentions were surely put on the backburner when it became the instant target for sustained heckling by a hundred odd of the weird species commonly known as 'hostelites'. The terrorized have a way of fighting back and it was only a matter of time before the oppressed became the oppressor. The monkey was a small adversary to overpower, but no guy wanted to have distinctive monkey scars on his face for the rest of his life nor was the prospect of a bite from those tiny but sharp jaws very enticing. So the fella had a romp around the hostel especially A-Block and caused unprecedented events like actually getting the Jamestin twins under one roof though it was only a brief moment of madness and extreme self-defence as the thing invaded Alex's room. In the clinching proof of blood running thicker than water, Felix Jamestin actually offered his twin brother shelter, contrary to all popular expectations.

I am sure that the thrill of accomplishing this revolutionary event was what got to Mr. Monkey's head right then and thereby led him to script his own downfall. Pushing everyone on the backfoot, he decided that it was time for an actual monkey-human hand-to-hand. And woe betide the moment when he chose his opponent from the Homo sapiens sapiens species. Rakesh was his chosen rival and this kind of blindness in judging his capabilities cannot be put down to conceit alone! I am sure there are a number of reasons like the one we saw that day, why monkeys lost out to humans in the evolutionary race!

You see it was common opinion that with a tree-trunk like hulking muscle bound body like Rakesh had, it would only be fair to say that here was a superhuman in his benign(and as you will see later not so benign) alter ego of a plain ol' engineering student. But the die was cast and the monkey was quick to spring on his rival. Unfortunately for the monkey, agility was not going to be the deciding factor in this match-up and probably the weights that Rakesh could do with his little fingers would be heavier than the scrawny creature. He was literally punched to the ground, stopping in mid-air to reverse direction and to head for ground twice as fast as he had jumped off it. And to add insult to injury, as the creature lay writhing on the ground he was dispatched even further with a sharp kick from our aforesaid body-builder. Maneka Gandhi may be up in arms post this article, but the truth is , that day Rakesh did his bit to enhance humanity's security from its wilder cousins.

No more monkeying around then for our most ungraciously welcomed guest. He was off in a flash away from all those crazy humans up into the safety of the trees with whatever remained of his bones. I am pretty certain that for generations of monkeys in and around Kurukshetra, this was a lesson hard learnt. "Wild as us they may be and hooping noises they may emit every Friday night when they herd together over some strangely coloured water, but never ever make that cardinal mistake of trying to extend our monkey brotherhood to those strange creatures that inhabit the hostels."

GOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!

Sporting talent is something which I was never really blessed with but I tried to make it up by sheer enthusiasm, something like filling up the Mariana Trench with a bucket of water. And then there were those magic moments that happened once in a quarter century which provided me with false inspiration to persist with a particular sport, no matter what common sense and sheer respect for my dignity dictated!

It was a hot summer day and class was out for the "Games" period, a period much longed for through the week, a mid-week breath of fresh air from classroom imprisonment. With the FIFA World Cup fever in the air, football was the flavour of the day, pushing cricket to the background for a change. As with any organized sport played by a disorderly mass, this game was related to football only in the way that there was a soccer ball involved somewhere in the melee that was in progress at the middle of the field. There was a whole lot of 'foot' involved with kicked shins, bruised knees and sore hips, but the 'ball' part of the game emerged only for those rare few seconds into the open before the merry amalgamation of defence, offence and mid-field of both sides swallowed it up again. Which side of the field was ours and which theirs was a secondary concern, not half as important as getting that foot to the ball pushing aside all that interrupted.

As is evident when Pele's jogo bonito (beautiful game) became a joust for dominance, it was sheer hard work under the unforgiving sun. Sweat was now officially the 23rd player on the ground. And then at the most opportune moment, some one showed up at the ground gates with a bottle of water! All enmity and rivalry for that much-desired sphere suffocating under our feet was forgotten. It was an out and out race for the life providing liquid, the players were off for it like a storm. This was where I saw my opportunity. All this while, when the world was coming to an end over a mere ball, a few people were taking it easy. The two goalkeepers and the portly lazy bum of a defender (in the opposing side, of course) Vipul. Now the field was empty and all that stood between me and eternal glory were the opposing goalkeeper Sidharth and the aforementioned Vipul!

I am sure there must have been that proverbial glint in my eyes as I waltzed past Vipul who was thankfully blessed with the reflexes of King Kong in extreme slow motion. Sidharth was a good goalkeeper in all fairness to him but the long period of inactivity during the entire game had left him a little blunt. I footed the ball past him in a flash right into the corner of the goal and closed my eyes, arms upraised in silent acknowledgment of the cheering masses. A few moments later, I realized that the silent acknowledgment was to a silent crowd too. The period was not over yet but our sports teacher had blown the whistle and my fellow players were trooping back up to the classroom. And here I was reveling in the glow of my achievement with no one to witness it! Now you know why India never makes it to the World Cup... The real talent is never appreciated ;) Back to classes and life went on, but I'll always remember my first strike as clearly as if it were yesterday whether any one else chooses to commemorate it or not!