Somewhere in Space

Just a couple of days before GURU POORNIMA, Sunday School conducted two examinations for the world at large. And the one question that stumped most of the people was a multiple choice question which chose to interrogate people as follows:-

On Sunday the 14^th of July, how did you spend your day?

All those of you who ticked the last option, take a bow and buy yourself a beer. You are that part of the world that did not suffer from pains in the neck on Monday, nor did you have ethical, emotional and extreme reactions to the silliest of occupations. And your nails are intact.

Why do I say that? Am I sounding too cynical? Well, walk with me…

Take the classic Federer / Djokovic confrontation on grass. The first is an 8 time champ and the other is a 5 timer. I mean, we’ve all seen the best they have to offer. And since we could not swing Center Court passes, we were condemned to stiff neck viewing.

Because it is a well known fact that people watching tennis go through a few hours of ‘look-left-look-right’ experience unless they’re watching the match on a television or even a mobile screen. Given that the human eye can take in the TV or Mobile inches into one glance, it means that viewers are doomed to a straight line viewing with no foreseeable reason to crane their necks.

Boring…right!

Now the Royal confrontation between the ancient rulers and their once-upon-a-time Colony was a game riddled by heart and mind conflicts, misinterpretations of fair play and was played on the sorrows of a billion Indian cry-baby souls.

What was SUPER about the last over I ask you? A comedy of errors? Since when did Shakespeare replace Sachin on the pitch? And since when did the iambic pentameter dictate the pace of the pitch?

No. While I admire and support those who step out on a Sunday afternoon in their hastily found whites to play cricket with the neighbors, I find the ‘weight and watch’ gang to be a bit tiresome.

Spending the whole day watching players go through their limited repertoire of 0, 1s, 2s, 4s and even 6s before being sent back by an LBW, or by a catch or a run-out or God forbid, a clean bowled is not my idea of fun. There’s so much more that the world has to offer.

For example, and just in case you’re one of those nit-pickers who insist on starting off alphabetically, there is B for Beer. How could anyone choose a game over a glug?

But there is one category of people who dither. Unable to decide on which game to follow, they make a hobby of surfing the television waves. Five minutes of Cricket and five minutes of Tennis. Repeat Ad Nauseum. Now, for these undecided fellows, here’s news…

Neither the Cricket Ball nor the Tennis Ball is something you should aspire to be. You get pushed around in both cases, get smashed in both cases and the silly rules often dictate that you are often out of line.

So unless you ticked on the last option, consider yourself as a failed candidate. What you believe is Life is anything but.

But relax. All is not lost. Yet.

There’s time even now to change your priorities. Drop the bat. Get out of the Racket. And just say Cheers.

Also, please check when those kebabs that you ordered are going to be delivered.

The Commando Comics were a childhood favorite. Right through till the end of college they told me stories of the 2^nd World War, taught me history as never before, and even introduced me to a powerful illustration style that shaped my artistic sensibilities.

More importantly they gave me a wonderful understanding of framing and composition. And gifted me (though I didn’t realize it then) the skill of storyboarding.

In all fairness I must admit that the other comic books I used to read, Archie, Richie Rich, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Sad Sack, Phantom, Batman also ingrained in me the visual grammar that I found immensely useful in my film making.

How to compose a long shot, how to transition to a mid-shot or jump to a close up, and all this seamlessly, is an instinct honed, thanks to all the comics I read. And the Commando Comics occupied pride of place within this world.

Friends were made by these comics. We exchanged them, we discussed them and even studied them in class or at home with them, often hiding them between the pages of a text book.

The heroes of these books became role models. And the roughly sketched stories became our history lessons. Since war moves were rare and one off experiences, the Commando Comics especially became page turning addictions.

And then one day, I just stopped reading them. Comic characters vanished from the shelves and more verbose novels took up our reading time. Perhaps the only illustrated story book we continued to read was MAD Magazine.

With the later advent of Television, Video etc. the reading habit itself took a beating and later, the availability of audio visual content on handheld devices like the tabs and smart phones thanks to vastly improved Internet Connectivity all but rang the death knell for the printed word.

Comic books became a distant memory, enjoyed once in a while with a dash or two of malt or a brew. Giving me however a vicarious pleasure in knowing that we had better comic books than our children. And that was important, because most of the other childhood-teenage experiences that our children had, were far better than what we were permitted by our times.

But comics…we had the best. And events like Comic Cons where many of our later day idols came alive were living proof of that.

Now comes the fun part of my story.

Remember, that the beauty of a cherished memory is that however deep inside your soul you tuck it away, the moment the right trigger is pulled, the memory re-surfaces in our minds with the freshness of a secret life and the intensity of a never forgotten passion.

And so it was, when in a random conversation with a young friend I found that he had a collection of some Commando Comics that he was willing to share with me.

My eyes began to twitch in anticipation. My pulse rate and heart beat started practicing the high-low: fast-slow patterns that were an intrinsic part of our comic book reading. My language skills came to life as familiar World War Words came back into regular parlance. ACHTUNG!!! Eintritt verboten. SCHNELL!!! Banzai!!! And words of that vintage crept back into conversation.

A couple of days later my friend placed in my hands what I thought was the Holy Grail. A set of Commando Comics hard bound into a Collection. I couldn’t wait to reach home and begin to devour the tales. I was salivating and my digestive juices were prepping themselves for some heavy duty action as I fed my appetite with stories from a war that the world had possibly forgotten.

Dinner done with in a hurry, I slipped into my night clothes and after finishing with some medicinal formalities, tucked myself into bed, all ready for some in-bed reading.

And then disaster struck. The hard bound comic collection was not bed reading friendly. It was too thick and too heavy for my single hand to hold. And the book was in too pristine a condition to allow me to drop it to the floor as I fell asleep.

So I shifted to my writing table. And in the shaded light of my reading lamp I began the dive into the battle zone.

Within a few minutes this old soldier knew that his days at the front were over. The veteran had to wait for the even light of the day to be able to tackle the tales of bravery.

But sitting at a desk in broad daylight had never been his thing. So the book is taking longer to read.

The magic is the same. The narrative as gripping. The war is not yet over.

And the book has not yet been returned…

This has been bothering me for a while now. But clarity was eluding me. I didn’t know whether I was concerned about something significant or whether I was deliberating on a completely insignificant, even inconsequential matter that did not deserve the kind of attention I was being forced to give it.

You see I was very young when I realized that the Indian psyche had perforce given shape, or you can say ‘deified’ all that the population at large respected or feared. So we had God statues everywhere. And immediately after Independence we had a burst of Leader Statues.

Every town had a Gandhi Statue. Every other one had a local freedom fighter’s statue installed at its very center. How many of us laughed when each leader was caricatured in 3 Dimensions by projecting his characteristic stance even after his/her death? A bent over Gandhi with a walking stick. A proud NTR pointing a hand towards the future. The list was exhaustive and exhausting.

In Hyderabad alone, the display of several statues on the city’s most prominent promenade (Tank Bund), half of whom did not even merit a mention called for a quick recap of Andhra History that led to the discovery that a Chief Secretary had slipped in his father’s name into the list just so he could save on the cost of building a statue.

But while the pigeons celebrated their many new perches and shat in celebration, we Indians dreamed only of the Statue of Liberty and the Green Card she used to hand out. Some of us of course discovered Bangkok and came back at peace with ourselves claiming with a glib expression that it was the plethora of Buddha Statues in Bangkok that were the reason for the relaxed look and nothing else. And a Sandwich Massage was just an elevating experience between two Gautam Buddhas, one in Gold and the other in Jade.

This whole Statue thing came to the fore in my mind a couple of years back when I heard about Chinna Jeeyar Swamy and his mission to build a Statue of Equality. And when I learnt about Ramanuja, I was truly inspired. Truly, a Saint who stood for Equality a thousand years ago deserved a statue and I doffed my hat to the Jeeyar who had taken this task upon himself.

But while the Swamy was appealing only to his devotees and followers to contribute towards the cause, one man with a beard and a massive 56 inch chest went ahead and dipped deep into the national treasure and came up with a Statue of Unity.

Now my reaction to this was tempered by a pragmatism that I am ashamed of, simply because it is borderline cynical. My question, and I have been asking this of myself for a while now, is whether Sardar Patel carries his Saint of Unity status with ease or with discomfort? Unity was not a passion, nor a belief for Patel Saheb I feel. I think it was only a job assigned to him by Gandhi, Nehru, Circumstances whatever. Whoever.

He did the job I guess, but that’s about it. He did not achieve anything miraculous. He only forced the inevitable. Our very own Nizam is a case in example. Do you think he had any choice? Was the option of becoming a Muslim State in the middle of the country ever a viable option? No…while Punjab and Bengal were geometrically divided into religion based slices of the pie, Hyderabad had really no option but to be sucked into the spicy Indian Curry that was being cooked up by the other states.

And the debate began. 3000+ crores for a statue? While the country burns with hunger. I have no problem with Patel the Iron Man, and thank him for all that he did in his time. But my problem has always been with the glorification of the people of a certain time, place etc., and propping them up as heroes.

I sincerely believe that while there were genuine heroes in the so called ‘Freedom Struggle’ many were just products of circumstances. It’s like I’ll never really understand whether we won Freedom or were just given it by a defeated, devastated Great Britain who realized it had better things to do instead of ruling the Raj.

And in the same spirit, was Gandhi the leader who delivered freedom to us or was he just the lucky runner in the last lap of a relay race who carried the baton handed over to him by the true runners who established the unbeatable lead in the first place.

While this debate raged in my mind and I was finding it hard to come to terms with this whole Statue Explosion (the latest is that Karnataka is building a statue for Mother Kauvery) I realized to my horror that the day was not far away when we would be referred to as the Country of Statues.

But wait! Isn’t that what we always have been? A country full of people who have just frozen in the face of adversity like a statue. Immobile, nonreactive and passive to the core, haven’t we cloaked our inability to react in a shroud of tolerance?

Else how did we take the British invasion of a million by a few thousands lying down? How are we coming to terms with freeze frame politics that silence the masses and amplify the vanity of a bunch of buffoons who know nothing but self improvement.

This is a sad day in my life. I’m depressed. At an all time low. And I don’t really know how I’ll bounce back to life…any life. Or even whether I ever can bounce back.

I allowed the mundane, the ordinary and the unexciting to keep me away from the biggest hug in the world. I did not say HEJ and I’m now doomed to be reminded every single day of my miserable life that I wasn’t there when history took crowded shape.

I wasn’t there when thousands of people responded to a Swedish Invitation and decided to re-model their lives. With accessories from the world famous and Iconic IKEA. Forget the towel, the hanger, the doormat and the pillow cover that I did not buy. Forget the fact that the corner stand was made as if just for me in that special shade of white. Forget even the fact that I couldn’t sample their balls…veg or chicken. I wasn’t even part of the crowd that was sent back when they shut shop.

Becoming in the history of Hyderabad, the first ever establishment that shut shop within a few hours of its opening.

The psychological scars that have been etched onto me are already showing. My wife just turned the other way and mumbled something about having made a mistake all those years back when we got married. My children restarted a discussion about their rights to choose their parents…at least the father. My dogs, who normally are more forgiving, decided to sleep in any other room but mine. I have a feeling that servants and associates will be absent today from work, unable to digest the fact that I did not make it to IKEA yesterday.

I am unable to come to terms with a city that dropped everything they had and dedicated a full day to visit what is nothing but a humongous godown of mass produced items. Of stuff that hasn’t been tested in the Indian environ. Hasn’t been subjected to the maintenance torture of Osaye Ramulamma. And hasn’t even imagined the consequence of losing their individuality at the altar of custom made furniture and furnishings.

How do I explain to them that I do not want my house to look like a catalog of knick-knacks that I picked up from an inflated ‘dollar’ store. That I still doubt whether chip board can withstand normal Indian wear’n tear.

I for one, who is averse to being part of a crowded entry line even at a temple, will resist the temptation of becoming a goat and desist from the journey towards slaughter. Maybe one day, in the near future, when IKEA settles down into not drawing the attention of typically election campaign mobs who congregate wherever there is free Biryani and maybe a beer…maybe I’ll drop by at India’s largest godown-store. And maybe there I’ll bump into my old friend Ramulu who ran away from his house when his wife accused him of having a bad taste in towel racks…or was it the spoons she didn’t like?

I know what you’re going to think after you read this. Some of you will surely call or even drop by to tell me that I am ‘effing’ mad. But I don’t know how, I don’t know why…

I feel like being a bit confessional…have to say what I want to…and I have to write it down so I can say it without interruption. So please…allow me…to get it off my chest.

The first time I had this feeling was when I was shooting a film in a slaughter house. And the young man who was handling the meat cutting buzz saw was expected to wear chain link gloves to protect his fingers…but he was very uncomfortable with the idea of wearing what he called a ‘condom’ on his fingers.

He was of the opinion that wearing the glove would make him less sensitive than he was. And he needed every bit of sensitivity when cutting meat, especially with that high speed saw buzzing at dangerous speeds.

I couldn’t on that day understand why he was fighting a safety measure so obviously introduced for him. One small miscalculation, one micro-second too late and he’d be left without a finger or two…or even attain the hands free status that accident victims ever so often manage to aspire for.

A few days later life caught up with me and I forgot all about the gloves and the buzz saw.

Now the strange thing. Last Saturday my friend Rahul Basu invited me to be one of the judges at a Bengali version of a Hyderabadi Master Chef kind of competition. I thought it was going to be an afternoon of delicious Bengali dishes and perhaps a chance to practice my language skills. Sure I got those too but I also got a surprise.

One of the rules announced was that all participants had to wear gloves while cooking.

And before I could say ‘Handle’, my Gloves were off. You see that’s my perennial problem. I cannot handle anything with my gloves on. Especially life.

I walk into life taking on everything it throws at me with a zest and enthusiasm that often goes beyond carelessness. I have been accused of insensitivity whereas I have spent my whole life pleading guilty of extra-sensitivity.

I allow everything to get to me. Whether it is pain or pleasure. Life reaches me in unadulterated, unbridled and unprotected terms. Raw. I don’t wear anything that softens the blow, makes me safer, or even makes me immune by any stretch of imagination.

In short, I handle life without my gloves on. If I wear gloves, I suspect that I will lose all feeling. That I will actually lose touch with the world.

So now…Now imagine this. And this was as close to a nightmare that I’d allow myself to be in.

A bunch of home chefs, all taking part in a fun competition, suddenly told that they had to wear funny blue silicone/latex/plastic gloves at every stage of cooking. From chopping meat, fish and vegetables to stirring up a masala in a frying pan, what was usually done at home in plain and simple bare hands fashion, now had to be attempted wearing a protective device.

What happens to the feelings? To the sensitivity? To the sheer touch and feel that is such an integral part of cooking. But it wasn’t as if they had a choice. They had been given the rule and they had to follow it.

So while I could easily imagine the discomfort the participants were feeling while they struggled to chop an onion finely while using glove clad fingers, and possibly sharper knives than they were used to…I couldn’t do much else except pray that there were no accidents.

Now me being me, my mind travelled up some strange avenues. And I wondered if my doctor friends who obviously wore surgical gloves almost every day, ever had a touchy, feely romantic moment with their nurses while they had their gloves on. Or did they pause for a moment, dis-glove (like disrobe) and only then get naughty with their colleagues?

I imagined seeing my food cart friends who conjured up bread-omelettes, vadas, mirchi bajjis, samosas and what have you in the most primitive of conditions, wearing these alien gloves. The mind boggled.

My mind went on to the scene from a forgotten movie when a lovely lady wearing long black gloves met the handsome hero who was wearing winter clothes and leather gloves…both of them stopped a few feet from each other. Kept the eye contact thing working while they elegantly removed their gloves. And only then they moved closer and allowed their hands to touch.

Skin met skin. Flesh touched flesh. And emotions were triggered off.

And here were a bunch of cooks who were ordered to be ‘hand-in-glove’ with rubber. Whatever would happen to the fledgling love between the fingers, the knife and the onions. Between the fingers, the knives and the potatoes. Oh my God, would the tomatoes go red in anger? Would the fish object to the plastic touch? Would the prawns prefer their cutting fingers nude?

Every part of my being objected to this gross injustice. But I forced myself to keep calm. Thought positive thoughts. And the cooking time was soon over. There was no mishap. Just a couple of cases of the electric stoves not working. And more importantly there was no report of chopped fingers or any other body part.

And the food that was served to us Judges for tasting and evaluation, was quite honestly…excellent.

So the gloves did not obviously create the havoc that I was afraid of.

In my car, on the way back from the venue, I thought to myself…have I been unnecessarily afraid of the gloves? Will I lose much flavor of my life if I continue to taste it without inhibition? Have I perhaps given too much importance to the freedom, the insolence of ‘au naturelle’…

I haven’t been able to freeze an answer…would you like to try…maybe that’ll help.

(Author’s Note: IDLI WORSHIP is not to be confused with Idle Worship, the global worshipping of laziness or with Idol Worship, the worshipping of carved idols prevalent in many parts of the devoted world).

Have you heard about the South Indian God of Breakfasts?

IDLI. That magnificent savory rice cake that is made by steaming a batter consisting of fermented, de-husked black lentils and rice. Yes, the same IDLI that is sometimes made with other ingredients like Millets, Semolina, Oats etc.

IDLI. That brilliant concoction that defines the early morning tastes of millions, male and female, young and old, poor and rich. That dollop of soft semi globular symmetry that mixes so well with a host of chutneys, curries, sambaars and rasams, even a variety of powders.

No one really knows when this culinary God first blessed mankind but it was definitely one of the happier days of the last millenium. While there is no mention of the IDLI in the epics, it is quite possible that Sita made Ram IDLIS for breakfast before sending him off on a deer hunt, and the camp cook served a breakfast of these discs to Arjuna, Krishna and the others before they took on the Kauravas. Of course there is nothing to substantiate the theory that the Kauravas lost the battle mainly because their cook preferred to serve Dosas to the troops and that turned out to be a hugely time consuming affair that cost them the war.

But IDLIS are definitely mentioned in the official Minutes of the Meeting of the Gods in a very early BC (Before Christ) period. The Minutes note that IDLIS were served to the Gods of Burgers, of Tacos, of Bread & Eggs, of Parathas, of Vada Pavs and many others and were appreciated by all.

Even Jesus, the Son of God is known to have tried this delicacy. In fact the common phrase ‘Jeez!!! That’s good stuff’ is purported to be the phrase that escaped the lips of the apostles when HE served the ‘Last Breakfast’, an occasion that Leonardo da Vinci forgot to document into a masterpiece.

Recent findings indicate that IDLIS were first discovered during the Equinox a few thousand years ago. While the exact year is not known, the exact day when they were first launched to a grateful world is March 30^th which is today celebrated as World Idli Day. And the Idlis prepared and served on this day are called WIDLIS.

Thanks to their magical powers, almost immediately after they were discovered, the people of the world started to worship IDLIS. And IDLI worship took on some strange hues.

Almost as a carryover from the ‘yagnas’ of yore, pouring pure ghee on top of IDLIS became par for the course. In places like Guntur the Ghee pouring was followed by bathing the IDLIS with ‘gunpowder’, that delicious  powder that’s part of every South Indian meal.

For the Marwaris who loved their butter, Hyderabad bandis run by legends like Ram, Govind, Kishan etc. innovated the IDLI fry which was their way of praying to IDLIS while on a Tawa of Amul Butter.

Not to be left behind, the Sardars of Hyderabad tweaked their Dahi Vada recipes and made Dahi IDLIS their staple chant.

But inspite of being world famous in South India, IDLI making is still a rarefied science and IDLI worship suffers from lack of practitioners who actually know how to conjure up the right IDLIS.

You see, IDLIS normally exist in the liquid state. And have to be steamed up to reach their stable solid selves. It’s a process that’s akin to the purification of Sita and is marked by the traditional three whistles of the Pressure Cooker.

Also the art of yodeling which is essential for IDLI WORSHIP is a dying art and there are very few people who can actually yodel: Lay Idli Lay Idli, Lay ee Oh…the yune (that’s a yodel tune) that became very popular after its rendition in the film, The Sound of Music.

On World IDLI Day, after a more intense and longer session of IDLI prayer, worshippers are advised to pack boxes of IDLIS for lunch, tiffin etc. for their children, parents, friends, other members of their families and so on. The more benevolent can conduct IDLI distribution camps.

But whatever you do, the thing to remember is that the IDLI is a symbol of World Peace and a life of pure adaptability.

For more details about IDLI WORSHIP and the practices involved, do write to me for a copy of my book The IDLINamah.

A moment’s silence please. In memory of Capt. Kapil Mohan, the creator of the legendary Old Monk Rum.

Why? You may ask. After all you were not asked to mourn the passing of bigger legends like William Grant. Nor did you shed tears when Johnny Walked into the sunset, never to return. Come to think of it, the list of alcoholic names that are spelt with an RIP is huge, but only when Capt. Mohan died, did an entire nation slip into grief.

Strange I thought at first, but on more serious deliberation, it kind of made sense. Old Monk, referred to in different contexts as ‘Budda’, ‘Mother’s Milk’ and such has a unique if symbiotic relationship with the aging youth of India. And grief is the minimum courtesy we have to extend to its creator on his passing.

Old Monk undoubtedly was a legend built on the foundations of the Indian Army. The fact that it was supposedly staple diet for the Jawans, gave it a very patriotic and macho flavor. And its ‘fire in the belly’ reputation was stoked by stories of how the Rum could be used as a substitute for petrol in the hardy Bullet Motorcycles.

While it can be argued that simple economics was the cause for its success, I guess in all fairness we all need to dip into our memory banks and take a deep gulp of sorrow. And try to retrace how it entered our lives.

My first memorable encounter with Old Monk was courtesy of my dear friend Vijit Pillai who one day introduced a whole bunch of us to something he called Nikolaschkas.

While we later found out that Nikolaschkas were brandy based and involved slices of lime doused with heapfuls of sugar and coffee, Vijit’s version used Old Monk Rum, Shot Glasses and a very macho gulping down of the concoction. And was, for a very long time a party favourite.

So thank you old friend. Many of my memories are peppered with this very Russian sounding drink. But then I moved from Hyderabad to Chennai and had to wait for a few years before I found drinking buddies who could contribute to my life story.

It was in Bombay that Anil Jagga came into my life. And Anil was everything Old Monk promised you could be. Hardy, rustic, raw, spirited. And it was Anil who introduced us to an amazing 6 o’clocker of a drink and that too in a restaurant close to the agency. (BALWAS became notorious many years later but that’s a different story).

So every evening, just as soon as it was proper for us to leave office, we’d walk down to Balwas and our orders would always be the same. Tandoori Chicken with Roti. Old Monk Rum (Large) with Coke.

The gang was almost always the same. And the conversation a typical combination of shop talk and bitch.

Anil Jagga passed on many years ago but somehow it is his face that comes to mind when I think of Old Monk.

So here’s to you old Jagga…the original ‘Budda’. I’m sure you’re keeping Capt. Mohan entertained with your stories.