Marriage has teeth,

... and him bite very hot: Jamaican Proverb

Third post in as many days. This must be a record.

The Venue: Jazz
The Occasion: Weekend

I am dragged out of bed, not entirely against my wishes, by Chops and D, after I have been gradually marinated with small doses of Chivas 14 years since afternoon.

The band is a new one. I have seen their name on hoardings, but never heard them before. It turns out that they have a particularly good bassist, and great choice of music. As we enter we are treated to a near perfect rendition of almost the entire The Wall Vol 1. Side A. After this some Nirvana, then again some very, very good Dark Side of Moon. Agreed, the lead vocals were a little feeble, but then that could be a technical issue.

Suddenly, a bunch of high-pitched women start screaming those horror words: “Hotel California”. Now, I have nothing against the song, but just that it is one of those which have been rendered boring by repetition. Any band which performs this, or even Sweet Child of Mine, is downgraded two notches in my scheme of things. Horror of horrors, the band decides to play this song, with the women breaking into a jive on the song with their men folk. Ugh!!!

Inspired by their success, they go on to ask for Sweet Child (a very good song, but not again please!!!), converting the purist again. This time I decided not to even look at what dance form befitted that song. My friends and I shake our heads in dismay, but then I am reminded of a verdict passed by KD recently at HRC recently, when they were playing some seriously puppy love music (and obviously to the gallery). KD had said: “DJ o toh manush, oro niche jineesh potro ache. Chhoto chhoto jama pore kochi mey guli giye ‘summer of 69’ chaile, koto baar mana korbe.” (Roghly translated: The DJ is a man too, he has things down under to take care of. When cute girls wearing short dresses come up and ask for summer of 69, how many times can he say no.”

Well, that explains. And I was just hoping things wouldn’t boil down to “Summer of ‘69”. And thankfully it didn’t. What transpired next was a little more horrific though. It turns out that I knew those women, actually their husbands. They work in the same firm, but in some obscure department though. Then I made the next mistake of telling my friends that. And the wrath is now directed to me and I am told five years down the line, I will find myself in a similar situation- when my wife and her hysterical friends will be screaming likewise and break into a tango over Sweet Child. And I won’t know where to look.

Later at night walking on Marine Drive, I wonder if that is possible. Perhaps. I am sure each of those guys considered themselves real cool cats/ rock stars, or whatever, strumming that air-guitar while waltzing with their wives. Maybe they even appreciated their wives’ sense of music and timing; and their choice of dance form (man, I am married to the Prom Queen). May be they felt a certain sense of pride in it. Maybe that’s what marriage does to you. Maybe I do not understand their Point of View. Maybe that’s why I am where I am today.

If I get married, I will do it with the knowledge that it is going to change me like no relationship ever has or even will. But I just hope the changes are not of this nature.

PS: I do impulse shopping every Sunday evening to fight the crabby pre-work week mood that I am in. This time I bought a mannequin- i.e. everything that was there on it, and then a bit more. Odd sized shorts (which a friend calls Pauni Chaddi), matching T-Shirt, floaters, sneakers. Would have bought a jacket as well, but they didn’t have my size. And then D bought identical sneakers too, but in a lovely pink. All from the same Nike store on Linking Road. Damages? INR20k. Sunday Bloody Sunday!!!

Calvin (on Sunday): Any day you have to take a bath and go to bed early isn’t a day off in my book.

All It Takes

The good news is that now I have a comp at home. The bad news is that it doesn’t have the Net. Never mind- that should change soon.

I had approached a famous ISP for a broadband connection sometime back. After the initial calls they sent across someone to do the wiring, but finding the house locked those guys went back.

I managed to grab the sales guy again yesterday, and fired the shit out of him. When I was done, the guy first apologized for disappearing and said that it was in his interest to close this out since for every connection he closes he gets paid 175 rupees. 175 rupees??? Am I hearing right? Isn’t this circa 2007? Aren’t our minds and living rooms invaded with Technicolor projections of an Incredible India (or India Shining, or Rising India- depending on whose colours you wear)! And most importantly, isn’t this Bombay, and not some back of the beyond, mofussil town?

Yes, it was repeated, and I had heard it right. Immediately, I lowered my pitch, and remembered how enthusiastic the guy had been when he first came with the papers to my office, did the feasibility and all that- and how many calls he had made to me. All for 175 rupees? I didn’t know how to react- perhaps I should feel a little small admonishing him the way I had. But then wasn’t he in the wrong?

By the evening I had partly redeemed myself. When I narrated this incident to D, she wanted a connection as well. When I called to tell him so, I couldn’t believe how happy he sounded.

Later at night as D and I sat watching TV, feeling a little domesticated, and munched on our chicken rolls, I began to think how narrow our view of this world is. I recalled a recent post I had written some time back on the amazing things happening in India, on how steep forward income curves are and how everyone can takes loans for 10 years and repay them in 3. At that time my boss (a man of little hair, but lot of wisdom) shook his head and commented how little I knew of this world.

I remembered the absolute joy on the face of a juice seller in the night market in a remote Thailand village when we consumed juices worth 200 Baht in minutes. How they scurried to arrange plates for us, when there were none- it being a place where people just buy food from stalls and take it home to eat.

I remembered how affected my father was when he came back from the Valley after seeing what abject poverty the average Kashmiri lives in.

We live in a world where economic disparity is unimaginable. There are millions who live under the shroud of looming hunger, malnutrition and death. Basic amenities do not exist. If rural poverty is alarming their urban counterparts are no better off. Even in a place like Bombay every morning I pass by a bunch of kids who collect water from puddles outside of Haji Ali. And I see countless kids on their way to school walking bare feet.

Sometime back I tried reading the World Poverty Report form UNDP. I just couldn’t. I agree that unless we eradicate poverty, we will not be able to counter the scourge of terrorism, AIDS and so many other things.

Yet I realized one thing- while we can be philanthropic and all that and wait for the world to be a better place for everyone, for the time being we can make a difference in our little ways, mostly by being nice to people who live such difficult lives. And in return make that rare smile make our day.

Déjà vu

Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something. (The Matrix, 1999)

A minor déjà vu experience on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I have this thing for water- while I don’t really like it in the bath, I do look forward to a swim every once in a while. So when my broker came up with an apartment with an unobstructed 10th floor Band Stand sea view and a swimming pool to boot, I jumped for it- even though the 50k a month price tag seemed a little steep. The general idea was “Dekh to lete hain.”

On visiting the apartment I had this niggling sense of déjà vu. As I walked around the apartment, leaned on the balcony rails, taking in the breath-taking sea view, I knew that at some point of time I had been here before. As is the case with all these feelings, it was just a little uncomfortable. Even otherwise the flat was very pretty- newly done up, shiny new flooring, cupboards, a large, gorgeous bathroom- the works.

Later at lunch I was relieved of my slight agony. I remembered (with a silent “Ah”), that this was the same place where a certain colleague who joined the bank post graduation with me used to stay. I even remembered attending a few parties, where I used to entertain myself with sights of the sea and occasionally that of the host flirting with a certain lady I used to have a mild interest in back then. The house used to be quite shoddy back then- nondescript mosaic flooring, shapeless furniture all over, and the ubiquitous clothes, which are the trademark of any bachelor habitat. This was six years ago.

Two things came to my mind as an afterthought. First how rents have spiraled in Bandra- I am sure that back then the bloke paid no more than 20k for that flat. And second, and more importantly, last heard that same guy was married (not to the same lady though) with a kid, presumably happily settled in his ancestral GK bungalow- selling credit cards, or home loans, whatever for a living. And here I am apparently doing well professionally, but a big ZERO at everything else, and wondering in circa 2007, whether the same flat was affordable or not. Sometimes one does get the feeling that in certain aspects, almost everyone has sped past me.

On a more positive note, he does not enjoy access to countless bacchanalian nights, options at numerous drunken skirt chasing episodes (Tin Man had an interesting observation to make- Women have affairs, men just have flings), living life on the edge etc. etc. And then I do not have to sit-up nights, changing diapers, or feel bad every time lust takes over common sense.

Such feelings, though emotionally mixed, are not nice and according to me the best thing to do is to go and buy the fuck out of my favorite mall. Others call it retail therapy. Long ago Moods and me used to do it to fight Sunday evening blues all the time. Since Moods has moved on in life as well, I got Buch (who also moves on in a week’s time) to drive me to Lifestyle. That was nice (Lifestyle reminded me of monochrome Doordarshan file pictures of Kishore Kumar’s house after an IT raid). I was particularly pleased with a couple of shirts that I picked up (not quite so with half a dozen T-shirts), and the fact that now my waist is a size that is readily available off the shelf. D is away for the long weekend, and was not available for comments on this positive development. Of course Kappa still doesn’t make shirts my size and stores don’t keep 501s on their shelves. But that’s OK.

While I sank into my into my pillow for a good night’s sleep it just occurred to me that in a society as ours where personal despair is never desperate enough*, drowning sorrow in solitude is not too difficult. However, to be truly indifferent one must master the art of savoring success in seclusion as well.

* To borrow an expression from GOST

Two or three things I know about her…

Juliette Janson: To define myself, one word: indifference.

That’s the name of a movie I saw yesterday. Who the word “her” refers to is debatable- but I think it is Paris, but it might just be the lead female character. It was a beautiful movie- dealing with the dip in collective morals of the Parisian society in the backdrop of the Gaullistic regime. I use the word “regime” here intentionally.

So, where have I been of late? I had thought of answering that question in detail but as I sat down to write, I realized that it was turning out to be boring and long-winded. To cut a long story short, I have been traveling- on work and leisure, and will write posts in detail of my long holiday in Thailand, but a bit later.

Last night, three of us, Buch (who has now moved back to India), Shukla and me sat down to consume huge quantities of alcohol from my stockpile. Now these are my best buddies from business school, but we hardly ever meet- mostly because Shukla is married, Buch engaged and hence there social drinking has different dimensions to mine. But since the ladies in question were out of town attending weddings, the evening culminated.

Inevitably the subject turned towards marriage- and not surprisingly everyone had their two bits to add. Shukla kept defending the institution, and while were not quite anti (Buch ties the knot in about two weeks), it made us think a lot. He kept saying that how two years back he would not have noticed the layer of dust atop my refrigerator, how he would not have noticed that my house has neither a microwave nor a washing machine. He would’ve just unleashed himself on the stockpile of alcohol at the bar. He said he was amazed how organized his life had become, how much more sensitive he was now, and how efficient he had become in utilizing his time at work and home.

Now my take on this was that, before you get married, you are not aware of any of these things- i.e. most benefits of the institution are realized post-facto. I hardly know of anyone who gets married for these reasons. I guess the reason why one does get married is to be able to have a degree of certainty of one’s companionship. Right now I know that I might get laid about once a month, get to cuddle up a bit more often, but then there is a huge sense of uncertainty associated with it. I mean there are times when I desperately need a hug, and there is no telling whether it will work out for me.

To come back home to someone, to cuddle up next to the same person every night, share spaces, and wake up next to the person every morning- that is the prime driver.

One should get married- most definitely. There are two parts to our life- the personal and the professional. The only way to have growth in my life is to take on additional responsibilities. At work every ladder you climb brings new responsibilities- it is a given. Then why should that corollary not apply to the personal life? I mean to a great extent the urge to excel in a career has to stem from a desire to have a good personal life otherwise. Unless I assume responsibilities by building things around me, how do I grow as an individual? I mean I am an insensitive, indifferent, ponderous alcoholic of 30. Unless I do something about it I remain the same at 35, then 40, and so on. And at that age how do I justify waking up every morning and dragging myself to work, when presumably you have enough money in the bank to last your lifetime. How???

I went house hunting yesterday, after Trips became the 17th woman to tell me that unless I changed houses I wouldn’t get married. Its not as if I want to get married, but if and when I am 40 and probably lonely, I wouldn’t want to look back and realize that this was the reason.

Been listening to some really good music on my recently acquired I-pod nano. Traveling to work has never been quite as nice. Picked up some really good stuff from flea markets across south-east Asia. For instance an anniversary edition of Alanis Morrisettte’s Jagged Little Pill- all acoustic. Watching good movies, seeing new places. Only thing that is lacking is that I’m not reading too many books. Will take care of that soon.

Current favourite song- Rod Stewart’s “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“If I stand all alone, will the shadow hide the color of my heart;

Blue for the tears, black for the nights fears.”