Bihar Chronicles-2011

The year bumped me back into attention as I brought all my grey matter in line to  Line Produce in Patna. An amiable documentary filmmaker Richard Fung who resembles a character of Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together wanted a local 'guy'  to help him shoot the badlands of Bihar.

So I was hired. It was just February!  I remember the lovely Tarumitra Ashram where I arranged us to stay. The lovely campus was like a Tropical Jungle.  An oasis in the mundanity of Patna. The Laurie Baker Style Organic Cottages. I lived in the Winter Hut, where Father Athikal would brew lovely South Indian Coffee running in and out. A complete charmer.

Then there were other community members and students from Agricultural university from Panama who would make cool Italian Food and Potluck Dinners at the community kitchen at Tarumitra. There over vodkas splayed in mint and ice around a bonfire we'd discuss our lives. Who we were and how we spoke.

My favorite memory is sitting inside the gauzed Verandah and watching Richard and Tim( Richard's partner) walk in the golden sunlight being. Its a picture of them togther that has stayed with me. Its very seldom that you get watch couples who carry that peace around them when they are togther. Richard and Tim had a golden light following them that evening. Just looking at them at that moment brought such profound peace that the picture latches onto my memory as a postcard.

Then in a early morning haze we drove to Bodhgaya. A city of peepul trees. We checked into a hotel that had 5 stars in the Lonely planet guide rating and from my toilet window I could see the Burmese Monastery, A peepul tree with a small Hindu Shrine under it.

It must have been 7pm when I finally entered the Mahabodhi Temple complex, distracted as I was with the antique trinkets from the whole of buddhist universes.

As I walked towards the tall building and the magnificient Bodhi Tree, a strange Deja Vu came over. I had been here before. With my surdy parents? Not likely! Maybe. Not really. Must have been in dreams. Strange then..Just like any person walking to Varanasi cannot really visit it for the first time. You always have memories of it from erstwhere!

There were monks from the yellow Asian world. There were musty smelling converted Indian Harijan monks in there. And they all became a part of the majesty of the Prince who found the ultimate High under this very Tree. There were cameras and prayer assemblies with live telecasts all over to the Buddhist world.
And here was I with my camera clicking like crazy to take home some glory of this magical place. The aura of this divine tree.

The next day I went to the Japanese monastery and tried Zazen. Between a group of young yellow faces and a monk in black robes instructing in Japanese I don't think I got it very right but what the hell. I sat stretched and straight like a penis. It gave me a cervical like pain and made me feel very cool!

I came back in Mahabodhi Express and by the time 2011 had run away!

Its love love love that makes the world go round!

‘I had a lovers quarrel with the world. ‘- Robert Frost


I never forget the last scene of Wonkar Wai’s film ‘Days of Being Wild’. The devastatingly handsome Hong Kong lothario who seduces and forsakes women without compunction is with a man who asks him if he remembers Su Lizen a woman who he ditched and left to suffer and the Lothario replies ‘how is she’ what she does at 9 pm.

Then he says looking worried ‘Don’t tell her that I remember her’ Let her find happiness somewhere else! At that heart breaking moment for the first time in the whole film it becomes clear to one that this difficult strange man did indeed love the girl whose life he has forever broken in two parts.

The hero dies shortly afterwards in a train gang war and you are left with a deep wound. The wound of seeing lover’s suffering longing for each other in helplessness. That short sharp shock in the film I believe added to the pain of the world that cries for a resolution/closure. I won’t stop thinking about it till the closure is reached!

I also never forget the story in my 9th standard Literature course called ‘Love Love Love’ by VS Naipaul about a black young neighbor they had who had an alcoholic husband who would beat her up blue and black and how she escaped saving her life from him only to come back to him and get beaten up and feel happy about it. There was something about how Naipaul narrated that story that captured the mind of a 15 year old to think so deeply about the compulsion/helplessness of love.

I am sure all of have had men/women around us whose daily love calls were more frightening and annoying than any horror films that we could have attended. The drama of cutting fists for lost loves, the crying the weeping the hysteria all make for some very alive memories in my head. A girl in my hostel in Nashik who would cry everyday for two hours after speaking to her boyfriend. There is a dialogue that she used to shout at him that stays with me forever. After a few guttural sounds like some beast had opened her belly she would shriek to the man on the other end ‘majha traas naku deu” ‘Don’t give me pain’ The problem apparently was that the guy wouldn’t marry her soon enough even though they had very elaborate plans of eloping.

There was another who everyday would beg her boyfriend to not suspect her as she was being completely faithful. Why she cried why trying to explain this thing is a simple thing that I never understood then. Now maybe I do! The story went like this..the girl had a long affair with a guy of a different cast and the guy was a goon back in Jhansi and this girl struck to him because she was afraid that he wouldn’t let her marry anyone else! The same girl is now happily married to another guy. I don’t know her phone routine is anymore peaceful than earlier though!

Another person who stays in my mind for his love story is an editor who would take half hourly breaks every consecutive hour to talk to his girlfriend/wife. He would come back with a red face and teary eyes. I always wondered what was happening between them that made for the frantic nervous calls. I could never tell and I could never ask because he was a fiercely personal sober kind of a person. But just the fact that there he was known more for his breaks than anything else is something I never forget!



Recently I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on Love called Understanding love where he recalls his short love story. The story is about how this Noble Monk fell in love with a young nun and she too fell in love with him. They however bound under their bows to reach Buddhahood decided not to bite into the temptation and keep doing their duty as a monk and nun. Thay talks about how his agony lasted less than 24 hours before he became aware of the fact that love could even continue long distance and love didn’t mean matrimony or conjugal bliss.

I laughed a hollow little laugh after I finished Thich Nhat Hanh’s book. The sad part about me(and most of the rest of us) is that we are succors for pain and drama. The scale on which Thay speaks is nursery level for us, who have struggled in the worldly love. And for the first time I felt myself falling on the side of these mad people who so far only amused me. I really now do believe that the journey we mortals experience in the dark night of the soul that comes after heartbreak is as noble as any other kind of spiritual journey.

What kind of hardship have you experienced if you haven’t torn your hair apart and wanted to sew the earth and sky so that nothing in between moves to cause the pain that love causes. I hate how we homogenize love and put labels on how it should only lead to the homogenized happiness. You love me I love you equally back. Measured, sane and facile! Thanks But no Thanks!

I suppose the only reason people should be together is very beautifully described by Elizabeth Gilbert "People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."

Having lived for so long off course one knows that love is a sad song and yet "I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone." Some of us are born of hearts more stubborn and stoic than average people. Some of us have more knack for drama. Some of us don’t fall apart despite numerous knocks. Some of us can deal with love despite all the mess it creates! Some of us go round and round and round in love and never stop!

A letter to Indiffrence

Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it.-The Snow Queen

Dear Indifference,
Never thought Id ever write a letter to you. After all what difference does it make to you whether I write to you or not. You I suppose will still insist on denying me the attention that I demand as a human being, as someone who cares! And we're not quite on talking terms really!
Well I have been meaning to speak to you,You know how you look through me. Defeating me like nothing else does.
Now don’t think I am getting clingy or anything! I am just being a human being who bonds with human beings and finds happiness in relating to others around me! Its not a crime when you are not around to make it all so Toxic Mr Indiffrence’
 What a sad scene we humans make when fighting you. Its like a bitch slap. It stings its unjust and its just there! And no one can help. Not friends, not strangers no one can take away the gloom that you leave after you walk over sentient beings.
But today I am at your gate to get to know you better. Where do you come in our lives indifference? Exactly what are you made of? Are you kind of a shield that covers the soft parts of those who wear you around them? Are you a bandage for pain? Do you work in easing the pain on one side of a relationship while hurling it on the other side?
How long do you stay? What do you do the hearts where you make a home? Do they go back to their original natures or are indifferent people forever indifferent? How do you erase the memory of sunny warm days? Do you temporarily disable them or do you delete them forever.
How many lovers have you killed? How many mothers?How many dads? How many friends? How many strangers? How many humans in total?
How does it feel to peel of human beings of their essential nature? Where do you stand and watch one human being looking indifferently at the others sorrow? Is it a high is a low or is it an indifferent feeling for you? How does it feel to see them suffer for their humanly affections? How does this going numb on the pain of same species happen? Do you forget that all humans are made of the same clay and everyones tears are salty. How exactly do you possess and strangle hearts Mr Indiffrence?
You must be related to death in some way no? You bring along all that death brings along. Forgetting and ceasing of emotions or all feelings.What is left in humans after that anyway?! Really?!
It must be a good life being indifference no? Nothing affects you, Nothing hurts you, you remember nothing, you miss nothing, you feel nothing! Causing a deep hollow spot wherever you strike!
Go on as you do indiffrence! I see there must be heavens willing somewhere for you to pitch your tents into the human hearts!
Much love
A human being who suffers from your presence!

With a morning heart

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.

~ Billy Wilder.

 I have always wondered about what makes a good morning.

Is it the bed you slept on? Is it the last thought you had the previous night, which decides whether its going to be one of those peach coloured mornings, when you get up with your body juiced up eager and hungry for another day.

Is it about the city you get up in? Whether you hear the birds or cacophony of morning traffic, that makes or breaks a morning?

Is it about the bed you slept on? Whether it was just right for you back, butt and neck? Whether it smelled familiar and felt good?

Is it about the person you slept with? Wrapped around each other like a spider’s net, moistened with kisses and tender conversations, which made your eyes heavy and pushed you into a slumber

Is it about what you dreamt? Whether a distant loved one came walking into your dream, held your hand and took you around a rainbow.

Most of my good friends have in common with me this preference for getting up late. We dont stress ourselves with what the clock says. We check inside if its morning ding dong or not yet! It doesnt necessarily match with 6am, 7 am, 8am or 9am. A lot of oldies I love think its some kind of a plague that we younger generation suffer from(this not getting up in the morning to the call of duty).  I remember my war with my dad started on the subject of getting up in the morning. He likes to make his presence/ authority felt in those magical hours of the morning. Its when I am crooning in my sweetest hours of slumber and tangiest dreams; that he wants me to be up and about and and cooking breakfast!

Yes maybe it is about the breakfast I never cook which irks him! I being the female of the species must confirm to my duties by reporting in the mornings to the authority of parenthood. And Even though us girls have been raised like  boys, having been sent to school and being told to have 'careers' I see this inherent discomfort in the males in my family looking at women sleeping till late. What a blasphemy to see the girls streching languorously on the bed dreaming of who knows what! Surely they must never be found sleeping in the mornings.' They ought to up praying and cooking for it to be a good morning for them!'

So much for the Talibani hopes of my dad(Although I suspect if I had been a boy I would have suffered the same fate as well). Offc ourse I never get up early and feel terrible about it too! Years and years of not having anything motivating enough(I neithe pray nor make breakfast for my family) makes me sleep till late and avoid getting up if at all I can avoid it.

Gradually I realise off late all my good mornings have come from sleeping at unfamiliar places away from the routine of a dragging schedule and people who play like old records, the same tunes every day. I hate them. They make me not want to get up in the morning.

Slowly the itch of wanting to see new colors in that same old sun excite me more and more as I loose years. To think that there can be a different angle and diffrent windows, from which I see the sun everymorning brings on a wonder which brightens me up. When eagerness wells up to gape at the patterns that clouds make is the sky I am greatful.What joy to simply wake up on mornings when the sun doesnt bark out from an alarm clock.

Its only in the rawness of mornings, smelling my own stale breath, that I am at this emotional vantage to turn upside down, all the things I don’t like face up! In the day everything is too much of what It is already, to do anything about it. Its when in the morning I come down from my dreamland and touch the ground, that  I dont like to  break my sleep.

But I cant do it on all mornings. Only some mornings does my morning heart triumph over the wicked indifferent forces of this world.

I think what’s so special about mornings is that they are the only time of the day when you have the chance to choose between a dream or rationality. The choices are (a) take cognisance of the hard unyielding ground that you stand on and throw the dream in a dustbin.(b) feel the dream in the little of your palm and leap with it. 

Whether you sink or fly is the buisness of the other part of the day. But the morning dharma surely is simple.

Leap starting the engine of the heart with every round of the sun. No matter how illogical, no many how stupid the dream is. You kill the morning if you kill the dream in your heart. My best mornings have been with completely insane dreams. Standing on a shitmoutian and thinking of Himalayas. Driving on the Ghaziabad highway thinking of streets of Paris. Who knows whether actual Himalayas and streets of paris when they come will bring any real happiness or not!

So I love my mornings with morning hearts. Reality/Duty/Uprightness/Morality/Foresight can you please excuse me in this lifetime? No place for you in my morning with my morning heart.

Mad in Mumbai- Memoir ’

I remember the early morning bus to Mumbai. Landing up in mist and seeing the sea for the first time. It was such a shame to finally arrive in Mumbai at 25years of age. But it was magic too. I didn’t know what awaited me, but I was in love and felt quite blind. So I parked myself in a city where nothing blew off in alarm when I looked at it absentmindedly. They didn’t know what the alert and same me was. So they wouldnt question me during that zonked period .I would stay here till this sudden blind spot that filled me with wooziness lasted. Till the static of 5000 gongs buzzing in my head died down. Or at least settled itself!

I imagined that’s how elephants fell in love. Madly. Truly. Deeply. There were other ways of falling in love too. Slightly, romantically, flirtatiously, moderately, sexually but none of those options were available to me. I dived into it straight like an elephant would jump into swimming pool. Clumsily. The whole of me at one go, without keeping any other eggs in any other basket. In retrospect it looks like a suicide mission for whatever could go wrong did go wrong. But at that time the earnestness kept me afloat. It was the first time my mind had been pulverised by anything other than mathematics. And it felt GOOD and made me feel blind. As blind as driving a car with front mirror covered in mixed fruit jam would make you feel.

The big authoritative voices that kept shouting at me all my life suddenly became well wishing whispers that would just creep out of mouse holes and whisper and disappear. Career Careeer Career? Where is it going where is it going? Money Money Money. This money will run out run out run out. As soon as I turned to look at them they would freeze like they were hollow echoes’ and had nothing important to say. Anyways listening to them all my life hadn’t made me any smarter or richer. So now I could tell them ‘Fuck you’ at least let me try for happiness.

Suddenly I felt like pretty girl who walked like a drunken elephant on the streets of Mumbai with friends who only thought she was lost because she had no job!I had proposed a man finally after all these years and he had agreed to ‘give it a shot’. I had for the first time in my life walked across a city wearing a blood red skirt with a sleeveless blouse and not felt conscious about it. I had for the first time smelled the vast sea at Versova and breathed the creamy texture of the freedom sitting around the little barista at seaside.


It was another world into which I had unknowingly arrived. What freedom it was from the days of reporting everyday to my mom on the phone truthfully. Every little detail of what was happening. Who I went out with and why I got late and how I got safely dropped back home.Why for the first time in my life I could walk out on the road at 1pm to look for chai and sit beside the sea and then come back home without having to look at any disapproving faces! I could even not come back home for the whole night and next day find that approval from friends who were growing impatient with my oh so platonic notions of freedom! It was the first time I encountered pregnancy kits in the bathroom and it gave me a strange wicked pleasure. Someday I would use these too. I thought boldly.


Then one morning I felt all washed up and cleaned and rebirthed on the 16th floor of a building. I was wearing my electric blue lycra jeans which had a skull on its butt pocket and my Faiz Ahmed Faiz people’s tree Tshirt. It read my favourite poem ‘ aur bhi hain gum zamane main mohabbat ke siva’ But I wasn’t thinking of escaping sorrow! I lay there wanting to just be able to see clearly what was I doing with my life really? I knew it wasnt anything bad, evil or immoral or anything. Just that this wasnt the pace at which I had lived and I had to go back to the old mirror to see the new face.


Too much had happened in a month’s time. I had run away from home. My uncle had died of paralysis. I had hopped on a train reached Belgaun to visit an aunt I hadn’t seen in eight years.

There were pigeons outside and the January morning reminded me of playing with shadows in my childhood home veranda. This wasn’t the city of verandas and I had to rush to office but just getting up that morning it looked like I had gathered all the small playful shards of sunlight to last me entire life to play with. That morning that clarity hasn’t come to me again. But every time I open the little purse in my heart all the little shards start dancing again. I wonder if the will last me till I am old and ugly.
Who knows they just might.

An Achkan for Achkan Mirza

For a minute I didn’t believe that he had called me for this! He wanted an Achkan for a wedding he had to attend!

Long back I had teased him sarcastically about being like ‘Achkan Mirza’ the character from my 5th standard CBSC Hindi reader. An elderly misanthrope who was completely adorable for his suspicion that the whole world conspired against him to take away his Achkan. The Achkan to Achkan Mirza was all that he had earned in his life. Choosing not to have wife and kids but only integrity and honesty and character. As he grew older and became delusional he started believing people would steal away his Achkan because it was so precious. To the world it was an old piece of cloth that was too dusty and bobbled to be welcomed inside their houses.

So everyone teased the old man and started calling him Achkan mirza. The man mad about his coat.

‘He’ was a lot like Achkan Mirza. But I was really shocked when he actually declared that he would wear an Achkan to that wedding he had to go to. He wanted me to find an Achkan for him. From a piece of literature it became a practical commodity that had to be shopped. I became nervous about finding an Achkan. After all what was an Achkan? No one knew for sure. Google had no answers and my entire knowledge system collapsed.

Surely someone in Jamia would know. (With all the Urdu they had flaunted and used like a weight against me to keep me down in the elitist divide) I started with Javed. So Mr Javed with all his love for Javed Akhtar’s Urdu poetry still did not know what an Achkan was and where to find it. My asking however aroused his curiosity to infinity about why would I bother about an ‘Achkan’. Was it some kind of Islamic chicken that Punjabis exported to Canada? Was it some kind of a sex toy used by the fast girls who wore torn pants?

I rushed off swearing not to ask anyone else in my office about ‘Achkan’ come to think of it. It did sound like a bawdy chicken!

Running against the deadline I called ‘him’. Although I dreaded it. What would he think? I didn’t even know what an Achkan was! How would he trust me about buying him the best one in town?
Tring Tring

Me-‘’ aa. Err . Listen I know what an Achkan is but do you mind telling me what exactly do you mean when you say it. I don’t want to get you the wrong kind you know!’’

Him- Smirk. Ok it’s a gents garment, the kind Ustad Bismillah Khan wears.

Me – Stunned Silence

Him- Hello! Hello!

Me- Umm errr BBB

Him- Listen Do you even know Bismillah Khan? Were you born while he was alive?

Me- What do you mean! Off course I know who he is! Ok Bye!

Secretly I  was thinking- But what did he wear? They never showed us his long shot. All everyone ever watched was the Shehnai in his mouth. Maybe he did those 1hour shows on DD when I was young. I only remembered the Nehru Topi.

So I went to the market absolutely clueless. Just hoping that it wasn’t some flashy kind of Arabic Thong that men wore over their trousers superman style.

I thought surely Jamia Nagar was my best bet to find an Achkan. Some old elite Urdu stylist/store would surely have a vintage collection in that magical Aladdin market. So I sat on a rickshaw and felt like an old duchess. For wasn’t I going out to shop for antiquity so antique that half the ignorant world dint even know what was I talking about.

Within 5 minutes of the bumpy rickshaw ride my insides were levelled. I asked the first man who looked to be living above poverty line about where I would find an Achkan. He looked right back at me and asked ‘a what?’ A chicken I gulped! ‘ yahan nahin milega madam’ He looked at me angrily and went away!

I didn’t mind an unpleasant stranger but more and more came. And no one told me what an Achkan was. Maybe it was a chastity belt that was tied around men. Maybe it was a diamond studded coat. Who knew? It was like that Hanuman underwear that bachelors wore.

Finally I found a man. I mean I found a man who assured me that He knew what I wanted. (Although I didn’t know it myself) So he pointed to this skin coloured garment with garish orange embroidery and then said. This is the closest thing I have. It’s called OUTER. I have this last piece. Buying that was out of question. Bismillah Khan was surely not to be found dead in Bappi Da style of stuff!

I struggled more. Found a shop which said they had it. But it was in their workshop and it would take those 6 hours to get it. I was almost tempted to invest so much time. After all I would have finally seen that male garment which in all my 27 years had never seen on a man. What’s more I could have seen ‘him’ wear that male garment.

This was becoming exciting I thought. Almost in the way the Native American tribal EVES must be hunting for a tiger and then making underwear out of its skin. To gift it to the alpha male But I knew I was stretching it. With so little know about the garment most probably only arcane nawabs felt alpha wearing that thing called Achkan. And Bismillah Khan was dead too (God bless his soul)

The next day I and he were back the regulars. We went to Chun Mun Garments and got him a super cool Burberry coat.

But the thoughts of looking for an Achkan for him have stayed with me. Maybe it’s just a stupid idea that was passed on to my head by him. But I often dream of haunting the streets looking for that perfect Achkan.


PS- My guess is they stopped making Achkan when the old world gallantry of being a gentleman died.