Love in the times of the Jaipur Literature Festival!

A man needs to have a certain focus in his life, a direction, a map of the things that he must do in the future. It is the mantra of good living. And that is why in that extremely philosophical and profound list of “things I must do in 2012”, ‘eating Kakori kabab in Chandni Chowk’ and ‘kissing a Spanish girl’ found top ranks, right below ‘lazing and doing nothing’.

Somewhere in the list, I also scribbled ‘attending the Jaipur Literature Festival’.

And because I am a man of my word, on a cold, wintery January Friday night, I found myself standing at Old Delhi railway station shivering and cursing myself as to why that list ever found existence.

It all started making perfect sense the moment I reached Jaipur. For a sizable station, Jaipur was startlingly clean. As my companion confirmed, the city was also less lecherous than India’s capital. As the roads were less populated, even the air seemed fresher. Life outside a metro has its own slow pace, it is like a dog – not a frisky puppy that has to run about chasing every smell, or squirting every bush. But an ancient, venerable thirteen year old Saint Bernard that refuses to budge and yet looks stately and majestic, even when you are lying at full stretch and pushing its bottoms with all your might.

At around noon, my platoon and I marched into the venue of the festival – Diggi Palace. And with the same enthusiasm as the one that got me in, I strode back out because I did not have an entry pass. Not that I am a stickler for rules and I would rather die than turn my back on a task, but then fleeing does seem like a reasonable option when a battalion of cops charge at you with their canes.

It is said that the Saturday of 21st saw the highest ever recorded turnout at the festival – credible sources confirm that there were over 17,000 people that Diggi was holding, and bursting with. In a couple of hours though, the security let us make fresh registrations and soon we were inside the imperial blue gates!

The venue looked every bit as colourful as the website. Pink, yellow and blue streamers hung near the entrance. The lawns were festive – discussion tents, book stalls, snack shops found their own spaces, and around them we were all littered. My feelings remained mixed, though. While a part of me rejoiced at this festive spirit, the other half balked at a large section of the population – in their Ray Bans and Guccis and Zaras and Louis Vittons, their smart phones never leaving their hands. I had seen them before – in the World Cup finals with their ‘guest passes’ and surely they were also there at Noida’s grand F1 event.

The sessions found full houses. There were discussions on tigers, the publishing industry, regional literature, music etc. In between, we flitted around the stalls, weaving our way through thousands of others weaving their way through us. And then she came.

You know that thing about time standing still? And the world being a blur? As she came towards me, one pretty step at a time, as she moved past me, one delectable step at a time, the skies changed their complexion from an evil grey to a romantic bright sky blue. The sun, it came out from behind the clouds, as golden and radiant as golden and radiant can be. And my heart, it sang just like Shahrukh Khan’s did when he first spotted Shanti (Deepika Padukone) in Om Shanti Om.

“That’s Fatima Bhutto” someone screamed from the back. And I wanted to smack them, could they not see that the hero was trying to sing a song and woo his girl! I turned back to look at the lissome thing, and she looked as if she was in search of her hero too. Actually, she was deep in discussion with the Rajasthan royalty, but let lovers believe in what they must.

As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Quick, a plan must be formulated. But right then she turned and passed me again and that familiar Om Shanti Om song started welling up in my bosom – “Kitna kuchh kehna hai fir bhi hai dil mein sawaal kayi…” Faint in the background, I could see the familiar small figure of the renowned music and film director Vishal Bhardwaj as he signed some fans’ autographs and I wished he had a casio instead of a pen in his hand so that he could supplement my baritone with some lilting music. Frantically, I looked around for loose threads about her that my cuff links would get stuck to, the way Shahrukh’s had in Deepika’s but sadly neither were her clothes tattered nor did my jacket have any signs of cuffs. The divine thing left, unaware of the greatest love story that could have ever been.

The rest of the day passed by as days do. From time to time, I would break into a line from the song, startling audiences that were maintaining pin drop silences in the face of profound discussions amid eminent personalities. At other times, I would stare at the sky piercingly as if to obtain unobtainable answers from it but it ignored the stare as an elephant would a shriveled grape.

Deluded one-sided romances apart, the festival was beautiful in the entirety of the two days that I was there. Unlike the huge controversy and clamour about Rushdie, the government and the Indian state that the media and twitter so happily and enthusiastically built in the country, back then in Jaipur that weekend there was hardly anyone upset or perturbed or giving the issue so much importance. We all enjoyed what the organizers had given us – a festival, a tremendous package of some of the best authors in the world, and books.

If only the media (social? Not really) could pay attention to some of the finer things the festival stood for… Jaipur, next year I’ll be back again, boarding a train on a cold wintery Delhi night, hopefully not cursing this time.

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A short story on love

Disclaimer: Once upon a time the author wanted to be be a writer for cricinfo.com, the leading cricket website in the world. And fuelled by optimism, he sent them across his credentials. Below is the text of that orginal cover letter. Yes, just after this neat line made of a lot of neat dashes.

                                      

                                        --------------- beginning of cover letter ---------------

‘You can know more about a person in an hour’s play than a year of conversation’

Right from that handsome age of nine when he first watched Sachin and Co crumble at the World Cup ’92, Neeraj Narayanan knew that he was destined to pursue a career in cricket. His conviction received further strength when he won every single match in his home ground, rather the house car park, against his sister. Since his neighbourhood only had bullies who refused to let him bat or bowl, he would run home after school, and grumble as his mother insisted he eat lunch before donning the whites. 

 In his tiny white shorts he stood, bum jutting out like Roger Binny’s, bat in left hand. With his right hand, he would throw the ball onto the wall and before it could ricochet and reach him, he would grasp his bat swiftly with both hands, and drive the ball gracefully through covers, or two broken pots.

The intense and grueling work ethic saw him become captain of his colony and school, and when they appointed him leader of the set that represented the college team, he knew that there was a little spot in the Indian dressing room that was crying for his presence.

Our story of his heroics with bat, ball and ground fielding ends here.

Late 2005, he became a part of the Cognizant family, a clan that insisted on pleasing American clients by delivering software codes on time. But much as he tried, he never ran around the floor or screeched like a madman or pumped his fist on solving a difficult piece of code, the way he had when he was in his whites. Ecstasy no longer was part of his character. Expressiveness still held on belligerently though, and whenever India lost or Tendulkar touched a new realm of success, he wrote and sent it to all to his colleagues.
Exasperated by him, they directed him to the company blog and it was here he found respite. In 2007, they recognized his blogging efforts and transferred him to the ‘Branding and Corporate Communications’ team, just so that he stop writing eulogies on self, and do something similar for the organization.

Mica and MBA happened, and he wrote more. As member of the Sports Committee, he spent a lot of time thinking about the annual cricket tournament, campaigns for promotion, and writing articles on matches he lost, so much that when the yearbook came out, they only spoke of his deluded die hard love for sports , and a few tidbits on his writing. This, when he had expected long testimonials on his charm, dimple, brilliance and what not.

And when it all ended, he was staring at an office cabin that read ‘Communication Expert - the Government of Gujarat’. Gandhinagar, it has been rumoured is the capital of Gujarat but we don’t believe everything we hear, do we? It is in fact a country of old men and older women, a civilization that is set back in time, which has ancient written all over it. If Gandhinagar was Jambavan, the wise hundred and something year old monkey in the Mahabharat, Mohenjodaro and Harappa would be frisky two year old puppies, sprightly and full of beans.

 Since most sentences here began with ‘Under the dynamic leadership of CM Modi’, he observed that the only way that he would not forget the language was to write on other mediums. So he began writing his own book. Then when Sachin scored his fiftieth century, he mailed a piece to a friend. The clever fellow asked him to send it to Cricinfo, just so that he could avoid reading it himself. The article was then published by the website. Being of mediocre quality, he insisted on sending another article, this time on Rahul Dravid, and it was published too. Like someone said,

‘It is hard to write, but harder not to do so’.

Hi, my name is Neeraj Narayanan and I love writing almost as much as I love the wonderful sport. It would be my happy and fervent desire to be part of the Cricinfo team. I love the work that the team does, and believe that I have the potential to offer something both similar as well as distinct.  Do let me know if I could fit in somewhere.

Neeraj Narayanan

http://garam-samose.blogspot.com/

p.s Here are the links to my published articles on Cricinfo and two videos we made for the annual cricket tournament at Mica. Do remember when you are astounded by the absolute shoddiness of the video, that the vision was excellent, just that the actors (read: friends) and technology was pathetic. 

http://blogs.espncricinfo.com/inbox/archives/2010/12/what_tendulkar_denied_to_the_w.php

http://blogs.espncricinfo.com/inbox/archives/2011/01/an_unassuming_man_called_rahul.php 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9GXj8wRgek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHgKUQ-e7Go

History will be kind to me …. because I intend to write it.

------------------------- end of cover letter ---------------------------------

Conclusion: Well, in reply they did call him for an internship, during the course of which he met Rahul Dravid, even shook a trembling hand with him. But, as things go, not all organizations accept siblings in the same setup, a sensible thought as Nishi Narayanan and I  do love lifting up computers and throwing it at each other. (I do wonder what Mark Waugh would have ended up doing if the Australian Cricket Board had thought the same way.)
Anyway, Cricinfo continues to be the wonderful website it is, with its tremendous dedication to the game. And I, well I have moved onto the travel world, a worthy second fiddle. Writing about travel is nice, reading about it even more so.

Sachin and Rahul, however, will always hold a special place.

Delhi 6: Walking in Chandni Chowk

Opening a blurry eye, I saw a blurry book in the hands of a blurry mother.  Twenty plus score years of caring Shravan Kumar son-hood warned me that she was in her most enthusiastic avatar, and it would be wise if my sleepy self should just pretend to be in a coma. The act lasted, only till she poked that heavy William Dalrymple manuscript in my sides, making me splutter. If visualized, my reaction was just like Saurav Ganguly’s when the fast bowlers bowled one into his ribs – awkward and jumpy.

“Get up! I don’t want to reach late,” the molester whined.  I wanted to tell her that Chandni Chowk was not going to run away, it had been standing right where it was for the last two centuries, but I am a good son. Also, she looked a little like Goddess Durga with that trishul, I mean book, raised high in her hands.

Half an hour later, we were in Delhi’s swanky metro, she beaming at everyone from her seat in the ladies’ coach, and me glaring at the wall as one more man stepped on my feet. When we got down from the metro, the crowd helped us reach the exit faster with their helpful shoves and pushes.  In chaos, lies India’s comfort.

When we were out of the small alley that connected main Chandni Chowk to the station, we manned the long road like a sailor would the sea.  “Ballimaran?” a shopkeeper said when we precisely asked him the same. “Keep going straight and turn left at the third red light. You’ll see the jooti market immediately.”

And just like he said, the shoe market of Ballimaran was right there, at the third left. Tens of shops with their colourful jootis, sandals, slippers dazzled our senses. A paints company’s catalogue itself could not do a better job presenting shades and colours. But our quest was not footwear, it was Mirza Ghalib. Among other things.

The greatest Urdu poet the world has ever known, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib lived in his residence in Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk for the last nine years of his life. In the words of eminent litterateur Ralph Russell, “Had Ghalib written in English, he would have been the greatest poet of all times, amongst all languages.”  Arguable surely, but an indicator of how great the man was. Yet, how many people know he lived there. We might be living in the times of the internet, the times of social network, the times of communication at its best, we have been to Chandni Chowk so many times, and yet the house of one of the greatest poets lies unnoticed and unloved.

A modest museum, the house has a small bust of Ghalib, two of his preserved books, an old shatranj (chess) board and insensitively, an Airtel PCO.  The walls are decorated with his quotes, and one wall has a fantastic life-size painting of him smoking a hookah.

“One of my dreams has come true today,” mum declared when we came out of the house. I guess I now know where my filmy streak stems from. 

“Right, next we head for Saint Stephen’s Church,” she said referring to the notes she took from her Dalrymple.  I flagged down a cycle rickshaw, and as the man weaved us in and out of the crawling traffic, the sweat shone on his muscled legs. Yet, he sang, to the street perhaps, and whistled at his comrades as we covered one metre after another, and only then could I realize the breeze that touched my face.

Also known as Fatehpuri Church, the red edifice of St. Stephen’s Church was built in 1867 and is the only church in the city where service is conducted in Urdu.  It stands as a memorial to the British soldiers that died during the famous first mutiny for Indian independence. A diamond shaped signboard outside the building read “Number 29, Heritage Building”.

We then backtracked our way to Fatehpuri Mosque. On our way, we crossed Number 27 – “Dharamshala Rai Sahib Lala Laxmi Narayan”.  In the midst of all the shops, it is easy to miss these heritage buildings even with their signboards, and we weren’t surprised when the shopkeepers had no clue about them when we asked. I tried to photograph the dharamshala but the entangled low-hanging, teeming electric lines running across the street would not help my cause.

The mosque was, just as all mosques, emanating a sense of peace. It stood at one end of the Chandni Chowk street, directly opposite and rivalling the building at the other end - the Red Fort.  When we went inside, it was as if we had entered another world, another era. One that moved at its own pace, unhurried, unfettered. Men sat in circles, talking and smiling. A Maulvi read from his book in a small room full of cushions, the ceiling fan clucking noisily. I did not do much, except for clicking photographs, but a sense of rest swept through me as I came out. While looking back to take a parting photograph of the building, I saw the clock at the top. It had no second or minute hands on it. Fitting, I think, for time really stands still in these parts.

Six hours from when we had started out, we were back in the metro. I scanned through the photographs, at the jooti market, at Parathe Wali Gali where we had had our lunch, and the famous terrace in the Gadodia Spice Market from where you can see all of Chandni Chowk, the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid.

Through the crowd of men, I tried to look at mum, sitting in the nearby ladies compartment. Catching my eye, she waved out exuberantly. Twenty plus score years of caring Shravan Kumar son-hood warned me that she was in her most enthusiastic avatar, and it would be wise if my sleepy self should just pretend to be in a coma…


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An unassuming man called Rahul Dravid: Part Two

"Seven Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers in seven years. If only Dumbeldore had the foresight to pick Rahul Dravid as one in the first year, we might never have needed the help of Harry Potter."

                                    - NN (23rd July '11, after Dravid's 33rd century. Lords)

There will be a day when Samit Dravid grows up and tries to assimilate the magnitude of service his father has done to Indian cricket. For everywhere he goes, they will sit him down and tell him glowingly of the man's deeds once upon a time.  Of how Rahul ‘walked’ in his first test match when he was on 95; a gentleman, they will declare approvingly. Of how he donned the keeper gloves to accommodate Yuvi and Kaif in the team; a team man, they will declare strongly. And young Samit will look on, bored but silent, for a well mannered boy does not start telling people that he has heard the stories a million times already. He is Rahul Dravid’s son after all, manners are in his genes.


“Rahul Dravid gotay suna pilla” my (Oriya) grandmum tells me as she concentrates on her sewing, when I ask her what she thinks of his retirement. (transation: RD is a good boy)

Every time Samit walks into a cricket game, be it on the street or at a ground, there will be boys looking at him and passing judgment. Whenever he leans on his back foot and uses his wrists to hit a ball through point, they will, on heading back to their homes inform one and all, with that wise tone in their voice, that there really is a bit of Rahul in Samit. Truer words would never be spoken, if only their context was not so blurred. There should be a bit of Rahul in Samit just as there must be a bit of a father in every son. For Samit’s sake, we hope there is a lot of Rahul in him, even if none of it may be in a cricketing sense.

As Samit grows up, there will be girls in his school who will find him cute, and he’ll find ready invitations to their homes. Their fathers will pat his back with a roar and inform him how they always preferred test cricket over the shorter version. Their mothers will laugh and tell him how they always found  Dravid “ the most handsome cricketer”.“Almost as much as Brett Lee”, they may confess as an afterthought.
  

There might be a few things Samit might never know though. That there were hundreds of boys who threw their cricket balls into long socks, cut a hole in the latter and then strung it up from a height only so that they could practice their strokes just because Rahul did so in a Pepsi ad.  While there maybe hundreds of awards on his father’s mantelpiece, he will never know that near a small river in Vaikom, Kerala, there’s a rundown shack selling fish and rice, and the only colour in its brown walls is of a cutting of Dravid’s picture. It’s not a tenth as glossy or pretty as the awards he is looking at, but then ask the man who owns it if it is precious, or beautiful.

He will never know that one day in 2003 (two years before he was even born) there were thirty of us  not attending our college exam, sitting cramped in a small hostel room watching the proceedings at Adelaide. And when Dravid hit that square cut that gave us our first win in Australia in years, with him there were thirty of us who were raising our fists at the television and telling the world what India really thought of it.

We, who grew up in the nineties, feel proud that we grew up then, because it was the decade that brought to our country the internet, cable tv, economic liberalization and three young men called Sachin, Saurav and Rahul.

Tomorrow, when Dravid retires, an entire media and ‘social’ nation will talk about it. While pride will be at the centre of Samit’s young heart, a part of him will be puzzled as to why now, just like every time the man scored a century, the effusiveness of the media and his supporters came out in the form of a Shakesperean tragedy. Romantic, but sad. Of how Dravid had always delivered, but was never feted. Of how the man who had scored the second highest runs in test cricket was never glorified as the man who had scored the second highest runs in test cricket.

But Samit should not pay heed to it for he should know that everyone who ever loved cricket, or truly understood the game has loved Rahul Dravid. Not only because he scored so many runs for us, not because he was a middle class boy who rose to stardom, but because when he did all those things, he did them with grace and honesty. Samit should not pay heed to it,  for it is the job of communication to assign characters and plots and images to a story. And Dravid’s role, in the overall scheme of things come to think of it, was probably to forever be remembered as the finest gentleman of Indian cricket. We all love Sourav for taking off his jersey on the Lords balcony, it would be nice to respect Rahul Dravid for stopping others from following suit.

Like my grandmother said, “Rahul Dravid gotay sunna pilla”.

P.S: If you want to read part one of the story, you can read it on Cricinfo here or scroll through the blog archives. I am too lazy to search and link it. Also, I want to go practice my cover drive.

Bovine Tales and Espana '12

- dedicated to the Belgian genius of the makers of Asterix - Rene Goscinny & Albert Uderzo

The backdrop of the below conversation hovers around the author and his comrades’ steep desire to take part in Pamplona Encierro ’12. You have no idea what that is, of course. If only you could appreciate Spanish culture beyond its women..

The Encierro is Spain’s famous annual bull run, a practice that involves running in front of a rampaging set of bulls (el torro) let loose on a makeshift course in the streets of Pamplona. The most popular event of the Sanfermin festival, it, well, runs, from July 6-14 and is a perfect example of how nutty testosterone really is.

This post is about a telephone conversation.

And it began, like all telephone conversations do, with a tring.

“Yawn”

“Yawn?”

“Heh sorry, what’s up bey?”

“Right. For a second, I was quite worried that I was spending so much time in office that I had missed out on a paradigm shift in opening greetings of telephonic communication.”

“Come to think of it, the yawn should have come out right now, right after that infinitely long sentence you just uttered.”

“If only foresight was part of your repertoire. Fat, of course is. Are we going anywhere in December?”

“What’s the other fella saying?”

“Get your passport, bey! I have a feeling you’ll ditch us on the Pamplona Bull Run plan”

“Tch tch, such distrust. I am a man of impeccable honour.”

“Practice running faster every morning, or on that fateful day the bulls will have an impeccable meal of honour.”

“I am beef-ing up for July, just so you may know.”

“Aaah so that the bovines cow-er away from you?”

“I have always believed in taking a bull by its horns”

“What bullshit.”

“While all of you will be scurrying away like mice, I will stand my ground, even stare the beast in its eye. And before it can recover itself,  I shall bull-doze into it and give it a thumping it never forgets.”

“Do not yelp for help when the ox is chewing on your box, or your cowf, aaar calf sorry.”

“I see you haven’t seen my enraged self. In such phases, I am more like a, lets say, a bull-in-a-china-shop.”

“You do sound like a bully, when you put on that fake deep accent. ”

“It is your co(w)etous desire to possess my baritone, I see.”


"This is exactly like those conversations in Asterix. Goscinny and Uderzo would be proud of us."

"Udder-zo, you mean"

“Mooing on, what’s up bey?”

------

The various flavours of coffee

“Remember that Dove-Yahoo contest, the one about Real Beauty? I think I might just write something on that.”


“Waxing eloquent on a little brook, a baby girl, a profound poem, eh? How alpha male."

“Yes, get me a pink javelin for my next birthday.”

“But seriously. Hardly your genre. What inspires this tectonic shift in writing?”

“One should always venture to expand his realms. Alexander wouldn’t be he, if he had stuck to Greece. Also, I am a very deep and profound person and often think about things like real booty erm beauty, duty, even annuity.”

“I should have known, there is a big prize.”

“You think that money could corrupt a purist like me? Good going, Sherlock. Coffee?”

“You know, it is difficult to give it a specific definition. Beauty can mean a lot of things.”

“Or maybe we don’t have to build a cage. Words can be beautiful too. All one needs to know is how to weave them into an essence.”

“When I was a little girl, I thought Steffi Graf was the most beautiful woman in the world. And Salman was so handsome. I wanted them to get married to each other. Ha, back then I knew beauty only in its skin.”

“While I gazed admiringly at Pamela Anderson running on that California beach. What a woman.”

“Eww. You men are such idiots. Absolutely no class.”

“She was saving people from drowning. What a heroic woman. I’d give her a Bharat Ratna if I could”

“If Miss Anderson is going to be the essence of your essay, may God bless you. But it is a very ‘Miss World’ question, what true beauty means to you.You expect a person to immediately start looking serious, have that optimistic gleam in their eye before they set forth declaring how true beauty is not skin deep, and how it encompasses grace and sensitivity, strength and compassion in equal measures. Inner beauty, is of course, far greater than external beauty. And they are right, no doubt. But isn’t that being too cliched? Surely, one expects more."


"Yes, let convention be damned. Remember when India won the cricket world cup. In the immediate moments after Dhoni’s six, a team ran beserk around a field, with Tendulkar in the lead. In those few moments, as the screen displayed ‘World Champions’, as I looked around, a thousand others laughed, cried, screamed, sang, prayed, waved their flags and pumped their fists in glorious ecstasy around me at the Wankhede. In Sachin's smile, in his team mates’ gay abandon, in the words on the screen and in the people around me, there was a beauty, surreal like I quite hadn't seen before."

"I bet you were weeping buckets. But I think I know what you mean by surreal. This goes back to 2001. It was a dark night"

"Stormy too?"

"Shh. Pass the coffee. It was around 4 am, and I was walking on a narrow rail track with a bunch of friends, in the Western Ghats, in the middle of nowhere. Minutes earlier, we had alighted at Castlerock station, having planned to trek the twenty odd kilometers to Doodhsagar waterfalls by foot. As we plodded along, my friend grabbed my jacket to show me a shooting star. I missed it, but a moment later, I saw one on my right. Within seconds, the whole sky was ablaze with shooting stars. Not in tens, but in hundreds. So stunned were we, that even after the spectacle ended, we remained transfixed for a few minutes. It takes some doing to silence a group of college kids, but we were absolutely numbed by the sight. The next day the newspapers reported that there had been a meteor shower the previous night. The clear skies of the Ghats had held my hand and knocked on the gates of beauty.I had never seen such scenes before.

"I wonder if it were the Ghats, and not the Planetarium."

"More interestingly, neither story had any mention of love."

"Criminal. A conversation is hardly one, if it does not have an element of love in it, no?"

"Touche!"

"Sometime, somewhere I did fall in love. And when I did, I was overwhelmed by it. In it, in her, I found myself. There's no feeling as beautiful as that.

You see, the point is true beauty cannot be captured in one definition. But yes, true beauty is a feeling or sensation that triggers a sense of joy, or wonder or admiration in the soul it seduces. It can be fleeting, or permanent, but while it lasts it causes a positive change in the workings of your heart."

“Hmm, look at those young girls. I wish I was sixteen too, not a care in the world.”

“At the risk of quoting Miss Jane Austen, it sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-six than she was ten years before."

“Talking about me?”

“Again, coffee?”

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This article is a part of the indiblogger and Yahoo! India - Dove contest "What does Real Beauty Mean to you?"

This is where you should vote if you like me enough, right here . Non indiblogger users can click on the fb app. here. Cheers!





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Little Boys, Big Boys

There is a nine year old boy who stays in the house opposite the Narayanan family’s. It is his grand parents’, so usually it is only in the summer vacations that we find this diminutive little being in our midst. The rest of the time he is at school in Chennai.

Like most other men and women his age, he is fascinated by Hector, so every evening he comes in his little feet to our house. Hector himself has no affection for anything that is below puberty years, or below five feet (Mum at five feet one just about passed his acceptance standard). So whenever these little children come to him with shining eyes, he pouts as if he were a pretty princess and gracefully sashays down the length of the hall and burrows under the sofa muttering under his breath,

‘ When a dog goes under a sofa and leaves only his butt in view,
you should really know what he thinks of you.’

Shantanu, however, does arouse some enthusiasm in my mother. It is a welcome change in a day largely indulged in looking after man, dog, kitchen and garden. In his arrival, also approaches the entertainer in Rekha Narayanan, and both potter about the kitchen discussing the latest trends and fashions in the life of a nine year old. I suspect that Rekha has been secretly going online and reading up on Rebecca Black while I am asleep.

Kids these days are very different from how we were. This little four foot something imp has a facebook account, loves basketball and attends cooking classes after school. Whatever happened to only being good at cricket and nothing else! Facebook at nine? Whatever happened to staying in parks long after a hard day’s game and discussing which girl ended up as your ‘love’ in that delightful invention called ‘FLAMES’. A boy attending cooking classes, and knowing the difference between asafedita and baby corn? Yeah yeah, call me sexist, look down upon me, cheer for the new metrosexual India, but in your hearts you all know it is the die-hard cricketer who can’t cook anything except Maggi you all lust for.

We do have our similarities. Shantanu hates girls and swears that he will never have anything to do ‘with that lot’. At that age, I felt much the same way. Just like R K Narayanan's, neither did my 'Malgudi Days' have any trace of err maals. We didn’t see quite the point of why God would invent such a gender. Back then, Gaurav and I swore to stay ‘brahmachari’ all our lives. Dear lord.

Every time the poor lad comes to our house, he peers at me through his big glasses as I challenge him for mock fights. I let him beat me at arm wrestling but if he makes fun of me, he is made aware that he is nano seconds away from being stripped off his tee, or worse shorts. If he checks his facebook, I tease him about every girl in his list, and he screams so loud that Hector wishes it was his bones that he was gnawing at. When he sits behind me on the bike and holds my waist tightly because he is scared, I thank him for being such a physically affectionate girl friend, and the “put me down, PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW” is lost in the buzz of the engine. I think we like each other.

At regular intervals, Shantanu asks my mother, “why is your son like that?” You see Shantanu, I grew up in a house full of girls – sister, cousins, whatnot. They are brilliant, but my timidity only deserted me properly when I reached a Belgaum Engineering Boys Hostel. So when I do see a young boy anywhere in my breathing space, I find a brother whom I can bully, amuse or tease. To maybe build, inspire and make a man.

- NN


p.s Back in those brahmachari days, the sadistic souls that my parents were, they would keep teasing me that they’d marry me off to the girl who lived next door to us. So one day, shoving my 4th Standard Science book under my armpits, I marched solemnly up to my mother and leafed over to page 48. A red and blue picture of the male anatomy stared back at us.

“I’m going to cut mine off. Then I can’t have babies or get married”, I spluttered pointing an indignant ring finger at the pinkish looking reproductive system. Mother collapsed on the floor laughing, but I felt like a proud martyr then. Just think..what commitment, even at that age. Err thankfully nothing was ‘cut’ then or ever, and soon with the first signs of puberty and the airing of Baywatch, all earlier brahmachari pacts were forgotten.

For crying out aloud, what is wrong with our school science books? Those look less like a pair of kidneys and more like a potato farm. and why have you named that fried egg your gall bladder?#$#$@@$#@ If you show your reproductive organs in such an unreal form, how will any innocent boy ever understand what he was really going to sever off? Pah!

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