Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Manav Kaul: More plays, mixed reactions (Part 2)



‘Ilhaam’ had not made much of an impression on me. As a result, I ended up giving the next play ‘Shakkar ke paanch daane’ a miss, an error I deeply regret now that I have read the play, but I’ll come to that later.

Right after we returned to Delhi from shooting the film that we are working on together, there was a festival of Manav’s plays at Mandi House. By this time I knew him reasonably well, or enough at least to know that he is very talented with a sharp, quick thinking, improvisational mind, and a spontaneous and infectious energy. And further, he is a team player who gives people their space. This I knew of the person, but towards his work I had had a mixed reaction, having seen only Hansa and Ilhaam.
I made it a point then, to see all three plays that were being staged, including Ilhaam, which was to be the first. Even after the second viewing, my opinion about the play stays largely unchanged. I still have the same problems with it. Perhaps I am unable to see things his way, perhaps he is content with his interpretation… in any case, in my opinion the play lacks insight, and is heavy with a bias and an interpretation that is almost Western in nature.

The second play ‘Park’ was something else altogether. It was hilariously funny, with an underlying theme so simple and so profound- it was superb. The design was simple- it’s centered around three people and three benches in a park and happens almost in real time. The beauty is in (the nature and content of) the interactions between the three people, borne out of their individual quirks. The idea of occupying and claiming space was lovely in itself, and it seemed a bit of a stretch to bring in the Israel- Palestinian conflict, Kashmir and the adivasi- Maoist struggle, especially since all of these are complex issues with fairly complicated histories. I found it surprising that Manav should slip up in this regard considering that he is half Kashmiri. I don’t know enough about Israel- Palestine, but to equate adivasis to Maoists would be offensive to anyone familiar with the region. Having said that, the references were clearly made in good faith, and the audience responded to it in the same spirit.
As the characters’ back stories are revealed, the play enters a different and unexpected zone- it becomes an insightful comment on some of the ills of our education system, and our way of bringing up children. Manav seems to be a keen observer- of people, and trends and events and such- as a good writer ought to be, and this shows in his detailing, especially of characters. There is an everyday simplicity and earthiness to his characters that is refreshing. (This response might seem peculiar, but bear in mind that it comes from someone who is mostly unfamiliar with Hindi writing as well as theatre, having read none of Hindi literature, and seen very little theatre.)

The three actors were fantastic. Some credit for this may be due to the director as well; who seems to know a thing or two about handling actors, and pays great attention to performances, a trait that was on display earlier on, on our shoot too.

The third and last play that I saw was called ‘Laal Pencil’. This was essentially a children’s play; here’s the official synopsis: a young school girl is relishing her new found stardom amongst peers and teachers ever since she suddenly, mysteriously starts writing beautiful poetry. What no one knows is that it is not her, but a magic red pencil that she found in class that's writing the poetry. The constant struggle between truth and falsehood, desires and righteousness, love and hate, and the pain of keeping a secret, lead upto the girl's final decision. Will she or won't she? Based on a Korean novel, 'laal pencil' is a poignant tale of a girl with a secret.

The plot of the play is simple enough, and does not stray far beyond what is stated in the synopsis. But it is highly stylised in its presentation, while also offering, in oblique ways, a critique of the way children are treated, both at home and in school. There were all kinds of tools employed- from costumes (the students wore only one shoe), to make up (the students were in mime style make up- with their faces painted white) to shadow play (Pinki’s parents fight behind a screen and her father, who has gone away, is never actually seen) to word play (the argument between Pinki’s parents is fantastic in it’s simplicity while getting the message across more effectively than would have been possible with normal dialogues) to more word play (the students almost never say anything intelligible- always repeating generic phrases, in a allusion to the rote learning that is prevalent in our schools) to symbolism (the pencil grows bigger as Pinki’s guilt increases, the students drag themselves across the stage to reach ‘the other shoe’) to multiple role play (at some points there are multiple actors playing the same character, Pinki) and so forth. There were several more, these are only the ones I remember offhand. Besides, I’m not a theatre person myself and my responses are such as can be expected of a lay audience.
This play certainly had a message, and even employed Mahatma Gandhi in order to get it across, or perhaps to legitimise it. This is just as well, for Truth in itself does not seem to command the respect and high regard that it should in society, and is usually propped up/ legitimised / appropriated by invoking religion and/ or the fires of hell or the next birth, as the case may be. To invoke the Mahatma then, is to clearly state your secular credentials.
I seem to vaguely remember Manav saying that ‘Laal Pencil’ is not a play for children. In a way I see his point- the message in the play is as relevant for and applicable to, an adult. Besides we as a society would do well to return to all those moral science lessons we read in school, for we don’t seem to be doing a very good job of applying any to our lives. Besides, there is much in the play that demonstrates both an understanding and a critique of our schools, teachers and parents, and to that extent I suppose it is certainly one that adults ought to see. But it is very clearly also a play that would appeal to older children, who might recognise some of their angst, depicted on stage.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Manav Kaul: First Impressions (Part 1)


A little over a month and- one film seen, one shot, three plays seen, one read, and several poems and blog posts read- it’s been a Manav Kaul overdose.
(Links: Manav's plays, poems and other writings.)

I had not heard of Manav when I went to see his film- as part of the Osian’s Film Festival in Delhi, and on a friend’s recommendation- it’s called Hansa and it’s one of the loveliest children’s films I have seen. It has a simple story, just like the people that it portrays- hill people, with their simple lives and simple joys and sorrows (and I don’t mean that in a condescending way, far from it!) It is full of heartwarming little details and characters that are quirky yet believable, with their own little idiosyncrasies. More than anything else, it’s a film that treats children as young adults, with respect for their intelligence and sensitivity, and without mollycoddling or shielding them from the realities of life. There is stuff in the film that parents may find hard to explain to their children, but it is in no way stuff that they should shy away from. It is also a film with some wonderful performances, especially by the younger actors. It is a little crude, rough- at- the- edges so to say in its craft, but I am more than willing to overlook that not just because it is Manav’s first film but also because there is so much in the film that is beautiful and does work!
(Unsurprisingly it won awards at Osian's. Read about it here.)

I returned to Bombay determined to see Manav’s plays, two of which were scheduled to be staged at Prithvi soon after my return. He is primarily a theatre person and I was excited about seeing his plays after seeing such a promising film debut. So I promptly went for ‘Ilhaam’, the first of the two plays, the first day that it was staged.

‘Ilhaam’ is a story about a family man who attains enlightenment and what happens thereafter- how he and his family cope with it. Here’s the official synopsis: ‘Bhagwan is the epitome of the mundane – a middle-aged banker, married, with two grown up college-going children. However, one day, while sitting on a decrepit park bench he stumbles upon ‘enlightenment’. Therein begins the battle between the world outside and his world inside’.
Let me state at the outset that I had a problem with ‘Ilhaam’ from the word go, with it’s very premise. The play basically seeks to engage with Bhagwan’s struggles post enlightenment, without actually concerning itself with what the process of reaching this enlightenment may have been. There are clues along the way that seem to suggest, as does the synopsis, that Bhagwan literally ‘stumbles upon’ enlightenment, an idea that is as fantastic as it seems preposterous, though in all fairness there are also clues that suggest Bhagwan always had a disposition that made him a suitable candidate, including a history of talking to birds, running away from home as a child and being untraceable for a year, and time spent in an asylum. And yet there is little to suggest that it was a conscious process, nor is the process or enlightenment itself accompanied by a better understanding of the world, a fact that seems blaringly contradictory to the idea of ‘enlightenment’, whatever it may be (since we can only conjecture.)
Manav seems to have limited his own canvas by resorting to clichés- in his journey towards enlightenment and thereafter, Bhagwan sits in a decrepit park bench for hours on end, watching children who don’t exist, at play. He talks to birds and can converse with a mute beggar. He dances without music (a graceless dance with staccato movements… because Nature is so graceless?!) All the while that he finds himself closer to Nature, he also finds himself further away from his family and friends, at one point reaching a stage where they become totally unintelligible to him. For some inexplicable reason, his ‘enlightenment’ is not accompanied by sensitivity towards his own family nor understanding for their concern. I find this conceptualisation puzzling- I can understand the difficulty in portraying a sense of detachment- and therein lies the challenge. But should this detachment have been devoid of love and compassion and a deeper understanding of the ways of the Universe? Did Bhagwan really need to be so perplexed by all that was going on around him? If the intention was to portray Bhagwan’s internal struggle, would that not have been better served had Bhagwan been a little more aware? He might still have found himself to be equally helpless, but would have been more believable as someone who did indeed attain some kind of enlightenment.
The play is peppered with philosophical questions, (and references many authors) which are not just perfectly legitimate, they are of a high intellectual caliber, something that one can expect of someone as well read as Manav. But then it seems to be precisely that- an intellectual response to a concept that can perhaps only be understood or believed in if one has faith. In my limited experience, I have come to recognise and accept the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Manav seems to be coming from a place of intelligence and attempting to tackle questions of wisdom...
Having said that, I did find his take very interesting. According to Manav, enlightenment is a reversible process, ‘curable’ by the force of will and medicine. Such is the fate of his Bhagwan, who goes through psychological treatment- willingly it would seem- for he makes a choice to return to family life over staying enlightened, which seem, according to him, to be mutually exclusive states of being. This is a choice he makes in a conversation with his ‘Chacha’ (who the Chacha turns out to be is a delightful surprise in an inspired piece of writing)- a conversation that is the high point of the play, and one which encapsulates its essence.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Ud jayega hans akela



If ever I have known nostalgia, now is it.
And if it could be embodied in a single tangible thing, it would have to be this song.



For a little less than a month a group of people came together, strangers most of them, to shoot a film. What followed was a joyride. For those 20 odd days, as we all woke up at unearthly hours and dragged ourselves out of bed and over the mountain paths to the locations- we were close, so close- we were friends, buddies, partners in crime, companions on a journey, contributors, nay collaborators in a common creative effort.
On those walks and drives to location, we often had music playing on the cab music system or someone’s cellphone. On the longer drives, Sayani and Sahil would often hum or sing little snippets of old Hindi film songs.
But the one that stuck in my head is this one that played off Manav’s cellphone on the long drive to Devaria tal, and then again on the walk up to the hut when the two of us went to shoot some time lapses and plates.
The shoot came to an end, as it had to. And people began to leave one by one. And I felt a sadness I had never felt before… 
And these lines, quoted from the song, could not be more appropriate.

Jaise paat gire taruvar ke
Milna bahut duhela
Na jaanu kidhar kirega
Lagya pawan ka rela

As the Leaf Falls from the Tree
Is Difficult to Find
Who Knows Where it Will Fall
Once it is Struck with a Gust Of Wind

I wish them well, everyone who was with us on this beautiful journey, whether or not our paths ever cross again.

:')

Thursday, September 6, 2012

The building next door

I’d noticed the name before
on the building next door
though only in passing.
Do you pause anymore
when you come across a building
named after a popular icon?
Neither do I.
And this one was inside Police Officers’ Colony!
And so it came to be
that here I’ve been living
without a clue.
Until last week when I visited someone who lives in it.
At the entrance
I found a bust
bearing his name!
So I asked.
Oh yes, said she.
This plot of land belonged to him,
as did the building.
When he died,
his family distributed the apartments
among his crew.
This one belonged to his still photographer.

There it was then.
He died before the building was even finished,
and he certainly never lived in it.
But if he owned it, surely he must have come here,
walked the same earth?
That thought was enough to fill my heart
with a child like glee!
I glided home,
imagining that time in the long lost past
when Guru Dutt may have walked the same path.

Monday, September 3, 2012

When ignorance is other than bliss



A few days back at the Andheri Sports Club, as I sat outside the squash court changing shoes, I happened to overhear a conversation that this girl in the next chair was having with someone on the phone. She was explaining that she hadn’t known about the sms ban, and had been repeatedly trying to send a sms and failing, until someone informed her that she could send all of 5 messages in the course of a day. It’s because of Assam, she said. She didn’t know exactly what, but something had happened in Assam, she explained, because of which the government had imposed the ban.
The next day I attended the book launch of Sudeep Chakravorty’s ‘Highway 39’. In the question answer session that followed after the introduction and reading, someone asked Sudeep a question about the Khasi tribes, and the Naga situation. Sudeep and other panelists were quick to shake their heads, and he began his response with the correction that Khasis belonged to Meghalaya, not Nagaland. Never make this mistake with someone from the Khasi tribe, or for that matter from Nagaland, he said.
There is nothing new or novel about either incident. If at all it points to how similar the two people were- both were from middle class Mumbai, one was apparently very ignorant, to not have heard of Assam in spite of it being constantly in the news, and the other was apparently not just well informed, but well read enough to know about the book launch and interested enough to land up for it, and yet didn’t know a very basic fact about the NE- different levels perhaps, but ignorance just the same.
I have often heard this refrain- that we know next to nothing about the NE, that we don’t take enough interest, that we distance them by this attitude of 'us and them'- and all of it is true. Sudeep started his introduction by saying that the seven sisters comprising the NE and its people are so dissimilar, that it’s almost unfair to club them together under the umbrella of the ‘North East’. (According to him they should be called the Far East to begin with, they are not really the North; though I have a feeling that the term probably got coined as a result of the North- South divide, which is very strong in India. The seven sisters are in the North *relative* to the South.) At this argument I found myself thinking, but the South is made of different peoples with different cultures, but we do club them together and say South India. Heck, India itself is such a mix of people, but we all live under the umbrella of being Indian, don’t we. While I see the point he tried to make, it held only so much significance for me.
Coming back to the general level of ignorance about the NE, thing is, from all I can tell, people seem to be ignorant in general, and not just about the NE as a special case scenario. Yes, they know less about it than about other things, and to that extent there is a certain kind of isolation. But they probably also know less about any number of other things that they should know more about- even stuff that concerns them directly- such as the amount of pesticide in their food for instance, or how many local train accidents happen daily in Mumbai. I’m not trying to make a case for ignorance. I’m saying ignorance is non discriminatory. People are too caught up in their own lives and troubles, or maybe it is that they can process only so much information, and their own surroundings fill up that capacity, but also, we have all been deliberately and considerably dumbed down by our schooling system on the one hand and the media on the other, and a culture of curiosity and of questioning has not been allowed to develop. This indifference then extends towards everyone- towards the farmers in Vidarbha, towards Kashmiris, towards tribals fighting for their lands, towards rural populations fighting for their right to traditional livelihoods- the list is a long one, and yes it includes the NE. And wherever the situation is complicated, such as is in the NE, it becomes even easier to ignore- it just takes way too much effort to engage!
Seen in this light, the reaction of the girl on the phone and the man in the audience questioning Sudeep, are completely understandable, are they not? Maybe not entirely acceptable, but at least understandable? Can we really demand that people (presumably more privileged by virtue of being from the mainland) know about the problems of communities in the NE, when they are struggling with enough of their own? Conversely, do we apply the same standards to them? At the risk of inviting much wrath, could I question the NE-ers- their stand on the Koodankulam anti nuclear movement, or Kasab’s sentence, or just about any other issue from the 'mainland'. This is not to take away from their struggles and grievances in the least. All that I am saying is that it is unrealistic, and an impossible dream to expect everyone to be both informed and hold an opinion about everything (this statement even sounds ridiculous, but hopefully the point I’m trying to make comes through.) In any case, for a number of reasons- the very diverse and complicated histories of the many communities of the Indian state being the foremost- it is unrealistic to imagine that the common man, from the NE or mainlander, from the North or the South, the Kashmiri or the 'Indian', can possibly be aware of issues that seem of burning nature to communities that suffer them. We can hope that there are enough in each case- aware and willing to question and demand justice- to form a critical mass, so that issues don’t get overlooked. And that responsibility does lie more with those who are privileged to have had say an education, or are otherwise empowered, maybe by their wisdom, traditional or otherwise. It does lie more with those who are in positions of power, or in positions of being able to drive change.

Perhaps just about the only thing we can hope we can be, perhaps the only thing to be done, is to be tolerant. To view the world through the filters of love and compassion, and perhaps much of the dividing lines will dissolve away. And the question of us being different from them won’t lead to a display of power, to control and persecution, leading in turn to retaliation as a consequence. And that perhaps, is the only thing we can and should teach our children as well- to see the beauty in diversity, and to respect and accept differences. If we could succeed in doing that, then we would raise a generation that would view everyone- whether they be from another state or another country- with kindness and compassion. And then being ignorant would not be such a serious malady.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Book Spine Poetry

Inspired by brainpickings, which was in turn inspired by artist Nina Katchadourian.


Being Indian-
behind the beautiful forevers,
everybody loves a good drought

Being Indian- Pavan K Varma
Behind the Beautiful Forevers- Katherine Boo
Everybody loves a good drought- P Sainath





India after Gandhi-
poor souls!
the inheritance of loss,
multitude,
identity and violence-
a fine balance!

India after Gandhi- Ramachandra Guha
Poor Souls- Joseph Connolly
The Inheritance of Loss- Kiran Desai
Multitude- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
Identity and Violence- Amartya Sen
A fine balance- Rohington Mistry




all these years,
the fear of freedom
the wonder that was India!

All these years- Raj Thapar
The fear of Freedom- Erich Fromm
The wonder that was India- Basham

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Of eavesdropping on conversations in cabs...



So I overheard this rather interesting conversation today.
It so happened that I landed up in a cab with a stranger in the front  passenger seat. Cabs were hard to come by today, and we were both headed in the same direction- the cab guy was gracious enough to suggest that I hop on as well, (for he had taken on the other guy first,) and the dark, lanky passenger nodded his agreement.
As soon as the cab started the lanky boy in the front seat started fiddling with the newspaper on the dashboard.
Ye aaj ka hai?
Nahin, kal ka. Aaj ka nahin hai mere paas.
Arre, aaj ka paper dekhne ka hai.
Kyun, kya hua.
Burma mein logon ko kaat rele hain.
(Incredulous) Acchha?
Haan, bahut logon ko. Bacchon ko bhi nahin chhod rahe. Ek mahine ke bacche ka sar kaat dala. Usi ke liye log jama hai Azad Maidan pe.
Acchha? Kyun maar rahen hain.
Kya maloom, bahut kuchh to gadbad kiya rahega.
Ye Burma kidhar hai?
Nepal ke baju mein.
Acchha. matlab India mein hai?
Nahin. India mein nahin hai. India mein Assam mein maar rele hain. Kaat ke phhenk rele hai.
Acchha? TV pe dikha rahen hain ye sab.
Nahin, TV pe kahan. Sab daba dete hain aisi khabar ko. Kahin nahin milegi, na TV pe, na paper mein.

Cabdriver gets a phone call- his mom has called to apprise him of the trouble at Azad Maidan, and to ask him not to go there. He speaks to her, hangs up and relates the news to us.

At this point, my destination is near. Much as I would have liked to hear more of this conversation between the very interesting passenger and the simple, rather ignorant and easily believing cab driver, I had to ask the cab to slow down. The lanky guy shuffled around as I paid up, he got out of the cab and left without offering to share the fare.  As I entered the building, I realized he was there in the foyer, not ignoring me but not acknowledging either. We entered the lift together, and got off at the 10th floor. On the way I stole a couple of glances at him- there is something oddly familiar about him. He waits for me to get out first. Chivalry, I thought, or has he just decided to let me lead the way since I obviously know where I’m headed.
I was late, and even though I was curious to at least ask his name, or check if he has come for the screening, (in which case I would have asked him to come with me,) I just rush through to the theatre. A minute after I find myself a seat, I see him walk past and sit a few rows ahead. The first film has ended and the second one begins.
And there he is, on the screen. Videokaaran.



Saturday, August 11, 2012

Baromas



'Have you seen Harud? Its the best film on Kashmir yet, absolutely brilliant. Has convinced me, if there was any doubt, that fiction is the way to go.'
A couple of years ago a friend of mine who had made a documentary on the women of Kashmir, sent me this message. I mostly agree, though I also feel that we live in a fool's paradise when we imagine that the films we choose to be associated with make any difference at all. And yet, we go on believing.

Here’s another film then, very different in style from Harud, and yet equally relevant. I hope it does for farmers what Harud could or could not do for Kashmir.


Baromas
(from its facebook description)
Baromas is a feature film in Hindi based on the Sahitya Academy award winning Marathi Novel. The movie is produced by Sajith and Priyanka. The director is Dhiraj Meshram.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Update- and I still mostly don't look forward to the rains


And as if to prove my point, a day after I posted the last piece, I had another conversation with my maid Vibha.
So she took a day off because her child was unwell, and then turned up late the next day. When I enquired why, she said they were preparing for the rain, keeping stuff up at a height. So late, I asked with surprise, you should have done that in the very first week of June, Bambai ki baarish ka kya bharosa. Yes, she said, but we had heard that there might be demolitions, so we were waiting for that. But then there were the pre monsoon showers the previous day, and so much stuff got wet, that they went ahead and prepared for the monsoon anyway. What does this preparation entail- a brand new tarpaulin roof. They had a roof of course, but it was an old weathered sheet, enough to shield from the summer sun but not enough to bear the brunt of the fury that the monsoon rain in Bombay can be.
Anyway, whether or not demolitions follow, they have had to put up a new sheet to keep out the water. How often do demolitions happen, I ask. About three or four times a year, she says. I am incredulous. You rebuild every single time then, three or four times a year? Yes, she says simply. We rebuild. It takes them two to four hours to rebuild and get everything in order, provided they don’t lose much to theft.
Rebuilding a house, twice a year (she admitted later that there isn’t always demolition every time there is a threat of one, so it actually really happens about twice a year.) A house that will be defenseless once the monsoon hits with full force, and the streets begin to overflow with water that simply doesn’t have anywhere to go because we’ve built multistory buildings and blocked its natural drainage path. Upar se aane wale paani ko to rok bhi lete hain, she had said to me once, neeche se jo aata hai uska kya karen. (We are still able to prevent water from coming in from above, what do we do about the water that comes in from below- that collects in the streets and threatens to and sometimes does come in to the house through doors.)

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Why I’m not looking forward to the rains


Why indeed? I mean, who doesn’t like pleasant weather and the romance of rains after the oppressive heat that is Bombay summer? Well, me for one. I’m not looking forward to rains.
It’s not like I don’t like rain. It’s beautiful of course. From my window. The moment I have to step out, it doesn’t seem so great anymore. Bombay in the monsoon sucks. It’s filthy most of the year; during monsoon it’s filthy and wet- ie gross. If you are not from the privileged class that travels only in cars, chances are you will have to wade through dirty water at some point or another, every single time you step out. And even if you are from the privileged class, in fact especially so, you will get stuck in traffic.
And then there is the matter of all those people living on pavements and in slums, with no proper drainage to speak of. Do they find the rain romantic when the water reaches their doorstep and beyond? Do they find it romantic when their roof starts to leak, or when the streets become rivers of floating muck, and excreta from several living forms? Do they find it romantic when they spend nights huddled under plastic sheets?
I’m not sure when I started to view the rain differently. I don’t want to be a spoilsport when everyone seems to be waiting with such anticipation, and there is joy all around. Maybe this conversation is partly to blame. At any rate, I can safely say, as lovely as the rain still is from my window, as stunning as the skies are these days, and luscious the green, I will henceforth always have mixed feelings about rain.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A day in May


Scorching sun, oppressive heat; no sign of the slightest wind, not a leaf stirring.
Househunting blues.
An owner trying to impress on me that the rent is justified, after all it is a ‘good society’, a reference to a building being gated, relatively well maintained and with inhabitants who are typically a little better off. A hierarchy even in buildings. ‘A good society’ does not mean good people, it just means people with more money, I think to myself but don’t say it. When will the Mumbai housing Gods smile down on me?
Sweaty, hot and depressed, I come back home and stare out of the window at the limping palm leaves that I am going to miss very much.
Call from Faiza. There have been demolitions in Ambujwadi and Sion Koliwada.
My househunting blues are now coloured with a tinge of guilt.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

A healthy obsession... or maybe OCD?


I have what some might call a bit of an obsession. :)
I like to take informed decisions, but the process of ‘informing’ myself can sometimes be long. And I mean *long*, by most people’s standards.

The latest one concerned drinking water, and one would think that that alone should have been reason enough for a quick decision, but that would be underestimating my ability to procrastinate.
Anyway, to begin at the beginning: I moved into my current house at Yari Road about 6 months back. It’s a nice enough house, though the building is very old and not very well maintained, but that’s another story. Even when I had first moved in, the broker had informed me about the water situation- that the water in the tap is a mix of BMC (ie municipal supply) and borewell water, and therefore, I should procure drinking water from the couple of taps in H block that have continuous BMC water supply. For the first week, while I was still settling down, I got a 20l bottle of Bisleri while I tried to figure out what to do about drinking water. For those of you who are not from the country, let me tell you that the water that is supplied by our municipal corporations, though treated, is often not fit for drinking. There are all kinds of impurities and contamination to be found in the water, and while many of us seem to have developed a healthy immunity thanks to having grown up here, sometimes even we succumb to water borne diseases. And that is why there is a wide variety of water purifiers available in the market, all of which do brisk business.
Having said that, BMC water is actually not bad in most places. There is a friend of mine who scoffs at me and drinks water straight off the tap, but then he has the constitution of an ox. I have in fact had water at his place many times and survived it, but that simply wasn’t an option I was willing to consider as a permanent solution. Besides, much as I would love to trust our government agencies, it’s just not practical. So as I sipped on Bisleri that first week, I happened to visit a friend who lives in the same building. I was surprised to learn that she had no idea that the water in the tap wasn’t entirely BMC and had happily been using it, albeit with a storage water filter. I corrected her, and told her how all the residents, or most of them anyway, get their drinking water from H block in cans. That’s what all the big white cans lined up on the ground floor are for; they pay the guard a monthly fee to fill them up and leave them at their doorstep everyday. But she couldn’t be bothered, she declared, and neither could I, I decided.
And how about the purification? Well, as far as eliminating microorganisms is concerned, the surest, most effective way is boiling water and that’s what I decided to do, in lieu of getting a filter. Sure it’s tedious, and sometimes one plain forgets; the worst is when you plain forget after you’ve put the vessel on the burner, and an half hour later you smell something burning- you run into the kitchen to find a red hot steel vessel, disfigured for life! But you get used to it all after a while.

So what happened now, six months later? Well, lately I’ve noticed a layer of oil in the boiled water. Also there is a residue of salt in my plants, left behind by the evaporated water I assume. Both these trouble me needless to say, and when my maid mentioned to me (not for the first time,) that I should reconsider where I’m getting my drinking water from, and worse- that she never drinks water at my place because I use tap water, that really was the last straw!
I got myself another big bottle of Bisleri and got down to the task of researching to figure out a solution. Here are the findings of two days of off-and-on and half a day of concentrated researching and reading:
The kind of purifier you use depends on the quality of water in your area (but of course.)
In my case, since part of the water was ground water, it was likely to contain oil, solid contaminants, and dissolved salts. All of these are hard to remove, and only by a process called reverse osmosis. RO filters are some of the most expensive in the market and are not efficient- they waste 2 to 3 times as much water as they purify. These factors effectively ruled out a wall mounted water purifier connected to the tap.
This left the other solution- getting water from downstairs in a water can. I am not very comfortable with the idea of a plastic water can to get and store water, however temporarily. This is not to say that I have managed to eliminate plastic from my life- not by a long shot, but I am trying!
Even if one gets BMC water, there is the matter of purifying it, although this task is much easier since this water does not contain oils and dissolved salts and is already treated with both UV radiation and chlorine.
Therefore, even a simple storage type water filter should suffice (which typically uses activated carbon though companies nowadays have patended technologies, using two or more steps) though even in this case, boiling is best.
I have read reports of doctors saying that one should boil water even after filtering/ purifying using a purifier! By the way, the right way to purify water by boiling is to bring it to a rolling boil and let it boil for about a minute if you reside near sea level, and for 3 minutes at higher altitudes. It doesn’t even need to boil really, it just needs to attain a temperature of 72deg for about 5 minutes, but since this is harder to achieve practically, bringing to boil and letting it boil for 1 minute is recommended (although is there was a way around it, it would lead to substantial saving in fuel consumption.) Storage of this water needs some care so as to not contaminate it post boiling.
And while several top companies such as Eureka Forbes (the market leader in water purifiers), Tata and HUL, all have very affordable storage water filters in the market, do a basic search for reviews and you would realise almost none are hassle free, though HUL clearly scores better than the others. (I won’t get into the technologies they use, for while I am vaguely aware of them, I am none the wiser as to which is better.)
But, there is an environmental cost to boiling water- it uses LPG which is not a renewable resource.

So there it is then- that is my dilemma. Most people would just go for a filter I suppose and it is probably the wiser choice. It saves one the hassle of having to boil water and does a reasonably good job of purifying water of BMC quality. A filter like HUL’s Pure-it actually uses a two stage process where it eliminates solid articles by passing the water through thin semi pervious membranes, and chlorinates.
Heck, most people would have done that without the research and the waste of a couple of days! :)

I’ll just draw solace in thinking of myself as a little better informed- for whatever it’s worth.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Wislawa Szymborska

First a quick post to honour this wonderful poet I just discovered.
You see, I was never into poetry; or literature for that matter. I used to read voraciously as a child, but had no one to guide me in new directions so it was all fairly usual and popular stuff. All the authors I read were ones I discovered myself or those that close friends were reading. In hindsight, I feel that I missed out on a great many. This is not to say that my teachers didn’t try. I remember getting books as prizes year after year. When I look back now at the books that I was gifted, I can see perhaps a conscious effort on the parts of my teachers to acknowledge my reading preferences, and introduce me to new books, usually classics. I still have copies of ‘Twenty thousand leagues under the Sea’, which I never took to, and ‘Silas Marner’, that I read and enjoyed and many such, which were prizes for various academic achievements.
I never took to the classics, somehow. Shakespeare and Charles Dickens bored me, mostly (blasphemy, yes!) though I did fall in love with ‘A tale of two cities’, which was such a welcome change from the morose ‘David Copperfield’ or ‘Oliver Twist’; as for Shakespeare, all I can say in my defense is that I find plays hard to read. There was also the fact that I never read the originals because the language was just so tedious and hard to understand, and I suppose one does lose something of their beauty in translations, especially in translations for children. I hope to go back to such classical authors someday, and discover them anew.

My reading habits grew worse as I grew older, and speed declined, and how! I nearly gave up reading because it took so long that it almost seemed like a chore. This was a long and sad phase that is not yet over, though I am trying to get back to reading.

Which is not to say that I don’t spend long hours in front of my computer screen, reading all kinds of stuff- newspaper articles and blog posts mostly, but still. It’s just that I don’t have the attention span for long pieces, which of course books are. Which is why it surprises me somewhat that I didn’t take to poetry earlier, which does come in lovely short capsules, mostly.
Of course, I still can’t claim to like too much of classical poetry. I admire it for its technique and mastery, no doubt. I just don’t take to stuff that is too lateral in meaning, or makes me reach for a dictionary (or rather, open dictionary.com.)

There are advantages of course, to not having known of countless authors and poets- and that is the joy of discovering them. There is a thrill that I get from reading a good book or story or poem that is indescribable. Sometimes it makes me shiver with excitement; sometimes it makes me sigh with wonder at the sheer beauty of the words, expressed with such simplicity. Sometimes there is an urge to share the words, and they end up as facebook status messages and mails to friends. The last such book that I read was Milan Kundera’s ‘Life is Elsewhere’. And this post is to share a couple of poems of Wislawa Szymborska, a name that I can barely pronounce and a woman that I didn’t know existed until she passed away recently, leading to her being quoted by several of my friends, as a tribute. One line caught my attention and I’m glad it did, for it belonged to a beautiful piece. And the search led to several other beautiful pieces, from which I reproduce two here:

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

This one struck a chord! Yes, my apologies, many, many apologies, for all that I want to be, try to be, but fail more than I succeed;
apologies to all the people that I love, in the many ways that I love them, which sometimes goes unexpressed, or not expressed enough or is sometimes just not sufficient- for them or for me;
apologies to all the less fortunate, for it’s nothing but my good fortune that I have food to eat and a roof over my head, it could very easily have been otherwise; apologies for all the times that I have expensive dinners or wear expensive clothes, it’s not the divide I wish to highlight, sometimes I just indulge in my taste for good food and beauty;
apologies to all the persecuted, you don’t deserve it any more than I do; apologies for laughing and making merry while you have your house burned down, or run for life, or are tortured in prison, I do stand by you;
apologies to all of you fighting distant wars, or living in war like conditions, sometimes in not so distant places; apologies for the normalcy I enjoy- simple freedoms like travelling without having to carry identification papers and roaming the streets after dark.
And such apologies to many others that I may not yet remember, but who sometimes, just sometimes, introduce a tinge of guilt in my everyday living.

The other one is a wonderfully simple poem that ends with such hope and beauty, even as it drives home a feeling of injustice perhaps, but also inevitability. So much, in such few words!

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Food. For thought? No, just food!

Isn’t it nice when a belief you intuitively hold, sometimes not even aware that you hold it, for it’s a hazy unformed thought at the back of your mind, the need for having articulated it never having arisen earlier, turns out to be one that others hold as well? There is a feeling of acknowledgement and validation, not that it is needed, but which is nice to have anyway. That is one of the most distinct memories of my first Vipassana shivir.
My favourite part of the day in the shivir used to be the discourse in the evening. (And it took only a couple of days, and listening to the discourse one day in English and one day in Hindi, to realise that he was much better and at his humorous best in Hindi.) It was a pleasure to hear that discourse, to hear him explain in simple language using everyday examples, such concepts as love and compassion towards every one and tolerance towards other religions. I often found myself nodding in agreement, and a sense of excitement rose up in me as I realized that what I was listening to were concepts that I had intuitively believed, but had never strung together in words. It’s a wonderful feeling. It gave me goose pimples sometimes, at other times it made me teary eyed, and filled me with gratitude for everything in my life, all the joy and pain, all the people I loved and who loved me, and all the people who didn’t, and everything else that had come together over the years, towards this moment in time, which was as beautiful as it could be.
Does that sound tacky? Maybe it does, but that is how it was.


And it happened again recently, as I chatted with Neel, a dear friend from college days. Neel and Supriti are two beautiful people, and fantastic designers of buildings, furniture, lamps, and almost anything else that takes their fancy, who live and practise in beautiful Pondicherry as the design ensemble, ‘Ovoid’. They are also dear friends, who I happened to have the good fortune to visit in the later half of November. In one of our innumerable conversations, Neel mentioned to me why they make it a point to cook themselves, no matter how busy they are. He said food is best, and most nutritious when it is cooked with love.
It made me smile, for I couldn’t agree more. It is perhaps this secret ingredient- love that makes a mother’s cooking special. Have you ever noticed how you can tire of the best food, from the best restaurants, or the best cooks, but you never tire of your mother’s cooking no matter how many times you have it, over however many years. Have you also noticed the pet peeve of many a young bride that no matter how hard she tries, she can never quite match up to the standard of her mother-in-law’s cooking? :) In India of course it is taken to something of an extreme, for a mother’s love is often best expressed by food and the act of feeding. Indian families, many of them, tend to be rather undemonstrative in their show of affection, and uncommunicative too, to the extent that many topics are taboo, no matter how important they may be. But food remains the one way in which a mother continues to express her love, however old her child may grow.
But I digress, the point is: food cooked with love has a special wholesomeness, and a transfer of a kind of energy and good vibes happens, for lack of a better term, when you eat food that is cooked with love. There can be no substitute for this magic ingredient.

And it was perhaps this belief, as yet unarticulated, that made me cook all these years in Mumbai, coupled with the fact that it’s very hard to find a cook whose cooking you can endure for any length of time!And so it was also that I was thrilled when my maid walked in today with a dabba full of yummy veggies, sent over by someone who I once worked with as part of a film crew, but who I otherwise barely know. And it made me smile to read these words, as I providentially enough, stumbled upon this blog