The Wait

CONTINUED...

“Water”. That was her first utterance, when we slouched on the couch at our reception, finally trying to regain sanity. I remember being told that when someone meets death in the face, his life till then seems to pass by like a feature film. Nothing like this happened to me, which provides me with a couple of plausible reasons. One is that I just saw two shots and two lives convert to corpses. I did not see the face of death, or even if I had, may be I just did not recognize him. The second could be my memory could well be full with too much stuff to be summarized and played in the feature film format in such a time frame. But what really did come, which I would really hate to admit could well be called fear or if you intend to GRE-ise it trepedition, tremor, timidity - all on the T worldlist.

Fear is something like water or as sleep. It laps your feet, engulfs your knees, up your loins, waist, chest until you just sink. But when the lurk is of the unknown, of death in a physical state that you know not, a cloud that might suddenly condense to become ice and freeze you, a mellow soft drink that suddenly turns into a smoldering cauldron and erupts just as you are about to sip. And you may just turn your eyes from all this and miss the identity, that of your unknown enemy; death.

By that time, P seemed to have regained some bit of sanity as experience and maturity seemed to take the better of dread. “M, how many of us are here?” she said visibly taking charge. “Three of us, you, me and S, one of the pantry guys and D, the security guy.” I said. “Ok all of us stay close. Be visible to everyone of us.” Rat tat tat, brrrrrrraaaaaaaaamm! Sounds of three sub machine gun fire and a huge blast, deafeningly aggravated by the closing corridors – a grenade, says P as she looks down and fidgets with her toes.

P for part of an assignment had spent a fortnight in Beirut, which had familiarized her to certain sounds in life. A mofussil childhood had taught her certain sounds of silence, the chirp of a twitter, wasps treading on petals, drops of water into a puddle. But that fortnight changed her sonoric senses as she learnt grenades, launchers, 120 rounds a minute, bazooka shots.

“Lets switch on the TV”, I said. That’s the most logical thing to do. Come to think of it, we are residents of a patch of land in this country who command more than a quarter of this country’s gross domestic product. Dining even at the bhel counters on the sidewalks in this five hundred square metres of landscape happen to be the dreams of many a B school grad. And the orgasmic fantasy seems to be at the Oberoi. Situated at the waterfront at the end of the Queens Necklace popularly named Marine Drive, the Oberoi is made of two majestic hotels, the Oberoi and the Trident, resplendent in royal pride. And a grenade attack here should be aperitifs for national prime time television.

The TV set seemed to unfold the real story behind our eyes. Certain groups of people, fuelled by maniac ideologies had landed by boat in Colaba. Having dined and paid their bills at the iconic Café Leopold, they did not find the climate and the dessert much to their liking – and so matter of factly, opened fire at the citizens of Mumbai. Then they just went for a stroll to the Mumbai CST, where incidentally I alight every day and would have taken a train back home, had our shipping friends not had arrived, and thought, nice place this and opened fire yet again. As we saw free inhabitants of a free country slouched with fear, walking on their knees, hands held up in their own city, at places which they call their own, stand, stupor, gossip, call each other names, embrace, shake hands, transit for ganne-ka-ras, vada pavs, pattice, dosas and medu vadas reeked with acrid gunpowder.

S looked up from his laptop finally, England vanquished, “Leopold is it? Must have been that these guys refused to pay after a good round of drinks and being asked for money, opened fire.” S had explanations for everything. S was a Mumbaiite, by birth, at least thats what he claims although both his parents on his identity register is preluded by the word Late. His father was chief purser at the Air India flight from Canada titled Kanishka while his mom earned her title while trying to light diyas at her house one Diwali. He was nicknamed Bhaiyya by most of his friends, including his girlfriend, and political concoctions took it quite literally, so much so that he was hauled up one day by certain ‘locals’ of Mahim and asked for his native land. S had replied, “Where do you want it to be?” Typical S. Comically hostile, ludicrously belligerent. “Why P, its good fun, for television ait time, now that Big Boss is over?” he commented and went for the fridge and took out a can of beer. Normal times, he would have been admonished for such actions, the comment as well as the beer, but now no one seemed to take notice.

Ring ring. Call 1. Boss on my landline. Have you left? Who asked you to be there for so long? What the hell have you been doing? Why cant you guys be alert? What has happened to this country? Why are we so meek in front of fundamentalism. Where is our character, response system, admonishment, introspection? Boss, now is not the time, will keep you informed. Click.

Ring ring. Call 2. Fiancee on cell.
- Where are you?
- Oh just opening the lock to my flat, honey.
- Oh! You are safe aint you sweety?
- Sure honey, why anything wrong?
- Some gangwar on in your part of the world (pronounced g-u-n-g-w-a-r), eeks these NDTV guys got their spelling all wrong. Had the bai come, did she make food, did you ask her to make it less spicy?
- Yes honey, just having water now.
- Good, have a sumptuous dinner and go to sleep honey. Do not try to act smart tomorrow if this thing goes on.
- Of course honey, good night
- Good night and say it once na, please.
- Okay (wipe beads of sweat as another blast of machine gun fire hits on, P just increases the TV volume). I love you.
Click. Act 1.

S comes up and gives me a good hug and says, “Mujhe abhi tak chadhi nahi ( I am not yet inebriated).” There is another panic stricken call from P’s husband and three year old kid and another and another. P instructs to be on sms please.

Ring ring. Call 3. At the reception landline. P picks up as a lady speaks from the reception in a very routine manner, as if reading out from an instruction pamphlet. There has been a mercenary attack at the hotel. Please stay calm and please do not open your door no matter what happens. We are doing whatever it takes to make yourself comfortable. Do not drink water from the kitchen sink or bathrooms, it could be poisoned or infected. P interrupts. “Sanju is that you? It is P here, you remember me don’t you?” “Yes, I do, please stay safe,” difficult not to miss the emotional emphasis on the word, safe. P and Sanju often indulge in girly talk at the hotel foyer. They come from the same neighborhood. Often when we go down for our dosage of chai or peanuts P and Sanju become engaged in some ravishing world of their own to which S always explains, “Oh, its about lingerie sizes, you know!” Someone or the other always remembers to kick him, by the way. There is an accentuated “No!” in the background, someone trying to make a point against an instruction. “I hope all is fine, Sanju,” continues P, “we are …” Another round, Rat – tat – tat. The intercom goes mute and the television dead both at the same time.

Ring. Call 4. Baba, my father on my cell now. This conversation is in chaste Bengali.
- Have you reached home?
- Yes dad, just watching things on TV.
- Yeah, hopeless city you are in. There is just no peace. I have been watching things as well and it seems to have snowballed into something which was not yet anticipated. Do not venture out if things are like this tomorrow. Hope you understand. I am an old man and I can only fret and worry from here. Got precious little to do. Can you do this much for me?
- Yes dad. You please take care of yourself. Do not worry and sleep well. Good night.
Click. Act 2.

And the five of us finally looked at each other and allowed ourselves one final luxury. We smiled.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Another Day

It was that time of the day again. That time of the day when I hate my fiancé. When she calls on my mobile in the morning and tries to coo in my ear, “Hi honey, good morning, time to get up. Wont you have to get to office. Get ready soon, me too need to get going.” I mean, argh! Lets leave it to that. Sloppy brush swipes, razor swaps, quick browse through the headlines of the Economic Times as I emanate weird sounds from my bowels over the commode, seems to remove the lethargy quite a bit. And on the customary manner at the kitchen table, I try to empty the cereals over the cold milk of last night while Power Breakfast on CNBC blares that Asian markets are off to a north westerly direction today which means the expiry for tomorrow would be smoother, the roll over volumes higher as I try to fathom, is this chick for real? After having shoved spoonfuls of the concoction in, having a quick instruction for the bai – bhartha and roti should it be for tonight, two should be fine, am really getting that bald corpulent look too soon.

The next hour is a breeze. Queue up at the station, get jabbed in by the crowd, spare a thought for the Lord if I get to sit, snooze off or chatter with the guy with that new iphone on challengers trophy, the new Inorbit Mall, spanking Deejays coming to Navi Mumbai, real estate prices correction, narrowing career choices and if you are in an American financial institution as most people these days are – the gloom of the impending bonus season and thank heavens that we are still with a job, but such are some of the advantages of being in an emerging market. I find myself burping as I am smothered in the cab for another of those journeys where uncle on my left pats feverishly on his blackberry, while uncle on the right is really bothered about his receivables, damn it, its never aunties; better sport my blackberry as well. The only flavor of the season seems to be the fact that the India England match today is a day nighter, enough reason to leave office early.

The sardar gateman at the Oberoi always seem to be the same person to me. He looks to grow old these days, but gives his astute salaam again. These days he smiles to me and often I smile back. I really find little time in office these days, sinking under loads of investment proposals sent by various investment banks for proposed equity infusions into companies and projects at various stages, today being particularly funny. I mean how can you have outsourced recreation centers who manage and arrange parties, picnics and outings for, hold your breath, pets. My boss, a really cranky fellow, says it could mean serious business, which means, I really need to pretend to pore over it. Cynical fool inside the cabin and sarcastic thespian here doing nothing.

Shuffling between windows as I check the score of the match, my boss screams – we got a meeting for the lost mandate for last week and be ready by 8 30. These days, I can predict what his real camoflauge would be. Just around an hour before the meeting he would say, “M, I got another important appointment, I just cant afford to miss; hope you can take care of this.” Only this time I got P as fodder with me, who scowls at me in chagrin while I grin. Ok now I really need to take her down to the coffee shop to calm her temper.

The client with his entourage of one, his wife, comes in 15 minutes early today. Pleasantries, card exchanges, soft drinks and cribbing about weather, the Mumbai traffic later, we are into serious business. These are guys providing capemax and VLCC ships for cargo transfer. The promoter group is a lively young couple who have inherited the business from his father, who has successfully run the same for almost fifty years. Now that shipping rates have fallen, and most shipping companies world wide find hard to find credit, they have found a Greek shipping company dirt cheap for a really opportunistic acquisition. But the same is too much for their means and hence they want us to provide equity infusion. P seemed to have gone asleep by the time the business section had come during the presentation. But as soon as the valuation notes came out along with the Greek shipper details and its business credentials, she was right into action.

P is an expert on anything man made that floats on water. She had been a consultant to one of the largest global oil rig manufacturers and charterers for over 5 years. Post the same she had joined our fund five years ago. She is a wiz at NAV valuations for floating objects. She attentively looked at the numbers and took notes, while I looked at the watch. Yawn! “Shall we order for dinner?” I heard myself say as I saw a smile on P through the corner of my eye. “Oh its already 9 20 honey,” the promoter wife said. “We did not realize it was so late, sorry for keeping you guys back.” “Oh no, not a problem,” muttered P under clenched teeth as she showed me on her blackberry that Sehwag was really in full flow in response to the English batting. Another marauding in store at Cuttack. “Actually, we have a cocktail at the ball room. And we love the Tiffins as well, so we will pick up a quick snack. We will just head off, you guys want to come?” went on the wife.“Oh no please, we are quite ok.” said I and looked at P, still fingering her blackberry. We shook hands and pledged to come back with our termsheets for the proposed project soon as we escorted the couple to the elevator.

When the elevator came, P and I thought of joining them to have a gasp of fresh air before we came back, packed up and headed home. The promoter deliberated on how this could be an opportune time that would change business landscape forever. With huge institutions falling by the wayside, it could be the emergence of newer businesses and leaderships that could form epitomes of the new world business order. The lift kept on its downward journey 11 – 10 – 9 -. This would be the time, he went on, when newer sectors would turn out to be industry leaders and Indian shipping had the potential to be one. 8 – 7 – 6 - . With the Indian exports increasing like never before, India could become the next supply hub for global resources and talent. 5 – 4 – 3 -. And with a value driven tradition, and the will and drive to toil hard, and especially the blessings of Laxmi by our side, as he looked lovingly at his wife, no one could stop our growth path. 2 – 1 – 0 -. The only pitfalls seems to be port capacity. Ting! But with private public participation, we are sure to win it now… Whirrr.. Door Open. Rat – tat – tat – tat.

My hand went instinctively at our floor button on the elevator and I am yet to explain why. As the door whirred back, I could just see the promoter and his Laxmi separated. As his lifeless body squeezed out through the closing door, the wife lay in a pool of blood, her breast blasted, her intestines spilling out, on the floor as two more shots in between the closing door shattered the mirror behind us. 1 – 2 – 3, the journey up and I looked at P.

TO BE CONTINUED!

England flee - the real reason

It has been a startling week; a wonderful awakening. From now on I have decided to spread some cheer to this world in my own small, a small signature defiance to show my right to live; amidst this pall of gloom and worry.

By a thorough recee of publications, I have just been able to dig out one of the real reasons why the England cricket team fled, just before the Guwahati ODI, leaving behind a potential possibility for a 7 - 0 drubbing (though 5 - 0 is not any worse). So here it goes (courtesy: Mumbai Mirror, 29 November, 2008)

"Birdflu outbreak in Assam, poultry set to be culled
Process of killing 30,000 birds will be completed in three to four days; 20 rapid response teams visit each and every household
GUWAHATI: About 30,000 chicken and ducks will be culled in Assam during the next four days as an outbreak of bird flu in poultry has been reported in the state, an official said. “The entire culling process is expected to be completed in three to four days as our teams are visiting each and every household in the area. We estimate there could be some 30,000 poultry birds in the area where culling is currently underway," said Manoranjan Choudhury, deputy director of the Assam veterinary department. The Indian health ministry on Thursday confirmed the outbreak of bird flu after laboratory tests confirmed strains of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza. Sale and purchase of poultry has been banned in the state. Choudhury said about 30,000 chicken and ducks would be slaughtered in about 40 villages of Thakurichuba village. The veterinary personnel involved in the culling process were being administered the antiviral drug Tamiflu as a precautionary measure. “The process of culling has already started, involving about 20 Rapid Response Teams with seven members in each group led by a veterinarian," he said. More than 300 birds died in the past one week in the state. Assam's veterinary and animal husbandry department sounded an alert and is maintaining a strict surveillance on farms in the state. IANS "

Meanwhile some startling revelations at Contramental. Watch out!

i in CAPITALS Please

I refuse to apologise for lethargies these days. As in earlier days, writers had poetic license for anything amusingly imaginative. For people like me, the ready reckoner easily these days seem to be, “well I was saving my job, my writing anyways doesn’t bring me any bread.” So here I am again at my office desk with my masquerading cap on, trying to bring about that air of working hard, when I seriously seemed to think, about time that I write again. Thoughts of writing about my exchanges with my consultant friend floated mid air and as I tried plucking them most of them just disappeared, pat!

And then I suddenly seemed to feel, why do I always turn to him for all kinds of inspirations in whatever I write. The fact that I may lean on his existence too much for inspiration, might create that air of dubiousness in those wistful readers (well I like to imagine that there are really some) who might think, “Does he really exist?” (much to his chagrin, but that’s not of much relevance). The second point might be his own life, conversations; people around him are more participative and inspirational in nature, to which I run the risk that the paltry set of readers which I like to imagine that I have, would turn into trinklets by the snap of a finger, should my friend start writing on his own (although I agree that plates of nachos strictly without cheese, this is surely the un-Punju effect coming and that is definitely another story, and couple of pitchers a week, might help dissuade).

To which I seemed to zero in on the real inference. Munching on Bingo and watching on the television set a character being carried out on two shoulders out of a platform, green and serene. The character perched on the shoulders of two delinquents handpicked by his own self, waving to the maddening millions, as calm as ever – as we tried to find the past, present and the future juxtapose in a physical and metaphorical sense. The character – Saurav Ganguly and at the cost of sounding cliché, India’s most successful cricket captain, the agent of metamorphosis from Indian team to Team India, a melee of contrasts – Dada and Maharaja, but the point of concern in what I write today, a Bengali heart and mind at work?

The last question mark seems to emphasize the frenzy behind one character and the why. Let me sum my confusions and the bouquet of emotions that generally surround Ganguly and the reason why it remains quixotic for me:

Sympathy: Hard to fathom why. I do not doubt the fact that he has remained an element of scrutiny, unceremoniously and at times may be unfairly sidelined, but he is not the only one. In fact the comic theme does not seem to fade away when a certain Greg seems to claim that he wants to remain captain for the lucre and the gliteratti. (My friend had commented, that had Greg seen his net worth statement – one of the largest Asian printing press, a colossal catering service, a copious ancestral property in Kolkata, one of the trendiest restaurant, a resplendant fleet of cars – he could well have said, sir would you mind a majority stake in my cricket academy?)

Confidence: A turn around character who has supreme confidence in his abilities and those of the people he backs. But again is he the only confident character to have trodden a cricket field? There have been others and loads of them. A broken jawed performance from Kumble, a sand storm at Sharjah from Sachin are legends of folklore but there have been blitzkriegs like Kambli with back to back double centuries against England or of Pravin Amre or Subroto Banerjee, Hirwani etc etc

Galvanising and transformation agent: The benefit of the doubt here can be given to him since he took charge at a time when Indian cricket was really growing through a gruesome time. Days after we saw Kapil Dev weeping on Hard Talk came a new skipper like a roll of dice who if succeeds is good for cricket and if does not is good fodder. In such a scenario I, at least feel that you could ascribe him to be plain lucky, that he did succeed, lucky that his own compatriots were in pinnacle form, lucky that he just chanced to be at the right time, at the right place for the right job, fortuitous in the people he backed as flickers turned to flames.

The fact that he was audacious enough to have kept the great Waugh waiting at the toss could well be credits for the chef serving dinner, the previous night or that he did show off his bare torso at the havens of modern cricket could well have been a topic of much mirth had there not been a moderate contribution of 60 in that historic chase and a initiation to the momentum.

During the days he reached the echelons of leadership, his form seemed to wane away in a slow degenerative process and he really had to devise new ways of arithmetic to rationalize his position in the team.

All this seldom really seemed to be convincing enough to be what Ganguly really came to be signified as. But the fervor involving the Bengali diaspora for Ganguly seemed to be stemmed in something else. The emergence seemed to be the infusion of a new dimension of character in the stereotyped Bengali image to the world. In that regard my problems and the problems of people where I come from seems to be so akin, a problem of crisis in identity. In most circuits, Bengalis have been famed to be aesthetic but spineless people. Reminscent of the fact, say we take Rabindranath Tagore, someone whom we famously quote at all points of time, in all wakes of life – from births, funerals, thread ceremonies, weddings, political meets, bandhs, traffic signals, theaters in an omnivalent presence, more owing to the lack of anything else, who showed ‘spirit’ to stand up and decline the knighthood in the wake of the Jalianwallabagh killings and whose very own Nobel medallion could well be in the picturesque adornments of some rich or wealthy in far flung Texas. So much for Bengali grit, might and spirit.

Here is where Ganguly added a dimension, a point that well doormats do bite at times, if you do not read the handle with care tag on its packet well enough. He helped present to the world a changing face from melancholy to exuberance, bucolic, pent up anger to venting jingoism, muted pride to sworn honor and that too aloud. And although he had his limitations, he created that magical stimulus to be contagious to people around him who learned to give back as much they had got and hence although he awkwardly ducked to bouncers, handpicked protégés continued to squat such bouncers at over 150 kphs effortlessly over point for six. And when oppositions bamboozled his own colleagues with their web of wily spin, he would step up and hoist them way over long on, just to drive home the point – well this is my territory, so don’t you dare mess with us, US being the operative word.

In times to come, Ganguly, I hope bring back a vernal way of thinking, a way that Bengalis are not supposed to be, not crude but unaesthetic, not belligerently rebellious but uncalm and unsatiated, not awkwardly forcive but un-Coffee House intellectual, not blatantly capitalistic but un-red and to syrup the same a condiments of huge pride in whatever WE, collectively do and a simulation of competition within yourself which in the words of the legendary Lion King would be slimy yet satisfying, in the context of the existing bias in Indian cricket, along with a profound reliance in each other's abilities.

Ganguly is not just cricket, it is about an alternative way of Bengali thinking and living, like clearing a bush in the neighborhood just to show that there’s another way. Ironical is the fact that he came at a time when Bengal was more mired under the parochialism of inter-neighborhood mediocrities in football and jerked the nation and at first requested and then kicked them to believe in themselves.

As he quietened into the mellow curtains of retirement and cradles of wealth, he just seemed to point that aliter to the Bengali way of life there are two more. Be a Maharaja by fortune or show some dadagiri on your own!