Amin Sheikh: "Bombay is for everybody."

I was at David Sassoon Library last evening to attend a short-notice replacement for the 8:45 play by EVAM that was cancelled because some communal duffers think Pakis shouldn't be allowed in Bombay. The panel discussion had little to do with the play cancellation - however I saw a glimpse of the solidarity that Kala Ghoda Festival participants are capable of showing in order to put such narrow minded and short sighted idiots in their places.

However, I ended up spending a bit of time with Amin Sheikh, who stood outside the library doors to market his autobiography and speak to passers by about it. Bombay, Mumbai: Life is Life, I'm Because of You is the name of his autobiography. The title itself caught my eye for obvious reasons. What also piqued my curiosity was the fact that it has been proofread and copy-edited perfectly.

In my short tête-à-tête with Amin, I disovered some of possibly the many aspects of the man. Amin Sheikh currently runs a car rentals service by the name of Sneha Travels. He also doubles up as a city guide and knows 5 international languages!

Largely a self made boy, Sheikh received help at his orphanage in terms of some education and moral support. I did not buy his book on the spot. However, unlike most who did not want to be harangued by yet another marketing gimmick, I couldn't help being entranced by the story of this man. I still know very little about him. In fact, all I remembered from last evening's conversation was him mentioning Kitab Khana selling his book for charity. I had to call them first, to ask his name and the name of his book, so I could at least write this quick piece.

Amin maintains a blog as well as tweets regularly to keep his supporters updated on latest developments on his book. Bombay, Mumbai: Life is Life, I Am Because of You is sold on Amazon as well as at Kitab Khana for charity. Proceeds of the book go to raising funds for Sheikh's dream venture Bombay to Barcelona - a library cafe which will in turn earn for his orphanage.

I think I'm going back to DSL this evening to buy the book. And perhaps have a more emancipating conversation with sheikh. About Bombay, about dreams, about fear, and perhaps about his lack of fear of calling Bombay, well, 'Bombay'. If anything, for the line in the book that says it all - Bombay is my heart, and I want to write my book with my heart.

Nouveau Art, Nouveau Fun: Bombay reads together

When I returned to Bombay 6 months ago (yes! It's been that long since I got here), I was bogged by several responsibilities. Some of them, in retrospect, I realised I didn't even need. To add to my woes, Bandra seemed like one helluva shallow locality to live in, what with all the fashion forward junta flocking its labyrinthine roads from Hill Road to Pali Naka to Union Park and more. My prejudices, combined with the fatigue of daily commuting and work stress left me rather drained mentally and I found my productivity suffering (apart from receiving a rather stern reprimand from my CEO for getting in at work late quite regularly). It dawned upon me soon that this constant demand upon my creativity at the workplace meant reinventing myself regularly. Three months into trying to settle into this new pace and lifestyle, a Meetup group caught my eye on the website.

The name felt lofty, but inventive. They read plays. The format sounded like all those auditions back in college. So I signed up. Nouveau Art Play Reading Group had met a couple of times already, and had something of a membership already - about a 100 people. The Facebook page showed lovely pictures of each of these meetups: smiling faces, a little relieved after something of a long conversation - only, it was a conversation not so much among them as them.

My first session with them was extraordinary. Moving, not just because the man behind it - Noel - is a sweetheart, but also for the sort of script he chose. Several people in the group have had trouble understanding why he chooses narratives that end on an offhandish sort of melancholy note. For me, that first session set the tone of what was to come, like a sign of the times. By the next meetup, I'd had a minor catastrophe of my own, and it dawned upon me - that's how life is, too: a little sweet, a tad savoury, with a few pungent and bitter moments thrown in for good measure.

By this time, the crowd built up. There were the 'regulars'. Then there were some faces each time. I had made a couple of friends. There have, of course, been several dropouts. But our last meetup, a momentous one (and meaningful in ways that have revealed themselves subsequently), was perhaps the most qualitative so far. I can say without doubt, it's been the best one. Everyone present (regulars and newbies) was there for the love of plays. Not so much theatre. And the difference surfaced ever so poignantly.

Some interesting observations keep surfacing. Every session has a round of introductions either at the end or the beginning. Titled the official 'drama queen' of the group, Nidhu once pointed out - the veterans just say their names, the newbies feel the need to give out more. Artist and Teach For India associate, Mahesh (or Ma Pa as he likes to introduce himself) and I once chatted about how the guy sitting beside me couldn't keep his hands from shaking while he read. He said it happens to everyone. This was Rameez's second time apparently. I have begun to stutter.

But this is not the case for everyone. For some, it comes naturally. There are several innately gifted good readers, with great voice throw and talent for intonation. Some venture to make things more interesting, and break the monotony with impromptu movement and onomatopoeic sounds too!

There is a lot of warmth that I have received at the hands of this group, especially Noel and Cecil (two of the four organisers - Noella and Jay being the other two). Sometimes the warmth can turn into a heat of bugging pings and tags and comments on Facebook and Whatsapp groups during the readings too. But that's a risk one runs with every new interaction. Every time I go to a Nouveau Art Play Reading meetup, my eyes light up at the sight of the familiar faces. I receive the same response from some of these people too, which makes the deal sweeter. And there's always the change of an interesting conversation at the end of the session.

So what's the format? Noel posts details of the next meetup about 2 weeks in advance on the Meetup.com page. People RSVP. About 20 people meet. Noel distributes scripts to those who ask for it before hand. There are some who get their tablets to read it on. We usually meet at a restaurant on condition that everyone must order something. We got thrown out of Candies recently too (because they didn't see any profits pouring in). Much of the group moved to Carter Road and continued there. People are allotted characters on the spot, order their coffee (or iced teas, as in my case *wink*), read, read some lines more than once, a talented photographer (that'd be Jay) literally catches everyone in the act and captures moments and expressions as documents for posterity. And we end with a deep sigh.

What began as a little activity for a bunch of like-minded people has been noticed beyond friends circles too. NAPR group has been featured in the Express Eye (under 'Soul Curry' - scroll to the bottom) as well as MidDay and on Zee News. The crowd that attends isn't exactly the literary types always. My first session saw a dentist, an actuarial professional, a banker, a businessman and an IT professional among others. The motley hasn't stopped being more bizarre. Some members have since moved to other cities, but they are missed, for they are friends, above all. The gooey warmth has only swelled in the core of each one of our hearts. And the excitement of belonging as a Dramebaaz just doesn't cease!

Wondering about Wandering

8 good things about that bane called stability

I heard myself say this last evening to a person I have met recently: 'I love Bombay.'
It's strange that it came out so strongly, so spontaneously. Was I trying to impress him? Was I lying? Did I ever hate it in the first place? I wonder now.

For the first time in a while, I've begun to enjoy the convenience that this city practically brims with. e-Commerce flourishes here and commuting is a no-brainer. Domestic help knows what to do from Day 1 and instructions are usually extended only for really individualist needs - a pet or specifics in food, etc. But I still find it hard to digest the fact that I said it. I love Bombay. What kind of love? And wasn't I disenchanted with this place completely even until a couple of months ago? The stench at KalaNagar, the Rats on the railway tracks, the roaches near the sea faces...

Anything even akin to love is quite unimaginable in the present context. Not because I know some different unlikeable version of it, or because of the chain of big and small events that have shaped my very recent past, but because I have indeed met an exquisite crop of natives and non-natives here at the onset of this third stint. And while some have proved to be sour and/ or bitter, more have found a special place in my heart.

Bombay is indeed like New York, isn't it? Lines from Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen Song come to mind:

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.

The hiccups that ensue moving towns are nothing short of royal pains, especially when you do it at a frequent flier rate. And so, this time I'm in the mood to stay put for just a while, even if, to enjoy what they call stability. Looks like a rather peaceful space to be in and this is how!

1. Paid Leave

Imagine being paid your work pay for 7 whole consecutive days away from your smartphone and laptop and number crunching and deadlines and sheaves of paper and late nights - instead getting a massage on a secluded beach, sipping on a long island iced tea or getting yourself some wholesome family time gorging on your mum's awesome delicacies! I've had the chance only once before, and I blew it by not taking it. Now I'm determined to make use of the mundane perk.

2. Taxes

I did my own taxes this year, and the anxiety and last minute frenzy was far from fun. For a math challenged human being with absolutely no patience for government forms, this was torture personified. Finding an agent at the 11th hour may have been a blessing, but it cost me a stiff fee that worked fairly well as a lesson for life.

3. House Hunt

As a veteran home searcher in Bombay, I may have lived in all kinds of spaces - hostel, PG, rented accommodation, a relative's house, a friend's bachelor pad, and more - but the peace of familiarity and conversation with neighbours, the knowledge of all the provision stores, doctors and salons in the vicinity and being able to walk around without losing your way (very possible when you are me) is beyond compare.

Of course, the task of looking for a place to stay and the irks and pains that accompany - agents, misfits, inappropriate spaces (or the lack thereof), last minute denials - squeeze the life out of you even if for just a few weeks at most.

4. Soaking Local

And by that I don't mean having to be the sponge that must bear the wrath of sweaty co-commuters on local trains. Every place offers its unique flavour in terms of food, people and architecture - India is blessed that way - and getting acquainted beyond your neighbourhood usually takes at least a couple of rounds of the cycle seasons.

5. Weekend Trips

All the three cities I've lived & worked in so far are blessed with fantastic weekend getaway options galore. With a fantastic natural boulder-laden landscape in and around Hyderabad and the ghats as well as beaches around Pune-Mumbai, one should be driving out/ taking off at least once every month if not more frequently. There's so much ground to cover, literally!

6. Phone Number

Changing numbers is such a pain! Letting people know, and then changing the number in all official documents and some forgotten ones complaining on public digital forums about how irresponsible you are as a social animal... no ya.

7. Suitcases...

...and therefore packing and unpacking is possibly one of the biggest and most tiring chores of moving frequently. Instead of a trash-discarding activity, it becomes a matter of how best to pack it all and lug it around. The number of bags begin to feel meagre and stuff just keeps collecting. Often, memories begin to be thrown with what may seem dispensable in the short term.

8. Pets

Anyone who has had them will vouch for just what a source of comfort domesticated animals can be. Whether you have a farm for a few horses or just a little balcony for a guinea pig, and all the beautiful creatures in between, they all require time and love and staying put makes for wonderful time off with creatures other than our own kin.

Of course, there are minor advantages of staying put - the little DIY projects you may take on, hosting Couchsurfers or just old friends on stopovers and catching up or even just a weekly off or holiday with that someone special over a game of chess or scrabble. As a wanderer and pseudo nomad coming of age, I'd say injecting structure into your jaywalking isn't that bad an idea!

Date a guy who reads

So I realised where the men were given directions to date a woman who's literate, you know, read 'n write 'n god alone knows what else, the women are still rather stupid about it - they are making the same illiterate mistakes! PU comes to the rescue with a broad guide of why the reading man will never make you wanna bang your head on the closest wall!

So it is possible to complain against a guy who reads. He will be the talker on the date so he can never complain that you talk too much. When you thank him for the most trivial things, he will come up with a 'for you, a million times over', from Kite Runner. He will never hurry things up. If anything, a book may become his excuse for lingering longer at your place when you really don't want him to go. It may not even be your book.

He will make the coffee you prepare for him sound like some childlike delight from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He will ask you to tell him a story some night, and disbelieve you. And when you show him the book that the story belonged to, he will read it cover to cover all over again. Whether to verify the contents or to just experience the magic all over again, you will never know.

Date a guy who reads because only a true reader will force a book down your throat and demand it back when you're done, in some way, to let you a bit into a part of his essence. Even if it is sci fi and even if you've never bothered with the genre before, nor will ever again. He will be in full awareness of this fact and yet...

A man who reads will always have a bookshelf in his living room. However rudimentary or unembellished. It may probably be his first piece of furniture. Often, the only one in his house - for a very long time. He may use residual space in it to store knick knacks, but when it begins to constrain, the tidbits go out. May be on another rack or just on the floor, he doesn't care so long as his books are well preserved.

Like you, he will love the smell of yellowed parchment. And your need to sit on the floor, even of a crowded bookstore on a sale day because sometimes book sections do that to you. You may not end up buying any of them and yet he will never hurry you out. He may perhaps state the prelude disclaimer that he shall take longer, but that's what sets the bar for you.

He will also understand your need to buy books especially from the second hand stall or raddiwala beside the veggie market because he knows treasure is not found in obvious places. He will perhaps encourage or at least give you the space to browse through many Dr Seusses for your niece or nephew, either for he knows they should start young, or perhaps because he didn't.

A man with books behind him will chuckle at your most nuances jokes - whether comparing someone to a Wodehousean character or just something from a Scottish folklore. The only curvy women he shall openly lust at for hours will be from his graphic novels or comics. For that matter, the only things he shall explicitly admire will be books. Especially a bargain or an unexpected find. And take it from me, it will make you grin ear to ear.

Most of all though, the image of a man sitting in the morning sun rays beside the window, on a couch, in his night clothes, with a book in his hands makes for not only the most impressive, but the most endearing figure.

Highway to high way

3 days. A long weekend. Many cat lovers. And a chocolate cake. As soon as I had moved to Pune three months ago, I knew this place had energy in store for me. I began to unlearn all my previous paces: of home, of Nizami thaat, of hapless filth. Even before I had arrived, I had been sold its lures. And the lure didn't lie so much in the monuments, in the food, in the city's chaos, oh no. Just people.
Plain vanilla people. 

Women with pishvis, men in collared tee shirts or bush shirts, young techies with id cards dangling around their necks like nooses, kids in uniform with oil drenched hair, the big cars and their humble drivers, the autowalas and their माझ. Indeed, the rosy winters and the perennial bougainvillas did their bit in making me fall in love with Pune, but it has, honestly, been the people who have visited me or the friends who I've met whilst they were here on business, that have strengthened the heartstrings even more. I am yet to strike out any of the items I had jotted down on my to-do list while I'm here. But no matter. There's a vintage Beetle, ragged and rusty, cobwebbed, with its paint chipped, waiting each day for me to turn right from - a landmark not preempted. A charm that has the power to surprise everyday.

And yet that is also not it. What about Veeram's house? What about my own? What about my favourite restaurant? And its काली दाल and बैंगन bharta that I've yet to savour again?

So Sajani was here over the weekend. Here only to see me and, on short notice, also to rescue Duffer, my newly adopted tom. Having known Saj for almost seven years now is a tad hard to believe, because really, it was only that first week of spending concentrated hours with each other several times that account for our experience of each other. For our knowing of each other. For our comfort of each other. We have never lived in the same city, leave alone studied or worked together. We come from culturally diametrically variant backgrounds. Our achievements differ from one another's, and so do our losses, but expression has been so liberating with her! And perhaps our judgement and opinion of each other came about painstakingly slowly, but it is only a thing of wonder how often through both our car rides to and from bombay this time, we seemed to have been having two parallel conversations with each other: a verbal one, that goes yaketty yakk, and then there's our eyes that meet almost as often as there is stupidity prevailing. And Saj's talent allows her to speak even with a poker face, where I may be tempted to break into a giggle, roll my eyes or simply hit my palm to my face.

I reckon that our judgement of people comes partly if not entirely, not only from our experience of the world, but also from our mothers. We often don't get their kinks, and yet. For hours, we would lie in our PJs analysing the people we love and hate, and when a third person would enter, suddenly shut our eyes - Eyes, gobs, tolerance too actually.

Bus ride with Sajani, Bombay, 2010

And that familiarity manifests itself in myriad ways. Whether it is her calming me in my own house after an especially tiring trip by articulating my thoughts exactly, whether it is to get chatty with my roommate, whether it is taking a bus ride across town right after a long flight or train journey, whether it is to wait in the lounge area of my office as I get my stuff and swipe out after bunking half the day in my boss's absence, whether it is to tolerate an especially irritating boyfriend for his inane and dated arguments and fielding each one with a hard verbal slap back in the days, whether it is cycling in the hot sun across her university campus. And yet none of these episodes quite define the scope of our friendship. If she were a guy, I'd have probably professed my undying devotion to him. Not only for what he'd've been, but for what he was doing to me.

Her pune trip, like all her visits to all the cities I've stationed myself for a while in, was short, but not meaningless. It was rich in conversation, in experience, in details and in thought. She fished out a teracotta ring for me with a grumpy cat on it from Milan. She took care of Duffer in his most critical first journey across towns. She ate whatever I gave her. And she drank simply. She walked, because she enjoys roads and trees just as much as I do. She warmed up to Veeram simply for the warmth I had for him. She fussed not. She complained not. She remarked. She judged. She dismissed.

She got me a box of strawberries so I could sing for her and we could smoke outside a shut shop sitting on the ledge in Aundh.

To be friends with Sajani is not an ordinary honour. She takes forever to warm up. Her mocking smile is hard to fathom - am I her subject of scorn, and therefore ridiculed, or does she truly respect me? Three years it took me to know what she thought of me, and she chose to bare all one evening in 2009 when all was beginning to look bleak, loss seemed inevitable, and abandonment seemed to look like the only way out for us cats.

There are people we feel the need to understand in order to love. Then there are people we must accept and love.

Accident ho gaya rabba rabba

So almost a year after my last right leg injury, a new one decides to make its presence felt. I've always seen accidents as signs. I've now had three fairly major ones with men whilst riding pillion on their bikes. Same leg. Different spots (god's been kind?). Heck I love them. And accidents with a man for company are even better. Not the injury, of course, just the whole follow-up frenzy ensuing the mishap.

The rush to the closest clinic to get the injury checked, being lifted by three men because I’d have fallen otherwise, to be bought and brought a way-too-big bar of chocolate and glucose to prevent me from fainting, the cleaning of the wound, the stitches, the dressing, the affectionate care, buying medicines, getting me to eat (evidently I’m pretty difficult to bring to that at such times), the making me comfortable… The process is much like taking a trip with someone. Suddenly you know so much about him or her. Kind'a in isolation, because he or she takes on the carer's role. And when you're away from home, you can't really take them for granted unlike the mother at home.

I reckon, like anyone else, I too prefer physical injuries to hurt of the heart.

But I think what I’m already beginning to enjoy even more than I did last night, as I told Veeram, is his house. Our Saturday night haunt, Veeram’s house aka The Weekend Getaway (TWG :P) is truly just the therapy one wants at the end of an especially unfavourable week. Of course, when you arrive at the humble 2 BHK abode, the clutter of mattresses, antique furniture, clothes, curios, books, condom and cigarette boxes, rum bottles, sheaves of papers, musical instrument first hits you and you want to flee as soon as. Then a veteran privileged holds your hand and leads you to the sanctum – the shrine of Veeram – and then it dawns upon you  as you take in these extremities, that this house is really beautiful!

To be absorbed into V’s space is a lot about one’s personal fortune. By nature, the man (and one of the most cultured hosts) is a recluse. His space is so his and shut away from all things commercial and dispassionate, that you’d have to be a musician to gain license to enter. And once you have won his approval, you could be a third grade architecture student or even just an ordinary copywriter, and yet be personally invited for successive weekends to spend hours elaborating and exploring the intricacies of Raag Desh punctuated with some Puriya or the dreaded Todi, and gracefully end with Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

And yet V’s place is not even about the things in it, or its people. It’s really about him. How warm he makes one feel on the coldest winter nights, how free he can set you from the clutches of where you come from and where you must head afterwards. You might get to listen to staples and a few new numbers. Some classical, some jazz, some baroque melodies.

There is of course, the conversation that meanders with sharp turns and steep falls and sudden heights of passionate discourse about music, love, freedom, values, religion, food (of course!). To most, V would seem something of an idealist oddity amidst compromising commercialization of our time and place. And even that is not what defines his home. One time he might tell you how he egg-napped a pigeon’s egg to teach it a lesson to not hover around his balcony again, and then he would also keep it safe. One of those puppy kidnappers, this.

I have still not managed to articulate what it is about V’s place that elates me each time I’m here. Veeram says, (about the walls in his house) “they have absorbed everything in the past two years.” And why not? The evidence is all over the place. Dates, arbitrary mind-thoughts, caricatures have been graffitied on all the walls of the house – in paint, felt pens, pencils even (like a 4-year-old that’s just learnt to write and draw)!

I have now flown kites here, spent nights, taken in the night’s horizon and the day’s view of the hills, swum, cooked, lay injured, sang and confessed in this house.

Comfort is an understatement for what one experiences here. Let it suffice to say then, that it’s the only place in years where I sleep like a child. For someone who is a light sleeper, it’s like letting a mask slip. Deliberately. In blind trust.

 

On reading

The past week has been a roller coaster. I met a guy through the pseudo-traditional matrimonial site, contemplated marrying him, found out in the nick of time that he and I were not only mismatched, but also belonged to two brilliantly separate worlds. That was interesting. Since when did men become excellent decision-makers?

But i'm still trying to figure out what is worse - that a guy says up front that he doesn't read, that he doesn't manage to find the time to read, or that he finds reading BORING? And therefore, does that make all of us who read lesser mortals or simply redundant?

I mean, here I was, practically changing my wardrobe after Bridges of Madison County's Francesca Johnson because she got to be photographed by a Robert Kincaid. Leave alone the romanticism and tragedy of their love, but merely to be appreciated by that one man, through studied vision... in the most exotic locale... like a modern fairytale without a happy ending. Heck, who wants a happy ending - I want a stimulating conversation! To which I can add something meaningful, or derive learning.

Think about it, after having socialised with the likes of research scholars from the best institutions in the country and abroad, after knowing people who travel the world and know the insides and outs of how the planet functions, oh for god's sake - having been a writer and an editor (and therefore, primarily a reader) myself, how does anyone expect me to tolerate a non-reader?

When there is such limited reading (or the complete absence thereof), where will there be the element of ambition to explore new worlds - in terms of thought, in terms of activities, in terms of destinations? How will he know when to be really nasty I call him a Nazi? Will it even strike him as remarkable when I suggest Berlin or Rome for a vacation? And he will be so lukewarm when I mention a bike ride across the Konkan, or spending the afternoon cooking together or reading poetry at Prithvi!

Uf! no no no no no no no noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Shantamma

Think of waitlisted admissions and small numbers in classes with alternative teaching methods and you’d think the principal of thie school has to have a waiting lounge, an ante room and must make you wait at least the Hyderabadi 15 minutes before inviting you into her chamber.

Snap out of it. You’re meeting Vidyaranya’s founding Principal, Mrs. Shanta Rameshwar Rao. The Fabindia-clad frail frame is home to one of the most determined educationists of Hyderabad. After my preliminary apologies of turning up late and being told (I still don’t know if it was sarcastic), “Pretty women are allowed to be late,” I was asked to be the silent spectator to a conversation between a volunteer parent, who conducts assembly for Classes 5 and 6, and Shantamma.

Without any pretensions of minding the flash of my camera or that an outsider was privy to a conversation about the school’s goings-on, Mrs. Rao displayed her many moods – amusement, concern, intent listening and approvals.

As we launch into the interview, one of the first things that comes to fore is Mrs. Rao’s devotion to education. That her ideas have arisen from the ideologies of Maria Montessori, MK Gandhi and J Krishnamurti is anybody’s guess, but to start one’s own school, is quite another ballgame. And a much bigger deal it must have been 50 years ago.

Vidyaranya is not the success story of one woman, but the will of one, definitely. What’s more, Shantamma is selfless about it. An atheist, the veteran educationist speaks plainly whenever confronted with ‘what after you?’ “It seems everyone wants me to die or is waiting for the eventuality! What after me? The school’s plumbing is managed by the plumbers and the teachers are doing their jobs. I think the school will go on even without me.”

“Even if it doesn’t work, what of it? At most they will turn it into a hospital – a children’s hospital, or even a hotel! We think too much about the future. We lose sight of the present.”

Shantamma is quick to dismiss the suggestion that her school is a women’s initiative. “It is just a co-incidence that most teachers are women – predominantly the mothers of students. But we are being supported more and more by male parents as well.”

Mrs. Rao comes across as a firm believer of gender equality. When quizzed about how she encourages the girl students at Vidyaranya High School for Boys and Girls, she allows one of her colleagues to respond. To them, having to especially encourage them would, in itself, be the first step towards proving them inferior. “Boys damage property sometimes,” she remarks, “There are just one or two in each class that cause a chain reaction. Girls are usually cooperative – we probably scold them for being talkative, but they’re never destructive,” says Shantamma.

"I trust you to return this book," (she's lent me a copy of 50 Years of Vidyaranya to look up basic factoids) she finishes, "I will sue you for 700 rupees."

Off Limits

Bombay. The city meant liberation to me at age 19. At 24, when I finally barged into its labyrinth, a secret unfolded. There was none. Liberation that is, not secret. Duh PU.

The liberty, not of being clad in skimp or drinking like no tomorrow or having clandestine affairs, but of being at ease. Grabbing some me-time from no-time and withdrawing. Ridding myself of restlessness and a forced sense of duty. Effectively.

As I sit on my balcony ledge, a menthol in one hand [yes Neel, still prefer the ‘shit’ to all else] and Azar Nafisi’s book in the other, the thought crosses my mind: my hostel was even beautiful-ler.; why didn’t I ever sit and read there as happily? On the terrace, in the porch, the lounge, the stairs, the library, why my room even! There was more open space to be found there. More guiltless abandon for routine [skip washing clothes one day, ironing a heap another, miss a meal, avoid calls from folks]. Even more breeze and wider seat space too.

Ledges at angles perpendicular to vertical walls to lean on are my weakness. A member from my Nanaji’s beloved collection of transparent glass tea cups sits on the painted marble like a stowaway. Mint tea half finished – a thin film of मलाई on its surface – cold.

A light breeze graces the otherwise only near-perfect frame, gently cradling the 3-storey high palm tree; the Bottle Brush in an overreacting sway, tickling my elbow against all my attempts to brush it away.

My legs too carelessly rest beside the cup and the pack and phone, on one of the slippers – the other shaken off, lying capsized on the floor: all superstition be damned.

First 11 pages of Lolita Read in Tehran later, I’m so “infinitely happy”, I get off the unsafe part of the first floor, collect all the gleesome items and once more, latch the door to my private haven. I perform the studied routine of pinning my hair into a bun, washing up, gargling with Listerine, marinating my hands in copious amounts of sanitizer and sprucing up. More silent, more composed, at peace.

*Cuz the carpenter cleans up after he's done for the day. the bai's a ucking excuse left to herself.

Written at the L&T Orientation Programme

When I was on the bus to Haji Ali last evening, I noticed a house. All that was available to the eye, from my vantage point on the road, was the verandah on the first floor, with a couple of windows open. The windows allowed a peek into what could be the outermost "layer": clotheslines, spare mattresses stacked one on top of another, toys from another era, peeling paint, rusting pot stands, corroding aluminium on the windows themselves.

It was a feeling of deja vu. As if I have been told about this house, this verandah, this place before. A few years ago, may be. And then it strikes where, by whom I was told. I remember exactly my source of this prior description. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance told me.

What came as a surprise though, was how close the house was to the vicinity where I live. And how close to the description's likeness.

Bombay takes me back to books now.

Nerd.