That kind act

A turbo charged day was finally coming to its sane end. After a rather well organized second day of YAF which included great performances, a good turnout and even better food it was time to go back to the comfortable interiors of my home and crash on the couch.

Remembering all the mad amount of scurrying around to placate frayed nerves, soothing jangling tempers, wars over food (a quintessential hallmark of the group), i had a smile on my face. A smile of satisfaction, a job well done and amends made especially after a disappointing first day. As i strutted back with a swagger and a smile with carnival of rust providing sweet solace to my tired soul, i spotted him.

An man, aged 50's sitting on the pavement behind the pile of papers of all languages, catering to all types of classes, which he hoped to sell. His henna dyed beard, missing canines, balding grey white hairline concealed by a circular Mohammedan cap and a dirty kurta of a fading colour, all conveyed that life had been harsh on him. No doubt his haggard face did point out to the fact that he was aged much beyond his years.

It was a saturday and the new TOI crest issue was on stands. Having recently acquired a rather discerning interest, i do like to read this special edition regularly. My hand reached for my wallet as i approached him and searched in the corner pockets to eek out the six rupees needed to buy the newspaper. As luck would have it, there was absolutely no small change in the wallet. Grimacing i told him about my inability to buy the newspaper and apologized. He just asked me 'kya hua beta? Crest chahiye, arre le lo, 6 ruapi ki hi toh baat hai.' (What happened son? Want Crest? Just take it, it just a question of six rupees) and like that he simply handed over the paper to me.
I tried to tell him and convince him that ill come and give him the money on monday and would he be here but it was so obvious that he didn't expect any of it and he was absolutely not hoping for anything in return for having done that.

It surprised me to no end to see a man, who hadn't sold so many of newspapers at 9 in the night and was going to suffer heavy losses anyway on his meagre source of income instead of being frustrated and cranky would voluntarily hand over a newspaper to a decked up boy carrying gadgets in his hand with headphones plucked in his ears leading a quintessentially what might be referred to as a good life. It almost made me cringe that level to which people including people very close to me distrust this particular community, ostracize them for a behavior of few black sheep, generalize their habits and blame half the problems of the country on them. If this wasn't bad enough the government had perpetuated a policy of exclusion against them, systematically eroding their representation in the mainstream while a many right wingers spew venom on them. This was the community which recently one of the CM aspirant of saffron party which he incidentally heads in Maharashtra told to go back to Pakistan if they couldn't song vande mataram accusing them of being traitors and anti- nationals.

THe man on the street didn't look at my religion, he didn't even care to which class i belonged to. All he saw was that i needed a newspaper and didn't have the requisite change so he just handed it over to me. Small action, great thought. In that moment of pure gesture, he showed so much what can be done to ease the pain of exclusion. A small act of kindness, a simple healing touch unmindful of 'barriers' which more often than not exist solely in our minds, a basic semblance of trust, maybe all that is needed to erase deep dark memories entrenched across the history and the future of the nation.

With my thoughts about my own life reaffirmed, the path i hope to take, the choices i wish to make, i carried on after uttering a grateful thank you, half embarrassed trying to figure out the right way to respond to such a humbling gesture. Till then it had been a satisfying day, after that it became a truly profound day, a day which actually inspired hope and trust and a smile to warm one's heart. And yes...i will meet him and repay all that is due...to how many people, thats something i need to figure out...

Discovering the joys of Uncool

Today, as i sat sandwiched between an adorable girl no more than 5 and one of the cutest toddlers I have been lucky enough to lay my eyes on, listening to Takahiro Arai, a disciple of Indian Classical Music legend, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, playing Santoor, I couldn't help but wonder.

This thought faced me because I knew i was wrong at a certain point of time in history and that too completely wrong and way off the mark. Raised up in a privileged culture of a good life, it was but natural for me as well to seek solace in throaty vocals of Billie Joe Armstrong, connect my sorrows with 'soul stirring' lyrics of Linkin Park, which often did serve as my chicken soup and things outside the realm of India which proved as much to myself as to others the decency of my pro western education, the 'world awareness' of my peers and in general my alignment with things in vogue. A direct spinoff of this order of thinking among many people of my age group and social order is relegation of Indian Music as being plain dreary (Bollywood, especially Rehman and currently Kailash Kher are a notable exception). Out of personal experience, i can confidently assume that this notion is unfounded, generalized, deliberately playing on the stereotypes in order to suit the cult of being in vogue (Appreciating things Indian often isn't) and thus is as such completely unfounded. This premonition thus can said be on the basis of half baked and often no knowledge at all.

As a member of Indian Music Group, i have been slowly introduced to classical music. Truth to be told I hadn't taken a liking to it as a fish to water yet its complexities and multifaceted daunting challenges in terms of different octaves and sonority of voice and pitch which needs to be traversed by an artist, did impress me.
What was unexpected was though was the sight of being able to see a Japanese person play the Santoor, the bastion of Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, with astounding ease and brilliant skills. For the first time in my life the sweet rhythms of music came alive, each chord, each note being being the sycophant of the master in total control, it almost exulted me in the state of a musical trance. Remembering the sniggers of people when the co- exec members were requesting them to attend this particular concert, I couldn't help but feel extreme sympathy for that misguided arrogance surmounted by an air of superiority for having missed truly a rare delight. It also made me see myself in the mirror and realize my own follies, the vanity and the foolishness of this pro western parochial attitude.

Must the love for one be accompanied by distaste for the another? Given that everyone wouldn't have an ear for Indian CLassical Music as opposed to Western Music and vice versa but must this attitude of supremacy based on unfounded notions persist? A harmonious synthesis of culture is the answer and probably as how Indo-Western collaborations in the musical arena make waves, a person embedded in cultures both traditional as well as modern, having a healthy respect for both and a keen sense to try something with an open mind beofore jumping the gun would be a progressive person.
By the stroke of luck and dawn of some amount of common sense, i believe i have begun to traverse this long path...probably so should many others.

The Red Revolution

A cursory glance would suffice. There is no public place which is quite immune to its effects. It has slowly penetrated right down to the basic soul of the nation, touching and coloring places, things, objects with its gelatinous red effects.
The Naxals may be fighting for a red revolution in India since those romantically turbulent era of the 60's but truth to be told, India has been gripped by the red revolution since time immemorial. It enjoys mass popular support by the burgeoning population of the nation, so much so that it has almost added an Indian chutzpah to even those symbols of magnificence of our colonial masters. This red revolution being referred to here is the ubiquitous Indian practice of rechristening the 'bland' places with red stains of paan, that holy mother of all Indian gastronomic inventions which has transformed the stomachs of Indians and face of India in more ways than one.
The corners of lifts, shady portions of buildings, white colored 'Stick no Bills' papers, corners of roads, electric poles, brand new german manufactured SIEMENS coaches of local trains promising an unheralded era of comfort travel and the authors shirt among a million other things and places have born brunt of this generous act of Indian art. It has reached levels that a pot bellied middle aged man with a thick mustache chewing has proven enough a sight to inspire dread of the aftermaths of this oral exercise among the innocent hearts of living and due to the ferocity of the brunt, probably the non living as well. It is not unheard of in parts of town for people to get nightmares about the act since its inception which includes contractions of facial muscles and distortions of perfectly ugly round faces in order to give the accumulated liquid inside enough velocity to come out in the form of a barrage hurtling towards its chosen target with impunity and getting splashed all over it, leaving the hallmark of the great Indian art by this artist all over it until it is re chosen as an intended target and the same treatment is meted out to it all over again.
With the civic bodies bereft of any sort of ideas to come up with more publicly engaging forms of street art to effectively cover a blank space and to add that spice to things mundane, the practice looks all set to continue and thus becoming a part of the Indian folklore. Cheers to a colorful India!!