Well, listening so much to Billie Holiday all this weekend. I kinda wrote down this song, which at two places refers to two of her different songs. I have tried to write down the kind of song/poem she used to sing in her satin voice.

I have titled it:

When you come to my memory

When you come to my memoryI conjure up a story
A delightful story
Of a summer romance
Wherein we had met
Perchance
In the small cafe
Across the way
And danced
To Billie Holiday
Singing, 'If you were mine...'
Remember your serene face
Like sunlight falling on pines
Your sweet gaze
Like the moon shines

When you come to my memory
I conjure up a story
Of a June night
Where we escaped away
To Sweetheart Bay
Where we stayed
The moonlit night
You lifted your lips to mine
As I kissed the curl
That lingered at your lips
And then the girl
I most loved
One I saw dreams of
Everyday

When you come to my memory
A thought perturbs
Nudges and disturbs, me,
So, I conjure up a story
Of a summer romance
Wherein by chance
We had met
And danced.

Here I post a song by Billie Holiday. 'I get along without you very well.'

Note how Holiday sounds like a deluded, heart-broken woman singing in self-mockery, 'I get along without you very well...'

Note how the simple lyrics are elevated to an altogether different level by the magical, heart-breaking, shattering, satin voice of 'Lady Day', Billie Holiday

I get along without you very well
Of course, I do
Except when soft rains fall
And drip from leaves
Then I recall
The thrill of being sheltered in your arms
Of course, I do
But I get along without you very well

I've forgotten you just like I should
Of course, I have
Except to hear your name
Or someones laugh that is the same
But I've forgotten you just like I should

What a guy
What a fool am I
To think my breaking heart
Could kid the moon
What's in store,
Should I fall once more?
No, its best that I stick to my tune

I get along without you very well
Of course, I do
Except perhaps in spring
But I should never think of spring
For that would surely break my heart in two

Whats in store
Should I fall once more?
No, its best that I stick to my tune

I get along without you very well
Of course, I do
Except perhaps in spring
But I should never think of spring
For that would surely break my heart in two

I heard Billie Holiday's voice first in the best romantic comedy that they ever made, the one that warmed the cockles of my heart, The Notebook. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams walts to the satin voice of Holiday as she sings, 'I'll be seeing you...'Every now and then I chance upon a singer whose works I know I will relish. (It was so with Begum Akhtar, etc.) It is kinda like recognizing a future partner in the first gaze. Well, anyway, when I heard Holiday, I instantly knew I now had a singer whose songs I will absolutely relish.
Albeit, I'll be seeing you remains my favourite because its the first Holiday song I heard, nevertheless, she effuses all her heart and soul in each of her songs. My Old Flame is another such song. Listening to her is an abslute delight. Since you will fall in love with her voice the moment you hear it, -- and the song you first hear will probably remain closer to your heart than the others -- you can wisely choose which song of hers you wish to hear first. I will here post two songs along with their lyrics. You can choose which to hear first : ) Another great song I was tempted to include here was, 'I get along without you very well'.

Almost all of her songs are sung to just a few instruments playing in the background. The songs are full of simple lyrics and poetry; it is the heart-breaking, satin voice of Holiday which elevates the simple lines to another level.
     

My Old Flame


My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But it's funny now and then
How my thoughts go
flashing back again
To my old flame
My old flame
My new lovers all seem so tame
For I haven't met a gent

So innocent or elegant
As my old flame

I've met so many men
With fascinating ways
A fascinating gaze in their eyes
Som who sent me up to the skies
But their attempts at love
Were only imitations of
My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But I'll never be the same
Untill I discover what became
Of my old flame

I've met so many men
With fascinating ways
A fascinating gaze in their eyes
Som who sent me up to the skies
But their attempts at love
Were only imitations of
My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But I'll never be the same
Untill I discover what became
Of my old flame

Mandatory: Before proceeding, close your eyes and think of your beloved -- or better still, think of an old flame : )



I'll be seeing you

I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.

In that small cafe;
The park across the way;
The children's carousel;
The chestnut trees;
The wishin' well.

I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day;
In every thing that's light and gay.
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.

I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day;
In every thing that's light and gay.
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.

Mandatory: Before proceeding, close your eyes and think of your beloved/spouse/sweetheart : )





Many more songs there are by her which I find absolutely delightful. Some of these are:
(Do tap the links to read the simple poetry of her songs.)
Sophisticated Lady
I get along without you very well
Georgia on my mind
A sailboat in the moonlight
Tenderly
The man I love

Billie Holiday was nicknamed Lady Day. She was born in 1915 and died in '59.

The wind coming uphill would bring with it the smoke of roti being cooked on earthen griddles, of heaps of leaves burning, in the settlement lower below in the valley; of rotting pines, baked cakes; and would carry along the mournful song of the monkeys that lived in the forest that covered the hill in their lush carpet. Every day, with the sun going down to hide behind the hills in the west, the pungent smoke, like a saturnine, old friend, would climb uphill and bid us back to our homes, telling us that food would be ready when we would tread downhill and reach home. So, we, Binni and I, would head on our pathway and would get down sooner than the other children who played in the hill. We knew every little lane, we knew where the grass was lush, where it thinned, where the ant-hills were, where the thorny bushes were and where the mulberry and the camellias grew; we had recognized the harder rocks for the grainy ones and the slimy ones. Halfway downhill from where we played, there was the highway and from there on the settlement began and thickened as one went further downhill. As the forest would end, and the settlement begin, we would step on our school teacher’s house ceiling, climb down the steps below, and head out through his front door. We would do this through many more houses whose residents we knew and cut our time.

Every day, when our school would be over at one on clock, Binni  and I would meet by the end of the road along which our houses stood and head uphill to our play. We would play chor-sipahi and sikdi. She taught me the latter game and would prefer it since she was good at it and I would prefer the former game because I could run faster than her. Sometimes we would group with the other children and acting as monkeys’ army play ‘lanka haran’. We children could play there uphill only because of the presence of the wood-cutters, the tea leaves’ pickers, and other workers whose daily life depended on the hill’s flora. On the northern side, the hill’s slope was dotted with pines that raised their hands high to the skies. We would roll down that slope that had soft, thick, brown grass, even when it would be very hard labour to climb up again. Our ligaments would stretch and calves’ muscles ache with pain. The pines would form a ceiling and block away some of the sun, so there would be checks of shade and sun in the ground; we would sit reclined against a pine and share the mulberries we had gathered alongside the pathway to that slope. We had been instructed not to gather or play with the gum that stuck on to the pines’ trunks. Our school teacher said it had been ‘privatized’ and belonged to the hair-oil factory that hummed over deep in the western side of the hill, and where father worked. So we would eat the mulberries and stare into the azure sky even as crows would call each other raucously and squirrels and other small animals would hiss in the bush.

Downward the eastern side of the hill, a plain stretched, overhung in between the hill where we played and the adjacent one. On the other side, it was lined by the highway, stopping by which, I had often seen tourists watch and sometimes film the herd of horses that ran amuck in that plain, which was with some admirable bravery, also shared by a herd of domesticated sheep. There were two unruly horses in particular - one a blackie, and the other one with brown skin - who would fight and play all the time. They would bite, stand on their hind-legs, ‘box’ each other with their fore-legs, then let their fore-legs fall to the ground and immediately kick one other with their hind legs, and run along the circumference of the field, teasingly calling each other. Sometimes, one of them would run in between the sheep, dismissing them, perhaps to tell them they were unwanted.

The open fields were married to those horses; the hills were married to the pines and the trees and bushes that dotted them, and my soul was married to them all. Toward evening, when the pungent smoke would beckon us back home, sometimes, for no reason, my heart would cringe in my chest; once when I was a little sick, and yet, on Binni’s persistent requests, had gone to play on the hill with her, the smoke brought tears to my eyes. I told about this to mother who said something, that with time, I have only vaguely begun to understand; she had said, ‘Mitthhu, you are an old soul. People cry when they think of old times, but sometimes, wise people shed tears when they know that something, in the future, will make them look over their shoulders, back to the road they have taken on life’s onward journey.’

One evening when our play was over, and I came back home to eat, mother asked me if I cared for Binni. It seemed to me a strange question and I replied that I cared for her because she was my friend. ‘Would you care if she was sent to another village and you would not get to meet her again?’ ‘Yes, I would care about that. And where is Binni going, mother?’ I asked her. ‘She is going to her real home.’ ‘Real home? But her real home is here, already, which other home does she have?’ ‘The home of her husband.’

I decided to ask Binni about the matter, the next day. I did not talk to her during school but she was relieved to see me at one on clock at our usual meeting place. As was her wont, she did not begin to talk since I had not talked to her since morning. We quietly climbed uphill and reached the spot of our daily play. As she chalked out lines on the grass for our play, certain lines appeared in her face, eliciting from me what I wanted to ask of her. I had long given up thinking what magic it was that told her everything going in my mind, of how her face would contort pre-emptively, and be prepared to receive the blows of my verbal assault. So, since it was elicited, I finally asked her, ‘So, you are going to your ‘real’ home, eh, Binni?’ as I leaned on the word, ‘real’. Binni continued to chalk out the rectangles and kept quiet as though she had not heard. But indeed she had, because as I said so, more lines appeared on her face as it contorted and the lines on the grass became more curvilinear. When she was done, she picked up a white stone lying by and gave it to me, looking at me straight in the eye. I tossed the stone to a far rectangle and began the play, and we did not speak about that matter again that day.

After a few days Binni stopped coming to school and to play, because she was sent to her ‘real’ home which was in the village that was overlooked by the hills where we played. The houses there looked tiny as ants and nothing seemed to move. I asked mother if I could visit Binni. She told me it would take a day for the back and forth journey and I was much too young for that. Soon, without the company of Binni, I began to be weary of the hills; as I would walk them, my calves’ muscles would ache doubly and every track I would take remind me of her and our plays together.

To put an end to my loneliness, I asked father to send me to the boarding school in the city, which he did. The city was a far cry from the mountainous life I had lived all my life, without ever visiting the plains. I did not like the materialism of the city-dwelling man, and the life propped up and made of concrete, cement and stone. It perturbed me to the point that I would at every given opportunity return to my beloved hills. But in each visit, try as I did, I did not get a chance to meet with Binni. Her visits to the village never coincided with mine and I thought it frivolous to ask mother to ask Binni to do something about it. Years passed by and I grew up to be a young man of eighteen and about to enter college. Like every year, I visited the village during summer but continued to be there till the onset of winter, the time when Binni visited the village.

One morning, as I ate the chapatti and moong dal, mother had cooked; she let me know that Binni was in the village, in her father’s house. ‘So, can I meet her, mother?’ I asked. ‘Yes, you can, only remember she is a married girl now, and you are not children anymore.’ I listened to mother thoughtfully, and finished my food. Later, toward the end of the day, as soon as the glistening, orange sun was bearable to look at, I went by our old familiar pathway and climbed uphill. After many years of living in the plains, the journey was arduous and my calves’ muscles hardened and ached. I drank a lot of water and lay still on the grass. My body knew that though the ground exuded the heat of the day, it would soon be bearable. All the while that I had climbed uphill, I had kept from myself my heart’s secret desire - of meeting with Binni. Somehow, and magically, I wanted her to be there. In fact, so was my belief that I would see her there that I would be completely surprised if I were to not find her. My heart beat with anticipation as I waited for her as though she had promised that she would come; as though it would be an act of betrayal if she were not to come.

I lay on the ground and looked at the moon that had already arrived, as sometimes a lover impatiently enters his beloved’s room, to find her still dressing for him. A shadow fell on me and blocked away the sun. I turned my neck round to see Binni standing behind me. She had kept the promise we had made one another in the silence of our collective memories.

I got on my two feet and looked at her from head to toe as she looked at me doe-eyed and with lips slightly parted. Her hair glittered gold to the sun behind her; she stood at a distance, near, and yet afar and I immediately remembered the dream I recurrently had had in all the years I had been away. I remembered that I had always seen her like this - in my memories too, she had been just this way - doe-eyed, her hair glistening to the sun behind her, and a desire balanced delicately, in between the world of silence and words, at her half-parted lips. Looking at her then, my heart skipped a beat and I realized, after all these years, what desire it was that lingered and waited in our hearts.

I moved towards her and took her by the hand. We sat on the ground and talked. I unconsciously spoke in the language in which I had begun to think - which was English - but Binni did not know English; I felt her wince as I switched from English to Hindi. I felt her wince more and more; our hearts were close, and so the fear that lay close to her heart, reached mine. I felt her every heart beat. Binni seemed lost, and I was at a loss of words. I decided to drop the discussion on the political situation of our town and it’s relating economics that affected everyone’s life and talked instead of the childhood we had had together. I was surprised to observe Binni’s heart grow cold to that memory. She did not seem to react to anything in word or in thought, only her heart’s beats would speed up or slow down; her eyes would blink at a varying rate, as would her breathing slow or speed. I realized with a start that Binni had not grown up like a normal human being. She had not gone through the cognitive processes through which every human being passes which develops him into a societal being.

We talked as I let her speak what she wanted she speak and I listened to her patiently. She told me about her husband and about the life she had lived. Her husband was a businessman and took care of her. But when pressed, and in a bad mood, chide her. The lines that contorted her face, the tone of her speech, did not conform to the content of what she spoke. She was communicating but in a civil code that did not belong to the world where I had grown up. That she could intuitively know what was going in my mind had always been her strength, and something that had fascinated me, but not then; that we shared a common consciousness became her weakness and a curse then, which she bore like an animal - stoutly and coarsely. And something made me think that that was how she had born all her marital and other troubles - and that she had born many - like a donkey, stoutly, impassively and coarsely.

As the sun when down and stars dotted the sky, the old familiar pungent smoke climbed uphill to bid us back to our homes. As that smoke filled my lungs, I remembered in a flash all the years I had spent with Binni and all the years I had been away. I felt a searing anger in my heart, but I do not know against whom - Binni, her parents, her in-laws, myself, or the world in which we live. The anger I felt cut me in two pieces. I whispered good-bye to her, turned on my heel and started walking. I wondered what happened to the Binni I knew. Where had she disappeared? Where had she gone? Why had she not grown like the other people I had known in my lives? I did not take our old pathway, I treaded down by a different route slipping on slime and wet grass in the dark, and when the road came I took it and began walking down it. Rain-washed and black, it stretched endlessly like disease and bended to some curve about which I did not care to think.

So, here is your latest dose of torture. Here's hoping you enjoy. Please give your comments and feedback so I can finetune my torture techniques :)

When we were fifteen,
I heard her say in her heart, to me
'Will you love me?'
Her eyes were clear as the sky...
'I am incapable of loving,
Will you cure me, mister?
For my heart will, inspite of me, love you doubly back...
I might not say much through pursed lips
I might linger for long
Our first kiss
I might not be versed in the language of countenance
Nor understand the feeling tiding within
Will you love me, despite all this?
My black tangled hair, like the blackness within
Might come out to hiss
As I helplessly stand aside and see
Will you then have the masculinity
To forgive me easily
To consider
And show kindness
A virtue that will melt my heart like no other...
Will you love me, mister
A love simple, plain and honest
And beautiful as beautiful can be?
Will you hide a part of yourself
Forever for me to guess
So I love you a love boundless
And deep as eternity.'
I looked in her eyes
That bore deep in me
To one day, years ahead,
Understand me in memory...

So, much before I knew 
My heart, despite myself, loved her so deep,
My heart loved her so true...

When we were twenty-one,
I heard her say in her heart, to me
'Will you hate me?'
A storm raged in her heart
Her eyes were torn and her soul divided
'I am incapable of loving,
Will you cure me, mister?
For my heart will love you doubly back
If you hate me with a passion...
I will look up to you
And worship you
So long as you despise me
I will despise you
If you love a thing like me
Will you be indifferent to me, mister?
So I love you a love boundless
And deep as eternity...'

So here I am again with your latest dose of torture. :)

Cigarette smoking

The dreamy-eyed Piscean at IIIT Hyd would be proud -- proud to hear -- as soon as he does -- that I can now properly smoke. Take a cigg in between the two fingers and sans any noise or huff-puff, fill my lungs with the smoke, hold it there, and exhale.

I went to this room -- a hostel room ie -- and the twenty four hour air conditioning notwithstanding -- it was soaked in cigg smoke. We were together for the day coz we had an exam in the eve and this NRI dude lit a Goldflake every twenty minutes. It was nauseating and toxic. He is a pretty interesting guy; has a passion for history and had books on Middle East history -- Egyptian in particluar and is also into documentary movies -- the conspiracy theories ones!

My room partner smokes around two, three cigarette every night. The first one I consume more than half -- I even light it. BTW, FTR, let me tell you that I am as of now a "cigarette-virgin". Let me qualify that. I get a kick in the head in exactly the fourth or fifth drag. Also, I take long drags. In fact I wish to remain a cigarette-virgin for ever. I do not smoke everyday but only say on two consecutive days and then would not smoke for four, five days. The bottom line is that my body hasn't yet developed that craving for cigarette as is there in every cigarette smoker. And it has been like this since ever. In the Diwali holidays last yr too, I smoked with my cousins over vodka and cards, and got a pretty strong kick in the fourth drag. But this is like playing with fire -- it can consume me before I realize. As for the smoking in some of my poems -- that's just for the glamour effect.

Football

I have a passion for playing football. I just returned from playing football. I am still wearing the studds (the special spiked football shoes). I can play good football and so that makes it beautiful. There is a wholesomeness to the game of football which makes you love the game. After I have played football and thoroughly exhausted myself, tranquility naturally sets in my bosom, my mind becomes totally blank, and my conscience becomes clear as the sky.

I have come to think over time that football is like life, and I am sure that every footballer the world over knows this and understands this, perhaps better than me. Let me try and explain that to you:

It is with a clear, simple and constant joy, the kind that is unaware of itself because it so deep-seated in your being, that you play this beautiful game. It is with that joy that you take the pre-emptive runs in the game, dribble, tackle, play the game... And every one has his own defined role -- his own individuality -- and is still but part of the team. I think that Life and Football can sit together and Football can coach Life how to play well.

***

I still get dreams of my school days when I was sixteen/seventeen and played football with my school mates. All my football dreams feature my school football ground. I wish to return one day to the smell of wet grass and beaten leather, fill my lungs with the cool winter air, and play football with my school mates with whom I grew up. 

‘Have you heard about David Rockefeller?’

‘Of course I have,’ she begins, like she begins all sentences, followed by answering the question in mid-sentence, ‘we read about him in our first year MBA classes’, and goes on to build her case, ‘I mean every MBA student reads about the success story of the Rockefellers, and David Rockefeller is worshipped the world over by all businessmen,’ and finally, ends her sentence like she ends all sentences, ‘what’s wrong with you?!’

So the complete sentence comes thus: ‘Of course I have, we read about him in our first year MBA classes. I mean every MBA student reads about the success story of the Rockefellers, and David Rockefeller is worshipped the world over by all businessmen, what’s wrong with you?!’

And then comes the parting remark: ‘Dude, your socialist ideas ain’t gonna work in today’s times.’

***

‘I do not like corporate globalization… I am opposed to it,’ said I.

(Then after some days) …

‘Let’s take a look around in Shopper’s stop. It’s my favorite shopping place,’ said I.

‘Why can’t you buy clothes off the road for heaven’s sake!, and you said you are against corporates and corporatization, then how can you buy at Shopper’s Stop!!! You are such a hypocrite and you have also become such a psuedo of late, you copy what others do and there’s nothing you that’s left of you. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?!’

***

‘Have you seen The Godfather? Did you like it?’

Let’s speculate the answer to be: ‘I don’t know why men have such a thing for violence and gangsters and elevating them to the level of gods and worshipping them. Hypocrites!’

But it routinely stuck to the earlier format: ‘Of course I have seen The Godfather… I mean I am an advertising student for heaven’s sake and The Godfather is a classic movie shown in all advertising classes, what’s wrong with you?!’

***

‘Have you read Atlas Shrugged?’

‘Of course I have read Atlas Shrugged!’

‘Should I read it, too? Or recommend me a book to read.’

‘No! You already read The Fountainhead and there’s absolutely nothing she has to say in that book coz whatever she had she already said it in The Fountainhead and she only repeats what she said earlier. If you wish to read something new and if you wish to learn how to write well -- and please don’t stick to the dead and gone classic writing, please grow out of it -- then please read some contemporary Indian writers like Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lehri, etc. Why do you wanna always read The Fountainhead and Gone with the wind, why can’t you grow out of it, why do you have such a fascination for Victorian era English, what’s wrong with you?!’

***

‘Why do women pre-suppose so many things and then wage pre-emptive war like America?’

‘Women do not, repeat do not, presuppose anything, they have a highly analytical mind and they objectively assess all available data and reach a conclusion. And women never wage any kind of wars. Peace and women came from Venus to inhabit Mother Earth whereas men were twin born with wars in Mars, what’s wrong with you?!’

****

Mad Aunt loved children only they would never come near her. They would not because of the children she already had – her three dog-children who would constantly bark at us children whenever we would go near her house, as though in perpetual possessiveness of the love of their ‘mother’, too afraid to share it with anyone else. Sometimes when she would lull them or tether them, she would draw a mustache across her mouth with charcoal and chase us around her house. She was a constant source of fun for us. We would play hide-and-seek in her house. I vividly remember the place I would often choose to hide: I would lie down flat beneath the sofa in the drawing room and shift the adjoining table to cover it, something which would indicate to her my presence and she would find me. When she would shift the table and peeping beneath the sofa say, ‘boo!’, I would giggle with ecstasy.

Insurgency started in Kashmir in ’89. As a result, the Indian army was deployed in our town in the early nineties. The Indian army soldiers would patrol our streets all day and keep a strict vigil. They were apparently for our protection. But they would also built bunkers in the hill that overlooked the town, and ceremoniously shoot at people moving down below in the streets. Mad Aunt would every morning count the army vehicles coming in the town in their long serpentine convoys. She would make lewd gestures at them without fail and her dogs would bark too. The soldiers would be indifferent to her but occasionally, a soldier would remark something back, to which, infuriated, she would raise her hands to the heavens and curse the soldiers. Locals would laugh at her but only to cleverly underplay her remarks and to take the sting out of them. Although she was not afraid for herself, they were afraid for her.

She would say in Kashmiri, ‘If you hurt my children (her dogs), the mountains will close on you. Gulzaras banayiwe khar, su myon Rab’ul Alimeen (My God will turn the flower gardens into thorns for you).’ And, ‘the hills will explode under you.’

My father told me that Mad Aunt was very close to God. He told me that she was once a very good wife. But she never had any children. Her husband died of an incurable disease. But those close to their family knew that his heart was broken because of their childlessness.

Although she was friendly to me, my sister and other children in the neighbourhood, she was not in talking terms with my father and his friends. We were Hindus who had crossed the border during Partition in ’47, and settled in that town ever since. She would look at our parents with a wary eye. And since the death of her husband, she had kept the whole community at a distance. She had lived her own life. They would say that since her husband’s death, she had grown haughty and proud. It was then that people had begun to call her ‘Ishq Cheetin’ or the One Torn in Love. During some periods which we would call ‘her spells’, she would even reprehend us children and deeply hurt us with her cutting remarks. She would say in Kashmiri, ‘Little Devils! Get out of my house!’ We would then not talk to her for weeks on end and forget about her. Then she would send for us with the message that she had made too many shish kebabs which had to be eaten. The mere mention of shish kebabs would make us forget all our grudges and head back to the familiarity and warmth of her house. She could not as easily make up with her other neighbours so they would talk only very little or not at all.

On my insistence, father once accompanied me to her house and while we played hide-and-seek, Mad Aunt and my father sat in the drawing room and apparently exchanged only pleasantries and kept mum. She did not say anything probably because she did not want to insult my father in my presence. Even as a small boy, I quietly understood the dynamics of their relationship, and decided not to ask my father to accompany me to her house again.

My father told me later that day that they had in fact talked. And they had talked after a very long time. It was only when he had been a small boy that she had talked to her more often, but when he had grown to be an adult, she had stopped talking. She had said to my father, ‘You look more like your father each passing day.’ Father told me that she had served him shish kebabs, which were so tasty that he had insisted giving her in return anything she asked for. Mad Aunt had replied saying that she would think for a day and give her answer. And for that, we had to visit her again the next day.

So, all properly dressed, I, my sister and father went to Mad Aunt’s house the next day. Mother had made gulab jamuns for Mad Aunt since she always insisted to never go empty-handed to anyone’s place. It was visiting Mad Aunt that afternoon that the sight of the camellias that formed the hedge in her small aangan got imprinted in my memory and continues in my recollections to be the pictorial symbol of my childhood. Mad Aunt opened the door and greeted us saying, ‘Adaab’. I and my sister fondly replied ‘Adaab’ properly gesticulating the Islamic greeting, and were overlooked smilingly by the two elders present.

We sat down at the sofa and Mad Aunt and father started talking. The knot that would perpetually be tied at her chin, whenever she would face other neighbours was loosened. She did not even have the same proud look about her face. She spoke in Urdu, ‘Rakesh, I have lived a beautiful and fulfilling life. The only regret I have had has been to not have children of my own. My days are numbered and I shall soon one day go to my God. My regret would be to leave alone the three dog-children I have now.’ My father immediately understood what was implied and intervened in between, ‘Wahida-ji, I will take care of your dog-children after when you are gone. I will feed them every day and look after them.’ On hearing this, Mad Aunt took my father’s hands in hers and kissed them. She shed tears and after some time, she spoke again, ‘I am a very poor woman, Rakesh, and have nothing to give you or anybody. And today, you have given me all I could ever have asked for.’ I had not seen Mad Aunt so humble before. As a small boy, I did not immediately understand the sudden change of heart.

Mad Aunt died a week later and we buried her under Islamic laws with help from our Muslim neighbours. We brought home her dogs that by then had grown friendly with us. My father later said to us, ‘She was a great lady. People as strong and proud as her are not born every day.’

I did not understand my father’s remark until many years to come ahead.

*******

PS I built on the story related in this blog, adding my own fictitious events.

It makes you reticent
It makes you talk
It makes you to stop
As it makes you walk

It makes you live
It makes you too
It feeds fat your ego
Then lives off you

It implores you think
Passionate, crying issues
It makes you mull all day
And live in the blues

In this perishable world
It implores you to be happy, sad, indifferent, agog
The Profound Need, to sooner or later
Write The Next Blog!


PS I had first begun to write this using "me" but later decided to point the guns in the reverse dierection.

There have been two reports of late in The Times of India which are essentially a giveaway in that they tell us of the rampant corruption in the mainstream media. Let us  look at them one by one.


Neither on the left nor on the right side of the argument

The first report was an editorial published on Saturday, 31^st, May. More than being a report it was a commentary on events. That space in all newspapers is generally for opinion, not a recounting of events, but a reflection on them. To quickly sum it up: it recounted that the White House Press Secretary made some serious allegations against the Bush administration, or more properly, his close associates, Cheney, Rumsfeld, among others. He said that he was asked to lie to the media. He said that the war in Iraq was a very wrong decision. A general format of reports those are inconsequential – like say whether SRK should quit smoking or not – is that in the first paragraph they round off a certain event as it occurred. In the next, they show the countering of, say, the allegation by the party in the line of fire. Subsequently, it shows sometimes what the public at large is saying, say by interviewing some people or simply speculating the impact it would have on the public. So, perhaps in the interest of “fair-play” this particular report then recounts that the Press Secretary is dismissed off as a “left-wing blogger”; and is said to be dejected since the Bush term in office is coming to an end. 

Journalistic Terrorism

The second report was published in the Sunday Times of India, 1^st, June. The report was entitled “Reaping crores”. It said how prices of real estate in Singur, after the land was acquired by the state from the farmers/villagers and given to Tata motor company, have shot up, and so some have seen a windfall.        

• The report mentions “some”: some villagers have seen a windfall. 
• The report quotes a villager saying that it was good that the land was sold off because land is often a matter of dispute among family-members.

The first point is callous since the land-grabbing has benefited supposedly only some. What about the rest of the villagers? What about their stories? Where are they now? To which city did they migrate, where are they begging? An honest report would have done a survey on at least a good portion of the people (say, hundred?) and statistically worked on the data to reflect the state of the whole community.

The second point is the note on which the report ends. How convenient. To find a flaw – innate and inherent. Well, there could be several more points like say, “it is a hard life; monsoons are unpredictable”, or like, “there is better life in cities.” Perhaps TOI shied off. Well, how about quoting the finance minister: the bond between a farmer and his land is a “sacred bond”? 

The report is a slap in the face of hundreds left destitute when the land of Singur was acquired forcibly by the state, for a nominal amount – when no amount can be enough – from the villagers. It is a slap in the face of Nandigram – a nearby village that showed resistance to the state –; at the families of Nandigram who lost their members, more than one hundred lost their lives, they were the victims of state terrorism; and several were injured.  
 

It is a slap in the face of the many millions who have been displaced in the sixty-year old history of the Indian republic due to dams and other “structural adjustment programs”. In public consciousness, the story of The Times of India gives a very wrong face to the untold, tragic story of helpless villagers displaced from their lands.

The Times of India stands guilty of propaganda newsreporting and journalistic terrorism.

Memories from the decade of the nineties when I grew up in Lucknow

The rainwater would make a guttural sound as it gushed out
Of the pipe in the aangan(1)
that ran down the wall from the chat(2)
I would set the paper-boat along the current gushing out
The boat would just as soon be overturned with the water
raining down!
If we would be playing cricket and it rained
We would continue to play dauntless in the face of
apocalyptic weather.
The wind would catch hold of the rain and savagely whip the
streets for hours on end.
The hidden beast centred at the waterpooling water in the
street
They said would sometimes swallow kids like us
Like it occasionally swallowed our balls.
The chappal(3) would
adhere to the street and go along with too!

It would be very dark in the night with no ‘light’
Especially if it was amavasya(4)
or half-moon
We would play a guessing game of
silhouettes   
The kids wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house
We would run round and round in the aangan
Or rotate like a spinning-top with arms outstretched
Then tired and in the prospect of nothing to do
We would go play antakshari(5)
at the steps of the opposite house
With the children slightly elder to us there
Who would dazzle us with their exemplary knowledge of
extraterrestrials
That hopped on the moon like we hopped in our aangan
Which I would come back home and narrate to mother
Who would listen intently and patiently.
Sometimes when there would be lightening
In a flash we would see the contour of clouds
And faces of families who perennially circled their chats
Like we did ours
Singing songs or talking
Or with father making me rote-learn the table of 12
Then suddenly, light would come
And the entire neighbourhood would erupt in one single
proclamation:
“Light aa gayi!!!”(6)

At night we would look for stars
Which meant the sky was clear
So we would take the bistar
and head chat-wards
Would wash the floor with water
So it would be clean and cool
I would meticulously tiptoe
Around water-logged patches on the floor
That held pieces of the sky in their palm
And would move round and round the chat
Until when it would dry
And the bistar(7) would be laid
And all would sleep.
I however, would look at the sky
With a conscience as clear and expansive
Would look at the stately moon
Mark its way across the sky
Slowly, from end to end
To inspect the sheep
That the shepherd that roamed the sky
Lined in the sky"s expanse
Like the salutation in parade at school
Or sometime it would go behind bigger diaphanous clouds
And a faint glow would move

I would constantly toss and turn the white sheet
And hug the cooler parts of it
Would strain and squint at a star
And look at its colored flickering flame
I don’t know when the first time
I marked out patterns of stars in the sky
To see them every day
For years to come ahead
I long anchored a part of me
To their constancy