A Fit of Frustration

Have you heard of a 'Mukbang'? A raging entity on YouTube these days, it is a video of a man or woman eating on camera. There is nothing really special about the eater and it's the food that's placed in front of the camera that is the focus of attention as is the act of eating. The Youtuber films himself or herself eating various kinds of foods and in humoungous quantities. These mukbangs are immensely popular with each video clocking anywhere between 15 thousand to 15 million views, thousands of comments and millions of subscribers. Watching one such mukbang, I compare sadly the contrasting status of my blog: three or four subscribers, about fifty thousand visitors (that is over the last four and half years) and one or two comments on each post. हाय रे किस्मत! I wonder about what it is that is so attractive about watching someone hog food you cannot touch or smell? On the face of it, the thing sounds kind of gross but on pondering further, I come to the conclusion that vicarious gratification is the only probable answer. That and the fact that this gratification is instant. You see, this is the age of instant noodles, instant coffee, instant news and instant gratification. We have become creatures of limited patience and therefore the old pastimes and hobbies such as reading books are both passè and fading. No one has the time or the inclination to sit down, open a book or a newspaper and read at leisure. Or put pen to paper to write a letter or an email to a near and dear one. And why not, when you can derive the same quantum of instant gratification by simply watching a film of ninety minutes made on the very same book, scroll through your Twitter feed for news delivered to you in succinct 280 words or describe your life's happenings in actual photos on WhatsApp or Facebook?

I often get told by friends: oh you must publish. In the beginning, I would be flattered no end by such advice. These days, a disgruntled me just retorts icily, a sarcastic smile pasted on my face: would you buy my book?
And if that someone, still not feeling the frost of my sarcasm, answers: yes of course; I tell them, frost a degree colder: so what and when was the last book you bought? Even the most persistent of people get the hint and swallow their effusive encouragement after this.
Truly, who reads books today? Or blogs with a literary tilt?
My dreams of fame via blogging have quietly retreated underground these days. Sometimes, when they do rear their timid little heads above ground, they are pushed back into hiding by advice from supercilious relatives that go something like this: oh why are you running after fame? You must write for the pleasure of writing...karmanye vadhikaraste ......

Pah! I am not some karmayogi looking for nirvana. I lust for fame. I want my two minutes of basking in the sun, my instant gratification ...

Tell me, would you like to watch and subscribe to a channel that has a fat, fifty year old Indian woman eating bhaat(rice), maccher jhol and ekti kaancha lonka (one green chilly) on YouTube?

To Kuttush with Love

Kuttush died yesterday afternoon; Kuttush, my great biscuit coloured Labrador with the proud otter tail who's fur was tinged with gold, as if angels had sprinkled him with sparkles of sunlight. Kuttush was special all right, and his gold flecked fur was more proof that he was from from a place angels and fairies and other such beautiful things come from. Other Half felt this too and often remarked: Kuttush's a saint! He was, but a hedonistic saint, one who loved his comforts: hearty meals of large and frequent proportions, a cool place to splay himself on his back, all four legs in air and gently snore the day away.....He relished all the little pleasures that life has on offer: the library of interesting smells from the fields around our house where he spent hours and hours snooping, sniffing and gallivanting, the cubes of ice a friend always offered him when he went visiting her, the tangle in the hay with the buxom lady Alsatian next door, the Fauji ration potatoes that he filched with impunity from atop the dining table, the never ending adoration from his numerous human female fans... everything. In some ways he was very much like me: fat, lazy and unduly fond of his physical comforts like food and sleep. But in so many ways, he was completely different from me: detached and free of silly emotional attachments. But that does not mean that he was apathetic or indifferent; on the contrary, he was full of fondness for all living creatures around him: from the ill-tempered cow that entered my garden on the sly to the evil stray who had bitten him more than once, Kuttush loved one and all; without exception, without discrimination. He was specially fond of socializing with humans and made it a point to plonk himself, right in the middle of my living room when we had guests over and contribute to the raging debate with the occasional loud and empathetic 'Baoow'. And he was a complete gossip master and the neighborhood snoop, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of all my neighbours. And unlike Mimie or Khushi, my female labs ( both of whom have crossed over) I know Kuttush loved me more than anyone else. I know it as surely as I know that the sun rises in the east. So what was he to me: a child who grew old and frail faster than me yet always remained my child? I can hear him say: Huh! I was never your child, ladki. On the contrary, YOU are my child. Don't remember how you put your head over my side and slept/cried/laughed/confided like little girl to her Mom?
Yes, I was his child, we both were, myself and Other Half for only a parent can give you so much love and so much forgiveness; and take nothing in return, absolutely nothing.
I am crying as I write this and I am trying to stop too, for I know Kuttush would never approve of all this sniffling and sobbing. He would put one paw on my hand and say, Ho ho ladki, kyun roti hai? In this endless journey of birth and life and death, we'll meet again somewhere, pucca. So quit the tears and get on with life. And keep the potatoes ready, girl. Who knows, you might find me just round the corner......

ONSRA: FIVE LOVE POEMS

I
An Invitation? A Reminder?

One day you will die. And one day I will too.
So?
Nothing. Just saying. Because that is why it doesn't matter too much if just for once, we drank the wine. And let the ruby red stain our lips and our hearts.



II
Worship


Each dusk I leave an offering at your shrine: flowers, incense and a bit of poetry.
Next dusk, my heart sighs:
My flowers are wilted, the incense is fallen ash and my words have gathered only dust .
And you, oh you still stand.
The Inscrutable.

III
A Surprise Gift



What can you give me, (if you wanted to)?
What would I want from you?
A few words that smile. That would be enough.
That would be wonderful.


IV
This Too is Love You Know

This too is love, you know,
This knowing you by heart;
The ravines on your face:
Light and Shade, in my art.



V
Going Away, Letting Go

I'm going away, letting go.
Why cling,like a clod of moss covered mud on your wall- ugly, needless:
So I'm going away and letting go.

My road is ok, smooth in parts, rough in others, up and down; few yellowing leaves, fallen jacaranda flowers, the gray peak with snow far ahead and a thick cold in the air.

Tried, still couldn't help turn back: caught you smiling in your cocoon of warm russet glow- so many around you...
And your smile, oh, your smile!!!!!

So it's good that I am going away and letting go.
The road's quiet but there's a faint rattle from my bag:
words knocking against words, words now loose, from my old broken verse.

PRIMUM NON NOCERE: FIRST, DO NO HARM

The other day I had clicked a sea of purple agapanthus with my cell-phone camera and I was very happy with the result. As I exited my bathroom, admiring the bright purple shimmering in the brown haze of the afternoon heat, I thought excitedly, “I could convert this into poetry……..”

“You’ve been rather silent,” I heard her say. She was sitting on my bed, red sari encased legs dangling and the startlingly red lipstick shining like a beacon on her lips.

“Hi, Ms PnP.” I said, without much enthusiasm. “Long-time-no-see???”

She crossed her legs, the stilettos clacking against the tiled floor.

“So, are you not going to write about this doctors’ stir that’s taken the country by storm?”

I didn’t reply immediately for I was studying her red lipstick. These days Ms PnP was into watching YouTube videos on French fashion and the red lipstick (M.A.C’s Ruby Woo, no less) was the direct result. That and the kohl-less eyes and red stilettos.

Then I said, “You look smashing!” attempting some flattery in order to veer her mind away from her question. But she was immune to my efforts.

“So, are you not going to write anything at all?” Her eyes were steely.

“Mere likhne na likhne se kya fark padta hai?” I said dismissively.

“Well, you wrote about Asifa, you wrote about Pulwama, you wrote about Kashmir….You write about soldiers…..Aren’t these people your brethren too?”

“Yes. They are. But….”

“Don’t you feel their fight is a righteous fight, a fight for justice?” I had to nod my head in agreement. “Yes.”

“Then? What’s stopping you?” She asked, frowning. “Even the smallest, softest word of support will add to the amplitude of their campaign. Your writing will definitely help.”

There are very few people in the world who are immune to the force of Ms PnP’s personality and I am definitely not one of them. To me, her words were convincing, her faith infectious. So, in the evening after work, I sat down to pen my two-bit opinion in support of my brethren’s fight for justice.

An intern was on duty at a medical college hospital in Kolkata. An ailing old man with complaints of breathlessness was brought in by relatives. The doctors on duty administered an injection to the patient. The patient died. The relatives assaulted the doctors and staff. The intern was hit on the head with a brick. He suffered a depressed fracture of the skull. Gravely injured, he had to be hospitalised in the ICU and required neurosurgical consult. The junior doctors of the hospital and subsequently all doctors including the teachers of the college and others all over the country went on strike with two demands:
• Arrest and punishment of the perpetrators.
• Provision of armed security for all govt hospitals.

Neither of the above has been carried out till date.

Dear reader (outside the medical fraternity),
I will not ask you to ponder on whether the patient was already in a moribund state and whether he was brought to the hospital too late and only after his condition had deteriorated to the point no human intervention could save him.
I will not ask you to question what logic led the relatives to conclude that it was that single injection that caused the patient to die.
I will not ask you to consider that Dr Paribaha Mukherjee was only an intern, still a student, an understudy who worked under the supervision of a legally qualified doctor and any action taken by him would be only with the express direction and consent of his senior.
I will not urge you to ask that one question: why in God’s name, would a doctor want to kill a patient that has come under his care?
I will not ask you to talk about how healthcare in India is both cheap and of reasonably good quality, giving you what is called value-for-money.
I will not ask you to harp upon the years and years of ceaseless toil that a doctor goes through before he can be granted the epithet of “Doctor”.
I will not appeal to you to consider the primitive infrastructure, the daily wagonload of patients, the long, long duty hours, the pay that is not, by any stretch of imagination, commensurate with the labour poured in and all the other numerous shortcomings that plague our government health services.
I will not tell you that hospital cleanliness, equipment, staffing, availability of beds, medicines and other services are outside the ambit of responsibility of the treating doctor and that running the hospital is not his job.
I will also not broach the subject of the Google educated sassy patient who approaches his doctor like a lawyer cross-questioning a witness.
And I will definitely not talk about the mushrooming clan of naturopaths, homeopaths, Ayurveda-Charyas, YouTube influencers and the neighbourhood auntie who are all self-styled healers doling out medical advice and miracle cures without an iota of scientific backing and legitimacy.

If you are going to talk about the tenets of the Hippocratic oath that you say is being broken by these striking doctors, or say that it’s all nothing but a political game for power, or bring into the talk the issue of who prays to which Gods, or pit my profession against another, I’ll say: Stop. Please Stop.

I’ll ask you to look at the issue dispassionately, from beyond the clutches of emotion, prejudice and pre-conceived notions. I’ll ask you to focus your attention on one and only one point: the matter of justice:- A healer tried to heal a grievously ill man. The man died. The healer was assaulted leaving injuries that were life threatening. His colleagues have gone on strike because the country’s law did not follow its natural course and arrest the guilty. They have only two demands: punishment of the guilty and provisions for workplace safety. They have not asked for pay hikes, for perks, for chutti or for anything else. All they ask is for justice and a place that’s safe for them to work in. That’s all.

Don’t you think that their demands are completely justified?

(Ms PnP sitting on the armchair behind me, filing her last week’s French manicure is smiling her approval.)

So, dear Readers, if not for the sake of the grumpy old gynaecologist who brought the bawling you into this world, or for the sweet paediatrician who bribed you with orange candy before every vaccine shot, or the busy doctor nephew you call up at odd hours of the day asking what antibiotic ointment to apply on your three day old bruise, or your daughter aspiring to be a doctor someday, or the co-passenger on your last flight to whom you opened your stressed out soul when you came to know that she is a psychiatrist or the doctor schoolmate you bombard with two hundred and ten questions about your thyroid meds in complete confidence that he will never mind (and of course he doesn’t), or the gentle smiling cardiologist who performed your Dad’s bypass surgery, or the aging ENT specialist who performed that miracle surgery on your ears and gave you a hefty discount too, or the hassled young doctor at the Accident and Emergency who soothed you as he gently placed your sprained wrist in a sling, or the critical care specialist of the ICU who let you hold her hand and cry when your Mum passed away; and no, not even for the pretty lady doc with those severe looking spectacles on the tip of her nose on whom you have been crushing for ever...
no not for the sake of any of them…..but for the sake of justice and only justice alone,
STAND BY US.

Stand by us and spread the word on Social Media (for that is the easiest, most accessible tool): Post your support on Facebook, Tweet that you are with us, share words of encouragement on WhatsApp……

As Ms PnP said, every word, even the littlest, the softest has the power to make a difference.

Thank you.
SARVE SANTU NIRAAMAYAH (Let all be healthy)

PS: Ms PnP is Ms Prim n Propah. In case you want to know her better, do read my post on this blog called "A Walk to Work"

Other Half and me took a walk in the neighbourhood a few days back, an activity we undertook after many, many moons. I have become lazy and fat and Other Half (OH) not wanting to be burdened with a rotund other-half and having failed to induce me to embark upon a fitness programme on my own, decided the best way to slim me down was to partner me in a walking programme.

As we crossed the little herbal garden, he suddenly suggested, Lets go say hello to Madam S.

Oh no I protested. It's already eight. She must be at dinner.

But he turned a deaf ear to my logic (again) and dialled her.

Oh, of course. I heard her voice, welcoming over the cell phone. Please. Please do come over.

Come, OH pulled me down the slope, ignoring my rolled-up eyes. Let’s go.

Madame S lives on the first floor of a neatly kept building flanked by trimmed lawns on either side. A child’s cycle stood leaning against the iron gate. The staircase was spotless and the walls whitewashed to perfection. I admired them wistfully, thinking about the mouldy walls of the staircase of my block and the foliage growing bindaas between the steps leading up to my home.

Madame S opened the door at one ring. She was in her track-pants and Tees.

Oh, were you going for your walk? I asked, worried we had interrupted her routine.

She laughed and reassured us. Just returned. Do come in.

Her living room was full of cartons and stuff lying around. Books, albums and other things.

Packing Madame? But why?

I’ll be leaving next year. She said.

So soon? OH asked in surprise. But you’ve just come.

Madame S laughed. Dr OH, I’ll be retiring next year.

Oh, I looked at her. She didn’t at all look like someone who would be retiring soon. Tall, slim, her long hair without grey and a smooth unlined face, Madam S was very youthful.

Ek na ek din to retire karna hoga. She laughed.

Please sit.

We plonked down upon the armchairs and refused her offer of tea, coffee and juice.

So instead, she got us her home-made ginger wine. It was sharp, sweet and delicious. And a little tippling.

Soon Madame S was reminiscing:

Those were such good days, Dr OH. I had joined the service as a young nurse way back in ’88. In Srinagar. It was so beautiful then. It must be beautiful even now, she corrected herself. But those days were very different, for they were before the militancy. Life was slow and safe. You know, we girls would go picnicking on the Dal lake every Sunday. Hire a shikara and hold our birthday parties and our anniversaries on the boat.

Madam S’ eyes became dreamy behind her glasses.

We’d pack some grub and then walk; behind the hospital, past the big bungalow, out through the rear gate, around the Fairy Palace and the beautiful gardens all the way upto the lake. And the Matron wouldn’t really mind. We’d spend the mornings floating over the lake, singing antakshari songs and the afternoons, whiling away our time and money in the bazaar.

Can’t even think of doing these things now, can we? She asked, her question rhetorical. It was so different then, the valley, so different from what it is now: there were no bandhs, no gun totting soldiers, no barricades, no curfews, no gunshots, no IED blasts, no stone pelting and no fear……………....

Madam S was nodding her head sadly. It’s all gone now, finished. She said and fell silent. But the wistfulness that had been in her voice stayed, filling the silence.

It made me feel incredibly sad.

Today’s painting, you can say, is a fallout of our meeting with Madam S that evening. The thought of it had been simmering in my mind for some time, but I could finally manage to put it on paper today.

You may ask: why would I want to paint this mottled, dying chinar leaf? Wouldn’t it have been more gratifying to paint the entire tree in all it's blazing russet glory, rather than this silly, single, almost-dead leaf?

I felt that this single, soon-to-be shed old leaf was an ideogram for Kashmir: dying yet tenaciously hanging on, clinging to hope…..

(Maybe someday, Madam S can go back to this beautiful valley where she had begun her professional life and tread all those places that she had loved, without the shadow of stones and guns....)

PS: Do leave a word.

Dad's Daal Torka

I love all things Italian: pasta, pizza, pesto and also their particularly edible men (think David Rocco, though I am told he is not classic Italian). So yesterday evening I thought: let me give myself a treat-some nice pasta in a creamy, cheesy spinach sauce with a side of garlic bread and all this washed down with a glass of Other Half’s fiery ginger wine. But while pottering around for the ingredients, I found that I was out of garlic. Since spinach sauce without garlic is like sambhar without curry patta, I perforce had to abandon the idea. While scouting around for alternative inspiration, I happened to open the refrigerator door and was immediately confronted with the baleful glare of three glass bowls full of left-over daal. The triple glare succeeded in their intended effect and I had to acquiesce: chalo, I told myself, let me go desi today, let me make 'Torka'.

Daal Tadka always takes me back to my Dad. Growing up, I had adored daal tadka, but of the kind my Dad made, from left over yellow daal; though I did not call it Daal Tadka then. My Dad called it simply 'Torka' and like a true blue Bangali, his ‘o’ was pronounced with a mouthful of roshogolla. Torka was a Baba special, made on days my mother was too exhausted or too busy supervising our homework to make the evening’s torkari. She of course always made the chapatis herself, soft and perfectly round and we gorged unashamedly on Dad's warm torka accompanied by Mom's hot chapatis fresh off the iron tawa.

My Mom is a woman with her feet planted firmly on the ground, a bit too firmly at times. Dad, in stark contrast, was the most laidback human being that I have encountered till date. He lived in his little comfortable cocoon, at peace with himself and the world at large and took life as it came. He never planned for a rainy day nor for the future and he did not know what ambition or competitiveness were. I have inherited this facet of his personality as also his love for birdwatching. I have no ambition and the rare instance when a bit of feeble ambition rears its head in my brain, my lack of both drive and devotion along with my humongous laziness is enough to nip this ambition in the bud. There is another thing that I have inherited from him and that was his love for good food, and of course cooking. He was a superlative cook and so good that he was famous amongst our family for this skill. In fact when an older cousin sister got married, Dad was the one who cooked the mutton for the wedding feast; and I remember him clearly as if it were yesterday, standing in his checked lungi over the charcoal chulha, stirring a red bubbling delicious curry with a long iron karcchi. He also always cooked the sacred khichudi prasad (we call it bhog) for our annual Saraswati and Lakshmi Pujo; and of, course he made Torka.
As I chop the onions over my wooden board, I think about my Dad a little more. He was a tiny man with a thin moustache who wore his thick, black-framed spectacles 24/7. He had a deep bass voice so superb that it sounded like Amitabh Bachchan’s when recorded and played back on our tape recorder. He was a skilled story teller too and often, if we managed to complete our homework to the satisfaction of our martinet Mom’s exacting standards, we were allowed an hour of story time before dinner and bed. He spun stories of a superhero called Gattum Singh who with his side kicks Dhurwa Singh and Hatia Singh (if you are from Ranchi or have been there, you would know that Dhurwa and Hatia are two suburbs of Ranchi) vanquished numerous villains, had tea with Queen of England and tamed three witches called Hawa Buri, Kutu Buri and the third whose name eludes me. Perhaps he left a streak of this storytelling ability in me. Perhaps.

Coming back to Torka, this was very different from the dal tadka that is on the standard menu of every north Indian dhaba and restaurant. Unlike the dal tadka, Dad’s torka had very little oil and almost no chillies. It had the consistency of shrikhand and was spotted with flecks of green from the palak that he would add as a special touch. I loved it to bits and even today, if I close my eyes, I can taste that yellow silk on my tongue and smell the faint aroma of garlic and ginger that he used, to temper the daal.
So yesterday I cooked the Torka and then, because it would be a sacrilege to eat Torka with the morning’s stale chapatis, I made them afresh (a novelty for me because I hate making chapatis). We then sat down to eat, Other Half and I. I tore a bit of the chapati and scooping some torka with it, placed it in my mouth. Instantly, a flood of favours inundated my palate, bathing me in a flash of old, happy and very precious memories.

I was quite pleased with the quality of my Torka and am quite sure Baba would have liked it to.

PS
Recipe for Dad’s Daal Torka

Ingredients
Any yellow daal- arhar/mung/masoor (dhuli) cooked/left over.
Onions, diced fine
Ginger garlic paste
Spinach, chopped fine and blanched
A little whole cumin
Hing
Few green chillies (to taste)
An egg, beaten
Mustard oil (you may use any other oil, less olive)

Method

Temper mustard oil with hing and cumin. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry till it loses the raw smell. Add the onions and bhunno till golden. Add the spinach and stir it around for a bit. Then pour in the cooked daal, add the chillies and let it bubble and reduce over a low flame. Don’t forget to stir well periodically. Once it has attained the consistency of mishti doi/shrikhand, add the beaten egg and stir till the egg has merged with the torka. Serve with hot fresh chapatis and one green chilly.

Bon appetit!

And if you would like to hear a Gattum Singh story, inbox me.

ICARUS

Icarus, the most distant star yet detected, is a blue supergiant that lies whopping, unbelievable 9 billion light-years away……..

An attempt at 'modern' puzzling poetry...
Do leave a comment.