Torn Between Blood and Snot

Love is not always good for your health.

You see, I love my city. Actually, I recently had a crazy fling with Goa. You might point out that I cheated on steady old Benglur, but that was only a one time thing. It didn’t mean anything. I got carried away. I still love Benglur.

But turns out, even though I have spent all my life (minus the time in Coorg, Manipal, Chandigarh and Goa) in the old metropolis, I still won’t get used to this weather. What is your problem, Mother asks, people from all over the country come here for the damn weather and you can’t stay in it. Well, she didn’t actually use the D word, but I added it to make the statement more dramatic.

Now that we are talking about it, I don’t think I have ever heard Mater use a swear word. The strongest one she says is ‘Damn’ and that too always in a positive context. Like ‘your blood Hemoglobin count this month is damn good, keep it up’. But we aren’t talking about blood tests or swearing mothers; poke me when I deviate too much.

I was saying I can’t get used to this weather. But that is not truth in its entirety (will we ever know truth in its entirety, I wonder). My mind and heart rejoice this weather. The generally cool air that gets cooler whenever you get close to a water body (usually a BWSSB pipe leak) or a tree (a miraculous escapee of the Bengaluru Metro construction holocaust). The rain that threatens to pour anytime now, keeps the sky cloudy, keeps the wind breezy and generally brings out the romantic even in the grumpiest IT employee.

I get major kicks out of walking in this weather. I have cooked up excuses like ‘fitness’ just so I can walk in the neighborhood jogger’s park and take in all of this weather. I might have also now and then burst out into “It’s A Wonderful World”: scaring away a few weak-hearted fellow walkers.

Following is the picture of a rainbow that S and I saw from the 15th floor of our tower:

View from 15th floor, Canberra Tower, UB City

Well, sadly, that’s where the fairy tale ends. While the mind and heart and soul whistle in the presence of a classic Banglorean weather, the Achar Immune System completely disapproves of it. Let me demonstrate just how firm my antibodies are on this stand:

Scenario 1: I am in a non-Benglur location: Nasal passage clear. Booming rude health, so to speak.

Scenario 2: I am flying on my way to Benglur from a non-Benglur location: Still clear.

Scenario 3: I land in BIAL: One big prompt sneeze announcing the strike. All respiratory passages suddenly blocked so I have to start using my mouth to breathe (thereby resembling an ugly mutant goldfish). Hand kerchiefs suddenly need to be fished out from the mysterious depths of my hand bag. Yes, I still use hand-kerchiefs. No, I don’t think they are less cool than tissue paper. Asthalin check, Ebastine check, Cetrizine check. The sneezing continues. On and on and on.

Apparently, the Hand Kerchief Makers’ Association of Bangalore is considering inviting me to preside over their annual meeting. Apparently Monte Carlo India and Cipla sales teams have classified me under their Key Accounts. Only apparently, I haven’t got an official confirmation from the concerned authorities, but they have a ring of truth to them.

(Digression: I wish my otherwise aggressive immune system developed some kind of allergy to precious metals that have been dug out of earth to be shaped into flowers that aren’t even botanically accurate. Mother has been long threatening to buy me “serious” jewelry. Not your Commercial Street kind, but proper Krishniah Chetty & Sons kind. Apparently, for some reason, it is the duty of every parent to load their girl progeny with jewelry. A dark, nameless fear has crept into my soul. I think she actually has conspired to spend this weekend vigorously swiping the plastic monies in exchange of some glowing metal.)

Apart from affecting my general mental state and ability of fair judgment (when you have a bad cold, you feel like throwing things at people), the incompatibility to this weather also deeply affects my fashion statements. I seem to be perpetually dressed like an Eskimo Cultural Ambassador. It doesn’t help that the AC at office is always turned on at full blast. I still cannot comprehend how some colleagues can breeze around in nylon thin cloth smiling like sunshine. Belonging to minority, we Anti-AC people are never redressed. In fact, for some unfathomable reason, people even find us amusing. A colleague asked me jovially today morning if I thought I was in the Himalayas. 

Paddy, if you remember him from this post, says people like me should leave places like Benglur as soon as we can manage to run away. Mother, on the other hand, has worked out the costing of Me Living in Bangalore vis-à-vis Me Living in Any Other Place. I am always amazed at how mother wastes only little time on sentimental arguments (You should stay with your parents and family) and jumps right away to the objective (See how much HRA you can save if you stayed here).

So, when someone casually asks me the dreaded question (Would you prefer working out of the Bangalore Office?), I am torn deep down. What would you rather tolerate: A Bleeding Heart or a Wheezy Breath plus Snotty Nose?

On Benglur Roads – Part II

You know how it is. You are flying good times; then you are pulled down to insipid grounds, unpleasant jerk like. You mumble grumble tch-tch to get back to the good place. A week later, what with this and that, you sort of accept things as they are and say Right Ho to real life.

 

Allow me to illustrate. Last Wednesday, I looked through the glass wall of my office and saw at the stretch of land below me. Hey, where did all the hills and mountains go, why is the horizon so plain, I wondered. I also wondered why there were suddenly so many buildings. A nano second later, I realized I was in Benglur City now and had left Goa behind 10 days ago. Heart-breaking it was. Also, eye-opening. And one needs a healthy dose of things done to one’s anatomy (breaking hearts and opening eyes, I mean) once in a while.

 

The Achar Close Friends’ Circle (consisting of a wide range of unfortunate specimens) was also quite taken aback by this uncharacteristic behavior. I mean to say, Persons A, B and C have always seen Person X as being a cold fish; flicking off people and places from memory nonchalantly, like a speck of dust from the sleeves, you get the picture.

 

Suddenly Person X returns from a work assignment in Goa and starts wearing I Love Goa hats, endlessly chattering about the desserts to try out in the Panjim area, goes glaze-faced at the mention of the word Phenim (Feni) and gets a distant longing expression in the eyes. (Well, I didn’t actually wear I Love Goa hats, but the others I did). Naturally, Persons A, B and C start wondering about the mental health of Person X. Art Thou Thyself, they start asking. Ammu even diagnosed the condition – “You had far too much fun, I guess” – she shook her head gravely. (Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome Ammu to these chronicles. You might see more of her in subsequent posts.) 

 

In the end, Time – the Great Healer – had to come to the rescue of the above mentioned person X. Aided by a Kinetic Honda. Anyway, lets not get ahead of ourselves; we’ll treat things in the right chronology. 

 

It has been quite sometime since I created this fine piece of art where you read about my riding. Since then, I have garnered much experience on traveling on roads riding a two wheeler. Seasoned, you could say. Also very spoilt, turns out. After the sheer joy of not having to wait without a schedule (which you have to if you are traveling by public transportation) and getting to slither like a reptile in gaps among vehicles during traffic jams (which you can’t if you are driving the old girl Maruti 800), I wanted nothing other than a two-wheeler now that am back to the old metropolis.

 

But the trick is, you see, the Achar household doesn’t own a two-wheeler. Only padre’s old Ind-Suzuki, the one which was bought when I was a less-than-year old infant, qualifying it to be ancient relic in terms of bike life-cycles. Hence, we are reduced to beg, borrow or steal. Mother strongly disapproves of stealing bikes and we are all very scared of her disapproval, so we have decided to only beg or borrow. I have so far “borrowed” a Scooty Pep, a Honda Activa (both of which kept my company for a month) and presently a Kinetic Honda from well-meaning friends.

The said Kinetic Honda, while not an ancient relic like the said Ind Suzuki, is not what you’d call a bike bursting with youth. It has been longer on road than I have been. So, understandably, it has developed a strict personality of its own. It’s deceptively light when you are parking it in for the day at 10 PM; and surprisingly heavy when you need to pull it out of a street parking lot at 10 AM blocking the road for almost a minute and causing much Benglur public outrage.

 

But something tells me this is more of my fault than the bike. I guess bikes can smell mistrust; like they say horses can smell fear. Or elephants, I don’t know which animal for sure. Ever since this idea dawned on me, I have been working on developing a ‘positive attitude’. I think there are signs that I am making slow but definite progress with the relationship building. While on Day 1 the cold starting took 15 minutes lead time, on Day 8 it has taken only 3. See, see, progress. The bike is (literally and figuratively) warming up to me.

 

What with all the preoccupation with the bike and Benglur traffic, Goa mercifully started taking a back seat

 

I think I am now safely at a stage of life where I can dish out a few pointers about riding on Benglur roads to the general populace. A few humble pointers:

 

1. Try not to run over living things. Especially human beings. They aren’t a sportive species; they make a hell a lot of noise when they are hit.
2. No matter how much you think he/she deserves it, do NOT show your middle finger to another person on the road. Especially if they are driving a much, much bigger vehicle than you are. (I say this out of bitter experience.)
3. When a cabbie heading to Bengaluru International Airport is continuously blaring, just let him pass; even if it is beyond laws of physics. Because if you don’t, he’ll keep blaring his horn (if it comes to that) for a kilometer at a stretch. I know it feels unfair, but it isn’t worth your ear drums.
4. Do not tag behind a BMTC Volvo bus. They have ultrasonic speeds. Even if you tag behind a trotting puppy on the pavement, you’ll travel faster. (Don’t take me wrong, I love BMTC buses. I practically spent my formative years in them. But I don’t think they should be used by our F1 team, that’s all.)
5. Do not assume things. Just because a particular stretch of road did not have pot holes yesterday, doesn’t mean it won’t have them today. Just because a road was two-way yesterday doesn’t mean it isn’t one-way today.

 

Petty little things they are all. Just keep them on mind and you will feel like a God riding on our roads – at a divine speed of 30 kmph on good days.

 

 

 

Familiar Novelty

(I wrote this piece, if piece is the word I want, two weeks ago; when I was still living in Goa. I don’t know why I did not publish it. Sorry for the anachronism.)

The much-abused FabIndia kurta finally decided to call it a day after wearing itself out in the Achar service for 3 years. It tore itself prrrrr on the nearest rusty nail, thereby bringing back the said Achar from a reverie.

Oh oh, I thought. But the tearing of kurtas seemed like a matter of little importance in this magical moment. In fact I wondered how I even heard the prrrrr given all the thundering of the skies, sloshing of water and the grinding of the engines. I was standing on a ferry that was taking me, the executive and his bike back from our journey to the Divar Island.

We had come here to check on a promotion we were running on one of our whisky brands. We had ridden through kilometers of back-waterline, crossed over a lagoon on a ferry, further ridden across a rocky, grassy island to reach (the aptly named) Rock Inn Bar and Restaurant. It took me a while to spot the Bar and Restaurant among the Rocks. Like many other bars in Goa, this too looked like a house where the owner had put a few tables-chairs in the living room, kept a few bottles of liquor on his table, put up a board and was in liquor business.

The owner himself was also like most other people in Goa; wearing only his shorts and an easy grin, energetically waving at as like we were his everyday chaddi dosts. I did not wonder if this guy knew me. You don’t need to know anyone in Goa to greet them cheerily.

From the time they told me that I would be working out of Goa, I expected a good experience. But nothing prepared me for the life here. No one told me that Goa had a dream-like personality to it: at once real and surreal.

You can’t move around the town without getting sucked into this dream. And I, mind you, don’t live the tourist side (except for the last very sober weekend) on beaches and parties walking around wearing an I Love Goa t-shirt. I am a local – haggling with bike mechanics, adding ‘baba’ or ‘re’ to the end of my sentences, getting so tanned that I look like an escape laborer from the local coal mine and fighting a losing battle against the millipedes and frogs that dwell in my room. (“What will the poor frogs do to you, let them be.” mother Achar tells me on telephone)

I don’t feel like I am in a new place: the Arabic sea is an old buddy, the rains, the vegetation, the laterite pebbles on street, the Kamat restaurant where the waiter says Namskara everymorning.

Yet there is something new about this place – the people seem happier more content than in any other place, the trees are greener thicker less scared and houses seem like real homes not just dwellings. As though the whole place had escaped a lousy make-over 50 years ago that many other places did not manage.

Riding back against the lashing coastal rain, after the executive and I got out of the ferry; I was reminded of a long ago similar rain-drenched ride, that also along the Arabic ocean.

As I chase out a tiny frog out of my musty room, I am reminded of a room-mate with whom I shared a musty room a monsoon ago (which now feels like at least ten monsoons ago) and who did the chasing-out-animals part of the job.

As a colleague shares his Neer Dosa with me which I shamelessly gobble down, I am reminded of a far away home in Benglur where Neer Dosas are not a preferred breakfast.

As I ride on the Mandovi bridge to work everyday, the heady scent of fish reminds me of the fish market in (what seems) another universe of a village where my grandfather lived (what really were) years ago.

Yet, all that happen in Goa couldn’t happen anywhere else. New people feel like old friends in the magical lazy Goan air and the old friends met here are re-invented.

Another Earth Year Goes By

I turned another year older yesterday mid-night. In an old portugeese house-turned-club near Baga, Goa. While the band sang Let it Roll, Baby Roll, my birthday was celebrated by people known to me for less than a month. There were a bunch of college students sharing a joint (ridiculously trying to pretend that it was a nicotine one) and two old men enjoying rock with their Diet Pepsis. 

Afternoon, I came back home to Benglur. Parents gifted me a boquet and the ever-creative brother gave a handshake. The evening was spent quietly lighting earthen lamps and arranging them.

Contrasting half-birthdays apart, I have learnt one thing in life: Always, always, mix your pasta well before eating.

Snatches from a Sample of 12 hours in Goa

8.30PM, Some Super-market, Panjim

There is this young woman standing at the chocolates section and offering sample chocolates from a tray. These are nut-based and these are liquor-based, she points out different choices. She is Sarita, from Mumbai (or Delhi, I forget which) who, at 32 has decided to retire and settle in Goa. Through our conversation I discover that her idea of ‘retirement’ is to have left her career behind and started a chocolate making business here. There are two super markets in Goa that stock her chocolates and she stands there in person on weekends to sample and promote her stuff.

“My husband is a seasoned scotch drinker”, she says when she knows we are from the liquor industry, “I myself don’t drink, don’t really like chocolates, not much into music and am not a party person. But my bro-in-law likes your brand Jura so much; he’s actually named his daughter Jura”.

I find it a little too flattering to digest; but what the hell, I liked her chocolate. I bought one 100g packet that was hand-labeled Premium Liqueur costing INR 235.

9.00 PM, Same Super-market, Panjim

Sarita offers her chocolates to one of the many customers passing around. One particular guy says No Thanks. He pauses for a second and asks “Do any of them have single malt whisky?”

A bell vaguely rings inside my head. The man turns around and talks to her saying “Look, am not really a chocolate guy, but my cousin here is. I am a single malt whisky connoisseur. So, if you have – hey!” At this point his eyes meet mine and the slow Achar brain leaps recognition.

“Hey Kamat!” I say.

“Hey you! How do you do? Chaitanya, I believe?” He says

“Close. Chethana. Great great. And you? ”

Kamat is a young gentleman whom I had bumped into exactly a week ago in Casa Baretto (a liquor shop in Panjim) while I and a colleague were on a sales call. He just walked into the shop and started asking for super-premium luxury single malt brands. We took notice of the fancy customer and introduced ourselves. It was a rainy day and the three of us were stuck in the shop for 30 min discussing Single Malts. Well, it was mostly Kamat talking about intricate technicalities of single malts and us hmm hmming.

So, we had bumped in again. And had a conversation about, well, surprise surprise, Single Malt Whiskies.

11 PM, Cavala Joint, Baga

The board proclaims ‘The 70s Are Back!’ The live music is loud and bewitching. We are sitting on the chairs of the bar table (which is the only table in the hall) and tapping/ swaying/ dancing at different degrees. The girl singer finishes her song to great applause and sits at the other end of the table.

I look at this singer girl with admiration for how she performed and spell-bound the whole audience. At the very moment, she looks at me and gives a grin of recognition. This time, I simply can’t place this person. No, I haven’t met her before. But in Goa, you don’t really need to recognize anyone to give a smile of recognition. She energetically gestures me to go join there. After a moment’s hesitation, I walk up to her.

As I approach her, she says a loud and friendly ‘Hi!!!!!’. I Hi!!!!! Back at her and we hug like long lost sisters. I tell her “Oh, you were brilliant! You are an awesome singer you know that?!”

She: “Oh Thanks! So sweet of you! I am Alisha. You?”

“Chethana. Lovely meeting you. Our hair is JUST the same, in case you noticed”

“Chethana – great. From where? Yes, we both have same hair (bigger grin). Curly and unruly. Want a drink?”

“No, thanks. Unruly, I swear. From Bangalore. I am posted to Goa for work. You from?”

“Goa. Am local”

“I See. Listen Alisha, I see fans flocking you (At this she laughs heartily). So, bye.”

“Great talking to you Chethana. Bye.”

I get back to my place and continue soaking in the atmosphere which is so unlike any other pub I had been to. Cavala seemed like an evolved version of partying as I had known it. I talked to people sitting around me, exchanging names and greetings.

 After half an hour, Alisha is back on the mike. All cheer. I hear her voice. “Ok guys, the next song is a Cavala classic called Mr.Radheshyam. We’ll sing along. And this song goes to my friend Chethana from Bangalore: Welcome!” At a pause before singing, Alisha gives me an affectionate grin from across the hall – anybody looking at us might have guessed us old school friends.

I didn’t see Alisha again. Someone later told me that she might be Remo Fernandes’ sister.

2 AM, Down the Road Pub and Bistro, Panjim

I am sharing a garlic cheese naan with Juvy and we are generally making small talk. I have met him only hours ago, he is probably 40 yrs old, is from Goa and works in Mumbai with a giant telecom firm. He wears an expensive watch.

We have been seeing a couple dancing with an intimate hug for the last half an hour.

He finally starts the topic: “They are SO from Delhi ya, Chethana.”

“They are? They could be. Girl certainly looks very Delhi-dressing-taste-ish.”

“You can always bloody tell – broadly if they are from Delhi or Bombay or Bangalore. And not only based on the dressing. There is a certain difference in the way they just are.”

“These people are so obviously in looooooovvve, man”

“I think they are in Lust, ya.”

“Thin line, I’d say”

“Yep. Hehehe.”

4.30 AM, Dona Paula Rock Top

I am at the top of the rock surrounded by the Arabic sea on three sides. I sit on the wet bench with shawl flapping in the wind. Right ahead of me, 3 kms into water (and 26 km if you travel by land) I can see Vasco town’s sodium vapor lights. Far in the inland there are lights of another town: we debate on whether it’s Margaoor not.

Further into the sea, I can see ships and cruises, they are lit too. These are mostly casinos. The sky is swirling dark clouds. The waters aren’t calm. Apparently, the whole coastline is on a Tsunami alert.

I wonder what I should do if there’s a Tsunami suddenly. There’s no point running, car’s too far away. As soon as I see big big wave, if any, I’ll call mother and talk, I decide.

7 AM, Nirmala Sisters of Heart of Mary Institute, Panjim

I am back to my nunnery room. I notice a snail and a tiny frog have somehow got in. I have an internal debate on whether I should take a broom and drive them out. Never mind, I tell myself and crash onto my hard cot.

The snail and the frog, I am sure, wondered who this human being trespassing their room was.

Pang in the Morning

I am woken up by the sharp and long yell of “aaaaaaalu” (deformation of the Kannada word ‘halu’ which means milk) by who I know is the milk-lady’s daughter who studies in 8th standard. This tiny girl manages to achieve waking up the thick Achar skull from deep slumbers; a task at which even my mother’s ingenious alarm systems (some of which involve physically dragging me off the bed) have failed.
Emerging from under the multiple layers of my thick woolen blanket, I notice that it has been raining all night. Or at least for a large part of the night. With a slight pang I realize that I will not be under the glorious, cozy Benglur weather this time tomorrow morning. Damn this weather, it has to get all pleasant and lovable the day I am about to leave.
I am leaving to Goa today. I have been posted there for work. Yes, they are going to pay me for being in Goa among liquor. This time the bags are not even packed because I have stayed up late last night scrambling through the report I was supposed to have submitted to the boss last evening. Parents have not yet realized my status of preparedness, which is good. Or else I would have received a sharp screech from my mother and a painful ear-twist from Padre.
Haha. Notice the use of the word Padre. I am going to Goa. Not for a holiday, to live and work. The Arabic Sea beckons again; it doesn’t just seem to have had enough of the Achar presence for two years.
Well, as usual, I sigh at the thought of some logistical inconveniences and look forward to a new place. A new set of words to learn, a new set of places to photograph and a new set of people to smell.

One’s destination is never a new place; it’s a new way of seeing things. – Henry Miller.

On Benglur Roads

“Maintain Breaking Distance!” mother yelled from her sanctum sanctorum kitchen. This was the last in the series of Drive Slow, Careful, Call Me After You Reach yells. I yelled back “Okay!” as the umbrella reply to all the above maternal yells.

 

Wind-cheated and helmet-headed, I scooted my sister-in-law’s Scooty Pep+ off. I drove past Mrs. Thomas taking out her rather ferocious she-dog for a walk and nodded Hello. As I vroomed ahead, the mind pondered on my mother’s parting phrase. I wondered if Breaking (or Brake-ing, if you please) Distance was even an official word. I know what it meant though : that I was supposed to maintain such distance from every vehicle on the road that even if they suddenly stopped on their tracks, I should be able to come to a halt without flinging myself at them. Mother has a curious way of coming up with phrases and confidently using them as though they were Oxford-printed.

 

Leaving behind Mothers and Oxford, let me give you the context. Even though I have lived in Benglur all my life, I have never really driven in its traffic. Yes, Never. So when people here sigh a really long siiiiiigh when they used the word Traffic, I can only guess their agony. Except for rare ventures with my old girl Maruti 800, my relationship with vehicles in Benglur has been to just sit on them and romantically gaze at (what’s left of) Benglur’s trees and weather.

 

If you will recall, I work for a liquor firm. I have been posted to the mater-land for a month to “understand” the booze sales in the metro. The boss promptly told me that I will have to roam the Benglur city and crawl into some of its Wine Shops, giving me to understand in no uncertain terms that I won’t be ferried around like a Memsahib and had to do my own dirty driving.

 

So this be the position of things: First time driving in an infamous traffic, roads that mysteriously become one-way, on a borrowed vehicle, during an unpredictable monsoon, circuiting liquor retail outlets, with an overtly-concerned mother and a ruthless boss. Right, picture set.  

 

As I drove the first day on the National Highway, the Achar heart fluttered. This nature of heart fluttering I remember from the school days when Rajammal Miss would check our addition sums and hit on knuckles if there was a mistake. The traffic seemed like one huge animal, heartlessly whizzing past me in a never-ending stream. Honking on from sides, the left Scorpio demands me to move right and to my right BMTC bus blaring me to move left. As both the giants overtake me mid-way and squeeze me in between them, I feel like a deer being chased by two long-hungry tigresses. Thankfully, no one hears the “oh my god oh my god oh my god” that I panic recite inside my helmet.  

 

If you are one  of those birdies who gaze at a clear, star-filled sky and realize how insignificant they are, you know pretty well how it feels to be cruising sitting on a TVS Scooty Pep on a national highway filled with Volvo, TATA and Ashok Leyland products. 

In my city, rain behaves as though she isn’t sure if she wants to pour or drizzle or be there at all. The BBMP cannot be sure if they want to fill the potholes or not, so they’ve just left it half-filled. Negotiating amidst rain and BBMP, the drive in the most crowded of roads becomes a game of pure luck. I get a second to look at a pot-hole filled with water, guess its depth and assign a risk factor to driving over it.

 

I have come to realize now that you never truly know a place until you have driven round. Even with a lifetime of knowing Benglur, I seem to have some trouble decision-making the routes to any given destination. On the second day, I decided to make my life easy and take a short cut to Frazer Town from Shivaji Nagar. After 2 minutes through the short-cut I had logically “deduced”, I knew I was hopelessly lost. Amidst absolutely strange surroundings (filled largely with shops hanging out all kinds of stripped animals), a vaguely-familiar red structure rose up before me. It called itself Beef Market. It took me a second to recollect that I had known it from here, through Gopal. A funny sense of relief washed over me and I continued bravely figuring way through the narrow carcass-filled streets to emerge 5 min later into what-could-be-vaguely-termed-a-road.

 

Fumbling almost lethally over pot-holes, getting abused by big car drivers who always seem to be in a hurry, losing my way around the only place I can call home and almost getting blown away on a flyover when a bus whizzes past me, I have passed the last fortnight.

 

I am now slowly, but surely becoming a part of the Benglur traffic animal myself. Yours truly alive. In one good piece.

Back To Benglur

Back to Benglur;

Back to -

Will it rain, will it not?

Will it rain, will it not?

Will it rain, will it not?

Among Men and Women

I saw the tiny cockroach. The cockroach raised its head and saw me too. We stared for a few seconds, woman-to-roach. It then scuttled away to safety behind the shelf, just missing the dirty cloth I waved at it.

It was hot outside and dark inside. I was inside one of our retail outlets. Liquor shops, Sharab da tekka, as they call them here. I had come to visit this shop in my regular circuit of sales visits; where my task is to understand India’s spirits market at a “grass-root” level. This particular shop, I mused, was as grass-root-ish as it could get. The shop’s floor area was surely not more than 40 sq. feet. It had a small counter, covered by bars, leaving open only a hole-like structure for transactions from outside. A zero-watt bulb hung down from the roof. An old poster of an almost-naked woman hung on the wall. The three walls were filled with dusty shelves containing dusty bottles of liquor. You get the picture.

We (a salesman of our firm and I) had arrived here some 45 min ago. The shop-keeper (clad in a torn vest and shorts) greeted and invited me in. After the initial namaste-ji-ing and namaste-madame-ing, we got to work. We re-arranged the bottle display on the shelves so that all our brands were prominently visible from the customer’s counter. Cartons of bottles were physically moved from one shelf to another. I had to only stand there and instruct while the salesman was doing the actual moving. Twice when I got too embarrassed of this and started to touch the bottles, both the men in the shop acted horrified and almost ordered me to not do any ‘labour’.

Finally, bored, I begged that I would at least dust. After much reluctance, a duster was given to me. The cleaning cloth looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. It is during this cleaning that I met many dead/alive/ambiguous viable state spiders and flies on the shelves and specifically the above mentioned roach. By the time the cockroach escaped me, the inevitable Chai (Tea) had arrived.

We sat down on cartons filled with liquor bottles which also double as chairs in the shop. The three of us sipped the ginger-flavored tasty chai from the glass silently for many minutes. A customer came at the counter and asked for a pint of Bagpiper whisky. The salesman and I exchanged a triumphant glance. I felt quite affectionate about this particular customer for buying our brand and looked at him. He was staring at me, full eyed. Soon, his stare became almost angry at finding me there, a woman, among bottles, sitting inside a liquor tekka. A woman, how shameless is she? I stared back at him, expressionless. He looked away, confused.

As the customer went away and we got back to the chai-sipping, I looked down at my dress; an Isvarah chudidhar I had bought from Shopper’s Stop. Designer cloths, shopping malls and cleanliness seemed far away, another universe altogether. I realized with a jolt that I was comfortable here, among dusty shelves, flies, dirty-smelling liquor and the sweating shop-keeper. Even the prospect that I was leaving to Benglur soon, didn’t seem to excite me. I was sweating myself profusely, having long-forgotten the embarrassment of a wet arm pit.

***

It was chaos everywhere. A set of girls were giggling and tugging each other’s hair. Two more were helping each other with nail coloring. One girl sat on the table and read a Mills and Boon. Punjabi music was blaring from the radio, to which I was right now swaying while sitting. The girl group I was sitting among asked my opinion if I thought some Kangana looked good showing her shoulders in the movie Fashion. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I didn’t know who this damn Kangana was and had no idea that there was even a movie called Fashion.

Instead, I said: “Of course, yaar, bahut sexy dikhti hai.” (Of course, girl, she looks very sexy). Using my wisdom that if a woman (Kangana or otherwise) displayed her shoulders to the general public, she will invariably look sexy. The girls heartily agreed with me.

I am currently living in a paying guest accommodation at Chandigarh, which is more like a hostel. It is filled with girls just starting of their graduation from a nearby (notoriously) fashion-oriented girl’s college. Most these girls were from the surrounding small towns where they had no educational institutions to spend their parent’s abundant money on. The oldest among this bunch is three years younger to me.

Two out of twenty girls here read any books beyond academic curriculum at all; and both of them read only Romance. None of the girls is comfortable conversing in English, which means that I am, in turn, talking in Hindi to them all the time. Language distances apart, one or the other regularly paints my toe-nails, massages my head and insists that I wear the right make-up before I leave to work.

The atmosphere here is utterly girly-giggly. Being the eldest, the girls here treat me with venerable warmth. For the first time, I have discovered that I love being a Di (elder sister) and being among Barbie dolls. I almost did not reel in shock when a girl asked me who was my favorite romantic writer and I said Jane Austen whereupon she asked me if she wrote for Mills and Boon or Harlequin Romance. Pardon me if I got the names of the publishing houses wrong.

Life in Chandigarh is very bipolar in terms of my gender experiences. I am either doing a super-men-only job while with my co-workers or sitting with giggling girls and discussing lingerie.

In another world, where I come from, I wouldn’t even have known these people. Sweaty and smelly liquor shopkeepers. Old men in the business for 50 years sitting inside their Lancers and talking away in Haryanvi. Girls who have read no book I like, seen no non-Hindi movie ever and completely miss my English pun jokes.

In another world, they would have been people with whom I could not imagine having any viable conversation at all. But here, right now, I am fitting myself to their heavily-masculine or ultra-feminine world; and they are warmly letting me in. Curiously, I feel a twinge of sadness that the stay here is quickly drawing to close.

Salty, Wet and Pious Morning

The general populace must now be wondering what they have done in their previous lives that the Achar brain is hurling so many literary pieces at them. But when a brain gets whizzing uncharacteristically, the owner of the brain is obliged to indulge it.

I started off today by indulging in what my land lady tried to pass off as breakfast. She said it was a Parantha. I asked her what kind of parantha it was. She said it was of (oh wait for this):

Her: “Salt.”

Me: “Salt?”

(at this juncture I realized my Hindi was probably unclear and re-phrased my question)

Me: “I mean, like Aloo Paranthas are made of Aloo, what are these made of?”

Her: “Salt.”

Me: “But you put salt in every parantha anyway.” (I wasn’t sure of the truth in this statement as soon as I stated it.)

Her: “Umm. Yes.” (She wasn’t sure of the fact either, I guess.)

Me: “So by that logic, every parantha is a dual parantha in a sense. Let’s say, for example, every Aloo Parantha is, in essence an Aloo as well as a Namkeen (salt) parantha. Hehe.” (I was suddenly proud of both my sense of humor and sharp mind)

She looked at me like I was a particularly dull mentally retarded child.

“How much do they pay you at work?” She asked.

I don’t know why that was even a relevant issue.

***

There is no dry state of being in Chandigarh. Except for the dryness related to alcohol. Yours truly very dry on that count. But coming to dry per se, there is none. One is either drenched in sweat or drenched in rain.

I got drenched head to toe, as the expression goes, today morning on my way to work. I was dressed in one of those fancy, really ethnic looking chudidhars that are difficult maintain, wearing a new pair of Marie Claire around the feet and carrying my already much-abused laptop. Without an umbrella, I must add. I wondered if I tempted the Rain Gods too much.

When the rickshaw guy dropped me off in front of the new premises of my office, I was still shivering. I asked him how much the fare was. He replied “Pay how much ever you feel right, Madam.”

I gaped at him. You can read about my previous experience with his clan here. I thought about how it takes all kinds to make the world. These are incidents that make one ponder about the meaning of life.

***

You must now be wondering (if you are a rather active member of my gender) why I was sporting a fancy ethnic wear to work. You see, we are shifting to new premises at work. As is the tradition, it has to be inaugurated with a religious ceremony. I heard they do it even in ISRO when they are launching a satellite.

I have many times said to myself, that had I been born a male, I would have definitely considered the career option of being a Hindu priest. Given the ancestral profession a nudge, I mean to say. If liquor firms and space research institutes don’t move a finger without a Hindu ceremony, this really is a booming trade. Because we are anyway increasingly getting saffronized, I suppose it’s a long-term safe career. I don’t understand why my male cousins sweat it at corporate jobs.

Anyway, I sat through the ceremony, covered my head with cloth, vermilion on fore-head, neck bowed and hands folded. Granny would have wept with joy. They also distributed some milk-rich sweet. It was tasty.

By the end of it, the priest – in his early twenties – tied some red thread to my wrist. So this is what so many people wore around their wrists, I thought.

Many questions arose in my mind:

How long am I supposed to wear it?

What evil will happen to me if I took it off?

Does this red colour drain out when come in contact with water?

Apparently the priest also had some questions on his mind. He suddenly asked me if I had children. I stared hard at him and wondered at the second irrelevant query of the day.