The Antidote (what I haven't learnt...)

I haven't learnt to twitter - or rather, to tweet
I haven't learnt to blush and study my feet
I haven't learnt to eat with chopsticks yet
Or that I argue like a complete idiot
I know patience is the mother of all virtues
But I haven't put that lesson to good use
I haven't learnt not to shoot off my mouth
To prevent a bad situation from going further south
I haven't learnt the art of grace under pressure
Or that I take for granted things I should treasure
I haven't learnt it's a little too late
To sulk and whine at thirty-eight.
Though I've got my fingers pretty badly burnt
I've learnt that I still haven't learnt.

Keep Walking - one for the road

A lot of people I know have an amazing road sense. Me, I was born without an internal GPS. If you stand me in a spot, blindfold me, and spin me around a couple of times, I won't know which way to turn (I'll probably stagger around drukenly for a few seconds, puke all over myself, and faint). People like me depend heavily on signage, landmarks, and auto drivers to get us to where we're going without crossing into the next state. But, it's not just my road sense, I'm hopeless at finding anything at all (which is why I'm not married); I couldn't spot a dancing moose in a discotheque because I wouldn't find the discotheque to begin with - even if one of those colored disco balls fell on my head.

One-way streets is a good concept but it can be terrifying for someone who has a great propensity to get lost because if you take the wrong road, there's literally no turning back and instead of going where you need to go, you'll end up going where the road takes you. (I'm better than my mom though - she once drove around a circle thrice before she realized she was going round and round.)

So if I have to go to a place which I haven't been to before, I usually do a recce the previous day. Problem is, it seems like I've never been to any place before - even the ones I've been to before. Which is how I set out to establish where the Government Arts and Science College is. I found the college but I didn't know I'd found it because it didn't have a board that said it was the Government Arts and Science College and it had been found; of course, all you had to do was to look at it to know it was a college but I need more proof - I need a board that proclaims what it is before you'll convince me and to my bad luck there was no board. And worse, now I had to find my way back home through the maze of one-ways. I simply kept following the road for 15 minutes without knowing where I was going.

I finally gave up and pulled up next to an auto driver and asked him "which way to Domlur?"

He looked at me like I'd asked him "Which way to Africa?" Then he giggled and pointed down the road and said, "Follow that road till you come to a U-turn, take the U-turn and go back to where you came from."

Very helpful.

"But where did I come from?" I asked him.

I think he wanted to say "I hope you don't want me to answer that," but he changed his mind and shrugged as if to say "anywhere you want it to be."

I peered at boards (the signage has really improved in the city) from which all kinds of names flew at me, some familiar ("so THAT's the railway station!") but mostly not. To cut a long story short, I followed the familiar sounding names and landed up in front of my aunt's house which is a good 10 kms from home but it was still home - it was lunchtime by now, I was hungry and tired and happy.

Life's like that - you suddenly realize you're on the wrong road but whaddya know, it's a one-way stret, so you keep going, and you stumble around following familiar sign boards guided by an inner intuition only to rediscover your faith in serendipity.

My "I've learnt that..." List

• Every opinion has an equal and opposite counter-opinion.
• Truth and fact are not the same thing because truth is almost always relative.
• People DO get away with crime.
• Sometimes it's easier to trust someone else than to trust yourself.
• No matter how eloquent you are, words will fail you when you need them the most.
• We talk the most when we have nothing to say.
• You're never too old for Archie comics.
• No matter how indifferent you are, a child's hunger will break your heart.
• If you drive in this city, it's hard not to swear.
• Only animals and children can love unconditionally.
• Hope is more often born out of desperation than optimism.
• It's more important to share silence comfortably than share conversation comfortably.
• Sharing grief creates more grief.
• Good spelling is fast becoming an oxymoron.
• Books on positive thinking can sometimes be very depressing.
• When a child asks you "Shall I show you how strong I am?" NEVER say "yes"
• The "moral compass" is really a compass and points in different directions for different people.
• Sometimes, "you say it best when you say nothing at all."
• You'll never find yourself unless you first lose yourself.
• Good music can move you in a way that can only be felt and never defined.

ABHOSTTBBLO continues....

Kyrgyzstan - one of the 15 countries that declared independence when the USSR fragmented into so many pieces that if you walk this territory, your two feet may actually be in two different countries, one of which might (or might not) be Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgystan’s (pronounced “wow!”) claim to fame is that it’s the only country in the world with just a single vowel in its name.

Goodbye Sweet Prince

We were absolutely crazy about Michael Jackson, my twin and I – 2 of the millions of his fans across the globe. Our first introduction to MJ was through “Off the Wall” in our teens - we went wild. It was the 80s – a time when there was very limited access to music videos or even visuals of celebrities, days of the audio cassette and SUN lyrics, and a decade before cable TV and Google. MJ almost constantly crooned from our bedroom and from our car stereo. He gazed down at us in his leather figure huggers from our bedroom walls and our wardrobe doors – we just couldn’t get enough of him. We rewound his tapes over and over trying to catch his lyrics – of course we hardly got a line here and there and then kept serenading ourselves with those precious few lines we caught. We never tired of watching videos of “Beat It” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” a thousand times…..to this day, Thriller’s haunting background score remains one of the best pieces of music I’ve ever loved. Then came SUN (probably India’s first music magazine) and we religiously bought every issue and cut out every MJ photo, poster, news item, and song lyric that ever appeared on its pages. MJ had many great contemporaries in the 80s – Stevie Wonder, Kenny Loggins, Kenny Rogers, The Police, Prince, Madonna, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Cindy Lauper – an endless galaxy of extremely talented musicians but he towered head and shoulders above them all with his outlandish and extravagant costumes, his mind-boggling videos, his impossible squeals which our dad said was the sound a pig would make falling off a building, (our dad also said of “Air Supply” that “they only supply air”) and boy did he have the moves!

As we grew older, our tastes matured – we realized there was life beyond MJ - but MJ was always the most comforting of our music collections; he was like the oldest thing in your wardrobe that you still wear because it’s the most comfortable piece of clothing. It became amusing to watch MJ refusing to grow up even as we grew up but no matter what he did and what people said about him, when he sang and he danced, he was our God. We fought for him, we defended him, we stopped talking to people who said “bad things” about him, we cried, we laughed, we ranted – all for MJ. Over the years, he faded gradually from our lives; we followed him on the news and every mention of MJ was nostalgic because it took us back to a time in our lives that would never be again. In him, the best years of our lives were preserved; he was the music world’s Peter Pan. He gave us unbelievable joy, his music touched our lives in a way that is impossible to describe. He taught us to love music passionately. He stayed a child forever.

The Tragedy of the Commons

In what is being dubbed as an unprecedented comic crisis, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon departed from his textbook address to the UN to express his anguish at Archie’s decision to marry Veronica. “Betty Cooper is all set to become a suicide bomber,” he croaked in a strangulated whisper as heads of state looked on in horror. “No matter what we do, there’s one born every minute,” the distraught UN chief went on, looking and sounding dangerously close to a meltdown.
“It ain’t over till it’s over pal,” an unidentified voice called from the back to nervous laughter.
President Obama gamely tried to bring sanity to the situation by declaring, “It’s recession time, folks. A loser like Archie is better off with the Lodges than out on the streets looking for work.”
His comment was met with loud boos and desk thumping from one section and “hear, hear” from another.
“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” was Britian’s typically understated response.
“Excuse me! In my country, people are killing each other to eat mud!” exclaimed an enraged representative from the continent of Africa, “maybe you should fly your Archie and Veronica to my country for their honeymoon,” he fumed in disgust.
The House descended into chaos with Russia, China, and Pakistan aggressively outbidding each other for discounted airline fares to the newlyweds.
When asked to comment, Cuba’s leadership was blunt, “Archie can marry Veronica’s mother for all we care.”
“Or her father,” was North Korea’s laconic quip.
India has called for a 3-day closed-door meeting of the SAARC nations to decide what to decide. “We’re monitoring the situation,” was the only cryptic comment from the big brother of the subcontinent.
The Secretary General pounded the desk with his gavel for order causing the Israeli leader to jump up with a blood-curdling shriek as he looked at his shattered fingers in horror. The leader had to be straitjacketed and carried out to prevent him from firing a gun that he pulled on the shocked Secretary General.
“How did he get that in?” protested the Middle Eastern bloc. “This is a conspiracy. The infidel planned to assassinate us! All deals are off. We’re blowing up Israel right now,” they yelled and stormed out.
The Secretary General asked for a show of hands for Veronica and Betty assuring the House that he would force Archie to abide by the majority’s wish. The USA, France, Italy, Australia, and China raised their hand for Veronica – and for Betty. Indian diplomats studied their feet and sat on their hands. An Iraqi diplomat hurled his shoe at the Secretary General but missed him and caught Gordon Brown square in the face. “Bull’s eye” muttered Nicholas Sarkozy unaware that he was caught on tape. England immediately severed all diplomatic ties with France. “Wait till I go home and tell Carla about this,” grinned Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian premier.
“Carla is MY wife you senile creep,” a shocked and livid Sarkozy screamed.
“Oh,” was the Italian premier’s muted defence.
“Please let us all calm down,” pleaded the Secretary General. “At this hour of grave global crisis, it’s important that we all stand together putting our petty differences aside.”
“Yeah right,” said a Bangladeshi diplomat, “after all, in my country only a few tens of thousands have been displaced by floods but clearly this is a far greater humanitarian crisis we have on our hands.”
When asked to comment, the German Chancellor said, “I think I need a drink,” and headed off to find one.
 

The Bandits of Bengaluru - will we let them get away?

This article is written by Saugata Chatterjee. As the article clearly shows, our city is being taken over by thugs and sadists who will brazenly resort to violence against your person simply because you're not like them! Do we want to live in a society like this? Our police force is the joke of the world. This article provokes you to think what you would've done in Saugata's place. Read on. If you're a blogger, please post this article on your blog.

A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming outof our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around. Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding,hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one oftheir legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with theregistration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire's toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill. Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest. And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone –a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up. Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood. A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A 'cheetah' biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly. The carnage continues for over 20 minutes. Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true "sons of the Kannadiga soil", and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don't ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital. Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. Thepoliceman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to beprecise) over the evening. No, it doesn't matter that I didn't have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn't mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!! This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims. One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town's most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit.
That voice had no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken. And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt. We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector ofpolice who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a "neutral" point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a 'drunken brawl', while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful. Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one RaviMallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property offBrigade Road which he has converted into a "gaming" (you know whatthat means, don't you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava(22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross inVyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then. Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lockup for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory?) bail. The car, purportedly belonging toan MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of "irrelevance to the case". The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause. The goons meanwhile, as an afterthought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint:the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and notin the FIR? Questions.. questions..).Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don't know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps. But here is the point. We stood up. We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be inthe larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable. It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt,nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try. Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don't let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit - at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder. If are up to it, start right now. Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment. It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time weturn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.

My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up. I refuse to letBangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.