Run, Buddha, Run

This is yet another explanatory post.

A post to explain my life. My choices. My decisions, and those weird things that make up that tiny part of your life that I inhabit and make that life of yours a little bit, well, odd. And for which, I should add, I apologise unconditionally.

If you're someone who's in my life as a friend or acquaintance, you might have recently have had to deal with my continual chatter about running. About how amazing, fascinating, empowering, etc etc etc it all was. About why I feel the need to enter all these marathons, half-marathons, 10k races, charitable events, etc etc. About my desire - no, my need - to keep running.

I owe you an explanation of this choice. This choice to keep running.

Ah yes. Running.

No matter how I articulate this, there are not enough words to explain why running is so important to me. But by virtue of this post, I hope to communicate why it's so critical a part of who I am today, even though it had a very minor (if barely noticeable) part to play in my life this time last year. 

Maybe I should start at the very end of a long run. For example, about two weeks back I ran a little over the length of a half marathon, which is over 21 km. Not an insignificant distance, but which I cannot say is either terrifying or even weirdly challenging anymore. But, the very first time I ran that distance, every single footstep, every time my foot hit the ground, I was motivating myself to keep going, telling myself that I couldn't quit, that it would be worth it when I finished. I had no way to know I'd be able to last the course; nothing except the sheer stubbornness of my head telling my legs to keep moving.

Maybe that's the first part of why I run. Because I know that it is a straightforward way to keep pushing myself. To identify a personal hurdle (a distance, a time, a personal best) and to to challenge it. For someone as utterly competitive as I am, running allows me to compete with the only worthy and evenly matched opponent I know: myself. Every time I start a run, I have only my own track record to contend with - my own personal previous best, my history, my legacy. 

And that is a legacy worth breaking.

But there is another element to my becoming a runner, which I can only explain by going back into my past. And I have to go back to the time that I was a young teenager, living in Namibia, the only slightly effete Indian guy in a class full of Afrikaaner boys and girls. A time that I can now turn around and admit was terribly painful and oppressive in the way that only teenage years can be; a time when being an outsider, of being different, of being unconventional (all those qualities desirable as an adult to differentiate yourself from the crowd) were qualities you abhorred in your teenage years, when being different, unusual, non-conforming even, marked you out, at best, as an outsider, or, at worst, as the one who deigned not to blend in or participate. Or worse still, marked you out as the week's target to be bullied during lunch breaks.

In my case, these were not attributes that I could step away from, and which only served to emphasise my difference from my peers. Add to that my innate introversion at that age, and I was your stereotypically emo teenager. The one who stayed indoors, read a lot, played music, and was pretty studious in class. In another time, another space, I might have become a Goth.

I didn't. I just survived. (Mostly because Indian kids don't make good Goths.) I made do, I did well academically, I somehow managed to get through what I today recognise as one of the most isolated periods of my life. But it was a time when I was the chubby emotional outsider who didn't play sport, who didn't fit in, who didn't actually do anything that all the other boys my age did. And by virtue of the bullying, became someone who was embarrassed of my weight, of being chubby, of being, well, fat. And my inability to do anything athletic reinforced that sense of worthlessness, no matter what I might have achieved in other aspects of my life; who cared if I had a near-perfect academic grade if I was still a fat kid? 

But, as an adult, things have changed. I've lost weight. I've grown comfortable in my skin (well, mostly.) I've learnt to accept myself. And I found pleasure in sports. Mostly because I've realised that the sports that I do best at are the ones where I don't have to be part of a team, a forced commune that encourages bonds and relies on others. I work best when I am on my own, pushing myself, and ultimately, against myself. Other people just.. get in the way. They complicate matters, force you to rely on them, make your performance dependent on their performance. When it comes to sport, I am not a team player. And running has allowed me that avenue of an activity that does not rely on much more than a good pair of shoes, the use of my own legs, and the ground beneath my feet. And I can leave the house, hit the road, and be free.

Perhaps the oddest sensation is now revelling in the sheer physicality of my body. Realising that I can run, I can keep going for distances that previously I thought impossible, that my body will not let me down, that it will work with my will and my mind and together we can do things that are so simple, so natural, and yet unbelievable. I can think back to a particular moment during my half marathon two weeks back, around the time that I had covered three quarters of the distance, when my legs were starting to feel the strain of the long uphill course, when I suddenly got my second wind. Suddenly the leaden feeling was gone from my calves, my feet didn't hurt anymore and I had that characteristic shiver down my spine as the endorphins rushed down from my brain. I could see people lining the course cheering, their faces a mixture of wonder and enthusiasm at the effort that I and so many other runners were making - and there was a sense that I was, for once, invincible.

It was magic. 

And that sense of freedom, of liberation, of knowing that my body is no longer the weak, ineffectual one that I recalled from my teenage years, makes me keep wanting to run. To keep pushing it, to keep finding new challenges, new hurdles, new adventures for us to explore together. After so many years of an uneasy acquaintance between us, I have come to love my body. 

So now, when I run as an adult, when I mark my time down the Embankment in London, when I jog past crowds of tourists surrounding the base of the London Eye, I can see many people look at me with bemusement. There I am, in my running gear (which, no matter what anyone might tell you, is never flattering, but utterly critical for longer distances). There are people who might chuckle at seeing me in running tights, folks who might mock my sweatband-decked forehead, my waterproofs. The oddest looks are the ones I get when I run past Vauxhall and see the dregs of last night's clubbing emerging from the shadowy corridors under the railway arches, while I pound the pavements past them, my weekend mornings now characterised by rising early rather than sleeping in late, hungover and bleary eyed.

But every so often, I catch the eye of a random passersby, who clocks me, sees my solitary state of bliss, and who I know, from the glimmer in their eye, understands.

I of course run past them, imagining myself growing fainter as the distance between us opens up. And if I run past a big building of steel and glass and happen to catch my reflection, I can see the slightest smile playing around my lips.

Because I am, of course, running.

The Importance of Using a Voice

These past few weeks, I have been increasingly getting more vocal regarding politics and economics online. Whether on Facebook or Twitter, I have started putting up more commentary around either economic or socio-political issues currently being faced across the world. Not unrelatedly, I've been posting a fair bit about my views on the current rounds of fiscal consolidation underway across Europe, the welfare state (and often its unsustainable structure) and these past two weeks, quite extensively about the current round of banker bashing underway in the UK, especially in relation to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The past 24 hours, however, have been perplexing, to say the least. Most intriguingly, I have been stunned by reactions to updates on both websites. But what I have to say is that these past few hours have made me revisit my opinion of both networks.

Background: I posted updates relating to my views on (1) the welfare state, (2) the inherent hypocrisy of free tertiary education, and (3) the fact that I disagreed with the NHS fundamentally. And let's just say that both sites got a LOT of attention.

On Twitter, I was immediately attacked by various people that I've interacted with quite socially over a few months; perhaps the most memorable comments included being called "a fascist" as according to the commenter there is no difference between capitalism and fascism. Other terms used included "filthy posh Tory" and other such pleasantry. As a foreign national working in Finance in London, I also received a couple of typical "fuck off and go home, you evil banker" comments, which I politely blocked without dignifying with a response.

The reaction on Facebook was, however, quite different. My update precipitated a massive debate, with people weighing in on either side. There was some unpleasant sniping between some, but what I was most struck by was the otherwise generally mature and coherent level of debate. (One that is still currently underway, as the responses continue to pour in).

I don't mean to indicate that all Facebook interactions were positive, and all Twitter interactions negative. I received several supportive comments on Twitter, and not all Facebook responses were as positive as described above. My favourite Facebook-related point was being messaged privately by a friend with the eloquently phrased, "the shit you post is offensive".

Aside from the merits or demerits of my views, though, what I have to say these past few days have taught me is that I should remember that fundamental differences between Facebook & Twitter. As a lover of social media, and someone who has a fairly sophisticated online identity, I have over the past months been privileging Twitter over Facebook. I have met many people in real life that I first interacted with over Twitter, and some of them have become friends. Facebook, on the other hand, seemed to have begun to be reduced to inane updates from friends playing surreal online games like Farmville, and a simple way to share holiday photographs. 

But I have to say my views have shifted. Perhaps as a result of its' 140 character limit for each tweet, Twitter has shown itself to be a much shallower medium in many ways. The scope for opprobrium is incredible, and it is hard to make a point as eloquently as one would like; being succinct is not always enough. As sometimes it is difficult to say something without context. 

Compare that to Facebook, where I've seen incredibly articulate arguments presented both for and against my original update. There have been tangents, distractions and the odd bit of mudslinging, but in general I've been impressed by how generally well reasoned the responses have been. And has reminded me why I choose to be friends with the people on my Facebook.

So what is it that I have learnt from all this?

First: I will have to revisit my opinion of Facebook and not write it off as a has-been. Especially in the week that it announced its IPO, I have been reminded of why it is such a powerful tool, and why providing a forum to interact virtually with your friends is so valuable (especially in a global world where people live far away from each other). And clearly able to command a financial value for it.

Second: I will have to revisit my opinion of Twitter. Ultimately it is difficult to gauge, despite multiple interactions with someone, how they will react to something you say. And when they will descend into name calling and refusal to engage in debate.

Third: Some people are made very uncomfortable by political discussions. It can be challenging to see a full-on, intellectually rigorous but animated/heated discussion on something that is quite polarising, politics especially, where it is easy to inflame passions, and not stay on the sidelines.

Fourth: I cannot censor myself. When I was getting flamed online last night for stating my views, I could have shut up. But that would have meant suppressing my thoughts, my views and being silenced by those who use shrill hate rather than reasoned argument to win the debate.

Some people sent me private messages last night, saying that I was getting grief for stating a political opinion, and that it was best to not discuss politics online. But that to me was something I cannot fathom. What is the point of sharing waffly, inane, utterly idiotic updates on a permanent basis? Why not share an opinion, a thought, an argument? Why not use the brains we've got? Why not argue, debate, discuss, disagree? Even if the ultimate outcome is agreeing to disagree, why not just engage? Maybe I'm just the stereotypical "argumentative Indian" but if I am, why hide from it?

One final point. I am a strong (possibly die-hard believer) in the freedom of speech. That does not mean that I believe that freedom of speech means I believe in the right of someone to not be offended. People will find different things offensive. But if we try to avoid offending people, then we might as well stifle all debate. And then where would be? North Korea?

So here's to many more evenings of political updates, tweets, and opinions. Because it is my right - nay, my duty - to say what I think.


UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that this post seems to justify my recognisably aggressive tweets regarding the NHS (amongst other topics). In the interests of full disclosure and transparency, here's a quick background check. I am not, I should stress, out to apologise for my behaviour. I am merely hoping to contextualise what might have been perceived as offensive.


Firstly, I should point out that I am a standard bearer of capitalism. That means that I wholeheartedly believe that free markets are the only way to spread wealth in a manner that is fair globally. Because true fairness implies people getting what they deserve, not a system based on entitlement & privilege dictated by the accidents of birth and global geopolitics. 


This support of a capitalist structure has over the years earned me much venom. I have been ruthlessly attacked in public and online by people who assume that because I believe in capitalism I've somehow sold my soul to the devil. When they'd rather have me sell it to Marx.


As a result, many people I interact with on Twitter only saw me go somewhat ballistic on Thursday night. I should clarify (as I've done in my comments below) that much of that was the culmination of a week of Twitter flaming. My tweets earlier in the week about the Stephen Hester bonus fiasco, the Fred Goodwin witch hunt, and the ongoing car crash that is the Eurozone had earned me a lot of venom, much of which I blocked. But by Thursday evening, when a fairly innocuous tweet got me two particularly unpleasant responses, the gloves were off.


Were my tweets well thought out, articulate, and reasoned? No. I recognise that. I also know that those were tweets of someone who was lashing out after being cornered and harangued for days. Which is why I will recognise that they were incendiary, provocative and potentially perceivable as quite abusive. But I will also not apologise for them. Because even though I know that it is the sign of being a better man to turn the other cheek, eventually even my patience snaps and then - to quote one of my own tweets - I dance the tandav. The dance that destroys the universe. 


So. If you're here reading this because you were witness or party to Thursday, I hope this provides you context. As I said, I will not apologise for my tweets. Because I did not start the fire. But I hope that this will help contextualise what happened. 


A final point. Freedom of speech is something I am very wedded to as a concept. I however completely recognise that there is no such right as the freedom to not be offended. Therefore I know that my right to say what I would like will offend several people. Does that mean I will stop saying what I believe? No (the only exception being if what I said was particularly bigoted, prejudiced or outright illegal). But I appreciate that if I am purposefully provocative, I may alienate many people. That is a risk I run, but I should stress it is one I run fully conscious of its presence.

Counting the Years

It's either very late, or it's very, very early.


My living room lights are set to a low setting. There is an odd combination of Hemant Kumar and Joan Baez playing softly on my laptop. And while I sip a glass of red wine, I write this post.


Because today, it is my 31st birthday.


I've never been much of a birthday guy. Growing up, birthdays were mostly small, private family affairs. We never did big public celebrations. As the son of parents with a hectic social life due to my father's professional responsibilities, family celebrations were characteristically personal. There would be a cake (quite frequently Black Forest) with candles. There would be presents, but never elaborate ones. Small, discreet, tasteful. There would be fine china laid out on the dining table (always impeccably dressed up itself in my mother's finest linen) and there would be your favourite food as part of the meal. But I can look back at all my birthdays growing up as being incredibly private affairs.


Things have changed recently though.


For the past few years, my birthdays have become a bit of a "thing" on my friends' social calendars. Coming as it does in January, there has been increasing pressure over the years to make it count, and to make sure that it is spectacular enough to overcome the January blues. And so they've become bigger, bolder, more fabulous each year. 


There was the year when I took a massive group of friends out to a Vauxhall nightclub for that uniquely British thing - roller disco. Oh, how they all mocked, groaned and scoffed when the invitation was sent out. Only to be recorded in every photo taken that night grinning like a child as they careened across a wooden floor, vodka & tonic in one hand, other arm outstretched as they clung desperately to a balance that could escape at any second. (There might have been some bruises the next day)


There was that other year too, when the only way to bring in my flirty thirties was to organise a Bollywood-style fancy dress party. There was the friend who came and DJ'ed the whole night. There was the coordinated dance routine. There was a Santa Claus. There was even a Ukrainian belly dancer. All in the name of Bollywood.


And even I, the eternal melancholic, has to admit that things could be worse. 


So here I sit. Hands on my laptop. Sipping some wine, and drinking to my own health. It is a night I ring in another year, a night I look back at the year past, and celebrate, amongst many things, the fact that I've survived another year on this planet. Which, given how horrible this planet can be to people, is not a bad thing. 


But it is a year that brings with it much promise. The promise of change. The promise of hope. The promise of despondency. And the promise of... life. 


Which is not something to be taken lightly.


Perhaps it is a consequence of old age, but I have become even more introspective with age. And so, oddly enough, the first thing that came into my head as the clock struck midnight was how I've lived my life. 


And again, I cannot complain.


There are things I've done that I'm incredibly proud of. There are things I've done that I cannot decipher, but that I am very glad I've done. And then there are things I've done without quite figuring out to this day why I did them.


So here, in no particular order of importance, are ten things I am proud I've done. 


1. I went backpacking. On the cheap. If ever there was a stereotype, it's that the best way to see a place is to do it on the rough. And boy, can I tell you, doing Asia on the rough is... ROUGH. I think that at certain angles, my butt will still feel the impact of a bad seat in a ramshackle van and the worst of Java's roads. But also of the fun that came with it.


2. I've skinny dipped. Not being someone who lives in either a C-grade porn flick or a bad Hollywood horror movie, this is not something I ever thought I'd do. But it's amazing what the combination of a wedding by a lake in upstate New York, poisonous amounts of alcohol and a warm July night can do.


3. I've had random, hot, sweaty, anonymous sex. Not once, not twice, not from a relationship perspective, but the ultimate in rough & tumble slap & tickle.


4. I've had dull, boring, it's-a-Sunday-morning-and-you're-here-in-bed-well-why-not sex. Which, though not really exciting, can be incredibly satisfying. Especially when you're hungover.


5. I've been to a movie premiere. In London. With real celebrities. Sadly, my own celebrity status was not appreciated.


6. I've got street credit in some awesome cities. I can get into high demand places in Barcelona, New York, Hong Kong and Berlin. Just because. 


7. I've had my heart broken. Badly.


8. I've cried in public in an unhappy place. It was in Auschwitz. It was horrible. It was important to see.


9. I've cried in public in a happy place. It was in Angkor Wat. It was beautiful. It was one of the best moments of my life.


10. I've broken into song & dance in a street. Because every so often, it's important to do that. Even if you don't live in a Bollywood movie.


None of which is spectacular, or exceptionally awesome, but is actually pretty fucking cool when taking collectively. Or so I'd like to think.


And so, I think it's fair to say that it's not been a life I can regret. Or resent. 


So I guess I can say this now: Happy Birthday to Me.

The Maps of Our Lives

This story begins on a cold winter's day in the North West of England.

A young man walks through long corridors lined with books. It is quiet in this part of the library - most students tend to lurk around the sciences and management sections. This is the literature section, and there aren't that many takers for world literature. The department for literary studies is small, and other students save their lending tickets for course books; weighty tomes about critical theories and comparative studies.

All except the young man, of course.

Of all his precious library tickets, he saves one to use for bed time reading. When tiring of books dealing with advanced statistics, financial analysis and econometrics, he retires to a narrow single postgraduate student accommodation room bed, his dinky student laptop streaming the latest Napster download, to try to fall asleep whilst reading his latest fiction lending library selection. Over the past three months, he has read many books this way. Writers from all around the world have kept him company in this cold winter in the North West of England. He has made friends with Ariel Dorfman, Doris Lessing, John Ruskin, Amitav Ghosh, Ian McEwan.

Except tonight, he has a book by a writer he's not read before. 

The book is good enough. What foreign student wouldn't relate to a novel about a non-EU student who is trying to reconcile a childhood spent in heat and dust with time spent in a small rural community in a cold, dark corner of Lancashire? A narrative of reconciling different facets of one life, one human being split across different continents?

That was how I made friends with an Egyptian writer called Ahdaf Soueif. I started out reading In the Eye of the Sun. Discovering her to be an alumna of my university, I set out  to make the most of my enjoyment of her writing and my loyalty towards my alumni by trying to track down everything she'd written to read. Over the coming years, I was to read The Map of Love, her Booker-nominee novel, various short stories, and eventually her many articles in the Guardian. (Yes, even her writing for that rag did not diminish my appreciation for her). 

Eventually I was to discover her work in translating the amazing Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti's work describing his return to an exiled West Bank. Shortly followed by a read of her short stories, I Dream of You. By then, I had been to Egypt. I had walked through the dusty, smelly, magical streets of Cairo, fallen in love with the ageing, crumbling beauty of the city, drunk cocktails at the rooftop bar at the Ramses Hilton, had lunched by a slow Nile in the early April heat. 

I fell in love with Soueif's Cairo, her Al-Qahirah, a city whose mystique was matched only by Istanbul and my own precious Delhi. An ageing, crumbling city that felt as if it was, to quote Urdu poet Gulzar, in the pieces of its past life. A city that, unlike Delhi, had fallen into hard, sad times, overrun with the stench of tyranny. But a city that was eternally beautiful, despite its ugly architecture, its suppressed populace. Cairo revealed itself to me as a city that would not be broken. Damaged, yes, but not broken.

And then, in early 2011, the Egyptian revolution came to our doorsteps. As I sat in the UK, captivated by the visions brought to my screen via Twitter, Facebook and BBC News, I was overwhelmed with visions of the Arab Spring. These street battles in Midan el Tahrir were taking place through places in Cairo that I had visited and driven through. These were people I had seen in the cafes and restaurants in Zamalek, students I might have interacted with whilst they were studying in the UK, professionals I had worked with when we both were working in the banking institutions based in the City of London. And now they were changing their destiny. 

I was riveted.

So when the opportunity to mix these two experiences, by going to an English Pen event in Farringdon tonight, to listen to Ahdaf speak, as a revolutionary, a journalist, a troubadour and a raconteur, to hear her describe what she had seen on the streets of Cairo as an observer and a participant, was presented to me, there was really only one choice. Of course I was going to go.

I was slightly concerned, of course. So many times have I met people that I'd read and liked, but who had ended up having feet of clay in person, that I admit to maintaining a sense of trepidation. I was pleased, however, to be presented with a diminutive firebrand of a woman; smart, articulate, witty, and not without an ironic sense of self-depracation. But also someone who I heard speak, whom I asked a question of, who sounded in person exactly like she sounds in her writing. 

And so it was not without a sense of karmic completeness that I am pleased to report that I managed to connect with - in person - that lonely foreign student who wrote about being a lonely foreign student and whose work gave succour to another lonely foreign student. Because perhaps at some point, some place, in some instant, all the maps of our lives coincide. For a small, infinitesimal instant, but nevertheless connect us to our fellow humans.

And all we have to do is live that moment. As I hope I did tonight.

The Infamous Kamasutra...

... or how to live a life as a typical Indian in medieval times.

The movie, which shares names with an ancient Indian book that's basically all about how to have good sex, was released in 1996 and made by director Mira Nair (probably best known for her later - and much better - film, Monsoon Wedding) When released, though, Kamasutra created quite a lot of interest, primarily because humans around the world are basically obsessed with sex and are keen to see anything "intellectual" that will satisfy their prurient urges. Suffice to say, I never quite got around to watching it, primarily because it was low on my list of priorities, but more importantly, because people I know and whose opinion I respect had seen it and told me it was utter and complete bilge.

Cue many years later on a quiet weekday evening in a rainy London, and the movie was being screened on Film 4. While I cannot bother to waste any more of my life on the movie to write a review, I thought a good summary of what I thought of it would be summarised by a collection of tweets I posted during the movie. These are reproduced below. I should apologise for a lack of screen shots, but frankly, I can't even be bothered to waste more of my time on this than I already have. So if you want to see pics, google "Kamasutra". Just try not to do that from a work computer.

Content warning: I swear. A lot. And talk about sex. A lot. But then that's why you're reading a post with the word, "Kamasutra" in the heading, aren't you?

Pervert.

Oh look. Kamasutra's coming up on TV. BRING ON THE NEO ORIENTALIST BILGE. *does pejorative Indian head wiggle*

WARNING: there will be some Kamasutra tweets following. These relate to the movie, not to my usual agony aunt & sex advice column<

How to be more Indian: make sure Shubha Mudgal sings alaaps as you go about your life. Makes you more authentic

Can someone please ask Shubha Mudgal to sing an alaap please? I'm sipping wine on a couch & need to be more authentically Indian

Why the FUCK are they doing Bharatnatyam in Rajasthan? South Indian dance forms in the home of Kathak?

Life in medieval India must have required a LOT of starch. How else to keep all those linens crisp & fresh?

"That's her. There she is. My lotus woman." BECAUSE INDIANS JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THAT

Little known fact: Indian palaces came equipped with fans at strategic locations. To ensure our well-starched fabrics draped aesthetically against our bodies

Ok. I've just realised why a gold kardhani (waistband) can be so sexy

What kind of princess has her wedding farewell with her face fully showing? She's not swaddled enough!

"It's our destiny." Ah, that classically Hindu Indian fatalism. Resolves so many dilemmas in our authentically Indian lives

Every Rajput family needs a slightly deranged uncle who can utter menacing warnings from the ramparts

Our Rajput family has not one, but several, deranged uncles. They add a lot of colour to our ramparts

"Put this beneath you at the time of the pain." Because you're GONNA GET SOME LOVIN' TONIGHT

Ah yes. Sex between unmarried Indians is great. Sex within Indian marriages must be TERRIBLE

*Camera cuts to Khajuraho* *And then Varanasi* BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER

"I'm a sculptor. I want to sculpt you." AND OH LOOK WE'RE NOW IN SOUTH INDIA

That's it. I'm growing my hair. I seem to be inadequate as an Indian upper caste male without long flowing locks

"This position, we call the Twining of the Creeper." I.e. the meeting of the white wine & the red wine drinkers

To make love as an Indian sculptor, you need: (1) long hair (2) an artistic temperament (3) a hibiscus flower

Ah yes. What would life be without the irate upper caste men on horse back? Because all evil arrives on horse back

This movie is reminding me of a distinct lack of incense, elephants, mysticism and diaphanous silks in my clearly un-Indian life

BRING ME MORE DIAPHANOUS SILKS. I NEED MORE DIAPHANOUS SILKS

"Sorry Mrs. Nair. We're out of diaphanous. Will gold brocade silks do? The finest that Mubarakpur has to offer"

I think I'm getting silk rage

*Insert breathy wise comment from older courtesan* *add Rekha charm & mystique* *try to save movie* *fail to do so*

Ok I'm sorry to say this, but Maya has UGLY nipples. And the sculptor has an ugly ass

Sex scene! Cue female feet, daubed in alta, with silver anklets, writhing in pleasure

Oh WOW. This is a first. A sex scene involving wheat. THRESH THAT GRAIN, FARMER! HARDER! HARDER!!

"Jai. I made some co-co-nut rice for you." BECAUSE COCONUT RICE IS SO FRICKING TYPICAL OF MADHYA PRADESH

"Sometimes, things don't make sense immediately." NO FUCKING WAY, REKHA

Note to self: make sure Shubha Mudgal NEVER sings in a brothel in one of your own movies

"Jupiter, the sign of good fortune, is in your house of love." Bring on the Indian astrological superstition

"Of course, before I forget, YOU CANNOT BE IN A MOVIE ABOUT MEDIEVAL INDIA WITHOUT A STUPID HAIRDO

"What kind of fuckwit uses "The glory of God is within you" as a pickup line? Except for a Catholic missionary?

Men in loincloths. Homoerotic medieval India moment alert. AND ONE OF THEM HAS A PEARL NECKLACE

And now they have fucking ODISSI dancers? IN KHAJURAHO?

This movie will give me a heart attack. I'm going to need a bier. WITH FUCKING MANIPURI DANCERS & Bengali Baul singers.

"I wish we were free like when we were children." Trite Dialogue Alert

*Contemplates committing seppuku by medieval Rajput blade on display in living room*

Litle known fact: medieval Indian couples competed sexually by measuring the thickness & length of their hair

If all Indians have as much sex as the ones in this movie, our population numbers suddenly make COMPLETE sense

This movie has too many shots of Naveen Andrews' nipples

More homoerotic wrestling. This time fuelled by opium. Drug-fucked male skin contact. Might as well be a gay club

This movie is making me lose my will to live. I GUESS IT'S JUST MY DESTINY AS A FATALISTIC INDIAN

Hang on. My bath water doesn't have rose petals in it. Am I being un-Indian in my bathing?

AHA. Yet another RIDICULOUS hairdo. I thought we were losing the plot here

Must ask Mother to send me a sitar player & a tabla player. I'll keep them locked in cages in my flat to provide a soundtrack to my life

Some ritualised hair cutting. Hmmm

Ah yes. The ritualised crushing of the prisoner by elephant. Followed by another Shubha Mudgal alaap

And for the execution, the courtesan pulls out a Bengali puja sari. Because that makes fucking sense

And it's over? What, no rebirth? No slums of Bombay? WHERE THE FUCK IS THE HAPPY DANCE? Oh wait. Wrong movie

Lost the will to live. Off to bed. Good night

And The City of Dreams Burns...

I'm angry. Very angry.

Tonight is the third night in a row that various parts of London are beseiged by rioters; groups of youth vandalising shops, burning cars, attacking bus drivers and generally terrorising their neighbourhoods. I've spent much of the evening texting friends, trying to ensure that they are safe & haven't been stranded or affected (too much) by the violence spilling out into the streets.

And the anger inside me keeps building.

Why am I angry? Because it is happening to a city that I love and care very deeply about. London is one of my favourite places in the whole world. As the city that I have lived in & call home (despite the efforts of its public transport system, its government or general miserable weather) I find it a comfortable, welcoming, dynamic, international and utterly fabulous place. I am very proud to identify myself as a Londoner, as one of the millions who has been a part of this city & its fabric for the past six years. I was a Londoner the day that the IOC announced London trouncing Paris in its bid for the 2012 Olympics. I was a Londoner the following day when bombs ripped through the London tube, and I had to walk for three hours along the river to make it home. I was a Londoner that day in September 2008 when the markets opened the weekend after Lehman Brothers collapsed (in fact, at that time, I was one of the bankers that worked night & day to get through the mayhem of September 2008).

And I was a Londoner that day in August 2009 when I returned to the city after several months away backpacking. I had been to 3 continents, 14 countries, some amazing historical sites, some poignant memorials to human achievement and human depravity. And despite all that, I felt nothing but a sense of coming home that day that I landed in Heathrow. I was back in London.

I was home.

And so, when I watch the news, when I see the streets and suburbs devastated and damaged, I feel nothing but utter rage against the criminals who feel it acceptable to vandalise the city that is home to so many people like me. People who may not be from the UK, people who would not be missed probably by millions of people across the UK if we left, but people who by virtue of who we are and by virtue of making this amazing city our home make London the place that it is.

People who are Londoners, through & through.

The Symphony of Meretricious Wounds

After my initial post several weeks back about the rules of how to write an Indian novel in English, some people asked me if I was being too harsh. I disagreed and explained, either via emails, on Twitter or over various pints of beer in random pubs, that I was completely, utterly and absolutely correct, and that everything I said or did could be proven empirically.

I am still somewhat surprised why people bother arguing with me. They know I'm always correct, but I suspect it's like a mind gym for them - a bit like trying to sharpen their limited intellect against the whetstone of my brain.

Anyway. We digress.

My rules of writing an Indian novel in English (henceworth referred to as "IWE") ruffled some feathers, but then what would I be if not the ultimate feather ruffler? And imagine my glee at finding a work of non-fiction, written by an Indian doctor of medicine in English about cancer. What did Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee choose to title his work? A very humble, and not at all bombastic "The Emperor of All Maladies".

(Cue the smell of freshly ground chillies as they hit hot mustard oil in a California kitchen. Children play noisily on the floor as a fat Tamil woman, stoic in the face of her own sexual futility and loveless existence, prepares dinner for an uncaring doctor of a husband who spends his days in pathology labs having tumultuous bacteria-ridden sex with a blonde resident)

Anyway. You get my point.

So I was berating the ridiculousness of this title on Twitter, when the inspiration struck: I too would create an IWE. And not only that - I would write an IWE ON TWITTER.

So, dear reader, presented to you below, in all its glory, is my Twitter Indian Writing in English. my TIWE, if you will. The text below is a direct collation of my series of tweets relating to the subject.

I'd like to write a novel called "The Symphony of Meretricious Wounds". It would be a fantastic exemplar of Indian Writing In English.

It'd revolve around a young man, in his late 20's. He' be American, but of Indian heritage. I would call him Surya. Or Sunil. Or Jack.

Jack would be from South India. Preferably Kerala. That would allow him sensual brown skin. And the use of coconuts as sexual innuendo.

He would live in the East Village, leading a hedonistic lifestyle of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll & denial of his own ethnic heritage.

But in Jack's past lurked a deep, dark family secret that an aloof father, a hapless mother & a retarded sister would never resolve.

The secret would craft and shape Jack's entire identity, forcing him to run away from his family to New York. They lived in Menlo Park.

This secret was so powerful, so terrible & so unspeakable that nobody in Jack's entire extended Keralan family ever spoke of it.

The secret was this: Jack did not like coconut in his masala dosa.

Long had his mother sobbed at little Jack's refusal to eat coconut with his food. His father beat him, his sister made faces at him.

His many aunts, redolent in heavy silk saris, reeking of jasmine & oiled hair, whispered when he came to family get-togethers.

His cousins pointed and laughed at him, refusing to let poor Jack join in their little Keralan games. Jack played by himself.

The family crisis came to a head when his father, in a drunken rage, tried to force feed him dessicated coconut. Jack nearly died.

His mother screamed as his father kept slapping teenaged Jack, shoving handfuls of coconut into his mouth. His retarded sister drooled.

After all, what kind of good Keralan girl would marry a boy who didn't eat coconut?

Jack was taken to the hospital that night. New Jersey doctors pumped his stomach clean of all coconut. Social services was called.

Social Services took Jack away from his abusive, coconut-force feeding father. He was put up with a large Croatian family.

The Croatian family did not eat coconut. Jack was happy.

Jack grew up, went to university, and met a good Hungarian girl. He moved to Manhattan, became a photographer & built a life.

And then it happened.

He was walking through Union Square when he bumped into a beautiful Indian woman. She wore kajal in her eyes. And bangles.

Her name was Shakuntala. Or Katyayini. Or Jane.

Jane was fresh off the boat from India. She was studying politics at Columbia. She was opinionated. She oiled her hair.

She'd carry mango pickle in her coat pocket. In the middle of heated intellectual debate, she'd pull out a piece, suck it & go "ooh".

Her sex appeal was off the charts. It was also largely predicated on sucking bits of pickled fruit. Jack was smitten.

Jack & Jane had a tumultuous affair. Their relationship was marked by long walks by the Hudson, debates about Sartre & lots of bad sex.

Jane was the one who made Jack watch his first non-Fellini film in years. Thanks to Jane, Jack watched Rajnikant. In Robot.

It was to Jane that Jack finally described his underlying dislike of coconuts. He slowly opened up to her, verbalising his loathing.

As softly as she could, Jane whispered, "But Jack, if you hate coconuts, you hate yourself."

"You are a Keralan American, raised by Croatians, denying the everlasting allure of coconuts. You are the ultimate coconut, Jack."

Jack stared at her fat naked body in bed. He was thunderstruck. She had struck him at his white, watery core.

Unsure of what to say or do he did reacted viscerally. He started hitting her. Because what was an IWE without domestic violence?

Jane screeched as he held her by her plait & slapped her. But her coconut oil had done the trick. Her plait slipped out of his grasp.

Racing to the kitchen she hurled the first thing she could find at him. It was - but of course - a coconut. It hit Jack on the nose.

Jack stopped still in his tracks. His nose was broken. Yet again he was rushed to the hospital in a coconut-related emergency.

Mt. Sinai doctors set his nose straight. "How strange", said the weird Telegu doc. "Why waste a good coconut like this?" Jack agreed.

Unable to face Jane after that scene, Jack walked aimlessly across New York. He listened to pretentious American rock on his iPod

Finally, unable to avoid the issue any longer, he went to the curry shops in Murray Hill. He was a man on a mission. A coconut mission.

Walking into a South Indian restaurant, he sat down beneath the large statue of Ganesha. Incense sticks filled the air. Rose petals too

"What would you like to yeet?" the obsequious waiter yasked him. Jack drew in his breath. "Bring me... a coconut masala dosa".

The waiter brought the dosa, hot, steaming and full of coconutty goodness. Jack stared at it, his face impassive, unyielding, immobile.

Suddenly, an old Bollywood song came on the radio bleating in the corner. It was a song Jack's mother sang to him as a child. Badly.

And as he sat there in a curry shop in Murray Hill, with a broken nose, staring at a coconut masala dosa. Jack softly began to weep.

Because if you were a 20-something man who hit his girlfriend & had his nose broken by a coconut, you would weep too. A LOT.

But most importantly, Jack wept because as he sat in a grubby curry shop in Murray Hill, he realised the worst thing of all.

He had forgotten his pants at the hospital and was walking around town in a hospital gown.

The. End.

The 10 (okay, 13) Commandments of Writing Indian Fiction in English

For those of you who know me (or at the very least read my blogs or tweets) you may recall that I am a fan of fiction. By virtue of my ethnic origins, I also bear more than a passing interest in fiction written by writers from the South Asian subcontinent. Including that written in English.

Indian authors have written in English for decades now. However, only recently has the work that they've produced taken on an international dimension; with the Indian community spread far and wide across the globe, publishers have discovered a new genre in fiction: the indubitable Indian Writing in English (henceforth known as IWE). This happy interest in all things Indian has also been mirrored by a growing non-desi interest in South Asian fiction. So just as much of Britain finds going for a curry part of the norm on a Friday night, so do literary types in Bloomsbury offices and Hampstead flats find reading the latest product of the dusty subcontinent gratifying in an intellectually suggestive way.

This international interest, has, of course, opened the flood gates to thousands of Indians, educated in the English language, to try their hand at writing the great Indian novel. (No, not The Great Indian Novel - that's already been written by some former UN bureaucrat) But what these poor souls, all frantically rushing to hurl their mediocre Indian childhoods into a word document, do a quick "Find - Replace" for major character names, and then add a title don't realise is that there are very clear rules to be a successful writer of Indian fiction in English. The title of IWE is not one lightly bestowed or easily won.

However, because I am a kind and nurturing soul, I've taken the liberty of codifying the main principles of how to write a novel in order to win the title of IWE. Stick to these, oh mediocre writer, and all will be well. Watch the plaudits come rolling in, the publishers lining up at your door, and the pundits gushing over your shoddy tale in the weekend edition of The Hindustan Times.

The Ten (okay, Thirteen) Commandments

1. Thy Book Must Have a Title That is Strange & Wonderful. Also Very Long.

2. Thy Narrative Style Must Be Long Winded With Disjointed Grammar. And Much Punctuation. Badly Used.

3. Thy Male Characters Must Be Misogynists, Brutal & Uncaring. Or Sensitive & Caring. But Only If Gay. Or Dead.

4. Thy Female Characters Must Be Sexually Frustrated, Oppressed & Withered. Or Wild, Wanton & Uncontrolled. But Dead.

5. Someone In Thy Fiction Must Have Magical Powers. Or Purport To Have Some. Preferably a Grandparent. Preferably Female.

6. Thou Shalt Write About The Sordidness & Poverty Of India. Thou Shalt Not Ignore Caste or Religion-Based Violence.

7. Thy Novel Must Have Long Passages Devoted to Indian Food & Its Preparation. They Must Be Boring. And Accurate.

8. Thou Shalt Write About the Healing Powers of Spices. And Not Ignore The Sexual Tensions Inherent In Green Chillies.

9. They Characters Who Live Outside India Must Return to Discover Themselves. And Be Desperately Unhappy Wherever They Are.

10. Thy Prose Shalt Be Peppered With Much Vernacular. But Italicised & Used Like a Foreigner. Like French. Or English.

11. Thy Novel Shalt Have Tales of Lust. Preferably Incestuous. Or Consummated Amongst Pickles. Or Spices. Or All Three.

12. Thy Characters Shalt Always Have Bad Sex. Straight Sex will be Dull & Unsatisfying. Gay Sex Shalt Be Rancid & Devious.

13. If Travelling Abroad, Thy Brahmin Character Shalt Debase His Purity Via The Medium of Alcohol, Meat & White Women.

And as some old crabby God said to the Israelites in the Middle East - keep my commands and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.

Now go forth and prosper, ye maggoty rats.

Another Year Past

The fireplace flickers in the wind.

Long, undulating tongues of yellow flame, deep blue hearts inside, leap up against the cast iron flue as the wind rushes down the chimney. In front of it, almost impervious to the furnace-like heat, he sits. Pensive, he gazes into the flames, the glass of Bordeaux by his side slowly losing flavour as its absorbs the heat radiating across the room.

It is late at night; the footfall and raucous chatter of the tourists from the nearby hotels that dot Bayswaters’ period squares have fallen silent. Only very infrequently is the silence on the streets disturbed by the sound of a London black cab driving another reveller home after a night spending money – whether hard-earned or not is irrelevant in London’s overpriced venues – to go home for rest, and possibly recuperation for another day, another drunken revel.

The silence, and the lassitude that envelops the neighbourhood could be depressing. For someone naturally melancholic as him, though, the quiet stillness that fills London streets during the Christmas holidays is restful. For the first time in days, he has had time to think.

And to reflect on another year gone past.

Professionally, things could not have gone better. A pay rise of almost 60% over the course of a year is nothing to complain about, especially in this economic climate. He’s always restless, but there’s nothing new about that. Better to be restless than to be complacent, in any case, right?

Travel – a long standing love – has been good this year. It all kicked off with a week long excursion to Bali with friends, followed by New York in February. There was a brief hiatus in spring, but following a weekend away in France for a friend’s wedding, it’s been a (primarily) European rollercoaster – Berlin, Amsterdam, Athens, France again, Ibiza (for the first time) and then a week long adventure in India in November. And now, here at the end of the year, he has a weekend in Berlin to look forward to and to welcome in 2011.

Love. How was that in 2010? It could have been better. But then, it could have been worse. Much worse. Perhaps the greatest thing about his love life in 2010 was learning to love himself, to learn what was and was not acceptable, and to be honest. To the other person, but most importantly, to himself.

And so with little to complain about, and a great deal to be thankful about, he gazes into the fireplace, saying a small prayer of gratitude to the gods for the decisions, and happy coincidences, and accidents of circumstance, that have brought him to this place.

And that allow him to hold his head up high and look forward to a new year, and look forward to it with hope and excitement.

Dear reader, he bids you a very Happy New Year!

So many days later.

I've been terrible at blogging these past few months. So much happening, so much not happening. So it's been infrequent posts.

So that's what I've been doing these past few months. Lots of travel - Greece, France, the USA, Germany, Spain (Ibiza), India, and France again. Now looking forward to spending New Year's in Berlin, my favourite city in the whole wide world.

So many books too. And ever since I bought my iPad, it's been amazing at how much I find reading ebooks so therapeutic. I've downloaded so many old classics too, including Cicero, Virgil and Thackeray.

So I apologise for the lack of a blog post. And at the same time, I don't really mean it when I say I'm sorry I haven't posted about my life.

Because I've been too busy living it.

Bending Race

So tonight I'm supposed to be in a good mood. I've had a great, relaxed weekend, watched some quality cinema, and also had an excellent first date. So this blog post should really shiny & happy, with lots of little gold stars twinkling at the edges.

Instead, this one is going to be a rant.

And the reason for the rant is pretty straightforward. For a change, it's not about something that's happened within my personal sphere of influence, but rather something that I saw in the public realm and that really, REALLY pissed me off.

So we're all on Facebook, right? (If you disagree with this statement, you're either in denial or just an imbecile for not remembering when you joined the site). And we all have friends whose photo uploads show up in our news feeds. And sometimes you find one that catches your attention, so you click on it.

And then, when the pic opens up full-size (or optimum size, if you must be technologically anal), you realise that it shows you something that makes your blood boil.

This picture below is what I saw, and when I saw it in full size, that's exactly what it did.

Now don't get me wrong. I usually love Glee. I think it's done wonderfully well in taking characters that are typically stereotyped in popular US TV shows and has brought them mainstream. So the characters in the show, despite being complete freaks by normal US social standards, are depicted as just "one of us" - young, ambitious, sometimes confused, teenagers who are misfits in their social surroundings for any of several reasons, and who really have the same dreams, aspirations and hopes that any human being of that age has.

So why the rage, you might well ask? Well - all I will do is point you to the third square in the first row. That's right - that's supposed to be Tina Cohen-Chang, the girl who has a goth fetish, a thing for Artie, and a voice to die for. Yet despite ALL the nuances of her character, she is reduced to being "the Asian one" for the poster. Not because there isn't more to her character - not by any stretch of the imagination - but because, when you're looking to identify her, it's somehow ok to call her "the Asian one" and get away with it. Note how the chubby black girl (see what I did there?) who plays Mercedes gets away with being the loud one, and even the whacky Mrs Schuester is granted the glory of THREE whole lines of text and gets to be "the one most likely to fake a pregnancy". So I guess we can't call "the fat black girl" that anymore, and we can't call the gays the gays, but those Asians - who f*cking cares? They're all yellow anyway.

Somehow though, all that the designers of this damn poster did when they pulled Tina's strap line together was that the only thing that seemed noteworthy about her was that she came from an ethnic group that currently makes up ~50% of the world population. WOW - WHAT AN INCREDIBLY UNIQUE IDENTIFIER FOR THE CHARACTER.

So this rant is probably slightly reactionary, but what amazes me, time and time again, is just how backward the US can sometimes be in its approach to race and issue. Other places in the world are getting better at this - though not by much - but somehow public culture in the US seems to stubbornly want to stick to retrograde definitions and identifications of race, culture and identity.

And for those of you who think that this is a one-off phenomenon, all you need to do is look at the current controversy around the latest "Avatar - the Last Airbender" movie, with its incredibly problematic lactification of clearly non-Caucasian characters, its controversial casting calls, and ultimate degradation of quality that has created a massive online backlash.

And you know what pisses me off most about this? It's that a show that has done so well with other issues that have been traditionally taboo in US television had to be the one that still fucked up like this.

Bah, humbug.

Self-Centred Introspection

Another excerpt from the story that I'm currently working on. Something I've refined this evening, during yet another spell of insomnia.

Where is the place that all stories begin? Is there a single point from which all our narratives flow, a single indescribable nucleus, where all our pasts, our presents and our histories are determined? And if such a point exists, could we ever trace our steps back to that place, that wellspring of our human-ness, to redraw the paradoxes and petty tragedies of our frail existences? Is it that, then, which we seek all the time as we go through life, apparently aimless but in actuality searching for that which can never be found?

She has a story too. But perhaps the only truth in that story, hidden deep within a web of perceptions, opinions and delusions is that it has no single beginning. Like all stories, it is born anew at every single instant, but also dies in that instant, and is condemned to never be repeated ever again. For her story, like all stories, is nothing more than a string of innumerable instances, microcosms and random events intricately strung together, which each moment almost bearing no relation to the one that came immediately before, or the one that will follow it only a second later

And that is why when she looks for a place to begin, to find out where it all started and where things were inexorably set it motion (oh, that cliché), she is unable to identify a single point, a single over-arching instant in her life to start.

But stories are born to be lived, to be told, to be passed on from the lips of one generation to the next, carrying within them the seeds of destruction that all humanity is inherently drawn to. Years later, she will look back onto that night and recognise that it was her one chance at sanity, for succour, and yes, for redemption. But that redemption can only be achieved through her narration, standing in an invisible confessional box, her past lives and sins surrounding her as clearly as angels and demons richly carved in dark mahogany.

And so she must find a place to begin, to find a single place in her past from where she can stand and begin to draw the tangled threads of her past three years into a single cohesive weave, finding patterns and order where none perhaps have, never will exist. On this night, as she drives all through the night through the rain that hammers the North Indian plains in August, smoking endless cigarette after cigarette, she will force herself to remember.

Self-Centred Introspection

Another late night in London.

My insomnia kicks in on the strangest days. Today, after a week of insanely busy days at work, with a social calendar that's packed to the brim, I thought I would sleep like a baby. Fat chance. It's now 2:30 and I'm still awake; bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, willing to go out for a run, or a drink, or both. Probably not a good idea, but there you go.

So here I am, in a garret bedroom in Notting Hill, with the windows open on this warm summer night. My laptop is warm on my lap; the duvet lies pushed down around the end of the bed. I've got Florence + The Machine playing on Spotify, and a table fan whirring softly in the corner.

It's at moments like this that I have to love my life.

Nothing special, nothing important. Just a single moment when I can look around, at a life that I've built slowly, painstakingly, bit by bit. I've gotten to a place where I think I am, if not happy, then at least...serene, calm, comfortable.

Not content, though. Never content. Always trying, always struggling, always reaching. Things need to be done, places must be visited, lives must be improved upon. It is difficult to not always want to achieve. Especially when in my own head there are so many failures, so many shortcomings, to compensate for.

Dreams, ambitions, goals. All shorthand for the misery that we can cause ourselves by wishing for too much. For trying too hard. For staying so hooked into the whole system that we forget to stop and measure the moments, minute, infinitesimal, that make up this fragile life of ours.

I think it was a schoolteacher - one of the Dominican friars at my Catholic school in Namibia - that introduced me to the Latin saying, per aspera ad astra. To the stars through difficulties. The same teacher told me that if you aimed for the stars, you'd get to the treetops.

And I always wondered how unsatisfying those treetops would be, especially when you kept looking at the stars that you missed out on.

Self-Centred Introspection

A half moon rises over the high rise council estate flats of Notting Hill.

Deprivation.

The moon is blood red. Dust in the air, prismatic reflections of pale light. Wisps of cloud fleetingly linger over the semi-circular cusp of reddish-white in the air.

Il pleut toujour sur les maisons de Londres a minuit.

My heart - the half that remains with me - cries with the weather. The other half, the half that I gave you; the half that you wrenched away from me - rests with you. Happy, sad, uncaring, I know not.

Do you stay awake at midnight, wondering if I'm thinking of you, the way that I do, standing here at the window of a garret room in West London, staring at a moon that stays suspended mid-air, close enough to reach out and touch, far away enough to be just out of reach?

I don't want to fuck up anything. I just want to be with you.

But its too late for that. I've already fucked things up, taken it to a point where we're beyond redemption. And now all that is left to me is this moment, standing alone in a cold room in an empty apartment, where all that is left to keep me company are my memories.

And this, a blood-red half-moon, lingering in front of my face, the way that you do.

Just out of touch.

Self-Centred Introspection

He sits, eyes, closed, on the Bakerloo line, right opposite him. Hair black, his Japanese eyes screwed tightly shut, mere slits against a face pockmarked with rashes and pimples. The faded grey of his backpack (waterproof, durable, outdoorsy, careworn, used) flat on his lap. His fingers, - rapid, prismatic, a blur – move the small plastic cube, almost inexorably.

Turning, turning, turning.

The tyranny of symmetry. The rules are simple: red adjacent to red, blue next to blue. Orange all on one side, white on another. Miscegenation is the enemy, order, purity, a bland monotony the idyll to be striven for.

It has taken the man only two stops (Baker Street to Edgeware Road) to complete the Rubik’s cube.

***

He walks calmly into the stationers. Stillness. Life here is calm, ordered, comprehensible. In the neat ruled sheets of Pukka Pads, in front of the walls of coloured plastic folders, ring binders and clutch pencils he finds a strange tranquillity. Things are not complicated here, decisions lose the menace of their implications. His decisions are bounded by the cardboard ends of the notebooks that he peruses. Sex is merely the static that burns his fingertips as he runs his hand against the wall of paper in a brightly lit store in Notting Hill. Simplicity.

Self-Centred Introspection

Another night, another memory of you.

I always sleep naked. My skin, hot, feverish, sexual, burns against the cold touch of the duvet cover. Normally, your naked form next to me kept me warm, the pale expanse of your back a figura to warm myself against in the cold of the London night. But you've left, so I'm left here to my own devices as I look to warm myself in this, the coldest of London summers.

Damn you. You left me bereft of everything.

But still, we soldier on. Call me a hundred times, and I'll come to you, atleast a hundred times. It's the price I pay for giving you my heart that one, innocent time. If I weep from one eye, then you tell me - how can I keep the other one closed?

Self-Centred Introspection

A few years ago, someone in New York gave me a black Moleskine notebook, and told me that I should use it to write down my thoughts when I'm feeling pensive. I took the book, and then forgot about it for a couple of years. Last year though, while packing for my six months of travels, I found that notebook in my desk drawer and decided to take it on a whim with me.

Funnily enough, I started writing in it only about half-way through my travels, when I felt that I had accumulated so much to say and write that I had to put it down before I forgot. So I finally started the first entry one afternoon in Angkor Wat, after spending several hours contemplating the incredibly humid, worn-down beauty of the temples there. Since that happy time, I've begun carrying it around even though I'm no longer travelling and will often scribble a few sentences in it. Usually this happens when I'm on the tube in London, since public transport allows you to observe so many different people anonymously, while letting you stay secluded in your own little world.

So from today, I'm going to start (selectively) putting up some of the excerpts that I've written down. I'm going to tag these posts "Self-Centred Introspection" since that's exactly what they are - my thoughts about me and my life, with no real purpose, meaning or intent.

So here it is - the first one.

Today I’m at peace. Things are calmer, my thinking is clearer. I understand what it is that I need to keep me happy.

That doesn’t mean that I am automatically happier. But that I know – intellectually, rationally, calmly – what it is that I need to do to be so.

Tourists wearing A&F in the District Line. My eyes shut, I see flashes of your naked chest as I rest my head on it. The sexy, acrid smell of your armpits, the hair brown & curling; I can hear your sighs as I recall our lovemaking.

The air in this train is cold, crisp, damp. Spanish filters through the soft strains of the music on my iPod. I rejoice in the minute details. The ruff of my jacket against my neck, unshaven, scented, stubbly. The taste of that last beer lingers in my mouth. The cold of the glass partition seeping into my shoulder as I lean against it.

I am told that memories are made of this.

My Name is Singh and I am who I am

I had first heard of My Name is Khan back in the summer of last year, after Shah Rukh Khan was, somewhat ironically given the plot & premise of the movie, held at US immigration for a few hours as the airport authorities found him suspicious on the basis that his surname was “Khan”. The story was soon dropped, but for a few hours, the rapacious Indian media feasted on the bones of the scandal. (As an aside, I love using the word “rapacious” – it reminds me of the Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park movies)

So going to see the movie last night with an Austrian friend who is rapidly sinking into the quagmire that is Bollywood-mania, I had a pretty good premise of what the movie would be like. My concerns were primarily around the fact that the movie was a Karan Johar production, especially since KJ is never quite known for being subtle or discreet, but prefers to hammer in the ham & emotion with a sledgehammer. Don’t get me wrong – I love my good ole’ Johar flicks – but I was intrigued how a filmmaker of his ilk would treat something as sensitive as racial profiling in the USA in a post 9/11 world.

This blog-post is not meant to be a review, so I won’t spend much time going over the fundamentals of the film. But the reason I’m writing this piece is because there were many elements of the story yesterday that resounded quite closely with me, and that I found particularly affecting. And at the very end, for me, a film is only successful if it can relate to you personally; the big bang glamorousness of a blockbuster is only as good as the emotions it can generate in your heart. That is why the first Star Wars worked, while the more recent additions to the franchise don’t. And that is why My Name is Khan is, at least in my eyes, a successful film.

The reason for this is pretty straightforward – MNIK is a film about being different, not being typically like the others around you, and about having the courage and conviction to embrace the identity that is yours, regardless of how well that lets you “fit in”. Rizwan Khan is, in the movie, the ultimate outsider, who through his entire life inhabits liminal spaces. In India, his minority status is based on his religion. In school, he is bullied by peers for his autism. At home, his brother resents him for being the centre of his mother’s attention. In the broader US community, he is an immigrant. In the US Muslim community, he is a vocal moderate willing to challenge fundamentalists, who marries a Hindu divorcee with a child (herself a minority). But the Khan we see in the movie is someone who is at peace with his own identity, in whatever the circumstances. He is not necessarily able to understand why other people do not like him, but at no point do we see him turn around and say, “I wish I was not Muslim / autistic / brown ..."

And for me, this is where the success of the movie lies. Unlike other commentators, who have moaned at length about how "unrealistic" the movie is, I don't really give a damn (especially since most of the same commentators had raptures over an equally improbably Inglourious Basterds.) I don’t care how “cognitively realistic” the movie was, but how "emotionally realistic" it was. I don’t need to know why Rizwan Khan travels the length & breadth of the US, in his attempts to meet the US President and tell him that he is not a terrorist by virtue of his name. Fundamentally, none of these elements really matter.

Perhaps my perspective is skewed by my circumstances. I am an Indian national who has lived less than a third of my life in the country of my nationality, but my identity is intensely Indian, primarily founded on a childhood travelling with parents who were diplomats. I was not born in India, but in Pakistan, which means that unlike other NRI’s who travel back to India, I am now increasingly subjected to intense scrutiny at Indian immigration, where officers are perplexed that someone who was not born before Partition can have an Indian passport even though he was born in Pakistan (the same happenstance raises eyebrows at many airport check-in counters, immigration barriers, and cocktail parties). And even though I am proud to be an upper-caste Rajput Hindu with an impeccable lineage that I can track back hundreds of years by name, I find much in religion to be tedious and ritualistic; something that is exploited by clergies to keep the masses in check.

But the results of this upbringing are ubiquitous. I find that India drives me insane, but outside the country I am one of its most impassioned (and I would hope, erudite) defenders. I have lived much of my life overseas, and as a frequent traveller on an Indian passport have the infinite joy of having to apply for millions of visas ahead of any journey. At the same time, the idea of giving up my passport for a more convenient one, though attractive from a purely pragmatic point of view, is quite emotionally difficult. I have friends who are activists of all sorts across the world – ranging from LGBT campaigners through to aid workers in Haiti, through to American Muslim university professors, much like Khan’s hijab-wearing sister-in-law in the movie, who wear the scarf not out of any circumstance of familial or gender-based suppression, but out a sense of identity and protest. Many times my friends have opinions or views that I cannot agree with. At the same time, the reason we are friends is because we are able to accept that we are inherently different, and are friends because, not despite, those differences.

And so perhaps because of these circumstances I was touched by the movie last night; and this is why the movie is "emotionally realistic". Rizwan’s message of being true to yourself, regardless of circumstances or environment, was a strong, touching and most importantly, personally relevant one for me. It reminded me that there are many other people out there in the world who are as different as I am from the others around me, with different hopes, aspirations, dreams and identities; people who cannot claim to be from any “majority”, but that ultimately it is important to remember that despite being different, it is still possible to be yourself.

And perhaps, even, to be happy.

Reflections on New Years Past...

In less than two days, most of the world will be ringing in the New Year (why do I feel it necessary to capitalise those two words?) and also the New Decade (there go those capitals again...) Not surprisingly, with the onus of having to look forward to the ten years ahead, I've gone all nostalgic on the year that's just gone by, and cannot help but think back to where I was this time last year.

People generally are supposed to have something interesting to do on New Year’s Eve. Normally, I’ve been quite good about avoiding the damp, windy and cold weather that plagues London around this time of year, and have spent the past two years in cities with SNOW, as opposed to sleet. So much better, no? So two years ago it was Paris, and last year it was Berlin. Berlin was definitely the more fun of the two getaways, though that may have had to do with the insane amounts of partying that I managed to indulge in. I went clubbing on New Year’s Eve, and ended up at Berghain, this truly terrifying, massive industrial hellhole spread on three floors in East Berlin. The place has a basement that closes 45 minutes after the club doors open, and what happens in the basement, stays in the basement. I left the club (not the basement, I can assure you) at 7 am, and there was a queue a mile long to get INTO the place at that hour. The Germans can party, I tell you.

Funnily enough, my most vivid memory of that morning is choosing to hop straight into a cab home, ignoring my initial (and ultimately wiser) urge to hop into a kebab shop and pick up food. On getting back to the apartment I was staying in, I realised just how ravenously hungry I was, and as no other shops were open at the time, ended up having to sate myself with a day-old Danish pastry and some apple juice. I spent the 1^st of January going to bed on an empty stomach.

Some might argue about the inauspiciousness of such a start to the year, but perhaps going hungry just made sure that I stayed hungry the whole year. Not for food, thankfully, nor shelter, but for new experiences. As much as a cliché as that is (and that’s a lot of “as”-es in a phrase) 2009 has been a fabulous year; time spent travelling, quitting full-time employment to do so, being adventurous, both in my professional life and my personal, my social and my love life. It’s meant not being content with the status quo, not being happy to be complacent. It’s meant forcing myself out of my comfort zone, doing things I might not have done in previous years, pushing myself.

It’s been absolutely terrifying.

But equally so exhilarating that I can’t believe I didn’t do this before and also cannot imagine going back to the way things were in 2008, or indeed in the years before then. I think I’ve figured out now how I want to live my life, and that’s not at all a bad thing.

Unless you’re my liver, I guess.