Curse of a dead child

When parents lose their kid, the biggest victim tends to be the relationship the two once shared. The bond that their child held for them comes under scrutiny. And many a times, the void sucks both the individuals into a place that they never knew existed. A place where cute memories that were meant to cheer them up begin to chide them. A place where could-have and should-have dominate. A place where pain is excruciating but the source becomes misleading. The worst possible scenario is a place where both the parents have turned on each other instead of sticking with each another. In such a case, the healing process gets abandoned. When you lose, you are meant to grieve for a certain period of time before jolting back to reality. When two grown-ups are blaming each other (secretly or openly), both the individuals set on an irredeemable path to damage themselves more than their better half. That's how tragedy strikes in a heart. When my mother lost my younger brother in her arms (he choked on a tablet), my dad was away in Bombay. When he returned home for the funeral, he didn't utter a word. For days, he maintained silence while my mother kept weeping. In the coming years, during spiteful arguments, my dad used to accuse my ma of negligence (murder is too strong a word, right?). Some things are indeed beyond debate and repair. Particularly when neither of the parents know how to deal with a loss.

Missing the chase (part 1)

As a film journalist, you learn to like the chase. It's a practical joke worth wasting your time on. Bollywood personalities, unlike those from the South cinema, tend to have an uplifted view about themselves. Due to which, it's difficult for them to be punctual or admit that they were mistaken about something. In my 3+ years on the field, i encountered quite a lot of amusing incidents, peculiarly while interviewing them. Sharing a few of those memories here...

• When you are a rookie, you don't understand whom to call or when. Javed Akhtar happened to be one of the first filmwallahs i spoke to. So, i dailed his number for a quote and introduced myself. The thing about being with mid-day is people usually pay attention to you. But not him. He sounded grumpy and told me to call him later as he was having his afternoon nap. 
• Some directors won't ignore their phone but will ignore you. Pradeep Sarkar (director of Parineeta (2005) kept delaying my request for a phone interview by saying “Ami abhi bohot busy oy...tum boddmein phone karo!” only to say the same thing again when you called the next day. Had to give up. 
• You can always bet on the foreign desis to be different. Mira Nair was getting late for her flight and yet she decided to call me up for the pre-scheduled interview. Since it was delayed, i assumed it won't happen and i had already left for home. My phone started buzzing when i was at the railway station. With nowhere left to go, i took a phone interview amid the platform rush. 
• Sneha Khanwalkar was apparently very media-shy but i still wanted to try my luck. Back in 2012, she was the only active female music composer (I think she still is) in the Hindi film industry. She picked up my call the first time i rang her, asked me to fix a date for interview and then never got back. Stopped picking up calls. Stopped replying to my messages.
• I chased Goutam Ghose for weeks before he finally agreed to speak. The interview made the cover of entertainment section. Before that happened, he was polite enough to keep saying “next week, sure thing” again and again and again and again. 
• I was one of the last journos to talk to Mrinal Sen and Farooq Shaikh. Both took their own sweet time to get hold of on phone. And both of them were extremely cordial and frank in their replies. I still have their numbers on my phone. 
• King Khan is reachable only during the promotions of his films! I waited in the lobby of Mannat for over three hours to get a fantastic chat out of SRK. It was nearing midnight and he looked tired but his weariness didn't get in the way of his charming answers. 
• In a lot of cases, media is to be blamed for journalistic excesses. Anurag Kashyap used to be very approachable. Always the one to pick up phone or reply to texts. One fine night (he was at Sundance Film Festival), he even replied to my long email of questionnaire. But the way his answers got edited in the final cut got his goat. He angrily messaged me saying he'll never talk to me again. Thankfully, he didn't keep his word. 
• It's funny how you go to a fancy hotel and wait in the joint near the lobby. And then after an hour or so, Shekhar Kapur walks to your table, looking all snoozy and apologizing for the delay. To his credit, he was gung-ho once the interview picked up speed. 
• I kept chasing the acclaimed cinematographer Santosh Sivan (Roja, Dil Se, Thuppakki) for days, which turned into weeks, before finally giving up on him. 
• It's only when a celebrity confesses or clarifies to you that you fully realize the reach of your profession. There was a buzz that Lootera was going to be beautiful thanks to Mahendra J. Shetty's cinematography and Vikramaditya Motwane's vision. But there was something else too in the air. The rumour that Amit Trivedi has committed the irredeemable act of plagiarism. After pulling some strings with a friendly PR, i got my 20 minutes with him. And a truly candid interview. 
• What can you ask an Indian filmmaker who makes one movie every five years? Well, a LOT. When i finally got hold of Raju Hirani, i bombarded him questions that were mostly ad-libbed. Being the gentle soul that he is, he made the wait worth it. 
• I was on my way to attend a press screening of some English film when i got a call from Katrina Kaif. I remember saying “Ma'am, i'm in a bus. I'm on my way to... blah blah...can i call you tomorrow morning at 11?” All she said during that call was “Hello, am i speaking to Shakti?” and “Sure” in English accent. She picked up the phone the following day at 11.30am.
• One would expect the wife of one of India's richest businessmen to be reeking of uppity. At least i expected Yasmeen Premji to be like that. Don't ask me why. But she proved me wrong as she patiently answered all my questions related to her book (which took her more than 20 years to complete) as well as stuff not related to it. At the end of the interview, she expressed her surprise that young men STILL laughed like me. I generally did that to overcome nervousness. 
• Something similar happened with Sudha Murthy too. I met her in a book store as she was busy signing some copies. When she finally noticed me, she asked "Are you going to ask any questions now?" before multi-tasking answers with autographs. 
• One of my favourite Indian filmmakers, Jahnu Barua was supposed to call me at 7.30pm so i was well-prepared for the same. He called at 8-ish, explaining that there was power issue in his building. Later, he spoke for at least 25 minutes. By the end of interview, he told me he is in his apartment in Sanpada. Had i known this earlier, i wouldn't have stayed in office for the interview. It's much easier to talk in person, especially when the person is staying just 5 minutes away from your house. Also, when i got home, there was no power at my place. 

Last year, this time around, i was working for mid-day and had no clue that i'd be moving to north India. Now that i'm away from that paper-filling jamboree of print media, i keep going back to my days as a scribe. Which can tell why i couldn't keep myself from dropping names here. I guess there are many more to drop. Some other time maybe. 

Songs from our past

As a kid, my dad often requested me to sing old Hindi film songs on Mondays. That used to be his weekly off. Still is. Since nobody else had such expectations from me, i felt like a rock star. I belted out sentimental songs from gems like Dosti (1964) and Purab Aur Paschim (1970). There were other movies too but i don't remember them in detail anymore. His favourites used to be Jaane walo zara mudke dekho and Jab zero diya mere Bharat ne—among others. He used to throw his head back on the chair and close his eyes as if relishing my songs. I automatically presumed that i'm a good singer. It was only after i left home to stay in a hostel the reality dawned upon me. One of my hostel mates even threatened to complain to the dean if i continued singing while washing my clothes. Another said, “Sing na, i want to laugh!” No wonder i stopped singing for good! But i did wonder how come my dad enjoyed my singing like nobody else did. Oh wait, there was nobody else! Only him in this category. I haven't sung for him in a long, long time now but i'm sure that he'd still enjoy my voice. Maybe this has something to do with his affection for old films that helped him a lot in learning Hindi when he moved (escaped, actually) to Bombay. Or maybe he took immense pride in my accent-less Hindi. As usual, i don't know for sure nor do i wish to be. 

Drenched, not shaken

During my maiden summer vacation at my native-place (Manipal/Hirebettu), i was six as well as stupid. We had cats at our place back in Bombay so this marked my encounter with dogs. There were two contrasting canines at my grandma's place. One was very old and didn't care much except for food while the other was young and followed me wherever i went. Anyway, that was the closest i got to a dog as i carried an image in my head. It was of a dark brown shepherd shaking itself dry in slo-mo. So, one fine afternoon, i went to the nearby rivulet to play. As expected, the young dog of ours followed me. As soon as i reached the sandy spot, i caught hold of him and tried to immerse his body into water. The idea was to get him drenched so that i could see him dry himself like his larger counterpart did on Doordarshan. Turns out my friend had different plans. Although i got it all wet, he won't trust himself with me anymore. Because of which, he ran like possessed towards home and didn't wait to look back, forget shake himself dry. 

I wish i could do this to my Twitter followers. 

That underrated actor

If Farooque Shaikh were alive, he'd have disapproved of what i'm going to write. Not because it's false but because of his nature. The endearing actor cautiously stayed away from accolades and made sure he was as stardom-free as humanly possible. However, interestingly enough, he cared about his films and how they turned out in their essence compared to box-office figures. And this is from what i know of him. Having met him twice and having spoken on phone more, i'm pretty sure that there are very few actors around who ponder about the kind of work they are doing than the consequences it's going to have. With him gone now, that precious number has dwindled further. Remember that climactic scene in Shanghai where he's unable to enjoy his food after Abhay Deol's rebellious character has left him with no choice? Or throughout Club 60 where he balanced Sarika? Well, these are instances from his second innings (although he denied ever going back to the pavilion) and there are a lot more from his younger days. The range he exhibited was par excellence—be it the so-called middle-of-the-road cinema, theatre or television. Come to think of it, his Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai brought us closer to Bollywood stars long before KJo's caffeine did. He kept moving from one platform to another. The most impressive thing about him was he didn't take himself seriously throughout and admitted that he was painfully lazy. Always the first one to poke fun at himself, i remember him telling me "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani did so well despite me being in it!" with deadpan expression. I don't know about others but these are the kind of folks i look forward to in my day-to-day existence. They don't own a car but are happy doing what they love. On top of that, they don't harbour bitterness for the boats they missed. They address you with warmth and respect unseen in most of their contemporaries. They are a rare specimen and it's an utter shock to wake up to rude news of their departure. I can only wish him a peaceful second innings.

Saying as it is!

As a kid, I was surrounded by morons. Well, nothing has changed since. Yet sometimes I miss the morons of that era. Also, I've got to point out that the last millennium was a thing of beauty. And one of the reasons why this was so could be blamed on a friend I had. She was this little girl named Amu who was scarcely five-year-old. She had this rather cute habit of referring to herself in the third person. For instance, she used to blurt out stuff like "Amu school gayi thi" and "Amu acchi bacchi hai". No doubt she was a bundle of ridicule but somehow managed to stay immune to our curiosity. Her carpenter father wasn't very bothered by her manner of speech either. But now, when I look back (something I do a lot given the fact that I'm growing old at a rather fast pace), she comes across as a person who can teach us a thing or two in speaking our mind. For real. After all, Amu didn't disguise her thoughts with words. Although it sounded entertainingly weird, she told the way things are. How many of us do that on an everyday basis? No wonder most of our grudges mushroom from the core reality that we don't tell others what we really want to convey. It could be anyone from our parents to our siblings to our friends to our colleagues to boss. We always say things in installment because we inanely believe in diplomacy even though we don't know shit about its finer nuances. Simply put, we stopped speaking our mind as if we've forgotten the language or something. But then, that was what made Amu unique. Our friendship with her grew eventually and she became a part of our group. It was great. Until she said something like "Amu ko khilao na"—leaving us wondering whether she's hungry or angry at us for not inviting her to play!

On a time machine

I keep revisiting my childhood; not because i have an eidetic memory (which i don't, anyway) but because some of my finest days dwell deep down in my past. They weren't colorful as such. They weren't poetic either. They were rustic for a while before getting fondled by urban chaos. Despite all that, they had an innocent charm about themselves. Or maybe I'm thinking too much and creating images that weren't there in the first place. It's fine, i assume, to ponder from one thread of long-forgotten incident to another. The trouble, however, begins when you start living more in your yesterdays and stop looking forwarding to your tomorrows. We are part of an age where imagination is dirt cheap but petrol, shit expensive. So one has to think twice before choosing their mode of transport. I prefer mind-traveling. After all, our generation is way ahead of its time machine. To be honest, i don't know what I'm writing here but the voices in my head suggest that it's OK to be lost in words. Nobody cares what you wrote but people care far lesser for what you haven't.   

Awwwww, that was cute!

Being the reticent person that my amma is, she doesn’t reveal much. I mean, word-wise. Seldom would she come up with entertaining anecdotes. She’s way too busy for emotional trite. She is a robot. I mean, work-wise. Unlike most of my friends’ moms I know, she finds respite in chores. If there isn’t any, she’ll invent one and get going with it. With such a slogger at home, things are meant to be difficult for a born slacker like me—and it certainly is.

But this morning, something changed. In ways I can’t explain, age seemed to be catching up with her. At least a little bit. She shared a humorous incident that happened in 1989. My younger brother was slightly more than a year old then and asked amma to open her mouth. She was having a chocolate which he earnestly took out with his tiny fingers and popped into his own mouth and walked away. This made her laugh alone heartily almost 23 years ago. This made us laugh together heartily almost 23 years later.

Lost and found... in childhood

No matter how tough we think we are, we aren’t as tough as our childhood memories. There is something about them that grows on us. And then we reach that point in our life where it's impossible to go back. And then we die. And then they return to the womb of nature.

Childhood memories are untouchable. I mean, in a good way, not in the Indian casteist context. Of course, you may not remember every single detail of what happened thousands of days ago but still. Your childhood memories will never forget you. If you think about it, memories are what we are left with at the end of the day. Or for that matter, at the end of our existence. And what can possibly beat the era when we had no idea what we are getting ourselves into. Everything little incident was a surprise and continued to be so.

My childhood lacked imagination as I never had a friend like Hobbes. It wasn’t epic. The primary reason being that I can recollect quite vividly most parts of it so the veneer of mystique remains missing in my case. Though there were folks from those days who threw permanent color on my psyche when we passed each other. Such people somehow fail to perish. They just linger on in the nous triggering your nostalgia button every now and then.

One such personality was my grandma. I miss her as she was the only one I knew who loved me expecting absolutely nothing in return. She was a wise angel who weaved and narrated ceaseless yet brilliant stories. She used to tell us, “At any give time, you can be a lot better human being.” At that age, we had vague understanding of what she was trying to convey but those words, along with myriads other words, remain etched in my Tulu mind.

My cousin was another such person who made a huge impact. He was a free spirit – someone who won’t lay manacled to societal (dis)order, especially bunt community’s endogamic mores. He dropped out of medical college. I still wonder why he did that. After all, he was the one who told me, “A doctor saves life. It’s a rare gift.” I too wanted to become a doctor when I grow up but that phase didn’t last long. All things said and not done, he passed away at the age of 29. Unfulfilled potential, withstanding.

We basically miss the childhood we never had. Exaggeration is a pain reliever against our present state of affairs. The shy child in us is what makes us act all grown up. Sometimes, there is not only a child but an entire kindergarten in each one of us. Funny how our species is programmed to grow! By all accounts, one stops growing the moment one avoids being childish and begins to perceive others as childish.

I reminisce all the stupid things I committed when I was very young and how little I’ve changed since then. I guess it’s my karma to be an aching two-legged creature who failed to become a superhero despite being bitten by spider on numerous occasions. Perhaps selecting a proper childhood hero makes a hell lot of difference. Hence I blame Mowgli for whatever I am today.

I blame God too for not existing nor pretending to listen to my childhood prayers. I’m convinced that if at all there is a God, he'd be a lot like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Only a bit more childish and with severe OCD.

Ajjee

We live our life in a way that enamors millions of stories, some of them true and some of them not-that-true. But if we look into our past, the very idea of a story is mostly passed on to us by our grandparents, and in my part of the world, it’s undoubtedly grandma.

I too had one such grandma, from my maternal side. She was beautiful in spite of having thousands of lines on her face. She was kind and unbiased like no other person I know. Not even my amma matches her in this regard. Grandma was something else. You don’t find that kind of people very often.

Everything single time something bad happens (which happens most of the time!), the face that comes in front of me is not of my surviving family (with whom I hardly connect with!). That face belongs to someone who used to called me “Sunilo” when I was a kid and used to take me to river bank for a bath. The knot at the end of her sari used to be an territory of discord between all of her grandchildren but I liked to believe that I was her favorite grandchild.

It’s amazing how a person once gone refuses to go out of your memory and keeps reminding you of your inextricable roots. She died pretty weak and famished as her internal organs stagnated and her memory bid her farewell. I didn’t see her on her deathbed but I heard later that she looked peaceful in her deep sleep. Anyone could guess where she was leaving for.

Meeting school friends

I’ve been avoiding school friends since I dropped out of engineering and joined English Literature. Honestly speaking, I started avoiding everything that relates to engineering memory, school included. But yesterday, on Valentine’s Day, I decided to forego my past and attended a small get-together of 8 friends from school and the funny thing is I hardly interacted with them during my school days. I’m happy I took the decision to join them.

The whole thing was Aasif’s idea who is one heck of a zealous guy and he decided the venue too. I must have reached there by 6 or something and was shy like a squirrel. The reason was simple. I know them all and have a bit of history with almost all of them but haven’t kept in touch since leaving school. So breaking the ice was all formal followed by the release of laughter and ridiculous jokes and leg-pulling session that carried on for the next two hours or so.

I usually sound nostalgic whenever I speak of my school days because they weren’t exactly the best days of my life like I keep reiterating in stressful office. But I can’t deny the fact that it wasn’t bad either. I was reticent, pedantic, stupid and boring when I was younger and the people I met at the get-together remember me by the same profile. They didn’t expect me to be frank and jocular like Lejoy (my best buddy from school and former-colleague) or Aasif so I made the most of silence and my stupid smirk, paused by speeches on issues around us that almost killed the gathered joy!!!!

Talking of the friends I met, most are well educated in the sense that they earned their degree and some are even contemplating PG and whatnot so I’m dragged to self-pity for my degreeless status! But like Anu says, “Its better to kill yourself than pitying yourself.”

After this cheerful meet, I’m sure there is no better way to celebrate a day with long lost friends and acquaintances. Valentine Day hardly means anything to my eternal singlehood but I must say yesterday’s V-Day was the best of all time. Hope it repeats itself again and again in the coming days too.