Cinema: The Fading Magic of the Silver Screen

 **July 2006**

In small towns and cities, there was a time, till the early nineties at least, when the quotient of budding youthfulness in country lads was measured by their contrived, stealthy, hard-fought escapades to the cinema halls.

Cinema then fashioned the ways and modes of bravery, for gangs of youth fought with knives and hockey sticks over tickets and seats inside.

Cinema was the harbinger of fashion, of love, of relations, of ideology, of knowledge, and whatnot.

Entertainment on television was in its infancy.

A cinema hall with broken panelling, decimated chairs by overenthusiastic audiences, its interior crammed with peanut shells and other discards from eatables, presented a cramped cabinet of adequate entertainment, replacing all the past elements of entertainment like theatre, visits to fairs, festivals, magic shows.

Film stars had as big a persona as those figures on the mammoth screens.

Sitting with their smallness from the small places, people, abandoning all their egos and authorities, looked spellbound, clapped at favourite dialogues, booed at and yelled at the villains, sang and danced to the tunes with the stars, with the heroes and heroines, whistled, threw obscenities at the characters with negative shades, passed livid, sexy remarks at the heroines.

And during the interval, the canteen inside got swarmed like a thirsty pack of cattle around a tiny, muddy waterhole in a desert.

In excitement, who cared for the cheapness and staleness of patties, snacks and other articles of eatery at exorbitant prices in the cinema canteen?

Alas, within a decade, all that is gone with the wind.

Cable TV has turned the tables head-on.

The small screen has hit the big one with such impunity that the behemoth is tottering to its fall.

People have it all on their small screens—24 hours, 365 days in a year.

Many illustrious cinema halls are rarely able to meet the running costs.

Some have closed.

Those who still stand in the fray, they bear the ignominy and ridicule of vacant seats in the first show of the best movie.

And mind you, the canteen!

The canteenwallah is the most pathetic figure these days.

Out of a dozen-odd spectators, very rarely somebody comes forward for a thing to buy.

"The cinema is dying," I heard a canteen keeper saying with sadness.

The cinema is dying, at least in our town.

I agree with him.

Two Hopes in the Monsoon: The Rainy Maiden and the Elusive Tail of Justice

 **July 2006**

 

A week after the monsoon's early arrival, by a day or two, it has been a period of cloudy display, humid eastern breeze, luxuriant neem, and the occasional boughs swaying to the great fan keeper, and light, soft spells of drizzles here and there.

Here in this part of India, monsoonal clouds don't cast a monotonous pall of dark grey over too long a space, over too long a time.

And if it ever is—covering Haryana, Punjab, parts of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Rajasthan—it does not last for more than three or, at the most, four days.

For the rest of the time during the summer monsoons, it is a long, perspiring, insect- and mosquito-ridden, wet, humid environment buzzing with croaking frogs.

The story of colourful cloudy displays at dawns and dusks, and a hide-and-seek between the sun and cottony white bales of clouds during bright noons.

During this first week of monsoon, I wait for our court case hearing at the Supreme Court with as much hope and anticipation as the farmers waiting for the first considerable, sensuous monsoonal lashing of their bodies, homes, hearths and fields.

For all the prospects of a bountiful paddy harvest depend on the uninhibited, unrestrained bursting, as it seems, forgetfulness of the rainy maiden.

I hope.

My hopes are not founded on the shaky, volatile, innocent foundation like that of the weather elements.

Rather, they are firmly jutting out of the concrete columns of law, order and constitutionality.

But for almost three long years, this hope has been belied.

At what cost?

That I won't even dare to estimate or even imagine.

If justice delayed is justice denied, then I think we should no longer be talking of it anymore.

In its place, I should eye some leftover crumbs left on the plate after the great supper—the supper of monopolising the state machinery to topple the cart against the commoners.

But thank God, monsoon has been faithful, even though nothing binds it to its regularity except our hopes and prayers.

Through this period, I hope... I hope two hopes.

I wish two hopes match their colour this year.

Let us see the tail of justice, if not the head of it, on this path washed by monsoonal rains.

Shera: The Broken Ladder of a Village Boy's Ambitions

 **July 2006**

Given the social position of his caste, the Lodhi Rajputs, Sher Singh, nicknamed Shera, began on a proud, promising note.

He took care to oil and comb his hair; took even greater care to dress in bright-coloured shirts and pants within his means.

There are still so many escaping chinks in the country's higher education system which allow the students (semi-students, actually) to have plenty of time to play the role of ruffians, vagabonds, idlers, tramps, and honest workers who supplement some rusty notes and coins to the famished family purse by working in the fields with the family elders.

Shera was from the beginning of the latter category, a liability to none.

He took great, innocent, honest care to earn something for his tiny tidying-up as per the modern times screened and portrayed in the cinema halls and TV.

So he vended berries, fruits, sold watermelons by the roadside, hawked flower garlands prepared by him—all the inputs coming from the rented land.

And all this with equal ease and skills and dexterity, and as a bonus to all these sprucings, he got his certificate of matriculation from the village high school.

More educated and more tidied up as per the average standard of the youth of his community, he was quite naturally bound to look to the stars to rise higher.

The young man thus left the village, went to the city, took the job of a salesman at a petrol pump outlet, spoke a peculiar but better-than-chaste Haryanvi admixture of Hindi and Haryanvi.

You can't hope to survive with honesty in such petty jobs in cities while the higher world flies by you.

So such workers at the lowest rung of profession do contrive to add up to their meagre salaries. Salesboys at petrol outlets are no exception to this.

A few paisa worth of bonus is left with them after settling the accounts as per the meter and the fifty- or hundred-rupee notes in their collection bags.

And given the number of vehicles adding up to the fleets on roads, they are left with a few big notes at the end of the day.

Then they become important functioning cogs in the adulteration racket.

Shera, the ever-enterprising man with a petrol nozzle, taker of great pride in his dress, taker of great risk in ferrying the adulterated stuff from the hidden depot, took a few steps on the path of social and economic advancement.

Working strenuously, he earned enough to purchase a colour TV, a refrigerator and a bike.

Even boasted of a poor girl as his girlfriend.

But then man proposes, God disposes.

And in this case, God mercilessly disposed of his scheme.

The poor boy met with an accident on his bike, broke his leg very seriously.

His bike turned into a trash heap.

And to add to the tragedy, he had no driving licence, which changed his status from a compensation receiver to that of a breaker of law.

So no compensation, no insurance, more money into the pockets of policewalas.

All this amounted to more than he had saved, plus the family's savings.

Costs at the bone-setting hospital were considerable.

It meant debt for his poor father, a long, painful layoff and recovery for him, which further meant loss of job.

So with his legs now not strong enough to help him with running or lifting too heavy a load, he was in the square where survival meant doing these very small things as he was gathering the scattered sinews—salesman at wine and petrol outlets, chaat seller, egg seller.

His drunkard elder brother committed suicide and took himself away from the world of miseries, leaving his pitied, broken wife and two sons in the world at the mercy of whatever she knew they could stick themselves to.

It is a custom in the countryside, though a dying one, yet too strong still, leaving its imprint on families like his own, that the younger brother takes up the reins of the cart where the elder brother unfortunately drops them.

Shera being of marriageable age, he was a suitable candidate for a very practical custom.

Decidedly, he presented himself between the sheets to carry the responsibility of feeding two stepsons and a wife.

Can't afford to keep them in a city.

So now the real struggle to keep on floating on the economic sea is on.

I wish him all the best.

The Hen Coop of the Neighbourhood: Street Quarrels and the Art of Verbal Warfare

 **1 July 2006**

The neighbourhood is noisy like a hen coop.

Housewives, like ever-cackling hens, are day in and day out pecking into each other's feathers to prove their real, outscoring, troubling worth.

Quarrels over the use of a tiny street square. The filth in the street drain. Comments, remarks over gossip, over rumours, and whatnot.

All they need is just a little trigger, and there is a blasting quarrel.

They know exactly well how to keep themselves busy, and then they drag their husbands into the affair for venting, wishing them to turn the verbal duel into a real fistful one.

It rarely happens because, in modern times, street fights are decided by how many filthy words you can blast out at the top of your voice.

So their husbands too, in accompaniment to the shrill female voices, join with their husky, hoarse shouts and add to the noise.

They don't show any inclination to go for a real physical fight until there are enough spectators, with a good number of those who will jump in to prevent the matter from getting bloody.

Then they shout and writhe in the arms of those who intervene.

The fighters are sure that these good souls won't allow things to turn too bloody, and pretending that they are trying to free themselves from the arms, they keep playing the act of war, peace-shattering the foe with verbal mud, verbal mud.

They leave for their houses after spending their lung power.

But it is quite a spectacle to watch these street fights.

A heady cocktail of cuss words, abuses, comments, sarcasm.

It's good that people keep themselves limited to the verbal aspect of war because, in any case, that is better than breaking each other's heads in the real sense.

The Mischievous Monkey in Africa: When Self-Deprecating Humour Came to My Rescue

 **Diary Entry: 2008**

Long time back, about 20 years ago, I was in Africa for some time. We were doing business, our little group of friends.

On one weekend, we went to this nightclub, and I got high on a few bottles of beer, and there I was, prancing around like a monkey on the dance floor.

I am one of the most horrible and most weird dancers in the world. I hardly know how to synchronise movements that are required for dancing.

But I felt liberated that day. There were tensions in business, and I kept on dancing, dancing.

Then, in the wee hours, somebody had been watching me very, very carefully, and I found out that it was a very handsome, almost six-foot-tall African woman, attired in traditional dress, apparently from a good family.

And when the dance floor was closed and I was coming out, she followed me and held my hand very firmly, thinking that since I was high on alcohol, I might be easy to carry away.

And it appeared like I was being kidnapped!

And in a husky, loud voice, she said, "Oh man, I have a problem."

So, very meekly, I asked her, "What is your problem, ma'am?"

She said, "I can't help it but take you to my bed."

I was shocked and surprised. That was such an open invitation!

And she laughed.

There was at least truth and frankness about it. There was no coquetry involved; she straightaway hit the point.

And me being a mischievous monkey, I knew the best way to deal with such frankness was through puns and jokes.

Become serious, you might be in trouble, because that was Africa, and from all angles she appeared to be an influential woman. I had a feeling that she had connections, and if she felt offended, if I denied straightaway, she might put me into trouble.

Anything could have happened.

So I took it very lightly, and I did exactly the thing that I have done a few times in dealing with such tough situations.

I slipped. Started babbling self-deprecating stuff. With the face of a suffering moron. 

She was holding my left hand, so I gave a guffaw of laughter, very naturally, as naturally as she had asked me about sleeping with her.

I slapped my thigh with my right hand and made such a meek and pathetic face.

I said, "Ma'am, you are a beautiful woman, and there shouldn't be any reason to say no to your proposal. It's an honour, in fact, to be invited for intimacy by a woman like you.

"But I have a still bigger problem than yours."

She was surprised.

She asked me, "What's your problem?"

I said, "This thing does not work."

I said it while pointing to my middle, to my private parts.

She was shocked, and then I kept on elaborating on it.

"Ma'am, I have been wandering across nations and continents to seek a remedy for this thing, to make it work, but it has failed me."

And I made such a PTSD-suffering face as if it were true.

"Even here, I am running around to get some traditional herbal medicine from shamans in Africa so that they can force some life into this limp thing of mine."

And I kept on babbling, high on alcohol, and she just started laughing.

She got the pun behind it, and even in the throes of passion, with my humour, I was able to put her into a situation where even as a woman who proposed to a man unqualified, unconditional intimacy, even she wouldn't feel denied and offended.

So she started laughing.

She patted me on my back and said, "You are a very interesting man."

And she was just rolling over with laughter.

She said, "I have never, ever seen a man like you, who is purposefully playing down his virility and manhood just in order that he doesn't want to get into intimacy with a woman."

Then she said loudly, "Liar! I know you are very much operational there!"

She pointed to the intended thing.

"You are very much active there. As a woman, I can feel it, but you don't want to. You don't like me. But that is not an issue. You are a funny man. That is most important."

And she just let go of her grip.

So my takeaway from this episode is that humour, and especially self-deprecating humour, can come to your help in testing situations.

The Brothel at GB Road: A Researcher's Misadventure in Old Delhi

I can recall another such incident during our trading days.

I used to go to Old Delhi's grain market quite a lot, and there was this quite entertaining but lecherous friend of mine who was interestingly fond of women, and that would sometimes take him to the professional women of the trade.

Now, that part of Delhi is quite congested, so we would park our car at a distance and walk about one kilometre to go into the narrow alleys where the grain merchants traded.

That was in regard to our export-import trade from Africa. So we were looking for buyers and purchasers of commodities, and we had to pass this red-light area, the famous red-light area of Delhi, GB Road, where you have women begging for your attention even in broad daylight.

So one day, this friend of mine got an itching to visit the brothel in broad daylight, and there are so many stories about that, that anything can happen.

So since he was insecure about going there alone, he insisted that at least I should give him company.

When I said firmly no, he played his card quite well.

He knew that I am a researcher-type fellow who is always looking for material for his write-ups.

So he tried to convince me that, "You can go. You will have plenty of research material. Suppose you are writing some story and you have a character, then you will be able to build up the plot well if you have the firsthand experience. You don't do anything, you just go there."

Now, when it comes to reading, writing, researching, I have this soft corner.

So I thought that nothing would be forced upon me unless and until I willingly did something.

So I went with him.

It was a very narrow, dark staircase leading to the upper-storey brothel rooms, and it was spattered with paan and gutka spatterings by the clients.

He was ascending the stairs in front of me, and the moment he entered the threshold, it was a dimly lit room, and he was grabbed by two women.

And I saw him struggling a bit, but then since he had intended to do the thing, he allowed himself to be taken away.

And at that moment, I just stopped at the threshold.

I put both my hands against the doorframe, and only one step was inside, and I jammed myself there.

A woman came and she held me by the hand and tried to drag me inside because these are very poor women. They are always looking for clients, and if somebody goes there, even if the purpose is something else, even suppose somebody goes there, some NGO worker, their first intention is just to latch onto that person and treat him as a client.

So despite my pleadings, I found that now two women were just, you know, holding both my arms and trying to drag me in.

And then I started doing the same mimicry that I did earlier.

I said, "I just came here to watch."

They said, "What is there to watch? Everybody comes here as a client."

I said, "I don't have any money."

Then they tried to put their hands in my back pocket, and somehow I managed to get one hand free and didn't allow my wallet to be stolen.

Then I spoke to them in a very courteous manner.

I said, "See, I am an educated person. I respect you. This is your profession, just like anybody else has their profession, and I don't judge.

"In fact, my friend is a social worker for women in the trade, and I have visited a few places with her in order to highlight the problems faced by women like you.

"So won't you please show respect to me? I show respect to you."

But still, the head lady of that establishment said, "No, no, you just come in and we can just talk."

I said, "No, I won't be able to come. I don't want to come."

Then she said, "What is the problem?"

Then I played this.

I made such a sad face that my thing doesn't work, and she started laughing.

She pointed to a girl.

She said, "She is an expert in it. She will make it work. Don't worry. You don't have to do anything."

And as they tried to force me in, I slumped on the threshold and put my feet against the threshold.

And when they found that I might topple over and go down the staircase, finally they had to let me go.

So it happened like this, and I just came out running at top speed.

Baba Rajnath -- Illustrated Biography Part 6

 

The Little Maestro: A Billion Hearts Between Ecstasy and Agony

 **30 June 2007**

It is cold, windy and rainy in Belfast, Ireland.

The little maestro's exploits in the last two matches have given us the sweet-sour pill of equal pain and pleasure.

Coming back to form in a pondering, cautious, calibrated and calculated manner in the other match, he amassed 99.

Then the whole of India missed a beat as the cricketing god missed the inches.

One run short of a 42nd hundred.

We calculate his hundreds with more pleasure than thousands, lakhs and crores in a bank balance.

In the second match against South Africa yesterday, he went on a rampage, as if Tendulkar is no less flamboyant than the Tendulkar of the 90s.

Hooked, pulled, drove with impunity, seemed to have cast a billion burdens from his shoulders.

The entire nation went gaga.

Then again we missed a heartbeat last night.

The maestro again missed out on a century, got out on 93.

A strange dose of equal pain and pleasure.

We cherish two things equally, separately—Sachin's hundreds and India's victory.

If India loses a match but Sachin gets a hundred, then it acts as a cushion, a support.

Because when the match begins, we are looking at two goals instead of one, as is the case with the fans in other countries.

Our happiness soars to reach Everest when both go hand in hand.

Sachin failing, yet India winning, puts a blot on the victory like the one on the full moon's milky glow.

Sachin has a big Mother India.

But the mother is too possessive, irrationally demanding, madly loving.

So the maestro has a mammoth responsibility upon him every time he comes to the field.

When he scores a hundred, people forget their miseries and failures.

When he fails, people throw their victories into the dustbin and start bickering.

In the case of Sachin getting out on a zero, people throw their victories into the dustbin and start bickering.

So the last three or four years, bickering had been going on while the maestro struggled against injuries, ageing body, increasing expectations, expert comments, laymen's outpourings, changing cricketing environment.

Everything pitted against him.

But these two near misses of a century against a quality side in tough conditions have hammered all those question marks which had almost squeezed him into a bracket in recent times.

He now seems to sit at a safe, uncontested place.

But the question is: for how long?

His failures prove that the genius is no god or machine.

Obviously, he learns to remain unaffected by these blatant transgressions from crazy fans, media and experts.

But one thing is quite clear.

The man is paying a huge, the man is paying a huge cost for the stardom.

Pleasure and Pain: The Wickerwork of Fate

 **29 June 2006**

There is plenty of pleasure around and plenty of pain as well.

Invariably, we desire, we desire to have all of the former in our kitty and none of the latter.

In fact, there are many who would have others be entitled to all the pains that are there.

But such abhorrence for the latter does not bog it down, and invariably it comes to haunt the pleasure-loving selves of modern man.

Though there is no real pain and pleasure, we sulk and exult relatively, coiled up in the basket of our suffering.

Your eyes closed, your hood below the last coil, below your tail.

In the dark air, in the wickerwork of fate—or your own doing, for those who don't believe in the term; but both are the same, because at one time or the other they stand to justify each other—you lie down, your utility is under snare, your capability is crippled.

Old Days: The Lost Charms of a Slowly Unfolding World

 **28 June 2006**

From the sixties, seventies, and even eighties, technology has taken such leapfrogs that the era mentioned, though famous as far as golden nostalgia brought forth by the past centuries is concerned—easy-paced life, lilting agonies, ecstasies of natural blooms, of superstitions, of abounding yet bridled quest to know, slow-paced inventions, soft passions, dreamings, struggles—appears too far off, distant, with its almost mystic charms, mythic charms, and charming legacies.

Now, with inhuman ingression into our mind, body and soul, the fastly piling-up mountain of modernism finds us worlds apart from these not-so-distant decades.

So, looking from where we are in this first decade of the twenty-first century, we find ourselves separated by an insurmountable wall from that era of our fathers and mothers.

The time when they grew up, studied, romanced, committed moderate follies, when the laborious long cuts in relations and professions had slowly winding seeds of pleasures, pains and lessons.

When distances were not covered as fast as now, when communication did not fly out with the speed of light from every pocket to almost every other, anywhere inside and outside the country.

When the path to success meant a whole sequence of human destiny rather than the instant phase and blinding blaze of modern entrepreneurship and profession.

When failure meant a chance to start again rather than a stigma, as it is now.

When money was inside pockets rather than, like the present, when it glitters everywhere around but the safe closets and pockets.

When lost letters separated lovers, and in the forge of finding, the true gems of the human heart poured forth in the form of beautiful, profound poetry.

When, sitting in the rusty and creaking cart of not-so-high technology, we were forced, or rather necessitated, to witness the glorious game of life with its still glorious, gradually unfolding uncertainties, its pleasant helplessness, its effervescent rejoicings after the long thirst of piled-up desires.

When our gaze did not graze the hair-tops while we rocketed forward like a mad rush into our own explosion.

The Italian-Forged Iron Lady: The Politics of Power Without Responsibility

 **28 June 2006**

The Italian-forged Iron Lady, perhaps very true to the predominant characters of her race from that part of the world, involving a fair share of cleverness, technically precise hard work, and artistic shrewdness in dealings, is up to various unprecedented political games and gimmicks.

A fair heir to the legacy of the Iron Lady.

First, she has managed to contrive a mechanism, thanks to which we have a very soft Prime Minister—many say a mere rubber stamp—and a lady at the real helm of affairs: a grossly unconstitutional and undemocratic instance of all powers without responsibility.

Secondly, she, as the chairperson of the coalition, has managed to run the government without any dissensions, haggles, bickerings.

Very firmly in the saddle, I must say, and safely also.

The communists, the imperious turncoats of Indian politics, now in their newly defined role as defending pawns, protect the queen in the game at a great loss—loss of credibility and a dent to their ideology.

But then they defend it with a bettered shield: "Against the Hindu rightists, we have to do it!"

Like an infirm weakling, the docile puppet on the throne sits like the woman's face of this petticoat government.

Now the lady, on a political rampage, settling every score against her, covering Hindu accent and demeanour, is well on her way to get, as the most undeserving, least-statured, mere imitation of the Prime Minister, a rubber stamp of the august family.

If she comes true to her designs, then it will be the blackest day in our political history: a faithful servant becoming the first Head of the State in an imperious way.

She has managed a few insulting jibes at the technocrat President, undisputedly the people's voice at present, through some of her grossly impudent, loudmouthed accomplices.

What type of democracy is this when the people's choice is thrown into the dustbin with such insulting remarks?

What democracy is this when the candidate with the least capability, credibility, ability and popularity is almost sure to emerge as the winner?

But the numbers are with the Italian-forged Iron Lady, bloated out of size for her real worth.

She now commits the mistake of taking the mandates of her politically contriving art as the people's mandate.

What she does, however, is irreparable damage to the constitutionally lofty, almost wholly impartial stature of the First Citizen.

So the clever lady is just about to accomplish her dear task of securing one more rubber stamp at the top echelons.

The vindictive lady now walks with stealthily arrogant authority, mocking dexterity, and all this at the cost of the blind faith of an impoverished vote bank, the coterie stonewalling her from all sides.

Meanwhile, applaud!

The Showering Maiden: Nature's Preparations for the Arrival of the Monsoon Queen

 **27 June 2006**

The Meteorological Department predicts the arrival of the showery maiden between June 29 and July 1.

The local weather elements, like nice footmen, seem all agog with busy activity for the reception.

Bright forays of sunrays are intermittently breached by the cloudy display of varying hues and characters.

Sweat-drenched breeze plays with the seed-weighted neem boughs.

During the night, a dark mass of clouds spreads over the starry smile, with lightning flashing, giving a false alarm that the fair maiden has arrived before the presently set meteorological date.

During bright noon, a gauzy and lacy screen of silvery cloudy layer tries to screen the heat-tormented world below.

Occasionally, fluffs of clouds pass over the sunny face, traversing, travelling—like a running valet to make some last arrangements for the immediate reception of the graceful queen—readily drawing in their wake on the ground their little paths of shadow and solace.

Whips of wind don't play with the dust, for the earth has a fair bit of sandy defence on its maiden face, thanks to the pre-monsoonal showers.

It rather plays with the fully garnished, with greenery, branches of the acacia trees.

There aren't too many birds around; otherwise, they would have drawn fantastic airy circles in the hot, humid, expectant air.

Such is the pre-monsoonal thoroughfare in the lanes and bylanes of the countryside.

Baba Rajnath -- Illustrated Biography Part 5