Of Love and the Valentine

And I missed out on being with my loved ones again. I owe it to the not so sunny side of my job. I’m always on the move. Many such ‘days’ have come and gone. I’ve missed my date with my beloved on many occasions. I feel I’m beginning to get to the point when I must admit it is taking its toll on me. To be in the middle of it isn’t as sexy as it perhaps looks from the outer peripherals. My career discussion, however, is a conversation for another day. Today is the day to fall in love again with everyone you’re in love with. It is the Valentine’s Day!

As I was grappling with rather urbanized philosophies of ‘this day’ and ‘that day’ in my teens, my father would tell me all these were creations of the open market economy. I grew up gradually into that market and ended up becoming a resident consumer. That’s what I’m today. I’ve subscribed to ideas and concepts that once seemed funny to me. The very idea that you needed an officially declared day to celebrate the spirit of love never quite got into me. That was the rebellious me, I assume. With passage of time, I’ve succumbed to various populist ways of celebration of life. Whenever a day like this approaches, I get busy with ideas to do ‘something’; something crazy, creative or even funny. The purpose is noble: to make your loved ones happy. They’re the world for me. It’s true, these days are all about buying and selling. They sell, and we buy. They sell because that’s money for them. We buy because everyone else buys. It’s big business for them, and great fun for us.

If you’re a lover, you are a lover. Just because the Valentine’s Day comes only once a year doesn’t make you any less a lover on remaining days of the calendar. On the contrary, I’d say you’re a better and a bigger lover on all these ‘other’ days because you tend to be more spontaneous. You aren’t bound by the conventions of an official day when you must do something to ‘prove’ you love someone. Lovers are self-taught. If you have a heart big enough to accommodate another, you’d feel both of them beating together all seasons of the year. You wouldn’t need the world to remind you to bring in the xing. If you love someone who loves you as much, they won’t bother to know what it is you’re giving them. It could be a fragrant rose or a woolen cap or a diamond ring; to them it would be equally priceless.

What I do not like about this day is the commercial stereotyping it has become a victim of. I’ve noticed that the day is increasingly turning into one to think or talk about gifts given or received. What is even more dangerous is the evolving formula in our society where the intensity of your love is measured in a sense by what you give. To me, this day is a reminder to ourselves that despite our cruelly busy daily schedule, we must care for our loves ones, and find new ways and possibilities to be of love to them. It should really be a celebration of love, and nothing else. 

There is nothing called true love. Love must always be true. 

Bollywood music: then and now

In an interview many years back, Sonu Nigam had said that we’ll always love yesterday’s music more than today’s. He of course was referring to the gradual decline of soulful music in Bollywood films. He was so true! Last month, I was in my friend’s car who had a great collection of Kishore-Lata songs. As some of the songs were being played, he said, “My kids will never know about that generation of evergreen music. They’re growing up amidst a different genre of music.”

It’s interesting how emotional we still are with thousands of Bollywood songs from the golden era of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Yes, lot of us have childhood memories with many of these songs. We in a sense grew up listening to those great tracks. But is it only because of this that we keep saying ‘old is gold’ in the context of music? Or is it a natural human trait to romanticize yesteryears and downplay the current times?

I’ve never seen Rafi recording a song in a studio. But I’ve heard and read many people narrating those magical times when songs used to be recorded in one go. The ills of technology were not available to legendary composers like S D Burman or O P Nayyar. You had to have a great voice texture, mastery over vocal skills, and knowledge of classical music to excel. There was no device to cover up a singer’s weaknesses. Things have now changed. I had read an article in The Statesman, most probably around late 90s. It was about how technology was manipulating vocals and how different instruments recorded in various studios around the world could be ‘mixed’ to create a live illusion. The person listening to such a song would think it was recorded ‘live’. I had been bowled over by that article. While I felt excited about the technological advances, I mourned the potential degradation of the institution of music.

In the last ten years alone, hundreds of ‘reality shows’ have given a platform to thousands of budding talents to showcase their musical charisma. New voices have been recording a lot of the popular sound tracks. While the singers who’ve enjoyed longevity in the industry are becoming monetarily unaffordable, new youngsters are being approached by music companies. They may not have the classical background and the institutionalized training behind them, but they can sing what the audience wants to hear. Sadly, like a reality show, some of these singers are also seasonal flavors. You don’t hear many of the voices after a while, for whom singing at stage shows and live concerts becomes all the more important to earn a living.

The business of music on one hand has offered a platform to many youngsters to excel, and on the other, it has been instrumental in the slow poisoning of music composed for the heart. Today’s music is so much about bodily gyration, it seldom tickles the strings of our soul. But then, that is where all the moolah is. 

Will we listen to today’s music after 20 years? Maybe we will. And, maybe we’ll lament just as much, crying that the music of yesteryears was soulful! 

Media: the evil we love?

Media, much like money, has become a necessary evil. We love to hate it, yet can’t get enough of it. One of the remarkable social developments of the last twenty years or so in India has been the emergence of the media. Television news channels, newspapers, magazines all have mushroomed inorganically. From a state-controlled machinery to the coming of 24/7 watchdog, media has had an interesting run. The story of India in the last two decades has been exciting for good and for bad reasons. Media therefore hasn’t ever had a dull moment when they didn’t know what to cover. After all, so much around us has been happening all the time, there has never been a day less full than the previous day.

Yes, the media is crucified frequently for hungrily being after ‘sensation’ and not ‘news’ that matters. It’s often convicted of conducting legal, social, economic and political trial in the studios or in the press. Media has been in the eye of wrath many times for being the investigator, prosecutor and the judge all in itself. It’s also a fact that paid news does exist. Most of the media houses are owned by rich and influential people. It’s difficult to imagine them not having political affiliations, informal or otherwise. There will be bias, there will be patronage, as there also will be neutral coverage of important news.

Media has been an integral part of the evolving India in the twenty first century. It has furiously fought for transparency and accountability in public life. It has unearthed scams worth billions of dollars we wouldn’t have known happened. While it has often abused the concept of investigative journalism and equated that wholesomely to ‘sting operations’, it has also infused public office bearers with a sense of fear about wrongdoings.

India is a great country for journalists. It is the land of free speeches and right to expression. While we’re shamed by mass suicides by farmers, we’re also thrilled by the global success stories of our techies. We have millions living below the poverty line, and yet we boast of the number of billionaires making it to the Forbes list. Women chief ministers are ruling many of our states, yet we hear barbaric stories of female infanticide. It’s full of stark contrasts. Which is why media’s cup will always be filled to the brim.

My wish for the media is to keep up the good work they’re doing. They must however exercise more neutrality, and shun the culture of dodging the right questions under the debris of sensationalized twists. If they were to become the mouthpiece of something, let that be of the people of the country. Let them relentlessly report issues of people’s interest with as less pigment as possible. Let them appreciate that everyone’s private life is dear to them and that must be respected. For example, we’ll be better off knowing the actor in an actor rather than who someone is dating. That’s just not news; not even close! 

NEWS at the end of the day should remain as ‘North East West South’! 

The 7 Billion Relationship

I often wonder how, in a world population of over 7 billion, two people find each other, fall in love, and take the vow to live together for the rest of their life. It’s incredible, it’s mammoth. Think about it: until that moment of ‘discovery’, two people may not even know each other; one doesn’t know that the other exists; one only knows that someone somewhere is made for everyone. You could counter-argue saying we don’t meet with everyone on the planet and then decide who we feel is the best for us. We don’t even get to see everyone in a continent, or for that matter in our own country.  Does this then make it any less fascinating than it is?

Life is a strange journey. In a life span of 30 years, for example, how many people do you think you would have met? Few hundreds? Few thousands? Or even more than that? Could be. With the mobile life we have today, and with an increasingly shrinking world around us, we get to come in contact with more number of people than our ancestors used to. So, the people we meet are not limited to any particular place or religion or community or language. It’s vaster than that. No matter how good or how bad we are, we all find a soulmate. Is there a divine angle to it?

Or is it about less coincidence and more compromise? In an ideal ‘free-for-all’ world, we may want to fall for whoever we find good enough for us. One may want to spend the rest of their life with just about anyone they choose to. But that doesn’t happen and we know it won’t. We’re conditioned to accept certain rules and terms that influence most of the things we do in life, including choosing a life partner. We seek familiarity and convenience in our search. We usually don’t believe who we think could be our dream match is ‘gettable’. We therefor tread the path that offers more certainty and assurance. It’s not a one-way lane; there are two people who have to mutually like and love each other before they could commit. That moment of commitment in itself is such a magical point in time. Half of the world’s youth are of the opposite gender, and we choose just one out of those billion possibilities. That must be very, very special!

Two people unite as one body and one soul. Or they at least attempt to. People who are generally not blood related, who come from different families, and potentially from different cultures. It’s phenomenal how they realize what they’ve been chasing in the name of dream is actually the reality and they time and again fall in love with that real dream. The best dream is one that stems out of reality. They discover unknowns about each other; they like some and like to discard some. They accept imperfections, they smile at each other’s stark flaws. They realize life wasn’t meant to be all rosy, and yet they cling on to every moment of togetherness as if that was the grandest gift of all. The ultimate triumph of every relationship is the point of collective realization that in a transition from ‘me’ to ‘us’, there shall be patches of compromises, sacrifices, arguments and disagreements; yet that’s the celebration of love. Even if there was going to be life after death, we get only one life at a time. It’s too precious and too short to waste doing anything but love. 

Tiny moments of union add up to the making of an eternity of togetherness through this life, and possibly beyond. 

Memories of my Alma Mater...

The other day, I read on Facebook, the electrifying lyric of my school anthem, and was quick to travel down memory lane. There’s so much to be reminded of and so much to talk about. After all, those will always be the best days of my life.

Like any other kid, I too had moments of fear and jealousy. Fear because of the ruthless discipline enforced upon us by the school management, and jealousy because I had friends who went to other schools that seemed more tolerant than mine. The prayer meeting every morning at the ‘Sanskriti Bhavan’ (school assembly hall) was a frightening exercise. You had teachers who appeared hungry to penalize students who could be seen breaching discipline. It could be as silly as an imperfectly angled school badge on the shirt or a whisper to a friend while walking to the hall. The next thing you would be seen doing was standing outside the classroom holding your ears while the entire school sang the national anthem inside the hall. Many years on, when I look back at those mornings, all I can do is smile and thank my teachers for being as strict as they were.

The fear-factor was furthered by the breed of class monitors. They would be ‘agents’ planted by the teaching community in every classroom, and rewarded handsomely for spying on the class. If you had your name logged in the monitor’s book for any breach of discipline especially during the lazy time between two lectures, even god couldn’t save you from attracting heavy punishment. While some of the punishment would be insulting, some others could be physically challenging! As we grew up, we turned thick-skinned, and a sense of daredevilry in some of my friends was quite visible. On one occasion, a friend carried into the class a cute kitten wrapped in a bag. A boring lecture was going on when we could hear a faint animal cry. Soon, the kitten was let out. You had this scared poor thing who didn’t know where to go. It kept maneuvering in between our legs, and finally jumped out of the window.

I miss playing ‘football’ with wood cuttings at the Sanskriti Bhavan before the school hours commenced in the morning, except before exam seasons when the hall would be filled with benches in preparation for the tests. I miss playing real football in the plush green school ground. On days when the school would surprisingly set us free early, we would gang up and play cricket for hours at the nearby ‘Gandhi Ghaat’. I would occasionally go to the neighboring library and read story books and comics.

I’m proud I shared the bench with some of the brightest talents of my time who broke many records at the board exams, mathematics Olympiads, quiz shows, debates, and also other extra-curricular activities. I miss fighting for a pie of the table tennis facility and I miss those funny quotes by our teacher during the ‘physical education’ class. I’ve had the privilege to learn various subjects from some of the finest teachers. While some were truly boring and uninspiring, some others knew how to explain complex equations in lucid terms through real-life examples. They made learning real fun.

That was also the time when some of my friends started falling for girls they thought were beautiful. Musical greeting cards, flowers and letters – love was in the air. Everyone was equally naïve, and nobody knew what love was. But it was the ‘in thing’. After all, every Bollywood hero was busy wooing good looking girls! That was the time when to me, Madonna was in her prime, and Princess Diana was a living embodiment of grace. Since we had separate class sections for boys and girls, the leisure period was the only legally allowed time to search for our Madonnas and Dianas. I witnessed the birth and death of many poets, painters, singers, performers; all for the cause of celebration of love. The school canteen, though not quite aesthetically built, was a fun place to be in. Everything they sold was delicious. 

All my life, I shall remain a proud product of Netaji Subhash Vidyaniketan (NSV), the then best school in my state. When my mother used to tell me how she would love to go back to her school days, I wanted to grow up and get out of school as soon as I could. Now, I wish I could live those magical times and experience those priceless moments all over again. Only if I had a time machine! 

Origin of Bias

‘Neutral is a state of imagination’ is what my father had once told me. I was too young to understand the profoundness of these words. Not that I understand any better today; but I’ve come a long way along the journey of my life. I’m gradually realizing the truth in many things my father told me long back. What sounded like rhetoric those days feels like music to me now.

I’ve come to realize that bias is our inherent attribute. It influences our thoughts, beliefs, and dictates immensely as to who we emerge out to be. Each one of us is a representative of a certain school of thought. Everyone I know of represents some philosophy. What we say or want to hear may not always be directly affiliated to a familiar institution of ideas, but we all have subconscious subscriptions. We subscribe to ideas that are attractive, powerful and penetrative. Thanks to our upbringing and the circumstances around us, we learn to admire leaders, organizations, communities, religions, cultures, books, arts, theories and so on. We’re biased from the word ‘go’ of our life. We’re taught what is better and what is worse, what is black and white, what should and should not be. As we grow up, we start reflecting upon things that concern us or matter to us. It is through our responses that we exercise the intrinsic bias we’re made to live with.

The other day, my father and I exchanged our opinions on human rights. Through the discussion, I felt we both were reflections of ideologies we believe in and follow. While confrontations and arguments at times became unavoidable, I observed that we both in a subtle manner were attempting to propagate our individual agenda. On a second thought, was our agenda individual or independent? Not really! It was part of a larger scheme of things we’ve subscribed to. We spoke about television debates and newspaper articles and why nothing could be unbiased.

Is bias therefore a desirable part of life? Or can we remain neutral through the discourse of our daily life? We react to things happening around us, a lot of what is natural reaction. An example of that could be suddenly noticing a speeding car approaching us; that’s when our reflex dictates how we react. On the other hand, there are behavioral reactions where who we are plays a major role. An example of that could be when someone is told that the religion they follow is crap; the person could smile back or become furious. Remaining neutral on many occasions may amount to passivism. Staying neutral possibly could translate to inaction. Isn’t reacting to happenings and events a sign of life and being alive? 

We must take sides. Neutrality may lead to extinction! 

From the North-East to the rest of India

When a young man traveled to Bangalore many years back on a one-way ticket, he had dreams in his eyes and butterflies in his stomach. He was going to script his story in the Silicon Valley of India. Everything about the city – from the people to the climate to the flyovers to the roads to the malls – would amuse him. As he boarded the corporate bandwagon, he met new people, made new friends, and mingled with new cultures. But, every time he introduced himself to supposedly well-read and well-informed colleagues of his, he had to invest extra effort to educate them about his native place. He of course was me and I am from the North East India!

What has over the last decade not changed is I having to still explain where Agartala is. Questions like ‘is Tripura the capital of Nagaland’ and so on have made me laugh at times and have also sometimes made me angry. How can the so-called educated class of India be so dumb and ignorant about their own country? Surely, Tripura doesn’t even feature in the economic or political or social scheme of things of India. We send only two MPs to the parliament. Our state population can be dwarfed by that of even small cities. But that is no pardonable excuse to justify the ignorance. We’re as much part of the federal structure of India as any other state is, big or small. It’s sickening to know that some people think you may need a passport to tour north eastern states! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in a long time. A lot of people from the region may look different, may wear different clothes, and may represent not so familiar cultures. But isn’t that the beauty of the Indian federalism? Isn’t our constitution built on the foundation of ‘unity in diversity’?

I wouldn't go by sporadic incidents of violence and force generalized conclusions. I cannot however deny that there is discriminatory attitude prevalent in the ‘mainstream’ Indian pulse. Lot of students from the ‘seven sisters’ face societal ridicule every day. They get stereotyped just because of the way they look, speak or conduct themselves in public. Some cultures in this region of India are ‘open’ in a sense of gender-equality. The unfortunate truth is that this gets misinterpreted in a rather obnoxious sexist way, and girls are usually typecast as seductive in a derogatory manner. This is regressive and deplorable. People living in these states grow up struggling with many adversities: some due to the geographic disadvantage of being almost cut-off from mainland India, and some others due to continued negligence by all central governments. There is hardly any industry or manufacturing unit. Railway services haven’t penetrated to even big towns partly because of challenging landscapes. Many of the state capitals don’t have an airport. There aren't enough jobs to attract the youth. Healthcare remains a big concern. Quality of education suffers not because of lack of academic talent but because of absence of investment and organized support. They have a life lot less rosy than most others born in more privileged parts of India. People from this region are going to be different!

Is there something people from the north east living in various parts of India can do to cure this ill? Yes, I think so. The ‘us and them’ syndrome is predominantly due to lack of awareness on both sides of the fence. I’d urge everyone to spread as much awareness as possible, about what this lovely chunk of India is all about, what its people are like, what their cultures are and so on. It’s not enough to recognize it as only a place of scenic beauty worth a holiday plan; it’s much more than that. It’s about unearthing the true beauty of India as a nation; it’s about learning more about our own siblings; it’s about exploring a great opportunity to embrace lesser known facets of the great union of India.  

If you've had friends who come from the north east, you’d know that they’re among the nicest people. Genuine, honest and hard-working as they are, they live a down-to-earth life with simple priorities, devoid of any popular notion of bias. They’re perhaps the greatest company to have!