Dotty detours in a journey handwritten..........................

And all of a sudden here's a chapter that came out of the blue. She turned the page.
It was a a mechanical process, but the lines under the mechanics were anything but. Follow the trail of words -- letter after letter the word forms and then segues into the sentence. An unspoken stream that meanders to the next page and when those fingers caress the paper and turn it, there is that moment of expectation. For the sentence will then urge the story forward.
Rather, it seemed that she urged the story forward. There is a knowing that accompanies the expectation. it is as if the lever falls almost into place, waiting for the final click.  But this time the click never came.

Dessication. It is when you suck out something essential and what is left behind is the shrivelled husk. The page just crumbled with a touch. The words hidden in that powder could be rearranged to mean anything. And now she hesitated.

Once she knew how to order the pages. Now they had disobeyed.

--
This time it is different. The words seem to have  a mind of their own. Was control always an illusion? But they did come. And she is sure they will ask her to change them again. Something which she never did in the past. They look at her uncertainly and ask her whether she was uncertain too. They taunt. 
 

What bothers me increasingly about the internet is my ever-increasing impatience. There's a promise of an unending stream of stories to be read, and I find myself being occupied by that promise rather than the story at hand. Attention deficit multiplied by a factor of the number of windows open and the insistent pop-us and hooks which every story seems to have.
I suck at flash fiction. I have tried writing it, but I don't have the succint grace that it demands. Rather, my mode of writing would have fit into the days when you didn't need to write a hook with 10 action verbs to get some response. Or a three word exclamation of a sentence that  is worthy of a retweet.
Maybe as S. says, if you cannot tell me your idea in a 100 pages, I don't want to read your book. If you cannot tell me your idea in 140 characters, I don't want to be in touch, is what the world seems to say.
What then is the nature of relationships built on these endless streams of updates on what quizzes someone took or cryptic mood messages that's meant as a filler in a conversation, not the conversation itself. When your ideas and your thoughts have to be fit into the tyranny of 140 characters?
My relationships with people are different now. Rather, they fall neatly into two categories, I think. One is the people I have known through flesh and blood. I have seen the crinkle on their nose and the way they smile and how they react.
The other is a mental persona I have of people. He's the monosyllabic guy who would sit in a corner and keep looking at me through his glasses and I would wonder what he is thinking. He is the one who would let me speak first and respond later ,so that he always knows when I am making a fool of myself. She is the one who would tell me about her life such that I feel I have seen the crinkle on her nose and I am probably just a username in her head. He is the eternal flirt whose every sentence has to have another import. He is the humourist -- I have to be on the lookout for a joke in the third line.
Probably, these are the same thoughts I would have if I met them, but I have never met them, and in all probability will never meet them. I know them as a username and with their photographs online I have an idea of them, an image built of conversations, 55 lines stores in my chat history.
From the time I started chatting with strangers in a platform created by Channel V some 10 years ago, I have come a long way. I now talk to more strangers than I do to people I know. Yet, with some strangers, there is a relationship. Sometimes it is an instant connect or sometimes there's a nagging discomfort that I can never shrug off.
So what is this instinct that comes to guide me in these virtual relationships? When I was recently chatting with someone, he thought I was cha over something he said. "Terse" reply was the word he used. Unless butteressed by a smiley, the reply had been terse. I could have been reaching out for a cup of  coffee with one hand and would have typed with two fingers, but that sends a signal full of information. And I have to punctuate it with an emoticon, italics or a bolded typeface to simulate a crinkled nose.
But then, what does that mean for the nature of relationship? I know one facet of these people and that is enough to make them whole in my head. What does that mean for my real world relationships? If I were younger, would I be less patient in getitng to know people? Or would I be content knowing them as 55 lines of conversation? Would I dig deeper or would I just add them on Twitter?


(After having begun writng this, I think the first part of my piece here is similar to is Google making us stupid by Nicholas Carr. V. interesting piece, and a must read. )
 

Written a long time ago. Slightly more than a year (strange compulsion now to qualify that long). Whatever.

----


She started rolling up her slightly long T shirt till it reached her waist. She then bunched the folds into each hand, tugged at it and tied it carefully into a knot. Next, she started rolling up her sleeves. When she reduced it to a fettucine strap, she clipped it with a clothespin. She turned to me. I could see her navel resting inside the folds of her slight paunch jutting out under the pressure of her tights. "I want to goto college so that I can wear such dresses everyday," she declared.
My neighbour is all of eight years. "Didi, the US Aunty gave me a Gucci perfume on my birthday. It smells sooo good!" she gushed.

The sleepy suburb I grew up in in Mumbai does smell different now. As children we used to see mountains of garbage piled up near the backwaters of the bay. The evening air used to be spiced with that extra dash of rotting waste.Five years ago, that area was cleaned up, part of the bay reclaimed and there came a mall. Suddenly we had essentials like a Hypermarket,Skoda showrooms and Gelato ice-creams (98% water!).

Talking of flavored water, I have fond memories of having pepsi-cola, coloured and flavoured ice in thin and long cylindrical plastic packets, on our way back from school. Each one costed fifty paise. My little eight year old friend goes with her friends to McDonalds to celebrate the last day of the school year. She told me that her friend threw a birthday bash in a salon at the mall where all the little party troopers got a 'make-over'.

The make-over is happening, and is happening really fast. She has her own make-up kit complete with fuschia pink lipstick and 'Red terra' nailpolish which goes well with dusky skin. She knows the difference between parmesan and paneer. She also knows how much the Paneer El Rancho pizza costs in Pizza Hut. She has an account in Orkut, Facebook and My Space. She loves to Twitter.

Murdoch called the likes of my orkut-loving friend a 'digital native' -- someone who grew up immersed in technology. I would call her a 'digicon native' -- someone who grew up immersed in technology as well as consumerism. She has defined herself in her 'profile' on her Orkut homepage. She deals in drop-down traits and trades superlative testimonials. She routinely messages complete strangers and ranks friends by the number of messages they have accumulated. Her routine also includes weekends dotted with trips to the mall that include incurring a bill. Labels have become signposts and price-tags define aspirations. She can think in SMS-ese.

Being a net-nanny is tough, and being one for a digicon native is doubly so. This is because the parent and the teacher fall into the opposite category - a digicon immigrant. So, they are challenged not only with the complexities of the internet and a consumeristic culture ,but also the child's understanding and exposure which doesn't mirror their own. Keeping abreast with technology seems to be the most obvious and simplest step to take. For many it is not so. From thinking of computers as a high-brow scientist's headache to understanding that Facebook is not something you can buy in the local bookstore is a giant leap in evolution.

Negotiating this divide sometimes leads to arbitrary steps -- the parent or teacher acts without complete understanding of what the step may result in. 'What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy' is not an essay by a gaming-addict but a book by James Paul Gee, a well known professor of education. The synopsis says -- 'Gee is interested in the cognitive development that can occur when someone is trying to escape a maze, find a hidden treasure and, even, blasting away an enemy with a high powered rifle.( The book) takes up a new electronic method of education and shows the positive upside it has for learning.' When I mentioned this to the mother of a seven-year old, she said, "I don't care if gaming is going to teach him to handle crisis situations faster or develop his reflexes. I don't like him playing games.I think he should read instead." As there are no standard answers, everyone is treading on uncertain ground creating their own formulas.

The digicon culture can take a frightening turn too. The recent kidnapping and murder of Adnan Patrawala is a case in point. The sixteen year old Adnan was driving a Skoda. The captors wanted two crores for his release. The teenagers who were a part of his kidnapping were studying in a school in the same locality I grew up in, the same locality where the eight year old loves Gucci. Adnan befriended his captors through Orkut. The eight year old has been banned from using Orkut. She didn't admit to having an account, but after repeated threats gave in and showed her account to her mother. Her mother confided to me with wide-frightened eyes that Orkut is run by Al Qaeda.

---

On a personal note...
If you were in love in the 90s, it was difficult not to hum 'Vellai Mazhai' as you looked out of your window. I was an adolescent back then and crushes were aplenty and I was lucky, for I had a fantastic background score humming inside my head.

I heard Rukkumani while waiting outside a mattress shop where my mother was getting some pillows restitched. It was late evening in Sadras, the village outside Kalpakkam. And the radio was on. I blushed when I heard 'seval onru kuvama theeradu inda sattham'. I was in seventh standard and there was an informal education system that had taught us a little more than stories about unseen birds and pesky pests.

Kavitha's father had taken her to Madras to see Roja in Devi theatre. I had to wait. For a long time before a video casette appeared. Soaking in the snowscapes and grain-laden faces of masked men and Arvind Swamy. Collectively we decided that we had found our Mr. Darcy. True to our Indian ethos, none of us were even slightly bothered that the man was married. We just thought he was quite cute and did not have a paunch.

Closeted in our 'sparrow's nest' in Bombay, I saw 'Chikku Bukku' on vintage Channel V. I was kicked at the idea of a Tamil song being played in Aamchi Mumbai territory. I did not know that such barriers just needed the right note to crumble away. Prabhu Deva in his 90s avtaar with lots of frills erupting from his coat as he swirled in a railway station. I knew the porter in the side was Raju Sundaram, trivia bit which someone told me sometime. The 'roop suhana lagta hai' was performed by girls in school with dupattas pinned to their head -- the easiest 'costume' for the cemented platform that doubled up as a stage.

We got proper cable when we moved out of the 'Sparrow's nest'. Sun TV beamed Kaadalan into our rented house in suburban Mumbai. It had a wide window from which I could look at the sprawling neem tree that seemed to own the window. Shankar was the new kid on the block who spent up a lot of money. He used a transparent bus on which Prabhu Deva had danced to Urvashi. I was also hoping that 'Oosi pola odambu irundaal thevai illai pharmacy' could have been dedicated to me.

Then came the time when many girls in Goregaon bought boots. Rangeela had made a new style statement -- Urmila Matdonkar in short skirts and those boots that made her look leggy. And there was 'Kya karen kya na karen' which translated to the standard rule of tenth standard: If you fell in love and went to Esselworld in Jogeshwari, you needed to debate quite a bit on whether to confess.

I started describing the time I listened to each song and erased that line. It would mean talking about every year of my life. Each song is a moment, a conversation, an event, a memory.

There is a word zeitgeist. It is of German origin and I had looked it up prepping for one of those random competitive examinations. It means the mood of an era, to put it quite simply. It is the thought of a generation at 'once upon a time' packed and folded neatly into a word.
For my generation, Rahman's music gave us the sounds that started defining the zeitgeist.

At every turn, our lips found a tune to hum, our hearts soaked in words and we grew up. It is time to express our gratittude.

When one day, someone tells them that this circle is not ordained but is an ordeal, they balk. They have done all the right things. They have washed sinks everyday. They iron clothes everyday. They goto work everyday. 

And one day, it happens. To them.

Their psyche is mauled. Their soul is sucked and spit out. All because they did what they were supposed to do. Take a loan. Walk that circle.
Welcome to the tragedy of the 21st century. It is worse than a war. It is called first-generation poverty. 


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3569238.cms?from_et_daily_newsltr=1

It was Sadanand's first lecture in ACJ on Art and Culture. He showed us a photograph. Of a river and a narrow strip of land in between the river. And asked us where it was. There were no raised hands or voices.
He gave a clue. He said it is in Bihar. It didn't help.
So, he gave the answer, sighing as he always does at the mammoth ignorance of those who read but are not involved. He said it was the Kosi, the sorrow of Bihar.
Every year, millions are affected by the floods.
If I remember right, this is what happens:
Embankments were made on both sides of the Kosi, so that people could remain on a raised level during floods. But, a river bank that acted like a bund meant that the silt could not flow off the river. So, the river started swelling. And the river rose to a point where only a narrow strip could crane out of the water. 
And the extent of silt deposited means, there are many channels for the river to choose from and so, the Kosi sways. The Wiki article explains this swaying well.

And he showed us a copy of the Hindu where there was a news story and the last line in the story was millions displaced.

This lecture was last year.
Imagine the lives of those people surviving on that narrow strip of land. Mostly the women get left behind as the men go in search of dry pastures to eke a living. Families clustered together packed into a space that is constantly threatened by their swelling neighbour.
It made sense to talk about the Kosi in a lecture on culture. The life of those people is something that needs to be chronicled, understood, written about that filmed. It was a human story of catastrophic proportions.

A periodic calamity, that never fails to recur. Every year. And finally it made it to the headlines. At least for the first time in my living memory.

 

He: 'Mmmmm'
She: 'Grape..grape martini. It has sugar. '
Music: Don't care

He: 'Beer as usual...'
She: 'Martini means little drink.Since when did menus become encyclopedias? I don't want to be engrossed in the menu. This trying to do things differently bothers me. Instead, why don't they price this martini a little lesser?'
Music: .....

He: 'Mmmm'
She: 'Mmmmm'
Music: Guitar strumming that could be an interlude of any rock song. From anytime. For those interested only in the noses of those sitting opposite. Noses can be distracting.

He: (Deep breaths...)
She: (He's got a cute nose...)
Music: The guitaring seems endless...

He:' It is all about root 2.'
She: 'Ah...Grape martini. It has sugar...real sugar!'
Music: The DJ's side profile looks better than his front. Does he have long hair? Damn! Front profile.

He: 'What is this root 2? 2 squared is 4. That means, if I change the multiplication operand to an addition, I need to add 2, 2 times. But, how do I do that to root 2?'
She: A bit of ice. A squished grape. Sugar crystals. Vodka. Slurp. Oops. Half glass over. Look at those contours of that glass. Hexagon with powdered sugar on the rim to dissolve some of the light, or perhaps dissuade. 'Geometry is fascinating!'
Music: Don't I know this song? Guitar strumming...

He: 'The value of root 2 is 1.414 etc etc. I don't even know the full extent of what the value is. It is not computable.'
She: 'Isn't it irrational?' Why should science pursue anything irrational? Isn't the point of it all rational? Oops. Full glass over.
Music: I know this song..damn damn damn. What is it?

He: It is a problem with fractions too. How do I calculate 0.5 squared? I cannot translate it into addition.
She: Add 0.5 to 0.5...isn't it 0.25...No...One more grape thingy please.
He: It is 1. Yes, one more beer for me too.
Music: This song...is....

He: 'Lets try creating an algorithm. I take 0.5. I add it till I get the non-decimal equivalent. If I do it a number of times, I will get 5. Then, I can multiply it by 5 and get 25. Now, from 25 to 0.25....'
She: I like the way the light here shines on his face. No shadows. The light flows over his contours and then his eyes come into focus. Wait. They are shining.
He: 'It has to be divided! How to tackle division?'
Music: she`s a good girl, loves her mama
loves jesus and america too

He: 'Discrete. In a computer, they need to be represented in a discrete fashion.I can represent 2, but I can never represent root 2.'
She: It is true. Eyes can shine, gleam. Poirot's green eyes. His black ones. Like a terrier onto a scent. Snuggly terrier. His bushy hair needs to be smothered.
Music: she`s a good girl, crazy `bout elvis
loves horses and her boyfriend too

He: 'Since root 2 is infinite, I cannot have a discrete set of states representing it. I think our minds are also like computers.'
She: Second glass over. I am going to hunt for squishy grapes hiding behind those little ice cubes....He is watching!!
Music: it`s a long day, living in reseda
there`s a freeway running throough the yard
and i`m a bad boy, `cause i don`t even miss her
i`m a bad boy, for breaking her heart

He: 'Since our minds cannot hold non-discrete information, we cannot compute such complexities.'
She: 'That is why you should drink...'
Music:
chorus : and i`m free --- free falling
yeah i`m free --- free falling

He: 'What?'
She: 'Your mind will rise above discrete. And discover fluidity...'
Music: Forgot

He:
She: 'That is what creativity is all about. Achieving that moment where there's no discrete, no algorithms. And then a flash...'
Music: and i`m free --- free falling
yeah i`m free --- free falling

He: 'Mmm...'
She: 'Maybe the world is an irrational number...'
Music: i wanna free fall out into nothing
gonna leave this place for a while

He: 'Let's go home.'
She: 'Irrational.'
Music:
and i'm free --- free falling
yeah i'm free --- free falling

Google has flowers. I got a link to Spring in Wiki. It is the first day of the season.

I look out of the window.  I peer trying to discern beyond the globs of clustered memories from every corner. They shall be dusted in to the world another day. I see a window beyond. There are no lights. It is a strange city. No one switches on their lights at two in the morning. It is that time of the day when the world awakes. A lone car swooshes past, stops hesitatingly under a streetlight, the windows roll down and a hand startles the still air and before it can recover the car is gone. The air settles back as if nothing ever happened.

This city is like that.

The trees flutter murmuring to the streetlights reaching out to them. There is a melody in those weary splashes of neon struggling to caress the road. Scattering here and there, the diffuse notes reach my window. Arturo's sax smiles in response.

I see a new building. The tree hiding it behind its voluptuous curves has been pruned. The sticks are now pasted to the trunk. Any moment they shall creak and I can see them float to the ground. These sticks do not have any desire to live on. They will float. For coming down to the ground will mean a new lease of life. They will settle down.

Settling down can be quite unsettling.

----
The words I read nowadays do not speak much to me. They do not tell me their tales. They look down at me from their high pedastals and I have to traverse through many tomes before I can touch them. It will be a long time before I can make love to them.

----

Circular buildings are rare. They are a conceit. Life demands neat squares with clean corners. Easy to clean. And put away. It does not come back again. To haunt. 

----

I can see the pores parting to its unrelenting probe. Sink. Elicit blood. The mosquito has decided to pay me a visit. Only the mosquito can make its way through closed doors. 

---
I want to use the word segue. 
----

This module is called Covering Deprivation, they said.  Everyone was agog (always wanted to use that word, it sounds like a petname for a gargoyle). Six whole days roughing it out in the wilderness or something close to it.We have reserved accomodations and white sheets. There's also an attached bar. Monkeys too!

But one has to start before. At the beginning where it all came together.

We are communicators, so we always have meetings. It is like a huddle where someone speaks and everyone else awaits their turn to air their opinion and continues to whisper in twos and threes. You see, the world does the listening. Not us.

We started out answering the most important question about the Covering Deprivation trip -- what to wear. The mantra is known to every single bureaucrat, politician and manager - CYA. No covert business this, but yes, everything had to be hidden. Under layers of Fabindia handlooms.
Out came the sepia toned kurtas and the freshly strarched pajamas. Lets not forget the shawls. But the feet had to be covered too. Nothing too flashy, so floaters had to suffice. Maybe thick Adidas socks won't hurt too much. On second thoughts, lets go with the black ones.And yes, those silver ear-rings. And I am sorry, hand-drawn eye-liner bindis imitating spiral creatures are oh-so-passe.

Coming to the second important question ( yes, yes, we agree, we try to make sense of this random universe by making lists. Long ones. And writing long sentences within parantheses and admiring our ability to think within curved delimiters.) 

What to carry? Of course, sunscreen lotion. Haven't you heard the song? And a towel if you've read the book. Or both if you are so inclined. Some carried cans of mosquito repellent. Some scented tissues. Some matching bangles. A few had blinkers on. It was after all the hinterlands. One never knows what one may need. 

The Hinterlands. Netherlands seem more friendly than the Hinterlands. What is Hinter anyways? Someone you just have a hint about? Probably.

That's not correct. I realised I had no clue.

A woman my age with five babies. The fifth one suckling at her dry breast. I will never think the same way about the size of my bra. A teacher sitting in a room with a cat nuzzling at her feet. She comes home from school to pee for there are no toilets in the school. Another teacher who is not allowed inside the school. There is a force field that little children know about that you can't see. Only feel and it is all about touch, mind you. Who can touch who when and why. And then there were the children. Somehow they still manage to look damn cute. Despite the muddy dress drenched in fresh urine which he decided to pass while staring philosophically at my face. What the heck is she doing here? His eyes kept quizzing. I didn't know the answer. Then. It came out when speaking to a woman who had lost her husband, whose eldest son ran away from home at the age of nine and who cuts up stones to get home the porridge. I told her I can't do anything about her life. There it was out in the open. I can't do a thing. I can't promise her that by talking to me  her other three children get to goto a school everyday. I can't promise her that by talking to me her other widowed friend will have a pension. I couldn't do anything. 

There are two sides to all stories. Here, one side sat inside buses and sang songs while the other looked at the dust along the tracks long after those buses left. She had stood there waving hard. She had asked whether I'd come back. She promised to study very hard and become the Collector. Her name was Nagaveni. She is the only one in her family who has had an education of any sorts. She wants to look after them all. I am sure she will. 

I found the other answer. She is the one who will. I can only write about her. And ensure that I don't exceed my word limit.