wutheringheights

1996. It was a cassette shop inside the Palika Bazaar where we first went together with a common idea, after we became friends ten years ago: buy some good collections of ghazals. She knew Gulam Ali was my favorite. I never knew who she liked. I bought a couple of Ali’s famous ghazals, including ‘chupke chupke’ after an hour’s search. In fact we were meeting after a long time. At the bus-stop, when I was about to board a bus to R K Puram where I lived, she hurriedly handed over a small box to me. Sitting on the bus, I slowly opened the wrapper… there were two cassettes: both by Mehdi Hassan. “Ab ke hum bichhade to shaayad kabhii khwabon mein milen” was the first ghazal I played immediately after reaching home. I must have played this ghazal one thousand times. Interestingly, we have never met after that. In 2009, when I went to Kozhikode to meet Ahmad Bhai, a music-lover and friend of Mohammad Rafi, he told me how the town was graced with the presence of Mehdi Hassan in 2000. “Wh...

  I never knew Narendran Nair maintained a blog till I ran into ‘Thoughts’ hours after his death. He never liked the idea of even chatting online. A totally different character very few people could understand. He was often misunderstood by colleagues, but he didn’t bother much. Our friendship started with migraine way back in 2005 when he joined Express after quitting his job in Bombay. We both were suffering from that serious painful disease for long time. I don’t know whether he liked me, but he used to talk to me a lot. I still remember the day he left The New Indian Express and joined The Hindu. Many in Express thought Narendran would never find a job in Hindu , but he got a good, a senior post with the paper’s Madurai edition. After joining there, he used to call me from Madurai to share his displeasure with the former organsiation. The conversation went on and on. When I went to Madurai to cover an official event three years ago (I was Deputy News Editor with the New Sunday...

I don’t remember when I met Sunil. But I remember the day I took some photographs of him, using my favourite Pentax K1000. The year was 1999, soon after we finished our journalism course at Press Club, Trivandrum. One evening, Sunil handed over a roll of Konica and asked me to take his pictures in different angles. I took him to first floor of the Press Club building and started clicking. Close-ups, medium shots and long shots followed one after the other... Finally, we both went to Babas (a famous studio) and got it developed. Sunil didn’t tell me what was the purpose, and I didn’t even ask him. After two days, Sunil told me that the pictures were sent to London. For a moment, I was shocked. London always evoked a kind of nostalgia. It was my dad’s favourite place. The smell of London always surrounded him although he left the place when I was seven. The chocolate bags, toy planes and post cards… Everything he brought in from London had a smell of the town. So London was always a ...

I recently read a photo feature on Manuel Alvarez Bravo in an old issue of The Massachusetts Review. A set of eight pictures was featured, each documenting his native Mexico's archeology, spirit and aesthetic. A boy who grew up witnessing the violence during the Mexican revolution, Alvarez was keen on the culture of his country. The landscape, people, rituals...the unending list of what makes Mexico Mexico...

Two days ago, I read a poem "The day I got the news" by Cynthia Snow from an old edition (2009) of The Massachusetts Review. Not my kind of poem, hihi..but liked it...Here's the full version... My heart rose up through my throat and skittered away like a Lucifer hummingbird. I reached out to grab hold but you know hummingbirds fast, featherweight, short on trust. I couldn't stem the exodus. I'm not the Messiah though I did want sun streaked white clouds, brightness everywhere. I could only watch the smallest blur of wings, a stop motion gaze -- eyes on me, eyes away, body away, away, away, gone. And here at the kitchen window a sponge soaked with sugar water. And here, at the dining room table my hands, in the umbrella stand, six tidy, geometric holes. And here, in my throat, nothing but want of sugar.

  I didn’t know what to do with my business cards when I quit my job for good six month ago. There were three boxes, each containing 100 cards. I neither wanted to throw them into dustbin nor leave them unattended. Finally, when I cleaned the cubicle, I took them with me. At home, they found a safe place in my bookshelf. One day, I saw my six-year-old daughter Mihika building a castle using them. It was nice to watch the light-blue cards falling one after another. Not a great fall, but a fall indeed -- caught between the vibe of blue and white. When she was not in creative mood, Mihi would throw the cards all over the floor. The first two letters (highlighted) of the two-word name of the company would stare at me from different angles. A kaleidoscope of   ‘I’ and ‘e’. One day, I was surprised to see the old cards finding a place in my card-holder, replacing all the relevant ones. Here too, the ‘I’ and ‘e’ stared at me from each page. Mihi’s game with cards at times end...

My first train journey started with a fall. I was three year old. The compartment was waiting at the ‘outer.’ Since it was a break-up journey, we got inside it a little early. While my parents were busy arranging the baggage, I played up-and-down on the exit ladder. My first attempt was good, but the second one got spoiled. I lost grip and fell down. A railway employee (or a policeman?) who sat nearby immediately took me into his hands and performed a ‘pendulum-shake’– towards left and right for five times each. I was ok. But still, there was a mix of mud, tiny stones and blood oozing from my mouth. The sad patch was soon taken over by surprising images -- the midnight sun of the engine, waterfalls and the cashew uncle. We were on our way to Goa . A handful of peeled cashew nuts would come out of the window before our compartment. My dad would receive it with his right hand through our window. One or two might fall down. It was magic. Although I was clueless about its origin, I enjoy...

wutheringheights: A tribute to Pavada Sir & Jumper

Last week while reading Kigsley Amis' Memoirs, 'Jumper' came to me . The context was different, but still 'Jumper' took me to my school days. We had a neighbour, a Singapore-returned, who used to wear only bell-bottom pants. To the 'creative' locals, it looked like a skirt, so they called him '*Pavada Sir'. The stout, polite man was also a magician. We got to know about this when he performed a show in the local temple in my hometown Attingal. Pavada Sir started off well, but failed while lifting a flowerpot using a thread. When the crowd laughed, Sir tried to pass the buck. “See, I told you guys, I needed a very calm atmosphere. Since you people made noise, it didn't work out.” That was the first and last public performance of Pavada Sir. Pavada Sir didn't mingle much with the locals. The only person who he used to talk was Raghavan Nair, his childhood friend. But Nair never thought that he would have to pay a huge price for this friendsh...

Black, white and sepia memories...The picture of OV was taken at Santhigiri Ashram in Pothencode, Thiruvananthapuram. EMS... at VJT Hall, TVM.

It's 1 am. I was watching Andrzej Wajda's Kanal , a movie on the Warsaw Uprising, when I experienced my seventh earthquake. The third after coming to Chennai. It was a minor one, which lasted almost twenty seconds. It took barely five seconds for me to realise it was an earthquake, but i didn't get up. Soon my mobile started ringing, it was Bishwanath (he thinks i am an earthquake specialist, because when the Lathur tragedy happend, I was in Pune). We talked for ten minutes. I switched on my TV, there was no news... As i write this, there are two things before me. Kanal and earthquake. Should i write a poem?

A couple of years ago while walking through the busy M G Road in Ernakulam, my friend and I ran into two sex workers. We were drunk, heavily. Srikanth was then an active member of a group which organised seminars for sex workers all over Kerala. According to him, they (sex workers) are doing a great service to society. And in most cases, they act as a grievance cell for men who are in search of a close heart -- a cot where they can share ‘everything’, confess everything. As we slowed down, a welcome gesture came from one of the ladies... The usual communication test began under the shades of neon. Srikanth was not interested in the ‘eye-gesture’ business. He looked sad and apologetic. “S, I want to touch her feet, as a token of respect. Can you ask them?”, he requested. The two ladies knew we would approach them. “Hundred”, the elder one made a sensible move. Fine, but how would I convince them about my friend’s unusual intention? I looked at the younger one, who looked new to ...

I am not an admirer of  Muhammad Ali but I am an ardent fan of Hulk Hogan. The reason is simple. In the late 1980s, almost every Malayali who worked in the Gulf returned with a couple of video cassettes of American wrestling. The availability of such cassettes abroad, especially places like Dubai and Sharjah, made Hogan popular among us. I don’t know much about American wrestling but I like Hogan. I still remember an yellow-colour cassette my uncle got me from Dubai. The cover showed different poses of a heavy man with long white mustache and hair. What was special in Hogan compared to other wrestlers, you might ask. I like Hogan because he was an embodiment of defence. You would see him badly beaten up by rivals, blood oozing from his mouth but once he had decided to get up, no one could stop him. So much was the power to stage a come-back. I have seen cricketers returning to form after a bad patch. I have seen business magnets making remarkable come-backs. But I have never se...

I had left my house for lodges a couple of times during my college days. Maybe this was because of my great fascination for old, stinky lodges with common toilets. I was also attracted by the mysterious presence of creatures like bedbugs, mosquitoes and cockroaches in the interiors of these ‘budget’ rooms. There was a sense of rhythm in our live-in relationship. The cockroaches were the most liberal, as they were occasional visitors. Once in a while, someone would perform a mid-night-walk over my body. I could even feel in my deep sleep the ‘hairy legs and antennae’ moving from one end of my body to the other. The action would last only for a couple of seconds. The mosquitoes attacked me only when they wanted food for thought. The bedbugs were the most dangerous. They were good mind-readers and they did this even in my deep sleep. Despite the disturbances, we shared an absolute tent of unity. A friend of mine had an interesting experience when he was staying at a rented house in ...

A former colleague today invited me for her birthday party. The invitation over phone was different. "Hey, Saju. I turned 40 today, just want to celebrate it. Please come to the Guindy Race Course club tonight." Normally, I avoid birthday parties. I hate being formal. If at all I want, my communist hangover comes as a barrier. But today's invitation was different. This is the first time someone inviting me for a birthday party after disclosing the age. How many women do this? I still remember how furious my mother was when my dad got her age wrong (two years more to her exact age) while booking a railway ticket some twenty years ago. Let me tell you another incident from my childhood pages. The character was Sarada, a vegetable vendor. If you asked Sarada how old she was, she would immediately tell, "I am 38 now, and next Dhanu (March) I will turn 39." Nobody would believe Sarada's words. Because her elder son was 30 when she said this. Usually, Sarada wou...

Six months ago, when I visited the controversial Thoothampara Estate near Nelliyampathy, I saw a deer's skull kept for drying outside the storehouse. I immediately took a couple of pictures of it from different angles. The workers told me they would send the skull to the forest department in a month's time. Recently, a wildlife enthusiast from the area told me that the skull was missing from the storehouse. I had my own doubts about the skull when I saw it. The kind of care it was getting made me believe that a "rich enthustiast" would turn up at any moment. Good that i took the pictures, otherwise you might ask: How does it look like?

A couple of days ago while returning from work I stopped at a shop near my house in Velachery. An old woman and a little girl were standing before the shop. The woman was counting some old ten rupee notes while the little one was busy. She wanted chocolate, not the usual ones but Kinder Joy. The poor woman was struggling to pronounce the word so she asked the shopkeeper, Mutta chocklate irkka, saar ?,. The shopkeeper laughed. The little one's ego was hurt. Patti, Kinder Joy, thereelya, she tried to explain it. The shopkeeper's reply was a bit surprising. "If I stock Kinder Joy, I will definitely lose my regular customers. I used to stock it but you know whenever children come to the shop, they ask for it. The parents (rich or poor) will lose Rs 30 at a stretch. It's a kind of addiction that children get from this egg-shaped toy. The next day they will again ask for it. So my customers suggested I must stop ordering this toy which I obliged." True, that's wh...

Rajan died yesterday. At 47, he was not healthy but never showed any visible symptom of illness or uneasiness when he came to see me during my holiday in Kerala last month. We spoke for a long time, in fact he was asking for a copy of the coverstory that I did for my paper eight months ago. There was a reason for it. The story was a satirical attack on politicians. I met a couple of genuine boozers from different parts of Kerala and asked them what they would expect from the politicians. Most of them replied quite boldly and of course they were right. Rajan spoke against his favourite party, Congress. He went on and on...from his childhood to being a Youth Congress member. He said despite his hardwork, he couldn't make anything out of politics. "I am still a poor man. I don't have money to take care of my mentally retarded son. After all I have to find a good guy for my daughter. I don't know when I will have money for all these things," he said. He was sad. Me to...

Watching Ritwik Ghatak continuously for two days brings back memories of film festivals at my home town, Thiruvananthapuram. Akira Kurosawa was our favourite those days. I never had the opportunity to watch Ghatak so close. Yesterday, i saw Subarna Rekha and Nagarik. Today, Komal Gandhar...more to come....

Yesterday, a neighbour couple adopted a 4-month-old baby girl from a reputed orphanage in Chennai. She was sleeping when we, me and my 5-year-old daughter Mihika, went to see her. Though I was happy seeing the child, I was a bit disturbed with questions related to the baby's birth....who's her mother, dad? How did she become an orphan? etc etc.. Whatever it be, i didn't want to spoil my mood, for this was the first time in my life i came so close to 'adoption'. I had studied the subject in my Law days, but never got so close to the process. A friend of mine once told me he wanted to adopt a boy since he has a daughter. He had a reason. It was in 2004. The tsunami had just hit the Indian shores, killing thousands of people. He wanted to adopt a child among those who had lost their parents in the disaster. The idea sounded nice to me and i encouraged him. A couple of months later, the friend told me that his wife was pregnant and he wanted to abort the idea of adoptin...