C.R.Y.

Har kissi ko zamaane mein muqamal jahaan nahin milta
Kissi ko zameen toh kissi ko aasma nahin milta

Sipping on my Pina Colada, with a bunch of friends at a neighborhood café, I gradually slipped into my chair to gel with the environment. It seemed a place for the young and happening. A look around revealed the glamour quotient of the audience. Ambiance!

The concept of cafés which play music and proffer a youthful and shimmering environment surfaced in India less than a decade ago. From being a frequent place for the elite to, now, a meeting place for the common, cafés have evolved over time.

I sat there with ease, swiveling my neck often only to place my eyes on a pretty face. (Perhaps, that’s something that doesn’t even importune a mention here). Just then my eyes fell on this young boy wiping the floor. A sight so common, in our country, that it can put the word common to shame. He quietly picked up broken pieces of a glass from the floor, ignoring the slurs directed at him, and then vanished into the relative comforts of the kitchen. I felt a pricking pang of conscience but chose not to spend any thought on it.

Not seeing the kid for a while the restlessness inside me started brewing. Was he heartbroken or just too ashamed of his situation? And then he appeared. A mélange of emotions embellished his face. I tried hard to locate a dominant feeling but déjà vu was writ all over his face. He soon got back to his menial job, cleaning tables of those he should have been in school with.

I wanted to know what was going inside of him. Did he believe in God, his existence, his impassiveness? Or, was all of this beyond his comprehension, due to an upbringing which fated him little knowledge, leave alone the mysteries of life. He seemed a quiet person, though the environ was not exactly congenial for him to speak, his eyes bore that look. His face was a pale testimony of his misfortune, semblance of a listless life.

Carefully tending to his job, every now and then his eyes trekked up only to find mine fixed on him. My constant watch was not a matter of bother for him, but surprise yes. Surprised. Even I was. For, I had never felt like this before. The glaring differences in our society are there for us to ignore at every step in life. Then what brought about this pricking? I know not.

Sitting there I realized how callous we’ve become and how our society has conditioned itself to never be pained at the gargantuan abyss that exists.

After a while it was time for us to leave. I didn’t want to, but the regular joe in me couldn’t care less and decided to forget and move on. So I did. But a task remains incomplete. Some day!

All for a cup of tea

A gentle knock at my door at an unearthly hour was good enough to throw me out of bed and send me scurrying for my mobile. I could hear my heart thudding inside. Before I could call for help the knocking increased, sending shivers down my spine. It seemed as if a childhood nightmare, which never shaped into reality, was coming true. I decided to wrap myself in a blanket and hide underneath my bed. Same moment, I was curious to find out the identity of my tormentor, forgetting for some time the age old maxim – ‘curiosity kills the cat’. In a brief while I made up my mind to encounter the demon that chose to be insensitive and terrorize his/her target at 2 a.m. Equipping myself with a flower vase, the only bulky thing in my room other than my suitcase which was full of a whole bunch of doodads, I slowly unfurled the door. The door made a creaking sound lending credibility to the whole scene. I put up a stern face deceiving the terror inside.
Much to my bewilderment, it was a 2 legged creature wearing a pajama. My eyes then scrolled-up to trace his head which was covered with a monkey cap. But I could see the eyes; its appearance convinced me of its masculinity for it seemed unlikely that creatures from the other world could have reverse biological systems. Without any suggestion my tormentor started walking towards me. I chose to hit the reverse trail. Soon I heard a broken voice come from inside of me, ‘who are you, who are you?’ Right then, the demon took off his monkey cap and flung it across my room. Still soaked in shock, I failed to recognize my friend, Mohan, who inadvertently became a demon.
There was calm in my room now. In a moment I imagined myself becoming the butt of jokes at the breakfast table in the morning. But to my delight, Mohan was unaware of it all, surprisingly for a guy known for his famous pranks. ‘I need your help’, he said in a hush tone, ‘I need to call Arijit, a colleague of mine.’ We headed for the living room where the fancy age-old phone was installed.

While he searched for the number, I inquired about the purpose of the call. ‘It’s an emergency’, he muttered. ‘It sure must be’, I thought to myself, what else will explain a call in the wee hours of the morning. A couple of attempts begot no response. The third attempt woke his friend out of his slumber, ‘Ramlal, do cup chai lana’ (Ramlal, get me two cups of tea), said Mohan nonchalantly. After waiting for about 10 seconds he quietly put the phone down. We looked at each other. I was dumbfounded. And then the house was echoing with sounds of our uncontrollable laughter. It was my turn now to call for some black tea.

I could barely stop laughing but still continued to call Mohan’s not-so-innocent friend. A hiatus of half an hour was enough for him to go back to sleep. (It had been years since we had put that thing called telephone to such a use). I called again, and after listening to the terrified and annoyed voice on the other end I spoke the golden words, ‘Ramlal, do cup chai lana.’ We had developed cramps and were tear-eyed by the end of it all.
The next morning Mohan, called me from his office apprising me about the state of his friend who was greatly angered but didn’t suspect any of his office mates to be behind this. Excitement was building as the evening came closer. After everyone in the guest house was off to sleep, we got together in the living room. Our eyes bespoke of sternness comparable with that of an executioner. The time was the same as the day before and so were the intent and desire. ‘Ramlal, do cup chai lana’! Mohan’s friend was taken aback with a little surprise for he didn’t expect a repeat act. He questioned angrily ‘who is it?’

Day 3 was a repeat of day 2 except that this time our target was awake and pounced on the phone at the first ring. Before we could order for another round of tea he showered us with the choicest Punjabi words laced with his colloquial accent (toom saalaa baheench#$). The guffaws were unstoppable!

Following morning, Mohan sensed something wrong; his friend had called the police who were going to tap his phone and trace the caller. Unfortunately, that was the end of our escapade. I guess it’s only normal in a country which lives on tea that people should go to such an extent for a cup of tea. Only thing, both of us were loath to tea drinking. But thanks to Darjeeling tea the memory of Ramlal lives on.

A case for classical conditioning of a different kind

It had been days since the town was beset with gloom. A glimmer of hope had arrived. The Sun was out in its full glory and was, in its own way, lifting the sagging spirits of everyone in school after a tough week, one which brought ephemeral despair.

Transpose to today. Entrenched in my comfy bean bag with earphones plugged-in, I experienced a sudden rush of images, in a sequence, from yesteryears. They crooned about a time which was fast fading. It was a strange feeling. Memories often come back to you in bits and pieces but this was different, a whole phase was being played out in my mind without a photo album serving as a mnemonic. After much thought I came to a faint conclusion, perhaps, it was the song playing on my CD-man that regenerated scenes from the past. The song Yaaron dosti badhee hee haseen hai was much battered in college days. It knew no occasion and was a favorite of all guitarists.

A friend once told me, long after college got over, that every time he heard someone whistle the ‘Main hoon naa’ tune he felt it was me passing through the corridors of the boys hostel. All of this sounds to me like classical (read: musical) conditioning, though, of a different kind.

A song regenerating memories? In effect it means that the process of classical conditioning takes place when one is glued to the same music for a long time.

Music assumes many roles in our lives, for some it’s just a means of entertainment while for many it’s a soother, a motivator, an inspiration, an old wine that drowns with it sorrows of the listener. We constantly seek our kind of music. A passionate listener will plunder a song that he likes by listening to it over and over again till the marginal utility of the song threatens to enter negative territory or CD the cracks. It would be not be an unfair assessment that majority music listeners are passionate listeners in their own right. And passion and music are intertwined.

As a kid, I got a free cassette, by virtue of filling up a no-brainer-quiz, it had songs by Madonna and Phil Collins. One track that I took to was ‘Another day in paradise’. For many months that was the only song that played on my stereo. Today the same song revives the zeitgeist of those times.
My guess is while we live out our daily lives, the central repository where all things get recorded takes in our feelings, thoughts, experiences of the times and records them to serve as memories of times gone by, along with them in the background goes the music of those days. Especially, music that one is really hooked on to. And when you put ears to the music of yesteryears you, almost, feel transported back in time.

It’s a strange yet magical phenomenon, one that comes to mind every now and then, but is mysteriously indescribable. Next time I pick up an old CD I know what lies in store for me.