I caught that half-smile

Breaking news. Benazir assassinated. Shock, awe, frowns, half-smiles, smirks. “Let them Mozzies finish off each other,” came a muffled voice. Few faces turned. Few nodded. “The Pakis deserve violent deaths,” another not-so-muffled opinion aired. Commotion at the Page 1 desk. Change of plans. New layout. Calm at the nation desk. No change in page plans. Back to work.

Modi jitle tor baper ki?

Wifey says she can’t rejoice at Modi’s victory. Says it’s difficult for her to negate his negatives and harp on the positives (if any!). Wifey always makes me come around to her point of view….is it too much love or is she too smart? But what she said today got me thinking. Is it possible really to compartmentalise? To judge a mass murderer on developmental indices. Modi the Muslim hater and Modi the administrator: Forget the former and highlight the latter? I have been flirting with the idea for a while. If you forget for a minute Godhra and the Muslim cleansing afterwards, you have to agree with some of what his spin doctors say. The man is an able administrator, is not known to be shamelessly corrupt, is bothered about Gujarati ashmita (whatever that is) and is the tallest leader Gujarat has had for sometime. To the majoritarian votebank, he’s the dude. He’s good for Gujarat and so more power to him. But can the pogrom be left unpunished? Can you really forgive a mass murderer because he’s done well in other aspects? Wifey says it depends on who you are. If you are a Muslim, not just in Gujarat but anywhere in India, Modi’s victory will touch a raw nerve, no matter how forward thinking you are. Yes, the Congress is perhaps as bad, so is the Samajwadi party or any political formation that pander to the Muslim votebank. Yes, the Congress’ brand of what Advani calls pseudo-secularism created the political space for the BJP to occupy. Yes, a lot goes in the name of secularism that is outright anti-national. Yet, there is something spine chilling about what Modi did…what he stands for. For all his achievements, the very idea of Modi is a hard knock on the idea of India. It is easy for someone like me, selfish, shallow, short-sighted, too caught up with the idea of a shining India to forget the Modi of 2002, if not forgive him altogether, but for every Muslim and perhaps every Hindu that values the idea of a secular state, Modi will always be what India should never become. So what am I rejoicing for?

More power to dog haters

Hang me for this, but I hate dogs. I hate them like I hate no one else. My worst nightmares always have dogs. Dogs chasing me, clawing me, chewing me. Yuks! Irony is I write on underdogs. What are dalits and muslims in the Indian context if not societal underdogs. But why can’t they be undercats for a change! For a people looking for respectability, cats are better creatures to get tagged with. Why can’t Manoranjan Byapari be a black cat named Kafka and not an underdog?
Now there’s news that PETA has filed a police complaint objecting to certain “cruel” messages posted on a dog-hater Orkut community. Communities like I Hate Dogs on Orkut are dedicated to people like me who hate dogs. Some of the communities go to the extent of graphically describing dog torture and even how to kill dogs. Now, that is so Murakami!

Here’s a hash job from the archives. I almost lost my job with The Pioneer for publishing this gem.

The dog lover

Ronnie has his ways of making me mad. Last Sunday, I woke up with a killer headache to find him wrapped in my table-cloth. He crawled at me all fours and barked, doglike. “What’s wrong with you dick-head?” I kicked him, pulling myself up from the floor. “Grrrrrrr....,” he growled, pawing me between the legs, tongue out. I moved away.
The room was a mess. Empty beer bottles rolled on the floor, my china-glass ashtray lay neatly broken in two pieces, Ronnie’s shirt hung from the book rack like a Dali painting. I stepped on an old issue of Fantasy. The doe-eyed centrespread’s breasts looked discoloured. I brought it closer to my eyes. The stench filled my lungs. “You horrible kink, you had to relieve yourself on this!” I threw a piece of the broken ashtray at Ronnie. He ducked. “Sorry, mate. Narrating the Roshni story to you last night got me rock hard!”
I reached the bathroom. The ice-cold water jarred me back my senses; midnight’s memories came flooding back.
It had been a long, wasted night. I don’t know why I keep inviting Ronnie to my place. Perhaps because in my two years in Delhi, I haven’t met another bum like him. It takes genius to drink day and night (mostly at others’ expense), to go uninvited to parties, try sex with underage girls, to borrow and never pay back and be hated by all. That’s Ronnie. My friend. And Roshni’s.
Roshni Sengupta from Chittaranjan Park, Delhi’s mini Kolkata. Ronnie’s next door neighbour. The girl with those deep brown eyes. Very deep, very inviting.
It was exactly a year back that I met Roshni at Ronnie’s party. She was in a corner with a glass of wine, alone. Ronnie watched me watch her. “Take your chance, man. She’s fresh. Your type. Go taste the dew.” “What’s her name?” I asked. “Roshni Sengupta.”
I didn’t approach her. Not that evening. Nor in the evenings that followed at Ronnie’s place. She was there every time. At a quiet corner, unattended, unaffected, unattached.
Roshni had one friend at those parties. Ronnie. He was the only one she talked to, when she talked to that is. Which was rare. The others didn’t exist for her. For them, she didn’t. “I am not the only one she’s got. Her best pal’s Donjo. Her pet. Labrador, pure breed. Spends all her time with it.” “But why is she so quiet? I haven’t seen her talk to anyone ever.” “Kinda weird, that’s how she is. Too much pressure from home I guess. Mom’s a gynae, dad a civil servant. You know how things can get. Study. Study harder. Perform!”
Four months and more ‘meetings’ later, I finally decided to say hi. “All luck to you man. I’ll make sure she comes,” Ronnie cheered. Roshni didn’t come. Not that evening. Never. “They sent her abroad to study,” Ronnie told me. “All of a sudden? When is she coming back?” I demanded. Ronnie shook his head. “Don’t know man.” That was a year back.
Ronnie bought her back to me. Last Saturday night. At my place. Guess it was the hash. Spilled the beans. “I lied to you man. Didn’t want to break your heart. They put her in an asylum.” “But why? What happened?” I screamed.
“She used to love her dog, man. Don’t ask why? Loneliness. Frustration. Kink. Don’t know. They found out one day. Caught her with pants down. Doing doggie with the dog. Must have been a sight man. What say?” Ronnie slurped.
…..I looked at the mirror. A pair of eyes looked back. Brown. Deep. Roshni’s. “Hey, man. I’m starving,” Ronnie asked. “Got something? Even dog meat will do.” I closed my eyes.

Hindu hubby to muslim wife

Back to office. The de-stress tour was well worth the silly excuses. They work every time. Now that I look back, what was it like to be a hindu husband to a muslim wife in a muslim-majority state? ‘I’ would be displeased at this line of thought, but I simply can’t get it out of my system. Not that it was always in your face. In fact, people were mostly sugary sweet, sometimes irritatingly so. But from the boatman’s frown to the front desk executive’s disapproving nod when we signed the hotel register, it was there. Always. “YOU, HINDU BIGOT, HAVE TAKEN ONE OF OUR OWN WITHOUT FOREGOING THE FORESKIN!!!” Did ‘I’ feel the same when she went to Kolkata? Can’t say. Anyways, most of the times she doesn’t give a damn. One more thing that I should pick from her. Her ‘I care two hoots for you, therefore I am’ attitude. That’s what makes ‘I’ score over me. I have ‘I’ with me, therefore I am. Thank god for that!