Hand holders' club

We won the world cup. Great. Awesome. Incredible. Isn't it? The joy, the excitement and the satisfaction that our boys delivered when the expectations were running so high is just amazing. We're proud of the team, aren't we? They played together, like one unit. They fought together when the chips were down and rose together to achieve success.

So then why are we hell bent on dividing them? Why is it that when we want to reward them, we take sides and pick and choose? As if the rewards for winning the cup weren't enough, each state is trying to outdo the other by announcing cash and kind rewards for 'their' player. And even in that they have grades. So while Maharashtra decided to reward Sachin, Delhi announced largesse for Dhoni, Gambhir, Sehwag and Kohli. What wrong did the others do? Punjab doled out pots of money for their puttars Yuvraj and Harbhajan while Gujarat announced it was only going to bless Yusuf Pathan and Zaheer Khan...and so on. The only state to reward the entire team was Tamil Nadu.
Guys, guys, what's wrong with you? We can all do the maths. How do the chaps who are being left out feel?
I think the Brits must be having the last laugh. It's their legacy after all- this divide and rule, this shove a wedge between friends habit. But hey, they wanted to break us. Why would we want to break our team? Would someone please tell these politicians that?
Warren Buffet, who was in town recently and gave many insightful interviews to the youth, said that one of the first things that he, as an employer, looks for in a prospective employee is 'team spirit'. The ability to work together with other folks. In his candid style he said, 'I dont care if you have all the best degrees of the world in your pocket and you have IQ in triple digits. You are no good to me if you sit in one corner and eat out of your own tiffin. I'd rather pick someone who gels with the crowd, who's a hand holder.'
We've got hand holders in our cricket team. Dont let anybody break the clasps.

Valentine's day brouhaha

The world celebrates love on Valentine's Day. I celebrate my birthday on this day. For some reason I’ve always loved February. There's something about the weather in Delhi with the onset of spring and new flowers, the warmth of the winter sun, sale in every shop and the general optimism in the air that perks up my mood. It's the time you cling on to the blanket and relish the last ounce of winter comfort as also brave the chill in the evenings with an open necked t-shirt. February is when the snow around the heart begins to thaw and you feel genial towards everybody. You come out of hibernation in the true sense.

Having been born on this 'lover's day' if you will, I always felt burdened by its history. I know I’m an incredible romantic but it was as if I had to prove to myself and the world that it affected me in some special way. Honestly? Did it affect me any differently? Not really. But it did make me think about love a lot. In school I was forever buried in the mushy Mills and Boons fares. Then in college I graduated to Sydney Sheldon and Harold Robbins and other best sellers which promised a rich fertile ground for imagination. From books I made the transition to films and found a vast treasure in the romantic films genre. But very soon I realised that any story required something other than romance to propel it to a higher level. Whether it be comedy, adventure, mystery or any other genre, romance could only make it more interesting. It was hard for a purely romantic film to stand alone unless it was an exceptional love story involving struggle or overcoming Herculean barriers. It was only then that I gave up my 'romance only' motto and began to tread the world of fiction with an open mind. But my partiality for love has remained.

As I widened my repertoire of books and films I learned of the vast canvass of love and romance that has been written about and that exists in life. Great novels have always portrayed love and the greatest stories have been ones where love has been a guiding force for the actions of the protagonists. So it would not be wrong to assume that love drives all of us in everything that we do. Whether it is pure sublime affection that we feel for God, the intense closeness with our family and friends or the gut wrenching inexplicable attraction we sometimes experience for another person, love is the ultimate essence of life.

So then why celebrate love only on Feb 14th? In fact, I find the whole Valentine's day brouhaha a bit of a nuisance. Do we need the pathetic ‘love tokens’ like heart shaped velvet cushions and romantic gizmos like cuddly bears as proof of our love? Do we need to send fifty text messages to declare our feelings and buy frightfully expensive flowers to pass the test? Goggle eyed mushy couples take up every nook and corner of the city on this day. Most of them look as if they are trying very hard to be 'romantic' but all they manage to look is extremely tense and moronic. Why does love have to be confined to limitations of days, gifts, behaviour and other such patterns?

And who says love poems have to be sweet and syrupy and dripping with the scent of flowers? Why cant it be fierce, rancid and burning like this poem by Carol Ann Duffy:

Not a red rose or a satin heart
I give you an onion
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper
It promises light
Like the careful undressing of love
Here
It will blind you with tears
Like a lover
It will make your reflection
A wobbling photo of grief
I am trying to be truthful
Not a cute card or a kissogram
I give you an onion
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips
Possessive and faithful
As we are
For as long as we are
Take it
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring
If you like
Lethal
Its scent will cling to your fingers
Cling to your knife.

Better learn to share the grave with a stranger

We know space is a premium everywhere these days. Therefore you have multistoreyed buildings instead of cottages and cubicles instead of offices and nanos instead of sedans. All that is understandable. But this new brainwave has given me the jitters. Many countries are now planning to make the dead share graves to solve the space crunch. Cant afford so much (dead) space per person, they say. Put in two in place of one...! And you can do nothing about it. Because you may rave and rant when people invade your personal space in life. You can get away with that. But when you are dead you cant protest, can you? They'll lay you to rest beside some stranger for eternity. Go figure!
You cant wrinkle your nose if you find the body odour offensive, cant step back to maintain arm's length, cant scowl, stare, yell, ask them to get lost!
Aren't I glad I'm a Hindu?

The Way of Tea

I wish multinational chains would open ‘tea houses’ in India. Why do Starbucks, Costa and Café Coffees keep sprouting all over the place? After all we are as much if not more tea drinkers than coffee drinkers. Tea has also been around longer than coffee has. (I don’t know this for sure, I’m just guessing.) Are the big chains afraid of competition from the local chai wala? But the young English speaking middle classes don’t usually patronize these street corner shacks unless they are within hundred yards of a college campus. So what are they afraid of?
I honestly cannot think of a good enough reason why we don’t have Costa Tea and Café Tea Day. I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of my time at a tea place and experiment with different kinds of teas. I really don’t care for the fare they serve in Starbucks. They are massive amounts of vile and joyless boiling liquid served in huge paper cups intended for people who are not anywhere interested in coffee. The coffee ‘to go’ is a disaster waiting to happen for careless people like me with unsteady hands. And umpteen number of sugar and milk pouches disappear in it without making any difference whatsoever to the colour and taste. Whenever I go outside India I have this terrible time finding the right cuppa coffee. Just strong enough, hot enough and sweet enough for my Indian tastebuds. But I always come a cropper. And my visits to each of these regular coffee shops are a disaster. I tried endless varieties but to no avail. The latte is too milky and bland and the froth completely kills the coffee for me. Cappuccino is too little and strong and jolts my stomach into a burning frenzy. The caramel is too sweet plus who wants toffee in your coffee? The mocha is too unfamiliar to one bred on Nescafe and south Indian fare. It makes a mockery of my Indian taste buds. I yearn for my regular desi cuppa- just the right blend of coffee, milk, water and sugar- not too unwieldy to lug around and become a liability, but just the right strength to keep my stomach happy and fuel my senses to the desired level of chirpiness.