"Guns Don't Kill People"

Everyone has a theory as to why India is so screwed up when it comes to archaic attitudes towards and sexual violence against women. People were outraged by the Delhi gang-rape case and as the dust begins to settle, they will look to assign blame. Finding and castigating a scapegoat is a short-term way of venting but doesn't provide the right kind of introspection needed in our society. In the last few days, film and music have been given a grilling and I think there are two sides to the issue.

I’d like to make one thing clear: in my view music, movies, paintings, poetry or any other forms of art and expression should never, ever, be blamed for the actions that a conscious, adult human-being takes. Yes they can influence someone – but just as much as common sense or one’s parent’s do. The operative word here being ‘influence’. They cannot buy the ammunition, pull the trigger, fire the bullet. It is a person and their gun that do that. Unless someone is able to hypnotize another into shooting someone on their behalf, I don’t buy the argument that you can blame influencers. It is the same with any crime. Art is not hypnosis.

What I have noticed living in India is that the onus is never on the mob not to act; instead it is always on a party for ‘inciting’ something. I find this infuriating. By releasing individuals of the social responsibilities we subject ourselves and other members of society to, we – to my mind – consider them animals. And animals are treated with a wholly different, and usually simpler, more brutal, set of rules. Animals can be fenced off, relocated or even put down. They are not participants in the social contract. Human beings make up the sinews of our social fabric and they must face the consequences of their own actions – what may or may not have influenced them is conjecture on our part.

Let’s take the example of the ‘musician’ Honey Singh. Here is a guy whose lyrics twang with graphic, violent sexual imagery – the kind that we’re used to hearing from 50 Cent and his American compatriots. I have heard some people say that he is ‘inciting rape’ and others say that his lyrics are ‘misogynistic’. For me, he is just another one of the awful artists I can happily ignore. I remember when people held rallies against Marilyn Manson after the Columbine Massacre. The quote a speaker used, showed in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911, was “Not everyone who sees a Lexus commercial goes out and buys a Lexus, but some do”. It was in reference to the violent lyrics in Manson’s music – as if because one of the thousands who listen to his songs may go out and shoot someone, he should stop making music. We cannot prosecute theories. We can and should, however, prosecute people. No one is forcing you to listen to his music. If you don't like it, don't listen to it. 

I like 90s West-Coast rap. I played video games with a whole myriad of guns, knives and other dastardly weapons. I watch suicide bombings on the news. The fact is that I haven’t gone and killed, raped, dealt drugs or done any of the other stuff. If I told a friend of mine that I would “kill the next person who taunts me about my football team losing on the weekend” and he went and actually murdered the person to do so, I would a) wonder how I’ve befriended a psychotic murderer and b) be outraged if someone accused me of  ‘influencing’ or ‘inciting’ him. Unless, like the Newtown Elementary School shooter he had a plethora of mental conditions and/or he was a minor, I would want that person to face the full force of the law.

For the record, I don't think that capital punishment solves anything in the long term. Revenge is not going to bring back those taken from us. I don't even think it's a deterrent. Long standing issues must be addressed through social policy, reforming of offenders and a prison system that fulfills the function of a prison: protecting society from those incapable of existing peacefully in it and correcting them as much as is possible. 

At least, that’s what I thought on Saturday as I sat firmly atop my high horse, flicking the channels during the innings break of the cricket match. I tuned in to a national news channel just as another shouting-match was heading to a commercial break and I was greeted with an advert that made me fall off my seat. It was Virat Kohli’s Celkon advert, which you can watch for yourself below.

Wait… what? It’s the usual spiel of how to pick up a girl. What I didn’t like was the manipulation of the oblivious Tamanna and then taking her picture. Are you kidding? When is it OK to just randomly take a photo of some girl you’ve just met? It ‘worked’ in this advert because the guy is Virat Kohli. If someone did that to my sister, I would be apoplectic. It got me thinking about the lengths the Indian men in movies, TV shows and adverts go to ‘get the girl’. The ‘thrill of the chase’ is something all young men feel. I felt it, chasing after some poor young lady miles out of my league. I knew though, as did my friends, when no meant no and the chase was spent and what lines not to cross.

Remember the movie ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’? I liked it. After watching the Virat Kohli ad though, I realized the slightly sinister way in which the hero went about ‘getting to know’ the heroine. He pretended to be someone else to find out things about her, he stalked her bus and then he plonked himself down next to her and chatted her up. Again I ask you to imagine is some stranger did that to your sister, daughter or female friend. How would you feel? I would feel creeped out. I don’t care if it’s Shah Rukh Khan trying to get a hold a girl: manipulating and stalking another person is wrong on many levels. The lengths to which guys are shown in popular media to go to on the ‘chase’ are quite ridiculous.

Let’s go back a bit further: remember the classic film Bombay? With A. R. Rahman’s superb score? Its another film I thoroughly enjoyed that I now look back on with mixed feelings. The hero again, goes to incredible, insane lengths to find out who the girl is, where she lives, where she goes, etc… I didn’t do any of that at college. I hope my friends didn’t! I think we need to explore this running theme, propagated on screens small and large across India, that you go to whatever lengths necessary to find the girl, stalk her, charm her and keep trying to woo her even after she says no. In the movies – and let’s be honest, this scenario plays itself out in most Bollywood films – it’s ‘OK’ because the girl says yes in the end. But what happens when no means no? Where is the line in the sand?

I know so many stories of guys who have gotten hold of female colleagues’ numbers and sent them text messages asking to meet. In one instance, even after being told no, in no uncertain terms, the guy went to HR and somehow found out her address! So determined was he! Did he get the girl? Good grief, no.

I don’t know if it strengthens or contradicts my point about the media influencing men’s actions in this country in crisis. Do stalkers feel the need to chase and chase after a girl until she says yes, based on what they’ve seen succeed in films? I don’t know. I’d like to think not. I’d like to think that the guys who engage in such seedy tactics are lonely, sexually repressed young men for whom the actions of the movie actor who chases a girl are not compensated for the love and values that good parenting and healthy relationships bring.

At this point in time, India has a lot it needs to ask itself. I don’t know whether I’m even in a position to talk about this – maybe women like being chased and chased even after they say no? I don’t know. Maybe I'm way off here and I don't have the right to feel uncomfortable on my sister's behalf. Female stalkers exist too and they’re just as dastardly as their male counterparts. The difference is that they don’t have the power to overpower their crush. They don’t have the power to ‘pull the trigger’, as it were. To me the issue seems to me to be a part of a larger malaise, where women are trophies and goals to be "had". They are not equals in society. Their “no’s” are not taken at face value, they are laughed off and even used as motivation to try harder.

What is missing in our society? When I was at university in England, there were as many girls as guys. There was a yin to every yang. At home, there was balance. In the work place there was balance. In the public, there was balance. I think there is a large gap in India’s soul that the sacred feminine has to reclaim. I yearn for a time when every man and woman in India can watch a movie, listen to a song or read a newspaper and filter what they've taken in through a sieve of common sense, compassion and empathy. But maybe that’s asking too much.

I don’t care about Honey Singh. Let him say what he wants. As long as he isn't treading on my liberties, it’s sticks and stones. Sticks and stones. At the same time, I won’t allow myself to be conditioned into thinking I have a chance with a female stranger as long as I try hard enough. Movies are not real life. There is a reason the film doesn’t end after 15 minutes when the girl puts a restraining order on the drooling protagonist (can you imagine if we had enforced restraining orders in India?). When a person’s emotional being is built on strong values, he will be impervious to this nonsense.

I am the Media

I got my first paycheque today. It is weird being the newest little lamb in a big, busy newsroom. My first month of work has been manic but so, utterly, spectacularly, worth it.

About two weeks into the job, I found myself commuting without thinking. I guess when you can go from your front door to your desk without thinking of anything other than the music between your ears, you have begun work?

My commute is painless. It is enjoyable – a far cry from what I thought it would be. The comical images of Bombay trains you have in your mind are very different from what I experience. I get the 9:46am Bandra local, which starts at Bandra, meaning I always get a nice, breezy seat in a relatively empty compartment. The gentle clip-clip the train makes as it trundles over tracks is the same sound the Regional made in Germany or the District Line made in London; the familiarity is soothing. A monthly first class ticket is just Rs. 270 or so. Only Dadar station brings the crazy crowds the Bombay trains are famous for. There are so many people at Dadar. It doesn't matter what time of day or night it is, there will always be fighting their way on at Dadar.

I am merely the intermediary between an expert and our readers and I have to become humble enough to understand that I cannot preach and my only influence should be how I articulate a smarter person's opinion. 

I can wake up at 8:30 and be at work at 10:30, which, given my previous 7am-9am internship mornings, is fantastic. I don’t know why but a good commute, where I can listen to my Gypsy Kings, sets the tone for a much better day.

Even though I get to work at 10:30, I am usually the first one there. My colleagues tell me this will change. I love the quiet of an empty office. I can catch up on football highlights and my favourite blogs. I will begin having morning meetings every day and start getting to work at noon. Even when they don’t have morning meetings, they get to work by 11:30 or so. After my stints with European style companies, it always comes as a shock. Shouldn’t there be an HR lady somewhere, disapproving of this?

Guess not. Journalists, like other ‘creatives’, have this sacred license. My first few days, I stayed till 6:30pm but as the month wore on, I had more and more work and usually left by 8 in the evening. During the last production week I was at work till midnight for almost a whole week. It was tiring but seeing my name on the by-line is a thrill I am just beginning to understand.

Working for Forbes is a blessing that I am getting used to. When I first walked in I was horrified because everyone – and I mean everyone – was older, smarter and wiser than me. I was so used to being one of the brighter ones my whole life that being a timid little lamb in a world of fast talking, name dropping, voice recorder wielding wolves was terrifying. I couldn’t talk about anything without realising that everyone knew more about the subject than I did. That is how it felt anyway. Seeing all these clever, witty, well spoken Indians all buzzing around in the same room was a new and awe-inspiring experience. Everyone was clever and I couldn’t bullshit. I’m a good bullshitter but in an industry where everyone is paid to read, listen and learn – you cannot bullshit. You will get called on it and there is no cave to back into it. For example, I thought I was some mega foodie – but at Forbes everyone is a foodie and everyone knows what to order at which place at what price. Better shut up unless you have some real insight. And that same cafeteria mantra translates into you work.

Shut up unless you have some real insight.

So I have learned what to talk about. It took me a month to find out the few things I could chat about with a little authority. The list currently stands at rather pathetic: Sports and Europe. If I stray into any other topic, the sharks will devour me with their knowledge. This job is about devouring knowledge and I love it.

The culture is also interesting. Forbes might just be the most male, masculine, macho magazine out there and this is reflected in the team we have. (Oh God, I’ve started using “we” and “our”.) The gender balance, both in terms of the actual people at the magazine and the culture of the place is skewed firmly towards the masculine. The kind of discussion at the “water cooler” is about women, cars, sports and food. People crack jokes at each other’s expense. It reminded me of the banter I had with friends at university with two crucial differences: these were my co-workers, not my friends and some of these guys were twice my age. It was cheeky, chappy lad banter and I guess it will take some getting used to. Working in very feminine environments in Beiersdorf and Naked Comms meant that co-workers’ personal/love/home lives we strictly private and strictly off-limits. Not so here. It’s much more of a college hostel environment with older guys tacking the mick and looking out for the younger guys in equal measure. But my older colleagues have made me feel welcome and I cannot express enough gratitude.

One person who is off limits to banter is the main man. The boss. The editor. He is respected and revered by everyone and whether he is at his office or buying you a drink at a bar, his measured, stately demeanour does not change. When you see how hard he works and how much he cares for his magazine, you understand why people interact differently with him. He is the one who hired me. He saw something in this stammering kid, took me under his wing and gave me a shot. And it feels great. I imagine his relationship is that way with most writers at the bureau. The fabric of the relationships within the office has begun to fall into place.

The challenge I face at Forbes is the one I started facing as soon as I moved back to India this summer. People don’t know how to place me. As one of the mythical expat kids of the 90s, I don’t fit into a ‘box’ so well. The “where are you from?” or even worse “so what are you?” questions don’t have short, easy answers and – make no mistake – no one really cares about the long, rambling ones. Abroad, I am Indian. In India I am foreign. I don’t help myself though, so I can’t complain. I don’t watch Hindi movies, I don’t speak Hindi very well and the stories I share constantly refer to a life in another city, be that Bangalore or somewhere overseas. The other day I confessed I had never had Lassi. I suspect my co-workers are trying to suss me out just as much as I am them. It will take a couple of months but I’ve already formed reasonably good relationships with my immediate bureau team and it’s reassuring. They introduce me as “the guy who has lived abroad” or “the guy who speaks French” and that always fills me with confidence.

I realise now that I’ve joined a club. We are journalists. We get calls from companies who want themselves promoted and calls from companies that quite firmly don’t. We go to press conferences at 5-star hotels and dabble in some free food even if the actual event isn’t worth writing about. We work late, we work on Sunday if need be. Everyone is always on the lookout for the next big story. Even when you go, wide-eyed and full of energy, to a senior editor with your next Pulitzer prize winning article you have to be ready to be shot down by the age old question: but what’s the story? I’m just starting to understand the intertwining sinews and layers that go into a Forbes Magazine article. My co-workers have told me that breaking the duck is tough but once you have your first full story out there, the rest will flow. I’m waiting to get off the mark.

I'm excited about my first real story. I'm excited about having even tiniest degree of influence of the successful business people in my country. I am excited about being validated: it was a truly shitty summer of job rejections and I am ready to put all the self doubt behind me

A month ago today I started my first real job. I am already different. I am still a kid, but a different kid. I am part of a curious fraternity. I am part of a group I've nonchalantly passed comments about.

“Ahh it’s nothing. It’s all in the media.”

I am the media. I have the best job in the world. I go to sleep smarter than when I woke up. I am the luckiest kid alive. 

Babies on the Pavement

I only stepped over 3 homeless children on the way to work today. 

The homeless family that live on the corner of Tulsi Pipe Road were absent today for some reason. Usually you see the 6 of them sprawled out on the hot granite tiles of the sidewalk. The father, mother and oldest daughter are usually putting flowers through thread to be made into garlands or picking the feathers off dead birds they have caught. Their skin is burnt from a life in the sun. The two toddlers are off on the side fighting each other playfully or looking for empty plastic bottles. And their baby, who must not be more than a year old, is kept on her back on a thin dusty mat. She is just out there, in the middle of the city. No cot beneath her, just the hard road and the beating sun; breathing the fumes I breathe. Sometimes she swings from side to side in a make-shift hammock: it is a discarded shawl hung from two lampposts. They don’t live in the shadows under the flyover like the other homeless. They are out there. Their lives look you in the eye every morning. Day after day this past month I have walked past them and done nothing to help.

Bombay has desensitized me to humans. There are human beings everywhere. Never have I seen human life spread so thick and worth so little. In every crevice, every shady spot, every abscess of this dystopian city there is a human being try to grind out an existence. India cannot look itself in the mirror and neither can I. I am not sad because of their plight – I am sad because I cannot weep and I feel that I should. There is no love lost in a city divided among so many. Not for itself or anyone. It is every man, woman and child for himself.

Every morning from the window of the train I see young men shitting by the train tracks. They squat, meet your gaze and shit. 

The solidarity that passengers of the first class train carriage feel towards one another is nice. When some unruly character decides to create a scene, we commuters stick together and for a split second you dare reach out to another human being. You feel the alien tendrils of a human connection for a fleeting second. And how warm it makes you feel! When someone plays Kishore Kumar songs on their phone in the evening and everyone starts to sing along - how warm that smile makes you feel! Yet that solidarity is not extended to those squatting down by the rusty rail road.

I was told from a young age not to give beggars money because it would not help. Every time I don’t help someone I make an excuse in my head.

“I can smell alcohol on his breath; he would use the money to buy more”

“These children would give the money to their boss”

“If I help him, how many more can I help? I cannot feel satisfied helping just one”

“No one else is helping them: why should I?”

“I am on a starting salary; I can’t be handing out money”

“They don’t want my help”

“The government should look after them. They are not my problem”

And the worst one of all, “They deserve it”. Yes, I have thought that too. Not for a long time, but for a passing moment when a eunuch spat at me for not giving him money. It flashed across my eyes in thunderous red. Every man for himself.

But I have run out of excuses. A thousand yard stare is all that remains. No tears have stained my cheeks and that in itself is reason to weep. The baby on the pavement will soon become the elephant in the room and I will concern myself with more “worthy” matters.

What am I doing with my life? I am doing nothing to help anyone because it’s easier that way. I’m sitting here writing it out as if that’s going to change anything. I’m sitting here writing about helping poor people. When I started this job I said to myself that being a critic for the business world would, at some level, bring out some positive impact upon India. The magazine I'm working for is organising philanthropy awards to encourage corporate India to go beyond CSR. By critiquing business cheats and championing success we are helping oil the cogs of industry and.... see: I’m great at making up excuses. Braver people than I work in NGOs and government schools. I can’t look them in the eye – not in my dreams or in real life. I feel shame. I don’t know if I will ever have a Buddha moment, where I leave the palace and become a saint. I doubt it.

I’ve also realised that bringing it up in conversation with my friends and co-workers in India is an absolute no-go. I am called an NRI and ridiculed. How sad for me, right? Poor Shravan gets shit when he tries to talk about the poor like a noble, principled young person. Poor him. The problem is, when there’s an elephant in the room size of this one and you get used to ignoring it, it is very hard to have a discussion about it. You begin to hate the poor for making you think about them. I cannot talk about what I see with my colleagues, my parents or my friends. It’s the biggest of all the taboos in India.

I don’t know what to do. I try not to think about the plight of that baby because it is a sinkhole for any hope I have – and I have hope. I am a happy person. I have not become my cynical uncle who complains about the world without doing anything to change it. India is full of cynics who preach from the sofa. They scream and shout and rant and rave because for all the great history, the enduring philosophy and the myriad of Gods this old country has, there is no good answer to the baby on the pavement. None that I have heard.

No one can tell me why I have it so good. What have I done to deserve any of it? Karma is convenient nonsense and while I am generally a happy person, when someone tries to justify poverty and suffering with the inane vapid ramblings of religion my blood boils much faster than it should. I see red. But being angry will not change anything – especially being angry with invisible men in the sky. Being angry though, is easier than being sad. Being angry is easier than thinking about their faces. When you and I turn off our computers and turn off the light, we can say goodnight. We think of those we love or those we long for. We can dream. We retire to comfort. We can switch off. They cannot. The baby may not see her next morning, let alone her next breakfast.  

My empathy is blunted. My shame is unending. I am desensitized. I cannot be the only one who lives in this great city that feels this way. She will suffer and I will have done nothing. Tell me what to do. Please.

I ask you because every time I see them, they are smiling. They look happy. Does despair descend on them when my back is turned? What do they think of me as I walk past them, listening to Creedance Clearwater Revival, everyday? 

I'm sure someone has written about poverty far more eloquently and succinctly than I have here so if this is coming across as the lesser writings of a lesser writer, then I am sorry. I am largely alone with the other 20 million people in the city and I couldn't tell any of them so I'm telling you. Thank you for listening. 

Arjun and Kalpana

The expatriate life is a great life. I lived it for 11 years but only now do I fully understand it. I understand how the expat life is where a man has his identity reconstructed. He is no longer 'Arjun _____' but 'Arjun who's with Unilever' or 'Arjun who's joined CitiGroup'. His name changes too. He isn't just 'Arjun' but 'Arjun and Swati' or 'Arjun and Kalpana'. He is married to his wife and his job and that is who he is. He doesn't have an identity independent of those two and he doesn't need one. The job keeps the bubble comfortable.

He travels two weeks a month. He comes home to a wife and kids and a condominium. A chauffeur driven car and a chauffeur driven life. He comes home to a high rise apartment in Hong Kong or Singapore or Kuala Lumpur or an independent house in London or Paris or New York. The patter of kids' feet across wooden floors, the oriental art, the quiet rustling of a busy maid, the wife's carefree phone conversation and the city lights outside window - whether it's Arjun and Kalpana or Matthew and Michelle, the pillars that hold up the expat pantheon do not change.

It's so clean cut. The hard working husband who earns the money, the charming wife who 'runs the household', the perfect children who go swimming every evening and the Philippino maid who keeps the gears of the corporate dream oiled. "Didn't you hear? Arjun left 'Lever and joined Cadbury in Jakarta. Kalpana and the kids will join him once the school year starts." - I've heard that line so many times over the years.

Didn't you hear?

Last month we visited a colleague of my dad's in Kuala Lumpur while we were there. I stood for 20 minutes looking out of their 26th floor window at all the other perfect lives in the perfect million dollar condominiums across the road. Such tall, beautiful buildings that lit up the muggy evening with blues and greens from the swimming pool - I wondered if the families inside were as symmetrical. Such symmetrical lives: school, house, car, travel, wife - all paid for and then some. Arjun had paid for it all. I looked out the window just like I had done the first sleepless night we arrived in Hong Kong and I looked down at that spectacular sky line. 80 floor shards of light and symmetry. It was stunning. My mum had made parathas to remind us we were Indian and we needed reminding in this strange, clean foreign land. The money made it all symmetrical.

I'm not sure our lives 'mattered' to anyone. Maybe the consumers our dads' FMCG companies fed. We sort of meandered along without examining ourselves, our relationships or what we were doing in the context of some vague 'greater good'. We all made the annual trip back to India to show off to our relatives about our great life and all the money we had. I didn't even know we were showing off till the tables turned and I met other expatriate families on their yearly crusade to teach the kids about cricket and the Taj Mahal.

Being an expat is great. Your universe ends where the bubble does. But that part of my life is over. Now I have to cling to notion that I'm a "world citizen" - or at least that's what career counselors the world over have told me. But being a world citizen sucks.

You are brought up in surroundings that change every few years. A new country, a new school and new friends. At least, that's how it was with me and most of the other kids in the international schools I went to. Every four years there were friends who were forgotten and new ones had to be made. But what happens when the tumble dryer stops and the international travel you've gotten so used to comes thudding to a halt? What happens when you forge real connections with people? You can't just leave them behind. The 'Global Village' soundbite paraded by CNN does not prepare you for when the music stops and your chair is gone and you're out of the game.

CNN does not prepare you for when you no longer have that life and the people you care about the most are on the other side of the planet. The world isn't as small as Freakonomics lulls you into believing. When you're back home and university has come and gone, you have to sit there at the dinner table and feel sorry for yourself because life will never be as good. University is over. The party is over and I've been shipped off and it sucks man. It sucks.

The people you care most about are strewn across the face of the earth and getting to them isn't easy. Whatsapp and Facebook chat and Skype are tenuous links to people who you share your most cherished memories with. As you sit there at your computer when everyone has gone to sleep, the horrific realisation sinks in: you will not see your best friends again in a long time. There is a big hole in my heart where my friends used to be and a hole in my bed where a girl used to be and a hole in my life where my plans used to be.

I guess you will see your best friends once every 4-5 years like my parents do now - when you go to visit them and your kids will call them '_____ uncle' and '______ aunty'. And they will have other halves who will be just as much a part of them as the 4 glorious years of high school or college that you spent together. I suppose that will take some getting used to.

I'm not really sad, just ready to start the search for Unilever and Kalpana.

The Bank

There are few things more saddening than watching your loved ones grow old. Though I am truly lucky to still have all four of my grandparents around the thought and, worse still, the sight of them ageing is a cold, wrenching blade to my gut.


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We all have our comfort zones: the places or processes in the world that we can navigate without thinking. They are places that we have spent time in and know intimately. When we bring others into them, they know we are in a sacred domain. For me, airports are such places. I have spent so much of my life in them that I can put my earphones in and get from the taxi to my flight without really switching my brain on. I understand how things work and how newcomers will behave. For my grandfather, his comfort zone is the bank.


The city is hot and dusty and loud and really no place for an old man. But he walks the 50 yards down the hill, across the road and to the nearby State Bank of India branch. And when he enters the air conditioned foyer, he is in his domain. Suddenly there is a spring in his step, suddenly the heat and the clattering cars of the dry street are behind him. Where there was trembling caution with each stride, there is now confidence and dare I say, an air of authority. It is so wonderful to see. Having lead the way and held his hand all the way down the road, I now walk behind him and I do not have a choice in the matter.


I've noticed it with all old Indian men and I suppose it should come as no surprise. As the world has changed around them, they seek refuge in one of the few institutions that they've actively been a part of. They have seen these banks grow from tiny, backward rooms that disguised unemployment, to vast networks of pristine white walls where everything is part of a 'brand'. And as their salaries turned to pensions, they stood and watched. As Bombay turned to Mumbai, they stood and watched. These brightly lit bank branches cannot hide from the old men of the city who were around before they were.


When I go into a bank, I am always a little lost. I have to read each placard to decipher which box I have to drop a cheque into or which teller I have to stand in line to see. I am like the first time fliers I treat with such disdain at airports. But my grandfather is the Gold Club member here - he has the frequent flier miles and knows the pilots and the air hostesses and will get bumped up to Business Class while I'll be floundering at check-in. Old men love to be respected - they feel it is the least the world owes them and we do. In their local bank, they milk this respect and stride, chest-out, towards their favourite teller who will drop whatever he/she is doing to help them. They bring their tattered old briefcase and put on their reading glasses. They take out their notebook and let everyone in the room slow to their pace.


Today my grandfather wishes to change my status on my provident fund from a minor to a major. It is the most trivial, the most disproportionately time-consuming activity relative to its importance. But my grandfather has planned his day around our trip to the bank and he has put on his nice trousers and his freshly pressed shirt and I will not deny him his comfort zone. The Bank is his castle for 45 minutes every week. I can sense his sadness when we have to leave and face the heat and the humidity of the afternoon. I hold his hand as we climb the hill to our house. It wasn't always this way.


He used to be the one who walked briskly up and down Pali Hill. Every summer he would take me to the park to find sticks. They had to be fibrous, malleable sticks for the bow and sleek, strong ones for the arrows. He would teach me to shoot. After archery got boring, we would make lanterns from fallen branches. We would peel the bark off and shape them so they were taut and clean. He would use coloured paper to give them character. After they fell apart we would recycle each side and turn them into kites that we would fly from our giant window. They would scare the crows only until lunch time, when he would - to the utter exasperation of my grandmother - leave morsels for them on the window sill.


But those days are gone. Now his hands shake with Parkinson's and his movements are slow. The sofa bed that I sleep on in the living room when we visit... he can no longer open on his own. It does not take any power at all but he leaves the task to me or my uncle. His speech is fine - he prays with the same rigour as he always used to, though now he sits quietly and listens to our conversations without joining in. Our journey to the bank was his day out.


Next week he will put on his ironed trousers, oil his hair and find another excuse to go.

Chin Lung: The Worst Bar in Bangalore

The night hadn't gotten off to a very good start. Though I would later find out that it was called 'Chin Lung Bar' - supposedly a Chinese restaurant - I had been told over the phone to come to meet a couple of friends at "Chillum Bar". So as dusk fell, I walked up and down Brigade Road in Bangalore asking various people for "Chillum... Bar?". To my immense irritation at the time, most shop keepers and strangers waved me away with scowls of incredulity. Only now do I realise just how shady I must have sounded: going around asking strangers for a pipe and a drinking hole.


When I finally discovered that I had in fact been called to Chin Lung Bar, I almost wished I didn't. The outside of the 3 story bar and restaurant was shabby and tattered to say the least. The entrance was dark and dingy and filled with the sort of people you steer clear off down dark alleys. Waiters wiped dirty tables with dirty clothes - a restaurant manifestation of the ancient Indian art of dust-moving, that one sees on roads outside. The carpets on the landing of each floor were wet and the walls were stained and cracking. It was hell.


I got to the terrace and was heartened to see the friends I had come to visit. But they were with a larger group of people who I didn't really know. To my horror, we were the oldest among a group of kids from Bangalore International School  - known more for its drugs consumption than it's academics. You know, 'bad kids'. Suddenly 'Chillum Bar' didn't sound so far fetched. Curly haired 15 year olds smoked weed and hash that they pulled out from the pockets of their shorts. Here I was dressed for a night out. Pointy shoes and everything.


The booze was cheap and the food was bad. But at least the booze was cheap. The terrace wasn't well lit - pretty much the only light around was the neon that made it way across the smoky roads from buildings opposite. There were plastic white tables and chairs - now stained and broken from overuse - strewn haphazardly. It was cramped and waiters contorted into all sorts of shapes to get from one table to another. I settled down and started talking to someone. A cold Kingfisher Premium was a cold Kingfisher Premium no matter where you went.


All off a sudden, everyone on the table jolted out of their plastic white chairs and jumped back. Everyone except one guy who had his eyes closed and swayed uneasily in his seat. It was only when I saw the state of this guy that I too jumped back a few yards from the plastic white table. A single, long strand of saliva lowered itself from his half open mouth and dangled around in the breeze. You could just about make out the whites of his eyes - he was in a state between being conscious and passing out. The Rum and Coke twilight zone. I could smell his stupor from across the table. He was going to blow any second.


It happened almost in slow motion. The way in which none of his friends came to his aid and ushered him to the bathroom was remarkable. Is it every man for himself after 8pm? At first only a little came out. By now all the tables around us had also gotten to their feet and moved a few steps back. It was so sad: like walking away from a guy with a bomb strapped to his chest and leaving him to face the music. His unfocused eyes seemed to call for help but I was not going to be a hero. He gagged a bit and the noise made me almost throw up myself.


"Macha he's gone macha. Yuck." said a 'friend' of his with a certain amount of disdain. People were still watching him, cigarette in hand, as this all went on. As if he was some bizarre exhibit at a circus. I couldn't watch any longer. Seeing this made me wonder what else in this place had been puked upon and I went to the bathroom to wash my hands before leaving.


Let it be said that my tolerance for dirty bathrooms is high. I get on my tiptoes, take a deep breath and do my business. "Out of sight, out of mind", or 'smell' in this case. But this was different. It was like the bathroom in Trainspotting. The urinal stank like nothing I'd encountered before. It was as if hundreds of artists had left this mark on this canvas. Something didn't feel right. In the dingy red light you could barely see where you were aiming but I knew I was hitting the target. And then to my horror I realised why the drainage was, ahem, so efficient. There was no pipe connected to the bottom of the marble urinal. Just a hole and my shoes below it. For a second, I was pissing on my pointy shoes. And one cannot simply press pause in the midst of a good pee so I had to spread my feet as far apart as possible. And so for the remainder of my time in that nightmare, I took up the 'power stance' of a lead guitarist in an 80s rock band.


At least the people at the poorest local bars for daily wage earners are friendly. This place was an attack on every sense. The light was murky, the patrons were spiteful and the place was filthy. It was without a doubt the worst place I had ever been to. On the way home I wondered what a sitcom version of this place would be - you know, the Brigade Road version of 'Cheers'. Ted Danson would be played by Manju Srinivas KS.

"Where nobody knows your naaaame,
And you don't know why you caaaame".


So there you have it. The worst bar in Bangalore. No one should ever have a reason to go there. If you want to get puked on by 14 year old kids who are going to fail their GCSEs then maybe it's the place for you. It sums up the pathetic dinginess of Brigade Road actually. The fake cigarette vendors, the 9th grade kids, the plumes of exhaust fumes and the unceasing chaotic heat. Hell.

First Time Fliers

I am sitting in Doha Airport in Qatar. I am a passenger like all the others in transit. I am caught in limbo between a flight and a flight. What I see around me is a peculiar airport. What I see around me is the Middle East.

Airports are a sum of their people and profile of both passengers and staff here is interesting. Though all the announcements are in English followed by Arabic, there are very few Arabs here. Or least, you hear very little Arabic being spoken around you. The passengers are lower-end travellers from Africa, the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia with a few Europeans dotted in between. A lot of Muslims but very few Arabs. And yet we are unmistakably in Arabia – one can see flat, yellow desert for miles in every direction through the ceiling to floor windows. One in a while the opaque horizon will be broken by the faint silhouette of a skyscraper. 

The staff are Philipino, Indian and East African. They speak English and a second language that they use more often than not. Their uniforms are respectable but the maroon colour scheme dampens their aura. The decor is impressive enough by Indian standards; it is clean and spacious but you need only look closely to see that the veneer of luxury that the Middle-East tries so desperately to maintain is slowly peeling away at the edges. The food court resembles an employees’ lounge and the images of food on the walls are nowhere near as enticing as they should be. You know when McDonalds take pictures of the food for their menus? And now think of your local burger joint and how much more budget those are. The free Wifi is a God-send but there are no plug-points from which to use a laptop for any sustained period of time. The few power sockets that are close enough to seating areas are all taken so you have this bizarre sight of middle aged Americans sitting on the floor using Skype.

All the characters are there but the show is not authentic yet. Not every country can pull off a Chang-hi or a Frankfurt but for all the wealth of the region, I was expecting something... shinier? This seems to me like what Indian airports will look like in 10 years time. An A for effort but a B- overall. At junctures where you expect the highest standards, you are met with the third-world psyche: we had to go through a security check as soon as we got off the plane and into the transit lounge just to make sure we hadn’t fashioned any explosives between our last baggage scan and now. It was surreal. But then the Middle East seems surreal to me. It reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote about America: from barbarianism to decadence without the civilisation in between. But this is on another level.

I have no doubt that by the time the 2022 World Cup comes around, this airport and its people will rival any that the developed world can offer but for now, I am surrounded by women in burkhas walking 2 feet behind men who don’t know where they are going.