In my search for silence
I have travelled far and wide.
I have shut my eyes.
Blocked my ears.
And painted many a landscape white.

In my search for silence
I have met with many an articulate soul.
Listened to their world view.
Tried to see things from their perspective.
And dived into many a pool of tranquillity.

In my search for silence
I discovered that it has to be filtered.
Through chaos first.
And then confusion.
And purified on the anvil of truth.

Because the silence I was looking for
And the silence that I found.
Is the silence that underlines an echo.
Is the silence that surrounds a scream.
Is the silence that lets me see...lets me dream...

I have just had the fortune of being part of two distinctly different evenings hosted by The Park as part of their New Festival. I had unfortunately missed Preethi Athreya’s Inaugural Dance Performance but managed to make it to Vidur Kapur’s Stand Up Comedy Act and to Dastangoi which was billed as the revival of the ancient art of storytelling.

I have always been of the opinion that the moment a performer takes to the stage, whether he or she is a dancer, actor, musician, acrobat, buffoon or whatever, he essentially becomes a story teller. The story may be different, it may be funny, sad, action packed, placid...whatever... but up there on the stage is the story teller, down here is the audience and what lies in between is the tale.

In this context the Stand Up Comedy Routine has always fascinated me. While the way it evolved so quickly from being a mere party routine to a form by itself is rather impressive, what is more awe inspiring is how the form allows the story teller to use his or her ethnicity or oddity and the audience make up itself to strike a common chord that serves as the connect between each other.

Or at least that was how I thought it used to be.

Because I don’t know how and I don’t know when. But I seem to have missed the turn. I don’t even know when the definition of Stand Up Comedy or even plain old comedy shifted from ‘laugh with me’ to ‘laugh at me’.

Laugh at me – I am fat. Laugh at me – I am Jewish. Laugh at me – I am black, brown, yellow...Laugh at me – I am blonde. Laugh at me – I am Polish. Or Mexican. Or Puerto Rican. Or more recently, laugh at me – I am Indian. Not the plain brown piece of wheatish complexioned bread. But the American Indian. Arrey Baba, not the American Indian who was there on the continent 1492 BC (Before Columbus) but the American Indian who has evolved as a confused breed in the last few decades.

Here I take a pause and catch my breath.

Now where was I?

In all fairness I must also confess that I seem to have lost the track of story-telling which I always thought was an art of keeping audiences engrossed and occupied and perhaps even informed. But never did I imagine that story telling could be reduced to an exercise in aggression from the performers’ side and a self induced stupor of masochistic madness that I am still shuddering from the penance. And applause reduced to mechanical clapping on demand (demand after obnoxious demand...Come On Clap for Me Hyderabad).

Rambling am I? Well...

Vidur’s was to me was a case of someone trying too hard to live up to a reputation. A reputation which was not even a myth yet and one that had been created under the falsest of pretences.

And he tried to milk the audience with his snippets of misfortune. Oh My God I am Indian. And worse, I am gay!!! I went to school in Delhi, London and the US of A. I kicked up my corporate job with Booze Allen and Who’sThat...The only trick he didn’t try was telling us that he had been gang raped...and the only words he seemed to have learnt in his cumulative schools were fuck, cock, penis and Bitch! And surprise surprise he did NOT have an unhappy childhood.

The Dastangoi team which spoke impeccable English and delightful Urdu re-established my faith in performance. There was harmony at work here ladies and gentlemen...a unique case of a story sailing down a river of attention...and helpful voices steering it, pushing it, powering it along.

The format of using two individuals to tell the story...the idea of giving them both dynamically changing roles...giving them the space to explore the horizons of the tale but restricting them to the physical limitation of the stage...it took the best of a variety of techniques and blended them, fused them into a replay of history...

Something that made me say at the end of a thoroughly enjoyable evening...Dastangoi...what a story!

Just back from a reading of the book
‘The Deodis of Hyderabad’. .. by Rani Sharma

They used to
build dreams
in those days.
They used to.

Now they chisel
homes
out of concrete blocks.
Now they chisel.

They used to
knit communities
in those days.
They used to.

Now they crowd
atoms
into a nuclear abode.
Now they crowd.

So when we rue
the vanishing
of charm,
and the absence
of etiquette.
So when we rue.

I ask only
that each of us looks
at the hollowness
of the foundations
we have laid,
and the brittle walls
we’ve raised.
The doors we have shut
and the windows we hide from.
I ask only.

Eversince Facebook entered my life, whatever time I have had in the past few extremely busy, chaotic months, I have scribbled on the FB site in terms of notes.

A few days ago the Advertising Club Hyderabad had their annual gala...the ADEX 2008...which I had to unfortunately miss since I was committed to watch my daughter Deeksha's directorial debut...a play called TAX FREE.

But when I got reports of the function I was a bit disturbed...couldnt the Ad Club function without the mandatory Pole Dance? Did a gathering of supposedly mature individuals engaged in the world's oldest profession need tittilation of this kind to ensure attendance? And strangely a thought crossed my mind...what kind of person would do a Pole Dance anyway? What was her compulsion? And I wrote...

Olga the Pole.
The announcer cymbaled
into a rolling thunder of a
crash boom bang.
And the audience
frenzied into anticipatory ecstasy.
The lights danced
their digitally unleashed sway.
And the testosterone levels
peaked beyond the meter’s scale.

Olga pranced in.
Her lithe body etching
overtly sexual hieroglyphics onto
the sizzle that she ramped.
Her costume peeked once
in a while from behind her
nudity. Her sweat mingled with
her body spray of disgust.

She looked away from the shimmering
pole, the chromium of distaste.
Just before she got her hands around
it, her lover for the rest of the show.
As each man in the well of faces
throbbed in her grip
she remembered to seduce the pole.
Slowly. Languorously. Stretching her sexuality
like a metaphor, letting the hated object
read between her lines.

Her hair climaxed in a fitful of passion
as it flew enraged at the abomination
that was her encored orgasm.
Her inner thighs chafed with
the embarrassment of celebrating voyeurism
in a pitiful imitation of a eon old
fertility rite.

The crowd exploded into an applause and
a few of the more inebriated, lunged towards her
with garlands of money. The gleam in their eyes
semaphoring their intentions, their motives.
Hands groped at her public parts while her privates
cringed at the sheer ignominy of it all.
Her heart for instance cried tearless and
her soul, dried up of all emotion, looked to the skies
for redemption.

Olga the Pole.
The emcee husked into his phallus like mike.
And she took her bows.
Looked sensuously at a few faces
while emanating hatred to all.
She was hungry now. Hungry to feed her infant.
The breast yearned for the suckle of love.
She loosened her strap. The man with the biggest
dollar sign reached for her. And had the
dinner she had worked up for the child.

Starved, he wrestled with the fabric of her poverty.
Starved, the baby wrestled with the fading texture of hope.
Starved, she wrestled with indecision.

Who to kill?

The father. Or the child.

Many years ago I read a book, by Harold Robbins I think. In which the hero who is Roman Catholic listens to the Kaddish (a Jewish Mourner’s recital) and breaks down. While I respect Robbins’ perception and mastery of the human emotion, this particular scene rankled. How could anyone who does not speak a language, break down into tears by listening to the Kaddish?

Yesterday, I think I got my answer.

Sridala’s dad who I had met on a few occasions, passed away a few days ago. And there was a Prayer Meeting held at their home. Having been unable to meet Sridala in the last couple of weeks due to a chaotic schedule, and wanting to pay my respects to the soul of the departed, I landed up there.

After some of the people there exchanged reminiscences about Sridala’s father, Sridala announced that the Vishnu Sahasranamam would be chanted. Those uninterested, were welcome to step outside for tea.

My body half turned towards the exit. But then suddenly the chanting began.

30. 40. I don’t know how many. Voices in harmony. The recital began. Some of the words I understood. Some I didn’t. Some words I remembered my mother chanting. Some were as alien as latin. But I couldn’t help but admire the way the paatis and the maamis recited from memory. Harmonised.

I turned back and let the aura of the moment envelop me. My feet felt rooted. There was a heart swell that caused a lump in my throat. The Vishnu Sahasranamam is not a mourning mantra. It is not an eulogy. At a simplistic plane it is but the chanting of the 1000 names of Vishnu. It is supposed to be the cure for all evils, balm for all sorrows and potion for all hope.

But yesterday the Sahasranamam was the sound of friends and relatives mourning the passing away of a good man. It was the sound of society reassuring Sridala’s mother, Sridala and her son that they should not think they were alone...that we were all there for them. It was the chant of mankind serving as background music to the journey of a soul from earth to the heavens.

And I cried.

What will happen
one day, when we run out
of road islands
and politicians
who seem to be dying
now of accidental diseases,
and cine stars
who leave behind
unbalanced progeny
run out of options
as far as making people
remember their names
for traffic jam posterity.

So no more
NTR Gardens and KBR Parks,
Rajiv Chowk
and Indira Gandhi Terminals.

What do we have in store?

Nameless, faceless
islands, road medians, dividers.
Street Corners
struggling to find
a memorable identity.

Maybe then, the Municipal Commissioner
out of sheer exasperation
will come up with a speed breaker
of an idea, or a pot hole
of a brainwave.

Then the directions to my house
will be simple.
Come from Punjagutta,
up towards Banjara Hills (if it’s still called that).
Pass Nagarjuna Circle
(you’ll be amazed to know how many
people think it is named thus after
a cine star who has a dog lover
for a wife, and a few bitches
for enroute entertainment).

Then slow down for the
Hanumantha Reddy speedbreaker,
bump across the Chinna Yadav pot hole,
grind over the Pedda Yadav road disturbance,
turn right at the Keshava Rao bulge
and groan up the Srinivasan swell,
take a deep breath at the Vellanki road break,
turn right at the Chenna Reddy water log,
and ask anyone for the Marurs.

If someone were to point to a small ditch,
just say hello to my late parents,and look around…

You may hear a dog barking
that he too needs a patch on the road
where his territorial rights
transcend early morning transgressions
and get etched into eternity…by name.

That’s my house…

So simple to find it na?