The moment to write this blog post has passed. I have had a dose of a much more powerful drug since I left from Jaipur to come to Ahmedabad 3 days ago. In what follows, I’ll try and do justice to Ajmer and Jaipur but I know this one is going to be difficult, because all I really want to write about right now is my two years as a student of MICA.
A man’s interaction with his native land and the native land’s with him is something that has always intrigued me. For the first 21 years of my life, Bombay was my home and the only place I would claim to belong to after India. That I was a Gujarati didn’t make me feel any affinity for Gujarat and Bombay is anyway as much a part of Gujarat as it is of Maharashtra because of the shared history. It also helped that my ancestors hailed from Karachi and none of them had really lived in Gujarat for the last 150 years. Basically, Gujarat up till 5 years ago was just a state I went to often because many pilgrimage places and not-so-cool relatives happened to be there. The 2 years at MICA, in spite of being in a ghetto which was a far cry from where it was located, made Gujarat too my unwitting second home. Today every trip to Gujarat is like going home. I am less of a tourist and more of a native here. Its one of the many ways a man interacts with his native land. The people all over the country who ask me these days on what topic I have based my stories in their home town is another way. It makes me scared just to look at such people in the eye and tell them what I have written about their home town. I humbly tell them I try my best but I wouldn’t have done full justice just by living there for a week.. And then the native land also interacts in peculiar ways. It interacts in absolute and unequivocal adulation for its favorite sons – the way a Dhoni was received in the new Ranchi stadium yesterday. Or the way ‘Sri Narendrabhai Modi’ is received all over Gujarat.
Grace is no one's private property or entitlement. It is not inherited nor passed on. It does not come by design or power. It just comes to a person when he finds that equilibrium between peace and confidence. It's not limited to expensive ballroom parties and exotic beach escapades. It is not monopolised by the long-legged, the well-heeled and the well-trained. And finding grace is a matter of chance. If you are seeking it, you may as well find it in a non-descript sailors' bar by the sea front, among old men, drunk at 10am, doing the samba to a Konkani number. You can't help but feel jealous of how well they do it. More importantly, how much joy they find in it. Here are fat, old men, in their dirty tshirts and soiled shorts, without a dancing partner, doing the samba that would have shamed most yuppie kids trying to learn the dance at expensive dance studios in Bombay and Delhi. They try to teach grace here in Goa as well - at the gymkhanas and schools and colleges - and while anyone can dance, not everyone can do it gracefully and give as much pleasure to the watcher as to the doer.
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry, Hyderabad, Puri, Dantewada click here : Baazigar Series)
By the time most of us are done with our teenage years, we begin our irreversible march towards becoming chronic cynics. We choose our lovers, careers, friends and ambitions – all of it with cynicism at the core of it. We euphemize this with terms like being realistic, pragmatic, mature, etc and we get away with it because the people we are giving this justification to are also a part of this sham. We view election results, rape case proceedings, cricket matches, et al with that same practiced cynicism and hence fail to analyze, evaluate and act. We carry this cynicism to places where it should have no business – the workplace, the first date and, the most significant, the classroom.
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry, Hyderabad, Puri click here : Baazigar Series)
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry, Hyderabad click here : Baazigar Series)
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry click here : Baazigar Series)
The moment to write this blog post has passed. I have had a dose of a much more powerful drug since I left from Jaipur to come to Ahmedabad 3 days ago. In what follows, I’ll try and do justice to Ajmer and Jaipur but I know this one is going to be difficult, because all I really want to write about right now is my two years as a student of MICA.
A man’s interaction with his native land and the native land’s with him is something that has always intrigued me. For the first 21 years of my life, Bombay was my home and the only place I would claim to belong to after India. That I was a Gujarati didn’t make me feel any affinity for Gujarat and Bombay is anyway as much a part of Gujarat as it is of Maharashtra because of the shared history. It also helped that my ancestors hailed from Karachi and none of them had really lived in Gujarat for the last 150 years. Basically, Gujarat up till 5 years ago was just a state I went to often because many pilgrimage places and not-so-cool relatives happened to be there. The 2 years at MICA, in spite of being in a ghetto which was a far cry from where it was located, made Gujarat too my unwitting second home. Today every trip to Gujarat is like going home. I am less of a tourist and more of a native here. Its one of the many ways a man interacts with his native land. The people all over the country who ask me these days on what topic I have based my stories in their home town is another way. It makes me scared just to look at such people in the eye and tell them what I have written about their home town. I humbly tell them I try my best but I wouldn’t have done full justice just by living there for a week.. And then the native land also interacts in peculiar ways. It interacts in absolute and unequivocal adulation for its favorite sons – the way a Dhoni was received in the new Ranchi stadium yesterday. Or the way ‘Sri Narendrabhai Modi’ is received all over Gujarat.
Grace is no one's private property or entitlement. It is not inherited nor passed on. It does not come by design or power. It just comes to a person when he finds that equilibrium between peace and confidence. It's not limited to expensive ballroom parties and exotic beach escapades. It is not monopolised by the long-legged, the well-heeled and the well-trained. And finding grace is a matter of chance. If you are seeking it, you may as well find it in a non-descript sailors' bar by the sea front, among old men, drunk at 10am, doing the samba to a Konkani number. You can't help but feel jealous of how well they do it. More importantly, how much joy they find in it. Here are fat, old men, in their dirty tshirts and soiled shorts, without a dancing partner, doing the samba that would have shamed most yuppie kids trying to learn the dance at expensive dance studios in Bombay and Delhi. They try to teach grace here in Goa as well - at the gymkhanas and schools and colleges - and while anyone can dance, not everyone can do it gracefully and give as much pleasure to the watcher as to the doer.
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry, Hyderabad, Puri, Dantewada click here : Baazigar Series)
By the time most of us are done with our teenage years, we begin our irreversible march towards becoming chronic cynics. We choose our lovers, careers, friends and ambitions – all of it with cynicism at the core of it. We euphemize this with terms like being realistic, pragmatic, mature, etc and we get away with it because the people we are giving this justification to are also a part of this sham. We view election results, rape case proceedings, cricket matches, et al with that same practiced cynicism and hence fail to analyze, evaluate and act. We carry this cynicism to places where it should have no business – the workplace, the first date and, the most significant, the classroom.
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry, Hyderabad, Puri click here : Baazigar Series)
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry, Hyderabad click here : Baazigar Series)
(For earlier posts on Kashmir, Amritsar, Mcleodgunj, Mussoorie,Delhi-Gurgaon, Mughal Sarai – Varanasi, Bangalore,Pondicherry click here : Baazigar Series)
