Best Before -

As a new chapter unveils in Australia,  I am closely observing the different lifestyles in here. But one thing is for sure. These people perceive everything with an expiry date. Yes, “Beginning with the end in the mind” is a good way as put forward by Stephen Covey in his ‘First Things First’. However, thinking so, makes your life shallow.

Lets talk about it..

Welcome to the age of manufacture and sell-by dates! 

are we living with built-in obsolescence?  Everything we love, experience, treasure seems to come with a sell-by date today?

So what’s the difference between your Nokia E72 and your yoga guru? What sets apart your S Class from the Souza you bought at the last online auction? How are your state-of-the-art Bose speakers any different from your music collection if your mind is already hardwired to reject everything you love and pursue today as obsolete tomorrow. Even the movie you watch this weekend and rave about is gone by the time next Friday comes. You need a new shot, a new high, a new purpose to your existence every morning when you wake up. Yesterday’s gone, over, done with.

An interesting lifestyle. But I just cant follow it.

Cricket’s a great example. The game as we once knew it is dead. The cold stats of its achievements lie in the morgue and mock us while the game has morphed from a 5 day local spectator sport into a 4 hour reality show for millions of TV addicts desperately seeking entertainment not just from the game but also from the antics of its star promoters, its players, its charming cheerleaders, and its Gotham City underbelly of bettors, bribers, match fixers. What happened to Bodyline? What happened to the frenzied nationalism that once fired great players like Douglas Jardine? It’s gone. Cricketers play for Money, teams, leagues, Sponsorships and a shot at stardom now. They go out as quickly as they come in.

No, this wasn’t always the case. Everything didn’t have a sell-by date when I was growing up. In fact, most things we valued seemed immortal. That’s why we cried our hearts out when we lost someone close. I even cry when I fight!  We went from bookshop to bookshop, library to library to seek out a book we wanted to read. We waited eagerly for months to watch a movie and spent years thereafter discussing it, dissecting it. Paintings were treasured as heirlooms and hung on our walls for generations. Marriage jewellery was passed on from mother to daughter or daughter-in-law. Even wedding saris were carefully folded and kept away in steel trunks to be passed on. I still have the HMT watch my grand father took off his wrist and gave me when I turned 18. I still wear his ring sometimes, tight (:P) as it is. It has never struck me to trade them in.

Our tastes didn’t chase fashions either. I listened to Backstreet Boys with the boys in school. Yet when my father listened to Mandolin Srinivas in the concerts, I used to attend and listened intently. That didn’t stop me from discovering Kishore Kumar or Yesudas. There was no conflict between the classical and the popular. There were no choices to be made. We experienced and enjoyed everything.

No one was in a desperate rush to shuffle his iPod. So Rafi, Mukesh, Hemant Kumar, Lata, Asha, Kishore survived for years on end. Satyajit Ray’s following grew throughout his life. So did the admirers of Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Ritwick Ghatak. No one worried about their sell-by date. We didn’t even know if they had one. In fact, we worried what would happen when they were not around. Nehru voiced this when he said, on Gandhi’s death, that the light had gone out of our lives. It was not a torch battery he was referring to, that had run out its course. It was a life that had enriched ours.

Let’s look at it today. How long do you give MJ before he becomes a blip in your memory? Do you recall the lines of Billie Jean? Or you remember Lucky Ali, who was busting music charts till a few years back? Or Made in India, a song that nearly upstaged Hindi film music and brought Indipop centrestage? Or Alisha Chinai who sang it and became the heart throb of the nation? Remember the Colonial Cousins? Nazia Hassan? They came in spectacularly packaged, grabbed your attention, vanished. Poof! That’s the way it’s all going to be. The time for grandmom’s recipes is over unless you know how to repackage it and give it a new shelf life.

So sit back and enjoy what the market sends your way. Revel in the 15 minutes of fame each of these products enjoy. Experience them. Savour them. Wipe your memory when you're through. That’s the way today is. That’s the way Warhol predicted it would be.

Thank God, I am not like that. I love forever, I experience forever, I respect forever, I eat forever.

Weak,

JD.

Making of the Boring

I am heavily low profile. I am not a fancy major guy. I am a gawky 24 year old. I am rarely on Facebook. I rarely trawl malls and try out new brands, new restaurants. I avoid pulp fiction and Hollywood blockbusters don't excite me overmuch. Dating a celebrity is not my idea of a great evening out. And no, I don't go to Hard Rock Cafes to party or Bahrain for F1. I don't even own a Blackberry or an iPad. I haven't worn a watch in days but am almost always on time. And no, I don't consider myself famous, never did.

Now doesn't this make me the perfect bore?

I worked in one company for my livelihood, wrote for my pleasure. I walk into bookshops, sit in a corner and read. I roam around a lot because it allows me to escape the ennui of routine. You can recognise me anywhere by my faded jeans and white shirt. A grey waistcoat and sneakers complete the ensemble.

I listen to all music, enjoy them all. From Bryan Adams to Kishore Kumar to Raghu Dixit to SP. But yes, I love music where the words touch my heart. I love Sahir and Kaifi. I re-read old classics. But I enjoy watching Tom and Jerry too. It bothers me when Inception tests my intelligence, and my patience. But that doesn't mean I watch Kya Super Kewl hain hum. I would rather watch ZNMD or Kahaani. Mystery and magic are what I seek from life.

So rarely do I go to parties that people have stopped inviting me. The company of one thoughtful intelligent person excites me far more than people in the collective trying very hard to enjoy themselves. I find the world a charming place, best savoured on one's own or with someone you love.

Even then I am deadly boring. S&M doesn't titillate me. Mozart may. Alcohol makes me drowsy. And the current obsession over food I find gross. I eat little, speak less, grab the passing moment. Neither greed nor gluttony excite me. I wouldn't notice if Gordon Ramsay was in the kitchen. It's the person I am with who makes it happen. I never eat alone. The only food I miss is what I don't get. Ergo, nostalgia food. I miss food from little known places that have shut down. I remember a city by what I ate there, usually happenstance street food.

I believe our hearts teach us how to react. A book, a film, a song may move me to tears at a special moment. On another, they could leave me untouched. That's why it's so tough being me. You have to carry your moment with you. Trees, dogs, cats, birds, flowers, squirrels running on the fence, the sound of laughter work any time for me, and the delight of walking through unknown streets, empty fields, unseen dreams. I love them all and wish I could pass on the memories to those I care for instead of the trinkets we gift each other and so easily forget.

And evolved the JD. And I am not a DJ. The reticent – boring JD.

The BusinessMan

Welcome back! Last few months were hectic as I am scaling up to the next big thing though it involves a web of uncertainties. Drawing inspiration from the Jamaican proverb - To eat an egg, you must break the shell, I am now in the process of getting out of the safe shell I was in and learning to sail. Time knows whether it is going to be a hit or a flop. But I am positive. 

Lets talk Business.

The once much maligned caste system, complex and inscrutable as it may appear to us, once had deep roots in our society. The Brahmins pursued knowledge and statecraft. Kshatriyas fought and protected our honour and sense of nationhood. Banias ran business and trade. The sub castes (which ran into many hundreds) played their own roles. It all worked perfectly well till the lower castes, who got the rough end of the deal, began to protest. They refused to do the jobs assigned to them by history (many of which were demeaning) and sought a new status in the emerging India. This was but natural and ended up largely dismantling the edifice of caste. Merit became the new yardstick.

But the triumph of merit created its own problems. We see fewer people today doing what their forefathers did so amazingly well. Many have migrated to new jobs, without the skills required to back them. Others have become what can be best described as caste refugees. And, funnily, everyone wants to do the Bania’s job. So, however skilled they may be at what they do, most people now want to be in business, make lots of money. So from a great nation of many castes, many skills we are slowly becoming, like the US, a country where everyone, from teachers to healers to rock stars believe that God sent them to this planet with the sole mission of making money. The scramble for lucre has become so obsessive, so obscene that the dignity of many professions has simply vanished.

Where have the great thinkers gone? The legendary healers? The great musicians, painters, philosophers, teachers, leaders of change? Everyone seems to have joined the Gold Rush today. Painters talk more about the price of their canvases than the magic of their craft. Authors discuss sales graphs more than what they write about. Doctors spend more time arguing over their fees than the treatment. Teachers don’t talk about acquiring knowledge. They talk about coaching classes to help you pass exams, find lucrative jobs. Even fortune tellers blindside you to love and tell you how you can make more money by wearing some silly gemstone.

Cricketers have long ceased to be sportsmen. They are like cattle, valued by how much they fetch at slave auctions. So you write off a Saurav or a Brian Lara simply because no one bid for them at the IPL. A politician’s power is assessed not by what he does for India but by how much he stashes away in Switzerland. This country has become just another bazaar where everything’s bought or sold, from spectrum to wakf property to pretty underage brides to seats in Parliament. Everyone’s a Bania today. Everyone’s trading. No one buys art to hang it on their walls. They stash it away in vaults. Over 50% of flats sold in Mumbai, possibly the world’s most expensive real estate, are bought by investors or by politicians and Government officers to park their ill gotten cash. This ensures that prices stay at a level where actual home makers can’t afford it.

Life is not transactional. Nor is friendship, love, marriage, jobs. All around me today I see this bustling marketplace where everyone’s transacting, I understand now why our forefathers created the caste system. For all its faults, it allowed our society to have currencies other than cash. There was knowledge, skill, wisdom. There was courage, honour, pride. There was art, craft, music, the mysterious science of healing. There were so many things that made life magical. Now there’s just one currency driving us: Money. We have become a nation of Banias. Or, as the Americans would proudly say, entrepreneurs.

I am getting into Business as well. But I will never join the Gold Rush. 

Jd.

Independence!

5 months! No blog! How busy I am! Busy loving. Busy working. Busy cracking jokes. Busy playing cricket. Busy visiting places. Busy watching movies - I am waiting for Businessman. Had a memorable new year celebration in the sea. I have cold. Though my jamoon is trying to make it disappear with her talk, my cold just doesn't go. And I was trying to take steam in an old fashioned way while my cool Ajji comes to me with this machine which gives steam out. I was surprised. Machine for everything, I say. And my mom is in Mumbai.

There was a time I could multiply 891 by 992, call my friends, family, followers without referring to a phone book, remember the birthdays of those who mattered most to me, spell every word I knew without the slightest hesitation. I never owned a dictionary nor a phone book. I remembered the statistics of every Indian batsmen.

Today I use my cell phone to add and subtract, recall phone numbers and faces, remind me about birthdays. My laptop tries to correct my spellings, language, grammar and often makes mistakes itself. I can still beat the computer at chess but it's so easy I have long given up playing. No, I don't need to remember anything at all. Google helps me find it in an instant. Who directed Blood Diamond? How to make a bomb? How to fool your manager? What is K V Kamath’s educational qualification? Google has an answer for most things, from curing your neighbor’s Lab's loosies to which old bookshop in Bombay may have the speeches of Nani Palkhivala on Taxes and Budgets. When Google fails, there's twitter. Somebody, somewhere will always have an answer to the question bothering you. The answer need not always be right. None of us look for right answers in life. We look for answers that comfort us. It's a bit like finding God. If he doesn't exist, we'll have to manufacture him.

No, it is not Alzheimer's nor stress (nor the refusal to eat fish) that's slaying my memory cells. It's this continuous acceptance of technology that's being thrust into my face, demanding it be used. I may not be as quick as a calculator but I'm certainly better than a dictionary or thesaurus. I may not be able to do Rubik's cube in under two minutes, but I'm ready to take a Mensa test with anyone. The problem is not in my faculties. It lies in the dependencies being forced onto me by technology I have no need for. I am ashamed I have to remember my grand-father's death anniversary by an alarm on my cellphone.

I'm not alone. That's pretty obvious. Without Facebook, I am sure nobody wishes nobody on birthdays. Nobody knows what’s happening in other’s lives. Even I forget so many things. Thank God she reminds me.

Do we need so much technology in our lives? Do we really need taps that go off on their own or lights that come on when we walk into a room? Don't we want to do these things ourselves? Do we really need 10 digit phone numbers that no one can recall without assistance? Must we perfunctorily celebrate all birthdays? Why not stick to 10 people who really matter to you and call them instead of sending fancy bouquets to hundreds of people with notes from florists? Why send a V-Day e-card when a simple kiss can do? Why do I need 8GB of music on my iPod while travelling to office? Why must technology isolate us instead of bonding us with a real world of real people, real passions? How can internet sex be a substitute for The Real Thing? Yet porn is the biggest business on the net. How can any cell phone chat (with a zillion call drops) be a substitute for talking face to face with someone you love? Yet 700 million cell phone users here cootchie coo on it.

So as this year begins, I make this promise to myself. Let me slave technology, not let it run my life for me.

Jd.