SALUTE

I have always been quite proud of myself, especially for being able to find happiness in whatever little I have, and also for having the authority to say with pride that I have earned every bit of what I have,be it respect, love or friends, but only until I saw a fire that lit those beautiful eyes, fire of pride that could beat any other emotion on earth, and that is when I knew what keeps our soldiers safe and sound in the borders.

Aditi was 20 when Mayur first left to the border. Like every other pampered daddy’s girl, who just got out of a lavish and happening college life, she did not even guess what her bestie was walking into and neither did he try to explain. As we stood on the railway station, munching on potato chips and passing the cold bottle of cold drink around, I noticed Mayur pulling Aditi’s perfectly braided hair and vanishing into the railway coach. They have always been naughtiest of the lot,and also the ones with the biggest hearts. Their friendship dates back to 9^thstandard, when every boy considered every girl a potential enemy, no matter how sweet she may be. They had set a different standard all together in the world of high school friendships, by hanging out with each other without giving a damn to what people did to break their bond. They stood by each other in thick and thin. Thus inviting the ‘obvious’ criticism, judgment and lot of jealousy.

Mayur was tall, well built ,fair and daring just the way all the high school girls liked boys, and hence the obvious fan following and a hundred girls drooling on him. Aditi was everyone’s favorite, with big dark eyes, wide smile that formed dimples and pin straight silky hair. I am sure she was a regular visitor of most of those high school dudes. They were just perfect. Though they never quite accepted it, everyone who knew them very conveniently accepted and sank into the concept of them being there for each other no matter what for a lifetime. No one proposed, no one accepted, nobody made promises and nobody demanded anything other than ‘belief’.As years passed by,I only saw their ‘belief’ grow stronger and their heart grow bigger. Now,8 years later, when we have all found our ways and settled into our lives. I see much more than just ambition or dreams for a better future in her eyes. I see fire that shouts out love, passion and more than anything else, respect. The kind of respect that only an army man’s girl can have for her man. The kind of fire that can fight any dark force to protect her man.The kind of fire that only glows prettier and stronger with each passing day,while she prays for her man who is playing with his life to save thousand others and she waits to see him come back into her arms safe. The only kind of fire that can stand any test of time and ignite your souls.

The India that I see…

They say it right when they say humans are complex beings, and I have come to believe that we Indians are the most complex of the lot. I have not traveled the world or made friends across the races, yet I cannot help but wonder at the amount of passion, energy, craziness and goodness that we carry around in our bloods.­­­

People have not left any stone unturned in trying to explain India in the best of their words, and so I am not even trying to venture into doing it again, not because I fear sounding monotonous, but because I belong to the generation that has very conveniently chosen to forget that they belong to the place that gave the world the whole concept of ‘karma’ which was later pronounced ‘bitch by the western world.

The most fascinating trait of Indians is our double faced nature. We are so flexible and welcoming that we end up forgetting the difference between the guest and the host and in our efforts to learn, imbibe and to follow the ‘developed’ people, like how curiosity killed the cat, we killed our identities.

I am not somebody who has traveled far and wide, and in my twenty something years of existence, neither have I acquired undue wisdom to be able to talk about complex things like relationships and culture, but as I look at my small little world, and the bigger world that revolves around it,I could not help but gape in amazement at some observations. I find Indians the most emotional beings (after dogs, that is), and also the most expressive among mankind that exists, and yet, we have the least amount of freedom of public display of affection. They call it ‘morally wrong’. So then, is being secretive and doing things undercover ‘the right’ thing to do?My mind somehow doesn’t digest this logic. To me no words can substitute the warmth of a hug.

How I wish they taught us how to judge people and differentiate between good and bad rather than right and wrong in schools. How I wish they told us why it was important to stay away from things and people that hurt you rather than preparing us to ‘follow’ any ‘fall’ into place. How I wish they taught us that the most important thing in life is to be happy, for only happy souls can spread happiness around them. And I wonder why they never told us that each of us took birth on the face of earth to make a difference, however small and that everyone mattered.

I came across this situation of a person recently, where he had achieved everything in life (according to plan, that was carefully laid out after great consideration and reflection),but could only manage the company of few empty liquor bottles to share the excitement and joy of achievements and the anxiety that preceded and succeeded it. He wept away saying he was ‘lonely’ and that ‘the loneliness was killing him’. While I listened to the sad laments, one question kept flashing in my head (though it was totally insensitive and selfish, but could not help it).I wondered how he could not manage to make a single friend yet, and not being able to contain the confusion within myself, I ended up asking him the same. He replied in a simple single sentence, which spoke a lot and put me in an endless array of thoughts. He said ‘I don’t have the confidence to speak to people’. Reflecting on the sentence in depth, I figured out that major part of our society is like that. We Indians seldom try to engage in conversation with strangers, even if we are brimming with confidence, thanks to the good old teaching from kindergarten. Suddenly my memory started gushing with visuals of the school assembly, where kids used to get fever at the thought of appearing on stage and talking in public. Then they started coming up with activities like debates and group discussions, but did that help? If they did, then why did the Indian education system produce highly intellectual and qualified youth who were getting ‘killed’ by ‘loneliness’ and ‘lack of confidence’ to make a conversation.

While there are hundred and one things to ramble and wonder about, there are hundred and two things to be nostalgic and proud about in India. The need of the hour for our youth is to strike the perfect balance of understanding what to be proud of and how to keep up the pride, and most importantly, realizing that they can make a difference, however big or small!

THE LONELY CROWD

As I approach the first anniversary of my relationship with the garden city of India, I decided to give it an acknowledgement, for being the city that showed me the joy of being independent, content, and dreamy and obviously the luxury of lovely weather.

I don’t know anyone who has lived in Bangalore and has not had a secret affair with the extremely romantic and cheesy weather that makes you want to curl up into a ball inside a blanket (It definitely gets better if you have someone to pamper you).I am talking about a city that can spoil your guts and at the same time put you on your toes day and night.

While I could draw my conclusion (my version of understanding I mean) in less than a month about Mumbai city, it took me a whole year to even start comprehending Bangalore.She was so unique and mysterious (in a very naughty and sweet way) to me that I had to learn a whole new language to even start the communication with her, and for me, I loved the thrill and excitement of getting to know her better each day.

At the first sight, this place looked like an illusion, a dream, with pretty faces and youth everywhere. I saw no pain, no misery. Everything lookedpolished, neat, pretty and classy. I wandered about in amazement, for I had not seen lives this perfect. And then the obvious happened. The darker side unveiled. As I got closer to the soul of the city, I found a bunch of happy faces, living in a crowd, carrying lonely minds and frustrated souls. I could relate to the ‘life in a metro’ shown in movies better now. Here we have ambitious youth, striving to find themselves as a part of the numerous corporate giants, that spoil you with perks and load you with foreign money. Here we also have the generation that have great stories to tell, about culture,tradition,art,craft and much more,which sometimes cease to exist today.

There is some style to this city, which cannot be categorized or defined. The style does not come from the majority of young crowd and high paid jobs alone. It also does not come from the posh restaurants and pubs in every nook and corner of a street. The style is so contagious that it takes over your life. Hence we call it lifestyle. This city gives me happiness that Mumbai could not give,majorly because I did not see poverty and struggle. I saw prosperity.But was there happiness?...that remains a question still.

It felt like technology ran in the nerves of each and everyone here. Everybody is learning, doing, creating and achieving something new in technology every single minute, giving it the status of ‘startup capital ’.This ever hungry city enjoys and appreciates food like no other place.Thanks to the young population, open to new experiments and variety of tastes, Bangalore has been the most welcoming place to almost all food giants including ‘taco bell’ and ‘au bou pain’. Hence, it swept the title of food capital of India. I had a very simple explanation to the Bangalorean love and obsession for food, which is the lack of other comfort zones like beaches and the stress that makes you want to resort to the comfort of food every now and then. The basic underlying fact here being that everybody wants to feel good, but they mostly fail to figure out their path to true happiness. In the efforts to find it, most of us end up conquering everything that gives us comfort and luxury, but there still remain some things that cannot be bought with all the money in the world like companionship and love. I see longing in the eyes, broken smiles and empty hearts.I see lonely crowds.

HAPPY REALIZATION

Fashion ,the  multimillion dollar business that has only grown to bigger numbers and might over the years, even through the so called ‘recession’!, like they say is an illusion. An illusion that has so many ‘real’ lives and struggles camouflaged into glitters.

I carried dreams of gold on my shoulder as I walked into the ultimate destination for any kid aspiring to be ‘in fashion’. Though it was not planned, I somehow knew I wanted to be there and do it, all I knew was that I was passionate, loved colours and good things happens to good people.

It did not come as a surprise or to anyone who knew me or the ‘world of fashion’ well that I was a misfit in the whole scenario. I was outdated, did not own a Gucci bag or 100 shades of lipstick or eye shadow matching every dress, I did not have a mother who attended kitty parties ,I did not have a toned physique and I ate like a pig, hogged on anything and everything that made me happy without keeping track of calorie count. I had no clue of the difference between Manish Malhotra or Arora.I could only look at those ‘beautiful’ creations called the bunch of ‘rich kids’ and admire them. Now when I look back at that phase in my life I realize that though I envied all the glamour, I never longed to be one of them. I loved myself the way I was, and I knew I would put it off one day with the grace that no richness in the world can afford. Hence, I decided to gang up with the other outcasts, the normal human beings, who felt the same way as I did, out of place and suffocated, but never small in terms of self respect.

I met some people with amazing conviction and will power in my four year long journey through the bumpy terrain in the world of fashion. Looking at their perseverance gave me enormous strength to hang on, take a deep breath, tell yourself it is ok ,and move ahead. The easiest thing to do would have been to fake it and try to fit in. The toughest thing being to accept all the crap that you were being subjected to and still not care and just be yourself. As i wore the convocation robe and collected the million dollar certificate, I gave a silent HI5 in my head to all those who chose the latter. I wanted to shout it out to them ...’yes!  We made it, without head help high up and we did not make it any small’.

I took me a while to realize that the bunch of ‘real people’ who were constantly struggling to be real in the fake world of show off has gradually become my family. Though I was excited about entering the big new world (apparently real), and being on my own missed everything that kept me up, awake, alert and on my toes. I missed the tiger that roared inside me all the time.

Now, as i complete a year in the ‘real world’, I earn just enough to survive and live each day with a new dream in my eyes, on my own conditions, in my own way, while my friends earn to live their dream life .I thank all the odd things that came my way and all the awesome people I met a year ago ,that  gives me the strength to  stand with my head help high up still and have the guts to tell myself ’better things are yet to happen’.

DEVIL WEARS PRADA

YES!...THE DEVIL DOES WEAR PRADA!

Non officially six month old and officially four month old tiny little part of the million dollar industry called ‘fashion’, I already have hundred and one reasons to like ,hate ,adore, admire and loath and obviously ask for more of it. They say it right when they say ‘that place is full of bitches!’.

I am reminded of that moment from the movie ‘ Devil wears Prada’ when Nigel tells Andy ‘Yes, because that's really what this whole multibillion-dollar industry is all about, isn't it? Inner beauty.

 Most of us looked upon the movie as one that shows the fashion business at its snoopiest best, but believe me, that is just a glimpse!. Andy has the privilege of getting appreciated and accepted for her good work at least towards the end of the movie, which I doubt seldom, happens in ‘real world’!

"As the world of glitz glamour and much more unfolds before me, I epitomize that flame that used to burn in my eyes and the desire to ‘create marvels’ that I used to carry in my heart as a proud student of design. I feel like a fool for having creased my eyebrows as the seniors working in industry said ‘there are these awesome designers sitting in Europe who will explore and break theirs heads to make awesome and mind blowing new designs, all you are expected to do is copy them religiously!’.Duh!

For the ‘muggles’ of the fashion land of witch craft and wizardry, the place may look nothing less than a wonderland smeared in glamour and luxury. On the contrary, some have such absurd notions about the whole industry that it may make it look like a dungeon!.Though,this may not be anybody’s comfort zone , but it is not a place you need to dread. as I entered the ‘work’ with utmost dedication and the zest to prove myself to the world, I did not expect fairies to greet me, neither did I expect the people to accept me as what I was for I have spent my college life amongst wannabes’ who dwelled on nothing but showoff, and reached a level of insanity where they forgot their real identities.

So, in short, this is how it works. The ground rule is to have a double face all the time, always carry the expressions of a fairy angel but be brimming with schemes, negativity, lust for power and position, insecurities  and all other possible form of complexes and be ever ready to bitch, ditch or even betray even somebody who seemed to be nothing less than a soul mate till a second ago if needed. Oh wait!, some may claim that that is how it is in every ‘corporate’, I bet to differ because we in fashion industry do all this with an air of sophistication and unmatched class. We have pretty faces covering all the dirt, and cheesy taglines and expensive price tags to our merits.

Nothing explains it better than this : That's what happens when you start doing well at work. Let me know when your entire life goes up in smoke, then it's time for a promotion.

THROUGH THE KEYHOLE

The harshest of the reality is well received and accepted when delivered with a pinch of humor and glamour.

‘Confession of a shopaholic’ is  a beautifully crafted and packed bunch of realities about what a lust for fashion can do to you, carefully delivered  with a pinch of irony and humor. It is about a young, working girl, who lives in the fashion capital - New York and gets mislead to become a shopaholic owing to her high buying power bestowed upon her by the bunch of credit cards she owns! She gets caught in a heap of debt and finally comes out of it by giving all the ‘branded’ stuff she has shopped over the years. How I wish the same worked in real life too!.

Belonging to the century when fashion is just a matter of time, every other person is a designer and their own stylist. The brand conscious and fashionably alert population in India has left no stone unturned in exploring the possibilities. Thanks to FDI and the ever posh malls that credit themselves with almost every ‘major’ brand under the sun, the chances of you spotting a Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Prada or Gucci on the streets of Indian metros has increased manifold. Gone are the days when fashion was just an accessory, not a way of life, a side dish, not a main course. Most of us Indians live in a different world. A world where it is more important to stuff your wardrobe up with the same sacred shades of reds and greens in all shades, hues, sequins and stones. Here, quantity matters more than quality, appeal matters more than brand value and sensibility travels in an entirely opposite direction. Is this owing to lack of exposure or buying power? The answer is no! It is all about the psychology. I was talking to my friend from a south Indian Brahmin family ,and she was cribbing about how her parents did not allow her to spend a lot of money on a pretty lehnga she spotted in Delhi for her brother’s wedding. The statement that she made was a benchmark! She said 'they let us spend insane amount of money on silk saris, but not on lehngas’. The same applies to all other product categories.

Being part of a society with well defined and fixed notion about ‘what amount of money should go where’ limits one's reach and possibilities to explore their options. Though last decade has seen huge leap of improvement in Indian fashion scenario, with more and more customized clothing stores, boutiques and brand outlets sprouting up in every nook and corner, the ‘aam aadmi’ or middle class Indian approach towards fashion has changed little. And accordingly, the industries tunes themselves to make ‘what sells’. Indians look at fashion through a key hole, shaped  for the key that their mind visualizes.

Mumbai Muse

                                                               

The glitz ,glamour ,antique British architecture ,steaming hot vada pavs and pav bhajis ,chats and the super cool Bollywood. You guessed it right! I am talking about Mumbai, the city of unlimited possibilities and dreams. A friend of mine told me, “it is a city with different faces, keep your eyes wide open, for you never know when this city might change your life”. Yes! I did keep my eyes wide open and it did change the way I looked at life.

On a rainy, sulky Monday morning, I set out with my huge baggage and heap of luggage toward the lokmanya tilak terminus to catch the netravati express back home. The cold wave of relief that crossed my heart as I saw the train stationed on the first platform was inexplicably relieving. I reflected back to that crazy evening of 17^th June 2013 when I ran the length of platform and managed to make my way into the almost moving train. The dreams that I carried in my eyes then were so heavy that my luggage seemed lighter. Now that I was leaving Mumbai , I do not regret that my dreams did not come true. Though I did not gain what everybody said I will once I set foot in Mumbai,I feel rich and content as I had learnt lessons for life, I had seen life of struggles and only struggles, I had seen people laughing through their tearful eyes, I made some friends for life, got mesmerized but the humility of a city that housed the richest of the rich people, at the uncertainty of the next second of your life, how life changed for many in the wink of an eye.

I looked at Mumbai in awe like a kid peeps into an ice cream factory through a keyhole, but only to realize that it stinks when you make ice cream!

They call it the ‘city of dreams’. Yes it indeed was! For many lived only to chase their dreams, while others went through years of toil just to live the life they dreamed of. While I saw live examples of contrasting lives playing their parts in front of my eyes, I struggled to relate to any of those lives. They were so distant and strange.

 There were the ‘small people with big dreams’, whose life clinged on to the local trains. It was like their blood stream. They eat, sleep, dream, live and make friends here. They trust its service to no extends(sometimes more than their wives! as a dabbawala puts it). Though they were always in hurry, they never pushed past anyone, made sure they never hurt anyone on their way, never hesitated in smiling back at you. Though they claim to be working for a better life tomorrow, the truth is, they are so comfortably settled and content in the small life that they live that they have stopped aspiring for more. They started finding happiness and victory in the small challenges that life faced them with. On the other hand, there was this whole society of ultra rich people, who are so fortunate that they never had to see the face of a local train, forget boarding one!(don’t get me wrong..i am not talking about Amitabh Bachan or Ambani..i know they had to struggle and pave their own path to success,I am referring to the born rich people like star kids ,people who inherited family business and the wives of rich people..you can make your own guesses now).They never had to worry about the vegetable prices shooting up like crazy during ramzan season,they never had to worry about roofs that leaked in monsoons,they did not have to deal with any sort of insecurities that comes as a part of being a ‘mumbaikar’ in truest sense. I took it as a mission to find at least one family that lived the kind of life I lived with my family back home. We were neither rich nor poor, we never struggled for survival but we did not live flamboyant lives. We were the typical middle class family with hell lot of ethics, values and pinch of narrow mindedness. And duh! Who was I kidding!..Like somebody had rightly put it, here, the rich got richer and poor got poorer. There existed nothing called a middle class!

Every other day Mumbai shouted out to me ‘you do not belong here’. I had no answer to the ‘why’ I kept asking myself time and again. All I knew is that I had not found my muse in the city of dreams yet!.Hence, exploring the city for its various possibilities was taken up as the next mission. And I started pondering the numerous gullies to realize that they lacked uniqueness. All of those gullies look identical to each other. It was so damn easy to lose your way! Next destination happened the slightly upside market area called lokhandwala, a shopping hub, where the ‘rich kids’ chill out!This place also failed to amuse me because it lacked character. Moving on to Hill road and linking road in Bandra ,they called it hub for ladies fashion(cheap fashion I mean!).Now my hopes rest solely on marine drive(I have heard people talking very high of the ‘Queen’s necklace’..let’s see!) and colaba(my aunt told she once happened to spot some movie stars there! sounds exciting..doesn’t it?).So I hit marine drive and though the sight of thousand lights lined up in a semicircle to make it look like a queen’s necklace did mesmerize me, it failed to give me what I so badly wanted and what I expected from a beach or seaside, which is ‘peace’. The same hassle and clatters of a city continued there. No wonder why ‘marine drive’ is recognized as ‘distinctively Mumbai’. And there comes my love ’collaba causeway’the 10 minute drive in a taxi like a ‘memsahib’ from Victoria terminus to the street shopping paradise ‘colaba causeway’ was one thing that came even remotely close the Mumbai of my imagination. The beautiful British architectural buildings lining the road, and horse chariots taking people on a ride around marine drive and nariman point made my day!.The feminine instincts in me could not resist the awesomely fabulous array of fancy items that lay ahead of me.I grabbed as many as I could and in the process I realized that when somebody calls Mumbai ‘the city of dreams, he rightly meant it that you dream of something and you will get it on half the price you will ever guess in colaba!.And yeah! ,my aunt was not bluffing when she said she figured movie stars. There was this restaurant called leopold café around the corner inside which, all you find is beautiful people. They are all so tamed ,maintained and pretty that you fall in love with each of them instantly and obviously couple of them were the ‘rich kids’ who  already made it big in movie and yet another set of ‘rich kids’ who will be seen on the silver screen anytime now. My eyes and heart could not contain the curiosity of having found a place about which I could go on for hours to my friends. There was something about this place that amused me. In short, I found my muse in Mumbai(or so I can boast) around colaba , but Like any other middleclass south Indian girl, I lacked the guts to live in the bubble and pretend to be what I can never be. I told myself that my journey to Mumbai was not just to find my muse, but to make me realize what makes life! I took home with me the greatest lessons for life that Mumbai whispered into my ears with love. The lesson being that no matter what, LIFE MUST GO ON and no matter how independent you try to be and fly high, at the end of the day, humans are mutual beings, there is always a string attached to our tailbones that drag us back to our roots. Somebody rightly told me that nobody goes empty handed from this city. Hats off to the city that welcomes with open hands a million people who land here every day, with dreams to make it big in life and I cheers to those smiling random faces, ready with hands extended to pull you up the ladder. I will come back to you, Mumbai! for nobody can get enough of you!..