From an IFFIan.

          “I’m like a magnet for people who want to sit and chat. Listeners like me are hard to find.”

Shri Husband cleared his throat, indicating disagreement.

It’s true. Even at IFFI, where delegates/journalists/film-makers/hangers-on keep browsing through the catalogues like they’re doing a last-minute revision for an exam, I find that strangers’ tongues seem to loosen up in my presence, over over-priced chai-nashta. I lent a sympathetic ear to a Korean documentary-maker who wasn’t sure what her next theme/subject was going to be, a mother who was disappointed that her son had switched from law to photography and a mother-in-law who bemoaned how her sandwiched generation had to deal with binding traditional elders and rule-breaking, space-wanting youngsters.

Real vs reel life, on-and-off screen mazaa. 

I thought it (the loosening of tongues, not the mazaa) had something to do with where I sat --under a magnificent rain-tree canopy and what I consumed: the overpriced chai-nashta. So I changed places and walked across to the stalls on the Mandovi side of Bandodkar Marg, found the prices at the Food Village even higher, sulked back to the pavilion… and discovered that beer was cheaper than chai.

(Aside I said to Shri Husband: “Must acquire a taste for beer.” He hurrumphed in approval because he thought finally he’d get some company to ‘cheer’ with.)

          Those allowed inside the hallowed Inox compound declared their accessibility by wearing around their necks photo-ids attached to ribbons. The ribbon colour announced one’s status: yellow for the admin helpers, green for media, blue for season-delegate, dark crimson for the daily visitors, red (naturally) for VIPS.

Sitting on a tree stump, I realized the designer/carpenter who made it had a sadistic sense of humour. The seat was cut at an angle, so the buttocks kept sliding down. I had to press heels into the ground and depend on the knee-angle to not slip off. Watching others do the same brought on giggles.

But the prize for worst-designed furniture in the world must go to the bench-tables put outside the fancy-food stall. The three-seaters on either side were attached to the table on at hip level by metal bars. No entry for legs. To sit to eat, one had to 1) rest bum on seat, 2) draw feet up to waist level and tuck them close to body, 3) swing feet inwards and below table level 4) lower them to the ground. After the meal was over, reverse-asana-movement would get you out. A moment to deal with balance issues, and then you could stagger away. The more flexible customers sat cross-legged or in contorted postures that thrust their legs out to trip unsuspecting walkers-by. Some apologies, I noticed, led to instant acquaintanceship, especially when sitter and tripper were of opposite gender and in a lower-double-digit age-group. The senior citizenry sat on the stone parapets.

“What about the films you saw?” Shri Husband asked. “Tell me about them.”

“I’m coming to those,” I said. “Be patient.”

Then I showed him the papers I’d collected: the Daily, the Peacock, the Screen. The Incredible India brochures had pictures of tigers: in a couple of years, we’ll see them (tigers, not brochures) only in photos. Folk/classical dancers and secret royal recipes were promoted, but nada a word on IFFI, which attracts visitors from different states/countries. Some of these regular visitors have become queue friends.

          “Ah, queues,” I said to Shri Husband, “they’re an integral and not-to-be missed IFFI experience.”

“Films,” he muttered. “Saw any?”

I ignored his mumble and bashed on regardless: “I stood in queues for my card, for my kit, for booking tickets, for entering the theatre complex, for re-entering the theatre, for exiting the halls… it’s a democratic set-up, you can join any queue, any time. The best part is, some people don’t know which end of the queue to join. Others voice opinions that there should be separate queues for the silver-haired/ladies/Goans.”

“Good idea,” Shri Husband piped up. “Reservations within reservations, queues within queues, quotas within quotas.” Never know whether he’s serious/sarcastic. Sounded impressive, must use them (the phrases, not the allocations) sometime in my writing.

On the day a particular Marathi film was being screened, the CM was to be present. The queue-people were kept standing outside the building. No one knew when he’d arrive nor why it was important to keep them standing outside instead of waiting inside the theatre. The queues for two screens got mixed up. The ticketed and non-ticketed lines blended. Someone threatened to break the glass partition, a cop present on VIP duty said theatre security didn’t come under him… I rested against a wobbly bamboo support, assured that we truly are a tolerant nation. No stones were flung, no bones broken amidst the chaos and loud voices, no one threatened to leave the country, none choked when in unexpected togetherness everybody heaved, shoulder to shoulder, skin to skin, dupatta to sling-bag-handle, to enter. People have died for lesser causes, like fighting terrorists in Kupwara. Waiting for a VIP to arrive is a serious issue.

“Films,” interrupted Shri Husband. “Saw any?”

I recalled the ones I’d seen, from Spain, this year’s Country of Focus, brilliant ones from Indian states, in the categories ‘Cinema of the World’, ‘International Competition’, ‘Master Stroke’, ‘Kaliedoscope’, ‘First Cut’ and more. And realized that as an IFFIan, I’ve managed armchair travel, entered war zones and other centuries by commuting to Panaji for ten eventful days, got inside the minds and hearts of unusual people, met talented directors/actors/composers/writers.

I said to Bai Goanna: I’m thankful that IFFI’s in Goa. It triggered off a tirade of questions on government expenditure and knowing what’s good for us citizens. I’m still hearing her out. Like I said, listeners like me are hard to find.   

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A History of the Watches in My House.

          I said to Shri Husband: “Anyone under forty years of age won’t believe me if I tell them you didn’t own a watch when you were in school.”

“I don’t know why you’d want to advertise what I didn’t own, but whilst you’re at it, tell them I didn’t own a computer or mobile phone either,” he said.

Me: “They didn’t exist then.”

He: “Who… people under forty?”

Me, hiding exasperation: “Yes, those too, but I meant computers and cell-phones.”

He: “That was true of most people of my generation. If your parents were well-to-do, you got a watch when you went to college.”

Me: “Did your parents give you a watch after you passed high secondary?”

He: “Don’t remember.”

Me, in an attempt to badger him: “You don’t remember whether you finished school?”

Familiar indecipherable growl from Shri Husband that could be translated as “irritating sense of humour” or “bad grammar” or “shut up”.

Me, trying unsuccessfully to be an “adarsh Bharatiya naari”, trying to pacify the bad mood: “People usually remember these things. They keep their father’s watches carefully in safes in cupboards, wear them on occasions, and talk about sentimental values.”

He, unaffected by what he refers to as ‘mush and nonsense’: “Do a survey and find out what number that ‘usually’ is.”

Shri Husband believes in the management mantra: quantify everything. If I say usually, generally, or mostly, I don’t really work out an average with numbers or check percentages. Shri Husband, as if reading my mind: “Don’t go around doing a survey; I’m just saying that nine out of ten people won’t have any old watches at home. Winding watches are dead and gone, like big radios, gramophone records… except in museums and in the homes of eccentric people.”

The last adjective was directed at me. I was sitting with my small collection of once-discarded, unwanted winding watches. Relatives/friends who didn’t know what to do with them gave them to me, relieved that they were spared the ‘sin’ of dumping them in the bin or selling them to a ‘raddiwala’ directly or via domestic help. There’s always a sense of guilt when one doesn’t know how to get rid of things that are supposed to have emotions attached to them.

I adopted them (the watches, not the emotions or the people).

According to Shri Husband, I have “…spent a small fortune getting them repaired/serviced over the last many years.”

“True,” I agree. “That’s why they’re still working. I’ve meticulously maintained and used them.”

Still do. When digital watches with tiny, round, flat cell-batteries in their bowels made their way into my life, I drew up a watch-roster so every piece got a chance to be on the wrist.

The ‘dukaandaar’ who services them tells me that there are others like me who care for such valueless items. As long as he gets paid, he’s happy. If it weren’t for idiosyncratic customers, his own once-in-demand skill would perish. He’s part of a nearly-extinct breed, like the knife-sharpener or the tinning-expert (the ‘kalhai-wala’).

Few women owned watches when we were children, so most of the watches in my ‘dabba’ are ‘gentswatches’ (said as one word). Long years ago, there was a waiting list for buyers of Made in India watches. The only other I’d heard of were Swiss watches with jewels and springs in their mechanism that were said to last a lifetime. If you didn’t have relatives who could smuggle in a watch for you (nothing good about the ol’ days, I tell you, even then people wanted to avoid paying ‘duty’), you had to book a watch a year before an eighteenth-birthday/wedding/exam-result. Once you owned it, you wound it once daily, kept it safe from rain, never loaned it and bequeathed it to a favourite amongst those who’d outlive you.

(Watch-care went to ridiculous lengths. I knew someone who shaved the distal part of his left hand so sweat wasn’t trapped and the watch was kept dry. Seriously.)

On a flight, a teenage co-passenger watched me wind my watch. I put it to his ear to let him hear the tick-tock. In his Gen-xxx world, from his cradle-days he’d seen brightly-coloured watches-and-straps. The only ticking sound he knew about was connected with bombs. He watched me suspiciously till we landed.

In spite of digitization and the introduction of the hh:mm:ss method of measuring time, watch-hands have survived. Many watches now have multiple hands inside several circles, telling the time(s) in New York, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Tokyo, wherever. Up-market advertisements remind us that nothing matches the luxury of owning such-and-such designer watch which is deep-water/earthquake proof and has innumerable seldom-used features. This in a world where the humble mobile-phone has shoved cameras away from shop-shelves and got their manufacturers worried about their future.

I said aloud: “Phones do the job of watches, every computer has a clock in it, why do we need wrist-watches at all?”

Shri Husband responded: “There are suckers for all things foolish.”

Not knowing what to say next, I was furiously winding a cute old alarm-clock when it fell out of my hand.

And Shri Husband yelled: “Watch out.” Strange, how puns happen at the unlikeliest of times.

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Classical Music in Goa.

        We get tourists through the year, but The Season between October and March, when the goras (are supposed to) rule the lodging/boarding economy is the period to attend un-ticketed music programs.

        I grew up waking up to the whine of AIR’s signature tune at 0600 hrs. Tapes/records were owned by the rich. Audio-cassettes were decades away. Mobile phones weren’t invented, cds and ipods unknown. Doordarshan wasn’t born. Everyone switched on the radio to listen to a) music or b) the news read by Pamela Singh/ Devkinandan Pandey.

        I disliked classical music. The long-drawn groans of ‘aalaaps’ and gurgling ‘taans’ helped catapult me out of bed and, after compulsory ablutions, into the school uniform. There was no way I could tell my parents to switch off that cacophony, made worse by the crackling of the radio-set, and tune in to some groovy stuff. (In my childhood, speaking one’s mind was against our culture/tradition/parampara.)

        Announcers announced which ‘ustaad/pandit/begum’ was accompanied on the ‘tabla/taanpura’ by whom. The raags/‘thaats/gharanas were explained. Same-same for western classical music programs which pronounced names that didn’t match the spellings we read in encyclopaedias (Chopin=show-pan).

The moment the parents were out of the house, on came the Beatles/ Abba and Binaca Geet Mala. We rocked-and-rolled behind closed doors, high on sly naughtiness.

        My sister’s marriage to a classical-music aficionado dragged me into a world of dark, air-conditioned auditoriums with us walking through the aisles towards a well-lit stage, searching for seats. Or someone’s very large drawing-room. Silk saris, flowers in buns/plaits, men in kurtas wearing chappals with zari-work. Everyone discussing how a ‘pancham’ was ‘pulled’ (“keenchaa”). The rhythms’ pace and tempo, the finger-work, the ‘riyaaz’ that led to excellence and brilliant past performances were part of the conversation. Through yawns, aching knees and general boredom, ‘wah-wahs’ entered my personal lexicon.

        (Shri Husband’s uninvited aside after reading what I was typing: “Confess, you thought ‘kyaa baat hai’ had something to do with bath-bucket-mug-soap…” Me, silently as mostly, continuing to type unoffended.)

        Fast forward to Jodhpur. We lived near Umaid Bhavan; its mini-theatre was open to anyone interested in western/Indian classical music. Free programs at the far-off Meherangadh Fort attracted us, partly because of the drive and location. When unforgettable moon-/star-lit desert nights were matched with melodies, the experience became addictive.

        Fast-further-forward to 2015. I can download a you-tube-rendition of ‘Bihag’ or ‘Chandrakauns’ at night. Past midnight, I can check out a ‘Darbari Kannada’. I get to enjoy a late Sunday-morning ‘Jaunpuri’ on my pen-drive, nap to the strains of a ‘Gaud Sarang’ or ‘Pilu’ and awake from my siesta with a ‘Multani’.

        When November crept in, over a Friday-Saturday I saw ‘Pravah’: a two-day festival of music and dance. The Kala Academy had collaborated with New Delhi's India International Rural Cultural Centre.

Qawwaal Abdul Hamid Sabri explained the poems and verses, the various kinds of songs (thumri, hori, tappa, ghazal), and demonstrated how lung-power worked. On the second evening, Kathak danseuse, Rachana Yadav, presented a group ballet. The vigour and grace of “Baso morey nainan main nandalal” was so good, I thought it was the finale. But the “Om namah shivaya” turned out to be as good.

        Sunday was spent at the day-long fifth-edition of ‘Swarmangesh’. Manjusha Patil’s ‘Raamkali ‘was a super curtain-raiser. I wondered who’d match that. But Suchismita Das gave an equally good rendition of ‘Bilaskhani Todi’. Missed Yogesh Samsi’s tabla-vaadan because of poor program-schedule adherence. Our loss, but since most of the audience had exited for lunch, the artist’s loss, too. The sarod-violin jugalbandi between Abir Hussain and Saket Sahu in raag ‘Chaiti’ and the dose of Kathak by Bangloreans, Rajendra and Nirupama were good.

        Best of all was the Kesarbai Kerkar Samaroha. Undoubtedly one of the best music festivals in India, possibly the world (so the compere informed us). The line-up: Parween Sultana (she didn’t need a mike, even with a sore throat), Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Shounak Abhisheki, Kalapini Komkali, Nash Naubert… impressed?

        Vinayak Torvi, and Venkatesh Kumar’s singing… awesome!  Manjiri Asnare Kelkar and Kumar Mardur: excellent. Can’t believe we don’t have a single television/radio channel that brings such talent to our homes.

        Last of all, Amjad Ali Khan. He gave us snippets of ragas and ended with ‘Ekla Chalo Rey’. We clapped hard at his mastery over the instrument. Clapped harder when he offered (and VS Wagh accepted) his services to Goan students of music. But, whilst walking out, I realised how discerning Goa’s audience is. Several voices disappointedly confessed that they wished he (AA Khan, not VS Wagh) had given them a session of pure classical music, not just plucked interesting tunes.   

        I said to Shri Husband: “Goa offers such fantastic things, all free.”

        Shri Husband said: “What’s free? Feni? Fish? Absolutely not. Sunsets, yes.”

        Me: “I meant cultural stuff.”

        Shri Husband, in rare agreement: “Yes, our temples, churches and government-sponsored non-commercial programs really can be promoted as tourist attractions. Remember the choir-singing in the chapel on the mount behind the old Goa churches? But…” and here the cynical mind plays a role…”it’s better they are kept away from the paying hordes… umm, vice-versa, maybe the paying hordes should be kept away from these programs.”

        He’s right. As always. For many of the music lovers come from faraway Pednem/Bicholim/Canacona/Quepem carrying tiffins and water-bottles to spend the day enjoying high-grade music. Several of the musicians mentioned that such audiences aren’t found in many parts of India. Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa are the exceptions. If the paying tourist comes in, there’ll be a shortage of seats. 

Should the classical things in life be kept free? Should they be promoted to attract tourists/commerce? Debatable.

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Bai Goanna and the OROP news

         Bai Goanna said, “Jaitley is smart.”

“Where’d you meet Jaitley?” Shri Husband and I chorused.

“Saw him on television,” she said.

         Bai Goanna finds loud voices (A Goswami) and insufferable attitudes (MS Iyer) attractive.

         “How so?” I prodded her.  

         Bai Goanna said: “The way he handled the award-wapasi was fantastic.”

         Before I could say a word, Shri Husband, butted in: “Did he convince the awardees to make it a wapas-wapasi?”

         Bai Goanna, took her eyes off me and addressed Shri Husband: “Don’t be silly.”

         Shri Husband, annoyingly: “I’m serious. Can’t make out what’s happening. The channels seem to keep swapping the headlines: beef bans, intolerance, conspiracy theories…”

         Bai Goanna: “Don’t bring up multiple points.”

         Shri Husband: “Why not? Jaitley does exactly that, doesn’t he? If someone asks him about intolerance, he brings up Sonia/Uddhav/Kerala CM/God. Throws questions back instead of replying to those asked of him.”

         Bai Goanna ignored Shri Husband and went completely off-track: another Jaitley trick.

         She brought up something that’s NOT been seen on television news for many days. In between watching cops and a couple in Mumbai thrash each other, she said: “Long time no OROP.”

         “What?” Shri Husband asked, perplexed.

         “See,” Bai Goanna said triumphantly. “You’d forgotten. One Rank One Pension. The government made sure that headline went off the channels in mid-September.”

         Shri Husband: “Oh?”

         Bai Goanna reasoned:  “Till mid-September, the channels were covering the ex-servicemen’s protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.”

         “Yes,” Shri Husband recalled (and so did I). “For the first time in India people protested without abusing the government, shouting slogans against anyone or throwing stones.”

         Bai Goanna: “Military people behave as if they’re goras. They even believe in punctuality.”

Me: “Good thing?”

Bai Goanna: “Abroad maybe, but in India, you have to be like Indians, no? The British left us in 1947, and these military people are still following their traditions. No eating paan at work, no spitting in their offices, no wearing slippers at formal functions.”

Shri Husband snapped: “Your soldiers are known for their professionalism. Another British tradition maybe?”

I interrupted: “Bai Goanna, explain OROP.”

She said: “The government had agreed that a soldier who retired at a certain rank after putting in the same years of service, would get the same pension-amount as an identically placed colleague who may have retired in some other year. Right now, those who are in their eighties are getting much less than those who retired say last year, all things being equal.”

She halted to inhale.

Shri Husband immediately butted in: “Besides, soldiers retire in their mid-thirties/forties, not the usual sixty.”

“Why?” I wondered.

“Because you can’t have paunchy, flabby forty-year-olds panting into war… the defence forces have to be young and fighting fit.”

Bai Goanna carried on: “The veterans asked Jaitley whether or not the government would keep its promise. Yes or no, they asked.”

“And?” I wanted to know more.

Said Shri Husband: “Jaitley didn’t want to say yes and he couldn’t say no and so the channels must have been told to black out that bit of news, I guess. Bai Goanna has pointed out that nothing about the OROP has been on television or the print media since mid-September.”

I said: “Maybe the government doesn’t have the money.”

Shri Husband mumbled: “The government can cut down on wasteful expenditure, recover black money...” From the google-archives he read: “Implementation of the OROP…will not strain government’s fiscal position, minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha …said at the NITI Aayog.”

Then Bai Goanna read a snippet of two weeks ago: “There was a big gathering of ex-servicemen in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan.” Looking at us, she added: “That Jaitley, our FM, powerful man, no? Not a single channel covered the gathering.”

I don’t know whether she understood anything that she was reading out: “Jaitley had ruled out annual revision of pension under OROP but said government will safeguard interests of soldiers retiring at an early age through higher pensions.”

Shri Husband got irritated: “You should be praising the ex-servicemen, not Jaitley. They have asked – and rightfully so—that the OROP be implemented as recommended by the Koshiyari Committee.”

Bai Goanna retorted calmly, coolly, indifferently: “Jaitley knows better.”

“He’s spending the taxes I’ve paid all my life. I want to know how. And I’d like to be safe from our enemies, too.”

“Arrey, Jaitley promised…,” Bai Goanna began.

Shri Husband’s temper began to fray: “So did Parrikar, so did Modi… promises fulfilled partially. They say one thing, do another. And they blank out the truth from the television…”

Said Bai Goanna smugly: “They are powerful, not like you; the television people listen to them.”

Shri Husband googled again: “Jaitley said ‘we cannot have an OROP where pensions are revised every year... some arithmetic problem. Just wondering, why aren't the figures shared with us? What’s the point of blanking this topic?  The issue affects lakhs of ex-servicemen and war widows. Some bright software chap might come up with a solution.”

Lecture-baazi shuru, I thought.

Shri Husband continued to read: “Arun Jaitley said annual revision in pensions do not happen anywhere in the world.  I say, we could make a beginning here, like a make-in-India thing.”

Bai Goanna suddenly said: “You sound better than Jaitley, yaar.”

Sometimes, he (Shri Husband, not the FM) does me proud.

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Re-using Gifts.

          The silly season’s nearly over, and you’re stuck with a five cakes still wrapped in transparent plastic, four sets of table-napkins, three packets of fancy candles, two boxes of chocolates and a bottle of cheap wine (you could use that for trying out an au vin recipe). Not including the curios which, if you display them, are going to add to your dusting woes. You’re lucky no one’s gifted you a puppy or turtle. Or shiny marbles one more time. Or your umpteenth pair of brightly coloured socks (unless you’re a collector). Or plants/flowers your mother-in-law is allergic to.

          If you think buying presents is a tough job, using gifts someone else had chosen is tougher. Those with bursting wardrobes and overflowing book-shelves (and no time to read those tomes) know how irritating it can be to add yet another item to the collection. So much easier to handle a piece of precious jewellery, but not everyone takes the hint if you tell them that.

          So, after you’ve carefully unwrapped, un-creased, folded and kept away the wrapping paper – you do re-use that, don’t you – sort out the gifts into will use, may use and won’t use ever. Put a little chit inside the gift with the name of the person who gave it to you. that way you won’t by mistake give it back to the same person. And make sure there’s nothing written inside the box. (Once, when a friend opened a carton of fine china coffee mugs, she found a note that read ‘from ‘X’ to ‘Y’’ indicating that they weren’t originally meant for her). If you don’t want the next person to pass it on further, paste a chit with your name and good wishes prominently on the inside of the box, or write the same with a bright felt-tipped pen. Break the chain thus.

          Books can be passed on quite easily if one’s name isn’t written anywhere (inspect carefully, people like me write stuff in one of the inner pages for an ‘ouch’ moment: if I’ve gifted a book, I don’t like it to be passed on). Ever since we began to download music and movies, it’s hard to give away cds and tapes (remember those?) if one does receive any.  

          If your relatives and friends insist on giving you pillow-cases with ‘sweet-dreams’ embroidered on them, or thin steel trays that make a patak sound when handled or perfumes that are strong and horrid enough to be sprayed in bus-stand loos, please gift them away in charity. The poor and needy don’t mind. Some people give very practical gifts: diapers and some unmentionable female hygiene products, soaps, shampoos, ear-buds, refills for ball-point pens. I don’t mind those kinds, I’m actually quite comfortable in this category till the level of bath-towels, for they are consumables.

          What if you live in a tiny flat and you receive a huge crystal glass bowl? No place to keep it, too expensive to gift away easily, emotions involved? I suggest stash it away until you buy yourself a bigger place. If you must reuse it, make sure you remember to give it to a favourite relative/friend who will value it, so that every time you see it, you know it’s ‘yours’ and feel some joy. Not of owning, but that the thing is being cared for. Like one might feel for a loved pet. There are people who feel the same affection for their (dear, departed) expensive gifts.

          There are people who keep every gift they receive: unmatched sets of coffee mugs, painted shells, manicure sets, etc. Every painting and ceramic plate they get is displayed. In the old days, wall-clocks took a lot of wall-space in these hoarders’ homes. They delight in telling you that the (truly awful) blouse(s) they are wearing was/were gifted by xyz neighbour/schoolmate/acquaintance. This article isn’t for them. (The slashes to include both singular and plural are for grammar Nazis, my apologies to lesser mortals.)

          The New Year has been ushered in. In homes across Goa, unwanted gifts will find their way to the loft, to be aired, dusted, repacked and gifted when the time comes to people on birthdays, anniversaries, friendship days, and more.

          The smart ones, who want to make sure their gifts are valued know that, when in doubt, it’s best to go traditional. Home-made foods are rarely reused. ‘Specially if the giver smartly insists on opening the jar/dabba in the presence of everybody and offers the snack/dish/drink around. There’s something about well-made hand-crafted things and living (potted or otherwise) plants that makes it difficult for recipients to resist keeping them.

          And before you decide what to keep, discard or pass on, bear in mind: the mantra of the three ‘R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

          Until the next celebration, happy gifting!