as i wrote some time ago, i had gone to Bangalore on a brief visit. this was late December. verified the common complaints of slow traffic; verified also the lovely gardens and trees, and loads of elegance in the common architecture and planning. it is clear that the city hasn't managed to grow as fast as its population has grown, but that's kind of like regretting a diamond isn't as heavy as a boulder.

on the way back to the airport, i chanced upon the signboard of a company, where an old friend of mine works. he's a friend from undergrad college days, and just as i passed the signboard, i called him up on his cell phone. he was busy and promised to call back. he didn't and i sympathize with him. the sheer effort needed to live through a usual day of work in a modern company is enough to take the best out of a guy.

but that was sort of beside the point. the memory of my friend led to a rush of memories from those days. memories and dreams - a pet dream, which we often bandied amongst ourselves, was to form a rock band. hah! looking at us now - getting into our 40s, wearing out the synthetic fabric of corporate chairs. it's so incongruous to even remember that we had such dreams; a travesty, no less, of that youthful exuberance.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock/T.S. Eliot)

Bangalore is changing names; it's growing at break-neck pace; it's people are thirsting for water, but probably don't really care because there's always Bisleri or beer; Bangalore is a lovely city turning into a commercial warehouse of software programmers. but Bangalore will always be special because the city made me feel, and remember, and regret.

feminism has an amazing place in Hindu religious narrative. while returning from Bangalore the other day, i happened to glance through the in-flight magazine. it had a piece on West Bengal as a tourist destination. Bengal and Assam are really the places where the female elements in Hindu religious tradition, are most developed and popularly accepted.

the most striking narrative is that of Durga. as the story goes, there was this demon, Mahishasur (mahish = buffalo, asur = demon), who had, as a culmination of extreme penance, obtained a boon of immortality from Brahma - "no man or god can kill you...". Mahishasur dominated over earth and heavens, and cast the gods out of heaven. the balance of good and evil was upset by the practices of the followers of the demon king.

exasperated, the gods got together in the standard delegation and sought relief from Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Brahma's boon was unassailable. however, there was a flaw in the boon, and the female element creeps in here. Durga was a woman, and Mahishasur was immune only to man and god.

Durga was blessed with the pick of godly weapons. i remember only some - Kubera's club, Indra's thunderbolt, Vayu's arrow. i think Himalayas gifted her the lion, which serves as her vehicle. there were other gifts to her - her garland of serpents, et al. she was stronger than
any god - even Shiva could not match her powers because she had concentrated the collective powers of all gods.

note the contradictions. women are associated with weakness and fragility (abala in Hindi = lacking strength, is a synonym of woman) - Durga was the greatest power the universe had seen. women are associated with beauty. Durga was hideous, even grotesque. it is said
that brave warriors could not even survive looking at her form. women are associated with compliance, discipline, and control - Durga was the antithesis of all these qualities - she was uncontrolled and audaciously reckless.

it is very striking how this narrative contrasts with the Ramayana treatment of women. repeatedly in Rama's narrative, we see women in subservient and helpless positions - almost possessions of the men they are associated with. we see paramount purity in Sita's role. we see their association with earth or nature, but we do not see displays of power or independence. what we see in Ramayama is more or less the archetypal image of women in early modern India.

ps: by "early modern India", above, i mean the India that existed before the advent of TV, IT jobs, and other such stuff, which are rapidly transforming India into just another "developed nation state" - lacking in any form of social character. i like to call this degraded India a junk-country, like junk food. i dislike this degradation, though i can't reverse it. indeed, i do a lot of things that typical folks in junk-countries do. i just have one peevish protest - i don't watch cable TV.

just finished White Mughals by William Dalrymple. it's an interesting story, but not really fascinating, as a book on history. indeed, the book provides little insight into the fairly complex political history of the period. of course, the high point of the book is the expansive descriptions of the social history of the period, as reflected in the social behavior patterns of the English, the French and the aristocratic Indian strata.

some day maybe i'll get a chance to write about the political history of this period. it's interesting stuff.

one of the thoughts that did flow from reading this book was about English-inspired architecture - those stately mansions, with tall imposing pillars bordering expansive verandahs, (column arch decoration???) even in commonplace buildings like post offices and railway stations. there is no doubt that there's character in those buildings. if you've strolled through the area around Writer's Building in Kolkata, or the Fort area in Mumbai, or in many areas of Delhi, you will, no doubt, have felt the sense of resplendent ascendancy - dignified and celebratory - that this kind of architecture inspires in one.

but, just as a thought, compare them with the Taj, or the numerous buildings dotted all over the areas of medieval Muslim kingdoms, or the more modern buildings that emerged from the sybaritic culture of Oudh, or the dramatic temples of Orissa. think of all those human hands and eyes that had shaped the intricate inlay work and trellises, the twisted lines of stone. and how these art forms would have been patronized by the older rulers of India? masons and architects, who for years on end, would have risen with the dream of a shape in their mind, would have worked through the day, with primitive implements to realize those shapes, and how those tired bodies would have been lulled to sleep by some ineluctable madness to create. no, these English buildings don't bind me in their spell anymore.

i had started White Mughals, while i was still about two-thirds of the way through the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. lovely book, I'm reading it for the second time. (it helps that i forget easily.) i have always been amazed by the manner in which Hitler transformed Germany into the monstrous state that Nazi Germany was. it is perhaps one of the most successful attempts at behavior modification at such a large scale. like i said it's a lovely book, if you're inclined towards history.

no one who grew up in India, after the 1970's, will really know the meaning of romance. that was a sense of romance carried through the air of Vividh Bharti, from the pens of aging song writers of the Hindi film world; a sense of romance brought on by the imposition of emergency and India's miraculously dramatic recovery. these were the days when telephone connections and cooking gas was rare, and Amitabh Bachan stimulated a sense of angst that held the country together.
today, as i grow old, and watch young kids holding hands in the bazaar; as the bazaar gives way to malls; as everything becomes a calculation of EMI, there is no romance left in life.
sometimes, this realization hits me so strongly, i see little value in living in such a world.
yet, we still can savour the frisson of middle-aged marriages, though we may survive to see their decline as well.
if you ever, wonder about the name of my blog, it's simply a promise that i'll post when i'm drunk.