Review: The Alchemy of Desire, Tarun Tejpal

For a long time I had been wanting to read Tarun Tejpal given his association with Tehelka. And it turned out to be worth the wait. The Alchemy of Desire is a wonderfully written book, definitely one of the better ones I have read from an Indian author. It has layers and layers of stories within a relatively simple plot. Tarun uses a combination of honest stating and uncommon metaphors to bring alive people and places across different generations. Parts of it touch you in an eerie way, exposing your own insecurities and indulgences. This book also made me realize something special about books written by Indian and set in India – you can connect so much better to the places and emotions being described. As this book traveled through Delhi, Chandigrah, Kasauli and Nainital, I could recall the sights, smells and sounds being described. This feels beautiful. And it is rare, because often Indian authors write books set in a different era, in a foreign land. There is only one thing about the book that I found immensely irritating. Whenever the author writes about sex, he does so in strange euphemisms and that too over long paras. Its excruciating to go through those parts of the book. I wish he had shown this the same irreverence and matter-of-fact approach he has taken to rest of the book. Some time back I had come across an articles about an international award for worst description of sex in a literary novel and I think this book should have been a contended for it! Still, overall this is a great book and I am sure to now go ahead and pick up Tarun’s next book (The Story of My Assassins) as well.

There are a number of memorable lines in this book, some funny, some tragic and some insightful. Here are some of my favourites:

- It (desire) is our greatest undoing. And the only reason for all doing

- You must act on desire before you renounce it. There can be no merit in forgoing the unknown.

- She was a jazz band in a five-star disco

- The truth is no life is neat. Those we see – and those we read about – seem to possess neatness only because we know so little about them… …All lived lives are a mess

- The masters of more propagating the virtues of less

- Money had made more big men small than anything else I knew

- There are very intelligent people like that, who equate soft with weak, and are vehemently opposed to both

- …the rare American, interested in things beyond her own shores

2010
02/05
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61st Republic Day

Watching the Republic Day parade on DD after a long time. The program started with an introduction by a typical DD-style lady clad in a silk saree saying a few words in shuddh Hindi. This was followed by an introduction to the key monuments – the India Gate, the Rashtrapati Bhawan, the Parliament House – all done in plain words, in a simple way, as if someone reciting an essay we used to write as kids in high school. There is something unique and unchanging about DD – the slightly faded colours of the images, the appearance and style of its presenters, the tone and pronunciation of the words,… …and it feels wonderful!

Truly wonderful indeed. No sensationalism. No remixed music in the background. No flashing of images before you can make out what they are. Less focus on the presenters and their wardrobe, more on the content. Language that is proper and punctuated, not full of slangs and slogans. Watching this I realize how much I miss it in the rest of TV I see today. It is the difference between having hand-whipped coffee at home compared to a cappuccino – with hazelnut flavour – cream-chocolate sauce topping at Costa!

Today, they have launched a new version of ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’. I just saw it. It has been done  well – they have brought in new flavours to make it relevant for the younger generations. But most in our generation it will never match up to the earlier one. This is because that something like this gets its relevance and attachment from the way it becomes a part of your childhood as you grow with it. There is so much history and memories that go with the old ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ that make it so special for all of us. Still it is good to someone thinking of re-making it. Somewhere it might connect our generation with the next and create a common linkage across the chasm of facebook, I-pods and twitter.

What a misty day though – I wonder how they will perform the air show today? Hope all goes well

2010
01/26
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Goa vacation, Day 7

Last day of the vacation. Today we leave to go back to the humdrum life in Gurgaon. It has been a truly great and relaxing vacation. The resort has been an excellent one too. As a final goodbye, we went for a longish walk on the beach today. We have been to Goa before but this has been the best so far. Maybe now I realize why Goa is such a repeat destination for so many people. I have friends, including my elder brother, who come to Goa almost every other year. I could never understand why. But now I do a little bit. Coming to Goa is not about sightseeing or discovering something new, it is about doing something tried and tested – have a grand time on a beach. We too can easily come here again. So whenever we find too much inventory on our Club Mahindra account, we will just book a vacation to Goa :-)

A final walk on the beach

Club Mahindra Resort

Our room at the resort

Club Mahindra Resort

2009
12/28
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Goa vacation, Day 6

Today was a day dedicated to the beach. We went to the beach near the resort at noon and stayed there till the evening. During this time we spend a lot of time playing in the sea. It was wonderful !  The feel of the waves splashing against your back, being carried up with the crest of a wave, having the water smashed into your face and having that salty taste of sea water deep inside… …it is exhilarating.  Once again the advantage of being on a secluded beach was unmatched – we could have a long stretch of the beach all to ourselves while we did all these stupid antics. We also spend a good deal of time sunbathing on beach chairs. While neither of us needed any tanning, the allure of lying on the beach, basking in the sun, reading a book and having drinks and snacks served to you was too tempting to let go. In the first shack we lay down, our peace was disturbed by a boisterous family creating a ruckus nearby. There are some people in this world who have this urge to talk loud all the time, announce their presence to the world around them, hoping to get attention and creating a general atmosphere of cacophony wherever they go. I hate them! The world would be a much better and peaceful place without them. Anyway, we shifted to another shack further down the beach and this was a lot more peaceful. To our surprise, we found a middle-aged foreigner sunbathing topless there. It is illegal to do that in Goa. But more importantly, we were surprised that someone would find it safe to do that on a secluded beach like that. Before returning to the resort, we went for another dip in the ocean. Once back at the resort, we spent some time in the pool – in a separate part of it generally kept for children but we preferred that to the mail pool which had lots of bald uncles with paunches, aunties wearing knee-length swimsuits and an army of kids fighting with each other.  A fantastic day spent being water creatures. I can still feel the sand on my body and the salt in my mouth as I go to bed.

2009
12/25
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Goa vacation, Day 5

Today we again decided to go for some more sight-seeing (especially given that we hardly did any yesterday). With intense effort, we were able to leave our resort by 12 noon. We were undecided on whether to once again take a bike or rent a taxi. Thankfully, better sense prevailed and we took a taxi.

We started by going to Old Goa which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and seeing the famous Basilica of Bom Jesus there. The church is quite nice and very different from the ones we had seen in Europe. But once again, it seemed as if it has not been given proper care – many of the paintings on the walls were worn off and there were no guide books or tours. Still it felt nice to sit in the church for a few minutes. From there we went to Panaji for some shopping. The drive from Old Goa to Panaji was quite picturesque as it was along the Mandovi river. At this time, I must also talk a bit about Magno, our taxi driver. For most part of the taxi ride, I engaged in a lively discussion with him (something I rarely do) and found it quite stimulating. He was from a village near the Club Mahindra resort. In fact, the entire fleet of 40 taxi drivers that stand outside the Club Mahindra resort is from that village. They have formed a strong union that charges 1.5 times the rates of taxis in rest of Goa and something that has made the Club Mahindra resort quite infamous. Magno had worked at the resort for 2 years as a house-keeping staff but left it because of low pay 8 years back to take up taxi driving. He owned an Omni van earlier but as people were reluctant to sit in it, he switched to a Chevrolet Tavera 4 years back. He cribbed about the huge taxes he has to pay for his taxi, the increase in tourist traffic in Goa, the roads in Goa being too narrow and a whole bunch of other things. But all this was said without too much bitterness and in a matter of fact way. I think the fact that we were engaging in a conversation about it made me more amused at these things than angry. The same thing if a taxi driver does – cribs all the time – by himself when you are not interested in talking to him, can be quite irritating.

Basilica of Bom Jesus

Panaji’s main market on 18th June road was similar to the Naveen market in Kanpur. I think a lot of small cities have these kinds of markets – rows of stand-alone shops that seem to follow no pattern or rhythm. There is a smallish general store followed by a large clothes shop, next to which is a government shop selling HMT watches, followed by a Dominos pizza next to which is a narrow staircase leading to the office of an advocate above opposite which is a 4-star hotel.  We walked around for an hour buying some cashews and fenny, and having some pizza. There is something ceremonious about buying the local delicacy while travelling even if you know you can get the same stuff, maybe even the same brand, in your home city at the same or lower rate. So giving someone cashews you got from Goa is better than giving them the same packet that you might have bought from a Spencers. One intriguing site in the 18th June market was that a large part of one set of buildings seemed to be government offices and that too from the 1970s. There were broken furniture and old files piled up in the balcony for many floors, and right below on the ground floor were shops. In a particularly arresting site, representing the dilemma India is living through, there was the sign of a Khadi Department Office on one of the offices and below it on the ground floor was a US Dollar store!

We were done with Old Goa and Panaji much earlier than we expected. It was only 4 pm. So we decided to check out the famous Calangute and Baga beaches. We had heard a bit about the hangouts in these places like Tito’s and Zanzibar. So we told Magno that we want to go to Tito’s. He almost flipped, suddenly his tone changed to an aggressive one and he started saying that we hadn’t agree to go to North Goa. In between his incoherent outburst we realized he thought we were going to party there and since that typically starts late at night and goes on till morning, he thought he is going to miss his midnight Christmas mass. We assured him that we have no intention of being out that late and will return in an hour or so after seeing the beach. With some reluctance, he agreed and took us to the Calangute beach.

As expected, the beach was very crowded with lots of people approaching you to sell their stuff that ranged from bead necklaces to water-sports. Surprisingly, it seemed a lot less dirty than I remembered it to be from my visit almost a decade back. On asking around, we realized that Magno had brought to the other end of the beach from where Tito’s and Zanzibar was a long walk. We thought of given up the idea of checking out those places, knowing anyway that they are unlikely to be interesting so early in the evening. But once again, having come so close to our destination, we decided to take the long walk and at least see the places once. So we started walking. I am sure we looked funny since we weren’t dressed for the beach – we were wearing jeans and t-shirts with closed shoes and had a huge camera with us. But it is easier to get away with that in India where you will find a few other souls similarly dressed on the beach. The beach crowd made an interesting sight – it was a complete mix of all kinds of people: while blondes in skimpy bikinis, group of guys in their underwear (probably from some engineering college) ogling shamelessly at the blondes, large families in a state of complete chaos as they tried to control their unruly kids, old couples sitting in a shack and having a beer… …and most interestingly they all seemed comfortable with each other. This is really unique about Goa – I have never seen foreigners and Indians in such close proximity in such a large crowd in such a state of undress and yet be so comfortable.  Kudos to Goa for managing that! We finally reached Zanzibar after a long trek of 20 minutes. It was a nice place with a view to the sea and some cool music, but so were a lot of other shacks on the beach. Maybe this was just a little higher-end version of them. We sat there and enjoyed a drink, watching the sunset. Then we made our way back to dear Magno and our resort. It was a great thing that we didn’t take the bike. The ride back in the car was so comfortably and cosy, very different from the precarious bike ride yesterday. The fact that we put on a Norah Jones CD we were carrying with us made the evening even more romantic. On our way, we stopped to pick up a cake from a local bakery. I had been dying to have one of those cakes we had in our childhood with a slightly crisper cake and sugar icing on top. And we found exactly that. We also picked up a small plum cake for Magno. It is Christmas after all! All in all a wonderful day that ended with us cutting our cake at midnight :-)

Sunset at Calangute Beach

2009
12/24
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Goa vacation, Day 4

My wife seemed to have recovered from her illness completely by today morning. So we decided to go out and do some sightseeing in Goa. Almost everyone who has been to Goa talks about the fun of hiring a bike and roaming around the narrow roads of Goa on that. Moreover, my wife has always had a fascination for bikes and she has always chided me for not owning a bike. Today seemed like the perfect day to set the record straight!

As always, even with our best intentions, we could leave our resort only by three in the afternoon. Actually, there is a good reason for it. We went for a lovely, 2-hr long walk on the beach early in the morning. It was outstanding! But as a result, our tired bodies retired to a blissful sleep after breakfast and by the time we got up, half the day was gone.

Any way, we went out of the resort looking to rent a bike and found ourselves a Honda Activa. It is amazing the kind of market share this has in Goa – almost 80% of the two-wheelers seem to be this. I  hope there is some government mandate to have it this way, otherwise it is a big blot on the marketing teams of other brands.

Our destination was the famous flea market on Anjuna beach, 75 kms to the north. At first the person giving us the bike seemed a little surprised that we are willing to undertake such a long trek this late in the day. He wanted to charge us Rs. 50 extra saying we would come back very late. But we assured him that we will be back in 6-7 hours and settled on a price of Rs. 250 for the day. So we set off, me with my huge helmet and my wife with our backpack, balanced precariously on that scooter. The initial ride was good as we went through some of the by-lanes of south Goa. But from the city of Madgoan, we had to take the main highway of Goa , NH-17, and that is when it became a little less exciting. The highway was quite crowded with all kinds of cars and trucks. Moreover, the highway was quite narrow with it being two-way and just two-lane for the most part. A little distance before Panaji, the capital city, a bypass road had been closed leading to a huge jam. By the time we crossed Panaji and stopped for an ice-cream break at a Basken Robbins, it was already 5 pm. We had thoughts of taking a U-turn and going back. Our bums were already hurting quite bad. But having come so far, we decided to carry on and at least see Anjuna beach once. By the time we reached there, it was 6 pm. We took a few snaps of the beautiful sun-set. The flea market was a little walk down the beach but the few shops that were there in the beginning gave us a good idea of the kind of market it was going to be – completely targeting the foreign tourists with nothing useful to offer. The markets in Delhi (e.g., Janpath for clothes) will give better stuff at 25% of the price. Also the parking lot guy told us that the market would have pretty much shut down by that time. So without wasting much time, we starting our journey back to the resort. By now, it was quite dark and we lost our way a bit. A kindly old uncle gave us directions and also, very sweetly, requested us to drive slowly as it can get quite dangerous at night. The return journey was longer as there was a massive traffic jam on the same stretch near Panaji as in the morning that made us lose almost an hour. Luckily, we were on a bike so we could do the dirty tricks of driving off the roads and finding our way between cars (things which I hate the two-wheelers for when I am in the car). If we had been in the car, I am sure we would have lost close to 3 hrs. The journey was also more stressful as you had trucks rushing past you on narrow, unlit roads and you just prayed that they can see you in the dark and not bump you from behind. We finally reached the resort at nine in the night, meeting the deadline we had promised the bike rental guy.

Sunset at Anjuna Beach

Sunset at Anjuna Beach

When we reached our rooms and looked in the mirror, we got the shock of our lives! It was impossible to recognize ourselves, we seemed to have spent a year working in the coal mines of Jharkhand. Our faces were dark and slimy, our hair dusty and ruffled. I was wearing a lemon colour shirt that had turned to dark grey. I suddenly felt a new found respect for all those people who travel by two-wheelers in the traffic of Delhi and Gurgaon.

But it was still a great experience to ride a bike after a long time. The last I did it was for a few minutes in 2003 I think. During my IIT days and earlier, we had a TVS Champ moped in the family and all the kids used to ride it a lot. But since then, I have rarely ridden a two-wheeler. I am not sure I will be keen to take more highway journeys on bikes but I will certainly not mind riding them on small by-lanes. Might be a good idea to do more of this if we come back to Goa and stay in the North Goa area.

A couple of interesting observations about Goa that this bike drive threw up – one is that Dominos and Baskin Robbins seem to be the only mainstream food brands present there. Moreover, they always have their shops next to each other in all places. Maybe the franchisee rights for both are with the same agency. Secondly, I have never seen foreigners so much at home in India! No wonder Goa is so popular with them – you see more of them than the domestic tourists.

2009
12/23
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Past-life regression

Today I finished reading ‘Only Love is Real’ by Dr. Brian Weiss. It is one of those extremely popular titles that you always find in every book store especially those on railway platforms and is also a favourite of the kids thrusting books into your face at traffic signals. Often I had picked it up, read the back cover and kept it back – my curiosity keen to know more about past-life regression and the sceptic in me put off by the overly preachy tone of it. Some of my friends have also read it and often talked about it. Yet I could never get myself to read it. Finally I picked it up after another discussion about past-lives with friends. The decision was probably also influenced by the recent TV show on past-life regression.

One of the strengths of this book is that it gives strong references to actual medical sessions conducted by Dr. Brian Weiss. This makes it a lot more credible. He also goes into a fair amount of detail of some of the past-life events of his patients and that too helps. . It is hard to ignore the voice of someone who has done this to over a 1000 people. No way he could get away with something like this over such a long period of time. Most of these details, if needed, can easily be verified by a third party. Personally, I did feel a certain positive energy as I read through the book. At the same time, the book indeed is very preachy and repetitive in its message on love and forgiveness. Don’t get me wrong. These are the right messages and they make sense. Yet I would prefer them coming from a more spiritual source like the Gita. Here they tend to sound a little superficial and forced at times. One genuine question I had while reading the book was why are all recollections so pure in their essence, why don’t people remember more mundane or scandalous stuff – like eating a sandwich or having sex? Maybe the simple answer is that they do remember but the author kept them out of the text of his book.

There is something extremely powerful about the notion of past-life regression. I can’t say I am a believer and yet I am far from being a non-believer. I have come across it before whenever I have ventured out to explore a bit more of the para-normal. That there is more to life and reality than we are aware of is for sure. In fact, there is more and more evidence in modern physics of it. Books like The Tao of Physics and The Elegant Universe have pieces that could with equal probability be from ancient mythological texts or modern physics textbooks. The similarities are uncanny. Yet what exactly this unknown is far from clear. I had a friend in engineering college who had vivid memories of his past life as a child. Another friend of mine did his engineering from Benares and had more than one spiritual experience there.  The elder brother of a close school friend was witness to a miracle from Sai Baba. There are enough instances to prove the existence of these phenomenon.  I wonder what stops this world from a wider acceptance of all this? Why is this not more mainstream? Why is the world not rushing after it like stem cell research? The possibilities and implications are even greater. Is it due to deliberate effort by someone influential enough like the church and other religious authorities? Or is it that the social system is not setup for funds and visibility to flow to such areas? Or is it lack of effort on parts of its practitioners and followers who are not documenting the stuff well enough, not collecting data in an accepted scientific manner and not willing to really make the knowledge widespread beyond their personal goals? Maybe the change is already happening and it is just a question of it reaching its tipping point when it takes centre-stage in how we perceive our world.

Sometimes I feel a certain fear thinking what will happen if all this was conclusively proven to be true?  Where will that path lead to? All things that constitute life right now might become irrelevant. If we do know that we truly are immortal, that we will get second chances even beyond this life, that there is more waiting for us beyond death and that we can remember all the past lives we have had, how will we want to live our lives? Or will we want to live at all?

2009
12/22
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Goa vacation, Day 2

I clearly seem to have gone overboard in praising the resort and its food. My dear wife seems to have picked up a stomach infection and is quite ill today.  So today was mostly a day of staying in our room and resting. Didn’t mind it though as that is exactly what we planned to do anyways.

In the evening, I went for a run on the beach. The beach here is extremely clean and not crowded at all. Very different from the earlier Goa beaches I have been to. This is one advantage of being in South Goa. While there are no party places around and all the action is concentrated in North Goa, the beaches here are lovely to spend time on, not like the usually dirty and crowded beaches in the North. It was beautiful to run next to the waves with the sun slowly beginning its descent. I will definitely want to do more of this over the next few days. My wife was inspired enough by my description of the beach to get herself up and take a walk to the beach. We went just when the sun was about to set and enjoyed watching the sky turn from orange to red to gray. The feel of the soft waves crashing against our feet and the sand shifting from under us as the waves receded was very relaxing.  It felt wonderful to just be there, not feeling the rush to get somewhere else, not desiring anything more than that moment gave us, and having the serenity to be in the present completely – our skin aware of the touch of the waves and the breeze, listening to the sounds of the ocean, looking at the clouds in the sky and feeling the presence of each other’s company. Life is beautiful.

2009
12/21
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Goa vacation, Day 1

Start of another vacation and it already feels wonderful.  This time we are in Goa for a week , for a relaxing vacation – the type we haven’t done for a while.  It is very different from our last year’s road trip to Rajasthan around the same time.

We were lucky to get a booking in the Club Mahindra resort here in Goa. Finally we get to use some days of the weeks we have been piling up since the time we became a member of this time-share.  This is the peak season for Goa and usually it is impossible to get a place in a time-share at this time. But there seemed to be some cancellations and we were offered this week a few days ago. Our earlier plan was to travel over new year’s but an opportunity like this was hard to pass so we instantly took it. (Also, like always, at the time we got this offer we had still finalized our plans for the new year trip so there was all the more reason to take this up). True to Club Mahindra standards, this resort too looks to be great one – well spread out, rooms are spacious and have a great view, the beach is a 2 min walk and the food is outstanding. So far we have never been disappointed in staying in a Club Mahindra resort.  In the fact, it was after staying as a guest in their Munnar resort for our first wedding anniversary that we immediately decided to sign up as a member.

The day itself was decent – the usual rush in the morning of last minute packing and catching the flight. The flight was delayed but mostly comfortable, though I must admit that I seem to becoming a bit more of a nervous air traveller than I used to be. The approach to the Goa airport was amazing – the runaway is right next to the beach and till the last minute before landing we were over the sea. When we got out of the plane, we realized that the weather was far warmer than we had anticipated.  But once we got into the cab for our resort, it became better with the breeze blowing into our faces.  The ride from the airport to the resort was almost half an hour and was perfect for getting us into a vacation mood. Most of the journey was through thick patches of greenery interrupted every now and then by small settlements that typically consisted of a few brick houses, a church and a row of shops.  It was far, far removed from the concrete jungle of Gurgaon and made us feel that we were indeed in a very different place. In fact, Goa reminds me a lot of places like Kumarakum, Mauritius and Thailand. It is amazing how all these tropical, beach resorts have such a similar feel to them, not just in terms of weather and scenery, but also in terms of architecture, infrastructure and people.

After reaching the resort, we had a good meal followed by a nice nap. In the evening, we went out to check the beach. It was too dark to do anything there but just listening to the waves gave us an assurance that we were indeed on a beach holiday. More of the beach will have to wait for tomorrow. The dinner was excellent though quite noisy with so many kids around. That is one thing which we realized the moment we boarded our flight in the morning – this being the tourist season and with us staying at a place where large families and groups come, we will have to put up with a lot of annoying and screaming kids around us. So far it has been tolerable. Let us see how we put up for the days ahead. One another annoying thing during dinner was this fat guy who sat opposite our table and kept staring at us. Initially, my wife was facing him and she got so uncomfortable that we exchanged seats. Surprisingly, this guy continued to stare, now in my direction! Then I realized that was all he was doing during dinner, staring at the tables in front of him. It made a sad picture. He was with his wife but they hardly talked and when they did it seemed to be very dry and to the point.  He must have been in his late forties and already he seemed without any love or hope. And he is not an exception, people like him (and couples like them) can be often seen around us. I felt sad for him. And I hope I never grow into a person like this. Better to be dead than to live a life whose boredom is so palpable even to people around you.

After dinner, we lay down on the beach chairs around the swimming pools and looked at the stars. It felt wonderful. It felt like we were on a relaxing vacation. I think the last time we gazed at the stars for this long was on one of the rafting trips to Rishikesh many years back. So a great start to the vacation. Looking forward to the next few days.

2009
12/20
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A dynamic world

Came across this really interesting video on my TED podcasts:

A dynamic world
It is interesting how, being part of the change, we sometimes are unable to notice how rapidly and how significantly we as a civilization are changing.
2009
12/17
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