Junetenth

I hated June. Primarily because it heralded the start of yet another laborious, benighted, sodden academic year. In India the academic year for all levels of education (such as it is) starts around the 10^th of June. This dystopian situation is compounded in Bombay by the onset of the monsoon season, with its grey skies, flooded rail tracks and damp, garbage strewn roads. I wasn’t particularly enthused by education at that time, and I am sure the feeling was mutual.

Bombay in my growing up years wasn’t a pleasing place at any time of the year, but the monsoon made it particularly noisome, fit for neither man nor beast (the average Bombayite falls into neither category, so he is totally fit for purpose.) As a student I was in an intermediary stage of evolution and my pleas to avoid school during this season, for fear of potential damage to my nascent psychological well-being, were fobbed off with earnest exhortations of how education was important to Get Ahead in Life!

I particularly disliked this period of the year due to the necessity of walking to school with a bag full of books – I abhor all forms of physical exertion except turning the pages of a book or raising a glass or fork to my mouth. My school was about 3 miles from home and the parent body felt the exercise would build a growing body and mind. Umbrellas of course were not an option to keep both boy and books safe and dry. The raincoats then in popular use barely reached one’s ankles and made the wearer look like a sherpa with a secret sorrow.  With the dampness seeping in through rubber shoes and making the socks wet, said boy was miserable, to put it mildly.

College years didn’t change my point of view of Junetenth, at least in Bombay. However, opportunities for travel began to show themselves and I discovered the joys of traipsing through boroughs and vales, hills and plains away from Bombay. The new-found liberty of parking oneself in a restaurant overlooking a verdant vista on a side road to somewhere and titillating the taste buds with tea and fried foods (apparently a Thing in the monsoon) helped reduce the mordant dislike that I used to feel for Junetenth.

Coming to man’s estate I found myself in Paris one grey September day, set to

rise further in the realms of academe. It was fall, it was raining that day, and it was raining heavily. But to my utter surprise, I found myself standing in the rain on the street outside the métro station and absorbing the genteel, delicate drops falling on my upturned face. The air felt fresh and clean, the roads were glistening like the lips of a beautiful woman drinking wine and the sheer profusion of colourful rainwear lifted my spirits no end. Of course, my spectacles misted up and I caught the death of a cold after that and was laid up for almost a week with fever and the shivers. But the realisation dawned on me that Junetenth was no more a problem!

The academic season in this developed and beautiful country starts in September, when the weather is fit for spoils and strategems of love, good wine and long walks (as Shakespeare would have said if he had lived in Paris as a student.)

I now look upon rain as a partner in fun and an affirmation that life is not just a four-letter word!

Ego, Igitur Scribo

I stuttered badly as a child. Really badly. I couldn’t even speak an entire sentence fluently, leave alone hold my own in a debate or other verbal activity. Growing up in the 70s and going through the rigors of education by numbers, I developed an extreme form of shyness and preferred my own company.

This shyness and preference to be in a shell made me gravitate towards the written word. I found books (not textbooks of course) to be a convenient and easy escape from the taunts and “sticks and stones” as Shakespeare put it so nicely. Books also allowed me to think – which I could without stuttering.

I also discovered a flair for languages and found French to be a wonderfully expressive language in which to put down ardent words of love and desire (though these were never delivered to actual living persons). And most importantly, I didn’t stammer at all when I spoke in French!

From reading to writing was a natural progression (though the third R wasn’t, and isn’t, my forte at all). Writing allowed me to express myself fluently, without halting, hesitating or pausing. In school, I delighted in writing essays, short stories and other pieces of prose. Esoteric topics like “The Autobiography Of An Umbrella” or “A Trip Through The Rain In India” were easy as pie for me. I could write, and keep writing, without fear of breaks or mockery. Long form essays and literary critiques in college were finger-snappingly easy!

I discovered a few channels on which to write - no digital platforms then but essentially the “middles” of prominent newspapers and some newsletters recommended by friends. The newspapers of course rejected my submissions without grace or gentleness. But I still treasure (and framed) the first ever rejection note I got – at least they bothered to reply! I also got opportunities to do English-French-English translations and earned enough to pay for my ticket to France for higher studies.

I started working in advertising and found myself doing more copy work than client relations. The opportunities to meet writers in different languages who could weave magic with words was exhilarating beyond…words! I also got opportunities to work in PR where I could use my writing skills to generate a lot of content such as press releases, white papers, ghost articles for clients and so on. This also helped me learn how to shape my thoughts and writing flow into coherent content and not just confused rambles on a page!

I moved to Dubai in the early naughties and continued to work in advertising. One of my core functions was to manage copy and content for all my clients. I thus got a chance to practice my writing skills on a wider canvas and explored industries as diverse as foods, airlines, telecom, medical services and financial services. The growth of the internet, social media and digital channels, and the development of the “smart phone”, gave me innumerable opportunities for pithy, silly or plain thought-provoking content which could be published at the click of a button.

I also started a blog to document the quirks, delights and tragedies of everyday life. You are reading this on my blog!

To conclude, my motto is “Ego, Igitur Scribo” – I Am, Therefore I Write. I can think of no more fulfilling activity than writing and I can’t wait to put down all the ideas jostling in my head on to paper till the ink dries out!

Shifting houses is a moving experience.

For someone who is loth to move more than a metre or two in any direction, and who believes a nomadic existence is against all civilised norms, I have moved homes 7 times in my decade and a half in this heathen outpost. From barely 3 months (hurried midnight departure after the building was sealed by the authorities) to a decade in a hotel apartment on one particular street, my tent-pegging in Dubai has covered all types of sand and many miles.

The latest – 8^th – move was on New Year’s Day 2022 (a rainy day with glooming clouds) to the City of Smiles – Sharjah. About 20 miles nor’nor east of Dubai as the falcon flies, and 20 minutes’ drive on a weekend or at the witching hour. The weekday drive can be at least an hour, thanks to a complicated route design that makes several roads spiral and circle the overlap area between the two cities, and then merge onto just two expressways. I believe people carry emergency rations on their daily run. But since I am working from home these earthly considerations do not spoil my appetite nor my sleep.

Moving home is traumatic, to say the least. And I don’t mean only on the emotional front of uprooting self and putting down new roots. I am not one for “new experiences” at the best of times and nostalgia is a huge part of my mental outlook (read my post on nostalgia).

The whole exercise of packing, discarding unwanted mementoes of one’s rather chequered existence (which were wanted just the previous week), transporting the lot to the new shed and unpacking and displaying the assets is a back-breaking, draining activity fraught with angst and desperate pleas to various Gods for redemption. Besides, this entire activity goes against all known laws of physics and nature’s rules on vacuums - how two cupboards are not enough for goods that slumbered peacefully for years inside a drawer is a Buddhist conundrum that cannot be answered with mere coffee.

There is also the very existential revelation that one's life can be packed in a few bags.

But we have benefits. One, a bigger house with a…separate front room and bedroom! This is important for someone who has lived for the majority of his life in a studio apartment. Two, my very own writing desk and chair. Three, sylvan surroundings (though one window looks out onto a building site that resembles a bombed out space in some of the more excitable Arab cities). Four, a less hyperbolic and glitzy environment, which resembles a typical Arab city. And finally discovering my collection of glassware makes the chest puff out. Pride of place of course goes to my Khukri and samurai swords.

And the unexpected joy of discovering restaurants with interesting names.

I am reminded of my parents’ exhortations to move up in life. Looking out from the balcony of this 8th floor apartment, I am happy that I have finally done that.