Time Travel

I flew out of Calcutta, zigzagged in Air India to Delhi then Varanasi then Agra and after 6 hours of air travel dropped myself at this place I had read about long back in school and been enchanted ever since, the temples of Khajuraho. Plan ahead, for this place is excruciatingly painful to reach, the overnight Delhi-HJR train may come to your rescue though.

Once you reach, delve in the peace and beauty of this small, neat village with broad even roads. I went in spring, during the annual dance festival and have come back with the memories of perfect sunny afternoons, the ability to differentiate between the sensous Orissi, the dramatic Bharatnatyam and the graceful Kathak dance as I saw the performances against the backdrop of the temples dating back to 9^th century. The place is open from sunrise to sunset.

The 85 temples were build by the Chandela king born out of the embrace between the 16 year old widow Hemavati bathing in moonlight and the moon god himself.

The temples glorifying the age of Chandela dynasty are dedicated to the god of creation, Vishnu and the god of destruction, Shiva, by a powerful king who just wanted to wipe the stigma off his mother for embracing the Moon.

Because sex sells, the only thing these temples are renowned for are the explicit erotic sculptures. Obviously there is more.

Dharm, Arth, Kaam, Moksha

The temples were built at a time where architecture and sculpture were considered as one art. They highlight Chandela’s philosophy of life based on the 4 pillars: Dharm, Arth, Kaam and Moksha. Religion or Belief,  Money or Work, Union and Salvation. It talks of creating balance in life. The sculpture of man fighting the mythical beast depicts how humans should fight desire, the woman holding ripe mango represents sweet wisdom. Another sculpture of elephant is laughing. The elephant is laughing at a man, who is busy locating the point of sexual energy on the woman’s body. You see the point moves with the waxing and waning of the moon, they say.

Here you see can the apsara yawning, the other apsara is plucking the thorn out of her feet, she is writing a love letter and smiling, she is playing with a ball, she is playing a flute, she is looking in a mirror…

The whole place celebrates female beauty and human anatomy. Tribhanga and Sambhanga, the division of human body in 3 parts or as a whole, and then using these isolations in dance forms and the sculptures. The sculptures here mostly are tribhanga, head – chest – torso all isolated, the movements highlighted in the postures. There are sculptures of women here being responsible for their own pleasure. Not a single one for men though. Obviously, all the sculptors were men!

People preferred wearing jewelry instead of clothes. There were 54 hairstyles one could choose from, and the only way to identify a man from a woman was the presence or absence of the bust.

Obviously culture per se, these people were class apart. Today national leaders, security forces, humanitarians, parents and organizations around the world are struggling to understand what has happened to people these days and their thought process. It is simple. The answer lies in the Maslow’s pyramid. These temples date back to an age where India was a rich nation. Once you have the primitive needs fulfilled and the peace and the security the mind is open to think free and explore art.  I saw a strong contrast in what the temples stood for, and the people visiting them today. In todays India people are still struggling, even the salaried class earning in 6 digits is striving hard to maintain a basic aspirational lifestyle. Reason is simple, we are still a developing nation. If you are cribbing about how you were made to slog throughout your education stint, pause and think about the country and the age you were born in. Understanding shall alleviate your pain better.  If we say today Europe is the place for art, similar is the reason for it. They have the permit to move up to the Maslow’s hierarchy, we in India, still don’t have that luxury.

Here is a student learning Tantra, by consuming the cosmic energy released during the union.

The last I noticed books on Tantra displayed amply in market, was in the junky market of Arambol beach. Today this subject finds mention only in the world of hippies and some rare Discovery documentaries.

May be the only other way to indulge is to bypass Mr. Maslow & become a hippy.

Tantra has received similar fate to what has happened to Devdaasis or nagarvadhus. The exceptionally trained Devdaasi, who helped men and women reach salvation by helping them activate the 7 chakras by moving the sexual energy up, has gained a completely different meaning with time.  

Spirituality doesn’t ask you to become a hippy and run away. Enlightenment doesn’t not necessitate giving up of all social responsibilities and living a lifestyle to the extremities of hedonism or self-negligence. It’s quite the opposite. It just means to be closer to yourself, to have a healthy mind and healthy body at a priority. In short, it means applying common sense to your everyday life.

Water is dripping from the hair of the apsara and the ‘Hans’ is confused if it is a drop of water or a pearl!

This sculpture signifies that beauty can trump even intelligent Hans sometimes. Such were the hopeless Chandravanshis! The masculinity as we know today doesn’t seem to be in fashion back then. The sculptures depict stories, wisdom abound. Here is a couple embracing, the girl is scared by a monkey, the man is pushing the monkey away with a stick. They say the monkey represents “chanchal man” which the guy needs to fight. Open to interpretation obviously.

Wandering and immersing in such places lets you enjoy the simple things about a day, the morning, the noon, the afternoon, the evening, the night, the stars.

While here explore the Raja café, certainly the best place to eat and hang out.

Hire a guide from here, or a cycle, or just spend an afternoon when its too sunny to roam outside

The café on the tree. Sit here not for the food but for the view of the temples as you sit atop the tree top café. Sitting charges, Rs 50 per person.

Cycling tour of the city: Got to know about this a little late so could not give it a try. Looks okay no!

The light and dance show: this happens daily, except during dance festival. So missed this one.

The annual Dance festival: Scheduled in the perfect spring time of the year. It takes you back to the time when elaborate Orissi had to be performed to please the gods.

And that’s about it. May we find the balance in our lives and gain pleasure and wisdom from the extremities that one should expose himself to once in a while.

The beauty and the beast?

For women have always perplexed men with their bodies, but men, they have these minds, that make me rejoice the simplicity of life and which reminds me of the concept, that the shortest distance between two points is through a straight line.

Call it divine or political intervention, but I have been surrounded by the simpler sex for the larger part of my life. The heralds of technology and management made sure continuous exposure to these boys as I see them now growing into men. Then you have the father and the brother at home, you talk to them, hear what they saying and you realise the way this species takes in, processes information and makes decision is nothing short of being marvellous.

“Alan Turing: When you cant do something that feels good, you must do what is logical.

The Girl: I am a woman in a man’s job. I don’t have the luxury of being an arse”

-The imitation game

“Scarlett O’Hara: I must have loved you all along…I just didn’t realise it”

“Rhett Butler: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn."

- Gone with the wind 

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same"

-Anne Frank

“Eve: I want you to leave 

 Adam: Umm…Okay! 

 Eve: Oops"

-Anonymous

Just a snapshot of how these minds work individually and in tandem.

The debate here is not that who is the wiser one, the point here is just to marvel at the distinction if not beauty of these utterly simplistic, efficient and blessedly naïve minds.

                                   

Volumes have been written about the female beauty and compassion. So much for the sighs when a girl blinks or places a flick behind her ear, I am just amazed at the simplicity with which guys manage their pins and passwords and desktops and reply in a yes or no! So much for the lady in the reds, and the evening gowns, find and watch a guy, like Dominique does, when Roark is sketching...you would know what am talking about. Guess women never came around to appreciate the beauty of men in their lives. I have yet to come across a female version of Kalidasa and his Shakuntala.

From the friend zoned DSLR guy to the father at home, here is a species seeking just a day of fair work and a beer to chill at the end of the day. Life happens and they fall in love, and take up family responsibilities, never complaining, never retiring, still laughing at the stupidest jokes and still dangerously vulnerable in their own ways.

In corporates, women are allowed to leave at 6, guys are still struggling to get a month long paternity leave. In my current industry, men would endure the worst sales roles, while the ladies get to manage brands. They say it’s a man’s world out there. Think again. What would happen to the economy and GDP of a nation, were there only men in the world.

It is too early in life to conclude who serves whom in this world, who really pulls the strings, who is more beautiful or who is more strong.

Meanwhile, lets just get them some tea.

Work manners and humour, level: FMCG

Following is an opinion, an obviously personal one. I do not claim any expertise on the field or the subject matter and anyone who chooses to be guided by a blog rather than facts and hard sought knowledge, deserves truly, what it shall bring upon him.

Psychology journals classify humour as one of the efficient coping mechanisms for short-term setbacks and hardships in life. Budding CEOs and marketers of the world, fresh from B-schools, often use it to cope up with their sales stints when they join sales and marketing roles in FMCG companies.

Getting Around: Do not curse the fact that you will have to be a pillion to a direct sales rep (DS), while visiting the markets. Wait until the bike goes away, and you have to cover the market for hours on foot. Wait, did you ask for some conveyance again?  Ah, now you will have to do with the cycle! Or wait, till he takes you round for a trip in a local bus and the thing takes a sharp right turn… .Passenger trains are just fine though. More often than not, you can find yourself a place to sit on the luggage rack, if you are proactive enough.

Salesmen usually carry a big bag full of merchandising stuff, samples etc. in the field. That huge bag will occupy a lot of space on the bike, leaving lesser room for the pillion-you in this case. Keep it that way. You do not want that bag removed from between you two, given the bumpy ride. Think about it.

Best time to visit: Tragedy is to carry out the stint in the sweltering temperatures of 42 degrees in Delhi. Comedy is when it gets to rain and you realize your firm has no on-ground umbrella or raincoat policy, and the norm is to do the market anyways.

Hospitality: Every shop has a mayur jug of water and 2 glasses. If the owner asks the boy in the shop to serve you water in one of those glasses, it is a gesture of respect and courtesy. Accept it. Do not think about x number of people who have used the glass since morning, or about the boy’s dusted fingers holding the glass from the rim, or about the visible nothings floating on the water’s surface. The unspoken rule of the land is that rinsing the glass once is enough to wash it off of its previous users’ leftovers. Accept it and drink it and move on.

What to eat: An integral part of these stints is to share a meal with your DS. You may share a drink or smoke with him too, but this is where perhaps gender comes in. These stints are all about banana shakes, samosa chhole, chai and bread pakodas. I personally had to forget my love for English breakfast and earl grey tea for a while, as the distributors ordered special chai and thanda for ‘Madam’ from one town to next. From special ghevar of samlkha, to pakoras of bahadurgarh, to jalebi of gohana, to tikki of gannaur, to special ghee and gur shops – in India, outside cities, you are in for a treat!

Local language: It is not so much about learning the language, as about learning to accept the language. “10 peti laga do”, “rate kese failaya hai”, “market bigad di”, “maal thok do”, you get the idea.  And yes, do download the app for hindi number counting.

Local Culture: When it is hot, people scratch. The people you will be dealing with will be scratching their bellies, their face, their legs and what not all the time. Which is ok, because as you stand scratching your head calculating margins, schemes, landing rates etc. in his shop; you pose quite an amusing picture to him too.

Sight Seeing: One often looses enthusiasm to carry on with the sales calls from one shop to next given the strenuous nature of the work and the heat. A good way to revive is to look out for the young lads sitting in these shops – the 17-year-old son of the shopkeeper. Sitting clad with spiked hair, denims and his smart phone, he would anywhere be in this world than sitting in his father’s kirana shop. Derive sadistic pleasure from him. Wink at your own risk.

Budget: Alls well, that pays well.

Now that sophistication has been formally ousted from my life, here is a song quite different from the blues and jazz I have been putting up earlier. It is dedicated to my recent sales stint in Haryana, with its small neat towns, the peace-lack of noise pollution, delicious water, local sweets and delicacies, warm hospitality, the long and windy roadways bus journeys and its guys, one in particular, blessed naturally with strong jawlines for adding aesthetic beauty to my stints.

Confessions of a born spectator

I need this world, yes, because only it can provide me the peace & detachment I need.  

Yes, I do take my existential swings way too seriously. It may be, that time in life, or that point in season, or that time of the month, or that day of the week, or that hour of the day, or, it may be not. 

Hosseini described  a man - so close to myself - a man who had spent his life sitting in the backside of a car, watching as the world went by in a blur - never taking the steering himself. Thats me. The observer sitting behind.

One infant grows up and becomes a jockey
Another plays basketball or hockey
This one the prize ring hates to enter
That one becomes a tackle or center
I am just glad as glad can be
That I am not them, that they are not me

Maybe answers don't exist. Maybe I know the answers already, but the search is just too much fun, too liberating - like a trance. But one still needs an audience. An observer seeking attention, because that is what he does best.

There is  something about despair - it gives you depth. It gives you a pedestal and the strength to stand on it alone, and rejoice. Happiness on the other hand is always conclusive...fulfilling. It fills that hollow, takes away the depth, it makes me forget - I would rather not.

Jezebel

Reach for the top she said
And the sun is gonna shine
Every winter was a war she said
I want to get what's mine…

Jezebel
Won't try to deny where she came from
You can see it in her pride
And the raven in her eyes
Try show her a better way
She'll say you don't know what you've been missing
And by the time she blinks you know she won't be listening

And another one

If ever the Devil was born without a pair of horns
It was you, Jezebel, it was you
If ever an angel fell
Jezebel, it was you, Jezebel, it was you

I came across the character Jezebel yesterday through Sade and the character clicked at first sight. I searched about her on net, but somehow before searching, I knew what I was going to find. A princess. Not necessarily a pretty one but a princess by birth and by heart. An Israeli princess, Jezebel is condemned of acting against god in one version and for dressing in finery and putting on makeup before she goes to death in another one. In modern usage, not to my surprise, Wiki says and I quote, “In modern usage, the name of Jezebel is sometimes used as a synonym for sexually promiscuous and sometimes controlling women”.

Sexually promiscuous. There is something inherently scary about a woman being sexually promiscuous. For an animal form, who by nature is supposed to be giving and nurturing, there is something so unsettling, so shocking, so unappetizing when she wants to be at a receiving end. Not supposed to ask, Jezebel is supposed to seduce. Not to take lead, but to charm and direct, less the princess be cheated or worse judged.

But nature has its own wonderful way and its design mocks this very social concept of hating and curbing Jezebels. Men are supposed to be direct and simple creatures. They have been provided in this way. The concentric set of nerves around their happy organ is designed to respond to even the most basic and routine stimulations. 
For women – the complicated ones, they say, the gift is that each one is wired as differently as the design of a butterfly’s wings. You need to work your way around. There is no wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. The nature’s design provides for a prolonged effort, for foreplay, for theatrics, for the knowledge, for the chase, for patience and for the eventual gratification.

Technically they say woman can have multiple orgasms. Factually 80% never climax from intercourse.
Socially, you are not supposed to be reading this. Psychologically, am not supposed to be thinking this.

From a culture where volumes have been written about pleasure, where scientific works are written on seemingly most insignificant  topics like techniques of perfuming of body in order to be prepared for the sexual act we have come so very far at our own loss. Reference here

Stay an angel; do not become a Jezebel, less you want to be called painted and immoral.

Casanovas be crowned, Jezebels be damned.

Reach for the top she said
And the sun is gonna shine
Every winter was a war she said
I want to get what's mine…

Its the way you make me feel

Don’t travel alone. Stay hungry, stay in dark, don’t go to school, don’t work, don’t step outside your house; if you have to, never do it alone; and while you are inside, watch out for cousins, uncles and fathers.

If you are a girl thinking this is one of those exaggerated feminists posts, try getting somewhere by taking a cab after 12 am in your city. If you are a guy thinking such horror stories happen in a parallel universe and you are not a part of it, good for you.

For the background, am staying at a reputable hotel in Churchgate, Mumbai – a well known posh and hence intuitively a safe area. A place with a good reputation. I am also a person of good reputation. So far, so good.

I am a person and I am entitled to have my dinner at 11:50 pm or whenever I want. I call up room service but due to pest control activity the kitchen is closed. The nearby Mc Donald delivers till 12, I call them up, register my number but its 11:57 now and they take orders only till 11:55. Sacrosanct deadlines, sure. Ok, McD is hardly 1 km away, I can take a cab. Its Mumbai after all.

Lesser traffic on roads but still people are there. I see a girl happily chatting, but she has 2 guys to give her company. Men, such a brave species!  I am already all alert with heightened senses, sixth included. A police jeep passes by, I feel relived – of what? So much trust can only be a mark of a weak or of a fool. Subconsciously I scan the drivers of the cabs lined up ahead. This one looks old and genuine.

“Colaba, Mc Donalds”, I feign a strong stern confident voice. I am petrified.

Meter down, yes am going okay, roads are emptier, but I just saw a Jaguar. That is reassuring – why!?

The taxi is at a decent speed, If I have to jump down will I be hurt a lot…why did I lose my pepper spray…he interrupts.

“Madam aap Colaba rehti hain?” Is he trying to figure out why am I traveling alone at this hour? What if am not going home? What if I am going for a party? Will he judge me? Should I be going home?

“Nahin bhaiya, vapas aana h, 5 min ruk ke” I talk in straight and crisp voice. “Aap rukenge?” May be that’s  why he had asked me. See, old he is, he is a good person after all. Its Mumbai remember, and I just saw a Jaguar on road. It all fits, I must be safe.

“Koi ni mein wait karlunga, aap khana le aaiye. Kaam ki bhi baat karni h”

“Accha. Kya kaam ki baat karni h” I am near Mc Donalds now. I fake a respectful and curious voice. I don’t want to warn him, I don’t want to sound scared. I want him to let me get off the taxi.

“Madam mein film story writer hun”  my alarm bell goes off. I still can’t afford to offend or warn him. Who knows.

Does he think am a prostitute, does he think am some struggler new to Mumbai and he can use me or something, but I boarded taxi from a reputable location…aren’t these people found in some fixed red areas..

 Am out of taxi, I feign a phone call.

“Yeah I am just outside, McD…coming up 2 minutes”

“Bhaiyya tym lag jayega, aap nikal jaiye”  see am being reasonable. So please if you are a rapist, don’t hold any grudge against me, and don’t lurk in the corner when I go back.

I take my parcel from McD, now I should cross the road and get a taxi from the other side. I must be looking really vulnerable with this packed McD bag and drink, I cross the road. There are still some people on the road, it is not that eerie. 2-3 people are standing over there and chatting near cars, they look alright. Should I walk near them and wait for a taxi. Why are they looking at me weirdly? A taxi comes and stops in front of me. A quick look at the driver and I shook my head and tell him to move ahead. Second cab driver came, he also stopped without me giving him any signal. A blue cab – a cool cab – safer?

“Churchgate?”

“Vaise to VT ja raha hun, but thik h baitho” You are not supposed to be on road, I will do a favor , am going VT, but still I will drop you. Or just get inside, I will rape you.

“Nai aap jaiye, koi ni” Polite again. I am already pleading, for what?

Another taxi  is coming, I stop this one waving my hand and exuding confidence.

“Churchgate”

“Signal se hi left nhi lega churchgate pe, only right”

“Koi ni aap signal pe hi utar dena” See I know my way around here, I am not new, beware!

I sit in the cab and take out my phone. Another feigned call.

“Yep I got the cab, and food too, come at the signal I will meet you there. Hardly 2 minutes. Yes, just took a left now, coming coming” See am on phone, somebody knows where I am, beware!

I dial 100 on phone, just one button and there will be call, just in case…

He drops me at my place and I in my head I thank him with all my heart. I cross the road and walk quickly to my hotel. I am inside my room. Its only 12:20. Its been only 20 minutes. Not feeling hungry anymore. I am shaking.

I have only one thought in my mind,” I am not supposed to feel this way”

If only men were this scared of letching and committing sexual crimes.

I wonder, if I go out every day after 12 am outside, how many days after which I will be eventually raped.