The 16GB Drive

Like Columbus, like Marco Polo before him, and like Odysseus much before these two distinguished gentlemen, a much less intrepid commoner seeks to find a way.

He seeks, on a humble, mortal level, a less filthy way to get to his kids’ new school edifice in rainy Mumbai.

Indeed (he has grimly counted during one particularly aghast drive) there are no fewer than 16 garbage bins along the narrow road to the school. This school on the other hand is stately, understated, beautiful, even welcoming as a place where children are to spend most of their formative years. And that is the veritable ray of light at the end of a waste-ridden tunnel. These garbage bins that I speak of with such fond familiarity are those large rusted iron bins that can contain twenty grown men. Okay, at least ten. In Bombay, garbage bins have more outside and around them than in them. Their cup of joy truly runneth over, and many times over. It’s a kind of catch-22: the garbage surrounding the bins makes it difficult to approach them and feed their hungry waiting mouths, forcing one to dump garbage on the periphery yet again. Thus the ecological footprint of each GB (Garbage Bin) grows inexorably until it is really daunting. And some of these being more alive than others, attract large, adorable pigs, the purplest of the species.

This infinitesimal commoner, tired of navigating the 16GB route to school, now seeks another way.

His friends in advertising seem to be doing that all the time. His buddies in IT and banking seem to be doing that too. His cousins in the armed forces, his pals in business, his neighbours in film-making, his spiritually inclined uncle, they’re all doing that – seeking another way.

Everyone wants an alternative to his own 16GB drive.

My kids were indignant when I named this road Koodha Avenue and Kachra Boulevard. I imagine they felt a deep sense of indignity on behalf of their school. When I, at last, found that much sought-after alternative way to get them to school, with a much preferred landscape boasting construction rubble and car-wrecking potholes along the way, they celebrated me better than the Ithacans had celebrated Odysseus.

Which awakens another sadder, more piteous realization about us common Indians. We’re all looking for alternative ways to get to the same place.

The big city villagers

Have you ever sipped tea from those piteously small plastic cups that stand as high as the width of your thumb and are as wide as the lower meniscus of your upper lip? They are, as you know, these fashionably frugal cutting chai cups – you can only sip from them, never drink from them.

Advertising is a storm in that teacup.

Indeed, as you sip from that teacup, if you happen to breathe heavily, there’s a fair likelihood of that tea jumping up to scald your nostrils. But, for many advertising sorts, or should I call them advertising sods, that little self-generated turbulence shakes the very tectonic plates of their existence, and alters the geopolitical maps of their tiny worlds for good.

The departure of a creative colleague is like a divorce, the hiring of one of your protégés like a lost custody battle.

Hey, advertising people, ever heard of that thing called real life? You know, where things happen? Like divorces and custody battles? Like ash clouds and tsunamis? Ever hopped over afaqs.com and transcended to a simple bbc.co.uk or NatGeo? Ever lingered in the serene calm of ashesandsnow.org?

Remember when we used to be big city folk doing big city things?

(I mean in your minds, not geographically – I have nothing against people from Almorah).

We used to be theatre folk, poets and fine artists. We used to be mountaineers, explorers and adventurers. At the very least, we were beach bums. We used to be bohemian, irreverent, flower children. We loved one another, before we went from advertising sorts to advertising sods.

Something’s turned us into villagers. We don’t just love saas-bahu these days, we’ve become saas-bahu.

Helplessly, perhaps even in vain, I’ll lean on an old bunch of childhood companions, first name Jethro, second name Tull, to sing us sods a caveat. The song goes thus

Meanwhile back in the year One, when you belonged to no one
You didn’t stand a chance, son, if your pants were undone.
‘Cause you were bred for humanity and sold to society
One day you’ll wake up in the Present Day
A million generations removed from expectations
Of being who you really want to be.

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away on the thin ice of the New Day

Crush that cutting chai cup in your hand now, fellow sods! Toss it away derisively. Enjoy that other, more fearsome storm. Feel the real wind destroy your hairdo. Dodge some real lightning. Your agency’s fine. Every agency is. They’re all bubbling cutely and idiotically in that cup you just tossed away.

Let it Rrrrip!

If you’ve ever spun tops as a child, those little Obelix lookalikes with rotund wooden bodies and sharp metal tips, you’d faintly identify with the Beyblade, a mechanical 21st century top that does way more vicious stuff in this avatar than its ancestor did all those generations ago.

Leave it to the Japs to technologise (is technify a valid word? Technovate?) all that was once innocent and romantic. Not long ago, those insane blokes under the rising sun released virtual butterflies into airspace that you could spot, chase and catch only on your iphone. And they’ve done other futile and sad things in the recent past, like create virtual and automated pets, which to me is the most tragic admittance of loneliness on Earth. Just last year, a Japanese gamer fell in love with a Nintendo games character called Nene Anegasaki and married her!

But with all my disdain for these amazing, fairytale inventions targeted at absolute losers, I still concede that I’ve humbly and meekly submitted to the Beyblade movement. Beyblade, for the uninitiated among you, is a Japanese manga series about teams of kids battling one another using highly powerful tops called “Beyblades” which are enchanted with magical spirits.

Now, I’m given to a tendency to romanticize tradition and to the occasional reminiscence about forgotten times. I’ve even tried to force “The Magic Faraway Tree” down the throats of my little ones, only to be rejected derisively. Incidentally, Enid Blyton is now available on the Nintendo GS Console. Perhaps I should try again with instruments other than my voice and paperbacks.

Back to the top, as gently reminded by you, dear reader. So, yes. I remember spinning wooden tops on gravel, swinging them in thin air and catching them on my palm. I remember painting them and carving names on their bodies. People of my vintage remember Kamal Hassan spinning a top on Rati Agnihotri’s tummy. Yet, I’m forced to admit that I’m a sucker for the Beyblade collection.

For this, today, is my passport to my little son.

It is the quickest way for me to connect with him when I see him after days and days of grueling travel, deadlines, late nights and slavery. It is the simplest way for me to maintain my currency in his current life. It is my own lame, stupid way of showing that I know a little about what spins his wheels. It is the icebreaker when he looks shyly at me after a week-long absence.

I hunt for Beyblades in most destinations I travel to, often even in airports. Like I hunted Transformers three years ago, like I hunted Ironman a year ago. Like the Phantom hunted pirates, like Lex Luthor looked for Kryptonite and like many sorry people hunt their long-forgotten crushes on Facebook.

In truth, all I’m desperately seeking is a father’s relevance to his offspring.

As I kneel before the Beyblade stadium to play with him, feeling at first like a Chinese peasant during the Japanese invasion, I run through the Beyblade jargon I’ve nervously internalised. 4 kinds of battle style – Attack, Defense, Endurance and Combination. Different kinds of tips for different purposes. Exotic names – Flame Libra, Poison Serpent, L Drago, Galaxy Pegasus, Dark Wolf, Sagittario. He yells out the Beyblade battle cry: BLADERS! GET SET! THREE, TWO, ONE, LET IT RRRRRIP!

I obediently let rip my Galaxy Pegasus. He has graciously allowed me to use it, because he wants to invest in my future as a blader. We watch as his L Drago vanquishes my Pegasus, but not before a valiant struggle that causes a grudging respect in his kind seven-year-old heart for his debutant Dad. “You’re a natural blader”, he beams at me, “Let’s go again.”

As we let it Rrrrrip once again, I try not to think of that similar wrenching sound I hear from within me, each time I kiss his tender cheeks goodbye, before tiptoeing out from a sleeping household toward yet another red-eyed flight.