Hand made divinity

I stepped out of the inter dimensional space ship and walked into the lobby. Much as I had expected, it was raining. Don’t be confused ! I call my Elevator that. When I got into the elevator, on the seventh floor, it was bright sunny and beautiful, when I got to the ground floor, the intensity of rain would have made Noah start on his boat earlier. Therefore, I make it a rule to carry sunglasses and an umbrella in my bag at all times (just a bit of unnecessary information. FYI I dont lend either of them to anyone !!!). Needless to say, as every story needs a conflict, I had one. It was pouring like the Armageddon and I didn’t have an umbrella. Thus began my futile search for dry land and a rickshaw. A rare phenomenon in Mumbai .The Ganesh festival hustle bustle had made it worse. There were pandals everywhere !! Bamboos sticking out of nowhere. My favourite part of the festival though, were the the streets that are dotted with merchants selling Ganesh Idols. There is Lord Ganesha everywhere !!! Its never enough to just marvel at the beauty of the idol….

A polite, “Bhaiyya, JUHU chalenge ???” turned to “Juhu chal teri maa ki..(beep beep beep beep)” by the time I got the rick.

The rain, the smoke and the construction work in the city would make you want to pour alcohol all over yourself, sit on a drum full of TNT and play with a matchbox. Oh yes, and the beggars (They’d make you light the match). When I got off from the inter dimensional space ship, the space travel had probably made me delirious that today was going to be a “Good” day. As my rickshaw moved an inch every minute, I realized I had a lot of time to kill. “Kya Madam kitna traffic (we don’t need no education) udhar se jaatey toh jaldi (we don’t need no thought control)…” The rickshaw wala’s idiotic remarks got remixed with the song. The signal turned green, the rickshaw wala shut up. Started the engine, moved an inch and stopped the rickshaw. The Signal had gone red again much to his dismay. He just wanted to dump me off!

Needless to say, a little boy beggar walked up to the rickshaw and asked me to spare some change. I waved my hand which is classic for “go away”. He made a sad face, scratched my feet, tapped my knees, kicked my rickshaw and walked away. Pretty routine for a person like him. Just then I noticed a woman around the corner who was arguing with an elderly man wearing a green coloured t shirt that said “I am really awesome at being humble” . She was trying to strike a deal with him for a portrait of Radha Krishna. She finally succeeded at getting it at her price and got into a rickshaw. (Bravo, I said softly to myself) . She suddenly climbed out of the rickshaw and started dusting herself off and kissed the portrait and stomped off saying “Inn logon ko rickshaw chalaane kaun deta hai”…

I waited patiently so that my rickshaw could move another inch so I could get a glance of the driver. He was wearing a white cup shaped cap, had a thick beard, dark brown eyes and there was a verse of the Quran on the back of his seat. She had gotten off the rickshaw because he was a Muslim and she was a strict Hindu Brahmin. She stood in the pouring rain for a rickshaw but did not get into the same rickshaw. Mean while the man with the green shirt had moved on to another client. He seemed to be very friendly and was making small talk with the green man. As the signal turned green, and I inched closer. His shop was called “Ishwar Creations” (Ironic …eh… ?). His shop particularly did not have any Ganesh Idols to my surprise. As my rickshaw moved past the shop, I overheard the client asking “Akbar chacha, yeh saal dukaan mein ganpati nahi rakkha ?? ” and Akbar chacha aka the man in the green tshirt replied “Saare bik gaye beta !!! “

(R.I.P. for the woman's soul,for when she finds out)

The tales of the teeth I lost

Six tube lights with metallic casings, one big bright bulb shining in your face, the sound of a drilling machine somewhere in the background and a person staring at your face…

I know what you’re thinking…What the hell is she doing in a Police interrogation room ??? No ! I wasn’t in an interrogation room. I WAS IN THE DENTIST’S OFFICE. Yes. Well, my experiences with the dentist have not always been very pleasurable. They’ve begun with “Oh My God !” and ended with “Phew Thank God”. Neither of which are very reassuring statements to hear even in normal conditions, let alone when someone is examining your insides and your jaw is sore from his hands sticking into your mouth.

Dentists scare the S#!t out of me. My first dentist was a very tough man. I visited him first when I was around ten or so…and his lab was in an old dilapidated building. He happened to be an old friend of my dad’s. My father joked about his office once…”I think your building needs a “Root canal and a filling” ahahahhaha”. Even the imaginary fly sitting on the dentist’s nose didn’t move because his expression didn’t change one bit. “Well at least I tried” my father thought. The next day, a slab of concrete fell onto what once used to be, the dentist’s reception desk. Oddly after that I never got an appointment with him. Hmmm…I wonder why…Now when I look at the building, it reminds me of Frankenstein’s apartment where the mad dentist kills people by pulling out their teeth one by one…without Anasthesia…very funny actually because they would make toothless ghosts !!!

Now I just think the poor chap was Anthropophobic

So began the next search for a dental surgeon. My friend’s friend who inci-dentally was my father’s friend’s, brother’s, son’s, friend, acci-dentally stumbled across someone who was to be my next dentist. So we went to his clinic and he’s been my dentist ever since. (Do not make me take names…He is extremely reputed and famous and shit expensive) I’ve been going to his clinic for 14 years now. But it only struck me in my last visit to him that he has put out a bowl of candy at the reception ! OUTSIDE SWEETS INSIDE SWEATS !!! The horror of it. This, my friend, is called, “Generating business”. The guy has a brilliant mind. Anyway he was just as expensive but not as tough. At least he would say “ Sit Janhavi…” my earlier dentist would just point at the chair. He would then say “Open your mouth” (My old dentist used to wait and if I wouldn’t open, I think he would have pinched me so that I holler in pain. At least my mouth would open)

So this guy treated me very well and getting an appointment was a mess totally. It took a month for an appointment. Dreadful. Just before one of my fillings, I thought let me initiate some small talk. I told him once “Doctor, actually you should compensate me for these tooth decays” I expected him to say “Why” (Huh. The impossible things that I dream of). He didn’t (Of course). So I continued anyway “…. because, the waiting period on your appointment list is so long that my cavities deepen in your waiting room .…ahahahahahhahaha…”. Needless to say, the procedure was more painful than it would have been if I would have opened my mouth only when he asked me to do so. I really wished kicking oneself in the shin was physically possible that one time in my life. People who know me will believe it when I say, I am very talkative. Every time in the middle of the process of a cap fitting or a filling, he would say, “Janhavi, stop wagging your tongue” literally ! So when he knew it was going to be a long process, he would stuff my moth with a lot of cotton…under the pretext “There will be a lot of saliva !”

My boyfriend’s father’s sister’s husband’s brother’s younger son inci –dental-ly (The joke is getting old I think) a dentist. He jokes around, talks more than me. So the tongue wagging is compensated. I just nod in appreciation. He gives me a running commentary of what is being done.. “Janhavi now I am going to inject you with an anesthetic, (Then a pink needle comes in view and enters my mouth. and my jaw goes numb)…now I am going to drill your tooth. It is a painless but very noisy procedure (a metal drill comes into view and Brrrrrrrrr….drrr.whirrrrr….by this time the noise is so unbearable, my ears decided to take better care of my teeth)...

There were at least fifteen different colored needles on the table and I am sure all of them paid a visit to “Nerve land” . I bet when the dentist used the needles, he was thinking, “This little piggy went to market...This little piggy stayed home…this little piggy had roast beef….” I did not have the stomach to look at how many he had used…

The best part about this new dentist is that he is multilingual… He speaks English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujrathi, Malayalam and since he’s been in Dubai for 15 years I think he can manage a little bit of Arabic as well. Its like listening to Worldspace radio !!!

This time around I’ve decided to keep my mouth firmly shut unless requested to do otherwise or else I’m going to make a lot of dentist enemies in a, lot of different states in India and in Dubal….

The irony is, Its called "Wisdom"...

Yesterday evening, I decided, after rudely being awakened from a deep sound sleep that I should go to the beach and do some ship sighting. The eternal “Wisdom” shone upon me and I dragged my feet into the car. My sister, who graciously volunteered to drive us there, got into “Race car” Driving mode and I slumped in the backseat and slowly, from vertical sitting posture, I reached the horizontal sleeping posture within 30 seconds!!! My self-conscious sister who was unaware of this, kept wondering why random people, on bikes or in rickshaws were gawking like idiots ! She later realized they were at me. (Surprisingly, neither was she shocked at the fact nor was she amused. What can I say…we’re a family of freaks )

The car was parked and we began walking to the Beach front. We saw traffic havaldars hauling away scores of people, towing away expensive cars, doing their day to day mundane chores. As we approached the open beach, our eyes searched for the “Wisdom”. (For those of you who don’t know what “Wisdom” is, I can say, YOU LIVE UNDER A ROCK !!! Google “Abandoned-Nigerian-ship-Wisdom-reaches-Mumbai-shores-shortly-after-endangering-Bandra-Worli-Sea-Link.” Well that sort of summarizes everything on Google) So we searched far and beyond and finally it caught our sight.

I was content looking at it from far away but mum wanted to get closer. So we walked and walked. As we got closer to the ship, the density of the crowd got thicker with each step. We couldn’t help but notice, three men who were frolicking in the sand half naked. A few steps further, a woman, who was running a small tattoo joint. The customer was in agony as we could see but at least he was getting a tattoo to flaunt. His best friend who had courageously stepped to “be there with him” was holding up a tower of the 6 batteries which were required to run her tattoo machine !! Hilarious I tell you. One move and…PHAT !! She would throw a handful of sand in his face “thik se pakdo na !!”

A few centimeters away (I dare not say feet), was a family of four, who were enjoying home made sandwiches, which they, for some unknown reason, wanted to assemble at the beach. Neatly stacked in six different boxes were pieces of cucumber, tomatoes, onions, potatoes slices of bread and butter. We kicked some sand in their sandwich while walking across. They didn’t seem to notice or bother. It was a Sand-wich alright !!

With frequent grunts, and “ughhhh-arrghh-bang-pow-‘Go to hell you pervert’…..”moments, we reached the end of the line. We finally reached good ground free of people and the smell of sweat. We just stood there and stared at the size of the vessel. It was huge. Occasionally my mom, very excited to see it, clicked a few pictures to preserve the memory, as my sister and I debated how we could make way to the ship and go into it if our lives depended on it and then we just had a moment of epiphany….something we didn’t dare to share with each other,

On this round trip excursion of the beach, we had braved sand throwing children, risked walking over people’s picnics, stepping on an occasional hand/foot, risked being run over by an emergency services vehicle, ditched the candy floss vendors, avoid being groped, pushed a drunk man into the sea (May his soul float in peace), walked over another sea of plastic bags/garlands/coconuts, knocked down a candy floss vendor’s machinery… and we couldn’t help but think “ITS JUST A STUPID SHIP “

Everybody knows everybody and everything about everybody (I accept this is a totally loser ass title for an article but what the hell…)

I read an article the other day that said there are two types of people in this world full of technology.

A: Digital immigrants

B: Digital natives

Now then people from my age group fall into the “Digital Native” category and people older i.e Seven or more years older than me, belong to the “digital immigrant” category… Well the definitions of these are simple..Digital natives are global netizens of the world of technology and Digital Immigrants are like Bangladeshi / Burmese/Pakistanis who just arrived in Mumbai yesterday and want to go to Juhu Beach!!!

Jokes apart, At least technology is making the lines between “Indians, Pakistanis” or “Hindu,Muslims” disappear.(Okay, sorry that was a joke ! )

(But now seriously jokes apart) Technology has overpowered our lives so much that one day without our cell phones is apocalypse. Early morning alarms are set in our phones. They say “Brush your teeth”. When you are on the pot, the phone says “Wash your hands and your…” Ewww…

When you jog, your phone counts how many steps you’ve walked, how much fat you’ve burnt, what is your heart rate and also provides you the entertainment you require while doing something as mundane as walking (I meant music not porn)

You return home, the cell phone shows you, you have a meeting in office at 10 therefore you must obey the cell phone. You leave from home and another message says, the location of your meeting has been changed to Oberoi Mall goregaon East. You immediately “Google” “Oberoi mall/ Goregaon east/ Transit). You find your way and u hop into a rickshaw. You realize you haven’t “googled” the company you are going to.. You “Google” “Vinod chemicals” (Just out of the top of my mind). After reading about the founder of Vinod Chemicals (who happens to be a bald toothless man who died fifty years ago, and yet you saw an ad in the paper for him yesterday saying” VINOD KAKA WE MISS YOU” Pffffttttt )..So anyway while wondering about Vinod Kaka’s denture adventures, you reach the place…So you’ve studied the company financials, the strategies blah blah blah…all in the fifteen minutes it took you to reach the place. You walk into the lobby, ask for Vinod chemicals reach their foyer and sit down !! And you remember since Vinod Kaka dies fifty years ago, he cant be running the company…and in horror you realize you don’t know the M.D’s name… “Cell-man to the rescue”. You whip it out of your Utility belt and google “M.D. Vinod Chemicals” …Aah saved in the nick of time!

You go to the meeting and you’re getting bored during the presentation so “bum pa pa paaaaaa” Out you whip your cell phone again and start the “Angry birds” Application! And you’ve crossed level one, when u realize, you aren’t listening to the presentation… you turn on the recorder in your phone and the magic begins…The meeting is over. You are hungry. “Google” the closest (might I add, the costliest, since the company will foot your bill…) hotel for the best food available and you plonk you bum in one of their chairs. The menu is un-understandable. It says

“Fey flu de reu ginger”

“Bu da usterey chicken”

You ”google” the dishes obviously !!! And you decide the safest to eat is “Fried rice”…. You decide to check your mail, on gmail. And then you do some “facebook-ing”. Its mid afternoon, you don’t feel like going to office..So you send a mail to your boss saying that you are not feeling very good. Next you check which movie is playing at the closet theatre, and drag your lazy ass there along with a friend who has nothing to do… You book the tickets online with your ABN AMRO/HSBC/tom/dick/harry bank credit card and enjoy the movie. You check your facebook account for any notifications, You’ve received a friend request from the cute receptionist at “vinod Chemicals”. You oblige!!

You walk around, shop for some clothes in the mall swipe your wonder card and live in the bliss of ignorance that someday YOU only have to pay for that Credit card.

So now your boss is yelling and asking your sub-ordinates why haven’t you turned up in office. So you google “Nausea, headache, body ache is caused by which illness?”

Results show “Pregnancy” (You think about it for a second nonetheless… and then let sanity prevail) You go to the next page “Food poisoning”

“Aaah yes! That’s what has happened to me” you decide to tell your boss. You reach office at 8. You tell your boss, “Sir, I went and ate “Fey flu de reu ginger” “Bu da usterey chicken” @ that new restaurant and I had food poisoning…that’s why I can’t come tomorrow…Here is the bill for the food (3600 rupees)” your boss is hyperventilating. You just about take out your phone to start googling “What to do in case of a heart attack…” but then he sneezes…

Everything’s cool!! You go home. Eat dinner. You click “LIKE” for “Michael Jackson page”, “India against Corruption”, some new hindi movie you saw today, update your facebook status to something sentimental (which of course was derived and re derived and re-derived from Shakespeare’s works and it doesn’t make any sense anymore to anyone but you). Then you log out of the google mail server and your switch off your GPS which you accidentally left on since morning.

That day @ the Google office, a staffer is carrying a load full of Hard disks, one of which bears the tag India in which is your name: XYZ (which they got from your gmail/facebook/HSBC/ABN AMRO account)

Indian	(Your name says it all)
Male	(Well you surf for a lot of porn)
Healthy	(Since you jog in the morning),
lives in suburbs	(Andheri to be exact, because your GPS was on)
Travels by public transport	(Since you selected Oberoi Mall/Goregaon/Transit and not Oberoi Mall/Goregaon/Bus route)
likes French food	(Since you googled the restaurants),
Cannot speak French	(Since you googled the food names),
Uses gmail and face-book regularly	(From where they have downloaded your photographs with friends and family…so they know your best friend’s name is Bittu and you have a younger sister, mom, dad and an elder brother in your family. They also know your elder brother is married and works in Japan because you’ve added your brother as your “Brother” on facebook and he has changed his “relationship status” from Single to “Married” a year ago),
Waist size 32”	(Because you paid the bill by your credit card and your bank mailed you saying “7000 rupees have been debited to your account for Shoppers stop for the following products: …”,
High income group	(Since you spent 10600 rupees in a day on just food and clothes)
Likes Hindi movies	(Since you googled only Hindi movies and not English movies while looking for tickets for the movie)
Pregnant??????? Huh???	(Not applicable)
May be suffering from food poisoning (Yeah that makes sense!)	(Since you are male and you can’t be pregnant, So you may be suffering from food poisoning since you googled “Nausea, headache, body ache is caused by which illness?” and did not search further after food poisoning! )
But may be faking the food poisoning bit	( Since you did not google Doctors around andheri/Goregaon)
Likes Michael Jackson Music, Supports India against corruption, does not understand shit about Shakespeare’s works	(Since you “liked” the “Michael Jackson Music page”, “India against corruption page” and googled the meaning of the sonnet “Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding” you posted on face-book as your status)

Miscellaneous information available
Owns car but does not travel in it for work	(because you paid for your car insurance from your bank account which is linked to your gmail account for statements)
Owns a phone that supports internet	(Duh!!!!)
Uses internet without any worries of cost	(Some more Duh!!!)
Phone number is	(A lot more Duhhh!!!)
Went to S.S.C school	(Doesn’t understand Shit about Shakespeare)
Is right now reading a note called “Everybody knows everybody and everything about everybody”	(Ahem…)

And then the next day your phone is flooded with spam emails

“Shopper Stop offers, Food poisoning remedies (also just in case, “how to avoid morning sickness”), “learn French from French teacher 3000 rupees per month”, 80% off on Gym membership, 60% off on Hindi movie tickets on “Bookmyshow.com” if you book with an HSBC/ABN AMRO bank account…”Tired of your job ? Try Naukri.com”

This is only on the basis of information we give out in ONE day!!!!!

And when you are about to walk out of home, you switch on your GPS and log into your gmail account….

Let 'em be !!

Let ‘em be !!

A typical day, when I was 10.

6.00 alarm rings, mom wakes me up.

6.15 mom wakes me up

6.20 Dad picks me up and puts me in the bathroom under the shower and turns it on ! That’s when I wake up.

6.30 Breakfast

6.45 Amidst Mom’s, “You are such a lazy girl….” Comments and dad’s “Bye beta. Do well today.” I ‘d take the school bus.

10.30 pm recess Fall off swings, bump into parked cars. Get bruised. Eat and go back to class.

2.00 pm go home and eat and sleep till 5

5.00 pm wake up: finish homework.

6.00 mom comes home. I go down to play

8.00 pm come back home. Watch tv

9.00 dinner with mom dad and baby sister

10.00 pm. Dad switches off the lights

10.15 Both me and my sister are snoring to glory

A typical day in the life of my cousin who is 12 now…

5.00 alarm rings. He’s wide awake. He sits and studies French !!

6.00 he’s out of the study, he bathes.

At the breakfast table he reads the Times of India. Geez !! I never read it…

6.30 he goes to school. He’s the “Head boy” ! Umm whatever that means…

7.00 he’s heading the march past for school

8.00 to 2.00 Time for some normalcy! he sits and studies like all humans. Unfortunately the trail of normalcy is lost because he goes to an IGCSE school

3.00 returns home has lunch

4.00 goes to the gym ! for God sakes the gym !! at 12 !!

5.00 goes to classes (No he doesn’t teach. He studies there !)

6 00 comes back home. Does his homework

7.00 Goes for horse riding classes

8.00 Goes for IIT Entrance classes

9.30 comes back home

10.00 dinner and News !! For pete’s sake what is it with this boy and news ??

11.00 goes back to bed after solving the Rubik’s cube. No seriously !!

Phew ! If I were to ever solve the Rubik’s cube, I’d probably treasure it for life by leaving it the way it is. But no ! this guy messes it up every morning and solves it all over again. He talks to me about Schizophrenia and Hosni’s dictatorship !! He is the president of the social activities club and wants to do an M.B.A in International Business administration !!

I remember at 12, I would be worried about the next day’s home work and how to writhe in pain so that I could act as though I had a stomach ache and get out of going to school the next day

We are the ones to be blamed for this. Why do we call them children anymore ? Why don’t we just call them “Dried adults. Just add water to adultify”. Kids today, hardly go to the park and roll in the muck “because my clothes will get dirty”. They don’t play on swings “because its too dirty”. They do not eat with their hands “because I have forgotten my hand sanitizer at home” . They do not run “because it makes them sweat”.They do not play “because mom says it’s a waste of time !!” Well Mom, reality check ! you did all this when you were a kid and you turned out absolutely fine. At an age when they should be worried about their studies and their homework, girls are worried about getting fat and losing their Zero figure and with the new bill being considered, (to allow kids from the age of 12 to have consensual non-penetrative sex) the boys are going to have performance anxiety !!

Its disturbing to mention sex and children in the same sentence unless the sentence pertains to conception of course. But considering the kind of exposure children are having to Media today, they are becoming more and more aware about Sex, Violence, Politics, Drugs, divorces… and so many other non consequential topics at their age. Healthy information is always welcome sans the useless sensationalism and the show sha! Have we all become so busy that we cannot take out 20 minutes in each day to take our kids, nephews, nieces out to play ? Can we not sit and explain to them what Birds and bees mean ? This mindless degeneration of the value of parental guidance in today’s world has been grossly neglected. We’ve been thinking, if my child is busy enough throughout the day, he’ll probably not notice that I’m gone all the time! I think he notices and he’ll never forget it. I’m not a philosopher/ inspirational guru/Family counselor (who by the way are all shams as well. They just tell you what you know already.) Your conscience is your Family Counselor. Please listen to it. Treat kids like kids!

Residual Indian-ness

Last night, as I lay in my bed, I struggled to sleep. Not because I was worried or tensed, But because I hadn’t worked enough that day. All I did was sit on the couch and watched a lot of movies. Well anyway, as I struggled to sleep, I received a text message. I was astonished and wondered who it could be at this time in the night. It happened to be from a British friend. The message read “Hey, congratulations ! The republic of India has completed sixty years this year and I’m sure you take pride in it... “. I was pleasantly surprised with this considering that he wasn’t even remotely associated to India. As of today the most common threads connecting Britishers to India are, either their relatives and their future generations who have lived in India since the colonial times (Well, what can I say ! India and Indians can entice people) or the people who grossly misinterpreted “The monk who sold his Ferrari” think that “moksha”/salvation comes from becoming a vegetarian and metaphorically “selling off their Ferraris” and moving into a cave in the HIMALAYAS (Well what can I say ! A lot of people got rid of their Ferraris after Robin Sharma suggested). So anyway, he wished me and I thanked him and felt so small that I didn’t know when the British republic came into being. My phone lit up again and there was another message. “Hey Janhavi, Happy Independence Day !! Our India is free from all the British”. Needless to say, I really struggled very hard to sleep that night. The boy, an Indian, from my generation, born and brought up next to my home for 15 years was just as Indian as I am. He stood next to me and sang the Indian National anthem with me through school with just as much as pride as I did. Disgust doesn’t even begin to express what I felt towards him. Then again, it got me thinking. Indians probably have portrayed themselves just the way the foreigners perceived it fifty years ago. A great deal of news that filters through Indian borders to the other side, is not really very well thought about. India has automatically become synonymous with, A.R.Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Slumdog Millionaire, Poverty, filth, Corruption, Malnourished kids, Kashmir Issues, unfair caste systems, Tiger on the brink of extinction...
Crisply put, all the things that India shouldn’t be known for ! Does that mean that there are no beggars in America ? Or is there no corruption in England ? Or that in no other part of the world has any other animal faces the fear of being extinct ?
What Indians themselves, forget about their own country is that we’re the largest democracy in the world, currently in the league to be a super power in mere twenty years. We have at least a thousand different cultures thriving in the country and 2000 different dialects. The constitution of the country was written by a man who belonged to the lowest possible caste and that the standard of living has increased drastically in the last decade. Walk into a mall anywhere in the world and you’ll definitely find at least one Indian shopping there. Well yes there is filth and yes there is poverty and there are issues with neighbours. But if that was the reason to judge anyone, probably the world would be full of obsessively clean freakishly nice saints.
All I want to say through this, is whether you want to see the glass half full or the glass half empty (in India’s case) is your problem, but you may as well tell everyone else that “India’s glass is almost full, and about to overflow”

The Void...

A reclusive man, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, always shied away from interviews. So much so that he wouldn’t even speak on the phone without clearing the fact that he wasn’t going to answer any questions. In a rare interview from the legendary Marathi series “Maharashtrachi ladki vyaktimatva” (The favourite personalities from Maharashtra) hosted by the celebrated Marathi writer, P.L. Deshpande, he revealed that truly it was his mother’s melodious evening “Bhajans” that captivated his young mind and deeply indoctrinated him into the endless world of Classical Indian Music. At a time when gramophones were too costly to buy, Bhimsenji would spend countless hours listening to music at the local grocery store at the road crossing.

It is a well known fact that Pt. Bhimsen Joshi studied under various gurus in his life but a little known fact is that Bhim- Anna as he was fondly called during his childhood days, was so influenced by Ustad. Abdul Karim Khan’s thumri “Piya Bin Nahi Aavat Chain", that he ran away from home in search of a guru who could train him in the art of singing. He was so insistent that he be trained in Indian classical music that he not only ran away from home but also scoured India from end to end in search of the guru he desired. All thi, he achieved, at the tender age of 12, having little or no money in his pocket and once by borrowing the money from his co-passenger on board a train to Dharwad, Karnataka. At times when his resources were limited, Bhim anna would sit at the railway station on a ragged old cloth and sing in his melodious voice. Mistaken for a beggar’s child he would earn 16 to 18 annas per day, eat his fill of chanaa for 1-4 annas and buy a ticket for the next station. This continued till he had reached Mumbai. While in Jalandhar, he got adopted by a mill owner, only to find that right next to his ancestral home in Karnataka was one of the most celebrated contemporary singers Pt. Ram bhau, (Sawai Gandharva) ! When he reached there, Pt. Ram Bhau tested him for a year, all he was asked to do was fill water from the nearby water reservoir and bring it back home.

After Ram Bhau was assured of his commitment to music, there was no looking back for Bhim anna. He trained the Maestro himself and spent 16 to 18 hours each day conducting Riyaaz for him. He would wake up at 4 a.m. and rehearse up until late evening. His first concert was at the age of 19 and the next step was a record deal with HMV at the age of 22.

In this very interview, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi revealed his feelings about the then contemporary singers. He insisted that the generations of singers that came during the later decades of the 1900’s had somehow rushed into singing and very few actually let the music seep into themselves. He maintained that every artist is a “Thief” because each singer borrows his rhythm from at least one source of inspiration.

A man of few words and a phenomenal vocalist, he was known to be experimental and very humble, so much so that he even learnt a few ‘raagas’ from his adversaries. Be it his voice in the famous Kannada song, “ Uttara dhruv…” or his unmistakable voice that ushers in the song “Miley Sur mera tumhara !”, he will be missed immensely.