My favourite moments in the day are when Adu and I talk.
On Conversations
My favourite moments in the day are when Adu and I talk. Just talk. About anything and everything under the sun.
A few nights ago, we talked about his future wife—where she might be right now, whether she’s been born yet, and if she hasn’t, what she would be doing in her pre-Adu’s-wife life. Incarnation comes naturally to us Indians. I had told him about the five-year gap between Dee and me, and since he’s only four-and-a-half, toddler logic suggests there’s a good chance his would-be wife hasn’t been born yet.
One weekend morning, in that hazy state of taking an hour to fully wake up, we debated about the kind of dinosaur we should keep as a pet. Most dinosaurs turned out to be too big or aggressive to keep in our aangan or indoors, so we decided on a cat instead. After further discussing the merits and demerits of cats, it was unanimously decided that fish are the best pets. They stay within a glass box, are colorful, and do not leave smelly messes everywhere.
You know that feeling when you’ve heard someone deeply, intently, and intentionally? I hope you do. It is so difficult for adults to peel off their masks and talk that it feels like a miracle when it happens. I treasure the moments when someone has opened up to me. Rarer, but even more precious, are those when I’ve spoken with abandon and someone else has given me their full attention. (Alcohol may have played a part.) It’s another thing that I can count those moments on my forty-four-year-old fingers.
Some nights, Adu and I talk about death. And life. What does being alive mean, how long we’ll be alive, or what happens after we’re not alive? Sometimes, I try to answer these questions rationally. Other times, I’m both fascinated and devastated by what must be going on in his mind. And sometimes, I simply don’t know how to reply.
What I do know is that forty-four years or so from now, when I’m looking back at the life I lived, I’ll be treasuring these warm summer days and nights when Adu and I used to talk. And I want those moments to be far more than my eighty-eight-year-old fingers could ever count.
-Alok, 20:30, September 06, 2024
Touched by light
Here’s to light. To hear it slowly shuffling across the room you are in, entering through the window like a stray bird with burning wings and giving everything it touches the gift of life. To feel it on your eyelashes, seeing the soul of the world with your eyes closed. To sit under a banyan tree and see it play hide and seek with shadow, its eternal friend. To being with light, as you look back at the years gone by and realize how it has always been about her. Or him, as you wait patiently by his side to open his eyes at the dawn of time. Yes, light can be a person too.
And yes, it can be you, too.
To be someone’s light. To see their eyes light up at your sight. Knowing that even after the shadow has consumed you, some part of your light will stay alive in them.
To be touched by light, to be alive, to be immortalized.
-Alok 16/04/24
Nettle & Bone - a fairytale with horror, humour, and heart
"Nettle & Bone" by T. Kingfisher intricately blends horror, humour, and fairy tale elements to tell the story of Marra, the third princess who embarks on a quest to save her sister from a dire marriage. Assembling an unlikely alliance of a gravewitch and her demon chicken, a dog of bones, a disgraced knight, and a fairy godmother, Marra confronts her challenges with a unique blend of determination and whimsy.
The journey is fraught with magical obstacles and dark forces, but Kingfisher masterfully balances these with moments of light-hearted humor, ensuring the narrative remains accessible and engaging. Through her journey, Marra not only seeks to change her sister's fate but also discovers her own strength and the true meaning of bravery. The book’s rich storytelling, characterized by its clever use of horror to accentuate the stakes and humor to lighten the mood, makes "Nettle & Bone" a memorable exploration of heroism, family, and the power of persistence.
-Alok, 11/03/24
To be at home
It is a feeling that doesn’t come easily.
I’ve changed many addresses throughout my life. Some, not how I would have liked to. Only a few have felt like home. And even in those few, this is a rare one.
I’m sitting, once again, at the dining table. Don’t know why I do most of my writing here instead of the dedicated (and expensive) study corner we got custom made! I have our main bookshelves in all their congested glory on one side, and the cabinet of curiosities i.e. dear wife’s crockery/knick knacks display on the other. Slightly further apart on the left and right are our son’s room and our bedroom respectively. And behind me is the living room. The one I’m looking at though is the guest cum study cum temple room where a pile of ‘sun dried’ clothes and books we got from the recent book fair and some winter blankets are lying on the bed in an exhibition of inter-species harmony that human beings should learn from.
It is not a pretty sight.
When I was growing up and as recently as a few years ago when we were thinking of moving into a bigger place than our previous address, I had this notion of creating a house with Scandinavian sparseness and Indian warmth. Had even thought of a term for it, ScandIndian. It was to be this large enough house with clean white walls, wooden flooring, subtle colors, Indian accents and not a thing out of its place.
This is not that house.
Not a single room here is good looking to speak of. There are crayon hieroglyphs on the wallpaper in the bedroom; the living room sofas are colonized by things that shouldn’t be on the sofas; the dining table is a visual depiction of the word chaos; the bookshelves store books and medicines; the child’s room is a museum of toys, the aangan is a gallery of dying plants, and the guest cum study cum temple room is well, the antithesis of my dreamy ScandIndian aesthetic.
And yet, this is the one that feels most like home.
This is the one where our newborn crossed the threshold from hospital to home; this is the one with all the fights and sulks and not-talking-to-you but still-caring-for-you happens; this is the one where just a few hours ago the three of us were dancing on a medley of Punjabi, Hindi pop, and Tamil songs; the one with all the yet to read books, yet to play games, and yet to dream, dreams; the one we all come back to wherever we have been.
This is home.
This is a feeling that has not come easily to me.
I’m home.
-Alok, 02/03/24
सुपरहीरो
(स्कूल से घर लौटते समय, आदु और पापा की बातचीत)
पापा, आज मैंने क्लास में
सुपरहीरो मास्क बनाया
वैरी नाइस, आदु
कुछ बताओ अपने हीरो के बारे में
वो हरे रंग का है
और हवा में उड़ता है
अरे और भी तो बताओ,
वो करता क्या है?
क्या-क्या पावर्स हैं उसकी?
वो रेड लाइट को ग्रीन कर देता है
और पौधों को, पेड़ों को, और फूलों को
जल्दी से बड़ा कर देता है, फ़ास्ट-फ़ास्ट
और सूरज को भी उगा देता है जल्दी
ताकि दिन जल्दी शुरू हो
और सारे बच्चे टाइम से स्कूल पहुँचे
आदु की बातें सुन पापा ने सोचा
कितनी अलग होती न वो दुनिया
जहां सुपरहीरो होने का मापदंड
लड़ने का बल नहीं
पेड़ पालने का कौशल होता
और ये पक्का करना
के सब उठें सूरज के संग
और समय से पहुँचें अपनी मंज़िलों तक
(स्कूल से घर लौटते समय, पापा को ‘आदु सर’ की ये क्लासेज़ बहुत अच्छी लगती हैं)
-आलोक, ०६/०२/२०२४
To Road Trips
Day 06, Year 45
Here’s to road trips: to leaving home early on a winter morning; to speeding through a world wrapped in a blanket of fog, with the yellow-orange blinking lights of the vehicles ahead serving as your only guide; to joining this community of human fireflies, all headed to a destination of their dreams.
Here’s to purging the term ‘baggage allowance’ from your vocabulary. Stuffing the car with so many odds and ends that the rear windshield is blocked but the idiosyncrasies of each member of the traveling party shine through. A knife and a steel plate for the granny who swears by fresh fruits, but may end up feeding them to cows and monkeys on the way back home? Check. A racket and shuttlecocks for the woman who has just started playing badminton, though unlikely to take them out of the trunk during the trip? Check. Extra lenses for the photography enthusiast, prepared for the early morning walks that may never see the light of the day? Check. And seven toy cars in seven colors of the rainbow for the toddler who loves to paint the town red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet and will actually be playing with them all? Check. When it comes to road trips, we all are the granny and the toddler combined.
Here’s to the mandatories. To utter a quick prayer to your chosen deity as the ignition turns on. Topping the fuel tank, checking the tire pressure, and confirming for the millionth time the route and hours the journey will take.
Here’s to road trips in all their perfect imperfections. To the questions posed by boredom, backache, and nausea answered by music, back rubs, and candies. Collecting the rain in your palm, catching the wind in your hair, or crunching the gravel under your feet. Playing long-forgotten games, sleeping like babies, or singing without fear of judgment, because everyone else is singing along. And yes, stopping anywhere along the way because you simply can.
Here’s to having the time of your life, arriving at your destination with creaking limbs and a weary mind, and swearing never to travel by road again, only to find yourself planning the next road trip once you’re back home.
-Alok, 30/01/24
Light is beautiful
Day 01, Year 45
It is half-past seven in the morning. I’m sitting alone at the dining table; everyone else is sleeping. I've been awake since six, for reasons I can't quite explain. It is cold, and I should be in my bed, under the blanket, next to my four-year-old, but I'm not.
Perhaps it has something to do with turning 44 the day before and all the existential questions that such milestones bring. But then again, I don't need a birthday to ponder existential matters.
I've already had my customary two glasses of warm water, visited the bathroom, replied to the remaining well-wishes, and perused my Substack when I glance up and see this scene.
The morning light filters through the living room window, softly illuminating my son's birthday decorations, still up three weeks later, and the inevitable mess that only a toddler's home can exhibit. I look up and think, light is beautiful. I grab my phone and capture a few images.
And as I'm capturing those moments, I realize that, indeed, life is beautiful. A warm home to wake up in, a family to share this life with, reasonably good health, work that I enjoy, and time to create—yes, indeed, life is beautiful.
-Alok, 25/01/24
तोड़ना कलम की झिझक को - ममता कालिया जी के साथ हिन्दी कहानी लेखन कार्यशाला
हिन्दी साहित्य जगत की प्रसिद्ध पत्रिका ‘नयी धारा’ ने आज त्रिवेणी कला संगम में वरिष्ठ लेखिका ममता कालिया जी के साथ एक ‘कहानी लेखन वर्कशॉप’ आयोजित की थी। किसी कहानीकार का लिखा हुआ पढ़ना अलग बात है, और ख़ुद उन से मिलना, बातें कर पाना अलग। मैं ये भी देखना चाहता था कि कविताएँ लिखने के अलावा, क्या मैं ख़ुद को कहानियों के माध्यम से भी अभिव्यक्त कर सकता हूँ या नहीं।
८० की उम्र पार करने के बाद भी ममता जी का ‘एनर्जी-लेवल’ युवाओं जैसा ही लगा। ढेर सारी बातें, जीवन के क़िस्से-कहानियाँ, और आँचल भर ज्ञान, वो भी एक बड़ी लेखिका होने के अभिमान बिना, सच में बेहद अच्छा लगा उनसे मिलना। उन के स्नेह भरे मार्गदर्शन से, आज मैं अपनी ‘कलम की झिझक’ को तोड़ पाया और दो लघु कथाएँ लिख पाया।
सर्दियों के इस शनिवार को विशेष बनाने के लिए ममता जी और नयी धारा टीम, ख़ासकर आरती जैन जी का साभार। आशा करता हूँ आगे भी हम अन्य कार्यशालाओं में, और भी प्रबुद्ध जनों से मिल पायेंगे।
-आलोक, २०/०१/२०२४
कॉल
कभी कभी
किसी सुबह ऐसे ही
मैं हिंदी की कोई क़िताब उठा कर पढ़ने लगता हूँ
क़िताब नहीं तो कोई पैकेजिंग या कहीं पड़ी शब्दों की कुछ कतरनें
“अतः उनके साहित्य में भारतीयता का स्वर स्पष्ट रूप से मुखरित हुआ है”
“चलते चलते मेरे पाँव ठिठक गये”
“गर्म पानी या चाय में मिलायें”
जैसे दूसरे शहर में काम करने वाली संतान
अपने माँ-बाप को कॉल कर लेती है किसी सुबह
“बस ऐसे ही”
“बहुत दिन हो गये थे बात नहीं हुई थी, सोचा हाल चाल पूछ लूँ”
“आप लोग ठीक हो न”
-आलोक, १०/१२/२०२३
Half a day in Orvieto and the absolute importance of looking beyond pictures while traveling
How does it feel to revisit a place you once explored as a different version of yourself?
Yesterday, the Google Photos app on my phone unearthed a treasure trove of memories from my honeymoon in Italy. Six years ago, in June 2017, amidst our Italian odyssey, Dee and I found ourselves in the quaint hillside enclave of Orvieto, a mere two hours from Rome.
A veil of time seemed to drape itself between then and now, simultaneously obscuring and intensifying those moments. Yet, within those photographs, much of that day remains unspoken.
As you gaze at those images and videos we made that day, you'll see the two of us looking pleasantly young, a nondescript train journey, a funicular ride up the mountain (with another tourist hogging the best view throughout the ride), a dive into the pre-Medieval Etruscan past of the town, a most gorgeous church with beautifully painted exteriors and interiors, and a few pictures from the town’s charming streets.
What you won’t see in the pictures is the fight we had because we missed our early morning train; the way I remained sullen for the next many hours, and how, after multiple attempts to cheer me up, Dee had given up and turned equally sour. The two long hours we spent at the Roma Termini station waiting for the next train, talking little, observing the crowd, and interacting with an Indian Italian who briefly shared the pros and cons of living away from his watan in Punjab. Also missing from the photographs is the acute awareness of time slipping away from our already limited grasp.
No photograph will be able to convey the Indianness of our Italian train, its ticket checker attempting to extract an unnecessary fine thwarted by my chance research about those types of scams. The short but beautiful bus ride from the funicular station to the heart of the town, and perhaps the freshest, soaked in olive oil pesto pizza we have ever had won't be captured either. The photographs won’t tell you how, like total nerds, we spent most of our time immersed inside the gorgeous Duomo and missed out on exploring the equally charming town outside.
Yesterday, when I looked at those imperfectly captured photographs from what feels like an era past, I wished there was a way to reach out to that slightly younger version of mine. I wanted to tell him to enjoy Orvieto and all it had to offer but to relish the journey more. To create more memories with the one he was traveling with because cities and towns will come and go; she will be the only constant through those.
A Thanksgiving thought, thanks to my son
Yesterday, I read a book to my son. It was a beautifully illustrated ebook that we both flipped through on my tablet. The book is about a day in the life of seven different children living in seven different places around the world. Seven names, seven faces, seven countries, seven cities…told in the first person, each child introduces themselves, talks about where they live, what they eat for breakfast, where they play, what their school is like, and many other facets of their daily lives.
I think he enjoyed it, though it became a bit verbose for him from time to time. When I downloaded the book, I had imagined that he would be fascinated by the different cultures, environments, and places shown in the book. However, he wasn’t.
What he noticed most were the things in this order: the ages of different children and how they compared to his older cousins, the fact that one of the children didn’t have to wear a uniform to school, the yellow school bus a child takes (the same as the one in his favorite song), the ice skating another child does, the five cats of another child (he asked me to get a cat for him as well), and the one child whose evening activity was watching television (he made sure that I noticed that other children are also allowed to watch TV).
What he didn’t notice was: The color of the children’s skin, their gender, the fact that some children were rich, and some not so much, whether they lived in a city or a village, in an apartment complex or in a mud hut.
He’s going to be four in a couple of months, and I’m afraid of the day when these differences will start seeping into his consciousness. Perhaps we wouldn’t need our DEI conferences, mandatory corporate trainings, amendments, laws, marches, and fights if we all kept our four-year-old selves alive within us.
Thank you, dear Adwitiya, for letting me look at the world through your eyes. It definitely looks like a much ‘equal’ place.
Wishing everyone a Thanksgiving filled with warmth and reflection.
फ़िक्स्ड डिपोज़िट
एक नई स्कीम पता लगी थी
जितना डालेंगे
कुछ ख़ास समय के लिए
तो मूल के साथ साथ
उतना ही ‘रिटर्न’ मिलेगा
कर्म के इस बैंक में
खाता खोल तो लिया
पर जन्म बीत गये अब
मूल ब्याज मूल ब्याज करते करते
पता नहीं कब
एफ़ डी मैचयोर होगी
कब हिसाब पूरा होगा हमारा
-आलोक, ०३.१०.२०२३.
अदला-बदली
अदला-बदली कर ली थी हमने कल
वो पापा बना और मैं आदु
उसने मुझे कहानियाँ सुनाईं
‘कलर्स’ पढ़ाये
मैंने 20 ‘परसेंट’ दो हज़ार ‘थाउजेंड थाउजेंड’ सवाल पूछे
और नख़रे दिखाये
थोड़ी देर में ‘बोर’ होकर
‘मैजिक’ से उसने
वापस आदु को आदु
और पापा को पापा बना दिया
…
मेरे साढ़े तीन साल के बच्चे को
जल्दी है बड़ा होने की
और मैं हर लम्हा
थामने की तरक़ीब में लगा हूँ
-आलोक
२९/०८/२०२३
उड़ने को आकास मिले
उड़ने को आकास मिले
दिल को कोई आस मिले
दूर परखता रहता ईश्वर
कभी तो अपने पास मिले
जीवन दरिया बहता पानी
तुम हो गहरी साँस मिले
नाज़ुक सपने टूटे काँच
आँखों में अब फाँस मिले
झोले झोले बाँटी ख़ुशियाँ
ख़ुद से पर उदास मिले
आँखें खोलीं रोया मानुष
रूह को नया लिबास मिले
माधव माधव रटती मीरा
विष मिले या रास मिले
मीठे लोग, मीठी बातें
दिल में रखी खटास मिले
—आलोक
The most exciting thing I read recently isn’t a book
(or a blog post or an article or anything usually considered ‘the written word’)
Scenario 01
It is early morning. You are brushing your teeth. With your non-dominant hand. Because in your dominant hand (right in my case), you are holding your phone and eagerly reading a story that has kept you hooked for the past day and night.
Scenario 02
You are at the office in the middle of back-to-back meetings. Ideally, you should take a break, rest your eyes, and maybe follow other sensible advice. But you don’t. You are invested in the story now.
Scenario 03
The last thing you do before going to sleep is to check where the protagonist has reached. It has been a long day. You should sleep. But you simply can’t. More so, instead of ‘only’ reading, you are making decisions impacting the story arc. They are literally a matter of life and death.
Yes, the most exciting thing I’ve read recently isn’t a book. It is an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) game called Lifeline.
Available on iOS, Lifeline is the tale of an astronaut, Taylor, whose spaceship has crashed on a remote, uninhabited moon. No one else on the ship has survived, and his/her only contact across the void of the universe is you. Taylor is not an experienced astronaut and depends on you to make decisions. Try the stubbornly stuck door to the galley, or stick with rat food? Camp by a heat source engine emitting possibly lethal radiation, or risk the moon’s sub-zero night? Go after strange glowing scuttling things in the dark, or stay put and hope they were a figment of the imagination? You press buttons in your ‘text only’ interactions, and Taylor responds accordingly.
Those who know me will never categorize me as a ‘gamer.’ I’m and have always been a ‘reader’, and this game got me hooked because of its above-average writing. Not exactly at ‘The Martian’ levels but thrilling enough to hold your attention for long periods. Add to it the interactivity. It takes the whole experience beyond reading. Even if you were taking things lightly at the start, the first time your decisions lead to Taylor’s death, and they will, it hits you with the full force of remorse. Gradually, you start caring for Taylor and make decisions more carefully. One thing that makes the game enjoyable is that not everything is immediate. When Taylor goes to sleep or traverses long distances, you do have to wait for hours for the next update. And the messages arrive just like they would IRL. It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of a meeting or winding down to sleep…a friend depends on you to respond, and more often than not, you do.
The game has a pared-down aesthetic. There is a background score, but it sounded monotonous and oddly jarring, so I turned it off. After the first time Taylor’s path reaches its end, you can also opt for a ‘fast’ mode which I assume will generate immediate responses irrespective of Taylor going to sleep or a hike. I didn’t. Lifeline is also available on the Apple Watch and looks well made for its text-based notification environment. I played most of it on my iPhone and was happy with it.
After a few unfortunate endings for Taylor, in the end, I did manage to reach a resolution which should be satisfying for both of us. That said, I’m not sure if I’m going back again to replay it, but it sure was fun while it lasted.
पनाह
मैंने छोड़े हैं घर
मूँह अँधेरे,
दिन दहाड़े
बताये,
बिन बताये
…
मैंने छोड़े हैं रिश्ते
ऐसे ही जैसे कोई घर छोड़ता है
…
मैं छोड़ आया पीछे
रिश्तों जितने गहरे लम्हे कई
…
पूरी ज़िंदगी बहता रहा
मुड़ कर देखता रहा
उस सब को
जो पीछे छोड़ आया था मैं
…
तुम मिले
तो पनाह मिली है
मुझ रिफ्यूजी को
…
चलो मिलकर एक ज़िंदगी बनते हैं
-आलोक
Money Matters - a short review of The Psychology of Money
If someone had told me that my first finished and so far favourite book of 2023 would be about finances and money, and it would not be boring at all, I would have scoffed at them for not knowing me! I am creative, and I’ve often been heard in discussions proudly proclaiming myself as financially illiterate. Can’t go into the details of my ignorance in a public blog post, but I really am.
As the book’s author Morgan Housel says, health and money are the two things that impact everybody, whether they are interested in them or not. This book went a step ahead; it got me interested in the health of my finances. Morgan uses jargon-free storytelling to convey the most essential aspects of personal finance and approach towards making sense of money matters.
The Psychology of Money is not a how-to guide; Morgan doesn’t share investment tips and tricks but instead provides a sensible thought structure to change your outlook towards money. It may not be a book for experienced investors and those who are experts at managing their wealth, but then, it may be, so universal are the ideas it describes.
My suggestion? Go grab a copy right now. If a person totally uninterested in his financial health can finish it in two days, you know you have something good at hand.
“Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time. ”
Dear Whosoever Is Going To Read This 03 - the Sunday evening dread
It’s that time of the week again. I call it the Sunday evening dread. As another Monday looms, I instinctively look back at the weekend slipping out of hand. There’s this feeling of the day, the weekend just not been enough. I start questioning myself about what I did or, more often, what I didn’t. I wonder where the heck all the time went. And if I’m in a complicated state of mind, the previous question is enlarged to contain my whole life. Yeah, all the nearly forty-three years of it.
Not a nice place to be in, not on a Sunday, not any day.
The fact is, I had a perfectly normal day by Sunday standards. I woke up late, had okayish food, finished a thriller on Netflix, didn’t take a bath, scrolled through Instagram, played with my toddler, and ‘conversed’ with my wife (opposite of what women blame us men for not talking profoundly and meaningfully about life with them). Still, there’s this nagging thought that maybe I didn’t do enough. That I didn’t justify this day of rest by resting really well or, conversely, by making more productive use of my time.
Maybe the key here is the word ‘productive.’ Maybe the uneasiness is because of not having a tangible output for all the time I put in as input. Maybe this little bit of writing will help assuage that concern, at least.
What do you think, dear whosoever is reading this? Do you also feel the same at times? If not particularly on a Sunday evening, maybe towards the end of a vacation or approaching your birthday? Is this what a mid-life crisis looks like in its weekly instalment?
Dear Whosoever Is Going To Read This 02
In the 1980s, when I was coming of age, the tongue of my family and community was not English. Though our words were sufficient for the requirements of offices and schools, they were not employed in the daily intercourse of life. English was a subject to be studied, a skill to be acquired, but not a medium of natural expression.
Yet, very early in my teenage years, a curious desire took root within me to master the art of conversing in English and set myself apart from those around me. I borrowed fiction titles from a distant library, rented American movies and strained to understand the songs broadcasted on the precious two hours of MTV we received via government television. The internet, with its instant access to lyrics, was not yet a thing, and I later learned that I had been singing many of those songs incorrectly. But the movies, they did teach me the nuances of slang and helped me find a sense of ease in spoken English. It was the books, however, that had the most lasting impact, enriching my vocabulary and shaping my storytelling abilities, despite the lack of practice in pronunciation.
But time moves on, and with it, the world around us. Now English is the default language in the corporate workplace, my family and I converse in it more than half the time, and the majority of media we consume- the books we read, the movies we watch and the songs we listen to, all are in English. I find myself having to actively make an effort to write in Hindi, my mother tongue. And it pains me.
I wonder, will there come a second teenage, where I will again desire to set myself apart by choosing Hindi over English? Only time will tell.
And yet, as I reflect upon these thoughts, I am reminded that even now, I sometimes read "heart" as "hurt" before correcting myself and realize there's not much difference between the two.