A lazy boy film

"275 per ticket, Madam", he said.

I gaped at him.

"Recliner seats, Madam", he said sympathetically.

"Can't you give me normal seats?" I gasped.

 "No, only recliner seats, Madam."

I rushed into the theatre, determined not to waste a minute's worth of my 275 rupees. They were still cleaning up after the last show.

Dhanno raised her eyebrows and said, "Mom, they'll let us know when they've finished."

Once inside the candy-striped auditorium, I pushed the back of my seat.

Dhanno said, "It's not a bus seat, Mom. Just wait."

She found a secret switch in the copious folds, and the chair extended, my legs went up, my back slid back.

"More, more," I said, "that's enough."

A little boy passing by squealed, "Daddy, I want a seat like that."

I was inclined to pull out my tongue at him, but his Daddy pulled him away, reassuring him that his seat was going to be as wonderful as mine.

"Oh no," I said, as it suddenly struck me, "how will I get up for the National Anthem?"

On the dot, the screen commanded, "Stand up for the National Anthem." I scrambled out of my seat; the chair lurched with me. Dhanno meanwhile, pressed a switch, her recliner went back to a normal position, and she stood beside me, tapping her foot impatiently while I shook myself straight.

"I almost fell," I said.

She nodded coldly. I noticed for the first time that the group of actors singing the National Anthem have weird eye-lines, because they are all keyed in. The thought that each actor has been shot separately against a green background depressed me for some reason. I slid back into the chair with relief.

"Should we have some popcorn?" I said.

"No, we've just had dinner, and you always say that the popcorn gives you a headache," Dhanno admonished.

"Will you share the popcorn with me?" I said, ignoring her.

She refused to answer.

I asked the usher next to me, "Could you get me a regular popcorn?"

He said, "Only large, Madam, no regular."

I sank into the seat, defeated.

"Isn't this chair like the one Joey has in 'Friends'?" I said.


"No," Dhanno said, "That's a Lazy Boy."

"This is a Lazy Boy," I said.

"No, it isn't," Dhanno said, "for one, a Lazy Boy is much larger."

"This is nice too," I said.

I slid the back further. The ceiling was candy-striped too.

"That's hypnotic," I thought.

I woke up from a nap much later, and looked around. Peace prevailed, as people slept on their recliners. Dhanno looked more amicable in her sleep. Only the little boy behind me was awake. He was playing with the switch and had succeeded in turning his recliner into a swing. This time, I did pull out my tongue at him. His Daddy was asleep.

So yes, do go see 'Toh Baat Pakki' if you can book yourself into a recliner chair. If you own a Lazy Boy, then stay home and watch TV instead.  Even if you don't have a Lazy Boy, stay home and watch TV instead.

There's enough bad acting, screenplays, camera work, music on the small screen to sedate you, you don't need to go to the theatre for that.

bravado

After hearing that Salman Khan was blasting all those critics who blasted 'Veer', Teja is seriously waiting for him to react to my review of 'Veer' in Tehelka.

He's been going to the gym lately, and would love a fight. But Salman Khan is

So, no, I rather he stayed far away from Teja.


In my defense, I did end my review with a line about his fabulous screen presence, and stardom. Not my fault it was edited out.

Dhanno refuses to be implicated in any of this.

why aren't we in goa?

Teja fiddles with his camera.

He says: "I don't like palaces and forts. Unless I'm studying them for some particular reason."

Dhanno says: "We should go to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Ajmer. I mean, we should really see the place."

I say: "It's only 15 minutes since we landed here, people. Why did you say yes to Rajasthan? I knew we should have gone to Goa."

Dhanno drools: "Hmm. Prawn curry rice. Pancakes in the morning. Cinnamon apple pie at night."

Teja says unconvincingly: "Oh, I'm OK. This will be fun, too."

Dhanno grumbles: "Yeah. But why are we staying in Udaipur for 3 days?"

I look at the Lonely Planet guide yet again to find out why. I begin to read aloud from it.

Dhanno flops on her bed, and says: "This is like sleeping in a hammock. I'm sinking."

Teja wears his reading glasses, just because I am wearing mine.

Dhanno says: "Both of you act like they are new toys."

I say: "I like the room. It has the same curtains as our bedroom."

Teja laughs: "We should have stayed at home then."

self indulgence

photos by Dhanno

in love

In our house, Ranbir Kapoor is mentioned several times a day.


One of our family members is madly in love with him.

I am meant to make it very clear to all and sundry that that family member is not me. I am not supposed to love Ranbir Kapoor, though I am allowed to like him, in a maternal sort of way.

One of our family members also hopes to be an actress, work with Ranbir Kapoor, have him fall madly in love with her, and marry her, one day.

I, meanwhile, am trying hard to imagine what it would mean to be the 'samdhan' of Neetu Kapoor. And I am glad for the temporary reprieve from worrying about all those next-door boys .

We have spent a fortune in movie tickets watching 'Wake Up Sid' 4 times, and 'Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani' twice.

We don't like Deepika Padukone or Katrina Kaif much in this house. In fact, we hate them.

for those on a diet,

if not candy floss, how about some balloons and glittery swords? No? Bows and arrows, then?

Photo by Dhanno.

If you don't like any of these, or even if you do, you could go read my post on Upperstall Blogs, 30 days in 58 years.

candy floss, anyone?

So I'm going to be traipsing the streets of Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land again for a fortnight, going darker and darker in the white glaring heat of October. Thought I'd leave you with a few photos by Dhanno, taken at Juhu beach, a couple of weeks ago.

The header photo is by her, as well.

fashinista banno or an old horse with red reins

I had been eye-ing a red bag in Hidesign since months.

It was not always the same bag, but it was always red.

Once again, I went in to the store, and saw the perfect red messenger bag. I took it carefully off the lurching mannequin, and slid it over my shoulder. One hasty look at the mirror, one covert look, one over the shoulder look and I dropped the bag, and walked out. A few steps away, and I turned back to look at the store, wistfully. The bag was calling out to me.

I wanted Teja and Dhanno to convince me, either to buy the bag or forget it. They were tapping their feet, and clicking their fingers, and looking everywhere but at me.

I said: "It would look too much, no? Everyone would say, an old woman carrying a red bag."

Dhanno said: "But that's what you would be, isn't it? An old woman carrying a red bag. So how does it matter?"

What I had wanted her to say was: "But you are not old, Mama!"

There's not much to be said for dinning 'honesty is the best policy' into your child at a tender age. Because sooner or later, she hands it back to you. I let out a sigh and took a couple of steps towards the store again. Then sighed and turned back.

Teja, knowing well that the sighs if ignored, threatened to take over our domestic arrangements over the next few days, said: "Why don't you just get it?"

I said: "Yeah. I can probably use it for a few more years. Then I'll be older. And that will be just be too old for a red bag."

Teja said: "You'll never be too old for a red bag."

Dhanno said: "Yeah, as if. You are never going to give up your jhataak pink, are you? Or purple? Or yellow?"

I grinned.

This time, I ignored the swinging of the mannequin and grabbed my bag from its shoulder and marched with it to the cash counter. Anyone could see that the red bag was going to give me graces Nature had not conferred on me.

With flamingo-pink rainy sandals, and my tomato-red messenger bag, I made quite a fashion statement on my last documentary shoot. Specially when I teamed them with my lime-green capris and rose-pink lipstick.

That's what it's come to, folks.

There we were, sauntering along, hand in hand, on our way to 'The Proposal'. We met a schoolmate of Dhanno's, exchanged 'hi's' and 'hello's' and carried on.

Dhanno said: "My friends always say, that we saw your mom and you walking around, hand in hand."

I said: "Oh!"

Dhanno said: "Yeah, they tease me, do you still need your mom to hold your hand to help you cross the road?"

I laughed.

Dhanno said: "I tell them, no, my mom needs to hold my hand to help her cross the road."

True enough.

What, indeed!

Dhanno said: "Yeah, there's this guy in her coaching classes who likes Bijli."

I said: "And does Bijli like him?"

Dhanno said: "Naaah! He's ugly."

I said: "So if someone is ugly, you can't like him?"

Dhanno rolled her eyes and said: "So now you want us to look at the guy's internal beauty and all? Analyze whether he is marriage material? What, Mom?"

Mom effectively silenced.

that old parenting trick

So, in the middle of shooting a rugby match,

and untangling spools and spools of red tape for a shoot at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus,

previously called Victoria Terminus,

and the hot hot sun which tanned even me,

and gave me a black nose,

(bad sun!),

there was a shower of fresh water on my head.

Dhanno scored 91% in her ICSE Std. X Board exams.

with a 95% in Maths.

Inspite of us.

We did all we could to make things difficult for her.

Refused to send her for coaching classes.

Tempted her with movies every day.

Dragged her off on shopping trips,

railroading her carefully worked out timetable.

Packed her off to sleep early.

Shut off the early morning alarm she had set, once she was asleep.

Told her that marks were not everything.

Rebelling against parents takes strange forms.

Hers was to do well.

And all of us old-timers,

rebels of the first order in our youth,

are secretly pleased with her performance,

despite our professed disgust.

real life dharamji

Dhanno has pasted on her cupboard doors -

6 posters of Drake Bell,

4 of Hillary Duff,

3 of Avril Lavigne,

1 of Ranbir Kapoor,

1 of a bulldog in a blue denim jacket,

1 of a poodle in a pink jacket,

1 photo-shopped picture of her with Drake Bell,

A school group photo of me in Std VIII A, in St. Anne's School, Pune, 1977,

and

A school group photo of her in Std. VIII A, in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land, 2007.

So that I don't feel left out, Teja found me this. It was flying around on his studio floor.

 

My crankiness after a 3 hour drive back from town disappeared instantly.

Teja said: "Happy?" 

I said to Teja: "He's just like you."

In fact, Teja is a real life Dharamji. No, no, not looks. Lest all my friends gasp at my blindness. But in his sweetness.

Thankfully, minus the excess boozing and womanizing.

i'm not letting go

While Dhanno gets ready to climb the Chandrasheela peak,

Banno thumps her way around the 333 metre 'murmur'  mud track, good for the joints,

in the BMC garden in T-Village.

Banno's soul however hovers over Surat station,

waiting for the Delhi-bound August Kranti

that will take Dhanno, her cousins and her friends away on their 12-day trek,

and Banno's soul wants to lie down on the floor of Platform no. 2 or 1,

and trash its hands and feet,

and cry hysterically, "Dhanno, don't go, don't go."

All these years, Banno didn't mind,

almost welcomed Dhanno's holidays with her aunts or cousins,

it gave her some relief from Mummy-dom.

But now, Banno's soul cannot care less about being a wise, kind mother,

letting her little bird fly and all that.

All it wants to do is cling, and cling.

And cling.

what do bullet holes say?

Dhanno has her hair streaked purple to match her purple cell phone, both gifts for working incredibly hard all year, giving her Std. X exams.

Teja gets ready to board the 'Ladies Special' local train. No, he is not abandoning me, not just yet. Only prepping for a TV show.

I, meanwhile, try to make sense out of bullets.

 

Bakery Wall, opp Nariman House, Colaba

  

          Bakery Door, opp. Nariman House, Colaba

 

Lift door, 6th Floor, Cama Hospital, Azad Maidan

The bullet holes make pretty patterns, but no, they don't make sense at all. 

 

uncle, make-up and films

Guaranteed to banish the doldrums is Jacques Tati's 'Mon Uncle' (1958). Google Search throws up 4,190,000 search results for the film, so am not going to add my 2 bits about it.

But here's a photo of my make-up box. Brought for me by those migratory birds that come in from Paris every year. Placed on Dhanno's dressing table which is way more stacked than mine. Shot by Teja.

Make-up is yet another thing that makes me happy. Well, no, just a kohl pencil and a pink lipstick, really.

While Dhanno and I watched Tati yesterday, and marveled at how each frame tells a story all its own, I remembered a film I saw at IFFI, Goa last year. Milky Way/Tejut (2007) by Benedik Fliegauf, Hungary. Curiously, the review I link to, mentions Tati too.

Fliegauf puts together  a series of sketches within a frame. None connect to the other in narrative and yet weave together seamlessly to create an experience of time and space. When Pu and I came out of the theatre, I jotted down a few sketches that I remembered.

1. An old woman walks across a playground, swing in foreground. She sits on a bench, then starts moving back. Midway, she collapses. A neighbor comes to look at her. He picks her up and carries her back.

2. A woman walks across a boat jetty with a pram. She leaves the pram and walks back. A boat comes towards the jetty. A man gets down and looks at the pram. The woman comes back and takes the pram.

3. Two cyclists practice on a pile of rocks on a mountain top. They stop to look at a crane working down below. Dogs bark somewhere. The cyclists disappear below frame.

4. A man walks out of a tent on a field at night. He walks across the field and pees. He walks back to the tent. There is a lot of wind. Two men come out of the tent and struggle with it. The tent flies away. The men chase it and disappear bottom of frame.

5. A truck enters an open ground. Two men get down. They unload big rolls of plastic, red, green, yellow. One man sets up a table. The other man starts pumping up the plastic. Soon, there is a plastic playhouse. A little girl and an old man enter. They pay the man on the table, and enter the playhouse. They lie down on the floor and disappear from frame.

6. Two boys practice dance on a rooftop overlooking the city at night.

There were more, the images striking enough to have stayed with me after these many months.

What stayed with me also is a conversation I overheard while I scribbled - between two film students, a Mallu from FTII, Pune and a Bong from SRFTII, Kolkata. Both chose to speak in Hindi.

"Yeh film kya thee?" (What was that film?)

"Isko samajhne ke liye akkal chaahiye thee." (You needed brains to understand it.)

"Accha hain, tu idhar dekh lee thee, udhar tere ko dekhne ko nahin miltee thee." (It's good you saw it here, you wouldn't have been able to see it there.)

All those who know a Bong and a Mallu in real life will know what's funny about this conversation. They are prone to mix up their genders in Hindi. Everything is feminine, usually.

cats on a hot tin roof

The other day, Dhanno was watching 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na' all over again on TV. Of course, I was watching along.

Though the film seemed to be even blander than it did the last time, "a nothingness", as Sur says, I didn't have much of a problem with Aditi or Jai, or their friends, even though they didn't have anything other than relationships on their mind. Even if they seemed silly, immature and shallow, well, we've all been there, done that.

But what had me fuming were the supposedly "coolest parents in the world", Aditi's parents - Pamelo and Pamela/ Potato and Pumpkins/ Peachpie and Parrot/ Popcorn and what have you/ whatever, whatever.

Scene 1 in which they appear -  Cool parents dancing at their grown up kids party. Eww!

Scene 2 - Cool parents discussing in garden - Our daughter is 20. She graduated today. Let us talk to Jai and fix up their marriage. Before people talk. High time they settled down. Or we'll have to deal with the relatives and various proposals. (Unsaid - She wants to be a film maker? Let her get married first. Then, we'll see).

Scene 3 - Cool parents talking to Jai - So when do you get married? (Unsaid - Oh, you don't have a job, you've only graduated yesterday, but that's all right). Misunderstanding ensues. Jai and Aditi convince them they are only friends.

Scene 4 - Cool parents - If you are only friends, and are together all the time, how will you find partners? And your partner won't like your mate. (Unsaid - And you must find your partner, the sooner the better).

Soon enough, Aditi has an arranged meeting with a family friend's son, and gets engaged on the same day.

Scene 5 in which parents appear - Cool parents play scrabble while their daughter has got engaged to the first man they introduced her to. He is a friend's son so they haven't done any background check on him. The only indication that things may not be what they seem is the word father makes on the board 'Discomfort'.

Scene 6 - Cool parents wary that their reclusive son will embarrass them in front of their prospective son-in-law. Cool parents thrilled that their son seems to like their prospective son-in-law. Cool parents clueless about their son's thought processes or facial expressions.

Scene 7. Cool parents bid Aditi goodbye at airport.

A day earlier Aditi has come back with a huge bruise on her cheek. We never see or hear of them noticing it, talking to her about it, questioning her about why she has broken off her engagement or confronting their friend or his son about it.

Aditi sitting alone on Band Stand seems to reconfirm the fact that she cannot depend on her parents for emotional support. That she is alone. It is left to Jai to notice her bruise and avenge her.

So these are supposedly educated, super rich parents, who have lived all over the world. What happens to girls in middle class families with not-so-cool parents?

Somehow, brings to mind the crazy mother Kiron Kher plays in 'Fanaa' who packs off her college going blind daughter to a strange city for the first time with the prayer that she finds her Prince Charming there. The daughter willingly obliges, and falls in love with the first man who comes her way. The mother, hearing this news on the phone, and that her daughter is going to get married to someone they have never met is ecstatic.

We grew up with the thought of marriage dinned into our heads. My parents wanted me to 'see' a boy at the age of 15, and get engaged. My sister, friends and cousins all had the same pressure, give or take a few years. Some of us rebelled and found our own partners. Some had secret flings before they married partners of their parents' choice. Some did as they were told. The 'cool parents' were those who made no fuss about their children choosing their own partner.

But I can safely say, that in 90 cases out of 100, girls and their parents spent no time or just about 1/10th of time to career options or a need for a career as they did to finding the right partner for their child. And I've seen so many brilliant minds underutilized. So many wrong choices made because of the haste. So many lives forced to live out marriage for the sake of marriage.

So has nothing changed in 25 years?

Around us, children as young as 11 and 12 are playing the dating game. I can understand that they are hormonally charged up to do so. I can understand Dhanno and her crushes, and the enormous peer pressure to date. What Teja and I cannot bring our minds around to, is her dating or being sexually active, until an appropriate age, to our minds 18 and after.

But of course, we have a few 'cool' parents around us, too. A mother consents to her 12 year old going steady with a boy 5 years her senior, because the girl says, "I cannot live without him." The boy is in college, in another town. The girl's studies and sports performances which were brilliant earlier, have suffered.

A few other 'cool' parents have promised their girls they can start dating once they finish their Xth Std exams, when they'll be 15+.

Another 'cool' parent met Dhanno for the first time, when she was 13 and asked her to pirouette, and said, "Good, you are sexy." One could pass it off as a casual remark, if her own daughter was not obsessing about her looks all the time.

Now, while I love watching Dhanno dress up, make up and preen before the mirror, there's no way I am going to encourage her to think of her looks beyond a point. Not that she needs any encouragement from me, as is evident from when she was 5.

Dhanno, 5, oil pastel drawing by Banno with a few flourishes from Dhanno , 1998

However, I would think it criminal to even suggest that she absolutely needs to find the right partner and marry if she wants to live a fulfilled life.

Teja is clear that even if Dhanno has a few hang-ups about relationships because we are strict, she will grow out of them. But he certainly does not want any boyfriend-shoyfriend business right now. He is willing to be the villain of the story, if need be.

As for me, I feel confused. What about our own wild days as young people? Our rebellions, our fights for our personal freedom? I know that a dear friend, Fi will read this and mail me saying - "Ba, sau choohe khaake billi Hajj ko chali" i.e. the cat goes to Hajj after eating a hundred rats.

at home on Valentine's Day

Dhanno came back home and said, "I am very impressed with my friend Ish."

I said, "Why?"

She said, "Her friend Hit is gay. But Ish said he's her best friend."

I said, "So?"

Dhanno said, "But it's just that Ish is not even bothered by it. She takes it so normally."

I said, "Why shouldn't she?"

Dhanno said, "No reason. I don't mean to say being gay is wrong. But just that ... I mean, I've never known anyone who is gay."

I said, "Well, as you grow up, you will know more and more people who are gay."

Dhanno said, "Yes, but isn't it abnormal? I mean .."

I said, "No, it's not."

Dhanno said, "Yes, mom, even biology says that you have sexual organs to attract the opposite sex to be able to reproduce."

I said, "Whatever. But when a large proportion of people are homosexual, then how can that be abnormal?"

She said, "Hmm."

Then, she said, "I'm just so impressed with Ish. I mean she takes it so normally."

I said, "You are so fazed by this, because of all the gay characters you usually see on TV or film."

She said, "Come on, it's not that. I know they are not bad people."

I said, "No, it's not about good or bad. It's just that you see gay people on screen wearing strange clothes, walking and talking in strange ways. So, that's what you think they will be. But gay people look just like you and me."

She said, "That's true."

I said, "For instance, Rock Hudson. He was gay."

She said, "No...o...o.."

I said, "So what? Does that make him any less good-looking, charming, less of a star? Does it make you like him less?"

She said, "Why did you tell me? I like him so much. Now please don't tell me Leonardo Di Caprio is gay."

I said, "Why not?"

She said, "Because I like him."

I said, " So will you like him less if he is gay?"

She said, "Mama, I like him. As in like him. As in, when I am 21 and he is say, 45, and we meet, I could marry him."

I say, "Oh!"

She said, "Why did you tell me Rock Hudson is gay? I like him. I wanted to meet him."

I said, "But he is dead."

She said, "Oh no. Mama, how could you do this to me on Valentine's Day? First, you tell me he is gay, then that he is dead. Did you need to do that?"

Teja and I then threw names at her at random, saying "Oh, this one is gay, and that one is gay. And that one too. And that one is bisexual."

She hit back by saying that we were the most boring couple she knew, since we had no plans for Valentine's Day, then ignored us, and thought it was time for dinner.

By the way, don't miss checking out

The Stags in The Steam Room

Preview here

PS: Dhanno says I have my biology all wrong. It's not our sexual organs, but our secondary sexual characteristics like color of skin and hair, body odour, and voice and their differentiations between male and female that are meant to attract the opposite sex. It's back to the classroom for me.

Just because there are only so many rasgullas you can eat at one time

The other day, I watched Dharmendra in a chamber with a slanting floor opening into a pit with acid bubbling inside. As he tried to avoid falling in, he looked up. A fancy glass chandelier over the pit had a Gandhi cap stuck on it - it belonged to someone he had known. The cap fell into the pit, and the bubbles swallowed it up immediately.

Meanwhile, gas began to spew out of vents near the floor. Then, a big dog rushed in and attacked Dharmendra in a bid to loosen his grip on the floor and make him fall into the pit. The dog then turned into a stuffed toy with which Dharmendra wrestled making huge, grunting sounds. Then Dharmendra threw the dog into the pit, and the acid bubbles sizzled again satisfyingly.

Dharmendra used the door left open by the dog to move out of the chamber and into a corridor where immediately big saws started rotating towards him threateningly from both sides. Then, some huge drills started coming at him from the floor. He avoided all those and escaped through the blades of a huge exhaust fan onto a shabby terrace full of sad looking potted plants and discarded furniture. Shetty, the dark bald evil man was waiting for him there, and he made menacing sounds. They had a fist-fight.

Meanwhile, Ajit and Prem Chopra went down a corridor. A door opened automatically and closed when they had passed by. They opened a large oven. The skeleton of a dog was delivered to them covered in ashes. They wondered what had happened. They peeped through a window of the chamber and saw Dharmendra had escaped.

Dharmendra defeated Shetty eventually and looked down from the terrace. A saddled horse was waiting patiently near a tree. He whistled and the horse came obediently nearer. Dharmendra jumped from the terrace, landed on the horse two stories below, and galloped off.

Ajit and Prem Chopra came running out. Their house was in a forest. They asked their goons to chase Dharmendra. Everyone set off on their horses.

I switched off the TV. Too much pleasure can be a bad thing.

I wish I knew which film this was in. Teja who was in the same room as the TV, says he does remember seeing Dharmendra but none of the above since the TV was on only for a few minutes. Dhanno refuses to believe that I actually saw all this. She thinks I made it up. It seems just the kind of thing I would make up.

A few days ago, I also saw Dharmendra and Hema Malini on a ferry. They were having an argument, in the course of which he lifted her up, put her over his shoulders, smacked her on the bottom and then threw her into the water. Dhanno doesn't believe I saw this either.

I need some Youtube proof. And I need to stop surfing TV channels. And I need to watch entire films in one go, or at least until I figure out their names.

hardworking kids, lazy mom

Dhanno said yesterday: "After my Board exams, I'm going to take Time and put It in the mixie, and grind It, and take It out and throw It on the floor, then mop It up, and throw the mop in the dustbin. I'm going to waste and waste Time."

Her friend Shy said : "We'll just sit at the window and not even talk to each other, that is how much Time we will waste."

Poor kids, studying hard for their Std. X exams.

I meanwhile, continue to waste Time, gadding about unabashedly.

That is factually incorrect, the gadding about and the being unabashed. But I did so want to use those words.

The broken people

Last year, I thought it was time for Dhanno to begin cleaning her own bathroom and toilet. When I proposed it to her, she was shocked. Until then, usually I and sometimes Tai had cleaned it for her.

Perhaps she had never realized that someone did the job for her. Luckily, she was reading bits of Mahatma Gandhi's 'My Experiments with Truth' then, and we crossed over several issues with the thought that Gandhiji cleaned his own toilet.

It's the same with our public spaces. Most of us assume there is someone to clean up. So, it's chuck, spit, pee, shit.

Read my review of 'Untouchable' by Mulk Raj Anand, here.