As I listen to the hard facts about the life and death of Jet Airways, I hold at the back of my mind the picture of a silent row of Jet tailfins at Chennai airport last week. I thought then of the 1000-odd grounded pilots they represent, and wonder if one of them had flown my first flight. It was also my first business trip, my first film shoot, my first trip to Bombay, long enough ago to simply walk into the airport and out to the plane.
The end of Jet is the end of an era for those of us who started our careers in the nineties. We had emerged into a corporate India that had itself just started to unfurl new and wonderful petals. One of them was dark blue, with a yellow sun. I could list the exemplary service, the impeccable planes, the track record, the food, the fact that our highest praise today for the delightful Vistara is “It’s what Jet used to be”. But, as with any good brand, it is more than the sum of the parts; a personal relationship.
Like so many of my peers, I moved on in my profession, to other countries. Brands like Emirates and Singapore Airlines became “my airline”, but the fact that Jet Airways held its own even in those circles was a metaphor for ourselves. At the formative stages of our adulthood, it was one of a select group of homegrown brands that set a standard for India’s Generation X. They gave us pride, taught us to prize high quality and a job well done, set a standard for what we could be. That’s what patriotism meant to us.
Now, as airports get better and better, the grace of air travel somehow grows less. But I still love flying, even on the worst airlines (as a veteran of weekend trips in Southeast Asia, I am something of a connoisseur of these). The seed that was planted in those early days on India’s first private airline invokes the same sense of shared purpose whenever I step aboard any plane.
As I write, attempts are being made to resuscitate the airline; the brand may yet live. Meanwhile – with somewhat the same feeling I had as the last Concorde touched down – all that remains is to say thank you Jet Airways, for the joy of flying.
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
Monday, May 16, 2016
Why I love my Kindle
For one thing, it fits in my evening bag. Every book I have ever loved, and all the new ones in the world fit into a tiny bejeweled thing whose very existence is antithetic to an evening with a book. For me, that makes it a magical object straight out of Harry Potter, like Hermione’s bottomless bag.
Then there's the sheer breadth and scope of it. A press of a button is the soft thump of a library door, book-lined corridors stretching into infinity, an endless sunshiny Saturday afternoon. Whatever happened to all the William books? Well here are a few, ready to read in a minute. Haven’t seen an old-fashioned Mills & Boon in years or craving the fifth book of the Hitchhiker’s Guide? You can find it now, no need to get up. Want something new but not too much so? Here are some recommendations based on the types of books you like to read. What was that book about a nutmeg someone was talking about at the dinner party? Here’s a Google search and yes, there’s the book. One click and downloading now. It’s an almost overwhelming luxury.
I was an annoying kid, so my external primary school world was essentially solitary, but on the inside, cobbled streets and pavement cafes were crowded with fictitious beings and imaginary lives more compelling than the real one. Over the years plenty of actual people wandered in too, but my first friends were the books. I still like them to come with me; you never know when you might need an old friend. With the Kindle, they can.
In my parents’ house there was a small bookshelf behind the big ones, covered with dust and filled with the yellowing remains of the first “big” books I came across. Hardy, Tolstoy, Dumas and Shakespeare were not pulp fiction so they were not kept out of reach, but some of these were very big books indeed for an 11-year-old. Tess, for example, was read too early. As for Tolstoy and Shakespeare, I understood maybe one word in five, but I powered through anyway (it was good training for a career in advertising).
There were also age-appropriate books in there containing wondrous facts like baby swans are yellow and called cygnets, and what a Lipizzaner stallion is. When I booked my first holiday at 32, it was to Vienna, drawn by an echo of that word, a dim but persistent impression of castles and waltzes. Other such books brought into our lives Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s moons, the redness of Mars and the existence of Australia. Dinosaurs, meteors, the Bermuda triangle and Apollo 11 are forever connected in my head to horses and baby birds.
The point is, the books came first and early, and inform everything I see and do. They remain my happy place. I love the social round, dressing up and laughing and being loud. So I’m glad the awkward, hyper-sensitive side now gets to bring her armchair by the window, a sequined blanket and a pile of books; she no longer feels the need to demand attention and cramp my style. The Kindle: More effective than medication, far more addictive and with no harmful side effects.
Then there's the sheer breadth and scope of it. A press of a button is the soft thump of a library door, book-lined corridors stretching into infinity, an endless sunshiny Saturday afternoon. Whatever happened to all the William books? Well here are a few, ready to read in a minute. Haven’t seen an old-fashioned Mills & Boon in years or craving the fifth book of the Hitchhiker’s Guide? You can find it now, no need to get up. Want something new but not too much so? Here are some recommendations based on the types of books you like to read. What was that book about a nutmeg someone was talking about at the dinner party? Here’s a Google search and yes, there’s the book. One click and downloading now. It’s an almost overwhelming luxury.
I was an annoying kid, so my external primary school world was essentially solitary, but on the inside, cobbled streets and pavement cafes were crowded with fictitious beings and imaginary lives more compelling than the real one. Over the years plenty of actual people wandered in too, but my first friends were the books. I still like them to come with me; you never know when you might need an old friend. With the Kindle, they can.
In my parents’ house there was a small bookshelf behind the big ones, covered with dust and filled with the yellowing remains of the first “big” books I came across. Hardy, Tolstoy, Dumas and Shakespeare were not pulp fiction so they were not kept out of reach, but some of these were very big books indeed for an 11-year-old. Tess, for example, was read too early. As for Tolstoy and Shakespeare, I understood maybe one word in five, but I powered through anyway (it was good training for a career in advertising).
There were also age-appropriate books in there containing wondrous facts like baby swans are yellow and called cygnets, and what a Lipizzaner stallion is. When I booked my first holiday at 32, it was to Vienna, drawn by an echo of that word, a dim but persistent impression of castles and waltzes. Other such books brought into our lives Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s moons, the redness of Mars and the existence of Australia. Dinosaurs, meteors, the Bermuda triangle and Apollo 11 are forever connected in my head to horses and baby birds.
The point is, the books came first and early, and inform everything I see and do. They remain my happy place. I love the social round, dressing up and laughing and being loud. So I’m glad the awkward, hyper-sensitive side now gets to bring her armchair by the window, a sequined blanket and a pile of books; she no longer feels the need to demand attention and cramp my style. The Kindle: More effective than medication, far more addictive and with no harmful side effects.
Friday, May 06, 2016
To the young waiters in Den & Trang
Thank you for the smile of recognition after two years. And the questions you clearly want to ask (as do I), but we have never had enough of the other’s language to go beyond `orders and bills.
So thank you, in writing, for still being here. I saw the scaffolding next door from a distance and I thought you’d closed, and I really needed you to still be here today. That's one of the reasons I am sniffling at my laptop. I’m sorry about that, but there’s nobody here and anyway this is my table.
I notice your piano’s still here. So are the weird aquarium decorations, though I see the drowned giraffes and elephants have been taken out. I guess someone has begun to take a practical look at the place and monetize it. Your menu is the same but the food has improved and the coffee deteriorated. You have new tables and chairs; the old black and white sewing machine tables are being phased out. You are selling the cacti that used to sit on your tables – I wish I could take one, except I don’t like cacti and I can’t bring your mainland soil into the island I live on now. And tell me, have the creepers hanging down your wall always had plastic ones mixed with the real? They used to smell of rainforest when it rained; I doubt they’ve invented plastic that can do that. That's okay, change happens. It’s a good thing in the long run, even if you did like those little wooden giraffes - I remember you seemed to. They amused me too, every time.
I got two tiny tattoos yesterday, they stand for transformation and integrity, my two defining qualities. My lightness has gone too, but those remain unchanged.
I will leave soon, sooner than I expected. Meanwhile thank you for remembering my table, for having noticed that I used to like the wind chimes and waving apologetically to the tree where they no longer hang. I come here not only for the friends I miss every day, but also for the place where I am equally happy to be alone. And that's your fundamental quality that is unchanged. May there be other cafes for me wherever I go, and other regulars for you.
So thank you, in writing, for still being here. I saw the scaffolding next door from a distance and I thought you’d closed, and I really needed you to still be here today. That's one of the reasons I am sniffling at my laptop. I’m sorry about that, but there’s nobody here and anyway this is my table.
I notice your piano’s still here. So are the weird aquarium decorations, though I see the drowned giraffes and elephants have been taken out. I guess someone has begun to take a practical look at the place and monetize it. Your menu is the same but the food has improved and the coffee deteriorated. You have new tables and chairs; the old black and white sewing machine tables are being phased out. You are selling the cacti that used to sit on your tables – I wish I could take one, except I don’t like cacti and I can’t bring your mainland soil into the island I live on now. And tell me, have the creepers hanging down your wall always had plastic ones mixed with the real? They used to smell of rainforest when it rained; I doubt they’ve invented plastic that can do that. That's okay, change happens. It’s a good thing in the long run, even if you did like those little wooden giraffes - I remember you seemed to. They amused me too, every time.
I got two tiny tattoos yesterday, they stand for transformation and integrity, my two defining qualities. My lightness has gone too, but those remain unchanged.
I will leave soon, sooner than I expected. Meanwhile thank you for remembering my table, for having noticed that I used to like the wind chimes and waving apologetically to the tree where they no longer hang. I come here not only for the friends I miss every day, but also for the place where I am equally happy to be alone. And that's your fundamental quality that is unchanged. May there be other cafes for me wherever I go, and other regulars for you.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
A house that built us
The rest of us hampered and hindered proceedings in our usual aggressive fashion. We fought at the dining table (the most favoured arena), in the car, on the phone and in hardware stores. Deciding on a simple kitchen tap could include every grievance - real or imagined - collected from birth. But there came a day when that dingy place was transformed into a thing of light and space, complete with pink bathroom for the daughter and blue one for the son. And we could fight afresh about furniture placement.
It has hosted a spectacular housewarming, a happy wedding, birthdays, anniversaries, parties of all kinds. It welcomed a wonderful daughter-in-law and grandchild. And a running stream of family and friends. It healed returning prodigals and sent them forth again. It had its fair share of slammed doors and “discussions” that require yelling and angry tears, and also much of the opposite. Not to mention the regular complement of poisonous snakes, squirrels, birds, bandicoots and dogs that have generally surrounded us (all as noisy and ungovernable as the human inhabitants).
Now we look forward to arguing over setting up the dining table in a new place to continue the conversations that have fortified us all our lives, making our journeys possible.
Thursday, December 03, 2015
The man in seat 61
I found him first in 2007 when I was planning my first epic train journey, across the US. I was startled to find that someone had listed practically every train in the world, with detailed information on how to plan your journey, where to book tickets, and everything else you need to know. He’ll practically tell you what platform it’ll arrive on!
Over the past seven years, he’s become an essential part of my travel planning. Somehow he is bound in my head with a bar in Providence, having a drink with my cousin as we waited for the release of the last Harry Potter. Because he's part of the journey of that book we bought, which my cousin read first, I read on the train across the country, and then left for a friend 3000 miles later, in LA. He is another cousin who put me on a train in Boston Station, and the one who met me at the end of that trip, a continuity of childhood travel completely unaffected by the distances we have all gone since. He is part of my own writings in a Buddhist library in the foothills of the Himalayas, involving a very different kind of train journey through Middle India. He’s the reason I was able to brave the trains of Vietnam, and buy tickets in the most bewildering language in the world.
He demystified the Italian and Spanish railways for me. He helped me plan an even more epic train ride from Saigon to Moscow. The fact that my trip didn’t eventually work out is less important than the fact that it exists. The same goes for Norway’s Flam railway, the Sydney-Perth Indian Pacific, and the Tren Crucero in Ecuador.
When I plan a holiday, I do the usual searches, read the advice about cars and drivers, go through the apocryphal information on travelling alone, all the highly subjective views on Trip Advisor. I listen in on uptight backpackers giving each other misguided advice. And then I turn to my main man, who has what I need, carefully organized, fully thought through, answering not just the questions I have but those I hadn’t thought of asking. Most importantly, he knows you’re probably not a shoestring traveler, and would like some information about the most comfortable form of train travel.
Having grown up with a father who is passionate about trains, a family that ran the Southern Railways, and an India where the train was pretty much the only viable form of long-distance transport, I have always been used to train information that is accurate, precise and detailed. So I have immense respect for this labour of love.
As I’ve said in an earlier post, every train contains at least one passenger per car who can glance at a pair of orphan rails in the night and tell you which station it is, or wake from a deep sleep and know instantly where we’ve stopped, why, where the coming freight train is bound and at what speed. It’s the man in seat 61*.
*PS: If you're on an Indian train, this is probably my dad. If you're on a plane anywhere, that's definitely my brother.
Over the past seven years, he’s become an essential part of my travel planning. Somehow he is bound in my head with a bar in Providence, having a drink with my cousin as we waited for the release of the last Harry Potter. Because he's part of the journey of that book we bought, which my cousin read first, I read on the train across the country, and then left for a friend 3000 miles later, in LA. He is another cousin who put me on a train in Boston Station, and the one who met me at the end of that trip, a continuity of childhood travel completely unaffected by the distances we have all gone since. He is part of my own writings in a Buddhist library in the foothills of the Himalayas, involving a very different kind of train journey through Middle India. He’s the reason I was able to brave the trains of Vietnam, and buy tickets in the most bewildering language in the world.
He demystified the Italian and Spanish railways for me. He helped me plan an even more epic train ride from Saigon to Moscow. The fact that my trip didn’t eventually work out is less important than the fact that it exists. The same goes for Norway’s Flam railway, the Sydney-Perth Indian Pacific, and the Tren Crucero in Ecuador.
When I plan a holiday, I do the usual searches, read the advice about cars and drivers, go through the apocryphal information on travelling alone, all the highly subjective views on Trip Advisor. I listen in on uptight backpackers giving each other misguided advice. And then I turn to my main man, who has what I need, carefully organized, fully thought through, answering not just the questions I have but those I hadn’t thought of asking. Most importantly, he knows you’re probably not a shoestring traveler, and would like some information about the most comfortable form of train travel.
Having grown up with a father who is passionate about trains, a family that ran the Southern Railways, and an India where the train was pretty much the only viable form of long-distance transport, I have always been used to train information that is accurate, precise and detailed. So I have immense respect for this labour of love.
As I’ve said in an earlier post, every train contains at least one passenger per car who can glance at a pair of orphan rails in the night and tell you which station it is, or wake from a deep sleep and know instantly where we’ve stopped, why, where the coming freight train is bound and at what speed. It’s the man in seat 61*.
*PS: If you're on an Indian train, this is probably my dad. If you're on a plane anywhere, that's definitely my brother.
Monday, October 05, 2015
So this year I thought I would make you a present out of my own head
Whenever I see a Pajero, I see two hopeful friends engaging a four-wheel-drive for the first time, at short notice, on a soft-sand beach we were not supposed to be driving on. Following the fortunes of six fictional Friends, and trying to decide which of us was which. Walking through strange clubs in search of a Friday night. Crashing parties we were not invited to and getting in every photo on principle. After messy nights out, I made sure to drop you home first and watched you enter your door before moving on, and then I watched you turn into one of the best moms I know. You grew up way faster than I did. You became a star, and stayed one.
I see a group of friends rallying loyally, no matter what. I hear honest opinions, yours tactfully phrased, mine not so much. I hear a lot of laughter, mocking mere time and space and the very concept of goodbye. We’ve cried for every little thing, happy and sad, but shed no tears at the big stuff, just tossed off our wine in a purposeful toast, and got on with it.
So we kissed some frogs who turned out to be just frogs. And took the occasional wrong exit in our careers, and had to make u-turns. We made some fashion choices along the way that will forever haunt us on Facebook. We did things to our hair that our best friends would have advised against – if we weren’t all such enthusiastic lemmings.
The time-lapse video would show Bacardi-coke (Diet for you, Regular for me) turn to coloured cocktails and lethal shots, and then distil into wine. A procession of Mango and Zara and hair products (straighteners for you and curly ones for me), and then all of it again, but this time pushing strollers. A hundred relationships joining, parting, coming back together, binding in the warmth of a Dubai night. A few more lethal shots. And a big woohoo.
The YouTube tribute would be a pageant of enthusiasm, generosity, sensitivity, and strength, crowned with bling and anointed with perfume. We’ve cut many birthday cakes, blown out too many candles to count, but you are forever 22, and I am always 28.
-End of birthday present-
(Really? You prefer the kind that comes in boxes? Sure, it's in the mail. I totally remembered to courier it.)
I see a group of friends rallying loyally, no matter what. I hear honest opinions, yours tactfully phrased, mine not so much. I hear a lot of laughter, mocking mere time and space and the very concept of goodbye. We’ve cried for every little thing, happy and sad, but shed no tears at the big stuff, just tossed off our wine in a purposeful toast, and got on with it.
So we kissed some frogs who turned out to be just frogs. And took the occasional wrong exit in our careers, and had to make u-turns. We made some fashion choices along the way that will forever haunt us on Facebook. We did things to our hair that our best friends would have advised against – if we weren’t all such enthusiastic lemmings.
The time-lapse video would show Bacardi-coke (Diet for you, Regular for me) turn to coloured cocktails and lethal shots, and then distil into wine. A procession of Mango and Zara and hair products (straighteners for you and curly ones for me), and then all of it again, but this time pushing strollers. A hundred relationships joining, parting, coming back together, binding in the warmth of a Dubai night. A few more lethal shots. And a big woohoo.
The YouTube tribute would be a pageant of enthusiasm, generosity, sensitivity, and strength, crowned with bling and anointed with perfume. We’ve cut many birthday cakes, blown out too many candles to count, but you are forever 22, and I am always 28.
-End of birthday present-
(Really? You prefer the kind that comes in boxes? Sure, it's in the mail. I totally remembered to courier it.)
Monday, September 28, 2015
Making friends
I don't know how to; I've never had to. They just came. Good friends. Bad friends. Friends who are still in my life 15 years and three countries later. Those who became family in five minutes. Others who came and went according to their convenience or time of life. But always copious numbers of them, of all kinds, ranging from the ephemeral bonding in the rest room of a club to the kind where you get on a plane to be there when she picks up her divorce papers, or you’re willing to risk the entire friendship to tell him what he needs to hear but doesn't want to know.
And since I've never had to go looking for them before, I'm now a bit handicapped in what seems to be the world’s most difficult place to make friends. I faithfully follow the instructions I'm given on WhatsApp from other time zones, so I go out and join things. Yoga classes, Thai boxing lessons, Colour Runs, wine tastings. I smile at idiots in the gym, in case they're nice idiots. I’m friendly to the mean girl by the pool in case she's only mean because she's friendless. I doggedly stay at barbecues where I am bored to tears in the hope that somewhere in the humourless, needlessly competitive throng is another person feeling the same way I do. I put up with being patronised on the subject of children (lack of), and irresponsibility (too much of) in the hope that underneath it all is a real person worth knowing. I stick on at dinners that crush my spirit in the belief that the problem is mine to fix. I hold on too tight to friendship that was never meant to be anything but light, until it finally stops fluttering and dies. In short, I’m the idiot in the gym.
Recently, while attempting to be bright and entertaining, and winding up just being dull, I remembered suddenly what my mom said to me when I first left for college: Don’t worry if you don’t find friends immediately, the right friends will find you. Well, she's been right for 25 years, so there’s no reason to disbelieve it now. Which means I can just peacefully return to my Kindle. Here's my number, call me maybe.
And since I've never had to go looking for them before, I'm now a bit handicapped in what seems to be the world’s most difficult place to make friends. I faithfully follow the instructions I'm given on WhatsApp from other time zones, so I go out and join things. Yoga classes, Thai boxing lessons, Colour Runs, wine tastings. I smile at idiots in the gym, in case they're nice idiots. I’m friendly to the mean girl by the pool in case she's only mean because she's friendless. I doggedly stay at barbecues where I am bored to tears in the hope that somewhere in the humourless, needlessly competitive throng is another person feeling the same way I do. I put up with being patronised on the subject of children (lack of), and irresponsibility (too much of) in the hope that underneath it all is a real person worth knowing. I stick on at dinners that crush my spirit in the belief that the problem is mine to fix. I hold on too tight to friendship that was never meant to be anything but light, until it finally stops fluttering and dies. In short, I’m the idiot in the gym.
Recently, while attempting to be bright and entertaining, and winding up just being dull, I remembered suddenly what my mom said to me when I first left for college: Don’t worry if you don’t find friends immediately, the right friends will find you. Well, she's been right for 25 years, so there’s no reason to disbelieve it now. Which means I can just peacefully return to my Kindle. Here's my number, call me maybe.
Thursday, July 02, 2015
Divergent
A few years ago, an aura-reader I talked to in a serious error of judgement said sadly: “I’m sorry, I don’t see it”. I’d asked her the inevitable question of “Will I be married? Will I be loved?”, fully expecting in reply the usual variation on “Que Sera Sera”. It was a bit startling to get a flat no.
On the other hand, I never had a picture in my head of a wedding, or a vision of who the future partner would be. Some introspection before I turned 40 revealed that I had nevertheless been certain of a home and family. And the reason my age bothered me was that I had no new picture of the future to replace the expired one I hadn’t even known about.
Until then I’d been perfectly happy being single, but I started to become conscious of it. Ten years without a date seemed abnormal; I didn’t fit into the social frameworks of my peer group. Wrapped up in secure coupledom, friends gave me ridiculous reasons for why I was single. But I’d had plenty of opportunity for observation, and knew it wasn't about what you looked like, your BMI, IQ or point of view. I’d seen all types hook up eventually. Except me, of course, so the lady was probably right.
Now they’ve started to tell me I should adopt a child, as if a child were a hobby, or a validation exercise. I smile and nod and read another book. Because it has always been more interesting to read a book. Looking back I see I must have been a terrible girlfriend. I’ve always worked better as a friend.
Now at forty two, I can finally accept myself with relief. I think too much. I take things too personally. I’m too anxious about doing the right thing. I store Allen keys and spare buttons. I read manuals, company newsletters, annual reports and the chairman’s speech. I get excited about the stuff I learn there. I’m kind rather than competitive, because I sense what people are feeling before they recognise it themselves. I’m loyal – never blindly so, but completely (and this is often uncomfortable for the recipient). Above all, I am always, fundamentally, the girl in glasses who will leave you without a backward glance for a book. There’s nothing wrong with that. It takes all kinds.
Sure, I stand a little left of centre, but I stand tall.
On the other hand, I never had a picture in my head of a wedding, or a vision of who the future partner would be. Some introspection before I turned 40 revealed that I had nevertheless been certain of a home and family. And the reason my age bothered me was that I had no new picture of the future to replace the expired one I hadn’t even known about.
Until then I’d been perfectly happy being single, but I started to become conscious of it. Ten years without a date seemed abnormal; I didn’t fit into the social frameworks of my peer group. Wrapped up in secure coupledom, friends gave me ridiculous reasons for why I was single. But I’d had plenty of opportunity for observation, and knew it wasn't about what you looked like, your BMI, IQ or point of view. I’d seen all types hook up eventually. Except me, of course, so the lady was probably right.
Now they’ve started to tell me I should adopt a child, as if a child were a hobby, or a validation exercise. I smile and nod and read another book. Because it has always been more interesting to read a book. Looking back I see I must have been a terrible girlfriend. I’ve always worked better as a friend.
Now at forty two, I can finally accept myself with relief. I think too much. I take things too personally. I’m too anxious about doing the right thing. I store Allen keys and spare buttons. I read manuals, company newsletters, annual reports and the chairman’s speech. I get excited about the stuff I learn there. I’m kind rather than competitive, because I sense what people are feeling before they recognise it themselves. I’m loyal – never blindly so, but completely (and this is often uncomfortable for the recipient). Above all, I am always, fundamentally, the girl in glasses who will leave you without a backward glance for a book. There’s nothing wrong with that. It takes all kinds.
Sure, I stand a little left of centre, but I stand tall.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Just two days in Bali
Sitting in the airport, composing excited Facebook posts, as befitting someone on their way to a fabulous beach resort, I knew it was not a good time to go to Bali. It was grey and rainy, both outside and in. I did not know if I was going towards something or just away, but whatever it was, I was dragging too much baggage for comfort.
My first day there was spent on the lovely Nusa Dua beach, willing the sea to take away the crawling restlessness, the unreasonable expectations doomed to disappointment. It worked a bit, and in the evening, I drifted to Seminyak, uncertain of what was there. What I found was the happiest place on earth. A beach stretching endlessly in both directions, a row of busy restaurants with brightly coloured paper lanterns and bean bags, and beyond them the sea untouched by the artificial light, surf white in the moonlight.
I picked a place and settled down for the night, and soon noticed among the chattering groups and limpid couples, a lot of people on their own, reading. You can tell things by looking at them. The Singaporean woman with the LV bag reading Paulo Coelho is waiting for friends to join her. The Australian girl curled up in a bean bag reading Neil Gaiman is travelling alone, but won't be alone for long. The self-contained older Indian man with the Kindle is also travelling alone. He's curious about me but is going to say hello to the Australian (10 minutes later I was proved right). The South African lady on her iPad is not reading at all, but browsing or checking Facebook. She's hoping she won't be alone long either, and she won't, but it's going to take till later in the evening. The man reading a Dutch book is recently heartbroken. I don't know what conclusions can be drawn about me, alternately observing, writing, reading and texting, like the Recording Angel’s PA afflicted with severe ADD.
Much later, in a surprising development, the Indian guy stopped to say in passing: “You’re a Bruce Springsteen song, but I’m in a Katy Perry sort of place.” I wished him well in his endeavours. As he walked away, a voice behind me said “Wanker.” I turned to see an old man covered in tattoos, a much-used surfboard leaning next to him. I told him I agreed with his reading. And he said he hoped I wouldn’t now feel the need to ask inane questions about whether he surfed or where he was from. I said I knew he was from Adelaide or thereabouts. He looked so startled, I explained I use to live in Vietnam. He agreed there were a lot of Australian accents there, and moved to my table saying “You’re going to need help finishing that bottle anyway”. And so I had a relaxed hour with an 80-year-old surfer, listening to war stories, what Seekers concerts were like in the seventies, the rigours of removing landmines in Cambodia, how to run a winery in Barossa Valley, and the life and times of his grandchildren. I told him my dad used to grow grapes for a winery, and discussed the differences between hybrids and genetic modification. He was waiting for his wife to return from a spa. When she (unsurprisingly young and Asian) returned, she showed me her shopping, recommended the spa she went to, ordered another bottle and told me what it was like to grow up in a rich family in Myanmar. I told her the stories my grandaunt used to tell us about being an expat there long ago, when it was still Burma.
By the time they left, the beach was full of music, some people were dancing, others were still surfing. And I saw with relief that the Recording Angel had got the memo, and the South African lady had found someone.
At midnight, I stood for a moment at the entrance to the road and looked back with deep satisfaction. The sea rolled massively in and out, the notes of guitars rode the sound of surf breaking, the perfect place and time. I watched a lone lantern rise lightly, happy to glow within itself. Not all those who wander are lost.
My first day there was spent on the lovely Nusa Dua beach, willing the sea to take away the crawling restlessness, the unreasonable expectations doomed to disappointment. It worked a bit, and in the evening, I drifted to Seminyak, uncertain of what was there. What I found was the happiest place on earth. A beach stretching endlessly in both directions, a row of busy restaurants with brightly coloured paper lanterns and bean bags, and beyond them the sea untouched by the artificial light, surf white in the moonlight.
I picked a place and settled down for the night, and soon noticed among the chattering groups and limpid couples, a lot of people on their own, reading. You can tell things by looking at them. The Singaporean woman with the LV bag reading Paulo Coelho is waiting for friends to join her. The Australian girl curled up in a bean bag reading Neil Gaiman is travelling alone, but won't be alone for long. The self-contained older Indian man with the Kindle is also travelling alone. He's curious about me but is going to say hello to the Australian (10 minutes later I was proved right). The South African lady on her iPad is not reading at all, but browsing or checking Facebook. She's hoping she won't be alone long either, and she won't, but it's going to take till later in the evening. The man reading a Dutch book is recently heartbroken. I don't know what conclusions can be drawn about me, alternately observing, writing, reading and texting, like the Recording Angel’s PA afflicted with severe ADD.
Much later, in a surprising development, the Indian guy stopped to say in passing: “You’re a Bruce Springsteen song, but I’m in a Katy Perry sort of place.” I wished him well in his endeavours. As he walked away, a voice behind me said “Wanker.” I turned to see an old man covered in tattoos, a much-used surfboard leaning next to him. I told him I agreed with his reading. And he said he hoped I wouldn’t now feel the need to ask inane questions about whether he surfed or where he was from. I said I knew he was from Adelaide or thereabouts. He looked so startled, I explained I use to live in Vietnam. He agreed there were a lot of Australian accents there, and moved to my table saying “You’re going to need help finishing that bottle anyway”. And so I had a relaxed hour with an 80-year-old surfer, listening to war stories, what Seekers concerts were like in the seventies, the rigours of removing landmines in Cambodia, how to run a winery in Barossa Valley, and the life and times of his grandchildren. I told him my dad used to grow grapes for a winery, and discussed the differences between hybrids and genetic modification. He was waiting for his wife to return from a spa. When she (unsurprisingly young and Asian) returned, she showed me her shopping, recommended the spa she went to, ordered another bottle and told me what it was like to grow up in a rich family in Myanmar. I told her the stories my grandaunt used to tell us about being an expat there long ago, when it was still Burma.
By the time they left, the beach was full of music, some people were dancing, others were still surfing. And I saw with relief that the Recording Angel had got the memo, and the South African lady had found someone.
At midnight, I stood for a moment at the entrance to the road and looked back with deep satisfaction. The sea rolled massively in and out, the notes of guitars rode the sound of surf breaking, the perfect place and time. I watched a lone lantern rise lightly, happy to glow within itself. Not all those who wander are lost.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Heavy suitcase, light heart
Found this blogpost that I wrote exactly three years ago today, the first day I landed in Vietnam. I took the photo at the coffee shop I was in then. It went on to become "my place" in Saigon.
I have often paid excess baggage. It is impossible for me to go somewhere without six pairs of shoes and three bags. A profusion of other accessories. Laptop, two phones, external hard drive and all their attendant paraphernalia. Extra adaptors, back-up headphones, 57 pens (all but the worst one get lost in the ride to the airport), skincare for various parts of the body and times of day, specialist hair care. All of this is somehow doubled on the way back.
But in my head, I travel light. I carry no pre-conceptions, bring no personal agenda. I leave self-destructive habits and personal existential angst at home. I need about a week to pack the smallest suitcase but my mind is travel-ready in about fifteen minutes.
So when people tell me I am brave to come out to a strange country at short notice, I don’t know how to be sufficiently modest – to be effectively self-deprecating, you have to believe the compliment is true. The truth is you don’t need a lot of courage to get on a plane that’s been booked for you, be met by a hotel that’s been pre-arranged for you and work in an office exactly like all the others you’ve known. Within an hour of landing – in the middle of a long weekend –I got a call from my new boss’s PA, asking if everything was okay. It was.
Yes there’s a language to get familiar with, there are cultural idiosyncrasies that you have to recognise and accept. Even more important, you need to be able to separate those from personal behavioural traits. You need to find out where things are and how they get done. It’s not hard to do, it comes to you in the course of living every day. And it will come to me here too, in this unexpected, wonderfully exuberant city that I never knew existed till a few hours ago.
But in my head, I travel light. I carry no pre-conceptions, bring no personal agenda. I leave self-destructive habits and personal existential angst at home. I need about a week to pack the smallest suitcase but my mind is travel-ready in about fifteen minutes.
So when people tell me I am brave to come out to a strange country at short notice, I don’t know how to be sufficiently modest – to be effectively self-deprecating, you have to believe the compliment is true. The truth is you don’t need a lot of courage to get on a plane that’s been booked for you, be met by a hotel that’s been pre-arranged for you and work in an office exactly like all the others you’ve known. Within an hour of landing – in the middle of a long weekend –I got a call from my new boss’s PA, asking if everything was okay. It was.
Yes there’s a language to get familiar with, there are cultural idiosyncrasies that you have to recognise and accept. Even more important, you need to be able to separate those from personal behavioural traits. You need to find out where things are and how they get done. It’s not hard to do, it comes to you in the course of living every day. And it will come to me here too, in this unexpected, wonderfully exuberant city that I never knew existed till a few hours ago.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
After three months in Jakarta
It’s hard to get a grip on Jakarta; there’s too much of it. Its not easy to reach around from point A to point B, or any other points – it’s often not clear which is which. Even the food is hard to pin down and understand. Perhaps this is how people feel when they move to India – you sense there is more to the cuisine than the familiar names in restaurant menus, but you have no quick way of getting to the bottom of this. Jakarta is a very big city, with so many levels of life that you spend your first month or so just being overwhelmed. So much so that you give up trying to get your bearings and just take it an hour at a time. But this is the only way to do it – you don’t assimilate, Jakarta absorbs you as you are. One hour at a time.
I had my first inkling of this three weeks ago when yet another flood enlivened my evening commute – I didn’t even look up at the main arteries turned to canals, let alone switch on my phone camera; I simply discussed an alternative route with the taxi driver, and then carried on reading my mail. It wasn’t until I got home that I registered that I was able to contribute to that discussion. Somehow I’d been oriented and inducted into which roads were likely to be dry, which sheet of water would be shallow enough to drive through.
Indonesian people are unfailingly good-natured and quite philosophical about the hundreds of little daily privations. Like in Vietnam, the priorities are right – it’s family, friends, food, getting together as often as you can, the nurturing of relationships of all kinds. The closeness of client-agency relationships is unlike any I’ve seen anywhere else. (My expat client and I are slowly but surely moving to this highly social model, both of us sensing that greater things can be built on this base than the more formal kind). As in all places where you can’t take anything for granted, the strongest, most efficient infrastructure is your network.
76 active volcanoes are strung along the length of Indonesia. Not a day goes by without some activity in one of them – this is no more worthy of headlines than the biblical rain that can pour with little warning out of a clear blue sky. Alert levels rise and fall, magma ebbs and flows, and life goes on, exhaling and inhaling with the earth itself. Perhaps it's the largeness of that spirit that flows through the Indonesian approach to life.
It hasn’t been too long since I left Vietnam, do... Well, actually it's almost a year but it feels like I left last month. So much has happened so fast that there are days when my taxi arrives somewhere and I alight with a silent nod because my mind is cycling through "cam on", "terima kasi", "shukran", "xiexie", "thank you", and is not able to select the right one. Anyway, as I was saying, it feels like I just left Vietnam so I’ve thought I was too bruised to appreciate something new. But I was wrong.
Now, as I wait in Singapore for a visa change, I feel that same surge of wonder and gratitude at the way my life twists and turns, and keeps flowing ever onwards along scenic routes. Most of all, I find with pleased surprise that I am impatient to get back home.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
“What is it like in Vietnam?”
In the past six weeks, I’ve handed over one job, and started another, left one house, found and moved into another. On a Friday evening, I sent out some mails before shutting down my computer. The following Monday, I started up and sent some more – in another country, to another client and team, on another account. The farewell parties flowed into welcome ones. The stakes are bigger now, the demands greater - this is what I came for. My strides are longer, my time is shorter, and none of it is unexpected. I’m getting things done, and moving forward to the next one, making lists on my phone, in my notebook, on my whiteboard, and checking off the items. I’m too busy to indulge in sentimental wanderings. But all the time, at the back of mind, a river flows and a people wait, practical, optimistic, kind, ready to be remembered whenever I have a moment.
On my hurried way out this Friday morning, I finally remember to check my post-box. Among the mall magazines and utility bills is a surprising envelope with a Vietnam stamp. The handwriting is familiar. At 7:30 am I stand looking down at the postmark that says Saigon, balancing a banana, laptop bag, post-box keys and a phone still open at my first email of the day. For a few moments, I’m blinded by sunlight on an unruly river that breaks its bounds as often as it can. Crowded by equally unruly pavements full of people. I sit at a dining table on a patio by a pool, where lunch parties don’t break up until after dinner. I chase rainbows down picturesque alleyways, and find them. I’m disarmed by friendliness, fortified by acceptance, up to the challenge in a land that speaks a language I can never hope to grasp.
My phone buzzes, recalling the day – I stuff the envelope into my bag and get on with it. Several hours later, I look inside to see the twin babies I had assumed I would see a lot of, except they arrived late and I left early.
This weekend I go looking for a river. Now I sit on Robertson Quay, so lovely in the evening light. The accents around me are varied enough for me to relax against. It’s here, in a place that was always my favourite part of Singapore, peaceful in the mellow light, under the big trees that catch the river breeze that I finally let in the feelings for that unlikely, chaotic, magical place that smiled back at me. That’s what it’s like in Vietnam.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
What's up with Singapore lately?
I keep telling people something's happened to Singapore. Nobody takes me seriously, but I'm right, it has. There's a definite increase in what I can only call random acts of friendliness. People in office buildings now actually make eye contact sometimes in the lift. They've even said "good morning", and held the door open. I saw it with my own eyes.
A taxi driver was apologetic that his card machine was not working, rather than complaining that I should be carrying cash (which used to be the usual practice). We went to look at a house recently, and someone in the neighborhood walking his dog stopped to talk.
My new neighbors took the trouble to introduce themselves. A ground floor tenant chatted about her troubles concerning pizza delivery and locked gates. Someone by the pool asked if I was the one who recently moved in on the eighth floor. They're on the sixth. What sort of place is this where tenants know what's happening elsewhere in the building? People you pass on the street smile at you. Last night, I walked past a private party in the garden of the building opposite mine and was invited to join ("just say happy birthday to that guy over there"). This friendliness had a simple explanation - they'd all clearly emptied several bottles of wine by then - but still...
On the train, people occasionally look up from their phones. Three years ago one of my sources of amusement was the public service ad about reporting anything suspicious that played over and over again in the stations. I couldn't see my fellow passengers noticing even someone carrying a sandwich board announcing criminal intent. But now, people talk on the train. There are times they don't even trample you when getting on or off. And today this happened:
Someone sat down next to me, and I was distracted from the game on my phone by the title of a book in his hand: "Jesus Hopped the A Train". As soon as I looked directly at it, he asked me anxiously: "Is this the A train?" I said "I don't think they have letters". He said "Oh that's a problem, they say I'm supposed to have hopped the A train". I looked up properly at that, and he said: "I'm Jesus. Do you not recognize me from the photos?". I laughed and said no. He nodded wisely "Ah that's because I shaved my beard. I did a Gillette commercial." I said that was probably it. I also pointed out that if he was Jesus he could call the train whatever he wanted. "No," He replied, "I don't have that much authority anymore." And then got off with a friendly wave at the next stop. I grinned at my game and continued.
Really, something's happened to Singapore.
A taxi driver was apologetic that his card machine was not working, rather than complaining that I should be carrying cash (which used to be the usual practice). We went to look at a house recently, and someone in the neighborhood walking his dog stopped to talk.
My new neighbors took the trouble to introduce themselves. A ground floor tenant chatted about her troubles concerning pizza delivery and locked gates. Someone by the pool asked if I was the one who recently moved in on the eighth floor. They're on the sixth. What sort of place is this where tenants know what's happening elsewhere in the building? People you pass on the street smile at you. Last night, I walked past a private party in the garden of the building opposite mine and was invited to join ("just say happy birthday to that guy over there"). This friendliness had a simple explanation - they'd all clearly emptied several bottles of wine by then - but still...
On the train, people occasionally look up from their phones. Three years ago one of my sources of amusement was the public service ad about reporting anything suspicious that played over and over again in the stations. I couldn't see my fellow passengers noticing even someone carrying a sandwich board announcing criminal intent. But now, people talk on the train. There are times they don't even trample you when getting on or off. And today this happened:
Someone sat down next to me, and I was distracted from the game on my phone by the title of a book in his hand: "Jesus Hopped the A Train". As soon as I looked directly at it, he asked me anxiously: "Is this the A train?" I said "I don't think they have letters". He said "Oh that's a problem, they say I'm supposed to have hopped the A train". I looked up properly at that, and he said: "I'm Jesus. Do you not recognize me from the photos?". I laughed and said no. He nodded wisely "Ah that's because I shaved my beard. I did a Gillette commercial." I said that was probably it. I also pointed out that if he was Jesus he could call the train whatever he wanted. "No," He replied, "I don't have that much authority anymore." And then got off with a friendly wave at the next stop. I grinned at my game and continued.
Really, something's happened to Singapore.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
If you were a young adult in Bangalore in the early 90s…
Disclaimer: There are many Bangalores from that time, and this is just one of them, but they all shared that certain something.
You saw Jerry McGuire in Symphony, and Pulp Fiction in Blue Moon. You’ve seen at least one Disney movie in Rex when you were a kid. You remember a long-ago drive-in your parents used to go to. The version you saw in Grease on a VHS tape was both completely different and vaguely familiar.
You went to shows in Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Ravindra Kalakshetra and Guru Nanak Bhavan. You went to European film festivals at Alliance Francaise and Max Mueller Bhavan. You had a British Council Library card. And you still have a book somewhere you never returned to Eloor Lending Library.
You had steak at Shezan and apple pie in The Only Place. It’s still the best apple pie you’ve ever had, though you’ve become fussier about steak. You ate pasta at Casa Piccola, and you know by now it bears no resemblance living or dead to any pasta anywhere else on the planet, but you’re going to be sentimental about it if it kills you.
You had Hot Chocolate Fudge at Corner House, lychees and cream at Lakeview and gulab jamun at Bhagatram’s. You had Chinese at Chung Wah, Rice Bowl and Ginza. You didn’t have sushi anywhere, ever. You didn’t know it existed.
You ate biryani in a lot of places, but the best was always at Muslim weddings.
You can’t look at Central Mall now without remembering scrambled eggs on toast under the trees in Victoria. And thinking of Victoria automatically leads you to Koshy’s.
You’ve spent years learning one or more of these – Bharatnatyam, Carnatic music, any Indian instrument, the complete playlists of Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Mukesh.
You went clubbing to The Club. You drove there in a car crammed with too many people. Which is why your kids’ lives are that much harder now. You also remember a converted iron foundry called Lee Dance Furnace. And tea in Russell Market afterwards, sandwiches at the Taj Coffee Shop, kababs in Fraser Town or rolls in Fanoos, depending on what time you left.
But when you said the Club, you meant you were swimming, playing tennis or snooker, going to the library or hanging out on the lawn.
You’ve been to a Christmas Dance or a Mayflower Ball. Or both. You’ve jived, waltzed, breakdanced, done the Birdie Dance, the Macarena and the Vanilla Ice thing. You’ve looked doubtfully at the Lambada.
New Year’s Eve meant at least three parties to hop to. And you’ve rounded it off with breakfast at Airlines Hotel.
A fancy “going out” mostly meant somewhere within the area enclosed by St Marks Road, Dickenson Road, Commercial Street and Richmond Road. You know about the drag races on MG Road late at night.
You remember being kept on a fairly short leash by your parents, and not being given very much money, but you’re reading this list and thinking that you seemed to have done a lot anyway.
You remember bars named Underground and Black Cadillac that seemed like fabulous high-life at the time. You knew people then who were openly gay and it was just another strand in the regular fabric of life. You knew at least one person who was in a band. You knew aspiring artists, actors, directors, writers, fashion designers and models. You’ve since watched several of them become famous.
You remember when Bangalore was India’s most liberal, laidback city. That’s the India you take with you when you travel, and what you mean when you’re so happy to say you’re from Bangalore.
You saw Jerry McGuire in Symphony, and Pulp Fiction in Blue Moon. You’ve seen at least one Disney movie in Rex when you were a kid. You remember a long-ago drive-in your parents used to go to. The version you saw in Grease on a VHS tape was both completely different and vaguely familiar.
You went to shows in Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Ravindra Kalakshetra and Guru Nanak Bhavan. You went to European film festivals at Alliance Francaise and Max Mueller Bhavan. You had a British Council Library card. And you still have a book somewhere you never returned to Eloor Lending Library.
You had steak at Shezan and apple pie in The Only Place. It’s still the best apple pie you’ve ever had, though you’ve become fussier about steak. You ate pasta at Casa Piccola, and you know by now it bears no resemblance living or dead to any pasta anywhere else on the planet, but you’re going to be sentimental about it if it kills you.
You had Hot Chocolate Fudge at Corner House, lychees and cream at Lakeview and gulab jamun at Bhagatram’s. You had Chinese at Chung Wah, Rice Bowl and Ginza. You didn’t have sushi anywhere, ever. You didn’t know it existed.
You ate biryani in a lot of places, but the best was always at Muslim weddings.
You can’t look at Central Mall now without remembering scrambled eggs on toast under the trees in Victoria. And thinking of Victoria automatically leads you to Koshy’s.
You’ve spent years learning one or more of these – Bharatnatyam, Carnatic music, any Indian instrument, the complete playlists of Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Mukesh.
You went clubbing to The Club. You drove there in a car crammed with too many people. Which is why your kids’ lives are that much harder now. You also remember a converted iron foundry called Lee Dance Furnace. And tea in Russell Market afterwards, sandwiches at the Taj Coffee Shop, kababs in Fraser Town or rolls in Fanoos, depending on what time you left.
But when you said the Club, you meant you were swimming, playing tennis or snooker, going to the library or hanging out on the lawn.
You’ve been to a Christmas Dance or a Mayflower Ball. Or both. You’ve jived, waltzed, breakdanced, done the Birdie Dance, the Macarena and the Vanilla Ice thing. You’ve looked doubtfully at the Lambada.
New Year’s Eve meant at least three parties to hop to. And you’ve rounded it off with breakfast at Airlines Hotel.
A fancy “going out” mostly meant somewhere within the area enclosed by St Marks Road, Dickenson Road, Commercial Street and Richmond Road. You know about the drag races on MG Road late at night.
You remember being kept on a fairly short leash by your parents, and not being given very much money, but you’re reading this list and thinking that you seemed to have done a lot anyway.
You remember bars named Underground and Black Cadillac that seemed like fabulous high-life at the time. You knew people then who were openly gay and it was just another strand in the regular fabric of life. You knew at least one person who was in a band. You knew aspiring artists, actors, directors, writers, fashion designers and models. You’ve since watched several of them become famous.
You remember when Bangalore was India’s most liberal, laidback city. That’s the India you take with you when you travel, and what you mean when you’re so happy to say you’re from Bangalore.
Friday, June 13, 2014
An underwhelming Cannes 2014?
It’s one of those years where two exciting things in my life come together – the FIFA World Cup and the Cannes Lions. Both generally build my exhilaration and energy to fever pitch.
But just as the World Cup opening yesterday was less than satisfactory, the Cannes entries so far are strangely dispiriting, with good ones being exceptions rather than the rule. Last year, almost every shared video or magazine list made you go “I wish I’d done that”. There were so many new ideas, so much creative fearlessness that it was simultaneously wonderful and terrifying, made you proud to belong to the industry and fired a fierce determination to do something like that at least once in your career. Usually they fall into four categories:
1. Pure creative genius, the joyous insanity of a good idea.
2. Fantastic brand or consumer insight wielded with consummate prowess.
3. Pure brand building, the celebration of a glorious brand.
4. Social change effected using 1 or 2.
But 2014 seems overwhelmingly to be the year of the Awards Entry Video – and these seem to be sticking doggedly to a formula that was great four years ago. Now, the music, typography, animations, transitions, cuts, pans and zooms, the very structure and script are all dully familiar. In the digital entries, there seems to me to be too many cases of technology for its own sake threatening to overtake idea, insight, even brand. This should not be the arena, surely, for apps or games in and of themselves? Just because it has a brand name attached to it, doesn't mean it's a communications tool. This is what the entry rules have to say about the Mobile category: "The definition of Mobile for the purpose of Cannes Lions is creative work which lives on or is activated by a mobile device, app or mobile web." Cannes Lions is first and foremost - should be only - about the advertising idea. That's the immutable core of our business. How the idea is expressed changes according to where the relevant consumers can be best reached. And it's that magical combination of idea and delivery that builds brands, sells products, earns loyalty... and wins awards. Ideally.
Of course, I've hardly seen everything that’s out there, so maybe I’ll be proved wrong next week. I sincerely hope so. Until then, thank God for automobiles, alcohol and New Zealand. They never disappoint.
But just as the World Cup opening yesterday was less than satisfactory, the Cannes entries so far are strangely dispiriting, with good ones being exceptions rather than the rule. Last year, almost every shared video or magazine list made you go “I wish I’d done that”. There were so many new ideas, so much creative fearlessness that it was simultaneously wonderful and terrifying, made you proud to belong to the industry and fired a fierce determination to do something like that at least once in your career. Usually they fall into four categories:
1. Pure creative genius, the joyous insanity of a good idea.
2. Fantastic brand or consumer insight wielded with consummate prowess.
3. Pure brand building, the celebration of a glorious brand.
4. Social change effected using 1 or 2.
But 2014 seems overwhelmingly to be the year of the Awards Entry Video – and these seem to be sticking doggedly to a formula that was great four years ago. Now, the music, typography, animations, transitions, cuts, pans and zooms, the very structure and script are all dully familiar. In the digital entries, there seems to me to be too many cases of technology for its own sake threatening to overtake idea, insight, even brand. This should not be the arena, surely, for apps or games in and of themselves? Just because it has a brand name attached to it, doesn't mean it's a communications tool. This is what the entry rules have to say about the Mobile category: "The definition of Mobile for the purpose of Cannes Lions is creative work which lives on or is activated by a mobile device, app or mobile web." Cannes Lions is first and foremost - should be only - about the advertising idea. That's the immutable core of our business. How the idea is expressed changes according to where the relevant consumers can be best reached. And it's that magical combination of idea and delivery that builds brands, sells products, earns loyalty... and wins awards. Ideally.
Of course, I've hardly seen everything that’s out there, so maybe I’ll be proved wrong next week. I sincerely hope so. Until then, thank God for automobiles, alcohol and New Zealand. They never disappoint.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
The mystery of friends
Coming from a large and close family, I’m sociable and easygoing (at first), so I tend to make a lot of friends everywhere I go. At least, that’s what my theory has been so far. But the truth, I think, is that it makes me look for family everywhere I go. The wonderful thing is that I’ve found it, over and over.
There are always the precious few friends that cross over into that closer relationship, only these are bound by faith and some undefinable thing, instead of blood. The three most precious friendships that began in Dubai have survived traumatic life changes, the long distances between us seeming only to bring us closer. Ditto with the close friends from much younger days in India. I met one of them after fourteen years of leading separate lives, and we picked up the rhythm like it had never been broken. As indeed, it hadn’t.
Last week, I had dinner with a dear friend who’s close to giving birth. As always, we had plenty to say to each other – our conversation ranges wide across the world and deep into our minds. Nothing is too big or too small to laugh at over steak and mango yoghurt. No news is left undiscussed, whether the iniquities of China or the opening of a restaurant down the road. No life plan goes pale for want of airing, from the buying of a cushion to the planning of a holiday to the probable child-rearing requirements for twin boys.
And yet we didn’t know of each other’s existence until two years ago, when my introductory Skype session with an unfamiliar team was marked by hostility and resistance, except for one hopeful voice in an unfamiliar accent. Unfamiliar, because I hadn’t come across too many French people till then. Now, I can practically identify regional accents from France, because in Saigon - unaccountably shunned by my compatriots - I found a “home community” in the French. That’s the amazing thing about friendship – it shines a light on family in unexpected places, similar relationships that wondrously need no shared origins, let alone genes, to justify or sustain them.
A few weeks earlier, this same friend and I were eating questionable ice cream, and both of us concluded that it tasted like the beach ice cream from our childhoods. Except that one beach was in Normandy, the other in Chennai. We can only assume that there’s a worldwide cabal of beach ice cream vendors, with strict membership rules.
A year ago, I walked into a bar and said hello to someone I’d been introduced to months earlier and never met after. But by the end of that evening, some spirit in each of us had recognized something kindred in the other. She grew up in St Petersburg, has led a life very different from mine and was born when I was already an adult (though my aunt says I was born a teenager, and I suspect I haven't done much growing since). Anyway, she’s as much family now, as the fond cousins I have shared all my life with.
At some point in the dinner last week, I wondered if, 40 years ago, my parents were eating mangoes with friends who were a week away from having their first baby. Tomorrow, the kid who would have been five months old at that mango-eating jamboree will get on a plane to join the fortieth birthday festivities of the one that hadn’t been born yet. Friendship begets friendship, and we grew up to be close friends, independent of our parents’ association. I can only be grateful.
There are always the precious few friends that cross over into that closer relationship, only these are bound by faith and some undefinable thing, instead of blood. The three most precious friendships that began in Dubai have survived traumatic life changes, the long distances between us seeming only to bring us closer. Ditto with the close friends from much younger days in India. I met one of them after fourteen years of leading separate lives, and we picked up the rhythm like it had never been broken. As indeed, it hadn’t.
Last week, I had dinner with a dear friend who’s close to giving birth. As always, we had plenty to say to each other – our conversation ranges wide across the world and deep into our minds. Nothing is too big or too small to laugh at over steak and mango yoghurt. No news is left undiscussed, whether the iniquities of China or the opening of a restaurant down the road. No life plan goes pale for want of airing, from the buying of a cushion to the planning of a holiday to the probable child-rearing requirements for twin boys.
And yet we didn’t know of each other’s existence until two years ago, when my introductory Skype session with an unfamiliar team was marked by hostility and resistance, except for one hopeful voice in an unfamiliar accent. Unfamiliar, because I hadn’t come across too many French people till then. Now, I can practically identify regional accents from France, because in Saigon - unaccountably shunned by my compatriots - I found a “home community” in the French. That’s the amazing thing about friendship – it shines a light on family in unexpected places, similar relationships that wondrously need no shared origins, let alone genes, to justify or sustain them.
A few weeks earlier, this same friend and I were eating questionable ice cream, and both of us concluded that it tasted like the beach ice cream from our childhoods. Except that one beach was in Normandy, the other in Chennai. We can only assume that there’s a worldwide cabal of beach ice cream vendors, with strict membership rules.
A year ago, I walked into a bar and said hello to someone I’d been introduced to months earlier and never met after. But by the end of that evening, some spirit in each of us had recognized something kindred in the other. She grew up in St Petersburg, has led a life very different from mine and was born when I was already an adult (though my aunt says I was born a teenager, and I suspect I haven't done much growing since). Anyway, she’s as much family now, as the fond cousins I have shared all my life with.
At some point in the dinner last week, I wondered if, 40 years ago, my parents were eating mangoes with friends who were a week away from having their first baby. Tomorrow, the kid who would have been five months old at that mango-eating jamboree will get on a plane to join the fortieth birthday festivities of the one that hadn’t been born yet. Friendship begets friendship, and we grew up to be close friends, independent of our parents’ association. I can only be grateful.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Sailboats and wishing wells
It’s not the saying goodbye. If you’re an expat, you already know how to do this; it’s one of the first things you learn and you get a lot of practice. It’s the not knowing if the relationships you send off with ceremony, celebration and the deepest good wishes will make it across time and space. You’ll only know a month or five later when you’re still Whatsapping every three days, or barely featuring on each other’s Facebook newsfeeds. And you can only hope that if it’s the latter, it will be an equal moving on on both sides, and nobody will be left with one hand stretched out awkwardly. Both parties will move on, find new connections, new rhythms. Whether the old ones will adapt and survive is anybody's guess. You take a chance on loving them, they take a chance on loving you*. And that’s about all you can do. Maybe that’s why expats seem to drink so much more than any other group of people.
*I didn’t invent the lovely line, Katie Melua did.
*I didn’t invent the lovely line, Katie Melua did.
Friday, April 04, 2014
The other Phnom Penh
The next stop is European, in the Hollywood sense of the word. Ceilings vault upwards, walls are bare stone, furniture is sparse. The people are long, lean and effortlessly chic in tiny nondescript t-shirts, minimum make up, barely-there jewellery. Having done this sort of thing a lot in Saigon, I am completely at home, though sporting more shiny things on my person than everyone else here combined.
The one after that is at the other end of the scale, with a bar counter of the poshest concrete, and music of the kind that must have been on the Billboard charts this morning. My body language automatically changes - chin up, shoulders back, sweep in as if that velvet rope is an automatic door, before they bounce you for wearing the wrong shoes. At 9:30pm, I'm too early for a place like this, but there are some other early customers, clouds of perfume and clothes I saw in the Feb issue of Vogue go past me to the VIP area.
As the evening progresses, the crowd is exclusively Khmer, and exclusive by any standard. The “DJ booth" is a whole bank of them spinning as if the Earth's movement depended on it. Sparklers glitter at a surprising number of tables on bottles of Taittinger and Zapaca, making you wonder what on earth could possibly be in the VIP area. The Sambuca shot here is a multi-tier fireshow extravaganza. People are ordering Blue Frogs by the pitcher, absinthe shots by the dozen. It isn't long before I'm gathered into someone's girls' night out. One absinthe shot to Sho Cho’s in Dubai, one Blue Frog to a dive called Jimmy Dix, another drink to real friends, everywhere, and I'm off. Except... Timber comes on, my new companions are fun, and nobody has yet ordered the drink that requires the two-foot straw. When I finally do get out, I'm surprised to find no line of beige Dubai taxis. The tuk-tuks do the job just as efficiently but my confusion is a testimonial to the quality of the club.
My next stop is all brushed steel and silk. If the last club was about money, this one is about power, the patrons not needing sparklers to validate their importance. I end my Saturday Night pilgrimage at a place that can only be described as uber. I have no idea what sort of stuff it’s built of, place and people both, they’re all just… uber. I leave very soon, this kind of thing not being my scene. I like sparklers and fireshows.
This view of Phnom Penh was extended the next morning as I wandered through the designer boutiques on Street 240, sampled handmade chocolates, and discussed the Indian elections with a café owner over Sauvignon Blanc and baguettes.
But when I leave that night, I am – unnervingly – the only flight departing from an international airport. The runway is empty except for a solitary ATR in the distance. And since there are only 12 passengers, it feels a little bit like a secret witness relocation program.
I never did find out what the two-foot straws are for.
Monday, February 17, 2014
A Saturday night in Saigon
Growing older single has taken away the ability to do nothing without the sneaky feeling of being a social misfit. I’ve always enjoyed my own company – or that of characters in books and sitcoms – but now I can’t shake the feeling that it’s pathetic, and I should be out somewhere creating a fracas.
Every weekend I see Facebook photos of my peers taking their kids to the zoo, or watching TV with their partners, or having lunch with other couples. And I wish I was too. Until I found that several of them look at my weekend pictures and wish they were doing that. Clearly there’s a healthy amount of greener grass in the world at any given point in time. So that’s okay.
So I’m spending a Saturday night watching my friends make the mistakes I’ve already made, swallowing the wisdom I know they won’t hear, confining myself to light chaperonage that can perhaps steer them away from the worse bits. I’m drinking too, just like they are, but am hampered by a vague sense of responsibility, a very clear memory of what a hangover feels like, and an even greater desire to not lose my Sunday to one. (I’m also blessed with a harder head than most, which helps.) I seem to have moved seamlessly from eternal sister to eternal aunt. The fun kind, who you’re happy to hang out with. I do have a lot of good role models in that, so that’s okay too. As a cousin once said to me, we needed our young, single aunts; everyone needs that aunt.
I sit on the stairs, peacefully texting other friends in other time zones, while various characters from Leonard Cohen songs surge up and down, getting on with the serious business of bad decisions. I enjoy myself, as I usually do when left alone to do so. Clubs and noisy bars have never been my mileu in terms of social success, because I need conversation to click. I love the noise, the clubby music and the party vibe, but only as a spectator. If I’m allowed to just be the weird woman on the sidelines writing blog posts about it, I am deeply happy.
Now it’s two in the morning, still an hour away from the blinding lights of closing time. The evening is at the height of its fever. There are the young animals raising the roof with the sort of confidence you have to be born with. Around them, others are brandishing the kind that comes one shot at a time out of a tequila bottle. There are girls judging other girls for doing exactly the sort of thing they would like to be doing. Some girls for whom this is a working evening, many others who are so far down the tequila bottle that that line is not the only one that’s a bit blurred. Girls in tears, girls who will be in tears in the morning, boys getting into trouble, groups of friends unsteadily but doggedly holding one another back from one fate or the other.
Someone sits down on the stairs next to me saying “That’s the longest text message in the world”. I tell him it’s a blog post. He says I’d do better to rescue my friend. I look at him enquiringly, he points downstairs to the bar. I follow the pointing finger – and yes, it’s definitely aunty-time. I shelve the writer and get off the stairs. I have no trouble disentangling her, and getting her into a cab. I get into a cab myself, feeling like the oldest inhabitant of the world. It isn’t until I get home that I realize belatedly – for perhaps the five hundredth time in my life – that I’d misread an opportunity on the stairs. Could probably do with an aunt myself!
Every weekend I see Facebook photos of my peers taking their kids to the zoo, or watching TV with their partners, or having lunch with other couples. And I wish I was too. Until I found that several of them look at my weekend pictures and wish they were doing that. Clearly there’s a healthy amount of greener grass in the world at any given point in time. So that’s okay.
So I’m spending a Saturday night watching my friends make the mistakes I’ve already made, swallowing the wisdom I know they won’t hear, confining myself to light chaperonage that can perhaps steer them away from the worse bits. I’m drinking too, just like they are, but am hampered by a vague sense of responsibility, a very clear memory of what a hangover feels like, and an even greater desire to not lose my Sunday to one. (I’m also blessed with a harder head than most, which helps.) I seem to have moved seamlessly from eternal sister to eternal aunt. The fun kind, who you’re happy to hang out with. I do have a lot of good role models in that, so that’s okay too. As a cousin once said to me, we needed our young, single aunts; everyone needs that aunt.
I sit on the stairs, peacefully texting other friends in other time zones, while various characters from Leonard Cohen songs surge up and down, getting on with the serious business of bad decisions. I enjoy myself, as I usually do when left alone to do so. Clubs and noisy bars have never been my mileu in terms of social success, because I need conversation to click. I love the noise, the clubby music and the party vibe, but only as a spectator. If I’m allowed to just be the weird woman on the sidelines writing blog posts about it, I am deeply happy.
Now it’s two in the morning, still an hour away from the blinding lights of closing time. The evening is at the height of its fever. There are the young animals raising the roof with the sort of confidence you have to be born with. Around them, others are brandishing the kind that comes one shot at a time out of a tequila bottle. There are girls judging other girls for doing exactly the sort of thing they would like to be doing. Some girls for whom this is a working evening, many others who are so far down the tequila bottle that that line is not the only one that’s a bit blurred. Girls in tears, girls who will be in tears in the morning, boys getting into trouble, groups of friends unsteadily but doggedly holding one another back from one fate or the other.
Someone sits down on the stairs next to me saying “That’s the longest text message in the world”. I tell him it’s a blog post. He says I’d do better to rescue my friend. I look at him enquiringly, he points downstairs to the bar. I follow the pointing finger – and yes, it’s definitely aunty-time. I shelve the writer and get off the stairs. I have no trouble disentangling her, and getting her into a cab. I get into a cab myself, feeling like the oldest inhabitant of the world. It isn’t until I get home that I realize belatedly – for perhaps the five hundredth time in my life – that I’d misread an opportunity on the stairs. Could probably do with an aunt myself!
Monday, December 09, 2013
Silent Night, Noisy Night
At my Sunday lunch, someone played Silent Night from my playlist, and the boy who grew up in Darjeeling and the girl who grew up in Whitefield agreed with complete understanding that this song evokes greater nostalgia for our India than any number of Diwali lamps.
When I return home in December, the Whitefield in my mind is the one I grew up in, where it’s quiet enough to hear the church bells on Christmas Day. Where they play cricket in the Inner Circle ground on Sunday mornings and bring excitement into the lives of the dogs – sooner or later a ball would land inside the private gardens, the dogs would fetch it and then guard it ferociously in full view of helpless fielders outside. They’re all still at the gate, those dogs, tails wagging. The car is still a red Omni van. Traffic is thin on the roads. Jagriti is still a farm. The lake is unfenced, surrounded still by flower farms and vineyards. There are eucalyptus groves instead of housing developments with Balinese names. When I say Bangalore to people who ask where I’m from, the place in my mind is from the early nineties, when Whitefield was just the greener, quieter oasis on the outskirts of India’s Garden City.
No sign remains of either place, of course. The reality is an over-developed hellhole. I know there’ll be Facebook updates on the ride from the airport, from walks where I notice that yet another 100-year-old heritage cottage has been buried in the foundation of a block of flats, another signature raintree cut down. I might as well just schedule them now and save myself the 3G bill.
But the Sunday, with the windows open and the rooms full of the December sun, it seemed as if no time had passed at all. My parties are just like my parents’ many, many gatherings. My table looks exactly like my mother’s. My overreactions to others’ policy decisions regarding plates or cutlery are quite hereditary too.
And given all the changes in Whitefield, it’s amazing that my parents are still able to buy their coffee freshly ground from the same little coffee merchant, and their bread freshly baked in the same bakery that was there before I was born. The fact that the bakery now has two branches and has a snack bar has not changed the bread. (The coffee man has no such ambitions – I doubt even the grinder has been upgraded in the 30 years).
As I prepare for another family meet, count the people and the presents and wonder big suitcase or medium, it feels like this – perhaps the hundredth trip home of my adult life – is momentous. Last time I left from Singapore, the family meet being a transit stop on a much greater journey to Vietnam. I return now from that journey, refreshed to the point of transformation by the change. I’ll be home for Christmas.
When I return home in December, the Whitefield in my mind is the one I grew up in, where it’s quiet enough to hear the church bells on Christmas Day. Where they play cricket in the Inner Circle ground on Sunday mornings and bring excitement into the lives of the dogs – sooner or later a ball would land inside the private gardens, the dogs would fetch it and then guard it ferociously in full view of helpless fielders outside. They’re all still at the gate, those dogs, tails wagging. The car is still a red Omni van. Traffic is thin on the roads. Jagriti is still a farm. The lake is unfenced, surrounded still by flower farms and vineyards. There are eucalyptus groves instead of housing developments with Balinese names. When I say Bangalore to people who ask where I’m from, the place in my mind is from the early nineties, when Whitefield was just the greener, quieter oasis on the outskirts of India’s Garden City.
No sign remains of either place, of course. The reality is an over-developed hellhole. I know there’ll be Facebook updates on the ride from the airport, from walks where I notice that yet another 100-year-old heritage cottage has been buried in the foundation of a block of flats, another signature raintree cut down. I might as well just schedule them now and save myself the 3G bill.
But the Sunday, with the windows open and the rooms full of the December sun, it seemed as if no time had passed at all. My parties are just like my parents’ many, many gatherings. My table looks exactly like my mother’s. My overreactions to others’ policy decisions regarding plates or cutlery are quite hereditary too.
And given all the changes in Whitefield, it’s amazing that my parents are still able to buy their coffee freshly ground from the same little coffee merchant, and their bread freshly baked in the same bakery that was there before I was born. The fact that the bakery now has two branches and has a snack bar has not changed the bread. (The coffee man has no such ambitions – I doubt even the grinder has been upgraded in the 30 years).
As I prepare for another family meet, count the people and the presents and wonder big suitcase or medium, it feels like this – perhaps the hundredth trip home of my adult life – is momentous. Last time I left from Singapore, the family meet being a transit stop on a much greater journey to Vietnam. I return now from that journey, refreshed to the point of transformation by the change. I’ll be home for Christmas.
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