The incessant bombardment of the “What-plans-for-future-beta”-litany by the Great-Indian-Well-Meaning-Acquaintance signifies that moment in one’s life, when ninth grade aspirations in all their angst and whimsy must be eschewed in order to embrace the  grind of the big, bad and blood-thirsty ‘Real World’.

In our own bid to find inspiration, solicit real life advice that incites more and apprehends less, and with Frank Sinatra’s soulfully crooned words of wisdom ‘If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere’ in contemplation, we got in touch with individuals whose jobs seem so inordinately cool- they’re the culmination of those very same sixth grade ‘when-I-grow-up’ essays.

Kickstarting the first of many in this series, {LBBD} brings an exclusive insight into the work-life of such a person in the city who dared to be bold and the mighty forces came to her aid.

In conversation with Vidyun Singh, Veteran Choreographer in the Indian Fashion Industry and Director of Events at the India Habitat Centre.

Be it the epic saga of myth seen at Ritu Kumar’s latest show Panchvastra, or the hitherto novel stunt of a car tearing through a curtain to leap onto the stage at Ashish Soni’s BMW sponsored show— the epic grandueur of fashion shows in India owes its humble origins to the time of the shoulder-padded exuberance of the 1980s. Back when the leading Indian couturiers of today were students working on their graduation shows, Vidyun Singh, along with her dear friend Asha Kochhar started Media Makers, conceptualizing and producing shows. Having seen the industry from its days of nascence into the present implosion of Fashion Week chaos media-frenzied coverage, Vidyun Singh takes a brief moment to tell {LBBD} about the journey that is has been so far.

LBBD | Given that you straddle two worlds, that of Fashion Choreographer at each of the Fashion Weeks, and as Director of Programmes at IHC, tell us what a typical workday for you is like? How does one achieve a balance juggling between worlds that occasionally could converge? 

Vidyun | There is actually no ‘typical’ working day for me as it is pretty much juggling between my two offices depending on what needs my physical presence when! Mercifully, between Habitat Centre and Defence Colony, I don’t waste too much travel time and can bounce between the two, multiple times in a day if needed.

LBBD | What did you study/ spend your time engaging in, while in college? Does it contribute to the job you hold today?

Vidyun | Yes, indeed, I would say so, even though the connection may not be so obvious on the face of it. A BA in Economics {from Lady Shriram College} and an MA in International Studies {from JNU} may not be the most obvious route to doing what I am doing, but the fact that I was actively involved in the Theatre Action Group with Barry John, all through college laid the foundation for what I do today. A fashion show is nothing but theatre of the clothes, except that the actors are changed to models, who, in their own way, are also acting out a part assigned to them! As for the academics, they serve me in good stead as Director Programmes at Habitat Centre.

LBBD | How did you get the job you currently have? Did you always know that this is what you were going to do? Or has it been a process of gradual trial-and-testing?

Vidyun | It was sheer happenstance and serendipity! Things were beginning to happen and I was lucky to be around and in the space that was happening at the right time. So, most definitely Destiny and not Design.

LBBD | The process of getting to where you are right now, what has that been like?

Vidyun | Honestly it’s been the BEST and never a dull moment. In both spaces you have to keep your finger on the pulse and change and reinvent constantly, and even while it may get hectic but it’s never boring!

LBBD | The best AND worst advice you’ve been given along the way?

Vidyun | The best: Do whatever you want to do, but do it sincerely!
Worst…? Hmm, obviously I didn’t follow it, seeing as how I can’t seem to recall anything!!

LBBD | At any point, did you ever feel or say to yourself, or even felt it instinctively within, that you’ve {in MTV-speak} ‘made it’?

Vidyun | I have always treated my work as an exciting journey and not a destination so the ‘made it’ or having ‘arrived’ or ‘reached’ factor has never figured.

LBBD | One {or more} of the most memorable assignments that you’ve worked on that make you immensely proud?

Vidyun | Far too many assignments and far too many memorable moments to be able to isolate a single one! But certainly the first time back in the early 90′s, when we were doing a show in Dubai, a French team wanted to know who was it that had put up such a good show and they were SO incredulous that it was out of India and with a fully Indian team. It felt good to see the respect in their eyes for something that they said was world class and was out of India.

LBBD | An equivalent goof-up that you’ve learnt from?

Vidyun | Oof! There have been quite a few! I wouldn’t call them goof ups, but crazy crises more like! Be it console booths collapsing during a show, flooding in the green rooms, models missing flights, show stoppers taking off for impromptu loo breaks mere seconds before their entry…there’s a long and crazy list of things that we’ve been through.

LBBD | Given that you’ve been in the business of fashion since early days when the leading couturiers of today had just begun, your career path charts the explosion of the Indian Fashion Industry. What are the significant changes that you’ve seen pass before you?

Vidyun | It’s a whole new world today. Today, fashion is an industry, clothes are made for a specific market, and there are Fashion Weeks every month. Indian designers are Creative Directors of international brands, it’s an entirely new ball game altogether now. Back then it was more ideas.

LBBD | If you could go back in time to offer your younger self of salad days some advice/ words of wisdom/ words of reassurance/or even a thumbs-up of approval, what would you say?

Vidyun | We did it. And we did it our way!

LBBD | What advice would you give to all those with big dreams of making it just as ’big’ as you have? {Incidentally, there are plenty!}

Vidyun | Nothing is impossible. If you want it, go get it, but do it sincerely!

LBBD | Finally, what can you be found doing to deal with the stress, when not on the job?

Vidyun | Gardening, planting, enjoying sunrises and sunsets up in our mountain shack if I can get away even for a weekend. If not and I’m here, then…playing Scrabble on the internet !

 …

The post In Conversation | Vidyun Singh appeared first on Little Black Book, Delhi.

‘We’ll never fight again, Motts. Promise me?’

‘Never Pashi. I promise you. And even if we do, because its me and you, we’ll come here, this spot, and hug it out’.

‘Fine, I love you babbby! Just one more question- What are you, Motts?’ And I smiled cheekily.

‘I’m your little bitch, Pashi!’ And our laughter echoed on..

We have friends, boyfriend/s, family, social friends, a best friend. But sometimes, very rarely, we may find in our lives, this one person, one type of friend, who transcends all these categories. And doing anything at all without this one person becomes unimaginable. 

‘Pashlinder, my pashi, where will I go ya without you! I’m right here- your designated everything! How can I defy anything you ever say to me Pashi. Your wish is my command!’

We laughed again.

And just like that, the suitcases were zipped up, the documents were filed, a last meal was done and I realized that this time tomorrow, my speed-dial will be trying to reach a ‘this number is temporarily out of service’. 

And just like that, I’ll make conscious efforts to drive far from the ridge, away from the Civil Lines metro station, and still will end up finding myself going back from time to time to a broken fence behind that old juice ki dukan. 

We went there today, one last time {hopefully not the last time forever}. Through that stupid narrow opening into the dark alley, lit one up in shared company, looked around and smiled, not meeting each other’s eyes on purpose, and this was a prelude to the first real goodbye hug. And as a tear reached our eyes, I looked up. And tonight, I saw, there was just one star in the sky. And I realized, for the first time, that this is really goodbye. 

In that moment, I knew that come tomorrow, my travels from the older part of Delhi will be unaccompanied. That my phone bill and phone battery will decrease and increase respectively. That my weekends will be a lot more sober. That my attitude needs a check now and my tantrums will need to chill the fuck out. That no undivided attention will be coming my way. That my work will probably be more efficient. That the ‘random’ from my routine will disappear and that I might become more serious, a term I don’t generally associate myself with. That I might not be interested in making any more plans. That I might scroll through my phonebook and wonder what went astray. That my crazy best friend might just have taken a part of me away. 

The post Prelude to a Farewell appeared first on Little Black Book, Delhi.

If you are or have been a student of Delhi University, you’ve probably volunteered for or attended one of The YP Foundation’s many branches and events. Back in college, I worked for about a year with ‘Blending Spectrum’; a branch of The YP that works with under-privileged children. The concept of a youth-led movement, of making a change a step at a time inspired me tremendously. To know that age doesn’t determine your prowess and shouldn’t inhibit your actions is something pioneered, at least for me, by The YP. And on their 10^th Birthday, it was only fitting to speak with the vision behind this movement, Ishita Chaudhry.

{Ishita Chaudhary, left, with her inspiration- her mother} 

LBBD: What was the vision behind The YP Foundation? And how did it start?

Ishita: I think people experience different things in life that really challenge them and make them question, both internally and externally, who they are and what they stand for. And the starting point for The YP Foundation or TYPF was really the Godhra Riots. For me, the Riots were the worst possible jolt, a fire in my system was a burning reminder of how people’s social justice and human rights are not understood or ensured, by either the government or those in power who can influence public decisions and opinion.

I knew we saw the riots, the media made it hard not to, but how much of Human Rights issues we really understood, I wasn’t sure. Young people are often infantilized; they are misconstrued as submission or disinterested. The lack of ability to exercise informed judgment and decision-making has dire consequences at both policy tables that influence young people’s health and rights. I began my work 10 years ago, because I wanted to change those silent spaces. I want to live in a world where human rights are upheld, where young people’s leadership skills are strengthened, where women and young people are recognized as powerful change makers and equal stakeholders in society.

LBBD: Is it something you envisioned doing for the rest of your life?

I: Not at all!. I’m a musician by training and I think music is the only thing I ever envisioned doing with the rest of my life. This was a career by accident! I’ve trained as a Hindustani Classical singer and pianist since I was 13 and started learning Opera and Jazz when I was 15. I still feel for music despite my passion for what we do. Music is the only medium through which everything, in my head, makes sense in my head. I will always be committed to the issues TYPF works with; those are not career choices, but my belief systems.

LBBD: How has your vision changed over the past 10 years?

I: The last 10 years have allowed me to develop one. When you work here, eventually you start dreaming; it’s the single most amazing feeling in the world, to imagine something in your mind and have it come true. Whether it’s been a 10-day festival to bring 3,000 of us together, a national campaign to legalize the implementation of sexuality education, that has brought more than 300 youth activists working across 18 states together, or just the idea that a group of ordinary young, can build a powerful platform. 10 years ago, I didn’t have a vision, I felt that the system swallows & spits you out. I don’t feel that way anymore. I’ve understood that change is a complex set of wheels, but they can move and there’s a way to make them turn. That perspective has changed everything for me.    

{The YP celebrates its 7th Birthday}

LBBD: What’s the biggest challenge when it comes to working with young people? And the greatest advantage?

I: The organization has a 2 yearly cyclical structure whereby the staff and volunteers change periodically. This creates a certain cyclical loss of knowledge and experience but on the other hand, ensures that there is consistent youth leadership and that changing generations of young people are participating in taking TYPF forward.

The greatest advantage is just the freshness – the ideas, the energy, the hard work. I don’t think a space like YP can ever become obsolete because of these things. In that sense, our challenges and advantages are two sides of the same coin.

LBBD: Many a times, youth run organizations are criticized for not being too practical and merely following an idealistic dream- did you face the same kind of criticism?

I: In our case, the real challenge was of being ‘urban’ and ‘elitist’ – because we all were, when this journey started out – a motley bunch of college students from upper and middle class households who had found each other and were working together. There was limited diversity in our mix and we weren’t reaching out to ‘young people in rural villages’, as I’d often hear. But things changed, like they always do, when you stick it out long enough and believe in why you’re doing things a certain way. The idea behind The YP Foundation was never to be exclusive, it just began with a certain story, and this one happened to be in a city.

We’ve come a long way, from being Delhi University college students, to now having projects that run at village, district and state level, and we still have a long way to go. But I still stand fast, that the only idealism worth putting your weight behind, is the one that believes that if you empower someone, they can create the change they wish to see. And I have to admit, there’s a little bit of wicked fun in going against the grain that I think I’m addicted to now.

LBBD: Do you think things would have been easier, had you been running this organization abroad? You’ve obviously traveled a lot – what difference do you find between CSR in India and in other countries? 

I: I only began traveling in the last 3-4 years. Before that, all my experiences are limited to India and I hadn’t really been out of the country anywhere. I think setting systems up in India, there is challenging as nothing works as planned. Whilst the paperwork and systems may be a lot clearer with respect to non-profit organizations, the counterpart in India is nothing short of nightmarish; I think you can be a lot more innovative within the Indian system. Most countries in the global north, are clearer in their political and legal systems about the value of supporting youth-led work – in India. That’s still an anomaly.

That said, If you’re doing nothing wrong, the likelihood of getting into trouble is really low.

LBBD: An anecdote or a moment over the past 10 years that epitomizes what it means to be the founder of The YP Foundation…

I: To be truly honest, I don’t have a ‘founder’ moment, I just really associate with the thought that sometimes, you have to be the last one standing, and that’s okay. I’ve watched 10 generations of young people join and leave. Initially that was really hard- the thought of accepting someone leave. That day will come for me too, none of us are permanent and I may be the ‘founder’, but there are a lot of shoulders that carry the weight of the work that we do. If you are a part of the senior management of this organization, you have to get that this is not a 9 to 5 job, because that’s not what the people in this organization need you for.  

LBBD: Your biggest learning over the past 10 years vis a vis running a youth-led organization.

I: One of the key reasons we designed the organization the way it is, is because we wanted to provide a hybrid resource space where young people with different talents, belief systems and interests could find their comfort. We cater to the diversity as well as respect that not all people think and feel the same way about how issues should be worked with and that not all people are good at doing the same things. TYPF’s multi stakeholder model has allowed us to encourage people to develop leadership skills and talents according to their own pace.

The model has also allowed multiple issues and young people to intersect. These intersections have been critical as most work gets developed and sustained in silos.

The strongest learning point is that the intersections that our work creates has pushed young minds to understand issues they normally wouldn’t be interest in.

LBBD: What is the biggest challenge that organizations like The YP face? And what is the best way to overcome it?

I: Youth led funding; It’s difficult to be self-sustaining- we’ve spent many years trying to understand how to keep going. In terms of funding, we have multiple sources now- private donors, the government, corporates; but one thing we still think is crucial- community support. Community fundraising, though it may not generate huge amounts of revenue, keeps us connected to our supporters and mentors. To ensure monetary support we talking to supporters, donors and to the community at large and remind them about the importance of our work.

The courage to continue; You have to keep pushing and moving forward. Continue doing programs with money or without and understanding that things will change. Also an organization likes ours has to push through the  fear of getting it wrong and making a million mistakes, that’s the only way to move forward.

Lastly, in the recent years we have started getting involved in the process of policy making as well. A real challenge that we face is how to ensure that our participation does not just remain tokenistic. This involves building strong partnerships with adults and policy makers in the sector, which can at times be difficult. However, we continue to make sure that whatever opportunity we get, we are there- to ensure that the constituency of young people, has their voice heard.

{From a recent TYPF event}

LBBD: What are your thoughts on so many new Youth initiatives that have come up in the past 5 years?

I: 10 years ago, there wasn’t half the vibrancy you find today. Youth organizations were a one-hit wonder and it’s phenomenal to see how that’s changed. It’s amazing to see a new wave of entrepreneurs who aren’t afraid of taking risks. There are newer ways of building social change and we need all the young people we can get! There has to be a culture of solidarity and a need to encourage more young people who are running their own initiatives to come together and learn from each other.

In 2009, TYPF started a youth-led fund called ‘Vikalp: Searching for Alternatives’ that did exactly this, and the second round is going to be launched soon. Young people have to re-write the discourse on how history sees them, or we will only get absorbed and fade away.

LBBD: What or who inspires you? 

I: My mother is one of the strongest women I know. We are alike in our values, and thought process andyet different in personalities She has undertaken tremendouspressure to ensure that I can do the work that I do today. Her ability to multi task relationships as well as her generosity in opening her home to the multitudes of young people, as well as her own commitment to finding creative and innovative community solutions has never failed to inspire me[1]. As a human being, woman, mentor and a friend, she has taught me to perceive depths and identify possibilities within people, teaching me that absolutely, nothing is outside of my reach and that a balanced, patient and consistent approach, is deeply important. 

Today, she works as a consultant with TYPF in our programme Blending Spectrum that works with children on education and health and to me, that’s absolutely amazing. I don’t know many women who have the mental strength to return to a job after 28 years of raising children, only to join their own child’s organization. It’s unbelievably inspiring and I hope I have her openness and honesty when I’m her age! 

LBBD: Ten years from now, what would you like to see The YP develop into?

I: Simply put, I’m hoping that 10 years from now, TYPF can expand its presence from Delhi to rural parts of the country as well. We want young people in different community to be able to claim the model and use it for self-empowerment. The grand master plan is to have youth organizations in general, be more connected such that we can work more cohesively with the government and lobby in a clearer and more productive manner for young people’s rights. 

LBBD: What does it mean to be a Dilliwaala, according to you?

I: I’ve lived here for 26 years, this is not an easy city to live or work in. It pushes you, swallows you, horrifies you and then at the strangest moments, I feel like I couldn’t live anywhere else. I have a love-hate relationship with Dilli, and the racist stereotypes that flourish here. But you fight your battles in the belly of the beast, so to speak, this is where things need to change – and so walking away is just not an option. There is also this incredible beauty to it, which I haven’t found anywhere else, between the streets and the sky, on mornings like today, when the sun rises and it’s raining. And there are plenty of us, tucked away in corners, who believe in what this city should be, and are willing to stand up to corrupt bureaucracies and violence. And no, I don’t think we’re a minority. We just possibly, need to find each other.  

The post A Vision. A Movement. An Empowerment | In Conversation with Ishita Chaudhry appeared first on Little Black Book, Delhi.

I’m not a food critic or an expert on this subject but I’m just another Dilliwaala who takes her food very seriously. After years of experience that has considerably added to my knowledge and waistline, it is safe to say that I know a good restaurant when I eat at one. One of the most important things that I’ve learned through my experiences is that every dish tells a story. A story of the things that went into creating it – the creativity, hard work and passion of everyone involved in making a German grilled bratwurst, a spinach and ricotta filled ravioli or a simple bruschetta, with perfection.

We all expect good service and value for our money but in our quest for having a perfect meal or making an impression on the people sitting in front of us, we forget that the kitchen at any restaurant is not Emerald City and the chefs and waiters aren’t little elves who spin out a scrumptious meal at the whip of a wand. It takes more than you think and when we take time to notice the effort and sheer passion of a restaurant’s staff, it means more to them than you could imagine. 

Ayesha Kapur {to the left}

Ayesha Kapur has been working with DIVA for the past two years as the Head of Operations. She was a part of the internet space for sometime before DIVA happened as a result of sheer boredom at her previous job. “Ritu {Dalmia} and I had a couple of common friends. I was looking for a different opportunity and she was looking for someone to help her open a new restaurant. And so it just happened. I have no formal training, experience or any degrees in this sector but that’s one of the greatest things about DIVA – we don’t look for educational degrees when we hire. We want people to be driven by a special kind of passion that comes straight from the heart.”

Unlike most restaurants, you will find Ayesha and Ritu personally overlooking everything that’s going on, conversing with their customers or just being a part of the entire hustle bustle. “It’s these small things that go a long way. We like to be involved and be a part of our guests’ experience.” Extending this personal touch across many restaurants is no easy task. Ritu Dalmia, the master chef and vision behind the DIVA chain has been in the business for the past twenty years, facing many successes, some failures, but definitely leaving an imprint in the food community circuit and in people’s hearts and palates. The DIVA in GK2 M Block market is a strictly Italian, formal dining restaurant, incorporating a more casual cafe on the ground floor. Latitude in Khan Market serves a wide range of dishes from around the world – from Prawn and Kokum curry to baingan and even salmon dishes, all in one menu. Café DIVA in N Block market is a high-energy-all-day-café-restaurant, complete with a live kitchen and a wood fired oven for the perfectly right kind of pizzas. The Cafe at ICC in Chanakyapuri boasts of home style Italian cooking at its authentic best and is like a home away from home for a number of its European customers. DIVA Piccola, the newest addition in Haus Khaz Village, is built in the style of a Trattoria with a simple yet invigorating menu. 

When asked what it takes to run such a well-known restaurant, Ayesha has a lot to say. “The people who come in only see 40% of what goes on. Making good food involves a number of things that people don’t really see. Purchasing, ordering, rooming, maintenance, training, staffing – everything contributes to that two hour food experience for our customers. We have more than 280 suppliers in the city, all providing us with both basic and special items. Sea food, cheeses and special oils are all carefully picked to go with our specific dishes. For example, our pumpkin soup needs a very different kind of pumpkin oil that we literally buy abroad and put in our suitcases to get back home.” 

“Another big challenge we face is with staffing our personnel- whether it’s hiring or training or just keeping them up to date with everything on the menu. For a lot of people the contents of our menu are new. For this very reason, we conduct weekly training and as a result, we are known for our service and the helpfulness of the staff. And then again, who can evade Murphy’s Law, especially in India. The unexpected should always be expected. For instance, this June, we didn’t have electricity or water for more than three days in one of our restaurants. Another time, a table of customers with kids broke 9 glasses. There are days when everything just seems out of place. But it is the dedication and commitment of our team that pulls us through these messy situations and we go through it all with a smile on our face!”

In order to do good work and get appreciated for it, it’s important to have an inspiration- something that keeps you going, that makes you want to wake up early in the morning even after a hard day at work. Ayesha’s inspiration is food itself. She thinks of it as a therapeutic experience. For her, food is and has always been a part of a very intimate experience that she feels most of us have lost touch with. “I grew up in a household where lunch was not just a meal but an affair. It was unimaginable to get excused in the middle for a phone call or something. Food time was sacred but today, in most homes it has become a very run of the mill ritual.” 

When asked what her favorite thing about her job is, she responds without hesitation. “The people I get to meet everyday. Everyone that comes in to eat, all the people I work with, my interactions and conversations – where else can you find the time to do that?”

And while she may not be as involved in the kitchen, she believes that’s where all the magic happens. “There is a very close relationship between the front and the back. Neither could survive without the other. Our task everyday is to make sure everything goes smoothly at both fronts.” 

Good food comes with great passion, and it’s endearing to see that Ayesha holds this relationship as sacrosanct and extends the same to her customers, making every meal an experience.

As my nani would put it “Khana toh sab se ban jata hai. Par pyaar sab nahi daal paate”. {Everyone can cook food but not everyone is able to add the special ingredient called love}

The post Soul Kitchen appeared first on Little Black Book, Delhi.

The thing I love most about writing is the fact that it’s the easiest way of saying what you feel. – putting it all down on paper and expecting people to understand or better, relate to. Through this magical medium where I can completely be myself and say things to people that I wouldn’t ordinarily say to their faces, I am attempting to do something that I have never done before and since recently didn’t think I had the capability of doing – Profiling a dear friend. A new friend. A brilliant friend. But what makes it tough is that this friend is also an esteemed colleague. A person I pester to get work done but also a person I share our organization’s vision with. A person who has a very different, yet similar belief system and who will go to all extents to make the world a better place for the team he so dedicatedly works with and for the cause of hundreds of children who he so passionately works for, day in and day out. 

Shivang Raina and I have been a part of the Becoming I Foundation – An internationally recognised, youth led organisation that aims to bring young people face to face with community development projects. For the first one year, Shivang was a volunteer under Project Fiza – a project working with victims of sex trafficking and their children. He now holds the position of Project Head for the organisation’s newest endeavour – Project Leap – an initiative that focuses on providing Wholesome Education to children through Life Skills Development in eleven low income schools all across Delhi. Having first worked closely with an oppressed community and now positively affected the lives of more than 300 children through Project Leap, Shivang says that for him, it was always about working for the cause and not for the organization. “But the last one year has taught me how we, at Becoming I, function and how we live the work we wish to do in our respective spheres and capacities. Our endeavour or the approach might not be different from others, but who says it has to be?  For me as for the organization, it has always been about how working concertedly at a microscopic level which brings about a change at the macro level.”

When asked about his best experiences he recalls, “It was during one of our annual fundraising events last year that I met this old lady who came up to me and asked if she can volunteer with the organization. Words failed me at that point so I smiled and politely nodded. Similarly, the joy of having a third standard kid write his first ever alphabet in life on your hand or the disappointment when you’re informed that the girl you worked with the last week has been forced into prostitution by her own parents. All these things, big or small leave you with an overwhelming feeling about the society you are a part of.”

Look at the photograph attached to this write up. If he looks familiar then you’re not mistaken. You must have run into him at a Gulzar recital or an Advaita concert or at the Nizamuddin Dargah listening to the Qawali or probably just outside a small cafe or inside a park, sitting with a guitar and an exhilarated expression on his face, singing his favourite gazals or taranas. Shivang is a trained classical singer and is currently a part of the House of Symphony music group.

The best part? He himself takes out time from his busy weekends and gives singing lessons to classrooms full of children. If you visited these classrooms you would still find little girls chanting ‘Tu Aashiqui Hai’ at the top of their voices and asking for ‘Shivang – woh sundar wale bhaiya’. He really does attract a fan following wherever he goes which includes a not so surprising number of women. 

Ask him what music means to him and how he feels with the kids – he smiles for a split second before saying, “I can go on and on about answering this question or maybe I should just listen to something Floyd or something Rehman and let it do the needful. I live music. I remember singing a Ghulam Ali gazal in my school assembly when I was 7 and since then its just been my life. 
Project Leap has enabled me to share that same feeling, the very emotion music evokes, with the kids that we work with. It is not about making them excellent singers or instrumentalists, but to see them imbibe that musical understanding and smiling because they, in some capacity, have begun to understand anything music. {Of course, the innovative actions that our President (yours truly) comes up with prove to be an effective add on to the process of teaching them any musical piece or song.}” 

Shivang has been an essential part of Becoming I for the past two years. “We’re a family. A family that first, fights together and then eats together. Three months into the project and I am starting to believe that we are all suckers for perfection. Too much work, all the time. But I can never get enough.”

As the newest Dilliwaala in our Little Black Book, he believes, “More than anything else and more than all things cliched, Dilliwaalas have this peculiar characteristic of gelling with you or finding that connect, may be even while having a fight with you. Quarrelsome, yes. But, we are a strange, lovable breed.”

His favourite place in the city is the India Habitat Center. “I have some fond memories of that place and I still can just go there, sit with a pen or a guitar in my hands and just be myself. Its a place which strangely makes you feel like you’re in a very special part of the city while being completely cut off from it.”

That feeling when you know someone who is immensely talented, extremely dedicated towards his work and has a great heart – but all of that goes away when he opens his mouth to sing. And all you want to do is store his amazingly beautiful voice in a jar and keep it with you always. You have to hear him, without any instrument, sitting in a park to know what I’m talking about.  

But then {like now} you have to be professional, shrug away the almost falling in love feeling and go back to giving him a another truckload of work to finish. 

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A memory is a beautiful thing. When asked “If you’re 60 and living alone, what would your house look like?”, I’d say my house would be full of photographs. Photographs that a person needs to shuffle through, to know everything about my life. Photographs that show that I was once happy and I can fill myself up with nothing but that feeling and be content with my current days. Photographs of all my achievements and all my failures. 

Most importantly, photographs of all the people who have ever entered my life, affected the way I think, created the person I am. Or even just existed by virtue of once sharing a cab with me, sitting next to me in class 5 Geometry, taking my side in a high school brawl, sharing his microeconomics notes or like The Beatles said – promising to need me, promising to feed me, when I’m 64. 

But what if things go bad. What if the people you saw as your roommates/flatmates/bridesmaids/lifemates were all just your imagination? What if you expected too much out of a relationship? What if the friendship balance never really tipped your way? What if by some chance of fate, or a better chance of un-required, bigheaded ego, you alienate yourself from everyone who ever cared about you? We use words like forever, never and always without really understanding what they mean and what implications they might draw. What if a “I never want anything to do with you” actually means “I NEVER want anything to do with you”? What if all you’re living with, and for, are those photographs on the walls? What if the memory of being happy doesn’t fill you up and make your face glow, but is actually killing you inside and reminding you, everyday of being rejected, defeated and my scariest feeling of all – unwanted? 

Imagine a dream world. Imagine the incoherency and surreality of what dreams are like. In that very state, imagine an old, dusty photo album. It’s full of all your photographs, in sequence of when they happened. It starts with the day you were born, moving on to your first step, your first french fry, your first toothbrush, going towards your graduation, your engagement party, your first child and all of his or her firsts. It has all your ups and all your downs – the most jubilant day of your life and the day you wanted to kill yourself. It has all the people who matter – Or mattered as the case may be. But more than showing you how great your life was, it screams at you with images of every time you felt disappointed and cheated. It tells you that in the whirlwind of trying to find yourself, you got lost. It’s a blatant reminder of the fact that you never really lived. You merely existed. It ends at where you are right now – the exact place, the exact time, the exact surroundings and the very exact laptop in front of you. But this time you have an eraser in your hand with the power to permanently erase all the photographs you don’t want in your album. 

You’re awake now. The album is still in front of you and so is the eraser. The only problem is – this album, is your life. 

What would it feel like to cut complete chunks out of your memory? To remove all those photographs that make you regret the times they represent. To start over with people you have unknowingly or knowingly harmed. To build yourself from the beginning – drop all accents, views, knowledge, opinions, perceptions, notions and pretenses. To gently remove all traces of those days you regret the most. Is it normal to want to remove whole persons from your memory completely? To burn a hole in your photographs, to put an end to those recurring dreams, to never feel what you felt when they were around – to move on in the real sense of the term. What if you didn’t ever have to look back at your mistakes? What if you just didn’t allow history to repeat itself? What if you had the option of not learning from your past but erasing it altogether. What would that feel like?

Are you strong enough to start over? Would you rather not know at all, or know, remember and cry over? If you don’t remember your failures, are you still at risk of repeating them? Will you ever be okay with letting go of everything – all events, all moments, all memories? 

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Are you prepared to be Eternally Sunshined? 

Poem by: Alexander Pope 

Photo courtesy: http://www.between-us-bilinguals.com/memories.html

Title reference: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – The movie 

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When I was little, I had a weird habit of associating every moment with the place where it occurred. The people were hardly relevant compared to their surroundings. So while you might remember your first play in pre school, I remember the stage and the auditorium. You look back at your first field trip or first shopping experience without the overbearing presence of mommy dearest and I somehow only remember where they happened. People think fondly of their first dates, first kisses and first anniversaries. I hope to God that none of the people involved in the aforementioned activities with me read this but I hardly remember anything of their presence. But the fancy restaurants, movie theaters, empty classroom and shady street corners are very very clear.

As I grew up I realised that it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just a childhood thing and it isn’t something that goes away with time. A majority of us associate our fondest memories with the atmosphere and how we felt when we saw, heard, touched and smelt the things around us. We tend to take a mental picture of what that night looked like, store it somewhere at the back in a box, to be opened only when alone and in the mood for a sob. What some people also tend to do is associate smells with incidents. Or for that matter even songs. Or just a certain tune always playing in the background. For me, every phase of my life can be represented by a different set of singer/albums/song. Life is really what happens to us when we are busy shuffling from Backstreet Boys to The Beatles. 

If you think about it, a memory is only but a movie playing in our heads. Except, the only difference is – we’re in it. Who really needs albums full of people in their most ridiculous poses when you can go back on your own special memory lane whenever you want – all lit up with lights, reverberating with familiar tunes, fresh smells and the faint memory of what it felt like when you were there last.

All in all, while we think that our brain or our heart are the most relevant while creating memories or going back to them, it’s actually more of the rest of our sense organs. It’s the smallest things that tend to stick the longest. A song lyric, a wine bottle, a toothpick and a small cafe or in one of my cases – an empty vodka bottle, shady bollywood songs, pyjamas & pancakes at Times Square and an urgent need to pee. 

The Monsoons are incomplete without that distinct smell of wet mud. Holi seems bland without the taste of Gujjiya in my mouth. You haven’t experienced Delhi winters if you haven’t almost died because of the late night chilly winds. Christmas is nothing really except the thought of a big Christmas tree, everyone singing carols around it and the sight of every kind of cake and pudding possible. Long walks on the Brooklyn bridge don’t feel the same without the Sinatra ‘Moon River’ soundtrack playing in your head.

If I couldn’t see the candlelight, I wouldn’t have remembered what it feels like to be alone in a room with him. If I couldn’t hear his hopeless attempts at ’Nothings gonna change my love for you’, I wouldn’t have known that even with that God awful voice, I actually love it when he sings to me. If I couldn’t feel the spotlight on me, I would never have experienced that rush of being on stage. If I couldn’t sense the grief in my throat and the tears building up at the airport, I wouldn’t know what goodbyes feel like. If I didn’t associate all my memories with the place, the smell, the song and the butterfly feeling in my stomach, the faces would just fade away.

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Three years the boy has spent in this alien town of big cars blaring the latest gangsta rap. In the city of pretty girls who cannot speak English. In a mini-country sized city which falls in the range of surface to surface missiles of not one, but three other countries, two of which have half a mind to make use of that factor. This city seemed to hold all of the stuff that this boy was critical of, everything he swatted aside with a derisive snort {other than the pretty girls of course}. Still, three years he’s survived. And he hates to admit it, but he’s actually enjoying himself.

On a ridiculously hot summer night the boy set foot for the one and the half-th time {the first visit to Delhi couldn’t have counted as one}, shocked immediately at the audacity of a geographical location to adamantly stay at 40 degrees at 12 am. Since he hailed from Bangalore {the paradise where it’s perpetually spring}, it made him even more uncomfortable. He sweated out half his already-depleted body weight on the ride to the hotel, and he hated the god damned place. The next morning entailed standing in line for hours on an even hotter day {if that was possible} to get admission into one of the most prestigious colleges in India. It did not make him feel any better about the blessed heat though. Or the copious amounts of Hindi being spoken all around him. But this decision to run away from home and do “arts” was completely on him. So he decided to fight it out.

As time went by, he got used to the heat, but he still needed to get used to the people. Being brought up in Bangalore meant he did not really think too much about keeping up appearances. He was startled at the college fashion scene. It was like a going to the zoo. For the first time that he saw one of his friends get dressed for a party, he could not comprehend the fact that a male homo sapien can spend an hour trying to look presentable. At the party, in his borrowed shirt and torn jeans, he felt really out of place. Like a hobo in a Gucci store.  All these people milling around him, dressed like they’re going to the Oscars, blowing “muahs” at each other disconcerted him to say the least. So, he just concentrated on the alcohol. Oh, that was one redeeming factor about Delhi, the rich kids gave you nice booze. He still hated the place though, and the people in it.

But then, by virtue of being a {barely} “social animal”, he made a few friends. Friends who called him “English Boy”, but friends nonetheless. He discovered that if you looked beyond the branded clothing, and chose to ignore almost all your cultural convictions being violated in conversation, these people were actually pretty normal, but in his opinion, trying too hard. Fact of the matter remained that they were nice. The boy slowly began suspending his staunch views on stuff that were ingrained in him by his heavy metal brethren, and for starters, he actually began to enjoy techno-electro music {it’s called dhikchik auto music in his hometown}. What’s important here is that he gave David Guetta a shot, a listen, and then chose to like it. What was important, and what he realised was giving Delhi, in all its nauseous pretence, a shot.

With that plan of action in mind, the boy roamed Delhi for a good two years. He found a few things he liked, and many things he did not. He put his chappal-shorts philosophy on hold and bought his first pair of trousers, and first few pieces of non-blackgraywhitebeige clothing. He found places to fall in love with, like the congested gullies of Old Delhi, or the BRT at 2 am in the morning. He found people to fall in love with. He even almost fell victim to this Blackberry trend, but the Bangalore in his blood eventually got the better of him {it was a close one}. In Delhi, he lost some of his passions and found some others that made him happy. In many ways, he realised, the fast pace of this town made kids do a lot more at a very young age, that they are more driven, and that in turn motivated him to shrug off the lethargy characteristic of Bangalore and do something. The city gave him his brush with philosophy, an interest he may never have discovered had he not met these “arty types”. The city also gave him his first glimpse of the heart stopping beauty of winter, of the visions of the India Gate slowly emerging from behind the icy veil of dense fog on a January morning. He learnt to love chai {not tea, in his mind they are two completely different beverages} and stop hating paneer {oh, the epidemic}. He learnt to embrace the history and the beauty of the city. To him, strangely, if Delhi were to be personified she’d be a beautiful mujra dancer from a yesteryears Bollywood film. If Bangalore was his love, then Delhi became his muse.

So, now, three years later, his friends at home laugh at him when he says he liked a Salman Khan movie. They ridicule him for playing dance tunes at parties {its a party for chrissakes, not a Lamb of God concert}. Amidst frequent utterances of “Ey, you’ve become one full Delhi boy da.”, he just smiles. He loves staying at home and not having to pay 300 bucks for a pint of beer, but to his surprise he misses Delhi after two and a half months of summer holidays. He knows that as long he has a goatee on his chin and a collection of unmarked black t-shirts in his closet, he will remain Bangalore. But, it doesn’t hurt him to say “yaar” in place of “da” anymore. 

Photo Courtesy: Pratheek Vinod Kumar

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In High School, everyone has that one special place they can call their second home. A place famous amongst geeks, artists, music lovers, athletes and loiterers alike. At my school, we had the Music Basement. For most of us lost souls, it was where we found our passion for music and eventually yet unknowingly, ourselves. Being the music and dance area, many legends are known to have walked those steps and transform their shrill voices into splendid baritones. Groups of squeaky kids have curled up quietly into the cosy corners of the basement on a particularly harsh winter morning, letting the sounds of strings fill them up and not left till the last bell. All these people with beautiful voices, magic in their fingers and a thirst for brilliance are now making a name for themselves all around the world. One such Music Basement survivor is Vasundhara Vidalur. 

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