The brotherhodd of Anjj

It may not be not in the same league as the “Coffee House culture”, but its almost as colourful, stimulating and free-wheeling. And if course, there are the customary rounds of steaming beverages and wandering smoke rings. Life at IIT wouldn’t have been the same without the Anjj brotherhood!!

It all started with the search for a place that served good “North Indian style” chaai, which for dummies is tea with extra sugar and milk and served in thick walled glass tumblers. (No regionalism involved here, its just a lifestyle choice!) The vending machine fare at Gurunath, for all the eye-candy charm of the place, wasn’t good enough and Tifany’s was OK but too far-off from the hostel zone. (Proximity was an issue because chaai for the lot of us was like antivirus software updates – regular editions were required for smooth functioning of our systems.) It was then that these outlets outside Krishna gate were discovered. The tumblers were in place, and the tea was definitely acceptable. The fact that you could light up in these places was a big plus. (The “electricity-powered” lighters that these places sported were unlike any I had seen anywhere before.) This initiated the trips to these chaai stalls, which soon settled into a regular, rarely disturbed pattern – after breakfast, after lunch, in the evening, after dinner, near midnight and any time in between whenever deemed necessary. Sipping tea, coffee or “Boost” and sitting on circular stools of moulded plastic or on the cemented steps of the shops, the tea-lovers club would have lively, boisterous and unbridled discussions on truly “arbit” topics – sometimes sensible, sometimes utterly insane. Politicians were abused, World Cup soccer history was revisited, professors were cursed (and their daughters blessed!), the Tata-Corus deal was analyzed, the future of renewable energy was pondered upon, the origins of prevalent expletives were unearthed, Himesh Reshammiya was consigned to ashes, the mating-cycle of the monkey was discussed, menus of extrapolated marriages hotly contested … you basically get the idea. As more and more chaai stalls were identified and sampled, they were given unique code names by the brotherhood – the one with the best tea (and the most frequented) was chaai anna (its officially called the Balan tea stall), the one adjacent to the Krishna gate was gate anna, the one which served special ginger-cardamom tea was SPL anna, the one opposite to a doctor’s clinic was doctor anna, and the late night vendor who operated from 10pm – 6am to cater to the TCS nightstaff was TCS anna. In due course of time, the tea-zone acquired a personal sense of belonging for the regulars (who called themselves the Anjj gang), and occasional visitors were deemed as guests and treated to free tea as a mark of courtesy. Standing at the fag end of my end of my IITM days, I realize that the chaai phenomenon has almost become a physical part of me which cannot be separated from me without a certain amount of pain.

Of course, apart from the regular goings-on of the tea-zone there were always some quirky happenings that add spice to the story. There was the case when one of us accidentally broke a tumbler and prepared for a tirade from the tea-stall owner. To our surprise, the man calmly walked upto us, flashed an open palm at us, mouthed the words “anjj rupa” and started cleaning away the shards of glass. We had no idea what that meant, until a Tamil-speaking guy explained that “anjj rupa (meaning five rupees)” was the penalty we had to pay for destroying the tumbler. That was that. This incident was the genesis of the name the tea-regulars acquired later on – the Anjj gang. Then there was this dogess (“bitch” really has very negative connotations in our mind) which grew fond of us when we fed her with biscuits every time we came for chaai. She would wriggle with joy whenever she spotted us coming, and would accompany us till the hostel gates every single night. Then there was the day one of us narrowly missed being drenched by a dash of water, splashed by a resident who was traumatized by the ruckus we created while we had tea. And of course, there was the regular haggling with the guards at the Krishna gate when we went to have our midnight tea at about 11:45pm. Eventually the guards realized we were harmless desperados and ceased accosting us. These, and many other moments, are endearing tea-moments of a lifetime.

A lifetime of ecstacy

Whichever way I look at it, i got more here than I had bargained for. Be it academics, friends, extra-curriculars, love, hate, fun .... the works. This video has come from somewhere in my heart (not sure if it's the bottom) and, in many ways, reflects the true story of my stint at IIT Madras. The amount of mileage we have clocked up as s class despite differences is truly something to cherish. At a personal level, of course, I have made some really good friends. I have also learnt a good deal about life and its meanderings, through pleasant and not-so-pleasant episodes. Hope you enjoy the video ...

Bill, Bigelow & Backpack

Symbolism and allegory is indeed a potent tool to add layers, colours and texture to issues and discussions. It can be fantastically bang-on or damningly misleading and lot depends on the intelligence of both the formulator and interpreter of the idea. No my friends, this is not my learning from the hugely successful Dan Brown genre, though it indeed was involved in the genesis. Instead, what I am referring to here is much closer to real and “de-crypted” life. A three pronged rambling – read on …

The first two observations are linked at their source, but fan out thereafter. The first and most important, at least for me as an Indian, is the 108^th Constitutional Amendment, better known as the Women’s Reservation Bill. After millennia of prejudice, amidst shameful hooliganism and against ruling anarchy, the Indian woman has made a small but joyous step towards hope. Before you lash out at me with your sabres, let me clarify that “small” here is a downright relative expression. The acceptance (though still very provisional, for Lok Sabha MPs would still surely use every rule in the book to save their seats which are set to go to women if the Bill is passed) of a formidable right to decision making in the world’s largest democracy still plagued by patriarchal and feudal bias is in itself a gigantic and unprecedented step forward for women. It’s indeed tempting to tend towards symbolism considering the fact that the present ruling party, the opposition, the Lok Sabha and the Indian state all have women in pivotal positions presently. Sorry to sound like a cynic, but the acid test would really be if and after the 108 comes into force. How the empowered woman community wields and uses its power is where the real essence of the issue lies. When you look at the fact that a party like Trinamool Congress, led by a woman, did not think it was correct to evict MPs who belittled the office of the Rajya Sabha speaker, you’d start to see what I’m trying to say. Politics today, at least in India, is starkly discordant with public welfare and farsighted policy making and has instead turned into a combined game of monopoly, trapeze and poker. On the road, in the fields and at home, the Indian woman is still fighting for identity, equity and dignity. I sincerely hope that the 33% does not get sucked into the black hole of materialistic and virtue-less politics but uses the power to really make a difference in the life of the Indian women and set her free. The government lost out the symbolically fantastic opportunity of getting the bill passed on International Women’s day, let’s hope the Indian state doesn’t take the symbolism too seriously.

Now, it’s time for the red carpet. The famed “Battle of the Ex-es” at this year’s Oscars ended in the Oscar for the best Director going to a woman for the first time in Oscar history. The Dan Brown-esque media again linked this with the International Women’s day. First things first, “The Hurt Locker” is indeed a raw and scathing look into the horror, rigour and monotony of pointless and protracted war. A columnist has remarked that the “sweaty, sour and defeatedly masculine tang seeping out of every frame” in the movie could only have been captured so shrewdly by a woman. Something about such remarks rings a bell somewhere in me. Why is the woman – angle looked at with such scrutiny in such situations? Around the world, with all the talk of progressive humanity, gender-bias still is a menacingly strong undercurrent. To me, underlining the fact that a female director deserves extra credit for making it the Oscar winning list, and similar such statements, have roots in a deep-seated patriarchal conviction. I definitely need more minds to develop this line of thought.

Finally, a musing on something entirely different. As a part of the process of watching the Oscar nominated movies, I came across George Clooney’s “Up in the air”. I thought the film has used a very different technique to look at the importance of social security in human life, which is refreshing. Riding on the concept of a backpack, used as a symbol of the materialistic and social commitments that ride on the shoulders of a human, the film very subtly underlines the beauty, importance and criticality of not cocooning yourself from the world in a bid to stay away from responsibilities and commitments. It was a nice breezy movie, and without any over-the-moon dialogues or situations, drove home a point effectively. I wonder why Bollywood doesn’t get “inspired” by this genre ….