March: 22.3.2012

It has been a March from memories this year. Climatically, a pleasant concoction of cool breeze and sunshine - the way Delhi used to drink it in from picnic hampers. Driving through Lutyen's Delhi is always pleasant, but this month has been special, especially this week...this month. Outside the Gymkhana, hollow "plocks" of thumped tennis balls can be heard from behind the tall walls, cushioned atop feminine titterings intertwined with sound of falling neem leaves churning up the breeze like little rotors. Traffic is resting...the avenues appear broader, cleaner...leisure appears to have returned to Delhi.

There seems no urgency to consume miles even though workplace beckons as usual. There appears to be adequate time, to allow experience and recall together.

Along the broad arc of Mother Teresa Crescent, a riot of bougainvilleas flow down sculped shapes on either side of the boundary of President's Estate. They are swathed in all the glorious colours -red, pink, yellow-gold, white - that the cavalry of President's Bodyguards trotting single-file on stately horses towards practice at their parade ground, wear on their uniforms.

Further down the arc, a vivid shade of green strikes the eye - the grass at Talkatora Grounds is busy hosting a cricket match. The innings, in pristine sparkling whites, appears to be well under way. There is intense concentration and purpose writ in the body language of boundary fielders closest to the boundary towards this side. The wiry bowler is single-minded; ball in his grip oscillating up and down with each step of his sprint in from the other boundary. It appears a champion is batting in the middle and scoring at will and this lad has a notion about it. But the breeze slants his purpose and angles it down. The batsman, with a timed twist of his wrists tucks it further down, and this act brings on a reason to celebrate. Which he does with a raising of his bat and showing its face all around. The scoreboard is hidden from sight by the overhanging boughs of trees, hence the reason for celebration is unknown. But it must be a good one, for the taut body language of fielders has relaxed to applaud the batsman. Only a week ago, such a scene was witnessed on television. Half a dozen years ago, an almost identical scene was witnessed at Ferozeshah Kotla that December evening.

There is no incentive to drive on from here, Delhi is flaunting a rare forgotten innocence ostentatiously, yet we must, to address those corners of Delhi where innocence has no role to play.

Opening Shot

While looking for some stuff in the store room yesterday, I opened a long locked up, and forgotten, almirah posted there to make space for daily living. Inside was a trove of books purchased over time from my local bookstore, mostly out of interest and to instigate a desire to read in my then growing up child, a few out of requirement, and the rest out of habit, to kill boredom, or simply to humour an impulse. Upon a shelf level with my line of sight, among the variety of titles, stood an array of Indian editions of "Wordsworth Classics" - the very best of English literature in an affordable format.

I stood there rooted for a while, breathing in the mustiness of paper locked up in Subtropics - a combination of earthy odours, of wet hay, a bit of petrichor, a volatile blend that tickles the nostrils and recall. As my eyes scanned the titles, my mind reeled out excerpts from them.

But my hand reached out to pick out Pride and Prejudice - a story read too long ago for the mind to recall specific excerpts. My memories paused at the brink of broken recordings. I opened the book gingerly, the pages frighteningly crisp to touch. A note written to my son, Sharang, upon one of his birthdays prompted my stalled memories in a different direction. Then I reached the first chapter and I began to read, my task forgotten temporarily.

That first page...that first paragraph quickly blending into that opening conversation between the Bennets, sucked me instantly into the story and made me read on, flip pages and read on and on...till the irritated hailing for me from the next room brought me back to my initial purpose.

The point of my anecdote being the importance of the first page of a story. The initial paragraph or two decides the fate of thousands of words written after them. I checked other classic titles on the shelf as this aspect smote my consciousness, each one of them had a powerful opening. To employ a cricketing idiom, the opening innings are the most important for a team.

Our own Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things has penned an indelible opener in our memories. I quote the opening passage from the first chapter, 'Paradise Pickles & Preserves', of her book

May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear
windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.

The nights are clear, but suffused with sloth and sullen expectation.

Those dissolute bluebottles humming vacuously in the fruity air have remained with me from the first read. I can still recall the sense of relief and elation filling me, replacing the foreboding that comes parcelled with the first purchase of any work by an Indian author writing in English.

Aju John, a friend with whom I shared this experience on Twitter, suggested another great opening from an Indian born author as example - I quote his suggestion, also one with currency, the opening extract of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

I was born in the city of Bombay … once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more … On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity.

Undeniably, the first page of a story is its most important one.