Anindita Sengupta

My first post for the Guardian blog,  ‘Comment is Free’, is up. Do read .

It’s about something fairly talked about here, which is the whole point. I also chose to talk about this — yet again damn it — because nothing is changing. I think it’s time to start yelling in chorus.

Interestingly, I hadn’t anticipated a particular type of response, which is the ‘why is it our business?’ from some (clearly) British readers. When Jess from The Guardian wrote to me saying they want to highlight Indian issues, particularly because they also have Asian readers, I thought the logic was pretty sound. I also imagined that most educated readers are interested in global issues now that the world is shrinking yada yada. Anyway, thankfully, such comments are in the minority.

Margaret Atwood, I mean. Her latest book is due this month and as usual, she has her finger unflinchingly on the pulse. This one’s called Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth and it talks about the phenomenon of borrowing and owing as a cultural issue. She weaves in Faustus, Scrooge and Eric Berne to link the US economic crisis with primal human urges to get right now and pay later. She also looks at how Faustus is a generous guy, why we love the reformed Scrooge (“because, true to the laws of wish-fulfilment, which always involve a free lunch or a get-out-of-jail card, he embodies both sides of the equation”) and why we choose to go into debt — as a life script, or even as a ‘fix’.

From the Livemint extract:

In our minds — as reflected in our language — debt is a mental or spiritual non-place, like the Hell described by Christopher Marlowe’s Mephistopheles when Faust asks him why he’s not in Hell but right there in the same room as Faust. “Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it,” says Mephistopheles. He carries Hell around with him like a private climate: He’s in it and it’s in him. Substitute “debt” and you can see that, in the way we talk about it, debt is the same kind of placeless place. “Why, this is Debt, nor am I out of it,” the beleaguered debtor might similarly declaim.

Which makes the whole idea of debt — especially massive and hopeless debt — sound brave and noble and interesting rather than merely squalid, and gives it a larger-than-life tragic air. Could it be that some people get into debt because, like speeding on a motorbike, it adds an adrenalin hit to their otherwise humdrum lives?

When the bailiffs are knocking at the door and the lights go off because you didn’t pay the water bill and the bank’s threatening to foreclose, at least you can’t complain of ennui.

It’s interesting that the passage from Dr Faustus always made me think of ‘guilt’ as akin to Hell. And debt and guilt are very closely linked, aren’t they?

What’s she also saying here is that debt is, in its own way, exciting. It gives us ‘something to think about’. And it’s probably true. How many joyful evenings in how many households have been spent discussing when the EMI on the car will be over so that the money can then be used for the EMI on a new car?

I’m one of those people who hate handling money. Don’t get me wrong. I love many of the things it can assure — certain kinds of freedom, travel, fast-speed Internet, books — but prefer to never actually have to think about it. Which means, perhaps, that this is a particular type of excitement I don’t have the stomach for. Perhaps, the fear and guilt squelch out the adrenalin. Which I why I strike big blows against feminism sometimes and let A handle the bank work. Or maybe I’m just being a clever feminist (“It’s a dirty job and someone’s got to do it,” as I rub my hands together wickedly.)

In other news, I had four glorious days away from all this vulgar talk of money last week. I was in Pondicherry and besides eating, drinking, walking, mooning at the sea, eating, drinking, I concentrated on spending the little money I have in Pondicherry’s quaint, expensive ’boutiques’ (nothing is just a ‘shop’ anymore, apparently). I like to buy heaps of seemingly small, cheap things rather than big, costly things because this allows me to feel all non-materialistic and virtuous. As a result, I have come back with many aromatic candles and enough incense for three medium-sized temples. Pictures soon. Of the place, not the incense.

On Sunday, we drove down to Mysore. We ate lunch at The Metropole, which was a former guest house for the Wodeyar family’s special guests and is now a Royal Orchid property. Then, we drove up Chamundi Hill. Both of us have seen all the ‘sights’ before so we were just trying to hang out somewhere other than Koshy’s. It made for a nice change. We saw a surprised mongoose who gazed at us solemnly before scooting into the bushes. We also spent a great deal of time contemplating three extraordinary beehives at the church later. Pictures below.

The city is gearing up for Dassera and after 6.30 pm, the lights came on. Now, what I mean by that is not only the palace, which is illuminated every evening during the week up to Dassera, but almost every other public building, many shops, and most roads were glittering. It was quite overwhelming.

At the palace, there were hordes of enthusiastic people. There were also lots of red, heart-shaped balloons, which I could see bobbing over the silhouettes of a million heads or so. My pictures of the illuminated palace were taken from a moving car so they haven’t come out so well but there are plenty of images online.

Traffic management was impressive — they had these policemen and policewomen (in equal numbers) dressed nattily and wearing red feathers in their hats, and they had policemen on horses at major traffic junctions like Devraj Urs Market. It was the first time I had seen mounted policemen so I giggled and gasped, and fumed at unimportant things like moving traffic getting in the way of my camera. We also saw four elephants rehearsing their march for the parade on the final day. It’s sad that the fear of bombs have scared people off from the celebrations this year. Apparently, apart from foreigners and tourists, even locals are staying away.

Chamundi Hills, Mysore

Hotel Metropole, Mysore

St Philomena’s Church, Mysore.

City Lights

More Pictures

Three of my poems have been published in the latest issue of Pratilipi. The issue also has works by Keki Daruwalla, Sridala, Meena and Sridhar/Thayil. Do read.

So, as I was saying, I hate socialising after an event. Which is really awful because I either retreat into the shadows or look like I’m sulking into my drink. What I am doing actually is mulling over what I’ve seen or heard, existing for a little while in a calm bubble in my head. I should probably leave immediately after. But here’s the paradox: I like being in company. Love it, actually. Uh, without actually being in it.

It’s the same reason I sometimes go to restaurants when I can perfectly easily (and more cheaply) have the same drink in my own home. But you don’t understand, I tell A exasperatedly, ‘there will be people’. People who I will rarely know, seldom speak to, and with whom I will usually exchange a smile across the room, at most. Or an emphatic blink. I love the emphatic blink. It means so much and involves so little.

So here is what I’ve deduced: I’m deplorably lazy. I am lethargic about establishing and maintaining social contact in any active manner. I want the other person to do all the hard work. But if the other person doesn’t want to do any work, I am perfectly content with co-existing. I find it reassuring. That we all exist here, in this time, in this space. Yes, I find it a happy thought. Against all logic, I suppose. But there it is.