Hardik Rajgor

I t was not a festival, it wasn’t anyone’s birthday in the  family , as far as I could remember. It wasn’t even the weekend. So I was taken by surprise when my house was abuzz with energy in the middle of a workweek. There was a serious amount of pav bhaji and grilled cheese sandwiches that had been ordered. For a  Gujarati  family living in Kandivali, it felt like  Navratri  had arrived early. Before I could figure out what was happening, mum told me we had guests – my dad’s colleagues. Really? When did dad start making friends at work?   Pratik* from my father’s office had come home to visit us, all the way from  Kalyan . Seated next to him was a woman, who I guessed was his girlfriend, but I couldn’t be sure. It was 10 pm on a  Tuesday , way past my father’s bedtime. And yet everyone seemed quite content chatting away. “Why aren’t they leaving?” “They can’t be staying over!” “Do I have to sleep in the living room today?” My mind was overf...

C orruption  in India is like oxygen – it is integral to our lives. From the local traffic police to spectrum allocation at the cabinet level, corruption is as rampant as potholes on Indian roads. You can move your file faster in a  government  office if you accompany it with a bit of “chai paani”, a word we have coined to convince ourselves we are not all that dishonest because it’s not quite “rishwat”. Corruption is a major election plank for our political parties. One party says, “Mera PM chor hai”, the other says “Tera pura khandan  chor  hai” and the average person on the street believes, “Saale sab chor hai”. This defeatism pervaded our Supreme Court recently, when it took the hands-off position by allowing politicians with criminal backgrounds to contest elections — so long as they were loud and clear about their criminal antecedents. This, presumably, would help the voter make an informed choice, and possibly avoid the worst among equals. But is ou...

I n my callow youth, I’ve had many flings. My passport was my first love; I remember holding on to it for dear life as I took my first flight abroad. When I turned 18, my driving licence, my gateway to make all my testosterone-fuelled  Fast and Furious  dreams come true, came into my life. This was followed by the voter ID card, definitive proof that I was now an adult worthy of electing the esteemed representatives of our country. Soon after I had a short, summer romance with the PAN card (although we were more like  friends with benefits ) I don’t regret any of these relationships. They all did their bit for me, helped me grow into the person I am today, and I’m still friends with most of them. But they failed to complete me; I couldn’t see them as an integral part of my life. I wanted something more from my partner. And then on a fine winter morning in January 2009, I met  Aadhaar . It was love at first sight. I was awestruck the moment Aadhaar scanned my eye...

W hen you grow up in a middle-class home, outlets for creativity are limited, much like political options in India. Right from  school , pursuits like drawing,  singing , and craft are considered “extracurricular activities” — basically a waste of time. If you excel at them, the only stage you’re offered is at family functions where dad tells you “Beta, uncle ko ganaa gaake sunao” or “Beta, dadi ki liye birthday card banao”. As a career choice, art is considered the bottom of the barrel. If you told your parents, you wanted to join a design school, they’d sit you down to tell you, “Yeh ameeron ke shauq hain, beta.” Only rich people can afford creative careers, because “scope nahi hai”. Middle-class folks are required to curb their creativity the same way Hardik Pandya curbs his attacking instincts in  Test cricket . However, there is one festival which turns into a mosh pit for the creative types – Ganesh Chaturthi. Ganesha is the God of Fun, associated with music, ...