What You Really Mean When You Say “I’m Working from Home Today”

Working from home is the Holy Grail of corporate life. It’s like the time teacher told you to “read” something for homework. It meant that there was no homework. It’s basically a holiday that hasn’t been explicitly declared as such.

Just like a chutti, there is a sense of wonder associated with working from home. For starters, you can magically create time in the morning. On an ideal work day, you invest at least an hour in commuting, courtesy our amazing roads and the people on them. But when you work from home, you get to do in bed what you otherwise have to do at work – sleep.

Don’t get me wrong — I am not the sort of person who advocates slacking off.  Which is why it is important to follow a routine and have the discipline to stick with it. It is very important to set the mood within the first few hours of the morning, by replying to every mail within 10 seconds (by adding people to the email thread, of course). An impression must be created that you are on top of things and just because you’re working from home, there won’t be any loss in productivity. You must be so proactive that your boss wishes you worked from home every single day.

See, it is a lot like studying. You always feel you can do it at a later time and it will all work out, but it never does. Unlike office, you have no one to disturb you at home so you can finish four hours of work in 30 minutes. Colleagues aren’t around to drag you for a sutta break every seven minutes, there are no coffee breaks, and you don’t have to waste an hour having lunch. These thoughts are immediately followed by, “My Netflix queue is getting really long and I can quickly get the work done later; what could go wrong?”

You start binge-watching shows like Shah Rukh chain-smokes. Just like bunking tuitions to smoke cigarettes with friends before a paper, you promise yourself this is going to be the last one. Sadly, that moment never arrives. After a few hours of constantly staring at the screen, you realise you need a break and it is time to get some sleep.

This is the trickiest part of working from home: sleeping in the afternoon but making sure that your boss doesn’t find out. God bless the technology that allows you to do that, as you turn off the sleep mode on your laptop, set your status as “Busy” on the office messenger, and take a powernap that will last four hours.

If you get a call from your boss or colleague while you were asleep, responding to it requires a lot of tact. You can’t just pick up a call in the middle of your nap and try to sound like you weren’t catching some Zs. The call must be avoided; time to wash your face and get your voice in order before you call back. Put your skills from that one theatre workshop you attended in college to good use, as you brag about how intensely busy you were working on the file and accidentally missed the call. Yes, indeed, it’s a lot like Mom catching you with an Archie comic inside your textbook during study hour. Confidence is key to getting away.

Just like you magically pulled an hour or so of extra time out of thin air in the morning, your afternoon slumber will just as magically make a few hours disappear. All your work is still pending, and now the pressure is building up, as the sun starts to set outside the window and your boss starts following up on mail for the file you have been working on all day. You recall the crazy, desperate last-minute cramming sessions before your Physics paper. If things already weren’t bad, Mom tells you to get something from the market, and you start regretting the decisions you have made today.

And then, just like every other day at work that you spend labouring — chatting around the watercooler, taking a chai break every hour — you realise it’s going to be a long night. This time at home. You furiously type away on the laptop, promising yourself that you are going to organise your day better the next time you work from home. “I’ll study properly for the next exam,” you remember promising yourself before every test. The cycle continues unbroken.

Fantastic Marathoners and Where to Find Them

Every marathon ever run has only ever had two kinds of participants – those who registered under guilt, and those who didn’t. The former is a core group of people who mark the entire year by the marathons they will be participating in, to plan the preparation and diet that it will require. These are the guys who will show up on race day with their fitbits and phones all charged up, liquids and food packed. These are the people who know exactly what they are doing. And at most marathons, these people number one in 10.

The other 90 per cent are people like us.

When you get the bib number in your mailbox a few days before race day, it dawns upon you, what kind of monster that you have unleashed. You are the guy who takes a rickshaw to station instead of risking a 10-minute walk, but now you have registered for a 10-kilometre run that flags off at 6 am sharp. The last time you woke up early on a Sunday morning, LK Advani was still gunning to be Prime Minister of India.

You’ve followed (kinda) the pre-race diet that was recommended, but in the name of carb-loading you’ve eaten a LOT of fried rice which is making you sluggish and bloated. Also, you’ve never put on a bib before so you wonder whether you should use threads or staple it to your shirt.

As you reach the venue and glance across, it starts to feel a lot like an exam hall, 10 minutes before the start of the test. Some people look really confident and prepared, others are busy nervously looking around, just like you. Some serious runners are doing last-minute stretches — you copy them closely so that people think you know what you’re up to.

In the meantime, announcements begin and the host, who looks like a gym trainer at Gold’s asks the crowd to gather around for a warm-up. Loud music starts to play and you follow the dancercise steps. It keeps going on for 10 minutes and it starts to worry you that “Saari energy to abhi nikal gayi, ab race mein kya karenge?”

Suddenly, the lights go green and everyone is off with a loud cheer. Some people take off like Usain Bolt, and are already breathing heavily as soon as they complete 50 metres. “Haan hum sab to chutiye hai jo itna slow bhagte hai,” the regulars mutter as they watch the noobs self-destruct with irrational enthusiasm.

Many have begun walking right from the beginning and have decided that they will walk through the entire race, which deserves more respect because they know their limitations. It’s like the CA course: All that matters is that you complete the race and have a certificate. Unless you are Sharma ji’s son, nobody is going to ask you about your timing and position. The “pros” jog at a brisk pace and are out of sight within the first few minutes itself. While you secretly admire their perfectly toned body and physique, you mainly feel a lot of disgust.

As you’re about to finish your first kilometre, you find out that there are stalls offering water and bananas, and it was extremely stupid of you to carry food in a bag. Not only will you not be able to eat anything, the bag keeps bouncing with every step you take and is extremely irritating. But you’re a desi and you don’t know how to travel without theplas.

You soon notice an entire group of people wearing the same office t-shirt and based on their excitement levels, you’d think they’re at a funeral. These are the guys who are collateral damage to their company trying to achieve their CSR targets. Some companies have got 50-100 people from their staff, placards, drums, microphones, and they’re on a procession like it’s an MNS rally. Many of them are out there handing pamphlets and raising awareness about social issues like heart disease and global terrorism. You pretend to your friends that you’re interested to know more, but all you want to do is just stand and rest for a while.

Every race has the sympathy-inducing old uncle who gets a cheer from everyone for his spirit to run at this age. You just secretly hope you finish the race before him or it will be really embarrassing to be behind a 92-year-old. To make matters worse, the  eight-year-old is catching up with you.

As you cross a section which has a host of pretty girls, you try to impress by racing past them with confidence. Once you pass them, you collapse. Soon, you find yourself bringing up the rear with a group of annoying millennials who have just come there to click selfies, Boomerangs, and update their Snapchat. “Take that you lazy piece of shit, who gets up at 10 am on a Sunday morning. I already ran a marathon,” being the subtext of every social media post.

Now you don’t even have enough breath to ask the volunteers how many kilometers are left and the millennial gang, who is done with social media updates, now blaze past and attract the attention of the crowd. They cheer (mainly because they are really bored) and you feel really shit because one of them has stopped to ask if you need to sit down.

As you hobble toward the end, even the last of the stragglers is overcome by the “Let’s sprint the last few meters” spirit. It’s a bad one, but they’ve seen athletes do it on TV; what could go wrong? You join them and give it everything you have and start going past people at serious speed. Now the crowd on either side of the road eggs you on. You complete the race even as your heart threatens to stop.

But you’ve done it… now you’ve crossed the line and all you want to do is sink into the Earth. But hold on…. There’s no place to sit. The whole course is designed in a way to make every runner run some more.

You finally line up to collect your medal (it’s a long queue because nearly everyone has finished before you) but it doesn’t matter, we live in the age of “everyone’s a winner.” You go to collect your medal and the aunty gleefully smiles and congratulates you. You take your breakfast bag and realise that all it has is a banana and you are overcome with an urge to thump the volunteer closest to you.

But the medal stops you. You are now a marathon runner and must play the part.

You inhale your breakfast like medicine and start heading home, not taking away the medal from your neck so even people on the train and in your building notice your achievement. Every step you walk feels like an entire kilometre as your legs now have the constitution of dandiya sticks. But the race has been conquered and you have at least four photos to prove it.

When you reach home and sink into bed, you take a deep breath. All that remains now is to think of an excuse for work on Monday because you know that your legs will bail out like state governments before the Padmavati release.

It is the day you decide, that the only marathons you can happily complete are binges of shows on Netflix. And you don’t even need a medal at the end of it to keep you happy.

Laughter in the Age of LOL

What makes us laugh? I’m asking because as human beings we seem to love to laugh and to make other people do it too. Laughter is highly contagious and pretty much anything can trigger it. A joke. A fart joke. A fart joke involving a rabbi. A fart joke involving a rabbi who is bald. It goes on.

There are places where we go and pay good money, just so we can have a couple of laughs. And then there are moments when your father insists on reading you a WhatsApp joke (instead of forwarding it to you) and laughter suddenly seems impossible.

Generating a laugh takes work. It requires a coordinated effort from our faces, voices, and bodies. It is hard work and hard work has disappeared like grace from the Indian political discourse. Which is why digital laughter, with its acronyms and emojis, is what passes for real laughter these days.

The wide use of “LOL”, “ROFL”, crying-with-laughter emojis, and funny faces gives you the ability to be insanely manipulative. If you’re chatting with someone you fancy, there is no limit to how much you can exaggerate their funniness. While facial cues are relative to every single person and impossible to fake, words and emojis have made it a level playing field. They are like universally acceptable online emotional currency that will not be called into question.

“LOL” has had quite a journey in its short history. It has lost its charm from the early days of the Internet where it was associated with genuine laughter but is now the real life equivalent of the chuckle, when you are forced to be appreciative of a joke that you didn’t really find funny. It is an acknowledgement rather than genuine appreciation of what was said. Nobody is ever laughing out loud when they type “LOL”.

But perhaps “LOL” is collateral damage to the larger perception on texting etiquettes where shorter words are seen as mean or indifferent, a case in point being “K”. You know you’re in trouble when someone sends you a K with only a full stop. “LOL” went through evolutions and soon we had variations in the form of “ROFL”, “LMAO”, “PMSL”, and so on. However, they haven’t stuck around as highly genuine forms of online laughter because the idea of Rolling-On-Floor-Laughing being condensed to a cruel four-letter acronym feels like studying for four months, writing a three-hour subjective exam, and being awarded grades in cursory letters like A, B, C.

When “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA” arrived, I thanked God.  It almost feels like the person enjoyed what was said with a good old laugh. It is in text, the replica of the loud sound we make when we laugh. When it runs into more than ten syllables, it is equivalent to a genuine burst of laughter. In the world of digital laughter, it’s a highly prized asset. It’s the closest you can come in text to knowing that your joke was found to be genuinely funny. Incidentally, “HAHAHAHA” seems to have a lot more sincerity into it than a mere “hahahaha”, proving once again that Caps Lock can enhance the power of all sorts of digital communication.

But between “LOL” and “HAHAHAHA” lies the “hehehe”. It has a childish evil ring to it, and the set of situations where it is used are fairly restrictive. In many cases, it is used to playfully validate a joke that would be deemed to be offensive or crossing the line. The other usage for “hehehe” is on the opposite spectrum, where a joke is found to be really silly to deserve a “Hahahaha” but it was so bad, it was good, and didn’t deserve a “LOL”.

Life is hard. And digital laughter is harder — a complex maze filled with nuances, but there are very few times in life when something is so goddamn funny that all nuancing goes out of the window and we are left laughing to the point of tears.  That’s when we use the crying-with-laughter emoji.  It is to be saved for really special occasions, but, in my opinion, is used far too liberally. A half-decent meme should not get this emoji. Neither should “GOAT” be used to describe every other TV show character. The crying-with-laughter emoji is to be reserved for occasions like the time your friend got caught watching porn by his parents.

Laughter isn’t only about the raw release of endorphins anymore, it is a new social contract, a millennial currency for cool, and now a new visual language in the form of emojis. We were once told laughter is the best medicine, but in the Internet age, it is difficult to decipher the doctor’s cryptic handwriting.

Inside the Mind of Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Sigh. It’s been a rough few months.

My good friend, Arnab Goswami who watched Padmavati (or Padmavat, even I can’t keep track of the names anymore) even before the censor board, played a clip on his channel. In it, a man announced a bounty of ₹1 crore for anyone who burnt Deepika alive. Then the next guy came in and announced ₹5 crore for anyone who beheaded me and Deepika. The next guy upped the bid to ₹10 crore. It was like watching ISIS have an IPL auction. I was shocked beyond belief. Is that all my life is worth?! Jesus fucking Christ, the economy has indeed dipped over the past few quarters, but this is low!

I still had it better than poor Shahid. After being ignored by the audience and award shows for his brilliant performances, Shahid Kapoor is now also being ignored by fringe groups issuing death threats. Nothing this man does is ever going to be enough, is it?

The producers have been quite supportive of me in the media but I can sense their passive aggressiveness in WhatsApp chats. “Why do you always have to create controversy, Sanjay! Every movie you make — Ram-Leela, Jodhaa Akbar, Bajirao Mastani, now Padmavati!” I was like, “I didn’t even make Jodhaa Akbar, that was Ashu,” but they don’t care. One expensive filmmaker to them is like the other.

At times, I wonder what I could have done differently? I thought I had this figured out when I released that video after being “inspired” by Karan Johar. I mean, let’s face it, his was a bigger crime. He cast a Pakistani actor in his movie. Not only have I not done that, I went further and showed a foreign Islamic ruler as a savage villain, when in fact he is not! I also cleared out the rumours around the dream sequences. To tell you the truth, ever since the controversy started, even I don’t get any dream sequences when I sleep. Maybe the video didn’t work out because I didn’t wear a black shirt against a pitch-black background. Karan is right, black makes you look thin.

People say I distorted history when I made Bajirao Mastani, they have again said I have distorted history with Padmavati. This brings back nightmares from school, when I always flunked history. To all young students who think, “When will quadratic equations ever help me in life?”, well, you never know. For the first time, I had to work with more historians and researchers than lamp-makers and interior designers.

I must let everyone know that I have nothing against the Karni Sena. Mostly because if I do, my life could be in trouble. If they want to protect the honour of women by issuing threats to other women, it is totally their call. What can I say, even I was slapped and roughed up some time back. The last time I felt so bad was when I was tracking the collection for Saawariya.

After these intense few weeks, I am fed up of this nonsense. I must have given more explanations than the people who carried out demonetisation. People outraging over it had not even seen the film, but wanted me beheaded. Everyone wanted a free private screening. Film hai ya One Plus ka invite?

I really should take some time off after this to make more meaningful cinema, where cars fly around, the hero beats up 50 people to pulp with his bare hands, there is an item song and sexist joke every three minutes. Making a historical movie in India is a lot like being James Franco in 127 Hours. You start thinking it’s going to be epic, but then disaster strikes… And you’re all alone, as you hopelessly wait for someone to rescue you.

Are the ’90s Kids the Coolest?

Childhood is just like an opinion: Everyone has had one and everyone thinks theirs is the best. Coloured by the vintage filter of nostalgia, viewed through the shattered kaleidoscope of adulthood, our childhood sticks deep, like religion. Look no further than when your parents start a sentence with, “When I was your age…” Grab a cup of coffee, because it is going to be a lecture in how this generation has lost the plot, and you’ll need the caffeine to stay up.

“Ye koi gaane hai? Gaane to Kishore Kumar aur Mohammed Rafi ke hote the. What is all this crap that you guys listen to, Honey Singh and Badshah? ‘Blue hai paani paani paani.’ What nonsense is this?” This is how every road trip with my family begins. The person sitting next to the driver, playing the role of the car DJ faces more pressure than Virat Kohli in a big run chase, as he tries to acutely balance the melodies of the ’60s with the beats from 2017.

Movies are another bone of contention and are usually easier to defend than Honey Singh. “What is with these people flying around on broomsticks and monsters roaming on the streets? It is so unrealistic,” pooh-poohs my dad, watching Spider-Man. Then he goes back to watching the 37th version of Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana on Zee TV. I fail to understand how he can watch different versions of the same thing over and over again, when he knows the entire plot and sequence of events. Change a few visual effects here and there, give or take a few plot points, and you could have Tiger Zinda Hai.

The “humare zamaane mein” line of thought extends to food too — the same brush paints anything outside the range of ghar ka khana as junk food. And as far as parental jurisdiction goes, all junk food is bad. Even franky, which is basically just sabzi and chapati that went for a masters’ degree to the States. “In our time, we used to eat only healthy and nutritious food,” says my Gujarati dad, coming from a family with a rich lineage of diabetes and heart diseases. Even our daal is so sweet that you could give it to the children who come trick-or-treating on Halloween.

And then there is the false braggadocio that could put a battle rapper to shame. “We used to just beat the shit out of each other while playing on the ground. We would steal mangoes from the neighbour’s farm, jump into the well, swim in dirty water. You guys are pussies.” My dad says it in a tone that indicates he’s proud of it. Sure, I am missing out on the typhoid, losing a couple of teeth, and ending up in jail but I’d rather just stick to safer pursuits like football or cricket. I’ve missed out on these character-building exercises, just the way I have missed out on walking three kilometres, swimming across the English Channel, and fighting the Demogorgon to attend the one school in the entire village. But what can I say, technology progressed and granted us a revolutionary invention in the form of buses.

But our parents can’t walk away with all the credit. We continue to keep this grand tradition alive by hating on the generation that succeeds us.

The entire “90s kids” train of nostalgia is designed to make our childhood feel special and unique, while we shit on the children of today. “Swat Kats, Tintin, and Johnny Bravo, those are cartoons. Cartoon Network of the ’90s was the real deal. What kind of heathen watches Ben 10 and Shin Chan?” “WWE of the ’90s was so lit, with The Rock, Triple H, Stone Cold.” “This EDM music is so ewww, what is wrong with you people?!”

Well, maybe the kids of today believe Johnny Bravo is a serial harasser of women. Maybe they don’t like Undertaker showing up every single time at Wrestlemania like Mihir Virani at a K-serial wedding. Maybe they enjoy losing themselves to… whatever it is that EDM is supposed to achieve. This is a different generation that grew up in a different time with access to different things, technology, food, and human experiences. They have different memories, different ideals, different Gods. What Charlie Chaplin is to my father and Mr Bean to me, Shin Chan is to them.

But I guess this is a function of age, the constitutional birthright of every generation to snark at the zillion imperfections of the folks that came after them. Just the way our parents told us that we don’t enact out the Hunger Games on the school playground, we tell younger kids that they don’t play at all. “I’m so glad I was born before this whole technology thing started,” we say. “No phones, no apps, no laptops, fantastic childhood.” All the while conveniently ignoring how technology enriches the lives of younger people. While a seven-year-old has access to Snapchat and the Gormint aunty video, he also has access to Wikipedia and Ted Talks.

I suppose this generation too will have its revenge with the one after. They’ll tell tales of how difficult their existence was, having to deal with 4G speeds and structured playtime. Just the way we romanticise our imperfect little worlds, they will romanticise theirs. On that note, Happy Childrens’ Day!

Ashish Nehra: The Forever Man of Indian Cricket

In 2003, the era before T-20, watching a game of cricket for eight hours straight wasn’t considered “boring”. The Indian team at the time was a batting masterclass. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj – you name it. But as good as the batting was, the bowling and fielding was equally lacklustre. You never knew what score would be enough. Our bowling unit never inspired much confidence. Whether it was 300 or 350, it could make any score look mediocre.

At age 10, this lacklustre bowling was my single biggest worry. (Yes, I’m that uncool.) The England-India game at Durban was a must-win World Cup game and we put on an average 250 on the board. I had as much faith on the Indian bowling line-up as I had in Santa Claus showing up for Christmas. England lost a couple of quick wickets but a partnership was beginning to take shape.

In came Ashish Nehra, moving the ball both ways at a serious pace and he ran through the English middle order in a breath-taking spell of 6-23. It would be his career-defining spell. Also, the best for an Indian at the World Cup. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see more of it often.

Ashish Nehra’s debut was the beginning of India’s long struggle for a quality left-arm pace bowler. The natural angle left-arm pacers create bowling to right-handed batsmen is a delight. With Wasim Akram and Chaminda Vaas tearing apart batting line-ups in the 90s, India was in search of its own left-arm sensation. And boy, did we really give it a go, with a string of left-arm pacers in Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, and lately Barinder Sran, all breaking through to the first team.

Most of the other names have faded and only Nehra remains. He has been playing cricket for so long that it feels like he was one of the original dudes who faced the British for teen guna lagaan.

I was a kid when Nehra started playing for India and I’m now 25 and can barely run for five minutes while he’s still bowling 140 kmph after 12 surgeries. He started clocking 145 kmph regularly in his early days and his ability to move the new ball had several takers. But it wasn’t quite to be.

The only consistent aspect of Nehra’s career turned out to be his inconsistency. He played his last test match for India at the age of 25 and ended up playing only 120 games in an ODI career that spanned a decade. He was continuously in and out of the team, which was also a feature of India’s bowling line-up at the time, that kept shuffling like a pack of cards. He did leave his mark on big tournaments though, playing a key role in India’s 2003 World Cup campaign and doing the job for MS Dhoni in the 2011 World Cup semi-final when called upon. As predictable as it was sad, he ended up missing the final with an injury.

Fast bowlers and injuries is a heart-breaking love story. As Nehra jokingly says, “Players have injuries on their body, my injuries had a body.” Right from ankle surgery, knee surgery, finger fractures to hamstrings, Nehra has spent more time in the hospital than he has on the pitch. In fact, the autofill when you search for Ashish Nehra on Google is “Ashish Nehra injuries”.

But Nehra ji, a fond name coined by Virender Sehwag, is more than just the sum of his injuries. Nehra ji is a character, and a vibrant one at that. To quote Virat Kohli, “Nehra ji isn’t trying to be funny. He just is.” The mere mention of his name brings a smile to the faces of his teammates. His tone, mannerism, and style has its own set of fans. A list that includes seven captains and multiple dressing rooms spanning over 15 years.

Even Nehra ji’s criticism has its own charm. A classic third-man (code for terrible fielder), he had the quick reflexes of an elephant trying to flick away a fly. Yet, that didn’t stop him from once abusing MS Dhoni on the field for poor catching.

His sense of humour would have made him an overnight Twitter darling, but Nehra ji has always stayed away from the world of news and social media. In a press conference recently, when asked about the growing rivalry between Indian and Bangladesh fans on social media, he simply replied “I am the wrong person to ask this to. I still use a Nokia phone”.

Wish we could too, Nehra ji, wish we could too. And that’s the kind of advice we wish you’d pass on to your fellow Dilliwala, Virender Sehwag. You’re the lovable dinosaur we can all get behind.

Yet, there is a sweet irony in the fact Nehra ji’s simple and unassuming personality would find fruition in the blitziest, most glamorous version of the game – T20. He became the go-to man for captains across multiple teams during his IPL career. Rich in experience and still hitting 140 clicks, he mastered the art of death bowling that would see his rise in the franchise version of the sport. He became a “T20 specialist”, a title that only a handful of elite players have earned for themselves. He also found himself in ICC’s T20 World XI team for 2016, at the age of 37. Only Virat Kohli was the other Indian player on the list.

But he remains a reluctant superstar of the T20 game. As a man from yesterday in today’s world, he wishes he had played longer in the classic format of the game. He stated it in an interview recently, about how one of the disappointments of his life was how short his Test career lasted.

There is only one question to be asked, looking back at Ashish Nehra’s career. And it is one that haunts many fast bowlers India has produced over the last couple of decades: How different would India’s bowling attack look without the injuries?