It's all bull @#$!

Book Review: Electric Feather - The tranquebar book of erotic stories

2010-02-10T02:40:00.000-08:00

The cover page illustration to this book gives a little reference to what we are about to unearth inside. A welcome first for Indian fictional publishing, this collection of short stories edited by Ruchir Joshi is what can be easily labelled as some of the first erotic writing to come out of South Asia, although I would still hold short of calling it the best. Most South Asian fiction writers skirt around the topic of eroticism in their writing. And so this book makes one feel squeamishly uncomfortable at first, but still ends up as a delightful read. But if you are hoping for some wet dreams when you finish this book, you can keep that thought aside. Let's proceed with the stories one by one:

1) The Wedding Night Or, Bachelor Boudoir 9 - The most explosive of the lot of stories, this story sets the tone for the rest of the writings. And it is no holds barred as it explores a night of wild sex amongst three people, a menage-a-trois. And it is set during that most common place ritual in the Indian context - a wedding. It's funny that none of the action is attributed to the newly married couple, rather it's their group of friends who indulge in it. The writing is unrestrained and the author Samit Basu crosses over the terrain from subtle erotica to titillation smoothly. Not for the faint hearted, all this talk of sex in dhotis and sarees. Sample this -
"'And if that doesn't seal the deal, nothing will.'
'What deal?'
'Hush. You're not supposed to know. Whisper.'
'What deal?'
'I fuck you, she watches. She fucks Debo, we watch. She wanted to do you, but I told her Debo was too big for me.'
Now I was definitely awake. The heartbreak confirmed it. 'Where is she?'
'There, by the window. Didn't you see her? She was jilling off like a madwoman when you went down on me.'
I look, and there, crumpled up under the window in a heap, lies Sreemoyee. Her sari's off, wrapped loosely around her legs, and in the shadows I can see her silhouette; small, perfect bare breasts, slender arms splayed out on the floor, clouds of tangled hair, the hint of her beautiful face."

2) Tourists - A fantasy tale, this one starts off with the slangest of all Bambaiyya-Hindi abuses - "Arrey bhonsadi ke madarchod sala halkat ullu ke patthe". Set in Bollywood kingdom, Sahir Khan (easily referenced from our ver own King Khan) and Paolomi, a small time assistant on the sets are transported like through a time machine to a household in Andaman and Nicobar Islands from the 1970s. And they have their wildest sex in the lush holiday destination from the 70s. Written by Paromita Vohra with just a hint of subtlety, its probably any woman's fantasy to be lost in a time and place with just their favorite movie star for consumption. Vohra clearly writes for the female reader here.

3) Heavenly Ornaments - Set in a conservative Moslem family in Karachi, Pakistan, this is one of the most touching stories of the lot. Written by Sheba Karim , this story is about a little girl’s introduction to pleasure and fear, to tenderness and humiliation, through her life in her grandmother’s family. The young heroine of this story Bina is just reaching the teenage when she begins exploring her sexuality. The temporary absence of parental protection in Bina’s life leaves her defenceless against the real, but once it has impinged on her childhood world, she has to surrender herself to the “dark waves” of the Arabian Sea.

4) Confessions - This was probably the story which I disliked the most in the entire lot. And this was not really because of the story, but because of the style of writing. There were way too many side notes. At the end of each page there were two-three side notes, which really diverted my attention from the main story. Maybe it was just me, but Abeer Hoque, the author, can explore some simpler writing styles.

5) The Advocate - Set in rural India, this tale evoked an 'Ishqiya' or 'Omkara' kind of landscape in my mind. Ripe raw material for Vishal Bharadwaj to set his next rural sexcapade in. Written in a rather edgy style by Sonia Jabbar, it narrates the sexual fantasies of an advocate and his newly employed assistant as they explore their own friendship. To the point, where they end up sharing the same lay on the same night. The story also brings forward the sexist and casteist machinations of rural India, where being a woman and that too from a different caste would most probably have men from the other castes leering at you with evil intentions.

6) The Cat - The only gay story of the lot, this is a short story which narrates how the sex has fizzled out of a long-term, steady gay relationship. The partners then need some out-of-town guests and a cat to revive their sex life. Written by Niven Govinden, my only gripe with this story was that the sex was very fleeting. It was almost as if the author chickened out of narrating the act.

7) Love's Sunset by Kamila Shamsie is an evocative tale, at times it seems too cloying romantically, but it is engaging nonetheless. I loved the metaphorical connection that the author made between Love and Sunset. In the end, when the lead characters in the story move to Alaska where for months together there is no sunset, the love disappears from their lives.

8) Swimming Pool - Authored by Rana Dasgupta, this story has a very Gus Van Sant - Elephant, or My Own Private Idaho - feel to it. Extremely bohemian, this is a tale definitely for the silver screen. A drugged out musician Boris, meets an equally drugged out girl Lara, while travelling on a concert tour to LA along with his muse and companion friend, Irakli. The combination of sex, drugs and the swimming pool brings forward a very satisfying climax to the story and its characters.

9) The Delicate Predicament of Eunice De Silva - Tishani Doshi concocts a very likeable bevy of characters in this story. Eunice De Silva is a matronly, unshapely, almost 40-yr old virgin. How she begins an affair with a married man, who makes her do all those things that she had only read about is what forms the crux of this story. The funniest part is when, in a long-distance train while travelling to meet her mother, they exchange a host of sexual SMSes, and finally Eunice masturbates herself for the first time while in the train - under the tutorship of her lover. All the while, she faces a host of ethical and moral dilemmas, and thus the title of the story.

10) Missing Person Last Seen - Set in the immediate times post 9/11 in New York by the author Jeet Thayil, this is another touching story. Despair is the colour of the air that the characters in this story breathe. The sex is incidental, not really the main focus of the story, and is a result of mind games played languorously in a coffee shop. Well paced, and well structured, I should say.

11) The First Time - Written by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, this is probably a tale which most urban, middle class Indian youth can associate themselves with. Having lived under strict supervision for most of their teenage years, an average sampling of this crowd would make you realize that most of them lose their virginity only when they start living on their own. Which in most cases would begin only after marriage. Which would mean that mostly guys and girls belonging to this crowd would lose their virginity only to their respective partners. Which is not such a bad thing after all. In the very few cases, that people do start living on their own before marriage (mostly because of their job locations), they do want to lose their virginity before their marriage. But by that time, they have been so supervised their whole lives, that they can't do a good job of flirting up members from the opposite sex for that purpose. It is quite difficult for all things to fall into place for that momentous occasion to occur. And when it does, it does quite end up as how this story ends up.

12) The Quilt - The sidenote by the title reads thus "With apologies to Ismat Chugtai. I hope she would have been amused". Never having read Ismat Chughtai myself, I had a hint at the start itself that I am reading into unknown territories. Interesting premise here - lesbians making love while critiquing and deconstructing Ismat aapa's "Lihaaf" (Urdu, which in English translates as "Quilt"). But it didn't work for me, primarily because I had no idea about Lihaaf or any other Ismat works. Also because there were way too many labias, vulvas, clitorises and vaginas for my taste. Parvati Sharma's writing was pornographic to the extent of being cringe-inducing. Or maybe it was just my uptight self.

13) Arles - This last story is authored by the editor of this collection, Ruchir Joshi. This one is straightforwardly hot and has an almost Nancy Meyer's 'It's Complicated' kind of feel to it. Not that the story is any complicated, it's just too brattishly sexy. With the lead character in the story just named as D, and her fetish for strange types of lingerie, the story is just waiting to be shot into a short movie. Strong characterization and witty one-liners make this story very interesting.

So that's it - 13 different takes on sexuality and erotica from the land of Kamasutra. The stories did influence me to try my own hand at some sexual writing, but it is too amateurish an effort to be even acknowledged. While the book is not top-notch sexual tales from India, it is surely worth a read, and worth repeating - a welcome "first". Looking forward to more such collections with more inclusive kinds of sexual tales in the future.

Work in progress...

2010-02-10T01:42:00.000-08:00

Working on a story of the love and longing involved in a long distance relationship...can't think of how to proceed forward...suggestions are welcome!

Happy Anniversary

It's been 65 months since you went down on your right knee at Bandra Bandstand and proposed and I embarassedly, gleefully, nervously said yes. Things haven't changed much since then. We looked for a place to fuck at the end of that evening. We are still looking for a place to fuck at the end of many more evenings. More often than not, without success. Thankfully, God gave us hands. But I've been alone with my hands for so long, that I don't know what my cock will do when confronted again with the daunting task of the actual physical act. I hope God has a plan for us, a plan which involves love, in its physical connotation. I am pretty secure about the emotional part of it. Pretty soon, we will be again faced with the problem of long distances between us as well. And that will push the timelines for the jobs undertaken by our hands by some more months. I hope some more months only, it is. Happy anniversary again. You know, I love you, I don't need to repeat it. But it is the season of love. So it doesn't hurt repeating. Let's try and follow it up with the real act.

From the train

2010-01-21T03:46:00.000-08:00

I am writing this note in the train. I have nothing better to do to kill time. I have been up from 6 am. It's 7.05 am now. I have to kill time until 5 in the evening, when we are scheduled to reach Mumbai. I am lying down in my side upper berth. There is a middle aged lady and a gentleman below my berth discussing the rentals in Mumbai. Both businesspersons, i presume. You meet all kinds of ppl in the train. It is fun at times. This lady who I referred to earlier, had started chatting with me yesterday evening. Extremely chatty, and blower-of-her-own-trumpet types. I got so bored of her telling me abt the greatness of her daughter and herself, that I immersed myself in my book to avoid talking to her. But too much, I say. She is again starting off on that 'I love where I stay, it's right besides the mountains'. I know where she stays, it's hardly that cool over there. But no, our lady has to tell the entire world abt how hot it is inside the AC compartment as compared to the 'fresh' air she gets in her apartment. Also she mentioned yesterday how she helped a needy guy. Does it help to be helpful when you take credit for it later? Or do we belong to a generation where we need to sell everything we do? More abt that later. Now they are discussing their kids, and this is the part i hate most abt our Indian culture. There is really nothing called 'personal' in our world. I hate it when my relatives and other elders are intrusive abt my personal stuff. But I guess, it's comes with the territory. So the gentleman has a 13 yr old daughter, and he says she is already 5'6” in height. So he is scared if she grows on to be taller say 5'8” or even more, then where will he get a suitably tall alliance for her. Isn't it ridiculous? You are wishing that your daughter doesn't grow anymore taller! Are weddings, child-births and funerals the only thing that matter in this part of the world? I have to find out the reason for this. Why is our culture so fixated on weddings? Why is it an omnipresent topic in every conversation? Maybe it is from a culture where getting married means the only legal way to fuck, and the entire population in the village realizes that the sooner we give two people that right, the better. Maybe also because marriage then leads to child birth, and having kids around them is a good pastime for the village elders. It gives them something to be busy, rather than sitting around doing nothing in their post retirement days. Also the fixation on weddings might be coming from ages ago when weddings were the only means of entertainment in a village. Weddings and festivals would be the only times when an entire village or tribe or clan would come together to celebrate and have fun. And hence an entire community of elders would conspire to get two of them wedded, just so that there can be further celebrations.

So now I got down with the intention of sitting on my assigned seat and continuing with my reading. But what do I find? The same elderly gentleman who is sitting on my seat, is not even offering to get up now that the person who owns the seat is there. I stuck around for a while near him to make him realize that it was my seat, and he ought to get up, and go back to his allotted seat, no matter how inconvenient it were to him. But being Indians, we aren't obliged to follow basic norms of civility. So we spit, urinate, wash, throw garbage everything out in the open, and rules of decency are not really meant for us. Anyways, I think I will have to tell this man to get up from my seat.

2 new things I learnt today

2009-11-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

2 items I came across today, which I thought I should record for my own reference later -

1) Michael Lucas's sculpture - 'The Menger Sponge level 3'

Check out this pic (Source).

So that made me look up what is the Menger Sponge? You can read more abt it here.

2) One of my friends updated his facebook status to the following -
THE FACEBOOK TRICK: press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, Enter key, then right click and then press up and down and magic circles will appear. The only way to get rid of them are to log off or refresh the page.

I tried it out on Facebook and it really worked and was perplexed why that was so. That is when I learnt from one of my friends that it's the konami code, from an old video game. You can read more about the Konami code here.

Hampi

2009-11-15T21:48:00.001-08:00

I recently had to write about one of my travel destinations for my office magazines. Reproducing it here on the blog as well...

Hampi – A UNESCO World Hertiage Site

Last year I travelled to Hampi during the winter and unarguably had one of the most culturally enlightening trips of my life. Hampi is a village in northern Karnataka state, India. It was the 14th-mid 15th century capital of the Vijayanagara empire and is the world's largest living UNESCO heritage site.

The rickshaw ride from Hospet train station will give you hints very early on what’s in store - a temple here, a large rock there. But nothing prepares you for what you see in Hampi - gigantic boulders arranged as if with geometric precision, ancient water ways and of course the ruins of temples and palaces, harking back to a magical kingdom that your grandma's stories always began with. By day two of my stay in Hampi, on a ride back to my hotel on a deserted road, I could swear I saw one of those couples etched in stone on a nearby temple scampering across the road.
Though the temple ruins spread across a 26 square kilometre areas date back to the 14 century Vijayanagar empire, the mythology goes back to Lord Shiva and the monkey kingdom of Kishkinda , that features in the Ramayana.

Though nothing – not even the pictures – can put into perspective the sheer grandeur of it all, I am sharing some images below to give an idea of what you can expect when in Hampi.

1) Virupaksha temple

The Virupaksha temple is located at the foot of the hill called Hemakuta hill is the core of the village of Hampi. The temple, often called Pampapathi temple, is the most sacred of the temples of this place. The temple contains the shrines of Lord Shiva, Pampa and Bhuvaneshwari. We were witness to even a small marriage ceremony in the temple precincts when we visited there.

2) Hampi Bazaar

Starting at the entrance of the temple is Virupaksha Bazaar or market, largest of the many bazaars of Vijayanagara. Each major Temple complex had its own bazaar around which a township developed. This is the only bazaar around which a township of a sort still exists. Domingo Paes said of Hampi bazaar in 1520: "There is a very beautiful street of very beautiful houses with balconies and arcades, in which are sheltered the pilgrims that come to the temple"

3) Tribals having their stores and living across Hampi Bazaar

Some structures from Hampi bazaar still survive to this day, but many have been taken over by squatters or hawkers. And, inside a 16th century colonnaded arcade, one is likely to find a tea shop or a telephone booth. Here we see a group of tribal artisans living within the Hampi bazaar

4) Achyutraya temple – View from the Hemakuta hills

Achyutaraya Temple is a large complex built by an officer of the King Achyutaraya, Salakaraju Tirumaladeva.

Following is a view of the temple complex from Hemakuta hills at night time

5) Ugra Narasimha

This image of Lakshmi-Narasimha, popularly called Ugranarasimha, meaning Narasimha of terrifying countenance. Originally, the icon bore a smaller image of Lakshmi sitting on his lap, which fell off due to an act of vandalism and is now housed in the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) museum in Hampi. Narasimha with an articulately chiseled and well delineated mane and large bulging eyes and broad chest still retains His awesome charm. He is seated on the coils of the snake Adisesha, who rises behind him with seven hoods, which serve as a canopy.

6) Vitthala temple

Any number of words would fail to do justice to this wonderful monument dedicated to Lord Vitthala or Lord Vishnu. Legend has it that Lord Vishnu found it too grand to live in and thus returned to his own humble home. The Vitthala temple respresents the highest watermark of the Vijayanagara style of art and architecture. Vitthala is the Krishna aspect of Lord Vishnu. The cult of Vitthala or Vithoba, originates from Pandharpur in Southern Maharashtra. Although associated today with Krishna, Vitthala was worshipped in pre-Vijayanagara times as a folk god of cattle

7) Stone Chariot

The Stone Chariot is situated inside the Vitthala temple complex. By far, this is the most amazing monument in Hampi and is often portrayed as the icon for Hampi. Stone chariot has stone wheels which some believe actually rotate. The chariot is a miniature temple. It resembles the temple chariots or rathas in which the idols of the temple are taken out on a traditional procession.

8) Lotus Mahal or Kamal Mahal

This two storied palace, is one of the finest examples of Indo-Islamic architecture, with its typically Hindu base and Islamic superstructure. The palace has nine pyramidal cupolas or shikharas on the second story of which the central one is the largest. The patterns on the arches are typically Islamic in influence.

9) Hazaara Raama temple

This temple for Lord Rama is popularly called "Hazara Rama Temple" because of the large number of Ramayana panels on the walls. This temple is believed to have been the private place of worship of the Royal family. The Ramayana epic is carved in detail. Incidents in the story like Dasaratha performing a sacrifice to beget sons, the birth of Rama, his exile into the forest, the abduction of Sita and the ultimate fight between Rama and Ravana are all carved in a vivid manner. In these panels, the story of Rama and through it the triumph of good over evil is brought out.

Kaminey, just good.

2009-08-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

If there is anything other producers can learn from Vishal Bharadwaj and the production house UTV motion pictures, it is how to market your movie well. With all the tricks in the book and some out of the box, from expected Shahid-Priyanka romance rumors to pandering to the artsy school of Vishal's followers, the makers got the marketing machinations right. The buzz surrounding the movie in the week upto its release was so great that one and all were awaiting the release of the movie with bated breath. And then God disposed. The swines flew over the Kaminey's nest, and movie halls and multiplexes in Mumbai and Pune were shutdown by the panic stricken city corporations on the same weekend that Kaminey was to be released. Any producer worth his salt will be able to easily rattle off that Mumbai and Pune constitute about 40-50% of any Hindi movie's opening weekend earnings in India. Rumors suggest that the movie might have easily lost about 5-6 crores because it was not showing in these 2 cities in the first 3 days of its release in India. By Monday when the movie released in Mumbai, the reviewers had mostly given the movie positive reviews, but they had also let out considerable plot lines, and the pirates were out with their copies. In short, the movie lost considerable amount of money, and if it were not for the viruses, it could very well have been a runaway hit.

So it was with huge expectations that I set off to see Kaminey after a long working Monday. Even after reaching the movie hall a good 1.5 hrs early to book the tickets, we got tickets just 4 rows away from the screen. And by the time we walked into the theater it was houseful, on a 9.30 pm show on a rainy Monday. Just goes on to show that probably the virus refused to kill the hype created by the movie.

And then the movie starts. And from there onwards begins the downward spiral. Sure the movie is good, but is it great? Na, I beg to differ.

The movie starts well. An excellent plot. Twin brothers from Mumbai slums getting separated during their school days. As expected they are as different as chalk and cheese, with one added twist. One lisps (says 'f' in place of 's'), one stammers. They haven't been in touch with each other for the past 3 years, and then things turn turtle in a span of 24 hrs and they are forced to come to terms with each other. The first 20-25 minutes of the movie is power packed, and if you lose attention, you will be forced to seek clarifications from nearby seats. The movie introduces a slew of characters, all of them more kamina than the other, and that's why the title.

I won't dwell into the storyline. Just suffice it to say that goodie-boy Guddu (the stammering one) needs a huge amount of money to keep his same night wedded Maharashtrian wife Sweety (the Maharashtrian bit is important in the plotline), for which he needs help from cunning-boy Charlie (the lisping one), who quite by accident chances himself upon an illegal drug consignment and has the entire Mumbai underworld and the police behind him. Everyone has a gun, and no one is afraid it fire it. So there are people killing people in every other scene, and you have to keep pace to remember who was the last one killed and by whom. Which is all good, but by the end of the movie, when there are still at least a dozen more characters left who are still ready to be as kamina as it can get, it begins to weigh down on your nerves. There are just too many characters. Except for Shahid, Priyanka and Amol Gupte, there is less screen space for the the director to develop the rest of the characters. They just don't stay enough with you.

Add to that the non-linear writing and the very unpredictable twists and turns. Which is again not bad at all. It reminds you of Quentin Tarantino's style of movie making. And it would come as a shocker to the Bollywood audience, who are used to being treated as an unintelligible species for most of their movie watching lives. So all this is good, but somehow by the time you reach the end of the movie, there has been so many twists and turns that VB had to resort to a forced wrap-up. And that is where probably my biggest disappointment with the movie is. All the characters in the movie indulge in a climactic gang-war which is hugely unconvincing and unintentionally funny at times. It reminds you of the Priyadarshan type of slapstick movies, where in the end everyone ends up dishooming each other. If Priyan does it, the critics pan him. If VB does it, the critics praise him. Partial, I say.

The film's dialogue is top-notch; VB has written some dark, humorous lines. Take the example of the one of the last scenes where Guddu is explaining to Charlie how much he loves his brand new wife and would want Charlie's drug consignment of coke to keep his wife, and in Charlie retaliates "Toh kya meri kokh ujadega?" (kokh-coke kinda analogy)

The movies boasts of stellar performances from all of its lead actors. Shahid Kapur has put on easily the best performance of his life, and in his varied roles as Charlie and Guddu, he brings an amazing range of emotions from innocence to raw sexuality to the table. It was high time he broke away from his chocolate-boy image, and Kaminey was just the kind of movie that would help him move further in an industry which is increasingly looking for younger actors to take the place of its ageing superstar Khans. Priyanka Chopra has another hit and a gem of a movie in her kitty after 2 consecutive hits - 'Dostana' and 'Fashion'. In her role as the feisty and aggressive Marathi mulgi, she initiates sex and abuses her goon of a brother - all in fluent Marathi. Amongst the slew of supporting characters, Amole Gupte stands tall as the 'Jai Maharashtra' chanting Bhope bhau. But it is easy to see him getting slotted in similar kinda roles just like Manoj Bajpai after 'Satya'.

VB again comes across as a very very good music director, and all the songs in the movie are excellent. 'Dhan Te Nan' will probably remain an eternal club favorite, just like 'Beedi' will remain an eternal jhatka-licious favorite from his previous 'Omkara'. And he does a brilliant job incorporating two brilliant RD Burman numbers in the soundtrack - 'Duniya mein logon ko dhoka kabhi ho jaata hai' & 'Do lafzon ki hai'.

In all a good movie, but it comes nowhere close to VB's previous good movies like 'Omkara', 'Maqbool' and even the kiddie movie, 'Makdee'. His last movie, 'The Blue Umbrella', which I didn't watch, also got good reviews. So it was but natural to expect a lot from Kaminey. It's one thing to deliver an excellent take on a solid Shakespearean tale, or a good Ruskin Bond story; its another to pick a script, write a screenplay, and direct it from scratch. Tough ask. The movie doesn't fail or disappoint completely, but it doesn't rise upto all its expectations. If you tone down your expectations, then Kaminey is quite awfome.

Ignite and Pecha Kucha style presentations

2009-08-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

We might all have sat through boring presentations in our academic and professional life where the talkative speaker just goes beating around the bush and takes a good 10-15 minutes to arrive at the point. I know I have and have also dozed through many of such presentations. In this age of real-time instant gratification, how can corporate presentations be left behind? So welcome to the new world of presentations, a new style that is creating a buzz around the world - present all your ideas in a slotted time of 5-10 minutes in 20-25 slides or less. This brainwave is said to have started first from the Pecha Kucha style of presentations. In Japanese, Pecha Kucha stands for "chit chat" and the aim is to come to the point as quickly as if you were chit chatting with a friend. Recently Mumbai hosted its first Pecha Kucha night and the newspapers were abuzz with news about the presenters and their topics from that night. The presenters on Pecha Kucha night in Mumbai were mostly from the fields of architecture or design.

Taking a cue from this style of presentation, the IT and business world are also fast moving to adopt a style of brisk paced presentations. "Ignite" nights are being held all over the world and sometime in November 2008 and January 2009, Bangalore held its first two nights of Ignite presentations. The format for the Ignite style of presentations is to present your ideas in 20 slides, at the speed of 15 seconds per slide. That would give each presenter 5 minutes altogether to present their ideas. The presenters for the Bangalore Ignite night spoke about topics very diverse from wildlife to mountain biking. There was not a specified range of areas where the speaker had to limit himself to. The Ignite nights in Bangalore have been a huge success and were followed by Ignite nights in Pune, and there are some networking groups looking to bring Ignite to Mumbai next.

Our firm too started on a similar presentation pattern lately, and to introduce the firm members as to how to get used to a brisk presentation style, we held our first session of 'Lightning talks' similar to the Ignite format yesterday. The firm members had to pool in with their topics and an abstract by a particular date, out of which 10 topics were selected for presentation yesterday. I was one of the selected participants and I spoke on the following topic "Decoding Indian General Elections 2009". Since we were presenting from Mumbai for a worldwide audience and video conferencing options are not that trustworthy given bandwidth issues, we decided to record a video with the presentation playing by the side and send it across for the conference yesterday. Here is a link to the video and here is a link to my presentation (Pls ignore the weird master slide formatting differences coming up on the slides, I didn't have enough time to work on those). Play both of them side by side, and you can see the slides rotating every 15 seconds with the audio output playing simultaneously. I had fun presenting my first Ignite style presentation, let me know what you think.

Teach India: Day 1

2009-08-04T02:48:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was when I began my first set of teaching lessons to students from local language schools ('vernacular' is a cringe-inducing word, I try and avoid it as much as I can). Thus finally ended my month long initiation into the Teach India program. You can call TOI's Teach India campaign a body shopping campaign looking for volunteers to invest their free time teaching under-privileged kids under the aegis of some non-profit NGO working with such kids. After presentations and talks by multiple NGOs, I chose Kotak Education Foundation working in the slums of Bhandup close to where I stay. Two weekends were then spent with the KEF volunteers understanding the background of the kids, what they expect and how to go about it. Finally we started our coaching sessions with the kids last Saturday. I would be responsible in coaching them on English conversational skills. Some points that I noted from day 1:

1) We were specifically instructed to try and weave in Cricket and Movies into every conversation with the kids. Invaluable advice when dealing with them. MS Dhoni is a huge hit with the kids.
2) I realized how huge Shahid Kapoor is. My volunteer partner, Sanyo & I together have been entrusted with 11 kids. 7/11 kids named Shahid Kapur as their favorite actor. Just goes on to show that the Khans and Akshay and Hrithik have grown too old for an upcoming movie generation's tastes, and in all likelihood, will be phased out with the younger lot of actors replacing them. Shahid with his chocolate boy looks and great dancing skills holds maximum potential. If only, he knew how to act.
3) The kids are very undernourished. All kids that we handle are 14 yrs old, but they could easily pass off as 10-11 yr olds in posh India or even younger in the western world.
4) The boys and girls are really shy to interact with each other. When they were asked to sit with each other, the girls sat on one side and the boys on another. When we try to mix up the girls and boys there was much resentment and for the first hour the group exercises yielded no results because the mixed teams refused to interact with each other.
5) Don't get into written English. Spoken English in itself is a tall task, getting into written English would mean much, much more efforts.
6) This exercise also made me realize the price that India has to pay for globalization. A more globalized India means a more 'English' India. A more English India means that most of rural or poorer India would need to learn a foreign language. If not that, then they would be excluded from the benefits that come from globalization. We really need to figure out a more inclusive approach for growth.

My science project from Std V

2009-04-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

I recently came across an article that reminded about my school Science project in Std V.

In our elementary school, every winter vacation we had to do a science project, where we had to research on a subject and make a poster, live project, prototype, etc. on some science topic we learnt in school that year. The best of the projects throughout school would then be selected for a project display that year. Of those, couple of good ones would be selected, and sent for further interschool competitions. I guess this was the standard procedure in most of the schools in our area in those days.

Most of my school projects were quite unmemorable. I remember only two, the ones that I had done in Std V and Std VI. Both these projects were selected for the school level display. In Std VI, I made a poster on AIDS. Std VI would mean 1990-1991. Those days I didn't know anything about sex, and had no idea at all about the disease. I had a neighbour who was studying to be a doctor, I referred to many fat books that I borrowed from her, and made a huge poster. Those were the days when no one, I guess not even most of the teachers had heard of HIV or AIDS, and hence there was a huge curiosity about what I had done. The project got selected for the school level display, but as compared to other live, working prototypes, it didn't hold on its own, and sadly I did not make it then to the interschool level.

The earlier year, when I was in Std V, I had learnt about the concept of good and bad conductors of heat at school. So that winter I was wondering whether I could make any science project with the heat conduction principles in mind. When I checked with my mom, she suggested that since we need heat to cook items, boil rice and pulses, I can think of something on those lines. On further discussion with her, we came up with an idea. Take a small box and stuff it with thermocole, which is used for packing delicate items. Thermocole is a bad conductor of heat. Place a semi heated and covered bowl of lentils immersed in water in the box filled with thermocole and leave it for couple of hours, and the lentils should be cooked and ready to be used. When we actually implemented it, there were couple of flaws and the lentils were not cooked enough: 1) Thermocole pieces when stacked would still leave some air gaps and the heat would escape from the air gaps. 2) The heat was just not sufficient for the experiment. Further working on the prototype led to the following model: Cover the box with black colored craft paper that was available in all the local stores, and leave the box in the hot sun. The black color would attract more heat from outside and retain the heat inside. Also rather than thermocole, fill the box with sawdust. The reasons being sawdust was smaller in size than tnermocole and hence the air gaps were lesser. This option worked fine, and in fact I realized that I also didn't need to pre-heat the lentils in water as much as earlier. I just had to leave it outside in the hot sun. The black colored outer part of the box would attract the heat and transmit it to the steel bowl and after couple of hours the lentils would be cooked enough.

The project was quite successful and appreciated and went upto the interschool Mumbai level with that project representing my school and my ward. Sadly at the interschool level, I did not make it.

It kills me today when I read in the newspapers that a similar idea has been patented as the Kyoto Box and as the world's cheapest solar cooker, and the idea has even got a grant of $75,000 to be developed further.

When I look back on my life, maybe I will count this as one of the opportunities that I lost upon.

Speaking about lost opportunities, an excerpt from David Sedaris' write-up 'Guy Walks into a Bar Car':

"When you’re young, it’s easy to believe that such an opportunity will come again, maybe even a better one. Instead of a Lebanese guy in Italy, it might be a Nigerian one in Belgium, or maybe a Pole in Turkey. You tell yourself that if you travelled alone to Europe this summer you could surely do the same thing next year and the year after that. Of course, you don’t, though, and the next thing you know you’re an aging, unemployed elf, so desperate for love that you spend your evening mooning over a straight alcoholic."

The opportunities lost in my case and David's are completely different, but the feeling is the same.

Click here to read more about the Kyoto box.

Natale Tumchyasathi

2009-03-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

I bumped into a long lost acquaintance sometime last month in one of the film fests in the city. Bhushan Korgaonkar, who I used to meet on-off through some of our mutual friends is this quiet, composed person who seemed pretty much at ease in his skin during all our previous meetings. That day, he asked me and Shibu to wait outside the auditorium after the film fest since he wanted to catch up with us. After the film fest when we found him waiting outside, after our initial exchange of pleasantries he began digging into his jhola and took out couple of CD covers. And that’s when he told us where he was keeping busy all these days. Over the last 3-4 years, he had been working on making a movie.

Working as a freelancer journalist some years back, Bhushan had written some article on the art of Lavani dances in India. He had become so enamored by the dance form and the fabulous stories of the dancers that he decided that this needs to be captured on camera. For the past few years on a very meager budget of a little more than Rs. 1 lac per head (along with his partner in this movie, Savitri Medhatul), he had been filming a documentary movie on the lives and times of the Lavani dancers in Maharashtra.

For the unknown, Lavani is a genre of music, incorporating a song-and-dance routine popular in Maharashtra. The word Lavani comes from the word Lavanya which means beauty. The Nirguni Lavani (philosophical) and the Shringari Lavani (erotic) are the two types.

Finally his movie was ready, and when I met him he was going through the post-production process for the movie. Titled Natale Tumchyasathi, (translated as ‘Behind the adorned veil’), both the cover photos had the lavani dancers dressed in colorful sarees on the stage during a lavani performance. While one cover had a close up of couple of dancers showing their faces as they were lifting the veil, the other cover photo showed about 6-7 dancers on the stage at a distance, some of them with their heads covered and some of them with the veils off their heads in various dance poses. I preferred the latter, and told him so. My point being that it seemed more active, more crowded and more colorful.

We spent some more time talking and Bhushan narrated some of the troubles he had gone through while making the movie, and we provided all the encouraging words to let him know of what a fabulous attempt he has made. While all of us would love to do something beyond our routine jobs, there are a very few who move on to a different direction while they are on a steady 9-5 job. That he has managed to make a full-fledged documentary and that too on a topic, not so often spoken about was truly a feat, and I offered my services for any help he might need to get his movie out successfully. While he did not need any of my help, I thought I would at least provide word-of-mouth publicity for his movie. The least I could do is that. The movie is scheduled to be released in a few weeks and it is already creating a buzz in the Marathi literary circles. There have been a few news items regarding the movie, and I am pasting the URLs below for the readers to know more –

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/57/20090318200903180306455957e2b03ff/Behind-the-adorned-veil.html

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/dancing-queens/434956/

Little Zizou

2009-03-19T03:42:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been noticing quite a few things Parsi. News items regarding the feud in the Parsi Panchayat, and a viewpoint into all things Parsi and how it is displaced in a foreign setting in Bapsi Sidhwa’s book ‘An American Brat’. That included with the last week’s dinner outing at Jimmy Boy Café where I had delicious Chicken Dhansak. So an opportunity to relish some more of this very interesting community came in the form of the new movie ‘Little Zizou’. And I was glad to have made good of the opportunity. As the name suggests, it is little and lazy in its scale and ambition, but it is also definitely extremely likeable.

At the helm of the script for some excellent movies (The Namesake, Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala – all with director Mira Nair), Sooni Taraporewala finally gets into her own act with this little movie. And she has chosen the topic closest to her heart for her first movie - the delightful landscape of the Parsis in Mumbai and their little, vastly unkown eccentricities.

The director's own son Jehan Batliwala playes Xerxes, a 10-year-old football fanatic who dreams that his dead mother will bring Zenedine Zidane to Mumbai. While Zenedine Zidane is the Zizou, Jehan – the Little Zizou is an ardent soccer follower. His brother Artaxerxes or Art (played by Imaad Shah) is a cartoon-sketching teenager who spends his days trying to construct a flight simulator with his other Parsi friends. Both the motherless boys have to make-do with their father Cyrus Khodaji II (played by Sohrab Ardeshir) who is more interested in making money out of power-plays and politics in the Parsi Punchayat. He is a Parsi fundamentalist who believes that any Parsi who marries outside the religion should be ostracized from the community and not be allowed to pray in the community fire temples. This pits him against the younger, moderate and free-thinking Parsi generation led by the liberal-leaning editor-publisher Boman Pressvala (played by Boman Irani, excellent).

The motherless Khodaji boys detest their father so much that they spend most of their happy moments at their dad’s rival Pressvala’s house. The motherless younger Little Zizou gets all affection from Mrs. Pressvala (the pitch-perfect Zenobia Shroff - a brand new revelation), much to the jealousy of Mrs. Pressvala’s younger daughter – Liana (Iyanah Bativala). And Art hangs around at the Pressvala’s because he is in love with their elder daughter Zenobia (Dilshad Patel), but the poor boy has to pay second fiddle to Zenobia’s love interest, the non-Parsi Arjun (John Abraham, returning to his Parsi roots with this Parsi movie. The other Malayali root of John's is still unexplored).

Most of the movie touches on the premise of the clash of the religious fundamentalists v/s the liberals, which frankly is nothing new in any of the religions in India. We have all, at some stage, sided on either half of this debate. The director uses this clash to drive home the point that protectionism is not benefitting anyone and as the world changes, the older & orthodox values change and give way to newer values.

Things go way too complicated when people react to the articles written by Boman Pressvala. And when Maharashtra politics interferes with the Parsi Punchayat politics, things take a nasty turn. In the middle of all this melee, a host of characters walk in and out of the plot making their relevant points where it calls for. The most touching character of all of them being Mrs. Pressvala’s mother, played by the grand-old dame of the Mumbai’s English theatre, Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal, who turns in an absolutely brilliant performance as the slightly batty, but still full of joie de vivre mother.

It is an extremely simple, small scale and lovable movie. Having made her grand debut in the movies ages ago, Sooni Taraporevala could have chosen any topic that would have raked in the moolah for her, but the fact that she chose the topic closest to her heart speaks volumes about her conviction and love for this project. And the passion and enthusiasm shown by the largely Parsi cast in bringing her vision to reality is there for all to see. The movie is filled with warm little moments that are born out of the director's sharp understanding of the Parsi community, and her ability to bring their quirks and charms to the screen. The movie is entirely well cast, and almost all actors have played their parts convincingly well. Boman Irani as usual stands tall amongst all the characters and Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal left a lasting impression on my mind. The two child actors, Iyanah Bativala and Jahan Bativala also turn in noteworthy performances. They do a great job of being believably vulnerable without overacting the goody-two-shoes type of kiddie characters that one most often encounters in Indian cinema. All-in-all the movie is a very recommended, lazy Sunday watch. A little zany, a little crazy, that’s Little Zizou for you.

Ranaji

2009-03-13T03:34:00.000-07:00

Anurag Kashyap is out with a new movie today, Friday, the 13th - Gulaal. After 3 brilliant movies - Satya (scripted by AK), Black Friday and Dev D. (we can safely ignore the mindless 'No Smoking'), I am very eager to watch this new movie. The interest is also quite considerably piqued because of a song - Ranaji - from the movie. Now don't get me wrong, it is not the mujra in the song that has captured my attention. The lyrics of the song, are most interesting. And of course, the haunting voice of Rekha Bharadwaj who has Namak from Omkara and Genda Phool from Delhi-6 to her credit. She certainly seems to be thoroughly enjoying the proceedings and one can rest assured that there would be whistles and catcalls in the auditorium when the song plays on screen. Some of the lyrics of the song go thus:

Rana Ji Mhare Gusse Mein Aaye,
Aiso Bal Khaye,
Agiya Barsae,
Ghabrae Mharo Chain;
Jaise door des ke tower me ghus jaaye re aeroplane

Jaise sare aam iraaq me jaake jam gaye uncle Sam

Sajini ko dear bole, Tharre ko beer bole
Mange hai english boli, Mange hai english choli
mange hai english jaipur, english bikaner
Jaise bisleri ki..
Jaise bisleri ki bottle pike bangaye english man

Jaise har ek baat pe democracy me lagai lagao ban

Jaise bina baat afgaanistaan ka baj gaya bhaiyya band

Composed and written by Piyush Mishra (who is in fact the composer and lyricist for the entire album), this is yet another quirky number making an appearance in an AK film , after 'Emosanal Atyachaar'. There are references to quite a few real life issues in the song (all in light humor though), and one just hopes that there are no controversies around it in days to come and it is accepted with as much interest and enthusiasm as 'Emosanal Atyachaar'. The number is as whacky as it gets. In a lighter vein, it manages to make a serious statement about today's socio-economic condition of the world. It makes references to such diverse topics like 9/11, Uncle Sam, Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan, mineral water, democracy etc. How inappropriate for a mujra number, yet how appropriate for today's times!

Political lyricism thus finally makes a strong occurrence in Hindi filmdom. And it is indeed well sung by Rekha Bharadwaj's intrinsically folksy tones. Ranaji definitely sends out vibes of an ethnic collage of events and stirs it up well with amiable folksy music that can set the desired pace for this blood-curdling political warfare saga.

P.S.: Read Anurag's blog post on the story behind the creation of the movie Gulaal here.

The Oscars are back and how!

2009-02-23T04:55:00.000-08:00

The 2008 Oscar ceremony was distinctly a damp squib. I remember having made the journey from my suburban Jackson Heights apartment to my friend's place in Union Square in the cold New York winters to watch the ceremony last year (You see, I didn't have a cable connection at my place). As we plonked ourselves in front of the TV, half an hour into the show both of us got distinctly uninterested in the proceedings, and he got on the phone with some of his friends and I began browsing the internet, hardly paying attention to what's happening in Oscarland.

But this year "the man with no genitalia and a sword in his hand" made a distinct reappearance into public memory. One of the best Oscar shows that I have ever seen, never mind the fact that I have actively been watching the show only for the past 5-6 years or so.

Months before the show, the American economy crashed and people began predicting as to how this year's recession-ridden-torn-moneybags sponsored Academy awards would probably be one of the last shows before the Oscars moved into a connoisseur-audience league like the Tony's. That coupled with the fact that none of the biggest nominees were major worldwide hits (All the 5 nominees for the Top Movie Honors together raked in less moolah than the biggest hit last year 'The Dark Knight'), were enough to predict a doomsday show in movie history when Hollywood moviedom would have to give up its crown as America's culture and conscience building institution.

Thankfully that was not the case, and the Oscars and Hollywood still reign supreme. The show was brilliant, it started with a song-and-dance routince, and ended with the kids from Mumbai's slums stampeding onto the stage to claim the statuette, which all of them believed, was always rightfully theirs and their country's. Jai Ho! said the kids and the entire nation in unison.

But maybe three-and-a half hours before this climactic orgasm, I could not just believe that I had woken up this early in the morning Indian time, to watch another uneventful night at the Oscars. I was hoping they cut-size the show to less than a two or two and half hours so that I could go back to sleep for another hour or so before heading to work. The fact that it was Hugh Jackman who was gonna be the emcee, was even less of a redeeming factor.

The pre-show ritual of the red-carpet proceedings with the usual question of "What are you wearing?", etc was going on when I switched on the TV. In short, all looked good and I was hoping against hope that someone turned up in an ugly outfit, so that the fashion police could dissect their choice and ridicule them to death, just to uplift my spirits. Sadly the Bjorks and Chers and other fashion train wrecks of yesteryear are no longer in vogue, and everyone was prim and proper. What's with this herd gown-pout mentality? The only troupe that I noticed on the red carpet were the very kids who were going to create a mini stampede at the Kodak theatre a good three hours later. What gathered my attention was not the fact that they were an extremely good-looking, impeccably dressed and a beaming-with-pride lot, but an extremely stupid question that Ryan Seacrest asked the youngest girl in the lot, "Who made your dress?" The girl just looked at him blankly. Clearly, Ryan needs a reality check. What was he thinking? I began hoping that Hugh doesn't end up doing a Ryan, when he begins his act in a while.

The main event starts. Hugh makes some uninspired jokes "Everything has been downsized because of the recession." That's new! He starts his song-and-dance routine, which starts off as a very pedestrian affair. But then Jackman invites Anne Hathaway onto the stage, and very, very surprisingly she breaks into a song, and has an incredible voice. Everyone sits up and notices, I am sure she is gonna get some musicals in her kitty pretty soon. The song ends with a very good line, which I fail to note in its entirety during the show and google later up to find out exactly what those last words of the song are. It ends like this "I am Hugh Jackman, and I've waited so long! And no recession can stop my confession or silence my song! These are the Oscars, and this is my creed! I am a slumdog, I am a wrestler, I'll rent 'The Reader,' I'm Wolverine!" And the audience gives the act a standing ovation. So far so good.

After that, comes something new. Five former best supporting actresses, coming together on stage to announce and give away the award for this year's best supporting actress. At first the act seems too much like "Let's induct a new member into our mutual-admiration society". And I wait for them to get done with the act. Penelope Cruz wins for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Good! She is pretty and I know nothing about the movie.

Then came my best part of the show Tina Fey, and Steve Martin. Ah! for some comic relief. (I googled this part of the show script too)

Fey: It has been said that to write is to live forever.

Martin: The man who said that is dead.

Fey: Yet, we all know the importance of writing, because every great movie begins with a great screenplay.

Martin: Or, a very good idea for the poster *. But usually, with a screenplay.

Fey: And every writer starts with a blank page.

Martin: And every blank page was once a tree.

Fey: And every tree was once a tiny seed.

Martin: And every tiny seed on Earth was placed here by the alien king Rondelay, to foster our titrates and fuel our positive transfers!

(* Ek vishesh tippanni - Was Martin referring to CC2C? The idea for that movie indeed only started with the poster. The poster was the only thing that remained interesting after the movie was seen.)

Next, Dustin Lance Black wins best original screenplay for "Milk." Black says, "To all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who've been told that they're less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that, no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you, and very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours." Hanky time! And there's Sean Penn, crying in the background. Oh God! what is this? My eyes have begun to well up too.

Next Jennifer Aniston comes out with Jack Black to present the best animated feature Oscar, which Wall-E wins as expected. But at least twice or thrice when she was on stage, the camera cuts to Angelina Jolie to show whether she was laughing, grimacing, cursing, frowning or being plain indifferent to Jen. I begin to feel sorry for these two girls, they will be stuck in the same competing-against-either image for the rest of their lives. Much like the Jaya Bachchan and Rekha of Indian movies. Even at this age, some 20-30 years after their tu-tu-main-main over AB, whenever Rekha comes on stage, the camera pans to Jaya and vice versa. I was secretly hoping that Angie does something really bad, but that's just me, looking for cheap shots even at places where I should not.

Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman next. Ben doing a routine which I don't quite understand. Maybe one of those Seinfeld type of jokes which only people in New York could understand, in this case maybe only the 200 odd crowd in Kodak theatre could understand.

Beyoncé joins Jackman onstage for a musical medley. She looks fat, sings well, and I can't wait for the entire song-dance routine to end. When will they get me my Indian song-dance routine? Wasn't this supposed to be India's night out at the Oscars? I so want to dance to O Saaya and Jai Ho, and show this angrezi waltz-schmaltz my thumbs-down.

Next some 5 best supporting actors from the past come on stage to induct a new member in their tribe. The only interesting guy here - Cuba Gooding Jr, who is introducing the nomination for Robert Downey Jr from Tropic Thunder. He introduces the role as that of an American actor playing an Australian actor playing an African-American guy. And he screams to Robert, "Pls leave the black roles for our brethren." Funny! But by now, the whole world knows that the award just has to go to Heath Ledger. So none of the other nominees even care to give an anticipatory act for the cameras sake. The Ledger family comes on stage to collect the awards. My eyes well up again. Many in the audience are sniffling.

Next are the music awards, and what I have been looking forward to for most of the night. Rahman wins his first award for the best score. And he is really humility personified on stage. Probably the movie is a reflection on his life as well, a rags-to-riches tale, someone who has really gotten where he is only by his hard work and determination. This is indeed a recognition long due for someone as talented as the 'Mozart from Madras'. He says "Mere paas maa hai", in reference to his mother who accompanied him to the awards show and then says in Tamil "Ella pughalum iraivanuke (All glory and fame is to God)". How Indian of him to dedicate his award to maa and bhagwan! I am beaming with pride at the Indianness of the moment.

Next a group of garish pink dressed girls run onto stage unexpectedly and begin dancing to loud dhol beats, when I realize that they are dancing to the tune of O Saaya, ringing in the next category for Best Original Song. Rahman sings well and really kicks ass in the next performance for 'Jai Ho' with the loud yellow salwar kameez clad girls, dunno their names. When his name is announced again as the winner for Jai Ho, he says "I always had a choice between love and hate in my life. And I chose love and I am here" How original and how true! How refreshing too!

Next Danny Boyle is awarded the best director for "Slumdog Millionnaire". He could as well be dancing with Shilpa, John and Abhishek to Shut Up and Bounce when he received the award, he literally bounced up and down systematically thrice on stage before coming on to the mike. "My kids are too old to remember this now, but when they were much younger, I swore to them that if this miracle ever happened, that I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from 'Winnie the Pooh.'" He really seems like a 50+ year old child.

Next comes my best part of the evening. The Best Actress award. Like everyone I am rooting for Kate Winslet. Now who doesn't like her? She is sweet, too honest, too original, and too curvy not to be liked. And I really love her since I saw her blue-haired "The Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind". Here's Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and last year's winner, Marion Cotillard, to present the best actress Oscar. Suddenly this induction of a new member into the mutual-admiration society doesn't look too tiresome. It's for Kate, and only Kate, and God knows how much she deserves all this and much more. MacLaine tells Anne Hathaway she's going to win more awards, and, "By the way, I think you have an extraordinary voice." Hathaway sobs and says, "Thank you, I love you!" As Hathaway's chins quiver, I am openly weeping. What is wrong with me? The moment is kind of lost when Sophia Loren refuses to let go of her tea-pot pose while introducing Meryl Streep, but it still sustains. And then, Kate Winslet wins the best actress! Now I am openly crying and hiding my face behind a news paper, so that my mom doesn't see me weeping for some girl winning a statuette. She is a hard core Shobana fan, and doesn't really care for anyone else. She does ask though "Isn't that the girl from Titanic?" This is too much for me to handle, my mom knows my favorite actress. I am sniffling openly. And there Kate goes on to break my floodgates of tears, when she says "Dad! I wish I knew where you were seated so that I could see you. Pls whistle or something"...and Phewhoo! goes the sound of a whistle somewhere in the auditorium and all heads turn to see the Dad who inspired this beautiful and so deserving Best Actress.

As if this was not enough, Robert De Niro, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Adrien Brody and Michael Douglas appear onstage. "How did he do it?" asks Robert De Niro. "How, for so many years, did Sean Penn get all those jobs playing straight men?" Uproarious laughter. I had just watched Milk yesterday, and the weepie that I am, had cried even in the theatre when the end credits were rolling. What a powerful performance! I am rooting for Sean Penn to win the award, though I know that most of the world wants Mickey Rourke, the comeback kid to win it. And when Sean ia announced the winner for the award, I let out a gleeful, victorious "Yes!", as if I am together in this fight with Sean. "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns!" he gushes from the podium. "I did not expect this, and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me, often." Still crying, my tear ducts are poised for a fresh torrent. And there he goes "I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban in gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."

And of course, lastly Slumdog Millionaire wins the best Movie award. And like Alice lost in wonderland, the Zubinas and the Azhars rush onto the stage, and the whole world breaks into a standing ovation for the message that last act of the event is portraying. How there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! How there are still hopes and dreams in this world full of despair! How everyone is happy for the kids and the city that the kids are from and the country that the kids are from, how it is such a fine example for everything that is worth hoping for in this world! Jai Ho! And cheers to the sincerest and most heartfelt Oscars I have ever seen.

Dev D.

2009-02-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

I saw Dev D. yesterday. One of the best Indian movies I have ever seen. There are many brilliant scenes in the movie, but there are some that are just stuck in my mind. So much so that I had to write about them:

1) Dev, tipsy and dopey legged gets into a bus. He sits besides a middle-aged woman. The woman gives him the suspicious, judgmental look that women and men that age and above save exclusively to be thrown with venom at young girls and guys. He reeks of alcohol and grass. The woman covers her nose disgustedly with her yellow dupatta. As with Indian women and men that age and above, she considers it her bounden duty to offer him unsolicited advice on how to conduct every aspect of his life, undeterred by lack of qualification, expertise or experience. Dev continues giving her a blank stare and there when I was expecting an outburst from him asking her to shut up, he goes on and does something very startling. I am still laughing.

2) With his addictions, Dev has lost so much weight that he fits into a medium sized bucket, where he is seated and Chanda is scrubbing him with a loofah.

3) Chunni, who is Chanda's pimp with a heart of gold, has a white wife. She just has a single scene where she opens up the door when Dev knocks on it. It is left to the viewer to figure out how Chunni ends up with a white wife. Most probably one of his lays who he had taken up as a wife later on.

4) The bandmasters are rendering 'Emosanal attyachar' in the background. They are playing the band for Paro and Bhuwan's shaadi ki baaraat. As the song reaches a crescendo, Paro forgetting the Indian bride's suggested behaviour of self-restraint, gives in to the music and begins dancing with gleeful jhatkas. After a while, she realizes her folly and gets back to the Indian bride act, with a sheepish grin.

5) Paro cycling to the fields with a mattress on her cycle, the mattress being where she plans to lay Dev.

6) Chanda is extremely upset that her suicidal father killed himself rather than holding her in his hands and saying a few words of consolation. At exactly that moment, Dev takes her in his hands and says exactly those words.

There are very many small gems like these in the movie, which I can go on writing about. The movie is abso*#$@ingly brilliant. Must must watch! Hats off to Anurag Kashyap.

Book Review: The ThoughtWorks Anthology – Essays on Software Technology and Innovation

2009-01-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

The Thoughtworks Anthology provides a peek into a diverse set of topics, views and perspectives held by some of the Thoughtworks firm members. The book consists of thirteen insightful essays on modern software development practices, most of them challenging some long held views. The book is aimed at several different audiences right from Project Managers to Business Analysts to Developers to Testers. There is no single central idea to the book, and all the thirteen essays touch a wide range of topics. Not having technical expertise in some of the topics hampered my understanding and I skipped those; I wouldn’t comment much on them in this review. The quality of the different essays varies widely but in a word, for anybody in the software industry: Recommended

Various Chapter Highlights:

1) Solving the Business Software “Last Mile” – by Roy Singham, Founder and Chairman, and Michael Robinson, Technology Principal.

While newer processes like Agile, SCRUM and TDD have allowed us to deliver high-quality software quickly, it still hasn’t helped us resolve the problem of “the last mile”. In the author’s words “This “last mile” is the part of the process that happens after the software satisfies the functional requirements but before the software goes into production and starts to deliver value to the business”. This essay was easily my best pick in the entire group of essays, and was worth the entire book alone. How many projects that we have worked in go “live” as quickly as it is produced?

2) One Lair and Twenty Ruby DSLs – by Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist

3) The Lush Landscape of Languages – by Rebecca J. Parsons, CTO

Nothing too new. If you need to refresh your memory about the difference between various programming language, then read through this essay.

4) Polyglot Programming – by Neal Ford
The author in this essay start off by explaining what polygot programming is by saying "The word polyglot means speaking many languages. Polyglot programming leverages the separation of language and platform in Java (and in C# as well), allowing developers to use specialized languages to solve specific problems. We now have hundreds of languages that run on the Java virtual machine and the .NET managed runtime. Yet, as developers, we don’t leverage this capability enough.". In the next few sections, they show us some examples of applying polygot programming. Didn’t understand much.

5) Object Calisthenics – by Jeff Bay, Technology Principal
A really thought provoking essay. While we all code in our day-to-day lives, the author suggests nine rules to code, which could make programming easier to understand and large project code respositories easier to handle:
i. Use only one level of indentation per method
ii. Don’t use the else keyword
iii. Wrap all primitives and strings
iv. Use only one dot per line
v. Don’t abbreviate
vi. Keep all entities small
vii. Don’t use any classes with more than two instance variables
viii. Use first-class collections
ix. Don’t use any getters/setters/properties.

6) What is an Iteration Manager anyways? – by Tiffany Lentz, Project Manager

This essay provided some new insights into the role of the SCRUM Masters and Iteration Managers as opposed to the traditional Project Managers. It talks about the roles and responsibilities and restrictions with an IM. While many people believe that the IM is just a weaker version of the Project Manager, this essay explains how this is not true, and how the two roles are quite independent in their job profiles

7) Project Vital Signs – by Stelios Pantazopoulos, Iteration Manager

If you are reviewing a project, in the middle of, say, the 10th iteration, when the project is a 20 iteration project, how do you gauge the “health” of the project? The author here comes up with some quantitative metrics, called Project Vital Signs, which help an outsider identify the “health” of the project:
i. Scope burn-up: The state of scope delivery for a deadline
ii. Delivery quality: The state of the end product being delivered
iii. Budget burn-down: The state of the budget in terms of scope delivery
iv. Current state of implementation: The real-time state of the system delivery
v. Team perceptions: The team perspective on the state of the project (Personally, my favorite...something new)

8) Consumer-Driven Contracts: A Service Evolution Pattern – by Ian Robinson, Architect

Do your SOA from the consumer side not the provider side, excellent idea.

9) Domain Annotations – by Erik Doernenburg, Technology Principal
This essay advocates the use of domain-driven design, which follows the idea that during development, the primary focus should be on the domain and the domain logic. Should be very interesting for those into domain-driven design

10) Refactoring Ant Build Files – by Julian Simpson, Build Architect

11) Single-Click Software Release – by Dave Farley, Technology Principal

If you are planning on building an end-to-end continuous integration release systems that will deploy large, complex applications to whichever environment we choose at the click of a button, then this is the chapter you need to read. The essay had some good points for the deployment process

12) Agile vs. Waterfall Testing for Enterprise Web Apps – by Kristan Vingrys, QA Consultant

This essay gives a good overview of the testing life cycle, the different types of testing, and testing environments. The first few sections narrating this should help refresh the testing news and views that are well known. The author then covers topics such as issue management, the tools you need to use for testing purposes, reports and metrics. The essay is concluded with discussing the testing roles for different members.

13) Pragmatic Performance Testing – by James Bull, QA Consultant

This essay gives us an insight about what performance testing is, and gives detailed explanation about the four key elements: requirements, product performance data, communication, and process. The author concludes this essay by explaining how to link all these together, how not to drop behind, and finally how to bring an issue resolution process to close. Again, nothing new, something we have been hearing for long, but do not imbibe quite frequently in our day-to-day proceedings.

Altogether, some really good essays, some just fillers, but overall the book is quite relevant, timely and definitely recommended.

Book Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma - A Natural History of Four Meals

2009-01-22T03:17:00.000-08:00

A fab new addition to my list of interesting-reads, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'-- a gift to me by a colleague, who is quite a foodie just as I am -- is a book about food. To elaborate, not just "about food", in fact it's all about food and about all food. Not just cooking and eating food, but it's also about the production, evolution, industrialization, emotion, environmentalization, consumption, digestion, and philosophization of food. While it is primarily a scathing look into all that's wrong with the food industry in the US of A, it's a good read for anyone who wants to nip the fowl in the bud, if the food industrialization crisis is just about hitting their country. What Michael Pollan, the author, set out to do was to describe the creation of 4 different meals. This would take him to farms, feedlots, grocery convenience stores, forests, and hidden mushroom gathering sites all over the Americas, while discussing the social, political, ecological, and economical aspects of the food chain. Following were the four meals that he focussed his writing on:

1) Industrial - A fast food meal dinner brought at a McDonald's drive-through and consumed in the car itself
2) Industrial Organic - Organic food bought at a local Whole Foods, and cooked at home with other organic produce
3) Local - A farmer’s market meal from Virginia’s Polyface farm, cooked at home with other local produce (things produced and consumed within a defined geographic boundary)
4) Hunter-Gatherer - A meal for which Pollan hunts the meat and gathers the mushrooms himself

While 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' is by no means an iconic book, or even quite a literary achievement, I would still deem it as a must-read for all. Absolutely essential, especially for Americans, and Indians who are fast driving into the fast-food lane. With increasing nuclearization of our traditional Indian joint family system, we are coming to depend more-and-more on McDonald's and KFC for our daily bread and more. With this book, Pollan aims to throw more light on all that's wrong with the lifestyle of comfort that we are choosing for ourselves. While food in India has still not reached as much a state of remote-control as it has in the USA, it is interesting to read how we are falling preys to the consumerization of food and in turn harming our own lives, and the world as a whole.

How did we reach this situation?

Where to begin from? Maybe from corn (Meal #1 starts with the evolution of corn), starting from how the American government subsidizes the corn industry at the expense of the land and, most disturbingly, the health of its people; to how scientists at places like McDonald’s conspire to turn corn-—which is outrageously cheap and plentiful-—into millions of different products, from Chicken McNuggets to the stabilizer in the dressings you put on your “healthy” salad, not to mention the zillions of chemicals derived from corn—-from HFCS (high fructose corn stabilizers) to xantham gum to edible essences.

The cornification of our body and lands is an important issue, yes. The bigger issue, though, is the treatment meted out to the poor animals that go into making our fast food -- the tortured, diseased animals whose miserable lives are rendered into that flavorless disc called the tikki or the patty. That meat comes from a cow that’s fed an unnatural diet of the plentiful and really cheap corn, as opposed to its biological and evolutionary propensity for grass. This change in its eating pattern leads it to break out in numerous diseases while crammed mercilessly into lots, standing in piles of their own shit. Which again means numerous antibiotics that go into their feed to prevent them from falling ill and falling into a "depression" which might trigger them into riots. As one could expect, there aren't many positive sides to the industrial meal, the production and consumption of which is a waste of money and energy, topped with disgraceful animal living conditions, exploitation of labor, absurd government subsidy structures, and vast ecological damages leading even to global warming.

However gruesome the scene that Pollan tries to portray with beef and pork, he doesn't try to push for a vegetarian agenda. Human beings are actually animals with a carnivorous evolutionary pattern, and hence it is but natural for mankind to be eating meat. The fact is that with the discovery of agriculture, mankind found an easy access to a vegetarian diet, and hence turned omnivorous. It’s only a new phenomenon that with the industrialization of agriculture and animal farming, we are getting into a harmful pattern of producing and consuming food.

Meal #2 wasn't exactly a remarkable read, except for some pertinent issues raised by Pollan. For example, is it better to eat a "conventional" apple from a farm down the road, or an organic one flown in from New Zealand? And just what is "organic," or "free range"? And does all "organic" food actually mean good?

For meal # 3, Pollan spent a week working on Polyface Farm, a self contained grass farm run by a man named Joe Salatin that raises cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, rabbits, etc. Salatin describes himself as a "grass farmer", the ideology behind it being that the grass sustains most of the living beings in his farm, starting from the ruminating cows to his customers who end up buying the commodities from his farm. The idea is that instead of importing nutrients in the form of chemical fertilizers, Salatin uses a very well planned and intricate system of animal rotation to raise everything using only his own forest and pasture land. According to Salatin, grass grows better if it is nibbled on (but not overgrazed), and with this system Salatin has turned an overgrazed wasteland of a farm into a very efficient and productive plot of pasture and forest. So the cows graze on one part of the land just right, and then he moves the cows to another part. They are followed by the chicken who nibble on the cow dung, to take out its nutrients and spread the grass seeds further; which are then followed by the rabbits and the pigs in a very systematic and proven dance. What it results it is in eggs with the most carrotish orange egg yolks, and thick muscle bound whites, and farm produce with not even the slightest bit of artificially produced fertilizers or pesticides. This was my most interesting portion of the book, and I would recommend this book to all just to go through this particular section. At the end of one particular cycle, when Salatin begins selling his produce at the local market, people come driving all the way from about 50 miles afar to buy things from him. This is what Pollan stresses as "putting a face" to your farm; trying and learning more about where your food comes from. Sample this writing: "But imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a manner of course, these few unremarkable things: What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost. We could then talk about some other things at dinner. For we would no longer need any reminding that however we chose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world"

The final meal was about as close as one could come to the whole hunter-gatherer model. Pollan hunted mushrooms, wild pigs, and random greens and fruits to make a dinner focused on things that he "found" himself. This was quite an easy read, and again raised some pertinent questions.

There are so many more interesting points that were highlighted in this book, that, if nothing, I at least came out enlightened by the reading of this book. And hence I would recommend this book as a very essential read for everyone. If you want to live healthy and eat good, start with eating what's right - for yourself and for the environment. As for the money part of eating right, let me defend it with Pollan's argument "Americans today spend less on food, as a percentage of disposable income, than any other industrialized nation, and probably less than any people in the history of the world. This suggests that there are many of us who could afford to spend more on food if we chose to. After all, it isn't only the elite who in recent years have found an extra fifty or one hundred dollars each month to spend on cell phones (now owned by more than half the U.S. population, children included) or television, which close to 90 percent of all U.S. households now pay for. Another formerly free good that more than half of us happily pay for today is water. So is the unwillingness to pay more for food really a matter of affordability or priority?"

Book Review: Once Was Bombay

2009-01-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

Captioned as a compelling portrayal of a dying city, the author Pinki Virani, in the back page summary of "Once was Bombay", lays her forthrightness on the line

"Who killed Bombay, once India's trend-setting city and commercial capital? its politicians or its underworld? When did this city of gold turn into a cemetery of dead souls and dreams?"

With lines like this, Pinki sounds like a nay-sayer denying Mumbai of its share of glory, and wanting me to distance myself from this book. Umpteen times before have different city dwellers compared today's Mumbai to the Bombay of yore. And while it's great to reflect on past days of glory, what is hugely overlooked that the modern ways of living, travelling, eating and enjoying are here to stay, so it would matter more if we think around what we can do to make our lives better given the existing framework.

Nevertheless, with an unsure mind I began reading the book. The preface started out with a scathing write up of how each one of us have made ourselves into an island neglecting the vast seas of the city surrounding us, all the time fattening ourselves and our purses and letting the city go into a rot. And while she does warn that like the island of Mauritius, the waters will definitely rise one day robbing us of everything that we have worked so hard to build, she also sets the tone that it is still not too late to turn back and save the city. After the 26/11 strikes on Mumbai a warning like this does sound sound enough. And with a heavy heart and reflections on how I have been neglecting the city all my living years here, I turned the page to further stories.

The book comprises of three novellas and four short stories, to be read as stand-alone or inter-linked pieces (the stories are interlinked in their themes, contexts and surprisingly they are even interlinked by a song "Goli Maar Bheje Mein, Dhichkyaon" from the RGV cult classic "Satya"). What's also interesting is that the book sings paeans to the honest officials in the Mumbai Police department, starting with Vijay Salaskar. If I had read this story before 26/11 probably I would not have known who Salaskar is, and it would not have made a deep imprint in my mind. But when Salaskar mentions about the perils of his thankless job, it strikes a chord somewhere in my mind. It's a sad and sorry tale that we learn to respect an individual's contribution to the society and world at large, only after his death.

Moving on, sadly the first chapter "Crime and Punishment" is probably the weakest link in the entire chain of stories. I had almost put the book aside after I read the story. There were too many thoughts muddled in a single paragraph and too many grammatical errors to ignore. It looked like when she started writing, she began writing with fire, and did not pause to rephrase and correct herself when the fire died down. Sample this. "The man shot is Vallabh Thakkar, known to appease all kinds of gangsters as long as he could continue putting up his buildings. Manish Shah is aware of this, so when Vallabh Thakkar suggests he develop a portion of land, Manish is hesitant." I found the mix of present and past tenses confusing. The story is about how real estate in Mumbai is controlled by the land mafia, and how it is out of bounds for the common man to get into real estate business. A respectable couple of friends who run a construction business make a brief foray into real estate development. But they are wound up in the web of deceit laid by the mafiadom in the form of squatters, thugs, killers and kidnappers. Almost immediately the two men are caught up in this web which ends tragically for one of them. Virani provides plentiful, fascinating background about the Bombay dons -- Arun Gawli, Chota Rajan, Dawood Ibrahim -- and their rise to power.

Thankfully, I survived my initial reaction and survived the remaining book, and how. I finished reading the remaining portion in a single sitting, it was THAT interesting. The second story, "Mazagon, Bombay-10" (Reminds me of how Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, has used Dilli-6 as the title for his new movie which is based in Chandni Chowk, Delhi) is a gentle, rambling story, and autobiographical to a large extent. Pinki Virani grew up in Mazagon, in a Muslim family. Her father ran a glass and crockery shop in Bhendi Bazaar, and her mother's ancestors were originally Parsis who converted to Islam a few generations earlier. The story describes the history of Mazagon, the migration patterns of the Parsi community, the present scenario, the lives of the daughters and women-folk and the effect of the 92/93 riots on this largely Muslim area. This story alone compelled me to finish the rest of the book. Here is a brief excerpt from the story depicting how that part of the city got its name.

"Surfacing like Bombay's six other islands as a dense combination of fish shit and rotting palms, was Machcha grama or the village of fish, Matsyagram in Sanskrit. [It also began to be called] Maazghar, or the central portion of the house, or the centre of the seven islands [of Bombay]. The British anglicized it to Mazgon, the Prasis called it Mazagon, the Gujaratis and Ismailis named it Majgaum and the Marathis, Maazagaon, their village. When the natives left the predominantly British high-walled fort area to settle on the outskirts, in adjoining islands, the Christians built a little village within Mazagon for their parents, and they called it simply that, The Village; the rest of Mazagon referred to it as Mhatarpacady, the quarter of the elderlies"

"Salvage, Savage" which is another novella is also an interesting story. It's largely about Pakya, a thug who is moving up the ranks, and Chhagan Bujbal who she sees as the only honest politician around. The peeks into Pakya's life are irresistible -- his purple cellphone, his actress girlfriend, his background. Chhagan Bhujbal's tirade seemed very unconvincing and discontenting. But, Chhagan Bhujbal? Yeah right! And while she names every other politician by name, she does not name Bal, Raj or Uddhav Thackeray by name. Guess finally even she wanted to save her pretty face from being blackened.

The other stories "C'mon Barbie...", "...Let's go party" (she connects the stories with the titles too), "A Modern Morality tale", "The Lala in Winter" are all well written and provide very interesting tidbits about the city we live in. The book is classified as "a non fiction, rich in memories and insights", and sometimes it becomes difficult to point out how much is fiction and how much is true. But to be fair to Pinki, she has done a great deal of historical delving, to provide the reader as complete a picture as probably possible. The language of the book is a bit terse, especially when she writes in the tones of the localites (Bambaiyya Hindi, replete with names like Salim Sandaasiya), even the English is the local mix mash of English, Hindi and Marathi ('She would think like that only, na?'). The book is an absolute delight for anyone who has lived in Mumbai for a while, and are interested in the underbelly of the city.

Book Review: The Red of His Shadow

2009-01-13T06:20:00.000-08:00

'The Red Of His Shadow' is a brand new novel by Mayra Montero written in Spanish and translated into English by Edith Grossman. This is her fourth novel to be translated into English. Her previous works which have been translated into English (again by Edith Grossman) include In the Palm of Darkness, The Messenger & The Last Night I Spent With You. Cuban born Montero is one of biggest post-boom generation writers from Latin America. And all her works including this one are brilliant representations of the Latin American lifes of the poor and the downtrodden. Much like the poverty stricken streets of rural India, people in this part of the world are also plagued by heat, rodents, illicit liquour and a range of superstitions.

The Red of His Shadow is a breathtaking novel, a contemporary love story with the power of a Greek tragedy that takes the reader deep into the mysterious world of Haitian Voudon or Voodoo. This enamouring world of occult is so strange, yet pretty close to the 'Tantrik' and 'Baba' ways of Indian quackdom. The disturbing tale is inspired from the true and tragic love story of Simil Bolosse and Mistress Zule, the leaders of two warring factions or gagas or voodoo societies. Bordering on the bizarre, we read about black magic ceremonies where one leader bathes in the blood of more than 100 goats to see the other leader dead. The story also touches upon the miserable plight of the downtrodden Haitian immigrants who work in the sugar-cane fields of the Dominican Republic. Each year, tens of thousands of Haitians cross into the Dominican Republic to work as cane cutters, where they are subjected to the most pathetic working conditions patterned after the cruelest slave regimes. Because of their miserable plight, which remains till the end of their days, the workers have no recourse but to cling to their religious beliefs, imagining of some day of freedom. Out of this blind faith, builds forth groups called 'Societes' and gradually many societes congregate into the Gaga: a form of worship, a dedicated guild that few can penetrate. Led by powerful "Masters" or "Queens", the Gaga takes out its annual procession or pilgrimage through the fields that surround the sugar mill. This journey, marked by ritual stopping points, lasts for three days starting on Good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday. Frequently one Gaga crosses paths with another Gaga. The encounter can be absolutely cordial or extremely bloody. This book describes different events and lives leading upto the culmination with the crossing of paths between two warring Gagas led by Mistress Zule and Simil Bolosse. To help the readers understand the story well, and to represent the different routes that the voodoo procession takes through the country side of the Dominican Republic, there is also a map of the Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti at the start of the book.

Where Montero brilliantly succeeds with this story are her extremely strong characters. The book begins with Zule Reve, the young mambo or priestess of one of the Gagas. At the age of 12, Zule, the wild and willful only surviving daughter of a cursed family, is anointed mambo, or priestess, of a powerful Dominican Voudon community and undergoes a seven-year apprenticeship to gain her position as a Mambo. Jeremie Cande, her loyal right-hand man is a mixed breed, a Haitian "China man", who remains tied to Zule as her protector, servant, a lover spurned but still hopelessly in love and consumed with jealousy. Anacaona is a Dominican woman living among the Haitians, a rare occurrence in a society where scorn and hatred for Dominicans has been built into the Haitian mindset since Dominicans wrested themselves free of Haitian rule in 1844. And finally there's Simila Bolosse, a Haitian renegade once Zule's lover and now her enemy, who has pledged to cut her to pieces if she refuses to join forces with him. As these characters circle and confront each other, Montero portrays a terrifying world poisoned by hate, greed, and sexual jealously, in which people cast spells to torture and kill, and, where the capricious gods, mount, or possess, their worshippers to enact bloody dramas of their own.

Essentially the story is that of love lost turned sour turned into political rivalry between two very powerful individuals. In illustrating the story thus, Montero writes with fire and acid. With Haitian poems that speak of love, lust and revenge. And thankfully without any kind of helpful or instructive or redemptive Christian-influenced finale. It's a ripping read, which most books that cut across cultures are not, and the story is seductive and glorious. The ending is blunt: It may not leave you satisfied, but it will certainly shock you.

The New Year

2009-01-07T01:53:00.000-08:00

It didn't start off well for me, neither did the old one end well for me. The problems of the old one kept running into my hopes for a splendid new one. For once I was willing to suspend my disbelief in all things good, and party my way off to a wannabe great start to a new year. But that was not to be! A week since the start of '09 and I think I am already down into the pits. Financial losses galore, the gloom of the recession biting into whatever bit of job remains in hand, and turmoil on the home front have all begun to take a huge toll. I remember a similar situation 10 years back, when I definitely did moonwalk into the troubles of depression. Then I converted into a loner, stopped going to school, took to travelling alone to distant parts of Mumbai city and just sit on some sidewalk and watch the world pass by. I went to lonely movie halls and saw porn movies galore sitting besides other loner losers wanking off their hard ons. I used to leave home early in the morning, and come back home late in the night, and my parents used to be happy in the belief that I am studying my ass off to glory. The examination results that came in a few months later were a shocker, not for me, but for my parents. I was surprised that I failed in just one subject, my parents were surprised that I ended up with the first failed subject in my life. The depression days continued for about a year, after which I pulled up my socks and put my life back in order. Sadly, it was a very difficult and steep climb up and today I might have been in a much better position in life had I not had that worrisome bout some 10 years back.

Today looks similar, in fact even bigger, at least then I didn't have to worry about where my next meal was gonna come from. And as my emotional resilience is down in the shatters, I hope that "The Tough gets going" really works for me.

Just yesterday at work, I felt as if I had died and, for some unknown reason, was still breathing. Humiliation is something you can't put a price label on, and quantify the loss.

I always maintained in my life, that I want to do work that I love, rather than work for the sake of collecting money. I know this is a ridiculously privileged attitude since so much of the world must concern itself with getting food. But I was (and still am) one of the privileged: I've always had clean water, clothes to spare, enough to eat. But still sadly enough, when you lose money that you had managed to accumulate after some years of hard work, that's when you realize that although money is not what you worked for, when it goes away, it does bite.

I have spent days agonizing over "How could you, why did you, why couldn't you, why me, what's the matter with the world, where's justice" kind of questions, to realize that these questions are better left unanswered, rather they will remain unanswered because no one knows the answers. Not even the experts. I have also been eager to blame someone else -- anyone else -- for the mess I am in. But after sucking myself into a Katrina of blame games, I begin wondering where does the blame end?

Unlike many people who lost everything in the stocks and scams, and unlike so much of the world, I still have money to live day-to-day. I am still working, and I am still living and eating well, and there is still nothing else I would rather do, than do the work I am doing right now. But still. I go to sleep at night oscillating between ranting about the world and being terrified that I will lose my job and I won't be able to keep my house. Then I realize that, for me, the real suffering is not living without money; it's living with this rage. The devastation is bad, but if I don't allow myself to feel this, then I can't learn what there is to learn. I will not see, for instance, that I participated in my own downfall by not adhering to sound processes that my workplace believes in.

And while my downfall is really, really minor as compared to thousands of crores of investor wealth that got lost in the equity bourses, and so also my humiliation as compared to the embarassment that the chief of Satyam, R Raju has to face when he revealed that he has fleeced the company and its stakeholders of 7000 crores, I still can't stop the blame game. Even when well wishers snap at me advising me to gather my wits, I accuse them of not being sympathetic enough with my concerns. And if I don't engage in blame, I see the answer clearly: because I believed in something else more -- I believed in accumulating. And when you believe in accumulating, you see what you don't have, not what you have. My relationship to money was no different from my relationship to food, to love, to looking good: I never felt as if I had enough. I was always focused on the bite that was yet to come, not the one in my mouth. I was focused on the way my partner wasn't perfect, not the love that was. And on the chiselled body I saw on a gym boy poster, not the health that reflected from my rounded cheeks.

Although there is the loss, there is also the necessity -- the urgency-- of staying in the moment. The money I lost will never come back. And some sadness to grieve for the same is justified. But from the path of sadness I often wander into fear -- what if my parents or I get sick and we can't pay the medical bills, what if there is an accident and I can't work, what will I do when I get old -- I'm lost, too. I need someone to guide me from this path of fear back to the path of sadness back to the path of contentment. And happiness. And I need to realize that I need to look inside me for finding this someone.

Book Review: Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

2008-12-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, amongst all the books that I received on my birthday this year, I was attracted to this book first, only because of its catchy title. Goes to show that good branding and naming of your product is half the battle won. Similarly in the world of books too, any experienced publisher will tell you that having an attention grabbing title is a prerequisite. 'Stay Hungry Stay Foolish' as a title for Rashmi Bansal's first book is an excellent choice. It is borrowed from Apple's Steve Jobs' now famous commencement address made to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford University. 'Stay Hungry Stay Foolish' were the famous last words of the speech, which meant that all of us have this innate, burning desire, something like a hunger to do something great and big in our lives. We need to work on this hunger, to achieve greatness in our lives. If we do not work on it, we will stay hungry, and stay foolish.

For reference sakes, following is an excerpt of the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005, in the concluding part of which he mentioned these now famous words.

"When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

The book captures the lives and times of 25 such IIM (Indian Institute of Management) Ahmedabad graduates who chose the rough road of entrepreneurship. These guys worked on their hunger, and did things that people of their times deemed foolish and even after that they remained hungry for something more. This is a brilliant concept, and especially in today's recessionary times, when the world has a bleak vision of economy and salaried jobs in general, it could come as an inspiration to those who want to set out on their own. That is not to say that entrepreneurship is a cushy path, as a matter of fact, all the entrepreneurs in the book did what they did not for the sake of money, and some did not even end up making that much money, but they were in it for creative satisfaction.

In a sense of achieving what the author had set out to achieve, Rashmi has made an inspiring book out of 25 different tales. The 25 entrepreneurs are from different strata of society, started off at different stages of their lives - some started right after their IIM stint, some started after 20 years of working as corporate honchos, and they are from different industries - Retail, Sugar, BPO, Education, Healthcare, etc just to mention a few. It seems a good selection of inspiring personalities and tales, and probably it does propagate the message that as a predominantly young country (as per the latest census, more than 50% of India is less than 25 yrs of age), we should look beyond placements, jobs and salaries; rather we should believe in the power of our dreams.

But whether the book is a good research effort of the lives and times of these 25 individuals is highly debatable. There is an inevitable sense of anguish when one finishes the book, because the research done is really very poor. What Rashmi has effectively done is just write what the interviewee said. Each of the interviews have the same set of questions and after the 5th or 6th tale, most entrepreneurs sound the same. 'First 3-4 years were difficult times, starting a business in India is a behemoth task especially because of the bureaucracy involved, family life suffered, partners moved on, finally somewhere along the 4th or 5th year the business began to break even'. What would have helped better would have been a different perspective rather than just that of the individual. In many cases what the entrepreneur says sounds pretty much like blowing his own trumpet. Rather if Rashmi had chosen to interview the entrepreneur's family, friends, partners, co workers, juniors, etc. we could have seen a different picture emerge.

But that would mean years of research in itself, and maybe coming up with a volume which would cost more (the book is priced at a very economic Rs 125), and would need more time and insight to come out with. Maybe that is what an IIM degree equips you with (IIM-A is Rashmi's alma mater as well). More sense while it comes to producing, branding, marketing and pricing your book. With a minimum production time of about 2 years (and that too with a very active full time job in hand), and a very economic cost, Rashmi is aiming for massive sales of her book to make money, rather than charge more a better quality. Looks like she has cracked the formula. In that respect, we can easily equate her with the Chetan Bhagat (known for 'Five Point Someone' and 'A Night at the Call Center' amongst other books) from the school of Indian Fiction writing. Chetan comes out with very pedestrian potboilers in quick succession (every year or two, he has a new book out), prices them moderately and makes quick and easy bucks. His books sell because the plots relate to and reach out to the entire computerized, gizmoized, Indian IT/BPO geek community who are used to getting away with introductory sentences like "Myself IT Gizmo" every time they are asked to do so. It's a sad, but true fact, that as a country we write complex computer code better than a simple, gramatically correct sentence. Incidentally Chetan went to IIM-A as well. That makes me think, why didn't she include Chetan also in one of the 25 entrepreneurs? Hmmm...Inclusion might mean admitting that his is a successful formula which she is out to replicate with this book of hers, and maybe she doesn't want to do that.

Other than being poorly researched, the book is also poorly written. Rashmi introduces herself as as a writer, entrepreneur and youth expert in the book. Just because you write a blog about youth, which probably a few hundred young guys read, doesn't make you a youth expert. I write reviews on movies and books on my blog, that doesn't make me a movie or a book expert (ya, I know my place!). I don't even understand what being a youth expert means and entails. Maybe she advises young girls what beauty cream to apply when there's a pimple situation, but wait, doesn't that make you a skin expert? Similarly the entire book is riddled with phrases, usages and acronyms which make it a very substandard showcase for Indian English writing. There are entrepreneurs in the book describing their IIM A days saying they took "a few courses like LEM and PPID". Sorry dear reader, this book was meant as a year end scrap book for all my IIM A classmates. Too bad, if you can't understand what it means. Then there are abundant Hindi words and sentences making their way into the book. "Aur itni jagah mein bhi ek 14" ka TV kone mein laga diya tha jahan par cricket dekhte the. So it was a lot of fun. Those were the real days I think...." After every second sentence written in English she feels compelled to break into Hindi. Sample this entrepreneurship mantra: "Find something you want to do, that you are passionate about and paisa to koi na koi dega. Unless it’s a stupid idea!" By now you get the drift of how she writes, I guess.

Maybe if Rashmi had focussed more on doing a better job of what she set out to, it would have been an enjoyable read. All in all it is indeed a great concept, which deserved more research and patience, rather than being put together hurriedly.

Is war the only solution?

2008-12-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

As a layman, unknown to the world of politics, war, terrorism, and security, here are my thoughts, questions and comments regarding the goings on in India, a week after the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai:

1) By now, it's amply clear that the terrorists who had laid seige on Mumbai were LeT operatives. LeT is an outfit named amongst the terrorist outfits in both India and the US, and is banned even in Pakistan.

2) It is not clear though whether the Pakistan government had any role to play in this. And it is wrong to assume that they had, inspite of the LeT indeed operating from Pakistan.

3) Immediately after the lone captive terrorist confessed that he is from Pakistan, India had put up a demand with the Pakistani government to hand over 20 of its most wanted criminals who are residing in Pakistani soil now. This list includes Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind behind the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, and the chief of the LeT group as well. It is not the first time that India had made this demand, it has been made many times before, but India upped the ante this time.

4) Pakistan has refused to hand over the 20 most wanted guys to India saying that they have no extradition treaty with India, and if India provides sufficient proof, they will be tried in Pakistan itself based on the laws of the Pakistani land. This despite Pakistan promising full support to India during the investigation and complete transparency.

5) India has got back to Pakistan saying that most of the guys in the list are actually Indian citizens who have just escaped from India to avoid being prosecuted. Indeed the list includes Indians like Dawood, Tiger Memon and some 6 Sikhs. But now this brings an interesting counterpoint, which India will need to answer if we keep pressing with the demand. The Dalai Lama is Tibetan (now Chinese) and is seeking refuge in India right now. The Chinese claim that the Dalai Lama is a splittist, someone actually looking to split Tibet from China, and has asked India to hand over him to China many times. This was even one of the reasons for the Indo-China war in the 60s. During those days, the then Prime Minister of India refused to hand over the Lama to China saying that India has a special emotional connection with Tibet. Today, although India is still smarting from the wounds inflicted during the Indo-China war, we yet refuse to toe the Chinese line. We do not actively support the Tibetan protest for a separate state, in fact, there were special provisions made and Tibetan protesters arrested when the Olympic torch was making its way through Delhi. This is because we know better than to engage in another war with the Chinese. But if India presses for the 20 guys from Pakistan (which I am pretty sure Pakistan will not follow), we can expect a Chinese call someday pretty soon with a similar demand. Are we ready to then hand over the Lama? Have we thought of the consequences? Off the top of my head, if yes we do hand over the Lama, there will be wide spread Buddhist and Dalit protests all over the country. Note that the Buddhists form the 5th major religious group in the country. If no we don't hand over the Lama, the Chinese response could be ranging from anywhere as minimal as a diplomatic tiff to something as severe as strikes along the North Eastern border or who knows, another Indo-China war?

6) So with Pakistan refusing to hand over the 20 most wanteds to India, what options does India have? A war?

7) The media sure seems to think so. One point which I really want to make here is against media sensationalism. Against the media's arm twisting tactics, of putting words into the mouths of ministers and public servants and misinterpreting and broadcasting them later. It's great that the media has considerable freedom in India, that is one of the few privileges that an Indian is used to and takes for granted. The media here is not a mouthpiece of the Government and is considerably free and fair. But in the wake of an issue of tremendous national importance as this, the media definitely goes overboard and does not know where to pull the reins. Just yesterday I was watching on TV the interview of the external affairs minister of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee by a journalist from NDTV. Couple of times during the interview, the journalist asked whether Mr Mukherjee thinks a war is the solution to this type of a terror strike, to which Mr Mukherjee replied saying that it was not ruled out, but the Indian course of action depended on the Pakistani response. The immediate next headline all over the channel said "India does not rule out a war if need be". Seriously guys, temper down the tone a bit. Today when Mr Mukherjee appeared again in front of the media saying "We will take all steps possible to protect India's territorial integrity", all news channels have gotten into a frenzy decoding and dissecting the message and interpreting that only a war is the solution to tame these rogue terrorist groups operating out of Pakistan.

8) The media seems to forget that a large section of common populace like me, have no idea of what would entail in a war. Never has a war affected me in my lifetime. The only war which India had gotten into since I gained consciousness was the Kargil war. And that was in response to the Pakistani attacks, and that too was limited primarily to the area in and around Kargil in Kashmir. The vast majority of India remained unaffected by the war. But as a person with reasonably decent common sense, I can only imagine the rigors of a life during war. And seriously, what problems in the world have been solved with wars? The palpable anger in the minds of common man is given fuel to by this kind of views echoed by a section of the media, and like I mentioned in my yesterday's and day before yesterday's posts, the internet is rife with gullible young Indians declaring that this is the time for a war. I do not agree, but then I also do not know better as to what the alternative to war is.

9) In the middle of all this, US Secretary of State, Ms Condoleeza Rice came to India today and after prolonged meetings with the Indian contingent of ministers she appeared in front of the media and said that even if non-state actors were involved in the terror strikes, it was the responsibility of the Pakistani state to rein in the terror growing in their backyard. It is really commendable that the US sent its representative to India to guide and advise us, but if this is the only thing that Ms Rice had to say, then I have my doubts whether this was the only thing discussed between Ms Rice and Mr Mukherjee, the Indian external affairs minister. Behind closed doors with the Indian ministers, she might have condoned the idea of a war. The US knows it best when it comes to the ill effects of long-drawn and futile wars. True, there has been no terror strike on US since 9/11, and in many ways, the war probably did act as a deterrent. But not just the war, it was also a better security system, less corruption, a well stocked and well armed police force, modern ammunitions to fight the war and above all a very transparent and accountable political body at the top of the system. Maybe behind closed doors, that's the message she relayed to the Indians - War is not the only solution, strengthen yourself first and then bully Pakistan. And God knows, Pakistan has its own share of problems with these terrorists. But this is just my speculation, and I am just speculating based on all that I am seeing and hearing and reading.

10) Even if war is a good solution to such strikes, I feel that the present government might not engage with Pakistan in a war. For simple reasons, the first and foremost being the tenure of the present government is limited to just another 6 months. India goes to vote in another 6 months, and the present government might decide against a war, just because if the gamble backfires, then whatever little chances remain of it winning the election, even that will get flushed away. As it is, the common sentiment is very much against the present Congress Government and it is highly likely that the next election might see them losing the election battle bitterly. Along with the already sour mood, they don't want to be in a pickle with a war situation.

11) And seriously, if we go to a war with a democratically elected government, aren't we fulfilling the very purpose of the terrorist strikes by the non-state rogue groups? These groups are intent on seeing democracy taking a brow beating in Pakistan. Since the government was sworn in, there have been numerous terrorist strikes in Pakistan itself with the latest one being as debilitating as the bomb blast in front of the Mariott hotel in Islamabad. And really as little as I know about Pakistan and world politics and foreign affairs, it seems kind of likely to me that the State Government is genuinely not able to control the terrorist groups operating from their soil. It does not seem like a case of Pakistan discreetly supporting the terrorist groups, rather it looks like a case of Pakistan unable to contain the terrorist groups in their backyard. With Indians getting into a war with them, we are just forwarding the cause of the terrorists. If India does succeed in the war, democracy goes down the drain in Pakistan, and then we can forget any future peace making attempts with Pakistan.

So like I mentioned many times during this piece, for sure, I think war is not the solution to these terrorist strikes. It is a befitting answer, and a strong one, but will it solve the problem? I don't think so. And if not a war, I do not even know what the possible alternative is. Only the next few days will reveal how things develop, I hope for the better.

Something new that I learnt today

2008-12-03T03:55:00.000-08:00

A friend...no, sorry, an acquaintance of mine, has been very active on the web and online messenger services and social networking sites posting inflammatory messages and articles, suggesting that a war is the only answer to the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai(refer to my previous post on war whores, here, which also applies to him) and getting into an argument with anyone who does not agree with him. On discussing with others as to what should be the reason for such a behavior on his part, I learnt a new term 'Internt troll' which is applicable to him. Here is wikipedia on Internet trolls. Quite interesting!

What's with the indecorum, Mr Politician?

2008-12-02T01:45:00.000-08:00

I got a text message last night, which was the funniest amongst all the messages that are doing the rounds since the 26/11 attacks. It read "Ram Gopal Verma ki bas yahi kamaai; do sarkar banaayi aur ek giraayi". This might very well be the case, given that the CM has refused to see light even after repeated arguments by the common populace and the media that what he has done was improper. Mr Deshmukh justified his action by saying "Mr Verma is not a terrorist".

RGV (though he is not a minister) was equally blunt when he continuously went on justifying himself and the CM in an interview with Sreenivasan Jain from NDTV. Finally Vasu gave him one last chance to redeem himself, and asked him given the public reaction to the "terror tourism" that he indulged in, if such an opportunity arose again in the future, would he do it? RGV answered very much assertively that he would. There is a thin line between being candid and going overboard, that was when RGV crossed the line.

The ex-Deputy CM, RR Patil went one step ahead and said "Bade bade shahron mein aise ekaadh haadse hote rahte hai". With that comment he made the 26/11 attacks as another common place accident, nothing that the media and common man should get hyper about. The insensitivity was one of the many reasons, he lost his position, that's why the ex besides his designation. His followers tried to make light of it by saying Mr Patil was not well versed in Hindi, and hence he might have misworded what he actually meant. The explanation was too little, too late.

The crudest and the most unexplicable gaffe, now being called 'the lipstick gaffe' came from BJP member, Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. If I remember well his version when translated in English read as "Ladies wearing lipstick, applying talcum powder and following western culture, light a candle and protest against the politicians. They are similar to the terrorists in Kashmir, demonising politicians, and bad mouthing democracy". Obviously women's groups are in a furore all over the country. So apparently ladies wearing lipstick and applying talcum powder have no right to protest or voice their opinion, they can be equated with terrorists. What a liberating thought!

The biggest and unforgivable statement is the one coming from Kerala's CM, Mr Achutanandan. Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan who is a Malayalee was killed in the 26/11 attacks, when he was rescuing the people trapped in the Taj. After his body made it to Bengaluru, and after even the Karnataka CM made it to his house to offer condolences, there was a media frenzy in Kerala, prompting Mr Achutanandan to express his desire to pay his last respects to the Major's family. Apparently saddened by his son's loss, the Major's father made it clear to the CM that he did not wish to meet anyone. Even then the next day, the CM with his entourage reached the Major's house to pay his respects. Shaken because of his son's death and angered by the politics around something as trivial as paying respects to him, the Major's father drove out the entire group from out of his house and shouted out aloud "Get out of my house, you dogs!" After going back to Kerala, the Kerala CM tells in an interview "A soldier's father should be more sensible. If it was not the house of Major Sandeep (a martyr), not even a dog would have turned up there". It is ridiculous that a person at such a responsible position can utter such insensitive statements and even refuse to apologize.

The politicians and ministers have to understand that they are public servants and not drown in the highrises of their chairs. Emotions are running high all over the country nowadays, and the dirty politics which seem to follow every such event just seem to be beginning. The boiling point of people's emotions seems not too far off now, if the heat does not die soon, and the first ones to get scalded might be the politicians.

War and Vocab

2008-12-01T07:54:00.000-08:00

There are two new words that the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai taught me.

1) Terror tourism - When people visit sites torn by terrorist attacks not for apparent heritage tourism or nature tourism purposes, but to revel in the glory of disaster caused by mankind very intentionally and brutally. It was most frequenty referred to in the case of the chief minister of Maharashtra, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh who apparently took director Ram Gopal Verma with him to visit the Taj Mahal Hotel which was the most struck by the 26/11 attacks. Accompanying RGV was Mr. Deshmukh's son, Riteish Deshmukh (yes he has added an 'i' in his name, as suggested by his numerologist), an actor by profession, who has starred in couple of movies made by RGV. This action of terror tourism encouraged by Mr Deshmukh set the rumor tongues wagging that probably RGV is planning a movie on the recent terror attacks on Taj, being a "realistic" movie maker that he is (I don't buy that), and Vilasrao Deshmukh is promoting his own son to be cast as an actor in that movie, and hence the opportunity to see the Taj in its now shambles situation as a sop provided by Mr Deshmukh. The apparently insensitive "terror tourism" promoted by Mr Deshmukh might cause him his position, his head might be the one to roll next.

2) War Whores - All the people who are up-to-date and keep others updated with all news related to the war and terrorist attacks. These people post graphic details of heads, arms, legs, and other bloody body parts disengaged from the rest of the body on social networking sites. They are brazen proponents of the idea that the answer to the 26/11 terrorist attack is another war with Pakistan, just so that they get an opportunity to slut in the bloody aftermath. They are glued to TV all times during such attacks, and rather than providing helpful information, they spread news without waiting to ascertain whether they are certified facts or just rumors. It's not that this set of people have a criminal bent of mind, or anything of that sort, but in their excitement to show solidarity with the victims of the terrorists attacks, they go overboard and make themselves sound as if they are enjoying the war tidbits.

Whoring on the war news in the dailies has definitely increased my language skills.

The dark night

2008-11-28T01:08:00.000-08:00

The dark night

Nov 27 2008 - 1.50 pm

It's been 12 hours now since I last spoke with Shibu. It's been about 8 hours since he last communicated with his parents. It's been about 16 and half hours since he has been out there on the streets covering the brazen terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Just a day after returning back from our very very pleasant stay in Gangtok, we were thrown right deep into the vagaries of tough life in a city like Mumbai. A night when an iconic landmark and a beautiful edifice was turned into a battle zone. Lack of sleep, overflowing tears and constantly watching reruns of the same terror shots on TV all night made my eyes weary. That's when the phone rang and I got to hear from him that all's well and he is back in the office. Thank God for a feeling called relief.

Book Review: The Preservationist

2008-11-16T22:23:00.000-08:00

The Preservationist is an interesting first novel by David Maine. Unlike other first novels, this one is not purely or semi autobiographical, rather it is inspired by the age old Biblical story of Noah and his ark from the book of Genesis. Like your childhood school task of 'Create a story from the outline given', David Maine takes the few outlines of the story from the Bible and creates a full fledged first novel out of it. The characters which are just names in the Bible are now characters which breathe, eat, drink, fight, gossip, rut, go through the entire gamut of emotions that all of us as human beings go through.

Born in 1963, and having travelled and lived all over the world primarily the desertscapes of Arizona, Morocco and Pakistan, it is interesting to see Maine's knowledge of vast deserts and the animals and insects that inhabit the desert plains make their way into the book. Maine's writing style is so simple but elaborate that picturesque images of the entire episode get created in your mind instantly. The book is an elegant retelling of the ancient story which captures people's efforts and hopes at a time of global disaster.

The names and quotations in the book are taken from the 1914 printing of the Douay Bible, which was an English translation from the Latin version. All names are spelled as in that edition. So Noah becomes Noe, and the God he answers to becomes Yahweh. We are also introduced to a string of characters belonging to the family of Noe: his wife (who incidentally is unnamed throughout the book and the Bible as well, even the wife herself can't remember her name in the novel), his sons - Sem, Cham and Japheth and their wives Bera, Illya and Mirn respectively. These three women are never named in the Bible; Maine names them, gives them voices, and turns them into his most fascinating characters, much more tougher than any of the muscled men. We see the Forrest Gumpian effort that Noe had to entail to bring this family of distinct personalities together to build a huge ark as God had instructed without being able to explain to his family why exactly the ark was being built. The book is awaiting a Mel Gibson to pick up the rights to make it into a spectacular movie laden with special effects.

Maine writes the entire episode in a very simplistically funny vein, for e.g.: In the following passage where he explains Noe's situation in the ark when he was unconscious for about 6 weeks:
"His day is simplified to its most basic elements:
1. Breathe.
2. Sleep.
3. Wake, or half-wake, into a foggy semi-delirium in which he chokes out half-intelligible words: Nigh tangles! or possibly Night angles! or maybe even Nightingales! Or perhaps something else entirely - nice angels? - or nothing.
4. Sip a little water from the cup the wife holds to his chin. Sip a little broth.
5. Chew a piece of carrot or flatbread, swallow it or spit it to dribble down his chin."

The great thing about the novel is that it is not preachy at all. Not about the Christian faith, not even about humanity in general. Maine could easily have slipped into a prophetical mode, where he draws parallel between the evils that plagued the society then with the ones today, and probably mention a similar catastrophe in waiting. But he avoids doing so. Instead he treats the novel just as if he is narrating a story to his kids.

Each of the characters in the family are as individualistic as any of the members in a real life joint family. So while Noe is the crazy guy who hears voices from above, his wife is this submissive, reticent lady who only does as she is instructed and expected of her. Sam is the obedient son, obedient to the point where he has no thought of his own and only listens to his father. Cham is the knowledgeable son, who has travelled far and wide and learnt more about the world outside. He is the primary boat builder. Japheth is a useless, accident prone no-gooder who can't see beyond the basic necessities of life. Sam's wife Bera is a calm, persistent and a firm believer in Yahweh. Ilya is an outsider to the family, who looks different from all the others and constantly has to face the discrimination. But since she is from a different land way up in the north, she has better knowledge of the world outside. Mirn is just a young girl, but with lots of common sense and a deep sense of curiousity for the happenings around her. While the characters are distinguished from one another by quirks and obsessions, their voices are not a problem, as the chapters alternate points of view. Every character in the story other than Noe narrates some chapters from their point of view, and then there is a narrator for Noe's part. So the story alternates between different people's first person views of the story to a third person view from time to time.

While the Bible only mentions that there was a flood and Noah and his family were entrusted with building an ark and filling it up with a male and female animal of all the species known to mankind, it offers little detail on how they actually built the ark or collected those many animals. Which Maine interestingly builds up in this novel. Maine also provides intricate details of the suffering that the family had to undergo on the boat. Writing in a breezy present tense, Maine imagines how they spend their time: telling stories, feeding larvae to birds, getting bummed out, rutting. He writes of the ship's interior: "From the darkness around them rises a dull effulgence of elephant dung, of rhino shit and wet hippo gas."

As the story progresses and the flood subsides, we even see the characters maturing as they set out to different corners of the earth to procreate and populate the earth again. And Noe's desperation as he realizes that Yahweh is no longer communicating with him, he has become one of the commoners who is left to do things on his own without any instructions. Slowly his wife grows old and dies and later he also dies a lonely death. These are the facts of the story as mentioned in the Bible, and they remain mysterious both to the characters and to the reader. Maine hasn't attempted to explain these mysteries, rather he leaves the reader wondering whether at the end of it all the entire episode was worth the trouble at all.

Dostana

2008-11-16T22:16:00.000-08:00

The stars of the movie Dostana - Ass, Legs, and Pink Shirt in conversation with the producer of the movie, Mr Pink Money.

Pink Money (PM) : Let's start with you Ass. I hear you have a great role in the movie. Wanna talk about it?

Ass: You know I generally let my work do the talking. And I knew I would look great on John what with all of his months of exercising in preparing for this role. After Ranbir showed me off gleefully in all parts of the world other than India, John had been waiting for a while for someone to offer him a similar role. I am so glad that PM you walked along and offered him this role. Never has anyone taken me more seriously than him. John royally pampered me and prepared me for the opening shots of the movie. So you have a great opening sequence with John and me in the movie. Anyways I was always more emotive than his face. PM, it was only because of you that I got this favorable role. Although I could show very less of myself from under those briefs of his, I never looked better. Actually there are many shots of me even on Piggy Chops, but for Piggy Chops I am fashionably draped around. You always liked me more on John.

PM: That's so not true Ass, you ass! Even Piggy Chops shows off a good amount of you in the golden bikini scene in the movie. I like you on both John and Piggy.

Ass: I didn't stand a chance to be noticed in that golden bikini. I looked like such a bummer. And c'mon the bikini scene was more to show off Miss Legs.

Legs: Well, Piggy wanted to show off more of me than you anyways, Ass. Since Kareena's Tashan days, Piggy's been wanting to get one up on Kareena. And both in Fashion and Dostana she showed off lots of me. This has been the golden part of my careeer. Everyone wants to show off more of me. Ass, it will be a while more for the Indian audiences to mature and move on to you. Until then you will have to satisfy showing small peek-a-boos of yours. And trust me, the men in the audience want to see more of me than you, other than maybe PM's loyal pink fan following.

PM: Ah! my pink fans! I have so much to be thankful to them. They royally lap up anything made by my banner, thinking that it will add more razzmatazz to the pink power movement. It leads to more pink money for me, so I am not the one to complain. It's only because of my pink money that I can make all of you top stars work in my movies, even in the most ridiculous outfits. Don't you agree Pink Shirt?

Pink Shirt: What kind of a question is that? You are equating me with bad fasion sense? Didn't I look gorgeous on Abhishek in this movie? And with the pink scarf around his neck. All of it looked great. Indian men have always been comfortable with their pink shirts. I looked great even on Akshay in his last movie 'Singh is King'. He wore a floral version of me and a deep pink lungi. It was just perfect. Abhishek was a bit more resistant to wearing pink in this movie though. Actually those were just tantrums on his side to get hands on more of your pink money. He was getting no good roles and no money anyways. He had to accept this one, and I am so glad he did. He carried me off well, and I am sure I will see more Indian men turning the city and the country pink soon. Only Indian men wear their hearts on their sleeves and their shirts to match that color on their sleeves.

PM: That's great PS. Here's more to pink power. And you guys don't go anywhere, we are still in conversation with Ass, Legs and Pink Shirt, the stars of the movie Dostana.

AND NOW FOR A REVIEW OF THE MOVIE...

Yes, that's what the movie is all about. It's a showcase for John's ass, Priyanka's legs and Abhishek turning pink. It will be a hit for sure and audiences will lap it up, Karan is quite the manipulator. Even the gays in the audience will walk out of the movie thinking that this movie does showcase them positively. Obviously with two top heroes and beefcakes being paired together as a couple in the movie, no one can complain that gays are being given a raw deal in the movie. Look clearly guys, whenever they have to act gay, they go all flamboyant and loud and OTT and all they talk about is sex. And all the other gay characters in the movie are again just caricatures of everything the straight world expects when they hear the word gay. Even if all the flamboyant gay characters in the movie had been at least a bit peppered with a couple of regular, normal gay guys like the ones we see in real life, I wouldn't have complained. But clearly that is not what Karan Johar had in his mind. Ultimately the movie has to make money, and Karan also never claimed that the movie is about gay rights. So no complaints against him. I have a problem with the gay audience who are saying that the movie is the most gay-friendly movie to come out. Seriously?

The movie is indeed historical and will be talked about for ages to come. For the word gay has never been uttered in Hindi movies. And here you have an entire movie based on a gay sub plot. Just for pushing gay into Hindi mainstream cinema, I think, Karan Johar and the director of the movie, Tarun Mansukhani deserve some credit. They could have easily touched any other topic and made as much, if not more money.

If only, the makers had stuck with the gay theme and thought of a better plot to move the story forward in the second half it would have been more satisfying. So we have a very funny first half where John and Abhishek take up two rooms in Priyanka's apartment on rent. Priyanka needs the money and John and Abhishek are desperate to get the rooms. Since Priyanka would have only girls as her room mates, the two put up an act as a gay couple to get the room. This part of the plot and the jokes are heavily borrowed from the English movie 'I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry'. I must admit though that this movie is only a tad better than that one. At least here we have a great cast, and great songs.

As they discover the benefits of putting up this act, there are more and more people around who come to know that they are gay. So you have an overacting, but very funny Kirron Kher who discovers that her son is gay; you have a hideous Sushmita Mukherjee hamming all her way to Sindhi stardom; a gora gay immigration officer; and a flamboyant Boman Irani (great, again) who plays Priyanka's gay boss and hits on her supposedly gay roommates. So far, so good. It's when the jokes dry down in this part of the movie, that probably the makers realized that there is only so much of stretching that they can do with the Kantaben subplot from Kal Ho Na Ho. And that's where the story begins to falter. Enter Bobby Deol who is also a competition for Priyanka's attention and his kid (who is that overacting kid?) who is clamoring for his father's attention, and you have such gaping holes in the plot line that even John's ass can pass through them.

The movie is funny, yes, but largely because it is irreverent to the accepted social norms of Hindi movie making. But I beg to differ if anyone says it is a sensible, or a well made or even a genuinely funny movie. It is everything that I expect from Bollywood when I go for the movies - great looking actors, glamorous costumes, great music, great dances, and lavish sets. If all this comes with a tight script and good performances, then nothing like it. This movie gives me all of my first set of requirements, can't say much of the second set. So I end up not being disappointed in the great tradition of Bollywood movies, but that's just about it.

The movie is about friendship as the title suggests, and I must mention that all three - John, AB junior and Priyanka - look like they genuinely share a great friendship. The chemistry between the three of them shows on the screen, and especially John and Abhishek do look great together. Bobby Deol does not fit in the proceedings, no matter how much he tries, and with that irritating no-gooder son of his, he better stay away from the main story. The fast-paced songs are great and well choreographed. Especially the grand finale song - Maa Ka Laadla. The song is hugely funny especially because it cares a rat's ass about any societal norms and is hugely politically incorrect, I guess Karan Johar is coming out to his mom through the song. I hope she sess it at least now...

Truth

2008-09-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks, every Tuesday has been a rush-rush affair for me. I try to wind up my work before 7 pm, have dinner by 8 pm and I am back home on the couch in front of the TV to catch the latest episode of 'The Moment of Truth' by 9 pm. There has been no other show that has captured my imagination so much, as far as memory serves me. Probably after Project Runway, this is the only show that I have made time for diligently week after week.

Deep within my heart, I am actually ashamed that I am so fond of this show. It's because I am aware that it's voyeuristic, exploitative, and makes a great viewing experience of someone else's misery. But I have to admit, it's hugely entertaining. So much that in the last episode that was aired in India, I had my heart racing and I was actually jumping on my seat answering on behalf of the participant. It's actually very unfortunate and extremely sad that the contestant had to lose both her husband and her money at the end of the show. Yes, the questions broke the contestant's marriage and she also ended up getting no money because of one mistake.

The basic premise of the show is that you have to answer truthfully, all the questions posed to you. The questions range from the mundane to the silly to the personal types. There are 21 questions posed, at the end of which you go back home with half a million dollars. The only catch being that you have to answer only the truth. If God forbid, the lie detector marks any of your answers as false, you end up going home with nothing. If you are wondering to yourself how could this be so difficult, let me assure you it is probably much more difficult than enduring all those physical tribulations on the Survivor series. The questions get far way too personal, much beyond the comfort levels of even the host of the show. And the farthest any contestant has reached so far in the show is Question no 16. I can't imagine how personal and tricky the last few questions on the show would be if anyone were to ever face it.

For e.g.: Suppose someone asked me, would you donate one of your kidneys to your sister in case both her kidneys failed and yours is a match? Sure, Of course, Without any doubt, I would say if someone were to randomly ask me this question on the street. But what if deep within my heart somewhere I am not so sure whether that is a good idea. Subconsciously, my answer would be hmmmm....I don't know. If I am now strapped to a lie detector and asked the same question on the show, and if I were to answer Yes sure, Of course, then I would be out of the show with no money gained from my previous truthful answers.

Another question to which you might just not know the answer is of the types "Do you think you are a good person?". Again our immediate tendency might be to answer Yes. None of us are that great sinners who have done such horrible things, that we would call ourselves bad people. But even for a fraction of a second when you are asked this question, if your mind trespasses to any of your previous wrong doings, like the time you stole some money from your dad's pocket, or the time when you quite purposefully did something wrong against one of your colleagues at work, so that you get to outshine him at work, then this would be captured by the lie detector. And then if you answer affirmatively to the question, the lie detector would disagree with you.

That was the question at which the last contestant lost all her money. And that after she had answered truthfully to the other 15 hugely personal and difficult questions. Questions which broke her marriage, questioned her fidelity, and labelled her as a thief. It's extremely unfortunate that she lost her money to a question that looks so simple and straightforward on the outside, but we all know how difficult it could be to answer.

And as entertaining as it might be, it still troubles me that it's extremely exploitative. It's sad that I am enjoying the spectacle of someone else's misery. Maybe if I am asked the same question "Do you think you are a good person?", my mind might trespass to this grey area and my lie detector would beep.

My travel-o-rama

2008-08-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

You know it's been long since you blogged when you want to get to your blog site to begin to type in your new post, but you just can't seem to remember the URL of your blog site...

It's been that long, yes, but for a reason. Actually it's because I've been busy. Busy travelling across the world, catching up with friends and family in different parts of the world, settling in and acclimatizing in new locations, and trying to catch up with work and career, which I had been neglecting for a while now.

So I decided to maintain a blog post abt all the travelling that I have been doing in 2008, starting with my small 3 week vacation to India starting May 23 2008

May 23 2008 - Leave New York for Mumbai
May 24 2008 - Reach Mumbai
May 26 2008 - Leave Mumbai in train for Kerala with parents
May 27 2008 - Reach my hometown, Thumpamon, Kerala with parents
May 29 2008 - Leave Kerala in train for Chennai with parents to visit my sister and her family
June 2 2008 - Fly from Chennai with parents back to Mumbai
June 8 2008 - Fly from Mumbai for Bangalore for a small vacation with Shibu
June 11 2008 - Fly from Bangalore back to Mumbai
June 15 2008 - Fly from Mumbai back to New York
June 16 2008 - Reach New York and resume work the same day
July 3 2008 - Take a bus down to Boston along with Ari, and from Boston meet up with Mayur and drive down in his car along with Keiko, Ari and Mayur to Montreal for a small vacation
July 6 2008 - Drive down back from Montreal to Boston, and again take the bus back from Boston to NYC
July 11 2008 - Fly from NYC back to Mumbai for a 3 month long work based assignment in Bangalore
July 12 2008 - Reach Mumbai and wait at the airport for 5 hrs for a transit flight to Bangalore
July 13 2008 - Reach Bangalore and report to work next day on July 14 2008
July 25 2008 - Leave Bangalore in a rickety bus to Goa for a 2 day Goa experience
July 26 2008 - Reach Goa and meet up with Shibu in Goa
July 27 2008 - Leave Goa in a bus back to Bangalore
July 28 2008 - Reach back to Bangalore
August 1 2008 - Leave Bangalore for Chennai in train to meet sister and her family
August 2 2008 - Reach Chennai
August 3 2008 - Leave Chennai in train back to Bangalore
August 4 2008 - Reach Bangalore
August 8 2008 - Leave Bangalore for Chennai in train again to meet sister and her family
August 8 2008 - Reach Chennai
August 10 2008 - Drive down from Chennai to Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram in car along with sis, bro-in-law, the 2 kids and Mom
August 11 2008 - Leave Chennai for Bangalore in train and report to work the same day
August 14 2008 - Catch a late night flight to Mumbai
August 15 2008 - Reach Mumbai
August 18 2008 - Catch an early morning flight back to Bangalore and report to work the same day
August 22 2008 - Leave Bangalore for Kerala in train to attend cousin sis's wedding on August 24
August 23 2008 - Reach Thumpamon Kerala
August 24 2008 - After the wedding leave the same evening in a rickety bus, back to Bangalore
August 25 2008 - Reach Bangalore and report to work the same day

I will be updating my travel-o-rama as and when I do more of travelling in the days to come. Phew! This looks pretty exhausting in itself...

Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

2008-05-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Narnia royalty is back with a big bang and how! Admitted - I was not one of the billions of fans that "the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" gathered, but count me in this mutli billion fold with this new outing. Yes, I can't stop raving about this film. This time around the Narnia quartet and Aslan, the lion with the brooding voice (Liam Neeson) are joined with Prince Caspian, a fascinating new addition to the series.

The story starts where the previous installment ends. The Narnian quartet are getting used to their drab lives in the real world, while back in their fantasy world Narnia has been conquered by the Telmarines and is now under the control of the evil King Miraz, who rules the land without mercy. One year after the events of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the four kids are recalled back to Narnia, only to discover that more than 1300 years have passed in Narnian time. Things have changed, Narnians are not as loving, forgiving and trusting as earlier under the regime of King Miraz. The four children soon meet an intriguing new character: Narnia's rightful heir to the throne, the young Prince Caspian, who has been forced into hiding as his uncle Miraz plots to kill him in order to place his own newborn son on the throne. And therein begins the machinations of this movie, which seems more or less like a war- movie. The story also includes other new fascinating characters, like Reepicheep - the courageous, chivalrous and courteous (but not cute in his own words) talking mouse, a kindly dwarf, a honey badger called Trufflehunter and many others.

With this second installment the series has taken a much darker, grittier, action-packed and adult tone that really ups the ante and blows the first film out of the water. It is obvious from the first frame that this is going to be a different adventure than the previous one, and what makes it better is how this film expands the mythology and widens the scope of the world of Narnia. Now, being written by C.S. Lewis, expectedly the religious themes of Cain and Abel, Moses and others are present in this story. Andrew Adamson needs to be commended for his direction with this film because he has definitely grown from the first. He easily handles the darker change of tone, the more complicated action and effects, and guides all the new characters very nicely. No one seems out of place. Speaking of characters, the four actors from the first film have all grown up since we've last seen them and it bodes good for the story, in the sense that you could spice up the story with some romantic tension between Prince Caspian and the Queen, which of course does happen. Ben Barnes, the new addition playing Prince Caspian, fits in very well and certainly carries charisma. Now, not only is the cinematography gorgeous and the effects improved, but also, as I mentioned before, the action in this film is intense, notably the sword fighting duel at the very climax of the movie. It is to Adamson's credit that I must say that this climatic sword fighting duel is probably one of the very best ever captured on screen. Even the epic final battle is very well shot and it reminds you of Peter Jackson's brilliant battle scenes from LOTR. It is all spectacular! By the end of the movie, I even began to care for the characters, long for Aslan (I must mention here, when he finally appeared on the screen, the kiddies all around me began clapping and hooting loudly, such is his screen presence) I will go as far as to say that this is one of most best fantasy films ever made. It easily comes on my list of favorite fantasy movies, up there with LOTR. An instant classic!

Finding Neverland

2008-04-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

You were told that the train to Neverland - that land of contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction and happiness - started from Platform 9 3/4. You spent ages just looking for Platform 9 3/4. You went to that Platform 9 and the other Platform after it, the one with no number, which you figured would be Platform 10. But there was no Platform 10. At least there was no board assigning it the title 'Platform 10'. You stood around for quite a while, you walked the length and the breadth of the platform looking for some board, some paint on the wall, some graffiti, just some symbol which said that you were standing on Platform 10. You asked people around whether it was Platform 10, no one responded. They just shrugged their shoulders in a non-chalant way. Some looked at you and shuddered 'coz you had asked for the unthinkable - how can anyone in their right frame of mind be looking for Platform 10? You then asked people whether they knew where the station master sits, so that you can then enquire whether you are on Platform 10...but no one knew. Finally when you had spent hours and days looking for Platform 10, you saw a man in uniform. You assumed that should be the station master. You rushed to him to ask, Am I standing on Platform 10? He said, Use your brains fella. If the previous one is Platform 9, and the one before that is 8, then of course this is 10. That's when you realized, Of course, how foolish. All the last few days, you stood where you thought you wanted to be. But you could attain nothing, 'coz you were unsure of yourself. You went and asked all the wrong people whether what you thought was right, but of course, they refused to help. Everybody had their own problems and they could not bother less about a new fella with his own new set of questions.

You were happy that you were on Platform 10. Oh that's when you realized that the search did not end here. Where you actually wanted to be was Platform 9 3/4, and catch a train from there which took you to Neverland.

You stood from Platform 10, and gazed over to that Platform 9. From where you stood, you could clearly see a sign painted in red and blue and white which read platform 9. There was no other platform in between the two platforms, 9 and 10. Where is Platform 9 3/4, you wondered? That's when the idea struck you. Probably you can just run through the walls of Platform 9, just like Harry Potter and his friends did in J K Rowling's fantasy world. You took your luggage cart and rushed to the walls. As you were rushing to the walls, you had this entire fantasy illusion of how the walls would part and just let you in. Or maybe the walls would suddenly turn transparent and you could just walk into it. As your speed increased, you had this fabulous view of how you would get into Platform 9 3/4 successfully and how you would rave about it to all your friends and family. As your luggage cart almost touched the walls, you were shocked to see that the walls were not parting. It still seemed as solid as ever. Your cart bumped into the walls with a loud thud, your luggage fell over. People around began to laugh at you, on your seeming foolishness. You got up embarassed, shook the dust off your pants, collected your bags, arranged them again on the cart and began to walk back. You remembered in the book that Harry had to do it multiple times. You tried again. Sigh! With the same result.

As you tried again and again, and made yourself the butt of the others' jokes, you realized that this is not the same as JK Rowling's fantasy world. This was your own world and you had to make your own rules. So you jumped from that Platform 9, and walked 3/4th of the distance between Platform 9 and 10. You awaited the train. People around began shouting at you, began calling you names, began asking you to get back up on the platform. This way you would kill yourself, they were saying. Some sounded genuinely concerned. But you could not bother less, you had made up your mind. You had to catch the train from Platform 9 3/4 and this made complete sense.

You could hear the train coming. The screaming of the people around reached boombastic decibels. They were all calling for you to get out of the train's way. First the wind blew - that smoky, petrol-smelling wind that presages the arrival of the train - and then the twin lights pierced the darkness, and then there it was, gray and white, the train. As the lights neared, your eyes began to feel blinded, you clenched your eyes shut tight, for what seemed like almost a minute. The train began honking, the driver began screaming, but you still did not move. With luggage cart in tow, you stood there stoic, ready to face the consequences of your own actions. And then you could feel the thud. In what seemed like an eternity, you could feel the train snaking through your spine. The pain was too much to bear, and you opened your eyes to a new world.

As you opened your eyes, you noticed that you were no longer on the train tracks. You were within the train, and there was a pretty hostess treating you to goodies. There was lots of food. It was the land of plenty. Milk and honey was flowing freely everywhere. You asked the hostess whether this was the train to Neverland. She nodded with that smug smile of someone who knew it all, and was often faced with the same question. You ate some, drank some, slept some, seemed to enjoy the ride.

But as you rode more and more in the train, you began to feel lonely. You wanted to make some friends. You had left your family and friends in the land of that Platform 9, 10 and 9 3/4. You took up the friendship of the first guy who came and introduced himself to you. He promised you wealth, goodness, friendship, loyalty and in short, the works, for ages to come. You were new in the train, you knew nobody. You took up his offer of friendship. Those were some happy days. You ate together, drank together, went to all fun places in the train together, flirted with the hostesses together. You thought that this was to last for all times. But then sadly his destination was not Neverland, and he got down before the destination.

You were heartbroken, you cried for days with no end. You took up on chocolate and booze. Sadly those two never satisfied your loneliness pangs. There were still some more acquaintances who offered you their friendship, but this time you made it sure to ask them their destination before they started on the journey with you. You noticed that most of them were getting down before Neverland and hence you chose not to get too close with them.

Along the journey you met some people who were planning to get down at Neverland as well. They were also looking for contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction and happiness. Neverland was that promised land. You struck a bond with these guys. You became friends. You did all fun things together. Other people in the train were getting jealous of your friendship. It was excellent company throughout the journey towards Neverland. All that you could wait for, was Neverland now.

But Neverland never came. You had been on the train for months together now, but there was no trace of Neverland. Your friends began getting dissatisfied. Some of them began bonding with other people on the train who were getting off at stops that were approaching in the next few days. They found that their promised land of contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction and happiness was with this new companion of theirs. They got down with their new found accomplices at stops before Neverland. And really it was not their fault. Neverland was not be seen at all. And whenever you asked the hostesses where Neverland was, they had no answer. You had the patience to wait until Neverland approached. Not everyone else had the same level of Patience.

That was when you realized that your land of contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction and happiness was probably where you caught the train from.

You were distressed when that realization struck you. You had made months of journey on this train now. And it would take you as much time to get back. You began to panic as this realization struck you. And as you were already panicking through this one thought, another thought struck you. You had not seen a train going back in the reverse direction in all your months of journey towards Neverland. So how do you get back from Neverland? Do you stay put in the train until Neverland comes, no matter how long it takes? Or do you get down and begin looking for alternate approaches to get back to where you think Neverland actually is?

India to get younger politicians

2008-04-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

I stumbled on this great news today. Apparently Basu and Surjeet have expressed their desires to be relieved. I am sure the nation breathes a sigh of collective relief as well. It's high time that the Communist party gets infused with some fresh thoughts and fresh blood. The age old moralistic, retrograde Communist thoughts will not work for a brand new India.

Maybe, it's just hoping for too much to expect fresh blood to stream into the Indian political arena.

'Coz the youth wing of the party is still led by the relatively younger 70+ year old Bardhan. And it is the 75+ year old Somnath Chatterjee who will take over the mantle from Basu and Surjeet. It's time for maybe another 20-30 year old reign by Chatterjee over the party. Sigh!

I had heard this somewhere once:

Secret of a long life: Become a politician.
Secret of a longer life: Become a politician with the Communist Party.

So true!

What's my word?

2008-04-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love":

If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be - that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there.
"What's Rome's word?" I asked.
"SEX", he announced.
"But isn't that a stereotype about Rome?"
"No."
"But surely there are some people in Rome thinking about other things than sex?"
Giulio insisted: "No. All of them, all day, all they are thinking about is SEX."
"Even over at the Vatican?"
"That's different. The Vatican isn't part of Rome. They have a different word over there. Their word is POWER."
"You'd think it would be FAITH."
"It's POWER," he repeated. "Trust me. But the word in ROME - it's SEX."

Now if you are to believe Giulio, that little word - SEX - cobbles the streets beneath your feet in Rome, runs through the fountains here, fills the air like traffic noise. Thinking about it, dressing for it, seeking it, considering it, refusing it, making a sport and game out of it - that's all anybody is doing. Which would make a bit of sense as to why, for all its gorgeousness, Rome doesn't quite feel like my hometown. Not at this moment in my life. Because SEX isn't my word right now. It has been at other times of my life, but it isn't right now. Therefore, Rome's word, as it spins through the streets, just bumps against me and tumbles off, leaving no impact. I'm not participating in the word, so I'm not fully living here. It's a kooky theory, impossible to prove, but I sort of like it.

Giulio asked, "What's the word in New York City?"
I thought about this for a moment, then decided. "It's a verb, of course, I think it's ACHIEVE."
(Which is subtly but significantly different from the word in Los Angeles, I believe, which is also a verb: SUCCEED. Later, I will share this theory with my Swedish friend Sofie, and she will offer her opinion that the word on the streets of Stockholm is CONFORM, which depresses both of us.)"

___________________________________________________________

So what's my word?

Now that, I definitely cannot answer.

It's not SEX for sure. I can't even seem to remember the last time. SEX must have been my word some years back. It's not MARRIAGE, that's evident too. FAMILY? Nah. I am staying alone in NYC and happy about it. Am I entirely inhabiting New York City's word - ACHIEVE? I guess to some extent..maybe, I am not sure. Is my word PATIENCE? I am patiently awaiting the next few months, for decisions to be made, for new commitments to be made, for things to change, for new things to happen, for old bad occurences to pass. Yes, PATIENCE, maybe that's my word. It does not overall fit into NYC's word, and maybe that's why I am not that happy here. But yes, PATIENCE, it is....

Time

2008-04-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

So Google came up with a new feature today, that allows you to go back in time. http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

By the way, I am yet to believe this. I think this is an April Fool’s day hoax. But it just gives rise to a larger discussion about the sacredness of that one human invention that cannot go wrong – Time.

This is as close to a time-machine that you will ever get, a mass produced time-machine. You can send emails today to somebody wishing them for their birthday last month, and when the dear one accuses you of forgetting to wish them on their birthday, you can always claim innocent. In fact you can use the feature to blame the accuser of neglecting your emails and get a higher hand in the argument.
Already we have the facility of sending emails in the future. We can save an email in the drafts folder, and program to send it sometime in the later future.

With both these capabilities in place, today we can successfully claim to having achieved at least a semblance of Time Travel – the ability to travel back and forth in time similar to travelling back and forth between different points in space.

Here is more information on Time Travel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel

This is definitely an interesting feature as an experiment. But I do not support having this feature out in the public for everyone to misuse. In today’s virtual world, emails are considered sacred. It’s almost equivalent to written and signed off documents. Once you hit the send button, you are bound by your written word. Imagine a scenario like this: You are awaiting a response to an important query from one of the sponsors or vendors or the millions of other teams that you have to interface with in today’s collaborative world. The person who has to respond back is out playing golf or surfing or watching a movie or just in general being irresponsible. You reach a bottleneck and cannot proceed without the other team member’s input. Lots of money, time, energy and peace of mind is wasted in the meantime. Finally the person responds, but backdates his email response, so that it seems that he responded back in time. Now the gun is on your forehead, for having neglected the response.

This looks like one of those many features, which has an ample scope to be misused.

Even Gmail is limiting this feature to only 10 emails/year to any user. Their findings:
[(N x P) - /φ]/L = 10
N = Total emails sent
P = Probability that user believes the time stamp
φ = The Golden Ratio
L = Average life expectancy

I don’t know how the Gmail researchers came up with this formula, but my head tells me not at all. Not 10, not 1, not any. It’s a feature, which, if it falls into the wrong hands, can cause mass havoc. I like the comment left my one Mr. Michael L. on Gmail’s site: "This feature allows people to manipulate and mislead people with falsified time data. Time is a sacred truth that should never be tampered with."

On a more philosophical note, we are all aware of the direct, straightforward concept: time is motion. Time has a direction, and it is in that direction that it moves. This means that we live life according to a passing present moment. I am sure, ancient scholars, came up with the concept of time, and hours and days and months and years for some purpose. And by providing this feature of moving back and forth in time according to one’s free will, we are questioning the age old truth of the uniformity of time. That, there are 24 hours to each and every human being, regardless of your age, sex, nationality, race, educational background, etc. With this feature though, gmail users will have the additional facility of going back in time upto April 2004, at least 10 times a year. This means that gmail users have just added another (4*10) 40 years to their lives. So now think about this – Does time remain a uniform entity any more?

We need time. We need time to work, to eat, to sleep, and to accomplish all the daily chores of living. We also need time to know and understand our mates, our children, and our friends. Most of our relationships, daily tasks and other commitments, in fact, require more time than we have, and it is difficult to avoid the feeling that we could never have enough. Nor is our list of demands on our time complete. We have ignored the time we need to be alone, a necessary but invariably short- changed period.

With the increasing demand for more time, and the reducing supply of it, can the non-uniformity of time be counted as ethical anymore? Time was the last unfailing bastion of uniformity. Already monetary and physical sources of energy are no longer uniform. With time too falling prey to this, the future looks too bleak, from where we are standing today and looking at the past.

It's all bull @#$!

2008-04-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

I wake up feeling perplexed. I grab the cell phone lying by the bed and look at the time - 2.27 am. I was dreaming about....shit???!!!

I have a bucket full of shit with me. I am running around my apartment block trying to hide it from others. People are walking up and down the stairs and some are going up and down using the elevators, and here I am dodging from one corner to another carrying this bucket with me. I am hiding it from all prying eyes, who are wondering what is it that I am hiding. And on top of that everybody's wondering what the stink is!

Anyone who knows how to interpret dreams? What does this one mean?

Silly bliss, busy love, silly busy

2008-03-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

I dunno why - but these 3 phrases have been churning through my head all day today. The day started with me singing in the shower and thinking to myself when was the last time I just casually spent time massaging shampoo through my hair strands, my palm going over and over the same few strands of hair, again and again, enjoying the warmth of the water drops on my cold and fat body? I stood deep in thought under the shower for a while more. The time passed, I thought more about my last week at work, how silly busy I was. Yes, silly busy, not busy busy.

I thought of myself about 4 years back, when I was starting out on the fresh throes of undiscovered love. The feeling then was like probably when Columbus (was it Columbus? I might be wrong, well you will get the picture as you read along) discovered America. A sinking feeling that I know there is land somewhere, I just wish I land on it. And then bang, suddenly after days of sea wrecked fatiguing travel, a piece of land appears from nowhere. That feeling of exhilaration as he and the rest of his troupes might have felt as the ship approached land, with the mist settling on the green and brown chunk. And as you first step on the land, that feeling of discovering something new, something which only he has access to. Something, exploring which will take up the rest few weeks, or months of his life. Busy Love, yes that's the word. Love and catching up with that feeling that everyone talks about, keeps you busy for the next few months of your life.

And then again I thought how I was behaving at the end of Friday last week. I was happy for no apparent reason. Everything might not be going oh-so-right in your life at some time, but you might still feel those pangs of happiness. It feels good, but it is choking when you are at work. You cannot concentrate on work. You feel like picking up the phone and talking with anybody who is ready to listen. You feel like going shopping, eating out, singing, watching a movie, anything and everything that makes you happy. You are lucky if that feeling lasts for more than a few hours. But actually when it does, at the end of it, you begin wondering what was that about? I think it is called 'silly bliss'.

These phrases, they are still churning in my head. Wonder what it is about? Today is over, I wonder how I will feel tomorrow, I don't see any chance for busy love, anyways. Silly bliss? Maybe. Silly busy? Most probably.

Whine up!

2008-03-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

Warning: Today's one of those days when I get whiney. It happens often. At such times I suffocate my instincts to write, talk and socialize. But I just can't today. You are forewarned.

********************************

I constantly get into arguments with friends and acquaintances who say they have had a difficult life, and they went through lots of struggles. People who (I sincerely believe) had lives just very easy and when they get a small setback, they think they have had to go through a very rough patch. Well to each his own! But sometimes it just really pisses me off. I can't help it, I think mean at times.

At times I really think such people are kidding themselves - they get too airy-fairy, or stupid, on account of their easy and protected lives or their education. They lose touch with reality. Educated people, literary people, some rich people they lose touch with reality. Due to an unmerited good fortune or due to an innate silliness.

Silly people, full of boring knowledge and protected by some fluke from the truth about life. People who don't have to worry about holding on to their house and can go around thinking their complicated thoughts. Free to dream up the fine, generous schemes that they believe would make other people happy.

Such jerks!

I feel amused by their upbringing, able to think their harsh notions quaint.

They would probably not be good in a crisis. Not good at basic survival tactics, not able to live even a single day of "28 days later", not able to scrounge for food and not able to tend to a dying friend on the street.

And inspite of all my practicality, I look at myself where I have ended. Or not ended. Probably, the better way to phrase it might be - where I am right now. With my practicality I often believed that I would be better off than where I am right now. This often happens to the practical people. Inspite of their calculations, survival instincts, they might not get as far as they had quite reasonably expected. No doubt life seems unfair. No doubt I whine.

roti, kapda aur MAKAN

2008-03-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

Weird are the experiences that people have apartment hunting in NYC (or for that matter any big city in the world, I would say). I am sure that this is one topic which most of the commonplace populace would relate to. In 'Roti, Kapda aur Makan', it is the Makan which is the most difficult of all three to possess. It's much much more expensive, and its supply scarce, and getting a dream place to stay is well, a dream for most of us. I should be thankful to God that I have a good place to stay. That it comes with one major issue (it's far from the subway station - about a 15 minutes walk) is something that I choose to overlook nowadays, given some of my other friends' roommates / landlord / househunting situations.

A friend of mine from Mumbai had been living with me for the past 2 months. I offered that he could live with me as long as he did not find a place to stay. His previous roommate experience in Astoria, Queens was no less than a traumatic one and hence I exhorted him to rather take his time and find a good place with a good roommate and if luck is favoring him, a good landlord / landlady.

He finally found a place to stay after about 60 days of hectic searching, and he is due to move out today. It's a 300 (or 280) sq ft. studio in Soho which he has to share with another 40 (or older) yr old lady. The location is good, the facilities are good, the roommate seems decent and there is no landlord to deal with, the rent is cheap - 800 bucks, but of course there is a major catch. It's so small for Chrissakes! How can two people live happily in such a small place without constantly invading each other's space? It seems a big compromise for me, but my roomie, or rather my ex-roomie thinks that this was the best deal he could find in more than 2 months of searching and hence he is sticking with it. I have my skeptical thoughts, but I am happy for him if so less makes him so happy.

He thinks that this is the best deal, because here are some of his previous experiences when he went out apartment hunting: Another tiny apartment in Manhattan which had 6 dogs in it along with the landlord and still the landlord thought that there was room for another prospective tenant. A decent sized apartment in Manhattan, with decent rent too, which came with a catch - the landlord wanted the prospective tenant to be 'comfortable' with nudity. Hell no! I am not comfortable with my own nudity, let me speak less about somebody else's nudity. When I asked my ex-roomie, was he at least good looking, in the sense would the landlord's nudity be at least a pleasant one, he answered that that landlord was fat and old and bald and had this huge paunch. Good for him if he is comfortable with his nude body. I am not, and neither was my ex-roomie. Then there was this another huge 4 bed room apartment he found again in the city, and the rent was steep. Although the rent was steep, since it was a good location and the place was good, he was ok with it. But then it was another humongous task having to find three other roommates to share the place. Not all prospective roommates were fun. Those who were normal (and thus, fun) could not afford the steep rent. Some did not want to move in immediately, because their lease at their previous places would have ended in another 1-2 months and hence they were just looking. There were an awful huge number of variables, and finally none of the prospective roomies even moved up to being probable roomies. I forget the other apartment hunting disasters, but nevertheless they all had something wrong with them. Finally my friend here thinks that getting a 280 sq ft apartment in Manhattan to share is a 'good' deal. Well, good luck to him!

Living with a woman is not so easy. Men, when with other men can be easy going, laid back and can even change in front of other men. They can talk about sports, beer, senseless movies and they could bother less about cooking and cleaning. That is in general when it comes to men. I don't know how my ex-roomie will cope living with a woman. And not only any woman, a considerably older woman. I wished to narrate to him this anecdote from Phillip Lopate's collection of personal essays "Against Joie De Vivre":
"Another time I sublet in Tribeca from a stylishly pretty woman: her silk kimonos, her peignoirs, her sachets cohabited with my undershorts and T-shirts in the limited dresser space. Not only did I have the pleasure of sleeping in this glamorous woman's bed, albeit without her, I also experienced myself for fractions of a second as a glamorous woman. The low angle of her showerhead, the scent of her oval bath soap, the pegboard arrangement of her pots and pans, all subtly feminized me: by going through her daily motions I was camping in her psyche, my muscles mimicking her reach, my eye level learning to emulate hers."

I can only imagine my subtly feminized ex-roomie after his stint at his new place.

This reminds me of another friend of mine, who having lived as a roomie for God knows how long, decided to finally stay on his own. He had had a raise at his job and he decided to say good-bye to any roomie situations. He is a grown up man now and can live on his own. He decided that he deserves his own space, in midtown or maybe the East Village. A broker showed him a cramped, overpriced studio off Second Avenue. He balked—after all, he’s a grown fella; doesn’t he deserve a little space? He dismissed the broker and started obsessively scanning the rental listings on Craigslist (ah! What would we all do without Craigslist), determined to find an affordable one-bedroom with no fee.

After responding to hundreds of listings and visiting more than twenty apartments — all of which were either dilapidated, vermin-infested, meth-lab-adjacent, or some combination of the three — the search began to wear on him, and he started questioning why he was so fixated on getting a one-bedroom. After all, he’s a single man, and doesn’t he spend all his time at work anyway? Besides, with some creative light-palate decorating and a new flat-screen TV, a studio could look quite spacious. After a few days, this logic sinks in and he not only signs a two-year lease for the Second Avenue place but also recommended the broker to several other freinds of his. Two months later, he broke his leg tragically when he rolled out of his bed and directly into the trash compactor. He is still walking on crutches.

Phillip Lopate in "Against Joie De Vivre" had a few particularly fascinating essays on life in a rented space in the Big Apple. So in his chapter "Never live above your landlord" he narrates this particularly funny tale:
"One day this note was slipped under my door:

Please do not use the wash basin to empty the dirt and the cat litter in. Use a pail and throw it in your toilet. This past week, the Basin was Packed full of junk. And we used $9.95 worth of Drain Power. Then I had to get the Plumber to dislodge the dirt. Let the water run to clear the drain in that sink. Please throw the stuff in the toilet and flush. Next thing the pipes will get leaking.

- Mrs. Rourke

My answer:

Dear Mrs. Rourke,
What makes you think I am emptying cat litter and dirt in the wash basin!! This is an absurd contention. Please make sure you know whereof you speak before you start making baseless and frankly, fantastic accusations.

Sincerely,
Phillip Lopate

I held my breath for the next few days, thinking that perhaps I had gone too far this time. Yet when I ran into my landlady in the hallway, she was almost respectful. Not that our epistolary relationship ended there. I keep all the notes she slips under my door, among which is this quaintly worded favorite:

Please stop that
Jungle Drum Music
_________________
Or whatever it is.
_________________
I'm going out of my mind.
Bang Bang Bang

- Mrs. Rourke

Since I don't often listen to music, I was a bit insulted at the time, but I turned off the jazz station I had on."

It's my ex-roomie's last day with me today. As he is packing his stuff and leaving, I am feeling a bit elated - I have the Whole space to myself, a bit upset - who will I try and find faults about now, a bit excited - I can get more people home now, a bit generous - I helped him out when he needed some help and a bit lonely - who will I come home to? As I said previously, Good luck to him! He will need all of it.

Book Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2008-03-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

As you begin reading Jean-Dominique Bauby's 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', you realize that probably you are holding a minor piece of miracle in your hands. The observative notes penned down with Bauby's eyes are so lyrical and melodious that you take flight similar to the author's imagination like a butterfly. Bear in mind that the author was suffering from Locked-In Syndrome when the book was written, which is normally believed to prevent its victims from communicating at all. Not only is the book a living example of the author's determination to win against all odds, but also it is so beautifully written that you begin to appreciate the book not out of sympathy to the author's condition but out of sheer enjoyment from the written word.

Bauby's condition called the "locked-in syndrome" paralyzed his entire body in such a debilitating manner that the only part of his body that could move was his left eye lid. That he managed to devise a communication pattern with that eye lid in an easy to understand manner is laudable in itself. That he managed to compose all his thoughts and successfully communicate them to an interpreter and get a book published out of it, is another remarkable feat. And that rather than wallowing in self-pity, the book manages to transport the reader to another land of mystic lyricism is a complete miracle. This is a remarkable achievement for a man who was obliged to compose and refine every sentence in his head, remember it, and then dictate it letter-by-letter with coded blinks of his left eyelid - the only part of his body which he could still control. As the author says "My main task now is to compose the first of these bedridden travel notes so that I shall be ready when my publisher's emissary arrives to take my dictation, letter by letter. In my head I churn over every sentence ten times, delete a word, add an adjective, and learn my text by heart, paragraph by paragraph."

The 'Butterfly' part of the title is referring to the author's active imagination. Which, I don't need to mention again, is the master scripter of this book. The 'Diving bell' part of the title is the author's physical condition, he is imprisoned in this 'giant invisible diving bell'. The author's butterfly apirations lead him out of his desperate situation in his diving bell. This is how the author describes the constant struggle between the Diving bell and the Butterfly: "My diving bell becomes less oppressive and I take flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas' court. You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions"

Given his condition, it is quite expected that this crucible for the author might have driven him to the deepest gorges of despair. But rather than focus on how bad his situation is, and revel in attention out of self-pity, the author focusses on the beauty of life. How when you have an active and busy life, you do not focus on all those things that just pass by you. How life just happens to you, when you are busy making other plans. How lovely the world is, how beautiful the people are, how things are not so bad even when it seems so. How he is lucky to have at least one of his eyelids functioning, otherwise he would have had to get even his left eyelid sewn like his right eyelid. Now with one eyelid functioning, at least that one is free to blink, he is free to see and he is free to communicate. This is how he describes his inner turmoil when the doctor gets to sewing his non-functioning eyelid:
'I have known gentler awakenings. When I came to that late-January morning, the hospital opthalmologist was leaning over me and sewing my right eyelid shut with a needle and thread, just as he were darning a sock. Irrational terror swept over me. What if this man got carried away and sewed up my left eye as well, my only link to the outside world, the only window to my cell, the one tiny opening of my diving bell? Luckily as it turns out, I wasn't plunged into darkness. He carefully packed away his sewing kit in padded tin boxes.'

Reliant on others for every trivial yet painful detail of his physical existence, Bauby yet manages to joke. "They had to place a special cushion behind my head: it was wobbling about like the head of one of those African women upon removal of the stack of rings that has been stretching her neck for years." or "I can find it amusing in my forty-fifth year, to be cleaned up and turned over, to have my bottom wiped and swaddled like a newborn's. I even derive a guilty pleasure from this total lapse into infancy." In one of the chapters he even contemplates the extermination of an irritatingly noisy toy duck. More than anything else, his determination, spirit and inner energy shine through, as he invents film scenarios, travel adventures and a play, he even makes up an inventive new fruit cocktail (the recipe for which is not mentioned in the book).

Jean-Dominique Bauby died in March, 1997, at the age of forty-five, fifteen months after suffering the massive stroke which damaged his brain-stem and left him with an active mind in a paralysed body. He died in a span of less than a week after his book was published. His book is a remarkable achievement by a brave and determined man. His book speaks volumes about the indefatigable spirit of the human soul, which refuses to cow down even in the bleakest of scenarios.

War of the Words - II

2008-03-07T08:58:00.001-08:00

Following this post of mine I had a conversation with some of my friends about what are those written communication errors that really look bad. In an effort to look smart and generally bright, we tend to be extra careful before we hit that 'Send' button on our email applications, because once sent, it cannot be retrieved. However with our hectic work schedules, we sometimes tend to overlook these common errors. I am listing these down here for my own reference, so that I do not make the same mistakes when I send out my emails:

1) Loose for lose
Wrong: I tend to loose my notes
Right: I tend to lose my notes

2) It’s for its
Wrong: Send me the details of the installation along with it's product key
Right: Send me the details of the installation along with its product key

3) They’re for their or there
Wrong: Their not happy about the repeated requests we are making
Right: They're not happy about the repeated requests we are making

4) Effect for affect
Wrong: The outage shouldn't effect the following applications
Right: The outage shouldn't affect the following applications

5) Then for than
Wrong: We had more problems then we anticipated.
Right: We had more problems than we anticipated.

Ya, and this last one which I saw and was reminded of by Mr. Truitt's character in the movie 'The Opposite of Sex' last night
Wrong: I could care less about what they think
Right: I couldn't care less about what they think

Requirements Engineering

2008-03-07T07:46:00.001-08:00

I have often been asked by many of my non IT colleagues about what I do for a living. And when I tell them what I do, it often makes no sense with anyone. When it comes to IT, the most that the layman can follow is either writing the code to develop applications, or maybe the bit about testing the application. And while requirements analysis is an integral part of software development, it is considered as one of the less glamorous cousins of the technical architecture designing or even the development. The BAs in a project are considered as talkers who do nothing else but talk, and if any project needs to cut costs, its generally the BA who faces the axe. After all, anyone can talk...and thereby gather and analyse the requirements.

So I was quite happy to come across this white paper online today.

While it says exactly what I do for a living, the bit which impressed me the most was the problems that I face during the process of requirements engineering. Here is that excerpt which talks about these hurdles, and which science to approach to overcome those:

1) Cognitive psychology provides an understanding of the difficulties people may have in describing their needs. For example, problem domain experts often have large amounts of tacit knowledge that is not amenable to introspection; hence their answers to questions posed by requirements analysts may not match their behaviour. Also, the requirements engineer may need to model users’ understanding of software user interfaces , rather than relying solely on implementers’ preferences.
2) Anthropology provides a methodological approach to observing human activities that helps to develop a richer understanding of how computer systems may help or hinder those activities. For example, the techniques of ethnomethodology have been applied in RE to develop observational techniques for analysing collaborative work and team interaction.
3) Sociology provides an understanding of the political and cultural changes caused by computerisation. Introduction of a new computer system changes the nature of the work carried out within an organisation, may affect the structure and communication paths within that organisation, and may even change the original needs that it was built to satisfy. A requirements gathering exercise can therefore become politicised. Approaches to RE that address this issue include the “Scandinavian” approach, which aims to involve in the requirements definition process those most affected by the outcomes.
4) Linguistics is important because RE is largely about communication. Linguistic analyses have changed the way in which the English language is used in specifications, for instance to avoid ambiguity and to improve understandability. Tools from linguistics can also be used in requirements elicitation, for instance to analyse communication patterns within an organisation.

Requirements Engineering must concern itself with an understanding of beliefs of stakeholders (epistemology), the question of what is observable in the world (phenomenology), and the question of what can be agreed on as objectively true
(ontology)."

Interesting!

Jodha Akbar, Khoda Pahaad, Phoda Dimaag...

2008-02-22T15:33:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of more expletives to express my frustration at this ridiculously lengthy movie, but I decided to restrain myself. At the intermission I told my friend who was accompanying me at the movie "This seems to be the longest day of my life and I can't believe that there are still 2 more hours to go". After more than 12 hours of roaming about the city for whatever reasons, another 3 and a half hours of Bollywood just killed my spirits for the day. I had a throbbing headache by the end of it and while the movie hall was just a few minutes' walk from home, I could no longer walk. In the cab back from the theatre to home, I was blessing the cab driver for the ride home. Yes, it is thaaaaat long.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a bad movie, it is just too long. It could have been easily cut short to a 120 - 150 minutes sweet romantic movie about love blossoming between a married couple, who were initially not in love. What killed the movie is the unnecessary wandering of the story along tangential sub-plots not core to the heart of the movie.

The basic premise of the movie is a very touching and not much heard of love story - the marriage (for administrative reasons) and the subsequent love affair between the Moghul Moslem King Akbar (played by Hrithik Roshan) and the Rajput Hindu Princess Jodhabai (played by Aishwarya Rai). The ice princess and the handsome prince meet again (post Dhoom 2) in this brand new effort by the director, Ashutosh Gowariker (Lagaan, Swades). At the very outset, it should be mentioned both the lead actors sizzle in this role which looks almost tailor-made for them. It's not that they have done their career-best acting in this movie, but both of them definitely look the part. They have also acted reasonably well, lending tremendous credence to their casting as Jodha and Akbar.

I would not get into the plot nitty-gritties, because truly there is not too much of a story to be told here. Not being a great history buff myself, I do not know how factually true or false the movie is. I would give Gowariker his freedom for artistic creativity, and move on. The alliance between Jodha and Akbar was due to administrative and political reasons. The Rajput King of Amer, Jodha's father (played by Khulbhushan Kharbanda) had to seek for protection from the great Moghul empire to prevent other warring forces from entering his kingdom. Also since the rest of the Rajput Kings refused to let any alliances happen between people from their kingdoms and the people of Amer, Jodha's Rajput King was left with no suitable princely alliance for Jodha. In what seemed to make political sense, Jodha's father promised Jodha's hand in marriage to King Akbar in return for his promise to protect his kingdom of Amer if there were any battles with the opposing camps. For obviously other political reasons which the story unfolds, Akbar decides to take up the offer. How the marriage of convenience actually blossoms into love, given the religious and cultural differences between the two in the 16th century royalty forms the crux of the story.

When the story sticks to this basic premise, it works. Maybe in those bits and pieces primarily when the movie focusses on the blossoming romance between its protagonists - their attraction towards each other, their little squabbles, their dilemmas, etc. The rest of the film seems weighed down by a pressing need to live up to the proclaimed scale. In what seems to be one of the major troubles of the movie making lore of the day, big-budget films are hyped to be big in every scale even while they are being written. That Gowariker fell prey to the sales pitch and expectations, and chose to follow them rather than his own inner vision when the idea for this movie might have sprung in his head, is unfortunate. Hence the romance works, but the history, seems to be getting laboriously in the way. We have long drawn battle sequences, directing which does not seem to be Gowariker's forte. For evidently cheaper labor wage reasons in India as compared to using CGI wizardry to create the battle forces, I feel Gowariker must have chosen to use real-life people in the battle sequences. And that brings to the screen one of the few cringeworthy sequences in the movie. I'm sure thousands of extras are impossible to control, but the battle sequences are childish to an embarassing extreme. While they are well captured on the camera (thanks to excellent cinematography by Kiran Deohans), it is poorly executed. It seemed like a rerun of the centuries old Ramayana days from Doordarshan - ill-equipped soldiers listlessly moving their swords in thin air while also restraining themselves. Robotic movements where the swords are swung first left, then right, then left again, and pow! one of the battling duo pumps the sword into the other and you throw some tomato sauce on the slit soldier's torso.

And that brings me back to my main gripe with this movie - its devastating lack of budgeting with the financial resources and with the longevity of the movie. Mr. Gowariker needs to be taught the art of editing, and the art of learning how to cut the crap from your reels. If it takes 3 hours of reel time in a 3 hr 28 minute movie for your hero to woo the heroine and merely get to touch her, I guess I am smarter than Emperor Akbar. I definitely take less than 3 hours in real life.

I could go on about the length of the movie, but there are of course many masterful strokes too in this movie. That Ms Rai is not a great actress at any level, is something most of us are aware of. If directed well, she can do a reasonably good job (case in example - Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Provoked). In what seems to be telling tall tales of Gowariker's cinematic prowess, he has given very few dialogues to be mouthed to Aishwarya. He has left her beautiful eyes to do all the talking. And Ms Rai is beautifully restrained in the movie, which works wonders for the movie. Hrithik Roshan also looks valiant and macho in the role of Akbar. He simply has to smoulder and brood in many scenes in the movie, which he does a good job of. He seems to be getting better with each of his newer movies that I see. The movie also has a great supporting cast. Raza Murad (as Emperor Akbar's advisor Khan Baba) is brilliant, just his vocal inflections and the deep baritone of his voice sounds like magic. Ila Arun (as Emperor Akbar's foster mother) almost hams it up, but also manages to steal the scenes from Aishwarya when the two of them are face-to-face. However I was terribly dissatisfied with the 3-4 scenes in which Suhasini Mulay (as Jodha's mother) was present. A brilliant actress that she is, she seems totally wasted in this role and seems to have an ineffective smile plastered on her face throughout.

What brings this movie to an entirely upper level is A R Rahman's lilting music. The songs are not too many and rightly placed in the movie, and while I believe when heard in isolation the songs might not seem that great, in the context of the movie and the way it is picturised the songs are simply beautiful. The beautiful 'Khwaja mere Khwaja' and the melodic 'Kehne ko jashne - bahara hai' really take your breath away. And 'Khwaja mere Khwaja' is indeed lyrically picturised as well. When the Sufi-esque tunes of this song reach heights, Gowariker pulls off a magical scene in which Hrithik enchanted by the music gets up from his throne and begins to sway to the tune, going round and round, lending a heavenly touch to the scene.

And once more I would like to mention the brilliant cinematography by Kiran Deohans in the movie, especially the palace's beautiful interiors and the breathtaking desert scenes, so also the warfront. Costumes by Neeta Lulla and Nitin Desai's sets also deserve ample praise. Being the period epic that it is, never once did the sets draw attention away from the main course of the movie (unlike the pointless monstrosities erected in SLB's Black and Saawariya).

The more I think about it, the more I feel that there are quite a few good scenes and many other positives in this movie, and I hate it lesser and lesser as I write more. Maybe I was just tired through a hectic day's activities that this long movie simply did not work for me anymore. How I wish Ashutosh had focussed on the romance between Jodha and Akbar, and not fallen into the big-budget trappings. That would truly have been a great movie. Sigh!

Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden?

2008-02-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

So last night I saw the early screening of Supershowman Morgan Spurlock's follow up to his superhit first documentary 'Supersize me'. And true to his style, the showman is still the same. Starting right from the title of the movie till the very last reel, you cannot help but feel almost borne down by the self-righteous tone of the director. The film surely touches on a very vital point - Is this world safe enough for today's generation to raise our future generation? And while the answer to this question is not arresting the head of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, a resolution to terrorism in the broader sense is definitely one of the dangers most people are worried about nowadays.

Apparently since I attended one of the initial runs of the movie, there could be lots of further editing when the movie is finally released in theatres. There better be, 'coz I noticed quite a few places where the movie needed some finetuning. I provided my feedback at the end of the movie to the surveyors. This current review of mine is based on the initial draft version that I saw last night.

19 weeks into the delivery of his first child, Morgan is worried by a nagging doubt -Is this world a safe enough place for him to bring his new born into? And terrorism being one of the major problems in today's world, Morgan decides to set out in pursuit of the biggest terrorist the recent world has ever known - The leader of Al Qaeda and the mastermind of the biggest terrorist attacks this side of the world on 9/11 - Osama Bin Laden. This manhunt takes him to Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and finally Pakistan (which is where most people doubt Osama is currently). To top it all, Morgan has only 19 weeks to get his answers and his man, since he also wants to be by his wife's side during the baby's delivery. Along the way, though, somewhere the movie loses its road-chase steam and takes on a more egalitarian approach towards the issue of terrorism as a whole. What do the Middle-Eastern nations think of America's interference in their countries' economies and private matters? What do the same nations think of Osama's claim of wanting to protect the Muslim world from the Christian western world? What are the social, cultural, and economic implications of this radical fundamentalism? Does the world need to be afraid of all Muslims, given that they form more than 1/5th of the entire world population?

While the movie does raise some important points, it seems too wishy-washy in its argument. I am not a great follower of history and political history and western political history in general, and so I do not have sufficient knowledge to comment on the theories presented as facts in this movie. But I also have a strong feeling that the reasons that previous American regimes did what they did are not as simple as what Morgan is trying to portray. There is a plethora of intertwined reasons for America's support of Israel and Afghanistan (during the Soviet invasion) and so also for America's invasion of Iraq. By presenting a one-sided, simplistic, and animation based childish view of his arguments, Morgan has placed the lesser informed audience in the dark and colored their opinions about matters as complex as this. While using humor to present one's ideas is a good tactic, it also simplifies the complex political machinations to such a level that discredits the thought process of an entire gubernatorial body. Michael Moore seemingly did a better job of presenting his arguments using humor as a tool in Fahrenheit 9/11 as compared to Morgan Spurlock in this movie. This movie from Morgan has inevitably run into the risk of being compared with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (which feels like a much superior movie now, I must say), because both movies on a deeper level touch the same thread - Is America at fault for the growth of terrorism?

If Morgan wants to show America what the rest of the world thinks of their nation, it would evidently lead to some Bush-bashing. And this movie does precisely that. This also leads me to think whether some political pundits might question the timing for the release of this movie - given the 2008 Presidential elections are drawing nearer.

And now comes my biggest problem with the movie. The very title of the movie reeks of getting a curious moviegoer to come watch the movie, without the movie actually being much about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden himself. I have to admit, I decided
to go watch the movie because the title gave me an impression of a nail-biting manhunt for the man himself (besides the fact being that I got the tickets for free) - which is absolutely not what the movie is about. It just slanderously exploits a notorious man's name for monetary purposes. While there is nothing terribly wrong with that move (after all don't advertisers use a famous man's name and face to advertise their products?), I just couldn't help feeling tremendously cheated when the movie got over. And at the near climax of the movie where our man got close to almost getting close to his man, he chickens out and goes back to his home and hearth leaving the audience feeling deprived and deceived. Almost as if he is trying to dodge a death sentence. Don't get me wrong - I don't want Morgan to actually come face-to-face with Osama and get shot in the process. My problem is with his very approach of showing-off right from the start of the movie that he is game to do it and chickening out at the end, my problem is with his tall tales, shameless showmanship, if I may.

Oh and of course, it also seemed like Morgan's little vacation around the world, going from country to country, sight seeing and touring, while trying to send the message to the wider audience - look at me, here my wife is pregnant and about to have a baby, while I am going all around the world trying to catch a man, whom most people around the world would like to have behind the bars. It seems like Morgan's-merry-go-round, he gets to shoot off some AK-47s loaned from the US base camp in Afghanistan, and while he is at it also try out a rocket launcher. Macho! And those multiple lovey-dovey scenes with his wife on the phone just seem trying too hard to send out a self-righteous message to the public. That is precisely the feedback that I gave at the end of the movie - tone down the self-righteousness, cut down some of those scenes with your wife. As for Osama bin Laden, Morgan doesn’t really seem to be trying to find him. Sure, he occasionally asks for his whereabouts, but mostly it’s just a gimmick to link together his guided tour of the Middle East.

Where this movie shines though is when it goes to the streets with the common man in these countries and unearths their impression about America and terrorism in general. And the truth is out there for everyone to see. In the last decade,
America's credence in the eyes of the larger world is shattered, primarily by propping up authoritarian regimes that deny citizens of the Third World economic and political freedoms. Consequently the angry, disenfranchised poor from these nations embrace Islamic fundamentalism as the only thing that will listen to their woes and violence as the only way they can be heard. But still a vast majority of people (including Muslims) from all parts of the world are not in favor of terrorism. People are not in favor of war, but if they hate their radicalist governments for providing them with lack of liberties and also hate the American governments for putting more economic pressure on them, then they are left with no recourse other than the lure of paradise and money as promised by the terrorists. Of course, there are people belonging to the school of radical Islamist fanaticism in these countries, but these numbers are few and far in between. And Morgan did the right thing by showing that these fanatics are present in every part of the world. There are quite a few Jews in Israel who see the war in their nation not as a political war, but as a religious war for their Holy Land promised by God, which has been snatched away from them.

Ultimately what the movie will be remembered for is precisely that same message. Morgan's analysis of America's role in the world politics and his quiet conversations with Muslims and people in the street truly provides ample food for thought. It might be too late to undo all these years of consistent political misgivings, but if anything, now is the time to start. Else as one of the street kids in the movie says "I wish we had someone like Osama Bin Laden in our country...", most people would wish even worse for America. And hell! that's not a good sign for anybody - not for America and not for the world.

The Tryst

2008-02-19T16:08:00.000-08:00

She never thought of herself as the kind of girl who would get laid before marriage.

She always considered herself to be decent and she sincerely believed in the doctrine she preached to her roommate. When her roommate Kaajal used to come back to the hostel in the morning and describe the apocalyptically sex-filled night she spent with her lover, she used to hear her out patiently, but at the end of it all, she used to think in her mind, “What a bed trotting tramp!!!” Once she even said it out loud profanely so much, so that it led to an immense fallout between the two. Between all the squabbling and bickering, she told Kaajal, “Marriage is a holy sacrament and I believe that sex before marriage is blasphemy. I believe that this theory is true in every religion, let alone Christianity. For me sex before marriage is an absolute no-no.”
To this Kaajal retorted, “My dear Jolene, now don’t begin to moralise. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a nonconformist conscience. Now I realize lately, but sadly why all the other girls in the hostel call you Saint Jolene. Why can’t you stop being that religious, pious, decent girl and come down to sea-level along with all of us?”
“Oh puhleese! I would rather remain isolated and lonely rather than degrade myself by associating with such cheapskates. Kaajal, you know me well enough to even suggest such a thing.”
“Gimme a break, dammit! Don’t get me started on your superficial idiosyncracies once again. Your theories seem so confounded. Lemme tell you a thing Jo – You are so goddamningly pseudo. I am not here to listen to any of your pearls of wisdom. But what I am telling you now are gritty, unassuming nuggets that you will need to experience to realize the value of it.”
“What do you mean?” asked a surprised Jolene.
“I mean to say that your theories all sound very neat on paper. But they remain what they are – theories. And that’s why they cannot be put to use in practical life.”
“In what way do you think is your life more practical than mine, Kaajal?”
“You have never known what it is to feel like when you are in love. I love Vinod – truly, madly and deeply and that’s why I make as much love with him as I can. It is a grand and the most natural way to reassure each other of the love that we feel for each other.”
“So why don’t the two of you just get married to each other, if you proclaim so much love for each other? After all, you can then sleep legitimately with Vinod!”
“You don’t realize it, Jo. Marriage is a compromise – an adjustment between two people, between their families, between their finances, between their careers, between their attitudes. There is a great deal of tight rope-walking that needs to be done before you can settle down to marry the person whom you love.”
“Kaajal, who do you think you are fooling? If marriage with your loved one can wait, then why can’t the getting-to-bed part of it wait?” She was trying her last little safe bet to help save her face in this argument.
“Well, you don’t seem to know men well enough, do you? What do you think is the fundamental difference between men and women? A woman first falls in love with a man offering her love and then with the love offered by that man. But men are so different. A man first falls in love with the love offered by a woman and then with the woman offering that love.”
“You sure seem to know men well enough!”
“Of course, I do! I have been seeing a man for the past three years. And I have to say this, all men are so daringly similar, that you know one, you know all of them. A man will never love you enough, unless you are good in bed – that’s their basic trait. And this is the knowledge that I have garnered out of years of being with a man and knowing him inside out in every sense. But how will you know that Jo, you have never known a man in any sense. And knowing you and all the issues you generally have in life, I don’t think you will ever end up being with a man. You will remain confined throughout your life in that stupid, God forsaken pinnacle of yours with only solitude to give you company.”
“That was mean”, said a startled and shocked Jolene.
“Yes, that was supposed to be mean. That’s why it worked.”
“I do not know who has said this, but whoever said this seems to know you. ‘Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience.’ I am not waiting here to be pilloried any more by you.” She had lost her face badly in this argument and she could not believe that she was neck-deep in this muck. She thought that saying something mean in return was the least she could do to hold her own against her opponent.
“You can leave if you wish. But you are a good friend Jo, and I have only one suggestion for you. Loosen up a bit. Or else you will never ever be in a serious relationship. I will pray for you Jo, so that one day you find the man of your dreams.”

“The man of my dreams”, thought Jolene, as she lay there on the bed, naked, with only the sheets all hopelessly wrung between her calves. “Is he the man of my dreams?” She looked at him coming out from the restroom, with a towel wrapped on his waist. He looked even better with his clothes off. Those tanned Greek God looks, that athletically framed body, the tall lean legs, and those wiry strands of hair falling on his forehead – all in all he was a package well delivered. “But”, she again thought to herself, “Is he the man of my dreams?” This was a question she had asked herself umpteen times during the past week. She could never ever conclusively answer in the affirmative.
“This is so sad”, she thought to herself “Why can’t I feel anything for him? He seems to be so good in every respect. He’s loving, caring, has good money, always seems to be ready to spend, and above all he is extremely good looking. However, I do not get that indescribable feeling that I need to feel to enter into a relationship……. And above all if I do not feel anything for him, then why do I go around with him?” She could not answer that question.
Well, she could, but she simply despised herself when she had to admit this to herself. “I am with Anirudh only because it feels good to be seen with him. And, moreover, I had to teach that stupid Kaajal and all the other bitches back at the hostel a lesson. They think I can’t ever hook a man! Well, now, they know that I can have my cake, eat it and not even leave behind the crumbs for anyone. Anirudh is mine for keeps – and what a sexy keep he is!” Her conscience hit back at her “What a hypocrite you are!” She reasoned out with her conscience, “But I had to do this to teach that Kaajal a lesson. I have never ever lost out to anyone in my life. No one likes to be beaten. But to be beaten by a person who has always stood as a particular example of mediocrity in your eyes, to start by the side of this mediocrity and to watch it shoot up, while you struggle and finally end up with nothing but a boot in your face, to see the mediocrity snatch from you, your thunder, to be beaten, beaten badly, beaten – not by a greater genius, not by a God, but by Mediocrity – there is no torture equivalent to this. I had to do this to keep her unsanitary trap shut. Now she knows that I can also have a successful relationship. Whether or not I feel anything for him - well, that she does not need to know.”

“Ani, darling! Can I ask you a thing? What did you find in me? I mean, you could have had all the best girls in town. I am just an ordinary girl”, she said trying to herself understand the situation. She never knew what Ani saw in her.
“Well, you are so intellectually stimulating. I can talk any damn crap with you, but at the end of it all it still makes sense. Seriously, all I sought from my girl was loads of intelligence.”
“I am glad I fit the bill.”
He moved to the window and looked outside. “Ah! The full moon looks beautiful”, he said. She moved from the bed and draped herself in the bedsheet and proceeded to the window.
“It’s a beautiful sight”, she said as she gazed out of the window. “You know what Christopher Fry once said – ‘The moon is nothing but a circumambulatory aphrodisiac divinely subsidized to provoke the world into a rising birthrate.’”
“You see, now do you know why I love you? You seem to know everything about any topic under the sun. Well, who is that guy? Some Fry. So what do you say Jo, should we put into practice what your Fry fellow said.”
“Not now Ani. I am damn tired. I can’t do it again.”
“Sure, I understand. Let’s go and catch some sleep. I need to catch the early morning flight tomorrow.”
“What’s the flight departure time?” asked Jolene.
“It leaves Bombay at 8:20 in the morning for Calcutta.”
“Do you really need to go now? We have hardly begun to see each other. Can’t you postpone the trip to, say, some two weeks later on?”
“I am so sorry honey. But I had planned this trip with mom and dad to my native place months before I even knew you. I just cannot back out now.”
“Are you taking Romeo with you?” Romeo was Ani’s pet poodle.
“No, I am not. I will leave him with Sid bhaiyya. I will leave the house keys also with him. So that he can come once in a while and get the house cleaned by the maidservant.”
“You have a brother??? How come you never told me about him?”
“If you do not seem to remember, I would like to remind you that you never ever asked me anything about my family. I do not answer unquestioned queries.”
“But this is so strange. You should have told me about him. When do you intend to tell me about your brother? ”
“Well…..now.”
“Go ahead, tell me. I am all ears.”
“My brother Siddharth is married. His wife is Meera. She will also be accompanying us to Bengal.”
“That’s it? You are not telling me any more???”
“Forget it honey. How does it matter in anyway to you?”
“It sure does matter Ani. You may not realize it probably. By the way, how long will you be gone?”
“Two weeks. I will be back the week after next.”
“I will miss you honey.”
“Me too. I will call you on your cell.” Saying so, Anirudh gave her a peck on her cheek. “Just pass me my trousers.”
“Sure”, said Jolene and she proceeded to the bedside where his chinos lay. As she handed over the chinos to Ani, his business card fell out of the pockets. She picked it up and read out aloud,
“ Anirudh Sengupta,
B/39, Victor House,
Opposite Apostolic Carmel High Scool,
Hill Road,
Bandra (W)”.
“So when will you take me to your home Ani and show me around?” she asked.
“One day I will. Probably after I come back. Some day when my folks are not around.”
“Why not when they are around?” asked Jolene, obviously in a mood to get into a verbal duel once again.
“I will introduce you to them when I think the time will be right. I want them to approve of this relationship.”
“And when do you think will be the right time?”
“When I think I will succeed in convincing them that this is the best thing to happen to them, after my birth. You see, I like to succeed in everything I do, even my arguments and proposals and that’s why I have reached wherever I am today.”
“Oh, puhleese! Men are uninteresting once they succeed!”
“How tantalizing you are!”
“There is one thing, I would always like you for. You give me credit whenever it’s due to me.”
“Only one thing! And I thought I have too many bad qualities!”
“Oh, don’t be too conceited about them! You may lose them as you grow old.”
“I can never ever win in an argument with you. You have the tremendous gift of gab.”
She knew she had won the argument and that Ani was irked slightly at being discredited with a win. To change his mood, she wrapped her hands around him and said quite sweetly, “I would love to see your place someday.”
“Sure honey”, he said and kissed her. “Now go to sleep. Good Night”.

She had been out for only one night and she loved the waves she created in the hostel already. One day as she was going to her mailbox to collect her letters, she overheard two pretty young things discussing her and her rendezvous with her lover on a lonely night in some shady hotel room somewhere far away from town. She loved the effect and the thought that she was being discussed. Just to put more fuel into the fire, she turned around and told one of them, “You know what…..it is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one, behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.” She left that poor soul agape.

Anirudh had been out for three days now and Jolene was missing him already. Not because she missed him, but because she wanted to have some more nights out and set the hostel on a tongue-wagging frenzy. It did her ego a lot of good. “These two weeks will be a long wait”, she thought.

One evening she picked up her rucksack and went to the beach to spend some quality time with herself and her books, which she had not touched for a long time. She laid down her paper mat on the sands and took out a book to read and ponder. A loud noise in the background attracted her attention. As she turned her head in the direction from where the noise came, she could see a crowd of seven middle-aged Sardarni ladies playing kho-kho. Everybody on the beach, who passed that area, were enjoying the sight of these plump ladies playing the game. Even Jolene got interested in the game. She looked around absorbing the sights and sounds offered by the tranquility of the beach. A calm breeze was blowing on her face and was leaving her hair all disheveled. She loved that feeling, the feeling of falling, falling deep into a ravine, a ravine with no bottom, like a bottomless pit, when the strong winds tore at her clothes and her hair and her face and her bright polka dotted skirt. With one hand on her hair trying to put it back into place and one hand on her skirt trying to control it from blowing up in a Marilyn Monroesque sight, she stood up and soaked in all the ecstasy of the ambience around, with her eyes shut tight.
She could see Kaajal holding a trophy aloft with all the hostel girls around cheerleading for her. It was in a small room, dimly lit with the light of a single bulb and with walls all greasy and black. The room seemed kind of foggy. She could see herself sitting puckered in a corner, with her legs drawn close to her breasts, and her chin resting on her hands which were lying on her knees. She could see her dress, a nice white gown all soaked in sweat and tears. She could not stand the sight of that bitch having from her, what was supposed to be hers. This had to stop. She opened her eyes, when she landed a big blow to that bitch and took back her trophy, which was never meant for Kaajal in the first place. She opened her eyes to a group of wide eyed street kids having a peek, from a distance at her skirt blowing in the wind. She shooed them away and settled in a cozy corner with her book.
“OUT!!!” There was such a huge cry from the Sardarni ladies that she had to again put her book back and see their play. Now they were all jumping and frolicking in the water. It was a really ugly sight, aesthetically speaking. Those short, unhandsomely fat, particularly-huge-near-the-posteriors kind of figures jumping in the water……with their clothes all on!
She turned back to her book. But she just could not pay attention to the book, when life was painted in much more vibrant and vivid colours right in front of her eyes.
A father-daughter-mother trio passed hand-in-hand besides her and walked into the water. The daughter was wearing a little black dress with gaudy floral insets. In a daring gesture, the mother hoisted her saree all the way to her knees and walked into the water. The Sardarni ladies gave her a glance that reprimanded her for showing so much flesh. But little did they realize that their salwar – kameezes made of thin polyester material, which was all soaked in water now, were showing as much flesh as the lady and in a much more awkward manner.

Some nouveau – riche guy, emboldened by his smart western apparel, tight nylon shirt with huge collars, flared synthetic trousers and high heeled plastic shoes, came and sat besides Jolene and began to stare fixedly at her.
“Move. Go. Isse pahle kabhi kissi ladki ko dekha nahin hain kya?“, she screamed in a piercing voice. A few faces turned in her direction and some guys sitting at a distance obviously realized that something could be the trouble. The guy in question, sensing that trouble was seething, looked away for a minute or two, obviously to hide his embarrassment, and then casually sauntered off. Jolene put her face back into her book and grinned to herself.
Why is it, she wondered, that all men are confident of their attractiveness and so few women are? Why would any raggedy ghaati imagine that an affluent lady of apparent sophistication would welcome his attention? It’s not simply a matter of my being alone, thought Jolene, which is certainly unusual in the Indian society. It has something to do with the difference between the way mothers interact with their sons and the way fathers interact with their daughters. Mothers carefully, diligently, constantly build the confidence of their sons. Fathers only give fitful testimony to the lovability of their daughters.
A while passed since some disturbance. She was immersed deeply in her book, when she heard someone whisper into her ear, “Akeli ho. Dosti karogi?” The voice came from such a close distance, that when she turned her face in the direction of the source of the voice, she almost bumped into the face. Oh My God, she thought to herself, when she saw the same guy whom she had embarrassed earlier, this time not alone, but with a group of similar minded, similar faced, similar dressed guys. They all looked ready to pounce on her. But she was even more shocked when from nowhere, a hand landed on her waist and snatched her from the comfortable position that she was landed in and said, “Na, hum hain na inke saath.” She tried to look at the face that mouthed those words, but the glare from the sun above blocked her vision. She tried to take the hand off from her waist, but it was so tightly held that she could not move it off, without making it seem like an obvious effort. Her mind raced at the thought of who that guy could be, but since her mind offered no answers, she thought that she would play along with the game. After all, handling a single guy is always easier, than handling these four burly chaps, she thought to herself. Lemme play along.
She smiled and looked at the four chaps, who looked obviously confused at this strange turn of events. “Aur woh bhi hain inke saath”, said the guy pointing to a group of guys seated nearby, who were all looking in their direction. Now she was all the more confused, but being a good actress, she was able to mask her confusion to conceal it from the four burly chaps. The ruffians were no less surprised, probably even more and they knew that they had put themselves in a tight situation. They looked at each other and obviously wanting to avoid a scuffle, they withdrew. They began to walk off.

The hand withdrew from the waist. She felt the masculinity of the biceps as it brushed off from her back. She put her hands on her forehead to prevent the sun’s rays from piercing her eyes as she looked at her hero. It was an attempt at failure and so, realizing this, obviously to facilitate a clear viewing of his face, the guy moved away from under the direction of the sun and a radiant smile beamed from his face. He looks neat, thought Jolene.
“You are welcome”, said her hero. The muttering of these few words by the guy in question broke the concentration with which she was evaluating him.
“Pardon?”, she asked.
“Didn’t you get the humour in my statement?” he questioned.
“I didn’t hear you in the first place, so as to understand you in the second place.”
“I said you are welcome.”
“Well, if that was in return, for the hypothetical thank you that I was supposed to say for your seemingly kind favor, then I would like to be excused, since I don’t think you deserve a thank you for the uninvited and unwelcome help, unwittingly offered by you.”
“Wow!!!! That was a lot of crap!”
“Seriously, what made you think that I would be pleased with the move made by you?”
“Nothing, just that I thought you needed some help. The scene before I broke on, reminded me of a single kitten being harassed by four German Shepherds. Anyways, now that my work has been done, I would like to take your leave since I can’t stand an ungrateful company.”
“Sure. Just remember not to barge in on any scene where you are not asked in for help. It will take you nowhere in particular.”
“Is this a mud-slinging match? I don’t know what I did to induce so much of a wrath in you. I am not waiting here any more.”

He left, jogging by along the beach. Jolene looked at the horizon and smiled at herself. I am good, she thought. What did he think? He will get me by indulging in some cheap heroism, she thought and she began to sit down. As she was sitting down, something caught her eye. She again turned her head in that direction and saw clearly. The same group of four burly guys. They could have seen her being abandoned by her supposed partner. You will have to do something quick, she thought to herself, before they pounce on you again. The other guy was still ahead, jogging and moving at his own leisurely pace. She took her bag and began jogging, following him.

“Hello”, she said as she reached him.
“I knew you would come”, he said without even looking at her.
“What made you feel that so confidently?”
“Should I turn behind and call those guys?” he asked.
“Well, are they still there?” she asked and turned in that direction trying her hand at some more acting. “Oh yes, I see them”, she said. “But I came here to apologize for my behaviour. Now that I think about it, I find it very rude.”
”You are a very spontaneous liar”, he said.
“Oh puhleese!!! I am not lying. I did not even notice them.”
“What is wrong with you? Lady, you are so weird. I am not asking you to thank me. I am just telling you to acknowledge my efforts where it was due. I can understand stupid malice. I can understand ignorant malice. But I just can’t understand this deliberate rottenness. If you are done with your apologizing drama, then you may please leave. I would like some peace on my jog back to my car.” The guy just paced up his jog and stormed away from the scene, with Jolene totally dumb founded.

She was stumped. She was snubbed. She was down. Am I losing it? But I am impressed, she thought. Not only is he charmingly cute, but he is also intelligent. And look at him……she thought and thought for long. She knew that this was it. There was something about those eyes that lacerated the soul and that devil-may-care attitude that attracted her badly. She looked at him jogging down the beach and almost about to reach a car parked at a distance. Do something now, she heard her head shout at her. Catch him before he leaves. She began to run towards him.

“You again?” he shouted. “Why in heaven’s name are you following me?”
“I am terrible sorry, but those guys are still there and they have been watching the two of us for quite some time now. They should have realized until now that we were putting up an act. So can you just drop me on your way back? Please consider this as a request.”
“You may come if you wish, but just a warning. No more of your snide remarks once you are in.”
“My word”, she said.
“Hop in.”

They drove out of the beach parking area.
“Where should I drop you?”
“Where do you stay?” she asked.
“Bandra.”
“You proceed. I need to get down on the way itself. I will tell you where to stop.”
“Ok.”
They drove in silence for some more time.
“Won’t you speak anything?” he asked.
“Well, you warned me not to make any snide remarks once I am in. So I am quite.”
“Don’t you have any regular topic to speak?”
“Well, sarcasm is the only service I offer.”
“Arrgh. You are in serious need of some therapy, girl. I feel like tearing my hair out.”
“But why?”
“Well, I am all stressed out and no one to hit, and you are still here in my face. That’s why."
“I see that some of my aura is rubbing off on you as well.”
He gave her a sideways glance that made her reconsider her decision as to whether she should go forward with her plan. She began pondering.
The rest of the drive was silent.

“I am almost nearing my place. Where should I drop you?” he asked.
“Drop me at your place.”
“What????”
“Yeah.”
The car came to a screeching halt as he slammed on the brakes.
“You may get down here”, he said.
“No. I am not. I am coming to your place.”
“Why? Don’t you have a place on the face of this earth, where human beings will accept you?”
“Please don’t raise your decibel levels.”
“Now that’s it. I want you out of my car right now”, he said. He got out of the car, went to her side, opened the car door for her and gesturing for her to get out, he said, “Get out. I won’t be taking such an ungrateful wretch in my car anymore.”
“But I am not ungrateful. I will pay you for your services. In kind.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to sleep with you”, she said.

She never thought of herself as the kind of girl who would get laid twice before marriage, with two different men.

“It was amazing”, he said.
“Yeah.” She agreed.
“You know, this is quite strange. But we have been in the company of each other for a good two hours or more, but we don’t know each other’s names.”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“Well, it doesn’t in the least, if this was a one night stand.”
“Do you want to meet me again?”
“Only if you want to.”
“Well, let’s see…..”
She could hear a bell ring in the distance. It sounded like a school bell.
“What’s that? Is there some kind of a school nearby?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s the school I went to as a kid - Apostolic Carmel High School.”
“Which school did you say?” Her ears got curious.
“Apostolic Carmel High School. Why? What happened?”
“Nothing. Just that the name rings a bell somewhere. But I don’t remember where”, she said.
“You must have heard it somewhere. It’s quite a famous school.”
“Yeah, probably.”

She could hear another ring in the distance. It was her cell phone.
“Can you please pass me my cell?” she asked.
“Where’s it?” he asked in reply.
“Right there in my bag on the table.”
He got out of the bed and walked to the table. As he picked up the cell from the bag, he glanced at the number being displayed as the caller’s number. He had a shocked look when he saw the number. He read it out aloud. “9-8-2-1-2-4-9-8-0-7” He stood there glancing at the number for some more time.
“Will you stop staring at the cell and pass me the phone before the call gets disconnected?” she asked with obvious irritation in her voice.
He looked at her, looked back at the cell. He opened his mouth to say something. He decided not to. He closed his lips again and passed her phone. Just as the phone slipped into her hands, it stopped ringing.
“See”, she said. “I lost that call. It could have been pretty important.” She was damn pissed off.
“Who was that, if I may ask?” he asked.
“It was an important call. That was my boyfriend, the guy whom I am seeing nowadays.”
“Oh, so you are seeing somebody.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Well, if you are going around with somebody, then why did you sleep with me?” he asked.
“Do you have any problem with that? See, I have no qualms about cheating over him. So why do you? If anybody should be having any problem, it should be him and not you.”
“Not that it bothers me. Just that I am curious.”
“Please do not ask any questions, which do not concern you in the least.”
“Well, you will be surprised when you come to know that it does concern me.”
“Oh yeah!!! Can I know in what way does it concern you?”
“Sure.”

He said, “The guy on the phone was Anirudh Sengupta, wasn’t he?”
She was shell shocked on hearing the name. She just fumbled and muttered, “How do you know?”
“Hi! I am Siddharth Sengupta.”

My snobbish wrong-doings

2008-02-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder whether I am guilty of the vile crime of Intellectual Snobbery. And being acutely aware of this decrepitude, I try my level best not to act like an afflicted. And that consequently leads to me feeling guilty and more aware of my situation, when I lose my guard at times. When I go out for movies with my friends, I cringe when the scmaltzy, the schticky, and the manipulative scenes appear. I look to my snob evil companion at such times looking for his approval to my cringing in disapproval. And when our other friends seem to admire the scenes that we clearly dislike, the 2 of us group together. We form an evil cult - the cultivated "us" against the plebeian "them". And then it strikes me - there I go acting out my role of a braggart again.

For my kind of sensibilities, my tastes define who I am and its my crucible when I am with people of dissimilar tastes. Case in example: My poignant hate for Shah Rukh Khan. Although he is the undisputed Badshah of the Bollywood film industry and his movies have made more money than any other star in Bollywood, the way he hams and portrays himself as look-at-me-I'm-so-smart gets on my nerves. Deep within my heart I know he acts reasonably well, if asked to. That he doesn't, is a sad reflection on the movie making lore of the day. But just because of his seemingly unending popularity, he is a criminal in my eyes. He is a darling of the masses and the suburbia and a person with more elite tastes like me cannot afford to be wooed over by the tastes of the rank and file.

But invariably having at least couple of hits every year, I end up accompanying my friends to watch his movies. And when I tend to critically dissect each and every act of his in the movie (more so because of my apparent distaste), I end up arguing with the majority in the group. And being reduced to a whimpering minority, I end up not arguing as much as I would have wanted to. Consequently I end my argument thinking in my head, "You won't understand. Our tastes are different."

Intellectual snobs like me are a very distinct species. You can spot us in cafes and libraries everywhere, even in the distinctly crassy Starbucks, you will find us hooked up with our laptops, typing away furiously on our keyboards. We will not be dressed very trendy, thats mostly because we do not have well built bodies to show off. So while I recoil inwardly in horror on seeing my naked body in the mirror everyday before getting into the shower, in front of everybody else I will complaining about the apparent "body fascism" that has taken over the entire country. Everyday before going to sleep, I dream that the next morning I will get up sooner rather than later and go pump up some iron at the local gym. But my lazy, fat ass refuses to get off the bed and the WC once I am up in the morning. And then I cry foul when I am not looked at as a prospective good looker when I am out mingling amongst other singles.

It's not that the snobs like me are hooked up to our lappies all day, we can also be heard pom-pomming away about books we’ve never read, drinks we’ve never drunk, drugs we’ve never taken, places we’ve never been to, people we’ve never met and ideas that none of us will ever fully understand. So when one of my other pretentious friends walks in to a restaurant carrying a flier for an 'anarcho-communist' gathering, I get into a long discussion with him about what that odd ball sounding term means. And later I propound the ideals of anarcho-communism over my lesser well-read, well-informed friends.

The number of people like me who exude the suggestion that they are quite cleverer than what they actually are is quite startling. And it doesnt require much to show off to such an extent that people begin believing you. So you need to wear big-cut glasses, wear army-surplus sized clothes, carry lots of stuff in your hands whenever you are travelling, and one of those items need to be a book. If the books are more, the better. And yes, of course, the books cannot be authored by the-frowned-upon-by-literary-snobs writers like Deepak Chopra, Sidney Sheldon, or the M&B variety. The right kind of books are a must to create a favorable impression. Before you decide on what book to carry in your hands, you definitely need to look up on the New York Review of Books or the New Yorker and check out what the critics had to say about the book. For men, the uncut hair and a few days' stubble look goes a long way in creating a snob impression. Whereas for women, dressing up in regional clothes and not the regular shirts and pants goes a long way - so take out your cotton kurtis, sarees, the kimono type dresses, the long flowing salwar kameezes and hit the subways with a big, fat Chekhov in your hand and people will begin to look up to you as the next girl in line for Einstein's throne.

The trappings of intellectual snobbery are many. So while you read seemingly "better" books and watch seemingly "better" movies and go for the praiseworthy plays, art shows, museum visits, you also at times begin to act like a social snob. You begin to correct your friends' accents and pronunciation mistakes. And have long, lengthy discourses over the proper word to use to refer to the "toilet". The "toilet", of course being an irrevocable faux-pas. Heaven have mercy, if someone heard you using such words. Its even more cringeworthy if you use words like 'loo'. A funny anecdote to recount in this regards - So I was meeting my aunt after at least 10 years. The initial blood-relative euphoria gave way in a while for analyzing the ways and means of a distant and long-lost relative. So everything that I spoke out to her, had to be slowly and properly pronounced, else she made me repeat it. She even let me know condescendingly once that my accent is ununderstandable, because it almost sounds like I am speaking in a Gujarati tongue. (Gujarati being a native dialect for the residents of a state called Gujarat in the west of India) Its a different matter altogether that she has never been to Gujarat or had any Gujarati friends or even watched or seen anything remotely Gujarati to know how people in that area talk! After couple of days of aunt-nephew bonding, she took me to the church. As we were waiting for the service to begin, the choir began singing some hymns. And as the choir began singing, I felt the urge to answer nature's call (Please don't try and read any interrelationship between the two - its just coincidence that the two happened almost simultaneously). Over the din of the choir singers, I asked my aunt "Where is the rest room?" She looked at me in an apparently sympathetic look that said, "I know you are from India and have this horrible Gujarati accent which I cannot understand. I am sorry you will have to repeat". I repeated it twice for her. But sadly because the choir singers were creating such a din, and because were seated immediately below the speakers, she could not hear me. In order to make it clearer for her the fourth time, I decided to change the phraseology. And I asked her then "Which way is the TOILET?". I could see her literally shuddering as those harsh, blue-collared words hit her ear drums, registered with her senses and her brain processed a multitude of thoughts. She gave me the directions and then softly held my hands and told me "Please do not use that word 'toilet' around here. Its a very 'Indian' usage. People over here call it the restroom.' As I walked towards the restroom, my head was spinning out of pure fury. How dare she thinks I am not refined enough to fit into her world! Of course I am. That I had to use 'that' word in my purely pressurized state of mind and bowels, is a different story. Ha!

To be continued....

War of words

2008-02-05T14:52:00.000-08:00

Why does there always seem to be a confusion between the two phrases 'flush out' and 'flesh out'? Captivate.com (that little news flasher in most elevators) agreed with me a couple of weeks back when they did mention that these two were the most frequently confused among phrases at the work place.

The conflict revolves around the usage of a common phrase we hear in business meetings: "Yes, we can fl_sh that out and report back to you at our meeting next week."

Was that, "flesh that out"? or "flush that out"?

People say it so fast! I heard my counterpart slur it, maybe on purpose out of self doubt.

One of my friends chimed in on the topic one day, insistent that the correct usage is "flush."

I didn't believe him, I was in the "flesh" camp. I started asking everyone around for their opinion. (and you are welcome to express yours if you are clearly on one side or the other...). The consensus was that it is "flesh it out." As in, adding meat to the bones.

But when I later discussed this with one of my managers, she was of the opinion that it is "flush it out". Which again brought out all the confusion in my head.

Here's what my head tells me: "Flesh it out" refers to the fact that the idea is thin and that it needs more substance, i.e. add more flesh to the bones. It is more like a creative process, i.e., "lets give this more life, color, meat, paint a fence around it". "Flush it out" implies purging the idea because it is not promising, more on the lines of to uncover or eradicate something that is already there. Do you agree with me?

Personally, I think the phrase should temporarily be changed to:

"Let's flsh this out"

No vowels at all! Easier for everyone....

P.s.: Other commonly confused words which make me pull out my hair - "insure" vs "ensure"; "affect" vs "effect"; "better then" vs "better than" (the former being grammatically incorrect too)

Book Review: No Country for Old men

2008-02-04T17:45:00.000-08:00

Its with great trepidation that I am approaching the desk to write a review of my last read - Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country for Old Men'. Did I like it? No. Did I dislike it? Hmmmm - I liked the movie and the movie is a faithful adaptation of the book. Its just that the prose version of what I saw in the movie was a tad too overbearing.

The plot is indeed seductive. Its a "modern" western set in the desert plains of Texas in the 1980s. So instead of horses and cowboys, you have trucks carrying loads of dope and cash and drug peddlers over the US-Mexican border. And then there are men - men with ununderstandable Southern accents, virtuous men who hold onto age-old values and traditions, men with bad hair cuts (okay! this is coming from the movie - the book did not mention the bad hair-cut), and men who would not think twice before committing a evil deed. And there is loads of machismo - guns, wounds, blood, bullets, horses, fights and chases. But sadly, where are the women? The entire book has only one woman and about 200 bad men. And just like Venus divine, she is homely, loving, caring and family oriented. Everything that the men in the book are not and everything that the virtuous old men in the book lament about. Through the western drug-deal-gone-dowdy plot, what McCarthy bemoans about is the complete degradation of values and morals and ethics in the American society to such an extent that the country is no good for anyone to live in, let alone the older populace. That is the credence for the title of the book, in case you are wondering.

So a rumpled, dusty, fit and agile antelope hunter called Llewelyn Moss, during one of his hunting escapades in the desert plains lands up on a scene of massacred drug dealers close to the Mexican border. Their dope is intact, but the cash they were carrying is missing. As Moss follows the trail some more, he lands up near one more corpse who carries a case with about $2 million in cash. Moss makes off with this suitcase full of cash that also contains a hidden transponder that alerts the villain to his every move. The villain, being Anton Chigurh - an enigmatic, cold blooded, emotionless murderer who stalks Moss throughout the book, almost like a ghost. He kills ruthlessly and thoughtlessly, anybody who comes into contact with him, loading bullets into people's heads seemingly just for kicks. A complete sadist, he tosses a coin to determine whether or not he'll spare the life of the owner of a small convenience store and the only lady in the book, Moss's wife, Carla Jean. And the device with which he commits most of the mass murders in the book is so inventive - its a pressurized thingie used to stun and instantly kill cattle. And the unexpressed satisfaction that he gets out of zonking out the brains of his victims using this stun-sten-gun is only left to the imagination of the reader.

Pursuing both Moss and Chigurh throughout the tale is the grand old virtuous man, the Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who also plays the dual role of the narrator of the book. Against this backdrop of ruthless killings and overall creepiness, Sheriff Bell ponders the meaning of existence and decadence of old-fashioned values, which would be pretty boring for a complete book, if it were not for the murderous Chigurh and his fleeing cattle.

Having explained the excellent plot and the gripping story line, let me proceed to my main grouse against this book. This is my first Cormac McCarthy read. And I must say that his writing style befuddles me. Its tedious and exhausting, to say the least. He rushes through his story so much so that he completely misses the well-intentioned commas, apostrophes, exclamation marks, quotation marks, and all the grammatical accessories. I am sure these were invented by ancient geniuses of the script for some reason. And when you find it missing, is when you realize its value. Call me old-school, but I had a hard time making out the meaning of his written word. Its as if he is so economical with his usage of words and epithets, that he discounts the usage of frillage. Point in case, the following conversation between Carla Jean and Sheriff Bell:

'These people will kill him, Carla Jean. They won't quit.
He wont neither. He never has.
Bell nodded. He sipped his coffee. The face that lapped and shifted in the dark liquid in the cup seemed an omen of things to come. Things losing shape. Taking you with them. He set the cup down and looked at the girl. I wish I could say that was in his favor. But I have to say I dont think it is.
Well, she said, he's who he is and he always will be. That's why I married him.
But you aint heard from him in a while.
I didnt expect to hear from him.
Were you having problems.
We dont have problems. When we have problems we fix em.
You're lucky people.
Yes we are.
She watched him.'

Notice the small structured sentences, the lack of metaphors or adjectives, and the complete omission of the fluffy fandangles. Another thing which caused me considerable grief was that inspite of rushing through the prose, it seemed like you landed nowhere. So you are running more and more, you are getting tired, but apparently there is nowhere to sit and catch a breath, and it still seems like there are miles to go. He explains every step taken in minutest detail. But again within his self-constructed grammatical (un)restrictions. 'He opened the refrigerator. He looked in. He took out the milk, drank some from the carton, sealed the carton, and put it back in the refrigerator. He closed the door.' Everything in the book is compact, yet so seemingly endless towards the horizon. Also call me unhandy, but the focussed attention towards the mechanical rigor also seemed like a pain in all the wrong places. "a heavybarreled .270 on a ’98 Mauser with a laminated stock”; “the shotgun was a twelve gauge Remington automatic with a plastic military stock and a parkerized finish”; “he unzipped the case and took out a stainless steel .357 revolver and went back to the bed”; “a Tec-9 with two extra magazines and a box and a half of shells.”

But all said and done, the book's plot is enough to give you sleepless nights and you can so easily see how the movie rights for this book might have been snapped up by some eager production house as soon as they were out available. The movie is definitely a faithful adaptation of the book and Javier Bardem looks so evil in the role of Chigurh that it seems that the role was just written with him in mind. Just the fact that he survived that outlandish hair gear and still managed to knock your balls off with his evil glare is totally commendable.

Chigurh as a writer's invention is probably the scariest invention ever penned. And for that due credit needs to go to McCarthy. Just how psychopathic Chigurh is, can be realized in one of his final confrontation scenes with the innocent Carla Jean. He is almost omniscient in that scene where he tells her "there is nothing that can change what has been preordained." He makes her call a coin toss; she loses the call. This, too, it seems, was fate: “Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person’s path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.” And somewhere between the lines, you can see the writer blowing up Chigurh with so much power and awe that you almost wonder whether McCarthy wishes to play God. Maybe he does. All story tellers do. The book is their fantasy, where the characters are puppets in their hands.

As a book that laments on the downfall of much cherished values and morals, this book did not work for me. As a literary accomplishment, this book did not work for me. Where it did work for me, was the brilliant plot and that memorable character whom Moss refers to as Sugar - the psycopathic villain to be feared for all ages to come.

Persepolis

2008-01-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

What is the price that you have to pay for your freedom? As Persepolis answers this question, it rings a bell with all immigrants who have moved to greener pastures elsewhere in the world, seeking that elusive pot of gold called Freedom - Financial or otherwise. One of the most imaginative movies that I have ever watched, Persepolis registered on my senses immediately as I felt emotions such as happiness, melancholy, horror and hope all in the space of less than 2 hours. And oh! what expressive use of the language of music and animation as we are drawn into the life of Marjane Satrapi, who along with her parents, grandmother and relatives, long for an Iran which is free from the autocratic Shah, the Iraqi war booms and ultimately the repressive Islamic government.

This autobiographical tale uses the most evocative color schema, just shades of black and white to evoke feelings of depression and longing in a country where longing for something as pure and innocent as physical touch from a loved one is considered a crime. You feel thankful for the immense deliberation shown by the directors of this little classic, Marjane Satrapi (The story is based on Ms. Satrapi's memoirs) and Vincent Paronnaud, in choosing a schema so expressive as compared to have flesh-and-blood characters enact the story. What unfolds is a tale so expressive in a language so unheard of, that it logs immediately in your senses as an unforgettable movie.

You so empathize with the life of Marjane who comes to a foreign country and is bugged at the stance taken by her new friends, for whom independence and luxuries of life are a given. You completely understand it when Marjane, in a bout of depression runs back to her country, and where she is totally torn between her feelings of love for her motherland and still wanting to lead a free life. And that's the best part of the story - the story is specifically about Marjane, but many of the millions of immigrants worldwide would relate with the story. You see Marjane as one of those countless immigrants whose experience in the West was one of frustration and miscommunication. When she runs back to Iran saying, "In the West, people don't care if you even die on the streets", somewhere in the deepest recesses of your mind, a bell tolls.

It's such a surprising and refreshing movie, while being oddly entertaining, and still it rivets the audience with the age-old questions about identity and homeland, autocracy and religious dictactorship.

It's also a pleasant reprieve to see old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation battling it out successfully with the modern 3-D Pixel animated movies. Although technically the movie might be a wimp as compared to all the other big studio animation movies, where this movie succeeds is in its tactful story telling. It makes you realise that if you still believe in your movie and if your story has its heart in its place, the end product would be fascinating. Satrapi and Paronnaud have fashioned something rough, real, raw and old fashioned, with a narrative authority that has hardly ever been used in our studio-driven, sales-hyped digital age.

It's only in a few and far-in-between scenes that the color schema changes from black-and-white to multicolored hues, during flash-forwards to an older, and lonelier Satrapi remembering vivid scenes from her childhood in a lonely Paris airport. The movie ends with Satrapi remembering the most memorable character from the movie - her Grandmom - who constantly reminds her to be "true to yourself". In the image that lingers above all in this most memorable movie of all times, the old woman unsnaps her bra and lets it drop. The gesture sends forth a shower of flower petals, her perfume of choice. And I can just smell the jasmine. And feel the tears roll down my cheeks.

Book Review: While England Sleeps

2008-01-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful tale - The perils of love as it blooms, unfolds, and ultimately withers away. Love, love confused, love lost, and love long lost and the lives of two young hearts as it follows these stages in the backdrop of the Spanish revolution.

While England Sleeps is set in Pre-World War II London, UK, and the author David Leavitt does a very good job in recreating the scenes and sounds from that era. It almost feels as if the book is written in that time by someone from that time, rather than 50 years later which is actually the case. It is actually much to my surprise later that I found that David Leavitt is an American by birth and upbringing. It requires a strong literary nerve for a non-English writer to set a story in the England of the late 1930's. And the efforts are totally laudable. The language is so lucid, yet so classical and lyrical in its approach that it immersed me in the era, without too much information overload. I particularly liked the numerous scenes set in the London underground train system. It's a brilliant pictorial representation of the London underground train system in words, I could almost smell the steam engines as I sped through the pages. Take for example this beautifully written piece, the first few lines from the book:

"It began like this: a bird flying through the chambers of the underground, like a fly caught in a nautilus. No one noticed but me. First the wind blew - that smoky, petrol-smelling wind that presages the arrival of the train - and then the twin lights pierced the darkness, and then there it was, gray and white, a dove, I think, chased by the train's smoking terror. It fluttered and hovered above my head for a moment, as if trying to figure out where the sky was, then sailed up the exit stairs and was gone."

This and many more glum scenic descriptions of the 1930s London, paint a bleak picture of love in the times of war. Set against the rise of fascism in Europe at that time, While England Sleeps tells the story of a love affair between an aristocratic young British writer Brian Botsford, who thinks homosexuality is something he will outgrow, and Edward Phelan, a sensitive and idealistic working-class employee of the London Underground and a Communist party member. It's a romance separated by class, and the separation is further exacerbated by world events during that period of time. When the strains of class difference, sexual taboo, and Brian's ambivalence impel Edward to volunteer to fight against Franco in Spain, Brian pursues him across Europe and into the violent chaos of war. What happens henceforward is a heart-breaking tale travelled across countries that tells about lessons learnt, but a tad too late. The final scenes of melancholy where you can see that no matter how much Brian tries, he has to let go of Edward is too vivid in its description and the strain of melancholy is too much to bear. So much that you almost begin to ache for the author to euphemize his words.

Sorrowful, accomplished, restrained and yet so romantic, While England Sleeps is an entertaining and easy read. Here's looking forward to reading more of Leavitt's works.

Book Review: On Chesil Beach

2008-01-19T09:15:00.000-08:00

Innocence, ignorance, virginity, love and love lost form the core of this book 'On Chesil beach'. This is the first Ian McEwan read of mine. Thanks Shree for the fabulous birthday gift and introducing me to the world of McEwan. There is such a powerful and composed demeanour in his writing style. In a literary world where shamelessness has become like a high stakes art form, it is so refreshing to know that there are still writers like McEwan who can spend about 200 pages writing about the physical action of making love and still not make it seem dirty in the least. The clinical, yet beautiful way in which he treats the act of foreplay and that of making love is laudable. It's a story of a single night and what transpires between a newly married lovely couple on that night.

On Chesil Beach begins thus:
"They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy."

In the sexually liberated otherworld called the US of A, it might be difficult for young readers to see the point that McEwan is trying to make. But coming from a sexually repressive land like India, I could totally see the same point. That when talking about sex and learning about sex is restricted to badly made pornographic movies and make believe hearsay from peers and older friends in school, the naivette that is unknowingly absorbed into the act of first sex could be the make-or-break part of that relationship. Come to think of it, how many of us are still in talking terms with the very first person that we lost our virginity too? And haven't most of us gained the most knowledge about sex, just along the learning curve of doing more of the same thing over and over again? I still need to find out how this tale resonates to a younger American generation of modern American sensibilities. For McEwan, when he might have begun writing this novel, it might have seemed an uphill task - how can he explain this reticence to younger readers — the children and grandchildren of the generation to whom loss of virginity is taken for granted and to bother about it is merely an oddity?

Probably McEwan decided to make this arduous task easier by staging this drama as a period piece. The date is 1962, just before London began to swing and civilization as we know it today succumbed gratefully to sex and drugs and violence and internet. Thank God for small mercies! And for all those sweet evil discoveries! So the lead characters of On Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, like all middle class and upper class kids of those days were sexually unaware, inexperienced and ignorant. They were also again like all middle class and upper class kids of those days obedient, well behaved, class-conscious and withheld. Maybe the former mentioned qualities were an offspring of the latter. How beautifully McEwan puts it as "This was still the era, when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure." Oh how strongly this condition relates to a younger Indian generation today - to whose symptoms, the only antidote suggested by an older generation is a grand, arranged marriage. Who should know this better than an unmarried guy, of a highly marriageable age like me?

Just like our parents might have thought in their hey days, Edward from this novel "firmly believed that to make love—and for the very first time—merely by unzipping his fly was unsensual and gross. And impolite." And to top it all, besides all these feelings that he has to overcome to make love to his newly wed (whom he is most clearly in love with too), he also suffers from premature ejaculation. A condition that he is slightly aware of, and which scares him mighty whether it would create an indelible blot on his masculinity the very first night that he can rightfully claim his place in the echelons of manhood.

On the other hand, his lovely, newly married wife has her own set of problems. She loves him passionately, but only with her eyes: "her whole being was in revolt against a prospect of entanglement and flesh.... She simply did not want to be 'entered' or 'penetrated.'" She loves him and needs him, but with an "excruciating physical reticence" — which of course makes her even more desirable to him. She never had sampled the taste and the fruit of such passion, but just the thought of it made her inner body coil and revolt. She had such revulsion to the entire act of making love, that she had all these ghosts to fight off the night they got married.

What would happen on the wedding night between two such people who had little help from the outside world in solving these problems? At a time when talking about sex was taboo?

His erotic expectations and her physical dread turn the wedding night into a catastrophe. He comes prematurely all over her, "filling her navel, coating her belly, thighs and even a portion of her chin and kneecap in tepid, viscous fluid" — as always, McEwan is clinically precise — and she reacts with almost Victorian disgust: "Nothing in her nature could have held back her instant cry of revulsion."

What path does the story take from here? I am almost tempted to narrate the rest of the story out and further dissect my feelings regarding that part. But I would have to resist. If even one person can pick up the book and read it from beginning to end, experiencing the sheer surge of emotions with every line of detail as only a master conductor can orchestrate, I would consider my review on the book to be of use. A must read, a sheer delight, which will make you dream of all the times in your life when you made the wrong decisions and wrong choices in life due to words not said and actions not taken. You will close the book and recount those numerous occasions and think 'What if?'

On Chesil Beach is brief and carefully plotted, a quick, interesting read, the writing style is very composed, the tone of voice is nostalgic. As I pondered a bit more about the book, after finishing it, I couldn't but help wonder whether the same set of problems occurred between a set of partners, in today's world, who are more sexually experienced and aware?

Catchy Curses

2008-01-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

Clean Curses

crotch-grabber
mouth-licker
boot-face
jack-head
donkey-smeller
farting-jezebel
rim-sucker
stink-toed vench
crab-feast
cowboy-underpants
burger-panties
Kelly Clarkson (?)
trash-heart
sweaty pie-hole
meat-crotch

Dirty Curses

cock-ass
bitch-fucker
shitty-dink-fuck
shit-ass
cum-whore
shitting-shit-shitter
fucking-fuck-fucker
jesus ball-juice
burger-pussy
american ass
canadian cock
gaping fuck-hole
horny ass-crack
squirt shaft

Source: The movie 'The 40-year-old Virgin'. For the scene where the virgin is getting his chest mow-waxed for augmenting his sex appeal, he has to give some choice abuses each time the waxing lady pulls off a strip of hair coated hot wax from his chest. And the entire movie production team had come up with the above listed curses of which only the best made it to the movie halls. But all of them are quite interesting. So I listed them here for reference. Some day when I want to really respond back to some bugger, this list is gonna be handy.

P.S.: I thought a lot, before deciding against letting my fear of putting these abuses on my post. I doubt how many readers I am ever gonna get for my blogs. For those choice few who know me well, who read me, it doesn't matter.

The pop-a-pill illness

2008-01-17T06:28:00.000-08:00

As my eyes opened in the morning, I could feel my body warmer than usual. And when I tried to lift my head up from the cushion, I could feel the weight in my head. It was as if my brain had suddenly become a 1000 times more meatier and the heaviness was pulling my head down. The pain was terrible. And when I tried to get up from the bed, my legs seemed too heavy too. It was as if the leg muscles were paining from a sudden burst of exertion. But I didn't remember doing anything physically stressful over the past 2-3 days. That was when I felt that I was probably developing slight fever and sickness. I walked over to the counter where I had kept my medicines. I picked up a pill and popped it straight in. Half an hour I was feeling much better and an hour later I stepped out for work.

At work was when Shibu pointed out this article to me. Scary, isn't it?

A particularly important piece to be noted from this article:

"Dr Altaf Patel, physician, Jaslok Hospital, lists four of the most common types of pill popping:

• Non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAID). These set off asthma attacks. In Tanmay's case, it led to a massive cardiac arrest and subsequent coma and hypoxia.

• Cold medicines containing phenyl propanol amine. These can raise blood pressure, so blood pressure patients beware of popping pills to control that running nose or a cough.

• Aspirin. Dr Patel says that it's only a misconception that this is safe. Often, it causes internal bleeding and one doesn't even know about it until it develops into something serious.

• Paracetamol. The common use of paracetamol is to beat a hangover after a night of drinking. It causes liver damage.

"Only vitamin B-complex and anatacids should be sold over the counter, nothing else," says Dr Patel.

"95 per cent of drugs shouldn't be available OTC," agrees Dr Yeolekar, director, KEM Hospital."

I have decided now to at least think a thousand times before just casually popping a pill in.

28 reasons why '28 Weeks Later' did not work for me

2008-01-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

1) 28 Days Later is at least 28 times better than 28 Weeks Later. Period.

2) The movie starts off with a brand new set of actors. What happened to the actors in the original '28 Days Later'? When you traditionally go to watch a sequel, it's because you genuinely liked the original and wondered what happened to the likeable characters from the original movie. That idea does not hold true with this sequel.

3) The movie then takes you to a zombie-ravaged Britain 28 weeks later. USA led NATO forces have undertaken rehabilitation efforts of London and are working on repopulating the city. But where is the British government? Where is the Queen and the royal family? Did all of them die too? I would like to believe not. If they had managed to run away to some other country, it would have made more compelling viewing to see how the British Government in exile agreed to let the US military into British land and let them control power in their land.

4) And what about the rest of the world? How did the world leaders react to a situation like this? It is impossible to believe that while in one corner of the city there are still rotting bodies from a deadly virus waiting to be cleared, and there are still rats and dogs scattering about the bodies, USA led troops have already started the process of rehabilitation in another part of the city. Don't you think the rest of the world would vehemently oppose such an idea if it were to be implemented?

5) Just like the Saw and Hostel series (which I totally enjoy - completely mindless and slapstick gore) and other stupid horror films of the like, even this movie depends on its lead characters performing foolery all the time to lead the gore chapter forward. The kids and the government officials fall into every horror-movie trap ever set, as if they have never seen a horror film: Don't leave protected confines for a solo trip, don't kiss the half-zombie, don't turn off all the lights when the zombies are breaking in, don't enter the abandoned subway and tunnels.

6) How old is the US Army's chief medical officer Scarlet (played by Rose Byrne)? 28? Isn't she at least 10 years too young to be in charge of an operation this huge?

7) Talk about gaping holes in the movie plotline. First you've got talk about the U.S. Army and its extremely tight security protocols. Then, the next moment, there is practically none. Two kids easily escape. What about Quarantine for a potentially infected person, who just minutes ago is revealed to be a carrier of the deadly virus? There is no quarantine. In a real situation none of the plot turning points could have happened. A janitor or caretaker having unsupervised, total access through a military quarantine facility to get through the area with NO ONE noticing. And this scene is a fulcrum of the entire movie. LMAO.

8) This movie borrows heavily all the good ideas from the prequel, 28 Days Later. And while this movie had added a couple of ideas, the director totally wasted those ideas by focussing more on the gore and violence and blood.

9) One of the good ideas that the director completely wasted was the lead character Don's (played by Robert Carlyle) guilt. This could have been a very good movie about his guilty conscience and how he deals with it. Rather it is tackled the easy way out - get him infected as well.

10) Another idea that is totally wasted is about how to explore Don's wife, Alice's (played by Catherine McCormack) potential for carrying a cure for the virus in her blood.

11) The obvious political allegory in the movie also did not work for me. It might barely be possible to claim it's a commentary about the US led war in Iraq: When soldiers can no longer tell infected people from healthy civilians, they have to execute everyone to prevent the epidemic from spreading - Code Red. But I think this kind of philosophizing would ennoble a movie that has no agenda other than to frighten the movie-going audience. Why did the director venture in this direction when he did not want to explore that theme anymore?

12) It is in moments like this that the movie begins to lack pace. There are moments when it seems confused between whether it should make a moralistic statement or whether it should pander to the zombie movie going audiences' tastes to set the cash registers ringing.

13) The usual sequences found in accepted zombie genre can be found here, including, in no particular order, scenes of zombie hordes approaching over the crest of a hill; a zombie attack on a conked-out vehicle, and a zombie assault on a charming, peaceful countryside hideaway.

14) Which is what brings me back to my core rant with this movie again - The director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo seems more interested in rattling nervous systems than in developing a truly scary movie. There is no coherent plot, rather just a hotch potch set of gore sequences conjured together.

15) The movie's focal gross scene is when a helicopter pilot aims his chopper blades at the screaming, chasing zombies, and blood and flesh begin to splatter. There are heads and limbs flying here and there and the entire scene turns a tomato sauce red. Still not even a drop of blood falls on the chopper pilot, inspite of his chopper getting painted a dark red. How did the pilot escape uninfected through all this gore?

16) And the 12-yr old kid Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton - more about him later on) is much more smarter than James Bond. Everybody else in the movie die when aimed with a shot once. Just like James Bond, Mithun Chakraborty and Rajnikanth (the latter two being Indian superstars), no matter how much you attack Andy, he will always escape unhurt.

17) Why do the zombies always walk and run as if they will lose in the very first round of 'Dancing with the Stars'? And they screech as if they will lose in the very first round of 'American Idol'? Well, come to think more about it - perhaps, they might just win the contest.

18) And why is Scarlet so attached with the kids? Why does she care so much about some random strangers she just met?

19) The last shot of the movie - infected people running through Paris, with a grim looking Eiffel Tower in the background - leaves out scope for further increasing the money making gambit, exploiting the same concept. This way the moviemakers can go on and on with the same concept, never really bringing the series to close. I hear that the next sequel titled '28 Months Later' is already in the books and it will be set in Russia. The way is left open for more movies in a lucrative franchise: 28 months? 28 years? 28 decades? 28 centuries? Who cares? I will probably look forward more eagerly to similarly titled porn versions - 9 months later? 9 inches later?

20) The characters in the movie are totally uninteresting and you don't care about any of them, and certainly not the kids. The kids are generic and the script doesn't care much about the adults. The adults in 28 Days Later inhabited better developed and more sympathetic personalities. Tension in horror movies results from viewers caring about what happens to characters. The audience's connection to the protagonists of 28 Days Later made it a compelling experience. The lack of such a connection in 28 Weeks Later reduces this to a number of sequences just characterized by shock moments.

21) What irritated me further was the jerky camera action. Apparently, Fresnadillo believes that the proper way to film any action scene is to shake the camera violently and pan it wildly back and forth, thereby making it virtually impossible to figure out what's going on (and pushing viewers with motion sickness).

22) To give the the gore sequences added effect without spending much effort in filming them, Fresnadillo's crew came up with another idea - choppy editing. So none of the shots taken during the gory sequences last for more than a second. With the camera jerks and the random edits, what ensues is a mishmash of red colored characters and mumble jumble cacophony of sounds.

23) For further added effect during the blood curdling sequences you have an irritating throbby background score. Old school gore is old news. So Fresnadillo pumps up the volume with his loud, pumpy score aimed at further disorienting the audience with sound. At peak moments, an industrial-grunge soundtrack pumps up to intolerable volume. The results are sickening and frightening, yes, but not exactly remarkable filmmaking.

24) The culminating scene is shot in complete darkness and I really couldn't figure out what's happening until I discovered that Scarlet is dead, because I just couldn't see her anymore. Did I care? No.

25) Most movies with kids aim at making the kids appear all cutesy and cuddly (the most recent criminal to this - I remember the kids from the movie 'The Holiday'). In this movie, Fresnadillo tries too hard in seeing to it that the kids don't seem all bogus cute. In effect, the kids appear to be made of nerve and steel and indefatigable. Which doesn't work either.

26) While 28 Days Later ended with a sense of hope and solidarity (I am not talking about its alternative ending here), 28 Weeks Later ends with a foreboding sense of doom, which says that try as much as you might, humankind cannot get rid of the virus.

27) After the movie ended, I still had to look up IMDB for the movie names and the real life names of the characters in this movie - that's how less I cared about them. If I enjoy a movie, I sit through its credits and the names register in my head. Not in this one.

28) And when I looked up IMDB, what did I find? The kids's real life names are Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton. Poots? and Muggleton? I hope IMDB is not pulling a fast one on me. :)

Plagiarism International Unltd.

2008-01-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

If anything about Bollywood always made me feel content, it was the music from the dream factory. Sadly it was only the sole Bhangra music that captured the attention of the international listeners when they heard about Indian and Bollywood music. But over the last few years, I am noticing more and more mainstream Indian songs being incorporated in international songs, which is a good sign.

My favorites were the incorporation of 'Aao Huzoor Aao' before the song 'Quizás Quizás Quizás', filmed on a drag Gael Garcia Bernal in Pedro Almodovar's fabulous 'LA MALA EDUCACIÓN'. And who can forget the diamond clad Nicole Kidman singing Chamma Chamma (the original being filmed on a ultra hot Urmila) in Moulin Rouge?

But even a bigger trend nowadays is incorporating hindi tracks in Reggaethon and Hip hop tracks.

So you have Adnan Sami's Kabhi to Nazar Milao's few lines featuring in the track Un Chi Chi by Aventura, Anu Malik's Eli Re Eli from the movie Yaadein featuring in the track Mirame Mirame by Daddy Yankee and Bappi Da's Thoda Resham Lagta Haifrom the movie Jyoti featuring in the track Addictive by Truth Hurts

Finally our good old Hindi film music getting its due recognition from internation quarters. For once Bappi Da and Anuji can sue the international artistes for loyalty purposes.

Btw, when we are talking about plagiarism here, I should also say that its not that none of the Indian artists mentioned above have never been "inspired" by any other international numbers. Particularly there is little thing that I still vaguely remember about Bappi Lahiri's 'Kaliyon Ka Chaman' plagiarism mess.

Of course it is known story that Bappida sued Dr Dre and won the lawsuit against them in the case of plagiarism for using his composed music in the song Addictive. The other part of the story is an Indian twist to the copycat story. This one features in the assorted remix compilation UMI10 - Volume 3! The music is credited to composer Harry Anand. When some journalist asked him about the origins of his song, Harry responded back saying that he was asked to remix the US smash hit in his own way by the record label. He apparently had no clue about the movie 'Jyoti' and the actual original! Even more funnier is the video for the remixed Indian version...its a straight lift of the US version! So they lift our song, and we lift the lifted. We also lift their video! Interesting equation, this!

P.S.: If you have noticed all the URLs in the post above, Youtube yay!

Technology at work

2008-01-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

So last week my team at work achieved a huge technological breakthrough with our videoconferencing / teleconferencing options. It was simply brilliant! While we have all been using Teleconferencing and Videoconferencing and Netmeeting and other Screensharing options, each with its own share of benefits, never before in my experience had such a huge team met over a brainstorming session spread across so many locations. So we had 13 team members from 7 different locations spread across the globe - London, Dusseldorf, Paris, Spain, New York, New Jersey, Atlanta.

There were 6 of us in the conference room in New York. Our Videoconferencing facility in New York had 3 projector screens. So on one of the projector screens, we had a split screen and couple of our team members from Dusseldorf and London were projected on the split screen. On the other screen, we projected the document that we were all gonna talk about. Now this is the interesting part! One of our fellow team members joining from Spain was working from his hotel room, and of course he did not have any video conferencing facility in the hotel. He put his webcam on, shared his screen with the rest of the team using a screen sharing option and all of us viewed him on the other projector. The remaining team members were not on Videoconference, we could just hear them through the teleconference.

It was a richly rewarding experience and there was a free exchange of thoughts throughout the session. And we could easily interact with different participants located in different parts of the globe, without incurring travel expenses or other expenses associated with face to face communication. Technology has indeed come a long way!

Break free of the procession poppycock

2008-01-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

I heard from Amanda during our weekly socials, about the 'Processional Caterpillars'. The thought that she shared with us was pretty interesting and hence what better way to share it with others, than through this blog post.

Just like the ant colonies and the bee colonies, these caterpillar colonies are some of the most advanced social cultures in the animal kingdom. Click here to read more about the social characteristics of this little creature.

But what intrigued me most was just like ants how these caterpillars too walked head to tail behind each other in a single line, following the path laid down by their leader.

You can watch a video shot of the caterpillars walking behind each other in the link provided above and also in this Youtube video link.

A biologist once experimented with these processional caterpillars. He lined up the caterpillars on the rim of a pot that held a plant so that the lead caterpillar was head to tail with the last caterpillar, with no break with the parade. The tiny creatures walked around the rim of the pot for a full week before they died of exhaustion and starvation. Not once did any of the caterpillars break out of the line and venture over into the plant to eat. Food was only inches away, but the follow the leader instinct was even stronger than the drive to eat and survive!

This example is used by many organizational behavior experts to demonstrate the difference between 'Productive' thinking and 'Reproductive' thinking.

Productive thinking or Creative thinking would mean to break out of the mould - just like it would have done good for the caterpillars to break out of their Procession rigmarole and scout for food on their own, rather than depend on their leader to take them to the food. The power of productive thinking lies in its potential to increase your chances of finding, developing, and ultimately implementing unexpected connections.

On the other hand, Reproductive thinking would mean following well worn patterns which is what most of us do most of the time, and churning out products and babies one after the other. As a society, mankind has evolved so much over the ages that there are processes and rules and set patterns laid down which most of us follow most of the time. Don't get me wrong. Not that this is not needed, in fact, it is absolutely essential for the smooth and harmonious running of our day-to-day activities.

However, the tethering effect of following well-worn patterns can be a major barrier to Creative thinking. In India, elephant wranglers, or mahouts, prevent elephant calves from wandering by chaining one of the animal’s legs to a stake deeply embedded in the ground. Try as they might, the young elephants aren’t strong enough either to break their chains or dislodge the stake. Attempting to do so is not only fruitless but uncomfortable as the chain tightens around their legs. Pretty soon they stop trying. As adults, elephants are kept in place with a length of woven hemp (much cheaper and more convenient than a chain) tied to a stake hammered into the ground with a few strokes. Full-grown elephants can pull away from their tethers easily, but they don’t. They have a deeply ingrained pattern that tells them that escape is impossible. For the elephants, the pattern has become more powerful than the data. (This example is quoted from the book 'Think Better')

There is a time and place for both Productive and Reproductive thinking. When stuck in a jam and things do not seem to be moving forward, we need to put on our creative hats and think better. But Creative thinking is not an art that you can learn in a single day. Rather it requires practice, and the more we try and think logically and creatively on a daily basis, the easier it is to put this thinking hat on, when facing difficult circumstances.

(The book Think Better suggests some basic ways and means in getting used to the idea of Productive Thinking.

P.S.: This is not a sales pitch for the book, I am yet to read it. I am just fascinated by the Productive v/s Reproductive Thinking approach)

Ah! New York's finally getting onboard with Public Restrooms!

2008-01-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

This is a blog post in which I had written about one of my NYC pet peeves - no public restrooms.

And today I read this. New York's finally getting on board with paid public potties. Yay!

So New York has finally come of age - with people getting some more choices of where to pee, when the holding gets tough.

But with all the features mentioned in the article above, I just wonder whether the administration could have come up with something simpler and easier, earlier on and saved the millions of city dwellers the trouble of having to hunt (and walk funny while hunting).

Anyways, better late than never.

I just hope that unlike Mumbai (and I am sure many other cities in the world), it does not turn into another haven and hunting-ground for hookers. You know 15 minutes is a lot of time! And with a warning bell that goes off at 12 minutes, you even have sufficient 3 minutes to clean up yourself. And you can walk out without bothering about cleaning the restroom after yourself. Leave the cleaning of the restroom to itself when the doors close.

What’s in a Name?

2008-01-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

Posted on four big signs set along US-63 South en route to the north-central town of Toledo along the edge of a farm :

Sick of DC?
Ready for Change?
Vote for the Candidate
With the Funny Name.

Of course the candidate they are referring to Obama (Its so funny when my friend accidentally referred to him as O-la-bama a few days back, and we all had a hearty laugh about it)

But is it only Obama for whom this sign-post could work? What about Huckabee ;)?

Bollywood in 2007 for me

2008-01-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

My fav Bollywood movies in 2007:

1) Black Friday
2) Taare Zameen Par
3) Jab We Met
4) Metro
5) Chak De India

Aaja Nachle, Om Shanti Om, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd were fun movies as long as they lasted

And yes, Saawariya was the biggest yawn!

The biggest Khan of the year:
Irrfan Khan - The brilliant actor in the movies Metro, Aaja Nachle, The Namesake (wish he gets an Oscar Nomination this year for this movie), A Mighty Heart (He even walked the Cannes Red Carpet this year with Angelina and Brad Pitt, and that too without all the mighty PR resources that Ms Rai has to her benefit), and The Darjeeling Limited. Irrfan, you rock!

301/302 - Disturbing!

2008-01-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

What do you make of a "food" movie that does not make you feel like wanting to eat after the movie's done?

301/302 is one such movie. It was awarded South Korea's national prize for best film of 1995. And truly well deserved, if I could say so. This movie is so disquieting and disturbing, that hours after having seen the movie, the scenes are still afresh in my mind.

Viewing this movie comes for me at the right time around New Year's that I made a resolution to lose my weight. I am sure I have lost my appetite at least for a few days having watched this movie.

301 and 302 are two neighborhood apartments housing two lonely women with dark pasts. The movie opens with an investigator questioning the lady in 301 (an obssessive chef who thinks that food is the solution to all problems) about the lady resident in 302 (a lonely writer who has long lost the will and the longing to eat, make love and simply live), who seems to have disappeared. The investigation seems to be just a ploy to get the viewers interested in the story. Once the story lazily shifts gears between numerous flashbacks across numerous periods of times, you realize that the movie is not just a simple mystery/thriller. Rather it is a dark tragi-comedy, delving deep into the inter-relationship between food, love, sex and violence.

Through the course of the investigation and flashbacks, 301 is revealed to be compulsive about both food and sex. When she does not get sex and love, 301 resorts to more of cooking and feeding herself and people around her. And 302, who is revealed to be the daughter of a butcher, has some nasty skeletons in her closet explaining the reasons for her bulimia. When 301 learns of it, she begins cooking for her to attempt to shake her out of it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out as per 301's plans. All of 301's hard work in delicately preparing meals for her anorexic neighbor, goes in the trash and down the toilet, and the relationship between the two gets tenser and tenser.

As the movie was progressing, I was so badly hoping that the director does not chicken out like most other directors and resort to a lesbian angle to reduce the tension between the two lonely women. And this is where the director scores majorly from my side. Not only does the director not go down the beaten path, he resorts to a much more brutal, and logical end to this tale. Beware! This movie is not for the faint hearted.

The movie is filled with rather disgusting visuals of food preparation (I could almost see all my vegetarian friends cringing, I still cannot take my mind off the scene of the preparation of the loach soup). The close-ups of people gorging on various food items are bound to make anyone squeamish. The cinematography is great with an excellent use of vivid colors. Also, the inventive set design deserves praise, as most of the film takes place either in 302 (very sterile, library-like apartment) or 301 (very sleek and vibrant restaurant-like apartment with a futuristic looking kitchen). Using crisp cinematography and extreme close-ups, saturated colors, compelling set decoration, the overall production design is, in large measure, responsible for creating the movie's lingering sense of disturbance and disquiet.

Of course all this is brought together by the excellent direction, and I must really appreciate the director for his vision and guts in putting forward this brave movie. The editing, at first, I thought could have been a bit more taut, but on second thoughts, maybe it was the lazily paced narrative and extended cooking and eating scenes that made the movie all the more memorable. There are some unanswered questions till the very end (who was 302's mysterious male caller? Why did 301 cut her hair short in the very end to almost resemble a look similar to 302? And finally how did the investigation culminate?), but it would be nitpicky on my part to graze on these minor short comings in an otherwise interesting movie.

Ultimately the movie works because it's an odd relationship between the two women, where – if not predictably – these two women are destined to be together, one way or the other. Only 301 can fix 302's problems … with a solution that isn't exactly your or my definition of a gourmet meal.

Xana-doooooooo!!!!!!!

2007-12-30T14:39:00.000-08:00

After standing for 2.5 gruelling hours in the chilling New York cold, when I finally reached the ticket counter, I got to know that there were only partial view tickets available for "Chicago" and all tickets for "The Chorus Line" were sold off. In the split second that I had to make a decision, my mind stopped working, and I asked for tickets to 'Xanadu'. I hadn't heard much about the show, had not read any reviews, and didn't even know what the mysterious sounding title meant.

I did some research on the odd-ball sounding title of the musical, before the show began. What does Xanadu mean?

I learnt that Xanadu was the name of a real ancient Mongolian city, known for its splendor. Xanadu, also Zanadu, Shangdu was the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Mongol Empire, which covered much of Asia and also encroached upon eastern Europe. The city was located in what is now called Inner Mongolia, 275 km north of Beijing.

The reported splendour of Xanadu later inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write his great poem Kubla Khan and caused Xanadu to become a metaphor for opulence. Xanadu is remembered today largely thanks to this poem, which contains the following often quoted lines:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

In popular and modern culture too Xanadu is referenced many times in numerous works

1) Xanadu is home to the comic strip character Mandrake the Magician, created by Lee Falk.
2) Canadian rock band Rush has a song called "Xanadu" on the album 'A Farewell to Kings' which incorporates lines of Coleridge's poem.
3) The 1980 musical film Xanadu is considered a cult film. It featured music by Electric Light Orchestra and John Farrar who wrote most of Olivia Newton-John's hits from the film. The film's title track, "Xanadu", was a major hit for the Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John, along with the songs "Suddenly" (John Farrar) and "Magic" (John Farrar). However the movie was a major dud.
4) It is the name of Charles Foster Kane's Mansion in the Classic Movie Citizen Kane (1941).
5) Episode 70 of the Pokemon anime series features a greenhouse called Xanadu Nursery.
6) The Xanadu Project is a planned shopping, sport, and entertainment complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Begun in 2006, when completed, it will be the world's largest mall, consisting of over 4.8 million square feet of construction.
7) Uncle Scrooge and his nephews visit Xanadu in a story written and drawn by Don Rosa.
8) Xanadu is the name of a very reflective region on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

As I began reading more and more, I realized that the Broadway show 'Xanadu' was derived from the 1980s movie by the same name. The 1980s movie was reviewed to be neither beautiful, luxurious, nor a hit, contrary to what the name suggests. Interesting! I was surprised why any producer would be willing to be bet their many millions of dollars at the cheesy film to have a second life on stage. One of the reviews for the movie that I read started with the title screaming 'Xana-don't. It is regarded as one of the single worst films of all times - ever in history. So I was amazed as to what had come upon the makers of the Broadway show to pick up a work this wretched. I am just surprised what kind of person sets out to make a stage version of this bad movie. Definitely someone who has the courage of his conviction and isn't afraid of the numerous questions that might be asked. Whatever the thought process behind picking up this story, after seeing the stage version, I can confidently say it actually works. I did not think that it was brilliant or a masterpiece (it pales in critical comparison to my last broadway show 'Spring Awakening' - I hope to write more about that later). It is actually 90 minutes of pure, unadulterated, intelligent fun. The play keeps the basic plot from the movie. A muse descends from heaven and inspires an artist to build an ultimate artist studio - a disco where everyone roller skates. To get that to somehow work on stage, the producers brought in a Tony nominated playwright whose job it was to make the cheesy movie seem tasteful for the stage. And of course even before they started working on the stage version, they did have one big thing rooting for them in their favor - the music from the movie.

I read some more on the success of the songs of this movie after getting back from the show and I could definitely see that Olivia had several breakout hits including the title song 'Xanadu' and 'Suddenly'. As horrendous as the film was (you can actually watch some clippings of it online, thanks to Youtube), the sound track was quite popular. Actress Kerry Butler (beautiful and oh-so-graceful) now gets to sing Olivia's songs from the movie. And yes, Kerry was quite good, and in fact much more than good with the Australian accent and the roller skating dance sequences. And that's also in part what works in favor of Xanadu-the stage version, it makes fun of the movie (My hugely critical friend scritic says this is an often employed ploy by producers to make fun of the very source from which they have derived their work since it insulates their work from the very same criticisms that the source was subjected to - but what the heck, it still is funny!), it makes fun of the 80's, it makes fun of Broadway and its huge successes (Lord Lloyd Webber does get a humorous mention and so does the world's largest running musical - Les Miserables), and it also makes fun of itself (Note the pot shot the script makes as the casting-double stinginess of the producers). And the audience loved all of it. Most definitely the audience comprised largely of out of city tourists who did not come expecting Shakespeare, they just wanted to have fun...And fun Xanadu is. So even if it isn't Shakespeare, maybe the stage production can just put the 'do' back in Xanadu.

Reference: Some information for this post is referenced from Wikipedia.

Happy Birthday to me!

2007-12-17T21:37:00.000-08:00

Another year. Another birthday. A slow start to the day. Some many phone calls. Couple of gifts. A feel good factor. But a fear lurking in mind, just two words to be heard, 'Old-er' and 'Loneli-er'. As the day progresses ahead, some more phone calls. Plans made for dinner with friends in the evening. As evening approaches, all dressed up in the birthday cheer, I step out. Fun dinner with friends. Gifts some more. And then it's the time to disco. Hit the club, booze some, dance some, booze some more, dance some more. Time flies. Birthday ends. Well almost!

My story begins where my birthday ends.

It was a fun birthday. As fun, as fun could be. I couldn't have asked any more for my first birthday in an alien country. God bless friends, 'coz without them I would be agonizing over my loneliness on my special day.

I carried my gifts and walked to the subway station to catch a train back home. I was laden with gifts. As I got down the stairs of the 42nd Street Subway station, I could hear a sweet melody wafting through the air.

"Stromin my pain with her fingers
Singin my life with her words
Killing me softly with her song
Killing me softly with her song
Telling my whole life with her words
Killing me softly with her song"

Beautiful. The vocals were amazing. And the range captivating. And the guitar accompaniment was even better. Must be some really talented street musician, said my mind. I moved towards the direction from where the sounds were born.

A tall, lean, heavily dressed black man was playing the guitar and singing the song. His wiry strands of hair were falling all over his face as his face contorted with the emotions. The music being produced there at that moment, needed to reside on a disc and not simply drown away in the cacophony of the train noises. But sadly, that's the way it was.

He was surrounded by a group of around 7 people, excluding me. His captive audience of those 7 people included 2 couples, and then three single guys. Both the girls leaned on to their respective partner's shoulders, enjoying the sweet melody, feeling love only like how young, carefree souls can. You could feel the romance in the air, just at that moment. Of the remaining three single guys, two of them were swaying to the music, and the other one was seeming unfazed by the music, but you could still make out from his face, that his ears were rapt in attention.

And then there was me. I rested my gifts on a seat nearby, but still held on to the bouquet. I began swaying to the music too.

The song ended. His captive audience broke into a heartfelt applause.

Next song.

"When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me"

Ah! Ben King!

Midway through the song, the musician tried some antics. He began stopping midway through the song asking the audience to fill in the lyrics for him. It worked at times where the lyrics were memorable. The song was even better than the previous one.

The song ended. Applause again!

I took some money and proceeded to his guitar bag which was lying on the floor of the platform, to collect his moolah. I dropped the bills in there. That's when he looked up to me and said "Thank you, Sir!"

Him: Gentleman, I see you are coming from a party.
Me: Yes
Him: And is it a special occasion? I can see a bouquet...
Me: Oh Yes! Its ma birthday today.
Him: Oh wonderful.

And then he strummed his guitar strings into a familiar beat.

And he began singing -

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you

By the second line, his captive audience of 7 people had also joined him. There was mild clapping of some hands along with the song too.

Happy Birthday, dear ......

I could see 16 eyes thrust on my face.

I volunteered, "Joe"

Happy Birthday, dear Joe
Happy Birthday to you...

And then the beat intensified. The music envigorated its pace, and the people began singing faster once more the same 4 lines.

It was beautiful. My heart melted. There were tears in my eyes. I was afraid that they would roll over, and I would seem so sissy. But truly it was a moment worth cherishing.

The song ended. Everyone clapped loudly. Some couple of other strangers who weren't involved in the singing too came and wished me.

It was just perfect. When random strangers like these can care to make your birthday special for you, that's when you realize that there is still hope, love, care and humanity in this world. That's when you realize that the world is still just fine.

If there was ever any case for the yummiest, creamiest, temptiest icing on the cake, then this had to be it.

Happy Birthday to me!

Words from the wise

2007-12-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

'What works longer than a Duracell? Child-labor. Child-labor works longer than a duracell. How do I know? I learnt it from the Chinese. We need to learn from the Chinese how to respect our women and the children. They built the Great wall of China using their children. Their kids can just go on and on and on. The women strap the kids to their shoulders and they just work on and on. Yes that's true. Child labor works longer than a Duracell.'

'Gay sex is a lie. Sex should result in procreation. Show me one gay guy who's made kids by having sex. No, you can't. So gays don't have sex. They just make out. And there is nothing wrong in that, I say'.

'Marriages were made by women. When women find that they cannot kick the ass of their man anymore, they marry them. Lady, why do you cry when burying your husband? You are the one who murdered him. He was much happy before he met you. It's true, Marriages just take the love out of a relationship.'

'The government is lying when they say that they have Global warming in control. They want to have your ass baked. And then when your ass is baked, you all will be always up and alert at work, and not rest there at your offices like fools. That's the government's way of increasing your productivity.'

Source: A mad & homeless man on the 5th Avenue subway stop. He was mumbling away these quips loudly without caring about being politically correct. Amusing!

And then it snowed!

2007-12-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

Coming from India, growing up in the tropics, I always fantasized snow. And Bollywood played a major role in misshaping my fantasies about snow. The beautiful snow capped Swiss valleys in the lovezy-schmaltzy laden Yashraj movies impressed indelibly on my mind as a child that snow is pure and romantic. That when you feel love, you run to the snow covered Swiss Albis mountain range, where your love is so strong that you do not even feel the freezing sub zero chill in a skimpy saree. And you sing beautiful romantic numbers. Love conquers it all.

This belief of mine held true for 27 long years of my life. Snow is beautiful, snow is romantic.

And then I landed in New York City.

Today having lived in NYC for more than 9 months, and having seen the reality, I beg to differ.

Today was the first snowfall of 2007.

I woke up and began checking my mails. A while later Mario woke up and looked outside the window, and he exclaimed 'Hey! Its snowing!' I rushed to the window to see beautiful fragments of white fluff flowing in the air and settling ever so gently on the streets outside my house. They had formed a white layer on the cars parked on the streets. The Superintendents of the residential buildings around were busy blowing up the snow and cleaning the streets outside the apartments to ease the movement of people on the streets.

'It's beautiful...Oh! I love the snow', said Mario.

'It's your first snow here', I told him. 'Twice, thrice more and I am sure you will change your mind'.

I was sure of that. It snowed the very second day I landed in the US, and looking outside the house, I could just think that it was extremely beautiful. And then I began to commute to places in the snow and all the beauty, grace, fun and romance that I had associated with the snow, just evaporated into thin air.

NYC where I have lived for some time now has four distinct seasons, so snow will always be a part of my NYC life as long as I am here. I certainly enjoy that first fall of heavy, thick flakes. The sky is dusky and a hush comes over the world. Before the plows come to make it mucky slush, before the dogs stain it yellow and the school kids ruin your backyard with footprints, snow is a lovely experience. Then comes the endless shoveling of driveways and brushing off of cars, followed by the patches of black ice hidden under deceptive white fluff. Ugh. This happened twice, and I’m over snow now.

And it's so cold that you have to wrap yourself up in layers and layers of clothing. All those additional layers are so inconvenient that you feel like a tight sack and your body movements feel so restricted that you avoid trying to bend down to tie the show lace which came off. And then you walk some and you trip some and end up embarassing yourself.

And you cannot wear anything else other than your winter snow boots outside. God forbid, if you do, and unnoticingly stamp into a pool of slush, you will be pulled down by your soggy shoes all day. And then you also have to handle those smelly wet socks. And pray also, if you do, that you do not slip and fall. Coz if you do and make a fool of yourself in front of strangers, it's still bearable. What's more dangerous is the propensity for a slip like that to cause physical damage.

Now having seen the best of both worlds, I feel that Snow in NYC is just similar to Rains in Mumbai. Stay home with your cuppa masala chai and some freshly deep fried hot onion pakoras, with a wonderful book in hand, and lounge on your balcony and have a view outside of the Mumbai rains. It's great. That's when it feels perfect to hum your lovely old school Bollywood romanticisms. Those very same tunes which were shot in the picture perfect snow covered Swiss Albis ranges.

Ah - the things I can do for a free flush!

2007-11-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

It always amazes me at the American tourists' thoughtlessness to point out that there are no public restrooms in India. As a child when I used to watch travel shows (especially the travel segment in that eternal favorite 'Surabhi'), I remember some American tourists' complaining to a reporter that they loved the Taj but what they did not like was that there were no public restrooms around. Of course, the Indian tourist industry did take note of that and the last time that I went to the Taj about 10 years ago, there were public restrooms built there. They were not the cleanest, the most efficient, the most fragrant-free restrooms that an American might have encountered, but oh well, at least they are present. And so too in most cities and tourist spots in the country, I would like to believe.

In contrast, in the Big Apple, one thing that constantly hits me in the face (that's not exactly the correct usage, but I could not get below the belt with this usage) is the lack of public restrooms. And that too with the advent of the chill season once again, the pressure just builds up. As far as I am aware of, there are some public restrooms only in Times Square (the Charmin toilets) in the city.

I have read of efforts in the past by the local NYC administrations to get started on building public restrooms around NYC. But those efforts have all only led to naught. Chronicling this sad history and the persistent dearth of toilets,NYTimes columnist Clyde Haberman once wrote, “The fact remains that this is one of the few great world cities that make no attempt to help people cope with so basic a need, a situation that constantly amazes residents and visitors alike.” Now I hear of articles in newspapers about a campaign called 'Pottypalooza' (nice name, that) which is a marketing effort, in which the marketing firm drives a long trailer, fitted with 27 toilets, around the country, to events like the Super Bowl.

All said and done, the efforts seem far and few for the millions of public yearning to pee, especially in the nail biting cold that there is now. The efforts don't seem to be coming either from the government or from the corporate world. It could be something as simple as a pay-per-flush program if the corporate world does not want to sponsor a loss-making program. I am sure with the millions that they will rake in per pee, it won't be a loss making endeavour after all. I agree bodily excretion is the most non-glamorous of our everyday glamorous NYC lives (if ever, the public restrooms won't make it to the glossy screens of Sex and the City) But isn't it funny that in a post modern society like ours, we are denying the very existence of bodily excretion?

Sometimes I even wonder whether the city's administrative body is not installing public restrooms for a purpose. Maybe they actually make some money out of not installing public restrooms. With no public restrooms, customers will enter a store to use the bathroom. Perhaps they will be forced to buy a drink or a coffee just to use the bathroom at that establishment. That means more tax dollars and more revenue - at the public's inconvenience.

In fact, it is funny that it is a coffee-shop chain that is serving as the city's public restroom. Starbucks should rather be rechristened as Starflush. On any cold winter day, you can rest assured that there will a longer queue in front of the restroom within a Starbucks outlet as compared to the billing counter. I know that there are people opposed to Starbucks everywhere because it has corporatized the neighborhood Mom & Pop coffee shops and small-eats eateries. It has driven out neighborhood cafes everywhere and it seems to reside on nearly every corner in the city, but it does serve one great purpose as the public restroom. So long as you are not far from a Starbucks, you not far from a free flush.

Capitalism and Alienation

2007-11-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

It was the hump day of the week. I was at the pantry by the coffee machine. So a colleague walks in and asks "How are you?" I was tempted to say 'tired, lazy, sleepy'. But I just said 'I am fine' and walked away. I wanted to tell her 'You know what? I was out shopping with a friend until late night 11 pm yesterday and reached home only by 12 and slept only by 12.30 and got up in the morning to reach work again at 6 am. I hardly slept and now I am feeling very sleepy. ' I didn't tell her that though. I didn't feel that close to her. This is despite the fact that we are great friends and can seem to talk about most things without any restraint. I could not figure out why I didn't tell her what I wanted to tell her.

That caught me thinking. Why is it so that despite living, working, commuting and shopping together, most people feel estranged from one another? We talk about what we can’t control (sports, the weather) to avoid discussing what we aren’t allowed to control (our work, the world, our feelings).

And I feel more like it here in the US of A as compared to India. What is it so about the US of A that I don't relate myself with the society here? Might be the capitalist culture I think. The consumerism. The body fascism. The fight to look and be the best at all times. It takes a toll on our relationships.

Hmmm - gotta get back to work. Can't spend all time at work penning my sad stories.

Saawari-yo-yo

2007-11-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

So half an hour into the movie Ranbir Raj is playing with his yo-yo and Sakina runs into him and asks him for forgiveness for her stupidity, to which Ranbir says 'You cannot play with my emotions as if I'm a yo-yo' (or something to that effect). That line is stuck in my head, and I feel like telling the same to SLB - You cannot play with the could-have been careers of two new and wannabe actors, with the first time money and interest shown by Sony Pictures in Bollywood industry, with the time and money spent by numerous cinema-goers on your whimsical jamboree as if we are a yo-yo.

What could have been a beautiful tragical tale of love lost turns into an over indulgent and opulent farce. Right from the frame one of the movie, people are reminded of SLB's lofty ambitions as he proudly proclaims that this movie is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story - White Nights. Although he does say so, fifteen minutes into the movie you realise that there is something majorly flawed with this movie. Maybe it's the director's overindulgence with the sets. Maybe it's the color blue all throughout the movie. Maybe its the dark tone of the movie - why was the entire movie shot in a studio, and why not in the bright natural light outside? Maybe it's the atrocious, kiddish, out of context dance steps (trust me, it looked like some child was doing action songs - I am a teapot tall and stout here is my handle here is my spout). Maybe it's the fact that you cannot understand which period this movie is based in. Maybe it's the fact that it just does not have its heart in its place. Maybe that's it, I think. A heartless movie, without any emotions it is.

The only scene which evoked any kind of emotion (other than plain bored) from the collective movie hall was one where Ranbir Kapoor exposes - his ass. The girls were simply giggling and the guys collectively exhaling, in shock, in surprise, in awe, and in a way which said - we didn't know this. Probably that is the only reason why this movie will ever be remembered - the first time that a titillating song was picturised with the male actor doing the pelvic thrusts and throwing in the towel.

As I left the movie, the only things that remained with me was the buoyance of Rani - the Queen of hearts through the movie. And I just could not stop laughing at the most pretentious dialogue I had ever heard in my life - something about how life is like a boxing ring, and how you have to box out the sadness from your life. And again, I just could not figure out the purpose of Ranbir's ass in the movie?

Happiness Vs Contentedness

2007-11-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

Somehow my most interesting thoughts are aroused during random chats with friends. And when such thoughts come up, I think I should document them so that I do not lose track of them. So here's my last chat with a dear friend.

S: So what do you talk with him anyways? (Him being this new chat friend)
Me: many things - I dunno how i strike up such conversations with random strangers, but i manage to do it
so today we were talking abt what makes us happy in life - generally
S: and .. ?
Me: the beaches, water, sand, designing clothes, hanging out with friends, etc. etc.
What makes youu happy?
Does seeing a beautiful butterfly outside the window hovering over the plant pots make you happy?
S: eeeeee. I'm petrified of cliches. I dunno, watching a good movie makes me happy...Although again -- i'm not sure of what exactly happy means. It gives me pleasure, yes.
Me: wow! u r so full of philosphical crap. Sorry i don't mean to be mean. But really you are much more deeper than I give you credit for and I dun seem to appreciate it at all
S: he he -- i'm actually pretentious as shit. :) I can't help it -- I was born that way.
Me: Shit is not pretentious
S: Which was precisely the point of the phrase.
Me: So if you say you are pretentious as shit, then you aren't.
S: Correct. That's what the phrase means. :)
Me: So also were you not born as shit. Thats not even correct anatomically. There are different outlets for birth and for shitting.
S: See that's what happens when u talk about "happy" things with me. You should compare this conversation with ur conversation with him.
Me: I actually laughed out loud
S: So again what would make you happy?
Me: Well for me it would be
1) A job I like doing - which in my case is more or less the case
2) A good salary for that job - which in my case is not something I have achieved yet
3) A partner whom I care for lots - which in my case is more or less the case now
4) Living in a wonderful house with my partner - which in my case is not happening currently
5) A set of friends who care for me and whom I love - which is again more or less the case for me now
S: waaaah, waaah.
Joe: so that's when i realised. 3/5 - not bad at all
S: I thought you guys were talking about "little things" that make you happy ... these are all big things! Not bad at all, I agree. In fact, you almost have it made. And still, how much u crib!! :)
So that way for me it would be:
(1) A good job where i get to read and write as much as i want
(2) paid well
(3) I've published something very reputable (maybe even a book), and I'm well-known in my field and
(4) A partner
(5) and lots of pretentious friends like me with whom i can talk about pretentious things.
Me: so 5 is not achieved yet since most of ur friends like A and I, etc. are all li'l dimwits
S: Nooooooooooo. That is not what i meant at all :)
Me: Well u did put it that way
S: yes, it came out wrongly. I meant: a few good friends, some of whom are pretentious like me.
ok? ;)
Me: lol - so how many out of those 5 have u achieved?
S: i'm not even close to (1) (3) and (4) my pay is ok -- but not great.
and i'm getting along ok with (5)
Me: so 1/5. Hmmm - but you still seem happier than me. So maybe happy is a state of mind which is different for different people. I get 'unhappified' too soon
S: I think we're talking about being contented or discontented. And less about being happy.
Me: ya true
S: I'm not unhappy. And neither are you, i think.
Me: True, I'm not unhappy - I'm just discontented
S: yes! correct. And so now the question is: about what? You're 3/5 so what exactly are you discontented about? (haah, i should be a therapist!) :)
Me: I dunno - maybe -
1) About not having someone here living with me
2) About not getting to have sex
3) About people less talented than me getting ahead of me in life, just because they tom-tom themselves, or because their Dads are their best ATMs, or just because lady luck favors them more than me
4) About not being able to lose my weight and not being able to present myself as good as I dream about.....I think my list will go on and on
S: hmmmmm. (2) and (4) are addressable, I think. (3) is the hardest. Ok, (2) is also not so easy.
Me: I think 1, 2 and 4 are all addressable, but all equally difficult. But 3 will always remain. I just need to make my peace with it.
S: I dunno about that -- you could put in so extra effort for (3)
Me: Nopes 3 will always remain. Even if I become the Prime Minister of India, I will be discontent that I had to struggle so much to reach that level, but Rajiv Gandhi got it so much more easily just because of his legacy. So that will always remain. I just need to make my peace with it.
S: Are you discontented about the effort or the result?
Me: Good Question. Never thought of that. I think I will think over that for tonight....

Awaiting Yuletime in NYC

2007-11-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

So I am chatting with a dear old friend. Here's a transcript of our conversation.

Friend: So what are your holiday plans?
Me: Dunno yet. I might get a 10 day holiday at work.
F: Oh wow! Good! So what do you plan to do then?
M: Dunno yet. I feel so anxious and upset at the same time.
F: Don't you like Christmas? It will be so wonderful in NYC then.
M: Well, that's not the point. I don't think, that Christmas or for that matter any other festival here in NYC likes me.
F: huh?
M: Allright, here's the deal. Forget all the religious part of Christmas. As I see there are two distinct parts of Christmas in NYC - the commercial part and the gooey part. The commercial part's Ok. I like all the tacky lights and the mob scenes and the plastic reindeers and sleighs. It's the gooey part that drives me crazy. It's a conspiracy. X'mas is a conspiracy by all the huge advertising and marketing and sales and retailers divisions to make the single people feel all the more lonely.....

and then some more...i went on....gosh! I have become so cribby...

Feeling blue

2007-10-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

It's a tired day at work.

The computer screen stares at me.

The colleagues are chattering away sweet IT nothings into speaker phones.

They are talking about tables and windows, bugs and viruses, lobsters and gloves.

But I am not aware of any of this. My mind is just humming a boring tune, its buzzing like the millions of mosquitoes in a humid, tropical forest. My body itches, the wool from my blue sweater is biting onto my skin. As I scratch where it itches, it hits me - I am also feeling blue. I dunno why, but I guess in the morning when I was picking up clothes to wear, the situation my mind was in directed me towards what clothes to pick up.

I put up my status on Google talk as 'Feeling Blue'

That initiates this conversation between my friend K & I

K: is blue good?

I: well - i like the color blue, and i like the reference the color makes to movies which depict eroticism, but when I feel blue, I feel low, I feel lost, I feel rudderless...
I feel like there is no purpose to my life

K: hmmmm
blue.. is universal..

I: so are all other colors

K: how about red?
it is true.. about blue/green

I: Red - that's the color of vive, of life, of blood, of death
it's a color of extremes

K: yellow?

I: the sunflowers, the mustard fields, the sunlight, the light generated from bulbs

K: it is mostly associated with light.. and is too bright to handle..

I: but when shaded correctly, it also can be associated with the romanticism of the setting sun, when mild rays of the sun filtering through the grey clouds, it seems like neither night nor day but rather that feeble compromise which fills one with a sense of long-forgotten things and presents the time when vague yearnings and regrets begin to fill up your soul.

K: thats the shade of orange in yellow

I: yep and somewhat pink and mild red too - its like a collage of colors

K: how about black?

I: Thats the color of all of our dark secrets, our most intimate deep selves which no one else is aware of - just like Dr Jekyll has a Mr Hyde hidden in him and Robert Nates has his dead mom hidden in him

K: anything on the other spectrum for black?

I: hmm - like?

K: black.. is all hidden
but still.. i love black.. esp to wear

I: ya - exactly - just like a suspicious mind always looks on the black side of things.
And also just like you said, it is also the color associated with high society, high fashion, with the runways of Paris and Milan

But do not forget
it is also associated with the dirt and grime of the slums of Mumbai

__________________________________________________________________

I did not realise that the little conversation had proved to be my purpose that needed to pull me out of feeling blue for the day.

K disappeared.

Maybe the tables and the windows, the bugs and the viruses, the lobsters and the gloves were all calling up to him.

And there - my sweater began to itch my skin again!

My endless wait

2007-10-18T07:37:00.001-07:00

The cold sun rays of Fall,
On my drowsy eyes they fall,
Evoking that painful sweet urge,
of a beautiful past seen and heard....

This interminable period of waiting,
of pondering, of yearning and that bitter-sweet longing,
When oh When will those times come?
And what if they never ever come?

Tell me why...

2007-10-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

Why is it so that only the few who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth get all the opportunities in their lives? Why does money beget money in this world? It's all about money, honey. And I need to understand that this is the way the world works. So, in order to make it easier for my offsprings, I need to spring off the boardwalk where I am resting my ass currently and struggle harder to achieve more...that's all. There is no use cribbing about the unfairness of the world, take it with a pinch of salt and dive right in....

When mediocrity reigns

2007-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

No one likes to be beaten.

But to be beaten by a person who has always stood as a particular example of mediocrity in your eyes, to start by the side of this mediocrity and to watch it shoot up, while you struggle and finally end up with nothing but a boot in your face, to see the mediocrity snatch from you, your thunder, to be beaten, beaten badly, beaten – not by a greater genius, not by a God, but by Mediocrity – there is no torture equivalent to this.

MY LIVING WILL

2007-10-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

The following short email is from my ex-roomie's mother's 70 + year old best friend from college. I'm putting it on here for those I think will appreciate the humor.

MY LIVING WILL

Last night, my friend and I were sitting in the living room and I saidto her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine, and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."She got up, unplugged the TV, and threw out my booze.

She's such a bitch.....

New Role

2007-10-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

I just got entitled yesterday as the "anti-bore balm"!!! ha ha :) nice one

My mind is humming a tune now:

Zandu balm Zandu balm
Peeda-haari balm

That's in Hindi, it's even more funny when I think of the Malayalam version:

Zandu balm Zandu balm
Vedana-haari balm

Another manic blue morning

2007-10-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

As the sun's rays filtered through the curtains and landed on my face, my eyes flickered and I woke up into another morning. I was feeling blue. Again. Well, I have been feeling blue for some time now, rather some days, some months. I wake up every morning in the United States of Depression. And Loneliness.
I am more out of it than ever. I sit on my bed, munching into a Godiva goodie and watching the street outside. It's so clan, neat & tidy and the wind that just blew into my face, smells so good...but then I think am I paying too high a price?
How many times now have I contemplated going back home to India? And each time I revert that thought thinking - later, maybe later.
How many times had the lure of home cooked food beckoned me from the sidewalks of NYC?
Will I ever stop feeling like a Martian on the moon in this country?
Or will I wake up one morning to find myself an overdressed, overcoated old man, tottering about Jackson Heights in slightly worn out gloves, prolonging my choice of desi food at Khan Baba Restaurant, telling the security guy who helped me get into the cab that any day now, when my social security check came in, when the weather turned, when I found a home for my
li'l lab....I was gonna go home to India?