Nonstop Nonsense

Plates on a Wall

2012-01-27T16:27:00.008-06:00

Waiting for my to-go burger, my eyes settled on a small plate stuck on a wall. The caricature in the plate's middle seemed too familiar. Well, at least it did to me because the character was in no way Mickey Mouse. Closer inspection proved me right, also proving along the way how goner-y I am. It was Mr. Pickwick. There were also others, which I duly reproduce here–

Saturday Pages no.1

2012-01-22T02:13:00.008-06:00

[I am trying something like this for the first time. Thanks to Jenny and Ali...]

I should have run then. My heart was pounding in my chest. But the devil was in me, and instead of running I looked at the three big boys at the bottom of the path, and I simply said, 'Or are you scared?' The devil till then had been only reserved for school, and mostly for those group sessions in English and Sanskrit where I whipped out my precocity like a warrior prince his patent sword on the big dull ones who had never laid a finger on me. Out on the street, there is no room for abstraction so I thought I might as well turn the big D on.

They did not move, joking among themselves, apparently not aware of my presence. Usually in such circumstances, they are pretty liberal and give me a head start. I guess it gives them a sort of kick to watch me scamper like a scared hare and then catch me. Giving the crowds their money's worth and so forth. I started to walk toward them. The kite flung itself to my right flank as a sudden gust turned up from nowhere. I pulled the kite out and held it between my thumb and forefinger, pressing the point of intersection of the mast and the arched yard enough not to shear the paper so hard that it tore. My first kite!

The path was ruddy and broken, usually reserved for bicycles and motorbikes. During the day, cattle and goats were usually shepherded to the farm nearby. I sidestepped a batch of cow dung recently run over by a motorbike. The boys were still joking, their laughter intermingled with the usual popular swear words. I told myself not to look in their direction till I passed them. Then maybe I will nod or raise my free hand with the right amount of coolness and then march on. One of the guys, with a positively teratoid face and matchstick legs went over to the wall and hoisted himself on it. The one wearing a sleeveless shirt threw a rubber ball at him, standing in the middle of the path. The third one ran past me. I didn't look where but I knew what they were up to.

The first ball thundered above my head at 100 kmph. I looked at the monster as I came up near him.
“Nice arm” I said. He didn't know what to say. He just stared at me and I continued to walk.
“You can't go in there” he said finally.
“But I can” I replied.
“Give me the kite”
I smiled I think what you may call a wry smile. The sleeveless dude was in front of me now, spinning the ball between his hands and moving backwards.
“You don't dis boys older than you, you mosquito. Look at him Muscles, a mosquito flying a kite. What a scene!”
He seemed to enjoy the scene, so to speak. I realized this was the moment. With a speed that has astonished me till date, I ran straight at him, biting him on his shoulder, and he hit the wall. I released him and he fell.
“Mosquitoes bite. Didn't they teach you at school?”
My right side glass had broken but the kite was intact. I felt my wrist twisted behind my back and I wailed like a scrupulous alarm clock. Muscles!
“It is the monitor grip” and he spat on me. I swung my leg to the back but to no avail. He switched hands. And it shot up again, more than the first time. In the mid-distance a song started playing. Some old movie song with the violin that made you cry. Not the type of song you want when your arm was being force-fed through a sugarcane juicer. Suddenly I thought I was dying. Seriously, I felt like my whole internal affairs department from the esophagus to the rectum wanted out desperately. But two strikes and out? Heard you see your life in front of you. But what about what you hear? Where was my kite, anyway? No he wouldn't got for it now. But what a kite!

My glasses clung haplessly on my nose and I could make out the third boy a few feet away from my face. He looked the oldest of the three.
“Stop!” he shouted disapprovingly and Muscles finally let go with an ugly grunt.
“Where's your house, boy?” he asked calmly.
“Why should I tell you?”
“I want to hear from your own lips that you have come too far from home. You live in Railway Quarters, don't you?”
I didn't know how on this Milky Way he knew that.
“So?” I answered, rather saucily.
“Well, you do know the rules?”
Seeing that I was feigning ignorance, he went on.
“A loose kite falls under the rule of capture”
“Yes. I did find it first.”
In my haste, I had not even put on slippers.
“That's not what it means. It means it belongs to whoever lives in the area. I guess you're a newbie..You doing alright, buddy?” He asked the guy who called me a mosquito. Buddy Boy gimped away and nodded.
“Ask him to apologize” he said. He had picked my kite up and was lusting at it.
The leader looked at him as if looking at a silly child. He finally sighed and motioned to me. Buddy Boy stood in front, with an odious grin that looked creepy. Apparently his lip was cut in our little tete-a-tete.
“Sor..”
Before I could complete, he rammed his bony fist into my stomach and out came the afternoon tiffin–a gooey cocktail of potatoes, lentils, and semolina painting his sleeveless shirt and–this is the painful part– my kite which he held in one of his hands. What a kite! It was a beaut (Rs. 5.00 at Thangam Stores). It was a dodecagon with red, blue and green colors alternating for the sides. The symmetry was rather fetching. The lower sides had hanging from them golden tufts, which looked very much like the tassels that hanged from my mom's silk saris. I had to inveigle Cobra with foreign coins to let him teach me to fly. Everything was going according to plan until...

Meretricious

2012-01-20T15:21:00.004-06:00

I came to this article through a friend of mine. I clicked on it thinking the title sounded interesting, only to find a sermon. Look at how many times pornography makes it appearance. It reminds me of the late Christopher Hitchens who said, "There will always appear to be something bizarre about those who campaign against pornography. Something, if you like, a little too interested."

Rushdie on Hitch

2012-01-09T20:56:00.008-06:00

Not very long after I posted about Christopher Hitchens, the man handed in his dinner pail (in Houston, Texas) leaving many like me who have not even met him strangely bereft. Love him or hate him, it should be said that the man was, when you stripped everything, a terrific stand-up comic (aren't we all, though the degree of skill–and success–varies?). Here's what Salman Rushdie has to say about the Hitch. The last sentence is something I think we can all "identify" with. While you're there, also read his last article–a delightful essay on the novelist who has been the unofficial spokesman for Christmas and childhood.

Philosophy

2012-01-03T23:51:00.001-06:00

Philosophy is oftentimes the result of a misbalanced material life. The rich man is in it because he has more than enough money while the loser guy is in it because he has no girlfriend. Real men and women don't have the inclination–and time–for Socrates or Confucius or Shaw or any of those dudes with serious facial hair. They have their lives.

Wall Street

2011-12-30T19:40:00.001-06:00

The man in the fancy suit is not
some gentleman;
he is a securities analyst
on Wall Street.

Faceless

2011-12-29T11:48:00.001-06:00

We are the faceless generation,
Unabashed, unfettered, ungrammatical.
Our stories out on public domain
For your viewing pleasure–
Of heartbreaks, breakfasts,
Interests and insecurities
Gone viral.
We like to be liked,
We like to be talked about,
We like thinking we are not
The ctrl-c ctrl-v man on the street,
Or the twit
who ninety times a minute
Sees herself on the mirror,
Or the loser who needs a hug.
We like to think that
Amidst all the media clutter
it is us that matter.
We are the faceless generation,
Unabashed, unfettered, unreal.

The Curious Case of Chetan Bhagat

2011-12-25T21:06:00.001-06:00

[Published at The Banyan Trees]

Chetan Bhagat is smart. I use the word advisedly, and in a corporate understanding of it. The reason I–and many fellow Indian millennials–like Dil Chahta Hai is because the story was about friendships in a college setting. Filmmakers who give such youth-oriented movies know their chief audience. Good or bad, they can count on the college-goer to give their films at least a single try. It is no wonder that Bhagat, who has a management degree from India's top business school, saw an “opportunity”, and cashed in. It is, as any business student would tell you, a business model. A thriving business model, in fact. He has created an atmosphere wherein the only requirement for anyone to publish a novel is for them to have the basic facility to tell a story. Even the how is unimportant. The only important thing is how fast they disappear from book shops (I don't want to factor in meaningless things like him being listed in the Time 100 influential people). Nothing wrong in people enjoying such books. For one thing, as J.K. Rowling did with Harry Potter, he has boosted among the young the habit of reading. Sure his books require a complete suspension of literary sensibilities on the part of the reader. Sure you can't improve your vocabulary when you read them. And sure you can't quote him in general conversation, if you wish to be taken seriously (should work well to admit he's your favorite author on a first date, though). Nonetheless, the one thing he has going for him is humor. The critics, who consider Bhagat an affront to their intellect, often fail to mention this. Maybe he's so popular because people find his writing funny.

So then what sort of a writer is he? He is no novelist. He is not even a good bad writer. I don't use the term genre writer for the “escape literature”, as Orwell calls it, because it is restrictive and condescending. P.G. Wodehouse, John le Carre, and Stephen King could all be shoehorned into this category, but they are not bad writers. A good bad writer is someone whose use of metaphors, for instance, would make you yawn, but who knows what he's writing about. John Grisham, Frederick Forsyth, and Michael Crichton come to mind as examples. Dan Brown, for all his outlandish plots and Mach-3 page turns does not quite make it. It is interesting to note that Brown and David Foster Wallace once took a creative writing course together at Amherst College. Rip a page each off their books and notice the cruel disparity. Even allowing for the “genre” aspect, surely you don't want to write sentences like, “the room...was a small, industrial-looking space.” Bhagat is the Brown of India. Both boast huge numbers, have a loyal fan base, and have difficulty in churning out an agreeable sentence. Most bad writing is the result of bad reading or poor reading. A writer can claim he has no influences, though it is very unlikely, but he cannot claim to have read no books in his life. He is either lying or is a literary version of Superman if he says so. King recommends a minimum of four hours of reading for writers. But is it not common sense? If you want to give a presentation on World War II, you read material pertaining to it. At least Brown was an English teacher and could be expected to have read a fair deal. I doubt it with Bhagat. After reading some of Bhagat's books, I can sense his influences. Not any writer. It is our movies. Not bad that. Graham Greene, consciously or unconsciously, wrote novels whose scenes seemed to be out of a film. The problem I have is when you justify your deficiency. Just as people who say they get their intellectual nourishment only from “highbrow” authors are snobs, people who vigorously defend “no-brow” ones are snobs too. I'd much rather listen to someone who argues why she doesn't like Shakespeare after reading the Bard than someone who says he doesn't read them because he doesn't need them. The whole marketing machine–everyone from the jingoist Shashi Tharoor to "youth icons" like Sonam Kapoor and Suriya–to perpetuate this mediocrity by elevating Bhagat as the brand ambassador of Indian youth seems to me a mere vindication of your laziness. Bhagat is at best a screenwriter. He is the ideal publicist of Bollywood. His ad would read: Bollywood, now available in book form.

Bhagat doesn't just write popular books. He speaks up. There is this old notion of how you are bound to be disappointed once your favorite writer opens his mouth. Bhagat is that favorite writer. He proves his quasi-intellectual capacity by writing and talking on many–any–national issue/s. He picked up a fight recently with Infosys founder Narayana Murthy just because the software tycoon attacked his alma mater. While Infosys may be a body shop after all, Bhagat's comments were plain out of context and hence unnecessary. More funny was his making up by apologizing. This is the problem with Bhagat: he doesn't even have the balls to be caustic. He wants to have it both ways. He farts and immediately assures us it a politically correct one. His latest book, Revolution 2020–an awful title for a novel–seems like the result of his increasing participation in the national debate (it is subtitled Love, Corruption, Ambition). His success story is in a way a symbol of the very fight against the system he writes about. It is a curious form, you may even say a subversion, of the Peter principle. “All bad art is the result of good intentions”, wrote Oscar Wilde. Bhagat proves why.

Achebe to Zwiren

2011-12-06T11:42:00.000-06:00

My poem published in the Fall 2011 issue of Midtown Journal, Houston. This is my blog buddy Jenny's post about the same.

Mad Lives of Others

2011-11-27T04:03:00.001-06:00

The mad lives of others
whirls you into dismay.
The pages of your past,
far from being blotted out,
stare at you timidly
like a dumb dog hoping
the familiar stroke but expecting
a shrug.
But the pages were always there,
you chose not to look closely.
You appeared to be snug
in your nakedness.
Even vain, not knowing that
we all wear a bit of others.
You have been no different
than a cliché.
The mad lives of others
have found you out.

TMI?

2011-11-25T22:23:00.003-06:00

"As with our colleges, so with a hundred “modern improvements”: there is an illusion about them; there is not always positive advance... Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages..."

Call me old-fashioned (or weird or meh or uncool), but these passages by Thoreau ring eerily true of our self-obsessed, celebrity-loving, info-lusting culture.

[Text from Henry David Thoreau's Walden; italics are my own]

Hate Word of the Day:

2011-11-14T13:00:00.004-06:00

internalize. There is something simultaneously pompous and pathetic when someone uses it in general conversation. Crass will out!

The Hindu

2011-11-03T01:05:00.004-05:00

“Now with the publication of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and its revelations about the Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad,” argues Subramanian Swamy in his Hindutva manifesto, Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out. In a way, the whole thesis of his book could be judged from this sentence alone. He uses conspiracy-theory fiction–I'm sorry, Brown, with a prose befitting his name, is not literature–to emphasize a factual point. By the same logic, we should be equally on high alert, perhaps more so, against T-rex, now that it is more than 20 years since Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park came out. One would incline to regard Swamy in a better light had he referred to something out of The Mahabharatha as illustration here. But hey, this fellow has a degree from Harvard, so he must have something important to say, right? Turns out, with the exception of the part relating to the economy, not much indeed.

An India renamed Hindustan would give the nation the focus necessary for a “renaissance”, he writes. But if you have any issue with the name, he makes it clear that Hindustan doesn't mean land of Hindus, only that it is one where the culture is Hindu in character. And in any case, Hindustan is etymologically secular. Any questions? He even blames rampant corruption in our society on our deviance from our core Hindu values. I thought greed was an equal-opportunity employer. He asks every Hindu today to become virat Hindu, someone who would “retaliate when attacked”. I don't have a problem retaliating when our enemy attacks us, but should that only come from a religious motif? He harps on about this mindset and has even said in an article that such a mindset is a prerequisite to both national character and personal character. Does he seriously mean to say that any non-Hindu, or say even a Hindu who is a non-believer, lacks those qualities? Can he not see it is downright ridiculous? Or does he chose to ignore the manifestations of such a mindset in the form of Mr. Thackeray and his henchmen? Such bigoted views are in line with terms such as 'Christian compassion', as if some noble qualities in humans are strictly proprietary. One of the chief trump cards of religion is the flawed belief that it is the de facto fount of morality. Swamy, like other proselytizers from other faiths, seems to be no exception in this. In the article, which is essentially a precis of the book, he goes as far as proposing disenfranchisement of citizens who refuse to acknowledge our Hindu ancestry. This is more regressive and radical than what any of the right and the evangelicals here in America have come up with.

His claim that the "continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation" (in the book) and his asking Hindus to rise "above caste and language" (in the article) is nothing short of a call to a theocratic state. Any notion of having a 'wall of separation between Church & State' is quashed by his assertion that Hinduism doesn't have a church. Quite conveniently he choses to ignore the U.S. Constitution, upon some of whose principles the Indian model was drafted, and which doesn't have one church either (unlike Church of England for example). Although he confesses that state and religion must be separate, he wants to establish what is called an Acharya Sabha, comprised of dharmacharyas, for creating a “vigorous Hindu unity”, in addition to the two other houses. He also writes, for instance, on the treatment of Hindus in Tamil Nadu that "all this is happening while Hindus are in power in the government." He is particularly enraged by the case against the chief of mutt at Kanchi as if to suggest religious heads are immune to criminal acts.

The book is not only poorly argued for, but is also poorly written. Swamy's writing is archaic and longwinded. He, whenever possible, pats himself soundly on the back, as when he predated Manmohan Singh's economic policies of 1991 two decades earlier to that, and when he initiated India's nuclear bomb debate. What is really sad is to see such zealots forming the intellectual opposition in India. As long as the Janata Parties continue to push the Hindutva pill, they can expect the Congress-led coalition to survive any number of graft scandals.

Hitch Talk

2011-10-13T23:56:00.005-05:00

Christopher Hitchens had been here in Houston last weekend. Dang it, how did I miss it! It would have been terrific to have listened to him, if only to see the razor-sharp intellect and not because of his increasingly emaciated appearance (he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last year). Before I "rediscovered" him last year, I only knew that he once wrote a scathing review of Somerset Maugham's works. To see one's favorite writer torn to pieces was not pleasant. George Orwell said Maugham was the writer who influenced him the most. This I thought, rather pathetically, strengthened my case as Orwell became, through his essays mainly, my go-to guy. I was always (and still am) curious to know what he thought of Mark Twain or tea or the lure of murder mysteries (I am still trying to find out what he thought of cinema and movies). Hitchens is my present day go-to guy. In a strange coincidence he has authored a mini-biography on Orwell and is an ardent admirer of the man who gave us 1984. I don't always agree with what he says (like calling Gandhi a hypocrite and dismissing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), but his arguments, like in the Maugham piece, have always been well-reasoned. It'd be a pity to see him go. But then in a debate/discussion last year just after his diagnosis, a fellow panelist asked at the end how he was doing. "I am dying," he replied matter-of-factly, and then "But so are you."

Show Cause Order

2011-10-10T00:38:00.006-05:00

The California Onion Company [NASDAQ: COCO] has been issued orders to show cause regarding its handling of onions. The National Consumers Society has set in motion the appeal after noticing the surging rates of obesity among onions. “The basic rule about onions is it's got to fit inside a palm. And it's got to be easily cuttable. You don't bring a steak knife to make a simple omelet, do you?” said the head of the Society who, despite the micro-mini mustache that stretched continuously all over the upper ranges of his lips, looked deadly earnest. He further added the whole thing had got so “out of hand” that it called for some serious regulatory reform. The Society has also decided to lay off onions from their culinary practices (indefinitely as of now). The multi-layer species with purported medicinal claims is also regarded a promiscuous one, quite often seen in close company with many fellow veggies and even meats. The Pew Research Center quotes onions to be the leading cause of crying among humans with a market share of 26%. Tom Hanks movies came second at 20%.

Types of Hangover

2011-10-06T00:39:00.002-05:00

//I am told by those who know that there are six varieties of hangover—the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie, and his manner suggested that he had got them all.//
–Bertie Wooster in The Mating Season

Thoughts Too Deep For Tears

2011-10-06T00:25:00.003-05:00

“After he had left them Jerry and Crispin sat in silence for perhaps an hour, full of what Alfred, Lord Tennyson, once described as thoughts too deep for tears. Of the...” so starts a paragraph in Wodehouse's The Girl in Blue around two-thirds of the way in. Plum as often kindled in me the curiosity (and exposed my ignorance) re. classical poetry. On google-searching, I found the term in question is from Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth. I think Plum–nearing ninety when he wrote Girl–confused it with Tears, Idle Tears by Tennyson. Or was it a deliberate faux pas, a magic realism ploy?

Growing up

2011-09-26T20:05:00.000-05:00

...is as much about getting indifferent as it is about getting responsible.

Creepy...in Capitals

2011-09-07T17:31:00.006-05:00

There has been much news coverage recently of the rejection of the mercy petitions of the three persons convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and the related commutation of the death sentences of each. The Hindu has had at least two editorials (Aug. 18, Aug. 27) last month arguing for abolition of the death penalty. Not only that, it also ran an op-ed piece, an essay by George Orwell originally published in 1931. “It has been The Hindu's consistent stand for decades that India must make a clean break with a savage tradition...” the newspaper reiterates. While its stand is laudable, the repetition makes me a little uneasy. It makes me doubt whether it is not a propaganda vehicle driven by a political party. The parties themselves have made sure they get enough mileage out of the issue. Both Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha have stressed the fact that commutation will “please” Tamils' “sentiments”. Why? Because the three involved are Tamil? What if one of them is Marathi? Would it not then please Tamils? This kind of regionalism is regressive. One of the convicts, Perarivalan, claims he is innocent. He is, by his own accounts one who has had Eelam sensibilities. While this doesn't necessarily make him guilty, I don't buy the argument that he is innocent of any charges. That's why the release of his book that tells his side of the story, by MDMK chief Vaiko and leading members of the CPI, and not to mention the “support” by film directors like Bharathiraja comes across as not only pathetic but also unhealthy.

Politics aside, capital punishment belongs to fascism, not to a democracy. Just because the law takes the life of a person, be it Tamil or Pakistani or American, it doesn't mean it is not inhumane. Sparing a life doesn't mean justice is denied the victims. Snuffing the same life doesn't mean justice is served them either. Proponents for the continued existence of the practice seem to think in simple terms: remove source, treat problem. But you can remove evil persons, can you remove evil? They also bank on the fear of death as a potent weapon. Did Mohamed Atta fear death when he crashed the plane on the North Tower? Issues like capital punishment have become a ready ID card of one's political and religious affiliations in a country like U.S. I have always wondered how someone who believes in a god can clamor for the taking away of a human's life. It also suggests a lack of trust in one's god and his judicial abilities (which is just House assignation anyway, like a headmaster's or phys ed master's). If rejoicing at someone's death may be excused, watching a person die to feel “closure” is certifiably creepy.

Woolfing It Down

2011-08-26T20:32:00.002-05:00

“...It is part of the novelist's convention not to mention soup and salmon and ducklings, as if soup and salmon and ducklings were of no importance whatsoever, as if nobody ever smoke a cigar or drank a glass of wine. Here I shall take the liberty to defy that convention and to tell you that the lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish....After that came the partridges, but if this suggests a couple of bald, brown birds on a plate you are mistaken. The parts, many and various, came with all their retinue of sauces and salads, the sharp and the sweet, each in its order; their potatoes, thin as coins but no so hard; their sprouts, foliated as rosebuds but more succulent. And no sooner had the roast and its retinue been done with than the silent serving-man...set before us, wreathed in napkins, a confection which rose all sugar from the waves...thus by degrees was lit...the more profound, subtle, and subterranean glow, which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company–in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one's kind, as, lighting a good cigarette, one sunk among the cushions in the window-seat.”

I have found Dickens to be the supreme artist when it comes to food while Wodehouse is not far behind, but Virginia Woolf's descriptions are none the less delicious, though she wrote this to make the point (at least I think) which is the crux of the book.

[Text from A Room of One's Own]

O Bro Music

2011-08-25T12:51:00.006-05:00

T-Bone Burnett (raised in Fort Worth, Texas) talks about the making of the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou and the 10th anniversary deluxe edition that is out now. The first one sold nine million copies which included the catchy I am a Man of Constant Sorrow. The film itself once again showed the Coen Brothers' mastery of the dialogue (“...it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart”) with some wonderful acting by George Clooney and John Turturro among others. My favorite, along with Sorrow, is Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Short Story Contest

2011-08-18T19:29:00.001-05:00

The Banyan Trees (http://thebanyantrees.com), the online magazine I have been contributing to from last year, is running a short story contest. If you or someone you know would like to enter, please visit the web site for more details. Winners (2) will receive $25 Amazon/Flipkart Gift Cards. The theme as you can see from the picture on the right is “Light and Dark”. Good luck scribbling!

Going, Going, Gone

2011-08-14T12:29:00.005-05:00

"My view, and not mine alone, is that the existence of the IPL is the main reason India is no longer the No. 1 team in Test cricket", says historian and cricket writer Ramachandra Guha, a view I totally agree and one shared also by his namesake, not a slouch himself, when I talked to him just last night. Never has an Indian team played this abominably in all the years I have followed cricket. Even under Azhar and his "paper tigers" days, our tours had at least one match where we almost won or one where our brilliance came through even if the match was drawn. I would say this is one of the worst moments in our cricketing career.

Ultraviolence

2011-08-09T23:35:00.006-05:00

The London riots remind me of a short story The Destructors by Graham Greene, and of course, the "droogs" in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange. Is that a coincidence that both writers were English?

Update (08/26): I picked up Greene's Brighton Rock recently, as this was one novel of his I missed. Strangely enough, I see today there is a movie version that is out this weekend!

That's Not Life

2011-08-03T16:13:00.004-05:00

There are some in the world to whom applying the adjective unlucky is but an understatement. While your present troubles seem a blessing in comparison, it makes one accept the existence of god (or fate, especially metempsychotic fate, if you go for that sort of thing) because only some master puppeteer can stage such horrific plays.

P.S: This is not about me. I am fine.

Superfluous

2011-08-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

I lost my hair today
to an old woman with a mustache.
She hacked, sliced, nibbled, coaxed
four months of assiduous progress
in ten minutes of quiet decimation;
four months, where to a hair,
stood these defenders of the high country,
now sliding all over me into oblivion.
But the rules of engagement are clear:
superfluous hair must go.
It can fit no more in the general schema
of our external affairs.
It is what it is.

Stuckness

2011-08-02T12:39:00.002-05:00

This is the zero moment of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take the machine to a real mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.
–from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

Word Doc

2011-07-26T16:10:00.006-05:00

They said he was the win doctor. He wore an expensive looking suit. His grey drill-bit beard danced contentedly to the giant fan in the room. He read my full name without much difficulty. In fact, he relished it.
“How can I help?” he asked after we shook hands.
“I need to get smart” I said.
“That can be done”
He pushed his laptop towards me and asked me to type in a few sentences about who I was, what I did for a living, and what my career goals were. I don't think he understood. He took my silence for inability and took the computer back. Of course, I was the one who wanted to get smart. He finished a 200-word essay on Me and jerked the laptop back to me. There were terms such as conceptualize, operationalize, refreezing, and circle of quality.
“In less than couple months, you will start feeling the difference. You'll start feeling success. I remember a guy who came to us. He was earning peanuts before. After our award-winning crash course, he went places. He is now VP of the same company. Minting the stuff now.
“And going by your looks, I know your social front needs some makeover too. You got to change the way you dress, change your hairstyle, change your verbal inventory.”
“Do you think I'm not fashionable enough?”
“Ha, the funny thing! The very definition of your condition. It is cool. I'm not cool enough, you should say. Fashionable, my god!”
“I'm just confused with that word, cool. I mean it covers so many things. People use it to mean confident, interesting, classy, popular, beautiful, sleek, maverick...”
“That's the coolness of it, ha ha.”
“Sounds a way of proselytizing laziness.”
“Pro-what? This is exactly how uncool people talk. I bet you use men and women when you talk to others. Too 20th century. The preferable term is guys.”
“But isn't guys a tad sexist?”
“Guys is unisex, my friend.”
“Strange”
“You don't know nothing, it seems!” And he let out a loud laugh. He placed a spiral-bound brochure (e-zine, he would have corrected me) on the desk. Harnessing the Power of Words for a Better World, it read. It had two sections. One was a career page and the other personal. I skipped over to the personal page and was advised to employ “whatever”, “like”, “totally”, and of course “cool” in general conversations for a well-oiled feel.
I prepared to head out.
“We also have a thing for relationships, if you would like. Especially for ones of the nonexistent kind.” Here he smirked.
“What made you think I would need it?”
“Is it so hard to see...?

Story Time

2011-07-21T12:46:00.002-05:00

Eaters of the dead, my entry on the Dial M for Mystery series can be accessed here. In the same series, this was published last year.

Sometimes...

2011-07-19T00:54:00.005-05:00

...beauty can be found in the seediest of places, the crappiest of art, and the lowliest of beings.

Tintin and Tinker

2011-07-11T13:25:00.002-05:00

And finally, there's the trailer of the Tintin movie directed by Steven Spielberg. It does the job of building tension in a cartoonish sort of way. Maybe Spielberg decided not to go for traditional film and chose motion capture instead because of American audiences' unfamiliarity with Tintin, though why 3D I don't know. Can't wait to see Haddock and his train of cuss words. There's also one of the upcoming Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Gary Oldman plays Alec Guinness...wait George Smiley. Can't wait again.

Dancing with the Stars

2011-07-07T13:59:00.003-05:00

He is like a child dancing in the wind, not the thirty-seven year-old who works at the Met Center. The last of his illusions has croaked, bringing an end to the long and bloody civil war with it. He thinks he is sailing, faster and higher like a space shuttle, swooshing away from the blares and screeches of the loony highway below. He looks back but no montage of defeats plays out. No morality, that high-maintenance bitch he couldn't divorce, up here. It is cold, almost frigid. All clear and quiet now, a quiet that was not possible from anything he tried, not even Magoo's potent, “patent" McApollo, “the one that takes you to the moon”.

Annus Mirabilis

2011-07-05T13:43:00.003-05:00

I didn't think it was a sign when I came back from one set down to win the championship 4-6, 6-2, 6-1. Not long after, India clinched the cricket World Cup and Mavericks won the NBA championships. My cricket team, Rattlers, won the Spring 2011 taped-ball tournament. Though Federer lost at Wimbledon, it has been a great sports year so far.

A Rafian Speaks

2011-07-02T02:09:00.006-05:00

While revisiting Music Fan's blog recently, I found I owe her a post on Mohammed Rafi (actually on why I like him). When is the question, I wrote, lazily–and rather portentously–then. I was maybe of the notion that with increasing age comes increased sensibility. One of those youthful extravagances one is allowed you know. Fallacious, of course. Four years, well almost, is not what you'd call particularly quick service, but here goes.

I must have been six or seven when we got a TV and an audio cassette player at our house. The latter was a single deck Murphy with its famous chubby baby. As with most orthodox Tam Bram families–though we were not orthodox in the strict sense–there was at least one cassette on each deity by the great M.S. Subbulakshmi. Songs, hymns, prayers you name it. My dad, not a really religious man, made sure film cassettes outnumbered devotional ones. I still remember his small, tidy cursive on TDK 60s and 90s, which he got recorded from somewhere, the details of the songs right down to the lyricist. Looking back now it sounds a bit tedious, but people wrote actual letters those days. The song that got me started on Rafi was Dil ke jharoke mein from the movie BRAHMACHARI. I had watched Shammi Kapoor exaggeratedly work the piano as a glum Rajshree finally breaks down at her table, on Chitrahaar. Watching the video recently, I could not help notice the rampant self-pity on Shammi's clean-shaven face. Our movies have always had a ready supply of loud, pity-inducing male protagonists [directors like K. Balachander bucked the norm and made movies with female leads yet refused to give pity the pink slip]. A few days later, when my dad popped his latest cassette in, there came Rafi again with the same song, clearer and firmer this time. Something happened and I became a fan then and there. Over the years I have tried to come up with possible rational explanations for this but with little luck. Maybe it was just the music. Had it been some other singer instead, the reaction would have been the same. Just pure coincidence. But I don't think it's true. There is a widely held belief that A.R. Rahman's songs get better with each listening. If it was pure coincidence, all other composers should also age better. But do they? Maybe I was too common, too groupthinky. A poll conducted by Outlook magazine in 2010 placed Rafi as the No. 1 playback singer. Maybe I was too sorry for Shammi's unrequited love that the whole scene left a deep imprint. Some battle of senses, but how do you determine who won? Maybe his voice had this strange je ne sais quoi that brought to the surface the latent affinity that had stirred inside after I heard it the very first time. This sounds rather exotic but still flimsy. Or maybe it was all genetics as my dad was a Rafian and Hindi film connoisseur. I really don't know for sure. Perhaps it was just like life, where you like someone because of no real reason.

Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore, Manna, Talat, Hemant. All singers were equal but Rafi was more equal than others. What set him apart from the other greats was his simplicity. And by that, I mean his singing personality. Not for him the mimicking that Mukesh resorted to very early in his career. Not for him the yodeling that Kishore became known for. His voice was the musical equivalent of Hemingway's prose–bare but beautiful. I think this was what made him accessible to the average Joe and Jane. By no means he was a limited singer. Kishore, we all know, is famous for being versatile. But his versatility spanned the whole cinematic spectrum namely composing, singing, acting, writing, and directing and not necessarily singing itself. If his voice was a hero, it would be a romantic one. Talat's would be a intensely charismatic romantic hero. Mukesh's a maverick. Manna's would be the artistic and Hemant's philosophical. Rafi's was all of them in one single package. You could find solace for your heart with Din dhal jaye, flirt mischievously with Tumsa nahin dekha, plead with god with O duniya ke rakhwale, dance away with O haseena zulfonwali or smile with skepticism with Hey dil hai mushkil. Rafi was a master at rendition, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, himself no slouch, once attested. Never did you hear Rafi slur or swallow or kill the words. He had a terrific sense of balance and assuredness and knew how to effortlessly blend into the tune without skipping out of it. There is a small, quick refrain in Yeh Mera Prem Patra from SANGAM which goes Intezar mein thrice. Just listen to the poise and control even in such a trivial thing. The actor's job is to bring the writer to life. Similarly, the singer's is to the poet. Rafi's rendition was poetry in itself that you don't bother about the lyrics. He may as well say you're a damn fool over and over again and yet you'd go on [Shreya Ghoshal is one current singer who shares this magic]. Think romance and you'd automatically associate that made-for-each-other duo of Rajesh Khanna and Kishore Kumar. Strangely, I found Guna guna rahe from ARADHANA romantic more than even Mere Sapnon Ki Rani [I was positively in love with Sharmila Tagore when I first watched the song, though she was of my father's generation. But beauty is timeless, isn't it?]. Throw in Dil pukare [JEWEL THIEF], Teri zulfon se [JAB PYAR KISISE HOTA HAI], Tere mere sapne [GUIDE] and Chaudhvin ka chand [CHAUDHVIN KA CHAND] and you'd think about revising your opinion. Abhi na jao [HUM DONO] would most likely sway it decidedly.

Rafi died of heart attack in 1980. Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle are still singing today, but age has caught up with them. In a way, it is fortunate our ears were not witness to a Rafi way past his prime. [In fact, none among Rafi, Mukesh or Kishore reached sixty]. That would have killed his legacy, just like Amitabh Bachchan, once he reached his sixties, killed his by appearing in every second movie that was made. My only regret was Rafi did not sing one song in Tamil. Telugu, yes. Bengali, yes. Konkani, yes. But no Tamil. How far away in time this sounds? Udit Narayan and Sukhwindhara Singh are household names in Tamil Nadu now. You have chaps like Srinivas and Karthik shuttling between Mumbai and Chennai. But it was only by the 80s that Asha and Lata came to Kodambakkam. Once Rahman came into the fold, the nationalization, as it were, really started. My dream combo is Rafi singing for Rahman. After listening to Hey ayrathen from GURU for the first time, I thought it an excellent candidate that fit my fantasy. Believe it or not, a few days later, I read Rahman in one of his interviews say this was a classic “Rafi-type” song.

On a personal level, Rafi brought a calm that was difficult to put in words. A calm that cannot be bought by Valium or Baskin Robbins or any of those self-help books. Evelyn Waugh said P.G. Wodehouse “will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own.” Rafi's music does the same for me. Regardless of whether I am at a concrete jungle or at an untamed island or just lazing away a Saturday afternoon, there is always a Rafi song on my iPod.

Flannel Fascination

2011-06-27T13:27:00.000-05:00

“Women do love a cricketer,” he says. And to admit that Geoff Boycott didn't bore him shows some serious appreciation of the game. He further adds that his aunt "used to say it’s impossible to dislike a man who likes cricket." It is not some uncool middle-ager saying this. This is Hugh Grant. Listening, girls?

King of the Rings?

2011-06-23T02:02:00.005-05:00

Based on a YouTube video I saw recently where Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens play a game–impossibly and remarkably nerdy–invented by them in which you alter titles of books and films so they "don't quite make it", I came up with some others–

-The King of the Rings
-Sex in the Time of Cholera
-The Shy American
-Bleak Times
-The English Master
-The British Patient
-Animal Ranch
-The Cannons of Navarone
-Odysseus
-Of Human Attachment
-Small Women
-The Era of Innocence
-Jackson Crusoe
-On The Highway
-A Bold New World

It'd be interesting if some of you could add on.

Judgement Unreserved

2011-06-21T23:43:00.004-05:00

People are judgmental, no matter how much they say otherwise. It is like those boilerplate nothing personals one usually says. We know it is damn well personal. When U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner and his online life surfaced, the media, not unexpectedly, went gaga. The New York representative became fodder for breakfast TV as well as late night talk shows. While this was not just fodder but ambrosia for comedians is indisputable. And people ganged up on social media to give their valuable two pennies. How ready we are to pounce on a chance to air our opinions! But the so-called analysts were the ones I found so insufferable. They with their assured pronouncements and squeamish aspects, having their moral antennae always up, ready to scoop on anything that is "out of syllabus” from their sad, little book of life. How unreal, to use an Americanism of the times!

India Shining?

2011-06-15T00:13:00.003-05:00

I have always been a qualified admirer of India's economic growth in the last decade and half. This about India being "extremely hazardous" for women further intensifies my skepticism. Perhaps Arundhati Roy has a point when she says we don't hear anything "negative" about India because international correspondents have instructions not to cover such news.

Balls of Fury

2011-06-04T12:25:00.003-05:00

Cricket, after a long time. This has YouTube footage of some of the greatest balls bowled in the game, and also one that Rahul Dravid got from the greatest left-arm pacer of all time in the most heartbreaking Test of all time.

What's in a Word

2011-05-27T13:07:00.005-05:00

An amiable look at a book I found, though incompletely read, handy. The King's English is about the proper usage of some words, the proper stresses that go with some, and the curious differences that still exist over some both sides of the Atlantic, among other things. This last one was particularly interesting as, being an Indian with our own strange footnotes to the language, it was edifying to know the ways, for example, the word 'controversy' was pronounced.

Mirage

2011-05-13T12:30:00.004-05:00

This defies any explanation. Goes to show how people can be so...loyal. Karunanidhi meanwhile calls his party's defeat a chance for him to get "proper rest". Have never thought of defeat that way, but we could all learn a thing or two from the octogenarian still I guess.

Fusion

2011-05-13T12:22:00.000-05:00

Rafi and Mukesh and Lata and Kishore
Formed the Mount Rushmore
Of his neat stack of music collection.
Leave GNR, to him Mercury meant
Only Geography and Chemistry.
Another ancient bore, I told myself.
Mumbai is where I am from and he Mandurai,
Where one minute is so long
You could boil an egg and eat it.
It's a small world and common are the roads.
Rock, he said, is useless junk like plastic
Whereas Indian is life-giving and organic.
Unimaginative and humorless, I thought,
His maneuvers to get into my pants.
But he grew on me, like something of Rahman.
To everyone's (and our) surprise we married,
Though not before the protracted accompaniment
Of limbo, rupture, and drama.
He wants a kid, I don't, and we have our fights.
Not the stereotypical woman, I say
As if that settles it.
Silence, cold and cutting, plays out
For what seems a whole generation.
Then there is the fantasia of water over ceramic.
That's the sign, the bright, unmistakable “Open” sign.
The oil and grease are coming off
And so is the ice.

Grounded

2011-04-28T17:10:00.005-05:00

Wasting away in a crowded antechamber, its pages yellowed like a young bride's face, sat the once-prestigious Panchatantra Tales (Little Flower Publishing Co., Rs. 2.50). Pretty soon, it would celebrate the silver jubilee of its detention, if any one cared to host it. Of course, it should know better. This was 2011. Who had the time to humor a decaying roll of papyrus? People were after newer, faster, and sexier things. And newer, faster, and sexier books. Call it hope or pigheadedness or plain delusion, but still it longed to be picked up by someone. It longed to scrape the terrains of the human hand and sense the bayous of blood gushing within, once more. Even if it were a hasty one-off encounter.

Serve and Volley

2011-04-27T13:42:00.004-05:00

“Why do men take so much pride in winning?” Pythias asked.
“The same reason why women take so much time getting ready” answered Damon.
“How so?”
“The need to win and the need to look good both are the savings account of insecurity”
“I think winning is the choice fuel that drives men's ego” she said rising from the chair, on her way to her court to serve. This was their weekly tennis match and Pythias was one set up. They were both competitive players. Damon's serves were finding the net with determined regularity today. And unless he cut his mistakes down, Pythias was going to embarrass him.
“Imagine there is no net” he said to himself when it was his turn to serve. He double-faulted twice and it was an easy game for Pythias.
Her game was close to 100%, but she was not.
“It is patent nosiness, but what's got to you? I am interested. Not so much how it makes you look like a Nike-wearing Ophelia as how it makes you play like a left-handed Graf.”
She snorted, threw a ball hard on his lap, and said with fake hauteur, “Are you the remover of obstacles?”
“Beware of what you're saying. Some people may consider that blasphemous.”
“You're single, a patron of knowledge, and you do have a sweet tooth. Why not remove obstacles too like Ganesha?”
“What then are the obstacles?”
“Let's first play” she said. They continued. Damon's game did not improve much thereafter and when he put an easy volley into the net, the match ended in Pythias's favor 6-1, 6-2.
“You insidious, vile, and sadistic piece of cloth” muttered Damon to the topmost flap of the net.
“There you go. Why do men blame anything but themselves when they lose to women? Such a slave to your ego, your kind are.”
“There may be some truth in what you say, but you do realize it is a gross generalization. I do know guys with a healthy ego system.”
“All the guys I know don't. Guys have lost to me in sports, but never has a guy lost to me on purpose. It would be nice to have a man gift me a contest. It sounds idiotic because it suggests acceptance of inequality, but curiously, if you look at it another way, it is also militant. You know what I am saying?”
“Yes. Like wearing nose-rings is too traditional and yet at the same time, too hippy. Well, this is not just limited to the battle of the sexes. Any time there is a contest between two clearly unequal players, there is bound to be what I call the battle of the consciences. Between the noble and the artistic. If you make your huffing and puffing octogenarian opponent run all over the court, your noble conscience smacks your bottom. You don't wish to win like that. If you make much allowances, your artistic conscience smacks your bottom. You are disrespecting the sport.”
“I don't like consciences. It is the presence of conscience in people that creates more problems rather than its absence. I would prefer a man who is free from conscience than one who is in bondage with it.”
“Is that your justification for dating imbeciles?”
“Wow. Thanks for the intelligence.” she said, as if singed if not burned.
“I've sort of given up on men.” she continued.
“Just like that”
“Not overnight, but over the course of years going out with imbeciles. I draw an alpha-male activist or a dumb yes-man. I can't seem to get any normal ones.”
“Normal is an amorphous term. I reckon you mean someone like you.”
“Perhaps. Like tennis, it is no fun when you have someone who is not of your own level. But it's funny when I think of all the guys I did not even give half a chance. Most of them were nice types.”
“Nice being an euphemism for boring I take it.”
“You got to understand I was young and naïve.”
“The problem with guys and girls today is their negligence of reality. It is akin to the modern customer's philosophy of Himalayan expectations when all you need to do is put down your telescope and look around.”
“Now you sound like my mother. She usually goes something like,” changing her voice, “ 'in our days we were just happy to get an ice-cream. We didn't mind what flavor. But you ask for Acai Berry with Caramels. Others won't do.' And I totally avoid my grandma at family functions. She feels my mom should have put a stopper on my studies after high school. Life is an infinite series of IF loops. And very few questions come with None of the Aboves.”
“None of the Above is a choice. You've got to face that and have the courage to go with it. At any rate, if we got everything we wished, life would lose its respectability. And why do you want to get married anyway?”
“I'm not like some of the girls I know who have a rigid deadline to settle down. I don't see anything against marriage. It is just one of the things I believe in. Guess one is allowed to believe in things still. While you believe in lofty things like music, I believe in more terrestrial things. And please don't go into the bully pulpit and start your verbal version of doing lines–marriage is not a basic need like food and water. Society should not impose it, blah, blah, blah...”
“Are you afraid of conversion?”
“No. I am afraid of monotony. Besides, I have heard your relativity theory n+1 number of times. Work your magic on some alley wenches, not me."
“OK, Your Majesty. No preaching. I will avoid marriage, relationships, and pretty much everything in that genre in our present discourse. The good thing is that your career is in great shape,” he rapped on the bench on which they were sitting, “Not many people, men and women, can say that in these uncertain times. Men may come and men may go.”
She pressed his hand imparting no real pressure.
“Tennyson, isn't it? Or was it Browning”
“Tennis-on” he loosed his hand to play a mock serve.
“Always thought he was a touch sappy for my taste. Keats was my man.”
“Because?”
“His painter's instinct.”
“But...”

The Eluder

2011-04-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

Tough but tipsy,
Fast but fussy,
She ran amok
Like a country truck
Through the byzantine lanes
Of life.
Neither me nor you nor him
Could lay a whit of claim
On her.
Of earth she was, to earth
She went.

Atlas Shouldered

2011-04-15T18:46:00.004-05:00

Just like George Orwell was politicized as sort of a champion against communism (much after his death), this about Ayn Rand and the upcoming Atlas Shrugged movie. I am an illiterate as regards any leave alone the whole corpus of Ms. Rand to have a view, but I do loathe it when politics tries to shoulder literature's burden. And it doesn't matter whether it is the left, right or center.

Chip Away

2011-04-11T00:09:00.001-05:00

Sensible people come out of the vault, let go of the past and move on. Easier said, you say, sitting in your rocking chair, beverage in hand. I simply rest my case.

Ha Ha

2011-04-08T19:37:00.002-05:00

It's official. LOL joins Oxford.

Live in the Moment

2011-04-05T14:46:00.000-05:00

To live in the moment is not necessarily the preserve of spirituality nor just an alibi for escapism. It is the most pragmatic way of life we have available.

Unforced Errors

2011-03-23T00:26:00.005-05:00

Unforced errors are the most agonizing, be it in tennis or in life. The first one may be considered unfortunate, but subsequent repetitions suggest carelessness. It is not really a question of megalomania. It is but a simple fact–you had the power to do something right but you failed to do it. It trumps caffeine in its sleep-killing potency.

Higher and Higher

2011-03-17T00:35:00.004-05:00

For once, let your heart and mind soar,
Like lovers eloping, higher and higher
Past prying clouds
Into the realms of glorious possibilities
And never once pausing to think
Of the practicalities or the perfections.
And you will have arrived.

The Odd Couple

2011-03-16T01:18:00.002-05:00

I was about to park my car into my allotted space when I saw two figures, male, 20s, standing on either side of the dividing pole. One was short and thin and wore a much too oversized football jersey and the other was of a bigger and fuller variety whose clothing choice of the day was a skin-tight neon t-shirt. Never before have I seen such pictorial antithesis, in life and in art. I waited for the pair to move. They both only stared at me in reply. I rolled down my windows to talk when they slowly made way after staring at themselves. As I stepped on to my corridor leading to my apartment, I heard a Hoy which I ignored. I had reached my apartment door when the shout was repeated. I waited for a few seconds before entering home. It had been a tiring day and after changing I soon crashed to my couch with a glass of lemonade. There was nothing worthwhile on TV and I decided to retire to my porch. As I opened the blinds and the sliding glass door, I saw the same odd couple standing not far away from the balustrade.
Suspicion or anxiety did not cross my mind, as the two, though odd, were in no way menacing.
“You looking for someone?” I asked them.
They looked at each other without replying.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Nemeldi” the well-rounded personality answered.
“Yes. He is my friend. You know him?”
“You?”
“Yes I know him”
“You?”
“What?”
“You?”
“What about me?”
“You,” and as if it was my conversational style that needed improvement, with a scant shrug he said, “Name?”
I then told them my name.
“We came to see you” the pint-sized Peyton Manning this time.
I invited them inside. I could place them now. I had seen them once or twice with Nemeldi before.
“Beautiful weather today” I said. They seemed not too interested in climatic conditions.
“Talked to Nemeldi” Peyton said. I didn't know if it was a statement or a question.
“Last time you talked to Nemeldi” Michael Moore was more forthcoming than his partner, thankfully.
“Not recently.” I said, “Must be a month I guess”
“Two days since we talked. Doesn't pick our calls. No texts or emails.”
“How about Facebook and Twitter?”
“No new updates”
“Did you call on him?”
“He said we called. You heard I think” Peyton became irritable.
“I meant did you go to his place?”
They laughed simultaneously, slapping each other's backs.
“We all stay together. Everyone who knows Nemeldi knows that.” said Michael.
“Well, I can find out with some of my friends if they know anything. But surely he should have told you all where he's going. He is not the type to take off just like that.”
“We know he has gone out of town.”
“Then don't worry. He will call you soon. Else, we can get in touch with the cops. There aren't many people with a face like Humpty Dumpty.”
They were not enthused by my joke.
“Besides the sad fact that we don't have our guru whose every action is a living lesson to us pupils, there are certain other matters.” Michael said.
“Like what?”
They again looked at each other.
“You know we are not ungrateful or nothing like that. And you do know our esteemed guru is sometimes, you know, unpredictable.”
“Something like that. Yes.”
“You know, you see, when leaving he borrowed some money from us. And who are we to deny him, you know. He said he needed the stuff for some reinforcements. And they must be totally important, you see. He told us he will wire us the money back once he reached there. And we need the money bad here. You see?”
“Car too” said Peyton.
“Yes, he took our car too, but we use public buses, so that's not a big deal.” Michael took over from his friend.
“I will try my best to see he returns your money soon.”
“Don't. Don't ever mention this to him, you know.”
“Then?”
“You know, we know you two are good buddies and you don't have much formalities between each. So, if you could give us $ --- and settle it later with your buddy, it will be awesome.”
“And you can demand if you want to. Which we can't” Peyton joined in.
They left twenty minutes later, thanking me repeatedly and seeming happier than when they came in, and of course bearing my check for said amount. So much for being on a fiscal diet lately.

A couple of days passed. Nemeldi returned to the cybersphere. “My old phone sleeps in the Colorado River!!! Got a new cell. Send ur nos to my email, ppl. An yes, I AM ALRIGHT.”
There was the usual paraphernalia of ooh's and aah's that accompanied this update. On my side, even before the update, the most predominant emotion was ouch.

Piano

2011-03-08T00:46:00.004-06:00

Below is a lovely and evocative poem, Piano by D.H. Lawrence.

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamor
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

Untitled

2011-02-26T23:58:00.005-06:00

They sat side-by-side, their fingers locked together in an indefinite bear hug, all their electric anxieties of the past melting into nothingness. But what is past? It is as dead as your grandpa who died when you were a teen. We don't talk about the dead. And what is future? It is death anyway. They were sitting side-by-side in a crowded piano bar on a Wednesday night and a new song had begun. That's all that mattered. The crowd, largely made up of college students, chorused up in cacophonous unison to this unclassifiable filth-in-rock clothing. Is this what the young listened to these days? He did not know what sort of music she preferred. In another life, he would have asked. Age had nothing to do with this, though if you had asked someone there randomly, he would have described them as an old couple. Such was their language, so incomprehensible much like their music, their clothes, their politics, their manners. Her eyes dancing with desire, she said something. He thought he replied, but hadn't. His innate volubility was bottled up by her immaculate lack of restraint. He muttered a reluctant maybe, utterly clueless what he was replying to.

On Creative Writing

2011-02-21T19:44:00.010-06:00

While I understand the practicality and nothing is impossible attitude of the Americans, this one by Robert McCrum (who incidentally happens to be the author of the most recent–and one of the best–Wodehouse biography) shares my view that writing can't seriously be taught.

Self-Help Literature

2011-02-11T11:49:00.005-06:00

With all the usual V-day treatises mobbing you at this time of year, one that makes some sense.

Trash Talk

2011-01-13T13:57:00.007-06:00

Greedily, creepily the whiff reaches
Me and my frosted flakes
From the abyss of the waste can
Bringing with it the keynote message
Of the impending end of its variously social life.
Hot or cold, white or black
Trash, like the law, only grows up.
But the master cannot attend to you now
Not with a somnambulistic 8 AM brain.
Patience, my dear rubbish children
Patience!

The Order

2011-01-11T14:53:00.002-06:00

“One love, well-done” he said, to the golden-toothed, Mohawked man across the table. This hole-in-the-wall with 80s rock graffiti on its walls had opened a few weeks ago. It was as busy as his restaurant aficionado friend had proclaimed it to be. A motley crew of techies from the nearby IT park, green-clad nurses from the hospital district, students from the city university, and truck drivers en route formed the clientele. An obstreperous child was demanding chocolate candy while his mother peaceably answered in the negative. He recognized an acquaintance that presently entered. He looked at her but did not smile as he was unsure, not of her being her, but whether she would reciprocate his recognition. She stared at him for a second and then turned around as her party had arrived. He even knew her name but his head-to-head vis-a-vis acquaintance management being a losing one, he let it pass. And suddenly, the thought of having his love here, in full view of the colorful graffiti, the noisy child, all the others, and this acquaintance and her friend, seemed execrable. The love, done well, had arrived indeed.
“Sorry about this sudden change of mind but can I have my love to-go?” he said.
The Mohawk man paused a while before answering, “Ok. That's Ok.”
“Sorry...” he repeated and had his bought love in the confines of his apartment that afternoon.

Loop

2010-12-31T11:36:00.001-06:00

If only you would set
Your eyes, small and lethal
Like twin-barrels, on me one moment,
I'd pass all my after hours
Replaying that one moment.

All Day

2010-12-30T08:18:00.003-06:00

All day long I sit
By my Mac
For the purple princess
To lounge on this white sheet
Of mine
And all I receive is
This.

Indigestion

2010-12-16T17:19:00.002-06:00

The mottled oyster that devoured him is sick. Something had not agreed with it. It was not the surplus fat lodged not so surreptitiously or sporadically in its food. Not also the dense jungle of luxuriant, curled follicles. Nor the slender, splinter-like nails. Not the gold chain the man wore that bore his name in Comic Sans font. Nor any of the rings that enslaved the fingers. The brain? Not at all. The human brain is quite useless in death. You would only have to look at ancient Egyptians for confirmation–they took the brains out before embalming a body. Not any of these things are to be blamed for the oyster's dyspepsia. It was the stench. The racy cocktail of sweat, perfume, deodorant, and decay it was that offended the efficient operation of the mottled mollusc's mouth.

A Lonely Night

2010-12-15T12:08:00.000-06:00

This is one of those nights
Where I am all alone.
I pine for sleep's return
To ride in me to the door step of morn.
I have done away with ticking clocks
They seem to mock my discomfort.
But time hurtles through like a runaway train
Even in my digital clock.
It is one of those nights
Where my mind is a never-closing bar
Of conversations muted and loud
And the occasional fist fight.

A Case Closed

2010-12-01T14:36:00.003-06:00

The police arrested ten people suspected of cutting televisions. In a ramshackle nineteenth century cottage near downtown Crimea, they found chainsaws, dragsaws, and jigsaws naked and reeking of lubricant oil. The saw brothers confessed to the crimes and gave out their owners' names. All ten owners were speedily located and are expected to get one to three years of solitary confinement. This has been a major breakthrough in the merciless television slaying case that has dodged investigators for months. Not all televisions are innocent, said one of the perpetrators, Mr. Doleful Ditty, who spoke on the condition of being identified.

I Remember

2010-11-28T02:17:00.002-06:00

I remember kneeling in the school courtyard
For wearing wrong colored socks.
I remember rushing out to light the
First firecracker in the neighborhood
I remember forgetting my speech on School Day.
I remember the first house I lived in.
I remember pinching fives from dad's wallet
And munching on roadside relish.
I remember catching electric trains on the move
And traveling ticketless.
I remember my first bicycle and my first fall
And the ensuing four stitches on my knee.
I remember the fresh banter and the stale canteen tea.
I remember the lurid film posters and the careless cows
That dined on them.
I remember seeing my number in the newspaper
Under the examination results.
I remember my small garden and the night-jasmine
I gave her and the blush she gave me.
I remember the ecstasy and tiredness on
Winning the local badminton event.
I remember the first time I flunked
And the lecture my mother gave me.
I remember the first dead body I saw.
I remember shooting balloons at the beach.
I remember turning up in shirt and pant
For a historical play.
I remember getting caught when copying.
I remember reading my entry in print
And the fifty bucks I got for it.
I remember the misery and bliss of
Walking with the most beautiful girl I ever knew.
I remember Tom Sawyer and his Monday blues
And idolizing him.
I remember gobbling up mundane statistics of
Many a cricket player I liked.
I remember playing cards at weddings.
I remember casting my vote for the first time.
I remember idle evenings on terraces.
I remember buying alcohol for God.
I remember the mad dog that terrorized me.
I remember the three days I spent in hospital.
I remember the night I slept on a cold bench.
I remember the phone call that made me cry.
I remember the only time I sang to an audience.
I remember the first meal I cooked.
I remember my first friend whose name I forget.
I remember wolfing chalk as if it were cheese.
I remember...

My Window

2010-11-23T17:51:00.010-06:00

The blinds are closed. It has been like this for many days now. If some inquisitive observer might have corrected me that it has been weeks, she may perhaps be right. I turn the transparent stick around and I see the leaves of the tree outside nod lazily to the wind. There are numerous round buds at a grasping distance if I care to open the window. I don't see any flowers. I am not even sure what kind of tree it is. They might have an app for that, I am sure. It gets me to thinking if on the outside chance that no one has thought of creating an app, there might be some money in it. I ponder over this for a bit. A squirrel climbs up one of the branches and this makes an imperceptible knock against the window. My neighbor, Marisa, a shriveled old woman who sits outside her apartment reading a book or talking with her daughter-in-law, loves these squirrels. She feeds them whole peanuts and many a time when I return to my apartment these busy creatures run past me to the bowl at the other side. I am not a squirrel person, but I am always curious to see one if they have the three lines on their backs that were supposed to have been drawn by Rama. These apparently do not have them.

I come back to my desk and eat my eggs. The light from the window is feeble though it is quite sunny out there. More than the sunlight, it is the reflection of the four-pronged lamp in my bedroom that seems to shine bright. I have a lot to do today. It is a Saturday but I have to start packing my stuff this weekend. I am moving out of this place in ten days. I have not told my neighbor yet. We have never talked more than ten minutes except on one occasion when our power was out in the middle of the night and she talked to me about Mexico and how she ended up here.
“Main problem for me was English” she said.
“But I better now.”
“Did you take classes?” I asked, feeling quite silly the moment I asked it.
“No. You know. From this and that”
She naturally thought I made pots of money when I told her I was an engineer.
“Indians. Smart people.” she declared.
“Miguel's friend is from India. He teach him math. Miguel says he better than his professor in college.”
Miguel was her son, who attended a local community college. It is a two-edged sword, that of being Indian. On one side, people assumed directly on seeing you that you were intelligent. But on the other side, if like me, you prove you are the exception to the rule, they seemed stunned. Something didn't quite add up. It was just not possible.
“You married?” she asked, more out of niceness than knowledge as she knew I lived alone.
I said no.
“Marriage is good”
“Yeah” I said more out of niceness than knowledge.
I was relieved that, unlike many others before her, she did not say, “Has your mom looked up girls for you?” or anything of that kind.
Marisa used to knock on my door now and then if she cooked something. I told her she shouldn't bother, but she rarely listened. She was a good cook. I liked her enchiladas. They were tastier than what I got in the Mexican cafe in our office building.

The kettle hisses and I go to the kitchen to make coffee. I realize I've run out of milk. There is an old powder creamer inside one of the shelves and I make do with that for today. Milk, I write, on the list that hangs haphazardly on my fridge. The coffee is so-so. The powder has caked a bit and they float undissolved in the coffee, like debris on a well. I go to the window again. I strain myself by going to the left and see a couple of young men loading coal on a grill that stands in the grass outside. A few hundred feet beyond them, someone is seen riding a golf cart. It is, of course, a golf course that is next to our complex but I have never seen it from my bedroom. All I remember thinking when I got this unit was the hassle of bringing in my furniture to the second floor. One of my friends who lives in the same complex but nearer to the greens always gushes about the view he gets. I have not told him either about my departure. He is a sort of guy with whom you need to be tactful of what you joke about. An earnest chap, if that is the word. Something about goodbyes is so silly that I often avoid it. But I may have to tell him. I plan on giving my desk to him. I will perhaps give the coffee table to Marisa. The rest I have not decided what to do, particularly the big ones like my car and my motorcycle. And there is Skip, my dog. He probably knows.

When you live for three years in the same house, you are bound to accumulate things. It is always the things I worry about. My sister used to go for memories. She would talk about this day and that. This incident and that. She would make a better writer, or at any rate a better story teller, as she can pull out a whole host of past like a dentist does with one's teeth, if she had been living here. And I am sure she would have gotten along splendidly with my neighbors, particularly Marisa. Talking about my sister, I have not yet thought of what to buy her. Had I told her in advance, she would no doubt given me a clear list. A list that would mean coaxing my friend John's girlfriend to help me scour the higher and nether ends of malls and retailers to satisfy its contents. For the first time in ten years–and curiously enough the last time–I am going to surprise my sister and her husband by dropping by unannounced. It is ten already and I still have a lot to do. I hate packing.

Hold On

2010-11-09T01:11:00.004-06:00

Your limbs are numb, your mind has turned fat,
Eating anything it gets like a shameless hobo.
Yet the eyes do see and you run more out of habit,
Without realizing the violent gush of liberation
That has carried you so many times in the past.
You now carry years of memories with each step
And others begin to notice your slip.
They may be right, but how does it matter if
You keep on running and running.
You may still break out, rise and prevail.
Break out, rise and prevail!

Money, get back!

2010-10-21T14:07:00.005-05:00

Funny this. Reminds me of Fritz Karinthy's Hungarian play Refund, the English version of which we read in tenth grade. Given the current economic climate, what he says sounds rather reasonable.

Can You Hear Me Now?

2010-10-12T20:50:00.006-05:00

Late Spring
I was playing this fantastically stupid game on my iPhone that I didn't notice my doctor walk in. Imagine a much distant age of no hash tags or YouTube and where text meant some book. Left alone in a room whose wall art themed on human anatomy, the best option would be to take along a novel. Or compose notes to self. Or any of those painfully dreary things one did to keep within the suburbs of sanity. But not anything as interesting as Real Racing. Viva la Apple!
The doctor was a stocky old man with protruding eyes and a receding hairline. He liked to laugh a lot and when he did, his round glasses danced on his gloriously ruddy–high definition red–nose like a circus artist on her pole.
"How serious is it, Doctor?" I asked.
"Pretty serious, son" he said tapping my shoulder, "pretty darned serious."
"How did this happen? I mean how did you find out?"
"Found it by accident. As all great discoveries are. You came here for your migraine problem and, boy, seems you have another headache coming."
He showed me scans of my brain.
"You see the little gray area over here? That is the prefrontal cortex region which, to put in simple words, determines how we think and act. The problem is it is not as dense as you'd want it to be."
He held out a copy of another scan.
"Now this is how it should be," he said, indicating the area on the fresh copy. "Of course, the bigger head here means this individual is much smarter than you. Truth aside, what you are suffering from, son, is a serious case of monomobilosis."
Finding that I was lost, he nodded and let out a 'phew'. My high school math teacher came to mind.
"To use the parlance of your times, you're what is called a cellho. Your cute contraption has been gorging on your brain tissues and it is high time you entered rehab."
I am not sure if I was utterly unnerved but I was most definitely not nerved. It was a Whopper-sized left hook and I sure as hell did not Like it. He ran on, telling me about the two paths I had: a long, plain road to safety or a mad dash to the cemetery.
"You can take the other copy with you. I don't charge my patients for a scan of my brain. Best of luck." He laughed, shook hands and left. The first step in the long, plain route to safety was the surrendering of your phone. I bid adieu with a heavy heart to three great years of bliss and intimacy. I felt like a child on his first day at school.

Summer
Life was impossible at first. Before the first day was over, my thumbs started shivering. I couldn't get myself to sleep without the warmth of my iPhone on my bed. I missed credit card payments. I showed up late for work. In the midst of a TV program, I would run from one room to another after hearing my favorite ringtone. I reminisced all day about the happy past. Of listening to Pandora in the midst of complex coding, of batting for iPhone against the uber-snobby Blackberry faithful, of pulling out the recipe for Smoky Martini before you can say Jack Daniels, and of engaging in decidedly gobbledegook colloquies with my friends while changing lanes. No longer can I post corny Facebook updates such as "Don't know who is hotter: Megan Fox or my '99 Buick?" or inform my friends and followers after I checked into a fancy restaurant. I almost lost it one day deciding the hell with it and driving to the AT&T store. A big, tortoise-paced line made me impatient and I stormed out in irritation. For the first time I opened the bundle of Help Yourself literature handed me by my doc. Some of the anti-mobile dependency methods on the list were:

1. Develop a good reading habit – whoa, whoa, one step at a time, compadre. It is too much of a leap to land in nerd territory just now.
2. Exercise regularly – define regularly.
3. Spend time with your pet – feeding one animal seems hard work, ergo fill in the rest. Do roaches count as pets?
4. Spend time with a member of a different generation – and talk about the Cold War or listen to Sesame Street?
5. Learn some salsa – should it not be eat some salsa?
6. Run a marathon – I heard a fit athlete died last year after finishing the race.

Basically, it all led to the same unified slogan: Get a Life. It seemed monumentally condescending, but perhaps there was some truth in it. I joined a local improvisation club and immediately realized how not spontaneous I was.

Life, as the philosophically inclined say, goes on. They were pretty right on the gravy. Work took precedence and I even joined a walking contest at work. I am third on the Stepathon list and hope to walk more each day so I clinch the top spot. I did get cravings now and then–you cannot watch TV or browse a magazine without any phone ad–but somehow I managed to quell them. So if you asked me, I would say life was not totally a bed of roses, but just a flavorless thingy that did its supposed job. There were some changes in my lifestyle: I bought a wrist watch, an alarm clock, a Rand & McNally Road Guide, a landline telephone connection, and even an Essential College English textbook. And my thumbs had stopped twitching. And not only that I got better at improv and was learning. Maybe, my storming out of AT&T was a sign.

Autumn
One day, I received a phone call on my office line. It was Nemeldi.
"I know you are not a candidate even for a consolation prize for rationality, but this, my friend, takes the cake, icing, cherry, and all. What a confusious guy!" he bellowed, when I told him why his messages received no answer and why I was incommunicado these days. Football season was kicking off soon and like a "responsible person I am" he was starting the Fantasy league.
"Listen, dude. All spots are taken and my homies are getting testy. You got to thank me for saving your spot this long. But, I can't hold out any longer just because you have realized some restroom epiphany. Besides, my boss very much wants to play."
"Well..."
"Whatever, man. What I am saying is that you only have time till tomorrow or else he gets it. Okay?".
I had put the speaker on and the pimply intern walked into my room at that point. I had to reassure him this was not what it sounded like and everything was OK. I met my Fantasy friends later. Apart from the stats of the player each picked, all they could talk about was this app against that, lousy cell phone coverage, and the advantages of the unlimited data plan. I realized how painfully dull I had been.

Monday Night Football was on and my fantasy players were awful. They sucked more effectively than a conscientious heavy-duty Hoover vacuum and I returned to the report I was working on.
"Ready?" my friend IMed me. I realized only then the evening's dinner plan.
"c u in half-hr" she said before signing off. I know her version of time, so I went down to wait for her after forty-five minutes. She came after an hour. I had to wait outside in the meantime, the globular bulb in front of my apartment building deciding it had enough of the energy saving hibernation and coming to life casting its freakish, white light on me. I sat on the curb facing an empty parking space. A woman was returning from her evening runs. She was an old lady who wore a blue weight pack on one of her shapely fit legs. She looked at me, somewhat perplexed that I was sitting there doing nothing. I could have told her I was interested in the calling habits of geckos (which I was). But you see you have to be seen doing something, if you are alone in public. Be in a conference call, play BrickBreaker, or at the very least stare at the phone screen as if stunned. Sitting idly in public only increases suspicion. Some smart dude from the other side of the pond said a Twain-like thing that to do nothing was the most difficult thing in the world and the most intellectual. I am sold on the former but not totally sure about the latter.
"Where do you want to go?" my friend asked me as we moved out of my community.
"Well.."
"There is this Ethiopian place that is real good. Cool?"
"OK"
"But I forgot where it is. Can you do the honors?" she indicated her hand bag, for me to find her phone. I found it after quite a struggle. The ladies hand bag is a Wal-Mart of travel convenience. You can find pretty much anything there. For the first time since my new life began, I was face-to-face with an iPhone. There was no emotion or elation. I just looked at the general direction of the restaurant and somehow knew where to go.
"How long has it been?" she asked me over dinner.
"Four months now"
"Wow. You are awesome"
"Next up is Facebook"
She did not catch the last bit as she was saying Hello on her little friend. For once, I held the moral high ground on dining etiquette. I couldn't believe myself.

Thus it goes on. I wouldn't say it has been a pleasant ride et cetera et cetera. But it has not been a bad one at all. And I do get my pride kicks whenever I see people reaching for their cell phones in a movie theater or sheepishly apologizing for the customized ringtone in the middle of a project meeting. Me one, The app-aplenty tweet-a-minute world zero.

Go-to Guy

2010-10-03T18:12:00.011-05:00

He looked at his to-do list for the day.

1. Decide dad's bday gift
2. Talk to Fidelity guys
3. Help BB at work
4. Fix leaky tap
5. Talk w/ God

He could tick off the first four. The fifth had actually been postponed for some weeks now. He could put it off no longer. He called God's number.
"Yo Godsta, wassup, my man. How's it hanging there in the Hallowed House?"
"Welcome, child. It is OK out here. Got rivers to run, people to rub out, flowers to bloom, you know, just status quo."
"Man, sorry I couldn't get to you these last weeks. You understand I also got my version of rivers and flowers."
"Busy is not bad, got you."
"Right, right. Listen, man, have you had the chance to get to my report yet? Was just wondering, you know, as it has been months since I sent you that."
"Well. I have to be honest with you, because I cannot lie, by law. It is one of the disadvantages that come with the job. I have not got to your report. And I don't think I can this week. You have to be a bit more patient, child."
"OK. Not a p. I will hang on. It is just that some things have started to pull my sleeve and I promised them I'd run to my go-to guy and everything will be fine."
"Feels flattering to be the go-to guy but seriously son, what made you promise? I thought you humans were smarter. I have stopped giving promises altogether. Too may lawsuits, you see. Don't Promise. Compromise. That's my new deal. Anyway, how bad your problems can be? Think of it as drugs. It can cure you or kill you. All depends on how you handle it."
"That's great. I appreciate your thoughts, in spite of being as busy as you are right now. I just want to believe they would not go for my throat the next time they see me."
"Boy, I feel for you. It has been one of the craziest we have ever encountered. All reports, requests, memos, etc. usually are handled by dead people from your world, the ones who end up in Heaven. If I can get corny, your mess stinks up till here that we were forced to cut their gym membership. They got sour and quit. So it is now down to myself, my saints, and my angels to tread this."
"I thought you guys were safe since you live so high up."
"No one is, my good boy. High up doesn't mean we can't be hard up."
"So is there any replacement plan in place?"
"The stop-gap arrangement is to outsource the work to Hell. We are not making them use their time which otherwise would be spent usefully. And folks there can't have health benefits anyway. We should know the answer soon."
"Hope it works out well for everybody in the end."
"That's the basic concept."
"Man, you know what you should do? Get on Facebook and Twitter. Will be much more easier to know what you are up to."
"What are they?"
"Things that we use to feel good about ourselves."
"Interesting."
"I am having a heart attack just thinking how many followers you would have to your Twitter account? Lady Gaga will be forgotten."
"I have been trying to get a disk of hers, but no luck."
"I thought you guys were music-snobs"
"We get that a lot. No we aren't any snobs."
"How about atheists?"
"We take in atheists as well."
"Such a rowdy bunch, aren't they?"
"No. On the contrary, they are quite reasonable."
"Are you being mischievous? Do you mean to say believers are not?"
"I didn't say it."
"Well, I don't know what to say. But I will stay off controversial rails. How about them Cowboys this year? It's about time, don't you think. Go easy on them, man."
"Come on. You know the answer to that one."

White Christmas

2010-09-29T21:45:00.006-05:00

The snowman had melted,
leaving a humbled clone in its place.
He picked up one of its stone-eyes,
and the coldness was still alive.
He held the stone on one hand
while the other held the day's first cigarette.
He had not prayed for this,
and lo and behold, had come two full days of snow finery.
They took pictures and made videos
of hurling, tripping, and laughing.
His little son thanked Santa for
granting him his wish of a white Christmas.
He played with the stone as if it were a ball,
throwing and catching it, throwing and catching it,
till he finished his smoke.
The day lay ahead of him.
He was not ready to step in.

What the Dickens!

2010-09-03T16:48:00.002-05:00

I remember it was in the seventh grade that we had an extract, abridged I'm sure, from the last chapters of A Tale of Two Cities. It was mainly concerning Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay and their classic swap. My late aunt said, oh Sydney Carton sacrifice? with an air of amazement. That Tale is the most printed novel in English I didn't know then and was thrilled to read something that was taught a generation ago. While the general English syllabi in India has not changed much over the past half-century (authors like Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling and Jerome K. Jerome are still 'around' who have almost passed into oblivion here in the States), Dickens is still a household name everywhere. From that lone chapter in my seventh grade I learned the basic story and being fascinated with Dickens–though I thought Carton was stupid–read an abridged version from my school library. Recently, I read the full version and while the all-out fascination with the Victorian writer has dulled a bit Carton has become interesting.

Tale is a grim novel. It has some long-winded passages with no dialogue and for a Dickens novel is surprisingly slow-paced and doesn't contain humor, one of his greatest assets. Many say Great Expectations to be his finest work. And an equal number go for Bleak House. While I haven't read Bleak House, I rate Oliver Twist or David Copperfield higher than Tale or Expectations or for that matter The Pickwick Papers. It has something to do with childhood I believe that makes me favor those eponymous novels. Tale can be seen as a populist drama, but there is nothing wrong with that. You have a triangle love story, two men who look much alike, and the novel is set at the backdrop of a historical event. How is that for entertainment? Can you not make a modern movie based on this premise? Of course, Carton, self-loathing and not confident, knows very well he has no chances of being loved by Lucie. He says he doesn't care for anybody but himself. Is it true or is it just a defense mechanism? And why does he lay down his life? Is it love? Honor? Redemption? Sadomasochism? These are the things that make him more interesting than Darnay or Lucie.

Dickens may have created one-dimensional characters (Marquis St. Evremonde seems too villainous with no redeeming quality whatsoever) and may also be accused of melodrama (Lucie is too dramatic, especially in her love towards others), but you have to give it that he was an excellent writer.

"For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business—if that could have been anybody's business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them…"

Just as an example, take the chapter where Madame Defarge–who is as frightening as Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth–seeks out to "knit up" the rest of Darnay's family. I am not sure if most modern suspense writers can do better, especially with the fight scene between Defarge and Miss Pross. Dickens was the world's first popular novelist. J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, and Stephanie Meyer today can boast of their copies sold but I am not sure they can write as well as Dickens. And that's part of the reason I think he has endured this far. Like religion or God, he is there, whether you like him or not. I have always thought his writing to be holding something back, perhaps purposely, while knowing fully well what he is capable of. Had he been a better writer than what he was, could we have had characters like Oliver Twist and his "some more", Scrooge, Artful Dodger, Magwitch, or the fat boy from Pickwick, to name but a few?

Categorize, categorize, categorize!

2010-09-03T12:10:00.005-05:00

"So, are you a Republican?"
"No"
"Bleeding-heart Dem?"
"No."
"Hmm. Not one of those Socialist or Commie sympathizers, are you?"
"No"
"Libertarian?"
"No"
"Tree hugger?"
"No"
"Well, I don't understand. You got to be something."

I Wish

2010-08-30T22:30:00.001-05:00

I wish Life weren't an endless questionnaire
That needs an answer to every item.
I wish I were in touch with the times.
I wish I were in touch with myself.
I wish to stop making love to my past.
I wish to stop trying to read poker-faced Time.
I wish to stop developing mental six-packs.
I wish I could turn my polygraphic sense off.
I wish I could put down my goddamn guard.
I wish I could believe in sunrises and fortune cookies.

Elixir

2010-08-23T19:03:00.000-05:00

Kill the air, man will find a more beneficial gas. Kill the Sun, he will give you a potent but pliant star. Kill ego, man will die.

The Long Walk Back

2010-08-17T12:55:00.002-05:00

"Stop all the clocks and silence the cell phone, the game is on." So said my captain.
"This kid is good." The "kid" was probably sixteen or seventeen. He was thin and tall and wore spectacles. The first ball was outside off stump and our batsman let it go. The second one climbed on him and he fended off only to be caught at first slip. "You" my captain said. My captain had always been a great chap. Even though I had not as much touched a cricket bat in close to three years, he let me go in at No. 3. Past glory and all that enchilada. I walked out to the middle. The sun was blasting away, the grass was slippery, and eleven flanneled fellows dispersed after the customary celebration. It was momentary, but it felt like walking past the stewards, the leg-weariness, the body odor, and the bureaucracy to the mustiness of our bed, the morning newspaper, and her over-burnt fritters. The end of an arduous journey. "Right-arm over, four to go." the umpire shouted at me, while I in turn shouted, "Leg stump". Marking my stance, I looked at the fielders once and faced the "kid". He came in, like a Jaguar in second-gear, his high-arm action making me wish I had more inches to my verticality, but bobbed off the pitch unexpectedly that had I not brought my bat down at the exact micro-second, I would have been out leg-before. He's not bad, this kid, I said to myself. The next ball was over-pitched and I drove through cover for a boundary. I could hear my mates yelling. I was happy. I had something to prove. To myself again that I was capable of winning, despite what everyone seemed to think. To prove once more that I was something part of a whole, something you can't ignore. I had been on a self-pitying diet since the whole thing fell, but let them see me now. The field was changed. The man in mid-off was moved to cover. The kid ran in again and it was another over-pitch. My eyes lit up and I moved my front foot and drove in the direction of mid-off. I heard the elegy of my stumps and the exultation of my conquerors. It had swung in at the last moment and my middle stump was felled leaving an ignominious gap. I stood there stunned and stunted, cursing myself for the irrational stroke. "You can't stay there for ever, mate" said the wicket keeper. I made for the made-up pavilion of the giant elm tree.

Heating Us Alive

2010-08-10T01:41:00.004-05:00

The heat is on.
Everything under the nasty-ass star is hot.
The pavement, the ditch, the faucet, the iTouch.
The swan is uncouth, the cuckoo is off-key.
It chars brain and body alike;
It gets to everyone sooner than later.
Rich or poor or communist or scientist.
Certified adults want to dip their tongues
Into buckets of ice-cream
Or rip their clothes by the poolside.
The heat is in.

A Skeptic's Prayer

2010-08-06T13:47:00.002-05:00

I long to be put into a dark, dank, and isolated room
Where no memory can seep through and where thoughts don't bed-hop,
Where there is no need to serial kill all your insecurities,
Nor try your damnedest to sound clever stating recycled half-truths.
Where Father Time is just an old maid whose job is more honorary.
I long to be rid of the PC filter and the just kidding when talking
And of suppressing a sneeze in society for fear of manners.
I no longer wish a whine-list on my mental fridge
Nor be sensitive to the stench of reality and the aroma of lies.
To this end I pray to thee.

When in Doubt

2010-07-22T16:15:00.005-05:00

Are average people polite because they can't afford to be rude? Or would they continue to be the milk of kindness even after success smiles on them? And are successful people successful because they can't afford to be nice? It is unbelievable and at the same time also demeaning to what humans are to see our lives measured so much by material success only. It makes one wonder whether it is better to dispatch your niceness deep inside the dark recesses of your self. Niceness is not marketable and hence it is prudent to follow the masses in the epic migration called survival. When in Rome etc.

I Know What You Did Last Night

2010-07-20T12:15:00.000-05:00

"Midnight is the hour when men desperately seek to obey the eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not get caught." According to the ethic of midnight, the cardinal sin is to be caught and the cardinal virtue is to get by. It is all right to lie, but one must lie with real finesse. It is all right to steal, if one is so dignified that, if caught, the charge becomes embezzlement, not robbery. It is permissible even to hate, if one so dresses his hating in the garments of love that hating appears to be loving. The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest. This mentality has brought a tragic breakdown of moral standards, and the midnight of moral degeneration deepens."
- Martin Luther King, Jr. in A Knock at Midnight

So, are you afraid because of your conscience or because you will get caught?

Fine Print

2010-07-17T14:14:00.004-05:00

You are welcome anytime, of course. But always mind the 3-ft rule. All transactions in general are held in that manner. Persons wishing to get a closer view must provide sufficient proof of the value they bring in. You bring me something, then it better be something that is extraordinary.

Got Stomach?

2010-07-14T23:22:00.003-05:00

She did not hate anybody. She simply cannot bring herself to wish evil upon any soul. That was the good news. But you shan't expect her to love anybody. It was not that her heart was set in reinforced concrete. She just did not need to get entangled in this inelastic mesh, get cooked in this hot mess, get lost in this inscrutable maze, or get blown away with this traffic of emotions perpetuated by man down the ages. Can you handle that?

The Revisit

2010-07-13T00:39:00.004-05:00

They said they were giving free rice pudding. Ezhumalai liked rice pudding. He entered the temple, after casting the slippers outside. A beggar made signs he will take care of them. The gopuram welcomed him. There was something phony about it. It was as if the structure was reluctant and had been forced to guard. You could almost see its shaky nerves showing through the variously colored paint. When he was little, he was not only fascinated by the colors and patterns, but even thought it imposing and impenetrable. Looking at it now, it did not seem that imposing and we had the recent tornado too. Tornado not in Norman, Oklahoma or Lubbock, Texas, but in deep South Tamil Nadu. Who would have thought it would knock off one of the gargoyles (and its six tusks) that had stood unchallenged for centuries, perched lugubriously at a height none cared to be frightened? He had met his future- and ex-wife at the open corridor where he now entered, as the setting sun came into view and the pigeons fluttered and the roses and the yellows lent their intoxicating scent. That was more than twenty five years ago. He was fond of spinning tops and she was fond of elephants. She had been crying by the statue of the bull. She was not lost. She had just been vehemently denied by her father of a wooden elephant from one of the shops inside the temple. Ezhumalai had bought her the elephant that day. Years later, they had their first kiss by the bull.
"You taste of rice pudding" she had said. Is it only me, he thought, who finds the place so small and insignificant? What would Meera have to say about this? She won't know the difference since she has been coming here daily. Would she come today? What would they have to say to each other? Perhaps it would be best she didn't come. Or perhaps they could talk about the tornado. Just two middle-aged strangers talking about the weather. No harm in that. Unless they were identified. A bare-bodied man came out of the temple, satisfied and reassured by his evening visit. Ezhumalai envied him. Once he had chanted His name 108 times as his father asked. "Makes your face glow."
It was a Tuesday and there was a crowd. He inched his way to the sanctum sanctorum. He recognized the priest. The man seemed a dwarfish version of the burly man he knew. His face had shrunk making his prominent eyes scary. Ezhumalai was sure the priest wouldn't reciprocate the recognition.
What to pray? Who to pray for? He didn't know. Once, he had prayed for his mentally retarded brother, for Meera, for victory in cricket, and for a man he thought would make a change. Afterwards, he had shifted to "Keep everyone happy and peaceful." And after that he had renounced the temple altogether.
"Everyone fine at your household? It's been ages, Ezha" the priest said as he offered him the sacred water.
"Very good" Ezhumalai couldn't bring himself to say "uncle" as he used to. He was not even sure what household he meant.
"You always had a sweet tooth. We have rice pudding today" and the man pointed to the queue near the door through which he had come in.
It came back to him. The priest had a son his age. They had even been friends. Well, once. They had made away with mangoes at Thathachariar's farms.
"How's Ranga?" he asked.
"By His grace he is fine. Very fine. In States. In software. Had been here last year."
Ranga had always been ambitious. He would want thirty mangoes if Ezhumalai wanted only fifteen. The priest then showed him his son's name among the contributors to the temple's reconstruction efforts. It was on a board that hanged by one of the blackening, oiled walls. Ezhumalai, though not known to be a shy man, felt awkward how to close the interview. He didn't know whether the priest wanted him to fall at his feet and get his blessings. He just fell down.
"Be prosperous, son" the priest said and Ezhumalai left him.
Ezhumalai could smell the ghee. A small girl gave him the "cup", stitched together from a banana leaf. He handed it and patiently waited for the person to fill it. The person was dipping her ladle into the big brown container.
"Here you go. God's…"she turned around for the first time and stopped. For an instant both were speechless.
"You always liked rice pudding" said Meera. Ezhumalai nodded, meaning, "Can't help it?"
He put the sweet to his mouth and felt it too sugary.
"It is too sweet to the point of being cloying. Funny that I always wanted more sugar in it." he said, leaving. He went out to the corridor and paused while he passed the bull. It had gotten dark but the moon was there. He looked at the moon fixedly, trying to see if he found the same Mother Teresa image he used to see when he was little. "My eyes" he sighed, not able to see clearly.
"I didn't think you will wait" said Meera.

Gate

2010-06-29T23:45:00.005-05:00

He was barred at the gates. A recorded voice asked him politely to stand aside while it went over his belongings. "Item not detected, please try again". Of course, after three trials, the thing locked up and it, again politely, said "Good bye and see you soon. Have a wonderful day!" He remained there taking turns sighing and staring at nothing in particular. He realized the man with the calamitous face standing in line behind him was getting impatient. He excused himself sincerely, collected his stuff together and pretty soon was caught up in the immediate problem of dinner. Heads for sandwich and tails for steak.

Teaser

2010-06-25T14:51:00.001-05:00

If I let you ahead of me, you say I am soft. If I lead you, you say I run away. If we are beside each other, you say I'm on your blind spot. What is it that you want?

The Night Show

2010-06-22T17:50:00.004-05:00

Damon finally came out, after the end credits ended. He was the last person out. He knew Pythias would be furious. As soon as the last scene was over, she had walked out. It did not require a doctorate in human nature to detect she had not liked the movie.
"So who's the extras casting assist…." Pythias stopped, astonished to see Damon holding a small boy.
"You're with child" she said, her high cheek bones, seemingly drooping due to tiredness.
"He was all alone. There's no one here. Let's go outside and wait. Perhaps his folks are waiting there." he said.
"Perhaps. I would say you wait a while and call the police"
He did not reply. He was trying to entertain the child. The boy stared at him, shifted his 1-year eyes on Pythias, came back to Damon and slowly started to smile.
"Children, especially of this age, are quite fascinating." he said.
"There you go. Every time someone says that, I know there is going to be a rant. A hint of breaking away from responsibilities."
"You are mistaken. I am not merely saying because he has no mortgage payments to pay or hasn't the need to get up to work, but it is the lack of prejudices that I find intriguing. He smiles at me and also at you. He doesn't care if you are stupid or boring or whether you prefer coffee to tea. The less you know, the more you exist. Do you want to hold him? It should be natural for a woman."
"As it is natural for a man to hold him in the wrong way!"
Pythias took the baby and they came face-to-face with the muggy summer air. There were a few people starting their cars in the parking lot. A bunch of high school kids were talking in loud tones under one of the pillars that lit up the lot. They saw the pair and continued talking.
"No one here" said Pythias. Damon's glance said, let's wait.
"I am no good with kids. Some are, some aren't. I am not" she said in reply to his glance, "but he's a cute baby"
"Gosh, Pythias, why are you so defensive?"
The child started crying. Pythias tried consoling but ended up giving the child to Damon. They didn't know whether it was a food-call.
They took turns amusing the child, who stopped crying after starting to play with Pythias's hair. No one yet to claim the child, they decided to call the police.
"You're not as bad with kids as you say you are" Damon said.
"But I am still not good. In fact, I am no good with people of other generations than our own. And babies are more like the cool cars you see on TV or magazines: cute but not affordable. I would get overwhelmed with a Mercedes just by the enormity of its maintenance."
"Is that why you are not married yet?"
"I am not married because my boyfriends only want marriage."
"For me it is the opposite. I am not married because of lack of choice. What have you got against marriage?"
"Nothing if not offered on the first meeting, as if it is a business card. You guys are awful. You apply the story of the spider in unintended contexts. Either you ignore a girl's subtle messages of rejection and persist till she spells it out to you. Or you keep hopping from door to door, till someone is foolish enough to buy your wares."
"See what we are up against, buddy?" he told the boy,
"But what do you call a guy who takes my borrowing his DVD as a sign of love?"
"A romantic, at least in the sense that his imagination is a little overweight"
"Anything but"
"Who do you call a romantic then? Someone who calls you a pie? I know a friend of mine thought he was a romantic because he knew the right moves, so to speak. He confused seduction with romance."
"Romance without seduction is like having vodka without alcohol. You wouldn't understand."
A cop car drove up, hooting its way like an owl in love with the night and a man got out. Damon waved at him. The cop was a short, wiry man with unusually long arms. His face was naturally cheerful and he looked so young that but for the mustache, he would be mistaken for a high school kid. He asked many questions and also requested their drivers licenses.
"You guys have any kids?"
"I have been trying to convince her for years now" Damon said as Pythias frowned. The cop emitted a low coo and it was not clear by looking at his face if he smiled or not. He thanked them. Before he took the child off Damon, a young woman and a small girl came out of nowhere. The girl had lost the baby and they had looked all over the complex but to no avail. When told the little one was found inside the theater, they couldn't believe it. They were sure the last time they saw the child was near the restrooms. Damon and Pythias again witnessed the questioning by the cop and finally the couple were off, thanking them and the cop.
"I bet you liked the movie. I am yet to see a guy who doesn't love super hero movies and one who does chick flicks" said Pythias once they were inside the car, moving.
"Women like chocolate and men beer, and never the other way?" he replied.
And the car went on.

The Law of Change

2010-06-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

His friend was a good man, he knew. That was generally agreed upon. Such unanimity he was sure he wouldn't draw. Of course, not many are that good, some are no doubt. What you have got to understand earlier on is which team you fall into. If you are not good but want to be, more than getting good, it is imperative you act as if you are good. It is no use telling people, "Currently I am not good, but I am in the process of reaching goodness." Honesty is very well and is the best policy and all that familiar jazz, but let's face it, it is the virtue of textbooks. So as a sociological experiment, the next time you meet someone for the first time, introduce yourself, "I'm Jan Braun, and I'm one of the greats." Don't worry if your name is John Brown and don't worry if they think you arrogant. You should know humility is often confused with timidity. When you're finished changing, you're finished, said Ben Franklin. So if you want to cling on to your knickknacks and fall by the wayside, do so. But if you want to let go of them, treasures you will soon be showered with.

Grocery Shopping

2010-06-04T21:47:00.005-05:00

He carried his cart mechanically. He had run out of milk and had to make a stop. While at that, he also loaded the usual victuals–meat, more meat, frozen french fries, juice, and water. He hated grocery shopping. He shopped as he saw. He didn't plan for it, he didn't make any lists. But it had to be done, like all chores. An empty fridge is a reflection of an empty life, he seemed to have got it in his mind. He entered the Soups and Can Vegetables section with reluctance and carelessly tossed a Campbell's and a can of mixed vegetables into the cart. His girl was a vegetarian and though she didn't care whether she had something to eat whenever she dropped by, she nevertheless looked upon his unbalanced diet with something of a scorn. He moved on. There were no free samplers in the shop. There were two or three tables that had the glass bowls where you usually dipped your hands for a bite, but no cookies or no nothing inside them. Talk about the economy, he thought. I think that's it, said a voice in him. You sure? asked another. Yes, very, said the first. Think up, said the other, we may need to grace the store again. I AM confident, said the first. And there it ended. He took the line that said, "15 items or lesser". Shouldn't it be 15 items or fewer? He smiled at his acumen. An old lady joined behind him, with a bouquet in hand. He allowed her to pass him up.
"Thank you, sir" she said. His eyes rested on a packet of fried cashews. Suddenly, he felt as if he knew what was wrong in his life. This is it, he said to himself, and seized it. He put a couple of nuts into his mouth and reached cloud nine-squared. When the fatty devil was working its machinations on his senses, he suddenly cried out: oh, ice-cream! How can I forget? Though he didn't care much for ice-cream, his friends liked it. And he didn't want to give an impression to others that he was not a sweet man. He set off in the direction of his pursuit.

Ten days later, most of the provisions were gone. The soup and mixed veggies were still there. Open and half-used. A grayish, cottony layer had formed on top of the tomato paste. The mixed veggies looked emaciated, like someone dying of a deadly disease. There was nothing to do but toss them in to the trash can.

Dude, Where's my Bollywood?

2010-06-01T17:32:00.004-05:00

Bollywood has come to mean movies from the Indian subcontinent here in the West. For me (and I am sure to other Indians) it has always meant the Hindi movie world. It is a stupid fad, but growing up I always had this extraordinary fascination for Hindi movies. Yes, the Tamil films were there, but it couldn't somehow knock Bollywood off the pedestal. In more relatable terms, Bollywood was America, the others were just other nations. Amitabh Bachchan was better than Rajni Kanth and Kamal Hassan together and Lata Mangeshkar was the greatest singer of all time. You could be forgiven if you branded me a snob in those days. During the early to mid-nineties, this fascination gradually melted away and suddenly a distinct loathing took its place. Till Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naan, Shahrukh Khan was my favorite actor, but after that he started to act in the same movie in all his movies, but nevertheless became big. Aamir Khan was a touch different (and since the start of the century has distanced very much from the norm, so much for the good of Hindi cinema), but even he couldn't revive in me that long gone love. Maybe I am making myself dated with this observation–and I'm not as old as you would think–but the days of Guru Dutt, Dev Anand, or Hema Malini were just a far cry. Yes, there was talent around, but one could not fail to see there was a great lowering of standards in the mid-1990s. There was love all around, Sunny Deol was still beating up villains, and Subhash Ghai was called showman (how fortunate for Raj Kapoor that he succumbed to asthma!). Add to this, Bollywood's reluctance, more out of elitism than any rational point, to accept people like Mani Ratnam and Kamal Hassan. I was never provincial, but you have got to appreciate talent and though those two have been sort of accepted by Bollywood since, I would certainly say they are still outsiders.

I do agree that times are changing and some talented filmmakers are doing the rounds, but still every time a film like Taare Zameen Par gets released, three of others like Jab We Met sprout out. I had heard some good things about the latter and on the holiday weekend, I chanced to watch it. I maybe displeasing some of my readers here with my views, but Jab is so drab that overrated was the only politically correct adjective I could bring myself to type. I was wondering half-way whether it was a spoof of the supposed hit movie I was watching. And I was really surprised to read people's reviews that Kareena Kapoor sizzled. She was too intolerable and too artificial. I am rather convinced that, in real life, she is not the "bubbly", "effervescent" or at any rate talkative girl she portrayed. But at least she carried some scenes with conviction. Shahid Kapur can't even do that. He doesn't use his face to convey his emotions well and looks so effete in scenes that require some masculinity. I haven't watched either of their movies (if you could discount Three Idiots), but if these two represent the face of Hindi cinema today, then I must say, the industry is far from being in rude health. The movie's story was cliched. But this is where the director could have handled it maturely. The cliche could have been worked out to his advantage, by having some witty dialogues and situations thereby infusing a general lightheartedness to the whole film that makes the public believe in suspension of disbelief. Instead, he tries to give us a message and gets lost in it. C'mon, give us some credit. Are we too stupid to not know things like Staying Positive and Follow Your Heart? Why this pretense? For all Govinda's formula comedies, he still knew his limitations. There was no pretense. In all Rajni's supposedly trivial films, he was never a bad actor (Tamil movies of present date are not innocent either).

You may say years of watching Hollywood films have influenced me and that one mustn't use it as a standard. Partly true, but that doesn't mean you have to embrace mediocrity so eagerly and set it the standard. Even if I were bigoted, Swades is still one of my favorite films and Idiots has been one of the funniest I have seen in quite some time. The major problem with the Indian film industry today is its obsession with instant recognition that things like hard work are deemed old-fashioned. Everyone aspires to be Amitabh or Rekha or Hrishikesh Mukherjee, but they can't realize what it was that made such people special. As a result, what you have is a two-film wonder starting to call himself the next superstar, a director or singer encouraged by a few words by a loved one/kind friend turning to acting, or the son-of-a-star fast tracking himself with his parents' resume. It is high time Bollywood (now the Western interpretation) stops seeing itself solely as a money-making enterprise and includes other aspects like innovation and imagination to its personality.

Lemme Sleep...

2010-05-26T00:27:00.001-05:00

I don't have anything cool to say,
If you want cool stuff, get an ice-cream sundae.
Who do you think I am, a bloody seer?
I'm just a stupid washed-up engineer
Who you always thought of as Gentleman Jack,
but who in reality is Grade A, ninety-proof hack.
Honey, I got way too many problems on my plate,
You don't go about listing all yours on our date.
Just let me be tonight, let me finish my drink,
I don't want to do anything, least of all think.
Just take me home, baby, take me to bed.
For all you and others care, I'm more than dead.

Belts and Suspenders

2010-05-20T19:13:00.006-05:00

Colbert: So why do we need it? Why belts and suspenders both?
Warren: Well, we don't even have pants.

Stephen Colbert is funny, we know that, but Elizabeth Warren it was that made me laugh.

Give Up

2010-05-17T17:08:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, it is just better to start believing in fate and give up everything to it. Fight is too damned hard.

Cats Will Always Be Cats

2010-05-16T23:23:00.005-05:00

Cats, for all their cleanliness and condescension, will always be cats. They may have some mighty cousins, but there's a reason why they, the cousins, are mighty. Do listen up, house cats, before your jungle safari.

The Anticlimax

2010-05-14T18:02:00.007-05:00

He couldn't believe his eyes. He had asked the crystal ball who was responsible for all this craziness. It showed in bright letters his name. He put on his glasses to see better. To see if it had been his dad, mom or even his brother as their last names were the same. No, it was him all right. It was like a strange smell you become aware of, a smell that you don’t approve of and would have the source of it destroyed if you possessed Shiva’s powers. On overworking your nose and in the affair making your sinuses discontented enough to let out a protest, you learn that it was but your perfume that was the rascally emitter.

Take Me There

2010-05-13T15:43:00.004-05:00

One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Courtesy: Big Rock Candy Mountains by Harry McClintock

:/

2010-05-10T00:01:00.003-05:00

Smileys are fun, I will give you that. And yes the only smiley I like is George Smiley and yes I know my natural non-enthusiastic disposition would restrain me from using them. But don't just use them because they are available, without meaning what you write. What a hard time trying to figure out the meaning of life, I mean, words!

At the Coffee Shop

2010-05-07T15:19:00.004-05:00

A lithe girl walks by, her black sweater a temporal oddity as it is 90 degrees outside. She hangs up on the phone ("I love you"), turns here and there as there is a man standing in front of her ordering coffee of the day. Our eyes lock for a brief second or two. What's she going to order, I am thinking. She, with her butterscotch hair, inquisitive nose, pink shorts, and black sweater. Will it be a frappucino or double shot espresso? Caramel macciato, venti, or a plain Americano? Or is she a tea person? One of those Morning Calms that soothes you. The guy in front is still at it. It's his moment and he wants to make full use of it. Even if it means the girl with the butterscotch hair looks at me, her iPhone, the coffee-around-the-worlds, and the broken glass in one of the many lights peering audaciously. The blank page stares at me and I wander. Or my eyes do. There is a young man reading a book in the chair in front of me. I wonder what he's reading. I don't know whether this is certifiably snoopy. I switch to my left, where a girl is typing on her Mac, consulting her notes every few minutes. What is it with Mac and Starbucks? Almost always Macs outnumber PCs there.
"A pumpkin loaf and some water" the girl finally gets to order. She collects them and walks out of the shop. It is a green sweater, not black.

A Changeover

2010-05-03T00:22:00.006-05:00

I always liked S. Ramesh. Though many were skeptical about his foot work, he had superb timing and was definitely a better opener than many others India toyed with before finding Gautam Gambhir. I felt he was a little unlucky. This shows how. It seems he has changed professions now.

Keep Learning

2010-04-29T15:10:00.003-05:00

When there is a problem, you were always told to face it head on. You know, be a man and all that. Chin, chin, chin up to face the chin music. Funny that I never heard of another option: to totally ignore it. It is just a matter of how stubborn you are in doing that that the problem will somehow lose its nerve and bid goodbye. The problem can be anything or anyone, but I believe that's how the world works.

Modigate

2010-04-28T12:58:00.007-05:00

As Lalit Modi prepares his defense in the wake of the charges against him, part of me subscribes to that grand old daddy of vindication, I said so, while another part fills up with sympathy, if not admiration, for the fallen chairman. And the latter part may very well trump. For all his brashness, Modi made IPL what it is today. As a Chennaiite (it still is my home town and yeah Madrasi is so 80s), I still can't see what the big hoopla is about the Super Kings winning IPL3. For one thing, I was rooting for Sachin Tendulkar. Okay I may be a statistical outlier, but many of my friends with roots in the city did seriously back them as if it were India playing in a major final. So much analyses and trash talks pervaded parties, bars, and the cyberspace throughout the six weeks that only reinforced the idea of a city-based franchise system. I said that the IPL was run by spiritually handicapped men not long ago. I still hold to that view what with Bollywood stars turning business persons (and cricket analysts), commentators turning ham actors, and orange caps and whatnot. If a purist, you may also sigh at the dug-outs and time-outs, an obvious aping of American sports in an attempt to grab that market (I sure can't see cricket having any sort of impact on the American stage. Look at soccer in the States, for example. It still has an air of differentness around it). But I also accept that the league has some positives: an Adam Gilchrist shouting, "Well bowled, Harmeet Singh", and a eleven including Anil Kumble, Kevin Pietersen, and Jacques Kallis and it not being a charity match. Yes, Modi may have precipitated his own demise, but is the BCCI the torchbearer of honesty and integrity as it portrays itself to be? Had Modi or Shashi Tharoor not been tweeters, would we even be talking about this? They may say they had been lenient, but it is not going to detract the public inclining to Modi. He may be flawed, but not a fraud like, say Allen Stanford. And hey, there is the World Twenty20 coming up. Cricketers of today are modern-day gladiators. Willing to kill themselves for our entertainment, apparently. And not minding.

Of Godmen and Man

2010-04-24T18:32:00.007-05:00

"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent…" wrote Mr. Eric Arthur Blair, better known to this world as George Orwell, in his essay on Mahatma Gandhi. Orwell sometimes stretched his points, quite unconsciously, in his voracious seeking of "truth". But his view seems valid with respect to modern day saints, or godmen, as they are referred popularly. The latest case in point is the sex scandal in India involving a "swami" who called himself Nityananda, or one who has attained Eternal Bliss. Getting titles is easier in India than many basic things. You have many actors and politicians with a doctorate degree without having set foot in any university. So self-proclaimed titles are not that bad. The thing that saddens one is how people still believe in the godman. I am not saying this because we have seen many godmen exposes already. My grouse is how we as humans are still so vulnerable that we need solutions from a man speaking from a raised platform, preferably on a golden chair. Even educated individuals who you might expect to possess some rationality seem taken in. Of course, when someone peppers his so called discourses with terms such as superconsciousness, biomemory, and life bliss engineering, it is bound to generate some impact. Or at least some curiosity. I can say that the man sounds well-read, but calling him a young enlightened master demonstrates the same syndrome that afflicts most of Indians: hero worship. If you are a clear-thinking person, you may ask these before going to such godmen: how can someone who has not lived a normal life like us give me a solution? What does he know about the physics of the general life, the trauma of a job loss, or the loss of innocence? One white woman who was interviewed by the ashram says she lost 30 pounds after coming to the place and was eating healthy vegetarian food and was feeling wonderful. Can it not be done anywhere? And is losing your weight your idea of a spiritual experience? In one of the mission videos, a young disciple recounts why he came there and how he found happiness there. Take this: he is a young man with limited experience of life with things like job, love and relationships waiting for him. His life may have been miserable and he might have had many defeats, but is that the reason for turning yourself into the ashram? Does it not sound a tad escapist? I agree that today's world is beginning to show rampant materialism, but materialism is a necessary evil.

Nityananda, for all practical purposes threw in the towel when he said he didn't break any law. Yes, he didn't. It was a consensual act I agree and why should one care about someone else'e private life? Yet I can't see the logic behind arguments on the lines of swamis are human too and that there's nothing wrong with them having sexual relations. What you are trying to do is grossly underestimate people's intelligence. As a modern day materialist who cannot live without his smart phone or Starbucks coffee I ask this: how do you define spirituality or spiritual? Is someone who answers your questions (actually confuses you with vague, unwieldy terms, you who has turned to him because you are confused in the first place), who likes to charge you money for their awakening programs and who likes to have a "good time", spiritual? Then everyone, with some effort, can become spiritual. My grey cells maybe slow on the uptake, so to speak, but I can see the whole thing for what it is: another scam. As the days go by, new details will emerge. And obviously, they might want to tack on a host of other misdeeds, truth or no, thus effectively shutting the door on others who were involved. The western world has its self-help books. The East has its mysticism, and godmen. In today's world, spirituality is the fast food chain in your neighborhood and people like Nityananda are its McDonalds and KFCs. Sure they do some social good, but so do Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett (I'm not belittling Microsoft's and Berkshire Hathaway's philanthropy here).

And then at the other end of the spectrum you have networks like the Sun TV, the self-appointed moral police. It is the Fox network of India, though supposedly with a progressive (read anti-Hindu and almost always anti-Brahmin) viewpoint. What happened was not just invasion of privacy but also an instance of a total disregard of journalistic ethics. I know you are doing the whole wide world a great service by exposing the villainous, lecherous, and moral fiber-lacking swami (what tremendous investigative journalism!), but does it give you the right to broadcast soft porn? In all segments with this ratings-rich mine, the writers basically mapped out Nityananda's life with a heavy-handed righteousness (I don't know how they got to know the actress in question was worked on). Of course, he has to be bad. They just are deliberately blind to the fact that humans are not one-dimensional figures. Nityananda's teachings still may be valid. Forget the creepy messenger, retain the message. Media are the same everywhere, but the Sun network is deplorable. I still remember a news feature years ago which bemoaned how collegiate boys and girls in a certain university town roomed together (and yes, were doing it) and how it defiled the Tamil culture. Note that the concern here is not early pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, but the attack to that great fortress called Tamil Culture.

But nothing matters in the end. People are still going to be fooled and godmen and media networks continue to thrive on them. We had Tiger Woods before, this now, and already there is Ben Roethlisberger. There is nothing for us to do but indulge ourselves in its 15-minutes and move on. You know, have a couple of quick ones and head to bed.

P.S: Don't mind the sexism in the title