So..I was saying..

The Aquiline-Nosed Detective

2012-01-18T21:23:00.001-08:00

I am not going to lie. When I was thinking of the literary character that I most identify with, neither the detective from Baker Street, nor the Belgian one flashed on my mind’s eye. I really wish I could say that I was thinking of one of the many super-heroes/heroines – at least the supposedly brainy guys like Batman or Iron-man. If I have once vice, it is that I can not lie with a poker face, not even to myself. I almost always give myself away by grinning idiotically when I lie!! So the first face that flashed before my eyes was that of a beaky-nosed guy. Since this guy did not have a deerstalker hat on his head, I knew that I was not thinking of the famous friend of Dr.Watson. Instead I saw an oldish guy with a crown with barely a trace of any hair on it, grinning in the same manner as me when I am forced to lie! This guy is a character called Saambu in a collection of stories by the late Devan in Tamil, titled Thuppariyum Saambu (‘Thuppariyum’ roughly translating to ‘investigating’).
There are some books that are like comfort food to me. I go back to them over and over again when I grow tired of reading regular pulp novels or when life becomes too much to handle. In English, I frequently return to my PG Wodehouse collection and Yes Minister series, while in Tamil, I seek refuge in works by Kalki, Devan and Sujatha.
Writer Devan (full name: R Mahadevan), like Kalki, lived a short but full life. He is considered one of the greatest writers in modern Tamil literature. Devan’s writing was sprinkled with gentle humour and in that respect, he was a lot like Wodehouse. It could also be that since people like Kalki and Devan lived during times when India was ruled by the British, they had access to British literature. They were probably influenced by the British sense of humour and hence incorporated that in their writing.
Of all Devan’s works, Thuppariyum Saambu* ranks the highest. Thuppariyum Saambu describes ‘Detective’ Saambu’s many (mis)adventures during the course of ‘solving’ many high-profile (and not-so-high profile) cases. Saambu is an accidental detective and a very lucky one at that. Throughout the series, Saambu always manages to solve cases without actually trying too hard. Things simply come his way. And he is aided by his loyal friend Inspector Gopalan in his endeavours. When Wikipedia comes up tomorrow, you can take a look at the entry on Thuppariyum Saambu to learn more details.
But here are reasons why I identify with Saambu the most :
Appearance – Well, the beak-like nose was the immediate giveaway. While I had a serious complex in my childhood about my nose and always angry with God for wasting what could have helped 2 or 3 other people, on a single person, in my 20′s I decided my long nose was a sign. A sign to me and to the world, that here was one more great person in the lines of Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, Virginia Woolf and many others. Your nose will take you towards greatness, the skies seemed to say!! Saambu is described as having a bald head and my comb tells me every morning that I am getting there pretty soon!!
Misunderstood non-genius – Saambu says nothing, but people around him always seem to think he is hatching a plan to catch the perpetrator of a crime red-handed. When he prattles on trivial subjects, the criminal thinks he is talking about him and readily confesses!! When he is at a loss for words, people think he is in deep thought!!
I know this looks like a pretentious mess. But if there is a term that means the opposite of a misunderstood genius, it would be applicable to Saambu and me. Everywhere I go, people seem to always read between my lines (even if I leave that space empty!!) and interpret my harmless comments as intelligent insights. If I am silent, people automatically think I am lost in some profound thought. People appreciate my sarcasm, when I am trying to sound earnest. Like Saambu, I have learnt to use this misunderstanding to my advantage and rarely clarify lest I am found out for what I really am!!
Rare moments of clarity : There are instances in the book when Saambu actually tries to think on his own and comes up with some theories while investigating a case. These theories usually turn out to be the complete tangential to reality and Saambu, with lady luck on his side, escapes from ridicule because he never talks about his theories openly. This characteristic is not completely true in my case. However, there is a special case where there is an eerie resemblance. I often admit my total lack of sense of direction. And every time I drive in a new area, or enter a new building, I make sure to ask for directions before proceeding. In some rare cases, my intuition tells me to go in a certain direction and almost always it is the exact opposite of what is correct. Since there aren’t usually many eye-witnesses to these adventures, people have no idea about this dark side of me!!
Understanding Family : Saambu’s wife is probably the only person who knows that he is not half as intelligent as the world believes and she is the only one who will make fun of him all time.
My parents keep me ‘grounded’ so to speak. They know exactly when I am faking my understanding and sportively go along with my act in public. At home, when no one else is around, I am left to fend for myself to protect my honour!!

There is just one more similarity I am hoping for. Till the end of the series, Saambu is never outed. People around him continue to think of him as a genius detective. I hope to continue that way too till the end of my career!! And for that reason, I would request all of you to forget the contents of this post as soon as you finish reading and comment on it calling it the best post you have ever read…

*Personally I think the Shikari Shambu series was influenced by Thuppariyum Saambu, with even the name being retained. The role of detective was changed to that of a hunter, but the idea was the same.

So What If I am Wrong??

2012-01-17T01:44:00.001-08:00

My friend was narrating an incident last week. He is a typical middle-class guy. He was driving to work one day. One of the roads near his house is quite narrow and at any point in time, two 4-wheelers can pass with a little difficulty. Since there is no divider in between, traffic conditions on this road are necessarily dependent on self-discipline of the drivers on the road. So my friend was waiting behind a line-up of cars and other vehicles, while another car was trying to enter the road from the other side. An auto-rickshaw zoomed past trying to overtake all the waiting cars and essentially blocking the path for the entering car (from the other side).
My friend was a little annoyed and rolled down his window and asked the auto-driver what he thought he was doing. To this, the auto-driver said that if he hit my friend’s car, he (the auto-driver) would not suffer any damage (because the vehicle was not his), but my friend would end up spending a lot of money in fixing his car!! My friend realized the futility of talking to such a person and rolled up the window while hitting himself on his head for even bothering to talk.
After a lot of chaos, the traffic cleared up and my friend was driving and noticed the auto-driver chasing him. My friend ignored the guy and kept driving. At some point, my friend wanted to take a left turn and he switched on the indicator. The auto-driver drove his vehicle past the car hitting it on the rear bumper and sped away. My friend got down to assess the damage, when the auto-driver, after dropping off his passenger, came back and with a sneer, said to my friend, ‘Now, what do you say?’. What could my friend say? He simply cursed him and said that the country was going down the drain owing to people like him.
I was mulling about this incident almost the entire week. While work was pretty much uninteresting, discussions in the blog site were heating up. I was following some discussions on blogs on whether criticizing/ commenting on language, grammar or content of the blogs was right or wrong. Some obviously unethical practices were followed in one case and when people complained, I saw that the response was in the lines of – ‘Yes, it may be unethical. What can you do about it other than complaining to the admin. I will continue doing this. What will you do then?’. On comments on other posts, people were advised to keep re-publishing their posts till the admin got tired of deleting them.
I know this sounds terribly silly, but these discussions disturbed me to a great extent too. I was wondering about what we the people of this country were becoming!
The last straw came on Friday. I was driving back home. I am usually a fast driver, though very careful on the road. Since I was driving a relatively less familiar car (my brother’s), I was being extra-careful. At a very busy signal, there was a Corolla on my right and a Tempo on my left. When the light turned green, I started moving very slowly, when the Corolla driver decided that he wanted to be on the left and without any warning moved to the left (ahead of me). At the same time, the Tempo driver decided that I was too inconsequential to give way to and decided to move to his right. I had almost brought the car to a stop when the Tempo hit my left rear-view mirror and smashed it to pieces. I followed the Tempo, and when it slowed down at the signal again, rolled down my window and asked him why he had to hit a stationary car. The only answer he gave was ‘Po ma Po ma’ (‘just Go’).
I was thinking of all these incidents and when I entered the house, my eyes welled up before I could tell my mother what happened. My friend who had come to meet with me and was waiting for me, was alarmed on seeing me in tears. He thought I had met with an accident or something. He was even more astonished when I told him what happened. Of course he thought I was being a baby, crying over something as silly as a broken rear-view mirror.
I was beyond myself – not angry at anybody, but extremely troubled at how easily we brush away any criticism about our behaviour. This is just the opposite of what I have been believing all my life – ‘Forgive many things in others, nothing in yourself’. We wax eloquently about how bad and unruly all Indians are etc., and every time we utter something like that, we only mean all Indians except me .
When we complain on general trend of things, we always talk as though we are completely outside the system. We love criticizing someone or something along with everyone else, as long as we are not the ones criticized. We talk about the sportsman spirit, of the need to accept bouquets and brickbats gracefully and so on, because we are on the giving end of the criticism. Switch sides and you know who is being unsporting !! I have experienced this during a few appraisals where my team members, who were beaming while I appreciated their good work, start blaming everything – from the location of the their house to the customer’s attitude, as reasons for their poor performance in some area.
Whether it is the blogspace or the road or the workplace, getting defensive on receiving criticism seems to be the order of the day. I know I cannot change anything with this post, but I sure feel better writing it all down!! After all, I suffer from the middle-class mentality too

Three Music Fans..

2012-01-12T01:36:00.001-08:00

Another music season has drawn to a close and I thought I had attended the last concert on Sunday evening, till my mother told me that there is one more on February 1st by one of my favourite vocalists in a neighbourhood temple. I am way too overwhelmed by all the music to write about the concerts or the musicians. Most days I find it difficult to sleep after the adrenalin rush I experience after a concert.
A change that I noticed in me as a ‘rasika’ was that I seem to have learnt to curb my urge to identify the ragam of any song within the first 5 seconds. In fact these days I don’t feel bad even when I realize I had wrongly identified the ragam of a particular song. My tolerance towards fellow concert attendees has also improved slightly. I still get irritated when people talk during the concert or walk in late and take their own time looking for seats etc., but the degree of irritation has gone down substantially compared to the previous years.
So looking back at the season, I realize that apart from all the music, the memory of some interesting rasikas I observed during the concerts has stayed with me. I may not be able to pick them from a line-up or anything, but I may not be able to forget their antics that easily. Without much further ado, I present to you the winners of the weirdest-rasikas-of-the-music-season contest for the year 2011-2012.
a. Ponytail Aunty : I am not using the usual form of address (maami) here, because the lady involved did not seem all that old. I am pretty sure she had recently attended a course on ‘How-to-pretend-you-are-enjoying-music-in-a-concert-while-ensuring-everyone-in-the-hall-notices-it-too’ or some similarly misguided course run by other veterans of attending music concerts. It was the first concert by TM Krishna (one of my favourite singers) for the season and the venue was a community hall. Thanks to the weather God, Chennai had forgotten to be hot and humid for a short while and I had settled down to enjoy the music, when I found my chair and the ground beneath me shaking. Fearing an earthquake, I looked around for some reassurance and found that my mother and aunt on one side and my cousin and niece on the other were shaking with laughter. They were point their fingers (subtly, according to them at least) to this lady with a high pony tail, in the front row (not the ponytail- the aunty!!). The woman seemed to be out of her mind – why else would one roll her head round and round without fear of it rolling away for good from the stem (neck)?? Now that I had seen this woman, I was having difficulty looking at the stage. The scene eerily appeared to me of the head getting slowly unscrewed from the neck. Throughout the concert I was fearing that the neck would give away at some point in time and I may end up with the woman’s head on my lap – a Tarantinoeque fantasy I admit, but I was really worried that it would happen. What made the sight more amusing was that there was absolutely no relationship between ponytail aunty’s head-rolling and the rhythm of the music. Aunty had learnt the art of rolling one’s head as if in appreciation but had started a few micro-seconds late and it was obvious to anyone, who cared to notice (like me) that she was faking the whole appreciation part!! Needless to say, I remember more of the lady’s antics than the concert itself!!
b. Wet Grinder Maami : This happened during the middle of the season. In typical stalker fashion, I was sort of following my favourite singer Sanjay everywhere he performed during the season. One of these concerts was at a marriage hall. After grudgingly paying Rs.100 per ticket for seats without even armrests and trying to settle down with as little discomfort as possible to take in all the music, my attention was diverted, this time by the lady sitting next to me. Now I was initially a little annoyed with this lady. I was resenting the fact that she seemed young (or at least only as old as me), yet coolly walked in late and disturbed all of us in the row trying to get to a seat next to me. However, as the concert progressed I had forgotten all about the intrusion, and this lady nudged my elbow and pointed at a maami sitting 2-3 rows ahead. Something seemed seriously wrong. I had come for a vocal concert, but off-stage a dance performance also seemed to be in progress. This lady was not just rocking from side to side*, but was sort of spinning on her axis – well, not exactly spinning, in case you start imagining a scene straight out of exorcist, but she was making circular movements with her upright body, waist upwards, with her waist and legs as the axis of rotation. Her movement reminded me of the grinding stone of the old fashioned wet grinder, moving round and round while grinding the rice to a batter. While I was wondering what all this drama was about, the lady next to me was tch-tching in sympathy, murmuring (rather loudly) to me that the maami seemed to have some serious physical ailment that made her restless. I did my duty as a daughter and pointed out this woman to my mother who was sitting next to me and continued listening to the main concert. In between I checked to see if the maami was still sitting up or if fatigue had taken over and she had fallen down. Her performance was going as steadily as the main one, with the only difference that her performance was off the main beat!! A strange thing happened during the ‘tani avarthanam’ – which is the part of the concert where the percussionists play their instruments for a while. Since this is the part of the concert where rhythm, rather than melody takes over completely, I was worried about Maami’s health and my sanity. Suspecting the worst, I looked at the maami. But she had stopped moving and after a while she slowly stood up and left the concert, thereby allaying my suspicion that what she was suffering from was an advanced form of Parkinson’s disease and that I may have to call for an ambulance at any time.
c. Uncle Bob : This happened last week. The venue was the same as the previous one and the singer was again Sanjay (I told you I was stalking him!!). It was a free concert, so we did not complain much about the bad chairs. This rasika, who I will only call Uncle Bob was sitting 2 rows in front of me. He was not blocking my view of the stage as he was sitting to my right. But I was aware of Uncle putting his hand up all of a sudden, like an over-eager student putting up his hand to answer the teacher’s question. The hand would wave for a few minutes and then would go down. I was left puzzling what I missed in the singing, because the hand always seemed to go up at unremarkable parts of the singing. After a while, unfortunately for me, the seats to the left of Uncle were vacated and he moved to my direct field of vision. In between curiosity got the better of me and I observed Uncle Bob for a while. His friend (or someone) seemed to be sitting a few seats away from him and Uncle would suddenly want to show him how music was to be enjoyed. So while his hand shot up and did its thing, Uncle would be looking around to see if he was being noticed and admired. He probably attended the same course as Ponytail Aunty, but his takeaways from the course seemed to be different. Interestingly, when Sanjay was dishing out really wonderful music, Uncle would be distracted, looking around the hall and at people walking in and out. And suddenly as if a thunderbolt had struck him, he would be reminded of his duties as a rasika and put his hand up, totally oblivious to the fact that the entire hall had erupted in applause and ‘aahaas’ and ‘sabash’ a couple of seconds ago, while he was busy looking at the door to see who had entered. Like an actor who keeps up his lip movement after the playback singing has stopped, Uncle Bob, managed to show his faux signs of appreciation at irregular and irrelevant intervals.
As the season ends, I realize that these 3 rasikas unwittingly offered additional entertainment. Since it came for free and like every true Indian, I like anything that comes for free, I thank these nameless people for making these concerts memorable in more ways than one
* which by the way is a pretty normal audience reaction in these concerts, and obviously, by pretty normal I mean I tend to do it at times too!

A Separation

2012-01-05T22:51:00.001-08:00

I have this habit of searching for movies that are critically acclaimed (and here I must thank RottenTomatoes, Roger Ebert and Amazon user reviews) and then watch them. It has been many years since movie watching ceased to be merely for mindless entertainment. You can call me a movie buff or a movie fanatic (if my comments have irritated you enough!!). Anyway, this search becomes very frantic near the end of the year since many ‘Best of the year’ lists are out by this time. Then when the Oscars draw near, I try and ensure that I have covered as many of the nominated movies as possible before the actual ceremony, so that I have formed my own opinions about the movie before they are coloured by the awards announcement. I was looking at Roger Ebert’s best films of the year list and read about the Iranian movie called ‘A Separation’. I have watched about 3-4 movies from Iran and liked almost all of them. Ebert’s high praises and my own experience with Iranian movies prompted me to watch this one last week.
From what I have seen at least, most cinema from Iran have very simple plots. The pacing is not what you would see in Hollywood manufactured blockbusters like the super-hero movies, disaster movies or the Almighty-American-President-setting-out-to-save-the-world type of movies (although this has morphed in recent years to the Simple-American-saves-world-from-disaster type). The pace is languid, the people are ordinary, the stories are commonplace and the emotions – very real. As you must have already guessed, I found ‘A separation’ satisfying in all respects.
The film begins in a small court room where a couple – Nader and Simin are seated in front of a judge. They have been married for fourteen years and have a teenage daughter. They are in the court-room asking for a divorce. Simin, the wife wants to leave the country because she does not want her daughter to grow up there. Nader, on the other hand, wants to stay back on account of his old and ailing father, who is suffering from Alzheimers’s disease. Both of them have their reasons for wanting what they want. The judge thinks the issue is too trivial for a divorce and orders them out of the court. Simin moves out and goes back to her parents’ house, but not before helping Nader find a maid who will help him take care of his father. The maid Razieh is pregnant and takes up the job for the money, although she has to travel quite a distance to come to work. Razieh is also deeply religious and God-fearing. These points of the story take place within the first 10 minutes of the movie. There is a small incident in between, which gives rise to the central conflict of the movie (which, by the way, is not only about the divorce of a young couple). Nader, Simin, Termeh (their daughter) Razieh and Razieh’s husband – Houjat become the primary players in an emotional plot involving misunderstandings, mistakes and some minor secrets.
So what is so special about this story, you ask. Like in real life, there are no good or bad people. In fact, Asghar Farhadi – the writer and director of the movie has ensured that all the characters are sympathetic. No one is to be blamed. Whatever a character does, he/she does it out of good intention. But what may be good for one person, may turn out to be not so good for another. Termeh (the director’s daughter in real-life) is the moral compass of the story. She sees her father as a hero in the beginning and refuses to leave him for her mother, even though she knows that Simin is fighting this battle on Termeh’s behalf. But towards the end, Termeh (and we, the viewers) are not so sure any more. The moral standing of each character in our minds, keeps shifting and it is to the director’s credit that when the credits roll, we, like Termeh are not sure about what is right or wrong anymore.
A word about the cast. The acting is uniformly excellent. And I have to say, Iranians seem to be one of the most beautiful people in the world! The actor who plays Nadar resembles Pawan Malhotra, but looks younger and better. He did a great job of a playing a the role of a man with conflicting emotions. Same goes for the lady playing Simin. The girl playing young Termeh, plays her role with sincerity and in the end when she is tears, I was feeling a little emotional too. The actress playing Razieh needs a special mention. She internalized her religious nature, respect for her employer and refusal to take accusations about her honesty and emoted extremely well, without going over the top at any point. The kid playing Razieh’s young daughter is cute as a button and the kid can act too. Even the old man playing Nader’s father did a great job, although he had barely any lines to speak.
My mother loved the movie. Both of us were talking about how our movies today are becoming more and more about people who live nowhere, have problems that don’t happen to everyone and solve them like common people would never do!! You can interchange actors and would not notice any difference. There is no concept of place or culture etc., that would make these people real and relatable. And I am not talking about the Cine-Madurai movies in Tamil that have followed the success of ‘Subramaniapuram’ with youngsters chopping off heads like my road-side coconut vendor slices coconuts. That is not what I mean by real. Morality tales are becoming scarce in Indian movies. And by this I am not saying Hollywood movies are doing any better. Our stories had complex moral questions in the center of them before the attack of the NRI movies started. The character Razieh is one we do not find much in today’s movies from any country. Religion is used to show why a character behaves differently from the rest, or as a plot device to show fake national unity sequences etc., but rarely as a device that governs a person’s moral compass. And I saw that happen in a film after a long time.
There is supposedly a strong Oscar buzz surrounding this movie this year and I wish it wins one. I, for one, would highly recommend it to any kind of audience.

A kute luv stories - Part 23

2012-01-05T22:50:00.001-08:00

She come in to the class but she not look at me. My hart is beeting and crying. Why she not luking at me? She looking at Aryan always. Aryan rich boy. He come with his mummy in car. I poor I come in daady’s cicle. I goed to her and tell her – Myself Anand, yourself?
She starring at me. ‘My name is Priya’.
Then we becamed very nise frends.
Everyday I give my card rice and she give chapathi. Together we eated seprately.
One day, I went her house. Her mummy showed me her small age pichers. She looked so nice. When her mummy not looking, I stoled one picher. In that picher Priya wearing pink frock. She looked like Kareena Kappur. I hided the picher in my pant packet.
In the evening when I went home, my mummy changed my dress and gave me muruku. She cleaned my packets and saw the picher of Priya. I told her lies – ‘Priya gave it to me to remember me of her always’ – like that I told.
My mummy did not dowt me. She only laafed. Then I kept the picher in my book.
Monday I went to skool. Priya was already there. We talked about ‘Ra One’ movie. I singed ‘Kolaveri’ song. And priya was clapping. Suddenly someone calls me. It was Aryan. When I turned, my book fell on the floor. And Priya’s picher came out.
She shocked. ‘Why you stealed it? You dirty robber boy!!’.
I did not know what to do. I started crying. I told her ‘Priya, I luv you. Always I think of you.’
She was angry and said ‘But Aryan…’
I told ‘That day when you joined the school, I was praying like anything that you shud also join I-A. When you came in only I liked you so much. Will you marry me?’
At that time, Aryan also came nearby. He said ‘Priya, I will drop you in my car.’.
Priya was crying and walked with him.
But when she reach near the car gate, she turn and look at me. And then she look at Aryan.
Cicle or car – what she will choose?
…To be cont..

What's in a song?

2011-12-13T20:02:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was at a concert by one of my favourite Carnatic vocalists, called TM Krishna. My mother was with me for this concert and was whispering at the end of nearly every song that he had not sung any Tamil song so far. It’s a thing with the Tamil audience. Although we appreciate the fact that most of the songs sung in these concerts are bound to be in Telugu or Sanskrit, we expect/hope that the artist will sing at least one Tamil song. The concert was nearing the end, and TMK had already announced that he would be singing 2 more songs. Someone in the audience asked for a song by Subramanya Bharathi (or Bharathiar as he is popularly known), since it was his birthday yesterday. TMK obliged with one of my favourite songs by the poet, called ‘Chinnanchiru Kiliye’. He sang the song in a set of ragams different from the usual way it is sung. All the way back, my mother and I were talking about this song.
Bharathiar was known for his patriotic poems mostly. A very forward thinking person, he wrote poems about an independent India even before it became a reality. Bharathi was also a believer in the equality of women and men and spoke openly against casteism. We are talking about the early 1900s so it is easy to understand how revolutionary these thoughts were at that time. There are numerous sources about the man and his life. So I am not going to go into a lot of details here.
People interested in Tamil poetry have an emotional attachment towards Bharathi and his poetry. Although I never studied Tamil as a subject in school save for one year when I learnt the alphabets, my mother ensured that my siblings and I were taught the language at home. I was fascinated by some of the poems (or at least what I could make of them) by Bharathiar at a very young age. Some of these poems were used in Tamil films too.
Bharathiar wrote extensively on both nationalism and on religion. His favourite deities were Shakti and Krishna. And on Lord Krishna (or Kannan), he wrote various poems. Unlike any other poet, Bharathi imagined Krishna in multiple forms – a friend, a child, a daughter, a servant, God, a lover (male and female) and so on. This song I mentioned above is written treating Krishna as a daughter. I am not very good at translating poems since the beauty of any poem is not just in the meaning but also in the words used and the feeling it generates cannot be fully replicated while translating from one language to another. You can check this thread for an approximate translation.
This song represents a lot more than just a song for many of us. I remember my sister’s wedding. My senses were still dulled and the fact that my sister was getting married had not struck me at all. And then she walked out all dressed up for one of the ceremonies and my aunts were singing this song and all of a sudden it hit me – my kid sister who had been a child till then, was going to leave the childhood behind for good!! And tears welled up in my eyes. My mother who heard the song started crying too. For many years, every time she heard the song, she would immediately start thinking of my sister or me. Today the song reminds her of my little niece and gets emotional every time! I cannot sing the song without feeling a little emotional myself.
I have held my niece often from the time she was 10 days old and I cannot believe how beautifully Bharathi has captured the feeling of holding/hugging one’s daughter (‘Unnai thazhuvidilo Kannamma Unmatham aagudadi’ – When I hug you, I feel beyond myself). And I understand the feeling of bursting with pride when anybody praises my niece and Bharathi has experienced it too (‘Mechi unnai ooraar pugazhndal meni silirkudadi’ – When people praise you, I get goosebumps).
The song is so close to my heart that I am extremely possessive about it. I find it difficult to brush it aside as a ‘nice song’ or ‘nice lyrics’. The only version of this song that I can admit as being close to what I feel about it is the violin version by the genius Lalgudi G Jayaraman. So when TMK sang a technically perfect version of the song, my intellect was telling me to nod in my appreciation and my heart was telling me that this one shares the words with ‘my’ song, but it was not the same. The words were there, the tune was good (though not the same), but the emotional prowess that the song has, was missing.

Dear Santa Thatha

2011-12-11T22:03:00.001-08:00

Hello Thatha,
I hope you don’t mind me addressing you in this manner. In Tamil, Thatha means grandfather. It can also mean ‘Give’ (Tha) repeated twice. Since this letter is essentially a wish-list, I thought this mode of address would be most suitable.
I wish I could be broad-minded and selfless like women winning the beauty pageants and ask for world peace or eradication of poverty or terrorists turning to peace lovers from December 26th 2011. However, from what I hear about you, I guess you already know that I am not a selfless person. I am one of the many people who are in equal (or unequal) parts God and Devil (and this idea definitely did not come from the song in the tamil movie Aalavandan*).
This list may seem silly to you Kris** Thatha, but do not doubt my intentions. As much as possible, I will give you options to pick from in each item of the list. The choice of picking the easier (marked E for your convenience) or tougher one (marked T for your convenience) is up to you (and I hope you see the goodness behind this idea and give me prorated extra points for being a good girl). The easy options may at times seem a little cruel and mean – again, the intentions are purely noble and (mostly) selfless. Here is my list:
a. Good roads that don’t dissolve in rain water in Chennai (T) (or) special magic car that can spot potholes underneath the puddles and can grow wings and fly at those spots alone (E).
b. Drivers with common sense who understand that cars are equipped with low and high beams and that low beams work most of the time (T) (or) a super powerful torchlight (that is more powerful than the stupid halogen lamps some of the morons on the road use for headlights), that I can use to blind the offenders for a microsecond at least.
c. Good eyesight to people who walk past me when I am waiting in a queue for the lift or to get my coffee as though I don’t exist (and much as I would like to think of this as proof of my exercise regime working, I know this is not true) (T) (or) the mental fortitude to push past them in exactly the same fashion and pretend they don’t exist (E).
d. Good conscience to people who spit and eject other bodily fluids on the roads (T) or a magic spell that I can utter which will have these people slapped on their faces every time they even think of such a thing. (E).
e. Good sense to people who spend 5 full minutes in front of the attendance swipe machine thinking that staring at it will shame it into changing the swipe-in time to 10 minutes earlier than the current time (T) (or) installation of Smart attendance machines that will kick the person away if he/she spends more than 1 second in front of it or will sense the person’s attendance based on biometric data.
f. Make me immune to spelling and grammar mistakes, love stories written by 10-year olds (T) (or) embed Spelling and grammar lessons in each person’s DNA before they are born (E)
g. And lastly, make me thick skinned and more accepting of faults in others (T) (or) Give me a magic wand that I can use as a vigilante to mete out justice to the wrongdoers and cleanse the world of evil (E).
Eagerly hoping you are real.
Love
Me
*A song that goes in badly translated English ‘Equal parts God and Beast – I am a mixture of the two’
**I know your real name since I have watched ‘Miracle on 34th street 4-5 times.

The Wire

2011-11-29T03:20:00.001-08:00

Probably as a result of watching umpteen movies while growing up and the trauma resulting from watching even those movies starring stellar actors like Vijaykanth, Ramarajan, Satyaraj and other such horror-heroes, by the time I turned 25 (that should be less than a year back!), I have become very picky about watching movies and television shows – to the point of being called snobbish by my own mother (- I wonder about this usage though, why ‘own’, do ‘rental mothers’ exist?). I have become increasingly as intolerant towards pretentiousness in art as in life. I have stopped treating movies as ‘just entertainment’ and thought of them as art. This of course does not mean I enjoy watching neo-realistic nonsense movies that think showing paint dry is art. Like I said I can’t stand pretentiousness anywhere and can stand snobbery only when it is mine So much for being just!
Anyway, this post is not meant to be a sample of my obsessive navel-gazing (and contrary to what people may assume by that term in the context of Indian movies, I am using it in the usual sense of the phrase!). I have said it before and I will say it again – thriller/horror and comedy are the most difficult genres in art. With the deluge of entertainment we are faced with every day, impressing people with art – especially movies and television shows is becoming next to impossible. I am very very sympathetic towards the creators of today and totally understand their helplessness, but as a viewer I can not help being underwhelmed by most of their efforts.
I can’t believe I have written almost 3 paragraphs as prologue, so let me start the topic here at least. In my quest for good movies/television shows/ books, I am grateful for any recommendation from people who share at least some of my interests in them. Two years ago, my cousin had spoken highly about a HBO show called ‘The Wire’. She had heard about the series and had ordered the first season through Netflix. She was hooked and could not wait for Netflix to ship the remaining seasons. So she purchased the remaining seasons, just so that she could finish watching them as soon as she could. Recommendations don’t come better than that!
I started watching ‘The Wire’ about 3-4 months back. This was when I had just finished watching the last season of Dexter – another awesome series about a ‘good’ serial-killer. The next season of Dexter was to start in November and I did not want to wait between episodes to know what happened next. I was thinking of ‘The Wire’ as a filler. And boy, I was hooked!!
The series is centered around Baltimore, Maryland. There are 5 seasons in total with each season focused on one aspect of the city. Each episode has multiple story-arcs and the narration shifts between them almost seamlessly. Rather than talk about the actual plot(s) of each seasons, I think I will just list down some of the features that I found impressive and loved. (With this constant urge to put everything down in bullet points, I wonder if I can really talk in paragraphs!!):

I have never seen any movie or tv show with so many African-American actors in major roles as this show. And the roles they play are not the token ones they play in mainstream movies/shows nor are they the stereotypical portrayals (family loving, loud, gun-toting lowlifes etc). Of course the series has African American gangstas, but it also has the Greeks, Polacks participating in crimes and contributing to the ruining of the city. In that sense it is an equal-opportunity show!! Whatever the reason, I found this a very refreshing change.
Memorable characters : It has been more than a month since I watched the last episode of Wire and I still cannot forget most of the characters. Full credit to creator David Simon to have created unique characters among the good and bad guys. Avon Barksdale, Omar Doolittle, Stringer Bell, Kima Greggs, McNulty, Daniels, Prybylewski, Lester Freamon, Bunny Colvin, Burrell – it is amazing how I am able to recall most of the character names without much effort after so many days. Excellently etched, completely rounded characters who, like real people are in equal parts good and bad.
Language : The lingo is supposedly authentic street language and for the uninitiated, a little difficult to understand. I had to watch the entire series with the subtitles on. Although I watched the first few episodes by myself without troubling my parents, there were a few that I watched in the living room when my father was present. He was not actually shocked but sort of tired of only hearing colourful language and some form of the f word repeated at the end of almost each statement by every character . Yet, the fact remains that the language spoken by the characters adds to the authentic and gritty feel of the show.
Story, Editing, Screenplay etc. are just fabulous. I have not seen anything like this so far – not even in movies.
Idris Elba : I consider myself fairly old fashioned in many ways. I rarely describe men (or women for that matter) as ‘hot’. I do describe many actors as cool and for me the actors I like most are those with a high degree of effortless coolth – like George Clooney (before Oceans 12), Robert Downey Junior, Samuel Jackson, Kevin Spacey (often, not always). I reserve terms like dignified and classy for actors like Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington etc. However right from episode 1 of ‘The Wire’, I could think of no word other than ‘Hot’ for Idris Elba, who plays Stringer Bell in the series. I am embarrassed to admit, but I still cannot think of any other word to describe this guy. Maybe it is his role of a cool, confident, suave and ruthless gangster that made this impression, maybe like my mother says, I have this weird (according to my mother) fascination for African American actors (only) or maybe I am just normal ) In any case, when Stringer Bell was killed in Season 4, a part of me died (and later resurrected after my mind consoled it that while Bell may be dead, Elba is very much alive!!). I admire this guy!!

While I can go on and on about ~~Idris Elba~~ ‘The Wire’, a word of caution here. The series while wonderful is not for everyone. It is not a ‘wholesome entertainer’ meant for the family. It is dark, gritty and very realistic – which means that it does not end with all the cast members posing for a photograph with fake smiles pasted on their faces. The fourth season is particularly heartbreaking because it is about the school system and hence about how the children enter the criminal system – Kids who start out innocent and are constantly let down by the system, teachers who cannot be described anything less than God’s messengers who fight against all odds to try and keep the children away from the criminal life that their parents are pushing them towards, the politicians who see everything only as a means to stay in power. While one of the best seasons, this was the most depressing of all.
In the last episode, I was hoping for some miracles – hoping that all the children that we were introduced to in the previous system succeed in fighting the pressures of the world to succumb to the life of a criminal, hoping that they would realize their potentials and start believing in themselves. The ending is beautiful, sad and true to the spirit of the series. There is hope and there is despair. Some kids make it, many don’t. The last 10 minutes of the final episode is a montage of scenes showing the fates of different characters of the series and many of them mirror the lives of other characters at the start of the series – the (mostly bleak) message being that while the players change, history repeats itself over and over again and not always in a good way.
The only side-effect of watching ‘The Wire’ is that the bar is set very high, and it is highly unlikely for me to find any other TV show that is better than this one!! Highly recommended.

The Routine

2011-09-22T04:20:00.003-07:00

Gal (Giggles, gives ‘cute’ looks!): Are you angry with me?
Guy (Appears surprised!): No.
Gal : Something is wrong, you are angry.
Guy : No, really, I am not.
Gal : I don’t believe you. You look serious.
Guy : There, I smiled, enough.
Gal (Now she is alarmed!): Now, I am sure. What did I do?
Guy (Still amused, not irritated): What do you mean - ‘What did I do’? About what?
(Giggling friends turn silent).
Gal : Why are you raising your voice? I knew it, you are definitely angry about something. (A little more alarmed!)
Guy (Thinks - “Friends are giving strange looks. Time to change tacks”). : I told you - No!! Hey, by the way, did you watch that interview with Kamal last night.
Gal: Why don’t you tell me what is wrong? Is it because I spoke to R today morning?
(Friends leave one by one, Gal’s voice trembles slightly)
Guy (thinking - Need to think of something soon) : Who cares about R? He is a rich guy, owns a car etc., obviously Girls will flock to him.
Gal (now with tears) : So you think I am one of them?
Guy: Oh come on. I didn’t say that!
Gal: So, that’s the way that is!! Well, thanks for showing me your true colours today.
Guy: What did I do?
Gal: Nothing.
Guy (thinking - her smile is more dangerous than her tears. I seem to have screwed it up!) : Forget all this, this weekend is Abi’s birthday, what gift do we get?
Gal: I have not yet decided.
Guy: What do you mean ‘I’?
Friends return - No shouting, things seem to be okay.
Gal (ignores Guy, face lights up all of a sudden): Look who is here!! Hey R!! Long time no see!! Nice shirt!!
R (taken aback): Hey, what are you guys doing?
Gal: Oh nothing really! R, remember that module I was working on? I need some help with it. Can you help me? Please !!
R : Sure, I will come to your desk after lunch.
Guy: Hey, I can help you!!
Gal (ignores Guy, looks at R): That’s so sweet!!
R leaves. Friends, watching this drama realize the next episode is about to start and slowly excuse themselves.
Guy: Are you angry with me?
Gal: No
And it goes on….
(Note : Heard the beginning of the ‘Are you angry?’ routine a few minutes back from a set of young people sitting near where I sit and my imagination took flight! Do I even have to add, that unless one is the ‘guy’ or the ‘gal’ involved, this routine is really annoying to those watching/hearing it??)

Parting with dignity

2011-09-22T04:20:00.001-07:00

The word ‘death’ evokes different emotions in different people. For most, the word spells doom, the end of everything good, for a few it is something that happens to others, rarely to oneself or to those close to oneself. Hinduism says that death is merely a stop where the soul changes bodies and not the destination itself. In spite of all these logical and philosophical explanations of death, few of us like going anywhere near it. We are either scared of the dead people or disgusted with the idea of touching a corpse. Still death also means business for some people. I am not talking about professional hit-men here, who make it their business to cause death. I am talking about people who work with the dead all the time - the undertakers, the coroners, the employees at a funeral parlour etc. Rarely have I read a book or seen a movie that portrays the life of these people. The only movie I remember watching that has a main character who works as a graveyard keeper is the tamil movie - Pitamagan. But the story was not about the profession itself, and the graveyard keeper was portrayed more as an animal like person than someone who understands deeply about death (and I was perplexed by the suggestion that he grew up that way because he grew up in a cemetery!), but I digress.
I am not a great follower of Japanese cinema. My only foray into Japanese movies have been some of the movies by Kurosawa (and I will be looked at with disgust if I say that I switched off ‘Dreams’ - the movie that Kurosawa considered his most personal one, midway - somethings should stay personal, I think!!) and more recently one called ‘Confessions’. I also watched one or two of the anime movies (Tokyo Godfathers and another one whose title I cannot recall). I had watched some of the remakes of Japanese movies - The Ring, The Grudge etc. One conclusion I had drawn was that as far as the crown for ‘creepy movies’ goes Japanese and South Korean movies had a stiff competition. In fact after viewing the highly disturbing ‘Confessions’, I had vowed to go nowhere near these movies for a while. But thanks to Roger Ebert, I had been holding on to this Japanese movie called Departures (Okuribito) for a while now. After more than a year of non-cooperation, my mother had also slowly softened a stance against watching English and other world movies that she did not understand. On a sudden whim, I played this movie yesterday and I found it to be one of the more rewarding movie watching experiences.
The movie opens with a poignant and a strangely funny scene of Daigo Kobayashi, the protagonist working with his boss Sasaki in what is called encoffinment. The title and the credits roll and we are taken back a year or so in time. The scene shifts to a ongoing concert in front of a largely empty hall. Daigo works as a cellist in the orchestra in Tokyo. Soon after the concert is over, the manager of the orchestra comes backstage and tells the band that the troupe has been disbanded. Daigo decides to move back to his village with his young wife, where he thinks he will find a job while living rent free in the house his mother left for him.
On seeing an advertisement to ‘assist departures’, he answers immediately assuming that the job would be with a travel agency. He is hired on the spot by the boss, who only asks him if he will work hard. Only after he is hired is he told about the nature of his job. At first Daigo is reluctant. On his first day, he is asked to act as a model for a promotional video, in the role of a corpse while his boss explains the procedure of encoffinment.
Daigo initially hides the true nature of his job as he thinks his wife will hate him for it. Things get worse when the first body that Daigo is asked to help with, is that of a two week old decomposed body of an old woman who died alone. He breaks down at home, unable to share his thoughts with his wife.Gradually however, as Daigo watches his boss preparing the dead bodies with respect for the dead and sees how the kin of the dead people end up feeling grateful for sending away their relative with dignity, Daigo grows to respect and later love his job.
The movie is about this journey of Daigo and later his wife towards understanding the beauty of death and the job of encoffinment. A small note about encoffinment. When I saw this word in the subtitles, I thought this was one of the standard spelling mistakes you find in subtitled movies - a word coined when nothing else matches the meaning of the original word. Seems like I was wrong. Encoffinment is supposedly a Japanese ritual that involves ‘preparing’ the corpse for burial. The Japanese method of disposing (for the lack of a better word) off the dead bodies is interesting. It appears to involve placing the corpse in the coffin and then cremating the coffin in an electric crematorium.
The encoffinment process itself, involves cleaning the body with sterilized cloth, putting on new clothes, applying makeup etc. - all this in front of the family and then laying the body inside the coffin. While this high-level description sounds morbid and even perverse, if you think about it (and you will when you are watching the ritual play out in the movie), it is about how a loved one is remembered in the end. Most of the scenes involving the encoffinment were without any BGM and my mother and I watched transfixed. Strangely the whole ritual seemed somehow pure, serene and extremely beautiful!! All credit goes to the director for composing the scene so well and to the actors for enacting it with so much poise! Apparently the lead actor Masahiro Motoki studied this art of encoffinment in preparation for his role!
For all the seriousness of the subject, there are small moments of fun in the film too. The opening scene that I talked about provides some unexpected laughs. This scene, later continued in the middle of the movie, culminates is a very unexpected and poignant fashion. In spite of the subject (or maybe because of it), the whole movie is really life affirming and positive. It views as death as a gateway to the next life and that was fascinating . Dialogues were very good (at least what the subtitles read!!) and I was wondering if the impact would have been even better if I knew Japanese. One of them stuck in my mind. The assistant at the funeral parlour has this to say about coffins - ‘Our last shopping in our lives is done by others’ (or something to this effect).
For those interested in offbeat movies and do not mind subtitles, this is a must watch.

Time Flies

2011-09-22T04:19:00.001-07:00

There is only one thing that never lies besides King Harischandra (of course, since if such a person even existed, he is long gone by now, so the present tense does not apply; also I am not sure if the King would want to be called a ‘thing’ (damn, I should stop this ugly habit of writing between the lines!!)) - the Mirror. So while our actors try to put on a bold face (and a rather stiff one, thanks to all the Botox), in front of their fans - the women wearing lesser and lesser clothes every passing year to divert the attention from their faces and the men hiding behind large sunglasses to hide their eyes and wearing impossibly warm suit buttoned up till their chins to hide the creases on their necks, at night, when they are all alone or with accepting (compelled to otherwise) spouses, the mirror tells them the truth. While we love to talk about how age is just a number, we usually say that to others who complain about old age. When we start growing old, we start complaining too and it is at that time, we realize that age is not just a number!!
Coming to think of it, I think every person’s life (or almost every person’s life) can be divided into two parts. The first where one always wants to grow up and the second where one is wistful about getting what one wanted earlier ! It is one of life’s little ironies that the first half with a dream that can be realized is shorter than the latter with the impossible dream (unless of course you consider going completely loony as a return to childhood).
You may ask why all this talk of old age etc. at this point. (And may I humbly point out that ‘You’ are only one of the thousand plus readers of this post who may come up with this question!!). Is it because the blogger is growing old too? Does she struggle with the pangs of middle age (or old age)? Does she find herself frequently checking the mirror for signs of old age? The Answer? None of the above. This blogger is still at the prime of her youth, even if you may think otherwise looking at her or her experience. The reason I am writing this is because I am reading this book called ‘Time Flies’ by Bill Cosby and while I was reading the book, I was wondering how poignant humour can sometimes be. Before I start waxing eloquently about the beauty of growing old etc., a few lines about the author and the book.
My library is a very strange and enchanting place. In terms of size it is smaller than our kitchen (which is larger than many other kitchens!!). While most of the racks are filled with the popular paperbacks, organized by either author or genre - when the author is not popular enough (according to my librarian at least!!) - there is one rack that is full of books that do not fall under these categories. It is here that I often strike gold. So last week, I had gone to the library promising to get just one book for my mother, I started wandering (figuratively of course, since in my library, there is hardly enough space in each ‘aisle’ for one person to turn). I saw this book with Bill Cosby’s picture on the cover. The face - I did not recognize, but the name-I did.
I had heard the name Bill Cosby before (along with names like Bob Hope). I sort of remember reading somewhere that he is a very popular American comedian. I had not seen any of his shows, so I started reading this book with no preconceived notions on what to expect. I am glad I picked up the book!!
Time Flies, as the name indicates is about Cosby’s take on growing old. He had just turned 50 at the time of writing this book. The book is full of hilarious personal experiences and thought provoking comments on mankind’s fear of turning old. For example, Cosby talks of getting his trifocals and getting intimidated by them, wondering which part of the lens to use, without knowing where the person he is looking at is in the room!! . This is one of the most hilarious episodes in the book (at least of what I have read of it). Other episodes are on his memory lapses, changed food habits where he is forced to eat celery stalks and other vegetables, his reduced athletic abilities, his struggle with his ever increasing girth and reluctance to wear a bigger sized dress. The part where he describes how he tries to fit into his size 15 shirt although his size has increased to size 17 1/2 is bitingly funny!
Besides his personal experiences, Cosby also talks about how as a country, Americans dread growing old and do all sorts of funny things like using beauty products, undergoing painful surgeries, herbal supplements etc to ward off the imminent old age. While this was probably true only for Americans at the time this was written, I think this is becoming a norm across nations - at least among those who can afford it. I remember this particular line he had written about a woman he knew, who applied the pollen of some flower on her face regularly - a sneeze from her would pollinate an entire garden!!
I may find fault with the Americans and America for a lot of things, but one thing I really like about them, is their ability to laugh at themselves. This is something that we probably lack as a country. We like laughing at people as long as we are not even remotely related to the targets of the joke. Cosby’s sense of humour is different from the others that I have encountered and importantly, it has a sense of warmth along with all the humour. Cosby does not talk from a pedestal and the personal experiences, while being funny, also convey the confusion that a person would face at seeing himself change, without his noticing. Middle-aged or not, it is easy to relate to Cosby’s writing. There is a lot of compassion and love in Cosby’s writing. And underneath all that self-deprecation, is genuine bafflement at seeing the man in the mirror change!!
I don’t know if my increasing interest in books/movies on humour is to do with my growing age. I do know that my ability to find humour in almost everything around me is definitely due to it. I also like the fact that unlike before, where I would find only a certain type of humour funny, I am able to understand and laugh at different brands of humour - PGW, Douglas Adams, Fry and Laurie, Friends, Everybody loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Dexter (yes, it is gruesome, but also has dry humour!!), movies by Tarantino and Coen brothers (same as Dexter ) etc. (although I still don’t find Akshay Kumar and Govinda funny!!). I am learning to go beyond tolerance and have learnt to accept faults in others (and in me) with passing years. If these are perks of growing old, I would not mind old age at all

The Killing

2011-07-15T04:20:00.001-07:00

My cousin visited us yesterday with her 6 year old daughter. This niece of mine is a hyperactive kid and my mom has named her ‘terrorist’. She is the kind of kid who is constantly devising means of wreaking havoc wherever she is at that moment. She was unnaturally quiet and I thought it was probably because she was sleepy (as it was around 9 pm). We were chatting while my niece was rolling around on our bed. My cousin had mentioned a while ago that the kid’s class teacher had earlier complained that she was not attentive in class and was not doing very well in studies. She later found out that the kid had a vision problem and got her to wear spectacles but the class teacher had not stopped complaining. So I asked my niece if she was being a good girl in class and if her teacher had stopped complaining. I was not thinking of anything when I asked the question, but the kid seemed a little shifty while responding. I took it simply as a sign of her feeling sleepy.After some time, my niece fell asleep.
Now two seemingly unrelated topics that we spoke about :
My cousin who seemed to be waiting for this told us that she (the kid) was very upset that day because of what happened at school. Apparently that morning after the first period, my niece felt uncomfortable wearing her shoes and removed it. She stuffed it in her bag and was going around in her socks. Her class teacher who taught English, noticed this and asked her where her shoes were and this girl said that she had not worn shoes to school that day. The teacher admonished her for this, wrote a note for the parents in the kid’s diary - things seem normal till this point. What she did next is strange - she complained about this to the principal, who then called my cousin and her husband to complain. Since she (the principal) was able to reach only my cousin’s husband, she started yelling at him for sending the kid to school without her shoes and for being an irresponsible parent. My brother-in-law was annoyed and at first protested saying that he was sure the girl had worn her shoes to school and on learning that it was the school’s principal who was yelling, controlled his temper and promised to be more careful.
As all good fathers do, he later chided my cousin for being careless. My cousin asked my niece why she had hidden her shoes and later lied to the teacher. The girl was in tears. My cousin gently told her that no matter what, lying was a bad thing.
As we were talking about this, she mentioned something else. In the recent exams, my niece had scored over 90 in Maths and Social Sciences and over 60 in other subjects except English where she had scored a paltry 45. This was strange, to say the least. She also recounted her recent experience in the PTA meeting at school, where the same teacher complained to my cousin in front of the other parents that my niece had torn a page off her English textbook and that as punishment her teacher had refused to return the book to her.
This happened in one of the most popular schools in Chennai. Although all of us felt that the teacher and the principal had behaved irrationally, for the sake of the kid, I advised my cousin to have a heart-to-heart chat with the teacher and see if things could be resolved amicably.
While I thought that my niece was wrong in lying to the teacher about her shoes, I also realized that all these problems probably had a common root. My niece seemed to be afraid of this teacher and that probably caused her to lose interest in the subject too.
Does this seem familiar to any of you? Most of us have had experiences with a certain teacher who hated us for no reason. I have seen a few in my school days. They would pick on one particular student and constantly tease him/her, insult the student, even destroy their morale sometimes. More often than not, the student ends up hating the subject in retaliation. In my case, my nemesis in school was a sports teacher. He hated the fact that I existed and tried to hurt me whenever possible. This probably explains my total lack of interest in any kind of sports. My aunt who was a teacher has even told me that one of her colleagues who often used to target a certain student in her class, confessed that she hated the sight of him and had no idea why.
The thought that the unreasonable hatred or dislike of a certain person can turn a 6 year old towards lying, to temporarily escape from the teacher’s wrath (as she probably thought that her teacher would blame the parents instead) and also develop a hatred towards a certain subject, deeply saddened me. My mother still cannot forget the taunts of a certain science teacher in school, due to whom, she lost all interest in the subject that year and consequently scored badly in that subject alone - an event that subsequently changed the course of her life.
Due to some unavoidable circumstances, my niece has to spend an hour or two all by herself at home in the evenings, since both her parents work and my aunt who usually takes care of the kid, is away from Chennai for a short while. I was telling my cousin to ask her to keep the door locked and not open the door for strangers. Although I was afraid to voice my fears, I told my cousin to be very careful with the kid and to warn her about lurking dangers around her. My cousin was telling me later that she was trying to tell the kid about good and bad touches from different people and that she had explicitly instructed her to report any mischief by others immediately. I was reminded of my music teacher in school, who would call the girls in the class to her room and ask us to be careful with the Art teacher. She would ask a few girls if he had touched them. I remember finding it disgusting then thinking that this lady was trying to take away our innocence and was corrupting our minds. Now I think she was only trying to look out for us, probably because she had seen and/or suspected something afoul. It was a government school and the politics played there are worse than the politics we see in our organization. The best she could do was to warn us in vague terms to be ‘careful’.
I was thinking about these things again and again yesterday night and in the morning. What kind of our world are our kids growing up in? I have just returned from a visit to my niece and nephew in Singapore and the thought that these perfect beings will grow progressively less innocent and more imperfect in order to survive in this world sends shivers down my spine. I would not want them to learn what bias means or what hatred means. I would not want them to know that in the real world, there are sheep and there are wolves in sheep’s clothing and externally they appear the same. But then how will they survive in this world? In the first incident, more than the teacher’s behaviour, I was deeply disturbed by the fact that the 6 year old kid could sense the teacher’s dislike and proceeded to lie over a small thing. I can see her gradually moving from the innocence of childhood to the deceits of adulthood. In the latter case, much as I would want her to trust every person she meets, the fact that I am seeing more and more reports on child molestation - with the minimum age limit of the victim going down every day- I am wondering if losing her innocence is the price to pay for her safety.
We lost our innocence too, but the age of losing our innocence seems to be going down of late. Kids are forced out of their innocence and childhood by the deluge of infotainment in the media, an overdose of sex and violence everywhere. Nothing seems to entertain or satisfy and the craving for more of everything seems to be the order of the day. While I look on, the children are oblivious to what they are missing. So is it a trade-off between innocence and survival? There are no easy answers. Meanwhile I feel really old and tired already.

Just Relax..

2011-07-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

It had been more than a year since I last visited my sister in Singapore. In between, there was another cute addition to the family. So in addition to my dear little niece, I also had my tiny nephew to look forward to in this trip. Things were changing at work too and the likelihood of getting into a shepherding role was looming large and I thought it was the right time to take a break, forget all about work and office and get away from the madding crowd.

So we made plans - my parents and I, booked the ticket on Tiger Airways - the TNSTC (Tamilnadu State Transport Corporation) bus that flies. The cheap guys actually charge you for every checked in baggage and also for seat selection or even reserving overhead compartment space for cabin baggage. However, they had no idea of the genius of Indian brains when they formulated their rules. As a result, we paid for a single check-in baggage and smartly utilized all our cabin baggages and the usually-not-weighed handbag allowances to carry a mini-grocery-store to my sister. My darling niece had already requested (actually, ordered) us to get her a ‘Barbie’ or ‘Hello Kitty’ mobile phone and after hunting around in multiple stores, my dad had success in finding it in one of the platform shops in Mylapore.

Tiger Airways is called a budget airline and we were never allowed to forget that fact. In the Chennai airport, our check-in baggage was not even scanned. And actually it is an insult to TNSTC buses to compare them with the Tiger Airways flight, however my conscience was also telling me that you usually get what you pay for and so we settled uncomfortably in our seats. Once the plane took off, I saw a strange guy trying to put his head on my lap. I was shocked, but only for a minute, for I realized that the guy in the front seat had merely pushed his seat back and thanks to the spacious seats, he was almost on my lap. So I decided to do what any other sane person would do - I pushed my seat back to scare the guy sitting behind me!

I frequently criticize or make fun of people on their English but I didn’t try any of that on the flight. The flight attendants spoke in a language that sounded vaguely like English. The Singaporean accent is kind of strange to untrained ears. It is nothing like the American, British, Australian or French accents. To get some idea of how this language sounds, imagine trying to speak with your mouth full of marbles - much like Eliza Doolittle is made to do in the film version of ‘My Fair Lady’. Consonants seem to be hurrying on their way out tumbling over the previous guys and causing general mayhem!! After a while I gave up trying to understand the announcements and instead concentrated on my ‘Thuppariyum Sambu’ novel by Devan.

Since this was not the first time we were travelling to Singapore, all of us had become a little careless. As a result, we had forgotten to note down my sister’s address and happily put down the name of the town where she stayed in the ‘Address’ box in the immigration form. True to my unerring instinct to pick the slowest moving queue, we ended up in one all the while hearing passports being stamped in rapid succession in the nearby lines, while the ‘uncle’ in-charge of our queue seemed to be taking some sort of sadistic pleasure in reading the details in every passport and immigration form one tiny alphabet at a time and relishing each second of our agony. He took a full 2 minutes to read through my immigration form and then looked up slowly to tell me that what I had written on it was the name of a town and not the address. I gave him what I thought was the smartest possible answer - that I did not know the address, and added helpfully that my sister would know it, since she lived there!! Uncle thought for a while (seriously, I wished I had a fast-forward button for this man to make him move at my speed) and said that I had to at least write down the phone number of my sister, which I did on my form and then on my parents’ forms too.

We had already decided that we would not go sight-seeing on this trip and that our main source of entertainment would be the kids. So we kept our promise, the first half of it at least. However, we did go out often and each such outing caused a larger hole in our pockets (figuratively of course, since we were carrying the demon called Credit Card with us). I realized in the end that what used to be only luxuries once have sort of become habits - like perfumes, watches, clothes etc. and where once we shopped to meet our daily needs, we now shop for the pleasure of shopping - to quench an insatiable thirst, which only increases with every dose of shopping therapy. Needless to say, I safely had these philosophical thoughts almost always after returning from the store. But still, better late than never, right?

I have said it before and I will say it again - the public transport system was amazing. All places in the country are well connected by buses and trains and a single pass worked in all of them. People walked quite a lot. I spent more hours walking in these 10 days than I would have done in 3 months in Chennai. In spite of the high number of apartment buildings, cars, people etc., Singapore seemed to be wonderfully green - there are trees everywhere and it was quite a pleasant sight. The apartment complex that my sister lives in is what are called housing board apartments. These are supposedly highly in demand in the country. The apartment community is a sprawling area with open gyms, play areas, tracks for running, walking etc and a lot of well maintained lawns and plants.

People are health freaks and irrespective of the time of the day, there are people running around in shorts or shorter shorts. I was feeling good about myself till I went there and starting thinking that I was abnormally obese. Interestingly, there were restaurants all over the place and people seemed to be eating at all times of the day. And yet, they remain super slim and that remains a mystery!!

Another remarkable thing was how little eye contact people made there. 9 out 10 people had mobile phones/PDAs or iPhones in their hands and earplugs in their ears. In fact in one station, I was looking through the door as the train was halting and I thought that people looked like zombies or automatons with their lost-in-thought expressions and lips that never smiled. Singapore Indians (mostly Tamils) were easily identifiable with their gaudy clothes, jewellery and heavily made up face.

My 3.5 year old niece kept us constantly entertained by pretending to be our teacher and insisting on teaching my mom and me Chinese (although I strongly suspect that Chinese has more words than just ‘tse’ or something sounding like that!!). She would sing entire songs in familiar tunes using this single alphabet and insist that it was Chinese. Rebels were not entertained and I was constantly told by my teacher that I would get a smiley on my palm if I behaved well and a star otherwise. But as she did not know how to draw a star I always received only smileys . She learnt to sing ‘O Susanna’ and part of ‘I am a barbie girl’ and would insist on singing it 10-15 times in a row without getting bored!! My 8 month old nephew would hold long conversations using the ‘aa’ syllable alone for hours together as long as his nanny or mother was holding him.

All good things must come to an end and the same happened with our trip. I wonder about this concept of time. When I come to work on Monday, Friday evening seems light years away (and now don’t ask me how time can be compared with distance. I am emotional, try to understand!) and yet when I was with my dear niece and nephew, Friday seemed to come a millisecond after Monday morning . Anyway, the honeymoon is over. I will be meeting with my flock soon and my new role as a shepherd will start immediately after.

When Lips don't meet

2011-06-24T00:53:00.001-07:00

Warning : This post is about music !! And the title is not a gimmick!

I was listening to this album by Sikkil Gurucharan the other day and quite unlike the other times, I was paying some attention to the lyrics and to the swarams in between. Something was different about this song - not just the tune, which was very different from anything I had heard before, but something else, which was nagging even my not-so-knowledgeable mind!! I then heard the line ‘nInE harikEsha rAgjni’ and something clicked. I was not yet sure though, but paid more attention to the lyrics. Soon after I reached office, I did a Google search for the song and realized that my guess was right!! And I am such a shallow person that this made me very happy!! I heard this song again today morning and this post is a result of that!

This song is in a rare ragam called ‘Niroshta’ which literally translates to ‘No lips’ (Ushta = Lips in sanskrit). It was composed by a genius composer called Harikesanallur Muthaiah Bhagavathar. The ragam is so named because it does not contain the 2 notes - Ma and Pa (both requiring the lips to meet) in the scale.This by itself, is quite interesting, since we are talking about removing the 2 notes in the middle and calling this a ragam. Taking the Western Classical equivalent, this is like composing music in a scale that has neither the perfect 5th which is supposed to give some stability to the song, nor its neighbour, the 4th note. In simpler terms this is like a dosa or pizza without the center!! In spite of these limitations, the ragam is quite pleasant to hear and that is remarkable!

The beauty of this song is that the entire song is written such that the lips never meet, i.e., the labial consonants m and p are not used. Apparently the consonant v, as also the vowels “u”, “U” and “o”. “O” and “au” are also not used since this will cause the lips to meet . This is like being asked to write a short story or an essay in English with the constraint that the alphabets ‘e’ and ‘a’ are never used, i.e., extremely difficult. There are some interesting anecdotes about how the song was composed. Apparently Bhagavathar wrote this when he saw the Mysore Maharaja ill and had swollen lips*.Shri TN Seshagopalan has supposedly composed a ’tillana’ in Niroshta (which I have not heard), but this is supposedly the only song in this ragam.

There are a few other such experimental compositions in CM but this is the only one that I can recognize easily because I have finally managed to follow the ragam Like I had mentioned in another post, in spite of the fact that I can never make someone else understand my excitement or happiness on hearing a piece of music, I never stop trying!!

* http://www.rasikas.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=534&p=9887

Blogger Bares All - An Interview

2011-05-31T01:02:00.002-07:00

Here is an interview - a tell-all type with a ‘popular’ blogger (the adjective was the blogger’s suggestion). For the dirty perverts who opened this post because of the phrase “bares all”, better read this post, now that you are here.

Q. Congratulations Ms.Blogger on your achievement.

A. Thank you. As I always say - Ellaa pugazhum Iraivanukke - meaning, all the fame belongs to God!

Q. Uhh.. Err… Wasn’t that what ARR said in his Oscar acceptance speech?

A. Oh did he? The bugger !! We traveled together a year ago by BA and I was telling him this when he claimed to be my fan! He stole my lines!!

Q. Rahman traveled with you? Your company sponsored a First Class ticket?

A. Does Rahman travel first class? Then it was probably someone else close to him, I don’t quite remember. You see, so many fans flock around when I am in public places, that it is difficult to keep track.

Q. You must be kidding? People flock around you??

A. Are you going to start asking some sensible questions?

Q. When did you first start writing?

A. I was around two, when my Mom decided that I would be the next Einstein. She tried again and again to make me learn the alphabets and numbers. But I could not get past the 1st alphabet Oh.. the memories….

Q. I meant, writing blogs - when did you start that?

A. When the company started the blog site of course.

Q. Who was the first person to discover your writing skills?

A. My lecturers in college. They were amazed that I could write pages and pages as responses to their questions without really answering any of them. I still remember the day one of them told me in front of the class, that I was spinning stories instead of answering the questions. That I could do it even in subjects like physics, gave me the confidence to get into serious writing.

Q. Some people think you use very long sentences and that your posts are also quite long. What do you want to tell them?

A. I will take it as a compliment and tell you how this came about. My first manager was a great guy. Every time I went to his cabin to ask him about my pay hike or promotion, he would start the response with - “See Ms.B, there are 2 things. First thing is..” and would say something totally irrelevant. After this he would have 2 things under the first thing of the first level and he would expand on the first thing in this level. This would go on for some 4-5 levels by the end of which I would have forgotten what I had gone in for and would beg to excused to get a cup of coffee and 3 aspirins. Also, the suspense of the various 2nd things made the headaches worsen.

So, what was the question again?

Q. I need a cup of coffee and 5 aspirins or maybe some poison?

A. Well, as I was saying, distraction and digression are keys to writing a good blog.

Q. What do you think of your most recent achievement?

A. What can I say? I was shocked.. I mean pleasantly surprised when a fan told me about it. I had not noticed it till then. But when my morning started with about 100 bouquets congratulating me, I thought someone was joking with me!!

Q. Really? You received 100 bouquets?

A. 100, 1, none - how does it matter? I know more than a 100 fans wanted to send me bouquets, but I requested them not to do that and send me the cheques instead. I can buy a bouquet a day for 100 days or buy that beautiful ‘Raaga’ watch that I have been ogling at for a month now.

Q. You have a 100 fans?

A. What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me that I create separate profiles and appreciate my posts myself? Are you insinuating that I don’t have any followers? Are you? Well, if you think so, it is not my problem. I know how IMG insisted on creating a separate mailbox only for receiving fan-mail and the only reason I am not mentioning it is my innate sense of humility. There, I said ‘insinuating’ and ‘innate’ in a single response. Let me see if you understand it, you ignorant slob, you piece of dirt, you sin of mankind..

Q. Wow.. wow.. wow.. are you swearing?

A. Tell me one word that is a cuss word. You belong to the group of people that don’t find my posts interesting. And everybody knows the intellectual capacity of those folks !!

Q. Well you know ‘Emperor’s new clothes’…

A. What do you mean? Is that a new boutique? But you end with a smiley and that surely means you are being sarcastic. Now, out with it, what do you mean?

Q. Peace. Back to the interview. Some people say you are heartless and that a person who cannot write verse does not deserve to call herself a writer?

A. Who says I can’t write verse? I don’t do it because I don’t want to be perceived as a threat to the poets in the blogosphere. Do you want to hear one? This one is on the ironies of life:

I woke up

in the morning,

And took my toothbrush,

out.

The toothpaste tube

was empty!!

How is it?

Q. Hmm.. is that a poem?

A. Here is one on everybody’s favourite topic: Love

I am quite

You are quite

Everyone quite

Heart is loud

becoz it is luv.

Q. Again, is that a poem? And what’s with the weird spellings?

A. So who do you think you are? The Shiv Sena? It is my poem and I have the rite to rite whatever I want. There - 2 spelling mistakes in one line. What can you do? Lady, this is love - feel it, don’t question.

Q. What should a person do to become a good writer?

A. Brush your teeth everyday. Drink lots of water. Wash your face often with cold water. You know the routine - cleanse, tone and moisturize.

Q. (Gulp) And these things make you a good writer?

A. Oh, you mean how does one become a good writer!! I somehow that you wanted to know the secret of my flawless complexion. People have been asking that for ages you know

Well, to become a good writer of blogs, you need to start reading ‘Tinkle’. It has some great stories. I still read them from time to time. You also need to be able to write from sources that cannot be traced. Above all, read all my posts especially the ones on . End all you snarky stuff with smileys. Be open to criticism, especially good criticism.

Q. What is good criticism?

A. There are some simple clues to differentiate good criticism from bad. Look for keywords like ‘amazing’, ‘brilliant’, ‘awesome’ etc., in the comments. To make things appear fair, be sure to approve 1 or 2 mildly critical comments. The other comments can be safely deleted.

Q. Deleted? Isn’t that unethical?

A. It is your blog after all, how is it unethical? In fact, to ensure only constructive criticism, I intend to recommend to the moderators to introduce a ‘Like’ button on the blog - especially my blog. People cannot exit the page without clicking it. If they try to close the browser without ‘liking’ my post, their hard disks will crash!

Q. What will your future posts be about?

A. From a heartless person, I have slowly started understanding the need for a heart. I have requested for a heart transplantation surgery and the hospital has agreed. I intend to write on that four lettered word that makes the world tick!

Q. Four lettered word???

A. Not that one you idiot!! I meant ‘Love’!!

Q. What is your biggest strength and biggest weakness?

A. My biggest strength as you can see, is my humility and my modesty. I would say that it is my weakness too.

Q. One last question. Now that you have written 100 posts, what do you intend to do?

A. I will work for ‘World Peace’ !!

(P.S. After waiting patiently for the moderators and other lovers of good literature to interview her, the blogger was forced to request me, her alter-ego to conduct this interview. This, she assures me is out of compassion for the less fortunate souls who, she thinks, need to be elevated to her level of intelligence. Most questions were provided by her in advance. Except for the one on the secret of her beauty, all the other questions were asked. The secret should remain a secret, in my opinion!!)

Simple Math

2011-05-31T01:02:00.001-07:00

Hours in a day : 24

Hours to be spent in the office : 9.5 (10 for those taking the office bus)

Hours spent in travel : 2-3 (on an average)

Hours prescribed for sleep : 7-8

Hours needed for necessary evils like eating, dressing up, ablutions etc. : 1-1.5

Hours available to live : 1.5 to 4.5 (6-18% of our time).

And yet, our management thinks that most of us are interested in working less and getting paid more!!

(P.S.1 : Math is the American abbreviation while Maths is the British abbreviation of mathematics - can’t help being pedantic!

P.S.2 : This has to be my shortest post ever!!

P.S.3 : Tagging this as ‘Slice of Life’ is a cheap marketing gimmick!!!

P.S.4 : Watch the number of exclamation marks increasing with each PS !!!!)

Disclaimer : All numbers are only approximations. Actual numbers may be significantly more than the quoted figures, but rarely less.

Appreciating Art

2011-05-17T03:04:00.001-07:00

'This CD has a wonderful Shubhapantuvarali kriti by TNS', said my friend.

'What ragam is that? Is there any film song that I know in this ragam?' I asked, for this was my initial way of learning to identify ragams.

'Well, Shubhapantuvarali is the ragam they play on Doordarshan, whenever a big leader dies', said my friend, only half-jokingly.

I started listening to the CD on my way back home. I was day-dreaming as usual while mechanically driving the car. I was jolted out of my reverie when the song began. Something was happening, something physical - like someone was choking me or like something was gnawing the insides of my stomach. I did not need any announcement to say that THIS was Shubhapantuvarali !!

Those were times when I was trying hard to learn to appreciate carnatic music. I would memorize names of a few ragams and one or 2 songs in each one of them and try to match aural patterns of new songs with those that I already knew. I was having a tough time understanding 'talam' (rhythm) and the mathematics involved in it.

Interestingly, although I had attempted to learn music a few times before that, I was not really interested in looking at it as a science. My approach towards learning music was to sound as close to my teacher's rendering of the song as possible and nothing more. However only when I was in the ideal geographic location amidst ideal friends (i.e., outside India amongst recently reborn Indians), did I start taking an active interest in classical music, primarily because I had a lot of time on hand with almost nothing to do.

My friends who took a keen interest in educating me on Carnatic Music and in making me listen to it with as much interest as them, were mostly guys who had developed such an interest fairly recently. They were mostly guys who had gone outside India for higher studies and were either still students or had recently completed their studies. As a result, the way I learnt to perceive music was the way they had learnt it. We spoke about the theory behind the music system. I would listen open-mouthed about how some ragams were pentatonic (although I initially thought that these discussions were meant to humiliate me!) and about parent and child ragams and what not.

When I came back to India and later started talking about these things as though I had invented them, both family and friends thought it was a passing fad. I was brimming with excitement and wanted to share my new-found knowledge and interest with all those I knew. I would talk ceaselessly, without bother, trying to tell people how 'Purvikalyani' and 'Pantuvarali' were very close (although if someone had bothered to question me on the actual similarities or differences, I would have been stumped!) and other such trivia that I had picked up.

After returning to India, I tried learning music from a few other people. Many of these attempts did not work out, often due to constraints with time, sometimes due to the approach towards music. One of my teachers used to hate the fact that I was looking at Carnatic Music as a science and was trying to find patterns everywhere. Her contention was that art was to be experienced, not analyzed.It used to remind me of my English teacher is school, who used to frequently state that people in the science stream did not have 'finer feelings' !!!

In the beginning my anxiety to share my joy was high. I tried my friends' methods with my siblings, parents and even a few close friends. I would gift my friends music CDs and concert recordings, play carnatic music all the time at home. But I could never get them listen to music in the same way I did.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I was wrong in trying to make a person feel the same way I do about a piece of art. After all, that is the beauty of art, isn't it? It evokes different reactions in different people. Who says that analysis and experiencing art cannot go hand-in-hand? And who defines how one experiences art?

Words are usually never enough to describe how a piece of art makes you feel. How do I explain the indescribable swelling of emotions when I hear 'Chinnanchiru kiliye kannamma' by Bharathiyar, played on the violin by Lalgudi Jayaraman? Or the instant connection and tremendous respect I felt when I heard an elderly maami sighing contentedly after a Todi alapana - 'Todiyum Bhairaviyum evlo daram ketaalum salikave salikaadu!' ('You can listen to Todi and Bhairavi any number of times without getting bored!')? Or the peace I feel within when the entire crowd is spellbound and experiences complete unison with the singer and the music?

A Sensitive Woman !!

2011-05-09T02:17:00.000-07:00

I was growing restless. Things were better than before, ever since I had made a few friends and had my weekends planned out - movies till late at night, cooking dinner together which usually meant that I did all the cooking and the guys would dutifully say everything tasted wonderful and eat loads of the food, going out to some place nearby, going to the Indian stores, going to the Indian temple as a result of a sudden burst of conscience etc. What I missed a lot was singing. I had joined TaeKwonDo classes, but I wanted to do something related to art.

I lived in a tiny state - so tiny that most US maps would have an arrow originating from a dot to show the state. I was talking to an old friend Vina (the friendship was old, not the friend) who lived in NJ. She seemed to be hesitant about telling me about someone. She mentioned another friend a couple of times and that she was not very sure if I would want to be associated with a person like her (the friend). One day, she told me about her and said that she lived in CT which was about 2 hours away from where I lived. My friend also told me that this friend (let’s call her Meena) was planning to start an amateur music troupe and was looking for a lead female singer. This lady supposedly was an average singer with a very limited range and my friend asked me to speak with her if I was interested. She kept warning me though, that if I did not feel comfortable with Meena, I could always opt out without fear of offending my friend.

So I called this woman and she asked me to sing something. I was made to feel that this song was going to make or break my musical career. So while my roommate was looking on strangely wondering what was wrong with me, I sang a song over the telephone and Meena asked me to come down for the first jamming session to a certain address in CT.

I had a loyal friend Navin who would accompany me everywhere since he was alone and bored too. So, the two of us set off and reached this place. There were about 6-7 people there and Meena told me that we would have to prepare for 2 programmes - one was a new year celebration programme by the local Tamil association and the other at her university.

Having heard from my friend that she had been in college with Meena, I spoke to her with a familiarity which she found irritating (I later learnt). She introduced me to her husband - a cheerful man and daughter - a sad looking toddler. We started the practice soon afterwards. I was asked to sing a fairly complex Carnatic music based film song.

The practice sessions were planned for every weekend and I used to look forward to those sessions with excitement and dread. Excitement, because all the members there were very friendly and dread because Meena was extremely critical of most things I did. Right in the beginning, she told me that she was an extremely sensitive person and that she got hurt very easily. So I was extra-careful in dealing with her comments. I mostly smiled and said I would try to do better.

The good thing that happened as a result of her meanness was that all the others in the group started treating me extremely well. They would go out of their way to be nice to me and became very protective of me. Our practice was always at a friend’s house, who used to be Meena’s junior in college. This guy Harsh became a very close friend and Meena would often tell me that he was like a brother to her (and when I asked him about it, he would laugh like it was be biggest joke he had ever heard).

In between, another thing happened. My friend and her husband started attending these sessions too. For the programme in the university, we were supposed to sing 3 songs in Hindi, of which my friend’s husband and I were to sing a duet. It was the first time my friend’s husband was singing on stage and he was fairly nervous and I would constantly encourage him to make small changes and appreciated him for his effort. Meena was of a less forgiving nature and would call his voice ‘raw’ and would keep giving sarcastic smiles throughout the song.

Anyway, the program for the Tamil association went off without too many issues. Meena had invited all of us for dinner at her place the following weekend. I called her and offered to help out with the cooking and she readily agreed. My friend and I went in the afternoon. She gave me a large cabbage and asked me to chop it. While I was doing that, she came over to inspect and said that they usually liked their cabbage to be chopped finer than this!! I did not know how to react and simply apologized.

Next she asked to come into the kitchen and clean up the drawers and racks. She went to the extent of saying that she had never had any time to do it and was waiting for me to come and clean it up. My mother has never asked me to do it and here I was, at a stranger’s place cleaning up her kitchen.

We started talking about the programme and she said ‘Karthik (our lead guitarist) seems to be very impressed with you. He said you were very cool and fun to be around’. I smiled in acknowledgement. The smile did not last a second before she hastily added ‘I told him - What is the use of being cool? She ruined the entire show. She went off-key a couple of times’!! I was too shocked to react. My friend was seething with anger. No one in the audience or in the group had said that I had sung badly and this lady went out of her way to be mean.

The rest of the evening went as badly as the beginning. Whenever I appreciated someone, she brushed my comments away with - ‘He is ok, but.. ‘ followed by a lame excuse. She did not forget to add that the audience had requested for an encore of her song (although none of us had heard it).

We were forced to stay the night in her place and she was full of stories of Meena the great - the supreme sacrifices of her life, how noble she was and how much she was misunderstood etc. But the clincher of the evening came when I was going gaga over a song by SPB and she said that it was not that great a song and that SPB had recited it more than sung it. That was it !! Whatever little respect I had for this woman went for a complete toss!! She, who could not sustain a note for more than a second, had the audacity to comment on SPB, in spite of the fact that I kept warning her not to talk about him !!

After the 2nd program in the university, there were no major complaints on my singing, since people appreciated it before she could say anything. So that evening she called me and said that I should have worn a dupatta over my dress and that it was not good to appear on stage without one. Instead of asking her to mind her own business, like an idiot I was telling her that the model of the dress I wore would not have looked good without a dupatta.

In the coming weeks, she got more and more irritated because her ‘brother’ and I were becoming very close friends and all the other members of the troupe visibly preferred me (as a person) over her (not that she had set a very high standard)!! She started acting in a more and more bizarre manner - calling up my friend and telling her that I should not be talking to her ‘brother’, calling up the ‘brother’ and telling him that I was dangerous and finally telling him that I was a bad singer.

My friends Navin and Harsh would constantly chide me for remaining silent when this lady insulted me unnecessarily. I finally decided that enough was enough and was all set to confront her when I got a great news. I was given an option to return to India and I jumped at the opportunity.

Ever since this incident, I am wary of people who call themselves sensitive, since they usually mean that they are quick to take offence, but are equally quick to give offence too. These self-proclaimed sensitive people have totally misunderstood the term ’sensitive’ since it also means to be aware of and respond to others’ feelings too.

‘Every cloud has a silver lining’, the saying goes. In my case, I think most silver linings have a cloud inside. After 5-6 years, I can think of these experiences and this woman with more compassion. I feel for the poor woman, for I now realize that all she wanted was (all) the attention of people around her. She wanted to be loved, appreciated and recognized and thought she could get it by demanding it. The days in the amateur troupe gave me a few friends, helped me while away my time doing something I loved and also made realize that being polite is not the same as tolerating nonsense.

She suffers from severe optimism!

2011-03-25T02:33:00.000-07:00

I love it when I am completely surprised by a book or a movie. For all the talk about how important a proper script is to a good movie, once in a while, a movie comes along where, try as I might, it becomes difficult for me to describe the ’story’, but the characters become etched in my memory.

I was waiting for my flight at the Chicago airport. I had 4 hours to kill and I thought I would make best use of my time by watching a movie.The last movie I had seen a week ago was a movie called ‘Goodbye Solo’ by Ramin Bahrani. This was a fairly intense film about the bonding between 2 men who are complete opposites. I chose a movie called ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ by British maverick director Mike Leigh, who had been praised to high heavens by film critic Roger Ebert in more than one post on his blog.

The movie cannot be described in simple terms, since there is no real plot to speak of. It is about a hopelessly optimistic and cheerful Pauline ‘Poppy’ Cross and the people around her. The film is a series of vignettes in Poppy’s life. I am not going to talk about the plot of the movie here, as Wikipedia can do it better than me.

Poppy can be termed weird by some standards. It is difficult to imagine a person who can smile at every single thing in life, who can crack jokes even while lying on the hospital bed, who can find rude people funny etc. Sally Hawkins, who plays Poppy, however manages to make the character real and strangely relatable! She apparently won the Golden Globe award for best actress for her role and she deserves every ounce of it (provided awards can be measured in ounces!!)!

In the initial few scenes, I was only thinking that Poppy was mildly annoying and could understand why some people would find her insufferable. However her character grew on me the more I understood the character. Some of her actions are really funny but very often, she surprised me with her keen sense of empathy towards her fellow human beings. Poppy’s character seemed much more aware and sensitive about the sufferings of her fellow beings than the supposedly serious characters in the movie, who keep chiding her for being frivolous.

In one of the most poignant scenes I have ever seen in a movie, Poppy has a conversation with a vagrant one night while wandering around the city. This scene has to be seen to be appreciated. The insight that Poppy seems to have into people’s hearts and minds provides for the most emotionally touching moments in the movie.

I loved the track where Poppy inadvertently provoked her driving instructor Scott, who is perpetually angry and is a complete contrast to Poppy. Their interactions are in equal parts funny and potentially explosive. I was expecting Scott to physically assault Poppy any time, but the culmination of their relationship was wonderfully subtle and heartbreaking.

There is a track where Poppy takes flamenco lessons with another teacher in her class. This provides a beautiful and gut-wrenching scene involving the supposedly icy-cold flamenco instructor breaking down in front of the class quite unexpectedly.

The beauty of the movie lies in the fact that nothing dramatic happens to the characters at the end of the movie. Poppy’s friend Zoe does tell her to be less nice and she says so out of love and concern for her friend. However people cannot change their basic nature easily and Poppy ignores the advice too.

I have been saying this for a few months now. There is so much negativity surrounding us that I find it difficult to breathe at times. I feel ashamed of myself every time I read about the latest scams or Wikileaks revelations, for being a silent spectator of all these things, although I can not do anything about it. Watching ‘Happy go lucky’ I was wondering if such people really existed and if they do, will I be able to meet one such person. It requires a core of steel to be able to keep up a genuine smile at all times these days and I wish for my sake at least that such ‘Sunshine’ people exist.

In Baker Street and Botswana

2011-02-15T07:56:00.001-08:00

I am a complete sucker for good mystery novels. I regularly pester my librarian to recommend something very interesting and offbeat but with no killings and every single time he is perplexed. I mean, who would want to read mystery novels that do not involve bloodshed? (Answer : Me !!).

I recently used a gift coupon that I was awarded for something (I don’t remember what!) for the Strands book store in Bangalore. Now my manager will tell you the kind of tantrums I throw every time he asks me to travel to Bangalore for a meeting. Trust me, it has nothing to do with the city itself. It is more to do with one of my many afflictions - inertia. I hate travelling (I hate it when Word insists on correcting MY spellings just because IT was taught incorrect English!!), as I have no doubt mentioned about 1 million times in my posts. However, this time it was different. The card was valid only for a year and I was dying to come to Bangalore and get a few books. My intention was to get only books on humour - and that is my way of saying only PG Wodehouse- but I ended up buying the entire Sherlock Holmes collection.

Sherlock Holmes was not my most favourite detective when I was young. I hated his know-all attitude and his regular habit of figuring out everything and revealing them to the unsuspecting reader and dear Watson*, with every intention to draw as many compliments on his intelligence as possible without appearing to do so (Did that sentence finally end?). I was never a part of his thinking process. It is a different thing that those days Hardy boys were my favourite sleuths. Nancy Drew lost her sheen when she started acting all coy and mushy in the later novels and also when I realized that she rarely solved mysteries without the help of ’strange co-incidences’. On television too, Byomkesh Bakshi was doing splendidly till he too had to fall for a woman and become a householder. It was a little later that I realized that Bakshi was modeled after Holmes in many respects including the physical appearance.

Now that I am all grown up (too much, I would say), I am able to appreciate Holmes a lot more than before (and that has nothing to do with the fact that ultra-cool Robert Downey Jr., played Holmes in the movie version !!). Thanks to PGW, I also understand the British sense of humour and sarcasm more than before. So it is no wonder that I am actually enjoying the book a lot. After a long long time, I was reading a book on the flight. Of course the other reason was also that stupid Lufthansa did not have individual TV screens on the flights to US!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s unlikely hero is as popular as he was when the book was first written primarily because the author has created a flesh and blood character. I love it when the characters in a novel/movie are flawed, because it makes them that much more relatable. Holmes is almost a sociopath and looks down upon most people. He shoots up cocaine regularly (as described in ‘The sign of four’) to compensate for his boredom. He is a misogynist and is upstaged only once (from what I have read so far) by a woman called Irene Adler, whom he ends up admiring for the very reason.

The author also explains the method behind Holmes’ madness. Holmes is what he is, because he assimilates information better than others. He even tells Watson that he sees and hears what others see but registers some things better. He has no interest in anything that will not help him in his profession, apart from playing the violin. His respect and love for Watson is almost surprising, given that Watson plays the role of only a loyal friend rather than assistant in Holmes’ adventures, nor does he appear to be an intellectual match for Holmes!

With passing years, I realize that I have a thing for sociopathic intellectual people - at least as characters in a novel or in a movie. Holmes, Mark Zuckerberg (as portrayed in ‘The Social Network’), the really rude genius Gregory House from House M.D (at least till he got all mushy and teary eyed - made me nauseous to see Hugh Laurie reduced to this!!), Jeffrey Deaver’s unlikely hero, the quadriplegic Lincoln Rhyme, Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the wind (at least in the beginning) - these are probably people I would hate in real life, but simply love in literature or movies, since they add a lot of colour to the story.

The other series, which is also to do with a detective also features an unlikely protagonist. The ‘No. 1 Ladies detective Agency’ series by Alexander McCall Smith, has as its principal character an ‘almost-forty’ year old full-figured woman called Precious Ramotswe. The series is set in the South African country Botswana.

Precious Ramotswe is everything that Holmes is not. Her cases are not always high-profile ones involving murder or robbery. She handles cases with her emotions and intuitions. She behaves like most women would and does not hesitate to adopt non-traditional sources like grapevine for information. She empathises with her clients and as a result does not make a lot of money.

Although every novel in the series centres around a case, the series is interesting because they give a glimpse of life in Botswana, the customs and the people. Cases are not always resolved in the conventional sense and not all stories end happily for the customers of ‘No.1 Ladies Detective Agency’.

A host of colourful characters like Mma Makutsi- Mma Ramotswe’s assistant, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni - her fiance, who is always referred to by this name add more flavour to the novels. The philosophical musings of the protagonist in between are insightful and sometimes funny too.

I am right now reading the third book in the series - Morality for Beautiful Women. In times when feminism has come to mean arguing over trivialities and being different for the sake of it and when liberation has come to mean liberation from clothes and trying to please the very same set of people that we are apparently protesting against, it is really refreshing to read about a protagonist, who is a woman and who is very proud of the fact. Being a woman is not just incidental but instrumental in her approach to her work and to life in general. It is strange that a man had to write it though !!

*Incidentally, Holmes never seems to say ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ any time !!

P.S : I did buy a PGW collection and another novel by PGW with the money that was left. Or to be honest, I bought Sherlock Holmes because I had some money left

I need a wake-up call...

2011-02-02T01:27:00.001-08:00

This happened more than 17 years back, when I was still a teenager - way too cynical about everything around me. I prided myself in finding everything that is wrong with anything - movies, books, people, places etc. My cousin visited us after many years. Now, when I say cousin, please do not imagine another teenager. My cousin was a couple of years older than my father. In a family as big as my mother, this was not uncommon, nor was it uncommon to find nephews and nieces who were older than me!

Anyway, this cousin was one of the most creative people in my family. My mother had often told me how he would create small wonders and show-pieces out of waste articles like toys from coconut shells, paintings on the ceiling fan to give a lovely effect when the fan is switched on and so on. He was also popular in the family for having changed the maximum number of jobs within a certain number of years.

He described with great passion his current job in a prawn farm - how the prawns were bred, ‘harvested’ and then processed through machines which smeared them in bread crumbs, roasted them, packed them in tins them and so on. The love with which he described the process would have made one think that he loved eating prawns, had one not known that he had never tasted any.

We were talking about my school and the subjects. I was talking with the same indifference that one often finds in teenagers about how the whole system was wrong and how the subjects were of no use. Without seeming to advise he started talking fondly about the subjects and suggested I keep writing as I read, for it was easier to remember what one writes down than what one reads.

It is strange what memories one tends to carry from one’s past. I do not remember a lot of things from that year. I don’t even remember the exact year. I don’t really remember everything we talked about. However I do remember that we watched a mediocre tamil movie (and I still remember the title of the movie) and as always, I was pointing out the various faults with the movie - how absurd the dialogues sounded, how stupid the costumes looked etc. My cousin on the other had, suddenly said how interestingly an actor reacted or some such thing. I don’t remember exactly what he said, only that he managed to find something good in a trashy film!!

I would not say that I was jolted out of my negativity. I thought for a few days. I discussed it with my mother and realized that this person had probably more reasons to feel negative about one thing or the other. All the time he stayed at home, he did not speak anything negative about his previous jobs, but spoke with interest on his current one. It is a different story that he left this one a while later too, but the crux of the matter is how much he lived and loved the present.

I have often thought about that evening. I have not changed completely as a person. I did not become a motivational speaker overnight. I still get frustrated at uncertainty and with a lot of people inside and outside of work. But this memory has often helped in some small degree at least in putting aside the negativity for a while at least, if not come completely out of it.

Of late it has become increasingly difficult to stay positive. Changes at the workplace and constantly hearing how we are all ‘resources’ for the company and not people, news everyday bringing out one scandal after another in the country and in my state, large hoardings of corrupt politicians smiling shamelessly decorating the roads that I cannot avoid on the way to work - there are countless things that fuel the frustration and depression. I really wish I get another wake-up call to help me come out of it. One that will jolt me out of my coma and make me feel alive again!!

Season diary - 2010

2011-01-05T04:20:00.001-08:00

Timing is crucial in almost every thing and only when I see how often my well-laid plans go for a total toss do I appreciate once again the existence of God!!

I know I am starting off with my usual pseudo-philosophy, but then when one is dealing with situations beyond one's control, what else can one do but (pseudo) philosophize!! Anyway, back to matters actually at hand (or maybe already out of hand), it is a wonder how our customers, on-site and offshore managers - everyone really - know how much I look forward to ensure that I am in Chennai during December every year and precisely time my on-site visits at that time! I had to go exactly before the music season started - mid-November - and return towards the fag end of December(on Christmas really) so that I can go concert hunting half-groggy from jet-lag like a beggar goes after left-over food and lap up what I still can during the remaining few days. Yet surprisingly, I have managed to attend about 3 of them so far and am hoping to catch one or two more in the next 2 weeks.

However, this post is not about my on-site trip, the assignment, my achievements there or the lack of them etc. Nor is it a scholarly write-up on the concerts that I attended. It is more about some things that I noticed during the concerts - much like the post I had written last year about the same time.

Audience punctuality - This is something we seriously lack and it is extremely frustrating to see people walking in to the concert hall anywhere from 5 minutes to a full hour later and disturbing the others who are enjoying the concert. People moving around in a concert hall does not make for a pretty sight. Also the shifting in seats to let the latecomers settle down and the entire settling down process itself is quite noisy and distracting - definitely to the rest of the audience, and may be to the artist too!! My aunt had been to an opera in NY and she told me that apparently the doors to the hall were locked once the show started and people were not let in if they were late. Why can't we do something like that?
Audience discipline - Raga identification is a serious affliction most carnatic music aficionados suffer from. For some of them it is like getting hold of the newspaper first thing in the morning -the brain starts functioning only after reading the day's headlines. Similarly we have to identify the ragam of a song within the first 5 seconds of the song/ alapanai. It is a secret race that all of us in the hall know is on, but pretend otherwise. So while I understand the need to identify the ragam of the song, what I cannot understand is that buzzing sound that I hear even after it is identified. This time, during a concert by Jayashree Ramnath, two elderly gentlemen who sat 2 seats away from me, were oblivious to the rest of the people in the hall including the musician on the stage. They identified the ragam and then launched into some serious discussion on the technicalities of the ragam and so on. I tried glaring at them, vocalizing my irritating through 'tchh'es and sighs. But like I said, they were in their own world. I only wish that my world had not come in touch with theirs at that time!! I was grumbling to my mother all the way back home, on how horrible it was that these old men had to choose the same concert that I had and chose to sit in the same row too!!
The Costume - Male artists can choose to be simple like Sanjay Subramanyan and his accompanists. They were clad in simple white dhotis and shirts. On the other hand, artists like TM Krishna come in different coloured kurtas and some young music enthusiasts come to check out Krishna's kurta along with the music! The definition of simplicity for Female artists on the other hand is very different. Jayashree Ramnath, the simplest of them all, still has to wear at least a silk sari with a broad zari, a necklace and flowers. The showiest of them all (and arguably more popular) Sudha Raghunathan on the other hand, comes to perform like a walking advertisement for a silk saree shop , gold jewellery shop and a florist. Her interviews in magazines during the season are also more on the sarees she plans to wear for the different concerts, how she has never repeated a saree on stage and so on. In CM world, one often uses the term 'ghanam' (heavy) often to describe some ragams, voices etc. Sudha's voice may or may not qualify as ghanam, but she definitely does. I am eagerly waiting for the day when a female artist wears a cotton saree and bare minimum or no jewellery and the audience can listen only to the music and not wonder where she shopped for this concert!
The food - Technically my first foray into this music season started with food!! My mother and brother had already sampled the food at Narada Gana Sabha and had made plans for my first day back in Chennai. So I jumped directly into the season with a lunch at the sabha canteen on the same day I landed! The sabha parking lot was full and all along I thought it was for the music. Now I know otherwise!! My brother who still thinks that it is a crime to step inside a sabha, insisted that we should go to Music Academy on the 1st of January, because my nephew told him that the food at that canteen was great!! It turned out that the canteens functioned only during the peak 'season', i.e., December 15th to 31st, so we had to come back disappointed.
And finally the Music - Although I could not attend all the concerts from the start of the season, I tried to make do with the shortened concerts telecast by Jaya TV which were available for viewing in the US too. But a live concert is so much more than the songs themselves and I had asked my father to get me tickets for Sanjay Subramnayan's concert on the day after I landed. Sanjay may come dressed very humbly, but the concert on the other hand was extremely colourful and joyful. Sanjay's enthusiasm on stage is often infectious and he was almost jumping with verve throughout the concert. My mother who pretends to not 'understand' carnatic music and often tells me that she does not particularly care for male singers, was with me during the concert and was enjoying herself thoroughly. The effort that Sanjay puts in for every concert is unbelievable. He was belting out popular and new songs with equal ease left right and center and in the final RTP (ragam tanam pallavi) segment, showered the audience with rarely sung Hindustani ragas teasing the audience with the swaras and then with his trademark sly smile giving out the name of the ragam. It was pure musical bliss and after the 3.5 hours concert we came out fully satisfied like we had had a ten-course meal! Jayashree's (popularly called Bombay Jayashree) concert which I attended 2 days later was a complete contrast. Her voice is soothing and weighty ('ghanam') at the same time and the overall effect was very pleasing. TM Krishna, who had not performed the whole season was the star of yesterday's concert. In Chennai music circuit, TMK and Sanjay are like Rajnikanth. They are both crowd pullers and can do no wrong in the eyes of their fans. TMK has a great voice quality and his concert was full of fireworks with many popular krithis in tamil, telugu and sanskrit.

So once again, Chennai's music season draws to an end. While I missed the better part of it, I still intend to catch a few more, even if it means missing work. Work can wait, music season cannot. Talkative mamas and mamis and insensitive audience members notwithstanding, a live concert experience has no equal. In every good concert, there is always a moment when the musician, the audience and the music become one and there is that microsecond of pure unadulterated bliss. This microsecond is worth any number of annoyances!!

Management Lessons Learnt

2010-07-23T01:45:00.000-07:00

A week away from my laptop in a management program was almost as good as a vacation, with learning happening alongside. This was a program for middle management with people from all over the organization staying in our beloved ‘College-hostel’ like guest-’house’.

Some random thoughts after the program:

a. Not all talks on management related topics are boring. A (very) few were inspiring, a few interesting, a few provoked some serious introspection - but even the driest lecture had something about it to at least make us laugh (for reasons I would rather not mention).

b. Some minor inconveniences only help in seeing the bigger picture. In the beginning two of us were asked to share each of the guest house rooms. Later, eight of us, stayed inside a not-so-primitive tent, although the only characteristic we shared was gender. We developed a good rapport by the end of the 6 days and got to know a few people better.

c. Shyness is only a function of time. Also it is difficult to continue the pretence of being a serious intellectual, who is silent because her thoughts are too profound and not because she has nothing interesting or witty to say. Fortunately the program ended before the entire truth stumbled out about you-know-who!!

d. Managers are not necessarily aggressive people - at least not all the time - and usually not when more aggressive people are around

e. Managers are normal people and are as crazy as any other person. In fact some of them are crazier than Govinda’s films. If they appear serious, it is because someone somewhere told them that that is how managers behave!

f. Art is a major ice-breaker and can quickly bring the guard down for most people. A few songs during the bonfire in the outbound learning centre and we were all suddenly great friends.

g. No matter how tough one is, it is still very touching to see people being protective about you especially when you hardly know any of these people. We were all doing some dare-devil stunts (and the military guys at the outbound centre would roll their eyes if they heard the activities described this way!!) and I was touched when my colleagues around me stopped their activity to make sure I got down without harming myself. (And then it could also be because they were afraid that I would hurt them in the process of saving myself !!)

h. It is a great feeling when you can overcome your fears. One of the activities at the outbound learning centre was rappelling - climbing down a large rock substituting for a cliff, with a rope tied on one end to a facilitator standing on top of the rock and the other passing through your harness. The experts did a demo of it and it was scary. You have to actually stand perpendicular to the rock while climbing down putting your life in the hands of the facilitator at the top. My heart was thudding louder than my loudest possible voice. But I knew I had to do it. Where else was I going to get the opportunity?? And I did it and it felt great.

i. It takes a lot of courage to refuse to do things you are not comfortable doing. A few of our colleagues were scared of climbing down the rock. I was really impressed that they dared to say no in spite of the tremendous peer pressure they were under!

j. No matter how many programs you attend, there is always something new that you discover in the next one. I met some interesting people and not all of them were from our company. We had a session by this amazing gentleman who dreamt of retiring at the age of 40 and did it. He now works for 2 days a week and follows his dreams for the rest of the week. I have the same plan too and I only wish I am as brave as him when I turn 40 !!

k. Great leaders are almost always simple. This was proven again and again during these 6 days. Apart from the usual suspects, we had a session by a neurosurgeon on the last day of the program. This was a program that many in our group were sceptical about. And this was the program that was universally acknowledged as the best of the lot at the end of the 6 days. The man was so full of knowledge that I could almost see knowledge oozing out of his every pore. Yet he was humility personified. People could not stop raving about him and the impact he had on them at the end of the program.

l. Once you have seen a person at his most vulnerable state, it becomes easier to think of him as human and work better with him.

m. No matter what you think of your appearance, a comment about your age or your looks is still capable of rattling you at least a little!!

Many of these leaders proved that to be a good leader, you don’t necessarily have to be aggressive or loud. You do not have to be serious or speak impeccable English. You don’t have to talk about how much you know. Greatness, like good food, advertises itself!!

Great Pick-me-ups

2010-05-19T04:25:00.001-07:00

Not to be confused with pick-up lines, but some things that help in changing my mood for the better most of the times:

The sight of my niece or listening to her talk
‘Sri Satyanarayanam’ or ‘Mayamma’ by Sanjay
Lalgudi’s violin recital
Picking up the phone and saying ‘Hi’ to my friend who can immediately sense my mood and listen to him prattle on endlessly about absurd stuff, without expecting a reply from me
Any book by Wodehouse or Sujatha
Singing the lines ‘Vaazhkai enraal aayiram irukum- Vaasal thorum vedanai irukum; vanda thunbam eduvenraalum; vaadi ninraal oduvathillai - Edayum thaangum idayam irundaal iruthi varaikum amaithi irukum’ (In life thousands of things happen, at every phase sorrows may affect you, but any difficulty does not go away if you sit and sulk about it. If you have a strong heart that can take anything, you will be peaceful till the end), from the song ‘Mayakkama Kalakkama’ by Kannadasan
Go for a long walk
Listen to my mother talk
Spend time in the company of people who don’t find it necessary to fill silences with words.

None of the above cost anything and they work for me. What about you?

Bommai - A 24 hour story

2010-05-19T04:24:00.001-07:00

There are times when I have a strange and uncontrollable urge to watch a good movie. I look at my long list of movies and have no mind to watch even one. I look at my DVD library in vain to find one Tamil/Hindi movie that I want to re-watch and I just cannot find one. And these are moments when even my most favourite movie in any other language (Its a wonderful life or Children of Heaven etc. for example) will simply not do.

And I go to flashback mode when DD would throw movies to us like a miser throws food to a beggar - one a week, not including the Hindi movie on Saturday and the regional snoozefest movie of the week on Sunday afternoons (which I still watched by the way!!). I have watched many many movies that would have scarred a normal person irreparably and came out unscathed (although a few others may claim to have discovered the mystery behind my weirdness finally). As a rule, DD would play movies that no person would pay a video lending library hard-earned money for. But DD did something wonderful too. It was (and probably is) the only channel that regularly screened old B&W movies. Thinking back, I think DD’s whole strategy was to make people appreciate B&W movies - Give the viewers a series of torture flicks that were not B&W until they beg for mercy and then give them a B&W movie, which at least had a story!!

I grew up with a healthy appreciation for the B&W movies, thanks to my mother, who would play old songs on radio and cassette players non-stop. I was at home last weekend, when my mom’s remote-crazy fingers finally settled on a channel. I looked up from my book to see one of my favourite movies of yesteryears called ‘Bommai’ (’The Doll’). I watched the movie again after more than 10 years and watched it with renewed appreciation for the style and the script.

It was almost like Hitchcock had made a tamil movie. The movie had a lot of novelties. For starters, it was a thriller and story happens over a period of 24 hours. None of the actors were stars and the script ruled. The movie was written and directed by the maverick director - S. Balachander, who was more popularly known as Veenai Balachander for his prowess with the Veena.

Another interesting tidbit about the music is that the movie featured a song which was sung by a beggar. The rhythm of the song is very slow and the lyrics very philosophical. The young singer who debuted in film music with this song, supposedly lamented that his career was starting off on such an unattractive note. However his career took off and he never looked back. He became one of the most popular singers in India, singing in all Southern languages and becoming quite popular in Hindi too. The singer was none other than K.J.Yesudas!!

The plot of the movie centers around a plot by a group of friends to kill their boss with a bomb hidden inside a doll. Each person in the group has a different reason to hate the boss, none of them noble. The boss, a wealthy old man, is on his way to Singapore and a few in the group have reasons to fear this trip. As a result, they plan to meet with him in the airport and hand over the doll to him, asking him to deliver it to a friend in Singapore. The paper containing the address is pasted to the back of the doll and the trigger for the bomb is attached to it. Unfortunately, they miss the doll in the taxi on their way to the airport. The taxi is then hired by a young couple who find the doll and decide to steal it to gift it to their daughter. The story follows the doll and its misadventures. Does the gang recover the doll? Does the boss get killed? These are questions answered in the end of the movie.

To say that the movie was ahead of its times would be grossly understating it. The nail-biter sequences rival classic thriller movies of all times. Cinematography was brilliant although it was a black and white movie. Songs were composed by S.B himself and are all very pleasing. I especially love the song- ‘Engo pirandavaram’ - a lovely composition in Sahana, which is a proof of S.B’s knowledge of classical music.

S.Balachander made about 4-5 movies in total, almost all of them were thrillers. I remember at least 2 others. ‘Nadu Iravil’ is another classic and was a trendsetter when it released. It was probably the first movie (and only one for a long time!) to have no songs. I remember being blown away by the way the screenplay was written, even at an age when I did not know what a screenplay was! The other is ‘Nadu Iravil’ - a thriller based loosely on the Agatha Christie mystery ‘And then there were none’ (Gumnaam was made much later).

Bommai’s uniqueness was present till the last slide showing ‘Vanakkam’. After the movie ends, SB appears on the screen and requests the audience to stay on for a few more minutes. He talks about the story and introduces the actors and all the technicians - every single one of them including the person who supplied food and tea, the lightman etc., in person. He ends with the statement - ‘And I forgot an important character in the movie’ and the camera zooms to the doll used in the movie and the slide showing ‘Vanakkam’.

Now with all the money poured in, the ’stars’ and wooden models posing as actors, money spent on advertising and media crying hoarse about how the styling of actors of an upcoming movie was done and how much was spent for a certain costume in the movie, the core of a movie - the story is lost. And the innumerable songs and dramatic style of acting notwithstanding, most B&W movies make me long for the days when story will again become the king in any movie!!

P.S: For a very interesting write-up on S.Balachander, visit this link containing a fond remembrance by his nephew:

http://v-s-gopal.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/04/the-legendary-genius-of-s-balachander-remembrance.htm

Dante’s Equation - When Physics met Judaism!!

2010-03-31T03:25:00.002-07:00

When I read Eric Segal’s ‘Acts of Faith’ the first time, I had very little idea about Judaism and Jewish customs. Those were days when I had not yet resorted to searching Wikipedia and other sites for every single thing. And rather than read a treatise on the religion itself, the book gave some insight on one of the oldest religions of the world. It remains one of my favourite novels of all times.

Years later, I came across the 2003 novel Dante’s Equation by Jane Jenson and read about the book before reading the book itself. The back-cover told me that the novel had equal parts science, science fiction and Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). My curiosity was piqued. I had been reading way too many legal thrillers and murder mysteries and people had started noticing a manic gleam in my eyes recently and I decided to turn a new leaf for a change! The name ‘Dante’ in the title only made my interest stronger. A year back I read a novel called ‘The Dante Club’ by Matthew Pearl and found it a great read. And so I started reading this novel.

The first half of ‘Dante’s Equation’ has 4 parallel threads. Similar to ‘Acts of Faith’, chapter titles refer to the main character of the thread.

a. Denton Wyle - A playboy reporter who works for a magazine called ‘Mysterious World’ in LA. As the name suggests, the magazine runs stories on mysterious occurrences throughout the world. At the time the novel starts, Denton is working on an article on mysterious disappearances all over the world, since he has witnessed one of his brother when he was a child. Denton Wyle is described as a shallow and selfish person who cannot be called a hero in any respect.

b. Aharon Handalman - A rabbi (Jewish priest) and Torah scholar who believes that the Torah has hidden codes in the form of arrays. He is working on identifying recurring patterns and key-words in the Torah to determine secret messages if any with his assistant/student.

c. Jill Talcott, Nate Andros - Dr. Jill Alcott is a physicist who thinks she has made the discovery of a lifetime, by way of discovering a new wave that is capable of altering the surroundings. Her assistant/student Nate is dedicated and is smitten by her but Jill pretends to not notice.

d. Calder Farris - The mandatory villain of the novel. A cold-blooded mercenary working for the US Department of Defense, his primary responsibility is to identify and bring to notice of DoD, advancements in weapons technology from non-mainstream sources like scientists.

Denton Wyle hears about the disappearance of a Jewish physicist called Yosef Kobinski in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during the Holocaust. He also chances upon a few pages of manuscript of a book titled ‘The book of torment’ that Kobinski wrote while in the concentration camp. He goes in search of the remaining pages of the manuscript to understand the reason behind Kobinski’s disappearance.

Rabbi Handalman comes upon quite a few references of Kobinski in the arrays in Torah. Along side the physicist’s name also occur other ominous words like weapon, destruction etc. Rabbi decides to investigate and ends up going to Washington to meet with Jill Talcott.

Jill Talcott and Nate realize that they have discovered something significant after running successful tests with the wave generator. They name the wave one-minus-one. The wave apparently seems to affect the surroundings and Jill surmises that it is because the wave disturbs the fabric of space and time.

Calder Farris finds that Jill Talcott has hit upon something that could possibly be used as a weapon and goes to meet with her. Meanwhile, while increasing the frequency of the wave, Jill falls sick and leaves the lab and the lab is burnt due to a furnace blast in the building.

Rabbi Handalman shows her the pages of Kobinski’s manuscript that he has managed to trace and shows the mathematical equations that Kobinski had written in the manuscript. Apparently Kobinski had already arrived at the wave equation. According to his theory, the wave alters the good or evil quality of a person.

As it usually happens in many movies, all the protogonists of the story end up in Auschwitz and disappear through the black hole. Depending on the nature of the person, they end up in different universes and/or galaxies.

Here onwards, the novel becomes a bit too bizarre for my taste. But that is probably because I do not enjoy fantasies much (LOTR being a rare exception). However, like every good Hollywood/Indian masala movie, all is well that ends well and all of them return to Earth. And even better every character has changed for the better.

The first half of the book is a real page-turner with action happening throughout. I liked the way Jensen linked wave theory and Jewish beliefs. Although multiple threads of narrative run in parallel, clarity is not lost. The characters were all well-etched and fully rounded, i.e., no perfect guy or no rotten-to-the-core guy.

The second half was very well written too, except that I frequently lost interest. For some reason books/movies on aliens, alternate universes etc. have never been of interest to me. In all the books/movies on aliens, human beings tend to project themselves on to the alien’s physiology, mind-set etc. and the limitation of such imagination shows. Aliens are described to be minor variations of a human being, with a torso, upper and lower limbs, all the sense organs etc. It is the same case here. The planets were different - multiple suns, different gravitational forces, different types of animals (still quadrupeds), different ‘languages’ but the aliens were still humanoids!! (I had the same gripe with Avatar too!). But to be fair to the author, she manages to create unique universes and people and troubles and keeps up the pace here too.

The idea of choosing a well-known event in the past, i.e., the Holocaust to represent total evil and thus one of the possible places for the ‘black hole’ was great. It was also interesting that there are many Jewish who believe that the Torah holds many encrypted messages and prophesies and have devoted their lives to its study.

So is this great literature? By no measure !! But it is definitely a good read. A much better piece of fiction than, say, Dan Brown’s best-seller ‘The Da Vinci Code’, since although it uses religion and religious beliefs as the back-drop, at no point does it ridicule them. Instead the novel treads a safe path by showing a common meeting point for the two.

The Unspoken Word

2010-03-31T03:25:00.001-07:00

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Words, when effectively employed supposedly are very potent, capable of overthrowing governments and changing lives. How relevant this saying is in today’s world of ‘Sensational Headlines’ that hold the readers’ attention for less than a day, is debatable.

But think of the common person’s life, where pens figure rarely. After all, the most basic form of slander - gossip requires no pen/keyboard to start or spread! Think of at least 5 instances from your past where you fought with a friend/relative. What sparked the argument/quarrel? Do you remember everything that was said by you or the other person or do some words stick out in particular?

Think of your role as a person who cast aspersions instead of the usual thought of being victimized. Are you able to recollect a word that you spoke before thinking about its impact and wished later you had never spoken? Or one that triggered so many more words that the whole memory of its utterance lies buried in your subconscious?

So, what exactly am I trying to say here? (Thanks for staying with me till here and trusting me to actually say something!). Here is my theory. I think that silences at the right times are way more powerful than words. And I am not talking only about quarrels/arguments with loved ones. Silences are mighty useful in a lot of other scenarios. Sample these:

a. When you cannot think of anything witty enough to say, silence, accompanied by a knowing smile is construed as depth of character (Experience speaks).

b. Silence in response to a person who is shouting his/her head off, is seen as a sign of emotional maturity and the speaker (shouter?!?) feels admonished without being told anything.

c. Maintaining silence when nasty comments are made about others in gossip sessions, ensures that you never have to eat back your words in the future.

d. Remaining silent when your manager badgers you and tries to force you to agree to do something that you don’t want to do, says NO louder than words do (after the first verbal ‘No’ of course - again this is from experience).

If you have to speak, here is what some great people have said about speech in general. And the last one is superb!

‘Iniya ulavaga innadha kooral kani iruppak kaai kavarndhatru’- Tiruvalluvarl in Tirukural

(Using harsh words when sweet words are available, is like seeking an unripe fruit when a ripe one is available).

‘Aisi baani biliye mann ka aapa khoy

Auran ko seetal karey, aapahu seetal hoi’ - Kabir

(Speak words that make the sorrows of the heart go away - Words that please others and please you too)

And on the power of the Unspoken word, by my favourite poet/lyricist Kannadasan :

‘Sollada sollukku vilayedum illai’ - from the song ‘Naan pesa ninaipathellam’

(The unspoken words are priceless)!!

All Hail the Unspoken Word!!

The (in)considerate Indian

2010-02-26T00:13:00.001-08:00

The lady looked very familiar. She smiled, and I smiled back, hoping she would not come and try to start the conversation! Not that I did not like her or anything, it was simply that I could not seem to remember her name. Thankfully, the person she was speaking to did not pause and I got out still trying to recollect.

She used to sit next to me when I was out of a project and waiting to leave to the US for the next assignment. She would tell me her troubles with her previous manager and the hurdles she was facing within the company in spite of being a good performer. I remembered all these things, but her name was still a mystery.

Two days later I found her talking to the next desk neighbour, with whom I exchanged smiles every morning, but had no idea of her name, designation etc. I then turned to my screen hoping she would not stop by to say Hi, to continue with my work (which in this case, refers to deep thought while looking at the laptop monitor, browsing random sites, checking mails and other ultra-important tasks). Luck, I learnt, does not favour the same person twice. She stopped at my desk and said Hi.

‘Hi, how are you? I thought you were in the US?’ I said.

‘I returned a few months back. You are Rathi, right? How are you?’, she said.

‘Great’ (conversations should always end here. Responding with a ‘Great’ with nothing else following usually hints at lack of topics or talent to sustain the small talk. Alas, not every body seems to know about this!!)

She showed no sign of moving away. So I asked her a few more questions about her, but not before confessing with a stupid-me-I-forgot grin (the ugliest possible one) that I could not recollect her name.

Then came the question (finally I am getting to the part which may justify the post title somewhat).

‘So are you married now?’ she asked.

‘No’ I said. Why give more information than asked for?

‘Oh!! You told me a few years back that you were not interested. You mean you have not yet changed your mind?!’ she asked.

‘No’ I said (reason mentioned above). I also gave my second ugly grin which meant that I considered these questions as invasion into my privacy, that I resented it but I was too polite to tell her.

‘So are you planning to go on site again?’ I asked. I thought I was gently trying to steer the conversation away from the topic.

‘I am looking for opportunities’ she said. But her eyes had taken on a strange light. And she was grinning at me in a stupid manner. It looked exactly like the look on my face when I saw Circus freaks doing something funny. (Let us leave the logic of how I would know how my face looked at that time for now).

She was still looking at me like I was a freak or something. And I was trying to look away, at my laptop, at the wall - anything to show that to me the conversation had ended.

She was made of sterner stuff.

Out of the blue, she asked ‘Don’t you feel lonely?’.

‘Please leave me alone’, I wanted to say. Instead I answered with my favourite response - ‘No’.

Since she did not respond, but kept giving me that are-you-real look with a stupid smile, I explained that I lived with my parents and obviously did not feel lonely.

I then asked her if she was married and if her husband had accompanied her to US. She said she was gone for a year and a half by herself since her husband had his own business here. Fancy asking me if I was lonely since I was single!!

I continued talking about my job and asked her a few questions about hers. And she responded with another weird question.

‘Do you do any social service etc. to keep yourselves engaged?’

I am really proud to say that even at this question and implicit suggestion that women remain single because they want to serve the society and mankind or because they have old invalid parents to take care of or because they are self-sacrificing martyrs, I managed to reign in my temper and answered politely that I hardly got time to get involved in any such thing on a regular basis.

Finally she took leave after making me promise to stay in touch (you wish!!) and send her emails, even if they were forwards. I am sure that had she had a camera with her, she would have clicked a few photos to show her friends about this new museum specimen.

Have you noticed how marriage is a favourite topic for Indians? That is one topic on which we do not mind showering our advice on friends, relatives and strangers alike. I think this trait is common among Indians than people of any other country. Some quick examples from my autobiography (which I intend to publish after I do something worthwhile besides write useless blog posts and browsing useless sites).

a. A friend who has no idea whether I am alive or dead and never bothers to find out till I call her once in a few years, when I am in the US, who thinks it is her duty as a friend who is older than me by a few months, how important it is that I should get married. I have repeatedly threatened to put the phone down and told her without mincing words that my life was my business.

b. A 50-60 year old Indian that I met in the Newark airport struck up a conversation (only because my mother was with me and she is extremely social). Within 5 min of getting introduced, he asked me if I was married and on hearing my response, thought it was ok to advise my mother to get me married off!

c. I had just returned from onsite once and my mother introduced me to our new maid-servant (about 50-60 years old). She looked at me critically and asked if I was the one who refused to marry and promptly told me that I was wrong and that I should change my mind.

d. A colleague I met at on-site during one of my visits started talking to me soon after he came to know that I was from Chennai. Within 5 minutes he wanted to know why I wasn’t married and whether it was because of love failure. He even offered to link me up with some of his weird friends who were still single!

e. The parents of a prospective bride for my brother had visited to check out the size of our house, our family etc a few years back. The mother supposedly asked my mother why I was not married and later checked with my relative if I suffered from any disease.

These are just examples that I could recollect. Numerous other relatives, friends (most irritating considering their age) and neighbours of the former groups jump in to give free advice on the evils of being single. The funny part is none of these people are even concerned how I live or what I do. Their duty will end with seeing people around them happily or otherwise married, and later bear children.

What is this fixation with others marriage and personal lives? I sometimes think that Indians as such, love to see single people married soon and married people bear children immediately after. We are born matchmakers and we concern ourselves with others’ problems more than our own.

Thankfully I am past the age where I find these people irritating. I am happy that at least for a few moments I am able to get them out of their humdrum lives by providing some entertainment (as a freak) and give them a feeling of being kind and responsible people who only want good things for single girls/women around them.

Some concerts..Some thoughts..

2009-12-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

The Chennai music season is almost here. Although it officially starts on December 15th, the first day of the tamil month Margazhi, the increasing number of performing artists and overwhelming public response, the music season of Chennai starts way earlier - by mid-November than in previous years.

Having resolved to attend at least 4-5 concerts this year and thereby make best use of being located in the musical hub of Chennai, I attended 4 concerts over 2 days last week at the Margazhi Mahotsavam series of concerts conducted by Jaya TV at Chettinad Vidyashram. I chose to attend these concerts because they were by my favourite artists - TM Krishna (on Friday) and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (on Saturday). Attending the other 2 concerts was purely incidental, since these concerts were held in the same hall before my favourite concerts and the only way I could get a seat was by attending the previous concerts as well.

Rather than dwell on the content of the concerts themselves, I thought I will jot down a few random thoughts that passed my mind while attending these concerts (In keeping with the Chennai tradition, hereafter in this post, I will be referring to all female strangers over 60 as maamis and the male strangers as maamas) :

Chennaiites are persevering and resilient especially when it comes to supporting arts. The long queue consisting mainly of people over 60 waiting outside the concert hall, to be let in 5 minutes before the start of the concert at 5 pm was proof of this fact. Most had been waiting for almost an hour to be let in.
Rules and Indians can not co-exist. Although the notice boards explicitly mentioned that outside food and drinks were not allowed, most had sneaked in biscuits, water etc to be consumed in between the first and second concert.
The other perfunctory instruction ‘Silence Please’ was also royally ignored. On day 2, the maami behind me was giving a running commentary of the ragas sung in the concert to the older maami next to her who seemed to have a minor hearing disability.
The Chennai concert hall audience takes great pleasure in identifying ragas and considers it a challenge to identify the ragam within the first 30 seconds of the song/alapana. So while I was silently battling between enjoying the beautiful alapana and identifying the name of the ragam which seemed to be eluding my mind, the others behind me were engaged in debating the ragam. Both of us struck gold at the same instant - Charukesi along with the songs I had heard and images of a bad dance in a movie (Ambika in Sri Raghavendra) flashed in my mind, while the person behind me enthusiastically yelled out Charukesi at the same time!! Needless to say, I was able to enjoy the rest of the alapana in peace!!
Curiosity is a very bad thing, especially when it disturbs people around you. The maami in the front seat on day 2, was one curious dame! She was restless every time somebody entered the hall especially near the VIP entrance. Her head bobbed up and down almost throughout the concert and obstructed my view repeatedly. However after a few songs, I found a position where I would gain an unobstructed and uninterrupted view of the stage (although this does not really matter in the concert).
People feel at home in concert halls. So while one maama one seat away from me on day 2, kept filling up the Sudoku grid while nodding his head to the music, the maami who sat next to me on day 1, made herself comfortable by folding her legs on the chair and enjoying the music.
Most people in the audience have no compunction in visibly displaying their enthusiasm over the concert. I found a few maamas literally swaying from side to side, while remaining seated and letting out appreciative ‘Aahas’ and ‘Sabhash’ when the performance was particularly delightful. This could also be because of the average age of the listeners. People probably become less uptight as they grow older.
People had come from other remote parts of Chennai, many after a long day’s work in the office and stayed till the end of the concerts. What, other than passion for music, could make them do that?
For someone attending a Carnatic music concert for the first time, the scene inside the concert hall may some times remind him/her of the scene in Sindhubhairavi where the entire audience clap to the talam. Apart from the singer and the violinist, most members of the audience were tapping their hands to the talam.
While the music was wonderful, the question and answer sessions with the main artists were delightful as well.
Both Krishna and Sanjay were brilliant, although their styles were completely different. Krishna spoke a lot about each song before commencing the song and the effort he had put in was very visible. Sanjay, on the other hand sang one krithi after the other and stopped only in the end for answering the questions. His effort at singing compositions of a composer who is not very famous were no less than Krishna’s but Sanjay underplayed it completely.
Criticism is easy, but the effort behind every concert is phenomenal. I simply could not get that out of my mind for the next few days (till this minute). If one concert requires so much preparation, imagine the effort required to sing in over 30-40 concerts over a period of 2 months, without repeating oneself, since the audience and critics are watching all the time!! Amazing isn’t it?
As always happens with me, I was elated with the experience of live concerts and depressed over my not learning music. Elation was more than the depression, though

Chennai Music Season absolutely rocks!!!

Meeting and Parting

2009-12-07T21:51:00.001-08:00

One of the unforeseen consequences of choosing to remain single is how you remain mommy’s little girl/boy all your life. This also means that more often than not, you are expected to accompany your parents to all weddings/betrothals/birth anniversaries/religious festival exclusively for ageing relatives to get together etc.

I usually do not mind these, for it almost always means free food (traditional and served on a banana leaf!) and a chance to observe a lot of different people from a distance. Also, the fact that I was forced to miss out on most weddings in the family, thanks to my job, makes me all the more expectant about attending these family functions, if not for anything else, at least to wear the glittery clothes which I can never wear to work. The obvious difficulties are questions from hyperactive elders on my life. However I have also learnt to overlook these minor inconveniences with the larger good (I do not mean the size of my tummy by that!!) in mind.

Now, as a few of you must have guessed, based on my previous posts, I am easily contented, especially when it comes to people. All I need to be happy in a crowd is to be left to myself. I do not get offended if I am not surrounded by admirers and well-wishers, nor do I mind if I am treated as another piece of furniture in social gatherings. However, some friendly souls insist on making me ‘comfortable’, no doubt with a noble intention. As a result, a few usually walk to where I sit with my mother, with an expression that is usually accepted as some kind of a smile (although my effort is to not look sullen) and introduce themselves.

Our first challenge starts here.

‘Do you recognize me? Tell me who I am?’ - Well, if you don’t know, who am I to tell you? - I usually tell myself, but give another expression and this time it is supposed to make people think that I am embarrassed, that I actually know the person, but simply cannot recollect. This too is expected and the person explains earnestly how one of my ancestors was related by marriage/blood to one of his/her ancestors. And every single time I admire them for their optimism. You would think that after all these years of introducing themselves to random relatives, they still hope that the listener will remember and recognize them the next time!!

Anyway, for a person who is as good as a stranger (although, you are supposed to know the person from his/her visit about 15-20 years ago, when you were just learning to walk!), the conversation cannot be endless, especially when the person is on the other end is a wonderful conversationalist like me. After asking after parents, siblings, work, location (are you visiting India or do you live here?) etc, the conversation slowly starts dawdling.

The next challenge - how do you get out of the place. This, I am proud to say, has not been a big problem with me, because of 2 reasons:

I usually do not move from my seat, so it is the other person who needs to find an escape route!
My conversational skills are anyway non-existent and I do not usually have a problem with silences in conversations.

However, there are occasions when I have had to go around and greet people (usually older than me) as a mark of respect and to prove that I am not a snob (this is very important and required with relatives, since I am expected to misbehave as a result of a high-paying job and foreign trips). And every single time, while starting a conversation is simple, since there is a template for it - Questions on the person, his/her health, his/her children/grandchildren etc. - there is no easy way to end the conversation and move away. And then the conversation comes to a grinding halt.

From here on, the following usually happen:

I look away, he/she looks away. I hope to catch the eye of some other cousin and pretend he/she is calling out to me. I then excuse myself saying I am needed elsewhere.
I hope someone, anyone in the vicinity asks for water and offer to get it for them and leave the place.
I suddenly look into my purse and pretend to suddenly remember that I was supposed to give my mother something. I then request to be excused for 2 min.
I pray hard for my mobile to ring (and it never ever does when I need it to!!)

To me, this parting is the biggest issue I have with meeting people. Nothing emotional or sentimental, mind you. I admit I am socially challenged (a euphemistic term I have coined for myself, others simply say I am unfriendly) and that is probably why something as simple as ending a conversation seems such a big deal to me. Like M.Night Shyamalan showed us with ‘Unbreakable’, I am assuming that for every person like me, there must be an antithesis - a person who thinks these are not issues worth writing a post over. And it is to these kind hearts that I direct my request towards.

How do you say goodbye or end a conversation? I would prefer it if you can give me a sequence of steps to be followed rather than simply dismissing my plea for help as frivolous!

Funny Minister!

2009-11-26T03:45:00.002-08:00

Politics is not funny - not for those involved nor for those who watch! Politics is ugly, a drain, a necessary evil - the descriptions are endless.

Why then, is political satire so wonderful? Unlike other popular subjects of humour, the popularity of a political satire is directly proportional to the amount of truth in it! The closer it is to reality, the more it makes you laugh!!

My earliest memory of political satire (at least the kind I understood) is cartoon strips by a writer called Satya, in the tamil political magazine ‘Thuglak’. It probably helped Satya, that the editor of the magazine - Cho Ramaswamy, is the king of political satire himself!!

But popular media like movies and rarely TV serials approached politics with seriousness. Politicians were usually portrayed as callous and corrupt men, whose job descriptions included lying, smooth-talking, leering at women in general, raping the hero’s sister (who existed in the movie solely for this) and after having sufficient fun, dying a violent death at the hands of the hero of the movie.

TV serials were even worse. In the days of DD, almost no serial touched upon politics or politicians. Even the daily news was sanitized and doubled up as Travel and Living channel, showing the PM’s latest visit to a foreign country.

I remember that my father used to watch this series called ‘Yes Minister’ late at night (or it was probably 9 or 10 pm, which, at that time was late night to me). My father would keep smiling throughout the episode and the laugh track would play to provide important cues. I was really young and loved showing off my intelligence. But although I tried really hard, I simply could not:

a. Read large books without pictures.

b. Understand a word of ‘Yes Minister’ or ‘Bodyline’.

Later a hindi version of the series also played on TV, called Ji Mantriji. It was then I realized that the issue was not only with the language but also the content. I gave up trying to watch the series and concentrated on the simpler ones.

After more than 2 decades, my cousin mentioned Yes Minister in passing. I was abroad with access to all types of American and British sitcoms. During these years, I had also become a fanatic follower of PG Wodehouse and fallen head-over-heels in love with the works of other British writers like Douglas Adams. I realized that the time had at last come to watch one of the most beloved series of Britain. I finally got the DVDs from Netflix, but could still not watch them then, for (wo)man only proposes, it is God who disposes!! I later watched the series months later. And this time, I was on a roll. I managed to finish all the 3 seasons.

Yes Minister is a series about the newly appointed cabinet minister for the Department of Administrative Affairs (DAA)- a fictional department, Jim Hacker and his daily struggle to carry out his responsibilities against the face of opposition (usually) from the Permanent Secretary - Humphrey Appleby. Stuck between the two is Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley whose loyalty towards the minister is often in conflict with the need to grow in his career of a civil servant.

Throughout the series, Appleby instructs Bernard on the duties of a minister and that of a civil servant. He strongly believes that most ministers effectively govern for 2 years. The first year and a half is spent by the minister in getting a grip on running the government and in coming to terms with the appalling state of the economy (which is hidden from the public and the opposition). The last year and a half is to ensure that status quo is maintained, since getting re-elected and not public welfare is the priority. Effectively the remaining 2 years are the only ones where ministers can govern.

The civil servants on the other hand, are the ones that actually run the government, since they are permanent. Ministers exist to create policies and civil servants are the ones to execute them.

The great things about the series are too many to be written in a paragraph (also, I tend to digress and ramble more when I write in paragraphs!!), so here is my MS-Powerpoint experience at play:

a. Top-notch performances by the lead actors - Paul Eddigton as the well-meaning but confused, publicity loving Hacker suits the role perfectly. (Sir) Nigel Hawthorne as Humphrey Appleby is an absolute delight to watch and hear. The richness of his English and his six-sigma diction is like a breath of fresh air - it is like after listening to non-stop ‘hits’ of Kumar Sanu, you suddenly hear a song in Mohd. Rafi’s inimitable honey-soaked voice!! It is like a feast after a famine!! Let me stop here before my comparisons get more cheesy!! Derek Fowlds as Bernard Woolley is superb and his role is more difficult than those of Hacker and Appleby, since he speaks very little. But when he does, it is so funny that you tend to remember the lines long after the episode ends.

b. Dialogues - What can I say about the dialogues? Terms like razor-sharp, witty, funny etc., seem so trite compared to the awesomeness of the lines. Each of the principal characters has a distinct style of speaking and the writing reflects that wonderfully. (I need to keep a tab on the number of ‘wonderful’s and ‘awesome’s in this post!!). Hacker is a graduate of economics but is notorious for mixing metaphors. The funniest lines occur when Bernard takes a worried Hacker’s mixed metaphors literally and provides explanations on why they cannot be right.

(*Hacker - You have sent me into a typhoon without an umbrella!

Bernard - An umbrella is no use in a wind..

Hacker - Shut up Bernard !!

* Hacker - “Now, listen. I want you to go through the Whip’s office to get to the backbenchers and to the central house, to put a stop to this thing before it starts.”

Bernard Woolley: “I’m awfully sorry to quibble again minister, but you can’t actually stop something before it starts.” (from the episode The Writing on the Wall))

Appleby’s language is aimed at confusing Hacker (not that it is very difficult). His language is circuitous, flowery and usually meaningless. As a rule, he truthfully (mostly) answers Hacker’s questions, and Hacker can get true information, if he asks the right questions!!

The fun here stems from the difference in the way Hacker and Appleby speak - some quotes:

*Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, I have something to say to you which you may not like to hear.

James Hacker: Why should today be any different?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, the traditional allocation of executive responsibilities has always been so determined as to liberate the ministerial incumbent from the administrative minutiae by devolving the managerial functions to those whose experience and qualifications have better formed them for the performance of such humble offices, thereby releasing their political overlords for the more onerous duties and profound deliberations which are the inevitable concomitant of their exalted position.

James Hacker: I wonder what made you think I didn’t want to hear that?
* Jim: Who else is in this department?

Sir Humphrey: Well briefly sir I am the Permanent Undersecretary of State known as the Permanent Secretary, Wooley here is your Principle Private Secretary I too have a Principle Private Secretary, and he is the Principle Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary, directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Undersecretaries and two hundred and nineteen assistant secretaries, directly responsible to the Principle Private Secretaries are Plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Undersecretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Jim: Can they all type?

Sir Humphrey: None of us can type Minister, Mrs McKay types, she’s the secretary.

c. Plot - Every episode is complete in itself and can be viewed separately. Most of the episodes end with usually Appleby saying ‘Yes Minister’, smugly or grudgingly depending on whether he succeeds in having his way or has to accede defeat to Hacker (rare, but happens in a few instances).

I am now looking forward to watching ‘Yes Prime Minister’ next, where Jim Hacker becomes the PM and Humphrey Appleby is elevated in ranks to Cabinet Secretary.The then PM of Britain, Margaret Thatcher was supposedly a big fan of the series. The series was enjoyed by both the public and the politicians. Funnily enough both parties (Labour and Conservative) thought the joke was on the other party although the authors Sir Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lyn were careful not to mention or point to any party specifically!!

After enjoying the series immensely, I chanced upon the book version of the series and now am reading the book. Unlike the TV series, the book is presented as excerpts from Jim Hacker’s diary. Interspersed are memos of Humphrey Appleby (which like all good civil servants, are always written on the margins of a paper, even if the paper is empty) and supposed interviews with Bernard Woolley later. This obviously makes the book funnier in some ways. The TV series depended on the actors abilities (well-placed, I have to admit) to elevate it to a different level altogether, while the book allows for a lot of interjections and comments by the authors and other assorted characters (much like my comments such as this one!). I am mid-way through the book and I thought I owed some explanation to my bursting out laughing during lunch at my desk, although most of you reading this would not have noticed it !!

Note: Some of the quotes were from one of the following sources:

www.somaliaonline.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/6/13223

www.uta.fi/FAST/BIE/BI1/khyesmin.html

www.yes-minister.com/ymseas2b.htm

What you leave behind..

2009-11-26T03:45:00.001-08:00

My mother tells me often, that her Chemistry Lab Assistant in college, would frequently tell her (my mother) that her workplace in the lab was an indication of how her kitchen would look.

Coming to think of it, the condition of a place after a person has left it is a better indicator of the person than when she/he was resident there. As many mystery novelists will tell you, many criminals gain important information about you by going over what you leave behind inside the ATM room than by what you keep in your purse. Police world-over have discovered important clues from the scene of crime because the perpetrator of a crime supposedly leaves behind something about himself almost always.

Forget such grand things. I recently moved to my new space in a new office that is closer to the city than the previous one. I picked one of the deserted places and moved in. Well, partially moved in, because the draws here are still full of papers, including wedding invitations dating back to 2005 and 2003. It is possible that the junk does not entirely belong to the previous occupant, but is a legacy passed on over generations.

As a result of the junk, my belongings are still in my car although it has been more than 3 months since I moved in. I have not yet had the heart or inclination to clean up the junk or to throw away the papers, since somewhere deep inside, I am worried that these papers may mean a lot to someone else (plus I hate cleaning in general and cleaning others mess in particular!!).

Interestingly I am faced with a similar situation at home. After a short spell at a different locality with my brother and his wife, we have moved back to our old home. Our last tenant has vacated the house, on paper. But the remains of his life here stare at us from every corner of the house - from the poster of Mickey Mouse, to the rusted flower-vase on the stair-case, from the completely ignored and extremely dirty balcony (which he and his family never entered in the entire 1.5 years!!), to two boxes full of junk (to us) and a gas stove on the loft. As if these were not enough, he has also left behind the broken front portion of the car in the parking slot, where it serves as a threat to my car every day. His cupboards and study table had decorated the shared parking lot till last week.

When I first vacated a house in the US, I left behind some old furniture, simply because I did not know at that time, what to do with them. I thought I was doing a favour to the house owner - not only was I vacating his apartment, I was leaving free stuff for him !! The house-owner obviously did not think so!! As a result, my initial deposit was never returned, since moving the furniture out was considered part of the cleaning expenses.

Now, thinking about the drawer full of junk papers and the stuff we had in our house till a week back, I understand what a frustrating experience it must have been for the next occupant to find my stuff lying in the apartment. What may be memories to me, are just garbage to him! I know what I think about the tenant and the previous occupant(s) of the seat at workplace and I really do not want anyone to think the same about me!!

Entering a kitchen which resembles a town ravaged by a hurricane (yes, I have seen one!!), thanks to the previous cook, with all the jars of salt, pepper, chilli powder, the lighter, multiple plates, ladles and pans etc on the kitchen-counter turns me off completely. As a result, I strictly follow a simple rule - replace something immediately after use (it is also because I have zero trust on my memory to do it later!!).

Extending it to the workplace, a clean table gives a good impression to the others. A clean drawer is not only an indicator of an organized mind, but also shows that you are considerate. I am not known as the most organized or cleanliness conscious person in the world. But I frequently check my drawers to check the papers that I have accumulated so far and throw away most of them. This practice is more to make place for really important things than to keep the place clean. This also helps when you have to move to a different location, as you do not have to clean up the desk again, since everything is important.

So, leave behind good memories if possible. Take the other things with you or throw them in the trash before leaving. Do this as a favour and the next occupant’s blessings will be with you!

Bizarre is Funny!!

2009-11-26T03:44:00.001-08:00

Now all of you- Ok, Most of you- Forget it, some of you know how I love funny stuff; about how I rave about PG Wodehouse, Kalki, Devan, Douglas Adams and Sujatha.

I envy these people who can make others laugh. It is the MOST difficult thing in life, don’t you think? With entertainment overload, two things have become very difficult for creators of any kind:

a. Scaring People - Fiction has almost lost all its ability to evoke fear these days for reality is scarier almost all the time!

b. Making people laugh - Now there are channels dedicated to comedy, but people are just weary. They watch it like they watch news. Forget making you laugh, many of the funny sequences don’t even make you smile!!

There was a time when a clown could make people laugh merely by slipping on a banana peel. Then talkies came and comedians spoke smart dialogues to make people laugh. Later one guy started hitting another and people laughed and after that one guy constantly got hit by others and people laughed. It takes a different kind of genius to make people laugh (and it requires a little less ego on my part to actually laugh at a joke )!!

Different things make us laugh at different times. One thing that made us laugh when we were kids seems extremely annoying when we turn into adults (and I am assuming this happens sooner or later in all our lives, although for some later than some others !!). On the contrary, some things that seemed pointless or sometimes even sad, may make you laugh a few years then on.

Bizarre and weird stuff may make us wonder, or may scare us, but very rarely they are also funny. Of late, I see myself drawn more and more to such twisted humour. Here are 3 such movies, where the bizarre situations make you laugh in spite of yourself.

a. Arsenic and Old Lace -

For a lot of us, who have always associated death/murder/torture etc with gloom (which it actually is!!), a movie where they are used to comic effect is actually a pleasant surprise. I am not talking about movies/books, where the situation is sad or gory and one takes pleasure in that, for that would only mean the person is some kind of a sadist.

The 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace is a good example. This stars my other favourite hero of B&W English Movies - Cary Grant (the first one being James Stewart). Remarkably handsome, Cary Grant was great in comedy too. He, like John Cleese, was wonderfully funny with his facial contortions and physical humour.

Arsenic and Old Lace is the story of Mortimer Brewster and his two ’sweet’ aunts Abby and Martha. Mortimer, a chronic bachelor, finally falls in love and gets married to Elaine Harper, his neighbour. Mortimer and Elaine return home to get ready for their honeymoon to Niagara. While visiting his aunts he finds a corpse and thinks his crazy brother Teddy (who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt) is responsible. He tells his aunts that his brother must be hospitalized before he kills more people. The women explain to him that they and not Teddy were responsible for the murder. In fact they consider the murder an act of charity towards the elderly and lonely gentleman! They go on to reveal that they have already murdered 12 other lonely people by poisoning their wine with arsenic and a few other poisons!! All the corpses have been buried in the basement, where Teddy thinks he is digging the ‘Panama Canal’. Matters are further complicated when Mortimer’s long lost brother - the cruel murderer Jonathan and his accomplice arrive at the house to dump their latest murder victim.

If you thought the plot sounded more like that of a murder mystery or a slasher flick, you need to definitely watch the movie. It is a laugh riot from start to finish!! The aunts are adorable and the Teddy character is insanely funny! All actors seem to have realized that they are a part of a madcap comedy and have shed all inhibitions and are happily crazy - a must for any comedy movie)!!

b. Ek Chalis ki last local - This is a 2007 Hindi film. This is one of the best dark comedies to have been made in Bollywood (a long long time after Kundan Shah’s brilliant Jaane bhi do yaaro)!! This movie once again proves that Abhay Deol is one of the most dependable actors in Hindi cinema. Say what you want about his acting skills etc, his choice of roles is simply superb and unmatched. Look at his list so far and you will find that every movie is unique!! Neha Dhupia is a mystery woman in Hindi cinema. She is not beautiful, she cannot act much, but she features in most of the offbeat movies in Hindi cinema!

Ek Chalis ki last local, is the story of Nilesh, a call center executive, who misses that last local train (at, what else, 1:40 am) and has to while his time away till the first train in the morning. He meets Madhu (Neha Dhupia) who has also missed the train and both decide to loiter around till dawn. The people they meet, the experiences they undergo form the rest of the story. Trust me, it is very hard to describe the story as it is a series of incidents and every time you think you have figured out what is going to happen next, you are thrown a surprise twist!! If your mind is as twisted as mine, you are likely to enjoy this movie!!

c. No Smoking - Well, how do I even begin to describe this movie! This 2007 movie by Anurag Kashyap cannot be explained at all. Many film-buffs read a lot of philosophy in the movie. People found subtexts for each scene. The news about the movie, more than the movie itself created so much hype, that I was a little intimidated by it all.

I am known for being a complete knucklehead when it comes to ‘intellectual’ movies. My rants against unintelligible pseudo-intellectual climax-less french movies are well known (among a couple of cousins!). But a cousin who knew something about me recommended this movie. Added to this motivation was the fact that I had watched AK’s Black Friday and thought it was simply brilliant. If a moviemaker could turn a facts based book on the Mumbai riots into a gripping movie, it surely meant he had a lot of promise!!

As I started watching No Smoking, I decided to clear my mind from all preconceived notions about the movie and its stars. Frankly I am not a fan of John Abraham - for his looks or his ‘acting’ talent!! I thoroughly enjoyed the movie!! Seriously, I had initially thought (from the title) that the movie was about the evils of smoking but the movie took me by surprise of the pleasant variety!! I could almost visualize AK convincing the producers about the ‘moral’ of the movie, all the while laughing evilly to himself!! I even remember the interviews by John Abraham prior to the release of the movie - how the story impressed him and how it was ‘not preachy’ but still had a moral!! Who knows what he understood of the story when it was narrated to him!! Maybe he understood it all and he was part of the con or maybe he didn’t understand anything and simply surrendered to the director’s will!!

The end of the movie was a little confusing, but overall the movie was very engaging and funny. If I tell you the parts I found funny, you may recommend a psychiatrist for me! Seriously the fact that one of the punishments for smoking include cutting off the person’s finger. If that sounds cruel on paper, you have to see it on screen!! Ranvir Shourey, that superbly spontaneous actor plays Abbas Tyrewala and there is a B&W sequence (titled ‘Kyon ki bachpan bhi kabhi naughty tha’) involving John and Ranvir, supposedly in their teen-age, that is wickedly funny!

Much as I try to describe how much these movies made me laugh, it is difficult to express it all in words. Try watching them and don’t blame me, if you don’t like them, because I warned you, somewhere in the post, that my mind is growing more and more twisted these days!!

Who do you respect more?

2009-10-22T05:32:00.001-07:00

How many of the below statements can you relate to?

a. A person I know, once commented that since my mom was a home-maker, she was in all probabilities addicted to daily-soaps and did nothing ‘useful’. (Fact: No soaps except the ones that produce bubbles, in our home.)

b. Another person I know, is quick to dismiss opinions/suggestions offered by her mother-in-law - a homemaker, on issues like health, diet, finance etc. She prefers to ask her trusted circle consisting of working women for opinions.

c. My male relatives/friends, speak to me about ’serious’ things like the economy, bank interest rates etc rather than my mother. However, if my brother or dad is around, they prefer to speak to him.

d. A friend, I know, would chat endlessly with me on trivial topics, but she used to shrug off any opinions I offered on any topic and would agree only to what her friends/relatives, who were chartered accountants said on the topic. These topics ranged from the recipe for fried rice to whether a barometer measured temperature or pressure.

e. A person I know, who uses the term sophistication at least once a day, embarrassed me in public one day, asking me point-blank what I earned!

f. All of us at home, tend to talk down to my mother once in a while. Our tone becomes patronizing and we brush away any opinion she offers on work related stuff.

Why am I talking about some seemingly unrelated stuff?

Have you ever noticed how, that for all the education we have and the work experience we have, many of us mentally rank people and speak to them accordingly? We have already made up our minds on the superiority or inferiority of the comments from people from each rank and have, in many instances, dismissed away a response even before it leaves the mouth of the speaker.

The ranking would probably look like this:

Working men - with a professional degree (like Doctors/Engineers/Chartered Accountants etc)
Working men - Other professionals (Banks/IT etc)
Men who do not work (Educated)
Working women - with a professional degree (like Doctors/Engineers/Chartered Accountants etc)
Working women - others
Women - Homemakers - College educated/English speaking
Men who do not work (Uneducated)
Women-Homemakers - Non-English speaking/Uneducated

I am not saying that we do it consciously, out of a superiority complex or any such thing. This classifications happens at the sub-conscious level and you can notice it in the slight straightening of the back, craning of the neck, frequent glances at the listener expecting acknowledgment/approval by the speaker. The degrees of straightening/craning and frequency of glancing changes with the rank of the listener. I have seen the same speaker turn oblivious to my mother’s presence once I enter the conversation and later ignore me completely once my father and later brother start talking!!

Somewhere deep inside, we still associate education with class and sophistication. Not just education, we pay more attention to who is saying something rather that what is being said. Even men, who do not insist that their spouses work, tend to speak and listen with more respect to working women than their home-maker wives.

Having had the luxury of a home-maker for a mother, a science graduate, I have, with age understood and admired the degree of intelligence she displays right from planning for the month’s groceries, to handling guests, from packing my bags to accommodate enough grocery to last for my entire on-site stay, while still not exceeding airline baggage norms, to designing my clothes based on what she sees others wearing during that season, from theorizing how Dashavataram (not the movie) relates to Darwin’s theory to studiously noting down new recipes from the TV.

I have grown up seeing my father-a science graduate, learn more and more about computers and financial investments all by himself, so much that today, a few neighbours approach him for free advice on investment decisions.

I live in awe of my 82 year old aunt, who was married off at the tender age of 14 and who taught herself English, Hindi and Carnatic music, in spite of an oppressive atmosphere at her husband’s house, and who to this day, reads the entire newspaper from start to finish.

I see so many other people around me, who may not have gone to college or school, who may not have worked in an office, but are great in their own ways and I realize that class and sophistication are just words that mean nothing. True class has nothing to do with education or wealth or occupation. It is something deeper, something you are probably born with and something that cannot be taught in any school or college!

What a Wonderful life !!

2009-10-22T03:13:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered why you were born?

Ever been so frustrated in life, that all you wanted to do, was to drop everything and hide yourself from the world?

Ever felt so depressed, that you hoped that the past few years in your life never happened?

Ever wished you could go back in time and change every single action in your life?

The hero of the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ - George Bailey, feels all the above and more. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, you are told that George Bailey is contemplating suicide. What follows for the next 2 hours is a story of hope and eternal optimism.

‘It’s a Wonderful life’, - a 1946 film by Frank Capra, is one of my all-time favourites. In fact, I love the movie so much that I watch it at least once a year. More often than not, I cite the reason that I am introducing the movie to someone else. Two days back, it was my sister, who was my excuse to watch this awesome movie again. It stars one of my beloved actors of B&W English cinema - James Stewart (the other being Cary Grant).

The movie is some sort of fantasy, but apart from a pudgy looking ‘angel’, without wings, you may not find any other fantastic creatures!

The story is deceptively simple. George Bailey, our hero is on the verge of jumping into the river. God (yes, you read it right), summons one of his angels - Clarence AS2 (Angel Second Class) and gives him the responsibility of saving George. He also briefs Clarence about George’s life so far and the events that have led him to consider suicide.

The flashback sequence (as narrated by God) starts with George with his brother Harry and a few more boys, playing with a sled in the snow. By accident, Harry skids and falls inside the cracked ice pond and George does not think twice before saving him. Harry is saved but George falls ill and loses his hearing on one ear.

He later works for a pharmacist and one day, when the pharmacist receives a telegram on his young son’s death, saves the pharmacist from a grave mistake.

Young George grows up to become James Stewart, a young man, who dreams of leaving Bedford Falls, the town he grows up in. He dreams of traveling to different parts of the world, but circumstances force him to stay. George’s father who has been running the ‘Building and Loan’ company, is frequently threatened by the local bigwig Potter. Potter already owns most businesses in Bedford Falls and is irritated with George’s father for giving loans to the poor in the town to build their homes instead of renting apartments from Potter.

Time moves on - George gets married to his childhood sweetheart Mary, his brother goes to college and returns with a wife. George’s chance leave Bedford Falls increasingly becomes remote, especially after his father dies. George has children and is loved by the townspeople for his good nature. He is stuck with his father’s company.

One day, due to cruel twist of fate, George’s uncle loses the money that he was supposed to deposit in the bank, during a chance encounter with Potter inside the bank. The bank’s examiner and federal officials (called by Potter) reach George’s house assuming he has swindled people’s money. George is crestfallen and reaches out to Potter for help. Potter dismisses him off saying that the only thing that George has as collateral - his insurance policy, is worth nothing till he is alive.

George decides to commit suicide and it is at this point that Clarence comes into the picture (pun unintended!!). Clarence jumps inside the water instead and cries for help and George jumps in to save him. Later when both of them wait inside a cabin for the clothes to dry, Clarence tells him that he is an angel and that he had been sent by God to ensure that George does not throw away God’s greatest gift to him - his life. George, obviously thinks Clarence is crazy and refuses to believe him. He mocks him and asks him if Clarence can lend him the 8000 USD to save him instead. Clarence responds saying that they did not use money ‘up there’ and George answers with a smirk ‘I thought so. Well, it comes pretty handy down here!!’.

George then says bitterly that he wishes he had never been born and Clarence grants him that wish. George then gets a chance to see the lives of his family and friends without him in their lives. Harry dies in the accident, their mother becomes a bitter woman, their house becomes a lodge, his friend Violet becomes a prostitute, his wife turns to an old maid with no one to love her and the town is fully owned by Potter and is called Pottersville. George realizes his mistake and begs Clarence to take back his wish.

He rushes back home, happy to be alive. Meanwhile his wife, who has found out about the trouble, has already approached George’s friends, customers, neighbours etc. While the policemen wait to arrest George, the whole town walks in for the Christmas party and everybody contributes some money to bail George out. Seeing the amount of goodwill and love George has in the town, even the bank examiner and the policemen contribute! Clarence wins his wings due to the success of his mission.

Performances are uniformly good. James Stewart manages to look youthful and carefree in the first half of the movie and slowly transforms to the disappointed family man, with 4 kids, caught in the drudgery of a thankless business. Donna Reed as Mary Bailey is the sunshine of George’s life. It seems so believable that with love, even deserted mansions can be transformed to love and for all the beauty and fragility of Mary, you can easily see that she runs the house and keeps George motivated by being a pillar of strength.

If the movie belonged to an actor, I think that would be Lionel Barrymore, who plays Henry F Potter (not related to Harry Potter!!). Potter is one of the most interesting villain characters to be ever written. At the time I am writing this post, Potter ranks 6th in the list of Top 50 villains. Potter is greedy and nasty. His smile is enough to convince you that he is a fox in the garb of a man. All credit goes to Lionel Barrymore for portraying this character wonderfully.

It is very surprising but the movie was supposedly a failure when it released. Over the years, ‘It’s a Wonderful life’ has become a cult classic and a Christmas time favourite even after more than 60 years of its release!! And that says a lot about the movie!! Frank Capra is known for making feel-good movies with a message and most of them have been remade in many languages. Among his other movies are ‘It happened one night’ (copied by the original DVD ripper - Mahesh Bhatt, as ‘Dil Hai ki Manta Nahi’), ‘You can’t take it with you’, ‘Mr Smith goes to Washington’ (again starring a wonderfully naive James Stewart) etc.

In life and in movies, I prefer the approach that all people are basically good at heart and would not willfully cause harm to others. In the movie, apart from Potter’s character, which seems irredeemable, all the other characters are basically good at heart. Situations may make them mean or rude, but in their hearts they mean no harm.

Agreed, the message is obvious and the story not too realistic, but the strange thing is, every single time I watch this movie, I choke with emotion during the climax sequence, although I know exactly how George Bailey will be saved (Interestingly, my sister said there were tears in her eyes too during this sequence, so I am not weird!!). With so much negativity surrounding us in the form of news and entertainment, movies like ‘It’s a Wonderful life’ somehow reinforces my faith in mankind and makes me believe that, in spite of what media would like me to believe, there are more good people in the world than bad and that all good deeds always pay off!

Arrested Development

2009-10-22T03:12:00.000-07:00

How do you describe a series like ‘Arrested Development’? Words like ‘Funny’, ‘Rib-tickling’, ‘Smart’ etc seem so inadequate!!

I was getting restless after watching dark, brooding movies and comedies like Seinfeld and Everybody loves Raymond over and over again. I needed something different - something like, well, like nothing I had seen till then!! Something, that could make me marvel at the creator’s intelligence, something that would make me go ‘Wow’! My cousin mentioned about the series a couple of times. He told me it was one of the best series he had ever seen, that it was very funny etc. Although he owned the DVDs, I never felt like watching it.

One weekend, he brought the DVDs along to my place and I told myself that I would watch one episode. In the end I had watched a third of the first season (about 6 episodes) back to back, non-stop and I didn’t want it to stop, although my cousin and his wife were getting groggy!

Thus began my love affair with the series, which I think is the best I have seen in my life. Unlike other popular comedy sitcoms that are episodic, this was a series that revolved around a single story thread. I had not seen any of the actors’ performances before (except maybe that of Jason Bateman in Juno) and I was blown over by the performances. I spotted many of them in movies later though.

The story is about the Bluth family, a wealthy dysfunctional family, that is made up some colourful and really dark characters like George Bluth Sr, his wife Lucille, sons Gob Bluth, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), Buster Bluth and grandson George Michael Jr. Add to this daughter Lindsay Funke, her husband Tobias Funke and daughter Maeby, and you get one of the funniest and weirdest family in TV history.

What sets the series apart from other sitcoms is not one but many things. The narrative, for instance, is documentary style, with an unseen narrator, offering insights into what the characters say and think throughout the series. The use of hand held camera gives the serial a realistic and interesting look. Acting is top-notch, but what rules is the script. For a comedy, the script is unbelievably intelligent and brilliantly layered. Like wine (or so they say), Arrested Development gets better with time and with every watch. The only movie that I remember having a similar effect is ‘Michael Madana KamaRajan, because I used to discover a new joke with every watch. But while the jokes in the movie were due to the constantly flowing dialogues, Arrested Development works at multiple levels. Several sequences in previous episodes make more sense in later episodes.

The writer Mitchell Hurwitz is nothing short of a genius. As I have said before, it is very very difficult to write 2 genres - Comedy and Thrillers. As we get more and more exposed to movies, books etc from all over the world, the overdose of entertainment makes us more impervious to comedy and the daily newspapers and news footages of murders and carnage have made us immune to bloodshed and thrillers. Writers have to struggle to scare readers and struggle harder to make them laugh. And that is why, a series like Arrested Development, makes me spellbound, by the sheer power of writing behind it.

Sadly, for all its merits, the series had to be ended abruptly in the 3rd season of its run. For all the awards and critical acclaim it garnered, Arrested Development did not get the magical numbers right in the ratings. Today the series is a big hit on DVD and has a cult following (with me being the head of the India chapter!!).

I own very few original DVDs and almost none of them are of TV series. But with one watch of Arrested Development, I ordered the series online and consider it a treasure that can be and will be revisited over and over again.

Some uber cool movies..

2009-10-22T03:11:00.000-07:00

As I start writing this, I am silently hoping that the post is not very long. It is not my intent to give a comprehensive list of all cool movies, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation to list out a few that I watched in the last 2-3 weeks.

a. Sankat City (Hindi) - An extremely intelligent and wacky comedy. I kept thinking throughout the movie and later - Just how could anyone think of a plot so circuitous and still manage to keep the movie engaging and entertaining !! One of the better comedies (unlike those churned out by the Ekta Kapoor factory or the unintentionally funny ‘ghost/Nisha Kothari’ movies by RGV). The characters were wonderfully over the top and acting was top-notch!!

b. Alibaba (Tamil) - Now, I would never have thought I would enjoy a tamil movie, made by some obscure guy and featuring 2 new faces who don’t even look all that good - especially if it was touted as ‘India tholaikaatchigalil mudhal murayaga’ (for the first time on Indian Television!!). But this was one of the rare finds that don’t make it big and still have a catchy story line. My only complaint was that the hero looked and acted really bad! But for a direct-to-TV movie (I am just guessing), this was a pretty interesting thriller, except for the usual climax with a lot of senseless ‘dishoom-dishoom’.

c. Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French) - I should really dedicate a separate post for this one. This is the film-adaptation of a french novel of the same name (Le scaphandre et le papillon) and is the awe-inspiring story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, former editor-in-chief of the ‘Elle’ magazine, who as a result of a massive stroke, suffers from a locked-in syndrome, where he can only move a single eyelid. Bauby narrated the entire book in this condition to his transcriber by blinking his eyelid!! The story is wonderful enough, what makes the movie even better is the way it is filmed. Right from the start, we see people around as Bauby would have seen them. I loved a particular sequence where Bauby’s estranged wife comes to meet with him and talks to him and his eyes mist over. You can feel it because the shot of the wife’s face becomes hazy too!! A brilliant movie!!

d. 99 (Hindi) - This was on my list from the time the movie released. Frankly I had not expected it to be as good as it was. The cast comprises of Kunal Khemu, Cyrus Broacha, Soha boring Ali Khan and the amazing Boman Irani. A very interesting script and pretty sharp dialogues made this a very good watch.

e. Kaminey (Hindi) - What do I say that the media has not already said before? Forget performances, the script rocks. Of all the actors, I thought Amol Gupte playing Bhope was just so very cool !! The movie, reminded me a lot of Guy Ritchie’s ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking barrels’ mainly because of the similarity in style and multiple tracks running in parallel. It absolutely rocked!! I simply loved the sequence between Bhope and Mikhail where they keep pretending to shoot each other - it was so surreal and filled with tension. You know both of them are maniacs and you know something is going to go terribly wrong - a brilliant brilliant sequence.

This seems like a great year for Hindi movies. Some really offbeat movies are being made. I hope, for my own sake, that the trend continues!! Meanwhile I still have Quick Gun Murugan, Achamundu Achamundu, Eeram, Sinthanai Sei and a few others lined up!!

And for those, who, like me, cannot stand Yashraj movies, this review is a delight!!

The land of the Merlion

2009-09-07T23:21:00.000-07:00

It had been a really long time since I had had an actual vacation. You know the kind, where you don’t think about work, just laze around, visit some places when you feel like it. No pressure of schedules, missing the train etc. I decided to take mine, which was long overdue, some time in the third week of August. The target location was Singapore, where my sister and family had now moved. My biggest draw there was my niece who is now almost two.

Tickets were pretty cheap, thanks to the Swine flu scare and my father and I boarded the Tiger Airway’s flight on Janmashtami (thus ensuring that all sweets and savouries were packed for my sister). The aircraft that we flew by can actually be called an Airbus, for it was nothing but a bus that could fly. The only thing they did not do, was let additional passengers stand in the passage-way. But then, they did mention on their website that theirs was a low-cost airline (i.e., uncomfortable). Thankfully the flight was only 4 hours long and the torture ended soon. Like good Indian passengers, my dad and I waited for exactly 2 minutes after the take-off and promptly opened our packed dinners (it was almost 11:30 pm IST then, but then when you have a responsibility at hand, who cares about the time?). With our handkerchief’s doubling as masks (cheaper than the 300 bucks one and just as ineffective!!), we tried to make ourselves less uncomfortable.

My boss and a lot of others here had told me how strict the checks were at the Sg airport and had warned me that getting out of the airport would take longer than usual because of the thermal scanning process that had been put into place. But all the warnings were unnecessary. The government of Sg strongly believes that people coming by budget airlines did not deserve to be checked for flu etc and that using a thermal scanning machine on these people was a waste of time (Tiger airways was definitely not going to pay for it!!), so we got out fairly soon. Singapore welcomed us in tamizh, (Tamizh being one of the official languages of the country), the weather was sultry (just like Chennai) and we felt at home immediately.

My sister had been given expert instructions to blend in with the general public and one of the lessons she had received was to call cab drivers ‘uncle’. So we had a barely-out-of-teens cab driver, who became our adopted uncle for the duration of the trip home from the airport and I was already feeling younger by a decade at least. I liked the place !!

The 12 days went by like 12 minutes. I hardly remember what we did each day. Most of what I remember is about my niece, who is now learning to speak and was hence a constant source of entertainment and delight for our entire stay. I would beg my sister to leave me alone at home with my niece, but she was bent upon showing us different tourist attractions.

I will list out some of these places, simply for the fact that I have many photographs that I will be uploading at the end and this list may give some context.

a. Sentosa Island and the underwater world - This was not as big as I had imagined it to be, but was still quite good. My sister refused to come in and waited outside, while my dad and I conned my niece and took her inside. The poor thing had all along thought that ‘incy-wincy spider’ is a small thing and was really scared when she saw huge spiders in cages. She kept saying ‘Don’t come here, stay there’ to all the fishes (the sizes of which, had again exceeded her imagination) to all of them. It was really funny and cute!!

A casino is supposedly getting built here to improve tourism. There is a model of the tourism icon, the Merlion here and since it was night and I was tired, I got some not-so-good pictures of this one.

b. Jurong Bird park - A wonderful tourist attraction. There was a great show called Birds and Buddies show, which we arrived late for. The park is a bird-lover’s paradise and is constructed on the slope of the Jurong hill and houses thousands of birds. I did not know what to do - look at the birds or capture them on my camera, so that I could look back again and again. The only hindrance was the weather. It was extremely hot and we grew tired very soon. A superb exhibit is the Lory loft which is a 9 story loft with free-flying birds like Lories, parakeets etc. We were totally exhausted by the time we reached this place and spent very little time here.

c. Night safari - Now this was the best part of the trip. I don’t want to write much about this. There is a very detailed article in Wikipedia. But this was one of the best tourist attractions that I had ever seen. We chose to take the tram, since the zoo was pretty big. But mid-way, we were given an option to get down and take the trail to see some animals like the snow-leopard etc which could not be spotted from the tram and then return to the station and take the next available tram. This was a spell-binding experience, and since the guide had requested us to refrain from using flash photography, which would disturb the animals there, I did not take a single picture and instead enjoyed the entire safari. An unforgettable experience was a small trail where there were some fruit bats. I entered this one alone, since my father and sister were not very keen (i.e., a little scared) of entering this trail. After I checked it out, they went later and found that it was a completely new experience.

d. Merlion park - We visited this one purely because otherwise our Singapore trip would be considered incomplete.

Some things to note about the country:

a.Connectivity - This reminded me of UK. The whole city is very well connected by trains and buses and it is easy for a newcomer to settle down very quickly. Unlike the US, where it is difficult to survive without a car (except NYC, SFO etc), Singapore has a great public transport system (I guess that is the main criterion for me to like any place!!). The trains and buses are air-conditioned and a single pass works for both. Eating/drinking is not allowed in trains, buses or train stations. Of course, there are a few law-breakers, but the number is quite low. The government encourages the use of buses and trains instead of cars, to keep the pollution low.

b. Cleanliness - I used to hear about how clean Singapore was, that you didn’t need a plate and could eat directly from the road. I guess that is a thing of the past. Sure, it is way more clean than Chennai or any part of India, but not quite what I had expected. It is sad that the learning has happened in the opposite direction. People stash away trash in nooks and corners when no one is looking.

c. Green - In spite of the population and the industrialization, I found a lot of trees and plants everywhere. Many places resembled some of the posh areas of Chennai.

d. Food - Another thing in common with Chennai. People seem to be food lovers and every other shop is a restaurant (selling interesting things like Octopus etc). I loved the fresh soymilk that they sold in most places. The coffee there is very strong and is close to the south-Indian filter coffee, only stronger. It is called Kopi and instead of milk, condensed milk is used. Another great thing was the Thai tender coconuts sold in the beaches and other stores. I really thought they had injected some sugar solution into the coconut.

e. Tourism - for the size of the country, the number of places to visit is quite high. In spite of going out almost every day, we still missed a few like the Singapore zoo, the orchid gardens etc.

A good blend of eastern and western culture, my 12 days in Singapore, made me very depressed, in a manner that a couple of years in the US or a few weeks in the UK had failed to do. I never compared India with the other countries, because we were so different. But Singapore was definitely something that Chennai, India could be.

And now for some pics:

a. Some of the smaller fish

b. The Merlion in Sentosa

c. An orchid in the Bird park

d. Another beautiful flower in the bird park.

e. Birds (!??!) in the bird park

f. The glorious Flamingos

g. Their fairer cousins

h. Reminded me of the Liril Ad

i. On the Lory Loft

j. Didn't note the name of the birds, but look at their colour!!

k. The real Merlion

l. The Esplanade

Of Soaps and Handkerchiefs..

2009-08-10T05:13:00.001-07:00

Our home is a soap-free zone. Now don’t raise your handkerchiefs to your nose. I am not talking about the soap that is a cleaning agent, but the soap operas that have become staple of every Indian household, irrespective of caste, creed, economic status etc!!

Our servants may lack money for food as the month-end draws closer, but the first thing they do with their salaries is to pay the cable guy his monthly rental.

My days of TV watching ended at about the same time satellite TV came into picture. Weekly serials with a story to tell were slowly replaced with half an hour episodes of crying, cursing and avenging. My mother became something of a social outcast amongst our relatives since she was the only one who appeared clueless about the difficulties faced by ‘Saro’ of ‘Metti Oli’ (a very popular tamil soap).

If we ever bother to enter a friend/relative’s house at 7:00pm or later we are spoken to like the characters in K.Balachander’s* movies.

Hindi soaps are equally and often more scary. I remember one day when I was visiting my friend who was staying at the Hyderabad guest house. She was watching some K soap with the guest-house cooks. The she-villain in the serial looked really scary, but wore some really expensive clothes and jewelery and even had a signature tune that played in the background every time she appeared on screen. She had some name ending with ‘ika’. (All these years I kept thinking the name was Kaapalika or Andolika, but my friend said it was Komolika!)

Well coming back to what I actually wanted to say - After a long long time, I was forced to watch/hear a soap, thanks to a visit from my aging relatives. True to our time-honored maxim - Athhithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God), my father changed the channel to the one playing the latest version of Ramayan. And my childhood nightmares returned.

It is interesting how some things never change !! No, I don’t mean the story of Ramayan itself, but the way our serial makers (or should I say serial killers?) dramatize it!! Some noteworthy points :

a. Sita and Ram still look well fed after 13 years of living in the jungle eating roots and fruits.

b. Ravan is still the same silly guy who laughs aloud for no reason. He seems to think he is intimidating - we don’t !!

c. The concept of time is taken very literally by the directors. When a person walks from point A to point B that is about 200 m away, the scene stretches for about the same time as it would take in real life to walk that distance.

d. However this concept is forgotten when a war sequence is shown. The guys separated by about 50 m shoot arrows at each other. The arrows take a few minutes to reach the other end or worse still collide with the other arrow. I remember the sequence where Ram had to lift the bow in King Janaka’s court, in the Ramanand Sagar version. That week’s episode consisted of showing a court full of kings who had come to break the bow and ended with the 3rd or 4th failed attempt. The next week’s episode had Lord Ram walking to the box where the bow is kept, standing near it and then ‘Mangal bhavan amangal..’ while the credits rolled. It took about 4 episodes for Ram to walk to the bow, lift it and finally break it !!The serial made award winning Malayalam and Bengali movies (of those days) seem like James Bond movies !!

e. Besides the slow-motion, Ramanand Sagar’s version had some hilarious advertisements for crackers in these sequences. The arrows would frequently collide mid-air and give rise to some colorful stuff!! While I was spared of the war sequences in the episode I heard more than saw (I had my back turned to the TV to escape from visual assault!!), I heard the bad guys planning an assault and harping on the same point from the start of the episode to the end.

f. Hanuman still looks constipated. But what else can you expect from the poor guy who has some contraption on his mouth preventing him from emoting in any manner? (P.S. I recently read Valmiki Ramayan and Hanuman is described as a very handsome person!!)

g. The music director seems to still take his job very seriously. He considers it his paramount duty to compensate for the lack of acting by the actors by giving appropriate mood music for different scenes. Thus if the hero’s mother offers him rice and he says he wants roti, our MD gets emotional and plays a music that would in pre-soap days make you think that the hero’s mother kicked the bucket.

h. The guy playing Ram still seems to think that smiling and looking like a complete moron makes him look noble. He seems to have taken his (non-) acting lessons from Arun Govil!!

i. Sita is still well made up in Ashoka vanam. Make-up probably grows on the trees of that forest!!

j. The villains still talk too much !! They keep saying what they will do, where as the good guys kill them in the end without too much talk.

k. It was very difficult not to shudder while listening to the voices of the characters. The tamizh dubbed version was playing on TV and I have heard the same male and female voices mouthing pretty much the same type of dialogues in ads and other serials that one comes across while switching channels.

Miracles happen once in a while to re-inforce one’s belief in God. Similarly chance viewings such as the one yesterday made me realize what I was not missing in my life - TV soaps !!

*K.B is a very very famous tamil film director in Tamizhnadu. Many of his characters have this habit of looking at the mirror or some obscure object while talking to another character !!

Hey You, Meet You !!

2009-08-04T06:12:00.001-07:00

Intro 1 - A conversation with a friend of many years:
‘So what are you reading these days?’

‘I have suddenly developed an interest for classics. Thankfully the public library is not short of books by old masters. I have just started Tolstoy’s War and Peace. What about you?’

‘Me? It has been a while since I read any novels, but the last one I read was one by Frederick Forsyth. What about movies? What was the last one you saw?’

‘I discovered this site called filmsite.org a month back. It has a list of the top 100 English movies of all times. I am thinking of watching them one by one.’

‘Hmm.. Why are you like this?’

‘Like what??’

‘Well, why do you have to read classics and watch B&W movies? Do you really like them? I personally think that you are doing it because you think it is the right thing to do and not because you like it! Why are you not normal? Why do you strive so hard to be different? Why can’t you be like normal girls? Normal girls your age, would listen to film music or popular music, but you pretend to enjoy classical music!! They would watch what everyone else watches, not some obscure movies from the archives! What are you trying to prove and to who? Why are you restricting yourself? Why don’t you be more open and broad-minded?’

Intro 2 - Another casual conversation with a short-term friend:

‘So tell me this - Are you a vegetarian by choice? Or is it because of your upbringing?’

‘It was initially because of my upbringing. Now it is also a matter of choice.’

‘And why is it your choice now? Religion? Ethical reasons?’

‘Ethical reasons’

‘See, this is my problem with vegetarians. Why do you say ethical reasons? Why don’t you say that you do not like meat?’

‘What is the problem? You asked me why I did not eat meat and I gave you an honest answer!!’

‘No, but what you are doing is wrong !! You are making a non-vegetarian like me feel bad about myself for eating meat, by giving such an answer. You vegetarians, think you are morally superior to us !! We are human too!! We have feelings too!!’

‘Are you, by any chance, drunk or stoned? Whoever talked anything about you? You asked me a question and I replied !!’

‘But you should be nicer when you respond to such questions. If someone asks you why you are a vegetarian, you can simply say that its your choice! Why do you want say that it is due to ethical reasons? Do you mean to imply that being a non-vegetarian is unethical?’

What is common between the 2 exchanges above? Note how the questions were framed. What were the responses and what meanings were construed? Most people hear what they want to hear! The opinion about you or the subject is already formed and what they want is a mere confirmation, which they will derive irrespective of what your actual response is. The questions are merely rhetorical and are supposedly intended to prove to you what a hypocrite you are !!

Though not many, I have met a few such people in life. I can understand this sort of exchange happening with people you do not know very well, but sometimes, it is the ‘friends’ and ‘well-wishers’ who often end up annoying you in ways mentioned above.

Sometimes these ‘illuminating’ comments tend to destroy your self-esteem, especially when you are young. During my school days, I got into a quarrel with a boy in my class. The fight was pointless like most fights between kids. We were kids entering adolescence. During that short period, girls and boys hated each other and insulted each other at every possible instance. Things turned a little dramatic, when this boy and few of his friends sent home an abusive post card with choice expletives, complete with spelling and grammar mistakes (I was even called a ‘bloody bucket’ in the letter !!). My parents were upset and complained to the school principal who then asked the class teacher to give a stern warning to the culprits.

These were boys and as I had mentioned before, we had a beast who worked as the Sports teacher. He got involved in the issue too and supposedly gave the boys a sound beating (heresay). This was when my class teacher realized that she had to teach ME a lesson for provoking the boys. So I suddenly became a student who needed to be corrected. During one class, the teacher started talking about how people should behave. She spoke about a fictional person, who was good in academics and co-curricular activity, who belonged to a certain community (trust me, this happens in small-town schools in TN) and who was popular in school. But, she said, these things did not matter if she was vain. (Pride, I was told later, is when a girl of any age talks back to a guy of any age!!). The only thing she did not mention during the entire speech was my name! The entire class was now looking at me, for no one was fooled that the advice was meant for the whole class.

The issue did not end there. She supposedly asked to see my younger sister and asked her about my general behaviour at home, was I friendly with my father and my brother etc. My sister innocently told her that I would often fight with my brother. That is when the teacher told my sister something that I had not known all along - that I had always had a hatred towards men :) I was young and eager to please everyone around, especially my teachers. And this teacher affected me so badly that for the remaining years at school and college, I refused to participate in any extra-curricular activities. My self-esteem went for a complete toss, and I started believing that I was one of the most despicable people put on earth. I would tremble when I had to stand in front of people and had a few experiences of losing my voice totally when facing the mike.

Today, I find it easier to brush aside comments made by people about what I actually meant while saying anything. But as I said before, it still comes as a shock when people who you think you know well, still offer opinions about what they really think you meant!! Sometimes, it is better when people take you at face-value rather than try to find hidden meanings in every word you say or every action you do !!

Celebrating Women..

2009-07-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Take a movie, any movie in any language.

Now think of the female characters in the movie.

Think of what would happen to the plot of the movie, if the character did not exist. Will the story still survive?

Given how strong a medium movies are, it often surprises me that women are so inconsequential to the plots of most (almost all) movies. I was thinking of my favourite movies in all languages and almost all of them could be made without any women in them!! (I am not taking into account ‘regular’ romances - not ‘Brokeback Mountain’ or ‘Farewell my concubine’ - where there is a heroine solely to complete the love story or love triangle. I am also not talking about the mandatory mother characters that die in the arms of the son in the end. (Completely off track - try this link. The portion about Nirupa Roy had me in splits and I have read this one again and again and again!!)

I often get into this mode of thinking about such absolutely useless topics not only when I have nothing better to do, but also when I have loads of pending work! But thats just me and my almost always idle mind!!. If art reflects life, how come most of the interesting stories portrayed in movies seldom require a female character to make it complete? Thats not the case in real life!! How many movies have realistic portrayals of women and have them play central characters (No Vaijayanthi IPS or other Vijayshanthi types please!!)? Or even if not realistic, atleast relatable characters?

These questions had been on my mind for quite a while, till I watched a 2006 Spanish movie, titled ‘Volver’ by Pedro Almodovar. I had heard about the movie because of the Oscar buzz surrounding it. The stills for the movie did not look very inviting. The image of Penelope Cruz wearing a low cut dress and wearing red lipstick, did not seem like an interesting prospect. However, since I was watching other Oscar nominees for that year and also since I had started watching foreign language movies recently, I rented this one. Only after the movie ended, did I realize that there was just 1-2 male characters in the movie with very little screen time. Otherwise the movie was ruled by women of different ages. Unlike most of the big budget hollywood flicks, this movie had a strong story, even stronger characters and was very touching at the same time. The movie explores mothers of different ages and shows how times change but some things like a mother’s love for her daughter and her protective nature never change. The movie, like our good old Indian movies has a lot of other things, black humour, emotions, maternal love, a murder and yes, even a song !!

After watching this one, when I spotted another movie titled ‘All about my mother’ by the same director, I rented it without any second thoughts. This was even more beautiful. The movie is dedicated to every one who is a woman at heart, even if physically they are different from a ‘normal’ woman. Once again, this movie has a lot of really strong women and men, who are women at heart. Apart from the central character Manuela played by Cecilia Roth, the movie has a lot of interesting characters including a tranvestite prostitute, a pregnant nun and a lesbian actress who Manuela comes across in her search for her lost husband. Again, a really touching movie.

A word of caution though, both the above mentioned movies have some strong adult theme and content and are not suitable for all types of audiences. After this I started exploring Almodovar’s older movies and gave up after watching 2-3 because of the overdose of homoerotic content!!

Are there any more movies that you can think of that have used women as more than props (wives, mothers, sisters, girlfriends etc of the hero)? My cousin recommended an old movie by Gulzar called Ijaazat and I am yet to watch that. Any other recommendations?

Broken Window - a real threat

2009-06-16T05:34:00.001-07:00

I take guilty pleasure in reading paperback novels by popular writers of paperback mysteries. But when I grow tired of bloodshed, murder victims and weapons, a know-all hero, I switch to the offbeat books. I am usually against novel ’series’ that feature the same set of characters. But a very interesting and unlikely hero called Lincoln Rhyme, a former cop, caught my attention in the book - The Bone Collector. The interesting thing about this guy is that he is a quadriplegic, i.e., has no sensation and control in any of his limbs and is hence restricted to his bed all the time. This is the same condition the original superman - Christopher Reeves suffered from. What it also means is, that he solves mysteries purely using his brain and the stories usually involve very little action from the hero’s part.

When Jeffrey Deaver, the author wrote this novel, he initially intended to kill the character at the end of it, but decided against it. Due to the large success that the novel enjoyed, he turned this into a series. So for paperback mystery enthusiasts, the characters Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs - the redhead detective and Rhyme’s partners are as familiar as a blood relative.

The thing with such series is that it is extremely difficult to sustain the interest levels of the reader. The characters are the same, their functions and characteristics are things that readers already know by now. The mystery is usually a murder and the way the characters will go about solving the mystery is usually the same (since they are the same characters from the previous works). So what can the author do? Simple, create newer and meaner villains !

The more the series extended, the meaner and more invincible the villains became and the lesser was my enthusiasm towards these books. However, my dad picked up the latest in the series the other day and since I had nothing else to read and since I literally go crazy without a book in hand when I am eating, I started reading this one.

This is not great literature, so this post is not about the merits or demerits of the subject or the style of the author. I was more struck by the actual subject of the novel. The villain in this time is computer literate and is involved in identity theft.

Given how much everything around us is computerized these days and given the fact that most of our day-to-day transactions are recorded electronically somewhere or the other, the events described in the novel don’t seem too far removed from life. The possible repercussions of data mining are described in great detail and some of the events described in the novel seem to real to be ignored as a writer’s fantasy.

Purchases on the internet, resumes on job sites, seemingly innocent survey forms, swipe cards to get in and out of office, RFIDs to track product usage, understand customer psychology and study patterns - there seem to be so many details that we seem to be giving away about ourselves and it is a very real possibility that there are twisted minds out there who can and will misuse this information to serve their purposes.

How secure am I in today’s electronic world? How anonymous can anybody be? Take the example of any blogger, say me. My neighbours know me by face (and that too is not a certainty), but those I interact with through my blogs probably know more about me than a neighbour who is physically closer to me. Given sufficient time, access, an intelligent mind can probably piece together all information about an individual and use it too.

Just the other day, my brother and I were discussing about this. He was telling me that according to him, many of the marketing SMS that we receive on our mobile phones were because of our resumes on job sites. This, I realized was not always true. I returned only 3 weeks back from onsite and hence have a new number. Now this number has been published to a few selected people (about 5-6 of them), but I have already started receiving calls from banks about personal loans and SMSes on various subjects including massage services in the area and homemade food that can be delivered at my doorstep. Hypothetically, if I did post my resume on a website, I would not have updated it (-I have not-posted my resume, I mean!!), then how did these guys get my mobile number AND my details!!

Although I keep reminding myself that I am not a character in a mystery novel and such things don’t usually happen to me, reading this book at this time has made my imagination more colourful and wild! I am worried what else these people know about me and whether anyone will really worry enough about me to wreck my life by stealing my identity (whatever little is left after working in IT for so many years !!)

A language for every mood

2009-06-16T05:33:00.002-07:00

We Indians, are really lucky - almost all of us are bilinguals. Many of us are tri and multi linguals. Besides the obvious benefit of having access to literatures in all the languages one has knowledge of, I think languages serve a very important purpose. I have experienced it every time I try to put down my thoughts when I see something of great beauty, like the Niagara or the Grand Canyon or a picture of my cute niece - the lack of words to express EVERYTHING I feel, in English.

I guess I am not the only person, but English seems to me, very inadequate when I have to express something from my heart. My preferred choice would be Tamizh, my mother tongue or even Hindi. Somehow, calling someone, who unmindful of you or the traffic light, decides to cross the road and worse still, pauses to grin like a complete idiot, names in English, does not help in expressing all the anger, irritation, the urge to get down and murder the person as well as I would want it to be!! What can I call the Niagara except beautiful? How shallow the word sounds in front of the majesty of the falls!!

Switching between different languages is a very big convenience in such situations. So when I am upset, I use English, especially when I want to soften the blow. When I am really angry (usually due to road-rage), I switch to Tamizh. Hindi is a rarely used language, and as a result is pretty rusty. Besides, I don’t know cuss words that are moderate enough for me in Hindi. English has a lot of them and most of them are meant for the person’s mother than the person himself, so I rarely use those !!Calling names in my case is using the names of different animals in my case. It is a different thing altogether that in many instances, these animals behave better than people in general and me in particular. In Indian languages, since we tend to sing, rather than talk, changing the tune a little also changes the tone (wow, that sounds like poetry !!). Stress the ‘r’s a little and most words can be converted to cuss words, without really meaning anything harmful.

I am not including the newly evolved languages like Hinglish (’The other day, my papa was telling me ki I should not ghumafy in the scooter’) or Tanglish (what most of our RJ’s speak). Those to me combine the worst of all languages and are absolutely useless in conveying emotions.

What is the best language when you want to ‘pet’ babies? (See I could not find anything better than ‘pet’) That is the language I love most, since there is no limit to your imagination in that language. Although there is no grammar, I think this language too is a derivative of the mother tongue of the petter (is there such a word?) or the petted. As a result ‘chunnu’, ‘munnu’ make sense for kids speaking Hindi and related languages and ‘kutti’, ‘pattu’ along with a combination of different fabrics etc for Tamizh kids. I heard my Kannada speaking friend calling the baby ‘bangara’ (meaning gold) and am guessing that telugu speakers would use a minor variant of the term. What kind of baby-talk can I try with English speaking kids?

What languages do you prefer for your different moods?

Children of Heaven

2009-06-16T05:33:00.001-07:00

I have been wanting to write this post for quite a while now. In fact I wanted to write it as soon as I finished watching this gem of a movie by Iranian director Majid Majidi. My friend at work was the first one to recommend ‘Children of Heaven’ to me. Sadly he only remembered that it was an Iranian movie and the story. He promised to find out the name of the movie from his wife, but forgot about it. I chanced upon the DVD in the library and without knowing that it was the same movie my friend had talked about, I went ahead and watched it. This movie is a proof to my theory that to make a good movie, you do not need a complicated script all the time. A simple story executed with a difference or a different story executed simply usually results in a good movie.

‘Children of Heaven’ is one of those rare movies where the characters are very real and the situations are very relatable. It is also one of the few movies where children behave like normal children and their issues are dealt with love and seriousness.

The story is unbelievably simple. The movie starts with a shot of young Ali (about 6-7 years old) getting his younger sister Zahra’s shoes repaired with the shoemaker. On his way back, he leaves them outside the grocers while he picks up vegetables for his home. Unfortunately a blind salesman who collects used things picks them up and Ali goes home without the shoes. Ali tells Zahra about the shoes and tells her not to tell their parents since they both know that their father does not have the money to replace the shoes.

Ali asks Zahra to wear his shoes to her school in the morning and then hand them to Ali who would wear them for his afternoon classes. This difficult arrangement gives rise to some interesting adventures. Ali hears about an interschool race in school where the 3rd prize is a pair of sneakers. Ali decides to participate in the race, win the 3rd place and gift the sneakers to Zahra. He is by now very good at running, thanks to his daily runs to school to be on time and so begs his way into the race, even though the selection of boys from the school for the race is already over. What happens in the race? Does Ali get the sneakers? These questions are answered at the end of the movie.

Iranian movies are held in high esteem in movie circles, for their visual appeal, simple storylines and artistic approach. My first taste of Iranian new wave movies started with ‘Baran’, which also happens to be by the same director. I picked up the movie without knowing anything about it except what the cover of the DVD told me. I wouldn’t say I was blown away by the movie, but it was a movie with very little dialogues and a very pretty heroine who used her eyes to convey all the emotions. ‘Children of Heaven’ is the best of all the Iranian movies I have seen (only 4 )

The kids are extremely cute and their eyes convey everything. When Ali and his father go to the city looking for work, Tehran looked really beautiful with skyscrapers and beautiful buildings. The movie moves at a leisurely pace and it is a welcome break from movies and media where there is a lot of negativity.

This movie was nominated for the Academy awards in the best foreign film category in 1997 but unfortunately lost to a worthy opponent - Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni. For those interested in world cinema, Children of heaven is a must watch.

The Music Teacher

2009-06-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

Warning : A long post !!

“My brother wants to learn guitar and my mother and I want vocal music classes in carnatic music”. - That’s how my first conversation with the music “teacher” went. This was after complaining to anyone who made the mistake of bothering to listen to me talk, about my difficulty in finding a good music teacher to continue with my music lessons. My brother too would keep telling me that he wanted to learn to play the guitar. I finally thought I had found my Guru when I saw the ad in the local newspaper. The ad said that guitar, keyboard, vocal and mridangam would be taught at my doorstep and where required, the music instrument would also be provided. After thinking a lot, I finally called the number provided in the ad on Saturday. It was almost 5 pm and the person on the other end took down my address details, gave me his name (Mr. Kumar) and told me he would come the same day. I was not mentally prepared (you have no idea of the mental preparation that goes into learning music !) and asked him to come the next evening. Only after replacing the phone, I realized that both of us had not talked about the fees !

Sunday came and we were returning from Tiruttani ( a temple town near Chennai), when my brother’s mobile rang. The music teacher wanted to know when he could come and my brother told him to come by 4 pm. I have to admit that I started feeling a little like Swami Vivekananda ! (It is said that Swami Ramakrishna Parahamsa literally waited day and night for his disciple and prayed for him to come soon ! It is one of the rare cases where the Guru was more desperate for the disciple than the reverse!!) .

I had just started napping after reaching home, when my brother announced that Mr Paramahamsa was here. An ordinary looking person with kumkum on his forehead smiled at me. After some initial small talk, he declared that he liked ‘Kisore kumar’ a lot. It was not everyday that you would hear a Carnatic Music teacher declare his love for a film singer* and I was, well, surprised ! The teacher then went on to explain that he had lived in Delhi all along and that he knew Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi etc. Then he turned to me and said - ‘Indi’ theriyuma? (Do you know ‘Indi’?)

‘Theriyum’ (I know), I said.

When we read the ad, we had all thought that this was some sort of a music school and that there were different teachers for each instrument. Here was a one-man-army ! Mr. Kumar told me, without any attempt at humility, that he was like TV Gopalakrishnan (a very popular mridangist, who is also a vocalist and plays a lot of other instruments !!).

I told him that both my mother and I had had some basic training in Carnatic music and that I had learnt a few varnams and some keerthanais. (Varnams - small compositions usually performed at the beginning of a concert. Subject of varnams is usually romance. Keerthanai - Devotional songs set to a ragam and talam and sung as main pieces in a concert). Mr Kumar said that he would start with the basic lessons to understand our capability and then proceed.

My mom gently asked him about the fees and he said “2500 for the guitar and 3500 for vocal lessons for both of you (my mom and me)”.

Our expressions changed - “6000 a month for just music classes !!”, we were both thinking. As if we were not enough, I had invited my cousin who lived next door to join the crowd. The teacher thought for a minute and said, “Ok, 5000 for the 3 of you”.

My mom hesitantly told him that it was too expensive, given that we were learning music as a hobby. My brother interjected and added that the cost was nominal for guitar lessons. So we asked the teacher to start training my brother, while the 3 women (my cousin, mom and I) retreated to the kitchen to ‘discuss the next steps’. My mom finally came and announced that my brother could continue his lessons and that we did not need vocal lessons. Secretly I was very relieved that the deal did not succeed, since for some reason, I was beginning to have doubts about the person’s capabilities.

About 5 minutes passed and I was back in the hall to check how my brother was doing. Mr Kumar turned towards me and asked me “What was the discussion about? Do you think the fees is very high?”

I felt guilty for having wounded his artistic temperament and proceeded to clarify -”Sorry sir, we are casual learners and for us, this seems high, but then this is not a market and I cannot bargain with an artist. That is the reason why we said we don’t need the classes. We do not want to put you in an embarrassing situation.”

What came next was really unexpected !!

“How much are you willing to pay?” - he said.

“God !! This is really turning into a conversation at a vegetable market!!”, I thought.

My mom, in the hope of dissuading him, said “3000 for the 3 of us”.

And Mr. Kumar immediately agreed !!

He said “This is Saraswati and let us not bargain much. I had to rent a car to come here, since I had to come all the way from Vadapazhani. This is what I usually charge my other students. Let us agree on this price and start the classes”. I now had a sinking feeling that we were trapped. I also felt uneasy about the fact that he had come all the way from Vadapazhani. Why would a person from Vadapazhani advertise in the local paper for Tiruvanmiyur (which is 15-20 km away)? How can you tell the person delicately that we did not want the lessons! My mom was not looking at me either and the deal was struck.

He had been teaching my brother to pluck the strings of the guitar and he turned to us and said “Let us start with the basic exercises. Shall we sing ‘Sa Pa Sa’?” (Sa, Pa and Sa represent the base note, the middle note and top note in an octave. This is sung first in a class to ascertain the ’shruti’ or pitch of the singers. In Carnatic music, unlike Western Classical Music, pitch is relative.)

I noticed that he did not have a shruti box - a must for music classes, to maintain shruti. He asked me to sing first and I did. And he remarked “Aaha, you sound like a shruti box!!”. I had totally given up on this person and decided that he had no idea about music!! He was resorting to flattery and I totally detested it !! No guru praises the disciple for singing Sa Pa Sa and that too in the first class !!

Then he started singing the sarali varisai - fundamental music sequence involving all the seven notes sung in sequence in different permutations. We sang along. The interesting thing was that we were all singing in one shruti and he was singing in something completely different. It is a very difficult task for a person to sing in a completely different pitch, when someone else is singing in a pitch! It is impossible !! And this man managed to do that. Also, the initial exercises were to be sung in the 1st speed and our man was racing along.

In between he stopped the actual talam (beat) and was generally tapping (and that definitely resembled the way some of my aunts make rotis). After some futile attempts to follow him all of us stopped the talam. My mom, who is ever curious and outspoken stopped him midway and said “Why is your talam different? You did not teach us this one!” and he responded “I am a mridangist also, thats why I tend to switch!”

We took a short break while my mom went to fetch him some coffee. I had already started having doubts about the person’s capacity to sing and wanted to confirm my suspicions. So I hesitatingly asked “Sir, please teach us some small song as it is the first class.”

And the man started thinking and said “The problem is, I am able to recollect only big keerthanais. Ok, let me teach you a very small shloka on Ganapati. It is a very simple one.”

And he sang !! And I cried (inside) and sang (outside)!! Trust me, you have to listen to the song to believe what I am saying !! It was a little more than a nursery rhyme and the teacher sang even that with a lot apaswaram (off-key) !!

We somehow managed to wind up the class and were literally waiting for him to leave. There was silence for exactly one minute and my cousin slowly said, “I don’t know about you, but I was not very convinced.” That was it!! The floodgates opened and we were all talking at the same time. My brother said that when he came in he was breathing heavily, for he had probably walked all the way from the bus stop. Then what was all the rot about renting a car !! We also started laughing uncontrollably ! But after a while I grew really angry! How could a person dare to cheat people like this!! You did not need a degree in music to understand that he was a fraudster !!

The highlight of the entire episode came later !! My mom called him on Monday evening to tell him that we were not interested in the classes as we were not satisfied. The guy simply said ok and disconnected.

In 5 minutes, he called again and said “If not guitar, please take up vocal lessons at least !” and my mother felt sorry and gave him some reason about me going onsite again etc.

The guy did not hesitate and said “But what about yesterday’s class? You need to pay me for it.”

My mom said “But you did not teach us anything!! We were singing along with you and you did not even bother to correct us when we went wrong. ”

Mr. Kumar said, “You need to pay at least Rs.250 for my conveyance”.

And my mom said “The max I am willing to give is Rs. 50 for your bus charge” (I can’t control my laughter!!)

And the guy thought for a minute and said “But I did not take a bus, I took a car!! I will think of this as a donation. I can’t spend 100 bucks to get 50 from you!!”

And my mom thanked him for his generosity and put the phone down unable to control herself!!

On Sunday and Monday, I was beside myself with frustration. I had lost all hopes of my ever learning music well enough. And I simply could not digest the fact that people were capable of cheating in this fashion.

I later had to convince myself to stop this foolish search for teachers. I believe in rebirths and the concept of karma. For the kind of life I have been leading I am undoubtedly going to be reborn. So I am now thinking that I will spend the rest of this birth in only listening to music and devote the next birth to learn it !!

*Not to be construed as demeaning Kishore Kumar or film music. This just represents the usual mentality of Carnatic Music enthusiasts.

When stenches turned to fragrances !

2009-05-22T07:35:00.001-07:00

Do you believe in mind power? I do !

The human mind is capable of a lot of things. Our sense organs can be controlled by our minds. Food that you would normally go nowhere near on a regular day, tastes tolerable when you are a little hungry and wonderful when you are starving. Its all in the mind my friend(s).

Airports are horrible places. The only place worse than an airport is the inside of an aeroplane itself. Yet it looked like paradise on earth for me that day ! The day had finally arrived. Like a disgraced man fleeing his country, I was leaving the country of abundance in the most furtive manner possible. Call me superstitious or by any other name, but I didn’t want to go through the entire pain of informing everyone about my departure, only to call them a week later from another state in the same country and explaining the reason for my staying back.

Like all times, my olfactory organ was functioning at its peak capacity. The stench slowly shifted from that of rancid butter from popcorn (America’s national ‘low-fat’ snack, that is eaten in buckets !) to some sort of burnt flesh in the airport restaurants, from that strange undefinable, initially-intolerable, gradually-acceptable smell inside the plane, to the indescribable-yet-sort-of-pleasant smell of the hand-wash inside the airplane restroom (what an economy in space !!), from the gut-wrenching smell of airplane food (garlic to cover all rotten smells and also to numb the cells responsible for the sense of smell!) to the sickening and torture-inflicting stench of sweat of the co-passenger who had boarded in London and was blissfully unaware of the havoc she was causing on people’s sense organs and who probably thought that deodorants are only for models on TV. And finally the most welcome stench of all - the stench of sweat released by numerous bodies tired of over 24 hours of travel and suddenly exposed to the now-infamous Chennai’s hot and humid weather! The smell of anticipation of meeting the loved ones, of fear of receiving all baggage in a safe condition, of tension to get through the green channel, without being detected for that DVD player hidden safely in layers of clothing, and finally the lovely smell of the outside - a heady mixture of petrol, people and love ! With that smell , I knew I was finally home !!

Vanity control

2009-04-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

A year or two ago, one of my nieces was telling me about her kid sister - about how the eight year old knew exactly what she wanted in terms of clothes, that she would visit the store and demand for a certain style of garment in a certain colour - the one Kareena Kapoor wears in the first part of the song XXXX in the movie YYYY etc. It was funny for sure, but I was also surprised at how fashion-conscious our kids have become when compared to what we were as kids ! This whole thread of memory was probably born from reading another post on beauty consciousness among today's kids.

When I was young, the world around us made sure we were never vain about our looks. First, our school and the school-uniform they strictly enforced. Girls were to wear a navy blue skirt and a white shirt. That sounds nice enough, doesn't it? Well that was not all, we also had to wear red ribbons on our hair and not in any manner we thought which would reduce the blow of having to wear red ribbons - but with 2 braids that were folded such that the red ribbons looked more like brightly painted horns on two-sides of our heads. To complete the costume, we had to wear black shoes and white socks. I sometimes think that the uniform was formulated by a group of people who had varied tastes and the uniform was actually a kind of compromise to accede to everyone's individual requests and tastes!! The interesting thing about the whole thing is, that never once, during my school days or even later when I was at college, did I ever stop to think how ridiculous the costume was!! In fact, I rarely bothered to change my hairstyle or remove the ribbons in the evenings, when I would go out and play. Not just me, none of us at school ever thought it was uncool to wear a totally uncoordinated costume to school or about going to school with hair soaked in oil.

The next influence was of course our families. Anyone born in a family with sisters/brothers know the torture that we go through in the name of uniformity. Our parents thought it would reduce competition and my sister and I would always be dressed in clothes that looked exactly alike ! If I call it torture, I can imagine the plight of my sister, who had to wear her clothes that were identical to mine and then My clothes, which I had outgrown, thus reliving the pain!! As kids, we did not suffer from any sort of pride in accepting hand-me-downs from our other relatives, which the relative always assured were 'never-worn' and were 'like-new'. How a 'never-worn' dress had multiple hand-sewn patches never struck my mind till then! And we didn't care!! After all, we got to wear what grown-up girls wore (salwar-kurtas) instead of the drab skirts that we had to wear then !!

Make-up was a strict no-no. My mother would braid my hair and fold the plaits with red-ribbons (later we got the 'luxury' of black ribbons too), would put kajal in my eyes with two tails at the edge and would say that I looked like her favourite heroine in black and white movies. I was a child and would innocently take it as a compliment and would return to play. Only later, after growing up did I realize that this 'favourite heroine' was actually middle-aged and looked ridiculous with her two braids and a saree. My mother meant well of course !

The influence of media was not as much as it was today. Our heroines were seldom fashion-icons. If we had to look like our heroines, we had to eat more and exercise less (I am talking about our well-fed south-indian heroines). Their fashion-sense, if it can be called that, if imitated would have people around us in splits. Most heroines I remember from then wore really shiny and gaudy looking clothes and pink or other horrid looking hair-pins right next to the partition in their hair (wigs). But then, the movies that we got to watch (about 52 a year), were the outdated ones that played on Sunday evenings in DD, where the heroines had a permanent bump on their head and 3-4 inches of makeup on their faces. Some styles were probably copied by a few, but this never reached children. We were allowed to dress as badly as we wanted.

This was till an actress called 'Nadiya' was introduced to tamizh movies. She was considered hip and cool and became a style icon. As I said, our exposure to movies was still very limited, but we had the other kids talking about hair-styles and skirts and ear-rings named after her!! My most funny memory of our 'fashion-sense' is about some plastic ear-rings that my aunt had bought for us in Chennai. To us, in the small town Coimbatore, Chennai was the fashion-center. My aunt had bought these ear-rings on the suburban train and had sent them through my mom. The colours ranged from bright yellow, to copper sulphate blue. There were a couple that would reach till my shoulder and I used to wear these regularly to school, not in the least bothered about how I looked!! I must have looked like a walking rainbow !!

But coming to think of it, we were not assaulted from every direction with 'fashion-shows' or movies with heroines who looked like their food-plate was snatched from them even before they started eating and clothes like they were dragged out of the bathroom before dressing up! Eating was encouraged and mothers repeatedly told us that we were growing children, who had to be fed like pigs !! Exercising was never enforced, because we were playing the whole evening, after school. At our school, we had some wonderful teachers who never believed in homework and who thought that the child's time spent in school was good enough and that homework was an unnecessary burden.

Clothes and accessories were necessary evils, nothing more and were only distractions from the more important concept of playing and having fun. We were not subjected to peer pressure when it came to appearance. We did not have televisions and magzines talking about losing 20lbs in 20 days or how actress A achieved size zero! We didn't care about size and thought that to pose for a photograph, the red lipstick that we had literally smeared over our lips (and around it) and the very obvious layer of powder were necessary and had to be washed off afterwards !!They were truly to me, days of innocence !!

Of Red Rocks and Vortexes

2009-04-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

No, you did not read it wrong ! Don't pride yourself on catching me making a grammatical error !! I know that the usual plural form of Vortex is vortices, but not so in Sedona, AZ. You will hear people talking about spiritual 'vortexes' in Sedona and that is where I went on Saturday!

Sedona is about 2 hours from Phoenix and is known for its breathtaking sandstone formations called the Red Rocks of Sedona.These red rocks were formed due to deposits of iron oxide over layers of sandstone and limestone over millions of years, that later started rusting giving the rocks a bright red colour. We started pretty late in the morning and like all drives that initiate from Phoenix, found the landscape really dull and boring with endless rows of cacti lining both sides of the freeway. However we did not need any board announcing Sedona to us, the town announced itself. All of a sudden, we saw red rocks all over. Nature or God, depending on what you want to call the creator had literally painted the town red. Even the soil on the road had turned from a drab brown colour to bright red !!

To spirituality and metaphysics enthusiasts, Sedona has a little more to offer. Sedona supposedly houses 4 energy vortexes. These are supposedly places of high cosmic energy concentration. Spiritual energy is supposed to flow upwards from the earth much like a vortex. Many people claim to experience a heightened awareness of spirituality on visiting these vortexes (that's how they are called here, instead of vortices. All my friends and most of you who have read my posts regularly (Pride, thy name is Rathi !!), know that I am anything but subtle and sensitive! I have been initiated in Reiki, but have never felt the 'tingling sensation' that most Reiki practitioners claim to experience. Similarly, with TaiChi too, I have heard my fellow students talking about 'out-of-the-body' experience or energy flowing through them while practising TaiChi. Not so with me. I generally tend to smile stupidly (I like to think it is mysterious), when people talk about such experiences and usually leave the other person confused about what I felt (if I did feel anything at all!). So I was hoping to experience this energy that everyone was talking about and chose to visit one of the energy vortexes called The Bell Rock in Sedona.

We parked our car a little distance away from Bell Rock and took the trail that went around the rock, which is actually a misnomer, since it is more a hill than a rock ! It was quite chilly that day and I was cursing myself for having believed weather.com on the weather forecast ! While I was dressed in jeans and t-shirt and was cursing the weather, I saw many mountain bikers who wore shorts and sleeveless tees and were biking away to glory !

There are multiple beliefs about the energy vortexes. Each energy vortex is supposed to enhance a certain kind of energy within a person. One of them is believed to increase energies associated with strength (and hence called masculine energy) and power. A second one is supposed to enhance the feminine side of a person, like kindness, goodness etc (Men please note !!). The other two are supposed to increase the balance, i.e., both energies. Bell Rock is supposedly the vortex that works on improving the balance in the two types of energies. This worked for me, for I have no idea whether I am strong (I would like to think so), or good (I hope others think so !) and increasing one of them alone would have made me deficient in the other one!

I had done my homework about the place and had read that the juniper trees that grew here were twisted from the trunk, thus proving the theory of energy vortexes. My main aim during the short trek was to take pictures of at least one such tree. I managed to find not one but quite a few of them ! I would have given anything to be able to climb the cliff/hill/mountain, but had to satisfy myself by climbing over a few rocks to get a better close-up of a beautifully twisted juniper tree. Unlike trails in the Grand Canyon which are treacherous and scary, these trails were easy and safe, because they were on the base of the hill. There were people who were climbing the mountain though. I saw at least 3 people on the top of the hill - 2 seemed to be walking on the hill while the 3rd guy seemed to be actually climbing ! Since I was with my mother and there was no one else to whom I could show off my 'courage' I did not attempt or pretend to attempt the climb up the hill.

We chose a flat rock on the way to sit down and practise reiki to see if we 'felt' anything different. Unfortunately my mom is as (in)sensitive as me and the result was that we were sitting with our eyes closed palms open for a while, hoping something would happen. My palms became warm, but that could also have been because of the sun ! Meanwhile I badly wanted to open my eyes and glare at the hikers who were passing and were commenting about us (I think it was about us, because I heard them saying, 'it scares me', 'don't go near' etc. ! I remember thinking, How dare they say that !! Bloody racists !! etc), but had to control myself because I wanted my mother and those idiots to think I was deep in meditation !!

My original plan was to go to the Red Rock state park after this trek and trek there for some more time till sunset and then return after the sunset, but this trek had tired us, not because it was a tough one, but because -

we were out of shape
it was quite sunny
and frankly I was quite tired of seeing red rocks everywhere !!

I realize now that I missed out the sunset which is supposed to be glorious. I plan to go again soon and catch the sunset in one of the other vortexes and see if that one has any effect on me.
Below are some pictures from the trip. I am sorry for the number of pictures of the juniper trees. I was fascinated by them and could not stop clicking away !!

1. The crop of the state

2. The lone climber - a long shot

3. The lone climber - a closer shot

4. A close-up of the bell rock - makes me think of red cheese !

5. I call these Shaivaiite mountains - note the streak of vibhuti on them !

6. One of the many twisted juniper trees

7. Another one ! - I climbed on a few rocks to click this one.

8. And Another !!

9. The trail with the play of light

10. The Bell Rock

11. Red Rocks all the way !

12. A twisted family !

13. My mother thought this rock formation was like Lord Ganesha !

14. The trail

15. Picture perfect

King of Suspense !

2009-04-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

For a long long time, I thought Alfred Hitchcock was a writer !! In fact, I almost made a fool of myself when I was in class 8 by going to a library in Hyderabad and wanting to show off in front of my cousins, asked the librarian if he had any books by Hitchcock. The only reason I was saved that day was the librarian was ignorant either and thought I was a child prodigy or something, who read books by unknown authors !! Once again fate saved me from disgrace!

I started watching some of Hitchcock’s movies, without knowing they were his. ‘Suspicion’, ‘I Confess’, ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Vertigo’ were some of the first few movies that I watched. My casual interest turned to admiration and later to a sort of obsession, thanks to the roadside DVD vendor in front of the Wipro office in Chennai. For a mere 50 bucks, this guy was selling DVDs that had 5-6 movies! I jumped with joy when I found some movies that I had already watched and bought 3-4 of them. The more I watched them, the more I loved them and my respect for Hitchcoke grew exponentially.

For some reason, in our country, at least in the past, ‘good cinema’ was usually a bad thing. I talk from my personal experience of watching almost every single movie screened on Sunday afternoons in DD, in the regional cinema section. If the movie was touted as a National Award winner, it was bound to be very very boring. Today when I get appreciated on my patience and tolerance level, I remember these movies with gratitude. I remember a Malayalam award winning movie, where the director spent about 15 minutes of screen time on showing the hero’s morning activities. Hero wakes up, brushes his teeth, takes a bowl of oil, applies it to his hair, and later body.. you get the drift.

Why am I talking about this? Its because I realized after watching some of Hitchcock’s movies, that good cinema can also mean interesting cinema. Hitchcock or Hitch as he was fondly called made movies that were critically acclaimed and were commercial successes. Although his favourite genre was suspense and thrillers, his movies had a lot of humour, mostly the gallows variety.

Hitchcock usually adapted his screenplays from short stories. It is also said that he usually roped in the original writer to collaborate on writing the screenplay. His movies had razor-sharp dialogues and a brilliant background score. Many of the techniques that he introduced in film-making are still used today and some of his movie sequences like the shower sequence in ‘Psycho’ have achieved cult status today. Movies like ‘Rear Window’ have been referenced in many subsequent movies and modern day remakes like Disturbia have been attempted.

One thing I discovered while watching (or re-watching, if there is such a term) many of his movies, was how well he used the celluloid as a visual medium. I was amazed and still am on watching quite a few sequences that are more than 2-3 minutes long where there is absolutely no dialogue and yet the viewer hardly realizes that. The script is taut and there are no unnecessary sequences. Most refreshingly the climax is usually very crisp and to many of us used to a grand finale for every movie, almost abrupt. That does not mean that they aren’t grand. For instance, the climax of ‘North By Northwest’ was shot at Mount Rushmore (and a set of it); in ‘The Man who knew too much’, there is a brilliant nail-bite inducing sequence of a concert where an assasination attempt happens and so on.

Having said all that, the fact remains that almost all his movies entertain! As a viewer, you don’t have to understand the nuances of film appreciation to appreciate movies by Hitchcock. His movies are first and foremost entertainers. With every watch, you will realize a little more of what has gone into making the movie what it is. I am now watching many of these movies for the 3rd or4th time (and this time the excuse is my mother!!) and I find them getting better with each watch.

Here are some of my personal favourites not necessarily in sequence:

a. Rope - Story of 2 psychopathic homosexual (subtly indicated) people who commit a murder at the beginning of the movie and invite people over for a party to prove a point.

b. Birds - Strange things start happening with a woman. Birds keep attacking her all the time.

c. Psycho - I dont have to talk about this one.

d. Dial M for murder - A husband plots to kill his wife to get her wealth.

e. North By Northwest - An advertising company executive is mistaken for an intelligence agent and abducted.

Coming to think of it, I think the success of his movies were because of the scripts which usually involved ordinary people getting into extra-ordinary situations and most people could relate to it. The actors and their popularity are secondary to the script and Hitchcock made sure that in all his movies, the script ruled !!

Story of a song ..

2009-01-24T10:30:00.001-08:00

You sometimes think that when people agree with you on something, they actually mean it. Little do you know that in some cases, they are in complete disagreement and that this facade of agreement is only a comma and not a period. They wait and watch and then when you expect it least, attack you in your own style and give you a taste of your own medicine.

Months ago, when I used to discuss with my cousin about the tamil lyricist Vairamuthu and his 'romantic' songs, I was naive enough to think that Niranjan (my cousin) actually agreed with me and that he hated Vairamuthu's love songs as much as I did. That belief was shattered about 6 months ago. That my cousin was a closet Vairamuthu fan, came out in the open that fateful day. I have heard that the sacrificial goat, is usually decorated well and fed sumptuously before it is sacrificed. I realized later the relevance of the above metaphor and the significance of a particularly good dinner cooked by Anu, (my cousin's wife) that day. (Given how vocal I am about the unnecessary drama and theatrics employed by our movie-makers and politicians, I surprise myself often with the kind of build-up I give for some lame stuff !!)

We were casually talking about my interest in books and our blog posts etc. I was enthusiastically talking about my interest in writing and how blogs had opened up a new way for me to write and also get to understand what others think about my writing etc. That was when Anu asked a seemingly innocent question - 'Have you written poems?'

'No', I said. 'I believe one has to be romantic at heart to be able to write poems. So except for a few childish attempts (thankfully as a child) to write poems, that were nothing more than rhyming sentences, I have never dared to attempt any such thing'.

'Why don't you try?' asked Niranjan.

'Because I don't think I can write one', I said.

'We think you can.' said Niranjan.

I realized something was fishy here and started to steer the conversation to other harmless topics. But our family is known for our perseverance. So in about 2 minutes, we were back to the topic.

'Actually, I composed a tune about 6 months back and wanted someone to write the lyrics', said Niranjan.

'Your mother (my aunt) is excellent in Tamizh, why don't you ask her? There are many of our cousins who are supposed to be good at poetry'. I said.

'Anu and I were thinking of you !' said Niranjan.

'We think you can do it' said Anu.

Well, there I saw in the manic gleam in the eyes of this crazy couple (CC), what I had suspected all along. They had resented from the start, my vitriolic comments about Vairamuthu and this was their way of getting back at me.

'There is no pressure of time. I don't want the song to be in the usual lines, describing the girl as a moon or cloud and all that. Write it at your own pace. Think about it. We can get it recorded with you or Vishali (another cousin) and we will release it to our relatives once you are done.' said Niranjan.

'Ok, what is the subject?'

'What else, its our favourite topic ! Love', said Niranjan. By this time, the CC were giggling looking at the way my expression changed, from a worried smile to sheer disbelief.

'You are joking !! Right? Why me? What did I do? Why this double punishment? You are looking at one of the most unromantic person on earth !!' I cried out.

'Like I said, give it a shot !' said Niranjan and that was that !!

Now that the issue was settled and I had accepted with much reluctance, I approached the task at hand, like I would approach any other job, which is do nothing. Once in a while my conscience would raise its ugly head and remind me of the promise. I learnt to simply ignore it. In the initial enthusiasm of doing a job I have never done before, I came up with some broad ideas for the song. This list of ideas, turned out to be more of what not to have in the song, than the other way. It was something like this:

a. No descriptions of the girl - no comparisons to the moon, angels or flowers (poor things !)

b. No mention of sweat, saliva or other body fluids

c. No nonsense about how the person was dead all along and he/she came alive after the other one came into his/her life.

d. No formulaic songs - a:b as c:d or if a=b then c=d etc. Lyrics must be free-flowing.

e. Chaste tamizh was not required. But definitely no English words or other meaningless words (like Mukkala, Uyyala, Salomi etc.)

f. Lyrics can be about reactions caused by love etc.

So now the framework, if you could call it that, was ready. Niranjan had sent me the tune, with him humming in place of words. Now came the difficult part of actually putting words in the tune. The tune was simple in the beginning, but the 'charanam' or the stanza was a little more complex. It was longer than usual and the only relief was that there was only charanam.The other difficulty was the language. Although I love Tamizh, my proficiency in the language was not good enough to write a song. I had studied the letters in class 1 and forming sentences in class 3. After that I had not learnt Tamizh as a subject. My attitude towards Tamizh is similar to my attitude towards studies, at first and work, later. I am fascinated by the idea of it, but don't care to actually work on it! The only plus point was that Niranjan knew lesser Tamizh than me !

I wrote the pallavi first and circulated it to Niranjan and Anu. They were happy about it and said so (probably to keep me motivated). With these 2 lines in hand, I started putting on airs as though I was and had always been lyricist! After 2-3 months, when I could not take Niranjan's inquiries about the 'progress' anymore, I wrote the entire charanam. (or atleast the skeleton) on a single day (this guy has a surprising knack to keep track of the conversation - no matter how much you try to distract him and steer the conversation away from the topic, he has the uncanny ability to pick up the thread from where it was dropped and continue from there !).

After the lyrics were ready, Niranjan asked for a few minor corrections. I thought the entire song had to be changed. I had lived with the lyrics long enough to have grown tired of them and thought they were all rubbish. These minor corrections took longer than the song itself and I finally gave the lyrics to Niranjan about a month back. Our singer- my cousin Vishali ordered a mike online to get ready to sing. Things moved fairly fast from there and Niranjan finally put together the different tracks together and uploaded them on to coolgoose.

Below is a link to the song. Those of you who can, please download and listen and give your valuable comments.

http://music.cooltoad.com/music/song.php?id=405635

Below are the lyrics with the translation. The more I read them, the more I cringe. The translation, to me sounds like what is popularly called Junoon Tamizh.

Pallavi:

Vizhigalil varum viLakkugal avai viral thodaa kadithangal
Intha parvaigal inru podume ingu thevaya vaarthaigal
Vaarthaigal varavillaiye, unthan paarvaigal kaNaigal
en manam sollum ennangal solla thorkume mozhigal - Unnai Paarthadum (Vizhigalil)

Charanam:
Maalai pozhudugal, mazhayin azhagugal, kadal thaandum alaigalum unodu
paarka koodudal sugam
Iravin paniyile, nilavin oliyil nadakayil, ingu, nee arugil irukayil
nammodu ulla mouname idam
Un peyarai evarum solvadu kettaal, nadai thadumaridum
Nanbargalin kangalai paarthu pesa konjam thayakkam varum
Nenjil ulla kaathalai kangal sollum enra bayam thonridum
Unnai kanda nimishathil ulagam ellaam maraindodidum - naam thavira
yaar irupadum marakum

Translation:

The lamps that light up in your eyes are letters untouched by fingers,
These sights /glances are enough for today, do we need words?

Words don’t come out (I am at a loss for words), your looks are like arrows

The thoughts that my heart says- languages will fail to say - (When I see you)

Charanam:

Evening times, the beauty of rain, the waves that cross the sea - I
feel good looking at these with you

Walking in the nighttime, under the moonlight, with you near me -
the silence between us is soothing

When I hear someone saying your name aloud, my walk staggers

I am scared to look into the eyes of my friends when I talk

I am afraid that my eyes will betray the love in my heart

(But) The moment I see, I forget about the whole world - I forget
about everyone but us

Viva Las Vegas !!

2009-01-13T07:25:00.001-08:00

If Niagara Falls and Grand Canyon are must see natural beauties in the US, I have been hearing from people that Las Vegas could be termed a man-made beauty. In fact a colleague of mine tried very hard to dissuade me from making a trip to Grand Canyon and asked me to visit Vegas instead. So when I was told that the CES conference was to be held in Las Vegas on Jan 9th, I jumped at the chance. Only a month back, I had driven to LA and had been to Universal Studios (awesome place !!). Las Vegas was about 6 hours away by car and my mother was getting bored taking turns looking at my face and the book. So I decided to drive down and save my company some big bucks too!! The biggest expense in Las Vegas is only the accomodation and that issue was resolved when a friend offered to host us at her place. The added bonus was my friend’s cute little kid (who, by the way, was way more entertaining than any of the casinos there !!).

On Jan 8th, we set out from Phoenix AZ, at about 10 am in the morning. The drive was not a tough one. The only trouble is that it can get monotonous after some time and without company, it would have driven me crazy. The route was filled with miles and miles of dry land, interspersed here and there with every variety of cactus that you have heard of and not heard of !!

Since the trip was technically an official one, my conscience did not permit me to go out on day 1. Added to the misery of conscience was a ‘casual’ dinner meeting with people from different companies. Honestly the idea of sitting in an expensive restaurant, with a group of strangers, grinning stupidly is as appetizing as the idea of grazing in a vast pasture (I know the comparison is weird, but that is probably because of the kind of ‘food’ I had in the restaurant - a plateful of different boiled vegetables, with no salt or pepper). The only attractive part of the dinner plate was the medley of colours on it - green spinach (uncut and boiled), red tomatoes, white and pale green something, yellow corn, green asparagus, some more of green and white something. The only thing tougher than eating such food is to respond to comments such as ‘That looks good !!’, ‘Do you like your food’ etc, with a perfectly straight face !! After that comes clinking your glassful of water with other glasses of wine and toasting to God knows what (again pretending that the whole thing was normal !!)

Anyway, the bad part was over after a painful 2 hours. I had no strength to do anything else that night and simply crashed at my friend’s house. The one sensible thing (I think) I did was to ask my mother to explore one or two casinos with my friend while I was out having that fabulous dinner. As a result, she, my friend and the little princess - Nadhi were roaming around in MGM Grand - a very popular casino. An interesting story about this casino- The casino has a huge statue of a lion that is seen roaring in the MGM emblem. Apparently this lion is in memory of one that lived in the casino till a few months back. Its death happened like this. One day, my friend, her husband and Nadhi were out roaming around in the MGM Grand casino. Nadhi being only a year old, saw the lion and called it bow-bow (to her any four legged animal is bow-bow) and the lion apparently dropped down dead, incapable of bearing the insult of being called a dog !! There are sentries posted at MGM Grand who keep an eye on Nadhi these days and they have put off the plan to get another live lion till Nadhi grows up or at least learns to differentiate between a lion and a dog!!

The whole of 9th was spent in the conference and it was only after about 8:30 pm that night that we decided to step out. All the big casinos are on a street called Las Vegas Boulevard and every casino there is a work of art. Life begins after 9 pm on this road (called the strip). Since there was no way that we could cover all the casinos on a single night, we decided to visit 3 of them - The Venetian, Paris and Bellagio (remember Oceans 11?).

Even before we could get off the car, we noticed that the famous fountains outside ‘The Bellagio’ had been turned on. This time they were dancing to the famous song by Elvis Presley called ‘Viva Las Vegas’ (Long live Las Vegas !) I have heard about the famous fountains in Brindavan Gardens in Mysore, but have never seen them. This fountain show was brilliant. There is a bridge on the road which provides a beautiful view of the fountains. Lovers of Oceans 11 will remember them from the final scene of the movie. (I have a beautiful video of the entire show but cannot upload it because of the size !) This show is supposed to repeat every 15 minutes and we decided to watch the next one too before proceeding to the casinos.

Each casino has a theme and is usually named after the theme. For example, the Venetian is built with the theme of Venice. As a result the entire decor inside is that of Venice. We had decided to simply look around and not gamble under any circumstance. After going around the casino floor, my friend took us upstairs where there is a shopping mall. And surprise ! All of a sudden, we had gone back in time !! No, I am not talking about traveling back a few centuries !! We had traveled back a couple of hours ! The ceiling upstairs is designed to resemble the evening sky and everything, including the dim lighting, convinced those inside that the time was about 4-5 pm !! The next surprise was that similar to the real Venice, there are small rivers in the center with gondolas floating in them. The boatmen go around singing songs in Italian. Our little lady was waving to all of them like they were old friends.

Our next trip was to Paris (the casino). As you would have already guessed, the theme of this casino was, what else - Paris ! Outside is a replica of the Eiffel Tower. The casino hall here has a decor similar to that of the top floor in Venetian, i.e., a false ceiling designed to look like the evening sky. The entire casino hall is designed like a street in Paris, complete with artificial trees reaching the sky (ceiling !). The buildings around appear like French houses (this comparison is purely based on speculation and also on some French movies I have seen !). Roads are paved. Overall an interesting experience. A not so pleasant experience was the sight of numerous middlemen holding out photographs of women to all those passing by. I am not sure if it was illegal, but it certainly did not appear to be so !

We then left to Bellagio. It was already about 12 midnight and we simply looked at the decorations inside the casino. Due to the approaching (or already past) Chinese new year, the decorations were oriental. The Bellagio looks as beautiful from the inside, as from the outside. One interesting thing about all the casinos is the chandeliers in them. There are literally 100s of them and each one is better than the other. My friend told me that she would frequently count the number of chandeliers in each casino and wonder at the money spent on them. Coming to think of it, I think the money spent in decorating each casino for a month, would probably feed the hungry of a third-world country. But then, who said life was fair?

Spending too much time on the casino floors is a sure-shot way to get lung cancer, even if you are not a smoker ! Liquor is free on the floor. I also marveled the talent of the waitresses or their dress makers to stretch a tiny piece of cloth to its limits and call it a dress !

The next day was packing time. We set off back to AZ and were greeted by the familiar sight of cacti and dry barren lands. The contrast between Vegas and these lands almost hurt my eyes ! To sum up the experience, I thought Las Vegas or more specifically the strip in Las Vegas was one of the most beautiful sights in the US. It is better not to think too much about the reasons for the beauty and the fairness or unfairness behind them and simply indulge onself.

Given below are some of the pictures I took during the trip. This time, I know the make of the camera. It is Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8. (The pictures are not in sequence because our site has some weird way of sequencing files as they are uploaded!)

Happy Chinese New Year ! (Inside the Bellagio)

Eiffel Tower (Outside Paris)

Streets of Venice (Inside The Venetian)
How many Chandeliers can you count? (Inside Paris)

Outside Paris
The dancing fountains- Outside Bellagio

Vegas by Night.The Bellagio
The Gondola Men (Inside The Venetian)

The Killer

The Victim
The road to Vegas

Work from Home or Homework - Which do you prefer?

2008-12-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

Every time I saw someone in the office, with a laptop or a blackberry, I used to feel jealous. They looked so damn cool. They did not have to raise PC requests. Their CD drives were functional. They could access their emails from anywhere etc. As cliched as it may sound, the fact is that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence !! So as you must have guessed, these misconceptions vanished a week or two after I got my laptop a couple of years back. I was now permanently available to work, to respond to emails etc. The only time I could escape, was when I was driving to and from work.

Then I started envying people who worked from home. They did not have to travel all the way to work. They could wake up when they wanted to, take bath when they wanted (and if they wanted to), they did not have to wear formals everyday, no shoes (in US) and so on (may sound silly to you, but they meant a lot to me). And now I know how wrong I was in wanting that !! I seem to have the knack to always want the wrong things in life or atleast, only when I wish for wrong things is my wish granted !!

Now I have been working from home for more than a month. So what is wrong? I am a positive person (or so I would like to think) and I don't mean only my bloodgroup. So let me start with the good points :

I can wear a salwar kurta when I work
I don't have to comb my hair every day
I can eat food out of a plate instead of from a tiffin-box
I don't have to meet with people
I don't have to spend money or time on commuting to work.
No shoes required
I remain silent most of the time.

So what's wrong with it?

I am cooking 3 times a day
I don't see people
I am turning to something like a UFO (heard of but never seen)
I never 'go home' after work. An hour, a day, a week - are all like the next
I feel guilty when I go for grocery shopping, since I am 'missing work'
All days are workdays. A workday is 18 hours long.
My phone's receiver is losing weight instead of me. I swear that once when I took the receiver from my ear, I found my dislodged ear attached to the phone. I then had to use some 'Made in China' glue to stick it back in position. You will believe when you see me and find one ear slightly differently positioned compared to the other.
I am forgetting how my voice sounds, except when I chat with people at home
I have no place to run to, when I receive my daily call from my manager telling me how disappointed he is in me. I would like to have a team-member to shout at too.

My habit of wishing to be like people older or more experienced than me or different from me, has more often than not, led to all my disappointments in life. As a child, I remember always wanting to grow up and get out of school, so that I would not have daily homework, or to write any assignments or tests or examinations or wear uniforms. I thought taking a book or a single notebook and wearing clothes of your choice was cool and longed for college. In college, I wished to become financially independent and longed to start working. Now I would give anything for the life of a student, a life with a lot of certainty (again, you see I am wishing for something out of my reach !!)

Give me home-work any day. I would prefer that infinitely to working from home !!

Kalki's works

2008-11-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

At the age of about 5 or 6, I remember being fascinated by my father, who could read a book, only with his eyes ! He did not have to read it out aloud to understand and I remember thinking it was one of the coolest things I had seen in my life (till then !!). I guess my initial reading was restricted to devouring anything and everything by Enid Blyton. So there I was, living in a small hill station in Tamilnadu, dreaming about ginger-beer, ham sandwiches and bacon (not knowing it was meat of course !!) without a clue on how they would look like.

I had studied tamizh for exactly 2 years in school. The first was in class I, when I learnt the alphabets and then in class III when I learnt words and sentences. The difficulty in finding a good library was probably the first reason for me to turn to reading Tamizh magazines and books. That and the concept of a circulation library where a person would come and deliver weekly and monthly magazines right to our doorstep. Now tamizh magazines and books were usually censored by my mother then. There were authors that were considered acceptable by my mother and I could read anything by such authors and then there were those that were absolutely banned for fear of getting my mind corrupted. In case of authors like Sujatha, the book had to first be read my mother before the verdict was passed.

Kalki is probably the first writer, that my mother encouraged me to read. ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ - supposedly Kalki’s most popular work was serialized in the tamil weekly magazine called Kalki, was my first attempt at a historical and it was my first exposure to Kalki’s works too. And the rest, as they say, is history (I mean, my history !!).

R.Krishnamurthy, more popularly known as Kalki was a freedom fighter, magazine editor, novelist, short story writer and an art critic. He was the man who made the popular weekly ‘Ananda Vikatan’ a household name in lakhs of Tamizh homes. He gained a lot of popularity for his epic trilogy - Sivagamiyin Sabatham, Parthiban Kanavu and Ponniyin Selvan. His other famous works include Alai Osai, Tyaga Bhoomi, Poimaan Karadu, Kalvanin Kathali etc.

I will not elaborate on Kalki as a person as I will not be able to give more information than Wikipedia or the internet, nor is my information drastically different. I will instead, attempt to describe his greatness as a novelist, especially in his works based on Tamizh history, or atleast their impact on me and my literary tastes.

So what makes these three novels great? Why, the characters, for one ! Every character is well-etched and Kalki’s writings made you actually visualize a lot of incidents. His works are a wonderful mixture of history, fiction and humour. They are historicals, but no less thrilling than any best-selling mystery novel. For once, his female characters are extremely strong and not mere supporting characters.

For instance, take the case of Sivagamiyin Sabadam :

Facts :

-King Mahendra Varman converted from Jainism to Hinduism after Appar (aka Thirunavukarasar) cured him of some disease.

-The Chalukya king attacked Kanchi.

-Narasimhavarman (popularly known as Mamallan) avenged the seige of Kanchi by attacking Vatapi and burning it down.

-Paranjothi was the commander of Narasimhavarman’s army and lead the attack on Vatapi (Trivia : He supposedly brought back a pillar with the idol of Ganapati on it as a proof of his victory and installed it in the temple in Tiruchengatangudi in the Tanjore district. This idol was the inspiration for the Vatapi Ganapati idol installed in Tiruvarur temple and hence the song ‘Vatapi Ganapathim Bhajeham’ by Dikshitar).

-Paranjoti later gave up worldly life and changed his name to Siruthonda Nayanar and was one of the 63 Shaivaite Nayanars.

-During Mahendravarman’s rule and his son Narasimha Pallavan’s rule, arts and crafts flourished in the region and the shore temples and numerous other sculptures were created in Mamallapuram (now known as Mahabalipuram).

Now if I look at sculptures of a beautiful woman in Mamallapuram, I would probably take a few snaps (most that would include me in silly poses and posing for the camera !!). What would happen if a creator of Kalki’s stature saw them? - An epic romance set in the time of Narasimha Pallavan !!

The prince Mamallan (aka Narasimha Varman) loves the daughter Sivagami of the master sculptor Ayanar. Sivagami is a great bharatanatyam dancer and is the inspiration of many of her father’s sculptures. As in any love story, the emperor is against this romance and orders the son to stay back in Kanchi while he engages in a battle with the Chalukya king Pulikesi. After a lot of interesting twists, Sivagami and Ayanar are captured by Pulikesi. Pulikesi humiliates her and Sivagami vows that she would leave Vatapi only if Narasimha Varman burns the city down and rescues her (and hence the title). So even when Narasimha Varman visits her secretly and tries to rescue her, she refuses to go with him. Narasimha Varman later returns after almost 9 years and re-captures Vatapi, but things are not the same anymore.

On reading the novel, you will realize how beautifully the above mentioned historical facts have been woven into the novel. It is hard to separate facts from fiction. All characters are complete and well-written.

The heroine is a damsel in distress, for sure, but she is extremely strong willed and is not faultless. She has a bad temper and is extremely stubborn. This novel has one of the most chilling villains in Tamil literature. The Jain monk - Naganandhi, whose actual name is Neelakesi and is the brother of the Chalukya king Pulikesi is a connoisseur of arts, unlike his royal brother and is a master king-maker and spy.

‘Parthiban Kanavu’ is chronologically after Sivagamiyin Sabadam and describes the story of the Chozha prince Vikraman who father dies in the battlefield after expressing his dream of regaining his kingdom from the Pallava King Narasimha Varman (the hero of the previous novel), to a mysterious monk. As in a good Indian movie, our hero falls for a girl Kundavi, who is none other than the daughter of his arch-rival Narasimha Varman. This novel too has many historic references and has interesting narratives of practices during the period including the Kapalikas (worshippers of Goddess Kali) who believed in human sacrifices etc. There is a wonderful suspense in this novel too, but unfortunately I saw the B&W movie made on the novel first and knew what the suspense was in the first shot (Why did they think that makeup could completely disguise a person like Ranga Rao?

‘Ponniyin Selvan’ is the last in the trilogy and is about the Chozha dynasty. This is by far the most interesting of the 3 books and has more colourful characters than the other 2 put together. Although the title Ponniyin Selvan (son of Ponni, the river) refers to the prince Arulmozhi Varman, the actual hero of the novel is Vandiyathevan, a lovable rascal, who is a close friend of Karikalan, Arulmozhi Varman’s brother. This book has not one or two, but at least 6 very strong women characters - Arulmozhi varman’s sister Kundavai, the boat woman Poonkuzhali (what a beautiful name !), the queen of pazhuvoor Nandini (a wonderful character), the kodumbalur princess Vanathi, the mute woman Mandakini Devi, Raakammal the spy and so on. The most interesting character is that of Aazhvarkadiyaan, the vaishnaviite who roams around the country and picks up fights with Saivaiites.

The plot of the novel is very intricate and maintains a superb suspense till the end. One part of the novel, that seems particularly etched in my memory is where Kalki describes and compares the beauty of Kundavai and Nandini. Both of them are extremely beautiful women, but while one’s beauty is pleasing and has a calming effect, the other’s is mesmerizing and is capable of driving men crazy. He compares Nandini’s beauty to that of a serpent and for some reason I seem to remember this particular description very well.

For each run of these novels in the Kalki weekly magazine, a different artist was responsible for the illustrations. I remember Maniyam Selvam’s illustrations and later Vishnuvarman (I think that’s his name). However, the best illustrator would be our own minds. As I have said often before, my worst fear about Ponniyin Selvan is that someone would decide to make a movie out of it and ruin the whole magic. One of my favourite pastime is wondering who, in the current crop of actors, could play of each of these roles and sadly I can’t think of any suitable ones, especially if they have to speak in chaste tamizh.

I have read all the other works of Kalki too, including Alai Osai and Tyaga bhoomi, but to me none of them can match this trilogy in terms of pace or characterization. I have also had a chance to read some of his other non-fiction works including some music reviews that he wrote under the pen-name Karnatakam, some of his old editorials and a collection of essays etc and the genius of Kalki shines through every single piece of work.

Sorry about the long post, but the comment from a fellow blogger on one of my previous posts, brought a flood of memories of Kalki and ‘Ponniyin Selvan’. For those who cannot get the book, the entire book is available online here. The English translation is available here although if you can read Tamizh, I would strongly recommend the original.

Good Morning.. hmm.. err… Phoenix !!

2008-11-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

So there I was, grinning stupidly at anything and everything, whiling away my time in the customer’s office with nothing to do, but day-dream about my return - functions that I will attend (Perippa’s sadabhishekam !!) and of course the music festival in December (must attend at least 2 concerts of Sanjay and TMK!!), visits to the dentist (need to get these teeth set right !!) and drive a relatively new car (only 3 years old instead of 11 years old) for a change in that chaos that is Chennai traffic !! I had developed a thick skin in the past few days, ever since I got my itinerary from the travel desk (woohoo.. it is Air Emirates), nothing the customer or anybody said affected me whatsoever !! I had done my purchases, and planned for more in the Dubai airport (perfumes are dead cheap !!), had picked superb seats in the flight online ! Three more days to go !! My mom had made plans for me (need to visit A,B,C relatives and friends !!) and I was happily chatting away with her and my dad, getting updates on family gossip, when the phone rang !! And life changed… again !!

I have now developed a sense of respect for people we call gypsies ! After all, the important difference between us and them is the financial status and the extent of our travel. They travel locally and we travel internationally and we get paid for our travel !! It is a new life everytime - a new place, the same boring ritual of hunting for apartments and buying a cheap but good car (sounds oxymoronic, doesn’t it?).

I am suffering from a serious identity crisis, every morning !! I wake up and find my surroundings strange ! Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? Is this whole thing a big nightmare? Why should I always reconcile myself to the maxim - Whatever happens, happens for good! Why can’t I get exactly what I want, instead of what is good for me - just once? (I know, I know, I am cribbing ! I know I have no right to, when thousands are losing their jobs and many people complain about lack of visibility at work !! But when logic and my cribbing come face to face, sometimes cribbing wins !!

For some reason, only spouse and children are considered ‘family’. So most of my conversations go like this :

‘Do you have a family in India?’

‘Yes, my parents and my brother and his wife are in India’

‘Oh, ok. But what about your family ?’

…

‘So you are single, then you should have no issues with traveling?’ (What has that got to do with wanting to travel? I mean single and married people can want/not want to travel equally, right?)

Sulking apart, I think the most painful part of traveling is the initial expenses and hassle of setting up the house. Every visit, I have to shell out a couple of hundred dollars on basic stuff like a rice cooker, a blender, a vacuum cleaner, a mattress, a used car, apartment advance etc. Add to it the fact that I always have to give it away for free, because no one will buy it and usually there isn’t any time left to try to sell, at the end of the visit. This becomes all the more irksome, when I dispose all my temporary possessions here assuming I am going back to India, only to realize in the last minute that the return trip is canceled and that I have to spend all over again !! (Remember, at this point, my mind has already started converting dollars to rupees, so every single dollar is Rs 48 (or something close) to me !

If organizations must ask people to travel, how about some innovative ways of reducing the stress on employees. For example :

a. A travel kit - including basic appliances and things like a sleeping bag etc. This can be provided during the first time the person travels on-site. When the person returns, some storage space where the kit can be stored can be arranged. The next time the person visits, the company can ship it to the person to his new location.

b. Short-term car leases - Some arrangement with car-leasing companies, to provide car leases on a month-to-month basis. Usual car hires from Hertz or Enterprise runs to about a thousand dollars a month.

c. A ready-reckoner for the location that includes information on location of good hotels to stay (with/without kitchenettes), Indian restaurants, Indian grocers, DMV office, SSN office, availability of public transportation, apartment communities, local attractions, cab services etc. This can be sent along with the deployment letter.

d. Make the policies a little more employee friendly and the staff a little more considerate. For instance, this time I was asked to travel from Dublin to Phoenix in the next 2 days. Now to raise a travel request, I was supposed to raise a transfer memo request for my visa and provide the request number to the travel team. Tedweb/MyWipro had an issue with the site, where I was able to select the project name, but could not submit it because there was no ‘Submit’ button. I put in a ServiceConnect request and waited for more than 2 days with nothing happening. There was only one more day to go and I requested the travel co-ordinator (non-Wipro) to book my travel, and that I would raise the request once the issue was resolved. She asked me to get the approval of the OOC person here and this person asked me to raise a ServiceConnect issue reporting the issue. It was a deadlock situation and finally my manager and his manager had to make desperate calls to the OOC person to get the issue resolved. The technical issue was later resolved about a week after I lodged the complaint. This kind of beauracracy added to the already existing stress that I was going through !

I am told time and again that this is a higher responsibility and once again I am supposedly the ‘Chosen One’ !! The job description is kept deliberately vague with words like ‘opportunities’, ‘business’, ‘techno-functional role’ etc. It is a double edged sword, doing well will extend my stay and going wrong may jeopardize my career !

Meanwhile I am trying to get adjusted to the time difference and remind myself daily that I am Rathi, that this is a hotel room in Phoenix and yes this is not a dream !!

Cloud Atlas - A story within a story within a story within..

2008-10-31T12:26:00.000-07:00

I am one of those people that believes that every one has enough material in us for one great piece of work - A book, a movie, a tune, a story - whatever. If pushed hard enough, I can probably write a fairly interesting story or lyrics for a tune or compose a simple tune. After that, I don’t know. And that is probably the difference between great artists and ordinary people like us.

I am amazed at writers who can write interesting prose, good enough to hold the attention of a reader. Apart from the knot of the story itself, he/she needs to ensure that the style of prose is consistent, all characters are etched well, conversations sound real and relatable (even if it is a fantasy), maintain the flow in the narrative and so on. Over a period of time, reading many books, we start associating the author with a narrative style - The subtle humour and ridiculous situations in works of P.G.Wodehouse and Devan (Tamil writer), great level of attention to historical details with a dash of humour in the works of Kalki (Tamil), high degree of imagination in works of Asimov, Sujatha (tamil), J.K.Rowling, sarcasm of Saki and so on.

These are probably reasons why the latest book that I read - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell left me spellbound ! Here I am, struggling to find my own voice while writing a few paragraphs of a blog post, while this author has achieved the amazing feat of writing a novel which is more like a collection of six novellas that are loosely linked and woven one within the other. What is interesting about these six stories is that each one is written in a completely different style and is set in a different period of time.

The novel is structured like a Matryoshka doll or a chinese puzzle box, according to a reviewer (although I have no clue what a chinese puzzle box looks like!!) and in the first half of the novel, the stories move forward in time and in the second half, the stories move backward in time.

It starts with the journal of Adam Ewing - an American notary, on a voyage in the Pacific ocean. This story is set in mid-1850s. The narrative stops mid-sentence at a certain point of the novel. In the next story, we get to know why.

Next comes the story of Robert Frobisher, an English musician who travels to Belgium and works for a composer there. The story takes place in 1930s and the narrative is in the form of letters from Frobisher to his friend - Rufus Sixsmith.

The third story is set in 1970s and is the story of a young journalist called Luisa Rey, who at the beginning of this story meets with Rufus Sixsmith. She investigates the corruption and murders associated with a nuclear plant in California.

The fourth story is that of Timothy Cavendish - an aging book publisher in the UK, who, in the course of fleeing from his gangster client is imprisoned in a old-age home.

The fifth story is set in the near future where human clones are ‘manufactured’ to perform mundane chores. This piece is set in Korea and is the story of the ‘fabricant’ Sonmi-451 who rebels against the system and is subsequently executed. The narrative is in the form of a record of Sonmi’s interview before her execution.

The sixth and the central story of the novel is set in the distant future in Hawaii, when human beings go back to the primitive way of life. The tribesman Zachry and his family are visited by Meronym, one of the few remnants of the technologically advanced civilizations. Zachry narrates his story, when he is an old man, to a group of young people.

The most striking feature of the book is, as I already mentioned, the distinctive styles of writing of each narrative. Every story stops midway, except the sixth one. After the sixth story, the concluding parts of the fifth, fourth, third, second and finally the first stories are presented, and hence the comparison with the Matryoshka dolls (refer Wikipedia for what they are. I did !!).

All the stories are weakly linked and a common feature in all the stories is the presence of a comet-shaped birthmark on the protagonists of all stories and David Mitchell supposedly said that they were reincarnations of the same soul. This was one of the books short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004. Just goes to show that not all award-winning books are necessarily profound (=boring)!!

Of the six stories, I found the story of Sonmi the most interesting. The story of Timothy Cavendish is the funniest. The first story of Adam Ewing is the least interesting, probably because of the old-fashioned English and circuitous sentences (after discussing with my cousin who recommended the book and reading reviews on Amazon, I found that this was a common feeling among most readers. So I am happy to know that I am normal !!).

Although at some places, the book drags and the narration seems a little pretentious, Cloud Atlas is definitely a very ambitious piece of writing. Those who want to take a break from murder mysteries, espionages and regular romances, can take a shot at this one. Definitely worth a read !

(P.S. - For those who like offbeat fiction, the Wind-up bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami is an option. The book is extremely engaging and intriguing. But, and this is a big BUT, be warned, the book has no end. Anyone with superhuman intelligence, who managed to figure about what it is about, please contact me and enlighten me too ! This is a P.S. here because I did not want to write a post on a novel that I both loved and hated !!)

To Smile or Not to smile !

2008-10-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

There’s another guy. He is walking towards me.

God, please let him not make eye-contact, please !!

Our eyes have met. I smile immediately.

Damn, that guy is looking through me and has moved his eyes away from me ! That is so insulting !!

Here comes the next one. Should I or shouldnt I? This one is Indian too !! What if he refuses to smile too? Research has shown that people with names starting with R, are physically incapable of enduring more than one insult a day. Coincidentally, my name starts with R too. Forget about it, I can’t help it if my lips are wired to my eyes. The minute I make eye-contact, my lips automatically expand and I end up smiling.

Before any of you notice a statement made before that may sound a tad judgemental or biased, let me hasten to correct it or rather expand it. I don’t mean to say that all Indians are averse to smiling. It is definitely a cultural thing. While we treat guests like God, we don’t treat other people as human, unless they are our guests, friends or family. To us Indians, bestowing a smile is a mark of acceptance, show of love or gratitude, a sign of cognizance of your existence, a symbol of familiarity etc. What it is definitely not, is something you would waste over some random passer-by, who, just because he/she has made eye-contact with you, expects you to smile (the nerve of the person !)!!

In the US, it is a part of the culture, to smile and wish people if eye-contact is made. It is irrelevant that the smile lasts exactly for a millionth of a second and more often than not, rarely reaches the eye. I am not sure about other countries. I was in London a few months back and people there seemed normal. They don’t look at you and smile ! They don’t wish you good morning or inquire about you !! They are just…. normal !! (Of course I am being sarcastic, do I have to say that??)

Learning to smile at the right person is an art. No, not the smiling part. The key is ‘the right person’. Will this person smile back or do you have to pretend afterwards that you suffer from facial paralysis and what seemed like a smile to a bystander was actually a temporary spasm?

Is this do with the nationality of the person? Probably not ! Americans are becoming normal too. In this place, I have encountered at least a dozen Americans, who contort their faces like they have seen something distasteful, the minute they spot you and hurry in the opposite direction maintaining a certain distance. There are those who pretend they are lost in thought just when you cross them (again, nationality does not matter). All this for what ? To avoid smiling !!

I know of a family that does not smile as a rule. They will wish you, invite you home, greet you when you enter the house, inquire about your well-being etc, all without a single smile. I think that’s an incredible feat !! Don’t you? I mean greeting someone without a hint of a smile, to me, sounds as impossible as sneezing while keeping your eyes open !

Fortunately or unfortunately, we in India, seem to be changing too. Or should I say, that we are becoming abnormal too? On some of my visits to the Bangalore office, I remember smiling at a lot of people I didn’t know (I often forget where I am !) and, hold your breath, have received smiles back (Of course I am not quoting about Chennai office, because I actually know many people by face there. So don’t gloat, you Chennai-haters !!).

What is it that makes some of us so reluctant to smile? After all, a smile does increase a person’s face value. Laugh lines make a person look more beautiful. A smile does not cost anything, except working a few facial muscles (and research shows that it is good to exercise facial muscles through means other than chewing on food and gossiping !!).

Meanwhile, I request all of you, to respond with tips on how to change a smile to something else (like may be a thoughtful expression), that will help me out in my daily dose of humiliations (which sadly always exceed 2) of not being smiled back at !! I tried sneezing, but the transition is not easy !

Blindness..

2008-10-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

What does eyesight have to do with the actual nature of the person?

Do we behave the way we do, because we know there are people watching us?

If nobody was watching, would we indulge in despicable activities too?

Are human beings basically base and bestial creatures?

José Saramago’s ‘Blindness’ explores the above questions and more. Saramago, a Portuguese writer is the winner of the Nobel prize for literature in 1998. ‘Blindness’ is one of his most popular works and was written in 1995 and later translated to English in 1997.

Always searching for interesting works, I saw that this book was highly recommended on Amazon.com, by people with whom I shared a liking for similar kind of novels. The idea of the novel seemed interesting and I borrowed it from the local library a month or so ago. I could not finish it before the due date then and had to borrow it again recently. This time, I finally managed to finish the remainder of the book in one day.

The premise is very interesting. A sudden epidemic of ‘white blindness’ hits a city. Initially only some of the citizens are affected. The government decides to quarantine them in a mental asylum till the cause and the cure for the sickness are determined. The first few victims of the disease include a doctor and a few of his patients. The doctor’s wife, who miraculously escapes the disease fakes it to stay with her husband.

The quarantined lot are treated like untouchables and armed soldiers are posted outside the hospital to prevent them from escaping. Food is dropped near the gates by the government and some of the inmates are allowed to pick it up. The conditions within the hospital slowly start degenerating. The soldiers refuse to deliver basic medicines to the inmates and things slowly turn into a nightmare as one-by-one, the soldiers too succumb to the disease.

Hygiene and moral conditions steadily deteriorate, as the asylum becomes over-crowded and a group of blind hoodlums take control of the asylum. This group takes control of the food deliveries and insists on ‘payments’ from the other inmates. The amount of food given to the inmate by the hoodlums is directly proportional to the payments made! With power in dangerous hands, things turn from bad to worse, as the group sexually abuses the women inmates in exchange for food. Husbands stoop to begging the wives to accept the offering, unable to withstand the hunger. All the atrocities are seen by a single pair of eyes - that of the doctor’s wife.

The victims decide to take charge and rebel. There is much bloodshed and later arson. The inmates suddenly realize that the soldiers who were guarding the hospital, are no more present. Apparently they have become victims to the disease too. The epidemic has spread to all the citizens and there is chaos. The small group of people, with the doctor’s wife leading them, leave the asylum, hoping to return to their homes.

The entire government has buckled down and everyday things like food, water etc have become luxuries. There is no electricity as the electricians have gone blind. People move in groups searching for food. The concept of homes has vanished. Most houses have been taken over by roaming groups of people. The small group sticks together and stay with the doctor’s wife, since they feel a little less blind, having a person who can see among them. They go in search of food in store rooms of grocery stores and try hard to hold on to some semblance of sanity.

The novel ends with the epidemic ending as suddenly as it started. People slowly start getting their eyesights back. Things will never be the same again for any of them, though.

None of the characters in the novel have names. They are referred to as ‘the doctor’, the doctor’s wife, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with a squint etc. Saramago’s style of writing is characterized by long sentences, little or no punctuation. Dialogues do not have quotation marks, so it is difficult to say who is speaking, although once you get into the flow of the book, it is not all that tough. I found the style strange in the beginning, but later got used to it (I later learnt that this style is characteristic of Saramago). I would call this novel one of the most chilling horror stories I have ever read (and I don’t read many of them).

Every time I read or watch something on the Holocaust or the Indian independence movement, it seems to me that human beings are capable of more cruelty than we think is possible. My faith in the goodness of people always becomes a little shaken when I read a good novel such as ‘Blindness’ or films like ‘The Pianist’ or ‘The Schindler’s list’, shocked at the inherent baseness of human nature. There were many instances when I was choked with emotion or was extremely disturbed by the horror of it all, while reading ‘Freedom at midnight’ and the reason was not mere patriotism.

Unsupervised and equipped with undeserving power, people are probably worse than the animals. Animals kill only for food, and we are probably the only beings that can kill and hurt for pleasure.Many modern novelists seem to think so too. ‘Lord of the flies’ by William Golding springs to mind. Civilization and culture exists because of others, not because we want it. Our constant need for approval from people around us is probably the main reason why we ‘behave’ in public or otherwise.

In conclusion, ‘Blindness’ is a superbly written novel. It is definitely not for light reading and if you are easily influenced like me, you may feel a little shaken at the end of the novel. Definitely recommended for people who like offbeat fiction.

Revenge !

2008-10-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

The popular saying goes ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’ - Is it really true?

Do you like me, feel disturbed reading ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ - the brilliant novel by Alexander Dumas? If Dantès, wasting away his life in solitary confinement in a faraway prison wrenched your hearts, his subsequent retribution did send chills down your spines! Somehow, everytime I read the novel (couple of times in different versions), I always felt restless afterwards. Revenge, I suppose, is never sweet. It does not leave anyone satisfied. Even if the crime is huge and life-shattering, somehow revenge does not seem to bring the desired solace.

If you think about it, most movies and novels and TV soaps have revenge as the main subject. Turn to any channel, and you will find some heavily made-up middle-aged woman, announcing to anyone that cares to hear, that she will not rest till she destroys her enemy’s family. Since this is always a winning subject and the makers cannot afford the audience to have any symapthies towards the antagonist, they try to paint them as dark as possible to show why the revenge is justified.

Not so in true life, isn’t it? People are just people ! Not heroes or villains. Nobody is completely white or black. All of us are grey characters. What seems right to us, may not seem so to others. Who are we to avenge ourselves for what we consider ‘injustice’? I am not talking about clear-cut wrong-doings like murder etc, just day-to-day things that happen to us.

I still get extremely angry when I think about the sports teacher in school, who had treated me terribly (I had written about him in one of my previous posts). Every time I think if there is someone in the world, I really hate, I cannot think of anyone else, so deep-rooted seems to be my hatred, probably because the bad experiences happened at an impressionable age. I am not able to make peace with these memories and I still imagine situations where he will be at my mercy and I deny him the same !!

But come to think of it, for all I know, if I see this guy today, revenge will probably be the last thought in my mind. He must definitely be old and will probably seem so pathetic that the only that would seem more pathetic would be my grudge against such a loser. It is also possible that all the hatred in me, needs some channel, and I am using this guy for it !!

The whole idea of this post was to actually talk about a novel that I read recently, but as always, my musings about the book took up as much or more space than the review of the book itself. The name of the book is ‘Revenge’ and the author is Stephen Fry - a comic genius from the land of comic geniuses - Britain! However the book is anything but funny !!

There is a reason why I mentioned the ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ in the beginning, apart from the fact that it was also about revenge and retribution, and the fact that I love to write ! As Stephen Fry himself confessed, after a couple of days of writing of the book, he realized that his story was the same as the original classic. Call, ‘Revenge’ the modern day re-telling of Dumas’s classic.

Set in England in 1980, ‘Revenge’ is about Ned Maddstone, the popular boy in school. He is 17, happy in life to have everything, to be loved by all- well almost all; in love with a beautiful girl and studying to go to Oxford. There are others - Portia, his beautiful lover, Gordon - Portia’s cousin, Ashley - a boy from a poor background, a wannabe blueblood who detests Ned for being everything that he (Ashley) is not and Rufus, a spineless junkie, who again hates Ned for no reason.

If you have read Count of Monte Cristo, you will see parallels every where. Like I said this is a modern day retelling. So the setting is different, the context is different, but the story is essentially the same. Where you had exiled king Napoleon as the backdrop, here we have the IRA and its supporters causing Ned’s arrest. Instead of a prison in a remote island, here it is a lunatic asylum where some political prisoners are put away. The heart burn is the same, as Ned turns from a good-natured seventeen year old boy, with his eyes full of dreams, to a cold, calculating and vengeful business man.

When he returns to avenge himself, it is 1999 and sure there is a duel between him and Portia’s son, but it has an interesting and modern twist to it. The warfare is psychological and destruction is total as in the original. True to the original, Ned does not find peace after his plan is executed and feels more restless than before.

I had not expected a thriller from Fry, but he has done a good job of it. I would not call it great literature, but it definitely is an interesting piece of work. Definitely recommended.

The New Age God !!

2008-09-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting theory, that a person revered by everyone today, is tomorrow’s God. Lords Rama, Krishna, Jesus - all of them were probably considered regular people in their times, but centuries later are worshipped as Gods today.

Who would be the modern age God in that respect? I cannot think of any ruler or leader perfect enough to be worshipped. But I can think of an ‘all-powerful’ force, something that cannot be seen (except in movies), but only experienced; something we cannot live without, something that has become as important as the air we breathe - you catch the drift (I can go on and on about ’something that..’ etc., but am too bored to do that !!).

Before you think I have gone completely nuts or that I have become a very spiritual person, let me clarify what brought about this sudden enlightenment. Heard of Hurricane Ike ? (These weird people name hurricanes too !!). Well, it (he/she) decided to pay my little town a visit on the way to the ocean. It was a short visit and lasted a day. But it showed me the true path. I am now a convert, for I have realized God !!

Sorry, I am talking in circles again (isnt that what I always do ??). On Sunday, thanks to the hurricane and the damages it caused, the whole town lost power supply and thats when I realized that ‘Electricity’ is ‘God’, nothing less !! I was happily watching a movie (what else !) and about 3:30 pm, the TV screen went blank, the laptop switched to battery mode and I was done for !!

I called up my colleague to check if I was ‘the chosen one’, or were there fellow sufferers around. Well, looks like there were only 2000 other houses in the state suffering like me !! I am from Chennai and I know what power cuts mean. I mean, we kids (when we were kids I mean), were made of sterner stuff, than to panic over silly power-cuts. I remember getting extremely irritated when the media and the people made a big fuss about a power cut that lasted a couple of days in NYC, a few years back.

No power supply - big deal !! Of course I have my books to give me company - till about 7:45 pm. Of all days, I had chosen that day, to cook my lunch/dinner a little late. So nothing to eat and no way to cook, because the stove is electric. I had some leftovers from God knows when. (I should start labeling them, like they label specimens in labs). No internet and hence no telephone (since it is a VOIP phone)!! I had a prepaid mobile (incoming is charged too !!), for which I did not know the telephone number myself and had never shared it with anyone else.

I had no clue what had hit us, since I did not have cable connection either. What seemed to me a heavy wind from the apartment, was apparently the Hurricane and it had left 3 people dead in Southwest Ohio !! Where I lived though, the only signs were the strong winds, which made some of the trees fall and supposedly sent some roofs flying (as I came to learn the next morning !).

Even for an early sleeper like me, retiring to the bed by 8 pm, was too much to bear. Having nothing to do, sleeping seemed to be the only option, to ‘occupy’ myself ! The next day, I went to work and found that the office was closed due to lack of power supply. People in the IT teams were provided some emergency supply though, which I promptly misused to look up the internet about the hurricane and the power outage and to chat with my parents to let them know that there was trouble, but I was not in trouble !!

I learnt to live on cornflakes and milk (not yet spoilt !!) and bread and something with it. Horrible horrible horrible and cold food. No lights in the bathroom (Was that the shampoo or the body wash, that I just used? .. I hope this is the toothpaste and not the ointment, it sure does smell like toothpaste !!..If this is the bathtub, this must be the pot. etc..), and yes, in most houses in this country, you need lights to move around, even if it is broad daylight outside !!

No work, is usually fun, but not without God (power) with us !! I managed to read a complete book, utilizing all the daylight available (sadly, had just 2 pages to finish, when I simply could not see anything and had to force myself away from the book and .. what else, ‘retire’ to bed!!).

Power supply is back now and as is the American custom, the office walls are resounding with people’s power outage stories. For many, it is a story they can repeat to their grand-children (in 2008, there was a hurricane, but thats not what this story is about, it is about the POWER OUTAGE we had then !!). Many people moved to motels or hotels in the Columbus area. Some with kids, drove to the homes of friends/relatives to live their till the ‘crisis’ passed. Some people spread rumours they had heard on rising gas prices and food prices and urged their friends to stock up asap. Thousands of stores across the city stopped functioning.

Now I know what all this fuss is about. The more developed a country, the less independent they are. Power outage still causes panic here. Life runs on electricity. Every single thing a person does, needs electricity in this country (and in a few others). We have lived for days together in Chennai, without power supply. It seemed like a nuisance, especially when at nights, our friendly neighbourhood mosquitoes conducted weddings in our house and feasted on our blood ! It was irritating when we could not use the ceiling fan (and later the AC), but we survived. Not so, here !

Man is becoming a slave of something he created. What were once luxuries and conveniences have now become necessities. We are not addicted by them, we are controlled by them. So I go back to what I started off saying : In today’s age, I would think Electricity is God, the all-powerful Almighty !!

Wooster and Laurie (or How I fell in and out of love in 2 sec)

2008-09-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

I dread watching movie/televised versions of my favourite books. More often than not, my fears are justified. Books seem to give a lot more room to let my imagination run free. The face of the characters are always very vague in my thoughts and yet I kind of know how they look and behave. There are very few exceptions though - Godfather would probably come to mind for most of us !

My love affair with PG Wodehouse started in college. I had heard about his books from my cousins, but could never find any in the local library. I finally found a tattered version with one of my friends, who had inherited it from some relative and had not even touched it and the rest as the cliche goes, is history. That was also the time I got introduced to the amazing world of British modern literature (PGW can be still be termed modern a thousand years from now !). I was lost in the amazing and funny world of Jeeves, Bertie, Blandings Castle, Empress - the prize winning sow, Baxter, Aunt Dahlia, Aunt Agatha and so on. I knew that if I, who lived in a country far from the author’s and in a world that in no way resembled that described in his books, could fall hopelessly in love, there were very high chances that he had similar fanatics in his own country ! Yet, I hoped and wished that no one would attempt and botch up the novel and leave memories of some horrible actor completely destroying my favourite characters.

Well, a month or 2 back, I heard about 2 British comedians called Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. They were very popular in Britain for their comedy sketches called ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ and also for the televised series ‘Bertie and Wooster’. I watched 3 seasons of ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ and was completely bowled over by their comic geniuses. Humour is a very difficult thing and this seemed to come very naturally to these guys. (Those of you with access to internet at home with a decent speed, check out a short sketch from ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ - search for Fry and Laurie psychiatrists. It is a hilarious sketch !!)

I also read about them and found that they had created another BBC series based on the popular characters by PG Wodehouse - Bertie Wooster and his beloved butler Jeeves. I got the DVDs from the library yesterday and have just watched one episode, but trust me, this one is good. Hugh Laurie is everything you would have imagined Wooster to be - Rich, spoilt, often ridiculous and he never once goes overboard with his expressions. Stephen Fry is the quintessential English Butler - with a clipped accent, controlled emotions (as Bertie says, when Jeeves gets really disturbed, he raises an eyebrow !!), vaguely amused at his master’s idiosyncrasies and quietly scheming to always gets his requests granted by poor Bertie.

I have been wanting to write about Hugh Laurie for quite some time now and finally got down to merely mentioning him in this post ! I sometimes think that the British have a great sense of humour for one reason - they always knew that one day or the other, their title of being the biggest empire in the world would change. People have sharp memories and might want to hit back. But these guys make themselves so endearing with their literature, that we simply tend to smile indulgently at them and let them go !!

Last week, I also picked up a novel by Hugh Laurie (his debut novel) called ‘The Gun Seller’. His friend Stephen Fry has already written more than 4 books now (and I have picked up one of them too !!) The first evening after getting the book, I could not wait and started reading it immediately. I have great respect for both these people and especially for Laurie. He is now a popular TV star in the US and stars in a very highly rated series called ‘House M.D’. Apparently he sent his video-tape for audition for the series since he was busy and the director was so impressed with him, that he told everyone around Laurie was the kind of ‘American’ actor that he was looking for (not knowing at that time that he was British!!). Watch him in ‘House’ and you would be astonished at how he has changed his looks, mannerisms, accent and has ‘become’ House M.D !!

The book turned (is turning) out to be better than I thought. It is a kind of PG Wodehouse meets James Bond. Extremely funny !! Amusingly sarcastic !! (I found a cab eventually and told the driver in fluent English that I wanted Wenceslas Square. This request, I now know, is phonetically identical to the Czech phrase for ‘I am an air-brained tourist, please take everything I have’.)

Humour pops in at unexpected places (It was snowing outside. Of course, it always snows outside !)

Towards the end of the novel, a small interview of the author is also inserted. Apparently the movie rights for the book have been sold and the movie is under production. In which case, I really wish Laurie would participate in the movie-making process, lest they botch up the movie and the book !

P.S - An hour into the book, I realized a chemical reaction inside me. I realized that I was slowly falling in love with Hugh Laurie. But I later fell out of love (in about 2 secs and hence the title !!). Reasons for in and out listed below:

In:

Very intelligent
Makes me laugh (not easy at all!!)
Loves PGW like I do
Nice eyes.

Out :

British (we are supposed to hate them)
Different viewpoints about the cow (I think of them as God and he probably imagines 2 slices of bread around it!)
Only a few years younger than my mother
And yes.. married with 2 kids !!

Thanks to the above reasons, I have decided to maintain a strictly platonic relationship with Hugh (I am sure it will hurt him too !! But then, thats life !!)
So, those of you who thought I was totally cold-hearted, please think again. I have a heart, that I tend to lose often to people only to regain in a next few secs !!

How's married life?

2008-09-07T17:41:00.001-07:00

‘So how’s life after marriage?’

‘Nothing very different, I just happen to be living with another person instead of my parents’

Now thats where I wish things would stop. I really wish people don’t take my question seriously and describe every single detail about marital bliss. Not that I am a child at heart ! Remember - I watch ‘International Cinema’. Nothing anybody says (or types) can get more graphic than that!

It is only that I am not a M&B sort of person. I am not the kind of person that would go ‘Ooh’ ‘Aah’ over anybody’s love story. I don’t mind on-screen romances (mostly !). In fact, I can keep a straight face even when people romance in real life, right in front of me, for a maximum period of 3 minutes. I can pretend to be studying my nails very deeply- the cuticles, the blood flow, the broken nail - there are a thousand things that can be read in a nail.

But what when this sort of thing pops up when I am chatting with someone, I know very slightly, or am on the phone with a recently married friend, who I am not very close to, that's when I am doomed !! Why do people take questions on life after marriage very seriously and insist on talking about the cute spouse at the first chance? Do they realize that they are making me squirm in my seat?

Friend : ‘My husband calls me baby!!’

Me : ‘Oh.. ok’. (OMG !!)

Friend : ‘You know what I call him?’

Me (to myself) : ‘Do I really care?’

(To her) : What?

Her : ‘I call him ’sweet puppy’. Isn’t that cute?’

Me : That's cute ! (right answer , but sadly makes her want to go on !!)

Her : He is like a baby (Whattttttttttt !!). He refuses to let me oil his hair (I have to get out of this conversation !!).

I have walked out of mushy movies in the past. But what is reserved for me in this life, will be mine and there is no way of escaping ! I have to necessarily listen to more and more of this corny stuff especially on the phone. On chat, I simply refuse to type out a response and lie that I am busy. But the other one is hardly listening (or reading what I type !) and gushes on and on.

Things were worse in the past. People around me who were romantically involved always made me think I had drunk some potion that made me completely invisible and would be throwing glances at each other and talk cute stuff and expect me to find it amusing. Funny, except those involved everyone else seem to notice these things.

You know, movies lie. Only in movies, the heroine has a friend who is a complete doofus and would help in passing letters, accompany the heroine everywhere and vanish when the hero was near etc and probably give up her life in the end to help the lovers. In real life, all of are heroines of our stories. Everyone except us is, as they call it, a character artist !!

Now I know what to do. Let courtesy go to hell, let them think I am rude, impolite, whatever. I am fine with on-screen romances alone (at least I have a fast forward button for corny scenes). I simply cannot be made a reluctant participant in these romantic stories and listen to utter adolescent nonsense about sweet and child-like lovers or spouses. Let me live in peace .. please !!

Water Water Everywhere !

2008-08-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

There is something about a big water body, that is immensely soothing to the eyes.Many of us can spend hours together, doing nothing but simply watching the ocean and the waves, and feel completely relaxed.

It is even better when it is running water. The gentle sound of a stream and the majestic cry of the waterfalls are both equally wonderful sounds ! Some of my best memories from childhood, include a tour of Hrishikesh, Haridwar, Kedarnath and Badrinath, many years ago. The one unforgettable memory that I have of this trip is the sight and sound of the Ganges accompanying us, in various forms - streams, multi-hued rivers, water-falls etc, all the way. Most of us forget our age, when we get into the river with ice-cold water.

Little wonder then, that I jumped at my first chance to visit the Niagara Falls about 6 years back. I fell in love with the place and now try to find an excuse to visit it every time I am in the US. Last weekend, I again got a chance to go there and take in the beauty of the Falls. The excuse this time was my brother, who was visiting the US for the first time and was flying down to my place. My cousin, his wife and I decided that we would pick him from the airport and drive down to Niagara as soon as we could and return the same night.

The Niagara Falls actually consists of atleast two major falls - the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls. Niagara Falls is situated on the international border separating US and Canada. While most of the attractions are on the American Side, the view is splendid from the Canadian side. It is almost as if the American side is the stage and the Canadian side is where the audience sit! I had the chance to see the Niagara from the Canadian side during my first visit, but this time, we only went to the American side.

The onward journey was uneventful. We started at about 10:45 am and reached Niagara by 5pm. We then immediately set off for the 2 main attractions in Niagara. The first one, called Maid of the Mist, is a boat ride on the Niagara river. You are taken down the elevator to the river level. The boat takes you across the American Falls (spectacular), the smaller Bridal Veil falls and then the breathtaking Horseshoe Falls. It is impossible to see much of the Horseshoe falls. The water falls with so much force, that it is difficult to keep your eyes open. You are dying to take in all the beauty of the falls in the small stretch but find it difficult to do so. You are hoping to capture atleast half the magic that your eyes experience in your camera, but realize that it cannot come anywhere close !

The second and more interesting attraction is called Cave of the winds. Here you are taken down in an elevator to the Niagara river level. There are some wooden decks built here that take you near the base of the Bridal falls. This point is called the Hurricane Deck and what you experience here, cannot be described in words. It is impossible to keep your eyes open, the water spraying from the falls, literally beats down your face. In spite of the yellow plastic coat that everybody is provided with, each one of us came completely drenched. Unlike the Maid of the Mist ride, this one has no time restrictions. It was becoming increasingly difficult for us to move away from the place. We were like children, telling each other that this would be the last time and would go and stand on the corner of the deck to get fully soaked and slapped on our faces by the crashing water !

Every time I see the Niagara falls, I think it is milk and not water falling! It is terrible when you feel so poetic but can simply not put down your thoughts in words!! Niagara Falls surprises me every time, because for a water-falls of this size and force, it is very quiet from the outside. You would think that you would hear the place before you saw it, but no ! You can hardly hear the sound of water falling till you enter the state park and go very near the water falls !! So typical of everything American !!

We finally left the place by about 8 pm. Rain God who had been extremely co-operative throughout our time in the Niagara, decided that enough was enough. It started pouring and my cousin had a tough time driving. We could hardly see anything ahead, nor could we see the lines separating the lanes. All our plans to eat a hot meal somewhere were quashed, as we had to pull over in a deserted rest area to eat the left-over idlis and curd-rice from morning.

Trust me - Rain-God is one mischievous person! He has a terrible sense of humour !! All the time we were in the parking lot of the rest area, there was not a drop of rain ! My cousin started reversing the car to pull it out of the lot and it started pouring !! Anyway, he drove a little more and we pulled over in a gas station again to get some gas. I had promised to take over from there and I went to get my gas - a large cup of coffee. It was 11:40pm when I took over and we had about 350 miles or so to cover.

Coffee went in and sleep went out and I started driving. My cousin’s wife was in the passenger seat and the two men were sleeping in the back seat. We decided that if we could not sleep, they should not either. So we started singing at the top of our voices - complete with orchestra. Nothing could deter my brother, who apart from fatigue, was also suffering from jet lag, but my poor cousin gave up his attempts to fall asleep and joined in for some time.

The last 2 hours were like a scene from an old ghost movie. There was heavy fog and I could not see more than 5 ft ahead of me. Sleep Deprivation+Night driving+ Heavy Fog on the road = Deadly combination !! In fact I think every time I drive at night, I would prefer if it would rain or would be foggy !! I would be so scared out of my wits, that I wouldn’t dare fall asleep !!

Anyway, it was 3 am when we finally reached home sweet home. Another memorable weekend and another memorable visit to the Niagara.

Below are some pics from the trip. They were taken using my Fujifilm finepix camera. Dont ask me about the model name or the specs because I dont remember.

First Look
Another First Look

The Niagara River
View from the Maid of the Mist

Maid of the mist
Cave of the Winds

Cave of the WindsObservation Tower

Freedom of Expression

2008-08-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

I am a fairly tolerant person.

I don’t mind people around me having some fun or enjoying what they do.

I am not one to question the source of pleasure for other people.

And yet, every afternoon a little before I start my lunch in my cubicle, with my friend - the PC, when I hear the heavy thunder, or what sounds like it, I wonder whether people in this country (or any other) take the term ‘Freedom of Expression’ too seriously.

Now before you start wondering about the source of the thunder (or what sounds like it) and what freedom of expression has anything to do with it, let me clarify. This noise was nothing but my next cubicle neighbour having her daily pack of chips or something like it. It is a wonder how some small thing getting ground within a small grinder(the mouth) can create so much noise !

I was born with extra-sensitive sense organs (I wish I could say extra-sensory perception instead - that would sound so much cooler !!) . Consequently if I have to chew something crunchy, that causes a lot of noise, I would rather do it in an open space or within a room without anyone around, so that I dont have to subject others to the torture that I go through ! Not everyone is as considerate as me though.

In our country, being loud is considered indecent and people who indulge in it are ridiculed - not that people stop being loud because of it. During my first trip to the US, I was shocked at how normal it was for people to blow their noses loudly in public. In the client place, where I was the only Indian, I used to shudder in my cubicle, when someone in the office suffered from common cold and made no secret of it. They would blow hard and seemed to be taking a perverse pleasure in inflicting pain on my poor ears ! If one person sneezed, the entire office would loudly utter ‘Bless You’ - the idea being to drown the sound of the sneeze with their voices.

People here are loud in their normal talk, mistaking decibel levels for enthusiasm. The louder you are, the more enthusiastic you are perceived to be. So I now know that my colleague in the next cubicle went to watch an opera last week, has a baby, plays on the playstation and other well-known secrets of her life. I sometimes think I know more about her, than she would probably know about herself and that too without even bothering to know. Not just my next-cubicle neighbour, I know a little about all the colleagues sitting around me (within a 1/2 mile radius), without even knowing how they look like!!

If assaulting the ears is the Americans style, assaulting the eyes is ours (not that we are bad at assaulting the ears - just drive in India and you will know what I mean). It is a pain to watch people partaking their meal with pleasure. They are under the mistaken impression that food can be ingested through the skin too. Some seem to be of a kinder nature and prefer to reduce the effort of swallowing food by directly placing the food in their tummies instead (just watch them putting their hands well inside their throats !!). Their idea of enjoying food is to make a lot of weird noises while eating (and I am not even talking about the loud belching after food !!). I have also seen people eat food - fruits like mangoes usually and let it drip all over their hands and lick them - it made me stay away from mangoes for some time !!

I now realize that the trouble is with me. I am too finicky and too fussy. I wish I can do something to reduce my sense of hearing for such things and don’t get offended by the sight of others having their meal with relish. Or I wish I could become one of them !!

Don't Rewind !

2008-07-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was introspecting (I am sure you are wondering if this is what I am getting paid for !!) and asked myself some questions. I have been asking myself the same questions time and again and I know my responses. You can take a shot at them too:

Can you name 5 people from your past -

1. Who have done something very good for you and that you remember often?
2. Whom you have helped and who you think will remember you for it?
3. Who have wronged you and you are still trying to come to terms with those bitter memories?
4. Whom you have wronged and probably regretted it later?

Did the names for each of the above questions come at the same pace? Did you have to think really hard to find the answer to atleast question number 4?

Why is it that I am still not able to make peace with memories of friends who betrayed me and my friendship in the name of love? Do I not have any good memories of such friends at all? I must have, for why else were they friends in the first place?

Why can’t I respect relatives , who in my memory, treated me and my family like dirt because we lacked money? Have they never been good to me?

How many people have I hurt? How many friends did I lose, thanks to my reckless attitude?

Time is a strange healer. It lets you forget the good things done to you and the bad things done by you. In retrospect, almost every bitter memory, seems to find you as the victim and memories of your good deeds seem bigger than what it actually was. Ever wondered why?

We often hear some old people going on and on about the past. Most stories that they narrate would make you think they were God’s idea of perfection!! They were always the best in everything. Everyone around them simply loved them. They were the noblest people you could find on earth, yet people around them took advantage of them. They helped everyone with a pure mind, but people were ungrateful. Their memories have blunted their wrong-doings and sharpened their good deeds.

If everyone is a victim, according to his/her memories, who is the perpetrator? If there is a cause and effect for every action, why is it that people always behave meanly with you even though you are goodness incarnate?

Sometimes, I think all of us are basically masochists. We love to hurt ourselves. If there is no one else who will hurt us, we take up the responsibility ourselves. We sit down to feel miserable; think about the past, about people we trusted but who betrayed us and so on. Not for a second do we think that if we helped someone, there was a reason to it. We probably were repaying some kindness the person had done or we just did it in a moment of generosity. Similarly, if someone did something bad to us, there are chances that we had done something in the past to hurt them and they are exacting their revenge on us.

I remember reading a very beautiful anecdote by Swami Sukhabodananda :

A disciple went and told him that his friend had cheated him of some money and although many years had passed, he was unable to forget his betrayal. Swami asked him to list down 5 movies that he detested. The disciple was surprised, but he obliged. Swami then told him that he would be locked in a room with a TV and a VCR and these 5 movies. Would he like to watch them back to back over and over again? The disciple was shocked and told the Swami that when he hated watching them even once, why would he watch them again and again. The Swami said that was exactly what he had been doing. If a memory pained him, why play it over and over again in his head? Why seek sorrow ?

Simple but really profound example, don’t you think?. I try to shake away my bad memories, thinking of the above anecdote, but trust me, it is not simple!

Love relies on the future, but hate seems to thrive on the past ! (My, my!! I am beginning to sound like a philosopher these days !!). Reminiscing is fine, as long as it is about some good memories, that will make me happy, since bad memories serve nothing except to make me unhappy and sad.

Following Swami’s example, I try to imagine watching KANK, Devdas, KKKG, Baba and some such movies back to back and that is enough for me to get out of my brooding !!

Wordsmith - A word a day

2008-07-23T14:08:00.001-07:00

One of my friends, who knows about my passion for words and the English language, sent me a gift subscription for the Wordsmith - A word a day newsletter about 5 years ago. It is one of the best gifts I have ever received and one that makes me think of my friend often !

The newsletter delivers what it promises. You are introduced to a new word every day for 5 days a week. There is a theme for every week and words related to the theme are sent in the newsletter. The meaning of the word, the etymology (or history of the word) and an example of its usage - from a current newspaper or magazine, form the body of the newsletter.

At the end of the newsletter, there is an interesting saying by some famous personality. And since it is only one word a day, you get to know a lot of new words. You may not necessarily remember all of them, but if you can remember at least 1 out of 100, you are still making good progress. The words are also available online on the website - http://wordsmith.org/

A weekly digest is sent every weekend. This has feedback from the readers of the newsletter, with many of them narrating interesting anecdotes about the words discussed in the past week. In the beginning of the digest, links to some interesting news articles about language in general and English in particular are provided.

Wordsmith.org was founded by Anu Garg, an Indian-American, when he was still a student. Today it is a huge online community with about 600000 linguaphiles from over 200 countries (courtesy : Wordsmith.org). Anu Garg has also authored some interesting books on words.

Visit the site when you can and send a gift subscription to those you love. Its free and it is useful !

The 'I' in me..

2008-07-18T06:07:00.000-07:00

The few seconds in front of the deity in the temple, when I feel great peace, before pride for being such a devoted person sets in..
The time I spend with my little niece, watching with awe, the miracle of life, without worrying about work..

The few minutes when I can listen to music without analyzing what goes in and how the artist is performing …

The few seconds when I sing and become one with the music, before starting to think how good my voice sounds ..

The time spent with friends in silence, knowing words aren’t necessary and they will not mind, before I feel the urge to fill in the silence with some ‘intelligent’ crap ..

A couple of hours I spend with books, getting lost in someone else’s life without wondering how I would have written the story..

Guess there are very few times when I can simply be me without being self-conscious. Everytime I do a good deed, I am aware I am doing one and seem to be full of pride about it. I supposedly help someone selflessly all the while thinking how kind-hearted I am.

I rehearse mentally every statement before I utter it, with the sole aim of impressing people around or getting a word of appreciation. I try hard to seem casual and cool and all the while know I am pretending !

I comment caustically on others’ words, as though I am perfect and realize how shallow I myself am, for considering myself above everyone else !

I seem to have atleast 3 different people in me - the I who does things, the I who is aware of what I am doing and tells me how to do it and the I who watches these two losers trying hard to obtain the approval of the others outside !

(P.S. Its 11:45 p.m, I have a severe headache and its way past my bedtime !! No wonder I am writing a lot of pseudo-philosophical trash !!)

I said 'LOOK AT ME' !

2008-07-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

We are waiting outside the conference room for the previous group to vacate. The Program manager from the customer's side walks towards us. He smiles, he waves at everyone. I say 'Hello', but he is not looking at me ! Must have missed me, I think to myself.

We are in the meeting room and status of different projects is discussed. I sit right opposite this man. As is normal, when he talks I am looking at him. He looks around, at each person in the room. He looks to the person on my left, to the one on my right, even at the person behind me ! But I wonder why I am being ignored !

What is happening ? Couple of justifications spring to my mind:

a. I have lost weight completely ! I have become so unimaginably thin, that people cannot see me easily !! As Wodehouse says I have become all length and no breadth. This reason seems too implausible even to me ! (Alas, there are mirrors in the restroom and not all of them lie !!)

b. I am having some sort of psychic experience, where it is my soul lurking in the conference room and my physical body is still in my seat browsing and refreshing the blog site ! Although this seems more likely, others in the room talk to me as if my physical body were there too ! So, wrong guess again !!

c. This guy probably has a secret crush on me and is afraid that he will start stuttering if he meets my eyes !! All Indian romantic movies that we have seen, tell us that the hero stammers when he meets the eye of the heroine. But something in me tells me not to flatter myself too much !! I mean, ok I am good looking (there goes my humility again !!), but not so much that it can leave people speechless !!

Come on, who am I kidding. This is not the first time this is happening and this guy is just a jerk with a super-bloated ego, who thinks he is too far above me to speak to me.

Wow, that felt so nice and liberating!! I am feeling better already !!

I remember an instance in school, where we were staging a mock-parliament for a competition. All through the rehearsals, there was one senior guy who would refuse to look at me in the eye while talking to me. I was annoyed and decided to hit back by staring at him non-stop when he was playing his part. Poor chap would stutter and stammer on feeling a pair of eyes boring into him.

Sadly, the guy here is the customer and I am in his territory! There is nothing I can do except pretend to take such things in my stride and get on with my work - probably crib about it in a blog post or try and refuse to meet his eye in the next meeting (thing is, such people will not even notice that, because they are anyway not looking at you !), but nothing else.

I wish we can switch places, and I become a king/queen i.e., a customer, so that he can try really hard to catch my eye and I can refuse to look at him. Till then, let me imagine some sequences where he is at my mercy and I avenge myself and treat him like the scum he is !!

Don't you just hate people who don't make eye-contact when they talk ?

Cautionary Tale - Do NOT watch this one !!

2008-07-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

Serves me right for going with star ratings a movie gets !

Serves me right to experiment with world cinema !

I definitely deserved what I got, to watch a movie, because Quentin Tarantino apparently raved about it !!

Some very disturbing imagery, some very troubling memories, an upset mind and consequently a slightly affected purse - What do I owe all these to ? A Korean movie called 'Oldboy' !! Our own 'desi Tarantino' aka Sanjay Gupta remade the movie as Zinda in Hindi.

I was hoping for a better original, since the premise seemed interesting to me. A man gets kidnapped by some unknown person on the eve of his daughter's birthday and is locked up inside a hotel room. He does not know the name or face or voice of the captor ! He is fed on a staple diet of fried dumplings through a small opening in the door. (SG did not want to waste his creativity on this trivial point and proceeded to change it to Samosas ! How creative is that !!)

The room has a toilet, a bed and a TV. Once in a while, the hero hears a certain tune, when some sort of gas is released into his room and he faints. This goes on for about, hold your breath, 15 years !! Meanwhile, the hero tries hard to remember the names of all the people that he has harmed in the past. He also tries to tunnel his way out of the building with a fork. While in captivity, his wife gets murdered and he is blamed for the murder.

At the end of 15 years, he is suddenly released and left on the terrace of the building. The hero decides to find the person who ruined his life for so many years and to avenge himself. He meets a young female chef, who tries to help him in his quest for revenge.

The man who was responsible for this and his reason for the punishment are too hard for a normal person to digest. It is scary and troubling to think about the dark depths of the human psyche and the extent to which a person can go to wreak havoc in the life of the person he hates !

The end of the movie shook me completely and not in a good way. I was feeling nauseated and disgusted ! To think that a person was able to conceive such a plot itself seems revolting !

Funny how I always thought of myself as a strong person ! I realized I was not ! Most reviews that you read on the net about this movie would talk about the intelligent screenplay, amazing cinematography etc and almost all of them will mention some sequences that totally gross you out, like the one where the hero eats a live octopus and another where in a tight close-up the teeth of a guy are pulled out with a hammer.

Well, if you ask me, I think those are the slightly more decent scenes in the movie, if you compare them with the psychological torture the movie portrays !! Some of the movie directors intend to shock and to achieve that, are willing to go to any lengths ! There seems to be no relationship that holds any sanctity to these people and their idea of a good movie is a movie that will disturb.

My cousin read out a review of the movie by the noted film critic Roger Ebert. These lines in particular were the highlight of the review :

'I am not an expert on the Korean cinema, which is considered in critical circles as one of the most creative in the world ("Oldboy" won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2004). I can say that of the Korean films I've seen, only one ("The YMCA Baseball Club") did not contain extraordinary sadomasochism. "Oldboy" contains a tooth-pulling scene that makes Laurence Olivier's Nazi dentist in "Marathon Man," look like a healer. And there is a scene during which an octopus is definitely harmed during the making of the movie.'
Sadomasochism !! Thats the term I was looking for !! That is definitely not my cup of tea !! I dont take perverse thrill in watching suffering or gory and gross sequences on screen !! I cannot take, relationships that I have been taught to treat as sacred, being slaughtered in the name of shock value and in the name of art !!

Thanks to this extremely bizarre and depressing movie, I/we had to get out of the house to get some air, see some normal people (all the while wondering what kind of people they actually were !!) and spending some money on stuff that we definitely did not need to get the stupid movie out of our minds !!