Blogger Bares All - An Interview

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

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

'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 !!

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.