wordmusings

Paris - Winter in the air

2009-12-05T20:02:00.019+05:30

The buildings here are proud structures - confident in their permanence. They are fresh

faced in contrast to the grime stuck on to the walls of buildings in a similar city - Kolkata.

The metro in Paris is a jumble of multi-coloured lines; green, red, yellow and blue, like the circuit diagrams from science in school. The metro is an underground lifeline, making travel quick and affordable. The wide roads are paved in stone. There is a delicious welcoming warmth to them.

This is also the warmth that emanates from the smaller shops lining the Champs De Elysees (Shau Ze Eli Ze as the french pronounce it). It is the lighting that only the soft light from bulbs can produce. Tubelights are harsh and efficient; bulbs, profligate and warm.

A light rain falls on and off. It freshens but does not drench. The road-side cafes still spill into the pavements on the street, the temporary roofs and discreetly placed umbrellas a shelter from the rain. A sparrow pecks at tid-bits as it hops on the ground between tables. Tourists flood the streets in a frenzy, taking in the maximum number of sights in the limited time available to them, capturing them digitally, to experience it all later when they are played back to friends, like cows chewing cud.

Christmas is in the air and the Santa costumes and the lighted Christmas trees are out in the open. Chocolates, hot wine, soft toys, puppets, crepes and breads, earthen lamps, shawls, earrings and bangles, caps and hats are displayed in the shops lining both sides of the street.

Carousels and Giant wheels spin in concert with the delighted screams of the children in them.

A group of 6 young men are performing a choreographed hip-hop routine in the street. Each one has his own specialized moves all of it culminating in a group routine. One of them performs incredible contortions, doing handstands, taking off his cap with one foot and putting it on with the other.

His group mate dances his way to a two year old girl in a pink raincoat. He leads her to the centre of the circle and moves her hands and feet to the rhythm of the music, like a baby hip-hopper. The child is dazed. The crowd loves it.

Another dances his way to a lady in the crowd. He thrusts his left cheek at her, motioning her to kiss him on it. Obligingly, she puckers up and leads her lips to his cheek. At the last instant, he turns his head around and their lips meet. The crowd roars its approval. The lady smiles embarassedly and the dancer retreats quickly.At the end of their performance, they hold out their caps for the coins.

The Champs De Elysees is a beautiful street.

Taare Zameen Par - A Review

2008-01-07T09:27:00.000+05:30

I have entered a contest for movie reviewing. It's my first attempt at reviewing keeping things like word limits etc in mind (650 words for this contest). This is what I have sent.

'A Sensible Start'

On a recent trip to Hampi, I watched as a group of children were led into a temple ruin as part of their excursion. A round faced child, in his excitement, momentarily broke away from the carefully formed queue, distracted by a monkey on the side. One male teacher came behind him stealthily and cuffed him on his head a few times. Two more teachers followed, beating him relentlessly on his thighs with sticks. All this for breaking away from a line.

Taare Zameen Par makes you relive the same pain by taking you along a 8-year old’s journey as he battles prejudice and his own unknown demons. By the end, it leaves you informed, pensive, uplifted and joyful.

Aamir Khan takes on the directorial baton for the first time and makes judicious use of the tools at his disposal. None more so than Darsheel Safary (in the role of the protagonist Ishaan Awasthi) who portrays a gamut of emotions convincingly through the course of the movie, but more importantly, remains an ordinary child through it all. The animation sequences deserve special mention. The simplicity of their execution adds to their ability to effectively portray a child's psyche in ways that words could never have substituted. The story narrative remains linear with clear delineations. The plot establishes the innocence of childhood, goes on to describe the prejudice faced by the protagonist, takes us to his succumbing to the pressures and finally redeems him. But it is the finer touches that elevate this movie. The physical smallness of the protagonist is exploited wonderfully. Every frame featuring him establishes his vulnerability by contrasting his smallness to all the others in the same scene. The involuntary twitch that the child develops through the course of the movie and the contrast between his initial sprints filled with frustration and the final redeeming one are powerful hooks.

Aamir Khan has made a bright start as a director by being secure about his abilities. He has not succumbed to the weight of any expectations by resorting to gimmickry. It is a heartening script and the director allows it to rule. The DVD deserves pride of place in his library.

The supporting characters constantly play the balancing act on the bridge of stereotypes (The authoritarian father, the caring yet powerless mother, the caricaturish teachers). But they refuse to fall off. Credit for that has to be given to the performances of some unheralded actors and the occasional fine lines that they are entrusted with. Tisca Chopra's (playing Ishaan's mother) plaintive 'Eenu' is simple, powerful and so, forgiven for it's melodrama. Vipin Sharma (as the father) is convincingly menacing and will have to come out of hiding soon.Aamir Khan (as the teacher) delivers what is expected of him but remains firmly in the background. It only helps the movie.

The parts of the movie dealing with dyslexia seem to have been researched thoroughly from the layman's point of view. The ability to portray that feeling is a key strength of the script and enhances the impact. The recurring theme that comes to mind for this movie is 'apt'. Not individually extraordinary but 'apt' for what needs to be depicted. The same applies to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music as it fits in seamlessly with the theme and elevates it.

Taare Zameen Par works because there can only be one winner, one topper in each class. The readymade audience is everyone else who identifies, each in their own way, with the trials of the protagonist. It identifies a key failing - Ignorance, and makes a start at tackling it. At the end of it all, you wish for primary school teaching to be the highest paid job in any country so that the country's best take it up - if only for it's life changing abilities.

Truth? You must be joking!!

2007-11-05T07:57:00.000+05:30

Hansie is a film currently under production - about the life and times of Hansie Cronje.It brought back memories of that turbulent time in cricket when Outlook magazine carried out an expose on match fixing and cricket fans worldwide were scarred for life.

As a subtext, I remember the glee with which I received the news of Hansie Cronje's confession to the King's commission probing match fixing. I felt vindicated as an Indian (almost as if I was personally a part of the Mumbai police investigation team that implicated Cronje). Of course, it had more to do with the the universal derision that greeted the first claims by the Mumbai police that Cronje was involved in murky, underhand dealings. The derision had all the typical qualities that raises the hackles of a citizen of a former colony.

The voices defending Cronje were predominantly white.
The questions were mostly about the competence of a police team from India.
And the attitude reflected was: 'This is typical subcontinent nonsense'

Of course it didn't help that Cronje was revered and worshiped as one of the great South African heroes. Someone who was credited with single-handedly taking South Africa from the lowest rung in cricket almost to the very top. He had great charisma as a leader and was universally admired. So, the fall was all the more spectacular. Patriotic pride swelled as a villain had been unearthed and that too by an Indian police team (Especially because you yourself shared many of the sentiments openly expressed by the South Africans: Cronje in match fixing? A scandal actually unearthed by the Indian police?).

So we heaved a collective sigh of relief that the Mumbai police was actually right. Hansie Cronje was banned for life and lost his life in a plane accident within a couple of years of his revelation.
But the controversy was not about Hansie alone. In a crime notorious for the difficulty in proving it, other names were tossed about. Marquee names like Azharuddin, Jadeja, Kapil Dev, Salim Malik were accused of playing slowly, throwing their wickets, dropping catches and ultimately losing matches for their country...

In an atmosphere vitiated with rumours of every hue, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between what was true and what wasn't; whether to believe in the tears so copiously shed on national television by Kapil Dev protesting his innocence or to go with Manoj Prabhakar's allegation that kapil had offered him money to throw a match.
No one confessed to doing anything wrong.

Only Hansie did. In front of the King's commission, Cronje confessed his complete involvement in the match fixing saga. What prompted him to confess publicly and unequivocally (After having denied any role in the scandal when the allegations first surfaced) leaving him no path to redemption is open to conjecture.

Maybe the evidence against him was irrefutable and he had no other choice but to confess.
Maybe he had got advice that to come clean was his best hope.
Maybe he was actually remorseful for all that he did.
Or maybe, he believed that his countrymen would forgive him for his transgressions.

Hansie was banned for life and became a pariah in the cricket world. This was followed by a multitude of bans. Commissions and inquiries were set up in other countries. The CBI in India banned Azharuddin for life; Ajay Jadeja, Ajay Sharma and Manoj Prabhakar for 5 years each. The Justice Qayyum commission in Pakistan banned Salim Malik and Ata-Ur-Rahman for life. Others like Gibbs, Williams, Odumbe were implicated and punished. All in the face of 'conclusive' evidence against them.But no one admitted to any wrong.There were no public confessions and if there were any private ones, they were never made public.

The closest it came to public admission was when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne admitted to having provided 'pitch information' and 'team composition' details to a book maker (A fact that was known to the Australian board for almost 4 years but which they chose to keep under wraps). Both of them believed that they had been 'naive and stupid'. It was deemed to be a transgression mild enough to be settled with a fine. No other inquiry was conducted to probe their role.

So, with all the revelations of match fixing, bookie involvement, matches lost, players under-performing and viewers being taken for a ride for so long, Hansie was the only one stupid enough to confess. Everyone else bided their time.

Today Azharuddin inaugrates fitness centers and is honoured with other former captains by the BCCI for their services to Indian cricket; Jadeja spouts his expert views on myraid TV channels and his sound bytes are sought on his views of Rahul Dravid's omission from the Indian team; Shane Warne is idolised and feted for having been arguably the best cricketer of the 20th century.

And Cronje is dead.

In a pantomine played out for long involving only villains with unbridled greed, no moral scruples and absolutely no shame, Cronje's grave is a testament to our times.
Of a man stupid enough to confess.

Hey Bloggie...

2007-10-27T20:36:00.000+05:30

Long time no see friend.
The Internet, life, workplace-blogger-restrictions, laziness, nothing-to-write, life...
Wanting to see 'No Smoking' very badly..
Will be back soon bloggie...
Won't leave you alone for so long again...

A Request

2007-07-23T12:46:00.000+05:30

I feel that I am becoming more discerning, that I am growing up.
At least in my reading.

There was a time (not too long ago) when anything esoteric appealed to me. Anything clever dazzled. Now I want writing to get to the point. Tell me what you want to. Don’t weave stories to show off. Don’t lead me through winding roads and present me with dead-ends expecting me to retract my steps. Just because you can.

Describe but only because you genuinely feel the need to. I am not interested in your vocabulary or your innovative use of language or your great eye for detail.

I have a choice and I am beginning to exercise it. I will just stop reading and cast you aside. Reputations don’t matter. I am mature enough to decide.

Give me simplicity and I will be indebted to you.

A writer's life

2007-07-20T21:22:00.000+05:30

A writer’s life has to be lonely.

A flash of illumination that struck me at 3 AM in the morning as I devoured through the ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’ of JM Coetzee. It is the first time I am reading Coetzee. I get easily impressed but the charm of the first books I read of most authors stays alive, forever a warm memory.

I have read enough about authors who claim that the art of fiction is always to mix and match. A nose of your first cousin, the sexual escapades of your grand aunt, the secret cupboard of your grandfather, the sing-song guffaws of your colleague at work – and there you have it, your original character.

Maybe it works, but only if you write for yourself shielded from readers, judgements.
Else, there is nowhere to hide.

It doesn’t matter how clever you are at deception. Or how many readers you have. You will most definitely have 4; your first cousin, your grand aunt, your grandfather and your colleague – and no place in their lives henceforth.

Because it is always easier to write about what is wrong in a person, like a cartoonist who exaggerates trivial flaws. Good is boring. It is the dark, the quirky and the hidden that excites.

Honesty cannot be masked. As in life, so in writing. And only the brave can be unfailingly honest. Because what you really know; deeply, intimately – is only your life (if that).
To be a writer is to betray everyone you know – an offence nakedly visible, at least to all betrayed.
And it is to give birth to a suspicion in everyone else as to whether they are next in line.

To be a writer is to lose spontaneity in friendships; to give up on relationships.

A writer’s life has to be lonely.

Kishore Kumar

2007-07-13T09:40:00.000+05:30

Just couldn't resist putting up this link!!!
Pure Genius, hilarious and more of the same thing!!
http://passionforcinema.com/cracy-mad-fg-genius/

'Ivide C'mon'

2007-06-28T03:38:00.000+05:30

It started with four guys having lime soda and mango juice in Hotel Kairali at Madivala, Bangalore. And it has consumed the last one week of my life. I walk around with a permanent goofy grin pasted on my face because I am recounting every one of those incidents which I read and re-read in the Orkut community we have created.

We are classmates – who studied together in high school till the 12th. New people joined. Some left in those years. But it doesn’t really matter who studied when because we have a common identity – a single identity. And I realize that now.

For me, School was part of life, like college was after that, like primary school was before that, like work life has been since. I haven’t really given it too much thought. Personally, I don’t make an effort to maintain past relationships. If I have friends, I believe they were meant to be. I don’t go out of my way to keep them, to make them feel special.

I have met many of these guys at different times in my life later. We have talked, exchanged a few words, laughed at a couple of old jokes, asked about a few of the others and gotten along with our lives. As if we were late for something. As if we had more important things to do.

We are scattered across the world and till now no one was quite sure where.

The community has changed all that. It started out as a meeting place, probably a place to exchange e-mail IDs so that we could reach out to each other, if ever the need arose. Slowly, the jokes started filtering in, the ones that everyone could identify with. And then the more intimate ones. And then the exam and teachers incidents, the ‘classic’ incidents and it has been a deluge ever since. We have rediscovered Orkut and have our community page open in office and at home, always looking for the next update. We have rediscovered the heroes of our class, the ones who painted those years in such beautiful, riotous colors.

It is safe to say that I haven’t laughed as much and as hard in the last decade of my life, as I have in the last one week. We call each other up and laugh again, recounting incidents that we have just read and re-read and laughed a 100 times over.
We are rejuvenated, sentimental, happy and comrades again.
Pleasantly surprised for having rediscovered something so precious.

And so, For having started this all: Sreeraj, Anil, Kittu & Ram….’Ivide C’mon’ :-)

The Endless Cycle

2007-05-19T11:34:00.000+05:30

He followed his visitors as far as the door. When they had gone he went back into the study. He was silent. His face was towards the dark window and his back towards me. On the fringe of the silence his voice spoke; he did not turn his shoulders. He said:

“Another glass of tea, please, Hannah, and would you mind turning off the main light? When father asked us to give the child an old-fashioned name we ought to have deferred to his wishes. When I was ten I had a very bad fever. All night, night after night, Father sat up by my bedside. He kept putting fresh damp clothes on my forehead, and singing over and over again the only lullaby he knew. He sang out of tune and flat. The song went like this: Time to sleep, the day is gone, In the sea has set the sun. stars are shining in the sky. Lulla, lulla, lullaby.

“Have I ever told you, Hannah, that aunt Jenia used to try by every means she could to find a second wife for father? She rarely came to visit us without bringing some friend or acquaintance with her. Aging nurses, Polish immigrants, skinny divorcees. The women would begin by advancing on me, with hugs and kisses, boxes of sweets and cooing noises. Father used to pretend not to understand Aunt jenia’s intention. He was polite. He would start talking about the High Commissioner’s latest edicts, and such like.
“When I had the fever I had a very high temperature, and the perspiration poured out of me all night long. The bedclothes were soaked. Every two hours Father carefully changed the sheets. He took care not to move me roughly, but he always overdid the caution. I would wake up and cry. Before dawn Father would wash all the sheets in the bath, and then go out in the dark and hang them out to dry on the washline outside our building. The reason I didn’t want lemon in my tea was that the heartburn is very bad, Hannah. When the fever abated Father went out and bought me a checkers set at a discount from our next-door neighbor Globerman’s shop. He tried to lose every game we played. To make me happy he would groan and hold his head in his hands, and call me ‘little genius, little professor, little Grandpa Zalman.’ Once he told me the story of the Mendelssohn family, and jokingly compared himself to the middle Mendelssohn, who was the son of one great Mendelssohn and the father of another. He prophesied a great future for me. He made me cup after cup of warm milk and honey, without the skin. If I was stubborn and refused to drink, he resorted to temptations and bribes. He would flatter my common sense. That was how I recovered. If you wouldn’t mind, Hannah, could you bring me my pipe? No, not that one, the English one. The smallest one. Yes, that’s it. Thank you. I recovered and father caught the fever from me and was very ill. He lay for three weeks in the hospital where Aunt Jenia worked. Aunt Leah volunteered to look after me while he was ill. After two months they told me that he had only escaped death by good luck or a miracle. Father himself joked about it a lot. He quoted a proverb which says that great men die young, and he said that fortunately for him he was only a very ordinary man. I swore before the picture of Herzl in the living room that if Father died suddenly I would find some way of dying too, instead of going to an orphanage or to Aunt Leah. Next week, Hannah, we’ll buy Yair an electric train. A big one. Like the one he saw in the window of Freimann and Bein’s shoestore in Jaffa road. Yair is very fond of mechanical things. I’ll give him the alarm clock which doesn’t work. I’ll teach him to take it to pieces and put it together again. Maybe Yair will grow up to be an engineer. Have you noticed how the boy is fascinated by motors and springs and machines? Have you ever heard of a child of four and a half who can understand a general explanation of how a radio works? I’ve never thought of myself as outstandingly brilliant. You know that. I’m not a genius or whatever my father supposed or said he supposed. I’m nothing special, Hannah, but you must try as hard as you can to love Yair. It would be better for you, too, if you do….No, I’m not suggesting that you neglect the child. Nonsense. But I have the feeling that you’re not wild about him. One’s got to be wild, Hannah. Sometimes, one even has to lose all sense of proportion. What I am trying to say is, I’d like you to start…I don’t know quite how to explain this sort of sentiment. Lets forget it. Once, years ago, you and I were sitting in some café, and I looked at you and I looked at myself and I said to myself, I’m not cut out to be a dream-prince or a knight on horseback, as they say. You’re pretty. Did I tell you what Father said to me last week in Holon? He said that you seemed to him to be a poetess even though you don’t write poems. Look, Hannah, I don’t know why I am telling you all this now. You’re not saying anything. One of us is always listening and not saying anything. Why did I tell you all that just now? Certainly not to offend you or hurt you. Look, we shouldn’t have insisted on the name Yair. After all, the name wouldn’t have affected our regard for the child. And we trampled on a very delicate sentiment. One day, Hannah, I’ll have to ask you why you chose me out of all the interesting men you must have met. But now it’s late and I’m talking too much and probably surprising you. Will you start getting the beds ready, Hannah? I’ll come and help you in a moment. Lets go to sleep Hannah. Father is dead. I’m a father myself. All this…all these arrangements suddenly seem like some idiotic children’s game. I remember we used to play once, at the edge of our housing project, on an empty site near where the sands began; we stood in a long line and the first one threw the ball and ran to the end of the line until the first became the last and the last became the first, over and over again. I cant remember what the point of the game was. I cant remember how you won the game. I cant even remember if there were any rules or if there was any method in the madness. You’ve left the light on in the kitchen.”

From 'My Micheal' by Amos Oz

(I loved this piece because of the way Oz conveys so subtly the message ' The more things change, the more they remain the same'. And of course, his beautiful prose.)

Another short story - Part 1

2007-05-15T08:32:00.001+05:30

Deepa looks accusingly at her silver MotoRazr lying near the microwave.

She is cutting translucent skinned potatoes into small, symmetric pieces. Unevenness makes her uncomfortable. For her, cutting vegetables into right-sized pieces is the essential of good cooking. So, she does it herself before Rohit comes home.

She has experienced Rohit’s well intentioned help. He comes in unexpectedly, swinging his racket, his tennis whites spotless. It is these periods of activity that she is wary of. He won’t listen pretending that her irritation is invisible. He makes her sit on the sofa in front of the television and forbid her from helping him. He does it with a mock-serious expression, as if all this is an elaborate joke he has thought up while playing the last set with Mr. Marshall. And he proceeds to mangle the vegetables, leaving her with a loss of appetite.

Deepa had enjoyed these displays initially, when she had joined him in his condominium, a ‘jog-distance’ (as he put it) away from the tennis club he worked at – ‘The Marshall’s school of Tennis’ with ‘Special care for beginners’. She had found out that he was a tennis coach after marrying and coming to America.

Everything leading to their marriage had happened in a blurred rush. Rohit had come to her house with his parents. He was wearing a green Polo T-shirt, khaki trousers and brown Reebok sneakers. The neatly trimmed, side parted hairstyle and his frank, approvingly long look towards her had made up her mind. Not that her opposition would have made much difference against that heavy, gold-covered word which had been floating in the house for the past week in anticipation of this visit.
‘America’.
He had talked to her in English and she had noticed how he strained to hear her replies – contemplating, chewing and finally digesting her accent. She stayed at home for 7 more days before she got married and boarded her first flight.

Separation

2007-05-15T08:32:00.000+05:30

On the way up, as we passed the place on the staircase where I had slipped earlier, Michael took hold of my sleeve once again. As if there was a danger of slipping again on that particular step. Through the blue wool, I could feel every one of his five fingers. He coughed drily and I looked at him. He caught me looking at him, and his face reddened. Even his ears turned red. The rain beat at the windows.
“What a downpour,” Michael said.
“Yes, a downpour,” I agreed enthusiastically, as if I had suddenly discovered that we were related.
Michael hesitated. Then he added:
“I saw the mist early this morning and there was a strong wind blowing.”
“In my Jerusalem, winter is winter,” I replied gaily, stressing “my Jerusalem
” because I wanted to remind him of his opening words. I wanted him to go on talking, but he could not think of a reply; he is not a witty man. So he smiled again. On a rainy day in Jerusalem in Terra Sancta college on the stairs between the first floor and the second floor. I have not forgotten.

He stopped reading and went out to the balcony. He lighted a cigarette, watching the smoke spiral into the cool night air.
He felt elated, alive, needing to talk to her.
He dialed her number, willing her to pick the call, waiting.

Her sleepy voice floated across their separation, making him smile.
He did not talk to her about what he had just read.
He sang, songs that he made up as he talked, picturising her face under the thin sheet, her face smiling, like he remembered.
He talked, not wanting her to reply.
Of summer, of the drive back home, of the lone bee that had droned into his apartment room.
He talked.
Without expectation, wanting the spell to last.
He talked till the words dried up, leaving his elation behind.
Happily, he hung up, her rhythmic breathing in his ears, knowing, that she had slept, a long time back.

(The italicised portion is an excerpt from 'My Michael' by Amos Oz)

Melancholy

2007-05-12T05:16:00.000+05:30

Rediff…..Cricinfo…..NY times……blogs
NY times…blogs….Cricinfo….rediff
Multiple combinations in browsing can only help so much.
I have nothing to say. Nothing to write.

So,

I hate facades but I take part in them.
I don’t know what I want but I pretend.
I convince myself that life is short but I still worry.
I know they are precious but I still hurt them.
I make goals too high to be reached.
I will die, unsatisfied.

I hate being honest.
(I love the letter I) too much.

The Big Question

2007-05-03T01:17:00.000+05:30

Doesn’t everyone pray with a face, an image in mind?
Isn’t that face the ‘God’ in the devotee’s mind?
As real, as finite, as tangible as every member of the devotees’ household…

If so, where do all these Gods reside?
Definitely not on the earth because then someone, somewhere should have met somebody.
But no one has.
So, they all have to belong to a dimension unknown to humans.

Are there palatial bungalows there, one for each religion?

Hindu ghar, Christian vatika, Islam kutir, Sikh house?
So, is the Hindu ghar the biggest having to accommodate the legion of Hindu Gods?
Does Vishnu have a better room than Brahma’s?
Are all the different religions housed on the same road of this celestial neighborhood?
Does Jesus talk to Krishna or spend the evening discussing the day’s events with Allah?
Or are they all so busy keeping track of prayers by ardent devotees that they find no time to socialize?
And what about all the minor, niche Gods and Godesses?
The visa Ganapathys, the passport Murugans, the area specific deities of every religion?
Do they occupy the basement because they are not important enough?
Is it ‘ungodly’ to imagine a caste system among Gods?

Or should I believe in the thought that there is only one God and that one God is called by different names by different people?
If that is so, why does every religion so clearly specify the name by which ‘it’s’ God is to be addressed?
Does it mean that all religions are flawed at their basic foundations?

Is all that I have written so far absurd from every true believer’s point of view?
Or is it only as absurd as truly believing that there is some unidentified, unproven, unseen force somewhere that is actually capable of listening to every plea that comes out of all human beings on this planet, tracking those pleas and acting on it?

A fine balance

2007-04-26T22:48:00.000+05:30

Books that I have read, re-read or currently reading in the last 6 months with a single line opinion (In no particular order).

1. The catcher in the rye – JD Salinger
(Introduced me to Salinger. Must read)

2. Raise high the roof beams Carpenter & Seymour: an Introduction – JD Salinger
(Raise high the roof beams Carpenter is brilliant. Seymour: an Introduction is tedious, self-indulgent, repititive)

3. Franny & Zooey – JD Salinger
(Franny is normal Salinger. Zooey is marginally better)

4. Nine stories – JD Salinger
(Mixed bag. The ones I liked are 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut', 'Just before the war with the Eskimos', 'For Esme with love and Squalor' and 'Pretty mouth and green my Eyes')

5.Lord of the flies – William Golding
(Read for the concept.Deep.Normal writing)

6. A clockwork orange – Anthony Burgess
(Uses sometimes-difficult-to-understand slang. Great plot)

7.A fine balance – Rohinton Mistry
(Introduced me to Rohinton Mistry. Will remain one of my all time favourites)

8. Family matters – Rohinton Mistry
(Good. But my frame of reference is set by 'A Fine Balance'. Difficult to match)

9.Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra
(Cops & Robbers tale. Unapologetic. Racy read. Good)

10. Love & Longing in Bombay – Vikram Chandra
(Set of five stories. Good not great. Liked 'Artha' the most followed by 'Shanti')

11. Red Earth & pouring Rain - Vikram Chandra
(Tedious. Thought it pseudo-intellectual. Couldn't finish.)

12.A suitable boy – Vikram Seth
(Lazy, luxurious, great writing. Liked it)

13.Hullabaloo in the guava orchard – Kiran Desai
(really good writing in spite of the plot)

14. Selected short stories of Nikolai Gogol – Nikolai Gogol
(Currently reading. First signs good)

15.The Namesake – Jhumpa lahiri
(Good. Liked the 'Interpreter of maladies' much better)

16. The world according to Garp – John Irving
(Introduced me to John irving. Was startled by the book. Liked it)

17.The Cider House Rules – John Irving
(My John irving favourite. On par with 'The World according to Garp')

18.A prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
(A whole book created on the thinnest premise. Couldn't wait for it to end)

19. The Hotel New Hampshire – John Irving
(Has all those John irving staples. Bears, Vienna. Good only in parts.)

20. The kite runner – Khaled Hosseini
(Kept me interested. Too formulaic. Maybe the best he will ever write)

21.The city of God – Paulo Lins
(Too full of violence, drugs etc. Got on my nerves after some time)

22.Sons & Lovers – D H Lawrence
(Didn't know what to expect. Liked it)

23.The Same Sea – Amos Oz
(Read a novel in this form for the first time. Loved it)

24.Pomegranate Soup – Marsha Mehran
(Has some really tasty looking recipes. Found the novel quite superficial)

25.The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
(OK. Didn't do anything great for me and definitely did not match the hype it has around it)

26. Bend in the river – VS Naipaul
(Introduced me to Naipaul. Loved it)

27. A house for Mr Biswas – VS Naipaul
(Long. Tedious. However, a good read if patient)

28.Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis
(Very very tedious. But liked it)

29.The Shining – Stephen King
(Typical Stephen King. Scared me. But forgettable as soon as you finish it)

30.The Secret life of bees – Sue Monk Kidd
(Nothing great. Pass)

31. Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle stop cafe - Fanny Flagg
(In the genre of 'To kill a mockingbird'. Comes nowhere near)

32.The Wedding – Nicholas Sparks
(Too too mushy. Read it when I had nothing else to read. But still don't know how I read it)

I have never read so much in such a time frame. I am the cat with the cream smeared all around my mouth.
And yes...I work too........Really. I do.

Where am I

2007-04-18T16:15:00.000+05:30

Why do we never see you anywhere, they say to him, why do you bury yourself in that hole, they say, far away from your friends, with no parties, no nights out, no fun, you ought to get out, see people, clock in, show your face, at least give some signs of life. Forget it, he says to them, I get up at five o'clock have a coffee and by the time I have erased and written six or seven lines the day's already over and evening is falling to erase.

From 'The Same Sea' by Amos Oz.

Summer Memories

2007-03-23T02:27:00.000+05:30

Taking the baton from Jiby (courtesy Silverline) for the Sunshine tag. I was supposed to come up with 8 things that remind me of summer. But I have come up with only six. It is long. Requires patience. Here goes:

Pepnetius:
I was in the 4th standard and in Gandhinagar in Gujarath. Gandhinagar was beautiful with roads that smoothly stretched wide and straight, with traffic that did full justice to the roads by being almost non-existent. With trees planted on the sidewalks, with gardens in every residential neighborhood, living in a beautiful 2-storied house allocated by the bank my father worked in, Gandhinagar (supposedly planned and modeled on Chandigarh) was the first city I fell in love with.

I used to walk back from school with my closest friend, Ayaz. Fat and smiling. With a name bigger than him - Ayaz Khan Pathan.

My summer memory is of our walk back from school on the last day of our 4th standard exam with 2 months of summer vacations laid out in front, waiting to be eased into.
‘Thujhe class mein kaun sabse achchi lagti hai?’, Ayaz’s question, out of nowhere.
He didn’t have to be any more specific. I knew he was talking about the girls in our class.
‘Pehle thu bol’, I replied.
‘Nahin pehle thu’.
This was uncomfortable territory at a time when the official line to friends and family was that girls were stupid and not to be bothered with. I still remember one of the lines from then (When girls go east, we boys go west).
We decided that we would count to 3 and call out our picks together. 1……………….2…………………….3

‘PEPNETIUS’

I looked at him, smiling.
He smiled back and we laughed hard, with our backs to the tree trunks. We laughed and rolled over, rolled over and laughed.

Pepnetius was the favourite of all the teachers in class for being the meekest. She rarely talked to the girls and never to the boys. She was plain looking, dark, with plaits. She was quiet and fit into the official party line of the type of girls that were tolerable. She was non-controversial and therefore a safe pick.
Chicanery with your best friend at the age of 9.
Of course, we did the 1-2-3 test again and came out with the names that we really had in mind. But Pepnetius is still my summer memory.

Phantom :
Phantom & Diana & Hero & Devil & Rex & Kit & Heloise….my Ahmedabad (6th & 7th standard) memories.
I could go on and on ( The skull cave, the pygmies…..).
There can be no magazine/comic/children books company that understands the joy that its existence provides to kids.
Indrajal comics (how much cornier can you get with a name?), with their Flash Gordon, Mandrake, Rip Kirby, Garth.
Tinkle, Chandamama, Target, Amar Chitra Katha.
Every children magazine worth its salt seemed to be subscribed to at home. They used to come in with the morning newspaper and I used to tussle with my brother for first reading rights. But when school closed for the summers, my first activity when I came back was to lie in bed, with the fan on in full speed and read all the past issues of Phantom(Mr Walker, The Ghost who walks). The comic with those brilliant ‘Old jungle sayings’.
I would have read them so many times already but it never mattered. I even used to drink milk because the Phantom always drank milk when he went into the bars. Of course everyone ridiculed him for that but he usually beat up a few baddies in the bar and ‘milk’ was suddenly seriously cool.

I can actually experience the same happiness and the anticipation of that happiness as I write this.

Play till you drop:

Cricket has been a constant companion. In Gandhingar, in the ‘sector’ garden that we had in front of our house where you always had to be on the lookout for the ‘mali’ because you were not supposed to destroy the grass by trampling on it.
In Ahmedabad, where the days were so much longer in the summer vacation days that it was still daylight till 7:30 PM. Of course, the end of daylight was no reason to go back home and the cricket included quaint terms like ‘one pitch out’ and ‘current out’.
In Thrissur, where we used to play cricket in the small yard in front of the house. This used to be between the 3 or 4 of us and we had the most bastardized rules in the history of cricket. Since there were 3 or 4, we couldn’t make teams, so we played for points.
2 points for a catch.
3 points for a wicket.
1 point for every 5 runs scored.
Whoever had the maximum number of points at the end of the day was the winner (turning a potential stroll in the park into an arithmetic lesson).
Hitting the roof of the 'thozhuthu' was 6 runs. Hitting it over (without touching any part of the ‘odu’ roof) was out.
Nicking to the wall behind was a caught behind.
Bowling too fast was just not cricket because the pitch length was about half the normal pitch length and if you bowled really fast you had no chance of playing those.
But we played so much that by evening we would all be so irritated with each other that fights would break out about nicks and ethics and there would be ‘knowing’ stares about that innings where ‘you surely nicked but didn’t walk’. And the bowling speed would just cross that thin line dividing the ‘accepted’ from the ‘unethical’.
The game would usually end with one almighty heave of frustration by one of the batsmen making sure that the ball was lost (And thereby denying the ultimate winner the real pleasure of having won fair and square).
And of course, all those ‘poochattys’ so lovingly tended to by my cousin sister which would be broken and the scoldings separately for each one of them.

Marbles, cricket, football, hockey, badminton, table tennis; we played all these according to what was in vogue that summer, the only constant being that you spent yourself completely playing and you went home as a shocking sight to amma.

Summer flavours:

Sights and smells and snacks and drinks that define summer to the senses.
The ice golas in Law Garden, with those tiny ice crystals packed together on a thin stick flavoured with sugary sweet syrups with exotic names like kala khatta
The sheradi ka ras (sugar cane juice) that you got at the other end of ATIRA which was always the sweet end point of the frequent family evening walks
The Vadilal ice cream of Ahmedabad which was Ahmedabad’s own and could not be compared to anything anywhere else(I heard that they tried a franchise model for expansion and it was never the same again; different tastes in different places, the nightmare of franchising)
The chana chor garam in conical newspaper sheets with salt and chilli and coriander leaves and a dash of lemon outside school in Ahmedabad
The ‘nannari’ sherbet (with soda) at ‘Balakrishna Cool bar’ in Palakkad
The naranga soda (from the goli bottles, with extra salt) outside school in Thrissur, which tasted like heaven after a game of football
The pana nongu, with the fleshy, juicy interior brought in baskets every summer.

The king of fruits:

Mangoes. There had to be a separate section for them. When we stayed outside, acha used to buy at least a couple of crates of ‘aapus’ mangoes every summer. The crates would be filled with straw with the mangoes in varying shades of ripeness arranged to make sure that they could breathe.
Jackfruit was the preferred summer fruit for my family but I could not look beyond mangoes. The ease with which a knife cut through the fruit revealing the reddish yellow fruit was a summer joy.
And all those exotic varieties of mangoes every time I visited Kerala; the kilichundans, the priyoors, the neelans. At home now, we have a wide variety of mangoes including the Alphonso. All I regret is not being home enough in Palakkad in the summers to gorge on the mango, the greatest summer delicacy.

Summer visits home:

Acha used to get plane tickets for the family every other year. That was the time when flying meant Indian Airlines. My brother loved to be on those flights and I would be in the seat next to amma, nauseous and retching, waiting for next year when we would take the blissful 48 hour train ride home.

You always said that you were going to visit your ‘gaon’ to your friends, schoolmates and teachers but you could never make them understand that this ‘gaon’ was nothing like the villages that they imagined; of poverty, no electricity, no running water and reeking with exploitation.
This was the most beautiful place in the world with so many relatives; aunts and uncles; cousins for whom we were in some way, minor celebrities. Summer vacations was about travel between acha’s and amma’s houses with frequent stops at aunts’ and uncles’ places. It was hearing the stories of Malayalam movies from your elder cousin sisters and understanding that there was a rivalry for affections between Mohanlal and Mammooty. Even then, the girls would be on Mammooty’s side and the boys on Mohanlal’s. Without understanding any of it, I would side with Mohanlal (Shades of brilliance at that age???).

It was about hearing the stories of ‘Mayavi’ and ‘Kapish’ and all the poombatta and balarama stories from my cousins because I could not read Malayalam then. It was always about that most-often heard phrase ‘How you have grown’. It never failed to amaze me how they expected me to be of the same size every year.

It was also about one particular scene that played out every time exactly the same way at amma’s house. Ammoomma would be sitting on the cement ledge outside the kitchen, cutting vegetables and another elderly relative would be sitting next to her, helping. I would come out of the kitchen and see them. They would look at me and smile. There would be a conversation. It happened every time I went for my summer vacations: the same scene re-enacted. And I had that very interesting feeling of ‘I Have seen all this before, exactly like this’. To a degree where I could actually predict what would happen next if I tried hard enough. Unexplained but very interesting. Just another beautiful summer memory.

Salute

2007-02-07T05:19:00.000+05:30

How brave is it to be brave
How difficult is it to identify that thin strip of wood separating courage and stupidity and to balance on it
How does one make decisions that cock a snook at everything known
How does one look through to what can be

How does one choose Ashuthosh Gowarikar, John Mathew Mathan, Raykesh Omprakash Mehra

How does one become Anurag kashyap?

Home truths

2007-02-01T00:34:00.000+05:30

I went to see J.A Konrath yesterday.
And he pushed a knife through my dream.
J.A Konrath writes mystery novels. He writes them with a tequila flavor and just a twist of lime.
His novels: Whiskey sour, Bloody mary, rusty nail
His Hero(ine) : Jack Daniels (short for jacqueline Daniels)

He talked about his career.
He talked about his struggle.
He talked about the 400 odd rejections that he got.
He talked about the fact that his tenth novel was the first to be published.
He talked about the 6 digit advance that he got for his first contract.
Romantic.
My dream relived.

Then he talked about how he learnt from his mistakes.
He talked about not just caring about what he likes (knife removed from its sheath)
He talked about understanding what sells (It gleams a brilliant steel)
He talked about 'understanding' what the market wants. (It starts cutting at my dream - slicing at the photo on the jacket cover of my published book)
He talked about giving people what they want (The first shreds are on the carpet)
He talked about the 614 book store visits that he made last summer to pitch for himself, for his book (The first shreds are thin - they float)
He talked about the spiel that you need to have ready to promote yourself and your book (The shreds start to bleed)
He talked about the need to earn back your advance through your efforts - otherwise there might never be another book because the industry is cruel and watches (the blood spurts...the dream still breathes..only just)
He talked about the need to appeal to the widest possible audience especially women. So Joe Konrath is J.A Konrath. Suitably ambiguous. (RIP)

He talked about prostitution.
I slash some more. Just to make sure.

About God

2006-11-08T00:39:00.000+05:30

I have spent much of my life in Thrissur. There is a temple on its outskirts. I don't know the deity there because I have never noticed deities. Somehow, it never mattered to who I was praying. I usually pray in English. So I have always started off my prayers with 'Dear God' instead of "Krishna', 'Narayana' etc. The temple is on the bank of a river with a beautiful 'ambala aal' in front. Its a small, cozy little temple. The smells of sandal and the temple stones, the images of the 'chuttuvilaaku' (when lamps are lit in each of the stone diyas engraved on the outside walls of the temple) are stored within me. Everytime I go there, I have an inner peace I have never found in bigger temples like Guruvayoor or Thirupathi.

I come from a family of believers. My father prayed daily in the morning before going to office. We had a Krishna statue at home (which me and my brother broke once playing indoor cricket, but that's for another post). So for me the image of God is Krishna though I never addressed my prayers to him. As children, we were expected to do a 'naamam chollal' every evening. My mother was not too strict about it. So we bunked the sessions on some days. But on most evenings, we gathered in front of that Krishna statue, closed our eyes and prayed. We sang whatever songs we knew, some devotional, some patriotic; some in Malayalam some in Hindi. We were staying in Ahmedabad and our knowledge of Malayalam (my brother's and mine) was passable but not great. So, we never tried mastering the really difficult devotional songs - the ones that you should ideally be singing at the 'naamam chollal' sessions.

As a child I used to talk to God and God answered back. I don't know what the conversations were about or whether I was talking to myself and thinking that I was talking to God. But I genuinely believed at the age of 7 that me and God talked. I even remember a vague sense of arrogance that I was actually talking to God - something I found unusual and cool and proud about. Preening, I told my brother about this once. Surprisingly, he was not surprised. He said he used to talk too and that most people did it. My brother was 12 then and my expert on everything. It was the proverbial pin in a hot air balloon. I don't remember me and God having a conversation after that.

We shifted to Kerala when I was 12. From then on, till I got my first job, Kerala was my home. I learnt Malayalam by reading the names of movies from the posters on the walls and all the '25 days', '50 days' completed advertisements in the local newspapers. I became a movie lover in Kerala and a total Mohanlal fan. So I would know the movie being advertised even before I read the poster. Then, it was all about aligning the letters to the name. Through many trials and many more errors, I became proficient in reading my mother tongue. I felt I had started to belong to my home state.

I started going to Sabarimala annually and Guruvayur frequently. Whenever an occasion came up, I went to my small temple and prayed. My mother taught me to pray for everyone, not just for me. So, I prayed for my family, for my relatives and my friends. On certain exam days, I prayed for myself. God was a given and I was content. I never questioned generations of belief and I was at peace.

I have been following the weather reports here in the US and have been pleasantly surprised with their unerring accuracy at times. It tells me whether it will be sunny tomorrow or whether it will snow. Life here revolves around the weather reports. That set me thinking.

Before these sophisticated weather guaging instruments were developed, wouldn't we just have prayed for a sunny day tomorrow if I was planning to go out?
Is it that all that is unknown (unknown as of today that is) is attributed to God?
Does that mean that God's sphere of influence gets decreased as man's knowledge increases?
Will there ever come a time when man is so knowledgeable that everything can be predicted?
Will there be the need for a God then?

Simply put,I have started doubting whether there is a God. I haven't reached a stage where I am brave enough to proclaim that I don't believe in God. That there is no such thing as God. I am at that same stage as when I said I don't believe in ghosts. I was 11 at that time and I was popular among my friends in school. I believed I had to be a hero at all times. So, once a friend told me
"If you say that you don't believe in Ghosts, then the ghosts will come after you"
I immediately replied, "I don't believe in Ghosts".After all, image meant a lot in school.
But within me I told myself and all the Ghosts who would be in earshot distance that I believed in them completely and so...Please don't come after me.

I went to the Aurora temple in Chicago for this Diwali and for the first time in my life I didn't know what to pray or whether I wanted to pray at all or whether any of this made any sense.

Its not a happy feeling. In fact its gut-wrenching. Its like losing a part of me. I wish I could return to my unquestioning belief - to the contentment I have always taken for granted. But I know it is not possible anymore until I find answers and decide for myself.

An ode to a kindred spirit

2006-11-04T01:53:00.000+05:30

I haven't been following other blogs for some time now. So thought I will start with Jiby's blog. Found something extremely heartening there. He has set himself a challenge of writing a novel in 30 days. You will find the declaration of his intent here and the process of culmination here. I have always admired his blog for his seemingly effortless reminiscences of his school life and totally enjoyed reading the escapades of his band-of-brothers in sporadic posts. Writing under a deadline (externally imposed or self imposed) is frightening. Its a tremendous challenge associated with a high probability of failure. But he has taken it up and it is gratifying. I won't fault him if he fails. But I hope that he does not. I know he has taken up a subject that he can do full justice to. My good wishes are with him. I sincerely wish he makes it. For him and for me.

The Decalogues

2006-10-26T01:47:00.000+05:30

I owe a lot to my brother for throwing open the world of books to me. In my childhood, I remember being surrounded by books - from a lot of different genres. I remember very clearly a recurring instance from my childhood. Every year, on my brother's birthday, one of my uncles would ask what he wanted as a gift. The answer was a constant. Books. I grew up thinking that Russian classics by Gorky and Dostoevsky was a legitimate birthday gift. My brother had also hoarded up a considerable collection of comics/children books: Tinkle, Champak (I didn't like that even as a kid), Chandamama and my favourite - Indrajal comics with the adventures of Phantom, Mandrake, Rip Kirby, Flash Gordon...

I remember vividly the great sense of anticipation and joy with which I used to come back home after every quarterly/half-yearly exam - the joy of spending a whole afternoon, lying down on the bed with my favourite comics for company was my idea of bliss. The anticipation would start building as soon as I left school on the last exam day. Nobody at home would ask me to study and those joyful afternoons remain in my memories - written with permanent marker ink.

I felt the same kind of anticipation and joy while watching 'The Decalogues'. Its a series of 10 films (each about an hour long) directed by Kryztoff Kieslowski. The films are in Polish with English sub-titles. They are loosely based on the Ten Commandments. They were made for Polish television and screened there for the first time. Initially, he had planned to have a different director for each of the ten films. But he fell in love with the stories and decided to direct them himself. The cinematographer changes in each film but Kieslowski - as the director - is a constant. I read about the Decalogues for the first time in an interview of Vishal Bharadwaj on rediff where he was talking about Omkara. He said that he decided to become a movie director after watching the Decalogues. I am an admirer of Vishal Bharadwaj's work. So, with netflix in hand, I decided to find out what the fuss was all about.

Here is a small Synopsis of each of the 10 movies as I see it.

Decalogue 1:It is about an agnostic father who believes that everything can be solved by reason. The father is a teacher and his 10 year old son is a genius at computers. It is about the implicit faith that the father has in science and consequently the blind faith that the child has in his father - and the consequences thereof.

Decalogue 2:It is about the moral dilemma of a pregnant woman whose husband is suffering from a terminal illness. She is carrying the child of another man. It deals with the interplay of emotions between the woman and the doctor treating her husband. The dilemma is: If the doctor assures her that her husband will live, she will abort the child; if the doctor assures her that her husband will die, she wants to keep the child

Decalogue 3:This is about the one-time mistress of a now-married taxi driver making him revisit the past by taking him on a ride in his taxi through the town.

Decalogue 4:This is about a daughter finding a letter from her dead mother, which plants doubts in her mind of her real father.

Decalogue 5:This is about a killer, his killing a cab-driver, his being captured and sentenced to an execution and about the lawyer who argues his case.

Decalogue 6:This is the original of 'Ek Choti Si love story' starring Manisha Koirala which I had seen the first day it was released.

Decalogue 7:This is about a woman who had a daughter when she was very young. The child is being brought up by the young woman's mother. The young woman and her child are therefore sisters in the eyes of the world. This is about the young woman's attempt to break out with her child.

Decalogue 8:This is about an elderly ethics teacher as she comes face to face with an incident from her past (in the form of a Jewish woman) and she has to revisit a decision that she took in the past

Decalogue 9:This is about a philandering doctor who has become impotent and becomes suspicious of his wife

Decalogue 10:This is about 2 brothers (long estranged) who come across an unusual inheritance and the way their life changes.

I have not done any justice to the depth of the movies by these very superficial synopses (I dont want to spoil things for anyone who will see these movies). I know the synopses are pretty bad but the films are magnificent. All of the stories take place in the same block of flats. Virtually every character is a resident here but there is almost no overlapping of stories. There is an observer like character who moves through each of these stories providing a common link. I have seen and re-seen (thats the best word to describe it) all of these movies. All are masterpieces which make you think, which make you want to see through them at least one more time - to be able to grasp every nuance in the story. The acting is excellent across the board and as I said, except for the observer, there are different actors in each of the 10 films. My personal favourites are Decalogues 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10. Really..Even 8 is good but I thought not as powerful as the other nine. And it involves a lot of viewing time. About 12 hours if you see it once. But to really appreciate the collection you need to see it more than once.
This collection should be made compulsory viewing for every first time director(wherever..Hollywood, Bollywood, Kollywood, Mollywood). The stories of the Decalogues are multi-layered and brilliant. Kieslowski is a Genius.

P.S. I saw 'Sillunnoru Kaadhal', a Tamil movie, the day after I saw the Decalogues. I couldn't bear to watch it for more than 30 minutes. That's what good movies do to you. It makes you lose all patience with trash.

A nonsensical post on dreams

2006-10-19T02:32:00.000+05:30

I remember having three dreams yesterday (To set the context, I wasn't even thinking of movies when I went to sleep). Also, to put things in better perspective, I remember part of 3 of the dreams that I had yesterday. Its entirely possible that I had many more but I don't remember any others. The reason I am putting in this post is that I normally don't remember any of my dreams. So, this was exciting. In the morning when I woke up, it made me think of that ultimate prankster, Richard Feynman (who for me has lived a 'full' life just as it should be) & his adorable book. In one of the sections in that book he talks about all the experiments he did to try and remember the exact instant that he slips from consciousness into sleep. He talks about having dreams which he was part of (as an observer) because of all these experiments. Later on he also talks about why he stopped the experiments (he thought he would go mad soon if he didn't because he was confusing his brain with all the experimentation). Its a must-read for anyone who hasn't....

Ok all these were asides. Now for the dreams (in no particular order).

Dream No 1:
There is a long corridor, almost like a glass tunnel. Shah Rukh Khan is in the frame (wearing clothes like in his entry in KKKG where he has just landed from the helicopter and he is running to meet his mother...hehehe). Behind him is a witch like figure flying in after him (I somehow know in the dream that it is Rani Mukherji, though thinking back I cant recollect the resemblance). There are three different views of this same scene. Either its happening 3 times or it is the same scene from 3 different perspectives. SRK dodges the witch right at the last moment each time. Then he runs around some flower pots and comes and sits on the steps of a verandah. He takes a long breath & smiles, as cool as ever. He gets up and walks towards the entrance of a house where he sees an old woman who looks at him and says 'Satlam'..'Satlam' (Ya Satlam..I remember it clearly). Shakti kapoor is standing nearby wearing the typical 'household help dress' (white banian and khakhi long shorts and a dusting cloth thrown over his shoulder). SRK looks at Shakti Kapoor and tells him that the witch who followed him and the old woman are the same (In my dream, both of them look like Rani Mukherji. So I am sure that both of them are the same). Shakti Kapoor smiles at him and shows SRK the the old lady's footprints and some of her grey hair on the verandah. He tells SRK that the old lady has been walking around the verandah for quite some time and so he is mistaken. SRK looks at the old lady. She looks back at him and says 'Satlam'..Satlam'...

End of what I remember of Dream 1. I don't know whether there was more or not.
Disclaimers:
1.I am not an SRK fan. The last movie I could tolerate him in was Swades.
2.I stopped watching his movies after Kal ho na Ho. So I have been spared Paheli and KANK (I don't have the patience to type in these long names any more).
3.Just to add, I like SRK's interviews and admire the tremendous energy he seems to radiate offscreen (only offscreen).
4.Just to add..I predict that Don will be a colossal flop and anybody who reads this blog can hold me to this statement.

Dream No 2:
I am sitting in my apartment with the laptop connected to the internet through a cable connection. A colleague of mine has come home. He tells me that I should get a wireless router and connect to the internet through that and basically extols the virtues of having a wireless connection. I listen, uninterested. He gets slightly agitated and asks me where the cable connecting to the internet is (Even though it is in plain view). He proceeds to pull it from the wall socket (Interestingly, the socket is way up on the wall, close to the ceiling close to where a typical light bulb socket would normally be situated). Even before I can tell him to be careful, he has yanked on the power cord. Only the plug cover comes off leaving the 2 plug points (sticks, the things that go in the socket..whatever) inside the socket, effectively ruining it all for me. He looks at me, smiles and says that a wireless connection is always better.

End of what I remember of Dream 2. I don't know whether there was more or not.
Disclaimers:
1.The plug sockets in my apartment are at a normal height.
2. The colleague who I saw in my dream does not seem to share any of these destructive characteristics in real life

This one is weird. Ok all of them are weird. But this is the highest on the weird-o-quotient.
Dream No 3:
I have a roommate who is a part-time actor. There is a shooting going on for something and they are looking for my room-mate because they cannot find any other actor. I am at the shooting (I have no idea in what capacity). My roommate goes by just then and he is welcomed by the director because he arrived just in time. There is an actress sitting there who I am trying to place in my mind (In the dream, I know that she is some relative of mine and I am pleasantly surprised because she looks really beautiful). The Director is asking her questions approximately in this pattern
"So what were you doing when you were 21?"
She answers (Some vague answer)
"Ok then what were you doing when you were 25?"
Again some vague answer
(And I am thinking in my dream how clever the director is because he can make out the age of this woman without actually asking her)
Then the director (who seems to be a friend of mine because he knows me well) tells me that they need another actor for the scene. So, he asks me to go and fetch him on the bicycle. I sit on the bicycle which has these huge handlebars and I have to stand and ride the bicycle (In the dream, I am thinking how cool this bicycle is)

End of what I remember of Dream 3. I am sure there was more and it was really interesting. But I just cant seem to remember
Disclaimers
1. I have never had a director friend or a roommate who was a part-time actor
2. I have no relatives with film-star good looks

I wish someone invents a Dream-recorder.

Citizen Kane

2006-09-14T22:34:00.000+05:30

I am on a movie watching spree. So, there will be a lot of movie-centric entries on this blog.
Watched 'Citizen Kane' for the 4th time the day before yesterday and 'The Motorcycle Diaries' for the first time yesterday. I loved both of these movies but I might need one more viewing of 'The Motorcycle Diaries' before I venture to comment on it.

So, this post will be about 'Citizen Kane'

Directed, co-written & lead role played by Orson Welles - at the ripe old age of 25.
The movie is supposedly based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, a publishing tycoon of that time. 'Supposedly' was a term that did not rest easy with Mr Hearst. He was convinced that it was based on his life and got to know from the previews of the movie that it was not a very flattering portrait that had been painted. So, he refused to advertise the movie in any of his newspapers (and he had a lot of them). He also refused to carry advertisements put in by any theatres (for any of their movies) if they showed Citizen Kane. So, in spite of receiving rave critical reviews, Citizen Kane was shown in very few theatres and was a box-office dud.

It started gaining recognition and almost cult status after a few years (particularly after its re-release in the 1950s). Before going into my experience of watching the movie, here are two interesting nuggets on Orson Welles that I got from the DVD.

Orson Welles was supposed to address a gathering. When he arrived at the meeting, he found that practically nobody had turned up to hear him. So he starts off
"I am Orson Welles; playwright, theatre director, radio presenter, radio director, film writer, film director, actor, painter, magician, political thinker.....(and he in fact was all of these)..'
Then he continues,
"Why is it that there are so many of me and so few of you?"

The next one is a conversation that the reviewer has had with Orson Welles where Welles is telling the reviewer how much he likes Greta Garbo, her mannerisms, her acting, her aura and her mystery. The reviewer replies that he doesn't agree because she has acted only in two magnificent movies and the rest are nothing to write home about. Welles looks at the reviewer for a long time and says,
"All you require is one"

For the world, Citizen Kane was that one movie of Orson Welles.

The movie is about the moral decline of Charles Foster Kane. From the idealism of his 20s to his degeneration (both physical and moral) into his 70s.

I saw the movie for the first time and did not like it.

The movie starts off with Charles Foster Kane's death scene where he says 'Rosebud' and dies. The rest of the movie is an attempt by a reporter to find out what Rosebud is. It is a series of flashbacks by people who knew Kane and the flashbacks are in no particular chronological order. So you have a young Kane, an older Kane, again a young Kane and so on which makes it difficult to piece together the movie. To make it easier for the viewer, there is a newsreel shown right at the start (which is being watched by a team of reporters) which describes the life of Charles Foster Kane, who has just died.

When I saw the movie first, I could not understand what that newsreel was being shown for. At the end of the movie, I still did not know what Rosebud was.
So, I watched it again and things started getting clearer. I watched it again with Roger Ebert's commentary as an accompaniment. Things started getting a lot more clearer and the cinematic brilliance, the technical perfection of the movie started coming through. I watched it again, this time to purely revel in the performances of the actors and the brilliance with which the movie has been crafted.
All this effort for a movie made in the year 1941.

My favourite scene involves Charles Kane (Orson Welles) showing the 'Declaration of Principles', a document that he has written to his best friend Jedediah Leland.
At this point, Kane has just taken over the newspaper. The 'Declaration of Principles' is all about Kane's idealism at this point (things like the honesty of the printed word, the care for the poorer sections of the society etc). Kane wants it to be the editorial for the next day's edition

His friend asks him for the original copy of the document.
Kane asks him why he wants it.
Jedediah replies," I believe this might become an important document; like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution....or my first report card at school"
For me, it showed the cleverness of handling a very pivotal point in the movie to show Jedediah's skepticism about whether Kane's moral righteousness would triumph or whether the document would become as useless as Jedediah's first report card.

The dialogues in the movie are there because they need to be. And its a movie I will not get tired of watching...

I am making a list of my must-have DVDs in life. Right now, 'Citizen Kane' is No1 and I have a hunch, it will be difficult to dislodge.

Netflix tales

2006-09-11T21:05:00.000+05:30

I am a huge Aamir Khan fan (I even enjoyed 'Mela'). I have liked 99% of his movies (excluding two of his biggest blockbusters 'Raja Hindustani' & Fanaa')....For me..He rarely does something wrong.

I have watched almost all his movies. One of them was 'Ghulam'. Ya right...I loved 'Aati kya Khandala' and Rani Mukherjee and definitely not in that order. But I loved the movie too. I thought Aamir Khan had done a tremendous job and was highly impressed with the director Vikram Bhatt. I believed it to be the dawn of a fresh new talent in the Hindi movie industry. I waited for him to shine. But he disappointed. Time & time again. I formulated a theory that you don't have to be a genius to make one really good movie. But I kept track of Vikram Bhatt's career waiting for that spark to shine through. 'Come on', I said to myself...You could not make such a 'hatke movie' and just fade away....

I have registered for netflix here and have been watching the English movies and some Hindi ones that I have always heard of but have never had the opportunity to see. I have gone through 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'Silsila', 'Kabhi Kabhi' and 'Citizen Kane'. Yesterday I watched 'On the waterfront'.

Its a movie made in 1954 and stars Marlon Brando. In the year of its release, it got 8 oscars and was a box -office success. These were the things I knew before I saw it. What I did not know until I saw the first two scenes of the movie was that Ghulam is a very faithful rip-off of this classic. Of course, there is no 'Aati Kya Khandala' here (and that's where Ghulam still scores) but there is absolutely nothing original in the Hindi remake. There are some classic scenes and immortal lines (or so the special features on the DVD tell me) in this movie.

you don't understand..I could have had class..I could have been a contender..i could have been somebody'
Its a line that Marlon Brando says to his brother who is the accountant of the big boss, towards the end of the movie. It is brilliantly done. I enjoyed the movie and am realizing that it doesnt really matter how old a movie is, whether its in colour or B&W (and I am actually liking B&W a lot)....if it is a good movie, it will always remain enjoyable...

But I felt betrayed too. With Vikram Bhatt for having made me feel that he was making something new. Its one thing to be Ram Gopal Verma and say very openly that Sarkar is a Godfather remake....I think in some ways its even alright to be inspired from other movies and stories.

But its quite another thing to copy so blatantly the plot, the scenes, sprinkle some masala and claim a unique dish. Now I know where Ghulam came from and I know why Vikram Bhatt makes the movies he does......

Makes me a little bit scared to watch more movies from Netflix. There are some movies and scenes which inhabit a very private sanctuary of my mind...a scene like the one Aamir Khan enacts in 'Rang De Basanti' after Madhavan's character dies....the one in which he is sitting with Sue and he is eating & crying at the same time.....performances which i still believe are extraordinarily moving and original.

I am scared that I might find a 'Dil Chahta Hai' in one of these movies one day. That is when my heart will really break!!!

Armchair travel pleasures

2006-08-27T20:08:00.000+05:30

In the midst of every real and imagined problem, alternating between thoughts of what my life has become or should become; within my self-made cocoon - I forget what a beautiful place I live in. In the insane rush to secure my future, to be able to live upto external perceptions of what my life should measure up to, I cease to enjoy.

Small things bring this out. Today I was going through the audio visual presentations in the travel section of the NY Times. There are some incredible slide shows out there which if anyone is interested should be experienced with the audio on. After seeing this, I want to visit Angkor Wat, the Galapagos, Rome, buy a CD of Forr music, truly explore Chicago (something I havent done in spite of being here for the last couple of months). Links like these force me to expand my thinking. It makes me thankful that I have a laptop and broadband connection and appreciate the positive side of being in the USA (never thought that it would come to this!!). Another link which has some good travel-related articles is Haftamag's people and places

It also reminds me of the places that I am yet to visit in India. For that matter, even Kerala. I found jiby's blog fascinating. I had planned a solitary back-pack trip through the whole of Kerala just after my MBA, before I joined my job. It never materialised and I had thought that there would always be a next time. Its been 4 years since and I am yet to discover a window of time which would allow me to do it. To solely focus on planning the future is foolish. To let go of opportunities available right now is a crime

A Reason to Write

2006-08-22T01:31:00.000+05:30

1997 was Arundhati Roy and ‘The God of small things’. For an Engineering college student trying to make sure that my writing output equaled at least a daily diary entry, the world suddenly expanded. Writing seemed to have a purpose – gift wrapped in fame and millions. Arundhati Roy was felicitated, reviled, torn down and splashed on all the newspapers. It wasn’t always about the merit of the book. But it was most certainly always about the million dollar advance.

That night I had a diary entry. The title – GRN.

That stood for the ‘Great Rajesh Novel’ – the one I would write one day and which would take me to the writers’ throne. I put it as ‘GRN’, with no explanations, because diaries have a dangerous habit of falling in the wrong hands. In a house filled with cousins, newer avenues for entertainment were greedily sought after. As the youngest, I had had my fair share of attention. I had no intention of offering myself as a ready target. I knew the explosive potential of a diary. So, I locked and relocked entries with code words and pseudonyms. I knew and would always know what GRN meant. That was enough.

Years have passed and I am no nearer to completing that ultimate novel. GRN seems to be an extremely corny expression to me now. I realize how difficult it is to write.

An article, a short story, a novel.

Writing is hard work. Period. But not everybody agrees. There is a virtual glut of aspiring authors among people I know. Having read the stories of Phantom, Mandrake and Rip Kirby in the Indrajal comics of their childhood, they consider themselves qualified and ready - to be the next Vikram Chandra.

To each his own.

I gave up on that path after a very enlightening conversation. Somebody told me that giving a form to something that is crying to come out of you is creativity. If it is content inside you, it is better left there.

So, I read – and I admire. And I keep a lookout for all those aspiring writers trying to break out. I hope there is a Harper Lee, waiting to spring on me with a mockingbird story. I give space to the next Jhumpa Lahiri with a cure to the maladies of the world.

And I refuse to give up on the GRN. I wait for inspiration.

Poetry in motion!!

2006-06-17T11:35:00.000+05:30

It was Argentina vs Serbia yesterday..Suffice to say I saw poetry on the TV screen. I humbly take back my words of the previous post. I am a football fan again !!!!

World cup - Its a strain

2006-06-14T16:17:00.000+05:30

The world cup has started !! Yippee Wow Great !!

Those were my initial thoughts till I got to know that I wont be able to watch it in Chennai unless I have a set-top box installed. The reasons being

1. The world cup is being shown exclusively on ESPN
2. ESPN is a paid channel
3. Chennai is the only city in India where CAS has been implemented. (How corny is that? I mean, its not been implemented even in the rest of Tamil Nadu. So much for sane decisions).

And imagine my pleasant surprise when I switch on my TV on the first match day (Germany vs Costa Rica) and I see ESPN being broadcast crystal clear.
SCV, the cable network is providing ESPN to all its subscribers (with or without set-top boxes).......Double Yippee Triple Great and WOW.

The lead up to the world cup had classic world cup moments being shown on DD Sports (Thats a free channel..set top box not required). So, having seen Maradona and Rossi and Pele and Zico in the appetizers, I sit down to watch Germany vs Costa Rica.

Its a fitting start to the world cup (4-2 in favour of Germany). But it only gets worse from there with very insipid displays by most of the teams (including England and Argentina)

I wait for Brazil, for that much vaunted Samba magic to get weaved around me. Yesterday was Brazil's first match...against Croatia. To say it was a letdown would be like acknowledging how fat Ronaldo looks and how slow he moves. All the three points extremely pertinent and very true. There was no magic from Ronaldinho and Kaka shut up after one goal.

Makes me think that this whole world cup thing is a big hype-filled bubble blown up by the media and every corporate which has parked advertising dollars in it.
I have decided not to stay up late watching these matches. I will when I feel like it. Not because I am expected to in this hype-ridden world.

I loved the Ivory Coast and the way they played Argentina. I will follow their fortunes. No one else's and I hope Brazil loses (And England and Argentina and France).

Drogba zindabad!!!

The Frankfurt Transit Lounge

2006-04-10T01:30:00.000+05:30

I reached the US via Frankfurt. We had to sit in the Frankfurt airport transit lounge for about an hour. It was boring. I had nothing better to do. So I wrote this about the transit lounge.

The Frankfurt Airport Transit Lounge
It’s a wedge-shaped hall with a clock hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The clock is disproportionately small compared to the hall dimensions. It has a meshed metal ceiling interspersed with futuristic looking metal circles with holes (air vents?). The seats are wide but unpretentious; comfortable but not luxurious. Large glass panes run throughout the length of one side of the hall. It affords a view of the tarmac, of the aircrafts taxiing in, flying out, landing. The maximum rush is at the toilets, on the side directly opposite the glass-paned one. 8 hours of sitting in a flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt does that. The time available at the transit lounge is awkward. Its about an hour which is too short for planning a siesta and too long to have to sit and fidget.

A newly wed couple fights, a fight which has crossed continents in 8 hours. The wife is unhappy with her mother-in-law. The husband defends vigorously. The wife quietens down; waiting for a gap, the next opportunity to strike.

A child of 2 or 3 wears a large cap over his head. His eyes are widely spaced, his head is abnormally large. Thankfully, he walks around, points to his mother where he wants to be taken, listens to what she says and calls her 'mama'. Another woman walks past. She smiles contentedly, smugly. She has a child sleeping on her shoulder. He is healthy.

The noise level in the hall is less when compared to the number of people packed in. The awkwardness of the time available prevents conversations from taking off. Small children exploring a new space contribute most to the noise.
Announcements over the PA system are made both in English and German. The English spoken by the ground staff has a quaint, lilting German accent. The German spoken is unintelligible but pleasing to the ear. The people in the hall look uncertain, suspicious.

In the USA

2006-04-06T21:47:00.000+05:30

Weather's good this time....Its supposed to be spring but the chill is still in the air. Not too chilly. Just right. Met everyone in the relationship today. Felt good. Still to get my PC and stuff. So nothing much to do at the moment. Checked out a few hotels for the honeymoon. Have asked my better half to choose from one of them and to book it.

Its nice in a way to come back to the place you have been before. Its like coming back to friends. Air India was as usual. The food was pretty decent. The personal inflight video was not working. I am thankful. I was spared Malaamal Weekly and another movie starring Shahid Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt where Shahid dies and Sanjay Dutt is 'Yamraaj'. There should be a limit to corniness. But just try telling that to Mahesh Manjrekar (And to think that this is the same guy who made Vasstav). Spent my time on the flight reading 'Two Lives' by Vikram Seth. Its a biography about his uncle and aunt. After reading it, tried to think really hard whether I liked it or not. Couldnt come to a conclusion. The only conclusion is that he is versatile. 'From Heaven Lake' (A travelogue), The Golden Gate (A novel in poetry), Beastly tales from here and there (Poetry for children), A suitable boy (One of the longest novels in English) and now 'Two Lives' (A biography)....its difficult to be more versatile.

Read Cricinfo and India has won..again. Wonder where the Indian team is heading.

Movies...that sing

2006-03-28T12:42:00.000+05:30

Ram has started to blog with frightening regularity. He writes on movies and you can find his blog here. For me, books are where I can lose myself completely. But movies come in a close second. I haven't watched too many English movies but Malayalam, Hindi and a smattering of Tamil, I am right in there.

Seeing Ram's blog, I thought I will put in my bit about the movies I have seen and admired and lost myself in. I am socially outcast because of the number of times I forcibly bring in Mohanlal in conversations. People (All Indians except Mallus, a few Tamilians and a minority of North Indians who have somehow liked Mohanlal in 'Company') just cannot understand, leave alone appreciate, how a roly-poly, obese actor is allowed to star in movies and how someone can possibly like him. His name of course, does him no favours either.

But I admire him. The way he never overplays a character. The way he becomes the character. If he plays a kathakali dancer, it seems like he has learnt kathakali all his life. If he plays a football player, it would seem that he used to play with Maradona in Napoli. The versatality of Mohanlal (Comedy, action, pathos..you name it) is unmatched in India. For me, he is definitely the best actor in India. Period. He has grown portly and he hasnt taken care of his physique. But the 80s and a major part of the 90s saw Mohanlal at his peak. There are still occasional flashes of brilliance. Udayanaanu thaaram (Udayan is the star) and Thanmathra (Molecule) are those sporadic flashes. The only thing that Mohanlal has done wrong is to be born in Kerala because no one outside this small state watches Mallu movies.

Carrying on with Mallu movies, I have to talk about Padmarajan, my favourite director. He died in the early 90s. He hasnt made too many movies. Out of them, the ones I have seen are

Mohanlal & Padmarajan

Koodevide (In search of a nest)
Namukku paarkan mundhiri thoppukal (The vineyards are our home)
Thoovanathumbikal (The dragonflies of the spring)
Innale (Yesterday/The Past)
Desadanakili karayaarilla (The migratory bird does not cry)
Moonampakkam (On the third day)

Anybody who can think up such names is a poet. It is no coincidence that his movies sing to you.

Excerpt 2

2006-03-23T11:40:00.000+05:30

Here is another excerpt from the book I will hopefully complete writing one day. Do put in your comments about it

Excerpt 2 (Refer Excerpt 1 from a previous post)

The foursome walked along the mudroad leading from the river to the paved road which led towards home. The paddy fields, on both sides of the road, a lively green in colour swayed in time to the wind tune. The omnipresent coconut trees all around gave a spectacular scenic beauty to the setting that was totally lost on the children. They never noticed the God-like beauty spread around them. They had never seen anything yet to compare their surroundings with. It was everyday life; it was home.

Satyan, his thick-glassed spectacles constantly in danger of falling from the perch on his nose walked with confidence. He stopped whenever something caught his fancy; a dragonfly, a squirrel. He never asked the others to stop or wait for him but they invariably did. The other children had never ever seen him ask permission to do something he wanted to do. His brain hadn’t been programmed to think that there might even be a need for something like that.. Satyan was not good-looking. He was dark, thin and wore ghastly, thick glasses but the confidence that pervaded every part of Satyan’s personality was inborn. At home and in school he had a following that was unexplainable. His classmates in school followed him blindly. He had an aura about him, a fearlessness, a halo that made him a leader without comparison.

About booing

2006-03-22T16:59:00.000+05:30

Its been some time since I have come this way. Thought I will make a visit and see how things are.

Sachin was roundly booed at Wankhede in the first innings of the final test and the whole cricketing fraternity consisting of the Mumbaikars including the Wadekars, the Vengsarkars and the Rajputs cried themselves hoarse. It was pointed out to every one of the quote-hungry media hordes that great players should not be treated this way.

I agree. The joy I have derived watching Sachin play is unparalleled. I have watched all those matches where Sachin was India and you had to beg everyone else in the house not to shift to the serials just because Sachin was out (even though secretly you knew that serials wouldnt be as bad as watching the rest of the Indian lineup embarassing themselves). His knocks at Sharjah where he pummelled the Aussies, not once but on two consecutive days, is in the top drawer of my mind. I adore Sachin and think myself previledged to have watched his batting.

But thats where my agreement stops. Nobody grudges Sachin his success. He has made crores because of the way he plays. He even succeeded in getting the duty waived off his Ferrari and the Indian public watched and nooded in agreement. After ll, Sachin was a hero. He was decimating oppositions, he was being called the best batsman in cricket and you and I were proud to be Indians.

But that does not mean that I am not allowed to criticize Sachin or that I cannot boo him if he doesnt perform. If you are looking at equilibrium, there should be a law against putting him atop a pedestal too. If no such law exists and we are free to adore Sachin when he performs, we are free to boo him when he doesnt.

I think Sachin would agree. He doesnt need former cricketers to shield him. We dont need former cricketers to tell us how to behave. And we dont need the media to carve out descriptions like 'the worst behaved crowd in Mumbai'. Emotion is spontaneous. You cannot shape it. Nobody watches cricket logically. If they did, they wouldnt watch it. So dont tell me what to do and what not to do. When my heart decides, I go along. Thats what sport is meant to do. So Mr Vengsarkar, Mr Wadekar and Mr Rajput ......Quiet!!!

True reasons

2006-03-09T14:04:00.000+05:30

Talking to like-minded people widens horizons. The key word being 'Like minded'. I am hopelessly impractical but am still not comfortable being so. My ideal talk companion is comfortable being impractical, thinks about life on more than a day-to-day plane, thinks about the good movies he/she has seen and reads. I can spend hours listening to such a person.

Yesterday, I listened to Elango. I talked but mostly listened. I am good at that. He has interesting ideas and the conversation was to my liking. If he writes down his ideas, I intend to post it on this blog. Yesterday's conversation made me think of my motives about doing stuff. The real motives I mean. Not the ones that can be freely shared (and is made entirely of cliches) but the innermost ones. As I have said before, I am writing something. I have frequently thought what is making me do it. I realise that its the hope that what I write will be popular. That people will know me. That I will be famous. And that I will get a big, fat advance and royalties for life which I believe will make me happy.

I have a cousin who is a budding cartoonist and 'like-minded'. I have never told him the reasons why I am writing. But he seemed to know exactly. He told me once that the best creations(books, musics, paintings, movies) are the ones the creator passionately believes in. The reason for their being is because the creator could not keep it within him any longer. He had to share it, otherwise he would burst. I agree with him. That must be the reason why the first movies, the first albums and the first books of most people are usually their best works. And that must be the reason why Harper Lee wrote only 'To kill a mocking bird' and nothing else all her life. Because thats enough. I can re-read that book till all the words in it are memorised and still not feel bored. Because the book has a story, a setting, real characters and a glow to it that can never be duplicated artificially. I believe she never wrote another book all her life because she was spent after this one. I think she must have started writing other books but would have realised that the same passion did not exist. That she would be cheating her readers by trying to write something that she genuinely wasnt passionate about.

I will have to rejig my priorities about my own writing. There is no end to the lure of money and fame. Aspiring for it is to deviate from my true self.

29th birthday

2006-03-07T10:49:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, I had a surprise party at home...The surprise was all mine.
Ram, Shweta, Neeraja and Meril dropped in at night with a beautiful black forrest birthday cake. It was more than tasty. It was yummy.They also brought a big, round balloon filled with confetti.
I blew the candle on the cake, heard the balloon burst, felt the confetti raining down on me and celebrated my 29th birthday.I was watching 'Raapakal' when they came and finished watching half of it.It is the normal, sentimental, big family drama. I like normal, sentimental, big family dramas but this is one too many.Mammooty is good in the movie. Not great, good and Nayantara is suitably deglamourised for Malayalee family audiences.I will watch the rest of it today to see how the rest of the movie pans out.

I dont think I have had any surprise birthday parties in my life. So, yesterday was new and nice.I never knew a blog would serve the purpose of thanking somebody. But thanks Ram (there are too many things to thank you for...this is just a start), Shweta, Neeraja and Meril.You guys made my day and made me feel special.

Cricket in the neibhourhood

2006-03-03T14:19:00.000+05:30

I went as usual with the paper in hand to the balcony. I was just settling down to enjoy the morning weather and Wasim Jaffer's heroics on the second day when I heard a greeting.
"Goodmorning"
I was too startled to respond as I looked around. The morning grogginess didnt make it easier.It was the old lady from the house in front ( Refer post 'The house in front)
'Goodmorning', I replied.
She smiled and entered her house.I went back to the papers and it struck me that I had forgotten to ask my creamish-white labrador friend's name.
Maybe tomorrow.

On my way to the sea, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a neibhourhood cricket match in progress. I followed the sounds through a narrow mud path. The stench of shit from both sides told me the primary use of the path. I walked along and reached a burial ground. Maybe it doesnt really matter where one lies after death. The path opened up into a cricket ground. The burial ground gate opened into it.

I stood next to the guy who were maintaining the score. It was a 12 over match and the side batting first had scored 70 runs. The reply was in progress and the second team still needed 39 runs with 6.5 overs remaining and five wickets in hand.

The scorer next to me was shouting out instructions to the batsmen. After every ball, he would tell the batsman what mistake he had made in the previous stroke and how he should have actually played it.The meekness with which all the batsmen took his advice suggested that he was either extremely influential in the team or that he owned the bat.

This continued until another wicket fell and a long haired batsman came to the crease.The first ball he faced, he tried to tuck it down the legside only for the ball to miss everything and go to the keeper.
The scorer looked at him and said "You should have played that with your bat to the leg side and tried for a single"
The long haired guy retorted " And you thought that I was trying to hit a six with that shot?"
The batsman went on to play a long innings but I never heard another word from the scorer about his batting style.

You will never find a statue in a critic's honour. Naggers irritate !!!

The Neem Lane

2006-03-02T12:00:00.000+05:30

Water bodies fascinate me in a way few other things do. Ponds, rivers, lakes; they all call me. I have lived a considerable part of my life so far in Kerala in close proximity to water. I have learnt swimming in a river and tested it out in ponds. There is a freshness to swimming in natural water that no swimming pool in the world can duplicate.But I havent been as lucky with the sea. Until now, that is.

Here in Chennai, I have the sea; massive and beautiful, streaked with boat shaped and ship shaped dots whenever I see it. I go to it in the mornings on the pretext of enjoying a morning walk. I sit at the shore, enjoy the sight of the waves and let the salt of the sea wind settle on my face. Then I walk back.

Today, on the way back, I noticed a lane to the left side of the main road. It is paved and lined with trees on both sides. There are houses on both sides, only impressive because of their size and the money that might have been spent on them. Otherwise, they are monstrosities. The lane, however is a delight. The dry leaves from the neem trees are strewn all over. Either they pile up faster than they can be cleaned or nobody bothers. There are 4 fully grown trees in the short lane. They bathe the road in delicious shade. The neem tree is my favourite. I have decided to plant it all around the house I will eventually stay in. It transports me back to my childhood. But that is the subject of another post.

For now, I have a diversion to take every morning on the way back from the sea.

The house in front

2006-03-01T16:34:00.000+05:30

Every morning, I make it a point to stand on my balcony to look at the house in front. Its a big, rambling house, painted white. The frontage is imposing with 4 white pillars propping up the building. The beautiful house is surrounded by overgrown shrubs and fruit trees of various hues. There is a shack at the corner of the compound occupied by the mali cum domestic help cum playmate for the children of the household.

Seeing the man of the house I get a feeling that its ancestral property passed down to the present residents. The man doesn't look enterprising enough to have made that house on his own. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe he wrote a novel which was a best seller and he built the house from the royalties.

The man lives with his wife and an old lady who must be his mother (though she is good looking). A small girl and her younger brother make up the happy family picture. But the star of the house is another happy soul. He plays with a ball in the mornings with anybody who has the time to spare. He runs towards the mali, circles him once and runs away, always looking behind to see whether the mali is following. He makes everyone happy for the few moments that they can spare for him. I dont play with him but I feel just as happy watching him running around. He is creamish-white coloured and he is a gorgeous labrador. God has been kind to him. He lives in a house with enough space to invent his own games and enjoy himself.

I dont care what everyone else is named in their house but I will try to find out this guy's name. I want to call out to him when no one else is looking. He brings sunshine into my mornings.

An excerpt from what I am trying to write

2006-02-28T10:41:00.000+05:30

Had written about buying my guitar from Kolkata yesterday. Thought I will put in an excerpt of the novel I am trying to write as it deals with Kolkata.

Excerpt 1
Manu had come back from Kolkata and as usual had brought Kolkata back with him. Aditya felt that Kolkata rejuvenated Manu and made him more Manuish. Manu would never tire of describing the city that he loved more than any other. His stories and descriptions brought alive the city Aditya had never seen but dearly wanted to.

Manu took leave from from his classes, his students , from Revathy and from his responsibilities for two weks every year and went to Kolkata. He always went alone. He said he could savour the city only if he was alone. He went in the second half of November when there would be a delicious chill in the air. According to Manu, that was the best season in the world. Not hot, not too cold, just right. He would spend most of his time walking through the streets eating golgappas and rolls. He refused to eat anything but street food when he was there.

He would describe to Aditya how he loved the happiness that engulfed the city. He would describe tram journeys at nightwhere people would be chatting incessantly, animatedly. Badly paid government employees, chana chor garam sellers, chaatwallahs, young men in T-shirts, all smiling and talking when they had everything to crib about. And all in that lilting, melodious Bangla language. Manu couldn't understand Bangla but he always heard Salil Chaudhari' s melodies in the conversations.

Manu would spend a couple of mornings at the Salt Lake watching the tiny fishing boats making their way across the water. He would watch the birds diving into the water for the fish which made circular patterns everytime they breathed. He would leave only after all the bird formations in the sky above the lake had gone home to roost. He would sit in parks watching old men discussing football, the Indian cricket team's fortunes and the difference between the communism of their day and the communism of today. He would come back satiated, content and full of life.

Manu would bring back a tin of rosagollas, 2 kurtas and a couple of gramaphone records of Manna Dey - everytime. He said it was the only place where he wanted to buy everything. It was also the place he couldn't wait to go back to again.

Things are looking up

2006-02-27T11:44:00.000+05:30

There are some things which are becoming increasingly important in the daily scheme of things. Writing, learning the guitar, seeing the sea shore early in the morning, washing Shashi's car (though I dont want to talk about that at all) exactly in that order.
Experts say that a novel has to be at least 70000 words long before it leaves the short story territory and graduates from the novella genre. Stephen King says that you need to self edit after you write the first draft of your novel with the thumb rule in mind that Final version = First version - 10%. That effectively means that the first version has to be at least 80000 words before you can sit in the armchair and congratulate yourself on a job well done.
Was doing an approximate word count the other day and I have reached the 8000 mark. That means I am at 10% of the magnum opus (Hopefully not the 10% that will eventually get edited). With my irregular writing habits, the 8000 words have taken approximately a year to find their way into my notebook. At this rate, I will start looking for a publisher in 2015. Sounds really promising!!!!

Guitar classes started yesterday. The teacher (I am supposed to call him master and maybe he will call me slave) looks good from the music perspective. He seems like a pain from all other perspectives. He did me a big favour. He tuned my guitar. So, at least I can try out a few things on my own. He made me happy yestarday by praising my guitar. He said I would have to pay double of what I paid for the guitar if I had bought it in Chennai. Thats why Kolkata is special. I have to make him teach me how to tune the guitar so that I dont have to depend on him too much.

I walked (briskly, courtesy Shashi) to the sea shore in the morning. It was nice. I love the house I am staying in. It has inner peace. And it has the sea 5 minutes away. And I have no intention of writing about washing Shashi's car. I want to forget I did it.

My first diary entry

2005-11-12T06:09:00.000+05:30

Today has been spectacular.
Absolutely nothing done all day..its like 'back to status quo'
There used to be a time when 'doing nothing all day' was the norm...
The last month had made it into an exception
Today I am rediscovering the joys of 'good ol' times'

I had started writing a diary a long time back with the express intention of making sure that, if nothing else, there would be daily entries made into it. As with most of my noble intentions, I fell short.

But I remember .... vaguely...what my first entry into it was.
Something like ' I want to write to my heart's content without worrying about whether a comma makes more sense than a full stop..where I make sentences as fast as my thoughts can keep up with my writing'

One of these days I will find that diary and put the exact text of my entry in this blog.

This blog is slightly similar. I want to write for myself and not worry about someone reading it and not liking it. Proving yourself continuouly day in and day out is tiring. Writing is self-healing.

Started doing breathing exercises in the morning. This is another noble intention. I will definitely put it in my blog in case this goes the way of all other noble intentions. And I will put it in most definitely in case it doesn't.

Words make the future

2005-11-08T13:00:00.000+05:30

Starting a blog all for myself. The people who will read this will be the ones who will chance on it. You can post your comments if you come since 'comments' has 'come' in it.