the Why chromosome...

Karma!

2009-04-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

A few months back, I was sought for interviews by a number of major international publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes and the like. When the quotes from these interviews were published, my father religiously collected each one of all the articles and took them home and maintained a copy. When I told him that this may happen quite often, he said to me: “My name has never been published in a newspaper. I don't want to miss out on your fame at least.”

I brushed it off thinking it amateurish at the time. Last month, when I was flying out of the city to someplace, I happened to look down from the plane's window, and spotted something that my father has been involved with, in the past. That something is a pagoda constructed for meditation, the sponsors of which are looking to get it qualified as the world's eighth wonder. The structure is the largest stone dome made out of interlocking large blocks of stone with a diameter of 90 meters and a height at the center of 91 meters. When I showed it to a colleague of mine traveling with me, he was awestruck and wanted to visit the place. It was only when I told my friends about the pagoda describing my father's contribution to it and saw their reactions, I realized what my father must have felt about the newspaper articles mentioning me.

It may not be a big deal a few years down the line that neither me nor my father will be remembered for our work. But thinking of the pagoda sure makes me want to do more, not for me, but for my father.

Sunday, bloody Sunday.

2009-03-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

It was a lazy Sunday, just like many others when you sit down and think of life in slow motion. I received a text message from an unknown number:

Life meant: A cold evening, four friends, a slow drizzle and four pegs of rum.

Life meant: 100 rupees for petrol, two rusty old bikes and an open road.

Life meant: Maggi® noodles, a hostel room and the clock showing 3.25 AM.

Life meant: The last exam paper, one night, one book and eight duffers.

Life meant: One girl, one number, four friends and a fight.

Now, life means: Old friends, many cities, different lives and a longing.

The number was an unknown one because I had left the old contacts’ lists on my previous phone, and moved on to a new one without caring to transfer all the contacts. The brutal honesty of our singular lives does not as much shake us up to rekindle long lost friendships, still.

So these days, even though there are evenings with slow drizzles and pouring rains there is usually only one peg of rum. These days, it is not the question of 100 rupees for petrol or collecting 6,000 rupees and then borrowing 2,000 more to put together enough money to buy an old rusty bike. While the stereo blurted out “Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!” I fished for reasons.

When social networking sites came into being some five years ago, I had a bit of a euphoric feeling about the ability to get back in touch with almost everyone I knew sometime in the past.

Over time, the realisation dawned upon me how different our lives have grown. Those friends with whom you shared a close camaraderie some years ago suddenly seem to be strangers: as if you knew a person who was someone entirely different from the one you are talking to now.

That perhaps was the reason why I chose to keep my past life past, and did not bring much of it further into the present. Strangely enough, the longing still remains even if the choice was a conscious one. On the other hand, I think it is part of the process of growing up and growing out of the world that you used to once live in.

Or perhaps, it’s written.

Maqtoob!

Condomania

2009-02-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

So they had installed condom vending machines to reduce the spread of AIDS. Initially people were quite wary of spending and expected them as complimentary gifts. They broke open the machines, took away as much they needed. But that carried grave risks coupled with limited supply. They sought privileged access. Turns out some eager chaps have taken the vending machines home!

Imagine what happens next:

He: "Look babe, what did I get! Lets get ready *blushing*"

She: "Oh wow! But dah'ling... this requires us to put in coins every time we need a pack"

He: "Darn... do we have any coins here?"

She: "Hell no... what are we going to do now?"

He: "I know what we've to do... pay-phones... let me go get a few! I'll be right back, and then we'll... *blushes more* ... happily ever after!"

All ye policemen and municipalitymen, if you're reading this, you know where to look for your condomaniac-turning-phonomanic! And for those who've still not taken any lessons, act now. Better safe than sorry -- there's still quite a few machines out there.

Maqtoob

2009-02-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

I remember this word ever since I had read The Alchemist. It is an Arabic word, which means “it’s written”. Someone asked me recently, whether I am superstitious: the question made me ponder. Is it being superstitious when you believe that it’s written? I guess not. Is the belief impractical? I wouldn’t worry about it. It works!

This weekend I saw Slumdog Millionaire, and found it quite well-executed. There was a debate about whether Slumdog’s a pervert, voyeuristic exhibition of India’s poverty and everything bad about India or just an attempt at realism. I wondered whether this was the first attempt at realism by any film-maker, considering the noise that has been made around the plot and some of the scenes of the film. Especially when I remember the 1991 Bollywood art film Dharavi (City of Dreams) directed by Sudhir Mishra, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay or Dev Benegal’s Split Wide Open and English, August. All these were made in the 90s, when India was just about turning into the “center of the world” as Salim puts it, in Slumdog Millionaire. Nobody cared to peddle the term “poverty porn” earlier, when these films were released. Perhaps, this debate was written too!

A few weeks ago, I had seen a play titled “Kavita Bhaag Gayi” (transliterated as “Poetry is absconding”), which describes a young poet who has forgotten how to write poetry. His loss of prose is blamed on the stressful and frightening lifestyle in modern day Mumbai which is caught in a spate of terror attacks, language wars and disputes over political propaganda. Although the play was thought provoking, but its impact lasts just so long as we step out to get lost in the mobs. Sadly, the satirical taunts made by the protagonist were laughed at by the audience – most likely they were lost as attempts at ridiculing the (parallel, real life) characters in question.

A lesson I learnt from both these experiences is that we as a population get too engrossed in the superficial detail (I know this is an oxymoron, thank you), and are hardly bothered to understand the crux of the matters at hand. And I sincerely hope this exercise is not a part of the larger process of make-believe, of putting up an intelligent face. Besides, by doing nothing about it, I too would be an accomplice in spreading the rot. One does not need to make a choice here: the question is of taking the first step. If one waits for the next person to take the first step, well, this bit is not written for sure. That first step will remain as distant as ever!

History --||-- Fiction

2009-01-31T02:31:00.001-08:00

I was at the library looking for a few books to read in the India Collection. A (good-looking) girl walked up to me and started observing the books. She started talking (to me, it was apparent) that these were all history books and asked “where is fiction?” I replied, “Fiction is on the other side.”

A moment later, it struck me how the make-believe industry works: history, when crosses over to the other side, turns into fiction!

Spooked!

2008-12-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

Strangely, a series of events in my life over the past few months have been taking quite similar a shape, to the stories that I read in the books just before those events happened. It started with Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh. I ignored the coincidence, considering it a one-off, thinking that Uma Saraswati and Moraes Zogoiby cannot happen in real life.

The next one was spooky. I finished God’s Little Soldier, by Kiran Nagarkar, which revolves around the life of a scholar-turned-Jihadi. A week later, I was standing right outside The Trident, witnessing 40 hours out of the 60-hour long siege, trying to get my clients evacuated out of the doomed hotel.

It will be about a month after the incident, but I still get flashbacks of the place. And now, there are some advocates of waging a war against Pakistan, while some stand at the other extreme. As if both these lot know what ensues if India exercises either of the two extremes!

Personally, I am not against a war for any humanitarian or secular reasons at all. But, considering the outcome of a military attack on a neighbouring country, which has huge disparities in itself, and breaking it up into pieces, it appears that India is likely to add quite a bit to its already heavy kitty of troubles.

On the other hand, it surprises me beyond limits that, citizens of a country which does not have enough cash to buy toilet paper to wipe off their arses are so keen to help out their neighbourhood in tackling its population problems. So much at the cost of their own lives! This degree of altruism is quite an outlier for my naïve comprehension.

Back to books! Next, I read Vikas Swaroop’s Q&A, the novel upon which the now famous film Slumdog Millionaire is based. A couple of days after I finished it, I find myself working with my clients at Dharavi, one of the largest slums of Asia! A small thing, but it was spooky enough to keep me thinking.

I have now picked up Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan. In Taleb’s words, the book talks of understanding the fact that, events which defy our expectations make the logic of ‘what you don’t know’ far more relevant that what you do know. I am curious to figure out what will happen after I finish this one!

More importantly, if something really spooky happens, which book should I pick up next?

Maqtoob!

Joys of life...

2008-11-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the Times of India's supplements were splattered with stories about 'best places to eat' awards being given out to restaurants and hotels in Bombay. While the riche, chic and high flying elite was going ga-ga about the events, it came across as arid, superficial and lifeless as it could get.

But Bombay never fails to disappoint you; even when you feel having reached a dead end, there is likely to be a surprise waiting for you in some unlikely place.

Late one morning, when I peeped out of my office window, I saw a man cooking meals for himself and his colleagues on the roof of a truck and when the meal was ready, his other colleagues climbed up on the truck and sat down to eat together.

Hope may not spur from the lofty and flashy multitudes of the city's who's who, where everything is decorated to shine so much that it blinds the onlooker, but little joys of life sure reside in humble hoi polloi, the unknown and ignored corners of this world. Care to join in?

Bumbay, once more!

2008-11-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

So this week, I went to see Antigone, a play written by Sophocles originally, adapted by Jean Anouilh, and further adapted by Satyadev Dubey. Nasiruddeen Shah played Creon and Ratna Pathak Shah played Antigone.

Strong cast, good adaptation, well-played characters. I was warned by people that I may either doze off during the play, or if I stay awake, I will notice that Ratna Pathak Shah cannot pull off a 16-year old's role. But I think, it was because we know for a fact that she is nowhere close to 16. However, the real Antigone at the age of 16 must have been much more mature compared to any other girl of her age back then.

Nasiruddeen Shah was at his best, playing Creon, the frustrated king who was caught unaware and had to wear the crown of thorns only to face rebellion.

The dialogues were all in English, Indian English to be specific. I feel the play would have been better, more intense had it been in Hindi -- but that may as well be coming from their Bollywood past that I have seen all their performances in Hindi only, as far as I remember.

Overall, an experience of a kind, to see the stalwarts attempting to shape perfection so closely. Worth a dekko.

And here's some more of Bumbay, for you before I sign off!

Big balloons, saar, for 5 rupees each...

Elephantitanic!

No chariots allowed. You may get fined 15 naya paisa...

On the edge

And if you're bored of local trains, you may want to buy a car from Car Point, the showroom is located right next to a scrap metal and paper mart in Mahim.

Car Point offers spot deals!

Pizza on its toes...

2008-11-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

A colleague ordered lunch from Dominos this afternoon.

A few minutes later, she called Dominos up, and asked, "Have the pizzas already left?"

All this, and much more...!

2008-09-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

I love weekends! This one brought Hamlet to me. Saturday, at Prithvi, the Rajat Kapoor-directed adaptation of the Shakespearean play - its advert reads, 'a play in English and Gibberish'.

And so it was. English and Gibberish. "We use Gibberish because you all don't understand the thee, thou, thy of Shakespeare, you see." Plenty of madness to keep you laughing for a couple of weeks after you've seen the play.

Do you know why Hamlet and Ophelia couldn't work out together? Because Ophelia was 'manglik'. That is, mesdames et monsieurs, their horoscopes didn't match, since Ophelia had a strong mars sitting in her birth charts! Damn!

Hamlet was just amazing. He asked us all why we kept laughing, when his father was just about dead, his uncle became the king and his mother married the uncle, King Claudius. "May be you laugh because it don't happen with you no, mister...? Imaginez!" Anyway, no more spoilers. The point is, its amazing how a serious plot like Hamlet is transformed into a light hearted, yet touching piece of work.

The use of Gibberish, with bits of Italian, French, Spanish and perhaps some other languages thrown in, reminded me of Tim Supple's Midsummer Night's Dream. However, this one is absolutely comprehensible, since the melange of languages is not too much to digest.

Another weekend, I had been out clicking pictures all over South Bombay -- Fort, Colaba, Nariman Point, Dhobi Talao, VT, etc. Throw in a beer at Leopold's, and you've already found perfection! Here you go...

Old glory of Dhobi Talao

Care for a 'cool' haircut?

The Taj
So we rose up to the skies...

The good old Victoria

Gateway of India

Lunch break

oye kabootar, chips khayega?

Taj again!

I wish I were a sailor...

Shantaram's Cafe Mondegar!

Flora Fountain.
Little flora, no fountain, ample parking.

The picture-post-cardish view from Flora Fountain

Sunset at Marine Drive!

goodnight, Bumbay!

The municipal fortress

Bumbaiyya Hamlet-house, the Victoria Terminus building...

... and its different faces

This city never sleeps, really.

"All this, and much more, I can truly deliver!"

The deeper meaning of liff...

2008-08-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Life brings you to strange crossroads at times, when someone else makes the choices of directions for you. Not that it happens quite often with everyone, but when it does, it alters your perception of the meaning of life. A couple of weeks ago, Someone stepped away. For ever. Perhaps that was the way things were meant to turn, and this too, was to be part of my identity.

The events that followed set me on a renewed quest, for I had almost lost touch of a few things I had been planning to do for long. So, the first thing I did was go about the city and click a lot of pictures – something I had always talked about, but never really got around to accomplish! I walked past Kala Ghoda, Lion Gate, Hornimon Circle, and the Stock Exchange, clicking places that have always fascinated me, those that were described in Shantaram and Maximum City. They remind me of the Gujarati novel Saraswatichandra as well...

Looks like I managed to capture a number of hues and shades of this city, which, as I’ve always said, has taught me “The Art of Letting Go”. Here are few of the pictures, and a few more of these, coming soon.

Next, I caught a movie for the first time on the day it released! Saw Rock On, I must admit, a bit reluctantly. Not bad an experience, though it brought back quite a few memories from long forgotten years.

On to the movie, now: Farhan Akhtar and his team had put in a lot of effort to pull it off with style, and introduce the theme of rock to the Indian audience. Still, the flick missed the fine point of balance between being serious and being light. The humour is absolutely lame. The only genuine attempt at humour during the entire movie was at the end of the film, when they put up a message "Do not download the music, buy the CD."

Overall, the flick sounded like a potential sequel to Dil Chahta Hai, but it killed the fun, since the theme was shamelessly copied from Jhankaar Beats, from which, as NB said, it is difficult to find any flaw.

Nevertheless, all this ranting (both, about life, people and the film) is like "chaar aane ki murghi, barah aane ka masala" since it serves nothing when you ask 'why'! The message: it’s never too late, life’s still beautiful and yada yada yada. Go, catch up.

Maqtoob!

Haircut Hindustani!

2008-08-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

To have a haircut or not to have one has always been a question of perennial confusion for me. So much that at times, I have ended up nurturing pony tails hanging behind my head. It is a similar situation when I’m about to shave, but it becomes a compulsion every week, lest I start looking like a walking tree. The point is, today, I faced the same old question: to have a haircut or not. To end my quandary, I gave in to the thought of getting the dreadful task out of my way today itself, and turned up at the neighborhood barbershop.

Now, this is not at all a fancy place. Someone is simply going to turn away glancing at it and calling it ‘pedestrian’. Run by a Mithun Chakravarty inspired North Indian chap, who charges INR 20 (or half a dollar for the un-Indian) for a haircut and throws in a solid head-turning massage for free at the end – the barbershop’s precisely that: a barbershop, dirt cheap, down-to-earth, value-for-money, etc.

When I turned up, there was a queue for occupying one of the three hot seats. On asking him how long it will take for my turn to come up, he flashed a bright smile and said it won’t take any time at all, and engaged himself in shaving the present occupant of the hot seat number one. After waiting for about ten minutes (I think it was longer, but I’ll find happiness in counting ten minutes), it was my turn at hot seat number three.

I explained the chap, who was about to do the honours, with what kind of haircut I needed. Right then, another barber turns up and claimed his right to work at the hot seat number three, and in effect my hairy top-floor. I explained the new barber again, what kind of a haircut I needed. Scarcely before he finished listening to me, he zoomed off with his work, making me nod 90 degree downward for about 45 minutes.

In the meantime, he also plugged in a music CD into his loud music system, which blared out Altaf Raja’s qawwali: “Tum toh thehre pardesi, saath kya nibhaoge…” I’m sure it is because of the colonial mindsets of the Grammy award organizers that this superhit album never attained the glory it deserved. Perhaps they can think of some lifetime achievement award for Altaf Raja…

Back to project haircut. I wondered whether the barber was trying to depict some bottom-up and back-to-front growth of baldness on my head by progressing at length in the said directions. After about an hour’s dance-with-my-hair, the barber claimed the completion of his feat and started with the head-turning-twisting massage with a victorious stance. Thankfully, when I looked up in the mirror, I wasn’t looking too different from what I was supposed to look like.

Oh, believe me, it happened with me at an expensive Chinese barbershop in KL, Malaysia, when I’d reluctantly gone for a haircut. The Chinese like to have their haircuts to be oblique – i.e., they do not hold the pairs of scissors straight while chopping off the growth. So, when I went for this haircut, I asked the barber to hold the scissors straight, after showing him some pictures of Indian-styled haircuts on my cellphone (I had downloaded some pictures of the haircut that I wanted).

The barber looked at the strange creature in the hot seat, gave me a furious look and pulled out a huge Chinese haircut catalogue from his drawer. He dictated me through the catalogue and made me choose the weirdest hairstyle on the planet, and chopped my hair accordingly.

When I stepped back into my world, I was asked: “Did you attempt a haircut all by yourself?”

I dread to think what would’ve been better.

HK ahoy!

2008-06-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong is quite a tiny, friendly city-nation with honest taxi drivers (for a change), and a vibrant melange of both, western and oriental cultures. Getting around is easy, shopping is fun and the nightlife nonstop! For the rest, I'd let the few pictures do the speaking...

The view from my room...

My office building - Central Plaza, Wan Chai, the one with golden panels

The Pacific Princess
A princess I'd love to have in my life beside the Indian one...

Off the harbour, across the city...

The old and the new parts of the city are divided by the sea, and one has to either take a rail, underwater bridge or a ferry ride across the sea. I'd vouch for the ferry ride.

Shoppers' paradise

The endless streets are buzzing with activity round the clock, and people spilling out from all directions. Its easy to turn invisible, unnoticed in Hong Kong

The shops around the street are fun to walk around, bargain and buy good stuff for cheap. The chinese shopkeeper women curse you in a manner you cannot decipher, at first instance, but the moment you start walking away, they call you back to buy things at the price you suggest! The transaction ends with a polite give-and-take of 'thank you, come again!'...

Set sail, get going!

Just to put things in perspective...

The tallest building of Hong Kong, and the one next to it....

I'll be back!

Fuck the itinerary. Let’s go home…

2008-05-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

It is fun to watch movies. We all would agree to that. It is fun to watch comedies too, you know. Now, let us come to an agreement: whatever the scene may be, if there’s a comic movie playing, we shall all laugh. Whether we get the drift of the comic events or not is another question (not to be answered).

This is what the audience of The Darjeeling Limited agreed to, and signed as a contract before entering the auditorium, when I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago. But we shouldn’t blame the poor audience. Its just that the movie is made precisely to make half the bunch of audience appear absolute intellectual disasters and the other half to be diagonally opposite. The humour is neither too loud, nor tongue-in-cheek. So, the first half of the audience mentioned above tends to miss out the entire point-d’humour and ends up laughing when the second half has almost finished laughing at the laughable scenes. When the former realised they are portraying themselves as a bunch of retards, their guffaws ended in hiccups. The latter then laughed, but not at the movie.

End of the film, and people were either cursing whoever brought them along to watch it, or praising the skilful writing, direction and effortless acting – not that there were many who got to this point though. Good film – do watch it to figure out which one of the deux parties do you belong to...

Fun sequences include the mountain-top ritual when the three brothers present an assortment of hip-and-elbow thrusting moves with their knees and arms bent when they stand on one leg; the sweet-lime girl(s); the dinner table at which two obnoxious German ladies are shouting away to glory and these three Americans are even more obnoxious with their ‘strongest pain killers of the subcontinent’; the shoe-polish-wallah running away with the eldest brother’s single shoe and finally when the three brothers are stranded in the desert with their laminating machine, a colour printer and their itineraries when they were thrown off the Darjeeling Limited. Statutory warning: there are other laughable scenes too. Another warning: not all of the scenes mentioned above are laughable.

Ambition, achievement and boiled potatoes!

2008-04-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve been peeling boiled potatoes, for the large part of the day, cooking one meal after another. It isn’t even so that I’ve been cooking for half the city’s hungry people. Coming to think of it, my appetite can sometimes exceed that of half a city’s hungry people! But this fact shall be discussed in ample detail at an opportune moment some other time.

I’m just pondering over the extent to which my life can swing, when I am spending my days in a largely aimless fashion, not achieving anything significant. And I still feel comfortable, rather happy and content. It may be because of the certainty that revolves around the relaxed phase of these few days. Certainty of the hectic life as it was before, of moving in some direction which could be the right one, and of the so-called accomplishment.

Just about three weeks ago, when the figure-out-your-way phase was prevailing, I’d been impatient and restless to no end. Right when everyone was trying his or her best to reassure me that things were going to get alright, I wouldn’t even listen. Someone had then said, “Perhaps, we should wait a little longer” – and bingo, things did turn alright, and how! It is at these times that one feels one should have a small window into a little bit of our lives to come. It is, on the other hand, at these times that one feels really blessed too.

So, even while life’s heading nowhere at the moment - minus ambition, my days are splurged with leisurely inactivity, a lot of reading, loud music and long hours of peaceful sleep. I am happy not feeling the usual urge to be somebody and get somewhere. "Hold on, keep going, and we shall get somewhere" suddenly sounds right. And listening to someone sure helps!

Just another uplifting experience!

2008-04-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

I have made a mention earlier, of the strange ways of the elevator (or lift) at my office, how it shoves itself up at the rooftop following random mood swings, not a shred of which is comprehensible by the human species across sexes. However, I wonder at times, why is it just the men of the office who complain about the erratic behaviour of the said lift (or elevator) all the time, and none of the other two sexes. Not that we have anybody from the third sex around as it appears largely, but I’m just curious. But the third sex is not what I am going to talk about. God promise!

It is something that happened last week, which prompted me to write about the said lift again. But as I think back, this event is not so much about the lift that I’m alluding to, but more perhaps about a timid new liftman who occupied the pilot’s seat in the already cramped cockpit the other day. So, I took the lift to go down three (or maybe four) storeys, as I walked out of my office. Wait a little, oh, wait. I think I was going up four (or maybe three) storeys.

At the cost of sounding clichéd and technologically inept, I would like to point out for the uninitiated, that the lift which transports us upward does so in the opposite direction too. Another fact which is noteworthy is that such lifts are by law, not allowed to perform any movements sideways. This law must have been in force since the time they made mummies in Egypt, I think.

Without deviating any further, I state in all consciousness, that the lift moves either up or down and in no other direction than the two mentioned about ten words ago in this sentence. Hence, it does not really matter which way I was heading, unless one of you had climbed up above it to snap the strings holding this lift up in the air. Therefore, reverting back to the fact, that irrespective of the direction in which the lift was going, I took the lift. As I entered, I noticed the liftman making some strange sounds. I thought he may have been muttering his prayers to the Egyptian mummies. Turns out, he actually was!

Ask me how? I know you won’t, so let me tell you without much ado. I too didn’t know until he told me, that the lift was actually attempting to make some sideway movements, thus breaking the Law of Egyptian mummies for lifts. The liftman, who had just taken charge of this lift for the first time in his life, blurted out assorted abuses to a wide variety of people starting from those who constructed the office building in the first place, to those who maintain it now, and the people who installed the lift in between. The lift was behaving in a weird manner, to deserve this abuse. It shuddered whenever either the liftman, or I pressed a button, and started to move with an upward or downward jerk which was entirely unpredictable. It performed its sideway-salsa midway, which amplified the liftman’s screams.

So far so good, the lift didn’t wrench itself out from the hold of the ropes on which it was hanging, and finally landed at the ground floor with another jerk, making the occupants wonder whether there was going to be a bungee-jump turnaround, way back to where we came from. The moment it landed, the liftman’s screams reached the highest alto, and he shot out flinging the doors open, running around in the lobby of my office building. Alas, there was not a single spectator of his performance and nobody paid any heed to his plaint. Poor chap, he had to return to duty to the same horrifying cockpit, and I could hear him utter sing-song abuses as he closed the doors again.

On my way back upstairs, I chose to take the stairs. Thankfully, the journey back to the fourth storey was devoid of any such unsolicited entertainment. But the fact that I was more thankful to Holy Jesus and his band party was that the lift did not stop anywhere hanging in the air, like it did at an earlier instance. I cannot stretch my imagination to think of what could have happened of me otherwise.

That’s it. Now stop flooding your 250-gram masterpiece up there with useless information and get back to work. Don’t you dare to imagine what could’ve happened if the lift had stopped mid-air. Those who still do, will be entitled to one free trip up-and-down (and perhaps back up) in the same lift on a Sunday afternoon.

Thankyouverymuch.

Truth, at Rs 100 a year

2008-03-22T20:34:00.000-07:00

The last time when you looked out of the window of your car, perhaps pitying that child selling books, newspapers and magazines which claim to bring out the truth to you, he was not worried about the pride that you took over the shining state of your country or its economic progress, reading those books and magazines. All he was trying to fix is how would he make sure he and his siblings get their next meal.

So, the next time you feel proud and seek the thrill of being an idealistic revolutionary buying the magazine that boasts of bringing you the truth at Rs 100 a year, posing as the guardian of virtue in a country which is apparently turning dishonest by the hour, make sure you think of that child which you spotted at the traffic signal who was given the very same magazine to sell. Will you still buy it?

Uncommon sense

2008-02-25T08:27:00.000-08:00

Found at Alliance Francaise de Bombay. The French, or those who come in contact with them DO possess some uncommon sense, eh?

A taste of India...

2008-02-12T09:09:00.000-08:00

Dil le gaya pardesi, koi rokna tha,

Kya hoga hoga hoga, mera sochna tha,

O, kya hoga hoga hoga, mera sochna tha…

On a chilly winter morning, when you suddenly wake up listening to a toddler singing this number with music created by clapping two small pieces of asbestos into each other, it feels that the whole world has come to a stop to listen to what this tiny soul has to say to it. But right then, the kid’s voice is overtaken by a score of other shouts trying to gain mileage over each other, hustling through the squatting-sitting-standing crowds: “Chai masalawali, Chai”, “Garam garam vada-pav”, “Sev-khaman, desi ghee ma banavelu khaman khasho?”

And then, you realise you have woken up on the upper deck of the Flying Ranee, because you do not have any space to move your feet about -- since the entire coach is filled with people – men, women and children like roaches stuffed in a tin can. One can hardly sit, and one cannot even stand up. Wherever you set foot, you end up stamping somebody. Finally, when you reach the loo, you find it stuffed with luggage!

After all the jugglery and hullabaloo, one wonders how such a swarming crowd could stick around together in utterly uncomfortable situations for hours. It is beyond my comprehension, whether it is the innate Indian nature to subscribe to harmony in all circumstances (which to me, appears hypocrite rubbish) or the cowardice of the mob who is willing to toss around negligible trash, but do not have the guts to stand up and speak out about the inefficiencies bred by the system, including their own selves. I dare not ask why!

Bringing home the dream!

2008-01-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

Fu bai fu, fugadi fu

Dam-laas ka'ay majhya Govinda tu,

Re majhya Govinda tu?

- the character Nick Bottom, from A Midsummer Night's Dream,

by William Shakespeare.

Unconceivable, but true, I’ve just returned after watching a Shakespearean play being performed not just in English, but also in Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Sinhalese and Tamil. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Tim Supple and performed by a couple of dozen artists from all over India and Sri Lanka. It was a dance-music-martial art do, one heck of a production! The play was divided in two acts, the first act, in which Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius go round and round along the lines of the cupid’s goof-ups, and the second act, in which things fall in place and everyone lives happily ever after.

The play was rich with cultural stuffings from across India, with traditional and contemporary dances as well as a bit of a presentation of kallaripayatt, the martial art from Kerala. Dialogues were spoken in a host of languages that I just mentioned, but even though I didn’t literally understand the parts in Sinhalese and Tamil, I never lost the thread because the actors adeptly expressed just about everything. The dance and martial art performances were superb with amazing precision in coordinating every step. The ambience on-stage was quite unusual with ladders and ropes hanging on the stage, with actors going up and down all through. Besides, there were colourful drapes and the actors’ costumes from rich robes to torn rags.

Tim Supple has managed to take a comic pull at the original Shakespearean drama without climbing any rung lower, and brought in passion and rib-tickling fluidity in the sequence of events. The jumble of all the languages worked toward creating a complete dream. The part that I liked the most was the way the play within the play shaped up – the romance of Pyramus and Thisbe, and Nick Bottom’s character played by Joy Fernandes was the most entertaining -- not that other actors didn’t entertain me. No matter how much I write, I’m never going to be able to describe the experience, for it was like living through a dream. A never-before experience, I’m going to do an encore, whenever I get to lay my hands on this one again!

Something to check out: a good description of the play is here – the blog of Prof Christopher Conway.

P.S. : Anandham says, there wasn't much Sinhalese in the play, probably. I believe the troupe must be large, with various actors performing at different events, which leaves the production flexible enough to entertain a wide set of audiences, by simply plugging in or out some bits from the play. I stand corrected there. Thanks Anand!

Ranjha!

2008-01-05T09:47:00.000-08:00

Life, as unpredictable as it is, doesn’t fail to spring surprises even on a weekend. As fate would have it, I ended up planning to watch a play or two alone, and found myself walking into the Experimental Theatre of the NCPA. I must admit, the venue does live up to its name. So, I saw Navtej Johar and Madan Gopal Singh’s dance-musical drama Fana’a: Ranjha Revisited this evening. The play is a melée of two romantic epics, each one from North and South India. Heer Ranjha is a famous Sufi legend from Punjab, while Kutrala Kuravanji is a genre of dance-drama from Tamil Nadu.

Ranjha was a prince who fell in love with Heer, and became a cowherd in the farms of Heer’s father, just so that they both could be together. When Heer was married off to someone else, Ranjha turned a jogi, a mendicant and follows Heer.

The epic from south, Kutrala Kuravanji is a story of a young girl – Vasantvalli - falling in love with Lord Siva and living in fantasies of her union with the Lord. As the drama unveils, sakhis (friends) of Vasantvalli tease her, support her and enrich her fantasies of her union with Siva by bringing in a fortune-teller who would predict when Vasantvalli would meet Siva.

Johar’s drama presents both these epics in dance form, with songs from Kutrala as well as Sufi songs reciting Heer-Ranjha’s legend interspersed with each other. Both the stories flow simultaneously, with Navtej and his dance partner Anil Panchal playing the roles of Heer, Ranjha, Vasantvalli and Siva. Both the dancers changed roles –- and the transition was smooth -- which was indicated through the lyrics. The hour-long play was a mix of Sufi songs in Punjabi and Kutrala recited in Tamil. The seemingly distant fusion of Sufi and carnatic music did not sound odd at all. The dance technique followed was a fusion of Bharat Natyam and contemporary dance, throughout the play.

What appealed was the ‘seamlessness’ as people put it, of Johar’s masterpiece. Kutralas usually have a happy ending with Vasantvalli’s union with Siva, while Heer-Ranjha’s epic ends in despair, in separation. What brings about both the extremes to a common ground is the abstract nature that the stories take because of the male duet dance. Both the dancers interchange roles very frequently, thus keeping the audience glued to each and every movement of theirs.

More, the play brought both the epics woven together with one single thread – desire. Although Johar may have conceptualised the play due to his love for both Sufism and Kutrala as he admits, the thought has evolved into depiction of bare, plain desire in its most innocent form.

Besides the dance, the singers Madan Gopal Singh and Rekha Raj sung amazing Sufi songs like Ranjha jogi banke aaya and Aaj piya mere anganach aaye. Carnatic songs were played using recordings – sung by Govindrajan Elangovan. Without a single prop on the stage, the accompaniment to this one-act play were minimalistic with Preetam Ghoshal’s sarod, Gurmeet Singh’s tabla, Deepak Castelino’s guitar, G Raghuraman’s flute and R Kesavan’s mridangam.

What’s next? – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Tim Supple. Now that’s what you call a streak of good luck.

Being ‘housewife-ly’

2007-12-20T20:54:00.000-08:00

This week has been a hectic one. I had to wrap up my work (my write-ups for the week, etc) right on Monday and had to run to my parents’ to attend to a crisis which thankfully ended quite quickly, and for better. But I had to assume the roles of playing a mom to my mother, father and my sister for a couple of days, which was quite an experience. On Tuesday morning, while talking to someone, I said I had to cook, make sure everyone has lunch, and only then I’d be able to attend to anything else. All this was followed by more or less a similar schedule in the evening too. I was told I sounded like a perfect ‘housewife’!

Although I’ve always been reluctant to use the word housewife, and tend to use ‘homemaker’ instead, I realised how different I sounded than usual. I woke up earlier than ever (6 AM, can I ever beat that again?), went about doing the chores in the kitchen and cooked an elaborate lunch which I usually do not, when alone. By the time I fed my three ‘kids’ – mom, dad and my younger sister – it was already two in the afternoon. I was still to have a bath, and only then I’d sit down to eat.

All this made me understand more than a thing or two. Its the reality, which we tend to overlook. No matter how much grateful I may feel to my mother and sister for being as caring as they’ve been for all these years, unless I’d worn their shoes (allright, metaphorically – their shoes barely cover half my foot), I wouldn’t have ever known what they go through every passing day. Thanking them would never be enough! Someone said (perhaps in some other context, too), “we’re blessed, aren’t we?”

It just takes a bit of pampering to chuck off a VC!

2007-12-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

We have all longed for being at the right place at the right time with the right idea (or even without). And we have all been in awe of one-man-army in a cellar, attic or garage start-ups, which have made it big like lightning. But on the other hand, quite a a sizeable majority of us have also seen the dot-coms rise from nowhere, and plunge into nowhere taking everyone who held on to them, along. So, even though buzzwords such as Silicon Valley, venture capital and internet start-ups do make our ears rise, they also make our upper lip twitch in a disapproving fashion and write them off, prima facie. One could only imagine what fate these buzzwords would meet when they fall on the ears of seasoned investors, most of the time. This may sound like the most sensible thing to do. But for new entrepreneurs and wannabes alike, this means something else.

The next generation of dot-coms and internet start-ups has to turn a lot smarter, coming up with ideas which will not need them to make a beeline at venture capitalist outfits. So, when Guy Kawasaki interviewed four such enterprises, it did not fascinate me as much that these four entrepreneurs did not need any venture capital. It is, but the line of thought, or the concept behind these businesses, which makes one think. The commonality between these businesses is quite striking, for all the differences it has with the previous dot-com boom of the late 90s.

I’ll first make it easy for you, by illustrating these four businesses in brief, and then move on to the point – the commonalities and how are they different from the dot-com-boomers. Fark.com which was founded by Drew Curtis sources wacky and humorous stories from anyone and everyone on the internet. He has managed to get over 50 million unique page views a month from four million unique visitors. Markus Frind put up a free online dating site called Plenty of Fish, scoring 1.2 billion page views a month from 50 million unique visitors. The biggest single cheque he received from Google AdSense is of $ 900,000 for two months, he’s cited.

Hi5.com, an internet social network which had been up way before Orkut and Facebook, is founded by Ramu Yalamanchi. Now the site is No. 1 in seven countries and has 35 million unique visitors and 12 billion pages. Although he did need to raise $ 250,000 the hard way after the tech bust, back in 2003, but this sum is minuscule compared to the humongous funds attracted by its other dot-com predecessors.

And finally, Mogad, founded by Lucas Ryan, Yan-David Erlich and Blake Commagere, which has tasted a few failures, before it came up with a successful project. This project is a plug-in to the social networking site Facebook, which has grown popular in no time. The Facebook plug-ins Vampires and Zombies are social games, which have attracted 20 million users in just five months.

These are the four businesses that Dean Takahashi’s Tech Talk Blog talks about. Now let us get on to the common string that I made a mention of. All four businesses derive their revenues from internet advertising, and the likes of Google AdSense. All four businesses have focused not on internet’s use for business, but for leisure and lifestyle – a mode of entertainment: quite obvious, eh? Here’s the catch. What remains at the centre-stage in all four of these businesses is the user. And here’s the big known secret: the most probable users of these services would be youngsters. That’s precisely why the revenue model of these businesses does not depend on charging its users directly, but by selling ad-space to those who vie to sell their stuff to these users. Rings a bell?

This strategy of attracting youngsters leads us to the long tail of consumption, and the fact that youngsters make up a large proportion of the consumer class. Converting young users into consumers would inculcate into brand loyalty when they grow old, and the tail is really long. But you get my point. The high amount of involvement of the user in creating their own online experience is the key to the success of these businesses. And this is precisely what makes them different from the dot-com-boomers. Even among the erstwhile businesses, those which survived the dot-com boom include the likes of Amazon.com and eBay – perhaps they caught the trend pretty early on.

For all those who thought it was the technology which drives technology companies, this may come as a wake-up call. It is, no doubt, the users. So much for the ego of each user, that these people who pampered them do not even need a venture capitalist!

I have a dog and her name is Trouble...

2007-12-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

Allright. Pay attention. This is something to do with a dog called Trouble, who’s really called Trouble and is in great Trouble. This dog called Trouble has actually managed to inherit $12 million (don’t worry, she’s –Trouble has-- counted ‘em all, in full), and is now in receipt of a score (literally) of kidnap and death threats.

Well, whodunnit?

I’m not talking about the threats. Don’t you see the $12 million is more important? It’s the Queen of Mean, as they call her, some real estate tycoon in the US of A, called Leona Helmsley. Doubtless of her generosity, people are all praise about it, going ga-ga over the millions she’s given away to this trust and that. But the $12 million in question has turned a bone-in-the-neck of a few un-pampered non-canines, which has rendered the pampered pooch in question, effectively, on the run and perhaps the poor lamb (only metaphorically, none of the expensive, sci-fi gene-conversion affairs, really) may be living in disguise.

I wonder what inspired her owner, certain Ms Helmsley to name the dog Trouble, or whether she had borne the foresight of what would happen in her affluent after-life scéance. The sheer imagination of inheriting $12 million prompted yours truly to run a quick survey about the reactions of my near-and-dear ones (allright, so-called), to the ghastly event of threats to the poor-li’l-rich-pooch.

The response was a unanimous “I-don’t-want-Trouble-but-I-wish-I-were-Trouble-myself.” D’you hear that? I’m surrounded with such innocent minds, who do not have the slightest gut to threaten even an ant. So, I hereby testify ‘not guilty’ and claim unawareness to existence of any individuals – canine as well as non-canine -- claiming ownership to the said $12 million or thereabouts. Oh I can’t think beyond this any more. I rest my case.

Thankyouverymuch.

Walk. Together.

2007-11-18T20:16:00.000-08:00

The streak of serious/heavy reading was rather long this time around for me, coupled with similar movies to watch, and may be, all of it could be tied to a thread – togetherness. I had read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake a few months back. I was in tears when I finished reading the book, called all my near-and-dear ones, and had hearty conversations with them all. After a few books, I had picked up William Pennington’s autobiographical description of his tryst with India during the World War II - Pick up your parrots and monkeys. Although there is a lot to learn about the country, its history in those days, and the actualité during that time period, the thought that overrode the entire story of Pennington’s life was about the fragile nature of life – you could wake up healthy in the morning, do your chores, and could end up six feet under the ground by the evening (however, he mentions this in a British-soldier-in-India context, during both, peace-time and war).

Last night, I watched The Namesake, a film by Mira Nair based on Lahiri’s novel. It brought me the same old tears back—and the story has the amazing ability to make your life replay before your mind’s eyes like a quick flashback of sepia-coloured snapshots. No, it isn’t something like you have a near-death-experience and you start realising how little of life could be left with you, after all these years of running around in vain. It is more to do with the people around you who gave away the most important bits and pieces of their lives to make your life complete. It is about how far we get away in our pursuits, almost like entering a thick, dark, crowded city oozing with people-known and unknown, without even looking back who was walking with us and where we left them behind.

Perhaps we do not always understand their worth at the time when they walk with us, but when we are left alone among all strangers. And it is the togetherness of that ‘past’ life, with which one has to be content – I wasn’t all alone after all.

Look around. Hold hands of those near you. Those who are away: bring them back. Take everyone along. Walk together.