dilli silly

i accuse

2011-08-28T17:06:00.009+05:30

now that

the hurly burly

is done

and the battle

is half lost

and half won

you can all return home

back

to the jobs you hold

in those tall glass buildings

Friedman and Nilekani taught us

that your world is flat as mine

but your buildings always seem taller

back

to your H1B forms

and work permits in the Gulf

you need them to pay your credit card bills

Lokpal or no Lokpal

back

to your colonies

with those high gates

and security guards protecting 2 crore houses

on 3k salaries

back

to calculating

the rupee dollar rate

and the lowest ticket to London

for a holiday

in the name of corruption

you held the country

the parliament

and 800 crore people

to ransom

those people

who had nothing

to gain from this fight

their life remains the same

we will keep squashing them

this was all a charade

for you to feel good about your selves

the next time you will be there for the temple

and the Parliament may have to bend down again

the question is not

is this country going to wake up to a new dawn

just answer

are we going to not bribe

the next time we jump

the traffic light ?

as he broke his fast the old man said :

There should be no difference in what you say and what you do, you should possess clean and honest thoughts, have a clean conduct, clean character, have a feeling for sacrifice and should have the strength to take humiliation

are you up for that pardner?

many years back

our elders

got behind an old man

to get Independence for this country

we found out later

that freedom was a false one

the Mahatma was betrayed

this too will go the same way

do me a favour

just throw away that cap

you wore for the last 12 days

so that it does not embarrass you some day

Dispatches from Aya Nagar 3 - Mooooo

2011-08-26T18:50:00.006+05:30

Some time back I was planning my day at home. The usual stuff - cooking, pump water, washing and getting some writing done in between. I was half way through my breakfast ritual the lights went off.

Now with no electricity my whole plan for the day was off gear. Do I wait for the electricity to put clothes to wash ? Or do I have my beauty bath and get down to writing? And what if the light comes back ? Do I interrupt my artistic labours and deal with the washing machine?

So I did what any sane person from Karol Bagh would do. I called BSES.

Because that what I used to do there. And they would tell me when the electricity would come back and you could plan your day.

Nowadays you have a centralized number to make things easier. But actually it becomes more difficult. They never seem to pick up.

So I go to meet my neighbours who have been staying in the village longer. They are amused that I am even calling up BSES. Their policy is to wait till the light comes back. I try that.

Now it is an hour and I am not able to decide whether to write, bathe or wash. So I call the toll free number again. When they answer your phone after 6 minutes and 35 seconds they act surprised:

"There is no complaint from your side." My side?
"Am telling you we do not have electricity for two hours" (I exaggerate because I know what is coming next)
"Is this Aya Nagar under Jaunapur village? Yes sir, there has been no electricity for the last half hour"
"So when will the electricity come back?"
"There is technical breakdown. This might take an hour and 40 minutes"

Just with that one piece of information my day till lunch is decided. No bathing, no washing. Just writing.

But how long can a guy write without hearing the whirring of the washing machine in the background? I am used to that rythym. That is my mojo. I patiently wait for two hours to pass.

Before I hit lunch, I decide to give it a try again. I give my complaint number. Punching sound.

"Yes sir?" (He can see my complaint but he pretends that he does not understand)
"I spoke to you in the morning."
"And you have not got electricity back ?"
"No" (Why would I call you then?)

Silence. I can hear some fiddling.

"Sir, there is BIIIIG technical problem. This will take two more hours"

Now my day is totally gone haywire. I decide to take out the clothes from the machine and put them back in the laundry basket. There is nothing more humiliating than doing that. The empty washing machine seems to be mocking me.

At five I call one more time.

"Sir we do not know how long it will take. Please ask your local office"
"Can you give me there number"
"I do not have that."
Silence. He does not have that number?
" Can I help you with anything else, sir?"

I finally get the number to the local guy. I call.

"Yes"
"I am calling from the village and I have not had electricity since the morning."
"Yes"
"How long will it take"
"We do not know"
"What do you mean?"
"Two cows got electrocuted last night."
Cows?
"And we are checking all the lines where the leakage is. We cannot tell you when the light will be restored."

The line went dead.

I had never heard that kind of an excuse ever for electricity breakdown.

As I sat waiting in the dark I smiled. Maybe I could use that on a client someday.

I could not finish the film edit because two cows got electrocuted and the electricity was not restored for 24 hours.

Better than saying the computer crashed.

Why I am not there

2011-08-22T19:56:00.004+05:30

i am
as a rule
skeptical of crowds

each time they gathered
i was found wanting

1984
i did not love Indira enough

1990
i did not love my caste enough

1992
i did not love the temple enough

i cannot be like Anna and his company
because like all crowds
they want you to be on their side
else
you are the other

i cannot be like those in power
who say – come lets talk again
they have been leading us through
a circus
for six decades

i cannot be like the skeptical journos
whose current fashion is to attack
the middle class
tomorrow it will be
someone else

and i cannot be like those
who say
this bill will not solve all problems
so will not
the UID
it will just make us into a number

but then
as a rule
am skeptical of crowds
who ask you to be on their side
else
you are the other

each time
a crowd gathers
they seem to remind me
that
i am the other

Birkin diplomacy

2011-07-29T11:43:00.005+05:30

Yesterday the Alligators called emergency session of their pressure group NSOMB – No Skin Of My Back. The Snakes were present and so were the Crocodiles. The Beavers were special invitees.

“What have you called us here for ?” the Snake asked.

“Haven’t you read the news? The Pakistani foreign minister carried a Birkin handbag to the Indo- Pak meet.” said the Alligator.

“So?” asked the Crocodile.

“Well apparently the meeting was a huge success. Everyone is attributing it to Birkin diplomacy. The Indian media is all excited about it.”

“This is good news for Birkin. They will sell a couple of more bags in India. How does this concern us?” the Snake said pointedly.

“Hillary Clinton has taken note of this trend and ordered 300 bags. She will gift it to women leaders all over the world. She feels that no two countries with leaders carrying Birkin will go to war. If there is a crisis, they will just hold a summit and discuss the latest trends in handbags.

There was pause as the Snake and the Crocodile looked at each other.

“Birkin has already ramped up its production. The first bags are scheduled to be delivered in the UN session in September” the Alligator continued.

The Beaver looked around and smiled.

“So why did you call me for this session?”

The Alligator turned to look at him.

“ Did you think that men were going to carry handbags? Not to be left out, the Indian foreign Minister has ordered a beaver hat from Birkin for the next Indo-Pak summit. Now the Chinese delegation to the UN is demanding beaver hats too.”

“But so many bags and hats are going to cost at least 10 million dollars. Who is going to foot the bill?” argued the Crocodile.

“That’s a small price to pay for world peace.” muttered the Alligator.

“What can we do ?” asked the Beaver.

“Pray that some crazy from Norway or Iraq detonates a bomb and the world is distracted by a War on Terror for another ten years.” said the Snake.

Birkin Diplomacy - To use a fashion accessory to distract from the real issue

The Norway Incident

2011-07-25T19:15:00.003+05:30

After all the speculation about different Islamic groups it finally emerged that the guy who pulled this one - Anders Breivik - was a white European. As he views became public, journos abroad have started building a strange case. They say that right wing parties or groups in Europe are not to blame for this attack.

The Atlantic has this observation:

Breivik may have come from the European anti-Muslim right wing, but he certainly does not represent it.

Behavior, ultimately, is a product of one's environment: ideas, yes, but also social pressure, family pressure, norms, constraints, inspirations, barriers, and expectations. Sometimes, these constraints push a man to do any number of heinous things. It doesn't excuse the man himself (at the end of the day, you always have the choice and the responsibility not to react to your circumstances violently), but it makes the question of "why" terribly difficult to understand. It is deeply complex.

WOW. I have never seen such clear lucid thinking coming out immediately after a terror attack. Take a look at these lines again:

Behavior, ultimately, is a product of one's environment: ideas, yes, but also social pressure, family pressure, norms, constraints, inspirations, barriers, and expectations. Sometimes, these constraints push a man to do any number of heinous things.

Funny that they never seem to think of these lines when there is a Islamic terror attack. Would the same reasons listed above not apply to them?

Aap itna gaali kyun dete hain?

2011-07-14T11:39:00.003+05:30

Delhi Belly had restarted a debate on abuse and boy am I glad. I was fast becoming one of the last few souls who still abuse. Most of my friends were turning away from using the F,B,C,M,G and L words.

My first gaali lesson was from my little brother. He came back from school one day and blurted it out. It sounded something like screwing a buffalo. It did not seem to make sense although his friends were using it in school and having fun. Many years later I realized it was actually about screwing someone else.

I remember an assistant of mine was shocked when he heard me abuse on shoot. He thought it was an exception and let it pass. But pretty soon he realized that was not the case. I was at it everyday. And I did not seem to bother if there were women around. So one day at lunch break he sat down and looked deep into my eyes and asked – Aap itna gaali kyun dete hain?

I started by explaining how gaalis encapsulate the frustration one feels in certain situations. How gaalis help us take out that anger. How there should be a law in support for giving gaalis. How gaalis help reduce violence. And how the study of gaalis should be regular subject at school where children should be awarded marks for creating new flowery gaalis.

He never spoke to me on that subject again.

My experience is that Delhi is streets ahead on this. When working briefly in Bombay, I remember people accepted any kind of behaviour in colleagues and friends. Stuff that could be considered immoral elsewhere. Two timers, three timers. You name it. But you could not abuse. They had actually invented words like “fish” and “fuch” so that they did not have to say the real thing in public.

In the gaali universe, there are two kinds of people in this world. Actually three. One who give gaalis. I am talking about Hindi stuff. Then there those who do not give gaalis. But given time they can be converted. And then there are those abuse in English only.

The last set of people are the silliest. The F word is no match for the C,G or B word. You get the drift. English abuses are mostly short. They do not let you stretch your emotion. Whereas gaalis let you take out the entire anger you are feeling at that point.

There should be credible research hidden somewhere in Europe that abusing in your mother tongue is actually better for your health. Just make sure the person you are addressing it to is five feet away. And shorter than you. Better still you should be in a car.

Memories of a T-shirt

2011-07-08T14:08:00.008+05:30

Mostly I never discuss school. Not that I did not like it but I find the whole – those days were gooood – overrated.

Once in a while the name comes up in Delhi drawing room conversations - Beta school kahan pe kiya tha tumne? Or work meetings - Oh you are from Columbas? Which year? 1989 ? I think I know xxxx from that year. You get the drift.

However once in a while you come across something that surprises you. Sometimes it is an old black and white photograph. Or a school mate getting back in touch on FB.

But nothing prepared me for this one. Today in the morning I was walking around the courtyard while my chai was getting ready. I saw something familiar hanging on a ladder that the painters were using.

It was a T-shirt that one of them had left to dry. The image on it look familiar. I stepped closer.

I could not believe it. I started reading what was printed on it. Loud. Like one pinches one self when you wake up from a dream. SCHOLA COLUMBA. FRATES CHRISTIANI.

I gulped. Then smiled. It was T- shirt from school. Something you wore on a sports day. Or if you were playing football. I used to have a yellow one. This one was grey. And worn out.

Whom did it belong to? And what year did my school switch to this boring grey? More importantly, which kid would like to wear grey? And how did this painter get his hands on it?

Stuff related to the school is not my kind of thing. I have kept some of the school year books and a memento we got when we left school. I think it was their way of saying – Thank God, you guys are leaving.

But no T-shirt left from those days. And my painter had one. I was jealous.

Later I found out that he had got it from one of the owners of the houses he was painting.

I must write to the school. They must have a code of conduct. Am sure they have a rule somewhere where you cannot give away school memorabilia like that.

Maybe he did it because he did not like the colour. Grey I can forgive. Not if it had been a yellow.

How to find God …

2011-07-03T09:07:00.002+05:30

…the Maria Susairaj way

1. Become an actress

2. Get engaged

3. Travel to Mumbai

4. Find a lover

5. Get your fiancé to kill the lover

6. Go to the supermarket to buy a bread knife, an air-freshener, new drapes and two large duffel bags

7. Chop the dead body into pieces

8. Dispose the pieces in a forest

9. Get arrested

10. Plead innocence

11. Stay in jail

12. Leave jail since the court feels that 3 years 41 days is enough suffering for cutting a body up and hiding it

13. Find God

14. Share this news at a press conference

Repeat from 1 if not satisfied the first time.

Turning Girls into Boys

2011-06-29T11:34:00.008+05:30

Last Sunday, HT wrote about a new trend in Indore where parents are turning their girl child into a boy. Yes you read that right. A sex change. When you are too young to ask what the hell is happening to you. Just because they want a boy.

Having worked on several projects that dealt with female infanticide, I thought I had seen and heard all kinds of stories. But this one still shocked me.

When I was part of a film that we made in the 90's, the focus was on two states - Rajasthan and Tamilnadu. In the first decade of this century, more and more people in the cities started killing girls. Highly urbanized states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana topped the list. What was surprising was that "educated" and economically well off communities were indulging in this practice.

I have always maintained that education does not make us broadminded, tolerant or sensitive. Most people who garner degrees continue to believe that they should have a male child. And there are enough people to find new theories why we still have female feoticide.

A new argument put forward in the NYTimes was this :

...female empowerment often seems to have led to more sex selection, not less. In many communities, she writes, “women use their increased autonomy to select for sons,” because male offspring bring higher social status.

The article then goes onto point out that skewed family planning programmes and access to abortion has led to an increase in female feoticide.

Easy access to abortion is leading to more girl child deaths ?

Bullshit.

Female foeticide was happening decades before there were abortion clinics. If hospitals would not allow it then people would go to quacks or back alleys.

Female empowerment and access to abortion clinics are not responsible for skewed gender ratio. It is patriarchal and misogynistic cultures.

Instead of focusing on real issues, such arguments take the the sting away from the ongoing campaign to set the gender balance right.

Dispatches from Aya Nagar 2 - The Scriptwriter

2011-06-04T10:45:00.006+05:30

So am sitting in my shorts and ganji waiting for some inspiration to strike.

That’s a large part of the reason one has moved here. To be away from the city. For peace and quiet. To be alone.

I listen. There is nothing. No rush of ideas. No brilliant line to kick start it. Nothing

So I pretend to wait for the right moment and look for something else to do. Like clean the metal chimney. Or the fridge. Or wash clothes. Amazing how domesticated we become in search of inspiration.

I hear the bell ring and walk over to open it.

There is a young man standing. He asks for me. Tentatively, he tells me he has written a story about his life. He has faced many challenges and wanted to put down on paper how he overcame them and became the person he was.

I asked him how he came to know about me. Apparently through small talk among taxi drivers. They have a database of filmmakers in the area.

So much for fame. 24 hour news channels. Red Carpet Invites. Flashbulbs. All that will have to wait. Right now the Taxi Drivers’ Association of Aya Nagar is following your career.

So I set to demolish his enthusiasm. Tell him how difficult it is to make a movie. To raise money. You know the kind of theories you develop to explain to yourself why you have not moved your ass about the four scripts lying in your secret vault and twenty other swirling in your mind. And most people believe you.

He is not interested. He wants to read out his story. He seems like he is on another planet.

Where I was 20 years ago.

So I give up.

We have a script reading on Monday morning.

Totally.

Do you speak NGOish?

2011-02-02T10:33:00.006+05:30

Economist has a fun take on the impact of international NGOs in Sudan.

It seems that it is fast becoming a place:

where the language of aid is taking hold even among the natives.“I feel like a stakeholder now,” exclaimed a woman of the Dinka tribe

Other popular words include empowerment, capacity building and focal groups !

The article continues in the same vein:

Such terms’ joy is that they are nice and woolly, hard to define and harder still to contradict: who could possibly turn down the chance to enhance development practitioners’ facilitation skills for the capacity-building of gender-disadvantaged women?

Having worked on various media projects with civil society groups that focus on capacity building and empowerment, I am intrigued by the term gender-disadvantaged women.

Either there are gender disadvantaged groups or disadvantaged women.

Or am I missing something here ?

PS In other news Omar Abdullah is spending Rs 3,000 cr on development projects in 64 days !

Dispatches from Aya Nagar 1 - Fearless Investigators

2011-01-28T06:25:00.008+05:30

All of last month A's handle on GMail has been - Getting a new house has been like a getting a new life.

And so it goes. After the floods made the journey to the new home an Expedition to the Animal Kingdom, now the broken roads test the car shockers. Of course the neighbours - both helpful and more than curious. The strange sounds at night and early morning. The new friends you make - monkeys, peacocks you name it. These we were ready for.

So imagine our pleasant surprise when we got this with our morning newspaper. Now Karol Bagh has its share of funny promotionals (LAST SALE OF PRE WEDDING SEASON, INTERNATIONAL BRANDS AT YOUR BACK DOOR) but nothing prepared us for FEARLESS INVESTIGATORS.

The ad started off with - Are you worried about the future of your children and your family status?

I thought this must be a tuition or a private college but then why would they call themselves FEARLESS INVESTIGATORS?

Then - If YES, then Fearless Investigators will help you to relieve from the pain. Pain?
OK, this must be a hospital or a test lab for diseases.

Then it confused me further - If your children have fallen in love trap with the wrong person?
Who are these guys? Marriage Counselors? Or just regular shrinks? And more importantly, there are places in this world who can top K B in funny product flyers?

Further down it was revealed - India's first company that has been built to protect you, your family status and your children from few wrong persons...

Yes. Please click on the image to enjoy the full Monty.

The first official ad for a private Khap panchayat meets private investigators. And maybe they have a sister concern that assists in honour killings.

Welcome to Aya Nagar. The honour of my children will be safe here.

PS - I have left their numbers if any of you need them. Just in case.

We've got mail

2010-12-24T11:39:00.012+05:30

The best test of whether you have settled into a new locality is when you get snail mail. Its only when your postman recognizes your address you have truly arrived. Courier walahs are very enterprising in tracing a new address. The postman is more conservative. If he does not recognize the address back goes your letter to the sender.

So yesterday we got our first letter. It came in an innocent brown envelope. I have always been wanting a small uncomplicated address. None of those convoluted Khasra No 118878/19899. Shifting to an urban village one had thought that one would have to now live with those numbers handed down from the 19^th century land records.

Many cities in India still have two number for houses. Hyderabad used to follow this till some time back. One number was the older one that most people remembered. But the civic authorities had renamed the houses. So your address would carry both numbers :)

But our neighbours had already thought out this problem. They devised a simple address and each new house took on a new number and now there are four buildings that use this description.

And now the postman knows that new people have moved into the neighbourhood.

Making our Cities Fun

2010-11-14T19:27:00.001+05:30

Aravind Adiga writes about living and leaving Mumbai in Mint. I found his story funny initially and poignant as he reaches the decision to leave the city. His property dealer is of course horrified:

“For 40 years I’ve worked and still I have nothing. From the moment you came here, everything you’ve touched has turned to gold. Why would you ever leave Mumbai?”

This is not a Bombay versus Delhi debate. We have different ways of looking at the city we live in. A friend of mine (from Bombay) once said that Bombay is a great place to work and Delhi a great place to party, chill out. I disagreed and said – I would like to work here and party in Bombay. It always turns out a never-ending debate.

Whatever our differences we agree that our cities are becoming impossible to live in. Most of us talk about leaving them. What is it about our cities that we are growing to hate them? Current reportage about cities focus on bad infrastructure, traffic, increasing costs and bad public transport.

We need to understand what is it that attracts us to cities. What is it that keeps us there? Jobs? Our friends? If we were given the same money to live elsewhere would we do it?

Adiga shifts to Bangalore to reclaim an old flat his mother had left for him. Money he does not have to worry about. But how many people have a choice like that? They are stuck to the place that provides them with their livelihood.

Today almost 40 percent of us live in cities. And this number is supposed to grow to 70 percent in the next 30 years. So my question - How can we make our cities fun to live?

Dabbang in Muzzaffarpur

2010-09-22T10:31:00.006+05:30

So this time it was Salman in Bihar. I had written earlier about the thrills of watching Bollywood in small towns. Plans were drawn up as soon as we finished our work for the day.

Amar cinema has history. Like many halls across the country it is named after the son of the cinema owner. But adjoining it was a new hall – Jyothi - which was named after the daughter-in-law :). When we reached the parking lots were full with vehicles from the earlier show on a Monday evening. One look at crowds coming out of the show on a working day would convince you that the film was a hit.

The guy at the ticket counter insisted that we should watch the film at the older Amar since the a new AC system has been installed. Deluxe Class it was for 50 bucks.

Inside it was musty and humid as we stood in the foyer. Restless men roamed around as if waiting for their theka to open. In the hall we could not really understand the “deluxe” class. It looked like no one had cleaned up the place for years. Plastic Sprite bottles were stacked up along the walls as if part of an art installation.

The film itself was fun but the crowd less enthusiastic. After all they might have been watching it the 4^th or 5^th time. I enjoyed the portions where Salman is fighting with goons and breaks into a jig when one of their mobile rings with a musical ringtone. That scene really surprises you when you see it the first time.

However Dabbang left me a trifle disappointed. Any revenge story has two important elements – the discovery that the main villain is responsible for the death of a mother, father or friend. The other is a scary villain. The film failed me on both counts. Neither was Salman’s mother’s death shot in the typical masala film style nor was the villain scary for me. If one remembers Yadon ki Baraat or Karan Arjun the climax scenes are full of very violent scenes that act as a catharisis. When Salman learns that his mother was killed by the villain, the end is short and very quick. Not enough masala there.

Many scenes were a rush job. In fact it seemed liked the director was telling us – Hey ! You guys know what happens. Let me not stretch this here. Let us move onto the next scene. A masala film always milks the emotion. We are not known for editing out such stuff.

Munni Badnam was shorter than I expected. And the focus shifted to Salman in the second half of the song. That did not make sense. I wanted the song to be longer.

After the show we had to wait outside our hotel since we had been locked out. The caretaker could not understand why grown up men living in Delhi watch such a film. I wanted to tell him – films like this let us forget just that – and become ten year olds for a couple of hours.

Where do you get good coffee in the city ?

2010-09-02T11:03:00.005+05:30

With coffee bars coming up we have left the days when we had to line up at Nescafe stalls and drink strange concoctions they called coffee.

Of course we still have a long way to go compared to Paris or New York, but I thought since I spend so much time at such places let me think which are the one that I like.

South Indian filter coffee is best at Sarvana Bhavan at Janpath. Earlier (about 20 years back) I would go to Coffee Home but those were desperate days. If you like cona coffee, United Coffee House in the Inner Circle is a surprise. They serve the coffee in a round bottomed beaker (!).

When it comes to the new coffee bars I am looking for places where you can get good coffee consistently. This is normally not the case in any of the Cafe Coffee Day outlets. Either it is the coffee they use or their people are not trained properly. They do not understand "no sugar coffee" orders and are late with bringing the coffee to the table.

Barista does better with the IIT Barista having the best ambience. The staff is better trained and start recognizing you on your third or fourth visit.

The Green Park Costa Coffee is the best best for a random test. Almost anytime I have gone there the coffee has been good. Of course you still have to figure out the right size of cup to order since the prices are way above other coffee bars. Indians used to having small cups of coffee, the medium and large Costa Coffe is way too much !

Some time too much of a good thing is wasted :)

Which are your favourite joints for coffee ?

How to be a 100% Dilliwalah (Suggestion No.11)

2010-08-27T22:08:00.003+05:30

Take a deep breath.

And Curse.

Curse what?

Anything that comes to mind. Since the monsoons have extended their stay - curse the rains. Curse the roads. Curse MCD. Curse Delhi Metro (for digging up the roads). Curse the people traveling on the Metro. Never mind that you could also have taken it.

Curse the Delhi Government. Curse the Commonwealth Games. Curse the rickshawalah when he does not move out of the way. Curse the other motorists. Can they not stay at home?

Curse the farmers' who came to hold a rally in the city. Curse the kawariyas. But pray when you pass the Sai mandir.

Curse the MPs for voting themselves a pay hike. In fact go to office and threaten to quit if you are not given a big hike.

Never mind you did not lend the 100 rupees your house help wanted.

Take a deep breath again. Now you can spend the rest of the day in relative calm.

Other Recent Suggestions to be a Dilliwalah - here, here & here.

Growing up late

2010-08-23T06:42:00.003+05:30

NYT has an article on how more and more youngsters in their 20s are taking longer to reach adulthood. Many of them are not shifting out of their parents’s home and some return back. This is not just because of the economic crisis - it something far deeper.

It seems that young people are delaying the beginning of adult life.

Somewhere the article has an interesting statistic that only Americans can mine out -

One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s… Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married…The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.

When I look at my 20’s am trying to remember how many jobs I had. 8 freelance projects that lasted anything between 6 months to a year. 4 projects that I managed – 2 with someone else’s money and 2 where I put in money with a friend. Finally at the ripe old age of 29, I decided to take up a job which lasted two years.

Of course I stayed with my folks till I was 30. The problem was that in India you only move out if you go to study in another city or a professional college (like my younger brother did). Else if you moved out, people thought there was problem with your parents.

I still remember my mother was asked in her office whether everything was OK with me and why I was shifting out. The funny thing was many of my friends also dissuaded me.

Growing up in India has the same milestones as in the US – getting a job, getting married and moving out - but not necessarily in that order. In the US, we were told that moving out would precede getting married. Of course some Indians would never move out – stay on with their parents after getting married.

Part of the confusion is when society treats you that you have grown up. You can vote at 18 but most public places do not let you drink till you are 21 (in some cases 25). Legal marriage age is not for you. When you cross that age it is time for your parents to look for a groom or a bride. In fact unless you have moved to another country or planet most of your decisions continue to be taken by parents.

The article concludes:

The 20s are when most people accumulate almost all of their formal education; when most people meet their future spouses and the friends they will keep; when most people start on the careers that they will stay with for many years. This is when adventures, experiments, travels, relationships are embarked on with an abandon that probably will not happen again.

I would agree with most of that. What about you?

Inception - DiCaprio's scary dream

2010-08-12T22:40:00.002+05:30

In Inception we see a brilliant but troubled DiCaprio trying to shut down the past which involves a dead wife who keeps reappearing in his dreams. In his constructed dreams his wife appears to obstruct him or keep him in the dream world with her.

In the real world he has to recruit a new team member – a girl who is an architecture student who will help design or construct the dreams that DiCaprio and his team will visit. The new member is curious about Leonardo and soon discovers his dark secret that he is no longer in control of his dreams and his wife often screws up things.

I am not going to dissect this whole dream thing. What intrigued me was the contrast between the two women in the film. His dead wife is a sexy and powerful very comfortable with who she is. She uses all kinds of tricks to seduce DiCaprio into her dream world.

The new recruit is an androgynous, just out of adolescence girl who is unsure about her self. She is dressed in loose fitting clothes and there is nothing aggressive or sexual about her behaviour. As a new member she is also subservient and does not disrupt the hierarchy in the group.

Therefore my theory. The film is about DiCaprio’s problems with women. He is not able to handle his wife’s sexuality or the fact that she controlled their relationship when she was alive. This led to him distancing himself from her and she committing suicide. Of course since this is his version we can assume that maybe he actually killed her since there is no way of checking this story. It is all in his mind. And it helps that he has no mother in the real world. Did she also die unable to handle her son?

All throughout Leonardo is torn between meeting her and also dreading the meeting. This is how men feel about some women in their lives. They are often afraid, confused and yet feel attracted to them.

Elsewhere I had reviewed Shutter Island. Strangely, in that Leonardo’s character is again hiding secrets about his wife and his past. There too he was not able to handle her runaway mind.

Maybe Nolan and Scorcese need to come together and make a sequel.

It could be set in monastery in Tibet where DiCaprio comes to become a monk.

And Ang Lee could direct it.

Meeting her after two years

2010-06-29T14:38:00.003+05:30

“So you are leaving today at 4?”

I looked towards Mom with exasperation. This was the fourth time she had asked today. Each time earlier I had corrected her. I was leaving the next day.

Mom motioned me to just nod in agreement.

“When are you going to come next?”

I really had no answer for that. I smiled.

“I am not going to be around for long, you know”

“You keep saying that, but you look alright to me. Especially with the new bob cut.”

She smiled and ran her hands through her silver hair that had been cut off bluntly.

“ Your mother did that. She says that long hair was difficult to mange. Took a long time to dry.”

“Don’t worry it will grow back”

There was a pause. She stopped the regular movement of her head that an outsider would immediately call shivering.

“No it won’t. Actually your grandmother is not very well.”

I was amused that she was referring to herself in third person. She would always do that when she had something to complain. When we were young it was usually that the yield of coconut had gone down. Or that someone in the family was not listening to her. Or that her grandchildren were not coming to meet her often.

Recently she had started saying that she was not keeping well.

“There is nothing wrong. Didn’t you hear what the doctor said – you have no problems. Its just old age.”

She smiled.

“That’s what you all keep telling me. That’s what we tell old people."

She turned to look out to the window.

“I am tired. I need to go and rest.”

And then as she got up, she turned to me again.

“So you are leaving today at 4?”

I nodded and smiled.

The Book, the Movie, the Graphic Novel and Me

2010-06-14T19:28:00.003+05:30

Was able to finish three versions of SHUTTER ISLAND in the last four months. I must say I was blown away when I read the book and was little skeptical when I read that Scorcese was going to direct the film. But somehow the film took the story onto a different plane. Yesterday I finished the graphic novel. The artist was someone for whom English is not the first language so his approach to the story was different from the film.

This set me thinking – how does a novel change when it is adapted to other formats. We have various examples of book to film but this was chance to test three mediums at one go. In this case the film and the graphic novel are much shorter than the novel so it was interesting to see what was left out and in the retelling how well do they tell the original story?

Of course this being a thriller, the surprise element for me was not there in the film and the graphic novel. I knew how the story ends.

The book is greatly detailed but like a radio play it leaves much to imagination. Words are fun since one can picture anything. A case in point was the Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Both the radio series and the books were leagues ahead of the television series and the film since the last two could not compete with our vivid imaginations.

In the case of SHUTTER ISLAND (the film) it has Leonardo DiCaprio. He would not have been my top choice - I may have liked a younger Russell Crowe. But somehow DiCaprio does manage to get his character right. It is just that towards the end they could have edited it down a bit.

The prime problem is that the material might have done better in the hands of someone who is comfortable in this genre. David "Seven" Fincher or Hitchcock. This is a never ending debate but one must marvel at the fact that Scorcese does get the look and the feel of the 50’s right and for most part delivers.

The graphic novel is done a watercolour format with tones differing from the film. This was an independent project not undertaken by the studio that produced the film, so the images have a radically different look compared to the film. The washed out look does work in some portions like when DiCaprio’s character climbs back onto the cliff and realizes that his partner has disappeared. That feeling of loneliness is not effectively captured in the film.

The code breaking sequence is long in the graphic novel. And what is strange is that this is not even a visually interesting sequence to retain in that format. The film version is much better scripted. They do not go into the details of the code and yet maintain the mystery of the woman who has disappeared.

At another place a doctor offers a pill to one of the police officers. He is suspicious about the doctor’s motivations. The graphic novel elongates this sequence superbly showing the conflict in the police officer’s mind since he wants to take the medicine to suppress a migraine but also he is not sure what is in the medicine.

In fact, the graphic novel concentrates more on the inner world of the main character and edits out sequences like the trip to the cave. Also when the police officer visits Ward C, the graphic novel is able to maintain the tension better.

Another difference between the film and the comic version is how much time is given to Mark Ruffalo’s character who plays an important role. In the film there are close ups of his reactions to situations which do add up when the mystery is solved. In a film you can control the duration of the shot and therefore decide how much of something you will let the viewer see. But in the graphic novel this kind of a close would give away the story since each image is read and seen for the same amount of time. So no close ups here.

However the climax works better in the film. The tension is built up as DiCaprio’s character breaks into the lighthouse and here we see Scorcese at his best keeping his grip on the viewer’s mind till the end. In the graphic novel the ending is slow whereas in the book it is long drawn.

And the last line of the film betters the book. This was the surprise that the director sprung at the very end. In a mystery narrative this can leave the viewer with a feeling of surprise that maybe there are layers that he did not see in the first place. This kind of an ending forces you to return to the story again and again. Many books do leave you with that feeling but in a film this is rare.

Sometimes a well written story can be become better in its retelling.

Image: www.imaginaryforces.com

Telling a story

2010-06-09T21:33:00.003+05:30

Just finished a review of an interesting book.

The core of the story is a dacoit waiting to be hanged telling the story of his life. It set me thinking - when we tell a story how much of it is truth, lies or a minor exaggeration?

Being in the film making business telling stories, creating them or making them out of thin air where nothing actually took place is something you take for granted. Additionally I have been blessed with a succession of friends who are very good storytellers and are much better at embellishing a small experience into something wonderful, exotic or funny.

I find that difficult to do. Actually telling a story. Describing it. Talking about it.

Let me give you an example. In 2006 I got caught in the deluge in Bombay, I ended up walking 8 hours from Worli to Andheri reaching my friend's place at three in the night. All I could say when he opened the door was - Its raining hard outside.

Understatement. of. the. year.

Over the next few months I did recollect many interesting events that happened along the way on that day. But in the immediate days that followed you could not get a single story out of me.

This struck me a couple of days later when we were sitting around for hours since the city was still shut down. And the funny thing was that most people in the group who had not even ventured down the road on the day it rained, had interesting stories to tell. About themselves. Or so they thought. Like going to pick 50 bottles of water. Or drinking coffee watching the rain. Or staying in the theatre watching one show after the other waiting for the rain to subside.

At other times I have sat for hours and days on end listening to It-was-love-at-sight stories or how-we-broke-up-stories. Somewhere I convinced myself that maybe I was a good listener. That was my job. Every story requires a good listener, right?

And once in a while you would hear the same incident from two different sources and then the contradictions would emerge. He said this, she did that etc. This set me thinking. What actually happened here? Who is telling the truth? Is there something like the truth in such cases?

So what is more important? How you tell the story? Or whether you tell actually what happened?

Here is a fun take on this.

Without the Net

2010-05-31T11:57:00.004+05:30

Slate has this account of eight reporters who went offline for a week. That is no Internet for a week. While continuing to work. And carrying on with their lives.

The rule was that if they had to get in touch with someone they had to call or meet the person. Reading their accounts takes us through various debates of technology, society and how our behaviour is changing as we include more technology in our lives.

I often ask myself how long could I do without the Internet. Often times this is not about how bad technology is but how much we are using technology as an excuse to fill our time doing useless things. Of course people on FB would love to know what I am doing NOW. But on an hourly basis? Really?

I have written about television elsewhen. Not having cable TV has definitely helped me return to writing and reading. But what about the Internet? This is a far more complex creature than television in the sense that it is just not about entertainment or information – a lot of our work is tied to it.

But all of us who have been using email for the last decade would be the first to admit that today we do log on too many times to delete junk mail or update our status on a networking site. With mobile phones we have reached a point where we hardly think about the act of going online.

So how long can you go without the Internet ? 1 hour? Two days? A week ? Want to test this out?

The Ringing

2009-11-19T06:58:00.005+05:30

For some days now I choose to keep my cell phone on silent mode. The practice started during a grueling shoot where everyone was required to keep phones on silent mode so as to not disturb the audio while recording.

I went back to the normal mode after the shoot but it just did not work. I had become used to the silence and the gentle buzz of the phone when someone called. Now the ringing would push my anxiety levels and needlessly irritate me every time it would ring. I discussed with a friend who agreed but did not have a solution.

So you try to distract yourself with different ringtones. BEEP. BEEP TWICE. BRILL. BUZZER CERTITUDE. CIRCLE. CLOCK ALERT 1. CLOCK ALERT 2. CLOCK ALERT 3. CUBICLE. DENSITY....

The list is endless. You keep changing from one to the other till you get irritated with all of them and switch to film tunes.

Throughout its short history, cell phones have been accused of many things. Some studies say it causes cancer of the brain. Courts have banned its use in India while driving and schools have tried to curb students from using it. But what can you do when the ringing of a phone makes you irritable?

Most of the irritation stems from the fact that it demands an immediate response and people around you also look at you strangely if you do not answer your phone on a regular basis. They start thinking that you would do this to them.

It is not the conversations that I detest. It is the ring tones.

One day I would like to meet the guys who compose them. And bash their heads together.

Cartoon : Toon Pool

Quick Thinking

2009-09-03T21:53:00.008+05:30

Let me paint a regular scenario. We go to a restaurant, a new one. As we settle down the menu is presented. I make a quick survey and decide what to eat. The waiter catches my eye and whips out his pen. The rest of the group glares at me. They are not even through with the first page. How come this guy is ordering now?

Till recently I never noticed this thing about me. I would often take very quick decisions. On a shoot. Or an edit of a film. When I go out to buy something. Clothes. Gadgets. Even while shopping as a tourist. The only exception is a bookstore. :)

Yesterday when we finished buying a pair of jeans (Levis button fly !) in ten minutes, A asked me how could I decide so quickly.

This was the wrong subject to test my quick thinking. Men clothes leave us with little choice. Also I had been holding off on buying a new pair simply because I wanted a buttoned one. Now that new stock was in the stores, I just had to try out the the right fit. Of course it helps if you do not lie about your waist size ! You do not have to try two three sizes and pretend why THIS size is NOT fitting you - It did five years ago....

I often wonder how I would act if I was forced to use the Six Thinking Hats system made famous by Edward D Bono. The idea was to go through a six step process before arriving at a decision. I am sure we do this is some bastardized way, but de Bono codified it as a management process. I probably would fall asleep in such meetings.

In Blink Malcolm Gladwell describes a different mental process - that works rapidly and automatically from relatively little information. Through examples the book argues that spontaneous decisions are often as good as—or even better than carefully planned and considered ones.

I do not know how my system evolved. How I decide what to eat is based on the least complicated thing on the menu although I am open to suggestions from someone who has been to the restaurant earlier. So its not really safe decisions but the idea is to order something as soon as possible so that we can get to the real thing- talk.

Part of the process of arriving at a decision quickly is to eliminate things that do not interest you or you do not think are important. However this can be have other consequences - you tend to ignore experiences that could interest you. On the positive side if you made a wrong decision you can quickly change track, make another one and hopefully cover your losses.

Of course you need to be prepared for the consequences. The King of Quick Thinking, Roald Amundsen was all set to reach the North Pole when he got the news that Peary had reached there first. Immediately Amundsen decided to turn his attention to the South Pole. But he kept this a secret. When news finally reached England that Amundsen was going to compete with British expedition under Scott, they accused him of cheating. But the fact of the matter was that the British expedition reached the Pole later, even though it had a head start. Scott was slow to make decisions and often confused as to how to move the expedition forward.

Of course quick decisions may not work all the time. This post took me two hours spread over three days with a lot of heavy editing and pondering. The button fly jeans is till at the shop - left behind for alterations. Am still wearing my old pair.

Not male enough !

2009-08-23T20:10:00.006+05:30

Last week in a conversation with a friend I was told (in jest) that I was not “male” enough. Of course this friend was a woman. A person of the darker sex would have used the word “man” instead of “male”.

Of course several adjectives and phrases have been attached to me over the years – “the bullshit detector”, “not having artistic angst”, “boring” and “boyish” (not in looks but behaviour). Each one describes some aspect of a personality that someone zeroed in. I would go through the usual cycle with each – surprise, horror, anger and then ignoring it.

In the last two decades there has been much criticism about the "male" attitude and this rightfully had resulted in some men turning the mirror inwards. That time in most of our discourses in college canteens and personal relationships when it was pointed out that you are behaving like a “typical man” it meant “caveman” behaviour.

And most of us believed that and tried to change. Believe me. It was tough to erase the collective memories of being on top of the pile. It was like being part of a sci fi novel where they erase your memory so that you can start afresh. But it never happens. There are some remnants of your earlier life that come back. In a fight, for example. ☺

This conversation comes at an interesting point where I thought I had resolved my maleness and found my comfort zone with a help of dozens magazine articles and surveys on the New Male, metrosexual, technosexual – or other words that are used to make us feel comfortable as we try to reinvent ourselves.

So what does it mean to be not “male” enough in today’s world? I had been pretty secure in the thought that this was a thing of the past. But apparently there are some aspects of “maleness” that are OK women.

What are they? Can anyone help me here?

Cartoon by Lucien

Mancession!

2009-08-14T08:00:00.001+05:30

With the recession still continuing in Amrika, a new statistics has come to light - the accelerating trend of worse job losses among men.

According to this report over 80% of job losses in the last two years in the US were among men. As a result the percentage of women in the workforce has increased.

Of course in India men do not have this problem. You see, to lose a job you have to have one first.

Media scare

2009-08-13T06:00:00.000+05:30

That's what this H1N1 crisis is about.

Yesterday sitting at a cafe I looked up to see the correspondent on a news channel giving a PTC wearing a mask. Having just made an instructional film for the WHO, I immediately recognized that he was wearing the wrong mask. This is what he needed to have worn if wanted to protect himself from this virus.

So not only was he creating an unnecessary scare but he was also giving the wrong information.

It is now obvious that worldwide less than a fraction of 1% of infected people have succumbed to the virus. Many countries are reporting that there are no new infections. Most people who have died in India had other health complications which aggravated the situation. And yet the news channels kept up the shrill reporting asking silly questions - SHOULD YOUR CITY BE SHUT DOWN? - raising the bogey of the swine flu.

This inspite of an advisory from the I & B ministry.

Do they realize that even today the chances of dying of TB or respiratory diseases is still higher than H1N1. Guys get some perspective !

Or I will send you here.

Jai Ho Amrika

2009-08-12T22:42:00.004+05:30

Now that the United States Military has recognized climate change as a threat to their security one can expect real action (and money) on it. According to the NY Times :

... climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions... that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response...

After all the fiascoes the US response to new problems is the same. But I do not want to discuss that. I want to focus on climate change.

It funny that when the US identifies a problem (Terrorism, AIDS) pretty soon it will become the world's problemo. You could have millions of people dying of TB or water borne diseases but since that does not effect white Americans there will be no money or research for that.

Take malaria. The United States poured money when its soldiers had to fight wars in the Philipines, Korea and Vietnam. But since the early 1980's research money for malaria has not matched the increasing number of deaths since the most of the deaths are in Africa and Asia.

Uptill now developed countries and industries were reluctant to take action on climate change. Usually their argument would be one of these:

Climate change claims are blown out of proportion OR
Earth has gone through many such ups and down - the ecosystem will always find its balance OR
Mankind is too small to impact the climate of the Earth

Now if the US shifts its policy, it will be fun to watch other developed countries what they would do. If the Americans say ITS MY WAY or THE HIGHWAY (as they did after 9/11) the whole world might fall in line.

But is it a good idea to agree to make the bully the class monitor ?

Don't Panic

2009-08-11T19:01:00.004+05:30

What is common between Pranab Mukherjee and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

DON' T PANIC

These are the words written on the cover of book and these are the words that he used when asked about the drought situation we are facing this year. He elaborates:

"There is no point in pressing the panic button. This country managed the century's worst drought in 1987. We transported drinking water through railways. We organised fodder for the cattle..."

Of course. We remember that one. But do we need to go through the experience every generation? Is it some kind of a coming of age thing?

Work in Progress

2009-08-05T10:44:00.004+05:30

Since A has been traveling to exotic places, I have been subject to a lot of noises from the house downstairs. You see a new set of people have moved in and they are making alterations to their home.

In Delhi, this might take almost a month. Walls are broken down to merge rooms or cavities created for cupboards and ACs. The balcony might be covered to create an additional bedroom (who needs such a large space to sit out ?). The noise starts around 8 in the morning and continues till about 10 in the night.

Sometimes I look at my colony as a microcosm of the city – A Work In Progress. Always somewhere some large construction is happening – a new flyover, a building or a metro line. Where we stay in Karol Bagh, old houses are being torn down to make way for garish hotels. Shops replaced by mini supermarkets (if there is such a phrase).

Of course we too have made our contribution to this. Last year when our house caught fire we spent over a month in repairs. Then it was the neighbours on the first floor who were putting POP in their entire house. Of course our staircases were filled with POP dust for two months. And water related work (new tanks, seepage repair) continues throughout the year.

The roads inside our colony are always being dug up by different sarkari and private agencies who refuse clean up when they leave. New ingenious ways to park cars need to be found each time the roads are left in this state.

There is a police station nearby which went through a flurry of refurbishments two years ago. All the old furniture and building material waste was left at a gate facing our colony. This remained the dumping ground for a long time. Confiscated rickshaws and cars also found their way. Then suddenly one day they were removed. The people living near the police station did not know how to react to this new available space. But before it could be used for parking more cars we bought, the garbage reappeared with a vengeance. We were told that some parts of the housing complex within the station are being reconstructed.

From the air, Delhi must resemble an ant colony, workers scurrying around. Can you remember the last time the city was free of construction projects and traffic could flow? Before the 1982 Asian Games? But then there were hardly any cars to compare.

Cities in other countries too go through such a process, but only in Delhi can you find a living exhibition of a City on the Make. Everything is out there. You can stop and see what we are doing because we are going to take twice the amount of time anyways.

Just be careful while watching the show. You might fall into a ditch left over from a cable-laying project.

The Future Migration

2009-07-11T12:32:00.004+05:30

About five decades ago a man left his hometown to go to a city to study. His journey takes him to several cities before he takes up a job in Delhi. Enroute he learns several languages – Tamil, Kanada, English but never really masters Hindi. In the four decades he is in the city he cannot quite get rid of his Malayalam accent.

He gets married and his wife moves to Delhi with him. She has been to city earlier as part of the Republic Day Parade but to live in the city is a different experience. She learns the ropes quickly, bring up two kids and then begins a working career that lasts almost three decades. Now its time to go home. But where is home? Is it Delhi? Or is it the village where you were born?

Like my parents, lakhs of people in India often ask themselves this question at some stage in their lives. For my grandparents the answer was simple. They lived in their village most of their lives. For me Delhi is my home although I could easily fit into some other city. But for the generation in between – who followed the dreams of the founding fathers, traveled to distant places and settled there, the answers are not easy to find.

And it is going to get complicated as we go along. P Chidambaram wants 85% of country to live in the cities:

In an urban environment it is easier and more efficient to provide water, electricity, education, roads, entertainment and security rather than in 6,00,000 villages.

Does he realize what this means? Given today’s statistics, almost 50 crore (500 million) people will have to shift to the cities. Where are the houses, the infrastructure and the rest of the stuff to support this migration? As is it the urban centres have less to go around as more migrants rush in every year.

Very often grand ideas are floated and even acted upon without a thought. After 50 crore people have lived in the city for their adult life what happens to them? Will they be allowed to go back to their villages? Or will they continue to stay in the cities?

Four decades ago the numbers were not huge. We could still manage it (to some extent). While it is true that rural to urban migration will continue for some time, our policies should focus on creating jobs nearer home. An interesting experience was in Bihar with the NREGA where farm labour that migrated to Punjab during the harvest season, decided to stay home since they were getting paid enough money while working near their village.

Migration is not an easy process whether temporary or permanent. And there are many costs – financial, social and personal. New technologies should help find solutions for people closer to where they are rather than force them to travel in search for a better life.

Now only if we can get Chidambaram off his grand plan……

Gossip makes the world go...

2009-07-03T16:23:00.007+05:30

Outlook has a cover story on the importance of gossip in our lives. I have long been a fan of gossip. Often it is looked down upon and mostly underrated. Most of us do gossip consciously or unconsciously to gather information or to gain advantage in a situation. However we do not admit it.

One of teachers at film school used to speak highly of gossip. He said it sets your creative juices flowing. While I agree with the first part, for me gossip is more about gathering information (which is not available officially) or breaking into a group at a new workplace. Seasoned practitioners often use it to either to spread wrong information (!) or break set hierarchies.

Gossip started with school. Everyday when we returned back home I would be on the phone for hours on end discussing activities of my classmates to the minutest detail. Who did what? Who said what? What did the teacher’s pet do? This reached such a stage when I would even know what was happening in my brother’s class. My parents would often have to snatch away the phone from me.

When I joined a production house after many years in the freelancing wilderness, I was taken aback by the rigid hierarchies at work. No one spoke out of fear that he or she may be ridiculed or snubbed. The first week I sat alone at my desk with no one to talk to. I thought I would go mad. I realized that this had to be changed. I needed to help my colleagues loosen up.

I began with the office boy (who still remains my friend and calls me regularly) who was the repository of all that happened in the office. Slowly I worked my way up, creating new friendships, where conversations moved from the generic to gathering specific information about people at work.

At that time I was not aware of this process. Years later, I could observe myself with a distant eye when I joined another place. I would begin by meeting people alone. Of course gossip works best when done in groups but then you need to know the minds of everyone – what their motivations are and how much you should reveal your mind. When you are alone with someone, the conversation leads to more detail. But one must be willing to share information if one wants something that the other person has.

However the best practitioners of this are in Bombay. I realized people in that city had taken gossip to a new level. At the Lokhandwala Barista I saw one wannabe director move from one table to the other collecting information, adding his two bit and retelling the story. This process continued across three tables within the earshot of those who were talking to him a few minutes ago. No one bothered to correct him. In a business that thrives on gossip more of it was always welcome.

How to be a 100% Dilliwalah (Suggestion No.10)

2009-06-15T17:11:00.004+05:30

Pick a god. An obscure deity. A female one.

Then keep repeating Her name every time you finish a sentence. For example - Sab Mata Rani ki kripa hai...

Even if there is no connection with the conversation at hand it will help. Sometimes to distract if the conversation is not going the way you planned. And sometimes to conclude a discussion. Actually this is the only thing you can say completely out of the blue and you will sail through. Except when faced with a Jat policeman. He will have his bribe whatever you say.

Goddesses come in all shapes and sizes. The obvious one is Vaishno Devi (when it is the season). She can also be an obscure one. A new addition. What is important is that when you repeat Her name many times the listener is curious and asks you which goddess, which Mata ?

At this point you could brandish a ring, a necklace or a coloured thread and with a serious expression look deeply into the listener's eyes.

Next you describe how you had a vision and decided to go on a pilgrimage and ever since your life has changed. Your business is looking up, your children are doing well and now you do not look at under age girls with lust anymore. This last bit would make the listener squirm.

Then watch him nod, smile and say - Sab Mata Rani ki kripa hai...

ps thanks to G for bringing this up

The culture of protest

2009-05-30T10:14:00.005+05:30

Reports coming in from Kolkata tell us that people in the city have taken to the streets in protest of inadequate relief and the collapse of civic facilities.

None of this is news for people in Delhi. Here we protest against everything - water supply, electricity breakdown, demolition drive, CNG and of course Sanskrit. And I am not even including the hundreds of political parties, trade unions or other groups who come to protest in the city every year.

In contrast, when I was in Mumbai during the 2005 floods I was surprised by the lack of anger in the city as electricity and water was not restored even after four days. A friend and I went down to the market to get drinking water. The local neighbourhood shop was selling bottled water at four times the price. When I pointed out that in any other city the shop owner would have been beaten up for doing that, my friend smiled. Further discussion provoked a response that violence is not a solution in a crisis situation and only complicates matter.

Mumbai has always had a culture of protest. Right from the Royal Naval Mutiny, to the taxi unions strike in support of the Railway strike of 1974 and the mill workers strike in 1982. The 2005 floods saw a breakdown of civic infrastructure on a huge scale and the bureaucrats and politicians kept passing the buck for the entire month after.

There was not one protest. No one was bothered. It seemed like people had become indifferent. As long as their immediate problems were solved and they could go about their work they were not interested. To protest means to bring things to a standstill and drawing attention to your self and your problems. It seems like people in Mumbai do not want to do that any more. But we easily tend to forget it was the culture of protest that helped us win our freedom a few decades back.

When did it become unfashionable to protest for what we think is right?

PS Google disagrees with me. A search for "Kolkata" and "protest" yields much less results compared to "Mumbai" and "protest". But most of the "protest" results for Mumbai are the ones after the terror attacks which were not really protests. Where were the bricks and lathis man?

the best season in Delhi ?

2009-05-22T08:27:00.010+05:30

Just returned from a film shoot where I was treated to the best that Indian summer has to offer - Hyderabad (40 degrees C), Kota (44 degrees C) and Kolkata (42 degrees and humid !). When I returned they told me it had rained for a couple of days in Delhi and temperatures were down. For me it looked like I had just stepped out into a furnace. A windy furnace but a furnace neverthless. OK, trees with yellow flowers. But a furnace still.

A few days later we were driving to Priya, suddenly the weather changed and it became cloudy. We had a few drops of rain. Then a dust storm. Returning home, the storm had picked up. A tree that had provided us shade from the heat this summer was uprooted. Looking at the damage the next morning torn between feeling sad for the tree and myself I started thinking - what is the best time for Delhi - weather wise?

Don't get me wrong. I like the dry heat. Dry heat is always manageable. (Ask me I have ended up on a shoot in Rajasthan every summer !). Just drink lots of water and wear a hat. But what is the best time to spend in this city?

Every city is associated with a certain weather. Something that its people swear by. Mumbai has its monsoon. Kolkata its afternoon rain. Bangalore/Pune are pleasant through out the year. Here we have a summer followed by a short monsoon, then winter and two months of spring.

According to this study Delhi is only comfortable to live 1/4 th of the year. That means that:

more than two-third of the year is either too hot,too cold or too humid.

Only 9 percent of summers were "comfortable". Winters were good. Monsoon are the worst.

WOW !

Is it really that bad ? Outsiders have always complained about the weather of the country, especially the heat. Babur wrote about the heat and always longed for Kabul. But what we do not remember here is that he never left India. The tourist who travels to India, always wants to come back for more !

And what is definition of comfortable? The same study points out that most people are "comfortable" when the temperature is between 15 degrees C and 25 deg C. Well I would disagree. Who would want to be in that temperature range throughout the year? How boring would that be !

If "comfortable" was important one can forget about enjoying many parts of the world. Would you complain about the freezing cold at Rohtang Pass? The heat in the Atacama desert? Or the strong winds on the road to Hemis? Of course one would like to live in a less hotter and pleasanter climes but not boring weather. Who would want to not have the dust storms once in a while?

Ideal temperatures for me be 30 on the higher side and 10 on the lower. But only for six months in a year. The rest of the time I would like the heat and the cold and heavy monsoon - ideally two months of each. The ideal day should have a light shower in the afternoon so that the evenings are cool.

And now that we are in fantasy land - what is your ideal weather?

In which I voted

2009-05-10T20:47:00.004+05:30

So came the morning when we hear old trucks rattling into the colony and drop off tables and chairs with food stains from the previous marriage functions. Residents were told to move their cars 100 metres away from the primary school that has always been the polling station in this area. Of course I had half the mind to ask how my car interferes with the march of democracy but the sight of some serious looking CRPF made me turn away.

At ten, people turned up and stood in line as if they were going to change the destiny of the country and (hopefully their future) with this one act. But here is the strange thing.

All this talk of the largest democracy and the importance of YOUR VOTE is OK as far as the media campaign goes. Since this breakdance of democracy involves millions, it takes time to organize. By the time my chance came to vote, 80 percent of the country had voted and gone to sleep out of sheer boredom of TV debates. Most of them are like – please tell us who won so that we can get on with our lives.

The other thing is when you go to the polling booth, you realize how makeshift the whole system is even today. The tables are rented out from the local tentwalah, the chairs are rickety and there is a two feet high cardboard surrounding the voting machine. I took one look at the set up while standing in line. This piece of cardboard is going to protect my vote? Then again I thought of Florida. At least we do a better job than them.

In the line we were looking at the party symbols of lesser-known candidates (also available for the blind to read in Braille!). Someone had an ice-cream symbol, another a lamp post. The Pyramid Party of India had a hat much like what you see in Bhagat Singh portraits. If only the voting awareness campaigns had highlighted this aspect. Half the people would turn up just to look at and vote for the funniest symbols.

A boy and his mother were arguing. He wanted to ask for the 49 – O form in protest and not vote for any candidate. The mother was urging her son not to embarrass her in front of her neighbours. Of course this scam has been doing the rounds of the internet where we were told that one could protest against all candidates by using 49-O option. While this is not true and 49 – O does not disqualify candidates or force a re-poll, we have enthusiasts who want to mark their protest.

Just to add to the drama, an old man walked in to see the polling officer and asked for the same form. He too did not want to cast his vote. The polling officer was flustered and tried to dissuade him. But the old man would have none of it. He was willing to wait the whole day he said. That was his idea of democracy. Or fun. Or both. In the meantime, my name was checked twice, my fingernail marked and a button was pressed. As I left the old man was still arguing.

Did my action change anything? I don’t think so. But if we can count better than the Americans and announce the winner correctly it was time (ours) and money (ours again !) well spent.

What a trip !

2009-05-05T18:58:00.006+05:30

Just came across this book and have been devouring it. While most travel writing is about the good stuff this one is about travels gone wrong. Just what is it that makes a bad journey? Sometimes it is just bad planning or bizarre incidents. Some of the writers in the book went to a place expecting something bad to happen. Others were caught off guard.

Traveling in India is always considered to be a luxury. Three journeys we always talk about - your hometown, your honeymoon and a summer getaway you enjoyed. Travelling on work we never consider as travel. It is not fun. In fact for most of us travel is always full of tension. Delayed transport, bad toilets/hotels and of course rude service. This is compounded by the fact that we are bad travelers. Always complaining. Wanting the best service for the least money. Wanting a vehicle even if the walk to the beach is short. Wanting ghar ka khana a thousand miles away from home.

In fact, do Indians really know how to judge a good trip from a bad one?

Every time I travel on a shoot, many of my team members often look at the trip like a chore. They are never interested in the journey or the experience. The only time they enjoy is when they go out for shopping at the local bazaar. The rest of the time its grumble grumble grumble.

I remember the trek to Chandratal six years back. It was tough and we were not prepared for the climb. The crew started all cheerful since the the dhaba we stayed at the night before was not exactly five star - with truck drivers snoring and farting away to moonless night. Anything would be better than that.

The trek itself took us seven hours, twice as long as we were told. But that was because we were not used to the climb. Soon everyone was groaning. One crew member gave up and decided to turn back.

But when we reached the lake in the afternoon, the view took my breath away. The rest of the crew was still in a sore mood. They wanted to return before dark. It almost seemed like they were not interested in the place. Granted the climb was tough, but the sight of the lake should have made anyone forget all that. But not this crew.

Maybe it was not their problem. There might be something in the way I respond to travel. Last year we were traveling in the Sundarbans and the boat ran into a storm. It started to rain and for a couple of hours we could not land because the winds were too strong. All this while I was enjoying the rain, my colleague was sitting in a corner chewing his nails. Later in the night when we were discussing the boat ride he confessed that he had been scared. Me on the other hand with no idea of how to swim never thought of that possibility.

The worst trip for me was a road journey from Bombay to Delhi. It was Diwali time and I could not get any reservations by train or air. 15 years back this road was still a two lane one all through the Bombay-Baroda-Ahmedabad-Udaipur-Jaipur-Delhi stretch. When I got off the last bus, I could no longer feel my back with all the shaking and bumping. Outside ISBT I did not even bargain the auto fare. Just wanted to get home and curl into my bed.

What is the worst trip you can remember?

The trouble with OURBOOK

2009-04-18T12:42:00.005+05:30

Yesterday A announced that it was time for her join Facebook. She had not been a member of any networking site till now. Never felt the need for it. So here all my friends were declaring their relationship status with their other half on Facebook and I was “married” but to whom no one knew.

But the timing is all wrong. Just when I was getting bored with the site, A is ready to jump into the networking game. The past month there has been much debate on the nature of the site and who owns the content and NOW-my-life-is-going-to-a-open- book kind of chest beating on the Net.

The entire thing turned me off. For one Facebook was trying to be silly and try to own data which was generated by users. Seems like this had been their business plan all the time. What is the point trying to pretend that you were going to just be happy with the traffic and the ads on the site. No they wanted to sell details like what book you like to read in the loo and how what is the profile of members in the group “I support the ban on yellow coloured SUVs” to the highest bidder. Anyway they reversed their decision and things were back to normal.

By which I mean we continued to share photographs of last week (or ten years ago) party at a farmhouse or join a group which was going to march to Delhi and ask some serious questions (they were still trying to figure where to meet and whom to ask these questions !).

I am not sure whether the problem lay only with Facebook owners. Yes the whole idea of making money out of gory details of my life is wrong but what’s the idea of putting all these silly details of your life and feeling “hurt” when someone wants to “sell” it. Do you really care? OK if Facebook were to agree to share the profits with you would you agree?

Looking at it practically, I am not sure if I decide to shut down my account whether it would be possible to remove all references to my name or where I appear. My name might still be attached to " What kind of a dog are you?" or " Are you the most popular friend of all time?".

Since 99.9999999999% of stuff on Facebook is created by the users, they should use this “crisis” to look at what is their idea of a networking site. What would we like to do with it? How can we contribute and make it better?

Once they can stop "poking" or sending "kisses" to each other.

Cartoon : Blast Media

It ain't over till a song is sung

2009-04-10T11:49:00.004+05:30

What is with gatherings where people sing hindi songs? And I am not talking about yearly family gathering or picnics where it is common to sing or play antakshari. These are grown up people who have traveled many thousands of miles to discuss serious stuff.

Last week I was at a dinner hosted for a NGO conference where a film I had made was releasing. The crowd gathered were all over from South Asia - Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and even Pakistan.

No sooner the film got over and people applauded us for the effort, someone picked up the cordless mike and there was a hushed silence. I was busy shutting down the projector and a woman's voice started (at a high pitch) to render this song. I could not place her - which part of the subcontinent she was from. She was wearing a Kerala saree with a gold border but her Urdu diction was good.

What struck me was that the song had nothing to do with the occasion or the event. Why would you pick that song to sing? Of course it is a beautiful song. In a small gathering perhaps. But at a dinner with 40 people?

It took me back to the nights in Jamia staying up listening to poetry or even further ancient memories of dinners at home where someone would start singing while the rest were eating gulab jamuns or drinking coffee. The songs chosen by the singers were what they liked. They were not be able to render them well but the listeners had no choice. Only a brave singer would take requests.

By now everyone was hooked. I looked around the faces. Some of them were lost in their thoughts. Other were staring at the singer to figure of the words since they were alien to them. Of course there was a token European who was recording the entire session on an I-Phone. It reminded me of a group waiting for the marriage ceremony to begin and start singing songs to pass away time.

At college in the gang we had it was pretty obvious who would be singing and who would have poetry to recite that evening. The rest were the audience. Most of the songs were repeated every time we gathered. No surprises. At family dinners sometimes a new person would try out a song she had been practicing in preparation for this dinner. Otherwise it would be the same playlist. And the same faces.

It seemed to me that this singer belonged to that tradition. Singing at gatherings was natural for her. What was scary was the audience seemed to be used to such things. Is it because they all did it when they gathered at their friends' homes? As the song came to an end, I could feel a knot in my stomach. The same feeling you get at a dinner when one person starts singing followed by another one and pretty soon you get the feeling that this is not going to break up till everyone (including you) have been forced to sing. I squirmed and looked around for the door.

Thankfully many in the audience had performance anxiety that evening. When the song finished, many complimented the singer. And then rushed out for dinner. Just in case someone started to sing another one.

Earth Hour - does it work?

2009-03-29T08:19:00.003+05:30

Here I was all excited about Earth Hour, waiting for 8:30 in the night to turn up. I had all plans to switch off two of the three lights that I would use at night as my contribution.

So much for planning. I was stuck on some editing job in a studio that of course had left all its lights on and ACs guzzling away like power hungry monsters. Apparently no one knew about the concept. They kept shrugging their shoulders.

How does earth hour work? And why should we promote it? More than the actual numbers, I think it is more about making people aware of global warming and how we can make a difference. The official website has this to say:

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming.

But does that really work? A year ago, before this financial crisis, maybe people in the US and Europe would have listened. And their politicians would have been forced to do something about it. Right now they couldn’t care less. In India where the impact of the financial crisis is lesser, it is business as usual. Global warming ? What is that? Oh that is something the richer countries are doing to us ! Our economies are too small. We cannot make much of an impact – good or bad.

The many years that environmentalists and voluntary organizations have worked to get climate change on the global agenda (and help Al Gore get the Nobel Prize !) has all gone to dust.

It almost looks like that people can only afford to think of global warming once they have taken care of their bread and butter issues first.

How to be a 100% dilliwalah (Suggestion No. 9)

2009-03-16T22:48:00.002+05:30

Never have change.

When the shopkeeper or autowalah or the petrol pump attendant asks you for that one rupee just shake your head. You can pretend to look in your pocket or inside the car and then shake your head again. Then he might ask you for two rupees. Shake your head again. By this time he will give up. However if he is die hard dilliwalah, here is your challenge. Who will blink first? Fish out the change? Or will you give it up and walk away?

When the entire country is using coins of all kinds - 50p, one ruppee etc - this is the only city where everyone claims he has no change. In any other place you will be returned the change. But not here. Where does all the loose change disappear in this city? Is there some guy stacking it all up in a basement in Tilak Nagar and becoming a millionaire every year? Or is it being gobbled by the black hole of Dilli?

First they will look for it and when they cannot find it they will tell you that they will adjust it in the next sale. Or they will ask you to forget it. If you get angry they will empty their pockets or their purse or their cash box. Be it morning, afternoon or even closing time no one has change.

I understand that due to inflation most of the small change is worthless to you and me. But in many countries in Europe in the US this change is given as tip or to charity. That way it remains in circulation. But not according to Dilli. Good change is change that remains with you and does not roam freely in the city.

In case you are desperate there are two places to go for change. The panwalah and the Mother Dairy booth. But they will insist that you buy something. Unless you do that they will pretend they have no change either. So what will it be? A cigarette or some flavoured milk?

Dilli 6 - the review

2009-03-03T07:16:00.003+05:30

Hmmm.

What?

Huh?

The cow does what?

There is a fakir with a mirror?

And who is the monkey ?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh !

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh !

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh !

That felt good.

Writing this post.

How was the film? Go back to the beginning of this post.

Images from lazy afternoons

2009-02-27T16:01:00.000+05:30

This can only happen in Dilli 5

2009-02-23T22:02:00.003+05:30

After much we agreed (A & I) that spring cleaning would be the ideal time for us to throw away old clothes and stuff we had collected over the years. Of course we had made this decision many times in the past but this time it actually happened. Now we had a pile of clothes and the big question - WHAT DO WE DO WITH THEM?

Normally old clothes are given away to house helps, the car cleaner, garbage woman and the kabadi wala (in that order) but that is when we have a couple of clothes. Also when our house caught fire we had given off a lot of stuff to them. What do we do with this pile ? We went over the options :

1. Go to a NGO/orphanage. (No we were too lazy to do that)

2. Distribute the clothes between the above mentioned people. (too long a process and will take a few days)

3. Drive to the Pusa Road crossing and give it away to kids and families living there . (Radical but will clear up the mess)

So we packed up and were about to leave when we encountered a bartanwali - she belonged to a group of women who travel around parts of Delhi collecting old clothes in exchange for new utensils. The system is similar to a barter but you are never sure how much clothes do you need to buy something particular. But I rememeber when I was younger it was excellent system to recycle old clothes. The women would wash the clothes and sell them in the second hand market. This was good. We get to recycle the clothes and buy something too.

We finalized a metal dabba.

But there was a problem. Our clothes were not enough to buy that. The woman asked us whether we had men's clothes. She started staring at the jeans I was wearing. We shook our heads. Old shoes? No. Watches? Yes we remembered one. But she was not happy with that. She needed a pair of trousers. Since I do not wear one we looked around for an alternative. Finally we found a pair of shoes. Not good enough. She kept shaking her head.

After much haggling she agreed to give the metal dabba but only after extracting a promise. Another pair of shoes next week when she returns. She stared at my shoes this time.

We are planning another spring cleaning. We hope to find something to please her.

The Perfect Morning Routine

2009-02-20T18:12:00.000+05:30

Michael Agger writes about the perfect morning routine with a lot of interesting links to how you can organise that time of the day.

In my case mostly mornings start with starting the water pump (or hearing A get up and start it). Then walk into the kitchen and put water for tea. This mostly has adrak or the chai masala

which I let boil for a long time.

In winters, every alternate day I go up to water the plants. Then its a rush to finish the bathroom routine and make my tea.

The problem starts soon after. Once the tea is in my hand, I have to fight this urge to sit on the internet. Since I have cut down on newspapers and television, the idea is to get my news from the Net. But soon I drift to Gmail and this is where it all comes apart. Once you start answering emails I just lose track of time.

There was a time I thought I was a morning person and would keep important jobs (writing concepts, editing a film) for the first half of the day. Sometimes it would work and things would go as scheduled. However when they don't then you feel frustrated by evening and are waiting for the morning. To start your "schedule" all over again.

Now I feel we are not really a morning or a afternoon or a night person. We might get an new Idea at any time of the day. And if we really like what we are doing, then most of us do not really care what time is it or how tired we are.

So why do we worry about the mornings? During the day very not much needs to be done around the house and you have lesser distractions. Maybe we need to get out of the theory that we may ever be a morning person. Then we will end up finishing all our routine stuff in the morning and the rest of the day we can follow the perfect morning routine !

Thoughts on a nose

2009-02-19T14:26:00.002+05:30

For some time now my nose has been behaving strangely. Initially it seemed like a pimple inside. Painful, but I was sure it would go away. But when it refused panic set in.

Although my nose is not in the least roman shaped, I was concerned. As an adolescent I would twist it regularly hoping it would reshape it self and I would resemble a Hollywood star. But this was serious stuff.

After several capsules and ointments it has expanded to various sizes and changed colours. In between I had visions that it might mutate into something new and surprise me.

In Metamorphosis Kafka’s protagonist wakes up one day to realize that he had turned into a cockroach. There are many legends of humans transforming into an animal or half animal. When I read such stories I would be amused but did not consider it with horror. That is until the devil took over my nose and scared the bejesus out of me.

What do such stories tell us about ourselves? Since it has been proved that 98% of our genes are similar to monkeys, can other creatures be far behind? However, while we might want to acquire some superhuman facilities of a particular animal (or the opposite sex) but we would never want to look like them. We would still like to walk on two feet and wear designer sunglasses while running as fast as the cheetah. We still like to look good. Physically. In a human way.

More than DNA this is what separates us from animals. Do dogs ever dream of becoming beautiful? Ruff had no such confusion. As a member of the canine family all he was interested in is eating, watching TV, barking absent mindedly and curling up to sleep. There were humans working for his well being (cooking, changing channels on the TV) and reminding him when to take a leak.

However much as I envy that he never had to check his emails nor update his Facebook account, I would not want to mutate into a dog. A new nose is what I wish for.

When the hurly burly is done and all the medicines of the world are exhausted, I still hope my nose would emerge sharper, better and handsomer.

The dumbing of India

2009-02-14T11:42:00.001+05:30

In Seinfeld there is an episode where everyone is going gaga over The English Patient. That is everyone except Elaine. She just can’t understand what is the fuss about. I have been feeling like that for the past one month. Only in my case the fuss is about about Dumdog Millionaire.

I had heard about the film in Goa where several people who had worked on it were gushing about it. So even before watching I came with a few expectations. The first fifteen minutes blew me away. Let me elaborate :

1. The kids are natural and fantastic
2. The music is really good (although not Rahman’s best) and is able to infuse a lot of music influences from all over the world
3. The sound design and camera work adds to the crowded, rushed and edgy feel to the story

After that it was downhill all the way. In fact ,the minute Dev Patel came on the screen pretending to be from the slums of Mumbai, the film turned into a 21st century version of a Merchant/Ivory production. I was overwhelmed. How could they go wrong with such as simple story? For example:

1. What is with the accent of the lead character once he grows up? There is an explanation in the original book how Jamal learns to speak in an accented English. He gets adopted and works for a diplomat’s family. Simple. This is not there in the film.

Instead we are told to believe that he picked up the language and the accent working around Taj Mahal. Those kids and guides do know multiple languages but have a vocabulary of ten or twenty words. They also keep repeating words like – “Ya right” or “Cool” when they are not sure of what to say. Jamal does not. He is very confident of his language.

2. The Quizmaster meeting him in the loo during the contest and giving him a clue. There are better ways to help your candidate. Watch Quiz Show.

3. Most of the explanations to how he knows the answers (the source for the bhajan – Darshan do Ghansyam & identifying Benjamin Franklin’s face on the dollar) do not look convincing enough.

4. Of course the glaring sore thumb that everyone (including the constable) in India speaks English and the film uses millions to describe numbers instead of lakhs or crores. Grow up.

5. The song sequence in the end that is supposed to be a tribute to Bollywood, is silly. It is something a student would shoot in his first year of film school. All the director should have done is called an Indian choreographer and the sequence could have become a tribute. Right now it looks like a series of physical movements trying to copy a dance from an Indian film.

6. In the book the character has a multi religious name and the story is told in the tradition of Amitabh movies of the 70s where an underdog becomes a success against all odds. Maybe the scriptwriter should have watched a couple of those movies before. When Jamal wins the jackpot, I did not feel the joy.

In many ways the film says nothing new about India. It is neither a critique nor is it a tribute. The surface that the film scratched in the beginning is the greatest depth to which the story goes. Films made by a white director about a third world country at least centres around a crisis - Hotel Rwanda or the Killing Fields. You are swept away by the horror and tension in the story. Dumdog shows you poverty and then expects you to feel happy since the hero wins a million bucks at the end of it all.

In the Seinfield episode that I mention in the beginning of this post, Elaine’s boss decides to send her to Tunisia to experience life over there so that she appreciates The English Patient. I am waiting for someone to take me on a guided tour of Danny Boylewoodland so that I can appreciate the finer points of Dumbdog.

ps Four years ago Danny Boyle made Millions - a film about how a boy accidentally finds a bagful of money. That had a nice feel to it. How come he could not recreate the same magic.

Things to do as recession bites

2009-02-12T08:06:00.001+05:30

With President Obama having made a suggestion that top executives should only be allowed a salary of 500,000 dollars, there has been much debate in the US about how much money is actually needed for these families to maintain their lifestyles. This write up has a fun take on the expenses while living in New York.

Here no such salary restrictions have been suggested and even in these times people imagine that recovery is around the corner. But with layoffs increasing and what options do you have in cost cutting?

1. Shift to the suburbs

Rents will be lower and in any case you do not have to travel every day (You got fired, remember ?). But in Delhi this does not seem to make sense. In some cases, rents in Gurgaon are almost at par with south Delhi. In case you plan to move, think what you will tell people when they ask you at the next party - Where do you stay? Your answer is important how they place you on their social order. But then if you were already staying in Gurgaon what do you do?

2. Avoid your Coffee Shop
The next time you walk into Barista take a deep breath and count till ten before you decide to order. Instead enjoy it at home. If you need to have a meeting go to the nearest chaiwala. Nothing like a meeting standing up. It will be short and you will arrive at decisions faster. And the expenses will be loose change.

3. Walk
This one is fairly simple. You will save tons of money on fuel by doing all the small errands on foot. In addition no wasted moments trying to find parking space. In a week you will be in better shape too.

4. Collect change
I have often wondered how come there is always a paucity of change everywhere in Delhi. Anywhere you go you end up loosing 50p or a rupee. Start collecting change and carry it around . You will end up saving a lot better still approach paanwalahs and offer them tons of change at a premium. You will be surprised how many of them will take up the offer. And sell the old 10p & 20p to the guys at Daryaganj who deal in old coins.

I am trying out two of these. What are you doing to beat the reccession today?

unfinished conversations

2009-02-09T09:12:00.003+05:30

9810043938
I dial the number again
And hear a strange voice
Some woman mumbling something
I wonder – Where are you?

I disconnect
And dial again
I know what you will say
Cross connections
Bad signals
That for the last two years you have been trying to get
The mobile company to boost the signal in the house
Actually the signal level around the
Corner chair where you used to sit
All the time
Complaining
Railing against the world
The first time i met you you were complaining
To Radhika
And the last time
To me
sitting outside
after Sara's dinner

9810043938
I remember the number
Its funny
So many numbers and figures
I have seen after that
This is one number I never need to remember
Store away on my mobile
Every time I want to call you
It comes back from that corner of my mind

I know you wanted to talk to me
You always had something left to say
The conversation never ended
You were shouting
Even as I left your door
It was always your door
How did you ever convince me that
It is always easier for me to drive to your place
Than for you to come to mine
Every time it was the same silly logic
And I would fall for it

9810043938
I dial again
Thinking maybe this time
I will just let you talk
Not speak
Not contradict
Just listen

Now will you pick up the phone?

Green food

2009-01-23T07:33:00.006+05:30

NY Times writes about how Pepsi has tried to find out how much of an impact on global warming are they having while creating orange juice. And this is the number the number they have arrived at:

the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted to the
atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice.

Wow !

Now they are trying to figure out what to do with this data. If the consumer gets to know these numbers how does it help them?

In the last year when I have been working on a couple of film projects related to climate change, I realised that most of the arguments on global warming are obsessed with numbers. Most of the solutions are actually common sense and simple to do. Walk instead of driving. Cloth bags instead of plastic. Optimal consumption of packaged food products. Buy fresh. Things that someone would have been doing 30 years ago. Climate change or no climate change. But with so many choices today one tends to get confused about what is climate friendly living.

Today in India there is a small shift to using products that are organic or pesticide free. But this may or may not help reduce global warming since the product itself may have travelled hundreds of miles or thousands in the case of those apples from New Zealand thus adding to carbon dioxide emissions.

A more crucial decision is to buy and eat things that are produced locally. Another factor is to consume food that is seasonal. Many communities are already practicing this in Europe and America. Consumers now look at how much food has travelled before it reaches their store.

In India we are closer to the solution since most of us still buy stuff that is grown in season. A very small percentage of people can afford to buy imported fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. What is required is for large urban centres to tie up with farmers in the neighbourhood to come to weekly markets that are already functioning in cities like Delhi.

All this means bad news for Pepsi. Either they have to set up factories closer to their consumers or their products will not be classified as environment friendly in the future.

These random things...

2008-12-25T07:23:00.007+05:30

.... remind me of friends.

Have you ever gone to a place or seen something that reminds you of someone? Random places or things that trigger something in your mind...

Last week I had gone to Aizwal and I was thrown back to the December of 1998 where Desmond and I had spent a whole winter traveling up and down the state. A restaurant that is no longer there - Don't Pass Me By - at Janpath was where we would often have breakfast on winter mornings. Everytime I pass that gali I turn around to look for the place although I know it shut down some time back.

There is a cup, newly acquired greenish in colour that reminds me of Mona and the many cups of tea she has fed me. Any image of Kootiyattam jump starts the memory of the summer of 1993 when we traveled to Kerala for our shoot. A small handicam displayed at the shop window is like the one that Shefali and I used to make our short film a decade ago. Passing a poster about a play connects me to Radhika and my first brush with theatre.

The Jaipur highway reminds me of the trip with Ravi to Pushkar. Why is that journey etched in my mind since the highway was not complete when we were traveling? Green Park market is about the lunches and walks back to Sara's office.

Long bus journeys are like the trips in Gujarat with Aditi. 25th December reminds me of Dui where we walked from hotel to hotel on a Christmas weekend looking for a room. Hotel rooms are all like the one in Hyderabad where me and Kannan sat for a week, incommunicado from the rest of the world to finish a script.

Rarely do I sit in a bus now but when I do and I see a girl with a duppatta I hear the poem that Raza had written in 1994. Four Square cigarettes, sport shoes on window display and cramped rooms in Bombay remind me of earlier relationships and stolen moments.

What are the things that remind you of someone?

Throwing shoes & Protesting

2008-12-18T19:37:00.004+05:30

Soon after the event there were many articles on why a shoe was thrown and what it means in Islamic societies. It set me wondering what do you do in India if one is angry with someone - apart from landing on a panel discussion in a news channel and venting your protest?

Mostly it involves giving family related abuses or spitting at the person. In some extreme cases you may end up rubbing boot polish on the person's face. NY Times has this to say about how people protest in different communities. The practice in Bhutan is the funniest. It apparently involves coloured paper.

Meanwhile the SMS jokes going around in Pakistan is that the shoe throwing incidence has been linked to Pakistan. There is apparently nothing that can escape the US Intelligence.

Bush's reaction about the whole thing has been the most surprising. He did not declare another War on Terror on Cobblers (yet). Nor has he warned Al Qaeda. His statement - All I can report that it was Size 10 - says it all. It took him eight years of presidency to find a sense of humour.

5 things I learnt from the mumbai terror attack

2008-12-13T18:33:00.011+05:30

They came. They attacked. We (the police and NSG, not us) fought back. The ICON was reclaimed. I felt humbled. Lots of candles came out. And I learnt some things along the way.

1. The camera is mightier than the gun
The man with the gun can kill you once but the man(or woman) in front of the camera can screw your brains day after day and you will still keep paying to watch cable. For once it was not the politicians who decided what to do next but the news channels. God help us when there is a real war.

Always remember the correspondent under a hail of bullets is speaking the gospel truth. And the TV anchor is God. Very soon the government is coming up with the protocols for the correct way to address them (Your Highness etc) when you meet them (in a kneeling position).

2. Some people are more equal (or the Idea of India resides on the edge of Mumbai)
Never mind that we had transistor bombs going off in buses in Delhi twenty years back. Never mind that terrorists have attacked every town in the country (Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore,Ahmedabad, Hyderabad) in the last ten years. Never mind they bombed the trains in Mumbai some time back. But if they attack the Taj we shall come down on them like a ton of bricks with a lot of NSGs and news correspondents.

3. The Taj Hotel = India's Icon
The less said about it the better. Although the VT station where many people were killed is older than the Taj and more people from Mumbai have been through VT than had coffee at the Taj.
Last heard the government was trying to replace the Taj Mahal with Taj Hotel on the Seven Wonders List.

4. Facebook can help deepen our democracy
In the last ten days we have seen many decisions taken on Facebook without involving the Parliament and our bureaucracy. This seems like a good way to save money we waste on elections and our MPs.

Also we realised that ours is a dynamic constitution that we can make up/change as we go along. The politicians cannot fool us anymore. We can not only remove you but also refuse to vote ! (We know there is no such rule but we can make it up...)

A fortnight later, after the hangover I had this thought: This is not our 9/11. It has been happening since the 80's. Only this time the rich got hit.

All I can say is this. Engage with people around you. Debate what is right and wrong. But please vote. And pay taxes.

After all how are they going to find insurance money for the Taj...

(basically) about phrases i hate

2008-11-12T17:01:00.005+05:30

Oxford has come up with a list of irritating phrases in the book A Damp Squid. Some of them are words that are used too often while others are wrongly used or simply wrong. They are :

At the end of the day
Fairly unique
I personally
At this moment in time
With all due respect
Absolutely
It’s a nightmare
Shouldn’t of
24/7
It’s not rocket science

While many of these phrases are used in India, I have my own list of problems with urban Indians who suddenly begin imagining in college that English is their mother tongue and start to massacre it. In the beginning it is always the wrong use of "the" and using plurals where it is not required. Some examples in real life encountered last week. The flight to the Delhi is delayed, How are you all doing todays, Sorry for inconveniences.

But pretty soon it becomes a real problem in social situations. I have noticed that most Indians when they get angry and want to maintain civility in a public situation break into English. Now you are wincing at their pronunciation and grammar and trying to hide a laugh while they are getting progressively angry. This can become even funnier when you are meeting a person of authority and some important life changing decisions are to be taken.

But these can be forgiven since one can put them down to the fact for most people using English it is a second language for them. And compared to Chinese, Koreans and many Asian groups we are much better off in using English.

What I cannot fathom is when people with reasonable English education (by which I mean nursery rhyme books from the 2nd year, obsessive parents and convent education) end up using phrases on a regular basis which make no sense to me. If they think it is their takiya kalaam it is not working for me. Here is my list of irritating words/phrases :

1. Basically
This is often used at the beginning of the sentence but provides no extra information. Basically this car can seat only four people. Or - Basically, people are against a change in the law. This is repeated again and again in a discussion. However once it become part of the speech it also creeps into their writing.

2. Essentially
Used again like the earlier word and sometimes they are used in place of the other in a conversation. Again the word gives no additional information. Essentially, it seems like an intellectual way of emphasizing one's point of view but it never has that effect.

3. (Let me tell you) where I am coming from
This one is a no brainer. If anything it puts off the listener since all discussion stops at this point. It seems like an opening for a clarification but all it does is undo everything that has been discussed earlier. When the speaker has finished the sentence there is always an uncomfortable silence.

Of course there are phrases I use too. My point is often comes up in my conversations even when I talk in Malayalam. On this blog I often use What is interesting all the time.

What about you?

All the corners are filled up...

2008-10-28T09:08:00.002+05:30

With the arrest of former ABVP members suspected of the Malegaon blasts and the killing of the young boy from Bihar on a Mumbai bus the players are all in the ring - the WWF Royal Rumble India Edition (Multi Language Version).

To one side you have MNS led by Raj Thackeray taking on the Bihari public. On the other there are the Muslim terrorists vs Hindu terrorists. Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a slumber after many years. What has happened to this country? When did we become so intolerant and ready to blame/kill someone if we feel threatened?

Problems such as unemployment, lack of opportunities and even HIV(!) are promptly blamed on the OTHER. I remember while producing a show on HIV AIDS awareness two years back, the group claimed that it is the outsiders who brought the virus - before that our city was clean(!). It was as if no one indulged in unprotected sex or had multiple partners. This urge to blame some one else for our faults or things beyond our control is a typical Indian habit we learn from childhood. And it has rich rewards.

If you get caught at home blame your brother. In school you can choose anyone who is a rival as long as the teacher believes your sweet innocent face. At work there is always a scapegoat that you can find. Even in the Metro I can see someone who has pushed me accidentally but refuses to apologize but points behind to blame someone else.

Its simple. If we stand Together and blame the Other, none of us feel bad or responsible for the situation. The politicians love this game since it shifts the responsibility from them. No development? Blame the slum dwellers who come from outside. No water? Blame the farmers in the neighbouring state. Unseasonal floods or drought? Blame Amrika for bringing on Climate Change. Climate Change? Not us - it is the methane produced by polar bears farting in the Artic.

This may not be a bad idea. If all my failures can be attributed to a Bihari who is buying a ticket to Delhi at this very moment, I do not have to do anything more. Just wait for him to land up. Raj Thackeray will take care of the rest.

Where The Migrants Live

2008-10-25T18:32:00.008+05:30

In the centre of migrant country on the way back from Muzzafarpur to Patna last evening we stopped at the Ganga Setu. Its official name is the Mahatma Gandhi Setu and this used to be the longest bridge in the world some when (remember the question in your school quiz days). Twenty five years on it is on its way out. The driver told us that for almost a year one side of the bridge has not been functional.

This meant the traffic has to alternate and often the wait is long. As we sat waiting on the bridge we felt a gentle sway each time a truck passed us. This is not the vibration one feels standing on a flyover. The concrete bridge was swaying and had been doing so for many years. Elsewhere mobs were kidnapping train engines and burning down railway property in protest against the attacks on Biharis in Maharashtra.

The wait on the bridge took an hour. It was the right place to discuss and analyze why Bihar was in the shape that it was. Politicians, middlemen, upper castes, lower caste, Maoists, you, me - everyone was blamed. When we finally crossed the bridge we were tired. Happily we rushed towards our dinner, the discussion a distant memory.

At the simplest level migration depends on both lack of opportunities back home and also availability of jobs at the destination city. Ten years ago we would argue about rural to urban migration and often experts would point out that if people found jobs near their home they would not need to migrate. When you migrate are exploited since you may not have the skills for new jobs and you live in abysmal conditions hoping to send enough for your family back home.

In practical terms this means that if I were to get a job where I am paid a 100 rupees everyday near my home, I would not travel to Delhi or Mumbai for a job that pays me 200 rupees a day. Only recently because of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act we have seen some reduction in migration. A popular case this year was that of Bihari farm labour that was refusing to travel to Punjab because they were getting jobs back home.

But this is only a small number. A vast majority still travel out for jobs. In this sense, in the last ten years Bihar has become the Village for our Cities. And at the first opportunity people will land up in Mumbai.

Whatever Raj Thackeray says...

Blog/Diary/Ship Log

2008-10-19T19:45:00.008+05:30

Whenever I go to a new blog, the first few seconds are spent on a quick tour. In about 10 seconds one has decided whether to give this more attention or not. More often than not this will have to do more with the subject and in some cases the writing style.

Comparing a blog to a ship log kept by sailors 200 years back Andrew Sullivan writes in the The Atlantic:

As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending. So they have plot as well as dramatic irony—the reader will know the ending before the writer did.

Most ship logs were written as records but some were written (and edited during publication) to impress the public. However in the case of blogs the reverse is true. Most of them are written to express one's point of view and elicit a response. We always wait to hear from our readers.

If you ever have a chance to read postings on a blog from the most recent to the first, you would probably discover the journey of the blog. In that sense it is more like a diary where the writer does not know his destination and is merely writing as he feels. Many times the blogger may even contradict himself over a year or two. This can also happen in the case of a diary.

However there is one crucial difference. You can point to writer his failings in a blog. In the case of the diary its better to return it back to its secret place and pray that the topic never comes up...

Word Tree

2008-09-22T07:54:00.001+05:30

At Ellis Island when you enter the building, behind the luggage exhibit is a tree. A language tree.

This tree has many words (and their root language) on its "branches" that have now become part of American English. Words like "ranch" and "hunky-dory" that Amrikans use everyday.

It was fun walking around it imagining what would a tree like this be in India? Just last week while travelling through Karnataka, I realised that many of the words were similar to Malayalam. maybe we would need a forest of trees or an Octopus or something to look at how we are related through language.

Of course Raj Thackeray and Karunanidhi would insists that Marathi and Tamil trees be separated from the rest...

Amreeka - the way I saw it

2008-09-13T10:26:00.000+05:30

5 am
O'Hare airport
Immigration check for Aliens (most of us)
the security guards shouting
at us in some strange language
we did not understand

recycling bins
so many of them we got confused
which one to put our cans
and which ones are for empty starbucks cups

people running on the road
keeping fit
or walking fast
purposefully
making
the rest of the world
feel useless
in the rat race

shopping malls
with too many choices
milk
lactose free
organic
flavoured
non fat

chinatown
ignoring all the Asian tourists
since they bargain too hard
87,000 options of coffee
all of them fair traded
and sure to keep you awake
in case of another terror attack

couples walking babies
mothers walking babies
double prams with twins
children everywhere
do they realize
they will end up like a third world country?

white parents with Chinese kids
on the bus the man beside me concentrating
on the Dhammapada
while I devoured Best American Comics 2005
is this what McLuhan meant when he talked about the global village?

chinese
blacks
mexicans
indians
working on the streets
the white people
nowhere to be seen
were they hiding in their offices
awaiting another 9/11?

back at the airport they wanted to
count the number of holes in my left sock
embarrass me
to give up the bomb
strapped to my toe

Enter earthling...

2008-09-10T08:40:00.000+05:30

.... this is Cloud Gate

Enter

otherwise

we shall stretch you

bend your cities

Enter

and

see the world

from the inside out

Ellis Island

2008-09-05T06:21:00.003+05:30

Ellis Island rather than the Statue of Liberty should be the symbol for Amrika. Since the country prides itself as a nation built by immigrants this should be its temple. (The official version is that the Native Americans were just hanging around doing nothing - it is the whites, blacks and coloured people who built this nation).

Ellis Island is a small piece of land just off Manhattan which witnessed the largest influx of immigrants into the US of Amrika. It had the largest immigration office in the world in the first half of the 20^th century. Today almost a third of the people living in the States have a relative who landed here, got his papers checked and walked into the country. However one visit to the place makes us realized that even a hundred years back coming into the country was a tough job.

A trip to the Island also involves an optional trip to the Lady with the Torchlight but I decided to give that a miss. A group of women from the Pakistan agreed with me when they were told that no one was allowed to climb up the statue due to security restrictions. What is the point of getting off to look at the statue if you have a better view from the ferry?

At Ellis Island the huge building has been restored into a museum. As you enter you see a display of luggage and household stuff that immigrants brought on ships. When the passengers entered they had to deposit their luggage for checks. Some of the stuff was held back and some the immigrants lost them in transit.

It is interesting how a country in need of labour accepts or rejects immigrants. First the people were checked for common diseases. Around the beginning of the 20^th century mostly this was stuff like influenza, polio, eye infections etc. According to the museum statistics the doctors had about 10 seconds to examine a person!

On the first floor of the building there were a series of rooms where people were brought in for examination. Here each immigrant had to show valid papers to prove that they had a job in Amrika. How they got hold of such papers while living in remote areas in their native countries before courier service and internet, I have no clue. Finally, all of them had to have 25 dollars with them which was equal to one week’s salary. There were other tests done to prove their skills and intelligence. In one case they were asked to draw a perfect diamonds !

Also most of them when they landed, they did not know a word of English. The sick or infected were put on quarantine for several days. Since first and second class passengers were examined on the ships itself, it is the poor who had to stay longer on Ellis Island. Many of them lost their valuables or were separated from their family leaving them traumatized.

As one such immigrant interviewed many years later put it :

“ By the time we came to New York… somehow the experience on Ellis island had aged us. We didn’t want to sing anymore. We were all grown up.”

The next time you pass through New York take the ferry to Ellis Island. This is the story how immigrants poor and unskilled all over the world suffer even today.

the fire

2008-08-31T19:22:00.004+05:30

many a time
when you imagine
your worst fears

fire
never figured in mine

that has always been
something warm
on cold winter mornings
a conversation starter

you play with
matches
as a child
and your smoker friends
play with their lighters
at the back of the U Special

torches
that light up the hallways
in adventure movies
fire would show
us the way

so was it case that night too
as it blew out from the window
it wanted to play again
did not care that you
have grown up now
or was it showing us another way
out of this world

i guess we will never know
since we put it out
the firemen had signed up for the war
we were too scared to protest

water was my only fear
now there is fire
how long before earth joins this list
and swallows me away?

(in memory of the fire we survived on 28th night)

The Coffee Cup as a Seperate Entity

2008-08-23T02:26:00.004+05:30

The first thing you notice in Amrika
is a people walking hurriedly with a coffee cup in their hand

However unlike in India
the cup is never held near you
it is always at an arm's length
as if you are holding a laptop or a child

It almost seems like you are telling
everyone who is approaching you
" Hey ! Please notice this cup in my hand !"
Just in case someone collides with you
the coffee spills and you get sued

Ordering a cup of coffee can itself be
an interesting experience
as this spoof would show

Just the amount of choices can frighten you
I cannot figure out how does this system work?
Do people really order all that stuff on a regular basis?

And when you tell them that you need milk
You are pointed to a counter with three choices of milk - skimmed, full and half&half !
Now you open the cup and it is filled to the brim
Now you proceed to dump some of it into the garbage bin !

However much you tell them there is always too much coffee...

A quiz show scandal

2008-08-13T01:30:00.003+05:30

With so much discussion about Kaun Banega Crorepati every season, I was intrigued by this article by Charles Van Doren who was the centre of a quiz show scandal in the late 1950s. At that time a popular quiz show used to supply answers to participants to keep audience interest in the show.

When a particular participant was staying on too long, the producers would introduce someone who had answers to the questions just to make sure that the older one lost. What was interesting was that apart from providing the answers the participants were also coached how to answer so that they looked genuine.

When this fraud became public, there was Congressional hearing where a lot of participants admitted to being involved. Since this was the first time this had happened at this level the US Congress passed a law prohibiting the fixing of quiz shows. However - and this i find interesting since the actions were not illegal no one went to prison for rigging the shows.

In the article for the first time Charles van Doren writes about his experience. All this time he had never given any interviews or written about the subject quite unlike the celebs of today.

I have often wondered are games in India ever rigged? Also what would happen if we ever found out?

United Waste of America

2008-08-09T10:03:00.002+05:30

One of the first things you notice - Paper. Its everywhere.

Not just the in your toilets. When you go to a supermarket there are these huge brown bags. Ditto for stores. Bags of all sizes. Paper.

Then there are the restaurants. You order anything and a stack full of tissue paper would be put in front of you. If you want to pack it, they put in more in the brown paper bag that they give you.

And if you offer to return some of the paper they refuse to take it. If you insist they just throw it in the bin.

In the case of toilet paper after trying out various options like the daily newspaper and the Sears Catalogue they finally settled for reams of paper specially created for this purpose. Since the Amrikans do not use water at all it can create some funny situations.

In 1973 a television program host announced (as a joke) that there was a toilet paper shortage in America. The next day people rushed out to the supermarket and bought as many rolls as possible to stock up. By noon the next day every store in America was out of stock and it took three weeks for the country to recover from this crisis.

The next time the terrorists can just spread this rumour on the internet. It will keep the Amrikans distracted for a week.

We are one big happy family...

2008-08-06T11:26:00.007+05:30

This being the International Blog Week against Racism here is my two bit.

The NY Times wedding/celebrations pages are funniest I have ever come across while reading a daily newspaper. Each week you get to read gems like – “The couple met in November 2005 at a party at a New York art gallery.”

Well what has this got to do with racism and discrimination you would say? Well this week I came across this article about an Indian couple who got married earlier this year. Among the Browns and Achermans there was Dr. Lala and Dr. Trindade. If this trend is picked up by newspapers in India, soon there would no distinction between us and them.

Marriages are important to Indians and Americans but in different ways. In India it is an occasion to emphasize that YOUR FAMILY RULES OK. In America it is a moment to connect to your parents – something that you would never do in the future.

What caught my eye was that the couple would date by going to a nearby Barnes and Nobles store “where Dr. Lala, who has a voice as melodious as her name, would read excerpts from her favourite novels”. What the hell was that? Didn’t we use to that in a park or a bus in India?

Next when a relative described the bride as a-family-person-her- parents-are-her-world shit I really thought now we are going to become one happy family. If the gora tourists in India were trying to become more Indian than Indians themselves and Indians in the US are becoming WASPy, racism will become a 20th century phrase.

However we must understand the finer aspects of this merging of cultures. The entire article was devoted to describing their dating-courtship-engagement- marriage in every detail including such gems as – “He suggested that they try becoming boyfriend and girlfriend”. I mean that is how boys and girls start off in India too! See there is no difference again – we are all the same…

We also got to know that the groom was patient guy – “Dr. Trindade waited patiently the way some people wait in traffic jams, unperturbed.” (This is the kind of writing that made NY Times what it is).

The marriage combined Hindu and Christian traditions. Although the reporter provided us with no details, I am assuming that both the groom and bride’s parents spent hours negotiating this stuff. Then we were told about the room where the marriage took place – “Everything in the room…glittered and sparkled like the eyes of people in love”. I was overcome with happiness. The lines sounded like a 1965 LIFE magazine article about a wedding in Portland, Orgeon. We are catching up and soon you will never be able to make out whether it was an Indian marriage or a WASPy one. Except for the names. And the photographs.

In fact I am already believing it. If we all put an effort maybe people from all communities could get such stuff written about their marriages in the NY Times. Then we will all be on the same page. And the same reception hall.

Cartoon: Color Blind

Cellphone economics...

2008-08-03T09:24:00.004+05:30

... in another world make you wonder what are people thinking when they throw their money at something

In the US most cell phone users are on some wierd outdated scheme which died out in India two years back. Remember the time when you were given a fixed number of minutes for a certain amount. However you could make unlimited calls in the non peak hours. Most of the people in the US are still using that system.

This means that most of them want to get off the phone even if you are calling them because receiving a call also means your minutes are being knocked off. How outdated is that idea ? Why should the cell phone make money off two people at the same time? We told them to stop doing that about five years back. Maybe that is what capitalism is about...

The other thing is the Voice Mail culture. If you are not available then you let the person who called to leave a message. Now to retrieve this message you have to dial a number. Again your minutes are docked when you dial and listen to the message. What is amazing is that no one seems to mind. You dial and leave a message. Your friend dials back and now you are busy so he leaves a message. This could keep happening three or four times a day. Imagine the amount of money the cell phone companies make out of this ! They don't even have to worry about your talk time - they are already making a profit.

And does all this mean that the signals are better? No chance. I've often noticed that in markets where the profits are high per user (Bombay, Delhi) very often there is a signal problem in the middle of the city. One can understand call drops in remote areas but in the city it almost seems like a conspiracy. Waiting at the San Fransisco airport for my luggage, I could see grown up men running around to get better reception while women leaned over to the windows in the hope that the signals would travel to them.

I needed to make a call so I borrowed a cell phone but could not connect through. The owner of the phone suggested that we go up to the first floor. I looked at him. He was actually suggesting that we take all our luggage up the stairs because the signal was better?

So off we went. Both of us pulling our suitcases (two each) till we reached a large hall on the next floor. I made the call and thanked the man. He shrugged. As we walked down back one floor (since the taxis were on that floor), he said - Welcome of America !

Why this country will never face a letter bomb threat

2008-07-29T22:01:00.002+05:30

Let me explain. This is not a celebration of the excellent security system our country has. This has more to do with your friendly neighbourhood post office.

Have you ever tried to send something larger that tiffin box by parcel? I tried and realized why no one is trying to use letters to terrorize us.

First I went to the post office where I am a regular. I asked the guy at the registered post desk whether he would send a box full of medicines. He asked me what the box had. I opened it. He looked inside and checked each box. Then he nodded. And pointed behind. This was his way of telling me go to the larger post office in the same area.

I went. Still optimistic. At this post office the guy said - yes he would take it. I handed it to him. He looked inside. Tossed the items around. Any liquids? No. Then he gave the box back. I was surprised. You need to cover it with cloth. Cloth? White. Off white actually. And write the name on the cloth. Now where would I find a piece of cloth at 10:30 in the morning?

A couple of hours later, another post office. This one had a guy outside who packs the parcel for you. Great. But first you had to do the mandatory checks. Two people in the post office checked the contents. Again they tossed things around. Any liquids?

Then the guy packing the parcel gave me some expert advice. The contents cannot be moving. No movement. He put the thick packing tape and out came the cloth. Now he started stiching it. Round and round he went with his large needle covering the box. A couple of Korean tourists stopped to take photos. I refused to pose.

Now the final step. At the counter. Again the guy shook it and asked me - what is there in this?

No wonder the bombers give up every time...

How to be a 100% dilliwalah (Suggestion No. 8)

2008-07-19T11:38:00.006+05:30

Use the Metro. Once.

Now you can pretend to be an ultracoolenvironmentfriendly type who cares about climate change and all that crap. The next time you meet your friends at Barista you must keep talking about the METRO RIDE.

First of all you must mention the walk to the station. Since it was Sunday (who in their right minds would take the Metro on any other day) there was no traffic and birds were singing in the air etc etc. Then the spic and span station. Very few people, no traffic jams.

Now you move to the platform. Everyone (all the five commuters on a Sunday morning) waited politely. There was no pushing. Also add a bit about how there was so much space in the train. Your ride can be for any purpose - shopping or going to a historical monument. The grander the idea the better. It could be to spend time with nature - therefore you went to central park in CP. Or it could be that you wanted to taste authentic Mughlai khana and decided to go to Karim’s.

Every time you look up from your car at the Metro line above, another story about the ride you never had should pop up in your mind. If you change your destination this story can be recycled (environment friendly) anywhere - college, parties or while standing in the line for milk at Mother Dairy. One real ride will suffice for a lifetime of stories since the rest of the gang will be hiding the fact that they rarely use the Metro.

This story could also be recounted at a business meeting. There was a time when you could mention Delhi’s history or food and pass off as a superior city. Not anymore. Now you have to mention the Metro. There is nothing like people from Mumbai, Bangalore or Gurgaon squirming in their seats when you tell them how Delhi is a step ahead. (Forget a step ahead - Mumbai can't even get to decide how they are going to build it - the soil keeps collapsing on them).

But with this group you need have your facts. Visit this blog on the Delhi Metro for regular updates. How the metro helps save commuting time. How many people use it everyday. Look at the projections for 2010. Never mind that by 2010 you will have a Pajero and will never ride the Metro.

You may not have a successful meeting. But for some vague reason you will walk out feeling superior.

The airport list

2008-07-14T09:07:00.019+05:30

The rains are here and I get that feeling again.... so here goes another list.

Have been documenting a series of remarkable projects throughout the country for the last three months which involved a lot of different kinds of transport and being treated to many stoppages at airports. Which meant delays. Which led me to thinking. And this post.

1. The smallest airport in India has to be Dibrugarh. Among the the ones where large planes land. The arrival and waiting lounge were twice the size of my drawing room and the entire structure was still covered with the age old tin roof. As we waited for our furniture...no luggage... another plane landed and a 100 more passengers walked in. Soon the place was looking like the men's loo during a film interval.

2. Rajahmundry threw up a surprise. Our flight had a high proportion of big built foreigners who did not look like tourists. When our plane landed we saw another group walking towards a helicopter. The two groups stopped and conferred in the middle of the tarmac. No officials rushed in to separate them. It seemed like they were discussing a golf putt on a summer afternoon.

3. The messiest one has to be Delhi. A new passenger would simply give up after a point with so many twists, turns and surprises. When will the "up gradation" end and we get "world class" facilities? Of course with Delhi becoming the busiest airport in the country life will only get interesting.

4. The golf cart award goes to Hyderabad. With these cute looking things transporting you around, I temporarily forgot the long drive to the city.

5. The longest line was at Kolkata. It actually went down a floor along an escalator. Thankfully it was not moving. The escalator. Not the line.

6. The silliest staff award went to Kingfisher. I know they have taken over Deccan but what is the point of having the same airline staff as Kingfisher? You get into the plane imagining that maybe you have been upgraded to Kingfisher although your ticket says Deccan. Half way through the flight you realise that they were only there to smile. There is no other service. Everytime they pass you they smile. They looked lost flying a low end airline.

7. Experience a Banana Republic. Go to Srinagar. Here the staff does not guarantee that you will get to the car parking alive. Most people run with their luggage to the cars and drive out of the complex as if it can explode any time. The security staff checks you millions of times and still they are suspicious. So they ask you to identify your luggage one last time. First I took it seriously but then when they asked us to put the luggage in the cart that would take it to the plane, I realised this was their way of saving money on extra staff.

At land's end

2008-06-22T20:00:00.004+05:30

Drove all the way to the edge of Saurastra
to Dwarka
the town itself was a little disappointing
but the wind turbines alone the route took my breath away

from a distance
they look small and pretty
moving in a lazy way
but up close they are clumsy and large
and remind you of how dinosaurs must have been

in this part of the country they generate electricity
for most of the villages and industrial units nearby
the locals were talking about how
in about five years the capacity could double
the advantage was it was sustainable
throughout the year due to the winds on this coast

in fact large parts of the west coast
which do not encounter cyclones
can use wind energy
to light up towns and villages near the sea

India is already the fourth largest in terms of capacity
behind the US, Germany and Spain
and we have been growing quietly at about 30 percent in recent years

Maybe here is where Prakash Karat should take Manmohan Singh on a trip
to spell out the options for nuclear fuel !

52 words between you and me

2008-06-15T12:03:00.003+05:30

(returning from a trip and remembering another one)

bus
bunder road
dogs on the beach
the bull

shooting our shadows
white churches
sunlight creeping thru the
slits
of the wooden doors

hands cupping each other
mouths devouring each other
creaks & groans
bed
silence
beads of sweat around our lips
tired

wooden beams of the roof
the fan
spinning
unmindful

Fear and Suspicion in Kashmir

2008-06-03T19:12:00.001+05:30

The minute you land you can feel the difference. Actually when they asked to identify our baggage at the Delhi airport we were surprised. Who does that kind of stuff anymore ? That is so 80's.

The plane touched the tarmac and I was thrown back about five years when I went to visit Jaffna. Bunkers dotted the ground half hidden or wearing army camouflage.

People tell you things are now normal in K. Tourists are back and business is up. Well if that is the case what is with bored army personnel standing at every corner and bathroom entrance? Would that be normal in Delhi?

Actually deep down everyone is suspicious. The locals are suspicious of the sarkar. The sarkar is suspicious of both the locals and the militants. The militants are suspicious of the army. The army is suspicious of the locals. Visitors are suspicious of anything that moves. When asked the locals will tell you things are normal. The visitors of course claim that this is actually paradise but then after a torturous plane ride anything would be.

Why I compared this to Jaffna was that five years there was ceasefire in Sri Lanka then. But everyone was unsure. In such a situation it just takes a single bomb or an ambush to throw us back to the earlier times. What looks like there-is-nothing- wrong-here is actually we-are-bracing-ourselves-for-the-next-attack.

After many days of good food and hospitality we had developed an amnesia but as we returned the security checks at the airport woke us up again.

Yes things are becoming normal in K. But it is still a long journey.

Shopping for groceries...

2008-06-01T12:22:00.000+05:30

... on Dal Lake.

For most of us Kashmir is synonymous with Dal where all the shikaras wait to take the tourists across to the houseboats. But behind the houseboats there is another world. Houses sitting along the river, an entire colony of people who depend on the water for everything including buying their daily groceries.

Each morning around 5 one can see many shikaras going back and forth carrying different kinds of items. Their destination is a clearing in the lake where most of the transactions are done.As we sat watching the men negotiate one could see them all kinds of things on this floating - including gas cylinders.

With the sun yet to break out and mountains all around them this must be one of the most fun locations to buy things. I am sure no one raises their voices or breaks into a fight.

If you get to Srinagar try this ride. Be early. The negotiations are over by 7 in the morning and everyone goes home.

The river chronicles (cont.)

2008-05-30T10:30:00.001+05:30

The 1950 earthquake of Assam changed the face of the Brahmaputra. Many hills surrounding the river fell into the waters and created new landscapes that are constantly shifting and changing. The most common effect was the creation of river islands.

I traveled with a medical team to one of these islands. Most of the population consists of Mishings who are related to tribes from Arunachal Pradesh and migrated about 500 years back. Their islands still have houses in stilts a construction style long abandoned in villages on the mainland.

Being near Dibruhgarh this island village had a thriving dairy practice. Krishna Pao owns almost 300 buffaloes and about 50 cows. He sells most of the milk in Dibrugarh which is about a three hour boat ride from his island. He told me that the village consumes most of the cow milk while city folks prefer buffalo milk.

On asked why, he said : If you offer them cow milk, they think it is diluted ! Much like the rest of the country...

How to be a 100% dilliwalah (Suggestion No. 7)

2008-05-28T07:12:00.002+05:30

Collect your garbage and throw it out.

Not on the main street. But inside your colony. The location needs to be chosen carefully. It has to inconvenience a lot of people. A couple parking spaces must be lost. For best results either keep the garbage for a week or get some work done on your house. The second option helps you collect a lot of solid material that will not disappear soon.

When asked about the garbage pretend that you have no clue. Agree with the neighbours that the person responsible should be punished. Of course everyone knows that since they all have done a similar thing in the past no action would be taken.

Choose the time appropriately. Early morning on Sundays are the best since no one is awake at that time. If the safai karamchaari sees you tip him but DO NOT let him clear the mess. After all its your mess and you have a right to display it.

Many days later it would have blended into the background. Then you can be proud that you too have contributed to colony landscape.

the way things were (or so i think)

2008-05-26T07:01:00.002+05:30

last week while hurtling down the steps on one errand or the other i chanced upon a couple of kids playing hide and seek so some 21st century version of it and suddenly remembered doing the same in another time zone

it seemed like i froze and the camera did a 360 degree on me and i was thrown back

let me explain

the place where i stay has many (faded) yellow coloured flats with nooks and corners where one can run into and hide and evening time this is the place where most of the young kids (7-13) play and you can hear the loud screams and laughter in your house several feet above

so what did i remember when i passed them one innocent evening? did i see myself many years back doing the same thing? did i miss that? or regret anything? in any case why did i freeze? or why this urge to write about an incident that hardly lasted 10 secs?

maybe it was the weather since it does not rain like this in may... or it was the thought that these guys can continue this till their mother shout for them while i have to do silly errands and look busy... or maybe the frequency at which they were screaming... i give up i have no clue what this incidence was about

later i can deny that this emotion ever crossed my mind

the boxing girls

2008-05-23T12:00:00.001+05:30

Was filming in Kolkata
for a film on woman boxers
at a club that has been churning out
champs who have been doing well
at the nationals and some at the world championship...

set in a garden near Kali Ghat Metro Station
the club consists of a boxing ring
and a bare bones gym

the girls come everyday
to practice regularly under the watchful eyes of Asit Banerjee
who came up with this idea about two decades ago
when he began to pick girls who were from
families living in the poorer sections of Kolkata
boxing for them could be a passport out of poverty
if they excelled in the sport
a government job was guaranteed
initially this idea was scoffed at as many believed that women would not be able to
compete in such a sport

today the South Calcutta Physical Culture Association is churning out
women boxers at a hectic pace
with more and more girls are getting drawn into the sport

the challenge is not to do well at the national level
it is the next stage that be
comes difficult
while one of the reasons
is lack of good trainers and facilities
many of the boxers drop out once they get a job or get married

however some like Razia (right)
opt to become a coach and a trainer
she inspires younger girls from her area to take up the sport
today parents have become more open and become open to the idea
Priyanka(left) and Alam Ara (centre) have now been coming to club for some time
they hope to make it to the World Championship some day

Boys in the Maidan

2008-05-20T06:56:00.006+05:30

after myself many trips and false alarms
i found myself in the Maidan in Kolkata on a Sunday

the young ones
displaying their skills
someone shouting instructions from a corner
the make-shift goals
often becoming a point of dispute every time the ball beat the goalkeeper

what was telling was that
the entire nation was glued to IPL
and here were these boys
working themselves up over a sport
that is fast getting marginalised

one kid practiced furiously with the ball
hitting it against a tree
every once in a while it would
bounce onto the road
or roll into a ditch
no one explained to him that he needed to find
a flatter surface

his enthusiasm reminded me of the skateboarders i met in Bastille.

Another year, another river

2008-05-14T18:41:00.006+05:30

Last year I had traveled extensively on the Ganga
and this year I find myself floating on the other great one - Brahmaputra...

For me this has always been a river full of mystery
somewhere to the corner
on the edge
one heard stories of its fury every year when in school

Unlike the Ganga

this is a fast river even midway in its course

it is deep and carries a lot of silt (second only to the Yangtze I was told)

Today we went to visit one of the island villages
a unique features where temporary and permanent islands dot the wide river
these house almost 25 lakh people (2.5 million for the well travelled)
most of the houses here
are on stilts since almost all the islands get submerged
during the flood season

These communities are cut off from the mainland
and mostly survive on their own
it is strange that although they are about a couple of hours
from "modernity"
their houses lack even the most basic of things
that we find in villages today

While returning
it struck me that like most indigenous groups
who live in isolated groups
cut off for most of the year
how much of modern technology and living habits is good for them?
most of the time intervention is done
without giving a thought

how much is just good enough

Long Dark Tea Time for the Soul

2008-05-13T10:46:00.003+05:30

Imagine I land up in Dibrugarh and ended up asking for coffee. I could have shot myself as soon as I tasted the Nescafe. Here I am in the middle of tea country and all I could think of was coffee??????????

Anyway, I recvovered and quickly went on a chai tour. Since this is not a touristy place most of the joints are dhabas or street stalls. However having lived with the beverage for over a 100 years they surely know the right mix of ingredients. The milk was just right and no spices.

In Delhi, most of the time the tea you get has too much milk and a huge dose of cardamoms. The only version I like is when they put lots of adrak. Here in Dibrugarh whenever I asked for masala chai, I got a firm no. If you want the real thing, they seemed to say, have it our way.

Of course for most people here the real thing is the bitter liquer version - lal cha. They keep having it all day long from small glasses. Aparently helps us cool the body. Whatever. Anything as long as it is chai.

How to be a 100% dilliwalah ( Suggestion No. 6)

2008-05-07T21:48:00.002+05:30

Take a Leak.

Wherever. Whenever. However. When the urge takes over.

It doesn't matter who is looking. Just do it. The more public the place the better. And don't bother about looking around. Most people will not even worry about it.

Taking a leak in public is your birthright, what with so few public loos and most of them dirty and overflowing. And who wants to pay for a clean loo? The cleanest place is on the road beside the footpath. The thing will dry up soon.

Of course everyone says its wrong and there is a fine. But have you ever heard of anyone being fined for taking a leak? I mean if you do not have your license while driving they do fine you but taking a leak is no problem.

So don't worry if you see a cop walking towards you - he is probably coming to take a leak himself.

Another question for Mr. Bush

2008-05-03T12:02:00.005+05:30

This report says:

Prosperity in countries like India is good but it triggers increased demand for better Nutrition, which in turn leads to higher food prices (according to) United States President George W Bush (who says)

"when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go... "

So what is the solution?

Should we:

1. Eat less nourishing food
2. Import food from you
3. Become poor again

Also could you explain the economics of it to a lay blogger like me because your statements in the report really confuse the shit out of me. Speak English dude not Americanese.

A sample for your thoughts :

"There is (food) scarcity in the world, and I happen to believe when we find people who can't find food we ought to help them find it...."

Who writes these things for him?

Three questions for George Bush

2008-05-02T23:05:00.006+05:30

According to this report :

al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks

I have three questions for Mr. George Bush Jr :

1. So does that mean that eight years of your rule was of no use? You are leaving the world just as it was in 2001 (with higher oil prices being your contribution to International Politics)?

2. The bombing and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq has made al- Qaida stronger? How ? Have they found the Weapons of Mass Destruction?

3. After you step down, if al- Qaida asks the world to hand you over in exchange for world peace can we do that and go to sleep?

You can leave your answers after this post so that my readers can easily access them...

Who walks in that park?

2008-05-01T07:07:00.006+05:30

Being a dilliwalah you should walk - I had written earlier and the New York Times agreed.

Each of the localities have their own parks where people come out in the mornings. Most of them know each other and the parks are often a place to catch up on colony gossip. But in some cases the parks are huge like the lake park near my house which attracts an interesting mix of people whose profile keeps changing throughout the day.

6-7am
This is mostly men, old RSS types and some of the older folk who are fit enough to venture out early. The men of course do not do any house work therefore can venture out any time. Their wives follow an hour later when the children have gone off to school. The RSS types are the funniest - with their inflated shorts saluting a strange flag and doing exercises. It almost looks like NCC cadets Senior Citizens section.

7-8am
The busiest time. Almost all of the older folk and women land up now. The children have been dispatched to the prison houses (schools) and houses are generally empty. This group has a sense of purpose as they go about walking vigorously discussing problems of their lives and sharing gossip. The activity is often combines with buying groceries from stalls out side the park. You identify the stuff before the walk and the boys deliver to your house an hour later.

By this time many of the young Jat boys come out to exercise in the open air gym in the park. With a rudimentary set of equipment they pretend to be seriously working on their bodies while checking out the handful of girls who are walking at the same time. The older folk sit around the lake, talking. They seem to enjoy the location since they have time on their hands.

8-9am
Most of the crowd has now gone back home. In fact in summer no self respecting Punjabi would be seen walking in the heat. A group of school kids play cricket in one corner of the park while college girls and their dates sit on isolated benches whispering. While this park is not a famous one like Lodi garden or Nehru Park since it is so huge and convenient in terms of location (near Pusa Road and now on the Metro Line) it is often used during the day by people from other parts of the city. The office crowd can be seen resting in or crossing the park to go towards Rajendra Place or the Metro station throughout the day. Hawkers in that area use the park to rest during the day.

However one group that I have never seen this side of town are the kids of the former landowners of the area. In many parts of South Delhi, the land for colonies like Green Park or GK1 was acquired from farmers or landowners 30 or 40 years ago. But the owners continue to stay on in villages like Humayunpur or Chiraag Dilli. They had become rich due to the sale and their children pass time playing cricket or playing cards since they do not have a need for work. Maybe the owners of lands in Patel Nagar and Karol Bagh have shifted a long time ago since these areas are almost 30 to 50 years older than South Delhi colonies.

Have you noticed who uses the parks near your house ?

The Ishtyle and the Stupidity

2008-04-28T07:12:00.007+05:30

What can one say about something that knocks you out and when you wake up, you are still laughing but do not remember the joke?

Tashan is all that and more.

With Anil Kapoor doing a tapori for the umpteenth time. Akshay Kumar as the bumbling idiot who can fight a hundred men. Saif the stylish guy. And Kareena doing her silly laughter that she calls acting. I mean Jab We Met seems like millions of years away.

Actually the Tashan is a landmark film for Yash Raj. First the subject is so regressive and 80's, it seems like we are going back to Jumping Jack Jeetu and Mithun da era. Whoever said that small town stories have to be loud and regressive? It seems like Haasil and Omkara have been forgotten. We are back to silly men fighting over money and women.

Just before the release of the film, Yash Raj got into a fight with multiplex theater owners and therefore the film was only shown in single screen halls which are very rare in Delhi. This also meant that a lot of the rich and nouveau rich (call centre types) did not even know that the film had been released. This is not the first time that such a fight has happened between YR and the theatre owners, but Tashan was the ideal film for this crisis. The front benchers would lap it up.

Imagine Anil Kapoor playing the same role he played twenty years earlier. I mean a fatter Anil Kapoor, with body wax and the same three-day beard. Apparently since he had to do a body wax for five days, the city of Bombay ran out of body wax and it had to be imported from Dubai. Akshay Kumar doing his version of Amitabh of the 80's. Saif the bumbling Shashi Kapoor updated to 2007. Kareena replacing Parveen Babi. The audience might have thought that they had been transported back in time. There is even a dialogue from Deewar (English version for the new age call centre audience) thrown in to confuse you further.

That dialogue must have warmed up Yash Chopra too when he saw the film and he must have cried. Out of nostalgia or pain am not sure.

PS Am glad that I had to go to Sangam to watch the Ishtyle of Yash Raj. I only ended up blowing up a hundred bucks on a ticket, popcorn and Coke. Bring back those time again !

For a comprehensive review about what went wrong with the Tashan go here !

The U turns of Tehelka

2008-04-24T18:52:00.008+05:30

I had commented earlier on a piece in Tehelka which had supported Aamir's point of view on the Olympic torch. The article had pointed out that there was no connection between the Olympic torch and the Tibetan struggle.

This week it seems that the same writer realized her mistake:

In a misjudged column in TEHELKA last week, this writer asserted the furore around the Olympic torch was a flash in the pan that would typically die out without lending the struggle any real momentum. But clearly, it has been a tactical masterstroke.

Well what can I say ? Is that true realization or just a habit that journalists cultivate? Yesterday she felt strongly about Aamir Khan. This week the flavour is Tibet.

In any case both the magazine and writer need to be complemented for admitting their mistake. Very rare in India for anyone to do that publicly.

But what does Aamir think of this whole issue? Has he decided to relook at his stand ? Or does his body run for China and heart still beat for Tibet?

How close is too close

2008-04-23T20:20:00.003+05:30

With coming of coffee bars combined with the high premium on space very often you are sitting close to people while having your drink. I can remember a couple of interesting conversations I overheard in the last one year. But the point is that there is a line you never cross. You never get that close.

But how close is close? Well today I had a chance to think about that. Me and a friend were at the chai bar at the Oxford Bookstore sitting and having our exotic versions of tea while behind us a book launch had just concluded. We could hear animated conversations between an old lady (who claimed to be from Pakistan) a couple of girls who were part of the organizing team.

In trooped a young man who after trying out a couple of tables, decided to come and sit near us at a long table which was being shared by many other customers. Initially he was just interested at staring at the women behind us, although he was sitting too close to us almost leaning into our conversation. But since his head was turned away we did not bother. Then he began to fiddle with things on the table. First it was the sugar bowl, then it was my hat. That was it. I snatched away from him and gave him a stare.

So how close is too close for you?

My favourite landlord

2008-04-21T22:04:00.007+05:30

It was the April of 2001. I was planning to move out of my parents home. Actually the plans were made about six months back but my Dad dissuaded me through some complicated logic which involved buying a new car and my brother's marriage.

Let me give you some advice. Never start looking for a place in April. Cause even if you get it many many years later when your lease finally gets over and your landlord decides to kick you out you again have to look for a house in summer.

Anyways I did not know all these pathetic details at that time. The idea was to look for something close to work to avoid traffic. Most of us do not remember the times before the Dhaula Kuan and the AIIMS flyover. Traffic was real bad.

The thing about looking for a house in Delhi is that you are always a disadvantage. Bachelor, student - will get girls over. Married - will consume too much water. Lawyer - will not leave. Punjabi - will always fight. The list is endless. One place I was hown the sample contract which included a "no consumption of drugs" clause since the previous tenant had been busted a few months go in a high profile case.

Many houses later, including some near handshakes, I finally landed on something. Expensive and a cranky landlord. I remember getting into a fight the first day I moved it. About putting a bell or something. Most of my friends had warned me about aggressive landlords. But nothing really happened after. Everything quietened down soon.

The place was fun since I did not have much to travel for work. I remember the winter mornings on the terrace having many cups of chai waiting for the clock to strike ten so that I could walk down to the studio.

My landy was an funny character. Since he stayed below he would stop me on my way up or when I left my house. He always asked questions about my work. We even shot a film at that house. And all the time he watched us, all excited asking several questions about the camera.

But never did he ask about my friends. People would come and go, even stay over but no questions asked.

Of course there were parties. I mean big gatherings with about 30-40 people. Again no issues for my landlord. Once a friend of mine wanted to throw a party for his lady love. The problem was that I had to go to another party the same day. When I returned, the place was in a mess with a couple of groups on the verge of a fist fight. I thought this is going to be my last day here.

The next morning after all my friends had staggered out, the only thing my landy talked about was the music that was played the earlier night. Then he moved onto comparing jazz music with qawwali.

I treasured the two years I stayed there...

The Olympic Torch is not a symbol?

2008-04-18T18:34:00.010+05:30

You got to hand it to Tehelka. Once it a while it comes up with such gibberish that you take a step back and think - do the editors ever look at what they print?

In this week's issue Shoma Chaudhary has defended Aamir Khan's decision to run with the Olympic Torch. I can think of many reasons (India, Coke & Samsung) but she has of course a different perspective. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi she says :

The art of public symbolism is famously a difficult one to master. Few men in recent time have been as adroit at it as Gandhi. A fistful of salt, retrieved from the sea. Mass bonfires. Civil disobedience. The charkha. These symbols became powerful change agents, a moral force that unseated an empire because their inspiration snaked back to a deep search for truth, a clear goal, a massive ambition. And most importantly, a readiness to back symbolic gesture with suffering. There was also a direct correlation between these symbols and the oppression they sought to highlight. The Olympic torch — the most debated public symbol today — has none of those virtues.

Bullshit.

When he began, no one took Gandhi seriously. The charkha or salt had no meaning attached to it before Gandhi associated it with self reliance and freedom. In any case was only by the 1940s that his ideas and philosophy started to grip the entire nation something that we have preserved for over six decades now.

The Olympic torch has existed for some time now as a symbol of the Olympic spirit. The very fact that it is paraded and carried to all countries of the world it means something.

Of course it has nothing to do with China's policies in Tibet. Right now.

By snuffing it out, protesting or creating an environment to boycott the Games, the Tibetans are following the tradition of the Africans in 1976, the Americans in 1980 and the Russians in 1984. The Africans definitely achieved their objective against apartheid South Africa two decades later.

If by chance in the future, Tibet were to get independence, would not these protests be a significant step in that direction? Would not the Olympic Torch have a new meaning ? Of course this has to be part of larger strategy of boycotting Chinese goods etc. but snuffing out the torch has the maximum impact media wise. There can be no denying that.

Later the article says :

Perhaps Aamir Khan thought of all this when he rejected the grand dramatic gesture — emotionally satisfying, televisionfriendly, but ultimately hypocritical — and settled for a more nuanced and personally honest stand.

And what is this nuanced and personally honest stand ? Neither did he come out with a clarification (on China's Tibet policy) nor did he criticize anyone. His sponsors were happy and so were the Chinese who came to cheer him.

So much for not being hypocritical.

Aamir's Real Name is

2008-04-17T20:57:00.005+05:30

.... Samsung Mobile.

At least that is what the hoardings are screaming in Delhi. I am not joking. There is Aamir wearing a woolen cap folded with a mobile half hidden in the fold. I wish I had taken a photo but I was too busy laughing. I am Samsung Mobile. Imagine coming to party and saying - I am Samsung. Samsung Mobile.

Gone are the days when you had nicknames like Pappu Pager. Get yourself an upgrade. That's what Aamir did.

Seems like after Taare Zameen Par his stars went up into the sky but Aamir has fallen to to the depths. Nothing he does makes sense. First it was the torch thing. Now Samsung Mobile. For a guy who is so detailed and meticulous - how could he have agreed to such a campaign ? What next ? I am Diet Coke?

My question is - what is your caste sir? Mobile? Hmmm.... So you are not a South Indian?

How to be a 100% dilliwalah (Suggestion No. 5)

2008-04-17T10:17:00.004+05:30

Putting on your training shoes. And Run.

I am not talking about serious running like the Hutch marathon. I am talking about jogging a few metres for a CAUSE. HIV/AIDS, the environment, girl child... In fact today is the ideal day. The Olympic torch is town.

Of course a lot has been said why you should not run. Tibet. China's human rights record. But think about it - Aamir would be there and so would be Saif. And a host of cheer leaders promoting all kinds of products rights from coloured water to mobile phones. NDTV reports faithfully :

Out of 70 torchbearers, 47 have been chosen by IOA and five by the Chinese organisers of the Olympic Games, while Olympic partners Samsung, Lenovo and Coca Cola has selected 19 runners..

I know what you are thinking. There would be a long wait. And then there is the heat. But look at it this way. Many of the celebs have already dropped out. News channels would take a bite from any one. They are desperate. A new face would help salvage their story. This is your chance to launch your Page 3 career.

At the next party you can proudly say : I was there !

Where have all the Eligible Bachelors gone?

2008-04-12T08:04:00.005+05:30

According to Slate, they have:

Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.

Maybe this is true for a society where arranged marriages are non existent. Read on to find out why thay have a lack of eligible bachelors !

Also an argument for settling for Mr. Good Enough. Why does this world ask us to compromise even before we start?

Whatever happened to good old fashioned...

2008-04-04T22:36:00.007+05:30

... protesting? Right to freedom and expression?

Bhaichung Bhutia has refused to carry the Olympic torch in protest over China's handling over the recent events in Tibet. The minute he announced this people from left, right and centre have started criticising or belittling his decision. What is with our establishment that we are hell bent on keeping everyone else happy (Chinese, US) but not caring about the rights of our own citizens?

Bhaichung feels that carrying the torch would send a wrong signal or he feels that since he is a Buddhist he must take a stand in the case of Tibet he must take a stand. Whatever. That is his right.

Its strange that we are OK with people who are carrying the torch - Leander (I am proud to be an Indian) Paes and PT (politics and sports should be seperate) Usha, but we do not praise someone like Bhaichung. In any case there have been times when we have refused to play countries due to political disagreements.

PS Does someone up there love Aamir Khan? He keeps making these politically naive statement s and then ties himself into knots. But the media never takes him to task. Every time he opens his mouth they wait as if pearls of wisdom are going to fall again.

This time he is carrying the torch not for China but with a prayer for the Tibetans. On his blog he defends himself by saying :

In fact if we were to try and find on this planet a place to hold the Olympic Games where the government of that place has not been responsible for human rights violations (in one way or the other), then I suspect that we would be left with very few options, if any at all. If I am not mistaken almost all societies have been responsible for human rights violation either directly or indirectly, sometimes in seen ways and sometimes in unseen ways, sometimes physically, sometimes economically.

Wow! What?????????????????

Its funny that the more educated we are, we can defend even the silliest of behaviours because we have mastered the language and argue better...

I think I will buy a ticket to Beijing and get away from it all.

Enjoying local cuisine

2008-03-28T07:35:00.004+05:30

Spent the day in Fort Kochi while returning from Kerala wandering the streets looking for such knick knacks as enamel mugs. A wanted to try out some local cuisine (in this case meen moily) for lunch.

It took us seven restaurants and a 45 minute walk around Fort Kochi on which I kept insisting that there is no point in looking for Kerala food. Finally we climbed four flights up to a roof top place which served the fish Kerala Style.

I am not a great fan of local food in touristy places in India since they rarely serve it and even if they do - it is in a bastardized form. The best way to taste local cuisine is at someone's home or with a traditional cook.

I remember traveling to Udipi where we had a full meal (on a banana leaf) in a temple kitchen with the ingredients being made in front of us. Another time when I stayed in Mizoram, we just had home cooked food for an entire month. Its a different matter that by the end I had had enough pork for a lifetime!

But otherwise when traveling in India, popular destinations (Pushkar, Manali, Goa) have very few options for cheap authentic local cuisine. Most restaurants serve Italian, Israeli and Chinese dishes. In fact Indian Chinese is the most popular cuisine on offer. This is in contrast with places like Paris or Istanbul where local food is a big thing on your list of things to do.

In India places which serve local stuff are either tucked away in some crowded market (Karim's) or very expensive/inaccessible (Chokhi Dhani, Vishala). Most touristy places are happier serving foreigners with their own food.

But I am not complaining too much since I get to eat hummus once in a while.

The Reluctant Migrant

2008-03-23T20:40:00.004+05:30

Got into a flight for Kochi and immediately a conversation as I sat on my seat.

"Are you going to Kochi?"

I nodded. The guy was clutching grey bad and was wearing a cap. (Inside the plane !)

"Do you stay there ? Are you working there?"

I shook my head.

"I am going to meet my parents."

A sigh of relief.

" I am going to Kerala for the first time. Have got a job. Government job."

He looked around. His voice dropped.

"What kind of a place is it? Will I get a cheap place to stay? Can they understand Hindi?"

"Where are you from ?"

"Bihar..."

I smiled.

"Why do you worry ? Its OK..."

"I am going for the first time. Outside my place. I don't know what kind of place will it be."

I gave up. This guy had a sarkari job and was shitting bricks about moving to a new place. What about those who migrate to the metros without any guarantee, no place to stay...

And these are the people that politicians warn are ruining the cities.

I have a crush

2008-03-19T08:58:00.005+05:30

So do you tell the person (you are attracted to)?

I am not talking about imaginary beauties like Salma Hayek and Monica Bellucci here. Real people you work with or meet by chance. Last night, a friend and I got into a discussion. She had been working with someone on a project and now it was time to say goodbyes. And she was in two minds - should she tell this guy that she had a crush on him?

In my book (since I am the kinds who never tells anyone anything about the affairs of my heart) this is a NO. And this is not a case of being committed or anything. The first time I had a crush (that I still remember) must have been around ten. It was a distant cousin and the sole reason for the attraction was that while all of us were playing she insisted on sitting at the edge of the field and reading a book. Now being a worse book junkie than her, somehow the sight of her sitting on the edge of the field at a distance, engrossed in the book, appealed to me. But did I tell her? No. But that was maybe because I had no clue what to say.

But even when i understood what was happening, I would never reveal a thing. Of course once in a while I would slip up. Like this girl I had a crush on in college. We never discussed the issue since both of us were committed. Or so we pretended that was the reason. Years later while discussing the ups and downs of her relationship (with another man), I ended up revealing my attraction and BOOM! she admitted it too. It was almost like we were playing a card game as to who would reveal first. But admitting did not change things much. So my argument - what's the point?

Other times I remember working alongside or meeting (in one case an old lady who used to braid her hair with strips of coloured cloth running through her hair) someone, where you just enjoy the moment since that is something you can never recreate. You are scared that telling would break the whole thing up. In any case even if one doesn't, our actions betray us all the time. When we are around the person, we are always doing things to impress or act nonchalant so as to not say something stupid.

The tough part is not to say it out - it is to keep the mystery, the game going so that both parties enjoy the trip. There is so much written about declaring your love, being honest and being true to one's emotions, I think it time to try the opposite.

Because, sometimes when all is said, there may be nothing else left to say.

How to be a 100 % dilliwalah (Suggestion No 4)

2008-03-16T13:04:00.005+05:30

Take a walk. (even the NY Times approves this one)

When in Delhi you need to be seen walking. Not to your local market. That you have to do in a car. What I am talking about is walking for exercise.

The first thing is location. This has to be Lodi Garden. Preferably in the evenings around 6. There are some guys who do this in the mornings but the only guys who see them walking are serious walkers. Who wants to be seen with them? Evenings are better.

During the evenings you get to be seen with the best of crowds. There will the young MP walking with his family and his security tagging along. The security guys would all be toting guns pretending to be normal. Then of course there would be the older exeutives who would be talking on their mobiles and walking - both activities vital for their health. They might be accompanied by their wives who will be fixing up dinner plans for the evening. Last but not the least would be the older ladies with solitaires fixed on different parts of their bodies.

What will be your gear? This is the easiest since it is the same for men and women. Repeat after me. Branded stuff. With labels in your face. Never mind if the sweat shirt is a little too tight. In fact it will be good if there are some bulges. But the shoes need to be new and with shiny strips one can spot form a distance. And not pets. Except stuff toys which your kids can drag along.

Walking etiquettes. Act busy. This is of course easier with cell phone or an i pod fiddling with it pretending to solve some major world crisis with that boy toy. The other method is to stare into the distance and walk with a purpose.

If someone gives you an eye contact, never smile. Unless it is someone you know. In case of an acquaintance wave a - Hi, how are you and walk on. If it is a friend stand on the path, blocking other people and talk loudly. If it is your boss be ready with an excuse (medical) why you are here when you should be in the office chasing the client. If it is your stock broker uncle make a quick about turn and run into the bushes near by. Stay there till the danger passes away.

Once you are done walking (about one and half rounds) drive down to Khan Market (of course you drove down to Lodi in a car- why would you walk?) and help yourself to a large cold coffee and shake your head smugly at the people lazing at the coffee shop.

music in films

2008-03-13T19:16:00.005+05:30

A fellow blogger sent me this link about the sound design in No Country For Old Men - how the sound editor Skip Livesay and the Coen Brothers' regular composer Carter Burwell ended up producing a sound track that had minimal or no music to speak of. The effect is actually quite the opposite - the silences drive the plot. But good sound or music is never appreciated. As Skip Livesay himself puts it:

The better we do our job, the less people realize what’s going on...

Most of Hindi film music is wall to wall music with little time for aural relief. Single instrument pieces or silences do not get the respect they deserve except in a film like Sholay. Last night I was watching A Few Dollars More and it struck me how the main theme music of the hand watch is used cleverly.

The first time you hear it is when the villain Gian Maria Volonte challenges an informer to a gun fight. When the hand watch is opened, the music starts playing and this runs or some time. As soon as the music stops, you are supposed to fire your gun. What the music director does is that first he starts the watch music and then after some time he introduces a louder piece of music that overpowers the watch music. Then you hear the watch music again, this time about to come an end. The effect is that the scene is stretched out and the tension keeps building.

This use of a louder piece of music to drown another piece is rare in the sense that you still are left with the sound of the hand watch at the end of the scene. It draws our attention to the watch since it is important to the story. In the end it builds up to a huge climax where the three main characters are left standing.

Just see this last scene and how the music builds the tension.