Kneeling at the altar of Odyne

Pain. Everyone knows it. You, me everyone.

It comes in different flavours. Each one of which tastes and feels different to the one feeling it. It is like a big giant tub of Swirls. You are the one responsible for what goes in it and you will be the one who will have to bear it.

It can be purely physical. Like a mosquito bite. Or like the pain a 7 year old suffering from Meningitis feels when an entire team of medical personnel is trying to pin him down to reach a needle down to his bone marrow.

Or it can be purely mental. Like the one you feel on the death of a loved one. Or the pain which you cause – to a parent, a lover, a friend. That is the kind you feverishly hope will some how miss its target and turn around towards yourself. It does.

But it also hits its target.

After some time, with a little help, you start forgetting about the pain. Or you THINK you’ve forgotten.

But it never really goes away. It is always there. Always lurking in the shadows, ready to leap at you at the slightest mis-step from your side. It can make this leap at anytime it fancies, hours/days after you felt it for the first time. Or years, even decades, after you felt its presence. And everytime it does the same thing to you – leave you semi-conscious, bloodied and desperately trying to hold your guts from flowing out from the view of the external world.

Each one of us is walking around in a spotlight of sorts. With all the ‘pains’ you’ve felt or caused moving with you, hiding in the bushes of your path.

You never know when one of them will leap at you.

(2LFT) Why do people like old, hindi movie music?

If given a choice between old and new Hindi movie music, most people will choose old Hindi movie OSTs.

Everyone knows people who start cribbing and reminiscing about ‘the good, old days’ as soon as another tasteless melody starts playing on the telly/radio.

Ever wondered why it may be so?

I mean, the amount of talent available across eras should remain constant, right? It can’t be that suddenly all the talent in the country disappeared with the arrival of the 80s and people started dancing to Ta-thaiya-ta-thaiya and other weird Jeetendra numbers. More so, the amount of talent on display should actually go up because of the various talent hunts that keep going on nowadays. Right?

My hypothesis: People are stupid (Fact). They don’t realize that as time passes, only the real gems created in a period would survive and the crap would get washed away. So the Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi stuff that you hear from the 60’s and the 70’s and are so in love with is actually only the good stuff that they must’ve sung. All the shit created in that period would’ve disappeared over time. So if you ever call the 60’s or the 70’s the golden era of Hindi movie music, remember that 50 years from now, the 90’s and the 00’s may also be called the ‘golden era’ (or whatever they call it then).

This hypothesis also raises an interesting question: Would the drivel that gets created today ever disappear? What with youtube etc. around to capture them and store them for eternity? Shouldn’t we do a voluntary purging (in the name of good taste) of the tasteless music that gets created these days and leave out only the good stuff?

Just wondering.

(P. S. 2LFT stands for ‘Too Long for Twitter’. Stuff that is too long to communicate in a couple of tweets. Basically,  a set of posts where I jot down whatever I feel like, without caring too much about it making sense. Wait. Isn’t that true for the rest of my posts too? )

What’s your language?

During the course of my arbitrary browsing today, I came across an article by Vikram Chandra in the Boston Review. Though Mr. Chandra’s motivation for writing the article came from something that would never happen to most of us (how many of us are likely to be accosted in a party and accused of writing books pandering to western sensibilities?), the feelings expressed in the article is something I have experienced many times.

I was born into a household that on a census form would undoubtedly be tagged as “Mother Tongue: Hindi.” But I called my mother “Mummy” and my father “Daddy.” They spoke to me in Hindi sprinkled with English. Sitting on my mother’s lap, I read newspapers in English. English was everywhere in the world I grew up in, and continues to be an inextricable thread in the texture of every day I live in Bombay and in India. English is spoken on the playgrounds, and we tell folk tales in it, we riddle each other and joke with each other in it, and we make up nonsense verse and nursery rhymes and films in it. Along with many other languages, it is spoken in the slums, on the busses and in the post offices and the police stations and the court rooms. English has been spoken and written in on the Indian subcontinent for a few hundred years now, certainly longer than the official and literary Hindi that is our incompletely national language today. I for one hear registers aplenty ringing away in it, and as it is spoken and written more widely, these registers will expand. A language is a living thing. A patois born in soldiers’ camps not so long ago became Urdu, whose beauty ravishes our hearts. To love Urdu for her low origins and her high refinements, for her generous heart and her reckless love, is not to give up Punjabi. What a mean economy of love and belonging it must be, in which one love is always traded in for another, in which a heart is so small that it can only contain one jannat, one heaven. How fearsome must be this empty land where each new connection must inevitably mean the loss of all roots, all family, each song you may have ever sung in the past. Any ghazal-maker, any Mareez, I think, would flee from such a hellish wasteland. But my region, where Kalidas Gupta Raza continues to sing his passion for Urdu, is different. If Hindi is my mother-tongue, then English has been my father-tongue. I write in English, and I have forgotten nothing, and I have given up nothing. And I know the tastes and quirks and nuances of my regional audience, of the people who live in the locality of Andheri, in the colony of Lokhandwalla, as well or better than any Bengali poet knows her regional audience.

I couldn’t help but feel that the first half of the paragraph above would be true for most of us. We grow up in such a bilingual state that sometimes it becomes difficult to clearly say which our language is. I mean, most of the people I know are well versed in two to four languages. As the author says in the article quoted above,“Now, in this, my region, it is very very common for a person to speak one language at home, use another on the street, do business in a third, and make love in a fourth.”

But still, when people accuse you, even good naturedly, of ditching your language in favor of the ”foreign” English, it can’t help but sting you a bit. Especially so when it comes from people you love. And even more so when the cause of the comment is because you like to watch movies and listen to music created in a western language.

Hell, does it even matter what language the lyrics of the song are written in? It’s true that not knowing the language can deprive you of the beauty of the lyrics, but so what? As long as the music captivates you, should you even care that you don’t understand the literal meaning of the singer’s words? In my opinion, a U2 ballad is as beautiful as a Sigur Rós song which is as beautiful as an A R Rahman composition.

Oh, you say you can’t sing along a Sigur Ros song if you don’t know Icelandic? Take Calvin’s advice and make up your own words!

Next come the movies. Just because I refuse to consume all the crap Bollywood throws at me, does it mean that I am an angrez? There are some very good movies produced in Bollywood as well as some outstandingly atrocious ones in Hollywood. The trick is to pick and choose your way through.  As long as the visual imagery captivates me, as long as I like the story’s flow, the language can be Klingon for all I care. If you are so worried about not following all the dialogues, just download a subtitle file. Who’s stopping you? And believe me, it DOES NOT make you look illiterate. Only more human.

Lastly, it does annoy me that the moment I try to write in my mother tongue, my hand wobbles like a newly born deer fawn. But it lasts only a few moments before it picks up the rhythm of old. It’s just that a decade of writing exclusively in the English Alphabet can be difficult to shake off immediately. Reading, on the other hand, poses no such problem. It is just that I’ve become so accustomed to reading in English that I don’t feel the need to look for something to read in any other language.Though this is something that I would love to do in the future.

So, if you are not watching movies, listening to music in languages foreign to your own, you don’t know what you’re missing. And you would be better placed doing these rather than telling me what I do and don’t do.

Sigur Rós

It is time.

One day in the not so distant future, Amit Varma gets called to the Slimes Now! Studio to participate in a TV debate on an ‘offensive’ tweet. The scenes below are what actually happens at the studio:

Scene 1: The Congress Party spokesperson Tom Bada ‘dhakkan’ starts to sprout the result of his extensive research into the phenomenon called Twitter while the anchor blabbers on…

Scene 2: Jab Amit Varma ko gussa aata hai to kahin koi server down hota hai!

Scene 3: But, thankfully, there is a rolled up HT to come to Varma’s rescue.
(Next scene sponsored by Hindustan Times)

(Disclaimer: Any non-resemblance to any person, living or dead, is the result of my own clumsiness and lack of any artistic bone in my body.)

Inspiration behind the pics is the twitter exchange between me and @quatrainman yesterday: Here and here. And this post on IndiaUncut.

Breaking News: VHP hails Tharoor, calls him true Hindu.

In an interesting development to yesterday’s controversy about MoS for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor’s tweet, the VHP and the Sangh Parivar has extended its full support to the hassled minister. In a press conference organized at its HQ today, the VHP has called Tharoor a true Hindu and alleged that the Congress is hounding him as part of an Italian conspiracy to destroy our cows.

When pressed for comments, the VHP President said that the fact that Tharoor offered solidarity with our holy cows is proof of his hinduness. He also dared the press to show one statement in which a “Congresswala” has called our cows ‘Holy’. He also took strong umbrage at Jayanti Natrajan’s statement calling the cattle class reference as insulting. The Gau is given the status of a Mother in ancient Hindu scriptures, and so belonging to her ‘class’ should be a honour and not an insult, he further added. 

The VHP president also alleged that the hounding of Tharoor is an Italian Conspiracy to annihilate India’s ‘Gau Dhan’. He said, “The Italians have always been jealous of our immense bovine population and have been looking for ways to convert them into steaks”. He said that the Italians are in cahoots with the aliens who have made covert attempts to steal out cows in the past, until India TV exposed their nefarious designs.

There are also speculations that the BJP has invited Tharoor to join their party and promised him a major post in the soon-to-be-revapmed party structure.

(Dislaimer:  This ‘news’ is as fake as the hair on Rakesh Roshan’s head. The writer means no offence to any religion, organization or person. Everything in the post above is in keeping up with the writer’s own bad sense of humour and non-existent religious beliefs. As he is so fond of reminding everyone, blasphemy is his only religion.) 

Pic Source: Rusty Leech’s blog (Rusty Without Wheels)

Sqrt(3) x Sqrt(3)

Imagine what would happen if one of the characters of XKCD jumps out of the frame and decides to propose to another?

How would he/she do it?

This is how.

I fear that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed.

Kal Penn FTW!

Review: My friend, Sancho

(Attempting a review for the first time. Comments welcome )

The first thing that you notice on picking up the book, apart from the beautiful reader-designed cover, is the big font. The big font size takes the reader’s attention away (and maybe towards) the realization that this is more of an extended short story and less of a novel in the conventional sense. The narrative flows in a single chord and prevents the reader’s attention from being diverted anywhere else. Though this makes it difficult to complete the book in multiple sittings and warrants demands a single sitting to complete it, at some points in the narrative you may feel the itch to go deeper in to the lives of the secondary characters.

The book essentially revolves around the characters of the narrator, Abir Ganguli and Muneeza, a lower middle class muslim girl and how their relationship changes as they get to know each other. Muneeza’s character may seem a bit unrealistic at times but the care which Varma has taken to bring out the confusion in her and Abir’s mind makes you forget it soon.

Apart from these two, there are only two other characters in the story with any semblance of a back story. One is Mohammed Iqbal, who is dead in the first 5 pages and does not make an appearance in the book alive. The second is Inspector Thombre, the man responsible for Iqbal’s death. Iqbal’s character is brought forth through the discussions the protagonist has with his daughter, Muneeza after his death. Whereas Thombre enjoys the privilege of being able to tell his own story and makes the best of it. His monologue on his personal and professional life and the role of government in society is a classic. Varma has made sure that he maintains Thombre’s conversational style throughout the monologue and doesn’t let his own (Varma’s) voice take over. This is commendable specially since this is a theme that Varma repeatedly allures to in his blog.

The other characters like the characters of Abir’s mother and bosses are pretty much uni-dimensional, to the point that they can each be described in a single line. Though it must be said that they really don’t have much of a role in the book. Still it would have been nice to see behind these uni-dimensional figures and know what they think.

The one sore point in the book for me was the ending. I felt it came on too suddenly and leaves a lot of questions unanswered in the reader’s mind. It almost feels like Varma is intentionally leaving the story hanging so as to be able to bring out a sequel later on.

The style of writing is nice and easy and peppered with humorous references of the kind that you read in Varma’s blog. Varma has said in a couple of places that the only thing common between Abir and him is the sense of humor that they share. For regulars readers of IndiaUncut, this fact is apparent even though there is a marked absence of cows in the story.

The author says that he has attempted to straddle the space between popular fiction (think Chetan Bhagat) and literary fiction (think Amitav Ghosh). Comparing MFS to the work of Chetan Bhagat, it must be said that the latter’s style is more reachable to readers in non-urban settings whereas MFS’s success would mostly be limited to metros. The mind of the narrator works like a typical upper middle class metropolitan youth (which he is) and may be difficult for non-urban readers to understand his dilemmas.

All in all, a very credible first attempt. Immensely enjoyable and entertaining but for the above points.

My own little Mini Cooper imitation.

Better pictures soon. Promise.

Gmail and Facebook – Substitute Products?

Logging in to twitter tonight i found a pretty interesting tweet from Daryl Mather. He said “If Google could leverage it’s email infrastructure Facebook would be obsolete”. Okay.

Now lets think about why we use email in the first place. To send messages. To keep in touch. To send pics. To share interesting things with people we know.

In one word, to “Connect”.

But wait a minute. Isn’t that what the social networking sites are for?

Now imagine what would happen if we turn around Darly’s statement?

What if we say – “If Facebook could leverage it’s email infrastructure Google would be obsolete”

Does it make sense?

I mean, if Facebook could provide an email address (you@facebook.com), provide the ability to fwd mails and messages, tag and group mails and do all the other cool things that gmail allows us to do, wouldn’t that be awesome? It already has all the other things with it. It is already the biggest database of photographs. You can embed videos in it, you can share links with people. Almost everything that you would want from an email id is right there.

Or is it?

(P.S. These are just a few thoughts that came to my mind after reading Daryl’s tweet. I am considering Google = Gmail here. Do let me know if it makes any sense. Comment, Mail or Send me a tweet or scribble on my wall)

And yeah, if you miss me around here, you know where to find me now )

Visionary

Yesterday night DT and me were chatting about how we should ditch our jobs and start our own venture. And the first thing I could come up with, as soon as we had identified the sector that we could be in, was the Vision Statement of our imaginary company.

Is something wrong with me?

(P.S. Read an outrageously funny review of the “blockbuster” Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani here. Complete with extraordinary accompanying visuals. ROTFL)