Alter Ego

Phir Mile (Beep) Mera Tumhara

2010-01-31T10:43:00.007-06:00

So, Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara is out, and nearly everybody has nearly unequivocally ripped it apart; but when somebody like KrishAshok tears into something, the funniest lines will have been written and the most appropriate analogies will have been drawn, leaving us less funny mortals to scrap for the residual raping rights. Anyway, the video has piqued me enough to unleash upon you unsuspecting readers another review.

There are two ways we can rate the new PMSMT- either by comparing it to the original MSMT, which we all acknowledge is an outright classic, or by critiquing the video itself. But as Linkin Park will inform you at 200 decibels and 300 words per minute, in the end it doesn’t even matter. The video- running an incredibly long 16 minutes- has its moments, but all the good work is undone by the halo effect, according to which we allow our impression about one aspect of an object to spill over to all other aspects; so the few priceless moments in PMSMT are overshadowed by nearly 12 minutes of unadulterated drivel. Allow me to elaborate.

1. The Intro & other good bits

The video started like a dream- Rahman playing a melodious classical piece on a snazzy little continuum keyboard, followed by Bachchan Sr kicking off the verse in front of the Gateway. Honestly, the start couldn’t have been better. The scene shifts to a beach where Shankar Mahadevan arm-twists the tune Hariharan-style, with Loy and Ehsaan smiling broadly and playing the keyboard and guitar respectively. Impressive, but would’ve been better if Ehsaan wasn’t frozen on one chord and Loy turned the volume up a notch.

Everybody who actually sang or played an instrument was good (with the dishonorable exception of Sonu Nigam and Bhupen Hazarika)- Pt.Shivkumar Sharma, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan & Sons, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Shreya Ghoshal, Yesudas, Bengali contingent, Gurdas Mann, Unidentified Marwadi Singer, the rock band, etc. Kavita Krishnamurti/y/hi/hy and co. were good too, but why were they in the middle of a forest? And why did L.Subramaniam’s son have to do the arms wide open thing? Subramaniamji, please call pest control and exterminate all traces of Shahrukh Khan from your house.

2. The Tamil bit

If you ask me what the best part of MSMT was (even if you don’t), I’d instantly say –and this has nothing to do with my Tamilianness- it was Balamuralikrishna walking along the beach singing his Isaindhal bit with a host of Tamilian celebrities ranging from Revathi and Kamal Hassan to Ramesh Krishnan and Srinivas finger-up-my neighbour’s-nose Venkataraghavan listening obediently. The way BMK intonates at the final Namm Isai still gives me goose bumps.

Circa 2010- Two well-rehearsed, well-dressed, well-exercised Tamil actors- Vikram and Surya- replace the balding, ugly, black patch-on-face BMK who just happens to be a fantastic singer. What we want to see of course is two actors, who probably need 25 takes to give a passable expression, charming us with their signature chest thumping and arms-wide-open poses while lip-syncing to a singer who discovered just yesterday he had a vocal cord. I’ll never forgive him for raping the final Namm Isai.

3. Bollywood ladies

MSMT had Sharmila, Tanuja, Hema, Waheeda, Shabana and probably one or two others mouth one line and vanish immediately. This time around, we have lengthy individual bits with the talking point being, as you must already know, Deepika being dragged out of her bed for the song because of which the poor girl couldn’t even wear a pyjama. So sad. The ladies’ bits were like having the trailers of their next films playing back to back. But I still fail to understand, why Deepika? Why Shilpa Shetty? And it was all so artificial, especially Aishwaxrya Rai making soft eyes first to the overhead electrical cables and then to the ants on the floor of the bus.

4. Shiamuck and Shobana

This bit was, well, hmm, let’s see…I can’t do justice to it- stop all current activity and head to KrishAshok’s blog. What he says is so true!

5. 2/3 Khans

It was nice to have a segment on sign language for the deaf and dumb. But was it really necessary to have a celebrity sitting in their midst? Why not have the caretaker of that lovely school instead? And if they had to use Salman why couldn’t he cover himself up? Yes, yes Salman, we know your biceps and chest are the only things visible from the moon- but this is a video on national integration, not a concert where you measure the cubic centimeters of saliva shed by the female folk. And besides, why caricature yourself? We laugh at you anyway.

And Aamir, O Aamir, he whose quality control sieve would not allow a fake moustache to pass through ,agreed to fuse Aati Kya Khandala and Mile Sur Mera Tumhara? The tune was bad, out of sur with the song, and had the kids –the object of that piece- languishing in the background while you-the savior of the tyrannical education system- take centre stage. Looks like Ghajini really hit you with that rod the other day, which is why you come up with names like Phunsuk Wangdu and now this.

4. Sonu Nigam and the super heroes

So we are 13 minutes into the song and have already ODed on Bollywood; the song is already on the edge of the precipice with one foot over the edge and the suicide speech into its 13^th minute- time for a Bollywood-style rescue and a classic finish? Or a kick to the butt and subsequent freefall? The latter. The wrecker-in-chief is Sonu Nigam, who tried to look hep in is new hairdo but was really George Harrison-meets-poodle. The man has a lovely voice and doesn’t need to wohohowohoho like the anti-talented Anu Malik. Anyway, that was the least of the problems considering what was to follow.

Sonu sings for Messrs Shahid Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, and – drumroll- Shahrukh Khan who are present at an empty stage, an arbit hilltop in an arbit jungle (unless it the place YSR’s copter crashed or Veerappan entertained his hostages, I don’t see the significance of the location), and the magnificent Worli Sea Link respectively. The problem with this segment was that the tune was raped beyond salvage, neither Shahid nor Ranbir merited a place in the video, and SRK did his arms-wide-open ™ again. As KrishAshok said, if Gabbar was alive, “he would take those hands and spare us all.”

5. And finally

After 15 minutes of B/K/M/Tollywood and seeing varieties of celebrities in varieties of clothes with a variety of postcard backgrounds, our sportsmen and women possessing mediocre credentials such as Olympic medals and World Championships make a slideshow appearance- many of them were actually running in the video- symbolic perhaps of their running to the producers to find a place. The video was wrapped up with a token few seconds of our Armed Forces- the guys directly responsible for every breath we take.

6. Conspicuous by their absence

MSMT premiered in 1988. In the ensuing 22 years, what have been India’s biggest stories? A liberalized economy characterized by the blossoming of first generation (NRM), second generation (Ambani and Ambani), and nth generation (Ratan Tata) entrepreneurs; a demi god felling people around the world with a piece of blunt wood and going by the mysterious initials of SRT; a couple of tennis players who collect Grand Slams like SRK collects Filmfares; the Green Revolution attaining critical mass; and a scientist and visionary par excellence who also happened to be the most loved President of India- a post which, till then, was just the fastest way to collect frequent flyer miles. But none of these icons have made it to the video because, come on admit it, they have ungainly pot-bellies and cannot do a rockstar impersonation like Shahid Kapoor can.

7. Final thoughts

Sequels are rarely well-received; especially when the original is still so fresh in our memories. Probably a 15-year old who has been watching Friends and Aaj Tak ever since he’s learned to flush the toilet will like it; for people like me who grew up with DD, it’s impossible to watch the video without bias; so I didn’t try. When you call the song Phir MSMT, you had better be prepared to stand up to comparisons. The old video had celebrities sharing screen space with each other- not only did this save time but also symbolized unity in a way. The celebs were only part of the picture and you could almost not notice them at times (I only recently realized it had Om Puri). The aam aadmi mouthed a number of lines- who can forget that Malayali on the elephant singing Ende Swaramum or the Bengalis milling out of the train with Tomar Sur Moder Sur playing in the background? PMSMT sadly needed a recognizable face for every segment, and every celeb needed exclusive air time; no Amitabh-Jeetendra-Mithun style camaraderie here. I wouldn’t blame the celebs for this- Mile Sur is a legendary video, and nobody will turn down an offer to be a part of it; hell, even Aamir agreed!

Moreover, MSMT was crisp at 6 minutes and even though it featured a number of languages, the flow was beautiful- you always knew you were listening to one song. Here, there were too many breaks- total breaks; it might as well have been 8 different songs some engineering kid merged on Windows Movie Maker on a lazy Monday morning. The only perfect transition was Zakir Hussain-to-Bengali group; that was well done.

I’d say shoot the damn video again; let AR Rahman and Amit Trivedi compose it together so that we can at least shut our eyes and listen to a good song.

Breaking News Update- Raj Thackeray has threatened to pull all posters of the song off Mumbai’s walls and ban its release. His party objected to Marathi being featured in the 12^th minute and getting only an 8-second coverage, a gross underrepresentation for a state that contributes 15% to the national GDP. When he was informed the song began in Mumbai and featured the sea link, and that the song had no posters and was released on TV, the MNS, in an official reply said, "Jai Maharashtra".

What you didn't know about Dravid's injury

2010-01-29T13:23:00.001-06:00

Wheel of Fortune

2010-01-16T22:31:00.001-06:00

Indian Team Selection Methodology

2010-01-15T12:34:00.003-06:00

Click to enlarge

Teentho Idiots- Reviewed

2009-12-25T11:46:00.006-06:00

An Aamir Khan film is one of the most anticipated events in India, next only to Sachin's x thousandth run and yth century. It's amazing to see Aamir's physical transformation from the almost-bald concrete-abbed Sanjay Singhania, who could break steel rods by sneezing on them, to the charming 22-year old with well-coiffed hair and a body frail enough to justify time spent in an engineering hostel mess. Rajkunod Chorani and Aamir Khan seemed strange bedfellows, but I'm glad to report that 3 Idiots has achieved the rare honour of becoming the first movie to be praised on this page. Not that I haven't liked movies before this, but I'm stuck on 13 posts for the year since October, and have to make this exception to stem the rot.

The movie is about 3 engineering students studying in Imperial College of Engineering- an institute with more applicants per year than the IITs and a worse selection ratio than Ramaiah. It is an engineering equivalent of Mohabbatein's Gurukul in that it is headed by a self-righteous control-freak (Boman Irani as Viru Sahastrabudhhe, or Virus), but one who spews equations instead of sanskaarparampaararitirivaazniyamanushaasan. It is your typical engineering college where students focus on grades and jobs, and are tested for their gigabytes and not creativity. Enter Rancho (Aamir)- a creative kid who has the engineering nous to electrocute seniors peeing outside his room and deliver babies with vacuum cleaners. His best friends and roommates - Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman)- consistently scrape the bottom of the class while he goofs around, plays pranks, gets in trouble with Virus, but still manages to top the class thanks to his ingenuity.

The movie keeps alternating between the present -where years after college, Farhan and Raju are desperately looking for Rancho, who disappeared before the rest could catch their airborne graduation topis- and the past, which shows their experiences during college. In the course of four years Rancho manages to do the following-

1. Peeing senior electrocution and vacuum cleaner baby delivery
2. Screw up his rival-in-chief Chatur Ramalingam's Teachers Day speech by replacing chamatkaar with balaatkaar. Subsequently CR challenges him to come back to the same spot he's now standing at 10 years later and see who's more successful.
3. Break Kareena's (Boman's daughter) engagement using pudina chutney and an expensive watch
4. Create an inverter powered by car batteries
5. Make a helicopter fly
6. Drive Boman crazy
7. Save Sharman from suicide and subsequently flick question papers from Boman's office to help Sharman pass
8. Distribute free advice and convince his buddies about the therapeutic powers of chanting Aal Izz Well
9. Irritate Kareena, fall in requited love with her
10. Convince Madhavan to ditch engineering and take up wildlife photography

and much much more.

Eventually, the friends track down Rancho, who it turns out, is not Rancho but Phunsuk Wangdu - a hot shot scientist who runs an alternative school in Ladakh. The real Rancho (Javed Jaffrey) is using PW's B.Tech degree; watch the back story yourself, I'm not writing a bloody book on 3 Idiots. And in the vein of a good commercial movie, Kareena runs away from her wedding when she knows Aamir has been traced.

I loved the movie for a number of reasons. It was earnest, like all Rajkunod movies are, and had a number of laugh-out-loud moments. It reminded me of my engineering days and had some cracking lines like- It's bad to see your friend fail but worse to see him succeed (I know Greatbong has written the same, but I swear this is the only thing I've pilfered). It was not high on moral values- watch the scene in Sharman's house when Aamir and Madhavan torn between deciding whether to console Sharman or his grieving mother, choose to eat matar paneer instead; and which mainstream movie would show you a bunch of engineering students actually playing midwives delivering a baby on a TT table? If Yash Chopra had ever read this script, he would have been aghast at the sanskaarlessness of it.

The movie was also a back-handed slap on the Indian education system, which really does not encourage original thinking. I can relate to it, because I am one of those same high grades - job in US - MBA - (probably) I-bank guys Aamir was talking about. You have the occasional maverick like Aamir, but given the pitiable funding for research in India and hence the bandar-chhaap faculty, most end up chasing the pot of gold instead of enjoying the process of learning. The director's style of passing on this message did seem clichéd and needlessly melodramatic at places, but was generally humorous.

Madhavan was good as the nice, easygoing guy who never managed to rise above the last rank. What I liked is they showed him as a normal yuppie guy unlike the stereotypical image of a last-ranker who would be neck deep in ganja and daaru and be in "bad company" and do "bad things". Kareena was cute and did well whenever Hirani realized he was paying her too much to just Zoobi Doobi around. The funda of her running away from her wedding was a little stupid, but then, this was always going to be a feel-good film, which was fine by me. The guy who played Chatur was good as was Boman Irani, who managed to pull off the authoritarian director quite well. Aamir, ever the maverick, pulls off his bit quite nicely. He could have called this Taree Aasmaan Mein with him playing the grown up Ishaan Awasthi or Taare Underground with him playing the young Nikumbh; the role was really interpolated from these two. But the real star for me was Sharman Joshi, who was excellent as the kid under pressure from a poor household. This should be a career changing role for the guy, but given it's an Aamir movie, he might not get the attention he deserves. Still, hats off to his performance.

The one real weakness was the music which was so bad we all left for a collective restroom break when Zoobi Doobi played. Other than that, it is a highly recommended movie. Watch it for the humour and the performances. You'll come out saying Aal Izz Well.

A Brief Timeline of Wake Up Sid's Release

2009-10-03T02:26:00.015-05:00

Disclaimer- All real names & events in this post have been modified to suit the content of this post. The content of the post itself is completely fictitious.

August 2009- Wake Up Sid slated for release on October 2nd

September 29, 2009- Indian Watchmakers Association alleges the title literally undermines the ability of alarm clocks. Asks the producers to make it a period film or change the title. Matter sub-judice; release delayed.

September 30, 2009- Organization of Fanatic Buddhists protest against the title for insinuating that Siddhartha, the enlightened, is yet to wake up.

October 7, 2009- Producers change title to Grow Up Siddle; kill two birds with one stone. Movie redubbed to replace Sid with Siddle; music CDs pulled off shelf, title song rewritten, new CD on stands on October 20. Movie to be released on October 23.

October 20, 2009- Complan protests against the title's implication that an adult has not yet grown up in a country where their product makes palm trees of everyone. Matter sub-judice; release delayed.

November 20, 2009- Title changed to Siddle Grew Up; the coming-of-age scene re-shot to show Ranbir drinking Complan. Movie slated for release on November 27.

November 25, 2009- BSP workers ransack Dharma Productions office claiming Maya, and not Siddle, grew UP. Matter sub-judice; release delayed.

December 10, 2009- Title changed to Get Mature Siddle. Dubbing redone; movie to be finally released on 18 December

December 16, 2009- 20 Indians attacked in separate incidents in Australia. Peter Siddle's family objects to their son being asked to get mature. SM Krishna rushes to Australia. Release delayed.

January 2010- Title changed to Get Mature Da. Whole sections of the movie re-shot. Movie to be released in April 2010.

January 2010- DMK objects to the use of a Tamilian nickname for a Hindi-speaking actor. Demands Rajnikanth be cast and the movie be made in Tamil, or the title changed. Jayalalitha jailed.

February 2010- Producers inform DMK that it's the Bengali Da.

February 2010- TMC objects to the use of a Bengali word for a Hindi-speaking actor. Demands Buddhadeb Basu's resignation.

March 2010- Producers play safe; change title to Get Mature Vikram. Re-shooting pushes release date to August. Ranbir changes name to Ranbeer for better fortunes.

July 2010- Tharoor tweets "Why the obs'sion wth a ttle? Wht abt the content? If a nme meant evrythng, Gandhi wld be considered dirty."

July - August 2010- Massive protests nationwide against Tharoor's tweet for denigrating Gandhi. CNN-IBN's new poll- Was Tharoor right? (Y/N)

August 2010- Mahesh Bhatt announces his next project Get Mature Shashi, a hard-hitting story about Twitter, sex, and drugs.

August 2010- Karan Johar sues Mahesh Bhatt for piggybacking on his movie. Mahesh Bhatt counter-sues Karan for using his nephew's name without permission. Karan Johar informs him Vikram is a common name; says "You throw a stone, you hit a Vikram".

August 2010- Karan's comments hurt sentiments of Tamil actor Vikram's fans. Vow to build him a temple with all the stones thrown. Demand the movie not be released in Tamil Nadu.

August 2010- Karan makes peace with Vikram's fan club. Decides to delay the release date to October 2, 2010, exactly a year after the original release date.

Semptember 30, 2010- Association of Violent Gandhians (AVG) protests against protagonist of a movie releasing on October 2nd having beer in his name. Demands the release be delayed to October 9. Ranbeer changes name back to Ranbir. Movie to be released on October 2.

October 2, 2010- Movie released among much fanfare.

October 2, 2010- Raj Thackeray demands Bombay be changed to Mumbai in the film. Also demands all commercial establishments shown in the movie be pixilated or rewritten in Marathi. Movie pulled off the screens in Maharashtra. Karan Johar protests saying he issued an apology last year; says “I thought only the public has a short memory.” Political leaders unite across party lines protesting this insult of the aam aadmi; demand the movie be banned all over India.

October 3, 2010- Karan Johar stops the film's screening worldwide; passes the baton to Anurag Kashyap for his expertise in late releases.

Hindi vs India?

2009-09-26T10:00:00.008-05:00

A few days back - after a really long time - I saw an excellent debate on NDTV about Kapil Sibal's controversial 3 language formula that seems to have rekindled old anti-Hindi passions. Now, being a 1980s-born guy, I haven't had first-hand experience of the anti-Hindi agitations in the 1960s. I do know Hindi was to become the sole official language in 1965, and I also know there were large-scale protests against this, especially in Tamil Nadu. For those not in the know, Kapil Sibal has proposed that schools adopt a three language formula, with English and Hindi as two of them. Though the matter has been extensively debated and written about, I feel compelled to put my two cents in. I'll beat around the bush a little first and come to the formula later.

Hindi and National Integration

When Vallabhbhai Patel set about integrating 562 kingdoms and numerous provinces into what we know today as India, our leaders were keen to identify, and establish, opportunities for national integration. This was a time when secession from the Union was a very real threat, thus prompting the likes of Nehru and Gandhi to try and integrate the country in spirit, and not just politically. This, and the urge to uproot all things colonial, spurred the efforts to replace English with an Indian language. Gandhi pushed for Hindustani -the utilitarian blend of Hindi and Urdu- as the national language. Even Rajagopalachari was in favour of establishing Hindustani as the national language. Nehru, the eternal democrat, proposed that linguists evolve a simplified version of Hindustani that South Indians could learn with ease.

Post-partition, however, the Jana Sangh and other Hindi groups pushed for the 'purification' of the language by ridding it of its Urdu influences. Eventually, after the violent protests in Tamil Nadu in 1965, Lal Bahadur Shastri, himself an advocate of Hindi, permitted the use of English alongside Hindi for conducting business in India. In addition, states were left free to conduct their business in the language of their choice.

Circa 2009. Apart from secessionary tendencies in some North-Eastern states and J&K, India is largely a united nation. While the motive of designating a national language made sense in a volatile and brittle post-partition India, the current obsession with establishing a "common link" stems from a puerile notion of national integration. National integration is not about making Tamilian children learn Hindi, teaching Malayalis to do the bhangra, or forcing Gujaratis to eat maacher jhol. National integration is about tolerance; about peaceful coexistence of culturally diverse communities; about every Indian acknowledging every other Indian an equal citizen- an ideal I think India has achieved (with the caste system and occasional riots as notable exceptions).

Isn't it better to have Hindi rather than English as the universal language of communication? At least it's not a foreign language.

No. When you have 22 national languages and want to make one of them the sole official language, efforts by one language to assert itself will obviously be seen as one-upmanship. This is exactly what happened with Hindi. In such an environment, it's best to let the language of global commerce stay as the language of communication within the country and let the regional languages develop and spread to other parts of the country through cinema and literature, which Rajnikanth and Bollywood do with tremendous success.

English is the undisputed language of global commerce, and hence the ultimate functional language, as most panelists in the debate agreed. Those who cite examples of France and Japan perhaps don't realize that a lion's share of our GDP comes from services, and that's thanks, in no small measure, to the urban youth's knowledge of English. So all the "foreign language" sentiment against English fails in the face of practicality and convenience.

Sibal and the three-language formula

Kapil Sibal, the poster-boy of radical education reforms, mooted the idea of teaching children three languages, two of which should be English and Hindi. The first pleasant observation is he understands knowledge of English is necessary; the second pleasant observation is the room given to students to learn any language of their choice; the third observation is what's causing all the hungama- why Hindi?

Hindi, as an early critic of the Hindi movement said, is just another regional language. It is the most-spoken language in the country, but is by no means a language of the majority of the country. It does not even serve a functional purpose; so it is absolutely pointless for a child in a remote Tamil Nadu village to learn five paryayvaachi shabd for 'elephant'.

A common grouse among all Indians is their inability to communicate in the southern states. Shouldn't there be a language all Indians should speak? Doesn't it give us a national identity? Yes, there should. No, it doesn't. It will be nice if a Haryanvi can communicate freely in Kerala, but it's not the government's business to decide what that language should be. Anyway, are things really that bad? Some people in every state do know Hindi and English, and I've never heard of anybody unable to survive in an Indian state because of a language problem. And about national identity, isn’t our national identity the multitude of languages? Isn’t it something we boast about to the firangs?

The three-language formula, stripped of its specifics, is an excellent proposal. It is a great idea to teach children two Indian languages. It is good not only for their individual development, but also for giving regional languages a pan-India appeal. I know Sibal is not a Hindi hardliner; he just has a misplaced notion of establishing linguistic uniformity in a country that takes pride in its linguistic diversity.

For me, the best way to structure the three-language formula is to let the children learn any 2 Indian languages. I have absolutely no doubt many parents will choose Hindi. But if a Kannadiga family is living in West Bengal, it might want its children to learn Bengali and Kannada- something the current formula does not allow.

Finally, as Mukul Kesavan said in the debate, there is a difference between learning a language and being literate in it. People watch Hindi movies and understand rudimentary Hindi without knowing the Devnagri script. That should suffice. Must every child in the country be able to read Premchand and Maithili Sharan Gupt?

Microscopy 101

2009-08-18T15:04:00.003-05:00

The Shallow Thinking Game

2009-08-17T09:45:00.014-05:00

Try to crack this. It's not a whodunnit; some of the words in this article lead back to a common source. Identify the source. It's GK-based; so if you don't know about the source under consideration, you can't crack it. Don't look to interpret the story- I've just built it around the words. A small hint- the first two sentences have one of these words each. A little bigger hint- think sport.

Mohan fumbled in his pocket for the spare key. He swore at his brother for not answering the bell. Was he asleep? But if he was asleep now, what was he doing at night? Did he forget to plug in the Good Knight liquidator? Or was he stranded in the snow? Something was definitely amiss. Anyway, he had had a long day and was in no mood for such deliberation.

The room was eerily dark. Surely, Ram wouldn't have forgotten to switch the light in the puja room on? Did that mean Ram left the room in broad daylight? As his hand surveyed the wall for the switch, the sound of a popping cork shattered the silence. He froze, but only momentarily, as the lights came on, followed by a deafening "Happy Birthday" from a group of at least 50 people.

He could hardly recognize the place; it was beautifully decorated with small artifacts from his eventful 24 years. It was done with such dexterity and grace, that he was sure it was Sudha's handiwork. His friends trotted to him, one by one, and handed over their gifts and greeting cards, which he stowed away to read later. He was pleasantly surprised, because he had never had a surprise birthday party prior to this.

Since Ram knew Mohan had a teleconference later that night, he decided to wrap up the party well before the allotted time. He sent the Pringles and drinks around, and watched with amusement the sight he had got used to now- Mohan sipping his vodka with 2 straws. The starters over, he asked the cook to get the minced lamb cutlets and paneer tikka.

It started slowly; Shaque looked at the lamb cutlets suspiciously after her first bite. Then Kantha asked why the taste of onions was so overpowering; wasn't this suppsoed to be a lamb cutlet? Aveek threw up, and everybody groaned- did the sucker drink more than that famously sensitive stomach could take? Shaque and Kantha followed. Nobody suspected anything fishy till Suneol -the man with a steel stomach- threw up.

Ram summoned the cook. Did he buy the lamb from the street? He said he didn't know, because he didn't go to the butcher himself. Didn't he taste the lamb while he made it? The cook shifted uncomfortably. His head was all knotted up; he didn't know what story to make up. He didn't know his best friend -ace cook B.A.W. Archie- to whom he had delegated the job, would use stale meat.

"What crap!" The cook was jolted from his excuse-making deliberations as Ram shouted. The guests were collapsing one-by-one. The remaining guests immediately boycotted the party and left the house. Ram and Mohan were busy apologizing. Once the last live guest left, they turned to the cook, who, by then, had already fled.

Movie Review- Love Aaj Kal

2009-08-01T10:51:00.007-05:00

If we ever calculated the differential between potential and result for movies and listed them in descending order, Delhi-6 would top the list with Love Aaj Kal coming a slap-worthy second. The movie is difficult to review because during it -when we had the pleasure of hacking the movie to death in true sadakchap style, and after it –when we were abusing everybody from Imtiaz Ali to Imtiaz Ali under the unsteadying influence of Diet Coke, we couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening; not because it was Mementoistically complicated or Night-Shyamalanistically abstruse, but because it was so comprehensively pointless. And it pains me to criticize the movie, because I think Imtiaz Ali is a smart director. But unfortunately, if he addresses a gathering that has just been subjected to Love Aaj Kal, he will most certainly earn plenty of frustrated footwear.

So Jai Vardhan Singh (Saif) is this stereotypical uber-cool uber-modern clean-shaven stud whose core competencies include scorning traditions, scorning old love stories, chick-hopping, and being practical. The first 15 minutes of the movie move at a frenetic pace culminating in an amicable break-up between Saif and Deepika, who split so that they can pursue their professional dreams. In the period between their last goodbye and Deepika’s flight to India next morning, Saif meets Veer (Rishi Kapoor), a stereotypical 60s man who waxes eloquent about the virtues of sachcha pyaar and laments the logicopractical modern man who doesn’t follow his heart enough. Deepika and Saif have a truly entertaining conversation before she leaves, and then she leaves.

Now that he has nothing better to do, he hangs out with Rishi Kapoor who tells him about his innocent 60s love story. The pattern is predictable- Rishi Kapoor (who looked like a turbaned Saif in his jawaani) tells Saif about his 60s love story with this Punjabi kudi (who looks thin enough, and has expressions monotonous enough, to be considered one-dimensional); and Saif keeps interjecting with “Come on man!” and other Censor Board-approved variations of “What the fuck!”

To cut a dreadful story short, Saif and Deepika want to “move on” after their break-up. Saif finds some Swiss chick who loves Indian culture and wants to see the Taj Mahal; Deepika dates with and gets proposed to by her boss (Rahul Khanna with a size 2 clipper run over his head); Saif takes his newfound girlfriend to India and starts meeting Deepika on the sly; Deepika marries Rahul; Saif is destroyed, Deepika is distraught; Saif wastes himself by growing a beard, losing his job, and pining for Deepika; Deepika ditches Rahul because she can’t get Saif out of her head; LHS = RHS, Saif meets Deepika and they make up.

I’m sure the script must’ve been okay; it just hasn’t worked on screen. For starters, there was -273^oC chemistry between Saif and Deepika; Imtiaz made the mistake of compressing their entire love story into 15 minutes; they could’ve been brother and sister for all I cared. Secondly, the songs were numerous and bad; I can’t understand why Imtiaz hires Pritam; he might as well buy the rights of some Vietnamese or Moroccan album. Thirdly, he strived too hard to show the contrast between love aaj and love kal, and used some of the most clichéd clichés you’re ever likely to hear to establish this contrast. The biggest weakness of the film, however, was the dialogues. Imtiaz Ali is a really witty writer, as he showed in Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met; but the dialogues in this movie, save the odd one here and there, were woefully vacuous.

The acting was just okay. The 60s love story track had a lovely rustic charm to it that no amount of cool-dudeness from Saif, mini-skirts from Deepika, and smooches from both could match. Saif looked a pretty authentic Sardar and I can’t believe he had to apologize to the Sikh community for the length of his beard in the movie. Rishi Kapoor was a delight to watch, and I can understand why he was such a rage in his time. In all, the movie wasn’t bad- it just didn’t work; it was too lethargic and too one-eyed in its interpretation of our generation. Go watch it with a gang of friends in a shady theatre where people don’t stare at you for making a racket, and make a racket- you’ll have fun.

Weighed Down- 2

2009-06-23T23:11:00.004-05:00

Since the last time he was weighed down, he decided to buy trousers and jeans with one eye on the future. That meant buying size 34 jeans when his waist was still 32". This implied two things-

a) He could keep glutting without worrying about waking up with the jeans's button and button hole a foot apart

b) He felt good wearing a pair of loose jeans every morning. It made him feel thin- which is more important than actually being thin. Think about those models who are as flat as Tom when a door slams him against the wall, but still deprive themselves of good, greasy, creamy, cholesteroley, fatty, starchy food.

He went to the US feeling pretty good about himself. He also started playing tennis, which meant he could afford to eat without girthical fears. He threw caution to the hurricane and returned every week from Walmart and the Indian store with 2 gigantic bags of potato chips, a semicircular cake with cream on every side and inside, 3 large packets of Haldirams bhujiya, 2 bottles of mango juice, and umpteen frozen ready-to-eat meals. That's not to say he didn't cook. While the ready-to-eats were intended to be used on days he was too tired to cook, he eventually ended up cooking on days he ran out of ready-to-eats. He also developed the habit of ordering a medium-size Dominos pizza and garlic bread every week. He was under the honest (mistaken) impression that all those hours of tennis (1 hour of doubles and 1 hour of twiddling-thumbs-waiting-for-your-turn every day) would burn the extra calories he was consuming by the thousands. Little did he know it was like that standard question- A frog climbs 100 feet up and slips 1 foot down a well every day. How far is it from the starting point after 10 days?

Damn evolution! Like you can't notice incremental changes in your height every day (unless you drink Complan regularly, which will supposedly make you the tallest structure in the world after the Burj), you also can't notice incremental changes in weight. So while the adipose was gradually fortifying itself and expanding him ever so slightly, he continued gorging without a care in the world. Even when he saw his loose jeans weren't as loose anymore, he didn't lose sleep over it. After all, clothes shrink when you wash them, don't they?

Then, Los Angeles happened. Cameras came out and megabytes were consumed. He posed for photos merrily- smiling, laughing, standing, and sitting. On the last day of his visit, he transferred the pictures to a laptop to look at his well-toned, shapely, muscular, athletic self. What he saw came as a thunderous shock; Hanuman fumbled with the Dronagiri and it came crashing down on him. His face, once small, thin, and ugly, was now big, round, and ugly. All the photographs he thought would be worthy of sending to the auditions for the next Bond, turned out to be perfect for VLCC's Before photo. The growth in his stomach was 3-dimensional, so whether you took an elevation, plan, or side view, you would be able to notice the ungainly bulge. His loose t-shirts could scarcely hide his sins, and were stretched to the point of being short-tops. When he sat in the flight next morning, he was half-afraid the seat-belt wouldn't go around. It did. He ordered a meal and box of Pringles. Half-way through his box of Pringles, he realised he had to stop this junk. He just had to. He mulled over this over the remaining half-box of Pringles, a packet of cookies, and a nice, soft, buttery cake.

He was so scared of stepping on the weighing machine, that he didn't. But he assumed he would be in the 75-80 kg range. A strict diet followed- no more rice, chips, mango juice, ready-to-eats, and pizzas. He began cooking and playing tennis everyday. He was confident this would work. It did. By January, he looked less grotesque. But 4 months in India, marked by curd rice with pickle, chaat, oily sabjis with enough oil to make OPEC irrelevant if used to run cars, and all kinds of sweets, were enough to inflate him to Los Angelical proportions again. And this time there was no tennis. But he climbed 6 floors of stairs to his office everyday, again giving him the impression that it justified his pre-climb and post-climb gluttony. He also did 20 crunches every day (for 10 days), and followed this rigorous work-out with 2 packets of burnt Maggi, chips, and cookies.

Well, when he finally got back to the US on June 1, he decided he would relive his post-Los Angeles-pre-India days. He started cooking everyday; he almost completely abstained from snacking- the only snacks he had were Wheat crackers (0g fat). Whatever he bought had to pass the flip-it-around-and-see-the-fat-content test. He began eating fruits regularly. The tennis was back too- and it was singles this time, which meant more running, more sweat, more calories burned. In addition, at work, he went out into the field almost everyday, climbing insanely tall ladders, crawling through holes, and in general sweating enough to regenerate the Saraswati. Whenever he felt like indulging in a sweet or a cake or something tasty-but-fatty, he'd take off his shirt and face the mirror, and wince at the excrescence he'd see.

Anyway, after 3 weeks of strict dieting, climbing, crawling, and tennising, he was confident that he would be back in the early 70s; 72 probably, or at the most 73. After another intense work-out in the field, he stepped expectantly on the weighing scale. These weighing scales aren't digital or the circular automatic types which tell you your weight instantly so that you can step off before your friend sees it. These are balances. You have to slide a weight along a scale till the scale is stable. So it gets kind of Swadesical as you keep sliding the weight waiting for the scale to stabilize. To cut a long, painful story short, the scale read 152lbs! Less than 70 kilos! He was over the moon, till his colleague came around, corrected the scale, so that the new, correct reading was 170lbs. 77 kilos. He was aghast; he stepped off, took off his heavy coveralls and H2S monitor- that was about as naked as he could get in office- and stepped back on. It read 169 lb. He went back to his desk and sighed.

Possible Post-poll Scenarios

2009-05-15T02:38:00.008-05:00

Consequences of Maya winning with the 3rd Front's backing

Consequences of the 3rd Front ditching Maya

The picture says it all

The Probabalistic God

2009-05-12T23:49:00.028-05:00

Let me confess at the outset that my practical knowledge of religion is limited to what I see around me and what I have experienced in these 23 years. Most of my notions of God are a result of these experiences and of my contemplations on the subject. In addition, I have been influenced by Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, Stephen Hawking’s The Theory of Everything, and Klaus Klostermaier’s A Brief Introduction to Hinduism.

I’m sure most people of my age would already have contemplated about religion, and most would’ve made peace with their faith or the lack of it. So, if you think most of what you read is clichéd, please consider this a personal diary that I feel like baring. This post is, not surprisingly, very long. I've added some pictures for relief, but with the hope that they don't trivialize the issue.

What we all know

We all agree that God as a subject has been debated for years now, and will be debated for many more without a logical conclusion. As we all know, the closing line in all such debates is, “It’s finally down to your faith.”

I don’t know about you, but for me, faith is based partly on reason, so I can’t just “feel” my faith; it’s something I need to decide- especially if it’s about faith in an entity that we cannot see; whose presence we assume; whose influence we consider all-pervading; who is considered the ultimate Chief Justice, Scientist, and Engineer; and whose identity depends on the average of each man’s religion.

Most of us have had a religious upbringing and understandably so, because until recently there was very little ammunition available to the doubter in us. In fact, by the time we’re old enough to be inquisitive, we begin taking God and his existence for granted. Even those of us who contemplate know that we can never conclusively disprove God’s existence just as believers can never conclusively prove the same. Read this masterpiece about Russell's teapot. This is where faith (a euphemism for gut) steps in.

Our gut is heavily influenced by our early experiences, which are almost always pro-God. The existence of an omnipotent God also seems intuitive when we are young, because we look at our bodies, at the marvels of nature, at stars and the Sun, and realize that there must really be a super-intelligent being designing all this. All those who don’t read or hear about Charles Darwin and the history of the universe have very little reason to believe that our bodies are not God’s handiwork and that the universe is not created by God. But even among those who believe in evolution and natural selection, there are those who believe that our daily lives, our future, and our every action are governed by God’s will, and are judged by Him. How can we ever defend or contest this?

The problem with prayers

Many believers in God believe prayers have the power to help them achieve an end that they might not have been able to achieve otherwise. Even if they agree that their prayers are more an expression of hope than a demand for action, they somehow feel praying helps them. Now this is the ultimate Russell’s teapot. How can you ever prove or disprove the power of prayers? Whether you are a believer, an agnost, or an atheist, you will agree that not all prayers are answered. For atheists, the reason is simple- since God does not exist, why God does not answer some prayers is a non-question. But how do believers explain unanswered prayers?

Believers believe that some prayers are not answered because of God’s will, where as non-believers believe that prayers that are answered are pure strokes of luck. Non-believers use this selective answering of prayers as one of their proofs against god; they ask: Why are some sincere, well-intentioned, and desperate prayers unanswered? I came up with some possible answers for this question, and one of these answers gives this post its name. The answers:

The sincere believer’s answer (my assumption)

Because this is how it was meant to be. God doesn’t always give you everything you want; there must be a good reason why your prayer has not been answered; maybe God has better plans for you. Just have faith.

My answer

Well, this is not really an answer but something I was contemplating and found appealing. If God exists, I don’t believe He has a supercomputer to process all supplications and allot receivables to each stakeholder according to merit. It’s easier to imagine God being a little inefficient, and thus He doesn’t answer your prayer because it is still enqueued in Wishamp.

An alternative explanation that I found appealing is that God doesn’t decide the final outcome of the prayer and what each stakeholder in the prayer should get in the end. He probably just tweaks the probabilities in favour of the person praying, and thus if your prayer is not answered, it just means the probability has not worked in your favour. For example, if you roll a die praying to God that you get a number between 1 and 3, God might just bias the die against 4,5, or 6 so that the probability of your winning increases from ½ to 3/5. You might still lose the game, but your prayer has not gone unanswered. Thinking about God this way naturally leads one to wonder how much influence God has over these probabilities. Will more fervent praying bring the probability closer to 1? On the other hand, is it possible that God works within the realms of probability and the laws of nature, and thus has no real power to tweak either?

The other problem with analyzing prayers is that they are often not object-oriented. In fact, true devotees will tell you that it’s selfish to pray for something specific, and that we should pray regularly without a selfish motive. The problem is, the benefits of this genre of selfless prayers are tough to ascertain, unless we can create a parallel identical universe where we can test the consequences of not praying. For most believers, benefits do not matter because the process of praying gives them a contentment and sense of fulfillment that make prayer-analysis and stupid calculations of probability irrelevant. I cannot, and will not make an attempt to, shake this belief in prayers- people are entitled to indulge in whatever makes them feel good irrespective of their truth-value.

Destiny vs. God

The trade-off between destiny and God has always puzzled me. Most believers in God also believe in destiny, which essentially means they believe what happens to us is part of a grand cosmic plan that has been written at the start of time (the “honi ko kaun taal sakta hai” school of thought). So if you believe in destiny, and you also believe in God’s power to make things happen, it means you believe God can alter destiny. If you don’t believe that, praying serves no practical purpose. The problem is, since none of us knows our destiny, we can never conclusively prove God’s ability to change it- this lack of knowledge is the ideal breeding ground for all manners of faiths and superstitions such as wearing rings and amulets, and performing pujas and havans. But most believers nowadays don’t consider destiny sacrosanct; they know astrologers’ predictions are fallible, and use destiny only as a crutch in times of distress, which I think is pretty fair.

The What-if believers

There are those who believe in God, but do so mainly because they are unsure of His existence. These people pray because if He does exist, why take a chance? After all, it just takes a few minutes of our time every day or every week. Till very recently, I counted myself in this category. But as I started contemplating and reading more on the subject, I felt less and less sure about God’s existence.

Why I have almost pulled the shutters down on belief

Multiple Gods

The things that make me most unsure of God’s power are the multiple identities of God, the friction between these multiple identities, and our belief that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. When we say God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, whose God are we talking about? Are there many o-o-o Gods fighting for this space, or is there only one God, as we all claim? We all know different religions originated at different points in time. Are the Gods of these religions avtars of the first God thus being consistent with him in some way, or were the new Gods free to expand their reign and challenge the authority of the existing Gods? When a war is fought in the name of religion, is it actually a proxy war between two Gods? That is, are Hindu-Muslim riots actually cosmic duels between Allah and Ram? And what of intra-religion warfare like the Sunni-Shia conflicts?

One God

And if there is only one God, how does He tolerate a Hindu leader masterminding a riot against Muslims because of a suspected Muslim hand in the burning of a train? How does He tolerate one group of Muslims branding people of other communities infidels, bombing them, and getting away with it? How does He tolerate one group of Christians printing lewd material about Hindu Gods, and in return how does He tolerate Hindus raping nuns and razing churches to the ground? How does he tolerate Bhindranwale’s men firing shots on the Harmandir Sahib, and subsequently tolerate some people calling Bhindranwale the eleventh Sikh guru? How does he tolerate men being executed for blasphemy, women being stoned to death for defying His strictures, and women being abused and assaulted for going against Hindu “culture”? If in these moments of crises, especially in crises caused by clashes over His identity, God can do nothing but watch people die and property burn, will we be wrong in assuming that God is just a figment of our imagination? And that if he does exist, he has little influence over what happens on earth, and is really just a slave of nature and of man’s perception?

The Last Word

I think imagining a world without God makes things simple. Things happen because circumstances make them happen, and each of those circumstances arise because of other sets of circumstances. That some of these circumstances coincide and lead to a particular event can be either due to human design or due to the vagaries of luck. Thus, if I walk out of my house today and get run over by a car, it’s a purely random event caused by the chance presence of the car and Akshay at the same point in space-time. It’s not because God intended to end my innings on earth and begin the driver’s behind bars, and facilitated this eventuality by finishing my stock of shaving cream and forcing a baaraat through Road A so that the driver had to use the road I was crossing.

God might exist, and I really am not as much concerned about the fact of His existence as I am about the power we think He wields. The notion most people have of God is of a friend, philosopher, and guide; of a hope and an inspiration in times of distress; and of a gentle, compassionate, and all-embracing entity. This notion is sustainable and harmless; and it doesn’t depend on the existence of God. The Calvins of the world need their Hobbes. It’s only when people start killing each other and doing other crazy things in the name of God is one forced to think whether the whole fuss about God is worth it. I don’t think it is. I don’t think a person with an atheistic upbringing in atheistic surroundings will ever feel the presence of or be able to visualize a power that is watching every step he takes- in other words, he will never need or miss God. If God exists and is reading this post, I want to assure Him that I am not disrespecting his role in making people’s lives better- it’s just that till I am completely convinced of his powers, I prefer to follow my gut and stay an agnost. I’m sure God will excuse this temporary suspension of belief.

I have a lot more opinions on this subject, but they have been articulated so beautifully by Richard Dawkins, that writing them in my own words here seems pointless. This post might sound very immature and even laughable to many believers. The fact is, these are my current thoughts on the subject, and I am far from convinced about them. I hope to read a lot more and either stand firmer on my ground or shift to the believers’ ground a happy man.

Caught in the Web

2009-05-06T05:30:00.005-05:00

103 days and counting...

The Aks Effect

2009-01-24T17:38:00.001-06:00

Misquote the Quote Contest

2009-01-15T10:22:00.005-06:00

Thanks to dear Ramalinga Raju, we now have another immortal quote:

"It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten."

I now invite you to modify this quote in your own funny ways and post it in the comments section.

For example:

It was like driving a stolen car, not knowing how to get out without being beaten.

or

It was like watching a Barjatya film, not knowing how to come out without feeling outdated.

Twist it any way you like and make us laugh.

Knee-jerk Reactions

2009-01-11T23:21:00.004-06:00

New Year Resolutions

2009-01-01T03:26:00.008-06:00

211 x 79

400 X 150

466 x 174

As the dust settles

2008-12-09T23:28:00.017-06:00

All this has been said already. Plus, it's over 2000 words long. If you have something better to do, don't bother reading. I've split the story up under different headings. There's no real flow; you can skip an entire section without missing much.

Reactions to 26/11 in the US

Unless you've been swimming with penguins in Antarctica or have been tied up and blindfolded under the deck of a Somali ship, you probably are neck-deep in reports of the Mumbai attacks. My colleagues, whose knowledge about India spans Gandhi and curry, started asking me about Mumbai everyday. (One of them even doubted the accuracy of my information- "You said Bombay, CNN said Mumbai", he alleged.) The more curious ones with bitten nails and scratched scalps asked me how to pronounce Lashkar-e-Toiba, and went on to try pronouncing it when I coached them with the patience of a Feynman in an LKG classroom. Their best attempt- Lashkar rhymed with Nascar, e was too short to screw-up, and Toiba sounded like Toshiba with the sh silent. It was part amusing, part cute. I could spend all day listening to their renditions of Lashkar-e-Toiba. Still, I really appreciate their concern, and the discussions we've had on terrorism are a pleasant alternative to the debates on TV. They have a simple solution to the menace of terror- "Stop negotiatin', just kill 'em or bomb 'em or some-um."

Aside: A word on some-um: Most Americans don't say 'something'; they either stop at 'some', or follow 'some' with a gulp, like they're swallowing something that flew in when they said 'some'- the net result sounds like some-um. I was so taken up by this, that I’ve started saying it too when I talk to them.*

Netagiri

If there was one thing you wouldn't want to be during the entire Mumbai episode, it must be a politician. The media aimed its mics and the public aimed its Gangaajal at every politician who spoke up. While RR Patil chose the wrong forum to rattle off a DDLJ-style dialogue (the bade bade sheheron mein one), we had Shivraj Patil, the chairman of IPL**, who displayed admirable bravado while cocooned in a nest of commandoes ("They can't scare us"), Manmohan Singh who could've done better with a few hundred cups of coffee (and stop being a Deve Gowda with eyes open), Vilasrao Deshmukh who will never again invite his son's friend to accompany him, and Milind Deora who admitted he was ashamed of being a politican. There were other serious and, in an evil sense, hilarious blunders by our netas. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi lashed out at women wearing lipstick and powder for insulting politicians in western sabhyata, and Achuthanandan showed his contempt for canines when late Major Unnikrishnan's father drove him out complete with his mundu, soda glasses, and sniffer dogs. Poor Achu doesn't know that he went to Major’s house only after the dogs did. The other Patil, the one on Raisina Hill, stayed away from the media and quietly went to visit the victims. Advani, the new moderate in Indian politics condemned the attacks, promised not to make it a poll issue, and went campaigning the next day. As promised, he didn't bring up the Mumbai attacks. All he said was "Afzal Guru agar Anand Mohan hota ya Anand Singh hota to ab tak phaansi pe chadh chuka hota." It's like calling you a sick bastard after promising not to call you stupid.

There was something nostalgic about the resignations of Shivraj Patil, Deshmukh, and RR Patil. It took me back to early 2004, when Sonia Gandhi transported antaraatma from clunky Bollywood into mainstream political vocabulary. Some try to disguise it as 'inner voice' or 'aatma ki aawaaz', but don't be mistaken- it's all from the same reservoir of collective conscience Sonia inaugurated that famous day.

Sena Sena you said it to me

While Mumbai was under siege, two of its greatest self-proclaimed culture chowkidars were conspicuous by their absence. While Udhav Thackeray was probably in some non-descript village marketing his Shiv vada pav, Raj, chairman of the other IPL***, was possibly scouting for FMIs (Foreign Marathi Investors) to invest in Raj Kachorikar. Of course, the VP of MNS, between furtive mouthfuls of Congress's kanda poha, said that Mumbai was too crowded to catch the terrorists. Will somebody please inform him Qasab didn't huddle four Biharis around him and shoot between their legs? As one blogger said, no one expected Raj to pick up a gun and storm the Taj, but he could have helped with relief efforts outside- it would have even made sense as a political stunt.

Pick a dialogue

If you put all our politicians in separate rooms and ask them their favourite Hindi movie dialogue, 90% will say, “Chand khudgarz neta ke kaaran hamaari poori kaum badnaam hoti hai”. The public today is so disenchanted with the political fraternity that the very word politics, as opposed to a few corrupt practitioners of the art, is the rogue we have gagged, draped with a blanket, and beaten to pulp. This is unhealthy- politics is not dispensable, some politicians are, and the sooner our angry junta realizes this, the better. Also, I don’t know why Advani promised to not use terror as a poll issue (though, as I mentioned earlier, he broke it). If your party has to come to power, you have to not only show what you’re good at but also criticize what the opposition is bad at; even though you might have been equally bad at it in the past. The problem with BJP is not that it raised the issue of terror; the problem is that it just said “Say no to terror. Vote for BJP.” Even a rough draft of how it would tackle terror if voted in, would’ve helped immensely. Terror can be handled by a good government. If I am a voter, I will be extremely interested in knowing how a party plans to deal with terror, not just that it will deal with it. In any case, it must be an integral part of all political campaigns.

India’s Skewrty Forces

This is both the average North Indian’s pronunciation of Security Forces, and the nature of distribution of the said Forces. While Ismail, Qasab, and co. had to fight brave but ill-equipped and ill-numbered policemen, Mayawati was snoring under the vigil of the 350 policemen in charge of keeping mosquitoes and assailants away from her. While she might have an excuse being the CM of India’s most lawless state, what about Amar Singh? How many of you know he was upgraded to Z+ status in exchange for his support to the UPA government during the trust vote tamasha? The UPA traded NSG commandoes for votes; the worst case of corruption at the highest level. Read this article for more about the skew in our security forces.

India's 9/11

We love comparing. No sooner did debutant Zaheer Khan york a Kenyan tail-ender than comparisons with Wasim Akram begin. The moment trailers of Refugee were released, Abhishek Bachchan's eyes, smile, and jaw structure were pitted against Amitabh's. I'm sure the day Preity Zinta has a daughter, people will run behind her dimples with Vernier calipers. The Mumbai saga too had its share of match the followings. India's 9/11- somebody (I assume it's the media. Please correct me.) coined this, popularised it, and started drawing comparisons to the 9/11 attacks. People vehemently denied this link, and some reluctantly supported it, without realizing how utterly pointless the whole exercise was. Will Archimedes run out naked from his bathtub in heaven? Will Osama surrender in awe? Will the US finance the repairs to the Taj and Trident? Will Mohamed Atta be brought back to life and sentenced to death?

Tu Tu Main Main

While getting celebs to play panelist-panelist in primetime debates is a sure shot TRP pump, uninformed panelists can make real asses of themselves. A case in point- in a recent debate, Simi Garewal said, "Go to the Four Seasons and look down from the top floor at the slums around you. Do you know what flags you will see? Not the Congress', not the BJP's, not the Shiv Sena's. Pakistan! Pakistani flags fly high!" with the kind of certainty Heisenberg never had. She later apologised when she was informed that those were actually flags of Islam; but the damage was done. I fail to understand why it is so important to know celebrities' views on a topic like this- I mean why would you make Ratna Pathak Shah (Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na), Kunal Kohli (Fanaa, Hum Tum), Luke Kenny (Rob in Rock On), and Simi Garewal debate on national television, that too in the same show? The media was also very concerned when Shahrukh Khan did not give his opinion on the subject. When he finally decided to open up, NDTV and IBN were in raptures. His opinion (video), when it was finally aired, was the most realistic and appropriate coming from a public figure. He said he kept mum because he was scared that something he said might exacerbate an already tense and sensitive situation. Simple and elegant- his views were not essential during the turmoil, and he was sensitive enough to realize that. Hats off, SRK (Zyaada udna mat. I think you totally suck in Rab Ne...trailers).

Saare sabooton ko madde nazar rakhte hue ...

ye electorate Shiela Dikshit ko apna CM chunti hai. BJP really hoped the Mumbai attacks would dent Congress's prospects in the assembly elections, but not only did the latter retain Delhi, it also wrested Rajasthan from Raje. It was good to see the BJP graciously accepting defeat and choosing to introspect rather than to ransack the IIMS****. While the elections announced the arrival of the BSP on the big stage, an ex- saffronian had to eat humble rajma chawal. Uma Bharti vowed to quit active politics if the BJP retained MP, so it's now time to see if her vow was a vow or a bow-wow. The biggest surprise though, was Delhi. Sheila Dikshit has shielded her seat marvelously, amid the mayhem of raped tourists and adventurous remarks (especially considering her name almost scrambles to Shit Ka Shield).

Our political saviour

First, he uttered it in the US. It swept across the Atlantic, whispered over the Sahara, gained speed over the Persian Gulf, and finally hit Mumbai 3 days after Qasab and his comrades did. If it had reached a week earlier it would have been echoed back to where it came from, but the timing was perfect. Yes, Indians too want change now. And we're not talking about policies this time; we're talking people. We were tolerant till as recently as November 24th when Mulayam Singh distributed kadak sau rupay notes to everybody listening to his campaign speech. But now, we're going the BCCI way- get the young blood in. Though Krantiveer-II would have Nana Patekar smashing nails (video) and mixing old and young blood to prove us wrong, it's unlikely the demand for younger netas is going to die down soon. We have a few star kids in politics- Milind Deora, Navin Jindal, Sachin Pilot, Supriya Sule, Priyanka Gandhi, and of course, Rahul Gandhi. Of all these, Rahul seems to be taking the longest strides and he's doing it the hard way. From what I read and see on NDTV, I think he has his heart in the right place, and is sending out the right signals to the youth. But no; the media will not let him develop into a leader. They will coin him India's poitical saviour and raise the bar before he even stands on his feet. The article, as you might have seen, just asks people who should be in power. The headline is a really cheap trick -with or without the question mark- and puts undue pressure on a promising novice, much like (as I said earlier about comparisons) Ambati Rayudu was hailed the next Sachin even before he played his first Ranji match.

Beating history projects

I know, I know; this post is longer than ICSE History projects and I don't even have erotic paintings and sculptures for relief. There's so much more I want to say, but I realize all good things must come to an end, and all bad things must be brought to one, depending on whether you're nodding your head in agreement or jerking it in inertia after reading this. Most of what I want to say is already being said- stuff about diplomacy with Pakistan, bombing terrorist camps, going to war, etc.; so I have very little incentive to write. For now, please keep the comments flowing :)

*A note to my friends in India- if you ever hear me swallow a syllable, lacerate my tongue when you meet me (or say main tumhaari zabaan kheench doonga in Sarfarosh style. See video near 3:20), or send me spam mail if you don't.

**Ineffective Politicians’ League

***Intimidating Politicians’ League

****Infinite Inventory for Mud Slingers

Andar Ki Baat

2008-11-25T19:53:00.009-06:00

News piece 1: A BBC radio presenter is sacked for making racist remarks on the phone when off-duty.

News piece 2: Homosexuality is declared a criminal offence in India, and weeks later Dostana is released.

Thought: I continue to be terrified of eunuchs

Observation: Matrimonials still maintain separate sections for Tamil brahmins and Telugu brahmins.

Realization: My blog is no different

News pieces 1 and 2, though different in every possible way, made me think along the same lines. When I tried to articulate my thoughts, Thought, Observation, and Realization struck. Let me try to explain.

Can any of us deny the fact that two truths exist- one inside us or inside a group of people, and the other in an environment that demands a certain extent of political correctness? Take for example the issue of gays. I will admit, and so will many of you reading this post, that I(you) have cracked jokes that would really hurt gay men/lesbian women if they heard it. Yet when we see debates about homosexual marriages, we generally advocate the right to choose one's partner and the right to freely express one's sexual orientation and all that blah. We were not wrong when we cracked the jokes, because we were, after all, just kidding. We are also not wrong in springing to the defence of homosexuals' rights. If any of our lewd jokes were to be leaked to the media, we would immediately be condemned as parochial or even inhuman. We even realize this when we crack these jokes. But we still continue to indulge in base humour because NDTV is unlikely to spy outside our homes waiting for an anti-gay soundbite. We are, in a sense, being hypocrites, but our inherent self-justice mechanism kicks in and tells us that it's okay as long as it's not discovered.

When we are kids, our mummy-daddy teach us not to say the wrong things at the wrong place and wrong time, and teach us where to draw the line. In most cases, the line is fairly clear. I would never call an Aaj Tak correspondent and share a gay or lesbian joke. That would be a recipe for primetime slander a.k.a Vishesh in Aaj Tak parlance.

Sometimes, though, the line is not so clear. Sam Mason, the BBC employee, will vouch for this. When she called to book a cab for her daughter, she asked the operator to not send an Asian driver as "A guy with a turban is going to freak her out". In the same breath she also insisted she wasn't racist, and went on to make a needless remark about the operator's intelligence. The operator leaked the phone call to the media, BBC was embarrassed, and duly fired the employee. Was the woman wrong in avoiding a sardar driver? Was the operator wrong in leaking it to the media? Was BBC wrong in firing their employee? Taken in isolation, all three parties were justified in their actions. If Sam Mason realized that the phone call had the potential to be leaked, she would have never said what she did. She might have had a bad experience with a sardar driver earlier, and by asking the operator to not send a sardar driver, she was not painting an entire community with one brush, but merely trying to ensure her daughter's safety. She saw no bravado or virtue in hiding her inhibitions. She also knew that calling a sardar driver was not going to earn her the Nobel Peace Prize. If British taxi drivers started coming to India and, for some reason, made us uncomfortable, would we be very wrong in telling the cab operator "Yaar ek desi driver bhejna"? The moment Sam Mason's call was netted by the media, what could have at worst been called imprudent, was immediately dubbed racist (and ironically painted the entire British community as anti-sardar!). BBC, being the globally recognized organization that it is, really had no choice. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the woman, because it is something every single one of us have said (about different groups of people), albeit in fora less accessible to the prying media.

Colour-discrimination & caste-discrimination are high on the list no-nos. As a society, we are expected to accommodate people irrespective of caste, creed, religion, or sex (remember seeing this in every second line of your Civics textbook?). In a group where we cannot pick our noses at will, we will take the moral Mt. Everest and advocate equal opportunities for all, while two hours earlier we would have sent our matrimonial to The Hindu saying "Seeking beautiful, fair, Koundinya girl" under the section of Tamil Brahmins. We sincerely mean it when we talk about not discriminating on the basis of c-c-r-s, but we also have personal preferences that might be biased towards or against a particular group of people. Both these attitudes can co-exist; what is good for society might not be good for us, and we'd rather be biased and be happy, than be over-righteous and apprehensive. (Terrorists are different- they consider their personal preferences and ideologies more important than civilized society's and do what it takes to assert them.)This is exactly what Sam Mason did, but her personal preference became a public statement, and was thus put in a context entirely different from what was intended.

One case in which each one of us is a little less shameless in expressing our inhibitions is regarding eunuchs. Though we might never say it on camera, we might admit even in a large gathering that eunuchs make us uncomfortable because of their provocative methods of asking for money. We are terrified and disgusted when they break into marriage ceremonies or when they catch us in trains. Still, we rejoice their emancipation when one of them is elected to the assembly, even though we would think a million times before employing one as, say, a domestic help in our house. We're able to express our discomfiture with eunuchs more freely because the majority agrees with, and thus in a sense vindicates, us.

Finally, my blog. I am, by nature, politically correct. I can admit as much. All the filmmakers, actors, and politicians I've mercilessly thrashed in my blog wouldn't think so. Filmmakers would be terribly offended if they read my reviews, but if I knew they're going to read them, I wouldn't write them at all, fearing being sued for defamation. Even if I did write reviews, they would be moderate or mildly critical. You might say I don't have the spine to speak my mind; I just say the cause is not worth falling in trouble for. So the acerbic me and the moderate me function together, and know when to take charge and when to step back.

This curious coexistence of two truths is a marvelous ambassador for the human mind. While opinions and inhibitions are not primal instincts like sex, they are pretty rigid unless logic forces them to change. Society compels us to mask them sometimes, and we are so successful in the art of masking that we might side with the masked mind even when nobody's watching. But in that small, wondrous, near mystical, portion of our brain called the subconscious, our true opinions are pickled and preserved by cranial juices, ready to spring into action whenever the conscious mind gives it the all-clear.

Pehle Aap, Pehle Aap

2008-11-08T13:40:00.004-06:00

This post is inspired by this story

2008-11-01T21:19:00.000-05:00

Notes on America

2008-10-25T23:23:00.011-05:00

America- The Great Polluter

Everybody casually says that all Americans drive cars, and statistically, they're almost vindicated. There are more than 270 million cars on the roads, and the population is just 300 million. The only reason the cities are not as polluted as Indian cities is that the former are a lot less dense than the latter. And the US being a huge country, driving distances are large, which means an insane amount of gasoline is burnt every day. To compound the problem, the absence of public transport in most cities means you have twenty cars plying instead of one bus. What is also stunning is the careless use of plastic bags. Unlike in India, where the supermarket wallah will stuff all your saamaan into two or three big plastic bags, the counter waalis here put only 1 or 2 items in a bag, and on average, you come home with 8-10 plastic bags. I've already accumulated more plastic bags in 3 months than mom has in 27 years!

Why do people shop like there's no tomorrow?

For the simple reason that there is no tomorrow. If you finish your gallon of water on Wednesday, it means you have to go to Walmart, park your car, walk all the way to the relevant aisle, and stand in line for anything between 10 minutes and an hour- all for a gallon of water! So people take a deep breath on weekends, and ransack the racks, pick up more than their immediate needs warrant; just to escape the ordeal of shopping on weekdays. I'm not attempting to generalize here- it's just something I've been observing. I'm sorely missing kirana stores.

Why Indians don't have lane discipline

You have to hand it to the Americans. The road network and quality is excellent. You can drive at 120 kmph without being on steroids. The signals on the roads are very helpful, and people new to the city can also navigate fairly easily. The facilities for interstate travel are excellent- there are small exits from the main interstate roads, that have gas stations, supermarkets, and food outlets. But even if India manages to build good quality, wide roads, it's impossible to inculcate lane discipline along the lines of the US or Europe. The only reason is the number of 2-wheelers on Indian roads. Out of a 90-page driving rule book here, there were only 2 pages devoted to motorcycles- and reading it made me realize that if the roads here had half as many motorcycles as India does, all hell would break loose. The lack of lane discipline in India has less to do with Indians' 'driving sense' and more to do with the nature of roads and kind of vehicles driven.

Dignity of labour

One of the favourite tea-time discussions in urban India is how people in the US work as waiters or taxi drivers without any stigma, and how it would be unthinkable to have your son work part time in the neighbourhood dhaba in India (though, thanks to CCD, the idea is catching on). This difference is not because of the famous 'dignity of labour' argument. It's a more blatant and in-your-face reason. The US is a consumption-driven economy and private saving is very less, unlike India which has a much higher savings rate. Parents are understandably keen to see their children fend for themselves when they are old enough. Also, parents can't spend on their kids' indulgences beyond a certain point, which is why you see teenagers working in restaurants. And they are paid well, and tipped very well (15% of the bill). They use the money they earn either to support or to indulge themselves, unlike in India where parents take care of you till you actually start taking care of yourself, and not just till you're physically capable of doing so. Once the trend catches on in India, I'm sure parents won't mind their children earning that extra buck.

Why American parents are reluctant to spend on their kids' college education

Another famous Indians-are-better discussion revolves around American parents not sponsoring their kids' college education. There is a very valid reason for this. College education is offensively expensive here. It generally exceeds the annual income of the family. It's very much like the MBA colleges in India, whose fees too generally exceeds the average middle class annual income. Just like Indian students take loans and pay them off after their MBA, students here do it after high school. It's a combination of unaffordable fees, low savings, and a general encouragement to earn your own living as early as possible.

A word on college education. The fact that many high school students in the US do not go to college might surprise many Indians. In India, the concept of 'at least a degree' is so deeply entrenched that it may seem unthinkable that you can lead a comfortable and fulfilling life without a degree, unless you're the heir to a business or you're Sachin Tendulkar. This notion leads many parents to force a B.Tech down their kids' throats. In the US, vocational courses and diplomas (stuff you find printed on dirty yellow paper and stuck inside RTC buses) are pretty popular, which means you can focus your energies on acquiring a particular skill, and live off that skill for the rest of your life. If you want to build on that skill or move on from it, you can always join college at the age of 30; which brings me to another must-reform area for India. The idea of finishing all your education in one go and then settling down into grihasta, vanaprastha, and sanyasa sounds perfect, but makes our education system extremely inflexible. My mentor in office started his career by building swimming pools, then became a welder, and when he got more curious about welding, joined college at the age of 28 to learn metallurgy. He's now a very successful materials engineer. This is when I resent the decision of the IITs to admit students till only one year after their Class 12. College education is not the norm here, and the citizens are better off for it. By opening up colleges to students of all ages, and encouraging vocational education, we can not only give our adults the opportunity to enhance their learning, but also give a cushion of comfort to 17 year-olds who can't afford / are not interested in college. There are constraints like the limited number of college seats, but it's not a problem that cannot be tackled.

Why don't American households have maid servants?

The biggest dread for any bachelor / single girl moving to the US is the prospect of having to cook, clean, and dispose trash themselves without having recourse to a servant. The main reason for this is, whether a person works as a servant or a CEO, they need a car (how else will your servant commute?) and they have to pay insurance premiums for their car, their home, their health, their life, and everything else imaginable. Can you, or four people together, afford to pay for these 'basic necessities'? The minimum amount you need to earn to live comfortably is so high that it rules out odd jobs like istriwala, naukrani, or kachrawala. The absence of cheap public transport is a handicap the American government must take more seriously than it is. If there was no public transport in India, can you imagine your maid driving a Maruti 800 to your house every day?

Sue, sue, everywhere

I mentioned insurance in the previous paragraph. One reason people are able to save so little here is insurance. Apart from insuring their homes, vehicles, and self, people insure their property like laptops, appliances, etc. People have to get health insurance because healthcare is insanely expensive (a routine consultation can cost more than $100). Healthcare costs are high because doctors have to insure themselves against their patients' wrath. I heard doctors can end up paying $100,000 per year towards malpractice insurance (an insurance that covers the doctor's damages if a patient decides to sue them). Obviously, they have to charge obnoxious consultation fees to recover this. Apart from this, America is, in general, a very sue-happy country- and this is not my observation, it's what almost all my colleagues told me. A woman, who in a moment of extreme negligence spilled coffee on herself thereby burning her skin, sued McDonald's for not informing her that the coffee was hot. In another case, Heinz was sued for $180,000 for not filling a ketchup bottle completely. The long and short of it is, people and corporations spend thousands and millions of dollars respectively in insuring against possible damages. As a result, the real winners in this tamasha are lawyers and insurance companies.

Scarcity of diversity

You can get an idea about how diverse the country is when the people of the North and South differentiate themselves by the way they pronounce the word 'ask'. When everybody in your country speaks the same language, celebrates the same festivals, and eats more or less the same food (though some diversity exists), you are missing the diversity only a country like India has. There's another trivial point I'd nonetheless like to mention. Throughout the country, addresses have the same format: Building no., Street name, Apartment no., City, State- Zip Code. Though there's not much scope for diversity here, addresses in India are a lot more romantic because you'll have a Near Indira Park, or Opposite Gandhi Statue, or Behind Purana Masjid in some addresses. Then you have the Nagars, Baghs, Galis, Vihars, Estates, Bazaars, Puris, and other pointers to the locality you live in. You might live in Sector C, or Pocket A, or Plot no.27, depending on the whims of the developer. When all addresses are in the format 1234, XYZ Street, Apt. 123, New Orleans, LA- 12345, it can get boring.

Being a politician

I might be jumping the gun, sidestepping various issues, and being naive when I say that being a politician in the US is a lot easier than being one in India, but I can't help feeling that way. It's so much easier to reach out to the public here and keep a tab on their pulse. 99% of the American households watch television. Therefore, publicity campaigns, presidential debates, smear campaigns, etc. have such tremendous penetration that you can address the entire electorate in an 8 p.m. show. Also, most of the people here speak the same language, i.e. the President can crack a joke about, say, football, and 300 million people will laugh; he can praise Jesus and not raise eyebrows. This is a huge advantage, because it eliminates the effects of his place of birth and his upbringing. Contrast this to India where you have to travel by foot to address lakhs of people, communicate in a language that a majority can understand but you might not be comfortable with, and know what's music and what's Greek to the public's ears.

The breadth of issues to be tackled by politicians here is minuscule in comparison to what our netas have to handle. Here, there a few very broad issues, and very few local ones, which is the exact opposite of what we see in India. The President here has to mainly tackle public healthcare, defence, external affairs, national debt, education, and the environment- and each citizen understands the implication of each. In contrast, our Prime Minister has to deal with all this, and in addition, tackle coalition politics, communalism, agriculture, casteism, poverty, malnutrition, cross-border tension, infrastructure woes, cottage industries, unemployment, 'inclusive growth', and a lot lot more. If you step back and think about the variety and depth of issues in India, you'll realize how difficult it is to be a good politician. When the economy is doing fine, they have to deal with farmer suicides; when agriculture is doing ok, they have to worry about shortage of power; when industries are flourishing, they have to worry about giving schedule castes their due; when everything is ok, they have NGOs clamouring for the protection of tigers; when they too are quiet, homosexual groups are out on the streets. Hats off to the PM for having the sheer courage to face up to all this! When Manmohan Singh talks about the credit crisis, less than 1/10th of the population knows what he's talking about; when he discusses tax cuts, only half the country understands; when he talks about nuclear power, less than 5% can figure out what he's saying; in other words, the number of issues he has to address in order to ensure there's something for everyone, is much much more than what his American counterpart does.

In Conclusion

I do not intend to compare India and the US per se, but these being the only two countries I've stayed in for reasonable lengths of time, comparisons are inevitable. I've made these observations and assertions from an eye that is only 3 months old in the US, so I may be inaccurate or blatantly wrong in many places. I invite my readers to contest / correct any of my points in the comments' section.

100 days

2008-10-24T19:20:00.008-05:00

As I complete 100 days in this country, I sit and reflect on the number of times I've sat and reflected in the last 3-and-a-half months. Most of my sit-and-reflect sessions ended in two-line posts that never saw the light of day. There were so many things I wanted to write about, that I ended up writing nothing. A couple of posts did go beyond two lines -they actually grossed more than 1000 words each- but were directionless and seemed to never end. It's very likely this post will meet the same fate. If we were still in the 70s or the Bollywood of the Barjatyas, I'd have a thousand dustbins filled with crumpled pages. It's in times like these that I stand up and applaud all authors and film-makers; all of them- including Bazmee and TLV Prasad, for their sheer determination and will to take their ideas to completion. Both writing and film-making are notoriously difficult tasks, and successfully completing them are victories in themselves.

There's so much happening in the world these days that it's impossible to not have an opinion about at least some of the issues, and the fact that I seem to have an opinion about all of them is more a pain-in-the-brain than yay-I'm-up-to-date. My day isn't complete without visiting 3 websites- www.ndtv.com, www.ibnlive.com, and www.cricinfo.com. While Cricinfo is a joyous read -some of the best, most unadulterated, most unbiased cricket reports- NDTV and IBN are continuing to paint the world in whichever colour they want to. When I thus lay my brain open to the manipulative forces of NDTV and IBN, they spice, dice, dress, caress, drape, rape, arrest and molest it at will. So while my brain is bursting at its seams (damn! that's a tongue twister) with honest and unwanted opinions on everything from Lehman Brothers to Hindu fundamentalism to Anil Kumble, I'd rather not jump onto the bandwagon of second-hand reporters.

What news channels around the world will not tell you, and what you need to know if you ever plan to dine in my kitchen, is that a middle-aged cockroach was not-so-stealthily climbing up the kitchen cabinet and heading straight for whatever was putrefying on the counter. This is only the 2nd time I've been alone with a cockroach, with no physical support in the form of broom-wielding-grandma, slipper-wielding-mom, or HIT-wielding-dad, or moral support in the form of similarly paranoid hostelmates. The first time was also in this house, where 1 hour into a movie I realised I had company. But the need to exterminate this 2nd crawler was more urgent as failure to do so would lead to contamination of food, leading to the need to visit an American doctor, which implies going in with a bad stomach and coming out with a bad debt. I thought quickly and sentenced the creep to a violent death.

But before this incident, and since it, my kitchen has been a sporting witness to my deeds with the dishes (or kartoots with the kadhaais for the maligned North Indian community). From the highs of semiya payasam to the lows of pulikaachal; from the serendipitous pulao to the wrecked moong daal halwa; from the aroma of simmering spices to the stench of the capsicum that I forgot to put in the fridge; and from the ecstasy of making bhindi raita to the oh-shit of melting a plastic container in the process, my kitchen has experienced a gamut of emotions it could write a novel about if it wasn't just a lifeless kitchen. Technology has infiltrated my kitchen in a big way- apart from the regular stuff like a microwave, and a food processor, it is home to online cooking lessons by Ketaki, the latest being rotis and aloo parathas.

When co-expatriate Rajat told me in no uncertain terms that my passion for cooking would wane with time, I laughed it off like I was a dedicated homemaker for whom cooking was as much a routine as watching Bigg Boss is. But with time, the stock of vegetables in my fridge has reduced, and the stock of ready-to-eat parathas, tamarind rice, roti wraps, pizzas, and curries in the freezer has shot up. While in my first two months I emulated my mother by carefully picking tomatoes and bhindi, I've since been emulating the cult of the lazy bachelor whose world starts at the freezer and ends at the microwave. I still cook, but with less frequency and more passion than before. I can dedicate a whole post to my recipes, but I suggest you read it with a full stomach lest you be tempted to try some of them.

When I'm not busy cooking or eating the outcome of the activity, I play tennis and watch some of my favourite movies and Hindi sitcoms. We stopped playing tennis sometime back with a collective decision to grow fat. Let me preempt amma's enna-da-Akshay by saying that we've decided to take the court again. I spent my first 2 months in realising the American dream of living in a nice house and driving a nice car; it's now time to realise the American nightmare of a continuously bulging waistline- and it's all-round growth, so if you care to overlap snapshots of my waistline over time, you'll actually get concentric ovals. It's not as tough to gain weight here as it is in India; you just need to follow the following strict weekend regimen- sit all day in bed with a laptop on the lap, a bag of chips on the left, and a gallon of orange juice on the right. The size of the packet of chips and the gallon of juice (3.8 litres) will ensure you never need to budge from your place- not even for a refill. And given that there are no mosquitoes around in my house, I'm deprived of even the basic exercise I had in India.

It's not tough to find obese people in this part of the world. In fact you don't have to look very far. You look in any direction around you in your nearest Walmart (that's the only place you realise humans don't end at the chest), and you'll find a gigantic auntie or a humungous uncle moving their overflowing cart with enviable ease. And when I say obese, I don't mean Indian style obese people behind whom you can crouch and win hide-and-seek; I mean OBESE people who can substitute lead in nuclear reactors, who tie their shoe laces by trial-and-error. But the good thing is, they can walk around normally without having people stare at them (apart from the odd shameless ones like me), unlike in India where they would be potential Aaj Tak fodder.

I've come across two kinds of Indian strangers here. One kind consciously ignores you- It's almost like they're scared you're going to ask them for food, lodging, and a mug. The other kind starts chatting up immediately and makes you wonder about your father's trip to Kumbh Mela in 1987. But the most memorable Indian I've met thus far is a Gujju auntie in a subway outlet. While she goes about her business of fixing sandwiches with the enthusiasm of a corpse, she sports a wide grin from "What kind of cheej?" to "Salt and paper?" when she's fixing mine. Right from my first visit there she's been offering me free chips, free cookies, and free drinks, prompting me to rethink the now canonical adage about no free lunches. Just last week, I went in at 2 p.m. and saw nobody else at the counter. She took the opportunity for a casual chat, talking about her apartmaint, her husband's bijnes, her kajin's subway, how she manages to stay vegetarian while handling meat, her children in India, how she's yearning to go back to India, and finally asked if I was interested in a job in subway. Now where did that come from! When I politely turned down the offer, she offered me a job at a liquor store in California.

All said and done, I'm growing to like this place. The people are nice and it's fun to drive fast on good roads. My interactions, strictly non-technical, with my colleagues, and my general bad habit of thinking have given me an insight into the American mind, but I'll stack up my observations in my next post. Just one thing though- while we curse the Americans for writing dates as mm/dd/yyyy, it's not altogether crazy. Like us, they too write the date the way they say it. We use dd/mm/yyyy because we're accustomed to saying 5th October, 2008, where as the Americans say October 5th, 2008. It's as simple as that; nothing non-conformist about it.

I'll sign off now then. This is actually not the end of the post; I've written a lot more, but it makes the post too long for even me to read. I'll post the next instalment soon.

We, the People; and They, the Media

2008-09-17T22:24:00.003-05:00

The aftermath of a blast is a goldmine for the media- "PM condemns blast", "UPA soft on Terror: BJP", "We will not spare the culprits: Patil", are near givens each time an attack of this nature is perpetrated. Add to that the channels' websites' gems: "Were you there? Write in.", "Today's poll: Should we bring POTA back?" and a host of other features and applications that cash in on the junta's interest (including the interest of people like me who live abroad and rely on NDTV and CNN-IBN's websites for news).

There is no denying that the media plays a big role in times like these. They get the license to grill politicians, expose the government, criticize Intelligence, and in general make a lot of noise on behalf of the angry public. All of us want to express our anger and you-bastards but it's the scribes with mikes, cameras, and IDs that get to do it. To inform is their right & duty; to influence is their privilege, and a sacrosanct one at that. While providing incorrect information is wrong; misguiding the public, shifting their focus from the core to the periphery, and seasoning stories with TRP tadka is an abuse of the privilege society hands them.

There are innumerable examples from English and vernaucalar media to support this. The most recent - and the second most nauseating - case was the media talking about Shivraj Patil changing his clothes thrice in the evening after the Delhi serial blasts. All of them - NDTV, CNN-IBN, TOI, and tragically, even The Hindu mentioned this in their reports just hours after the blast. It was okay to report this to the extent of expressing the general public mood. But none of these reports took that extra step of disowning these sentiments (some of them actually endorsed the view); because I can't believe any serious media house with a brain of the size of a hydrogen atom really considers Patil's attire to be an issue. That the man has been frighteningly incompetent is a substantiable allegation, that he doesn't have the balls to talk tough and with conviction is a proven fact, that he hasn't an ounce of self esteem has been demonstrated by this- when we have these very valid reasons to be mad at the man, why divert our attention and dissipate our anger by appealing to the idiot in us? Would we be less angry with him if had appeared thrice in the same clothes? Is his habit of wearing fresh clothes before each public appearance antagonistic to his duties as Home Minister? We, as a society, have the habit of thrashing a guilty public figure for everything that's out of public jurisdiction (I am guilty of this too); for example, criticizing Yuvraj Singh for partying too much and Sarah Palin for her pregnant daughter. The comments on Patil's frequent dress change can be a topic four friends joke about over a cup of tea, but to wax eloquent on it in prime time takes the sucker punch out of the real issue and shows how puerile the media can get. Thankfully, politicians of all hues wasted no time in rubbishing the issue.

The most nauseating case of journalistic perjury in recent times has been the coverage, I heard, Hindi news channels gave to the LHC experiment by CERN. It is a momentous experiment in more ways than one- it will answer not only scientific conundrums, but might also be that push fence-sitting agnosts like me need towards atheism. It is an experiment that has been on the drawing board for years now, and scientists the world over swear by its safety. Yet, some harebrianed teams at Aaj Tak, Star News, and the like have been fuelling already quelled rumours about the experiment imperiling the existence of the earth. And given the exclusive viewership Hindi news channels command, millions of Indians are misled into believing a scientific impossibility. For many people sitting in villages, watching Aaj Tak on a 14" TV set while milking their cows, a headline like "SEPTEMBER 10 KO DUNIYA KHATAM" can be a real shock- especially when they have no resources but other crappy Hindi channels to verify this. Star News claimed "Star News ne kiya tha vaada ki duniya nahi hogi khatam, aur aisa hi hua." I felt like firing that reporter along with the proton in the LHC. Hindi news channels, per se, are not synonymous with stupidity, but their assumption that anything that must appeal to rural junta must be gossipable, feather-rufflable and font 30, is what makes all of them cheap without exception. When India TV talks about the love triangle of tigers, we accuse them of wasting airtime, but excuse them because they're not trivializing anything- they're just passing off bullshit as bullshit. But irresponsible and untruthful reporting, intentional or unintentional, like in the CERN case, should be punishable by law.

I don't deny the media's right and need to generate revenues. I also understand the pressure on TRPs as more and more channels share viewership and hence advertising revenues. Even to maintain, if not improve, their ad revenues, news channels must constantly ensure that they not only provide news but also entertain viewers enough to keep them from the remote. This can be done either by enlightening viewers with diverse programmes like Auto shows, debates, travelogues, interviews, and programmes like Jai Jawaan (on NDTV),or by pandering to their non-serious interests like Saif's tattoo or Dhoni's bike. Since the battle for ad revenues is not just among news channels, you find Aaj Tak & NDTV pitted against Sony and Zoom. But entertainment can make sense, and their belief in the opposite lumps many news channels with the David Dhawans and Anees Bazmees of the world. I am also against the notion (which I too held one time) that journalists must present facts and leave their interpretation to the public. Journalists must have the right to interpret the facts they gather as long as they don't create propaganda or perpetrate falsehood. The media played a laudatory role in cracking the Jessica Lall case and the BMW 1 case, made all the right noises about the murders of Manjunath Shanmugam and Satyendra Dubey, and brought to light the horrific Nithari killings. But that does not act as an antidote for their excesses in the Aarushi case (which, by the way, should rank above CERN in nauseating reporting) and the other liberties they take under the banner of Free Press. They might have the legal right to present anything they desire, but do they have the moral right to treat us as just stepping stones up the TRP hill?

Maya Memsaab

2008-08-23T00:03:00.004-05:00

I am scared, extremely scared, and I'm not saying this in James Bond's style. Read on to find out why.

The Background

Since mid-January this year, India has been in a turmoil of sorts. It started with the markets crashing, fuel price soaring, dollar weakening, IT slowing, manufacturing stalling, GDP growth declining, and inflation touching double digits.

The budget brought euphoria to the working class as taxes were reduced. It brought relief to farmers as loans to the tune of Rs.71,000 crores were waived. The Pay Commission recommended a 40% hike in government employees' wages. But all these were fast forgotten in the face of soaring prices and high fuel costs.

The turmoil has not just been economic. With India's proposed growth in infrastructure, a secure energy supply is imperative. The UPA government, nay, the Congress, nay, Manmohan Singh rightly pressed ahead with the Nuclear deal but met with bitter opposition from not only the opposition (whose job it is to oppose) but also from the Left. The trust vote was thankfully in Manmohan's favour, and a major political crisis was averted. In his final speech to the Parliament before the trust vote (which was never delivered thanks to the cash-for-votes hungama), Manmohan Singh rebuked Advani for calling him a weak PM. In particular, he stressed on Advani's incompetence in dealing with terrorist attacks. By a cruel twist of fate, 24 bombs exploded days after those measured words, seriously hampering the image of the UPA.

What this politico-economic instability has done is give other political parties ample room for rhetoric. We saw the old guard, Advani, almost ready to take oath as the next PM. We saw Karat and gang hurling innuendo after unwarranted innuendo at the Congress. We saw small state parties like SP and BSP in a position to make or break the Government. Of all these arrows flying and nullifying each other in Mahabharatha style, one arrow steered clear and now threatens to rip the Indian political fabric to shreds.

The Darr

I don't remember the first time Mayawati made her desire to become Prime Minister public. But I remember seeing a mammoth cut-out of a waving, 32-teeth baring Maya not in Banaras (which is my second hometown), but in Bangalore sometime last year. That's when I first heard about her Prime Ministerial ambitions, and I laughed it off carelessly (in the classic Pan Pasand style- Mayawati aur Pradhaanmantri? Hmph! Kabhi Nahi). She has since been on a relentless nationwide campaign, fraternizing with leaders of various states. With her BSP, the Left, and the UNPA joining hands just days before the trust vote, the third front looks a lot more menacing. There was never reason to believe that we would have a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the centre in the forthcoming general elections. We knew BSP, SP, AIADMK, DMK, CPI(M) would just be the little shoves on the ass the Congress or BJP woluld need to scale the wall. Even the formation of the UNPA (an ideologyless medley of state parties aiming to use their respective regional clouts to conquer Delhi) was taken seriously by only the UNPA. It's not a bad idea, in principle, to have a strong third front. In practice, however, the present third front aims only to overthrow the present government. The UNPA-BSP-Left third front is a highly opportunistic alliance of ideologically incompatible political outfits with supremely egotistic leaders that believes it can provide a stable government at the centre. How is it possible to have a Chandrababu Naidu -who refused to allow reservations to creep into ISB admissions- and a Mayawati -who would reserve seats in a restaurant if she had a chance- in the same government? How is it possible to make any kind of lasting alliance with someone like Jayalalithaa? The very fact that they have made public their sole motive as being the overthrow of UPA shows very poorly on their general intellect and their perception of the electorate.It reeks of acute politiciosis.

Mayawati doesn't want India to be a progressive and prosperous country. She doesn't want advances in science and technology. She does not want to beef up India's infrastructure. She does not want to rapidly industrialize the country. At least, she doesn't say all this. I might be wrong but she has said nothing to prove me wrong. All she has been saying is "Why can't I be PM", "UPA and NDA are conspiring against me", "They are scared a daughter of a Dalit will become a PM" etc. The only thing she has made clear is that more reservations are coming- for Dalit Muslims and Christians, and for all the XCs in the private sector. She's also handing out a bone to the poor in the upper castes. Does she say one thing about educating the lot of XCs so that they needn't depend on reduced cut-offs all their lives? She's misleading the Dalits into believing that their lot will be less discriminated against as a result of 'one of them', an 'untouchable' being elevated to the post of Prime Minister. That's as inane a conclusion to make as was made when Pratibha Patil's appointment as President was supposed to be a morale bosster for women. If people of generation X-2 hated dalits and considered them untouchable, are they going to kiss them on the forehead now that 'one of them' is the PM? It's as difficult for that generation to start loving dalits as it is for mine to hate them for their caste. Dr.Ambedkar suggested reservations for the downtrodden because that is exactly what they were. Indians, in a wave of nationalistic feeling, were willing to sacrifice a little to integrate their historically downtrodden brothers into free India. My generation is largely more tolerant, except when parents and grandparents inculcate those shitty use-chhoona-mat values in their kids (my parents and more importantly grandparents never did so). The only way you know someone is an SC or an ST is when they tick that tiny square in all their forms. I don't blame them for doing so- heck, if someone reserves 50% of the seats for Palakkad Iyers born in Barrackpore and living in Hyderabad I would jump with joy. The blame rests, obviously, on the parties that keep the caste system alive in their incendiary speeches. Party A panders to the lower castes, because if it doesn't, Party B or C will. There's no way we can get a broad political consensus of phasing out reservations instead of squeezing in more. The only option is having the Supreme Court somehow fitting it into the fundamental rights as a right against reverse discrimination or something. Nobody is against upliftment of the underprivileged- but disguising a political weapon as an olive branch; letting the 'underprivileged' sniff it and stuffing it down our throats; is the kind of politics India can do without but one it is most likely sinking into.

Here's a woman who is busy erecting statues of ahem, hmmm, let's see...herself. Here's a woman who's proud of being elected the Chief Minister of India's most populous state not one time but four. Anybody who can be proud of being Chief Minister just by virtue of being one, and that too of a state that is as underdeveloped now as it was at the start of the tenure, is probably going to make the rest of India like UP. That is what I'm scared about, and what hamaari junta should fear too. It's so irritating to hear her say "If i can be the Chief Minister of India's most populated state, why can't I be the PM of India?" Well Kumari Mayawati, the rest of India has one billion people, which is approximately 600% of the population of UP. You might have charisma and appeal, but we're not looking for a model. We want an erudite leader who can cleverly market India to the rest of the world.

I could go on and on. You just have to enter "Mayawati Prime Minister" in Google to see all these scarily amusing reports and interviews about Mayawati. We welcome a Dalit woman Prime Minister if she's worth the post; not a woman who gets a kick out of becoming Prime Minister because she's a Dalit. Mere desh ki junta, please don't vote for her. The ones at the top now might not be very good, but not-very-good is better than disastrous.

Mission Istanbullshit

2008-08-13T17:41:00.004-05:00

I know this film's 2-3 weeks old, but read it- there's no harm reliving past horrors.

When a good director uses good actors for a good script, you generally get a good movie; when a good director gets a bad script, you get a disappointing movie; when a bad director gets good actors, you call it a Yashraj film; and when a bad director gets worse actors for an awful script you get Mission Istanbul. You can't help but think why Apoorva Lakhia made this movie. He seems to have taken a lot of pains to make a pathetic movie. Right till the end, you can't figure out whether it was a spoof on terrorism or an attempt to address it. Well, it turns out Lakhia didn't have the brains for either. When people like Priyadarshan and Anees Bazmee direct a movie, they say balls to the discerning audience and make empty-headed pot-boilers. The audience knows what to expect. But Lakhia picks up a subject of international concern and flogs it so badly that at the end you feel the film had nothing to do with terrorism. In many ways, it's like a Tandoori Paneer Pizza. It's an international concept Indianized to suit our taste buds. Lakhia does the same to this movie, making international terrorism look no more serious than roadside goondagardi.

When the director and producer pick actors of the calibre of Viveik Oberoi, Zayed Khan, and Suniel Shetty, you know they're not serious about making a film. I still can't figure out why people cast Suniel Shetty. As a solo hero, he can be a nightmare; in a multistarrer like Main Hoon Na or Border, he's generally the recipe for disaster; in multistarrers like Mission Istanbul where's he's the most experienced actor, he still manages to act worse than everybody else. Lakhia must've realised this, which is probably why he finished him off before he could do more damage.

Ok, here's the story, or whatever little there is of it. Zayed Khan is an 'IIT topper' with a Computer Engg degree who chooses to work for Aaj Tak (that's stretching creative freedom to its limit). He's India's best 'TV journo'. He is sent to Istanbul to work with Al Johara (psst psst, it's Al Jazeera; this is where I start thinking it's a spoof)- the channel wants to set up base in India. As events unfold, we find out that Al Johara is not what it seems- it acts as a mouthpiece for the terrorists who, in the name of Abu Nazir (an obvious attempt at recreating Osama, down to the last strand of the beard), orchestrate terrorist attacks all over the world. The head of this terrorist organization is an actor from Ekta Kapoor's glycerine factory, and couldn't look less menacing. You can make out he played an aadarshwadi beta or pati five minutes before every shot.

Anyway, Viveik Oberoi is some kind of crusader against terrorism and convinces Zayed that Abu Nazir is dead and Al Johara is keeping him alive using 'computer graphics'. Zayed also finds out that anybody who tries to leave Al Johara is bumped off, and that there's a mysterious 13th floor where all the phoney Abu Nazir messages are fabricated. Does this sound familiar? Those of you who've read, or watched the adaption of John Grisham's The Firm can't miss the connection- the idea of a reputed company acting as a cover for a notorious gang, the idea of the company killing employees who want to leave the company, the idea of having one floor dedicated to the underhand activities- yeah baby, it's all there. You can't blame Lakhia though; especially when you compare it to more shameless adaptations of the Abbas-Mustan variety.

The rest of the movie is about Zayed and Viveik trying to 'save the world'. They steal all of Al Johara's information on a pen drive and have the security guards hot on their heels. The highlight of the movie was Al Johara's security guards surrounding Zayed, Viveik, and a woman (it's not worth describing the woman's role in the movie), brandishing hockey sticks and clubs! This scene also features the most ill-timed and annoying product placement shot I've ever seen in cinema. It goes thus. Viveik and Zayed have a Mountain Dew each in hand. Viveik asks Zayed "Darr lag raha hai?" to which the latter replies "Nahi. Darr ke aage jeet hai." The plot and screenplay were so bad, that I'll actually recommend people to watch the film. For the climax, Lakhia seems to have roped in Salman to direct the shot- Zayed and the head of Al Johara shed their shirts and start beating each other up. Obviously, Zayed won.

The USP of this movie is that every scene is an eyesore and a brainsore. The movie was alternating between spoofy (the ludicrous George Bush sequence, the poor imitation of Osama) and silly (the rest of the film) with not one scene that gives you an idea of Lakhia's take on terrorism. All it says is, if only terrorists were as emasculated as the ones in this film, even hollow-headed brawnies like Zayed and Viveik can save the world. The movie was extremely poorly researched and shockingly insincere; it was almost insulting to the terrorists. The first thing a director must do after writing the story, is incorporate the local accent in the dialogues (Gangaajal, Omkara, Mr. & Mrs. Iyer). This is even more important when your actors are shown to be natives of that place. Lakhia was so way off the mark, it looked deliberate. Viveik and the head of the terrorist network speaking good Indian Hindi was a testament to both their command over our national language and Lakhia's general obtuseness. Viveik was particularly irritating as he's been carrying that suave, confident smirk which was pleasant when he entered the industry, but makes my bile boil now.

All said, Mission Istanbul is a remarkable achievement. Eliciting incompetent performances from all involved is no mean feat. You always have a but-that-chap-was-good actor whose spoils an otherwise delightfully bad film. Lakhia has transcended this and made a genuinely bad film that fails to deliver on all fronts- for this he deserves praise. But if you insist, I'll give you a silver lining- the movie did not have Tusshar Kapoor, which is a pleasant surprise considering who the producer is.

If Pritam had a son

2008-07-22T19:28:00.002-05:00

The Amrikan Dream

2008-07-13T02:35:00.008-05:00

So finally, after months of waiting, getting bored, biting nails, spitting them, sweeping them, learning to cook, forgetting to cook, relearning, telling people “I’ll be there in the next couple of months”, getting frustrated, cursing Bush, I’ve finally landed in the USA (I’m not sure if ‘the’ should be used. Ashok, where art thou?). Right from when I was this small, I’ve had this next-to-heaven-and-chocolate-icecream image of the US. Coming from Hyderabad, where I wouldn’t be surprised if kindergarten kids are taught G for Green Card, I’ve always been curious about this country- sometimes a starry-eyed curiosity and sometimes a so-what’s-the-big-deal curiosity. As I stepped onto the New Orleans airport with my light cabin baggage and a heavier emotional one, I began feeling wet. I wasn’t crying or peeing, it was just so humid. I’ve been one of the strongest anti-humidity advocates, and in response, I’ve been sent to such places as Varanasi, Kuala Lumpur, and now Louisiana. But not wanting to curse the place on my first day, I quietly mopped my forehead.

The journey to Louisiana was long, but not really tiring. There was a small scare in the Paris-Houston flight. It wasn’t terrorists or hijackers or any of the AL XYZs. It was a couple that wanted me to exchange my aisle seat for a middle seat a few rows behind so that they could sit together. I almost declined, when I saw the real reason they wanted to sit together. Their babies! Middle seats are the most beautiful seats ever made by man, especially when they’re far away from babies. I instantly agreed to swap seats. My new co-passenger was only marginally better. He was watching some sitcom on his screen and laughing loud enough to make me miss the babies.

My first impressions of the US (or at least of the place I live in)

The city

There’s loads of space everywhere. Malls have parking lots bigger than the malls themselves. Everybody has a car, and hardly anybody drives bikes. And those who do drive bikes, drive those monster 1000+ cc ones that sound like a jet engine. You won’t find people driving small scooters with a packet of milk or a loaf of bread hanging from the handle. People assume other drivers follow the rules here, so they drive really fast and leave you little margin for error. For guys like me who’ve driven Scootys and other cute chutku vehicles, and on roads where lane markings are just rangoli, where the hand is the indicator, and expletives are traffic signals, the discipline here is scary. There are no nukkad stores where you can buy a Rin soap for 4 bucks and get a Boomer as change. It’s all very mally and superstorey here. In Rajat’s words ‘chaddi se lekar car ki tyre tak sab ek hi mall mein milta hai’. And as Sunil Chittappa said, every road here has a name, and so you hardly get aage-se-left-phir-deadend-pe-right kind of instructions here.

The People

People here are either behind the steering wheel or on their way to or from one when on the road. You hardly find people taking a walk on the roads. If they walk, it’s generally on the special pavement provided in the colony for people to take their dogs for a stroll. So far, I’ve found people polite and courteous. Many people ask me where I learned to speak English. They unfortunately still think about India as this country of malnourished children and overfed cows. And how they struggle with my name! Ash kay, Ashki, Akshi, Aaakshi, Aaakshaay, and Aaashkaay are just some of the bastardized versions of my name. But this one takes the cake, the icing, the cherry, and the wafer: Akjhay Rajagotalan. Most people give up on my last name, they’d rather read Braille.

The Lingo

Louisianians speak English with a characteristic drawl. Natives also bathe their talk with double negatives like ain’t not and don’t need no. Thanks to Hollywood, the accent is not very difficult to decode. One chap had a particularly amazing accent- “If yall don’ get yall cords (cards) I’ll cancelem, and make em new for you. You can go aunlaine and do yall transactions. And of course yall can curm (come) anytaim to the beyyynk and withdraaaw yer money.”
Talking of banks, I must admit I don’t understand the funda of keeping 2 accounts- one savings and one checking. The savings account gives an interest of –start the drum roll- hold your breath- 0.25%. What the hell will people keep money there for? To earn 2.5 dollars at the end of the year from a 1000-dollar deposit? I might be presumptuous by criticizing the 2-account theory, but I’d love to have somebody explain it to me.

Housekeeping

Yes, I am cooking. Ankit and I cook, and we actually do a pretty good job. If you don’t believe me, just fly down on your expense; I’ll cook you a subsidised, insured meal. Ghar ka kaam sounds a lot more posh here- bartan maanjna, kapde dhona, and bazaar se saamaan khareedna become doing the dishes, doing the laundry, and shopping for groceries. I am still pathetic with my iron, and would much rather wear my shirts crumpled.

Television

TV here is BORING and funny. News channels are full of Obama, McCain, and celebrity divorces. The news reports are filled with rhetoric, and are plain bad. Some of the advertisements are really amusing. Companies aggresively market products like pet hair remover (to remove your dog’s hair from the sofa) and polythene bags! You don’t need pet hair removers- you just need to whack the kutta’s bums the next times it slimbs the sofa. Attorneys, drug marketing companies, and insurance firms too make some weirdly amusing ads. VH1 and MTv rarely play music, and the radio plays awful rap music. Anyway now that I have my laptop (yippee J), I don’t need the TV for entertainment. I have also tested my webcam and mike thanks to Ketaki and Chitti-Chittappa, so staying in touch is a lot easier. I watched Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na on the internet yesterday. It was a nice timepass movie. It was entertaining without being stupid- a complete antithesis of Priyadarshan’s funda. It’s a feel-good movie with a cliched plot, but it’s made well and I wouldn’t mind watching it again on the internet.

Yawn

Chalo bhai, time to sleep now. One week in Amrika has been quite eventful. I’ve been hunting for a house and a car, and have run into some very interesting people in the process. I can probably describe that later. Good night. Let me see the American Dream!

The Image Puzzle

2008-06-04T23:40:00.011-05:00

Substitute each image with a word to get the correct answer. I think this one is a give-away towards the end, but well, that's all the dimaag I could use. Please don't write the answer as a comment. Send me an email at akshay.bhu@gmail.com. Of course, you can tell me how good or awful the game is in the comment window.

The

against the

prices.

Maa Kee

2008-05-11T23:19:00.001-05:00

20 days is a long enough time to kill the excitement / enthusiasm of being in a new city / country. Slowly, but surely, the desire to explore, experiment, venture out, etc. is replaced by a stronger desire to get into a routine. Those travel guides are relegated to the bottom of the pile, those travel websites slowly tread down to the bottom of the dropdown list in IE (don't call me a loser; we don't have Firefox in office), and you are no longer interested in fiddling with cuisines. In the last year, I've tried enough cuisines to get sick of trying more cuisines. I tried Mexican cuisine, I loved fajita with chicken; I tried Japanese cuisine, I couldn't bear it; I tried Thai cuisine, I hated it; I tried Mediterranean cuisine (in Varanasi), I detested it; I tried Indonesian cuisine, I absolutely loathed it! More recently, I tried Taiwanese, and I http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?r=20&q=hate it. So what do I do for food these days? Well, lunch is in the mall in the twin towers. The eatery is called Bengal Cuisine, and feeds me Naan, Alu Gobby, Alu Begun (Baingan), Sola (Chhola), and Dal for a miserly price of INR 60! Dinner is generally in a large covered-from-the-top-but-open-from-all-sides restaurant whose Masala Doshai can give Saravana Bhavan a run for its money. Super doshai, with a super chutney and decent sambar- all for INR 34. For me, a good city is one where both the rich and the not-so-rich have enough choices to lead a comfortable life. Kuala Lumpur, by this coin, is an excellent city.

Anyone who ever visits Kuala Lumpur, simply must go to Chinatown once. The heart of Chinatown is two parallel streets, no more than 4 feet wide, and lined with shops selling exotic brands at eccentric rates. Rolex, Tag Hauer, Omega, Breitling watches for less than INR 600, Adidas and Nike gear at unimaginable discounts, and a variety of odds and ends at a fraction of the cost you would pay elsewhere. The street is so narrow that if a customer in one shop steps back, he might butt you into the facing shop. Richie and I roamed the streets for no less than 3 hours, and returned only when we were broke.

Last weekend, I went to this hilltop tourist destination called Genting Highland. It's just an hour's drive from the city, and the weather is a pleasant change from Kuala Lumpur's. Genting Highland is famous for its amusement park, and most of the rides really were amusing. It's the kind of place where a group of families can tikaao their children on merry-go-rounds and spread their carpet and open their hot cases and distribute paper plates and play frisbee. There were a few exciting rides that scared the shit out of me, but in general, the place was kiddish. By 6 in the evening, the entire place was shrouded in clouds and it became pretty chill. After a few more hours of dilly-dallying, losing two rounds of pool, and dining at Pizza Hut, we returned at 11.

After my trip to Batu Caves, and before my trip to Genting, I spent a boring evening in one of the most happening areas in town. Bukit Bintang is famous for its malls (3 of them, one purely for electronic goods, one where you can buy stuff at affordable rates, and one where you can't afford an empty glass of water). It is even more famous for its massage parlours scattered on both sides of the road; massage parlours that (I've heard) turn into brothels at night. But I was on this road neither to shop, nor to get felt up. I was there just to kill time and hunger. Wandering from lane to bylane to bybylane, I spotted a street lined with cheap-looking, delicious-looking roadside restaurants. There were so many restaurants, I was sure I would find something for my fussy palate. My stomach rumbled, and my wallet nodded in approval. The first restaurant I spotted was Dragon View, and dragon was the only animal they did not serve. The names of the restaurants on the street should've told me that these restaurants were anything but diverse-Sun Chui Yen, Sai Woo, Cu Cha, Shui Kee, Loong Kee, Lim Kee, Hup Kee, etc. I instantly got this crazy idea of getting mom here and opening a restaurant called Maa Kee.

Talking of Maa, I made a few interesting observations about the Malay language. Thank you is Terima Kasih. Now, if you ever said that in India, you’d have your brains blown out before you could reach ‘sih’. I found a few parallels between Hindi and Malay- Maaf, Yakin, Sabun, Khidmat, and Awam mean the same in both languages. There are few awkward parallels too- you is ‘anda’, water is ‘air’, door is ‘pintu’ and city is ‘bandar’. If Symonds ever drops in here, he’ll sue the entire damn city for racial abuse.

Anyway, the series of Kee restaurants had a variety of skinned animals on display that made the lane look like a fried zoo. I loitered around for some more time before spotting Restoran Srirekha. My tongue almost lolled down like a red carpet into the restaurant. The place was crowded- some Indians who, like me, would’ve fled the Kee-street; and some foreigners (locals?) who’d have their innards incensed with Andhra chilli and run back to Animal Planet.
All this talk of food is making me hungry. Time to run to Bengal Cuisine for my daily dose of dal-roti. I might be here for just another week, so my next post will be from the comfort of my room in Bangalore. Till then, happy reading and enjoy the IPL (sob sob L)

Sightseeing in KL

2008-05-01T22:07:00.007-05:00

At the Headquarters of the Department of Disaster Management

“All stations alert, we have an emergency. I repeat; all stations alert we have an emergency. Category 3 tummipane reported at 21:45 hours. All teams ready to evacuate.”

“I told you this was coming. The levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the ocean tempera-”

“Shut up, Gore. This ain’t the environment; it’s a goddamn stomach. Junior, what’s the status at the large intestine?”

“All queuing up sir. We’re just waiting to reach the Western Command.”

“It’s Commode, idiot. Gore, stuff that Nobel into his mouth, willya.”

“Ok, we’re ready for evacuation sir. Sister has been informed.”

“Cistern, jerk-head. Now open the gates.”

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH……………….

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I know most of this sounds insane. Ok, ok, I’ll give it to. Every bit of this is insane. But let me not jump straight to the event that led to this outburst. I’ll do this chronologically.

The day began like all holidays begin. I woke up, saw the digital clock say 11:00, grunted that I missed breakfast time again, and pulled myself out of the monstrously large bed. I tried to draw an agenda of things to do, and finally decided to spend the day productively by playing the World Cup in Cricket 07, watch BBC, eat something, and play another World Cup. When I went to the door, I saw an envelope lying on the ground with At Nikko, We Serve With Love written on it. The letter informed me that I had exceeded my limit, and therefore had to “furnish cash” to the hotel. I looked at the words on the envelope again. Big love! The good thing though, was that in going to the reception to “furnish cash” I shook off the lethargy. My sweat glands salivated at the sight of the sun outside. Still, some strange andar ki awaaz advised me to stop being a lazy bum and go around the town. Now, I’ve been ignoring my andar ki baat ever since Sunny Deol started mouthing the very same words on national television, but this time I decided to heed the call. A slow shave and a quick shower later, I was out of my comfortable room and into the punishing heat of Kuala Lumpur, with a handkerchief and a camera in hand. My destination: Batu Caves.

Whenever I go to a new city, I try to use public transport as often as possible. I love observing the local junta even if I don’t understand a word they speak. Now, those of you who know me well enough will rubbish this entire love-to-observe story and say I use public transport simply because it’s cheaper. Well, that’s true to an extent, but only to an extent. My train ride to Pasar Seni was in the crowded LRT, which is the local train here. I was to take a bus from Pasar Seni to Batu Caves. When I dismounted at Pasar Seni, I almost felt like enquiring if I was still in Malaysia. Teeming crowds with veebodi (sacred ash) smeared across their foreheads, murukku and pakodam selling on the footpaths, a live Tamil ‘concert’, a signboard saying Jalan Doraisamy (Jalan means ‘Street’ in Malay), and a row of shops with Tamil boards- who says Chennai is only an Indian City? In the bus, I was surrounded by an Indian reading a Hindi Newspaper, an elderly Malaysian Tamilian couple, a native Malaysian Muslim woman, and a group of native Malaysian Chinese men- a snapshot of Malaysia in a radius of 1 metre around me. I was immediately delighted I chose to travel by bus.

Half an hour later, the bus stopped a couple of hundred metres in front of a magnificent wall of rocks and trees. Batu caves, famous for its temple of Lord Murugan and the annual Thaipoosam festival (nothing to do with Thailand), lay ensconced within that mottled façade of green and grey. As I walked towards the caves, an imposing golden yellow statue of Lord Murugan came into view. I learned later that this is the tallest statue in the world. Next to the statue was a flight of stairs that seemed to never end. The lead-up to the temple was littered with tourist buses, tourists, and empty Sprite cans. There were many small shops selling flowers and garlands, evocative of similar shops near every Indian temple. At the foot of the hill were temples, a small pond with beautifully coloured fish (I’d like to think some artist pulled them out of water, painted them, and threw them back in), a small gushing waterfall, and innumerable souvenir shops and restaurants.

I laboured up the 272 steps. It was a very uncomfortable climb, because the steps were very narrow and I almost had to walk sideways lest I trip. But boy! Wasn’t the climb worth it! A breathtakingly beautiful cave, with idols of Hindu gods and goddesses standing out from the jagged walls, and the Gayatri mantram playing in the background- it was all picture perfect. A short walk through the cave opened out into another grey-and-green façade with the temple of Batumalai Murugan in the foreground. I’m at a loss for adjectives to describe this setting, and I don’t think Barron can do justice either. I won’t attempt to describe. I’ll let the photographs do the talking.

The magnificent statue of Lord Murugan with the adjoining stairs

The Batumalai Murugan Temple

At the end of the 272-step climb

Inside the caves

Talking of photographs, none of the shots I took had me in them because I was alone. I tried snapping myself, and let’s just say that if it wasn’t a digital camera I would’ve slaughtered myself for wasting the reel. I had asked a Tamilian chap to click a picture of me against the rock wall when I was halfway up the 272 stairs. But he refused because he was afraid his wailing 4-year old would roll down to the foot of the golden yellow Lord Murugan. At the Batumalai temple I gave my camera to a babyless man, but the amount of instructions I had to give him could fill up a PhD thesis. I finally found a man without a baby and with some knowledge of cameras, but as it turned out, the self-snapped images were the best of the lot.

Apart from the Batumalai temple, there were two other caves with Hindu deities and scriptures on the walls. The caves were simply spellbinding and I was really glad I shook off that laziness in the morning. This trip was worth every minute and every ringitt I spent on it. On returning to the foot of the hill, I had a sumptuous idly-vada lunch in a pure vegetarian restaurant (a dodo in this part of the world). I spent close to three hours at Batu Caves, and I might have lingered around for some more time if my mind had stopped drifting to that blessed air conditioner in my room.

Anyway, I was back at Pasar Seni at 5:30. The Tamil concert was gone, and in its place was a three-man band playing Stairway To Heaven on acoustic guitars. The song was a fitting description to my 272-step journey to the temple.

I lazed around in the room till 8:30 and stepped out again to answer my tummy’s call. I was in the mood for something different, and a cozy looking Taiwanese restaurant was just was the doctor ordered (as it turned out later, this is just what the doctor had NOT ordered). I combed the menu, and chicken was the least offensive animal on a menu that had coffee as its only vegetarian dish. When the waitress brought me a steaming bowl of noodles and a small tray of awesome-looking chicken chops, I was applauding myself for my choice. Ten seconds later, I realized I couldn’t have made a more daft choice. The noodles were insanely long; when I tried to suck a noodle in, it just kept coming till I was out of breath. The noodles were immersed in a spicy liquid and were so slippery I passed through hell trying to coil them around the fork.

Twenty minutes later, I was exhausted. Hunger wasn’t even a factor. I paid and ran out. Moral of the story: If you ever enter Little Taiwan, don’t waste time asking the waiter for tasty stuff or spicy stuff. Ask him what is easiest to eat.

Halfway to the hotel, the rumbling began, and you’ve already read what happened later.
It’s now 1:10 a.m. It’s the end of a long day. I fulfilled part of my earlier-planned agenda. I did watch BBC, I did eat, and though I didn’t play the World Cup, I beat Australia in Perth by 7 wickets. I’ll upload this one tomorrow. I don’t surf the internet much these days as I don’t have a connection in my room. Still, I’ll try to upload some photographs of my trip. Chalo chalo, let me sleep now. Tata.

Travelogue

2008-04-20T19:56:00.003-05:00

Time: 2 a.m. IST
Date: 20th April 2008
Location: Mid-air

I sat reclined on the window seat, gazing at the vast stretches of darkness below. I was just ruminating about how the darkness rendered boundaries between land and sea, and land and land meaningless, when it happened. The plane tilted one way first, then the other, like a drunk staggering down the street. It then started wobbling violently. The deathly silence was broken only by the sound of glass hitting the floor dully. The trembling of the craft seemed to be enhanced by the collective trembling of a hundred-odd hearts that were now somewhere near the throat. The captain mumbled something in some language, which soothed none of the hundred-odd hearts, which, by now, were lodged firmly between the palate and the tongue. It was no less than an earthquake mid-air, the difference being that while in an earthquake you run out into the open, here running out would land you in a sea off the coast of Malaysia. Thankfully, the pilot leveled the flight, and the hearts commenced their return journey to the chest. Two minutes later, a life-size make-up kit walked up to me, bared her teeth, and said, “That was bad, wasn’t it?” I spent quite some time figuring out the colour of her face. As she walked past me, the colour was changing with the angle of incidence of light from white to dirty gold. (Don’t blame the champagne; it was the chamki on her face).

If reading the above paragraph makes you think I’m grossly exaggerating a routine case of aircraft turbulence, you are dead right. The fact is, I am bored, I have a pen and this notebook, and I have nothing better to do than write. I have my laptop with me, but I’m still writing in the notebook because it’s been ages since I’ve written anything substantial on paper. If you ask me to tell you the letters of the English alphabet, there’s a good chance I’ll start with QWERTY. My handwriting, which had been gift-wrapped and parceled to the dogs the day I began writing, is now going to rabid stray dogs. If things go on the way they are a little longer, I might soon become the exact antithesis of ambidextrous.

Anyway, let me continue with the travelogue. After landing at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), picking up my baggage, and flashing artificial smiles at the stewards and airhostesses (earlier variously referred to as ‘make-up kit’ and ‘she’), I walked into an eerily isolated terminal. The only people around were other passengers of MH 187. It was so quiet I could almost hear my stinking breath. I walked close to a kilometer before reaching the baggage claim area. Thankfully, Murphy kept his ass out and my bag was one of the first on the belt.

I’ve heard about Kuala Lumpur’s humidity, but having lived in Banaras for four years, and having made innumerable summer-visits to Chennai, I considered myself a seasoned campaigner. But when I stepped out of the cozy, air-conditioned airport, it struck me. The moisture hit my face like atomized pee. And it was just 5:30 a.m.! The taxi ride from the airport to Hotel Nikko lasted 30 minutes. In India, that would probably translate to a distance of 20-25 km, but here, it was no less than 50 km. I was initially preoccupied with inserting my new sim into the phone. When I was done, I looked out and saw a green wall. I looked out the other side and saw a grey wall. I looked straight, and saw a red needle resting peacefully at 130. I was half-impressed and half-scared. I’ve seen too many shows of World’s Most Amazing Videos on AXN to be completely rid of fear. When the car slowed down, the green wall disintegrated into trees, and the grey wall into metal rods.

Twenty minutes into the ride, I saw a few lights in the distance that were much higher than other lights in its surroundings. I eagerly leaned forward and asked the driver if that was the Petronas twin towers. He mumbled something in some language* which, as I realized 10 minutes later, was a yes. Two tall, imposing structures stood out against the morning sky. The Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) where Hotel Nikko is located is also home to the Petronas twin towers. In terms of height, many other buildings in the area are insanely tall, but in terms of magnificence, none of them are within a ballistic missile’s distance of the twin towers.

It’s midnight now, and as I lie sprawled on the bed, I look out at the awesome buildings across the street. It has been a long day. I walked twice to the twin towers- once with a handkerchief in hand to mop the steady stream of sweat, and the second time with a handkerchief and a camera. Dinner consisted of vegetable biriyani, mango juice, and Norflox 400 (to curb a possible revolt against the biriyani).

I’ll go to sleep now. I’ll promise I’ll type this out. If you’re reading this, I’ve kept my promise, and if you aren’t, then, well, what promise? What started off as a decently scripted article, is now almost an illegible scrawl. Anyway, good night, and wish me a fruitful month in Kuala Lumpur.

Yippee, I kept my promise!

* This is the second time I’m using this phrase. Creativity, where art thou?

Back to Where I Won't Belong for Long

2008-04-18T14:35:00.002-05:00

As a throwback to the good old times when I used to write in class and blog pretty often, I've tentatively plagiarised the title of this post from my own blog. A lot of posts in my BHU days were based on train rides, trips to Secunderabad, and college; and since the last month has involved train rides, a trip to Secunderabad, and a trip to college, I sniff an opportunity to add another post to this increasingly dormant page.

Being in Bangalore these days, home is not too far away. All I need is a weekend, train tickets or bus tickets (if my stomach promises to hold up) or flight tickets (if those blessed frequent flier miles haven't run out). I had four distinctly different train rides in the last month; a to-and-fro Banaras-Delhi trip and a to-and-fro Bangalore-Secunderabad trip. The trip from Banaras to Delhi was in a Special train. Until that day, I considered special to be a word associated with positivity, i.e., a Shane Warne googly is a special ball, but Sreesanth's full toss is not. But I was forced to reconsider when I entered the train. How'd you feel if your first step inside the train was greeted by an intoxicating whiff of human execreta- a delectable mix of all three states of matter humans reject from their constitution? And what about the steel sink which has breathtaking patterns of paan spittle? Asian Paints must explore these patterns and start a new company called Asian Paants or something. How'd you feel when the blue seat you're about to sit on is not so blue, but has a thick brown layer which has to be breached by a newspaper / cloth / unwitting ass? What if the toilet is already caked with dried-up streams of urine and freshly deposited mounds of you-know-what? The sight in the toilet is a testimony to bad marksmanship. How do people consistently manage to miss that gaping hole and decorate its periphery? If all this wasn't bad enough, I saw a man making his kid pee on the vestibule. I really wished Sunny Deol was there to tear the vestibule away from the train.

While the memories of that train ride continue to haunt me as I write, other memories literally cry themselves into attention. Murphy is a bastard. Period. He is a genius, but he's a bastard. He knows I hate babies in trains, planes, theatres, and basically any place where I've no choice but to endure them. But he still surrounds me with groups of them. In the train ride from Bangalore to Secunderabad there were 3 babies in different stages of babydom in my cubicle. For the benefit of readers, a baby can be defined as "Human off-spring that is a breathing Bose system and a strong motive for murder." Apart from that there were a whole lot of babies in adjoining cubicles- babies that cried, babies that drooled, babies that ran around, babies interested in reading my book, babies refusing to eat, babies refusing to stop eating, babies refusing to pee, babies refusing to stop peeing. Mom says I too was as irritating as these kids. I agree. That's how babies are. My return journey however, had an interesting baby. She duly reported to me after her toilet visits as though I was supposed to keep count. She was chattering non-stop, and although she called me uncle (blame it on the beard), I thought she was quite cute.

My journey to Banaras was extremely eventful. I caught up with a lot of my classmates, juniors, and teachers. All of them had a lot of things to say, but one thing they all seemed to agree upon was my girth. "X, kitne mote ho gaye ho!" (where X = Bhaiyya, Saale, Akshay for juniors, classmates, and teachers respectively). We dined, we treated, we went to the ghaats, we ate paan, we clicked photos, we lost a digicam, we shot videos, we lost the handycam, we drove bikes, we had an accident, we stayed in juniors' rooms, we lost the keys to one room; and Oh! in the middle of all this we were given our degrees. The graduation robe made us look like wizards from some Potter flick, and the hat/cap was designed to give us a headache- a kind of retribution for all the headaches we gave our profs.

Alright, time to sleep now. I'm off to Malaysia tomorrow, so I doubt I'll post anything for another month. Till then, goodbye and goodnight!

Movie Review: Race

2008-03-21T22:27:00.005-05:00

Cast: 3 supposed hunks, 3 babes (the names don't really matter; they're all fungible)

Director: Abbas-Mustan

Rating: Approximately 1 out of any positive integer multiple of 10

If you’re the type that is familiar with the kind of movies Abbas-Mustan make, I’ll bet a million that your first words after Race will be ‘phir wahi?’ If you’re not familiar with their movies, you might just say ‘what crap’. Race belongs to that league of slick Hindi cinemas whose heroes are always the cameras and the leading ladies' dress designer. It is well shot, has some racy action sequences and the works, but at the centre has a plot which is twisted beyond

a) recognition
b) interest

The Abbas-Mustan duo is famous for this. I’m sure they run a twist-the-plot contest on the sets. They give the participants a set of characters, ask them to make as many male-female combinations as they can (once homosexuality is legalized in India, they’ll have more diverse combinations), and break, make, re-break, and re-make the combinations till:

a) They’re bored
b) The actors demand a hike in fees

Let me try to tell you the story. Ranvir Singh (Saif) is a horseracing enthusiast in South Africa. He bets on horses and wins money in multiples of a million dollars. He’s the typical confident, suave, rich, main-kabhi-nahi-haarta, main-jo-chahta-hoon-who-haasil-karke-hi-rehta-hoon hero who sports a stubble and looks mean. His biggest competitor on the field is Kabir Ahuja (Dalip Tahil). Both these guys bet on their own horses and win; they sometimes bet on each others horses and crack dialogues like “Tum aaj jeet kar bhi haar gaye”. In the middle of all this there are 2-3 songs, 2 pairs of sexy legs, and a bomb blast that kills Ranvir’s jockey. Ranvir’s younger brother Rajiv (Akshaye Khanna) is an alcoholic and Ranvir pledges to transport his girlfriend Sonia (Bipasha Basu) from his bedroom to Rajiv’s. In return for this carnal gift Rajiv would have to promise to not touch sharaab. It turns out that Sonia and Rajiv fall in love, but Sonia is only interested in the money honey. Rajiv and Ranvir’s father left them an insurance policy worth $ 50 million each. So Rajiv and Sonia decide to play bad boy-bad girl and kill Ranvir to lap up his 50 million. In the next few minutes, plans are made, Sonia is shown conspiring both against Ranvir and Rajiv, each brother asks Sonia to push the other off the roof, and Sonia finally pushes Ranvir. All this is edge of the seat entertainment- it keeps you on the edge and ready to leave.

In the second half an Indian cop Robert D’Costa (Anil Kapoor) enters the scene to investigate Ranvir’s death. Robert D’Costa (RD) loves eating a different fruit at every interrogation. RD has a moustache that looks like somebody had melted it, allowed it to drip down the sides of the face to the chin, and then re-solidified it. RD has an assistant, Mini (Sameera Reddy), whose manner oscillates between slutty and stupid at dizzying frequencies. RD is a crazy cop whom his crazier assistant considers a genius.

Oh! All this while I forgot to mention another puppet- Sophia (Katrina Kaif)- Ranvir’s secretary. It turns out that Ranvir married Sophia during a business visit and so all of Ranvir’s insurance money would be hers. They also managed to do a song-and-dance sequence after getting out of the marriage registrar’s office. Cho chad for Rajiv no? But another winner of the twist-the-plot contest suggests that it’s time to bring Rajiv and Sophia together. So now it turns out that Sophia actually married Rajiv, and so the money comes to Rajiv after all. But RD (who’s actually complicit with Ranvir), finds Rajiv guilty of murdering Ranvir and takes a hefty bribe to give him a clean chit.

Let me cut to the climax- Ranvir is alive (did some MI-2 rope stunt thanks to his buddy RD and only acted dead), Sonia is shown to be loyal to Ranvir finally, and Rajiv is too tired juggling babes around so he pants away with Sophia. The directors realize the movie is called Race, so they decide that the brother that wins a final car race will walk away with 200 million dollars. Ranvir wins. Rajiv dies. Ranvir gives RD his share. They drive away in opposite directions and thankfully vanish from the screen.

You could argue in the movie’s favour by saying you could never guess what’d happen next. Seasoned Abbas-Mustan viewers will tell you that the directors wouldn’t themselves know. The characters of Anil Kapoor and Sameera Reddy were both unbelievable and unbearable. Saif just had to looked pissed all the time. Akshaye Khanna seems to be stuck to Abbas-Mustan for life. Bipasha does well. If you’re in the habit of saying touchwood often, you might want to have Katrina around you. If Anil Kapoor and Sameera weren’t irritating enough, Abbas-Mustan gave Johney Lever a chance to make a fool of himself again. If you observe, Johney has changed his spelling, getting it closer to phoney. The action sequences are shot well, but that’s no longer a novelty in Hindi cinema. The only competition among the ladies was the length (height?) of their skirts.

The songs were all ill-timed. Three of them were inside the first half-hour. Like all cool-dude and yo Hindi songs today, many of these songs had a smattering of the Queen’s language. Songs like Zara zara kiss me touch me and baahaon mein aake ashiq banaakecome shake it…shake it…some more were so wannabe that I was almost amused.

Many people will like the movie. It’s a typical masala flick with songs, sex, sirens (not the police ones), cars, a lot of dhokha and shadyantra which is supposed to titillate jawaan guys like me. But it was just a case of been there-endured that, and beyond a point you don’t give a damn about who loves whom for what and for how long. Thank god Abbas-Mustan make films together; can’t imagine what it would be like to have both direct their own films.

Budget Reactions

2008-02-29T15:44:00.007-06:00

Market Mayhem

2008-01-22T10:30:00.001-06:00

Tagged

2008-01-22T10:16:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I've finally been tagged. Here goes:

1. Name Three Most Valuable Assets?
Wit, talent, and passion

2. If you have the chance, what would you probably say to your beloved one?
Hmmm…sochna padega

3. Where is the place that you want to go the most?
The only place I’m really particular about going to- and everyday too- is the loo.

4.If you can have 1 dream to come true, what would it be?
I’d want to become a best-selling author- that’s about as dreamy as I can get.

5.Till now, what is the moment that you regret the most?
The moment I decided to stop trying to become a best-selling author.

6.What are you afraid to lose the most?
The dream that I’ll one day become a best-selling author. Ok, enough of this best-selling author stuff; one thing I’m really afraid of losing is my love for words.

7.What would you do if you found a briefcase full of money?
Wake up

8.If you meet someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
If I love that person I’d have already met her right? Unless you’re talking about Gayatri Joshi or Priyanka Chopra ;)

9.Which type of person do you hate the most?
I dislike certain traits in people, but don't really hate anybody.

10.What is your ambition?
To be happy, successful, and enable others to be so too.

11.What is the thing that will make you think someone is a bad person?
Bad person? Kya bachpana hai?

12.If you could do one thing different in life, what would it be?
Put less salt in my pizza

13.Are you a shopaholic or no?
What kind of shop? If you consider DG corner and Limbi corner shops, I was a major shopaholic.

14.What is your stress buster?
Music, words, and images

15.Do you have any plans for tomorrow?
Let’s start by waking up in time

A Perthfect Victory

2008-01-19T05:48:00.000-06:00

Aaj se bees saal pehle in Jallandney

2008-01-07T12:17:00.000-06:00

Men of the Match

2008-01-06T03:58:00.001-06:00

Orkut's plot

2008-01-01T13:43:00.000-06:00

Event a: Join orkut, invite friends, and get "Welcome to Orkut" scraps

Event b: Intense orkut activity; furiously scrap friends, next-door neighbours

Event c: Orkut fatigue

Event d: Change photo

Event e: Not change photo

Event f: Special events viz. birthday, New Year, and Diwali; Portugese spam

Event g: Change marital status to 'committed'

Event h: Change sex to female and get a few hundred "Do u wanna make frienddship" scraps from many sootabul boys

2007-12-31T23:02:00.000-06:00

books r a mans best frnd

2007-11-11T16:42:00.000-06:00

i absolutly luv readin books...i read ol kinds of em. but ma favorite is murder mistrey. maan they make me byt ma nails outa ther roots..dats wat i luv bout em. wanna becom a writer sumday...wanna be on da bestseller list...wanna b sum1 big. meknows me cn b a freakin gud writer...ma english rox...ma grammar is gud 2. ma philosophy of life is watever u do do it wel...m a big believer in perfection. sum ppl harp bout gen x using chat lingo 2 much. i say wut da hell...as long as da msg getz thru what freakin diff does it make. lolz! get a life ppl!!! those comas and colons are so not kool. ive gotta awsome story awsome dialogs and topofall m a dam gud storyteller. ma sense of humor ll make u ol roll on ur ass i swear. luk out fr it dis oktober! m sure u guysll hav a fuckin gud xperience readin ma work. wud be greatful if u guys gav me a frank review.

k now get outta ma way freaks!!! time for me 2 watch ma fav sport futbol!!!

This post is inspired by Ankit Khanna's post on the state of the English language.

Review: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

2007-10-24T03:20:00.000-05:00

Rating: 2/5

If you want to cut the crap and read the review directly, scroll past the first two paragraphs. If you have nothing better to do than pick your nose and check your scraps, read on.

What do you get when you combine two great actresses, one great actor, one charming actor, one character actor, a famous actress of yore (who is, if I might add, a famous mother, wife, daughter-in-law, and now, mother-in-law), an acclaimed director, an innovative music director, wonderful locales, excellent promos, and a kissing scene? I know this question tempts you to go to the start menu, click Shutdown, sneak out of office, take a loan on your credit card, borrow Mallya’s chartered helicopter, land straight on PVR’s terrace, buy tickets in black at 10 times the price, grab a cone of popcorn, and nestle in your expensive seat, waiting for the movie to start. But hey! What’s this? Why’s is the ticket line empty? Is there another India-Pak final today? Or is there a new Pamela Anderson video on YouTube?

Well, my dear hopelessly hopeful Bollywood fan, are you out of your mind? How could you miss the most important name on the poster? YASHRAJ FILMS. Read it again. YASHRAJ. Yes, the same house that succeeds in turning everything it touches to crap- a genetically mutated Midas. In many ways, Yashraj Films is worse than Suniel Shetty; or even Tusshar Kapoor. The latter two at least don’t try to fool you into watching their films.

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag was disappointing to say the least. After Parineeta, Pradeep Sarkar was expected to spin another tasteful web around his audience. But though his actors did well, though the cinematography was good and so was the camera work, the story was a loser from the start. It wasn’t the kind of movie that promises much in the start and falls flat as it progresses. It was drab right from the first shot, and never made an attempt to rise above the mediocre.

The film was bathed in clichés. Like every hatke Hindi movie now, the protagonist (Rani Mukherji) is a prostitute; and like every modern Hindi movie she finds a man who’s ready to accept her in spite of this; like every hatke / non-hatke Hindi movie it begins with a song; like every prostitute-centric Hindi film she is vindicated by the majboori drama; and like every Hindi film worth its salt it has a happy ending. If you’re curious about the story, please read on- don’t bother buying even a pirated CD.

The story begins in Banaras, with its picturesque ghaats and bustling roads. Anupam Kher is the head of a middle class family, leading his retired life in an ancestral home. Crippled by the termination of his pension, his wife (Jaya Bachchan) is forced to wield the sewing machine day and night for their daily bread. As Anupam’s perfidious brother tries to wrest the house from him, Anupam laments for not having a son to bail him out. This activates some main-aapka-beta-banoongi hormone in Rani Mukherji, who resolves to go to Mumbai to earn a living for herself and her family; and show her father that having a daughter is not such a curse after all. Konkona, her younger sister, is oblivious of the family’s hardships and lives her happy, giggly life to the fullest.

When Rani dearest lands in Mumbai with just a 10th class certificate in hand, nobody is willing to employ her. In her desperation she agrees to sleep with a man in return for employment. The man, however, refuses to give her the job after a night of fun. (Of course! If sex could elevate your status from a 10th-pass to a working professional, colleges would be sweatshops of a different kind!) When the man tosses a bundle of notes at her, she gets her big idea. From a small town happy-go-lucky girl, she becomes a “high-society escort”- which is a euphemism for a prostitute much like “a sub-optimal performer” is a euphemism for Tusshar Kapoor. (I’m sorry I use Tusshar Kapoor so often. I can’t help it; because when you scrape the proverbial rock bottom, all you find underneath is Tusshar)

It’s amazing how the 10th-pass girl who eats Hindi, sleeps Hindi, and giggles Hindi, starts conversing so fluently in English after a brief training period. Spoken English classes shouldn’t miss a trick here- they must highlight this highly ‘satisfying’ job prospect as an incentive for joining their course. Anyway, Rani’s escorting talents earn her a fortune, and she remits huge sums of money home to fight her villainous chacha. Anupam Kher was delighted with his daughter’s prosperity; while Jaya Bachchan, who knew her daughter’s plight, was the perfect embodiment of the sad smiley (she should seriously consider taking a royalty from Yahoo). In one of her escorting trips abroad, she meets Abhishek Bachchan who along with expertise in patents and trademarks has a gold medal in the spot-the-prostitute championship. Still, he falls in love with her; but is aggrieved when she just vanishes into thin air.

Yawn! I’m bored of writing. I’m sure you’re bored of reading too. And I’ve just completed the first half! I’ll speed it up for your sake and mine. Konkana gets a job in an advertising agency in Mumbai, where she falls in love with Kunal Kapoor, the Creative Head. Konkana comes to know about Rani’s profession and showers us with some more senti dialogues. Kunal comes to Banaras to marry Konkana, and lo and behold, Abhishek turns out to be his brother. While junior was busy solemnizing his nuptials, senior was trying to woo the aadarshwaadi prostitute. Rani says no to him because of her sleeping habit, but then Abhishek reveals his prostitute-spotting talents and says he fell in love with her in spite of (or because of?) her promiscuity. He was apparently moved when she recited the Hanuman Chalisa during a turbulent flight. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. Abhishek says please, Kunal says please on his behalf, Rani says yes, Anupam’s chest bloats, the villainous brother’s chest shrivels, and so they lived happily ever after.

Well, that’s about it. At the end of 2-and-a-half hours I felt like I’d seen nothing at all- as enraged as Rani was after that fruitless first night of labour. I felt like sitting for some more time to claim my money’s worth; soak up the AC for some more time. If you still want to watch this movie, you either hate me or you have no better use for money. If you haven’t seen the promos, you’ll probably like it; but for those who have great expectations (like I did), stay away.

Weighed Down

2007-10-18T02:53:00.000-05:00

He opened his cupboard, and looked approvingly at his brown pant. His new brown Van Heusen pant- which he had bought in that bumper Buy 1 Get 2 Free sale. He stepped inside the bathroom for a daily ritual that involved a trasparent, neutral liquid, and a fragrant, opaque, alkaline solid. As always, he readied himself for the shower by unbuttoning his shirt or pulling the t-shirt above his head, depending on what he forgot to change the night before. He eagerly looked into the mirror- was he bearded enough for a shave? Or could he get away with his overnight stubble? And what of his hairline? Was there more brown now? Or was the shampoo successful in arresting the recession? And recession reminded him of the US economy, and of subprime, and of Sensex and his own investment in mutual funds. Was this the right time for him to invest, or should he let the Sensex correct? Anyway, his more immediate concerns revolved around the huge mass hanging 80 cm above the ground, enveloped by skin, and holding 3 months worth of rich North Indian food and ice creams. As he turned his body by ninety degrees for a side view, he saw the mass stretching from the end of his sternum, hanging down low enough to eclipse the elastic of his bermudas, and extending far out enough to serve as a tray. In fact, he thought with half a smile and half a grimace, ants could use the edge of the tray as a suicide point. As he let the shower run, he tentatively poked his finger into the falling stream to see if it had warmed up sufficiently. No it hadn't. Then another grimace- not long back, he used to bathe in icy cold water everyday- he was not sure he liked this breaking-in into royalty very much. Anyway, he eventually stepped into the pillar of the hot, transparent, neutral liquid; rubbed his skin with the fragrant, opaque, alkaline solid, and followed it up by massaging his scalp with a fragrant, opaque, green liquid. After drying his body, he looked at the clothes bar with a confused expression. Which of the 2 banians had he worn yesterday? They looked so damn alike- both VIP Bonus vests and both bearing toothpaste stains. Did it really matter which one he had worn yesterday? Wasn't he used to wearing the same clothes for days and weeks on end?

Once he stepped out of the bathroom all dried, combed, boro plussed, deodorated, brylcreemed, undied, and banianed, he opened, once again, the varnished cupboard, and pulled out the brown trouser. His memory flashed back to the day he bought it- the room that was hastily converted into a retail outlet, the irresistible offers, the delighted son and the smiling mother, the trial room that was conspicuous by its absence, the crude wooden partition behind which many a seductive Hindi film heroine changed her clothes, and above all, the perfect-fitting brown pant whose buckle hooked up beautifully around his waist. As he slipped his legs through the brown pant and pulled it up, he reminisced about that happy June afternoon when he bought 3 Van Heusen pants (including that fateful brown one) for Rs.1099. But what's this! Why wasn't the buckle fastening now? Why were the two ends, now an inch apart, groping to hold hands, like lovers after a Hindi movie bomb blast pulling themselves towards each other for that last touch. But here, the two ends weren't pulling themselves- the now-happy now-stunned boy (or man) was playing matchmaker but all attempts to marry the ends failed. Thank god for making human stomachs pliable or else what followed would've shattered it to bits. He pushed his stomach in his with a deep breath first, then used 3 fingers, then 4, then his palm, and then his entire fist to flatten his stomach enough to make the ends meet. When he finally removed his fist and released his breath, the paunch overflowed on all sides. Worse, the pant squeezed him so tight, he feared his guts would travel all the way up and spill out of his mouth. (Later that evening when he undid the buckle, his stomach rushed out like crowds would rush in when the doors to the cinema would open.) He could still remember the time when size 30 pants would fit him with absolute ease. This sarkaari babu-type tummy was certainly not what he expected from corporate life.

As he walked out of his room with a heavy heart and a heavier tummy, he noticed that the lift was, as usual, out of order. Was it poor electrical engineering or was it providence forcing him to use the staircase? As he trudged down the stairs, he felt something he had never experienced before- a mass, enveloped by skin, 80 cm above the ground bouncing in front of him. With each step he took, his tummy was charting its own course. That was the first time he allowed a certain suppressed voice inside him to blurt "You are FAT!". FAT? FAT? The word pulsated in his head like a Bose speaker was placed inside. He, who till recently, was counted among the skinny, the underweight, the weak, was now in the league of the fat? Fat reminded him of Adnan Sami (before he lost 110 kilos); it reminded him of overweight uncles who looked like they'd tucked a ghatam under their shirts; it also reminded him of obese teenagers with fat cheeks, Mc Donald's burger in hand, and cheese streaming out of the sides of their mouth and dripping down on their respective trays (pun intended). But hey! Were things really that bad? He had just put on 10 kilos in 2 months (from 57 to 67), and had rendered 3 trousers and a pair of jeans useless. All he needed was a strict control on his diet, and a strict exercise regime.

For starters, he stopped using the lift, both at home and at work. His flat was on the fifth floor and so was his work desk. Five floors 6 times a day was a decent workout, wasn't it? He supplemented this with a complete ban on ice creams and creamy desserts. And of course, there was the regular night walk. To intensify his Mission Pant Fit campaign, he decided to pay the apartment gym a visit. He detested gyms in general, mainly because of the grotesque cutouts of men with swollen muscles and grinding teeth placed in front of them. He hated gyms also because of his nightmarish tryst with it 4 summers ago, when 4 days of gymming almost made him a living robot. The second attempt at gymming started as badly as the first. 15 minutes of furious cycling and 1 round of jogging led to thighs that throbbed like a frenzied heart, and a stomach that threatened to puke-aabhishek the road. He laboured up the stairs, threw himself on the bed, and tried to soothe his palpitating thighs, and his churning stomach.

It was October 18, 2007- more than a month since he gave up ice creams, shunned lifts, night-walked, and 3 days since he started cycling and jogging. With hope in his heart, pride in his efforts, a stomach that was peeping eagerly out of his navel, and a hand that was well positioned to pat his back, he stepped on the weighing machine. He adjusted his spectacles, then wiped the lens with his sweaty t-shirt, stepped off the machine, checked the zero-error, and stepped on again. The reading did not change- 68.

Going Dutch (This is the smartest title I could think of at this hour)

2007-08-12T18:43:00.000-05:00

Washing machines are best used in the Mix mode where they wash clothes of all materials- denims, cottons, synthetics, etc. Running the dryer for 40 minutes might not be enough if you stuff too many clothes in it. One detergent cake lasts very long in the washing machine. In steam irons, make sure you don’t fill too much water. When washing dishes in a dishwasher, keep all utensils facing downwards and run the tap at moderate speed. You must change the dust bags of the vacuum cleaner regularly. One tea spoon of red chilli powder and one-and-a-half tea spoons of garam masala are perfect for aloo curry. To let the aloo cook, close the vessel. Use more oil if you want crisp aloo. Oh!

Reading this, people who don’t know what I’m actually up to will quite understandably assume I’m on a training course for house-husbands. Of course, that’s not the case- the truth is that I’m training in The Netherlands, and being in an apartment, have to handle all the ghar ka kaam myself. There’s not too much work actually- BHU has taught me the art of taking pride in wearing the same clothes for days, so washing is not a problem; we need to fend for food only on weekends, so my limited knowledge of cooking suffices. Vacuum cleaning is not really necessary- since I wear slippers I can’t feel the dust on the floor and since I take off my specs I can’t see if anything’s dirty.

Yes, ironing is a problem. Even my refined sense of bad-dressing doesn’t allow me to wear crumpled clothes. Vowing to change my attitude towards dressing, I picked up the sleek steam iron. One problem I’ve always had with irons is setting the mode according to the material of the cloth. Now, I do a great job of feeling the cloth and saying “cotton” or “synthetic” like a seasoned pro, but the truth is that I’m as unsure of the material as Sreesanth is about where his next ball will fly. Worse, it’s a steam iron- which means I had to fill water in it. I don’t want to bore you with details of how I struggled with the damn thing, but let’s just say that at the end of 5 minutes, my shirt looked more washed than pressed.

The Hague is an empty city. It’s unbearably well organized. For people who’re used to the push-and-shove culture of Indian roads will be taken aback by the peace and calm on Dutch roads. The roads are so clean that I almost feel an impulse to dirty it. The standard of living is pretty high too. Tram and bus drivers are dressed much better than I am. I know I’m not a valid standard for comparison, but hey they’re really well dressed!

August 12, 2007: I’ve changed my opinion about the cleanliness of the roads here. On close observation, you can see as many chewing gums pasted on the road as you can see bird droppings on Indian roads- and they don’t look very different from the droppings too. The real reason for the apparent cleanliness is the small population. On busy days, the streets here are as dirty as any I’ve seen.

The markets here close at 5 p.m. on all days except Thursdays. Can you believe that? The city is dead by the time I return from work, and it’s not like the sun sets early. There’s daylight till 10 p.m. on most days. The place is just lazy and reluctant to work.

There are some things about The Hague that amused me greatly. One is their predilection for long names. These are some of the stations the tram stops at on the way to office: Rijswijkseplein, Jonckbloetplein, Van Vredenburchweg, Oudemansstraat. Or consider this url- www.hoeharddurfjijtegaan.nl. Or this building- Rijvaardigheidsbewijzen. To steal Preeti’s thought, names like Swaminathan, Subramaniam, or even Sivaramakrishnan pale in comparison. I mean, imagine calling your house ThisisthehouseIlivein, or naming your dog Mydogdoesnotpeeintheopen. Most names look like someone’s typed them blindfolded.

Another thing that amused me like hell was their dustbins. They don’t have the traditional ‘Use Me’ (or the equivalent Dutch screw-up) scribbled on them. All their bins are called Sita (and I’ve verified that Sita does not mean dustbin in Dutch). Sita is a brand of dustbins- ever heard of people using branded bins? Back in India, anything from polythene covers to empty barrels to king-size rabbits are used as crap holes.

August 12, 2007, 23:40 hrs: I’ve just tried my hand at ironing again, and to my relief (and to the relief of my war-worn shirt) I’ve successfully operated the steam iron. It took me more effort to figure out this steam iron than James Watt would’ve taken to build the steam engine. Still, I’ve been only partially successful. Let’s just say that if I get thrown out of office tomorrow, my shirt will not be to blame.

We guys went to Amsterdam last weekend. When we walked out of the railway station, we saw this huge banner saying “I Amsterdam” with a picture of a group of naked people with their backs facing the camera. Generally you’d expect a “Welcome to Hyderabad” banner to have a steaming plate of biriyani or a “Welcome to Kerala” banner to have a green-eyed Kathakali dancer; so this unusual welcome to Amsterdam gave us an idea of things to come. Many women were wearing stuff that I used to see on MTv, including tank-tops (or how-the-hell-does-that-thing-manage-to-not-slide in layman terms). Beer was flowing like water, and water itself was scarce. In general, water is more expensive than beer in Holland. Ok don’t worry ma, I still have juice- have tried wine, though.

Most restaurants in Holland have an open-air seating arrangement. It’s amazing those cane chairs don’t vanish overnight. Beefy men downing cans of Heineken and families munching on some processed creature are common sights at these restaurants. There’s also live music at some places adding four moons to the atmosphere. (Ok that’s a really cheap translation of chaar chaand lagaana) Restaurants don’t have those customary glasses of water on tables. Many eateries are too expensive- so expensive that I can just order extra cheese. I’ve got used to drinking juice and flavoured milk when I’m thirsty. Even my apartment doesn’t have a drinking water supply. I was asked to drink water from the basin if needed!

We started our Amsterdam trip by scratching our heads for directions and convincing each other that we were not very hungry, when in reality we could’ve each devoured an Adnan Sami. We went to Madame Tussaud’s Museum, paying 15 euros for each ticket. Fifteen euros! Can you imagine paying Rs.850 to enter a museum! I made sure I got my money’s worth and clicked photographs like crazy. The museum was wonderful, and the wax models were stunningly similar to the originals.

We then went to Van Gogh’s museum, and though I tried hard, I couldn’t appreciate his paintings. Unfortunately the use of aniline ink and the use of charcoal and acrylic paints don’t really turn me on, so the museum was a put-off.

A striking feature of Holland is that you have to pay to use every public toilet. Would you ever pay 28 rupees to use the loo? This has made me an expert in the art of hypnotising my bladder into believing that the only place it’s supposed to make its presence felt is in the apartments.

August 13th, 2007, 1:30 hrs: My Sunday dinner was at home. After a successful day at the kitchen 2 weeks back, we guys were at it again. Aloo-tomato with gravy, rice, and boiled eggs were on the menu. The rice almost became a paste, the aloo-tomato gravy became unresponsive to salt, and thankfully boiled eggs taste okay when left alone. Too many cooks spoil the broth, right? Well, what about 6 engineers with as much knowledge of cooking as of the minimum temperature of Vanuatu? While cooking, each of us spoke like we’d been possessed by Tarla Dalal, and the result of that was in front of us, and later inside our helpless stomachs.

After labouring through the meal, we loaded the dishwasher. Dishwashers need running water for as long as it takes to clean the vessels. The amount of water it took to do the job could’ve irrigated a few hectares of farmland back in India.

I have lots more to tell- interesting stuff about my stay here, but I’m kind of busy so I’ll update sometime later. Thanks for your constant enquiries about the wellbeing of my blog. A lot of you have asked me for an update, and here it is. Hope it’s okay. Good night :)

A More Relaxed Round-Up

2007-07-15T04:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday, July 8^th, 2007, 11 am

My previous round-up of the summer vacations was brief (those of you who enjoy the mother of all stale jokes can chuckle at ‘brief’) owing to my flight to Bangalore. Well, I’m now on board the aircraft and have an hour to kill. For people like me who don’t fly very often, airports are temples of stifling etiquette. To my relief, this time I saw a suited-booted gentleman executing a gigantic yawn and stretching like someone’s pulling him from all directions. Probably a nose-digger or ear-shaker would’ve made me feel more at home, but this was unacceptable enough. Anyway, apart from pacing up and down a hundred times and entering the ladies toilet once, my wait in the airport was without incident. As I now sit with the pen on my lips and my eyes on the airhostess, I try to cope with the turbulence at take off. You remember the post where I mentioned my stomach churning like someone had switched on a fan inside? Well, due to the accuracy of that description and my stunted imagination, I say it again. I have a very fragile stomach, but the plush interiors of the aircraft don’t give me the heart to puke.

July 10^th, 12:30 am

I am now lying on my belly in my comfortable room in Bangalore. I moved in here yesterday, and though I’ve lived in hostel before, this stay away from home is a little different. This isn’t a college hostel where I can throw my stuff around and breed cobwebs. This is a place where the house-keeping guys call me sir and where we get parsley potato instead of aloo fry. It’s a wonderful room and a wonderful place to stay in. I’m loving it!

After unpacking, I decided to make myself a drink (a beverage, rather). I could choose between an Akshay-made tea and an Akshay-made coffee. Now that’s like choosing between a Sunny Deol pole dance and a Tusshar Kapoor strip tease- still, I stuck with coffee simply because it’s more difficult to screw up. How wrong I was! One cup of water, 2 minutes of heating, one packet of sugar, one of coffee, and one of the creamer gave me an excellent alternative to Harpic. By the time I hit the right proportions, the water had gone cold. Still, I gulped it down and dared my memory to forget the proportions.

As the day wore on, I decided to get my dress ready for the next day. I unfolded 2 shirts to check if they were crumpled, dirty, etc. I finally selected a shirt, one pant, a belt, kept all my documents in place, and finally changed into my bermudas. Done for the day huh? Not quite. What about the other shirt I unfolded? Mom had taught me the art of folding shirts the way we see them packed in showrooms. I rubbished her detailed, step-by-step instructions- after all, we engineers are born with the right to trivialize everything from gay pubs to the Big Bang. I paid the price this time though, and spent no less than 45 minutes in trying to fold the damn thing.*

July 14^th, 2007, 9 pm

On the road today, I saw a leading telecom service company’s latest ad- “Newspaper, Rs.150 per month, Mobile Rs. 99 per month." Well, Mr. Ad-man, consider this: Your Hutch recharge lets me only talk and send smses. A newspaper lets me read it, solve the crossword and su doku, scribble phone numbers on it, wipe dusty seats with it, lay it on shelves, make aeroplanes out of it, and use it as a wrapper. The only thing you have worth offering is customer care voices (female), which we can hear even with a zero-balance.

July 15^th, 2007, 3:03 pm

I’m sitting in a cyber café now, hammering out my next post, which incidentally you have been reading all this while. This is the only way I’ll update this page now- sitting in the cyber café on Sunday afternoons with random thoughts scribbled in a notebook. I’ve just read the comments on my previous post. I’m really grateful to all you guys for taking the trouble and reading my stuff. I want you to know that your comments are a real driving force for me to keep this page alive. And just to ensure that you guys remember me with fondness or bitterness till the next update, I’ll finish with the riddle of the day.

Q. Why did the Punjabi cop arrest Sachin Tendulkar for match-fixing?

Scroll down for the answer.

A. Because he said he loves batting for India.

*For the record, I finally succeeded.

A Quick Round-Up

2007-07-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

I’m nearing the end of my vacation now, and much has transpired between my last appearance on this miserable page and today. I’ve been gripped by a dreadful writer’s block, and heck! I’m not even a writer. Anyway, I’ve successfully finished my engineering in four consecutive years without any major lapses save 5 missing kilos and a few million strands of a fibre that its possessors call hair. I have wonderful memories of my stay in Varanasi and hope to pen them one day.

My stay at home has been loaded with stereotypes- and I won’t bore you with the regular stuff like tv soaps, Indian Idol, good food, etc. Perhaps the most exciting activity at home this time was revamping my loo and ‘westernising’ it. For years my sister refused to step into that bathroom because it was frequented by he-who-must-be-thrown-into-a-washing-machine, and revamping it and making it less offensive to the strong-nosed has hardly changed her stance.

The honeymoon years have ended, and with it has ended the freedom to dress in rags, move around in a barbaric beard, and not change clothes till you forget when you last changed them. Resultantly, I’ve been shopping actively for good clothes. Every shopping trip follows the same pattern. We enter any shop that says “Up to 50% off” (with the “up to” a billion times smaller than “50%”) and my role in these trips is strictly Presidential. That is to say, my clothes are picked by the trio of mom, dad, and sis, and my job is just to shake my assenting head.

I watched 3 movies this time- Metro, Cheeni Kum, and Aap Ka Surroor. For the uninitiated, Aap Ka Surroor stars the-one-and-thankfully-the-only Himesh Reshammiya. I couldn’t believe I paid to watch that movie, and I literally paid for it! It took me a Coke, popcorn, and a bulls-eye (a large chunk of cake bathed generously in chocolate sauce and topped with vanilla ice-cream costing as princely as it sounds) to digest the movie. The movie lasted two hours and was punctuated by a few official songs and a few nasally rendered -uh…hmm…okay let’s give him the benefit of doubt- songs, peppered throughout the movie. In fact if you have the habit of going out for a smoke or to the loo during songs, you might as well carry an extra pack or a portable urinal with you respectively. The best dialogue of the movie was Hanssika Motwani saying, “Mein duniya ki sabse lucky ladki hoon kyonki mere paas aapki ek smiling tasveer hai.” or something to that effect. She then pulls the photograph and shows it to him. For the benefit of my readers, here’s the closest match I could find on the internet.

TV was a little more exciting this time, with French Open, Wimbledon, and the Future Cup being telecast. I’ve always been amazed by the dresses women tennis players wear. Anna Kournikova’s presence on the tennis court used to be so Serena and Venus Williams have always been the torchbearers of on-court absurdity. Their weird hair dos and weirder dresses have made them look like escapees of an African zoo. Particularly this time, Serena’s clothes looked like she had run away from the middle of a rape.

Well, I have a lot more to tell you guys but it’s 1 am and I’m leaving tomorrow (or today for sticklers who don’t believe that ‘tomorrow’ starts only after waking up). I’m off to Bangalore to begin a new phase of my life- so I need all the aashirwaads, pats on the back, and kicks on butt that you can give me. I’ve been very careless by not updating this page often enough, and I can’t promise that I will be any more regular. But if you have a good internet connection and time on your hands just stop by my page once in a while- I’ll try not to disappoint.

Students' Best Friend

2007-04-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

Kunvergram- 2 & 3

2007-04-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

Solution to Kunvergram-1

A solar eclipse should not be seen with naked eyes.

First three crackers-

Radha Ganesan

Saranya Balasubramanian

Rahul Singh

Good job!

Kunvergram-2

This game introduces the transformation ‘Remove ___’ and the funda of dummy transformations- an extra transformation to confuse you. Mail your solution to akshay.bhu@gmail.com.

Hoist snipers contain acres high shawl aisles.

Remove I

Replace with O

Replace with L

Replace with M

Replace with Y

Replace with R

Replace with L

Kunvergram-3

This game introduces the transformation ‘Add __’. I’ve also given a dummy transformation.

Those metals eat used long oar prosecute.

Replace with R

Replace with F

Replace with M

Add L

Replace with B

Replace with Y

Replace with R