Fire & Water

Spotted...

2008-10-23T17:44:00.002+05:30

...today in Cochin:

"Bangkok
Chinese Restaurant"

aahahahahahahaa!!
:)
I will sponsor the first person who volunteers to go check out the food. And the next time I go that way, will try and get a picture.

"Hey Atyatbudha, meet my friend Shoonyabandhu"

2008-10-08T12:22:00.004+05:30

If people really take Maneka Gandhi's "Penguin Book of Hindu Names" to heart, this sentence could well be a part of regular conversation soon. I cannot believe some of the names in this highly praised, hyped up book. Take these two for instance. I mean, Atyatbudha? And Shoonyabandhu -- it has two meanings listed, neither of which would tempt me to name my kid this. The first being "one with no friends", and the second being "friend of dogs".

And anyway, the book should have been titled "Penguin book of Sanskrit names", because that is all there is in it. Apart from two and a half Tamil names and one Malayalam. The latter is priceless -- "Pakal". Meaning "day". I think the woman does not realise the difference between "word" and "name", because clearly, Pakal (like many others in the book) is a word, and certainly not a name. I challenge her to introduce me to a Pakal Kumar or a Pakal Menon.

The blurb reads: "The aim of the work is twofold: to serve as a practical guide for parents choosing a name for their offspring; and to provide a precise and in-depth sourcebook for scholars, pandits and lay readers who like to know what familiar (and not so familiar) Hindu names actually mean." But when bookstores keep it in the child-care section, be assured that people who pick it up are looking for names for their babies. And then imagine coming across something like Arbuda, meaning tumour!

Don't even get me started on the many names that mean things like hell, blood, worm and a collection of such unpleasantness.

"I want to break free"

2008-10-07T12:59:00.003+05:30

It's as though I swallowed something live. Sometimes, it's like there's an octopus inside of me, struggling with its tentacles to get out. And I have to keep telling myself, it's only a baby whose anthem seems to be "I want to break free".

The bump is growing and I am expected to be happy all the time. It's been fun so far. And the rest of the journey better continue being so. Though it scares me a bit -- what is now a bump will soon be an individual, with likes and dislikes, screaming for attention...

My phone got stolen!

2008-08-30T11:45:00.002+05:30

And may the thief rot in hell.

All my contacts from the last so many years, all the birthday reminders, all the lovely pictures, my Snake score.... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

And I loved my phone. While S saw it as an opportunity to buy a new phone, I wanted the same model. My sleek and slim beautiful phone... sigh...

Jaane tu ya...

2008-07-12T08:55:00.004+05:30

I've been wanting to hear the "Aditi song" after this film critic dedicated his weekly column to this AR Rehman number. So finally heard it the other day when I went and saw the movie (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na). Loved it. And why not? It has the simplicity of running down stairs. But it is disappointing that in the film, what brings about the song is the death of a cat. Uh...

Anyway, about the film. Just another college romance flick, people have said. Chocolate boy hero, cliched plot, people have said. But I enjoyed every bit of it. Apart from the fact that the boy and girl called each other Rats and Meow. Ack! But the supporting cast -- superb! Naseeruddin Shah in his portrait frame, Paresh Rawal insisting that there are many more nasty policemen like him in the force, Ratna Pathak Shah trying to keep the violent strain out of her son. The best of the lot is certainly the witty and engaging script.

Like adding his signature at the end of a letter, Abbas Tyrewala's parting shot: An old man with a long grey beard fallen asleep in the arrival lounge of the Mumbai airport holding a placard that says "Mr Godot". :)

2008-07-02T10:22:00.002+05:30

What god gets happy when some 50 men including four frenzied drummers keep an entire neighbourhood awake for over 3 hours in the dead of the night?

In the last three years that we have lived here, we have had several godly processions disturbing general peace. But this was the last straw. The procession started at 11 in the night from somewhere in the labyrinth beyond. The noise took an hour to die out of our range of hearing. At midnight, when things had quietened down, we stumbled bleary eyed to bed. Only to be rudely woken up again at 1 am. It soon peaked, as the return journey closed in on us. And stayed at that peak, right below our window, for a good 15 minutes. And so the procession proceeded, painfully slow, stopping every 100 metres or so and going into frenzies. We even called the cops, and said how can you allow such public nuisance at this time of the night? But it's god's business, they said.

If that particular god was really happy yesterday, I really don't want to know that god.
And if your religious sentiments have been hurt by this post, please explain to me this style of worship and why it is unavoidable.

Here's more

2008-06-27T12:43:00.002+05:30

Found one more of the unforgivably bad water bottle philosophy.

I spent my youth never questioning a destiny that made me spend years gathering natural minerals on the Himalayas. And now that yours has led you to me, don't hesitate to drink up.

I say, I would really like to meet the guy who comes up with these.

Water bottle philosophy

2008-06-18T13:14:00.003+05:30

Frequent flier that S is, the house at any point has a collection of at least six tiny airline water bottles. The latest two in the collection are truly worth keeping. It comes with its own philosophy. These are those pink Himalayan bottles, which Tata has redesigned and all. So I suppose some frustrated philosopher felt the need to inflict his thoughts on the world.

Anyway, here goes Bottle 1:

"I grew up in a world where Ayurveda came without labels attached. Where water was filled with natural minerals like sodium and calcium. In keeping with the times, we've just put a label on it."

Even better is Bottle 2:

"I look back on life -- it's funny how things turn out. You, a connoisseur of fast food, now gaze at water that took years to make. And I, some of the purest water in the world, stand here, trapped in a bottle. Come, enjoy the irony."

How could one drink it after all that...? I felt I should set it free or something...

Back!

2008-06-18T13:08:00.001+05:30

I am back I am back!
After over three months.
Not that I didn't have anything to write about.
But that I didn't want to write.
:)

:)

2008-03-05T18:02:00.004+05:30

Spring time in Bangalore :)
Though it is horribly hot already.
Such lovely colours.
One only had the phone to take pictures. So the quality ain't quite great. But still :)

These at Koramangala:

Vasanth Nagar:

Lovely pinks at Jayanagar (women's day special?):

Venketappa art gallery:

2008-03-05T17:33:00.001+05:30

Hot scones and boarding schools and fairies and adventures

2008-02-01T19:47:00.001+05:30

Enid Blyton. I pretty much grew up on what she wrote. My fantasy world was peopled with aunts who baked the yummiest cakes, moms who packed the best picnic lunches of sandwiches and lemonade, sumptuous meals of homemade bread and strawberries and cream, dogs that obeyed when you said “heel”, beautiful boarding schools, holidays at Welsh villages and quiet beaches, adventures, secret passages, ruins of castles, caravans, camp fires.

I didn’t grow out of those for a long, long time. Who would want to? The British countryside and all the lovely food would have anyone hooked. But then, one discovered Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.

Anyway, why I am rambling about all this today is because after several years, I picked up an Enid Blyton. A mystery story with two boys and a girl. I was enjoying it till I read this:

“Pam, you may only be a girl but you have some great ideas.”

Whoa!! What? Did I just read that? And it went on – the girl was very pleased at the compliment. The book was full of such remarks and instances.

And then one sat down and recalled all the characters one could. It was appalling. It was always the girls who brought the lemonade, Anne loved to “keep home” for the rest of the Famous Five while George(iana) had to have the excuse that she wanted to be a boy in order to wear trousers and keep her hair short and generally do everything the boys did, the aunts did nothing better than bake. Did I really grow up on such stuff??

I am just so slow in realising these things… A quick internet threw up a lot of information on controversies and revisions, on how her writing promoted negative stereotypes regarding gender and even race. But will this stop me from reading her books? I certainly was disgusted with this one instance, but I still love Malory Towers and all those farms and the magic Faraway Tree.

How desperate can (some) men get?

2008-01-25T09:35:00.000+05:30

There are oh so many of those scary emails that tell you how careful you have to be when you go out partying. And in oh so many ways. Don't do this, don't do that, this happened to this girl in this city, something else happened to that girl in that city. Here is my addition to the list:
If you are a girl, and if you are at a restaurant/pub/disc, and if you need to go to the loo, and if you have a girl friend with you, please take her along.

Last weekend, San and I were at this rather hep lounge bar in city with another couple. Several songs later, the place was closing for the night, and we were leaving and I took a quick trip to the loo. I open the door to the women's loo and what do I find? A man sprawled on the floor, peeping into one of the stalls through the small ventilation panel at the bottom of the door. The daze that I was in kind of snapped as I wondered whether he is the cleaning boy blowing dust off the door. That couldn't be. So then one shouted -- what the hell was he doing? The chap mumbled something about how he was looking for his friend and said "It's ok, I will wait outside."
I was such a dull head then that I actually bought the story and thought there really weren't anyone in the stalls. And just then one babe walked out of the stall, called out to her friend who was in the other, who also walked out soon, and they left. And I gaped...

Long and short of the story is, no matter where you are, if you are going to the loo and if you have a friend with you, please get her to accompany you...

The little town is all grown up

2008-01-17T15:40:00.000+05:30

I recently happened to spend more than 10 days in my hometown. Ten days! It has been so long since I spent that much time at home. Anyway, this is not about the nostalgia and all; that is a whole different post.

How the place has changed...
The road that was once a mere trickle of tar, is now a broad road complete with bustling shopping centres on either sides, a huge traffic island and all such jazz.
There are hardly any locals left. Oh well, how would there be? They are all here in Bangalore! :)
People do not stare at foreigners any more. White skin seems pretty much as common as coconut trees.
The city has gone green! Plastic bags of some certain quality have been coming under bans for long, but now stores are giving out paper or cloth bags. One of the most popular local supermarket chains is offering incentives to customers for returning plastic bags.
Real estate has shot up and how! And much like Bangalore, it is now one of the favourite topics of discussion.
People I know pay more rent than I do in Bangalore.
People pay with Sodexho coupons.

But there are some things that will never change...
If you are female and are wearing jeans, you will be stared at because possibilities are, u are the only one in jeans in a 2km radius.
If you are female, you will be stared at because the mass migration to greener pastures seems to have left behind all the lecherous men.
The buses are just as rash; the conductors still have the same incantations to announce the destination.
Most of the junta still know the timings of the peak-hour inter-city trains.

Click

2008-01-11T17:59:00.000+05:30

One evening, when it rained in Bangalore...

And the next day...

Mumbai

2008-01-10T10:29:00.000+05:30

How can I not comment on the Mumbai issue?

That I am appalled goes without saying. That I am now scared of crowds is understood. That now I am very conscious about every small action or look of mine when I go out (what if someone misunderstands my glance at the traffic for a come-hither?), is scaring me. What am I turning into? Where will such paranoia take me?

Here's one remark I heard recently about this: "They were smooching on the road. No wonder the women got grabbed at."
I don't know how far that is true, but nevertheless pointed out that if a woman is kissing her partner on the road, it is NOT an invitation to the world to paw her.
Counter argument came: "This is not US, this is India. When they are here, they better know how to behave here."
So then, is this a punishment for not "behaving"?

That apart, what egged the crowd along is the fact that the women swore at the men for commenting at them. So at the base of it, it is a simple question of a hurt male ego. Problem was, this was a case of a mammoth inflammable ego -- the collective ego of a monster with 70-odd heads.

Ugh.... I don't even want to talk more about it... Only hope the girls manage to get over the trauma. But will they ever be able to? I don't know...

There's a discussion going on here. Do join in.

HNY

2008-01-10T09:38:00.000+05:30

People can't even type in a proper New Year greeting on SMS anymore, is it? Anyway, Happy New Year, world.

I am back, refreshed.

There certainly is a good reason why a relieving letter is called so. It is so damn relieving! So relieved to be out of there, relieved not to be worrying about the next day, relieved not to be bothered about lists and lists and lists, relieved that I will no longer be playing event manager/host/shadow/entertainer/usher/errand girl at the many inane events. Whew! :)

I have support :)

2007-12-11T19:08:00.000+05:30

I don't believe I am saying this, but I can so relate to what Bangalore Times has written today :)

Nasty on the Net
US researchers recently reported that
hateful text messages, abusive emails and cyber-gossip are giving bullies new
power over their victims. BT explores
SHILPA BANSAL

PEOPLE who have never been bullied are now becoming victims of cyberbullying. In chat rooms, via emails and even on blogs the vibes are getting nasty. So, how bad does it get? “It’s easy for anybody to post any kind of comment in response to your blog because the people posting nasty comments knows for sure that they will never see or meet you,” says Aravind Krishna, business analyst. Aravind, a regular blogger, says he’s seen crazy spats online, most ending in racial abuse. “That’s when it gets nasty and a whole chain of people get involved. The comments drift away from the actual topic of the blog,” he says.
But the comments depend on the feedback the blogger gives, believes Ravi, another blogger. “Responding to feedback is the prerogative of the blogger. If the feedback is positive and acknowledged, the person who comments feels satisfied. If not, over a period of time, the person feels slighted and tends to express himself with views opposite to that of the blogger. This then degenerates into an online mud-slinging match, with others taking up cudgels either for or against the blogger. People like to feel important online too. So when they’re ignored, the abuse begins,” he explains.
Amita, who has been blogging for the last five years, agrees, saying, “This happens, and there’s little you can do to stop people from leaving their opinions, especially if you have an open comments field,” she says. She believes that what you write about also determines the sort of reactions you get. “If you write on sensational and controversial topics, you have to be prepared for all kinds of feedback because few people know how to make their point in a polite way,” she adds.
According to copywriter Swaroop B, “If someone has posted a nasty comment, the blogger has the option of deleting it, but there are now malicious software codes designed to populate your comment box and attack it like a virus. This blog spam attacks your comment box in bulk and automatically posts random comments or promotes commercial services to blogs, wikis, guest books, and other public online discussion boards. Any web application that accepts and displays hyperlinks submitted by visitors may be a target.” Swaroop says he usually misses the constructive comments among the nasty ones. “There’s sometimes so much abuse that the meaningful contributions are lost,” he says.
Is there a way to handle malice on the Net? “Many of the popular blogging platforms offer in-built options for bloggers to block commentators or spam. Validating who you are with an email ID is one method. IP address blocking is another,” explains Ravi. But there are always loopholes. “Unfortunately, this is not foolproof as a person can easily change his name or comment from a different machine with a different IP address,” he adds.
Amita simply resorts to deleting unsavoury comments. “I delete and ban the IP address. The other way to ensure you’re not spammed is to have moderated comments, which means that the comment appears only after you have reviewed it. Some bloggers even prefer not to have comments at all. Also one can install spam filters; it’s a kind of hurdle that might put off someone who’s just trying to be nasty,” explains Amita.

Clearing out

2007-12-08T16:16:00.000+05:30

How much junk gathers in two years' time. In the little space I have here at my desk, there are a zillion files and folders. Dusty, useless. A million old notepads, none of which even makes sense to me now.

The only interesting things I have found are the doodles and scribbles from long, seemingly unending meetings. Little scraps of conversation, tic-tac-toe, sketches, a bit of creative writing. Here is one such. The meeting in question was so boring that I remember the finer details of the chair I was sitting on that day. Pardon the bad poetry, but such was the day.

A silent scream of ennui
emerges from the pit
of my stomach.
With no place to go,
it explodes in my head.
Wild hair and errant eyes
Flailing arms and torn clothes
My spirit bangs its head
on the walls of my heart.
System error.
Hard disc failure
Ctrl Alt Del
Ctrl Alt Del
Beep
Blink

And yet another. This during a post-lunch session of in-house training. This was the only way I would stop from snoring.

"Where is the question," he asks. Where indeed is the question?
I am looking, I am looking; don't rush me.
The cupboard, an old carton, rigid chairs, an office table... Where in the world is that darned question? It couldn't have slipped out, it's too soon.
Is there a shredder in the room? Perhaps it fell into that. Uh-oh...
Hey! What's this falling off my head? It's a word...
Oh no! The question fell into my thought shredder...!

:D Who said nothing creative happens around here? Might be really bad, but it ain't dead.

Anonymous

2007-11-20T16:40:00.000+05:30

A certain Anonymous sent me this comment. Made me think a while, this one. Should I or should I not approve the comment? Considering it had absolutely no connection with the post for which it was left, I should probably reject it. But then, is my ego that hurt that I won't publish it? Am I such a brat that I can criticise the world but can't take criticism? So anyway, I decided to reject it and put it up here instead. And write a letter to dear friend Anonymous.

Dear Anonymous

If I knew your name, I would send you a thank you note for the advice. This hiding behind anonymity is so sad... But I am thinking, if you are so concerned about my eyebrows, you need a life. Don't you think? Nevertheless, thanks for the beauty tip. Again, if I knew your name, I would approach you for such tips. tch... such a loss...

regards
me.

Itching to go back to college

2007-11-19T15:45:00.000+05:30

Just what is it about beautiful college campuses that makes you go look up courses that you could probably do?
The idyllic setting, the open-air cafeteria, the on-campus hostels, the long flight of stairs, the pristine quiet of the library, the low murmur from classrooms, the unending monotony of corridors, the trees that have witnessed tens of generations.
The memories of campus life, the exam fever, bunking classes, sleeping through lectures, cribbing over canteen food, passing notes in class, curling up with a book by the tall windows, the sheltered and uncomplicated life with friends, friends and friends.

Disclaimer

2007-11-18T11:38:00.000+05:30

I work to live. I do not live to work.

2007-11-17T16:11:00.000+05:30

It was a photographic moment.

A lovely November evening when the sun is warm and it is cold in the shade. A sun-warmed bench on which sat two girls, their laughing faces turned up towards the two brothers who stood with sunshine on their shoulders. There was happiness, contentment, a bright tomorrow -- all packed into that one frame.

Full sigh-worthy material... :)
But then, it all seemed so far away.

Air Deccan is Air Deccan is Air Deccan

2007-11-14T18:19:00.000+05:30

Really. Doesn't matter who has bought it over or how the uniform of the air hostesses has changed. Doesn't matter if the logo is different or that it is called merely Deccan now. It is the same unreliable, incorrigible airline.

Monday, 12th November
12.07 pm: SMS from Air Deccan that our 8.15 pm Kochi-Bangalore flight has been rescheduled to 10.15 pm. We slap foreheads, make frantic calls to reschedule all evening plans. Dad thinks the whole SMS thing is a prank.
5.15 pm: SMS from Deccan saying the same as above. We sigh. And dad is convinced.
5.30 pm: We call Deccan's new tele check-in number and are checked in by a very polite boy to seats 5A and 5C.
8.02 pm: We leave for airport
9.05 pm: Arrive at airport and join the long line at the check-in counter where things are moving v.e.r.y. slow
9.35 pm: We finally reach the counter, where I give the ticket and say, "We have already done a tele check-in." The boy at the counter looks at me with great amusement and says, "Tele check-in? Heheh! It doesn't work!" So we ask him what he means it doesn't work, because we did actually do it. He waves off all that like we were talking in our sleep and insists it just doesn't work. "It is all done manually here," he says, and proceeds to write (yes, write) out our boarding passes. New seats allotted to us: 10A and 10B
10.15 pm: Forget having taken off, there hasn't even been an announcement on what has happened to our flight. The Arrivals alerts still shows the Bangalore-Kochi flight as "Confirmed". Whatever is that supposed to mean? What is confirmed? That it has taken off from Bangalore? That it will land in Kochi? Aargh.
10.30 pm: Still no announcement. Still no plane. The Deccan passengers are the only ones left in the lounge.
10.35 pm: There is some commotion at the gate and we join in. Yes, this is the queue for Deccan flight Kochi-Bangalore. We don't run or scramble like one would have earlier to get a seat on Air Deccan flights. We have been allotted seats, remember?
10.40 pm: We are in the aircraft, walking towards 10A and 10B. Air hostess standing by the aisle announces: "There are no seat numbers, you can sit where you want." Duh... We can't take it anymore. We stare at her with complete blankness of mind. "So what about tele check-in?" Apparently, she hasn't heard of the concept.
I wish we hadn't either.

Just Femme

2007-11-13T16:03:00.000+05:30

To please take a look. It cost Abhipraya many sleepless nights, but it is finally worth all the work and the wait :)

(In case the image doesn't show, that's JustFemme)

And ladies, please write for the magazine :)

Vroom!

2007-11-05T20:04:00.000+05:30

I feel bad for these chaps with remodelled, revamped cars that are supposed to go vrooooooooomm, nice and noisy, and grab attention and all that. Makes me go tut-tut, poor chap. Because I think of how they would simply love to go vrooooooooomm. But all they can do is:
vvrroo... (brake; jaywalker crossing road)... vvvvrrrooo... (brake; horrible pothole)... vvroooo... (brake; signal)

Tut-tut...

pfft

2007-11-04T11:41:00.000+05:30

Sunday morning, sunshine and drizzle. Aah such possibilities, such delight!

But no... the peace and quite, the joy of the rain -- all lost in half a dozen blaring loudspeakers sprinkled in a 200 metres radius around our home.

Some nitwits are celebrating Rajyotsava today. A monstrous stage has been put up right across the road to our house. The loud, oh simply unbearably loud, music began at 7 in the morning. It's a Sunday, dammit... And who EVER gave them the permission to cut off the road?
Are you a lawyer? Can I file a PIL?

I have nothing against celebrating the land and the language and whatever else this is about. But for four days in a row, with the grand finale involving drowning the weekend for an entire neighbourhood of unsuspecting hapless people?

In comparison, homeland seems to be completely uninterested in what happens to their language. And certainly, I prefer that disregard to this frenzy. I want to go home. whimper...

Wish list

2007-11-03T12:49:00.000+05:30

~ A bag of over-ripe squishy tomatoes to throw at all those motorists who insist on going beep-beep-beeeeeep-beeeeeep at all times
~ A sound proof bubble in which I can put myself as and when I wish, for those moments when I need absolute solitude
~ A device that can send electric shocks strong enough to stun a person for at least half an hour -- to be used on all those "roadside Romeos" with raging libidos
~ A dream recorder
~ World peace
~ Unending, surplus supply of fresh water
~ A cottage in some quite corner of the world
~ Enough funds for a world tour

Tell me why

2007-11-01T14:29:00.000+05:30

~ Why are these NRI types the way they are?
Oh things are so difficult back in India.
Haha, you must read this mail about those poor Indians.
Check out the pictures of my swanky new house in foreign country. Oh poor you, is your roof still leaking?
Man it is so hot in India. And all these insects!

Do they remember they once lived here? And no matter where they settle or how long they live there, they will always be Indians?

~ Why does a saree not come with a "fall" fixed to it?

First of all, why the hell does a saree need a "fall"? Why is it called that? For years, I thought it was a miracle product that would stop you from tripping and falling. Then came the idea that it is probably there so that the saree falls well. But whatever that is, why don't the sarees come fixed with a fall? Why does one have to go hunting for the right colour and a tailor who will fix it in an hour?

~ Why did the squirrel choose my balcony to die on?

Probably in memory of the onion stalks and methi leaves it fed on

Channapatna

2007-10-23T22:50:00.000+05:30

Spent the day at this quaint little town, where every second house seems to be a workshop of artisans making wooden toys, beads and bowls. Where all colour seems to be reserved for the wooden knick knacks. Where the world seems to go by under a fine layer of saw dust. If zipping down the Bangalore-Mysore highway, you would hardly notice the town but for its row of stores with brightly painted wooden horses.

The carpentry is all around. From bits of wood lying around to piles of logs to the finished products at the stores that line the highway. In the artisan's hands, we watch as the shapeless piece of wood attains shape, character and eventually, colour. Bright shades, happy faces, simple technology.

They have trouble sourcing the wood, but they put immense trust in Mother Nature. There will be wood, it won't be a problem. They have to bribe forest officials, they get into trouble when they are trying to procure the wood, but they have to go on. They have found alternates in cheaper, easier to source wood. But it just isn't the same.

Rather than the domestic market, they prefer the international. Of course, the money is better. And perhaps the recognition too. They export just about anything from napkin rings to jewellery. For these foreign shores, the artisans have drawn up new designs, thought up more and more innovative things they can do with wood. For the local markets, they remain the toy makers.

It's been a year since the Channapatna toys got the Geographical Indication (GI) certificate. But no one knows. Not the craftsmen, not the government official who sits at the government establishment that offers training to young carpenters as well as employs them and sources products for the government showrooms. So obviously, questions as to whether the GI certification has made any difference, draws a blank.

The bigger workshops have their own "design studios". When an export order is placed, they sometimes get bits of fabric. Their job? To match all the products -- be it rings or salt cellars or jars -- to the pattern on the piece of fabric. With some skilled painting, they can make the wood look like terracotta or metal.

They tell us that many people have to write about them. They come, speak to them, take pictures, and then disappear. Never hear from them again. We aren't going to be any different, are we?

Experiment of the day

2007-10-22T09:43:00.000+05:30

Pancakes served with generous helpings of maple syrup :)

100th post!

2007-10-16T22:11:00.000+05:30

yip yip yip 100th post 100th post 100th post!!!!

:D

It's taken one year and five months, but hey, 100th post 100th post 100th post!!!
San, thanks for your... err... three and a half posts. It wouldn't have been possible without you.

Wha...?!

2007-10-14T19:48:00.000+05:30

I'm reading reviews of Laaga Chunari Mein Daag like one possessed. Why? This is why:

"The men are hardly there in the film" says Rediff
"And the fact is the men here -- Abhishek Bachchan and Kunal Kapoor -- are nothing more than mere props" says The Hindu
"As for the male actors, well they don’t really have much to do" says The Indian Express
And CNN IBN doesn't even have a mention of the male characters

Is this happening? Isn't this what we have been reading for decades about women in cinema? Ha!

Of course, it's a completely different story that the film has been unanimously trashed :)

The Bangalore Walk

2007-10-08T10:40:00.000+05:30

Last Sunday found us waiting in front of Trinity Church on MG Road as early as 6.45 in the morning. All ready to take Arun Pai's popular Victorian Bangalore walk. We had been promised that no matter how many times we have walked down MG Road, Mr Pai would still manage to surprise us.

And surprise he did. Unknown bungalows, private tennis courts, farms -- all on MG Road. And trivia. That the road is built along a ridge, that all the roads branching away from it slope down, that the Trinity Church was then the highest point in the town, that the road is this wide because the army parades needed wide roads. And history. The plot where Winston Churchill probably had his house on, the memorial plaques at the church, the dancing hall that later became Plaza, the suit maker who still runs a roaring business.

Talk about colonial hangover! For the two of us now, MG Road has transformed to South Parade. We see the spires of old buildings, we notice the slope of the road, before we see the swanky sign boards and glittering window displays.

And of course, sigh over what development and "Namma Metro" is eating up. The promenade and Plaza, for instance.

Starting point, Trinity Church, 7 am

The stained glass, facing the rising sun

Err... I am just pretending that is mist. It's smoke :)

Basking in early sunlight

The East Parade Church

Mayo Hall

Beauty and the beast: Mayo Hall and Utility Building

More of the same

Plaza. Soon to be Metro station

2007-10-08T10:18:00.001+05:30

Sunflowers :)

Not in a field though...

But in a vase, at office

Pretty nevertheless :)

Where is the restroom?

2007-10-07T12:09:00.000+05:30

Bangalore's own version of the Oktober fest is on. Sponsored by -- who else -- the king of good times, beer flows. Bands play. Stalls sell everything from clothes to jewellery to shoes to food. Contests that can win you goodies. People sat around on patches of grass, at tables randomly scattered around, in the middle of the roads. Great atmosphere.

And then one went looking for the loo and there ended the happiness. All of two stalls for the women, while the men had the luxury of at least six. True, there were more men than women. But of course, men don't need loos, do they? They chose dark corners, not-so-dark corners, random walls -- in short, anywhere they pleased -- to do their business. But of course, women have no choice do they? The queue to the women's loos had at any point in time some 20-25 desperate women. Of the three hours I spent at the event, a good one hour was spent standing in the darned queue.

And the men who were with me politely waited till I returned from the excruciating wait, said "let's leave" as soon as they saw me, walked out, and promptly found a dark corner and excused themselves.

SUPW

2007-09-22T15:59:00.000+05:30

In our school timetable, we had a period called SUPW that happened around thrice a week. It stood for Some Useful Productive Work, though some genius had more aptly named it Some Useful Periods Wasted. And through generations of students, the acronym had been pronounced as "Soopa" for some strange reason.

Through the lower classes, we were taught "craft", when we stuck sequins on paper, strung beads and did bizarre things with drinking straws. Later, the girls were told to bring cloth and needle and we were taught to embroider. The boys were told they could do what they wanted as long as they were quiet. Couple of years later, we graduated to SUPW labs. The boys had theirs, the girls had theirs.

The boys' lab, which we only got to see from the outside, looked interesting and felt forbidden. The walls had diagrams of devices, circuit diagrams and other things considered masculine. The girls' lab had samples of embroidery done by old students, it had recipes, it had sequins and drinking straw "craft".

Our teacher had already told us what we would be doing: Our regular embroidery work would continue, but the first lab class would involve making tea and coffee, the next week would be cake making, and so on. The boys prepared for their first class, saying they would learn all about circuits and maybe even carpentry. But what they didn't know was that there was a new teacher for the boys. And during the first class she told them, "For the next class, bring some cloth and needles; I will teach you to stitch."

A joyful little victory. Justice had been done at last.

The mop has gone missing

2007-09-21T11:04:00.000+05:30

Oh! Spotted it!
They've used it on Shah Rukh Khan's head in the new Pepsi ad.

12 seconds

2007-09-12T16:32:00.000+05:30

If you are a pedestrian in Bangalore, that's all you've got to cross the road -- 12 seconds. No matter how wide the road is, how many lanes it has, whether it is one-way or not. You have 12 seconds.

But with motorists being as disciplined as they are, don't depend on those 12 seconds. Even after the red light goes, there will be the signal jumpers who will take up at least another 4 seconds. Then of course there is the other stream of vehicles waiting for the green signal. And they start even when the countdown has just about touched 5. That leaves you with three seconds to actually do your crossing.

So all you can do is to be ready with running shoes and sprint as soon as one flow stops and the before the other starts. If you are lucky, you will get at least half way through and to cover the remaining distance you will have to negotiate with the motorists, who may take pity at a sweating panting you and pause.

2007-09-09T14:47:00.000+05:30

You asked what the MG Road promenade looks like now. It looks like this:

Are you on chat?

2007-09-08T17:46:00.000+05:30

Look at the way words have changed... Till a few years ago, to say "I have scrapped you" would have been upsetting. But now, you rush to the nearest computer terminal to check orkut. A few years ago, "I got her on chat" would have made an English teacher cringe. Now, you would just say, "Oh, and what did she say?"

Anyway, this chat is an amazing thing, isn't it? You can be logged on all day and yet have no conversation. Or alternately, you can carry on five different conversations simultaneously. And follow multiple trains of thought simultaneously on each conversation and still make sense of it all. Silences are not awkward. Which made a friend say, I'd rather speak to her on chat rather than call her up.

Something like conversation during a train journey. When there is nothing more to say, you look out the window, watch the rails fly by, fill your mind with the rocking sound of the train and wait idly for the next thought to come along.

Nothing

2007-08-23T00:10:00.000+05:30

Today I have read so much crap that I have nothing to say.
So, nothing.

Bollywood, the weaver of dreams

2007-08-15T17:37:00.000+05:30

Whatever we say about Bollywood, how much ever we scream ourselves hoarse at how it stomps over other Indian cinema, it has a knack of winning over audiences' hearts. It pulls out strands of hopes and dreams of the common man, paints it in bright colours, makes it larger than life, and gives it back to you in glitzy wrapping. And the audience watches, awed at its own dream magnified.

So when our sports teams keep redefining "rock bottom", Bollywood like a benevolent fairy, swoops down, gathers shards of broken hope, bottles the sighs of disappointed fans, captures emotions and creates a sports film.

On celluloid, a gathering of motley people unites against the Goliath. A team of villagers attempting a hand at the Burra Sahib's strange game, in Lagaan. A motley team of women who shoot up unbelievably in the international arena, in Chakde India. Suspense and drama keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. Fighting all odds, overcoming every seemingly impossible barrier, David wins.

The audience cheers every goal, every run. The team they are fervently batting is finally winning. They go home, optimistic. They wait for the next tournament to come along, hope rekindled. And the team lets them down again. And again. And we turn back to Bollywood to tend to our wounds.

Email stress

2007-08-14T21:29:00.000+05:30

I am going to attribute my writer's block to this:

Emails are causing unprecedented levels of stress among office workers as they struggle to cope with an unending tide of incoming messages. A team of researchers has found that one in three office workers who use computers regularly suffer from email stress.

That's it. I am definitely stressed...
The rest of it here.

Post Script

2007-08-08T17:44:00.000+05:30

As I sit here in office, a dull thud reverberates through the building, through the chairs, through the tables, through these keys, through me.
Like the pulse of a giant slug.
In fact, it is a giant slug.
Named Development.

Once upon a promenade

2007-07-31T18:25:00.000+05:30

Some time early last year, before the feeble winter had died out, San and I decided to see Bangalore in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. Well, 8 am is a wee hour as far as we are concerned.

And we got what we had wanted -- the Bangalore of yester-years; cool, quiet, calm and comparatively cleaner. We walked down the MG Road promenade and finally settled down on one of the cold concrete benches. Traffic was just waking up, sweepers were still cleaning pavements. We got to discussing the old photographs of Bangalore, now framed and hung in ice cream parlours, jewellery stores, and any other self respecting store claiming anything over a 20-year history. We spoke about how much the city had changed, how those old pictures were like capsules of nostalgia, how the city would change further, how future generations would look at pictures taken today and wonder at how the city used to be. Efficient photojournalist that San has become these days, he snapped these:

Little did we know then that drastic change awaited the promenade in less than a year. I don't have most recent pictures, and I'd rather not. The promenade is gone, so of course are the benches, so are the ancient trees. In place of the bougainvillea bushes and cool walk way, there are ugly, muddy and huge contraptions, digging, grinding, piling. Dirty blue tents dot the fringes of the activity, sheltering machinery and the labourers. A green fencing attempts to hide away the slush.

These are only the first steps of the much awaited Metro Rail. When we swap heritage for swanky new facilities, we'll have to wait and watch how many more landmarks will be lost. There are promises that the promenade will be rebuilt and made even more beautiful than it was. I am just glad we got to spend a few minutes walking down it.

What does one do...

2007-07-28T16:32:00.000+05:30

When the mind blanks out?
When thoughts flee?
When all the idea-bulbs have gone pop and refuse to light up?
When words desert the pen?

One curls up in a cave and hibernates.

Water world

2007-07-13T23:23:00.000+05:30

Bear with me, indulge me, while a wallow a bit (once again) in the joy of monsoon
:)

In a light shower, even slow-moving morning traffic is "ok"

No light shower this. Blinding, thick torrents, in which you can't even hear yourself think.

Heheh... That's our little elephant after his mud bath :)

It rained

2007-06-27T18:57:00.000+05:30

Last week of May and I started crying out for rain. Blame it on the weather tracker within me. It's been used to damp weather from the beginning of June. So I told half the world I am waiting for rains, where the hell is it.

And then a friend comes up with great indignation demanding what happened to her summer. She tells me Bangalore usually gets rain only by July, which means June should have still been summer, which it anyway wasn't. So she asked half the world where the hell her summer had gone.

In school, rain always meant squelchy shoes, wet socks, dripping umbrellas, a damp desk if your seat in class was by the window. It meant cramped morning assemblies along the corridors. Keeping uniforms white an impossible task. "Games" periods got converted to English or Science or whatever else. Stolen minutes in between classes to stare out the window at rain dripping off tall blades of grass.

Loved those class rooms that looked across the football ground, the empty land beyond, bordered by the railway track, the road after that, then the airfield. The clouds would draw in, the room would darken, the teacher would pause in deference to the mighty roar of oncoming rain. And we would in silence and with a thrill rising, watch the rain coming rushing in from the horizon, over the airfield, across the road and the railway track, and take over the football ground to finally rat-tat-tat on the window panes.

It has been years. But those memories are as fresh as the rain drops beating against my window now. The rain these days has been a mere soft mist though the weather is all wind and clouds and falling trees. And every time it rains, I hear my mother's voice reminding me of what Kunjunni-maash's advice -- never miss an opportunity to watch the rain.

Digital red tape

2007-06-25T20:58:00.000+05:30

Who said the red tape is restricted to government offices? All these call centre services these days -- nothing other than the new form of red-tapism.

You have a credit card. You don't get the statement for ages. But the company insists on calling you and reminding you how much you have to pay.
The collection guy calls.
"But where is my statement?"
"For that you will have to contact customer service."
So one calls customer service.
"Can you send me my statement so that I can pay the credit card bill?"
"Sorry madam, we are not authorised to send you the statement, you will have to talk to the collection dept."
"But they asked me to call you."
"I don't know why they did that, we certainly can't send it to you."
So one calls back the collections dept.
"May I speak to Mr so-and-so? He had called me a while ago about a payment."
"Sorry madam, I can't transfer your call."
"So then on what number can I call him?"
"No, I mean, we don't take incoming calls here. You will have to wait for him to call you."

So I wait. In the meantime, the same bank is sending me some document. I tell them I won't be home to receive the courier, so can they please send it to my office address? No they can't. Because it is a high-security parcel, they will send it only to the residence address. So then can I bring some identity proof and collect it from the bank? No; for security reasons, the bank's policy is that they cannot deliver it to someone who walks into the bank.

Oh I have run out of patience typing this out. Suffice it to say this is only half an hour of the many long hours I have spent trying to get some work done. From renewing vehicle insurance to getting the fridge repaired.
Which reminds me, I better get the computer serviced. There goes another few precious hours of my life, wasted dangling on a phone.

Thought parcels a.k.a. SMSs

2007-06-22T16:20:00.001+05:30

This thing called SMS -- wonderful technology, ain't it? No, it is not that I have woken up to it only now, but was wondering why we take it so much for granted.

Little morsels of thought.
Anytime of the day.
Just to let someone know you are thinking of them.
In the middle of a stressful day, a word from friends or family, something that brings a smile, a memory, anticipation.
And then to spoil the effect and the romance of "little morsels of thought", come these:
"Get the latest Bollywood downloads at blah-blah-blah", or "Citibank credit card offers you yada-yada-yada".
And pop goes the bubble.

The sun slept in today

2007-06-06T12:36:00.001+05:30

Even the sun gets lazy, doesn't he?

Today is the day for the perfect walk. Cloudy skies, gentle breeze, and even comparatively less traffic. The kind of day when you could just walk along streets, rows of mango stalls in either sides. The comforting and at the same time exhilarating thought that the skies would open up any minute and pour down buckets of water.

It's another story that it took the promise of a grilled chicken salad to tempt me out of home in the morning.
:)

First leg of my world tour :)

2007-06-02T13:34:00.000+05:30

My dream is to travel around the world (ideally, to visit every town, every village). Finally the process has been kick started with a week-long trip to Malaysia. An official holiday you could call it.

The marvel of cutting across time zones for the first time still hadn't worn off before I was overwhelmed by the large open spaces of Malaysia. Starting with the airport and the roads. Miles of greenery and disciplined traffic. Even the smaller terminal for low-cost carriers was better than Bangalore's international terminal. Took it all in with unabashed wide-eyedness.

The first port of call was Kuching in the state of Sarawak on the Borneo island. The land of tropical forests, mangroves and several indigenous tribes. All the fatigue of two flights through the night and sleeplessness vanished the minute I drew back the curtains in my hotel room. Kuching city lay spread out on either sides of the sluggish Kuching river. A golden domed mosque in the distance with a chain of mountains serving as backdrop.

Just enough time for a quick shower and a quicker bite of lunch and we set out. The city has several ugly and huge cat sculptures -- Kuching means cat and the cat is the city mascot. After the thickly populated Indian cities and towns, this laid back place seems almost deserted. There are comparatively so few people you wonder how much business sense the malls make. Some old buildings, Chinese temples, quaint little souvenir shops.

First stop is Sarawak Cultural Village. Spread across some 17 acres of land just outside of Kuching at the foot of the Santubong mountain is this model village. Developed and maintained by the government, it tries to recreate tribal settlements. Something like DakshinaChitra in Madras. A showcase for tourists. Model houses and workplaces have been built the way tribals build them. There are few of the indigenous people in each of these dwellings, doing the things they would do in the forest -- carving on bamboo and weaving baskets.

We see the heads collected by the head hunting tribe, the feathered head gears of the hunters, the magnificent colours of the weavers. My favourite is the Orang Ulu tribe and their string instrument sape. "It's like the sitar," says Francis, one of the tribesmen at the Orang Ulu house and a superb sape player. Mention we are from India, and he is playing Bollywood songs on the sape. The lilting haunting music dies out, and as we leave, we are followed by the strains of a wooden xylophone, which a craftsman is still working on.

Close to the village is the Damai beach, again with the Santubong mountains looming over it. Damai means peace. And peaceful it is.

By the time we return, there are claps of thunder and soon a mist of rain through the golden sunlight. The river takes on a hundred hues as it rains, as the skies clear, as the sun sets, as the lights come on. We venture out for some dinner. There are cafes and food stalls along the river, the city has cooled down. But the restaurants are quiet and empty. The home food must be excellent :)

The next day, we are off to the Bako National Park. A 20 minute boat ride along the Bako river almost right into the sea and mangroves all along. Apparently, 12% of the country’s land mass is mangroves and these wetlands are well preserved.

The Bako park is the smallest in Malaysia and is home to the long-nosed proboscis monkey, clouded leopards and pitcher plants. The last one was the one I most wished I could see. But such was our luck that we did not even see the most common macaques or the bearded pigs that are forever venturing out towards the park’s office buildings.

The trails through the park are laid out with wooden planks and marked with daubs of red paint every now and then. Our guide Rose tells us that some of these trails can take one to quiet beaches, where it would be just you and the sea.

The next day we fly back to KL, yet again by-pass the city, and head to Melaka. Right out of history books, the Straits of Malacca and the old buildings, the narrow cobbled streets and forts. The heritage society has seen to it that the old buildings maintain their facade; you can do what you want to do with the interiors.

Of all the museums I went to in that one week, the most interesting was the maritime museum at Melaka. Not because of what was inside, but because it is housed in a grounded old Portuguese ship.

Much of the city’s recent development has happened over reclaimed land. As we take a ride in one of the colourful trishaws, the trishaw guy tells us how the spot where our hotel is used to be the beach. "Now we have to go 10km to reach the beach. But it is better this way," he says.

The next day, finally, we enter KL. Cannot but marvel at the efficient infrastructure -- fly-overs, subways, metro and monorails. Soon the Petronas twin towers come into view. For the next three days, I will catch it spying on me at every turn, peeking from between other buildings, lording over the city.

Most of the next couple of days is taken up in attending Malaysia Tourism events. But I do get some time off to walk around the streets, take the metro, window shop. Later, we got bird’s eye views of the city first from the KL Tower and then from the "Eye on Malaysia". But come to the city of the twin towers and not walk the skybridge? So Sunday morning saw us waiting in queue for the coupons to visit the skybridge. Only about 1000 coupons are given each day and people start queuing up early morning. We finally bag an afternoon slot and when the time comes, we step into the high-speed lift that goes at 5-6m per second. The bridge is at the 41st level, which we reach in less than 41 seconds. The view is the same, but the excitement of being on the skybridge was something else.

After a week of pampering at the best of hotels, with the best of vehicles, it was finally time to return home. The calling card had been exhausted, patience had worn out and the suitcase was bulging from all the shopping. So it was with a sigh of relief that I stepped into the Bangalore airport. If you think of the KLIA as a football ground, then the Bangalore one is a mere chessboard. And the actual grounding experience was the wait for the baggage. One can get so used to an organised way of working. After a week of that, here suddenly was chaos. The conveyor belt was stuck and passenger were pushing it along. For a long minute, I missed the pampering. But then, this is home.

Ramblings

2007-05-13T15:00:00.000+05:30

I wonder
... what Mr Bean does for a living
... how a spic-n-span house like the one in Tom & Jerry can be infested with holes
... when in a fight scene, the hero and villain shatter earthen pots and squash tomatoes, who pays for the shattered pots and the squashed tomatoes -- the villain or the hero? Do the vendors go after them after the fight is over?
... if the hero goes back to look for his sunglasses, which he invariably throws away before plunging into the above said fight

I like
... the smell of a bookstore
... the smell of fish being fried at noon that wafts in from a neighbour's house
... the smell of first rain
... the smell of freshly ironed clothes
... the smell of a hundred flowers and fresh leaves as you walk by a florist's shop

I remember with nostalgia
... the afternoon spent under the mango tree at home, discussing Kahlil Gibran with a friend
... the late evening walk with a friend and someone special, wondering what he was thinking, wondering what he would say, wondering where we were headed
... the walk in the rain with a friend under one umbrella, unmindful of one half of me being drenched
... the Sunday sojourns with my mother
... waiting for my father's letters from Calcutta

Swooooshhh...

2007-05-11T12:02:00.000+05:30

Been realising that it is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are.

Oh well

2007-05-07T19:40:00.000+05:30

I have given up worrying about the night shift ban. Most of the women I spoke to about this have found it so ridiculous, they are sure none of this will happen or can happen. So then, why should I be the only one worrying so much?

But at the back of my mind, the feeling of helplessness still nags.

Safety of women, my left foot

2007-05-06T10:09:00.000+05:30

I guess the only purpose of that bill (see previous post) was to generate some shock waves. In an interview with The New Indian Express (I can't find the link), the state labour minister Iqbal Ansari says that IT , BPO and media companies can get exemptions. Most sectors that have women working in night shifts can get exemptions.

So then why the bill, you ask? In this interview, the minister says that when a woman becomes victim of a crime, the government is blamed for not providing enough security to women. Now when this law comes into effect, the company that employs the women will have to take completely responsibility of the women's safety. Basically, with this law, the government washes its hands off the issue of making the city a secure place for women.

All this apart, I would like to know who came up with this harebrained idea. Was even one woman involved in the decision making? These so-called people's representatives -- did they ask those they represent?

I am being eaten by this damning feeling of helplessness.

When incompetence meets male chauvinism...

2007-05-04T10:23:00.000+05:30

... you get the heights of ridiculousness.

How else would the Karnataka ministers come up with something like this? To ensure the safety of women, what do they decide to do? Send all women home by 8pm. No night shifts for women, just send them home fast and keep them out of trouble.

Here is a reaction story to this move.

Each time something like this happens, one thinks this is the heights, it can’t get worse than this. But now I realise, we probably severely underestimate out representatives. They outdo themselves each and every time.

The safety of Bangalore city has been debated time and again. What measures have the government taken? More cops on the roads, well-lit footpaths? None of those. Instead they try say that woman is the root cause of it all, so let her stay home.

I am lost for words…

What happens to the hundreds of women working in BPOs, call centres, media houses? Imagine this:
“Thank you for calling, how may I help you? Oh wait a minute, sorry, it’s 8 o’ clock, I have to go home.”
“Sorry, I can’t finish the page, it’s 8 and I am going home”

Considering the perpetrators of all crimes on women are men, why the hell didn’t anyone thinking of making the men go home by 8??

But the icing on my ire was the fact that two women who heard this said, “Ooh.. how wonderful! So no more nights shifts and we can go home by 8.”

The usually silent feminist RBCs in me are screaming for justice.

Update: Times reports that there really wasn't any such legislation and that the minister merely goofed up by stating so.

A trip home

2007-05-01T22:50:00.000+05:30

After nearly a year, I went home recently. What is the point of being just an overnight journey from home if you can’t visit as often as you would want to? But well, that is enough matter for another post.

Anyway, the first two days I found myself struggling not to feel and behave like an outsider, like a tourist. The place had changed, new swanky buildings, more apartment blocks than I would ever have thought possible in that little city, twice as many vehicles on the roads… Ah roads – they were the same!

Roaming around the familiar streets of Fort Kochi, I was fascinated by the many little things that I had merely looked at in passing during all earlier walks there. The quaint buildings, the park, the roads, the cafes, the ancient trees, the “you buy we fry” stalls. Maybe the fact that S was going berserk with the camera helped this feeling. At the Chinese nets, the fishermen called out with a well practiced sophistication that ill suited them: “Come on madam, come up here, take nice photographs, see the fish”.

Drive along the water front and sure signs of the great growth the city is waiting to witness – like a roll call of all the major builders in the country, boards proudly announce the upcoming residential complexes. Advertisements everywhere you look announcing even more such properties, in areas that would have been considered back of the beyond as early as five years ago.

The city is changing faster than I can grasp or keep track of. There’s only one solution – go home often enough!
:)

Goa

2007-04-04T22:07:00.000+05:30

(this is a long pending post...)

There's something to Goa that you never tire of. Is it the sight of the green expanse fringed with silver and gold that you see from the skies? Is it the comfort that you can indulge in laziness as you sit in one of the beach shacks for hours together without as much as moving a little finger, while beer and sea food flows? Is it the tangible energy of the revellers that enfolds all, young and old, within its pulse? For all you know, it is just the sea breeze.

Is there anything that has not already been written about Goa? In this attempt at a travelogue, will I be able to say anything new? I am sure the answer is no. But then, Goa inspires. To write, to sing out loud, to live.

When Sunday melts into Monday, there are no blues to shoo away, no deadlines to keep. There is only the promise of the never ending waves, the omnipresent breeze and incessant energy. The promise that there is something for everyone. The snooty restaurants that serve Thai food and would rather serve only foreigners. The road side eatery exuding old world charm with comfy wooden furniture. Today's Special boards written in pink, blue and white. The ubiquitous Kashmiri shops selling Pashmina shawls to sun-burnt Europeans. Catchy Goan rhythms wafting alongside aromas of the vindaloo or xacuti sauces.

But this is the happy face that Goa puts up for its tourists. It is writhing within. Families are selling off family bungalows to developers. They are adding more rooms to their old houses and turning them into hotels. Locals are protesting the blind destruction of ecosystems in the name of development, done in favour of the tourist. They dread the end of the "season".

Driving us from one beach to another, the taxi driver says, "The season will soon be over. In a month's time, we will be sitting at home killing flies. Whatever we have earned now will be over in a flash. And very soon, we will fall into the debt trap. This happens every year, nothing new for us."

It is easiest to close your eyes to what lies beyond. And all I do is to wish him a good season, add a little tip to the actual fare, wave good bye and return to the party.

Beat

2007-02-23T09:28:00.000+05:30

Healthcare is a scary beat to follow.

Lifestyle diseases on the rise, India the diabetic capital of the world, they say, shaking their heads in dismay but eyes shining in excitement -- Think of all those people who will need to come to us for treatment, medicines. Oooh!!

Healthcare industry is booming, we are expanding, a 300-bed super-speciality hospital here in six months, another 400-bedded one there in one year, more more more. So many more people falling ill, so many more rich hospitals to cater to the rich, what happens in the villages?

More and more clinical research process being outsourced to India. More and more Indian patients playing guinea pigs to MNCs.

Disgusting after a point. So I wear blinkers, see only what is shown to me -- growing economy, booming sector, money money money. The crumbling health conditions can go take a walk.

Chocolate Mudpie...

2007-02-20T09:34:00.000+05:30

... must have been what manna from heaven was...

Mango blossoms

2007-02-03T17:09:00.000+05:30

Everywhere! Along the highway, by the city roads, peeking out from behind high compound walls. Bringing with them the smell of summer and the promise that golden mangoes will soon flood the markets.

What joy! :)

01010101

2007-01-31T09:49:00.000+05:30

We have consigned our memory to 0s and 1s.

How was your holiday in the mountains?
Oh it’s all on camera.
Remember how you used to describe the resort, the flowers, the mist?

Do you have so-and-so’s number?
It’s on my phone, I will SMS it to you.
Remember how you could reel off tens of numbers off at the drop of a hat?

Naah, our memory is for better stuff, we can’t waste it on remembering stuff like this! Even our thoughts – we pull out strands and put it away on our blogs, like Dumbledore’s Penseive, so that you can go back, read it, and rethink that thought. But what then do we use our memory for? To remember the details of the most mindless TV shows, all the spicy gossip, the worst of swear words, passwords, pin numbers.

A typical day, and a letter

2007-01-29T16:53:00.000+05:30

It could be the middle of the night as far as sleep was concerned. Through its shadowy depths, I hear an alarm that is quickly shut off. I sink back into the dream, holding on to the last fleeting image, hoping the thread has not been broken. After what seems like merely a few moments, am woken up by a gentle "Wake up Sav, I am leaving, lock the door." In the dark of early dawn, fighting the urge to stay under the blanket and keep away the slight chill, I see him, dressed, packed, ready to fly. A quick "bye, take care, call me when you reach" is all there is time for; the cab is waiting. Lock door, wave good bye from the balcony, stumble back to dreamless sleep till daylight streams in. And then thoughts of "Would he have reached, when did he leave, what was he wearing, has he forgotten anything?" The memory of dawn pretty much a dream now.

For how long, this same routine?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A letter from home. I wave it around in glee, colleagues tell me it is great that we still send letters. The letter... only a chronicle of a dream. But the emotion, the joy, the desperation of the dream is too strong to stay on paper. It jumps out at me, envelopes me, throbs within me. Mother's voice asking: "Why do we have to live like this, miles apart?"

What for, this kind of life?

Anything for the camera?

2007-01-05T20:34:00.000+05:30

Was stuck in traffic today on way to work -- as usual -- and got to watch a demonstration by MG Road. A camera was rolling. And in front of the lensman, the leaders of the protest in a semicircle, shouting slogans, passionately pumping their fists. The cameraman decided he had enough footage, replaced the lens-cap and the slogans died down. Down came the raised fists and the resolve in the voices dissolved. The protesters stood around, listlessly holding placards, seemingly waiting for the next camera crew to come along and show some interest. Apparently, it's not worth protesting if there isn't a camera to see it.

Few days ago, was watching David Blaine on TV. Watched without emotion as he jumped from a 90-foot pillar (where he had been standing for over 30 hours) into a stack of cardboard boxes placed below. Only one of his many stunts. Would he be doing these insane things if there aren't all those cameras pointed on him? To what extent will he go, if ensured it will be taped?

SMS your vote

2007-01-04T23:16:00.000+05:30

SMS to select your favourite singer on the talent show.
SMS to vote out the worst person on the reality show.
SMS to get yourself into the 1-crore game show.

You think general elections would be more effective if votes were to be sent in as SMSs? Imagine... Big-budget glamourous TV promos. A series of numbers to SMS to -- 1231 for Candidate 1, 1232 for Candidate 2 and so on. Reminders running as tickers even while the evening news is on. Suspense filled music as a booming voice (preferably AB) asks, "Who will win?"

Think it will work?

We are growing up

2006-12-21T21:53:00.000+05:30

Friends from childhood remain children for ever in one’s memory. Until one sees a picture of the person, all grown up and minus the baby fat. In the cold storage of memory, they are chubby cheeked or awkwardly lean and tall. They have impossibly curly hair and a shrill loud voice. They wore neatly ironed school uniforms or dirtied and torn play-time clothes.

Then one day you run into one of them on the streets. The hair tamed, the voice broken, dressed in the best, on a diet. And you realise -- time has passed, we have grown up, s/he has changed and so have I.

Back then, you shared every little secret, every object of interest was discussed, every minute of the day was spent together. Now, you look into the other’s eyes and see the reflection of a world you are not familiar with, and you realise the other is seeing the same in your eyes too.

No, I did not recently run into anyone from the past. But I would like to. It’s like a refreshing blast of wind. To catch a glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd, to relate it to the impression of a much younger, much smaller face in the mind’s vault, to see the same light of recognition growing on the other’s face, to shake hands, to say "How are you, lovely to have met you", to exchange contact details, to realise how much you yourself have changed, and walk away with the warmth, with the freshly evoked memory of the security of childhood, with a smile that will linger on till a sigh of nostalgia escapes.

A spot of nostalgia

2006-12-17T18:19:00.000+05:30

Have you tried catching a spot of sunlight? I have this old fragment of memory -- of dappled sunlight on a verandah on a warm afternoon when I tried desperately to get one spot of sun to stay in my hand.

My memory also has mango trees, like many old Malayalam film songs. I remember having asked my mother long ago why so many Malayalam songs alluded to mango trees when attempting to invoke nostalgia. Her reply was that almost every house used to have a mango tree in the yard. All the houses I stayed in during my childhood had a mango tree. The home -- to which the mind remains anchored to -- now has four. From my room, I could see two. But here, that green shade exists only in my mind.

"Bullywood"

2006-12-08T10:12:00.000+05:30

...says The Hindu. Heheh! Apt, isn't it? Read it here. It seems to be a reaction to this year's IFFI. And he deviates to the north-south debate as well. But felt happy reading it!

First there was the IIFA awards -- International Indian Film Academy Awards. Now comes the GIFA -- Global Indian Film Awards. And what is "Indian Film"? According to these two awards, Bollywood and only Bollywood. Celebrate Bollywood, by all means celebrate the colours, the drama, the glamour that is Bollywood. But why give the world the impression that all of Indian cinema is just Bollywood?

Why why why?? What happens to all the other languages then? What happens to all the other regional film industries? The Assamese and Bengali films? The Malayalam and Tamil films?

Two years old

2006-11-30T19:23:00.000+05:30

It's been two years, this new phase in life. And as I look around the house, I realise that most things in the house have also turned two. The appliances apart, there is a collection of things that should ideally have been used up in these two years, or at least gone into the waste bin, but have miraculously survived.

# A box of those long Homelite matchsticks. Someone called it the "theft proof" matchbox.
# A bottle of Dettol, used once long ago. Must be past expiry date by now. Should be poured down the drain.
# A bottle of liquid soap that I bought in the first "shopping for home" spree. It was then a spare, it still is. Because I keep forgetting I have this in store and continue buying more soap.
# Half a packet of soya chunks which I bought because someone said is very nutritious and forgot after the first trial because I certainly don't like it. Must get rid of it at least now.
# Battered water bottles that haven't been replaced out of sheer laziness.

These I spotted in the first round of looking around. Am sure to find more.

Hola!

2006-11-24T12:34:00.000+05:30

After a long time!

A period when I had nothing to write. Or rather, when I had nothing good enough to write on. And now I have things swimming around in my mind and no time to write.

Because now, the sea calls. And when the sea calls, the only thing to do is drop everything and rush to the waves. So I am off to Goa in a couple of days to refill my reserve of salty breeze and sand.

Randomness

2006-10-29T12:06:00.000+05:30

# I watched Sholay. Finally. Yeah, all you people who gaped in disbelief when I said I haven’t yet seen it, and all of you who said my life so far was a waste because I hadn’t watched it – I have finally seen Sholay.

# How can a plywood company advertise itself with the slogan “Powered by nature”? Cutting down trees is being powered by nature? Saw that ad on an auto.

# How many lifetimes will I take to visit every city, every town, every village in the world? See all the great rivers, see all of India, the rain forests, the European countryside, the beaches of the Caribbean. Oh and, who will sponsor me for this world tour?

Editorials

2006-10-17T10:41:00.000+05:30

In your school days, were you told that you should make it a practice to read the newspaper editorial everyday in order to improve your language? I was. But I hardly read any. First, because they were immensely boring; and second, because I hardly understood what they were getting at. I still don’t, and for pretty much the same reasons :)

Anyway, now I have more reason not to read them. This is from Jyoti Sanyal’s Indlish – The Book for Every English-Speaking Indian. Sanyal was with The Statesman for 30 years, and was later the dean of Asian College of Journalism when it was in Bangalore. Anyway, after pointing out some really badly written editorials – one from “Bangalore’s leading daily” and the other from “a Karnataka daily” (not difficult guesses which these are) – he laments how the Victorian model of writing seen in these edits trickles down to children. He says:

And the moral of all this: teachers, please stop crippling children with crude didactic essays of the Victorian model; parents, never encourage your children to read those repulsive Victorian-vintage editorials in English-language newspapers.

Ha!

Travel

2006-10-16T09:45:00.000+05:30

When I was a child, a lot of our not-so-long-distance travelling was done by the state transport buses. And later when the rail lines came, some of it by train too. One’s only pass time in a bus was to either sleep or watch in a daze as the landscape whooshed by.

It was utter joy, to press my cheek to the thin iron railings across the window of the bus and feel the wind try to rip my head off. The strong metallic smell of the railings would stick on to me for a few hours. The feel of the wind on my face would stay on for a few minutes. Though the route would be the same each time, the places we rushed through always looked different. There would be something new to gape at each time. The black tarmac, fringed by white sand or red gravel depending on where we were, followed by dense green, followed by sun flecked sky. That is the lasting memory of those journeys along the highway, though blurred because that was how I would see them through the window.

Distances have shrunk. Earlier, a one-and-a-half-hour journey to the neighbouring district was a long one – one packed clothes and tooth brush into an overnight bag, one looked up bus timings, the journey would be tiring. Now, you wake up in the morning, decide to go make a visit, hop into the car, think nothing of the one hour because it is probably as much time as you would take on your daily commute between office and home, and are back home by evening.

The whole reason I started on this when-I-was-a-child trip is because it seems incredulous to me that children these days seem to have no interest in looking out the window and just looking at things. The minute the engine wakes up and the vehicle moves, they are bored. “Let’s play a game, I am bored, give me something to eat, I am bored, are we there yet, I am bored.” Look out, look at all the pretty sights, look at the people! I can still gape out for hours, I still stick my head out to feel the wind, I still love to watch the road fly away beneath the wheels.

Last day, stuck in a traffic jam, we watched the people in the car next to us watch videos on the LCD screen hanging in the car in place of the rear-view mirror. I watched in disgust – bad enough that people go on holidays to exotic locations only to get there and watch TV, now they need to be staring at a screen even when travelling around city. But S watched with much interest, and said, We should also have a DVD player in our next car, that way our kids won’t get bored when we are going somewhere. I let out a silent scream, but S didn’t even notice the look on my face, he concentrated on the traffic. Wonder how many arguments lie ahead!

Punctured spellings

2006-10-10T19:42:00.000+05:30

You know these small puncture fixing shops that one finds on roadsides? If anyone ever sees puncture spelt right on the boards of such shops anywhere, please send me a picture. I am yet to see one with the correct spelling. I have seen everything from "panjar", which was in Chennai, to a slightly better "puncher" in Bangalore.

Bandh

2006-10-04T20:04:00.000+05:30

Karnataka shut down today. State-wide bandh. It's been a long time since there's been a bandh. Probably because back home, there was at least one bandh every month at one point. When there were too many bandhs, the court banned bandhs in the state. How can a concept be banned? It is not like banning smoking, is it? So people assumed that it was only the word that was banned and introduced hartals, which at some long-ago point had meant that shops supporting the cause would remain closed while vehicles would ply and offices would function as usual. But once bandh was "banned", hartal became the new bandh. So the court went ahead and banned the hartal. But the same bandh continues under various different names. I am not keeping track, don't know what its latest name is.

Anyway, there was a bandh here today. From last night, the roads have been dotted with police vans and bus-loads of the rapid action force. And today, deserted roads, closed shops and offices. All by force, isn't it? If given a choice, how many of us would have stayed indoors? How many shops and offices would have remained closed if they were given a choice? But in a bandh, there is nothing called a choice, at least not anymore. If you are not a hospital or a newspaper office and yet you are open, we will shatter your glass facade. If you are not an ambulance or a press vehicle, we will stone you. If you as much as dare touch the shutter of your shop, we'll beat you up.

How can a handful of people and their decision to paralyse life affect the collective psyche so much? How can they put fear into minds so that we would much rather sympathise with the cause (by force, let me add) and stay at home rather than go out and carry on with life?

I want to protest against bandhs. Someone tell me how.

Oh by the way, one good thing came out of the day's shut-down in the city -- the traffic police got the road markings re-painted!

Gandhigiri update

2006-09-30T10:37:00.000+05:30

In Bangalore this time. A teacher and her students are flooding a difficult tenant with flowers and cards. Good days for the florists. :)

This car is backing up

2006-09-30T10:21:00.000+05:30

When will it occur to someone that these backing-up music of cars/lorries/vans/bullock carts must be banned?

I wake up everyday to a medley of this irritatingly high-pitched noise. A truck in the neighbouring compound trying ot get itself out. See, it is a large empty ground. I have not yet discovered why the truck's driver needs to shift to reverse gear so many times to get it out of there. And each time, the Airtel jingle is flung out into the world. Why isn't AR Rehman protesting? Doesn't he realise how bad his tune sounds when it comes at as a sad string of beeps through loud and jarring speakers? Anyway, if that doesn't wake me up, there is plenty of choice. As in, I can choose what music irritates me the most and wake up to that. Because shortly will follow a version of Neele neele ambar par. Which will be followed by two other versions of the Airtel jingle. And then will come the Happy birthday song. Which will be followed by Raghupati raghava raja ram and Vandemataram. Why bother about anniversaries of songs and Gandhi Jayantis and so on? We can sing it everyday as many times as we want to reverse! So anyway, all these songs play in the morning, in this sequence, everyday. And in reverse order at night. What joy.

Oh, at 4 this morning I was treated to a Tamil song. I hope that car doesn't decide to stay on in this area.

A close shave

2006-09-27T12:02:00.001+05:30

Logic is a powerful tool; it can be used to discern and to discover truth. Sometimes though, this tool falls into the hands of those who would abuse it. I would not abuse it as my logic is nothing to write home about. Or may be due to a lack of logic I might be abusing it unknowingly!

I read this paradox of the Barber recently which incidentally is attributed to the British philosopher Bertrand Russell.

The barber paradox asks us to consider the following situation:

In a village, the barber shaves everyone who does not shave himself, but no one else.
The question that prompts the paradox is this:

Who shaves the barber?

No matter how we try to answer this question, we get into trouble.

If we say that the barber shaves himself, then we get into trouble. The barber shaves only those who do not shave themselves, so if he shaves himself then he doesn’t shave himself, which is self-contradictory.

If we say that the barber does not shave himself, then problems also arise. The barber shaves everyone who does not shave himself, so if he doesn’t shave himself then he shaves himself, which is again absurd.

Both cases, then, are impossible; the question ‘Who shaves the barber?’ is unanswerable.

Perplexed and confused?

Gandhigiri

2006-09-23T10:51:00.000+05:30

Who ever thought that Gandhian principles would get such a peppy new avtaar in the 21st century?! When watching Lage Raho Munnabhai, I wondered if the film would make a difference to people, whether they would leave the theatre and actually think of putting into practice the lovable Bhai’s style of protest. There’s this bit where one of the characters is talking about how Munnabhai’s radio show is catching on, and how people are voluntarily washing off walls when someone spits. And I thought, yeah it’s a film, they can say these things will happen, but off the silver screen it is never going to happen.

But now, look at all the buzz around Gandhigiri. People are protesting with roses. It has lead to discussions among youngsters and is apparently inspiring them. The word has taken over the headlines – ‘PM pleads for Gandhigiri at NAM’, ‘After Munnabhai, America takes to Gandhigiri’, and so on. No, they are not talking about the film, only about maintaining and promoting peace. And if you want to read all articles on Gandhigiri, there is even a dedicated website. And of course, when something is this popular, someone has to protest.

That apart, I met someone last week who thought that the entire film was a long Congress campaign. The minute Gandhi appeared on the screen, the idea fixed itself in his head, and he couldn't even sit through the film. He left during interval. That was a new perspective for me, though now I am wondering why I didn't think of it that way!

It's in the way you play it

2006-09-18T22:20:00.000+05:30

When one listens to great guitarists and drummers, the one thing that strikes you most is the originality of the sound. I've grown up listening to artists who made it big just by their sheer individual brilliance - Billy Cobham (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis and later also went solo as a drummer), Stanley Clarke (Bass Guitar), Al De Meola (awesome jazz guitarist) to name a few. Also bands like Grateful Dead have influenced my tastes in music a lot. Jerry Garcia of Dead is an amazing songwriter and a fabulous guitarist in his own right.

All these guys had one thing in common, they developed thier own style and worked on their trademark sound. The "feel" with which these guys play their instruments is the major difference between a great musician and a wannabe one.

Talking of individual sound and style of play, check this video out.
Allow the video to buffer fully before it plays out entirely- As soon as the link opens, click the Play/Pause button and allow it to buffer fully. Then click the same button to play. Don't let it buffer in between, you will only kill the magic that is Music.

RTOh!

2006-09-15T18:49:00.000+05:30

Yeah, its taken a long time to start. Better late than never.
I was on leave today and my assignments for the day were to get the car ready for our weekend jaunt and also to get done with the road tax for Sav's bike.

I get to the RTO and am immediately swamped by agents who sensed a deal looking at the TN registered scooter. Saar!, DL aah?, Tax aah, kannada gottha?( do you know kannada?). I cut short their aahs and oohs and quickly run upto the 3rd floor where the Road Tax section is.

Can you believe that all the Forms that you are supposed to fill up are in Kannada? I flip the page hoping for a English version.None. Ive learnt to read and write kannada ever since ive been in school and have been comfortable with it but just imagine the plight of a non kannaidga in that RTO?
I look around and immediatley spot numerous (at least 15 of them ) non-kannidagas holding the same Form, with confused looks on their faces. Not to mention, the agents were milling around them offering their service to interpret the form. Of course you can fill it up in English only if you know what the form demands in the first place.

I decided to fill up the form in Kannada to the last "Camma" and "Full Staap" including the Insurance Policy Number which incidentally was a 15 digit number!!. After a job well done, i submit my form to the officer in charge. He glances through the form, muttering under his breath, doodling something on the form with a red ink pen,lowers his glasses down the ridge of his nose, frowns and hissed at me: "YAAKRI, NUMBER KANNADA DALLI BARDIDEERA??" (Why have you written the number in kannada, i say?). The poor soul probably didnt have a clue about kannada numerals!

Ah! Bliss, i was waiting for this moment. I calmly replied :"Form Kannada Dalli idey Saar!" ( The Form is in kannada). I think he lost it, more so because i was wearing a Che Guevara Tee and hadnt taken my shades off!. He made me write the whole form in English and resubmit. I didnt have a problem with that.

Tax paid. Sav khush. Me too Khush ( having gotten back at them - quite"literally")

What is the point in having the form in Kannada? Is it to help the agents make a quick buck? Is it the "Namma Kannada" cam"pain"? Is it an apathy towards Non kannadigas? ...i dont get the drift.

i promise to write soon again .....Until then...Cheers!

The network follows

2006-09-10T15:59:00.000+05:30

There is this new ad by Airtel. You must've seen it. Three girls sitting in a tent and arguing over what they want to see on the phone -- news, songs or movie clips. And then one of the girls walks out before the phone starts ringing. We see that the tent is perched on a hill top, overlooking a river and a green bank, with a blue sky above.

I suppose they are trying to say that wherever you are the network is there, blah blah. But the message I got was that even in such a beautiful setting, on what seemed a bright, sunny and beautiful day, the tech savvy young generation would rather stay indoors and watch film songs on their phones.

Now my problem is, is that only the warped imagination of the advertisers or is that how things are? Why, why, why in the world would you take the trouble of going on a trek, or on a vacation, only to watch TV (Or in this case, film clippings on the phone)?

Railway station

2006-09-09T14:53:00.000+05:30

There is this railway station I keep visiting in my dreams. It is a strange station, and I have never really seen one like that. A road runs through its centre. So if you need to get from Platform No.3 to Platform No.4, you have to cross a road, a narrow but busy one.

The contexts have always been different, but the station is always the same. Sometimes it's me missing the train. Sometimes it is me trying to catch a connecting train at that station. Once it was me running after a goods train. Once I was looking for my family in different trains. Once I was getting out of the train to buy tea. But it is always the same station, with the cacophony of blaring horns replacing the usual sounds of a railway station. And almost always, I would have to tackle the road traffic too.

I don't want any interpretations on this one, just let me know if you come across a station like that. :)

Being a journalist

2006-09-07T21:19:00.000+05:30

What is this thing about being a journalist that makes you want to remain one? Four years into the profession and I can think of a hundred reasons why one shouldn't follow this path. Indefinite working hours, no fixed weekly day-off, daily deadlines, and poor pay for starters. (All this of course, assuming we are talking about a daily general newspaper. So stop pointing out that I have Sundays off. And by the way, TV is worse)

There are so many other jobs around if you are into the business of words. You could be a content developer or a technical writer for an IT firm and get paid a bomb. You could be into public relations. You could get into corporate communications. What do these bring? Definitely more pay. Five-day weeks. And your evenings are free! Err... Or rather I like to believe that evenings will be free. Even in the worst case, you would get at least a couple of evening free, won't you? You know, there have been times when I've felt lost in my neighbourhood simply because it had been ages since I saw the area in the golden light of evening. Oh to not have to take special permission so I can attend an evening wedding, or a concert...

But yet, journalism has so grown on me. My eyes twinkle when I hear about a job opening as a content developer. And I toy with the idea, I think of the many things I could do if I had a two-day weekend. But all that will last till the next press conference, where I sit and contemplate if I really want to give this up, and the twinkle dies. I sigh and say, oh darn, I love my profession too much to give it up. I wouldn't have a press card anymore. I wouldn't be able talk possessively about the press club anymore. I would have to rip off the "press" sticker that's on my scooter. I wouldn't be able to save San from policemen who nag him for double parking simply by waving my ID card. I wouldn't be able to watch with amusement the different ways in which people react when they ask me what I do and I say "I am a journalist" (Especially the kind who think they are important enough to be quoted and say "Hey, all that I said to you was off the record").

Oh darn. I am never going to have a five-day week, am I?

An open letter

2006-09-07T08:17:00.000+05:30

Abhipraya has written an open letter to mothers who have sons. You too may have points to add.

Onam alone

2006-09-05T17:31:00.000+05:30

Through the fever-induced fog in my mind, I could hear a far-away voice saying "Happy Onam", and all I could think of was "Is it time to wake up?" That was pretty much the flavour of the day. A numbness to all the celebration happening around.

All the Malayalis seemed to have converged on MG Road today, the women dressed in the lovely cream-and-golden sarees, but all with too many accessories killing the entire essence of simplicity and quiet grandeur that the saree is supposed to represent. The men in dhotis struggling to ride bikes. Abhipraya's comment on it was "Now they know how difficult it is to wear a skirt and ride a bike". Heh!

Anyway, there was such a crowd outside the neighbourhood Malayali restaurant that even at 4 pm, people were waiting outside. A whole lot of people celebrating the festival the best way they could, in a land that doesn't know what the festival is all about, where one doesn't get a holiday for Onam, where one needs to buy plantain leaf for the sadya rather than gathering it from the backyard.

And me? I felt disconnected from the entire thing. I wasn't upset that I wasn't getting a feast. Wasn't motivated into cooking anything nice. Wasn't even motivated into wearing something new and nice.

Someone in office said "She's the modern Mallu -- no cooking, just go out to eat." No that's not it. Who do I cook for? For the husband who left home early morning for a day-long conference anticipating lunch at Leela Palace and dinner at Grand Ashok? I'm not going to do elaborate cooking for just myself.

Someone else in office said "It is Onam, you should be sitting at home. All the better if you are alone, just relax on your own." No, not on Onam. I want people around me. Lots of them. I need to run around, talk loudly, laugh a lot, run in and out of the kitchen to taste various things. So that I can sit down in the evening and put away the memories for a day like today. Because tonight, I sit here alone after a lonely dinner, with the TV on in the background for company, wondering what the day was like back home where the entire extended family got together for Onam. For me, that is what Onam is about -- about being with family, being surrounded by people -- and not the pookkalam or the paayasam or the sadya. That is how it has always been.

KANK and some reviews

2006-08-26T16:28:00.000+05:30

I haven't yet seen Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, but been reading reviews of it. It turned out to be a very entertaining exercise, reading the reviews. The film seems to bring the best out of reviewers. I'm listing here a few of the delightful pieces.

Before the film released, an HT article said:

Recently, Ram Gopal Varma created a farcical flutter by announcing he was looking forward to KANK because he loves horror films.

I guess that kind of set the trend. One rubbed hands in gleeful anticipation and waited for reviews.

The NYT pretty much concluded that it is the eye makeup that made all the difference.

Soon Dev is lovestruck, and who can blame him: Ms. Mukherji’s eye makeup, which we get to observe in detail, is much better than Ms. Zinta’s.
...
As for the story’s central lovers, it’s never quite clear what Maya sees in Dev, whose emotional switch has only two settings, angry and morose. Perhaps that eye makeup is clouding her vision.

The Hindu's reviewer was taking in the details:

Everything is picture perfect: there is so much perfection it stifles free expression. When the actors shed a tear, it trickles down only up to a certain point on the cheek. When the hair gets unruly in anger, all the wayward strands fall at a certain angle.

Not to mention scores of bloggers who have some hilarious takes on the film. If you come by more of these, do let me know :)

Update
Abhipraya found someone else doing the same thing here. Lotsa links there. She also points me to this, where Neha Viswanathan says: "Karan Johar - Alvida Kehdo. Please."

:)

I'm back!

2006-08-22T23:38:00.000+05:30

It's been so long since I blogged that now I seem to have starting trouble! Four days of travel and three days of entertaining guests, both preceded by preparing for both. That's what ate into the blogging time.

The weekend before Independence Day, we set out for Mangalore -- four of us, a black car, lots of snacks and a big green umbrella. The road was so good till Hassan that we made the distance in just about three hours. And then the nightmare started. There were almost no roads through the ghats. The roads seem to have been swept away by rain and the rest eaten up by the heavy lorry traffic. At turnings, we would come to a screeching halt because ahead, there would be nothing but a gaping hole.

But the route more than compensated for the state of the roads. The vast plains had been replaced by lush green hills. Blink and you miss a waterfall. And after a while, we were joined by a frothing brown river that roared on alongside all the way. Incessant rain, sometimes light and silent, sometimes hard and harsh, sometimes accompanied by a blanket of mist.

Suratkal was green. For a change (refreshing at that), it was a case of green eating into concrete, rather than concrete eating up green. Wild parasitic creepers spilling over tree tops, once well kept hedges and bushes growing in all directions, grass atop tiled roofs. Reason for absolute glee.

And the sea. I began the very trip with salty air swirling in my mind. Eventually the excitement hit such a high that no one around had much peace with me going "Let's go sea, let's go sea". Watched the sun go down, the lighthouse light up, the sand reflecting the sky.

Heading back to Bangalore, we made a detour to Belur. A large dark 800-year-old temple, wonderfully preserved, wonderful sculptures.

In four days, I got so used to open spaces and straight stretches of empty roads (the ghats excluded, of course) that the very thought of Bangalore was claustrophobic.

Free food

2006-08-08T18:57:00.000+05:30

Was at this press meet today, and I watched as the PR lady used strong words to send away one journalist after snatching the press kit back from him. If that was a shock, what followed was more so.

This man is someone I have seen at 90% of the press meets that I have attended in the last one year. A well dressed gentleman who asked his questions in a very soft voice. Apparently (according to the PR lady), he turns up at every press conference in a star hotel and gives an obscure name as the name of the organisation he represents. Always a different name. And gives a fake number every time. Again, always a different one. And this time, according to the PR lady, he had given the mobile number of the chap who had called the press conference. If that is indeed true, some cheek that is!

I've been wondering why he does this. Maybe he was once a journalist and now is jobless and misses being a journalist and attends press meets for old times' sake. Or maybe it's the food. He probably likes the star-hotel food but can't afford it on a daily basis, and so attends the press meets.

A free meal. Could that be the motive? Day after day after day.

Anger

2006-08-07T21:46:00.000+05:30

This Reuters report about the "wall of fury" in Philippines came out sometime in March. I thought of it today when I listened to a friend as she narrated an incident of "why do you want to file a complaint against him, it will be troublesome, let him be, forget what happened to you, you should have been more careful". And I felt such anger towards that man, for his perversion, his insolence, and the fact that he could actually get away with what he had done, the fact that at least 10 others thought it was best to take the easier way out by letting him off without any charges so that he could carry on with his dirty business elsewhere. "At least we won't have to deal with it."

The anger was painful. I wanted to punch that man as hard as I could, over and over again. I was restless, my palms itched. But what do you, apart from clenching your fist and cursing?

I need to smash a few plates.

A weekend in Bangalore

2006-08-05T20:59:00.000+05:30

It's Friday evening. And one decides a movie would be a good plan. The newspaper is scanned, a quick Google done on reviews, a film zeroed in on. Again, newspapers are scanned for theatre listings, websites looked at for ticket availability, phone numbers collected. And then it turns out that though the film is playing in five different theatres, there is no ticket available. So one concludes, everyone in Bangalore must be watching Omkara.

Let's go out for dinner then. A restaurant is chosen, which in itself is a task. Getting there involves navigating Brigade Road. Choked with pedestrians, cars, cops, parking attendants. One concludes that everyone in Bangalore must be on Brigade Road or heading to Brigade Road at this point.

We reach the restaurant. It's full. A table in the next 45 minutes, that's the best they can offer. Let's try the next. Same story. So we try the next, and the next, and the next. So one concludes, everyone in Bangalore must be eating out tonight.

Finally head home, pick up a movie from the local CD lending library, pack food from the neighbourhood Chinese joint, and sprawl on the futon. Home is the place to be during weekends.

Chopped vegetables

2006-08-04T00:27:00.000+05:30

A more common sight in our kitchen these days than it ever used to be. At least next time we need a gas refill, we won't have to explain to the gas company why we take so long to finish a cylinder...!

PVR or PMO?

2006-07-28T23:49:00.000+05:30

Me trying to watch a movie in PVR or Inox: Show ticket to security at entrance, get frisked by security lady, get bag checked by security lady, asked to finish my cold coffee before I enter, all food stuff in bag confiscated.

Three youngsters trying to meet the Prime Minister of India: Just zoom past hordes of security persons in a Sonata, right up to the PM’s house and ask for him.

Looks like I’d rather try meeting the PM than watch a movie at a multiplex!

Surprise Day

2006-07-27T08:27:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was Surprise Day. And surprising it was :)

Allow me to explain the concept of Surprise Day.

See, for San and me, our celebrations – birthdays, anniversaries etc – are over and done with in three consecutive months. The rest of the year is just dry, with no reason to wrap up gifts, or cut cakes, or send flowers, or light candles, which I find very unfair (of course I am not counting the big festivals, which are anyway family events). So then, if everything in the world from anti-smoking campaigns to your pet dog has a dedicated day of celebration, then why not a day for surprises?

Going by that theory, sometime last week I declared July 26 as Surprise Day. The rules are simple. I throw him a surprise, and he throws me a surprise. Anything, as long as it is not nasty. And it was a grand success : )

I reached office to find a bunch of blood red carnations waiting for me. And I spent the rest of the day explaining to people that there was no particular reason for my husband sending me flowers. “No, it is not my birthday. No, it is not our anniversary. No, this is neither the day we first met, nor the day he proposed. It is just another day. No we DID NOT have a fight. No, he is not going to be travelling for the next six months. It is simply a day made brighter with flowers.” Evening saw me rushing to get home before him, armed with a bottle of wine and lots of candles. The look on his face was precious!

Spread the word of the Surprise Day. Pick a day of your convenience. Sure, just the act of naming a day for surprises takes away a bit of the surprise, but then the build up of suspense is awesome. You start with “Will he remember?” go on to “What would it be?” and “When will it be?”

Who is a feminist?

2006-07-24T20:24:00.000+05:30

Who is a feminist? Or rather, what makes a person a feminist?

When I was some 10 or 12, we had a guest at home, and my father commented at some point that I don't like him smoking. The guest (I have no recollection of who the chap was) immediately said, "Oh, so you are a feminist?"

Huh?

Today, during a three-minute discussion on whether I am a feminist or not, someone told me that for some reason he has always related anything to do with feminism with me. He asked me if I am "anti-men".

Huh??

I will tell people to quit smoking regardless of whether they are male or female. It has nothing to do with feminism.
If I were anti-men, I wouldn't be married.

There are many more things like that. The typical egoistic Malayali man with his 18th century attitude towards women I find obnoxious. Does that mean I am a feminist?
I believe women should be given equal opportunities in every field. Heck, we are in the 21st century, we should have stopped debating this point decades ago! Anyway, does this make me a feminist?
Am I a feminist because I lash out at men who try to paw me?
Or am I a feminist because I have a job and lead an independent life?

Well, I never though of myself as a feminist, and I don't know if I am one. Someone tell me if I am.

A public campaign of sorts

2006-07-22T09:46:00.000+05:30

You see that second name on the top right hand corner of this page? Well, he's the other person who is supposed to be blogging here.

I have tried many things so far -- have pleaded, have offered to ghost write for him, have threatened to kick him out of this space. None of those worked. Though now he is the one pleading -- pleading not to be thrown out of this blog.

Anyway, I am now putting it in the public domain. It may work. I don't think anything else will. So here goes. San, please write.

2006-07-22T09:26:00.000+05:30

Heheh!! There's one guy who knows exactly what he's getting!

Big Brother

2006-07-21T08:49:00.000+05:30

This I found in an article on the BBC website:

India is still a relatively conservative society. Very few couples live together before marriage, and intimate acts, such as kissing, are never seen on TV screens.
However, soaps regularly feature storylines about infidelity and pregnancy out of wedlock.

Heheh! The western world must think we are one confused people!

Anyway, that article was about the reality show Big Brother, which is soon hitting Indian screens. But the version we see here will not have anything to do with sex, since we are scared of that word. Read about that here.