Dirtscapes

A Farewell To Agrawal's - In all Earnest

2011-01-01T13:12:00.026+05:30

Today's paper read like the proverbial morning cuppa. Only this time, it was strong enough to jolt self out of years of blogging slumber.

Well, you know this has to special right?

Agrawal's Classes (Ideal for Scholars) is downing shutters.

Big deal you might say, if you're not from these parts. But for any Mumbai Science HSC student, there is a lot of context here. Especially if you were lucky enough to have got an admit into the hallowed portals of 1st floor, Harganga Mahal. Oh, in case I didn't make it really clear, you got an admit, you just didn't enrol by throwing money. Right. There was a CUT-OFF to get ADMISSION here. A 'COACHING CLASS'. (Show me any other place which had the cojones to do that, and I will convince you that Mumbai has gone to the dogs. Wait, do I need to...?)

The SSC Marksheet - Science+Maths total - would determine whether you were good enough to enrol here. I remember rushing for an Agrawal's admit immediately after my SSC results were out, and then worrying about which Junior college to go to. The joy on dear Mother's face was of Nirupa Roy proportions on learning that I had made the grade by one mark. "You have made us proud, and our struggle was worth it", et al.(If this sounds too melo, well, she had the habit of subtly pointing to the neon logo, whenever we would pass by Dadar TT, ever since I was one.)

All in all, a very smart business model by the man. If you take the cream of a city's students, and subject them to a really bitchin', bad-ass boot camp, you are bound to top the HSC lists too. Which really gives their proclamation that 'Top ranking students almost always come from Agrawal's classes' a very very smug sheen indeed.

By the time I was in, Agru's offered only vacation batches - where we had to wolf down the entire HSC syllabus, in a generous 3 month period. This led to discovering areas about self that one didn't ever know - prime fact being that the human brain is incapable of concentrating on Limits and Calculus after half an hour. This is where the seeds of that seminal life skill called Zoning Out were sown. Probably the single biggest thing I have taken away from Agru's and used in Life. Which is saying a lot.

Agru's weekly tests would be exercises in the worst kind of sadism possible, with questions airlifted from IIT JEE levels. There would be just one question related to what was taught in class, and all the rest were barbed wire underwear masquerading as 'Application of Knowledge'. Prime Example? Physics 2 - "Why do farmers plough their fields in winter, and not in summer?" (This still sticks, after more than a decade. The trauma.)

Held in IES Dadar, with a marriage unfurling outside your classroom, what with (Shrikhand+Puri+Batata Bhaji) fumes creeping up your nostrils, shehnai white noise, and you cooped in Fourth Standard benches, it was barely enough to just write your name and roll number without wincing, leave alone answer gems like the above.

To pile on the joyousness of it all, there was a mandatory half an hour minimum period to be spent in the classroom, irrespective of whether you wanted to write past the first question or not. Which in my case, was 11 times out of 10.

The sheer evil genius of this whole show, was manifested in the Report Cards. Which arrived by good old Indian Post, for your parents to admire and cherish. More so, when they had the highest scores, the average score, and your ward's score, all neatly laid out, with mug shots of the toppers. Was something I really looked forward to.

Agru's had a great selection of profs, ranging from the pits to absolute stud-boys, and everything in between. You couldn't get a better deal though, for the price you paid. Their entire fees would cover one subject's tuition fees for 'Private' (sic). Individual attention be damned. Some real dudes who taught there who still trigger unbearable nostalgia attacks are

Prof Babu ("LimtuponLimitSumofLimitCompleteIt!!!!!")
Prof Vengsarkar ("IIT Question... very popular question, give it some thought.")
Prof Awatramani ("You are my students... How CAN you fail?!")
Prof Kadali ("Hello Hello Alkane, Dihalo Alkane")
Prof Kulkarni ("In general...")
Prof Dhir Singh ("Yes please")

D Damodar functioned as the un-official canteen for Agru's, and a couple of samosas a day, served as the highlight, where you could commiserate with other wounded fellow men, marvelling at the pincer attacks of the subjects before and after.

Agru's peons were the friendliest people on earth, and had sweeping executive powers to make you stand outside as punishment, in case you were late for the lectures. Their word was final. Even friendlier were the sari shop owners just below the building, who would shoo us away like cattle, if we blocked their display windows while waiting to be let up. Evidently, they lost crores in five minutes. Heartwarming.

Agru's memories are something which will stay with me for a long time, and ironically outlive Agru's itself. It is sad to see them wind up, and it is like one part of your life which you thought would be there for ever. Fact of the matter is, that nothing ever is.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

The Sawatdee Digest

2010-03-06T11:42:00.010+05:30

Some lessons learnt from a week in Thailand

--> Leaving your slippers outside a temple doesn't have to be a panic-attack inducing affair. There are no hustlers outside offering to look after your precious 'paadukas'. You leave them in stands (free!) and you come back to find them exactly where you left them.

--> Tiger cubs are not as adorable and docile as you think they are. They momentarily fool you into "Awww... they are just like kittens" mode. Till they roar, and try to swipe your epidermis off. And then shoot you another baleful look.

--> Carrying army rations of Gujju savouries just-in-case, is not worth it. There are tons of desi restaurants almost everywhere you go. With passable food.

--> An omelette is not necessarily always flat.

--> If it looks like a pea, and it's a Thai curry, it's probably not a good idea to shovel spoonfuls of them into your mouth.

--> Singha beer totally rocks. Till you try Singha Lite. Countless bottles of which later, there's no rocking, just spinning.

--> If the board says it's a massage parlour, and if the building is huge-ass and posh, and if the crowd going in and shooting you quizzical looks (since you are with the Missus) is all male, then there's a very good chance that the place is not as wholesome as it seems. Think this.

--> The night life in Pattaya is a total piranha like assault on your senses. You think you have a handle on what it might be like before going in, but nothing prepares you for what lurks there, on Walking Street. All I can say is the words 'boom boom', 'ping pong' and 'Russian ballet' will never be the same for me anymore.

--> Getting currency exchanged after a trip down forementioned Walking Street is not a good idea. You will keep smiling, even though the exchange rate sucks. And even after the lady has warned you twice before handing you the forex.

--> Thai guides and vendors surprise you with their Hindi. "Chaaalo!", "Teen shau paachaash baht!", "Naariyal paani!". Till they sucker punch you with their Marathi. "Chalaa! Chalaa! Kaka, Kaki!" (not too good, if you still harbour visions of youth for self), "Basa!", "Utha!". Mere watan ki saundhi saundhi khusboo and all that.

--> Having seen Ong-bak (highly recommended) and Prig-Kee-Noo (Ditto. Had seen this way back on MTV when I was in school) are great ice-breakers.

--> While shopping, it is a good idea to just pay up, if the price seems fair enough. Bargaining to reduce already basement bargain rates will cause those welcoming smiles to vanish like breath on a razor blade. And invite some really warm treatment. Like quoting 10 times the price suddenly, and asking you to go and die if you cannot afford to buy it.

--> Traffic can be bearable, if no one honks. And especially if the driver comes extremely well prepared with an ice-box cooler full of water and Coke, and a couple of newspapers. When faced with a long wait, swig some cola, read the papers, and move when everybody does. No melodrama, no cardiacs. The no honking policy also applies to vehicles behind cabbies who are negotiating fares, and the signal is full chalu. Respect.

--> There is a universe (called Bangkok), where a taxi ride (for an AC Toyota Corolla, 6 people) is cheaper than an autorickshaw one.

--> It is a pleasant surprise not to be harassed majorly (negligible by Mumbai standards) by 'friends' outside airports, hotels and touristy places. It hits home even harder, when there are prominent signs all over Mumbai airport arrival, asking you to say 'NO' to touts.

--> God bless digital cameras. Coming back and marvelling at the sheer number of redundant photos of the same thing you have clicked, makes you feel decadent on an almost Roman-emperor-before-it-all-crashed level. Or like an IT professional in 2007.

--> Saying thank you and please so often starts to grate on you. Till you catch the return flight home, that is. Full of extremely well-behaved bretheren, it feels so, so right. As soon as the boarding gates open, there's the stampede. Seat number wise boarding calls be damned, only to be turned away at the boarding gate. After boarding, there's yelling, there's ordering the air hostesses for glasses of water ("I also want water.") around even before take off, there's a massive fight because one didn't get a 'special meal' which is resolved only on receipt of an exclusive arrest offer by the Captain himself, no less. Then there's cranky middle aged farts who are in a tearing hurry to get to their seat ("What if the plane starts to take off while I'm standing! Gasp!"), exhorting you to "Do fastly fastly!", when you are searching for space to stow your measly backpack amidst the rough Johhny Walker seas in the overhead bins.

Sure ain't no place like home. Especially when you start feeling it right on the tarmac at Suvarnabhumi.

You Hab My Attention

2010-02-01T21:03:00.007+05:30

Finally, a reason to click on 'Publish Post' at good old Blogger. Courtesy Greatbong.

My Top 10 Hindi Movie lines

1) Abbe O guroor ke mitti se bani hui ghamand ki moorti!!!! - Charanon Ki Saugandh

(Prabhuji at his romantic best.)

2) Na goliyon ki bauchar se, na talwar ki dhaar se, bandha darta hai, to sirf Parwardigar se... - Tirangaa

(The mother of all 'entries'.)

3) Chhilegi chhilegi. Kyon, chhilegi na? - Maine Pyaar Kiya

(Cute. When it comes from Bhagyashree.)

4) Shekhar Gupta, kya aap Damini se pyaar karte hain? - Damini

(Cuter. Especially when it comes from Sunny.)

5) Sumri mein kumri - Rakhwala

(One of Shakti's lesser knowns.)

6) Abbe, agar tu Bijli hai, to main paamhhaus hoon... paamhhaus - Aag Se Khelenge

(That's 'pumphouse', the way Aannil 24 Kaaboor says it. Note: If you have seen this movie, please leave me a comment. I am sick of being the only one.)

7) Bhaaaktaaaawaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - Hum

(Cathartic bliss.)

8) Yaay loob loo tibiya... - Shikari

(That's 'I love You' in Russian. This is the Prabhuji-F C Mehra flick. Note: Again, If you have seen this movie.. etc etc)

9) Aila, Juhi Chawla! - Andaz Apna Apna

(A precursor to the innumerable one-liners that hit you every 30 seconds later on... picked this, purely cos it's kinda the first one out of the gate.)

10) Khoya to maine hai 'Deddy'. Aapne kya khoya? Asli pyaar,apnapannnnn, maine .... Bihari ke ghar mein paaya. Bi-hhh-aari. - Khudgarz

(Jeetu at his anguished best, on learning that 'Deddy' (played by the ever adorable Saeed "Of course, betchey," Jaffrey) has razed Bihari's little 'hotulll')

My Top 10 English Movie lines

1) Yeah well. The Dude abides. - The Big Lebowski

(Again, there's just too many to choose from. This is the one with maximum skull thwack impact. Sums it all up, don't it?)

2) Why don't you quit? It'd be cheaper for both of us. - Midnight Run

(See this movie, am not going to give this away. One of De Niro's lesser known gems.)

3) You talkin' to me? - Taxi Driver

(No explanations required, eh?)

4) Run, run, you stupid son of a bitch! Run!!!!!!!! - Forrest Gump

(Somehow, this sticks...)

5) Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives - Fight Club

(...)

6) You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder - for money. - The Godfather

(Gives you a VERY good idea early on, that this is not gonna be your average movie experience...)

7) Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. - The Matrix

(A little too Zen mebbe, but yep, it works.)

8) What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo? - No Country For Old Men

(Chilling. Probably the best scene in the movie.)

9) Let's sort the buyers from the spyers, the needy from the greedy, and those who trust me from the ones who don't, because if you can't see value here today, you're not up here shopping. You're up here shoplifting. - Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels

(Again, gives you a VERY good idea early on.. etc.. etc..)

10) You complete me - The Dark Knight.

(The one from Jerry Maguire came in a close second, actually.)

Quote

1. On your blog, provide a link to this page.(http://greatbong.net/book).

2. Then write down your top 10 Hindi movie lines or top 10 English movie

lines (You can do both if you want. Only one set is required for the

contest). If you cannot think of top 10, make it top 5. Cannot think of

even 5? Make it top 3. No problem. Only restriction: no two lines from

same movie. This done to make it fair for other movies so that they dont

get swamped by Gunda or Loha or Sholay.

3. Tag five friends to do the same.

4. Go to the comment-space of this post and post your blog's link so I can go and read it.

Unquote

I hereby tag SEV, Aarbee, Supremus, Guns, and of course GB. Heh heh.

The King Is Dead. Long Live The King.

2009-06-26T22:14:00.016+05:30

Circa 1989. A grainy VHS tape on Cable ('Bad') was my first exposure to a performer who was so compelling to watch, that it left me really dazed. To put it frankly, hadn't seen anything like it before. This was a different kettle of fish when compared to ABBA, for sure.

What puzzled me most at the time, was why the dude was proudly calling himself 'Bad'? Wasn't that a you know... bad thing? I couldn't understand a word of what he was singing (WTF were Shamone! Owww! Cootchie coo! supposed to mean anyways?!). But there was something about the way he moved, and the way he performed, that demanded that you kept watching. He was the first point of entry into the big bad world of 'western' music for me. There was no MTV here, yet. He was the personification of what the west had to offer, music-wise. My only exposure to that stuff prior to 'Bad' was in the form of a couple of mixtapes filched from a cousin, full of 80s pop gems like 'We Built This City', 'Madonna's Eyes' and 'Party All The Time'. This guy's music was on another totally different class level, and it was evident that there was a lot more to pop than 'Love Touch'. Like good, bouncy music which didn't sound right off the bat cheesy, even to a kid in the third standard.

Add to that the dancing moves which seeped into my veins like Smirnoff Green Apple Twist does these Friday nights. They were emulated so relentlessly by yours truly, that when puberty really kicked in, my hand would go to my (*blush*) crotch every five minutes, do that patent grab and (gentle) twist, and my mouth would twitch and sneer, and go "Hee hee, Hee hee HEEEEE" all in one smooth, spinal-cord-controlled motion. It got to a point wherein I had to actually learn how to consciously control it in slightly more austere and public surroundings.

The moonwalk was a slightly more difficult proposition. Try hard as you would to perfect it, you invariably ended up looking like you were walking backwards trying not to step in something of animal/human origin. And of course, classmates at that age can be very ruthless in their criticism. Childhood innovations then included sprinkling the mother's Emami talcum powder in generous quantities on the floor, and then achieving markedly better results. This workaround lasted (quite gleefully, I must add) till that parsimonious lady suddenly found herself buying two tins a month. After that, it was trying it out with socks on feet, which was not exactly the same thing, but worked all the same.

I still remember watching Moonwalker - The movie with desperate devotion, and not caring a damn about niceties like plot, and such assorted blahs. He turns into a robot at the end of the movie, and a spaceship too. The way I looked at it, 'Hell, if he could do the moonwalk, and do that bend in the 'Smooth Criminal' video, he's entitled to do just about anything that he wants. I'm watching.'

'Thriller' was yet another dose of pure childhood pleasure. Every bleeding song, was radio worthy - there was just no filler material on it. The sound was a little dated for me, when compared to 'Bad', but there was something very fresh about his voice on that record. A sure grower, and once hooked, 'Beat It' and the title song were on heavy rotation. My parents especially were very disturbed by that laugh at the end of the title song.

'Dangerous' happened at the peak of my MJ obsession. I remember staring at the cassette cover for hours, while the cassette was blaring on in the background. The man released videos that single handedly took the scene to another level. At that age, a super sultry Naomi Campbell (phew!) in the mix definitely made things more interesting. 'Black Or White' even featured an Indian dancer! Yay! MTV must have made a sound fortune off the back of this album's videos alone... played in an endless loop, on the hour to boot. Of course, that was when you know, MTV used to play music videos (remember those?!) almost exclusively (gasp!). 'Smooth Criminal' remains one of my all time favourite videos. Ever.

Post 'Dangerous', I kind of outgrew my obsession with the whole thing, and gradually drifted off his music completely. Part of the whole growing up process, I guess. Add to that his personal woes which really affected his output as an artiste, and overshadowed his achievements to a large extent. To the point where the music was totally forgotten, and all that was projected was a freak in financial trouble. Of late, the odd iPod shuffle randomness would invariably hit me with a shot glass worth of nostalgia - think the intro of 'Wanna Be Starting Something' or 'The Way You Make Me Feel'.

His reach, and his popularity, at the peak of his powers, was a truly global phenomenon (tip - think of all those countless, milked-to-death-due-to-dehydration 'Mai Ka Lal Jai Kishan' jokes, in the best of Bollywood comedies on offer). There is no one today, to cut across barriers like he did, and achieve the same kind of connect with audiences the world over. Blame it on the shortened shelf lives of musicians these days, or the shorter attention spans of people in general, or maybe, just accept that there was no pop star even remotely in his league, once he faded from the limelight. Think boy bands and the unspeakable things they did to the pop music industry in general. All but killed whatever little hope you had of listening to something with a little more depth, even though it was labelled 'pop'. Everything these days is an ephemeral niche. He was a lot more than that.

Travel well, MJ.

RAIT Alumni Network

2009-05-18T21:11:00.008+05:30

All ye mangy RAITians out there...

Do check out the official RAIT Alumni site. A spiffy effort and a good place to reconnect, and find like minded people there to moan about how you wish that 'those' years would keep replaying themselves somehow. Yeah. That's exactly how good life outside Vidyanagari is. :)

Also on twitter: http://twitter.com/RAITalumni

The official RAIT Alumni Mag(RAM) presence on Facebook is at
http://bit.ly/RAM_on_Facebook
On twitter: http://twitter.com/RAITalumniMag

The Dev D Movie Review

2009-03-20T12:35:00.003+05:30

(A little late in the day, but hey...)
An idyllic village scene. Young girl rushing to meet her paramour. Gets him parathas, but forgets to get anything to go with them. Heated words exchanged. Something on the lines of
"Kaat loonga"
"Noch loongi"
And right there at the beginning, we are exposed to the inherent a-hole-ness within the character 'loosely modelled' after Devdas. No Baby Guddu/Master Raju stuff here, for sure.

This irreverent problem child grows up to be exactly that later on. Without letting go of any of his trademark a-hole-ness of course. Which is a landmark in our type of cinema. You would be hard pressed to remember the last time you saw such a complete jerk in a Bollywood lead role.

Dev D is a nicely twisted take on the old Devdas yarn. And that is really an understatement.The old plot has been reworked very well, with the basic storyline being the same, but with enough tweaking to spin it in a couple of completely different directions.

What's so different? Here goes...

The Dev D - Paro section:

There sure ain't no cut to kissing flowers/thunderclaps/burning logs here to show some action. What we get is a very good idea, even if the camera is not really letting you totally into the picture, so to speak. The sheer primal, get-on-with-it nature of the 'romance' shown is totally not afraid to get animalistic. Nor bashful either. The hand pump scene stands out here, and is worth a mention. (And no, it's not what it sounds like :D) The language, and the zero melodrama laden dialogue delivery are yet another plus.

For a change, Punjab is shown in a brilliantly non Yash-Raj kinda wash, and it frankly takes a little getting used to. The mustard fields are there alright, but minus the dancing nancies with VIBGYOR outfits. What you get are authentic looking houses, and grimy old economy factories.

Also, you kinda learn that relationships can be complicated. Yes, and we really see just how. You see how easy it is to throttle something that you thought was there all along, taken for granted. All it takes is one heated moment, and you have something to live with and fight against, for probably the rest of your life. Or the best years of your life at least...

The Dev D - Chandramukhi section:

A search for distraction throughout the grime of Delhi's underbelly is very evocatively shot - complete with trippy sequences galore (these include showing paraphernalia which induce these trips in the first place), blue lit nightclubs and a bunch of three dancing dudes. The not-so-sordid nature of the 'international' side of the world's oldest business was also quite a revelation. Chunni babu as the facilitator and the owner is Dev's guiding light through the whole walk through sludge, so to speak.

Chandramukhi here, serves as a fantastic foil to the leading guy, reminding him about what he really is, at every available chance. The chemistry is nicely done, without devolving into anything maudlin. No overt preaching too.

Till the end, where the director hits home with the fact that the only place left to go really, when you hit rock bottom, is up. It sounds like an awful cliche on paper (straight out of some newspaper's 'Wellness and Health' supplement), but the execution here, is niftily done. The redemption track seems a little bit rushed, but then, one way of looking at it is that what construes a life changing event, is totally up to you. No amount of external hammering can make it here, it's totally your own call.

A must watch if you want something really novel. No pun intended.

The Halwa Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum - The Dance Dance Movie Review

2008-09-07T19:18:00.007+05:30

Ever had that expectant buzz before watching a movie, just as the starting credits begin to roll, trying to guess whether you will have a good time or not? And then, when you are shown this, you just KNOW that you will, your whole body relaxes, and a smile just refuses to leave your lips once it creeps there, almost like a rictus? And so, persistent reader, begins yet another journey into Mithun land... (hanging on tight isn't just recommended, it's mandatory. Ah well, almost...)

Out of the blocks, we are treated to an ailing childhood version of
Prabhuji (Ramu), who clamours for a little 'Halwa' to cure his sickness. Medicines be damned. Gratuitous elder sis dotes on him, as his singer/performer parents walk in (with 'Halwa' of course). Now, they all stay in a hovel, and are harassed for rent by the mandatory miserly landlord with a topi, who just can't get enough of the fact that they have enough dosh to stuff themselves senseless with Halwa, but not pay their bleeding rent!(There is no justice in the world... seriously.) He gives them a final-ish warning, and spitefully confiscates the Halwa, leaving poor li'l Ramu pawing at thin air, and his sister pawing at him in an attempt at sweet (pun intended) mollification.

The 'rents then take off to a function organized by a Satyr like Maharaja-of-all-he-sees Thakur (played incredibly, incredibly well by the sublime Amrish Puri). Now, the mother puts on a super show, not actually in line with her humble bharatiya (singing) naari roots, which is enough to drive the Thakur into a series of Beavis and Butthead-ian mental escapades (song in question being 'Zoo Zoo Zoobie Zoobie Zoobie' - which Ramu specifically asks his mother to sing, cos it's his fav song. You start to get a little uncomfortable with the idea, when she launches into sensual overdrive midway, making 'happy woman noises' along with the usual singing). So much so, that he tries to invite them over for a private show, (which is very cleverly rebuffed by Ramu's pater) and then when all reason and lusting fails, has him popped off, and captures the mater, who escapes into the endless jungles of his terrain.

Leaving Ramu and Sis, at the mercy of the streets, and later, good old Juhu beach where he promptly passes out due to his Halwa cravings. Sis cadges a buck, and stuffs his face with it. And then dishes out that grandfather of all mission statement metaphors for life,

"Tujhe agar halwa khaana hai, to tujhe naachna hoga. Dance. (Pause for emphasis). Dance. (With real gusto)."

Brilliant. And that's why you know why the movie is called what it is. Happy now?

Immediately, Li'l P breaks out into some mean scissoring legs routines in the azure Juhu beach waters (with a super porcine halwa vendor with a mound of really vile looking halwa and the immortal - "Aa geyahh aa geyahh, halba baala aa geyahh" in the foreground) and voila, cut to Big P, generally living it up.

Now, Ramu, Sis (Smita Patil) and his bunch of merry men (and women), are basically eking out a living from (dance)show to (dance dance)show (that pun felt good), searching for that one big break. For this, they gatecrash Parsi gatherings ("Everybody dance with pa-pa-pa, Everybody dance with ma-ma/1-2-3-4, Hum saare masti ke chor" - featuring some killer blastbeats and Morello-ish guitar work with Bulls On Parade scratch effects from Thathee Thapooll... in probably the role of his lifetime), meet music managers called David Brown (Hmmm...), and bowl over music moguls disguised as bellhops (and just in case you are wondering how, by feeding him... you guessed it, intrepid reader. Halwa). Till they land at an audition for the hottest new talent - braving a nasty Binjo Babu's stonewalling (played with effortful elan by Dalip Tahil). Here, the heroine makes an appearance. Binjo is head over heels for our lady (Hmmmm), and all but ensures that she wins with some bitchy poll rigging, till P and his gang pip her to the post. Armed with a classic like "Sooooperrrr Dancerrrrrrrr - Aaye hainnn aaye hainnn", does anybody have a chance in (rigged, manipulated) heaven? Pah! Prabhuji and team walk home with the trophy and darn near the trophy factory as well...

Overnight, Ramu becomes Romeo, and becomes the (buttered) toast of the nation. Fame greets him warm, and he just can't say good bye (Yeah...Good byeeaaaahhhhhhh!!!!). Faced with the pressures and pleasures of sudden fame, Romeo pithily marks "Yeh Zindagi bhi badi ajeeb cheez hai, kabhi paani maango, to manaa kar deti hai. Aur kabhi paani maango, to whiskey pila deti hai", while he is scarfing down a free shot at a pub. Just as you are wiping your eyes, the heroine makes another entry, with a super classy cabaret number. Romeo gets plastered, and just as he's started off his brand new Maruti Omni, the heroine's-dignity-to-be-saved situation arises. Loverboy brushes off the clearly uimpressive danger, and escorts her home. Love blossoms, and it's the first flush of spring and all that(cos she's an innocent college girl, who does cabaret shows just cos she likes to dance. And of course, because she lost that competition). Romeo invites her home for a platonic live-in.

Till...

Things start to fall apart, thanx to an evil nexus formed between Binjo (smarting after he lost the heroine to P) and our Thakur (smarting... well... just because you know... he CAN). These guys decide to hit Prabhuji where it would hurt him the most, by convincing Thathee to torture Romeo's sister (almost forgot, they're married). In much the same manner as Sonny would lose it in the Godfather, Prabhuji is tempted. But his sis keeps playing the defender-of-the-suhaag-order, thus leading to a lot of suppressed emotions, which start to fry Prabhuji's circuits. He starts hallucinating to the point where he beats the stuffing out of his poor drummer at a show, imagining him to be Thathee instead. David Brown waits for Romeo to stop smoking whatever he's smoking, and then when the going gets too tough, drops him like a hot batata wada, asking the heroine to take over instead. And take over she does... wowing audiences wherever she goes.

Till one fine day, (preggers) sis croaks, after a violent spat gone wrong with Thathee (intriguingly called Resham). But not before absolving him of all criminal troubles, which opens his Binjo-and-Thakur blinkered eyes.

Soon, it takes a little bit of living like a commoner for P to realize that maybe he was missing too much of a good thing (read the free booze shots, adulation, and the woman he loved - he throws her out of the house, asking her to shut the lights out on her way out), and that he has to generally try to be the best damn dancer there is, to give his dear sis something to smile about from the wispy white fog above.

Till it all boils down to a super concentrated climax (not totally unlike that hideous Maggi tomato soup you get from those coffee machines at work). The heroine has a show at that aspirational venue for all pop stars, Jalpaiguri, the road to which happens to pass thru the Thakur's magic kingdom. His men ambush the cavalcade, and out of the woodwork pops Romeo's mom, who has been running from the Thakur in the jungles for the last quarter of a century. In a spotless white saree, no doubt. She saves the evening, and from there on, it's one man's quest to get his life back.

After an extremely short reunion with Mom, it's time for him to dance. Why? Just... Dance. Dance Dance Dance. Dance is Life... Life is Dance! Prabhuji dances for his sis, his mom, his chick, and his fans. He dances for the years, dances for the laughter, dances for the tears. He dances for today, because maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take it away. In short... he dances for his life. Within an inch of it too, when his liver starts acting up. Till the Thakur draws a bead on Romeo, Resham strings it and dies with an apology on his once venomous lips. Prabhuji polishes off the evil Thakur like so much Halwa, and then walks regally off stage with family.

And of course, leaving you, who has read thus far, wondering where in tarnation the Halwa exactly went...

The End.

And A-Soapboxing We Shall Go...

2008-07-13T20:15:00.000+05:30

Things no one tells you when you're growing up. (Actually, maybe it's better no one didn't quite spell it all out... :))

1) Life will never meet you halfway. You would be very naive to expect it to.

2) If something looks too good to be true, or is almost/exactly what you have been craving for, for ages, chances are that there WILL be a catch, which shatters those rose tinted wrap-arounds just a little. And the degree of the catch is directly proportional to how badly you want that thing in the first place.

3) Decisions can get REAL tough as time goes by. So much so, that you wish somebody else would take some calls for you instead.

4) Do not cast disparaging glances at your classmates in school/college just because they don't seem tuned in enough. As it turns out, your college score card has VERY little to do with how far you go in the real world.

5) No one has it all figured out. No one. If it seems like they do, they are doing a fantastic job of covering it all up. And you are doing a fantastic job of buying what they are selling.

6) There will always be people who have it easier than you. Deservingly or undeservingly so. Get used to it.

7) 'Life mein aur thoda settle hone ka hai yaar', is alas, but a pipe dream. An easier way is to change the definition of 'settled' as you pull on...

8) Compromise is not such a dirty word. It actually gets to be a little bit of a good friend as time goes by.

9) Beware of people who tell you that once you achieve 'x', it will all be OK. Remember all your relatives telling you how bad the 10th is, and once you are in the 11th, it will be relaxed? Then it was the 12th boards, once they are done with, the degree would be even more chilled out. And then, once you get a campus placement, you're all set. So on and so ****ing forth, if you get the drift...

10) Hindsight is ALWAYS 20-20. But looking back, it's still a bit fuzzy...

Autology 101

2008-06-09T21:22:00.001+05:30

Kaching!

Just when you thought it was OK to skim furtively past by here, hoping for no updates, here is one...

Traffic is one shrew which seems to get deviously untameable (sic?) with every growing year. Now with the monsoons here, one kind of gets them heebie freaking jeebies... especially when you've watched lone dust roads get beaten into decent 4 lane concrete roads with almost filial joy. Only to watch that spanking new concrete being dug up again, to pave (is there a pun here?) the way for the Metro Rail. And also when you have statements full of self-belief like 'We are ready for the monsoons' from the powers that be. That inherent confidence in those statements is eerie. Almost as eerie as the wedgie that the monsoons give them every ****ing year.

Which brings us to the topic at hand. When you have all the time in the world (and the next) thanks to yebauve paragraphu, the following can provide a lot of relief as you shall soon see. Or something like that...

Just in case that trippy tissue box is clouding things up, it says 'Sab Lal Hai'. Which makes it very clear now, yes? Good.
(Note - I gave up trying to figure out what that meant, after about 3 tries and a half-hour wikipedia jaunt.)

Countless stories abound about the virility of our brothers from the heartland. I'm sure you've heard that rural legend which goes like "Hamre bhai sambhaalte hain..." (nudge nudge, wink wink). This is just the confirmation you need. Just a plain vanilla "Who's yo' Daddy" ain't enough here. No sir. "Who's yo' GrandDaddy?!!!" is more like it. (Grand)Daddy liiiike... (Grand)Daddy liiiike...

And of course, lastly, the sucker punch. Pithy, cryptic, and somehow, very very tragic. Has a very 'human condition' vibe to it, as the artsy types would put it. Had me thinking till I reached office. And looked up Wikipedia for the colour Red.

Eye Wax

2008-03-17T21:16:00.001+05:30

Presenting some visual distractions. A little more cynicism than usual, might help you appreciate them.(Barely, though...)

1) When you are out to enjoy a meal, and regally ask for the menu, the below pic hitting you first thing out of the block, doesn't exactly serve as a very appetizing start to the scheme of things. One mother of an appetite killer, if there ever was one. Kind of reminded me of that poor dissected female rat, whose ovaries I had almost called testes, as part of my HSC Bio practicals viva.

2) While we are still on the subject (different joint), sudden radioactive visions appear out of nowhere on reading the indicated item (follow the arrow). Especially when you are hungry. Assuming of course, that the dragon isn't messing with your mind.

3) From a brand of 'multi purpose' tissues, with the typeface stuck seriously in the 80s, comes this naughtly little flourish. Check out that last bullet point. The grandmother of all etc's.

4) And finally, the clincher. There are no words. Just amazement.

Saajan, Beer and Serendipity

2008-02-14T22:15:00.002+05:30

(Marine Drive, Mumbai. On a midsummer night. In the recent past.)

Drunk 1 : Abbe it's 8.30. Time to go home. Train pakdein?

Drunk 2 : Haan. Nahi. No train. Too... hee hee hee... risky. Hee hee hee. Risky. Risky.

Drunk 1 : Chal phir, taxi...

(Lone taxi pulls up. Drunks eye it longingly.)

Drunk 2 (staggering to cab, at his charming best. Doesn't remember now, whether he batted his eyelashes too....) : Bhaiyyaa... Dadar?

Cabbie (Face lights up. Good bhaada.) : Haan sahab.. haan sahab.

(Drunk 1 and Drunk 2 stagger inside. The blue tubelight on the roof with faux sun roof looks positively surreal. They marvel. Then time stands still. The cab stereo is blaring - "Dekha hai pehli baar... Saajan ki aankhon mein pyaar...")

Drunk 1 and Drunk 2 at the same time : HOLY SHIT!!!!

Drunk 1 : Bhaiyya yeh radio hai ki cassette?

Cabbie : Cassette hai sahab...

Drunk 2 : Dadar aane tak yehich bajao!

Drunk 1 : Haan... haan.... YEHICH!!!! WHEEE!!!!

("Title song blaring" - Alka and SP slaying it only like they can. The Saajan refrain - that chewing-gum-to-brain string thingie after "Dekha hai pehli baar, Saajan ki aankhon mein pyaar" is amplified a million fold in the cab's interior. The sea breeze and alcohol help. A lot.)

Drunk 1 : Dilbar tujhe milne ko....

Drunk 2 : Kab se tha main bekaraaar

Drunk 1 : Ab jaake aaya mere....

Drunk 2 : Bechain dil ko karaaaaaaaar"

Drunk 1 and Drunk 2 (singing in the key of the Saajan refrain): Paanch ka pacchees, paanch ka pacchees

(Song segues into "Bahut pyaar karte hain...." - where SP's voice descends into the very depths of hell, to soar magnificently on the following line. Sine wave, perfectomundo.)

Drunk 1 : Kasssummmm chaahe ley loooooooo

Drunk 2 : Kassssssssssssammmmmm chaahe ley looooo

Drunk 1 : Khuda ki kasaammmmmmmm

("Jeeye to jeeye kaise..." - the Sanu version. Nasal, twangy bliss. Drunks are beside themselves with excitement now. Palpable.)

[Also, cab stops at a signal. People shoot suspicious stares. The taxi is quaking now.]

Drunk 1 : Jeeye to jeeye kaiseeee

Drunk 2 (closing left nostril): Haiiiiiiiiinnnnnnn

Drunk 1 (closing right nostril): Nahi nahi barabar se kar - Haiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Drunk 2 (closing both nostrils): Abbe yehi sahi hai - Haiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Cabbie (aghast, one eye on the road, one eye on the edge of his sanity): Sahab, aap log bahut enzoy kar rahe ho...

Drunk 1 (glasses fall on the cab floor. Spends 5 minutes hunting for them. Moving cab and hysterical laughter somehow seem to make it curiously more difficult. Singing all the while hampers proceedings too, of course) : Haiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnn

(The soft, suffocating "Mera dil bhi... kitna paagal hai" apparates. Mellowness becomes unbearable. Sudden visions of beer foam, and those fine droplets on the outside of a mug of chilled amber nectar start to haunt our drunks here.)

Drunk 1 (singing along with them chorus girls, towards the end of the song): Saajan... saajan...

Drunk 2 : Oh mere saajan...

(Dadar appears out of nowhere suddenly. Drunks are crushed, to say the least. Damn. Why did traffic have to be so thin? Why?!! Marine Drive to Dadar in 25 minutes? Damn, the booze was good. No denying that. )

Drunk 1 : Bus bhaiyya, idhar ruka do...

Cabbie (sniffing blood, and at his most entrepeneurial. The effing spirit of effing Mumbai) : Bus sahab, aapko jitna dena ho de do... aap apni iccha se do!

Drunk 2 (in a surprising moment of crystal clear sobriety, as soon as his hands touch his 'Hugo Boss' wallet from the footpaths near good old Dadar TT) : Meter mein kitna hua?

Cabbie : 115 sahab.

Drunk 1 : Yeh lo 140. Aapne hamari yaadein taaza kar di...

Cabbie : Sahab, life mein kucch to shauk rehna chahiye aadmi ko... iske liye humne cassette chalaaya... sirf iske liye. Sirf iske liye.

(Drunk 1 and Drunk 2 laugh right in his face... as he revs up his engine and melts away into the night. A strange pathos to it all.)

Drunk 1 : Dude, what if he really liked those bunch of songs? What if he was really, REALLY pissed off at us, and tolerated the whole thing just because he had to earn his living? Think of his blood pressure and self-esteem levels. Also, to think that the guys who recorded the soundtrack would have sweated and worked their asses off for months, all for this? This? Makes me feel kind of powerful dude. Apun payment dene waala public and all that... kuch bhi kar sakta hai na?

Drunk 2 : Chal daaru peete hain. Utar gaya lagta hai tera. Tu meriiiii aaaarzooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..........

Drunk 1 : OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

From The Muddy Train Going To Parla

2008-01-09T16:52:00.001+05:30

This little anecdote is back from when the mater was getting an M.Ed degree while I was jugaad-ing mine. My encouragement for the cause consisted mainly of a lot of the following

--> Lurking in the shadows till she switched on the TV, to pounce suddenly, and shut it off with a deafening remote control click, and say reproachfully, scowling as hard as I could "Don't you want to do well in your studies? Exams are just a week away. Think about your career. Get your degree first, then watch all the TV you want."

--> Hovering around meaningfully whenever she was on the phone, with a sick, sick, SICK smile on my face, pointing to my wrist, and threatening to cut the line if she didn't hang up soon.

--> Devouring street food goodie after street food goodie right in front of her, without giving her any, because you know... exams were just a week away.

So it was with some fanfare that I dropped her off at her exam venue (Ville Parle) on the first day, dutiful son and all that. When she looked at me hopefully on day 2, I told that it was in her best interests to start doing things on her own now, and generally be 'more responsible'. She was a big girl now, wasn't she?

Useless context duly established thus far, we move on to our little story...

She boarded a train, and found a comfortable, airy, well lit window seat in a corner. Out came the books, and in true Mumbai student style, began her final cram session in the train before the exam. Subject? 'Teacher Education'. (For the record, Irony is spelt as i-r-o-n-y.)

All was well, until a few stations later, a group of newbie rockers boarded the train, and settled down right in front of her.

A high decibel convo ensued as follows.
(Note - Translating the below would drain the character out of the whole thing.That said, it's not too hard to understand what happened, it's pretty easy to follow.)

Neophyte 1 : "Arre hoon ek cassette sambhlyu kaale, soo mast hevvy roak hatu yaar"

Neophyte 2 : "Em?"

Neophyte 1 : "Arre ekdum soalid hatu"

Neophyte 3 : "Kai baynd ni hati tape?"

Neophyte 1 : "Arre mane naam yaad nathi aavtu, pan su hathu yaar"

Neophyte 2 : "Arre pan kon?"

Neophyte 1 : "Arre kidhu ne, naam yaad nathi ave. Pan ek yaad chhe, baynd ni lead singer ne athyare suicide kidu thu. Chhaapa maa aayvo tho."

Neophyte 4 : "Arre kon chhe yaar?!!!"

Neophyte 1 : "Arre aana haath par bau hole paadi gaya tha, soo drugs leto tho... soo drugs."

Neophyte 3 : "Em?"

Neophyte 1 : "Arre ghana badha, charas, ganja, cocaine... baddhu!"

Neophyte 2,3 and 4 : "Shoo keh che?!!!"
(The mater winced here. The noise... the noise.)

Neophyte 1 : "Haan to!"

Neophyte 1 : "Arre pan kon hato yaar... kon hato... kon hato... yaadach nathi aavto"

The mater watched, heard and when she decided she could do neither anymore, unleashed the following. Without warning.

"Arre dikra, aanu naam Kurt Cobain hatu. Ave jara chup bes, mane exam aapvu chhe. Thodu saanti raakh je. Please."

The silence that ensued after that line, has often been described as nethwerworldy by her. Almost as netherwordly as the
looks on the poor things' pale, devoid-of-blood faces when she hopped off the train at Parle.

"With eyes so dilated, I've become your pupil." Indeed.

PS - A fortnight of blasting 'Smells like Teen Spirit' countless times a day can do some really strange things to mothers.

Manchesterian Musings

2007-12-28T21:17:00.000+05:30

Some observations from a 3 week sojourn in Manchest-ah.

--> It is a good idea to confirm which airline the X Ray machine at Sahar belongs to, before standing proudly in line. For example, if the line you are in, shows no signs of moving, and if another X Ray machine nearby is switched on, you are not exactly bright if you switch lines immediately, and give the others behind you disparaging glances. Because that machine is for another airline, and even if it is a waste of electricity by keeping it on, and there is no one else there, you simply cannot use it. No sir. You go back to your earlier line, and two turns away from them rays, you are again told that there is another, third line for your airline. Mind it.

--> The average number of car honks in 21 days = 3. One of them could be for Village Idiots ‘jaywalking’ in response to an ‘Everything must go! (You’re a fool if you don’t buy our stuff! Yes! You!) We’re going out of business!” sign on a shop on the opposite side of the road.

--> In a store like above, if you see an extremely blingy watch for 5 quid, and it has three mini dials on the main one, it is a good idea to check whether those small hands actually move. Chances are they are painted on. And while you are at it, go ahead and check whether the main hands move or not too…

--> Pedestrians are actually capable of being shown some respect. It’s a very rummy thing when you want to cross and the signal is ‘chalu’. You stop, with that road crossing spidey sense on full alert, and hell, the car guy stops too. A smallish Mexican stand-off perhaps? But no, he waves you across, you wave back thanking him, and life goes on with no WTF?!/ “Abbe bh***** ke, dikhta nahi hai kya?” from either party. All in one smooth natural motion. It is NOT a good idea to try the same at home, especially when it sinks in that traversing the Chakala-SEEPZ stretch alone will take a year, and Dadar-Plaza will take a whole generation.

--> The older the cabbie, the crabbier he gets when you give him a couple of directions too many to your destination.

--> When the outside temp is around 1 degree C, it is NOT a good idea to carry plastic bags filled with groceries and milk cartons. You will spend the next half an hour searching for your fingers, and once you’ve found them, the next half an hour goes in willing them to move. Woolen gloves from your friendly ‘Winter ware available’ shop are an illusion of warmth. They shave off 5 minutes from each of the above processes at the max.

--> Indian food is not exactly you know… Indian. And we shall say no more on the matter.

--> Wait. Just a little more… garlic naans taste exactly like that ‘Modern Sweet Bread’ of yore. Either that, or the garlic grown over there is intrinsically sweet in the first place. Either ways, same difference.

--> Food adverts can turn you on. Sample. This brought back memories of possibly the sexiest food related ad ever in Indian TV history. There used to be this brand of spices called Sona from the Brooke Bond stable. This ad used to air in the early 80s, and featured one HOT lady, who is shown to be the darling of the family thanks to Sona spices. She pirouettes about the kitchen, cooking her stuff, and at the dinner table she’s decked up to kill, the husband takes a bite of her erm… cooking… cooking, and the camera pans to close up shot of hottie (sizzle sizzle) wife, whose lips, whose ruby red, perfectly lipsticked (sic), shiny glittering lips, part in slow motion, form an 'O', and her eyes then shut, rolling up slightly as her eyelids close. Fade to spice name, and a cheering, delirious audience. (Apologies for the extended description there, but hey, I used to be one *happy* six year old after watching this. Either the ad left nothing to imagination, or maybe it was just you know… me…)

--> A TV dinner of creamy potatoes in Brie and white sauce sounds incredible, and it is for the first couple of bites. And then, the sameness and cheesy burps slowly invade your senses, till you don’t even know how you are swallowing the stuff, and more importantly keeping it down.

--> Ditto, ditto, ditto and ditto for Thai Sweet and Sour noodles in a cup (60p! 60p!). An antacid/digestive tablet should be gratis with these wonderful, wonderful things.

--> Magic tricks at pre-Christmas parties look really believable once you are three pints and some shots down. And then the magician literally disappears into thin air when the following happens.
Magician: See? That was nice, innit?
Me (Corona, Carlsberg, Sambuca and Tequila all working in perfect harmony): Hee hee hee… yes… yes…
Me (still continuing, but suddenly in an Apu accent) : We aaaaare hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh!!!!
Magician: Right mate, you have a good one. (Poof!)

--> When Biller Chick at one of the Apna Bazaars there looks at you, smiles and says “Welcome back”, and you flash your pearlies back at her, chances are it’s just too good to be true. She says that again, and you smile back even more energetically, and just when you are about to say “I can’t believe I was away for so long! Damn, girl, you’ve got a good memory!” and start thinking up your first pickup line of the evening, she points to a rack of plastic carry bags, and then you cringe. Real bad. Especially when you realize that all she was asking you was “Would you like a bag?” At the end of it, both of you are flustered. You goofily say yes, when all you are buying is a pack of M and M's (the peanut ones of course) and she gets all jittery, and swipes the princely item twice across that barcode reader, and spends 5 more minutes reversing the entry.

--> Mince pies are vegetarian. And so are egg and watercress sandwiches.

--> Chomping down a vegetarian sandwich makes you realize exactly how disparaging the term ‘ghaas phoos’ is.

--> Gujarati dal with raita is a soup.

--> The meanest chocolate chip cookie in the world is made by this joint. Eating one for half an hour is not as stupid as it sounds, especially once you have taken that proverbial first bite.

--> The pigeons out there are ****ing FAT. A little sample of what some sustained and ruthless Requirement And Gap analysis can do to an already rice-and-carb deprived mind is as follows.
Me: Damn, the pigeons sure are fat here.
Colleague : Yep.
Me: And they don’t wear sweaters. Even in this weather.
Colleague: Maybe, just maybe, they look fat, because they are wearing thermals inside.
Me: Yes, yes, that could be it.
Colleague: See what I mean?
Me: Let’s put that down in our list of assumptions…

--> There is a place in time and space, where ‘Chicken Tikka Madras’ exists. And where you never cease to be amazed by that name.

--> There are few things more natural in this world than that good-bye and smile on the face of the Business Class air hostess as you are hauling your Cattle class ass out of the plane.

Middle Class Denim Dreams - A Small Jeanology

2007-11-12T22:30:00.000+05:30

Once upon a nostalgic-coma-inducing time, buying a pair of jeans used to be a slightly dodgy affair. It wasn't something I used to look forward to much, but contrasted with what you go through nowadays, it's enough to crank out a post. (Crank out... is right. Hear them squeaks already? Good...)

The first pair of respectable 'jean pants' I had bought was way back when I had got 'good marks' (that aspirational cornerstone of middle-class upbringing. More references here) in the tenth standard. All pairs of jeans bought prior to that are not being taken into consideration here, because they all had elastic bands with cute Snoopy/random ghoulish cartoon character labels on them, and they were all chosen by the mother.

Now, going shopping with the mother, is one thing I look back at, and wonder how I managed to live through it. A tribute to the sheer resilience of the human spirit if there ever was one. That was an age of brandless entities, and I'd go after stuff which you know, appealed to me. Holding up a pair which I'd like, I'd beam "Mummy, this fits! This fits! I want this!". Only to be swatted aside ruthlessly with a "Bhaisahab, baba (Oh how I hated to be called that. Oh how. And how, to this very day, she continues to call me Baba in front of strangers...) ko do size bada waala pant do." I'd go "What the...?", the shopkeeper would give us his best Vidya Balan smile, and the mother would go "He outgrows his clothes too fast... the same clothes won't fit him 6 months down the line." by way of explanation, one eye firmly on her monthly budget and one eye on crestfallen me. Of course, she doesn't recollect doing that ("I always gave you whatever you wanted!!!"), when confronted now, but some things do scar you for quite a long time (wearing a pant two sizes big is not exactly easy on the eye, body and soul)... and so you have no option but to remember them, time and again. A form of mental self-mutilation for the so inclined...

Psyche trip over, back to that first respectable pair. From the Flying Machine ("F-F-F-F-Flying machine, yeah, that's my jean(positively sic)") stable. Coming to the fits, there were just three. Slim, Comfort and Loose. Loose was too 'baggy' and tight was for football playing 'Catlick' friends. So Comfort it was. Least risk approach as always. Thought I'd get the best of both worlds - I was paying a packet for this, what if the tight ones made me look too twiggy/piggy? And my waist size was an odd number. So, you guessed it, the bigger size prevailed (full circle, full circle)...

Only to find out that it fit me, yes, but not so well, and made the lower half of my lithe, taut, running machine body look like an amorphous blob. Not to mention the horrors it did to my shapely rump, by simply making it disappear. But hell, it was worth 700 bucks, and I strutted around in them FYJC classrooms, wearing it like it was the dog's somethings. Till slowly, classmates started to make fun of it with increasing regularity. And suddenly, it wasn't all that anymore - contrasted with stuff my classmates were wearing, and all I craved for was a good, cheap pair of jeans that FIT.

Then came deliverance via a friend. A small little shop in Dadar, where you got 'brands' (Giordano, 'Dare') that 'fit'(and that included odd numbered waist sizes), and where you could snap up 3 pairs of jeans for the price of a Lee/Levi's et al. And so, with a little bit of 'out shirt' trickery to camouflage the classy labels (some other gems I'd seen were 'Currency', 'Zorba', 'Gainda' - as in Hippo and I really, really sh*t you not. It had a pic of a Hippo to make doubly sure you were sane, and 'Boundry'), one could stride around purposelessly in a nicely fitting pair of jeans, which did give you the occasional fabric burn thanks to the world-class, lightweight, soft textured denim which went into the making of these pants. But what the heck, they FIT. You just walked into the shop, and asked for 'feeting waala 400 ka' jeans, and that was it. No fancy ass descriptions (no pun intended).

College days over, and with the advent of corporate drone-ism, the jeans (like so many other aspects of life) started to fray and fade. On visiting the shop for replenishments, I was shocked to find air conditioning, glass counters and a bunch of snazzy, jhakkkasss, acid trip inspired clothing, all enough to give me a cumulatively dirty feeling. The guy recognized me, and said "Boss, ab woh waala maal nahi rakhte hain... baaki bolo to kuch accha item dikhaoon kya?" which added a little more to forementioned feeling, that I'd been buying god-knows-what till now.

Ah woe is me, and all that later, the hunt started afresh. But with a major, major difference. I had more money, and no constraints. Save one. The world of fits had moved on to downright avant-garde surrealism. Contrasted with the simple three earlier, you now had the motherload. Low Waist, Mid Waist, Super Low Waist (almost Shakira-esque if I might add. Smallest fly I'd ever seen), Button Fly, Regular, Regular Comfort, Straight Leg, Distressed, 'Classic' Anti-fits, and who knows what else. With varying washes, rips and flare sizes and assorted bling. All enough to make you give up the whole idea already...

When faced with this, it helps to narrow down your waist sizes, and then simply do an 'in-pin-safety-pin', and take the damn thing home. If you're lucky, it fits. If it doesn't, chances are no one will notice or care anymore, and beyond a point, neither will you.

I Saw The Sign

2007-10-02T21:21:00.000+05:30

Email forwards as a rule are pretty toxic. But every once in a while, there comes along a rare one, which warms the cockles of your heart. This site called 'Puneri Patya' for example, which deals with quintessentially 'found-only-in-Pune' signboards in Marathi. Had been receiving tons of these pics in forwards, saw a watermark on one of the jpgs, and found this site. Chock full of goodies.

These messages, as the intro on the website goes, are the absolute antithesis of everything you'd expect on a sign board. A series of '**** you's, to counter those irritating P's And Q's, if one may say so. They are all in Marathi, and I daresay you'd want to learn the language in order to check them out. Yes, they are that good. Brilliant subtle (and not-so-subtle) sarcasm, and a strangely uplifting meanness to them. Haven't really seen stuff like this anywhere before.

Some English translations just to illustrate what I've blathered about so far. (Warning - they sound a lot better in Marathi. There's only so much that you can translate.)

--> Other flats/shops/offices/staircases in this housing society are not exactly recreational spots for your kids. Keep them in check while you're visiting here.

--> (Above a washbasin.)
Wash your hands and gargle, without making ANY sort of noise.

--> Please note - Soiled currency notes will NOT be accepted here.(And yeah) DO NOT ARGUE.

--> The lift in this building knows that it's being summoned, when you press the button once. Do not keep jabbing at the button till it comes. It really doesn't help, in case you haven't noticed.

--> Do not spit here. If you have any manners, that is.

--> (At a PCO)
If your call does not get through, return the change that we had given you in exchange for your notes in the first place.

--> (A brilliant version of a No Parking sign - to be read from the offender's perspective.)
Damn, I'm a bleeding idiot. What the hell am I doing? Oh yeah, parking in front of this gate!!
(A simple 'No Parking in front of the gate' sounds so, so, so characterless in comparison...)

--> (Some real frustration on display here)
We kind of know that mankind has descended from apes. Do not make us keep re-living that fact thanks to your behaviour. Thank you.

--> (And lastly, the ultra-dark...)
No Parking. Even for Rickshaws.

Non Sequitur

2007-09-28T15:24:00.000+05:30

For some reason, this can actually be called funny. Now laugh.

Memoirs Deluxe

2007-08-30T10:45:00.001+05:30

There come times in a man's life when faced with an overnight journey, he chooses to travel by bus. After a good 5 years. Various factors could shape this decision. Economic, preferential, or maybe, just because the bus ticket office is nearer to home, doesn't involve a travel agent/filling forms and is a lot less crowded and hassle-free. And it doesn't have touts trying to throw in an apartment free with the 'ticket'.

Takes me back to when a bus journey was a really big deal, to be looked forward to with a lot of anticipation. After all, we would be going to our 'native place' (which was usually good old Dharwad) come vacation time. A little reminiscing is in order here...

Reclining seats:
These are very comfortable at first glance. Only, they come with a major hitch. People boarding the bus at 6 pm, are tempted for pure 'paisa vasoolne ka' reasons (amongst other mystic ones) to start tilting them backwards from 6.01 pm onwards (ONLY because it takes a minute or so to stash in the luggage in the overhead shelves...). You watch with growing horror, as the seat in front starts to invade your personal space, inch by ghastly inch, listening to your kneecaps crunch and crackle. Till the guy in front is sleeping like a bucolic baby, and you start recollecting that Spidey kiss. Uncomfortably so.

The pee factor:
This is a major problem, compounded in the case of an AC Bus. Considering (of course) that there are no loos in the bus. The bus guys usually stop at joints along the highways, precisely for the same reason. Sleeping usually becomes a problem, if you're not a regular, as you feel your kidneys do their stuff a little more diligently than at home (the sadists, they KNOW you’re traveling, and this is their chance to have some fun with you. Mind, the master. Pah.), and grow edgier and edgier till the bus guy stops. If you have a suitable quorum with heavy groins, then you can force a halt by the roadside, where the assorted shrubbery can get their fix of urea nutrients. Now, where they stop? Up next.

The stops:
These are pretty much one of the reasons I look forward to travelling by bus. Apart from the point above, there's something wonderfully weird about a lone chai/cigarette joint usually adjoining a petrol pump, as brightly lit as a ‘French Polish’ connoisseur in the middle of nowhere, blaring a flavour-of-the-season song in whatever region ka language applicable to your co-ordinates, at say 3 am in the morning. Needless to say, the volume is high enough to wake you in spite of the air conditioning. But a little artful dodging to avoid the puddles, engine oil and fuel slush (this is always present, irrespective of weather) outside, does ensure that you are out of the sound fury range - they don't have surround speakers. Yet.

The food is another story. Fried god-knows-whats scream out to you from glass cages with bulb displays. Chips and colas manufactured exclusively locally, with dirty stares dished out at you, if you happened to ask for 'branded' stuff. (Parle-G however is ubiquitous. Some distribution network, that). Plastic/formica furniture, with plastic water jugs and plastic glasses. The travel guys usually have their 'standard' hotels at which they stop, which manage to serve some incredibly stale food, and 'service tea' and 'Nesscoffee'.

The in-bus entertainment:
The highlight. 30% of the ticket cost. There is a certain juvenile pleasure in predicting what exactly the bus guy is going to inflict upon you. Think of the weirdest movies you wouldn't have a chance in hell of seeing. And rev it up a notch. For eg, "Game" (when I was a kid), "Good Boy, Bad Boy" (on my lastest trip). I rest my case. But you resign to it once you realize there's nothing else to kill time in the darkness till the next pee-stop. That said, even the omnipresent pesky kids shut the **** up come movie time. For you, it's just a matter of choosing one form of screechy audio over another.

The drivers:
When I was a kid, they were these hard drinkin', mountains-of-rice and dozens-of-chappatis eating, hard workin', dark-red-blooded dudes in holed banians, who lived off the nutty thrill of overtaking every vehicle especially on hairpin bends, only to happily to douse the overtaken(trucks specifically preferred) with a huge blast of pure evil, black fumes. Jammed gears, kaput indicators, and steering wheels with limited turning radii were hardly of any concern – to be treated as disdainfully as the bicycle riders/tractors they’d scare the sh*t out of. They could do ANYTHING. They were bus drivers, who drove all night dammit. What CAN'T they do?!

Small wonder then that all one of my cousin brothers ever wanted to be when he grew up was a bus driver. He'd drag us to the village bus stand, and almost get off on the buses which would pull in and out. The guy was so obsessed that on meeting, the first thing he'd ask was "Which 'travels' did you come by?", even before the customary, friendly cuss-word greeting (which would be usually on the lines of “What’s up, mad dog/filthy pig?” – A lot funnier when said in Kannada. And when you are 10). Once, he got a ride in the driver's (god-ka-idol-with-LED-and-plastic-flower-garland and heroine-poster-from-Mayapuri adorned) cabin, because of an 'overbooking incident'. He couldn't stop raving about it ("I drove the bus for an hour when the driver was tired") when he met us. We were very happy for him. And proud. That's a pretty big thing to achieve when you are eight. Right.

The scenery:
If you are lucky enough to get a window seat, the scenery factor can be amazing. The towns whizzing by in the dead of the night, roads alternately cloaked in yellowish light and stretches of inky blackness, with the deliciously chilly air hitting your face. Till somebody barks at you to shut the window, cos it’s too freaking cold. The mountain roads do scare you a little, listening to the bus machinery moan as it negotiates whatever the mountains throw at it, and generally staring into nothingness. Half asleep, lurching and heaving, the first rays of dawn filtering in through the windows kind of makes you forget the agony for awhile, as the day breaks. School kids on the way to their grind, road-side shops opening up for the day, cattle herders getting busy, women collecting water and firewood, and no one defecating on/by the roads. Heaven.

The quality of the buses is pretty reflective of our India story. Time has ensured that the creaky, wheezing buses in the private segments (including the Deluxe, Luxury, Super Luxury, Super Deluxe, Ultra Deluxe, 2x2, 1x2 ones) have all but fully been replaced with spanking new 'Volvo' fleets, which boast of maddeningly silent engines (not even a gurgle, leave alone a wheeze), good aircon, and good seats. The seats are fixed in number. No stashing 2 additional guys into the cabin, or conjuring up 'improv seats'. What 'improv seats'? Coming right up.

Improv Seats:
These were incredible. Imagine, you are snug as a bug in your 'luxury' bug-infested bus seat with tattered fabric covers, and it's about 2 am. You have an aisle seat. You are generally conscious of somebody next to you, and it is NOT the lucky bastard with the window seat. There's a gentle creaking, followed by a thump, followed by swearing-under-breath and deep breathing. You wake up, look around and lo and behold. There's a guy actually sitting right next to you, in the aisle, perched as grandly as allowable under the circumstances, on a seat with no back rest which was folded up against your aisle seat. So on inclines or especially sexy turns, he gratefully grabs your arm for support. And you all but coo back at him. So, an extra 10 seats or more would bring in good money to the bus guy, especially during holiday season, when people just wanted to get to wherever they wanted to. Miserable apology of an ass-biting rexine cushion be damned.

Coming back to the present, the 'wheel seats' and the 'last seats' are no longer viewed like pariahs now, they have a legitimate standing with the rest of their brethren, considering the superior suspensions. Every seat is almost the same in terms of comfort. The eating joints have come a long way too, with 'food plazas' selling the same fried stuff, at a markup, and a little semblance of hygiene. And you get branded stuff there (Parle-G too, of course). The drivers are tee-totallers now and uniformed, and the stops are kept to a bare minimum. You get blankets and a bottle of (branded) mineral water too. Complimentary. The ‘ordinary’ bus fleets are there still, but the Volvos are first preference for a lot of junta now.

But some things never change. Like at least one traffic hold up on the highways, or the over-enthusiastic gourmands who stuff themselves silly, and start to assault your nostrils periodically (one more problem which the AC compounds). Or the all too familiar numbness in your lower back, and stiff neck as soon as you get down, which reminds you that you really couldn’t sleep, 80 degree reclining seat notwithstanding. But wait, they have ‘sleeper buses’ too nowadays. Which is definitely not quite the same thing. Sleeping kills all the fun.

The Commando Movie Review

2007-08-06T22:46:00.000+05:30

There is something irresistibly appealing about the idea of serving in a nation's armed forces. The sheer rigours of military life, the iron discipline, the relentless, undying love for one's country, the whole ‘brothers until we die’ thing. Not to forget cavorting with the boss' daughter, showing off your mean martial arts and disco dancing skills, fighting a ninja called (of all things) 'Ninja', curing a demented mother, busting an international gang of arms runners based out of 'No Man's Land', and avenging your father's murder. In case you haven't guessed it already, Prabhuji shows how you do it ALL. In a couple of days’ work.

We start off with Prabhuji's childhood exercise routine, which his cop father makes him go through every morning. This includes some truly bitch-ass moves like doing back flips off 'Serve the nation - Join Indian army' advertisement boards and really mean, septum flattening boxing with dad to alleviate the usual do-weird-pushups-and-run-like-cokehead boredom. On one of these rounds, father and son bump into a colleague cop and his daughter (cryptically) named Zoom Zoom (Yes. Poor, poor thing). To his credit, Prabhuji does the proper WTF thing on hearing that name, to be told by the angel, that that's the exact sound she makes while running. Prabhuji buys it, for the moment. (Hold on to that name...)

These guys then are in charge of security at a PM's (Mrs Indira Gandhi) address. This is one of the movie’s (and Bollywood's) rarest 'real' moments, with an actual person being shown. (When contrasted with all those 'padosi mulk' waala swipes).

Time for our villains to make their entry - Mirza (Thatthee Thapooll), Senor Marceloni (Amrish Puri) and (yes) Ninja (Danny D), at their debonair, shamelessly undisguised best. You'd think that they would take a little more effort to conceal their true identities, considering that they were going to attempt to pop the PM, but hell, evil makes men do stranger things (as you will soon see...). Prabhuji's and Zoom Zoom's guv'nors perish in the usual save-the-VIP-kill-my-ass-instead process, the evil trio escape to their own green room, change clothes peacefully, and scoot as if they had just stopped to take a leak by the roadside.

Thus leaving Prabhuji's mom off her rocker, and one confused-as-hell Prabhuji. Cut to running feet, and yep, it's Him in training on an Aarey Milk Colony street. He wends his way to his usual tea joint, and saves a child waiter from a gang of thugs by declaring "Main gareeb ke chiraag ka jinn hoon" to the mandatory "Kaun hai be tu?". Here, he comes to know that he has got a job at an ordnance factory, as a… Commando.

Meanwhile, the three villains fan out thus. Ninja (the only "complete Ninja outside Japan". That explains it all) starts his own ninja training camp, with free form, one-with-Nature, precusor-of-Taibo regimens to whip his forces into killing machine shape. Marceloni with a suitably spaghetti soused accent to go with the name, safely ensconces himself in No-Man's-Land to plot the nation's downfall by instigating communal riots, by tying up with Ninja and Mirza for Operational and Ammo support respectively. Mirza works his way up to Chief of Ammo factory, lest you forget.

On reporting for work, Prabhuji runs into the binary loving (Why binary? Cos he only likes his answers in "Yes Sir" or "No Sir") Mirza and his man-at-arms, Diler Singh (played by the mercurial Hemant Birje) who calls Mirza "Chip". (No male bonding there, that's "Chief". Easing your pain, right there. This will soon be over).

Without any kind of induction/training, Prabhuji is thrown into the thick of things (the more I think, the more I see that Bollywood and our IT industries are a bit too closely aligned for comfort, wot?).

The thickest of things are as below:

--> Unknowingly thwarting an arms shipment destined for the Senor, by fighting off Ninja and assorted ninjas as they attempt to get their greedy paws on 'arms belonging to the nation', with the contents of his truck tool box (standard military issue). Now this is not as ridiculous as it seems considering that the best Ninja moves are semi-graceful cheerleader routines (sans pom-poms) off tarpaulin truck tops.

--> Saving the heroine from lusty goons, and falling in love in the process. Here's how.
(After slitting skirt with knife to help her run faster from goons)
Asha: "You idiot!!! I am going to kill you!!!!"
Prabhuji (ever the pragmatist): Going to na?!!! Let's go!!!!
(Her toes curled at this point. I blushed too.)

--> Walking all the way to China, and walking back, with some
help from a hamming guardian angel called ‘Ram Chong’.

--> Romancing the heroine right under the ample nose of the
Manager – Prabhuji's immediate boss (Dalip Tahil) who loves the lady too.

--> Facing professional clusterf*** after personal clusterf***, thanks to points 1 and 4 above. For instance, the Manager insists that he call the heroine as "Asha-ji". Always. Such humiliation.

--> In one such c.f., He is assigned jeep cleaning duty for his supposed sedition. Here he is taunted by Diler Singh, and a provoked Prabhuji whoops his ass proper, with the highlight being when out of the blue, He suddenly wears a bucket on his head, and fights Diler 'blind'. Diler Singh and the others (Note regarding 'others' - it is heartening to see mostly pot-bellied, unshaved, longish haired fellow 'commandos' here. A refreshing change from the impossible to live up to breakfast-with-glass-flakes, gargling-with-battery-acid stereotype.) know whom they are dealing with and they wisely shut the **** up and align forces with him. Especially when He tells Diler that he 'learnt this (bucket) martial art off the streets'.

A couple of scintillating songs in the snow later, Asha(ji) is kidnapped by Marceloni, and held captive in 'No-Man's Land'. The CBI chief bluntly tells the brave duo, with candour very uncharacteristic of Bollywood.

"Asha ko bachaane ki poori koshish karni hogi hamein. Hamein matlab (obviously) tumhein... (har dee har har)"

He also helpfully tells them that an Indian agent called Zoom Zoom (There. Let go of that name now.) has infiltrated the Marceloni camp, and she dances titillatingly there for his garrison. Prabhuji instantly formulates an RSA/Quantum Cryptography hybrid and declares

"Uska code word hoga Zoom Zoom, aur haamaara code-bhaard hoga Dhoom Dhoom"

Prabhuji and Diler are air-dropped into No Man's Land, and they claw their way through ominous papier-mache mountains and surreal cotton candy like snow, to crash the BDSM-flavoured Zoom Zoom show. In an effortless and seamless infiltration of the enemy camp, He sings out his part of the encryption key and dances for all of Marceloni's soldiers, who don't even realize that they'd never seen Prabhuji before, ever. All that Commando training…

Decryption duly completed, Zoom Zoom lets them into the HQ, Prabhuji disrupts Marceloni's grand share-holder AGM by introducing himself and Diler thus
"Main hoon Senor Mukka-lini aur yeh mera dost, Dhobi-pacha-lini"
They then fry the baddies with lead and Prabhuji kicks the evil Senor out of a cable car on his way back over a 2 feet deep water body.

But before knocking on them pearly gates, Marceloni had ordered Ninja to plug a religious leader, thereby paving the way for communal riots which would ensure that he had countrywide domination.

Will he succeed in his diabolical plan? Will the world be the same again? Will the religious leader like a ballet troupe in pink leotards with a live drummer? Will we finally know who is actually happy in the IT industry?

Cut to breathtaking finale for all the answers (almost all). The religious leader arrives at his function, to be treated to said ballet show, which would have made Nureyev wish (very badly) that he had settled in India while he still had the chance.

Now evidently Ninja had learnt his lessons, and so he arrives suitably disguised for this particular hit. Sure as hell, taxes, and death Prabhuji carpes the diem (sic!), shakes it proper and saves it too. His mother, thoughtfully smuggled in by her shrink who thought the ballet would be grotesque shock treatment enough (the clever, clever SOB), recovers her marbles on hearing gun shots and Prabhuji grins goofily at the camera (I have a feeling that he was amazed too).

The Star Wars theme is used brilliantly throughout the movie, to highlight the particularly space-tastic moments (which is the whole movie actually). Also of special note is the distinctive Prabhuji war cry, which is featured here in practically every move that the man makes. Sample here (and no prizes for guessing whose voice it is... *simper, simper*). Also, the movie has a mysterious way of making sense suddenly, when you are high...

To sum it all up, a line from the PM's speech is very very apt indeed.
"Agar unke paas Atum Bumm hai, to hamaare paas Gautam Buddh hai."
Add "Hamare paas Commando bhi hai." Do you dare argue?

Twang!

2007-07-01T00:05:00.000+05:30

As is wont to happen, we grow up. (Profound. Yes.)

And as part of that process, we erect boundaries around ourselves - prim and propah social mannerisms, decent behaviour in public, eclectic tastes in music, art, cinema, the art of appreciation, the urge to be 'with it'. And lose a little bit of our own selves thanks to the efforts we put in, in being the stars of our own pantomimes.

And every once in a (hype saturated) while, there comes along a movie(e), which shows you what a trashy little front-bencher you really are. You start watching it (might I say it?) cynically, and without knowing it, you learn how to whistle, cheer lustily, hoot, jeer and boo. Not to mention laugh till you can laugh no more. Yes, it has to be Aap Kaa Surroor - The Moviee, The Real Luv Story.

Primarily, and solely a Himesh Reshammiya vehicle. You would REALLY have to have serious issues in your life to think otherwise. The movie has only one objective, and it plays that card to the absolute gold-edged hilt. The story, the songs, the screenplay, the dialogues are all but ancillary. You wouldn't even miss them if they weren't there (which is kinda true actually, they just aren't there). Instead, the movie(e) does what is meant to do. De-mystify, and further mystify the Himesh-ian hype machine.

The story starts with an Indian 'rockstar' called HR (I know there will be a seething minority who would object to him being positioned as a 'rock' star, but play along now, will ya?) on a tour of Germany, where everyone speaks incredulously American accented English. It's entry time for aapro hero, who dodges assorted white extra fans who buss him on his furry cheeks, and kick starts the proceedings with a typically upbeat song. As soon as the song ends, and the fans (on screen and off it) have stopped clapping politely, the Polizei arrive and arrest our man. Shocked, taken aback, bewildered (this would have to be inferred from the dialogue next, because our man HR sports exactly half an expression throughout the movie. Irreverently inscrutable.), he screams

"It's a mistake!!!!!!"

(To which half of the theatre responded,
"We know! We know! But we are gonna sit through it, ticket khareeda hai, kya karega?!")

HR is arrested for the murder of a TV reporter who was doing a 'sting' on him. HR proclaims he's innocent, but then woe cruel world...

Cut to disjointed flashbacks, where HR walks us through his German experiences thus far. How he arrived, his metrosexual Robin, how he schmoozed with his tour manager Khurana, and Khurana's 'business' partner/lawyer called (hold your breath) 'Ruby James' played by the ever pouting and supremely reliable Mallika Sherawat who (suprisingly(?)) comes on to him very strongly indeed, and how he fell in love with Riaa, played by a lady with a creepy botox-shock smile/weep expression combo.

The rest of the movie is devoted to painting HR in the noblest light possible, how he disproves the murder charge, how he saves the day, and gets married to Riaaaaaarghhh...

As a result, you are treated to the following

--> Raj Babbar is shown to be the father of the murdered gori TV reporter. How he got lucky with a German woman, to sire such a hot daughter is not covered, because it is the stuff Oscar winners are made of.

--> Hilarious one liners. All unintentional. For eg,
Incarcerated in a German prison (where HR gets to keep wearing his cap), he's meeting up with Ruby James (that name again...). Dialogue?
HR : "Kya tumhe maalum hai ki maine khoon nahi kiya hai?!"
Ruby : "I am a lawyer. I know such things."
Theatre audience : "WTF?!"

--> The scene wherein he finally gets hold of the murder weapon is sheer cinematic genius. Seen to be believed. (Hint - HR has innate musical abilities.)

--> Self deprecatory pot shots at his cap obsession, his nasal voice. (Very cleverly done, actually.)

--> The Gayatri Mantra in a tympanum curdling avatar, rendered by HR. Also, it is Riaaarghhhh's ringtone, if that helps establish some context.

--> A cute little kid with a hole in her heart, who is told that God has given her a hole in her heart, so that it can expand somehow, and fit in all the love that she's gonna get from God and assorted people. (Trouble is, the kid buys it. Disastrously disturbing.)

--> Lush overacting, the likes of which hasn't quite been seen since the last Barjatya hit came out. (One almost pines for Alok Nath to pop up from somewhere. He should have had a cameo at least. Damn.)

--> A tribute to Prabhuji, from HR, which happens when he's sloshed. He dances like God for a full 30 seconds or so. (This automatically ups HR's respect credits. I know at least one audience member who was overcome, and couldn't laugh for a full minute.)

--> Minimalist cinematic touches, in addition to the predominantly phantasmagoric ones. For eg, hostage scene. HR has to give the murder weapon to the villain in exchange for Riaaaarghhh.

HR: "Riaa."
Villain : "Gun."
Eyes meet. Exchange complete.
See? Why embellish such taut sequences with needless dialogue, when you have pretty much the rest of the movie to do so? Shmart.

--> The plot being explained patiently to you by ALL the characters, just in case you lost track while you were trying hard to figure out whether there was one in the first place. The makers knew the perils. Appreciated.

--> The mystery of what 3 auto rickshaws are doing in Germany is unravelled. See it to believe it. (It is a pretty clever nod to his auto driver fanbase. I was geniunely impressed. One more respect credit.)

--> What exactly makes God laugh. (Excluding your best laid plans, of course...)

--> A TV can do what a dog can. (Dog reference - Tuffy from Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?)

It is a must watch. And to no one's surprise, this probably has the makings of a winner. This man has a shrewd head for business, and is smarter than most people give him credit for. There is no doubt as to whom this movie is made for.

Him-self? Yes.

But you can join the ride too, while it lasts. He makes his millions, you get your money's worth. That's the suroor-ific part...

Just Like A Prayer

2007-06-24T20:39:00.000+05:30

In a sublime show of the shinier sides of human emotion, the country recently witnessed a rash of this, this and this. Everywhere you looked, there was one news item guaranteed. About a certain Sunita's safe return to earth.

Which was incredibly sweet. Really.

Why? You might ask. Here goes nothing...

1) This evidently will inspire so many kids all over the country to become exactly like her. (The fact that barely 0.25% of them all would end up having access to the kind of education required to become her does come up. I don't know why.) Also, the poor org which has sent her up, doesn't quite know what it is in for. Give or take twenty odd years, they are gonna be flooded with so many astronauts from here, that they wouldn't know where in tarnation to send them. (That's the 'guidance' on the street anyways...)

2) The sight of cherubic angels praying, with (probably) absolutely no ****ing idea as to who she is, or what exactly she has done is an excellent example of childhood innocence and purity. They wouldn't even have heard of her, but thanks to the geniuses who thought this up as a fantastic expression of 'countryman solidarity' (with a cool photo-op of course. What were you thinking?), they got to pray for what they had been told to pray for. Which I'm guessing wasn't much in the first place to begin with...

3) Prayer can move mountains. And land shuttles safely.

4) She probably is a far bigger inspiration here, than back home. (An average American kid in the same age group would have no ****ing clue as to who she is. Just like ours you might say, but hey, at least they didn't have to 'pray for her safe return'.) Which is kind of awesome, considering that she is *part* Indian American (very important word) and part Slovenian. Now if only I could read Slovenian. Am sure they would done something similar over there too. Very sure.

5) The news channels got to dry hump themselves with the 'story' till they bathed in the afterglow, breath ragged, chests heaving, purring with delight (and we stop here. Sadly.).
With woebegone appeals on the lines of "Ab aa bhi jaao Sunita", "Laut chali Sunita", "Hamari Sunita", calculated to make you get that fuzzy warm feeling and send your SMS out.

6) For proving yet again, that we as a nation take our humour very seriously (that is a pretty cool sentence construct. Damn.).
Remember that dismembered, beaten-to-death joke which went something like this?

"3 guys Nationality 1 guy, Nationality 2 guy and an Indian guy are asked to build something. Nationality 1 guy builds a fantastic model, Nationality 2 guy tweaks and refines it further, the Indian sticks a label on to it stating 'Made in India'. "

A very versatile algorithm as you can see. You can apply it just about anywhere, to just about anyone. Including guys who run/ran for office somewhere in Louisiana. And incredibly tuneless American Idol contestants, who don't have a ****ing clue as to what their first ("Indian" - important word. Again.) names mean, when asked on late night television shows.

Maybe we should include the guy who invented that joke in our daily prayers too. He deserves it as much as anyone on the planet.

Too Unlimited

2007-06-13T15:16:00.001+05:30

Never, ever thought I'd live to see this. A little innocuous... but hell, it was pretty amazing to behold. No big deal, the new gen might say. 1 GB. So? So what?!

The best part is how mingy the email providers were, back in the days of good old Web 1.0. The first time I tried to sign up for an email id was quite like a stroll through Hades. Witty little me, in 1999, trying to create an email id chez yahoo went a little something like this...

1) tapan. Taken. (Height of optimism that, wot? My name is not that uncommon.)
2) beavis. Taken.
3) butthead. Taken.
4) butt-head. Taken.
5) creeping_death. Taken.
5) sandman. Taken.
6) t. Taken.

7) james_hetfield. Taken. (Height of optimism - exhibit 2.)

And so I toiled, for an hour. To finally end up with a hideous tapan_gh. And what gifts did we receive from ze bounty? 6 MB. Hotmail was even better. An overlord-of-all-you-freaking-see-ish 2 MB, with the everlasting promise of ruthless email annihilation if one didn't sign in for more than a month. And 2 MB was kind of REALLY pushing it, given the attachment caps of 1 MB or thereabouts. And yeah, your mail wasn't stored in 'Sent Items', not unless you *specifically* selected the option to do so, before sending. The humanity.

Then there were these dudes called usa.net. Still are, I guess. They gave you a better interface at that time, and I would use that id exclusively (not in the least because it was tapan_h). Till one day, they decided to go the paid way. You would actually have to *pay* to use the id. Right. The next day, the papers were full of the usual, hysterical 'gawd-help-us' stories, with opinions being sought from the other munificent boys in the family... err.. make that email business. They all put up a carefully common front, stating that 'As of now, it's free. But you never know. Business models might change in the future.'

It was at this point, that I went on an email id hoarding spree, which was not too far from IT recruitment patterns these days (You know, anything went, as far as the job gets done. If it hangs a couple of times while sending stuff, who cares? Mail still reaches from point a to point b). Rediff, multiple id's at yahoo and hotmail. Indiatimes was a very attractive proposition at that time. They gave you 10 MB, in addition to that gratuitous 'photo of the day' on the main page which ensured that you got off before you got in. Wow. Who would need more than TEN MB?! (Take that, yahoo! And hotmail, yeah... you know what I want *you* to do... bwahahaha.)

I gleefully hopped on to indiatimes, braving the interface which looked like it was cobbled together in one feverish, nightmare ridden night-out by a couple of first year engineering students ('computer' engineering of course). Till Anita, Vivek, Raj, Ashok, Neeta, Ravi, all of them dedicated, nose-to-the-grindstone indiatimes employees (names are for illustrative purposes only), started to solicit muh bidness. For insurance, travel deals, and super-exclusive beluga-caviar-sh shopping offers (Only for me! they said). The hideously devious part was that you could not block the id's totally, because they had an indiatimes domain id. Even if you opted out of the ad blitz, an Anita would always give way to a Jasmine. Ensuring that you gracelessly exited indiatimes, double quick.

And resorted to a little shaking of the fists at the heavens above alternated with bouts of helpless hand wringing, while you waited for your 200 KB attachment to upload on your dial-ups...

Till the boys from gmail came in, and blew everybody's derrieres out of the water. One GB worth of storage, invitation only sign ups (these were devious too, in the sense that after a while the invitation count never decremented (sic?) even after you sent tons of them out, till everybody and his grandfather had a truly 'invitation only' gmail acct). Great interface, a super cool email search feature which made you wonder why no one else had thought of that before, and the conversational arrangement of sent mails (saved automatically. Ahhh.) and replies. 10 MB attachments. Double wow. (Now, they have made storage unlimited. And allow 20 MB attachments. And I'm out of wows. It's kinda expected now, from these guys. I'm spoilt, and proud of it.)

All of which add up to a very good thing... but one fact that rankles a bit is that there's no incentive to perform a little housekeeping now and then to delete the sheer amount of crapola that you tend to accumulate over time in your email accounts. Unlimited storage = making your lazy ass even lazier. Not deleting senti stuff is ok, say your first job's appointment letter, but maintaining a proper timeline of the following can get a bit thick.

1) "What's up?"."Nothing much, you tell." "Arre you tell no." "The sky." "lolz". "lolz" kinda email exchanges.

2) "Go out and live your life because today is all you ****ing have", "Have a great week/weekend ahead because no matter where you are, remember somebody ****ing loves you", "The meaning of love", "How to live life", "Thought of the day" emails with pictures of ghastly looking babies/sunsets/cliffs/oh-so-cute cartoon characters with ghoulish distended faces.

3) Good old rich Nigerian bankers' offers.

4) And of course sp*m (it is a bad word) has more space to thrive, and you will never have the satisfaction of spam getting bounced off your account, because it is full. Add forwards to this too.

Think of what the energy/maintenance costs for this kind of toe-curlingly cute content would be. Even if the energy obtained for the data centres is from clean, renewable sources, is it really worth it?

Another issue for the global warming torch bearers to take up here. Roll your eyes all you want. If this can be entertained (got that right), I don't know why this is not a legit concern. Now let me go about reducing my 'carbon footprint' a little, because you all know how to spell 'hypocrisy'...

Short Story - Impasse

2007-05-22T23:44:00.001+05:30

The band let out a war whoop when they learnt that they had won the Amateur Rock competition. This was it. A chance to play in front of a proper audience for the first time ever. They would be opening for the biggest act in the city right now on the main stage of the biggest college festival. They went home after a great deal of partying. Happy and high.

The day of the main show was action packed. The organizers surveyed the scene with a great deal of familiar weariness. The last lap, the final frontier. Most of them hadn't slept in the last 40 hours or so... with events melting into each other. The worst thing to deal with was the rock show. For a lot of 'rockers', it was one place where one could high, and spend a couple of hours tripping. All it took was an Iron Maiden tee, and a proper level of inebriation. That was in a nutshell, the average visitor's profile. The music was almost secondary to a lot of the visitors. Managing the whole affair took balls of steel.

The amateur band was totally excited about the opportunity. Nearly 2000 people to take their music to. They had barely slept the previous night, and they were accompanied by 50 of their staunchest supporters for their big day. They knew for sure that the crowd wasn't there for them, so that made it all the more challenging. To get the crowd interested in their music was not going to be easy. A couple of popular cover songs, and then their originals. They were going to get 30 minutes...

The headliners strolled on to the stage in the afternoon, surveying the stage and sound setup. Another day in office. The same old cover songs, the same old stage act with faked emotions, the practiced 'reactions' to other people's lyrics. The same old crowd banter ("Do you guys want some bhangra in here? Or maybe some Indipop?"). The same old inciting the crowd to tear the place down routine. Not that the crowd wouldn't respond to good original stuff. But the fact was that they just weren't talented enough to write a catchy riff or a shout along chorus which would connect immediately with the audience and hook them from the first note. And they knew it. And so they stuck to doing what they did best. Being a good cover band. This weakness was masked with a carefully cultivated 'attitude', which drew a little bit of attention away from the fact that they did just one original in each show. For the most part, the ploy worked.

They spied the General Secretary near the stage, and beckoned to him. He ran over.

"Yes guys, what's up?"

"We want to play first!"

"But... that amateur band..."

"Nah man... we're gonna go first."

The amateur band was crushed to hear the news. But they were in no position to call the shots.

The crowds were swelling around the college gates, and entry was delayed by a couple of hours. The security checks done, the crowd started to trickle in. The heavily stoned newbies ran towards the bamboo barricades, and clung on for dear life. The older hands just wondered what the fuss was about, and sauntered around the middle areas, smoking and re-hydrating themselves. Some gloriously smashed ones were puking their guts out on the sidelines.

It was almost time for the show to begin. The headliners had disappeared and were nowhere to be seen. The organizers ran around to get them on stage, and found them in the guest room, comfortably slouched.

"Just a minute man, just getting warmed up here... give us a few more minutes alright?", slurred the vocalist, through a haze of thick, sweet smelling smoke which had a sharp, alcoholic tinge to it.

The cynic smiled. This was going to be good. As part of the organizing team, he had pretty much seen it all.

"We need some whisky in a plastic bottle on stage man... and a couple of packets of cigarettes."

The General Secretary said "Whatever you need, you got it... could you guys please start the show now?"

The headliners walked on the stage. And it was time for the sound check. The vocalist was first, with his usual
"What's up motherfuckersssssssss!!!" routine.

Then came the guitars and drums. One 4x4, and the drummer stopped.

"I don't like the way the snare is sounding here."

One snare beat.

"See?"

another.

"No good."

Everybody stopped, and stared at the sound guy. He started fiddling around with the console, and whatever he did, it didn't make the kings happy.

The snare testing went on for a good hour. Just one snare beat, and some deliberation followed by a proper conference. The crowd was restive, and the organizers were at their wits' end. It was a totally non-negotiable position... the band had them by their balls. The crowd had come to see them, and the money had been paid up in advance. All they could do was wait. The gate collections had been really good.

Finally after an hour and a half, with an 'Ah well, fuck it' expression, the drummer finally resumed his duties, and the headliners began strutting their stuff. The crowd could almost predict the order of the setlist, and were totally disinterested half way through. The same songs, in the same order. Can't they even mix it up a little now?

The headliners went on and on, unmindful. Till it was evident that the cops would be here any minute. It was dangerously close to the deadline, and the amateur band watched with growing dismay and frustration in equal measures.

The headliners wound up abruptly, with 7 minutes to go for the official deadline.

"Good night fuckers."

The amateur band rushed to the organizers...
"What the fuck was that man?!!! What was that all about?!"

The organizers pacified them as best as they could...

"There was nothing we could do, we never know they'd take a 2 hour sound check!"

The amateur band decided quickly on the spot.

"We've got 5 minutes. Even if it is one song, we are gonna play!"

They rushed on to the stage, plugged in, and launched right into their first song. The crowd was in no mood to listen to them, mauled as they were by the preceding act. The boos and jeers started off, intermittently at first, till they swelled into a deafening wall of sound. The band continued, braving it all, till suddenly the sound guy turned off the volume completely midway through the song. The cops had arrived.

The organizers rushed to pacify the cops, who were in no mood to extend the deadline. For love, booze or money.

The emcee declared the show over, and left the stage. Lights dimmed, the amateur band stood there, crestfallen.

The crowd disappeared pretty quickly, they were in no mood to hang around. Except the bunch of 50 fans who had travelled from all corners of the city, to see their favourite band. They stuck around resolutely, crowding around the flimsy bamboo barricades. They started chanting the band's name out loud. A steady cadence like chant, rising in volume and intensity with every passing minute.

The amateur band was watching this from the stage. They were still to get off. A whole day's worth of waiting in the hot sun, the dust, the adrenaline, and the sheer anticipation. Not to mention all those practice sessions. They weren't going to leave without a fight. The vocalist pointed at the group of organizers and volunteers on the other side of the barricades.

"Show the bastards!!!! Give it to them!!!! Fuck them!!!!"

The band name chants grew louder. The fans were shaking the barricades, rattling the sound console, which was being dismantled by the sound guy. He was scared as hell. This was costly equipment. The organizers were even more scared, because they would have to pay him in case there was any damage.

Some volunteers tried to pacify the crowd, only to be greeted with heckling and vile abuse. The jeering continued, as they started to pick on individuals. Anything to get the volunteers to attack first. They were in for a good brawl. The organizers had a tough time restraining the volunteers. A first strike here would be suicidal.

The cynic was tired as hell. This was getting a bit thick. Not how he imagined the fest to end. He fished around in his pocket for a cigarette, and managed to find one. Crushed, and bent. But it would do. He straightened it as best as he could, and lit up. A couple of deep, hungry drags later, he felt a lot better. Nicotine, that little temptress. Always hard to resist her charms.

The crowd was rattling the barricade violently now. The volunteers were scared out of their wits. They couldn't desert the place, till the sound guy had finished dismantling his stuff. Getting more people in here, was looking to be a necessity now. Just in case. The consequences be damned.

Suddenly, there was a lull in the bedlam. The organizers were slightly puzzled. Till they saw the reason. A lone constable sauntering along towards the stage. He had heard the ruckus, and had come along to see what the fuss was about. There was a curious smile on his lips. Hatless, top shirt buttons open, twirling his lathi. The fans saw him, and started to trickle out, one by one. The cop said nothing, did nothing. He just stood some distance off, watching them all the while. The crowd disappeared like magic. Till silence reigned supreme once again.

The organizers and volunteers clapped and hooted in joy, careful not to overdo it. The cop was still around after all. And they all wanted to study abroad. No jeopardizing that aspect, self respect be damned.

The cynic laughed loudly, as he took one last puff, and stubbed out his cigarette in the dust. This had turned out better than he expected.

He hummed "I know, it's only rock and roll, but I like it..." as he got up to cadge a cigarette from somebody.

When The Levee Broke...

2007-04-19T16:53:00.000+05:30

All the brouhaha over the whole Birds And Bees education thing being too Birds And Bee-ish (clever play on words, no?) for our 'Indian culture' is something which is so trite, that it warrants a slightly nostalgic perspective. Ergo, erat... (and I'm sorry... that's all the Latin I know... if it is Latin.)

I am a proud member of that corrupted population, which actually had 'that education' as part of the syllabus, and I have not really turned out (much) the worse for it...

We had a session in the 9th standard, and given the whole 'hormonal-all-boys' school thingie, it really wasn't quite on time. The whole curiosity part had started off way before that, in the 7th. When there was no Internet. Faced with that, the only option you had, was to consult those grand daddy guides called Fantasy and Human Digest (innocuous name right? The name was the only thing that was innocuous about that mind you... with some really stunning prose. No pix.) available for the princely sums of 20 and 25 bucks respectively. Smuggling the smut in after a furtive purchase from the 'regular' footpath vendor would be a very secretive (and hypertensive) affair. Tucking them behind the bigger sized 'workbooks' usually was pretty difficult. Reading them under the desks while class was in progress was even more so.

But once into them, it was a fascinating trip into fantasia. The irony was that even our addled adolescent brains could make out that the stuff printed in there, wasn't really ALL REAL. (And we are not talking about airbrushing here. Just to make it clear). Especially the 'user's questions' columns... (How did schoolboys like us manage to score with unbelievably attractive older neighbours? How?!! And was she telling the truth about that dog episode?!) As an alternative source of info, some friends and the school library had these printed encyclopaedias (yes, they used to be printed on paper once upon a time)... but the ultra-dry, clinical tone of the descriptions was just not juicy enough for our 'refined' tastes.

For the visual angle, we had good old Star TV. Riviera, The Bold And The Beautiful, Santa Barbara, and the odd late night episode on Zee TV (Shaadi Ya...?) did a damn good job, let me tell you that. And Star Movies with it's late night shows till they started to you know... pixellate.

Given all this background, we were kind of 'aware' by the time we hit the 9th standard, but somehow there was this uneasy feeling about it all... that what we knew kind of 'wasn't totally there'. Till some seniors tipped us off about what was to come. A proper classroom session on you know... snigger snigger snigger. We felt really squeamish, and we weren't *too* sure of what it would turn out to be... but still, some cerebral cortex was really working overtime, flooding us with all those happy chemicals.

Till the big week finally arrived. Going alphabetically, the 'A' division was first. After they were done with it, started the rumours.
"They were actually showing a 'live action movie'!!!!!"
"There were naughty posters!!!!"
"There were live strippers jumping out of a cake as a grand finale!!!!"
(Well... maybe not the last one...)

Jumping Jeetenders!!!! For those saddled with horrendously prudish cable waalahs who would mercilessly beam Manoj Kumar movies past midnight thereby you-know-whatting all over the efforts to stay awake till then, this was too much happiness to take. The rumours multiplied exponentially over the week, till we were expecting nothing short of a proper Roman orgy by the time we were up for it. The teacher announced "It's time...", and 47 flushed faces lit up like them Indian cricket team effigies after every overseas trip. In spite of herself, the teacher remarked to a colleague.
"Look at their faces! Look at their faces! See how happy they are!! (tinkling mellifluous laughter)"

Blushing furiously, we all but trampled over each other as we rushed into the cool, dark audi to check out "Sally", the heroine of the movie (Trust us to know what her name was. Heh heh.). To be greeted by a slightly bemused, old Italian catholic priest, who could barely suppress his laughter once he saw the looks on our faces. He took one look at us, and proceeded to give us what he was there for. Without going into the gory details, a lot of misconceptions did get cleared up in the next 3 hours. A very classily done affair, and he didn't flinch once at our 'questions'. And yes, the movie was good too. Somehow, we didn't really snigger or hoot as much as we thought we would. Caught up in the moment? Not all of us though, there was one guy who had insisted on carrying his Geometry text-book along for the show. Yep.

Once the testosterone levels were somewhat back to normal, we realized the single biggest irony of the whole thing. The priest was a celibate. And an MD in Birds-And-Bees-ology to boot.

Locomotive Breaths

2007-04-02T22:23:00.001+05:30

Had been to the railway station recently to drop off an aunt. One look at the general inviting atmosphere, and the whole scene in general, and train-journey-memories came stampeding back like Gujjus attacking an Udipi restaurant on a weekend. Some recollections follow...

Dropping air fares and rise in incomes is a real travesty when you can probably extrapolate that there might be an entire new generation down the line which might never experience the joy of travelling by good ol’ Indian Railways. They might pack in the odd train journey here and there because they have to, and not because they HAVE to. Know what I'm sayin? A 1000-buck price differential versus a gain of 22 hours or more? Easy decision there… but missing out on the sheer circus? Grave loss.

Back in the day, all train journeys would start with an agonizing wait for tickets. Oh the uncertainty… much before the Internet ka naya zamana, you were totally at the mercy of the travel agent or the over-friendly tout at the booking counter (heck, this is true even now…). More often than not during the summer months, you’d end up with the dreaded RAC/waiting list curse. And then you’d spend the rest of the time wishing ill on the other travellers, just so that your holy self could get a confirmed seat prior to D-day.

Come travel day, and invariably, there would be friendly crowds thronging your every step, everywhere. How a family of four can rack up a luggage load the size of a proper nation which porters would be lugging like Egyptian slaves of yore will remain an enigma till the end of time. The worst part? The family whom you’d mentally go “Tsk! Tsk!” at would invariably end up right in your bogie, and even better, bang opposite you. and then the process of 'luggage negotiations' would start.

Pointing to your small little bags shrivelling under your seat, they’d go "Yeh aapka hai? Thoda sarka lo." Then they would squash their mighty pieces, till you could almost hear your miserable little bags howl in protest. Once the baggage issues were 'settled', would come the period of uncomfortable silence. You know, generally sizing each other up, and trying to guess vocations/economic strata etc. etc.

The TC would breeze in and breeze out, always with a couple of RAC hopefuls in tow, staring hopefully at him and you, alternately.

Unlike airplane seats, the train seating arrangements would make it mighty difficult for you to avoid eye contact and keep to yourself. You’d get a crick in the neck, unless you had a window seat. But even that afforded you shelter from eye contact for a brief while, if at all.

The thin ice would gradually give way to a lot of inane banter (depending on how well you hit it off of course), with discussions ranging from philosophy, to politics, films, music, cricket, governance and what have you. At the end of it all, you'd exchange addresses and phone numbers, with promises to meet up again. Pity that never ever happened. Once you were at the end of your journey, it pretty much was it. Finito. Functional relationships, these train journeys.

And the Devil help you if you were stuck with a couple of idiotic, ill-behaved kids. What the parents found indulgent and cherubic, was sure to make you wish you could slap them (all) over and over and over again. Especially irritating would be the kids' fascination to clamber up and down to the topmost berth and down, and flash you an angelic smile every ****ing time. You'd smile back. Evilly. Black heartedly too (sic?).

One not-to-be-missed part is the whole vend-o-rama. Vendors in assorted shapes, sizes and raspiness of vocal cords materialize out of nowhere at all times of the day, trying to sell you something or the other.

"Chayaaa... Chayaaaa... Cofeeeeyah... Coffeeyah."

"Coldrinxxxx, Coldrinxxxxxx!!!! (tinkling sound produced by dragging the metal opener against the glass necks of them bottles)"

"Wada bolo wada..."

"Breadamlate, breadamlate"

"Garma garam bhajji bolo bhajji"

"Puri bhaji, puri bhaji"

"Sandwisss, sandwissss"

In an endless, deafening, jarring loop. From dawn till dusk. Rasp. Breathe. Repeat.

Then the delicacies of the Pantry car. Ahhh... sheer gastroenteritic bliss. The only thing dirtier than the foil packing would be the uniform and/or the hands of the guy (especially the grimy fingernails) serving it to you. If you're capable of stomaching this stuff, you pretty much have intestines of diamond-dust-coated-platinum in addition to certain other parts of steel. Let's just leave it at that.

Now certain families did not believe in the Pantry/Vendor deals. Instead, they would whip out steel dabbas (nay residential towers) with enough chow to feed an army of disillusioned IT professionals (am guessing that would be a metaphor for "a sizeable number of people" there, right?). And when they would finish ploughing through the 15-course contents, as you stared at them much against your refined upbringing, they would be ready for more. You half expected the matriarch to whip out a stove, and the assorted roti making paraphernalia right there and ask, "How many more would you like?". (By that time, I would be staring mournfully at my as-dry-as-Brit-humour curd rice/idlis, slightly smelly coconut chutney, Parle-G biscuits, Parle Poppins and slowly turning bitter (again like an IT professional) lemon rice and feel the tears drip down my South Indian cheeks).

Then that 'train smell'. It's unbelievably inherent, that you can even smell it on the ticket once you buy it. About half an hour into the journey, it assails your nostrils... and then slowly permeates your DNA like some sort of Ramsay-ish ghostly fog. Slowly but surely, it settles into your hair, your fingernails, your clothes, and every pore of your exposed and non-exposed skin. It's omnipresent in the sense that even the (hard) water from the rusty sinks smells like it. Till you become distinctly antsy and visions of luxury soaps, turkish towels and long cold showers start to haunt you till your pupils dilate.

"But why can't you have a shower in the train itself?!", you might ask. Cos "There is no bathroom..." says the bald kid in the Matrix. What you have instead is a fantastic pair of loos... which are so elegantly simple in human waste management, that it hurts to think how underrated this so very Indian underlying concept is (glorious pun there... there is nothing 'underlying'. Get it?). In the interests of your delicate sensibilities, it will suffice to say that you're not supposed to 'use' them when the train is at stationary (tee hee hee) a station. Go figure.

If you have a window seat (you blessed soul you...), the best possible thing to kill time is just stare blankly out of the window. The scenery as it rolls by can be hypnotic and breath-taking, once the urban hideosities are out of sight of course. The rural areas with lone straw houses in the middle of nowhere, lush green fields, parched wastelands with baleful straw covers, plodding bullock carts, village folk washing clothes at water bodies, livestock feasting contentedly on god-knows-what, urchins grimacing and pulling faces at you as you whizz by, a lone cyclist on a dirt track, oblivious to everything save the rhythm of his jangling contraption and probably the voices in his head. The whole thing is so surreal, and you genuinely start to think about the kind of lives they lead. Such a glaring contrast to your existence... It's even better in the rains, and when you are standing at the door, just soaking it all in.

But probably the best thing I have seen to sum up the entire experience is as follows. A guy was sleeping while the usual 'Chaaya, Coffeeyaa' vendors were seducing the gentry with their 'quality' wares. He woke up a little late, and just missed these guys. It was time for his morning fix, and he was kinda desperate. Along came the friendly official Railway chai-waala. Money given up, a cup of nectar poured out.

The guy takes one sip, and goes "Pfffttttt!!!!!" like a character in an Asterix comic. Fine brown tea-smelling mist settles down on co-passengers' faces who wipe it away, murder in their eyes.

"This is AWFUL!!!! You call this tea?!!! It's more like pee!"

The chai-waala flashes his pearlies, bats his eyelashes and retorts,
just before fleeing like the wind.

"What to do saar... Railway ka chai hai. Aisa hi rahega."

The guy is stunned speechless. Then slowly but surely, the entire compartment bursts out laughing. I was too.

Short Story - Crushed

2007-03-18T21:05:00.001+05:30

He walked with a definite spring in his step. A song on his lips and a general feeling of air-headedness that came with the most divine feeling he had known. Love. He knew that he was in love, and that it was something which was helping him ignore a lot of stuff in his life. A very healthy source of fixation indeed.

He smiled as he thought of Her. Time suddenly stood still. A classic beauty if there ever was one... the eyes, the ruby lips, the intellect. The way she carried herself, the voice, that tinkling laugh which reached her eyes and the glares she’d give him when he ribbed her. She's the one, he knew it. He didn't know how or when or where he was going to let her know, all that he knew was that was going to end up with her.

It had been pretty much the clichéd love at first sight thing. That stupid rush which he got which left him almost breathless each time he saw her was a good indication alright. As he got talking with her and knowing her better, each conversation was dissected for ‘hints’. He sure knew she was dropping them his way. Only for him. And it was a joke on the entire world. They didn’t know. Suckers!

He wanted to share his feelings with somebody. He was in love! But no one really would have understood. Even worse, if they went ahead and told her ahead of time, there was no telling what her reaction would be like. He wanted the timing to be just right. This was too special to rush. He was getting a vibe from her, and he just wanted to make the whole progression inevitable. For her as well as himself.

But it was getting to be too difficult to do it alone. He wanted to have a sounding board. Someone to validate what he was feeling, and someone to bounce his ideas off to see whether what he was getting into was sensible. So after a lot of deliberation, one evening, he finally confided in a friend on the way home. The friend slapped his back, and let out a war whoop.

“You serious?!”

“Yes I am… she’s all that I think of nowadays.”

“Goddamn. I should have guessed. Now that you’ve told me, the way you look at her should have been clue enough.”

He blushed.

“You think we’d make a good pair?”

“Of course! No question about it. She’d be perfect for you. Congrats!”

“Too early for congratulations, don’t you think?”

“It is never too early. Nor is it ever too late.”

“Hmm. But don’t mention this to anyone right now… please… I do not want to rush things…”

“Relax man. I won’t tell.”

He was broken out of his little daydream by the sight of her, surrounded by four of her close friends. She was weeping. He felt a ghastly chill start from the pit of his stomach, and it began to wisp up and engulf his heart.

She saw him, and screamed at him.

“Idiot!!!!”

Her friends shot him accusing, scum-of-the-earth stares. He was puzzled. What had he done?!

It suddenly hit him like a body blow. That sneaky bastard. Had he told her?! There was no other explanation. She’d never call him that otherwise.

He walked past her, and he saw the other guys now. Laughing. Jeering. Some came right up to him and laughed in his face. Some tried to stifle their smiles, trying to do the polite thing. But they were all laughing. He felt sweat on his brow, and his ears were flaming hot. His heart was threatening to skid out of his rib cage. A couple of friends came up to him, and patted his back.

“Relax… she’s just upset. She’ll get over it.”

“Just a matter of time… don’t worry.”

He swallowed. He was grateful for some support. He couldn’t really understand why people were laughing at him, and why he was getting stared down upon. What had he done wrong? And what fucking business did anybody else have with his feelings?

The teacher walked into the fifth standard classroom a little bewildered. The kids were very restless today indeed. She screamed hard.

“Silence!!!!!!”

The class quietened down.

“Why are you all making so much noise?!!”

One boy piped up.

“Teacher, He said ‘I Love You’ to her!”

The teacher smiled.

“Let’s just hope he marries her someday. OK now… open your English textbooks. Page number seventeen.”

I Swear...

2007-02-24T21:03:00.000+05:30

The male proclivity to swear is a fantastic thing. It's something women typically find difficult to understand. Ever notice how they give you their best "ewwwww" expressions when you are affectionately wondering aloud about your male friends' Oedipal leanings when you meet them or even talk about them? (the usage of such endearments increases in direct proportion to the time elapsed since last meeting). That's what I'm talking about.

The usage is unbelievably complex, with a mere inflection of voice enough to change the context totally. The same word, can be used to greet a long lost schoolmate or describe your boss.

Personally, the earliest memory I have of me getting intimate with a cuss word is in the 5th standard, and it was (drum roll) the Hindi word for posterior. It was such a cheap thrill, and it felt really nice whenever I called somebody that.

But much earlier, I had used a certain 'phrase' to rather disastrous results...

'Twas in the third standard. An uncle had come visiting, and a couple of pegs later, he got all bawdy, and let rip a phrase in the coarsest Kannada imaginable - roughly translating to "Particularly licentious woman of loose morals" to describe a relative.

I knew it meant something bad, judging from my parent's suitably embarrassed reactions, but I didn't know exactly what it meant. So a month or so later, when I got an unwarranted thrashing from my teacher (It had to happen someday. Precocious little me used to actually correct her pronunciation in front of the entire class), I opened my 'Science notebook', turned to the last page and lovingly, lingeringly wrote "My teacher is a (you guessed it...) particularly licentious woman of loose morals". Felt good to get that off my chest (beat crying in front of the childhood crush any day) and that done, I clean forgot all about it.

Till the evening when my parents were 'taking up' my Science lessons for an exam the next day. I was confidently slaughtering all the questions, till I remembered what lurked on the last page. In classic voided rectum fashion, I snatched the book from their hands and ran inside, desperately trying to scratch out the incrimination. Too late, too late was the cry of the day. And the cry of the night? Me sounding like this as my parents took turns kicking my a** all over the house.

Minor hiccup aside, the sailor-speak grew stronger with time, till another little road bump.

The 7th standard this time. Was in an all-boys school now, which ensured that breathing was as natural an activity as swearing.
Cut to hot dreary afternoon. Maths in progress. Restlessness of the class increasing in direct proportion to difficulty of the equations on black board. I was diligence personified. Two classmates sitting in front started to break free from the mathematic shackles. And sure enough, I was the fall guy. They escaped, and I was made to stand up for the rest of the duration. The guilty parties then started to turn, sniggering and taunting me with Bollywood-vamp-vigour. To which I responded in the best way I could. I silently mouthed a very very sisterly word in Hindi to them.

Without checking whether the teacher had her back to the class, or was glaring right at me. You're right. She read my lips. And then in front of the entire class proceeded to say...

"Tapan! What did you just say?! SISTERLY WORD?!!!!!"
(Note - she actually said the word out loud. No kidding.)

That must rank as one of the most glowingly embarrassing moments I've ever had in my life. Ears flaming, I sputtered furiously, trying to slither out of sight, justifying all the while. Then a couple of scholarly holier-than-thous jumped into the pit.

"Yes miss, he gives 'bad words'... "
"We have heard him say that before"

That one incident affected me so badly, that I actually wrote a letter to Wiz (of Ask Wiz fame, from that magazine called Target). I had poured my heart out into that inland letter, moaning about how I'm a bad boy because I keep giving 'bad words', and how I needed help.

It's a good thing they never replied...

The Disco Dancer Movie Review

2007-02-07T14:05:00.000+05:30

1983. India was on the verge of something big. Something really big. What big? What big? Disco Dance fever which burst upon the national consciousness like a gumboil. Thanks in no small measure to this movie.

First up, you are treated to God's bal-avatar called Jimmy, effortlessly essayed by an adorable poppet of a child artiste. Good old Kaka wrapped in designer polyester, plays his uncle. They dance and sing on the mean grotty streets of Mumbai for a living, with technology waaaaay ahead of their times, what with all their analog instruments capable of producing those electro-robotic-digital sounds (pewwww.... pewwwwww) in between verses and choruses. Divinity evidently has a way around the most mundane of limitations. (How could you think otherwise? How could you?!)

During one of these dance-o-ramas, Prabhuji dares to cavort with a rich little girl kid, and falls in love immediately with her, only to be shown his place by her father, P N Oberoi, played with lingering menace by Om Shivpuri (there's the sound of a deathly rattle in the background whenever he infests the screen, not unlike a bile belching Texan rattlesnake. Very menacing. Not that I've been to Texas, but it sounds cool...). Sore with Prabhuji's sauciness, he gets both mother and son implicated in a false thievery case. The object in question? A cheap plastic toy guitar nonetheless. Oh the humanity.

That sowed the wild oats... (err.. or should that should be seeds?) of our dancer's bloodthirst. Prabhuji's mother takes the rap, and on return to their humble abode, they are greeted by the whole mohalla going "Maa Chor, Beta Chor", which scars him in subtly inexplicable ways.

They leave Bombay for Goa. Not a bad trade-off that. Prabhuji grows up in a flash amongst the party happy Goans. (Must have been all that protein rich sea food, and fresh air). To be a dancer on the not-so-mean and not-so-grotty streets of Goa. What were the odds of that, honestly?

Meanwhile, the lovable rattlesnake's kids have grown up too, his son Sam(Karan Razdan) being a Disco Dancer, and his daughter Kim (well... Kim) well, just grown up. Now Sam is supposed to be the 'national disco craze'. A song (Usha Uthup going at "Koi Yahaan Nache Nache" with full vim and vigour) does full justice to his primary talent, which is making Sunny Deol look like a ballerina. Drunk with success and shady looking booze in shadier looking bottles, he insults his manager (Om Puri - called David Brown. Which I think is the coolest character name ever in Bollywood) and on a whim, refuses to perform on a sultry night in Goa. Good Ol' Dave quits in a fit of apoplexy, and vows to create another Sam.

Cut to Prabuji's lotus feet. You know it's him, when you see those dapper legs, scissoring across your senses like 100 cc bike riders on the dirt tracks of Andheri East. The Goan authorities evidently were really pushing hard to ameliorate his life, and thoughtfully made street lights blink in shiny disco ball fashion at midnight, just so that Prabhuji could hone his chops. And we say we've never had good governance in India. Pah. But we digress. David Brown likes what he sees, and immediately takes Prabhuji under his scrawny wings.

And so begins one man's personal quest to avenge his childhood trauma. You are battered relentlessly with a series of songs interspersed with 5 minute story breaks in between, with ultra trippy costumes, magic mushroom sets, distinctly high dancers and some divine ethereal mujik courtesy Bappi-Da. I'm not dwelling too much on the songs here, cos you very well know what I'm talking about. No red-blooded human needs an introduction to these ditties. Would be blasphemously condescending for me to even attempt to describe them. Very few soundtracks have had the kind of soul-changing/stirring impact that this bunch of songs has had over the years and will for ages to come. To savage an H P Lovecraft - ism - not dead which eternal lie, stranger eons death may die...

Somewhere along the way, Prabhuji falls in love with Kim, taunts Snake thereby extracting his emotional pound of flesh for his mommy's insults at the various parties he meets, and emerges as a challenger to Sam's throne all of which give Fangsy great heartburn. So he tries to get Prabhuji bashed up and fails (cos in that fateful scene, Prabhuji snaps his fingers generating reverb and echo effects which scare the pants off the goons. He barely needed to whack them after that). At the end of his tether, Snake re-wires Prabhuji's electric guitar at a show making it 'live'. The mother of God comes to know, and reaches for it just before he does. And croaks heartwrenchingly, leaving Prabhuji with a lot of misfiring neurons and a general phobia of electric guitars in general.

Thus in one fateful stroke, he forgets how to (gasp!) sing and (asphyxiate!) dance. The world is drenched in gloom, and somewhere in Scandinavia, this catastrophic event single handedly led to the birth of black/doom/death metal (source uncredited). (Why Scandinavia? Because, metal history aside, a look at my measly traffic distribution reveals a search for "Gunmaster G9" from at least one country in that region EVERY ****ING DAY)

Till the day of the International Disco Competition dawns. Countries like Africa and Paris send their teams to win here. One look at their moves, and you start to get that inevitable itch to see Him dance again. All he has to do is wiggle his pinkies to win this baby, you say. Really. The other dancers are *that* good.

Just when you are about to yell out your encouragement along with Kim who tries her damnedest best to get Prabhuji's feet twinkling again by yowling "Jimmy Jimmy aaja aaja aaja" till your fingernails shrivel, Kaka suddenly perforates your haze, with an awe inspiring "Gaa Jimmy Gaaa!!!!!" war cry on his fevered lips, designer polyester on his body and electric guitar in his hand.

Prabhuji's neuron blocks snap, and dance he does. Hoo boy. And how. Prabhuji gets his mojo back, the crowd goes apeshit, Kim is happy, Kaka can't stop gloating, and just when everything looks to be all right with the world, the cold blooded reptile resurfaces and tries to plug Prabhuji. Kaka plays the bullet affinity card, and dies bleeding in Jimmy's arms.

"Vengeance is mine!" screams Prabhuji. And dispatches the evil snake to hell. No prizes for guessing how. It's quite shocking actually (lousy pun intended).

Thus, all karmic debits and credits being suitably balanced out in the cosmic account

book, the Lord goes back to doing what he does best. Like providing gristle for severely blocked blogger mills for instance...

Uff!

2007-02-04T10:08:00.000+05:30

This is sheer, giddy camp gold. Check this link out and download the pdf. I was tripping for a whole day after reading it. "Why?", you might ask. This just brought to life a favourite childhood fantasy of mine, wherein Superman, Batman and Spiderman come together to fight crime in a single comic book. Only, I never ever imagined they would join forces with Nagraj. And keep on saying "Uff!".
Prepare to be amazed...

And just in case, go here if you want full body scans of good old Indrajal Comics.

Short Story - The Harbinger

2007-01-27T22:50:00.001+05:30

The bus arrived at the stop, packed to capacity. The regular motley crew of sleepy, hyperkinetic and plain laconical travelers scrambled to get in, carefully sidestepping the rich assortment of human and animal waste surrounding the bus stop. A couple of crows almost got ground to the dirt in the process, obsessed as they were with the rotting remains. The usual beginning to the usual day. A couple of school girls managed to get in along with the rest, and desperately tried to worm their way through the mass of bodies, standing in three lines in the gangway.

The diminutive conductor stared with a malevolent eye at the horde from his vantage point near the driver, wishing he could just burn them all with his gaze. He tried to concentrate really hard, giving it all he had. But like always, nothing happened. Shit happened. Shit world. Shit job. Shit happens. Because nothing else is supposed to. Save shit. If only he had the physique to kick out all except the regulated number of standees printed on a sticker on the inside of the bus, which was like a delirious joke. Number of licensed standees = 19. Hell, there would be 19 in a square foot today, he thought.

Ploughing through all those stinking, sweaty bodies was something he couldn’t imagine doing. There was no option though. He could feel his irritation growing with each passing passenger. There was the usual bunch of gropers, making sure that they rubbed up fully against each woman as she wriggled by. He shot them a murderous glance as he gave them their tickets. Bastards.

Then there were the luggage overlords, blocking up the gangway. These guys got off on arguing over the extra luggage charge. Today was no exception. He screamed at the uncouth guilty party, and with a superhuman effort, managed to charge him extra for the ugly ass tin trunk, which nearly took a square off his khaki pants as he scraped past it.

Next was Mr. Self Important Whose Cell Phone Was A Body Part.

"Hello... hello... haan sir, I will follow up with the sales executives to execute your plan. We should achieve good traction with the newer strategy."

"Yes I've told Desai to call you sir... what's that? Hello"

The whole fucking bus was getting a lesson in sales micro-management. No one soaked it all up. The poor fuck was wasting his breath. Not that he was doing it for their benefit in the first place anyways. He just happened to love the amplified sound of his own voice.

The conductor tried to get his attention.

"Where do you want to go?"

He got a ten rupee note in return.

"Where to ?! "

No answer.

He plucked out a ten rupee ticket from his box, and shoved it into Dr. Philip Kotler's hands. He moved on. He wouldn't be stuck here, doing this, if he was you know, clairvoyant?

Then came the schoolgirls.

"One half, the school stop." said one, and gave him a ten rupee note.

The other girl did the same.

The conductor finally smelt blood.

"Do you know how much your half-ticket costs?"

"One rupee." said one girl.

"How much have you given me then?"

"Ten."

"Ask your father to get me a change bearing tree."

"Why?"

"So that I can give your highness 9 rupees back. Get down from the bus now."

He yanked on the frayed bell rope. The bus ground to a halt.

"Go on... get down."

The girls started sobbing.

"Please... we have to reach our school... we have an exam today."

The whole bus turned around, and started watching. The conductor bristled with self-importance. He loved it when he had an audience. Who doesn't?

"Go and ask your father for that tree. Now. Only then will I let this bus move."

The kids started bawling, as he launched into a bitter tirade.

"You think what I do is easy? Do you think I have a coin factory here? Where am I supposed to give you 9 rupees from? Why don't you go back to your home state? Maybe people there have plenty of change. Don't come and settle here to make our lives miserable. I don't have to serve you folk."

People started to murmur. Reality TV was fine, but they had a routine to get started on.

"Let it be... "

"Forget it... let the bus move!"

The conductor was adamant.

"No... this will not be over that easily. I don't have any change."

A burly bearded passenger started to talk sense into the conductor.

"What do you mean, talking to kids like that? You've got a problem, talk to me. Stop yelling at them!"

The conductor didn't flinch. He had a surprising reserve of strength today.

"You shut up! Don't tell me what to do here! Get off if you have a problem."

Before the burly guy could retort, a quiet voice spoke up from the rear of the bus.

"Bhai, jaane do. Don't you see master sahab is under such a lot of stress? It's the tension that's making him do this... I don't think he means this. He doesn't have the easiest of jobs, you know...here, I'll solve the problem."

The quiet guy came up, and gave the conductor two rupees to take care of the tickets. The conductor self importantly accepted the money, and punched out the two tickets. The quiet guy smiled at the kids, wiped away their tears, and handed them the tickets. The bus was on it's way once again. Vaudeville show over, people returned to whatever they were doing... reading the paper, splintering their eardrums with FM Radio, staring at the rivets in the tin sheets making up the roof of the bus and the peeling paint, or hanging on for dear life from the sweaty stained hand straps.

The kids got down at their stop, and scampered for dear life to reach before the exam bell. The crowd eased a little as people got down. But it wasn't comfortable by any definition.

The conductor finally got a moment's breathing space. He rested against the rear door, wiping his brow, pleased with himself. He just had to vent a little. That's all. He started to weed out the ticket stubs from his tin box.

The quiet guy approached him, and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"How are you feeling now? Better?"

The conductor looked at him and said

"Yes, much much better. It was just one of those things... you know how it is..."

"No. I don't."

The conductor was a little confused.

"But I thought you did... you yourself said so!"

The quiet guy's grip tightened on the conductor's shoulder, and his fingers started to dig into his clavicle. Hard and merciless.

"That was no way to talk to an eight year old kid, you sick son of a bitch..."

Before the conductor could do anything, he felt an open hand slap him hard on his left cheek. His ear started to hum agonizingly. And then a fist caught him on his lips, making them bleed and his teeth rattle. And then a sickening blow to his solar plexus making him double over and gasp loudly. The quiet guy overturned the conductor's money bag, and the change hit the floor in a series of resonant tinkles.

The quiet guy smoothly slid off the rear exit, and melted into the morning crowd, as the conductor wheezed on all fours, his senses swimming. The driver had stopped the bus, not knowing what was going on. The people started pocketing whatever money they could lay their hands on. Some of them were laughing. No one bothered to help the conductor up.

The quiet guy hummed a light, pleasant tune to himself as he scurried to catch his train. No chance in hell that he would have hit the bastard in front of the kids. Poor things, they didn't deserve to see blood on the eve of an exam.

The IT Growth Path (Through Slanted Eyes)

2006-12-31T13:50:00.000+05:30

Tried my hand at coming up with some toons for my office mag. Am obviously gonna inflict them on blogspot. And you.
(Click on each one for a better view.)

You Know You're Getting Older When...

2006-12-29T17:12:00.000+05:30

1) The chicks whom you used to LUST after in college, are all married. And they have kids.

2) You can relate more to Pink Floyd's Time than Metallica's Enter Sandman.

3) You've spent 5 years in a job, with random intermittent bouts of total bitter disillusionment about your chosen field of work, interspersed with random intermittent bouts of total complacent bliss. And you don't know which cycle is about to hit you next.

4) You really don't know whether the guys you used to hang out with in college are 'onsite' or 'offshore'. Because they stop sending you pix after their first couple of trips.

5) Owning a car doesn't seem like a big deal. Really. Each one of your friends now owns one.

6) Kids in your building call you 'uncle' instead of 'bhaiyya'. For those blessed with big foreheads and an overbearing sense of precocious maturity, rookie cabbies and rick drivers do so too. Sometimes.

7) You pass by your former 10/12th 'coaching class' where you tried to cram a year's worth of 'learning' into 2 months, and look at the newest batch of students standing outside. Geeky, unsure, fresh out of school, complete with gawky stances and horrendous clothes. And positively feeling that you were different from them at that stage in your life. You think you were, but chances are that you really weren't.

8) Blowing up 600 bucks on a single dinner sitting (with suitable tissue restorers) doesn't seem THAT big a deal. Till it suddenly dawns on you that it could have lasted you a week back in college.

9) You are now financially capable of footing enormous phone bills every month, but then it dawns on you that there is no one really whom you can call up and yap about incredibly insignificant minutiae in town anymore for hours together. Either because they have other priorities in life, or because they aren't in town.

10) You meet up with school friends, and while generally reminiscing about the good times, somebody says "Do you realize that we've known each other for over 15 years?". And you stop, stare and say "Yes. 15 years." There's this moment of warm, thoughtful silence, and then you pick up from where you left off.

Four Hare Krishnas, Three Butter Chickens

2006-12-25T00:09:00.000+05:30

Just in case you haven't seen this already... awesome stuff. Check out the '12 Days of Christmas' music video here.

What's That Song?!

2006-11-18T11:36:00.000+05:30

(Warning - Pure filler post, for lack of better things to blog about. Haven't really had the time to watch a Mithun movie lately)

Ever seen an ad with a catchy as hell song, which you've never heard before playing in the background?

There's nothing more maddening than trying to figure it out with just a couple of lines, and the sense of achievement that you get on finally getting your hands on it? Pure bliss.
(The above line was true in the pre/early-internet age, when there was no all-powerful Google. Now, it's a snap. Two clicks and you're on your way. Yay!)

Some of my all time favourite ad songs?

Love Spreads by The Stone Roses -
Had heard this one in 1996. MTV used to actually show 'English' music videos. Hard to believe, yes... but shockingly true. There used to be this ad called 'The Gig Guide' which would show details of upcoming gigs in the Asia-Pacific region, and the first few bars of this song would be playing in the background. No lyrics.
Which made it REAL tough to track down. I finally chanced upon a ten second clip of this song while aimlessly trolling through the band's official website in 2004. Couldn't stop grinning
that day.
A brilliant, instantly catchy song, with a guitar riff that will stick like chewing gum to your brain, for days on end... beautiful slide work. Guaranteed smile and goose pimples every time you listen to it. Highly recommended.

Glorybox by Portishead -
This was in a Levi's ad - don't remember much, but it involved a HOT chick in an elevator, was a typically dysfunctional High School setting. There was something very dark about that ad, and in the end the song went "Give me a reason .... to love you". I could only catch the "Give me a reason" part, and it was one of the most trying searches ever. There are tons of songs with that particular
line. MTV to the rescue this time. Was about to doze off at 3 am one night, and felt like watching one more video... (just one more, and then I'll sleep... promise... kind of thing). This came on, and ooh-la-la.
Beautifully trippy number, and it's haunting to say the least. Do not listen to it in the dark. Positively mind-altering. Amazing vocals and atmospherics.

Sinner Man by Nina Simone -
This was a recent one, from a Nokia ad. Couldn't figure out the words at all... I could just get "Where you gonna run to?". Another maddening search, and hit paydirt on Google. Also came to know that this was on the Thomas Crown Affair soundtrack...
Not much of a jazz afficionado myself, but this sure is a fantastic song. Can't quite describe it, you'll have to check it out yourself.

New Days by Asher Lane -
The newest fave, and it has been the easiest to find so far. Took me all of 3 minutes yesterday.
This is off a Nivea cream (creme?) ad. Nice little number by (I guess) a newish band. Very sunny. A good fit for the product indeed.

Oh Yeah by Yello -
This is a real oldie, a good 17 year old ad for good old Oxemberg shirts. The song was re-recorded with "Oxemberg" being substituted for "Oh Yeah". This came on in the background while I was watching a Michael J Fox movie - The Secret Of My Success.
A cheesy, nothing number. Listen to it just for the sheer 80s pop nostalgia rush.

Gangster Of Love by Johnny "Guitar" Watson -
This one goes way beyond the Ben Affleck Axe deo ad... it was re-recorded a good 17 years back again, for that VIP Frenchie ad, featuring a wimp sitting on a park bench, ogling at a PYT, only to have a stud wearing said undies whisk her away, caveman style. "What's he got that I ain't got?!!!!!". Ring a bell?
Was very crushed to know that it wasn't an original composition, was one of my favourite ads.
Lovely laid back number. Real smooth.

Impressions From My Cricketing Armchair

2006-11-10T16:05:00.000+05:30

Our boys put up their usual pusillanimously brilliant performance come crunch time, in the ICC Trophy. To no one's surprise, really.

Prior to this, there was a fantastic ad campaign/song from the official cola sponsor, with grandiose, slo-mo visuals of the entire nation (typical Rajasthani peasant with colourful turban and humungous moustache included) going into an apoplectic fit when our 'boys' would step into the ground to play. Hoo Haa India, Aaya India! was the catchy, inspirational war cry with a tagline saying 'The blue billion rises'.

The TV coverage too was faculty numbingly good. Contrast the matches of yore, which were dull, staid affairs with you know, knowledgeable commentators who spoke only about (gasp! gasp!) cricket, or the stray earrings in the crowd. There was too much emphasis on the game, with dry tidbits about correct technique, player temperament, and the general beauty of the game. Booooooring. The answer? Washed out TV stars with a couple of old cricketers, who want to 'wed cricket with entertainment'. Brilliant idea. Especially when the bimbos root for a cricketer based on how good looking he is, and the ex-cricketers cringe, and look sideways at the camera, wishing that they really didn't have to do this for the money. Which really warms the cockles of my (you know what). When a TV star says stuff, and gives his valuable critique, you really know it's worth the time and effort. He has to know, right? Considering he is on TV, and well, the match is on TV? See the connection? Took me a while, but I got around to it. Was a real matter of national pride to see our TV hosts engage in verbal diarrhoea in Hindi, with the non-Indian guys grinning goofily at the camera. Then they were asked for an opinion. Immediately on launching, they would be cut short with more entertaining banter in Hindi. Awesome. (Didn't blame the goras if they had blindingly racist thoughts at that point in time. I understand.)
Then we had path-breaking contests like 'Best Ball which didn't get a wicket today'. Was kind of expecting 'The best looking reserve member', or 'The best dressed stadium sweeper'. Was heartbroken when they didn't show that. Maybe next season. Hope (and you know what) floats.

But the best, and I mean THE BEST part was bringing in a Tarot card reader before each match, and getting her 'predictions'. Which obviously were true, as long as you 'interpreted' them correctly. Cricket evidently has gone beyond the realm of going out there and trying your damnedest to win/the bookie biz, into the metaphysical and occult. Cool.

True to form, the true billion MINUS the blue playing 11 rose. (I have a lingeringly eerie suspicion that somehow there weren't quite a billion people watching the games to begin with). With another round of media-induced introspection.

The BCCI is now planning to move to a performance oriented pay structure. How about a ban on advertising contracts for the first 2 years at least? Which is in both the advertiser's and the advertisee's (sic) interests.

Maybe if there was a little less hype, and a lot lesser in your-face-playing-with-your-sentiments advertising, each Indian loss wouldn't rankle so much. With increasingly glaring media exposure, and news of hefty note-counting-machine-crashing endorsement deals, your average Jai is BOUND to expect a little more from these ‘superstars’ and forget that they are human. Not when he pins his hopes on them for a few moments of ecstasy in his otherwise pleasurable life.

The reaction of the other nations to our models is quite amusing... they just can't believe their freaking luck when they are asked to endorse stuff here; compared to the strictly workmanlike existence they lead back in their homelands. Which is a good thing for the game actually. Because you can see the fire in their bellies when they are out there on the field, giving it a hundred percent match after match. They probably play because they want to, and not just because they can. They just can't believe that the Indian cricketers get paid so much, in spite of not exactly distinguishing themselves each time on the field.

There was a furore in India over Ponting's behaviour when he was accepting the winner's trophy. The Aussies have apologized, and it has evidently gone down well. I have just one thing to say. All you geniuses launching into the Aussies, a small suggestion. Win a tournament for a change, and show us how to accept trophies gracefully, first hand. That would shut me up. Real good.

Finally!

2006-11-08T23:36:00.000+05:30

Somebody finally did it. Read this first and check this link out to see what I mean. Gave me a very nice feeling, even if in the nether regions. He's been sweet enough to put it up on his blog too here.
Thank you, whoever you are.

Got this result courtesy Copyscape. And you know what the irony is? He has a 'do not copy' warning on his blog too. Rich.

Of Birds, Planes And Men

2006-10-29T00:00:00.000+05:30

Finally got around to watching Krrish a couple of weeks back (REALLY early to blog about it, I know…). Part of me was happy with the special FX, which are waaaaaay above the usual Bollywood standards (think of Jaani Dushman – the new one and Haatimtai in equal measures). What sucked big time was the ‘love story’ track, which actually forms the bigger part of the entire movie, ultimately devolving into a super-gooey, tear-your-hair-out kind of maudlin Bollywood romance, which is nothing you haven’t seen before. A straight lift from the Hemant Birje classic, Tarzan, if you please.

What’s my beef with the movie? It was an opportunity wasted. Period. Here was a budget that was crying like Sania Mirza’s sponsors to be made into a far better movie than the end result. Hell, this post is made even more ironic by the fact that it’s been one of the biggest blockbusters ever in Bollywood. Ever.

All this takes me back to whole concept of the Indian superhero as we know it. All of them so far have been singularly, irrefutably campy. Right from a bad rip off of Superman (starring Puneet Issar and Dharmendra) to Mahabali Shaka (The Phantom revisited – panel by panel, with the best part was that his punches left permanent snake marks on the victim’s point of impact), to Agniputra Abhay to Nagraj to Shaktimaan (ABSOLUTELY no snarky comments there, I’m a HUGE Mukesh Khanna fan). There’s been no genuinely classy Indian superhero thus far.

Sure, some have had an Indian connection (The Phantom for instance), but the closest we’ve got to some decency is Bahadur from the erstwhile Indrajal Comics stable. Then again, he’s not a superhero. He was just a hero.
This obviously does not take into account our rich mythology, and I am talking purely from the pop culture phenomenon.

But the thing that made me get that (unmentionably) warm, good-to-be-Indian feeling was the proposed Indianization of the Spiderman series – Peter Parker was to become Pavitr Prabhakar (full marks there. Very clever. ****ing A in fact.) and (surprise, surprise) his costume was altered to make it a dhoti, and he’s shown to be wearing Jaipuri mojdis. Like that’s what ****ing exactly what a young Indian boy in Mumbai would wear. Hell, even beggars wear pants here. Plus he’d get to fight an Indian villain, intriguingly named ‘Rakshasa’. This promises to be a collector’s item.

Given all this, Krrish could have done something different. But hey…

We could have had a fantastic character like the Dark Knight himself…tormented, brooding, mysterious. Instead of the happy, always ready to dance, bholu character. Happy superheroes somehow don’t quite sound convincing, do they?

Mumbai has a fantastic skyline, which could have been exploited brilliantly. With both beauty as well as gut-wrenching monstrosities. Singapore looks great and all that, but hell, this was an Indian superhero.

Think about what all could have been…

Krrish giving wedgies to errant road contractors at first, and then anally impaling them if they didn’t do their job. But even this wouldn’t really change things much. Ultimately, he’d have to build all the roads himself. (Material sourcing would be a big problem for him though…he’s a superhuman being, not super rich, right?)

Krrish having to airlift ambulances to hospitals for the simple fact that they usually get stuck bleating like manic sheep right in the middle of traffic (Dedicated lanes did I hear you say? Right of way too? Tee hee hee.)

Krrish having to eradicate mosquitoes, and clean up garbage. For the simple fact that in order to step up to first world status, we must first eradicate third world diseases. (Dengue fever sounds so… what’s the right word? Native?)

Krissh somehow, **** knows how, stopping farmers from killing themselves in Vidarbha, in spite of munificent Central Government grants. (Not Mumbai-centric this, but it has really become an issue as mysterious as the beginning of the universe. Hence the superhero solution.)

Krrish being on total standby every monsoon here in Mumbai, to help suck out all the wonderful clogged water, and yes a little spot of airlifting wouldn’t hurt either.

Krrish somehow making cellular and fixed telephones work in times of disasters/emergencies by keeping them from collapsing due to ‘all users logging on at once’.

Krrish somehow bending the basic laws of Physics to ensure that suburban rail commutes are not daily tests of your animal will to survive and exist.

Krrish helping out BIG TIME with the slum rehabilitation schemes here, and finally figuring out how to come up with cheap housing guidelines. While he’s at it, he could improve rural conditions countrywide, so that fewer people are tempted to migrate to urban areas to live like animals. And actually feel that the life they lead here is better than their rural setups.

All in all, a very dangerous storyline to tread as you can see. There would have been just too many expectations from a Mumbai based superhuman being. He would have made everybody’s life a little easier (the governing bodies included). But at what cost? The tip of the expectational iceberg would have just kept getting bigger and bigger (make that exponential). Till he would have turned positively suicidal.

Now you know why the movie had the kind of plot it did.
I kinda understand.

The Death Of The Audio Cassette - A Lament

2006-10-14T19:13:00.000+05:30

Was cleaning out my stuff the other day, and happened to come across my lately and largely forgotten audio cassette collection. Could not help marvel at how quickly these things have become obsolete. Personally, I haven't bought a cassette in more than 4 years now. The whole mp3 wave has almost killed off this little segment of the market. Heck, they survived the audio CD revolution, purely because of the price differential. Given a choice between a 525 buck audio CD (with an ‘Imported!!!’ label on it to boot), and a 45 buck tape, apun ka choice clear tha (as Vakil Mulay from Satya would put it).

But how do you essentially deal with something that is FREE?!

Tapes were something that had an aspirational value to them (at least in my perfectly middle class upbringing, they had). Like He-Man dolls (sorry... action figures, action figures) a tape would be obtained when you 'came first' in class, or on a special occasion/festival. That was something to look forward to, and the anticipation? Ayyo Raghavendra. The only thing that comes close is my current desperate craving for weekends, and the sheer narcotic kick that I get when I’m on my way home on Friday night. Yes, that’s how good it was.

Then there would be the trip to the music store. Now this would be an entire outing in itself - agonizing over what tape to buy on the way, and spending a nice amount of time in the shop, just generally and self importantly looking at the titles, wishing you could buy them ALL. Now albums by 'heavier' artistes like Slayer, Sepultura, Megadeth et al, would be virtually non-existent. I guess the music companies (MIL, Bremen Music, BMG et al) would press just 10 copies of these albums and the music stores would hide them like they were clues to a particularly nasty treasure hunt (no wonder I didn’t think the Da Vinci Code was “all that”). The music store guys would hardly ever have heard of them, and would greet you with their friendliest blank stares when asked where the Slayer/Megadeth albums were. So it was all up to you...digging through all the lowermost shelves, squatting down till you felt that the 'mungees' that you were getting in your feet were dancing at a rave party, and then finally hitting pay dirt. Only to be severely constrained by the lone 50 buck note in your pocket. Poverty striketh. And it striketh hard. And then, with a heavy heart, selecting one and wistfully placing the other gems back. Only, I would thoughtfully hide them behind Mory Kante and Jagjit Singh albums so that others couldn't swipe them away till my next visit. Have to admit though, this never really worked…

Given how you would have sweated to build up a little collection, lending tapes would be a real ordeal. You would want them back. That’s all. Not too much to ask right? But the loss of a tape would REALLY cause issues between the best of friends, directly proportional to the rarity of the title. Likewise, the heartburn that you would get when such a tape was gobbled up by your greedy defective player/walkman was comparable to watching our cricket team play. These mangled remains would then be salvaged by ingenious, aspiring-scientist moi by trying to splice them together with nail polish. It worked. Honest.

Album add-ons would really never be a redeeming feature, considering that there would never be any lyrics booklets, or album inlay artwork. What you would get instead, was a cheesy marketing feedback form, promising you a free cassette in a lucky draw. People used to actually buy lyrics books and a lot of them would kill for lyrics, and take photocopies of the booklets from lucky CD-owning friends. By the time international class album packaging was available here, it was a case of too little too late.

Contrast all this with mp3s. Which are so… what’s the right word? Sterile? They have no ‘organic’ feel, both in terms of sound fidelity as well as possession. They are just there in some sort of memory storage, and you really cannot attach any sentiment to them. They have no history, and would really not be something to reminisce about and cherish. You definitely cannot get an artiste’s autograph on an mp3 can you?

Pretty much functional and utilitarian? Yes. No rewinding, no fast forwarding, and no oxide-and-fungus-formation-with-age issues. You get to listen to stuff which you would never ever have got hold of in India, even on audio CDs. You can practically download an artiste's entire anthology in a matter of minutes, and be a ‘hard core fan’ in a week’s time, now that lyrics and complete biographies are freely available wherever you click.

But you can never own an mp3...

Ah well, things have changed. End of old fogey post.

The Gunda Movie Review

2006-09-17T20:30:00.000+05:30

The art of movie making is an inherent dichotomy. Film makers as a rule have to tread a very fine line between the aesthetic and the downright blasphemous, when trying to accurately profile the darker sides of human nature. Every once in a while, there comes a defining moment in cinematic history, which challenges all the established norms of what is allowable, and what is not. Which spits society right in the eye, and is not afraid to do its own thing. This moment then goes on to shock, sway and browbeat people into total submission, and cultivate nothing short of a cult. To which you can proudly belong to, and which confirms that you’ve seen the darkest kind of cinema vérité/film noir hybrid that is capable of being captured on celluloid.

A morbid, searing epic poem called Gunda. (Why poem? For starters, every couple of lines of dialogue rhyme with each other. Every couple.)

This movie is like having a ‘hard’ drink neat for the first time. You know…you tend to rush in, eager to gulp it down, only to find that it chars your senses mercilessly. Everything swims before your dilated eyes, and you find yourself adrift, time and space blurring, till you are one with a universal rhyming continuum. It’s best to watch it 15 minutes at a time, with sufficient time in between to allow your neurons and auditory nerves to recover.

The movie opens with a slew of baddies who introduce themselves one by one, with a lot of ominous panache, so that you know who is who (strong characterization – that integral aspect of story telling).

The villains in this movie (definitely will) make you flinch on more than one occasion, least of all when they introduce themselves thus…

Lambu Atta – “Deta hoon maut ka chaanta”
Bulla – “Sab karta hoon khullam khulla”
Chutiya – (just so that you know… chutiya as in tuft of hair; also, this character is probably the most evil hermaphrodite portrayed in Bollywood. Ever.) – “Acche acchon ki khadi karta hoon khatiya”
Pote – “Jo apne baap ke bhi nahi hote”
Ibu Hatela – “Maa meri chudail ki beti, Baap shaitan ka chela, Kyon? Khaayega Kela?”

The story line revolves around how one man fights against the system where “gundagiri and netagiri ek hi baap ke do haraami aulaad hai”, and emerges triumphant in the end. But first up, you are shown that there are no limits to what depths evil can sink (that goes for the celluloid portrayal too).

Lambu Atta starts a bloody gang war by murdering one of Bulla’s henchmen. This triggers a wave of fraternal and sisterly retaliation by either party, which culminates in Lambu’s tragic demise. In his final moment, Lambu pleads for his life, offering to take care of Bulla’s carnal pleasures for life by supplying him whatever he wants, to the extent of promising to act like a prophylactic to save him from AIDS. When death is starkly imminent, he boldly declares that he would rather be castrated than dead. Bulla immediately kills him, shocked at his perversity. I was too.

Next, Bulla’s Brother, Kala Shetty kills a minister, and it’s time for God to make his entry. Prabhuji plays a coolie, and is seen in an airport in the movie, which is a revelation in itself. Weird as this may seem, this scene makes a very powerful case for class empowerment, and is a prophetic indication of how cheap airfares would be in 21^st century India. It takes amazing vision, and a deep understanding of aviation economics to be able to portray something that would have been totally ridiculous back then (really… what’s a coolie doing at an airport? This movie came out in the late 90s.) and makes perfect sense now.

Anyways, Prabhuji bitchslaps your senses with
“Main hoon jurm se nafrat karne waala, gareebon ke liye chiraag, goondon ke liye jwaala” and helps the cops make
their arrest.

Bulla then sets about making Prabhuji’s life hell. He has his father(a constable) beaten up, his sister entrapped by deceitfully getting her married off to a provider of carnal services and then getting her advantage taken by Chutiya in his quest to become a red blooded male, and ultimately gets them both killed.

Prabhuji snaps and declares that he will kill them all in 10 days
“Ek, do, chaar, chhe, dus. Bus.”

On his way back, he finds Bulla’s bastard kid in a dustbin which had been discarded as “Haseena ka paseena” a couple of frames earlier, when Haseena, his love, had told Bulla some ‘good news’. True to form, Bulla kills her, and jettisons the kid. (He probably didn’t want an impressionable young mind to be party to all his evil.)

Prabhuji heart-rendingly laments
“Har kadam par khoon hai, har kadam par paap, paap karne mein yeh insaan, shaitaan ke bhi baap”, and adopts the kid.

Then Prabhuji goes about killing all of Bulla’s men in places as diverse as a graveyard, a surreal brothel with cots hanging from the ceiling, a public urinal, a ministerial cavalcade, to a bedroom.

The final showdown is strongly reminiscent of the big battle scenes in the the Lord Of the Rings epics, with Bulla looking really malevolent as he gets his army to the arena in auto rickshaws. It reminded me of the charge of the dark forces of Sauron, it is every bit as chilling.

Prabhuji restores some semblance of sanity to this world (and thereby to you), by killing Bulla. His parting shot?

“Tera naam hai Bulla. Maut ke baad bhi reh jaayega tera mooh khulla. Yaaeeeessh.”

True. True.

This movie is definitely not for you if all you like are strait laced, gory, bloody action movies and revenge dramas. It really, really pushes the envelope and like I said before, the baser aspects of the human psyche are not easy to capture without being mercilessly brutal. And this movie shines when it does that. It would be a very safe statement to say that you can watch Loha with your mother, when contrasted with this. And that people, is REALLY an understatement.

Tag! I’m It!

2006-09-06T13:45:00.000+05:30

Evidently, I’d been tagged a while back by Supremus, to describe five things I found ‘most weird’ about me. Hell, there’s enough and more to go around. Let’s just start with the first five I can think of…

Passport Photos:
Getting a passport photo clicked is one of the most irritating activities for me. Here’s why. First up there’s always this garish, reddish hued studio room, with really really cheap, disconcerting wallpaper on one wall. A hint of cheap talcum powder perfume in the air, along with a miserable looking dressing table in the corner with exactly 3 combs and a hairbrush. I always have to take my glasses off (‘reflect aayenga fotu mein’) and wear just a frame sans lenses, which invariably offsets my cheekbone structure beautifully. And then the pressure of staring into the camera trying to keep my neck still, with those two stupid umbrellas with lights lending a surreal touch to it all. (My neck starts bobbing like a turkey’s – stop smirking, had seen one at an Irani café here once). And the clincher? Trying not to blink. I’m mortified at the thought of having to pay for a set of photos with me at my meditative acme.
The end result? Evidently not my Sunday best, given how people hoot and whoop whenever I show them my ‘passport photo’.

My Surname:
It’s the weirdest thing I have ever possessed. Just say it out aloud. Hoskeri (New lake when literally translated from Kannada). It sounds so freaking I don’t know… Alien? Whacko? Bizzaro? Unlike anything you’ve ever heard before innit? Has been known to make everyone from prospective job givers to security guards just stare at me as if I was from Switzerland (was told that by a college senior) or Kashmir(!) (courtesy an ex-colleague), and guffaw like somebody told them that job satisfaction actually exists in the IT industry (even the security folks laughed like that mind you…). Was called ‘Hosie Posie’ and ‘Horse Curry’ for a while in school, if it eases your pain…
(Add to that my first name which is roundly taken to be ‘Thapal’,’Sampat’ or ’Kappan’ and you will know why I just LOVE to introduce myself to strangers…)

Left shoe before right:
Ahh… this one goes back a long way. Had read a Milind Soman interview way back when I was a kid, in the Saturday Times colour supplement. He had confessed to being a little superstitious, always putting on his left shoe before his right. I was deeply impressed…and I went to myself that must really work…LOOK at him! I started doing the same, and to this day, I continue to do so.
Hope springs eternal etc etc…

The Exam dream:
Now this is a weird one to explain away. Even now, I get nightmares that I have an exam to give tomorrow, and that I don’t know jack. It’s usually Mathematics related, though I have dreamt of really esoteric ones like World History, English Literature, Economics and Analog and Digital Integrated Circuit Design too. The beauty of the whole thing is that in the dream, I’m fully aware that I’m a working professional, and that my job hasn’t left me enough time to actually study. But there is always that fear that I won’t get my degree (or get my degree taken away) if I get a KT (flunk) in this exam. Always.
And the sense of sheer relief that I get on waking up, and how I go back to bed with a smile on my fevered lips? Indescribable.

The Pee Dream:
[Caution – stop reading if you value your finer sensibilities]
And finally.
Ever have this dream when you have gone to bed with a semi-full bladder? It’s early morning, and Nature has been gradually filling it up with the regulatory excretory golden dew over the hours. You are coasting along, having a wonderful dream about whatever makes you happy, and sometime early in the a.m., you suddenly HAVE to pee. In the dream that is. And then beautifully, still in the dream, you alter the story line, find an alibi, and locate a loo (or conjure up one if it’s really urgent – this is what I love about dreams) and then just at the right moment, as you’re about to do the deed, you are slapped wide awake. To do the needful in the real world.
Ever experienced this? If you haven’t, I’m all alone. Boo hoo.

End of confessional.

Why Bad Roads Are Well... Actually Good For You

2006-08-23T18:56:00.000+05:30

First up, how else do you expect the employees of the various agencies who look after these roads to survive on the salaries that you give them? Out of your taxes? Downright impossible. If you build roads that last for more than a year, then where would they be? Have a heart before you crib twice. Supporting a family don't come easy, my people. A man has to do what he's got to do.

For too long, car and tyre manufacturers have been crowing about superior suspensions and smoother rides. Somebody has to do the dirty job of actually proving them all wrong. You know, exposing that niggly little asterisk which leads to the fine print called "Under standard test conditions". As if such conditions exist in the real world. The claims like their superior suspensions deserve to be blown to smithereens. How can they possibly mislead the general public thus? How?!

With increasing urbanization, people really do not get enough exercise (eyeball exercise which occurs as a result of leching at women doesn't really burn too many calories). Our rural brothers anyways get a lot of exercise, what with those trips for water, healthcare and food. In the greater public interest, somebody actually has to whip our sedentary urban behinds into some semblance of shape. And what better way than to get a full body particulate blasting? Every molecule in your body when shaken, gets excited and reaches a higher energy level. Then when it comes back to the original state, releases a lot of energy, which has miraculous lipid burning properties. So it's all in the public good. We do not want obesity problems do we? Will add to the problem of plenty that we perenially face. This also serves as a good way to cut down your dietary intake while commuting. With all that lurching, you will not really want to stuff yourself like the greedy little pig that you are, not just before travelling at least.

In another technological marvel, the roads that we get to travel on, actually look to be built using a sugar composite. A very farsighted move (pun intended if applicable), considering how we should be reducing our dependency on petroleum and related products which go into the whole road building process. So what if the roads get washed away every year, on the first advent of a couple of millimeters of rain? A small price to pay if you ask me. The nation's self sufficiency in Energy resources is at stake here.

"What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?" as good old W H Davies put it. Evidently somebody in the agencies is a RABID fan of that particular poet. A very noble and laudable effort that, considering the only thing I want to do while going home at 10 in the night, is to stand AND stare at traffic or watch my fingernails grow. Kinda teaches you about the bigger picture. There IS somebody who thinks about you, who cares for you, who wants you to understand what life is all about. I'm so choking up as I type this. Thank You!

And lastly, bad roads do go a long way in promoting foreign investment. At least in the IT and allied sectors. Let me explain how. Ever see that Chevy with that big shot foreigner dude sitting in that plush white leather back seat, rocking away to glory going WTF?! WTF?! He just can't believe it. Software powerhouse of the world, and roads straight out of Bosnia. One more tale of diversity to take home, apart from the standard ones of people taking a dump just outside our 'IT Parks'. What does this translate into? Firstly, it contributes richly to our 'poor' image. This kind of colouring will ensure that even if the hourly billing rate goes up by a buck or two, it won't be that noticeable. They'd figure that we probably need that money for infrastructure development. How expensive can their software services get when their roads are so poor?

You've GOT to give credit where it's due. I for one have totally stopped cribbing.

Of Credence And The Clear Water Revival

2006-08-21T00:41:00.000+05:30

Where do we even begin? The media is all agog with the story of how Mahim creek suddenly has 'sweet water' instead of the usual quality fare. Check this link out for example.

A little bit about Mahim Creek :
A fantastically vile stretch of sea front (!), which is guaranteed to polish off a good portion of your nasal epithelium every time you pass by it en route to Bandra or the western suburbs. Cheek by jowl is a dirty flowing stretch of water with hutments all around, lined with people who defecate, pee and bathe openly in it. All in all, a typical slice of Mumbai life and definitely not a place where you would like to stress AND load test your immune system.

But the hordes of people who have been flocking there to taste the 'sweet water' obviously think otherwise. It's times like these that all those homilies you would have read about Education and how it could change lives, start to hit home. Even if this is a supernatural phenomenon, it could have at least have done a better job in filtering that water a mite better as well, considering the water looked as brown as well... anything brown you can think of ( was gonna insert a scatological pun there, but hey...).

But nothing, and I mean nothing typifies the Mumbai side of the deal thus. People flocked to the sea shore to have a dip and sip, but they had nothing to carry back some for their family back home. Enter enterprising mineral water sellers. 10 buck bottles were pumped up to 50 bucks and upwards. People bought them, emptied out fresh mineral water, and carried home the elixir.

Now I know why a couple of guys in the background just couldn't stop grinning. The 'ispirit' of enterprise lives on. And how.

Electronic News Bites

2006-07-16T18:18:00.000+05:30

Been a couple of weird-ass weeks in Mumbai city, first came the rains, then came the blasts. Each of these incidents were covered brilliantly by our ever capable and hard working electronic media guys. How brilliantly you might want to ask...

This is how...

First, let's take up the rains.
It rained like it always does at this time of the year, and the city shut shop for a couple of days like it always has been doing for all these years. Only, till last year, we didn't have these guys risking everything to tell us what we actually should be knowing. Even if we don't really care. All that we got to see a couple of years back were photos in the TOI the next day, and read reports about how the city took a day or two off.

But now?

Intrepid reporter, suitably soaked, does his stuff, and gives us his views on everything right from the BMC’s inefficiency, to the volume of rain measured in the last half a minute. Stands in a waterlogged area for enhanced visual appeal. The junta in the background gawk at the camera as if they are seeing an alien life-form in a bikini, elbowing each other and the reporter to be ‘seen’, and dazzle us with their million dollar smiles. Cut back to dude in the studio, wearing his best Sunday suit.

“Aur aap dekh rahe hain…. Mumbai behaal. Jagah jagah paani ke bhar jaane se train tatha bus ki aawa-jaahi pe bhaari prabhaav. Log sehme hue hain, dare hue hain… par himmat nahi hare hain…Isiko Mumbai ki ‘ispirit’ kehte hain… jo duniya ki koi sheher mein nahi dekhne ko milegi. Kahaa jaata hai yahaan ke log kabhi himmat nahi haarte hain, hamesha museebaton ka dat ke saamna karte hain, aur is baar bhi Mumbai ne apna kamaal dikha hi diya.”

I could have sworn I had heard the same thing last year. Not a word out of place. You wouldn’t have known if they were showing this footage from last year, considering how cleverly they were juxtaposing last year’s waterlogging videos with this year’s, whenever they were a little short of drama.

Cut to footage of street urchins having a whale of a time on the flooded streets.
“Dekhiye Mumbaikar kitna anand utha rahe hain barsaat ki, pareshaaniyon ka saamna karte hue…”

That those wretches would have access to a recreational water body only at this time of the year is purely co-incidental. It simply means that the entire city is having fun in the rains.

Then came the blasts.
Time for even more tact and delicacy.

Cut to suited dude again, in front of an electronic map of Mumbai behind him, with all the explosion sites marked out. “7/11" written in bold on top of the screen. The last time I checked, we still wrote dates as dd/mm/yy. But then 7/11 is slightly easier on the tongue, and has a nice catchy ring to it.

Then suited guy repeated “(time) ko bum dhamaka” 8 times ad nauseam every time we returned from an ad break. Was enough to make you wish he would get a case of fissures in his dorsal cavity. A very apt series of bum dhamakas those would have been there.

Suited dude then tries to patch in another fearless reporter from the frontlines. A technical snag later, he’s left staring at us, blankly. We stare back expectantly, feeling something in our bones. Something good was about to come, or about to give. Then suddenly in a divine burst of inspiration, he lets this rip. Wonder what he was smoking during the ad breaks. Whatever it was, it was freaking good.

“Aur aap dekh rahein hai yeh aankdon (numbers) ka gazab khel”.

(Us: WTF?!)

“Aaj saat july hai, 7/11, aur aaj 11 minute ke andar, 7 bum dhamake huey…”

(Us: WTF?! WTF?! WTF?!)

Another edgy stare into the camera, and then he realizes he’s screwed up royally. He’s been screaming himself hoarser than a vegetable vendor outside Dadar station, stating that there were 8 bum dhamakas in all. Colossal.

To his credit, he pulls himself together very quickly, and then without batting an eyelid, says

“Maaf keejiyega, kul milaake 8 dhamake huey, 7 train mein, aur ek Borivli platform pe. Fir bhi, agar aankdon ko milaaya jaay, to 7 bum dhamake train mein, 11 minute mein. Waakai, acharaj ki baat hai.”

Was left marveling. Waakai boss, acharaj ki baat hai.

Short Story - The Holy Cow

2006-07-13T23:42:00.002+05:30

The agnostic woke up with a sense of unbearable irritation. Travelling seemingly halfway across the world to get to the place where he didn’t want to go, to fix up something that he didn't want to do, wasn't his idea of a perfect Saturday. It would be much better spent lying on his bed, staring emptily into space. Still, what had to be done, had to be done, a price to pay for being part of human society.

The humid afternoon air pleased him no end as he travelled to the outskirts of the city, till the temple trust office. It was spanking new, with that curious lack of awe and spirituality, which modern temples somehow failed to
evoke. It almost tried too hard to be taken seriously as a holy place, and failed. A black stray dog fixed an irritated eye on him, panted a couple of times and promptly went back to sleep.

He entered the office, where he found the head priest, a balding, corpulent old man in his fifties, sweating profusely in front of a table fan. The heat was making the priest want to curse aloud, but he bit his tongue since
he was sitting just a couple of feet away from the sanctum sanctorum. He was god-fearing to a fault, of course.
Another junior priest hovered self-importantly in the background, plainly with nothing to do.

The priest regarded his visitor, the first customer of the day, with a careful eye. Jeans, tee shirt, and sneakers. A new generation kid. He knew their type. No culture, no respect for God. All they cared about was money. And were willing to do anything for it.

The agnostic went up and said,
"I've got to do a death anniversary ceremony, for my father."

The priest asked for the perfunctory religious data, which he got in the form of a scrap of paper bearing all the info required.

"But of course. All written down on a sheet of paper." the priest thought.
"He wouldn't even know what's written in this…modern educated folk, so out of touch with our traditions and customs. And he's supposed to be a Brahmin."
The priest shuddered slightly.

The agnostic came straight to the point

"What's it going to cost me?"

"Let's see... the ceremony charges will be around a 1000, along with a donation of 500 to the trust, along with two silver cows, two silver plates, two silver cups, and two silver spoons. And of course, the dakshina at the end of it. And you will have to do a generic ceremony which appeases all gods which will cost you another 1000."

The agnostic wrote it down, and fixed up a probable date.

The day of the ceremony dawned a blistering hot Monday. The whole family would be there to shed tears of fond remorse over somebody who really had never been part of their inner circle. They were there because of their social compulsions too. The way everybody came forward with some kind of fond remembrance or incident, which proved how close he or she was to the deceased, was really touching. The fact that they hardly ever bothered to keep in touch when he was alive really did not matter. Death conquers all, and infuses a sudden sense of belonging and love, which just never existed before.

The agnostic watched the relatives come in reluctantly, much against their will. He nodded at the few who had come in because of genuine reasons, and the rest, he just saw through. Not everybody likes to take a day off. No.

The head priest looked at the turnout and was pretty happy with the numbers. He motioned to the agnostic to come meet him. The agnostic went up, and sat in front of him.

"Have you brought everything I had asked for?"

"More or less…"

The priest's brow furrowed. He didn't like the shape of things to come.

"What do you mean?"

The agnostic smiled, and started taking things out of his backpack.

One set of silver paraphernalia, and one set made of copper. That included the cows too.

The priest stared at them, his disappointment growing more crushing by the minute.

"I had asked you for two silver sets! This is not acceptable!"

”But it is not mandated anywhere in any scripture or holy book. That was what you demanded. And this is what I am willing and able to give you. Iccha daana.” the agnostic quietly said.

“Also, I will not be doing the generic ceremony, since that is not advised by our family’s seniors. We’ve never heard of it being done for a death anniversary, and we are not about to start a new precedent.”

The junior priest in the meanwhile was bustling about in the background, dejectedly looking on at the proceedings.

There went his silver set. And his generic ceremony fee. The agnostic looked at him out of the corner of his eye and suppressed the huge laugh that just wanted to come out. It took a lot of effort.

The head priest took a couple of minutes to recover. He hadn’t expected the agnostic to be so aware. There wasn’t much he could do. This was a least expected turn of events, and with so many people already around, he was plainly outnumbered. He steeled himself and got on with the proceedings. The agnostic refused to maintain any kind of eye contact with the priest, as he just went about doing the rituals, as told.

Once the ceremony was over, the agnostic kept the required cash as dakshina in the holy platter, and walked away as fast as he could from the place.

“Even death has a price, a role in the entire value chain. They have to make money off these sentiments too…” the agnostic thought.

He felt suffocated, and his eyes were stinging. It had partly to do with all that holy smoke.

“People don’t realize that we have to run a profit centre here. The monthly bills aren’t exactly cheap…”

reflected the priest, as he watched the agnostic walk away. A bit too hastily, he thought.

Java J2EE Interview Questions

2006-06-25T14:13:00.000+05:30

Click here for a list of (painstakingly - oh the humanity) *personally/telephonically* compiled 'Java J2EE interview questions'.

And The Rain Gods Laugheth. All Over Again.

2006-06-01T23:50:00.000+05:30

Ah, ‘tis time to girdle your loins, lads and ladettes, cos the rain gods, they toyeth with us all over again, spreading immeasurable joy, lack of sunshine and other assorted, unmentionable feelings amongst the general wretched populace which has to travel any distance, however small, to get to the place which gives you your daily bread, wherever it may be.

Why do I LOVE the monsoons so? A small compendium right here…

When else would you get to marvel at the sheer dare-devilry of our ‘agencies’ who go about working on the city’s infrastructure, to actually make a difference to your quality of life?
“Dare-devilry?! Pah!!!!”
Yeah… go on and scoff all you want…but let me tell you this…it takes real guts to go about digging fresh sections of reasonably sane roads just a week before the rains are expected (not on the basis of any fancy stochastic weather model, but on the pure common sense one). It is precisely this optimistic, reason-ignoring, fearless attitude that is making the city what it is today. In fact they are laying lives on the line to make it all happen. Just don’t ask whose.

The monsoons invariably teach you how our sewage system works down to the micro-level. There’s no better time to get an actual live, hands-on demo to check out the fate of the swirling, writhing mass comprising of semi-solid human and animal waste, assorted urea based natural excretions, twigs, dead leaves, branches, gutkha packets, biscuit and chocolate wrappers, plastic bags, fruit and vegetable peels, coconut shells, cassette tape, and humongous chunks of thermocol, which besieges your feet as you walk down to your destination because surprise surprise, the roadways are flooded, and vehicles cannot and do not see any point in moving even an inch. Your life would be so much the poorer if you didn’t know where all the above mentioned stuff went. And it does snap you out of your nonchalance about the whole waste disposal deal and ensures that you KNOW what happens to what. The most advantaged are the younger generations, since they learn the basics of drainage and sewage disposal so early on in life. The country need never fear a shortage of Civil Engineers.

When else would you get to read those ‘celebrating the monsoons’ articles in the media which appear with unforgiving, relentless regularity every single year? Every year, there has to be a genius reporter who will suggest that you eat ‘pakodas/bhajjiyas’ with a steaming hot cup of ‘adrak chai’, and feel like you don’t have a care in the world. I mean, this is what we LIVE for right? Cynical fools like me are bound to get that ‘read it a billion times before’ feeling, but I am assuming there is a whole new segment of readers EVERY year, who really don’t know how special this particular food combination is at this time of the year, until they read at least 10 articles devoted to this and other ‘monsoon recipes’. So I’m really happy for them. Really.

When else would you get to read those ‘what do you do in the monsoon months?’ questionnaires hurled at movie and TV ‘celebrities’? This is quality reading at its very best, trust me… Count on the ‘trips to (standard monsoon getaway)’, ‘pakodas and chai at home’,and the extremely enlightening ‘I don’t do anything special’ responses. If not, you get your money back…but hold on…most of this ‘literature’ is free in the first place. Damn.

When else can you read sappy, insulin generation inhibiting articles about the ‘Spirit and Resilience of Mumbai’, after a particularly harsh day’s worth of rain and actually feel try and feel ‘good’ about it? And then it dawns on you that you have been exhibiting this ‘spirit’ for ages now(every ****ing year actually) and are actually used and inured to the whole show. Some spirit that… it should be actually spelt as ‘majboori’.

End of rant.

Note:
This was inspired by just an hour and a half’s worth of steady rain yesterday, thanks to which it took me 4 hours to get home instead of the usual 2. There will be a lot more to jot down, as the season wears on. I can feel it in my bones.

The Chronicles Of Eternia

2006-05-21T01:09:00.000+05:30

Came across these Skeletor spoofs, which brought back fond memories about the one serial that had enraptured the entire kiddie population I knew when I was a kid. Back in the good old DD days, He-Man ruled the roost for half an hour every week. I was introduced to this when I was in the first standard. What attracted me then were the ‘laser sound’ (which went something like ‘tchkonnngg’) effects, so unlike the ‘toffee-shawwww, toffee-shawwww-hoo’ gunshot sounds which were part of my rich Bollywood diet. I would wake up religiously in time for this show on Sundays. Couldn’t quite understand what they were saying at that age, but was real fun to watch all the same. (I remember getting up late once, and asked my parents to write a letter immediately to DD so that they show it again. Just for me… and howling hard when they laughed…)

The second wave came when I was in the third standard. DD re-ran the series, and I was actually beginning to make out what they were saying. It was hypnotic to say the least. A very classy cartoon series, the first one I ever watched in fact. The highlight was a smarmy moral at the end of each episode, where Prince Adam would show us how a certain character fouled up and what we ought to learn from it…

My favourite characters were Orko – with his very Bollywood ,Rajendranath type interludes, Stratos – reminded me of Garuda, Cringor/Battle Cat – the timid tiger/wise-cracking badass who also ‘transformed’ like Prince Adam/He-Man when he did the “By the power of Grayskull…I have the Poooowwerrr!!” routine (which we would try and imitate complete with the tiger roars and lightning and thunder claps at every chance we got), Skeletor – by far the coolest, and of course – the lovely Teela.

With the TV series, came the great doll collecting monomania, with Leo-Mattel introducing action figures of the main characters. Gujju kids would be the first to buy every single one available, and flaunt them shamelessly in our not-so-freely-spending—‘service’-waale-parents-ka-kids’ faces. We would have to wait till we either ‘came first’ in the school exams, or bawl loudly in front of relatives/parents' friends so that your parents would buy one for you just so that you shut the **** up, or strategically inform people that your birthday is fast approaching and you’re SUCH a BIG He-Man fan…
My parents were downright aghast when they learnt that each doll cost 50 bucks, and did nothing more than a cheesy ‘power punch’ when rotated around the waist (there would be a huge blurb on the package announcing this as if it involved advanced nano-circuitry). No batteries, no bling. Which is a valid reaction, considering what 50 bucks could get you back then (circa 1988). The action figures were OK in terms of the finish and the weapons/armour that came with them, but the most disappointing one was the Castle Grayskull set. It was just a thin sheet of tacky plastic, just a front façade. Definitely not what one should be paying 500-600(!) bucks for… check this out too see what I mean.

This series was probably the earliest instance I can recall of truly crazy branded merchandizing…for a government-rationed television time nation with mainstream media that actually printed real news and (gasp) no Internet, we surprisingly had everything from He-Man erasers (both the ordinary pieces with his photo on it, and the really tacky small plastic figures, which you had to separate at the waist to get to the eraser) to note-books, to playing cards, flash cards, stickers, 'notebook labels', tee shirts, caps, plastic Power Swords and Shields and baba suits. The last such wave here in India was probably Pokemon, but it is too trivial and vague to ever match up to this, which was like a proper Chicken Pox rash.

Then there were these little comic-booklets which cost 1.50 bucks apiece, with classily done artwork, newer characters and slightly darker story lines than the TV series. Some 11 sets of four booklets each in all, all collected by us with single-minded devotion. Anyone who had the complete collection automatically became sort of like an alpha-kid at school.

Then came the (classic B-) movie – The Masters Of The Universe. This had Courteney Cox in it, much much before she hit the big time, and Dolph Lundgren as He-Man. Was really frustrated at seeing Orko look like something like a geriatric Gremlin. And Skeletor had eyes that blinked, instead of pure black evil sockets, and spoke in a hoarse whisper instead of that irritatingly whiny, nagging high-pitched voice. No good. Would prefer the TV series/comics any day…I remember loving Skeletor’s hench-men in the movie though – they had these really cool black metal armours, and they used flying shields to get about.

Just wonder how popular He-Man would have been in today's times, given the ephemeral brand shelf lives and attention spans, and digital games. Would be nice to imagine if the creators of this series even know how big this was once upon a time, in far-off, then not-so-well-connected India.

Us Kanna Diggaz…

2006-05-07T00:06:00.001+05:30

I am a non-resident Kannadiga, and I didn’t know I was one till I was in the eight standard. No existentialist stuff here, I knew I hailed from Karnataka, but I didn’t know I was called a Kannadiga. I first read that word in the Times Of India, which had a section on communities and stuff, and immediately found it a mouthful. Somehow seems a bit clunky to say. Also, with that name and surname combination of mine, I ALWAYS get asked where I’m from. One senior back in those ragging days helpfully asked me whether I was from Switzerland to which I blushingly replied to in the negative.

The safest answers are
“Ghar pe Kannada baat karta hai”
Or
“I hail from Karnataka…”

Only southies (bless you brothers…) understand the word ‘Kannadiga’. Most others just goggle back at you like you’ve called them something real nasty. “Kya bola?!”

Once, to the “I hail…” answer… I got this back
“Oh… so that means you are (struggle struggle…think think…finally shrug) Kanadian…?”
I said yes, and that was the end of that. I really did not want to take it any further.

That one line really summarizes how little people know about us. Each community has its own ‘brand recall’.
Some examples (caution - these are merely indicative, to be taken with a regular salt pan)

Tams – Mathematics. Rice. Deadly Combo.
Mallus – ‘Gulf’. Coconut. Banana Chips.
Gultis – Dowry. Food so spicy, it chars your alimentary canal (don’t ask me which end…).
Gujjus – Obscene amounts of money. Baap ka business. The Stock Market.
Sindhis – Papads (somebody please explain this to me…).
Bongs – Intellect. The 'firebrand' tag. Passion.
Punjus – Some connection somewhere with a transport company. Makke di roti and sarson da saag (gritting my teeth as I write this – MOTHER of all clichés).
Madus – Ah well…let’s just say… thrift. And leave it at that…

Now try and think about something for a Kannadiga. I for one am hard pressed. What exactly can you throw up? (No pun intended)

IT? Too nouveau to compete with the rich traditionalism and sense of history which goes with the other examples above.

Sandalwood? The association throws up another image altogether of certain erstwhile mustachioed jungle denizens.

Raagi mudde and soppina saaru? Somehow they haven’t really caught on to the national consciousness like the makke ki roti deal.

One word answer? Not much (that’s two words…so there).

There’s probably no single defining signature that defines us as a people, or a community. Kannadigas as a rule are brilliant at cultural camouflage, or so I’d like to believe. Take the ‘North Karnataka’ people for example. Before Karnataka came about, it was part of the Bombay Province which included present-day Maharashtra. For all facts and purposes, their culture, customs and dressing sense is the same as that of Maharashtrians. Add surnames to that too. It is famously said that if you hurl a stone in Dharwad, it will knock down a Patil, a Deshpande and at least 2 Kulkarnis. The type of Kannada spoken here is much more robust, earthy and has a healthy dose of Marathi word usage than the version spoken in Bangalore. So when people from these regions come down to Mumbai, it’s not too difficult to pass off as a Maharashtrian…some go on to lose touch with Kannada altogether, depending on how Marathi-influenced their neighbourhood is.

Kannadigas also have certain favourite professions, beyond which they will not venture out. When was the last time you heard of a Kannadiga diamond merchant or a steel king or an oil tycoon? But you would have had at least a couple of Kannadiga teachers/profs back at school/college. Teaching, banking, and government services are where the majority of the earlier generation were, now just add ‘Computeru’ for the current one. That said, it’s a matter of pride to see a Narayan Murthy and a Nandan Nilekani go on and break this non risk-taking mould. Probably the only really ‘business’ community that we can boast of is the Shetty community. These guys know how to run food joints, and boy do they run a tight ship. The chances of you finding a non-Shetty run mid-price-level restaurant or a bar are (a very confident) nil (at least in Mumbai).

It is this lack of a sweeping cliché which works out very nicely in our case, especially since we can take fantastic pot-shots at our 'other-community-belonging' friends, and laugh even harder as they stutter, gasp and fumble to come up with a retaliatory pejorative, usually “Abbe aye madrasi”, or “Abbe aye anna”, which slides smoothly off our curd-rice nourished skins. Because A, they are not a 100% true fit (Madrasi? Anna? Heh Heh), and B, they don’t have the venomous bite of a “Chup saala Gujju/Kutcchi/Marwadi…” or a “Chal bhag…Papad saala”.

Blessed be.

Satkar

2006-04-26T01:04:00.000+05:30

Everybody has a favourite watering hole. With any job, comes a little spare money, wherein you can splurge once in a while on some good food, booze and whatever else that rocks your world. But it is that one ‘college’ watering hole which gives you that warm fuzzy feeling when you look back on your flirtations with Bacchus. No amount of hard cash, fine dining or extra-courteous service can give you the sheer idiotic thrill that you would get when you would juggle your princely pocket money rations, save and plan for days, just to get your paws on a glass of beer.

Back in RAIT, the universal refuge that we sought from the rigours of getting a Mumbai University degree in Navi Mumbai was a place called (sigh…) Satkar. To the untrained F.E. eye, it did not exactly look like a place you would die to go to (not to say blog about a good five years after graduation later). Nestled behind a petrol pump bang opposite the college gate, it was pretty much a jewel in the rough, and was usually unveiled by our seniors through either direct invites (to get ragged there of course) or when we would overhear them mooning non-stop about it. It looks every bit like a truck driver’s stop-over. (Appearances are oh not-so deceptive here, must admit. I for one really don’t know how far things have changed, and hope it still retains its shall we say… rustic charm)

We’d have to climb up 3 steps to enter its hallowed precincts, to be faced with roughly 5 tables and 10 benches, all formica topped with an inviting layer of grime. The Non-AC section would grin like a mangy, toothless old lady at you as it had a fantastic tendency to appear pitch dark even at noon. This was the spot frequented by some of the ‘Lab Assistant Sirs’, who would stop here now and then for a quick one.

On the other side of a glass panel and curtain laden door on your left on entering, was the AC section. Consisting of a solitary AC. After regally entering this pricier section, post a quick furtive recce inside to rule out any profs sitting inside, it would be a time for a bottle of Kingfisher, split across three people (or four on a bad day – An Old Monk quarter likewise…). A refreshing couple of glugs later, the magic of the place would take over when the ‘chakhna’ would start to appear. In unlimited quantities, refreshed every time the bowls of chakli, mixture, boiled chana, salted peanuts and papads would empty out. All this with the prices fixed wonderfully in deference to the lone AC. Which is why our Harbour Line Train pass and Engineering Payment Seat taxed pockets would cry out in sheer ecstasy at the mere mention of the name.

Speaking of the chakhna, the star special of this joint would be the ‘Soya Bean Manchurian’ thingie which would be dished out in generous (unlimited again) quantities, post 7 p.m. Was incentive enough to kill time post some really dreary practicals and go there just in time for this.

The freedom that this place provided was beautiful in the sense that the waiters and the manager would indulgently let us have our little ‘aalams’ (aka warbling sessions) right there in the AC section, provided there wasn’t anybody else who would mind. Time would just float by, till we’d all realize we were out of money as well as breath. (The only time we had our booze in relative silence was when we had a sten-gun toting, tough, athletic cop right on the next table, who was hell bent on enjoying his stuff, come what may. We sized him up and got a lot of subliminal messages…) Also, there was a small 14 inch TV nestled high up in a corner which would somehow make the crappiest of Rajesh Khanna/Dharmendra/Raj Babbar movies look and sound like the best thing we’d ever seen or heard. Curious really…

It was the first place we ran to…

after an all clear/first class to celebrate

after a KT to commiserate

after a bad day when the Lab Assistant would make you wait four blistering hours and not accept your journal work, asking you to come back the next day

get a little fortification before, during and after Aakarshan and Horizon (our college fests)

after a viva to gently nurse a thoughtful drink

anytime we really felt like it…

Add to that the hour to two hour commute which would take care of any alcohol-breath-and-mother issues. Leaning out of the train when it was passing over Vashi bridge with your mouth wide open or singing loudly in the bus back home with a great deal of camaraderie with the conductor and the co-passengers usually helped. The only time it failed was when we had Canon 10000. Was difficult to brush that fragrance out of my mouth even after three whole days…

Hollywood And A Little Deja Vu

2006-04-18T23:58:00.000+05:30

Time to visit some Hollywood clichés. For far too long poor Bollywood has been spat on, reviled and derided for churning out assembly-line productions, with the same stuff rehashed in and out. A little careful recollection tells me that masala is an inherent part of movies everywhere, irrespective of budgets, languages and locales. Some observations…

“There is no Plan B”
This is primarily found in those buddy-buddy cop-type movies. Partner A would have convinced a skeptical Partner B that he’s got all the aspects (‘plans’) covered, and that they should go right for a very risky operation, usually in the heart of the villain’s den. Things (predictably) go a liiiittle wrong, and they are usually sitting under a glass window which is shattering, with bullets and assorted shrapnel all around them.

Partner B : “A, It’s time for plan B. Do you hear me? Time for plan B!!”
Partner A : “Yea…I guess it is…”
Partner B : “OK, so what’s plan B?”
Partner A : “There’s no plan B…”

After which Partner A proceeds to jump up, firing like a maniac, Partner B utters a “Oh ****!!!!” (fill in your favourite expletive there) and proceeds to join him. Both obviously live to make another sequel.

“Who called the FEDs?”
In EVERY movie, the FBI and the local cops NEVER see eye to eye on ANY case. Any crime scene will be first visited by the local cops, and while they are doing their stuff, an FBI vehicle pulls up.
The chief of local police usually mutters “Damn…it’s the Feds…who called them here?”

FBI guy (in a suit) walks up to the party, and asks
“Who’s in charge here?”
Local Police Chief : “I am”
FBI guy : “Not any more. We are taking over.”

This causes a lot of bristling resentment amongst the local cops, which usually includes the hero. After the Feds have taken over, our hero HAS to visit the crime scene again. He usually does this by assaulting some poor FBI guy who’s doing his job by trying to block his re-entry…

“The divorced guy and his messy home syndrome”
Divorced males ALWAYS have to live in a place which resembles Andheri(East) on a particularly charming day. The effect is all the more pronounced when the ex-wife comes to drop off their kids for the weekend with her new husband/flame. There’s usually a good five minutes’ worth of oh-the-scathing-disapproval-in-the-ex-wife’s-eyes-waala shots, when the poor ex-husband tries to make space for them to sit, and tries to do a quick clean-up routine.

“I’ll pick the kids up on Saturday…”
Thanks to the court order, immediately after the preceding scene, the ex-wife wants the kids back either the same evening or within a day. The ex-husband pleads with the ex-wife, inducing the kids to join in and give off their most ‘poppet’ expressions for a day more. Sometimes the ex-wife gives in, sometimes she doesn’t. That’s the way it rolls.

“The patient car crash victims”
People just throw their hands in the air, and resign themselves to a series of accidents whenever there's a high profile car chase. These guys are then consigned to a cinematic black hole, and very few movies mention the damage caused, and who actually reimburses these poor souls. A massive headache for the insurance guys am sure. You could at least show the car insurance office. Just one scene? No?
Also, every car chase worth it’s salt involves either the chaser or the chased losing control for a stretch, and going on to a sidewalk, cutting through either a road-side café, or an ‘ethnic’ market, which always has an orange vendor who loses all his stuff. Nobody ever gets crushed to death, or even remotely scratched. Go figure.

“We, the people”
Desi characters are always introduced with the same stupid bars of sitar music in the background. It is kind of like our very own ‘Intel Inside’ aural token. Also, the accent which these guys usually have is so wonderfully unique and let’s just say Simpsonian, I’ve never ever heard it in this huge stinking melting pot called Mumbai.

You Know You're New To Mumbai When...

2006-04-09T23:11:00.000+05:30

You are in a suburban train going to a suburb in the morning at around 8 a.m. and you dare to get down on the side where the platform is approaching, at either the last stop of the train, or any station starting three stops from the last. Most logical, right? What the **** else are you supposed to do? But here’s what happens - you are met by a seething, cursing mass of bodies that rushes into the train before it stops and starts boarding it with naked aggression straight out of a National Geographic TV special on elephants in ‘mast’. This is called the 'return maarna routine' where people from around three stations prior to the suburban terminus go there first, and then go back all the way downtown in the same train. All to get a seat, or a comfortable standing space, because the train gets lethally crowded from the suburban starting point. You are supposed to stand at the ‘far side’ so to speak…let the junta get in, writhe, abuse and manhandle their way to their seats and ‘stands’, and THEN it’s your turn in the writhing order, to somehow squiggle your way through to the ‘platform side’. If you are lucky, you get to alight; else it’s back to where you came from sonny. It’s that simple. And cruel.

You catch the last train of the night a couple of stations from the origin, and actually expect to get a comfortable entry, seat and exit. Har-Dee-Har-Har. (That evil laugh is amplified a million-fold if the station is Dadar…)

You never stop marvelling at the subtle class distinction inherent in our local trains here, where the second class (where the proletariat travels) has the concept of the ‘fourth seat’. The Spartan wooden benches in these compartments are meant to seat 3 people, but thanks to the adjusting factor of the Mumbai Manoos, people are obliged to huddle together and accommodate 4 people. It doesn’t matter that the fourth sitter can accommodate just one butt-cheek. All that matters is that he’s got a seat on the wonderful journey home. It takes just five minutes of walking to get the circulation back…contrast that with what maybe an hour’s worth of homo-erotic rubbing and jostling would do to you. Scary. However, this fourth seat funda fails when there is a ‘ladies’ sitting. (“Arre kaisa sarkega? Ladies log hai ladies…”). All this is just not observed in the snooty, white-collar dominated first class. Three means three. Period. I have a feeling this ‘rule’ might not last for long though…just a matter of time.

You actually ask people how many kms is place B from place A. You are usually met with a brusque, flat answer in terms of time – “20 Minutes” for example. NO Mumbaikar I know has EVER answered back in terms of kilometers, meters or furlongs(yes…they use that term in Bangalore. Quaint, what?). It’s ALWAYS in terms of time here.

You actually get affected by the poverty and the sheer number of beggars, lepers, handicapped people and street urchins. Also, you believe that the women begging at signals and the infants that they brandish to tug at your purse strings are actually related to each other.

You are catching a train late-ish at night, and you are surprised to see well made up, middle-aged and young women in bright outfits and sarees waiting around the ticket counter and the footbridge. The first thought that pops up is that it’s a marriage party returning from somewhere, waiting to buy tickets or to catch up with the rest of the company which might be en route. It’s only when a middle-aged one smiles foxily at you, and maybe sticks out her tongue for a fraction of a second, that you realize that that’s really not the case… (The same applies to well-dressed males standing underneath bus stops late at night, who slide up to cars which slow by, and ask people whether they can help them with something…)

You just can’t believe that you’ll get something to eat at 3 a.m. at practically every place in the city. And it’s not just like one lonely street vendor; you will have a proper, proverbial smorgasbord to choose from. Granted, the grub won’t be exactly hygienic, healthy or haute, but it will do what it’s supposed to do – give your stomach something to mull over for the next 8 hours or so. Add cigarettes, tea, coffee (courtesy the cycle-waala dudes of Tamil origin or ‘Annas’ as they are called) and booze to the list too.

You find it blindingly ironic that the miserable people selling ‘the apparatus that wards off the evil eye’, consisting of a lemon, a couple of chillies, and a piece of coal all connected by a bit of tin wire, themselves could do with a little bit of ‘bura nazar’ alleviation in their lives…

What Brings You All Here?

2006-04-05T00:38:00.000+05:30

Idiotic rhetoric aside, did a random sampling of the top Google search results which have drawn people to this rag – and the results are very very interesting.

“Indus Creed mp3s”, "Colourblind mp3s"
This stuff is rarer than hen’s teeth, get a couple of hits everyday. These guys rock. Click here.

“Wardat” , “Surakksha” , “Gunmaster G9”, “bappi hits surakksha”, “complete list of Mithun movies”, “Loha”
Ob-****ing-viously, these are the MOST popular searches which somehow lead here (wonder why…). Have had hits for these from places as exotic as Somalia, Fiji, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden and Denmark. Just goes to show the kind of influence these movies have had on countless generations of Indians, both here and overseas alike. And I would like to believe, non-Indians too. Very possible. To all you folks who search for these, remember – you are not alone. Thank you for reaffirming my faith in God. I know, and HE knows.

“kaam vaasna”
We all know what he/she was searching for here eh? A Vatsyayanic, homegrown educational film perhaps? As greatbong would put it, ‘Sanskritized vulgarity—leching and molesting in Kalidasian style’

“aur sab ne rape kiya”
(WTF?!!!!!!) shudder and wonder.

“mummy randi ho gai”
(WTF?!!!!!!!!! – louder and bolder this time). Evidently, Oedipus has a net connection.

Just got me thinking…had read some place that the Google offices have a ticker which constantly flashes search queries fired from all across the world. Just makes me wonder what a never-ending source of blogworthy material THAT can be...

Mommy And The Middle Finger

2006-03-28T20:29:00.000+05:30

A while ago, I was watching a metal video at home, with the vocalist swearing, spitting, showing the audience his middle finger, body surfing, moshing, the works. Mom was watching it over my shoulder, and was on her usual righteous admonition trip –
“How can you watch this?”
“What IS he wearing?!”
“Is he high? I’m SURE he is.”
“Why do they swear so much? What do they gain by doing thus?”
“All this is very disturbing on a sub-conscious level…don’t watch it! Twisted perverted music. Frustrated creatures, all.”
“Do you understand a word of what he sings?”

I was doing the usual “Ho-hum”/”Yeah” to all of the above, when she let loose a corker.

“What does that mean when she shows the middle finger to everyone?”

My back muscles tensed, and I took a deep breath.

“Umm…I don’t know. Must be something…”

She turned me around, and confronted me, as only mothers can.

“Oh really now? You don’t know?”

(Blushing FURIOUSLY) “Yes…”

And so she cornered me with a little story, which went thus…

She teaches in an all-chick school. One day, a kid from the fifth standard (or ‘grade’ if you prefer) came bawling up to her like a character from a progressive, ‘Indian value-reinforcing’ serial. The convo was something like

Girl : “Miss, there’s this girl in my class who is doing like this like this (gesticulating, showing middle finger with both hands) to me”

Mom (NO IDEA what that action means) : “So?!”

Girl (crestfallen) : “But miss…she is doing like this like this (gesticulating again, slowly this time)”

Mom (clueless) : “So what?!!!”

Girl : “Please tell her not to do that way! Please punish her!”

Mom (exasperated) : “Don’t get affected by such things. I will scold her. Now go back to your class!”

Now my mother is quite a cat at extrapolating facts, and feeding people fluff. My memory goes back to that childhood day of mine, when I could not understand a couple of blurbs in ‘Urdu’ (came to know it was Arabic much much later), in ‘Tintin - The Land Of Black Gold’. With that primal childhood instinct, where you always believe ‘Mom WOULD know’, I went up to her, and asked her what the stuff meant. Without batting an eyelid, she proceeded to look at the panels just before, and the panels just after, and ‘read’ the meaning out to me.
“Woh dekho, udhar jaa raha hai Tintin” or some such.

I was SO impressed.

Me (beaming) : “Where did you learn this mummy?!”

Mom (beaming back) : “Shabbir uncle (our erstwhile neighbour) taught me Urdu…”

So you get how good she is at this stuff…(she still gets teary eyed (with laughter that is) whenever she thinks of how much I used to depend solely on her for ALL information, and how I am a bit too self-sufficient nowadays…)

But we digress, and as I was saying earlier, she thought that the obscene gesture was like “I’m gonna kick your a**” or something, and had made a mental note to take action against the aggressor likewise. Till as the fates would have it…

With all the tact and delicacy I could muster, I gave her an idea of what that particular gesture meant. The only time I had been more embarrassed was when she had caught me with a copy of that fine piece of literature called ‘Fantasy’, aimed specifically at the teen, pre-teen and hormonal-schoolboy-studying-in-all-male-school segments.

She was shell-shocked. Poor, poor 'aggressor'. Heard she had to go through her ‘parents called to school’ routine the next day.

Mom (fuming) : “Today’s kids…fifth standard!!!! By the way, how old were you when you came to know the meaning?”

Me (slinking gracefully out of sight) : “I think it was in the 8th or 9th…not too sure…”

The Vocal Cords Of The Cabbies Seldom Vibrate...But When They Do, They Vibrate REAL Fine

2006-03-23T00:20:00.000+05:30

Ever had an experience when after a hard day’s work, you head out home late at night, gleefully planning out your quiet cab trip back home (reimbursed – office expenses of course), only to have your hope of a quiet ride back home scuttled as badly as the hope of expecting good, intact roads in the sylvan surroundings of Andheri(East)? Because the cabbie wants to talk. With you. And himself. And how.

Have had the (mis)fortune of meeting three BIZARRE mofos thus… maybe it’s the traffic, maybe it’s ingesting all that lead and heavy metal particulate matter the whole day long, or maybe it’s just me. Read on…

Cabbie no. 1:
This guy was a verbal bitch-slap for me from the word go. The first witticism he unleashed as I parked my shapely behind on his cab’s shapeless backseat was
“Yeh VAT ne sab ka vaat lagaa diya hai!”
Me (sotto voce) : “WTF…?” (in caps lock if you please…)
That was just the hors d’oeuvre. He then went on yapping, head cocked back, and occasionally looking ahead at the road, till my ears bled. Literally.

Learnings:

The reverse gear is the most powerful of all the gears in any vehicle. He knows this because he climbed up one whole section of the Western ghats driving in reverse, whereas three other drivers had failed to ascend it even in the fourth gear. Yes.
Driving a cab is less stressful than working in IT. He knows, since he was a hardware technician once. To prove he wasn’t just breaking wind, he went to tell me about a problem he once had at a client’s place – “printer not working” – so he checked the LPT port, the data cables, the USB port, till he found out that somebody had unplugged it from the power supply. Heh Heh.
He gave up fleecing customers at the airport because the only time he did it, justice was instant, and he got rammed by a truck. Never done it since.
People give him a tip over and above the fare, because he is so well…honest. Needless to say, I double checked the fare before paying him.

Cabbie no. 2:

This guy was awesome.
His meter was half-cocked, so asked him pretty irritably whether he was open for business.
“Taxi aapki seva ka saadhan hai. Aap chaloge to hum bhi chalenge…”

Learnings:

Yeh taxi meri maa hai. Roti deti hai, aasra deti hai, aur swabhimaan bhi. I have a very dirty feeling he is a closet Mithun bhakt.
A ‘ladies’ customer once left back a bag with 55k cash, and two bearer cheques (Me : “Bearer matlab?” Him : “Matlab jispe naam aur amount nahi likha ho, sirruf sign ho…” Me : “Accha…”)
This customer was very impressed, and her husband touched by his honesty, used to make this guy run errands for him, wherein he’d be given half a hundred rupee note, and a briefcase containing cash to be delivered someplace, and the other ‘party’ on receipt would verify this cryptograph, by comparing it with their half… (Honest. I’m NOT making this up. And I believe, neither was he…)
His cab is a lucky charm, for people desperate to go to ‘foreign’. He guaranteed that I would go too. Within 15 days. Come to think of it, Andheri (East) sure looks SO ****ING international nowadays, it’s almost as good as being there.

Cabbie no. 3:

This guy was the spookiest by far. The first thing I heard was
“Mumbai nagari. Maya nagari.”
And then?
“Yahaan sab bharose pe hai. Mujhe kya malum aap kaise aadmi ho? Aur aapko kya malum main kaisa driver? Fir bhi hum haan bolke chal diye!!”
I knew this was gonna be real good. He took me on a whole trip down philosophy lane.

Learnings:

Some really arcane Sanskrit shlokas lamenting the fall of mankind and goodness in general in this ‘Kalyug’.
A woman’s only path to salvation is through her man. A man can do what the hell he wants, god will always forgive him. Even if he has an extra-marital fling or two. But women? No…that’s not in their ‘dharam’. She’ll be consigned to the flames of hell (or forced to go to SEEPZ from Andheri (yes…East) EVERY DAY), even if she entertains such thoughts. He gave me examples of Sati, Savitri and some others who have attained salvation through their husbands.
A woman is inherently evil. She is always on the prowl, trying to gain control over your mind. And the best way to do that is through exchange of bodily fluids. Because, every drop of a certain bodily fluid that a man loses, makes him physically weak, if the flesh is weak, the mind is weak, if the mind is weak, then she wins. After this, he placed a trembling hand on my shoulder, and started to implore me to never do it. I feverishly grabbed whatever money I could find in my shirt pocket, and just pushed it in his hand, and got the hell out of there. It may have been extra, but God knows it was well worth it.

Systemspeak Three-Visited

2006-03-14T01:55:00.000+05:30

Some more IT jargon de-mystified.

Stinker:
A particularly virulent, steaming, stinking mail-turd shot off usually by a user at the end of his tether thanks to your ‘coding’ and ‘analysis’. The degree of odour is directly proportional to the rank and file of the sender. If it’s a lowly menial, not a leaf stirs, and life goes on happily and stinkily(sic) in Eden. Rant all you want, we ain’t giving a damn here. But if it’s a fat cat, then all hell breaks loose…with a mad scramble for some air fresheners… Also used by bosses when they feel something is ‘just not right’ and people need a jolt of motivation…
Usage:
“Dekha kya? Kya stinker maarela hai…”

Gentle Reminder:
The first time I read this, I was stung to tears by the inherent irony here. How can a WRITTEN reminder be ‘gentle’?! Verbally speaking, yes it can. The tone and modulation of your voice, with a little tact/deference depending on whom you are speaking to thrown in, can be thought of as asking gently about a certain issue which has been (conveniently) forgotten about. But when written out in a mail, ‘gentle reminder’ stands out even more starkly. Do you concur?

Escalate:
As close as we can get to an actual Catch-22. When faced with a situation you don’t know how to tackle, there’s but one option. Just like Commissioner Gordon always calls Batman, you ‘escalate’. That is, play footsie with the problem in hand till it propagates to the next logical bunch of people, who in turn keep passing it on, till the issue gets miraculously resolved. On it’s own…most of the times too.
The Catch-22 thing is applicable to a fresher Support Slave. When faced with a production issue, what to do? Oh what to do? (Catch one and shake two – as a schoolmate of mine would have said… doesn’t make sense I know…but it’s fun to say it all the same. Try it sometime.)
If you sit on it, without acting, you don’t know what you will hatch – Medusa, Frankenstein, Incubus or worse still - an outage. But if you escalate a laughably simple problem, you run the risk of needing a LOT of soothing suppositories. As one of the earliest cynics has wryly commented –
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Escalate.”

On A Very High Level:
This, my people, is the sole prerogative of the ‘bada log’. If you as a lowly developer happen to use this, you run the risk of being severely serenaded to eternal sleep. A BIG no-no there…you’re supposed to know. How can you not know?! Used by the elite when they are rushing into conference calls, after having hurriedly gone through the agenda/issue list. Serves as an effective barrier against a lot of ‘other-party’ angst, since you’re confessing you know a little, but not confessing you know jack either. Which is the absolute truth.
Usage:
"On a very high level, what I know is…"

POC:
Another one of those things which you’re supposed to know, and people actually act surprised when you don’t understand. Stands for ‘Proof Of Concept’. One of the most painful activities ever, considering how confidently you would have farted about something being possible earlier on to an audience of anyone from your boss, the client or your colleagues. Then when you foray through the actual code and try to implement what you claim, you realize that it’s time for a facial treatment – an egg-pack to be more precise. Be very scared of the POC. Very.

Take A Call:
When faced with a particularly sticky, ear-flaming, sweaty-in-spite-of-the-air-conditioning decision, you’re helpfully asked to ‘take a call’, since guess what…‘it’s your call’. Don’t say we didn’t warn you… (Heh Heh). Most excruciating, when you know you’re in for a fun time, either ways. But it was your call…
Another Catch-22 if I may…

Ro Raha Hai/Bhonk Raha Hai:
Not used for whom you think…these generally refer to program errors which need something – either a command line argument or a config or ini file on startup - not getting which they bawl like colicky babies or freshly-stoned dogs.
Usage:
“Dekh kaunse line pe ro raha hai?”

ASAP:
Everything in this busy world of ours has to be As Soon As Possible. People just love to use this, because it strokes their flaccid egos when they garnish emails with this magic word. You imagine a veritable bee-hive of activity as soon as the receiver gets your urgent missive. People falling over each other, furniture being upturned, burnt, office equipment getting trashed - a mini-stampede in fact, with harried drones each scrambling and vying to get going to carry out your ASAP activity…
Reality check?
“Yaaaawn… dekh be…aur ek ASAP aaya hai. ASAP.” (perfunctory disinterested laughter)
“Stinker maarne tak rukte hain…ASAP…bada aaya”

A proper victim of overuse this. Poor word. Sounds pretty impressive at first, but gradually loses its menace as you can see.

PS:
For those who came in late, more can be found here and here.

When Locusts Attack - The Wardat Movie Review

2006-03-08T21:49:00.000+05:30

Fresh from the narrow escape from Dr. Shiva's clutches, Gunmaster-G9 took it easy for some time. But alas, as fate, the audience, and a new villain would have it, he was forced to come back from his bohemian lifestyle, and do what he does best. Save the world. From (a) Wardat(that's chaste Hindi for catastrophe).

This movie is not as flamboyant as Surakksha, but has its place in history as one of the few franchises that Bollywood can boast of. The opening sequences feature a whole load of people running helter skelter as if somebody was on the prowl, trying to make them watch Himesh Reshammiya's videos, with what suspiciously look like goat-turds (lendi in Marathi) raining down everywhere you look. A couple of frames and some suspension of rationality later, you are informed that they are 'locusts'.

A secret agent (lets call him question mark) who ends every sentence with a (you guessed it) question mark, is bumped off by the baddies when he starts to secretly photograph the locusts and their whereabouts, leaving his sister, Dr. Pratibha (the delectable Kalpana Iyer) vowing revenge on the killer. Shakti (Shakti Kapoor) plays her paramour and the second level baddie, who tells her that G9 is responsible for question mark's gory (and bloodless, if I may add) death, at the hands of a Bruce Lee look-alike, complete with a mop top. G9 is thus 'marked for death', to use a Steven Seagal-ism.

G9 is then ferreted out from a night-club where he evidently dances part-time for a living, because there is no one else on the dance floor save his holy self and a bunch of painted, buxom chicks, prancing around to some pyschedelic, neuron-altering blastbeats by Bappida.

G9 delves deep into his entomological self, and discovers that the locust samples which question mark had sent to the agency earlier before croaking, were not normal locusts. He cross-references them with mounted specimens of all the locusts in the world, and in 5 minutes flat, announces his findings. The locusts all have micro-receivers implanted in them, which obey certain 'weblengths', which can control their directional movements, and urge them to wreak havoc. What is subtly implied that the bio-engineering is soadvanced, that these killer locusts look like ‘lendi’s from afar. A brilliant depiction of artificially intelligent camouflage, which has been unparalleled so far.

G9's philandering ways are very subtly put across in one scene, where his love interest (played by the bubbly Kajal Kiran) who asks him about his earlier flame (Ranjeeta from Surakksha).G9 just shrugs it off
"Sagaai hui thi... shaadi to nahi hui na?!"
No further explanations, no further justifications. Just that. Totally "Hai fida... to aa (fill in the rest)..nahi to (again, fill in the rest)". Never the one for sappy emotions, our boy G9.

Then it's time to get on the trail of the main guy. But first, Dr. Pratibha tries to seduce G9, gets G9 captured, G9 escapes, and then converts her onto his team. Whew. Then the whole gang set out into a jungle from whence came the locusts, and stumble upon the faux-egyptian-decor laden den of the Level-1 Baddie – Jumbola (another mad scientist). And yeah… read and say that again. Jumbola.

G9 is greeting by what looks like a gang of cabbies wearing fencing masks, with Samurai swords in hand. Very evil. In fact, the only more evil cabbies are the ones that can be found around both the Mumbai airports. He swats them aside and enters inside,stumbling upon a stunning presentation in progress by Shakti for a bunch of African dudes (who for some reason, keep grinning throughout).

Shakti is selling Jumbola's four point plan for total world annihilation :
1) A row of plastic-looking babies, with their brains wired
to a row of red zero-watt bulbs. They will grow up to be 'mental slaves', who will do your every bidding. (To the Wachowski brothers…boys, now we know…)
2) Genetically modified food-grains which will cripple future generations of children.
3) Magic 'drops' which give south Indian female extras Asterix-type strength.
4) And of course, the killer locusts.

G9 busts the party, and comes face to face with Jumbola, who offers him a job in his tangy Tamil baritone, garnished with laughter that sounds like a series of bass-guitar arpeggios.

G9's calm, calculated response?
"Nahi Jumbola, meri aur tumhari dosti kabhi nahi ho sakti, kyonki main ek insaan hoon. Aur tum? Haiwan!"

Now this guy has one of the most interesting visages I've ever seen. Kind of reminded me of a newbie who's boarded a Virar Fast, and dared to try and get down at Andheri, thus getting a make-over in the process.

Slight tangent for Non-Mumbaikars begins:
Virar is a Mumbai suburb which is serviced by 'fast' local trains majorly, which are the ultimate in travelling by comfort, if your idea of comfort is hanging on for life by your fingernails and pretty much nothing else. There are a couple of very pampered suburbs which are called Andheri and Borivli in between, which are serviced a tad better by 'slow' AND 'fast' locals (you get to hang on for life by your fingers AND toes). This leads to some brilliant, animal antagonism in a Virar local, if somebody wants toget down at either of the above stops.
Slight tangent for Non-Mumbaikars ends:

Jumbola as a villain must be commended for one point though – the socio-economic upliftment of the tribals who live in the jungle, alongside his den. This is evident from the sheer number of traditional Bollywood dress wearing tribals who are gainfully employed in his army, alongside uniformed men and the the cabbie-fencers mentioned above.

G9 does the song-dance-fight routine (no ninjas this time around, just Shakti), throws Jumbola to the locusts (no lions here... sorry), and high-tails it just before the whole lair explodes. The world would then breathe easy yet again, and you all know whom to thank.

Footnote
I used to think that this was the last G9 movie to come out, but then, the Internet does have its surprises. I came to know that there is one more to go... called Saahas/Sahhas. And so, the seeker must seek. All over again.

Entertainment...Secure - The Surakksha Movie Review

2006-03-01T01:35:00.000+05:30

Circa 1979, a very important milestone in the history of Indian cinema was reached. Fed up with the firangee posturing of the so called 'Bond Movies', the team of Raveekant Nagaich and Ramesh Pant did some soul-searching, and came up with a brilliant concept, which provided a new sense of belonging and identity to our teeming millions who just couldn't come to terms with the swaggering, 'foreign' or dare I say it (gasp) colonial ways of Messrs Connery, Moore, Dalton et al. They gestated our own homegrown riposte, a cinematic middle finger to the western Bond in the form of Gunmaster-G9 (urf Gopi, ‘khoobsurat ladki jiski ek hi kamzori’) and who better to essay this role than the only hero that there is.

Surakksha. The two k's in the name add the requisite emphasis to this bold, defying venture.(I'm guessing Numerology didn't quite have as many delirious, 'dribbling from the sides of their mouths' fans back then...)

The opening song features a bevy of extraneous beauties, all doing a queen-bee routine, trying to get their hands, feet and ample tummies on G9, with Bappi Lahiri soulfully warbling "Mosumm (say that to rhyme with the Gujju pronounciation of Possum) hey gaane ka, gaane ka (note the poetic repetition here for emphasis...this is NOT because the lyricist was short of another word), bajaane ka...(something something) yeh jeebon, yeh dooniya saapna hey, deebane ka" in the background, with twinkletoes at his suavest, dapper best, hopping around town with them chicas, trying to paint it the deepest shade of magenta he had.

It is in this song that that otherworldly theme makes it's first appearance, with Annette (she's the lady who's sung the title song for 'Hello Inspector' - that Marathi serial) giving her windpipes ample exercise by going "Guuuuuuuunmasterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Geeeeee Niiiiiiine",with some guttural death metal vocals going "Gunmaster!!! G9! G9! G9!" (you can actually 'hear' the exclamation marks when this guy goes at it, and the last 2 ‘G9!’’s sort of fade and wrestle with each other as they echo away). This theme is used evocatively throughout the movie, whenever there's some action (more about that later), with a very Tom Morello-esque guitar riff (with some wah-wah effects at times) sending the required chills down your hairlines.

For the trivia conscious (full of corn and very very nutritious again), this movie marked Tej Sapru’s debut. He plays a good guy (a colleague of G9) called Jackson (“Jakesunn” as Prabhuji calls him).

The first 15 minutes of the movie are frenzied, with some super kinetic, Guy Ritchie style editing kicking your ass so hard that it gets masochistically pleasurable. Miss it, and you better give up trying to understand the rest. The basic premise is set up here, with Suresh Oberoi as a pilot in a don’t-blink-and-still-miss-it cameo (this I suspect vies with the Ramus, Bholus, Nandus of “Ramu, Bholu, Nandu, baahar feko ise…arre kahaan mar gaye sab ke sab” fame, for the shortest ever role in Bollywood). Jackson (undercover of course) and Suresh hit upon a secret diamond mine thanks to a map. Suresh is bumped off, and Jackson is spirited away by Hiralal (Jeevan), who is the front-end for the back-end mysteriously called ‘SSO’.

Jackson’s child is played by one of the cutest kids this side of Baby Guddu, who gets a cadaver (purportedly Jackson’s) as a birthday gift. The way the kid emotes tugs at your heart (and your gut) strings. G9 later deduces that the cadaver was somebody else, surgically enhanced to look like “Jakesunn”, and he was still alive.

G9 then rescues “Jakesunn” from Hiralal’s horse-neigh-meets-yowling-cat laugh interspersed clutches, and cadges a trip to the SSO (which incidentally stands for ‘Shiv Shakti Organisation’) headquarters (which is underwater near Dock no 7 – Bhaucha Dhakka, Mumbai). It’s there that he comes fact to face with the malevolent Dr. Shiva (played by a guy only credited as ‘Balaje’), a frustrated scientist(?), (with a blue glove on his right hand – ostensibly metallic) who is hell bent upon destroying the world. He plans to do thus using an (hold your breath) ‘Atomic Generator’, and not your run of the mill Atom and Hydrogen bombs. Tchhah. G9 taunts him, counter argues with his philosophy (“Bhagwaan aadmi ki sabse badi kamzori hai” and “Mujhe gussa bilkul nahi aata” for starters) and marvels at a dead-man-brought-alive-by-the-bad-doctor zombie called ‘Django’ (who wears something suspiciously similar to Amitabh in ‘Saara Zamaana’ and the Linkin Park guitarist's headphones). G9 is then given a demo of the Shiv Shakti Kiran, which generates energy equivalent to 'one crore suns' in 7 seconds by concentrating sunlight through ‘diamonds’, and causes tidal waves and earthquakes which destroy picture perfect, cardboard cutout coastlines. G9’s anguish makes Dr. Shiva laugh in all 8 octaves. Raucous, but deeply heart-rending.

Dr Shiva calls in a whole pack of ‘foreigners’ to push his Death Ray, and in the process G9 is made to sing and dance for them, and made to fight for his life with a bunch of lethargic karatekas, and the fattest Ninja in a blood-red one piece suit ever (he probably wanted to become a sumo wrestler, but his parents forced him into becoming a Ninja, and hence he over-ate a little to overcome his frustration. Some smoke, some drink, some eat. We all have our ways...). Easy pickings for G9 of course.

G9 then does his stuff, and consequently, makes Dr Shiva start and then bash up his apparatus. G9 escapes, Dr Shiva and his whole army of prim and proper hostesses (dressed in spotless white, even their socks and shoes) and his men mostly perish when his evil condo implodes, and the world as we know it would be safe once again. Until the attack of the ‘Killer Locusts’ in 1981 of course, which would force G9 to return…

PS : Almost forgot…Ranjita plays G9’s love interest, and Jagdeep is his bumbling sidekick (‘Guru aa gaye, tambu ukhaadke’)

True to form, this movie was responsible for some really cool mass hysteria when it was released. Click here for more details.

The Loha Movie Review

2006-02-18T22:18:00.000+05:30

There are Mithun movies, and then there are distillates of a parallel universe. What you are about to read, is about a glowing, incandescent and steaming example of precisely that. This movie is beyond the capabilities of mortal description, and the written word would not do any justice to capture the sheer giddy feeling I get after I’ve seen this. Beats any rush in the world, hands and feet down.

The opening sequences set the tone for what is to follow, with street toughs talking in hushed, awe-drenched voices about the King of the Mumbai crime scene, LukkaBhai (Mohan Joshi). His ‘entry’ filmed against the crusty environs of good old Mukesh Mills is one of the grittiest (verbally speaking) sequences ever shot in Bollywood. He has a verbal duel with TandyaBhai (Deepak Shirke, in a powerful cameo), his erstwhile mentor, who has been overthrown by him. The dueling is not unlike the stuff you would have seen in 8 Mile. Only, this movie came much before it, kinda like a precursor. The dialogue is so powerful, it makes your eyes and nose water.

Samples –

Lukka : “Kya hua? Kyon chilla raha hai?”

Tandya : “Arre hona kya tha? Kauwe ne cheel ka chumma liya aur cheel ne choohe ka bachcha paida kiya!”

(This is the first of the many ‘WTF’ moments that you are guaranteed…)

Tandya : “Bhool gaya kya woh din, jab tu din ko boot polish, aur raat ko tel maalish kiya karta tha? Mawaali log tereko chikna chikna bulaake tere pichchwaade pe haath ghumaate the…”

Tandya : "Abbe chal be, main dhobi ghaat pe, tooteli khaat pe lita lita ke maaronga"

Lukka : "Main tera woh bura haalat karoonga, jo deemag lakdi ka, aur chhipkali makdi ka karta hai"

(Speaking of Eminem, they say he made the ‘inside rhyme’ popular, but you know where my loyalties lie…)

Incensed by Tandya’s insouciance, Lukka has Tandya’s sister’s ‘advantage taken’, post which a broken, hollow Tandya comes to Lukka, and begs for mercy and a job.

Lukka : “Tune mujhe bhadwaa bola, bahut kadwaa bola. Abbe o kadwe karele, teri behen marne ke baad, teri haalat us AIDS lagi randi ki tarah ho gayi hai, jiske paas kabhi koi giraik nahi jaata…”

Tandya : “Ab main woh cinema (ke ticket ka) ka aadha tukdaa hoon, jiski keemat show khatam hone ke baad do kaudi ki bhi nahi hai”

Tandya (totally breaking down) : "Ab maar daal mujhe, main bina petrol ki gaadi aur bin nashe ki taadi hoon, main woh fateli saadi hoon, jise koi hijdaa bhi nahi pehenta…"

Then it’s time for Shankar (Dharmendra), who plays a clean but disgraced cop, out to fight the system. Dharam papaji is at his rugged best, both attire, voice, and dialogue delivery wise.

After a while, God makes an entry with that ethereal ‘Dikhne mein bevda, bhaagne mein ghoda, aur maarne mein hathoda’ sequence, post which when the rape victim does the mandatory, bashful thank you, he mournfully laments

“Aapka yeh kanoon, aur bhagwaan, jab bhi kisi ko deta hai, to chappar faadke deta hai, aur jab leta hai, to thappad maarke leta hai…”

Arjun (God) is an ex-Military man (who obviously is entitled to shoulder length hair even while in the services – it’s HIM we are talking about) who has a run-in in with a baddie played by Rolling-eyes Rajesh Vivek (for quality movie folks, he’s Guran from Lagaan, and a B-Movie (B for Bhoot) legend in his own right…). He loses his lady love, and his military post, as a result of which he hits the bottle with a vengeance.

After a chance meeting outside Hotel Monarch (what are the odds?), Shankar saves Arjun’s life after he collapses and gets him a miraculous, bloodless operation.

Lukka gets Shankar’s sis ‘taken advantage of’ and killed. The two team up to fight the baddies along with Mustafabhai (Shakti Kapoor playing a handless baddie turned good) who has a score to settle with Lukka for chopping his hands off.

Shankar gets wrongly imprisoned, and Lukka comes to crow –

“Dekha Shankar, mujhse dosti karne waale ko Himalay ki pahad ki choti par bithaata hoon, aur mujhse dushmani karne waale ko main hari mirch ki chutney par bithaata hoon”

“Jahaan angoor na ghus sake, wahan tumne nariyal ghusane ko dekha…”

(Another juicy one which Lukka lets rip earlier on to one of his cohorts goes thus

"Phone sunte hi tumhara chehra kisi garbhavati billi ki pet ki tarah kyon gir gaya?!"

Potent stuff this...)

Shankar gets out of jail and then on it’s all about how the triumvirate systematically go about breaking Lukka’s stranglehold, and ultimately good triumphs over evil. Will not give the gory details away anymore, go and watch it.

There is also a very Quentin Tarantino-esque side plot/story with Govinda, Manisha Koirala and Dinesh Hingoo, which is a fine example of that school of movie making.

I have just one thing to say to you people. The USP of the whole movie, is the dialogue and the characterization. Period. Watch it and prepare to be amazed. I used to recite this stuff on popular demand while I was a student, and everybody thought I was making them up…till I actually showed them the movie. No one emotes while watching it, they just are too engrossed and zapped to react. Post movie, they confide that they were so, so wrong to have ever doubted me. I modestly brush it aside, saying that their reaction mechanism (or the lack of it) was worth it. One of my unquestioned, unchallenged and unilaterally favourite movies.

Zen And The Art of Mithun Movie Buying

2006-02-07T22:06:00.000+05:30

Ever thought about the mechanics of actually buying a Mithun movie? Doesn’t seem like a big deal right? Let's see...

1)Locate ‘typical’ VCD/music outlet
2)Ask for desired title
3)Pay
4)Get the **** out

But as it turns out, it is akin to asking for a prophylactic at the chemist’s shop in front of a whole gang of your mother’s lady friends. Wipe that smirk off your face, and try saying
“Aapke paas ‘Charnon Ki Saugandh’ hai kya? Mithun ka?” to the VCD guy, maintaining eye contact all the while, WITHOUT tittering, and you’ll know what I mean. All this amidst classy to moderately decent (supposedly normal) people picking up some other worthless, regular ‘quality stuff’ and it can be a bit of a shock to the poor salesman. If you laugh, or even smile, you run the risk of being ignored as badly as the Sourav Ganguly of late.

I was on the prowl for some vintage Mithun movies along with a friend we'll call 'Cryptic Monu' who wanted to carry a motherload of them back to the US of A, and had got my heart broken repeatedly after playing my modified opening gambit. The below question invoked a lesser degree of horror on the salesmen’s faces.

Me : “Aapke paas Mithun ka purana movies hai kya?”

Most of them looked at me as if they knew I had worked on PowerBuilder and Pro*C.

Shopkeeper (sotto voce) : “Looks educated, dressed decently, mostly sober, but what could POSSIBLY be wrong with this guy?!”

The above standard reaction persisted till I struck pay dirt at one place near Borivli station (Music Junction, Chandavarkar Lane - contact me if you want the phone number). ‘Twas a watershed moment for sure when the above mentioned question was met with a knowing, beatific and empathetic smile bereft of the usual blank goggling stare, condescension, plain disbelief, or almost physical irritation…

“Haan…hai na!!! Ek minute”

I expected a couple of standard newer VCDs here and there (read Lucky, Elaan yaaawnnnnn…) but he surfaced with three whole stacks of Mithun movies. Three whole stacks of ONLY Mithun starrers. Get it? What are the odds of finding such a stash?!

Some of the RARE gems picked up…

Loha
Charanon Ki Saugandh
Swarag Se Sundar
Surakksha (Gunmaster G-9)
Wardat (Gunmaster G-9)
Ghar Ek Mandir
Cheetah

Through watery eyes and a surge in my systolic and diastolic, I pawed (and re-pawed) stuff which I’d been looking for, for years and years. This guy was TOTALLY into the whole Mithun movie scene. The absolute zenith of our whole conversation was when he ruefully pointed out that not too many people know that there is a Mithun movie called ‘Loha’ and everybody asked for the older Dharmendra-Shatrughan Sinha-Karan Kapoor (“Abbe O Monkey Brand”) one.

As you might have inferred, buying a Mithun movie involves the destroying of the biggest impediment to your self-realization - the ‘Aham-Bhaav’(or ego if you prefer it). People will mock you, spit on you, possibly stone you, but if you stick to your correct path of righteous determination, you WILL find God.

PS : In the pipeline - a Mithun Movie review series, starting with that ultra-trippy masterpiece called ‘Loha’. As they say in Blog-La-La-Land,“Watch this space”(I’ve always wanted to type that someplace...)

Short Story - Aftermath

2006-02-01T00:11:00.001+05:30

(Another short story...)

It was a late night at the railway station. The usual suspects were present in full force – the pack of drowsy shoeshine boys/men, the beggars (who never got asked for tickets by the TT), the dingy food stalls manned by dirty, oily attendants with lots of eager flies and moths going ballistic on the garish white lights, a couple of sweepers kicking up as much dust as they were willing to, and a couple of very agile strays.

The unwashed pickpocket hovered around the ticket counter, biding his time. He looked like any other weary Second Class type passenger, just waiting to get home. Clothes that looked literally lived in, droopy eyelids, and an inch’s worth of grime covering every area visible to the naked eye, including the hair. Getting his next fix was top priority. Had been almost 24 hours since the last one.

He eyed his prey – a meek looking lone traveler at the end of the longish line, bearded, medium height and build, who kept fingering the back pocket of his pants.

The line was long even at this time of the night, thanks to a lone ticket counter with a supremely bored ticket clerk as the master of all he could see. He was taking his own sweet time to punch the tickets, dispelling his monotony with some banter with the neighbouring clerks, and by getting up every now and then to stretch his legs – ostensibly to get some more tickets or change from the other counters. People who told him exactly what they thought of his trips were shoved aside regally along with a request for the exact change. Served them right.

The pickpocket saw his chance, and got in behind his target. Three persons away from the ticket window, he made his move. One smooth dive in and out, and his fingers were clutching a 500-rupee note. He couldn’t believe his luck, as his fingers shook while pocketing the money. To his misfortune, the bearded man turned around and saw him put away the note. He angrily confronted him

“I saw you put away that note. That’s mine!”

“What?”, the pickpocket mumbled. “It’s not…”

Before he could complete his sentence, the bearded man grabbed him by the wrist and addressed the world at large.

“He’s stolen my money! I saw him do it!!”

The line behind slowly disintegrated, with some people trickling up front. Curious just about began to describe their demeanor.

“What? Did you see him do it?”

“Positive. Swear on my kids.”

Out of nowhere apparent, a palm landed on the pickpocket’s cheek, causing him to stumble. And then another. And another. Till the only sound one could hear was the sickening non-movie like sound of somebody being thrashed. A dull thwacking, with no report, no echo, no melodrama and no exaggerated movements. Cold, clinical and calculated. Not at all like in the movies. One by one, all the travelers started to let him have it. The commute, the sadistic ticket clerk, the filth, the dust, the noise, the fecal, urea-tinged stench…they were suddenly oblivious to it all.

All that mattered was in front of them now, ready to take everything they were ready to dish out. They evidently thought about the comfortable journey home, nostrils jostling against an ocean of stinky armpits, bones forcibly made elastic, all muscles numb, hanging on to life by just their fingertips and nothing else. And then saw him crouched, shitting his pants. Fists rained jarring blows all over the thief, which made him try to crawl on all fours, desperately trying to get away. Then a whole lot of feet took over. Rubber, PVC and leather soles rained on whatever areas of his body that they could find. A bunch of hands hoisted him up by his shirt collar, and started parading him up and down the ticket counter area, with the bearded man leading the way, crowing all the time.

“You brazen son of a bitch!”

“We’ll teach you how to pick pockets…”

The traffic cop was watching all this with great interest from the street corner outside. It had been a real slow day. In spite of every motorable inch being dug up, everybody had driven perfectly, even the taxi drivers. Just one of those days - not good at all and he was feeling the pressure of the bottom line. He marched in self-importantly and went up to the melee. The crowd parted semi-respectfully, as he caught the thief by his right ear, and slapped him as hard as he could, screaming

“How dare you?!! What were you thinking?!”

He then proceeded to kick him in the shins. After a couple of more blows, he was fully satisfied, and he turned to the crowd and proclaimed
“Take him to the police booth on the station. I cannot arrest him since I’m a traffic cop…”
and then melted away into the night, a song and a smile on his lips.

The crowd then went on to the railway station, parading the by now delirious thief. A stray dog and a couple of beggar kids also joined in, howling loudly together whenever there was a lull in the thrashing. The cops on the station were nowhere to be found.

They marched all along the platform, till gradually, as was bound to happen, the crowd started to lose interest. Some remembered they had a train to catch, some remembered that they had a home and family to go back to, while some were just plain bored with the situation now and had had enough. They would have loved to lynch the thief, but everybody was waiting for someone else to launch the first really vicious blow. A very lucky deadlock for him. The procession gradually thinned, as people dropped out discreetly from the back of the line. A couple of trains went by and swallowed almost everybody in the procession, till only the victim and the perpetrator were left alone for all purposes (since the remaining passersby were very detached now – who wants to get onto the red taped side of things anyways?), in a corner of the platform.

The pickpocket saw his chance, and shoved the bearded guy hard, getting his shirt ripped off his back, as he broke into a manic run down the tracks and disappeared into the darkness. He ran till he felt like his lungs had burst, and collapsed by the side of the tracks, his breath coming in painful ragged gasps. Every fibre of his being was screaming out in agony, blood streaming down his face, ears flaming.

His ears picked up the familiar tread of boots on the gravel. He spun around and cowered as a flashlight shone upon his face. A savage kick across his face made him spit out blood and a tooth.

“Stupid fucking son of a bitch. Did it like it was your first time ever! Am taking you in, I have to now. Too many people have seen you… the media is there…whoring the incident and questioning us about our whereabouts. You have left me no choice…”

...Et un jour et demi dans Pondicherry

2006-01-17T22:21:00.000+05:30

Pit stop at the Chennai contact’s place over, we then went to the Chennai Mofussil Bus Stand (C.M.B.T) to catch a bus to Pondy (40 bucks by rick – the skin tones worked yegain). We got slightly gypped here…the best route to Pondy is via the East Coast Road (ECR) – which is supposed to be very scenic with a huge stretch of sea all along...pity we missed it. The bus we took went via some weird small towns, and joined the ECR for just a km or so. We had asked the conductor before boarding…so technically he didn’t really lie. But we got to marvel at the quality of roads even in the smallest of towns en route. Mumbai’s Western Express ‘Highway’(lol lol) would have shriveled (even more) in shame.

A Tamil-movie-on-DVD-accompanied (the hero was called Thirumalai – garage mechanic), cramped, almost-blood-clot-inducing 4 hour ride later, we reached Pondy. First step was to catch a rick (25 bucks – got to torture the rick guy with my version of Tamil – ‘Moddalu bike, aaparramma Park Guest House’ – thanks to Quick Gun Murugun – remember ‘Moddalu sambar, aaparramma nee’?) and go to the central market (M.G. Road) to get a Kinetic Honda on hire. There’s this guy called Gopi who gives out bikes and stuff, near the Casablanca Hotel. The rates are around 80 bucks/day for a Kine, and 120-150 for bikes depending on the models. Hiring a two-wheeler is the best way to get around here, else you will end up spending ALL your travel money on ricks.

Then it was off to the Aurobindo Park Guest House. This is an amazing place to stay in…with dirt cheap rates and first-rate accommodation. A spanking clean, airy non-AC room for a 100 bucks a day (2 persons ka sharing). That’s it. Go on…rub your eyes real well. There’s no (artificially fawning - tip cadging)room service/telephone/intercom stuff…but out there, you really don’t need it. Situated at the end of the ‘sea-face’(very reminiscent of the one at Worli), it is THE place to stay in. Slightly strict about timings – there is a 10.30 p.m. curfew. Considering that we crashed at 9.45 p.m., the time limit is not as draconian as it seems. Also, smoking, drinking and drugs - not allowed in the rooms. Lots of other staying options are available, averaging from 200-500 bucks/day but finding acco can be a slight pain on weekends. Lotsa places near the bus stand, but staying in the French part is a lot more fun.

It was then time to take in the sights. One side of Pondicherry (near the bus stand and main market) is STRAIGHT out of Tamil Nadu. The crowds, the bustle, the noise, the markets. Cross one small road, and then the French Quarter begins. A totally different world – the bright yellow buildings, the sparse population, the sudden peace and quiet.

You see more expats here than locals. A word on the French women is in place. Had only heard about French beauties, actually got to see them. Porcelain skin, ruby-red lips, and athletic bods. Shiver me timbers laddies. Shiver me timbers.

We then went to the Aurobindo Samadhi. A wonderful, peaceful place, with a lot of fragrant flowers all around. The silence was divine here, broken only momentarily by some kids' utterings - immediately shushed by their embarrassed parents.

After that, it was plain old lukkhagiri on the streets on the whiny old Kine (15 paise ka engine, 5 rupaye ka aawaj). There are a lot of options for eating out...with genuinely classy, open-air,‘French style’ joints. Our dinner menu - 3 bottles of beer, garlic bread with cheese, french fries, vegetable lasagne, and spinach rice. The bill? 517. We were left shaking our heads in disbelief. When beer is just 65 bucks a bottle, that too at such a joint, faith is all you've got to hold on to. We made our unsteady steps back, and hit the sack.

The next morning dawned cloudy and gray. We went first up to Auroville, which is around 8 kms from the Guest house.
Visited the Matrimandir temple(I LOVED the basic funda of the place – no religion, no idols, no rituals, just a beam of sunlight concentrated on a crystal. Meditate and find your own answers within your own selves. The temple is still under construction), and the museum. A must pick-up from the boutiques here are the hand-crafted, non-toxic incense sticks, which are really cool, with fragrances ranging from Lotus, to Opium, and Coffee. Very good gift ideas.

Then went to the Auroville Beach. A nice expanse with nary a single bhel-puri stall in sight. Fab. Couldn’t really appreciate the beach much, mostly due to the lack of sunshine. Got caught in a light drizzle, which added to the ‘coolth’ factor of it all.

Two days is more than enough to take in all of Pondicherry. A very good de-stresser, the Pondy tourism department’s slogan just about says it all.

Give Time A Break.

C’est vrai. Cent pour cent de vrai.

Half a day in Chennai…

2006-01-17T21:22:00.000+05:30

From Bangalore, it was onward ho to Pondicherry via Chennai. Now I was insanely apprehensive about visiting the place, after all the horror stories I’d heard about the lack of Hindi speaking populace, and the sheer hatred toward people who dared to speak in the ‘rashtrabhasha’. It was therefore with a palpitant heart that I got into the train to Chennai at Bangalore, with muh homeboy Vinod. The first thing this guy pointed out was the name of the train – ‘Cauvery Express’. We instantly found it very very ironic. Don’t you think?

We got the plushest seats in the house…right next to the loo. Also complimentary were the noisiest train brakes in the world just beneath us. They ensured that I could not get more than half an hour’s worth of decent sleep. And the fact that I woke up every hour, sweating bullets and trying to recollect whatever Tamil I knew didn’t help either. Suitably refreshed, we got down at Chennai Central station. For a moment, I thought we were in V.T. Ditto to Ditto. The same kind of buzz, platform structures, overhead metal awnings/skeletons. Then caught a local train to a station called ‘Guindy’. Here’s where the primal Mumbai instinct kicked in, and I managed to locate a fare chart (in English) to check out the fare as well as the position of the destination from the terminus (to get the answer to the all-important question ‘kaunse station pe utarne ka?’). When the local train pulled up, I felt another strong blast of déjà vu. The same kind of stunt-pullers – getting off and boarding running trains, a whole mass of bodies marching up and down ‘footover-bridges’...

Ricks in Chennai are too princely to bother about trivialities like fare meters. The law of the haggle reigns supreme. We had been tipped off by a local contact that the rick guy would ask for 40-60 bucks to get to his place. One look at our skin tones, and 40 was what he asked for. Felt real happy.

The roads in Chennai were a pleasant surprise. Wide, clean(ish), and the traffic didn’t look too unmanageable. Also, communication can be decent, with a little mixture of English and sign language. If you are a southie, then a smattering of Tamil shouldn’t be toooo difficult to pick up.

Then again, half a day does not a truly correct impression make.