barsaat ki bheegi raaton main,
phir teri kahani yaad aayee,
kuch apna zamana yaad aaya,
kuch unki jawani yaad aayee*
I am in Mysore. I have just finished transcribing an interview running into four and a half thousand words and my head is spinning. I go out for a walk and in the dazed state that I am I do not realise that it is drizzling. Five minutes and wet clothes later, reality strikes. And then I realise the beauty of the moment. Wet roads. Smell of wet earth. The shining leaves of gulmohar trees all around me with water on them. Little puddles of water on the road.
This sends me back in time to the city I was born and brought up in - Ranchi. Ranchi as the social studies textbooks of yore would have told you, was a hill station. And what is a hill station, even if its only one in the text books, without rains...and power cuts and dark clouds. Black thunder with a flash of lightening. Drops of rain. The smell of wet earth. The red gulmohar in all its glory. Ek cup garam chai. Kishore Kumar singing "rim jhim girre sawan."
Disclaimer
The author asserts that he isn't qualified enough to opine on Antichrist in the tradition of modern film writing which means that he's going to try, as much as possible, to stay away from boring and pedantic references to shots, hand held zooms, camera angles, story, characters and the overall disgusting aesthetic, moral or sexual appeal of the film.
Dear Reader,
I am very excited. I watched Antichrist last night and loved it. It's a shock that I got in time.
Wow. Whoa.
Three people came to my mind after I watched the film.
In the April 2009 Lok Sabha elections, 2.79 lakh citizens of Pune- young and old, rich and poor, able and disabled- stepped out of their homes in the sweltering heat, stood in queues and re-elected Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi. All of them would be disappointed to know that Kalmadi was among the 54.23% people of Pune who skipped voting in the recent state assembly elections.
When celebrities step out to vote, they not only benefit from the media glare but are also seen as making a statement about their commitment to democracy. Politicians as celebrities don't fall in this category as their very existence depends on the votes they get. When they themselves don't exercise this franchise, it is simply inexcusable.
Kalmadi's top lieutenants who were surprised by his absence in Pune on voting day tried to explain that he "must have been very busy" in talks with international delegations on the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Also, that he was expected in Pune but something "beyond his control" must have happened. Still inexcusable, considering that a member of parliament is entitled to 30-odd business class air tickets in a year and with direct Pune-Delhi connectivity, there's little room to hide.
I was woken up at 6 this morning by a PR executive — let's call him O — who had last communicated with me one year ago. In late 2008, he had sent me an email — a mass mail — wishing me Happy Diwali. I don't reply to mass mail, so I didn't wish him back. After this, we didn't communicate — we didn't talk on phone or meet or exchange any form of virtual, electronic or physical communication - till today morning, when at 6 am, he sends me this sms: "HAPPY DIWALI!!!!!!!!! My best wishes to you and family!!! And have a great and prosperous NEW YEAR TOO!!!" I am not exaggerating here. I did count the exclamation marks and what you see here is the exact number he sent me in his 'greetings.' His message was preceded by some kind of digital rangoli that he'd managed to create using slashes and semi-colons and some other characters I didn't even know my phone could generate till I saw his 'greeting.'
Now, I have nothing against people wishing each other on Diwali. I have nothing against people using as many exclamation marks as they want. I am even — believe it or not — agreeable to being woken up at 6 in the morning with a Diwali greeting. But. Only if you are waking me up specifically and not waking me up by default because I happen to be one of the 72 recipients of your non-customised, industrial, mass-produced Diwali wishes. There has to be something in your greeting that tells me that you have a connection with me that goes beyond the possibly accidental presence of my cell number in your phone book; something that says you wanted to wish me, specifically, and weren't just adding a name to your forwarding list.
Those were the good old days. Dad would listen to his Murphy radio for a staple diet of news every day and night. And the entire family would crowd around the huge set on Saturday nights, for All India Radio's Saturday Date.
Then TV came. Dad always wanted to buy a black and white set, but he never did.
So, about 20 to 30 of us, all children from chawls, would go to a neighbouring building, where a rich Gujarati family lived, and packed their living room floor every night, watching TV.
We would finish our lessons (homework) by 8pm, as soon after that, the interesting shows began. There were no tuitions those days, of course.
So, every weeknight it would be Hum Log. On Sunday mornings, after Sunday Mass, there would be entertaining serials (some foreign), and in the evenings it would be Hindi movie time. Those were the days of Doordarshan.
When tanks trundle down the expansive Chang'an Avenue near Beijing's stately Tiananmen Square, as happened one famous night in 1989, the rumble reverberates around the world.
In barely a few hours from now, just such an earth-shaking event will unfold in Beijing, but this time the mood will be festive: China will showcase an event, complete with tanks, missiles and air force jets piloted by female aviators, to mark the 60th anniversary of its founding as a modern nation-state. There will also be floats commemorating China's successes in many realms - and cultural festivities. It promises to be a grand spectacle. (More stunning pictures here.)
Any way you look at it, the past 60 years have been a remarkable period in China's modern history. As I noted here, on China's 60th birthday, the industrious Chinese people have much to be proud about: their country has been dramatically transformed by their blood, sweat, toil and tears. And, in turn, China is influencing and transforming the world in many ways. The near-unanimous verdict appears to be that China will inevitably "rule the world" someday soon.
Kobad Gandhy’s arrest has generated reams and reams of newsprint in Mumbai. Every report has unfailingly mentioned how this scion of a wealthy family gave it all up for the sake of the poor; how he and his wife Anuradha, who also hailed from a middle-class family, lived with the poorest of the poor in the deep jungles, and how she finally succumbed to cerebral malaria while he today suffers from various ailments.
Why does Gandhy’s story generate so much interest? Why are so many of us so keen to know more about this man who’s family ran an ice-cream business (according to one report, his family introduced fresh strawberry ice-cream to Mumbai and India) and lived on Worli Sea-face, still one of Mumbai’s most posh localities?
Perhaps the most compelling reason is that deep down in our conscience, there are many of us who secretly admire him. In college, most of us (but certainly not all), dreamt of working for a better India, working directly for the poorest rather than believing in some economic trickle-down theory that doesn’t seem to be making a difference at all?
The Kirsten manual for Team India, on 'how you don't need a partner if you have a good hand' - something that bridge players have known for ages - has intriguing possibilities. Right now it's just a little hand-holding, and visualising, to get the players into the flow of things. The theory is that 'solo sex' will get testosterone levels so high that the young men in blue will score on the cricket field too. In other words, 'if you can't get a quick 50, go jack off'. But what coach Kirsten and team psycho Paddy Upton may not have figured out yet is the full dimension of their proposal. Rahul Dravid, for instance, is usually the slowest to get off the mark on a pitch. But in bed? Could there possibly be a correlation between scoring rates on and off the field? Will Kirsten be keeping an eye on who is the last to make it to the team bus? So it looks like there's one more player stat in the coming... er, making. Anyway, if Kirsten has equally good ideas about what to do with a cricket bat, Team India will surely be on top.
These are the winners, in random order, since they all won it on their own steam, as it were, not against each other:
Zenzi. Bandra
Vong Wong, Nariman Point
Gajalee, Vile Parle
Samovar, Kala Ghoda
Mahesh Lunch Home, Fort
Moshe's, Cuffe Parade
Rama Nayak Shree Krishna Lunch Home, Matunga
Frangipani. Trident
Dum Pukht, Grand Maratha
Oh Calcutta!, Tardeo
Golden Star Thali, Charni Road
Swati Snacks, Tardeo
Stax. Hyatt Regency
Thai Pavilion, Taj President
Indigo Deli, Colaba
Zaffran, Crawford Market
Jaffer Bhai's, Grant Road
A friend of mine, who is well-connected in F1 circles, recently remarked that he won't play poker with Max Mosley if the stakes are high. "He is good at calling the bluff," the friend told me last week when the FIA-FOTA war was its peak with neither side ready to blink. However, as both the parties reached an agreement on Wednesday, it has become quite clear that it was Mosley who not only blinked first but has had to endorse almost everything that FOTA has been demanding.
That the World Motor Sports Council meeting forced Mosley to accept FOTA's demands suggests that the 69-year-old embattled FIA president had made the conflict with FOTA a personal affair. But did Mosley have to stretch this issue so far in order to keep his ego intact?
Without going into the merit of the point of views of both sides, let us see how much support Mosley had. Within FOTA, two current teams - one of which is a complete newcomer and the other a faded force and a known Mosley loyalist - supported the FIA president. These two teams are relative lightweights in Formula One. The big guns had united to not only to prevent Mosley from making certain rule changes but also to get rid of Mosley himself. The eight teams, a majority of who are automobile giants, were not impressed by the fact that FIA changed rules without taking them into confidence. They were also piqued with the other old man Bernie Ecclestone, whose company Formula One Management (FOM) was not giving the teams their share of revenue.
I saw red.
Red as in red light.
It stared at me unblinking. Obedient to a fault, I stopped my car. Conscious of the new rules for driving to save petrol, I switched my engine off.
A persistent honking was happening behind my car. Loud and insistent, as an impatient bus driver tried to make me move on with the sheer force of his blast.
I wondered quickly if I was blocking his way... to a right turn. I was not.
Meanwhile, another bus pulled alongside and went lumbering on ahead. Past me, past the light.
I saw red again,. A flash of it before my eyes.
A flash of it in my brain. As in danger. What if... I thought, seeing fleeting imagas of motorcyclists or pedestrians cutting across the bus's path.
Its a personally frustrating situation for the most of the environmentally conscious individuals. Everyone who agrees that there is something wrong with our environment doesnt know exactly what can be done to undo the damage. We all know what is causing damage, but none of us are in a position to prevent it.
None of the NGOs, voluntary organisations, governments or even United Nations' set-ups have been effective in restraining exploitation of environment the world over. There is no power on earth which can ask the United States to curb or reduce the consumption pattern. In a liberalised economy the boost is on improving lifestyle and consumerism, which necessarily means dumping more CO2 in the environment.
I have just received a letter from Amitabh Bachchan. Correction-I am among several journalists who have received a letter from Amitabh Bachchan. It is a copy of a long letter he has sent to the Times of India in response to an article by Jug Suraiya. Suraiya, in a column on March 1, took many potshots at Bachchan for the latter's alleged critical comments on Slumdog Millionare.
While running down Bachchan for making those comments, Suraiya's column also brought in many other charges against Bachchan, invoking earlier reports about the star having conducted religious ceremonies to get rid of the "Manglik" curse on his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai.
Several people I have met over the past week have argued that this question presupposes the survival of the state of Pakistan. But that reduces the recent tragedy in Lahore to a kind of frenzied rhetoric that is not the concern of this article. Cricket lovers, all said and done, are romantics, not even hard-boiled realists, leave aside cynics.
Mushy sentimentalism has surely no place in these troubled times, of course. What happened in Lahore was horrific. The fact that the Sri Lankan team was assaulted by armed gunmen gives lie to the belief that cricketers face no threat in the sub-continent. We now have to live with the new reality that nothing and nobody is exempt from the terror threat.
But Pakistan cricket, in as much as is possible, needs to be seen distinct from whatever else is happening in the country. Indeed, if help is forthcoming from other cricket-playing countries, it will not only help sustain the sport in that country, but might perhaps also further the larger cause of keeping young minds away from other ills that threaten to usurp everyday life there. Indeed, as Younis Khan has said, cricket could be the panacea for the state of Pakistan itself.
Someday I shall write another kind of blog. Not about terrorism and guns and carnage and worse.
I will write about other things.
I will write about winter in Delhi (where I am visiting soon) and how the women bring out their choicest shawls and the men dress like they were in a Jane Austen novel.
I will write about how much I miss Mumbai’s three departed chroniclers-Busybee, Frank Simoes and Dom Moraes. (I wonder what words they would have chosen to describe what we’ve been through.)
I will write about the boys who sell books and magazines at traffic lights who I’ve come to befriend when they hitch rides off me from point A to B. All of them bright, enterprising, needy. All of them with the same story. (I’m working to pay off my school fees.) I once tried to find one at the address he’d given me to arrange for his fees-and was told no one by that name existed-but that’s another story….
I will write about Cat Stevens and his latest album after so many years of silence, which at first I didn’t enjoy but slowly began to appreciate.
The relentless TV coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks is an indication of both its success and failure. Over the last three or four days, I have received lots of email criticising TV coverage of the event. Among other things, TV reporters have been accused of giving away critical information to the terrorists by indicating the size of the NSG forces, etc, etc. In particular, Barkha Dutt seems to have become a particular hate target, with bloggers harshly critical of her breathless and emotional coverage of the Taj and other operations.
I am no fan of TV coverage. In the pursuit of TRPs, TV anchors tend to look for ways to hook the viewer, and often this means catering to low tastes (especially in the regional media), and sensationalism. I am particularly aggrieved, since relentless TV coverage of a triviality forces newspapers to follow suit - since TV often sets the news agenda.
However, I would also like to say this in defence of TV mediapersons. One, if they are all that bad, why are we still watching them? During the Mumbai attacks, most people I know were glued to TV. We now know that even the cabinet secretary and the National Security Advisor were probably watching TV for a first-hand feel of what was happening in Mumbai on that day.
