Donkeys and Lions

The other day, at the entrance to the tech park where I work, I over-heard a guy talking over the phone, in an old-Bangalore accent, presumably cribbing to his friend or colleage about his (own) boss.

"A group of Donkeys led by a Lion will always win against a group of Lions led by a Donkey"

Rants against the boss are nothing new, and the phrase in itself is quite clever, but I found the Aesop-fable, panchatantra-tales like animallic analogy additionally funny - espeically when uttered in a tech park. Some employees there have probably seen neither donkey nor lion in their lifetimes.

Midnight In Paris

Got to see Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris, on a plane from Dubai to SF. Last time on an Emirates flight, it was Abida Parveen's main hosh mein hoon to ghazal, and this time it was Woody Allen's latest classic.
(Just before that I saw Mel Brookes' Smoking Saddles. But it was only very funny).

Well, with the kid and all, watching movies in theaters is a thing of the past. Thank God there's Emirates.

It's a very original script: a budding writer transported to the 20's Paris he so would have liked to live in. Surrounded by artists and writers he admires. Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse, Fitzgerald, Elliot, Dali. It was the kind of feeling I got when I saw familiar poets, Ghalib, Zafar, Zauq, Momin in Mirza Ghalib serial by Gulzar. But of course, Woody Allen has given this original twist of a non-scientific time travel, where at Midnight the movie's protagonist is suddenly transported to the 20s Paris society.

The central thought of the movie is that most of us think of an earlier time, not today, as an artistic golden age, and it is possible that people who we think lived in a golden age, ignored the great art happening around them and instead looked back with fondness on an even earlier time. Hmm. Does this happen a lot? Not in all cases I think - maybe 50-50, or normal probability. For. eg. Woody Allen himself is quite a celebrated filmmaker in his own time.

It was great to see how Picasso and Hemingway looked - I am assuming Woody Allen would have managed to create the respective authentic looks. It was also interesting to hear Hemingway saying that all writers are competitiors and he would hate any author's work - if it was bad, then because it was bad, and if good, out of envy. There have been times when I have liked something so much that I have not been able to read it further out of envy. Even on this trip, I was thinking of taking along Khushwant Singh's Delhi but felt that I could not re-read so well written a book.

Woody Allen is for me the best movie maker today. Midnight in Paris is so gripping, I could not stop watching even though it was the second movie on the trot, and I was feeling sleepy. Could not also resist writing about it immediately.

The Old School

Thanks to an excellent channel called DD Bharati, which, in my opinion, is about 10x better than the DD National Channel,I have been regularly catching epsiodes from Shyam Benegal's 'Bharat Ek Khoj'. The serial has several things going for it: excellent direction from Benegal, Nehru's erudite, liberal and generous view of history, and great actors who went on to become celebrated character actors of Bollywood.

In today's episode alone, which was based on Raja Rao's Kanthapura (coincidentally my mom is reading the book now), I came across, I might even say bumped into, Irfan Khan as a wiry and evilish police constable, Shabana Azmi as a progressive village lady, Om Puri as the village Gowda, Pallavi Joshi, Shyam Benegal himself as a conservative Pandit, Ila Arun, and wonder of wonders, Piyush Mishra, the man who plays the TV channel owner, Majeed, in Tere Bin Laden - it took me quite a while to place him.

Om Puri is a regular, now playing Raja Raja Chola, now Babur, now Mohammed of Ghazni. Kulbhushan Kharbanda appears as Akbar in one episode, Sadashiv Amrapurkar plays Mahatma Phule in another. Irfan Khan appears often too. The other role of his I remember is as one of the associates of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.

The routes the character actors of Indian cinema seem to be quite different from the ones taken by the 'stars' of Bollywood. Theatre, drama school, doing solid work in alternative cinema or in quality serials like Bharat Ek Khoj, the acting equivalent of making your bones...vs. a 'launch', in an often family sponsored, big budget big banner...

Avoid Waste


An email a colleague sent at work... My take on this (and I have been following this lately) is to always get any left over food in restaurants parceled. Take it home to eat it some other time, or give it to some needy people...


Germany is a highly industrialized country. It produces top brands like Benz, BMW, Siemens etc. The nuclear reactor pump is made in a small town in this country. In such a country, many will think its people lead a luxurious life. At least that was my impression before my study trip.

When I arrived at Hamburg, my colleagues who work in Hamburg arranged a welcome party for me in a restaurant. As we walked into the restaurant, we noticed that a lot of tables were empty. There was a table where a young couple was having their meal. There were only two dishes and two cans of beer on the table. I wondered if such simple meal could be romantic, and whether the girl will leave this stingy guy.

There were a few old ladies on another table. When a dish is served, the waiter would distribute the food for them, and they would finish every bit of the food on their plates.

We did not pay much attention to them, as we were looking forward to the dishes we ordered. As we were hungry, our local colleague ordered more food for us.

As the restaurant was quiet, the food came quite fast. Since there were other activities arranged for us, we did not spend much time dining. When we left, there was still about one third of unconsumed food on the table.

When we were leaving the restaurant, we heard someone calling us. We noticed the old ladies in the restaurant were talking about us to the restaurant owner. When they spoke to us in English, we understood that they were unhappy about us wasting so much food. We immediately felt that they were really being too busybody."We paid for our food, it is none of your business how much food we left behind," my colleague told the old ladies.

The old ladies were furious. One of them immediately took her hand phone out and made a call to someone. After a while, a man in uniform claimed to be an officer from the Social Security Organization arrived. Upon knowing what the dispute was, he issued us a 50 Mark fine. We all kept quiet. The local colleague took out a 50 Mark note and repeatedly apologized to the officer.

The officer told us in a stern voice, "ORDER WHAT YOU CAN CONSUME, MONEY IS YOURS BUT RESOURCES BELONG TO THE SOCIETY. THERE ARE MANY OTHERS IN THE WORLD WHO ARE FACING SHORTAGE OF RESOURCES. YOU HAVE NO REASON TO WASTE RESOURCES.´”

Our face turned red. We all agreed with him in our hearts. The mind set of people of this rich country put all of us to shame. WE REALLY NEED TO REFLECT ON THIS. We are from country which is not very rich in resources.
To save face, we order large quantity and also waste food when we give others a treat. THIS LESSON TAUGHT US A LESSON TO THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT CHANGING OUR BAD HABITS.

My colleague photo copy the fine ticket and gave a copy to each of us as a souvenir. All of us kept it and pasted on our wall to remind us that we shall never be wasteful.

It is easier to criticize, but difficult to Improve!

Damn this contentment.
Oh for the madding passions,
Of a rabid dog.

Haiku

What will it turn to,
the yellow dress you'r wearing,
pretty one? red? green?

This, in half profile,
fills me up with dreamly sleep,
languid yawn of yours.

Me and Uncle Pai

Today I was going through some old manuscripts and correspondence from the days when I was an active writer of stories for children. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself smile and laugh at stuff I had myself written: I used to be good.

I found several letters, some of acceptance, some rejection slips, from the late editor of TINKLE and the creator of Amar Chitra Katha - Anant Pai or Uncle Pai. When Uncle Pai passed away in February this year, I was so busy with some stuff going on at work, that I might not have spent more than a minute in total thinking about it. Even when my mother commented about it over phone, I only said "yes, I read". Well, such is the pace of the rat race.

Anant Pai always manually signed his letters, and sometimes added a personal note. "I have been to TVM several times" he wrote on an acceptance letter, when I was in Trivandrum, "Next time I am in TVM I will get in touch with you." On another occasion rejecting a story called 'Big Bang' he wrote "Science fiction cannot ignore well known and established scientific fact." Accepting my last story, he said that my English was very good. A couple of years into work in Bangalore I was vaguely considering doing an internship at TINKLE in Mumbai. Never got around to doing it, but I did correspond with them, and even spoke to Uncle Pai over phone!

I am sure the great man had time and words for several several people, but I feel privileged to have 'known' him through his brief notes. It was a lot of fun growing up and learning to read and write with TINKLE. I am sure the magazine will be the poorer without his sensitive touch - but I hope not.

She...

She bit him harder now,
Drew a little blood,
They tossed about,
In the large bed,
Under the high macchar-dani ,
She giddy with instinctive passion,
He, in a dazed half-sleep,
Once almost crushing her with his weight...
At length he was awake fully,
And now he was after her,
And she suddenly elusive,
He turned on the light,
Peering, spectacle-deprived,
Till he found her,
Gently, he neared her from behind,
With his finger squished her red against the cotton netting,
And brought their tumultous affair to an end...

The Good Life

This post was written on board an Emirates flight back from Rio de Janeiro (I have had the good fortune of trotting the globe a bit, these last two years), where I had three seats to myself, where the 'Hindu Non-veg' meal hit the right spot, where two Australian Shirazs made up for the lack of one French Merlot, listening to the Ghazal which I am about to write about, drunk to the last neuron - inventing an expression, not just on the two Shirazs if you are wondering, with a bit of Marquez influencing my style, so this post is not going to be very coherent.

The Good Life: something that the rich in Rio are definitely familiar with (by the way, did you know the Europeans discovered Rio in January, and actually thought that the bay was the mouth of a river, hence Rio de Janeiro - the river of January), and I hope the poor are too, though they might only get to express it through Samba and Footaball.

Maybe in my pleasantly drunk state, but I have been reconciling myself to the fact that I will never be a famous poet. But then again, that next rung of the Homo Sapien that can savour poetry, that can have their heart wrenched by Love In The Time of Cholera (which I again highly recommend to the reader), even if they are reading it a second time, and even if they have been married more than 3 yrs, and have a new son, that rung is as sparsely populated or even more so, as the 19th May flight from Sao Paolo to Dubai, going by the lack of web-pages that discuss a Faiz poem, expound on it, and not just print the lyrics… And I think I have some claim to this second rung.

(“This is a heart-wrenching tale” says Linus in a Peanuts strip, “don’t read it if you don’t want your heart wrenched”)

So the Ghazal that I heard the first time on an earlier Emirates flight, really liked the second time on the onward flight to Sao Paulo, and looked forward to listening a third time and to mugging it up on my return flight is the below fabulous poem by Hazrat Zaheen Shah. This Ghazal is more in the style of Daag the great exquisetly-simple poet of Delhi, different from the style of the scholarly poet of Delhi, Ghalib, who himself says of his poetry “Ghalib sareer-e-khama nava-e-sarosh hai, Ghalib the scratch of your pen is the sound of angels”. Hazrat Zaheen Shah like Daag is very much human and appeals in a focused effort to the heart, unlike Ghalib who pampers the heart and the brain together. Without further ado:

(By the way, the Ghazal was rendered by Abida, and she might have elevated to the next level, even a lesser Ghazal):

Main hosh mein hoon to tera hoon,
Deewana hoon to tera hoon.
Hoon raaz agar toh tera hoon,
Afsaana hoon to tera hoon….

(I am yours in whatever state I might be - sober or in a narcotic bekhudi-c state, if you don’t want to tell anyone, I am your big secret, and if you want to tell the world, I am your famous conquest-ic story…)

Barbaad kiya barbaad hua,
Aabaad kiya, abaad hua,
Veerana hoon toh tera hoon,
Kaashaana hoon toh tera hoon…

(The same idea again, but hinting that you have the keys to my future, you can make or destroy me, and I am ok with either option. I could't find out the meaning of Kaashaana. Help anyone?)

Tuh mere kaif ki duniya hai,
Tuh meri hasti ka aalam,
Paimana hoon toh tera hoon,
Maikhana hoon toh tera hoon….

(A hopeful verse probably, Just like you are my world of bliss, delight (Kaif), indeed, like you are the world in which I exist, I hope to be the instrument of your enjoyment (paimana) as well as the setting (maikhana))

Main hosh mein hoon…

Har zarra Zaheen ki hasti ka,
Tasveer hai teri sar-ta-paa,
Woh kaaba-e-dil dhaane waale,
Buth-khaana hoon to tera hoon…

(Every part of the poet (Zaheen Shah) is a mirror to his beloved from head to foot. Look at the ultimate muslim sacrifice in the second part of the verse: you can convert my kaaba of a dil into your place of idolatory – what more proof do you want that I am yours for anything, anything? Again I don't quite understand in what sense dhaane waale has been used. Comments welcome.)

Tees Maar Khan - delightfully irreverent

Irreverent. That word says a lot. Look here, I respect you, but I don’t revere you. So, while I may not insult you, I will sure as hell make plenty of jokes at you. Farah Khan gets bindaas irreverent in Tees Maar Khan as she pokes jokes galore at her Bollywood friends, at the Oscars, at the Khans of bollywood, at the patriotic movies of the 70s, and maybe at patriotism itself – look for the scene where someone says ‘leharao tiranga’ and to your pleasant shock a French tricolor is raised to the sky!

The plot (apparently borrowed from a Hollywood movie) revolves around Tabrez Mirza Khan or Tees Maar Khan (Akshay Kumar), a con-man of renown, who stages a train robbery using a town-full of villagers, an Oscar-hungry movie star (Akshaye Khanna), and Tabrez’s silly girl friend Anya (Katrina Kaif), convincing them all that they are in-fact acting in a movie.

The movie is full of in-jokes, and in-subtelities. At one point Akshay Kumar points to a couple of bony, frail villagers and asks the rest of his cast to develop six-packs like them – a joke at Shah-Rukh’s very bony frame in Farah Khan’s own Om Shanti Om. The star, Akshaye Khanna has a back problem like you-know-who. In the quawwali Aadaab Arz Hai, Akshay Kumar keeps trying to keep Sallu’s hands (Salman Khan in a guest appearance) off Katrina, saying something like, “yeh ab meri hai”. In another scene when Katrina says to Akshay “I love you” – he tells her, “Hey! Not in public!” In the song “Bade Dilwala” there’s a rhyming mention of Yusuf and Madhubala, and promptly Akshay draws a white feather into the scene – a tribute to the famous sequence from Mughal-e-Aazam. Akshay Kumar while pataoing Akshaye Khanna for his plan, pretends to be the Hollywood director Manoj Day Shyamalan – note not just the inversion of Night and Day, but also the classical Bollywood inversion Shyam and Ram! The bit I loved the most is when Katrina says suddenly in the movie-in-the-movie confusion ‘Off with his head’. It would be a fair bet to say Farah Khan’s three kids are reading ‘Alice in Wonderland’ right now. What these in-jokes do is that they create some sort of audience involvement – inviting the audience to create the movie experience along with the director.

Credit must go to Farah Khan for plenty of original thought, especially compared to what passes as comedy these days – I happened to watch a cliché-filled House Full on TV later in the evening. The opening sequence has a feotal Tees Maar Khan doing synchronous swimming routines in amniotic fluid, and later there’s the Siamese-twin-gangsters who use an extended earphone, from one twin’s left ear to the other twin’s right ear!

The music is also quite good. Katrina Kaif sizzles in Shiela Ki Jawani. Aadaab Arz Hai is quite a good quawwali, and Bade Dil Waala is full of witty lines. All three songs are superbly choreographed. Bollywood indeed is full of talent!

There are a few sore points – racist and coarse jokes on black complexioned people and gays. But I still would give Tees Maar Khan a four out of five. Go watch it for Farah Khan’s brand of eclectic humour.

Midnight's Children

The last time I tried reading Midnight's Children, I could only get to a hundred pages or so. I had been reading Garcia Marquez before that - One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Love in the Time of Cholera. and I found similarities in style that made Salman Rushdie a perhaps-unintentional plagiarist in my mind. Both Rushdie and Marquez have absurd, fantastical things happening to people in their books - like someone dying by a roof collapsing on their heads, or choking on an not un-seeded orange - perhpas a magnifying-glass pointer at the magic and absurdity in everyday life. Both use a non linear narrative - often saying 'Years later so-and-so remembered' etc, or referring to the future through pre-cognitive half-hints, Rushdie more so, which makes his book of continuous suspenses created and unveiled every few pages - a bit irritating at times. Some story lines are similar too - for e.g. one sister in love with one man, and then he suddenly falls in love with another sister, and the first sister lives a life of envy, waiting for her revenge.

This time around, though I still have not absolved Rushdie of possibly-unintentional plagiarism, I am still able to continue reading Midnight's Children - ofcourse lots of things are different too, and there is a lot of substance to the plot.

Chirp

I have started out on twitter.
here goes

Nitish Kumar Ki Jai: Clean hands and a good heart!

Go Rahul

Rahul Gandhi's charm is already much talked about. Here's some evidence of that.

Rahul Gandhi on Raj Thackeray

Charm by itself is probably not something to vote for. But Charm + intelligence + vision + dedication + a will to better the lives of his countrymen + a liberal outlook, well that's a good combo to vote for I think. (For now I am ignoring Rahul's recent publicity hogging over the Vedanta issue, which was a bit of a let down). Charm and charisma I am sure play a role in diplomacy too. Too bad Priyanka Gandhi is not too interested in politics.

Something Fishy

No offence, but I have lately noticed that Pakistani bureaucrats, diplomats, ministers etc. have a tendency to overuse (and sometimes abuse) English idiom.

Here's an example. The Pakistan High Commissioner to Britain commenting on Amir's removal from the emerging player of the year nominations. Notice especially the last sentence.

"After the shocking, arbitrary and high-handed suspension of the three Pakistani cricketers through the ICC's uncalled for action, nothing is coming to me as a surprise. Rather, my apprehensions that there is a rat in the whole affair are being strengthened. It is emerging as a fishy situation where pieces have now started falling in place to convince me that there is more than what meet the eyes," he said.

Listen/read carefully next time you come across a statement from Pakistan babudom.

Maybe it's their Hobby Horse or Achilles' heel or whatever.

Disambiguation

Of late, my blog has had visitors from profiles of other 'Anant Kamath's. Thought I would clarify things a bit, and have added a few details about myself.

Writing the 'About Me' was a semi-wakeup-call. Though there are, or used to be, some other facets to my life, including Writing, I can't reasonably call myself anything but an analog circuits designer at the moment. But I would rather like, to also be able to call myself a Writer at least, if not a painter, a singing student, a runner, a footballer, and an amateur actor :-). Well, I will use the 'About Me' on the Left Hand Side (LHS, we used to all it in school maths), as a constant reminder to that.

If you like humour and if you know your impressionists:

Woody Allen's 'If the Impressionists had been dentists'

Amazing stuff.

Oh to laugh like this!

'Tere bin Laden' was a laugh riot. I don't know if Pakistan is really the way it is depicted. Maybe it's a Pakistan created for Indian consumption, just like 'Slumdog Millionaire' was an India created for the West. But even for a Pakistani watching the movie there are positives. Even if AK-47 carrying Mujahideen are shown waiting in travel agents' offices, looking for a way to get to the USA, the protagonist of the movie is shown reasonably shocked at being suggested a terror camp route to the States. And Noore the poultry farmer and Osama look-alike is both affronted and distressed at being included in a Jihadi video.

Hmm... Don't go by the above paragraph. The movie is a continuous laugh-fest from the beginning where a landing airplane sends a journalit's wig flying, to the end where an earnest ISI agent is admitted, screaming, to a mental asylum.

Nice to have a movie that gives you a closer, even if not very accurate, look at Pakistan. Seem to be a sober, restrained and grounded people. And the same can be said about the movie too, sober and restrained comedy - none of the over the top, artifi-exuberant and corny stuff that makes up funny Bollywood movies these days. The gaali-baazi too was kind of funny - where the gaali has to be given, and has to offend at one level, but at the same time not offend at another. Like "teri penanu...lassi pilaawan, teri maanu...dahi." Surprising sensibility, given the usual impression one has of Pakistan.

Five out of five, and two thumbs up!

PS: The movie kinda pre-empts in some respects a funny story I thought up while sipping beer at Chicago airport recently - about an ISI spy in the US. Hmm. Given the amount of writing I do these days, all my good ideas are going to get pre-empted anyway.

Ad agencies make strange bedfellows

This tea brand ad comes on TV these days with this slogan:
"Waagh-bakri chai, rishtey banae".

Waagh aur bakri ne bhi wohi chai pi hogi!

Whither Weather-whether?

The Met department has predicted a 98% normal monsoon. They are like the astrologer that exactly preadicts what you want to hear, and then predicts exactly that, so that you are in a good mood and don't not pay them. Last year, two months into a failed monsoon, and they were saying, "Wait, things may still turn around."

Well, no one really believes them. Au Contraire. Their predictions of a normal monsoon have dashed the last hopes of farmers. Already yagnas are underway, and classical singers are honing their 'Mia Malhar'. The opposition is rubbing its hands in glee, while the government is bribing people to change the prediction to 'dire drought or floods' to keep the public sentiment up.

Ocean haiku

Lovest thou the sea?
But must thou make land thy home?
Island's an option.

Almost Idiotic

Well, if there is going to be an Amir Khan movie, I am going to watch it. What made me watch Three Idiots earlier was the the controversy. I guess publicity stunts do work. I had read reports about Chetan Bhagat crying foul on his blog, and had seen news reports of the press conference where Vinod Chopra said Shut Up. I believed Chetan Bhagat's version, and thought ok, Amir Khan has finally done something wrong, accusing Chetan Bhagat of 'seeking cheap publicity'. I went to the theatre expecting to find that Chetan Bhagat was right.

Very soon into the movie I was convinced that Chetan Bhagat's claim that the movie is 70% of the book was false. Maybe 10 to 20%. But of course these things are subjective.

The movie is funny. But full of cliches. Too much unbelievable melodrama. Too preachy. And much too senti and tearful. The pencil not pen in space one, I had read that ten years ago. The 'Chamatkar' replaced with 'Balatkar' stuff that seemed familiar too - was still badly done and overdone, if you ask me. And there were some more that I don't remember. The chest hair in the chappati was too unnecessarily gross.

Amir Khan belives he can do anything on screen these days - that his character can, that is. Ghajini was too fantastic. And in Three Idiots, he manages to conduct a succesful delivery - the power conveniently goes off so he can demonstrate his car battery inverter invention - and the soon to be mother temporarily stops having labour pains while the whole inverter-vaccum-cleaner setup is up. Uff!

Amir Khan does not look like a college goer. In Rang De Basanti, they made him a repeater who keeps flunking so he can stay in college where he's the star. In this one they decided to give up the pretence. Someone write some good 'old' roles for Amir!

Another thing, if Amir Khan cries on screen, it some how manages to get me all teary too. I was embarassedly in tears watching Taare Zameen Par - I watched it with my wife; I was married just two months or so then. In Three Idiots too the place where his two friends are settled in life thanks to him, and he goes boo-hoo, again made me cry. I don't think it is just the story upto the point that made me cry. I would like to think the film makers actually wanted to make me cry. And they put all their film-making skills, their understanding of audio and video and of human psychology, plus the knowledge that the audience have been sitting in the hall, watching their tedious movie, for close to an hour. They put all these things into making me cry. And I resent it. Amjad Khan as Wajid Ali Shah in Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khiladi says to his tearful minister that 'Sirf Shayari aur Mausiki ek Mard ki aankhon mein aansoo laa sakti hai' (And he adds, perhaps not indending the joke, 'Kya hua? Resident sahab ne koi apni Ghazal suna di kya?'). I agree with him. I very much resent it if anything more than the aesthetics of a movie make me cry.

It's surprising really. Amir Khan for all his talent and his years in the industry, has'nt still made as true a movie as DevD.

I could write more bad stuff about Three Idiots, but let me stop. The book was only ok-ok. The movie, inspite of its laughs, is worse.

Watch it for the 3D

There is a lot of India about 'Avatar'. The word Avatar ofcourse, and some of the cultural traits of the Na'vi - the spiritual chanting, the prayers etc. But more than that. The humans on Pandora are from a private business corporation backed by a state army out to do trade with the Na'vi - to get 'unobtainium' a substance not found on Earth... The earthlings making friends with the Na'vi and mixing with them, teaching them English etc... The 'tropical' forests of Pandora filled with strange vegetation, ferocious wild beasts, and tribes armed with poison-tipped arrows... All this seemed similar to the beginnings of British trade and rule in India.

'Avatar' scores a lot of points for the semi-novelty of the plot - the beginnings of human presence on other planet, the excellent special effects, the cinematography, and ofcourse, the 3D. But it disappoints in depth of the characters, the acting and the believability of the story, and the story-telling itself (Total Recall and the Terminator series immediately comes to the mind).

Oflate a lot of Bollywood seems to have crept into Hollywood - especially, sudden unlikely possibilities opening up by the power of prayer. And also starting with The Matrix, there have been too many oracle predicting too many TheOne-s. Our Science Fiction is certainly taking a few steps backwards. Or is that the direction our science is heading?

More of Rafi and Ghalib...

Zikr us pari-vash ka aur phir bayaan apna

Bazeecha-e-atfal hai

Gazab kiya tere waade pe aitebaar kiya

Shauk har rang raqeeb

aey tazaware daane bisate hawaaey dil


Hai bas ke har ek unke ishaare mein nishaan aur Includes a bit of dialogue from the movie Mirza Ghalib.

Rafi and Ghalib: The original combo

On a summer's day more than 8 years ago, I was first properly introduced to Ghalib, through Ghazals in Rafi's voice that someone had stored on the computer I was working on. Now that I have re-discovered those awesome songs on youtube - I realize that I had forgotten how well Rafi had sung them. I am wondering if these are not the best sung Ghalib ghazals that I have ever listened to.

Perhaps what sets Rafi apart from all other talented singers is the humility, the humanity, the emotion he has packed into these Ghazals.

Anyway, here are the links:

Dard minnat-kash-e-dawa na hua
Muddat hui hai yaar ko mehmaan kiye hue
Nuktacheen hai gam-e-dil

Kitni rahat hai dil toot jaane ke baad

The Ghazal in the last link is not by Ghalib, but was one of the Ghazals on that comp. And it is very nice too.

In Muddat hui hai look for that sher made more famous by Gulzar: Ji dhoondata hai phir wahi phursat ke raat din, baithe rahe tassavur-e-jaana kiye hue.

In Nuktacheen hai gam-e-dil look for that immortal sher: Ishq par zor nahin hai yeh woh aatish Ghalib, jo lagaye na lage aur bujhaye na bane.

********************

For, Dard minnat kash-e-dawa na hua , in the absence of any famous shers, I provide here my prose translation :-)

dard minnat_kashe-davaa na huaa
mai.n na achchaa huaa, buraa na huaa
[minnat_kashe-davaa=obliged to medicine]

"It's good that I did'nt get well, at least I am not indebted to the medicine!" Ghalib is consoling himself that it is good that his lady love is not 'alleviating his pain'.

kitane shiirii.n hai.n tere lab ke raqiib
gaaliyaa.N khaake bemazaa na huaa
[shiirii.n=sweet]

"My love, the sweetness of your lips have taken the sting out of the galis that you are hurling at my rival!" Ghalib has convinced himself that his lady love and his rival are not on talking terms, and it is only her sweet lips that are diluting the effect of her harsh words to his rival.

kyaa vo namaruud kii Khudaaii thii
ba.ndagii me.n meraa bhalaa na huaa
[namarud=Nimrod=a king who used to say that he was God]

"My devotion (to God) has'nt done me much good. Was it that Namrud was right in calling only himself God?"

kuchch to pa.Dhiye ki log kahate hai.n
aaj 'Ghalib' Gazal_saraa na huaa

"Just read out something, anything, Ghalib, people are saying that you are not your usual poetic self today"

The sequel to watch for

Vikram Seth is writing A Suitable Girl !. It is the first time I have been even a bit excited by the news of an upcoming sequel. But A Suitable Boy will be a tough act to match...

A Mid Summer's Day Dream

Chapter 10

On the way out of the workshop, Chutti looked at his image in a window pane - shyly, self-consciously. One of the many things Chutti liked about workshop days was being in uniform. Khaki shirt and pant and leather shoes. Chutti thought he looked good in uniforms.

His hands and clothes were soiled with fine iron powder. His shirt was wet at the armpits and collar. His forehead was moist; he did not wipe it dry - he also liked his 'workman' look.

Chutti had spent the last two and half hours in 'filing' workshop, filing away at a rectangular piece of iron. The objective (of nearly half the course) was to reduce the the width of the piece to a certain smaller dimension, by (only) filing it. It was strange that such training should also contribute towards an engineering degree. It was hard work, the continuous to and fro movement of the arms, and one had to be careful and file straight, checking often, with a try-square, that the right angles were all still correct. But it was otherwise a no-brainer allowing the mind to drift here and there like a bird. Chutti loved these meditative two and half hours twice weekly.

The rest of his class had already dispersed, having set off on bicycles to different hostels. Chutti now got to his bicycle and started out, with a song in his heart, if not on his lips - feeling a bit like Devanand from some Hindi movie.

He circled the roudabout near the library, and just as he crossed the central lecture hall, as usual, he saw her at the head of a bunch of giggly girls, all his seniors. She looked pretty as usual, fresh, bright and cool - as if they were all at summer vacation on a hill station - not doing college in sultry Chennai. Chutti's workshop day routine was complete.

Chutti had been a reluctant participator in elocution contests while at school, participating only because his teachers expected him to. Something he had once tried from Shakespeare, came back to him now. For the first time there seemed to be more to the words than poetry.

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;

************

Renee, for it was her, was ofcourse not unfamiliar with guys giving her the glad eye. But in Chutti's case her amusement was tinged with sympathy. "Poor kid," she might have thought "I am so out of his league".

Jai Ho

"Poye Poye, Taamara poye " ("Oh it has gone, Oh it has gone, the lotus has gone").

I remember one holiday afternoon, in Trivandrum, suddenly hearing the above slogan chanting, sitting in the room of our home which faced the main street of P.T.P Nagar. It was the supporters of the CPI(M), I think, going by on a small truck, sarcastically mourning the big defeat of the BJP in some election.

Yesterday, as I watched the election results, the same slogan came to my mind. This was the first election I was keenly, even passionately, following. And the first election where I voted. And I am happy and relieved with the results. I hope this election has dealt a body blow (preferably a slap in the face) to the lotus party. Or at least to it's chief ideas and ways of working. Over the past few years, I have come to dislike most of it's leaders. However, I hope the party learns its lesson, ditches it's irrelevant ideologies and starts from scratch (of the head?) and finds out new ways of providing competition to the Congress. I don't wish that BJP should altogether go away. In some states - like Gujrat and Karnataka - they are probably better than the Congress in terms of administrative competence and leadership. I hope the BJP in those states sobers up and stops direct and indirect pro-Hindutva and anti-minorities activities. That is I hope the Gujrat government says sorry for Godhra, and speeds up compensation to the victims, and the karnataka government stops funding Hindu Matts out of a cash-starved budget (increasingly dependant on tax on booze) and I hope they hit groups like Ram Sene real hard on the head. I also hope the BJP never never dares do a Kandhamal once again. The last implying Mangalore quietens.

Why not BJP? Why Congress? I could see several reasons, and the rest of India apparently saw them too. First. Hindutva and anti-minorities. The ghosts of Gujrat - compensation granted by Central government over a year ago still not reaching Godhra victims. Then Kandhamal. Then Pilibhit. The Ram Sene in Bangalore. The threat of a Hindu Taliban. And not because BJP deep down believes in such strong fundamentalism (I think and hope), but only because they think they could continuously con the Indian people into the indulgence of chauvinism. I for one strongly believe that good governance and administrative provess a la Modi can never excuse exploitation and fascism. Don't we remember Hitler? Second, quality of leadership. Congress: sober, sincere, honest and obviously not greedy, qualified and experienced, plus plenty of leaders including young ones. BJP: Not so experienced, ambitious after power (look at Mr Advani), not so qualified, a few, old leaders. Third: How they behaved in the opposition. I don't remember much of the Congress as opposition five years ago, but I doubt they were as un-constructive and as coarse in their criticism of the government, as the BJP.

I belong to Bangalore North. And I voted for the Congress candidate Jaffer Sharief though I had doubts about his deserving to be MP again. Only because I wanted Congress to come back to power at the centre. Well Jaffer Sharief lost and still Congress is at the centre. So it is win despite a loss for my vote :-)

Other parties? When Mayawati came to power in UP, I was thrilled with her 'social engineering', her inclusive politics, her Dalit-empowerment. But she has since disappointed, fielding criminals, erecting her own statues (That reminds me, not very inappropriately, of something that Sheikh Saadi, a persian Sufi poet, is supposed to have said - It does not become a man to glorify himself, what pleasure does a woman get pressing her own boobs?), building palaces for herself out of government money, hiring/firing/transfering people she does'nt like. The revivial of Congress in UP is good news. AIADMK? Jayalalitha is supposed to be a good leader. But her flip-flop on LTTE was disappointing. Hope she learns her lesson. Lalu? Too bad. I hope he manages to continue in the cabinet. Nitish Kumar. Hope his good work in Bihar in the years that follow affords him the luxury of distancing himself from the BJP, like Naveen Patnaik has managed in Orissa. Deve Gowda? Good riddance. Kumaraswamy? Poor fellow. Did some good work as CM. Hope he makes a wiser come-back. DMK? Hope they shut up about LTTE, now that it is not required, and concentrate on governance. Anyway, they have good competition from Jayalalitha.

Overall. Quite a Jai Ho result.

Amber fluid, Amber fluid

A couple of weeks ago, some bee-hustlers (my expression) were invited to our apartment building to take care of some bee-hives. Though I did feel sorry for the bees, smoked out of their homes and lives, poor things, we bought about 3 kilos of honey from the bee-hustlers. Three kilos looked like a lot of honey to buy, but I have since disovered that honey is pretty heavy and three kilos is about one and half litres.

The honey is now sitting in a fine bottle which used to contain another precious amber fluid - Johnny Walker Black Label. My wife has not bothered removing all the labels from the bottle - some food for thought for visiting relatives who like honey with their dosas :-)

Poetic Injustice

Was watching Kaho Na Pyaar Hai for a bit today. There is this guy, the hotel manager, if I remember right, who is trying to quote Ghalib and gives up mid-way: 'Woh aaye ghar mein hamare ...something something ... are chaddo yaar'. Though it was reel-life and all that, I felt like saying 'Hey dude! How can you quote a Ghalib sher incomplete and not apologize? Not make an attempt to recollect it? Not say, 'Oh shit! I have forgotten it. I will look it up and complete it for you next time we meet'?

Adding salt to this wound were insipid lyrics of the songs that followed in the movie including 'Geet ghazal sab hue purane...etc'. Hmph!

DevD

If I am not forgetting some other interesting film in the interim, and not counting full comedies, since these are mostly packed with jokes, and don't need nor contain a strong plot or 'deep' characterization, DevD for me is the best Hindi movie since Omkara. 'Luck by chance' also had a certain something, but that movie unfortunately was 'phony' in parts.

Two thumbs up to director Anurag Kashyap, as the film critic Rajiv Masand would say, for showing (or creating) an interesting facet of Delhi's dark side. The bar to which Chunni (a pimp in this version of Devdas) takes Dev when they first meet has a three-guy dance band. The point made, I suppose, is the audience in the bar is interested in the aesthetics, rather than the sexuality in the dance. This makes the audience self-indulgent (they are drinking and doing drugs) by choice rather than due to a weakness of character. Anyways, that's my interpretation. The dark side of Delhi, a world of alcohol, drugs and prostitutes, is not shown in a sordid light, but in a clean, colourful, Bohemian light. One certainly hopes it is so in reality.

I have always thought that one should be self-indulgent if one can afford it. There are some things to be said about a wasted youth. Especially if you stop wasting your youth while you still young. Like Dev does in this film. And especially if you have large family wealth to start life afresh with. Like Dev has in this film.

In the three hours or so, the passing of six-ten years is successfully conveyed. When towards the end, they show Dev sitting at a spot by a canal where he used to sit with Paro as a young adolescent, this 'much water has flown under the bridge' (there is a bridge near the canal, too, by the way) is hightened. But the fact that Dev is still young and can start a different phase of life afresh, is refreshing for a viewer like me, nearing thirty, who has the habit of thinking sometimes about how life has turned out since college, but still feeling young, fresh, optimistic and eager about new things to come, new things to do.

The film makes one feel happy to be alive. No computers, no offices figure in this movie. Sugarcane fields, marriage parties (with booze served) and lots of pubs and bars. A life richer and more varied than that in an IT city. I loved the scene where they show the closeup of a hen in a poultry farm, and then as they zoom out Dev and Paro are seen trying to start something in the far corner.

The music too is whacky and off the beaten track. Music by people who are serious about music but don't take it seriously. Emotional atyachaar is awesome.

Contrasting this film with Delhi-6, I could not stop myself giving negative points to the latter. While DevD shows a young, determined, willful Paro quarelling loudly with her father when he wants to get her married off to some guy, and then in her anger pumping at a borewell till it looked like it's handle would break, Delhi-6 shows the old sterotype of a tyrant father almost managing to get his daughther (who looks like a film star!) to a pot-bellied, baldish fellow.

For the love of fish

I am the big bear,
Wet, by the stream side,
Plucking salmon out of thin air,
Stashing them away in his great coat,
Preparing for winter peace again.

I am the first monkey,
That bit into a crunchy sardine,
And found his brain go suddenly tick-tick
And his tail shrink a bit.

I am the marlin,
Tempted by the fisherman's tuna.
I am the tuna,
Tempted by the fisherman's sardine.
I am the grinning shark,
Aftering shoals.

I am Anant,
And I love fish.

One billion votes?

'One billion votes' is the slogan of the Jaago Re campaign. But are there one billion voters in India? I think not. Given that there are (only) 1.15 billion people in India, of which at least a third are below eighteen, the minimum age for voting.

Poetic license cannot be the excuse of 'One billion votes' - after all they are not making a poem, they are launching a sober, 'awareness' campaign. They end up sounding ignorant and shallow - atleast to me.

I had forgiven Jaago Re so far, though I was irritated everytime I heard/read their slogan, but now they have infected a popular news channel into naming their election show as 'One billion votes'.

Or am I missing something?

Anyway.

Ha ha

One joke that always gets a laugh out of me, however many times I tell it to people I know:

Railway track par hagane baithoge, to, haath se gaand dhone ki bajay, gaand se haath dho baithoge!

This and That

A month ago, me and my wife went on a trip to Chennai. Why Chennai? Karthik had gotten married in Chennai, some fifteen days before, we had originally planned to attend his wedding and had then cancelled because of bad weather and office work - this was that trip, postponed; I really really wanted to make a train journey again after a long time; I wanted to show my wife my college; and I wanted to see Chola bronze work at the government museum, Chennai. We also made a one day trip to Mahabalipuram from Chennai.

********

The visit to the Museum was the highlight of the trip. Nerdy, no? No. The place has atleast some 100 bronze sculptures, of various sizes, from the Chola age. Well, if I have to go to a museum to see such artisitic wonders, I will. However, because of a kanjoos strain I inherit from my father, I did not opt to pay 200 extra bucks for photography, so I can't put pictures here. We have decided we will make a two day trip to Chennai sometime, just to take pictures in the Bronze gallery of the Government museum.

I will not attempt to describe the beauty, the grace, the inegenuity, the perfection of those figurines. It was a pleasant shock to learn that so much wealth from those 1000 year old times is still with us and in such a well preserved state - not counting the collections of other museums in the country.

The bronze gallery was like a jewellery shop of a kind.

This was the first collections of bronzes I have ever seen. The metallic medium has a definite advantage over stone, adding a 'steely' edge to the austere, holier-than-thou arrogance to the Godly sculptures.

********

Going by the Lonely Planet guide, we visited a section of Mahabalipuram I had never seen in my visits before - the Firang section. Restaurants, souvenier shops, massage centres, 'yoga' shops etc, mostly visited by firangs. We were the only Indian tourists on that street.

We ate at 'The Seaside Restaurant', where we were the only Indian customers. The fare was good - fresh snapper fish, curried and fried. Not expensive, compared to Bangalore prices, but then again the restaurant is right on the beach - so fish must be cheap there.

Don't know why Indian tourists don't go to this firang section - is it that they find it expensive, or is it that they are not welcomed, or is it that they don't know about it? We had, after all, come to know of the place only through the Lonely planet guide - written by (and for?) firangs. Still it was surprising to not find even 'anglecized' Indians there.

The beach too seemed to be segregated somewhat, with one side full of firangs, the other full of Indians. Strange.

When I first heard this song, in a cassette of old kannada songs, I was quite pleasantly surprised by its quiet melody, its lyrical beauty. But when I stumbled upon this video on youtube, I was even more surprised. Where I expected a picturization quite content with letting the song take centrestage, so to speak, I found the video making its own poetry and telling its own story...

I have often been told, and I have in turn told sceptical friends, that Kannada movie industry was once the leading light of South Indian cinema (it is again making a modest recovery from the abyss of the last couple of decades, by the way). This song is an example of the glorious old days.

I was already impressed with old Kannada film music, and now I am impressed with old Kannada movie direction as well.

******

The 'hero', presumably after a stay abroad, has just awakened to the charms of a local Kannada belle - like I awaken atlast to the charms of Kannada film making after appreciating the movies of other languages.

The seemingly simple, fluid, choreography in this picturaization reminds of bees in a flower garden in spring... the chirps of birds... water bubbling through a stream...the seemingly mindless courtship chases of butterflies. The hero's other girl friends partner him in his wooing of the heroine, perhaps they have to be content with vicarious joy only...

****

Here's a (notsogood) translation of the song - do listen the song first:


Hoovondu bali bandu taakitu enn-edeya
enendu... kelalu... helitu...
helitu jenanta sihi nudiya...

A flower, came and brushed my heart,
When I asked: 'What?'
It spoke in honey-sweet tongue:

kaveri seemeye kanneyu naanu
beluru baaleya pratinidhi naanu
tungeya, bhadreya,
tungeya bhadreya tavrina hoo naanu

I come from the land of Kaveri,
I represent Belur's shapely figurines,
I am the flower from the home of the Tunga, the Bhadra...

sooryana kaanti ya sundari naanu
tingala belakina tangeyu naanu
premada kavyake poojeya hoo naanu

My beauty combines the sun's rays,
The moon's light,
I am the flower, with which to worship Love's Poem...

arashina kumkuma shobhite naanu
vadhuvina sringara bhooshite naanu
mangala sutrava beduva hoo naanu

I am adorned with Kumukum and Turmeric,
I am dressed in a Bride's finery,
I am the flower that invites a mangala sutra...

Ae jazba-e-dil

Update on the previous post: you can find a video of the ghazal here on youtube.

Especially check out the last sher:

Aata hai jo toofan, aane do, kashti ka khuda khud haafiz hai,
Mushkil to nahi in maujon mein, behata hua saahil aa jaae.

mauj= waves, saahil=shore

The Traveller

Ae jazba-e-dil, gar main chaahun, har cheez muqaabil aa jaae,
Manzil ke liye do gaam chalun, aur saamane manzil aa jaae.

Muqaabil = in front of, saamne; gaam = steps, kadam
How I wish, if I wanted, everything should be possible,
I should walk but a few steps, and there my manzil should be!

ai rahabar-e-kaamil chalane ko tayyaar to huun par yaad rahe
us vaqt mujhe bhaTakaa denaa jab saamane manzil aa jaaye

Rahbar = guide; Kaamil=accomplished.
Oh you who guide the chosen few, I am ok to be led by you,
But do let me go astray, when The Manzil is but a step away...

- Behzad Lucknawi

A contrast within the same ghazal. The words of one, perhaps, who reaches (intermediate) manzils easily, who does not really care for the manzil , and who, whatsmore, wants to keep travelling, if possible.

It's been a while... From now on I'll try and post something at least once a week. As a beginning, here's an excerpt from a story I have entered in the Deccan Herald short story contest:


The Son

...A genius in the family is difficult to suffer. When you realize that a small change in the probabilities of nature, and that genius could have been yours. Or at least, yours too... To watch your own father, who in the right order of things, should have retired into quietude, even as you ascended the golden throne of youth; to watch that father still going strong, more youthful than you, a twinkle in his eye, his white whiskers bristly, his shoulders square, his back erect, head high, his missing tooth shining like a black pearl amongst white ones. To watch the ceaseless ascendancy of such a father, while you yourself slide down into the slimy pits of oblivion. The envy for such a father is no sin. It’s a service to the Gods for playing the fool in their cruel joke...

Captain Ahab

A week ago, I got a long-standing (sic) ligament tear in my left knee fixed - two year old football injury. Since I obviously had to spend time in hospital I took "Moby Dick" along, the book I had been reading on and off and had still not finished. After the operation, I realized the conincidence. The one-legged captain Ahab going tock-tock-tock with his ivory leg on the deck of his ship, and me limping with the walker going tock-tock. An omen and a portent, Ishmael would have said. Had I not read the book almost as long as I had had the injury? In any case, with my one leg immobilized and in pain, I did feel more sympathetic towards Ahab than I would have otherwise.

Excerpts:

(Ahab having worn out his ivory leg, is waiting for the ship's carpenter to make him another out of a whale's jaw bone. He soliloquizes)

Oh, Life! Here I am, proud as a Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead (the carpenter) for a bone to stand on! Cursed be the mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire; and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So.

Collage in a CD

Kitne Ghayil hain,
Kitne Bismil hain,
Is khudaii mein,
Ek Tu kya hai...

Aye dil-e-naadan...

Lata Mangeshkar, Ghulam Mohammed, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Rajkumar, Naushad, Mohammed Rafi, Kaif Bhopali, Parveen Sultana, Kamal Amrohi, Vani Jairam, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Khaiyyaam, Jagjit Kaur, Nida Fazli, Mahendra Kapoor, Bhupinder.

This is the list of artists on the back cover of the Pakeezah and Razia Sultan music CD. Amazing is'nt it. So much talent went just into the music of these two great movies.

And the songs themselves - ek se badhkar ek - Inhi Logon Ne, Chalte Chalte, Nazariya Ki Mari, Chalo Dildar Chalo, Thare Rahiyo, Kaun gali gayo shyaam, Mausam hai Ashikana, Teer-e-Nazar Dekhenge, Aye Dil-e-Naadan, Aayi Zanjeer Ki Jhankaar, Hariyala Banna Aaya re, Jalta Hai Badan, Aye Khuda Shukr Tera..

How did they make each of these songs? Maybe the lyricist re-discoverd some old poem, reshaped it to suit the mood? Maybe the music director drew inspiration from the crickets on a sleepless night? Maybe the singer, the lyricist, the music director, sat together, struggling, on a hot summer afternoon hankering after the muse, or maybe they sat relaxed on a breezy monsoon evening, whisky glasses in hand, knowing she would come to them... For some artist some song would be their best work, work they knew they would not be able to match in a hurry, work they would be remembered by in Hindi film music, for some other artist it would be another easy day at the office...

The common factor in both these movies is of course writer-director Kamal Amrohi, in the case of Pakeezah, also the producer. Hats off to him for so painstakingly collecting the bits and pieces of the musical parts of his two great collages.

I want to write

I want to write. I do so want to write. I am writing this post not so much because I want to say something but because I want to write something. Every day I remind myself that I have'nt written anything in a while. I play back in my mind the delicious thrill of writing a poem - I try to rouse my creativity. But no poems strike me at breakfast these days.

And not writing is making it difficult to read. Can't stand to see those great authors play with words like a child with beach sand. Am making do with re-reading thrillers known more for the plot than for the language. Jealous of appreciating new ideas from another person, while I wait for my own.

Quite an achievement

From SBI's welcome letter:

"Welcome to the State Bank of India - the only bank to figure in the list of 100 top banks of the world."

Now who can beat that!

Lacking Vision

I am a staunch supporter of Doordarshan, though I watch it only rarely these days. I still remember them for the good things that they used to do: tasteful serials, ads in public interest that were also works of art, and excellent news reading - no stuttering, no grammatical mistakes and no obvious 'reading' of the news from the screen in front.

Well, it's kind of sad that Doordarshan is one government company that was very good when there was no private sector competition and is just too pathetic for words now. Tepid soaps shot in gaudy sets, poor video quailty and news readers who read as if they have their mouths full and mispronounce 'rapid' and 'repid' and then stop and correct themselves. Hmmm.

They have probably four or five years or even less before satellite and cable TV gets to even the remote parts of the country. Now is the time to pour money into quality programmes, into adverstizing and to entrench themselves into the hearts of the people while they can.

Doordarshan have got their hearts in the right place - it is probably one of the very few channels where money is'nt everything - who else shows ads on National Integration, Polio programs, AIDS awareness? And it is not like they used to always show crap - remember Byomkesh Bakshi, Flop show, Rangoli, Mr Yogi, Shanti, Mirza Ghalib? Doordarshan can boast of more plusses than most channels I think. Which is all why I hope some miracle-worker will come along (like Lalu for the Railways?) and makes them interesting and popular once again.

I wish I had said that

A borrowed kick-restart to the blog. Today Biman, Karthick and I were on the terrace. On one of the lower floors we saw an old, old lady walking with her middle aged son. Biman observed that the lady was wearing both a sweater and a shawl on a hot summer evening. Karthick said with quiet wit "Maybe because she is in the winter of her life".

Moby Dick again, plus an excellent excerpt

I have again started reading Moby Dick. This time I hope I will be able to finish it. Every time I read it I wonder what made me stop mid-way last time.

All the talk about voyages on the high seas stirs something deep in me; my forefathers for several centuries lived on the west coast, maybe some of them were sea-venturing.

Something else also stirs something deep in me. Ishmael and his cannibal harpooner friend Queequeg eat hearty meat breakfasts - steaks done rare and clam and cod chowders (dictionary says, Chowder: soup or stew made of sea food with pieces of salted pork, tomatoes, onions, potatoes etc). I read mostly in the mornings while the maid is cleaning the house etc, so when I go to the office I am pretty charged up gastronomically. At the office awaits a relatively tame breakfast of cornflakes, idlis or aalu paratha. Well, that is life.

Moby Dick though a prose novel is more like a long poem. That brings me to a question: how does one declare if a well-written novel is poetical or prosaic? I guess it is just the inherent rhythm to the sentences; the numerous commas, the abrupt sentences, the long sentences, the semicolons, the un-written pauses, the re-saying of words, sentences and ideas for effect, the half-music the words evoke, the surreal effect. It's whether the writer wants to keep his feet firmly on the ground and deal with earthly issues or does he want to allow himself to soar the skies like a kite - his connection to the earth a mere string.

Okay, here's an excerpt:


The Lee Shore

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, new-landed mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing-straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

Please note. This story is written in experimentative good humour. All sorts of disclaimers apply.

The earlier scenes can be found by scrolling up and down this page .

Macbeth

Act I Scene III

Scene III

The three witches are discovered in an office cubicle. They have had lunch and are now having coffee/tea, except for the first witch who is having a post-lunch cheese sandwich. The computer screen has a nebulous, galactic kind of pattern floating from one end of the screen to another and back again - screen saver mode.

The witches whisper, lest some one hear them. But they do so with difficulty, bursting as they are with the excitement of their plan.

Third Witch :

Its finally paid off,
Your sharing a cubicle wall with the boss.

Second Witch :
(smirking)
Ja!
Amidst the details of the plumbing job,
The car installment, the kids' diarrhea,
Hide the occasional, careless tidbits,
tit bits (laughs at some thought),
careless tidbits, for the jobless ear.

Third Witch :
Where's the work-under-progress sign?

First Witch :
(with his mouth full)
Here 'tis,
Flinched from the third floor

Second Witch :
Wonder what's keeping the bugger?
By his routine,
His lunch finished by now,
He should be heading to the bogs.
We need the bogs empty for our plan to work,
And for that we need Macbeth back early.

First witch :
(Swallowing the last of the sandiwich)
Hush,
There's a sound,
Here he comes...

Enter Macbeth and Banquo. They head for Macbeth's cubicle which is the cube but next...

Macbeth :
Interesting problem,
Never seen it's like before,
Let me think it over...

Banquo :
Do that.
And meanwhile, here's another I am facing...

Macbeth :
One at a time
Besides I need to go (jerks his head indicating the toilets)

Banquo :

Ok. We talk tomorrow then.

Exit Banquo

Exit Macbeth followed shortly by the witches carrying the work-under-progress sign.



Scene III.1

The Men's room, deserted now, it being mid-lunch hour.

Enter Macbeth and disappears into a closet.

Enter Witches minus the work-under progress sign. Second witch quickly checks that the rest of the toilet is unoccupied. Gives the rest a thumbs-up sign.

First Witch :
(speaking louder than required and as if in mid conversation)

...but I am sure,
When Macbeth takes over,
Things will be ok.

First witch and Second witch head for the piss-pots to take a leak each. Third witch starts to wash his coffee mug at the sink.

Third Witch :

Takes over?
Is that possible you think?

First Witch :

Sure. Its but a matter of time.
He's almost running the show himself,
Duncan is bound to soon give him full charge,
And let Banquo do something else.

Second Witch :

Lucky bastard.
Tha'll be quite a promotion.
And to think he joined with us.
Dudes, methinks we shoulda worked harder,
When we had the chance.

First witch :

Ah I smell jealousy.
Remember brother,
Each one to his fortunes is best suited,
The good and the bad alike.
Do you think you would want to trade places
With the miserable bloke.
Promotion and all included?

Second witch :
Miserable bloke?
Come brother,
You speak as if you have'nt seen his wife...
And perhaps you know not,
Our own cute gorgeous hottie,
Has a crush on him,
That's growing stronger by the day.

Third witch :

No! Not Mona!
I thought she was steady with Banquo!

Second witch :

All female love's fickle, man.
And don't I know it?
When next you are at a team meeting,
Look where Mona's eyes are at.
They are but on Macbeth's face,
Lapping up his every word,
Hanging by his very lips!

First witch :

Wow (Sighs)
Well, it's all Karma,
The fellow musta been a saint in his last life,
But I can't get me to grudge him his multiple fortunes,
He's been a great friend...

The last few lines trail off out of the bathroom, as the third witch has conveniently finished washing his mug and the three troop out, malicious grins on their faces. As the door closes, we see the third witch pick up the work-under progress sign which has been sitting outside the while.

Half a minute passes before we hear sounds resume from behind the closed closet.

A minute later, there's a flush, and Macbeth emerges, er, flushed. His eyes are wide in quiet excitement. The blood gone to his face has made it pink. And there's a barely suppressed grin on his face.

Bizarre Insecurities of a crazed mind

Psychoanalysis of my dreams (if ever conducted, I mean) will throw up some funny secrets. My typing skills are something I am real proud of - I use all the fingers of both my hands and use the correct finger for the correct letter and all that. Yesterday I dreamt that everyone I knew was taking up typing lessons - I was quite distressed by the imminent threat to my competitive advantage :-)

A Mid Summer's Day Dream

Chapter 9

Chutti stretched slightly, lazily, where he lay on the bed. Doing what he had been doing for the past two hours or so. Nothing.

The ever-present sun streamed into the room. His feet were just in the sun-beam now. The warmth slowly began to make his toes sweat.

His wing-mates sat on the floor, playing cards. Unshaven, unwashed, some shirtless, some in banians, some in old T-shirts. If it was'nt for the harsh sun the room would have been a disease farm.

Chutti read the legend on one of the T-shirts 'Work fascinates me. I can stare at it for hours.' A gut-wrenching longing filled him. Would he ever himself feel the luxury of being able to say that? And with a joyous heart and a free conscience?

Well, at least at present, he could not. He looked at his work desk where the empty pages of the assignment due in less than 20 hours fluttered in the periodic wind of the ceiling fan. Uff.

At that moment he wanted to be a million miles from where he was then. Well maybe not a million, maybe three hundred.

He felt like he felt more and more these days. That life was getting progressively worse. That he could any day trade this his present day for any of the days of his past life.

Nostalgia beckoned him. Like a painful itch invites the scratch. His mind raced to his high school days, those chalk fights, the playing football in the rain and mud and then going back to class, seeing if any of the girls noticed.

And then one itch to the next. The days of boyhood. The wet, red, mud after the rains. The papaya trees. The red and pink sadaphuli flowers. The half covered cat-shit. The jumping compound walls to go from house to house in a never ending game of hide and seek.

And then on to childhood - a relative blur in memory terms. Posing for a photograph for the school i-card. Standing in assemblies. Going in and out of classrooms. Living life in the true spirit of detachment, it seemed to him now, as if you had nothing to do with anything that went on around you.

Outside the sun grew harsher. Everything seemed bleached a glaring white in the heat. Out his window he could see monkeys near their neighbouring hostel.

The cards were being shuffled once more. The pages of the assignment fluttered on. Like they had flutterd untiringly for more than two hours. Flutter on, you stupid pages, you have the advantage over me. You don't have a soul.

Back to Urdu

Kuch to de ae falak-e-na_insaaf,
Aah-o-fariyaad ki rukhsat hi sahi.

- Ghalib

falak=sky, na_insaaf=injustice, Aah=sigh, fariyaad=appeal, rukhsat=leave, permission

Give me something, you scorching heavens of injustice,
At least leave to protest, to sigh, to complain.

Dirty Minds

I have a friend who pronounces 'last' as 'lust' - though not on purpose. Naturally, everytime he does it we have a laugh. The last (lust) time was when he was reading a random billboard on the road and read about this 'Ever-lusting ply'. Man! I never thought I could identify with a sheet of wood.

****

One of the lifts in our appartment carries this scratching-graffiti of a long-limbed, high-breasted, faceless beauty - standing with arms and legs spread out. Here and there are scribbled 'SEX' 'FUC' etc. It's very tempting to scratch below 'Sigmund Freud was here.'

****

And, to close, let me re-tell of this friend of a friend, who whenever he was bored in Chennai used to go to the bitch.

He meant beach ofcourse.

Divine Intervention

This post on the Cholas was'nt going to happen, except for a kind of divine intervention which I will write about later.

But first the Cholas. They were mighty kings of the south, who ruled around a thousand years ago. At its zenith, the influence of the Chola empire stretched all over India's east coast right up to Bihar and Bengal in the north. Besides whole of Sri Lanka and large part of south east Asia were under their control (They had a powerfull Navy). Though most of this conquering was done by Rajendra Chola, the foundations of this empire were laid by his father, Raja Raja Chola or Raja Raja the great.

But their military achievements do not impress me. I am impressed by the temples they built and more so by the exquisite bronze sculpture that, er, took shape under their reign. I have never actually seen the Brihadeshwara temple at Tanjavur (built by Raja Raja). But I was recently watching a discovery channel program ( while in Agartala, attending a friend's wedding reception - it seemed strange sitting in the north-east and watching a program about a temple which is comparatively next door to Bangalore) and they explained why it was such an architectural marvel. Built of solid granite transported from far, the 90m tall structure has two 36 ton granite blocks at the very top. No one knows for certain how those massive pieces of stone were transported so far up, but it is guessed that they built a miles long 6 degree incline and pulled/pushed the granite blocks up the slope using elephants.

While I was impressed by the huge temple structure, and the huger temple complex, the images the channel showed of the bronze sculptures of the Chola age simply took my breath away. Such perfection! One of those thank-god-i-am-alive-to-see-this experiences (even though only on TV). There was one image of Shiva and Parvati standing side by side, Shiva holding Parvati's hand, and their fingers intertwined. Uff! Just too beautiful for words.

I searched on the net for more images of Chola bronzes. The two pictures in my second post but last are examples. Some more are to be found here . The image of Shiva and Parvati together is there in the link, but it is'nt the one I saw on TV. (Also it is not as polished and shiny and nor is it a close up shot - don't blame me if you are not impressed). Also check out this beautiful image of Krishna dancing on Kaliya.


Sometimes I feel the Mughals hog too much of the historical, architectural and cultural-history scene in India.


And the Divine Intervention? It was a play I saw yesterday. "Flame of the Forest". It was about the 6th century Pallava king Mahendra Pallava. But about that, maybe some other day.

The promised lyrics

If you have a spare half an hour (or two), may I suggest you spend it in the most rewarding fashion by studying the below lyrics of the song linked in the previous post. The translations are by S.Karthick (fondly called SKu). The trenchant comments in bold, both linguistic and otherwise, are mine. Its amazing how different, languages are and yet how similar! You might want to keep the song playing in your earphones, on and off, for quick cross reference.

Coming up next on this blog: A brief write-up on the Chola kings. With special focus on the exploits of the great Raja Raja Chola who inspired this song and also my poem in the post but last.

Raja Raja Chozhan Naan

raja raja chozhan naan, enai aalum kaathal desam neethaan,
raja raja chozhan, I am, the love land ruling me is you (only),
I love the way 'Chozhan' is pronounced
poove! kaathal theeve.
flower! love island.
Compare Theev, Tamil with Dwipam, Sanskrit and Dwip, Hindi
man meethu, sorgam vanthu - pennaaga aanathe,
On land, heaven came - became woman,
ullaasa boomi, inggu undaanathe.
happy earth, here got created.

(raja)

kannodu, kangal yetrum, kartpoora theebame
on eyes, eyes light (verb), camphor deepam,
kai theendum pothu, paayum minsaarame
when hands touch/seek, flowing/flows current
ullaasa medai mele, orangga naadagam
on pleasure stage (theatre), one anga drama [anga=body]
A pun on one-act play?
inbanggal paadam, sollum en thaayagam,
pleasures lesson, saying/teaching my womankind [thaayagam=mother-type]
Compare paadam, Tamil with Paath, Hindi
ingganggu, oonjalaaga, naan pogiren,
here-there, like cradle, I am going,
Comparare oonjale, Tamil, Uyyale, Kannada and Jhuula, Hindi
angganggu, aasai theevil, naan vegiren
there-there, in aasai island, I am burning [aasai=want/need of heart]
un raaga moganam, en kaathal vaaganam
your raaga moganam, my love vehicle [raaga=same as in hindi; moganam=mohan
Mohanam is a raaga in Carnatic music
senthaamarai, senthaen mazhai, en aavi neeye devi.
red-lotus, red-honey rain, my soul you are(only) devi.
I love the sounds of this last line

(raja)

kalloora, paarkum paarvai, ulloora paayume
stone-melting, seeing, gaze, inside dives/flows [(your)
stone-melting-gaze, dives/flows inside (me)]
thullaamal, thullum ullam sallaabame
without-jumping jumps, heart sallaabame [s= i dont know]
villodu, ambu rendu, kollaamal kolluthe
with bow, arrows 2, without-killing kills,
Compare vill, Tamil with Billu, Kannada and Bill, American
penpaavai kangal endru poi solluthe
(and) "lady-bird's eyes I am": lies (as in tells a lie) so
munthaanai-moodum rani selvaakkile
pallu-covering rani, selvakkile [selvakkile=in power / in influence,
in richness]
en kaathal kangal pogum, pallaakkile
my love-eyes go, in pallaku [pallaku=palanquine/valley - 2 meanings]
thaenodai orame, neeraadum nerame
on the side of honey-cover, bathing time, [odai=cover/dress; while i
bathe on the side of h-c]
pullangguzhal thallaadume, ponmaeni kaelaai rani
flute thallaadume, golden-body, hear o! queen. [thalladume=will be
unstable drugged / unable to stay balanced]
Could guzhal have become Kolalu, Kannada?
Check out those last few lines!

Raja Raja Cholan

Just had to share this wonderful song.

I know I am diluting the value of 'DO NOT MISS THIS' by saying it too often. But then, YOU JUST CAN'T MISS THIS!!!

I'll post the lyrics with meanings (courtesy a friend) shortly, not knowing the lyrics should not stop you from enjoying the wonderful melody, the alliterative poetry, the rhyme and rhythm, the sensuous picturization, great singing by Yesudas and ofcourse great music by Illayaraja. Check out the free falling accelaration of the antaras as they eagerly rush to meet the mukhdas - cloud bursts of water hurtling to the earth.

This song brings back a lot of memories. It was a great favourite among the Chennai college singing bands which used to come to the IIT campus to compete during our cultural festival. I can still picture those days of January sunshine, sitting in the grass/sand and gazing up on stage at bands as they belted out one Illayaraja song after another.

While the rest of the lyrics are as amazing the opening lines go like this:

Raja Raja Cholan naan,
Enai aalum kaadal desam needaan...

(Raja Raja Cholan is me only,
The loving, beloved land that rules me, is you only)

Enjoy!

Chak De India

If you swallow some swallowable cliches and a couple of funny but ham-handed, 'that's not cricket' kind of takes at cricket, Chak De India is a great movie. Great direction, slick production, amazing casting, good acting, no unnecessary romantic angles, songs or item numbers.

At last a game that India were once undisputed champions at, gets some big-screen publicity. There's quite a good chance the movie will get a lot of people interested in playing, watching and sponsoring hockey.

The movie also scores in giving some heart-warming messages on National Integration, India's diversity and Woman power.

The movie shows the Indian women's team under Shahrukh's coach-hood win the hockey world cup (This is no spoiler, you will know as much from the trailers). This was a slightly sore point because that's a feat that the actual Indian women's team have'nt achieved yet (google search). But they have won the commonwealth hockey gold once, so I guess a bit of exaggeration is ok.

Overall the best new Hindi movie since Omkara. A definite must-see.

A 'There is a God', 'Mind over matter' kind of thing happened yesterday. I was listening to Aap Ki Farmaish on Vividh Bharati. After the presenter had, with time and effort, listed the names of all the people who had requested the first song (....Pinky, Rinky, Richa, Ravi aur unka saara parivaar...), the song finally came up. Lata Mangeshkar and Mahendra Kapoor, the presenter said (hope stirred). Badaltey Rishtey, the presenter said (could it be?). And what song should be the first song of yesterday's Aap Ki Farmaish, but,

Meri Saanson Ko Jo Meheka rahi hai,
Ye Pehale Pyaar Ki Khusbhoo,
Teri Saanson Se Shaayad Aa Rahi Hai...

And "Howzzat?" said God.

Pehale Pyaar Ki Khushboo

Meri Saanson Ko Jo Mehaka Rahi Hai,
Ye Pehale Pyaar Ki Khusbhoo,
Teri Saanson Se Shaayad Aa Rahi Hai...

I have been hunting for this song at least five years now - Music stores and countless, varied and regular google searches. Finally a good samaritan has put it on the internet here . Do download and check it out. Besides the great lyrics and music, Lata Mangeshkar's voice is like a coffee shot (or maybe something stronger) coursing a thrill from head to foot. DO NOT MISS THIS.

(note esnips.com might ask you (if you are a first time user) for a quick registration and you might have to upload something. Upload anything - lyrics of some songs, anything)

The song is in Raag Puriya Dhaneshri, which I learnt from my music teacher is a 'senior' raag. So probably I am years away from learning it :-) But I am willing to wait. Just like I waited for the song.



In my lucky day for music searches, I found two more songs I have been looking for: Sehgal's 'Main kya janu kya jadu hai' and Rafi's 'Tumhari Zulf Ke saye mein shyaam kar loonga'. These songs are also to be found on esnips. A quick search on the site should throw them up.

Excerpts

Here is a wonderful excerpt from a book I am reading. The Unpossessed by Tess Slesinger. A celebrated book according to the blurb. I had never heard of it. I bought it second hand sometime ago (the dust from it is probably giving me an allergy) because this is what the blurb says about the book: '... devastating portrait of that uniquely disinherited class, the self-deceiving and disillusioned intellectuals of the Thirties. The Unpossessed, cheated of their ideas and frustrated in their loves, strike tragic and comic poses. Vehement, acerbic and heart-breaking...'.

I found The Unpossessed difficult to read at first. Its a serious novel and not easy reading (don't go by the passage below, I have picked it for its sheer literary and romantic beauty) - the kind of book I usually avoid. But I am glad I have put in the effort - might help me read technical books with more patience.

Ok. Without further ado, here's a passage from The Unpossessed:

Miles and His Wife

It was like bending to lift the customary stones and finding them lighter than air in the hands.

It was like peering down the difficult road and seeing it miraculously straighten before him; wide and smooth and simple.

It was like trembling before God and finding God sweet and genial.

It was like a God damned honeymoon, Miles thought.

It took strength to face, to bear, such joy; it took room inside him to receive it. Some golden touch had fallen over everything; his breakfast coffee tasted like no coffee in the world; the sunshine filtering on their wall was a personal, bewildering gift, exclusive decoration for their home; and Margaret deftly sliding toast was a being that caught and held his eyes as though her slightest move were marvelous. She moved with a new vigor; a purpose as though there were some back-bone now to her soft balminess. And then - withdrawing her hands from the toaster and clasping them on the table, her eyes floated into space above his head, beyond his ken, with a curious and complacent languor. What is it, he thought of saying to her, what is it that makes everything one's lover does appear so apt, so perfect, so proper, so fortunate, in the other lover's eyes? Do you ever feel this way about me, he thought of saying to her. Is there anything else in the world that matters, he wanted to say. Can you keep us forever on this light-filled island, he almost cried. Aloud he said, with difficulty, "We'll both be late as hell, my dear. Look out, you'll burn the toast."


She started and smiled; moved her strong fingers about the toaster. "What do we care'" she said. her eyes were luminous above the percolator. "Mr. Pidgeon and Mr. Adolph Worthington - let them wait; let them whistle; let them write their own silly letters."

And let Bruno fall in love with manifestoes; let Jeffrey flirt with Magazines, with meetings, with the whole Left Wing; Miles - his fences down, his shell forgotten - was engaged in a passionate love affair with his wife. "I see by the morning papers," he dutifully began - and stopped; dropped the paper to the floor; took the coffee she held out to him; "hello Margaret," he said weakly; and felft himself smiling like a fool.

"Hello," she said back and smiled. They sipped from their cups and flirted over the rims. "I love mornings!" she cried and stretched her arms and grew like a tree across the table from him.

"And afternoons- don't you love afternoons," he said; "you balmy wench, don't leave out the afternoons, they'll be hurt - and you love evenings, don't you, and rainy days and sunny days and nights with moons and nights without moons..."

"I love everything," she said. "The whole blooming works." She had grown careless about her dress; it was shabby- he remembered it when it was new, fine wine-coloured wool, fiting closely to her shoulders. It was much more beautiful now, faintly worn, slightly darkened under the arms; the collar limp about her neck. It looked like her.

"I love that dress," he said.

"This old rag, " She laughed. "I love it too." her eyes floated again, that absent look shining brightly in their depths. "And no new ones this year, " she said in a ringing voice.

"Maggie, I forget: are you supposed to be a beautiful girl? I can't seem to tell any more. You've got such a great big light where your face used to be."

"Idiot, balmy idiot." she said.

****

(And it goes on beautifully some more. And later on in the book there is an equally amazing and complementary chapter: Margaret and Her Husband)

Those good old days

The other day, some train of thought or other led me to think of my school days. When every day, every test, every exam, just about everything was a cakewalk (except maybe Physics lab where one could never get the readings right). All I had to do was enjoy myself, study a bit, play a lot and still top the class. While the others worked hard, agonized and went to dreadful tuitions. I think those days I did'nt realize how lucky I was to be in the middle of an education system where nerds like me have it easy! I was feeling so thankful for those wonder years that day - more so because it's not obvious to me what I had done to have such a good time.

The concept of Karma is needed to explain such good fortune.

College onwards it was and has been real life, so to speak. And does it suck! Tough competition all around. The raised bars. Suddenly things being not so much of a cakewalk anymore.

And of course many of those I used to leave behind in studies in school are more successful than me today. Socially, Emotionally, Financially.... I am not complaining against them. But look how screwed up our education system is. That nerds get to feel like Kings for twelve whole years.

But perhaps things have changed today. Afterall its been quite some time since I went to school.

Wonder why I am ranting like this. Perhaps I just miss blogging.

While I am quoting...

- the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,--

- Macbeth

********

Madhosh hamesha rahata hoon,
Khamosh hoon kab kuch kahata hoon,
Koi kya jaane, seene mein mere,
Hai bijli ka bhi angaara...

Itna na mujh se tu pyaar badha,
Ke main ek baadal aawaara....

-Rajinder Krishan, Talat Mahmood, Salil Chowdhury

********

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

- Hamlet

Here's something to keep this blog alive:

Is mehfil-e-kaif-o-masti mein, is anjuman-e-irfani mein,
Sab jaam-ba-kaf baithe hi rahe, ham pii bhi gaye, chalka bhi gaye.
- Majaz Lucknowi

kaif=joy; anjuman=gathering; irfan=knowledge, wisdom;
jaam-ba-kaf=holding the wine-glass in the hand

(At this happy party, at this joyful, eminent gathering,
While the others merely held their glasses, I drank a lot, and I spilled some too...)

Though I have'nt ever had occasion to feel quite like the poet feels above, I like the sher very much. I almost smirk with vicarious smugness whenever I think of it. Quite a wit, what?

Renaissance man

(Must be careful never to misspell the word. Also 'connoisseur'. And 'subtle'. Can't think of anything funnier than a person who tries to use 'fancy' words and misspells them.)

I feel sorry for people who never fritter away their time (and to some extent money). I fritter away entire days sometimes. But I have yet to learn to do it without guilt. That will come with practice, I guess.

First of May. Holiday. I had promised myself that I would get a lot of work done that day. That had been the excuse for putting off some of the previous day's work.

The day began slowly with the maid not arriving at her right time and then not arriving at all. I guess she deserved the holiday more than I did. While I waited, I read Garcia Marquez's 'Love in the time of cholera' ('Elamur en los tiempos del colera' - how musical!). As I kept reading, and it became 8.30, and the maid had still not turned up, I had some sort of a premonition that I would be doing no work that day.

It was 9.00, still no maid. It was time to go for breakfast. But before that I must do what I usually do after the maid has come and gone. Practise some singing. I lost myself in the komal swaras of Raag Jaunpuri - the komal gandhar, the komal daivat and the komal nishadh. The komal swaras have quite a distinct personality compared to the shuddh and teevr swaras. I am yet to figure out why. You might think that the reason was obvious. But how is it that the komal ga sounds komal-er than than the shuddh Re, even though the shuddh Re has the lower frequency?

Anyway. Owing to not being able to sing the swaras just right, and also due to the fact that I did not yet want to start my day, I practised till 10.00. Then I went for breakfast. If I delayed further I would not be able to enjoy my lunch. Uttam Saagar was crowded as usual and I indulged myself and went to the service section. Singing gives you quite an appetite and I relished every morsel of the Masala Dosa.

By time I returned around 10.45, I was thinking - how good life is. I could identify with one of Wodehouse's characters who felt the milk of human kindness sloshing against his back teeth. Except in my case it was not the milk of human kindness. More like the thrill of human achievement. The sheer joy of being part of that superb species, Homo sapiens sapiens. That perfectly aged wine!

I don't think I had seriously thought before that Man was superiour to Nature. But he is. Perhaps in creating sheer physical beauty, Nature has the advantage - having played around with proabilistic colours over millions of years. But consider thought and ideas and poetry and literature. And the sheer genius of the invention of music (the komal swaras) and cooking and language. Man has left nature far behind in these areas. What a lot man has achieved in so relatively little time.

I returned to the Marquez. A book quite different from 'One Hundred Years...' (I had expected, somehow, more of the same thing, and so was pleasantly surprised) yet similarly full of joy. Comics and funny books are prescribed for mood elevation. They should try prescribing poetry too. Even sad poetry would do I think.

At 12.00 or so I called up Prasenjit and asked him if he was going to keep his promise and cook mutton. But he said no, but I still invited myself over to his house for beer. And took the Marquez along, only later realizing that there was a copy in Prasenjit's house too. It was quite hot outside. All the better for the beer.

I drank the beer faster than usual. The beer and the Marquez made a heady combination. The word 'love' appears hundreds of times in the books without once sounding repetitive. A definite must read.

For lunch we went to the Hyderabadi Biryani House. First tandoori chicken and then spicy mutton biryani. Followed by fresh mango juice.

I am often happy, but I admit it rarely. Cribbing is my style. But that afternoon, after a great morning, when we were about to drive to M.G.Road in the sun, I could not help saying out aloud, 'I feel so great today'.

Murder most foul

I had once read Richard Gordon describe detective stories as tales of ' chaps killing other chaps by highly complicated means.'

I used to be a big fan of mystery books once. I used to love Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot with his 'mademoiselle's and 'mon ami's and 'eh bien's. In the blurb of some book I had read that 'The murder of Roger Ackroyd' and 'The Mousetrap' were her La Christie's most famous book and play respectively. And then I had had no peace till I tracked these masterpieces and read them and found them disappointing. Then I had once laughed my insides out at Georgette Heyer's 'Envious Casca'. It was a mystery book and I had guessed the ending but the sharp tongues of all the characters made the book a worth read. Impressed with Heyer I bought several more of her books. Looks like Envious Casca was her best work. The others were not only not funny, they had the same dreary plots - for eg some disguised cousin from Australia who bumps of a lot of people because she's next in line for the legacy.

I am through with detective books. Give me another English party replete with Great grandmothers, granduncles, cousins, wives, business partners, butlers, parlor maids, housemaids, gardners and cooks, with a couple of murders thrown in and I think I'll puke. (What the English aristocracy did to deserve a living, I'd like to know!)

What shocks me is how dispensable human life seems to be in the hands of these authors. They kill people as if it were nobody's business. Do real life murders happen with a fuse planted to go off at a certain time so that it sounds like a gun shot and gives the actual murderer an alibi since he used a silencer? And the author's laborious efforts to create false clues. Phoo. Don't get me started on that. Pathetic half hearted attempts!

And the total unconcern with which all the characters seem to treat the murder, as if it were an ordinary death, not the result of the workings of a crazed, demented mind, having toast and marmalade in their midst! And the dead man/woman is forgotten the next day. No wailing, no tears, no nothing. Don't Englishmen know how to mourn!

Murder in cold blood is not impossible, though quite rare going by newspaper reports, but I think it is impossible in a situation where the murderer knows that he is definitely going to be one of the suspects interviewed by the detective inspector in the blue room. Cold blooded murderers would be more likely to commit the murder on some deserted highway and catch the next plane out of the country.

Really, I should think a murder story would require a lot of emotional investment on the part of the author. If they are unwilling to put the effort they would be better off writing about the theft of the maharaja's precious diamond or something. But then again, if it is not murder it is not 'serious' enough a crime. What an irony. I remember while browsing in second hand stores, not able to judge from the cover what the book was about, I used to scan the pages looking hopefully for the word 'murder'.