Hey! Slacker! There's napping to be done man! - Garfield

Went home for Diwali.

Had lots of grub, ofcourse. Most notably baked sweet-potatoes and Pomfret fry. (By the way have I mentioned on this blog that I am a major, major fish eater? The other day I had this nightmare where this Mallu mess where I eat sometimes was charging a whooping 250 bucks for a Pomfret fry.)
Besides the food, had a musical orgy. I wrote sometime ago that my Philips tape-player has cupped. So when the crisp, precise notes of Tyagaraja's 'Jagadananda Karaka' as sung by Sri Balamuralikrishan emanated from the music system back home...If I said that I crushed the music system in a loving embrace and sobbed tears of joy, I would be exaggerating, but only so much. I listened to the same song n times till everyone at home complained. Then there was MS Subbalakshmi and Bhimsen Joshi and Bismilla Khan and some chap who sings Marathi Natya Sangeet whose name I forget. Some name ending in -kar if I remember right:-) Then there was this casette which my sister's friend recorded for my sister. It had all these wonderful ghazals coming one after another, in a string of pleasant surprises. The anthra recorded in the immediate previous post is from one of those ghazals.

So, a large part of the Diwali was spent in the immediate vicinity of the music system. Had a very nice, lazy Diwali. The actual 'Diwali' itself was pretty muted; we have stopped bursting crackers looong ago.

Saw some parts of 'Armaan' again. I realized it is a really sweet movie. Most of the sweetness coming from the very sweet Gracy Singh's gracious presence. I still can't figure why that movie wasn't a hit.

Jab rula lete hain jii bhar ke hamein...
Jab sata lete hain jii bhar ke hamein...
Tab kahin khush woh zara hote hain...

Aur kya ahed-e-wafa hote hain...

Hain Aur Bhi Duniya mein Sukhanvar bahut acche (Sukhanvar==poet)
Kehate Hain Ke 'Ghalib' ka hai Andaz-e-bayaan aur

From 'Tajmahal' :

Jurm-e-ulfat pe hamein log sazaa dete hain
kaise naadan hain sholon ko hawa dete hain

Humne dil de bhi diya ahed-e-wafa le bhi liya
Aap ab shauq se de den jo saza dete hain

Jurm-e-ulfat pe hamein log sazaa dete hain

This is regarding my last post. There is a flaw in the first arguement ( The Sixty-Men-and-Sixty-Women one). It was pointed out to me yesterday. The flaw is that I have not considered widows among the 60 women.

However the second arguement still looks ok. So there is still hope.

In the Good Old Days ;-) Men often had more than one wife. How did they manage it if the sex ration is close to 1:1 ? Did some men have to die Bachelors? This question was raised at the snack-table today at Office.

Me and Ankur had had this discussion before.

In the old days men married late, say at 30, and women married early, say at 15 (numbers from the book 'Roots' which describes (besides doing many other things) life in an African Village sometime in 17th Century).

Consider a village of 60 women and 60 women. Let's say everyone lives upto sixty. Assume a uniform distribution across ages. So there are 45 married women (others are below 15, and hence unmarried). But there are only 30 married men. That means each man has on an average 1.5 wives. So it is possible.

Aliter. Assume a community where men and women marry at the same age. At any time there will be equal number of eligible bachelors and spinsters. Suppose the age of marriage for men is suddenly delayed by 10 years, by a community decision. Since the population is growing exponentially, the men will find many more eligible women after 10 years than were born in their 'batch'. And so will all their 'juniors'.

QED or is there a catch?

If there is not then all the men in this world can by mutual consent postpone marriage by 10 years and then we can all marry more than once.

What say guys?

Aage (pehale) aathi thi haal-e-dil pe hansi
Ab kisi baat par nahin aati

-Ghalib


This is from a Ghazal I found on a great web-page a friend sent a link to.
Search for 'Classic Music Club' on Google.

Download and check out the song 'Abhi to main jawaan hoon' on the site.

Lyrics can be found at:

http://www.muziq.net/lyrics/lyrics.php?songid=286

Have you heard this extremely melodious song ? If you haven't here is a step by step procedure how you can.

1. Cut and paste this link in your browser: shujaat.asdfhost.com/mp3songs_s.htm
2. Search for 'ranj' in the page that you reach.
3. Download song.
4. Play it ASAP.
5. Reeeeeeeeelax and enjoy the song.

You won't regret doing 1 through 5.

The song is:

Tum apna ranj-o-gam
Apni pareshani mujhe de do.
Tumhe unki kasam
Is dil ki viraani mujhe de do.

Ye maana main kisi kaabil nahin hoon
in nigahon mein
Bura kya hai agar
ye dukh ye hairani mujhe de do.

Main dekhun to sahi
duniya tumhe kaise satati hai
Koi din ke liye
apani nigehbani mujhe de do.

Woh dil jo maine maanga tha
magar gairon ne paaya tha
badi kaif hai agar (kaif= happiness, exhilaration, joy)
uski pashemaani mujhe de do.

This Saturday, after substantial planning, I went to the RTO office off CMH road to get a 'card-type' driving license by producing my 'booklet-type' driving license.

Only after going there did I realize that that Saturday was a 'second saturday' and the RTO is closed on Second Saturdays.

Personally I dont have much against Second Saturdays. Second Saturdays are good. Second Saturdays are fine. But the problem is that some government offices are closed on Second Saturdays and some are not. And the common man being an unlikely optimist does not consider the possibility of a not well known government department x, not being open on all Saturdays.

Advertize this fact, I say! Educate the people about it. Shout it out on the FM. Put it in the Newspapers. Distribute pamphlets. Announce it with Friday Night's weather. Take out processions. Give technicolour ads on Doordarshan. Have a Second-Saturdays day. What is the I&B ministry doing? Heck! People have a right to know!

Spread awareness. Organize contests: Which of these Saturdays of the month is likely to be a Central Government holiday? a) Sixth Saturday. b) Second Saturday c) Three and a halfth Saturday. Come, do some real social service for a change.

If one has read the book, why does one want to watch the movie so badly. And then why does one enjoy the movie so much more?

I guess the above question warrants some amount of study by psychology students. And probably it is being studied.

When we are reading the book, we build up some sort of a mental picture of all the characters involved, and then perhaps seeing them in flesh and blood, so to speak, is probably some kind of 'dream come true'.

Probably the whole thing satisfies the creative urge. The mind is duped into believing that it has created something. Probably some Freudian fundas are involved.

Or probably it is some straightforward thing which I am deliberately missing in the interest of a blog topic.

Anyways. Over the weekend I went home and watched 'Gone With The Wind'. I have been wanting to watch it ever since I finished reading the book in 3rd year. But hostel Junta never could begin to get enthusiastic about a 4 hour movie.

Scarlett should have started out much younger, but I guess that is not technically possible. Rhett Butler's face was on the book's cover so he was much as expected. Mammy was amazing. Frank Kennedy was much younger. One had somehow imagined Stuart and Brent with wavy hair. And perhaps Ashley as well. Indeed Blonde went with Wavy.

*****

Watched The Gods Must Be Crazy Part-I yesterday. Very funny movie. But the hero and chief clown of the movie keeps saying 'Ay Ya yai ya yai'.

Which is what Javed Jaffri keeps saying in Boom. I don't know what to think of this blatant copying, especially since I thought 'Boom' an original film, if nothing else.

In our cafetaria, the chap who serves the idli and the dosa in the morning, he wears a plastic glove. And then you pay him he takes the money with the same gloved hand. Needless to say the gloves are useless show-pieces.

I had (and quite a few others have too) noticed this long ago, but I am writing about it now because I saw some gross ways money is handled by junta when I went home over the weekend.

The first scene was when I went to the fish market with my father.(The fish market is an amazing place and I love going there. Will write about it sometime). The fisherwoman had to return some change and the way she took out those soiled, almost wet 10 buck notes out of her purse...

The second was when I was waiting for my bus at Kamat Travels Office. Some guy had just blown his kid's nose. He started looking for a kerchief in his shirt pocket but kept finding 10 buck notes instead. Ewww...

I am getting me a credit card.

The music has gone out of my life. Literally. After faithfully serving me for more or less two years, my Philips Tape Recorder ( Atcually Tape Player would be a better name, and has someone said so before?) stopped in mid-song some three days ago.

I am still deciding whether to find a Tape-repairman or to buy a new one or show some Engineering Courage and open that thing up.

Meanwhile I am starving for music. Playing a song close to my ears and listening as I fell asleep has been a two year old habit. And my fairly vast collection of casettes - mujhe apni taraf kheench raha hai - so to speak.

As of now making do with remixes of old songs on Interactive TV.

Are they skipping the Winter this time in Bangalore or what?

I said sometime ago on this blog that the Sun in Bangalore was glorious these days. It is. If you are on the bike, in a car or in a pool. However, if you decide that it is a good time to get your year's stock of Vitamin D, and therefore walk the entire length of MG road starting from Trinity circle, you'll find that there can be too much of a good thing.

I found out today.

However there's quite a lot more to see and observe when you are walking. For example there was this local chap who was so amazed at seeing a man with more than shoulder length hair that he turned his head to look after him. I was walking right behind the local chap and looking at his startled face, as he turned, I broke into an involuntary half-smile.

The local chap noticed me smile and he smiled back and then I smiled a bit more, in understanding.

Believing that I did what I did today is becoming more and more difficult. (By the way, this thing is happening to me. Every day I begin in supreme confidence, I can conquer the world types and by evening I am like totally pooped and de-spirited). In yoga class today we were made to pass a rubber string through the nose and pull it out through the mouth. And then holding each end, we moved the string back and forth, cleansing that tract.

I was surprised at my own guts when I started to do this. Somehow I had the idea that I would be a lot more reluctant than I was.