Dog Day Afternoons (Old Blog)

My New Blog

2007-10-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

On this day of October the 1st, 2007, I have, intentionally and in full possession of my senses, started a new blog at the following URI:

~~http://adityab.blogsome.com/~~ http://aditya.wordpress.com/

Do visit and comment.

2006-09-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

I am retreating from my internet activities for the next few months. This blog is closed until further notice.

See ya later.

2006-09-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received an email from someone called Natalia from Russia who appears to have “young” and “two antenna”. I decided not to reply, nor to open the email.*

And then at night, I dreamt that I brought home three puppies, and they pissed all over my bed while I was asleep. I have no idea what this dream means, although it might explain why I made so many trips to the bathroom today. And tonight, I received an email that asked me if “Your wife prefers your dog’s penis to yours?”* It was quite depressing.

[ * In case this gives the impression that I habitually write about emails I receive, let me note that both of these were spam mails. ]

In other – more pleasant – news, the Goethe Institute (at least here in Pune) is holding a film festival that’s (a) free, (b) interesting, (c) sub-titled, and (d) free. If you’re interested, then your local branch of the Goethe Institute would be your best bet for information.

What with the films, and other things such as education, I have been keeping busy, and the little bugger’s leading me on a mightily pretty dance. And therefore, no post for so long. But you didn’t ask, did you?

But we are here now, and we have a meme come unto us from one of our favourite deities.

1. One book that changed your life?

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. It alerted me to the fact that there are people in the world better than me. It was an unthinkable idea before I read this.

2. One book you have read more than once?

Quite a few, actually. One that I keep dipping into all the time is Kingsley Amis’s The King’s English.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Michael Moorcock’s The Dancers at the End of Time (although probably only the first two books of the trilogy) – if I am going to be all alone and without resources, I think the End of Time is the world I’d most like to take there with me. Or perhaps The Faerie Queene – something to help me sleep.

4. One book that made you cry?

None that I can remember.

5. One book that made you laugh?

Not one. Gerald Durrell, Douglas Adams (particularly the third Hitchhiker book and the third Dirk Gently book, which had Adams dying in the middle of it), Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books. Most recently, Good Omens (which I finally finished on Aishwarya’s advice).

6. One book you wish had been written?

One of the several books and graphic stories currently residing in my brain. Any one would do. Alternatively, someone should finally get down to it and write Quantum Mechanics for the Mentally Challenged. That would be interesting, would it not?

7. One book you wish had never been written?

I don’t think I’d ever want anything like that (I hope not). But if I had to choose one on pain of Three’s Company reruns, I’d second whoever on the net it was that chose the Malleus Maleficarum.

8. One book you are currently reading?

The Gospel of Judas by Simon Mawer. Very interestingly written. I picked this up because of the recommendations, and because I’d seen a Discovery channel documentary on the real-life Gospel of Judas.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

This ranges from none at more forgetful moments to hundreds when I start thinking about it. As of now, it would probably be the second and third books in the Gormenghast trilogy, Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius stuff, and Hugh Laurie’s novel The Gun Seller. If asked to choose on pain of large daggers being thrust into my groin/eyeballs, I’d choose the Laurie book, because I guess I could do with a laugh in such a situation. I am also planning to read Samit Basu’s third Obiyalis book as soon as it is released.

10. Tag five people.

Shan’t.

Current music: Bob Dylan – Modern Times (This album rules expletively. Get it now.)

Rupi's Dance

2006-08-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

There was a time when Jethro Tull was a highly respected band. They had a distinctive folksy-bluesy sound, they were generally well-loved, and their frontman Ian Anderson had created a delightful image for himself – that of a one-legged minstrel expertly playing the flute.

But by and by, Anderson turned more progressive, and, after their first two prog-rock albums – Aqualung and Thick as a Brick – ever more self-indulgent, and the band (with only two core members left – Anderson and guitarist Martin Barre) descended into bad synth-laden heavy metal. They also, along the way, lost their popularity and acclaim, and, like many prog-rock bands, collected around themselves a dedicated and rabid bunch of fanatics, thus preventing them from realising how bad they had become.

But in the last few years, Ian Anderson seems to have come to his senses, and (like some other dinosaurs I could mention) realised the importance of creating songs rather than ruminations set to soundtracks.

His last few albums – be they Tull or solo albums – have had melodies rather empty flute-blowing, and music rather than mindless heavy-metal guitar. And the best of this lot is his latest solo album – the 2003 release Rupi’s Dance.

Rupi’s Dance is an album by Ian Anderson containing simple songs about simple things, but it manages not to be simplistic. The songs are on subjects ranging from watching animals – in zoos or elsewhere – to simply watching life going by. The topics of the songs can be guessed from their titles – ‘A Raft of Penguins’, ‘Old Black Cat’, ‘Lost in Crowds’, and so on. Ian never goes off the point, and the point is never laboured. Rupi’s Dance is, like the best Tull albums, charming, slightly sad, with Ian’s love for humankind tinged with his trademark derision for all of us.

But Rupi’s Dance is an old man’s album, and Ian seems to have tired of hating other people. The lyrics (available here, with commentary) seem appreciative and surprisingly gentle, and rather than ridiculing people, he is mocking people’s traits and characteristics, and never too harshly. The music is similar in style, if not in quality, to old classics like ‘Living in the Past’ and ‘Life Is a Long Song’, and is notable for the absence of the heavy and irritating tone of Barre Guitar (I think Barre’s a truly underrated guitarist, but I hate the guitar tone he picked up in the 80s). Even the lesser songs are a pleasant listen.

In fact, Rupi’s Dance is Ian at his most seductive and welcoming since 1978’s Heavy Horses, and at his most tender and personal since perhaps 1969’s Stand Up. And it actually manages to fare well (albeit not exceedingly so) in comparison with these two classics.

Anyone who likes early Tull, or simply folksy music in general, should get this album. It’s not a work of genius, it’s not even consistently good, but it is a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

2006-08-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Today was Raksha Bandhan day, and it struck me that this ritual, supposed to be performed in the morning, is, more and more (at least by people around my age), being performed in the evening, the reason being that people have jobs. It’s rather depressing how many people have jobs these days.

I have no more than a passing interest in this festival, and, in our house, the ritual generally concludes with me passing on to my sister whatever my mother has bought for her as a gift. I have made a promise to my sister that when I start earning, I will buy her something personal and substantial, but she knows that day will be as far in the future as I can manage.

There is this concept around here of a rakhi-sister/brother (meaning, basically, spiritual sibling), which is that you tie a rakhi to someone not related to you, and this allows you two to conduct a platonic friendship. I figure this tradition came about as a matter of convenience back when ‘a man and a woman can’t be just friends’ was accepted wisdom.

We had a tradition of rakhis in our school, too, and one of my oldest friends became my rakhi-sister at the age of seven. And I remember that our primary school had this wonderfully gender-neutral tradition where you tied a rakhi to your bench-partner regardless of which sex either of you belonged to. It strikes me as pretty sensible (and generally fun), and it’s a bit sad that patriarchal ideas of gender prevent it from continuing.

Some of my female readers might remember tying rakhis to guys who made unwelcome advances towards them. This acted as a prevention measure, because “Dude, you don’t fall for your ‘sister’”. I would have thought this particular tradition would fall out of eminence once we got out of school, but, from what I hear, it is still prevalent in colleges. This week, I got about twelve forwards (all of them from guys) saying that, on this day, one should keep an eye out for any woman approaching you with any kind of thread in her hand, and prepare to run in the other direction. Male engineering students of my acquaintance seem to think this is funny, but I suppose that tells us more about them than about the joke.

“A Pirate I Was Meant to Be ...”

2006-08-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

[Note: This is not exactly a review – I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and it made me think more about what it was lacking than about what it had. So I have written about what I felt should have been there, but wasn’t. So this is more of a manifesto than a review. That makes it better, doesn’t it?

Caveat:
1) This is off the top of my head – not particularly well-thought-out.
2) This does not apply to every pirate movie in the future.
3) This is all my opinion. If you disagree, that’s quite alright.]

I liked the first Pirates movie. If I remember right, Johnny Depp was pretty much the only thing worth watching, but there was a lot of Depp there, and it was fun. The ending left a bad taste in the mouth, due to the romanticising of pirates. I did change my opinion about it later, because it seems fairly harmless, all in all.

Pirates 2 was a whole another deal. For one, it reversed the ending of the first movie, and gave us grimmer and more realistic consequences to Will and Elizabeth’s actions. All in all, this movie was a lot more like a true pirate movie should be – grimy, gruesome, bloodthirsty (with reservations), and filled with bastards from end to end. I still think the movies are too clean-cut – all pirates apart from the villains are basically ‘good’ pirates, and while I can understand some being shown as such (good outlaws à la Robin Hood), real pirates were nowhere as nice. And there was not a single true piracy incident in either movie. But I have to say that Disney’s pirates were actually less Disneyfied than most other pirates we see today, which was good (and surprising).

You can get the plot of the movie anywhere on the net, so I won’t recount it. It is exceedingly hokey, and I like it for that very reason. The scriptwriters couldn’t really get a story on, so they (a) relied on the special effects, and (b) filled the script with lots of F&#k Yeah moments. And I’m fine with that. I actually prefer that to a plot, because it makes it easier to put my brain on hold. The first movie had a bit of a plot, and the result was that we got 5 minutes of excitement after every 15 minutes of downtime, which was not good.

There is this implied love triangle between Jack Sparrow (Depp), Elizabeth (Knightley) and Will (Bloom), which might or might not exist. It’s not particularly interesting, and my recommended resolution for this is that Will and Jack should get together (they would make a nice couple, wouldn’t they?) and Elizabeth should make it as a pirate. This would definitely be a lot more fun than any other combination, and my idea is supported not only by the first two movies, but also by pirate and sailor culture (at least as seen through the pop culture lens using which these movies have been made).

When I first heard about this movie, I was somewhat irritated by the seemingly illiterate references to pirate culture (‘Dead Man’s Chest’ and ‘Davy Jones’, mainly), but I was pleasantly surprised by the tongue-in-cheek twist given to these terms, and that was when I began to think about the pirate movie/story I would really love to see.

Firstly, it should be lots of words beginning with ‘gr’ – grimy, gruesome, grim, gritty, grubby, greasy. Current pirate-related pop culture (consisting mainly of Monkey Island and Pirates) isn’t all of these. Monkey Island is, in fact, too clean, cutesy and nice, which is pretty much the only thing I don’t like about it. There should be something of a return of pirate culture to its roots: amorality, ugliness, and death – lots of it. The only way it would still manage to work would be to conduct it through a filter of post-modern black comedy that discomforts as much as it entertains. If you’re going to show someone murder and make them enjoy it, then you might as well make them feel guilty about it.

It does not particularly need to be accurate. Pirate culture is not important enough today to have to get it right. It has been present in pop culture in snippets rather than in chunks, as the Wild West has. When someone twists the Wild West around to have fun, the audience knows it. This is not so with pirate culture. So when you get it wrong, you inflame geeks, and make the rest of the audience think you’re right. So the writer/film-maker has the opportunity to create an entire new version of pirate culture that would still conform to the spirit of the original. One can take a post-modern look at it and still be able to create something that is resonant and interesting – you need to stick to spiritual truth, not to facts.

The lack of morality surrounding the pirate culture is particularly interesting. When I read people like Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis (the former much more than the latter) portraying murderers and killers as more-or-less entirely sympathetic characters, I feel uncomfortable, mainly because I feel there must be quite a few readers who genuinely identify with them. This is very clear in Ennis’s ‘masterpieces’ – Preacher and Hitman. Tommy ‘Hitman’ Monaghan kills people for money, but he’s supposed to be a good guy because he only kills bad people. And the heroes of Preacher are mass-murderers, but they are unequivocally ‘good people’. What I am getting at here is that the pirate story could make this equation a lot more interesting, because you could play on the characters as being entirely morally ambiguous (and therefore unpredictable and interesting) rather than ‘basically good’, as done in the Pirates movies.

This is all I have for now, and I’m posting this to keep things in line. I might append to it as I think things out.

(Possibly) Very Important Notice

2006-07-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

Um. This is rather embarrassing, actually. Someone appears to have mailed me something about (or related to) my blog. The first line referred to the previous name of my blog. The mail, by some matter of chance, arrived in my Spam folder. And I noticed the subject line just as I deleted all the spam.

So please, if the person who sent it reads this (and they seem to be a reader of my blog), please, please forgive me and mail it to me again. I generally check my spam thoroughly before deleting it. Tonight was an exception. I promise it won’t happen again.

2006-07-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

There is a reason I haven’t been posting for a long time. (Well, I always don’t post for a long time, but this time there’s a reason, so yay.)

I have bought a blackboard, and have been writing “The net doesn’t help you write.” 500 times every day. It’s been that kind of a month. I have written many half-essays and part-stories. I started all of five posts on Nick Cave but had to abandon them because I couldn’t do them justice. I still am going to write a post comparing The Boatman’s Call and No More Shall We Part, simply because I want to. Besides, I have a readership of ten, and five of them like Nick Cave, so it won’t be as obscure as a comic-book post might be.

Speaking of which, for a supposed comic-book fan, I have missed an astonishing* number of comic-book movies. I didn’t watch X-Men 2, X-Men 3 or Batman Begins, and I do not in the slightest remember what Spider-Man 2 was about. I will, however, watch Dead Man’s Chest**, because I love Johnny Depp. He’s got style, and I’d much rather watch a stylish performance than a good performance in a pulp movie. (For example, I’d rather watch Ian McKellen hamming it up in The Lord of the Rings and X-Men, even though I know he is an awesome actor.)

[ * Typical comic-book exaggeration. ]

[ ** Pirates of the Caribbean was not a comic-book movie, of course, but it is probably what a comic-book movie might have been like had comics through the ages not been mired by superheroes. Sort of the light side of the pirate comic(s) in Watchmen. ]

Speaking of British theatre actors, I recently read a book that McKellen called the most honest book written about theatre actors. This was Being an Actor by Simon Callow. It is a good, and very well-written, book, if rather overlong, and there are a lot of wonderful insights on the craft of acting. I generally prefer film acting to theatre acting, but I have an immense respect for the one-man show. I find the concept of one actor holding an entire audience for over an hour simply through her/his performance quite astounding. I think the narrative structure of this kind of show has a lot of potential, especially for experimentation, and I think any person talented and confident enough to take on the task of not only enacting a number of characters – shifting the audience’s centre of belief once every few minutes – but also guiding the audience through it all has to be worthy of monumental respect. As I said, I also find the structure very interesting to work in and I would love to write a one-man show someday (after reading and watching enough of them, of course).

One particular play I’ve seen that is not exactly a one-man show, because it does have other actors in it, but which I think is still interesting for anyone who likes them, is Keith Waterhouse’s Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell. I saw the Peter O’Toole version (on DVD) and it’s quite wonderful – funny, mocking, increasingly surreal over its duration, and full of Waterhouse’s beloved Soho characters. You like the character of Bernard (who was a real person) a lot, but you also feel for the women whose lives he’s ruined by marrying them. O’Toole is just exquisite in every way, and he has both the world-weariness and the zest for life – apparently paradoxical – down to perfection.

While writing this post, I was with a friend (who I think is a very nice guy, in case he reads this) on IM, and I was walking him through installing a freeware software. When it came to choosing a mirror site to download from, I told him any one would do, it didn’t matter which one he chose. And he broke down because he was confronted with too much choice.

I was looking for information about books written by Steve Gerber, when I found out that there is a comic-book character called ‘Giant-Size Man-Thing’. No comment.

And now, at the very end, so that you leave the post happy, here’s the most wonderfully weird description of a sexual encounter I’ve read in ... well, ever, really (unless maybe you count an ‘Aristocrats’ joke).

You took me back to your place
And dressed me up in a deep sea diver’s suit
You played the patriot, you raised the flag
And I stood at full salute
Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb
And made it impossible to speak
As you closed in, in slow motion,
Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek
– Nick Cave, ‘Nature Boy’

2006-06-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Ooh, a meme. What joy. I was tagged by Aishwarya. Here goes ...

I am thinking about ...
... watching a movie tomorrow.

I said ...
... “Series 1 is better than Series 2!” (To a friend, regarding The Young Ones.)

I want to ...
... write more, and better.

I wish ...
... I could do a fake German accent as good as Eddie Izzard’s.

I miss ...
... nothing in particular.

I hear ...
... the sound of the fan, and of water dripping, god knows where.

I wonder ...
... what percentage of people are gay and don’t admit it.

I regret ...
... being 14, 15, 16 and 17. And 18 too, a little.

I am ...
... silly. Extremely.

I dance ...
... only with male friends, for a laugh.

I sing ...
... in the bathroom. And outside it.

I cry ...
... not very often.

I am not always ...
... tactful.

I make with my hands ...
... food, sometimes.

I write ...
... stuff that’s more depressing than it should be.

I confuse ...
... most people I know.

I need ...
... adulation. (Apologies to Aishwarya for stealing this one.)

I should try ...
... doing more stuff in the time I have.

I finish ...
Yes I do. Really. I finished this, didn’t I?

Current music: Brian Eno – Another Green World (It’s very good indeed)

2006-06-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be posted on Tuesday, but my net connection was down, incapabilising me till today. But timeliness/punctuality (take your pick) has never exactly been my strong point, so I don’t think it matters.

I went to Mumbai last Saturday, mainly to loosen up a bit. Due to a variety of factors, I had, for the whole of last month, been cooped up at home or cooped up in class, with more-or-less nothing in between.

When I decided to go to Mumbai, I expected there would be rain there. Lots of it. I wanted to write the whole thing up, and I wanted to be extremely pretentious about it. I wanted to be able to say that I had spread my arms and opened my mouth to receive the rain, that I had wandered through the nooks and crannies of this beloved yet despised city, that, treading carefully through the wet streets and damp alleys, my backpack and I had received hidden knowledge about Mumbai, things people living here for years had not managed to realise. Travel-writer-y stuff, generally.

It did not rain. But I’ll try to write it up anyway.

The first thing I did on the trip was to write a poem in the bus, my first in four years, and, following Aishwarya’s sage advice, I won’t reproduce it here (I would’ve burnt it or something, but it’s written on the back of a receipt).

I originally had plans for Saturday, but they got cancelled, so I spent the afternoon wandering. My little black suitcase was not as effective in giving the right impression as a shoulder bag might have been, but I made do. The moment I got off from the bus, I made my way around King Circle, looking for books, and I got quite a few nice ones. I am trying to get away from my regular (popular) reading background, so I concentrated on ‘good’ books. I finally got a copy of The Outsider, and it’s got a lovely cover (R. Duchamp by Jacques Villon). I also got a Nadine Gordimer collection, again with a wonderful cover that looks like a Goya sketch (which it very well might be). I got a few other books that seem interesting, including Margaret Atwood’s Blind Assassin and a book by I. Allan Sealy.

I had lunch at an Irani restaurant, which was dependably good. The best thing about the restaurant was the fact that it served something called an ‘Iranian Wrestler Omelette’, which, unfortunately, sounded too intimidating to actually order.

After a (not entirely but almost) satisfactory shopping experience, I took a train to the place where I was staying. It was afternoon, and there weren’t many people in the compartment. There was a very cute little baby sitting in front of me, bouncing itself on its mother’s lap. It would stop once in a while to cough in that special baby manner, which makes even a cough seem ethereal, and then it would begin to bounce again. After a while it got tired of that, and contented itself to pulling at its mother’s dress and pointing towards everyone in the compartment, in case mum hadn’t noticed them.

About half-way through the journey, a blind beggar stepped onto the train. There are lots of blind beggars on Mumbai trains, and they generally make you want to close your ears till they’ve left – they seem to want to irritate you till you give them something to leave. This one was different. He came from behind me, slowly making his way through the compartment, and I could hear him keeping time on some kind of little drum, and playing cymbals to embellish the music. As he came into view, I saw that he was actually keeping time by hitting his stick on the floor, and the cymbal sounds were coins jangling in his palm, all perfectly done. And what struck me was that he was a singer. He had a very nice voice, and he was singing in tune, and he was following the song, rather than forcing it to do what he wanted. In fact, he felt a lot more like a street singer (meant in the most respectable way possible) than like a beggar. There was silence in the compartment when he started singing, and it lasted till he left. Lots of people, including me, gave him money, and I, for one, felt he had earned it. The incident reminded me strongly of this post (funny how the good stuff stays in your mind – the post is seven months old).

The rest of Saturday was uneventful. I also attended a boring family function, but those always read better when they’re not actually written about (although I should note that there was, for some reason, a disco ball attached to the ceiling of the hall – I pointed it out to many people, most of whom did not share my amusement). I also had a nice family dinner with an unidentifiable number of cousins and an uncle and an aunt. We had lots of different stuff that I observed carefully so I would be able to write it out in my German Restaurant critique essay, which I eventually had to abandon because half of it was basically Indian words.

Sunday was lots of fun. I didn’t actually do anything the whole morning, except laze around and sleep intermittently. I met Aishwarya (who was in from Delhi for a family function) in the afternoon, and we had a very nice chat, and we roamed around looking for books (for her – I’d exhausted my budget on Saturday). I’d write about it, but she’s a goddess on earth, and it would be impertinent for a mere human to even think of writing about an encounter with her. (I hope this is flattering enough. [Insert appropriately charming smiley])

And then I came back to Pune with my mother, who I had thoughtlessly left trapped between layers upon layers of relatives. When I got back home, the first thing I did was sleep. Lots.

My whole trip was conducted under a glaze of sweat, hot, sticky, with an undercurrent of pallidness. But as always happens with Mumbai, after the whole thing is done, that part of the memory sort of recedes, leaving a warm, glowing and non-sticky feeling. And it’s this feeling that, in spite of your better sense, makes you want to blog about it.

2006-06-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

I saw Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits a couple of days ago, and, watching it, I realised I had already seen parts of it around 10-11 years ago. The giant with the ship on his head, and the invisible barrier to the Fortress of Darkness (or whatever it’s called) – it all seemed familiar because I’d already seen it, and the images had been distinctive enough to stay in my mind.

The other such experience I had (that I can remember) was fairly different in the details. Again, around 8-9 years ago, I heard half of this song (I don’t remember if I heard it on the radio or on a player) only once, and the refrain stayed in my mind literally for years, exactly as it was, and I would ocassionally play it in my head to see if it reminded me of any artist I knew. Then, around three years ago, as I was reading Bob Dylan reviews to decide if he was my kind of artist, I saw this song called ‘Shelter from the Storm’. And I went, wait a second ... And guess what, it was that exact song, and the refrain (‘Come in, she said, I’ll give you/Shelter from the storm ...’) is as memorable today as it was then.

It is rather wonderful to find such snippets, unconsciously filed away, only to re-emerge when one least expects it. And of course, it is gratifying to realise that, even all those years ago, one had better taste than one gives oneself credit for.

----------------

Speaking of snippets of memory, something else. I have a very bad memory, and so I was trying to rack my brains for my happiest memory yet. To my surprise, I found it.

When I was little, we had these two huge army trunks on our terrace. One of them was filled with crap that should’ve been disposed off years ago (and which was disposed off when we sold the trunks), and the other was half-way filled with utensils, and half-way with my books – everything from old and new comic-books to pulp horror and sci-fi stuff. And every summer, I would remove all the utensils from this trunk, line up (or garishly pile up, depending on the day of the week) all the books at the sides, plunk myself in the middle of the trunk with a bottle of water and some fruit, and read. It was fun.

----------------

It has started raining now, a week or so ago, and after a bout of the dull and depressing kind of rain, which makes one want to stand at windows and sigh deeply, it is turning into the proper rainy season (which is a phrase I like much better than ‘monsoon’).

Whenever there is a thunder crash, I feel an urgent need to giggle, because each time there is one – that loud, deep growl – I expect a particular four-note electric bass riff followed by an Elvis-parody voice saying, ‘Look yonder!!’ (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, forget it.)

I also like those storm clouds gathering on the horizon, because every time I get out of the house they make me feel like an extra in the Lord of the Rings movies.

But I am also a tad miffed at the rainy season, because soon I will have to stop wearing kurtas, because my windcheater doesn’t cover one. But one must not forget that there will be lots of rainy evenings, so lots of opportunities for hot chai and bhaji (which is basically pakora, but not quite).

But all things considered, I can’t wait till it’s winter. I started an essay last winter, but the winter ended quite unexpectedly, and I’d really like to complete that essay.

2006-05-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

A bit of fiction. This was an exercise – I was trying to get a certain tone. I don’t think I succeeded, but it seems interesting enough to post. Do comment.

I swear I was thinking of you the whole time. I was having lunch in a restaurant. You’d said you would be home by late afternoon, so I was trying to pass the time.

I was making an attempt to appreciate this odd-looking quiche, which refused to be penetrated, psychologically or physically.

But that doesn’t really matter, as you know by now. The whole place started falling apart when I finally managed to pry a piece out. Coincidence, of course. There was an explosion somewhere nearby, and I popped under the table, almost by reflex. Half the ceiling turned to bits and rained down on us. I was glad I had removed my coat before entering the dining room. The floor started rocking alarmingly, and I clutched my chair to steady myself.

The man at the next table seemed to be wondering whether to remove the pieces of plaster from his dish and continue or to ask for a replacement. He changed his mind and hid under the table, where his wife was waiting for him.

The noise of the explosions kept on, but the hotel seemed to have chosen a certain level of collapse and stopped at that. We were all looking at each other, trying to figure out if it would be any use to say something.

So I closed my eyes – and there were dragons there, flying over the city and making it jump into flames. I didn’t know what was happening in real life, but it seemed irrelevant.

I could hear the low whispering of the man at the next table, saying something to his wife.

“Excuse me, lady,” she said to me. “Do you think my husband will get to finish his lunch?”

I opened my eyes and smiled at her.

After a while, everything went quiet. I realized you would be waiting for me, so I headed out of the restaurant.

There was an old man in the lobby, lying with his limbs at awkward angles. I thought it would only be polite to say goodbye to him, so I said it as tenderly as I could manage. Then I took my coat and walked out.

The city, already ragged and tired, as you like to put it, had been smashed, skewered and cut up. But it was still my city, I loved it. In fact, if we don’t consider you for a moment, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

2006-05-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

The 15th Carnival of Feminists is up at Self-Portrait as, and it is, as always, excellent.

The previous Carnivals are available here.

Current music: Pink Floyd - Careful with That Axe, Eugene (due to a particular conversation yesterday)

Bullshit Nights, and an Anniversary

2006-05-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

I had to do a presentation thingy at my German course today. We were supposed to find a German-language article that we thought interesting, and summarise it and explain the themes.

I chose a couple of book reviews of the same book – Nick Flynn’s Bullshit Nights. That’s actually the German title – and the original English edition is called Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which is a favourite expression of Nick Flynn’s father. The reason I read the reviews was that the name of the book had a feel somewhat related to the title of this blog, and, in the accompanying photo, the author had a nice little beat/punk thing going on that I found interesting.

This book is about Nick Flynn and his relationship with his father. Since his parents’ separation when Nick was six months old, he had only seen his father twice. Then, when he was twenty-seven and working at a homeless shelter, he met his father, now homeless. Apparently the book is almost as much about places as characters as it is about these relationships. Nick’s relationship with his father can be summarised in Nick’s statement in an interview that he doesn’t want to live with his father, because he is afraid to turn into him.

I read the German reviews (of the German translation), and then, because I found the whole thing interesting, I also read reviews of the English edition. I still haven’t read the book, but now I realize it has become one of those things which you love without actually having experienced it (a bit like Nick Cave’s book And the Ass Saw the Angel, which I have an immense theoretical love for, even though I am fairly sure I’ll probably find it fairly boring). Perhaps if I actually do read Another Bullshit Night ..., I will be underwhelmed. So maybe I won’t.

You can find three of Nick Flynn’s poems on this page. His poetry is very, very good. Not quite brilliant, but gorgeous is, I believe, enough. The third poem on the page – ‘Cartoon Physics, Part 1’ – is rather lovely. I read it in class to give ... er ... ‘my audience’ an experience of this writer I was reviewing without having read. I’ve got the first poem tacked on to the wall behind my computer as ‘Poem of the Week’ (I’ll probably forget to change it till next year, when it will be crackly dry and brittle, but that’s okay). The last few lines are the best part of it:

... I have

a friend who everyone warns me
is dangerous, he hides
bloody images of Jesus around my house

for me to find when I come home — Jesus
behind the cupboard door, Jesus tucked

into the mirror. He wants to save me
but we disagree from what. My version of hell
is someone ripping open his
shirt & saying,

look what I did for you.

----------------

The preceding stuff was because I wanted to write the following, and I thought maybe I should have some content to accompany it.

This blog turned one year old last Thursday (the 11th of May), and guess what – I forgot. I had it in mind till about the 7th, but then, whoosh. It’s not quite been a year, though, because I took two or three pretty long breaks in between. But dates do mean stuff (‘mean’ as verb, not adjective).

I had a nice long post planned, with a nice story to follow. I was going to make a very obscure joke and point out that it was no coincidence that John Constantine has his birthday on the 10th of May. It was all going to be very nice. But I was too busy for all that, and now I feel very guilty. I will try and post something next week, to make up.

So now, I am going to place a candle and ask the blog to blow it out. To help it along, I will surreptitiously put on the fan. Of course, I like my blog – it has introduced me to many intelligent and wonderfully nice people – so I will also have to give it some sort of gift. So I hope to either post a bit more frequently, or tinker with the design a bit. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

Current music: Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (I am sort of in love with her music right now. Do take a listen.)

2006-05-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

The 14th Carnival of Feminists is up at Women’s Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements. I haven’t read it yet, but I know it’ll be great. Go take a look.

The previous Carnivals are available here.

On a separate note, my exams are over, and they went well, except for one paper where I have to stress it was not my fault!

Anyway, I’ll be back sometime next week.

Current music: Neko Case – Set Out Running

2006-04-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Coming out of hibernation for a few moments to note that the 13th Carnival of Feminists is online, and it is utterly fabulous.

The previous Carnivals are available here.

2006-04-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is to announce that there will be no new posts on this blog till the 9th of May.

My exams, which begin on Wednesday, will last till the 6th of May. The three days after that will be spent in one (or more) of the following three ways:

1) Two days of reading every blog-related thing I will have missed, followed by one day of nursing a headache.

2) Two days of reading any and every sort of book I can get my hands on, accompanied by very loud music, and once again followed by one day of nursing a headache.

3) Two days spent in some sort of externally actuated consciousness-altering haze, followed by two days of nursing a headache, in which case, I will see you on the 10th.

Excelsior!

Always Remember ... #2

2006-04-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

Always Remember ...

Click on the image for a larger version.

Okay, now that I have your attention (and completely unrelated to the image), do visit the 12th Carnival of Feminists, hosted by ~~Ragnell~~ Star Sapphire. It’s got loads of great links (including one of mine), and I found it especially interesting because it has many comics-related links.

The previous Carnivals are available here.

PS: Always Remember #1.

20 Songs

2006-04-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting meme – quote your favourite line from the first 20 songs in your playlist. The ones I really love are in italics.

See if you can identify the songs from the lines. (Enter your answers in the comments.) ~~I don’t expect more than five right answers (the first person I quized got none).~~ Take that as a challenge.

I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring/She was born in spring, but I was born too late
I don’t want the world to change/I like the way it is/Just give me one more wish/I can’t get enough of this
I’ll come running to tie your shoe/I’ll come running to tie your shoe
So you write him a letter and say, “Her eyes are blue.”/He sends you a poem and she’s lost to you
Yes we feel bad in winter/We act a little bit strange/The dark sky threatens me daily/Makes me alter and change
You are a force of nature, dear/And your breath curls from your lips/And the trees bend down their branches/Touch you with their fingertips
You got to fight everyday/And keep mediocrity at bay (Sound familiar? Check out my tagline.)
I know I’m bad/To jump on you like this/Some things don’t change/My middle name’s still ‘Risk’
My face beneath the streetlamp/It reveals what it is lonely people seek
I’m not trying to cause a fuss/I just wanna make my own fuck-ups
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution/Take a bow for the new revolution/Smile and grin at the change all around/Pick up my guitar and play ...
If you still feel like today/And tomorrow’s the same way/Then I know it will be right tomorrow night
I whisper all your names/I know not where you are/But somewhere, somewhere, somewhere here/Upon this wild abandoned star ... (I was sorely tempted to include the whole song here)
I really don’t know what “I love you” means/I think it means “Don’t leave me here alone”
Just when I think I’m winning/When I’ve broken every door/The ghosts of my life blow wilder than before
She picked me up and sat me on her knee/Said, “Dear boy, won’t you come home with me?”
’Cause you know and I know/In the morning I’ll be dead/You can sit around and you can watch/All the clean white sheets stained red
Close the door, put out the light/No, they won’t be home tonight
Call it intuition, call it a creeping suspicion,/But their words of derision meant they hardly knew me
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face (c’mon, I couldn’t not have this)

2006-04-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

A commentor at Ginmar’s blog links to an opinion article in the Times. The basic point of the article is that the way to stop sexism and related problems in India is to allow female foeticide.

The writer begins by pointing out the fact that, while abortion is legal in India, sex determination isn’t. Now it is true that in an ideal world, you should be able to abort a foetus for whatever reason you like, but the fact is that that would be a problem in India. Aishwarya talks about it here.

The first part of the article presents a fairly sensible opinion in favour of abortion rights. And then it starts to go somewhat off.

I think the best way to raise the status of women in India would be to legalise sex-selection abortion, and allow as many of them as are requested. Without wanting to be all Margaret Thatcher about it ... market forces can be the resolution of many cultural problems.

So the solution to sexism and commodification of women is to ... er ... commodify them.

Then she presents a scenario of there being fewer women than men.

Consider, now, if there were a two-year waiting list for Indian women. Those 1000 men would soon be duking it out for those 793 ladies.

Now consider the words ‘duking it out’. The writer hasn’t thought it through. Consider there are fewer women than men, they are living in a situation where women aren’t considered important enough to be born, and consider the manner in which men would ‘duke it out’ for women.

Put simply, there would be an extraordinarily high increase in the abuse of the women who live. Market strategies are obviously not equipped enough to consider this. And of course, sexism would definitely not decrease. There would, if anything, be an increase in the treatment of women as property, which the writer vaguely acknowledges:

On finally getting his $80,000 woman, the man would then be doing the marital equivalent of polishing his wife every night with protective dubbin, and putting her on a special peg in the hallway.

The only difference between the situation now and then is that it would be the woman’s family who earns money from selling her, rather than the man’s family, as happens today.

Theoretically, the men would be much more respectful towards women, but there is no real basis for this.

The fact that this article even exists is an example of not thinking things through. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, even if you know how to write, it’s no use if you don’t know how to think.

PS: Also perhaps relevant is Matrubhoomi, a dystopic movie on the subject. I haven’t watched it, but I will link to Jai Arjun Singh’s review here.

Cross-posted on sthreeling. Comments are enabled there.

Spider-Man* India

2006-03-28T10:31:00.001-08:00

* I would like to note here that it is Spider-Man, not Spiderman, not Spider Man. He is a Man who is a Spider. It’s different for Batman or Superman, who are not, respectively, a Man who is a Bat or a Man who is a** Super.

** Not a typo.

When I read in the papers some months ago that there was going to be published a new version of Spider-Man called Spider-Man India, I had this intense wish to read it – just like one can’t resist looking at a messy road accident.

I have no beef with new versions of old heroes – I dearly like DC’s Elseworlds^[1] print, which hasn’t exactly given the world magnificent stories, but which has been generally amusing and diverting. My problem was with an Indian version of a western superhero. And, just to see if I was right, I picked up the first two issues of this ... er ... exercise. As expected, I was entirely right.

The story goes thus. Pavitr Prabhakar, who is from a village and always wears a dhoti, is ridiculed by everybody at his college. His uncle Bhim and auntie Maya are doing their best to keep him there. His only friend at college (well, he considers her his friend, but she has actually only spoken a couple of civil words to him) is Meera Jain. And while this is going on, the evil industrialist Nalin Oberoi is plotting to raise a demon. The demon is the Green Goblin. And suddenly Pavitr Prabhakar wakes to his destiny of wearing a Spider-Kurta and swinging on his web around the – ahem – skyscrapers of Mumbai.

Issues 3 and 4, as far as I know, continue the story with the addition of Doc Ock, and something inspired by Venom (which is, obviously, a figure that is a lot more black-and-white here than in the original).

Now simply from this synopsis, you can tell what’s wrong. They have ignored the basic point of the original Spider-Man – that he is a normal person who got his powers by accident – there was no destiny involved^[2], and that was what made Spidey special. Apart from that, I don’t think a single young boy/man in Maharashtra, be he from the city or from a village, actually wears a dhoti. And it’s not even as if dhotis come out that much cheaper than trousers (unless, of course, he’s wearing his uncle Bhim’s discarded dhotis). It’s plain unrealistic, as is a large part of the book.

This story, and the take, has a lot more in common with a Hindi movie from the 80s than with the source material. The robbery that leads to the death of uncle Bhim has now been morphed into an attempted rape of a woman in an alley (although it’s not referenced as such, because this is a kids’ comic, isn’t it?), and the fact that Spidey India ignores this incident for some web-slinging fun (combined with the fact that he’s supposed to be an honest-to-god hero and not just a kid with powers) shows him as a callous human being rather than as a normal teenager who has petty emotions like everybody, which was the way it was shown in the original comic (and the movie). The only time I actually enjoyed this comic was when I thought to myself that when introduced Venom here, they might make him a Vish-Purush^[3]. There is something vaguely amusing about Spider-Man chasing villains trying to escape in a rickshaw, but it isn’t even camp enough to enjoy it that way.

But most of this is simply bad writing, and there is something a lot more fundamentally wrong here. The book is written in English, and has a generally high quality of production. This, when combined with the subject matter, is not something that might cater to either the primary demographic – urban boys in their preteens – or the secondary one – everybody else. Instead of being either an entertaining yarn or a moral story, it simply comes across as a confused attempt to play to all audiences – young boys who have ‘lost touch with their culture’, older people who think this would be a good way to get the young boys back in touch with their culture, and non-Indians who might be interested in reading a new and interesting take on a concept that now seems as old as the hills.

My friend Nikhil, who likes animated cartoons, tells me that an animated version of this comic book is being developed as an ongoing television series. Considering that a lot more kids watch tv than read comic books, all I can say is God help the poor critters.

Also, it seems that a film version of this, with Shah Rukh Khan in it, is currently being discussed. I am just going to leave that sentence like that without comment.

[1] The Elseworlds hook: In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.

[2] I choose to ignore the recent revamp of Spidey as a totemic figure, forged by destiny, because it was essentially a display of an utter lack of ideas. Also, Peter now lives with MJ and Aunt May in the plush Avenger Towers, but I have nothing against that because you can’t keep him a loser forever.

[3] A Vish-Purush is a man (as opposed to kanya = girl) who has venom in his veins instead of blood. And to the credit of Indian writers, this concept was around a long time before Bane came along.

2006-03-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

While reading this wonderful post, I was reminded of something I read a couple of weeks ago. You might know about how comics treat rape and sexual abuse in a highly frivolous manner. Anything bad that happens to a woman is generally important only in how it affects the male (lead) character, and seldom in how it affects the woman herself. This, and many related things, are amply illustrated in the Women in Refrigerators syndrome.

And Garth Ennis is this Irish chap who writes comics that trounce religion (mostly Christianity) mercilessly. His comics usually assume that the key figures in Christianity exist, but they are always presented in a highly perverted (and sometimes original and interesting) manner. Ennis has written his fair share of women into refrigerators, and his treatment of gender issues is extremely heavy-handed and rather clueless. But I was struck by something he wrote in his run of Hellblazer* (which is a title I started reading because of this guy).

[ * Hellblazer is a comic book about John Constantine, a chain-smoking semi-alcoholic British guy who does magic stuff, and who was, for some reason, morphed into the all-American expressionless Keanu Reeves when they made a movie of it. The character was created by Alan Moore. ]

Garth Ennis, in Hellblazer, postulated that Jesus Christ was born from the angel Gabriel’s rape of Mary, which Gabriel had committed on God’s orders. And now (in the twentieth century), Gabriel is hating God, and is going to fall, and one of the reasons he resents God is for making him do that.

Now consider that this is a god who can do such a thing to one of his own beloved creations. What kind of god might he be?

Ennis, in his story, was more concerned with Gabriel, but this is the part that struck me the most. And which is why, in spite of Ennis’s fetish for guns and for thrusting war stories into almost every title he writes, I will continue to read his books.

And since we are on the topic, I will take this opportunity to point you to this excellent quote.

Current music: Those Crimson Tears – Ed Harcourt

Always Remember ...

2006-03-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

Click on the image for larger version.

Alternative settings: Loose, watery, prolapse, rectal volcano.

You know, one of these days, I am going to get those glasses.

For those who don’t know about this, go here. Check a few out, and you’ll understand. I got it from the Pulse.

Pong

2006-03-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

Hours – okay, minutes – of mindless fun, and a recipe of eye damage: the world’s smallest Pong game. (via Crooked Timber)

And to compensate: King Pong.

PS: The filter blogging is temporary, and will continue till Tuesday, when I will either take a week-long break, or post a regular post (and then take a week-long break).

2006-03-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

Via Bookslut – a new film is announced:

"(...) There is some serious shit in this film, including political commentary and even a couple of non-violent, cloak-and-dagger–style murders."

So what is this film? Go take a look. I utterly loved the last sentence in the article.

And also from Bookslut, rewriting the endings of books:

Pride and Prejudice could be rendered less saccharine by introducing the scene where Darcy explains to Elizabeth that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune still in want of a wife is obviously gay, so he is moving to Tangiers to live with Wickham.

I know someone who would be very pleased with that.

2006-03-03T22:30:00.000-08:00

This is hilarious. Midwest, a woman, wonders what it might be like to wake up one day with a penis:

I stand up and watch it flop down. I flick it up and watch it drop again.

(...) I again stretch my new dick out long, this time trying to tie it in a knot. I'm disappointed to discover that, like head hair, it won’t maintain it’s shape.

A must-read.

Against Sexism and Harrassment

2006-03-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

I probably won’t be blogging anytime next week (yeah, I know I haven’t been blogging much anyway), so I’ll link these right now. Be sure to visit (and, if possible, contribute):

March 8 – Blog Against Sexism Day (via The Geeky Feminist)

Blog-a-Thon on Street Harrassment (via m.)

2006-03-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Ooh! Straight from the Beat. Can’t believe I expected it to suck.

Can’t wait, can’t wait. *does a little fan-boy jig*

2006-03-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is the sickest thing I have read ever. There simply are no words – go read.

PS: Update. Another update – makes you want to hurl.

2006-02-22T09:53:00.000-08:00

This is the fucking weirdest thing i’ve read the last few days.

Bloggy* Trivia

2006-02-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

[ * ‘Bloggy’ meaning something that’s basically useless, but which the author thinks people might like to read.** ]

[ ** The author might be wrong. ]

I have this habit – I always check out the end of a book or a movie about 30 pages/15 minutes into it. No, it isn’t like the thing many mystery readers do, at least not entirely, because I don’t generally read mystery.

There are two reasons for what I do. One is that if the book has a suspense or a tension element in it, I like to get it out of the way before I read the book. If I don’t, then I would be sorely tempted to read the book faster, simply to find out what happens, and, in doing so, I would lose more or less everything apart from that element. And if, after I read the end, I don’t like the book anymore (if, that is, the suspense element is the only good thing in the whole book), then I probably wouldn’t have liked the book anyway.

The other reason is much more fulfilling. Quite a few of the books I read are about characters and situations, rather than story, if you know what I mean. And the end of these books, I find, is mostly (seemingly) unrelated to the beginning, or sometimes very similar to the beginning. Once I know the beginning and the end, I take a great deal of pleasure in finding out how the characters got there, and pausing once in a while to see if we’re now one step closer, or perhaps further, than I thought we would be.

Call me a kook.***

[ *** No, I don’t mean ask a kook to meet me or anything. I mean you should say I am a kook. Say it. Say it! Say it? Okay, I will now stop because things are getting too kinky for my blog. Mail me if you would like to continue. ]

We are Highly Amused

2006-02-11T00:23:00.000-08:00

I have been fooling around on this rather nice website called Sketch Swap, where you draw a sketch, submit it, and receive another in return.

I submitted this:

And got this:

I think I prefer mine.

But then I submitted a self-portrait (well, it looked like an egg, so that’s what I’m guessing it was), and I received this gem in return:

Go here. Enjoy!

Lucky

2006-02-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

For close to 75 years, the dark wooden chairs and carved columns have stood witness to many conversations over a lone cup of Irani chai. From the students of Fergusson College, to aspiring film-makers at the Film and Television Institute of India and Prabhat Studios, to romancing couples, Deccan Gymkhana’s Lucky Restaurant was a part of life for many.
– from the Pune Newsline (5 February 2006)

For my friends and me, creatures of the night all, Lucky was the epitome of quiet undisturbed conversations that took place after midnight. I don’t remember ever entering Lucky before 11:30 pm. The owner, standing outside the downed shutters, would direct us around the building, where we could go in through the service entrance. In fact, if we arrived early, we would wait outside till the shutters and windows closed before entering.

While all around police patrol cars enforced the midnight curfew, Lucky was open as long as we liked. We generally sat there till about 2:30 – I even seem to remember leaving at 4 am once. Any nervousness about police raids was dismissed by the sight of two havaldars having chai at the next table, or a fat inspector gorging himself on biryani, smiling graciously when we looked in his direction.

Most of the restaurant would be empty when we entered, with just a few late diners scattered around the place. We would take a seat in the corner – or at the long table in the middle if there were many of us – and we would talk, looking around once in a while to see the restaurant slowly filling up, until it was almost full at 1:30.

The most wonderful thing about Lucky, for us, was the service. We never went there at a non-ungodly hour, so we have no idea how regular service functioned. For us, service was a cheerful exchange of enquiries about items and replies in the negative, before we settled on something that, by sheer good fortune, was available. Rather than being irritating, this always amused us no end, and made us value the simple cuppa or creamroll or bread pudding (a personal favourite) all the more.

After we were served, there would be no further disturbance until we called for the waiter ourselves. Conversation flourished – the topic never mattered – and time stood still for us, until suddenly we realised that people would soon be coming in for breakfast.

Lucky was a place to loaf – four (or more) people sharing a single coffee was a common sight, and reorders were not a prerequisite to stay. It was not unusual to spend about four hours there and come away with our pockets only ten rupees lighter.

Lucky was always warm and welcoming, and it was seldom closed. In the best possible sense, it was something of a last resort – can’t think of anything to do, go to Lucky. It was a constant, a comfort.

It was. Lucky was closed two days ago on Friday, to make way for a commercial complex. My friend tells me that the staff sat down in front of the restaurant and cried. And even if that isn’t true, it should be, because Lucky deserved that sort of reverence.

We heard about the closure yesterday, and couldn’t believe it till the news was confirmed in the papers today. We wish we’d known before – we could have gone there for a last tryst, and lifted our cups of chai for something that wasn’t just a place, but a symbol, a legend.

Lucky was frequented by everyone from Guru Dutt to Dev Anand to Ravi Vaswani to our parents, their friends and thousands of unknown students and other calamities. I don’t know a single person who had a bad opinion about it – I doubt there is one. For the city of Pune, this is, without the slightest exaggeration, the end of an era.

We reminisced freely, and cursed everything from commercial complexes to redone restaurants to greedy capitalists to the loss of ideals.

Everyone who knew about the end of Lucky had their own tribute to it. Our solemn tribute will be to beat up Chetan, who was the bearer of the bad news.

Dev Anand talks about Lucky here (third from top).

2006-02-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

As of yesterday, I am a member of the new blog sthreeling whose tagline is ‘speaking feminism in india'. The blog has been started by m., it has five members right now, and you can read the statement of purpose of the blog here.

Visit, comment, spread the word.

The Top 100 Opening Lines in Literature

2006-01-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

Loads of fun, although the list is really based on the books rather than the lines themselves.

I quite like #53, although the rest of the book can’t help but not live up to it.

I also like #6, #15, #47 and #69 (no, seriously).

2006-01-21T00:33:00.000-08:00

This one’s a week late. I know. Don’t rub it in.

Samit Basu did a book-launch/reading of his second book, The Manticore’s Secret, at Crossword in Mumbai on the 13th. I was present there. My thoughts on the event and the book.

----------------

I had a wonderful time at the book-launch. I got there early, and wandered about looking generally shifty. Then Samit arrived, and a simpering female fan (abbreviated as SFF – coincidence?) interviewed him, and I thoughtlessly muscled in on the interview.

Then the launch happened. There was a tolerable introduction, and a fine reading, followed by Samit chatting with Sonia Faleiro, with the audience joining in with their questions, followed by another reading and Q&A session. The conversation between Samit and Sonia was very relaxed and entertaining, which was nice.

The audience questions ranged from the basic (“Where do you get your ideas from?”, to which Samit disarmingly, and, in my opinion, honestly, replied, “I steal them from other writers.”) to the typical (“favourite books/authors”) and the bizarre (the clueless “Why do women always write depressing books?”). At least nobody tried to talk about ‘fantasy as symbolism’. I asked the question Jai poses near the end of his review here.

I found Samit to be very funny, very articulate (which was a bit of a surprise, because I had this idea of really good writers being people who spoke in monosyllables – or maybe that’s just me) and a very, very nice guy.

Samit (remembering a recommendation I’d made ages ago) signed my copies ‘Will read more Moorcock. Promise.’ Am mightily chuffed.

But my favourite part was after the reading ended – a tv crew was filming Samit doing a reading, without attaching the audio, and Samit, rather than doing a straight reading, spouted a whole lot of improvised silliness, which the tv host chap and I thoroughly enjoyed. (Er ... you had to be there.)

And then I had a chat with Samit, and he very helpfully answered my questions about publishing and writing in general. Thanks a lot for that, Samit. It was a huge pleasure being there and meeting you.

PrufrockTwo was also there, it seems.

----------------

Blog reviews of The Manticore’s Secret: Jai, Nikhil.

I liked The Manticore’s Secret a lot, but it isn’t as much fun as the first book. A second reading might change my mind, though.

One thing I noted was that Samit has become a better writer (as opposed to storyteller). I especially realised this when I picked up Simoqin right after finishing Manticore. The voice has become a lot more assured, for certain. The descriptions are usually better than in the first book (example – ‘Grotesque gargoyles sidled sardonically along the battlements, faces frozen in masks of madness.’ – good fun), but they are also more numerous, which was not appreciated. But I loved his highly visual style of writing, which still sits very well beside the wit and humour.

My biggest complaint with Simoqin was that it wasn’t too original. Manticore is a lot more satisfying in that respect, although this also means that the sheer number of ideas present in the book is less than in Simoqin.

The humour part of the book is still wonderful. My favourite bit was the latin name Cricinda bludinec for a very tall tree.

Complaints?

1) Overlong – I was actually aware that I was reading a very large book.

2) The shifting action – the shift is generally smooth, but sometimes the narration comes to a halt for another bit of description (see above). And a few too many strands of narrative, although that’s necessary.

3) A disagreeably small role for Kirin – this was due, in part, to the numerous narrative strands, and the fact that characters with agendas (Kirin here) are less interesting than characters in doubt (Kirin in Simoqin). I will commend Samit for realising this, but I’ll complain anyway.

4) The GameWorld concept – not too bad, not too good. Amusing.

But the complaints don’t really matter much. The book is a great read, wonderfully plotted, and some of the scenes are simply stunning, as are the characters (who have evolved from exposition to actual dialogue!). And the best thing about the book is that it is actually a continuation of the story rather than a typical sequel, if you know what I mean.

In summation, very, very good. Do give us the third one as soon as possible, please.

Folly

2006-01-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

Another story. A somewhat longer one this time.

I think it was when he took a chainsaw to the neighbourhood coffee shop that B and I really started to drift apart. We’d been best friends since childhood, y’know, and you tend to stick by your mate even if he shows a morbid fascination for cutting things up. Messily.
Give us a ciggy, will you? It helps me remember. Thanks. By the way, sorry if I don’t tell you B’s name – it’s a sensitive matter.
Anyway, everything B had would turn into mulch in a matter of days. It’s a wonder his parents lasted as long as they did – I guess he didn’t like them enough to care.
So one day, B came up to me and said he’d bought a sword. I took a look, of course – you don’t see swords often these days, especially if you’re not into politics. It was rather nifty, and we played at Warriors and Monsters for a bit, even though we were 17 and supposed to be above all that. Where’d he get the money to buy it from? Didn’t ask, really. Well, all teenagers steal from their parents once in a while.
So anyway, B said we had to slay a dragon. And then I watched as B captured a stray dog and butchered it with the nice shiny sword. And I didn’t puke. I’ve seen all these movies where the guy that witnesses anything horrible has to throw up. I kept expecting to puke, but I didn’t.
Anyway, I dismissed this as a one-time thing, and B never spoke about it again. Then B bought the chainsaw.
What? Was he influenced by the movie? I don’t know. I think he had seen the movie, but he probably would’ve got around to chainsaws anyway. Him and big shiny sharp things were made for each other.
The first thing he did with it was to cut up the sword. It was really messy to watch, and it’s actually how I got this scar on my forehead. Steel splinters are bad for you.
So that was when we went to the coffee shop. There were six people there. This time I did throw up. Then he said he was coming for me. And I started running. After that, we weren’t really friends any more.
I ran straight home. Bad idea? Of course it was a bad idea, but forgive me for not thinking straight with my best friend wanting to ram a chainsaw up my bottom.
By the way, do you have another cigarette? This one’s finished. Of course you do, there’s one poking out of your pocket. Thanks.
Listen, sorry for being snappy, but I’m a bit on edge. Running from place to place doesn’t help you make friends. It’s nice to have someone to talk to. Thanks for listening. You want another coffee? On me.
Okay, so I went home. And of course he came after me. But before that he went to his own house – yeah, he’d finally remembered his parents.
By then, I’d realised I had to run. So I did. That didn’t stop him from doing in my family. Saw it on the news? Me too.
Since then he’s been following me. He can smell me, I swear. What? You can smell me too? No, that’s just because I haven’t washed in a few days. He can smell me even when I’m clean. And he always looks in the coffee shops. Well, we both love them. I like the atmosphere. He likes breaking different kinds of tables.
I should stay out of coffee shops, you say? I dunno. They’re the only joy I have left. I can’t give that up, can I?
Anyway, I gotta leave now. Thanks for listening, and for the ciggies. Coffee’s on me, of course. If I were you, I wouldn’t come here for a few days. I’m not sure, but who knows. Ta, mate. Miles to go and everything. Nice meeting you.

2006-01-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up from the floor.

2006-01-15T02:51:00.000-08:00

I tend to stay away entirely from blonde jokes, but this one’s totally worth it. Trust me.

2006-01-07T23:55:00.000-08:00

You might have read about this.

Neil Gaiman provides one of the more balanced analyses of the whole thing.

He also links to this extremely interesting discussion (for geeks who actually care about this).

Lost

2006-01-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

Another little story.

This was when Auntie and Uncle had the Big Fight. The one where neither talks. They refused to say anything to the adults, so Brother and I were sent in – the little troops, sent in to find the little secrets.
They were sitting in adjoining rooms. Brother went to Uncle, and I sat with Auntie.
“I’m going to shoot both of them!” Uncle raged. “Nasty fuckers!”
“But you don’t have a camera!” Brother protested.
A pause. “So did you ...?” I asked Auntie.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It was on a trip. At one point we were in a cave. It was dark. I don’t remember, actually.”
Brother seemed to steel his nerve. He asked the ultimate question, “So who’d she do it with anyway?”
Another pause. “Her brother. That smarmy little bastard!”
As I sat rigid with shock, Brother whispered something timidly.
“Forgive them?” Uncle thundered. “They lost my 1971 Original Autographed Led Zeppelin IV LP. How can I forgive them? I’m going to kill them!”
Brother and I met in the hallway. We did what anybody sensible would do. We giggled.

2006-01-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

Young author ~~(with mutant apparatus)~~ [note to self: Not Really Relevant – although you can never tell] gets requests for a copy of his book that he shoved down his underpants for a publicity photo.

He puts it for sale on eBay, starting price 0.01 USD.

Current status: 13 bids. Top bid: 6.01 USD.

I love the internet.

(I have made a screenshot in case this ever goes offline.)

2005-12-31T14:25:00.000-08:00

Lauren at Feministe links to a very interesting interview with Bahraini feminist Ghada Jamshir. Take a look.

The Happy Feminist writes about the phenomenon of pity for highly successful single women.

(So I’m posting on New Year morning at 4 o’clock. Sue me.)

New Year Link Collection

2005-12-31T08:56:00.000-08:00

Here is ‘The Ultimate Showdown’. Click on ‘Watch This Movie’ and turn up the sound. (via The Designer Monologues)

If you like the South Park Bidi Uncle character in my sidebar, you can make your very own here.

For something hilarious, there’s always Overheard in New York.

And the new Desi Blogosphere discovery – Crystal Blur’s take on the Mahabharata.

Or visit the rather nicely done Tristram Shandy movie website. (It is a Winterbottom movie. I rub my hands in anticipation.)

And lastly, Jabberwock’s post on interesting comments.

Now for extra fun, tell yourself and your friends a couple of Uranus jokes, or, if you’re pressed (or drunk/hungover), knock-knock jokes.

And by the way, y’all have a very happy new year, ye hear?

2005-12-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

I promised Aishwarya I’d contribute something to ‘The Museum of Fragile Things’ by the end of the year (actually, I didn’t say that, but doesn’t this sound more decisive than ‘soon, soon’?), and so I have.

So go, my darlings. Read my review of Bella Bathurst’s Special. Expect me to be an intermittent contributor there.

2005-12-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

I saw three mongooses in our parking lot this morning. At first, seeing just a tail, I thought it might be a cat, but the shape was a bit too streamlined, and then all three mongooses came out in the open and slinked away in perfect file.

I like mongooses. I like the way they look, and I especially like the way they bare their teeth at possible threats. It is a casual, and therefore powerful, gesture, because unlike the full-body display of, say, a cat, this says, ‘I am so capable that I don’t need to go for showy postures.’ Of course, it might say something else to actual attackers. I wouldn’t know.

I used to have a mongoose as a pet when I was about four years old. It is, in fact, one of only two memories I still have of living in Belgaum. My friend, his sister and I used to spend hours with our little pet, and take it food and stuff. Until our parents found out. The scolding I got from my mother was much lighter than it could have been, because, as she reiterated today when I mentioned the three surprise visitors to her, mongooses are supposed to be good luck. I don’t know exactly why.

I had another pet when I was twelve, this one also with a friend. We had been walking to the store to get some candy, and we found a chick sparrow on the ground, slightly wounded. We took it home and tended to it. We didn’t return it because my friend said that other sparrows would have torn it to shreds, because it had been touched by humans. (Can anybody confirm if this is actually true?) We named it Nancy because (duh!) sparrows are female, and anyway, if it had turned out to be a male, we could have called it Nancy Boy (*wink wink*). My friend and I had joint custody of the sparrow, and he was present at all feeding-times, because he had experience with rearing birds. Then that summer, I went to Mumbai, leaving her in this chap’s care, and I came back to find that his cousin had accidentally squeezed her, and she had died after a couple of days. The resulting mild depression put me off pets for at least about six months.

These are the only two pets I have had, because my family (especially my mother) is generally against having animals in the house, although my parents do allow one particular pair of birds to nest in our garden every few months.

My favourite possible pets run in various directions. I have wanted to have dogs, cats, snakes, monkeys and squirrels at different points of time. I still wouldn’t mind most of those, except that while I still like snakes, I have gone off snakes as pets, because they don’t develop attachment for their caretakers. I watched King Kong this afternoon, so I am not very keen on gorillas either.

All the others are basically solid.

Merry Christmas, Warren Ellis Style

2005-12-25T09:57:00.000-08:00

In South Foulness, on the Nazareth Road, they give thanks for the day when the Beatified Mostyn Gorbals pissed down the Foulness vat-grown Messiah’s throat to save his life when his heart caught fire. December 25th is Drink-My-Urine Day in South Foulness. Which is why no one goes there.
The denizens of South Foulness now recognize each of their neighbor’s urine by its distinctive tang and pressure.
My name is Spider Jerusalem. And I fucking hate Christmas.
– Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan
‘Edgy Winter’, a Christmas Special

On that cheery note, have a Very Merry Christmas.

PS: I like Christmas. But this is more fun than a normal message, isn’t it?

Spreading the Lurve

2005-12-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

Here’s a bit of Christmas cheer.

President-for-Life Sheelzebub has announced the First Annual Anti-Feminist Conference. (via The Countess.)

Here are some of the seminars that are available:
Virgin or Whore? A Lady Against Feminism and a Men's Rights Advocate square off in a rousing debate to figure out if feminists are all slutty sex machines or all hate men and sex.
Feminist fashions--the telltale signs you are looking at a feminist through dress "codes." Come and learn about the various "uniforms" feminists wear. From the blue-gray of the collective farm of Marxist days, to the long hippie dresses and skirts of the granola set, to the ultra-lowrider jeans and leather halter top of the sluts in the movement, see what feminists today are wearing. Feminists are evil because the always show some skin. Except when they don't, and that's evil too!

The Countess adds her own interesting suggestions for seminars.

Being (One of) the Last Post(s) of the Year

2005-12-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

My basic intention when I sat down to write this post was the generic ‘I Hate You All’ post that single people (especially geeky males) might tend to write at the end of the year. But then I realised I don’t like stereotypes, and anyway, I don’t actually hate you all, although I do harbour a vaguely patronising attitude towards some of you.

A friend gave me the soundtrack to all three Lord of the Rings movies a few days ago, so currently I am labouring under illusions of grandiloquence and immense nobility. So I will do the only sensible thing and be silly – be very silly.

----------------

This particular observation has been made individually as well as collectively by approximately half the population of earth, but it stands repeating. I haven’t seen it elsewhere on the blogosphere, and I don’t wish our descendants from the future, who might not be familiar with it, to forget this particular gem because their ancestors thought it was too obvious to write down.

People get incredibly randy in the winter months (December-February). The major proof – the number of people who have their birthdays in September and October (subtract nine months and so on). In India, we see that marriage is a reflex reaction to randiness, and the number of marriages also goes up, as I can personally testify.

Do feel free to worship me for my brilliance.

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Vague resolutions for the New Year:

1) I promise to drive safe.

2) I promise not to bang my head on my desk too loudly. (The neighbours will be happier.)

3) I promise to convert at least one of my friends to regular deodorant use.

Bidi Uncle’s Advice Column for the New Year:

1) Dogs probably feel the need to commit suicide just like us humans. So make sure that you run over at least one dog every week. Dogs love cars. Let’s make their ends more fun.

2) Convert at least one of your friends to regular deodorant use. (If this fails, proceed to 4.)

3) Be clever.

4) Convince at least one person to go live in the mountains.

5) Try to do one intelligently silly thing every week.

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If you, like me, hate people writing about ‘sullen mouths’, ‘petulant shoulders’, ‘sad windows’ and other such incompetent transferred epithets, do read these two pseudo-fan fictions by Gail Simone. Gail Simone is an excellent comic writer, and she used to write a column about the comic book industry called ‘You’ll All Be Sorry’. If you like the two I pointed out, and have some knowledge of comics, do take the trouble to read the others. They are worth it.

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In a nod to traditional blog tradition (I think typing similar words twice is very funny – did I mention that right now I’m practicing my drinking for New Year’s?), I will post some profound lyrics that I very much like. This is the first such doohicky on my blog, and probably the last as well.

Important note: While reading this, imagine I am looking right in your eyes and saying, “I mean it.”

Sit on my face, and tell me that you love me.
I’ll sit on your face and tell you I love you, too.
I love to hear you oralize
When I’m between your thighs.
You blow me away.
Sit on my face and let my lips embrace you.
I’ll sit on your face and then I’ll love you truly.
Life can be fine if we both 69,
If we sit on our faces in all sorts of places and play
Till we’re blown away.

– Monty Python

2005-12-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

With special thanks to Aishwarya.

Writers can be extremely lazy people.

When a writer creates a protagonist, s/he wants to make it a sympathetic one (if it’s supposed to be a good person). And for that, you need a lot – backstory, relationships, dramatic tension, and perhaps romance. But, as I said, writers can be very lazy, and the easiest way for a writer to introduce all these elements to a character is this one word – trauma. Make the character a tragic figure, and the whole audience is on your side. And I hate that.

As a reader, I want the writer to have taken effort in writing the story, and the already-tragic figure makes me feel cheated. The kid who has lost one or both parents, the only survivor in a major accident, the abused character, the geeky kid who is made fun of – all these are legitimate characters, but when you start seeing them everywhere – when they make the overwhelming majority – you realise that the writers are throwing these around easily, without focus or concentration.

Consider this character: its parents are alive, it has enough good friends, it has a loving partner it loves back, it is popular, relaxed and happy with what it has. The first reaction of any reader to this person is jealousy, and I think that a writer should, once in a while, take the challenge of making us love this character and side with it. (I am talking about drama, of course. Comedy – especially situation comedy – has enough happy characters, although the tragic ones are still more interesting.)

But getting right down to it, my complaint is not against the character who goes through tragedy, but the one who goes through tragedy which has little to do with the story.

One of the most depressing examples of this for me was Lin’s tragedy in Perdido Street Station, mainly because she was more-or-less the only character I liked in there. But the tragedy is such that I can’t bring myself to hold a grudge against Miéville, although I don’t know exactly why. (Aishwarya’s answer: ‘Because he’s Miéville and is thuggishly hot.’ I kinda agree.)

The most irritating example of this that I have come across in recent times is in the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Now first I will say that I love Gaiman’s books, and think that Coraline is one of the best stories I have read (not to mention some of his Sandman stories). But coming back to American Gods: The protagonist is a guy called Shadow. He is an out-and-out good guy, but he is a closed person, and somewhat unsympathetic by nature (which is kinda necessary to the story). And we need to like him fast. Cue tragedies. He is in jail right now (Tragedy 1). He has a loving wife outside (a couple of sex scenes apparently enough to demonstrate their emotional bonding) whom he misses (Tragedy 2). But on the day he is to be released, he learns of his wife’s death (Tragedy 3, which also frees him to go cross-country taking part in the story). And then, after he comes out, he learns that his wife had been cheating on him (Big Heart-Stopping Tragedy 4).

And it works. We are on Shadow’s side from beginning to end, but I felt cheated, because I was giving few reasons to actually like him as a person other than the vague notion that ‘he is a good guy’.

This tactic was most unashamedly used in the tv series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is among the two-three modern tv shows that I liked. All the major characters (most of all Buffy herself) go through partners (and other tragedies) at an almost alarming rate. The only person free from this is Rupert Giles, but he’s British, which is reason enough to pity him. Joss Whedon, the creator of the series, himself said that happy characters are not interesting characters, and he displays this conviction amply throughout the series. But he compensates this by making us like the characters for other reasons too, and anyway, one should realise that this series was shown one hour per week (two hours for some episodes), and to do this without thinning out the pace requires some dependence on clichés.

But there is one major difference between the two that makes me accept the tragedy in Buffy – the tragedy is almost always an integral part of the story. It is what drives the story. It does not say to me, “Okay, this character is sad, like it, and then we’ll get along with other, more important, things.”

There are definitely justifications for traditional tragic figures. When one works within a set structure, one has to conform to some guidelines. But why should this happen almost every time? I feel that for every three characters that fall back on tragedy, there should be one character that challenges the writer.

I accept such characters in one particular situation – a short story in which you have to sympathise with the character. Here, I accept this (albeit grudgingly), because I read short stories for story, and I don’t want the writer wasting unnecessary time driving us around.

In final analysis, the fact is that a tragic character is always more interesting than a happy one. But it is possible to make us side with the character without resorting to needless tragedy. We like our friends because they are good people, and not because they have tragic pasts. So why not, once in a while, invent characters we like for the same reason?

Post-Teenage Non-Angst ...

2005-12-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up at 9 a.m., which is way too early for me. I sat down in front of the computer at 11:30, and could think of absolutely nothing to write, mainly because I am not used to thinking this early in the day. I read my archives and found that, apart from rare occasions such as this one, I had never really justified the former name of my blog (‘Post-Teenage Non-Angst as an Artform’, if you’re reading this way in the future and I have removed all reference to it), so I might as well do so today.*

[ * That’s tosh. The real reason is that my broadband connection has been kaput for the last couple of days, so my hours of happy occupation have been heavily cut down, thereby forcing me to turn to a different mode of entertainment. ]

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When I look back at my life as it was at age 12-15, the one word that rises above all others to define that period (apart from maybe ‘sex’) is ‘gloom’. Self-imposed gloom, of course. And the reason it was imposed was that at this particular age, one thinks gloom is glamorous and sexy. It makes sense. The brooding mystique looms very high in life at that age. The ‘nobody understands me’ and the evergreen ‘nobody loves me, everybody hates me’ emotions are at their peak, and one tends to think that whole world is centred around one, and that others just don’t seem to understand that. And my proclamation is illustrated by the millions of blogs out there by people of that age.

When I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a hitman when I grew up. Murder was the coolest thing ever, and I wanted in on it. The more gruesome, the better. I was at an age where I would have taken Sin City seriously, and that’s only the start of it. I honestly believe that if anyone was able to peek into the mind of an early teenager, they would be utterly revolted. It isn’t as if teens necessarily mean bad, they just seem to be going about everything the wrong way. But I must say that this is an incomplete way of thinking (which is why I used the word ‘seem’), because while teenagers may think about creepy stuff, they don’t usually do it, and they largely end up alright. But the sheer conviction a teenager emanates in its attitude towards anything is frightening.

Still, today, when I am disinclined to believe in anything too strongly (probably just a temporary state of affairs), I have a sneaking admiration for the teenager I used to be, if only because he believed in things with much more abandon.

----------------

A few days ago, while checking out the archives of DesiPundit, I found a link to a very interesting post (I have linked it, but it’s no use, since the page, along with the blog, seems to have disappeared since then). The blogger took a poll amongst her friends to see if any of them had had an imaginary friend when they were little. And when I realised that I identified with not just one, but at least six or seven different answers, I decided I had to take a visit to the loony bin. So I came here.

I had a couple of imaginary friends when I was a kid. (“Was?” a friend asked after reading this.) But since I did not have any soft toys (my parents were distinctly of the ‘different toys for girls and boys’ school of thought), my imaginary friends were He-Man action figures and G. I. Joes. To make things even better for my fertile imagination, these figures have an iron endoskeleton, and a friend of mine had a nifty set of magnets, so we would use them to make the figures fight with each other without us having to touch them – it was just like the real thing. For a long time, ever since I heard the concept of film directors, I was under the honest delusion that film actors were all G. I. Joe action figures, which the directors played with. You don’t need to point out the fallacy here, but back then I could think of no possible reason why actual people might want to be bossed around by someone – I knew what that was like, and it was not nice.

But more than having imaginary friends or action figures, it was being an action figure that had the biggest appeal to me. From standard 3 to standard 6, my greatest pastime during school lectures was to become the neighbourhood super-powered vigilante. The name of my alter ego, for some very strong reason that escapes me now, was Jebediah. At the slightest warning from my super-hearing, I would crash through the window of my classroom, turn into the magnificent Jebediah (who looked like Spiderman with Superman’s cape – those two being the only superheroes I knew) and go around saving the world (which, back then, consisted solely of my locality, my school, and the road connecting the two), and generally having a good time. So you realise that the glassy stare I invariably, almost reflexively, assume whenever I am in a classroom is not a new innovation.

Apart from action figures, R/C cars were something I liked a lot. Not having one myself, I imagined one. And this little truck, which I also mentioned here, was my faithful companion through many a boring bus-trip on which I was forbidden to read, being expressly warned that ‘it would hurt my eyes’.

I have always talked to myself. For a time around the age 9-10, I vaguely wondered if it meant I was a loony, but then I figured I didn’t really care. One reason for that was very simple – I usually understood me (remember I was at an age where I thought no one else did). The other reason was that I hated language – as a subject, I mean. You might wonder how this is related, but when, at the age of 11 or so, I discovered that English was interesting, and so was writing, my conversations with myself dropped drastically. Even today, I talk to myself much less often when I am actively working on a piece of fiction.

But the daydreams have changed a lot over the years, and so has my attitude towards them. Now, when I talk to myself, it is to discuss a story idea, and not to argue if shapeshifting would be a better superpower (for me) than invisibility. When I daydream, it is no longer to make myself different and fantastic, it is to create someone of that kind. Also, these days, when I notice people looking at me when I am talking to myself, I actually stop. I don’t know if all this means that my imagination is now limited, or that I simply use it in saner ways. Whatever it is, it feels like something of a loss.

I am the God of Hellfire, and I Bring You ...

2005-12-06T13:19:00.000-08:00

... Automated Customer Service.

Here’s my experience with the ACS of an absurdly large and famous multinational company after they discontinued service due late payment of dues. I pay the bill, and call them.

ACS: To have service reconnected, press 1. For operator assistance, press 2.
I press 1.
ACS: To have service reconnected, press 1. For operator assistance, press 2.
I press 1.
ACS: To have service reconnected, press 1. For operator assistance, press 2.
I astutely press 2 this time.
ACS: The option you selected is not valid, please try again. (Hangs up.)

I try this a few times more, from two different telephones. Does not work. So I go to there and ask the polite little executive there about what happened. He says, “You pressed the wrong button. You are supposed to press 221 when they first ask you.”

“Er ... why, exactly?” I ask.

He grins stupidly at me.

Another, not so absurdly large but almost as famous, Indian company played a different game with me.

I pressed the button for operator assistance, and they forwarded the call, but no operator was available, so I was asked to punch in my phone number, and I would be called within the hour.

I wasn’t. Two days later, I called there again, and met with the exact same response. I punched in my number again. It’s been three days since then, and still no effing dough for me.

Maggots.

PS: Sorry for highly late posting – my broadband connection was kaput for the last three days, and now I am highly worried, because I have around 250 bloglines subscriptions, and now my unread posts are looming in the higher 2000s. And my plans to create a new and improved (and much more international) blogroll from my subscriptions have received a setback. Sometime next week for sure, though.

Two Words

2005-12-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

Fucking bizarre!

The Seven Tag (Furtively Accomplished)

2005-12-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

I have not been posting for a while. I was run out of town by a mob, and had to come back under cover of night. Therefore, this post is being posted in a hurry.

Nobody tagged me for this, but it seems interesting. All this is off the top of my head, of course.

Seven Things I Plan to (i.e., Want to) Do:

1) Post on the blog more often, for obvious reasons.

2) Complete my fucking book. I have been writing it (or rather, sitting on it) for almost a year now, and it never seems to go beyond 40 pages, because whenever I add something, I delete something I’d written before. For those interested, a very, very, very early version of the first chapter is available here.

3) Get out of the house more. I don’t want to turn into a misanthropic loner (although some might say I already am one). And people have their uses.

4) Stop procrastinating. Although I doubt this is even possible.

5) Write more. In general. Did you know that I wrote all of 500 words of fiction in the last week? And I deleted 100 of those, and another 200 are under review.

6) Travel. This is probably the most important one after 2 and 5 (and 7, of course)

7) Watch an orgy. Seriously.

Seven Things I Can’t Do:

1) Watch tv beyond one commercial break.

2) Finish stuff I plan. (I only get it done about 30% of the time.)

3) (Currently) Not sing a Nick Cave song loudly about a zillion times a day.

4) Have any semblance of tact.

5) Select my own clothes. Well, that is.

6) Finish studying before an exam.

7) Go to college willingly.

Seven Things I Often Say:

1) “What the fuck?”

2) “LATER!” (In three-foot high letters with frills around.)

3) “Idiot.”

4) “Fookin beezaar!”

5) “Stuff and nonsense.”

6) “Inchusting ...”

7) “Eh?”

And since I have been doing this illegally, so to speak, I will be nice and not spread it around. In fact, I expressly forbid all of you from answering this tag on your blog.

2005-11-25T08:59:00.000-08:00

For a few days now, I had been a bit puzzled why people (quite a few of them) kept posting comments on the post before the one which they were commenting on. Today I realised this was because of the odd structure of the new template, which has the comments link before the post. And since my comment form is pop-up, there is no way for the readers to know they have opened the wrong form. So I have now made another copy of the comments link after the post. Hope this simplifies things. I know that in some posts the gap between the last line and the link is a bit odd. That’s to do with the paragraph formatting in the posts. I will be fixing it soon.

PS: I have fixed the font size of the template, as promised.

Conversations with My Muse – No. 1

2005-11-24T10:01:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to one particular person. You know who you are.

Me and my muse were sitting in my room one afternoon. We were both silent and sullen. She was smoking a cigarette, and I was ignoring her.

I was somewhat angry with her for having abandoned me for such a long time, so I had snatched at the smallest excuse to vent my spleen – I had shouted at her for coming in through the window, which always surprised and annoyed me. She had reasoned that since she was ethereal, there was no way she could ring the doorbell, but I was in no mood to listen.

My muse takes the form of a thirty-five year old lady with dyed hair. She hates speaking in contractions. She always holds her purse tight, because my dreams are in there, and the purse was once stolen, giving me a year-long Writer’s Block. She is rather nice, but she is prone to witticisms and aphorisms, and that irritates me sometimes. There was a time when she was a twenty-five year old punk rocker, but she decided she had to mature somewhat, without dropping the attitude. She used to try a French accent once in a while, but I’m really bad at it, so she stopped.

As I watched, she silently made her way through six cigarettes. (The smoke didn’t annoy me, since, technically, it didn’t exist.) Then she prepared to leave, just as silently, when I finally spoke.

“You don’t like me much, do you?” I asked.

“And what makes you say that?” she said, taken aback somewhat.

“You keep leaving me for such long intervals, and then you come back and act all moody. There’s no consistency in your behaviour.”

“That is not the truth. You are the one who is not consistent. My dear boy, I can only come when you make an effort to invite me. You much prefer to wallow in self-pity. It has nothing to do with me.”

I realised that silence had been preferable. It is never nice to hear the truth, especially when it is a figment of your imagination telling you.

“But you should realise that, and come anyway. See, whenever I am depressed because I am not getting any ideas – that is when I need you most, and that is just when you choose to go on long holidays.”

“I think you would rather depend on me than think for yourself. Maybe you are right – perhaps I do not like you.”

I thought about what she said. I said, “Ah.”

“I think I will come back when you have something more to say than ‘ah’. Here. Have something to tide you over.”

She took out a toffee from her purse and flicked it at me.

“Use this to think about things – perhaps about what you just said. Maybe next time I will give you a whole bar of chocolate.”

She left through the window. I took a deep breath. Smoke swirled into my nostrils, but smelled of nothing. I turned on the computer and sat in front of it all afternoon. Then I wrote this.

Quote #2

2005-11-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

From Arbella: England’s Lost Queen by Sarah Gristwood. Take note of when it was said.

I must shape my own coat according to my cloth, but it shall not be after the fashion of this world but fit for me.
– Arbella Stuart (1575-1615)

PS: Don’t worry, I won’t get into the habit of posting quotes. But once in a while doesn’t hurt.

Brand-Spanking-New Template

2005-11-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

As the more astute of you might have noticed from the look (or from the title of this post), this blog now sports a new template, as well as a new name.

The template (called Connections) was downloaded from vanillamist.com, and adapted for Blogger by myself (it’s originally for WordPress). Took some work, but it was worth it, I believe.

The new title comes from a phrase that has been stuck in my head for a looooong time. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this movie, though.

I created the header after being frustrated with every image I tried. A couple of people tell me it’s good. Please tell me what you think.

The template is still in a state of flux, and I will be fixing things slowly but surely. So if some of you are using IE (creeps), and have the font size anything other than medium, you might see the text somewhat oddly. This will be fixed in the coming week. Have patience, or shift to Firefox like sane people.

Quote #1

2005-11-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favourite quotes. The last scene from the last episode of Blackadder 2.

Queen Bess: And me ... did you miss me, Edmund?
Blackadder: Madam, life without you was like ... a broken pencil.
Queen Bess: (confused) Explain ...?
Blackadder: Pointless.

2005-11-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, through DesiPundit, I happened to read this post, which was in reaction to the reaction over ‘the Maureen Dowd article’. (I’m too lazy to try and find a link to it – I think there’s one in Uma’s post on the subject.) I found Dowd’s article boring, and my reactions to it are few, but Amardeep’s post interested me due to its title: Are Male Feminists Necessary? The post is very interesting, and worth a read, although I agreed with little of its content. The author never actually answered his title question, at least not directly, so I thought maybe I could talk about it, being a ‘male feminist’ myself.

First, we need to examine the question itself. Necessary to whom?

For most male feminists themselves, becoming a feminist has nothing to do with necessity. They disagree with the current conditions of/attitudes towards women, and agree with feminist opinions. It is simply a matter of ideology.

So anyway, are they necessary at all? They are useful, for one very depressing reason. The sad fact is this – male feminists are useful in either converting other men, or getting them to empathise with feminism. Why is this sad, you ask me? It is sad because, for most men, a guy with feminist opinions has more credibility than a woman with feminist opinions. The very simple, and extremely faulty, reasoning for this is that of course women will have feminist opinions. There are two kinds of men who think this: the ones who think that women’s opinions matter less than men’s opinions, and the ones who disbelieve women because they figure that everybody complains about their lot. And if there are men who are interested in it, despite the fact that it doesn’t ‘affect’ them (which is certainly not true), then it might have some legitimacy.

Michael Moorcock, a self-declared male feminist, once wrote an introduction to a book called Bird of Prey, and the introduction was also published in his own book Casablanca, where I read it. Bird of Prey is based on a play about sexual abuse. The book and the play were written by Steve Tasane & Carly Dreyfuss, and Tasane played the lead role of a female child in the play, in a desperate attempt to get the male-dominated world to notice the theme of the play.

So maybe we are necessary for now. But we’re hoping for a time when we aren’t. But that is the goal of feminism in general as well – to render itself unnecessary.

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The comments to Amardeep’s post were almost as interesting as the post itself. One particular chap, Qalandar, made some good points, and then said the following:

by way of anecdote, I have learned over the years that my dating prospects increase in direct proportion to how “normal” (i.e. non-feminist) I seem to women

which interested me because I have had some confirmed non-feminists say to me that the only reason I call myself a feminist is that women like me better because of that. I can’t say it affected my dating prospects, but that is mainly because I have none.

In reply to Qalandar’s comment, however, I am inclined to agree with this comment, although I myself wouldn’t have used as many question marks:

On a lighter note, what kinds of women are you dating Qalandar????? They would rather have you normal than feminist???? And they come from this planet I take it????!

What do you think? Women and men, please tell.

PS: By the way, I also have some thoughts on the fact that we have to keep calling ourselves ‘male feminists’ rather than simply feminists, but more on that later.

2005-11-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

Tee-hee. (link via Vulturo.)

2005-11-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

In the most deliciously silly incident I’ve heard all week (yes, it’s been a lean week), Nicholas Cage has named his kid Kal-El. (He did it a while ago, I heard of it this week. Damn, my network always misses the important stuff.)

Now, as legions of comic book fans dance around naked in the street chanting, “We rule! We rule!”, it is a time for quiet contemplation here at the Bidikar quarters. Poor chap, is what struck me first. The kid, I mean, not Nick.

There is one upshot to this business, however, and that’s the fact that Kal-El will be idolised by his mates from the age of 3-8 years. But after that, God help him. And there is the sad chance that some of his friends might persuade him to jump out of a window, and then he will be, as we Python fans might put it, an ex-Kal-El.

But the good thing is that in a few years’ time he will be able to legally change his name to Clark Kent. And then he’ll be rid of the name of his silly parents. Or he might just turn out intelligent (however unlikely that might be), and persuade his dad to send him off the planet in a tiny space-ship, so that he will be far away from the bullies of his future.

But till then, we must stay quiet and wait. Perhaps next week we might hear of someone naming their kid ‘Dennis’. (Oh, you don’t think that’s funny? You really don’t know much, do you?)

Note: To that rare unfortunate soul who hasn’t understood a word of this – please visit this page.

The Asian Film Festival Pune, 2005 – Day 4

2005-10-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

24th October

Day Four was the only day of the festival which might be considered something of a waste. The films were mostly fine, but there was nothing new to be experienced, expect for 19 wonderful minutes which I will talk about.

The films I saw were: Slit Eyes (Malaysia – Yasmin Ahmad), A Sigh (China – Feng Xiaogang), and four short films – G-23 (Singapore – Anthony Chen), Evacuation Order (Israel – Shoshi Greenfield), A Little Bit Different (Israel – Rachel Scheinfeld-Gadot) and A Woman Laughed (Israel – Zohar Asher, Ella Waterman, Tzipi Churi).

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Slit Eyes is a fun, but ultimately slight, romantic movie about interracial love. Orked (a Malaysian girl) and Jason (a Chinese boy) love each other, but Jason’s past comes back to haunt him. The two things that set this movie apart from other inter[fill in difference here] romantic films are: (1) That their parents aren’t against them and (2) The lovely and very funny relationship between Orked’s parents (wholly three of them – her actual parents and the long-time servant). The female lead is a real find, and if I lived in Malaysia, I’d certainly look out for her future movies. The male lead is surprisingly uneven, and nothing to write home about. The ending blows, but the rest of the movie’s pretty good, and rather well observed. I certainly want to watch Ahmad’s future movies. PS: Not very surprisingly, she has a blog. You can visit it here.

A Sigh is a very well-observed, but overall unsatisfying, movie about marital infidelity. Yazhou, a writer, has an affair with his assistant, Li, and, after a time, his wife gets to know about it. The dynamics of relationships have been detailed very well, and the nuances of a married life are captured in an interesting and different manner. But the film runs too long, and many portions are empty of both narrative and observation. And the voice-over uses metaphors that are either silly, or which lose a lot in translation. If it had been around 60-70 minutes long, I would have liked it much better. But it is fine anyway. (As an aside, both this movie and Slit Eyes use the sensationalist ‘surprise’/‘shock’ endings that are becoming increasingly, and irritatingly, popular. They would have been alright if they didn’t go so much against the grain of the movies. As it is, they seem rather pathetic.)

Among the short films, two of the three Israeli films are mostly pointless, but one of them, Evacuation Order, about soldiers come to evacuate settlers, while being extremely silly, has a very funny ending. The other one (A Little Bit Different), about a woman who refuses to marry a guy for the sole reason that he is crippled, is not very good, but, in the course of twenty minutes, gives us a lot of information about Israeli life in general. The third one (A Woman Laughed) is exceedingly experimental – it is made up of two images, one above the other, telling a composite story about something in the bible. I probably would have loved it, if not for the fact that I could only see the lower image and about half of the upper image because of the crap projection. I liked what I did manage to see, though. But the film that was worth all the seven hours I spent in the theatre that day was, undoubtedly, Anthony Chen’s G-23. A ticket-tearer in a local Indian cinema (local meaning one in Singapore) observes three regulars, and we see snippets of their lives. This is simply a wonderful film, detailed, thoughtful, quirky, and lovingly filmed. I cannot possibly think of a better way of spending 19 minutes. And I loved the way the credits registered the Indian women as ‘d/o’ (Chitra d/o Muthayya, etc.). That was hilarious. Read more about the movie here.

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By now you must be bored with my projection grouses, so I’ll just say that the film projection was perfectly fine, while the DVD projection (meaning the short films) was perfectly atrocious. The projectionist didn’t even have all the films with him, so we had to wait almost thirty minutes for the first movie, and about twenty minutes each for the second and third movie. Just a question: is this how one manages a film festival? I asked this question to one of the organisers. He simply shrugged. Peas in a pod, is what they are.

Note: My other posts on this festival – 1, 2, 3.

The Asian Film Festival Pune, 2005 – Day 3

2005-10-28T00:58:00.000-07:00

23rd October

Day Three was an unqualified success, in my opinion. The sheer number of good films was not as much as Day One, nor was the actual number of films. But what was there was right up my alley.

I watched three films today: Samapti (India – Satyajit Ray), Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi (India – Sudhir Mishra) and I Fak (Thailand – Pantham Thongsang).

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Samapti was not as good as I had expected, but it was very good still. It is a rather short film (slightly less than an hour), and it has a weak beginning, and I didn’t like the ending (it either defeats the point of the movie or it is sardonic in an unnecessarily weird manner – I can’t decide which). But even if you discard those, you still have 20-30 minutes of solid film-making which I could irritatingly analyse and generally wax eloquent about. But I am not going to. If you like Ray, you’ll probably watch this film anyway. I just didn’t like it enough to watch it a second time.

Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi is a movie about three students in Delhi in the seventies. It is wonderfully sad, and sometimes unexpectedly eccentric and funny, and it is good enough to give one hope about non-parallel filmmaking in India. And Chitrangada Singh completely rules, which makes me very sad about the fact that she’s leaving films. The other actors do a good job, and Shiney Ahuja’s first name fits him (he’s so nice and white all the time). The script is good, and so is the direction. I particularly liked the music – I probably wouldn’t want to listen to it otherwise, but it suits the film to a tee. Update: an excellent review here.

I Fak (English title ‘The Judgement’) is one of those films ... Y’know, you go on and on watching films, and you get somewhat jaded, and then, boom, comes a film that is so lovely that you sit up and start paying attention again. I Fak is not a brilliant film, but I loved it. Basically, it is a twenty-first century film about rural hypocrisy – a funny, sexy and, ultimately, very sad film about general attitudes towards sex and gender (the latter might only be my reading of the film, but I think I’m right). Fak’s father marries a young, beautiful woman, Somsong, who is also an utter loony, and then dies after extracting a promise from Fak that he will take care of her. Then due to a series of misunderstandings caused by Somsong, the whole village assumes that they are having an affair, and Fak, castigated, shunned and cheated by everyone in the village, takes to drinking, and starts to slowly lose his mind. It is a pain to watch the handsome, confident Fak turn into a sunken-eyed degenerate through little fault of his own. And thankfully, the clichéd climax of the film turns out not to be the end at all, and the actual end is tragic yet wonderfully tender. The film is also wonderfully shot, colourful, and utterly beautiful to look at.

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As if in collusion with the great films, the projection department performed much better than usual. The only problem with Samapti was that the second line of subtitles wasn’t visible, but that was okay, because most of the subtitles didn’t have a second line. Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi was thrice interrupted, for whatever reason, by the ‘3-2-1’ sign that seems to have become a trademark of old films, but otherwise things were fine, and I Fak went without a single glitch, although it started an hour late due to the fact that the cast and crew of the previous film held a conference in the auditorium.

Note: My other posts on this festival – 1, 2, 4.

Blog Quake Day

2005-10-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Blog Quake Day. This explains it better than I possibly could.

One venue for online donations: this. (via indianwriting.)

The Asian Film Festival Pune, 2005 – Day 2

2005-10-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

22nd October

Day Two was shorter than Day One, with only three films, and only one of them any actual use.

The three films I saw were: God’s Sandbox (Israel – Doron Eran), Eashwar Mime Co. (India – Shyamanand Jalan) and Tokyo Noir (Japan – Naoto Kumazawa & Masato Ishioka).

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God’s Sandbox is a somewhat commercial yet intelligent movie about female genital mutilation (which is usually given the euphemism female circumcision). I was actually in two minds about watching this film after I researched it on the net – on one hand, it had won many awards, and on the other, it was about a horrifying subject, and I expected I would be watching many parts of it with my hand covering my eyes (which I actually didn’t). An old lady and her daughter who have come to a Sinai beach on a holiday listen to a storyteller tell a story about a beautiful young woman who fell in love with a native many years ago. The love story that forms the first part of the film is not as affecting as it should have been, mainly because you never like that native fellow, but the second part, where the focus is on the young woman, is carried off mainly by the wonderful performance by Meital Dohan, as well as the sensitive direction. Overall, the film is not as melodramatic as it could have been (yes, even the part where she hits him on the head with a boulder isn’t actually overblown), and the message comes across well.

Eashwar Mime Co. is an odd film about the dynamics of power in a mime company. In parts, it strives to be experimental, but it ends up being a somewhat weird mixture of normal and experimental cinema. The script, by Vijay Tendulkar, is competent, but nothing more. I wasn’t bored, but I wasn’t impressed either. The huge potential of using mime in cinema, however, has not at all been tapped, so I deem the movie more-or-less a failure. By the way, this film had a kiss that was almost as bad as the one in 36 Chowringhee Lane.

Tokyo Noir is an utterly senseless movie about what I can only call shiny happy prostitutes. It is made up of three different stories (all about high class prostitution), and I stayed all the way through only because I hoped one of them might turn out to be good. The film runs through all the clichés about prostitution – they enjoy sex with their customers; prostitution, if done apart from one’s day job, gives one confidence and satisfaction; and, above all, prostitutes are fulfilled and happy. Only one of the three prostitutes is vaguely dissatisfied, and only one customer turns abusive, and even he turns out to be someone who only wants to be loved. The saturation of these clichés made me suspect, some of the time, that they were trying to subvert the apparent conclusions, but I probably thought that only because I didn’t want to believe someone would make such a movie. Therefore, my suspicion probably isn’t true. This movie only reinforces all the typical stereotypes – women exist to pleasure men, men should be able to get sex without obligations and all that. And the worst thing is that it is shot in such a soft, almost tender, manner, that it makes it all seem acceptable – it doesn’t even let you make your own decision about it.

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After God’s Sandbox, as I was waiting for the next movie to begin, a man of about thirty-five or so came up to me and we started discussing the movie. After a few moments, I realised that he hadn’t actually understood what they did to her in the film (the circumcision, I mean). So I explained it, and then I realised that he didn’t know what a clitoris was – a thirty-five years old, probably married, man! I explained it, and then I explained why female circumcision is actually worse than what is generally called circumcision. The hypothetical male analogy I gave him made him cringe, and I believe it was then that he actually got why she had been so adversely affected by it.

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The festival was about as empty and unenthusiastic as on the first day, and the projection problems were much worse. I watched God’s Sandbox entirely without subtitles. (I know that this was a projection problem because it took the projection chap ten minutes to find the ‘play’ button.) This wasn’t that much of a problem though, because, for one, half of it was in English, and, for another, I already knew the story. And the lack of subtitles made it easier to focus on the film itself. The projection on Tokyo Noir was entirely awful. The image was shaking slightly the whole time, and, for a large part of the second story, the upper and the lower halves of the image would alternately get blurred, for reasons unknown.

The worst thing, however, was that I wasted three hours on Tokyo Noir, which was actually a two-hour-long film. It was supposed to start at 9 p.m., but I waited there (in the empty auditorium) till ten, and there was no sign of the film. I went outside and asked the theatre crew, and they said the film was going on perfectly fine. I patiently explained to them that I had just come from the auditorium, and my more-or-less fine, if myopic, eyes could detect no sign of the film. It turned out that the whole crew had forgotten to start the movie. Ain’t folks wonderful?

And I would also like to note the awfulness of the catalogue of films distributed at the festival. It is well-printed, but it is incomplete, has some photos missing, some synopses are badly-written, and some of them aren’t even complete – they just stop mid-sentence. As a couple of examples of this, the synopsis of Tokyo Noir mentions only one of the three stories, and the synopsis of God’s Sandbox does not make any mention of the subject of female circumcision, except to note that the film was adapted from a book called Castration, which could easily have been a metaphorical title (I originally took it that way). Couldn’t they even get an editor? It would hardly have been a day’s work. Or were they just too shy to give details on such subjects?

Note: My other posts on this festival – 1, 3, 4.

The Asian Film Festival Pune, 2005 – Day 1

2005-10-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

21st October

As I said in the previous post, I am attending the Asian Film Festival of Pune. And I thought that rather than reviewing the films like I did with the PIFF 2005, I should write about my experience of the festival itself – including the films, of course.

In spite of the fact that when I got back home I was chilled to the bone by the theatre air conditioning, and my left knee hurt because I had rested my right leg on it most of the time, I must say that I completely and utterly enjoyed Day One, and I am rather optimistic about the rest of the festival.

I saw four films today: Mr. & Mrs. Iyer (India – Aparna Sen), 36 Chowringhee Lane (India – Aparna Sen), Pak Pak Pakaak (India – Gautam Joglekar), 15 Park Avenue (India – Aparna Sen) – the festival has an ‘Aparna Sen Special’ of sorts.

I saw the first movie with a pair of little old ladies who wanted to practice their English with me, and were spouting each and every vowel as if their lives depended on it. The other three films I watched alone.

All three Sen movies were wonderful, albeit rather depressing. Sen’s outlook is realistic yet elegant, but it is also bleak. I would advise cine-enthusiasts to limit Sen films to two a day. Any more could be damaging.

The music in Sen’s films is also very good, and very fitting to the film’s atmosphere, although I do think that the music in 36 Chowringhee Lane does get a bit loud and oppressive at times.

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Mr. & Mrs. Iyer is a film about communal violence. I don’t think I need to say much about it. The film begins rather predictably, and doesn’t really get into its stride till halfway through the bus trip, when the sense of foreboding grows on you bit by bit. But after that, words fail me. I will, however, say that the manner in which Sen used still photography after the bus incident is jawdroppingly good.

36 Chowringhee Lane, with Jennifer Kendall playing an old Anglo-Indian teacher in Calcutta, is about loneliness. It is a good film, with bits and pieces of good acting and imagery but I personally feel that the first part should have been even more sedate than it is. The second part is quite acceptable. And Geoffrey Kendall’s performance as Jennifer’s older brother Eddie, while a very obvious take on a stock character, is funny and sad, just like it needs to be. However, I will always remember this film for featuring the funniest (unintentionally) kiss I have yet seen on celluloid. The characters (a young couple) are kissing with their lips tightly and firmly closed. It is like someone was knocking two dolls together and making kissing noises. Indians really don’t know a lot about the facts of life, do they?

Pak Pak Pakaak is a light and fun film about a jungle ghost who is troubling a village. I would call this a children’s film made for adults – the handling is that of a children’s film, but the subject matter (the relationship of humans with nature) is all adult, as is the dialogue, and this feels rather odd. But I didn’t get bored, so I’m not complaining. For me, the most interesting thing about the film was that in the first half, I predicted twice what the film would turn out to be, and both times I turned out to be wildly wrong. That, I believe, is a reason to like the film. It isn’t an essential film in any way, though. The original concept is by Sai Paranjpe, and you can feel her touch, albeit very slightly.

15 Park Avenue is about schizophrenia, and it’s easily better than most Indian films made about mentally ill people. The script is detailed and meticulously written, and the performances are ... Well, actors have no right to be this good. It negates the concept of acting if you never feel like they’re acting. Everyone from Shabana Azmi and Konkona Sen-Sharma to Rahul Bose and Waheeda Rahman do their absolute best. The performances Sen extracted from them were so good that I spent the whole first half with a finger between my teeth, for two reasons – to keep from crying out and to constantly remind myself it was only a film. The ending, however, blows, because there just is no ending. I hate any narrative with a proper end (a ‘closed ending’, one might call it), as if the lives of the characters ended with the end of the film, but I do think that a film should have an ending (an ‘open ending’ – if you get the difference). And this doesn’t have one. What it has got is some weird pseudo-mystical pap that doesn’t make any sense, but is probably supposed to be ‘disquieting’. But the rest of the film is still worth it.

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The first day isn’t much to base my opinion of the whole festival on, but there are some things I noted. The entry management is better than the one at the PIFF 2005 (at least in my experience), and they didn’t ask for a photograph to put on your pass (I never understood why the PIFF did that). However, the projection department could use a lot of improvement. I saw the first ten minutes of 36 Chowringhee Lane stretched horizontally at 2.35:1 when it was supposed to be 1.85:1 (that meant the people looked like so many fat dolls running about). The sound kept disappearing in Pak Pak Pakaak, and we had to endure three five-minute long intervals for no apparent reason. The other two showings were fine, though.

About the success of the festival in general, I’d say that there were very few people here, and only 36 Chowringhee Lane was actually packed. To compare, I had to sit in the aisle for four films in the PIFF. Also, the crowd here didn’t seem very enthusiastic. And I heard at least six or seven people criticising Aparna Sen’s films for being boring. That, I feel, is a word that results from a context that shouldn’t even be applied to Sen’s films. It’s like saying that Mike Leigh’s films don’t have exciting plots.

There is, however, a simple explanation, at least for the lack of attendance, if not for the lack of enthusiasm. The multiplex where this festival is going on is a very new one, and it is rather out of the way, especially for students, who are usually the primary targets for film festivals. And also, this festival is limited to Asian films. (My theory on this is that students, surmising astutely that Asian films would have a lot less nudity than films from all over the world, stayed away. I like this particular theory because it neatly and elegantly combines both my points – students and Asian films.)

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Lastly, but most importantly, today I decided that I have fallen in love with Konkona Sen-Sharma. Before this, I had always liked her, but the films I had seen – Page 3 and Amu – never really gave her a chance to shine, Page 3 being an ensemble film, and my appreciation of her in Amu being impeded by her weird accent (also, that film wasn’t really about the acting anyway). In her two films today, I was astonished by the way she inhabited the two totally different characters with utter ease (especially the one in 15 Park Avenue). It’s her talent, her personality, her sheer ‘her’ness – I totally and completely love her. And I hear that she’s single these days, so ...

Note: My other posts on this festival – 2, 3, 4.

2005-10-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

I will be going to the Asian Film Festival, Pune, being held at City Pride, Kothrud, from 21st October.

This is an invite to other people who might be going – perhaps we could go together.

If anybody is interested, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail. Time-table (and common films) can be discussed beforehand.

Update: I will be posting a series of entries on my experience of the Film Festival. Do read.

S is for Spectacles

2005-10-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

Lethargy controls me. Another non-post. Another piece of fiction. Not 55 words this time, though. I wrote this story a couple of years ago, when I got my first pair of contact lenses. It was supposed to be part of a series (A-Z), which I never actually completed.

S is for SPECTACLES

Spectacles are made on Phobos, the moon of Mars. Spectacle-vendors do not know that.
Spectacles convert humans into Martian hybrids.
On 14th March 2075 1:25:32 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, every one of 750 million spectacle-wearers will remove her/his spectacles, and the earth will implode.
This isn’t public knowledge because it might cause a slight panic.
The CIA is conducting a search-and-destroy campaign for every converted human.
An excellent reason for wearing contact lenses.

2005-10-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

You have probably heard about the controversy that has sprung up around the JAM article on IIPM. Rashmi Bansal published it, Gaurav Sabnis linked to it, there were silly legal notices served. But the joke was not funny the second time around, when Gaurav had to resign from his post at IBM when IIPM people threatened to burn their laptops in front of the IBM office in Delhi. The entire situation is detailed here by Amit.

Now consider this. The people involved (the IIPM-related people, I mean) are supposed to be educated people, articulate and capable of settling things in a human manner. But we see that the age-old tradition of hooliganry is still alive, and burning and pillaging seems to be accepted even by these people as the correct way to settle all problems.

The truth is that they do not have a leg to stand on. They know it. And when they were posting insulting comments on Rashmi’s blog, they were hurting no one more than themselves. They did not give valid arguments, they resorted to vile language and insults, and in the process, they destroyed their credibility and whatever dignity they might have salvaged if they had done things the civil way.

And before Gaurav’s resignation, things might have been taken somewhat lightly, but this has now become serious.

At the risk of sounding pompous, I would like to say the following: The Blogosphere has to (and has) come together to fight, and at stake here is freedom of speech, which is what bloggers price above everything else. When you threaten to take away a blogger’s freedom to say what s/he wants, it is the silliest thing you can do, because it is the pillar any blog stands on.

So go ahead. Spread the word. Blog about it. Tell people you know.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, Gaurav’s decision to quit his post rather than hurt his company’s reputation is a hugely courageous one. I don’t know if I could have done such a thing. When push came to shove, Gaurav decided to fight his battle himself. He stood up for his principles, and he did it in spite of the fact that it hurt him. So it is our duty to support him – and it is in our own best interests to do so. Imagine what happens if we don’t.

PS: This is bizarre. Take special note of: ‘I was told that my manner of speaking was too “un-lady like” and “Too aggressive for a woman”!’ And Varna, the blogger involved, has also been served with a legal notice for her posts. I can do no better than quote Amit: ‘Ever seen a headless chicken dancing?’

2005-10-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

The third instalment in the 55-word tag.

Three

The little girl was looking out the half-open window.
Warm sunshine, filtered through glass, caressed her shoulder.
She pointed a lone cloud out to no one in particular.
A hawk circled overhead, casting a faint shadow on the pallid ground.
The murmur of two voices behind her became shouts.
Outside, the wind went whoosh!

2005-10-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is my second attempt at the 55-word tag. The first is here.

On a related note, here is the shortest horror story ever written (although one might argue that the shortest horror story is actually “BOO!”). This story is by Fredric Brown, who was one of the writers who inspired me to write small stories.

The last person on Earth was alone in a room. There was a knock on the door ... [via madhoo.com]

And here is the shortest story ever written. It is by Hemingway.

For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Used.

And now here is my story. It is something of an offshoot of another idea that I had. I was trying to find a format for it, and this seemed to fit nicely. When I wrote it, it was 59 words, and I had to fight for more than an hour to get it down to 55, because every word I deleted seemed to change the meaning. And then I realised that I had actually reduced it to 54, and I had one more word. It was like finding a million bucks. By the way, ‘Two’ is not the title, it is the number.

Two
There was once a human head for sale.
A comb sat beside it. They talked.
“What sex were you?” the comb asked.
“I don’t remember. I have nothing to look down at. Have I a moustache?”
“I don’t have eyes.”
“Let’s ask the shopkeeper.”
It tried to turn. Then it realised it couldn’t talk either.

2005-09-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here, ladies and gents, is my 55-word tag. Lots of love to Shweta for sending it to me. The deal here is that you have to write a complete story in 55 words, no more. The rules are here.

And since there is no rule that I have to stop at one, I am now never going to let go. Years from now, you will still periodically be reading 55-word stories from me. And you will die from them. Mwa-ha-ha! (Note: There is really no need to worry. My attention span lasts minutes. There is no way I will remember this after a couple of weeks.)

Here is the first instalment of the tag. It has no title, because I suck at titles. The other stories probably won’t have titles either. Here it is.

One

The wind whipped at her face. She shivered, fingering the gun under her coat as she headed to meet the werewolf, to kill it.
She was the only one who could. It would not attack or hurt her, so she had volunteered.
The werewolf stood its ground. It growled at her.
“Hi Daddy,” she said.

By the way, I duly tag Aishwarya.

2005-09-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I feel unable to write something particular, and I want to write something, I simply pen to paper and start off, usually ending up with a piece of five or six sentences. These pieces are usually about writing itself – I call them my ‘Something to Write About’ series (very imaginative title, I know). This piece is one of them – it is, in fact, the second longest one.

Outside, there were fireworks going on. Inside, little stirred.
Outside, everything was noise. Inside, it was silent.
And she didn’t like the silence. She was sitting at her desk, and she was supposed to be typing furiously right now, but there was nothing to write about.
He sat behind her, on the sofa, reading. It was dark, and she had told him many times not to read in the dark, but she hadn’t the strength to tell him again now.
“What should I write about?” she asked.
He sat up and looked over his book at her. She had never asked him this. “Dunno. Something about ... dunno. Or maybe you should ... dunno, really.”
“You’re no good.”
“Hey! You’re the writer.”
“Just because you’re not one doesn’t mean you can’t have ideas.”
“Why should I let you steal my idea if I have one?”
“Hmm,” she said. “Let’s keep arguing. Might get an idea from that.”
“What’s it about, anyway? ... What is it anyway?”
“It’s supposed to be a hard-hitting article about shoes.”
“You don’t know shoes. Why’d you take it?”
“Sarcasm, love. It’s called sarcasm.”
“What’s sarcasm got to do with shoes?”
She started to explain, but then stopped and sighed. Then she heard him chuckling. She turned and threw one of her pens at him. It missed.
“Trajectory, dear. Paper-weights have better trajectories.”
“They’re also better at splitting heads.”
He looked at her for a few seconds, then turned back to his book.
“Maggots,” she said.

2005-09-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I discovered that I share a weird kinship with author Neil Gaiman. In this post, he says that he has been handwriting his fiction since 1994, because, for one, it makes him write better.

I, the great Bidikar, discovered the same thing a year ago. I had a ‘block’ (gngngn) because I thought I was a very bad writer, and then I discovered that handwriting was a wonderful way of writing that keeps the crap to a minimum, although it also means that I sometimes lose entire sentences because I can’t decipher them later. So you see, me and Mr. Gaiman have so many similarities: we both like writing longhand, we both think it makes us write better, and we both like transferring it onto the computer. It is almost as if our minds are connected in some unfathomable way.

Of course, there are differences too. Such as the fact that he is a world-renowned author, and I’m not. But were you not listening? I’ve just discovered that Neil Gaiman is my long-lost uncle. Do I look as if I care about mere publication?

2005-09-18T02:04:00.000-07:00

For an aspiring writer, it is always nice to get some kind of confirmation that you write well. And the day before yesterday, I got a confirmation that borders on popular approval.

An online petition has been filed to protest against the pothole problem in Pune. This petition is available here: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/PUNPOT01/petition.html. And the person who registered this petition, Shridhar Gune, referred to this post of mine to illustrate the point, and since then, I have been getting a lot of visitors and very nice comments about the post. This petition has also been mentioned in today’s Times of India.

As a friend of mine said, there is a distinct possibility that this petition, and the thousands of people signing it, might make no difference to the problem, but one can always hope, and, at the very least, it is a place where you can vent your frustration. After all, that was my only intention while writing the post.

A Review of Films in PIFF 2005 - Part 2

2005-09-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

Here is, as promised, the second set of reviews of films in the PIFF 2005. I saw sixteen films in the festival, out of which four were mere time-fillers – just a place to catch some sleep before going off to my German class, mainly because I like the class too much to fall asleep there.

I have reviewed only seven of the sixteen films. I have written reviews of the others, but most of these reviews are now pointless, four of them because they are mere notes on films I did not see, and the others because they included Page 3, which everyone knows, and Black Friday and Shwaas, both of which were vastly underwhelming.

All the films reviewed below are Indian films, and so are many of the films I didn’t review. The truth is that this was the first film festival I ever attended, so I chose territory that was as familiar as possible. And in some cases, it was all about watching a film that might not be released, or would be cut before releasing (Black Friday, Amu) or one that I would otherwise have to pay to watch (Page 3). Trust me, that won’t happen next time.

Amu (India) : This is a fabulous film. I didn’t actually get to see this at the first showing, but the prints for Black Friday were a day late, and they showed this once more instead of that one, so I got to see it. It is about the Delhi riots of ’84 in which thousands of Sikhs were killed. This period of recent history has a veal of silence before it, and nobody wants to talk about it, and one girl, Kaju (played wonderfully by Konkona Sen-Sharma, whom we saw in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer before this one, and who also appears in Page 3), is determined to find out who her birth-parents were, and how they were related to these riots. This scores over other films of the type by being highly sensitive, and being more-or-less abhorrent of violence, and not just in theory, but in practice as well. This film is written and directed by debutante Shonali Bose, who displays a distinct talent for working with actors, extracting performances ranging from very competent to tear-inducingly good. And her sense of style and visual flair (which isn’t usually paid much attention to in Indian films) are also developed enough to expect more great things from her in the future. (****½)

Sail (India) : I expected a lot from this film, and it didn’t quite deliver, although it wasn’t an utter disappointment either. It features Reema and Mohan Joshi, two veterans of Marathi cinema. Anyway, this film (whose title means ‘loose’) is about the effect of the outer world on married life. Mohan Joshi is a college professor (an ex-lawyer) whose car breaks down on the outskirts of a village in the middle of a rainy night. He takes refuge at a house where, it turns out, lives his ex-wife, a politician, played by Reema. The film revolves around their conversation about their life. The tone of the film is utterly sad, and the ending is bleak as well. The conversation of the couple is interesting, but the fact is that this is all the film is, and this does not make for edge-of-the-seat viewing (although you shouldn’t really expect it anyway). The film looks as if it was adapted from a play, which it very well may have been. Anyway, it isn’t a bad film, certainly worth one watch, and the ending is a huge surprise – and a very effective one. (***)

White Noise (India) : This is one of those low-budget commercial films geared towards the cosmopolitan public. It completely disregards the existence of the lower class, and concentrates on the worries and fears of the ‘starved elite’. The story is of a tv screenwriter Gauri (Koël Purie), whose affair with an executive has ended disastrously. She now feels utterly alone and destitute, and she meets Karan (Rahul Bose), a tv editor who gives her emotional support in her time of need. On the plus-side, this movie is almost utterly watchable, very well-shot and visualised (surprisingly for an ex-tv director) and also somewhat well-observed. The downside is that a lot of the time, it comes across as utterly vacuous, and there are few moments when you don’t feel that Gauri’s predicament is largely her own fault. Yes, she has been badly treated, but her reactions and her naïveté are infuriating, and you want to shake her out of it. The main reason for this is what I mentioned right at the beginning – that this film is geared towards the cosmo public, whose angst it reflects and defends, and which holds little meaning for other people. And the Doors references get on the nerve, being utterly pop-culture rather than those of a Doors fan. Still, it isn’t a bad film. Director Vinta Nanda has an excellent visual sense, and if she does films that treat their subject a little less reverently, I would love to watch them. Worth one watch. (***)

2005-09-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I just had to link this. This is an excellent article on ‘eve-teasing’, which also argues for a more accurate term for the practice. (Link via indianwriting.)

A Review of Films in PIFF 2005 - Part 1

2005-09-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

As one-and-a-half of the two-and-three-quarters people reading this might know, I used to have a review site. It’s temporarily been deleted, as I am trying to streamline it into a better one. On this site, I reviewed the films I saw in the Pune Film Festival, January 2005. I didn’t know where to put these reviews in the new site, because they didn’t fit into any of the categories. Salil convinced me to put them here.

I am presenting them in two sets, and I am not presenting all of them. I will explain more about that in the next set. (I can’t say any more right now – I have to leave for Mumbai in twenty minutes.) The ratings are out of five.

Note: There will be no new posts till the 10th. I’ll be in Mumbai, and nowhere near a computer.

The Officers’ Ward (France) : I really wanted to watch this film, because I’d read about it in Film Review and Sight & Sound, and both magazines were practically raving about it. I didn’t find it that good, but maybe that’s because my sight and sound aren’t as developed as theirs. Anyway, the story is that Adrien (Eric Caravaca), an officer in WW2, gets injured at the beginning of his participation in the war. He gets sent to an Officer’s Ward, where there are no mirrors. His face has been hideously deformed, and he keeps wanting to see it. And he does. Most of the film takes place in the ward. The film is beautifully shot and extremely well-acted. The story itself is slight, but the visuals usually make up for it, and the cinematography and the colour-schemes used are quite wonderful. The characters are rather good as well. The tone of the film is mostly sombre, but there are moments of levity, which are appreciated. It is a very good film. A must-watch for anyone interested in cinema. (***½)

Kontroll (Hungary) : This was fun, which might actually be the only real word for it. This is a sort of alternate world (as the Hungarian Railway representative was kind enough to tell us at the beginning of the film) where Ticket-Checkers rule the Underground (sort of – it’s not very clear how exactly it differs from the real world). One small group of these (misfits all) is our focus, as they deal with stuff like Bootsie, a race from one station to another before the train hits you, and the sinister semi-supernatural killer who pushes people in front of trains for fun. This film is basically at pains to establish its world as a possible alternative, which it is. Every one of these peoples’ ‘games’ is tinged with danger and darkness, and the escape to the world above seems more and more difficult yet desirable. And the humour of the film is almost wonderful. Dark, depressing, yet with many moments to make you laugh out loud. For example, the scene where different characters visit the psychiatrist is very clichéd, but I definitely wouldn’t say it wasn’t funny. And the actors are all accomplished, bringing the characters to life. And the very fact and style of the life the characters are living is very well-portrayed. The problem with the film is that it is a bit slow. Also, it unconsciously posits itself as a thriller, which doesn’t really deliver in the end. For all that, it was a lot of fun to watch, and the writer’s imagination has to be lauded. I think that this film could have been rewritten to make it a little more absurd, while keeping the rawness. I liked it. (***½)

Ring of Fire (Lebanon/France) : This film is about the effect of war on common people. Chafic (Nida Wakin) is a literature teacher at the University who falls for a girl whose face he has never seen. As he tries to find out who she is, a family move into his house, and his apartment building is turned into a fortress, and he recedes into his thoughts. The film is actually very slow, but more-or-less worth a watch, if only for the darkly funny ending. The mood is that of soft melancholy, and this is carried throughout the film. The film has some stock eccentrics, but they work for the most part, and this means that the film is basically successful in what it sets out to do. Worth one watch. (***)

Chlorox, Ammonia and Coffee (Norway) : This, I admit, is not actually a great film, but I absolutely loved it. Yes, it’s a bit underdone, yes, it is inspired by many other films, and yes, the ending is clichéd and a bit overworked. But, for all that, I still loved it. There is no real plot. Maria is expecting a child with Erik, but he steals their money and forsakes them and does not tell her that. Iris, a midwife, deals with her work and her daughter Elin’s drug addiction while ogling the neighbourhood cop Odd from afar, and a man called Jesus runs his shop rather well, but is still derided as an outsider. The stories of all these characters, and some more, come together slowly but surely. The characters in this movie are rather well-done, and even though the film is basically a Mike Leigh imitation set in Norway, they work very well together, especially due to the talents of the actors, which aren’t trivial. And the director Mona Hoel knows all her angles and POVs, and while there isn’t anything innovative about the film, all the components work very well together, and the cohesive whole is very, very good, and extremely funny too. The very ending (that is, the scene with Maria’s marriage) doesn’t quite fit with the overall tone and is a bit overdone, but I wholeheartedly forgive that. (****)

2005-09-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

I was just searching the net for Graham Chapman’s autobiography, which is called A Liar’s Autobiography. So I was Googling the phrase ‘liar autobiography’.

Among the results was Biography of President George W. Bush. Strangely, the page does not actually contain the word ‘liar’, neither in the page itself, nor in the source code. This is more than just any T, D and H calling him a liar. This is official!

I think I will start believing in providence now.

2005-08-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

I solemnly swear to become a more regular blogger. For two reasons (and I really hope that you will take this as ‘refreshingly honest’ rather than as ‘extemely lame’):

1) One of my friends said that his only reading – the absolute limit of his reading – is my blog. So if I don’t blog more often, I’ll be causing his brain to atrophy. And I wouldn’t want that, would I? So I literally blog to save lives (alright, ‘life’, but that doesn’t sound nearly as impressive).

2) Readership statistics. I am used to higher statistics than I’m getting right now, and I have pinpointed the reason – the decreasing frequency of blogging. Pinpointing any other reason would just be painful. Actually, this does not really apply, because the number of comments I am getting remains more-or-less the same. So people are reading, but they’re coming around after longer intervals, because I blog less often. But still, numbers, people!

But I’m going to try not to trivialise my blogging just to increase frequency. Therefore, I will begin with this extremely trivial post:

By public demand (one whole request) – the Softy episode. I don’t think it’ll read as funny as it actually happened, because, as sometimes happens, you had to be there. Still.

Picture this – Salil, Chetan and good old Bidi have gone to Mumbai for the express purpose of buying truckloads of books. We are in Churchgate, and have spent about four hours on the street haggling with vendors trying to get them to lower their prices. Every vendor we meet drives a hard bargain, and with each vendor, the conversation goes thus:

Me: How much is this one for?
Him: Rs. 80.
Me: How about giving it for Rs. 40?
Him: No.
Me: How about these three for Rs. 100?

After four hours, we’re kind of washed out. We sit at a corner, wondering what to do.

One of us sees a Softy shop behind us, and suggests we have one.

I dutifully go there, and ask, “How much are the softies for?”

“Rs. 10,” he says. That’s very expensive, obviously, as I expected Rs. 5.

I return to the other two. I tell them what happened. And I add, “I was about to say, ‘How about three for Rs. 15?’”

And that’s basically it. Heh.

2005-08-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

This post does not have a point. It starts somewhere and then it rambles. Here it is:

I have a confession to make. I am addicted to second-hand bookshops. In fact, apart from textbooks, I have bought a grand total of three books at full-price. Apart from the limits of my pocket-money, the main reason for this is that you get more interesting books there, and if you get a dud, you don’t regret it that much.

My experience with second-hand bookshops has mostly been very good, and over 60% of my books are good books, which is a very good percentage, considering how many of them I’ve bought. Two of my favourite books, The Essential Calvin & Hobbes and Travels with Charley (which is in fact my very favourite book), were bought for Rs. 5 each. And I certainly wouldn’t have bought books such as The Queen of Air and Darkness, Cassandra: Princess of Troy or Banquets of the Black Widowers had I encountered them in a normal bookshop.

Some might say that the smell of new books is quite something else, and I quite agree, but if you can’t bloody afford it, I don’t think you should bother with spending half your pocket money just for that smell. I can accept old books, however old and grimy they might be, as long as they don’t actively crumble in my hands.

The advantage of buying books second-hand is that you don’t mind taking a risk. The very worst book I ever bought was The Insurrection of Hippolytus Brandenburg, but it was bought for Rs. 20, so, instead of crying over it, I keep it right in front, so that I can be reminded just how bad it is possible for a writer to be. When I’m feeling especially disappointed with my own writing, I look at that book and take heart.

My experience with second-hand bookshops has been long and varied. Currently I frequent two different bookshops, one for the variety that I get there, and the other one for the price, which never exceeds Rs. 40, even for very popular books.

The shop where I bought Travels with Charley had both variety and good prices, but it was torn down a few years ago. And anyway, my frequency of going there had already reduced. This shop was owned by a couple. When I started going there, the husband would be sitting there, chewing tobacco and sitting on a crate with his legs apart. I had to haggle a lot with him, but the final price was always worth it.

Then one day, I went there and his wife was there instead of him. I was browsing for a bit, when she said, “Do you want any magazines?”

I shook my head.

“I have some good women’s magazines here.”

“I don’t read magazines.”

“You’ll like these.”

And she handed me four or five magazines which had women in them, but which were certainly not women’s magazines.

I cut my visit short and beat a hasty retreat, and thenceforth, avoided the shop whenever the woman was there, which, to my distress, was increasingly often.

----------------

I love haggling. I only haggle over books, but I do it not with a sense of inevitability, but with a sense of eager expectancy. I know I’m going to have fun. Every time a bookseller quotes a much-too-expensive yet slightly-in-my-range price, you can almost see my face lighting up (not quite, though – it doesn’t really show up on my skin). Then we go through the rather wonderful ritual of quoting ridiculous prices at each other until we reach a compromise we always knew we’d reach. It never happens any other way. In fact, I have decided that the next time a bookseller quotes an over-the-top price, I’m going to agree to it, just to see the look on his face. I won’t buy the book, of course. I’m not stupid.

----------------

In one very special respect, reading books is just like watching movies. You have to go through a thousand bad ones to be able to identify a good one. I’m still at the very beginning of my book-reading career, so I still like to buy bad novels. I then either give them away or sell them to the raddiwallah.

I recently decided to sell all the useless books I had. Before I embarked on that mission, I started by donating all the Jeffrey Archers, Robin Cooks and related pulp novels to friends who still read them. Then, I put the rest of them in a bag, and asked my dad to take a look through them to see if he wanted to keep any of them. He took about half of them back out. He wanted them, he said. I was at a loss of words. I utterly failed to see why my father would want to read books such as Mission to the Stars, The Memory of Eva Ryker, UFO Abductions in Gulf Breeze (yup, you read that right) and The Power of Positive Thinking or authors like Peter Ustinov and Pearl S. Buck. I now plan to spirit them away slowly without his knowledge. After all, a dollar earned is a dollar saved. Or something of the sort.

2005-08-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

At last, the Indian Blogosphere becomes aware of Eddie Izzard.

2005-08-08T02:08:00.000-07:00

My Darling Readers, you would be glad to know that I am now officially a published writer. This post has been published in the 14th August issue of JAM (available now – published by Rashmi Bansal). My previous literary achievements ranged from a poem published in the school journal at age 11, and two essays submitted to the college magazine for the sole reason that my teacher threatened me with dire consequences if I didn’t submit something. Now, I rate somewhat better. It might not be much, but it’s a start.

Note: The following is a completely personal tirade on a personal topic. People might identify with it, but it remains personal. If that is not to your taste, do not read further.

In spite of the pleasing news of publication, this whole morning has been highly depressing. My DVD player (bought two months ago) went kaput a few days ago. After a disturbingly large number of phone calls to Philips, a technician came last Tuesday and declared that the internal power supply would have to be changed. Since then, till now, even after many more calls, they keep promising me that he’ll return with the new one ‘tomorrow’. I remind them that that’s what they said yesterday, but the operator is always a different one, and does not know anything about yesterday. And then, on Saturday, the DVD-drive on my computer followed the same route, so now I have no way of watching DVDs. The eight DVDs I borrowed on a number of library cards now lie useless on my desk.

Sify is playing an even more fun game with me. I booked a broadband connection on 20th July, and was promised that it would be installed and ready to use by the 28th. Today is the 8th, and still no sign of it. I called thrice today (as on every alternate day before today) and was finally promised a connection by the 12th. The biggest source of irritation is the fact that there are three executives there that I talk to individually, and none of them seem to be in contact with each other, so that I have to remind each of them of the developments since last time, because my last call has always been with a different one of them. Today I berated two of them individually, talking for about half an hour (at their expense) and told them exactly what I thought of their mismanagement, and what I thought of the three of them in particular.

I would have loved to complain about this to a friend, but my friends are sitting in college right now. You probably know how much of a pleasure it is to vent your spleen to a friend. Hearing them agree and say, “the limey bastards,” “the useless pigs,” and perhaps “the fucking idiots” is always a huge relief. Today’s spleen session is set for 3:30. But till then, it is nice to put it up here. Please comment. Three hints have been provided to help you. You’re welcome to include your own epithets.

2005-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday. At 11:52 p.m. (so my mother tells me), I turned twenty. Seems rather pointless, to tell you the truth. I was actually looking forward to it, because the title of my blog has now become valid, but the whole thing doesn’t really seem to make much of a difference, when I think about it.

I have never been a ‘birthday’ kind of person. My family is lucky that I remember their birthdays, and I have forgotten many friends’ birthdays many times. The rest of the time, my sister calls me up in the morning and reminds me to wish so-and-so.

My own birthdays matter even less for me. I’m turning older each and every second of each and every day, so putting aside a day per year has always felt kinda weird. I have told this to almost every person who called me up yesterday, so I guess next year there’ll be fewer calls.

My reasoning for why birthdays exist is this: We feel that each person should have one day that is ‘their own’, so to speak. One day when they feel they’re significant. A day when they can be megalomaniac and nobody alerts them otherwise. A day that is, for them, different from the other 364 days of the year. (This was later confirmed by Varun, who said the exact words of the last sentence.)

I do not much care for that. Have never done. When I was younger, my birthday was a day when I got gifts, and now, it’s a day when I have to treat my friends. For me, the only good thing that happens on this day is that you get to know how many people remember you. Friends you haven’t seen for months call up. Relatives you’d more-or-less forgotten about ring up and wish you. That feels nice.

When I was about to sit down to write this post, Varun recommended that I should write about my previous birthdays. I didn’t think I’d be able to remember more than one, but I found that I remembered two, and had fragments of memories of many in between. The two I remember clearly are the fifth and the nineteenth (or was it the eighteenth?). The fifth birthday memory is in fact, the earliest independent memory I have (independent meaning not based on hearsay or on old faded photos). I am blowing out candles, and I’m surrounded by my family, and about thirty children I am not at all acquainted with, mainly because we have moved in just days before. I think the number of children might be exaggerated. It was fifteen years ago, you know.

The nineteenth (or eighteenth) birthday memory should, logically, be much clearer, but it isn’t. (As you can see, I don’t even remember if it was one or two years ago.) I only remember that I was with Chetan at a rock concert, and it struck twelve just as we left. He gave me a hug and wished me happy birthday. I had forgotten it was my birthday. Typical me.

The birthdays in between are mere flashes, but they usually included being at school – sitting in class dressed differently from the other kids (the only day when we were allowed to do that), and distributing toffees, always making sure to buy too many, so that I could keep some for myself.

But, as I said, they never really excited me much, and I wrote this post only because I couldn’t think of something else right now. It seems rather petty to write so much on something I don’t care about while there is so much to write about that actually matters.

However, in other news, you, my dear readers, have read to the end a post in which a twenty-year-old, single, mildly geeky individual talks about how he doesn’t like birthdays.

How sad are you?

2005-07-30T02:21:00.000-07:00

Two group blogs have been started to provide information about the Mumbai tragedy. They contain news and help links. Please visit them, and contribute information if possible.

Mumbai Help

Cloudburst Mumbai

2005-07-29T00:55:00.000-07:00

As you might have realised, I am always on the look-out for that touch of the bizarre in real life. I delight in the fact that life is not always as dull as we think it is. But it is a sad day when this touch turns out to be something so patently ridiculous and depressing.

The Times of India, rightly referred to by many as the Slimes, has now touched new lows.

You have to read this.

Uma blogs about it here: “Marooned without ToI”.

2005-07-24T03:05:00.000-07:00

Good news, folks. Soon you will all be able to become as intelligent as me (well, almost) by the use of brain-enhancing drugs. These addiction-free (or non-addictive, as per your preference) drugs will, supposedly, enhance brain activity, improve memory, and increase intelligence.

As with any such discovery, there has been a lot of debate on the topic, and both sides have been shouting themselves hoarse putting forward their point. Personally speaking, I straddle the fence in this matter, but objectively, I do come down on one side.

We have been using brain-enhancing drugs (BEDs – not to be confused with beds) for a long time, and caffeine is certainly not the only one. We also try to develop our brain by using it (which is the best exercise it can get). So what exactly is the problem if we do it by some other means?

The problem is ethical. The main argument against BEDs, put forth by Francis Fukuyama and quoted in the Times of India, is this: “The original purpose of medicine is, after all, to heal the sick, not turn healthy people into gods.” But then, the original purpose of life is to pass genes on to the next generation, but we haven’t let that stop us, have we? Saying that something is wrong just because it is ‘unnatural’ is plain silly. Look around you once. What do you see that is natural? Precious little. If you can accept that, then why can’t you accept this? [Note: If you argue that all this is bad as well, then please go and live in the mountains with the birds and pneumonia for company. I’m not stopping you. Also note that I have nothing personal against you, the mountains, the birds or, for that matter, pneumonia.]

Another argument is that BEDs will be used to help children (for example) with simple things such as multiplication tables and so on.* But who, pray tell, is stopping you from proceeding beyond tables? As a parent, you should try to ensure that your child uses her/his brain to its capacity – whether that capacity is ‘normal’ or increased. Parents today do not do that, and it is safe to say that they probably will not when BEDs arrive (even if they themselves take BEDs – drugs might increase intelligence, but they do not increase sense). But that doesn’t stop dissenters from using this point. Actually, I would say that if, due to parental laziness, a child knows, say, X number of things, then perhaps, with these drugs, it will know X + Y number of things (where Y > 0) with the same effort.

[ * : The reason this is wrong, they say, is that the ability of learning is affected by many factors, including social, economic and physiological. I ask, would the use of BEDs not be a factor as well? ]

The only real argument against BEDs that can be accepted is that the brain is very complex, and we do not know what side-effects may be caused by using something that affects the brain so directly. But you see, that is what this thing called ‘time’ is for, and that is what medical developments are for. Just as you wouldn’t try to run a real-time 3D simulation program on a 386 – you would wait for a better computer – you would not (or should not) put the average brain on a BED without developing the BED to the point where it is safe.

[Note: One argument that I’d like to put forward, but which doesn’t fit anywhere else is this: If BEDs get banned, then they are going to have a flourishing illegal market. Think of the implications of that – do we want such a thing to happen?]

Personally speaking, the idea of becoming something I am not makes me feel rather weird, but if everybody around me is turning into a genius, then I am not going to let my apprehension stand in the way of taking a BED. Readers may take this point as both for and against the use of BEDs. Furthermore, I’d like to ask if you think it’s right that we should oppose something solely because we are uncomfortable with it. I’m uncomfortable with economics and commerce (‘uncomfortable’ not as in ‘don’t understand’, but more basic, as in ‘don’t like’). So should I call for a worldwide ban on them?

The real reason why there are so many arguments against BEDs is this, put forward by the dissenters themselves: “Consider the ethics of tinkering directly with the organ from which all ethical reflection arises.” This is an argument which, I personally think, is almost frighteningly circular. It basically says: if your ethics permit using BEDs, then you won’t mind them affecting your organ of ethical reflection. In simple words, if it is okay with you, then it is okay with you; if it isn’t, then it isn’t.

Therefore, what you, as a sentient person (and there are fewer and fewer of them these days), have to decide is whether this reasoning appeals to you or not. If you agree with it, then you agree with it; if you don’t, then you don’t. And good for you.

2005-07-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Loved it.

Just one note: They should stop making the movies - they cannot possibly do justice to this one. Or maybe they should just let me direct it.

2005-07-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Click on the picture to read the strip. Frazz (from which this is taken) is a rather nice comic strip I’ve been reading these days. Check it out.

Also, I’ve found some rather cool MP3s available for free download on the internet. Aurgasm is a good site for downloading legal free MP3s. Two songs that I’ve absolutely loved are Trina Hamlin’s Down to the Hollow (check out the wonderful photo alongside the link) and The Tiny’s Closer.

2005-07-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a rant on something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time now:

Denial is a basic human feature. In fact, most of our lives are based on denial, and they would not run without it. But in many cases, denial is a dangerous fact.

I define ‘denial’ as a sub-conscious negation and conscious ignorance (or, in rare cases, also negation) of a fact (or what should be perceived as a fact). The fact does not have to be something unpleasant.

Denial is primarily a necessity for our survival. A doting parent of an ugly child does not realise its child’s ugliness, facilitating the welfare of the child. In the context of adults, we ignore the sufferings of people around the world, even the ones that are right in front of us, otherwise we would spend our days being sickened and depressed by the state of the world. As an example, for a long time, I was (and still am) sorely tempted to stop reading the newspaper, just so I wouldn’t have to read about these things.

But in particular, rather than general, cases, denial can take an ugly face. A parent who thinks its child is an angel when it actually is a pain is in denial. A person who fails to admit to any mistake s/he has made might not necessarily be arrogant, s/he might be in denial, which later hurts that person more than anyone else.

Today, we see two major instances of large-scale denial. The first is sexuality. Our parents do not tell us about sex. They want to avoid the embarrassment and awkwardness. Therefore, they take comfort in the belief that we will learn it on our own. This can lead to absurdities like what has recently come to light in Hong Kong, where a large percentage of newly-wed couple do not know what they were supposed to do next (“don’t know where their sex organs are” were the exact words – click here for more). A lot of the time, we do learn it on our own, but we mostly learn a distortion of the truth, which usually leads to either a feeling of guilt, or a feeling of nervousness, confusion, and sometimes to misplaced aggression. I remember that when I was 12, a friend gave me a Xerox copy of a biology text dealing with reproduction. I hid it well, so that I could read it at night, but my parents found it and they tore it up. When I was little, my grandmother forbade me to touch my genitals, saying that it would cause some kind of disease. You can see where I’m going with that.

In the other instance of large-scale denial, we see that denial is the basis of modern religion. I am not referring to the mythology and theosophy of religion, but to the reason why people take to religion. They want to assuage a deeply hidden feeling of guilt or uncertainty, and they decide that they will place all the responsibility on a God. After this, they are free to blame God, and whenever they have a feeling of guilt, they offload it on God by prayer. Here’s a somewhat snide (and, some might feel, unrelated) example: I am a somnambulist, and in my early teenage, I feared that perhaps I would reveal all my ‘dirty’ fantasies in my sleep. Therefore, just before going to sleep, I would fervently pray, so that if I said anything in my sleep by chance, this would be what I said.

Denial takes different forms for different people. On one hand is the pre-teenage boy who refuses to believe that his mother ever had sex, and on the other hand are the custodians of our welfare who are turning blue in the face screaming that skimpy clothes cause sexual abuse of women, who perhaps believe that abuse did not exist in the 18th and 19th centuries.

As I said, denial does not necessarily have to be of an unpleasant fact. Anorexic people deny the fact that they are slim, and proceed to make themselves thinner. A person with feelings of inferiority, who might develop a complex, does not actually need to be inferior to do so. This can happen on its own or under pressure from parents, friends and other people. I know students who developed feelings of guilt and inferiority because their parents insisted they didn’t study, without bothering to check whether they actually did or not. This led to the students feeling that they did not do anything well.

The only solution to denial is to realise and rectify it, which can only be done by realising and rectifying it, so you can see where that argument is going. I’m not going to try and offer a solution. That is for everybody to find out for themselves.

I have only scratched the surface of this topic – perhaps I’ll write more in another post. Till then, ciao. [Sorry for the abrupt ending. I like abrupt endings.]

2005-07-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

You might remember me mentioning a trip to Matheran. I linked to Varun’s account of the trip here. My account of the same trip has been posted in Vibe India (in the Vibe Travel section).

You can find it here. Please comment.

2005-07-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

I read in the Times of India yesterday that a chap named Leo Stoller has been suing people right and left for using the word ‘stealth’, because, apparently, he owns it. He has the trademark, and (at least in the USA) no company or individual except Leo can use it without his permission. However, he has been lenient enough to let some people offer him thousands of dollars for permission.

I was interested in this concept, and so I went on the net and did some research. My curiosity wasn’t satisfied, and I still don’t know a few things. For example, am I permitted to use it here in India? (Seemingly yes.) How did ToI use it? (In the same way as I did.) In what context can I use it? (Dunno.) I didn’t get answers to all those questions, but I actually found out something even weirder.

I found out that Marvel Comics and DC Comics jointly own the trademark for the word ‘superhero’! Do you know what that means? No comic other than those two can use the word. One company actually had to change the name of a comic from Super Hero Happy Hour to Hero Happy Hour, a fact which indicates a very real kind of oppression. Again, I have some questions. Can I use it inside a comic? Can I use it in a novel (as I intend to)? Could someone tell me?

The truth is that this might cause problems. I know that most people with such trademarks exercise their rights leniently, and we don’t see lawyers kicking down the doors of respectable geeks (if that’s not an oxymoron) and demanding they obliterate a particular word from their website. But we have to take into account the possibility that this trend might go too far. The concept of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer has been trademarked, as the writer of this novel found out, and it might not be long before Santa Claus himself is trademarked – after all, even now, Finland claims that it owns Santa (and it’s having a rather amusing battle over him with Norway).

The trademark rules for fictional characters are, thankfully, clear – you can mention them, but you cannot use them as characters. So I can write ‘Batman’ here as many times as I want, but I can’t write a story with him in it without permission. (We will ignore the phenomenon of fan-fiction, because that is something very different, however related – perhaps another post on that later.) I wonder what Larry Niven did when he wrote his hilarious ‘Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’, which is a faux non-fiction piece where we analyze the methods by which Superman may possibly have a child. It was hugely irreverent, and I wonder how Niven got permission, if he actually did.

Anyway, this might, as I said, go too far. There might come a day when people are granted the right to trademark even commoner words (although one might argue that ‘superhero’ itself is not that rare). Maybe we’ll be able to trademark retrospectively as well, so that I could trademark the words ‘Jabberwock’ and ‘Jabberwocky’ and sue the buttocks off this guy and a million publishers. I could also sue Terry Gilliam for this movie, and as we sit in court together, I’ll certainly take the opportunity to tell him what an idol he is for me.

While that is a rather attractive possibility, I still hope that we do not have to face such absurdities, and everyone will be able to steal liberally from other people, without having to do so with any kind of stealth.

On Walking

2005-07-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

I love walking. Alone or with someone else. When I was in the 12th standard, I used to go for 3-4 hour long walks, mainly to escape studying. Based on this, I wrote the following essay back in 2003. It is a bit crude and unformed, but I like it.

You are walking. It is 10 p.m., and the shops are just starting to close up. Go along the street. When the street ends, take another street, and then another. Look around you. Go on till it is almost midnight; your eyes start getting bleary, your knees start losing their sense of balance, and your calves are a beat away from screaming at you. Then turn around. Go back the way you came. And see the change.
When you were walking this way, you were watching people moving around – going home, or going out. The roadside restaurants were just starting to bustle, and once or twice, watching their delicacies, you even felt like stopping at one of them, even though you weren’t really hungry. The vegetable vendors were chatting with each other while gathering up the jute sacks on which they were sitting. You saw they were tired from sitting in the same place for hours and hours, and they were pleased to finally be going home, although they knew tomorrow was going to be the same.
As you went along, you arrived at a main road. The traffic was dulling out now, with no traffic policemen to blow their whistles at drivers who cheerfully disregarded every red signal they saw. Some signals were already closed up, and you watched, amused, as each driver competed to get her/his right of way over the others. Many shops were already closed up, and some streets were starting to take on a desolate look.
You moved into smaller alleys, where the sounds of technology were minimal, and you listened to the insects chirping at you from the bushes and the trees around you. Life was going to sleep.
Now, as you go back home, you pass the same streets, the same shops, the same restaurants that you saw on your way here. Every one of these is closed up, the shutters pulled down and the locks secured. The owners and workers of some of the roadside places are sleeping right in front of the source of their own food. You realise you are seeing a wholly different kind of life. The vegetable vendors are nowhere to be seen, and all that you can see in their place are treaded and half-rotten tomatoes and cabbages, for which a few stray dogs are fighting each other. You notice everything from the garbage bins, which you never saw during the day, to trees with their leaves drooping – already asleep. The only people you now see are those who sleep on the footpath, and those who are hurrying home before they have to. The city has calmed down, and you realise how different it is.
You come home. First you take a long drink of water, and then you sit on the sofa massaging your legs trying to sooth the aching muscles. And as you relax, you think about what you saw. You realise that sometimes you can see more in the night than you possibly could in the day. You smile. You tell yourself that you should do this more often.

Six Creepy-Crawlies on a Trip ...

2005-06-30T12:16:00.000-07:00

You might remember me mentioning some time ago that we (Chetan, Salil, Varun and I, with another couple of friends) went to Matheran.

Varun has posted his (extremely cool) account of the trip in three parts. In it, he mentions my somnambulism (unfortunately quite true) and the fact that my shaved head has earned me the name ‘The Onida Man’, which is actually one of my favourite nicknames. He also blogs about a practical joke we played on a friend using my shaved head and a torch, but I’d rather you read it yourself. It’s in Day 2:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Also, he recorded a few clips on his mobile, and I have uploaded them for him. They have been linked on this post.

2005-06-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

The MIT Weblog Survey 2005

2005-06-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

As you might have heard, the Indian government has at last decided to start exporting its greatest resource. I believe this is a huge leap for India, and we’re going to hear great things about it soon. The money that comes in from this export will not be trivial either – thousands of bureaucrats will be fed by it.

But what is this export, I hear you ask. Well, the details are still hush-hush, but we (my split personality and I) have conducted a large amount of research, and we found that India's export is going to be – wait for it – potholes! Yes. The best Indian potholes are going to be selected by experts and sent to museums around the world to be displayed as works of art. I kid you not.

Think about the potential of this enterprise. India has an abundance of this natural resource, and if we create the right buzz, other countries will be raring to glimpse some of the best and most lovingly created potholes ever seen. Miniature, Impressionist, Landscape, and, specially for crass American tourists wearing shorts, cheap souvenir potholes sold at atrocious prices on sidewalks. They will rule the galleries. They will probably be classified in a different manner, though – shallow, petty, deep, semi-lethal and lethal are the categories I recommend.

Imagine a day in the near future. The setting is the Louvre. An enthusiastic batch of up-and-coming connoisseurs (or ‘snobs’, to use their generic name) comes to see the ‘Common or Indian Pothole’:

“And here,” says the guide, “we have a pothole from a very rich period in the history of potholes. An original Pune Municipal Corporation early 2005 piece. The pothole is seven feet deep, and is rumoured to have once contained two cars and a truck at the same time. This pothole has been classified only ‘semi-lethal’, but the craftsmanship places it apart from other semi-lethals. Moving forward ...

“This, as you can see, is another ‘semi-lethal’. It is a miniature pothole – only 10 feet across – but it comes from another classic era of potholes – the 2003 pre-monsoon constructions. The special feature of this pothole, as you can see, is that it was used as a lavatory by stray dogs for six months before being imported specially for this museum. One thing you might observe is that most of the potholes you see here come from Pune, which seems to have a monopoly over the creation of the best potholes in Western India. A city of true artists. Moving forward ...

“Ah! Here, Mesdames et Messieurs, is the grace of our collection. A pothole that only a true artist could have created – a genuine ‘lethal’ – one of only two ever imported by France. They are rather expensive, as you might imagine. I know for an actual fact that this pothole once contained the car of the Indian President himself on one of his visits to Pune. You will see here that the inner edge of this pothole has been constructed to create optimum impedance to vehicles, so as to find the best way to deal with the thick lining of tyres. I do not exaggerate when I say that no tyre has ever survived this pothole. A true masterpiece. Another special feature of this magnificent piece of art is that it was treated with as much respect as the first ‘semi-lethal’ we saw, but by humans rather than by dogs, giving this pothole the edge over most other potholes.”

There must, of course, be people who will be enraged by this draining of valuable resources to other countries, but such people are always unsatisfied. Give them a free pothole and they’ll shut up. If, of course, the government decides to distribute free potholes to dissenters, I will add my voice to the chorus and say that I was against the idea from the very beginning. But until then, I am all for it.

Still, I acknowledge the fact that India might appear impoverished by such an extensive loss of our greatest resource, but we must realise that we have another great resource still in store – politicians. The Common or Indian Politician (classified, as you can see, in a similar manner to potholes) will make sure that India is never deficient in potholes. But if we do fall short in the production of potholes, we can always export politicians instead. We must keep the more valuable resource here in India. I choose to keep the potholes.

2005-06-21T01:16:00.000-07:00

When my sister got married last year, I asked her a few questions about her forthcoming married life. They were fairly simple queries. The most significant one, judging according to her reaction, was my question if she would change her last name after her marriage.

She was shocked at this question, and clearly mystified that I had the slightest doubt about it. I referred this incident to my friends later, and they said I must be mad if I expected her to even think about something of that kind.

I said I didn’t really expect her to do it – after all, she was going to live with her in-laws now, and she had to think about their reaction – but I resented the fact that she didn’t think it was a legitimate question.

And I still resent it. One of my other questions was if she would wear a mangal-sutra. I expected the answer to be no. It was yes, but at least she thought it qualified as a question. Feminism, it seems, has brought the general public to that stage at least.

Another time, I was talking to my friends. I expressed the thought that if I earned enough money through my writing, and/or my wife had a well-paying job, I’d like to become a house-husband. My friends actually laughed at that. Then, when they saw I was serious, one of them asked me if I could bear the indignity, as he saw it, of ‘washing her panties and stuff’. If my mother could bear that ‘indignity’ for so many years, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Anyway, right now, in our house, I’m the one who washes the clothes (i.e., puts them in the machine and turns it on), but I realise he was probably speaking metaphorically.

There are many other issues of this kind that I like to discuss, but which seem to mystify many people. I remember one incident – my mother and I were talking about kids in general. I said I’d like to have one daughter, and that’s it. My mother seemed agitated. She said that I should have a son, at the very least. Why, I asked. She said it’s better. Here, I’d like to note that my sister is older than me. Still, I must say I haven’t perceived any other sign of prejudice of this kind from her.

Clearly, we have a long way to go yet.

Till a few months ago, I used to call myself a feminist, but the word ‘feminist’ seems to make people think that you believe women are superior to men. I am a bit ambiguous about that, and therefore, I now call myself an anti-sexist, and I try to express that through my writing as well. This is where political correctness comes in.

I think that the idea behind PC is a good one, but its purpose is to make people tolerant of each other, and yet we see that most of the new concepts of PC are formulated by some of the most intolerant people around. There might not be a very long way to go before we have to start calling dead people ‘electroencephalographically challenged’ and funny people as, perhaps, ‘seriously challenged’ (heh-heh). But still, I approve of most of the PC related to sex and gender.

When you are talking about people, should you write ‘man’ or ‘humans’? When you refer to a person of unspecified sex, should you refer to them as ‘she’ or ‘he’ or ‘he/she’? I like taking the middle route as much as possible, and therefore, I decided I’d write whatever’s easier to write. But then, I thought that there’s still too much male-centricity even today, so to counter that, my writing should tip on the female side.

Therefore, I write ‘s/he’, which is easier to write, and ‘her/him’. And when the ‘/’ feels unseemly, I write ‘she’ or ‘her’.

One of the characters in my first book (still writing) refers to any human of unspecified sex as ‘it’. But that might be due to the fact that he’s a vampire.

I have begun to like using ‘it’. So I will end my post by saying that if you meet a friend who might be interested in discussing this kind of thing, please refer it to this post.

Ripping Yarns

2005-06-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

I am very happy right now. Today, in the British Library, I found a copy of Ripping Yarns, by Terry Jones and Michael Palin from Monty Python. This is a series of parody stories on the Coming-of-Age stories of yore. Some people consider it better than Fawlty Towers! I was desperate for this, and I spent days looking for the scripts on the net. Now that I’ve found it, my job isn’t as bad, Blogger’s eccentricities are tolerable, my sister’s visit is less irritating, and it’s a very beautiful day.

2005-06-18T01:22:00.000-07:00

’Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

I’m irritated with Blogger. It keeps going neanderthal on me from time to time. This morning, it was down for some time due to technical problems. I’m sticking with it for now, but I’m afraid my blog might go dead on me, like Samit Basu’s did a few days ago.

On a related note, I’m currently revamping my website completely, and I’d like to know about a good free hosting website which will let me upload my files by FTP. Geocities does not let me do that, and that results in me forgetting some files, and my Verse page once went without a banner for three days. Recommendations please.