Fool on the hill

Cosmophilia

2006-04-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

I have been wondering about the Cosmopolitan magazine lately.

They say it’s a girlie thing, but show me a man who doesn’t like sneaking into its lascivious world. We read the magazine covertly, and devour the girls over and over again, but never admit we like reading it. And nobody knows this better than the Cosmopolitan management.

Here’s a sampler from the April issue of the UK edition (sadly the Indian one loses it totally). These are the screaming blurbs on the cover:

1) Real Couple: Sex swap (Four couples, one week, more positions that you can imagine)
2) Read his love signals
3) The sexual-health parasites who prey on your health
4) How normal are your breasts (The subtext reads: find out how yours measure up in Cosmo’s great boob comparathon)

And they say the magazine’s only for “fun fearless females”. Beats me.

The last article in question is really “grabalicious”. (Another post for words coined by the magazine sometime later, but you are free to contribute). The feature has 15 women from different walks of life (not models, mind you) agreeing to expose their busts and talk about them -- what they like and don’t about their boobs. Fantastic. So, we have women with A,B,C and D cups posing for us. My cup of joy brimmeth over. One of them says:

Girls often ask to feel them (breasts) as they want to see if I’ve got implants. They’re full and shapely and I think they are fantastic.

Another one says: A girl once told me my breasts were grabalicious (thanks for enriching my vocab, lady)

This is sheer titillation. A third one, from Manchester (no offence), says:

I have made friends with my mini-boobs. I like to squidge them – and so do other people.

Even I would, but I have no clue to what squidging means. I like the sound though.

The first article “Real Couple: Sex swap” is surely the first you would like to flip to. But there lies the great Cosmo deception trick. The headline on its face value suggests a diary-type article featuring couples talking about their swap escapades. It’s not that, but something more interesting: something the magazine advises every couple to do.

Instead of real-time swapping, some Brit couples decide to swap their sexual habits. Copulatory geniuses! Hundreds of blue blistering fornicating f**k alls! What follows is a cornucopia of esoteric sexual habits – doing it in the open, doing it 10-14 times a week, doing it with the help of external aids, doing it in the shower, doing it as porn stars do, and so on…

Go for it, men. Read it. Read kitsch porn. Will hit you hard!

Haathi ka andala

2006-03-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

One more on rock music lyrics. “Mishearing” of lyrics is perhaps as old as rock music itself. With lyrics tightly enmeshed in layers of high-decibel electric music, chances of getting them messed up are quite high. And embarrassing, too, at times.

You might be ostracised at rock concerts if you sing She don’t mind, She don’t mind, She don’t mind, Cocaine. The Lynn Trusses of the rock world will cry sacrilege and dunk your head in a barrel full of Woodstock mud. JJ Cale, and later Eric Clapton, had sung this song as She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, Cocaine. Why, I don’t know. The former interpretation makes more sense.

Again, an American was humbled when he was told that the refrain in the Beatles song Across the Universe was Jai guru deva, and not John grew a K-mart. Poor John must have turned in his grave.

So, don’t fret if you regularly mishear lyrics. You are not the only one. This website shows us how most of us mishear lyrics. It also allows you to relate the embarrassing moments you have faced because of this peculiar affliction.

Go ahead and add to the website how the whole country misheard Aati kya khandala as Haathi ka andala. And how most of us would deliberately like to mishear/mis-sing the old favourite: Gori tera gaon bara pyaara.

PS: Dont miss the gem of an anecdote that explains the naming of the URL.

Bombay troubadours

2006-02-17T13:39:00.000-08:00

Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

These lines are from the legendary Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil. Strange are the ways of rock lyricists. Sometimes utterly pedantic lines become cult, like Deep Purple's "Smoke on the water, fire in the sky". At times it is a tad more philosophical – “teenage wasteland” (from The Who’s song Baba o’ Reilly) became a headbanging catchphrase some time in the seventies.

Coming back to The Rolling Stones, the song Sympathy for the Devil seemed strong in its logic till it came to this line – the killing of troubadours before they reached Bombay. I can hardly recall any troubadour coming to India through the Gateway of India. Unless if it is on a metaphysical level.

Troubadours are travelling musicians. Some defend the line saying troubadours refer to The Beatles. They became mystical in their song writing after coming to India, losing touch with reality and the commom man.

Now, as “new age guru” Deepak Chopra would have us believe, The Beatles did a lot of LSD at Mahesh Yogi’s abode in India. Thanks, Deepak, for telling us that. Till now we knew that The Beatles got high only on gherkins.

So, did wide-mouth Mick mean the India trips did The Beatles in? Or did he simply mean The Beatles were killed because of the growing popularity of The Rolling Stones? Very difficult to say:

Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game

Google or Gagle?

2006-02-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

The seemless world of Internet seems to be cracking up. The cult search engine Google, which has extended the meaning of the word “information”, is bowing to Chinese political censorship laws. Read this on CNN and here.

Try this:

Standard Google image search for “tiananmen”
China Google image search for “tiananmen”

However, if you spell Tiananmen wrong (Tiananmen/tienanmen…) you get the same results on both the Chinese and the standard Google search engines. So there.

Also, what about reverse censorship? Think of Google Bihar under Nitish Kumar. Type “fodder” and you get Laloo mugshots galore!

On Rang De Basanti

2006-02-03T14:54:00.000-08:00

Rang De Basanti is getting flak for the way its director has handled the second half of the film. The film at one point borders on the point of incredulity. Five young students gang up to kill the defence minister because one of their friends is killed in a MiG-21 crash.

The film, however, is not about the killing as it is made out to be by “critics”.

That is why the director just glosses over it, slips it behind the veneer of the so-called “willing suspension of disbelief”. Killing, at the end, becomes a metaphor. It could have been any simple act that becomes the harbinger of a change. It could be a single man standing in front of tanks on Tiananman Square or it could be the nameless faces involved in Chipko Andolan, facing giant electric hack-saws. As one reviewer puts it, the film is more about humanity than anything else.

The film is, in fact, about the awakening of the characters, it’s about spring, and it’s about swathes of mustard field bursting into yellow. It’s about a new life. The problem is that big-city “film critics” are seeing the film through the prism of serious art-house mindset. Ironically, this is one of the successes of the film. It has got the elite talking. When was the last time they dissected a hindi film? I am sure they must have sneered when Sholay was first released. It was only after years that the film got them talking.

There seems to be too much of fluff that goes into film reviews these days.

It is easy for critics to say that the film promotes an adolescent view of political action. But have we Indians grown out of infancy when it comes to political judgment? Don’t we elect leaders like Laloo Prasad year after year…

And then there is the thin line separating sentiment and action. “Line them all up and shoot them,” is what one of the callers says on the FM broadcast towards the end. That’s a militant idea. But haven’t you heard this exact line before at coffee house addas and train compartment debates? That’s popular sentiment, not popular action. I have asked people who have seen the film whether they would like to pick up a gun and redress the ills of the society. Most said no. That’s not the absolute message of the film, they said.

Some say the film uses an absurd parallel from history to legitimise it, and at every stage superimposes the frame of history upon the action. True. We can’t pull down Babri Masjids because Mughals desecrated our temples 500 years ago. The film does send out an incendiary message through the parallel workings of the plot. But since when have started watching Bollywood films for messages and acting accordingly? If we had, we wouldn’t have waited for Rang De Basanti to bloody Parliament, lynch policemen and kill truant fathers.

Let’s see the film in a more “realistic” light. The pilot dies. All right. A candlelight vigil is organized. Not in front of the India Gate though. Media shows the pilot’s mother breaking down. Riot police arrives. Demonstrators go back to their homes peacefully. Bloggers talk about it. A Tehelka-like paper does an expose on how faulty spare parts are bought by the government. Special committee inquiry happens. Five years later, MiG 21s keep flying.

This is life. Maybe a documentary. But not cinema for sure. My question is would you like to see this after shelling out 200 bucks in a multiplex theatre. Or would you like to see Rang De Basanti? My vote goes for the latter.

The circus

2005-12-30T09:56:00.000-08:00

Bangalore was under a “terror” attack a few days ago. It had Rajdeep Sardesai standing for almost 4 hours. His channel insists on anchors standing while reading news, precariously holding a piece of paper. Godonly knows why. On NDTV, Vishnu Som was struggling with words and pushing them out before they melted in his mouth. A Reuters journalist wrote towards the end of his story: The gunman was suspected to have escaped from the leafy campus. As if the assailant would have waited for the cops to say, Bengaluru police! Freeze maari! A tired Rajdeep, the verbal pugilist, wanted to break for commercials (sit for a few seconds while his attendants spray water on his face and shove in a pipe of lemonade in his mouth?), but a producer kept him from doing that. A fumbling Rajdeep says, Wait guys, there’s more breaking news, my producer won’t let me go on a break. Great. And AajTak was just like a Laughter Challenge contestant had portrayed it to be: perennially trying to connect with its correspondent. Deepak*? Kya aap mujhe sun sakte hain? Sound of static. Deepak is listlessly gazing into the camera, fiddling with the earplugs. Anchor says, aye Deepak…..and then yells (Chhapra-style), are Deepakwaaaa…

*generic name for Hindi language correspondent

A story without an end - III

2005-12-19T10:13:00.000-08:00

That was it, I thought. I had waited for three hours. And saw the sky change from ochre to deep orange to dark red. The last embers of the autumn evening were dying down. The cars and the buses had their lights on. People crowded the bus stop across the road, clambering on to already crowded buses. In a mad rush, the tin buses were darting around, scrambling for passengers. The entrance to the Park Street metro station was in a frenetic whirl. Mostly, people were entering the tube station to head back home.

I was sitting on the steps of the Asiatic Society building, a prominent “meeting” place, smoking the last cigarette of the pack.

Right across the Chowringhee lay the vast emptiness -- more conspicuous in the growing twilight -- the maidans, and the waste yard of the metro constructions.

She had not come. Yes, she had not come to meet me. And now it was almost seven. There was a slight chill in the air. I was shivering.

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

The taxi lunged forward, cutting through the dense rain. The windows were blurry and the wipers flailing madly. Very soon the glass got all misty inside because of our collective exhalations: mine, her’s and the driver’s. There was an awkward silence, made more somber by the humid air hanging still in the cab.

Was she surprised seeing me at the Park Street crossing? Rather, was she pleasantly surprised?

She said, why don’t we go to Flury’s? I have to pick up some stuff. It will take me a couple of minutes.

It was her suggestion. No, not suggestion. It was almost made to sound like an order. Like it was in the past. She was much older to me, and she always made this clear. Even when I pulled the blinds one sultry afternoon in a moment of confused and tormented passion…

She was looking to open the window a bit and throw the tissue she had wiped her face with. But she desisted, and put the soggy tissue in one corner of her purse. The taxi was already half way towards Sealdah, so it would be a long detour back to Park Street where Flury’s is. I told the driver that we would go back to Park Street. He grumbled. These drivers are getting impossible by the day, I said. She said the other day she got into a taxi and the driver stopped half-way to her home and just refused move.

Crazy, I said.

A few years ago, she had used the same word turning down my curt proposition.

Are you crazy? She had said, laughing her heart out, as if I had just said some silly joke.

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

I was still standing at the Park Street crossing, absorbing what had hit me. She didn’t come. I don’t even know her name. I met her in Darjeeling. We talked Salinger and Beatles and smell of old books in that tea shack as raindrops kissed mountainsides.

She nodded when I told her we would meet in Calcutta. On Saturday. At the Park Street crossing. At four in the afternoon…

Now it was almost eight. The shiver in my bones had almost become unbearable. I couldn’t stop thinking about the last few days. How I had traipsed down the Mall in Darjeeling after she had left. How the train journey passed in pleasant contemplation. How I counted days till Saturday. That was today. And here I was, at the Park Street crossing, thumbing down taxis that went by not bothering to pay any heed to my half-hearted attempts at stopping them.

It was just then that a thought struck me like lightning on a clear day. And it made me stand still on the pavement, as if some sheer force had rooted to the concrete. The home-bound crowd of pedestrians shoved me around, screamed at me. A mad man made faces. I could feel the hair on my neck rise, I could jut about hear the din of the busy crossing, I could feel my cold palm clench till it pained…

What if she had been waiting for me at the other end of Park Street?

A story without an end - II

2005-12-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

Another meeting, another place…

That was Calcutta, not the distant Kolkata then. Walking down the Park Street on a steamy wet August...Moulin Rouge and The Park... the Oxford Bookstore... the discount basement. Chilled beer and beef steak at Olympia..

What now? __ said, sipping Foster's. The finals were over. And a blank future ahead. Studies were that comfortable cocoon.

I took the last piece of morsel in, and...

Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain...

__ hated impromptu espousals of poetry.

It was indeed a rainy day in Calcutta. Late April. When all of a sudden the sky gets pregnant with rain clouds. And for days the humidity reaches astounding levels. Squelchy underfoot and the acrid odour of perspiration.

__'s technicolour umbrella was the brightest spot in the whole of Park Street as the neons hadn't come on. We walked down in contemplation.

We are going nowhere, she said, visibly miffed.

I looked up at the sky – it was dark and cumuly -- and just about managed to avoid stepping on a poodle.

I was avoiding another confrontation.

The somnolence of park Street gave way to commotion when we reached the Mallickbazar crossing. It was time to part. I wanted to say something. Did I? The No. 234 arrived before I could think of anything to say. There it is, I said. And __ vanished into the crowded bus.

For quite some time I stood there. Lit a cigarette. Time seemed to be stretching on. Till, I felt a sharp drop on my shoulder. I looked up -- the clouds were already bursting. Rains again. Why the hell does it rain so much? Tiny rivulets were already taking shape, the crows were ruffly wet and the sewer hole bubbling. Now -- pieces of shit burst out as if they were waiting for redemption. And the coming was heralded with a crack of lightning.

I took shelter under an umbrella shop. Ali and Sons. Estd 1954. We do repair jobs also. All black huge umbrellas. Virtual canopies. Not like __'s technicolour one, which she bought in Nepal.

I stood there as the clouds burst and raindrops danced on the washed-off road. A maze of umbrellas passing by in a hazy blur and buses spraying up the poodle waters. Crows cawing in pandemonium.

My eyes were suddenly locked on to a woman standing in front of me. No. Wait. Do I know her? Yes I do. A few strands of hair sticking to the shoulder... the water turning the green blouse into a darker shade at places. A bit of soggy petticoat sticking out near the toes. The finely crafted stilletos half-submerged in water.

Have I seen you somewhere? I could feel the rush inside me.

She turned. She looking more than her age as she was in a sari. She had high cheekbones and sported a large bindi. She hadn't changed much, I thought.

Hey! __! She let out a startled cry in that husky voice of hers.

The Ali & Sons owner, with not much to do, was observing the chance encounter -- a smile perched somewhere near the corner of his lips. So were the others who had taken shelter from the rain there.

__! I never knew you were in Cal?

Well…Here I am! I said. As usual, her in-your-face demeanour was making me squirm. From the corner of my eyes I could see the Ali & Sons crowd watching us. I stopped a taxi and we got in…

A story without an end

2005-11-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

Clouds play chiaroscuro with the hills, kids play hop scotch. Mist covers the valleys beneath, a thick white wall erases all. That was Darjeeling, a decade back. Daaju gets me a steaming hot cup of tea.

Cha, shaab.

I am huddling myself into a ball, hood tight on the head. The tea warms my insides. I light a cigarette. Dark clouds force the mall into frenetic activity. Quick last minute deals and ponies trotting back to their shelters.

A girl, shivering in the cold, emerges from the mist and hurriedly enters the tea shack. She is in a red pullover and jeans. And asks for a cup of tea. I can see her companions across the road, buying woolens.

Quite cold, I say.
Yeah, and it’s going to rain, she says, looking at the ashen sky.
You’re from Calcutta?
Yes, and you?
Calcutta.

An uneasy pause follows. I think hard what to say next. I remember rainy days in Calcutta. Moss green walls. The Lake, full to its brim. And I remember my days in Ranchi. The small black hills and the lolling heath-like wastelands. All covered in mist. Pullover sleeves stretched over fingers, even as the lazy game of cricket continues.

But I just say, the tea’s good. She nods, blowing into the cup.

The sky opens up and cold raindrops spear the hills. Everybody scampers for shelter. Kids playing hop-scotch disappear up the road. The shack has an asbestos roofing and the sound is deafening. In seconds, I can see streams rushing down towards the Keventers lane and giant conifers swaying in the distance. And I see this unknown person, fugue like, half hidden in the charcoal smoke of the shack, cupping the hot cup of tea.

I feel a strange kind of bonding with her: consigned to a small shack in some remote magical land, while the elements play out their part outside.

I say, with the glory of a poet in spate, Time stretches when it rains.

She smiles. And I happen to see a copy of The Catcher in the Rye popping out of her bag. My mind is almost made. I love it when it rains. I love it when clouds hang low and play with tree tops.

The next half an hour, contrary to what I had just said, flies. We talk about Salinger, cult novels, Beatles, smell of old books, getting lost in nowhere… We talked with our eyes, our breath. My smiles, her giggles…

The dream is jolted by grating cries from the other side of the road. Her friends; they are frantically calling her. The rain is holding up a bit. The hills on the far side are clearer now. She pays the daju. I am frozen. I need to say something but I cannot. She smiles at me. Says, bye.

I manage to mumble, Can we meet? Later?
We are leaving in half an hour, say says.
In Calcutta, I mean. I am getting desperate.
Where?
Park Street crossing. Next Saturday. Five in the evening. I rattle out as if there was no tomorrow.

Her friends’ cries are getting raucous. She smiles, and runs across the road…

I light another cigarette.

Untitled

2005-11-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

damp
desolate
corners
in decrepit
rundown
houses
make me
think of
love…

spurned

Se7en

2005-11-17T11:25:00.000-08:00

I don’t know what a tag means. But here I am, tagged by Marauder’s Map. I have to do what my tagger has asked me to. So, here goes:

Seven things I plan to do:
1) Grow hair on my scalp. SOS Dr Sarkar of the Arnica-trioffer fame.
2) Be more articulate.
3) Have a proper English breakfast on a sunny Saturday morning
4) Play cricket with gay abandon, like I used to do many, many years back, and bowl toe-crushing inswinging yorkers.
5) A road trip down the Malabar coast, preferably from the northern tip of Goa to Trivandrum.
6) Time travel to the sixties and tour with The Beatles.
7) Flush and pee, and finish before the flush whirl ends.

Seven things I can't do:
1) Grow hair on my scalp.. alas
2) Deal with things financial like investments and filing returns.
3) Put an end to the compulsive habit of zapping mercilessly, and then getting stuck at Fashion TV. (I really like the fine cut and the fall of the outfits)
4) Understand the Eric Segal phenomenon.
5) And the brouhaha over graphic novels. And why Kill Bill is seen to be such a cult movie.
6) Be suave and act sophisticated, like the guys they show in Raymond’s ads and all
7) Flush and pee and finish before the flush whirl ends.

Seven things I say quite often
1) Abe saala
2) Gajjjab beta
3) Anyways…
4) Maaaaan (In the Carribean/American black accent)
5) Ki be? Ki khobor? (Or, Kya be, kya haal hai?)
6) Cholche… Ei aar ki…
7) I’m on a story (Mostly as a deterrent against more work)

And I tag ghetufool, passing shots, raconteur and acidrocks.

Chele dhora

2005-11-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

It all started one day when Rituparno Ghosh asked Mrs Moon Moon Sen, the mother of all bong boudies, in that coy tone of his: “Moon Moon Di, toke shobai naeka keno bole re?” The goddess of voluptuous said: "Achha, Ritu, tui naeka’r definition ta bol to…"

A snapshot from the Antarmahal floor:

Act I Sc I: Love-making scene between Jackie Shroff and Soha Ali Khan

Rituparno Ghosh (RG): Ei Jaaggu, shon! Tui na, laav-making’er scene ta ektu Rangeela’r moto kore dichis. Amra janish, oto overt hobo na! Eita art house cinema, toder Bollywood bioscope na.

JS (Jackie Shroff): R se Ritu Da. Ch se cho**n dekhalei shudhu hobe? Ektu..Ch se chulkuni na hole ke hobe? (Aside: Na se Naeka ch**a, saala. Bombay te role pachhina bole ei Pa se panpenani sojhho korte hoche)

RG: Ki shob je bolish. (blushes ruddy). Chhhi. (Bites his fingers) Jaai hok.

RG: [Picks up the megaphone and simpers into it] Soha, tui shuye por. Jaaggu, tui or opor chor.

Soha: Ritu Da, maa je bole pathiye chilo dummy diye korate?

RG: Aha Soha, eta to reality. Bresson’er moto. Tui o-shob bujhbi na. Kochi khuki tui.

Soha: (affronted) Ami shob bujhi. (Winks at Jaggu)

RG: Ei je, tor dada ke dekh. (Drools) Ki sexy. (Twitches nipples) Kemon jangiya oonki marchilo? (Gets transfixed, megaphone in hand, thoughts wander, starts humming the Salaam Namaste theme song).

Spot boy: Ritu Da, Ritu Da! Obhishek Babu eshechen.

Ritu Da gives Obhishek a good prolonged hug. Pecks him on his cheek.

RG: Mon-ey thake jaeno, tor gaye ekta bodka gondho aache. Tui to potua. Maatir manush. Maati diye putul gorish.… Davidoff’er perfume lagale cholbe na.

Obhishek: (Takes RG aside) Jaggu buro bokac**da ke oto gulo scene deyecho? Khan**r chele ekta hulo beral. Aami ki khoi khachhi naaki?

RG: Obhi, omon bolish na re. Dhoom’e tor lom bhora buk dekhe’i aami thik kore niyechi je pore’r cinema te lead role tor. Bogol ta kamiye nish na kintu. Ota’i to appeal.

O: Kintu…

RG: (Completely oblivious to O’s protests, drooling again) Ke intu-shintu korli oi bongo lolona ke nei. Tota Raychaudhuri’r moto koyekta topless scene debo toke. (Gets excited, touches Abhishek’s shoulder, makes funny sounds)

O: Shono Ritu Da….

[Not listening to O at all, RG gets all excited, hands flailing like a manipuri danseuse, kurta flying, hips swaying as he moves towards the bed, where Jaggu and Soha are already giving trial love-making shots one after the other]

RG: Jaaggu! Soha! O shob ki hochhe. Chhhi. (To Soha) Ektu aagei je naekami korchilish? Jemon tor maa, temon tui. (To Jaggu) Ei je rongila, boyesh to kom holo na! Ekhono chelemanusi keno? (A coy slap on Jaggu's posterior)

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

The shoot commences. Jaggu is asked to burp while consummating. Soha is asked to mix the pleasure moans with painful groans.

Poor Obhishek is asked to crouch on the other side of the bed and tug it so as to create the mochor-mochor creaking sound. So realistic.

Of living in the whore-city

2005-10-31T10:42:00.000-08:00

Delhi grows on you. It is an acquired taste. Like whiskey or like seafood. I used to hate the sprawling metropolis like anything when I had begun my professional life there. But now I am in Bangalore; and there are times when I miss the earthiness, the unpredictability of the whore-city.

The first sight itself in the morning as the train cut through the NCR suburbs was revolting. Banal station names that had no poetry. Like Shakur Basti or Buradi. Far from the tintinabulating Chinsurah or Dankuni. Walls splattered with the ubiquitous Dr Kothari peddling quack treatments for sexual dysfunctions. Or, just the brown scrubs that seemed to grow everywhere.

They were so depressing. And then the heat, the ungainly jaats (whom I later came to admire, another acquired taste!) and the marauding blue-lines.

But the city grew on me. The wide roads, the vast stretches of open land and the winters. Fog rolling down the Noida link road, over the Yamuna. The few days of rains were magical – roasted corncobs and warm chicken soup – stubbing out…

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat…

Then there was Karim’s. Mutton stew and barra kebabs. Bumping into 500-year-old decrepit Mughal architechture on traffic islands. Janpath with its bargain-friendly hawkers selling NewYork runway stuff. And Dilli Haat and Sarojini Nagar Market. I loved all of them.

So, it pains when I hear of blasts in Delhi.

And I know that acquired tastes stay with you for your life.

Pujor dinguli…

2005-10-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Shoshti…
The smell of new tailor-stitched jama; running around in the pandal with a gang of friends, bursting rollcaps. Spending pocket money on cheap lozenges.

Saptami…
Adolescence. Cracked voice. Wearing the first pair of jeans. And North Star sneakers. Egg rolls and Gold Spot. Furtive glances at girls…

Ashtami...
Pandal-hopping (how I hate the word) with college crowd. Loud, risque jokes. Cigarettes. Yapping till the wee hours.

Nabami…
French leave. Pujas in philistine Delhi. Thakur dekha. Bhog khawa. Anjan at CR Park. Feel strangely youthful. A bottle of Old Monk and the close circle. Reminiscences.

Dashami…
Aashchey bochor abar hobe!

Every breath you take

2005-10-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ever bought air? Hollywood hottie and Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta Jones does.
Read about it here.
How about some bottles of early morning air collected from a Himalayan village, laced with dung smoke and the smell of dew-soaked ground?

More on the ball game

2005-10-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

It all started when the wily Harbhajan Singh hit a massive six that almost cleared the stadium. The ball could not be retrieved. The commentators – Mpumelelo Mbangwa and Arun Lal -- got some breather from Harbhajan’s adrenalin rush.
Here’s the gem of a conversation:

Arun Lal: Here comes the third umpire with his basket of old balls.

Mbangwa: It will be difficult to replace such an old ball. They are already in tatters and, anyway, 80-over-old balls do not extract any “juice” from the track.

Arun Lal: I wonder how they maintain 80-over-old balls. But these are red and I guess that’s okay. In a one-day scenario, it must be really difficult to replace a white ball.

[The umpires decide on a ball]

Mbangwa: This ball is in a really bad shape. [Has got quite a humping, is what he must have meant]

Arun Lal: The new old ball, you mean!

[Both laugh]

Arun Lal: Coming back to the one-day scenario, I wonder how they find 45-over old balls. [The ball fixation is getting worse. Needs a shrink]. Because all 45–over-old balls are inevitably brown!

Mbangwa (with a flourish): You mean a brown white ball?

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

That must be a mulatto ball, according to Sunny!*

*Refer to the last post.

Ball game

2005-09-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

After a whale of an Ashes, the India-Zimbabwe series seems no better that para/gali cricket. And even the commentators are feeling the effect of it. Watching in a post-lunch daze, I heard Sunil Gavaskar exclaim, “Well, that’s a plop ball!” Plop. How well it sums up the series.

This is what happened. The voluble Harsha Bhogle and Sunny were jabbering inanities as a soporific session was on. Zaheer Khan bowled a bouncer which rose and then the trajectory wilted till the keeper caught the ball near his ankles. Here is the commentary excerpt:

Sunny: Well, that’s a plop ball!

Bhogle: Sunny, now what’s a plop ball?

Sunny: You see, balls that don’t carry through. It loses steam and the trajectory dips. Maybe, it’s because the soft side of the ball grips the surface.

Bhogle: (laughing) So, there must be a quack ball, a plock ball, a schlock ball….
[The inanities go on]

Sunny: There is a curve ball, a speed ball, a zap ball…

Bhogle: There you go! Another plop ball.
(Both laugh)

Sunny: And of course, there’s the dot ball.

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

With so many balls around, I wonder why the Indian team lacks them.

Oh! Calcutta!

2005-09-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

Learnt here and here that Kolkata now has a KFC and a Subway outlet. What’s more, the other weekend the Subway store ran out of sandwich breads.

The article says: Having inaugurated the Subway outlet, US consul-general Henry V Jardine was happy to hear how Calcutta had taken to it. “It is a reflection of how dynamic, changing and cosmopolitan the city is today,” he said.

I'm sure it’s for the good. But, are we losing our Waldorfs, Tangra, Flury’s, Shirazs and Amenias? And the neighbourhood roll stalls and phuchka wallas?

Till date I’ve never had better biryani or better hakka chowmein outside of Kolkata. Au contraire, I had decent paturi/muittha only outside of Kolkata. Can anybody solve the paradox?

Read India Uncut’s take on this here.

Giving head to Sania

2005-09-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Just when I had thought all the punners had quit TOI and joined DNA, I was proved wrong. I almost hit bullseye when I had predicted on the eve of the Sania Mirza-Maria Sharapova US Open 4th round match that TOI was sure to carry the headline: Sania, yet so far. Next morning I was disappointed. The headline said something very tame. But I reconciled myself to the fact that the match ran late into the night and the chief punners might have left for the day.

However, yesterday I was vindicated. The paper's esteemed supplement carried the headline: Sania, not so far. Inverting the legendary Outlook (?) headline: Sonia, yet so far. So, the punners are still there, alive and kicking the hell out of clichés.

This reminds me of a wonderful post Tridib had written about how headlines reflected the tone of newspapers. The talking point was Bush winning the second term. Taking cue from the post, I am woolgathering on how some of the papers must have tackled the Sania-Maria clash.

The Times of India (Actual): The pre-match headline reads Super San Day in over 100 point size. Allright, they have a sober Sania picture, but Maria is seen baring her cleavage while exulting after winning a point. Next morning they say: Tame end to Sania’s Dream.

The Telegraph: Sania loses match, wins hearts. The report starts with a wistful portrait of Sania, sitting alone in the stadium after the day’s matches are over and ruminating, while a handful of groundsmen tend the turf. The correspondent reads her thoughts as if he/she were a clairvoyant moonlighting as a reporter.

The Hindu: Sharapova beats Sania. The piece is no different from a Ranji Trophy match report. It accompanies a pixellated grey picture of Sania shaking hands with Sharapova.

The Hindustan Times: Much like TOI, but with a better layout. There will be a piece by Vir on how Sania symbolizes the Great Indian Shift from cricket to other sports and how he used to play (and beat many) on the green lawns of South Club in Kolkata. And how he unwinds by playing tennis when he stays at the New York Ritz. And how he digs into strawberry and cream at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club.

The Economic Times: A digitally altered picture of P Chidambaram in Sania’s tennis fatigue, holding a raquet. Watching from the gallery are Manmohan Singh, in a tennis cap (he’s the coach), and Sonia, in an offshoulder, strikingly conspicuous among the aam aadmi. A bubble quotes PC saying, "I propose a 20% duty cut on nose studs".

Punjab Kesri: Sania you ess aapen se bahar. Will most likely carry a pic of Sania with her pants showing.

Aajkal (a Bengali vernacular): The report will begin with what Sania had for dinner after the match, will go on to say how her first coach said she would win the US Open one day, then talk about how her mother reacted in front of the TV and how her neighbours went for an extra namaaz that day…. Finally after around 300 words, the report would talk about the match.

Business Standard: A 20-word brief on Page 1 headlined “Sharapova wins”

What killed Salman Rushdie?

2005-08-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

Fellow blogger J.A.P., in a comment on a previous post, rekindled an old debate that’s very close to my heart. He said he could not wade through Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Neither could I.

It would be wrong to state that I was a Rushdie fan. Actually, I used to be a Rushdie fanatic. But then, he fell by the way, and so did my love for him.

What beggars belief is the slovenly denouement in the genius’ literary career. It somewhat reflects the climax of his magnum opus, Midnight’s Children, which shows the protagonist, Saleem Sinai, disintegrate – alluding to the fractious state of the Indian republic.

Rushdie, too, disintegrates after completing the novel -- the death of the artist as a philanderer, a controversy-mongerer…

Shame was so similar to Midnight’s Children that I didn’t bother to flip beyond page 5. The Moor’s Last Sigh was somewhat palatable. And the less said about The Ground Beneath Her Feet, the better. Fury was too convoluted, couldn’t finish even this one. In fact, apart from MC, I liked only Haroun and the Sea of Stories. His non-fiction though was not all that bad.

The scorecard? Read 2, discarded most. But I still put Midnight’s Children in my top-5 list (a very philistine exercise). I felt it was not just a book. It was a nation. It was the voice/conscience of a nation emerging from birth pangs.

The novel was a massive experiment. But that’s where the problem began. An experiment happens only once. After that it loses its novelty. You experiment when you want to achieve/ascertain a certain end. It follows that once you have experimented, you know the end. So, the best thing about an experiment is its unpredictability. That was Midnight Children’s hallmark. The novel was like an unpredictable mountain stream growing into a rivulet, absorbing everything in its wake, and then morphing into a mighty river, gushing, unstoppable. It was like a chain reaction, and could be stopped only when it exhausted itself.

In the end, the novel exhausted its author.

The first few lines itself sets the restless tone of the narrative. A raconteur who has to tell his story his story fast because he has so much to say in so little time:

I was born in the city of Bombay…once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no turning away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too…On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clockhands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival….

Amazing.

Spam rules!

2005-08-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Even for a dilettante blogger like me, I find my comments list populated by nameless people selling debt consolidation loans and ways to EZ wealth. And, guess what, even enquiring after the kitchen leak! Strange. But what it more strange is the fact that I did have a kitchen leak last month! Orwellian nightmare?

Give me blood, I will give you comments!

2005-08-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

For quite some time, I have been commenting on other people’s blogs without having a blog of my own. I used to get a vicarious kick from my anonymous commentary. It was like… watching stray dogs mate from behind bushes as kids. Anyway, there was quite a guessing game over the identity of this pesky commentator and I relished every bit of it. My comments were commented upon and I commented on other people’s comments. I commented on a despairing blogger’s anguished cry over the lack of comments on his blog. Commented on a blogger’s humble acceptance of the fact that he had received 0.765 comments per post. Added my two-paise bit to a debate on Satyajit Ray kicked off by a venerable but imperious film-buff/critic. Commented on a would-be novelist’s bathos-filled comparison of upright fir trees in Cooch Behar with Nutan (Yes, Nutan). I also goaded fellow non-bloggers to comment copiously. I was on the verge of starting a mass-movement. Give me blood and I will give you comments! Very soon there would be millions of people treading my footsteps. Had become almost famous. A comment crusader…

But as a Pashto proverb would have it: Destiny is a saddled ass, he goes wherever you lead him. Far from the hero I’d almost become, I am now waiting for your comments.

Notes on Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi

2005-08-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

Watched Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi during the weekend. Over the years, I have come round to the view that one should divest oneself of the baggage of expectations before watching an Indian film. The Rising rose to deceive because it wilted under the baggage of 4 years that went into making it. And, of course, Aamir Khan’s reclusive ways, which always whet the media’s appetite. Why expect an epic before you enter the theatres? Chances are that you’ll come out disappointed. Enter the theatres with a blank mind, a tabula rasa, and the film will itself etch its glorious moments as well as its failings on the mind. I feel this is constructive film-watching.
Coming to Hazaron…, I didn’t have any expectations from the film. Watching it on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the film took me by surprise. At the outset, the director makes his intentions clear when he points out the horological mistake in Nehru’s freedom speech. How stupid to say: “At the stroke of midnight, when the world sleeps….” The nation began its tryst with destiny with a sub-editor’s worst nightmare coming true.
I do have some reservations about the first half, which veers tantalisingly towards the all-so-common college canteen dialectics on merits/demerits of extremist socialism. There’s a brief love-making scene (clumsy) and one of the protagonists, Sidharth, is out to a village in Bihar to join the “struggle”.
The second half gets absorbing when we have a compelling human drama played out against general political unrest. The character of Vikram is the most well-etched. He is upwardly mobile, a “fixer”, but nurtures feelings of love for the leading lady, Geeta. He is not bothered about politics, but utilises it to his own good. However, he is a total misfit in the outback. Glib talking will get him nowhere here. A place where villagers are harassed and implicated on false charges of murder. Where law begins and ends with the local police station.
While the protagonist is saved by his comrades, Vikram incurs the wrath of the police and is mercilessly beaten up. Mishra makes the scene poignant -- very raw and very Bihar.
Thankfully, the director has kept a keen eye on the nuances. You know the mise en scene is a Delhi college hostel or a police station in Bhojpur or a small town in Punjab by the accents and minor details. (Well, I would never have pointed out these taken-for-granted aspects while talking about good films. But even the basics seem to be lacking in most Indian films).
I have a small quibble though. The dialogues are mostly in English. If the film is meant for non-hindi speaking viewers, why not have translations? Better still, why not use the college campus language, instead of having the actors speak uncomfortably in English?

Wise man on the hill

2005-08-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

Day after day alone on the hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still,
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool,
And he never gives an answer,
But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning around.
The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour)

Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics for the song. One of my favourite Beatles track. It has a story to it:
"One morning, Paul was walking his dog Martha on a hill. As he watched the sun rise, he noticed that Martha was missing. Paul turned around to look for his dog, and there a man stood, who appeared on the hill without making a sound. The gentleman was dressed respectably, in a belted raincoat. Paul knew this man had not been there seconds earlier as he had looked in that direction for Martha. Paul and the stranger exchanged a greeting, and this man then spoke of what a beautiful view it was from the top of this hill that overlooked London. Within a few seconds, Paul looked around again, and the man was gone. He had vanished as he had appeared. A friend of McCartney's, Alistair Taylor, was present with Paul during this strange incident, and wrote of this event in his book, Yesterday." (Copyright: http://www.songfacts.com)

Hot wheels

2005-08-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

One may wonder what the URL of my blog is all about. Wasn’t all pre-meditated, I must admit. Thor’s Wheel is from a comic strip that I adore, and till sometime back, was addicted to – B.C., by Johny Hart. The strip is set in a prehistoric age as the name suggests. But it has humans, as intelligent as ever, co-habiting with talking ants going to anthill schools with the US flag on them, bludgeoned snakes and Miss Know-It-Alls. The wry and cynical humour will certainly get you. I can vouch for that.
Coming to Thor’s Wheels, it’s a makeshift shop selling - you guessed it – wheels. Mankind’s last great invention. Okay, I concede. With the exception of latex. The wheels are simple rolling stones and one cannot miss the satire on the marketing brouhaha associated with today’s automotive industry.
The connection? The day I was creating my blog (a surprisingly easy process), I had another window open where I was reading B.C. And bingo!

2005-08-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

My long-delayed entry into the blog world. An advisory to start out with. All views expressed here are my own. Maybe molded. But mine, definitely. And yes, copyright protected. So, please do get in touch with me if you want to reproduce extracts for commercial use or for unacknowledged distribution.

Welcome to the Fool on the Hill.