Days like these

Days like these

In the world of dates, the 1st of Jan is a genuine superstar. Everyone loves it, they dream about it days in advance, they roll out the red carpet in anticipation, they put on their best and pop a bottle of the bubbly. They're in love with the idea of starting anew and saying to the old: "out, out, damned spot".

Which makes me feel sad for Dec 31st. Perhaps Dec 30th is even worse off - at least people look forward to the evening of the 31st. To people, they're stale reminders of the last 360-odd. People just want to get through them - ooh, I can't wait for the Eve's evening, they shriek. Wonder if people who are born on the 31st of Dec wish their parents had shown a better sense of timing and could've just waited another day before their eyes twinkled. Do they complain: why me, mom?

Anyway, with thoughts like these, I realise that with each passing 31st Dec, I become more and more like the orbit of Pluto, i.e. eccentric. Do I demand a Festivus for the rest of us (or the restive-us)? - I don't know. But here's me, biting into toast, thinking of poor ol' 31st Dec, as the weary day gives way to the dazzling youngster ahead who knows not what lies ahead. Thirtyfusst for the restofuss!

"A Study in Emerald" - Neil Gaiman

"A Study in Emerald" - Neil Gaiman

George, bless him, pointed out this story (A Study in Emerald) by Neil Gaiman in a comment about my previous post about Gaiman.

Now, I used to think of Gaiman as a niche fantasy writer whose exploits were limited to graphic novels that some seem to be great fans of. Indeed, what I know of him has mainly come from Sud and Kunal S, who brought their love for the likes of Gaiman and Pratchett to the BC.

But reading "The Day the Saucers Came" and "A Study in Emerald" has completely changed all that. So bowled over I was by the Holmes pastiche that I re-read the story 3-4 times and was mesmerised by the effort. I have read a little bit of the Sandman series, but this definitely merits a much more careful study of the man's work.

Let your hair down

Let your hair down

Strike while the hair is long. (on how late-night celebs are taking the forced break caused by the Hollywood writers strike to let their hair down.)

The languages of Pakistan

The languages of Pakistan

A very nice post on Language Log about how the variety of languages in Pakistan have been suppressed, ostensibly to carve a single national identity. An interesting stat quoted there was that according to their 2001 census, Urdu is only the 6th most spoken language (presumably first language, as the %ages add up to 100%) of the top 7.

My perception based on what we see of Pakistani officialese, media coverage, and politicians-cricketers was that Urdu was the most spoken language, which means at least outside the country, the state-sponsored promotion has worked well.

As noted in this post ("napunsakalinguistics"), I know a few people who think Urdu is a preserve only of the muslim community and thus not meant for "us". If the Pakistani stats are true and if such a sentiment can be quantified, it can be further argued that Urdu belongs more to "us". Luckily, I also know people who have fallen in love with the language and have not shied from sharing this affection with me. Having recently obtained a nice Urdu dictionary and being able to finally make sense of some gems-é-"shayarii" and some Hindi film lyrics, I can only agree with their point of view.

Man, Byte, Dawg

Man, Byte, Dawg

Shiv Sainiks attacking M F Husain exhibits is so cliched. The day when M F Husain attacks Shiv Sainiks, let us know.

One more down

One more down

That's a lot of Bhuttos wiped out in 28 years. Pretty sad for a country to have this sort of thing going on.

Missing Mood Indigo

Missing Mood Indigo

Suddenly realised that I am missing Mood-I, after two consecutive years of soaking in the crowds, the pronites, the sideshows, the quizzes, the transplanting of BC quizzing to IIT-B for four days, the word games, the music, the December cool of the campus.

A Tear for memories of 2005 captured then. Pity I didn't record much of last time.

Twiddling thumbs for Jodhaa Akbar's music

Twiddling thumbs for Jodhaa Akbar's music

The wait for the music of Jodhaa Akbar seems to only get longer and almost interminable. There isn't much clarity as to when exactly the soundtrack will make its way out into the open. Matters are not helped much by the second teaser trailer featuring a song called "jashn-e-bahaaraa", which sounds delectable.

I have found it exceedingly hard to follow the music of Vishal Bhardwaj because he always seems to fall outside the mainstream distribution channels, but when that also seems to happen regularly to India's premier music director, then one wonders what is going on.

Meanwhile, in a revival of the rumblings, the controversy surrounding the provenance of Jodhabai has resurfaced on some TV channels. The murmurings that some chronicles do not seem to record Jodha as Akbar's wife came as a surprise to me, especially after NCERT books and Durga Khote's cinematic dilemmas. Expect this only to get louder as the film's release approaches - perhaps riots, bans, politics will ensue as has become par for the course now.

The Day the Saucers Came'

'The Day the Saucers Came'

I had no idea Neil Gaiman could write this type of verse as well. Superb.

(thanks to Abhishek for link)

The not-so funny castrato - revisited

The not-so funny castrato - revisited

Earlier this week, I had made an indignant post about the BBC reporting a story about humour and gender. Turns out the same Language Log I had been trying to imitate had already posted about this "news item", noting correctly that the source for the news article was a spoof article in the British Medical Journal, so there was nothing to really worry about (i.e. I was right about being sceptical.)

But the speed with which the meme has been picked up in news outlets around the world (see same LL article for several links for examples) should be cause for concern!

Horror-ible joke

Horror-ible joke

Q. Why did the Tamilian pay extra to get the horror movies TV channel?

A. Because it was a "pay channel".

Previous Tam-friendly bad joke.

The not-so funny castrato

The not-so funny castrato

The folks at Language Log routinely complain about how bad the science reporting at the BBC is, pointing to several cases of over-generalisations, bad summaries, misinterpretations and so on (an example). I found one such case myself, where this news article, headlined "Humour 'comes from testosterone'" and subtitled "Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims.

Reading the article, it seems that the "expert"'s method was to cycle around the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne on a unicycle and document reactions from people. Based on his observations that most of the men recorded made snide comments, while the women were kinder. Without even getting into the merits of this approach, I'd like to point that hardly do smart-alec comments translate fully into "humour", in its wide and varied forms. Does this take the 'expert' all the way in explaining away why males have more of a tendency towards humour? There is certainly no excuse for the assertive tone of the headline.

BTW, I must say that in my own small (perhaps non-representative) world, my experience has been that males are more likely to indulge in language-oriented verbal humour. I have observed female participants in this activity, but the numbers have been considerably tilted the way of the gender with the testosterone. But I would hardly venture a theory of aggression to explain this, which is perhaps why I'm not quoted in the science pages of the BBC!

(A cursory search reveals a lot of interesting links on the subject)

A School for Scandal

A School for Scandal

It has been brought to my attention that there seems to be a college called the "J. Ramanand Girls College". Now, this is potentially just misuse of nomenclatural rights online (i.e. someone's taking the mickey out of me) because the only place it seems to appear in cyber-space is in this wikimapia annotation. Zooming out (a lot), this seems to be situated near Jhansi.

The sinister-ness of this link is still under question - or has someone seen the greatness in me already? Could I be the youngest in history to have a girl's college named after a real-life person? I wonder, I wonder.

M. Palin, Salil C., Polyushka Pole

M. Palin, Salil C., Polyushka Pole

Was watching Michael Palin's "Full Circle", a typically engaging travel documentary featuring "the nicest Python". I this series, Palin is traveling around the Pacific Rim, and one of his first stops is in Russia. He befriends a Russian who sings a popular folk song called "Polyushka Pole" - Palin records this and eventually gets to sing this along with a naval choir in Vladivostok.

Now this song was immensely familiar. The reason? It has the same tune as "Dharti kare pukaar ke" from Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zameen", scored by Salil Chowdhury (also recorded at I2FS). The original Russian title seems to be literally translated as "Meadowland", which seems appropriate. The song also is said to appear at the beginning of "Castaway", a fact which seems to have escaped me (remember Fedex employee Tom Hanks in Moscow at the beginning of the film?)

Salil Chowdhury, in addition to being a great man of creativity, was also a communist, and his political leanings would have provided access to Soviet culture as well, hence explaining the roots of this famous Hindi film song. Did he acknowledge the inspiration - I don't know. But it's not just Awara and Disco Dancer that went northwards - some of it came south as well.

Extrapolating...

Extrapolating...

Left for the Day --------> Right for the Night

Watch out for the whole Hogg

Watch out for the whole Hogg

The touring Indian cricket team would have cheered had Stuart MacGill found some way to stave off an injury-related operation. The legspinner, long considered the "best understudy" in cricket (a completely overrated claim, IMO), not only bowled his customary one four-ball per over versus the Lankans in his most recent Test series, he sometimes bowled two per over. A score of 400 in a day is easily attainable with MacGill tossing down 30 overs in a day.

In contrast, his replacement, Brad Hogg is harder to deal with. I agree with Ponting when he says Hogg is not so easy to pick. Kumble has said that the Indians think the Aussies have a weak link in the spin department, which is true (some what), especially given the very large shoes of a certain blond cricketer before. But this Indian batting side has had its share of trouble with left-arm spinners, from Ashley Giles to Paul Harris. Of the two left-handers, Yuvraj Singh is not the best against spin, which leaves the in-form Ganguly and the ever-aggressive Laxman to perhaps attack Hogg. Tendulkar in particular needs to watch out for Hogg.

Baba Bangaali Inc.

Baba Bangaali Inc.

Marginal Revolution had a post about a new firm called Stick where you can set a goal as well as the consequences for not achieving it. Since I had recently seen Anurag Kashyap's "No Smoking" (about a man who signs up with a mysterious agency designed to help smokers quit with bizarre penalties), it seemed very similar to the idea - only you voluntarily set the outcomes.

Thought it would make an interesting kernel for a story. I then read the comments on the above post, which mentions "Quitters Inc." (Stephen King) which has been cited as the basis for "No Smoking", and also another related book called "Kill Me" (Stephen White). I guess the David Fincher-Michael Douglas film "The Game" also visits similar territory.

As a (structured?) procrastinator, I find this whole concept very fascinating!

Watching Vishal Bhardwaj - a Blog

Watching Vishal Bhardwaj - a Blog

I suppose "start a blog" is a reaction to many problems. For the last couple of years, I have become aware of how difficult it is to follow the movies and music of Vishal Bhardwaj, given that he has no website or media channel to go visit. Assuming there are others who feel the same way, I've gone and started a blog to collect links about forthcoming Vishal ventures. Additionally, it should also serve as a place to write some more about Vishal achievements of the past - let's see.

George has been closely (and commendably) following the man in the news, as readers of his blog would know. He should be joining me on the Vishal blog too.

The blog can be visited at this link.

An embuggerance and D'Ball

An embuggerance and D'Ball

1. He has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The news was officially announced on the website of one of his collaborators. In an interview published there, he, in characteristic fashion, quaintly called the fact "an embuggerance", said he was mildly optimistic about his chances, and said that he hoped it would not interfere too much with his next couple of books. He also appealed to his fans to not ask him how they could help, because they couldn't, unless they were some sort of brain specialist :-). Who is this writer?

Ans: Terry Pratchett

2. Last week, Luke Pomersbach became the latest Australian to represent his country in international cricket, playing a T20 match vs NZ. The call up came in strange circumstances: he had been recently suspended by his state side for some alcohol indiscipline; he had come to the stadium with his girlfriend to watch the match, and suddenly found himself the recipient of an invitation to play for the national side. This was because another player had suffered a back injury in the dressing room an hour before the match began.

So Pomersbach was issued the kit of that player and found himself batting in the last overs of the Aussie innings. Now, we know that the Aussies have their nicknames on their shirt-backs in T20 games (Church for Gilchrist, Roy for Symonds etc). Pomersbach had "D'Ball" on his shirt (the name was shortened for lack of space).

So the question: whom did he replace and what was the full nickname of that player?

Ans: Brad Hodge, "Dodgeball"

Boy, cook ten

Boy, cook ten

I'm unwell and my mind is febrile. Needed some diversion, so decided to mess around with my orkut profile (I love-hate orkut, btw). I have noticed people updating various fields on their orkut profile, and since I aim to be inscrutable and enigmatic, I'm unable to reveal with any honesty, such trivial details about myself. Juvenile humour is the next best thing, so a sample of what I've been upto:

Headline: "He's Out!" or "Dewey Defeats Truman!"
turn offs:: ignition, light, and other electric switches, right turns, turnstiles, turntables, turner classics, "turn turn turn" by The Byrds
my idea of a perfect first date: January 1st. No wait, November 1st. No wait, July 1st. Damn, 12 choices, all so tempting.
from my past relationships i learned: to read, to write, to do mathematics, to eat, to drink, to walk, to tell time, to point
five things I cant live without: air. water. food. neurons. muscles.

The books of Christopher Priest

The books of Christopher Priest

I have a post about the books of Christopher Priest, one of my favourite writers of recent times, on the community Lit blog.

Some, like, it hot

Some, like, it hot

There are days when I find myself, like, due to people around me, lapse into an occasional like. If you do too, then heed this and don't sound stupid.

From Language Log

Weekend, summarily

Weekend, summarily

Most hectic weekend in a long time. Must... blog... no... time... sneeze... throat itch... passing out... grasp for keywords...

Saturday:

taLjaai, morning air, conversations, COEP, quiz, more quiz, even more quiz, shabrii, loins of tandoor, laugh till death and resurrection, landmark, moser-baer, hunt, find.

Sunday:

khoya khoya chand, tickets, home, call, pt. bhimsen joshi, lunch, dash, ramanbaug directions, flawless approach, just in time, mobile transmissions, conversations, even more lunch, rasoi, the baby with the digitus impudicus, lolling before the storm, dust, hangman, sudha raghunathan, maamiis, people, maate malayadhwaja, vaataapi gaNapatim, tea, more tea, rahul sharma, vijay ghate, conversations, music terms, morsing, even more morsing, back rests, lambii khaamoshi, pattice, familiar people to avoid, more pattice, watching the sky, sleep, photographs, the sky again, conversations, the belchomatics and meeting the fart-ernity, laugh guts out, L Subramaniam, the wait, the wait, gyaan, plucking with the pinky, ambi, applause, magic skill, time to go, shivering, feet and head uncovered, unresponsive ignition, 15 mins to house, end of day's play. Monday:

cold, cough, a bad day.

Dystopian vision

Dystopian vision

It's 2037. You are sitting alone, watching the world go by. Thoughts flit in and out, it's a free market and a flea market. You don't raise a hand to stop them. Your mind wanders dangerously. You think of Hindi film songs of the past. You stop. He comes to mind. You're thinking of Himesh Reshammiya's music.

Now the question is: what word describes this feeling?

The answer: Nose-talgia.

The Calling

The Calling

You said you'd call. I haven't gotten anything done in the last couple of days because of that.

You spring up all out of nowhere. I haven't seen or heard from you in a year. Not in real life, anyway. But suddenly you write to me. "Hey little lolpop", goes your email. "Send me your number. Will call asap."

I haven't gotten anything done since then.

I write back within a minute of reading it. I conceal the bubble of excitement that's sprung inside me. "Hi A! My number's ...". I send it. I forget to ask you your number. Obviously, I can't make international calls - well, I can, but think of the hassle! But if I knew what your's was, I wouldn't feel the hammer inside my heart when I hear my phone go and see an unfamiliar number backlit in green.

But you don't call. You said you would. In fact, no one has called in the last three days. For three days, my cellphone is conjoined to me. I make no move without it. I switch it off when I take my bath - I don't want to risk you calling when I can't pick up and leaving me a trail of your attempt. I reckon this way you'll try again and not assume I'm too busy to take your call (I'm not). (Oh god, did you call when I had it switched off and did you assume I was too caught up even to keep my phone switched on?) I could have emailed you again, but then can I, do I, should I assume I have the right to smother you with my desperation, my craving? If only you'd call and if I had the guts to ask and burn your answer on my frozen self.

Where are you? What are you doing now? You have my number. Unlike the phone, my life's on hold here. Call me.

It's a week now and the gravity of my situation is slowly dawning upon me. How does one describe seven days spent simply reacting - to sounds, to movements, to voices (mostly inside). I look at it objectively and I realise I have made demands and expectations of you that were unjustified. You clearly have a life and you have no right to cause any suspension of anyone else's. I'm downgrading the alert level. Thanks for this week - my mind has grown in the tepid vacancy of waiting for something to happen, while it was happening all along. Thanks - for not calling. I couldn't have done this with you.

Which is when you call me. "Hello!", you say, in your sunny tones. It's been a barren week. I have spent it clinging to an edge and I had finally let go. "I'm so sorry I couldn't call you! It's been so weird here - you have to hear all about it. First, tell me: how are you?"

You said you'd call. You have. You actually have. "Hi", I whisper back shyly, completely failing to conceal my bubbles.

Confessions of a JBJ fan

Confessions of a JBJ fan

Ok, I admit it: I liked the movie "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom". Anyone who has been at the receiving end of several of my raised eyebrows when it comes to "their" choices in films is welcome to liberally use this fact against me.

I must begin by first admitting that despite a fondness for Shaad Ali and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Abhishek Bachchan, I was all prepared to hate "Jhoom...". It was a Yash Raj Film, it had the likes of Bobby Deol and Lara Dutta, there was all this hype, the faux-accent of Preity Zinta in the trailers. But come opening weekend, this film got pummeled, and "Sivaji the Boss" even superseded the hype-meisters themselves. I was chuckling.

Two things then happened: I read Baradwaj Rangan's affectionate review. With roughly the same affection for it, George told me JBJ was actually worth a watch.

One way of dealing with a Yash Raj flop is to say it must really have been bad for it to dive (recall the arithmetical n'n's'nse called "Neal 'n' Nikki"). The other is that the movie might actually be good. I recalled the cheeky humour of "Bunty aur Babli", and set out to watch JBJ.

It was silly, but it was, undeniably, fun. Like with Bunty aur Babli, I could see myself switching in any point in the first half of the film and enjoying proceedings. Piyush Mishra was brilliant. Lara Dutta's French accent was a revelation. Bobby Deol's schizophrenic performance was 'cute'. AB and PZ were ok, but the chemistry hit heights in the songs. And what choreography!

The picturisation of Bol Na Halke Halke alone would have been worth the price of admission. Simply mindblowing. I rewound the inspired fading of the Taj Mahal from reflection to reality a million times in my head. The Coolie reference, the Humayun ka Makbara, the streets and roads of Delhi, the Yamuna and the Taj showing that the Mani Ratnam film genes in Shaad Ali Sehgal were asserting their influence, the masjid-gurudwara sequence bringing together both sides of Shaad's parentage, the all-encircling camera - all in one unforgettable song that demands applause for Vaibhavi Merchant, Ritesh Soni, and Ayananka Bose.

Baradwaj revisited the film in a typically brilliant article about musicals doing badly. I haven't seen any of the other films, especially "Jaan-e-Mann", which is supposed to inhabit the same space as JBJ. I don't know why very few people liked "Jhoom...". The second half was not so great, but the cheekiness and interesting-ness of the script that was accused of being story-less kept me hooked. A major crib was the director completely ruining what could have been the in-joke of the season: by unnecessarily drawing attention to AB-BD on a scooter by playing "yeh dosti...". If only he had let it go by silently - it would have been that much more satisfying to those who'd have noticed. "Bunty aur Babli" also had a "yeh dosti" moment, so Shaad, next time, a little more understatement please.

The JBJ experience has somehow changed me. I have been confronted by my biases. I realise all this movie-liking business is not so easy after all. Anyway, I'll leave it to "AnaiDaa" to have the last word. As she puts it eloquently (with a little help from Monsieur Gulzar):

no, no, monsieur, no, no, itnaa simple nahii.n, chal dafaa ho kahii.n

The Martyn Puzzle

The Martyn Puzzle

It's been a year since one of my favorite players, Damien Martyn, pulled down the shutters on his career, surprising fans like me, not to mention shocking his own teammates and well-wishers.

Will Swanton examines some of the ironies that Martyn has left behind in his wake. Nice article. Hope you're doing fine, Marto.

Keeping quiet

Keeping quiet and remembering Garrincha

Have conducted 5 quizzes in 5 weeks, so understandably, I'm a little of tired of standing in front of people and pestering them with questions and more questions. I was actually hoping to take it easy the last couple of months, quizzing-wise, but the bug just keeps biting hard. A maun-vrat is perhaps in order.

Anway, today, a bunch of us were at ACES 2007, and at the end, we started talking, as we usually do there, about the ESPN Sports School quiz. This was probably my most favorite competitive TV quiz show, because of the superb participants, the hosting of Harsha Bhogle, and the nature of the questions (trivial, but fun). It wasn't the fairest format, but it made for great viewing. It's a huge pity that the series stopped, reportedly for lack of sponsorship.

We have a couple of former ESPN school quiz winners and participants at the BCQC and in Pune, and they have done much to raise the profile of quizzing in their respective schools and cities, and to raise the profile of their own schools and cities in the rest of the country. We have Aniket whom we all remember as the little kid from Rangubai Junnare, Nasik, Suvajit from DPS Farakka, the team from Birla High school and so on (some of them have graduated to the senior open circuit and still do very well).

And of course, there was Abhinava Vidyalaya and the Rohits, Bahulekar and Chandrachud. Even before the episode had been telecast, I knew from Salil that the school had won, but that didn't rob me of any excitement of actually watching it go right down to the wire in the last final. No non-East Zone team had won it upto that point. Harish, Samrat, I and others would keenly keep track of teams from West Zone, such as from Pune, Nasik and Bombay, and knew that they had the potential. Esp. after seeing Aniket and the Rohits in the previous year of competition.

Finally, "Garrincha" sealed the win for Abhinava and Pune. Still remains my most favorite quizzing moment.

The 2007 Scientific Indian Story Contest - first prize

The 2007 Scientific Indian Story Contest - first prize

Selvakumar Ganesan runs a website and blog called The Scientific Indian. He also conducts an annual science fiction writing competition. He has kindly chosen my story, called A Story in Blue, for the first prize.

It came as an unexpected surprise because I had never written anything of this length before, and don't consider myself well-equipped to write science fiction. So it was just for a lark that I sent in this entry. Also, I have never ever won any real prizes for my creative writing, so this was great news :-). Congratulations are also in order to the joint 2nd prize winners.

I have been thinking a lot about religion from a personal point of view recently, and this was a nice way to explore some of my mental threads. If you happen to read the story and have something to say, please do write to me.

The return

With Aaja Nachle, it's only fair to say that Madhuri Dixit's back... is back.

(Haven't seen the film, but have heard the mixed and lukewarm response. Interested in the movie not because of la Nene, but mainly to see what Jaideep Sahni has come up with.)