"Mere piiche maa hai"

In an interesting gesture, Indian cricketers are wearing jerseys with names of their mother instead of where their first/last name would be. Not sure whose idea it was, but since Star, both the sponsor of the Indian team and the sportscaster for the series, has used this in their promotions, it's clearly a PR/marketing choice.

Call me cynical, but I thought this was a fairly hollow gesture. Not so much because it's obviously driven by a PR objective (which seems to have worked well - fair amount of online chatter and coverage), but because it doesn't feel very authentic. None of these players, from what I know, have been associated with this line of thinking before, and it's not associated with the brands of the BCCI, the game of cricket, or Star. And assuming it's a one-off gesture, this is going to be ultimately meaningless.

Compare this with:

* Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali who has adopted his mother's name in his own

* The Pink days at the SCG to raise awareness about Breast Cancer by the McGrath foundation (because of a deep connection with Glenn McGrath)

For this gesture feel 'authentic', it ought to be * reflected in everything the brands behind this do from here on (including supporting women's cricket?). I'm sceptical. Will this just be one piece of trivia for a future cricket quiz, or can one expect more meaningful outcomes along with a PR success?

It's been 2 years since the Mars Orbiter Mission (also known as 'Mangalyaan' when it's at home, sipping tomato juice) officially began its orbit around the Red Planet. They hoped it would be there for six months - another 18 months and it seems to be doing just fine.

I wrote this piece for Architectural Digest last year about MOM on its first orbital anniversary. Here's to MOM painting the town red for some more time.

Richard Attenborough

Sir Richard Attenborough passed away in Aug 2014. Until my early twenties, I only knew of him as the man who directed 'Gandhi' (I hadn't even seen Jurassic Park.) Then, I happened to read a book about him, which opened up his acting life and shone light on his other films which had been out-dazzled by 'Gandhi'.

In 2002, for my Mastermind India final, I was fast running out of ideas for a topic in the specialised round (there were just 3 weeks between the semi-final and the final, and it would have been premature to think of the final before). I eventually ended up opting for "The Films of Richard Attenborough". It could have been a disaster, considering that these were the days before movies, especially less popular ones, were easily available all around you as is the case today. I was banking on that book from the library and IMDB to get me through.

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It didn't happen - I got a call from the producers asking me if I would mind switching to another topic ('The Tommy and Tuppence Stories of Agatha Christie'). I didn't know why that happened, but I had no hesitation in accepting - it was an easier topic to prepare for and I just needed to ensure I had all the books of the series (I had 3 of them already). Incidentally, there is a tiny connection between T&T and Sir RA: his wife of many years Sheila Sim and he had portrayed the detective duo (on stage, I think).

Later, I watched a little more of his work and would have no hesitation recommending the following for your viewing pleasure:
1. 10 Rillington Place - he acts as your uncle next door who is also into serial killing.
2. Chaplin - directed by R.A, features Robert Downey Jr. in a well-acted biopic on the famous Charlie
3. Shatranj Ke Khiladi - as General Outram, the no-nonsense imperialist
4. The Great Escape - leading the secret escape committee in a PoW camp

I have yet to watch Brighton Rock, his big breakthrough performance.

I got somewhat tired of watching the slightly too-positive 'Gandhi' over the years, but it's a tremendous piece of cinematic work - kind of like watching a long, carefully constructed Test match innings by the likes of Dravid or Gavaskar. And like their notable performances, there are a lot of great behind-the-scenes stories of how he went about putting it together.

Now that would make a great movie.

A new way to vote - Indian General Elections 2014 with social mobile apps

This entry was written for a contest organised by IndiBlogger and WeChat: here's the contest page

Ok, so everyone (above 18) can vote, and presumably everyone who can vote (at least in urban and semi-urban India) has a phone. Some of them also have smartphones with apps that can do everything from entertain you, to inform you, to keep you in touch with friends (on a second-by-second basis), and even show you pictures of cats doing Aarti with Alok Nath.

So how do you put this massive infrastructure to get people out to vote? For, if past records are any guide, voting in a General Election isn't necessarily always high in priority for people.

Here are some ideas on getting butts to booths:

1. Mobile+Social is a great way to show off your achievements. How about making the casting of a vote as an achievement worth bragging about? And even something that gets publicly commended? Here's one possibility:

- Let's say you go to an election booth to cast your vote. You get 'indelibly' inked on your finger.

- Now, get out, and take a pic of your finger with a mobile app. This sends it to a special a/c (say, a person/group on WeChat) or a twitter a/c or a FB page or an email id.

- Get a personalised autographed pic as a 'thank you' from your favourite film/sports star - people who have signed up to be election ambassadors. (Remember the BCCI-Sachin Tendulkar autographed digital picture). Perhaps even the Chief Election Commissioner or even the President of India!

- Now share that around on your network!

2. Mobile is a great way to get people banded together, to plan for a trip. Use a mobile app to find out when your friends are planning to go visit the polling booth. Or use it to get a lift to the polling booth from someone in your neighbourhood, in case you don't have easy accessibility to the location yourself. Use Mobile for Mobility!

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3. Finally, sign up as a volunteer with the mobile app to help (gently) get people in your network out to vote. The app tells you who among your n/w is yet to go out to vote. Give them a call or message them on election day and see how you can get them to go and vote. You can even get a series of avatars in which to make this plea: for example, the Arnab Goswami avatar will help you ask: "the nation demands to know why you haven't yet voted!"

Ok now, go out there, and vote. That's the least you can do for yourself.

Jaspal Bhatti, comic revolutionary

It is perhaps a left-handed tribute to the enduring nature of the "Indian system" that even today, the day after Jaspal Bhatti passed away in a road accident, a child watching his immensely intelligent satire "Flop Show" would instantly recognise how similar its India remains to that of 1989, when the show first began. Sure, you can now get a working telephone connection without resorting to shamans, but even today "do-shabd-vaale" chief guests arrive late, people produce fake medical bills, property sharks have only become more bloodthirsty, buildings fall at the drop of a feather, and as for TV serials, well, the tragedy is we still don't know if they were intended to be comedies.

We of the eighties, the Doordarshan Generation, often talk of how good television was during the times of DD. While garden-variety nostalgia is probably to blame for most of it, when it comes to comedy, we do have a strong case. And leading the charge, your honour, would be "Flop Show". Bhatti's creation was preceded by "Ulta Pulta", five-odd minute pieces in DD's morning show that I would often catch while getting ready for school. I can't remember a single one of them now, but I do remember an awakening to the idea of satire, of which, sadly, mainstream TV and films in India have produced very little. Even "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro" was a fortuitous coming together of youthful insouciance ending in noir and comedy, but "Flop Show", a worthy expansion of the promise of "Ulta Pulta", was a planned and sunny "oye chal yaar" saunter through middle class angst. Underlined by the weekly pastiche of Hindi film songs that was a high point in TV creativity. If you consider that DD, that same media org that often filled entire 20-minute news bulletins with speeches of Rajiv Gandhi wanting to make bananas, has greenlit satire of the highest order that pulled down the pants of most things smug, you do have to give its officers credit.

Of course, "Flop Show" never took potshots at real people or pointed fingers at the highest of places. Nor did Bhatti really touch the high notes of national popular attention again. But he did pursue his talent, through films and notably surfacing during elections to make merry at the expense of politicians. But this part of India had changed: now humour was an excuse to get offended and buy free outrage-time, or just make Archana Puran Singh guffaw - a task achieved even when she watches paint dry. Whatever little had been achieved during the few years of comic liberation had been ceded to buffoonery of the Cyrus Broacha variety, to plagiarised stand-up of the Shekhar Suman style, or to a laughter track stuck in an infinite loop. Note milord, "Flop Show" never needed a laughter track.

You can draw neat parallels in this demise of purposeful and intelligent satire with the withering away of R.K. Laxman, or indeed even in Bhatti's own career. A few months ago, I noticed that he was on Twitter (where a semblance of satire - or at least attempted satire - has gone to live) and still had the occasional touch. Evidence:

"A chair thrown at Nitish Kumar...what else a politician wants?"

"#HappyBdayNamo ..Astrologers say nxt PM again will be bearded.Modi,Nitish,MMS already have.Rahul G's beard will grow with d worries"

People have started using diesel & petrol as body perfume to show off.

Sachin Tendulkar bowled thrice in a row...Members of parliament are not performing much anywhere

One of "Flop Show"'s best episodes was its last one, where it memorably poked fun at itself. Bhatti often did that to himself, and earned a lot of appreciation in the process. One can only attribute his untimely demise to a tendency, also followed by his old comrade Vivek Shauq (who passed away last year), of keeping a meeting appointment too early. Hopefully the gods, who will undoubtedly be the butt of a few jokes now, did him the honour of greeting him, despite this inconvenience.

In his creations, Jaspal Bhatti would be credited with "Misdirection". This was a fitting description, given that the people he poked fun of think of themselves as providing "direction" to society. It was and is an "Ulta Pulta" world, and very few Indians threw a spotlight on it like Jaspal Bhatti.

"Half Ticket" - my article on some children's films in India

I have always felt that making films, writing stories, or composing songs for children is harder than many other creative endeavours. Think children's films and the Disney boilerplate animations is what comes to most people's mind, until Pixar tore that notion apart. Unfortunately, the genre of children's films in India has been criminally under-served so far. But a few have stood out.

I wrote an article two years ago on Children's Films in India, and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some of these films. Today's a good day to point you to that:

1. Previous blog post with a scanned copy of the article (has images): at this link.

2. Plain text version:

"Half-Ticket" - Children's Films in India - Flylite magazine

View more documents from Ramanand J

Freshly "Pre-owned" stocks

First it was "pre-owned cars". Now its "pre-owned video games" (seen at Landmark, Pune). Further proof that the world of marketing is often in bed with the dictionary of euphemisms (this last phrase was a metaphor, by the way).

Suddenly, no one wants to say it like it is: the car is second-hand, the game was sold to us by someone else, that is just something the previous diner threw up. "Pre-owned" simply sounds corny. Before it was owned, it was manufactured, assembled, retailed, distributed, displayed, packed, thrown-away-at-never-before-seen-rates-at-export-material-reject-sales.

But before it was owned, it was never owned.

Try saying: "Oh, this is my post-owned car. I've had it for three years now. I'm thinking of selling it to a new post-owner and become a proud owner of a pre-owned car".

Soon everything will achieve new pre-ownership. The raddi-wallah, previously mistaken for a mere recycler, is actually an enabler of pre-owned items, a mobile purveyor of modern antiques. If information from 'trusted sources' is first-hand then grapevine data is no longer rumour, but 'pre-owned' gossip.

Try saying: "Oh, these undies are not second-hand, they are merely pre-worn".

We have an old car at home - we are its 3rd owner. That makes it a pre-pre-owned vehicle. It also sounds like a spiritual guru.

I suppose there is no point in continuing these rants; after all this is the land that also gave "prepone" to the world. I will wait to recycle them another day. Maybe the day I see matrimonial ads for "second marriages" claiming:

"Dynamic, fair, 42 (looks 30) /5"8', IIT-IIM. Innocent, issueless pre-married."

Till then, this is just pre-post-erous.

Be there, be square

Each Saturday, when I receive my copy of the Indian Express, I turn, not to the sports pages or the Page 3 party news (this being the IE, there is none of course), but to read Mihir Sharma rip into the Indian TV news media. I derive a nasty form of pleasure from it, and I'm sure I'm not alone in it. In recent times, spurred by what we saw, heard, and winced during and after L'events D'Anna, his tone has become as militant and mocking as that of some Kejriwal-Bedi offspring. And this is one campaign I wholly support.

Take for instance Sharma's take on the ever increasing panel sizes of 'experts' on Times Now. There were days when the 9'O Clock show looked more like a set from Hollywood Squares: there were many boxes on screen and each box had someone answering questions, sometimes simultaneously. But unlike that TV show, the responses were not funny and the viewers never got any answers at the end.

Indeed, I call upon Mihir Sharma to go on an undeclared, unwarranted, infinite fast against such news programmes. For that is what the Nation Demands.

Incidentally, I have been on a zero-TV diet for the last 2 weeks. And realised it's very easy to achieve an immediate improvement in one's life.

Prepositional Proposals

In India, boys (or "youths") often "propose a girl", instead of "proposing to a girl". Exactly to which post they are proposing her for is not very clear, but in their fragile state (esp. on days like yesterday), it must be for high offices such as "Dictator of my Life for Life" or "Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to my Anatomy". But who seconds the proposal? It must be the ubiquitous "friend", a staple presence of the Indian youth's life, as illustrated by Indian rom-com-dishum-films.

Such language gladdens the hearts of those that previously thought constitutional thought among Indians would never take firm root. Even though political parties have become increasingly autocratic, here are young men keeping alive the democratic game of proposing a name, seconding it, all the way through to unanimity, via consensus junction. The High Command approves.

One way for the lad to propose a girl is to write to her. If you were in American parts of the world, this expression is sometimes rendered as "write her a letter". This used to confuse me earlier. If you were allowed only one letter, which letter do you pick? "X" is perhaps safest.

Anyway, democratic or not, boys will be boys, and Indian lads will remain youths for life (ask the Youth Congress). V-Days will come and go, and girls will be nominated and impeached from tall towers of the heart. All we can say to them is "Best Luck".

Stalk show

I've started receiving Twitter's suggestions for people I should 'follow'. I wish it wouldn't. For the most part, these are celebrities that I have deliberately chosen to stay far away from (the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Chetan Bhagat, Lalit Modi). The suggestions seem to be deduced from my current social graph on twitter and popular Indian celebrities (probably based on number of followers or a list). Apart from these being shallow dimensions to suggest 'interesting people', shouldn't such an algorithm consider this: if I have been on Twitter for a couple of years and these people have been around for over 3 months, I would in all likelihood have heard of them? (if they are indeed popular enough to be tweeted about) Thus, if I have not followed them so far, it is out of choice and not of ignorance.

Probably they should stick to picking friends-of-a-friends and minor celebs (not in the top 100, say). Or just leave us alone to stumble in the jungle. Even better, is there someway to indicate (proudly) under a "Who Not to Follow" section, that I choose not to follow these people?

Re-versioning 'revert'

I had previously written about my aversion for the reversion i.e. the use of 'revert' in e-mails to mean 'reply'. But the inevitable march of the very forces that make language fluid and nimble have had their first major victory in this matter. Linguist Ben Zimmer (he replaced William Safire in the New York Times' popular 'On Language' column) wrote on the topic, noting that this sense of the word has finally made it to a dictionary.

The 8th edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary notes the (still obnoxious) usage, marking it as having originated in Indian-English. We are seeing, at first-hand, an example of the mutation of language, and some part of me wants to celebrate that. So I suppose it is time to put the pitchforks down, but that doesn't mean a change in my conservative attitude. The likelihood of me embracing this word-meaning combination is the same as that of a Khap panchayat sending a gift certificate and greeting card to the latest set of Jat elopers.

Aren't you glad that the madmen of Indian villages didn't spent as much time protecting language?

By other means, minus the shooting

Do students of the Political Sciences study sports federations? They should. To my mind, these associations exhibit a purer form of politics than that seen in conventional politics of state governance.

Several limiting constraints are eliminated in such an arena. Chief among these is no longer having to adhere to a delineated ideology, which allows free rein to individual preferences. One is therefore not restricted in choosing partners just to remain on the right (or left) side of a House. There are no whip-py actions which ease the process of floor-crossing. There is no need to publish a manifesto with manifestly unattainable goals of progress. A "horses for courses" policy can be applied to trading of allegiances. In fact, you could think of it as a market free of any artificial friction.

This state of affairs is not restricted to India. For long, the conduct of FIFA's top echelon has come under fire, with the likes of Sepp Blatter having demonstrated a slipperiness and an appeasement policy of certain federations (in return for voting support) that mirrors some of our best coalition tactics.

I have long felt that the members of the BCCI are best equipped at the sport of sport administration, rather than the sport of cricket. Politicians of all hues mix there to form a kaleidoscope of changing alliances that are trickier to sort out than the holdings of an IPL team. Perhaps there could be an upper limit of say, 50, to be a BCCI office-bearer, and the gentlemen currently in charge could use the BCCI as a sort of a junior (under-19?) league to groom their 'scions'?

The Sports Minister1 has set about putting in barriers to people being BDPLs. (Ironically, the Minister is a man of a vintage higher than the retirement age he has proposed for heads of sports federations.) Not surprisingly, the various presidents have spoken in unison against the move, which restricted their tenure to twelve years. That's right, twelve years. That's Six Olympics, Three Football World Cups, Twelve IPLs, and at the current rate, 12 World T20s. Clearly, these guys are insatiable.

Expressing gratitude to the sporting gods (who have otherwise clearly abdicated all responsibilities and are partying in one of Allen Stanford's beach resorts) for the lack of a Quizzing Federation of India (no, this isn't the one) we end with a trivia question:

Which pair of brothers respectively head the Federations of the largely unrelated sports of Table Tennis and Boxing?

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1: To his credit though, M.S.Gill has been a keen mountaineer and patronised that sport in India

Three Idiots...

...Aamir Khan has now kissed both Kapoor sisters.

...a film so designed to be 'feel-good' that it's almost obscene in how 'good' the audience is made to 'feel' - solicitation of pleasure laws should apply, for aren't people paying for this?

...if you want to make movies with 80s sensibilities, then you should have made them in the 80s.

...the lack of attention to detail is often insulting, that this is almost a sci-fi film. Predicts mass use of futuristic tech in the late 90s (calculating for an engg. student born in '78) such as cell-phones, webcams, broadband.

...in addition to Chetan Bhagat, the writers did not prominently credit those who write the jokes that eventually become email forwards.

...funny that a film whose story consistently praises 'innovation' over the 'formulaic system' uses a mix of old Bollywood techniques, with only the occasional meta-film references that we are used to from modern Bollywood films.

...the best 2-3 sequences or one-liners in the film went largely unnoticed in the audience; occasional sparks of originality glimmered anonymously.

...Engineering education might need a positive PR exercise in India.

...after vamps, kisses, and revealing costumes went mainstream, certain hindi words that were solely the preserve of Ranjeet & co. have ceased to be embarrassing in family films.

...life isn't worth living if one isn't a hero of one's film, i.e. if your life has an Aamir Khan and you are not him (one more coin in the doesn't-Aamir-Khan-do-the-same-characters? fund)

...and finally, we're in serious trouble if such a large quantity of people in the audience need to be given hope and reassurance (but ultimately, you've got to take the hard decisions about what you want; watching it vicariously is no use)

Alternatives: read Richard Feynman's "Surely, You're Joking Mr. Feynman", get a copy of "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones", or try a more honest, though raw rendition of the same themes in "Silicon Jungle", a film by Rabi Kisku, an IIT Madras student.

Next in line of succession: The glint in the milkman's eye

India loves its dynasties, doesn't it? Monarch or Politician, it doesn't matter. What does is lineage and the 'name'. This state of affairs always reminds me of the Blackadder episode 'Dish and Dishonesty' from the third edition of that superb series. In this, Edmund Blackadder (a remarkably caustic Rowan Atkinson) is butler to the dippy Prince Regent George (a remarkably asinine Hugh Laurie).

William Pitt, The Younger has just became Prime Minister and is determined to bring legislation to provide "a right royal kick up the Prince's backside". Trouble is, the PM is a mere schoolboy elected in the middle of his exams. Soon, both Blackadder (E) & Pitt (P) find themselves plotting to win a Parliamentary seat, which provides the following scene and dialogues (the PM has come to meet the Prince Regent (G), and as usual Blackadder has to intervene in the interests of maintaining sanity):

At Prince's House

E: Your Highness; Pitt the Younger.
G: Why, hello there, young sabre, m'lad! I say, here's one: I've a shiny sixpence here and for the clever fellow who can tell me which hand it's in.
(Pitt just stares.)
G: Hmm? Oh, school, school! On half hols, is it? Yeah, I bet you can't wait to get back and get that bat in your hand and give those balls a good walloping, eh?
E: Mr. Pitt is the Prime Minister, sir.
G: Oh, go on! Is he? What, young Snotty here?
P: I'd rather have a runny nose than a runny brain.
G: Eh?
E: Umm, excuse me, Prime Minister, but we do have some lovely jelly in the pantry, I don't know if you'd be interested at all...?
P: Don't patronise me, you lower middle class yobbo! (aside) What flavour is it?
E: Blackcurrant.
P: eeeeuuuuuaaaghhhh!

Pleasantries aside, they get down to the dirty work of accusing each other:

P: You will regret this, gentlemen. You think you can thwart my plans to bank- rupt the Prince by fixing the Dunny-on-the-Wold bye-election, but you will be thrashed! I intend to put up my own brother as a candidate against you.

E: Oh, and which Pitt would this be: Pitt the Toddler? Pitt the Embryo? Pitt the Glint in the Milkman's Eye?

So, sometimes, to know who will be the next CM of a state, you just have to ask the milkman.

Script text from here.

Monsoon Mania

This year, the monsoons in Pune have been part of a massive tease. It's not like those old films where the weary peasant looks up to see a sky reflect the barrenness of his unploughed field. Instead, the sky is full of dark clouds with just one catch: they aren't ready to spill the beans yet.

A set of more celibate clouds couldn't be glimpsed - they could easily trounce a bunch of champion-quality austere monks at being masters of their domain. While the Great Indian Monsoon has presumably touched Maharashtra (though in Bombay, it is as muted as Maria Sharapova with laryngitis), there's hardly been a drop in Pune. It is starting to get scary.

With the situation getting desparate, monsoon yagnas have broken out in parts of the country. Here's another idea, so madcap, it might just work. Most TV reality shows are unreal: for them, 'reality' occurs when people cry on screen while cameras zoom into their skin pores. Dunno if India has talent, but it sure has judges in packs-of-three in abundance. Reality is usually much more boring than all this, and TV is roundly criticised for denying its existence. But here's a chance for TV to be both meaningful and real, unlike the 'Rakhi' Picture Horror Show, which is quite the opposite. I refer, of course, to the Great Mian Tansen Manhunt.

The great Tansen, it is told, could bring water down in big coloured plastic buckets full of pet animals if he sung the raag Megh Malhar. If only a modern version could be unearthed? Is it not worth millions to find this person, even if s/he could only promise water every two days? (thus outperforming most municipal corporations.)

That my mind is functioning like an Indian TV executive can be blamed on the skies above. Out, out, damned spots. But it's not going to be hilarious in a couple of weeks. In fact, it'll be downright scary when I'm staring up the barrel, waiting for a drop.

What's in a name? Count for yourself

With the inauguration of yet another Rajiv Gandhi-named thingy, a look at the overall thingy leaderboard:

Rajiv Gandhi: 138
Chhatrapati Shivaji: 137
M.K.Gandhi: 68
Shakespeare: 1

With this, Rajiv Gandhi has taken a slender lead in the standings. With the Congress set to enjoy a full five year term at the Centre, he is likely to further strengthen his lead.

In the interest of keeping the drama in the race alive, certain people request you to vote for the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in Maharashtra.

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Suggested supplementary reading:
* A New Indian Express article on Gandhi, Gandhi everywhere,
* Atanu Dey on this practice: 1, 2

Given this, one wonders if Mayawati's double-handed backhand of playing 'statue' is just another variant of this game of iconography. If so, she seems to get greater flak for merely not mastering the nuances of the game.

Number games

Let's assume India's voting percentages in its general elections is about 50%. Let there exist a country half of India's population such that its voters register almost 100% voting in its elections, i.e. greater than India's turnout.

Would that still make us the world's largest democracy?

Soft skills

Mulayam Singh Yadav has been in some lukewarm water with the Election Commission over a speech of his in which he was shown as saying, among others,:

"She (the District Magistrate of Mainpuri, his constituency) is a woman and that is why I am not making any comments on her. She should get her brain checked and should be aware of the fact that Mulayam is contesting from here (Mainpuri)", Singh was shown by local news channels as saying at the rally.

(source)

Among other improprieties, this comment has been found to be sexist because it makes references to the gender of the person involved. An observation here is that the comment is indeed sexist, but not misogynistic. In fact, the UP chief minister is kind enough to refrain from making further comments (untoward, we can guess) about the lady precisely because she is a lady. One would not like to imagine the fate of any male DM in her place.

One can see why Mr. Yadav opposes reservations for women in Parliament - it would severely cramp his style.

1.25 sessions at Sawai Gandharva 2009

I have been stepping up my Sawai Gandharva attendances in measured quanta - one session in 2005, a full day last year, and 2 days this year. Or that was the plan for this year, until I decided I had had enough this year after half of the last day and decided to retire hurt.

I've realised I don't really have much of an ear for the standard issue Hindustani classical concert. The template performance, with the lengthy warm-up aalaaps, made me fret. Or perhaps it was just the choice of performers. The trouble with Sawai is that the first few performances are either newcomers or slightly obscure musicians. In comparison to the big names, they don't seem to tailor their recitals in accordance to the audience's mood (or in response of the lack of one). Contrastingly, all the Carnatic musicians I've seen at Sawai have gone out of their way to engage with the listeners, either by useful explanations of what they're about to do, or by picking attractive compositions. It could be that they have to put their best foot forward, being mostly novel to the average attendee.

It could just be my South Indian ear, brought up on idli-dosai at home and pongal-coffee at the Chennai winter sabhas (which I hated to attend as a ten year old at the peak of my neighbourhood game). But those with me seemed to concur. I enjoyed the programme last year. This time, Ganesh-Kumaresh and Pandit Jasraj (who clearly knows how to recruit the audience on his journeys, and did some interesting harmonic bits with his pupils, whom he also sledged from time to time) were the highlights. Even the usually appealing Ronu Majumdar couldn't hold my interest.

Or it was the crowds. The Bhaaratiya Baithak (you sit cross-legged, Indian-style) is a pain in the arse, quite literally, and especially so when there's hardly room for the occasional stretch or back-lean. Your mind gets into a sitting-marathon mode and at some point you hit the wall. I spent the rest of the Sunday morning (lasted about 3 hours in the BB) standing. There's got to be a rethink about some of the organisation - the place is splitting at the seams. Or an extension of the shamiaanaa on either side is needed. I sat under the stars last year till 2 am and ended up with a massive cold in return for watching the astonishing L. Subramaniam and his son.

On the sidelines, there was an excellent photo exhibition featuring the latest Bharat Ratna, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (who made an appearance and looked extremely frail, and so in no condition to repeat his short and sweet recital from last year). The highlight being a snap of a rather dashing Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Clamped up, I inevitably end up in a lot of soul-searching: what am I here for? Do I really "get" what the musician is trying to do? Am I, in Aditya Gadre's annoyed terminology, just a pseudo-fan (in its kindest interpretation). Are many of the people here just surfing the annual social waves or busy admiring the emperor's new clothes?

Anything to keep my mind off the pain that has oppresses the region from my lower back to the ankles like some mad despot.

This is a much kinder report by a Sawai debutant.

woh to bahut hii mahaan aadmi hai.n

kuch din pahale samaachar patr me.n paDhaa avashya thaa...ki calcutta me.n tiis-chaalis hazaar paagal unkaa darshan karne aadhi raat #Dum Dum airport# pahunch gaye thé.
::R.P. Ramprasad Dasharathprasad Sharma

About 30 years later, nothing has changed.