New Year's Eve also had a grim reminder of how bad Indian TV & films have gotten to be: Just a chance peek at Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum on air and I was hit squarely in the face with an amount of hamming not seen in one place since the Great Porcine Parade of 1927. Five stars indeed for a critic who just lost it all trying to protect his friends: consider Hrithik (Fiza), Kareena, sis of Karishma (Fiza), Jaya Bachchan (Fiza), Amitabh B (biography) That leaves two unaccounted for: Kajol and Shah Rukh. Anyway, shouldn't it have been six stars? Khalid got his counting wrong. Can't blame him for even maths can obey different rules in a parallel universe where helicopters ferry people as commonly as autos.

Can people be ruled by lack of ambition? Can the grand purpose of life be "to be happy each passing day" or "to have no worries tomorrow" or "to come back home to a cosy bed" or "to wish away the drudgery of the routine"? Or like Sean Connery in "The Untouchables" "to come home safely each night"? Why not? But alas, it's too simple to be taken seriously? Can that much be sufficient? Shouldn't there be a greater purpose to life? Isn't it an ode to mediocrity that one wishes, having reached a position of calm inertia, to continue orbiting peacefully without ill-will to other neighbouring orbiters? Nope, too simple and hence too difficult to comprehend.

The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh leapt to my attention because I knew it had won a science fiction award, which seems rare for an Indian book. The book is absolutely riveting, with its fine interweaving of three worlds: a futuristic one, one in the mid-90s & right back to turn of the last century. Cleverly adding a mystical touch to the discovery of malaria & Ronald Ross, it leapt back and forth in time to set up a climax. Then I turned a page and poof! the story was over. I actually checked to see if the last page was missing. It ends abruptly like if I were to leave this sentence unfi

What a pity! Guess he just didn't know what to do with it. Still, the imaginative plot except for its denouement (aah! finally, I can use that word!) is worth the last piece in the jigsaw. The buzzing mosquitoes around me (strange times have embraced Pune: cold to very warm and swarms of mosquitoes) lent the ambient score.

It is a pattern in my life that I rarely catch the popular movies when everyone, justifying the adjective, has viewed them. I finally got around"The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Rings", mainly because Nikhil would like company in watching the second part when it gets here and so I'd need a crash course in what many people have warned me was too abstruse to follow otherwise, especially as I hadn't read the books. Nikhil usually doesn't watch too many English flicks, but when I learnt that he actually bought the voluminous tomes and read them, I was suitably impressed. The movie had some excellent aspects which I won't go into. It actually didn't seem all that abstruse, there was a basic story thread that I could follow. Perhaps reading the book would've have enriched the experience, but the lack of it most definitely didn't leave me clueless. I may not remember the names though I can go by the faces. I may, however, be nasty and wonder if there wasn't excessive violence! Lots of head-chopping and arm-lopping. But they did have very little gore, which would've reduced the impact.

he urge to write just took a vacation. Perhaps it was the colourlessness of it all. Or that things were cruising along and the necessity to unburden took a vacation. Or maybe it was the churning out of other kinds of prose that was literally that, prosaic, matter-of-fact. But it rears its head. (Strangely, the mood seems shared). Silence...

Temporary measure to remove the eyesore..

The Black Sheep
Absoultely the best, funniest, ultimate take on good old Baba (remember |..| ?): This is a collector's item! The author is Jayakrishnan Nair.

Thanks to an abject goof-up by moi, the template went awry: pardon the colours.. But it seems more readable now. I can see my weekend wasting away on this...

The winter of my mis-content!
Because the news is officially out and can be told: I won Mastermind India 2002. Lots of credit to my friends at the BC. And don't believe all that you read in the newspapers: I'm just 1 month into being a minor celebrity and I'm already being misquoted majorly! More on this later...

Another friend joins the blog-world: Haripriya has her blog here.

And goodbye to the longest six months of my life...!

I've been continually asked what the best moment of the Mastermind experience was, to which I would always say "None in particular". But the best moment just happened: I got a call from R.K.Laxman this morning telling me he watched the show!
I'll permit myself one "whoppee" for this :)

" "Hello. We're looking for someone who can make a fool of himself. Do you think you would be interested?" At which point the mysterious chemicals that bubble in my brain, having interpreted it as a good thing, something that would be fun to do, something that had to be done for social approval. relayed the message to the vocal chords: go forth and concur. And now it's time to go forth into the spotlight and proceed to complete the promise.I shall make a fool of myself, as advertised! But no martyr's badge for you, you volunteered..."
The not-so-secret canon of B. Wisenheimer

I have to learn to like all kinds of people more! One of the biggest problems is not being able to do that consistently. "And yes, don't get into something without assuring yourself who else will be in that activity" & "Go solo in creation,my boy! Freedom beckons. Else learn to get along." I forgot the lesson and shall pay for it.

"I know it's a random arrangement of muscles, skin, eyes, facial tissue (me no medical schoolboy, disregard the factual errors), nose, ears, curiously eddying points, clefts, arrangement of stuff made of keratin, melanin chromatics and other such stuff, but some of the faces are so interesting! Not necessarily stunning, but interesting! Not driving me mad, but distracting attention atleast for more than an instant. Worth the second glance, making me smile to myself. A look around at the refreshments table for those that do it, the moment of satisfaction, of the knowledge that beauty can be hidden, personal and in small enough packets to intrigue."
- The not-so-secret canon of B. Wisenheimer

Almost forgot: The semi final goes on air tomorrow on BBC at 10.00 pm with "repitt" (aah! woh pyaare din Workshop aur Fitting ke! COEPians will go into paroxysms of nostalgia) telecast on Sunday at dus, subah aur shyam. I enjoyed this round out of all the 3 best, mostly because my fellow contestants were such fine people to know. We got rather friendly and we were actually doing something that would approximate to a haka (within Mastermind decorum of course) just before the shoot. I wouldn't have minded losing to any one of them, they were that nice. So here's a toast to Meenakshi Ramesh of Mumbai, J. Krishnamurthi of Hyderabad and colleague Amit Garde of Pune (was representing Bangalore on MMI).

This definitely does not meet the Niranjan-Rule of blogworthiness, but it's a sorrow off my chest:
I'm so disappointed we didn't make the top two of the collage contest (PSPL's having a cultural week with a lot of different activities). This was the first time I'd done collage and I liked our effort. But let me be unfair and say that our shot must've gone over their heads. There was so much symbolism and arrangement. Damn!
Funnily, there has been a lot of "first time I've taken part in" in the last six months: turncoat debate, Antakshari (yep, never been there before), all with a good degree of success. So "law of averages" or "unprecedented luck" or "beginner's luck": one of you has got to take the blame...
How much I cry! Shame... Unsatisfied ingrate...

Where's the masala?
Ajit is an old COEP friend of mine. Almost all of my college-mates have very little interest in my blogging judging by their patronage of this blog (weep, weep) despite my many entreaties. So when Ajit seemed to have some free time (he hardly has any usually), it came as a surprise to me that he chose to check my blog out. Atleast that's what he told me. And what he further told me was interesting: that he was looking for something to start flaming on (he being an old warrior on the arson-friendly RMIM wastelands), but was disappointed by the lack of anything controversial worth his time. Some more background is that Ajit, Nikhil & I were project partners in our final year. We spent a lot of time (being rather of argumentative bents of mind with some very strident opinions in certain domains) arguing (at high decibel levels) about many points: the caste system, Tendulkar (i mean Vijay) & Nana Phadnavis, Lata Mangeshkar, Anuradha Paudwal, Amitabh & KBC are the ones that come to mind. (We did get the project done and still can stand the sight of each other, so we didn't come out it too bruised!) Interestingly, only two of us would spar, the third would somehow have a neutral view on that topic or simply refrain in the interest of refereeing. It was a most interesting phase. So I can understand Ajit's comment.
Which brings me to an aspect that I've tried to analyse: have I gone soft? Am I no longer defending my choices? Or are my choices too status quoist? Over the last few years, I've consciously done more "listen-to-the-other-side" empathy: did that affect me to the point where I'm only good enough to moderate, not to throw a punch? Or have I simply shrugged my shoulders and quit the controver-seat? Maybe that's what explains the lack of visitors :) Does that mean an Outlook-like makeover with exposés each day? Or let me take the snob-about-town approach: "you see, there aren't topics that *I* can be bothered about".
Ajit: NikhiI and I usually agree on a lot of things these days and I don't like to bring in the combative questions to the party, Maybe I will concoct an imaginary one for your benefit. Till then, it's back to spewing fire at RMIM for you...

The horror, the horror
I have no other words to describe these words, but as "haunting". For some reason, they seem very moving, maybe because they can be applied to so many occurences and experiences. If not a full-fledged horror, atleast several minor ones. In fact, the film Apocalypse Now somehow affects me indescribably. I'll confess I haven't really been able to comprehend it in its entirety, but somehow I feel drawn to watching the shadows of Brando's enormous appearance, the hunter visage of Sheen rising through the swirling smoke, the sacrificial buffalo, the claustrophobic and poisonous surroundings that can only come in a tropical jungle, the orange plumes in a collage of their own. It seems to have a mystical appeal I cannot explain. I still haven't got around to reading the original Conrad in Heart of Darkness. Maybe I just don't have the intellectual capacity to take it all in, chew it up and digest it. But it's worth the taste. And what is there in the Redux version remains to be seen.
Simply taken as a set of frames of scenes, it still appeals to me. I find it to be one of those films that just sock you with the power of the medium. Add to this heady mix one of the few Western music groups that have instantly appealed to me (ask anyone in the BC quizdom what a dud I am on the subject): The Doors. When the strains of This is the end appears in the background, it adds further dimension (Here's where the lack of any (semi-)formal training in the language of cinema hinders one: I find it difficult to use the correct expression of feeling) to the film. Well, it lost to Kramer vs. Kramer in the Oscar race, but no Hindi film-copier can really lift Apocalypse Now unlike the victor (Akele Hum Akele Tum), for these films have to arise out of something that has been felt and has affected the maker to be of any worth, one feels. When you watch it,it's an experience: maybe you don't get it, but that doesn't distract from the beauty of it. So an appropriate end to this post: The beauty. The beauty.

I think I better cash in on my 15 minutes: link here to a news article on this year's MasterMind contest (Thanks Gopal for the link!).