One way street
All signs point to a one-way street,
Just a hint of your fleeting glance,
and the storm-clouds regroup;
Reminders that at the end of the trance,
pearls will dissolve into tears of rain.
{Please don't read any "meaning" into this - an attempt from the archives on something I can't do well - write poetry}
Food for thought
{Pardon pun above; danger signal goes up ahead on another silly theory of life}Does the speed at which you eat tell us something about you? This was something that struck me today. A friend's placid pace was commented upon, at which I remembered that once I was a top-ranked player on the slow-consumption charts but these days things have gone horribly wrong.
In among a pack of exceptionally slow-eating cousins, I was the slowest. The crown kept returning home after the showpiece marriage lunches with the next pa.ngat (cycle of serving) on my row being held up on account of my cole-slow impressions. Did it (like some art filmmaker might opine) mirror an internal state of mind? These days, I am wolfing down my food like a hare-on-paranoid-steroids. In the last couple of years at the office lunch table, I was no competition to the usual bottlenecks, unless if it was some discussion or storytelling that needed a lot of contribution from me. What kind of a disrespectful gastronomical speed-fiend have I turned into?
I am stilling waiting for the magic food pill - the one that gives you all the vitamins and other stuff that MSc Nutrition courses are often telling the deaf world about, in addition to deluding your stomach into contented fullness with an optional Capital of Senegal to boot. This has been a childhood dream which provided much mental chewing gum while going about the mundane business of eating. The dream still lurks in the subconscious these days, but the attendant mental tranquillity seems to have ducked under too.
All the people I know who are lazy eaters also seem to be more relaxed in life. I used to have it and I want it back. To my friend I can only say: stay that way and wait for me - we'll munch our way while the sun sets in the yonder desserts.
The JaDe Project - 6
{a.k.a the return of the JaDe Project}This would have languished in the netherlands of latenight television among the many "scary" tales of crime in our cities, if it hadn't been for Gaurav having some spare time of late (further giving us cause, like Shaw, to praise idleness). Chai.n se sonaa hai to (pause, take in breath in preparation for dramatic effect, let loose while twirling wrist) JAAG JAAO! is quite simply the most amazing dialogue delivered in the history of news television. It was first "exposed" to us by Gaurav in this befitting piece of sensationalism.
Inspite of making an effort, I could not remember the presenter's name, the throat behind the words. (Contrary to Gaurav's recollection, I thought it was "Siddharth" or something - I was too lost in appreciation to remember the name.) It was worth staying up till 11:00 p.m. (I'm no night-owl) to catch this. I really wish I had a tape-recorder or more correctly, a movie cam to capture the moment. When Gaurav first told us about this, he acted it out, and I must say that sometimes Gaurav was better than the original - so GS, why not record it and upload it? Like many of its fellow JaDe Hall of Famers, no amount of hype can stultify the essence of the moment, so don't worry about expecting too much.
The post ends here abruptly as I have run out of words.
Set theory, assumptions and the whodunit
As we know (and love), the whole idea behind a "whodunit" is to find out who does the crime. I have read quite a bit of the classic detective fiction stuff and prefer the old-fashioned and sanitised crime world of Doyle, Poe, Christie et al. The thought came to my mind that in some sense, in many of these, the reader is nominally invited to take a guess at who the culprit was (and if the butler really did it). The success of these plots (films/plays/TV serials all included) depends on presenting us with a choice of people.Take a typical Christie. A whole array of characters will be presented to us and the sleuth will eventually figure out who was the criminal in question. We can guess that as with any evolving genre of plot, initially the criminal was the most villainous of the lot (this is especially true of films - the audience will, with their experience of the movies, identify very early who the villain of the piece was, and it remained for the narrative to provide the links). There was a straightforward translation of the good-vs-evil template.
Holmes stories were not like Christie formats, in the sense that we did not see all the pieces at the same time the detective did. We would eventually marvel at Holmes unravelling a very mystifying set of items, but we travelled with Watson and Holmes hardly told him anything :-). We were usually meant to drop our jaws in awe. The Christie version was more of a jigsaw puzzle, where usually one was given several important pieces of information at the same time as the problem-solver was. The unlikeliness of the person was very central to her success and this didn't require her popular and geriatric detectives to bound about unlike Holmes, whose legwork was a vital part of his triumphs (which many a time excluded Watson and hence us).
So essentially, in the classic whodunit of the Agatha Christie variety, it came down to a set of choices. Method was secondary to this. As you read her books, your mind opened up to the possibilities - she cleverly manipulated our naivété & biases. Soon, she churned out an array of unlikeliest criminals and tried almost everything possible with rearranging the set. One can only guess, but it is not hard to imagine the Dame beginning with a group of characters and wondering "what if XYZ did it? How would one weave a story with that ending". At any rate, that is what I would do :-)
I'll avoid spoilers and instead recommend the following Christies as great examples of what I've just talked about. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is of course her most famous work, and something that justifiably caused a lot of ripples in those days. Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Murder on the Orient Express, Ten Little Niggers, Evil Under The Sun and Crooked House are other examples where our inherent assumptions are cleverly challenged. As a finale, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is also recommended.
From making several variations on individuals in a set, authors then moved on to even making it a subset of people - this, again, would have been very novel then. We have seen several examples on screen and page since, so it may not seem so new to us. So to maintain the twist that gives the whodunit its lastpage turning spice, some enterprising authors even increased the subset size to be almost as same as the complete set!
A day came when all this became very predictable, so creators again shook off the burden of making everything available to the viewer/reader. Now, sudden twists came in by the addition of characters midway through the plot or ingeniously reviving forgotten characters. An examples of movie in these cases would be certain David Fincher films. Certain Ed Norton films also had this element - and again, they challenge some assumptions we're led to making. This makes it a lot of fun. Occasionally, you lose the ability to predict the twist by gaining such a lot of "experience" - it happened with Identity and sadly, with the The Usual Suspects. Perhaps I heard about the latter elsewhere without actually making an explicit association. But the kick of the first realisation - that was lost.
TV serials like Columbo eschewed the whodunit path for a different "howdunit" approach (there was a Hindi remake of this concept featuring Anita Kanwar). But still, the whodunit holds sway. Jonathan Creek (will be writing about this extensively some day :-) ) was hence a rarity - it had both the whodunit and the howdunit given equal prominence. In several (would this be an example of "post-modern" consciousness?) cases, we now have reality and fiction overlapping - take a Hey Ram for example.
So what are the tiny variations left for writers of creative fiction to exploit? This is an interesting exercise for people like me who like the "puzzle" nature of whodunits rather than the more realistic American styles involving Marlowe, Spade etc. Perry Mason, the ubiquituous paperback, was a more classic British style than of the noir variety. Poirot stories didn't have any unnecessary subterranean complications and they lived in a less grey world, but I liked that a lot more. Jonathan Creek was, for me, very much in that mould with its tongue-in-cheek humour and a slightly unrealistic world, where the crime will be solved by our detective. There is a certain reassurance in all that :-)
{For some hilarious thoughts on the whodunit genre, read some of the Jeeves-and-Wooster stories by PGW, where Bertie usually has a whodunit at hand, but events prevent him from immersing himself in them. He also consults them with fervent interest with the usual imbroglios resulting. As a result of watching these British serials over the last one year and having read several British detective books over the last 20 years, I really envy the range of plots they have explored.}
I'm going to end this piece with one version of a "twist" that I had employed (so I'm cleverly using this opportunity to re-plug an old attempt of mine: A Head For Red). And perhaps the last movie whose ending totally surprised me and shook some assumptions was The Others.
MICAndescense
Was at MICA this weekend to do a General quiz for them. Ended up meeting some of the known and unknown quizzers-and-bloggers and some other friends and acquaintances. Words of kudos for the hardworking and pleasant MICAns, who kept their cool amidst some of the worst puns involving the word "MICA" being hurled at them relentlessly.Kunal has some more jottings on the trip and I would like to add to his "friskiness", the fact that I was stopped and baggage searched at Dadar station this morning (despite having only a 2 day old stubble unlike the comparatively more hippier Kunal). I wonder if there has been any increase in "threat perception" in these parts or it is just routine in the times of Diwali-Id. Since there was no unpleasantness, was ok with the lawmen doing their random sampling.
Of "Ambi Valleys"
Nice article on some of the everyday nomenclatural occurences among Tam-Brahms (link thanks to Amit V and Harish).I don't have any "Ambi mama" myself, so I can't rejoice in the festivities (having a "ambi periappa" instead), but some of my cousins do. For the record, we even have "chinnambi"s around :-) (translation: small 'ambi's)
A Quizzer's epitaph
The gravestone would probably read:Don't pass me by - atleast take a guess!If there is one golden rule in quizzing, it is "Never Pass!" {unless if you are against some negative scoring beast}. In the past, having lost atleast two quizzes I desperately wanted to win by the simple act of not taking that shot in the dark that was eventually right, I've learnt it the hard way. Now, does the "Die but don't pass" dictum hold in life? Is it a good enough metaphor for "give it a try"?
When you make a wild guess for a question, you have to fight back the sane voice that says that people will laugh at you for saying that - even if you know that moment of embarassment, the finger that points at your ignorance, is a mere moment, nothing in the long collection of jiffies in your life. So is taking the wild shot in real life even harder?
The choice is between the egg waiting to colour your face yellow and a golden sunrise.
Nothing special
Nice "Idea! Cellular" campaign for Maharashtra - good use of 4 of the most prominent Marathi actors today (prominent outside Maharastra too; these are Mrunal Kulkarni, Atul Kulkarni, Milind Gunaji and Sachin Khedekar) dressed up in traditional Marathi attire with the ad copy consisting of some of the most well-known fragments from Marathi songs/literature.Very emotionally appealing, no doubt, to the MaraThii maaNus (correct spelling? or is it maaNuus?) Good example of locally targeted advertising. It is a high profile & high budget campaign judging by the locations of the hoardings in Pune, so curious to know if it translates into an increase in business.
The Volvo rides to Pune on most Saturday mornings and the return on Monday mornings have seldom disappointed in terms of the climes and the views. The whiff of Bombay in the mornings, the misty ghats and the gentle cold in Pune - make up for the lack of sleep in having to make those rides.
TV snippets from Sat. Films starring two of the least successful (and probably the two most interesting) of the Kapoor third generation. Vijeta and Hero Hiralal. The former was a pretty decent effort at inner angst and the air force (probably still the only decent IAF film from the Hindi world) and the latter was another schizophrenic effort from Ketan Mehta, which still offered some interesting moments. "PhaTaa Poster, Nikalaa Hero", another Amitabh cameo in a Gul Anand production and the ensemble cast. You didn't mind Naseer overdoing things or Sanjna Kapoor not getting the hang of acting but looking like a dearie. I'm sure the third sibling Karan Kapoor had a life in the films (not to be confused with Bombay Dyeing), but not sure which one.
How is it that an entire generation of Malayalam film singers sound so much K.J.Yesudas. I know he's been a towering presence in that region (and elsewhere), but such a lot of impact? (Listen to the likes of Unni Menon and you'll agree.) A recurring mystery. I can understand all Pakistani offspinners bowling the duusra and getting called for throwing a la Saqi, but this bit of influence from our South-Westernmost state is too much.
Among the usual ROTFLs from the Rajnikanth starrer "Phool Bane Angaarey" was the fact that it stars Tamil comedian Senthil. Which is quite extraordinary because one never thought that any of the supreme slapstickers from Kollywood had made these excursions up state. What's better, he seemed to be doing a decent job at attempting to speak the dialogues (it was dubbed, but the lips weren't slurring over the unfamiliar Hindi). Pity it didn't catch on - the viewers up there hardly know what they missed.
Some cricket thoughts
Some new posts from me on the quiet cricket blog run by Harish and me. Here and Here.Impressive
UpdateA result of this episode (and conversations I've had with friends whose opinions I respect) has been to reflect on content that we put out on our blogs. The tone, the insinuations, the critiques, the praises, the ignorance, the insight, the guesswork, the unfamiliarity with the inferences etc. I'm sure we all have had an emotional reaction to all this, but it should also be followed up by some serious thinking to pick out the learnings. I'm being vague here because the conclusions one reaches will be personal, and can't be over-generalised. If that kind of introspection doesn't happen, this would have been a waste for other bloggers.
Meet my brave friend.
[P.S.: I hope it's safe to criticise the films certain production houses have made or will make in the future. There isn't enough money to pay out for that kind of stuff.]
The Surfer
I liked what Cricinfo has turned their "Best of the Web" section into - a regular blog with RSS et al. Presenting The Surfer.Comment Spam - Technique #xyz
I noticed that recent instances of comment spam on blogs have had the following template:The first part of the comment usually has a paragraph & headline from an online newspaper. The second half actually has the spam content (usually saying "what a great blog - check mine out at link").
This is interesting, for it continues to show what a game all this is - spammers thinking of newer ways to beat filters. Obviously here, they don't have to add random non-spam words (like they did before) to their content - probably the spam-fighters caught up with that. Instead, the random words are more cohesive, and relevant to that day. I guess they cottoned on to a pattern, where on many blogs that tend to be regular newstrackers, people would post links/extracts from a recent news piece.
Perhaps the idea to use here is to check relevance between comment and post (a very hard thing to do realistically - needs to be coupled with a whitelist etc). Meanwhile the easiest thing you could do on your blog is to see what additional services your blogging service provider has made for combating spam on your blogs, and to enable them.
[An example of such spam can be seen at Hirak's latest post (don't delete it, Hirak :-) ) . The lovely, but no doubt fictional, Adele talks about recent changes in the furniture business - the news item here (item happened about 4-5 days ago). ]
101-101
Just a day after I was expounding somewhere on how I was tired of blog-memes, comes this from Gaurav. The fact that I was supposed to be studying for an exam meant that my brain was more than unusually attuned to this latest diversion. I shut my eyes in order to make it go away, but some time later, the following emerged.Effort ek
Effort deuxOmnipotence "You switched it off?!""It was a mistake! - I'm sorry" came bubbling out among the tears.
She was a kid after all, sighed the Creator.
"Let's go see."
Points of light shimmered except in one gloomily dark area.
He switched the Sun back on."F***!". All the 'saurs were gone.
If you liked them, please leave comments - I could do with some ego-massaging now.Action items "Bills payed ?" - Check.
"Window mended ?" - Check.
"Money sent to charity trust ?" - Check.Pausing after some of the steeper portions to catch my breath.
"Emails to Manu and Abhinav ?" - Check.
Yoo-hoo! Finally at the top.
"Note and photo-id in pocket ?" - Check.
Then off I jumped.
As for tagging others, I take the easy way out and do a global broadcast tag - please pick it up if you wish. I will make one specific tag - to Tejaswi - who's never been tagged before, so here ye go.
Small personal broadcast
[thought this would be the fastest way to mention this] - those who add me to your Google Talk list, thanks for doing so. I'm afraid I'm on Linux behind a firewall most of the times and haven't had the chance to try getting past it, and I have an ancient monolith running Win 98 at home, so right now there's no way I can actually use that service now. But let that not stop you from including me in. As Gaurav once mentioned in another context, right now, I have trouble catching up with the 21st century sometimes :-) When I do, I'll be e-vocalising.An Introduction to the Principles of Porcine Aviation in England
"We have now successfully demonstrated how a member of the Sus Domesticus Airline can successfully take off. To recap, take 11 men in white {must include atleast one exceedingly beefy specimen}, all native {NOTE: the word "native" includes any member from neighbouring countries in a radius equalling the distance to the centre of the earth or with any evidence of commonly shared genes} and to get them to reduce another 11 to ashes.Now a note on maintaining the flight (taking off is relatively easier). This will require another 11 {extensible to 14 over a period of 90 to 120/150 minutes} with one Scandinavian native on the side with fluctuating domestic life. To sustain flight altitude, they will need to get a leg past assorted men in blue, yellow and the rest of the colours of the rainbow. {NOTE: They must do this in the finals of the Finals}
It is very easy to land back on earth {the thud-degree depends on the amount of "hype" factor generated towards the end of flight}. We shall describe one such mechanism here. For flights in late June/early July, add any number of men/women/boys/girls/toddlers in white, on a fading green background {NOTE: To economise, simply fetch a person with the first name of "Tim"}. The landing can be delayed, but not avoided.
Thus ends our primer into what passengers affectionately call the "Swine Airline". We hope you have a pleasurable flight on the Oink 747s."
Kaalaa akshar bhai.ns baraabar?
I'm sure Punekars would agree that the last 12 months have probably been the worst in terms of civic life in recent memory. Three essentials went bust at some point or other: water, electricity and roads [in case of the latter, well, the old joke about astronauts practising Moonwalks is still applicable].What are the reasons? I don't know for sure. But I'd guess that it'd include "more people", "more vehicles" and "more blinkers". Tell me this: how can a civic body sanction three multi-storeyed buildings on a road like Senapati Bapat road which is sure to add about 1000 daily users to that area (they're mainly commercial/office complexes). The road is already saturated, so unless they're building subways or have a chopper service, I don't know how even a worm can move on that road. The head hurts just thinking about it.
My question is: how deep buried in the sands of neglect and internecine politics can civic bodies be to not notice similar signs in other cities and in their own? Has anybody tried to study the effects of extreme chronic water shortage in Madras, of power cuts and road problems in Bangalore and elsewhere? Heck, it was hard to figure out that all the excavation along University Road was for a flyover and not for T-Rex remains - not even a board came up (atleast the ones in Mumnbai had the courtesy to apologise, whatever little comfort that was).
So why not consider introducing CNG (or whatever alternative) following the lead of Delhi>? Why wait for the problem to get out of hand before making silly short-term panacea measures.
I'm really keen to see what happens in a place like Bangalore - but will Pune learn from anything that happens there? Frankly, Pune's just been exposed as a bit of an upstart, a one-hit wonder whose feted climate has been crippled by the pollution, whose roads have dissolved into gravel at the first downpour and never had any width to begin with to handle the explosion, and whose civic fathers are from one of those mawwkish TV serials where all they can do is abandon their responsibilities.
Is this even a price to consider paying for being an IT hub?
Cribsheet
* The fact that I hardly saw even 100 deliveries in one of the great Test series in modern times. And missed Shane Warne busting his guts out for his team, desperate to leave on the same note in the same place that heralded him into the world of cricket. [It's good in a way that not too many people here seem to be following the Ashes - otherwise I'd feel the pinch even more]* That Star World has waited until I've moved into a non-Star World zone to get Seinfeld on its channel.
* That I'm missing what is likely to be a glorious year of Pune quizzing [methinks getting close to that year of 2000-01 and probably even touch the heights of 1998-99]
The coolest GaNapati in these parts...
[Click to enlarge]
{Put together by some really enthusiastic people here at KReSIT. I lent a tiny hand to proceedings as can be
evinced from the S-t r e - t - c - - h...}
