The (already forgotten) music of Haal-e-Dil

Perhaps the fates that govern the musical birthchart of Vishal Bhardwaj ordain that several of his works are intended to be criminally under-heard. A more earthly reason for hardly anyone noticing the music of "Haal-e-Dil" could be attributed to it being an under-promoted film featuring a bunch of not-so interesting newcomers in an average script. This album is also one of those multi-composer efforts, featuring Raghav Sachar, Pritam, and Anand Raj Anand in addition to Vishal.

(I'll restrict myself to Vishal's double-header in this post, but a brief review of the album can be seen at Karthik's MilliBlog.)

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan re-appears in a Vishal song after that superbly rendered cautionary ode to love in "Omkara". "Haal-e-dil" begins with what sounded to my untrained ears as the digderidoo (perhaps just some electronic consort), and fits into the category of songs usually classified as "soulful". Also featuring the backing vocals of Shreya Ghoshal, the song is melodious and measured, with a hint of a Sufi influence. Typically for Vishal, the arrangements are interesting with a couple of eclectic interludes (is that a mandolin we hear in the middle, or just a guitar?). With Rahat leading the way, the elements of the song come together wonderfully.

The other Vishal credit on this album is a reprise of the title song, by Rekha Bhardwaj. It's a more modern, rock-ish version, rendered in characteristic fashion by the talented missus who can zig-zag the registers nicely. It does come in second to the Rahat version, but these Munna Dhiman lyrics (also a variation of the other song) are perhaps a touch better here ("tere kohre me.n dhuup ban ke kho jaau.n"). And there's some nice guitar backing all through.

In all, a cameo by Vishal and gang which, though it won't set any cash registers or weekly top 10s ringing, is worth a devoting a quiet moment or two if you can catch it.

(Crossposted at the Vishal blog.)

Why 'Aamir' Can't

Rajkumar Gupta's Aamir came in for much praise in some reviews (like this one), which was great to hear. However, the flaws in the story and narrative blunted my own reception of the movie. Since this post will touch upon the ending, consider the post as spoiler-enabled, so you should not read ahead if you are still to watch it (which you probably should, since it is technically well made and well performed).

(Instead of the usual blank spaces to reduce the inadvertent-spoiler-sighting, here's some mindless trivia that resulted from the movie. The post resumes after this.)

Towards the end of the movie, I noticed an actor who looked familiar. Being interested in the lesser known world of Bollywood background fillers, I carefully read his name from the credits: Uday Chandra. I had seen a little bit of Basu Chatterjee's Baaton Baaton Mein the previous day, and I knew who this was - "Henry", who suffers in his unspoken love for Tina Munim's character. When I mentioned "Henry" to George, he said: "Oh, Mazhar Khan?". Turns out the actor formerly famous as "Abdul" was "Henry", and not my bloke! So where had I seen Uday Chandra? Another little bulb pops somewhere. I had also revisited Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro the previous week (both movies having been kindly provided by Yasho). This was Duryodhana! (behind the moustache and ab drama mujhe hii sambhaalnaa hogaa).

It turns out that Uday Chandra has appeared in several films by Vidhu Vinod Chopra (a co-JBDY associate), and some may even recall him in Mission Kashmir. It also turns out that he dropped out of IIT, took up music and acting, went to FTII, acted as Saigal in a play, learns music from a guru in Pune. Even the most )seemingly innocent) inhabitant of screen space can have an interesting tale to tell.

Back to Aamir. Many reviews (example) have pointed out several aspects of the story that end up distracting from the positives. In addition, mid-way, the pace of the film becomes sluggish, which is sad for a film that is just 90 minutes long. More than the puzzling choice of reluctant bomber, the ending was less than satisfying. Aamir wants to prove that he can impose his own will even in such constricting circumstances (viewers will recall the opening lines of the film), but why should that choice be clutching the case as it blew to smitheerens? Leading upto that moment, the (astute) viewer will already have begun to consider possible endings. Such as:

One, Aamir succumbs and lets the bus be blown up.
Two, he becomes the "hero" (the moral 'hero', mind you) and saves others, while blowing himself up.
Third (most unlikely, given what we had already seen), he becomes the 'filmy hero' and turns the tables on the anonymous menace.
Or even Four (sort of a MacGuffin), where there is indeed no bomb, and this is one big scare by Gajraj Rao's character to sensitise the secularised professional to the pressing needs of the community, to whose plight he has been awakened to.

IMO, Options 1 and 4 need a lot of guts to write in and present. Option 2 is the easy way out, and though it sustains drama, it does not achieve anything beyond perhaps some sympathy for the now wasted life of Aamir. 4 would have been very interesting. Though it may seem sort of like a "it was all a dream" cop-out, but it would have had the advantages of tying in a positive slant and importantly, also avoiding a slightly dangerous side-effect. The way the narrative pans out, so many people are involved in the bombing conspiracy. A PCO operator, several hoteliers and waiters, hoodlums, not so innocent gawkers (and there's a lot of gawking in this movie) - it's as if the entire "qaum" was in on it. Is that the impression the makers wanted to leave us with?

Personally, I would have liked to see Option 1: Aamir puts his family above lots of people he's never met before, underlining the helplessness that permeates the movie. That would have presented a much more compelling dilemma than what we ended up with, which left us focusing on exactly why anyone so ruthless as the dark mastermind would run a risky operation as strategic as any of Adenoid Hynkel's.

Several years ago, I watched a televised short story where Shekhar Kapur played the role of an avaricious executive who is visited by a "Yaksha". This figure makes him an offer, which Kapur's character feels unable to refuse. The offer was: I'll pay you an immense amount of money. If you accept, as a consequence, somewhere someone will die. You won't even know who that was. Do you accept? Kapur accepts and this leads to a lot of soul-searching. Unlike this story, Aamir never hits the highs in dealing with such possible moral complications. Which is why we are left discussing what Aamir could have been.

A Poet Is Cornered

There was a baker named Roger
They said he baked by magic
He served up golden bagels
And many a brown breadstick

He thought they were quite sweet
His customers begged to differ
"Your produce is beautiful", they said
"But God! it tastes so bitter"

"Moo!" said Roger
in his white jacket
"I score great music here"
"not an infernal racket"

And then came Paris where
Some Muscles from Mallorca
Dished out his own dough
It was called A Special Rafa

"'The bagel's acerbic", said Roger
"The breadstick too, I'll pass"
"My medicine doesn't taste too well"
"Should I try eating some grass?"

Roger Federer, ATP artist, can still write better on-court poetry than I can with words. But of late, the symphonies have been unfinished and the notes have jarred. Now, I don't think this is the beginning of some long-term decline, for we're still talking about a World No. 1 who made the finals of the last three most important tournaments on his least favourite surface. But it's the manner of the approach (literally) that should send a twitter down some Swiss shoulders.

Nadal's come back strongly from injury; Djokovic's been tracking the top two with the intensity of a Serbian Defensive Dog - these you would expect. What you wouldn't expect is how certain aspects of Federer's game have become entangled with the mind, which at times, just seems to be milking Alpine cows.

The mind as mental barrier
In Fredric Brown's short story "Arena", the central character (Carson) finds himself fighting an alien being - one who wins will guarantee victory of his species. But neither can get to each other: they are separated by am invisible barrier that turns out to be purely a mental creation, one that the conscious mind cannot get through. It's an apt metaphor for Roger Federer's problems at the tennis net.

At the more visible barrier, he's fumbled. He's smashed and caressed balls into the wires. He approaches the tape with all the enthusiasm of a lamb to the slaughter. Even against the likes of the lowly Monfils, he was visibly reluctant to surge ahead. Cerberus guarding the doors of hell would have been easier to get by.

At any rate, this presents a challenge worthy of a champion. If and how Federer does tame these devils will be worth watching. Like Carson, it'll involve both sweat and creativity. Surely, the memory of that bitter breadstick and bagel at this year's Roland Garros final should keep him piqued.

No Moss

A beer-swilling A.R.Rahman who used to "talk nonstop"? Glimpses in perhaps _the_ definitive Rahman interview. Here's the feature by Baradwaj Rangan.

The Continuum

I had never heard of a musical instrument called The Continuum until A.R.Rahman mentioned it in a recent interview.

From what I could read, it's sort of a continuous keyboard which should help glides, mii.nds, gamakas. More info on the Wikipedia page or articles from the Dept. of ECE, UIUC website such as this one.

Linky Pinky Ponky

If you didn't already know (I didn't until Santosh pointed to it), Ram Gopal Varma is blogging. What's good about it is that the font size is readable and there are challenge-responses such as the following:

13. Your films like AAG, Nishabd scared me and I don’t want to watch your films anymore.
Ans: Thanks

Roger Ebert is journalling here.

Help Firefox (v3.0 coming up) create a world record.

Mulva is not just a famous typo (a la Moops). George just got the wrong person.

Dot, dot - who's there?

Ever notice how a lot of people (especially Indian neti-jans) seem to use a lot of ellipses in casual text? (passing aside: commentary applies to only those who are textually active).

I mean sentences like these:

umm the colour combo is great. black and green.....
if you fix the terrible things above it will be good....

In fact, it's more than the average three act ellipsis. You see a lot of mutant dot trails, leading to what I call 'comet sentences'. And in cases such as

the width need to be increased....too small....include some letters.....(at the side)

the author is loath to ever decisively finish a sentence, or even let go in the middle of it. Breathlessly, he holds on to both phrases, joining them in dotted lexical forms.

Now, since I deal with text for a living, I can either rail against such punctured notation, or I can try learning to deal with it, even if with clip on nose. Following language literature, we see evidence of several such mutations on a regular basis. Our reading also tells us that many of the language styles and meanings we cling to dogmatically today would have been blasphemes from the past. Elliptical prose is perhaps the same.

What I do wonder of course, is how this started, and why many people have taken to it naturally. What is the linguistic, economic or even evolutionary advantage of doing so, assuming there is no aesthetic reason for doing so?

Exploring the music of Iruvar :: 'uDal maNNukku'

song: uDal maNNukku
recited by: Arvind Swamy

uDal maNNukku tells the tale of how Anandam (unofficially representing M.G.R. in Mani Ratnam's fictional universe) in Iruvar becomes a star. Like the previous two songs dissected so far on this blog, this poetic recital comes from within a 'mousetrap'-ed film ("Veeraprathaban"). But unlike the other two, this is the first song to carry interesting political connotations (that reach their climax in the magnificent 'aayirathil naan oruvan' song.)

Note that MGR's first success as 'hero' came in the 1947 Rajakumari, written by one M.Karunanidhi.

film context
After suffering the ignominy of seeing his first film as hero shut down due to financial trouble, Anandan has finally found new hope in a historical. This is also a good time to introduce his good friend Tamilchelvan to films. In addition to being a budding political activist, he also writes commanding prose and poetry. Given the situation by the director ("a brave Tamil revolutionary has to rescue a kidnapped 'rajakumari'"), Tamilchelvan starts to pen his lyrics. We switch to the picturised song and end with great applause and adulatory mayhem in the cinema theatres.

the music
In what is more of a recitation than a conventional song, the arrangements are extremely spare, with just a string section (violins mainly) accompanying a deep string swipe. Briefly punctuated by strong percussions and "fight" music, the staccato melody returns with choral accompaniment. This provides a perfectly belligerent mood to the on-screen action.

I don't think the music references any work of that period, and in that sense is quite different from the other songs in the album which at their core had elements reflecting the times.

the playback
Perhaps the kindest explanation of why Arvind Swamy provides the voice for this song (and another lyrical narration later) is that Mani Ratnam saw him as some sort of lucky mascot, what with both of his previous Ratnam appearances turning into hits. Swamy's diction is poor in places (jarring for a song that significantly extols Tamil chauvinism via its lyrics) and his voice tends to get hoarse at the end. Perhaps lyricist Vairamuthu could have taken the mantle upon himself for these songs?

the lyrics
Though the music does not seem to make any explicit allusions to the age, this is not the case with the lyrics. The lines "uDal maNNukku, uyir tamizhukku" (body for the Tamil soil, life for Tamil itself) was a major clarion call during the 60s. The DMK used it as a rallying phrase in their anti-Hindi protests, so this is a politically loaded phrase. The rest of the lyrics invoke an ominous gravity through the choice of words, a hallmark of DMK writers epitomised by M. Karunanidhi.

You could, therefore, interpret the song as an example of how the politically active film-men of the times wrote with two objectives in mind: one, meeting the ostensible goals of the screenplay, but importantly, two, of creating material that would have a life outside the theatre. Each chant in this song invokes Tamil pride and the determination of those 'revolutionaries' who thought themselves as its protectors in the face of the northern imposition.

the picturisation
The song presents several set-pieces from the historical movies of those times: horseback hero wielding cutlasses fighting off enemy soldiers; sceneries involving chains and bells and ropes; the hapless belle waiting to be rescued; stylised fighting (we saw this right upto the nineties!). In B&W, this song introduces Ramani (Gowthami) in the film, ending with the leads being overwhelmed by the huge reaction of the crowds to what has become a massive hit. Anandan is now a bona fide star.

Useful references
1. The chapter on The Anti-Hindi Agitation in Vaasanthi's book "Cut-outs, Caste and Cine Stars"
2. I can't seem to find any lyrics online

Next post: 'Hello, Mr. Ethirkatchi'
Previous post: 'Poo KoDiyin Punnagai'

Mahaquizzer - results update

The Mahaquizzer 2008 results were finally released a couple of days ago. Doing better than expected on the overall rankings, I halved my 2007 ranking to end at 11.

Any resulting euphoria can be tempered by the facts that 6 other city winners finished above me and the winner (Arul Mani) was 30 points in front of me!

Annus Blogus -VI

This blog turned six this week. A selection of posts from the last year.

re- tri- Bard watching al- aur al- anal-retenti-

-ctoriana -rtuoso -gnettes -cissitudinal -treous humour -erd? -bretto: poetry that makes your insides strong -eux jeu -zardly: everything is a mask -rescence -ctor ludorum -sitation -al -shal -daa -daa -ist -ntage homage -dimus needed -sionary loved this one -gil, The will, vi will rock you -scidity -ncibility -scosity -jay speaks -ew point, (silly) -shay kaay hotaa? -tuperation

-va!

In previous years:
2007 was the empty post, 2006 was the embedded image post, 2005 was the handwritten post, 2004 was the nadsat post, 2003 was the boustrophedon post, 2002 was the first post.

Normal Service Resumes

Ricky Ponting scores a 100. Michael Hussey and Andrew Symonds take a routine stroll past 50. English cricketers complained of missing heartbeats when they heard this.

Manchester United won. Ronaldo didn't do much in a big final. Drogba behaved himself.

The French Open has begun. In the Hamburg Masters last week, Rafael Nadal imposes his will on Roger Federer despite being 1-5 down in the first set and with barely a right leg to stand on. Tennis should have draws.

Amitabh Bachchan, script kiddie

Or MySQL pro.

The Big B-logger kindly posts a list of people who have commented on his blog. It's a simple but very kind gesture to ack everyone so far, earning even more karmic brownie points. Thanks to the wonders of Wordpress and other blog-friendly modules, someone, acting on behalf of the man, pulled the names out.

Of course, as some of the more suspicious of you may find out, a certain name beginning from R appears in that list. I'm hardly a gushing fan of anything (perhaps save "Jonathan Creek"), but I will admit a great admiration for Amitabh's blog. Since you probably won't bother looking for that comment, let me say that it was about language and recommended a nice book on the topic. If you see "The Language Instinct" appear fleetingly somewhere in "Shoebite", let me know.

Mahaquizzer 2008

The fact that I got 18 points more than last year clearly indicates that this year's Mahaquizzer was easier than last time's. In addition, the questions were less verbose and seemed to have a wider scope of topics. Still, I have a grudging soft corner for the tough sets of the last two years.

Anyway, still continued to forget to guess a couple of answers, picked the wrong option from a choice of two, overwrote answers that would later turn out to be right. I ended up with 68 which enabled me to finish on top in Pune (I think the others are still underperforming severely). But at the end, it was the same old gripes: could have easily got about 5 more (conveniently forgetting the 5 lucky ones that came off).

The only major criticism I had about the questions were that many of the 'workable' questions were 'workable' only due to etymological clues. I don't mind these, but I think this fits into the general observation (Harish concurred) that using etymology ends up being the easiest way to make a question 'workable'. Question 34 (the one about the 'ascertained facts') was a beautifully crafted exception to this, throwing in a bunch of sledgehammer clues with a peach of a subtle one.

Anyway, overall, it was an enjoyable quiz (at least many of the Pune quizzers said so). The fact that close to 400 quiz-geeks (and some from England as well!) took part says something for the popularity and scale of the quiz. Well done, KQA.

Oh, and we're still waiting for the official results to come in.

Flash of brilliance

How to light up houses in places where electricity is infrequent? Parvathi Menon observes an ingenious solution emerging from the darkness.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy: Live

I happened to watch Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani, and Loy Mendonsa perform live a couple of months ago. Since it was a private function and not all that crowded, I managed to get closer to the action than would have otherwise been possible. It was a terrific performance. I've seen small live performances of Shankar Mahadevan before, but they have been classical and fusion-oriented. In contrast, this concert consisted of only film songs, almost all composed by S-E-L.

In particular, I wanted to observe Ehsaan's work, having been fascinated by some of his strumming I've seen on TV during interviews. He was very good, in particular some of the spontaneous riffs. Shankar looks after the stage elan bit for the group. One could see the difference in how he could mould the audience mood, especially in contrast to some of the younger singers accompanying the trio. BTW, these were Raman Mahadevan ("kholo kholo darwaaze" - Taare Zameen Par), Akruti Kakkar (the title song in Johnny Gaddar), and a third lady about whom I only remember that it was her birthday that day. It was pretty good to see the younger performers being promoted, including some very young musicians, including a keyboardist and a percussionist.

S-E-L played many of their hit songs, ranging from Taare Zameen Par to Jhoom Barabar Jhoom to Kyun! Ho Gaya Naa. I was hoping for some elements from their jazz backgrounds, and wasn't disappointed when they improvised (or so it seemed!) jazz version of some of the interludes in the song "Dil Chahta Hai". That, and Shankar's hit song from Aga Bai Arrecha, were the highlights of the night for me.

In short, if you get a chance to hear them live, go for it.

George has a post with some more links to Ehsaan Noorani on the web.

The same old new story?

Movie trailers of Love Story 2050, Harry Baweja's pater-powered launch vehicle for son 'Everyman' are playing these days. Billed as a 'sci-fi romance', it's not too surprising to see Bollywood's idea of the near future being heaving influenced by Spielbergian visions. If the images are anything to go by, we can already tick off Minority Report (aerial cars), Bicentennial Man (helpful robots), and the pinkest of them all, AI: Artificial Intelligence (furry teddy bears that could perhaps last the length of a summer blockbuster), not to mention Back to the Future (goofy temporally-challenging professor). When will someone from Bollywood evolve their own unique and rooted imagination of the future? Shekhar Kapur's Paani promises (promised?) to be that, but his projects contain more vapourware than the average Vicks Vaporub commercial. So hopefully, this movie can at least break some ground, however shallow, paving the way for greater works in the future (by 2050?). At any rate, one must applaud the unfailing optimism of the average Bollywood filmmaker. If their sunniness is anything to go by, Bombay will definitely not suffer from a power crisis in 40 years time and we will have enough fuel to cut lanes at 50 feet above sea level. After all, When Love Is Eternal Even God Bends His Rules. And that's the inconvenient truth.

Love Story 2050: 108 years later, love is not yet extinct

Bol Bachchan

He's good. Amitabh Bachchan has been blogging for almost a month, and as noted by one very devoted fan¹, he writes well. But more importantly for a celeblogger, the opinions seem to flow straight from those long fingers (via a Macbook). The punches that would sweep aside life members of Bollywood's Hall of Shame on screen aren't being held back.

The timing was interesting. AB has been in the news for much of this year², and crucially, much of it has been aimed at him personally or has just been obnoxious³. The feeling of 'being used', especially by the media, perhaps tipped over a pain threshold. It's a different thing that the same media has now switched to using the blog and its posts as fodder, but at least followers of the actor can cut the middlemen out. For a man protecting his dignity and his family, not to mention his 'brand', this is an astute move.

Not just 'shanivaar ki raat Amitabh ke saath'
More than the intensity, the frequency of the posts has come as a surprise. There is usually one entry each day (typically overnight), and sometimes follow-ups. The posts have occasionally slipped into overly sensitive refutations at times. But Amitabh is at his best when dipping into old memories, recalling his esteemed father, or providing mundane minutiae about a profession that I have always considered to be one of the most boring in terms of daily routine.

Footnotes:
[1] We do wonder if the fan got a response to his comment?
[2] A spike on Google Trends confirms this.
[3] The notorious Aaj Tak Amitabh Bachchan ko tha.Nd lagii 'Breaking News'.

As the week winds up...

(observation: one can't say 'week winds up' to mean the opposite of 'week winds down')

The rate at which umpires are being suspended in the IPL, the final will probably have to lapse into a convention that informal matches use: asking for the batting side to loan a player as umpire. That could enable the talismanic Shane Warne to add 'umpire' to his list of roles (yes, I'm hoping the Royals will be in the final :-))

Thanks to John Arne Riise, I know which team I'll be supporting for in the final of the 2007-08 Champions League. More specifically, to his almost phantom right leg which in of even lesser use than the phrase "hard luck" is to Harbhajan Singh. Still, it was a fabulous match (as was the Man Utd v Barca game, where Messi purred without gaining any milk or mice), and so my dream football season continues. There's two nervous legs of EPL to go, the FA Cup final without the toffs to spoil it, and the Champions League. Like everyone, let me make the joke about Chelsea playing that final at home. Wonder what The Special One thinks about this late injection of luck in Chelsea fortunes despite his absence.

Description of the year: "Silky Sloth" (Ted Corbett about Inzamam ul-Haq).

Last week's Sportstar reports that the recently concluded Asian Beach Volleyball championships used 'blonde cheerleaders' (sans the outrage, of course). If, like the American Dialect Society, we voted words of the year, 'cheerleader' would be heading the leaderboard for the 2008 contest. (A good indication of the lexical zeitgeist comes from team names at quizzes, and I'm sure 'cheerleaders' will feature in some of them this year).

The intersection of Vishal and Rahman

[If you are a fan of Vishal Bhardwaj and haven't already noticed, we have a little blog that aims to quietly chronicle some of the news and reviews involving works of that dimunitive but exciting filmmaker - updates can be seen on the side bar of this blog.]

A.R.Rahman and Vishal Bhardwaj are probably my two most favourite film music directors at the moment, but apart from the likes of Gulzar, I cannot think of their social worlds having overlapped in any significant way. (Musically, they share much in common: a certain originality, an unconventional spirit, an ability to traverse regions and moods, the courage to mix a bass guitar with a sitar.)

Which is why I was very interested to read that Rekha Bhardwaj, Vishal's wife, has sung for Rahman in his upcoming Dilli 6. In the film world, Rekha, to my mind, is a lot like Vishal: hugely underrated and hugely under-feted. I have been a fan of hers ever since I first heard her in Maqbool ('rone do, jiyaa kare'). Compare that voice and aspect with her songs in Omkara ('namak', 'laakaD jal ke') and No Smoking ('phuu.nk de'). Her capacities for modulation and voice are outstanding. Rahman's songsheets, which have seen an incredibly wide range of singers, add one more songbird to their notes.

Remembering Minal Panchal

I never met Minal Panchal. Regretfully, I only heard about her when this happened. It doesn't matter. Minal, whom I've never known, except via the outpourings of people who are also strangers to me, continues to affect me in ways that many near ones never will.

She was a year younger, and that hurt. That she was on a popular social networking site, sketched out in almost three-dimensions, made her more than a bystander in an avoidable tragedy. From what people said I can imagine someone, infinitely more enthusiastic about life than I will ever be, looking forward to classes, to learning, to adventures of the future, of life-changing events. Cut short abruptly. No fault of hers. Wrong place, wrong time. You can rail about unfairness, but it won't help. You can say 'that sucks' - nope, makes no difference. We've got to trudge on. We'll falter too.

In the 10%x zoom of time, we are fairly insignificant beings, most of us, just happened to be put together for a briefest of jiffies. Whether ember or diamond, star or firefly, we have a chance to shine, even if at sub-lux levels. Some of us extinguish early, sometimes due to no fault of our own. Don't wait too long to sparkle.

* Sepia Mutiny remembered Minal in the aftermath last year.
* As did Minal's former classmate.
* Prof. Loganathan too.
* This year, Minal's family hopes for a fitting tribute by way of a museum for children.

May Open Quizzes by the BCQC

Quizzing in these parts never seems to go away. We have two more quizzes coming up on Sunday. First, Niranjan will be presenting a unique Visuals-only quiz, perhaps in riposte to all those quizzes that have celebrated verbosity. It'll be a relief not having to parse metre-long sentences, I can tell you. This is to be followed by a quiz by Abhishek and Aditya, who seem to have quite a few tricks up their sleeves for this offering. They even plan to have an audience-only quiz and a contest for best questions.

Not to mention lots of bookstore vouchers, a few pen drives, friendly banter, and gimlet-like comments. Here're all the details.

Dare to Bare

"How We're Wrecking Our Feet..." is an interesting article which cites studies and sources to indicate that a life without footwear might actually be the kindest thing one could do for one's feet would be to let them as open as nature intended them. But be warned that it does forlornly conclude that it's unlikely that most of us will chuck our slippers out of the window any soon.

What I didn't quite know until I read the article is that Podiatry Management is an extremely serious vocation for many and that someone has actually written a book on the history of walking. So if you're thinking what to get M.F.Hussain for his next birthday...

Bertie, the toothless Beast, and the Raves

Bertie and the Beast
In "The Code of the Woosters" by P.G.Wodehouse, Bertie Wooster encounters an unusually confident and strident Gussie Fink Nottle. The newtophile was traditionally the most diffident male in all recorded history, in whom bravado could only be artificially injected via heavily spiked orange juice. Eventually Bertie wheedles out the secret of Gussie's newly acquired spine, finding a rather brilliant stratagem from Jeeves behind it all: Gussie has been surreptitiously maintaining a notebook filled with bold observations about those who would otherwise have caused his knees to knock and melt. For instance, his father-in-law-to-be's soup-slurping skills remind him of the Scottish Express rushing through a tunnel. This drains the enemy of his villainous aura reducing him to a life lower than a debauched salamander, allowing the fish-faced friend to become the 'bossee', so much so that Gussie could emasculate that black-shorted gorilla Roderick Spode as a perfect perisher in footer bags.

Now, the reason why I invoked the honourable Plum is because I have a sneaking feeling that that once obnoxious trundler Sreesanth may have been similarly Roderick-ed. If you are going to strut about providing code-violating malayaalee-accented snorts at your opposition, you cannot be seen to be sobbing as if someone swapped your multi-coloured flannels for Binny shorts. Sreesanth, poor fellow, has defanged himself for life. Anyone who has seen that sorry sight will never ever be able to take a Sreesanth sledge seriously. Even Andre Nel must have been embarassed.

More seriously, I agree almost entirely with Jayaditya Gupta's analysis of the darwaazaa-e-thappaD. This was on the cards and the BCCI is a little lucky that only Indians were involved. Anyone who saw how the under-19 players went about their business a couple of months ago would noted the bad (but condoned) habits of the senior team having rubbed off on them (that some of the juniors were probably seniors themselves is a different but equally disturbing matter).

Shane on you
My IPL viewing depends mainly on whether one person's involved, a certain Shane Warne. On display are the full range of skills - bowling, batting, strategy, and captaincy. It's an absolute treat to watch. I'm sincerely grateful to the IPL for allowing me to watch a little bit of Warne each week. Harish and Aniket would approve.

The shock at the end of the wire
And Aditya Gadre would approve of how much I have followed international club football in the last three months. Each week's EPL has thrown up corkers of matches. Saturday's results were perfect for a neutral. Now, I'd like Man Utd. to go back and claim what is theirs. But for the Champions League (I have dragged myself through part of the night for this as well!), as long as Chelsea lose, I don't care. But a little more of Messi would be nice to see.

Roulette-coaster
And to round off this sports-crazy post, the tennis status quo briefly asserts itself this week, with Federer and Nadal returning for their annual date at the final at Monte Carlo. You know it's been a strange year for Federer when the only title win of the year has been on clay, and it's already April. But he wouldn't quite complain if the topsy-turviness results in wins at Roland Garros and at Beijing - the two most important crowns missing in what must be a massive mantelpiece in his Basel chalet.

Footnote: I was trying to look for some images of the weeping Sreesanth but found it interesting that Google Images turned up nothing. The restrictive media norms by the IPL seem to have resulted in this, so Mr. Modi - your diktat is working!

Yaara da spotlight

I see a revival of interest in an old post of mine because then, as now, the word 'tashan' was briefly in vogue thanks to one of those cheeky Coca Cola ads featuring Aamir Khan (see storyboard here), complete with tune from "Naya Daur". The ad was so popular that it was even spoofed for Mirinda in a Tamil ad!

So if you're wondering, as I was then, what "Tashan" really means, then some help in this post. However, one worries that a film that I'm likely "to shun" is going to wipe out memories of that really cool (or let's say "thanda") ad.

Chandamama, circa 2008

The relaunched Chandamama is finally up and running.

Nadir Shah-stri

Ravi Shastri during commentary in the IPL match this recent Sunday:

That ball spun and bounced like a spitting cobra!

If a cobra could do that, it should be in the ballet :-)

Gaudy, Gaudy Nights

I am perhaps the person Lalit Modi's mom told him to beware of in life: sceptical to the point of cynicism, immune to his well-coffered slick Bollywoodised charms, perhaps just unreasonably biased against messiahs like him. But shrewd man that he is, he would have realised in a jiffy that the yelps from my kind can be easily disregarded :-). Anyway, we both must do what we must, and I must present the following annoyances about the recently rocket-launched Indian Premier League.

Branding So far, the franchises seem to be a branding fiasco. For an event of this size and depth, most of the team names have shown an appalling lack of creativity, typified by the defaulting of two teams to "Kings". Much of the livery seems straight out of a Warhol-Govinda joint venture and the batsmen of the Kolkata Knightriders in particular look as if King Midas ran amok and couldn't keep his hands to himself. Combine it with a fairly tacky TV production and you sometimes wish the floodlights would go out more often. What is also surprising is the inability of marketers to provide a local identity for the teams, given the putative city associations. Even hockey's PHL managed to do a better job, if only with the team names.

Moderation Though to expect any form of moderation in this event is as naive as expecting Ranjeet-of-the-movies to voluntarily ask the hero's sister to tie him a rakhi. All the investors have pumped in money times-multiple in the hope of making it back over a period of time, so it was inevitable that they'd go over the top wooing the cash home. In particular, this leads to an extremely uncomfortable TV viewing experience, with overs snipped off and virtually no time to see the next batsman trot up or to watch what the captains are trying to do. The ads crowding the screen real estate would embarass the local cablewallahs. Why aren't we ever able to strike an efficient balance between class and crass? The tragedy is that the silent viewing millions can be taken for granted. It's a shocker.

The lack of moderation is also evident in the almost frenzied insistence by all commentators and public figures involved that the event "rocks". Also, I find the relentless nature of the games (almost one each day) to be way too much. I'd have found it easier to whip up enthusiasm for a spaced out schedule leading upto big weekend games. The league, otherwise, is in danger of being one big blur over a duration that came in for criticism in a World Cup only last year.

The English news channels have devoted a large chunk of their daily coverage to covering such breaking news items such as the fall of the eight wicket. Lessons of ratio and proportion were last seen only in the 8th standard arithmetics textbook.

Differentiation If you leave aside the cosmopolitan squads, what's different about the cricket being played? I couldn't tell the difference between any ordinary one dayer or T20 match and these IPL matches. It hasn't quite revolutionised the game by itself - the only attempts at 'innovations' are in the marketing. Therefore, the cricket isn't compelling by itself. In addition to my favourite peeve about the fragmented TV coverage, I find myself drifting off very easily. An engrossing football match in comparison keeps you glued, because the action is seamless and momentum shifts can be engineered in seconds. The 4 minute over is a boon to advertisers, but the speed of the game on the field still does not translate well to the living room, with the content being 'filtered' so poorly.

Another reason why the IPL seems all too familiar is because the same band of bumbling commentators can be heard on the air. From Rameez Raja to Ranjit Fernando, it's the same pack of tired cliches and retired insights. The best of the lot seems to be the Zimbabwean Pommie Mbangwa who though mundane, can at least generate some zeal periodically.

What I've also realised that the game desperately needs to maintain its bag of contrasts: the true worth of an Andrew Symonds' muscular hitting can be realised only when set against a Katich driving down the ground; one can appreciate a fighting innings from Dravid only when Sehwag has been unable to stay alive on that spiteful pitch. For everything to disappear over long stop is to paint a picture only in greyscale.

Independent Voices And then there are the likes of the omnipresent Gavaskar and Shastri who seem to be doing everything in the IPL baaraat from organising to commentary to firefighting. The fact that almost everyone we hear opinions from is associated in some way or the other with the IPL hasn't been highlighted very prominently (read this cogent article by Ashok Malik on the topic). That many of these commentators now work directly for the BCCI can be seen to seriously compromise any objectivity they need to bring to their coverage. This may be selective memory, but I couldn't not recall hearing any expressions of shock about that beach of an Eden Gardens pitch by any of the commentators during the match.

It also doesn't augur well that over the last couple of years, Hindi and English news channels have completed some kind of self-identification exercise with cricket: witness the liberal use of "we" and "us" in referring to the Indian team. Granted that the IPL indeed is an event of gargantuan proportions, but what causes unease is a lack of all-round objective scepticism. (As an aside, I have been watching Marathi news channels these days to get my daily dose of news, and would heartily recommend them for old-fashioned current affairs).

All this said, in all fairness, there have been several good points so far: seeing McGrath land his very first ball on the spot, Shane Warne today, the chance to hear about and see the likes of Ojha, Saha, Dinda as well as some of the lesser-known Aussies, to name a few. I do not know if the razzmatazz has at least made proceedings interesting to the spectators at the grounds (perhaps some of these fellows will be able to tell me next week). Perhaps if you could simmer in those three hours without having to repeatedly watch a dog lick stamps every six balls, you might have a different view. The very nature of the form of the game is that teams can also be shut out of the match too easily if the sweet spot (from the audience's pov) of 150-180 runs isn't reached in the first innings. However, from an economic and sociological point of view, the IPL is immensely interesting.

And finally, ever notice how this is turning out to be quite a decade for Modis? You can't guarantee anything in sport or politics, but so far their brand of heavily engineered change, fuelled by self-importance, is on the ascendancy.

Shortness of breadth

Of narrow interests at home.

Green with disgust

Perhaps they couldn't wait any longer for the IPL. Perhaps they just wanted to get the hell out of Kanpur. Whatever the reasons, the Kanpur pitch allowed India and South Africa to finish their final Test of their recently concluded Test Series in a hurry. However, it wasn't a blink-and-miss affair, and surprisingly turned out to be an interesting match. What I'm not sure is that if anyone really cared about it.

Blame it on the looming spectre of the IPL, whose bosses are firefighting the colossally idiotic decision in restricting how the media can cover the event (more on that later). I did not get NEO (the sports channel which currently owns rights to domestic Test Series) for a while and realised that Doordarshan was not carrying the series. It is a little scary if even the local (not to mention lazily avaricious) dinosaur decides that Test cricket and its ad revenues was not worth the effort. After several years of claiming rights by 'national interest' fatwa, is this a sign of Test cricket dropping down the gutter in a country that claims to now be the biggest shareholder in the game?

As a result, personally, the series seemed to be akin to an umpteenth lunar landing: distant, with enthusiasm having waned, and all the fuss about the surface. Though no memorable (or printable) words must have come out of Graeme Smith's mouth on visiting the middle on the opening day. That said, he must have been relieved not to have sunk in the dust.

The problem is not quite that we shouldn't be having such pitches to play on. It's that each time India trails in a Test series, it has to pull out the powdery nasties from the backshelf, or so it seems. Add to it this completely inappropriate gesture of the debutant home captain sending greetings and money to the pitch curator. Collusion or not, this habit (for I have heard of such 'rewards' in the past) completely undermines the excellent survivorship exhibited by the likes of Ganguly. One is left with a reeking smell of distaste emanating from an already sullied set of team whites.

Why the IPL exists

This blog must admit to a similar distate to IPL Czar Lalit Modi and his methods. At a time when he should be doing all that he can to get everyone (except perhaps Subhash Chandra) on his side, he comes up with these ridiculous media terms. Non-print websites seem to be the hardest hit (see Sambit Bal's latest). It's a pity that some of these agencies are merely protesting when a coordinated boycott would have been sweeter. It's a battle of competing clouts and eventually they will get into the same bed (it would be bad business if they didn't) - it's just a question of how much protection they can agree to.

Nothing the IPL has done so far has pointed out to having any regard for the common paying audience member, and seems to have been born only to further inflate the BCCI's ever-deepening coffers and hubris. Hopefully stadia will at least be friendlier to the bums-on-seats than traditionally seen in India, but with the emphasis being on squeezing each pound out of the game's flesh, it's hard to be optimistic.

A tribute to weirds

In my defence, I must say my hand has been forced. This post by Abhishek asks of me what I think of Avnish's recent crusade against words.

But before that, a correction. The e-steamed Abhishek repeatedly insinuates that self and colleague are computational linguists. Charmed as I am by the honour, I must hasten to add that this is far from the truth: we are not such men of such wordly (sic) pleasures. At best, we are word-counters, miners in hard hats, wading through the lovely mess that is text. XKCD rants are slings at some of the contributors here, while we 49ers sit by the quarry and watch such warfare, wiping stems and lemmas from our brow.

Returning to Mr. Dhondge and his disgust for "lexeme", I must hasten to the defence of that poor token. For "lexeme" was never meant for the popular vocal stage. It serves a very well-defined (as Avnish's gloss amply illustrates) purpose in an academic field. One might as well poke fun at (perhaps these words resonate with Avnish's own chosen field) "thermocouple" or "autocollimator", or think poorly of "Pneumonoultramicro...". It must be said that at least, 'lexeme' - a meta-word, to give it its due - is at least worthy of appearing in a Word of the Day newsletter that seems to cause him so much distress!

Avnish may feel he has struck a blow (or at least a blog) against verbigeration, thus ushering in a golden age of brachylogy. However, isn't more the merrier? And don't forget, we always seem to need more words, and are willing to go as far as Liff to get them. You don't need a dyslexic to spell out that every word is special (except for words like 'leverage' which have been corrupted by an increasingly dissolute society).

With a "St. Pedanticaya Namah", I rest my piece in (lower) case and sign off with Word's funkiest message to creation:

You see, the whole system of the country is juxtapositioned by the haemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity!
:: Anthony Gonsalves

or alternately:

iske ##differential## me.n lafaDaa hai! gaaDii nahii.n chale.Ngaa.
:: James D'Costa

I think Shivnarine "black-eyed, please" Chanderpaul's recent achievement (he hit a six off the last ball to help the Windies win a one-dayer v Sri Lanka) has been a little underestimated. Naturally, comparisons have been made with the Miandad mauling, what with both resulting in one-wicket wins. Obviously, the Pakistani win was the greater, especially if you consider all the radioactive fall-out that one disappearing ball had on two prickly nations for several years. But Chanderpaul's feat of dispatching 10 runs off the last two balls is quite special (though one is a little surprised that CPUJC [va|w]as bowling that last over given that in recent times, Mahela J has usually bowled him out by the 40th).

There's a nice list here on last ball sixes in one-dayers. Perhaps one of the last sparkles from the dying form of the game.

Howzzat? - modes of dismissal in Mughalese

The film "Jodhaa Akbar" clears up a mystery you didn't even know existed, which goes as follows: if the Urdu phrase for dismissing your inferiors from your presence is "takhliyaa", what is the Hindi equivalent?

The answer, as practised by the likes of Suhasini Mulay in the film, is "ekaant" - a fact confirmed by my trusted Urdu dictionary which similarly defines the Urdu "takhliyaa" in English as "solitude". Perhaps it was the stentorian effect of Prithviraj Kapoor that had led me to believe "takhliyaa" was an active verb - literally, a royal "get out!". "ekaant" sounds extremely PC in comparison, and not what you want in your quiver as "ma badaulat".

Now that a sporting allusion was introduced in the title of this post, one also wonders whether the top-ranking Mughals, users of elegant languages like Persian and Urdu that they were, ever asked people to eff off. "takhliyaa, battamiiz!" should do nicely, methinks.

The prose of Simon Armitage

I don't know what Simon Armitage writes under the "Occupation" column, but most bios call him a poet. It is therefore ironic that I have hardly read any of his poetry, but have read two books of prose and have heard an adaptation of the Odyssey for the BBC.

Book one was "All Points North": non fiction and personal, rendering life in Northern England (Yorkshire, to be very specific, for they are finicky about these distinctions there, right?) in all its dry humour. This is the England of Boycott and Bird, of the Beiderbecke TV series, of James Herriot and Yorkshire Terriers. I picked it up on a whim and breezed through the tales of Armitage and family, road trips and travelling amateur troupes, of life normal and strange. It also features some samples of Armitage's poems, which I was impressed by.

Book two was "The White Stuff": fiction and funny. The Fentons want to have a child desperately, but can't. Felix (no doubt chiseled from Armitage's social worker life) discovers his wife's true origins. Their neighbour tests fireworks for a living and is occasionally thrown out of his house by his wife. As the story winds towards a conclusion, there's a lot of sadness, a little happiness, loads of wit and wisdom, some clever plotlines, and a very engaging read.

It's time to go find all that poetry he must have written if everyone keeps calling him a poet.

Link to Simon Armitage's website.

PhoNervosa

Matthew Yglesias asks why someone who is introverted would be so adverse to talking to others on the phone. As someone who is (at least to himself) a classic introvert (I've had several aha! moments reading the popular Jonathan Rauch article that Yglesias also mentions, so I think I am almost a textbook case), I can only attest to this strange phenomenon without offering any useful theories of my own.

I have trouble calling up people and speaking to them. Without doubt, I prefer emailing them. Even meeting them in person is (sometimes!) preferable. There are several theories in the comments of the above article as to why this would be such a common anxiety for introverts. Some seem feasible, some don't. Under rational scrutiny, it seems extremely silly, but I usually end up trying to get others to make calls for me which I could easily make. I sometimes have to practice what I'm going to say, though I do not necessarily lack spontaneity. It's as if each call is like preparing to ask that pretty girl out but anticipating that the burly and over-protective brute of a brother will have to be negotiated first.

When I get down to it, it's not difficult, but it's a relief when done, out of the dentist's door. Thankfully, I'm not totally neurotic and there seem to be others who face this too. Anyway, perhaps a post on life as a practising introvert some day later with special scorn served up for those extroverts around me who can't tolerate the sweet peals of silence :-).

Till then, this super quote from the comments of the afore-mentioned article:

How do you tell if a blogger is extroverted? When he talks with you, he looks at your shoes.

(though I think the popular bloggers are likely to be extroverted)

Paes Maker?

It's a strange drop volley from India's Davis Cup captain. A superhero based on Leander Paes is reportedly going to feature in a TV cartoon series, who will carry the message of an active and healthy lifestyle to children. I'm not quite convinced Paes has the stature among kids to pull this off (he's no Tendulkar or Dhoni, surely), but the intentions are undoubtedly noble.

Still, it can all get pretty interesting if it turns out that the character is called Ball Boy ("gawky ball-boy turns into shorts-wearing superhero at the call of 'Mine!'") and chest-bumps the evil forces of super-villain Patty Hesh who, along with his roguish henchmen, LightNectarine and BowBrother, manages budding tennis teens into rebellion and weak service actions. Ah, what a smash that would be!

G'mla kaa H'mla

Google's April Fool jokes can sometimes try too hard and end up tired, but this year's effort from Google Australia is quite clever and culturally relevant. G'd on you, lads.

Unpleasantries Exchanged

Having not followed any TV for the last week (I didn't miss anything!), I didn't catch any of the hullabaloo over the sordid saga of Messrs. Tanushree Dutta and Nana Patekar. But now that events have been shrilly joined by Rakhi Sawant and worryingly, Raj Thackeray, the item (pun unintended) has bubbled up the news streams. The facts of the matter depend on whose version you choose to believe, but turning this into a "pride of maharashtra" issue is convenient for the MNS to pick up.

Now, I do not wish to jump to conclusions about anybody's 'character' but it must be said that Nana Patekar doesn't always inspire a great deal of confidence in making value judgements about him. For one, this (perhaps cultivated) image of a ruffian, from some of his film roles and his general demeanour is at odds with his seemingly cultural side, seen in his deep involvement with the Vasantotsav programmes. In fact, his presence as anchor was extremely irritating during Vasantotsav this year (report by Aditya Gadre here) and overshadowed any kudos due to him for being a pillar of the organisation effort. His verbal arrows (he often 'sledged' his own side), his several bad jokes, his reclining on a sofa *on* stage during the performances by some very respected names (he was only a gajraa away from completing the ensemble) and the constant attention-seeking behaviour (he didn't know to leave the performers and the audience alone) drove me to distraction and was a blot on an otherwise fine set of musical events. So it's hard to be sympathetic.

Don't get me wrong: I don't want to mix his creative side in this. There have been several noteworthy moments in his career, not least of all, the heavily under-rewarded Ab Tak Chappan, which is among my most favourite films of all time. Perhaps we should take the easy way out and simply blame the guy who thought "Horn OK Pleassse" was a great name for a film.

The great Failure post

Previously on failing

I remember the day this post was composed (I'm merely writing it down today). I even remember the time, give or take a few minutes. I had just finished taking one of the hardest exams I had ever had the fortune to attempt. The trouble was that there still was an hour and thirty minutes to sit out. I knew I had done all I could and no amount of staring at the paper or cajoling my brain was going to help. It wasn't a question of giving up the battle. It had been a slaughter and the duty of the slain body is to lie still and let the other warriors save their heads. It was the 28th of November, 2005, and it was about 10:30 in the morning.

I did not want to leave. The simple reason was that the instructor and both TAs, having finished clarifying questions (people had questions!), had nothing to do. I did not want them to see my paper and trace it back immediately to me. It would take them one swift pass over the largely drought-hit answersheet, even before I could step out of the classroom. I resolved to stay put, to do whatever it took to pass the next excruciatingly lengthy passage of time.

Some time later, I had my own version of Edvard Munch's The Scream on my notebook. Appropriate. Stratagems evolved during concerts endured as a child bubbled up onto the surface. I counted desks, heads, books, perhaps even pixels. I drew some more. Finally, I went back to the question paper. I stared at some Gaussians. Metaphors plunged down either side of the normal curve. I realised once again that I was pretty bad at taking failure.

My classmates will tell you that I've never liked to discuss question papers at the end of an exam, sometimes vehemently so. Why spoil the rest of the day when the inevitable silly mistake bursts into view? I am not very good at participating in things that could be fun but I think I'd suck at. It crushes me to suck. That Monday, I realised I need to learn how to suck. I can't go on failing at failure.

Some two years later, I still haven't been able to fail properly. This prevents me from doing things. Being awkward, being laughed at (gently), being found out, kissing the dust. I hide away. I admire those who plunge forth and trip, but seem to get better at staying up. Most of all, I envy those who just have it; sometimes they have it all. There were times when I'd rail at the unfairness of the world that chose to hand it out to a few while we, sweat cascading out of every pore, hands on knees while we draw in long breaths, toes stuck in the mud, watch as they canter away pleasantly. It doesn't help that I find it hard to confront my failures. I look away. I cross the street and hurry into the smog. There are people and places and times that remind of battles lost, making it harder to die another day. I'm not good at amnesia either.

Still, here we are, in the bulge of the bell curve, among those claustrophobic crowds. But remember: we make the successful ones look good. If we weren't around, you couldn't make head or tail of the victory graph. Perhaps, on top of the bump, in the middle of the tracing, we can see farther than you. It's improbable that we'd get there before you, but it's not impossible, right?

There were so many ways to look at my distraught answersheet. I'm not going to say that I chose only the noble and brave option of the gallant acceptance of defeat, the resolve to fight till another sunset, to salve the scratches. The pendulum shifts from mood to mood; towels have been flung and retrieved. But one thing is clear: the game is as yet afoot. The fat lady is still a petite lass who hasn't discovered the pleasures of icecream with walnuts topped off with sinful chocolate and has just begun practising her solfege. It's only fair that we re-calculate the scores at the end of full-time.

Goin' quizzin'

This Sunday, we're organising two open quizzes: one Entertainment and the other General.

All the details here or here.

Ad Nauseam

The unnecessary knowledge of Cabbie, Cabbie

The title song from Kabhi Kabhi (the Mukesh version) is undoubtedly a classic. However, I don't quite like it all that much, simply because I don't like Mukesh's voice all that much. The repetitive refrain doesn't help matters. I give it its due respect and move on.

Until now. Whatever little admiration I had for the song is being swiftly eroded each time this new and extremely obnoxious Vodafone ad plays on the channels (it plays a lot. A lotttt.) Hearing the song through the voices of several generations of vocally challenged males has induced a reflex not unlike Pavlov's dogs, but for opposite reasons.

For when the song shall play in the future, do not be surprised if my fingers are seen pressing the air where the remote's channel switch buttons would be. The song has been ruined, totally ruined. In my frazzled opinion, this is worthy of a public interest litigation.

Obits: The Final Quarantine, The Talented Mr. Minghella, The Wronged Man

Last week was full of goodbyes, starting with cricketer Bill Brown. Here are some more.

The Final Quarantine

By the end of his life, Sir Arthur C. Clarke was reportedly losing his memory, finding comfort in the distant wisps of the past. Perhaps this was the last and most personal of all his prophecies, a prescience signalled by HAL, probably the most significant fictional character he ever created, the epitome of the anthropomorphized computer. At any rate, Arthur C. Clarke himself is in no danger of being forgotten in a hurry by the world. To me, his writings always seemed to echo the seaside that was never far away from a man who had called two islands home for 90 years - unrhurried, eternal, with visible depth, and with promises beyond the immediate horizon.

I don't have a good appetite for full length science fiction, but I immensely enjoyed both Odysseys 2010 and 2061. There still are several of his fiction novels that I haven't read. His Profiles of the Future, found in a book exhibition, lies at the back of the book cupboard, unread. For, like with other sci-fi writers, I mainly preferred Clarke's short stories, which were succint and clever. My personal favourite, one that illustrates all the collective power of Clarke's neurons and fingers, is called Quarantine. It was written as a challenge, to fit a story on a postcard. From such little acorns do mighty oaks grow, as The Sentinel may testify. Someday, the oaks fall too, but seldom before a grand life.

The Talented Mr. Minghella

Dying relatively young was film director Anthony Minghella. I didn't like his most feted work "The English Patient", but I really liked the slightly underrated "The Talented Mr. Ripley".

The Wronged Man

Whenever I saw (or see) Raghuvaran on film, I always got this feeling that the man was criminally underused as an actor, and that he knew it himself. Yes, being mostly used a 'villain', he had to make outrageous roles look believable, and had to develop menacing tones and tics to keep him in business. If Amjad Khan was the gigantic baddie, Raghuvaran would be on the other side of the body mass index see-saw, who, to be evil despite his lankiness, had to have several layers of dark. Layers that would never really be peeled back.

Raghuvaran made his debut in the 'arty' Ezhavathu Manithan (incidentally, made by a relative of mine) but soon segued into professional nastiness, especially in opposition to Rajnikanth. He was usually urban, ruffled, not shying away from underhand treachery, eyes heavy (some say this was the effect of a drug habit) and dark. The odd Anjali apart, it seemed Raghuvaran, shirt out and in tall trousers, always ended up on the wrong side of things in this unjust world, not giving in without a fight, and not without making the hero look good, just about.

Cloudy days and a Flem-matic end

Cloudy days

These are times of suspicion in international cricket, and another little thread in the dark passage of play is the attempt to ask Sunil Gavaskar to either shut up or get out of the ICC's cricket committee. Something that this blog welcomes whole-heartedly, having recommended such a separation after growing tired of the Little Master's chuntering off the pitch while being embedded in the establishment.

A Flem-matic end

Joining the rest of the mid-30s pack (a list that includes Shaun Pollock, whom I forgot last time!) is Stephen Fleming who faced his last Test match ball today. He got out in typical fashion, having similarly wafted outside the stumps a couple of times earlier in his innings. It's a regretful individual career, but a critically acclaimed and lengthy captaincy regime. Fleming didn't exactly endear himself to all with some of the nonsense he spouted from time to time, but then we must consider that this was a man, whose every word and action was towards some tactical or strategic end, intended to give his slim but fighting units every advantage he could squeeze. I can't help feeling that a more successful career as coach, in the all-encompassing Woolmer mould, beckons somewhere down the road.

RIP Bill Brown

RIP Bill Brown and Mankading

If you are a quizzer, chances are that you first heard of Bill Brown as being the man whom Vinoo Mankad famously ran out at the non-striker's while bowling but *before* finishing his delivery. This led to the curious dismissal sub-genre of being 'Mankad'-ed. Bill Brown passed away yesterday and a shower of tributes have poured since. Some of it can be read at Cricinfo. Interestingly, the dismissal was named after the bowler and not the batsman. This can possibly be attributed to the fact that some people did not think this to be an act of sportsmanship, and since the hullabaloo was in Australia, local reporters may have chosen to attach the name of the 'perpetrator' of the controversial mode of running out a batsman, instead of the Aussie batsman.

Of course, with recent rule changes, it is much harder to 'Mankad' anyone. A non-striker can now start 'backing up' (jargon for leaving the crease - a little misleading because he isn't going back!) "as soon as the bowler’s backfoot touches the ground in his final action stride." (quote from Bob Simpson's column, who disapproves of this rule). This alteration makes it even more unlikely that anyone will be 'Mankad'-ed: the bowler has even lesser opportunities to effect the run-out, because most Mankadings are done towards the end of the delivery action (after the backfoot has landed) unless the batsman was foolish enough to strand himself out of the crease so early. It's also a question of the bowler's balance to perform such unnatural acts mid-performance.

How late...

How late...

How late is it before I confess?

I see you each day. Well, almost each day. Some days, we don't run into each other. The days when we miss each other, I wonder if you miss me. No, to be honest, I don't. That is, I don't wonder. Nor do I miss you. Still, on days like these, my mind wanders.

How late is it before I can never confess?

We smile at each other as we await the bus. "How's work?", you ask. I mutter sweet somethings in return. What's the point of telling you? You'd never understand. We don't really know each other that well, do we? [Work's great, by the way.]

It's getting late. I can never confess now, can I?

It's easier on the way back. I can hide in the twilight shade, bury my eyes in a magazine, plug my ears with my music, protect my nose from the commuting dust with a handkerchief. I can pray that you don't sit near me. I'm too afraid I'll have to confess.

Shite, it's over. The last window of opportunity just closed shop and bolted.

May we always meet each other in isolation. When no one else of our mutual acquaintance is near us. My worst nightmare: I meet you when I'm with someone I know but you don't. I can't bear to be embarassed.

You see? Ok. Here goes. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't remember your name. Now, it's too late to ask. How late is it before I can no longer ruefully inform a very casual acquaintance that despite them telling me clearly, I don't really remember their name?

Down the Simpsons' Garden Path

Down the Simpsons' Garden Path

Like last year, Heidi Harley's annual Simpsons linguistic joke collection post is up here. The post illustrates various linguistic phenomena through the rich humour of America's most beloved family. Even if you don't know or care what "haplology" is, you can still read the samples.

Like this one:

Fat Tony: Gentlemen, we must determine which of our fellow inmates has become the rodentus incarcererium.
Gangster #1: You heard the boss! Find the rat!
Gangster #2: I found the rat, and he's right here! [Points to gangster #3]
Gangster #3: I ain't the rat, I'm the pigeon!
Gangster #4: I thought you was the mole!
Gangster #2: No, you're thinkin' of that guy who was the canary, but we can all agree, we work in a business with a very rich lexicon!
All the gangsters nod, mutter in agreement: "Rich lexicon" "Very rich!" "Oh yes."

Google Spam back to Alpha?

Google Spam back to Alpha?

I'm not sure why this is happening, but each day, more than a handful of annoyingly mundane filth remains untouched in my GMail Inbox. Instead of being shown the backdoor (as salesmen traditionally are), they're punching the front doorbell or squashed against the French windows.

My limited searching on the subject did not reveal any recent upsurge in complaints from netizens, so I wonder why I have so much false negatives each day. Unless the Google machine learners are having a summer vacation. Till then, I try to find solace in odes to spam (1 - All You Need Is Spam, 2 - Don't Be Inadequate Anymore).

And to make this post utterly worthless, here's a little riddle:

Q. Why is the song "dhak dhak karne lagaa" similar to most Google products?

A. Because it's a Beta version.

The cool of the Coens

The cool of the Coens

To their rich haul of Oscars, I would have liked to add one more to the Coen Brothers' tally: for "Best Insouciance". On each occasion that their names was called up, Joel and Ethan Coen walked up unhurriedly to the stage. Either they were giving a Coen-worthy performance themselves, or it actually didn't matter all that much. A festival bonus, not a career definition. Joel spoke about being grateful that they were allowed to play in the sandbox, while Ethan didn't bother with such verbosity. "Thank you" was followed "I've got nothing more to add to what I said earlier". Where people weep and whoop, the Coens simply won. In contrast, the other Oscar winner in the family, Frances Mcdormand, and other relatives seemed to compensate with their excitedness. Though Ethan in particular seemed to wonder what they were fussing about.

I happened to see "No Country for Old Men" and came away feeling like the glass of water in the anecdote. I wasn't sure if I liked it or whether I hated it. (Saket is much less ambivalent here.) On the plus side, the intensity of certain scenes, the lack of a background score that left each coming moment equipped with the power to suddenly bite, some of the performances (Javier Bardem's sociopathic Chighurh surely gatecrashes - by blowing out the doorknob, no doubt - into cinema's Hall of Infamy), some of the unexpected creative choices (not showing a certain character's end; some of the motel action), to name a few. While on the other hand, some almost incomprehensible Texan accents, the lack of providing character graphs for some of the people, the 'this is great viewing, but what are they trying to say here?' feeling of not knowing where the light switch was.

One could argue that great art demands that the viewer shed his passivity to actively engage her own self in the artistic product. On the other hand, shouldn't great art also be accessible to most? I am not sure. I will say (honestly) that I'm still waiting to figure out, interesting film though it was, exactly why "No Country for Old Men" was the unanimous darling of cineastes this year, and why not some of the other films? What set it apart from the rest?

One man's primate is another man's yucky wimp

One man's primate is another man's yucky wimp

Radio host 1: Have you read the paper, the Aussies are back into you blokes about being whingers?
Harbhajan: That's because they're winning almost every game they are playing out here at this stage.

Host 1: ... and because they have got away without a guy docked 15% of his match fee and they've got an opener...
Host 2 (cuts in) Why don't they just shut up and play cricket?
Harbhajan: There you go, that's the most logical thing I have ever heard this summer

Host 1: Were you charging Andrew Symonds the other day and calling him 'monkey' as you were batting?

Harbhajan: No, 'maa kii. 'Teri maa kii'.

Host 1: That's offensive apparently in Australia?
Harbhajan: He took offence to that, I thought that was quite funny. I said saale, you should be flattered it's a god and your ancestor.


(Everyone laughs)

Host 2: We need to get to the root of the problem and see why they are all so sensitive? What's going on in their lives.

Host 1: Bhajji probably said that as he took Symond's gilli that day...


Harbhajan: I think it's been a bit of a long battle with Symonds. The first time I ever met him he was the same big obnoxious baal-ki-dukaan that he is now, so... (more general laughter)

Host 1: That's what you got about him from every person who's had a dealing with him?

Harbhajan: The thing is, his record speaks for itself in cricket. It's a certain line that you can go to and you know when you push it - and he just pushes it all the time. That is why it is a surprise he's never been charged more than anyone that has ever played in the history of cricket.

Host 1: Does (Matthew) Hayden, that big, tall, balding batsman, come from the same school as Roy?
Harbhajan: Well I think he's just old and as I have said to him many times, abbey, you're 36, just take it easy. He says, but "Aye'm playin' fa maye country" (mimics Aussie accent). Well we're all playing for our country but at the end of the day you're 36, what about if you just worry about your batting for a while. I actually like the idea of getting him in an akhaadaa. Oye, chak de phatte!

(With help from transcript here. Full original version here. Indian view which I don't largely agree with - I don't see it as conscious sledging. I see the foulmouthedness emanating from a plainly pompous and self-inflated ego in a man who's just used to being a bully. If that's how they talk each day, at least they should have the sense to keep it away a mike. Harbhajan himself comes a region which, in stereotype at least, can be foul mouthed itself. But at least, it's off public air. The aussies don't realise that they can't impose their own cultural standards on anyone and that it works both ways.)

Do I speak South Indian?

Do I speak South Indian?

Venkat sent out a link about more examples of the dumb insular American being more than a mere stereotype. With the Hindi version of "Are you smarter than a fifth-grader" around the corner, we can (and we will!) show the amreekans that we can be as good (or bad) as them. Partly because, the popularity of the show will depend on showing that people aren't as smart as a fifth-standard kid (I've noticed many people say "grade" for "standard". Sigh.)

Well, if the only proof of incompetence needed is that of geographical ignorance, then I would like to send in a candidate of my own. This, a well-educated person, who has spent all his life within India, asked me: "So, you must speak South Indian, right?"

I almost gagged there, not out of horror or something, but since there were so many alternative answers to give there, L'esprit_de_l'escalier prevailed. But the sad thought that the education system seems to have utterly failed this chap did cross by. Now, putting on the self-critical hat, I'll readily admit there are several Indian languages I wouldn't be able to identify. But just as I wouldn't ask anyone if they spoke Maharashtrian or Pakistani or Madhya Pradeshi, all I ask is to be extended the same courtesy.

The music of "U, Me, aur Hum"

The music of "U, Me, aur Hum"

I'll admit that I would not have ordinarily looked forward to the music of a film with an orthographically-challenged title such as "U, Me, aur Hum". But with Vishal helming the baton, here is what I thought.

This film is the most 'urban' of Vishal's output. Though not spectacular in any way, it presents enough points of interest to merit a couple of repeats through the playlist. The lyricist isn't a certain stiff-kurta'd maestro here, but Munna Dhiman steps in to produce a couple of interesting poetic fragments. His highest point is the clever "Saiyaan", where Vishal graciously steps into the background to let the lyrics shine. With "nai dilli me.n bareilly jaisaa saiyaa.n" and "saara din afvaaho.n saa phirtaa udtaa-phirtaa hai galii-galii", this is a great track. Vishal adds the right amount of musical embellishments and gets Sunidhi Chauhan to do the same. Though I didn't like this the first time I heard it, it "chipkoo"-ed on from the next one.

Adnan Sami features on 3 tracks as the male voice. Shreya Ghosal and he combine for "Jii Le", a peppy Spanish number with the usual kind of arrangements (Spanish guitars et al.) that make it so. It's a very nice melody, especially the opening piece. I also liked the guitar riffs and the use of the accordions here. Decent track.

There are two version of the title song. Shreya Ghosal does the female solo, while Vishal himself steps up to the mikes for the male version. The tune has all the trappings of a soothing romantic tune and the English pop-lyrics don't distract as in some other songs. With all due respect to the composer, I really think Vishal ought not to sing. His version, in some places, sounds like a scratch track. Music directors are given the benefit of doubt as long as they have something distinctive to offer. However, as yet, Vishal's voice does not have the earnestness of A.R.Rahman, the zaniness of R D Burman, or the folkishness of S D Burman or Ilaiyaraja. He sounds very flat as well as heavy, especially with a female version to compare against. Nice lyrics again.

I didn't like the heavy Punjjaabbee numbers, especially the very noisy (to me) "Phatte". "Dil Dhakda" is slightly better, again with Dhiman's somewhat offbeat takes. However, on the whole, I haven't bothered to come back to these two.

At the end, I'm still playing four of these tracks, especially "Saiyaan", so that's not too bad for a digression on to the mainstream for someone who hasn't always been given his due in that part of public consciousness.

Update: Lyrics can be found at the Gulzarfans egroup.

Also posted on the Vishal blog.

Shaant Ishant, Shaant

Shaant Ishant, Shaant

Reactions to the Indian Premier League have ranged from the moral to the material. There's one thing I don't like: that Ishant Sharma was one of the highest 'bought' players. Nice for the lad and all, but if he really is the brightest bowling prospect (in a decade full of bright bowling prospects) around, is it really smart to let him be subject to further pressures? I can't see his franchise asking him to take it easy if they have paid so much for him. Bowling prospects for India have a habit of disappearing and not being well looked after, and I wish the BCCI would pay him a crore and ask him to sit at home in April.

Man Se

Man Se

Q. How far was the bus-stand from the MNS activist's house?
A. Just a stone's throw away

The long dark cool tiffin-times of our roohs

The long dark cool tiffin-times of our roohs

It's been four months of winter and each time the Freddie seems to finally begin defying gravity, it dips back down the next day. It makes the mornings (especially in the shade) shiver and the brass balls of the night look for cover. The days are fabulous, especially on Sundays, when the road has enough breathing space for a walk in the polite sunshine. This is the famed Pune climate which we have seen very little of in the last few years.

Many other parts of India have faced the brunt of this extended winter, but we in Pune have been a little lucky to have the temperature just about right. Perhaps, if the climate doom-sayers are to be believed, this is strange but final flourish. So in addition to cutting down your C-footprint, get out a little more and enjoy it while it lasts.

The little saffron handbook

The little saffron handbook

Culturally, I consider myself to be part-Maharashtrian, not because it's expedient to do so, but by sheer force of time spent here, influence of friendships, and habits shaped by my environment. I reckon it'd have been the same had I spent a similar amount of time elsewhere in the country. I don't necessarily see it as anything worth trumpeting about, as there are enough similar examples all around me. I also know a few Maharashtrians who hardly fit the traditional maraaThii milieu.

Since (warning: stereotyping ahead) I do not eat poLii-bhaajii or shiiraa each day, prefer gulping down mugs of coffee rather than glasses of tea and medu-vaDaas to baTaaTaa-vaDaas, I sometimes wonder whether I do behave like the "marathi manoos" that one hears a lot about. I wish one of the Thackerays would pen a little primer on what being a "marathi manoos" entails so that one can measure one's level of conformance. In fact, a little electronic arm-band could be made compulsory for everyone that automatically displays a colour from green to red depending on how dangerous you are to the local climate.

That last kaDi-pattaa

That last kaDi-pattaa

I'm a militant opponent of food wastage at meals. From a young age, it was drilled into me that one should not waste food, that one shall endeavour to have a clean plate at the end of a meal, and that to achieve these goals, one shall only take as much as one needs. The lessons evidently have struck home, and I usually eat everything, right down to the last curry leaf. The people who have to wash the plates at the place where I eat lunch daily must surely want to give me a medal. The food in front of me has just had a severe vote of no-confidence if I leave it behind.

Others around me are not so kind. Particularly at buffet lunches where people invite F&B on to their plates with the courtesy of a cruise yacht's captain, only to turn into an uninterested Pune shopkeeper in the afternoons. I watch in horror as people, with hardly a second thought, put down their spoons, forks and fingers aside while leaving morsels untouched. Admittedly, the food isn't always great in public canteens and lunch cafeterias, but that is no excuse for alighting from the gravy train leaving a mess behind. I have been known to give people, especially in the last couple of years, a torrid time over wasted jam and butter at tiffin-time on the principle that if you can't even predict the amount of jam you need on your toast, then what do you really know?

Anyway, the point of this post is this article wondering whether abolishing trays will reduce wastage. I think not. The only economic disincentive I see is to make people pay by weight for the food that they waste at the end. Very simple. It's hard on the eaters when the quality of the food varies from day to day, but then perhaps you should find a different place to eat. (I told you I am a bit of a radical.)

Aleatory and Grindhouse

Aleatory and Grindhouse

The BCQC is organising two open quizzes this Sunday in Pune. The morning one is a Sports quiz and the afternoon will see a General quiz. All the details here or here.