'Yuvvraaj' - music review

The CD booklet for Yuvvraaj says (brace yourself) - :

Imagine a film where: Salman is a dreamy singer...
Katrina is a leading musician...
Zayed grooves to a chaotic disco sound...
Anil Kapoor enjoys only classical music...

Clearly, Subhash Ghai possesses a one of a kind, not to mention dangerous, imagination. I tried very hard to pull off this impossible task, but couldn't. I don't know how much success music director A.R.Rahman and lyricist Gulzar had, but we'll take this album as their best shot. I've tried wrapping my head around this soundtrack for a while, but continue to find it a mixed bag. I blame Subhash Ghai - I think he's finally got to Rahman, whose clever ploy of working at odd hours kept the Guy out of harm's way during previous collaborations. This one must have been made in broad daylight, which Ghai channeling Laxmikant-Pyaarelal. The result is a very confusing medley of styles and songs, and a subdued Gulzar.

lat uljhi...manamohinii more (Vijay Prakash) is the stand-out. Rahman has often thrown in western orchestrations for classical numbers, which coupled with the singer's assured singing, makes this an excellent song. The contemplative zindagii zindagii (Srinivas) is so mellow that it is in danger of being disregarded by listeners. However, it is one of the few songs in the entire album to feature some Gulzar sparks, and so worth getting on the playlist loop.

For me, the Gulzar-ARR partnership has always been successful when they have connected on an elemental level of 'sound'. Unlike the Vishal-Gulzar duo, where the music reinforces word semantics in a snug fit, Rahman's music reacts best to the onomatopoeia of the great man's words. In this album, Mastam Mastam (ensemble) achieves this in its orchestrations and sonorous lyrics. This is in the vein of ooh la la lah (Minsara Kanavu/Sapnay) and shabbaa shabbaa (Daud), and worked for me.

The recipe of dil ka rishta (ensemble) , though rich in musical themes, is a throwback to Ghai's idea of a 'musical' , with every bit of the soundscape painted mercilessly. shaaNo shaaNo ("Beware Blaaze" alarm) provides a basis for similar complaints. tu meri dost hai (Benny Dayal) has a simple melody which only improves when Shreya Ghoshal and Rahman take over in the end, while in tu muskuraa has Alka Yagnik touching Castafiore-ian scales.

Stay away from mai.n huu.n yuvvraaj (can't imagine Beethoven doing a jig at finding his name coupled with Herr Salmon) and the shaaNo Remix (to be honest: didn't bother listening to this. Why do I want to?)

I suppose all this bias is because a wise man once said: always be suspicious of any film that contains:
1. Salman Khan
2. Zayed Khan
3. Subhash Ghai
4. Blaaze
5. Anyone 'playing' a musical instrument in the proud Bollywood tradition of torturing it into revealing its octaves by giving it a good massage
6. Katrina Kaif
7. Any film title with superfluous letters, especially an extra 'v'

You're making me confess.

1. I have never been economically threatened by any kind of Indian (perhaps not yet).
2. I don't seem to have economically threatened anyone else's livelihood (yet).
3. I do not personally know anyone whose livelihood is threatened by any kind of Indian.
4. I have never lived in a neighbourhood whose demographics have significantly changed during my life.
5. I have never felt the loss of political influence to "outsiders" (Perhaps people like me never had any political influence to lose).
6. I didn't have any trouble with the last (and only) unfamiliar local language I learnt, a long time ago. Would I willingly learn a new language if I went somewhere unless I had to?
7. Would I sufficiently integrate into another culture? Have I sufficiently integrated with the current culture? Have I even integrated into my culture-by-inheritance?
8. I have never had to migrate for elemental reasons such as: "If I don't find a job somewhere outside, I don't survive"

Can I have any reasonable opinions on the fundamentals of these 'alien' issues, with such an invariant life?

But: somehow, the changing faces of Pune make me uneasy. It's hard to put a finger to it. I think it is because life becomes increasingly unfamiliar. It causes a discomfort that is hard to nail down. I catch myself being disapproving of certain ways some people speak, behave, flash. I instinctively seem to blame non-Punekars for being responsible for this. And for some of our own people for changing colours so easily. Was this tendency always there? I don't like these people changing the way it used to be. Luckily, there are still places I feel comfortable with and things that I can go do. If that goes, what do I do?

I thought I am (was) tolerant? But how can this be reconciled with the above paragraph?

I can't balance comfortable stability with drip-drip-drip change?

"A Wednesday" and "Rock On" - reviews

(possible spoilers in both review-ettes)

Wednesday is the Se7enth Day
I found A Wednesday infuriating - it could have been so much better. For one, this film should have been even shorter. Instead of packing the first segment with overdone character introductions and superfluous humour, it should have forged on ahead. I was put off by such unnecessary scenes where Anupam Kher (a welcome return to a hard-as-nails posture last seen in Rang De Basanti) gets his men to make macho statements at high decibels. Or how the police commissioner insists of making confidential statements in open corridors or in front of about 50 people. Worst, I smelt the ending too early to enjoy any surprises at the end. (There was always going to be just one possible ending).

But on the positive side, the ratio of fat to muscle was much less in this one, with no songs to break the pace. The biggest saving grace was Naseeruddin Shah's sizeable monologue towards the end, which salvaged the film for me. His motivations reminded me of Se7en (but without its superbly fuzzy morals). However, this film ended days too early for it to be in the same league.

---

Turn that Rock Off!
I was all keyed up to watch Rock On! because I wanted to see how the rather simple story (from the outlines I had picked up from people and reviews) had been plotted. Perhaps my expectations had been too high, because I felt bored by the middle. This was Dil Chahta Hai without the depth. Character arcs or motivations were not sufficiently explored and some of the resolutions were too easily disposed off. I was aghast to see the most interesting character - Shahana Goswami's "Debbie" - palmed off in the end with having become a successful stylist. Someone who angrily plodded through ten years suddenly has the rainbow burst through her roof - how convenient!

I couldn't tell if this was a film about the band (Luke Kenny and Purab Kohli's characters whimper along with hardly a feeling of being let down by the other two) or the Farhan Akhtar-Arjun Rampal situation. Prachi Desai fades off in the 2nd half. It doesn't help that the songs become a drag, especially with the musical abilities after the reunion conveniently taking off where they left - which for a recently promoted investment banker who has never hit a note in the last ten years and has so much time to practice, is just too easy. The climax reminds one of Jhankaar Beats, whose happy ending was a lot more palatable, just like its 'band issues'.

The lac (sic) of Magik is compounded by the silly attempt by Javed Akhtar to pass off random noun phrases as lyrical poetry, which overshadowed whatever parts of the music appealed to me. Unsurprisingly, my favourite track from the film is the mellow "Yeh Tumhaari Meri Baate.n" (Dominique Cerejo). Unlike that song, I didn't want the film - admittedly well made in some respects - to go on and on.

Quick Tales writing contest shortlist

Caferati and LiveJournal are running a 1000 word flash fiction writing contest called "Quick Tales". The (longish) shortlist was recently announced (here), pruning the initial set of 1024 to 134 entries.

I have two stories in this list. These are entries 639 and 823 (both untitled - no words to spare for titles :-)). The former is about a cop who has to read someone's journals, while the latter is about a bored man in a local train.

The theme of the submissions was "Journal" (in part, this exercise is also aimed at promoting LiveJournal among Indian netizens). I struggled to come up with ideas for this topic, and somehow managed a few.

Anyway, all the stories have been put up because there is a "Community Choice Winner" prize based on public voting (public == LiveJournal account holders). I'm more keen on receiving feedback, so if you get a chance, please read the two stories linked above. If you are so inclined (== sufficiently jobless), you could numerically evaluate it using a score between 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) or textually by leaving a comment. But you'd need an LJ account to do either. So if all you want is to let me know how you felt, emailing me or leaving a comment here is just as fine.

You can also read the other stories (an index by entry id is here). Of the few that I've read, I thought #618 titled "The Quack" was very imaginative.

Stephen King "On Writing"

Carrie, Stephen King's first ever novel, was the first book of his that I held in my hands. I returned it back to the school library after 20 pages. This is easy to understand if I reveal that I had been looking for books by Stephen Hawking. Exactly why the missing "Haw" did not attract my attention is unclear, but there was more slime than time in this brief history.

I never ventured into King-dom, not because of the mishap recounted above, but because I don't read horror. I like the movies though, so I read Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and after experiencing The Shining, I read about the Overlook. I wasn't too impressed. It was wordy, too long, and only occasionally did the hairs on my neck demand that I shut that book and try not too look outside at the blackboard night on whom someone was writing, slowly but with careful intent, my name in blood...

So it is strange that the first King book I've really liked is non-fictional. In On Writing, King takes a practitioner's view of writing. He feels blessed to be able to write and make money off it. He wouldn't probe that bit of magic too much. Instead, he makes sure he doesn't take it for granted and work at it like hell.

King begins with a brief autobiography - he thinks it would be good for me to know how some of that must have affected his work. He then constructs a toolbox for writing. It is suprisingly small (vocab and grammar on top, Strunk and White in the middle, organisation below). Just basic skills.

The last section is On Writing. If you had to read anything about writings, you should read this. He talks about themes, about the way he revises, about reading, about blocks, about ideas and flow. It works for him, but you don't have to do it that way. This section is written with great clarity and cohesion.

If I had to apply Strunk and White's mantra of "omit all unnecessary words", this post should read as:

"Read a lot, write a lot" - Stephen King, "On Writing".

Cross-posted on our group lit blog

Does that stapler come with jelly?

As a big fan of the TV series The Office (the American one), I had to notice that Staples now has a store in Pune close to my house. I wonder who they'll be putting out of business here.

At any rate, it should be reasonably safe to go there since this fellow is unlikely to be "literally standing here in case you need anything".

Image courtesy Wikipedia

Would you excuse me while I beat you up and steal your livelihood?

I have always maintained that Indians don't get irony. They are apt to feel insulted when it is pointed out to them. So I suppose there is no point in tapping the nearest MNS guy-bearing-brick that by rioting and generally terrorising the population at large, they are depriving fellow MaraaThiis of their livelihood. People who own shops, who rent out autos and taxis, who need to travel by local buses to make a living. "Go home, so that we can fight for your rights (and my right to be a right moron), or I'll break your head."

Nikhil Wagle may be shrill, but the guy has guts. Of all the people on all the news channels, he is the only one to do what he has been doing for a long while: dropping all pretence of pseudo-journalistic-fairness on a situation that demands none. He smells a conspiracy in what the local Congress and NCP govts are doing - letting the MNS steal the carpet from under the hapless Shiv Sena's feet. He also predicts Raj Thackeray is just the latest genie to be released out of the bottle. That the fair name of Maharashtrians has been sullied. The only one to loudly ask what Raj Thackeray has done in the four years since he began this so-called agitation. No representations to the Railway Board. It takes a certain culture to be democratic and the Thackeray household consciously leaves that out of the syllabus.

Finally, I notice that almost every bit of arson and rioting seems to be captured on video. I don't know if the rioters wait for the cameras to show up, or if there just are so many cameras around. A bit of both perhaps. So is it a good thing that people see every bit of this? Ordinarily, you think the publicity ("any" better than "none") would suit the MNS (arrested at 2:30 am, delayed court appearance, overnight jail). But would too much of it be counter-productive?

Finally, feel really sad for the poor chaps who came to Bombay despite knowing that people like them have been soft targets for several years. How desperate must the situation be at home? Sentence both Lalu and Raj T to one year's servitude to the family who lost their young son in this cross-fire.

Tribute to Escher

In obvious tribute to M.C.Escher:

(Image source: Wikipedia)
(serendipitously, a chair was in the right part of the reflection)

Go fourth and concur

Such are times that 'four' is no longer the fourth digit among the 'natural numbers' (fifth for all you geeks who prefer 'whole numbers').

These days "4" is "Two 2.0".

The Daily Pirouette

Latin is a dead language, some say.

Well, if it’s dead, then there’re a few of its phantoms still floating around in the meme-pool. Consider carpe diem. You know, the phrase that pouts across a million wall-posters, can be found tattooed on many a motivational book’s inner sleeves, or is vaguely reminiscent of the resolution at the end of a carbon black day.

And there’s the taunting. They stand, emboldened, all of them. They mock. They point. Like street dogs who know that they hold the upper paw. "How about some seizing, my friend", they jeer. "Leave alone molest us, you don’t even make a pass!".

True. Seizing the day is a breakfast ruling, made heavy by lunch, dissolving like soap in the yellow twilight, left for the end of the day. By then, it competes with the yawn, and we’ll cease the day. No wonder, the days of the past stand in front of the door, howling with ridicule.

There are a few nicer ones. "Come out and play", they suggest. "Gather the day, pick it up, run your fingers over it". "But I haven’t done much of that", you say. They shake their heads. How do you seize the day, if you’re afraid of even touching it?

To seize the day, you mustn’t clamp down, clutching at emptiness. Instead, try opening that fist and let the shy day make its way up to you. Then you can slide your arms around its waist, pull it gently towards you, and... well, you might just figure out the rest.

Caferate LiveJournal contest

Caferati and LiveJournal have come together to present a flash fiction writing contest, which you can read about here. There are some big prizes (and quite a few of them), which should get even the more lazier writing hounds to push a pen or a key.

Sandeep Shelke: Adieu

As some of you who knew him may have already heard, Sandeep Shelke passed away last night. He is said to have taken his life by leaping off the 7th floor of Persistent Towers, which is in the Erandwana area of Pune. The police say that he left a note behind and sent a text message to his brother, citing a heavy workload as the reason. Persistent Systems has commented that there was no prior indication to this effect and Sandeep had not spoken to anyone at work about such pressures. According to the Zee 24 hours marathi news channel, neither was Sandeep’s family aware of this.

This naturally comes as a severe shock to those like me who knew him. I wasn’t close to Sandy, but I came to know him as a batchmate at IIT Bombay (he was in CSE and I was in KReSIT; the departments have since merged) and as a fellow research student in the NLP group (we shared the same advisor). He was undeniably smart, both by acumen and appearance. I can never recall him looking unkempt, which at IIT is quite something. It’s ironic that this incident comes almost exactly a year since the 2007 IIT-B convocation.

What do you do when you hear news such as this? You ask people, you look for the last trails online, scrabbling for information, you sit and wonder. To give you a sense of our amazement, hardly anyone in his inner and outer circle seems to have had any inkling. True, Sandy was probably quieter than most people with regards to such talk with anyone outside to those to which he was closest. He had had an uncomfortable time in the First Semester of the M.Tech programme. I never probed the exact reasons; I didn’t want to crowd him, but it was partly the load of the course (the first sem is a bit of a bitch). But we were glad to see him emerge out of that pall and do a fine job in the remaining 18 months. Which is why this is a shame. I wish he had thought about that Ph.D more. He had such a fine time in France in the spring of 2006.

Predictably, this is going to spark the inevitable “techies under stress" stories in the local media, some of them likely to be half-baked. Having also been at Persistent in the past (overlapping with Sandy’s first term) and with several friends there, I would not like to think that the situation could have become so arduous (but in this case, it somehow did). I’ve already seen some forums say all sorts of things about Sandy and the situation (some of the content being factually incorrect, such as confusing the bio of a very different Sandeep Shelke from Pune with this incident). All I’d like to say that there’s a family, some friends, some colleagues, who’re probably even more baffled, devastated, angry, and incoherent than we can imagine. Please give them their space. I do hope that there isn’t much more to this than we have heard.

The life of a depressive isn’t easy to fathom. Instead of speculation, take a look around, have a chat, pull yourselves together. We still want you around, you still want me around for a little time more. Sandy: how do we tell you all the nice things we thought of you if you aren’t around to hear ‘em, hmm? Cheers man, and will remember all the little moments.

A few links:
Sandeep’s CSE homepage, his Orkut page, his blog, and his younger brother Yuvraj’s Orkut page

Some updates – 8 Aug 2008
The incident received a lot of coverage in local newspapers. I overheard several people talking about it; all were very upset and saddened. Sandeep’s Orkut scrapbook was filled with messages today, most of them from strangers, who lamented the loss and wished things had turned out differently. I was busy for most of the day, so I couldn’t find out what the mood at Persistent was like.

Links: Times of India (Pune), DNA, Indian Express (contains factual errors that “He had completed his higher studies from America and had been working with Persistent Systems for two years."). Like many other blogs and news sites, the Pune Mirror cannibalized content on blogs, online forums, and Orkut scraps to fill a second page on the incident and the predictable “IT engineer-stress" theme. It also incorrectly claimed that Sandeep was in the IT industry for 7 years.

Update – 25 Aug 2008
I haven’t been able to find out what progress has been made in tying the threads in Sandeep’s case, but this news article in the Times of India (assuming it has been accurately reported) gives some clues to the current status. The report quotes a sub-inspector as saying:

What baffles the police is that the CCTV images before his suicide do not show any abnormal behaviour . "Sandip (sic) was seen walking freely and working on his laptop. We also enquired with his friends, who said that neither did he have any problems with anyone nor did he have any quarrel with any of his superiors,'' said sub-inspector U.K. Yadav.

"Probably, Shelke was bored with the mechanical life he was leading. We could gather that he was unable to spare quality time for himself due to the work pressure,'' Yadav added.

Perhaps "bored" isn’t the right choice of word, as it is hard to imagine Sandeep taking such steps because he was "bored".

The report later says:

But apart from work pressure, at times the inability to do the things which one actually wants to also leads to frustration. This was particularly observed in Shelke's case.

It doesn’t give any particulars though.

I (and others) still remain puzzled.

If the joker met...

...a meteorologist, he’d say: “Why so Cirrus?”
...an astronomer, he’d say: “Why so Sirius?”
...a sprinter, he’d say: “Why so Citius?”
...an Israeli farmer, he’d say: “Why sow Syrians?”
...a fortune teller, he’d say: “Wise old seeress!”
...a hematologist, he’d say: “Why so serous?”
...a paleontologist, he’d say: “Why! It’s a saurus!”
...a quizzer, he’d say: “Why so curious?”
(last one observed on Suvajit’s GTalk status message)
...a Dark Knight fan on IMDB, he’d say: “Why so spurious?”

Billshot Bungle

The only way Niranjan and I have been able to survive the urban morass of corporate jargon that pullulates life in the urban jungle is through ever-vigilant ridicule (it gets worse if we slip into the gutter ourselves). Bullshit Bingo no longer assuages the cringing soul, so we came up with an evolutionary brainwave. It's called Billshot Bungle.

The idea was simple: we came up with several malaprop versions of various terms of ja-aargh-on. You could spring it on people whose native tongue has morphed into managerese. Perhaps, like Tyler Durden in action at restaurants and films, this is probably a similar but low-grade form of guerilla warfare. If this causes some unused neuron in the recipient's head to pop in unease and shock, perhaps our job is done :-)

The idea is that the replacement 'Billshot' ought to be vaguely appropriate to the term and context that it replaces. We could do more, for instance, coming up with showstopping retorts such as: Are we on the same page. -> No, we're not even in the same chapter. But that's for later.

Here's our list.

Bullshit	Billshot
Keep you in the loop	Keep you in the noose
Touch base	Touch bottom
Learning curve	Burning curve/Learning kerb
On the same page	In the same cage
Going forward	Throwing/Blowing forward
Granularity	Granulocity
Stakeholders	Stickholders
Leverage these assets	Levitate these assets
Take it offline	Take it offshore
At the end of the day	At the end of the play
Heads up	Heads on
When the rubber meets the road	When the robber hits the road
Sync up	Sink in/Stink up
Set the right expectations	Set the bright extensions
Low hanging fruit	Low hanging foot / low lying fruit
Keep the lights on	Keep the tights on
Deep dive	Deep fry
Ballpark estimate	Ballpoint estimate
Bandwidth	Bondwith

Quizzes on Sunday

We have two quizzes coming up in Pune on the 27th. The morning quiz is "Interrogative", one of the two annual school quizzes that we are part of, while the second will be an Open general quiz. All details here at the BCQC site, with everyone welcome to participate.

Lovingly Smelly Phrases

Not sure if it is the lack of rain or something, but many of us are reporting Unusually Funny Objects. George picks up two instances from two classes of people genetically hardwired to generating vacuous material, film stars and politicians. Salil found Jack and the Item.

I, for my part, found this outside the IIT Souvenir Shop yesterday (it was the first day for a new batch) (quoting verbatim):

ATTENTION FRESHENERS!
Free Gift for you at Souvenir Shop!*
*condition apply

I'm a Twit

Ok, don't laugh, but I'm "twittering" here. The answer to the why (if there is such a question) is that I wanted to try it, Harish seems to like it, and I realise I do want to micro-blog, but not clutter this blog with the excruciating minutiae of everyday life, which Twittering seems to massively entail.

Let's see.

The lasting laugh

The Knight finally comes out of the Dark this week. Some of us have been looking forward to it, especially since we are such big Christopher Nolan fans. Struck by not-so-jokey tragedy and possessing a cast sheet that promises to sock you in the solar plexus, I await the return of the most famous member of the cloud. Especially since my estimation of Batman Begins has gone up considerably since the first time I saw it.

But do we hold our breath? Will the film release simultaneously in India? Does anyone know?

Left pointing the other way

While using a mouse, I occasionally switch from a right-handed mode to a left-handed mode. Earlier versions of Windows used to call the relevant option under Control Panel -> Mouse as switch to left-handed mouse, but now they call it (confusingly, IMO) as switch primary and secondary button.

Which brings me to my point: software UI design, for all its comforts, still remains sinistral-unfriendly. On a typical GUI containing windows, there's no way to move the scroll-bar to the left (by default, the mouse pointer tends to rest on the LHS of the screen, but largely this could be a psychological perception of having to move to the right end of the screen). The minimise-maximise-close buttons will be on the top-right. Even the mouse arrow pointer continues to nod towards the north-west (IIRC, in earlier Windows versions, it would go north-east with a switch in mouse-handedness).

Here's an interesting little discussion between a left-handed user and a (left-handed) UI designer on the topic (look for the comment by "Sebastian").

And while on the subject, once again, all the main contenders for a US Presidential election are left-handed. The last time this happened was in 1992 when George Bush (the elder), Bill Clinton (the victor) and Ross Perot (the moneyed pretender) were on the ballot.

Roman Columns

The ancient Romans never thought men of the future would conjoin their words for 'many' and 'fold' to indicate an area where several people would gather to watch images projected on a white screen. Had they anticipated the modern need for the 'multiplex', they, in their infinite wisdom, may have come up with an equivalent of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? to ask: who reviews the reviewers?

Last month, Ram Gopal Varma decided to take the mantle upon himself, delivering a scathing summary of reviews of his last release 'Sarkaar'. In doing so, he sometimes falls prey to various other pitfalls (personal attacks, rhetorical responses, no benefits of doubt for viewpoints). But then, he does so on a blog (his own), so he is entitled to much more leniency than some of the professionals that he takes to the cleaners.

This is an old debate which takes on many forms: can you comment on a cricket match if you haven't played Test matches, can you react in print to a music concert if you have never performed in a 'kutchery', and so on. Just like all reviewers aren't good enough to make, all makers are not qualified to review. However, I'd like to focus on two specific problems that arise with mainstream film reviews in our part of the world.

First, most reviewers suffer from a credibility problem of their own making. For instance, Khalid Mohamed once played lead trumpet for the Bachchans, but now seems to toot a discordant horn when it comes to them. BTW, I don't consider his having made several unsuccessful films as disqualifying him from speaking about films. One may then trot out the fact that he wrote one of the better films of the 90s, the autobiographical Mammo. But what should concern us are his intentions while speaking about films. The problem is that they sometimes seem seasonal.

Or Subhash K. Jha, who seems to consistently take ordinary prose and applies a deep-fry coating from a thesaurus. Or Taran Adarsh, whose comments are strictly functional and as profound as a football scoresheet. Very few of these can write with any 'miThaas' (by which I mean an elegance of expression), which the likes of Ebert or Lane are able to consistently provide. In fact, Ebert makes it clear that he reviews it from a relative standpoint, and makes no hard claims on how an individual *you* may like it, which seems a honest way of approaching the craft. You don't have to agree with what he says, but tend to like how it's been expressed. In addition, our reviewers don't seem to be able to communicate their love for the movies to us, by placing the movie under the microscope in context. They fail to tell us what could be if you looked at the film in a different way, often substituting it for what it is, because they're watching with the same tired eyes.

Of course, the influx of films each week that can spur them to great prose would be highly miniscule, but that's a professional hazard that the best have somehow learnt to overcome.

The other problem is the audience, about whose choices we can add a corollary to that Hitchcockian idiom of actors being like cattle. Like herds, they make their weekend viewing plans almost solely on the basis of a rating by some (usually disgruntled or uninterested) reviewer cited in the paragraphs above. There is hardly any effort to calibrate the opinion against your own preferences and past experiences. Of course, for this to work, one needs to ask: why do I watch films? I say this because the amount of complaints that one hears on a Monday morning assume irritable proportions. If it mattered so much to them, why didn't they do a little more 'research'? In the end, whether the movie experience turns out to be sweetmeat or poison pill can only be fully known on biting the white tablet. If you don't like to waste money, then wait for the film to appear on lower-cost media.

(Though I do think that for most, movie-watching is fundamentally a social activity, topped off by popcorn. It's not the same for me, which is why unlike most, I'm perfectly fine watching a small film all by myself.)

If all the audience expects from a movie review is to know which horse to bet (and lose) their money on this Sunday, then they are getting the kind of content they deserve. When they demand more than just the bland scoreline, they might find life below the pond scum to be quite interesting. Anyway, enough condescension.

My friends have different ways of approaching the problem. Daemon has a high recall, low precision approach: he'd watch almost every film that shows up and has the heart to take both the bad and the good. George goes even further, like a gold miner who does not flinch from wading through utter filth, but with the knowledge that this can sometimes unearth the most unprepossessing of gems. I seem to have a low recall, high precision approach. I may miss out on some of the unheralded pieces, but I have an instinctive feel for what works for me, which is built upon a foundation of reading and listening to people around me, at least the ones whose opinions I take seriously. I am also old enough to take a bad choice on the chin :-)

The problem, as RGV shows, is that you can hardly take the opinions of any of the big name reviewers seriously. A superb exception is Baradwaj Rangan, but that's about it for newspapers. Perhaps it is time to begin each movie screening with something else the Romans said: caveat emptor.

Matchless for Life

I wanted to call last night's match gazookilaciplyditabinctionatious. I don't know what it means, but _you_ tell me if you have one legal word that can do justice to what we say yesterday, spread over eight hours. However, our vocabulary has been further graced: joining Federer-esque (adj. "carrying out something with exquisite finesse and supreme elegance") is Nadal-esque (adj. "unreasonably relentless")

Tennis needs draws. The first time I felt this sentiment strongly was in the Hamburg Masters last May, watching two men drill holes in each other, only to keep coming back for more. If yesterday's Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Championship Final (this is one occasion when you deserve to call it by the full name) had been a boxing match, one would have had to invoke the Geneva Convention. My head's as dizzy as it was at 2 am earlier today.

I suppose it's fair reaction to what was easily the best tennis match I have ever seen. In fact, I will go so far as to say that it was the best single sporting encounter I have ever witnessed in my life. One reason why was that there was no finite boundary, no final whistle, no ships to catch. This could have gone on for ever. It seemed we would be there until Tuesday, at 50-50 in the final set. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal would have been squatting exhaustedly on the by now completely bald turf, serving underarm and breaking each other's serve just by the other making four double faults per game. If we didn't have draws, we'd all still be there.

Coming back from my little flight of absurd fancy, one would agree that if it came to a final coin toss of a point, Nadal deserved it. He broke Federer four times in the match, while the 2003-2007 champion broke the Spaniard just once. If there had been a last set tie-breaker, he might've prevailed. We need draws. I can't be pacing and bouncing up and down at 1:30 am again.

The parallels with 1981 were so striking that I half expected to wake up to Federer retiring. Whew. He's still got a lot to achieve, especially powered by that keen sense of history. Roy Emerson's 14 is easily within reach, even if not Sampras' Seven. It's easy to see this as a signal of Federer's descendancy - it may be so, but not by much. The man made two Slam Finals this year, and is playing (along with his vanquisher) at a plane that we're lucky to be able to witness, leave alone comprehend. Centre Court seemed to surreally expand in width and length each time one of the finalists wanted it to, a combination of intense will-power and a never-before display of skills providing the ductile force.

What does this mean for men's tennis and Roger's place in the scheme of things? Perhaps more interesting will be how Rafa deals with finally being at the summit (ATP rankings be damned)? I'm too scared to speculate. What we have in front of us is almost ethereal, and perhaps the spell is in danger of being broken by mundane meditation. Let's dwell on some of the geometry-defying angles, the gravity-embarassing retrievals, the traitorous net cords, the Riemannian down-the-lines, the passes of the seasons. My one line summary of the match: Federer had to keep coming back, while Nadal never left. That was the crucial difference. The good news is that surely we'll never be tormented like this next year. The bad news is pretty much the same: that nothing we ever see will be like this.

Perhaps in the year 2020, the BCCI will have, in its latest acquisition, have taken over both the ATP and AELTC. In its first order of business, it will display an uncharacteristic and rare sagacity and overturn the result of this match to a draw (a annual tradition that began in 2008). Do you have any challenges left to that?

BVHK is much more in control of his emotions in his reaction.

Three Two-times One

There were three of us in that relationship. I'm pretty sure the other two didn't even realise I was in it.

I'm sure because I'd never spoken to them, and because they never seemed to notice me. It's hard to notice me when I'm sitting two rows diagonally behind (always behind) in the bus. Actually, it's just very hard to notice me. I don't quarrel with the driver or engage neighbours in raucous conversation. I get in at the first stop, make my way to the back, and bury my nose in the Russian masters. The closest I had ever got to those two was when one day, the rain was so fierce that it blazed in through the cracks in the windows on my side of the bus. I had to stand behind them for the rest of the journey.

So how was it that I, a distant voyeur, consider myself part of that menage a trois, you ask. It's hard to explain, and I'm aware I'll come out looking like someone who needs less of an over-active imagination and more of a life (a pretty accurate representation, by the way). You see, the first time they spoke to each other, I was there. On the second day, when they wished each other, I was there. (All right, that doesn't quite work. I realise I better start elaborating.)

That day, she was wearing a red top. She had hair the colour of chocolate, the dark kind that is supposed to be good for you. Curiously, her hair was framed by one of those large and awkward headphones, instead of the sleek earphones everyone had these days. She was a little plump, but undeniably pretty. Of course, I had noticed this, but realistically, what am I to do about that? I go back to my gulags.

He, however, did something about it. I was already aware of his propensity to seek seats besides the ladies, even when there were entire empty 3-seaters available. He was a snaky little pinball, bouncing from slot to slot, trying to find the jackpot. I noticed how he, grey sweater and cargos, squeezed in beside her on a two-seater, and pulled out a book. "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". So at least he wasn't very effective yet, I mentally chortled. On the commune, Ivan Sergeyevich paused in annoyance for me to finish.

When I looked up again, the headphones were off, she had her head down and seemed to be (from where I was sitting) fiddling in her bag. I heard how it started.

"You want a pencil?", he asked.
She smiled: "Do you have one?"
"Sure. It's sharp, unlike me."

Ten minutes later:
"I usually start with each 3x3 block and then move to the rows", he said.
"Really? I take each row, then put down each remaining possibility".
"I'm sure you get messed up with the numbers. There's hardly any space in the margins. Instead, why don't you... um, can I show you?"

She handed him the pencil and the newspaper. She was smiling. You can look at the outline of a person's cheek in profile and easily tell if they're smiling.

This is how all little love stories begin, I said to Anna Andreyevna, as I closed the book and looked out at the drizzle.

The next day, to tell you the truth, I had forgotten all about them. I had had a late night and the Russians stayed in their dachas that morning. My eyelids only opened when the driver braked hard at the ineffectual's stop. This time, the space next to her was occupied, but - note dear little Petra, note Cupidski's little intervention - she was on the aisle side, and the 3-seater to her right had exactly one place left. He swung in on the edge of that seat, pulled out Covey (merely for cover, no doubt, he'd remained on page 3 yesterday), and turned ever so slightly to his left. I looked up at her at that moment, she (headphones on) serendipitously turned right, he looked right into her eyes. They smiled at each other, spontaneously. I did so too. It was a moment of pure romance-in-a-chance.

I don't know if it was that lucky threesome, but I felt I had been appointed guardian angel to the pair. So what if he needed self-help off a shelf? Or passionately sniffed out empty seats next to girls? Eros had left me in charge. Clearly, I was to play the appreciative referee at love-all.

Tatiana, I must confess. In between reading how Vladimir and you raised three fine children in the taiga, I tried to keep an eye on them, I really did. But then it looked everything was going well. For several months, a diet of sitting together, followed usually by a dessert of coffees in the company cafe, seemed to work wonders. He got her a pair of Sennheiser earphones, they plugged it in each morning, one ear per partner. I even heard her teaching him the lyrics to "Norwegian Wood". So I didn't quite realise when it was that they unplugged the music. I only noticed when one day, he plonked himself beside me, even though she had a vacant seat next to her. Her gawky headphones were back on. She looked out at the people outside fighting the puddles as it began to thunder down. Thanks again to the broken panes, he and I had to stand. I moved ahead to be by her shoulder, while he receded further into the bus.

I swear Pyotr, it wasn't a lost drop of rain spray. It sprang from her eyes and fell on her "Large Book of Sudoko Puzzles".

When you intern with the love gods, you have to learn how to handle liaisons going sour. How bad are we supposed to feel bad? I had to think what I could do under these circumstances.

It took me a while to make up my plan of action. It involved some shopping, but soon, I was ready. So Kolya, until that day, there were three of us in that relationship.

The next day, it was raining hard again. He came in, and purposefully ignored the vacancy next to her, sliding deep into the window seat on the opposite side, opening the long neglected Covey, resuming page 3. At that point, I bid farewell to the cossacks and arose.

"My seat's wet. Do you mind if I sit here?"
She shook her head and gestured to the seat beside her.
"Thanks!"

My bag was open and as I sat down, a couple of books fell out.
"Oh, your bag's undone".
"Ow!" I had hit my head on the handle in front of me as I bent down.
"Oof. Let me help you". She pulled up "An Illustrated History of The Beatles" (I hoped she wouldn't notice it was just a day old).
"Here. Are you OK?"
"I am, thanks for asking". I rubbed my forehead.
"And this." She handed "Sudoku for Dummies" (one day old). This time she was smiling. You know, it's far easier to tell when someone's smiling if they're looking at you.
"Thanks again."
"Don't worry, we all need a little help from our friends, don't we?", she said, with a twinkle. "Who's your favourite Beatle?"
"You're a Beatle-maniac too?", I asked, incredulous.
"And you need to throw that Sudoku book away - it's useless. See, what you do is, you start with the 3x3 blocks and..."

As I gave her my pencil, I couldn't help turn and look at him, wet and shivering (with cold? with anger?) by the window, glaring at us. Not everyone is fit to be a Guardian Angel, I suppose.

So babushka, now there was just the two of us in the relationship. Believe me, it's much easier to keep count that way.

Why the world doesn't acknowledge I'm a genius

Because I'm fiddling about at the wrong place and time, and this modern age allows no one the luxury to slow down and discern the maestro (i.e. me) standing amidst them.

Ok, I admit: that argument works only for violinist Joshua Bell.

Some interesting viewpoints on this experiment from Freakonomics. Link courtesy Niranjan.

The dividing line

On the same day that Vcat sent out a link about Americans trying to see the positive sides to indigestible gas prices, Ajay blogged about how life around him seems to be changing: neighbourhoods show a tendency to shrink (to walkable sizes) as are per capita home sizes.

As yet, we don't quite seem to be hearing such stories here. Based on anecdotal evidence around me, if at all, the problem seems to be worsening: lots of cars, cars, cars (diesel is still subsidised, but is no longer exclusively a poor man's fuel), relative affordability of 4-wheelers, lots of executive-level people use their cars (along) instead of taking company buses out to the IT parks, roads aren't wide enough or smooth enough to allow cyclists a real chance in the traffic ecosystem. I can't see any larger signs that our culture-specific habits are changing in any way in response to the environment or the prices.

Incidentally, several Pune roads now have dedicated cycle tracks marked out on the fringes. In some cases, these are demarcated using an outer fencing, rather than just a paint marking or those tiled paths that are becoming so common. This is a welcome arrangement, but there are a few gaping holes, sometimes literally. For instance, in Model Colony, some of the tracks are punctuated by intersecting lanes that allow vehicles to abruptly enter the road - the cyclist has to, every 5 minutes, watch out for these. In other places, there are no cycling lanes at all, so using cycle tracks is safe only in very limited areas. Add to this, the manic jungle-like look in the eyes of most motorists, and you're scared to pull the old velocipede out during the day.

Baner Road, perennially under siege, seems to be nearing the end of this current stage of repair. It now is concretised and wider. But there is no divider. Crossing the road, whether on foot or on pedal, is like wading through croc-infested water while the critters set out "Welcome!" mats alongside their gleaming canines. How can you build such a big road, invite everyone to race at what seems to be a minimum of 50 kph, and forget the bloody divider?

Kamalhassan's Dasavatharam - Aviyal Fiction

Before I went to watch "Dasavatharam", I had the good sense to watch one of Kamalhassan's interviews. "It's out and out entertainment for the audience", he said. Since I trust the guy, I repeated it to myself each time the word 'T-A-C-K-Y' spelt itself out in front of my eyes, especially between minutes 20 and 40 of the movie.

"Dasavatharam" is undeniably tacky, but it's oddly entertaining too. There's hardly a slack moment. This is a disaster movie that could so easily have ended in one, but as it lurches from action sequence to comic interlude to philosophical filibustering, it never completely comes off the rails. I certainly didn't mind losing three hours of my life to that film (ok, except for that one minute when Mallika Sherawat (or her voice-over) avers that, of course she can speak Tamil - and does so in a badly dubbed voice ).

That Kamal Hassan is over-indulgent is a common accusation thrown at his face ('mask' may be more appropriate), but he is undeniably gutsy. Not because he spends more money on bad makeup than Shahnaz Hussain, but because who else in India would be crazy enough to cook up a hodge-podge involving an ancient Iyer-Iyengar conflict (we come off looking badly, btw), inconvenient truths about the environment, bio-war-sci-fi, atheism, the great Tsunami of 2004, chaos theory (casting credit: stereotypical digitally mixed-in butterfly), mixed with some political body-doubles that wouldn't make the cut at a school fancy dress competition. Heady stuff to unleash on the populace, which had earlier rejected some of the other cocktails (the need to have an opinion on M.K.Gandhi, matricide, communism+atheism, to name a few) that Kamal Hassan has written. Perhaps the lesson he's learnt is: be not so subtle that no one realises you're being something.

Some critical reactions that bemoaned the tackiness (that word again) of the film almost always made comparisons with the likes of Anbe Sivam and Hey Ram. But it's not as if Kamal didn't make bad movies before. From what we know of him, he's usually taken an active interest in the plotlines (even without official credit), so you'd be insulting his intelligence if you thought he didn't know what he was getting into. He's taken an almost gleeful plunge into lots of rubbish - one senses a need to get the silliness off his chest from time to time, in addition to the money needed to make the other stuff that he wants to.

Anyway, back to the movie. The film is almost hopeless in its rendition of events set amongst a laughably stereotypical American setting, but there is an instant quality upgrade when proceedings move to India. Kamal shows an instinctive feeling for dialogue, accent, placement, and scenery in local settings. As we weave our way to the end, the proceedings become madcap, the characters multiply and multi-sect, and there are homilies. Strangely, for a film that is so sympathetic of the need for science and reason, there is also a moment straight from the Mithun-Rajanikant textbook of post-modern medicine.

It's a fitting sign of the surreal nature of events that I found myself doing something I had never dreamed I would: watch a film whose soundtrack was scored by Himesh Reshammiya. Largely forgettable, the only saving grace was the devotional Mukunda Mukunda which in addition to serving as Asin's re-entry point, accompanies one of the more elegant and clever moments in the movie: the shadow theatrical play about the Vishnu Dashavatharam. There was a strange depth to the 12th century sequences as well (despite some of the CGI), which once again serve as testament that the man is good at depicting history.

And closing with the ten. At times, you're beset by the uneasy feeling that the whole of Madame Tussauds' is on the loose, there are so many pale, waxy outlines. I think there are some interesting allusions with the names of the characters which I haven't teased out fully, perhaps except for the execrable 'George Bush'. 'Balram Naidu' was nicely done (reminscent of the mayor in Indrudu Chandrudu), but perhaps the best of the lot was the tough-talking environmentalist 'Vincent Poovaraagan', in both dress and demeanour.

In all, Dasaavatharam is no six-course meal, but perhaps Kamal Hassan never intended it to be so. Of course, for all that money, it'd have been good had they hired better cutlery and not just painted it in. But as far as cinema-as-aviyal goes, it's not such a bad mix.

Hugga-baai!

Apparently, it's International Free Hugs Day today (I'd say it's probably more catchy than Bug Busting Day). Arnold is the nearest we have to a Rasta-quizzer that I know of (I mean it as a compliment), so it's not such a surprise that he has decided to do something about the comparative lack of free hugs in contemporary Puneri society.

As clearly described in a front page article in today's Pune Mirror (don't think it's available online), Arnold will be providing "free hugs" on M.G.Road from 6 pm until "boredom, tiredness, or hunger" intervene. (I was particularly happy to see that it was only under duress that he revealed he works in IT - bravo!). Since, unfortunately, I can't be there to watch and report, I thought I'd at least give him a little blog plug - so if any of you is reading this today, stop, and get out to Camp, somewhere near Wonderland.

(I must admit that it's a tough Saturday for Punekars: JM Road is almost off-limits thanks to a function involving the President of India, and on M.G.Road, you risk being accosted a strange man offering hugs for no compensation in these inflationary times.)

Still, all the best to the newest Chipko. This is exactly the kind of thing that the much vaunted (but ultimately colourless, IMO) Walking Plaze could have done with more of (ironically, the Plaza has just been suspended because of the monsoon). Hopefully, Arnold has perfected his technique and may even demonstrate a range of moves (an illustrative list here). He may even come up with an Arnold-ian varation of a new kind. Hold tight and don't let the bed bugs bite!

Spinning a Yarn

Amit Varma was kind enough to pick up some fragments of mine for an interesting article on quizzing. Serious quizzing still remains very niche, a masonic sub-culture of sorts, but it takes a quiz-geek to know there are three ways of looking at every intersection, even if it only seems to be a straight road.

Anyway, as Amit mentions in the end of his post, check out Niranjan's primers (1, 2, 3.) on setting quizzes (to which I've made a small contribution). Perhaps they need a little touching-up, but they're perennially relevant.

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.