Keeping the house in order

At the end of his quiz report, Harish writes, a touch angrily, about how a hall of people can leave so much litter around without bothering to pick it up. I end up have the same apoplexies seeing some of the behaviour in common washing facilities here at my hostel in IIT. People breeze in and out, and by means of some predictable poltergeist effect, all the lights come on and the taps are leaking and the place is as fragrant as an abattoir.

I am no cleanliness-conservation-maniac who can boast of ISO-9000 standards, but it was drilled into myself from fairly ancient times (relatively speaking) that it was stupid to waste. So when one sees people leaving all lights on when only one would suffice, an irresistible urge to clean up behind them takes over.

I also find it hard to believe that these people could have lived so long without someone close to them not telling them to show better civic sense. It also doesn't forebode so well for their offspring.

The fifth ball

Date: 28 Mar 2007, somewhere above

I walked out to the observation gallery and stood next to DubyouCee. He sported a vacant look and didn't look around to my greeting. He did stifle a big yawn. There were others milling around, some taking an occasional look at the action below, but 209 is not something that is usually defended.

Xnis joined us. "That's two for Canas?", I asked with a raised eyebrow. "Things change", he said with a cocky grin. Asking fore-bodes of a fellow god is breach of protocol, but I came oh-so-close to asking "The French! What about Roland Garros?" But that's just not done.

DubyouCee remained motionless. "It's not been pretty this time, has it?" This got me a reaction out of him. His body went stiff and he turned around with a glare. Xnis joined in: "I hear mind-space for this has reduced by over 60% this week?". That set Dub off. "You will not believe the things I've had to take care of this time. It's a miracle things are not worse" smouldered the man in charge. He must be having trouble upstairs - SeeKayTee isn't the understanding type.

I turned to Xnis. "This game'll be over soon. What's coming up next?". Small-talk ensued. We didn't notice DubyouCee mutter his charms (but that would've been routine anyway). Some cheering below made us look down. One had fallen in this late stage. The usual mini-storm before the calm -- pretty normal -- there's usually one final gasp from the opposition before the last chop. We started to look away when more noises and gasps demanded our attention again. Another had been downed.

We looked at Dub. He was strangely flushed. "Are you doing this?" asked Xnis. A tiny smile took off and then perished. SASeeKayTee had just bounded in clumsily, like he always did. "What's going on here?", he asked angrily. Right off the bat came: "I don't have to answer that." "We know what you've done the previous two times with my team - this had better not be you", spat SA.

But it was him. We could tell. That nervous energy. It's happened before. He gets twitchy. Does strange things. There's even a phrase for it. It's called "glorious uncertainty".

Word seemed to have got around, and others started to gather around. You don't want to miss one of these. The recriminations are beautiful to watch. SA wa being a little harsh - Dub had caused only one of the two last ones, not both. It had been great though.

Nothing had happened for the last six, but now we were back to where the show had left off. Then: one more fell!. The involuntary spurt of godly expletives accompanying this told you something very unique was about to happen. Surely, Dub wasn't going all the way? That'd be crazy.

The angry voice of SA was back. I could sense people stiffening all around me. The big SeeKayTee was in our midst.

"And what is going on here?", he growled. "It's a game, sir. Things happen. That's almost a law around here, isn't it". His words were drowned out by even larger gasps. It now was four in a row. "Has that ever happened before?" whispered Xnis to me. I shook my head. Wow - we're in really oily waters here, Dub. Be careful for what you wish next.

The fourth had robbed SA of his faculties. He seemed to be slumping. Then, the blood rose back. SeeKayTee could read the danger signs. Insubordination was a fairly minor offence compared to what SA would do to Dub in a second if that happened. We waited.

It should have been one of those slow-motion moments, but it went by in a flash. The ball was bowled - batsman misses - ooh! just past the off-stump - a flying kiss. SA had to sit down.

I looked at Dub. He seemed calm now. I knew it was all over. SA wouldn't be spilling his guts over nectar a third time. At least not today.

Hollywood's XX factor

Looking at the list of actresses nominated at this year's Oscars, I can't help wonder at the immense array of talent that the English-language films put out. It's a fairly impressive generation of acting talent among the ladies. And we're not even talking about Meryl and her British counterparts, who are, if you pardon the pun, Streeps ahead of the rest.

Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Julianne Moore, Jodie Foster, Toni Collete, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Hilary Swank, Jennifer Connelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Nicole Kidman (to an extent), Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand, Kristin Scott Thomas - well, a long list, and lots more to go. Most of these have at least 2-3 roles of sheer class to showcase.

In sharp contrast is our own homegrown industries, which has traditionally given women such a bad deal that it is hurts. Of the current lot, one can only talk about the likes of Tabu and Nandita Das as being top-notch. There must be other excellent actresses coming out who aren't getting their due and attention. There are actresses like Meera Jasmine who hopefully are getting roles that they can shine in. But they do have to earn bread-butter in silly commercial vehicles. But what to do? - we prefer the assembly line dolls of beauty pageant positions from 1 to n instead.

Hyper-complete

In the future, will every new webpage's content be completely hyperlinked? Your average Wikipedia page (e.g. this page (as of Mar 27, 2007)) has several proper nouns hyperlinked and even some common nouns (like "stage magician") and adjectives ("amoral").

Next thing is to come up with a little browser plugin or preprocessor that takes my current content, adds hyperlinks from my own content database (such as blog archives), browsing history, or defaults to say, the appropriate Wikipedia page, instead of me having to insert it each time. Or perhaps a hovering bubble with a brief definition/snapshot a la some of these link preview plugins.

Can we be links?

The blog-equivalent of the biggest Indian contribution to social networking ("can v b frands?") is the mail you get proposing a I-scratch-your-link-you-scratch-mine. Why anybody would think their blog-worth would go up because I linked to them is a mystery. I have very little to expend, so blip off, mate. I'm a Groucho-Marxist-Lameist and will only link to those blogs who send me mail not to link to them.

Up-yer-links!

The peaks of "Delhii Heights"

"Sinfully Pinstripe" writes about "dilli bas" ("Delhii Heights") with feeling. It's not a song I relate to much, but many seem to have liked a lot. Starting with Tere Bin, I've tripped over and fallen for "Kitnii der tak". It loops around and the guitars play. The texture of the album, in its lyrics (not very polished, but making their points) and its guitars from lining-to-garnish are such a welcome aural relief.

March BC Open Quizzes

Date: 24 March (Saturday)

=================
1. Quiz for college students
Flavour: Entertainment, Literature
Eligibility: college and school students
Teams of 2; 8 Finalists
By: Sudarshan and Ramanand
Time: 8:45 am to 12:30 pm
Prizes for all finalists and Best school teams
Non-collegians are encouraged to watch the finals - lots of chocolates on offer!

=================
2. Open Quiz for all
Flavour: General
Eligibility: No restrictions
Teams of 2; 6 Finalists
By: B. V. Harishkumar
Time: 1:45 pm to 6:30 pm
Prizes for all finalists, Best school, college, and newbie teams; Special audience round

=================
We will have a Theme-Attic as usual in the break.

==================================================
Date: Saturday, 24 March 2007
- Venue: “Bhageerath”, Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd., Behind Domino’s Pizza, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune
- Registrations free and on the spot
- Contact: 98810 00957, 93244 45248, contact@bcqc.org

See this link for details.

From the mouths of D'oh boys

Heidi Harley presents her annual round-up of linguistic humour from The Simpsons. A sample that illustrates the garden-path sentence phenomenon:

M. le justice Snyder: I sentence you to life!
Homer: You moron! I'm already alive!
M. le justice Snyder: In prison!

(via the Language Log)

Is there a word for...

...mistyping a password (repeatedly and embarassingly) because someone is standing near you, watching?

It happens so frequently that there should be a word for it. Something like "passvoid".

Triple Duet Tuesdae

The one without the racoon hair is Ben Miles.

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The Dada on the right is Jaideep Sahni, who wrote movies such as Company and Khosla ka Ghosla. The resemblance is even more pronounced than the photo may suggest.

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The easiest one. Just adding for the sake of, as they say, completeness.

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On previous daes: Triple Schezwan Sundae, Veg Triple Mondae

Their Filmfares

In an astonishingly audacious editorial a couple of days, the Times of India suggested that the Oscars were not democratic enough because "The time-honoured tradition of Oscar nominees and winners being chosen by a closed club of Academy members is feudal...".

This is astonishing merely because as far as I can tell, the Academy Awards never set out to be a popularity contest, but more of a reward of excellence. Whether they get it right or not is a different question. I'm not going to "defend" the Oscars - there are several instances of them not getting things right (which anyway is a subjective call), and like the Nobel Prize for Literature, it is increasingly righting previous wrongs. But if you forget who the Oscar went to, and just look at each year's list of nominees, you will say a majority of them deserved to be there. This is more than what someone can say for entire categories at the Filmfare Awards.

The Filmfare awards want to, and desperately at that, be a popularity award first and not a critics award. Fair enough. But let's drop the hypocrisy of excellence, when all you want to do is engage in a massive backscratching exercise with no credibility - I mean, once you open the voting to the internet and SMS, as TOI so avidly advocates, the scripts take over.

The Filmfare awards have completely alienated a number of movie-goers (are we "significant"? dunno), but thanks to multiplexes, distributors, and technological revolutions, it's possible for us in the long tail to be sated somewhat. The days of giving the Best Film award to the likes of "Rajnigandha" and "Ardh Satya" are long gone. We've learnt to live with times when Kareena Kapoor wins a Critic's Award for "Best Actress" when several worthier actresses abound. But don't rub it in. Audiences have no business voting for technical categories such as Best Editing or Screenplay. Democracy doesn't guarantee excellence or even a sense of participation. We can live with awards given out by a "mai-baap" as long as it doesn't offend our senses.

Stories at the Coffee Table

A couple of years ago, Caferati ran an online short-story competition, the winning entries to which would go into a book. I sent in an entry, it didn't make the first cut or was on standby, and I forgot all about it. Over a year ago, I received an email from the editors at Caferati asking if the story was still available. Since it was merely loitering in my inbox, I said, yes sir, with three bags full.

The line went silent till about 12 months later when we found that despite all the pitfalls of getting a book out on their own, Caferati was finally going ahead with the publishing. Which they did. It's called Stories at the Coffee Table and has a very elegant design to it. It was launched in Jaipur at the lit-fest there and in Mumbai at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival a month ago (which, BTW, in further evidence of my ever-increasing senility, I contrived to miss by mistaking a Thursday for a Friday). I didn't want to blog about it until I got a copy in hand, which I did yesterday.

The book is priced at a modest Rs. 200/- (the publishers will use it to recover their costs - the authors don't get anything :-)) and is currently available only by direct request (see here). Apparently, authors can obtain a discount, so if you are sufficiently moved by this venture and have the stomach for writings of an eclectic kind :-), then let me know.

The list of authors can be seen here. Incidentally, there are lots of people there sharing similarities with me - software kiddos, fellow quizzers, people from PSPL and IIT Bombay, and lots of names from Pune. I haven't read any of the other stories yet though.

Many thanks to the perseverence of Peter Griffin, Manisha Lakhe, and Annie Zaidi at Caferati, and for making the opportunity available. Thanks also to Sudarshan who, IIRC, told me about the contest.

And if you're keen to know, my entry straddles cricket, mathematics and Japanese politics (whoa!). Now, I don't think it's the best thing I've ever written (that 'honour' (dubious) probably would be something like this story), and I haven't even written all that much in life, for there to be a scale of any kind. What's more: I just have lost the capacity to subjectively or objectively assess the entry. I'd like to hear fresh opinions of any kind about the story, if you have them for me. I won't be hurt :-). We all have to start somewhere. If you like what I write, a few efforts on this blog (that have been labeled) are available here.

Update: The publishers now have a feedback page up here. To specifically comment about my entry, click here.

The Silly Season of Predictions - the 52nd Filmfare Awards

As the acme of their efforts to be like the Oscars, the organisers of the Filmfare Awards have even managed to host their show the same day as their Hollywood counterparts. What would a dream awards result be like? We dip into the yucky waters to probe:

Best Film
Tough, tough, tough. I'd give it to Dhoom-2 for maintaining the vapourware illusion of having made a film, even by Bollywood standards. At this rate, Dhoom-3 will be the epitome of "a consensual hallucination", just for 200/- bucks.

Best Director
Rakesh Roshan (Krrish). For directing the same film n times over and getting away with it.

Best Actor in a leading role (Male)
Inky pinky ponky father had a donkey donkey died father cried inky pinky ponky. The winner: Shahrukh Khan (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna) (statistics show that however sophisticated the algorithm, the main part of the answer is usually the same)

Best Actor in a leading role (Female)
Aishwarya Rai (Dhoom 2). What if she stops acting due to domestic duties and never gets nominated again? We'll have to wait at least 10 years for the Lifetime Achievement. Let's not take any chances.

Best Actor in a supporting role (Male)
Abhishek Bachchan Amitabh Bachchan Shweta Bachchan Jaya Bachchan, for Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. Phew, the balance of power is restored after the Best Actor award.

Best Actor in a supporting role (Female)
Even the Oscars continue to say "Actress". Why the faux-modernism? Anyway, the award goes to Shilpa Shetty for acting as an actress, supported or cantilever.

Best Actor in a comic role
Hrithik Roshan (Krrish). After all, the role was literally taken from some random comic.

Best Actor in a negative role
Priyadarshan, for inflicting his poorly re-programmed Malayala-Panoramas on us.

Best Music
Pritam Chakraborty's BitTorrent client.

Best Lyrics
(Since this is probably the only category with an all-respectable nomination record, we will refrain from nasty commentary here).

Best Playback (Male)
The deviated septum currently known as Himesh Reshammiya wins, thanks to booth-capturing by, well, bhoots.

Best Playback (Female)
Kareena Kapoor ("I just called to say...", Omkara). Thankfully the Kapoors win an award this year too, so we don't have to resort to plan-B i.e. award the Lifetime Achievement Award to Babita.

The Silly Season of Predictions - The 79th Academy Awards

(I cannot think of the Academy Awards without thinking about dear old COEP's Regatta, for the Oscars and the Regatta increment side by side in Feb-March each year. Good luck for the 79th Regatta!)

From the Oscar nominations this year, I look into my crystal Kookaburra and divine:

Performance by an actor in a leading role
The Buzz: Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland" is apparently a shoo-in.
Sentimentally: Peter O’Toole in "Venus". He's been at the Oscars so many times! Give the man a competitive Oscar :-)
Blind Spot: DiCaprio? Unlikely.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
The Buzz: An open race. Mark Wahlberg for "The Departed" leads, perhaps?
My Sentimental Fav.: Alan Arkin for "Little Miss Sunshine"
Blind Spot: Surprises likely. IIRC, this is usually the first award to be given out on the night, so we'll know first up.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
The Buzz: Helen Mirren in "The Queen"
My Sentimental Fav.: Mirren again. Terrific actress. Jeff from 'Coupling' would be rooting for her too :-)
Blind Spot: Penélope Cruz in "Volver"

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
The Buzz: Rinko Kikuchi in "Babel"
My Sentimental Fav.: Little miss Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine"
Blind Spot: Can't think of an upset here

Achievement in directing
The Buzz: Tight as ever. Perhaps the long awaited Martin Scorsese Oscar, this time for "The Departed", will materialise. But there's grizzly old Clint-y. Never, ever discount him. He's always feeling lucky.
My Sentimental Fav.: Marty for sure.
Blind Spot: Alejandro González Iñárritu. The ensemble-hyperlinked-globalised movie directors are in vogue

Best foreign language film of the year
The Buzz: The absence of "Volver" was apparently a surprise, as was the inclusion of "Water". But seems like "Pan’s Labyrinth" is the front-runner here.
My Sentimental Fav.: I suppose one would have to say "Water", but I didn't quite like it a lot. But still, good luck.
Blind Spot: Have nary a clue

Best motion picture of the year
The Buzz: Ah, the big one. "Babel" or "Letters from Iwo Jima". "The Departed" a close follower. Tough to call. I picked the first two because they have Academy-friendly themes.
My Sentimental Fav.: The unlikely one: "Little Miss Sunshine". More practically, "The Departed".
Blind Spot: "The Queen"? Impossible, mate.

Watch out for Hirak's list of predictions, coming soon.

How many rules must a rider break...

Thought experiment: how many Indian traffic rules can be simultaneously broken using a two-wheeler situation? (The violations must be obvious, which rules out mundane things like not carrying a licence or pollution control certificate. Assumptions allowed: helmets are mandatory).

The best I could come up with were:
A two-wheeler (without side-cars :-)):
1. More than one (adult) pillion-rider
2. Rider has no helmet
3. Driving on the wrong side of the road
4. Without lights at night
5. Honking in a silent zone
6. Vehicle has no registration plate
7. Rider is talking on cellphone (is this an offence?)
8. At the instant of observation, riding through a red signal (it's not late enough for them to switch off the traffic lights ;-))

Can't do better than that.

(btw, it's not all that far-fetched. I have seen a simultaneous breaking of about 4 quite regularly)

We need some new adjectives

The likes of 'astonishing', 'mind-boggling', 'incredible' became officially obsolete today. New Zealand smashed their way past 346 to break their own record for a chase for the second time in two days time, this time by just 1 wicket. The stats are just pouring Dead Sea-scale salt into the abscesses: Australia now have the four best chases of all-time against them; this was their 5th straight loss to an old enemy; Michael Hussey has probably the worst ODI captaincy record of a Test-playing country's captain.

What's worse are the potential psychological scarrings. A team that made grown-up men cry must be in dire need of every psycho-analyst in the land. They threw everything at the opposition and still lost. Their bowling has just been shredded. Warne was smart enough to bail out, reputation intact. Nathan Bracken, conceding a six and a four in the last over, is the new Chetan Sharma. We run the risk of ascribing too much impact to these events, but the main damage has been to the bowling which is not really missing too many superstars. Australia's main strategy in the last couple of years has been to out-bat the opposition in the first innings. But these chases have severely eroded any defensive confidence in the camp and must greatly embolden the others.

The main test is to see what happens when Ponting comes back. We'll know then if it's a slide or a minor blip. Don't discount the famous Aussie resolve that won seven games in a row in 1999 to lift the Cup on the balcony of Lord's.

Watching 'Black Friday'

Anurag Kashyap must be a slightly happy man. One out (but not down) and some more to go. His little bright toddler, Black Friday, is out. Paanch, one fears, is growing up to become a bitter and angry adolescent. All these kids want to do first is to be able to come out. Then play with the other kids. Perhaps others will call them ugly and poor. But let them not become bitter without experiencing a moment of sunshine.

Like every self-respecting "good film" watcher, I had seen the bootleg version of the film and keenly anticipated the release. So went to make contribution to the Anurag Kashyap appreciation fund (as Samrat termed it). Hanging out at a local multiplex, waiting for Samrat and his wife, I saw a poster of "Black Friday" from a distance. Hanging upside down. A little burst of anger surged. Took it as a sign of callousness on part of the 'plex. Typical, one thought. Closer inspection. "This is not a mistake! We're crazy" said a sign on top. Smiles around.

The good news for those who've seen the circulated version on their PCs: there are several additional sequences in the film. The slightly bad news: the film seems a little long. Not unwieldy though, but just too long. The 2 hours print seen earlier seemed taut and precise. The Indian release, however, covers the entire book's scope (adding sequences about the landings, more on Dawood's - still a shadowy figure - involvement, and Tiger's immediate provocations in the pre-blast riots.)

What the film also does is further blast to smithereens the roof that conceals Hindi filmdom's underbelly, revealing a set of wonderful actors who have no place in sunny-side-up "Bollywood" (a term which I use pejoratively, of course). It's been a while since Satya that one saw a solid ensemble put together, whose business is not to strut about but merely to inhabit and exist in four dimensions.

Introspecting about the film, Kashyap wonders whether he's succeeded in his efforts at making a "necessary film" that will kindle self-debate in the minds of the watcher. Judging by reactions in the theatre, I'm pessimistic about this. For, like some of my experiences before, I heard people laugh at many of the wrong places. What excites laughter during a tense interrogation scene or when someone's being ripped apart or just merely hearing expletives? Does the director expect to hear laughter at these points? Does the audience let him down? Have they been weaned on a different cinematic diet? These questions always puzzle me.

In the end, the plug. Go watch "Black Friday". In a theatre. It's worth your time and money. God Promise. (And while you're at it, read S. Hussain Zaidi's book too.)

Get me the "Oh Scaar" CSS

Black is as black does, I suppose. The usually "filmy" Filmfare awards are going "black tie", in a time-tested Bollywood fashion that superficially apes the West once again. Gulzar-saab made a wonderful tongue-in-cheek comment asking what white-kurta-aficionados (btw, his kurta's structural qualities never fail to astound me) like him would do in this case? (He said he'll just carry the tie in his hand!)

In further saliva-spluttering irony, the awards are to be held in a Yash Chopra studio lot. Stand-up comedians could choke on the amazing number of jokes that this can inspire. Given that some of the entertainment will be pre-recorded, perhaps you could just save some more money pre-recording awards being given to friends and family. I guess the location also saves transportation costs.

TV watchers may have seen Yash Chopra plug, in his own unique accent, the revamped awards as potentially being very "classee" and "dignifhayed". That may be so for the expensive gowns and tuxedos, but what about the nominations themselves?

Previous Filmfare '07 rant

Yoo-hoo! He's on top!

First the 50s. Then the catches. You know the comeback's complete now when he becomes President of Turkmenistan. Wow! What a comeback.

Ok, ok, I got carried away with Turkmenistan. Can't blame me though. Look at the name.

Mind what you say

"As we know it only takes an injury. Who knows, one of the guys might roll their ankle on a ball when we first arrive. I'm sure Stuey will be the first to be called up then.

:: Ricky Ponting about Stuart Clark's omission from the Australian World Cup squad

Brett Lee might be wishing Ricky Ponting hadn't said that, for the Aussies barely set feet on New Zealand soil, let along the Caribbean, and the "prophecy" seems to be coming true. Brett Lee didn't slip on a ball, McGrath-style, but he's joined Symonds on the stretchers, with Ponting and Clarke themselves under injury cloud.

It's a bad time for the Aussies who are being hit badly with 4 losses in 5 games (with the win being a very nasty shave). Where has all the talk about the mighty and seamless replacements gone now? Everyone is susceptible, and selfishly speaking, I'm glad that the events of the last week have thrown open the World Cup.