Baradwaj on Bhardwaj

With "7 Khoon Maaf" around the corner, ace film critic Baradwaj Rangan explores Vishal Bhardwaj's fascination with and ability to render interesting female characters in a piece for Caravan Magazine aptly titled "Blood Sisters".

Warning: the essay contains spoilers about most of the films mentioned.

Would you like kanda-pohe or murrukku-chiidai with your filter coffee?

Today is as good a day as any to record a personal anecdote that was recounted in a Twitter conversation by Shamanth yesterday.

In mid-2006, we were organising a quiz along with a well-known Pune school, so Salil and I hopped over to meet the teachers involved. Eventually, I met the teacher who would be doubling up as compere for the event, who had been handed a lengthy bio (thanks, world wide web) and wanted to know how my name was pronounced etc. (i.e. she wanted to separate the meagre facts from unqualified fiction). From my full name, it's easy to guess the region I hail from, and so the conversation proceeded thus (excerpts from my sieve-like memory):

T: So are you a Tamilian?
Me: Yes, I am.
T: Oh, I am too. So you are studying now?
Me: Yes. So you've been in Pune a while?
T: Yes, my husband has been working here for sometime.
Me: I see

Then the fun part:

T: I have two daughters. [beat] One of them is married.

(ok, it might not have been so abrupt to begin and end, and the good lady may not have insinuated anything, but real 'reality' just ruins a good story, doesn't it?)

7 Khoon Maaf - Vishal Bhardwaj's latest

Read about it on George's blog or see the trailer at the VB blog.

"Choose your own adventure"

Why do 25 men (15 on active duty) cause so much disruption in the lives of some grown men and women? Some of the stories sent in to The Guardian's over-by-over coverage(OBO) of the 2nd day of the first Ashes Test in Brisbane:

"Choose your own adventure" says Jay Buckley, "You are at work, somewhere in Sydney. Everyone is watching the cricket. Australia are fighting back. A gripping encounter is unfolding before your eyes. Your wife is waiting downstairs for you to drive her into the city for a drinks function where no-one will be watching, nor listening to the cricket. Do you (a) be a good husband, go downstairs and talk to her about her day; or (b) man-up and watch the rest of the session?"

A Pom, clearly too lilly livered to use his own name, writes: "Live and work in Melbourne. To my eternal shame I dodged cricket training last night for fear of the repercussions of Siddle's hat-trick, combined with my pre-series arrogance. A happy Saturday depends on this last session – otherwise an afternoon of sharp wit and piercing, astute sarcasm from my Aussie teammates awaits...Cough cough."

At 168-5, England are in good shape" says Darren Paterson. "As is the lass sitting opposite me who jumps and jiggles in all the right places every time the Aussies score a four. So I am in two minds: I want to see wickets, but I love to "watch" the fours." Good grief.

I"'m in Brisbane, sadly at work, reading your commentary," says Will Straw. "Although I've been caught several times reading 'cause I keep yelling out "NOO!" everytime Australia loses a wicket. Sadly this has happened five times today." That's a schoolboy OBO error Will, though I appreciate that sometimes a man just can't help himself.

"As I excitedly shimmied out of bed this morning at 5am my missus squeaked 'you're obsessed'," says Stuart Wilson, another one like Millings. "She is, as always, correct, but she doesn't understand. Watching England play is an obsession, a rollercoaster ride and at the same time the most the most special and painful (clean) experience a man can have. I wouldn't have it any other way. Enjoy the coming weeks, Rob!" Actually, re: your use of missus, why don't women refer to 'my mister'? Maybe they do, and have the same jokey conversations with their friends. "Look, girls, I'd love to stay out and nail 12 pinot grigios, but I haven't got a pass out from the mister," and so on. Maybe not. I don't know what I'm talking about. It's been a long night.

TEA Andy is on now. Please send your emails to him at andy.bull@guardian.co.uk. Honestly, a man slogs through two all-but-fruitless hours and then Smyth waltzes in and sees four wickets in a session. It's enough to make you sick.

"It's 7.55am in Dubai and a clear, crisp 24 degrees," says Sarah Bacon. "Am watching the Channel 9 coverage via OSN Arabia but couldn't enjoy this properly without the OBO." Awwww. Actually, I am fascinated by people who have lots of different coverage on at the same time. I don't know how you manage it. The last I heard Naylor had TMS, Sky, Test Match Sofa, the Guardian Ashes blog, seven different OBOs and Channel 9 on the go - and he was doing unpaid work for all of them.

"I really thought the hat trick on day one and the duck from Strauss meant this series was set to unfold like most Ashes Down Under," says Jacob Geiger. "But seeing the Aussies collapse after lunch here has reminded me that maybe all their pre-series troubles were not a fluke. Thank goodness this is a cracker of a match, because I'm in a turkey-induced food coma here after celebrating America's Thanksgiving holiday here in Virginia. Cricket is a salve after a long day with the in-laws."

"My mate's Sky service failed a last-minute fitness test (who knew that interference from the alarm on the shop next door would render Sky Sports useless post-midnight?) scuppering our plans to watch all night," says Lee Rodwell. "I've ended up in the Shepherd's Bush Walkabout instead though which I think might be the only public space in London with all-night coverage? The atmosphere is surprisingly serene and civilised. Or at least it was... Some guy just got thrown out by the weary-looking staff.

"Evening, Rob," says Alan Cooper. "Following along from the USA. The BBC forgot to block TMS yesterday so I had a lovely time listening to the commentary. Today they remembered. I wish someone would explain why they do it — it's not as if anyone else is offering commentary, and I would gladly pay a reasonable fee to listen. Bah! Still, I always have you!! Sorry, did I ruin the moment there?" It's the most moving paean to the OBO I've ever heard.

"Unfortunately, I don't have a TV so it's illegal feeds all the way. What with TMS being banned in Canada (bastards) the only coverage I can get is apparently from India and I am getting insane advertising throughout. The pick of the bunch though, if you'll pardon the pun, is for Mango frooti juice drink (can you have a bunch of mangoes? Whatever). Here it is. It's like the Prisoner with fruit. Is that not some f****d up idea? What a way to scare the bejesus out of someone. Bit like a bouncer from Broad."

Test cricket, will you marry me? This is true love. It's just a perfect thing, the most magnificent, nuanced sporting format, and still with (for the most part) an oldfangled integrity at odds with almost everything else in top-level sport. A classical, elegant beauty. I adore the thing. And that's even before you factor in that special, sexy little outfit we call the Ashes. It's looking particularly good just now, because Australia are just starting to fight back after that traumatic half-hour. Finn is a bit too short again and Hussey swivel-pulls behind square for four. This is such good cricket. Hussey is a fiercely tough bugger. I don't trust his bad form at all. Even if he'd gone binary for 17 innings in a row, I'd half expect him to get runs. "Millings is indeed a phony," says Phil Sawyer. "I sit here divorced, alone, and in a flat full of comics (the printed variety - I'm not hosting Live At The Apollo). Now that's proper OBO credentials." When can you start?

Hallelujah! Up goes the finger. Katich is given out LBW. But the batsmen consult and decide to refer it. Oh mercy me. What have we done to deserve this? The replays show the ball was going over the top and the decision is overturned. Katich bats on. What a kick in the guts. And it gets worse. Katich flicks the next ball away for four to fine leg. I've opened the Moster Munch after all. They taste like defeat. "Over here in France I'm quite keen to go to bed," says Michael Plevin, "Can you manufacture me a wicket (or two) in the next couple of minutes? I've got a busy(ish) day tomorrow and it's getting a little late. I really have to go to bed soon." Would it be better if I just lied to you about all this?

While talking about cricket, the Indians squabble noisily, the Sri Lankans beat some drums, the West Indians are sarcastically blasé, the Aussies tell you how good they are, but only the English *suffer*, in the best traditions of true love.

Simplicity through Complexity: great information visualisation approach to problems

Eric Berlow, an ecologist, has a fine TED talk (or micro-talk) where he takes an example of how we could use information visualisation to get to grips with seemingly complex (and perhaps complicated) problems. The example features the notorious Afghanistan graphic that came in for great scorn (rather unfairly, I thought) and as an easy means of Powerpoint bashing.

The video is only about 3-4 minutes long, and Berlow makes his point very succintly.

Run Out at the Asian Games

Read today that Preeja Sreedharan and Sudha Singh won golds (10000m and steeplechase) with Kavita Raut finishing behind Preeja for a silver at the Asian Games. This news made the sports fan in me very happy - it's been a while since individual women athletes scooped up some medals at a major tournament. Not yet close to the 80s of course, but that these hard-working athletes could do it in an era of general Chinese domination is particularly heart-warming. (BTW, where are all the post-Ma Junren Chinese long-distance runners?)

Contrast this with the BCCI opting not to send any cricket teams to the event. This is particularly galling on the women's side: the team is ranked much higher than any of the two eventual finalists (Pakistan and Bangladesh) and a gold medal should have been as easy as taking a single after the ball was hit between Arjuna Ranatunga and Sourav Ganguly.

For the Indians, coming by gold at the 2010 Asian Games have been more difficult than looking for it in Bappi Lahiri's bank locker. The women's team say they were keen to go to Guangzhou (as it is, they have very few sporting engagements each year) but the BCCI didn't choose to send a team. Perhaps the BCCI is busy with the various IPL and WADA litigations. It is also too busy to understand that, after the various IPL fiascos and the match-fixing scandals to have hit the world of cricket, it has a PR standing just above the likes of A.Raja. A cricket gold medal could have been just the happy boost that the game could have done with in India. It is hard to spot any logic in the BCCI's actions unless this is part of a large conspiracy to undermine the inclusion of the sport in future Asian or Olympic Games. Very absurd, but seems very BCCI.

Or is it just that for wise-old-BCCI, all that is gold does not glitter?

Facebook's new messages system

I've always wondered why, in the age of online handles and content-based routing and web identities, do we still need to have 8+ digit numbers for phones. Since it's painful to remember more than a handful of these numbers, we end up giving them useful aliases on our mobile devices or address books. Instead, why can't we simply have something like a "name telecom provider" interface?

Which is why I was intrigued to see that very same point being made in Facebook's announcement of its Facebook Messages revamp. It's very clever, it's very social, and it is likely to take Facebook to people who didn't care to be part of that ecosystem. When GMail brought in a fresh look at e-mail, it was typically Google: fast, usable, but geeky (tags instead of folders, email classification, attachment reminders). This, in comparison, is social-like-hell (for us not-so-social types) - separate inboxes for friends vs others (v. simple - why didn't others implement this?), the promise of replaying your interactions with a person over a lifetime, and convergence of email/IM/sms.

The announcement also suggests that they spoke to high-schoolers to understand what they thought about messaging, which is interesting. So Twitter is for the 30+ crowd and the hare-brained-celebs, GMail for those who discovered Google in their twenties, but FB will evolve with teens.

I don't use FB very much, but it looks like it's just arrived on my online doorstep. Especially if this is the vision:

Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other. We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly. We aren't there yet, but the changes today are a small first step.

Zuckerberg's Social Network keeps getting wider.

(just a bunch of thoughts that struck me when I read the announcement)

Couple-springi premises

Such notices can be seen all around Chaturshringi Temple in Pune. Roughly translated:

Couples should not sit and indulge in indecent activities; otherwise they will be photographed and the photos will be handed over to the police.
By Order

Obviously, I have failed to capture the 'snappiness' of the original lines.

It's hard to say if there were sincere volunteers, armed with a camera, lurking around in the bushes, waiting for a chance to spring upon amorous pairs. It's easy to ask what I was doing there in the first place, but I shall not dignify that with an answer.

You, Me, aur We

I know a lot of people who watch football on TV. Usually, they watch the English Premier League, which is perfectly timed to give them their weekend excuse for not going out to meet relatives (at least the non-football-ones). The even more committed will stay up to watch La Liga and Serie A. The absolutely crazy ones will perhaps even watch Dempo vs Salgaocar on a Thursday afternoon.

But it is the first lot that I want to talk about - the ones that watch 20 English clubs in one of the world's most commercialised sporting leagues. Talk to some of them, and a curious linguistic-social oddity will strike you: they refer to their teams with pronouns such as "us" and "we". People have attained a curious level of self-identification that lets them attach a part of themselves with a team based in a place most of them would struggle to pick out on a map. Mind you, only the top clubs, nay marketing wonders, have managed these psychological feats - I have never met someone in my local circle who would use a "we" for Sunderland or West Bromwich Albion.

I recently stumbled upon a fabulous satire on the dependably hilarious show That Mitchell and Webb Look - to me, the definite summary of the nonsensical nature of this kind of feeling among some fans. Watch it even if you aren't a football buff:

"Infinite Zounds" - a new quiz blog

I've started Infinite Zounds - a new blog that features (at least) one new question each day. There are quite a few quiz blogs around, but what's different about this blog is that the underlying theme is what is usually known as "Current Affairs". Each question is about something that was in the news recently and is contemporary in attention. So no questions about the Harappan civilisation, film noir from the 50s, the books of Raymond Chandler, or the performances of Kumar Sanu - unless they were in the news recently for some reason.

(In fact, it is highly unlikely that the blog will have any questions on Sanu - you can stop hyperventilating now.).

If you visit the blog, you will see that each post also contains the answer below in addition to the question. The answer is hidden, to let you hazard a guess in your head if you so choose to. I don't like going back to a blog the next day to find the answer, which is why I've done this.

You can subscribe to the blog via its feed. Unfortunately, this feed may contain the answer as well - that's something I haven't managed to solve, despite setting the feed to publish partially. Based on how things go, I might change the feed to full. Until then, if you subscribe via the default feed, consider a general spoiler alert to be in issuance.

An alternative is to follow the blog via Twitter or Google Buzz (or use the email id 'infinitezounds[at]gmail').

So, inviting you to take a look at Infinite Zounds, and see if the questions take your fancy. Let me know if it does.

The music of Udaan

The soundtrack of Udaan should be properly introduced as being created by Amitabh Bhattacharya (lyrics) and Amit Trivedi (music). The duo, in their first full-length album since Dev.D, are clearly masters at exploring themes of angst. This collection of songs has a cohesion rare in most film soundtracks, with the tracks complementing each other in mood and thought. Restlessness and the optimistic desire to escape current orbits suffuse the songs.

Kahaani establishes the mood of Udaan with its whispered beginning slowly developing into a electric guitar-fuelled rock piece. The title song is more conventional, with a catchy riff and words of quiet rebellion. It is a little weak though, in comparison to the songs that follow. Geet... is wonderful - somehow the Amits manage to perfectly capture a sunbeam of naive optimism. The mood is upbeat and there's some very nice use of harmony and guitars. The two also have an interesting singing partnership - this is as far removed from Bandmasters Rangila and Rasila as you can get.

For me, Naav is the standout song from the album. I'm assuming Mohan (I don't know who he is!) is the lead singer. Though the diction is a little odd, the delivery is wonderful. The thought is age-old: a call to overcoming impediments, but the metaphor (of a boat struggling for breath) was new to me. You will scarcely find a more rousing song to listen to when you are sinking to the dumps. Compositions like these put the 'rock' in rock. (Here's a link to the lyrics for this song.)

Aazaadiyaan reminds me a lot of a previous Amit Trivedi song - "Ik Lau" (Aamir) - it has the same lingering start and perhaps the openings of are similar too, though the tempo is different. The sitar riff is very pleasing, and serves as a springboard for the rest of the song to take off (almost literally).

In contrast, Motumaster is quite out of place. To be fair, it has been designed as an 'arbit' ad-hoc kind of song (Anurag Kashyap's official debut as lyricist?) and is quite hilarious in parts ('kamar to naapte hai magar hum kamraa kaise naape?"). But it might have been better off being just in the film and not on the album. The concluding instrumental piece is reflective and appropriate.

One reason why Udaan's soundtrack works is because the story and treatment seem to be tailormade for the Amits. Amit Trivedi is very good at the rock-folk milieu and is able to bring his own bag of tricks to it. I wonder how he will deal with more commercial ventures. One of the pleasures of listening to his albums is to hear very new voices. Who are these Neuman Pinto/Joi Barua/Mohan/Nikhil D'Souza? Now we've heard them and of them. But if he goes more mainstream, how will this work out for them? But I do wish Amit Trivedi didn't feature on every other song s- he's got a raspy voice suited only for certain types, and he might be overdoing it a tad.

In short, listen to Udaan.

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Image created using Wordle

Lamenting convocation speeches

Why don't we have good speakers at convocation ceremonies in India? Each year, a commencement speech or two from a US university will do the email rounds. Usually by a leading figure, the speech will be amusing, inspiring, interesting, and even personal. It's quite a good way to sign off a graduating year's stint in that academic institution. And some may finally learn something useful there!

In contrast, most convocation ceremonies at Indian institutions are boring affairs, with the chief guest's speech crowning the insipid cake with the dullest cherry of the day. It doesn't help that chief guests are often politicians, called to the ceremony because they are ultimately influential patrons of the educational system, or because the powers-that-be get a chance to rub noses with the ruling elites. On occasion, figures from business are invited, which is usually an improvement on the politicos. But oratory may not really be their strong suit. Forget diction or command, even the content is mundane and in danger of adding decades to Kumbhakarna's slumber.

The three convocation speeches that coincided with my stint at IIT Bombay were largely uninspiring. The first was the then HRD Minister, Arjun Singh (2005), incidentally in the middle of his reservations controversy. Montek Singh Ahluwahlia (2006) followed - decent, but I can't think of anything memorable that he said. Invited to preside over the convocation ceremony of 2007 was industrialist L.N.Mittal. On paper, it seemed a decent choice - he was riding several waves of fame. But the hour-long speech was, sadly, one of the most boring that it has been my fate to sit through. If it wasn't the small matter of picking up a degree certificate, I might have succumbed to that most primal of social urges: of escaping from a boring colloquium, by hook or crook. What made it worse was that he repeatedly referred to the hallowed institution as "double-I-T" or even on occasion "double-I-I-T". Depending on which rules of association one applied to the latter, we wondered if we were taking leave from "I²IT" or even "I⁴T". (Incidentally, earlier that year, his namesake Sunil Bharti Mittal had delivered a guest lecture in the nearby School of Management, which was quite impressive in content and delivery.)

I note that this year's IIT Bombay convocation featured more science-oriented individuals: Dr. Kiran Majumdar Shaw and Prof. Roddam Narasimha as chief guests. (I was even more intrigued to find out that the convocation had been split into two sessions over two days - apparently, too many people graduating! The Convocation Hall is huge, so the space overflow must have been considerable.) I don't know how their speeches went, and it's not a good idea to automatically assume people like these will be any more inspirational than their predecessors.

It's a pity that most public function speeches in India are so poorly delivered, and that everyone involved has come to expect nothing more. The speakers don't do us listeners the honour of diligent practice, and the listeners in turn, do the listeners no favours of attention.

Some of the more famous commencement speeches alluded to in the opening of this post:

* Steve Jobs at Stanford, 2005: video, transcript - probably the most famous of the lot
* J. K. Rowling at Harvard, 2008: video, transcript - titled "the fringe benefits of failure"
* Jon Stewart at The College of William and Mary, 2004: transcript - quite hilarious
* Atul Gawande at Stanford School of Medicine, 2010: transcript - interesting, cautionary, and thought-provoking thoughts for a graduating class of doctors

The inevitable top ten list is here.

Bus Ek Pal

I take the company bus to work in the morning and return by it in the evening. I am convinced these buses have bombs on them that will go off within 30 seconds of the bus reaching its destination.

What else explains the mad rush for fellow passengers to alight? As the bus nears its stop, people from the back storm to the front. As the bus stops, others will get up and into the aisle. The line to get down is clogged. But they don't mind standing uncomfortably, rubbing more than shoulders with people in front and behind them. All they care is that they be out into the open, where presumably, they will be saved (yet again) from the poisonous gas slowly filling their empty seats.

Me? I sit down defiantly. Some kind of sit-in protest that is doomed because, well, I do also have to get down at some point. Sometimes, I swing my legs out into the aisle. It announces to the hyenas behind me that yes, I want to get down too, but can't you see that people seated ahead of us must be allowed to get down first? And where are your manners? And do you have to get down in a group? Clearly, the signal is too subtle and packed with too much information, because they rush past me, stumbling and saying "sorry" without meaning it. I must be acquiring a criminal education in sparking off stampedes.

It's funny, this urge to dismount at the earliest. There's no visible advantage in having to wait for 2 more seconds. People who are supposed to get down don't stand in the middle of the bus discussing the Kashmir issue or whether P is not equal to NP. So what are the rushers afraid of?

That leaves only one explanation. But it can wait - it's time to go.

Stalk show

I've started receiving Twitter's suggestions for people I should 'follow'. I wish it wouldn't. For the most part, these are celebrities that I have deliberately chosen to stay far away from (the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Chetan Bhagat, Lalit Modi). The suggestions seem to be deduced from my current social graph on twitter and popular Indian celebrities (probably based on number of followers or a list). Apart from these being shallow dimensions to suggest 'interesting people', shouldn't such an algorithm consider this: if I have been on Twitter for a couple of years and these people have been around for over 3 months, I would in all likelihood have heard of them? (if they are indeed popular enough to be tweeted about) Thus, if I have not followed them so far, it is out of choice and not of ignorance.

Probably they should stick to picking friends-of-a-friends and minor celebs (not in the top 100, say). Or just leave us alone to stumble in the jungle. Even better, is there someway to indicate (proudly) under a "Who Not to Follow" section, that I choose not to follow these people?

Lost in Austen -

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any article about Pride and Prejudice must begin with the line It is a truth universally acknowledged. But more pertinently to this blog post, it is a truth universally acknowledged that any schoolgirl who reads Pride and Prejudice, particularly in the company of fellow convent schoolgirls, must fall hopelessly in love with the plot, the milieu, and most importantly, with Darcy¹. Even Hugh Grant (ex-floppy-haired-bookshop-owner and cor-blimey-was-he-PM-of-Britain-too?) couldn't unseat that juciest of all snooty Darcies, Colin Firth. And he tried.

The 2008 ITV Lost in Austen is a very interesting adaptation of the tale, which takes these very principles to heart. Amanda Price, 21st century Brit girl, looking for true love, is an ardent fan of P&P. One day, she finds Elisabeth Bennett, standing in her salle de bains, mysteriously transported from the world of Austen. They swap places, and the rest of the story is Amanda's 'sojourn' through that world.

Thanks to her presence, there are inevitable complications, such as pre-ordained partnerships going awry. Amanda soon finds herself trying to clear waters that get muddier with every passing day. In a sense, she assumes the role of that other famous Austen girl, Emma, having to steer relationships in the way they are supposed to, and miserably failing at them.

The series has its comic highs, especially in the first episode, but tends to go all sentimental as it heads into the second half of the four-part series. The ending is a little rushed, but overall, it's an entertaining excursion over well-known literary territory. The actors, being British and all, are quite good.

Coincidentally, this viewing comes the same week that India's (probably) first cinematic adaptation of Jane Austen released. I don't understand why people should remake a well-known classic faithfully, and would find the likes of Lost in Austen more appealing. But only if, as this New Yorker mention of Aisha remarked, it came without "zombies or sea-monsters". Or Gurinder Chadha. Brr.

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1: applying induction from domestic evidence

A truth of inconvenience

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that

Talking to people in professional contexts, particularly in customer service, often makes you feel like you are Dave, trying to reason with a cold non-human (eventually, a bad idea). Neither do these people possess a super-brain like HAL 9000, nor (and this is worse) can they be bypassed or turned off. The idea of taking an axe to them to check for frontal lobe absence becomes more appealing by the minute.

Author Dan Pink writes about the use of 'professionalese' in this Telegraph article, calling it "a renter’s language". Talking about sentences like We apologise for any inconvenience, he says:

It doesn’t expect to be around for very long and has no stake in the long-term prospects of the neighbourhood.

Pink argues that people and businesses need not think of personal language as being weak and unsuitable in the arena of carrying out business. That people should try being more open and honest, and this is more likely to get customers to view you as being trustworthy and human.

I know this sounds right, but I really doubt this will happen on a sufficiently large scale. Working in a large company and living in a country famed for its bureaucratic attitudes, I encounter insensitive, uncaring, and non-human behaviour on a regular basis. The renter-owner comparison perfectly captures the problem. But I also blame such behaviour on individual laziness, the ability of an existing system to warp the minds of the average person working in it, and an inability to think independently. Look at workplace-verbiage such as "please reach out to me" or the infamous "touch base" (can I reach out to you to touch base?) rather than a simpler, more commonplace "please let me know"/"please contact me". Is this verbal camouflage? Do people learn to talk this way so as to meld into the ecosystem and not stick out too much?

Or, as I often suspect, they are just being idiots?

(from the archives: Billshot Bungle)

That's a wrap, Mr. Baswani

From what I can tell, the actor Ravi Baswani did not have a fan club or a Facebook page. And why wouldn't that be? IMDB lists fewer than 30 movies in his filmography, over a thirty year film career. Most of those movies never amounted to anything much. Some were nothing more than complete duds. Even his last public performance seems to be for a very unamusing ad for Mirinda.

Yet, to film-people and viewers of certain vintages and tastes, Ravi Baswani is a name that evokes several happy memories. Of chasing and being chased by Duryodhana. Of being turned into a chauffeur by Winnie Paranjape. Of losing a newly bought handkerchief in a girl-wooing scheme promoted by Amitabh Bachchan. Of being partly responsible for an entire generation both eating their cake and throwing it out of the window. And of being in a fabulous parody/tribute of ye olde hindi film songs.

You will notice that Baswani's reputation was built largely on his appearance in two movies. One is the much loved and much feted Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. The other is Chasme Buddoor, which according to me, has been the least watched of all the great Hindi films of the last 40 years. In both, he is in danger of being thought of a comic sidekick and a weakling. But it was never his place in the grand scheme of things to play the hero. To his credit, he always held his own: in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, trying to keep the moral compass in shape in a deeply immoral setting, while exhibiting shiftiness, jealousy and pusillanimity in Chasme Buddoor. In both senses, he was the guy next door - someone certain to lose out¹.

As it often happens, we learned more about Ravi Baswani after news of his death (from a heart attack, after looking for locations for his directorial debut) came in (see 2). He was 64 - which meant his acting debut in 1980 was at the ripe old age of 34. That he was a highly regarded theatre actor (as most of these can-really-act Delhi-wallahs are). That he was straight-talking, even caustic at times, and said such things about movies like Jodhaa Akbar such as: It's like [Ashutosh Gowariker] said, "Bring me all the bad actors. I’m going to make cinema out of that.".. (And even that he was probably living a couple of kms away from my house in Santacruz (E), long ago!)

On one hand, Ravi Baswani never did much else that rivalled his two most famous films in terms of attention. On the other, in those, he achieved much more than many in Bollywood ever do in an entire life. The length of a career is never a good measure of anyone's work, and there are several people both inside and outside film industries that this could apply to. Perhaps he was too hemmed in by the nature of his comic success, the inevitably stereotyping, and for being a thoughtful person in a time and place that made such people go extinct very soon.

Still, as with most obits, this made me evaluate the place such a person had in my life, and I'm surprised to know that it was significant, even if brief. And what better excuse to pull out Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Chasme Buddoor once again, to marvel at the writing and the little touches, and the people that chipped in to make our little lives worth living.

More
* His last known interview; another interesting interview (from 2003)
* Ravi Baswani played the moderator on an Indian version of Whose Line is it Anyway. He also did a fair bit of TV during the heydays of DD, and perhaps his last major TV role was in the slightly offbeat Just Mohabbat
* The latest film I've seen him in was in Naseeruddin Shah's debut directorial venture.
* I've read obits mention that his name in Chasme Buddoor was "Jai Lakhanpal". They might be wrong. One, to my ears, he says 'J. Lakhanpal' ("brother of B.A.Lakhanpal") and not "Jai". Second, I always thought he was making the whole thing up, because it was obvious he had no such brother. (Incidentally, a man named Dinesh Lakhanpal was an assistant director on the film in real life.)

The wonderful parody/tribute song sequence from Chasme Buddoor:

Parody, Chashme Buddoor - Hindi Song - Deepti Naval , Ravi baswani @ Yahoo! Video

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footnotes
[1]: In a post called Who's playing the lead, I used Jomu's un-heroic inability to start his motorcycle to wonder if we would be the heroes of our films. It seems strangely appropriate to RB's life.

[2]: See an interviews with Kundan Shah and a post by Sudhir Mishra

The software has nothing to do with it

It's an old ploy - newspapers put out headlines or take angles in a story just to grab our attention, but without considering the facts. And who does it better than The Times of India? Today's newspaper reports the unfortunate murder of Darshana Tongare, a recent COEP grad and IBM trainee, who was stabbed by an unknown figure. Apparently she wasn't robbed, so the motives aren't entirely clear yet.

The Times of India takes the view that "The safety of women techies in Pune has come into sharp focus once again". So far, nothing suggests that the profession of the victim had anything to do with the incident. The safety of every woman in the city, professional or not, traveling at night could be called into question. In fact, the general safety of the populace at large. What's more shocking was the lack of response from the police control rooms, when passer-bys tried to report the incident. The ToI buries that deep into the report.

Many newspaper articles, particularly in headlines, report incidents of crime with the profession of the victim embedded. In most cases, this is incidental. "Techie" is now a cliched and obnoxious word - and not everyone working in a software company is a technologist. Cases of suicide caused by overwork may qualify. But to papers, just 'man robbed' isn't sufficiently eye-catching, I suppose.

In fact, the same ToI report lists 7 other cases from the last 2.5 years where Pune women associated with the world of IT-BPO have been assaulted. In four of these cases, the suspects/assailants were known to the victims, and were crimes involving personal disputes. Nothing to do with being in the software profession. But yes, at least two of the remaining three could be said to be directly related to the nature of the industry, involving late working hours and being situated in poorly connected/lit/policed areas of Pune.

Such a lack of perspective affects the city and the industry as a whole, and dilutes the focus away from such issues such as better policing and systems that could both prevent and solve such issues. Incidentally, the ToI's sister publication (to my mind, the more reliable and less hypocritical of the two) Pune Mirror takes the angle of the emergency number "100" being unmanned. The Indian Express report is expectedly sober. From a non-Pune-paper view, The Hindu largely report the facts, editorialising only in the end (which is their prerogative), quoting the appropriate earlier cases.

One hopes the case is swiftly solved and that the right lessons are learnt by the police. Might we dare to hope for the same for India's most selling newspaper?

Re-versioning 'revert'

I had previously written about my aversion for the reversion i.e. the use of 'revert' in e-mails to mean 'reply'. But the inevitable march of the very forces that make language fluid and nimble have had their first major victory in this matter. Linguist Ben Zimmer (he replaced William Safire in the New York Times' popular 'On Language' column) wrote on the topic, noting that this sense of the word has finally made it to a dictionary.

The 8th edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary notes the (still obnoxious) usage, marking it as having originated in Indian-English. We are seeing, at first-hand, an example of the mutation of language, and some part of me wants to celebrate that. So I suppose it is time to put the pitchforks down, but that doesn't mean a change in my conservative attitude. The likelihood of me embracing this word-meaning combination is the same as that of a Khap panchayat sending a gift certificate and greeting card to the latest set of Jat elopers.

Aren't you glad that the madmen of Indian villages didn't spent as much time protecting language?

Kodos and Kang's World Cup of Horror

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(original Kodos & Kang image from Wikipedia)