Diwali Reflections

As I write this blog, I’m sitting on the bed typing away in my room in the dark with the lights off. There is only the soft glow of an orange Diwali ‘kandeel’ (lantern) in my window with its streamers fluttering in the cool night breeze. That and the occasional splash of colour flitting across the room as a firework explodes in the sky sending out sudden bursts of red, green or gold light that float down slowly and ebb into nothingness in the breeze.

The inky vastness of the night sky ouside contrasts vividly with the strings of dancing lights in the apartment blocks opposite my window.

Am listening to Abida Parveen belt out ‘Na nigaah mein manzil to justaju hi sahi’ in the background on Falak on Worldspace (which generally plays too much Jagjit Singh and too little of the rest of the vast Ghazal performing majority).

Remember listening to a lot of different Ghazal performers (mostly on Polydor or HMV records) during school holidays on our trusty Orion portable. The setting typically used to be some cool retreat away from Mumbai that enabled us to get through the holiday heat with our sanity intact during Diwali or the long summer school vacation. Stuff by performers like Nina and Rajendra Mehta, Savita Sathi, Talat Aziz, Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain, Begum Akhtar, Anup Jalota (before his Bhajan period), Vatsala Mehra and the like. And Penaaz Masani (Dad used to be a huge fan-I’m not sure whether for her relaxed lazy interpretation of Ghazals or the way she looked. Remember seeing her recently at an airport and wondering whether I should get an autograph for dad).

Vividly remember picking up a Chandan Das cassette for the first time in a Delhi market en route to Kashmir. It turned out to be brilliant and paved the way for more Ghazal cassettes (there was a time when we had close to 200 of them).Age has ruined most of them now. And I cannot find replacements on CD or tape.Used to sample Ghazals then mostly through DoorDarshan shows, with their typical 80’s ‘Ghazal feel‘ painted sets with chandeliers, fountains and alternate close up shots of the singer and a bunch of flowers (still haven’t figured that one out).Some of my favorites are mentioned below. If you have an idea of where to get these please let me know-

Chandan Dass-

Dil me kis darja bedili hai abhi
Woh chandani ka badan
Is soch mein baitha hoon
Aaj ki raat bhi guzri hai (..meri kal ki tarha..haath aaye na sitare tere aanchal ki tarah)
Saari duniyan ke sitam aur mera dil tanha
Ab khushi hai na koi dard
Chand tare yunhi
Haalat maiqade ke
Halka halka surur hai saaki

Savita Sathi-

Faasle aise badhenge
Pyaar ke din bahut suhane the
Yeh zindagi ke tamashe
Veerane mein chupkar rona

Penaz Masani-

Fasle bahar kya kahoon
Kahan the raat ko
Halka kabhi padega
Yun unki buzm mein

Jagjit Singh-
Baad muddat unhe dekhkar yoon laga
Main aur meri tanhai

Talat aziz-
Ab kya Ghazal sunaoon
Duniya ko yeh kamaal bhi karke dikhaiye

Vatsala Mehra-
Aap ka etbaar kaun kare

Nina & Rajendra Mehta-
Taaj Mahal mein aajana
Suna hai maine yeh jabse ke tum gulshan me aaoge

In the event that you manage to trace these, please pick up a copy of the album for yourself (that is, if you do like ghazals).

Yup, they’re ‘that’ good.

Fade to black

Have started developing a fond craving for old black and white Hindi movies. More specifically, hanker for a time, albeit on celluloid, where life was simpler, cleaner and more elegant. Modern movies have too much clutter for my liking-so much so in fact that the message (if any) gets lost in a sea of hammy acting and terrible effects.

Love the oldies for a number of reasons. Like getting an unexpected view of a sparsely populated Bombay with more open spaces during a standard tree sequence in songs.Unexpectedly coming across a double decker bus in a scene chugging along an empty marine drive.And having scripts that made sense (strange how scripts that were saleable a quarter century back or more find no takers now).And for the optimism which shines through, no matter how bleak the setting, or how dark some of the characters are.

Even the Eastman color movie era that followed was brilliant in its own right. Compelling actors and screenplay gave us such hits as Deewar, Golmaal, and Sholay.

Am deeply skeptical about this movie remake business. Fine that you’ve watched the movie in your school shorts.Also fine that you idolize the hero/heroine/director. But why in god’s name would you want to remake the thing? And trumpet it as your contemporary interpretation of the classic while stating, seemingly humbly in interviews, that you could never match the Original? Why couldn’t you have made it into a class project while at film school? Wait a minute; you never were at film school were you? In that case, carry on, I guess.

I admit that there are some competent remakes out there. Like Psycho, for instance. But those are good only if you haven’t seen the original. Pathetic if you have.

Trying to remake something as iconic as Sholay is suicidal. Agreed that it’s a ‘proven formula’ and you’re just changing the variables. But that approach generally works in maths and not in the movie world. One very compelling reason against such a daft move is that a lot of the target audience has already seen and loved the original movie and has ‘grown up’ with it. I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t seen Sholay to date. If I were in the remake business I would be more comfortable working with something that has a killer script and mass appeal but has managed to keep a low profile over the years. Definitely not something of Sholay’s caliber.

Cannot imagine someone else doing a Jai and Veeru act. Or for that matter anybody else doing a Gabbar, even someone of Mr. Bacchan’s stature.

It just feels wrong.

Perhaps we could possibly maybe change Dhanno, if Maneka Gandhi okays the move…but nothing else...

Even if the movie does decently at the box office, people would never admit it could match up to the original. Don’t imagine anyone renting the movie or buying the DVD five years down the line.

So what exactly is the point here?Am I missing something?

Interesting hypothesis

Came across Scott Adams’ blog while searching for Dilbert comic strips on the web. Is surprisingly sane except for some cases where tries to defend some of his more over the edge beliefs.

Ran into this well constructed argument.

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/09/philosophical_q.html

Go ahead. Read it.

Think it over.

And post your responses here.

A one track mind

Ditching the ubiquitous Mumbai local has unexpected advantages.

Have been commuting to work as long as I can remember by train, probably because Office has always been on the other side of town. Moved recently to a workplace that turned out to be closer to home, and so naturally expected to reach there a lot sooner, knowing, as any Mumbaikar does, that the shortest distance between any two points in Mumbai is a train ride.

Was confused when getting there by train (by this I mean getting to the station and from there to work) took anything between 45 minutes to an hour. Even more so when getting there by auto takes 25 minutes flat. So have abandoned the local for a bus/auto to work.

Which is great. And that’s not just because I was tired of arriving at office after a train ride with my shirt looking like it’s never been near a laundry.

I have started listening to music while on the move again. Something that I couldn’t do when I traveled by train for just two stations. Also, wasn’t generally in the mood for music in the auto later to work after all that jostling during the train ride. Had forgotten how much better the day starts off this way.

Listen to a lot of assorted stuff on my way to work now, but have lately been listening to a lot of strange tracks that I’ve discovered (or re-discovered in some cases) through Worldspace. Have been tracking down the relevant album on the internet and checking out if the album’s available locally, else persuading a friend to try and download the track.

Have been listening to these songs for a number of times in a row, spaced throughout the day or the week And am surprised that they manage to stay stuck in my head for so long. Have included a list of some of these tracks below-

‘The blower’s daughter‘by Damien Rice (with a particularly haunting vocal section by Lisa Hannigan.)
‘One headlight’ by the Wallflowers.
‘Blood of Eden’ by Peter Gabriel and Sinead O’ Connor,
’ All for you’ by Sister Hazel,
‘You get what you give’ by the New Radicals,
’Hate Me’ by Blue October.

All good, if somewhat unconventional tracks.

See if you like any of them.

Cheers!!

Oops!!

Sorry about the last pic post.

Had reset my phone and got a message saying that a new blog had been created when I tried to post.

Sent the pic to check on which blog it lands up.Apparently,it's still linked to this one.

Sorry about the confusion :)

Will post again later

The Rebuff

He took a step back and beamed.

The leather shoes looked as good as new. Fifteen minutes of careful cleaning and polishing had paid off. He cleaned the last of the polish stains from his hands and prepared to leave.
Grabbed his laptop and strode carefully across the street avoiding the potholes filled with muddy water. An auto was hailed.
"Station?”.
"Chaliye".
Got off. Crossed the bridge. Jostled and pushed to get into the train compartment. Jostled and pushed to get out.
Another auto. Office. Washroom mirror.
Glanced at shoes-now muddy and with polish barely recognizable. From other feet that weren't as careful.
Wiped them clean with a tissue. Buffed them again on the back of his trouser legs.
Smiled.

"Always take pride in what you do son. And do the best that you can".

Thanks dad.

Marine Drive

Marine Drive in Bombay.
With the sky a gloomy grey.
With the wind blowing rain on your face.
With the waves crashing against the tetrapods.
With the bhutta and chanewalas.
With the occasional hawaldar.
With the moist air in your lungs.
With the boats ebbing in the distance.
With your feet over the edge.
And a friend.Or that special someone.
Perfection?

Policing Adults

Though I try and keep commentaries on political issues off my blog, there are times when amazing stupidity prevails in the universe despite there being plenty of sane people around. I’ll come around to that later in the post.

The latest case in point is that of TV channels being blocked in Maharashtra by a court ruling because of a PIL that accuses them of showing adult content that is termed as potentially damaging to kids. The said channels include HBO, Star Movies and AXN and these have been off the air for around a fortnight.

Which brings us to this minor point-how exactly do we define objectionable content?

By acceptability? Are the saans bahu soaps being widely screened across channels with their crazy plots of jealousy and scheming in families healthy food for thought for a kid? For that matter, are raunchy videos being aired on music channels okay too?

Indian channels today lack depth. With all channels striving to provide round the clock entertainment, it is no surprise that their quick fix solution to the programming shortage is to approve sub-standard content that gets the TRP’s up, however temporarily. And steamy content is the surest way to TRP heaven.

The court seems to say that this tendency is perfectly fine, as it seems to escape unpunished. But channels like HBO and Star that bring us ‘phoren’ content have, by default, no morality and thus should be blocked

If I remember correctly, Star stopped showing 18 rated movies after the mid-nineties. All the movies that are shown nowadays happen to be rated a max. rating of UA with a viewer discretion warning flashed at the start of the movie (To be fair HBO does not follow the same system).

If channels like Star movies could be banned, it would be for showing repetitive content. Because I don’t seem to find any objectionable content on channels like Star and HBO.Maybe that’s because that I’m an adult. And want to see movies depict adult issues. And adult issues do not mean smut.

I also seem to remember that most of the little ‘objectionable’ content I’d seen when I was a kid was beamed locally by the Cable guy. My parents reacted to objectionable content by changing the channel which seemed to work just fine then. And by teaching me to know the difference between good content and bad.

Which I guess is too much to expect from parents of today. They expect the government to make up for their inability to keep their kids from watching stuff on TV that they are not supposed to. They also cannot delete the objectionable channel from their TV or use the child lock feature that is available in many TV sets today. And they seem to be oblivious to the fact that to deny a kid anything is the surest way to get him interested.Or to the fact that every objectionable material is just a click away on the net or freely available at the friendly neighbourhood movie pirate.

But they do expect my tax money to help the government play benevolent nanny to parents who clearly aren’t doing their jobs right. Am I supposed to pay for diaper changes too?

Enforcing morality and ensuring that his or her child has the right influences while growing up is the respective parent’s job-not the government’s.

But as I pointed out at the beginning of my post, stupidity prevails. Mostly because the sane sorts are too busy getting on with their lives to act. A point that I have touched upon earlier in this blog.

Which is precisely why a litigant who has admitted in a newspaper interview that she thinks cartoons on TV are violent has succeeded getting the court to block channels instead of looking at saner alternatives.

But as they only affect India’s adult population of around a billion people, no one cares much.

Touché

Vande Mataram

Politicians and Indian politicians in particular seem to have a penchant for creating new issues for their moment in the spotlight.

It all began when the HRD ministry issued an order that Vande Mataram should be sung in all schools in the country on September 7, the supposed centenary of the song. While I did have Vande Mataram as a prayer everyday in school, I do understand that not everybody would be open to this suggestion. But the last thing that I expected was opposition from our Muslim leaders to the move on religious grounds. I understand the Islamic need to not salute anything other than Allah, but the prayer has a purely symbolic value in its current form where the ‘mother’ is the nation.

The entire issue has been blown out of proportion with Muslim leaders condemning the song as un-Islamic. It did have its roots in a Hindu prayer (to Durga, I think), but it is now a national symbol and needs to be viewed as such.

I don’t hear protests from other communities, or from Hindus who don’t pray to Durga (I don’t) about it being discriminating. Being diverse is very much a part of the Indian identity.

In a country that is predominantly Hindu, Christmas happens to be a holiday for everyone. Should I start coming to work on Christmas and demand another holiday as compensation just because I’m Hindu?

Interpretation of what has national significance is driven by common sense, a quality that is ironically missing in our politicos, the so called elected representatives of the Indian common man. And this has been the status quo for at least the last ten years, if not longer.

If this was always the case, I’m curious to know what Muslim freedom fighters chanted during the pre-independence struggle. Surely not Vande Mataram?

Today’s political leaders (and I mean leaders from all communities) have this strange need to drag out insignificant issues for debate and distort them because there have been no results on the other fronts that really matter.

National symbols are not intended to disrespect any community and they should be recognized for what they are-tokens of being a part of a diverse and dynamic nation.

Let them be.

There was a time when we celebrated our diversity.

Now we seem to be ashamed of it.

Mobile blogging

Somewhere down the line I sat up and realised that I wasn't blogging as often as I'd really like to.Not that hard to figure out why-can't sit down and edit a post in office and am not connected at home.

And so my blog gathered dust while I tried in vain to find time to blog.And managed instead to trek,catch a dozen or so movies,drink copious amounts of alcohol and change my job-the latter starting off an entirely new string of activities to distract me from posting stuff.

It was with this background that I read about the Sony Ericsson k610i on Cnet.

A phone?That blogs!!With pictures??-You've gotta be kidding me.

But I went out and bought it anyway.

And after the initial teething troubles with the blogging feature (the phone disconnected before I could agree to the terms and conditions) , I realised that this was brilliant.

I could capture any image and sit (not really necessary-the sitting part is optional) and compose a post almost anywhere (In a cab on the way back from a client meeting,awake in bed at night,during a boring product seminar..)The possibilities seemed endless.

And the phone compensated for my not being able to access my blog from work(Blogger isn't blocked but reality is a keyword that the system associates with something it should censor-porn maybe)

Yippee!!

To top it off the damn thing is light and extremely pocketable unlike the other cumbersome large Nokias I was considering.

As we Indians say-paisa vasool ;)

Go figure.

On Starting a trek on the right foot

Am planning to take a break this weekend from work and go down to lohagad which is a fort around lonavala in maharashtra,India.Both my current pairs of sneakers have bitten the dust as a result of being in my company for too long(since b-school in fact).And so the search starts for a new pair.Zeroed in on this sturdy looking pair from Adidas but there's a New balance pair at a discount on the other shelf. Decisions. Decisions..trekked using a tennis shoe the last time i went there during engineering(blasphemy,i know but didn't have anything except my trusty k-swiss then.Does the brand still exist?). Those were brilliant-the carbon rubber soles meant for the court gave brilliant grip and the silicone rubber cushioning kept blisters away.It even had a heel cradle!Don't do tennis anymore,but sorely miss the shoe..Hope fila still makes them..It's still a strange thing to get nostalgic about but hey-we're quirky people :-)

Beat the heat this summer

“That shirt sir, is fine linen. And it is light and absorbent. Should be just the thing for this heat”

And so you fall for the spiel and buy the damn thing from the smart sales guy in the swanky store which promises you relief from the Mumbai heat.

After all it’s Linen. Or it’s 100% cotton. Or has a light breezy weave. And so it ought to work.

But it doesn’t.

Not that it’s entirely its fault. After all the garment was designed for ideal test conditions. And not commuting in the Indian summer.

It is after you get into a train with the thing on that you realize that there’s not much space for it to do its climate control thing. And that it’s super absorbent status means that you’re soaking up perspiration from the people around you in the train as well.

Which is not exactly a very comforting thought to have lingering in your mind for the rest of the day at work.

And so you tolerate the shirt’s presence on your back till you can get home, rip it off and dump it into the machine.

And then you realize that a cold shower is the only thing that offers any respite from this heat, however brief.

But all this is after you kick yourself for falling for marketing gibberish and glossy ad copy.

Again.

First impressions on Rang de Basanti

I saw Rang De Basanti yesterday. After making numerous plans to see it on the big screen with a particular friend of mine which never seemed to materialize, I finally went ahead and saw it in the comfort of my home on a 15” laptop screen.

But I did see it. And it’s good.

While the plot of indifferent modern day youth taking up the torch for a cause is original and makes for compelling viewing, you realize as you power down your laptop that it’s not going to work. A revolution a la Rang de Basanti in India, that is.

For a number of reasons.

Part of the problem is that we’re too indifferent to things around us. And too caught up in surviving in a cut throat world to care about the larger perspective of where the nation is headed.

We see it. And maybe even brace ourselves for the crash. But we do nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

Maybe because of this escapist notion that we have that the way things are today are not our fault. “Hey, this is what the world was like when I inherited it. Someone else screwed up along the way, not me”.

But that approach doesn’t fix problems. And they don’t go away if you pretend that they aren’t there.

Then there’s the great Indian disinclination towards action. Someone else is always supposed to fix things, not me. My civic duty is just to ensure that the person with the relatively cleaner record gets elected. And it’s so much more comfortable keeping it at that.

Or maybe it’s the overall Indian attitude towards risk. If it ain’t completely broken, why fix it, especially if it involves sticking out my neck.

We’re too cynical. And too disbelieving. And too laidback to start risking ourselves for things we believe in.

But we’re also very wrong about ourselves. And somewhere within all of us there’s a part that wants to fix this mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into.

So maybe it is time that we started taking ourselves seriously.

And realize that the greatest risk is to risk nothing at all.

I'm Back

Have been away from my blog for quite a while now-my last post was a little over a month ago.

I have been besieged by complaints (if you can call infrequent complaints by three friends that) saying that I should get online and write more often, and that the essence of a blog is in plodding on, no matter what.

Part of the problem is that not many of my friends are aware that my blog exists. And that is because I’d thought (very prudently) that I’d at least have a dozen more posts in place before I spread the word around. Not much point in telling people that you have a blog going if there’s nothing on it. ”Yeah, I read that blog of yours like you told me to. Haven’t been upto much, have you?”

In fact, the truth is pretty much the opposite. I have been busy. And hence the brief hiatus.

I have been reassigned to a different role. Shinier, brighter and more sparkly as they say in the ads. And have pretty much been spending all my time learning the ropes for what essentially is a very different profile.

The blogs will get more frequent as my learning curve kicks in and I’m able to function more or less in auto mode at work.

That’s not to say that I could blog while at work. Don’t feel upto it after replying to that nth e-mail of the day.

So have vowed to compose my posts offline at home (weekends?) and post them whenever I can.

Not very efficient, but still better than no posts at all.

The year end cometh

For all creatures like me in account management, March is a month to atone for all the sins you have committed throughout the rest of the year.

Spring might be heralded by the coming of the month but for the sales guy it is one long month filled with endless account reconciliations and billing issues to be resolved.

Plus there's that big push that he's supposed to put in in March, when IT budgets are at their most generous.

Not to say that it isn't fun.It surely is.If your idea of fun is twelve hour workdays and major stress.

Thankfully there are the endless cups of chai to nudge you along.And when that fails, there's always that cup of 'strong as death' expresso to flog you towards the end of the day :)

Here's something I read earlier that I really liked-

You'll be greeted
by a nice cup of coffee
when you get to heaven
and strains of angelic harmony.

But wouldn't you be devastated
if they only serve decaffeinated
while from the percolators of hell

your soul was assaulted
by Satan's fresh expresso smell?

-John Agard

Testing the waters

Hmmm..

Am 28.And a techie.And I've just started blogging.

Was drawn to the medium when I read some blogs out there..and got hooked.

I know this is kinda late for a first blog,but hey,that's life :)

Some plunge headfirst into the sea of technology, while some dip in a cautious toe.

Well, this is my toe testing the waters in cyberspace.

More when I decide to dive in.

Cheers!