zigzackly

So we should all stop linking to Newscorp stuff?

2009-11-09T16:14:00.003+05:30

"There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether... but we'll take that slowly."
Rupert Murdoch, in The Guardian.

The (Twitter) Gospel according to St Peter

2009-11-09T15:45:00.006+05:30

Remember Follow Fridays and keep them holy.

As ye tweet, thus shall ye be retweeted.

Thou shalt not stalk thy neighbour's followers in the hope that they follow ye.

Thou shalt not plug thy status updates into Facebook, that barren land of nonbelievers & quiz-takers.

Thou shalt not bear false witness. That includes tweeting stuff you only actually saw on TV.

Honour thy father and thy mother. What happens at home shalt not be tweeted.
(Unless, of course, thy parents tweeted first)
(You *really* shouldn't have got them on to Twitter, y'know.)

Thou shalt not sledge @stephenfry. He has earned his moods.
@shashitharoor is, however, fair game.

Thou shalt get back to work, hm?

#Thou #shalt #use #hashtags #judiciously.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ass. Well, okay, maybe if s/he's really callipygous.

If ye seek to be retweeted, ye shall ensure that thy tweets have enough characters left over to permit it.

Thou shalt casually mention @gulpanag in thy tweets, as if you're, like, friends and all.

Thou shalt quit while thou art ahead.

Thou shalt not relentlessly pimp thy blog. (These tweets archived at http://bit.ly/nvenr)

RT @zigzackly Thou shalt not relentlessly pimp thy blog. (These tweets archived at http://bit.ly/nvenr)

Retweeting yourself - or RTing what others tweet to you - is bad form. Only SEOs do that.

RT @zigzackly The Gospel according to St Peter: Retweeting yourself - or RTing what others tweet to you - is bad form. Only SEOs do that.

Celebrate Bandra Festival Souvenir - Call for Submissions

2009-09-08T04:13:00.005+05:30

(Original post here.)

The Celebrate Bandra Festival happens once every two years in Bandra. This year, the festival will be in November. I'm helping curate the literature section. More about past festivals at celebratebandra.net (the site won't be updated with this year's schedule for a little while yet).

Here's the brief.

"You're My Home": you live in Bandra, so what makes it home? (If you don't live in Bandra, imagine it). The trees, the birds, the air, your nosy neighbours, your generous and helpful neighbours, their culture and yours, the sea, the waves, the aromas, the convenience, the excitement. It's home, so like every home, it has ups, it has downs. But what is it about the environment of Bandra, seen as broadly as you can, that makes it home for you?

You can submit anything that can appear in print (without spending enormous amounts of money): essays, short fiction, poetry, play scripts, illustrations, photographs.

Please email your submissions to celebrate.bandra.festival@gmail.com

Last date for submissions: September 30th, 11:59p.m.

You can make more than one stand-alone submission, but please do so in separate emails, to help the selection process.

For text submissions
• Your submission must be close to, but not over, the 1000 word mark.
• Please paste your text into the body of the email. No attachments, please.
• Please use one of these subject lines: Souvenir Submission - short story, Souvenir Submission - poem, Souvenir Submission - essay, or Souvenir Submission - script.

For photographs, scanned illustrations or computer-generated art
• Please submit only one piece. (A picture being worth a thousand words and all that.)
• You can include a short (not more than 100 words) descriptor or caption in the body of your email.
• If your image is a very large file, please upload it online somewhere* and mail in a link.
• If you think you must submit more than one image as part of the same entry, then please mail in only one, but add a description of what the rest of the series will be like, or upload the additional material elsewhere and send in a link. If we want to see the rest, we'll mail you.
• Please use one of these subject lines: Souvenir Submission - photograph, Souvenir Submission - illustration, or Souvenir Submission - digital art

In one paragraph at the end of your email, please include your name, postal address, email address and a phone number, land or cellular, where you can be reached during the day and in the evenings.

By submitting, you declare that the work is your own, or that you have collaborated in its creation and are authorised to submit on behalf of the collective. Please remember India's laws on libel and obscenity. And for visual art submissions that depict people, especially photographs, please make sure you have your subject's permission. For any form of 'found art,' text or visual, please ensure that you are not infringing India's copyright laws.

Entries will be short-listed by Rahul Goswami. Rahul is an intermittent Bandra resident, and otherwise a researcher working on the links between economic growth, livelihoods and agriculture.

The short-list will then be judged by Dilip D'Souza, writer and journalist, who is the editor of the souvenir, and Joe Campana, and the selected submissions will appear in print. Updates on the lists will be posted to the Caferati blog, and, if it's ready by then, the updated Celebrate Bandra website.

Rewards: the joy of seeing your work in print, and contributing towards the Celebrate Bandra effort. ~~We are trying to get some small prizes for the best entries, but this is very unlikely, so don't count on it.~~ UpdateThe top five entries, across categories, will be marked as such in the souvenir, and, yes, will get small prizes.

Do please pass this on to friends and well-wishers, from Bandra or elsewhere. Feel free to copy this text to your website or blog, and to online forums where you know it will be welcome.

* Possible sites where you can upload your work: Flickr, Photobucket, OurMedia, Picassa.

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 4

2009-08-23T23:51:00.003+05:30

One has been most remiss
One whole day one has missed
A godawful host am I, alas
To let a godawful fortnight day pass
Without finding a moment in time
To add to the feast of mediocre rhyme

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 3

2009-08-21T03:57:00.002+05:30

The side-effects of the H1N1 influenza

You know what the worst
Side-effect of this burst
Of this oh so very
Unfortunately-
Named flu is?

It's the amateur wags,
And their lame borrowed gags
Littering the statusphere
Wherever you peer.
Gah.

It's even worse, you will agree
Than godawful poetry.

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 2

2009-08-20T22:40:00.001+05:30

I,
I write for you.
You,
You write for me?
We,
We both write?
Okay?

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - Guest Post 1

2009-08-19T14:55:00.001+05:30

My humble contribution to this fantastic, much-looked-forward to annual event:

Banished

They dragged me with brute force to the door,
Callously kicked me down the stairs below-
And screeched like the oft quoted Raven, “Nevermore!”

I staggered to my feet and limped my way across the street,
With fumbling fingers groped for my pack of woe,
And struck a match- Ah, even in adversity life can be sweet.

So now I wander lonely spewing dark, belligerent clouds,
That lurk on high o’er the stained cityscape,
And insidiously creep into the lungs of the teeming crowds.

All I ask for is Keats' Grecian urn to tip the ash,
While contributing generously to the city's smog,
It wouldn’t hurt would it, that dead sexy touch of dash?

By Rupa Gulab who, incidentally is not blushing furiously, but rolling on the floor with mirth. Shameless!

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 1

2009-08-19T14:49:00.003+05:30

In a Godawful Mood,
Just not a Godawful Poetry mood.
But as the host, I can't be rude,
So here's my pseud-
o poem.

Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Son of Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 19th - 31st August

2009-08-16T21:05:00.007+05:30

We launched the first Godawful Poetry Fortnight here last year. (You can read all our contributions here, and this was a brief article in the TOI about the Fortnight.)

Cut to the chase: it's that time of the year again!

The essentials:

• Godawful Poetry Fortnight runs from the 19th to the 31st August.

• Our Patron Saint is William Wordsworth.

And he gets this signal honour for saying that poetry "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Way too many aspiring poets have rallied behind that banner, too few going so far as recollecting those emotions in tranquillity, let alone reading the rest of the preface to Lyrical Ballads (which can be found on Bartleby, for those interested).

• To join in, all you have to do is post on your blog* a godawful poem you have written, with—all totally optional—a brief note about GPF, a bit about what godawful poetry means to you, and a link to this post.

• Post godawful poems as often as you like during the Fortnight. (The True Believers Challenge: post thirteen godawful poems, one on each day of the Fortnight.) Squeeze your muse like a boil. Get it all out. Pester your friends to post too. Once GPF is done, you will write good poetry for the rest of the year, yes?

• Please use this Technorati tag on your post: Godawful Poetry Fortnight. Here's the HTML for the tag: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Godawful+Poetry+Fortnight" rel="tag">Godawful Poetry Fortnight</a>

• To those who feel the need to point out this Fortnight lasts only thirteen days, we draw our cape around us, and say, in a marked manner, "Poetic license."

* I'd be happy to link to you if you tell me where your poem is.
If you don't have a blog, you're welcome to either use the comment space here or the Godawful Poetry Fortnight thread over at Caferati.

Close

2009-08-12T04:39:00.002+05:30

Sunday evening, driving from St Xavier's to the office.

Peddar Road, Kemps Corner flyover, light traffic.

Car in front of me brakes suddenly.

Pretty much have to stand on my brakes to avoid a prang.

Mutter under breath. Traffic continues to move. Car in front sets off again. I nudge the accelerator. Coast down the flyover. Come to the the bit where the road rises again. See light ahead is orange. Start braking and gearing down..

Except that the brake pedal goes all the way to the floor without any reaction from the car.

Luckily for me, the light turns red and the cars around me stop. Luckily for me I wasn't going to fast, and neither were the cars around me. I cut through the red light, at the tail end of that bit of traffic flow. I continue to slow down. Turn on the hazard lights. Gently prod the accelerator just enough to keep the car moving up the slope until it crests. Simultaneously gently turning the wheel to bring the car next to the pavement. Pull up the handbrake and turn off the engine. Lean back. Shudder. Sweat flows.

The Chhattisgarh government has banned Charandas Chor

2009-08-07T02:45:00.004+05:30

(Background: The story in the Hindustan Times and the Times of India

This came to us from actor Denzil Smith.

Press Release condemning ban on Charandas Chor

We are shocked to learn from press reports that the BJP government of Chhattisgarh has banned Charandas Chor, a classic of the modern Indian theatre, written and produced by Habib Tanvir. The play was first done in the 1970s, and is originally based on an oral folk tale from Rajasthan. Habib Tanvir worked on this tale, introducing into it elements of the art and beliefs of the Satnami community. Satnami singers and dancers have performed in this play, and it has been seen by members of the community several times. In Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there are several rural troupes who are today performing some version of this play.

The play itself is the story of a thief who, under the influence of a guru, pledges never to tell a lie. He sticks to his pledge, even at the cost of his life. This superb tragic-comedy, in a thoroughly entertaining and artistic manner, brings into focus the moral and ethical degeneration of our society, in which, paradoxically, it is a thief who ends up being more honest than those who supposed to be the custodians of our morality.

Charandas Chor remains Habib Tanvir’s best-known play, and has been performed literally hundreds of times by his world-renowned Naya Theatre troupe all over India and in several countries across the world. It was made into a film by Shyam Benegal, with Smita Patil in the lead, in 1975, and was the first Indian play to win the prestigious Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in 1982. It then did a successful run on the London stage.

We demand that the Chhattisgarh government immediately revoke this absurd ban.

2009-08-04T03:12:00.001+05:30

me pomes they are of no import
they aren't the deep, reflective sort
but give them this: they're very short
okay?

2009-08-03T00:43:00.001+05:30

Ev'ry dogg'rel must have its day
Alas, your bard's mere mortal clay
Rhyme-a-day plans gang aft agley
Ah well.

2009-07-30T03:09:00.000+05:30

Whatcha been up to? How you is?
Whatcha been doing weekends? How's biz?
No, this isn't a Facebook Quiz
Hell no!

2009-07-30T02:22:00.000+05:30

It's kaiku time! It's been a while.
We all have walked many a mile,
Six-abreast or in single file.
Wha's up?

Spot the differences

2009-07-26T03:05:00.003+05:30

1: How Bill Gates Blew $258 million in India's HIV Corridor (Forbes India -- where I work -- 19th June issue)

2: Exiting All Windows... (Outlook, June 27th issue)

Help needed at Geeta Nagar, Bombay

2009-07-25T01:08:00.002+05:30

The high tidal waves on 24th July destructed several homes at Geeta Nagar, the largest slum in Navy Nagar and washed away roofs and huts of more than a hundred poor people.

Please contribute rice, atta, sugar, tea leaves, pulses and also bedsheets, and clothes for men, women, children.

Any help is welcome.

This came to me via Lily Ahluwalia on Facebook, with a request to pass it on.

The person to contact is Shridhar Naik, of Helping Hands in Service. You can find their Karmayog page here (couldn't find any other website), and Mr Naik's Ryze page is here.

Contact details: +91 22 22876031, +91 98211 48796, shridharnaik@gmail.com

(Cross-posted)

2009-07-20T21:54:00.000+05:30

It's not fair that on the day your back
has one of its spasm attacks
that a bug should bug your stomaach
Gah

Bandra Worli Pee Link

2009-07-06T02:20:00.002+05:30

(This came to us in a forward. The person who sent it doesn't know its provenance. It was supposed to have been taken on the day the bridge opened.)

2009-07-02T16:09:00.001+05:30

R.I.P., 377 farce
The law's now slightly less an arse
Next: it's time to legalise grass!
Bum Bole!

Steve Martin does MJ

2009-07-01T20:52:00.001+05:30

From The New Yorker's News Desk blog:

As a dancer, Michael Jackson was great. He was like Fred Astaire. This video, a parody of the “Billie Jean” video, was done for “The New Show,” which was a prime-time NBC program that Lorne Michaels did in 1983-1984, when he wasn’t producing “Saturday Night Live.” This was the opening—it was the first piece on the first episode of the show. Michael Jackson had recently done what I consider to be his life-changing performance on the Grammy Awards, where he did the Moonwalk and threw his hat offstage. He was just brilliant. Then the “Billie Jean” video came out. And this was a parody of that.

I’m not sure whose idea it was; it might have been Lorne’s. Pat Birch choreographed it. The hard move was that little leg twist that he did. You really have to throw your leg. I did it a thousand times in about three days. And a couple of weeks later I noticed—er, I have a pain here. The pain lasted about two years, then it went away on its own.

2009-06-22T15:25:00.000+05:30

Been waiting—longing—for the day
Did everything short of pray
Now it's here at last, yeehah! yay!
First rain!

2009-06-09T14:39:00.000+05:30

Pot-bellied clouds flirt with the sun
"The monsoon's here!" we say, "What fun!"
Then, to the east, the bastards run
No rain

2009-06-08T15:19:00.001+05:30

See here, I ate my fruit and all
Ignoring eggs and bacon's call
Dinner was clean: sprouts and dal*
St Pete!

*You must say 'dal' the Anglo-Indian way, to sound like "doll."

2009-06-08T15:16:00.000+05:30

Breakfast at two? You lazy sod!
You're no go-getter, you're a fraud!
Your parents must have spared the rod!
Gerrup!