Sandeep's Log

Films on films

2012-04-28T12:16:00.000+05:30

Cinema Paradisio, The Artist, Om Shanti Om, Luck By Chance, Khoya Khoya Chand, Inception (if you accept one interpretation), Harishchandrachi Factory, The Fall, Singin' In The Rain.

Wonder why are there so many films about films, filmmaking and the love of films. I don't think, at least proportionately, there are as many books about books.

Most of these films are quite good too.

I have just mentioned a few of my favorites, a longer (though not complete) list is here.

What's behind a story?

2012-02-25T08:28:00.000+05:30

John Carter posters are on every bus today. It reeks of manufactured epic-ness with its Ariel Bold like typeface. The red mars in the background and the silhouette of the lone man looks heavily inspired from a cover of The Dispossessed, lending it that science fiction feel.

But I can't help smiling when I look at it. I always think of that man working as a pencil sharpener whole-seller who started writing the story in order to earn a few dollars more in order to support his family. Today that very story has spiraled into this mega million dollar commercial product.

It's quite awesome when you think about it.

So, what's behind a story? It's another story.

There is the patent clerk's job behind the special theory of relativity, a picnic behind Wonderland, a disenchanted man's suicide behind evolutionary game theory, a bet behind The Lord of the Rings, and also one behind The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and pencil sharpeners behind interplanetary love affairs.

That's all I can think of right now.

What's the story behind your favorite story?

2012-01-08T23:55:00.002+05:30

In a book the plot dictates the actions of the characters.

In life, the actions of the characters dictates the plot.

Sunset

2011-12-14T12:42:00.002+05:30

Overheard on the #8 bus:

I was a secretary in Pearl Harbor during the war. I don't have much company nowadays, my sister is 96, when she goes it will be time for me to go too. Some of my old boyfriends are still alive, they call me sometimes during holidays, maybe they want seconds *giggle*.

At the Stroke of the Midnight Hour

2011-08-19T16:09:00.000+05:30

This week I picked up India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha. Guha attempts (quite successfully) to remedy the fact that post independence Indian history is overlooked in our history books, "the past is defined as a single, immovable date: 15th August 1947. Thus, when the clock struck midnight and India became independent, history ended, and political science and sociology began."

But India After Gandhi does not stand alone, it has a companion piece! Another book, one I had read recently but written decades earlier! A brother, if books ever have one. The protagonists of the two brother-books are twins, born on the same day, "And the time? The time matters too. Well then: at night. No it's important to be more ...On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact...Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world." The story of Saleem Sinai, Midnight's Children.

The two books take off from that midnight hour and tell us a breathless story. It is as if their souls are intertwined. One is a history book that reads like a best in class fiction, the other is a fictional account that carries in it the essence of history. You could read a few chapters from one and pick up the thread on the other. The two together form a jugalbandi, Guha provides the facts, Rushdie adds the emotions. Though, at times, with equal skill, they exchange their roles. Guha's account is backed up with a whole lot of footnotes and references, Rushdie, is telling you the tale with a wink and a smile. The historical references in Rushdie's allegorical tale are sometimes inescapable, sometimes subtle. Reading India After Gandhi brings them all into focus. This is one from the earlier chapters.

During the 1950s Nehru tours the United States and Russia. The then US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, does not warm up to Nehru, and finds him "one of the most difficult men with whom I have ever had to deal." Nehru too was not predisposed to appreciate the US, and "had ticked off the US as unrivaled in technology but predatory in its capitalism." Nehru received a lot more affection from the Russians. "In 1951, while the American congress debated a request for food aid from India, the Soviet Union - unencumbered by democratic procedure - offered to send 50,000 tons of wheat at once." Thus, despite Nehru's protestations of non-alignment, India leaned the tiniest bit towards Russia.

At roughly the same time, Saleem, is falling for the recently arrived American, Evelyn Lilith Burns, and, "gave her a necklace of flowers (queen-of-the-night for my lily-of-the-eve), bought with my own pocket money from a hawker-woman at Scandal Point. 'I don't wear flowers,' Evelyn Lilith said, and tossed the unwanted chain into the air, spearing it before it fell with a pellet from her unerring Daisy air-pistol. Destroying flowers with a Daisy, she served notice that she was not to be manacled, not even by a necklace: she was our capricious, whirligig Lill-of-the-Hill"

Things however go better with the "champion breast-stroker" Masha Miovic, with the "low, throaty voice, full of promises - but also of menace". Soon, "Saleem takes the floor with Masha Miovic, swearing not to smooch. Saleem and Masha, doing the Mexican Hat; Masha and Saleem, box-stepping with the best of them! ; you see you don't have to be perfect to get a girl!...The dance ended; and still on top of my wave of elation, I said, 'Would you care for a stroll, you know, in the quad?' Masha Miovic smiling privately. 'Well, yah, just for a sec; but hands off, okay?' Hands off, Saleem swears. Saleem and Masha taking the air...man this is fine. This is the life. Goodbye Evie, hello breast-stroke."

The above excerpts were but a glimpse, reading the two books together is an all together wonderful experiences and is highly recommended. I have a sneaking suspicion that Guha had a copy of Midnight's Children next to him while he wrote his account. If one thinks about it, that is so much more fantastic and wonderful than a fiction writer consulting a history book.

A Shot in the Dark

2011-06-26T12:21:00.000+05:30

A week or so ago, I joined N and R for dinner at News Cafe. Quite excitedly, they told me about this new place called "Dialogue in the Dark." It has a restaurant, which is engulfed in pitch darkness and you are served by blind waiters.
Interesting idea. My story however doesn't end just yet. That very night I come back home and open Midnight's Children to the page I had bookmarked it. I turn a few pages and I come across this:

Twin problem of the city's sophisticated, cosmopolitan youth: how to consume alcohol in a dry state; and how to romance girls in the best Western tradition, by taking them out to paint the town red, while at the same time preserving total secrecy, to avoid the very Oriental shame of a scandal? The Midnite-Confidential was Mr. Shroff's solution to the agonizing difficulties of the city's gilded youth. In that underground licentiousness, he had created a world of Stygian darkness, black as hell; in the secrecy of midnight darkness, the city's lovers met, drank imported liquor, and romanced; cocooned in the isolating, artificial night, they canoodled with impunity.
We were led down a lush black carpet -- midnight-black, black as lies, crow-black, anger-black, the black of 'hai-yo, black man!'; in short, a dark rug -- by a female attendant of ravishing sexual charms, who wore her sari erotically low on her hips, with a jasmine in her naval; but as we descended into the darkness, she turned towards us with a reassuring smile, and I saw that her eyes were closed; unearthly luminous eyes had been painted on her lids. I could not help but ask, 'Why...' To which she, simply: 'I am blind; and besides, nobody who comes here wants to be seen. Here you are in a world without faces or names; here people have no memories, families or past; here is for now, for nothing except right now.'

I know, the chances of reading something you came across during the day is not unreasonably low (in fact, Jabberwock has talked about something similar today!). So we shall not be creeped out too much by that. What I wonder however is, did life imitate art ? Dialogue in the Dark opened in 1988, Salman Rushdie wrote Midnight's Children in 1981. While such dark restaurants are aplenty now, I could not find any reference to any other such concept that pre-dates Midnight's Children. Or did such a concept really exist in India, which Rushdie discovered during his travels in the country before he wrote the book?

I just wonder who owes whom a hat-tip here.

Message in a Bottle

2011-04-22T16:35:00.000+05:30

Had a Vanilla Thunder moment from How I Met Your Mother.

So, today at lunch, S calls me and says, "You wrote on my orkut testimonial (yes, remember those?) that I wanted to do something different every five years, it's been less than 5 at my job and I quit today."

I went back to see what I had written. The relevant lines, written on 15th Nov 2004 , were,

"Unique is one word for you, i specially loved your "i'll be doing something different every 5 years" i hope to do something like that too, just hope that i have the courage to carry through with it. "

I shall now spend the weekend to see what other clues I had left for the future me!

World Cups

2011-03-30T10:46:00.000+05:30

Yes, it is related to today's match, in fact it is about the first match I ever saw.
Yes, it was a India Pakistan match in a World Cup.
Yes, you guessed it right.

February 1996, New Delhi: I am in the 7th grade.The gods have recovered from their milk drinking spree of last year and the girls on my school bus insist on singing, in very nasal voices, "Mere khwabon mein jo aaye...", the whole way to school, and back, everyday. We live in a small two room sub-let apartment in Naroji Nagar, which we share with my uncle P, aunt M, and the balcony is the realm of a Pomeranian very imaginatively named Chapantikli.
I am not yet a cricket watcher, but P is. He has already introduced me to several other interesting aspects of life like cheating in 29 ("Remember, when I scratch my nose it means diamonds are trumps".) P is a big cricket fan. He is known to shut himself up in a dark room for hours if India loses a match. M, his wife, is all jitters before a match, since India losing does not auger well for ghar ki shanti. India matches usually proceed with P in front of the TV, and M with an agarbatti in front of the gods.
I am given a crash course in the rules of cricket and given a seat next to P. Mom takes a seat next to her sister in the puja ghar. The first match I ever see is India Vs. Pakistan, quarter-finals, Chinnaswamy Stadium. P and I shout and scream throughout the match, the post match speeches are drowned by our victory dance and Chapantikli runs between our legs barking with unadulterated joy. But as all of you know, this happy household was rocked by tragedy in a mere matter of 4 days. Kambli cried, P was inconsolable, my head reeled, having experienced euphoria and despair in such quick succession. Needless to say I was hooked.

Ravi's Work Ethic

2010-10-19T19:45:00.000+05:30

Summer of '07 I was working in Chennai in a customer service role. Three days of the week, I would travel close to 60km to a client factory to watch over our products being used in their assembly lines. My only companion during these travels was the driver of the company car, Ravi.

Chennai summers; if you haven't lived it, you have no idea what it's like. We never talked much. Exchange of pleasantries was a long abandoned exercise, there was a mutual understanding that these weren't good days for either of us. My role was dealing with unhappy customers (neat graphic on customer service here) and Ravi had to wait in the heat, in the uncovered parking lot of the factory, till the end of the day.

Still there he would be, every morning, in his sparkling white uniform, flashing two rows of sparkling white teeth in his sparkling white Ambassador.

One day, towards the end of summer and the close to the end of my stint in that role, both of us were uncharacteristically loquacious. I asked him, "Ravi, how come you are so cheerful every morning?"

I will always remember Ravi's reply, "Sir, every morning while I put on my uniform, I tell myself, today nobody will be unhappy because of me, nobody will reach their destination late, I will drive safe and I will come back to my wife and kids for dinner. With every minute I spend at this job I am buying my family food and security. My father taught me this and I have been doing this for ten years now."

Flash Fiction-From Archives

2010-08-03T13:46:00.000+05:30

I have always felt shorthanded when it comes to writing fiction and the tiniest of achievements makes me feel good. Around October '08 I had participated in the "Caferati-LiveJournal Flash Fiction Writing Contest" and my story had made it to the top 100 out of 1052 entries. Inspite of frantic voting by friends and family (thank you guys!), I couldn't make it to the final 10. Lately, I have not been updating this blog as often as I would like to. Untill I find something better to put up, here is my entry. Inspirations being Arthur C. Clarke's History Lesson and the Terra Nova Expedition.

The Journal

The objects lay on the table, exactly as the Scout had left them two days ago. The Researcher had delayed analyzing them. The lethargy in him had been well fed by the warmth of his chamber and the excruciatingly slow progress he had been making in the past four months. Every discovery just tangled it ever more.

He had been tracking the movements of his subjects, following a trail of excavated objects that was distinctive to the species. It was known that this particular patch of land had been their last refuge against an increasingly belligerent climate, what he hoped to contribute was the beginnings of this island, how and why had they chanced upon this land mass.

He picked up the fossilized bone first, and tossed it aside with a grunt. It was useless, there were many more he had found, they belonged to a later time. The second was a moss covered object, slightly large, about the size of his palm, the moss on it was patchy. He was doing his routine check of scratching the moss out, something was different this time, a darker more uniform green shone underneath.

He was sure the object had a purpose, unlike most of his finds. It stood on his table, cleaned, it was dark green, and reflected the sunlight. When he put it up against the sun, and it sparkled even more. The Researcher had just managed to get his first smile of the day looking at the green sparkle when he froze. In the next few moments all he could feel were the flies buzzing in his chamber, his heart beating and the dripping of moist air condensing on the glass walls. There was something cylindrical inside it. It moved around as he shook the green object, which he now understood to be just an outer covering.

Excitement mingled with frustration, he banged it on the table, it made a tinkling sound and shattered to pieces, and the kernel dropped to the floor. It seemed organic. The Researcher picked the kernel with his forceps and put it inside the Date Machine. A number popped up. The researcher could hardly believe the figure that showed up. It was possibly the oldest man-made object he had found in these parts. He picked the kernel out from the machine, and inspected it. Its surface had dark smudgy inscriptions, it rolled open to become completely flat and the edges were rough and looked like it fitted into a larger whole. The inscriptions belonged to one of the broad categories that had still not been translated.

The Researcher sighed, those little squiggly marks possibly told a story of the genesis of civilization on this part of Earth, but it also meant another dead end to bang his head against.

He ran his fingers through the marks, it was written,

“Damn you Amundsen”

He looked out of the walls in exasperation at his inability to understand the script.

The sun continued on its incessant circular path an inch above the horizon, its rays cutting across dense fauna.

The Next Wave

2010-07-02T16:35:00.001+05:30

Yesterday I realized that a large portion of my friends -and these are people I interact with on almost a daily basis, not distant acquaintances-are to be found doing something in the field of education.

J is part of a start-up creating ITES solutions for schools, colleges and the government.[Link]

R is repairing OLPC laptops in a small school in Nasik. [Link]

H is a Research Associate in Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab which does impact evaluations on education and other sectors. [Link]

and,

N is a fellow at Teach for India, managing an exceptionally 'energetic' 3rd grade. [Link]

If you had met these people not too long ago they were respectively a computer science student, an electrical engineer, an oil & gas field engineer and a fashion designer.

Is it happening to you and people around you too?

History and Us

2010-05-15T19:06:00.001+05:30

You know what kind of history I like?

As much as the stories of kings and their architectures and Marshall and his plan are important what really interests me is the slice of life kind of history.

History like this:

"Finally the Tuscany reached the Gangetic delta in September 1833 to great reception. There was a reason for this enthusiasm: they were finally getting rid of the Hooghly slush which was the ice equivalent. To make Hooghly slush, boiled water was poured in earthenware and placed in shallow pits filled with straw. The cool air froze the surface creating a thin film of ice. These pots were then collected and stored in pits for sale during summer. This Hooghly slush was expensive and it was slush. The slush was available for six weeks at a rate of 4 pence per pound and now pure Boston ice was available all year around for three pence a pound." (Full article at varnam, possibly one of the best blogs on Indian History I have come across.)

History which is ordinary with respect to the people involved and at the same time is a beautifully detailed piece of the bigger picture.

During one such discussion with a colleague about his grandfather, a law student in Pune who was jailed for distributing pamphlets during the Quit India Movement, I realised that Pune was quite the hub of student activism during that time, and that some schools would only give you admission after you had signed an agreement stating that you "...would not participate in anti Crown activities..."

Gets me thinking, 50 years later, when people talk about the single greatest thing that happened in India during our time, what would it be and would we have played a role in it?

The Choice

2010-02-23T18:27:00.000+05:30

Was lying in draft box for quite sometime, watching it echoed in Up in The Air inspired me to put it up.

Once in your life come close to killing yourself,
When death is but a moment away,
When you are way beyond the thought of fear and pain.
Beyond the thought of all the strings you have tied yourself to,
Beyond the liabilities and compromises you have piled on top of yourself,
Beyond everything.
And at that moment, choose.
Realise that living is not about being true to the weights you trouble yourself with
Life is the choice you make every moment, to live.

Do not be concerned, not depressed and never really tried killing myself, just a thought experiment.

2010-02-23T00:59:00.000+05:30

One thing about my mom's sisters that never stops, come misfortune or high weather is the telling of a good tale. Having them as siblings more than aunts to me during my growing years, I owe a lot of this blog, my skills as a raconteur and the habit of using humour as a stress relieving mechanism to them. This trip home was one in difficult circumstances but I was cheered up at every moment by their stories, all true, all slightly irreverent and all fun in a charming Malgudi Days kind of way. Three of this times best were:

1. The Vote

2. The Dancing Instructor

3. The Peeping Tom

I shall recount the first one here the other two are for my own memory. I beg pardon if the humor doesn't translate into English, for the true flavour of these stories is to be found listening to them being enacted while you have a cup of tea with bara-piyaji waiting on the paan your grandmother is trying to make in between fits of laughter that punctuate every tale.

The Vote

Around 25 years ago, in a tiny village separated from Cuttack by 23 kilometers of paddy fields and the river Mahanadi, the great Indian election process is underway and my grandfather, the bastion of literacy and lover of world history in this little post colonial serfdom, has registered all his eligible children to vote. And one by one they come back from the voting booth and prance around, proudly displaying the mark of the indelible ink like it was something from the Nizam's treasury. One of their cousins didn't have a constitutionally inclined parent and watched around sulking as her compatriots discussed the importance of a ideology in choosing your representative or some such topic. My youngest aunt, lets call her Aunt M. saw her and decided to do something about it.

Now, in those days you didn't have the election voter ID, what you had was a tiny chit with your name, the polling booth's name and the date printed on it. This was like a voting ticket that you carried to the polling booth. Of all my aunts one had recently got married and her ticket lay unused. Aunt M. stepped up to her cousin and asked her, "You want to vote?" Watching the vigorous nodding of two blue ribboned pigtails melted her heart. Now, the one telling me this story is Aunt M. herself and drops her voice into a most conspiratorial whisper and tells me, "But no one in the whole village could know about this." So the cousin and my aunt walk over to the polling booth. The cousin goes in casts her vote and has all but come out when one 20 something old election volunteer stops her just outside, "Hey! I am in your class, this is not your name on the chit!"

Now imagine two 21 year old village girls ganging up to this guy holding his collar and going, "Listen kid! If anyone gets to hear this, be very afraid passing by the pond with all the eels in them, you can swim can't you?"

The guy has better sense and lets them go.

That single vote might not have changed the course of history but I love this story, because I have spent many vacations in the setting, I have walked frightened beside the pool with all the eels, I have played hide and seek in the now ramshackle building that served as the polling booth and have seen my aunt and her cousin as older responsible women. This tale reminds me that everyone was a kid once and Voting ID cards were little chits. Sort of gives a sense of history to a part of my childhood. This is possibly one of my longer posts. And I know reading such a long post is too much to ask of a reader and if you have lasted this far with me, thank you very much!

Explorers on the Moon

2009-07-21T04:14:00.010+05:30

Cartoon drawn by Hergé himself, in celebration of the moon landing

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and the incredible prescience of Hergé in writing Explorers on the Moon a full decade and a half before Armstrong walked there.

The text in the speech balloon translates to, "Welcome to the moon, Mr. Armstrong!"

Beg pardon for breaching copyright laws.

Flowers

2009-07-18T06:26:00.001+05:30

I have seen them strutting nestled in arms
displaying proudly their wiles and charms

I have seen them settled in a lady's hair
chatting in the company of people fair

I've seen them gleaming in grand bazaars
Out doing a chandelier's crystal stars

But I cannot remember when last I saw
One in a meadow, earth wet from rain
spangled with dew
hidden from view

It has been long
but if I were there today
I'd go on my knees and say
"You look best where you belong"

2009-04-19T01:07:00.002+05:30

There are days, and then there are days

There are songs, and then there are songs

There are books, and then there are books

There are people, and then there are people.

There are friends, and then there are friends.

There is life , and...well, there's just the one.

We Are Like This Only

2009-03-11T08:02:00.004+05:30

Beg pardon to those few who read my blog. The recession's been keeping me wrought up with upheavals of every kind. Like they say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. All I have been doing for the past couple of months is realise how painfully bitter-sweet this statement really is.
My current post is an incident that happened while I was working in Chennai some years back, and had been at the back of my mind for a long time. I told myself that day, that this is definitely blog worthy, but never really got down to writing it. So here goes.

I was coming back from a customer visit and passing through Chennai city. The oppressive humidity and heat was getting to me and I kept dozing off in between. But halfway through the trip something happened and I was giggling the rest of the way.
Somewhere around Anna Nagar my car came to a halt at a traffic signal and I was jolted out of my doze. I lowered the window to let in some fresh air. There was an auto rickshaw standing elbow to elbow with my Ambassador, and in it was an auto driver who looked like he had just stepped out of a Rajnikant look alike competition. The lone passenger was a teenage bag packer, advertising her American nationality with a can of Coke in one hand and a packet of Lays in another. In the short span our vehicles were standing next to each other at the traffic signal, I managed to overhear the following conversation.
Girl: [Heavy American accent] "You know any place I can get traveller's cheques."
Auto Driver: [Quizzical expression]
Girl: "You know, international cheques"
Auto Driver: [Trying several pronunciations of the last word] "Sheckes, Seckes, SEX!!!!
[enlightenment!] International Sex! Ah I am knowing madam!! Lots of places!! American
Sex, Indian Sex, Chinese Sex!"
The traffic lights turned to green and the auto rickshaw zipped passed, before my driver had even put his foot to the gas, carrying its visibly thrilled driver and a slightly alarmed looking passenger.

2008-11-08T20:04:00.006+05:30

I'm going to leave work late today

that's what my boss had to say

and I smile

My son is in bed with fever high

I try hard to hide a sigh

and I smile

My man ran away

and left me with bills to pay

and I smile

It seems I don't get tears anymore

the ends of my cheeks are sore

and I smile

I cut my hand doing the dishes today

and I come up to you and say

"Can I take your order now?"

and I smile

Dedicated to all the ever smiling waitresses of the world, and to the one who wants to be one.

Jaane Bi Do Yaaron?

2008-11-03T07:41:00.006+05:30

Saw Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron again last night. Curiously, even though I was in splits watching Satish Shah as a dead body, Om Puri's drunk antics, and last but not the least that genius of a Draupadi scene, what hit me the most was the angst. I was surprised that this aspect had completely escaped me on previous viewings. The feeling of desperation that the youth feel when up against the powers that be was epitomized by one of the scenes in which Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani are at the railway station, their cash being snatched off by a hawaldar, are left without any money to go home. The look that Naseeruddin Shah gives as he asks, " Without ticket?", captures it all.

That got me thinking. We are currently one of the youngest countries in the world. Similar demographic points in the history of nations have coincided with major civil unrests. France had May '68, USA had its whole 1960s counterculture thing going, China had Tianamen. These civil unrests have more often than not led to laws being formed in favour of civil liberty, women and youth empowerment, and not to mention have been times of unparalleled artistic achievements.

For a nation which has more than 600 million citizens under the age of 30 and an equal number under the poverty line, we sure are a quiet lot.

On Endings

2008-10-29T07:34:00.005+05:30

Lets say you are reading a book, or watching a movie or maybe a racy TV series, and the story has come to its climax. It has been okay this far, a few cheap thrills, maybe a couple of classier ones, but now everything hinges on that last move of the story writer. How good can he make that final brush stroke, on that would depend whether you recommend it to your friends or not. That's because anyone can get you to the edge of your seat, doesn't take all that much, a likable protagonist playing the high stakes for an honest cause maybe, or a point of decision that needs to be taken quick or else all hell would break lose. Its not the edge-of-the- seat sensationalism that matters, its the feeling you walk out with. Its whether the movie can make you sit and smile while the end credits roll, or a book, you flip back through the pages of, after you've done reading. It's all about the ending.

There is always an end that you have thought of, that's because you have seen too much TV already or read similar stuff. You know a million dramatic scenarios the story could end with. You could be one of two types depending on whether you want to be surprised, or you want it to end with a self assured smirk from you on your successfully second-guessing the story. I belong to the former.

I always feel cheated if my fare ends like I expected it to.

Which type are you?

Tall: /tol/ adj, long from bottom to top

2008-10-20T03:29:00.006+05:30

The little byline of my blog title is borrowed from Frank Herbert's Dune. Absolutely love it. So succinctly describes life and our constant struggle with finding some logic to all that happens around us.

Had a similar moment of realization, last night. Had gone with a friend to the nearby Starbucks. We usually order our coffees grande, and I ever bothered to find out what the other sizes were. Until, we saw one guy order mocha, tall. I couldn't quite see what was the glass he walked off with. My friend, said that 'tall' was in fact the shortest glass available at Starbucks. I refused to believe this, I mean, there must be someone pretty educated and sensible guy up there in the Starbucks chain of command who would have come with these names, how could tall possibly be the shortest. It would be an insult to the word. Well, I was so cocksure that the world is logical, that I placed a bet, it's not possible, the tallest glass has to be 'tall' while the shortest glass could be called something else.

Alas, i walked out of the coffee shop with a lost bet, a bruised ego and in a very confused state of mind about the affairs of the world.

Trust Dreams, Trust Your Heart and Trust Your Story

2008-10-19T09:24:00.007+05:30

In midst of all this confusion called Life, often also given the very onerous sounding sobriquet, "The Real World", we forget the things that used to make us smile. Then one day you run across something that brings it all back.

The following I found on YouTube, on looking up Neil Gaiman, while reading the Sandman series.

Listening to this was like sitting in a room, drinking coffee with Alice, Baba Yaga, Ivan the youngest, Jack with his handful of beans, Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling and their whole gang, discussing on what to do and what not to do. The complex yet so simple rules they live their life by, and the cliched yet so profound lessons you learn from them.

Then you realize that all the answers you've been looking for, have already been told to you, hidden in these long forgotten stories and all your trials and tribulations are but simple manifestations of what these characters went through while you were tucked away in your bed sucking your thumb.

Hope you enjoy the following video, nice little funny introduction in the beginning.

Neil Gaiman's "Instructions", text is here.

If It's Raining, It Must Be Mumbai

2008-08-17T17:34:00.007+05:30

On several occasions I have missed by a hair's breadth a life and career in Mumbai. This did not prevent me from having these short tempestuous visits to the city. A day, at best two, a whirlwind of visiting friends and family while managing somehow to squeeze in my actual purpose of visit. In these short associations I have developed a love-hate relationship with the city. I wouldn't ever be able to give you a consistent reply on whether I would prefer living in the city or not. The Love-Mumbai alter ego of mine, is completely enchanted among other things, by the romantic names of the areas. You call a friend and each one mouths one such name after another, "Come to Worli, party tonight!", "I live in Bandra", "Mulund dude, its f***ing far, but you have to come!". These names, of mysterious origins, hang in your mind, free of any literary, historical or political significance, just associating themselves with your memories of people, parties and conversations.

And then on the other hand there is the rain, every time I step out of CST, it is either raining, is about to rain, or has just finished, making the streets reflect the sodium-lamp street lights and filling the air with that typical Mumbai smell, which I guess, is that of a sewer overflowing. As I make casual conversation with the taxi-wala, I look out of the half open Premier Padmini window to see the late night traffic comprising of the ultra rich tipping out of discs and pubs and the ultra poor trying to find a place to shelter themselves from mother nature's next lashing.

I remember sometime ago, I, though unsuccessfully, was trying my hand at writing lyrics for a tune that my ,then ,flatmate had (He meanwhile has gone ahead and started his own band, Shor Bazaar!). After some soul searching on our part for a protagonist of the song, we came upon the idea of a middle aged lady-of-the-night, wearing lots of makeup and treating her clientele in a world weary way. Halfway through writing the piece both of us came to an unanimous conclusion that the lady is none other than Mumbai. Beautiful, seductive, wise, old and ragged but still can look a knocker when she wants to.

On Singers, Poets and Painters

2008-08-12T02:49:00.005+05:30

How can they do it?

They haven't lived my life,

Yet they they speak of things that only I can know or feel.

My darkest thoughts, my most cherished memories,

my moments of depression, my dreams,

they pass it off in the tersest of phrases.

Is my life so ordinary, that

the broadest brush strokes describe it

Or is it so extraordinary that

they make a living out of it.