Question Hour

Should one critique/analyze things for what they are?

Or should one critique/analyze things for what they should have been/for what they are not/for what they should have aspired to be?

I think in the first scenario, we are limited by the options and the ensuing excellence, or the lack thereof. Easy life, job done, chapter closed!

But in the latter case, what is not can throw infinitesimal variables. Unfair!

Books . music . art . cinema . system . life .

people

Jee Jaan Se

Take a bow Suresh Wadkar and his Ajivasan Music Academy.

wow! simply wow! What would have otherwise been skipped by me has become, courtesy Bharath Ravulapati, the anthem of the year (no pun intended). What a fantastic, sexy tune and a far more brilliant use of male chorus! Clean, energetic, powerful, zestful, neat singing. Choral singing, male variety at that, for me, is usually energetic, functional in conveying the right emotion but musically speaking the variations, the riffs get lost in the crowd.

Not this one!

musical journey

Have you ever taken a route, different than the usual, to your work place just to be able to listen to a track on your car stereo?

On your way back home, have you driven a little more to be able to finish listening to a song on your car stereo?

Have you ever wished you weren't put up very close to your work place just so you enjoyed a few niceties of life?

Stowedaway

Sony Walkman (1979 - 2010) finally ends his long musical stroll.

gosh! nostalgia.

floydian quip

"Ve(e)ra, what has become of you?"

Roger Waters on madras talkies' Raavan (2010)

Dus Saal Baad

There are no more movies in the pipeline that I particularly look forward to watching. I consider it the end of my significant decade (2000-2010) of Indian cinema. Time and again these pit stops have helped me recharge myself along this journey.

Lagaan (2001) because both Aamir Khan in 1999 and Bhuvan in 1893 had balls.

Monsoon Wedding (2001) because sometimes micro emotions handled and mounted on a tight scale with chutzpah could pack in more punch than broadstrokes on bigger canvas.

Maqbool (2003) because very few tug at your heart, massage your mind and sock you in your solar plexus.

Company (2002) because any cooler would cause frostbite.

Kannathil Muthamittal (2002) because it was a modern treatise in organic chemistry, fluid mechanics, kinetics and dynamics.

Ab Tak Chhappan (2004) because... je ne sais quoi

Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) because it was heavy cinema with just the right light moments. Jab We Met (2007) because it was light cinema with just the right heavy moments.

Athadu (2005) because it showed what water-tight screenplays could potentially do.

Pithamagan (2003) because for everything it stood for, for packing in two superstars and have them do what they do in this longshot from 5.12 through 5.15

Omkara (2006) because it was the near cinematic equivalent of being in a ring opposite Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson.

Swades (2004) because I'd have loved to live Mohan Bhargava's life and I cannot pluck out hand pumps from the earth.

Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006) because it was a Gandhian way of showing finger to the super cynical world yet come unscathed. You know which finger.

Dil Chahta Hai (2001) Nothing. I rest my case.

flickr of hope

At last I seem to have found a good online photo management/sharing tool. I had been reluctant to endorse it for quite a while now. I'd have wished for flickr to have better navigation, and a generally better user interface. Picasa does a neat job here.

But what cheers me up is the picture quality with minimal compression, and a fantastic sync feature with my iPhoto. I prefer not publishing my photos to having their shoddy versions clogging my precious bandwidth. Now, I'd even pay to upgrade to the pro features. Picasa, understandably, does a bad job here.

rubric cube

.........................do birds like to lighten themselves, repeatedly, on red cars?....................

PS: I had no idea this would be an antithesis to my previous post. Not intentional.

food for thought

........................................... do nice people make nice food?........................................

........................................... I I............I ask again!

the women in my life

under construction.

Das Capital!

under construction

god of small things

Perhaps no other gods from the Indian mythology evoke and stand for so much piety, purity, niceness, goodness as do Lord Srirama and Seetha. You have, among the so called thirty three crore gods, someone typify some characteristic. At least going by how we have been programmed so far. But none like Rama and Seetha to elicit some smile, some positivity, some feel good factor. Is this the reason why "Seetha Rama" was the leitmotif of almost every creation of this man's that has touched my heart?

Perhaps seemingly pious words and thoughts needed seemingly pious gods to be invoked by a seemingly pious man, Veturi Sundararama Murthy!

Now when ennui sets on gods as they go about their chores of creation, they will have company to keep. Of a peer, no less.

Rest In Peace, Veturi!

bina umeed ke

So recently Scotty's owner posed a question in return as to how I had (if I had) changed over years. I held myself back then.

For good or bad I have remained the same. gulp! In fact, I did mention that I find it silly/naive when someone notices, "oh! you haven't changed at all." But yes, my ideas though haven't seen much of a drift, the quantum of my beliefs has increased.

I'd like to think that a bit of clarity has set in. I have never questioned motives, intentions, actions, principles, beliefs and the like. I just took them for what they are/were. Now there has only been a surge in that feeling. I still take things for what they are. I try real hard, and I think I am fairly successful at not being weighed down by any sort of dogmas. There is no single way to go about in life, there is no right or wrong. I might not agree with what you say, what you do but then I will still sport a smile and offer you a hug. Sometimes I find it hard to understand a few actions. But the nice person in me immediately brings me back to my senses. I accommodate. I don't make a big deal about it. I smile. I move on. I have never ever argued about subjective matters. I still don't. I try to listen. In fact there is a dirty curiosity to know what people feel about something I feel strongly about. I want people to talk. When prodded, I offer my stance. Then I shut up. I only and only extend it with people who I have agreed to disagree with respectfully. I am lucky to have found a few people who make it happen. I have always been thankful. I am grateful to god. I try to make all this look seamless. I try. I have always lived my life on various levels. (I think almost everyone does, and just that some are aware) When I switch levels and how I do it, I don't know. I still do that. I think one lifetime is just not enough. I am no celebrity or a star but yes, I am in a race with myself. I want to take all that life has to offer. Good, bad, ugly. I just hope I am strong enough to take things as they are. I don't take anything for granted. Touchwood, never will I. That stops growth. I have always liked things to be organic. I still like it that way. Just that I can express it better now. Sometimes I fail. But make no mistake, it's in my head. I like to keep all my senses open. That, I think, is the right way to enjoy life. This might not have reflected in my actions so far. But I don't care. I know what's going on in my head.

Expectations is a big bitch. I have come to realize the fewer they are, the happier one is. Happiness is very very very personal. It is tough to accept this. When there are so many scales out there.

I believe in the grand design. From the time the first bacteria cast its print on this earth till the last entity that will walk this planet, every single action, every single process, every single phenomenon, every single event of every single organism is intertwined/pre-determined in a direct or indirect way. Sometimes this is obvious. Sometimes it is so mindfuckingly mind boggling that our mere brains cannot comprehend it. Things are the way they are and the way they were meant to be. There is no alternative. There is no second way. It had to be this way. Whether you or I like it or not, agree to or not. It doesn't matter. That's why I believe there is no place for "if" in life. "If you had selected Harbhajan Singh, our team wouldn't have lost the game." "If you had started much earlier, you wouldn't have met with the accident." It is utterly foolish to think that things happen in isolation. Or that you can effect changes in isolation. For that to happen one would have had to freeze all people in their motions or actions. That is not possible. The success of an event is dependent on a million things. Sometimes they are apparent and visible. Funnily, most of the times they are not. In the latter scenario, god forbid if we achieve success, we are fooled into thinking that a single person or a small group can take credit for that. It is not that way. Wait a second! at least I think so.

In a huge huge circle called Life, we have confined ourselves to a minuscule dot. We call it life. Funny. We are concerned with birth, education, security, jobs, fashion, love, stock markets, perceptions, images, premises, governments, beliefs, religion, politics, ration cards, rising fuel costs, PhDs, recession, depression, expectations, tornadoes, right wing, left wing, liberals, fundamental, fundamentalism, Obama, reforms, strategy, plans, live-for-the moment, Mallika Sherawat's breasts, MBA, Sachin Tendulkar's willow, MacBooks, originality, Anu Malik, travel, mysteries, marriage, wedding, philosophies, shopping, lampshades, lemonades and what not. All this is important. Particularly, MacBooks. But I think there is much much more. Not within this dot. In the huge circle I talked about.

I will continue.

............I hope I haven't disappointed Scotty's owner. Scotty is one lucky bitch, I say.

when the night was moon-lit!

Oh! better, truer, more nuanced words were never said.

"...I frankly dont want to be an atheist... I dont want to be a believer, I dont want to preach and I dont want to be preached to, I want to be practical, and yet I want to believe in something supernatural, governing us all just so that I do not get lost in my practicality..."

Am I in total love with the last line?

...................................the title of this post is pregnant with such soul! I like this.

iDont

see myself taking to an iPhone as much as I would to a, say, a MacBook (I'd pay to possess one!) or an iPad (I take gifts!). In fact I have come to accept everything Apple throws at me and no, I am not a fanboy as yet. There's a place for all, you see! :)

Apple's sense of design and aesthetics is in perfect agreement with mine; their design philosophy, simplicity, clutter-free environment, brilliant fonts, neat layouts, user-friendliness-taken-to-an-extreme level, cartons and packaging, right down to the costumes the models wear, and the voice-overs in their TV and print ads. Heck, I even have all the iPod cases, bought till date, lined up in my drawing room!

I know I am just touching the surface and not going deep. I will live with it.

So it is quite surprising that the iPhone has failed to impress me till date. Yes, it has all the cool apps and the works, things look seamless but it has never enthused me enough to buy one. Why? I guess it boils down to the form factor. It's been like this from my India days where I'd prefer a plain vanilla Nokia to those bizarre attention seekers. I like my phones short, smart, simple and of the right thickness. Neither very thin like a wafer, nor very long like a pencil box.

and when I hold it in my hand it should feel just right.

Just like that perfect, huggable, nubile and petite beauty. :)

Revisiting the Restless Waves

a decade of a charming piece of work that hasn't ceased to elicit an immediate smile.

..........................................................................memories! :)

.....................................................................Madras Talkies'

....................................................................A l a i p a y u t h e y

......................................................................april 14th, 2000

Slap Clap Crap Trap

For the tolerant fool I am, and I am super proud of that, I find Sreesanth's record on field a little worrying. Ten or fifteen years from now, when he will have hung up his boots, I don't want Sreesanth to be remembered for his theatrics or jigs on the field. I'd love him to be recalled for his rhythmic action that too for an Indian pacer, his aggro at play, and yes, his contribution to the team with his wickets at crucial times. But the judgmental public that we Indians are, all his good work will be relegated to the background.

That will be a tragedy.

With two super back-to-back double hundreds under his belt against the visiting England in '93, Vinod Kambli should know what that means.

of stubborn exits

This afternoon, amidst all the maddening activity my head is a host to, I did something I have always envied my father for. His books and priceless collection of HMV gems have been his best buddies on Saturday & Sunday afternoons. With no soul around, I was by my bedroom window, let a brilliant sunshine which was begging to cut through the blinds come across, lowered the blinds, lied down on my bed staring at the imaginary skies above making a total mockery of the roof above. For the moment I had the luxury to forget everything. After all I was being pampered by the melody and agony of Farida Khanum on Aaj Jaane Ki Zidd Na Karo. This was bliss.

B G M

If my life were a movie, I'd love it be to played to the following pieces for BGM.

noor e khuda

bird's eye view of the Drill field, gentle breeze cutting through, the stars and stripes fluttering in joy against a grey cloudy sky, Adnan Sami's muddled bass acting perfect foil to Shankar Mahadevan's impeccable treble on my Sony Studio Monitors, Shreya Ghoshal joining the party!!!

..................................Ya Allah! Utha Le

a fine comment

I'd have never thought that a comment I left on someone's post, and very rarely do posts get me to do that, would be, well, my post.

I believe that if you are a nice human being, you need not create a good piece of art, write a good book, sing a nice song well, make a nice movie. Well, you get the drift.

But if you have made a nice piece of art, written a good book, sung a nice song well, made a nice movie, you have to be a nice human being.

strike of the pun'gent

.................................................curse of the apple

we are all just prisoners here of our own device

bees saal baad

Apparently there was this piece written by Harsha Bhogle, a greenhorn then, talking about one Sachin Tendulkar, very well a greenhorn then. This appeared in Sportsworld, a magazine that I used to consider a poor man's Sportstar (of course not literally). Whenever I couldn't lay my hands on a Sportstar, I would grudgingly settle for a Sportsworld. But that tale is for another day.

In this article, written in his trademark simple yet weighty style, Harsha Bhogle delineates the early story of a man, whose principles we would cynically dismiss as those belonging to Aesop's Fables. In italics are a few select Bhogle's words followed by a reflection of the current situation. What can one not do armed with an arrogant hindsight?

And for all the publicity he has received, Sachin Tendulkar is really still a kid... And is very shy. Opening out only after you have coaxed him for some time.

Oh! really?

His record is awesome. He has scored far more runs than all of us scored looking dreamily out of the window in a boring Social Studies class when we were his age.

:) :)

Quite often, he is playing all day; important because it has helped him build the stamina to play long innings. "I don't get tired," he says, referring to them. "If you practise every day, you get used to it."

Madras'99 ........... Bristol'99

Wasn't he thrilled at being invited to the Ranji nets? "Definitely. After playing there I got a lot of confidence."

thrilled?! invited?! Ranji nets?! (with all respect to the Ranji Trophy)

The question that arises then, given all the publicity is: Just how good is Sachin Tendulkar?

For an honest reflection ask Henry Olonga, Shoaib Akhtar, or better, Shane Warne.

Luckily for Sachin, there is a calming influence over him, just so he doesn't get carried away by this acclaim.

There are a few things in life utterly immune.

Achrekar, in fact, is quite upset about the publicity Sachin is getting. "People don't realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children's library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything. I hope all this stops so he can concentrate and work hard."

Promise kept, chinta karu naka, Achrekar Sir!

In how many cities would a 15-year-old be presented a Gunn and Moore by the Indian captain?

GM signage be damned, after him, in fact, it has become an honor for a batsman to share the letters M.R.F on their English willows with him. Brian Lara and Steve Waugh would concur.

This is really just the beginning and I will be watching this little star with avid interest for the next three years. He is in the right company. And the right environment. The next few years will show whether he has it in him the mental toughness to overcome the over-exposure. If it does not go to his head, surely there is a great future beckoning.

No comments.

and the best for the last.

Isn't there a lot of pressure on him now? Everyone assumes he will get a big score? "Only in the beginning. Till I get set. Once I get set, I don't think of anything."

ha ha ha, little did one expect Harsha Bhogle to be some soothsayer from another world we didn't know of, prophesying something which has only changed recently, a little bit.

The Fruit of Eden

cometh the hour, cometh the man

my unsung hero, V V S Laxman

return of the pun'gent

Dravidian beauty of State College, PA

Penn Azhagi

of comatose elements

It was time to head back home after a near grueling day at work.

Music, particularly Indian film music for me, lends itself to various interpretations and recollections in a different light (no pun intended) at different time points, moods, frames of mind and milieus. More often than not, top notch US roads do help.

This time it was So Gaya Yeh Jahaan (N Chandra's Tezaab 1988).

Alka Yagnik's chubby voice dipped in milk, and honey helped Madhuri Dixit pine; Shabbir Kumar's vocal chords seemed as if they were perennially stretched to the limit allowing gusts of air to go in, go out, go in, go out (imagine Alif Laila, Alif Laila, Alif Laila) helping Anil Kapoor reminisce; Laxmikant-Pyarelal, taking a detour from their heavy duty arrangements deeply rooted in India and Indianness, brought in a delightful rock star orchestration with a nice backup vocal chorus .

Of course, the star of the song, Nitin Mukhesh. I can only imagine a wood pecker at work going about what it does best when I think of the nasal Nitin Mukhesh on this track. Man, Chunkey Pandey couldn't have asked for more!

Could I be ported back to my naive '80s?

Kissa KJo Ka

Rare hopping across Twitter eventually led me to one of the more refreshing one-on-ones in recent times. Now there are interviews and then there are interviews. If you are unlucky you could chance upon utterly stifling, choking, diabetes inducing interviews that are dipped in the caramel of diplomacy. If you find my words cheesy, then you had better brace yourselves to the interviews I am talking about.

Now, ever since that monster called Kuch Kuch Hota Hai took the shine away in 1998 from Satya and Dil Se, two gems that I have held close to my heart, I have had problems with his cinema. Cinema mind you, not the person, which is what it should be. Slowly but surely his stature grew, and slowly but surely my hatred for his offerings travelled northwards. Nothing could stop him, it seemed, so much so that he and his cinema became a reference point and his brand worthy enough to be derided. We are dealing with India here.

But with time, I realized that here was a man who was comfortable in his skin, totally unapologetic about that, in a right way. While we winced, he seemed to maintain his composure and cool even when his orientation, sexuality which is no Tom, Dick and Harish's business, was tossed up and made an object of national debate and fodder for gossip mills by every Tom's Dick and Harish. He believed in his cinema, knew where his inspiration came from, knew who his idols were, made no bones about the fact that he craved being lapped up by the hoi polloi of Bihar as well as the hoity toity of Birmingham. Whether we took to his tales or not, whether we admired his craft or the lack thereof, his steel was respect worthy. Time and again he acknowledged his cinematic limitations, acknowledged what he could offer, and he could not be what others were. This is all when he needn't have! The TIMESNOW interview where he owns up to his follies, his supposed lack of vision or the ability to take risks makes you respect him a little bit more. You admire his honesty where he mentions there are far better filmmakers than him, whose work he cannot even dream to emulate. Isn't this coming out clean, when there is absolutely no need (keeping in mind your self-respect), heartwarming? Doesn't this make for good television at least from the standpoints of the interview, the interviewer, and the interviewee? Isn't it good when he dodges all those scathing barbs with a smile, unflustered stripping the interviewer of his pants confining all dirty linen to laundries or bedrooms? Doesn't this make it less synthetic, less plastic? Doesn't this make you purge out all that frustration has been bottled up courtesy other celebrities' pseudo-diplomacy, pseudo-chivalry on air into a sigh of relief?

Bring them on more. Whether we like it or not. So what if the honesty seems to be a little selective, so what if this is a pre-recorded programme.

For possessing balls apparently made of pure stainless steel, whether or not I take to or talk of your cinema, Karan Johar, respect!

Rare hopping across Twitter did eventually lead me to one of the more refreshing one-on-ones in recent times.

nothing is left

Jyoti Basu

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