Ganpati Bappa Morya

The previous Friday night, I was glowing in quiet contentment; not the dam-bursting outpouring of ecstasy I experience when a favourite song comes up first in my ipod-shuffle but a more mellow wholesomeness, the kind one feels when their favourite cricket team shows its remarkable, hitherto unknown ability to knock down unguarded stumps thrice in a row. I then settled down on my divan to proceed to finish reading Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, written by, well, Dave Barry.

As I result, I went to sleep only in the wee hours of the morning, and was determined not to leave the comfort of the mattress till noon. Unfortunately, I was woken up by the loud ring of the doorbell at 7 AM. Opening the door, I found the landlady, all decked up, and looking way too yellow for my eyes to take so early in the morning. To my sleep-laden mind, the first thought that came was “Eh?” But after an agonizing 30 seconds of unsuccessfully trying to translate that into Hindi, I gave up and blurted it out in English itself. She responded with a fast volley of syllables—like she was ordering a sandwich in Subway, but in marathi—and managed to convey the intended message. Apparently, since Ganpati was being celebrated that day, she wanted to garland the entrance of the apartment and therefore required a stool to reach the top of the door frame. (At this critical juncture, let me inform the reader that the venerable landlady is about six feet in height, when standing on a four feet stool). After helping her out—which, for the detailed oriented ones, meant getting her a stool—I went back to sleep thinking about how I always forget birthdays till I was woken up at 10 AM by a call from mom. Here is how the conversation went

“What are you doing?”

“I am sleeping”

“You have not woken up yet?”

“Yes, as I informed you just now, since I was sleeping, I was, by default, not awake” (Yes, my sense of sarcasm is always alert, regardless of my mental state)

“Today is Vinayaka Chaturthi^[1], and you are still asleep! I don’t know how you were born into our family. What were you doing late last night?”

“I was watching the match”

“What is more important, the match or Vinayaka Chaturthi?”

<yawning> “The match”

I think I hit a sour note on that one and she therefore hung up. Muttering something about tuskers, I tried to drift back to sleep. I managed to get three more hours of shut-eye—trying out various inventive sleeping positions to escape the morning heat—before waking up in shock to an earsplitting noise. When I opened the door, I realised that my neighbour—in a fit of misplaced piety—was performing a puja that was loud enough for the karmic brownie points to benefit his descendants for five generations to come. In addition, since his whole clan was visiting and he needed space, he had stacked up his belongings in the corridor area, preventing me from even contemplating leaving the house, unless I wanted to walk through a crowd of assorted old ladies, curious-eyed young kids, a tricycle and a steel cupboard ^[2].

Fast-forward to six days later, the night of the India-SA match. Midway through the fifth over, the set-top box, presumably upset at Dinesh Karthik’s dismissal, stopped functioning. I agree that watching a grey screen with only the words “no signal” in a dull red font is interesting in a quirky way but monotony sets in after 3 seconds, especially when an exciting match is in progress. I managed to reach the cablewallah’s number on the 3^rd attempt. This is how the conversation went (translated into English for the linguistically challenged ones)

“The set-top box is not working . I badly want to watch the cricket match”

“Yes yes. It usually happens when there is rain”

“Does that mean you are going to do something about it?”

“I can try some adjustments, which usually work”

“Good. When are you going to do it?”

“Hmm..I shall do it tomorrow”

“Tomorrow? Do you know the match is on today?”

“I understand. So, I shall attend to it first thing in the morning”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

“I heard. But I am at a Ganpati festival in Dadar. So, can’t come today”

So, in sum, a glorious Saturday, intended to be spent lazing in quiet solitude perfecting the holy ritual of channel-switching between ESPN and Travel & Living, was spent trying to escape from the birthday party of the elephant-headed god. In addition, I missed a fantastic debut innings by a promising Mumbai lad, and had to follow the match through SMS updates.

Hmph!

Tom and Katie, how do I convert to Scientology?

[1]: Vinayaka Chaturthi was what we used to call it at home. I used to perform the puja because I was the brahmachari (unmarried male, in this context) of the house. I have always wondered as to who would then perform the puja for Murugan/Kartikeya, the bigamist

[2]:Not kidding at all. Photos can be provided on request.On a related note, read what the ever insightful Aadisht has written here.Public space is indeed looked at as “shared property” in Mumbai

Half-Yearly Update

I owe it to my loyal readers to update my blog once every few months. So here it is.

Part I - My domestication

My new apartment – which is as big as a shoe rack, except that it’s smaller - is perfect. The best apartments in the world, take for example the ones overlooking the harbour in Sydney or the ones in midtown Manhattan, are about two things – (a) the view they offer (b) their ability to make the occupant feel like he is inhabiting a special world. Mine scores on both counts. From the living room, I get a fantastic view of the neighbourhood chawl, and can observe the denizens going about their agonizingly boring life. The sadistic pleasure I derive from this sight gives me a much stronger kick than my morning caffeine shot. Secondly, I frequently experience the ethereal feeling of living in a different world. For instance, since it is located on the main road of one of Mumbai’s busiest arteries, the excruciatingly loud cacophony from the honking vehicles makes me feel like I am sitting on a charpoi on a busy national highway in Punjab.

I never thought I’d say this but eating out had gotten boring. So one fine Sunday morning, I scooted off to Vijay Sales and bought a refrigerator and a microwave. I think it’s a sound investment (“funny, can cook, is straight” - the facebook profile writes itself). A month has since passed. But I am still eating at the same restaurant with the same waiter – the one whose hands are always inside the glass of water – bringing me my dinner everyday.

This is what happened. The kind folks who sold me the microwave told me that I can use it to cook everything. When I expressed my doubts, they flashed a glossy recipe booklet which had full-color photos of paneer tikka and peas pulao. However, I soon realised that I can cook nothing, with or without a microwave. For all you folks who have never entered a kitchen, let me inform you of one startling fact. Even the simplest of dishes require a zillion ingredients, which despite being minor are indispensable (You can’t just mix aloo and gobi and make aloo gobi) So at Radheshyam Udipi, I shall continue to eat.

The refrigerator is very useful though. Thanks to Big Bazaar – which is like Mumbai’s many crowded discotheques, albeit with less attractive patrons, but with better music and five varieties of apple juice – the refrigerator is stuffed with fruits, huge cartons of fruit juice, and yoghurt. In fact, it looks exactly like the colorful stocked ones shown in television ads, which has always been a childhood fantasy of mine. (The one at home in Madras is such a fuddy-duddy, with steel bowls (ugh!) of curd and vegetables jostling for space with bottles of chutney.)

So, in summary, I am down fifteen grand , the microwave is currently being used as a shelf to keep stacks of magazines and the refrigerator is stocked with stuff I don’t really eat, but I have made closure with a childhood fantasy.

I think it’s worth it.

Watch out for Part II: Using the Ipod at the gym ( no kidding)

Honeymoon Travels - Review

In the past few years, there has been a lot of hype about the spawning of a new genre of Bollywood films that are not your conventional candy-floss romances. This movement, so to say, gained mainstream prominence after the success of Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai. Consequently, we have had film makers experimenting more to make films that were “different”. However, these retards should realize that though some good films that succeeded were different, making a film which is different doesn’t make it, by default, a good film, especially if you have got all your basics wrong. Reema Kagti, the director of Honeymoon Travels, also falls for the same trap. In assuming that that the audience will appreciate her for inflicting on them a movie with a plot as developed as Kabul’s business district just because she has tried something new, she misses the bus by a mile.

As you might be aware, the movie is about six couples belonging to different socio-regional strata who go a chartered bus trip through Goa. The director conveniently uses extreme manifestations of regional stereotypes to make up for the underdevelopment of the characters. Oscar (Boman Irani) and Nahid (Shabana Azmi) have re-married to find solace in each other after unfortunate incidents in their life. Additionally, you have a demure Bengali couple (Kay Kay and Raima Sen), a garish Delhi-based couple (Karan Khanna and Amisha Patel), an NRI-local couple (billionaire playboy Vikram Chatwal and Sandhya Mridul), a Gujarati couple (Ranvir Sheorey and Dia Mirza) and a Parsi couple (Abhay Deol and Minissha Lamba).

In trying to make every couple’s story unique and also ensure a happy ending, the director resorts to plot twists, some of which are as old as the hills (Nahid bonding with her rebellious step-daughter, Shilpa re-uniting with her true lover, and then in QSQT style, living in the wilderness) and one that is so unbelievably bizarre (the Aspi-Zara confessions) that you start wondering if its a spoof. In the process, she also extinguishes whatever semblance of promise some other segments possess – for e.g., instead of exploring the social/family ramifications of the changed state of affairs in the Bunty-Madhu segment, she arrives at a marriage-of-convenience solution in which nobody sheds any tears and no sensibilities are hurt. Bah, talk about experimenting!

The fall - from what the movie promised pre-release to the final product - makes me speculate that there may have been significant deviations from the original script, in order to make the final product more-bollywoodized and consequently, more sellable.

What about the cast? Kay Kay, as the prudish, seeda, slightly clumsy husband is a total riot. Complementing him is the feisty Raima, a caged bird wanting to fly free. (There’s something about Bengali women - the lips, the eyes and last but definitely not the least, the sari. Me thinks it’s all because of the rosgullas).Boman Irani, who can be counted upon to give any movie a facelift just by his presence, is at his wry best and so is Ranvir Sheorey, in his cameo. Minissha Lamba’s face is as expressive as our ex-PM Narasimha Rao’s, and a few years down the line, I am confident that we shall see her holding her own against Hollywood A-listers like Arnie, Sylvester Stallone, Antonia Banderas and Madonna in competition for the razzies. The rest of the cast rank somewhere in the middle, and are not worth the extra words.

Should you watch it? It has some endearingly funny scenes, especially in the Raima Sen-Kay Kay and the Boman-Shabana segments and some attractive eye candy, the pick of which would be a sizzling Dia Mirza - wearing a loose shirt with casually frizzled hair - looking more like a model in a contraceptive ad than a homely Gujarati bride.

To summarise, less couples, a longer version (its less than 2 hours long!) and more thought into the script would be just what, as Ravi Shastri would say, the doctor would order to remedy Honeymoon Travels. I must confess that at the end, I didn’t really understand what I had experienced - it felt more like two hours of random channel-surfing than a coherent movie!

TOW Heaven, Blue Sky,Green Field, Smile...

The 2000 bucks I spent on the Roger Waters concert were totally worth it. I was in a crappy mood prior to the concert, thanks to 2 hours of waiting listening to speakers blaring old CSN and Chuck Berry numbers. On top of it, I was extremely apprehensive, after having heard reports of the watery show in Bangalore some years ago. However, the show was magic, pure magic. The pyrotechnics/visuals were as good as expected, if not better. The spatial distribution of the audio was astounding, with concert watchers now and then looking up in bewilderment to see if a jet was arriving. The line-up was satisfactory, and I got all goose-bumpy when I heard Time, Us and Them and Wish You Were Here, my 3 favourite songs from among those played. I would have loved to hear Coming Back to Life, but I am guessing he didn't play that as it was written by Dave Gilmour.

After the show, I was pondering over the amount of fun I have had attending different concerts and came up with this theory. (At work, we would have called this an “insight”)

Participation is not confined to the new-age nursery schools, where all the kids have a role in the annual play (“Ma, I play the asteroid next to the Star of Bethlehem”). IMO, the fun element in a concert comes from the degree of participation and interaction it can provide. There is a certain pleasure in shouting out the lyrics of Comfortably Numb with 2000 others when the dude who wrote it is leading the way. Conversely, if you don’t know the songs, this bonding is lost and the consequent enjoyment drops. This was what happened at the Walter Trout concert a few weeks ago - good music but low levels of participation.

Let us look at the various degrees of involvement which you can experience in a concert. The highest would be singing the song itself (contingent on you knowing the lyrics), a notch below would be dancing( dependent on how conducive the music is to dancing and a personal inclination to move limbs randomly in sync with beats, or skin thick enough to not worry about looking stupid). Further below would be clapping (requires you to let palms come in contact with each other, at a velocity high enough for a (duh!) clapping sound to be heard).
So, the next time you go to a concert, estimate whether you would be able to involve yourself. If not, evaluate whether

a) just the music is worth it(say a jazz band which you would not get to listen to otherwise)

b) Watching the performer live is worth it (does not make any sense, as most of them are old geezers who look older than they are thanks to years of enjoying the choicest chemicals; unless of course the band is The Rolling Stones, in which case you don’t deserve to go if you don’t know the songs!)

And while evaluating, don’t forget to add the ticket cost of one grand or so, the effort of standing for hours at a stretch and finding yourself between a bunch of teenage weirdoes, all with facial hair styled by Edward Scissorhands and wearing black T-shirts with the words “Cannibal Corpse rocks”!

Blood Diamond - Review

I had planned to watch Guru on Friday but could not make it because of other commitments. However, I was able to catch the new Leo Di Caprio gorefest Blood Diamond. Two and a half hours later, I felt like I had just walked out of a Mani Ratnam flick. Here is why. In a conflict where bodies are thrown about like confetti at a wedding, you have a naive protagonist – one whose world is limited to the borders of the village - undertaking a dangerous journey to find a loved one. Not very different from Roja, or Kannathil Muthamittal.

To elaborate, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) is a fisherman in a sleepy village in Sierra Leone whose life goes awry when an attack by the rebel R.U.F (Revolutionary United Front) separates him from his wife and kids. Daniel Archer (Leo Di Caprio), a diamond mercenary, is in deep trouble (and deeper debt!) when his consignment of diamonds is taken away by the authorities. Both their hopes of redemption lie in finding a stone ( referred to as the “big pink” ) which Solomon had buried in the mountains while camping for diamonds for the R.U.F So, they take off on a joint quest to find Dia - Solomon’s young son - now a full-fledged indoctrinated R.U.F member, and the big pink. Helping them in their efforts is Mandy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), a journo fishing around for corporate involvement in conflict diamonds. The rest of the plot is about how all of them work together to achieve their individual objectives.

The movie is a visual stunner. The contrast between the scenes of villages pilloried by the militia and the beautiful helicopter shots of the super-lush mountains with the sunrise in the background accentuates the sadness one feels for the carnage. The soundtrack - rhythmic and soulful African music in the village scenes to the pounding rap songs which signal the movements of the militia - accentuates the dichotomy.

Djimon Hounsou gives a belter of a performance. His filial affection jumps out of his eyes; they are intense and radiating determination when he discusses finding his son, wistful glazed ovals when he is worried for him and bulging white globes when he searches for him in the R.U.F and act as a phenomenally powerful gauge of his sorrow. There is something inherently charismatic about Leo Di Caprio, who manages to garner audience support for his cause, despite playing a crude, mean, mammon-motivated soldier of fortune with no feelings whatsoever. As I have mentioned earlier, I believe he is a tremendously capable actor, and possibly the only one among the current crop with the ability to win over both the critics and the PYTs. Despite Jennifer Connelly’s role as a do-gooder journalist in a third world country being as clichéd as the India Poised campaign, she brings to the role a certain warmth and freshness which makes her oh-so endearing. (And I swear, I was not biased by her awesome tan)

I think the biggest positive for Blood Diamond is that it manages to bring out, documentary style, the brutalities of the civil war and the indoctrination of young minds through propaganda and drugs, and to a lesser extent, the remote control shenanigans of the diamond cartel. However, fleshing out a sugarcoated ending takes its toll on the screenplay and makes it unwieldy, diluting the message in the bargain. (similar to Happy Feet, where the last 30 minutes were ridiculous!) . If I were the director, Dia would have killed both of them and the credits would then roll with the little kid running away clutching the big pink in his hand. That way, the message, a bitter and more realistic one, would hit home harder.

The pixel is mightier than the Word

Shall get back to regular blogging( in a new-and-improved avatar) in a day or two. Till then, here are some pictures from Goa, where I spent a leisurely weekend bumming around the beach while the plebs celebrated New Year.

Remember Shakti - Live @ Madras

I first heard of Shakti when there was a question about John Mclaughin in a quiz seven years ago. I then proceeded to buy a tape from the Landmark bookshop and diligently listened to for a year before it got damaged. And when I heard that Remember Shakti were playing at the Kamarajar Auditorium during my vacation in Madras, I really didn’t want to miss it. So, despite being told by informed sources that all the tickets were sold out, I went to the venue and was lucky enough to buy one from someone who had one extra. And boy, it was definitely worth it.

What makes Shakti or Remember Shakti for that matter, so good? Indian sports lovers would be familiar with the pyrotechnics displayed by Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi on the tennis courts. Despite not being ranked number one, they were easily the most entertaining players to watch. Was it about talent? I think not, as both of them were average players. Was it about spirit? To an extent yes, but even that was largely Paes. In my view, it was all about coordination and the camaraderie they shared, which usually spilled over to the stands as well. You can’t but not find them endearing. This concert was a similar experience with one significant difference – atleast four of them were the world’s best exponents of their instrument - which makes the experience even richer. It’s like watching Federer and Sampras play doubles with as much understanding as Paes and Bhupathi

Remember Shakti brought together Ustad Zakir Hussain (tabla), John Mclaughlin (guitar), U Shrinivas (mandolin), Shanker Mahadevan (vocals) and Selvaganesh (kanjira, ghatam, mridangam). The appetizers were a series of small pieces with each musician playing one after the other in succession resulting in something which can only be described, paradoxically, as synchronised impromptu jamming. Having set the tempo, they were joined by Shanker Mahadevan whose vocal chords rose to the challenge of performing with such august company. His rendition of the Thyagaraja’s kirtanai Giriraja Sudha was flawless (atleast for a layman like me), with the additional instrumentation giving it an electrifying feel while still retaining the wholesomeness of the original. He followed it up with Sakhi, a haunting Hindustani classical number whose sobering tonality was a nice contrast to the earlier song. “Vikku” Vinayakram, who was part of the original Shakti ensemble, joined in for a fifteen minute solo where he packed so much punch with the ghatam that it was hard to believe that these kind of rhythms were created by a seventy four year old man thumping an ordinary clay pot. The concert ended with the thaniyavardhanam, the traditional finale of a Carnatic concert, where the percussionists played extended solos followed by short interludes where each one replicated the beats played by the other. Both Selva Ganesh and Zakir Hussain showed why they are peerless and the rhythms produced by their astounding percussion wizardry gave me a high which could not have been achieved by imbibing truckloads of alcohol. And as I have mentioned above, the coordination and the camaraderie displayed the band, exemplified by the incredible sight of John Mclaughin keeping taal, is so infectious that it makes you want to join them and thump the seats in front. At the end, the audience deservedly gave a standing ovation and I am pretty sure a number of them were feeling as choked and goosebumpy as I was.

Before the concert, in discussion with a friend, I questioned the inclusion of Shanker Mahadevan, a ‘playback singer’, in an ensemble packed with legends. But I must admit he managed to hold his own. In fact, the audience cheered the loudest for giriraja sudha, which is no mean feat considering that Madras audiences know their carnatic music as well as their filter coffee and would have voted with their feet if it didn’t measure up. John, surprisingly, was content with playing second fiddle (pun intended) to the mandolin, which I felt was sometimes too loud and drowned out the vocals.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience. So, if you get a chance to catch it at Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore or Goa over the next two weeks, I suggest you drop everything else and book tickets at the earliest. You might not be as lucky as me!

A small sampler: Youtube videos of giriraja sudha and sakhi from an earlier concert.

Dhoom:2 - Review

The agenda of Dhoom:2 is simple - show as many hot bodies in action or dance sequences as possible. And to be fair, the movie does succeed at that. Of course, there is no plot and the screenplay is just a mishmash of such scenes sequenced one after the other, but the director doesn’t let trivialities come in the way of achieving the objective.

Jai (Abhishek Bachchan) and Shonali Bose (Bipasha Basu) are police officers in hot pursuit of master thief A (Hrithik Roshan), whose jaw-dropping escapades have bamboozled police worldwide. From a storyline point of view, it is essential to prevent the cops from catching A for as long as possible to ensure the agenda (read the first line) is met. So they then proceed to travel to exotic locations, fool around with some gasp-inducing gadgetry and dance to the beat of a gazillion songs which all look (and sound) the same. Giving them company is Sunehri (Aishwarya Rai), A’s partner-in-crime and Ali (Uday Chopra), the goofy sidekick who is the single largest contributor to the stupidity hitting you from all parts of the screen. The end product, not surprisingly, is nothing more than a testosterone-charged hotchpotch of the X Games and MTV Grind.

I initially toyed around with the idea of analysing the plot and pointing out the numerous logical flaws but then realised that it would be akin to reviewing a Tom & Jerry cartoon and pointing out that the ending is predictable. So let me just stick to evaluating the cast. Yash Chopra’s decision to cast his son Uday can be blamed on excessive patriarchal affection; And much like the mythical Dhritarashtra, we can presume the father to be blind to rationality or good taste in a decision of this kind, however obvious they may be. For starters, Chopra Jr. looks like a railway porter. Despite an earnest effort to be seen and reviewed as “cute and adorable”, his retarded personality is as endearing as the cat’s droppings.

Aishwarya Rai shows us the full repertoire of her lack of any acting talent whatsoever. Her attempt at being an uber-confident smooth operator is artificial and thoroughly unconvincing. Furthermore, her diction is inconsistent, with the extra-rolled American “R”s she has picked up in the last couple of years peeping out now and then, making her sound like a malfunctioning violin in a concert. But Dhoom:2 has helped her achieve something which a Miss World title and unsuccessful affairs with the leading men of tinseltown couldn’t help her do - make her look hot in the eyes of the Indian male. Complementing her is Bipasha Basu, easily the most delectable cop ever seen in an Indian movie. (There are some English movies which have hot cops but we shall not discuss them here). The scriptwriters, in an innovative money-saving tactic, have cast her in a second role – the Rio de Janeiro based twin of the first - thereby adhering to the agenda of skin-maximisation and additionally ensuring cost minimization. Seriously, their business sense has to be complimented. Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan faithfully stick to their role in the grand scheme of things - showing off his well-sculpted body and looking generally angry at nothing in particular respectively.

Should you watch this movie? Well, that depends on what your expectation is. If you just want to have a rich visual experience, then it doesn’t get better than this. But take tranquilizers to suppress all the questions your brain throws up at frequent intervals.

Friedman 101

I forwarded this Milton Friedman quote (via India Uncut) to Sreekanth – my friend, comrade-in-arms and drinking partner - and he came up with these brilliant everyday-life examples to illustrate them

"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money."

This is Saturday lunch. You know why it is at Matunga

"Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost."

This is when you buy diamonds on eBay 1 paisa auctions for your wife

"Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else."

This is a working lunch or a lunch while traveling on work

"And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government."

I can't beat this example.

Joincidence with a C?

Scott Adams has invited readers to narrate tales of interesting coincidences they had observed. As of today there are 260 odd stories. Though some of the narrators suffer from confirmation bias, the stories make for very good reading .

Here is a sampler from the blog piece

A co-worker and I were out to lunch. I ordered, paid and got change that included a $1 bill with "I love Aldo" written all over it. I read it out loud and my friend almost fell over. "I paid with that bill last night!" he said. He had paid for groceries with it in a tiny market in a city 20 miles away.

Reading these comments reminded me of a coincidence I observed some time back.

Six months ago, just a month after I had moved to Mumbai, I had a delicious lunch at X’s place. And last month, I had dinner at Y’s place. Whats the coincidence? It was at the same apartment! Though both X and Y are mutually acquainted, Y managed to get that apartment independent of X after she moved out, and to this day, X doesn’t know that Y is the current occupant.

Tell me what is the weirdest coincidence you have experienced. Post it as a comment here or write about it in your blog and send me a mail. I shall collate all.

P.S: For the uninitiated, the title of this post is from a Chandler Bing-ism in this episode